"Going' Through The Tubes"
=/ Auxiliary Maintenance Room, USS Charon \=
Jack had a disgusted look on his face, but he turned the Gai'Shian
over and carefully removed the enemy's comm bracelet. He looked at it
and was getting an idea. His mind racing, he removed his combadge and
smiled broadly.
If he could get his combadge to transmit a signal to any Federation
ship out there... If he could get the comm bracelet to tap into the
communication among the rest of the Gai'Shian... Build a bridge
between them so whoever was getting the signal could know the plans.
He'd need a stronger signal. He checked his masking again and then
pulled out Savant, "I think I have an idea that could help us." He
waited for her to respond before he explained, just in case she was
compromised and being used as a bug herself.
The avatar's cheerful reply was so quick that she must have been
waiting for him - or she must have dedicated a spare thread to
monitoring him. He explained quickly and quietly, leaving Savant to
listen as he laid out his plan. "I will help you in any way that I am
able, Sir," she replied brightly.
He nodded, "In order for this to work, I need to get to deflector
controls. Can you tell if there is a way to get there with least
chance of getting caught?"
"I suggest that you travel through the supplementary access system,
Sir," Savant replied as she loaded a few routes in his tricorder. "I
will do my best to warn you when Gai'Shian troops come within
detection range of your movements, but cannot guarantee your safety."
Jack nodded and looked at the routes she showed him. After a moment,
he decided on one and grabbed one of the guns from the Gai'Shian body.
He hoped he wouldn't have to use it, but there was always a
possibility and he wanted to be ready. He found an access panel and
pried it off as quietly as he could.
Within, the tube was pitch black; as he set the panel aside, Savant
activated tiny pin lights along the grated floor to help him see, but
no further or more than that. His eyes would adjust, and the less
power travelling to these areas the better, else the Romulan captors
might notice the transfers. Her voice was thin and quiet as he climbed
inside and sealed the hatch behind him. "Do be quiet as you travel,
Sir, sound carries far through the tunnels, and you aren't alone."
"Thank you," he whispered as he began to move, seeing the little
lights. Clever and thoughtful AI, she was. He nodded at the advice,
but the last bit concerned him. He took out the tricorder and hoped
his look would ask the question for him. He wouldn't say a word so
long as she was well perceptive of facial expressions. Its screen lit
up with a rough map of Charon's Jeffries Tube system, highlighting a
few points of interest - each dot on the tiny screen had a bubble
following it - Charon's crew. A few of them had not surrendered and
were hiding in the Jeffries Tubes. Jack was now one of them.
Jack nodded and made his way down the tubes, moving slowly and
quietly. Once he found the ODN node, he set down the two tricorders to
check his masking and to be sure to see any warnings, in case Savant
would warn him by text on the screen or blinking lights on the map
only. He started working as quietly as he could with the comm
bracelet, his combadge and the deflector controls to get whatever
communication their insurgents were having to whatever Federation
vessel outside the ship.
Savant, meanwhile, was monitoring his progress - not interfering with
what he was doing, not even able to really help him, but just watching
to ensure that he wasn't detected. This might seem a small task, but
given that she was doing this at the same time as she was monitoring a
dozen other crewmembers doing similar things across the ship, as well
as monitoring all the Romulans, concocting some sort of escape route
to get Charon and her crew to safety, trying to discern how to best
save the crew that was being sacrificed in the Cargo bay, all the
while faking the Romulans out with false data from the ship's computer
at dozens of points across the ship... well, one might understand her
lack of attention. Still, Jack knew what he was doing and it didn't
take him long to get the control he was looking for.
After a short time, he was making some progress, but felt a bit
nervous. He swallowed as he looked back down to his tricorders to
check his masking. He typed something into the other for Savant, "I'm
feeling I should move on from this location. Recommendations?"
"You will be able to get primary control of the deflector dish if you
move fore-deck twelve sections, to the deflector array proper, Sir.
You may find it easier to work there, though I will warn you now about
the high radiation in the area."
Jack frowned about that, "How high?"
"You may desire shielding, Sir, if you intend to work there for a long
period of time. Radiation levels appear to be near point-oh-two
sieverts per hour."
Jack didn't know how long it would take, so shielding would be most
desirable. "Right. Where would I find a biohazard suit without being
detected."
"Main Engineering, Sir." Savant paused ominously. No doubt, Main
Engineering was crawling with Romulans at this point. It was a bad
idea to go there. "If you permit me to assist, Sir, I will try to
transport or replicate a suit for you, on your arrival."
He couldn't help but smile. Of course she could do that. "That would
be most helpful. Thank you." He put the tricorders back in their
holsters and moved, slowly to be quiet again, toward the primary
deflector controls.
As he travelled, Savant worked. Transporting such an item would
normally be a simple matter, but not now. The Romulans were keeping a
very close eye on power consumption. She could mask the transport
signature, but what about the power?
She began to lie to the Romulans in small amount - or more
appropriately, she added another lie to her growing pile. She gently
decreased the observed power consumption, so that the surplus would be
enough to do the job. When he arrived at site, there would be his
equipment waiting for him.
Jack put the suit on and then moved to the controls. Again, taking out
the tricorders to keep an eye on whether he was detected or not. Then
he started working. There would be a bit more precautions to take and
signals to work around since it would likely alert anyone to
tampering. Which, in all honesty, it should. He just hoped he was
clever enough to hack into the system without anyone being aware of
it.
Savant, for her part, did her best to keep him from being detected.
This, primarily, was simply not interfering and not calling attention
to his activities. A ship was a big place, and in such a
high-interference area as the deflector dish hardware, he wouldn't be
easily found.
Jack started by connecting the combadge and the comm bracelet using an
adaptive interface link. Then he connected the combadge to the
deflector ODN relay for a signal booster and re-routed the phase
inducer to block any access signal from tattling on him.
The combadge had a modulating pulse modified to mimic Morse code
connected to a phase-divergent carrier wave, with the added security
of passing through a scrambler. There was an optronic pathway
connecting the comm bracelet to allow any of the enemy's
communications to piggyback the signal.
Once he was as sure as he could be that no one would discover this
transmission any time soon, he triaxilated the data stream using Code
47.
The resident artificial intelligence did not observe his changes so
much as Savant *felt* them. The main deflector array, given its axial
position on the ship and its linear arrangements, were also a hub for
long range sensors and computing. As such, they were always close to
Savant's mind. She did not comment, but silently accommodated his
adjustments as they were made.
The transmission was, well, transmitting. He checked the Jeffries's
tubes map that Savant had provided and decided to keep moving. He
would make a rounds somewhere and come back to check the transmission
later. If the transmission was discovered, he could be away from it
and better able to attempt establishing another transmission or do
something else to try to help. Keeping the suit on, he started slowly
crawling again, keeping an eye on the little lights indicating other
crew members.
Then something came to mind as he typed something out for Savant on
the other tricorder, "Are any of the other crew members in the tubes
injured?"
Getting an affirmative, and some handy color change to indicate the
injured parties, a darker red to indicate the worse-off persons, he
made his way toward the worst. He had no medical background, but
everyone learned first aid in the Academy and maybe it could make a
difference. For a few anyway.
=/\=
Savant & Jack Fellos, II
