[Story by Shawn Alpay, Character Art by Thomas Marrone]
Previously on Star Trek: Loma Prieta…
Episode 1: Shifts – Prologue
Episode 1: Shifts – Act 1
Episode 1: Shifts – Act 2
ACT 3
Captain’s Log, Stardate 48316.2. In the wake of an outbreak of food poisoning generated by the ship’s replicators, I’ve assembled my senior staff to receive a debrief of Hesser and Bukowski’s latest efforts to get to the root of an increasingly worrying problem.
“Well, Captain, we’ve got some bad news, some good news, and some terrible news.”
Perkins, Sung, Koperski, Sloan, and Security Chief Erik Roberts sat at one end of a table in the observation lounge, and Bukowski and Hesser stood next to a screen on the wall nearby. “Hit me, Tom,” Perkins said.
“First, the bad news. This virus thing has jumped tracks and moved out of the classified section of the ship’s main computer. It’s affected replicators and internal transportation so far.”
Koperski spoke up. “The recipes Ensign Sayre used at the gathering last night all called for liberal amounts of chili powder. Turns out that the replicator substituted coal.”
“Coal?” Perkins said, his tone incredulous.
“Coal,” she replied flatly. “Trace amounts were floating around in each of the stomachs I spent last night pumping. Everyone’s going to be fine, though I’m holding them for another few hours for observation. I took the liberty of analyzing a random collection of other dishes available in the replicator database — they’re all completely inedible, not to mention toxic.”
“I’ve been saying that for years,” Perkins muttered. He turned his attention back to his chief engineer. “What’s the good news?”.
“Well, the first thing the virus did was wipe out the audit logs,” Hesser replied, “so we can’t yet tell where the virus started. But I installed a watchman subroutine in the DMZ that doesn’t physically interface with the ship’s systems.”
“And with that,” Bukowski chimed in, “I’ve been able to track the order of files in which the virus moves. I focused on the replicator recipe database, and I analyzed those logs seven ways from Sunday. Here’s what I found.” She tapped the console a few times, and the main screen on the wall nearby came to life:
GNEULPJ0S6JWQD3CVK0T
2LX3Y5Y9VVXV4KMPX5V9
82TXAET98A2O82KF3NAV
RASGUIDESTHEWAYDF4MA
3Z0QRXG3EDNY4E205FCV
VSEZCITSNVYRXI95S7D0
D309T3366KRQ4NCMPIN9
EV2KSTS6ZWNAVRASGUID
ESTHEWAYQBHQG44NDL44
L9D6MV7QWEN07YJZMC4P
“This is a list of first characters in the titles of each recipe the virus manipulated, sorted by time.”
Perkins leaned forward, as did the others around the table, studying the random data. “Alright. I don’t see anything meaningful.”
“Right,” Bukowski said, eking some amount of glee out of having subjected the senior staff to even the smallest slice of the data hell through which she had been recently wallowing. “Computer, highlight relevant strings, Bukowski pattern theta.”
GNEULPJ0S6JWQD3CVK0T
2LX3Y5Y9VVXV4KMPX5V9
82TXAET98A2O82KF3NAV
RASGUIDESTHEWAYDF4MA
3Z0QRXG3EDNY4E205FCV
VSEZCITSNVYRXI95S7D0
D309T3366KRQ4NCMPIN9
EV2KSTS6ZWNAVRASGUID
ESTHEWAYQBHQG44NDL44
L9D6MV7QWEN07YJZMC4P
Perkins stood to his feet slowly, approaching the screen and placing a hand on the wall, a look of wonder on his face as he stared at the data, the characters reflecting in his eyes. “Cody, you magnificent bastard.”
Hesser continued. “So that means that I’ve got a pattern to track. And that’s where the terrible news comes in.” Hesser tapped in a few commands, displaying a physical layout of the ship’s internal systems.
“Using the pattern, I’ve traced the virus’ most likely path forward to see where it’ll hop next. I polarized the beta scanners” — he glanced to the chief science officer, who wore a proud smile — “and found that it’s copied itself into pretty much every system already. To be clear, as of right now, it’s everywhere — but just not active. I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
“So can you shut it down?”
