Posted by Lieutenant Harry Archer (Chief Engineer) in Investigating the McKoy - Holodeck

Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Lisa Caldwell (Engineer) in Investigating the McKoy - Holodeck

Posted by Lieutenant Harry Archer (Chief Engineer) in Investigating the McKoy - Holodeck
Posted by… suppressed (16) by the Post Ghost! 👻
The doors to the Holodeck hissed open, and Harry bounded through the door. As it was the evening, he was dressed in civilian attire. However, if anything, it looked smarter than his uniform, with a collared shirt and gillet.

=^= Computer, run a simulation of the engineering room on the USS McKoy. =^= he instructed. A few seconds later the black and yellow grid dissolved into a standard Starfleet engineering room. He walked up to one of the consoles and started to enter commands, reading off of a PaDD. After a few minutes, he looked up, and checked the status of the various ship systems.

=^= Computer, save current configuration of the USS McKoy under programme Harry Mike Alpha One, and rest the simulation to baseline. =^= he stated. For a moment the room slightly wobbled as the computer reset the holo programme.

=^= Configuration saved. Programmme reset. =^= stated the computer.

Lt. Archer
Chief Engineer

Lisa mulled over Harry’s words as she dressed in her civlian clothing. She wore a t shirt and brown leather jacket, jeans and a pair of knee-high boots . She had been off duty and working away on some schematics. There was a small table in the middle of the room stacked with Padds, there was a half empty bottle of whiskey. She tied her greasy hair back, downed half a glass of whiskey and headed towards the holodeck. It took her the usual three attempts to arrive at the holodeck. She noted that the holodeck was already in use, she frowned slightly and entered wandering what programme was running. What she didn’t expect to see was a near replica of the McKoy’s Engineering room. She was struck dumb as she took in her surroundings, she hadn’t been back there since the incident. She breathed hard trying to control it as she saw Harry. She walked over trying to put her surroundings out of her mind.
“Hey Chief, is… everything okay?” She asked.

Lt (j.g) Lisa Caldwell (Eng)

Harry looked up from the console he was working on. “Evening Lisa,” he started. “Sorry for the evening call, and for springing this upon you…” he paused, noting that she was obviously uncomfortable in the environment.

“I won’t keep you here any longer than I need to, but I need to prove my hypothesis; that, if the McKoy’s test systems were correctly configured, your trials would have been isolated to those systems.”

He knew this could be a lot to take in, so gave Lisa some time to process what he had said.

Lt. Archer
Chief Engineer

Lisa looked confused and frowned.
“I.....I…wha..... Chief?” Was all she could manage barely comprehending what he was saying. Her breathing increased slightly as she tried to focus and not let herself go back to relive the moment again. It looked so real, seemed so real. She knew it was a hologram Focus Lisa, focus. She shut her eyes and clenched her fists and took a deep breath. At last she nodded.
“Okay Chief, what have you found?” She asked.

Lt (j.g) Lisa Caldwell (Eng)

“I need to verify a couple of my assumptions first.” Harry started. “Can you run through the exact sequence of tests as you ran them on the McKoy. The simulation is configured for how the McKoy should have been set up, so I am expecting the safety protocols to kick in.”

Lt. Archer
Chief Engineer

Lisa nodded reluctantly as she struggled to maintain her calm. She took another deep breath.
“I.... I.” She began and then stopped. Get it together Caldwell She thought to herself.
“I first ran a diagnostic test on the systems. I wanted to make sure there wouldn’t be any issues during the test. Ha!” She replied with an ironic laugh.
“Everything came back fine so I loaded my programme into the system. Everything was working as intended. In order for the programme to work it required a full re-boot of the core. Again. everything was fine. I then started up the core. We started to go to warp and that’s when everything went wrong. The warp core overheated and nearly breached.” She stated.

Lt (j.g) Lisa Caldwell (Eng)

Harry nodded. He was curious that the diagnostics didn’t pick anything up; that would imply someone had overrode the system so as to not trip the safeties.

“Did you instruct it to go to warp?”

Lt. Archer
Chief Engineer

Harry was exactly right, someone had overrode the system.

Lisa nodded trying hard to focus and not slip into the endless replaying of that awful day.
“Yes… I did and that’s when.... that’s when.....” Her voice trailed off, her head started to ache and she put her hands up to it. The flashbacks began. Suddenly she was back on the McKoy, she could see her old team again. She almost smiled but knew what was coming next. She gritted her teeth and groaned trying her best to focus. She fell to her knees her head in her hands. Focus… Come on focus! She thought to herself and then she was back in the holodeck, panting slightly she let go of her head and slowly stood up.

Lt (j.g) Lisa Caldwell (Eng)

Harry didn’t say anything, and instead enabled the simulated safety protocols on the McKoy. Tapping in the commands to take the ship to warp, the simulated computer voice chimed.

=^= Warning! Warp drive configuration is unstable. Safety systems engaged. Warp speed is unavailable. =^=

“That’s what should have happened,” he said to Lisa, before shutting down the programme. He had done enough to come to a conclusion about what happened, and to get Lisa to believe in herself.

Lt. Archer
Chief Engineer

Lisa shook her head. It hadn’t said that, had it? She tried to recall and think back. She looked at Harry confused.
“But.....but.” she began and then stopped trying focus, trying to think.
“No, it should say “warp core failure imminent, eject warp core”. She stated, thoughts were racing through her mind. She then began to pace.
“But what does that mean? Someone set me up?” She postulated.

Lt (j.g) Lisa Caldwell (Eng)

“Had the first set of warnings not been heeded, then it should have ejected the core. Either way, someone disabled the safety protocols. What I’m not sure about is why.” He said, pausing.

“Can you think of anyone with either the clearance or an interest in disabling them?” He asked.

Lt. Archer
Chief Engineer

“Do you know someone called Vexin Tyne?” he asked, wondering if that would prompt a memory.

Lt. Archer
Chief Engineer

Lisa frowned and thought for a moment. She had known a Vexin, she had tried to compete with Lisa in the academy but failed miserably. Lisa had outshone her by miles.
“I do. She was an Orion and very competitive. Why do you ask Chief? You think she is involved somehow?” She replied.

Lt (j.g) Lisa Caldwell (Eng)

“Starfleet Corps of Engineers’ records show that she tried to run similar tests on other vessels. I suspect she, unintentionally, disabled the safeties.”

Harry paused for a moment. “If you’re content, I’m happy to submit my findings to Starfleet, and get them to reinvestigate the incident, along with a couple of other incidents I found whilst digging into this.”

Lt. Archer
Chief Engineer

Lisa frowned thoughtfully.
“Why would she unintentionally disable the safety proto..... You think she was trying to put the blame on me and get me demoted?” She asked.

Lt (j.g) Lisa Caldwell (Eng)

Harry shook his head. “I don’t know what her intentions were, or if simply it was an error and she just didn’t come forward.”

Lt. Archer
Chief Engineer

Lisa frowned, lost in a brief moment of thought.
“I....If you think it will help by reporting it. Then go ahead. They were pretty determined to make an example out of me, so I doubt it would do much to change their minds.” She replied trying her hardest to not think back to the seeing the disappointment on the faces of the tribunal. Her eyes began to shine with tears developing.

Lt (j.g) Lisa Caldwell (Eng)

“I think there is enough evidence to set the record straight. But let’s see what comes back. I’ll also let the Captain know.”

Lt. Archer
Chief Engineer

Lisa frowned and nodded, she was trying to not get her hopes up. At this point something was better than nothing.
“Thanks Chief.” She replied.

Lt (j.g) Lisa Caldwell (Eng)