Red Alert! (part 1)

Posted on Mon Oct 29th, 2012 @ 2:27pm by Commodore Samantha York & Commander Alexandra Vance & Major Leroy Mangalia & Lieutenant Malcolm Hoffman & Ensign Tallas Shirol
Edited on on Mon Oct 29th, 2012 @ 2:31pm

1,089 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: The Enemy Within: Lying in Wait
Location: Calypso (various)

ON

As Sam approached the bridge she almost bumped into Vance huring the other way. "Commander?"

"Commodore." Vance replied walking past the Commanding Officer.

"Why aren't you on the bridge?"

"My skills are required elsewhere." Vance replied flatly turning from York continuing her way to the transporter room.

Sam stopped and turned, watching Vance walk away. Her skills were needed elsewhere? The woman was odd. Sam wasn't sure she would get used to her peculiarities.

She walked quickly onto the bridge. "Report!" she barked as she took her seat.

"We've lost power, Captain."

She scanned through the departmental reports as she spoke. She'd hoped for a little more information. She already knew they were on emergency power. "What happened?"

"No idea, ma'am."

"Engineering, what's going on?"

"We're not sure" Engineering responded. "We seemed to be locked out of all systems down here, we're trying to break in but so far we've got nothing. All our stations are down and the warp core is offline".

"Captain," the science officer said, turning around. "I can't get into my station."

Sam tried her own access from the Captain's chair, but she, too, was locked out. "Computer, who locked out the bridge stations?"

"Humpty Dumpty."

"Could you repeat that, Computer?"

"Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall."

Tallas tapped at the Intelligence console trying to make sense of what was going on. It was still a mystery to her as to how she ended up on the Calypso and even as the Assistant to the Chief Intelligence Officer, a man she had yet to come in contact with. "Captain, Intelligence is locked out also."

Malcolm stood behind the tactical console trying to help gain access."This is to convenient if you ask me, it sounds like someone is mocking us by locking us out of our computers and then having the computer stay stupid things back to every command. Psychological warfare perhaps? Seems a bit odd coming from those who shall not be mentioned wouldn't you say Commodore?"

Leo looked up from the simulation he had been running before everything had gone pear shaped. Didn't the Engineers know to warn the holidecks before shutting power down? -^- Captain, I've got about ten men with me in the holodeck, what did those Engineers do this time?-^-

Sam pointed to the unfamiliar Intel officer. "You, come with me please." She then turned to Malcolm. "You, too, please."

She automatically reached down to reroute her commands to her work computer, then stopped, shaking her head. "Come on." She led the way quickly to her ready room and pulled out several data rods, inserting them into her personal console. "I have an idea. If it works, I might be able to unlock the controls." She activated several of her programs as she accessed the science database. It was independent of the main computer and could conceivably give her a back door into the ship's computer. "Forgive my bluntness, but what is your name?" she asked the Intel officer.

"Ensign Tallas Shirol, Captain." She got up right away and walked over to her. "Assistant Chief Intelligence Officer. Just transfered over a month ago."

"Sorry we haven't met, Ensign. Welcome."

"Malcolm... May I call your Malcolm?" Sam asked.

"You can call me whatever you like Commodore just don't call me Ferengi." Malcolm said with a slight chuckle.

Sam shook her head, grinning. "Fair enough. And you can call me Sam -- unless we're in a formal setting. If you've read my files, you know I came up through science, so tend to be less formal that most." Fortunately, the admiralty was understanding of that and didn't get on her case too much for her breach of decorum.

"This sort of lockout requires someone with a high enough clearance. The computer has protocols against a Borg incursion," Sam said to the two. "Suggestions on how this happened -- or who may have done it?"

Tallas looked over to get a better view of what the Captain was doing. "I don't know if my clearance is high enough, Ma'am. I just got it. With no questions or explanation." She smiled a bit and then stopped. "I thought it was common for Intel Officers to be so... so secretive."

"Generally, yes," Sam replied. "Lieutenant Wolfe doesn't talk much about what he does all day. But he's quite good at finding information when I need it. He's on the planet, or I'd ask him to look into it himself. So the task now falls to you, Ensign."

"Me?" Tallas questioned as she looked at her and then cleared her throat. She stood up straight and ran a hand through her hair as she leaned in closed to the monitor. "I will do what I can, Captain. I am gonna need to sit down, a few minutes to get familiar with the system, and possibly a Caf-Pow." She smirked as she looked over to Malcolm and then back to Captain York.

Sam nodded to a secondary console in the corner. "Over there. I'll give you the access you need, but I'm afraid you don't have the security level to use my computer." She quickly secured the secondary computer so that the Intel officer could have a look at the locked-out controls."

"Malcolm, are you any good at profiling what type of personality might be behind this?"

"I would say the person or people who set this up are biding their time trying to cause havok and distract us from a different more important issue. They enjoy seeing us struggle and when they have their fill of fun, times up, they'll strike. I wonder if this has a connection that discovery Commodore."

"If it does, then we have a bigger problem than we realized," she replied. "It is more important than ever that we find out who did this."

Sam continued to work slowly around the main computer, looking for a way to slip in and disable the lockout. It took her a good twenty minutes to find one. "Got it."

A moment later, she sat back and grinned. "We're back in."

She tapped on her combadge. "Engineering, get power back up."

"Computer, who locked out computer access?"

"Humpty Dumpty."

Sam sighed. "Looks like we'll have to do this the hard way."

(To be continued...)

Commodore Samantha York
Commanding Officer

Lieutenant Commander Alexandra Vance
Executive Officer

Captain Leroy Mangalia
Marine CO

Lieutenant Malcolm Hoffman
Chief Counselor

Ensign Tallas Shirol
Assistant Chief Science Officer

 

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