LtCmdr Jovenan – Broken peace, broken equipment, broken people
Jovenan
((Holodeck 2, Deck 2, USS Artemis))
An officer or enlisted would likely never forget their first mission, nor the other early missions of their careers. They were crucial to the formation of a Starfleet crewmember; even after several missions and years in service, it were the first missions that in part determined the crewmember’s deeper understanding of what the service was and what was their role in it. When Jovenan looked at her new team, all ensigns, some of them on their very first mission, she tried to see if the challenges and the gruesome sights that they had witnessed had influenced them or hurt them. As much as she wanted to figure it all out, find a way that permitted them another experience of Starfleet’s mission instead, she couldn’t: she was neither a counsellor nor proficient enough to pretend to be one, and with the unpleasant cause for determination that had been laid on her, she needed them now, broken or not, for their important task.
Jovenan: Okay, good, nice to meet you all. And I’m sorry that you all got caught up in this mess. The Captain is starting diplomatic talks with both the Kobyar and the Grunden, while another team, composed of some of our most capable senior officers, are conducting an operation to locate the offworld signal. Meanwhile, it comes down to us to actually solve the mystery.
A brief flash of smirk appeared on Jovenan’s expression. She hadn’t been given a team of grunts for the purpose of striking down the warring nations, nor a group of diplomats, suave and confident, to persuade them with silvery words. She had three brilliant and intelligent ensigns with whom to find a solution to a puzzle. Even though she realised her thoughts had wandered to Vitor and how she wished him to her side, she had to admit that she was feeling early – and hopefully not premature – pride of this being her team and her task.
Bancroft: I do love a good puzzle. ::hesitating:: Just… full disclosure, I’m a bit out of my depth here. I did minor in Engineering at the Academy, but that was mostly so I could argue confidently with my medical devices when they misbehaved. ::gestures vaguely:: So if I say something that sounds insightful but makes no actual sense, that’s why. I’ll do my very best to be helpful, or at the very least, entertainingly wrong.
Imril: I don't want to speak for Ensign Tho’Bi, but we full-time engineers do tend to have heads full of technobabble and standardized methodologies. An outside perspective could be exactly what we need to… ::realizing they were about to say “Blow this thing wide open” and deciding that would be in bad taste:: … find an approach that no one’s considered yet.
Jovenan gestured at Ensign Imril, expressing her support of their words. A minor in Engineering was not insignificant. She wasn’t an engineer herself at all – for years she had intended to catch up on her studies in the field, since it had proven to be a valuable skill on several missions – but having people of multiple fields was beneficial for the insight they might provide. Besides, medical professionals were surely an asset when studying the weapons of war: they knew better than the others what would happen when this kind of technology met a biological object…
Regardless, they needed to move on.
Jovenan: I didn’t manage to catch up entirely the timelines for each of the teams. Are you all okay? What happened?
Tho'Bi: ::quiet and numb:: It got a little hectic (beat) ::louder and disengaged:: The drone we were sent to recover (beat) the solid state power supply went critical (beat) ::quieter and forlorn:: took out the forest (beat) ::louder fained upbeat:: We were lucky ::nods to himself:: (beat) then I had to get around the (beat) ::stutter:: the jamming signal so we could erm… (beat) ::quieter lost in thoughts:: beam out (beat) ::quieter and numb:: luckily I (beat) figured it out. ::smiles without conviction::
Oh. Now she remembered where she had met Ensign Tho’Bi before. He had been the poor Ensign who had become utterly flustered when receiving his Academy Graduation Ribbon last shoreleave. And that poor, nigh debilitatingly shy Ensign had been sent to a war zone? She was worried of him, but at the same time, and although she didn’t want to think she had underestimated him, she was impressed that he had saved his team. Responding in kind to the Ensign’s smile, she then turned to the other Ensigns. A brief silence followed before either of them got a word out.
