Subroutines oh my - Part 1

Posted on 31 Jan 2016 @ 2:54am by Commodore Da`nal of the House of Varal & Lieutenant Commander Samuel Killpatrick & Lieutenant Kordah Himars & Lieutenant Shawn Hamilton

1,284 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: M13-C: Shattered Time
Location: USS Achilles

[Maintenance Bay 3]

The man from Hooker, stood beside a few enlisted and Non Comms. He couldn't believe his eyes as he read the data padd with the latest PMCS report that discovered something wrong with the subroutine in the communication buoys. Which, with one of the large buoys on an hooks and chains in Maintenance bay 3. He shook his head and began to wonder what or whom would do such a thing, let alone, what he had to do. This would bring the Captain and Commander Stone down into the belly of the ship. The only thing that would bring them down from the bridge was having talk to him about 'why this equipment is deadline'. But for this reason, it was worth a ass chewing, if there was one to come.

With an mere press of his thumb on the data padd, Shawn, entered and send the report that all comm buoys were now deadline, until they were all fixed.


[Bridge]

The ship was still at red alert and the away teams had just left to investigate the two ships now in their tractor beams. One team had beamed over to the alien ship, and he now watched as the other, aboard transports, approached the Terran ship to board manually. Even with his attention focused on the view screen he sensed the shift in people behind them and the tentative approach of an officer.

"Excuse me sir."

Not taking his eyes off the screen he replied. "What is it?"

"Sir all the comm buoys between us and the Cardassian relay station have been taken offline."

That bit of information got his full attention and he turned quickly. "By who?"

"Lt. Hamilton sir."

Those buoys were their link home and even though they knew that eventually they would lose contact, to have them intentionally deactivated was...unsettling. A knee jerk reaction would have been to beam to strangle those responsible. Hamilton had to have had a reason, and it better be a good one. Tapping his badge, "Lt. Hamilton, report to my ready room...immediately."

[Maintenance bay 3]

Shawn and his team were working on the buoys, for the Master of the Engines knew how important the comm devices were. However, what his team had discovered within each device was in fact unsettling to find not just one error, but the same type error in all the buoys. Shawn had his computer programmer coming up with reprograms for the one that have been deployed already, when the bridge paged him.

'took them long enough' he thought as he gave the maintenance team and engineers orders to continue on the repairs as he answer the page.

[Bridge]

With a data padd in hand, the man from Hooker, stepped onto the bridge. He knew that the ship was locking into two vessels, one unknown and another from alternate universe. But, what he held in his hands was just important to what was taking place beside the Achilles. Taking in a deep breath, the Engineer, fore gone the ringing of the door chime, but, as a former Non comm rapped on the captain's door. Signaling to the Captain he was there and he had information on the deadline report.

[Ready Room]

Looking up at the sound. Arching a brow at the actual knock and not the usual chime. "Enter."

Stepping in and before the Commodore began to chew his ass out for dead lining the buoys, Hamilton, handed the padd over and spoke "Sir, before you start chewing my ass out, we have an large issue with all comm buoys. Not just one, but all. Someone or a host of them, have tampered with the buoys from this point in space to us leaving DS9. It would have gone unnoticed, if some of the maintenance guys were noticing oddities in the signal pattern. So, with that, I got in touch with comms and checked the buoys and computer programs that were made for the buoys..."

Only glancing at the padd he cut of the engineer. "You are saying that the buoys have been tampered with from the beginning of our mission?!"

Several possibilities came to mind as to who could be behind it, both in the Federation and in the Empire... "What kind of tampering? Can you reprogram them from here?"

"Of course, sir. Someone altered the subroutines and what have you and well, I had no choice but to dead line the lot of them. However, I have the gang reprogramming them from here and hopping that reprogram to bypass the wrong program. The buoys on ship are being directly reprogrammed." Shawn stated to the Admiral

It could very likely be a spy and if so they needed to move quickly to ensure the culprit didn't become aware. Hefting the padd he had been handed, "I assume this has the altered subroutines so they can be analyzed?"

"Yes it has sir" returned Hamilton to the captain

"Good. Get back to engineering and make sure your crew says nothing to anyone about this. Anything information is to be given to me directly ant to me only. Finally get the buoys back online, we don't want to alert whoever did this."

"Of course, sir" returned the former enlisted man "I'll just say, we were running a diagnostic and had to take the things down for a wee bit. Sir, if I may, you want me to check the computers as well?"

Da`nal shook his head. "Not as yet we don't know who is involved or what these alterations were intended to do. I will analyze them myself and join you in engineering."

"Rodger that, sir" returned Shawn with an nodded

Not watching the Engineer leave he go straight to work on those subroutines. The security officer in him surfaced and he ran several diagnostics and picked the programming apart to see exactly what this programming was intended to do. He had to hand it to the individual behind it as he or she had artfully concealed the true purpose. There were multiple dead ends and false leads to deal with and it had taken him longer than he had liked... ~Must be getting rusty~, a thought to himself, but when its true purpose was revealed he was both angered and puzzled.

Tapping his commbadge. "Da`nal to Maintenance bay 3. Lt. Hamilton, are we operational yet?"

[Maintenance Bay]

Upon his arrival to the maintenance bay, Shawn, was approached by one of his Engineers. The Bolian handed Shawn a data padd that had the latest data gathered on the mysterious program and what was done to bypass it on all the Buoys that have been deployed and the ones that have been worked on so far. The gear head was once more impressed with his staff. He tapped his badge and replied to the captain.

"Just two more that have been deployed left, the other on the ship still being worked on" returned Shawn plainly "The comms and our computer guys can’t make heads or tails of this thing, but they have save it on a data padd..." he signal an crewmen and handed him the data padd he had "...I'm sending that padd to you, for I don't want to risk the computer and comms."

=^= No need, I think I have this figured out... =^=

Just as the captain replied he was updated on the remaining buoys "Sir, all deployed have been up dated, work is continuing on those to be deployed."

=^= Excellent. Continue you efforts, you shouldn't need to keep this quiet for much longer but keep you people in line until you hear from me. I have a call to make, Da`nal out. =^=


TBC

 

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