Intelligent Planning
Posted on Sun Nov 24th, 2024 @ 6:44pm by Lieutenant Njalia Sayffier & Lieutenant Commander Asahi Kita
Mission:
Take My Hand
Timeline: Mission Start
2729 words - 5.5 OF Standard Post Measure
It was not too late, just a little after dinner time, and if she read Kita right, he was a night kosi. She tapper her com badge, "Sayffier to Lieutenant Commander Kita, I would like to discuss the upcoming mission with you as you have time. Would now be good?"
The reply came in quick, and after a quick series of Hojo barks that could have been heard in the background. "I got time. Can you meet me out in Intel? I'm dealing with this damn Fleet Sync crap - can you believe they had the gall to install it in our classified server area? What are they doing?!"
"Let me grab my kit and I will be right there," said Njalia. One quick stop at her quarters later, she tapped at the chime to the intel office, "Sayffier here, may I enter."
A small 'ARF!' could be heard from the other end of the door, and as it slid open, the sight of a black and white Collie was what Njalia was greeted with. He sniffed the Andorian cautiously, before letting another set of barks out, dashing behind the desk where Asahi was.
"Hm? Oh shit, uh.... There's a seat there. Let me just...-" Asahi cut himself off, making room on his desk to look... At least somewhat put together. Indeed, on the desk and all over the inner half of the room lay piles of server and console parts. Asahi's uniform jacket had been tossed to one corner, leaving him in the silver undershirt and devoid of his shiny pips. He had an exhausted look about him, but he managed a smile to the woman, gesturing to the actually untouched and un-piled on seat on the other end. "I haven't talked to the Captain about all this yet, but it's coming. They had to rewire half of everything to get their damn pet project in here. I'm sure it's got some application, but in a ship like this? Let's just give hostiles more ways to be a pain in our sides." He let out a rather childish huff, before waving it away with a hand. "But you wanted to talk the mission? I don't think I've even looked at our marching orders yet, but I'm all ears."
Njalia gestured to the scatter of parts. "Perhaps we should sort this out first and then discuss the mission," she said. "Is this is about the Fleet Sync that is sitting in my main computer core waiting to do . . . something. Which, I must note, was not installed with my permission or with proper documentation." She seemed equally offended by both.
"You bet it is," Asahi stated plainly, but the scowl on his face gave him away. "They didn't even think before putting this shit in. If you want help tearing it from your core, I'm happy to help. With or without Captain Darrow's permission honestly." Though he was pretty sure, as an intelligent man and a fellow former engineer, Ewan had some bones to pick with the program. "It's all fun and games till someone's caused an epic disaster. Also kinda wanna see how quick it'd take my team to hack this thing just so I can send the results to whoever caused this and go 'see??????'"
He held up a hand, stopping his annoyed ranting. "There's parts of this everyone's got the right security clearance for, but they had to get specialized clearances for some of what they did. Which means someone in Intel was crazy enough to agree with this. I'm happy for help, but this might not be the set of stuff to do it with. There's a whole server room full of info you've got clearance for in one of the other rooms that could use a similar tear out. I just dismantled this first because it's got so many secrets in it, only a handful of people are cleared to really even look at its insides. Or else this wouldn't be all over my office."
"Just let me know," said Njalia. "It is easy enough to work on systems without looking at the data involved. I am happy to help."
"Yeah, I'll look over the clearance status on the tech - don't ask why that's classified too but it is - and I'll call you. But let's get to this server room. You can talk to me about the mission while we're in there." Asahi leapt up, discarding the piece of console he had on the desk. "Shall we?"
"Lead on," said Njalia.
As they left the office, Hojo darted after them, past them, and then back around to trotting just behind them. It was not long before they swerved into another room. This room was in more disarray than the office they just left. "This is fair game. I took a look at what they did - they ruined my wiring - and just decided to shut the whole thing down and take it apart so I could get it put back together. The team's on their own consoles right now, so I had to wipe all the data from this until we can get a full restore from a secondary... server thing that I'm sure I shouldn't go into the details about."
