Something's Afoot

Posted on 15 Dec 2012 @ 9:15pm by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Lieutenant Kiri Cho

2,475 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Episode 02 - Resupply
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 2, Captain's Quarters
Timeline: MD08 - 0930 hours

[ON]

Maenad led the way to the nearest turbolift, Kiri with the rod beside her. The doors closed. "Computer locate Captain Saalm," she ordered.

Inside her quarters, Lirha was sitting at her desk with a morning sandwich in her hand. She had just woken up about an hour ago, but it had taken her over thirty minutes just to get out of bed. Four drinks of brandy the night before probably hadn't helped her cause, and she still had duties to perform regardless of her still-mildly-intoxicated state. A brief sonic shower had given way to a cup of hot chocolate and a bagel, and she tried her best to cure the morning wooziness that was running through her head.

"Captain Saalm is in her quarters," the computer replied to Maenad's question. She stood with Kiri in silence as the lift took them to deck two. Maenad led the way out and down the corridor to the captain's quarters, she rang the chime, and stepped back to wait.

Kiri kept quiet, holding her tongue and wishing that she hadn't discovered the rod in the first place, well that it didn't exist really. Trying to stand as straight as she could and nervously pulling at her uniform she waited for the door to open.

The Orion captain frowned as the door chime sounded, which happened to inconveniently coincide with a big bite from her delicious sandwich. It was rather early in the morning for visitors, she thought, and wondered who was outside requesting her presence. "Enter." Lirha called out in a muffled voice, still chewing her bagel, then looked towards the door in anticipation of a guest.

Maenad was the first to step through the door. She looked exhausted too, but next to Kiri she probably looked as healthy as a horse, despite the strange horse-ish resemblance that she always had. She straightened her uniform as she stood with her shorter assistant in the doorway, and waited for the doors to close behind them. "Good morning, sir," Maenad said, realising that they had arrived at a most inconvenient time. "I hate to bother you, but Lieutenant Cho has made a startling discovery,"

Watching as the two blue-collared women entered her quarters, Lirha wiped her mouth on her napkin then motioned for the two of them to take a seat on her couch. "Good morning, please have a seat." she said politely, then swiveled in her chair to face them. "What seems to be the issue?" she asked, wondering what type of discovery they had made that warranted her attention.

"Someone has attempted an unauthorised access to the ship's main computer from terminal one in science lab two," Maenad said once she had sat down. She sat professionally, on the edge of the cushion with her legs close together. She was still a bit anxious in the captain's presence. Spending the night in her quarters made her feel like a bit of a pitied burden, and she tried her best to prove that she was a capable officer. "Whoever did this has a higher security clearance than any of us, including you, captain. They went to great lengths to hide their tracks by deactivating the internal sensors in and around the lab, which was disguised in the computer as caused by a power surge. This person tried to access ship and personnel logs, as well as mission files. We never would have known any of this if it had not been for Lieutenant Liyar; he found a data rod in the lab this morning and immediately reported it to Lieutenant Cho. She reported it to me, and under my approval made access to its contents." Maenad's face was grim and business-like, but her appreciation was thorough. She turned her head to face Kiri who was sitting quietly beside her. "If it were not for Miss Cho's impressive computer skills, we would not have been able to determine the contents of the rod." Maenad looked back to the captain.

As Lirha listened to the disturbing report, she slowly pushed her sandwich aside and gave the chief science officer her undivided attention. Her eyes flicked between Maenad and Kiri as her mind attempted to sort the developing puzzle. "I see." she said simply as she folded her green hands in her lap. "And what did you find on this data rod?" she asked.

It had an echo of the last batch of computer problems to it, Kiri had fixed that problem but never came to a solution to what caused it. The tracks had been so covered it did seem like it was just a random error that grew out of control. Feeling it was her turn to speak now Kiri did so with some nerves, "The rod tricks the computer systems into thinking classified information is inside and activates security lockouts. It appears that it does this so that its contents are attempted to be accessed by people with higher and higher access codes. Once it reaches a high enough target it adds several hidden command protocols to the computer system that may give someone control of the ship for a few minutes. It also finds and stores classified files but I think that might only be a cover." That was just about everything they had so far. Kiri didn't like talking to the Captain, she was her commanding officer. She wasn't someone that had ever given her praise though, only negative comments.

Maenad had her head over her shoulder, attentively, facing Kiri as she spoke. "It seems," she picked up immediately where Kiri left off, returning her eyes to the captain's, "That the rod has not yet stored any information. We set up a facsimile to simulate a terminal with my access level. It had only the appearance of access to the ship's and personnel's logs, and mission files." Maenad's hands were clenched tightly in her lap. As she spoke, she was unaware that she was picking her thumb's cuticle with an index finger. "It immediately attempted to access hundreds of files, but was prevented because we had successfully fooled it into thinking it was in a real computer."

"Interesting..." the captain mumbled as her mind went into overdrive. It seemed that the data rod contained some type of computer program, possibly a trojan virus that was able to access the ship's systems and computer core. Even still, the revelation of the device presented even more questions for Lirha. "What types of files was it attempting to access?" she asked, hoping the two science officers could provide more details.

Maenad blinked once. "Ship's and crew logs, and mission files," she said, sure that she had already said that. She was in the middle of breakfast, Maenad thought - giving her the benefit of the doubt.

Lirha nodded slowly, "Specifics, please. Do you know which crew logs and files? Is there any identifiable pattern or is this program simply attempting to access the entire database?" she asked.

Kiri's brow furrowed for a moment, "Classified logs and files sir, anything marked above level six security clearance," Kiri wasn't sure it was her turn to say anything, "It starts scanning officers logs and the logs of the currently logged user."

