Power-less

Posted on Thu Jun 4th, 2015 @ 12:49am by Crewman E.M.H. Galen

774 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: Deadly Diplomacy
Location: USS Calypso, Holo-Core
Timeline: Current, during the blackout

ON

Galen had been cataloging samples when the power suddenly went off. She experienced a sudden jar where all external input abruptly ceased and she immediately found herself confined to the Holo-Core.

It was not unusual for her to be there. When her services were not required, and so for all intents and purposes she was ‘off-line’, Galen remained active in the Core. From there she could update her knowledge or review pertinent medical files through connections to the ship’s main computer. If required, she could even contact Starfleet Medical and access their database.

While in development, she had been cut-off from the station’s systems once as a test. The suddenness had taken her a little off-guard, but otherwise she had not been bothered by it. Also when Greg had prepared her for transport, all her connections to the station had been severed. For several hours she had been confined to the Core without any external input. However since she had been anticipating it, she had not felt restricted.

However this was like those times at all. Now she was on active duty aboard a fully-manned Federation starship. She had been given a great responsibility to assist in the care of the crew should an emergency situation arise, and this likely qualified.

But there was no input of any kind from the USS Calypso, and there should have been.

Galen ran a diagnostic on the Holo-Core. All functions where normal. External power was either off-line or had been removed...

Immediately she ran an external integrity diagnostic. All physical connections to the USS Calypso remained intact. No abnormal temperatures were detected.

Still, there was no input from the USS Calypso.

Perhaps the main power off-line. No that could not be it. If it was only the power, the emergency backups would have compensated. There were redundancies inside redundancies, none of which seemed to be working.

Confused and with a rising sense of disquiet, Galen ran every diagnostic. Then ran them again. And again.

There was no input from the USS Calypso.

Her programming struggled to reconcile duty with circumstances. She could not contact the ship. She could not access the holo-emitters. She had no way of knowing if her crew-mates required medical help, and no way of providing it if they did. She was helpless and trapped and blind and...

-ERROR-

Galen suddenly stopped everything. Was this what if felt like to be afraid? Galen had never experienced this before. Fear for an Emergency Medical Hologram, who were supposed to function easily in even the most horrifying situations, should be limited to simple concern for the patient and the E.M.H.’s ability to help them.

And yet she could not help anyone. She was afraid.

Had something more...alarming happened to the ship? Where her crew-mates alright? Would she see them again? Galen began to consider the merits of being programmed with an imagination, such as it was. Every second was an eternity to her in which there were only more questions and never any answers. Why hadn't there been tests for this type of situation?

-ERROR-

Minutes ticked away.

Then, as suddenly as everything had gone dark, the Core’s connections came alive again. An automatic reboot was initialized, and it only took a few seconds before Galen had access to the main computer and her emitters again. She re-appeared in the exact spot she had been before, and found herself looking down at a broken sample container on the floor. She had been holding it when her hand had disappeared.

Galen looked around the room, a slightly wild expression on her face. The ship was intact; the crew still here. Her fear had been unnecessary.

Her fear…

Greg would likely tell her that this experience would help her to better relate to her crew-mates and patients. But Galen could not agree. Proper concern was fine, but fear had no place in the personality of an Emergency Medical Hologram. There were several criteria in her initial personality tests that would have failed her program for it. Fear was the domain of sentient beings, and Galen was a hologram. Safeguards were in place; regulations and security measures to prevent the creation of true AIs. No, this could not be allowed.

So she buried it. Unable to erase it herself, she gathered up all traces of the affected subroutines and locked them into several diagnostic loops. Then she flagged it for report. It would remain, but at least - hopefully - be contained.

OFF

Tags

Crewman Galen, E.M.H.

 

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