Off course

Posted on Sat Oct 31st, 2020 @ 4:41pm by Lieutenant JG C'Tirr K'Ruuras & Lieutenant Commander William Rogers
Edited on on Sat Dec 5th, 2020 @ 3:31pm

Mission: Enforced Intermission

Rogers sat behind the helm, his attention split between watching the star field at warp progressing across the viewscreen and checking the heading and progress of the Astraea's journey back to Earth. His console gave a quiet ping; an alert for starships travelling in the area indicating the presence of a subspace anomaly which might require them to divert course. Such advisories were not rare occurrences, and as the USS Cardinal was already investigating there was no need to flag it up with the captain.

He enter the commands to adjust the ship's heading, steering them away from the potential danger with the minimum of increase to their journey time. But rather than the acknowledgement chime his console sounded an error. It wouldn't be the first time his fingers had outpaced the shifting of the required inputs so Rogers reran the sequence, slower this time. Again the error sounded. He frowned and tried a third time. It was definitely the correct set of commands but there was no response from the helm.

He tapped his com badge. "Rogers to engineering. Is there any work being undertaken on the helm controls at the moment?"

"Negative Rogers, none are in process at this time. Why do you ask?" Came back the reply. There was a bit of a hiss on the s's in the voice that replied, almost similar to a felines. C'Tirr stood at a console checking current system repairs and diagnostics being performed at that time. He black furred hands tapped across the console's surface as his tail twitched and sway in his agitation at yet another system malfunction.

"Helm's non-responsive at present." He didn't recognise the voice at the other end. Perhaps it was one of the new crew taken on at the last Starbase stop.

C'Tirr checked the records and found that the damn virus or what ever it was had transferred helm controls to cargo bay 2. "C'Tirr to Rogers, I've located where helms been transferred and you won't believe it but it's active in cargo bay 2. Attempting to transfer controls back to you now." He said as his furry hands typed in command after command.

Rogers checked the helm display and eyed the timer which indicated how long until the ship had to make the course change with irritation. "That going to take long?"

"I think I almost got it." Came the reply from Engineering. C'Tirr scolded at the consol in front of him and growled. His fist came down with a bang and the screen of the console flickered but the commands he had entered finally took. On the bridge the course corrections that had been laid in took effect. "And you should have control again Rogers." He said with a toothy grin.

"How did helm get transferred to a cargo bay?" Rogers asked. That really didn't seem like something that should happen to a key ship's system.

"I have no idea. I'm looking through the logs and it just changed locations. I think it has to do with this virus we had. At least it's not deactivating key systems." C'Tirr said as he read the computer logs. A couple of files had been deleted as well. "Hope no one was wanting gahk anytime soon, there are a few replicator files missing." He said with a hissing chuckle. "Running full diagnostics on all key systems now, estimated time to completion is four minutes and thirty eight seconds."

On the bridge Roger shook his head. "We have a computer virus? How the hell did we get that?"

"I am unaware of the how as it was here when I came onboard at star base 332. I only know that it hasn't affected key systems until now. We will be watching key systems a bit more closely now so that it doesn't happen again." C"Tire said as he pulled up system after system and started all diagnostics he could without shutting those systems down.

Looks like the Captain got her conspiracy after all, Rogers thought to himself. An ember of annoyance with the whole situation flickered inside him. "Intel or Security really dropped the ball on this." He remarked quietly. "Keep an eye on helm for me. Don't want this to happen again in an emergency."

"You need not fear Sir. I'll have my PADD synched up to the main engineering console so that I am able to personally monitor all key systems at all times." C'Tirr stated as he linked his PADD directly to the main engineering computer and set up hourly diagnostics. If there was to be any degradation or possible control transfer, he would be alerted immediately.

"Fab. Thanks for the help. Rogers out." Closing the channel Buck turned his attention back to the starfield.

In Engineering, C'Tirr double checked the main systems again when he got a chime. He let out a hiss of a sigh before he answered the communication. There was so much going haywire it was keeping all of them very busy but he was happy for it in a way. He was getting to meet some of his new shipmates. That was always the hardest part of a new transfer.

End