Lieutenant Kimonzi Lahl - Of Course It’s Fake
Nick Wilcox
(( Decommissioned Subspace Navigational Array #DDV261 ))
Kimonzi was standing with her new friend Ke’Partha, their new second officer T’Korva, and Lieutenant Woolheater inside a decommissioned navigational array. She was glad that Woolheater was there with his knowledge of clearing rooms, as she didn’t want to run into anyone here.
Woolheater: Clear!
Lahl looked around, trying to see if anyone was here or if they were alone. It did not appear to have been used recently.
Ke: It’s ::beat:: untouched ::looking around::.
T’Korva: Something is not right, why would they beam anything to this location?
Lahl: That is quite the conundrum. Because, there is clearly a transporter padd that’s fairly new.
Woolheater: Whatever was here, we missed it.
T’Korva: Did they know we were coming then?
Kimonzi pulled out her tricorder and started scanning with Ke, hoping that something would pop up. Her face scowled as she kept reading older and older dates for how long the dust had been on some of the equipment. Something was up here.
Lahl: Possibly? However, a lot of this stuff hasn’t been touched in years.
Lahl looked over at the pad as the much newer transporter pad whirred and an envelope appeared on the pad itself. The device then played a video from what appeared to be a clinic, and Kimonzi saw Lieutenant JoNz getting into an altercation with someone in the clinic’s waiting area.
Ke: That’s the Central Clinic, I recognize the patterns on the walls, I’ve been there bfore.
T’Korva: There are a couple teams currently deployed there.
Lahl: Well, that’s not creepy.
Woolheater: Damn. This isn’t a distro site. It’s a tripwire. To get whoever was getting too close to reveal ourselves. ::a beat.:: It’s bait. And we walked right into it.
That was even creepier. This was certainly a bad feeling for Lahl. She never liked these kinds of surprises, and Vedrin had been party to plenty of them.
Woolheater: No personnel. No staging. No handling infrastructure.
Lahl: What is that?
Woolheater: They built this to be found… but not to be used. ::His gaze returned to the transporter. Then, quieter:: But they didn’t break the line.
Lahl: The line?
Woolheater: If that pattern’s stable, it could still be connected to the source. To them…whoever’s doing this. :: A small beat…measured. He cocked his head:: We could try to ride it back to its origin.
Ke: I can’t fight, I’ve never, I mean I will, but, I…
T’Korva: ::cutting off the engineer while turning to Woolheater:: While that sounds like we would come upon a worthy battle, we need to anticipate that they’d already considered that. There are only four of us, and only two of us ::looking at Lahl with curiosity:: experienced in battle.
Kimonzi just kept a mouth flat at Commander T’Korva’s comment. She’d been in battle with the Zet before, and her hair was just now starting to get back to the length it was before it had been frizze.d
T’Korva: No, we report in and stand by for further orders. ::beat:: Send a message to Lieutenant Commander Nilsen.
Woolheater: (low) Commander… signal’s still cycling. Residual pattern’s degrading, but not gone. ::beat:: If this thing’s tied to a relay or a bounce point, we might be able to catch the direction before the transporter residual signal collapses. ::glances to Lahl:: Not a lock. Just a vector. I can start it…but you’ll be faster. Can you help me? Both you and Ke’Partha? How do we find the origin point of the transporter signal before it disappears?
Lahl: Well, we’d have to use a computer and a pretty hefty sensor array. If this were working it’d be better.
Woolheater: Maybe we can’t do a home delivery of justice; but we can find out who sent the note and the medical data pad.
That was possible, but Kimonzi wasn’t sure they could pull it off just yet.
Lahl: I don’t think we have the computer power for it at the moment. At least not yet and I’m not sure we can do that fast enough.
Woolheater: They know we’re here…and they may still be watching what we do next. Is there a way to mask what we’re doing?
Lahl: Not well. What would masking do?
Woolheater: Letting us know that they’re on to us is a tactic. To throw us off our strat. It’s meant to intimidate; but that doesn’t work if we aren’t intimidated. Recommend we secure the site, pull Argrathi Security in, and keep pressure local. If they’re watching, we make them react. It’s also time to check in with the Sower sir. Coming up on mission time one-three-zero.
Chief Engineer