Computer Core

Posted on Sat Jan 16th, 2016 @ 4:00am by Lieutenant Commander Jean Reynard & Lieutenant Ryan North
Edited on on Sun Jan 17th, 2016 @ 5:34pm

Episode: Lost Property
Location: De Salle, D-Deck, Computer Core
Timeline: MD02 0950hrs

Given the state of the sensor logs, Ryan had a feeling this wouldn't be as easy as getting the servers back up and running. They really could have used one of their operations officers over here. He tapped a few more display keys and then tried to start another one of the ships server files. The screen beeped at him several times in rapid succession.

"I have no idea what that means," Ryan muttered. "Lt. North to Highlander, do you copy?"

"This is Lt. Reynard," Jean replied, thrilled to finally have a chance to hear what was going on aboard the other ship. "What can I do for you?"

"We managed to get a name out of the computer banks, the De Salle, NX-10. Can you run it through our databanks and see if you can come up with something?" Ryan asked.

"Got it. Just a moment." Jean already had a list of unaccounted-for NX starships ready to go and a few keystrokes brought it up. "Yeah, here we go. It fits the physical configuration. DeSalle was listed as missing, presumed lost during the Romulan War. The most likely suspect is a Romulan minefield later located along their route, but no wreckage was ever located even after the war. The historical records the Romulans released during the Dominion War don't account for it either."

"That is odd," Ryan responded. "Anything at all about her last mission?"

"Nothing that seems particularly useful," Jean said, scrolling back chronologically from the most recent entry. "They were heading out on a scouting mission and running silent to avoid detection. I don't see anything in the records that would indicate any kind of maintenance issues that might have popped up. Have you found the logs yet?"

"Not yet," Ryan said. "This interface is a little.... crude."

"Crude? Honestly, take away the flexible interface and voice commands, and people act like they're being forced to use punch cards. It's more likely to be a problem with the hardware than the interface anyway. It wasn't exactly stored in ideal conditions."

"Keep your pants on," Ryan said. "I'm trying to reboot the secondary systems, that might give us access to the logs."

"Take your time. I'm not the one on a mysterious ghost ship."

"There we go," Ryan stated. More of the servers came to life and several more of the interior lights popped on as well. He hoped that they were having better luck in engineering that he was up here. Punched in a few more commands and the screen shifted, showing him a new view of the file directory system.

"I think I got it," Ryan reported. "Pulling them up now, so far it doesn't look like they reported any damage or systems issues."

"That's interesting. So either no one had the time or a reason to log any problems," Jean said. "Or at least no person did. Check the automated life support records. See if there's any sudden changes in oxygen consumption or CO2 reclamation."

"That's a bit more of a mess," Ryan stated. "There are a lot of damaged files here, which is weird because it looks like the operating system is mostly intact."

"This close to a protonebula, could be ion-decay in the storage media but not the hard-protected OS..." Jean muttered, mostly to himself.

"I'm just telling you what it looks like," Ryan said, over the open com channel. "Hang on a second."

"Hanging."

"The environmental systems don't show any toxins, but the oxygen use did drop suddenly," Ryan remarked. "What's more disturbing to me is the fact the haven't come across any bodies. According to the manifest, all of the escape pods are intact."

"No oxygen use means no breathing, but then where did the crew go? Beamed out, vaporized, evolved into beings of pure energy? Shoved into the protein recyclers?" Jean was morbidly aware that Starfleet had run into all of the above at one point or another.

"I have no idea," Ryan responded. "Hang on, found the engineer's log. Looks like he reported they were having problems with their secondary power systems, then main power started acting up."

"Could you be more specific?"

"He's using a lot of colorful metaphors to describe his feelings about the situation but not much else," Ryan added. "At least he isn't mentioning anything specific. From the looks it looks like main power eventually failed and then... nothing."

"What do you mean, nothing?" Jean asked with a sigh.

"I mean nothing," Ryan frowned. "As in nothing at all. There are no more engineering logs, hell there aren't any more logs of any kind."

Jean rubbed his forehead. This was rapidly heading in the same frustrating direction that this sort of remote technical conversation often did. While Ryan was certainly a fine scientist, that didn't necessarily translate into being able to catch the same sort of subtle cues an engineer or technician might. "Tell you what, I am going to walk you through using your tricorder to to let me read the logs remotely. Pull up the command prompt."


"I tried that," Ryan snapped. "I'm not an idiot, I am telling you the logs stop. As in they just cease to exist. Like the crew didn't even bother recording any more of them."

The comm channel joining the away team came to life with the captain's voice, sounding more serious than he had since Ryan had joined the ship. "Williams to North. We've found.... some remains of the crew. Don't touch anything that you haven't already and hold position there until you're told otherwise."

From the sound of things, 'peacefully transcended into a state of higher existence' was now off the table. Jean said, On second thought, let's just dump your tricorder readings to my computer and leave the ship alone."

"I'll do what I can but there isn't anything there," Ryan said, plugging a lead into the tricorder. "Alright, getting all the information right now."

"See why there's nothing could be as useful as see what is there," Jean told him, checking over the data stream and routing it to a secure virtual drive on the main computer, isolated just in case this was some ancient Romulan computer virus at work. "Okay, good at this end."

"Understood sir."

OFF:

Lt. Jean Reynard
Chief Operations Officer

Lt. JG Ryan North
Chief Science Officer