Posted by Captain John Tiberius Glen (Captain) in Mission Brief Meeting - Conference Room-A
[snip]

After speaking with Kord, Captain Glen called all his senior officers to a mission brief meeting to be held 24 hours later in Conference room-A on Deck 1. He thought that would give them sufficient time to complete their R&R and for Kord to gather the information together to present a plan for the First Contact mission.

Kord had still been pouring over the console in his room when Tia had left that morning. They had come to spend nights together, usually his quarters because of the shielding, and it wasn’t unusual for one or the other to leave first. As she entered the Conference Room, she smiled at Glen. “Morning, Captain. Hope you slept well. I’m guessing rest time is over?” She laughed and settled in her seat, PaDD at the ready with current specs and refit reports as she waited to see what new adventure would call them into the darkness.

“Very well, thanks,” replied the Captain. “If your report on the refit is positive, then I expect to get us underway immediately.”

Refit reports showed the Merrimack was fit as a fiddle and ready to take on any tasks asked of her.

“Is the Ship Designer, Emi’Ko, happy with how it went?” Glen asked Tiastri. “I’d like her to give Starfleet positive responses. Maybe we should invite her along to this meeting too if that won’t be a problem?”

William entered the office next, he was deeply enthralled by the PaDD in his hand which had resulted in several near collisions on his way from His Office to the Bridge, He briefly looked up to seek available seating and to see who was available “Captain, Chief” He gave each Officer a deep nod before sitting down and returning his attention to the PaDD.

The Captain acknowledged the CSO, “Chief!” he replied. And then again as the CMO also passed by, “Chief!”

Saark headed into the office, swiftly picking an open seat and sitting down in it. With a quick nod to the Captain and the other officers, he leaned in, ready to listen.

Tia watched the Science Chief enter and nodded, “Chief.” She then turned her attention back to the Captain. “The ship is in excellent shape and ready to go. The discussion with the designer went…” she shrugged and laughed slightly, “It went well. But not easy. But then, most folks don’t like their ‘babies’ messed with outside of their purview. Thankfully we got thru it all. As to joining us, I have no problem with that as long as she doesn’t constantly stand in the way of things that need to be done in the heat of the moment. I am all for discussing them afterwards, though. And, of course, taking them into consideration at the time. But I’d rather not have to fight with her on the running of engineering when things go sideways.” Having the ship designer around was certainly handy, but unless she was going to be made Department Head, she didn’t want a custody battle raging when they were at red alert and Tia was doing her job.

“I’m glad the ship is in excellent shape,” Glen replied. “But I don’t have any plans to bring her into your team permanently. You can be sure that you’d be the first to know. I just wondered if she should be at this meeting? As you say, our missions in the field require that things need to be achieved and that often means going beyond the parameters that might be usual on a planetary surface or within some engineering lab. However, I’m concerned that there is something that sounds off about this mission brief,” added Glen, “and I’ll let Kord tell us about that… it’s just that there may not be a new species there at all. All we have are some radio transmission from 10 years ago and low key warp signatures barely above the threshold. Maybe you and Emi’Ko can help to analyse those readings more thoroughly and give an estimate on the technology level?”

As he listened, Saark did not see the need to make any comments, and so the CMO stayed quiet for now.

“Then I’ll invite Emi’Ko along,” Glen told Tia. “And also that new MCPO Mooney. Looking at his skill set, he would be useful in a First Contact off-ship mission. I think we’ve started calling them ‘Away Missions’ now. They didn’t always end up ‘landing’ anywhere and were rarely any kind of ‘party’.”

Glen called over Yeoman Hopkins and asked her to page Emi’Ko and Mooney to come to the meeting too.

Tia nodded. “Yes, Sir. If that’s the case, her being here is probably better than briefing her once I get back.” She leaned back in her seat. The fact the CO thought this mission was off left her a bit leery. It never boded well when the leader was uneasy.

The call to report to the mission briefing caught Mooney flat footed, he ducked into the head to wash his face and hands before double timing it to the briefing room.
Slipping in to the room full of senior officers, the master chief took up station buy the door.

So, it appeared that they were only waiting for Emi’Ko and the COS to arrive. Glen thought he hadn’t seen Hal about for some time now. He made his way over to Kord to see if he was ready.

The door swooshed open as Hal entered for the mission briefing. He had a few data padded with him. He was in his normal uniform without the body armor. He nodded to everyone as he took his seat.

Once Glen would get the meeting going, information on their expected mission was available for review. What was there wasn’t much. It seems they would be following some ‘bread crumbs’ made up of 10 year old sublight radio transmissions, and more recently in the past month or so low key warp pulses which didn’t last much more then a few minutes and barely broke warp 1 in speed.

Transcripts of the radio transmissions when they got played were broken up due to age, distance, and lack of full translation of the alien language but some could be made out. =/\= This is unknown words. We of the planet unknown word wish to convey our unknown words, we hope that to the listeners of the Great Void unknown words....to one day concentrate together =/\= The computerized female like voice said.

Looking at the series of more recent warp pulses they formed a conical like shape of ‘jumps’ from a series of systems leading from about a week or two away deeper then into unexplored space. The systems closer to Federation territory had been surveyed almost over 10 years ago now. The surveys found for two of four systems where the warp pulses were picked up, both had been unclaimed and though containing mineral rich planets, moons, and asteroids had not contained any intelligent life forms. Due to the low key nature of the minerals follow up colonization efforts hadn’t happened yet. For the remaining two further out systems, basic long range scans existed, they indicated the third system likely had four planets and probably a large moon or two as well as likelihood of Class-M worlds but nothing showing likely intelligent life. The forth furthest system was beyond a unmanned survey drone scan passing by, though not entering the system, that it had six planets but details beyond that were null. The area of space was of course also unclaimed by any major power even the Federation wasn’t until now really interested in heading in that direction due to the low levels of things of interest. So in short the Merrimack would be the first manned mission to plumb the depths of this area of nearby space!

William examined the information with great interest, investigating new systems, and studying new planets was a big part of the reason he joined the fleet originally. It was the lack of translations that bothered him, he knew it was probably the signal degradation that was the cause but every single time the UT failed he got a slight tingle in the back of his mind, he was no linguistic expert, perhaps that would be his next field.

“The information is sparse. It will definitely be a play by ear situation. I guess we’ll be playing the same role the Vulcans did when Earth broke the warp barrier for the first time.” Kord said.

“I think everyone is here now,” Glen told Kord, “So, if you would like to present whatever limited information we have, and to explain what these maps and audio recordings all mean? And no disrespect intended to our Vulcan officers, but I hope our protocols have advanced somewhat during the intervening years. The First Contact between humans and Vulcan was a very cold affair, and the ‘Vulcan Hello’ following their disastrous First Contact with the Klingons is a notorious piece of bad diplomacy. In respect to that, the Merrimack’s First Contact with the Bolay positively shines!”

-Glen, CO

Saark seemed to take no offense to the Captain’s comment. Instead, he said, “It was not an ideal encounter. I’ve read about it.” And then, he once again fell silent, allowing for the information to be shared.

~ Lt. Saark, CMO