=Main Computer Core= =U.S.S. Chimera= It had seemed that Rick went through the same data at least five times already in the past eight hours. He shrugged it off and continued with his work. He still couldn’t believe that he was actually hoping for a problem to pop up, no matter how minor. “Have you been here all night, sir?” came a voice from behind Rick, who nearly leaped out of his uniform. He looked behind him and saw crewman Jo Weathersby holding two glass mugs. “What time is it?” Rick asked. “Oh nine hundred,” she replied, walking towards him as Rick rubbed his eyes. She handed him a mug. Rick realized it was coffee and smiled at the crewman. “Thanks,” he said, taking drink of the hot beverage. “I just couldn’t leave without finding ... something.” “You heard what happened to Lieutenant McTaggert,” she said, sitting next to him, drinking from her own mug while sitting well away from the consoles. “Doctor Summers, or one of her nurses might end up paying you a visit if you don’t watch it.” “I’ll turn in a littler early, tonight,” was all that Rick said as he focused on the data on his console. They went about their work for a couple of hours, Rick getting more and more frustrated as time passed. Most of Rick’s attention now was on the basic info mods. “It would seem that I’m at a road block,” Rick said. “A road ... what?” Weathersby said, looking up from her console at Rick. “It’s an old Earth term,” Rick said. “It means that I’m stuck with these basic info mods. Without command clearance, I will not be able to gather anymore data. I’ll just focus my efforts elsewhere for the time being.” Rick was so involved in his work that he almost didn’t catch Sean’s voice over the comm system. +tap+ “What about you, Rick?” Sean asked. +tap+ “Everything looks fine here,” Rick said. “We've checked primary functions and encountered no problems so far. The Basic Information modules seemed to be protected with Command level code encryptions though, we haven't checked that yet.” +tap+ “Patch through with Guzman, I'll enter my part of the codes from up here, shouldn't take more than five minutes,” Sean said. “Tell that XO that it's authorized and necessary. If he makes any trouble, let me know. McTaggert out.” Rick pulled away from his console and stood to stretch his arms and legs before he made the request with Commander Guzman, explaining the situation. Guzman eventually punched in his codes, as did Sean, giving Rick access to the command level encryptions. Rick then leant over the console, looking over the new information. After a couple of minutes, something caught his attention. He tapped in a couple of commands and the most recent data once again appeared on his monitor. “That can’t be right ...” Rick muttered to himself, now sitting in front of the console with his attention still focused on the monitor. “Sir?” Weathersby said. He kept replaying the data that now had him puzzled, “We may have just found that problem we’ve been looking for.” Before he made his report, he wanted to make certain of what he was seeing. After a couple of minutes, he knew without a shadow of a doubt that something was definitely wrong. He wasn’t certain of exactly what was wrong, but he knew that there was something wrong. +tap+ “... we are to break off the diagnostic at once,” Rick caught the tell end of another comm from Sean. +tap+ “Sir, we shouldn't stop now,” Rick said. “There's something weird in the Basic Command Modules, and I can't figure it out yet.” +tap+.”Rick ... record what you got so far, close the module, allow access only with my code,” Sean said. “Get back up here, we'll find out what's going on, whether those bastards want it or not. McTaggert out.” Rick complied transferring all of the information to a separate file. He then tapped in a few commands, blocking out all access to the file and mod to everyone with the exception of McTaggert. Not even Rick could get back into the file, unless he actually tried to break in. “Alright, Jo,” Rick said, rubbing his eyes again. “Let’s get back to engineering and find out what in the hell is going on around here.” “Yes, sir,” she said as they left the computer core room. Lieutenant (j.g.) Rick Rodgers Assistant Engineering Officer U.S.S. Chimera and Crewman Jo Weathersby (npc) Engineering Specialist U.S.S. Chimera