Setting A Scene

Posted on Wed Oct 28th, 2020 @ 2:23pm by Captain Abigail Laurens & Lieutenant Alexis Aenera
Edited on on Sat Dec 5th, 2020 @ 3:25pm

Mission: Enforced Intermission
Location: USS Astraea Engineering

The program was simple in design. It used a modulating algorithm to systematically search files in the ship's databases for any record of Admiral Lockwood and silently erase said files. It was easy enough to slip into the systems undetected, especially when one knew what one was doing, and she most certainly knew what she was doing.

Carissa looked across the security office at Darryl and smiled. "Alright, lets start with the tertiary backups. We can take them offline and run an analysis and make sure the backup system is syncing properly, on my mark."

The other security officer smiled back at her, "You got it." His focus returned to his screen. They always started with the tertiary systems, since they were the most expendable. After all, there were still the primaries and the backups still perfectly intact. "Ready on your mark."

"Tertiary backup systems going offline in three... two... one..." She watched closely as the system went offline. "Alright, tertiary backups are offline and the analysis has been started. It should only take five minutes to run and then we can start the sync check. While we're waiting do you want to grab a couple of coffees from the replicator?"

"Sure." He thought for a few seconds, "You like it black with sugar, right?" He began to mosey over to the replicator just a few meters away, punching in his own order. He preferred a little cream, but no sugar, it made it far too sweet for his own tastes.

With his back turned, Carissa retrieved an isolinear chip from her pocket and slipped it into the side of the console, her fingers dancing as she ran the code, embedding it into existing files, overwriting existing data so it became unnoticable. "The analysis looks good," she said nonchalantly as she pulled the isolinear chip out and returned it to her pocket. "The data seems to be all intact, there's no degradation or anything, which is great. Tertiary backups are prone to data loss." She smiled as she turned back toward him, taking the cup as he handed it to her. "Caffeine, nectar of the Gods... thank you!"

"No problem, Carissa, I just can't wait for this to be done." He rolled his eyes at the process of the file integrity review, "I know it needs to be done on a monthly basis on the outside, but it's an hour of sheer boredom if everything goes right, and more than an hour if there are problems."

Taking another sip of her coffee, Carissa ran her fingers across the console again. "The analysis is finished and it looks good. We'll start a sync check with the secondary backups. It looks like we're having a straight forward run of things, so hopefully it won't take entirely too long. Take the primary backup offline for me? Then I'll start it running."

The junior grade Lieutenant input his security code twice, as was required, to take the primary backup storage system offline. Running the check on the secondary backup would cause hundreds of red flags to pop up otherwise, due to the constant back and forth interactions between the two databases. "Done, now don't hit the wrong buttons and wipe the whole thing?" He winked at her.

Carissa laughed and shook her head. "If I did that the Captain would have me shunted out an airlock." She grinned across at Darryl before one hand glided across the console, the other holding her cup of coffee. "Okay, sync check has been started."

With the primary backup offline there was nothing to stop the code from syncing back to the secondary backup, it was the way it was written.

"So, we're heading back to Earth, any plans while we're stopped over there?" she asked, looking back at him and smiling as she made small talk.

"Oh, I figured I'd make a quick run by the house, visit my parents for a few hours." Darryl shrugged, "I do that whenever I'm in-system, but otherwise, might go for a hike in the Yosemite preserve in North America." He glanced over the readout just to be sure nothing was wrong, "Nothing super special planned, how about you?"

"Actually I'm going to go spend some time with old friends. We used to serve together but I haven't seen them in a while. It'll be nice, you know, to have that bit of old time reminiscing." She grinned. "Alright, looks like our sync check has been verified. Want to bring primary backups back online?"

He reached out with one hand and tapped a series of buttons that once again required his security code and an array of lights began to flash on and off again, turning yellow and then green, but one wouldn't convert over to green and he placed his cup down and turned his attention to the screen, "I'm having an issue with the firewall between the primary backup and the database... It's not confirming reactivation for some reason. Can I have you rerun the primary sync analysis tool to see if it's something with the firewall or if it's a residual feed?"

"Let's take a look," Carissa drained her coffee and turned her attention to the console. "Analysis is running now," she paused, biting down on her bottom lip. The glitch was obvious to her, it was the code worming it's way into the primary backups and then into the primary systems, piggy backing on a simple data comparison check. She tapped at the console, forcing the check to complete and the code to feed through to the primary systems. "Looks like it's self corrected. Everything looks normal now." She shrugged slightly. "We can run one more scan, but if everything checks out, we can probably call it good and get out of here!"

"Yeah, let's do that." Darryl reinitialized the scan and his eyes never left the screen this time, watching the various array of lights flash on standby yellow, then all to green one at a time. He gave a sigh of relief as he reached for his cup again, then up at Carissa, "You're right, it must have just been a test transmission from one to the other. Looks like we're back up and normal."

"Awesome, I think that means we're done! We can safely check backup analysis off our to do lists. Now, how about we head to the lounge and grab a drink?" Carissa asked with a grin. "I don't know about you, but after today, I could definitely use it!"

"A drink? Now?" He checked the chrono in the corner of the screen, noting that it was definitely later than expected, then grinned back, "On the other hand, yeah, we can definitely take a bit of time."

"Perfect, lets get out of here. I don't know about you, but I'd love a long island iced tea!" Carissa grinned as she linked her arm through his. "Shall we?"