Please State the Nature of the Babysitting Emergency

Posted on 09 Sep 2018 @ 12:04pm by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Commander Allyndra illm Warraquim & Lieutenant Tuula Voutilainen M.D. & Lieutenant Lake ir-Llantrisant & Ensign Mimi & Petty Officer 3rd Class John Hollenday & EBH Mark I "Raven"

2,395 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Episode 15 - Emanation
Location: Avondale Shipyards - USS Galileo-A, Holodeck 1
Timeline: MD 145, 1548 hrs

[ON]

Inside the holodeck, Tuula waited patiently for the others to show up. With a little assistance from the crew at the shipyards, she had finally managed to get Raven, the ship's Emergency Babysitting Hologram, installed and integrated into the ship's medical and linguistic database. At least, she thought so; Raven was a little more complex than your average holo-novel background character.

As she looked over the code at the console in the center of the room one last time, she heard the doors to the holodeck whoosh open.

"So doctor how is the installation going? It has been a long time since Raven was active back....well back on the old ship." Allyndra asked as she came in.

The green-skinned captain followed on the trails of her winged CMO and entered the holodeck several seconds behind her. Notice of the pending EBH installation had reached her late the night before, and after her...personal experiences with Raven, she was eager to see the hologram transferred on board for permanent duty.

"Doctor," Lirha greeted Allyndra with her green hands clasped behind her back as she approached the middle of the room. Then she turned to Tuula and looked down. "Doctor," she said with a small smile.

John heard voices and stuck his head out from the console. He swallowed hard seeing the senior officers but kept his focus more or less on the other doc. "Alright, think I got everything hooked up and circuits giving a green light. Want to give it a go?"

"Everything checks out on the main computer side of things, we are ready there." Mimi said as she entered the holodeck. She wasn't quite sure why she had been asked to help with this job, she scored very low marks in holo technology at the academy.

"Well let us see what happens," Allyndra remarked. John only stood by and muttered under his breath, "Hold onto your butts."

Tuula smiled and looked back down at the control panel, taking a deep breath before she pressed the button to activate the EBH. As she looked up, however, instead of the human version of Raven which was what she was expecting, there, before her, stood a tall, heavily armoured Klingon warrior.

"Q'apla!" exclaimed the warrior, drawing her Mek'leth. Looking around, she was surprised to not see any children. "Where is the next generations of warriors?" she demanded gruffly, still wielding the giant blade.

John looked perplexed. "Uh...hang on there," he went back to the circuitry matrix.

Behind the gathered officers, the heavy holodeck doors heaved apart with a wheezing sigh of noise. Bootsoles clapped against the deck, announcing Lake ir-Llantrisant entering the spacious compartment. The Romulan Counselor had come to evaluate the EBH's personality algorithms and her fitness for childcare responsibilities. At first glance, he didn't know what to think of the warrior standing before them. All Lake could think to ask was, "Is she... alive?"

"Alive but not very.. well Lieutenant. We are not sure what has caused this yet." Mimi said joining John at the console.

The captain looked at the EBH with surprise and mild humor, then stepped closer to her Klingon figure. At first glance, it appeared there was some sort of malfunction within Raven's visual matrix, but she took notice of the the officer and NCO who were now working to correct the problem. She glanced over to Lake who'd joined then and gave him a sideways smirk. "Not my first choice, but I like her ambition."

Allyndra nodded, "While some children need discipline this might be more over the top then is required what do you think Lake?"

As he eyed the armed babysitter up and down, Lake brought his hands together at waist level and steepled his fingers. "Andorian and Tellarite parents might thank us for the upbringing a Klingon warrior could provide," Lake remarked. He bobbed his head from side to side and shrugged then. "Unfortunately," Lake added, "most of Galileo's children are... Human."

"I don't understand..." started Tuula. She was sure that they had done everything correctly, but obviously there was some sort of glitch. Raven's default avatar should have been the familiar human version, and there was definitely something up with her personality as well. "Is she okay?"

"I am ready to defend the children from any threat," replied the scowling hologram, before waving the large blade around, displaying her skills with Klingon weaponry.

