An Introduction and an Idea

Posted on Tue Aug 6th, 2019 @ 6:55pm by

1,136 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: What Stalks The Night
Location: Main Engineering

Walking through the ship, the one thought that kept Bianca motivated was the hope that Engineering was going to have a replicator that made good coffee. Heck, at that point she would have settled for ANY coffee, so long as it was heavily caffeinated and loaded with sugar. She had been on the go since her unfortunate discovery on the deck and now she was nearing the bottom of her 'for now' list, which meant she had to speak to Lieutenant Bradshaw about some kind of proximity alert for the cargo hold to help increase the security so that this kind of breach would not happen again.

Walking into Engineering, the first thing she noticed was the surprising calmness around her. For some reason she expected it to be much busier, much more chaotic. It didn't take long for her to be pointed in the right direction to find the Chief Engineering Officer.

"Lieutenant Bradshaw?" she asked, just to make sure she had the right person. "I'm Commander Bianca Caselli, new First Officer," she offered, holding out her hand. "Nice to finally meet you, just would have been nicer if I wasn't going to put you straight to work," she said with a rueful smile.

James looked up and saw a woman talking to him, he'd been so distracted by his work that he almost didn't realise she was speaking to him. He saw her hand out and shook it. "Lt James Bradshaw, Chief Engineer." He introduced then let her hand go. "I'm an Engineer ma'am, I'm always working and with a ship this new and this big, there is plenty of it." He closed the display he was working on. "So what can I do for you Commander?"

"I want to talk to you about that cargo hold," she said almost resignedly. This cargo hold was already the bane of her existence and this mission was still young. "A few potential upgrades? At least one has unfortunately become completely necessary."

Probably not the place for that kind of conversation. "My office?" He offered since it was about something nobody else needed or should know about. James lead the way to his office and sealed the doors, this was going to be one of those conversations that for sure didn't need interrupting. "Upgrades, fire away Commander."

"To start with, I want to make sure every vent, every access hatch, every jefferies tube port, every access point no matter how insignificant it may appear is locked out. The only way in or out needs to be through the doors that are monitored by vetted security guards." She broke off as she sank into the seat. "We've had an 'incident'. It seems our security wasn't as infallible as we expected. Security was breached, by a child no less."

"Thats a serious gaff by security." James spoke since that was the definition of security, to keep things secure. "Well since I'm one of a few that can go near the cargo that will take me time. I can install coded mag locks on some, others I will need manually disable the locking mechanism from the exterior side of the door to prevent them getting in." James called up the cargo bay on his holographic table. "The mag locks are simple, slap on, engage, set the code. Disabling external lock access will take an hour, maybe two alone."

"I was also thinking maybe some kind of proximity detection implementation? Something that has to either be manually over ridden with an authorization code or will automatically ignore anyone who's authorized and alert us immediately to anyone who enters or tries to touch that shouldn't be there?" Bianca posed. "I mean, it was literally sheer dumb luck that we discovered this breach, I nearly stepped on a gel pack on the floor on deck ten. If it hadn't been dropped there, I hate to think how long this may have gone unnoticed for, and I'd really not have an encore performance. This original production is already giving me a headache," she finished with a chagrined smile.

James thought of the options. "I see what you are getting at Commander but if you want protection then we need to stop people from getting in there at all. If someone is already in the cargo hold then what ever measure we have put in place has failed in its purpose if we want to keep people out. I can secure all the entry points, I can set up portable field generators around the cargo and a palm scanner. I can set it so that security and say myself can lower it. A two person process?"

"That would work," Bianca said, nodding slowly. "And of course, you're right, the intent is to stop anyone getting in in the first place, but assuming someone manages to get around the security in place somehow, knowing that there is an extra layer of protection certainly isn't going to hurt."

"I can get to work, but like I said it would take some time. A few hours at most." He hoped that if acceptable he'd get to work soon.

"That will be fine," Bianca offered a smile. "My apologies for intruding on your evening Lieutenant, I'd like to say this can wait until tomorrow, but unfortunately time is definitely of the essence here. I'd even offer to help, but trust me, you're better off without me breaking things further," she finished with a wry grin.

"I'll get everything together and get started in about 20 minutes?" James offered, it would take him that long to assemble everything he needed, put it on a sled to be walked to the hold and walk there himself to go through security.

"That's fine, just, when you're done send me the reports so I can compile it with the rest. As I'm sure you can understand the Captain is kind of anxious to get this resolved as quickly as possible. I'll leave you to it, Thank you for your time Lieutenant, it's appreciated." Bianca stood up and turned, starting toward the door. Before she walked out, she turned around and offered one last smile. "My night's going to be spent reviewing reports on this incident so if you want help, you know, along the lines of a coffee delivery or something, give me a shout," she offered. "I don't do engineering stuff, but I can replicate a mean cup of coffee."

"Will do." James spoke as he typed away requisitions for the items he'd require.

With a half shrug, Bianca turned and headed out of Engineering. Next would be back to her office to start compiling the report that would be necessary just for the Captain. After that, the reports everyone else was going to want to see.

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