Flashing Lights

Posted on Thu Apr 27th, 2023 @ 5:43pm by Ensign Ilan Ocara & Lieutenant Sovas Nyseth & Lieutenant JG Revana Nazar & Lieutenant Johnathan Anderson III & Lieutenant JG Taina M'Tras
Edited on on Sun May 21st, 2023 @ 10:02pm

Mission: S1 Episode 5: Ex Post Facto
Location: Computer Control
Timeline: Date 2371-08-14 at 2100
2286 words - 4.6 OF Standard Post Measure

ON

Computer Control had been a popular area of the ship the past few days, as any engineering officer could attest. Ever since the electromagnetic storm the Fleet had passed through three days before, the Vengeance had been experiencing intermittent power fluctuations and problems with computer response and data processing. Though the situation wasn't critical, one never wanted spotty power and computers in the cold of space. The overt reason they'd stopped at Sikaran station was to celebrate the Emperor's Birthday in style, but the covert reason was to give them more resources in solving this increasingly troubling technical issue.

A task force had been assembled to deal with the issue composed of Johnathan, who was acting XO while Andrei was away, The Chief Operations Officer, a representative from the Science Department, and the Chief and Assistant Chief Engineer. So far, their efforts had gotten them nowhere and had done little more than to annoy them and deflate their confidence. But, as the situation was important, giving up wasn't an option. When the power on the ship dipped suddenly, causing main power to go offline for nearly four minutes, the team was summoned to Computer Control. Ensign Nazar had been the first to arrive, and so she got the briefing from the noncoms and started gathering information while she waited for everyone else.

Johnathan arrived shortly after Nazar started to recieve the briefing. "Report," he said to her as he approached.

Revana turned at the acting XO's entrance. She preferred to wait until the entire team was gathered so she didn't have to repeat herself. At the risk of offending her superior officer, she simply gave him a smile of acknowledgement and hoped he didn't notice her hesitation. Luckily for her, someone else entered the room before she could really respond anyway.

To say she was angry was an understatement. Ilan had been having a perfectly wonderful time at the party and after the party and had very happily taken the opportunity for distraction from this problem that she had somehow been saddled with... only to be interrupted and called to this meeting. Did they even have a science chief anymore? Why was the psychopathic cyborg being allowed to literally not attend to any of her actual duties in favor of running whatever twisted experiments she was up to? They were supposed to be a team and as of late it felt as if everything had fallen squarely on her own shoulders and she hated it.

Normally all smiles and positivity, she entered the room with an annoyed scowl on her face and her arms crossed under her chest.

Revana took note of the look on Ilan's face and offered a sympathetic expression, though not excessively emotive.

"You're sick and tired of this problem to, huh?" she asked, lifting an eyebrow in a cheeky grin, her arms crossed under her ample chest in a way that emphasized them. She'd learned to move long ago, and courting attention was one of her greatest strengths. She also knew how to slip by unnoticed at certain moments, but her skills in that department were much more limited.

Ilan's attention shifted over to Revana and she gave the half-Orion a once over then a smile.

"Gods yes." She said and lifted her shoulders and hands in a shrug. "I was having such a nice time after the party... and then I get called for this. Where is my Chief? Nowhere to be found." She gave a dramatic sigh and pinched the bridge of her nose.

Sovas was stepped into the room and noticed that everyone else had arrived before him, nodding to the Johnathan, Revana and Ilan were already there as he held a PADD in hand that continued the maintenance reports along with the list of supplies that would be needed in order to rectify the damage done to the ship and its systems if the issue persisted. Short term it was certainly manageable, though long term changed that since if it began to impact other more delicate or necessary systems, it would become rather costly. He nodded to Johnathan and gave both Ilan and Revana a slight smile with his nod but he didn't focus too much on them as he instead moved over to the replicator to see if he could get a cup of mint tea with a dash of honey for sweetness.

Everyone had not arrived before Sovas. Taina arrived a few seconds behind him. She nodded to those assembled and looked about to speak but Johnathan did first.

While he was a bit annoyed that he had to repeat himself, Johnathan did not let it show on his face or in his voice. "Now that we all are here, report."

"Gladly." Revana said in a voice which gave very little away. "Another power fluctuation knocked main power offline for four minutes. Obviously that's the reason we're all here. The Engineer's Mate has been working very closely with the Computer Systems team to get to the bottom of this problem, as she comes from that particular branch. She's offered to be a sounding board for all of our questions."

A moderately tall caramel skinned woman of considerable beauty approached. Her eyes were soft, but she had a reputation for being quite the opposite of that.

"Chief Petty Officer Nairobi Ellis, for those of you who don't know." she said, not seeming particularly interested in the interaction. Still, she had an air of professionalism and focus which made her seem exceptionally competent and equally tough. "I'm the one who has been wrangling cats down here. As you can see, its not exactly going well, but I can answer any questions you have."

Johnathan spoke first. "How do we get on top of these failing systems, keep them from continuing to crash?"

"That's the question, sir." she said, her face neutral but her tone signifying she thought less of the question. "Our team has been working on this issue night and day, searching software and hardware, going through code line by line, and we haven't found anything that could cause this mess. I'm recommending a reset of our power and computing systems tomorrow. I'm hoping the readings we get during the reset will tell us something we need to know."

