Revelations - Part II

Posted on Mon 20th May, 2013 @ 11:56am by Colonel Horatio Drake & Commander Paul Graves PsyD & Lieutenant Samantha O'Dell & Lieutenant JG Xavier Lee & Commander Mikaela Locke

2,536 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: http://sb109.sim-station.net/index.php/sim/missions/id/3
Location: Deck 14: Observation Lounge
Timeline: MD-05 1855 hours

ON:

Graves and Drake had left their drinking session at a quick march, sometimes falling into a jog. It had taken them only three minutes to get to the Observation Lounge and they hadn't said a word since... Drake's mind was going in over drive. Could he be right on this? Why would Dobbs have made it so obvious? He couldn't do anything now but wait until the officers he requested, arrived.

Beside Drake, Paul kept glancing over at the other man ever few minutes as they walked. Whatever epiphany he'd made sense of, Drake hadn't stopped to share it yet, but the shock of it sparked and sizzled against Paul's mental shields.

Having just three decks to decend from her office to the conference room, Mikaela Locke arrived in short order. Since her conversation with Commander Kell, earlier in the day, she had been scouring the communications logs to see if she could find anything that might help with the locating of the mysterious Captain Dobbs. She hadn't got much, but she was hoping that someone else might have something which might corroborate her theory. And so, PaDD in hand she arrived at the observation lounge.

"Colonel, Counselor," she nodded formally to the two officers already present, before rounding the table and taking a seat.

Drake was deep in thought at this point... but nodded at his old friend as she took a seat. The happy, playful Drake of the day before was now just a ghost.

"Hello, Lieutenant," Paul said with a nod and a fleeting smile. "I didn't expect to see you again quite so soon." He detoured to get two tumblers of water from the replicator, sipped from one, and set the other in front of Drake. Then he took a seat.

O'Dell wouldn't lie if asked, she was dragging. There was so much going on in her mind that it was hard to keep afloat let alone catch any kind of sleep. The Adrenaline buzz wasn't helping either. There had been several breakthroughs in her department and she was eager to get the information to the colonel.

In civilian clothes Samantha had pulled herself from her yoga session and headed for the Observation deck. Why yoga before spilling what she knew? She was afraid she might kill someone if she didn't de-stress just a little. When the doors to the observation lounge opened she saw Locke, the Colonel and Lt Graves... "Folks, Colonel."

Xavier wasn't all too happy about being called back into work. He knew it was part of the uniform and the position he had decided to take, but he honestly didn't know if he was coming or going. He had no idea how long ago it had been since they had discovered section 49 Alpha, or since his psychic episode, or his night with Giellun, or since the explosion that had cost him a member of his department. He had pulled so many double shifts and slept so little, all these events just seemed to roll into one; one big crazy mess. In truth, Xavier didn't know what was going on anymore, his head was a complete mess, he just hoped that this would all be over soon.

Xavier walked into the observation lounge and nodded at the officers present there. He took his seat and waited intently for the Colonel to begin.

"Firstly, thank you for coming... I know these past couple of weeks have been difficult for us all". He skipped the pleasantries of offering refreshments, deciding instead to get straight down to business.

He stood behind his chair, his hands gripping the head rest. "As some of you know, Captain Dobbs came to see me the other day in my Ready Room... he essentially was implying that we should cease investigations into Section Forty Nine Alpha. Now there was nothing too uncommon about anything that he said, apart from a phrase he used right before he left".

Again, he paused... "He said, 'let sleeping dogs lie'. But there was something about the way that he said it, which got me thinking."

He moved from his position towards the large presentation screen at the head of the table.

"A number of years ago I was in a semi-classified posting in the Marine Intelligence and Infiltration Division... I won't go into what we did, most of it was quite boring... but one of the methods employed by the Division for infiltration agents was something they called Sleeper Logs... the emphases on 'sleeping dogs' was what first got my attention".

He pulled up the data from Section Forty Nine Alpha, which was encrypted... only himself and Lieutenant O'Dell had access to it. "Lieutenant" he said, now addressing the Intelligence specialist, "you'd agree that despite trying all manner of things, these data fragments are just that... seemingly random pieces of data that make no real sense?".

