What? A Moon?!
Posted on Tue Mar 12th, 2024 @ 3:06am by Ensign Sophie Bishop & Petty Officer 3rd Class Nazanin Asadi & Lieutenant Dashku Zhevou & Lieutenant JG Baaru Liana
0 words; about a 1 minute read
Mission:
Year One: Whispers in the Wind
Location: Deck 2 - Engineering Lab 3
Timeline: MD 015 - 1743
Dashku was in one of the engineering support labs on deck two, going through holographic representation of the schematics. She'd found a couple of design quirks that she had noted and sent off to a friend. They could be nothing, but every engineer had a signature and she was sure she'd found it.
She'd also given Sophie access to the ship's logs, so she could get a time line of when the device was planted. She could only hope the young ensign had found something.
When she finally got information back from her own contact, she knew they needed to start tracking down where this came from. She tapped her commbadge, "Zhevou to Bishop. Can you meet me in engineering lab three?"
"Of course, Lieutenant. I am on my way." Sophie said with a touch of nerves in her voice. She was going to be alone with her new boss? Oh the chills it sent down her back.
Before she knew it her feet had swept her off to the engineering lab she was requested in and after walking in stood at attention. "Ensign Bishop, reporting as ordered ma'am." she announced. Sophie was always a bit of a stickler for protocol whether the situation demanded it or not.
Dashku turned in her seat and hid the smirk that threatened to cross her lips. It wasn't that long ago she was doing the same thing, an ensign looking to impress. "Thank you for coming Ensign. Have you have enough time to pull together a timeline and a possible list of people of interest?"
'She hasn't said at ease yet!' Sophie screamed in her mind. Was she torturing her?
"I have some information." she offered. "I found it 20 days ago. The logs show Olivia and I entering the jeffries tube, opening the panel as it should do." she began. "A week before that PO2 Asadi entered the same section but didn't touch the panel. I spoke to her, she said she was just doing some routine maintenance on a nearby section." she paused for a breath. "5 days before that there was another opening into that section made by two biosigns but they must have had some dampeners on as specifically it has been hard to tell. There was some DNA taken from that section and its a mix of Human, Vulcan, Tellarite and Bolian. Best 'guess' the device was put in place 32 days ago..." her back was beginning to get sore...
Dashku let out a breath through her nose, it was a long shot to find out who did it based on maintenance logs alone. She considered the two biosigns that had masked who they were. It was likely exactly who they were looking for, but that would be a full investigation and likely better turned over to security. After a moment of musing, she realized Sophie was still standing and she covered up a slight smirk.
"At ease Ensign, please sit down," She said finally, motioning to the chair across from where she was sitting. "I talked to one of my contacts and found who likely built it. It's going to take a little while to track down. Do you think you can backtrace the two unknown bio signatures or should we bring in engineering or science?"
'Oh thank GOD!' Sophie screamed in her head as she relaxed. Moving to sit down she listened to what Dashku. Her interest piqued when she had said she found out who built it. "I'm sure I can with some time but I never shy away from extra help." Even if she did want some of the glory herself...
Dashku looked over at the ensign, she was clearly a little nervous but there was something more to it. "I'm sure you can too, or I would have had everyone come at the same time. Do you want to continue working on it?"
Sophie listened to Dashku, or course she did, but was lost in thought about an anomaly she had discovered and wondered if it was worth mentioning. "There was something I thought was strange... I maybe went a bit further afield with my investigation and was checking turbolift logs near the jeffries tube hatch. At 0101 and 0321 it made several stops on deck 5 B, like we are talking 5-6 times during that window. I know another shift is on at that time but there's not a lot of need for that amount of traffic in the one lift." she offered a glimmer of hope in finding those involved. "Someone had deleted the files quite extensively but forgot to clear the secondary cache buffers. As you know you the lifts use a mixture voice recognition, bio scans and security clearance checks to allow movement across this ship."
Dashku smiled at that, "Way to bury the lead Bishop. Have you been able to figure out who stopped off during those stops? If we can find a connection to who I think built the device, we will have our most likely suspect."
"Sorry Lieutenant." Sophie blushed with embarrassment. "I get stuck in my own head sometimes and think I've told something when I've not." she chuckled a bit nervously as she rubbed the back of her neck with her right hand. "I don't have any voice recordings sadly but I do have some partial serial numbers from both the bio scans. They are linked with the security clearance but they are only partial due to their attempted scrub of the system."
"I'll take half, you take the other half and let's see what we can come up with," Dashku suggested. "How does that sound?"
"Sounds great, Lieutenant, thank you." Sophie paused for a moment and Dashku looked at her as if to ask what the face was for.
"I also asked Petty Officer Asadi..." she skipped the part where she'd gotten over excited and talked to her about this, "to look into any odd comm traffic and I think she found some. I was sure she took it to Lieutenant Baaru."
"Good thinking," Dashku replied with a smile, Sophie was clever and she liked that. "Do you know if Asadi has made progress? Perhaps it's time to bring them in to help?"
"I don't know." Sophie answered honestly. "But I think bringing them in might be able to help us out as well." she agreed with the Lieutenant.
=/\= Ensign Bishop to Lieutenant Baaru and PO2 Asadi can you please come to engineering lab 3. =/\=
There was a confirmation from them both as the channels overlapped and then closed.
The doors swished open and Naz walked into see both Sophie and Lieutenant Zhevou turn to meet her gaze. "You called me Ensign? Lieutenant?" she looked across both of them.
