Gremlins (Part I of III)
Posted on Wed Feb 26, 2020 @ 5:54am by Captain Maritza Soran & Commander Caleb Ryan & Commander Amia Telamon M.D. & Lieutenant Annora Tessaro & Lieutenant Alanna Wells & Captain Lazanos Torena & Lieutenant JG Scaliontis Lovok & Lieutenant JG Brianthe Oaxaca & Charghwl'IH of the House of Soval
2,000 words; about a 10 minute read
Mission:
Et In Arcadia Ego
Location: Various, DS5
Timeline: MD 01 1500
[ON]
OPS
It started on the Promenade four hours ago. The water filters in the ornamental lake had failed, and the whole thing had been flooded in sewage from around the prom. And then the main replimat had served nothing but white fish hesperat regardless of what was ordered. Operations had pulled their hair out, and then it had solved itself twenty minutes later.
An hour later, the gravity had failed in the Creche that served the Square Mile, and whilst no one had been hurt, it made the third surprise malfunction. And that did not bode well. Operations and Engineering were running around trying to fix things, and then it seemed to be everywhere, random power fluxes and glitches all over the Square Mile.
And now the speakers in her officer were randomly playing bits of music. All sorts, five or six bars, repeated three times, then changed to a new track. It had been five minutes solid now, and though the computer claimed it was complying in turning it off, the music kept coming.
Maritza turned her terminal off with a huff of breath. This was a great way to start. She left her office and headed out for the turbo lift. "Engineering,"
Science
After the sixth computer lost power in the space of three hours, Alanna disconnected all of Science from the main computer and main power. She activated her sandbox protocols and reconnected with the backup generators and science database. She had no idea what was going on, but before going to the commander, she had to make sure none of the ongoing experiments failed catastrophically.
It took her four hours to scour and repair all the computers. She didn't dare let anyone else help her, in case they accidentally reactivated whatever had caused the problem to begin with. When she was finally satisfied that the department was safe, she shut down half of the computers and allowed only critical functions. All non-essential personnel were sent off-duty. Her own computer was the last to be secured and taken offline. Then she headed for the command center to report the problem.
Sickbay
Terry was taking a brief break. He was on his station rounds today, and it was an interesting day. He had spent much of the morning doing checks on people who had been impacted by the gravity outage on the promenade. He was glad that there were very few issues, bumps and bruises. Nothing to keep people from going on their way.
As he looked around, he hoped that didn't happen here in sickbay. They didn't need any equipment floating about and then dropping to the floor. He made sure to keep his tricorder strapped into his pant's pocket. If anything happened, he would at least have that.
He worried about power loss here in general, as some of the medicine they had was temperature sensitive. Loss of cooling could be a problem. So far though, the outages were minor, quickly resolved and there no patients (in his section).
Amia and River were in the main office, catching up on the reports for today. There had been a lot of minor cuts, scrapes, and bruises, but nothing too serious. They were also looking at the rota's when River noticed Terry doing his rounds and beckoned him in.
Sydney-class Transport USS Kangaroo
Scaliontis sat reading a padd as the Kangaroo was on approach to Deep Space 5. The Chief Engineer was supervising the refits on both the Helios and the Radiance of the Stars back at Dyson shipyards. Both ships were on track, but far from finished.
When the Kangaroo settled into a docking port, the locking mechanisms glitched and the ship was pushed away a few meters. The captain’s voice over the intercom explained they will try again as the ship had shuddered hard. Scaliontis put his padd back in his duffel bag as he looked at the other engineers that shared the seating around him, and they all shrugged.
The Kangaroo redocked, and this time it seemed to hold for the extra five minutes the crew waited for something to happen. Nothing did, so the captain cleared the crew and engineers to disembark. Scaliontis left the transport and made his way to Main Engineering.
Holodeck
Charghwl'ih had finished his regular bat'leth routine, and he inspected the pillars with satisfaction. He had tightened the pattern from his previous work out and his forms had only left three indications of damage from his blade.
Moving to the edge of the outcropping, he passed between the fires that would be behind and to either side of him as he sat. At the base of the cliff, mighty waves crashed and boomed against the rock. Crossing his legs, he placed his blade across his legs as he began to slow his breathing.
In all the years since he had finally honored his Vulcan heritage, by learning at least some of the disciplines, he had never changed his routine. His eyes closed and through concentration his heart beat in time with the booming of the waves.
He moved deeper into his meditation when the heat of the fires were replaced by a freezing wind. His eyes flew open and he was now on a snow-covered mountain with razor peaks all about him. Wearing only a pair of workout trousers, his sweat had frozen instantly to his body as he shouted into the wind, "END PROGRAM!"
The wind continued to howl, but at least the arch had appeared. None of the controls would work, and he pulled the maintenance panel, but was showered by sparks. Reaching into the crackling circuitry, he pulled the manual release for the doors, but they only opened a few inches.
Gripping the doors, he began to pull...nothing. Rushing back to his original position, he recovered his bat'leth and, thrusting it through the gap, he began to pry the doors apart.
