Odd Occurrance

Posted on Thu May 4, 2017 @ 9:02pm by Captain Madelina Weisz & Lieutenant Commander Arrda & Lieutenant JG Zander Devereaux

Mission: Avatar
Location: Security Office
Timeline: MD 10 || 1330 Hours

Douglas was in his office, sipping his cup of coffee and going over his staff's reports from the last mission. His relief had the bridge console as there was no immediate need for him to be there.

From the replicator, a low rumble was heard before there was total silence. Of course, that was the calm before the storm. A second rumble was heard, which was followed by another cup of coffee materializing. It didn't stop there. Another appeared, followed by another, and so on until they were clattering to the floor and spilling their contents all over the floor.

Douglas frowned when the first cup appeared. His eyes flicked between his mug, the table that he kept his brewer and coffees on and the replicator. He never used the replicator for his coffee, preferring his natural, brewed coffee to replicated, so why was it even making one cup. When the second cup appeared, he knew he had a bigger problem than a confused replicator.

Rising, he approached the replicator and tried telling it to stop. When that failed, he tried pulling off the panel and pulling the figurative plug.

Even though he pulled the figurative plug, the coffee continued to pour out of the replicator. It was one of the more popular items replicated from all over the ship, so there was little question as to why it was happening. But, just as soon as it happened, it stopped, leaving a huge mess on the floor and against the wall.

At first, Douglas just stared at the mess. After several seconds, he frowned and tapped his comm. badge. =/\= Mallory to Engineering. Could someone please come to my office? =/\=

=^=Devereaux here=^= Came a male voice a moment later. =^=Whatcha need, Chief?=^=

Douglas continued to stare at the replicator as though staring at it would make it reveal its secrets to him... or repair itself. =/\= The replicator in my office seems to have gone a bit... wonky. Could someone come up and take a look at it please? =/\=

=^=On my way. Devereaux out.=^= Zander tapped his combadge to end the com and rubbed his face. "I just love the technical details. Replicator has gone wonky. The Chief is gonna love this one on the work order," he muttered as he grabbed his tool kit and a PADD and headed up to Security.

Once there, he pressed the door chime and waited for the Security Chief to let him in, all the while endless possibilities went through his mind. It didn't make a perfect cup of coffee. The texture of the cob'lat didn't feel authenticate. It gave me a Denebian Slime Devil with an apple in its mouth instead of a glazed ham steak with cherries.

The replicator gave off another rumble. A warning of what was to come, or merely just remnants of the chaos it already caused?

Douglas growled at the machine as if that would help, then straightened up his demeanor. "Enter." he called to the person at his door -- he hoped that was an engineer.

Zander came in with his tool kit and PADD and stopped when his boots splashed in a liquid mess on the floor. He looked down and tracked it back to the mound of broken cups and mugs on the floor in front of the replicator. "I think I know what the problem is," he said. "You're supposed to take the mug off of the tray when it materializes before the next one appears. If you do that, it won't make a mess. Did that solve the problem, Chief?"

Is he kidding? Outwardly, Douglas only frowned slightly. "I don't even get my coffee from the replicator." he informed, motioning toward his table of coffees and teas. "I was working, it made an odd rumbling noise, and then it started creating those.' He motioned to the mess on the floor. "I tried ordering it to stop. I even pulled the plug. That didn't stop it. It finally stopped on its own, but it rumbled again just before you entered."

So much for easy Zander mentally muttered as he splashed through the mess on the floor. "Let me see what I can do..." he said as he set his tool kit and PADD on Mallory's desk by the coffee and tea set, opened it and pulled out a diagnostic tricorder. He moved over to the replicator and began a scan of it. "Ya think someone is pulling a prank on ya, Chief?"

"I suppose it is possible. If that is the case, though, wouldn't it have stopped when I pulled that?" pointing at the part he had removed when he'd tried to stop it.

