Aftermath

Posted on 17 Feb 2020 @ 3:59am by Petty Officer 1st Class Lia McCarthy & Rear Admiral Azura Ashcart & Captain Gabriel Barron M.D. & Lieutenant Commander Magdalena "Maggie" Doyl & Lieutenant Commander Geraldine "Geri" Severide

2,154 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Empty Creche
Location: Lia's Quarters/Engineering
Timeline: Current

Lia awoke with her mind in a haze. She had a rough idea of where she was, but couldn't quite recall how she had gotten there. Her head was exploding in a massive migraine. She untangled herself from the web of cords and various electronics that were strewn about her quarters.

While her room was small she relished the fact that she had the space to herself. After checking in with her interface and attempting to put her space back into a habitable state, she realized her communicator was missing from her chest. Cursing under her breath, she searched frantically as she cleaned hoping she hadn't been missed much. She was just a hacker for the most part and the only thing she had any access to was the Redemption itself. Granted, the shenanigans were tempting. But she found no real payoff to hacking her own ship. The secure server still lurked in the back of her mind. She knew it had something to do with West's assignment for her but she couldn't make it out just yet.

There!

Her communicator chirped as it powered on and showed missed messages from LtCom Doyl. "uh oh..." she mumbled.

"McCarthy to Doyl, non-priority."

"Doyl here," came the quick reply.

"I've finished those upgrades and ran diagnostics as we discussed. Everything is running smoothly. There's still chunks of code that I cant figure out that may be cause those minor glitches, but testing looks good for the time being. Im ready to switch to active task. Where do you want me?"

"I'll come to you. I want to see what you have," Doyl said. "Invite the captain and Sheridan, too."

The doors part as Lieutenant Sheridan entered the room upon the invitation of the ship's security chief. She had been told Petty Officer Lia McCarthy had something to share. The Petty Officer was somewhat of an enigma to Sheridan, she arrived unannounced and no one on the ship, at least overtly claimed to know why she was there. The one woman who might have known went MIA. At the moment, she had no reason to either trust or distrust the Petty Officer. McCarthy's activities had been monitored from intelligence and nothing suggested her intentions on the Redemption were nefarious.

Perhaps she really was just a lost hacker.

"Lieutenant Sheridan?" Lia asked as the doors parted. Her back was to the doors as she continued typing on her desk and fiddled with a small contraption. "Petty Officer McCarthy. I don't think we had met yet." She turned to face Sheridan. "Although I think its best to let the others show up before show and tell..."

Sheridan gave McCarthy a polite nod and a smile.

"You're welcome to make yourself comfortable Lieutenant. There's not tons of room but I suspect with everything going on there might be a bit of time before everyone arrives." Lia gestured to the bed and chair, then resumed working on her screen typing furiously. Access Denied screens kept popping up and then going away.

Maggie walked in. "Hi," she said, nodding to the others.

"Ah, Commander Doyl." Lia handed both of them a tablet and called to Pallas. "Can you track this meeting so Barron can review when he's available. We can alert if its anything of immediate importance but he's got a lot on his plate as it is. I don't want to call him unless we have to."

PALLAS appeared, her Grecian toga flowing just above the knee and her shield on her back. "I'm always listening Petty Officer. I will remain to assist with any analysis you require."

She nodded to Pallas, then pulled up a couple images and a video of herself attempting to break into the test server as per their security demonstration where Lia was teleported to the brig.

"So I ran a full diagnostic on the whole package and the integration into the Redemption computers. Everything looks smooth and I haven't seen any potential problems arising from using the system like this.

However, both the Redemption and my neural interface M0nk3y, have both been generating massive amounts of code lines like the ones shown here. But they don't seem to go to anything or do anything. There isn't any executables or designations or anything.

Its all ghost code as far as I can tell. By all appearances its benign, but its worth watching."

She cleared her tablet. "Now for active task, where do you want me? Im an exceptional hacker but I don't know how that can help find some kids."

"I suppose we may at some point require infiltration into our would be kidnapper's network. The Captain has been scarce on details, so I'm afraid I have little to offer." Sheridan offered.

"Right now, we need to find the warp trail and follow the ship. We've got a faint trail, but we can use help to make sure we don't lose it. As for the ghost code, that's there for a reason. It's a series of false trails for people trying to break in," Maggie said. "That you were able to run a diagnostic means we have to close down that access and clean up the dead ends."

She turned to PALLAS. "You and I can work on that while the others work on finding the kidnappers."

"Commander, having the ghost code on redemption is one thing. But it shouldn't have caused m0nk3y to start producing it as well. It should have been a simple triggered beam sequence. And I've compared the codes, they don't match up. So I'll keep an eye and let you know of any changes or findings." She turned to Sheridan. "Lieutenant, I prefer to work here in my quarters if its not a problem for you."

"Not at all." Sheridan replied. She wasn't sure she could trust the woman and having her away from the hub would make it easier for Nicole to keep an eye on her.

"M0nk3y, work with pallas and the bridge, analyze everything we know about that ship and track sensors for anything within 75% match, then isolate. Also look for anything that can be optimized or improved for the sensors. Lets bring these kids home."

