Decipher

Posted on Sun Dec 29th, 2019 @ 9:27pm by Fordyce Kirschler PhD

Mission: Mission 10 - Temperance
Location: USS Temperance, Deck 6, Corridor 66
Timeline: MD 12 06:06
Tags: monthly challenge
1471 words - 2.9 OF Standard Post Measure

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"Dammit!" exclaimed Ford as he slammed a hand against the wall panel in frustration. "This ship is cursed."

In front of him was a mess of burned out isolinear chips in a sub-processing hub. He'd spent the better part of the two hours tracking down problems affecting the main computer system for the Temperance, and he'd determined this particular junction was preventing many of the primary systems from being brought fully online.

The best case scenario was having to rewrite some code or reroute power around some burned out circuits or switch out a few isolinear chips. The worst case scenario was the entire sub-processor was completely destroyed.

"The entire sub-processor appears to be irreparably damaged, Dr. Kirschler."

The burned out husk of the sub-processor took on a blue hue as P.E.A.R.L. leaned over his shoulder to observe. The glow of her holographically projected face made everything look ethereal.

"They haven't found a spare one, have they?"

P.E.A.R.L. took a very brief moment to communicate with the Mary Rose computer to scan through the crew's inventory of the Temperance thus far. "I am afraid not, Dr. Kirschler."

He readjusted himself so that he was seated on the deck next to the open wall panel. Rebuilding the sub-processor was really just a matter of constructing a usable isolinear chip rack, programming it, and making sure the optimal drive network (ODN) was connected so the sub-processor could communicate with the rest of the computer system. It was time-consuming but not necessarily difficult work, assuming the ODN was in decent shape...

"P.E.A.R.L., can you disconnect the sub-processor's ODN interfaces and remove the unit?"

While his robotic assistant worked, Ford started packing everything he needed for diagnostic work into his kit. Once the sub-processor was out of the way, he lifted himself into the exposed Jefferies tube and scooted down the deck plating toward the nearest control panel.

When he switched on his hand light, he immediately noticed things were abnormal here. The duranium conduit paneling meant to contain all the sensitive equipment running through the Jefferies tube was filled from end to end with etchings. At first they just looked like random marks scored into the extremely durable panels, explained away by stress or an explosive event.

But they were too regular. They had intricate patterns and formed non-linear paths that wouldn't conform to stress fractures or an exploding EPS conduit. Instead, they looked...drawn.

Without warning, the symbols took on a blue glow. In his peripheral vision, he could see P.E.A.R.L. had stuck her head into the Jefferies tube. But she was some distance from him - not close enough to be providing this level of illumination - so the effect made it seem like the symbols were drawing in the light and amplifying it.

"Do you recognize these symbols?" asked Ford as he gestured toward the walls.

His robotic assistant entered the Jefferies tube and began a thorough inspection of the set of symbols nearest to her. This carried on for a full minute before she made a statement.

"These conform to no known symbology available to my personal database. I conferred with the Mary Rose databases and found no further information. However, they do conform to several reports in a Starfleet database regarding missing-"

Without warning, her holographically projected face disappeared. It left only the narrow beam from his hand light and the symbols for illumination, the latter of which continued to glow blue long after P.E.A.R.L. stopped projecting her face. If he stared at them long enough, he could have sworn they were slowly moving...

"To hell with this ship," said Ford suddenly as he backed down the Jefferies tube toward inert P.E.A.R.L., trying to ignore the almost bio-luminescent effect of the symbols. He didn't spook easily but that didn't mean he stuck around when some weird shit started happening. Someone else could run the ODN diagnostic.

Instead of worrying about what kind of devil ship he was on, he ran through the procedures in his head for quickly repairing P.E.A.R.L. (When something was going wrong, Ford had an extraordinary ability to ignore the real problem.) It was possible, though unlikely, that her holographic projector, vocal processor, and motor control system had all gone down simultaneously. But she'd been in storage for an extended period of time on Lithios Prime, and he hadn't had a chance to run any kind of maintenance since then. More likely was a system failure that would require his intervention.

When he finally got to her, he reached for her primary access panel but jerked his hand back and let out a startled noise of surprise when her holographically projected face suddenly reappeared just inches from his.

"I apologize, Dr. Kirschler. I lost contact with the Mary Rose network and thereafter suffered a cascading systems failure. I have corrected the problem, though I cannot ascertain its cause. Would you like me to run a systems diagnostic?"

"Not now, but save the relevant data for later analysis," said Ford almost dismissively. He was more interested in what she had to say about the symbols. "What were you sayin' about the symbols in that Starfleet database?"

The features of her face twisted slightly in an approximation of confusion. "I have no memory record of accessing a Starfleet database at any time within the last 24 hours. May I ask, to what symbols are you referring, Dr. Kirschler?"

He turned to point them out, but the symbols were gone of course. Of course they were gone! What kind of ominous, occult alien symbols stuck around a ghost ship after everyone had come to their senses? Next, he supposed P.E.A.R.L. was going to come up with some completely logical explana-

"Are these the markings to which you referred, Dr. Kirschler? Cursory analysis suggests they were created by shrapnel from the explosion of this overloaded EPS conduit," said P.E.A.R.L. as she gestured toward a blown out portion of conduit.

Scoring in the duranium wall panels did seem to radiate from the conduit. Some overload in the power systems had created a discharge within the EPS system, and this must have been the weakest point along the line. Within the exposed conduit he could also see one of the neural gel packs that constituted this class of ship's unique computer system. It was ruptured from the blast and when P.E.A.R.L. moved for a closer inspection the gel material responded to the glow from her face with the same bio-luminescent effect he'd seen in the symbols.

"This neural gel pack ruptured during the blast. The Mary Rose crew located several replacements in storage. Would you like me to file a requisition request, Dr. Kirschler?"

Ford lifted himself up from a prone position on the grated deck plating. "Yeah, that's fine. And a new rack of isolinear chips, too. I can build the new subprocessor on the Mary Rose and come back to install it later. Or better yet, send somebody else. They can check out the ODN connections then, too. We're getting out of here - I've been on this ship long enough."

P.E.A.R.L. moved out of the Jefferies tube to make way for his egress, which was slowed by the repair kit getting snagged on some exposed portion of the blown out EPS conduit.

"I hate this ship."

"I have not formulated an opinion about it," said P.E.A.R.L. as if he'd asked.

"You can hate it, too."

"I also hate this ship."

"That's the spirit," said Ford.

Back in the corridor, he started packing things back into his kit, including some isolinear chips, a tricorder, and a few other odds and ends. When he snapped it closed, he noticed something on the front cover: an etching. An etching where nothing at all had been before he went into that Jefferies tube. It had been a blank, standard-issue Federation style repair kit. Now it was defaced, and seeing that symbol and its blue glow made his blood run cold. Slowly, he lifted the case up and pointed a finger toward the symbol in its center.

"P.E.A.R.L., do you see this?"

"The case, Dr. Kirschler?"

"No, the symbol on the front of the case."

"Dr. Kirschler, there is no symbol on the front of the case."

He didn't look again, just took her word for it. That was probably for the best, right?

OFF:

Dr. Ford Kirschler
Chief Operations Officer
SS Mary Rose

 

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