Bomb, Breaches, and Traps... Oh My!

Posted on 11/03/2021 @ 5:03pm by Lieutenant Kaylee Serra & Lieutenant Isabelle Mattix & Warrant Officer Matsuyo Nagao

2,889 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: The Mirror’s Edge
Location: Chief of Station Security's Office, Deck 21
Timeline: Sometime after the second bomb

ON:

Craig walked around his desk and sat on the front of it. He'd just read something that stood out in a rather routine security report. It seemed there had been an attempted breach into the station's systems. On that front, nothing unusual -- seedy characters often tried to break into starbase systems for fun and profit. Mostly they tried to access promenade displays and gain free access to holodecks and the like. Moreover, the automated security protocols seemed to always stop them before they got into anything important.

However, who was behind this attempt had tried to access security files on the recent explosions on the station, along with some on the death of Dr. Salar. They had been stopped before they got to anything that wasn't already almost public knowledge, but their intrusion seemed a bit too sophisticated and targeted to both topics to be a coincidence. He figured it was best to look further into it, in case the cases were somehow linked by this attempted intruder. "Samson to Lieutenants Serra, Shoe, and Mattix, please meet me in my office as soon as possible. It's about the case."

Something just didn't feel right about this case. While he waited for the rest of the crew to get there, he ordered some hot tea to calm himself down. He was still a bit shaken from the explosion he'd witnessed firsthand at Patton's bachelor party the other day. After ordering the tea from the nearby replicator, he remembered that computer specialist from ops who'd assisted them with the Dr. Salar case in the past. "Samson to Ensign Portillo, could you join a meeting in my office? I think you could be of some assistance."

Kaylee came walking in, carrying a mug of coffee in one hand and pinching the bridge of her nose with the other, she almost ran into the door frame. "Whoops!" giving a slight laugh.

"I've been getting some alerts from the civilian side of things about security breaches." She relayed this to Samson. "Store owners are sending in their concerns as well. What the blue blazes is going on here?" Kaylee asked as she took a seat, then took a drink of the bitter coffee. She wasn't in the mood for adding sugar at this time. Kaylee grimaced at the taste but it was helping to wake her up more and take away her headache.

Lizzie followed Kaylee into the office, coffee in hand, "whatever it is this time, I swear it wasn't me?"

Kaylee looked at Liz and gave a slight chuckle. "I never thought it was you. And it isn't me either. I would like to know though. Some of he shop owners on the promenade and also we've got some captains of cargo ships having a bit of a hissy to. They do not like the fact that someone may be looking through their manifests as well."

Matsuyo entered the room, almost glided through the doors and looked around the room before a small bow was given. "Morning everyone. Are we any further forward with our investigations?" he asked.

Isabelle was the next to arrive, in one had she had a larger PaDD and in the other a cup of katheka, it had a pleasant aroma and it was something she'd learned to love when she was in the academy. Her hair was up in a bun and she looked tired. After taking a drink, she set the cup down and let out a sigh. She'd not gotten a lot of sleep and was going to be drinking a lot of it today.

"Good Morning everyone."


Lizzie looked up, "morning," she sipped her coffee. "So boss tell me what brings us all down to your office and please tell me we have some sort of break," Lizzie added, "civilians are talking about leaving the station, something about bombs and safety."

"Morning." Kaylee responded at the arrival of Isabelle, "Were you up all night?" taking another drink of her coffee, giving a wry grimace wishing that she had put sugar in her coffee.

"No, but pretty close to it," Isabelle said with a shrug, before taking another drink from her mug. "No rest for the weary."

Kaylee continued. "Okay, is there any ideas on where these security breaches are coming from? Things are really getting a bit tense here on the station."

Tim came bounding in, rushing up from engineering as quickly as he could. He took a seat beside Lieutenant Serra.

Craig was distracted by a chime on his PaDD. He spent a few seconds skimming it and then turned to the assembled group. "There was just a report of another potential device a few minutes ago. False alarm, but recent events have everyone on edge, especially the civilians." Turning to the assembled group, he continued, "As you know, there have been a number of attempts to access restricted files in the station's computer systems recently. Now, such intrusion attempts are nothing out of the ordinary on a station as large as ours. However, earlier today we flagged an intrusion that have attempted to find records about two, and only two, cases: the death of Dr. Salar at the recent conference and the explosions that have occurred at locations around the station. Now given that we always have a large number of major cases ongoing at a station of this size and location relative to other galactic powers, I thought it seemed a bit suspicious that this was so highly targeted and sophisticated -- they almost succeeded in breaching the most secure parts of our network. It got me thinking that perhaps there's something linking these two unusual cases, since they happened not too far apart and both under very suspicious circumstances. I wanted to run this idea by everyone present and see if anyone else sees some sort of connection between them."