“Sorry sir, but no,” Hesser replied, taking a seat at the table. “I’ve sectioned the systems from each other as best I can, but I’m operating a little bit out of my depth on this. For the time being, I think we can operate as normal without replicators and turbolifts. But I can’t say for certain when the thing will find a way around our counter-measures and activate the dormant sections. Whoever wrote this had to have extremely intimate knowledge of Starfleet computer topology — Ambassador-class vessels specifically.”
Perkins and Sung gave each other a look. “Okay. Going forward, I want level 6 security clearance applied to all work and discussions related to this.” Perkins pushed off of the wall and placed his hands down on the table, his fingers spread, making eye contact with each of the officers to silently confirm their commitment to his command. “Now. How can we use this information to find out more about what happened to the Navras? Last known location, intent, anything? I want options.”
Discussion went dead for a moment as each officer pondered the topic.
“What if…” Bukowski started. She put a hand out, her eyes fluttering for a moment. “Okay, tell me if this is the sleep deprivation talking, but… Tom, what if we took the physical pattern the virus follows and applied it in a more… astrophysical way?”
Hesser squinted his eyes, attempting to understand. “I don’t follow, but… go on.”
Bukowski thought a moment, looking out the window. “What if we took the physical version of the virus’ progress, and ran it through… I dunno… a starchart?”
“Well… I suppose we could do that. If we took a vector matrix and mapped it as navigational headings, it would certainly generate something.”
“Right,” Bukowski replied. “We could try overlaying it on the Navras’ last known movements and see if it matched.”
“And if it does, we could find out where it was gonna go after that.”
Bukowski smiled. “Navras guides the way.”
The room went silent a moment, considering the plan.
“It’s outlandish — but I like it,” MacKinnon offered. “Your lessons with Ben must be rubbing off.”
Perkins pushed off of the table, standing upright. “Alright, if that’s our only lead, then do it. I want no further word of this virus mentioned to the rest of the crew for the time being. Hesser, Bukowski, get down to stellar cartography and run your pattern. Roberts, I want you to post security teams at each of the turbolifts to direct crewmembers to use Jefferies tubes for now. High-priority payloads can be transported site-to-site. Koperski, keep me informed of Owens’ condition — I want him back on the bridge ASAP. The rest of you, keep brainstorming. That’ll be all.”
“Captain,” Sung said in a tone that somehow told everyone else to remain seated. “I have to insist that we inform Starfleet Command of these developments. Not only could they produce a technical specialist to assist with the computer’s affliction, but they would be very interested in any information as it pertains to the destruction of the Navras.”
“Disappearance of the Navras, Mr. Sung,” Perkins corrected him. “And because this is now security level 6, I’m enacting captain’s prerogative to withhold communication with Houston until we can paint a clearer picture of what’s going on.”
“What do you mean, ‘disappearance’? Official logs clearly state that the Navras was subjected to a warp core malfunction that—”
Perkins was clearly not interested in argument, and he cut off his executive officer. “Mr. Sung, I appreciate your enthusiasm, but it’s clear that there’s more going on here than meets the eye, and I’m asking you to keep an open mind.”
Sung’s expression contorted, and he struggled to maintain composure. “There’s ‘open minds’, sir, and then there’s common sense. What happens when the warp core gets infected? And it’s highly unusual, not to mention inconvenient, to subject the crew to manual transport across decks, and we’re going to be—”
“Mr. Sung!” Perkins declared forcefully, and he let the silence reign for a moment. He continued at a more conventional volume. “That will be all. Seriously.”
“I’m sorry, Captain, but I will be submitting a formal protest in the ship’s log.”
“Observed and noted, Mr. Sung.” Perkins made his way towards the door. The meeting concluded, as other meetings sometimes had, with his departure, whether anyone else had further opinions or not.
—
“Alright, so here’s the Navras’ last reported movements after it left Starbase 415 a few weeks ago.”
Stellar Cartography maintained the largest of all the science labs onboard the Loma Prieta, and Ensign Shawn Alpay was putting it through its paces. Bukowski and Hesser stood directly behind him, and Lieutenants Benjamin Roodman and Samantha Dolgoff stood off to the side, their arms folded.
