Cleansing the Virus

Posted on 08 Nov 2016 @ 5:51am by Commander Terry Walsh & Lieutenant Commander Camila Di Pasquale & Lieutenant Jarith Roshe & Lieutenant JG Catherine Cooper & Lieutenant JG Dean Winchester & Lieutenant Lucas Abrams M.D. & Lieutenant JG Charles Carmichael & Lieutenant JG Daniella Blake & Lieutenant JG Angela Delorean PhD & Ensign Quinn Mackie & Ensign Aidan Crehan
Edited on on 11 Nov 2016 @ 7:37am

2,995 words; about a 15 minute read

Mission: Click Three Times
Location: Shipwide
Timeline: MD 10 || 1730 hours

The away team had been gone for two hours and the cleaning of the virus had been well underway. Camila sat on the makeshift bridge and sighed at what she was about to do, but she wanted to check in with Commander Walsh first and routed the communication through the shuttle that had been set up as a communication hub with the Black Knights where an Ensign monitored all incoming and outgoing communications. =^=Commander Walsh, what's your status?=^= she asked and waited for the delay due to the routing since the computers were going to be going offline very soon.

The comm link in Terry's helmet activated with a low chirp and the message from Camila came through. He immediately pulled up an image of the Black Knights on one of the screens and took note of everyone's location. One of the other screens was already showing an expanded view around the Black Hawk as their sensors scanned for other vessels. Terry activated the comm and spoke, =/\= We're good, Lieutenant. Seven of our pilots, including myself, are providing close protection support for the Black Hawk while the other seven are on prescribed patrol routes further out. You have an early warning system, perimeter defense, and close proximity support, Lieutenant. And so far, sensors are clear. =/\=

=^=Thank you, Commander,=^= Camila said before she opened a shipwide channel. "All personnel are to proceed with the current assignment. Non-essential personnel are to work on wiping PADDs and tricorders, or bring them to Operations if you do not know how to do this."

===Administration===

In Administration, Senior Chief Petty Officer Mila Rasputin brought up stack after stack of PADDs which had been used after the attack by the Chimera and Cochrane, muttering in Russian under her breath at the massive undertaking. "Everyone is to grab a stack and begin wiping them," she ordered. "I don't want anything left on them at all. Get to work." At her orders, the administrative personnel set to work like a swarm of industrious bees.

===Operations===

Eric Burke could feel the pressure on his shoulders. The success of the entire operation rested on him, and on the planning he'd worked out. The entire Operations staff was standing around the table. The computer had just finished powering down, and now key systems were operating in safe mode, running from protected memory. They had just started wiping the memory. Six of his officers were monitoring the operation from the main computer core, while others were supervising the wipe of all connected devices. Data padds, tricorders and other scanning devices that had been connected to te main computer at any point since the boarding were potentially infected, and had to be completely wiped before the main conputer was powered back up, otherwise they risked being infected again.

Cadet Mackie had been assigned to supervise a group of seventy-five crewmembers working on the memory wipe. They had commandeered Talon's for the operation.

Burke hit his combadge. "Burke to Mackie. Progress report," he called out.

=/\= "Slow, but steady," =/\= Quinn replied over the comm. =/\= "We're moving a little slower than we like, but we need to be sure this thing won't come back." =/\=

"Acknowledged, Cadet. Burke out." He tapped his combadge again. "Chief Rasputin, your status, please."

=^=Everything is being processed, Lieutenant,=^= came the crisp reply of the Captain's Yeoman. =^=Administration is being in good hands.=^=

===Security/Tactical===

Even after a short time away it felt new again to be in the security offices. When Cooper took a job, she didn't ignore what came before so much as focus her entire attention on what she was currently working and planning on. Since she trusted her Chief and Lt. Corwin as good officers she didn't worry about that part of the department. This left her free to focus on tactical needs. She found however it was like riding a bike, she quickly got back into the routine. Only this was nothing like routine. Volunteer Security/Tactical Officers were in their respective offices carefully and efficiently wiping PADD's. Cooper had put the question to them and they jumped at the chance to get this done that much faster, though she'd been careful to make sure it would impact overall department effectiveness.

She still had extra personnel at vital points and increased patrols looking for, not just possible intruders that may sneak aboard but potential problems as the computer was dealt with. What old timer's called 'fire watch', others were doing this too but as with the time when people had to keep an eye out for actual fires; more eyes were a good idea. Lt. Di Pasquale's message came over the system and Cooper acknowledged before returning to the other work around her, hoping that Commander Walsh's perimeter walls would catch oncomers but preparing for the 'just in case'.

Cooper monitored as best she could, reports coming in regularly, and if her hands were idle she picked up a PADD and wiped it, the repetition and focus was oddly calming.

Running in, he stooped and asked a woman named Cooper, ''Where is the Chief?''

Cooper looked up at the man who just ran in, she replied, "I'm Acting Chief, what do you need?" She asked as she put a wiped PADD down. She gave the impression of ready to burst into action at need but at the moment was still though ready.

