The Ups and Downs of Stock
Posted on 03/22/2020 @ 12:17am by
Mission:
S1E2: The Plomeek Soup Conundrum
Location: Medication Storage, Sickbay, Deck 7
Timeline: Day 5 at 0000
Dressed in a uniform with a combadge neatly affixed, Doctor Leonie D'Anvers swore in Chinese that was both imaginative and inappropriate. She stood on one booted foot, the other hooked around her ankle, as her whiskey-colored gaze moved from a dozen neatly labeled vials of Cordrazine to the count registered on the PADD she was holding. In the time it had taken her to walk from the console in the exam area back to Medication Storage, the count had changed and it still wasn't correct.
Frowning, she tapped her combadge. "Sickbay to Engineering," she said in a clear voice that held just a touch of her native French.
=/\="Engineering here, go ahead."=/\=
"Weird problem here," Leonie said. "I'm contacting you though I'm not sure whether its Engineering or Operations that should get involved. The count for medication? It's off. And not just off, it keeps changing. Weird, right?"
A groan came through the comm channel. =/\="Not as weird as you'd think. I'll be right there."=/\=
"I'll be here. D'Anvers out."
It was a busy day full of unscheduled repairs and sudden breakdowns. Allegedly the shakedown cruise had gone well, but with the spark in basic maintenance requirements... well, the Crazy Horse didn't seem to be getting off on the right foot.
Archer sent himself to Sickbay. All of his repair teams were busy, including the on-call ones. One would almost think they'd just engaged a bird-of-prey in a dogfight at that amount of man-hours.
Sickbay was a huge priority though. Archer could have redirected his personnel, but it was unnecessary. Not when he could troubleshoot and possibly hand it off to Operations like the doctor had said.
In just a few minutes since Leonie's call, Archer crossed the threshold from the noisy corridor into the calm and sterile Sickbay environment. He had never been able to shake the intimidating sanctity of the place, no matter what ship he served on.
"Hello?" he called out timidly. "Chief Logan here responding to computer record discrepancies."
A muffled voice came from farther in, followed by a colorful string of Chinese curse words, and then a woman stepped out into the corridor. She stood 5'7" with waist-length brown hair and brown eyes that sparked with merriment and warmth. She waved one hand, beckoning him closer, as she said, "Back here, Chief. In Medication Storage."
Between the melodic sound of her voice, her enchanting eyes, and otherwise captivating appearance, Archer gulped at the thought of being in a small enclosed space with her. "Uh... right." He carried his toolkit high up against his side and kept his stride even. "So... you said there's a problem with the inventory count," he said, "and I'm assuming the stock is too high to confirm with a physical count. That about right?"
"I'm using Cordrazine as a test since we only have twelve vials here," she said as she pointed to the readout. "The numbers here keep changing, I swear. Anywhere from 3 to 485. It's the oddest thing." She frowned as she looked at the orderly shelves. "Course if that's wrong then we'll have to do a physical count of everything and that will take some time."
Archer blinked in shock. "That's... quite the discrepancy," he understated. "Have you checked the inventory on other consoles?"
"Enough to know that it's not just this one PADD," Leonie said as she frowned at the readings. "This is a new ship," she asked, cocking her head slightly to one side.
"Yeah, don't remind me," Archer groused. He slung down his toolkit and removed his all-purpose hydrospanner. "Where's the main server for Sickbay? I'll start there and work my way up to the primary computer system or down to a local router."
"You know," Leonie said as she placed her hands on her lean hips, "I'm not sure. This is my first day and all ... " Her nose wrinkled slightly as she considered him. "Isn't that something ... you would know?"
The look Archer gave her was somewhere between embarrassed and offended. "Yeah. Just like you would know how much Cordizone you have," he said, mispronouncing the medicine she'd mentioned. "Don't matter none. I got the schematics here."
That was only half true. The tricorder he pulled out traced the wireless connections from the assorted PADDs, biobeds, and other equipment toward a central source. It was a floor panel near the center of the room.
"Looks like it's right here." Archer stowed his tricorder in his tool kit and retrieved a sonic driver to pop open the floor plate and access the server panel. "I don't see any external signs of failure or breakdown," he said. "I'll initiate a level five diagnostic which should only take a few minutes."
