A prankster in our midst.. or something more?

Posted on Fri Oct 19, 2012 @ 9:56pm by Fleet Captain Rhea Kennit & Lieutenant Commander Miguel Torres

2,519 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Refit and Reorganization
Location: SB900: U.S.S. Victory
Timeline: 62349.034 {Thu, 27 Sep 2384 07:03}

From previous post titled: "Getting back to work"

U.S.S. Victory: Primary Bridge

0703 hours

Brian's ears perked up from the talk of a possible hacker staging a farewell prank for the ship. He steps down from the tactical console and politely interjects, "Excuse me Captain, sirs, is there a problem this morning?"

The Captain turned towards him, "You should be telling me that Commander. Has there been a reported problem involving ship's network security?"

Alec turned his gaze on the newcomer, to both see and hear the reply. One thing Katrijn didn't but up with was being left out of the loop on anything that pertained to the ship's performance. She and he had overseen this refit for two long years and now the end was finally in sight.

Valen turned to acknowledge a mountain of a man dressed in a security uniform. "Here, I'll bring it up..." the Intel Officer said and nodded towards the terminal. "Computer, display network security log." The computer responded with a chime and drew the screen with information. "There," Val tapped a red line crossing the monitor with a finger.

He allowed the trio a moment to read the report then offered a sympathetic shrug. He knew they were all anxious to get this boat set to starry sea and seemingly trivial delays had to be frustrating, but if there was one thing Val had learned over his years was the trivial errors were the ones that had a nasty habit of mutating into much larger problems if left ignored, and Fleet Intel was a no-risk organization. "Hey look, I know this doesn't seem like that big a deal; just slicing the internal net to tweak an alarm. But it still qualifies as unauthorized access, and I can't trust the Communicore's initialization until this has been flushed and restored. Better to do that while in dock than after we're underway."

OOC: New material

The Captain's gaze clearly reflected the irritation she felt as she reviewed the data in the report. "This kind of behavior is unbecoming for an officer assigned to this ship." she stated in a flat, no nonsense tone of voice. "I want to know who is responsible, whether it was one of our crew or one of the station's work crew. If its one of ours.. clearly this individual does not meet the standards for behavior which I expect my crew to follow and I want this person off of my ship!"

"Yes ma'am," Bishop acknowledges his soon-to-be-irate Commanding Officer. He taps and holds his commbadge to reach out to his Masters-At-Arms, his security teams. "Chief Mendez, this is Bishop, Tac Three."

"Tac Three, roger," Mendez responds as both men switch their channels to their third predetermined channel, secured from unwanted eavesdroppers. "Go on three."

"Chief, we have an unauthorized system user on board. Intensity security measures on this ship. Have Halstead run background checks on all civilians on this ship. If anyone has even a booger on their record, I want them benched until it's cleared up."

"Yes sir, anything further sir?"

"Lieutenant Devereaux is forwarding his findings to you now. Use that as a starting point and track down this subject. Once you find him, escort him or her off this ship and to the brig on the station."

"Yes Commander, getting on the case right now sir."

"Good man, Bishop out." Bishop closed out the channel and turned back to the Commander. "Captain, at this time I must insist that either myself or one of my Masters-At-Arms escort you as you go about the ship and your business until we catch this suspect."

"Negative." Kennit answered immediately. "This is simply the inappropriate behavior of a juvenile individual who has no business being assigned to this ship. Find the culprit, so that I can have him or her removed from my crew and request a replacement."

"Interviewing the crewman whose clock was tampered with would be a good starting place," Devereaux offered after keying the computer terminal to flag the network log as available for all security personnel on the ship. "Maybe have your chief engineer give the room a look-over and see if they can trace it back?" Val shrugged his shoulders, wishing he could help but feeling a bit out of his element, then drew another sip of his morning coffee.