A large three-dimensional starchart floated before the assembled party, with a bright blue dot indicating the USS Navras, and a red dot directly adjacent indicating Starbase 415. Alpay keyed in a few commands, and the dot painted a lime green line across space as it moved away from the starbase to one system after the other.
“The data goes dark about two weeks ago. Then, one week later — or one week ago, if you prefer — their warp signature, along with trace elements of their warp core, were found scattered across three light-years… here.” A translucent bubble appeared on the map, not far from the Navras’ last known location. “The Phordon sector.”
“How did you get these? The logs of pretty much everything historic in the ship’s computer are tattered at the moment.”
“I live and die down here by the availability of historic data, Miss Bukowski,” Alpay replied. “If I didn’t keep regular, secured backups of this kind of stuff, I can tell you that I would’ve probably never made it out of the Academy.”
“Are you… talking about cheating on Academy tests?”
Alpay ignored her question, looking back up at the map. “So there’s the Navras — rest in peace. Though I’m guessing you wouldn’t be down here if it was truly case closed. So… let me see your heading projections.”
“Transferring them to you now,” Bukowski said, typing away on her PADD.
“Alright,” he said, looking at his screen, analyzing her findings. “Yeah, these are weird. But whatever, let’s try it. Using the Navras’ known headings, and pairing it with your theoretical headings, we get… this.”
An orange line zigzagged across a wide swath of many sectors; the section of map they had been observing shrank as the orange line quickly extended far past its borders, and the system duly began to generate a much larger slice of the quadrant. After a moment, Alpay stopped the projection. “That’s as far as they could have got, as of today’s stardate, at maximum warp the whole time.”
Hesser frowned, looking up at the screen. “That’s… a lot of space.”
“I suppose we could just follow their trail,” Bukowski offered.
Hesser folded his arms. “I’d love to, but I honestly don’t think we have that much time.”
Alpay turned in his seat and faced them. “What do you mean?”
Hesser glanced down at him. “Uh, never mind. How do we narrow this down?”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Dolgoff offered, taking a step forward. “The Navras didn’t report their location in their final dispatch, but their science department did report extremely elevated levels of heavy barium.”
“Well, yeah, but… heavy barium is a by-product of all kinds of interstellar reactions: supernovas, nebulae crystallization — I mean hell, even a damaged starship can generate trace amounts.”
Dolgoff gestured up to the map and said nothing further. Hesser glanced up to the map and thought for a moment; then, something clicked. “Oh! Right.”
“So let’s thread the needle,” Roodman said, stepping over to a console. “Shawn, I’m feeding you a list of all known sources of heavy barium generation in the relevant sectors of space.”
Light purple cubes started popping up all over the map, and everyone looked up at the screen. “This is making my headache worse,” Bukowski sighed.
“There!” Alpay declared, and zoomed the map tight on a particular section of the map. “Your theoretical path intersects precisely once with the possible sources: the Daynor sector. Anchored by a trinary star cluster, outputting ridiculous amounts of heavy barium.”
Dolgoff frowned. “Okay, yeah, but if the Navras got anywhere near enough to generate these reported levels, they would’ve never escaped the gravitational pull. Everyone knows to keep a wide berth from these kinds of systems.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, sir,” Alpay said, gesturing up at the screen and looking back to Dolgoff. “That’s what the computer says.”
—
Bukowski and Hesser exited the Stellar Cartography lab and made their way down the hall. Hesser glanced over at her; she carried a far-away look, and a wistful expression that stood on some risky edge. “You doing alright, Tiffany?”
“No, actually.” He waited for her to make a customarily glib remark, but her suffix of silence told him that she was nearing the end of her rope.
“Well, you’re doing a great job. If you’re ever looking for a career down in the engine room…” He was glad to get a smile out of her.
“Engineering to Hesser.”
The chief engineer tapped his commbade as they stopped near the turbolift. “Hesser here, go ahead.”
“The initial infected sectors have stopped transforming, sir, if you want to proceed with your analysis.”
“Thanks, Harley. Hesser out.” He gestured to Bukowski. “Well, moment of truth. Put that pattern into that PADD, let’s find out where it originated.”