"I believe you are," Allyndra replied dryly. "Shall we see about teaching though?"

"Exactly," Lake chimed in. His tone came across as a bit more direct, and a bit more challenging... because he was still standing far back from the hologram. "What are your thoughts on inquiry learning?"

"It is best for young warriors to seek the answers to their questions," she responded. "With guidance and support, of course," she added as she waved the blade around.

Lirha ducked to the side when the large bladed weapon came close to her head. "Yes, well," she stepped closer and took a hold of Raven's arm to lower it, "let's try something else for now. Computer, cycle EBH visual matrix protocol," she commanded.

John waited but he had his fingers crossed behind his back hoping this time that the EBH would come out as it was supposed to or at least something other than a baby sitting Kahless.

With Lirha's hand still gripping her arm, Raven's visual matrix cycled, but instead of going back to her default avatar, her hair disappeared and her skin went blue. Taking advantage of Lirha's moment of surprise and the mechanical advantage, the Bolian form of the EBH pulled her in closer, grabbed her head with both hands, and quickly kissed her on both cheeks.

"Hello, captain!" she exclaimed in accordance with her bubbly personality, one which was eerily remniscent of a certain former crew member. Glancing down, she placed a hand on Lirha's stomach and kneeled before her, pressing an ear against her abdomen. "Are you expecting, or is that just your natural figure?"

The new EBH's appearance was a sudden surprise to Saalm. Blue and rotund, the hologram's form and voice were rather typical of most Bolians she'd met during her travels. She declined to comment on the passive question and instead shook her head. "Slightly better, but still not very suitable for a Starfleet vessel."

Allyndra was glad to see at least something better then the Klingon warrior and the Bollian that replaced that figure made her emotions run a little. She had loved Mott for his odd but through medical and personal charms.

"I hear what you're saying about the lack of suitability, Captain," Lake said in response to Saalm's evaluation. In truth, though, he heard but he didn't fully understand the sentiment. He waved a hand in the direction of the Bolian buffoon, asking, "What would you like to see more of?"

Before Lirha could reply, the hologram stood up and angrily put her hands on her hips. "Not suitable?" she asked in tone that mixed incredulity and offense. "Why, I'll have you know my program is one of the most complex holograms in service in Starfleet. I have access to fifty teraquads of medical, linguistic, and cultural databases," she said, protesting the unfair characterization of her personality. "Don't worry, captain, your future children are safe in my hands."

"That must be why finding this fault is proving hard." Mimi remarked. She turned back to the console with John. "What about that there." She pointed to a line of code

"Well what have we to loose?" John remarked.

Almost imperceptibly, Lake backed away from the clutch of Starfleet personnel. "Holodeck safety protocols are the most temperamental of all the technological marvels aboard a starship," Lake said in his most matter-of-fact manner. "Speaking only for myself, I would be much happier if we were proceeding with more confidence than that."

John just shrugged. "Well unless we get a Dikironium cloud creature baby sitter. Then again as I understand they don't like your kind of blood either."

"Tt," Lake breathed out through his teeth in a scoffing manner. "Tuula wouldn't--" Lake started to say, in reference to the very notion of a vampire cloud babysitter. However, Lake only started to say Tuula wouldn't program a vampire cloud babysitter, and he couldn't finish saying it, because he didn't believe it. Lake snapped his gaze in Tuula's direction, and he said, "Oh, you would..."

"What, even hostile vampiric dikronium cloud creatures need nurturing," replied Tuula.

John only put a hand behind his back and crossed his fingers. A silly Earth custom but what could one do.

As John and Mimi worked away, the program reset once more. This time the bald, blue avatar was replaced with one that looked more like Raven. Pale, visibly humanoid, and with dark hair, at least the vague resemblance was there. But the fashion style was very different; instead of the black fishnets and spiked accessories, she was wearing a nondescript grey tunic. Her hair was cropped very short, revealing pointed ears, which complemented her angular features.

"You know," said the Vulcan holographic babysitter in a dull tone, "Utilizing ship resourced for a childcare hologram is highly illogical given the small number of children on board."

Lirha observed the new green-blooded form and quickly shook her head. "Next," she called out to the two working at the console.

