A Paper Trail

Posted on Tue Mar 26th, 2013 @ 1:42pm by Captain Elsie Halliwell & Lieutenant JG Marcus Augusta PHD

467 words; about a 2 minute read

Mission: Rumours, Promises, and Lies
Location: Astrometrics Lab
Timeline: Mission Day 6: 0600 hours

ON:

Marc's only peace seemed to be in the astrometics lab looking though star formations lately. He had self-medicated an analgesic for his headache which had helped a little but his general mood and attitude was still rather poor. Holding his gloved hands to his waist, he absent-mindedly knocked the standard type-five phaser that he had ordered all security personal to carry as standard that was buckled to him.

His silence was interrupted by the swoosh of the doors behind him. Strange, considering that he could only think of five people on the ship with sufficient clearance to override his lock-out. Not turning to see who but simply waiting for them to address him.

"My, my," Elsie mentioned as she strode up to him standing behind the console, "we are getting paranoid lately with officers locking themselves into rooms to work. Time's gone where, as captain, I had to ensure people were motivated enough to work."

She looked up at the screen-viewer and then back down to Augusta. "What's so secretive that you had to seal the doors, Lieutenant?"

Marc nodded an agreement. He was certainly committed and motivated maybe a little too motivated. "Something I have been meaning to show you." Marc brought up a small data file on the smaller monitors in front of them. It had a Starfleet Intelligence encryption algorithm protecting it, no sender but it was addressed to Captain Kendrick. "I believe someone is cutting you out of the loop, Ma'am. Someone senior."

"Okay," Elsie countered, narrowing her gaze onto Augusta. "You now have my full attention. Who?"

"At the moment, Ma'am, I don't know what or who sent it. But the use of a Starfleet Intel encryption algorithm leaves only three possibilities, Myself, Lieutenant Miral, and Commander Michaels."

Elsie's face dropped. She tried to hide her disappointment from Marc but she couldn't muster it as the feeling of dread overwhelmed her. She side-stepped him, went over to the terminal and placed her own personal security clearance in. The hammering beeps warned her of her failure. She inhaled, and then tried her Level Ten authorisation. "Computer. Decrypt the file. Authorisation: Halliwell-Nine-Seven-Four-Green. Clearance: Level Ten." The computer replied quickly.

"Insufficient clearance to access data file."

Elsie rolled her eyes and then turned to Augusta. "It seems that Intelligence has a few cards up their sleeves, as per normal."

Marc treated himself to a small grin.

"So it would seem. There is also another file floating around with the same algorithms protecting it. I haven't been able to even isolate it in the comm. system yet. Put simply, Ma'am, someone is communicating covertly aboard this ship, and I have to assume Captain kendrick is one of them."

Elsie stared into the middle distance and sighed. "I was afraid of this," she remarked honestly.

OFF:

 

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