An exhausted Einar shambled into his quarters, carrying his uniform top. Three shifts of crawling through the Jeffries tubes tracking down damaged plasma conduits and burned relays had taken their toll on his body and spirit. Repairs complete but few leads as to what might cause such a failure across multiple systems, his brain began to consider a less than innocent cause.  

“Computer prepare to send encrypted log entry to Commanders Erik and Sigrid Einar, Utopia Planitia Office of Technical Services:

Hey Mom & Dad,

It’s been a few weeks since our impromptu camping trip, it’s a lot more fun when there is just a little more planning and preparation.  I’m still having dreams about the night of the flood.  I have been putting all of my attention to the improvements on Mercutio.  We had a bit of bad luck when we took her out for preliminary trials. A cascading overload in several EPS conduits caused failures throughout the entire network. We nearly blew out the entire grid trying to discharge the misdirected energy. We have spent the last few days going through power taps and relays to investigate and repair the affected systems.  With my CO’s permission I’m transmitting data collected during the trial to see if you see something I’m missing. Our engineers are very capable but your expert eyes see even deeper than I think they would.  I have a meeting with our department heads about the investigation.

Computer: Attach power utilization data along with sensors and communication logs and send.

The following day, as Einar hustled toward Commander Crow’s department head meeting, he made sure his uniform was in order as he approached the door to the conference room.  

K’Naut strolled down the corridor toward the conference room. He stared at a PADD containing the status updates for the various maintenance projects aboard Mercutio, but his mind was elsewhere. Becca had been hazing Jenkins and it was starting to get out of control. A little good-natured ribbing was fine, good for morale even. Becca had gone beyond that. Not that Jenkins complained, not to him at least. But K’Naut had an earful from T’Kyr about it. Just what he needed. The young Clanless woman’s complaints weren’t necessary, since he could see for himself what Becca had been doing. Unfortunately, the young ensign was so earnest and gullible that it made him an easy target. 

K’Naut decided to talk to Becca about it, to remind her that she had once been younger and nearly as wide-eyed. To remind her of the young woman who used to trail him through the passageways of the Gavia, trying to absorb bigger chunks of his engineering knowledge than she could handle. That had been nearly 30 years ago. Gods, that made him feel old, though at 60 years of age, he was just entering his prime years.

“CELIA,” he called. “Would you please ask Lt Martin to meet with me at our mutual convenience?”

“Certainly, Chief,” the computer replied.

“Thank you.” The Caitian wasn’t sure what to think of the computer’s use of that nickname for him. Even more unsettling was that he’d heard CELIA refer to him once as one of its oldest friends. What in the names of the Clans was that supposed to mean?

“You’re welcome, Chief.”

K’Naut arrived at the conference room. He entered and paused to take in the scene. Edra sat at the head of the table, brow furrowed as she studied a PADD. 

“That bad, Eddie?” he asked as he crossed to the replicator, where he ordered, “Water, 375 ml at 72° C.”

He took his beverage and went to his usual seat, to Edra’s left. He pulled a leather case from one of his vest pockets. It held 7 vials of powder in various shades of green. He selected one and carefully tapped a small amount into his hot water. He stirred until the water took on a minty hue. He took a sip and satisfied, put the vials away.

The Caitian turned to look expectedly at Edra.

It was a few moments before she looked up from the PADD she’d been studying, wanting to finish the report she’d been reading. “What?” she initially asked, but her mind filtered out what she’d been looking at to find she had heard him. “Oh, yes, well, maybe. Ens. Einar has been updating me on the systems failures that he was working on the last few days. He and his team have gotten most of the fixing done, but the cause remains unclear, possibly suspicious.” She handed the PADD to K’Naut and picked up her mug of raktajino as she sat in her seat. She turned to the Ensign. “It looks like the repairs are holding. Good job. You were saying you conferred with some contacts of yours about possible causes?”

Einar stood up and tapped a few commands on his PADD. A holographic rendering of  Mercutio’s master systems display appeared. 

“Good morning everyone, following the failure of the plasma distribution system during our space trials, we opened an investigation to see what exactly occurred and why. What we observed here” Einar tapped a few more commands into the PADD and the rendering partially faded revealing the EPS grid.

