Defacto : B Exam

Lieutenant Commander Ames Defacto is the Second Officer of SS Charm Quark, Quasar 15A bomber.

SS Charm Quark has now returned to Solaris for a "B Exam" maintenance session. For those unfamiliar with DDS ship maintenance let me explain. There are 4 "levels" of ship maintenance. A Exams are minor fixes and updates (software mostly) that can happen in the "field". B Exams are a bit more involved and take place at port and generally last a few days (of more below), CQ has a B Exam a couple of times a year like most ships in the fleet. C Exams are more extensive and are done every few years, finally D Exams are virtual rebuilding and major updates (CQ's D Exam was when it was upgraded to ILU standard).

So the B Exam then. It usually takes about 50 hours to complete though can take longer depending on what problems are found. First of all the reactor is isolated but remains on (it gets turned off in C and D exams). Then a technical team begins an automated software check of all of the ship's systems and while that is running then goes through the ship checking major load bearer points and key systems. Externally a maintenance drone begins a survey of the ship's exterior looking for damage. Holes in the hull down to a femtometre across can be detected though holes of this size would generally be ignored.

The checking part of maintenance lasts around 14 hours then the teams collate the findings and a plan is quickly drawn up on how to repair any issues found. This can involve going EVA to fix holes in the hull and repairing broken or worn components internally. Software updates are also applied to the ship's systems and various house keeping operations take place like rotating logfiles and reindexing the various ship databases.

Obviously how long this takes will depend on how many problems are found. Apart from software not many upgrades are given to a ship during a B Exam unless the upgrade is a new module that can easily be installed (which of course with Open Architecture 2.0 is a very simple process).

While the B Exam takes place the crew is given some leave, a skeleton crew is left aboard, rotated so everyone can get at least some shore leave (though there is only enough time to visit the orbital dock to be honest). I am currently the senior officer aboard CQ as both the captain and first officer are off-ship though in reality the head of the engineering team is in charge and the ship is fairly useless as its plugged into the orbital dock's power grid (though we can become operational again fairly quickly).

In a few hours time CQ's B Exam will conclude and CQ will be ready to return to the fleet. As yet we haven't been given our new orders but there will be a short "shake down" trip to make sure everything is working right. It is likely we will join the 1st Attack Squadron as part of the ready strategic attack force as its been a few months since our last turn.

Defacto : New duties

Lieutenant Commander Ames Defacto is the Second Officer of SS Charm Quark, Quasar 15A bomber.

As the alert status reduced to ORANGE then the need for both attack squadrons to be ready diminished, thus SS Charm Quark was released for other duties. Although we are primarily a bomber of course we do perform other duties of course to boost training, testing and increase morale.

Because of the still tense situation any alternative duties will remain short-term (and short-range) jobs so we can return to our primary role very quickly. Yesterday we began a 4 day deployment on a mapping mission near New Jakarta. As we were close to the border with the HCS (at one point of our programme we will be less than a light year from Oscar) it was also an opportunity to show the flag. A HCS warship (a Cosmos CK) shadowed us for a few hours yesterday. This happens normally anyway but the recent tensions have added a new bite to it.

Tomorrow we will be closest to Oscar, thats when we expect the most attention from the Clones. This ship will be on full alert though we do not expect anything to happen, but we will be ready of course if it does.

Defacto : Call to arms

Lieutenant Commander Ames Defacto is the Second Officer of SS Charm Quark, Quasar 15A bomber.

(Editor note : this was written before the raising of the alert status to RED and has been cleansed by the DDS Censor Office for operational security reasons)

Its been some time since my last posting (late October in fact), there are a couple of reasons for that. Following our successful training deployment in September Sunrise SS Charm Quark went into space dock for some heavy maintenance in November and early December. Following that, and a week long test voyage (to make sure everything was back in the right place!) CQ (as we call her) was allocated to the 1st Attack Squadron and thus was one of the three ships that remain armed and on very short notice to deploy.

In late January there was a rotation of ships and we became the "spare Quasar". The DDS try to maintain 2 attack squadrons, each of 3 ships. Obviously as there are only 8 Quasars often there will be a couple spare. In practice a number of ships will be unavailable at any one time due to maintenance or training and we have in the past only had 5 Quasars available and had to draw in a Panther to fill the gap in the 2nd Attack Squadron.

However this time there was a ship spare. We are available for general duties in the vicinity of GHQ. As we may be called upon at any time to replace a ship in the ready squadron that develops a fault we tend to stay within a day or so of GHQ. We were scheduled to do a patrol along the DDS-DTA border however the HCS-Molab tensions have changed those plans and recalled us back to GHQ (a Starsystem will do our duty instead).

Although we remain a spare ship we are ready to join any deployment. It would be similar to our training mission only this time with live targets that can fire back. Most of our crew have seen service in the ABBO War and some in earlier conflicts so we know what might happen and are ready for it. We train to a high degree of professionalism just for these scenarios. Whatever might happen over the next few weeks and months SS Charm Quark is ready!

