The Investigation (Part 3 of 4)

Posted on 16 Aug 2013 @ 9:16pm by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Captain Jonathan Holliday & Commander Scarlet Blake & Commander Andreus Kohl & Lieutenant JG Delainey Carlisle & Lieutenant Commander Amynta Markos & Commander Allyndra illm Warraquim & Lieutenant Jared Nicholas & Command Master Chief Markum Quinn & Lieutenant Jacob Pendleton & Chief Warrant Officer 2 Riley Cameron & Petty Officer 1st Class Siren Hex Saalm & EMH Mark X-C "Shirley" & Chief Warrant Officer 3 Alexion Wylde & Verity Thorne

2,258 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Episode 04 - Exodus
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 4, Sickbay/Science Lab
Timeline: MD 01 - 2300 hrs

Previously, on The Investigation (Part 2)...

Moving over to her chief, Siren moved in close to Amynta when she'd seen that she'd finished so she could lower her voice to a whisper. "I got what I could. It all seemed to happen so fast that details are light on the ground."

Markos met her eyes, frowning as she gave a weak nod. "I've gotten some information. We should sit down and look over it, see what corresponds..."

"And get a report in to command," Siren nodded in agreement, frowning as she touched Amynta's sleeve with a shiver, moving away with her.

And Now, the Continuation...

[ON]

Science Lab

It had been a long few days. Scarlet Blake had been ordered out in Marina, and it had seemed a very long journey in the runabout before they'd found Venture. Then they'd spent all day taking scans in the debris, searching the Nacelle, and assisting in gathering the survivors to co-ordinate a rescue effort. She'd not even been back on Galileo long enough to stop off at home yet. It had been a long time since she'd last seen Lily, but she had to trust she was okay.

So instead of heading 'home' to see her daughter, she was walking into the Science Lab, frowning with focus and the drain of the last days, her long dark hair still tied back out the way as she moved to see what their people had made of everything they'd found out in the debris field so far. "So what have we got?"

Jared's cabin was warm and inviting and he enjoyed it. But he tried not to bring his work home, even though as a linguist he was not a typical scientist that required a laboratory.

Still that is where he worked. He'd been in the lab for a couple of hours working on translating an ancient Andorian parchment he had been given. The dialect was tricky, but he was in his element and enjoying his work.

Cameron had of course, been busying himself in completing the interface between the Venture's flight recorder and the Galileo's computer core. Although built to be resistant to a lot of punishments, there was still damage that had made life much harder for the engineer to set up a stable data link.

"Aww come on ya wee blighter....all I want is for you to show me what you recorded...why do you have to be so difficult?"

"I'll take that to mean we haven't got anything yet," Scarlet arched an eyebrow as she laid her hands on the surface close to them, leaning forward on it to look. She sighed with frustration, but it was comradely, understanding Cameron's, not directed at his struggle.

Quinn came into the Science Lab carrying a large black box with both hands. He found a suitable place to put it and then set it down. "Hello, sirs. I thought I'd bring in the flight data recovery system from the Venture's nacelle control room. Any takers?"

"Aw great, another one to add to the pile huh?" Cameron said, sonic screwdriver in one hand, and plasma cutter held firmly between his teeth leading to a slightly muffled reply. His spare hand was of course buried firmly in the EPS tap located underneath the science lab conduit, desperately trying to locate the right control chip to get the data recorder operational.

After a few moment's of abject Scottish determination, the tiny relay fired into life, and the datalink flashed up on the screen as finally established.

"Aye...well..that's one working Commander Blake. Mr Quinn sir, would you care to assist me in getting that box of yours hooked up?"

Quinn nodded. "You bet. You should have seen the mess Commander Blake and I had to make to retrieve this thing. They really shove it in deep on those Galaxy-Class. I thought I was going to need a whole tube of industrial grade lubricant to get up into it."