Val could fully appreciate running a tight ship and maintaining crew discipline, but surely hunting down some half-assed jokester wasn't such a dire emergency that everything else needed to be put on hold. "Bringing pranksters to justice is all well and good, but all I really need is for the network to be clean so I can get to work. So might I suggest you keep the logs and diagnostic info for your investigation, and go forward with wiping the core and reloading from a clean backup? Or restore the system from an earlier secured state... or whatever magic the boys in gold need to do to get the 'core initiation greenlit?"

Kennit nodded once as she turned and walked towards a status console on the bridge, "I can do that..." she answered simply. Logging into the system, she made two copies of the relevant data logs and diagnostics. One to work from, and a second which was copied into a private database storage module which was inaccessible to any other members of the ship's crew other than herself. "All right.. initializing a system reset. Once the process has completed the network will be secure once again and you should have no further problems getting the Computer Core online.."

"Much obliged, Captain. I'll be downstairs setting things up if you need me." He offered a nod of farewells to Kennit, then the other officers, before exiting the bridge.

Bishop was starting to like this ship more and more, seeing that most of the security features can start and end with the Captain without having to go through the XO, with all due respect to him of course. As soon as the core goes through its restart, the Security team can do a more forensic data search and trace the poozer to be rooted out. Despite the Captain turning down his insistence for physical security covering her, he remained on the bridge close to her, audibly communicating with his Weapons Mates as they are waiting for the all clear to bring on their torpedoes.

Alec looked at the security chief, masking his annoyance, "Mr. Bishop, you don't need to hover about the Captain and if I'm not mistaken, she has given you orders. You have work to do, so I suggest you get to it."

Hearing her XO's remarks, the Captain had to work at keeping a pleased smile from her lips. A strong XO was a valuable asset to any Commanding Officer. The private details of their working relationship's development over the past 2 years as they had worked to oversee the Victory's refit was well.. all the more reason for that smile to want to break free.. Fortunately she was able to restrain it.

Tags Bishop?,

SB900: Shuttlebay

0730 hours

Miguel looked in the mirror at the clean shaven face and short cut hair that he was now sporting. It was a look he hadn't seen in four years when he took his leave. Now he was back in uniform and about to live this Starfleet life again. The new uniform felt weird to him, but again it was more than likely just because he hadn't needed to wear one as he worked with construction crews in the Bajor system. Miguel shook his head if it had been anyone other than Rhea he would have told them to go frak themselves. But he owed her and he always paid his debts. After giving himself one last look over he left the aft cabin of the finally docked shuttle gathered his bags and exited.

USS Victory

0745 hours

He hadn't been on the Victory long. In fact as soon as he boarded the Petty Officer that had greeted him took his bags and said they'd be waiting in his new quarters. Of course it would save him some time, but Miguel would have actually liked to have seen his quarters for himself. The Petty Officer informed him of where it was at least, so Miguel wouldn't be totally lost. He looked around the corridor as he made his way to the turbolift. He noticed some changes that had been made since he had sereved on the first ship of the class. At least there wasn't as much white as the Prometheus had when he first boarded it. He entered the turbolift.

=/\= Destination please. =/\=

"What's the Captain's current location?" Miguel asked the computer.

=/\= The Victory has so person of such rank currently on board. The Commanding officer of this vessel is Commander Rhea Kennit=/\=

Miguel's eyes nearly rolled to the back of his head. "Mandito seas. What is Commander Kennit's location?"

=/\= The Commander is currently located on the Primary bridge. =/\=

"Very well then take me to the bridge." Miguel ordered.

=/\=The Victory has three distinct bridges.... =/\=

Miguel didn't even let the computer finish. "The Primary bridge!" he said with a noticeable irritation in his voice. He and the computer were going to have a long conversation. First he was going to teach it naval tradition about the Commanding officer being called Captain even if that wasn't the rank of the CO.

When the doors opened up the first thing that his him was the smell of fresh paint. "Good god was this ship even ready for launch yet?" he wondered as he looked and saw the Captain at the command chair looking over a padd. He walked over to her and stood at attention. "Lt. Commander Torres reporting for duty Captain."