Outside, his guard saw the door open and one was nearly stabbed when a bat'leth came thrusting out of the holodeck. "MY LORD!"
The doors to the holodeck were no match for two healthy and one partially frozen ambassador. Charghwl'ih fell through the opening as the doors parted.
Arboretum
The rain wouldn't stop. Brianthe turned off the watering system, but the rain just came harder. She turned off power to the entire arboretum, but still it rained. "Paula, help me fix this."
A petite woman ran up to her. "We've been trying to shut it off for two hours."
"Why didn't you call me?" If it had been raining for that long, there would be damage to some of the more sensitive plants.
"Communications are off, too," Paula explained.
"We need to shut off the water. Go back to the junction to the arboretum and manually turn off the valve."
Paula nodded and ran off.
While she was gone, Brianthe went into the downpour to rescue some of the smaller plants.
Security Offices
Annora had spent the morning reviewing candidates to join the station's security contingent. The top level supervisors weeded through the lists and sent her recommendations for final approval. She was finishing up her reports when the door chime sounded.
"Come in."
The doors opened to reveal Petty Officer Greitens, who was supposed to be patrolling the Promenade.
"Mr. Greitens, aren't you out of your patrol area?"
The Denobulan nodded. "Yes, ma'am, but with communications down, I was designated as the messenger. The Square Mile is a mess. There's been all sorts of random glitches, including the artificial gravity going down for a while. It's been restored, for now, but we felt you should know."
That would explain why the comm systems had been so quiet lately. Failed attempts to contact both Ops and Engineering confirmed that comms were still down.
Shutting off her computer, Annora headed for the main office. She hadn't yet reached the front desk when various alarms started blaring over each other. In the cacophony, it was hard to distinguish one from the other. Not even trying to drown out the noise, Annora waved her arms to get the attention of her staff. Motioning towards the front entrance, she motioned for everyone to leave. Sending her staff to auxiliary control, Annora headed a different direction.
"Mr. Greitens, let's grab some EV suits and head to the Promenade. Maybe we can find an engineer who knows what's happening."
Marine Mess Hall
It was Laz’s first official meal with his Marines on DS5, and if anybody was superstitious, they’d say that it was a bad omen. Even Laz was starting to wonder if it was a bad omen. They were in the mess hall after Laz introduced himself and started getting up to speed. The Marines ate together most days when they could, and Laz wanted to keep that going. Nothing bonded people like having a meal together.
But then fish pudding explosively produced itself from the replicator when one of his people ordered a bowl of soup. The smelly goop—lumpier and far warmer than it had any right to be—expelled itself all over Lance Corporal Ba’tolan’s pants. The Efrosian jumped back with a hiss and aimed a kick at the replicator before he stopped himself. There was laughter.
Then the smell kicked in, and the laughter stopped. Nobody was sure which culture, if any, the pudding came from, but it quickly disabused any of them of wanting to go there. It was a particularly pungent mix of old dairy, rotten fish, and the strangest odor of burning hair that nobody could quite explain, though there would be theories bandied about for some time.
Laz hadn’t gotten his lunch yet, and knew he wasn’t going to get it at all now. “Go get changed, Ba’tolan,” Laz said to the lance corporal. He tried not to gag.
“They could weaponize whatever this slop is,” the Efrosian said in his raspy voice, wiping the gunk off his trousers. “Worse than a phaser. It’s getting in my boots.” He hurried out as gingerly as he could, his boots squishing.
“We’ll clean up here,” Laz said. “Send another ticket to ops, like they don’t have enough problems.” The lights in the mess hall dimmed, turned off, and red emergency lighting flickered on. The pudding on the floor seemed almost iridescent in the new lighting. He thought about shooting it with his phaser.
Caleb Ryan's Quarters
Caleb had spent the morning down on Pangea working on the cabin he was building, and now he’d returned to his quarters to clean up, since he went on shift in an hour. Zandy would be home from school soon, too. He hummed a little tune as he showered, washing the sawdust from his hair, not noticing the lights flickering, as his eyes were closed. He ducked under the hot water and rinsed, then blinked his eyes open.
“What in tarnation?” he muttered, watching the lights flicker.
And then the water turned from comfortably hot to scalding.
“Ah! Sonuvabitch!” Caleb screamed, tumbling out of the shower, clutching his scalded nether regions. He bit his lip, swearing up a storm.
“Ryan ta Sickbay!” he managed to get out in agony, bent double.
The comms chimed, but went dead.
“Ah swear ta God…” Caleb managed to drag himself out of the bathroom and to a medical kit, grabbing and activating an ice pack and shoving it against his agonized man parts.
To be Continued…
Commander Caleb Ryan
Executive Officer
Lieutenant Alanna Wells
Chief Science Officer
Ensign Brianthe Oaxaca
Botanist
Paula
Botanist
Lieutenant (jg) Scaliontis Lovok
Chief Engineer
Lieutenant Annora Tessaro
Chief Security Officer
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