Scarlet gave a half smile at that, folding her arms as she watched on the work. "Can we start putting some pieces of the puzzle together? When we were out there, the damage we saw was immense. It looked like something had carved through it without much effort at all."

Jared had been sitting there for sometime, just listening to everything that was going on around him. He hadn't looked at the text he was suppose to be translating for a good ten minutes.

"Anything I can do to help?" he finally ventured.

Jacob walked in to see how things had progressed, "Ah, good to see you Jared and you as well Commander Blake." He smiled and bowed slightly to both of them, "I have been tracking the downloads of data and came down to see if I could assist in some way."

Once the data recorder was properly interfaced with Galileo's LCARS system, large blocks of data began to stream on one of the main monitors in the science lab. It was a series of alpha-numerical sequences which contained USS Venture's various computer system logs before, during, and after the attack, but it appeared to be heavily encrypted.

Jared grinned slightly when he saw the code. Languages came easily to him, at least most of the time and codes like this were not much different. The sequence was quit complicated, but after examining things for a few minutes he had some ideas and he began working.

After the first decoding attempt, a large red error message flashed on the monitor in traditional Starfleet computer fashion, accompanied by an audio warning from Galileo's main computer.

::::: 080-229 - ACCESS DENIED - 889 :::::

"Aww hang on - let me take a look at this daft thing." Riley reached out for the console, trying to remember a few of the algorithms that he had been taught during his academy tenure. For a moment it was as if he would find his way through the alphanumeric maze. Entering the final line of code, he tapped the confirm key with an optimistic grunt.

The second attempt produced a similar result, however this time the error message was a bit more informative.

::::: 080-229 - ACCESS DENIED - LEVEL 10 AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED - 889 :::::

Scarlet sighed, shaking her head as she pinched the bridge of his nose. "Alright, this isn't getting us far..." she tapped her badge, setting a hand on the small of her back. "Blake to Captain Saalm, we have one of the boxes hooked up, but we need a Level 10 Authorisation to get in."

"On my way." Lirha replied from the bridge with a tap on her commbadge. Apparently the team sent to retrieve the data in the science lab had stumbled upon a restricted access file, and hopefully her senior access codes could unlock the partition. Hastily leaving the bridge and entering the turbolife, it only took a minute before she was down on Deck 4 and walking swiftly down the corridor. The door to the science lab swished open as she walked inside, then she moved to stand next to the team of assembled officers to see what they were doing. "What is the problem?" she asked, hoping someone could provide her with details.

"Skipper." Quinn walked over with plasma torch in one hand and a mallet and magnet in the other. "We have the fight recorder from the bridge. We have tried a few different ways of getting around the codes to get in, but it requires a much too high of a level of clearance. So..." looking at this tools in his hand. "I figured if we can't get around the codes, then we peel the shell off and do it the fun way. Unless you can access it, that is?"

Looking skeptically at the crude devices in the former-chief engineer's hands, Lirha quickly moved towards the data box for fear that Quinn might actually use one of them on the sensitive piece of equipment. "Yes, I will attempt to input my codes. One moment." she answered, making sure to strategically put herself between him and the device.

Her green fingers tapped several button sequences on the LCARS interface while she input her command codes, and after a short moment, a green message flashed on the large monitor.

::::: 080-229 - ACCESS GRANTED - 889 :::::

The previously-encrypted blocks of data began to decode as Galileo's computer mainframe diligently converted the raw data into tangible images and logs, and about a minute later the entire contents of Venture's bridge logs had been downloaded and were now available for review.

Nodding in satisfaction, Lirha grabbed a chair and sat down at the table then started to sift through the various logs starting with the primary and lateral sensor arrays. If anything was going to give them a clue as to what had occurred, it was most likely the sensor data. "Here we go..." she mumbled, then looked up to the large monitor.

"Accessing primary sensor data, time frame 0000 to 1600 hours one day ago..."

