PNPC Petty Officer Xandeus Filistrien - An Overzealous Defense
Gila Sadar
((Outside Chief Intelligence Officer’s Office - Intel Suite, Deck 8, USS Artemis-A))
::Chime::
Filistrien: Commander Dakora, I have something I would like to show you.
Dakora: Response
Xandeus Filistrien entered the office at his superior officer’s behest, his artificially windswept hair remaining lodged in place by the superior cohesive abilities of his preferred brand of hair products. His permanently straight back and rigid neck barely moved as he stood at attention at the sight of the Betazoid Chief of Intelligence, his face bearing the quintessential expression of professionalism.
Dakora: Response
Filistrien: I noticed something peculiar, Sir. ::pause:: That is to say, more peculiar than my prior report.
Petty Officer 3rd Class Filistrien was a very efficient Signals Analyst. But simultaneously, Commander Dakora and Lieutenant Antonova (as well as pretty much everyone else in the department), were still attempting to make him acclimatize into how this crew conducted their intelligence gathering. Efficiency and thoroughness was good. Overzealousness was a different thing indeed.
But this time! This time Xandeus was certain that the random, errant signal that (he believed) he had intercepted was of great importance.
(((A few moments earlier)))
((Main Hub - Intel Suite, Deck 8, USS Artemis-A))
On. Off… Off… Off… Off… On. Off again… On. Off? On!
Xandeus sat at one of the numerous curved workstations within the main hub area of the currently functional and refurbished Intelligence Suite aboard the NCC-81287, USS Artemis-A. Though, how long that would remain true remained unknown. While Xandeus himself was a new arrival to the Artemis, having only had his transfer from the JPJ approved a month prior, he had heard the stories. Of course, this was only what could be expected from working within the lawless outskirts of the Borderlands, where piracy, terrorism and tumultuous relations with independent planetary powers abound. His experiences as a JPJ-alumni were a fair deal more trite than the ones of his colleagues who had transferred over from the Excalibur, but it was ultimately just another day at the office.
On… On? Off!
But today was not just ‘another day at the office’. ‘Another day’ for Xandeus meant observing subspace for any and all possible signals that could indicate danger or emergencies in the galaxy around them. It was a task he was accustomed to, although the nature of the job was as fluid as the ever-changing spacescape surrounding the vessels on which he had served. Between the Braveheart, the JPJ and the Artemis, his task, while remaining startlingly one-note, adapted to the nature of the area in which they sailed, and currently, that meant his entire world revolved around that. The CIC Desdemona. The floating museum piece hanging steady off the Artemis’ stern was an impossibility, and yet a reality, a concerning complication and yet a footnote in the grand epoch of Starfleet as a whole. The idea of an alternate reality where the Federation was in shambles, forced into near-extinction by an overwhelming force of aliens as technologically insignificant as the Shint, was worrisome, it was ultimately less concerning than the potential risk of the Federation being coerced into a cross-dimensional war.
Still off… Perhaps he was merely being paranoid again? No, wait, on! Still on? Then off again.
Xandeus entertained no ideals of foolhardy heroism. The Federation’s core values of non-interference, peaceful coexistence and defensive non-aggression were tried and true for a reason, and while he sympathized with the plight of the oppressed that sought a protector, Starfleet would cease to be the force for enlightenment and progress that it was if it deviated from the values that had brought it to where it was today. Nevertheless, the crew of the Artemis were not fools. While putting forth the outstretched palm of friendship and peace, the ever watchful gaze of the galactic defender eyed a potential threat. A lesson learned the hard way.
Off… On.
As part of his first assignment as a Communications Specialist aboard the USS Braveheart, a vessel specializing in conducting planet-wide evacuations and medical assistance missions, Xandeus had been trained extensively in the art of seeing communication where most would assume there to be none. If an ion storm of cataclysmic strength plagued a recently colonized planet and knocked out their subspace communications array in the process, it had been his (and many other Comms operators’) task to watch the planet for any non-traditional attempts at communication, both from the trapped colonists and from any potential away teams of their own crew.
Utilizing the temperature controls of a computer core on a potentially critically damaged vessel to communicate? Not outside the realm of plausibility. Of course, for all that Xandeus had heard of the Desdemona, she seemed fully-functional, if hopelessly outdated by Starfleet standards.
And yet, something about this potential communication attempt had him concerned. Why did this signal seem so familiar and foreign at the same time?
1-00-1-0-11-00-11-00-11?
Alert and hyperfocused gunmetal scoured the recorded sensor data, attempting to find some kind of recognizable pattern within the fluctuations. Amongst all the various ciphers, code languages and rudimentary alphabets he had studied, why did this seem barely familiar?
oO What if it’s not a ditational code, but instead, more akin to T9-ciphers? Oo
Going by that logic, it would go…
1000 0101 1100 1100 1111
Filistrien: … Rubicun?
(((End Flashback)))
Filistrien: I realize that there’s an equal chance this is no communication attempt, Sir, but there’s been no prior alterations of a similar pattern in the heat levels of the Desdemona’s computer core in the days they’ve been trapped here.
Dakora: Response
TAG/TBC
Xandeus Filistrien
Petty Officer 3rd Class
Signals Analyst
USS Artemis-A
As simmed by
Ensign Gila Sadar
Medical Officer
USS Artemis-A
A240006GS1