Topic: Shuttle Ride

[Grim Reaper]

Sorry, apparently I did not have thread notification on... Mea culpa. I'll read it somewhere soon, unfortunately that would be before monday me thinks

[Grim Reaper]

Just took the time during a maven build. Looks good, though I must say I really fault the Klingon shuttles tactical awareness. But it wasn't a detractor, lord knows cannon klingons (past TOS anyways) are quite simply mostly idiots. 

[Lieutenant_Q]

Two things I noticed and liked:

1) Those Klingon shuttles must have Nuetronium Hulls.  How else do you bounce off a Canyon Wall and "survive"?  I guess survive is the term i want to use, because the shuttle may not fly again, but the bickering grunts still lived.

2)

"Treacherous Ha'DI'bagh," Krell growled. "He could not defeat us in battle so he tricked us."

Dag'thar regarded his gunner critically. "And how would an unarmed single shuttle manage to defeat two armed shuttles in a 'battle'?"

I laughed... really hard.

I lied, there's a third:  They assume that it's a human at the controls, nice portrayal of the typical Klingon arrogance.

[Scottish Andy]

Grim, Q, I am glad you liked that little piece. I enjoyed writing it

Grim, I was trying to convey that they are so focussed on the kill and that this unarmed shuttle has evaded them so well that they're getting... annoyed. And riling up someone is the best way to make them lose track of more important things. Like canyon walls.
On a different note, what's a "maven build?"

Q, their hulls are not neutronium but duranium. I expounded on its properties while dealing with M'Rrowl's shuttle. I just didn't want the advanced metal from the future to be as easy to crumple up as steel. This is strong stuff, or they wouldn't make starships out of it, IMHO.
I'm glad you laughed there; I grinned writing it. it kinda pokes fun at the Klink's "People who don't sit there and let us beat them up, have no honour!" attitude.
And yes, many enemy nations still believe Starfleet to be mostly Humans and the Klingon Navy does seem to be male-dominated, so statistically and culturally speaking, it's a likely assumption.

More coming up.

[Scottish Andy]

Shuttle Ride - Flash Three

by Scottish Andy

"Captain! The Pup is entering orbit, coming through the ionised layer!"

"Warn the Klingons off! If they fire on our shuttle we will attack!"

Lamar's fingers few over his board but before he could send the message, Jarinex grated, "They're firing!"

On the main viewscreen, phase disruptors streamed orange beams from the Klingon war cruiser's wingtips to a point far below them as Harrington barked, "Red Alert! Arm all weapons and target their bridge!"

"They missed!" Bonnie crowed. "The Pup has ducked back below the ionised layer."

Xiaron added, "It seems their own ionisation effect threw off their scanners."

"Fifteen seconds for phasers, forty-five for torpedoes," Jarinex updated.

"Reinforce forward shield and prepare to engage," Harrington ground out, fire in her eyes.

*****

"Captain, Federation ship is arming weapons and locking on!"

"Gunner Qo'leth, explain to me why I should let you live," Kron purred dangerously, fingering his bushy moustache.

No one mistook the commander's genteel mannerisms for comradely banter. Quite apart from his words, the molten lava in his hot yellow eyes gave an observer a totally accurate gauge of his bottled wrath.

Spinning to face his captain, Qo'leth began, "Sir! The ioniz--"

Kron whipped out his disruptor pistol and pointed it directly at the hapless gunner's face. "No excuses! I demanded a reason!" he barked.

"Captain, they are reinforcing their forward shield and are locked onto our bridge!"

"Reinforce facing shield!" Kron snarled over his shoulder, eyes not leaving Qo'leth.

"Commander... by... by missing the shuttle, we have not yet killed any Earthers! We... you can use this to prod them!"

Kron's beetling brows raised thoughtfully, the heat diminishing in his eyes. "You surprise me, Qo'leth. I had not thought you capable of such strategic thinking."

Qo'leth did not do anything so foolish as to relax, even when Kron re-holstered his sidearm and gave his attention to the main veiwer.

"Comms, hail the Starfleet ship and get them on my screen before their torpedoes are armed!" their commander ordered forcefully.

Only time would tell if Kron would truly let Qo'leth's blunder pass unpunished, or if this lull was merely a reprieve until his battle of wits with the Earthers was over.

