Sub-optimal

Posted on Thu May 2nd, 2024 @ 10:07pm by Ensign Mercy Mourne & Lieutenant Darru

Mission: Contagion
Location: Secondary Research Labs
Timeline: Early Day 366
1946 words - 3.9 OF Standard Post Measure

Mercy let out a heavy sigh, running a hand through her hair, mussing it as she gathered her courage. Right, she could do this. Out of all the senior officers, Lieutenant Darru was the least likely to try and ask her superfluous questions about her wellbeing or feelings. All she had to do was present her argument in an analytical and sensible manner. She would take a deep breath, she wouldn't rush and maybe, if she stayed calm, she would be able to get the words out without stuttering. Besides, she rarely asked for anything, that had to count for something right? Maybe Darru would take that into account? Maybe he wouldn't even remember her name, then she could fade back into the obscure safety of research analysis and sample catalogues?

Taking another deep breath she gets to her feet, and gives herself a small once over. She was blessedly free of any stains at least, although there was a small mystery tear on one of her sleeves. She couldn't for the life of her remember where it had come from. If she stood to attention with her hands behind her back she might be able to hide it. As she approaches Darru she does just that, hands clenched behind her back as she clears her throat to subtly interrupt his work. Already she could feel her cheeks heating with her anxiety.

"L-Lieutenant Darru, may I have a moment of your time?" Her voice came out stronger than she had expected, the clipped tone sounding polite and professional, and almost confident.

Darru had been deep in thought looking at the scans of the base that he would be going over to later. He glanced up at Mercy before he raised an eyebrow not having heard her actively approach him before even after a year of working together. “Speak ensign.” He said letting her have the floor as there was something on her mind.

The ensign took a deep breath, she glanced briefly at the scans, curiosity flicked over her face which she pushed aside in favour of discussing the issue at hand.

“It’s about the lab computers sir. You have probably already considered this.” She began carefully. Her former boss in the Earth expedition analysis would always take credit, so it was often easier for her to suggest ideas this way. It would have been nice for her to have received acknowledgement but ultimately she was more interested in the issue being addressed.

“They were never designed to store information indefinitely for years. We have not run out of space yet, but I predict in a month or so we will, and then the performance will be significantly affected. I have already noticed they have slowed down somewhat when logging samples.” Suddenly nerves grip her and she begins to waffle. “I know they are not a critical system sir, but I was thinking we should begin to analyse and purge some of the data, perhaps even discard information that isn’t critical to the mission at hand. We could prioritise medical data and information that supports the safety of the crew for example? Or maybe with engineering’s help look to see if there is a more efficient way to archive data?”

Darru took a long moment to process what she said. It was half him translating in his own head and then processing that he had noticed the same things but had not considered that as an option so soon into their journey home. He had calculated at least enough six months now that he was slowly getting people back from other departments it was most likely time to get people doing what they had originally meant to be doing onboard. “Whilst I would argue that we are as critical as other departments you are correct. I had calculated we had another six months before it become critical but it would do us well to get ahead of the problem.” He mused trying to use words that would have the humans more comfortable around him.

Mercy flushed a little more, shifting slightly uncomfortably, she had honestly expected to be brushed off or turned away. The fact that her CO was actually listening to her was unexpected. “Th-thank you. Respectfully sir, I didn’t mean to undermine what we do, I know you and the other senior staff work hard to keep us all afloat, but… well some of what we catalogue and process as part of our original mission, it seems a little uhm…” Mercy struggled for a word that wouldn’t insult or give too much away about how she was really feeling. “Well it’s been somewhat superseded by the need to survive.” She paused, at a bit of a loss now that she had manage to actually raise the issue successfully. “If you have already considered this then you likely have a solution in mind, but if you are open to suggestions then perhaps we could look at a protocol for categorising the information we will need in terms of its immediate use? For example we could have category 1, information immediately useful to medical and ships operations. Category 2 could be information that may be useful but is still being worked on and priority 3 information with no immediate use that can be archived and offloaded to a back up system to free up processing space? Or something of that nature? Or not at all. Whatever you think is best sir.” Dammit she was rambling again, this is why she usually tried to avoid conversations outside of her routine work. She mentally winced and dropped her gaze, hiding behind a curtain of messy brown hair.

