Laila, Spock's Granny (Book 1: Vulcan Gladiatoress and Klingon Slave)

Betrayed Again 2

Mirih thought about hijacking a Klingon spacecraft, but soon discarded the idea again. Apart from obtaining the spacecraft with weapons and brute force, it would require 3 people to fly it. With Mirih's help, I would have to fly the thing. My mom knew how to fly aircraft, maybe she would probably be able to help flying the spacecraft. Nethis would not be of much help, though. So we were lacking at least one "sailor". Then, a Klingon spacecraft would get us nowhere near where we wanted to go. In addition, a comparatively slow Klingon passenger carrier or freighter was not what you wanted, when you're getting hunted by a fast military Klingon corvette.

As long as nobody was hunting us, a smaller Klingon vessel would be OK. We could upgrade it with Trill technology first and then go. However, as fugitive slaves, we would be hunted sooner or later and had to get away and hide. Upgrading the Klingon spacecraft with Trill technology was about impossible while hiding though. The upgrade demanded tools and raw materials and both demanded gold.

Another option was to become the Empress of the Klingon Empire or at least a high ranking civil servant. However, even creative Mirih was at a loss how a slave could become a high ranking civil servant.

The whole thing of being a slave bothered her to her wits end. Much more than it bothered me. Maybe I did have more time to adapt to my situation. Maybe it was because she regarded herself as a ruler and not a slave.

3 Hours After the Fight in the Operation Room of the Grand Arena

Odron gave Laila the summary of the following events at a later point.

Together with Odron, the lawyer had gotten the preliminary injunction to secure evidence. He had also contacted the specialist for the operation room systems, he had seen on TV and he had also filed a complaint. As such, the lawyer, Odron, a district judge, a district attorney, the specialist and a couple of police men, were paying the Grand Arena a visit. The policemen would have been enough to do what they had come for, but people were extremely interested to find out more about what happened during that fight. Both the district judge and the district attorney were big fans of the gladiator sports and they would not miss the opportunity to personally dig into the matter. The court order, the district judge had issued, gave them the right to see, search and seize whatever they believed to be important evidence. First they wanted to see the Operation Room and there, they found the technician at the control console, from which the whole entire arena was controlled and operated. The district attorney showed him the court order and the specialist made him leave the seat and sat down himself in front of the console and started to look for the log file. He knew where he had to look for and only some 20 seconds later he asked: "Where is the log file?"

The technician raised his shoulders and answered: "Well it has to be in the directory of the log files."

"But it is not there. There is not even a single log file there."

"It must be there."

"Look, it is not there!"

The technician looked at the console and responded: "I don't know, why there is no log file, but obviously, the system has an issue. Maybe it did not generate the log file?"

Not really satisfied with the answer, the specialist, opened the file with the innate information of the storage device. What got displayed on the screen, was a cryptic file with hex numbers. The secialist opened an online tool, which translated the hex file into mnemonics and then he stated: "The storage device has received an erase command about 30 min. ago. Please explain that to me?"

"I have no idea, why the storage device had received an erase command. It's not my job to know about commands the storage device receives."

The district attorney asked: "So you claim that you have nothing to do with the erase command and the missing log file?"

"No", was the agitated answer of the technician.

Using gloves, the specialist extracted the data storage device from the console, put it into an ESD bag and inserted another similar storage device. Now he started a self-test program on the console and once it was finished, he looked at the log file: "Everything seems to work normal. Timing is a bit strange though."

The district attorney asked: "What do you mean?"

"There is a VHP (VeryHighPrecision)-clock generator built into this console. Its error is only 1 second in a year. During the self-test, the VHP-clock is getting compared to the time stamps from the network. There is a tiny offset, which is natural, but the offset stays the same throughout the test. On this system, the offset mildly jitters."

The lawyer was curious now: "Does that mean, the time generator is defect?"

"I don't know, I would like to extract the mainboard and inspect it in my lab."

"We should take fingerprints and DNA from that mainboard first", the district attorney stressed.

The technician objected: "You are not extracting the mainboard. We will not be able to host fights in the Grand Arena anymore without the system working."

The specialist was not perturbed by that: "You cannot continue hosting fights with this system anyways. You need to have it checked and maintained."

The technician was not very pleased by this statement: "No you will not extract the mainboard! This is the Grand Arena. It would be a disgrace if it is inoperable."

The district attorney countered: "Oh, we will. We have a court order to do it."

The specialist added: "I have all the necessary parts and tools in my lab. I can come back and bring a new mainboard and run a complete system check."

The technician really had a problem with it: "You do that for free? Because most certainly we will not pay for it."

The specialist lectured him: "As said, you will have to have the system checked and maintained. I'm a certified inspector for arena control equipment and I'm taking this control system out of order." With that said, he glued an official out of order label on the console, put gloves on and extracted the mainboard. It took him about half an hour until he held the mainboard in his hands. Turning the mainboard left and right before his eyes he mumbled: "That is strange."

"What?"

"I don't think, this is the original VHP-clockhere. I will take a picture and check with the manufacturer." After that, heput the mainboard into ESD-foil and handed it to the district attorney. Finally, the district attorney ordered threepolicemen to collect and seize all recordings of the security cameras.