"Well how about we get the details placed on the viewscreen and we can start comparing notes." Kaylee responded, "Sort of making a map. Also, were there any results from the autopsies that were conducted? I forgot to ask about that, then maybe we can do another connection."

Lizzie sipped her coffee as she pulled up the needed data on her padd, "I can't believe all this is just an accident," she added, "one accident sure, but all this and all right now... it's too strange if you ask me."

"Agreed, Lieutenants," Craig nodded, "The autopsy results were sent to my desk not too long ago." He pulled up a report on his desk and continued, "I haven't received the one about Styles yet, but Dr. Salar was killed by nanites burrowing into his lungs - a horrible and painful way to go," Craig winced as he read out the cause of death. He winced again as he saw the next part, "Now, this can't leave this room, but substances from the Mirror Universe were found in his wounds."

"Styles wasn't killed by nanites," Isabelle chimed in, holding up a PaDD of her own. "He had a drug known as Ventaferol in his blood stream, it's a nerve toxin that basically makes all of your muscles constrict and you suffocate to death. It's not pretty, and the drug isn't east to get a hold of. I'm working on tracing down potential sources, but I'm not sure that's going to give us much because there are markers showing it was from the Mirror Universe. Now that we know he was murdered, I'm working off of the assumption that the last person to see him alive was our bomber and he caught them in the act. I spent the night reviewing sensor reports and every bit of security footage I could find and I think I found what our bomber looks like."

Tim sat back and tried to take in all the information that had just been laid out on the table. He still wasn't quite sure how he'd be helpful in this meeting, since it seemed to be drifting away from the original topic of the attempts hacks.

"By all means, show us, Lieutenant," Craig responded, motioning to the display on the wall.

"I thought the dramatic reveal would be more fun," Isabelle shrugged, while she took a drink from her mug and walked up to the view screen. She tapped a couple of commands and brought up the footage and let it start to play. She paused the before and after of a woman heading in and leaving, although the leaving was considerably later. "I went through everything from before, during and after the explosion. There was a hiccup in the Starfleet systems due to the EMP, but once they came back up there she was on her way away from the airlock. I asked the survivor, Diego, and he confirmed A trill woman was hanging around the air lock just before the explosion. I don't have enough to say she did it, but someone who had no business being there? I'd like to ask her some questions."

Kaylee stood up from her chair so quickly that it was turned over hitting the floor with a resounding crash "Wait I know her! Her name is Miss Tahn, Yiara. She's a counselor. Well that is what she told me!" Kaylee exclaimed, "She was looking for her father's sunglasses and I helped and I wound up in the fountain retrieving.... Kaylee's head hung low. "She... she pulled one over me and she had accidentally bumped into me." she placed her hand over her face. "I got played.. I got royally played." Kaylee groaned.

"Yiara Tahn," Isabelle made a note of it on her PaDD, before looking up at Kaylee. "I'd be willing to bet she's good, anyone could have missed it. If she killed Styles, set the bomb and played you she was good enough to avoid detection until we really started connecting this together. I admit I'm out of my depth with the mirror universe stuff, but she's the biggest lead we've got now."

Kaylee walked over to pick up the chair, setting it back up at the table where the others were. "I will admit I felt there was something offish about her, but, a lovely cold bath in the fountain was a bit of a distraction." Kaylee stated, "And then the other things that happened afterwards." sitting back down. "It really makes me rather irritated right now." she fumed, Kaylee crossing her arms over her chest with a huff. "Now we have the breaches that are happening right now."

"nito wo oumono wa itto wo mo ezu." Matsuyo said in his native tongue. This did cause those in the room to look at him with expressions of 'what?'. "Old Japanese proverb, roughly translates to 'those who chase two hares won’t even catch one.'... with so many things happening on board smaller teams chasing on lead, having a smaller piece of a larger puzzle will bring it to a finished picture at the end." he said taking a sip from his cup.

"I agree, we do need to divide whom will be going after what." and Kaylee took a look at her PaDD. "We also have another arrival who will be joining the team, a Lieutenant Makeba Brown welcoming her into the fold on her arrival is important as well." she closed it up, and continued. "It looks like we may need to do divide and conquer. As in, we divide into teams. We have the investigation as to the bombings, the breaches into secure areas, a new arrival. We've got a solid list that needs to be dealt with."

