Ensign Aoife McKenzie stared down at the display in front of her. For the fourth time in as many days, the system was acting odd. She couldn’t quite put a finger on what was going on. Nothing major, just a series of failures out of the ordinary.

She straightened back and pinched her nose with her thumb and forefinger. “Davies, I need you on the communications array again. It’s out of alignment.”

Crewman Davies turned to face McKenzie and nodded. “On it, boss.”

Lieutenant Commander Jeter walked into Engineering and spotted Ensign McKenzie. “Ensign, do you have a moment?”

“Of course, Commander,” she said, turning to Jeter.

“Perfect, I wanted to check in with someone in engineering as I have been informed of several systems acting oddly the last few days. Mainly low-level power fluctuations, internal sensors sending false readings, that sort of thing. Have you come across anything like this?”

“Yeah… a lot, actually. The Communication’s array is out of alignment again. I just had it recalibrated yesterday. And before that, the targeting sensors were non-functional.”

A very visible look of frustration flashed across Jeter’s face. “Hmm, I was not aware of the comms array or the targeting sensors. Those two, especially, are ones we cannot be having issues with. Have you been recording all these by chance? I would appreciate seeing a list of the systems acting up and what the issues were if possible.”

“All repairs are logged into the computer,” Aoife replied. “I can pull the logs up in the Chief’s office.” Leading Jeter across engineering, they entered the office of the Chief Engineer.  

Sitting down behind the desk, her fingers entered commands into the controls. After a few minutes of manipulating the computer, she stood and offered Jeter the seat.

“Most of these repairs are routine maintenance. Hell, all of these failures aren’t unheard of. With a few exceptions. The replicators on Deck only producing water without the pitcher is a bit odd. As is the frequency of the communications array being out of alignment. It has been repaired six times in the last eight days.”

Jeter scrolled through the list, mentally checking off each item. “I have seen pretty much all of these before, as you say, not unheard of. Even come across similar issues with the replicators before; a damn fussy piece of tech.” When he got to the bottom of the list, she stepped back and turned to look at the warp core, “Do you have any thoughts as to the case? The fact that it is spread over so many systems is worrying.”

“I agree,” Aoife replied, “and no, I don’t know what to make of it. I have never seen this before.”

Jeter sighed, “Bloody hell. There goes my hope of an easy fix.” He looked around engineering before speaking again, “Part of me wonders if there is something else causing these. Could run a full systems check on the computer? Perhaps there is something there that could be setting these off.”

Aoife crossed her arms and gave him a shrug. “Many of these systems don’t have any commonality. We could do a level one diagnostic of the computer core, but I don’t think that would be wise with us entering enemy territory. Hell, I wouldn’t even do it if we weren’t at Starbase.”

“I agree with that sentiment, Ensign,” Jeter said as he toyed with a troubling idea. “We cannot risk something happening to the ship or its systems at a critical time. Let’s run a level 2 diagnostic. It won’t be as invasive but will also not run the risk of slowing the system of the ship. If we find anything, we can go from there. I can speak to the Captain and XO about this.”

“I’ll try to give you something more than, ‘I don’t know, something strange is occurring’,” she replied.  Walking out of the Chief’s office with purpose, Aoife started barking orders. “Franklin and Smith, get with the department heads. They’re about to lose all non-essential computer access.”

Franklin looked up and frowned,  “Astrometrics isn’t going to like that.”

“Mr. Jeter outranks Astrometrics,” Aoife said flatly, “if they don’t like it they can take it up with me.”

The crewman nodded,  “On it, Chief.”

Aoife scowled.  “I’m not the chief. I’m just keeping the seat warm,” she said under her breath.

Jeter let out a little snort at that before muttering under his breath, “Could have fooled me…” Watching the engineering team jump to work, he looked over at Aoife, “Keep me updated. I need to go give the Captain and XO an update on this.”

“I will, Commander,” Aoife said with a nod.