[End Act 2] LtCmdr Tamio K'Wara - The Afalqi Virus

[LtCmdr Tamio K'Wara]

((Tertiary Conference Room - Operations Center, Deck 5, USS Artemis-A ))

The Afalqi thieves’ roster - or at least their best attempt at putting one together - was taking shape as the team came together as one to pour over the data they’d managed to procure from the central complex on Meranuge IV, and yet new information kept trickling in from every team aboard the vessel that Tamio also had to mind. Most recently, a decrypted signal that Ava and the others had intercepted. Tamio didn’t need to think twice about who to hand that task over to.

K’Wara: Ollie, Cmdr Munro just sent over a decrypted signal that they intercepted from a probe deployed by the Afalqi. It may have been an attempt at communication to other co-conspirators. See if you can get it decrypted.::to Jaran:: What’s the verdict, Doctor? Is the device similar to the one the other team found?

Jaran: It's something new that I haven't seen before. It's like a genetic masker? But this one has a transporter pickup. Basically, the pattern interpolator gets overloaded with false readings from the implant and materialises the being using it based on what it thinks it was transporting.

Imril: And then, presumably, records the incorrect pattern to the buffer log. Effectively removing any evidence of who really used the transporter.

Which was one big massive security headache. Tamio couldn’t even imagine the kind of ulcers Starship Captains would develop, realizing that technology like this was in the hands of the Romulans. Their story with the Federation - while friendly-adjacent in the past couple of decades - was notoriously complicated.

Bergmen: At least we know how they managed to pull it off. I think we can add this as just one more thing to our transporters' security algorithms. ::smiles as his eyes are still focused on the encrypted message:: Just, one thing, wouldn't that cause the data discrepancy ending in the logical datastream loop failing transport?

Jaran: Yeah, that's the problem. The manipulation can't be perfect. If the user makes a small error in what they're trying to do, or the transporter operator fails to compensate, it's gonna be a bad day for everyone on the arrival end.

K’Wara: I presume just possessing the device isn’t enough for it to work, then?

Jaran: Exactly. It won't work unless both the user and the transporter operator are working together. The operator has to know exactly what the user is trying to do in order to convince the pattern interpolator that it's not wrong.

Imril: Then there’s more than one infiltrator. Someone to beam, someone to do the beaming.

While the revelation that the device needed two people to operate it properly did alleviate Tamio’s growing anxiety about the kind of security override most Transporters would need after all of this, it also meant that there were more undercover agents involved in this. And ‘more’ could mean a great many things.

Bergmen: Haven’t all the transport patterns we've captured have one and the same transport point of origin? That narrows the list of suspects to operators of that place, no?

K’Wara: It’s hard to narrow the list of suspects, when suspects are able to change appearances with one quick jaunt through the transporter matrix.

Jaran: So I guess the question is, what do we do with this information? Does this mean we have to question literally every face we see now?

Imril: I’m guessing those things are designed to hide from sensors somehow. Do we have a sure way to detect them?

Tamio nodded. That was, thankfully, already in hand, though they hadn’t realized how momentous that data would be when they’d first found it in the logs shown to them by Jetripar.

K’Wara: We have. Remember, the entire reason we knew there was someone here was because the biometric scan showed faulty readings. The DNA may be rewritten, but evidently, it’s not a perfect imitation. If we have both the scans of the device responsible, and the details of the scan that showed the fault, we can adjust ship sensors to weed them out.

Bergmen: Yeah, we have data on the device… I don’t see why that shouldn’t be possible.

Jaran: Response

Tamio immediately got to work, reporting their findings to the Security Department with attached recommendations to add a subroutine within internal sensors to run a shipwide biometric scan to Da’al specifications on an interval.

If anyone implanted with these kinds of devices were to beam aboard the Artemis, they would be found in short order.

Imril: Thinking ahead to when we catch up to the ship, we’ll need to come up with some way to make sure that they can't use these things to sneak someone aboard the Artemis. We could also recommend to the Captain an increased Security presence in all the transporter rooms and critical areas of the ship.

Bergmen: We can look into our transport security protocols after this and come up with a solution to detect this device, Lieutenant, sir. (beat) Once we end there, as it may require more time than we have now.

K’Wara: Detecting the device mid-transport would certainly expedite things. I’ve briefed Security on our findings, and recommended that they run the biometric scans on an interval once we meet up with the Afalqi. 

Jaran: Response

With the issue of the device laid to rest, Imril’s PADD announced itself with new information, and their attention moved.

Imril: Pilots. These ones look the most likely. Neruy and Sabteluk’s contracts flying for other outfits were bought out just to get them aboard, at Havun’s insistence. Beleek was a late addition; he waited out his outside contract with a luxury travel company and then turned down an extension. Accepted what I take to be a hefty pay cut to sign up. But there are texts between him and Havun that go back well before that. Back to when Lers first mentions him. Slihn is a cargo hauler employed by the hangar facility, listed AWOL by the scheduling computer. No identifiable connection to Lers, but she was at the symposium; that’s her there in one of the pictures with the unidentified woman.

