Bienvenue à Paris Pt2

Posted on Thu Feb 22nd, 2024 @ 4:57pm by Commodore Finchley Kerr & Lieutenant Commander Kevin Kilbane & Commander Shr'Nesh Karadis
Edited on on Thu Feb 22nd, 2024 @ 5:00pm

1,520 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Investigate the Chintoka Shipyard Buildup
Location: Earth, France, Paris
Timeline: Current.

Isabelle stopped walking for a moment before starting walking again, giving Kilbane a worried look. “Gone!? But who?... or what? and where could it be?”

Jaal stepped to stand next to Karadis. "What do you mean gone?" he asked. "We had it locked down." He tapped his own earbud COMM. "What the hell are you talking about Commander? What happened?"

“Watch your tone with me Commander Jaxom” Kilbane replied, “You’re Johnny fucking new boy, when you ask me a question, you be respectful and end it with Sir, I still outrank you. However, to answer your impudent question, we don’t know yet, we’re working on it. Your team got a courtesy heads up. It changes nothing in regards to your orders, you find the communication centre of the mole, Kilbane out!”

Jaal closed his eyes and mentally chastised himself worse than anyone else, but perhaps Kerr himself, could. He had to remember to not get so excited so fast about things. Maybe he wasn’t ready for this sudden promotion he received. He bit the inside of his lip and whipped up a plan.

“All right,” he addressed the group. “Commander Kilbane is right. This news changes nothing for us. We need to keep an eye out for a terminal that we can use to gain access to comm logs. If we find an old or maybe unused building, that might have a terminal inside, we can use that. It’ll be out of the way no one should notice.”

Karadis was raging internally, Kilbane, for her, had overstepped the mark. True, Jaal was still new to his promotion and position, however that was no excuse for what he’d said. She would put a stop to it, Kilbane would not be allowed to act that way.

As it happened, where they stopped, there was an alleyway. Karadis slipped away from the group and reconnoitred it in minutes then returned.

“Commander,” she said, gesturing to Jaal to come walk back a few yards with her, “The alleyway there leads off to what looks like a disused warehouse. There’s no visual sign of recording devices, and from a brief look through one of the broken windows, there’s computer terminals, though I couldn’t make out what kind or how old they were. It may be what you’re looking for, but we’ll only know if we go inside.”

Jaal fell in step with Karadis and listened. He nodded and one corner of his mouth turned upwards. "Good eye Chief. Thank you."

Next he "ahemmed" to get the attention of the rest of the team. Once they all looked, he gestured towards the warehouse Karadis indicated. "This way."

They gathered around the entrance and Jaal tried to open the door. It was locked. "All right," he whispered, "Gather round, look casual."

While everyone else looked the other way, Jaal pulled a tricorder from his back pocket and scanned the lock. "No alarms detected. This'll be easy. Hang on."

He pulled a small roll of tolls from his other back pocket after putting the tricorder back. He peeled off the access panel to the door controls and simply hotwired it. The door slid open and he motioned them all inside. Jaal went in last and once inside drew all the window blinds closed.

Isabelle looked around, “So far, so good, let’s hope it stays that way.”

The room's perimeter had a variety of vintage computer terminals. None of them seemed to be powered up at the moment. "Let's see if we can turn one on and see if it's connected," Jaal told them.

Isabelle approached the terminal closest to her, it was pretty old but nothing she couldn’t figure out. She checked the power before trying the computer, “Nothing doing with this one, it appears to be inoperable.”

Karadis walked over, produced her tri-corder and opened the front panel of the console. Taking out a couple of wires, she opened the back of the tri-corder and plugged them in.

“Try it now” she said to Isabelle.

Isabelle nodded. “That’s it! We’re in.” She gave Karadis a warm smile, they made a good team. Stepping aside she let Karadis get to the console to look for any information they could use.

Kell looked over from the workstation she was standing next to, with an egg-shaped object in her hand that she'd been quietly giving commands into... She set the object down, prepared to join the others, when the screen flickered on.

Nodding her thanks to Isabelle for standing back, Karadis scanned the home screen as it came online. She brought up the main menu, then went to the inventory.

Her face broke into a smile, then she laughed, “Well, will you look at that!”

A few more sub inventory lists later, she stood back, “Would you credit it, this…” she gestured to the building they were in, “was an uniform depot for Starfleet. However, it also had a Security detail billeted here, attached to of all places…the Presidential Offices, they were an honour guard. Now, I’m only making an estimate here, but I’d say these computers are thirty, maybe forty, years old. The beauty of that, is the Security details link to the cities main frame was not severed nor was it shut down. I think we can still access it, but, we need the activation code.”

Scott walked over to the terminal, "I think I can coax it." He said, "now let's see," Scott began to tap the screen, for the moment, what he was doing seemed to be working. "And just this little backdoor here... I think I got it."

“Well done Lieutenant” Karadis said to Scott, “Let’s see what we’re working with.”

Sending a cypher with and automatic ‘read’ encryption built in, she sat back and watched as the screen brought up every live terminal within a mile square of their location. Once the cypher ran its course, there were five readouts.

“Two are in the Presidential Offices, one is in a Security Office three hundred yards away, one is in a bar five hundred yards away…and one is in this building, two levels up.”

“Surely we can’t have stumbled on the moles communication hub by accident?” she asked generally.

Jaal was pleased he didn't have to do all the hacking to get the information they needed. They were really working as a team. "It would be an incredible coincidence if that were the case. Anything is possible."

He took a look around the room, "Let's go upstairs... quietly, and see what they got. If it's nothing, we'll try the one in the bar."

Kell looked around shoulders. "Does it say what was on the 3rd floor, or if something is still on the 3rd floor?" She's keeping an eye on the windows for anyone peeking in or noting their presence.

Jaal's lips pursed in thought. "Good point. Just one of us should take a look so we don't draw unwanted attention." Deciding who was going he looked at Lieutenant Kayne. "Scott, quietly check out the third floor. If it's safe to speak, report back on our comms, if not, just come back down with your report. We'll wait here. If we don't hear from you in twenty minutes, we're coming after you."

Scott nodded, "Understood." And made his way up to the 3rd floor. He pulled out his tricorder out of his leather jacket pocket to localize the terminal. He followed it and came to a room, it appeared it was some kind of office, it had a window that faced the hall he was in. He closed the tricorder and snuck up to the window, taking very careful measures not to be noticed. He peeked inside, and saw a group inside the room, using the terminals they'd been looking for, "Kayne to Jaxom, I may have just found some of our moles. Can't exactly get a good look from where I'm at." He took another peek in the window, "There are three, maybe four of them in the room, they appear to be working on something, but I can’t tell exactly what. I could try causing a distraction so you can all investigate once they're gone, or I could try sneaking into the room, they're pretty focused on whatever it is they're doing, they may not see me." Scott knew what he'd pick, given the choice, but he would defer to the XO's judgment. "Or I could wait for backup, it's your call, Commander."

Kell mentally inventoried her medical supplies, hoping that was just a preparatory exercise and not pre-emptive need.

Karadis had a thought, and turning to Kell asked, “If there is anyone up there Doctor, do you have anything with you that could be used as a knockout agent? We can’t use phasers, and short of attacking them, which could draw unwanted attention to us, it’s the next best thing I can think of to use.”

TBC...

 

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