The Cause

Posted on Thu Sep 28th, 2017 @ 12:15pm by Lieutenant Commander J'Loni Mo'Bri

Mission: https://wellington.pegasusfleet.site/index.php/sim/missions/id/3
Location: Engineering
Timeline: June 15, 2399 @ 2:00 PM

ON:

Christine was deeply involved in her work with the isolinear chips that were damaged. She had to scan each one and find out just how they ere tampered with. It was not a hard thing to do but to scan and make a determination of being tampered with was not going to be easy. From each affected system she took one chip and scanned it with the Isolinear Chip Reader. She had to do it this way just to make sure that all these chips were from the same systems that were serviced at the starbase. Each chip has a number on it and for the most part, all the serial numbers were of the same batch and lot. This made it easier to log and easier to trace. Fortunately she had the mind to separate them before she started so that it would be a simple matter to log and report it to her boss. She knew that the chips were protected by an application of tripolymer sealant over the refractive interface surface so that it could be handled with out protective gloves. As it turned out, all of these chips in question had indeed been tampered with and the surface of the chips had been damaged so that once they were handled by human hands, the oil and dust particles would interfere with the surface of the housing thus causing, basically a short, which would in turn cause a burn out or surge in the unit. This is why the units blew out and caused a ripple effect in the optical fiber lines to overload the relays which were already tampered with. She had a few relays in her possession and did a quick scan to confirm her findings and it was true in what she had thought. All this was, in her mind, sabotage and she wondered what other systems might have been affected or what other areas of the ship were serviced at the starbase in question. This was something that had to be told to the Chief. Tapping her combadge… “Lt. Zen to Cmdr. Alennis...sir I found something you should see...it is important and relevant to what is happening to our systems”, she said. Before any response to her communique, she quickly commed J’Loni as well. “Zen to Mo’Bri...boss I found something you need to see and it is way important that you see this before the Commander does. I have alerted her to my findings”, she said.

Hearing her badge chirp she responded, “Christine what do you have?”, she said.

“Boss you need to come and see this for your self. I found out what and how it was done. Please boss...”, Christine said hastily.

“Ok Christine I will be there in a minute...Mo’Bri out”, and she closed the comm and hurried out to where Christine was.

Looking up from her work she saw J’Loni approaching, “Boss look this is crazy...why on earth would you install damaged chips like this into the isolinear housing? I mean with the protective cover damaged in this fashion, it would be just plain crazy to do this”, she said. Holding the chip reader, she scanned one chip from each batch to show her exactly what she had found. She had indeed found the answer to the question as to how.

“So Christine, in other words all of these chips, along with faulty optical fiber, and relays, all this caused a ripple affect which blew them out one at a time”, she asked.

“Yes boss it did. One failure lead to another and to the other till the whole thing collapsed”, she said, triumphantly. There, Christine was quite satisfied with herself and how she did the job. Smiling she looked at J’Loni and waited to see if she would say anything.

“Very good job Christine, you have done well in your work. Be proud of yourself. You did the job with prescision and thoroughly. I love a young person who shows they know what they are doing and the desire to move on to better things”, she said smiling at Christine. Taping her combadge… “Mo’Bri to Cmdr. Alennis we need to talk. We have found something that requires your presence...”,she said. Now, all that was needed was the commander to respond.

"On my way" she replied. Within a minute or two, she was in engineering. "Is everything all right?"

"Actually...no...what I mean to say is that Christine did find the cause of the transporter failure. She ran scans on the chips and found that they were all tampered with. Being of the same serial number and lot, all of the chips were used in the transporter systems, along with the adjoining optical fiber cables, leading to the power relays in these systems were in fact tampered with. These damaged parts led to a ripple effect in those systems that resulted in thee blow out of our transporters", J'Loni said.

"Sir, if the starbase engineering personnel that upgraded our systems or repaired them, then I wonder what other systems did they touch?", Christine added.

"Commander, if in fact this is sabotage, shouldn't we address the situation by doing level 2 diagnostics of all systems that were, according to the repair logs, checked by that starbase?", J'Loni added.

Alennis looked with concern at the scan result. Sabotage? But why? How?. She then looked up at the team. "Proceed. Do we have most of this under control or can we expect more chip failures?"

"As for more failures...that depends on what the manifest says and what the diagnostics find. If there are anymore instances of this occurring...I would say yes they will unless we find them before they happen", J'Loni said sadly shaking her head.

"I'll be sure to advise the Captain in our senior staff meeting. If it's sabotage, the whole thing will have to be handed over to Security at Starbase 231, which might even require us to go back there. It's bad enough we're in a part of space where almost everything seems to want to kill us and we can't even trust our own people." Meru replied in frustration.

"Sir, I think we can handle most of the replacement of there damaged parts out here...", she said, as her combage went off. "Go agead Thomas, what's up", she said.

"Well I hate to be the bearer of bad news but, we found a new problem concerning the replaced parts. Ot would seem that the chips and other stuff we found were not the only ones. I am here with Salchin in the bussard control section and she found several parts with damage. We can replace them. But it will take time", he said.

"Very well Thomas, oh and tell Salchin...good work!", she said as she looked back at her boss. " See what I am saying, we can replace what is damaged out here but I can only hope that this madness stops before we really get hurt. I can't think of any good reason to turn around unless we find something that would cause a core breech. I do however agree with you that the captain needs to be updated and now,, she said rubbing her ridges.

"I'll get on that. Thanks for bringing it to my attention." Alennis said. It's entirely possible that we'll have to turn it over to security at 231 to investigate if indeed it is sabotage. But the Captain will be able to make the necessary arrangements for that." she added.

"Good boss and I will keep you updated on anything else that is found and what we are doing to fix it", she said, trying not to look so upset. Turning to Christine, "I will get Cordale to assist you with this. I have faith in you Christine. Good job", she said, giving her a pat on the back.

"That being said, I must get back to my rounds, if you will excuse me", she said as she left the two together.

OFF


Lt. Jg. Christine Zen
Computer Specialist/Engineering Officer
USS Wellington

Lt. Cmdr. J'Loni Mo'Bri
Assistant Chief Engineering Officer
USS Wellington

Lt. Cmdr Meru Alennis
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Wellington