Bergmen: Forget the pointy ears; take a little off the cheeks, smooth forehead, make eyes color hazelnut, and… (beat) Do you also find her shape a little too similar to our unknown woman from the symposium?

Tamio looked at the face of the Romulan Woman from the Box - the one who’d stumbled out, shot to death by a Da’al disruptor - and it was like someone walked over their grave. They weren’t particularly superstitious, no more or less than it was sensible to be as a pilot, but it would’ve been dishonest to claim that her face didn’t unsettle them slightly, if only by the connotations attached to it.

K’Wara: Which means she didn’t feel the need to obscure her identity itself, only her species. The Da’al do know there were Romulans involved with the development of the Afalqi’s technology - Jetripar said as much - but evidently, they weren’t supposed to be so ‘hands-on’.

And yet, if they’d only bothered to change their species-specific characteristics, that would at least suggest that they weren’t masquerading as already existing Da’al, taking their place in negotiations.

Jaran: Response

Bergmen: With the pilots identified, I would bring that encrypted message I should analyze - It’s basically a datadump. ::turns to Imril:: There were some technical data logs and things like that on Afalqi systems. I forwarded them to your engineers to make sense of them. ::glance to Jaran:: Another interesting thing was this medical data, looks like some results of different examinations? Can you take a look as a doctor? You will be able to read them better.

Imril/Jaran: Response

It was a curious choice for Havun - a noted traitor, ship’s thief and very secretive man - to be leaving technical data on ship systems on a probe, while knowing they were being pursued by the Artemis and a Nascaik warship.

K’Wara: Unless the information directly corroborates our findings, I’d say there’s a high chance that’s dummy data. He’s too careful to send entire ship schematics and medical logs for his fellow thieves in the middle of space, with no assurances that it won’t get picked up by the wrong people.

Bergmen: Rest is different things like sector charts - but no navigation data - continuous sensor data et cetra… (beat) But there was one thing interesting. It’s a multifrequency phased data block which should not exist, because storing data in multiple phase variants would degrade the correlation matrix of data sectors and…

Tamio wondered what it was about younger generations of Starfleet officers insisting on overexplaining everything.

K’Wara: Ollie.

Bergmen: Understood, sir. TLDL. Ok, shorter version. Our team took decoding from the wrong end. The data are stored in a single frequency variant; other data are independent. They are like… keyholes? As - once separated, I was able to identify as emergency frequencies - Federation, Nascaik, the list goes on, basically everyone around except Da’al - and when I tried in the sandbox vault to contact that data using the Starfleet emergency frequency key, they answered. It’s a prerecorded message by Havun, and I think we should look and listen…

Evidently, Olliver Kimmi Bergmen didn’t know what ‘shorter version’ actually meant. And if he did, Tamio dreaded to think how long his original explanation would’ve been. Nevertheless, that recording was interesting at least, and Tamio nodded, giving their permission for Ollie to play the recording.

All the other interfaces that the team had been working with on top of the holotable removed themselves, replaced instead by a video of a middle-aged Da’al man, lavender hair matted and wispy, black eyes lifeless and glum. Tamio couldn’t help but think that the life of a traitor didn’t suit the man, and his appearance was showing it.

Havun: =/\= To friends of the Da’al. We owe you a great debt. The Afalqi was impossible with you. =/\=

K’Wara: This sounds promising.

Bergmen/Jaran/Imril: Response

Havun: =/\= But you made a miscalculation. The particles released by the Great Impact had an effect you didn’t anticipate, and in failing to recognize that, you set these events in motion. =/\=

oO The ‘Great Impact’? Why does that sounds familiar? Oo

Bergmen/Jaran/Imril: Response

Tamio’s console beeped once more, and they looked down for a moment, seeing an alert call from Main Engineering.

Havun: =/\= We owe you a debt we can never repay, and so, it pains me that I must do this. But I cannot allow you to interfere.  =/\=

The feed cut out and every console around the table started bleeping with incoming calls from other departments.

Engineer: =/\= LtCmdr K’Wara, that cache we were just sent - it’s finished decrypting, but none of the information makes any sense- =/\=

Tactical Officer: =/\= Who deleted the Afalqi’s targeting profile? Our phasers can’t establish a targeting lock- =/\=

Security Officer: =/\= Photon torpedoes aren’t much better, and the computer’s resisting all attempts at a new profile- =/\=

HCO Officer: =/\= Commander, the sensors are still picking up the Afalqi, but it’s like the computer’s trying to erase the information out from under us! =/\=

‘Friends of the Da’al’. It had never been a message intended for the Romulans at all, and they'd walked right into it.

K’Wara: Crud.

Bergmen/Jaran/Imril: Response (if desired)

End of Act 2 for LtCmdr Tamio K’Wara

LtCmdr Tamio K’Wara

Chief of Ops

USS Artemis-A
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