A Core Issue

Posted on 07 Feb 2021 @ 8:29pm by Lieutenant JG Damian Akorem & Lieutenant Dijaat Parker & Lieutenant JG Ian Beckett & Ensign Quinn Mackie & Holographic Assistance and Support Avatar HASA

3,953 words; about a 20 minute read

Mission: Ghosts
Location: Computer Core
Timeline: MD 4 || 1415 hours

Damian left the bridge already planning his next moves. Rebooting the computer core wasn't an easy task. He pulled out one of his holo pads from a pocket, and began to bring up everything he would need to do in order to do the job. He would definitly need some help, and tapped some of the buttons on the holoscreen sending notifications for Lieutenants Mackie and Beckett to meet him in the computer core section on Deck 14. The backups were located in one of the nodes in the upper section, and worse case scenario, they could physically connect them to the main computer core. With no idea what exactly was happening within the core, and with the systems. Then having to lock the computer out of systems it was supposed to monitor, it was a very unorthodox situation all around.

The trip to the core section didn't take long. And within a couple of minutes, he had entered the section and sat at one of the consoles. He logged into it, and isolated it from the core, albeit temporarily. He didn't want the computer to suddenly realise what was happening, and block his ability to do it. He thought back a few minutes. Fortunately, he kept most of his work on his holopad isolated to the pad. Hopefully, this would go according to plan.

Frustration. That was the only thing Ian could express at the moment. He'd spent the last few hours troubleshooting and fixing transporter problems in all of the rooms. He'd get one fixed and another one would break down with a completely different problem. It was almost like the computer had him running in circles. And now he was being called away to the computer core. He quickly put back together what he'd been working on and tossed his tools in the kit. "Beckett to Akorem, I'm on my way," he said tapping his commbadge.

A few minutes later, Ian entered the room that housed that section of the computer core. "Please state the nature of the Operations emergency," he said, tongue-in-cheek.

Quinn couldn't help but groan as he arrived just behind Beckett. He, like Beckett, had been chasing red herrings all across the ship and had arrived at absolutely no conclusions or solutions. However, Quinn didn't have to wonder why he'd been summoned here. Just about every issue he'd encountered in the last day had to deal with automated systems. Perhaps the Operations Chief had decided to tackle the issue head on in the Computer Core.

"Ensign Mackie reporting as ordered," remarked the younger man.

Damian looked to the two officers now in the room. "I'll be brief. We are shutting down the computer core, purging it, and rebooting it from the sealed backups. Questions?" He asked.

"Well that's definitely brief," said Ian. "So all of these problems we've been fixing is a computer core issue?"

"It wasn't me this time, I swear," Quinn said instantly. It would be just his damned luck that their first journey out of drydock that the computer would have been manipulated in some way. "If the computer's been tampered with, are we sure the sealed backups aren't compromised, much less still accessible?"

"We are working on a theory, but we simply don't know for sure that it's the core. And the sealed backups are kept within an isolated backup system, which is physically disconnected from the computer core when it's not in use. And there are obviously measures in place for connecting the backups to the active system. The backups themselves aren't even accessible until the main computer core has been purged." Damian replied.

Quinn shook his head, mainly from disbelief. "A full purge and restore can take hours. What do you need us to do?"

Damian pointed to Mackie. "I need you to monitor the backups. Once we connect the backups to the live computer, we need to make sure that nothing feeds back. It should, at least theoretically, be a one-way connection, but with the computer being as messed up as it is right now, I'd rather not take the chance." He then looked to Beckett. "I'll need your help isolating and purging the systems one by one. We need to isolate, purge and lock down a section before we can initiate the upload from the secure backups."

The ensign nodded and immediately made way to a monitoring console. Per protocol, he instantly shifted it into a manual diagnostic mode in order to keep it isolated from ODN traffic. It would be a few moments before this task could be completed as he had to be assured that there were no automated processes remaining on the system.

Damian still had some work to do. With the current issues with the computer, he was working on isolating some of the alert systems, so that the purge would go relatively unnoticed. Things like personal logs, stuff that was used regularly, they were kept on an isolated system as well, so they should be just fine. "I've disabled some of the troubleshooting subroutines, so once we begin the purge, the system itself shouldn't notice anything different."

"Shouldn't is the operative word there, lieutenant!" Quinn called from his station. His eyes remained affixed to the readouts, watching the processes drop one by one. "Looks like the first phase of the isolation is complete, Lieutenant. Maintenance mode has been initiated on the primary and secondary shunts. The task managers show emptied queues."

Ian nodded, "Confirmed. And nothing on the alert systems...so far," he added. Ian had been keeping an eye on them as well. The last thing they needed was for something to happen down here like it had been everywhere else on the ship. "Ready to move on the next system, Sir."