Bancroft: ::clearing his throat:: Ensign Tho’Bi’s data will probably be a more coherent account than mine, Commander. I’m afraid I’ve come back with more questions than clues. ::beat, then dry restraint:: I spent most of the mission with Lieutenant Sadar and Ensign Cole. We were assigned to interview residents of Breetia Township, which was conveniently located near a downed drone. Unfortunately, the attack started before we could speak to anyone– ::pauses, then: wearily:: –aside from a very traumatized child. ::continuing on in normal tone:: We, er… stumbled onto an underground facility that, in my expert opinion, had absolutely no business being there. Inside we found one Grunden and one Kobyar scientist, both of whom had been chilling – quite literally – in stasis since before First Contact. ::a pause:: Also, Ensign Cole blew herself up, but she’ll be just fine.
Jovenan nodded at him, although she had even harder to find a smile. She had only seen the Grunden town and the damage done to it from the air, so she could only imagine what it had been like down there. Her only points of reference were the disaster areas where the destruction had happened before she had arrived. Deciding not to dwell more on imagining her in any of those places, she instead focused on the information the Doctor had provided. Although she didn’t yet know how to fit in the two stasis individuals into their mystery, she supposed it was valuable information as well. She then turned to Ensign Imril.
Imril: I’m fine. I got scratched up and my ears are still ringing, but I’m good to work. I’m more upset for the people we left behind than anything. Things started out alright. The Kobyari liaison, Major Oolwi, is a helpful sort. The Kobyar do like their surveillance, though. We were given space in the capitol building, with a lab, to get a crack at their smaller drones. Anomalies in their computers, the software and hardware both, became readily apparent.
Jovenan nodded. This was the part she had witnessed herself as well, but there were two officers who had been in the Grunden team, so it was important to go through everything they had seen. Who knew, maybe they’d find more clues just by looking back to things.
Imril: The Captain and some of the others, including Commander Jovenan, spit off to go explore a battlesite. That left me, Lt. Silveira and Scientist Richards in the lab. I’d just gotten a tactical drone fully disassembled when a pack of helicopters attacked the nearby plaza and then came for us. They shot up the windows, used some sonic weapon on the walls. We had to retreat with the whole place cracking apart around us. A Kobyar soldier got us into a bunker, where we were able to beam out. ::Looking away, in the vague direction of the planet:: I wonder if he made it.
Biting her lip, Jovenan felt something churn in her stomach. Although what she and her team had to go through hadn’t been easy, she felt something resembling guilt for not staying behind with the others. She had to suppress her imagination for a moment longer, as she needed to resume their work.
Jovenan: As Ensign Imril said, the Captain, Lieutenant Bergmen and I left for the frontlines with the Kobyari liaison. We scanned and recorded some of the battle damage there, but we were surprised by Kobyar drones that refused orders from the liaison. Under fire, we escaped with an aircraft, shooting down the drones pursuing us, and crossed to the Grunden side, trying to reach the town you two ::pointing at Tho’Bi and Bancroft:: were in.
Now that each of them had told their side of the conflict, covering the entirety of their visit down on the planet, the view of the events had become clearer. It was time to get to work.
Jovenan: I hope you brought with you all the data you gathered.
Ensign Tho’Bi gestured his PADD.
Tho'Bi: Computer (beat) prepare to upload memory from device.
Computer: standing by.
Tho'Bi: PADD (beat) Ensign Tho’Bi (beat) Serial Number EG - 793 - 322 (beat) Confirm?
Computer: Awaiting access password.
Tho'Bi: Programs hacking programs
oO Now that’s an interesting password… Oo
Computer: Confirmed. Upload initiated (beat) (beat) Upload complete.
The Ensign then proceeded to do the same with his tricorder.
Tho'Bi: Who's next?
Doctor Bancroft handed over his devices to the engineer.
Tho’Bi: Response?
Ensign Imril, too, gave their devices to the Andorian engineer. Jovenan raised her hand up a little; she didn’t need particular help with the task.
Jovenan: I’ve already uploaded all the data I gathered from the frontline. We also have some of the holo-images recorded by Lieutenant Bergmen.
Sadly, she didn’t have anything from the time they had been in the air, flying away from the drones. Perhaps data of how the drones behaved when shot and destroyed could have helped them somehow, but alas, she had been too busy with the phaser to remember the tricorder. While the others had been working on the data, Ensign Imril had focused on their work area.
