Short Fiction: Age of Warp - Sevastopol Rising

Title: Age of Warp - Sevastopol Rising

"Disengage Moorings," Captain Lucius Rojenko attentativly considered his station readouts as the crew of the NCC-03 Sevastopol slowly began to disconnect from the Orbital platform. "Mooring Six still locked in SO Kray."
"Aye Captain," Systems Officer Britanny Kray grimaced at the unresponsive system. "Working a solution."
"Sorry Captain," SO Kray looked over her shoulder at the Captain. "Automated Mooring release - unresponsive."
"All right." Captain Rojenko smiled. "Blow it with Manual release."
"Manual Release aye," Brittany entered the manual mooring release address code allowing the hydraulic network to lock in the kinetic line to the mooring address and pulled heavily on the manual interface causing it to release Mooring Six. "Mooring Six released Captain."
"All right," Captain Rojenko nodded at the first Automated system failure. "Bring the thrusters online."
"Fuel pumps operational." SO Britanny Kray nodded with satisfaction. "Thrusters at ready."
"Take us out," Captain Lucius Rojenko leaned forward against the edge of his seat. "One Quarter Impulse."
"One Quarter Impulse," Helm Officer Staten O'Brien pulled the Impulse Thruster back from zero to one quarter locking in the setting. "Aye."
The colony vessel Sevastopol pushed clear of the orbital dock.
"Thrusters," Captain Rojenko watched the range finder roll past a kilometre and then a second. "to full impulse."
"Clock- On." Captain Rojenko considered the time stamp. "Ships Log- On." "Stardate One Six Point Two." Captain Rojenko smiled. "NCC Zero Two Sevastopol is transporting Colonists to Proxima Centauri."
"Enter course," Lucius watched as Helmsman O'Brien shifted a hand over the controls. "Zero zero one- Mars Beacon."
"Zero zero one- Mars Beacon," Staten O'Brien entered the coordinates. "Aye."
"All right," Captain Rojenko nervously considered the consequences of his next order.
"Bring the Warp Reactor on-line."
"Warp Reactor," Systems Officer Brittany Kray turned the key and watched as the reactor began producing antimatter. "on-line."
"All right Helm," Captain Rojenko considered the possibility they would now die. "Take us to Warp One."
The Svestapol jumped to warp one.
"Warp Field Pressure..." Britanny Kray watched the warp field pressure climb past minimum green toward orange before leveling off. "Stable."
"Warp Velocity..." Helm Officer Staten O'Brien watched the stars stretch out and checked warp velocity reading. "holding at One."
"Svestapol is stable." Captain Lucius Rojenko rubbed a hand through the sparse foliage remaining on his head, contemplating the log entry.
"Ten minutes to Mars Orbital approach." Helm Officer O'Brien tapped a flickering red light on his control panel and it went out. "We have a dead light on the Helm control board."
"Which one?" Captain Rojenko leaned forward to get a better view of the Helm control board and Spotted it. "Take us out of Warp!"
"Taking us out of Warp." Helm Officer O'Brien adjusted the control throttle intent taking the Sevastopol out of Warp. "Warp drive unresponsive."
"Sorry Captain," Staten shook his head. "Bastard wont throttle back."
"Of course not," Captain Rojenko considered his options. "Under nine minutes to Mars?"
"Eight point three minutes remaining." Systems Officer Kray pulled a tool from its case, pried up her board, and reached past the bundled wires into its deepest recesses pulling something free. "Got it."
"Warp Velocity increasing to Warp Two." Staten O'Brien made a calculation. "The good news is we will miss Mars."
"Well done Kray." Captain Rojenko smiled. "You bought us two hours to solve this."
"Two hours?" Kray raised a tool in her hand and smiled. "I'm up for a Jupiter Selfie if you are."
"Work a Solution and I'll let you take the damn photo outside riding my seat bolted atop the Saucer Section." Rojenko climbed from his seat. "Now explain why we cant throttle back from Warp."
"Malware." Staten O'Brien looked across his shoulder surprised at Kray's suggestion. "The Computer has been infected."
"By Malware?" Captain Rojenko shook his head. "Are you telling me we've been hacked?"
"Yes and no." Britanny Kray waved her fingers in the air. "We did it to ourselves."
"Oh," Staten O'Brien laughed. "This ought to be good."
"All right Kray," Rojenko wanted to hear it himself. "out with it."
"We infected ourselves with Malware..." Kray pointed at Staten O'Brien. "When you ordered Helm to lock on Mars Beacon."
"Mars Beacon." O'Brien nodded in acceptance of his part in this disaster. "Its signal is just a standard shape data packet transmitting to Earth."
"And though we cant wipe the computer." Kray was ecstatic at the opportunity this would afford. 
"We can however run a parity check from a parallel emulator."
"An interesting solution," Captain Rojenko returned to his seat. "But we dont have a second computer to run a parallel emulation."
"Actually we do." O'Brien interjected. "The Tachyons impacting the collector are interacting with one in an alternate possibility."
"We simply need to get it to Parity check ours." O'Brien sat back smiling at the very idea. "Can I get in on that Jupiter Selfie action?"
"No actually." Britanny Kray added O'Brien's suggestion to her list of future experiment projects. "I was just thinking we dig through the Personal belongings of the Colonists for the latest version of Zephram Cochrane's flight Simulator."
"All right Kray," Captain Rojenko laughed at the thought of piloting the ship with a gaming console copy of Zephram Cochrane's flight simulator. "Go comandeer a gaming console."
"Now Mister O'Brien," Rojenko turned to his helm officer. "What was that about requesting a parity check from a computer in an alternate reality?"

"Dunno," O'Brien smiled. "I suddenly wanted in on that selfie with the Captain's Chair."