To Code and Program
Posted on Tue Oct 4th, 2022 @ 7:44pm by Captain Etan Kaz
Mission:
01-Crossing the Line
Location: Hangar Bay, Deep Space K-17
As the groups dispersed to their respective tasks, Mekat nodded to M’Riz and indicated for him to follow him towards a console they could use.
M’Riz looked over the panel. “Shouldn’t be too hard,” he said. “Just in a way of introduction, Lt. j.g. M’Riz, of the good ship Cardinal,” he said, holding out a hand. “Nice to meet you.”
Krell looked his comrade up and down. “Lieutenant Krell Mekat.” He said after a beat, taking the offered hand. “You can just call me Mekat.” Something resembling a smile pulled at the corner of the Bajoran’s mouth for the briefest of moments. “Have you ever worked with an interface this old?” He asked.
“I worked with them a few times in passing at the Academy,” M’Riz said. “Although we thought it was a bit of a drag at the time, we had an instructor who insisted we be familiar with older systems. ‘You never know when it might come in handy,’ he told us. Let’s just see how good of a memory I’ve got here.”
“We should have enough computing power to handle the piloting.” Krell said confidently. “If we delete some unused replicator files.”
“That sounds like a plan,” M’Riz said, pulling up some of the old files in question and beginning the process of deleting them, “just as long as you weren’t hoping for a gourmet meal while we’re here.” He added the last part with a grin and a wink.
“The replicators don’t work anyways.” Krell admitted. His tone was deadpan and he didn’t even lift his head from his work. “I’ve transposed generic traffic patterns to a file, but we will need to program the remote pilot from scratch.”
“And that is going to be the tricky part to this,” M’Riz said. “One bad code and we could easily give the whole thing away when everything either starts crashing into each other or starts performing crazy maneuvers that no one who isn’t a Horta could survive.”
Mekat nodded. “True enough.” He said. “It’ll be tricky but I think we can do it. If you start programming I can go in after you and double check everything.”
“All right, here we go,” M’Riz said. He began working on the programming, a little hesitantly at first as he familiarized himself with the somewhat older controls and as he worked to remember his training. He picked up some speed as he went along.
“Everything looks good so far.” Krell said, his eyes trained on lines of code on his monitor. “It’s nothing to fancy, but it is a work of art in its own way.” He turned and smiled at M’Riz. “The first part should be ready to upload.” He confirmed.
“All right, here goes nothing,” M’Riz said. “If you happen to follow human superstitions, this is where I believe that you would cross your fingers.”
Mekat said a silent prayer to the Prophets, and watched as their first bits of code were uploaded to the system. The lines of programming appeared on the console monitor while the computer uploaded the information.
“So long as we can ensure the shuttles have at least functioning nav systems and a working uplink they should move no problem.” Krell said, continuing to watch the code on the screen.
“Yes, though we should probably also put in something that will run a quick diagnostic on each shuttle, to check that none of them will blow their impulse manifold or anything like that,” M’Riz said. “Some of them have admittedly seen better days.”
“I think you’d be surprised how resilient the older systems can be. It takes more than a lot to blow them out.”A wide smile crept onto Krell’s face. “But youre right, we should add in a diagnostic program, best to keep it all above board.”
As the diagnostic subroutine was uploaded, Krell nodded. “We should see if they need any help with the shuttles.” He said to M’Riz. The Bajoran was clearly pleased at the team work.
Lieutenant Krell Mekat (NPC)
Engineering Officer
Deep Space K-17
LIeutenant Junior Grade M’Riz
Chief Conn Officer
U.S.S. Cardinal
