The Bottom Line

Posted on 10 Jun 2020 @ 8:32pm by Commodore Harvey Geisler & Commander Terry Walsh & Lieutenant Commander Camila Di Pasquale & Lieutenant Dijaat Parker & Lieutenant JG Damian Akorem

1,851 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Sentience
Location: Captain's Ready Room
Timeline: MD2 || 1900 hours

Several hours had passed since the war games had been cancelled. Rather than meet in a conference room, Captain Geisler had summoned the officers who had been closely working with the damage control and investigation. It was times like this that Harvey valued the size of ready room. For now, he sat comfortably behind the desk with a cup of Vulcan herbal tea in his hands.

"All right," he told the assembled team. "Let's start with actual damage assessed today. Who's first?"

Camila had read the reports from Ensign Proctor and Mitchell and she was less than pleased and her expression showed it. However, there were other matters to see to first. "There was damage to the ventral phaser arrays which are being repaired. The damage to the torpedo launchers are also being repaired. It seems that even with low powered phasers and microtorpedoes, the fighters managed to hurt us more than I initially thought. The simulation in the Armory went well with Proctor and Mitchell, however, there was one disturbing incident from that, according to the report. Damage teams are clearing the armory for inspection now, Sir."

Harvey arched an eyebrow as his gaze moved to the ombre haired security chief. Her report wasn't terribly surprising, aside from actual damage suffered during the firefight. That would be a task for further review and development later. "Disturbing incident? Care to elaborate any?"

The ombre haired woman looked at the two senior officers and the other department heads already there. She had tried to talk to the Captain privately before and it hadn't ended in anything. Now she decided to let the others know, if they hadn't experienced similar themselves. "Yes, Sir," she said. "When Ensigns Proctor and Mitchell made their reports, they both indicated that Lieutenant Commander Tivan attempted to have the HASA activate all the ordinance in the Armory for imminent detonation. Fortunately, she doesn't have the Security clearance for that. Sir."

The Captain considered that for a moment. He knew the Vulcan was a smart woman. Surely she knew she didn't have a chance that such a ploy would even work. Either she was more aware of their current predicament, or she was more conniving and devious than they all suspected. "While that is... disturbing, we'll have to deal with one problem at a time. Is there anything else of note from security regarding these glitches? Anything unusual with automated systems?"

"Not with Security, Sir," Camila said as she took one of the chairs facing the desk.

Lieutenant Parker spoke up, "The engineering crews had a difficult time discerning real damage from the simulated damage because of the systems that were affected. Overall, I would say that they did well considering the circumstances. Once the work crews with the armory have finished I'll have a full assessment and better picture going forward."

Harvey nodded and took a sip of his tea. Looking toward the Romulan Chief Engineer, he asked, "Let's talk about the real damage. What systems have been damaged, and what does the repair schedule look like?"

"Some damage to the hull and the computer suffered some technical failures. It won't take more than six hours to get the technical failures fixed, the decompression in the main shuttlebay has already been taken care of, and the damage from the grenades going off will take less than two hours to finish repairing. The hull will take a bit longer probably fifteen hours." Dijaat said, "I've already got work crews making repairs."

"Technical failures?" Harvey asked, locking eyes with the Lieutenant. "Care to expound upon that? What sort of failures happened? More importantly, can they be prevented in the future?"

Dijaat thought about it for a moment, "When we were hit with the ion storm the computer misinterpreted some of the damage as if it was actually happening. When that took place, for example, the shuttle bay decompressed even though the damage was simulated... Or," Parker thought about it, "Or, was supposed to be simulated."

"So, you're saying the computer is what caused all of the technical failures?" Harvey repeated, wanting to make sure he understood the engineer.

"After the ion storm hit the ship, yes," Parker answered.

Harvey looked over to Commander Walsh and Commander Di Pasquale. "Either of you can refresh my memory, but in battle simulations, like what we experienced today, are usually handled with the computer presenting damage and casualty readouts, and those being announced to compartments by a member of the Administration team. Is that what happened during this?"

Terry had been sitting on a couch and listening to the whole exchange. None of it seemed to make any sense. "From my experience, that's usually what happens. At least from a fighter squadron perspective. As for today, the Commander," he said, tossing a nod to Di Pasquale, "may be able to shed some more light on that from a Department Head side of things. But as for me, the final reports weren't delivered by an Administrator as far as I know. At least directly to me. I found them on the desk in my office after the fact."

Camila shook her head. "No, Sir. Ensign Zh'ozhaothras hadn't delivered one, but I was more focused on the report that Ensign Mitchell and Proctor delivered with the two live grenades that HASA activated in the Armory."