Quinn continued to monitor the transfers, his hands flying across the console as he accessed system after system. He was almost operating blindly until he felt something under his fingers that wasn't the console. Another hand was just under his, and it looked like...

The Ensign looked up to face a familiar visage. "Thank you, Quinn," his doppleganger whispered. It then turned towards Lieutenant Akorem and shouted, "Lieutenant! We have a problem! The computer is mimicking us!" With that, the doppleganger raised a finger at Quinn. "It's accessing the backups on its own!"

Ian jerked his head up quickly at Quinn's excited statement and saw two of them. He quickly looked back down and scanned the console for any alerts to the system, hoping to find something. "I'm still not showing any indication of..." He stopped when he looked back up to Damian and saw himself standing next to the Lieutenant.

"...an alert from the computer," finished Ian's doppleganger. It pointed at Ian. "No wonder there hasn't been alerts going off. He's covering them!"

Damian looked and saw four officers that should have been two. His brain rushing through all the probably outcomes, settling on a handful. Obviously, the system was protecting itself. "Ensign Beckett, step away from the station and run a diagnostic on the holoprojectors. Other Ensign Beckett," he pointed can you please go to station Beta-three and perform a level 5 diagnostic on the transfer system." He tapped a few buttons on his holoscreen. Ensigns Mackie, can you both please assist me. I am having trouble trying to break through an encryption subroutine." He gestured to his screen.

K'Riss reached the core room just then, slightly winded from sprinting over - there was no saying such as "cat-like stamina", after all - and silently pleased he hadn't gotten lost. "It's, uh-" he tried to start talking but got caught in a deep breath. The Caitian looked up and frowned when he saw the officers standing before him. Of course, being new to the ship he didn't quite recognize who they were or the strangeness that were multiples. It seemed an odd coincidence for them all to be working on the same ship, but K'Riss wasn't one to judge and the sight distracted him, for a moment, from his reason for being here. "Oh," he said. "I didn't know we had identical twins working on this ship."

Quinn and his duplicate instantly looked up at the new arrival. "We are not twins," Quinn's duplicate plainly stated. "This one is an imposter, a false actor generated by the ship's malfunctioning avatar HASA."

"I'm no duplicate!" Quinn snapped back. He rarely got angry, but now was a situation where he couldn't help but become that. "HASA is taking control of the ship. We're trying to get a ship-wide override going, but HASA is counteracting us at every turn!" Quinn turned to where HASA should be standing, only to see that it had joined Lieutenant Akorem at the central station. False Quinn stood in a way where his fingers could not be monitoring, but Quinn could tell the avatar was adding another layer of encryption.

"Ensign," the real Quinn said. "We need to disable the holographic projectors. Can you assist?"

"Yes-" K'Riss started, then hesitated. "I mean, I think. I can try to help at least." He seemed to get a touch less confident with each iteration of his response. He glanced between the two Quinns in confusion. He wasn't sure which one was real, but if the holograph was the issue, disabling it made sense. The Caitian carefully started walking towards the little crowd at the control station, his ears spinning towards every little noise, betraying his nerves to the others.

Faux-Beckett jumped in, "I'll take care of the holo-projector diagnostic. You go to Beta-Three." Before Ian could say anything, Faux-Beckett was trying to lockout access to holoprojectors instead of running a diagnostic. He glared at the Caitian who'd entered the room and was going to try to help shut them down.

Ian went over to Beta-Three and started the level 5 diagnostic on the transfer system. "C'mon...c'mon..."

Damian tapped away on the holoscreen waiting for both of the Ensigns Mackie. He had a thought about the holographic systems. If the computer was that desperate to prevent them from doing the job, you can bet that the computer systems, and the holo-clones, would also attempt to prevent that too. He was going through some of his files. He had something that, while it may not disable the holo-systems, it might slow them down enough to be able to complete the task. The half human, half bajoran operations officer found the file he needed. He brought it up on the screen and waited for the Ensigns to come over.

As the others had gone to work, both Quinns approached Lieutenant Akorem, eyeing the other suspiciously as they did so. The real Quinn was thinking of different ways to disrupt the hologram, all the while trying to not project that he was the imposter. He didn't need time in the brig or sickbay for this.

K'Riss was not half so careful as Quinn was. He was probably not as cautious about the imposters as he should be, or in any case he was more scared about his own engineering skills than he was about the danger that his crewmember's doppelgangers presented. "Can't we just, like, unplug the data feed to the hologram system?" He asked the others in the room, taking a gentle, cat-like step towards the electrical access panel.

"Anything is worth a shot," said the real Quinn as he stood next to Akorem.

The artificial Quinn shook his head. "HASA is independent of the data feed. Best to leave it alone lest we have other glitches as a result." Holo-Quinn locked eyes with K'Riss and narrowed them. Perhaps it was time to add another doppleganger to the mix.

