Warning. Last chance to be a hero. Get going!

Posted on Jun 05, 2014 @ 7:32am by Cindy Rochemonté
Edited on on Jun 05, 2014 @ 7:40am

Mission: All Our Yesterdays

=/\=
“Warning. Last chance to be a hero. Get going!”
=/\=

Location: USS CENTURY
Stardate: 2.140601.1408
Scene: Corridor -> Main Engineering

“This is so exciting,” Cindy was saying as she moved awkwardly behind the Marines, who were sweeping in a tactical formation in front of her. “This is my first time on one of these! I never got to go off board on any missions on the PATRIOT, but then again, I was the Energy/Matter Specialist, so I was always around the warp core,” she chatted on in nervous excitement. Visible through her face plating, Kass appeared to be gritting her teeth, though Cindy hardly took notice. “We did encounter this being one time who… oh, yeah, I already told you that one,” Cindy giggled anxiously, “So sorry… but that reminds me of another time that we…”

“Lieutenant.” Kass stopped in front of her, and Cindy almost collided with the Marine. Kass was glaring at the Engineer. “Shut. The. Fuck. Up.” The menace in her voice was clear. Cindy was frozen in surprise, and began to open her mouth. Kass stopped her. “I swear to god, I will take this phaser and shove it down your throat if you don’t be quiet. We are in a tactical environment, and that means I’m in charge. So shut your pretty, little mouth, before I shut it for you. Understand?” The Marine let a second of icy silence pass between them, before turning back to follow her compatriots.

Cindy coughed nervously after a second, and followed, careful to be silent. The small band continued their ponderous, jerky movement down the corridor. Now silent, the engineer became more aware of the strenuous effort that the act of walking required, as well as the eerie feeling the empty ship seemed to give.

After a few minutes, they reached a partially open door. Thytos’ marines slowly pried the two halves apart, revealing the cavernous expanse of main engineering. The normally blue core loomed silent and dark before them. No lights except those from their helmets could be scene, and everywhere they pointed revealed a slight layer of dust that would eddy away with each footfall of the team, unbound by gravity and filling the inside of the room with a smoky quality.

Kassandra turned to the Engineer. “Alright, Barbie, we’re here. Do your stuff.”

Cindy stared after her, annoyed. “Barbie?” But the Major was moving off already, directing her subordinates. Annoyed at what she was sure was an insulting expression, she turned…

And let out a scream as she stumbled back awkwardly. Instantly, six pairs of lights snapped in her direction, illuminating the object of her horror. A corpse was suspended in air, drifting like a ghost. There was a beat, and then someone issued a snerk.

Just then, from inside their helmets, the comms came on. [[Stonn to away team. Commander Crichton and I have discovered a human cadaver. It would appear that this ship was not evacuated before it suffered a system failure.]]

“Acknowledged,” Kassandra responded dryly, looking at Cindy in amusement. “Marines, don’t get trigger-happy. Do not engage without leave, repeat, do not engage without leave. Thytos out.” Turning to her marines, she barked out “Back to your positions.”

Cindy was still staring at the dead body, floating there – she could see a clear view of the bloated, purple face. He was a Bajorian man; Cindy could see the ear clip clearly. In life, he had possibly been handsome. His features suggested youth, though it was difficult to tell for sure now. He had died at his post – had he worked to the last second to save the ship?

Cindy continued to gaze in horror at the man, until she felt a nudge at her shoulder. She tore her gaze away to see Kass standing there, eyebrow arched. “Still with me, Tits McGee?”

Cindy was shaking. “He… he’s dead.”

Kassandra glanced at the dead man, and then back to Rochemonte. “First time seeing a dead body, huh?” Cindy merely nodded, mutely. Kass considered Cindy for a moment. “It happens. Get over it,” she finally pronounced. She smacked Cindy’s arm. “You have a job to do. Now hurry up.”

The brusque manner was not enough to comfort Cindy, but it was enough to snap her out of her reverie. Carefully avoiding the body, Cindy made her way behind the warp core, into a back room leading into the main computer core, and laboriously worked the front panel away to expose the ODN circuitry beneath. She thought back to the dead body, and shivered.