Liana wasn’t too far behind Naz. Quickly slipping into the room, she looked around at the group, “so, what’s up?”
Sophie smiled and looked over at Zhevou. Yes, she did ask them to come down but she wasn't the senior officer and wanted to give the Lieutenant her place as her superior to explain.
Dashku looked up at the new arrivals and nodded to them both. It took her a second to realize she was the ranking officer in the room. That was still a new feeling for her with her new rank, but she liked it.
"Thank you both for coming, we're trying to figure out who placed the device that was found in the Jeffries tube. We think we're on the right track and decided it was time to bring you both in. Sophie was able to find some partial serial numbers despite the attempt at a system scrub and mentioned you were looking into odd comm traffic. I'm hoping we can compare notes and come up with some names."
Naz nodded at the explanation from the Ops Chief. "Well, I found some of that 'odd traffic' as you put it. I brought it to Lieutenant Baaru where she and I worked some magic up." she smiled. "We managed to piece together a male voice talking to another in a voice transmission. We have some written text but it was quite degraded but mentioned 'home base' but not so much a location but I hear you have more refined tech in this lab that'll be able to help us? Sophie, eh Ensign Bishop, sorry ma'am, invited us."
Sophie still hated being called ma'am. She did not feel old enough for that title one bit. "And you are most welcome to use the computers here, I upgraded them." she grinned. "If you have a male voice maybe we can use that to refine our search using the serial numbers?" she looked at Dashku. "Weeds out the female crew members, at least for this?"
Listening to what data the others has managed to uncover, Liana put a finger up to her lips in a thoughtful gesture before speaking, “these serial numbers you’ve found, have you tried using them to narrow down a possible point of origin for the device? Or maybe even a time or date of manufacture?”
"The serial numbers I was talking about were about crew serial numbers, identification numbers." Sophie replied. "Sadly any actual physical information on the device was scrubbed clean by whoever placed it, and some has been lost due to Lieutenant s'Lovok when he broke the device earlier. We've tried to fix it as best we can. That's why I was hoping with your comm data we could put two and two together a bit." Sophie replied.
"I've been through the device and I think I know who made it, it's a very unique design that only a few people would know how to build," Dashku took a breath. "It would take too long to follow up on at this point to find who bought it. Finding who placed the device is our best option. We can feed the comm data in and have the computer compare our lists to that of the ship's manifest and hope it gives us a name or names to give to security to bring in."
Naz nodded. Finding the person that planted it was of course a top priority. It meant they had a traitor on board, a potential saboteur and that made her feel uneasy that someone she could work beside could easily be so duplicitous.
As the Lieutenants, and Ensign Bishop spoke, Naz had put the information they had brought into the computer that Sophie had 'souped' up. It pinged and it caught her attention as she quickly looked down at it. "Ehm I actually think I have a location." she indicated the console display. "It looks like transmissions were being sent and received to this 'moon'?" she half asked.
Dash was a little surprised and her mouth was agape for a moment before she finally closed it. "They..." She stopped and shook her head slightly. "Are you sure it wasn't just a relay station? They were really stupid enough to send the signal directly?"
"Bounced it off 4 relay stations ma'am." Naz replied, she just didn't want to bog the conversation down with information that wasn't entirely necessary, but she would now.
"It looks like it was bounced off 4 relays, and is in the vicinity of this system." she brought up a holo of the system. It had 5 planets, each with various moons. One sun that they all shuffled around and a small asteroid field not too far from one of the planets. "I mean I'm pretty sure its around this planet with the 3 moons, I can't exactly pinpoint what one but if we get there then it'll be easier to scan for the signal, or any tech associated with the device? Wont it?" she asked looking at the Ops Chief and then her own chief, Lieutenant Baaru.
Looking at the data, Liana frowned, “getting closer to the system should give us a clearer picture, sure, but it could also tip off the suspected individual. Maybe a probe might be a better way to go?”
"As long as we're not dealing with complete amateurs, that makes this a lot less fun," Dashku commented idly, before she realized saying that tracking down a criminal that set off a bomb was fun. She cleared her throat. "A probe might tip our hand as well, although a much lower chance than the whole ship. What are the chances the person who did this has an escape plan? Maybe we could use that against them?"
"If we send a probe and they detect it and go it will slow our response time down wont it?" Sophie asked. "They might get away... I mean, I would think they would have an escape plan." She commented picking up the device and having another look.
"At the moment we have matching encryption patterns from the device to that system." Naz added. "That gives us enough to at least investigate. We also have a link down to the colony, messages relayed through the ship. There must be someone down there that helped them as well. Stands to reason, at least to me, that seeing as how everything is coming from that system then there is someone important giving orders. Maybe even the leaders of what is going on."
"This ship is also three in one," Dashku thought out loud. "We could set more of a net if they try to run. At any rate, that's not a decision we're here to make, merely present what we've found to command and let them make the decision."
"No... I think Commander Davaris would be upset with us if we started taking off parts of the ship." Sophie mused a little. "If we draw up a report with all of this we can pass it on? Maybe see if the senior staff want to be briefed on what we've found?" She looked over at Dashku, she didn't want to overstep.
"We will want to brief the rest of the senior staff, this involves a security situation and potentially taking the ship into combat," Dashku arched one of her brows. "Anyone have anything else before we draft this report and send it to Stryvek and Greco?"
Sophie shook her head and looked at the others. Naz stood quietly with nothing to add and she could see Lieutenant Baaru was also nodding to imply she had nothing to add and they were done here.
Now the fun part of report writing could begin.
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