"Jacobsen, get over to the other side of the deflector dish." Lieutenant Commander Garek Loran sat in the Lambda Flier, watching over Delta team performing hull retrofitting. After the Virgo's escape from the hold of the spacial "nets", and getting a fully functional transwarp drive functional onboard, Captain Maruu allowed him to begin retrofitting the ship with the tridanium ablative armor. This would allow the optimal transwarp drive to go at speeds of up to warp 30. Of course, power consumption would make those speeds only feasible in emergency situations since the ships would be voraciously consuming energy that could be used for other tasks. So far,the forward part of the saucer section was mostly complete. Garek estimated the Virgo would have to stay in orbit of the moon for another few weeks for him and his teams to complete his work.
[On my way, Chief.] Marcus Jacobsen, in a space suit, slowly made his way across the deflector dish of the Virgo with a retrofitted phaser rifle made for welding purposes.
"I'm sending out another batch of tridanium plates." Garek affixed his helmet onto his space suit, and decompressed the Lambda Flier. He then activated his magnetic boots, and walked into the rear section of the shuttle. From a panel in the rear of the vessel, he turned the Lambda Flier around 180 degrees, and activated the back hatch. The hatch flew open, and Garek effortlessly lifted a 25 square foot plate of tridanium.
Then, very carefully, he "tossed" it through the accessport and towards the waiting Marcus Jacobsen.
Jacobsen waited with open arms, and caught the huge piece of metal. Then, he laid it down on the hull, and began the welding process. The front of the saucer section was a dull, plain gray color, while the rest of the ship was standard Federation white. On the front of the saucer was a "spray painted" USS Virgo, and underneath that NCC-956321. Garek promised Captain Maruu that he would have that fixed up when the rest of the armor was applied to the Virgo.
[I could use a few more plates down here, Chief.] Jacobsen looked up from the deflector at Garek in the doorway of the Lambda Flier. Garek reached over, and pulled out another plate. They were cut to the maximum thickness in which they could equally cover the hull, which came out to fifteen inches. Garek tossed out another four panels of armor, with Eric, and a few other engineers catching them as they arrived.
"That's all I have, Ensign. I'm going in to get more." Garek hit a button that closed the rear hatch to the Flier. He then pressurized the shuttle and took off his helmet. Garek sat down at the controls of the shuttle/fighter, and flew back into Shuttle Bay Three. Shutting down the engine systems, but keeping the Flier's systems in standby mode, he exited the back hatch. As he exited, wearing the bulky, heavy spacesuit, he noticed that Ensign Brosgarth, a member of Delta Team, was controlling an anti-grav unit bringing more panels of tridanium over to theLambda Flier.
"Hello, Jay," Garek said, walking over to the straining, over-worked anti-grav unit and Ensign Brosgarth.
"Evening, Commander," Jay replied. It was coming up on 2200 hours, and there wre only two hours left on Delta Team's workshift. Next up, Ensign Wiley's Gamma Team. The group of rambunctious and eager new engineers were ready to get a lot of work done in a very short amount of time to prove themselves to the more experienced engineers onboard the Virgo. This could be both a good and bad thing. Good, in the aspects that they wanted to do work and be noticed. Bad in the fact that in their ambition to make a name for themselves, they could do a sloppy job. The last thing they needed was for a big panel of armor plating to fly off before it was put to use. "Nice night out tonight, isn't it?" Jay smiled.
It was hard to delegate between night and day onboard the Virgo. Actually, it couldn't really be told apart at all. The ship's corridor lights were always on, and the perpetual darkness of space was always around them. The only way to tell what time it was, was to look at a panel on the wall displaying the time relative to Greenwich Mean Time back home on Earth. To make the crew feel more at ease, however, Captain Maruu had ordered the Virgo in a synchronous orbit around the moon in respect to the ship's chronometer, so when the time on the Virgo's clockreached just about 0545, the sun was about to rise over the moon's surface.
"That it is, Ensign." Garek smiled, and took over the controls for the anti-grav unit. The doors to the shuttle bay opened, and Major Johnny Chee entered.
"Commander, might I have a word with you?" He was wearing the standard Starfleet Marine duty uniform comprising of the standard issue Starfleet Uniform with the green undershirt. His gold leaf polished to perfection on his right collar.
"What's on your mind, Johnny?" Garek stopped pushing the anti-grav unit and powered it down so it wouldn't end up floating away.
"I'm surprised you didn't find out already, Garek." Chee was of course referring to Garek's empathic abilities.
"I make it a habit not to read other people's minds without permission. Unless of course, you want to forget the chit chat, and I'll just go into your mind and start reading what you want me to know."
Johnny smiled. "I prefer talking. I'm having a problem withone of my Marines. A Private Maxon. He's a full Betazoid, and he lacks some mental discipline when it comes to reading other people's thoughts, namely mine. I was wondering if you could teach him to focus his control on his powers, or possibly teach me how to establish a mental block so he couldn't read my mind."
Garek thought for a moment. "Well, I'm only partially Betazoid, so I couldn't really teach the this Maxon to focus his powers and such. His abilities are probably twice as powerful as mine. However, I could easily teach you to set up a mental block. Those are always fun to work with."
Johnny grinned. "Thanks, Garek. I've got to set up an appointment with you. I'm kind of taxed right now, just as much as you are, I assume. How about in two days, say around... 1400 hours?"
"Sure, sounds good. See you in the DEL."
Johnny nodded, and made his way out of the shuttle bay. Well,another thing to work on. A good mental block for a Marine. This should prove interesting. Garek then turned his attention back over to Ensign Brosgarth. "Be sure to get another batch of these panels out from Cargo Bay Two. I want to get the whole stardrive section covered within the next twelve days. After this batch, Ensign Wiley should be coming in. He'll be in charge while
I'm gone."
"I'll get right on it, Commander." Brosgarth disappeared out of the shuttle bay door. Garek then loaded up the anti-grav unit with it's heavy cargo into the Lamda Flier, out for another run.