The being looked a bit like a deformed octopus to Joe. The similarity was purely superficial, just a trick of the human mind to categorize things into something it could understand. No sensory organs could be seen, centered on the body was what looked like a mouth, the rest of the outside was unremarkable to Joe. The overlay of the internal organs looked very interesting but that still wasn't telling Joe very much. Before the current graphic, the screen had shown two which had been indistinguishable to Joe, that fused into the current one.
"As you can see, the two organic bodies are basically identical. There are some individual differences, just like between two humans." The screen behind Dr. Schmitz marked different organs in colors with a small denominator next to them. "There was of course the difficulty of damage due to explosive decompression, but the computer was able to superimpose both bodies into one. We have identified most of the organs, pretty much what you would expect but for two." The screen showed two cutouts of two very distinct organs. "Unfortunately these organs have been badly damaged in both bodies so we where unable to identify their purpose." The screen blanked for a moment.
"Now. For the other body." The screen showed a very similar schematic as before. Through the whole body different colors showed biological organs and technological mechanisms.
"As you can see this appears to be a bio-mechanoid, or a cyborg if you will." Dr. Schmitz beamed at his own joke. "We're still very much divided on whether this was a living being that was augmented with technology, a robot with organs grafted to it or something else entirely. The technology is far beyond anything we have seen so far, be it earth or out here."
Joe looked around, the mess was packed with people, crew and scientists alike. That had been a proposal by someone from the science team in order to be more transparent and share their findings with everybody onboard. It would also help pass the uneventful time the ship was at high warp between destinations. Additionally it would stop random crewmen from distracting the scientists with questions, at least that was the idea.
Joe focused on the questions from the audience and the discussions breaking out all over the audience, it felt quite refreshing.
After some time the official part, as much as there was, of the presentation had ended and the audience broke down into smaller groups discussing among them.
The groups where mixes of crew and scientists who eagerly discussed among them. Joe quickly got swept up in the discussion, although she had little to contribute besides wild speculations.
Joe barely managed to be on time for her shift at the helm thanks to the lively discussion she was engaged in just a couple of minutes earlier. After a quick handover she took her station at the helm and checked it. As expected there was nothing of concern displayed by the long range scanners. The ship was still on course, cruising at a stable speed still mind-boggling fast to Joe.
With the necessary steps done and nothing much to do, Joe settled down with her pad. Casually paging through the reports of the current findings she opened the one that had caught her interest from the beginning.
The report detailed the schematics of the small ship found so long ago at an abandoned moon. The report guessed at the ship being a short-range interceptor from it's configuration. What was still unclear was the propulsion system. It seemed to be based on a powerful gravity generator. In theory it could be capable of FTL-travel, but the scientists had yet to reach a conclusion on it. Apparently computer simulations only get you so far if much of the underlying technology is unknown. Which made some sense to Joe but still surprised her to a certain degree. Physical principals are universal, therefore it should be feasible to deduct the function of any given device. They managed to do that for most of the components on the ship. Most of them where similar enough in design that their function and purpose could easily be deducted. The drive appeared to be simply too complicated to do so. Well, Joe thought, lets have a look.
She spent the remainder of her shift scanning through the report, trying to figure out the drive for herself. Occasionally she checked her console for anything on the long range scanners, but there was nothing but empty space between the ship and it's destination as far as the scanners could see.
She got so far as using the computer simulation created by the scientists to try and compare it to the drive the Hermes used but didn't get very far. The design was simply too different, even if the basic principle was supposedly the same.
After her shift Joe went to the cafeteria for a quick snack. The cafeteria had been completely cleaned up after the presentation with no hint of it remaining. She sat down munching on a sandwich trying to identify the unusual component of it. Could only be something they brought up from the last planet. The taste was different than that of the tomato it had replaced. More flavorful and intense. At the same time it was more mushy and less firm than a tomato. All in all a good combination.
With her snack finished Joe quickly changed into her workout clothes and headed for the gym. Although it was just after her shift had ended there was only one other occupant in the gym and he was just finishing up. Joe started her warm up routine and waved good bye to him on his way out. She had the gym to herself, just like she prepared. After her warm up she decided on the treadmill and started into a slow paced jog with which she spent the next twenty minutes slowly increasing her speed.
After Joe was done jogging she went over to the bench and set up her weights. As she was alone without a spotter she decided on a lower weight which she could easily handle by herself. She had just started when she heard the door opening. Not pausing in her exercise Joe ignored the newcomer and focused on lifting. When an unexpected head popped up in her view she was quite a bit surprised.
"Pet'l, I haven't seen you here before." She said, setting down her bar.
"Ms. 9, correct. I don't require exercise to maintain my physical fitness." He answered in his usual detached voice.
"Interesting." Joe sat up. "What brings you here then?" Joe got up and added two more small weights to the bar.
He hesitated a bit. "You." he said.
