Nothing But What Bare Code Can Tell

Posted on Wed May 12th, 2010 @ 5:32pm by Vice Admiral Iluvar & Ensign Velia Moretti

Mission: Episode 1.2 - "A House Divided"
Location: Decryption Lab, USS Pandora
Timeline: MD 03, 1436

::BACKPOST::


ON: [[Decryption Lab, USS Pandora, MD03, 1436]]

Commander McNeil’s departure could have been minutes or hours ago; Velia had thrown herself into exploring the capabilities of the new lab and it’s programs and time had ceased to exist for her. In the lab, enveloped in a silence punctuated by a chirp here and there, the Ensign was in her element and comfortable for what may have been the first time since she set foot on a starship. Nerus V wasn’t an overly stimulating research assignment due in large part to the whole lot of nothing it seemed to be generating, but it beat wandering the ship and propagating both the idea that Intel officers had nothing of contributable worth to do as well as the idea that they were somehow just around to spy on people – though a part of Velia would have loved to do nothing more than peer into different departments, eye a few random individuals, make a show of entering something into a PADD and then ducking back out. She grinned and her fingers once again manipulated the keypad.

The sound of the doorchime echoed sharply through the empty lab before fading away, leaving the room in silence. A moment later, it sounded again.

Of course it was too good to be true. Velia couldn’t imagine who would be at the door that didn’t have an access code, but the persistent second chime indicated it wasn’t a mistake. “Enter,” she called out without looking up. A sense of disinterest was usually the best way to convey to someone that they were interrupting.

Oliver (NPC) paused in the doorway after the doors had slid open to reveal the lab. From where he stood, he peered into the room and looked around. At first, it didn't look like there was anyone there, even though he had distinctly heard someone reply to his door chime. That's when he noticed the woman working at one of the further stations. "Excuse me, Ensign Moretti," Oliver asked hesitantly, still not moving from the doorway.

The urge to ask if that was even a possibility bubble up in Velia’s throat but when she spoke the words miraculously transformed to sound a lot more like “Can I help you?” She gave the man a passing glance before returning her eyes to the view screen. His face was unfamiliar to her; which left her wondering if there was any way she could get Cmdr. McNeil to give her access to the crew personnel files. It just seemed pertinent to know the people who were serving along side of her and it would save her the hassle of having to do such in person.

"I thought I might come down and see how you were doing," Oliver said, a hint of nervousness still in his voice. He may have had the authority of the admiral in official business, but he didn't feel like it was his place to go throwing that authority around. Besides, he wasn't necessarily here in an official capacity anyway. It was more like an impromptu visit, which was unusual for him.

"I'm fine, thanks," Velia managed an even tone. Pleasantries took more effort than she usually deemed worthy. His obvious discomfort at being down here was slightly amusing to her though, so she indulged him for the moment, looking up and fixing her gaze on him.

"Right," Oliver said, mostly to himself. He looked around the room briefly, then turned his attention back to Moretti. The young man still hadn't moved from the doorway of the room. "Do you mind if I...er...come in," he asked.

"I don't own the lab," Velia glanced at his collar quickly then turned her eyes back to his. "Mister ... ?"

"Patterson, ma'am," Oliver replied promptly, "Crewman Oliver Patterson." Taking her statement as an affirmative response, he finally stepped across the threshold and into the room. Behind him, the door hissed closed, cutting off the outside corridor and the occasional passerby.

"Well then, Mister Patterson," Velia's mouth half curled, "welcome to the cave of knowledge," she offered, trying to sound ominous but realized a fraction of a second later it may have sounded like more of a hiss from the look on his face. She sat up and her face returned to its normal impassive state. "Why did you say you were here again?"

"I...uh...didn't say, ma'am," Oliver replied a little hesitantly, "I heard that you were working on investigating the Romulan colony and, well...I was wondering if I might be able to lend a hand with whatever it is you're working on." The explanation sounded a bit lame to Oliver and he wondered how weak it sounded to the woman seated at the workstation. It didn't look like she trusted him all that much. To be honest, he couldn't really blame her.

Oh for the love ... "I think it's within my rights to tell you that if you can move your fingers, you're capable of helping." Not that she wanted his help; or wanted the sound of his breathing interrupting her comfortable, reassuring silence. What she wanted was to make him swear he would do a lot of intake of information and not a lot of outputting of pointless blabber. "Did Commander McNeil send you in here?"

"No, ma'am," Oliver responded promptly.

"Sit down crewman, you're making me nervous," Velia turned back to her console. "I've already went over the basics. Political, geographical, geological ... the standard boring stuff. I'm not finding a whole lot worth noting, but maybe you'll stumble across something," she shrugged.

