The Point of No Return

Posted on Fri Apr 28th, 2023 @ 11:28am by Lieutenant Didrea Zade & Lieutenant JG Nayisa Wrea

Mission: Wrath of the People
Location: Deck 2 :: Kane's Quarters
Timeline: MD5 :: After 'Put That Audacity Back Where You Found It, Or So Help Me'
1181 words - 2.4 OF Standard Post Measure

A few minutes later, the pair arrived at the proverbial dragon's den. On the door to Kane's quarters was a sign which indicated that access to the space was restricted until further notice. It was about an hour after the shift change, and the buzz of activity in the halls had died back down to their normal levels. While they were in the turbolift, Nayisa gave Zade a tricorder, one that she had grabbed on the way out of the offices, and instructed her to mask their signatures. Still uncomfortable with even being pulled into this assignment, Zade grudgingly complied and made the tricorder emit a frequency that would render them invisible to internal sensors. Of course, it didn't mean that they were actually invisible, but fortunately, nobody was around when the two stopped in front of Kane's quarters.

Zade stared at the sign for a moment before turning to Nayisa and asking quietly, "ok, so what now?"

Nayisa set her bag on the ground and pulled out the two cameras, handing one to Zade. It was about twice the size of a pip and silver. "Walk that way until you can just barely see the doors from the outer curve of the corridor and stick this to the wall. Preferably put it on something silver and not in line of sight, like near the floor," she instructed with equal volume, pointing down the hall.

The instructions from Nayisa sounded more like an order than a request. Slightly irked, Zade narrowed her eyes, "are you ordering me, Ensign?"

"Well, technically, yeah, since I'm leading this assignment." There was a brief pause as Nayisa realized that she was still holding the camera, and she looked to the security chief. She saw Zade's annoyance deepen before she added with a sheepish smile, "... buuuut it's actually a... strategic and tactical recommendation, nothing more."

Not quite satisfied but not wanting to be caught standing around suspiciously, Zade grabbed the small device out of Nayisa's hand. She then walked down the hall until she could see a faint sliver of the entry to Kane's quarters if she pressed her face to the outer wall. Kneeling, she found a strip of silver along the wall and placed the small device on top of it, feeling it suction into place. It wasn't until she was on her way back that she spotted Zora's quarters, and her heart nervously skipped a beat. The idea of Zora potentially being within meters of them while they were breaking into Kane's quarters nearly made her bail. Act natural, she thought to herself, feeling skittish as she walked past the set of doors.

Nayisa had placed her camera already and was rifling through the bag when Zade returned. She pulled out the survey PADD and synced it to the two cameras they had placed, and set up the camera angles so they had a full view of the corridor, and then some. Unlike last time, she wasn't about to get caught leaving a restricted area, especially with a senior officer in tow. "Keep an eye on this," she said, handing the PADD to her friend. "Let me know if anyone is coming, and watch the surrounding area, too." Seeing a momentary glare from Zade, she added, "please."

So the pip-looking thing was a camera. The PADD felt heavy in Zade's hands. Not because it was of any special design; the PADD looked like nothing more than the large PADDs she used to look at diagrams of the ship. The heaviness was entirely from the stress of knowing that Zora could be just down the hall, either in her quarters or in her office, and fate could sway her to take a walk and come down the corridor toward them. Surveillance wasn't foreign to her, but watching out for the crew while doing something very illegal, was. "Do you want me to use like a code word or something to alert you?"

Nayisa snorted. As much as she wanted to pull the harmless prank of telling Zade to use "Eye Dee Ten Tee" as a code word for unwanted company, it wasn't nearly as funny if she was the only one around to hear it. "No, just say whatever you'd normally say if you were running surveillance," she responded, pulling out the other PADD, the spanner-like device, and the cable. Standing, she approached the wall panel and popped open a small access hatch, using two fingers to wiggle the cable in and connect it to the port inside the hatch. She connected the other end to the PADD and got to work, recalling her study of the seal to navigate around it. The first seal was easy, it was a matter of guessing the right combination of letters and numbers, and she had a couple programs on the PADD to do that work for her at a much faster speed.

Sure enough, the first seal was bypassed within about 20 seconds. "Atta girl..." Nayisa cooed to the device in her hand. Now the tricky part. Holding the PADD in one hand and the spanner in the other, the silver-haired woman probed the panel, feeding the PADD information about the second seal so she could find a safe way to bypass it.

Deciding that the best place to be so she'd get the best view was against the wall by Kane's quarters, Zade alternated her view from looking down one corridor, the PADD in her hands, to looking down the other corridor. With the camera setup, she could see about three times the length of the visible corridor. She often spotted people in the corridor on the PADD, usually coming out of the turbolifts, but every time she was about to say something, the officers would go into the mess hall or one of the engineering support labs. "You almost done?" she asked after nearly two minutes of silence. It was the longest two minutes of her life.

Nayisa ignored the question as she identified the failsafe for the second seal. Damn, it cycled faster than she anticipated. It was a weird enough practice to even link motion sensors to a failsafe, but to make them cycle as fast as they were? Whoever put them up really didn't want anyone snooping. She watched it cycle a couple times to be sure before configuring the PADD to send the correct information the failsafe was looking for, as well as program in a countdown timer. Probing the panel once more with the spanner, she heard a click come from inside the wall, followed by a hiss as the door unsealed itself. All that was left was to enter in an access code. "Last chance to back out," she told Zade, unplugging the cable from the wall and returning the hatch to its former position.

Zade wanted to. She hated this idea with a burning passion. But she couldn't leave Nayisa to do it alone. She needed to make sure the intelligence officer stayed true to her word. "Let's get this over with."