"Me? What can I do for you?" She got back down on the bench and grabbed the bar and lifted it.
"I do have some questions that I would like you to answer."
"Ok, what do you need?" Joe said after lowering and lifting the bar once.
"I do have some questions regarding human behavior."
"Human behavior? I'm not sure I'm the most qualified person to answer that. I can try."
She did a few repetitions without him saying anything.
"It does concern human activities that I'm unfamiliar with." he said.
"Like what? It would help if you could state your question." Joe said.
"I have overheard something puzzling. Several weeks ago you tied up Dr. Halas and locked him out of your quarters. Was this some kind of courting ritual?" Pet'l said in an even voice.
Joe barely managed to place the bar back on the rack. She got up and turned towards Pet'l. Trying to buy some time she reached for her canteen to drink some water. Carefully closing it she spoke. "Courting ritual? What gave you this impression?"
"You both have been observed interacting outside of your duties several times. The late time of the day of the event also indicates that this was something humans would consider a 'Date', I believe is the correct term."
Joe considered his response. Her and Rick dating? She smiled.
"That is something very personal that I'd rather not discuss with someone I'm not comfortable with. I hope you understand."
"Of course. Apologies if my line of inquiry was improper. My people don't engage in these kind of activities. I was merely trying to understand the behavior of my human colleagues better."
"Don't worry. Your question caught me a bit off guard, that is all. I'd be happy to answer questions that are less personal if that would help you."
"That would be appreciated. Shall we meet at a more appropriate time and setting to continue this discussion?"
"We have a date then." Joe answered, smiling at the slightly puzzled look on his face.
Joe returned to her workout as Pet'l made his way out of the gym.
Having overslept a bit Joe barely managed to gulp down a coffee before showing up for her shift on the bridge. She quickly took over her console and checked all the settings and readouts. The ship was still firmly on course and underway at a steady pace. Joe checked the long range scanners. After they showed nothing in range that would be of interest or could potentially harm the ship Joe relaxed. She opened the automatic log of the last two shifts and scanned it. At first all seemed normal but something was bugging her at the edge of her mind.
She again scanned the log, this time more careful and thorough. The entries looked completely routine and mundane, but there was one that was not.
Having peeked her curiosity Joe opened the entry. After reading it she searched for more. A couple minutes later she called the Captain.
It took the Captain almost twenty minutes to arrive at the bridge. Giving the closeness of her quarters, basically next to the bridge, that was quite impressive, Joe thought.
"Alright, what have we got?" The Captain asked, not bothering to sit down in the central seat.
"Sorry for the interruption, Captain, but I think you should see this." Joe said. She toggled a control on her console and displayed a number of log entries on the central view screen.
"I found some suspicious entries while scanning the logs of the last shifts. I found these." Several of the entries where highlighted.
"What are these?" The Captain asked.
"These entries show changes in the FTL-performance. According to them our speed increased several times over the last 48 hours. We are now underway at a speed of Warp 4.53." Joe said.
"Ok, how is that suspicious?" The Captain asked. "Could be a number of reasons, software glitches, a sensor malfunction."
"I have already ruled out several of these. According to my analysis the increase comes from a change in the configuration of the Warp core." Joe said.
The Captain frowned. "I know nothing of this, hold on." She sat down in the central seat.
"Bridge to Engineering." She toggled the intercom.
"Engineering." Sunblast's voice answered back.
"According to our data up here we have increased speed over the last two days due to changes in the warp core configuration. Why was I not informed?" The Captain asked with an even voice that almost managed to hide her anger.
"Sorry? I'm not aware of any changes to the core. I'll look into it. Out." The connection was cut before the Captain could reply.
"According to our analysis the performance of the core has increased by 8 percent over the last two days. We're still analyzing the changes. It seems to be a fine-tuning of the injector matrix." Sunblast reported to the small audience of the Captain and Joe, all standing in front of a display showing the schematics of the core in engineering.
"Who made these changes?" The Captain asked.
"According to the logs, no one." Sunblast responded. "I've checked the scanner logs and spoke with the on-duty personal for the time periods in question. No one was even near the controls besides a routine status check that was outside the time frames where the changes where made."
"That is more than just strange." The Captain said.
"It doesn't end there. Once we knew what to look for we found more." Sunblast stated.
"More?" The Captain asked.
Sunblast put in a command and the display changed to a schematic of the Hermes with several systems highlighted.
"We found an small but noticeable increase in performance in several systems all over the ship. We're still investigating but so far no one can explain who or what changed any of the configurations." Shock and curiosity battled in the face of the Captain.
"No alarm was triggered?" Joe asked.
"That is even more curious. Together with the parameters of these system the monitoring thresholds where also altered. We presume to hide these manipulations."
"But who would do something like this and why?" The Captain asked.
