The Transporters

Posted on Tue Jan 5th, 2021 @ 7:59pm by Warrant Officer Eitan Tuscadero & Captain Xavier Carey

Mission: The Mentarin Effect
Location: Captain's Ready Room

Cameron watched as the two left the ready room. It still didn't sit well with him that the transporter was unavailable. Sure the atmosphere was thick, full of pollutants, but there had to be a way to use transporters. But he wasn't an expert of that.

"Warrant officer Tuscadero please report to the captain's ready room please." He replied opening an intercom, bypassing the commander was something he should not do, but with them on the outs. It was going to be done.

Tully Tuscadero was manning his post at the transporter console in transporter room one when the summons came through the starship's intercom. The young man was accustomed to that tone of voice, commanding and authoritative, but not in a brash nor condescending sort of way. It was the tone and inflection of someone who needed a miracle to happen amidst a tempest of problems. Tully was aware of the situation from a technical aspect: the starship was in orbit and the transporters were presently unavailable. Something that he himself had made note of when reporting to the Assistant Chief Operations Officer to be forwarded to the Chief Operations Officer.

Clearly, Commander Greyson had received this information some time ago, but the status remaining unchanged from 'inoperative' was not sitting well with him. Tully's response to the summoning was to swiftly lock the transporter controls of his console and silently summon one of his transporter operators to come to transporter room one to relieve him from his post. Whether they were fully operational or not, the transporters were a crucial piece of Federation technology and the transporter rooms were one of the critical areas of the starship. It was of the utmost importance that they were never unmanned for too long. It was negligent and a security violation to leave them unmanned for more than several minutes, and stepping away from the console without locking out the controls was against protocol. Having been a transporter specialist for years, Tully knew transporter protocols like the back of his hand.

"Thank you, Petty Officer," he said when a young brunette woman with her hair in a french twist entered transporter room one as Tully was on his way out. Before the doors closed behind him, he had heard her tapping her access codes into the control pannel, unlocking the transporter as she undoubtedly stood straight-backed at behind the console. Standing relatively still and statuesque at a console for several hours at a time took a lot of mental discipline and was effective at strengthening a transporter operator's core muscles.

He took the nearest most direct turbolift to deck one of the starship and made his way across the starship's main bridge and over to the Captain's Ready Room, gently pressing the door chime to announce his arrival for the occupant or occupants inside. With their acknowledgment, the doorway parted revealing Commander Cameron Greyson inside. "You requested to see me, Sir?" inquired Tully as he stepped across the threshold and the doors to the Captain's Ready Room with a subtle subdued hiss slide together securing the two men inside the room with some privacy. "I presume this about the status of the transporters, Commander?"

"Please have a seat." Cameron replied. "How is it with the transporters, I know that this is probably on your schedule, but I need an update." He paused fora moment. truth be told, he had a bad feeling about this whole thing, Talsi had taught him gut feelings are the same thing as intuition, and to always follow. Unfortunately, one cannot always follow their gut. Sometimes protocol, and orders get in the way. "Don't mean to pry so hard."

Eitan had taken the offered seat, though he was not the least bit comfortable. It was like being in the principal office again, and that was a bit unnerving. "I don't take any offense, Sir. You have reason to pry hard and put the pressure on my people and I."

He took a deep breath. "Commander, we are doing our best. I had my people run diagnostics on each of the transporter units. They are working just fine...aboard the starship that is. Site to site transports are of no issue. I had to issue them as inoperable because simulations show less than a 50% chance of successful transport down to or from the planet's surface."

The man more colloquially known as 'Tully' with some of the crew shook his head. "Can't risk it, Sir. We try to beam up anyone, God forbid the Captain and we won't be bringing him up whole," explained Tully. "Something is scattering the energy beam. Something down there is throwing the transporters off and I have a hypothesis, but I'll need the science department's help to confirm it."

"What do you mean scattering? Deliberate or do you think the polluted atmosphere may have something to do with it."

Eitan scrunched his face momentarily and ran his fingers through his short textured hair. "No Commander, not deliberate. At least I hope not," replied Tully. He thought how to best explain what he meant to the man. "Image throwing a piece of fruit at a very stern and sharp blade, it is going to nick the fruit best case scenario. What also may and more likely happen is you'll end up with two pieces or several pieces and a huge mess" explained the Transporter Specialist.

"Something on that planet is not allowing a transporter beam to lock onto a single location, rather scattering it about in most cases, or just failing to begin to lock at all. Now, I don't have a degree in geology or environmental science, but I licked a few rocks and minerals in my day and did a hardness test. My father is miner, Sir. I want to discuss it with the Chief Science Officer, but I suspect there is a significant amount of kelbonite on the planet and given the mining techniques being crudely used, it is likely thick in the atmosphere. Kelbonite is one of several known minerals that can cause this sort of scattering of energy beams."

"That does make sense. Well discuss if there is anything to determine with the chief science officer I know that Doc RJ is working with her at the moment as well."

Tully nodded "Of course so," replied the man. "I will do everything that I can to get those transporter beams to cut through the atmosphere and stay concentrated on a signal, Commander. I have an idea, a crazy one, but I will run it by the Chief Science Officer."

"Very good. Don't let me keep you." Cameron replied as turned back to the padd. "Dismissed."

"Aye Commander," Tully said standing up and giving his uniform a quick tug to smooth out the wrinkles. "I'll get to work, Sir," added the Transporter Specialist before he let the room. I have to get this right he thought to himself. He knew that there was a lot of weight on his shoulders now.