Lt. Haukea-Willow: Expertise
Aly Drolet
((Deck 5, Sickbay, USS Narendra))
Foster: Doctor Wethern, I want you to lead up the medical testing with Ensign Kel and Counselor Stendhal. I’ll work with Lieutenant Willow to ensure our containment and security systems are doing what we need them to do.
For half a second a pang ran through the middle of Haukea’s chest. The emotional intelligence was lost. The sensation came and went before any intellectual thought could be provided towards it. Haukea only shifted her weight once more, sensitive to the stiffness of her left side. To distract, Haukea did a quick scan of her sheet, highlighting the relevant security and containment systems in security yellow. Her and Foster would focus on these.
Privacy field
Sickbay Overhead Sensor Cluster
Stasis Field Generator
Transporter biofilter
With the relevant items highlighted in yellow, the Chief took that as an opportunity to officially share the sheet with each officer present.
Willow: I have provided each of you a collaborative copy of the relevant spreadsheet. Grab a PADD and log in. Security relevant items are highlighted in yellow. However, If I missed something please feel free to mark it similarly for my attention.
Stendhal: (Thankful) Thank you! Really appreciated. I'm sure the spreadsheet will help a lot our work!
Wethern: ::Corey nodded:: You got it boss. ::Corey looked at Kel and Stendhal:: hope you both have read the manual for the new biobed systems.
Kel: I skimmed it on the way here, but I’ve got it pulled up for reference... just in case. I figure hands-on with the system is the best way to learn anyway. I’ll make sure we’re logging everything accurately and cross-checking it against the spreadsheet as we go.
Foster: Feel free to do a full physical on someone. I’m sure one of the medical staff has ‘accidentally’ forgotten theirs for far too long. ::He tapped his temple as if to say ‘good thinking’ and then looked imperiously at the medical officers gathered to see if anyone squirmed::
Willow: Tapping next to each item will generate a tick mark, indicating the validity of each item. If an item requires additional checking, wait to mark it.
Stendhal: Awesome!
Wethern: We should probably start with the critical care systems and response equipment that will be what we will need if all things does go wrong.
Foster: Good idea, Coery. Then I’ll leave your team to it.
Stendhal: Let's Hit it! ::She confirmed::
Wethern: ::smiling:: Maybe tap rather than hit. Otherwise there might be Lesson Number 8: Raging CMO with a lack of coffee and broken sickbay.
Turning, now, towards Foster, if not the others, Haukea indicated with a nod, the necessity to begin their respective individual tasks. Even so, her eagerness leaned heavily towards field work, restlessness from her nearly healed injury at play. Nevertheless, it was the mundane tasks, paperwork, stocking, meetings and others such, that held the backbone of their entire operations. In such cases, Lesson 2: "There are no breaks in security because threats never take breaks,” found itself partaking in the conversation. Even when sat behind the stone surface of a desk, every report counted.
Foster on the other hand only offered the human gesture of a thumbs up, aiming it at Wethern, Stendhal and Kel, before he glanced more directly at Haukea.
Willow: Shall we?
Foster: We shall.
Stendhal: And what about Lesson Number 9?
Foster: I’ll let Lieutenant Willow refresh my rusty memory on Lesson 9.
Weight shifting, - Kel, Stendhal and Wethern mobile in the other direction - her balance stumbled briefly, before the chief near imperceptibly limped, approaching the nurses station or rather the sizable computer bay, centrally located within the medical center, pinpointing a chair and computer.
For a slight moment, the older woman hesitated, hands hovering over the access pad. The particulars of the medical computer system were, naturally, largely foreign to her. Yet, it was her first port of call to access them, running through the onboard security systems that protected patient files and other requesent doctoral data.
Willow: While not particularly highlighted within my chart, I believe it relevant to inspect the computer systems. The data sharing of patient files is of course confidential between the doctor and naturally, the patient themselves. I can access the back end of the security protocols for the checking it twice part before we venture on to the medical equipment.
Foster: I do want to ensure the computer systems are working. If I remember correctly the cores on the Narendra are pretty robust.
Willow: Unless you have some deep seeded need to do otherwise.
Foster’s head and antennae shook, indicating in the negative, confirming the necessity to proceed with the computer systems maintenance.
Foster: You’re my security expert. I’m your medical expert. In this I’ll follow your lead….Did you want me to get into the systems, sealing off patient records so you can run your tests?
Haukea on her end, despite the desperation to be out gallivanting across the universe, was, in some respect, attempting to delay the larger heavy hitter items of medical equipment that function towards some semblance of security functioning. Her personal knowledge regarding the hardware, if not software, components of their design was outside of her typical scope. Normally, on a daily shift, a member of the crisis response team - an officer with a natural blend of security and medical talents, though with particular knowledge - would be sent to conduct such maintenance, allowing herself, as chief, to provide inventory on the larger weapons systems, phaser rifles, and type II hand phasers, among several of her other major duties.
