Elisabeth received a message asking her to report to the conference room. After sending her acknowledgment, she gathered her PADDs that held the relevant data and set off for the conference room. When she arrived, she took her place and waited for the Captain to enter.

Cheon nodded to the Lieutenant as she walked in. He had a good idea of what she was about to present to the captain when she arrived. He returned his attention to the PADD that was in front of him. On it was her presentation. After all, he wanted to be sure that if stumbled that he could help her regain her footing, so to speak.

Rebecca was the last to enter the lounge. She had a PADD in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other.  She didn’t look up from the PADD as she scrolled through the data contained within scrolling with her thumb.  “Good morning.  Sorry, I’m late,” Rebecca apologized as she slid into her seat her eyes still transfixed on the PADD.

As soon as the Captain walked in, Elisabeth stood at attention, then sat down after the Captain sat down.

After a moment of silence, she set the PADD down and took a moment to sip her coffee before turning her attention fully to her officers.   She was tired. It was something she could feel in her bones.  She had taken over Charlie Shift last night so she could give as much of her crew as much downtime as possible. “Ms. Chapman, you had some ideas on how to improve our defenses?  I asked Mr. Lovecroft to attend as I assume you will be expecting him and his people to assist you.”

Beth nodded, then looked around the table. “Yes, ma’am. As everyone here is aware, we ran a tactical drill to test our weapons. During the process, I discovered a glaring weakness in our defense. Point defense or defense against fighters and bombers is a glaring weakness for a Nebula-class starship. Our targeting scanners are too slow to track fast-moving targets; therefore, after the drill, I ran a few simulations. I discovered that an old tracking method, lasers, works really well to focus our phaser and photon torpedo fire for maximum effective coverage. But even lasers have their limitations. Currently, we can only use lasers out of the deflector dish, but I would like to extend laser coverage all over the ship to have a 360-degree field of coverage and fire.” She took a breath and waited for the reaction of everyone in the meeting.

“Lasers?” Rebecca asked amused. “That’s not the most high-tech solution I’ve heard,  but I like simple.  What do you suggest?  To get that complete coverage?”

“Yes ma’am. The concept goes back to ancient history, where ancient countries like the United States developed missiles developed specifically to follow lasers to a target. The idea really isn’t high-tech, but it’s an effective way to allow our phasers and torpedoes to follow fast-moving targets. To your question, Captain, I would like to modify our weapons/sensor pod to emit lasers around and above us. The deflector can cover anything below the sensor pod. Here’s the diagram of coverage…” Elisabeth taps on her table interface and a hologram of the Denver comes up over the table, with the laser coverage coming from the weapons/sensor pods and deflector dish providing coverage. “Not sure if this makes sense, Captain.”

“I think I have a grasp of the situation,” Rebecca said with a nod. “Mr. Lovecroft what do you think?”

 Lovecroft looked at Rebecca and with a nod replied, “Yes I think it is a great idea and would be glad to help Beth with this project,” He stated as he looked over at the tactical officer. He gave her a nod of approval as he looked back at the captain.

“Ms. Chapman,  I think you are on to something here.  Help engineering with your plan, but I need you and your team ready for anything.   We have an important escort mission for tomorrow.”

Elisabeth nods. “Yes ma’am. I’ll continue running exercises and I will probably schedule a few live drills for the security contingent on how to handle intruders and how to conduct proper sweeps of internal spaces. With your permission, Captain?”

“Elisabeth, this is your department.   Training is your responsibility.  All I care about is the end results.  You don’t need my permission on how to lead your team,” Rebecca responded.

“Aye Captain, thank you.” Elisabeth smiled and looked down at her PADD. She began to set up the outlines of how she was going to train them.

Rebecca stood and looked around,  “Thanks people, and good job at figuring that out Ms. Chapman.” With that the captain strode out of the observation lounge for the bridge already moving on to  the next fire that needed attention.

Elisabeth noticed in her peripherally that the Captain was standing up. She stood automatically, and when the Captain acknowledged her, she nodded and half-bowed gracefully. After the Captain had exited, she continued her work.

Cheon walked over and placed a hand on the Lieutenants shoulder. “Meet me in my office in one hour. I would like to go over a few things with you with your idea. Don’t worry it won’t deviate from your initial plans all that much,” he stated as he looked over to Burkley.

Stepping over to the hulking man he informed the man that he needed to see him in his office in one hour. After that, he departed the conference room and joined the captain on the bridge.