"One of the biggest problems we are having right now is there seems to be no discernible rhyme or reason to the fluctuations in timing or where they are happening, so it is hard to figure out how to prevent them effectively. The reset is definitely our best bet for it in my opinion as well. If the fluctuations do continue to happen, it will at least give us a solid starting point that we can detect and work from." Ilan supplied, supporting Nairobi's idea and offering more explanation to their acting XO.

"Another problem being caused by the fluctuations is the impact on our supplies," Sovas spoke up, playing with the PADD he had in hand, his attention on Johnathan for the moment. "We've burned through a quarter of our replacement parts for the various impacted systems; some are easy to replicate and replace, and others require non-replicable materials which have to be bartered for or purchased with construction requiring time spent in the machine shop."

"A more concerning matter that I feel should be addressed is the decalithium and red matter storage modules we have on the ship," The half-Vulcan continued as he looked around to those gathered at the table, setting his PADD down finally. "Given the catastrophic consequences of a containment failure with those modules, I've dedicated adequate emergency backups to keep the containment running uninterrupted should our issues impact those systems."

"I support the idea of a system reset, it would allow us to have a better chance of pinpointing the source of the malfunctions and resolving it."

"Well, if everyone is onboard, we can begin the shutdown process within the hour. Chief Ellis spoke with the Chief and she is onboard as well." Revana said, her green hand on her hip.

"Be advised that the shutdown and restart process will cripple the ship for a matter of hours, leaving us unable to act. The station is a safe place it seems, but the other ships will have to defend us in a pinch." Nairobi said, sounding more like an officer in tone than an enlisted.

"Hold on," Johnathan spoke up, a tone of authority in his voice as he addressed the group. "While I certainly appreciate everyone's energy in fix this situation, nothing is going to happen without the Captain's approval. So, As each of you has a differing angle of knowledge regarding this crisis, once we are all in agreement with a working plan, I will take it to the Captain, so he can make an informed decision."

Ilan blinked from where she sat, confused. The group was simply talking and working through the problem and they were, in fact, all in agreement at the moment about the issue of the power fluctuations except for Taina who had yet to give any input. She realized then maybe he just wasn’t used to these types of meetings, he was young after all, and pilots generally didn’t put too much brain power into the inner workings of something like this, in her experience. She looked over to Sovas. “You could also set up a completely external power source as a fail safe.”

"It never hurts to have multiple redundancies, it is what I have my people working with engineering to set up and the storage systems do have limited backups but they are a power-hungry system and will require more." Sovas looked to Ilan and nodded, his attention flickering briefly to Johnathan as he spoke of making an informed recommendation to the captain, he seemed to be doing his best. Still, the half-Vulcan wondered if he might be out of his depth a little.

Taina had been perfectly content to let Chief Ellis speak in her area of expertise. "I think we are all in agreement on a recommendation," she said to Jonathan.

Johnathan nodded to Taina. Of everyone present, he had found the CEO the easiest to work with. Granted, he was no engineer, however, the Captain had placed him in command of the group, so he would lead them. That, or they would go into the booths for disrespecting both a senior officer, and the Second Officer of the ship. "I want you two," he looked at Revana and Ilan, "to determine the best course of action, should the reset not work. Sovas," he turned his gaze to the Vulcan. "As you are more familiar with the containment systems for the decalithium and red matter storage, I want you to come up with another backup statement to ensure they remain as neutral as possible. Taina," he next addressed the CEO. "I need you to walk me through all of this, so I can better inform the Captain of the plan."

Sovas quirked an eyebrow at the pilot as he handed out the assignments; Operations was a bit of a nebulous department since unlike Engineering or Science their specific role wasn't as well defined. They of course oversaw and maintained the supplies for the ship. Still, they were able to handle the duties of both departments, admittedly not as well as a dedicated Engineer or Science officer. "Of course Lieutenant, I'll coordinate with engineering as well to make sure there are any systems specialists on hand should we encounter any issues."

Taina nodded. "The basic idea is that we restart the entire ship's systems. That will take us out of commission for several hours while all the systems reboot. However, there is a chance of resolving some or all of our issues by doing so. Right now, we can't isolate concrete hardware issues and our energy problems are fluctuating fairly erratically. It might be that none of the problems are yet in the ship's core programming or in any hardware system. Hopefully. If there is a deeper problem, however, it'll still be easier to isolate and address with a restart. We do need to make sure that during a restart those containment systems keep power. I can go over the technical details with you." She stepped towards the Second Officer.

"Please," Johnathan replied politely. He was not arrogant enough to act like he knew everything. Even with his memory being as it was. If he wasn't exposed to something, he still would not know about it.

Ilan looked between Taina and Johnathan and spoke up. "So, should the rest of us get to work, sir?"

Johnathan looked over at Ilan and nodded. "Yes, Warrant Officer. The sooner the jobs are finished, the better."

"Wonderful. Shall we, then?" Ilan looked to Revana with a smile as she stood, obviously eager to get the hell out of there.

Revana flashed Ilan a covert smile, full of intrigue and barely restrained flirtatious energy. It communicated enough without giving anything away. Despite everything, she was certainly her father's daughter.

"We shall." she said, and fell into step with Ilan, her hips swaying side to side in a curvaceous display.

For Sovas, he was distracted a moment by the sight of both Ilan and Revana sauntering away together and silently pondered whether the two women together would be a slice of heaven or potentially suffering hellish torment in a much less enjoyable fashion. A shake of his head had him looking to Johnathan as he gave the man a nod before taking his leave while the little thought bunnies danced in his head about the possibilities of the two women together.

OFF