| Hitting the Hammer |
| Summary: | Mark and Cilusia tap into the Hammerfall missiles. |
| Date: | 03 Feb 2042 AE |
| Related Logs: | Coll's Missile Logs. |
| Players: |
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| Port Hangar Bay |
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| The single largest rooms on the Cerberus are the hangar decks. Each flight pod consists of two stacked landing bays with adjoined decks and hangars, which along with computer-assisted landings results in a faster Viper recovery rate. Mirror images of each other, these two huge areas are located on the flight pods. The inboard sides of the deck, closest to the ship's main hull, are lined with parking and maintenance bays for Vipers and Raptors based aboard the battlestar. The outboard side of the deck contains the launch tubes used by the Vipers for standard deployment. Huge blast doors seal the deck into four sections, each one containing an elevator that leads up to the flight deck directly overhead. The fore-most section contains an elevator system that leads towards Aerospace Fabrication. |
| Post-Holocaust Day: #342 |
Mark, if he's seen outside of Engineering, is usually one of two places: Pete's or the Galley. He's been around the Deck a few times to yuck it up with a few people but this time he seems to be here on business. Dirty as hell, as per the usual for him, he walks across the deck and stops a PO1 passing by. "Hey!" he calls over the sound of an engine. "I'm lookin for Petty Officer Fasi!" The man points Mark down the line and he comes up behind the indicated individual. "You Fasi?"
"Only for commendations and promotions. Otherwise, no. Never heard of her." All 5' nothing of Cilusia is caught up under a Raptor giving a lookover the bird's hardpoints, part of the regular maintenance but no doubt to guarantee they'll be ready to go on the upcoming op should they be needed. "What can I do you for…uh, Sir?" The dolly she's on comes sliding out and she wipes her hands off on a rag, pushing up to her feet.
"Ain't that the damned truth. Used to say the same thing. Some asshole promoted me eventually. Funny that. Careful what you wish for." Mark winks at her and offers a hand-up while she rises. "Got your name from Chief Damon. He's transferred a project to Engineering because I've got a little experience with this stuff. Seems you've been tasked to these Hammerfall missiles, right? The one's that Damon needs checked out for functionality because of the woman who worked on them initially."
"Yeah, so the saying goes. Things got a little frakkin' busy around here since he decided to toss out the assignment and…now." With the rag being little help, Cilusia wipes the rest of the grime off on her orange jumpsuit. "But yeah, I've reviewed the logs and tapes and shit…Coll got them all dissected pretty good, made some pretty detailed inspections, for what those're worth."
"That's about how I understand it. Look, I'm gonna borrow you for a bit. Let's head down to ordnance and look these things over." He gestures for her to follow. It might seem like she has a choice but he is a Captain. "I watched the logs last night, myself. Interesting stuff. That woman knew a lot about missiles. Way more than I expected. I guess Damon and Cidra want these things poured over pretty good and evaluated before anyone even touches them or thinks about shooting them. Accused Cylon, eh? Helluva thing." Mark pushes open the hatch to lead them down.
"Gonna be hard to evaluate them without anyone touching them, don't you think?" There's a little snicker from behind as Cilusia follows, whether it's because of that little comment or the girl loving missiles comment would be impossible to say. Walking along behind, Cilusia's got her orange jumpsuit, the few tools stashed in the pockets and all, and that's about it.
"Ain't that the truth. We better put some hands on them." Sagenod. Mark leads her down through the ordnance lock-ups and around pallets of ammunition, bombs, and missiles. This place is a maze but they finally find them cordoned off in their own secured locker. There's a sign on the door that identifies the contents and has a posted warning about tampering. The Chief Engineer eyes it for a second before opening the door. "So, you had a chance to crack one of these things yet?" He'll follow her in. "Poke around. See if there's anything wrong?"
"Conventional explosives that pack the same punch as a nuke? Stuck here in the guts of the ship? Are you frakkin' insane? I make sure flight suits and ejection seats work right; I don't go poking around in missiles regularly. So…no, no Sir I haven't. Unless someone else's poked around in here, they haven't been opened since Coll did, I guess. I don't want it on my hands if these things blow the ship to hell." She stands about as far away from the things as she can in the room. "I'm no ordinance tech, and frankly? These things scare the hell out of me."
