Rommie's Flaw (comic)
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Trance watched from the door to her quarters as Rommie walked past her down the corridor shutting off lights in all the unoccupied rooms as she went. There were a lot of lights on in empty rooms. Rommie seemed to be muttering to herself, becoming more and more agitated as she went. Trance thought that she should mention this strange behavior to Dylan the next time she saw him, but she was in a hurry to get to Hydroponics to water her pretty new plants. She left the lights on in her quarters.
After Rommie went back down the same hall and discovered Trance's lights on she and her hologram self had a conference. Two hours later Rommie forcibly assembled her small crew for an important meeting. Once everyone finally showed up Holo-Rommie made the announcement, "Recently I've become aware that the ships systems are not running as efficiently as they could due to an unacceptable power drain. This power drain is attributable to the use of lighting and other systems in vacant areas. This must stop immediately."
Everyone looked blankly at the hologram. Rommie stepped in, "We mean stop leaving the damn lights on when you leave the room. I don't think one of you has ever turned the lights off when you left an area. You are using almost as much power as my original 4000 member crew! It's ridiculous! It's wearing out my systems, so stop it now!"
The captain wanted to take control of the situation and soothe his irritated AI, but he was a little off balance. He had never been scolded by his own ship before. "Ahh, sorry Andromeda, I had no idea it was such a widespread problem. Afterall, in the old days there were almost never 'vacant areas'. We'll try to be more responsible about turning off unnecessary systems."
Harper, with his usual poor timing chose to chime in, "Yeah, you all do that. You're wearing me out trying to replace wiring constantly. Of course Rommie I'm always at your service, just let me know if you need anything, anything at owwwww!"
"Shut up Harper, you're as bad as everyone else, always having me turn on the lights in every single conduit anytime you do work in one of them and then not telling me when you're done." Harper did shut up, with some effort, while he sat rubbing the back of his head.
Holo-Rommie decided her avatar could take care of matters from here and winked out. Rommie had a final pronouncement to make, "If I don't see drastically reduced power usage there will be repercussions."
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For a little while things got better, but inevitably the crew started to backslide. Not even a month later Rommie found herself walking down the corridor again, shutting of lights, seeing Trance run past her, and then turning a corner to find the lights in the girl's quarters on. She clenched her fists. Enough was enough. Her hologram self appeared in front of her, fritzing in and out looking even less substantial than usual.
"I agree …..pletely. Beka is using my munitions ….systems to …. the Maru's weapons, as well as recharging her ships systems ……..direct power drain from my reserves. I could cope ….this, except Harper is currently running an exper…………great power requirements …….purposefully …… power to my hologram ….. systems, as well as others. ….. did it on purpose …….. wouldn't be able to interfere …... And I couldn't stop ……. Dylan gave him the …… codes, without even asking me!"
The entire ship, AI, hologram, and avatar was angry now. It's not a good idea to make a warship angry.
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"I'm sorry everyone, I didn't mean to go crazy like that."
Rommie began her apology/explanation as soon as her entire crew had managed to limp into the conference room much later. And it was true, no one part of her had wanted things to go as far as they had, but when all of their actions were combined together the results were a little extreme. She tried to explain step-by-step how things went so far.
"Well, first the AI shutdown all power to nonessential systems. Which means that you all had life support and minimum lights on the Command deck and absolutely nothing else. Then the ship went into diagnostic mode, so that no one, not even Harper or the Captain and his command codes, could turn the power back on. Think of it as the ship taking a very short impromptu vacation."
Beka moaned quietly and put her hand up gently to her well bandaged nose. Absolutely no other power. That explained why when the lights went off and she sprinted out of her quarters she had run face first into the very solid door. Trance had set her nose once all the commotion was over, but Beka couldn't even bear to look in the mirror yet.
"Before the central processor went into hibernation my hologram gave a command to all of the maintenance bots, which have emergency batteries like my own. Unfortunately she wasn't very specific about parameters or limits. All she told them was 'Stop anyone from trying to turn on or use anything requiring power'. Sorry Harper, she should have given limits about the amount of force to use in carrying out the command."
Rommie looked over at Harper who stared back at her, blinked once and said "Mommy?" He had been calling everyone and everything mommy since taking not only his own high dose of painkillers but also Beka's. She didn't mind, as she refused to take them herself, but Trance was a little worried. She had already given him a much higher dose than normal, since he had broken his ankle, cracked some ribs, and dislocated his shoulder after falling through the ladder hole between two decks as the maintenance bots chased him out of the machine shop.
Rommie turned to Trance and Dylan last. The scene kept playing over and over again in her mind. She had been crawling through some of the smaller conduits searching the ship for various machines that caused excessive power drain, mostly Harper's unnecessary toys. What she hadn't expected was to find Trance also crawling through the same conduits, trying to hide from whatever enemy had shutdown the Andromeda. Seeing a disheveled, and according to Trance, wild-eyed Rommie carrying a rather scary collection of possible weapons she had screamed and scuttled away, her exceptional guessing ability leading her straight to the captain. The captain was in one of the larger conduits trying to access Andromeda's systems and regain control of the ship from the imaginary enemies. Dylan saw Trance fleeing Rommie, and got between the two of them and grabbed at the contraptions in her hand. Before Rommie could explain what was happening several of the maintenance bots sweeping the ship found them, swept passed Trance and tackled the two people apparently trying to used power based technology. With unusual bad timing the main AI chose this moment to come out of hibernation and seek out her avatar. What she found was a squirming pile of Dylan, Rommie, and bots. Rommie then discovered the main AI had a wicked sense of humor, as it sent to her the image of what the scene looked like to someone who had just come into the room. She had tried to explain then, but once the captain understood that they had not been invaded and that all systems would soon return to normal he told her it could wait until they were all together. Trance had given Rommie the most incredulous look before heading to the med deck. Dylan followed her, and told Rommie to wait in the conference room until they could all join her.
"I'm very sorry captain, I had no idea what the AI and holo program were going to do. We don't always communicate very well when we are angry. I… I really don't know what else to say."
Dylan looked straight at Rommie. He knew he should punish her and the rest of the ship for what was in essence a mutiny, but it was hard to be angry at her when she was so justifiably angry at them. "Why don't we just put this behind us?. We'll all try again to be more careful about power consumption, but if we start slipping, tell us, don't let it build up to this point. Ok Rommie, Andromeda?"
Holo-Rommie appeared next to Rommie. "Yes Captain" they answered in unison.
"Trance?"
"Yes Captain."
"Beka?"
Beka was still preoccupied with her nose and took a moment to answer. "Yah, I guess we can do dat."
"Harper?"
Harper took a moment to locate the sound of the voice. He finally swung his head around to face Dylan, and looking him straight in the eye answered "Mommy?"
Dylan raised his eyebrow, "Well, I'm going to take that as a yes for now. I'm sure he's learned his lesson about angering the ship. Now why don't we all get some rest."
As they filed out Beka turned to Rommie with an accusatory look, "But Wommie, why did dou haf to cut da power to da food fweezing syzdem? All my ice cweam melded!"