Harvey blinked and looked at Camila. He did not enjoy being caught off his guard, especially after the Consortium and Dolmoqour. "HASA... activated grenades? Was HASA present at the other incidents?"

"I can't verify if HASA activated them, but the Ensigns both indicated that two of them were activated when HASA began the simulation," the Security Chief responded, seeing the look on her Captain's face. "I can't verify if it were present at the other locations without checking."

Sitting next to Commander on the couch Damian was tapping away on his PADD. For an ion storm to mess with the computer like this, it was a one in a million chance. Federation computers were generally shielded against things like this, but evidently things were overlooked. Then there was HASA apparently activating grenades. He still wasn't even sure how she got the access to do that. He had spent literally days going through her code. "I can take a look at that, and see if I can get something more verifiable. It shouldn't even have access to those types of systems. I can see if I can find a way to track whether or not it was at any of the incidents too."

"What about you, Mister Parker?" Harvey asked. "Was HASA present in any of the affected areas?"

It didn't take Dijaat long to answer the Captain, "HASA was present in all of the affected areas, however, HASA was also present in main engineering. I don't think we had any issues there or at least while I was there... One of the consoles blew out and the engineering team couldn't figure out what caused it and assumed it may have been from the power surge following the ion storm.

"Either way it was fixed pretty quickly and the console was operational," He said, "It was one of the waste reclamation control consoles and they were able to transfer it to the backup system."

"Then we can be grateful that you kept the shit from hitting the fan," the Captain spoke dryly. "When HASA was installed, we knew that it going to tax the computer. Is it possible that some of its features caused these incidents?"

"It's possible," The Engineering Chief answered the Captain, "Something that Lieutenant Akorem and I will investigate to see if that was the cause or if it was something worse. But, for now I don't want to rule any possibility out even if it sounds utterly ridiculous."

Harvey looked to his First Officer and Security Chief to see if either of them had any further thoughts on the matter. He wasn't entirely satisfied with what he'd been told, but they certainly needed more information.

"We should deactivate it and head back to Gamma Command," Camila said without a moment of hesitation. "If the problems are linked to HASA, they can fix it. If the problems are only related to the ion storm we passed through unexpectedly, they can fix it."

The Captain shook his head. "Not a chance. We just spent the last six months in drydock. It survived the tortures of the Convergence Zone, and I'm certainly not going to turn us around because of a test gone wrong." He sighed. "But, we should make sure that things can't get worse. We can suspend HASA, shut it off but leave it in diagnostic mode so we can do our investigation."

"I agree that we should at the very least shut HASA down," Dijaat told the Captain, "Lieutenant Akorem and I can further investigate the malfunction without running the risk of HASA causing more issues. However, if we cannot find the root cause, or if it is really deep in the program code then I'm afraid Commander Pasquale is correct. We will need to go back to Gamma Command."

Damian nodded in agreement, still working on his PADD. "Having HASA in diagnostic mode, it will be much easier to start going through some of it's base processes. I can't, as pointed out, go too deep into the code without more specialised equipment, however I can definitely go through areas of the code where it has potential to cause all the issues in the various areas that it did."

"Then, Mister Parker, I'm leaning on you, Mister Akorem, and your departments to keep us out of a spacedock. This is a shakedown cruise after all." Harvey looked once more at his team before calling out, "Computer?"

The computer's avatar appeared, rendered a petite blond woman. Harvey raised an eyebrow, a bit surprised by the appearance especially since it was a bit familiar to him. "Yes, Captain?"

Harvey took a moment to regain his composure. "Um... Compu... HASA. Effective immediately, initiate diagnostic mode sigma. Limit avatar appearances to one, and only report to those with Alpha One clearance or higher. Add Commander Di Pasquale, Lieutenant Parker, and Lieutenant Akorem to the exceptions list."

HASA frowned. "Command authorization is required."

"Geisler four gamma two two epsilon."

The avatar shimmered for a few moments and then disappeared. Harvey felt like, for a brief moment, that it glared at him before it disappeared.

Terry nodded as the hologram disappeared. Life aboard the Black Hawk was anything but boring. "An interesting technological addition, that is. Let's just make sure it works properly."

Camila watched the hologram disappear, but she wasn't going to take any chances. "Just in case, Sir," she said. "I'd like to take the non-essential holoemitters offline until the matter with HASA is resolved."

"As an added security precaution Captain I recommend that Commander Pasquale have full access to HASA while it is in diagnostic mode." Dijaat recommended.

Harvey nodded his approval to both officers, adding a verbal affirmative as well. "I suggest everyone get to it then. Dismissed."

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