Missed Security Check

Posted on Thu Mar 11, 2021 @ 12:56pm by Lieutenant JG Ardal King & Senior Chief Petty Officer Samantha Summers

1,250 words; about a 6 minute read

King ran all the Experiments that required excessive heat and cold on the ship. His species had evolved for mining in harsh conditions. In this case, it was almost 94 degrees Celsius. Humidity was dry. It was much hotter behind the security field where the important part of the experiment was being done.
Because of the nature of his Experiments, traditionally, security didn't do randoms on his lab. He was normally pretty good at shutting down Experiments so security could do their scheduled checks. Today, he forgot. He was working on heat compressions on dilithium for the exchange of energy.

He heard the klaxons go off. Someone had used a security override on his door. "What the holy hell?" The computer did an emergency override on his settings as soon as the door came open. The dilithium created a chain reaction due to the interruption. There would have been a massive explosion, if not for forcefield.

Summers had been fuming; first - being kept on the Bridge beyond her regular shift due to the present 'problem,' and *now,* she had been sent to help Lt. King with what he was doing. Upon entering King's 'domain,'(which the thought of actually caused Summers to slightly grin,) she heard the klaxons going off.

" What's going on now ?!?!? " She yelled.

King looked at her as he put in his code and it was suddenly quiet,
"What's going on now?" He repeated her question sarcastically. "You used your security override to open a locked door. I had it secured for a reason. That is a safety alarm. The Experiment in my lab are dangerous to the majority of Humanoids. I have the alarms set so if a standard humanoid comes in here, I have a chance to secure and shut down the experiment."

It was still very warm in here, even for a Vulcanoid. He looked at the time on the panel, "Oh. I forgot about security checks. I normally have the experiment shut down in time. However, because I had to force stop it, I have to do it again." He was a grumpy Ursine alien. "What are you doing here?"

Summers shook her head and took a deep breath of air. " My apologies, " She began, " I was on the Bridge, when suddenly I was 'assigned' to come here and 'help' the 'Tech' that would be doing what you are doing. No names, nothing, just ' Go assist the 'Tech.' Soooooo, here I am. How may I be of help? " Summers 'slightly' smiled.

The hirsute Scientist just looked at her, "This is my lab. It is a geology lab, not a technology lab. I'm a geologist, not a tech. Technicians are found in Engineering and occasionally the Technology lab. The experiment I am doing has been ruined. I will have to start it over. Your Physiology could not handle the stresses of this experiment."

Summers' left eye brow rose. " Listen, tall, dark, and somewhat hairy, I *may* be an 'diminutive' female according to you're standards, but I think I could handle myself accordingly. How about filling me in on what you're attempting to accomplish and let me judge as to weather I can help or hinder you?"

King looked at her as she made an absolutely ignorant statement, "It isn't about gender or IQ. It is about biological physical tolerances. The heat would kill you. I am a Scientist. I handle the experiments that involve excessive heat and cold. I have to heat up the outside of containment air temperature to a temperature that would kill you. You can't argue with biology. Do I need to get a biologist in here to explain heat tolerances of different species?"

Summers shook her head. " No... you do not need to send others here. But... I am here, is there 'something' I may be able to do to help your work along? I need to have an account of what has transpired here to relay to my superiors and to add what pat I 'helped in.' Can you at least do this? "

Looking at her, "I missed a call in. You were sent to do a security check, also known as a health and welfare check. Have you done this before? When a Scientist or Engineer is working with volatile agents or in excessively hazardous conditions, we are supposed to check in. If we don't, security comes to call." He knew this was the case. He used to be security. "Have you confirmed said Scientist is alive? Have you confirmed that nothing is on fire?" King was a very grumpy Ursine alien. His Experiment was ruined and per physiological safety protocols, even he had to wait a couple of days before he could start over. On top of that, he was offended by Summers' very, very speciest comment where she assumed it was because of her gender that she couldn't work on an experiment that human were physiologically incapable of working on without an environmental suit. He was pissed.

Looking him over, Summers spoke. " Good move, you've responded 'correctly' to my appearance and questions. I can confirm that you are 'alive,' (wink,) and that nothing is on 'fire,' as you say. That being said, I can leave you alone to finish your 'work,' oh an by the way, did you know that when you're p.o.'d the hair on your head pops up a bit? Other than that, I owe you a drink for scrubbing your experiment. "

Looking at her, more unhappy than before because she made another speciest comment, King's lip curled in his distaste for her behavior, "I do not have hackles. My species does not have hackles. What you are seeing is my preparation for seasonal shedding. Only in combination with my paws changing position and my shoulders rolling, during that preparation to shed does it appear that way. It is is the same with the species on Earth that I share genetic similarities with."

Summers sighed. " Please except my apologies, sometimes I let myself get ' out of hand ' with 'talk,' and I am sincerely sorry if I offended you in any way. " Summers turned to leave. " If you do not require my presence, then I shall depart." Summers started to turn away then halted. " Just out of curiosity, may I ask what you do to relax?"

King looked at her, "I do dangerous Experiments to relax. I go on dangerous missions. You're dismissed. I need to reset this experiment."

Summers nodded her head. " Well, if there ever comes a time you'd like to visit an log cabin in the woods, sit by an open fire, relax and watch the Northern Lights and listen to the crickets...let me know." Summers started towards the eixit.

As soon as she exited, he finished resetting the experiment. He couldn't do the experiment today, but he wanted to set it up for tomorrow. Physiology and Medically, even he couldn't do this experiment twice in one day. His species hot some limits with hot and cold, but doing the experiment over again would go past that. It would take Anderson and Levesque to sign off on that. He wrote his report for the day. Once the project logs were written, he sent a message to Levesque that he believed he was Sexually and Culturally harassed by an Enlisted Crewman, one who apparently failed basic bioxenology at Starfleet. He sent a portion of the experiment recording with it.

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