Wow! Posts were way down during the holidays. Only five posts for the week. Compile summary Your adoring (and unconcious) CSO ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stardate: 2406.10.24 (USS Gunnel - Forward compartment - FO Peter Belinia - 0348) (USS Dian Chang - Bridge - CO, Captain Jaelle - 0350) (USS Gunnel - Control compartment - FO Peter Belinia - 0355) (USS Mystique, Deck 15, Cloaking Control, Ensign Garrett and NPC Engineer Bartok, 1332) (USS Mystique, Deck 15, Cloaking Control, Ensign Garrett and NPC Engineer Bartok, 1340) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Begin Compile Stardate: 2406.10.24 (USS Gunnel - Forward compartment - FO Peter Belinia - 0348) As the pilot turned the shuttle back toward the planet Peter was sweating, they couldn't outrun the ship, had no hopes of fighting it and couldn't hold it off for long; their only hope was to get back into the sensor dampening effects of the planet. As the Dian Chang moved in close their was a sudden shudder that rippled through the Gunnel. Riven grated. "They have us locked in a tractor beam." "Damn again." Said Peter. "Sir I have an unusual reading." Said Peters. At Peter's look he replied. "It's another ship sir, it just entered the system. It's like nothing I've ever seen before." "We're being drawn toward the Dian Chang!" Riven said quite unnecessarily. "Details Mr. Peters." Peter hissed. "Power readings are nearly off the scale sir. They're hailing the Dian Chang." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stardate: 2406.10.24 (USS Dian Chang - Bridge - CO, Captain Jaelle - 0350) Jaelle watched as the Dain Chang pounced on the shuttle before it could reenter the planets' atmosphere, the people inside would be very helpful to her cause she had no doubt. Once they had the crew onboard she would somehow get one of them to talk, she had no doubt there would be contingency plans at least one of them would be privy to. She wanted her marines back as well as the prize she had been sent to capture or destroy. "Captain we have a tractor beam locked on the shuttle." "Thank you Mr. Jenkins open a hailing frequency to it." "Captain a ship is entering the system!" "Belay that order Mr. Jenkins. Details Lt. Hummel and quickly!" The tactical officer looked back at his readouts before replying. "The ship is cylindrical Captain with external engine pods, I've never seen anything quite like it and the power signature is enormous. Scans show there is no comparable ship in the Federation. There are no weapons signatures currently though it is shielded. Length is 2300 meters.' "We are receiving a hail from the vessel Captain." "Sound yellow alert, on screen Mr. Jenkins." The view screen wavered and the communications center of the alien ship came into view. The colors that greeted Jaelle's eyes were harsh, even garish and she blinked them once before focusing on the being looking back at her. The creature began speaking in some strange gibberish. " Elsoi... etthre perku. Matia esla tapek." The creature was exotic in appearance to say the least with canary yellow fur and dark brown wings folded against its back, it was very tall and when it spoke showed a mouth full of delicate fangs. The creature with its pointed ears reminded her very much of a feline, there were several species with a catlike appearance but none of them had wings. ~A remarkable creature.~ She thought. The being repeated what it had said before and she looked at David Jenkins. "How long before the universal translator kicks in?" "Unknown Captain, with a completely alien being it can sometimes take several minutes or longer." "I think I have some idea of what they are saying Captain." Said Lt. Hummel. "It appears to be a warning, they are powering up weapons." "Go to red alert." Jaelle spoke softly. The red alert klaxon began to sound in the ship and the warning light to blink as the alien spoke once more, this time a few of the words came through. "Elsoi Epsek order (hissing noises) ship Erthu go tabok." Jaelle stood up from her seat and said very clearly and slowly. "I am Captain Cynthia Jaelle of the United Federation of Planets Starship Dian Chang. We are on a mission to retrieve a ship stolen by rebels and mean no harm to you or your people. Please allow us to continue our mission uninterrupted. I must insist on finishing my duty." "Elsoi Epsek order Federation ship to leave Raelleus (hissing noises again). Go back to your own space or (gibberish). Elsoi Epsek out." The screen blanked and she looked over at Lt. Hummel. "It looks as though we are going to have a fight on our hands Mr. Hummel. What is the status of the shuttle?" "To bring the shuttle in Captain we will have to lower our shields, I doubt that fact has escaped their observation and the ones on the shuttle are making it as difficult as possible, they have tried to shear away three times since we bagged them." The situation reminded her of a monkey trying to retrieve food from a jar