Imril: Computer, give us somewhere to work. Load program Imril Workshop 6.
The empty, perhaps soothing yet dull walls of the holodeck gave way to a detailed simulation of what could have been a replica of a real workstation. Approvingly, Jovenan looked around, trying to silently name the equipment she recognised and figure out the ones she didn’t. It would suffice as their base of operations. She followed as Ensign Imril placed their kit down to one of the tables, pulling out something that looked to Jovenan like a box of broken components.
Imril: I have some physical evidence to share. I managed to salvage this from the lab. It was situated between a small tactical drone’s docking clamps. It’s a dedicated firewall device, presumably a standard Kobyar means of protecting the connected main computer. But the construction appears to borrow heavily from outdated Ferengi engineering.
Jovenan: That’s right, we did talk something about Ferengi design before my team left you. That’s evidence of outside influence, but not necessarily of outside interference. The Kobyar might have acquired the technology through valid channels.
Tho’Bi/Bancroft: Response
Imril: The damage occurred shortly after I got it out of the drone, before the attack. The power supply didn’t agree with Scientist Richard’s examination techniques.
Jovenan pressed her lips tight together. It was unfortunate that they couldn’t get all the physical evidence with them in one piece, not even something so small as these components appeared to be, but she couldn’t blame any of the investigative team. For all she knew, the equipment had been designed to render itself unusable if tampered with, as a precaution for the Grunden capturing it and using it against themselves.
Tho’Bi/Bancroft: Response
Jovenan: I believe we also studied the crystals and the software before leaving. Did our observations hold on to what you discovered later?
Imril: ::Nods towards Jovenan:: According to Commander Jovenan, all of the crystals used in the drones show markers of having been grown under low-gravity conditions. Including the crystals that were components in the main computers. Where Lt. Bergmen found a number of pre-Dominion code syntaxes and a code reference to a Starfleet encryption dynamic library dating back to the 23rd Century. I noted similarities to our own ODN designs in the hardware, specs older than I am but not that old.
Again, Jovenan nodded. The formation of crystals was an interesting fact that might become relevant later, although there were too many legitimate ways of acquiring or producing such components. Instead, she decided to focus on the software, at least first.
Jovenan: I see. I’m only vaguely familiar with code libraries of that era. Am I correct that this kind of technology would be easily available to the Kobyar after they reached warp?
Tho’Bi/Bancroft/Imril: Response
Jovenan: Hmm. Major Oolwi, the Kobyar liaison, explained that the drones operate independently if they lose contact with a live operator. The drones my team encountered seemed to behave that way. Is it possible that the age of some of the technology introduced vulnerabilities?
She wasn’t entirely sure why she had entertained such a hypothesis. Although she had come to trust the Major to a reasonable extent, and although she didn’t see why the Kobyar government would authorise an unconventional attack against Starfleet personnel and a Grunden town while otherwise holding on to their promise to guarantee freedom to the investigation, the Major’s view of the Grand Marshall’s actions should have given her enough doubt of the Kobyar to suspect that they really were behind the attacks. Either way, she wanted to give the benefit of the doubt, even to the Kobyar.
Tho’Bi/Bancroft/Imril: Response
Jovenan: Okay. Imril, would you mind introducing the drone technology to Tho’Bi in further detail? I want both of you be full up on speed before we can start making further hypothesis.
Imril/Tho’Bi: Response
Jovenan: Meanwhile, Doctor…
She walked a few steps away from the two engineers, permitting them to delve into the conversation, before turning to the teal-shirt.
Jovenan: We should also study the Grunden technology. You and Tho’Bi might have more data, but my team also encountered some damaged Grunden vehicles in the old battlefield. That would provide an interesting comparison. We also found some, um, biological matter inside. Would it be possible to ask you to evaluate that part of the data before cleaning up and looking further into the technology?
Bancroft: Response
Nodding, she turned away, facing no one in particular.
Jovenan: Computer, replicate the destroyed Grunden vehicle as recorded in the folder Jovenan Lambda-Gamma-1.
Imril/Tho’Bi/Bancroft: Response
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Lieutenant Commander Jovenan
Chief Science Officer
USS Artemis-A
E239911J11