Sabotage?

Posted on Fri Jan 19th, 2024 @ 1:25am by Captain Xavier Carey & Lieutenant Commander Melor Pallara (Stoffels) & Lieutenant Commander Aalis Rinne

Mission: Starship Side Quest
Location: Various

Xavier watched as the rest of the teams departed, going to their assignments. "So what is this we need to talk about Commodore."

Commodore Horton remained silent, only gestured for the remaining of the group to follow him.

Melor followed. He was still not sure what his position would be on this mission. He was an intel officer but he had served in more departments and had a broad skill set.

Aalis was a shadow and quiet waiting to see what was going on. Constantly assessing everything and making sure they had their backups and ways out of here, and all the alternate paths and where people can come from.

As the group entered the office. Horton turned, "This shouldn't have happened, even with our systems being outdated, they should have held up against the storm that passed through here. Its withstood it before, without issue. I want to believe that its a coincidence, however there are rumors that may not be the case."

"Sabotage?" Xavier asked

Horton nodded, "Unsure how to deal with it, while trying to get it back up. I was thinking perhaps you can help us in that department, either confirm sabotage, or confirm just bad luck."

"I can assist." Melor said. He had the skills as an intel officer but he looked at commander Rinne as his assignment on the Resolution was only temporary.

"Commander Rinne, I want you investigating possible motives and who had access to the systems affected. Melor, If you can assist her with anything she needs, and possibly look into any outside interference... possibly Cardassian or Dominion related, your connections probably can run deeper than my own."

Pausing... "Carey to Resolution... Come in please..." There was no answer to his communique. He tried once again. Again the same result.

"Sir." Melor said glad to have a task but then noticed the captain's face. "Anything wrong?"

"Just got this real gut feeling something is wrong... like someone trying to tell me."

"Have you ever had that before?" Melor asked taking it very seriously. "Try to concentrate, sir."

"No, but I'm going to go on the hunch that something is wrong with the ship." Xavier replied as he turned, "However, we can not stop what we are doing here to deal with the ship."

Melor nodded. "Commander Stoffels will have to deal with it. She will let you know if she really needs you."

Xavier nodded. "Commander Rinne, what's your first go to, where do we start if we are to look into this possible sabotage."

Rinne had gotten to work looking at the systems that were affected since the storm had passed through. "So far it's disruption, intrinsically," she said with her first glance through the material that they had provided her to review. "If it is nefarious while being unnatural, then there will be a pattern to it to determine what they're covering and went for. If it's naturally occurring from said storm, then it would be whatever wasn't shielded the best or easier to affect. I've seen solar flares do similar damage to unshielded components."

"That would make sense..." Xavier replied. "However, starfleet computers have all been shielded for the past 200 years for just that reason."

"Shields are only so good," she commented to his reply. "Especially if it's a natural or unnatural phenomena that can disable or weaken it to the point it's ineffective. Geiger would probably be better at reviewing this, or another engineer. From my first glance and from a previous host, I can tell you that there was a two fold factor going on here," she said, quietly. "Looks like someone assisted a natural space storm to wreck havoc on systems."

Xavier looked to the Commander. "That was fast... how can you tell."

She pointed at the different sections of the screen showing the data. "This is when the shields around the systems were weakened. Normally when a system starts to fail it's a slow slope downwards. It was just enough that it didn't trigger any of the alarms they had set in place. The storm came through and was able to wreck havoc on the shields that were essentially ineffective. If they had been five percent higher, the shields would have been effective enough to protect the systems."

Horton shifted uneasily.

Turning to the Commodore. "You have some explaining to do." He replied noticing his uneasiness.

*** A little later***

Kay had jogged to get to the captain's position as soon as she could but still it had taken her more than ten minutes to cover the distance while keeping an eye on her surroundings to make sure nobody would ambush her.

"Captain, urgent message from Lieutenant Tar-Lexros. He suspects deliberate sabotage, sir. And I would like to have some more security personnel join us from the ship. And for you to return onboard as it may not be safe here."

"We have just come to the same realization." Xavier replied, as he turned to the Commodore. "I do suspect that our safety is not in jeopardy."

"Can we meet elsewhere..." Horton replied. "With all your away team..."

"Very well... Lets get everyone here." Xavier replied as he turned to his people.