JDL - Lt Shea, Lt Zola, Ens Barnes & PO3 duPont - "So Close We Can Hardly Breathe"

Posted on Wed Apr 1st, 2015 @ 9:08am by Lieutenant Dustin Shea & Ensign

1,799 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: A Spot To Kill

After wrapping up with Lieutenant Calhoun, and then letting Commander Archer know what Cecil could glean from the information received, and the coordinates of the rail gun that was supposed to be offline now, the yeoman had one more task at hand... get the information Ivanova had sent — for Cecil felt deep down in his gut that it had to be the phoenix of a commodore that had sent it — to someone who could maybe make more use of it. He opened a com channel into main engineering and requested to speak to the ranking officer on duty. The petty officer that picked up routed him to a Lieutenant Shea.

"I've got a data upload I need to send to you, and see if you can do anything to either defend against or disable these monsters," Cecil explained, his fingers dancing across the half of his PADD that didn't hold the comscreen. "How informed are you on weapons systems?"

"I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I haven't been keeping up as to what is going on. Fill me in and let's see what can and can't be done to rectify the issue at hand," Dustin reported.

"Ivanova is missing in action, Sea Witch is threatening to blow Vindicator to atoms, and these fish people who call Ivanova queen have massive rail guns pointed at us," Cecil explained quickly and calmly as he started upload of the data file with schematics and locations. "I think it was Ivanova who sent this information, but whoever it was indicated they'd disabled the gun closest to the capital city — the one with a target lock on Vindicator. Can you verify that, and see if you can disable the others?"

"What the hell did we to to piss them off that they had targeted our ship?" Dustin questioned Cecil.

"I think it was a combination of Ivanova being not Atlantean, and the fact that she wasn't looking to actually stay on their planet and rule like they expected her to? Not that she asked to become their Queen." Cecil frowned as the data finished uploading. "Are you able to help with weapons, or do I need to look for that crazy little Ferengi, or see if Commander Dahe'el is available?"

"Yeah, I can help with the weapons. Just need to know what's been attempted thus far if anything. I could use someone to be my sounding board to bounce ideas off of."

"As far as I know, nothing has been attempted," Cecil explained. "Until we got our hands on the information in that data packet I uploaded, we didn't have enough to even be able to attempt anything without tipping our hand and risk being blown out of the sky. I haven't had a chance to do anything beyond give a quick skim as the data flashed over my screen, and I'm certainly lacking in the knowledge needed to make any use of it. As for someone to use as a sounding board, if Commander Dahe'el is otherwise indisposed, you might give that Ferengi woman, Zola, a try?"

"If they won't mind, sure I don't mind giving it a try," Dustin said after giving it some consideration.

"Right," Cecil said with a sigh. "Find Lieutenant Zola, tell her Waterhouse ordered her to help you with it, and get right on it. I need to go back to making sure that babysitting brass isn't driving Waterhouse crazy. Hopefully Archer will be returning with Ivanova soon, and it would be ideal to have the weapons offline when she returns."

"Excuse me," a Ferengi woman approached Dustin from behind, the top of her head was nearly even with his shoulder. "What do you need my help with?"

"Ideas. I need help with ideas to get the Commodore out of the pickle she's in. Cecil has provided us with data to work with in order to disarm the weapons and get Ivanova back on this ship."

"I'll let you two work. Since Waterhouse is currently babysitting brass, please contact me if you need anything, and I'll relay it if I don't know the answer already. duPont out." Cecil closed the comchannel and shook his head. Between Shea and Zola, there should be a solution if one was to be found.

"May I?" Zola said, indicating the computer terminal that had the schematics that duPont had uploaded. She slid in next to Dustin and started flicking through the information quickly. "What were you thinking of doing?"

"You may," Dustin started saying as he watched Zola just make herself at home in front of the computer terminal. "I was thinking of exploiting any sort of weakness in any of their systems."

"Let's just get into the system to start with then, since the access code and encryption frequencies were included in the data dump," she returned, her tiny hands skittering across the console. It was only a moment before the interface appeared in Atlantean, and she flicked at the screen until the computer translated the interface to Federation Standard. "Interesting, this one's pointed at the big city nearby. I don't think the Atlanteans would have done that themselves." Zola reached up, scratching at her head just above the fabric that wrapped around the back between her ears.

"That is very peculiar," Dustin said staring at the screen pondering the scenarios in which the Atlanteans would point a rail gun on themselves.