whose mouth was only wide enough for its hand. If she tried to reel in the shuttle it would leave them vulnerable and might even get them seriously damaged. And then there was the alien ship, if she attacked it there would go any chances for a peaceful meeting with this new species. She smiled and decided she could have her cake and eat it too. "Mr. Jenkins release the shuttle." As he complied with her order she turned to the CONN. "Set a course for the edge of the system and engage at warp three. After we have cleared the system Mr. Hummel engage the cloak and track the shuttle. If they let it go we will follow them to the Mystique." She sat back down and leaned back, pleased with herself. The Cloaking Device gave a Captain so many more options. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stardate: 2406.10.24 (USS Gunnel - Control compartment - FO Peter Belinia - 0355) Peter sweated through the time as the Captains of the Dian Chang and the alien vessel communicated, when both vessles powered up weapons he spoke to Ensign Jansen. "When the shooting starts the Dian Chang will have to let us go, set a course out of the system at maximum warp. There is a nebula at 118 degrees mark three, set a course for it." Peter remembered the subject of the nebula being brought up in the meeting by Herkimer 78, if they could get to it they might be able to hide from the Dian Chang there. He heard Counselor Raynar begin to stir and looked around as he opened his eyes. "How are you feeling Counselor?" (Reply: Telan Raynar) "Very good, you had best get to a seat and buckle in, we might have a rough ride." (Reply: Telan Raynar) Sergeant Peters sounded incredulous but pleased when he spoke up. "Commander the tractor beam has been deactivated, the Dain Chang is beginning to move off." ~Just like that, can it really be that easy?~ Peter thought. ~Oh well, no sense in looking a gift horse, or alien ship for that matter in the mouth.~ "Mr. Jansen engage that course to the Nebula, get us the hell out of here." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stardate: 2406.10.24 (USS Mystique, Deck 15, Cloaking Control, Ensign Garrett and NPC Engineer Bartok, 1332) Garrett was analyzing the results of his first simulation when the captain's came over the voice comm. "Captain Winters to Lt. HHril. HHril, are you in a place to talk?" "I am currently in cloaking control, Captain," Hhril replied. Lt. Hhril replied, looking up from the console where he had been working. "Give me one moment and I shall procure an office." He quickly made his way out of the control room and into one of the engineering offices. The lieutenant re-emerged a few minutes later with a curiously serious expression. "Mr. Garrett." he said as he approached the aOPS. "I have other duties that I must attend to. Take over in my absence." "Yessir," Garrett replied. "We'll get the job done." "Thank you." Hhril replied and offered a slight smile. "Keep me appraised." He turned and headed out the door. Garrett looked over at Bartok. "I wonder what's going on, now." "Silent running simulation shows nothing," Garrett told Bartok. "I'll download the data into my PADD then start the first combat simulation." Once the second sim was going he moved over to stand beside Bartok and let him look at the figures on his PADD's readout. "I assume from your silence, you haven't had much luck either." Bartok turned and displayed both the PADDS he was using; he had linked the Federation PADD to the Klingon one he had brought from his cabin. ”Actually I have found a number of small viruses but they were too easy to find. It is my guess that they are there as decoys and the main one is still hiding”. He showed the two devices to Garrett along with their readouts and the list of viruses they had discovered. About that time the Klingon PADD beeped and displayed information. Bartok transferred the info to the Federation PADD not knowing if Garrett could read Klingon or not. The PADD now showed an unknown virus. "It’s still early in the decoding process said the Human, we can’t tell much about it only that it working outside the cloaking process." “Yes”, said Bartok, “It seems to exist outside the actual program and only activates when the cloak is in use”. Garrett turned back to the display that showed a graphic model of two ships, the Dian Chang and the Mystique in combat. Bartok kept watching the PADDS to see what action was being taken by the newly discovered virus. The sim was set for a speed five times faster than real time. The graphics moved across the screen like small game icons maneuvering and shooting at each other. In one corner of the display screen data kept updated figures for energy consumption, hypothetical damage. At one point the Chang's shielding was weakening and one of its torpedo bays taken out. But at the same time the Mystique had lost power to its main phasers and one torp bay was gone, plus the shields were almost depleted. Garrett chuckeld