Searching A Mystery

Posted on Mon May 12th, 2025 @ 7:20pm by Lieutenant JG Stevie Thomas [O'Riley]

960 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Sole Survivor
Location: Valkyrie - Main Engineering
Timeline: Current

After returning to the ship Stevie stowed her EV suit in it's proper place thinking "Hope I don't have to wear that again anytime soon. " Grabbing the case with the data drives Stevie returned to main engineering.

There was a crewman by the name of Ensign Liz Moro, a new computer systems specialist fresh out of academy whose first assignment was the Valkyrie. Stevie had been keeping a close eye on her realizing she was an intelligent young women; someone she decided to take under her wing trying to teach her what she knew about computers. Not unlike herself those many years ago when Chief Cartwright did the same helping to make her the specialist she is today; Stevie wanted to not only pay it forward but also do as the Captain had charged her with when she received her promotion.

Waking over to the young women "Ensign Moro are you busy at the moment" Thomas inquired with a smile.

"No Lieutenant; just trying to keep myself busy" Ensign Moro replied returning the smile.

"Good your with me then" as the two officers started walking towards the specialists console while Stevie explained "I have six very, very old data drives that I need to try and access the data so I thought it would be a good learning time for you and I can always bounce ideas off you while I'm at it" Thomas stated curious just how committed this young office really was.

"Happy to assist Lieutenant and I'm always up for learning something new" Moro commented starting to feel more and more like a part of the team and not just a newbie.

"That's what I like to hear" Thomas stated while she removed the first drive from the case.

Liz looked at the device "Lieutenant if I may ask, what in the world is that; I've never seen anything like that before."

Stevie grinned "I'm not surprised, these things are from a time long ago. These are called s.s.d.s or solid state drives; they were the last type of data storage devices before the bio gel packs and iso-linear chips " she explained pleased to see this young women so interested.

Thomas set to hooking up one of the drives to the main computer. Once accomplished Stevie couldn't get the drive to interface with the ship's computer. Thinking for a few minutes, there was something that just might work.

Ensign Moro sat watching in silence wondering what the Lieutenant was going to do but didn't want to say anything.

Stevie brought up an 'old time keyboard' interface on her console and started typing all theses strange looking sentences and symbols when Moro asked "Lieutenant what are you typing; I've never seen anything like that before; at least not since the academy."

Thomas stopped typing and looked at Liz with a grin "So you have no idea what I'm doing let alone why I'm doing it I take it."

Thinking she may be in trouble Liz answered with some reservation "No I don't.....am I supposed know what you're doing?"

With a smile to set the Ensign at ease "Probably not, let me explain. I can't get the drive to interface, or communicate with our computer because the drive is so old. I need a way to make that happen and that way is to come up with a bunch of coding to make the transition; I'm using and old time unix code" Stevie explained then went back to typing. Several minutes later the drive and computer began to interface as she exclaimed "That's right drive, who's your mama now".

"I heard about unix at the academy but they never showed us any of the particulars. So how did you come to learn this anyway" Liz inquired.

"My mentor at the academy took me under his wing and taught me things that the curriculum didn't, otherwise I wouldn't be the specialist I am today" then Stevie paused looking at Liz "You are a bright young women who doesn't mind getting her hands dirty so I'd like to do the same for you if you're up to it" she commented.

A smile came across Liz's face "Yes I would like that very much" then she paused a moment "Lieutenant you'd do that for me" she asked excited at the prospect.

With a smile "Yes, I want to do for you what was done for me years ago. But you'll have to be committed and work hard" Thomas explained glad to she Liz was up for the challenge.

"Absolutely" Liz stated with great enthusiasm "I'll do what ever it takes."

"Excellent" Stevie replied then stood and went to a cabinet grabbing a book. Walking back to her station she handed it to Liz "You can start with this......The Unix Coding Guide. This will teach you everything you need to know about writing computer code using the unix computer language; it's something that you'll use from time to time."

Taking the book Liz was surprised to be starting her new training so soon but decided to have a go at it anyway "Thanks Lieutenant, I'll get started on this tonight in my quarters" she commented.

Stevie smiled at her young protege then sat back at her station knowing she had a job to finish. About four hours later she had retrieved all the information she could even with most of the drives being corrupted. Now she would attempt to piece together the information and hopefully be able to fill in some of the blanks before giving her findings to the Chief.



Lieutenant J.G. Stevie Thomas
Compter Systems Specialist
NPC played by O'Riley

Ensign Liz Moro [written by O'Riley]
Computer Systems Specialist
NPC written by O'Riley
USS Valkyrie

 

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