"Whatever it is, if it has to do with computers, I suspect I know about it," said Njalia pulling out a datapad, a unilink cable and a tricorder. "So, just put this back into working order?"
"Right now? Yeah. I got most of the hard-tech for FleetSync outta there." He paused, grinning. "If you see my name on a list of court martials, it's because I disrespected the Admiral in charge of saying yes to this. But enough about that." He waved a hand and nodded. "Yeah, that's pretty much what we're gonna need here."
"As to the new mission, it is a second contact with a race that may be assisted by the Qoird to reach warp-capability early," she said, starting work.
Asahi plopped down nearby, dragging over a worn-down bag full of engineering tools to help her out. "The Qoird. I've heard about them, read up on 'em. Never actually met one in person - not yet anyways. Seems like they're sending the best ship for the job. Vesta's the only one that's really seen 'em. Whatcha wanna know?"
"How I can help, mostly," said Njalia. "I have Ops well in hand, at last, and I am thinking about putting in for some command training. So, working with other departments, making sure everything is working well, seems to be a good first step." She began organizing the units by type and making sure each was functioning within expected parameters.
Asahi smiled at the thought. "Right now? I just gotta know what we're working with. Tracking patterns and movements is tough, but I got some of my guys on it. The Quoird, from what I've heard and seen... Probably not people you send me to shake hands with." He looked over from his work, a pile of isochips that he was putting back into place, shrugging. "Something tells me they won't appreciate someone who eats things that look like them. I sure as hell wouldn't. Not that they'd know that, of course, but relations between Starfleet and the Quoird are strained last I checked movements and all that. We're looking at potentially sending people down to the planet to investigate, and I'm concerned. Diplomacy's never been my strong suit, but I know a potential problem when I see one. I guess, to answer your question, I dunno yet. My experience with all this is stuck to a few good reports and first hand experiences."
Then came the Asahi pause. "Unless ... You think you can re-align some of the external sensors on the ship to pick up energy trails that the ships leave behind. Tracking movement would be much easier for us in Intel that way."
Njalia nodded, listening to Asahi's analysis. "I can work with science on that, are the Quoird warp drives unique in some way?" she asked as she began slotting pieces back together. "If they are . . ." she paused. "The Vulcan Science Academy has been working on a way to detect faded warp signatures possibly as far back as eighteen months in quiet sectors of space. Maybe if we can get that to work, we could use that to get an idea of how active the Quoird have been in the local area."
"And that's why it's good you came," Asahi said with a puff of pride, as if he was bragging about a younger sibling. "Because here I was thinking I would just keep all the vague readings I got and hope a pattern emerged. I'll see if my one Vulcan connection is still good." He grinned, before shrugging. "Honestly, we haven't gotten close enough to a Quoird warp drive to tell what they looked like. I really kind of want to get in and just look. Respectfully, of course. I'm not here to start a war. It's always interesting to see how the science and tech develops on the other side, right?"
"Oh yes! I would love to get access to a Quorid computer core," said Njalia. "But get me the parameters and I can fine tune the sensors. It might not give us more data but worth the attempt."
She picked up one of the components and frowned, slotting it into here reader, her frown deepened. She slid it over to Asahi. "This unit is corrupted, I cannot tell if it was deliberate or accidental and I do not want to run a deep scan without your authorization."
"Consider that done. I'll see what we've all gathered on my end and shoot you the data." But then Asahi frowned at the offending component between them. "... That looks like a simple data chip. Why would that be corrupted?.... I'll authorize it. I want to know what's going on." His eyes narrowed at it like it was about to administer a medical exam on him. "I hope it's minor. If it ends up being major, we're gonna be here all day."
"If they were clumsy in their installation an overload surge could have scrambled the chip," said Njalia slotting the unit into a multidimensional scanner. "Tell me your secrets," she said initiating a scan. She projected a hologram above the unit. "Oh," she pointed to a corner which looked burnt, "that looks to me as though someone tried to install a physical tap and it triggered a cascade feedback."
She called up another hologram. It showed a small golden unit, she adjusted the scale showing how it was supposed to fit over the corner of the unit and it matched, more or less, where the damage was. "We received warning of these units being used within the Federation for data-tapping. We have a scanning protocol to detect them if you would like it."
