Posted by Ensign Mike Jones (Medical Officer) in Main Sim [Engineering]: Ghosts in the Machine

Posted by Ensign Caelian Weir (Engineering Officer) in Main Sim [Engineering]: Ghosts in the Machine

Posted by Ensign Mike Jones (Medical Officer) in Main Sim [Engineering]: Ghosts in the Machine
Posted by… suppressed (3) by the Post Ghost! 👻
“Simulation failure.”

Caelian wanted to thump his head on the console in frustration, but it wouldn’t help. Well, maybe it would make him feel better for a moment, but he wisely decided against the headache that he knew would follow. Seventy-three simulations, seventy-three failures. The engineer glared at the data displayed across several screens in Main Engineering, shook his head in disgust. What had he missed? The solution sizzled against the front of his skull, then seemed to vanish into vapor when he tried to focus on it. If there was ever a time for a coffee break, he thought bitterly, this would be it. How many hours has it been since I saw my bed?

“Okay, you bit-rate, calculation-sucking hunk of polymimetic…” Caelian drew in a sharp breath and grumbled the rest incoherently under his breath. The last thing he needed was to get pulled off this project by a superior when he was so close. “Computer, reset simulation. Crosslink the main metaphasic filters with diagnostic control and shunt the variable flow through the gravametric stabilizers. Run simulation.”

His heart sank as red lines began to appear across the framework of the simulated Viking. “Simulation failure.”

“Do you have to be so smug about it?”

“Unable to process query,” the computer retorted blandly. “Please rephrase.”

Shaking his head, Caelian clasped his hands behind his back and paced a tight circle. With the various repair crews and maintenance crates scattered about, it was difficult. Walking always helped him think, cleared his head. He tried to picture the crates as rocks and the deck as the empty field behind his childhood home. He’d always loved those rolling hills, the scent of flowers and blooming trees in the spring. No matter how loud he shouted or the dirt he frustratedly kicked into the air, that field was always patient with him. Somehow even those memories helped steady his heartbeat, ease the knot between his shoulders. Finally he nodded and returned to the problem glaring at him from the monitor.

Something caught his eye in the simulation results, and Caelian squinted hard at it. Leaning forward, he poked the display and toggled the holoemitter. The framework Viking leapt to life in front of him, and he pulled and pulled until he was staring at a knotted skein of crimson.

“Computer,” he murmured, puzzled. “Run simulation again, same parameters. Slow to one-tenth speed when it reaches displayed sections.”

The holodisplay flickered blue, then slowly began its decent into crimson chaos. Caelian scrubbed a hand through his dark hair, tongue moving behind his cheek in thought. He had to run the simulation three more times before he saw what his subconscious had noticed during his pacing. “What are you,” he wondered idly.

“Nucleonic discharge as a result of the momentary depolarization of electroplasma network integrity fields,” the computer offered flatly.

“What would cause such a discharge?”

“There are four hundred thirty-nine possible reactionary substances that would produce a nucleonic discharge specified.”

Caelian grit his teeth. “Okay, fine. Could a bioelectric matrices such as Sample VEL-01 or -02 cause such a discharge to occur?”

“Working.” There was a long and aggravating pause before the computer chirped again. “Affirmative. Matrix VEL-01 possesses the appropriate isogenic properties required to cause a nucleonic discharge when interacting with regulatory electroplasma network integrity fields.”*

“Figlio di puttana,” Caelian nearly cackled, “I’ve got you now!”
—Jas—

A voice behind him sounded amused as it spoke. “Figlio? Not sure I’ve heard that expletive, before.” Kalika stood just behind him about a half dozen places, leaning casually on a crate. “I take it the I’ve got you now comment has to do with why the Captain sent me down to see you?”

She’d worked with Weir before, but not for long, or closely. She looked at him now and realized he was one of the more driven people she’d met since returning from the other Viking. It was a welcome change.

Kalika
Security

Caelian nearly jumped out of his skin at the voice from his shoulder, and he rounded to come nearly nose-to-nose with Kalika. He mentally cursed himself for being so engrossed in his work that he failed to notice her approach. Not that he was concerned for his personal safety with another crew member—not normally, anyway, though these were certainly unusual circumstances—just that environmental awareness was something he definitely needed to work on. He offered the security officer a faint smile and chuckled sheepishly.

“Your Italian must be a little rusty, then,” Caelian grinned, knuckling the stubble on his chin. “If figlio was an expletive, my father would have been black and blue by my third birthday. But point taken. I’ll try to be more mindful in the future.”

Kalika smiled and gave a bit of a shrug. “I’d say my Italian is more like non existent, than rusty. Didn’t learn a lot of Earth languages, I fear.”

Turning back to the displays, he gestured at the results of his simulation. “I was hoping to wait until everyone else was here, but I’m guessing they’ve been held up with other duties. The short answer is yes. The captain wanted us to find a way to track and secure the bioelectric entities running rampant on the ship. Our biggest hurdle was in tracking them, since some of them can fold in and out of subspace and bypass most of our conventional containment methods. Since we’ve enacted the static warp field, sensors haven’t caught so much as a whiff of their presence… which means they’re hiding somewhere. And while I can’t necessarily do anything about ones that might be hitching rides in our crew—which is going to give me nightmares for quite a while if I’m being honest—I can keep them from hiding in our systems.”

