Meanwhile, In Space - Part 2

Posted on Thu Sep 26th, 2024 @ 5:00pm by Ensign Rimal Iska & Lieutenant JG Astrja Kyan & NVeid tr'Rehu

Mission: Into the Qniverse
Location: USS Athena :: Mess Hall
Tags: Happy 5th to the USS Athena!
2192 words - 4.4 OF Standard Post Measure

Once Charlie left for engineering and Iska awkwardly escorted the weird creatures out of the mess hall, the couple of officers present to witness the strange occurrence glanced down at their own food, uncertain if they wanted to continue eating. One stood and hesitantly deposited their tray into the replicator, sighing a breath of relief when it accepted the request without complaint. Another checked his food before deciding to keep eating, not finding anything strange with his food. The third one was in a corner, listening to music with headphones and unaware of what had occurred.

Nveid halted in the doorway as he was passed by a straggle of Starfleet personnel, sensing a wide array of feelings that weren't necessarily positive. He hesitated, glancing over his shoulder towards the departing people, then ahead towards the ones that had stayed. Shaking his head, he walked over to the replicator and ordered up a simple toast with egg and cheese. He expected a Human dish, but frowned when he found something that was hardly recognizable as anything palatable. Turning, he glanced around again before depositing the tray back into the replicator slot to be recycled. It took various attempts to get something even remotely recognizable, after which the Romulan hybrid gave up, and carried whatever he'd been given over to a table.

Sitting down, he took out his tricorder to scan whatever was on his tray, to make sure that it was at least something he could eat despite it looking less than appetizing.

Ensign Fevus Roga, a Tellarite assigned to Operations, came in, looking for a hearty meal after a hard shift cleaning and resetting the holodecks.

A couple more people began to enter the mess hall, as the build-up to lunch slowly ticked closer. There were two officers who made it to the replicator before Roga did, and the first one, a Caitian in science blues, began to order something. She gave the replicator a confused look as it created the soup she asked for, but without a bowl, and stepped back to avoid getting burned as the broth spilled everywhere. "Uh... ok, meat stew, in a bowl?" she ordered again, unsure of why she suddenly had to specify such details. This time, a single plate appeared, and only the plate. Turning her head toward the other two, she gave them a confused 'I clearly did not order this, right?' look.

Roga frowned, or frowned more, it could be hard to tell with a Tellarite, and snapped open his toolkit. "Step aside and let me look," he said moving up to the replicator. He plunged his datapad directly into the replicator and called up the system profile. He paused, dumbfounded. "This is not right."

M'Taal nodded, stepping aside so the Tellarite could inspect the replicator. "What is it?" she asked.

"The programming code is rewriting," said Roga with a scowl. "This should not happen." He tapped out a set of commands. "That should reset it," he said with an unsure tone to his voice.

"Coffee, Union Army, in a mug," he ordered. With a shimmer, the mug appeared emblazoned with a colorful flag, seemingly filled with coffee. Roga audibly ground his teeth. He looked at his datapad. "It is already starting again. A hard reset is called for."

"Since someone is obviously toying with the systems," NVeid spoke quietly, while observing the pair, "perhaps try to order the exact opposite of what you'd like to have?" It was just an idea, and it was worth a try wasn't it?"

"How do you define the opposite of coffee?" snapped Roga.

The Romulan shrugged. "Tea?" He suggested, "coloured water? I don't know..." He gestured at his own plate which looked nothing like the food he had ordered. "Whatever is going on, we can still use a tricorder to determine whether it's safe for consumption."

"That is not a solution," stated Roga, sending a request to his superiors for permission to institute a full reset. As they were down on the planet, it was likely to take some time for a reply. He tried a sip of his coffee and nodded. "This is alright.," he said looking at the mug.

Skeptical, M'Taal hesitantly approached the replicator again. "Meat soup, with a bowl, in a bowl," she said tensely. A few seconds passed where it seemed like nothing was going to happen, then a bowl appeared with what looked like soup in it. Sighing with relief, the Caitian went to grab the bowl, but then hissed as water sprayed out of the replicator and at her face. "Aack!" Swatting at the water, she backed up, her fur now incredibly damp even after she shook her head. "Am I cursed or something?? Why do you get something normal and I get..." She gestured to herself in a flustered way, "... this?!"

"Be specific?" Roga ventured, sipping at his coffee.

M'Taal whipped her head around to glare at the Tellarite, a few drops of water flying off her fur. In her irritation, his words sounded quite smug. "Since when do I have to tell the replicator to not douse me in water when ordering food??"

"That is outside of the programming," agreed Roga.

The amount of time spent explaining to the brig officer why Iska was putting a jar of lizards and a giant bug in one of the cells was much longer than the Bajoran expected. He probably looked and sounded ridiculous. As he was returning to the mess hall, he considered what to do with the malfunctioning replicator so he wouldn't have to chase down more strange creatures. Surely some 'out of order' signs existed somewhere, or maybe he could just power off the replicator?

Entering the mess hall, Iska's eyes widened when he saw a group of people by one of the replicators. "Wait! Don't use that!" he exclaimed, running over, though it looked like some had already tried. Given his haste return to the mess hall, he was slightly panting. "This replicator has been doing really weird things. Charlie --er, Ensign Washington-- went down to engineering to try and troubleshoot."

"We know," NVeid deadpanned as he offered his napkin to the Caitian woman, "it is giving us what we want, but not necessarily how we want it. Food without a plate or bow, indistinguishable consistency, or it simply sprays a drink without putting it in a glass "

Perhaps with a little more huff than necessary, M'Taal accepted the napkin to begin wiping herself off.