 “Four plasma junctions on the starboard side and amidships failed almost simultaneously. Under combat conditions a failure such as this could have crippled us.” The display revealed the pathway of failure beginning at the computer core and ending just before the starboard impulse manifold. “After we got back to drydock, the engineering team got to work on repairs and we saw how close we were to losing our entire starboard impulse engine. Analysis of the sequence of failures indicated that the trouble began at our computer core’s secondary EPS power taps.”  The image focused now on the lower half of the computer core. “As it happens, I have an in with  uh.. a few  experts at Utopia Planitia, at this time I believe we can rule out ill intent.” 

“Well, I’m glad we don’t have to worry about a saboteur,” Edra replied, “but this is still worrying.”  She looked between the two of them. “Do we think it was a bug in the new programming or something more systemic?”

“I’ve asked Evie to do a general review of the computer systems,” K’Naut replied. “So we should know whether or not the software contributed to the problem.”

“After looking at the data I sent, to my pare.. system experts,” Einar corrected.  “The problem goes back  to decisions made during Mercutio’s construction and available parts.  Apparently the power taps installed were replicated from an older design pattern, still compatible but not hardened for some of the newer generation parts. After the Dominion war, the shipyard was supposed to overhaul the entire fleet but it seems we slipped through without these upgrades.” Einar rotated the image pointing out power connection points on the bottom side of the computer core.

“These junctions here were reinforced fleet wide with plasma surge return lines, these lines are possibly what saved us from a bigger mess; but the main and aux power tap reconfiguration was not completed. These points flash fused then burned out when processing draw on the computer peaked at 60% during our tactical maneuvering trial. The pressure built up beyond their capacity until the other conduits overheated.”  

“The good news is we have updated patterns for all replacement parts and we shouldn’t have this problem again.”

K’Naut looked over the new equipment specifications. He called up some information on his own PADD. He sighed and sat back in his seat. He shook his head.

“Completing these refits should be straightforward,” he said. His ears drooped. “I must apologize about this, Eddie. I should have been more diligent. The refit documentation shows that this upgrade had been made. I didn’t check to be sure that the documents match the actual state of the ship. I’ll initiate a thorough review to be sure there are no other discrepancies.”

Edra shook her head as she took a drink from her mug.  “This goes back multiple CEOs before you, and nobody caught this.  Proceed with the review, though, and you have permission to offer overtime to get it done.  I want to make sure we don’t run into this issue again.  I also want Einar to work with you on this.  He’s a fresher set of eyes, and I like having different perspectives to approach this.”  She looked from the hologram to the Chief for acknowledgement. 

“If it helps, my parents said there was no practical way for shipboard personnel to know this issue was overlooked. Mercutio has undergone several refits, each time the ship specific parts were installed and tested.  They included a class-wide engineering note to all ships with the new computer core; as well as a personal letter to you, Commander, and the Captain”

It may have been a small relief to know that the omission wasn’t the fault of any of their past or present engineers, but she caught wind of the other part of his comment, and glanced over at him with a raised brow.  “Your parents are your specialist contacts?  That’s a pretty good lifeline you got there, Ensign.”  She finished with a smile.

“Yes Commander, my parents were junior officers together on the Thunderchild, and from there they worked for the Akira modernization project. I’m a little embarrassed to say, “I grew up running the halls of these ships.”

“That’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” she responded before turning back to business.  “I’ll update the Captain on all of this.  Thank you all for your help.”  With a nod, she took her PADD and left out the door.

Looking toward Lcdr Stepanova, Einar said, “Counselor, I would like to make an appointment to see you now that this investigation is wrapping up.”

Statzia looked up from the discussion when the Counselor didn’t immediately respond. Without a word, she quirked an eyebrow at Emma. Without looking at the Counselor, Emma gave the woman a gentle nudge with her holographic elbow.

Millie blinked, her gaze leaving the window, almost looking startled. She gave an embarrassed smile to Einar. “Yes, of course Ensign. I’d love to set up a time to talk.”

“Thank you Commander, I look forward to it.” Einar deactivated the link from his PADD to the holotable and sat quietly as the department heads in turn presented the status of their own.