Diagnostics

Posted on Thu 24th Jan, 2019 @ 10:05pm by Lieutenant Commander Lanis Dhuro MD & Lieutenant Commander Alora Baro

935 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Oblivion
Location: Chief Surgeon's Office, Infirmary
Timeline: MD-17, 2300 hours

Lanis debated ordering coffee from the replicator. He didn't really want to be awake all night. He went into the infirmary break room and ordered a large mug of half-caf and then returned to his office to peer at his frozen computer screen again. An article by Adrian Dobbs about constructing prosthetic limbs with nanites still adorned his screen. Lanis rolled his eyes at it and decided to try a shut-down and reboot. Even that did nothing.

His door chimed, and Lanis gave a faint sigh of relief. He blinked upon seeing Baro Alora, the Operations Chief, in the doorway. "Lt. Baro?" he said. "Come in. Isn't troubleshooting computer problems a little below your pay grade?"

Alora smiled, "Nah, I like to keep my hand in on regular repairs, makes me remember I am an engineer first and a paperpusher second." She shifted the repair kit in her hand to the other hand, "Besides, your message said it may have some sensitive data on it and I'm cleared for most everything not locked down in Intel."

"It does," Lanis said. "Come on in, then." He waved her into his office. "Can I get you some coffee or raktajino while you have a look at this thing? I'm baffled. My computer's never given me a bit of trouble. In fact, I'd say it works faster than most. But this evening..." He shook his head. "I don't know what's wrong with it."

"Maybe in a bit, last thing I need to do is spill something on a keyboard. I'd never hear the end of it." She joked as she entered. She headed into the office and put her kit down, "Why don't you show me what the issue is and we'll go from there?" She suggested.

Lanis waved at his screen. "This is the issue." He looked at his computer. "Computer--Close file. Screen off." Nothing happened. "I can't get it to close the file I'm reading, and it's not speaking. I can't even reboot."

"Is this the only time it fails to operate properly?" She asked pulled out a diagnostics tool to check the hardware in case the internal one did not work properly, putting it on the table then she bent to the keyboard to type in access to the control panel for the system, glancing at the screen as she did so. She noted the nanite article, interesting but filed it away as she focused on figuring out why it wasn't behaving.

"I had some trouble with it when I first arrived on the starbase, but everything was in bad shape then; you probably remember. My computer's been working beautifully since, mm... since before Dr. Addams' Halloween party a year ago."

She nodded opening the diagnostic interface and running it through a check.

Alora frowned. The diagnostic interface she’d tried to call up refused. “That’s not supposed to happen…” She muttered tapping away, there were overrides she had and such but even with these the computer was sluggish, as though it really didn’t want to do the thing. The screen itself remained locked. “Oh you trouble maker…” she muttered again as talking to herself was an occupational hazard when working for her, and plugged in the diagnostic device she’d brought to force a status check.

"I talk to the computer in my quarters like this," Lanis said. "I suspect it will get an earful from me tonight."

It was about then that the screen went blank, Alora leaned back and took her hands off the keys, not sure what just happened and trying to figure out what she did to it. What she didn't see was the photo from her personnel jacket, then the information from same started flittering quickly through the screen as though someone were accessing it but Alora wasn’t doing anything, and the diagnostic device, while not performing its primary function at the moment was helpfully telling her it detected no remote access attempts via an LED screen, just one of the things she looked for as a matter of course.

All she saw was a screen, finally the diagnostic interface popped up as though it had no problems at all, “Oh sure now you behave…” She muttered again and went through the entire check. Everything came out fine. She looked up files and closed files, did several more checks then turned to Lanis, “It’s behaving for the moment, and the diagnostic check can’t find what's wrong. I could, If it's ok with you, copy your computer’s internal operating system and files to a secure test drive to go over its operation and codes during the time of the lock, see what I can find, but it’s not showing up now.”

"Be my guest," Lanis said. He shot her an amused look. "I'm a doctor, not a programmer--although it seems to me that what you do is just a different kind of doctoring. I don't know what you did, but thank you for doing it."

Alora smiled, "True, I've often said my job is to fix non biologics and for biology there are doctors." Her smiled faded into a look of concentration, "I'm not sure what the glitch is. It could be just a ghost in the machine, and we'll never sort it, but I'll poke around see what I find."

"I'm a curious sort of fellow, so yes, if you're able to do that, feel free," Lanis said. "Thank you for your help, Ms. Baro. I'm off to bed. I hope you'll be able to get some decent sleep soon."

 

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