Seasias headed out of the captain’s ready room and tapped on his combadge, “Lt. Neva, I’m on my way down to you. We need to talk. You may want to have a team of your best computer systems folks ready to go.” Sesias entered the turbolift, “Main Engineering.”

Neva tapped her comm badge. “Acknowledged. We’ll be waiting.” Neva stood up straight again at the Main Engineering console she’d been working at. Looking around, she called out. “Ok, gang. We’ve got orders that supersede our usual goings on.” 

Neva tapped buttons on the console, showing everyone the information. “Now, I need some ‘mad engineering skills’ on this.” She replayed the video of the away team’s experience on board the Colorado. Neva stopped the playback just before her ‘incident.’”She was about to go on when she saw Lt. Sesias enter.

Sesias exited the turbolift and made his way to Neva’s office stopped short when he saw that she was already at the large engineering console table in the middle of the room. “Lt. Neva, I hope you had a chance to glance through the report on the Colorado logs and the attempted hacking into our system. The captain gave us till we arrive at the moon base to come up with and implement a plan to either slow down or stop whatever is trying to gain access to our systems. I’m open to any and all ideas; I have a communications team on their way down here to assist in any way they can.” 

Neva nodded at Lt. Sesias’s update. “Yes, we were just starting to go over that. I welcome any other help we can get!” She turned back to her crew. “Ok, you heard the Lieutenant. We don’t have much time, so enjoy some stress, kids!”  

She looked up. “Computer, backup playback to show what Lt. MacDonald and Lt. O’Shea found on other systems. Audio off.”   The tell-tale chirp followed the request, and the video reverses to the correct point. It showed the neural connections on the one console. “Computer, pause playback,” Neva called out. She looked back down at her crew and the lieutenant. “OK, I found this interesting when I played it back earlier today. I surmised that even from what I saw in the dilithium chamber, someone had tried to fix the systems but had a rudimentary understanding of engineering.”

She called out again. “Computer, resume playback.” The video continued showing Neva’s perspective of the state of the dilithium chamber. “Computer, end playback.” The video returned to its previous configuration. “The state of what our Away Team found leaves me wondering how to proceed. Any ideas, theories, etc., are welcome.”

Neva then noticed the new people entering her Sanctum. “Welcome, everyone. Please join us. We need to bounce ideas and such off each other for the results our captain requires. Feel free to give yours.”

Sesias showed Neva the last image that he was able to get when they were in the CX room in the communications center. “Neva, does this look familiar to you?” He pointed out the black blob in the top right corner of the image captured on the PADD. “This was the last image I got before we shut down the operation in the CX room. From what we were able to figure out, it took roughly 14-15 hours before that appeared. If that was someone or something trying to get into our systems, then we need to make sure it can’t. Lucky the CX room is one of the few consoles on the Mercy which is not connected to any system on the ship and has no way to be able to access any system; we don’t even wear combadges in there.”

Carolyn Crawford squinted and wrinkled her nose as she looked closer, “Is that…that’s pretty weird.”  She tapped her PADD, “So, operating systems. I think that black blob is the old operating system from 200 years ago attempting to interface with ours, which, of course, it wasn’t able to. It reminds me of the command line interfaces and systems of those older computer banks and processes.” She scrolled through the screen until she found it, “Here.  200 years ago, we still had command line access to the operating systems. It was advanced, but it was still there.”

Neva’s jaw clenched and her hand tightened on the PADD. Steeling herself, she said “No, i believe that ‘Blob’ is NOT part of the operating system.” She pointed to it. “It’s watching to size up what we’re about.” She scanned the group with barely held terror. “That.that Thing, needs to be taken as seriously as the most contagious disease ever known.”

Sesias looked up at the warp core and then back down at the group of engineers and operations crew assembling around the table. “Folks, it looks like we might have had an attempted hacking into the Mercy’s systems; we cannot let that happen; there is no way anyone or anything should be able to get into the systems, let alone even try.  The ship, the crew, and anyone else onboard depends on what we do here today.” Looked at Neva. “Nothing is off the table; if you have an idea, let’s hear it and work on it, I’m sure Lieutenant Neva would agree with me on that. Per the Captain, this takes top priority for engineering and operations.”

Crawford contemplated further on the command line mystery.  It opened up preventative measures, but it would take time to implement all of them.  Which ones would they choose?  That was the question.

Neva’s eyes widened at the Lieutenant’s proclamation. “Really?!? There’s no way in HELL that’s happening again!” She declared vehemently. She turned her full attention to Sesias, fighing to control herself. “I concur, Lieutenant. What do you suggest?”

Sesias pulled Neva and Crawford to the side. “I was thinking of something as I was on my way down here. If they/it can attempt to hack into our systems, should we not be able to do the same to them? Maybe it could help us figure out who or what they are, what they want, or better yet, maybe we could use that link to counter their attacks.”

Carolyn frowned, “Given how little we know the other side. I’d be worried about getting pulled in too deep, and we can’t find out way out because it’s smarter than us.”

Neva took a deep breath and slowly  let it out before speaking again. “I like your idea, Lieutenant Sesias. Though, we need a combination of organic and inorganic re-” She bit her lower lip a moment. She visibly fought the urge to have another outburst, then continued. “As for it being smarter than us, Lieutenant Crawford, I don’t think so. Considering the shoddy way it tried to repair things, I firmly believe it’s capabilities are low. Not to mention it’s knowledge of even rudimentary understanding of technology.” 

The Chief Engineer straightened herself to full height and stepped back to be in everyone’s pine of sight. “OK, no more talk. Crawford, get with-”She pointed to 2 ensigns and a cadet. “Them, and come up with how to get control from HERE” She pointed down towards the floor. “Of the inorganic side of the ship.” Neva then looked at Sesias. “Can you get your people to get the organic counterattack to work without the need for a person if possible? If you end up needing someone, we need to discuss liabilities. Does that work for you?”

Crawford bit the inside of her lip.  Her interim Chief was smart and strongly opinionated, and she wasn’t about to call her out in front of everyone.  The dismissal of Carolyn’s concerns with the hacking stung a little, but she’d long ago resolved to put on her big girl pants when it came to conflict.  She made a note in the back of her mind to revisit the issue if needed and gave a nod to Neva, “We’ll get work straightaway.  You two, with me.”  She gathered the crew and they moved to the side and began to work on the problem.

Sesias last oked at the rest of the assembled team and points out two Engineers, two of his operations crew “You are with me till I have to leave, if I have to leave, than you’ll report to Lieutenant Neva.” Sesias tapped on his combadge “LT Macdonald and LT. Walker, LT. Sesias if you can spare a couple folks from your departments. We have an idea, but will need some help from medical and science to flesh it out and see if it’s even possible. Have them meet me in the operations briefing room in 60 minutes.”

Sesias made his way towards the turbo lift, not looking back to see if the four followed him or not.