Yesterday evening was going to be a relaxing time. After a hard day of work, S'Xon, VSrreen and my daughter Asil decided to spend the night out. We have had some tiring weeks with few moments rest and less fun. VSrreen almost forced us to go out. I mostly did thinking of my daughter. She deserved a friendly and relaxed environment and some fun. We went to the restaurant located in the square. The food is quite good and they have a rich variety of vegetables that are enough even for a Vulcan. We took a table near the windows, so we had a wonderfull sight of the square arcades illuminated by lanterns. It was beautiful even if we still didn't build the superior floor. S'Xon couldn't avoid telling some anecdotes from the old times when both were two carefree youngs seeking for adventure in the Alpha Quadrant. The atmosphere of the place together with the shared friendship, the good food and the anecdotes made the miracle and Asil, for long saddened, seemed happy. VSrreen, as always, didn't made any effort to conceal her feelings and laughed all she could when she felt necessary. We just had got the second dish served when all faded to black. At first we thought it was a problem at the restaurant, but we soon realized it was all dark outside. All the city was in darkness. The first ten minutes, apart from some stifled scream, the people remained calmed, thinking it was going to be fixed in question of some minutes. But as the time passed, people's nerves started to break. Everything worsened when we noticed the chaos outside the restaurant. We saw nothing, except for the reflect of a flashlight from time to time. But even so, we knew the chaos had started to reign outside.
S'Xon excused himself and headed for engineering to learn what was happening. I decided to put my daughter in the safety of our home, so the three of us left the restaurant and tried to remain together despite the mass of people moving everywhere out. We fought as we could to exit the square and soon after we were safe inside the house. I ran upstairs and got some candles and a flashlight. There wasn't light inside the house, as in the rest of the colony, I relied on my knowledge of the house to find my way in the dark. I gave the candles to VSrreen and asked her to stay with Asil at least for some time to calm her. She stayed with her all the night, for which I'm very grateful. I quickly left the house and headed myself for engineering, flashlight at hand. Almost hit Jones as he was crossing the street.
Chief Jones was in engineering when he noticed an overload warning in the power grid. Before he could do anything, the entire system came down and all turned dark. That's what he told me when I almost ran into him. He wanted to reach the square to trace the problem. Since the square is the center of the city, its basement houses the main power conduits. It was logical to start tracing the problem there. We struggled to enter the place and walked between the north arcades. The nearest acccess panel was located in the northwest corner. We find it without further difficulties. Once open, the panel revealed a dark hole with vertical stairs descending in the most deep darkness. We descended together and finally we set foot on the tunnel that houses the main conduits. Upon my suggestion, Jones configured his tricorder to detect temperature variations. The overloaded conduits had to be really hot, so we found them right away. I helped Jones to open the panel and what we saw confirmed the readings. To our surprise, we discovered the conduits responsible for the overload came from the defensive node. After consulting the plans, Jones came to the conclussion that the problem had emerged from the walls system. We were shocked by the discovery. We made a bypass to recover the grid power, but the problem was worse than just a blackout. I accessed the security logs through my PADD and found out the automatic passive defense system had been activated by one or more intruders. "We can have intruders in the city!" I thought. All the fibers of my body became tense. I was still that way when we returned to the surface and saw the light had returned to the square and its surroundings. Jones returned to engineering to continue working over minor details, while I headed for the security office. I needed to know exactly what had happened and arrange a group of men to locate the possible intruders.
Two men were before their consoles in the data center. I asked them to gather the datails of the night events. They quickly located the exact segment of the wall that have been responsible for the activation of the holo-emiters and the force field. They also retrieved three visual data streams (video) that made clear what had happened. A native alone -later I learned it was a scout from Kala-, approached our city. We infer he was exploring the area for new hunting zones. The wall detected him and the automatic passive defense system turned the holo-emiters on. The faked hill appeared over our city hiding us from his sight. He continued walking to the point that he was about to set foot over the faked hill. The force field was activated too to allow him to walk over the fake hill. The extra energy required for this, together with the recent growth of the city (300 new people) was enough cause the overload. I continued examining the videos and learned that just after the blackout, the force field lost power and the native fell about two meters. He suddenly was able to see our walls and got terrified by the shock. Immediately he fled. So what could have been a serious security breach, ended into nothing.
Anyway, this event have showed us many things. I have new ideas to improve our security and prevent events like this won't happen again.
I informed Kala Cree upon Miss Hensen's request. She appears to know the natives well since the council asked her to start a research about them in the previous months. I sent her the visual data streams and she recognized the man right away. She became worried by the events and, almost immediately, prepared to go in his search. She still didn't returned from the mission. I hope she's well. I'll need to talk with her when she had returned.
Nothing more remarkable to record.
End of file
Tuvok
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