K'Riss hesitated as he walked over towards the access panel. "I mean..." he thought out, looking at the two Quinns. "I guess it could corrupt some files if it's writing to the ship's database. But it shouldn't be writing any important files. And we'd have a backup. Which would probably be easier to access once this hologram thing was resolved." Despite their lack of general engineering skills, computers and electrical stuff were some of the parts of he engineering he was most comfortable with. The Caitian shrugged. "I think it's worth a shot, too." The ensign leaned down to look at the electrical access panel.

Damian waited for the Ensigns Mackie to stand in front of the screen, before activating the program he had been loading. "Can you both see if you can figure out how to crack this encryption?" The program began to run, as Damian carefully watched both of the officers. Hoping that it would either break the hologram or at the very least, slow it down enough to make a difference.

Both Quinns looked down at the panel. A heartbeat later, the panel darkened, leaving the readouts and controls inaccessible. Both Quinns instantly pointed at the other. "That's the fake one!" they chorused. "No! You're the fake one!"

"What if you're both fake?" K'Riss asked, not entirely grasping the seriousness of the situation and instead more concerned with the theory behind it than the actual urgency. "What if you're both fake, and the real..." he paused. He was going to say that Ensign's name, but he didn't know it. "...The real one is tied up in a closet somewhere?" As he asked though, he continued about his task, taking off the cover of the electrical access panel so he could reach the wiring of the data stream to the hologram system.

"Now's not the time to be existential!" the real Quinn shouted as he ran back over to his toolkit. He needed something to disrupt the fake Quinn in case K'Riss couldn't take down the projectors themselves. "Did anyone bring a phaser?" he asked aloud. "Just a single fire at setting 1 will take down a hologram."

"I doubt the computer would let you fire a phaser in the Computer Core. There are normally dampers in place during normal operations, let along when the computer itself is trying stop us from doing out jobs." He pulled out a regular PADD, and began tapping away. "Everyone in the room, step away from any consoles." He linked the PADD in his hand to one console. He checked the status of the purge subroutine. The backups could be activated later, the issue now was getting the core purged, or at least offline... A thought crossed his mind. Even getting it offline would serve a purpose, the purge could then be completed on the core, after the shutdown.

"Sorry," K'Riss shrunk a bit at Quinn's shouting. He gave a grimace of apology, then turned back towards the electrical panel. Of course he hadn't brought a phaser. What was he - security? He hardly trusted himself with one of the things. Because, sad as it might be to say, he was better at melee. "I don't have a phaser," he addd, unnecessarily as it would have been quite visible if he did. The Caitian paused for a moment, wondering if by "step away from any consoles", that included the electrical panel. He decided not. He also wondered if unplugging the hologram's data stream would disrupt whatever the others were doing... but well... he said it was doing it. They could've spoke up, right? The Caitian was almost more scared of the others being mad at him than he was at the situation, and he still wasn't entirely convinced that the hologram didn't just want a friend. Whatever. One of the first things he learned, as far as electronics went, was to just try unplugging things and plugging them back in, and so he unceremoniously unplugged the bundle of wires that was the data feed going into the hologram system.

Instantly, the different avatars turned to look at the Caitian engineer. Before either of them could react, however, they began to visibly glitch. The projections appeared to dash toward the engineer, but quickly broke apart at the seams. The forcefields lost coherence, and while enough of the projectors remained online to generate part of the hologram shell, the avatars were no longer able to touch or interact.

"Whatever you're doing, K'Riss," Quinn called out, "it's working!" He dashed back over to his original console, gave it a kick, and began to tap away at the restored controls. "Backup integrity hasn't been compromised!"

Ian had been arguing with himself this whole time about what was going on when his holo-double started looking like he was disappearing from some kind of matrix. "It's about time something worked," said Ian. "As an chef friend used to say, 'Shut it down!'"

"Great," K'Riss said, a touch uncertain. "Awesome." He gave a thumbs up. He had unplugged the data feed, but he still didn't know what was going on here. He gently set the wires off to the side, making sure they didn't touch anything.

The glitching continued for another second or two until each of the avatars lost their integrity and disintegrated. The fake Quinn, in fact, seemed the tumble like dust to the floor as it disappeared. It, sadly, wasn't the end of HASA's terror. The door quickly closed and alarms began to sound throughout the room.

A quick look at his console and Quinn learned the reason for the warnings. "Environmental conditions are changing in the room. Oxygen's being replaced with carbon dioxide. We've got ten minutes before we'll have trouble breathing."

Ian jerked his head over towards Quinn. "Well ain't that a..." An alarm cut him off before he could finish. "Nevermind. What about transporters? Do we have enough of the backups online to have control of them?"