She turned towards him, expression blank as she said "Lt. Commander Torres. You're late. As usual.."

"Well ma'am I guess I'll just have to figure out how to increase a shuttle's top warp capability so it can make the trip for the Bajoran system to here in a matter of hours instead of weeks." he replied without hesitation.

"Or do like everyone else.." she answered, expression blank though her eyes were dancing with mischief as she finished speaking and said, "and either take a ship capable of flying faster than warp 3, or charter passage on a fleet transport."

He might not have been around her much in the last four years. But he still knew that little glint in her eyes. "That was fleet transport. If I could afford something faster I would have. But then again that means the Federation would have to go back to paying us." he answered back.

"You mean you haven't been getting paid?" the Captain answered, her tone of voice clearly indicating that she was getting paid and clearly something must just be wrong with Miguel when they were interrupted by Lt. Cmdr. Bishop's surprised statement.

Bishop's ears burned with surprise. He walked down to the Chief Engineer and asked, "Torres, Lieutenant Commander Miquel Torres?"

Katrijn turned to look at him, wondering what had gotten the Lt. Commander so worked up that his ears were flushed rather noticeably...

"Uhm yes." Miguel replied wondering who this person was. "I am. Do I know you Lt. Commander?"

"One of your admirers sir," Bishop says with a smile. "I read up on your dissertation on Simplified Warp Core efficiency for Combatant Ships, which was based on your experience on the cruiser Lexington while I was attending OCS (Officer Candidate School). It's an honor to work with you Commander."

The Captain just blinked. Once. Then looked from Torres, back to Bishop, and then at Torres again as she said "You mean there are people out in the Fleet who read that stuff if they don't have to?"

"Boredom can lead to complacency, and complacency be dangerous ma'am," Bishop says. "Nothing with with expanding one's knowledge base, especially when it might come in handy if you need to use said knowledge against the bad guy."

"Speaking of the 'bad guy'," the Commander stated. "I want to know who screwed around with my ship's computer systems by end of the day...."

"Some people actually want to improve their minds." Miguel replied to the Captain. "Someone has been messing with the computer?" he asked.

The expression on her face said far more than any words could convey. Irritation and a steadily rising desire to seriously choke someone.. "Have I been talking to the bulkhead all this time?" she asked no one in particular. "We've had a low level system hack, someone thought it would be cute to play a juvenile prank but I don't much like the idea that a member of my crew is so unprofessional to behave in such a manner and I want the guilty person or persons identified so that I can arrange a transfer and get them off my ship before we depart space dock. This is a classified starship gentlemen, though I should not have to remind you of that fact. Someone on the crew doesn't understand what that means.. and that person therefore has no business being aboard.."

Miguel just shook his head, not in all his years in Starfleet had he heard of such a thing. "What is this Kindergarden?" he asked Rhea.

"No. It isn't." The Captain answered. "So find the child and get the brat off of my ship before we launch.."

Before either man could answer, she held up a hand and added, "I have more to get done than to stand around here babysitting you gentlemen. Find our problem child, and get him or her off of my ship. I don't want to hear excuses, I want a name.. and I want confirmation that individual is gone. Until then.." she paused, and nodded her head at them. "Gentlemen... I leave you to the task at hand."

Miguel nodded "I'll go down to engineering and start back tracking this." he told her. "As soon as I know something I'll let you and Lt. Commander Bishop know." he said and then turned around and left the bridge. Getting into something like this was a bit of a waste of time which annoyed him, but not at the Captain but at the person that could have done this. Miguel was half tempted to find the person and kick their ass personally. But that wasn't his job, he'd leave that to security.

Watching as Torres departed, the Captain's gaze swiveled towards the Security Chief.. one eyebrow raised and then, without speaking she turned and retreated back to the Ready Room where there were several reports awaiting her sign off in order to be able to finalize and record the certifications and completion of work items so that they could get underway on time.


TBC....

(Next post coming up soon as I get it finished and written)

 

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