O'Dell felt that this was trick question, only because she knew what she knew about the data fragments they'd found and hadn't had a chance to tell the Colonel and the only other person who knew was Windsong. "Seemingly, yes." She said with some hint of hesitation.

"Indeed" Drake began playing with the console in front of him.

"This method was actually brought about way back in the twenty two hundreds - in those days relay stations were required to send encoded messages over long distances and could easily be intercepted. What my division did was very much go back to basics... we used retro technology in the hope that enemy forces wouldn't think to look for that sort of thing. These could either be left at 'dead drop' sites or sent over sub-space - to anyone looking at them, they would appear like random pieces of data fragments... corrupted data, so to speak." He stopped tapping the console and raised his head.

"The algarythm that I'm about to apply re-orders the data... but almost on a molecular level, if we were looking at this from a medical point of view. It burrows into the each fragment and reorders everything. Sort of a very rudimentary sort of encryption. The reason why not one would think to do this is because it's a tactic of a by-gone era". He inhaled deeply... he didn't even know if this was going to work, much less what the message would read.

Paul stared at him, his attention suddenly riveted. "What you describe reminds me of something I was trained to do as a telepath. Go ahead."

"Ready?" Drake addressed the four individuals in front of him.

Xavier sat up in his chair as the Colonel spoke. He listened intently to the man's words as he tried to piece all the facts together in his head. The idea of using coded, fragmented data, literally a jumbled mass of information that possibly wouldn't even register on normal sensor sweeps, and then recompiling it at the other end was quite genius. It would explain how they were able to access so much of S49A's memory core without much disruption and why the data still wasn't making a whole lot of sense. He probably should have foreseen this but he had so little intelligence training that it wasn't all that surprising that he hadn't.

"Ready," Xavier said, obviously intrigued by this new development.

Mikaela nodded but said nothing. If this data revealed what was expected, then all hell was about to break loose on the station.

With a tap of the controls the data fragments disappeared and was soon replaced by a comparatively simple to understand, text document. The first part was still missing, but the rest was legible.

'... and to do it, this I don't understand. However, for the most part, two of the eight subjects are accepting their new appendages. This is what I love about this job... in normal conditions a quarter success rate would be classed as a failure, but not here! In conclusion I think we've ascertained the results we were tasked with obtaining, which will make our partners very happy, indeed. - Adrian Dobbs, Captain.

Drake felt his entire body tense up - everything up until now had just been speculation and hearsay. This was solid proof... he was behind the atrocities, as there was no time to lose.

He felt the adrenaline surging as he hit his comm. badge, "Drake to Security".

"Yes sir" Came the response, he couldn't make out whether it was Kell or not.

"Captain Dobbs is to be arrested on sight... he is to be classed as extremely dangerous. This is a level one security threat" his words were clear and fluent.

"Aye sir, understood" the response, just as clear.

He started marching out of the Observation Lounge, it was the computer who got addressed this time.

"Computer, where is Captain Dobbs?" he asked, now coming into main operations - his fellow officers behind him.

"Captain Dobbs is currently on deck one hundred and twenty three" the monotone voice replied. The lack of a particular location meant that he was most probably in a corridor.

Drake rounded ops and approached the Ensign, currently sitting on the operations console. "Ensign, what's located on deck one-two-three?"

It was almost as if the young officer was prepared for the question... within a couple of taps he he said the deck listing up.

"Upper Promenade... fusion reactors... and shuttlebays twenty one to twenty nine, sir"

Drake turned to face the rest of the senior officers... "shuttlebays..."

He started running for the closest turbolift, "lock down all the shuttlebays on that level, Ensign"

"Aye, sir" he replied, again seemingly prepared for the order.

Xavier's mind was in a haze as he followed Drake into the turbolift. He thought back to the conversation he had with Dobbs only a few days previous. Xavier wasn't ashamed to admit he had been completely fooled by the decorated Starfleet officer; he was charming and jolly and spoke for hours about his work, though he didn't mention this side to it.

As everyone else piled into the small area, Xavier tapped his combadge. "Lee to Operations."

