[Galaxy] 18 Apr, Joint Log, Thompson/Morley, "May you live in interesting times."

[Robert]

[ ESS Triton, Science Lab ]

Brennan was finalizing the most recent calibration to the dual satellite 
signal they intercepted on Atchas Mor. Working undercover on the Boomer 
was difficult for a scientist, but now that they were back on a 
Starfleet vessel many of the issues they were struggling with simply 
melted away. One of the benefits of having the best equipment Earth has 
to offer.

"Captain," she said as Thompson walked in.  "I think we've isolated the 
final waveform.  Reconstitution commencing."

Thompson looked up from the PADD he was carrying and studied the 
monitor. The bits and fragments they'd been getting thus far was junk in 
the grand scheme, but now they would finally have the full data. It was 
something they'd been waiting on since they picked up the anomalous 
transmission -- not long after starting their mission to extract the 
Starfleet Intelligence team that had information on the Romulan Spy 
Network. If the Romulans were running assets in Atchas Mor, then this 
hidden signal might well be part of their communications. If so, it was 
a goldmine.

"It's definitely tied to the Nav Buoy," Morley said by way of greeting 
as he entered the lab, "and we were both right and wrong on the 
hardware, Sir."

Tapping one of his continually present padds Morley hijacked one of the 
unused screens, bringing up a sequence of wave forms.  "You see here, 
Sir, the recycling of that tertiary data synced through the main 
resonance." Morley pointed to a couple of minuscule oscillations in one 
of the waves. "The original hardware they adapted the beacon with was an 
Omstrung, like I suggested... but a charge field surge blew out the 
capacitor coils... it wasn't shielded along with the primary oscillators 
integral to the beacon, because of the sequencing initialisation 
required on the signal, so they replaced the burned out components with 
Tellorite gear, far more resilient as individual components and modular, 
with integral ablative resonators... Anhek or Grigar third gen at a 
guess... but the slight curl that gives to the output is what gave you 
the idea of a Fourier with Orion signatures... I started thinking it 
myself for a bit before I saw the cross-cut on the phasic signature. But 
anyway, that got me looking for what caused the coils to blow but left 
the rest of the bridging hardware functional enough not to need replacing-"

"Morley," Thompson interrupted with a sternness to his voice.  Now that 
the comms officer was halted, he continued more softly, but with obvious 
strain on his patience.  "I trust all this will be in your report.  That 
said, let's move on to what we've finally got in front of us."  He 
allowed the comms officer to collect himself and study the monitor.

"It's cleaned up a lot hasn't it," Morley pointed to the screen showing 
her latest calibration of the output, "but it still isn't maintaining 
sufficient data integrity to actually transmit a message of any kind, or 
even meaningful data... just that oscillation like you originally 
suggested, Sir," Morley glanced over at the Captain, "the staccato 
indication without its own integration or capacity. Bouncing about 
around the nav signal, which we know is clean, and there simply isn't 
space in the bandwidth for another signal... there's nothing for the 
bouncy ball to bounce on except the nav signal plain and boring... 
abstract and... oh..."  Morley broke off, dropping his padd on Brennan's 
desk and pacing back and forth, occasionally glancing at the boards 
showing various wave forms. "...aaAH!..." Morley suddenly broke in, 
pointing enthusiastically to one of the boards, "I think I just found an 
analogy that'll fit my bouncy ball..."

"I don't want an analogy, Mister Morley," Thompson said with tired 
frustration in his voice.  "I want your /final/ analysis."

"Um...,' the Comms Officer paused, mouth opening and closing a little as 
his brain fluidly switched gears. "There isn't a hidden signal... the 
intermittent sub-band is 'painting' the nav-beacon's principle output. 
Highlighting fragments of the regular code which mean nothing at one end 
and can go out in any order... but break the fragments down to raw data 
and run it through a pre-established filter at the other end it can 
build any document structure you need..."

"So though we've reconstituted the signal," Thompson finished, "the code 
is still intact.  We still need the filter -- the original /cipher/ -- 
to finish it."

