Duotronic Deadlock

Posted on Fri Aug 14th, 2026 @ 3:55pm by Ensign Carter Page & Ensign Tobias "Toby" Dienstag & Commander Lucy Heartfilia

994 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Mission 6: Echoes of the Interphase
Location: Deck 7 - Computer Core
Timeline: M6 MD04 (2268.10.07) 2030

The main Computer Core was located on Deck 7 with the tiny two man control room attached. Carter walked through the red sliding doors, ignoring the black Restricted: Authorized Personnel Only sign next to the door.

Inside, Ensign Toby Dienstag was sitting at the control console. The young man wore a black and gold Adidas Originals zip-up track jacket, a blue undershirt, a pair of slim cut black pants and a pair of black and gold Adidas Gazelle sneakers, definitely not dressed for duty. He looked up at Carter who was dressed in his red engineering uniform, “I see you at least had time to change,” Toby commented.

“Well… Actually, unlike you I’ve been on duty every day since we’ve been back… I’ve popped down to Earth for a few hours a day, but back on ship every night…” He sat down next to Toby and put the wedge clipboard down onto the console, “Someone has to keep the lights on…”

Toby’s wide brown doe eyes fluttered for a second, “Based upon the state of the ship’s computer, I wonder who’s been changing light bulbs,” he responded.

“Apparently Star Fleet engineering and the Daystrom Institute,” Carter responded with a sigh.

“The dynamic duo,” Toby responded, shaking his head, “Any instruction from Commander Hanous? Should we attempt to complete the upgrade or roll back?” he asked.

“Roll back if possible, the Commander doesn’t trust anything experimental, especially something half assed,” Carter responded, pulling up the computer system diagram onto the small view screen between the two terminals.

“Well, they progressed just enough through this upgrade to break everything,” Toby commented with a sigh, “There’s some sort of multitronic node tied in with our standard dutronic cluster.” He keyed a few more sequences in, “There’s some sort of interface translation program between the two, but it’s half installed,” he said. He hit a few more buttons on the console, “The complexity of this architecture is ridiculous… I don’t know how they were expecting this to work,” he said.

“Can you just restore to backup?” Carter offered.

“I can try,” Toby responded. He stopped, “Are you sure we have authorization for this?” he asked.

Carter signed and picked up the clipboard. He used the stylus to move through the pages and then held the wedge up to Toby, “See?”

Toby nodded, “Had to be sure,” he responded, before rotating the skyblue Burke chair back to face the console. He grimaced, stopped typing and leaned back, “The backup is completely corrupt,” he said, “How they managed to do that is beyond me…” He thought a moment and then went back to work.

“Thought?” Carter asked as he watched the young man’s fingers move.

“Well, following procedure we uploaded the ship’s computer to Starbase One once we returned to dock,” Toby responded, “If we can interface with that and then restore the database…”

"Why not try the auxiliary core?" A voice said from behind them.

Toby turned and looked straight into the fierce visage of Commander Heartfilia. Her blue sciences uniform looked neatly pressed, her hair spotless. A look of shock and aw flooded Toby's face before he finally answered, "Nice rice Commander, the auxillary core is also partially upgraded, even then it isn't large enough to take over all functions of the main core... Additionally it isn't a complete carbon copy, just a copy of the essentials."

Lucy groaned. "You know this is why they shouldn't upgrade or fix stuff that isn't already broken." She said as she walked forward. "Did you backup all of the data banks to the starbase?"

"Always that danger when going into dock," Toby commented. He nodded, "We followed proceedure. The Starbase recieved our computer back up image before going to condition blue... The issue now is getting someone over there to transfer everything back to us... I sent an inquiry over and haven't recieved a response."

Lucy placed a hand on Toby's shoulder. "You leave that to me. I'll get someone over here to sort this mess out. Afterall, we can't leave without a functional computer."

Toby nodded, “Yes, commander,” he responded, although the words didn’t quite settle. The Midway couldn’t wait. He couldn't wait.

He turned back to the console, the broken databank architecture and the dozen error messages still glaring at him. It was unsettling. Every equation had an answer, there was a logical solution in this chaos. He keyed in a diagnostic sequence… The results yielded a glimmer of hope.

Toby swallowed slightly, and then looked up, “Commander…Iif we wait for Starbase, we’re dependent on their timeline. And given the state of the computer… There is a solution without a complete wipe and archive memory image,” he said. He hesitated a moment and then continued since she didn’t stop him, “Assuming our uplink connecting us to the Starbase’s computer are still valid, we connect, establish a repair pipeline we can use the data in the backup we transferred to fill in the gaps missing in the auxiliary environment. This would cut the compute resources and time needed significantly and restore our computer cores.” He pointed to the screen, “I ran a localized diagnostic using this micro databank section and it worked,” he added.

"You believe that your plan will work?" Lucy asked simply. It sounded more complicated than it actually was, but the fundementals were actually pretty simple. She gripped the bridge of her nose as she gave it some thought. "You know what, I trust you. Do it. If you run into any problems, then direct them towards me."

Toby nodded. He was about 75% confident the plan would work, only time would tell. He was shocked that the Commander would trust him, with something this vital. Still he was confident enough that this solution would work. He began keying in the sequence, praying for a miracle.

 

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