Mark shuts the hatch behind them and looks over the missiles. There's a plastic sheet over them. "They're bigger than they looked in the video," at least by his estimation. His arms cross as those eyes slit in the light. "If its any consolation, if these things exploded there wouldn't be anyone left to blame you. If each of these packs a kiloton of popping force, this ship would just vaporize when they hit the fuel lines." The man takes a few steps around the missiles and lifts the sheet off one. Its the one Coll had signed in the video - it still bearing her message and signature. "Why do they make you nervous? You think she's guilty? Or you just don't want to screw up and kill a bunch of people?" Conversational question.
"The latter, maybe a sprinkling of the former? I don't frakkin' know anymore. Figure if she was really guilty…why not just blow us the frak up and give the ultimate middle finger to everyone? As for being nervous?" She spins around and points at the thing. "Godsdamned things are as big as a Viper! Well, close." You know, order of magnitude. "Nothing we got can even launch the damn things. Does the expression 'sitting on a powder keg' ring in your ears, ever? At least with our nukes, we can dump them in the tubes and say 'see ya' if we need."
"Not sure. Maybe the same reason this ship has dealt with a few Cylons in the past who helped out. I heard about a Viper jock and an eleven that seemed plenty helpful. The flybaby even was supposedly well-liked." Not the same for what he's heard about the Crewman who worked on these - for how little it even is. Mark runs a hand down the side of the missile and looks it over as he squats to peer underneath. "We don't need to launch them from anything, Petty Officer. Space has forces to act on these things like they would in atmo - except gravity wells. Their range is unlimited. Firing one off would be pretty easy, actually." He sniffs, reaching into his pocket for a screwdriver. "C'mere. You're gonna help me." He puts the screwdriver into a slot and begins turning.
"Just my professional opinion, and I know I'm just some petty officer who's gotten busted down a few times, but looks like you got that screwing pretty well in hand." Boots thump on deck plating as she joins him though. "For launching though, what I mean is how the hell are we going to get them from here out into space? Roll them down to the deck, load them in a Viper cat, and say saiyonara? Roll them down the end of the landing deck and push them out to just drift lazy-like? Sounds pretty damned messed up to me."
Mark finishes with the screws and carefully opens the hatch to the missile. There's the powercore, just as the video indicated. "I'm not an ordnance tech, Petty Officer. I'm not going to go much further without having that video in front of me. In fact, I'd feel better if you did it since you actually have some attachments to Deck." He takes up a flashlight and peers inside, looking towards the rear of the missile. "Yep, there it is. Take off this panel, here, right behind the one we opened up." He puts the flashlight away, speaking as he searches his pockets for something else. "Actually, you're not far off. Test them the same way the fleet conducts missile tests. Take the home ship into the middle of nowhere, tow it into space with a Raptor, then manually fire it. Easy as a Sunday mornin."
"Just because I'm on the deck doesn't mean I'm an ordinance tech, like I said. I'm handy, but I have no frakkin' clue how these things work. Engine burns and if some brain did the numbers right, the front end hits something big and hard and metal and the thing goes boom. I failed chemistry twice, you know. Plus, if you don't want to go further without the tape, what makes you think that I want to…Sir?" She hastily tacks that sir on there at the end, looking a little wary. "Trying to get the core out for something? It's the other end that has me a little more worried, the business end, as it were." She still looks unconvinced about gutting these things without Coll's walkthrough playing.
"Yeah? I failed it twice, too. Damned atomic weights and numbers always confused the hell out of me." Mark winks. The man seems almost unflappable. He really does seem to be relaxed down here. Maybe he just doesn't believe any of the stuff surrounding the other woman. But he eventually sighs at seeing how nervous she is. The man leans his arms on top of the casing and looks to her. "Look, Fasi. I hate giving orders to people so I'll explain this to you for right now:" Where he gets the patience from, too, is inexplicable. Its all conversational to him. "We aren't performing brain surgery tonight. We're taking off a few panels to doublecheck that this missile looks like it did when that woman closed out the video. The other thing I'm going to do is interface with the guidance system on my handy dandy PDA, copy the program, then go through it to see what's up. Its as dangerous as disassembling the housing around a Viper's gun system. The missile isn't even armed. We good. We jivin." He grins like an idiot.
"If this thing blows, I'm going to be the one pointing fingers at you so Hades knows who to blame," she quips. "As for the gun systems on a Viper? I try to avoid that as much as possible. I'm just a glorified seamstress, for real. I keep having to tell people that!" She grumbles and gripes, but starts working on getting that panel opened. Penlight in her mouth, she leans in and gets the screwdriver in there, opening up that panel tucked in there. "If you're expecting vampire bats and black widows to have taken up in here…'fraid that's not the case. From what I see, fuel lines and wiring at the ass of the missile back here look alright. By that, I mean we aren't spilling everywhere, nothing's frayed, and we're not arcing."