Staring at the screen as the full sensor picture was finally presented, Lirha watched the top-down map view as Venture's Starfleet icon moved across the screen, apparently investigating the nebula in a standard grid search patten. As it progresses through the minutes and hours, it became apparent that the ship had found something of interest which caused it to change course and begin searching a smaller sub-grid.

The recording kept playing and Lirha's eyebrows shot up as a red contact icon suddenly materialized less than 100 km from Venture's icon. It closed quickly on the Galaxy Class' stardrive and was within weapons range in a matter of seconds. The rest...was a horrifying scene to watch, even on a sensor display. The intricate data recorder's logs showed a heavy volley of weapons fire directed at Venture, accompanied by critical systems warnings and malfunctions. A rapid second volley quickly followed suit and suddenly the log stopped recording - the screen had suddenly changed to only static.

"Computer, replay the last thirty seconds of primary sensor log. Visual recordings only." the Orion captain said with a frown, then watched as the data rewound itself and began to replay, only this time with a clear look as the crew members on Venture's bridge would have seen it.

The view of the visual log on the monitor was stunning. Against the sparkling blue and turquoise backdrop of the nebula, a large cubic object appeared to briefly shimmer then suddenly materialized in all of its Borg glory. Lirha had seen such an object before but never in person; only at the Academy. Its heavily-plated gray hull armor was not the traditional version of a Borg cube, but rather that of a tactical cube, the Collective's most powerfully-recorded starship. It closed on the stardrive with incredible speed and a series of green cutting beams and torpedo volleys quickly followed suit. The image on the screen shuddered under the intense weapons fire, and a particularly violent barrage was seen penetrating the Federation ship's forward shields and sending large chunks of hull debris blasting out into space. The recording device then lost the image of main forward monitor which was replaced by a static image - most likely due to damage to the main deflector array - but the view promptly switched to an external camera and the carnage could be seen in detail.

The Borg cube efficiently and effortlessly sliced its way through Venture's shields and hull, and several escape pods could be seen ejecting from the sides and bottom of the engineering section. With its shields down, a well-placed cutting beam sheared off one of the giant nacelles and sent it floating aimlessly into space as power conduits and relays failed, rupturing the glowing blue plasma injectors and exploding their contents into space. The stardrive section began to list to the side out of control and meanwhile more escape pods could be seen deploying from the critically damaged ship.

The last image of the sensor logs was particularly disturbing; a cluster of ten to twelve escape pods attempting to flee from the cube were pursued and tractored by the giant Borg ship, then were subsequently dragged inside one of the menacing docking ports against their will. The log recording suddenly fizzled out and turned to static again, signaling the end of the visual log and the final moment of the stardrive's life.

To Be Continued...

[OFF]

--

CAPT Lirha Saalm
Commanding Officer
USS Galileo

CMDR Jonathan Holliday
Executive Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant jg Allyndra illm Warraquim
ACMO
USS Galileo

Lieutenant Andreus Kohl
Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo

Lt. Cmdr. Scarlet Blake
Chief Counsellor/2XO
USS Galileo

Master Chief Petty Officer Markum Quinn
COB
USS Galileo

Lt. Amynta Markos
Chief Intelligence Officer
USS Galileo

LT Delainey Carlisle
Asst. Chief Counselor
USS Galileo

LTJG Jared Nicholas
Language Specialist
USS Galileo

LT Jacob Pendleton
Chief Research Officer
USS Galileo

CN Siren Hex
Intelligence Officer
USS Galileo
NPC'd by Scarlet Blake

WO Alexion Wylde
Medical Officer
USS Galileo
NPC'd by Scarlet Blake

PO2 Verity Thorne
Chaplain
USS Galileo
NPC'd by Scarlet Blake

WO Riley Cameron
Engineering Officer
USS Galileo
NPC'd by John Holliday

EMH Mark-X
Medical Officer
USS Galileo
NPC'd by John Holliday

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