"Illogical," Lake echoed. At this point, the response was rhetorical, since Lirha had already rejected this personality profile. To amuse himself and no one else, Lake murmured, "I guess we should simply store the small number of children in a kennel instead?"

John frowned. This was not going well and in front of the captain and a couple of very senior officers to boot. "Alright, let's try this bit of tweek to the code,"

Mimi looked over Johns work for a few seconds before tapping a control. "Cycling visual matrix."

With one last cycle, finally, the avatar of the hologram reconstituted itself correctly. Before the crew stood Raven, with her black and purple hair, fishnets, spiked accessories, and platform combat boots. She breathed a sigh of relief as she looked around, seeing all the familiar faces. "Please state the nature," she started, pausing for a moment as a her lips curled into a slight smile, "of the childcare emergency."

John gave a look over at Ensign Mimi and made draw across his brow as though wiping non-existent sweet away.

"...Raven?" asked Lirha when she saw the familiar sight of the dyed-haired projection. It looked like the EBH Mark I they had designed -- complete with a gratuitous amount of black eyeliner -- but the ultimate test was to see if the hologram's personality subroutines now matched those of her visual matrix.

"Lirha!" exclaimed the hologram, her eyes lighting up from behind the dark eye makeup. As she did so, she could feel the half dozen or so crew's eyes all focused upon her. "I mean, captain..." she added, blushing a little.

"How do you...feel?" Lirha asked. Obviously it was an unorthodox question since the hologram's programming afforded it a different set of 'feelings' than biologics, but she wanted to know if Raven was now fully functioning as designed.

"I feel..." started Raven, pausing for a moment to consider the question. With all the crew members around, her body language interpretation programming and her emotional subroutines were running overtime. "I feel... good?"

John glanced over at Mimi and shrugged. This was out of his depth at this point. "Ugh...everything on the circuits seems to indicate proper functioning. Might need a computer expert for coding."

"Well, you look your usual self," added Lirha who looked over to the chief counselor with a shrug. Without a full diagnostic on the program which would take hours to complete, she supposed she would have to settle for the EBH's own word for now.

Similar to Lirha's observations, this iteration of the EBH had demonstrated too little behaviour for Lake's professional opinion to tell him much of anything. Frankly, even the Klingon iteration had demonstrated more personality. Pursing his lips and narrowing his eyes, Lake studied her programmed body language in an appraising manner. "Can you tell me about a time when you had to juggle competing priorities of multiple children," Lake asked the EBH, blatantly interviewing her. "Perhaps one child with strict dietary needs is hungry, another child is shrieking for her parents, or another is tearing up the art supplies?"

John had taken the counselor's remarks to heart and went in to tweak the code to add some personality. He was not sure what went wrong the the hologram froze and then winked out. "Well darnation!" He said and fiddled some more. Finally he turned to the officers. "Sirs, sorry, but something got all buggered up. I was trying to push the emotional intensity code but as you can see, or rather not see..." He waved a hand. "Give me a bit and I can let you all know when I think we can run another test. Again, sorry sirs."

The captain raised her green hands with exasperation then let them drop back down to her sides. "But we were so close," she not-so-subtly fumed. The program had finally had its avatar matrix correctly aligned and then it'd just vanished. Probably because of a mainframe diagnostic cycle initiated by one of the yard engineers.

"Everyone take 10," Lirha then said with a deep breath. They'd been working on the issue for some time now and a rec break for some food would hopefully help keep them going until the issue was fixed. "Report back here at 1630."

"This is why I hated the holo tech lessons." Mimi remarked as she headed for the door.

To Be Continued...

--

CAPT Lirha Saalm
Commanding Officer
USS Galileo-A

Lieutenant Lake ir-Llantrisant
Chief Counselor
USS Galileo-A

Cmdr Allyndra illm Warraquim
Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo-A

PO3 John Hollenday
Engineer's Mate
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Warraquim]

Ensign Mimi
Asst. Chief Operations Officer
USS Galileo-A

LT Tuula Voutilainen
Asst. Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo-A

EBH Mark I "Raven"
Medical Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Voutilainen]

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