WS-Stardate 2005.10

“How’s the WS-* field strength, Mr. Spock?”
“Steady at 783; sub-optimal, but manageable.”
“My intuition tells me something’s wrong.”
“All right, I’ll run a deep scan, but...”
“Captain! I’m getting a weird reading from three specs in the Security sector; it looks like...” [A weird shaft of brilliant purple light stabs through the bridge, frying the red-shirted ensign where he sits.]
“Mr. Spock! What was that?”
“Checking, Captain; those WS-warbirds are SecureConversation, Trust, and SecurityPolicy. They’ve been there for years, but somehow they’re different... aaaah. They’re deploying an OASIS-TC standardization field!”
“But that’s a friendly tactic, Spock.”
“No, Captain, they’re modulating the field with a locked-down charter device; the TC has to just approve them the way they are.”
“That’s fiendish!”
“And extremely illogical, Captain.”
[Suddenly the bridge rocks and the lights flicker.] “Engineering! Scotty! What’s happening?”
“Cap’n, I dinna understand it, they’re growing!”
“How can that be... Spock?”
“He’s right, Captain, they’re using the superseded-spec maneuver.”
“Scotty, do we have the bandwidth?”
“I dunno Cap’n, SecureConversation’s been superseded from 17 to 31 pages, and Trust from 41 to 68.”
“My God, they’re growing like cancer. Scotty, I need more bandwidth!”
“We’re doin’ our best, Cap’n... Aaaaaaaaagh!”
“Report, Scotty!”
“Cap’n, cap’n, it’s SecurityPolicy, curse it... lurking at 13 pages since 2002 without a peep, but there’s a supersede; it’s up to 90. Cap’n... she canna take any more. She’s gonna blow!”