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Guest Laarell

"Power Struggle"

"Cloaking. Device." The disbelieving voice rang out through engineering. "Since when, by every god in the Orion pantheon, do we have a cloaking device?"

 

Tandaris looked from his power utilisation adjustments and swivelled his head, trying to locate the source of the voice. "And just how many gods are there?"

 

"Uhm... at least count, eight hundred and sixty-three. But there's a new god born every minute, it seems."

 

"Well, the universe is a vast and mysterious place. Plenty of room." Tandaris finally spotted Laarell and waved her over to his console.

 

"So. Don't change the subject to theology. We have a cloaking device?"

 

"Indeed we do. Or at least, we have a device that acts like a cloak sometimes. There's two things you have to understand: it's Boganary, and it's a prototype. That makes it exponentially worse than if it were just one or the other."

 

"Did the dog say you could do this?" Laarell asked, feeling the same headache that had been earnestly recurring... returning again.

 

Tandaris turned back to the display as he replied, "It was ... implied."

 

"Implied?" the commander pressed. "No no... do go on. My curiosity is entirely piqued."

 

"I pointed out that the last Excalibur's cloaking device allowed us to enter situations this ship cannot. Corizon told me that if I wanted a cloaking device, I would have to find one myself." Tandaris flashed her a grin. "So I did."

 

"You thought he was serious?" Laarell gaped. "Oh my gods... this entire ship is insane."

 

A wave of confusion passed over his face. Tandaris said, "You ... you don't want a cloaking device?"

 

"Of course I want one, but it's just... just..." The green one stammered for a moment. "Yes," she answered after a deep breath. "I love cloaking devices. They're cool, and fun, and we get to do all sorts of fun things with them. It's just so... so sudden!"

 

"Yes, well, we don't live long enough to work in geological time. The way Corizon treats the ship, I don't know if we'll live long enough to work in our frame of reference." Tandaris manipulated the display as he adjusted the ship's power allocations, trying to find a way to solve the problem of the cloak's immense power drain. Almost offhand, he added, "Anyway, I'm sure I mentioned it."

 

"I'm sure you didn't," she answered flatly. "I never received any sort of warning for what this would do to the power grids. And I think someone would have mentioned 'Oh by the way Commander, we're going to go ahead and test the Romulans' willingness to let us slide on the Treaty of Algeron. Just to let you know'." She sighed, flopping back against a console. "Oh well... diplomacy went to the dogs years ago on this ship."

 

Tandaris shrugged. "I thought about that. I'm just an engineer. It's up to Corizon to justify the use of the device to the Romulans, if he even bothers to tell them. If he tells me to disable it, I will. Otherwise, I will leave the diplomacy to him. I am not eager to deal with the Romulans again." The console beeped when the computer hit on a possible power allocation method that did not result in killing anyone below Deck 5.

 

"Ah. Well, no harm done, I suppose. We'll just deal with the possible interstellar repercussions as they come." Laarell smiled brightly, affecting a happy demeanour. "So, how are the tests coming/"

 

Tandaris narrowed his eyes. Laarell was being nice--or pretending to be nice. No good would come of this. Since he could do nothing but wait for the calm to end, however, he resigned himself to answering her inquiry. "The major problem is power. The ship was not designed to run a cloaking device. Moreover, the device itself is interfaced with our power systems through a series of makeshift inverters and capacitors, some Boganary, some Starfleet. Lastly, the device is a buggy prototype. It leaks power like a drunk Lissepian."

 

"Can we feasibly boost the power?" she asked, frowning. "Or is this going to continuously be an issue?"

 

"Well, the good news is that we actually do have extra power. With the cloak up, we can't run the shields, so the power we expend on the shields can be diverted to the cloak." Tandaris gestured to the display to aid his explanation. "The other two problems complicate this fact. Because of the way the device is integrated, we can't just switch power from the cloak to the shields and back. Unless I figure out a solution, raising shields after we decloak will be very slow--slow enough to let an enemy shot through."

 

"That is decidedly ungood. It would even be potentially bad. So what's the second problem?"

 

"The device is inefficient. This is a flaw in its design. With time, I may be able to increase its power usage efficiency, but not in the immediate future. For now, I'm focusing on how to reallocate the energy quickly and adjust the energy requirements of the ship's other systems."

 

"Sounds good..." Laarell nodded. "Can you improve on the design without tearing the whole thing to shreds?"

 

Giving her a deadpan look, Tandaris said, "Have you seen Boganary technology?"

 

"Yes. Is that a yes, then?"

 

Tandaris shrugged. "I can try. Some of it may be beyond help. It looks like some engineer decided to build a cloaking device out of any spare parts they had lying around--there's parts in there that are doing tasks they should not, if anyone particularly cared about the integrity of the space-time continuum, be doing."

 

"The space-time continuum is kind of important," Laarell commented. "We should make sure we don't mess it up."

 

"Remind the captain of that, will you?"

 

"I will." Laarell smiled. "So anything else I should know?"

 

Tandaris tilted his head to one side and considered it. "That depends. Do you or do you not want to know that there's a small chance the cloaking device could malfunction and explode, setting off a chain reaction along the entire EPS grid, disabling main power, and causing catastrophic damage to its surrounding decks?"

 

"I don't, thanks. Is that all?"

 

"Then that's all." Tandaris glanced down at the console, which had just warned him that if he decided to use the power allocation plan that looked so promising, that small chance would become a very real possibility. He grimaced and reset the display. This was going to take a while.

 

"Then I suppose I can go... oh wait..." Laarell put on a softer smile, looking innocently at the Trill. "I meant to ask -- assuming we're not in a firefight or anything... did you have any plans for dinner tonight, Tandaris?"

 

There she went again, putting on that nice act. What could she possibly be trying to gain? "Not as such. I was thinking maybe a sandwich once I've solved this problem, then work through the night to improve the device as much as possible."

 

"Well, if you don't mind, I'd love to join you for that sandwich." She grinned. "I've been thinking we should become better friends. We've known each other a long time..."'

 

All right, that smile definitely wasn't good. Alarm bells started going off in Tandaris' stomach. Unfortunately, Admiran's hosts had, over the centuries, become inured to these instinctive warnings. Tandaris just blinked and said. "Okay, except you'll have to get your own sandwich."

 

Thrown off, Laarell blinked. "I wasn't going to eat your sandwich."

 

"You weren't? But I thought you said--oh. Well ... anyway...."

 

Laarell's grin returned. "I'm fine going Dutch, don't worry. You don't have to use your replicator allowances on me, never fear." The grin held. "So I'll see you tonight, then." She made her way to the door, then paused, frowning. "Oh, dear? Didn't you have a potted plant in here somewhere?"

 

Tandaris blinked again, wondering what "going Dutch" meant. Laarell's observation distracted him; he looked around engineering. "Hmm ... one of my engineers must have moved it."

 

"Oh. Okay. I was going to water it next time I dropped by." She waved. "Later Tandy."

 

"Right. Goodbye," Tandaris said. He turned back to his console and stared at the glowing figures. Try as he might, though, he couldn't focus. Normally he didn't mind dealing with Laarell, but he hadn't slept in fifteen hours now. He almost envied Marius, secure and sleeping in sickbay. Almost.

Edited by Laarell

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