*****

M'Rrowl breathed a shaky sigh of relief when no other weapons fire streaked past her and eased the Pup out of its screaming  dive to the relative safetly of the canyons below. Her scanners still showed no sign of the Klingon shuttles, but she steered away from where she'd led at least one of them into the wall.

No point trading one trouble for another. Well, not again, she reflected angrily. Now what? I cannot get to the ship or even hail them from under here... She almost groaned for not following that thought to its logical conclusion. ...so if I get out from under the effect, I should be able to make contact.

She banked the shuttle around and headed in the opposite direction from where she'd run afoul of the Klingon warship and keyed the throttle up to full atmospheric speed. The Klingon ship had given her pause as she'd risen into orbit, almost instantly followed by a nasty scare as it blasted at her.

What the hell is it that the Klingons don't want us to see here? she pondered while intently monitoring her scanners for the possible appearance of a shuttle from below or a starship from above. I haven't scanned anything of interest or any installation of theirs on the planet. Are they just worried that I will discover something if I get into the right area?

Minutes later, M'Rrowl cut her musings short as her sensors told her she was reaching the edge of the communication disruption effect.

Let's find out if the Brains on the Bridge have answers for me.

*****

[Grim Reaper]

Maven is a tool for source code management. It manages dependencies to external libraries, build reports (e.g. Test coverage, lines of code, etc.) and builds jars, wars and ears (java archive, web archive, enterprise archive). It's a necessary tool when writing java apps imho.

Back on topic: nice little update, i'm very curious what the reason of the agression is...

[Scottish Andy]

Why not write it yourself, Grim?

[Grim Reaper]

Why not write it yourself, Grim?

LOL, with English being my second language, your spelling critiques (j/k) and the complete lack of creative genius, I'd say I'd better not.

[Captain Sharp]

This is, thus far, my favorite of your works. I seriously considered jumping on the offer to collaborate with you on it, but decided not to. Reason? I don't write SFB. So I'd muck it up.

Aside from that, seeing what it's becoming wihtout me stiring the pot, I'm glad I didn't. I LIKE this. I like your shuttle pilot. I like your Klinks. I like your Klink captain. Say what you will about Klingon intelligence before and after TOS, but I like them.

Also glad that the Fed ship did not dip as far down into the atmo as I'd feared at previous reading. Was really questioning the CO's intelligence at that order, but we're not talking cloud level here, so, good job. I like all your characters, like the main ship and the evolving battle scenes.

I'm also interested in what the Klingons are protecting down there. They're obviously willing to pussyfoot around with the smooth heads for it, but not entirely willing just to open fire on the Feds and be done with it. I'd love a flashback scene from before the Fed ships arrived...but that would be spoilers.

I have only one nit to pick:

"Fifteen seconds for phasers, forty-five for torpedoes," Jarinex updated.

I understand you're going for a feel where things take a more realistic amount of time, but in this case, it's less. You're not manually loading shells here. And even taking the absurdly long torpedo loading time from ST II into account, waiting more than half a minute for your heavy weapons to come up is too long. Even with this said, it's not detracting from the story. It's a small gripe, added only to give you cons as well as pros.

I enjoy.

--guv

[Scottish Andy]

Thanks for the comments and feedback, Guv. I am glad you like it so much though honestly I am distressed to hear that this is your favourite of all my stuff!

I should take that on board for the next story I start; less planning, R&D, and scene setting, and more off-the-cuff inspiration and straight into the meat of the story.

As for your supposings... your guess is a good as mine. Everything I have for this is right here, so I should keep going with it and see where it takes us. This will require yet another re-read; I want to keep the apparently "fresh" and "uncanned" feel this story seems to have.

As to your nitpick; while I'm not using the "rolling out the cannon" approach from TWoK, I don't think a 30 second reload time per torp is unreasonable. From starting up the loading arm, plucking a torp from the rack, putting it into the active magazine, which is then put into the actual launch tube.

Plus, I believe that to launch photons to high sublight velocities or faster than the launching ship at warp would take a lot of energy. I'm taking a bastardised SFB view for my weapon loading times. I go for photon torpedo launch tubes using an advanced version of magnetic accelerator rails to "fire/launch" a torpedo. Plus, the warp sustainer engine needs to be charged.

Anyway. Such tech babbling is my rationalisation for the turn-based "charging" energy and time SFC uses for its photons in the TMP era. I know it matters not to the overwhelming majority, but I like to explain my reasoning just so people don't think it's just random BS I pull from a dark place.

