Another Piece of the Puzzle

Posted on Thu Jun 6th, 2024 @ 11:30am by Lieutenant JG Nayisa Wrea
Edited on on Thu Aug 29th, 2024 @ 3:31am

Mission: Character Development
Location: Intel Suite
Timeline: 32 hours after 'Failure is Merely a Setback'
1330 words - 2.7 OF Standard Post Measure

It was late. Nayisa promised to have the data from the away teams processed before she went off duty, and she was beginning to regret that decision. There were just enough people on both teams that kept their passive scans running, and it made for a massive collection of data. Slowly stirring her tea with a spoon, Nayisa sighed as she read through the information. Who decided that keeping passive scans running was a great idea? she thought. Leaving the spoon resting against the side of the mug, Nayisa typed on the console to set up some sorting algorithms, using keywords to extract information and hopefully filter down the number of useless "console receiving power" scans.

As the sorting began, the words began to appear quickly on the screen, just fast enough to read but gone by the time the brain understood what was read. Leaning back, Nayisa cradled the mug between her two hands and watched the words flicker. It would take a few minutes to get through all of the data. Painfully enough, the information had already been filtered substantially, and it was still a lot to go through.

She paused mid-sip as her eyes picked up a familiar name that flickered onto the screen. Setting her mug down, Nayisa opened a new interface and looked at the data that had been filtered, locating the name. She leaned in a little closer to double check the spelling. Korvim Tuhl... there was no mistake, she recognized the alias. He was behind the kidnapping. It wasn't normally his go-to trade, but it wasn't the first time he's abducted someone either. What was he up to? She spared a glance around the suite. It was minimally staffed, only two others in the suite, but it was two more people than she preferred. She still had to report the name, and she could make it work.

Typing on the console, she connected to the computer in her quarters, mildly abusing her "working hours" clearance to secure the connection. While the computer was working, she collected the relevant information that the teams had collected while away. Frustratingly, it wasn't as much as she'd like, but always better than nothing. She included the alias, Athena's scans of the base and the data collected while inside, and what they knew about the diplomatic party. Nayisa frowned as she typed "suspect not on site," knowing it was practically a default addition to these reports. This was significant, however. This activity was very recent, which meant he couldn't have gotten far, but she doubted that an order to pursue would be sent to the Athena. Too much involvement just by rescuing the diplomats, and Korvim would expect them to go after him.

When Nayisa was ready, she paused to mentally prepare for the next part. Normally, she'd transfer the data packet she just made to her computer as part of a "systems upgrade" and do the transfer from her quarters, but with the restricted access, it was ultimately easier to do it from the suite. When she got confirmation that her connection to her personal computer was secure, she opened a terminal.

> run chicken_liver Working... ====================== | Project Management | ====================== 1. Elsa 2. Silverwood 3. Glimpse 4. Lynx 5. Create new... > Enter the project you wish to access: > Connecting... > Initializing firewalls... > Poking eyes...

Nayisa smiled a little at the printouts on her screen. She created this script originally as a way to keep track of her side hobbies, giving it a ridiculous name so it gave no insight to what it actually did. 'Elsa' was where she kept all of the things she's managed to get P'Rel to say or do. 'Silverwood' was her list of people she liked to stay in contact with. 'Lynx' was where she kept all of her scripts and where she played around with new ideas. That left 'Glimpse,' the reason for her visit today.

The 'poking eyes' bit was an obscure reference to one of her favorite movies: the 2290 rewrite of Anon III, where one of the characters literally poked someone's eyes out for spying on her. It was the part of her program that ensured her connection was as private as it could be. She configured 'chicken_liver' to run under certain firewall settings, and without those settings it would run a decoy script that would simply generate a secure key for connecting to another system. Still functional, but not its true purpose.

PM : Entering Project Mosaic Interface PM : WARNING - connection unsecure. It is highly recommended to access this project from a personal device. PM : Continue with basic access? [Y/N]: PM : Response recorded. Proceeding with Access Level 2. PM : Project Mosaic security key: PM : Authorization confirmed. Welcome, User **6501. Connection by User **6501 recorded in project logs. PM : Enter the task you wish to perform:

Nayisa had intentionally disabled the printed list of tasks that would normally appear on the screen. She didn't often work in public places, but it was overall safer to memorize the list in the event she ever was in public. It also ensured that if the console were ever monitored, at least visually, that it would be harder to identify which option she chose. A perk to the basic access, however, meant that she had effectively no access to anything within the project itself and each action would be recorded for another collaborator to review, which was perfect for public use. All she could do was send data.

PM : Response recorded. Activity by User **6501 recorded in project logs. PM : Configuring for data transfer... PM : Provide data packet to transfer: PM : Packet received. Activity by User **6501 recorded in project logs. PM : Encrypting data packet using protocol Sigma Tau Epsilon 4... PM : Data encrypted. Confirming secure connection... PM : Confirming secure connection... PM : Connection secure. Transmit? [Y/N]: PM : Response recorded. Activity by User **6501 recorded in project logs. PM : Project Mosaic security key: PM : Authorization confirmed. Data transfer by User **6501 recorded in project logs. PM : Data packet sending... PM : Data packet sent. Awaiting confirmation handshake... PM : Awaiting confirmation handshake...

Nayisa hated this part. It always took so long because the transmission was being threaded as fragments into other data streams leaving the ship. It made her nervous, even after 5 years. She watched the same three words repeat themselves every couple of seconds, sparing another glance around the suite.

PM : Awaiting confirmation handshake... PM : Handshake confirmed. Data transmitted successfully. PM : WARNING - insufficient clearance to generate tracking ID. Level Three access required, current access is Level Two. PM : Track packet? (Level Three access required) [Y/N]: PM : Response recorded. Activity by User **6501 recorded in project logs. PM : Send new data packet? [Y/N]: PM : Response recorded. Activity by User **6501 recorded in project logs. PM : Logging out...

After a couple of seconds, the terminal blinked out of existence. 'chicken_liver' would have identified that she was connecting remotely, so it terminated the connection for her and undid all of the security walls it had put up. She didn't usually track the data packets, as it was often riskier. The underlying code to do the transfer was tested for the entire first year of the project, so all of the weird anomalies were identified and accounted for. The only way something could go wrong was if the console she was working on or her personal computer were being monitored, or if the intel suite had stricter tracking than she thought.

The data she gathered to transfer wasn't going to waste, however. It was a summary of her efforts to comb through the data, so after removing the "suspect not on site" bit and adding in some other stuff that was useful to the Athena, she saved it and stored it in the intel suite logs. "Finally!" she said to herself. Closing everything down for the night, Nayisa stood, clasped her hands behind her to stretch, then made her way to her quarters for the night.