"It's perfect..." Morley muttered, "without the specific receiving 
cipher you have nothing but raw data... so it's not even a code that can 
be decrypted, just a mess of crud that means nothing and could mean 
anything... without the cipher you have nothing..." he shook his head, 
looking at the other two officers. "We know where the messages are 
coming from... and how they're being routed... but until we find the 
person on the receiving end..." he shrugged, "we can't understand a word 
that's being said... it's... bloody perfect."

Brennan shook her head, trying not to feel as if all this time was 
wasted.  "I expected the codes to be good, but not /perfect/."  She 
sighed and looked at the monitors again.

"No code is perfect," Thompson announced.  "Ultimately, all codes are 
only as good as their cipher is secret.  Secrets are kept by people, and 
some better than others.  This cipher has eluded 'Fleet Intelligence for 
quite some time, and for the reasons Mister Morley explained, but," he 
paused only to hand Brennan a datachip, "Commander Gallagher's team 
brought us more than the location of a Naussicaan-run POW camp.  This 
chip holds a collection of data they stumbled on more or less by 
accident, and had no idea how valuable any of it was.  One of the files 
was a cipher, they knew, but didn't know to what code it went.  If we 
hadn't picked up the signal to give the cipher context, we might still 
not know its value.  And now we've managed to break the signal down to 
the point that the cipher will be useful."  He nodded for Brennan to 
upload the cipher from the chip.

Brennan nodded and input the data, instantly beginning to see a shift in 
the monitors from seemingly random computer jargon, to coherent words, 
then phrases, then a message.  A series of messages began to take form, 
then what looked like full reports.

"Intriguing," Morley said as various lines of code reformed before them, 
"that is... let me see... four separate authors, given idiosyncrasy of 
language and phraseology. Arrangement and format would suggest six... no 
seven separate receiving individuals or groups..."

"Cells," Thompson said ominously as his eyes worked frantically, speed 
reading the information as best he could as it transformed into a 
treasure trove of military intelligence.  "There," he pointed suddenly, 
"back up that segment."

Brennan did so, and pulled the selected data to another, larger screen 
on a nearby bank of monitors.  "Is that a reference to the Augment 
program?" she asked with frightened interest.

"Oh... bloody hell," Morley muttered, "that /can't/ be good..."

"They have a version of the formula," Thompson paraphrased as he 
scrolled through the deciphered text.  "This report is on the tactical 
advantage /their/ program will give them once /our/ research is 
converted."  He paused, reading quickly.  "They're not confident in the 
formula they have.  Step one in their action plan to produce non-human 
Augments is to insure that the formula can produce /human/ Augments.  To 
do that, they need expendable test subjects."

Brennan's eyes widened.  "The POWs?"

Thompson continued reading as he answered, "They're not prisoners of 
war, they're inductees for medical experimentation.  They've been 
collected and held in preparation for the formula to be ready for trials."

"Well if that doesn't just about put the tin lid on it..." Morley said, 
rubbing a suddenly present tension in the back of his neck. "What was it 
that git Gallagher called this... 'time sensitive?' He wasn't kidding... 
even if he was doing it to be annoying. Right then..." he looked back to 
the Captain and his customary vagueness seemed to evaporate, "I'll have 
a full data extraction and evaluation in..." his lips danced over 
numbers silently for a moment, "forty seven minutes... call it an hour 
and thirty three to sift out any data relevant to a potential extraction 
based on communications between cells and individuals operating in that 
region. With your permission I'll get right on it, Sir."

"Granted," Thompson said as he continued to skim the monitors.  "And 
prep a data package for Starfleet Command.  They need to see all this 
immediately."

Morley acknowledged and left expeditiously.

"They say the Chinese have a curse that says, 'May you live in 
interesting times'," Brennan commented quietly, somberly as she watched 
the data scroll.  "Things just got interesting," she said as she looked 
at Thompson.  "Didn't they?"

Thompson took a step back to view the whole bank of monitors, to see the 
data they weren't supposed to see.  He answered simply, "Yes."


-----
Nathan Thompson
Captain (Starfleet)
Commanding Officer
Outpost Maxwell Forrest

Gabriel Morley
Lt. Jg.
Communications Chief
Outpost Maxwell Forrest

Cmdr Talia Brennan (NPC)
Science Officer
Outpost Maxwell Forrest