Lt Imril - Because Of Course Something Bad Was Going To Happen
Chris Taylor
(( The Afalqi Project, Hangar 1659 – Meranuge IV ))
Imril: Would it be terribly undiplomatic of me if I started peeking behind some of these black bars?
Munro: :: reluctant sigh :: Let’s try and find out what we need staying in the lines of diplomacy. The captain is with their Minister now, I don’t think it would help if he found out we tried to hack their system. You and Tarsan are going to have to get me some answers based on the access you have. Go help them, ensign.
Tarsan nodded, picking up his PADD from where he’d left it, and looking at before going to join Imril on the balcony. There was a frown in his voice as he looked up from a console. The sound of unwelcome realization.
Tarsan: Lieutenant.. There’s something wrong in the specifications they’ve given us. The ones you sent me differ very slightly from the ones on the access console, which were the ones the engineers were actually working with. The redactions are the same but… there’s some really subtle changes.
Imril: Which implies more than one hand censoring the information.
Tarsan: ::showing them on the PADD, laying the specs side by side:: I can’t see it all because of the redactions, but look at the engine design. On this one it’s a few meters to the left of the other. Which leaves an empty space. And there’s other tiny differences that if you weren’t looking at both sets side-by-side you wouldn’t see.
Imril nodded at the information.
Imril: Fastest way to find something missing on a blueprint; measure the gaps in between what’s there. And if the two sets of redactions don’t match…
They let the ensign fill in the blank.
Tarsan: ::nodding:: Exactly - I think the engineers were adding extra things that weren’t on the design and falsifying the design documents they were sending their bosses, but they left their original documents here.
Imril: Adding, or removing. Either way it was sloppy, unless someone outside of the engineers needed to know what to cover up and where.
Gavrin opened his mouth to respond, but the noise of machinery moving dragged his attention over to see the gantry shifting suddenly where the other team were working.
Tarsan: Uh, is it meant to do that??
Roy said something, but it was swallowed by heavy scraping of metal on metal. The gantry descending with slow certainty. And then it accelerated.
Munro: Response?
Nat’s voice cut through the mechanized clatter.
Cole: Everybody clear the drop zone!
She lunged, one arm cutting out in a sharp warning.
Munro: Response
Bancroft: ::shouting over the noise:: Some sort of automation maybe?
Cole: Not unless somebody taught it timing.
The timing was too convenient to be coincidental.
Cole: Back up and watch the mechanism—if this thing is tied to the signal, we need to know what moved first.
Bancroft/Munro: Response
Imril started mashing the keyboard.
Imril: ::To Tarsan:: Ensign, scan for anything that might be picking up and responding to the tricoder scans and see if you can jam it. I’m going to pull whatever I can from this computer before it starts taking swings, too.
Now it was a race to claim every bit of information the team could before the crime scene remade itself or became outright hostile to the investigation.
Tarsan: response:
Cole: Somebody didn’t just steal the Afalqi. They built insurance into the scene.
Bancroft/Munro/Tarsan/: Response
Imril didn’t answer the security officer. Intent as they were on delivering data to their padd. The second set of schematics were nearly downloaded as they navigated back to the security directory. Looking first for security footage of the ship and the people moving about it.
All while the gantry continued to move. A quickening swing towards the opposite side of the hangar. Imril and Tarsan’s side.
Imril: [Expletive redacted] ::Shouting to be heard:: The security footage is deleting itself! I’ll explain later! Typing now!
They did what they could to save what they could. On a Starfleet computer, they would have put up firewalls to preserve more data just long enough to copy it. But on this alien system, there were too many unknowns.
Bancroft/Munro/Tarsan/: Response
The motion of the gantry echoed across the empty space, loud and whiney and determined. From the corner of their eye, Imril saw that it was on a collision course with the far end of the row of platforms.
Now, the building was being outright hostile to the investigation.
Imril: ::Pointing to the ladder:: Back to the ground floor, Ensign. I don't think that this platform’s going to be around much longer.
Imril, of course, was going to stay until the last possible moment.
Tarsan: Response
Imril: That’s an order, Ensign! Move! I’ll be right behind you!
Bancroft/Munro/Tarsan/: Response
SCKREEEEEEK!!! The union of gantry and platform wasn’t so much a collision as a slice. Mass and inertia made the gantry a knife, the platform its prone victim. Supports buckled, railings tore away, bits of platform scattered to the floor below. The flooring underneath Imri shuddered. They kept their feet, and typed on, in the hopes that the next precious bytes of data would be the ones that blew the case wide open--
SHRRRROOOOK!!! The platform took on a distinct angle, and the time to give up had come. Imril shoved their padd in their jacket and made for the ladder. Which had already come partway away from the platform railing. They let their hands slide down the side of the ladder, their feet contacting the rungs only long enough to slow their descent to not-quite-freefall.
Bancroft/Munro/Tarsan/: Response
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Lieutenant Imril
Engineering Officer
USS Artemis-A
A240110I12