"I have no idea. Fact is that the overall performance of the ship was increased by 5 percent with no side effects that we can identify. I'd say that is a good thing." Sunblast answered.
"But whoever did that was able to manipulate core systems without triggering any alert, that is worrying." Joe said.
"Indeed. The life support system is also affected. The oxygen generators are working more smoothly than ever before." They all exchanged worried looks.
"We need to get on top of this. Whoever did that could have easily just killed us all, that is unacceptable." The Captain stated.
"Agreed. We'll find out what is going on." Sunblast answered.
"Good, this stays between us for now. We're far too out in deep space for us not to trust in our systems. This could easily spread a panic. If you need help from anyone else, you come to me first. Ms. 9 is as off now assisting you with this investigation as she already knows what is going on." The Captain commanded in a rare display of decisiveness.
Joe was tired. She had had barely any sleep in the last two days as she was desperately trying to figure out how key systems of the ship had been modified without anyone noticing anything. She had managed to rule out dozens of different possibilities. At this point she was fairly confident that the culprit was not a crew member of any kind. The detail of knowledge displayed was just way to extensive for any one person to posses. The crew had the knowledge to pull this off, but why would they hide some brilliant modifications that would certainly be put into production of the next Hermes class ships being build. That put a lot more weight on the effort Sumblast and herself had undertaken most of the day.
Signing she got up from her desk and headed to the cafeteria for a much needed coffee.
She was surprised to find the cafeteria empty with the lights dimmed. After checking the time it made a lot of sense as it was the middle of the ship's night with most of the crew asleep and only a skeleton crew many the bare minimum of stations.
She dialed herself a strong coffee and waited for the machine to warm up. It only took about a minute and she held a steaming mug of black coffee.
Savoring the smell Joe strolled along the selection of foods left out for the hungry. Due to the late hour the selection was limited and she didn't find anything appetizing to her.
She took a sip of the hot coffee and enjoyed the flavor with a smile. The coffee was slowly getting good she thought.
Realizing how tired she was Joe drank her coffee and headed back to her quarters to get some rest. She did not realize that she was constantly being monitored, just like every other living being on board.
As Joe entered engineering she was looking for Sunblast who was not in his customary spot. The tiny and cramped nook he called his office was even more cluttered than normal but the engineer was nowhere to be seen. She asked around and was directed to a auxiliary workstation tucked away in a maintenance bay adjunct to main engineering.
She made her way through the hot and cramped engineering into a small side room that was larger than Sunblast's office but not much more spacious. The engineer was sitting at a workbench seemingly lost in the analysis of it's readout.
Joe approached carefully as he had his back turned to her. She knocked on the wall to get his attention. He jumped a bit and turned around. Judging by the bags under his eyes he had not gotten more sleep in the last days than Joe had.
"Good morning, Sir. Coffee?" Joe asked.
Dunblast blinked once, seemingly lost. After a moment he came to life and reached for the coffee.
"Thanks Ensign." He drank half of the cup without any pause. "That is exactly what I need." He said after a pause.
"I thought so. Any luck so far?"
"I think so, have a look." He said.
"This is gonna be tricky." He said with a tired voice.
Joe managed to be on time for the briefing. Entering last she closed the door behind her as the Captain and Sunblast where already seated.
The Captain acknowledged her arrival and turned to Sunblast.
"Mr. Sunblast. You have news?" She asked.
"Yes Captain. While Ms. 9 focused on what skills where needed to modify our system without drawing any attention I focused on the methods being used. At first I was unable to find any hint at all. That was when we both decided to try something different. We selected an uncritical system and implemented an update in it. I was planning to update the waste processing system for some time now but had yet to get around to it. Following Ms. 9's suggestion I left a small bug in the system, that I had originally fixed already. Nothing big, don't worry. The system would work flawlessly but at a reduced capacity. Then I set up several sniffers to see what would happen.
This morning we got lucky. The bug was identified and fixed. I managed to trace the access to the system this time."
He manipulated his pad and the view screen changed to show a schematic.
"This is memory bank alpha 4, it houses the data we received from the station. At first glance this is just data and nothing out of the ordinary." The schematics changes again, overlaying different colors over it.
"There is a lot of activity in the secondary computer core. There should only be a minimal amount necessary to keep the ship running. It is accessing bank alpha 4." Sunblast explained.
"What is this activity?" The Captain asked.
The image displayed on the view screen changed again. The technical schematics where replaced by a rudimentary image of a human-like face.
"Hello." A voice came from the speaker below the screen.
"Please do not be alarmed. I don't mean you any harm." It said.
The people in the room where too shocked to react in any way.
"Explain yourself. How did you get on my ship?" The Captain demanded, being the first to recover.
"I am a fugitive from Sonsar, I escaped using a data dump to your ship. I don't mean you any harm."
"A fugitive?" Sunblast asked.
Please keep in mind that I'm neither a professional author nor an English native.
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