Dealing with the Power-Plant Virus

The crew has been awake and working for a long while. Bronz and Said Ma had short rests, but most everyone else has worked hard straight through the pre-departure chores and then up to jump. Its been a stressful past day; squaring away cargo and settling passengers, then spaceflight to the jump point and all that entails.

Kayla is ready with mild-stimulants (strong kaffe and black tea) and Said Ma can prescribe more 'hard-core' stimulants if needed. No task deficits at this time!

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Bronz recognizes the hologram "image" as a part of the Power Plant controlling mechanism. After observing for a few minutes, while 'Terry' tiredly talks to him worriedly about Adriana never having shown any interest in technical subjects..."she's more of an artist, really"...he has a profound INSIGHT: the control interface is getting 'commands' to shut various processes off; in effect a SCRAM (although that's not really what happens in a fusion reactor, I think) or emergency shut-down. Adriana responds to each of these orders with some sort of manipulation that defeats the order and restores normal functioning. In essence, it sure looks like she's protecting the Power Plant from these strange and dangerous computer instructions.

Decherrek and Leilani move to the Engineering Space to get direct access to the back-up control console. From there they start work; Leilani wanting to spoof the source of the disruptive code into 'thinking' the power plant has been shut down. Decherrek is more focused on finding where the code originates, decoding it, and pulling it apart... but the two approaches have plenty of overlap so the collaboration works well. Decherrek is assuming The Captain comes down to Engineering such that the team goes from two to three...

Tamm is already set up down in Engineering and has been working on checking each component of the Power Plant to determine whether or not its "in spec". Everything checks out; he's basicly doing what the Yearly Maintenance people did while at Fornice earlier. Only with a more specific focus on finding sub-standard or counterfeit parts. The previous crew did not keep great records, nor did they put "oh this is a knock off part we bought on the black market" in the Engineering Log. A decent counterfeit component will 'test out' as if its genuine under most circumstances making Llogan's task all that much more difficult.

Bronz stays at the entry hatch of Adriana's stateroom. 'Terry' LeFrontaine is there too, worrying over his spouse as she continues in her trance-like state, weaving her hands through the hologram. Bronz tries to figure out what she's actually doing...

Said Ma hands off the stims to Kayla and continues her own computer trace to find where the heck the malicious code is coming from....

Tharrok remains on the bridge, on 'watch'.

Security Specialist Shaky Telom (middle passage) and Courier Thessa Ting (high passage) have both retired to their staterooms.

Eight Hours Later..........

Relevant bits of data start slowly accumulating.

Whatever the origin, it becomes clear that the 'virus' should not have activated when it did. The power surge from the 'cracked cryonic trispacial controller' triggered it. So you should have gotten to Fornice normally..., but leaving Fornice would have been a different matter altogether. Whoever set the virus up wanted you to have trouble later, not sooner.

The 'virus' is very high-tech. Well above The Miss Fortune's average Imperial tech of 12-13. So even though the ship's systems are protected against cyber-interference, they are significantly vulnerable to such a sophisticated attack. The Power Plant controller-systems are especially well protected, including an "air gap", meaning they aren't hooked into the general computing systems. So somehow the air gap was bridged, either physically or by means unknown...

Which makes Adriana's ability to manipulate the Power Plant's controlling mechanism especially interesting. She should not be able to access any Engineering data from a passenger stateroom. Much less critical systems like the ones she is apparently manipulating to positive effect. Her 100,000cr comm device might have something to do with that...but so does her apparent Psychic powers.

Adriana's efforts are all "band aids", treating problems as they occur and not getting at the source in any way. A command is initiated, something like "negate the plasma temperature monitor output readings and substitute a 'loop' of normal temperatures"; and then Adriana reverses that instruction. There are whole series of such instructions, coming at measured intervals, not all-at-once. Perhaps making it more difficult to detect...?