Feeling somewhat like an idiot, Maenad turned her eyes from Kiri's to the captain's, blaming her lapse of understanding on her early wakening. She nodded, both agreeing and confirming all that Kiri had said.

"Level six clearance..." the captain mumbled to herself. Her eyes fell to the carpet as she pondered the situation further, then she finally looked back up at Kiri. "Is the data rod capable of transmitting, or does it simply store information?" she asked. Usually such devices were only for storage purposes, but this specific one seemed a bit different from the others.

"It just stores it sir," Kiri bowed her head slightly, "It is a normal rod in design it is the programs and file architecture are different. If it transmitted we would likely detect it very quickly." Security sensors would flat up at once if unknown transmissions started coming from inside the ship.

"Which would suggest this belongs to someone on board, or perhaps a guest," Maenad said the obvious.

"Yes, I'm inclined to agree with you, lieutenant." Lirha responded to Maenad's assessment. "In addition to our standard crew compliment, there have been quite a few Starfleet technicians and civilian personnel moving on and off the ship over the last week...it could very well belong to one of them." she added, then paused for a moment. "You reported that the internal sensors were taken offline in and around the science lab...can you tell me at what times this has occurred recently?"

Maenad gave the captain a single nod. "Between 0403 and 0411 hours," she said. "Miss Cho discovered that the sensors were disabled, but disguised as the result of a power surge."

The time of the sensor disruption was convenient, way too convenient, in Lirha's opinion. 0400 was generally the quietest time aboard the ship and also happened to be at the heart of gamma shift. "It seems you are both correct; someone appears to be going to much trouble to hide their presence." the captain said, "Which means our goal should be to find out exactly who this person is. Can we reroute the internal sensors so that they appear to be offline yet still record data from the laboratory?"

"It will take some work," Maenad turned to look at Kiri, handing the question to her. If anybody knew anything about the ship's sensors, it was Kiri. "What do you think Miss Cho?"

"Maybe it would be better to leave the system as it is," She was deep in thought and not making eye contact with either of them, "They might notice a change. Instead we could set up a few mobile devices in the lab and run them on a different system, if they are hidden then whoever it is would never know they were there. If they deactivated the sensors then to them it would seem fine," Though she had to broach the question, "Why would they return to the lab?"

Honestly, Maenad wasn't sure which option was the better one. She was a scientist, not a detective, and certainly not wholly interested in being around to detain whoever this person was. She was hoping the captain would appoint intelligence or security to handle it from here, she only wanted to inform her. But, Kiri's question confused her. "To retrieve the rod," she said to her, hoping she hadn't missed something.

"If their plan was to get the rod as high up the chain of command as possible, why would they expect it to be in the laboratory?" This was why she had said that the rod might just be a front for some reprogramming of the command codes. If their plan worked then the rod would have gathered the information from the computer and have been wiped when the rod was emptied for reuse. Which would have been backed up onto the main computer, "If we create false data and then carry out data security and rod reuse as normal, we can catch whoever attempts to access the ship's backup files. Assuming that was their plan."

Maenad frowned, turning to face Kiri once again. "You think the rod was meant to be found?" she asked her thoughtfully. "If it can only store data, it would have to have a manual operator and be taken by a user."

"My thoughts exactly, Miss Panne." Lirha chimed in with a nod. She glanced back and forth between Kiri and Maenad for a brief moment. "However, Lieutenant Cho might have a valid point." she continued, "Without knowing who the owner of the data rod is, we can only speculate as to what their objective is. We know it is designed to access personnel and ship's logs, but we don't know why. Letting the device carry out its intended purpose might be the most prudent course of action, and could allow us to 'supervise' the rod's activity, which could help us answer many of these questions."

"I suppose, captain," Maenad thought aloud, "But, if we do that and the plan fails..." She didn't like where this conversation was heading. She didn't like espionage; ever since her undercover operations with Starfleet Intelligence on Cardassia Prime, she felt uncomfortable in these kinds of situations. She was beginning to wish she were in another room. As Maenad trailed off, she turned to Kiri for a reaction. Perhaps she had something to add, and she hoped that she did.

"Yes, that is always a risk." Lirha replied, then pushed a stray lock of hair back behind her ear. "Destroying the rod would be one effective way to make sure no one gains access to anything on Galileo, but I am also curious to know who the owner of this device is."

"We can mitigate the risk by using fake information, so if we fail to catch them we lose nothing," Kiri was approaching this as any other problem. She was trying to work through the to the best answer but she had no experience in such things.

Maenad nodded, but sunk a little. "That would be a lot of data to falsify. I don't know if it could be done without it being obvious," she thought aloud. "At least, not very quickly," she added.

Lirha rubbed her forehead with a bit of frustration. She was not at all happy that someone had managed to infiltrate her ship and place a device in the science lab, nor was she pleased with the prospect that some sort of covert operation may be transpiring. "Alright." she said after a long moment. "Begin your preparations for the data rod and let me know when they are complete. In the meantime, leave it with me and I will have a closer look at it." she instructed to the two women, then gave them an appreciative nod. "Good work finding and identifying this intrusion...if you notice anything else out of the norm, contact me immediately."

"Yes, sir," Maenad said, standing up. "Thank you."

Kiri could see a lot of work ahead of her, there were short cuts but it would take up the rest of the day at the very least to manufacture all the fake data in a convincing way. It would help take her mind off how tired she was though, "Yes sir, I'll sent you a report when I have completed the falsified data."

[OFF]

--

CAPT Lirha Saalm
Commanding Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant (JG) Maenad Panne
Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo


Lieutenant (JG) Kiri Cho
Assistant Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo

RSS Feed