“I’ve been working on simulations to various changes to the EPS compression rates, and I think I’ve hit proverbial paydirt. If we modulate a compression rate of oh-seven-nine-three millimeters per second and…” The engineer took a deep breath and gave Kalika another sheepish grin. “Right, the short version. Basically, we can send pulses of energy along the EPS grid that cause a microreaction from the the variable energy lifeforms—VELs for short, if you were wondering—that our sensors can detect. While we can’t do this in rapid succession to get their movements in real-time since doing so would risk blowing out the relays, we can essentially ping them like archaic sonar. The nucleonic discharge might even make them uncomfortable enough to flush them out where we can trap them somehow.”

Caelian folded his arms across his chest and scowled at the display. “That is going to be the hard part, I’m guessing, and why I was hoping for some extra help from the other departments.”
—Caelian Weir, Engineer—

The security officer listened and nodded once or twice. When Caelian was finished, she frowned slightly. “Do we can stir them up and even get them to run. But we’re not sure how to stop them.” She paced a couple steps around the simulation before glancing back at the engineer. “Is it possible to not flush them, so much as nudge them? Maybe put your pulse, or whatever it is, in a low enough level and in seemingly random places so we can drive them to a location we can lock them in in the system?”

Unsure if she was making sense, she reiterated. “Instead of driving them out of the lines, back into openness, just drive them into a large line we can shield and block or even dispel into space.” It made sense in her head. The question was, was it making sense to him? And could it be done?

Kalika

Mike walked in hearing the tail end of the conversation. ” The was a security officer. An ensign as I recall, perhaps not. I am new here. But the point is one of our security officers adjusted his phaser to a certain wavelength. Once he fired his phaser toward our so-called visitors, they seemed not to like it. This would make some sort of sense seeing as they are nothing, but wave forms themselves. You could I suppose use something like this as a cattle prod to get them to go where you wanted. You would have to ask the security people or I suppose science. My own opinion is to feed their location to a transporter operator and get rid of them . I’m pretty sure they will not survive the transporter. These are nothing but a plague which has done nothing but attack my patients, so my own input differs much from what the captain wants. But I hope that I have been somewhat helpful?”

Ensign Mike Jones med.

Caelian gave the doctor a sideways glance, a little confused by his demeanor. Oi, but the Starfleet polish rubbed off quick with this one, he mused to himself. Knuckling his chin and studying the results of his simulation again, he sighed inwardly. While it wasn’t necessarily a bad idea, it did have quite a few flaws. But flaws he could work with. He pulled up a holo display of the different bioelectric patterns and turned them over in his mind. Something tickled his mind, and he snapped his fingers suddenly.

“While I can’t necessarily herd them as easily as you might think,” Caelian noted thoughtfully, “I can track them via the nucleonic discharge. If I modulate the EPS flow to a slightly longer compression rate, I can soften the pulse a fraction and ‘encourage’ them to go in a given direction. If they slip free of the grid, sensors can pick them up and we can use a modified containment field. It will take a bit of work, but I think my team could do it.”

He turned to the other officers with a very serious expression. “Conduits may be tubes to you and me and regular power, but these things aren’t like anything in our records. To them, the conduits are like a river that they can swim against or follow along. The river gets too strong or isn’t to their liking, they can just make for shore—leave the conduit—and go somewhere else. We have to be very careful with both the VELs and our systems if we want them to go where we need them to be.”

Caelian’s gaze hardened as he stared at Jones. “I know they’ve caused problems and hurt the alien we brought aboard, but they are still. Living. Things. Until we know they’re all acting together to destroy us, we have a duty to Starfleet to make first contact succeed. Life—of all kinds, man and mote—is sacred until it comes to direct and dire conflict. For all we know, they’re scared or hurt and acting accordingly. Do we—?”

The entirety of Engineering flickered briefly, and there were muted sounds of confusion all around. Caelian waved away his holo display and tapped at his workstation, but it didn’t respond. In fact, it seemed completely jumbled into a dozen different languages and symbols. He looked to the other officers for some kind of answer, but they all looked as dumbstruck as he. Shaking his head, he let out a wry chuckle.

“Always something to fix on the Viking,” he grumbled. “If you’ll excuse me for a moment…”
—Caelian Weir, Engineer—
[Posted Kalika’s response in order to fix the split. Happy writing!]

Mike could only shake his head at the engineer’s response. He thought for a moment to tell him that it was probably a good thing no one had thought to try and learn to speak to the bacteria which had caused the bubonic plague but thought better of it. He could see the possibility of more than one struggle in his future. He had taken an oath which to him was more important than any fleet rule. And whether they appreciated it or not he would continue to live by that oath until he reached the point at which his patients all seemed suicidal in their longing to accept an entity which seemed entirely aggressive toward them. To him it was like being hit by a board by a burning building and then while trying to put out the fire on your clothes running into the said burning structure. In the information was asked for end he smiled at Caelian and said, “Yes, well sorry I didn’t come with an answer you were wanting. Good luck with the engineering.” Mike then left engineering wondering how long he would be able to keep people healthy who seemed so determined to hurt themselves.

Ensign Mike Jones med.

Kalika paused to watch Caelian walk one way and Mike walk the other. She was confused why the medical officer has bothered to come down at all. Why would medical personnel come to engineering just to say to kill them all?

Shaking her head in confusion she headed after Weir. Catching up, she frowned slightly before speaking. “What, if anything, can I do to help?” She knew her way around the ship. And she wasn’t half bad with tools. As long as he gave her instructions, she hoped she manage to be some help. The entities needed to be brought under control… Not genocided into non existence.

Security