The alarms were the first indication that something was wrong, seriously wrong. The monitors ran down to the suspension chambers and began examining the different units. Several had begun to leak a purple fluid across the polished aluminum floor where it swirled down a central drain. Several hydraulic lines burst and oil mixed in with the fluid, like a two tone color show. Somewhere below a second set of alarms began to ring.
“Recycling units won’t be able to handle this mess; the hydraulic fluid is the main problem. What caused this to happen?” the captain looked at the monitors who stood around him, startled looks on their faces.
“Sir something disrupted the normal signals and when that happened a system crash occurred. The system was never designed to handle a problem of this magnitude; in fact most of what we’ve learned has been by the seat of our pants. It’s amazing that something like this didn’t happen sooner,” Cutty the officer of the day for computer systems said.
“Several of these units have shut down sir. Should I have the disposal team notified, or should I wait for you to finish a formal investigation?” Anderson asked as he looked into one unit that was leaking, and turned away in shock.
“Activate two of the older units and use them to clean up this mess, afterwards we’ll discuss this over dinner.”
“Yes sir,” and saying that Anderson pressed blue buttons on two units that hadn’t leaked. A hissing sound of compressed gas could be heard as they left and went to the mess deck.
Carter had admitted that he had interfered with the usual data stream that went to the units in a continuous loop. Seems that he thought that something different was called for, so he got creative and that was what had caused the system crash.
“You knew when we started this program that the system assumed that it was always January. The green skies instead of blue, two moons in place of one, and sudden summer breezes caused several units to question what was happening. It was thoughtless of you to do that without authorization,” grabbing a leg the captain tore a chunk out of the uncooked meat. This was met by screams of agony as the human unit clutched at the bleeding leg, “You will have to be punished, and it is a major offense to mess with the food supply,” at that moment several crew members crawled across the ceiling and opened an inner portal, thrusting the bodies inside they closed it and opened the outer airlock. The human bodies were gone in an instant, sucked into the void.
“Such a waste of fresh meat,” the captain said shaking his head, antennae quivering in agitation.