Meeting of the Minds

Posted on Fri Oct 11th, 2024 @ 9:53am by Lieutenant Lisald Vaat & Commander Dr. Anna-Lee McEntyre, Ph.D

797 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: Episode 0: The Fire & The Song
Location: Main Computer Core

The Goddard had the most advanced computer in the fleet…so far as the young Caitian Computer Scientist turned Executive Officer knew. So why was it still throwing up errors in cycling the main AI subroutine to secondary computers? This was the question she was trying to solve as she rooted about the code block of the main computer artificial intelligence.

She had turned into (as some would call it) gremlin mode. She started working on this sometime ago and as far as she knew, she’d only been at it an hour. In reality however, it’d been almost half a day, fueled by exorbitant amounts of caffeine and candy mixed with no sleep already. Her uniform and lab coat were a wrinkled mess and her hair was wild. She sat cross legged, keyboard on her lap and holographic screens before her float through lines and lines of code.

This would be how the science officer would find her. Frustrated with the inability of the computer to help Lisald calibrate the stupid multi-spectral scanner in Science Lab 1, Lisald traced the problem to the computer core. Probably an isolinear chip or maybe even a bio-neural gel pack that had gone corrupt. Either way, he wanted it fixed, and was anticipating being deep in the core by himself. It wasn't exactly a popular hang-out spot for any crew on any ship in all of Starfleet. Therefore, he was quite surprised when he stumbled, almost quite literally, into the ships Executive Officer. "Oh my Prophets," the Bajoran exclaimed. "You startled the hem'jaws out of me!"

The Caitians fur went on end, a loud yowl of panic as she heard the voice behind her and nearly leap three feet in the air. She scrambled to her feet, turning quickly with a look of a scared cat upon her face.

"You're telling me" She retorted as she stood, shaky.

"Didn't...Didn't expect anyone to come down here...wait, what time is it? Am I late for staff briefing?" She scrambled for her PADD, a large one, like a board, clumsily knocking over other stacks of PADDs and isolinear chips and a bioneural pack she thought had been infected with something.

Lisald had taken several steps back to give the Caitian plenty of room. Seeing as he had come in the only exit, he didn't want her feeling cornered. Plus, those eyes....

"Uh, it's just after 1900 hours, Commander. Far as I know, no staff meetings have been scheduled." He paused, then continued. "No, I am just down here because I am having problems with some of my equipment in the lab." Lisald then realized he was being rude. "Sorry, Commander. I am Lieutenant Lisald Vaat, the Chief Science Officer aboard the Goddard. I just transferred over from the U.S.S. Cygnus."

“Dr. Anna-Lee McEntyre…Commander McEntyre, I’m still not use to the commander bit. Wasn’t so long ago I was just a researcher, but when your brother and cousins bet you on not being able to pass the command test, well, you know what they say.”

She was rambling. To most of Starfleet, the name McEntyre invokes the images of long ago. One of the founding families of the Federation, ranking with the Archers, Picards, Kirks, Stiles. At some point in the 23rd century they intermingled with the Caitians until now most were full Caitians.

Vaat shook his head. "Sorry Commander, I do not know what you mean. I am an only child. However, I do have cousins, and remember them and I always being super competitve. I can only imagine that on steroids between siblings." The Chief Science Officer looked down at the scattered bits and bobs of computer equipment strewn about, most of it being so because he had accidentally startled her. "What were you working on? Anything I can do to help?" Lisald liked her, a lot. Her personality reminded him of his very first Executive Officer, Commander Helena Pope. Lisald idly wondered what she was up to now, not having seen her in many years.

"Was trying to go through and see why the main computer was refusing to link to the secondary cores. Been getting Delta-3 errors in the linkage rountines and the AI is being stubborn."

Anna elaborated as she started to pick up the various bits and bobs that had been strewn about the lab that housed the Main Computer Core. Her holoscreens were still hovering but paused in their readback of the code that underpinned the Artificial Intelligence systems.

Lisald nodded, understanding what she was saying. "I've been having problems too, which I mentioned. I think I can help. Would you welcome the company?"

OFF

A JP by:

The Executive Officer

and

The Science Nerd

 

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