Maggie turned to PALLAS. "Are we dealing with two different programs that are trying to run simultaneously?"

PALLAS paused as she thought "I have been monitoring the Petty Officer's work thus far. I have noticed the ghost code she is referring to but I don't have a data dump from her Monk3y. There for I have not been able to run a comparison and see if there is an issue with conflicting programs. If she will share that data I will compare and see where that path leads. As for on my end I have noticed some anomalies in the Redemption's main computer but have rewritten the underlying code to smooth that out. I've sent my code to Engineering for their assessment before implementation. That could be connected but the likelihood is extremely low."

"We need to find the source of the anomalous programming. It can't just be the security measures we put in place. This appears to be more widespread," Maggie said.

Lia reached up under her ponytail and pulled a flash drive from the back of her head and connected it to her screen. "Have at it Pallas."

PALLAS stood for a moment her processing power pulling up and comparing the two ghost codes. She nodded as she found the source.

"Interesting." She stood to no one in particular before turning to look at those in the room.

"The ghost code was created by some of the alterations we made in upgrading security protocols. As such I was able to track down and alter the source code so it..." she paused for a moment "plays well with others. We should not have a repeat of that issue again."

While PALLAS did her work, Maggie checked to see if there were any holes in the security system.

"Good," the Chief of Security said to the AI. "Everything looks good from what I can see, too."

She turned to Lia. "I think we're good now."

Lia removed the drive from her screen and returned it to her head. "Okay lets get to finding those kids."

Maggie nodded. She transferred information from her PADD to the computer. "Here's what we have so far."

[Later]

Lia began to work through the data finding any kind of commonalities between what they were seeing and her access to the SFI database. A few hours pass and late into the night, M0nk3y got a hit and a warning popped into view.

///// LEVEL 5 ACCESS /////
SFI BLACK FILE - CLASSIFIED
ID: Lazarus

Lia knew level 5 was well beyond anything she could take on by herself. But there was a chance she might need to. It wasnt her call to make. If Severide made the call to alert the Captain, that might go somewhere. Then she thought of West and her assignment.

"PALLAS, I need a secure black channel to Ashcart on priority." Lia decided he would know and if it helped find those kids without compromising her as well...

PALLAS raised an eyebrow and sighed. "A moment." A few moments later the image of the Star Sfleet logo appeared then phased into the darker Star Fleet Intelligence logo before the newly minted Admiral Ashcart appeared. He looked haggard and tired but suppressed any shock at the fact that an enlisted crewman had contacted him instead of the Captain.

"Petty Officer, PALLAS informs me that you have something to discuss?" His neutral tone communicated well that this had better be good.

Lia made a point to match his tone and expression. "Lazarus." She wanted to gauge his reaction before going into too much detail, she had learned that much from West.

Azura kept his face passive, he had heard that name before the name of his best undercover asset. That gave him pause, as he wondered just when they had become 'his' people in his mind.

"And?" He said simply.

"So you do know it." She wagered since it seemed like he knew what she was talking about. "I called you first per my assignment and my parameters as I don't know how much the redemption command is supposed to know. I know you're aware of our current endeavor to rescue some kidnapped child civilians. What I want to ask is if Lazarus' involvement is intentional and if its supposed to be known." She sent copies of her trace findings and matchups with the tagged file and the level 5 lock.

Azura looked at the incoming file that SPARTAN was backfilling information on. The AI cross referenced the authorization codes with the time that they were active and highlighted the assignment Lazarus had been ok during that time frame. Azura grunted as the file was uploaded and he skimmed over it.

"Given the time frame of the codes active time" he paused and accessed the records of the children kidnapped "you are likely looking for one of his family given all available information I would point the crew at his wife."

"Permission for level 5 access then, admiral. I'll need to put together a dossier of what these guys are allowed to know. I'm not even read in on this and I have to brief redemption command on these findings." Lia could feel the headache building in the back of her mind. She knew an episode was coming but she hoped to put it off as long as she could manage.

"If its his wife sir, is she part of an op or is she off script?" The thought of a rogue black operative brought a whole new level of tension as they both could imagine the kind of damage that could be done, let alone the secrets that could be revealed.

He shook his head "She was never company. As Tempest is a Vulcan and she is his wife you can guess how she acquired the codes."

That made things extremely complicated...

"Rules of engagement, sir?" Lia knew time was even shorter than they ever hoped now. "And how much am I and the redemption supposed to know?"

"All children come back. Capture her if possible if not dead or alive. Any ships get in your way and you cant go around go through. Those kids are of high ranking Star Fleet and Company personnel." His voice was flat "I'll have PALLAS inform the Captain of the change in RoEs."

Lia saluted and ended the transmission.

OFF

Captain Gabriel Barron
Officer, Commanding
USS Redemption

Lieutenant Commander Geraldine "Geri" Severide
USS Redemption

Lieutenant Commander Magdalena Doyl
Chief Security/Tactical Officer
USS Redemption

Petty Officer First Class Lia R. McCarthy
Counter Cyber Warfare/Encryption Specialist
USS Redemption

Azura Ashcart
Rear Admiral
Cheif of Star Fleet Intelligence and Master of the Company
Star Fleet Headquarters

 

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