It took a moment for Asahi to absorb what Njalia was telling him. As if he had heard that out of someone before and it was common knowledge. But then, slowly, his shoulders rose as he took a deep breath from his nose. He took a look at the hologram, face changing to that of absolute disgust.
Then came the rant. "You mean that damn refit team not only re-arranged the whole of this server space, but they didn't have any security against crap like this? Because I sure as fuck know beforehand that that was not there when I was zapped out of this damn timeline for all of two seconds. Unless that other me decided to be a dumbass, but if he had my training he sure as shit shouldn't have been-" as he kept on, his ranting switched over to a mix of horrible Japanese and Denobulan mashed together in a frustrated cluster of swears and likely nothing else. Then he stopped himself, taking a deep breath and smiling at Njalia. "Thank you. And yes, I would absolutely love that protocol. It'll make all this work so much easier."
She took up a datapad flagged and transferred the Ops notifications. "Yes, it is very strange. A chemical analysis shows them as being sourced in Federation space but the manufacturer is not known . . . You know, our new scientist is an expert in metallurgy, I should ask her to take a look. Also, no transmitters they drop whatever it is they are looking for into the fleet network where someone with the right tools can pick it out. It is quite ingenious."
"God damnit a plant." Asahi's frown was accompanied by a disgusted nose crinkle. "You might want to hold off on that. If it's something like that, any new member to the crew could be suspect. God, or any member of the crew. Shit. Or anyone on Esquimalt. Because if they had the skills to get it in? They'd have to be someone who could blend in. Or someone who was on the inside. Either way, it's not looking good." His eyes were alight with paranoia, but he seemed confident of himself. "I'll keep you updated on my end, so we can hold each other accountable, but if my suspicions are correct, we may have bigger fish to fry than the Quoird here."
"Well, the clips are nearly invisible," said Njalia. "The current Ops theory is that they were simply added to the supply chain and allowed to propagate out through the system. It was only by accident that they were discovered." She cued up an image on her datapad. "Similar to this one here. There is a flaw in the architecture that if they are near the center of a unit, they overheat."
Despite Njalia's common sense, it was too late. Asahi's brain had already gone down the rabbit hole. He could feel the pressure behind his eyes building up. The migraine would visit many hours later. "If it's so deep that it's in the supply chain... that could be so much deeper. Regardless, I'll have to shut down the other half of the servers just to scrub 'em. I'll be at that for a good bit. Hopefully not more than a few hours." But he knew his servers better than that. They were more complex than he could handle on purpose. "Sometimes I wonder why they recruit engineering types into intelligence, and sometimes shit like this happens and I stop wondering."
"I can detail some code-locked holographic crew to help, if you need them," said Njalia. "They would be devoid of personality or memory, so only good for simple tasks but it would be some extra hands. You could also call Quentin, I am sure he would be happy to help."
"I could." Asahi stated neutrally. "If I'm gonna be here though, I need someone with full eyes on our Quoird friends. That's the best help he can give me." Despite the assistant chief being new, Asahi felt the vibe. One workaholic officer, ready to do whatever was asked? That was someone who needed a bigger task than shaking out some potential leaks. "I'll get some folks in my team on it. The holographic crew is... I think they're blocked from the Intel office after the Nelson crap. So I'd have to unstick that, and its just gonna take more time. I appreciate the offer."
"Ops is here to help," said Njalia, sorting bits and pieces. "And remember to take breaks for rest and food, Lieutenant Commander Kita, you will not do anyone any good if you pass out."
"Of course." Asahi said it with the same clear ambiguous tone that he'd take with Martin telling him the same damn thing. "Matter of fact, we could probably put a half on this right now. Now that we know the culprit, there are bigger priorities. And I sure as hell don't wanna keep you from a potential Quoird kerfuffle."
"We are days out from that," smiled Njalia. "Let me know where I can help." She made sure that all of her tools were properly stowed. "I will leave it to you for now, Lieutenant Commander."
"Can never be too prepared," Asahi replied with a wink. "I'll see ya round, Lieutenant."
"I hope so," she said with a wave.
