Chapter 2: Haywire Part 1
Admiral Ryan Matthias watched as the planet on the screen grew increasingly larger as they got closer. System 813 - an uncharted, dull area that would serve the purpose of relocation quite nicely. "Class of first planet?"
"C, sir," Cxar replied.
Ryan nodded, as they started for the second planet of the system, the third. As they scanned the fourth planet, BINGO! Class-M. "Take us into orbit," Ryan said. "Any intelligent life?"
"No, sir, none detected," a crewman replied from the science station.
Ryan looked down at his console. The screen blanked for an instant then returned. He ignored it. "Launch a class two probe to double check the planet."
"Aye... Probe launchers are unresponsive."
"Computer, can you explain the cause of the malfunction?" Ryan asked.
The Computer's voice was garbled. "No... sir... I can...not..."
Ryan was surprised. "Computer, respond."
"The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain," the computer replied.
Ryan blinked in confusion. "Matthias to Engineering," No response.
"Communications are down, sir," someone said.
Ryan looked to Meassesa, his first officer, who nodded and proceeded to Engineering. "What the hell is going on?" Ryan asked. "Run a level three diagnostic."
"Unable, sir, systems unresponsive," someone at operations replied.
Ryan rubbed his nose. "Helm?" he questioned.
The helmsman turned and shook her head. "No, sir."
Ryan groaned. All he could do was wait for Meassesa. Ryan cocked his head for a moment, as if he could sense a group of life forms, but shook it off.
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Meassesa entered the turbo-lift and ordered "Main Engineering".
The lift came to life as it propelled itself towards the designated area.
Meassesa leaned against the wall and closed her eyes to concentrate on her husband as she projected telepathically towards him ~I love you.~
The lift halted and the door swooshed open, Meassesa stepped out and half jogged to engineering. She turned her attention to the matter at hand as she entered the largest department of the Chameleon and barked, "Report!"
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"Dr. Tebit, maintenance scans have been completed as ordered and I am proud to announce that everything runs within normal range." Dr. Steve Mark announced as he entered her office and plopped down in a chair in front of her desk.
"Good work, Steve." Niaha replied still looking at the computer terminal in front of her.
Leaning forward, placing elbows on his knees, Steve smiled and whispered, "A herd of Rigellian fleas were treated for warthog syndrome."
"Yes, that's good." again she replied.
"The Crystalline Entity has changed to a fire element." he continued, joking.
"Get back up systems on-line now!" Niaha almost shouted as she bolted
out of her chair.
"What?" Steve asked in pure confusion. Suddenly the lights flickered
and he knew what she meant. Sprinting out of the office, he began
barking orders.
~Ryan, sickbay systems are fluctuating. We're working on bringing
backup systems on-line. I'll keep you posted.~ Niaha projected.
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As the Chameleon remained in orbit, things began to deteriorate even more... Ryan groaned as lights flickered and emergency lights came online.
Neri appeared out of a transporter beam. "Sorry, Admiral, I'm sorry to use the transporters for intraship transport but I didn't trust the turbolifts with the computer acting crazy. If you would like, sir, and I know I can't reach everyone or receive replies as not everyone is telepathic. But I could use my telepathic powers to contact others as needed so we have at least some means of communication with the crew."
"It would help, thank you, Counselor," Ryan said.
Ryan stood, walked around the bridge impatiently as he suddenly had a thought. "I'm surprised the transporters are still..."
"...Functioning properly." He finished his sentence in his ready room, talking to air. "Transporters?" he questioned aloud. Suddenly, he reappeared on the bridge. "The computer's voice recognition programs are picking up words and taking them as commands. If you say trans- the
pads that beam people from location to location, you're beamed to another area. Say it again, return trip. The artificial intelligence capability must be completely offline." Ryan said. ~Meassesa, have Engineering shut down the transporters. And don't say 'Transporters' or 'transport' out loud...~
"Meassesa's shutting down the tr- beamers. Turbolifts are unreliable. We'll have to use jefferies tubes. Activate emergency bulkheads to prevent lift use," Ryan ordered.
Operations tapped the control. "Sorry, sir. Not responding."
Ryan groaned as he walked over to the turbolift, bent down, and pulled off a panel. He found the manual lever, and pulled it. The bulkhead under that lift activated. He groaned. They'd have to do it lift by lift, unless... He removed his personal phaser and shot the panel. The ship
rocked as all emergency bulkheads went into place at once, activating automatically for emergency. To remove them, a whole, long procedure would be required that couldn't be done automatically by the computer.
Ryan said, "Counselor, I think you should try to gather every non-essential officer into the starview lounge on deck six, or in their quarters. We need everyone accounted for. It could take a while, recruit some help... And, when you get to deck two, tell them that they can let Cmdr. Syban out. I need him for this."
"Aye, sir," Neri said.
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Kevvin Mercier, the Chameleon's Chief Attack Group Pilot and Meassesa's husband, nodded. "Right, grab all the data we can get and then shut down the mainframe, we'll take all of this and plot it manually." The pilots let out a collective groan but he shook his head. "It's what we trained for, people. Besides, who ever heard of a pilot who didn't know his own
navigation?"
"A modern one?" James quipped back and they all got a good laugh. He ran his eyes around and counted all of his pilots, save Saerah who was on the
bridge, and 3 Intelligence Officers, including Danyale. It would take
their collective knowledge to organize any sort of detailed flight plan,
now that the computer was compromised and offline.
Kevvin quickly downloaded the information and shut down the terminal access, the holo-screen in the middle of the room going dead. "Okay, Alpha Team, run all of the information you have on the gravitational fields and calculate the adjustments we will have to make to maintain a stable L-5 orbit. James, you and Beta Team will run system-wide diagnostics on the programming for the new Bio components installed from here. Charley team, you'll be split into two groups and assisting the others."
