Post 292: Retribution

Stardate:70709.2015
Title: Retribution
Author: Zanh Liis
Scene: Main Bridge
Time: Following "If You Direct Your Attention to. . ."
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Liis sighed and took a moment to refocus. She looked up at the ceiling and Reece put his arm around her shoulders. She shrugged it off.

"Aww, come on Crinkles," he purred softly, "aren't you relieved that ol' Reece is here to help you out? Isn't just being in the presence of someone this cute a comfort to you?"

"Cute like a stomach pump," Liis crossed her arms. "Comforting? Are you forgetting, Commander Reece, that you were leading the information recon mission that resulted in the spectacular explosion aboard and destruction of my ship?"

"Hey, Stella Polaris was rigged up with Romulan booby traps and you know it. Would've happened to anyone." He pouted. "Besides, our buddy Pointy was in on that mission too, how come you didn't mention that?"

"When "Pointy" gets back from the holodeck you two are perfectly welcome to have it out over who was primarily at fault."

"The Romulans were!" Reece insisted, finally turning back to his panel. He continued to track instances of the repeating numerical pattern 41042. There was no doubt that the virus had been introduced via the holodeck systems.

"Likely it was set to trigger as soon as the decks were all activated at once," he pointed out streaming data on the screen to support his presumption.

"Lower priority system as far as security sweeps," Zanh concluded. "It could have been planted days ago, but with so much of the crew engaged in the rescue mission on the planet, today was the first time that all the decks were activated at the same time." She thought a moment. "You know, the more I think about that number, the more it seems familiar to me somehow. Windsor, look into the history of Bajor and search for it, see what you come up with."

"Working," Windsor responded. Seconds later he began to read off several listings.

"Occurrences of the numbers 4 1 0 4 2 in sequential order in the Indy's Bajoran database include; the number of different plants that grow in the Deloria Valley, the population of the town of Entha Ram, the number of Bajorans who died at the labor camp at Sath Loral, the number of migratory birds of the-"

"Stop." Zanh said. "Did you say Sath Loral?" she closed her eyes a moment. It made sense now. "This thing was created by people who believe they have nothing left to lose," she said softly. "We don't have a lot of time to stop it, Reece. Damn, I wish I could talk to Lair Kellyn right now."

"Why is that?" Windsor inquired.

"Because she knows something about the way the Bajoran resistance works."

"I thought that the resistance was completely dead?"

"Officially. Unofficially," Zanh sighed. "Let's just say that not everyone on my home world threw a party the day that Bajor joined the Federation. I'd be willing to bet that-"

"Lookie!" Reece jumped up from his chair. "They left a message encrypted into the virus. Audio only."

"Play it."

They heard static, followed by a crude audio recording.

[For forty years the Federation turned a blind eye to our suffering. How dare Starfleet interfere in the affairs of the Bajoran people now! When we were, at last, making our own way without their so-called help, or politics. We lost millions of our people during the occupation. Even still, we will show mercy. We will only exact retribution one-tenth the loss we suffered at one of the labor camps.] The gritty, muffled voice announced. [We are far more merciful than the great Federation.]

The recording repeated on a loop.

"Kill that, Sarah." Zanh addressed the ensign at communications. "Run a voice analysis on it and see if you come up with any matches," she turned to Windsor, clearly alarmed. "By last count, how many people do we have aboard the Independence?"

"Four thousand, one hundred," he paused, "and four souls aboard, Captain."

"Damn. Red Alert!" She pounded her fist against the armrest as she plunked down into the command chair. "Suddenly, we have problems a lot bigger than the holodecks."

"Oh! Bad!" Reece exclaimed as his screen refreshed with new information. "It's attempting to jump into the main computer core now. See this?" He indicated an intricately crafted line of code. "It's quite ingenious, in a twisted, evil little way." Zanh returned to his station and watched as he pointed to the screen once more.

"I think I am beginning to figure out how it works though," he declared, "it appears to be redirecting energy to trigger overloads, which are then frying circuitry all over the place. A domino effect."

"At the rate it's going, how long until it takes over primary systems like life support and weapons control?"

"It's trying already, but it looks like it's running into a firewall configuration that the people who designed this bug weren't hip to. It's slowing it up a little. But not stopping it." Reece warned. "If not for those new measures, the ship would have been destroyed already."

"Salvek," Liis said, shaking her head. "Even when he's not able to work for us, he's working for us. He began installing upgrades to the firewall systems as soon as he finished the warp engine redesign. We need to get him and his wife out of the holodeck now if we want any chance of stopping this,"

"But-" Windsor objected, about to point out that every attempt had been made to get into the decks, so far without success.

"We're going to have to try to physically access the deck from the Jeffries' tubes beneath. If we can't go in politely through the front doors," Zanh's jaw set, "It's time to try kicking in a basement window."

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Zanh Liis
Acting CO
USS Independence NCC-90791