Mark laughs. "If it blows up, you can point all the fingers you want." He looks down to watch her work and shrugs. "And? So you can't aspire to be more than a seamstress? I know what your rating does, Fasi. Don't sweat it. I started my career on Deck working in AEM." He slides a wink at her, waiting for her report before nodding. "Perfect. Sounds like what we are looking for." He reaches into his pocket and produces a PDA. A few buttons pressed and he lifts it over their heads to get top-down pictures of the guts. "Just want to make sure I have quality shots." That toy is probably something he stole from Praetorian or someone on there. "Alright, now the hookup." A wire is produced and plugged into the PDA and then to a small port on the skin of the missile. Downloading.. "So I'm going to need you to work on these some more. Get some tests done. You up for that?"
"You write the software, and I run all the tests you want. And if you're going to take pictures, might want to get my good side. I mean look, I haven't even done my hair or nothing!" Understatement of the century, maybe. Not much to do with that mop. "Going to have to look back over those videos and all, though you know…" she says with a smirk. "One of those little handheld buggers might work great as a portable video player and missile tester."
"No writing. I stick to testing out the code in simulations. I'll plug this into a computer and run it through diagnostics. Test it out to see if the guidance system she claims to have installed works or if its some kind of twisted alteration that will try and kill our fleet." The PDA beeps and Mark looks at it. There's a curt nod and he unplugs it from the missile. "People want it tested, we test. Though getting your good side isn't a problem. Didn't think a lady like yourself had a bad one, yeah?" Mark flashes her another smile and pockets the PDA. "Okay, here's what I need from you.." He leans on the missile again. "Watch the videos all you need. Disassemble the main casing and compare them to the videos. Make sure they are all exactly the same. Then run them through x-rays to make sure that there aren't any hidden charges, leaks in the lines, or any kind of production defects. Make sure the wiring is fused and all that, too. We want to be certain these things are as solid as we can hope. If all goes according to hope, we'll test one out in the next few weeks. Sound good?"
"Sounds as good as dealing with experimental Colonial tech that was tweaked by someone who might or might not have been a Cylon sleeper something-or-other can, I guess. As for my bad side…well, you should see me in the morning. Or after I've had something to drink. Seems like everytime I do that, I get my ass brigged though." A little shrug, and she's back to putting the handful of panels that were taken off back into place, at least for the moment. "This is all on my off-hours, right? Of course, who am I kidding!"
Mark chuckles, attaching the last panel over the powercore. "Could be worse. We could -know- she was a sleeper agent. Its all in the air. I'm not terribly concerned, though. If they haven't gone off by now then any kind of defects should come out in the tests." He taps her screwdriver to the hatch and drops it back into his toolbelt. "And no, this is project work. It should count towards your duty hours unless Damon says otherwise. But you're under his department so that's his call." Once they're done, he pulls the plastic sheet back over the missiles. "Alright, that's all I've got. Any questions for me on this stuff?"
"No…no, I think those questions come later," Cilusia replies, turning to look over the sheeted missiles. "Mostly how the frak we're going to use these to blow the hell out of basestars if we have to tow them out into space like drunken baboons and twiddle our thumbs while they putz on over." She gives an exaggerated shrug, and exhales a bit. "One step at a time though, I guess."
"If this guidance system works as advertised then we won't even need to be within DRADIS range of the target. Remember, space is huge and these things theoretically, as long as the battery and maneuvering jets hold out, has an unlimited range. Sort of like how every time we fire a gun in space, eventually it will hit something. Somewhere." Mark smirks. "If- and that's a big if- they work, we might be able to pinpoint strike Caprica from here. Heck, we could probably do it from a lightyear away. We could even launch a barrage of these things at a target at a known distance and then a week later jump into the battle right as the missiles arrive." The man reaches for the hatch. "Physics is baller like that."
"That godsdamned fourth dimension. Should I mention I did pretty shitty in physics, too? 'Everything I learned I learned by hanging around in Scorpian slums,' or some other frakkin' generic line like that. I'll leave that thinking up to the eggheads in engineering. I'm a deck monkey, and happily so." Gotta save juice, so, Cilusia flicks off the lights before she steps through behind Mark.