She ran her tricorder over the wiring, and ran a basic diagnostic on the ships systems. Slowly, she began to absorb herself in her task. The years of neglect had resulted in a general deterioration of the systems, but Federation technology had an abundance of redundancies and fail-safes. Still, she would need to be careful. She quickly wrote a program that she had created a long time ago, back in the Academy. It was a rather simple program that would reroute power through other venues if a circuit got too hot, essentially performing an automatic bypass to avoid catastrophic failures. She pushed it into the systems still dormant logic buffer, and satisfied that she wouldn’t inadvertently cause damage to the systems, she located emergency power and slowly fed basic systems. In front of her, the circuits began to hum with energy. The ship wasn’t quite on yet, but at least the circuits would have a chance to stretch their legs after such a long rest. She closed her tricorder.

“Rochemonte to Crichton,” Cindy called in.

[[Go ahead, Specs,]] came the familiar voice.

“Well, it will be a bit, but I think that I can bring the Century back online,” she reported.

[[No kidding? Good work, Cindy. ETA?]]

“I don’t want to stress the systems out, so it will be slow, but if you give me an hour or two, I will have life support back online, and we can remove our enviro suits. Another twelve hours, and I’ll have the power fully restored.”

[[Excellent!]] Jake exclaimed. And then, Stonn’s voice came through.

[[Mrs. Rochemonte, prioritize yourself. This is a fact finding mission first of all.]]

Cindy blushed. “Sorry sir, you are right. My preliminary analysis indicates that the systems are degraded but capable of handling the flow of power. Impulse power appears to be undamaged, but I am bringing it online slowly regardless.”

There was silence for a moment. And then Jake’s voice came back in. [[Alrighty Specs. Give us a heads up if you find anything. I’ve got one of the exocomps working again; we’ll see if we can get power restored to the bridge any faster.]]

“Roger… out,” she closed. Once again turning back to the computer core, she opened her tricorder once more and began to scan.

What had caused the systems to have been shut down in the first place? Aside from the degradation, the systems appeared to be intact. There was no evidence of damage or sabotage. Frowning, Cindy began to check the computer core. Perhaps there had been faulty logic? Cindy doubted this, but ran through her mind what she knew about the CENTURY’s computer system.

Century class starships had Mark I computer system that incorporated an experimental behavioral interface program. In theory, the system could eventually achieve self-awareness; in practice, Cindy had not ever heard of one doing so, though many had appeared to come close. Cindy scanned for faulty behavior algorithms. It would be a tedious process, involving examining the way in which the ship interpreted and followed each order that had been given to it. She brought up the last entry.

Her eyes widened in astonishment. “This is Lieutenant Rochemonte; I found something… interesting.”

Commander Stonn’s voice came back. [[Go ahead, Ms. Rochemonte]].

“Sir, this ship did not shut down on accident or through some failure. Someone gave the ship an order.”

There was a long pause. [[Any evidence of who gave the order?]]

Cindy thumbed her tricorder, and twisted her mouth in annoyance. “No sir. That would just give the whole game away, wouldn’t it?”

[[Lieutenant?]] Stonn’s voice seemed to be demanding an explanation.

“Sir, whoever gave the order managed to hide their identity. I can run a few tests and see if I can’t hack my way into an answer…”

[[Ah, are you sure you want to do that?]] Jake’s voice came now, quickly. [[You don’t seem to have good luck with those sorts of things,]] he reminded her.

She smiled. “I’ll be careful. Oh, and one more thing. The fact that somebody deliberately shut down the Century suggests that it was abandoned deliberately. Obviously not by all members of the crew, but somebody. Perhaps Admiral Dupree?”

Another pause. [[A logical conclusion, Lieutenant; however, our data is incomplete,]] Stonn responded.

[[Yeah… and we have already seen one possible Admiral dead,]] Jake interjected.

[[As you suggested, Commander, the man may not have been a real Admiral.]] Stonn paused for a moment, then resumed. [[Lieutenant, keep searching. Maybe the answer lies somewhere within the core.]]

“Aye sir. It will be slow work; the system is degraded, and I’m going to have to bring it online slowly, in sections. I was fortunate to find that last bit because the data was still in the temporary buffer.”

[[Just keep at it Specs. Let us know if you find anything else.]]

Cindy acknowledged and shut down the comms, turning back to her tricorder, and wondering about the growing mystery before her.

=/\=
NRPG: I was going to make this longer, but at the rate Shawn is posting, Jake will have taken all the glory. ;-)

Title is a shameless reference to STV, Season 6, Episode 4: Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy.

=/\=
Christopher B. Del Gesso
As
Lt. Cindy Rochemonte
Assistant Chief Engineering Officer
USS DISCOVERY