"Maybe we shouldn't chase all of the hares," Isabelle arched one of her brows. She had a brief look of irritation before it vanished. "My father is an ass, but one thing he taught me was that sometimes it's better to trap your prey. If our unsub doesn't realize that we're on to her, we could release some information and make sure that she comes to me next and I could spring the trap. That takes care of one of our hares and keep her attention off the rest of you."

"What have you got in mind for us to release?" Craig asked, leaning back on his office desk.

"I am indeed curious about what sort of information could be released. Or for that matter, it could be leaked out somewhere there is more information about how much we know of the Mirror Universe. What do you think? Maybe even put out the word of someone wanting to strike a deal? Maybe some smuggling venture?" Kaylee doing some thinking aloud.

"Whoever is behind all this," Lizzie looked around the room, "I have to think this is much bigger than some a few random events. Explosions, data breaches, bombs, Mirror Universe," she was more thinking out loud, are you really thinking that one person is behind all this? This whole thing screams of something much, much larger and I think maybe feel that whatever is happening here is just the tip." She looked at Isabella, "careful with that trap, you might find the prey is much bigger than you estimated."

"Of course, we need to proceed with caution, Lieutenant," Craig said after spending a few seconds deep in thought, "Perhaps we could invent a fake witness of sorts? Presumably someone going to these lengths to find out what we know about them is trying to stay in the shadows. Having a reliable witness around would be a... liability... for them. One they'd probably try to eliminate."

Kaylee nodded, "Well would have to set that trap most carefully, so who would be the bait? And who would be part of the capture? Definitely need to set up a team for some back up. As it is a hunting party." she mused.

"I agree with the Chief. The most believable story, will be the easiest," Isabelle said with a smirk that her father would have been proud of. "Diego was actually there, it's plausible that he saw more than he did. We just have to hope he is ok being bait. We make the bomber question just how good a job they actually did and hope they come to finish the job. I don't care if there is a risk, the station is under attack and we have to stop it."

"Agreed, we'll have to ask him about that. We shouldn't proceed without him being willing to stick his neck out for the investigation," Craig said, "Although something tells me he'll want to get to the bottom of who tried to blow him up. However, on a related note, we should still do some further investigation into the computer breaches themselves. Ensign Portillo, I've seen you do good work on the nanite case, which is why I'm going to ask you to lend a hand to us again here."

Up until this point, Tim had been sitting quietly in the corner, trying to make sense of the security exchange going on in front of him. Hearing his name, he responded, "Yes, sir, let me take a look at the logs."

With that, Tim pulled started frantically fumbling with the terminal in front of him. The logs were a mess - it seemed the person had done a good job of trying to cover their tracks. However, it seemed there was one link they had neglected to sever. "The logs point to a terminal in engineering being the source of the intrusion." His heart started racing - was one of his coworkers out to get the crew of the station?

"Keep searching, Ensign, we need a more specific location," Craig insisted.

Pushing a few more buttons, Tim's face went a little pale, "It... it points to the Chief's office... Lieutenant Yoshida's terminal specifically."

Craig paused for a few moments, stunned. Hiro had been at the bombing that had attempted to kill him and many other members of the senior staff. He couldn't believe that Hiro could be behind this, but the inhabitants of the Mirror Universe were known to take the place of members of this universe and could have completely different personalities. Collecting himself, he turned to Kaylee, "Lieutenant Serra, find Lieutenant Yoshida and... bring him in."

Kaylee was stunned hearing this news. Her mind was screaming NO there was no way possible! however Samson did give an order and she was going to obey, something was up, and even though she knew Hiro wasn't capable of doing such, she had to bring him in.

"Very well sir, I am on it." giving a firm nod, and Kaylee immediately left, to go find Hiro.

Finally having regained his composure, Craig waited for Kaylee to leave the room and looked at the rest of the team gathered around, "Good work, Ensign, I imagine we'll have some explaining to do to the Captain as to why his Chief of Ops is in the brig. Everyone else, start working on the trap and keep me posted. Dismissed."

---

Lieutenant Kaylee Serra-Reynolds
Assistant Security Chief

Lieutenant Craig Samson Jr.
Chief of Station Security

Lieutenant Isabelle Mattix
Security Investigations Officer

Ensign Tim Portillo
Computer Systems Specialist
PNPC Samson

Lieutenant JG Elizabeth Shoe
Security Officer

Warrant Officer Matsuyo Nagao
Master-at-Arms/Security Officer

 

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