"I can't tell from here," Quinn stated plainly. "We still haven't initiated any of the backups yet. I just have them primed and ready. Just waiting on Lieutenant Akorem's orders."

"We can't touch the backups yet. The core hasn't been purged, and when you disconnected the holographic data feed, I was locked out of the purge subroutines. Can everyone just not touch anything for a minute." His mind racing, now there was the bonus of suffocation added into the mix. "We need... the core needs..." Thoughts were racing through his mind. "We need the core offline, then we can purge it during the reboot, there's a way to do it, but it's going to require all of us. And you're probably not going to enjoy it. But we need to set off a localised EM pulse within the Core. They are shielded, so it won't affect anywhere outside of the section. But the core itself has some shielding. So it needs to be a strong enough pulse. Or..."

"You're talking about a massive pulse," Quinn remarked. "It's going to take something the size of four of a Valkyrie's photon torpedoes to do it, one for each level of the core. It's also going to disable all of our tools, communicators, and there's still no telling what sort of damage it will do to the computer itself. Odds are, we're going to have to rebuild it back at Gamma Command anyway."

Chief Nala arrived with a small group of engineers from main engineering and the Bolian woman immediately scratched the back of her bald head. "Oh Bolus what is happening here?" She asked when she heard the suggestion. "Are you actually suggesting that we blow up the ship?"

"No one's saying blow up the ship," Ensign Mackie replied, tapping away at his controls. "But we've got to do something, before this ship rejects us like a body would a virus."

"We don't need to actually blow anything up. The Computer Cores have electromagnetic shielding emitters internally, to prevent exactly what we are trying to do. Damian replied, still doing the calculations on his screen.

Quinn thought for a moment. "If we can cross the EPS relays near the central processing units, we could create an electrostatic discharge. We'd have to disable the breakers on one of the relays so that the discharge isn't powerful enough to melt or destroy anything, but it would be enough for us to interrupt the primary power feed. Usually, the system will switch right over to the secondaries, but we'd have to disconnect those before trying this. Without the secondaries there, the computer will crash. We reconnect the secondaries, we can catch the core before it boots and start the purge."

"Running the calculations now..." Damian paused and tapped away. "We would have to make sure it was correct down to microvolt. Too far, either way, will burn out components, we won't be able to replace right now. Once the core begins to start itself, we will have a few seconds where we can purge it. If we miss our window, we will need to do the whole process again, and there's no guarantee there won't be damage from the first one."

Ensign Mackie nodded. "What would you like us to do, sir?"

Damian looked to Ensign Mackie. "Disable the breakers, they may try and reactivate, but if you put them into a level 3 maintenance cycle, that will prevent them from running. Ensign Beckett, disconnect the secondary power feeds, and make sure the backups are ready to go, but keep them disconnected."

"K'riss," Quinn called out to the Caitian engineer, "Give me a paw with this." Ensign Mackie quickly crossed the control room over to where the engineer had yanked the control circuits for the holoprojectors out. "I can work on the maintenance cycle, but I'll need help disabling the breakers."

Damian began to go through the systems on the screen, watching as the officers in the room quickly began going about their tasks. "We will only get one shot at this. If it doesn't work, the computer reboots as normal, or we will cripple the computer core, and won't be able to run any backups."

Quinn tried not to let the pressure of the moment get to him. He'd already been responsible for breaking the ship's back once. He wasn't about to do it a second time. "Ready to go over here," he reported after a couple of minutes.

"It's, um, Lieutenant Junior Grade, sir," said Ian. "But the secondary power feeds have been disconnected. Standing by with the backups."

Damian paused for a second. Mistaking a rank, he either missed it previously, or he was feeling the strain of the current situation. "Ok, let's get this done. On my count, disable the backups, run the maintenance cycle. When the electrostatic discharge goes off, you may feel a tingling sensation, but it's mostly non-life-threatening. On my mark... three..."

Quinn's hands took position over the controls and waited for the command.

Tag any responses before we go tingly

"... two... one... mark!" Damian began monitoring the various systems on the console in front of him.

Ensign Mackie quickly entered and activated the command sequence. "Maintenance cycle initiated!" he called out.

The tingling sensation passed over Damian, as the electrostatic discharge was released. The lights dimmed, being replaced with emergency lighting. Quickly, he purged the core, reconnected the secondary backups, and entered some code to reboot the computer from the secondary backups. A few tense moments passed, and he wondered if they had been successful. A sudden hissing noise, followed by the air cooling slightly, told him everything he needed to. Oxygen was being pumped back into the room, and the CO2 was being removed. He looked around, to the other crew in the room. "We did it, it actually worked, and there doesn't appear to be any issues with the computer core." He breathed a sigh of relief. This was going to be one hell of a report.

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