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Archie Phoenix

"Barricaded Inside the Computer"

As a student of biotechnology, Archie could appreciate comparisons between a starship and an organism. What were organisms, after all, but living machines? As a doctor’s ultimate priorities in preserving the life of a patient are preservation of the brain and the heart, so are an engineer’s top priorities the protection of the ship’s brain and heart -- the computer and warp cores respectively. The warp core takes in two forms of fuel -- deuterium and anti-deuterium -- combining and converting them into a form which can be sent through a network of vessels -- the plasma conduits -- to keep all the ship’s systems energized; it keeps the ship’s lifeblood flowing. The computer core, utilizing energy stored up from the warp core’s supply, makes all the critical computations and sends instructions through the computer’s own nervous system -- the optical cables -- to keep the ship’s systems running properly; it tells each part of the ship what it should be doing at any given time. Both processes are supervised by the ship’s cells -- its crew.

 

These comparisons were flashing through Archie’s mind when intruder alert klaxons began blaring (the rough equivalent of a brain painfully telling its host organism not to imbibe anymore of particular beverage) and main engineering was flooded by strangely uniformed and, more alarmingly, heavily armed figures. Not certain what to do in such a situation, Archie simply followed Lieutenant Black’s orders to evacuate the warp core area. When the blast doors dropped behind him, he realized that she was protecting the ship’s heart. This was a wise course of action, Archie knew. Unfortunately, it left two integral parts of the ship’s spirit -- Archie and Ensign Torre -- vulnerable to the still flooding, still uniformed, and still alarmingly armed figures.

 

Ensign Torre took the nearest computer console and tried taking a measure of control over this tenuous situation. Archie knew this was a doomed effort. For one thing, the power was fluctuating wildly in main engineering, an effect which was centered on a small device that had been placed on one of the other computer terminals by the intruders. It appeared to be having the effect that a blood vessel blockage would have on a circulatory system, inhibiting the warp core’s power flow. Not wanting to start an interstellar war, Archie fired his phaser at the device rather than the intruders. Not being a particularly good shot, he missed, and the power fluctuations became a full-blown outage. It was an oddly fortunate turn that the loss of primary lighting prevented the intruders from tracing the phaser beam to its source. Lights or none, however, it was clear that nothing could be reliably done in engineering as long as these armed figures were wandering around. Therein lie the second deterrent to Ze’Rea’s efforts -- the absence of any security officers in engineering. Some cells roam around a body prepared to fix anything that breaks, while other cells stand by to destroy invaders; neither type is very good at doing the other’s job.

 

The warp core sealed and no viable course of action to be seen in engineering, Archie’s thoughts found themselves at one place -- the brain! Jordan had the heart locked down; someone needed to protect the brain. So Archie retreated into the ship’s maintenance tubes and darted to the primary computer core. Realizing he could not effectively man the three-story tall processing complex himself, he brought Ze’Rea with him.

 

Now sealed inside the core, Lieutenant Black ordering him to protect it at all costs, Archie was wishing he’d brought along about half a dozen more people, including several with large guns and not-so-strange uniforms. The nine portals providing access to the three gantries which circled the core were sealed with series of emergency bulkheads that could hold off a plasma-torching effort for a good ten minutes. Further, electromagnetic interference from the processors made precise transport tricky, if not dangerous. If the intruders were aware of the two officers locked inside the core and the great power at their disposal, it would still be very difficult and time-consuming for them to breach the complex. Unfortunately, the same could be said of any effort to neutralize a starship’s shields or to disrupt its power flow, both tasks that these particular intruders had already pulled off with ease. Archie was not feeling greatly secure.

 

Security issues aside, the computer was the place to be. It was very much the mechanical nerve center of the ship, able to perform any computer function right down to the command levels. Considering hypothetically, if the intruders were to somehow extract the Arcadia command passcodes from Captain Lo’Ami and Commander Alces’ minds and attempt to use those passcodes for any of a number of nefarious purposes, a capable engineer stationed inside the core could disrupt their efforts. In fact, equipped with nothing more than a plasma torch and an intimate knowledge of the core’s layout, that engineer could make the computer ‘forget’ what a command code even is. Its backup power supply, usually renewed by the primary power grid, was capable of sustaining computer function for anywhere from three months to a year depending on activity, though Archie adamantly hoped that the current crisis would not prove the value of that particular feature.

 

With access to internal sensors, Archie and Torre could keep an eye out for approaching intruders. With access to the communications array, they could send out a call for help. With access to the tactical systems, they could have a nonexistent fleet of Romulan Warbirds pop up on long range sensors. With access to the Bridge viewscreen and speaker control and an extensive archive of Romulan communication records, they could even mimic a conversation with an angry Romulan commander. With access to engine control and every computer terminal on the ship, they could slow Arcadia down to Warp 2 yet still have all the readouts display Warp 8.

 

Given how little of the crisis they understood, however, there was next to nothing they would risk doing at the moment. Torre was attempting covert contact with the Bridge stations. They needed to determine exactly what was going on and to seek instruction from any command officers still in operation. As Archie circled the core looking over the systems that were still powered, his eyes came to rest on the ship’s self-destruct system. His own computer core throbbed painfully as he hoped that he would not be called on to push that particular button …

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