—
“Come.”
The doors of Perkins’ ready room slid open, and Sung and Hesser entered the room. He glanced up at them, then back to his console. “Well, don’t you two look delighted to be here. Have a seat.”
“Sir, we’ve determined the possible final location of the Navras,” Sung said, holding a PADD in his hands, remaining standing.
Perkins looked up at him, his annoyance at Sung’s pettiness overridden by his excitement at the prospect of finding the missing vessel. “That’s excellent news! Where?”
“A trinary star cluster in the Daynor system. This cluster produces an overwhelming gravitational pull, however, and any approach would be extremely difficult to navigate.”
“I see. Well, if that’s where the Navras is, then we’ve got to go. Tom, prepare whatever measures will be necessary to minimize risk, and we’ll certainly exercise caution. How long will it take to get there?”
“Five hours at maximum warp, sir,” Hesser said.
“Very good. Have Mr. MacKinnon lay in a course, and let me know when we arrive.” He turned his attention back to his console.
Silence. Perkins looked up once more. “What?”
Sung cleared his throat. “Sir, I must once more recommend—”
“Mr. Sung, you’ve lodged your formal complaint, I get it.”
In these cases, his executive officer usually retreated to lick his wounds — but something in his demeanor looked… off. “Sir, I think you should hear him out,” Hesser offered.
“Alright. Go ahead, Mr. Sung.”
“Captain, to be clear: are you commanding us to navigate our wounded ship into a dangerous sector?”
“It’s frustrating to hear you paint it in that light, Mr. Sung — but yes, that’s precisely what I’m saying.”
Sung and Hesser nodded to each other, and Hesser tapped his commbadge. “Alright Erik, Tiffany, come in.”
The ready room doors slid open, and Bukowski and Roberts entered the room. Bukowski’s eyes were swollen, and Roberts wore a stony expression.
Perkins stood to his feet, placing his hands on his desk. “What’s going on? What happened?”
“Captain,” Bukowski started. It took her a long moment to pull her words together, her eyes shining. “We found the initial entry vector of the virus.”
“That’s more good news. Who was it?”
“Oh, Zach…” She tilted her head slightly to the right, and a tear slid down her cheek, an ironic smile on her face. “It was you.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment. “What are you talking about?”
Hesser laced his fingers and spoke. “Captain, we had until recently only been able to trace the virus forward, but had to wait until its scrambling algorithm wrapped up in the zero sectors of the computer before being able to determine its path backward.” He cleared his throat. “The algorithm finished an hour ago. And the original batch of infected files came from your console. Right here.” He gestured to the captain’s desk, pointing with his forefingers without unlacing his hands. He exhaled slowly with puffed cheeks, looking down, unwilling or unable to look Perkins in the eye.
“My team reviewed the duty logs,” Roberts said.
“Well, we pieced them together manually; the digital copies are a mess,” Hesser said.
Roberts continued. “The virus’ entry into the system happened between 1000 and 1100 yesterday. And you were in this room the entire time, sir.”
“Captain,” Sung stated, looking down at the PADD he had brought along, “You have hereby been accused of reckless endangerment of your crew and attempted destruction of a Starfleet vessel. Per Starfleet Regulations, I’m formally relieving you of command. You will be directed to the brig, where the chief medical officer will perform a physical review and take your formal statement while the Loma Prieta heads directly for Starbase 415 for repairs. You will then be transferred to Starfleet Headquarters to await a court-martial. I have already coordinated with the central JAG Office to confirm these details, should you wish to review them,” he said, looking up and holding the PADD in Perkins’ direction.
“I don’t need to see it.” Perkins glanced at each of the four of them in turn, then down to the ground. After a moment, he looked back to Roberts. “Alright, let’s go. If you can do me the favor of not leading me around by the forearm, I’d sure appreciate it.”
“Yes, sir.”
The ready room door slid open, and Perkins entered the bridge. Every bridge officer was standing, their arms at their sides, staring in his direction. Perkins looked over their faces, then closed his eyes, saying nothing.
—
TO BE CONTINUED… STAY TUNED FOR ACT 4, NEXT TUESDAY.