Defacto : Ready to fight

Lieutenant Commander Ames Defacto is the Second Officer of SS Charm Quark, Quasar 15A bomber.

Last time i blogged i told you about how our ship SS Charm Quark was part of the September Sunrise exercise. That deployment ended in a training attack mission using live weapons (though only 1 ship used live nukes, SS Quasar) the other 2 Quasars including our own used simulated weapons on a target built on an asteroid.

Following the deployment the fleet returned to Proxima Centauri in early October and we had 7 days of R&R while CQ received some maintenance  and supplies were replenished. Since then we have been part of the 1st Attack Squadron (which comprises 3 Quasars armed and ready for a live mission at short notice).

Because of the incidents in Raegris space involving the Bolitic we have been on a 2 hour readiness! That means simply the ship has to be ready to leave dock and start a combat mission within 2 hours. Now this is not easy to achieve for an extended period of time, because the ship has to be kept ready to depart not much in the way of engineering work can be carried out and all crew leave is at a minimum (and indeed limited to space dock).

It is likely if this readiness state continues for more than a week then other Quasars will be rotated into the squadron and we will be stood down. The worst thing about this level of readiness actually is the tension, we are all kept on tenterhooks waiting for the order to leave, the ship fully loaded and armed for nuclear attack. The tension is hard to take. Once the mission begins its fine but until then the waiting can be agonising!

Defacto : September Sunrise

Lieutenant Commander Ames Defacto is the Second Officer of SS Charm Quark, Quasar 15A bomber.

Greetings everyone. As you may know our ship SS Charm Quark (or CQ as we call her) is part of the September Sunrise exercise. Our ship is one of three Quasar bombers which took part in a simulated attack earlier. Although the three ships physically acted like they were on an attack run the released weapons and subsequent nuclear explosions were luckily only computer simulations. We performed our roles perfectly though and i'm proud of my team. I'm confident that if we were called upon to use our weapons for real we would be as successful.

Two Remedian ships acted as the "enemy" during our attack run. Its interesting to go up against these old Kalahati Tuuls as they are unlike anything else in the fleet these days. They arn't bad ships, they have a graceful yet slightly menacing air. Three years ago i was lucky enough to spent 2 months on an exchange programme on a Remedian ship. Those ships might be old and fairly obsolete in many ways but the Remedians work them hard and professionally. They certainly pull their weight!

Our exercise was delayed because we were on standby in case a DDS EW attack on the Bolitic ran into trouble. This involved us holding station near the border for around a week. Not the most interesting of times to be honest but i'm glad the attack went through ok and we were not needed.

One thing we did manage to do while we were waiting was apply the new large pennant numbers to the hull. Under the new scheme CQ is now S107 in the fleet and as per directives from GHQ the pennant numbers have been applied very visibly to the exterior of the hull!

Defacto : Introduction to CQ

Lieutenant Commander Ames Defacto is the Second Officer of SS Charm Quark, Quasar 15A bomber.

The DDS have decided it would be useful to have a regular column written by a serving officer with the DDS, view from the coal face at it were. A number of DDS officers volunteered to provide this column and i am happy to have been chosen to bring a taste of life aboard one of the most powerful warships in the galaxy, and also to gain myself 100 points for Yellow House!

I am the Second Officer of SS Charm Quark, this means i am third in command and i am in command of Beta Shift. I am also lead officer in the Strategic Attack System which is at the core of the Quasar bomber's raison d'être. Charm Quark or CQ as we refer to her is one of the bombers in the DDS fleet and in a war would be tasked mainly with penetrating enemy defences and attacking enemy planets and orbital facilities with MRMs and other attack missiles.

That isn't CQ's only mission though, as a very powerful warship we are also ready to perform other fleet duties. Indeed we have just served some time in the Rapid Reaction Force which is a small number of ships kept on the highest alert ready to be despatched to trouble spots at very short notice. In fact we had to spend much of the time on R2H status, Ready 2 Hours. We had to be ready to depart orbital dock within 2 hours in other words. Being at such a heightened alert status for an extended period of time is very stressful let me tell you!

CQ has left the RRF though to take part in the September Sunrise exercise along with 2 of our sister ships. The Quasar fleet are, at present, the only bombers available to the DDS (although other ships can fill in with a more limited capability set) and thus we are worked hard. Three Quasars are always assigned to the 1st Attack Squadron which is the ready strike force ready to be sent out if needed at any time. CQ is likely to be assigned to the attack squadron later in the year but until then we have other duties including this exercise.

CQ is currently at Solaris Dock taking on final stores before it heads off to join the rest of the deployment on Wednesday. Over the coming weeks and months i will be giving an insight into CQ's missions, and life aboard this great warship. I hope you will appreciate it.