''I meant the Security Chief sir''

Cooper looked up at the over 7 foot tall wall in front of her, "I'm it. Security and Tactical until our away mission people return, I say again. What do you need?". She said to Lt. Jg Winchester. She like all on duty security/tactical personnel wore the standard duty belt with its mini med kit, door popper, and other useful bits and bobs, secure in their little belt cases.

''I need Orders sir, what do you want me to do?''

He must have completed his previous assignment, not surprising since the PADD were well on their way to being done. "Take a pile of PADD's and start wiping. We've gotten far but if you're at loose ends we could use a hand getting this wrapped up.'' ''Sooner we do the sooner we can get things up and running properly." She said, a crewman interrupted to ask a question, she replied then picked up another PADD. Part of her attention on their surroundings as always.

''Aye Ma'am', Dean said. Turning he said, 'Rex sit''. Rex sat down as Dean grabbed a pile of PADDs and started wiping them. As he lay the first finished one down and picked up the next, he said, ''So are all the Tricorders done?"

"Not yet, there are some in the crates over there..." Cooper said, pointing at a 5 crates still on the 'do be done' side of the room. "If you are looking to shake things up from PADD's, you know live on the wild side..." She quipped, resisting the urge to hang upside down on her chair. She started looping a Klingon Opera in her head instead, she was close to hyper active and had an entire toolbox of ways to slow herself down that became more and more instinctive as she continued to use them. "We do a regular count, I'm sure we'll have more exact numbers soon...". She picked up another PADD as security/tactical reports continued to flow to her.

====Sickbay====

Dr. Abbey Road took a few last scans of patients before handing over her tricorder to be wiped and reloaded. Nurse Land promised to return it as soon as possible, but until then, she had to rely on the biobed monitors. Thankfully, there weren't many critical patients left, but, there would come a time when they would not have had bioneds on which they depended. When that happened, each patient would have to be observed manually until such time as the monitors could be brought back on line. If they left them until the end, it would theoretically only be a few minutes, but that was too long for her liking.

Lucas, who was put in charge of sickbay once more by their acting CO, was currently overseeing their side of the wipe while their the few critical patients they had were being handled manually. He still wasn't happy about their curent predicament, but I. Order to keep systems from failing, it was necessary. All anyone could do was their best, and as long as their was breath in his massive body, they wouldn't lose another soul. Not even if methods considered archaic to them needed to be used. Still, he couldn't wait for all of this to be over.

Dani was one of the people seeing to one of the critical patients. Her nerves were on edge, and she felt like she was going tk be physically ill, but she had a feeling she wasn't the only one who felt that way. Hopefully, this entire ordeal would be over much quicker than originally anticipated, and considering they had the best crew around, she had a feeling it could be done. For now, her focus was on the man she'd been assigned to, and nothing was going to draw her focus from him.

===Bridge===

Stepping onto the bridge, Lieutenant Roshe could sense the tension which was palpable despite his Betazoid senses. He glanced around and spotted Di Pasquale at her post. He walked over tao her and introduced himself. "I am Lieutenant Jarith Roshe, Sir," said he. "I serve both as Counselor and Diplomatic Officer. As you can tell, I am Betazoid which may come in handy out here. How can I be of service to you right now?"

Camila pinched the bridge of her nose and thought about his question. "For now, Lieutenant, I would suggest that you try to help with getting the PADDs and tricorders wiped as well as keeping an emotional ear out for the mood of the crew. We have no diversions at the moment and they're being overworked. See if you can help lighten the mood where you can."

===Space===

Terry had heard the announcement from Camila, but there was nothing he could do at the moment. He knew that the Flight Ops and Flight Deck leadership would coordinate the effort for their department. Not to mention his Aide, Petty Officer Mori. She would take care to have it all organized for him upon his return. Because he did plan on coming back. But for now, there were more important matters at hand.

He opened up the squadron comm, "Rocco to Black Knights, status report."

"All clear for Alpha Three," Aurilia reported as she brought the Peregrine fighter around for another pass past the ship.

Lt. Jg Gemma Alexander took a look at her instruments and a long look at the empty space. She was flying a standard formation off Alpha One's left side as the Black Knights spread in their perimeter, "All clear for Alpha Two,". Archer replied.

=== Operations ===

Burke circled around the table and approached Ensign Ghirizii Ra-Bobkartreii, whom everyone called Bob for short, the computer specialist in charge of the memory wipe.

"Status report," asked Burke.

"Memory wipe currently at twenty percent," reported the Efrosian. "We should be done with the wipe in forty-five minutes."

"Good," replied Burke.

===Science===

Aidan had been wiping PADD's since the order came through. Well, since people had noticed that he was wiping them and started bringing them to him. Lazy people, he thought. Just because I'm a Cadet, does not mean that I automatically get the menial tasks. These scientists never would have made it on the Iconia dig.