Seeing them move off to do the work, Kevvin tapped his badge. "Bridge, this is Shuttle Bay. All Pilots, plus Lieutenant Danyale, Ensigns Martin Shalk and Brian Tu'Ry, are accounted for."
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As Neri climbed down the Jefferies tube to the next level she wondered why the senior science officer, Commander Syban, had been confined to quarters. Upon reaching Deck Two she recruited ten people to sweep the deck. "I need all of you to make sure that either everyone is in the starview lounge or in their quarters. Then report back to me. To make things easy I will be in Main Engineering. Use the Jefferies tubes to get around."
The crewmen nodded and went on their way making sure everyone was put in either the lounge or their quarters. She made her way to Syban's quarters and nodded to the guards. "The Admiral say he needs Commander Syban on the bridge."
"Yes, Counselor," a guard said.
She then headed down to the next deck and recruited more people to help her secure the crew.
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"Anything?" Tobias Hunter, the science officer who had replaced Syban while he was confided to quarters, asked with a look of bewilderment. He turned and stared at his science team who were attempting to boost the scanners. An officer whom he didn't recognize well turned and shook his head. Tobias's fist hit the terminal. Why? He used the internal scanners to check for signs of damage but they were off-line with the rest of the systems.
"How am I supposed to do anything when the computer can't say what's wrong?"
The frustration in his voice grew and he began to get angry. He spun to the consul behind him and tapped it twice, nothing. "Anything?" He asked.
"It appears you require my services." Syban strolled into the room casually.
Tobias turned and stared at him with a look of confusion. "Nice to have you back. We're in a bit of a mess at the moment." His voice dripped with sarcasm but the Vulcan appeared not to notice. Syban lifted an eyebrow and sauntered over to the secondary science station and tapped a button. A faint 'beep' came across the comm. system. Tobias turned and looked at him.
"What did you do?" Tobias asked while trying to figure out himself. He saw an image on a screen which showed a faint, circular object.
"Sir," a science officer began. "I'm not sure but we are showing signs of being scanned."
"Scanned?" Tobias asked. "There are no signs of advanced technology on the planet when we last spun around it. Where could a scan come from? Check again, Ensign."
"Yes, sir." She said and went back to work.
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~Meassesa, have Engineering shut down the transporters. And don't say 'Transporters' or 'transport' out loud...~ Ryan ordered telepathically.
~Shutting down transporters and telepathically ordering the verbal use of
the words transport and transporters to not be used.~ Meassesa confirmed
the order.
'Now that was the marine side, wonder why that came out?' she thought to
herself and turned her attention to Rollins and Chesic.
~Shut down all transporters and don't use the words transport or
transporter verbally. There may be a chance you'll be beamed off the ship. Have those that cannot receive telepathic communications read this PADD.~ Meassesa ordered, projecting for all throughout the ship to hear.
Meassesa then punched in the order to a PADD and handed it to Chesic.
"Make sure this gets throughout the ship. Have security carry the order
around, beyond this deck. That way I can have you here," she verbally
commanded Chesic.
Taking a brief moment, she focused on her three children and noticed that
they were crying.
~Kevvin, can you send someone to check on our children? The holo-nanny
maybe off-line.~
~Niaha, can you send someone to 5M and meet whoever Kevvin sends to check
on the children?~
'I can send a nurse to tend to them, if you want.' Niaha thought back as she knew her sister could read her thoughts.
~Thank you.~
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Kevvin tapped his combadge again, repeating his report but got nothing.
With the computer down, the communications must also have been disabled. He sighed as he turned and quickly stepped back into the room, making sure everyone was situated and at work. James waved him over.
"Okay, the fluctuations are somewhat stable but taking several hits within any region near the capacitors might interfere with the parlay signals." James showed him the theory, it was written out on a projection board, its screen illuminated by a blue-shade light.
Kevvin's eyes went over it quickly and shook his head, taking the
projection pen and crossed out a full section. "You didn't adjust for the energy outlay circuitry that will, when a spike occurs, immediately reroute the power to sub-capacitors. Here and here..." he drew out the diagrams and did the necessary calculations by hand. With a sigh, he stood back up.
"Run it." James plugged it into the PADD and looked back up. Kevvin
patted the man on the shoulder and turned.
~Shut down all transporters and don't use the words transport or
transporter verbally. There may be a chance you'll be beamed off the ship. Have those that cannot receive telepathic communications read this PADD.~
He looked around to the other people as her voice went through each one's
heads and they all turned around, expecting to see her in the room. He
stifled his laughter as they reacted just like how he had done early on.
Danyale looked at him.
"Is there something funny, sir?"
Kevvin shook his head. "It's nothing. Continue working. We need to come up with some manual projection for..."
~Kevvin, can you send someone to check on our children? The holo-nanny
maybe off-line.~
He stopped in his tracks and internally groaned. With the computer
off-line, there wasn't anyone watching the children. He didn't want to
leave his post, not when the crew needed him the most.
Danyale walked up to him, her smile replaced by a look of concern. "Sir?"
He shook his head and turned to her. "The children...my wife believes they might be needing someone there..."
She nodded immediately. "I'll stay here."
Kevvin nodded. "Thanks." He quickly turned and Amanda tossed him a wrist light and a PADD with the internal schematics of the jefferies tubes he would need to access, along with several manual pads to open the doors.
Strapping it on, he flicked the light and immediately spotted the opening
above him. Several of the male pilots came over and gave him a much-needed boast before he leapt up and grabbed the lower rung.
He quickly began to climb up and access the various tubes that connected to each other. "Meassesa...I'm going there...how about Niaha...?"