Stay Tuned! I am in the process of moving house and thoroughly enjoying playing Fleet Command, so writing has taken a back seat for the present, but of all things, this short is the most likely to be continued.

I'll also get around to commenting on your story shortly.

[Lieutenant_Q]

I also agree with the launch time on torpedoes.  While I don't care for the way SFB set up the torpedoes, (energy used determines yield) as they would have a set yield to begin with.  But Andy is right that the engine for the Torpedo would have to be powered, as well as the launch tubes themselves.

As I'm writing a combat scene in my story, I'm paying close attention to the power requirements of the Rail Guns.  You might be surprised at just how much energy these things take.  Since I would take the Torpedo launch tubes to be just larger, more advanced versions of Rail Guns, I can't see them having reduced the power requirements at all.  (especially when you've got a big M/AM reactor to draw power from now)  Makes my little Fission plants look like flashlights.

[Captain Sharp]

I'm reminded of a quote from Scotty, TOS, A Taste of Armagegedon:

"We can't get them, not with our screans up (Meaning the Captain on the planet), and we can't lower them, not with their disruptors on us....Course, I could treat them to a few dozen photon torpedoes."

Figured I'd let the man himself have a word.

Still saying, though, the loading time in TWOK was absurd. ST6 was little better. Perhaps arming and powering of the weapon itself is conducted on the ride to the launcher. Myself, I like ENT's method. Weps are stored right there with the launcher, they pop up, slide in, ready to go.

Still, though. Don't look at this as a critique of what you've written. I'm just poppin my mouth off. If you say it takes 30 secs, then it takes 30 secs. Writer's privelege.

--guv

[Grim Reaper]

If we are going to bitch about ST and weapon realism, how about the phasers of the big E that magically were exhausted, while it still had power? 

[Captain Sharp]

Refresh my memory. Plenty of instances of that. Not sure which you're refering to.

--guv

[Grim Reaper]

Nemesis

[Captain Sharp]

Mmm, yes, THAT movie.

Only thing about it I liked was the fight scene, and they ruined that by showing you the ramming scene in the previews. And the whole judging damage by precentages got way out of hand in that'n.

When you mentioned firing phasers after hearing they were out, I thought of that one and the bit of 'Yesterday's Enterprise' when Data tells Picard the lateral phaser array has been damaged, he can't reroute, but ol' Picard hopps up there and starts firing away with the phasers. Not sure which was supposed to be the lateral array... But, anyway.

--guv

[Scottish Andy]

I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to the previews so I cannot remember either way. That was a nice battle scene but as writers of countless battles ourselves with lots of "battle experience" under our belts, we could have written a better one. They went for what looks cool. I mean, we could have done photons with proximity and not contact fuses, had the supporting Roms be less stupid, etc.

As for 'TNG: Yesterday's Enterprise', I cheated and looked at TrekCore.com for a script. While not a final draft it is a good reference. It is the forward phasers whose power coupling has been severed, and Data says his Ops controls are not responding, not that he's unable to reroute. Picard uses the Tactical console to reroute properly. But there's me showing my pedantic again.

Now here's me showing my editor side:
Lateral: adjective; of, at, towards, or from the side or sides.
Compare with:
Flank: noun; the right or left side of a body of people such as an army, a naval force, or a soccer team

[Scottish Andy]

Grim, I don't remember in the movie specifically what you're referring to. I remember their photon complement being all shot off, but not phasers being exhausted. However, that fits in with SFB. They have a limited number of phaser shots before their phaser capacitor is drained. Then they have to recharge before firing again. They're obviously not using a turn-based recharge cycle -- or definitely not the same one as SFB -- but unless they have their phasers on a trickle charge constantly refilling their capacitor, I'm okay with them exhausting their phaser power. As long as it is a temporary lull if they still have power they can allocate.

However, one thing that bothered me about the ramming was that while they yelled "Brace for impact!" (or was that just Generations?), they never even ordered an emergency evacuation of the forward saucer before ploughing into the Scimitar.

Kirk obviously had more concern for his crew.

[Grim Reaper]

LOL, good point. The impact could be anywhere, so why not tell the dudes at the front to run like hell. Though we might be able to sell it as nobody was in there due to the red alert in the first place. But where would they go?

[Captain Sharp]

Captain Ford in similar situation:

"Anybody in the front of my ship, get the hell aft! Prepare to ram badguy! That is all!"

Oh, and thank you for the dictionary lesson. Lateral...

--guv