A Lieutenant JG with black eyes and brown hair approached Aidan, but she didn't have a stack of PADDs in her hands to give him. "Excuse me, Cadet Crehan," she said. "I'm Lieutenant Delorean. Could you use some help?"

Aidan looked up at the mention of his name. "Why thank you, Lieutenant. I could, yes. This pile seems to get bigger every time someone finishes with their current work. And it would also be nice to have someone to talk with during this tedious work."

Charles entered the room, a crate of PADDs and tricorders in his possession. As the acting Chief Science Officer, it displeased him to see so many people in a room and so few people working. "New load for everyone!" He reported, purposely planting the crate on a table with stunned crewmen. "Snap to it."

"Speaking of getting bigger," Angela said as Carmichael brought in more. With a sigh, she shook her head and reached for yet another PADD. "I always thought life in Science wouldn't be wiping PADDs. My PhD is being put to good use."

"Welcome to Starfleet, Angela," Charles told his fellow scientist. As soon as this all began, he'd made sure to tuck the isolinear chip he was given away on his person. He figured his body was the safest place for it, though the thought of someone searching each and every person for technology that needed to be wiped was not exactly a pleasant idea in the first place. "If it's one thing I've learned over the last year aboard this ship, fate is not a respecter of person or position. We just gotta do what we gotta do."

Burke entered the Science lab, a clean data padd in his hands. He approached Lieutenant Carmichael. "What's our status in here?" he asked.

"I had no idea there were so many PADDs and tricorders on this ship," Charles remarked to the acting Operations Chief. "We're knocking it out pretty fast, but we're losing more than what we thought. We barely got a backup of our first day of scans of the Hadyn Nebula. We're going to lose everything from the night of the gravimetric disturbance. You don't think there's any way to salvage that, do you?"

Burke shook his head. "We can't let one iota of information persist in the main computer if we want to avoid a resurgence of the virus. Everything has to be purged. The virus seems to be able to adapt, and it comes back even stronger every time we fail to wipe it from somewhere."

He hesitated for one minute as an idea struck him. "Though we could transfer those sensor logs to a completely independent computer system, one that has absolutely no link to the main computer. Like a shuttle. We'd be able to read the logs, and they wouldn't risk infecting the main computer."

"Anything would work," Charles replied. "This is a relatively unseen phenomenon. Any chance to study it further would be beneficial."

"Not to mention that we need to know more about it if we're ever to find a way home," added Burke.

"Right," Charles said. He moved over to the desk where he'd copied the logs to a set of isolinear chips. "Crehan, DeLorean. Got a job for you. Lieutenant Burke, what shuttle can we sacrifice for these logs?"

Burke brought up the ship's shuttle manifest on his data padd. He hadn't been on the ship for very long, and still needed to refer to his lists for such details. A Type-7 shuttlecraft's computer wouldn't have enough capacity for the data they needed, and he was reluctant to use their only Type-11.

"I'd say you could take the Nimoy," he ventured.

"Works for me," Charles replied. "Thank you, Lieutenant."

Angela came over to where the Acting Science Chief was. "What can I do for you, Lieutenant Carmichael?" she asked as she wiped yet another PADD.

"Lieutenant Burke has a shuttle, the Nimoy, that we can load these logs into," the Acting Science Chief replied. "Hopefully, this will help us study the readings to help us understand the nebula."

"Let's get this taken care of, Cadet Crehan," Angela said as she reached for the PADD.

"Indeed," said the El-Aurian. "Let us continue."

With that, Angela took the PADD and headed for the flight deck and the Nimoy.

===Flight/Bridge===

Ensign Kelly Khan gave orders and stacks of PADDs to any flight officer that came within range of the young brunette, but she wasn't just giving orders. She had linked a chain of PADDs together and did the same with tricorders and was doing a cascade wipe of them and checked them after each one registered complete. She was pleased with the progress of the wipe, and just as pleased to have been put in charge of Flight while Lieutenant Langston was gone. With the ship in Gray Mode and hiding in the nebula, there wasn't a need for her to be at the helm controls located in Engineering, but she headed back there anyway in case she was needed.

Camila looked up as the brunette Ensign arrived on the bridge. "Report, Ensign," she said.

"The progress is going faster than estimated, Lieutenant," Kelly said. "Everyone who isn't needed is working on wiping the PADDs, tricorders or assisting Lieutenant Burke as ordered."

Camila gave a nod. "For now, we should have about ninety-percent of them wiped and the computer core wipe should be done," she said. "Now for everything to be restored and wait for the away team to return."

"Aye, Lieutenant," Kelly said and went to the improvised helm to make a minor adjustment and awaited further orders.

=^=Lieutenant Burke, what's the status of the restore?=^= Camila tapped her combadge to contact the acting Operations Chief.

"We've just finished the memory wipe," reported Burke. "We hit a minor setback with fourteen memory cells that were corrupted. That set us back by about ten minutes. We're about to restore everything from the protected archives."

~To Be Continued~

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