Phaser weapons were in a large respect the backbone of a security officer’s arsenal when assigned duty shifts on base and as a part of away team requirements. While hand based combat was valid, viable and substantial to an officer’s security knowledge, the practical use of a phaser permitted long range combat, if not a far faster means at disabling, through the stun setting, an individual.
In the case of the computer systems present here in medical, similar could be said. The computers held the foremost operating systems behind valuable medical equipment. If those went down, individual patient lives could become at risk.
Willow: By all means go right ahead.
With the metaphorical green light, Foster, familiar with the computer operations present, found the nearest available console, conveniently near the Risian. He cracked his fingers, stretching them, setting about his work.
Foster: I admit that computer science wasn’t my thing until I became the Chief Medical Officer on an Odyssey class ship and suddenly it had to be my thing. There might have been some swearing involved.
(And) Somewhere within the scope of security was an unnamed rule dictating the essential task of delegation. Assign tasks to those with the relevant knowledge, skill and experience. While lesson 6 on bending rules could be applied, it allowed for efficiency when a knowledgeable individual provided input towards their specific circumstances; which went further in aiding lessons 1 & 2.
Eventually Foster, former CMO and all around macgyver - an individual with a variety of skills - gained entry into the computer systems. Taking over, Haukea entered the systems back end, streams of systems operations and security coding filing past, one line at a time.
Willow: The coding appears intact, no obvious tampering.
Foster: That’s good, I would hate to find tampering in this ship’s systems after all the safety protocols they put in place during the assassination season on the Commodore.
A further pang resonated through the Risian’s chest cavity. Her bones itched, the limbs on the left quaked. In the far recesses of her brain, the emotion was labeled, the name surfacing far faster than it could be recalled. Nevertheless, she was sure, the emotion was something hollow, carved and spat back out, regarding the acts directed towards the former Command Officer of the Base Sal Taybrim.
In those days, as a mere officer, she experienced little in the way of direct information regarding the threats. With Taybrim one of the highest points within the chain of command, it was preferred for only the chief heads of departments to be made strictly aware, those below finding relevance only when essential.
Now, Haukea, not one to reminisce, had found the experiences difficult to recall. Sucking in a deep inhale, exhale, she moved forward.
Glancing once again at the streaming lines of code, the security chief, experienced in this manner, understood that those experienced enough could hide their interference within several difficult to obtain layers of such coding.
Willow: On the missing ship, what was it, the USS Vigilant? What data corruption are we looking at there?
She wondered in regards to the experiences of the Vigilant’s data breach. Whether it was crafted with expertise or by a total amature.
Foster: No, the data from the USS Vigilant indicates that there was some high level, very complicated tampering.
An amature was highly likely to hide, cowardice at play, behind their computer screen, a ship away. An expert, without fear or the belief of being caught, would use their ego to hide instead in plain sight. Both presented gaps within security protocol, yet, as chief her first and foremost duty was to protect that of the ship she served aboard. Knowing, though it held potential weakness, the better protection came from attacking them back through layers of coding. With all risks involved.
Willow: In reviewing our own systems, it is possible we could investigate those of the Vigilant as well.
Her thoughts moved slowly, yet gained relative speed fairly quickly, Foster pointing a vibrant blue finger in her direction, earning passage aboard her train.
Foster: I think you have the right idea. Maybe we don’t need physical security so much, but if we try to access their data, we’ll need to protect our own systems from getting infected.
Haukea found confidence in assessing the systems initially, earning an understanding of what lay beyond, before issuing ground support, man power, and physical security.
Willow: If we can isolate the infection, so to speak, it could save time, energy and man power, if and when physical efforts become involved.
Foster: Can we isolate data? Computer programs? We have to be able to do something like erect a forcefield, but… in the computer?
Despite being chief Haukea herself, while being knowledgeable regarding computer coding, programming and hacking, was no certified expert. She racked her brain of officers under her command,
Several officers flooded through her mind’s eye, security officers and adjacent who could be considered experts in the computer programming fields. Each had their particular skill sets. Ava (head of a department) and Anthony held the skill by the book. Sharp, unyielding, though, would expectantly shut the system down at the first sign of trouble, walking away. The others held more finesse.
Willow: It is possible to erect what is considered a firewall, a stopping point from accessing programing or files deemed unsafe.
Foster: Response
Willow: It could be possible to program it such that upon attack of the unsafe or unwanted files their own systems shut down. Though depending on the expertise of the hacker, they could fight back.
Foster: Response
Willow: The risk is that they download our own computer banks.
Foster: Response
OOC: The downloading of computer banks is an idea that came from a Voyager episode called Future's End, it’s a two part episode and the one where the Doctor got his mobile abilities. If you haven’t seen it, it's fantastic.