"See the encryption here? That looks like Fed encryption, doesn't it?" Zola asked, her hand moving to another pane in the display. She pulled up the ship roster, clearly looking for something. "Intel... Encryption. There we go, encryption specialist. Barnes, Catalina, Ensign." Zola tapped her combadge. "Zola to Barnes."

=^=Barnes here. Go ahead=^= Rocky's voice came a moment later, sounding like she wanted to be sick, but didn't have time for it.

"Lieutenant Shea and I are working with the railguns on the planet, we're supposed to be disabling them, but it looks like someone locked them down with some sort of encryption?" Zola explained.

=^=You're what?!=^= Now the Ensign's voice was panicked. =^=Whatever you do, don't touch them. Hold on a moment.=^= She grabbed her tricorder and nervously entered the codes into it and them transferred them to a small PADD, sending the information directly to the ship before having them send down to Zola's location. =^=The information should be there. All the rail guns are now under our control and set to detonate if anyone interferes with encryption and gets it wrong. The code is vaj QujmeH moQ roS.=^=

"Damn, there went me just wanting to cause a bunch of mischief and have those Atlanteans wonder what the hell was goin' on. Le sigh... Now does that Klingon code mean anything? I don't know Klingon to save my ass. Just curious is all."

=^=Yes=^= came Barnes' voice. =^=It means 'Well this sucks balls' if anyone had gotten it wrong. All six rail guns on the planet would blow at once if that happened.=^=

"Then it sounds like it's good that I called you," Zola insisted, narrowly avoiding choking on her words. Her eyes were certainly wide as she pulled up the transmission on the console she and Shea worked at. "Is there anything else you'd like to advise us about the situation before we get to it?"

=^=Yes, they're all aimed at Gilbraltar=^= Rocky's voice came back a moment later. =^= Under Commodore Ivanova's orders.=^=

"Isn't that the city the away team is in?" Zola looked to Shea in question. She didn't like being involved with such a touchy situation. She was nervous, and being nervous made her hungry. Now was not the time for food. She licked her lips. "We'll see to it we work fast. Thank you for your help, Ensign."

=^=No problem. Barnes out=^= the Ensign responded. =^=Contact me if you need any further assistance.=^=

"I don't recall Cecil mentioning to me the location of the away team. I could be wrong though. Wouldn't be the first time something has been said to me and I've blocked it out only to focus on other parts of a conversation."

"Well, regardless, there are probably innocent people in that city, so let's focus on the task at hand," Zola insisted, looking over the information the Ensign had sent up to the ship. "I haven't really had to deal with cryptography, maybe you can make sense of this?" Zola indicated the data file open on the console.

"Let's see what I can do to decipher this," Dustin said as he plugged in the encryption codes and pass phrases. "And here we go. "

"Oh good, we're in," Zola murmured, slipping between Dustin and the console. "Why don't you get the other five rail guns to destroy themselves, and I'll set this one up for Ivanova's personal control?" Zola's fingers were already involved in a delicate and intricate dance across the console as she was saying this. A couple flicks later, and the information on the other five rail guns popped open on the console next to where Zola worked.

Dustin's fingers flew about the console as he programmed some malicious code to cause the five rail guns to self destruct. "Never thought that I would ever have to make use of my programming skills again. I always thought of it as a hobby," Dustin mumbled to himself. "There, five rail guns disabled."

Zola had been hard at work, fortifying and supporting the efforts of Ensign Barnes on the rail gun closest to the capital city, and she glanced over at Lieutenant Shea when he declared himself done. "Good, I've almost got this finished off. Barnes had done most of the work, I just added an extra layer of permissions on top of hers, guaranteeing that only Ivanova can either order its destruction, or for it to be be fired. Otherwise it will simply sit inactive. And of course, if anyone tampers with it, her failsafe will kick in, and it'll slag itself."

Zola then pulled up the information on the other rail guns, skimming the status report that scrolled across her display. "Interesting choice to have your code attack the guns itself, and not even bothering to bypass Barnes' failsafe, thus letting it come through and basically plow through a second time to make sure that none of the code, the original or the additions by either of you, would be recoverable. I'll handle sending a report to Ivanova, Waterhouse, and putting one on file for whoever's got command of the ship right now."

=/\= End Log =/\=

Lieutenant Zola
Engineering Officer
USS Vindicator

Lt Dustin Shea
Asst Chief Engineering Officer
USS Vindicator

Ensign Catalina "Rocky" Barnes
Encryption Specialist
USS Vindicator, NCC-78213-E

Petty Officer 3rd Class Cecil duPont
Commodore's Yeoman
USS Vindicator, NCC-78213-E

 

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