Packing up his toolkit, he sat back on his hind end and looked up at Leonie. "S'pose while I wait, I should ask if you've had any other issues crop up that haven't found their way into the queue yet."
"Sorry about that," Leonie said, with a slight shake of her head, as she leaned one hip against the nearest console. "I embarrassed that I didn't know that but we've had something of a morning already. Lots of minor injuries. As for problems, the only other one I can think of are the main doors. They can be a bit ... challenging ... to get through."
"Damn it." Archer let out a sigh. "Sorry 'bout the sailor talk. That just makes five decks at last count with door problems. How hard is it for the shipyard to install working doors?"
At this point, Archer was a pro at the procedure. He popped off the door panel, cut power to the servo-mechanism, removed the servo-mechanism, reset the fiber-optic regulator that governed the open/close function, then replaced the servo-mechanism, restored power, and then waved his hand in front of the door.
"Without a hitch," Archer said rather smugly. He popped the cover back onto the door panel and turned to face Leonie. "Lemme' know if you have any more trouble."
The tricorder he'd left running in the center of the room warbled at him. "Ah, looks like the diagnostic is done." Taking a look at the readings for a moment, he furrowed his brow. "Say, uh, Doc... just how many folks you got logged into the database at this moment?"
"Just me, why," Leonie asked as she moved toward the nearest console and did her own verification. "Yes, just me."
Archer guffawed at the confirmation. "That's funny because I'm seeing intermittent login activity from over a dozen personnel. They login, logout, and login again without any clear front-end activity like database entries." He scratched at his chin and gave his right ear a twist. "We might need to take the whole Sickbay server offline for a full diagnostic. I sure hope not..."
Leonie frowned, catching her lower lip between her teeth, as she moved closer to Logan, leaning forward to study the list as well. "If this is true, I'll have to inform Security."
"Eh...." Archer bobbed his head to one side, then the other. "Yeah, that might be prudent. In the meantime, I can just do a reset which might fix the problem before Security gets to it." He paused for a minute, realizing he needed the attending doctor's consent first. "By your leave?"
"Of course, of course. Just make sure you leave the list with me so that I have something to give Security."
The left side of Archer's face have a twitch. "Well, let's just see what happens." He knelt down over the exposed computer server in the subflooring and powered it off. Reconfiguring the primary power supply was an ages old trick, and some things never changed. After giving it a moment to clear all processes, Archer crossed his fingers and said, "Here goes nothing."
A soft hum emitted from the server as it came online. Satisfied that the syncing process was completed, he looked to Leonie. "Login to the inventory system and see what there is to see."
Nodding, Leonie walked back into Medication Storage and did a quick check of actual stock versus counts in the system. "Much better," she murmured. "Much ..." She came out of the side room, smiling, as she said, "Looks like everything is back to normal, Chief."
"Well, that's a relief," Archer said as he released a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. Packing up his tool kit, he gave Leonie a furtive smile. "Let me know if you have any other problems."
"I will certainly do that, Chief," Leonie said with a warm smile. "Thanks."
Archer returned her smile with one of his own in the boyish variety. "My pleasure, Doctor," he said. Then, without fail, he turned tongue-tied. "Not that you please me. No, wait, you're very pleasing. I mean, shale... It was pleasing to me... No, not that. The thought of servicing your needs is pleasurable. No! I would never pleasure myself with you. I meant that you're lovely but not pleasing... oh f-..." He closed his eyes and arrested his quickening breath. "I am happy to have helped" At that his eyes shot open. "Oh God. Sorry? I really don't mean any of that how it sounds!"
"You do bring new meaning to the word tongue-tied, don't you?" Leonie smothered a laugh though it wasn't easy and laid one hand gently on his forearm. "You know, being tongue-tied is actually a medical condition ... ankyloglossia. It's when the lingual frenulum is thick and actually tethers the tip of the tongue to the floor of the mouth." She studied him for a moment and smiled warmly. "And all of that is a long way of saying ... breathe, Lieutenant. Just ... breathe."
"Right..." Archer did just that and took three deep breaths. "Good day, Doctor." And then he nearly ran out of Sickbay.
A Post by:
Leonie D'Anvers, M.D.
Medical Officer
USS Crazy Horse
and
Archer Logan V
Chief Engineer
USS Crazy Horse