Zander looked up from his scan and at what the Security Chief was pointing at. "You pulled that?" he asked as he went to look at it. "What were you trying to achieve by pulling a isolinear chip that regulates the temperatures of drinks and food? The main power conduit can't be shut off from this panel, anyway. We have to crawl into the Jeffries Tubes and access all that stuff back there to keep people from easily getting to it and frying themselves."

He held up the tricorder so Mallory could see it. "Besides which, other than having no temperature regulator now, this says it's working perfectly fine."

Douglas would have felt dumber had he been any form of Scientist, which he was not. What he did feel was annoyed. He glanced at the tricorder the Engineer was showing him and sighed, handing the chip to the other man. "Sorry, I'm no engineer, but telling it to stop didn't work." He glanced at the tricorder again then back to Zander. "And if it was fine, it wouldn't have done that. There has to be something wrong. Maybe it's in the programming, though, rather than the hardware?" he postulated.

"Just a minute," Zander requested as he tapped his combadge. =^=Devereaux to Lidesci. Can you get into Jeffries Tube on Deck Sixteen, section S-Seventeen and cut power to the replicator in the Chief of Security's office? It's malfunctioning somehow.=^= He waited until he got an affirmative and looked at Mallory.

"I'll have a team here in a few minutes to pull the replicator once the power gets cut off," he said before he looked at the mess on the floor. "And you may want to get that cleaned up. Someone could slip and get hurt on it," he added.

"Oh, I intended to get maintenance up here to clean this. It only happened literally just before I called you. I appreciate your help."

"No problem," Zander said as he put his diagnostic tricorder away and handed Mallory the PADD. "I just need your thumbprint and we'll get this thing yanked and replaced soon."

Douglas put his thumbprint on the work order for the engineer. "I'll expect your team, and I'll try to get this cleaned up before they get here."

"No problem," Zander said as he headed out of the office with his tool kit and the PADD. "They'll be here in a few minutes."

"No problem." Douglas watched the engineer leave and then called maintenance to clean up the mess. He did at least gather up the broken shards of the mugs to make their job easier.

Ten minutes later, the Engineering team came in after the mess had been cleaned up and gave the Security Chief a nod before going to the replicator. Lidesci confirmed that the power relay was disconnected and that it was now isolated from the rest of the ship. A few minutes later, they removed the replicator from the wall slot and worked on installing a new one and got it connected back to the system. The team lead looked at Mallory and gave a nod as his men took the damaged replicator out.

"Sorry this caused such a mess. It seems like crap is going wrong all over the ship. We've had more reports come in than in the middle of a battle," he said conversationally.

Douglas frowned. "That seems a bit bizarre to me." he muttered. "Do all of the affected systems have anything in common?" he asked.

Lidesci shrugged. "I have no idea other than the fact that we've been running ragged for the past two hours. This ship is four years old and shouldn't be doing this, but as long as we're at Utopia, I'm going to press the Chief Engineer for an overhaul."

He frowned again. "That is indeed odd. Well, I won't keep you too long. Thank you for fixing this." A second's hesitation, and the added, "Wait, quick question. Have any of the systems your teams have repaired or replaced malfunctioned again afterward?" What he meant, of course, was shortly afterward. After all, given enough time, it was a given that systems would break down.

"I don't think so, but there's Engineering teams all over the ship right now," Lidesci said. "I only fix 'em, I don't keep track of 'em. Anything else?"

"Not at this time. Thank you again." Douglas felt badly for the engineers; they were running themselves ragged from the sound of it.

"No problem," Lidesci said as he headed out even as his combadge chirped. "Call us if you need anything else."

Douglas watched the man leave and went back to his work, or tried to. But, at first, he had some trouble focusing on it. There was a missing piece here, something wrong with this picture, and that bothered him. Unfortunately, there was not a whole lot he could do about it. So he took a moment to call upon his long-trained discipline and then returned to his work.

Shortly after the man left, a call from the Captain came through ordering a senior staff briefing.