lightly at the irony. Computer sims knew no loyalty only hypothetical formulas. The first combat sim took about five minutes before he Mystique was marked "DESTROYED." "Set up for another combat simulation, traitor," Garrett rebuked the computer mildly. "Save data from first simulation and download to designated PADD." [Parameters for Combat Simulation Traitor have not been specified,] the computer said, utterly unoffended. [Data saved. Downloading to PADD 039-F25.] "Rerun last combat simulation showing the Mystique using its cloaking device until it is no longer operational," the ensign amended. [Rerunning combat simulation 'USS Dian Chang, USS Mystique,]" the computer replied, and the two icons came up again. “We lost the first fight," Garrett quipped with human irony. “We’re dead”. The Klingon stood and looked around the room, shading his eyes with his hands as if searching a great distance. Garrett turned from his screen again, perplexed. "What are you doing?" "I am looking for the ship of the dead, If I am dead I expect to join my ancestors in STO-VO-KOR," he said with as straight a face as possible not knowing if the young Human would understand the reference or not. Humans did not always understand Klingon humor. Garrett chuckled lightly. "It's interesting that so many cultural mythologies use a vessel of some kind to convey the souls of their dead into the next life. There are any number of them in Earth mythology." Bartok was an interesting person. Garrett looked forward to that long conversation in 10-forward with the Klingon Engineer. He was also looking forward to spending a little time with Cynthia Darson at the earliest opportunity. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stardate: 2406.10.24 (USS Mystique, Deck 15, Cloaking Control, Ensign Garrett and NPC Engineer Bartok, 1340) Garrett smiled wryly. More Klingon humor he guessed. "I'm famished. How about you?" "I am hungry enough to eat a torg," Bartok replied. Garrett turned to one of the technicians who were working dutifully at their stations, as if obllivious to him and hte Klingon. "Is there a food replicator around here." "In the office," one of them replied pointing at a door. He went back to writing. Garrett rose to his feet and strolled toward their nearest food source, closely followed by Bartok who carried a small bundle tied to his waist. They spotted a replicator niche on one side of the small office. Garrett selected a turkey salad sandwich and a cold orange pekoe tea for himself. Bartok stood forward and asked for a bowl, a small plate of troc strips and Bloodwine. They moved into the cloaking room and found a vacant counter top near the energy flow monitoring station that was suitable for a quick dining space. Bartok reached behind to the bag hanging at his waist and upturned about 4 handfuls of what appeared to be worms into the bowl. Garrett steeled himself against the pinch of nausea in his gut and chewed on his own meal. He tried to ignore Bartok's moans of satisfaction. “Gahk, care for some?" Bartok said, offering a handful of the wriggling creatures. "It’ll put hair on your chest, and elsewhere too." "Thank-you I have enough hair to suit me," Garrett said, feeling certain his face was sallowing. Bartok gave out a raucous peal of laughter. Then he began to stuff his food into his mouth as only Klingons can, obviously savoring the feel of them going down. Being that Bartok’s food kept trying to escape he finished before his sallow-cast companion and went back to the console followed shortly by Garrett who still had a few things left but looked intent on finishing the assignment. Bartok approved. Working at his own station Bartok had decided that the virus itself was just a part of the problem and that somewhere there had to be another item it needed to work with. He was beginning to become annoyed. A few minutes later, Garrett was still biting on the last bits of his sandwich when the computer indicated it was finished with the sims. He looked over the data but found nothing out of the ordinary in reading the cloaking system. Then something else caught his attention. A peculiar variable that should be randomized in a set of varied simulations. "A few common denominators," he thought out loud. "How odd." He straightened his mind suddenly racing with new forboding. "Computer compare all simulations I've performed in the past 40 minutes. Compile a list of all common variables associated with each individual defensive and offensive systems." "Compliing data," the computer replied as the numbers began scrolling down the screen. He looked over the data. A new forboding struck Garrett's mind like a bad omen. "Admiral Doenitz, you are a genius devil." “Did you find something” asked the Klingon? Garrett turned to the Klingon and began to explain "We may have something to work with," Garrett said. "In fact we may have more than we were looking for." He straightened and took a deep breath of satisfaction then