"Fisher here, go ahead Sir," Matt answered.

"Shut down all power to the shuttlebays on Deck one-two-three and reroute station wide transporter control to Ops."

"Aye Sir," Matt answered without question.

"Now, where will he go next?" Paul said aloud, attempting to think ahead. He tried to cast his mental awareness outward, flitting over the multitude of minds between them and Dobbs. "I need to get closer," he said. "Can't isolate him from this distance."

Seemingly within seconds the turbolift reached it's destination and the five officers burst out, walking quickly. One of the entrance to the fusion reactors was approaching on his right, he opened the door and leaned in to access the weapons locker that he knew would be just on the inside. Typing in his code, the panel opened to reveal two tricorders and two, type-two hand phasers.

"Who wants it?" He held one of the weapons out towards the group.

Mikaela looked at Drake and nodded, stoically, raising her hand to accept the weapon. One of the others might have been able to shoot better, she wasn't sure, but she was pretty good. That aside, she figured that Dobbs was going to have to sum up the situation that was about to unfold very quickly, and he would likely perceive her to be the least threatening.

He threw the phaser to the communications officer and carried on down the corridor. Within thirty seconds they reached the shuttlebay; two doors presented themselves. One would lead directly into the bay itself, the other would lead onto the upper catwalk and control room.

"Lieutenants, take the upper cat walk - try and prevent Dobbs from leaving the bay, by any means necessary" he addressed Lee, Graves and O'Dell... he knew that there were numerous ways in which they could take preventative measures, all three could work on different methods.

"Lieutenant Locke, with me" he said as the two had naturally moved themselves to the large shuttlebay doors. He stood by the control panel and once again typed in his code; one more button would released the lock and open the doors.

"When was the last time you fired one of those?" He smirked at Locke... suddenly realising he hadn't fired one in the longest of time either.

"July twenty-third, twenty-three eighty-seven," she replied flatly, without taking her eyes off the shuttlebay doors in front of her. "It was a Tuesday..."

She was cut off as the doors hissed open to reveal the enormous shuttlebay... in fact it was one of the smaller ones Protector was complimented with. Dobbs was near the far wall, literally just getting into a shuttle, which had clearly already been prepped for launch. Drake suddenly realised the order he had given the Operations Officer in Ops before he left... clearly Dobbs had seen to it that the shuttlebays couldn't be locked down. What else had he tampered with? When had these preparations been made?

"Dobbs!" Drake yelled as he launched into a quick jog towards the shuttle.

"You should have left it alone Drake... you have no idea who you're dealing with!" He replied, as a flash appeared at the muzzle of a phaser rifle that, up until now, was hidden as he was already half inside the craft.

The stream of energy came hurtling towards Drake... he frowned. He was potentially seconds away from death and all he could muster was a frown. But it represented more than just anger... it was confusion, confusion at the last two years of his life. What had he achieved? What was he doing back in Starfleet? It seemed since Patrick had died life had been just like a fairy tale... it was like he was on drugs and not really in his body. But now, the red hot stream of energy was bringing reality back to him.

Swoosh! The beam passed inches from his face and went passed him. His left cheek felt like it was on fire, but there was no time for checking injuries. He immediately fell to one knee, steadied his right arm with his other and returned fire. The pulse left off by the hand phaser felt small in comparison to what he had just faced, but he knew it was equally as deadly. The bolt struck Dobbs on his upper right shoulder... he stumbled, then fell into the shuttle... the door closed behind him.

Almost immediately the engines powered up, it hovered and then effortlessly passed through the forcefield to the might bay doors, which were already open.

"Drake to Ops., stop the shuttle leaving Protector immediately... "

The same Ops. Officer was the unfortunate soul to reply, "Sir, we've been locked out of tractor beam controls... weapons are out as well!".

"Damn!" Drake yelled so loudly, it filled up the bay.

He lowered his phaser slowly and exhaled. This was going to look good in a report. He turned round but Locke, whom he had thought was behind him, was not at eye level... instead she was crumpled up on the floor... a burning, smoldering hole in her uniform, dead center of her chest...

OFF:

 

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