"Yeah, it gave Charlie a massive bowl of ice cream, put lizards in my sandwich, and created a giant isopod," Iska said, glancing at the soaking wet Caitian with sympathy. "I guess the behavior is consistent at least?"

"No, it is not," said the Tellarite sipping at his coffee. "It seeks to create chaos."

"Consistent in that It gives you anything but what you order," NVeid answered calmly, holding up his plate with unrecognisable food. "The taste leaves much to desire, but my tricorder indicated it was safe for consumption."

"Proposition: Cause does not want us dead, just confused," said Roga.

"Speak for yourself," Iska responded to the rather straightforward reply. "You didn't almost bite down on a lizard." The Bajoran glanced to the other replicator across the room, "we should see if it's isolated or not. Maybe it's just this replicator and we can stick some 'out of order' sign on it. People are not going to be happy if they can't get lunch."

"We have emergency rations," noted Roga, checking the datapad again. "It has propagated across all replicators," he reported.

M'Taal offered a scowl to the conversation. "Good luck trying to convince everyone to eat those!" Most of the dripping had stopped from her fur, instead just leaving her looking damp and miserable.

"They aren't great," Iska agreed, holding out his hand in a 'calm down and wait' gesture. "... however, it's practically the start of the lunch rush, and we have zero properly functioning replicators. They are called emergency rations for a reason, and worst case scenario, people can choose to wait it out, but the problem is... uh... still being identified."

"Emergency rations are safe," NVeid reasoned, "who knows how long until the replicator produces something that is no longer safe for consumption. It's better to take all replicators offline for the moment, and I do mean ship wide, just to be safe."

While the group was talking, the officer who was listening to music in the corner stood, stretching a little. Some tea would be nice. Oblivious to the group on the other side of the room, their dialogue tuned out by a banger rock song from the 2330s in his ears, the young Ensign in red approached the replicator nearest to him and entered in a command for some tea.

M'Taal, while listening to the conversation, noticed the flight officer moving toward the replicator. "Hey, buddy! I wouldn't do that!" she called out. When the humanoid proceeded to ignore her, the Caitian took a couple of steps toward the other side of the room. "Hey! Red-shirt!"

The warnings went unheard. Instead of the warm cup that the Ensign was expecting, the matter that materialized in the replicator exploded into a shower of colorful pieces of paper and balloons. The force of the 'explosion' was enough to send confetti across the mess hall, and somehow the replicator had produced enough of it to put confetti on almost every surface. Noodle-shaped balloons flew into the air, making a casual arc before they slowly descended. The confetti/balloon explosion happened for about five seconds before it stopped, confetti dancing with the balloons in the air.

While the replicator produced a bunch of paper and balloons, the sudden impact of such materials against the officer's face made him fall backwards, confetti raining down on him. A balloon to the face, or rather an actual paper bomb, was not what he was expecting. Spitting out some confetti that got into his mouth, he scooted away from the replicator. What the hell...? Everywhere he looked, there was confetti. Pulling off his headphones, he turned his head toward the group and gave a rather startled look.

"Perhaps all replicators need to be taken offline," NVeid suggested, too calmly, though his face betrayed a mix of concern and amusement at the display around him. "Until such time that It's safe to use them again. Perhaps we can assign someone to a galley? Perhaps use a holodeck as kitchen if it can be trusted? Otherwise, I think rations may be our safest option."

"Minimal power limitation," said Roga, keying something into his datapad. He checked and stepped up to the replicator. "Food and water," he said. With a shimmer, a plain bowl of unappetizing mush and a a simple cup appeared. Roga looked at the readings. "It may be safe but only for basic orders."

M'Taal shook her head when confetti landed in her fur, then flapped her arm when a balloon decided to stick to her. Letting out a frustrated growl, she stomped out of the mess hall, swatting away more balloons as they drifted towards her.

Iska, brushing off the confetti that somehow got onto him, gave the mush a rather disgusted once-over. In that moment, his communicator chirped, with Charlie requesting his presence in engineering. "I'll be a minute, things got weird in the mess hall after you left," he answered.

Looking between NVeid and Roga, then at the mess of confetti and balloons in the room, Iska sighed. "Personally, I think I'd prefer the emergency rations, because at least it doesn't look like... that," he said, gesturing to the bowl of mush. "I'm going to deal with whatever is happening in Engineering. Will you two be ok handling, uh..." He wasn't even sure the Prophets had a name for whatever chaos this was.

"If you disable the replicators, I will remain here and help distribute rations," NVeid offered, "until such time I am needed in sickbay, obviously."

Roga nodded, "On your authority, deactivating the replicators." He entered a sequence on his datapad, scowled, entered it again. "They will not deactivate."

Shaking his head, NVeid stood and used one of his utensils to pry the control panel away to reveal the device's circuitry. "In that case, we are going to perform a little surgery, but not the repair kind," he stated calmly while reaching out. In a swift motion, he pulled all the wiring, thereby physically disconnecting it from the system. "That ought to do the trick...."

"Still powered," reported Roga.

Iska frowned at the conversation. "Well, keep working on it, I guess? I should get to Engineering." On his way out, he jogged over to the poor ensign who got confetti-bombed and helped him up. The replicator seemed to 'burp' another little puff of confetti, the paper raining down on the two. The man didn't look injured, just surprised, so the Bajoran kicked it into a jog as he left the mess hall.

What was going on in Engineering that required his help???