began explaining. "Intrusive programs can be made to do just about anything. Add to that the fact we are dealing with something designed by people who know Starfleet program protocols. "It seems this program we're looking for is spread through many of our systems, including the shields."Garrett pointed to his screen. "This program is designed to take down our defensive capabilities incrementally. Why it isn't just rendering them completely inoperative I don't know. Probably the Admiral would rather have the ship intact. If a ship starts losing the ability to defend itself in the middle of a fight, the captain will have to decide whether or not they will surrender. I'd be willing to bet this program is designed to be inserted into any Starfleet vessel whose loyalties may not move toward Doenitz." Bartok looked thoughtful for a moment. “That would fit in with what I have discovered about this virus. By itself it is passive until activated by something, then it begins to call up programs diverting the energy from the cloak, it also replicates itself every time it is activated. It is immune to all known Star Fleet anti viral attacks as well, BUT it is not immune to this." Bartok displayed his Klingon PADD. "There are some things in here I used when serving in the Klingon Defense Force, working on some different type cloaks. I can destroy the virus now but if there are any others then they may be able to adapt to the anti virus.” "I don't like the idea of a random virus running through the ship's computers doing who knows what," Garrett said. "If the Captain decides to make that transmission to the away team we will need everything one hundred percent when the Dian Chang gets here, especially the cloak. If they inserted a program to overcome our cloak then would they not try to do something to with the phasers and the shields as well. What if we widened the parameters of our network detection programs to include any kind of formula or character variations. Let the computer do a line by line camparison to what we have in the back-up programs with the cloaking programs that are in place now. It'll take some time but if the programs don't match up the computer can tell us why and what files have been changed. If it is self-propagating, our computer experts may be able to use the coding to trace it back to its parent program." "Afterwards we can run my removal tool and clean the system," Bartok said. "I had the idea the Chang tried to take us in one piece when they boarded," Garrett continued," which supports the idea that the Admiral Doenitz wants his ships intact. But I would bet the Chang's Marines would have blown us and themselves into the the next universe when their attack went sour," Garrett said, remembering the device he'd seen the Chang's Marines setting up beside the warp core. "They were interrupted before they could, fortunately. But in a ship to ship confrontation against the Chang, if they can overcome our defensive capabilities, then the fight would take on a whole new dimension and it would not work in our favor." The theory made sense to Bartok as did the fail safe device. Take it over or take it out. The theory of a program to be inserted into a ship to be taken over was a sound one but what if it went further. Bartok looked at Garrett for a moment before speaking. “what if this is in every ship, added at the time of construction or at each dry docking, needing only to be activated. A sleeper program with the activation code known only to a chosen few?" "That 'few' begin chosen by Doenitz himself," Garrett added. "Those who prove loyal to him. "And there a few more anomolies here," Garrett continued. "The sims show the tachyon flux patterns in our cloaking system are consistent. Normally they would more randomized to seem like normal background sensor trash. The flux is still within safety parameters so it might go undetected. However, if another ship like the Chang is one of the Admiral's chosen few and they know what to look for, the flux patterns will like a rustle in the dark." "This should be brought to Hhrill’s attention," Bartok stated. Garrett nodded. "Most of this is pure speculation. But we may need teams on all defensive and navigation " He was about to tap his com-badge then stopped his fingers short. "Something else here." He turned to his console. "Computer identify subspace modulation readings from the simulation compile. What is the source." [The signal is eminating from the Engineering Deck,] the computer replied. "'Is eminating,'" Garrett repeated, shocked. "Computer is the signal being transmitted now?" [Affirmative. Subspace modulation reading in simulation compile is presently active in the Engineering Deck.] "Then why hasn't anyone detected it," Garrett said as he tapped his com-badge. "Ensign Garrett to Lt. Hhril." The computer made a reply as he spoke, something about information not being available. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ End compile