Darru raised an eyebrow at the human and fully turned in the chair and indicated the chair next to him for her to sit down. Once she was settled the man looked at her thoughtfully. He he had not spent much time with the woman over the last year with her being elsewhere and then Gamma shift but he valued himself as someone approachable for a Vulcan on a ship full of humans. He had been there as a group of exchange officers but now he was fully invoked with Earth Starfleet and their way of doing things but he was still being seen as not approachable which bothered him. “I value your input on this ensign.” He said pulling a PADD over to himself with the information from Relea. It was the freshest completed data. “Organise the top 5 items into your categories.” He requested.

Mercy shifted in the chair beside her Commandi- beside Lieutenant Darru. The mere fact he had offered her a seat making it very clear how different the Atlantis was to her previous assignment. She cleared her throat slightly, glancing at him before taking the PADD and going through the data quickly. She was looing for specific markers, knowledge that might need to be accessed quickly in an emergency went into category 1, as well as anything that supported repairs, supplies, navigation or the ships population. Data that raised further questions that needed to be explored went into category 2, so it could be accessed should they find complimentary data to compare or supplement. And lastly was the information that was purely academic or seemingly superfluous was assigned to category 3. When she was done she passes the data back to him. She then glanced at him once more, tucking hair behind her ear as she gained a little more confidence.

"I considered proposing a 4th category, information to be deleted entirely but then I thought of CRISPR sir and..." She shrugged a little, shifted in her chair once more, this time managing to stop herself before she went on another tangent.

“And…” he prompted taking the PADD back from her to look through what she had sorted so far. Now that he had gotten some conversation from her it meant that at least him being the department head and rebuilding the science team properly was not a lost cause for him. What she had provided was similar to what he would have sorted things into so they were understanding things together and on the same page which was refreshing.

"Oh... well... CRISPR's sir, they are clusters of regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats, they relate to human DNA sequencing, they were discovered in the late 20th century, but they weren't discovered to be repeating until the 21st century, and it was completely accidental. You see a scientist was looking for a way to combat viral phage's attacking the fermentation process in the dairy industry. It was completely unrelated, but if the earlier research had just been discarded, and if his accidental discovery had been deleted, then we would never have learnt how to sequence DNA. So you see sir... even if it's not useful right now, it didn't feel right to propose deleting anything." She glanced at Darru checking he was still listening and she hadn't bored him into some sort of coma. Not everyone found scientific research from the 21st century as interesting as she did.

The Vulcan looked at the woman and nodded fully understanding what she meant and why she meant it now. There was a greater understanding which he appreciated but the conversation was leaving him with a lot more food for thought on humanisms. “I did not consider it in that concept.” Darru admitted dumbfounded for a moment. He was still learning about human genetics and the processes behind them but he had not considered that it would related but it was in a roundabout way. “What we need is storage units.” He said thoughtfully.

Mercy's face actually lit up a little bit as Darru pinned down the logical next step. "Yes! I think you are right! Uhm... I mean I think you are right sir." She rubbed the back of her neck, her torn uniform sleeve forgotten in the face of having managed to overcome a little of her fear of the senior staff and it having gone even better than she thought it might. "Thank you for listening to me. I know you are busy so I appreciate you considering my concerns."

The Vulcan raised an eyebrow at the torn sleeve but said nothing as he took the PADD back to look at the organisation that had been done to the data files. “It is part of my role as department head and especially more so now that we are re-establishing the science department.” he knew he was not the first choice to be department head but he was making the choice that he was going to be the only department head going forward to make sure the department re-established some stability.

Mercy shrugged and fiddled with the hem of her uniform. "Yes sir, still appreciated. If there is anything I can do to help further please let me know. May I go back to my shift now sir? Was there anything else you needed from me?"

Darru shook his head quickly. He suddenly felt like he was the one keeping her there when she had come to him but he had always found their interactions intriguing. “No at this moment Ensign. We can discuss this more when I get back from the base. Maybe Ensign Moore would be interested in starting to recategorise areas of our database.”

Mercy gave the Vulcan a nod. “I didn’t know you were going in the shuttle down sir, good luck.” She then got up to leave, giving him an awkward wave before she shuffled back to her work station as quickly as she could without looking like she was trying to escape.