Ensign Seleya- Morning Espionage
Aletheia Bentley
((Romulan Base, Miralon City, Miralon III))
((Timeskip to Next morning))
This was probably one of Seleya’s dumbest decisions to date. Normally, she would have made a quiet exit before her “other” woke up, but walking into a Romulan compound unescorted didn’t seem like the best idea while undercover. The evening had taken an unexpected turn, and Seleya was still trying to make sense of it.
Now effectively trapped in the Subcommander’s quarters and separated from her team, she could only hope they were still safe and that nothing had gone wrong. If it had, she assumed she’d be arrested soon enough. Luckily, that hadn’t happened, yet. Still, sleep was out of the question, so she passed the time by quietly exploring the room.
Approaching the Subcommander’s desk, she glanced back at the bed to ensure the Romulan was still asleep before beginning her snooping. She powered on the terminal, only to be greeted by a lock screen. With no time or tools for a brute-force hack, she leaned back in the chair, trying to devise another way in. The Romulans would no doubt have tamper countermeasures, but maybe she could disable them temporarily.
Seleya checked the drawers and grabbed a few basic tools, slipping on gloves as she worked. Sliding under the desk, she examined one of the terminal’s legs for the power supply.
Behind the panel, a mess of wires greeted her. A tricorder would’ve helped her identify which wires led where, but lacking one, she had to rely on slow deduction and guesswork. Eventually, she was reasonably confident in her assessment. Knowing there might be alerts if the tamper system went offline, she carefully peeled back the insulation on a key set of wires.
Working quickly, she severed the tamper system’s power line and connected a feedback wire to the environmental controls, hoping to fool security systems into thinking everything was normal. With the anti-tamper measures neutralized, she opened the terminal’s back panel. A glance over her shoulder confirmed the Subcommander was still asleep.
First, she removed the memory cards. It would not be hard to steal outright, but removing them would immediately raise suspicion once the terminal was powered on again. Instead, she disconnected the integrated memory card in the Motherboard where the OS was stored to boot the system into BIOS mode. Once the terminal restarted and opened in BIOS, she inserted the memory cards into the external ports and began reviewing them.
Most of the data was unreadable in its current format, but Seleya transferred data from one card into the others to free up a blank one. She then copied all the contents of the three original cards onto the blank, creating a copy she could smuggle out.
With the data copied, she shut down the terminal, reinstalled the three of the four original memory cards, and reconnected the integrated memory. She returned everything to its original place as precisely as she could. Still, something didn’t sit right. This all felt too easy. Maybe it was just paranoia, but something felt off.
Too deep to back out now, Seleya grabbed her disruptor that had been tossed aside the night before, removed its power pack, and slid the stolen memory card inside. She then tucked the power pack into her jacket pocket.
Now, all that remained was to wait for the Subcommander to wake up and escort her out, or back to her team. Crawling back into bed didn’t seem like the best way to get things moving, so Seleya stepped into the sonic shower, hoping the sound would gently stir the woman awake, and buy her a few moments to calm her racing heart.
Her plan worked. She heard someone rising in the next room. Seleya shut off the shower and re-entered, slipping back into character. Unfortunately, morning-after conversations was something she had fallen out of practice with, and this one was especially awkward. Time dragged as small talk stumbled along, and it seemed the Subcommander was picking up on the awkwardness.
Still, the cover held. The Subcommander seemed to suspect nothing, and after getting dressed, Seleya was escorted by the Subcommander through the compound to the examination room where her friends were staying. Seleya popped the collar of her jacket hoping to cover up some of the remaining marks of the previous night.
((Keeping this next part in just for context))
Neshala: So, did you have any luck on your foray?
Lyara: Response
Neshala: Pavan? Did he say anything useful?
Lyara: Response
Neshala: We need to act quickly. First, we need to figure out where Leyase has wandered off to. Any thoughts on that?
Lyara: Response
((Introducing Seleya here))
The Subcommander opened the door to the examination room, allowing Seleya to step inside before closing it behind her. It was probably meant to give the illusion of privacy, but with Romulans, true privacy was wishful thinking. Seleya walked forward to the other two and placed a hand on Neshala’s bicep, giving it a gentle squeeze.
Seleya: Vierya, glad to see you are still alive. Have they been treating you both well?
Lyara/Neshala: Response
Seleya: How about you Mira?
She turned to Lyara briefly, trying to think of some clever signal she could give to Lyara. Nothing was coming to mind, only just a blank stare as Seleya was lost in her own thoughts trying not to stumble as she turned back to Neshala.
Lyara/Neshala: Response
Seleya: Have the doctors said when they will release you Vireya?
Seleya gave a firmer squeeze to Neshala, trying to send some signal as something was up. But Seleya was nervous carrying around that memory card, and with it hidden in her disruptor the weapon was a more decorative piece at the moment.
Lyara/Neshala: Response
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Ensign Seleya of Khanda
Tac/Sec Officer
U.S.S.Chin’toka
C240202SK1