Doing as he was told, Oliver took a seat at one of the empty workstations and brought up the information on the terminal display. She hadn't been exaggerating. Just by what he saw on the screen, it was pretty clear that the Nerus V Colony was not of any note whatsoever, to the Federation or to the Romulans. Either that, or they were keeping a pretty big secret. "Anything I should be looking for," he asked.

Velia snorted and shook her head; not in response to his query but because she was thinking of the direction McNeil had left her to head in. "Anything unusual," she said flatly, eyes on the rolling screen in front of her. "Though whether that means unusual to us or unusual to Romulans is up for interpretation."

Oliver did not say anything in reply, but continued to skim the information on the screen in front of him. Most of it was actually relatively easy for him to interpret, once he got past the Romulan formatting and script. Being the admiral's yeoman meant that he had had plenty of experience with administrative paperwork. For those entries, at least, he had some advantage in reading them.

Most people would have found the process headache inducing at the very least or lost interest completely within the first few minutes at most, but for Velia every time she viewed a paragraph that contained nothing that stood out it just fueled her desire to find that one paragraph that DID hold something 'unusual'. Failure was only a failure if you didn't adapt or find a way to use it to your advantage. If that could be done, what was once a failure became a learning experience. Not that she didn't become frustrated from time to time, she did.

"I think I found something, ma'am," Oliver said after a few minutes of perusing through administrative reports. He looked over toward the woman's workstation to see what her reaction would be.

"Shall I ..." she stopped and took a breath, stopping the snarky remark in mid delivery. "What is it, Mr. Patterson?" Her own eyes were still on her screen, mind looking for a different angle to approach this from.

The young man noticed the woman's abrupt pause and could only wonder what it was that she had been about to say. A little nervously, Oliver pointed to the item on his screen and said, "An administrative document from the Romulan Senate. The Nerus V Colony is mentioned briefly toward the end of one of their sessions."

Velia pushed away from her workstation and in a few steps was behind him, leaning over his shoulder. "Okay, so they mentioned it. It *is* a Romulan Colony," she informed him ... about the only thing that was seemingly known about it, in fact. With a very slight shake of her head she straightened again. "What else is in this document?"

"That's the interesting part, ma'am," Oliver said, his face lighting up a little at the realization that he might have actually found something, "You've been going over the more recent records regarding colonization, cargo runs, and transport logs. I figured I'd take a look at the official records of the Senate and that's when I found this." He pointed to the record currently paused on the screen that referenced the Nerus V Colony. It wasn't much of a find as far as what was explicitly stated in the record, but when one took into account what wasn't said, it was more revealing.

“Help me out here Patterson,” she exhaled audibly. “You found a Senate document when you were looking for a Senate document …” Velia waited for him to connect the dots as to why this was something magical in his world. His demeanor made her want to offer him a cookie.

"The Nerus V Colony first appears in official Senate records sometime during the 2360s," Oliver explained, barely able to contain his excitement, "and this is the last official record to contain any reference to the system or the colony located there. It's as if they disappeared after that."

“Ah, but they didn’t disappear.” Velia took a seat beside him and ran her own eyes over the document. A lot of babble not relating to anything. “Okay I’ll bite. Help me to understand why you’re so excited that I’m thisclose to offering you directions to the nearest facilities.” She and McNeil both had read the standard cargo reports recent though they may be, and there was nothing torrid or unsettling about them. In fact, all of it pointed to a Colony that had a removed leadership (from the lack of hands-on Romulan Senate involvement paper trail) and was simply trying to sustain itself on a barely habitable planet. Before he had a chance to answer her, she leaned forward a bit closer. “Tell me something Patterson; what were you hoping to find by reading the records?”

The young man's nervousness began to overshadow his excitement and he leaned away from her slightly. "Well...I...uhh...that is to say," he stuttered, unsure of what it was that she wanted. He swallowed hard and took another look at the display in front of him. Taking a deep breath, he continued, "I don't mean they actually disappeared, ma'am...but they might as well have, for all the recognition or assistance they are receiving from the Romulan government."

Noticing his discomfort, Velia did something rather unusual for her ... she sat back in the hope that it would calm him down a little. Some people were so excitable... "Right." She nodded, her own ideas forming behind her curiosity as to his. "So what do you make of this, Mr. Patterson?"

He had found the information amidst all the administrative prattle that most people found dull and boring, but now that he was being asked to analyze his findings...that was stepping a little further out onto the limb. Based on the woman's reaction, he wasn't sure if he wanted to be hazarding guesses as to the meaning of his findings. She seemed like the type of person who would jump down his throat if he was wrong.

Velia swallowed an impatient huff. "Crewman Patterson, is it typical for you to have to be asked a question twice before you answer it? I'm not asking you for code that will unravel the fabric of the universe; I simply want to know why, in your educated opinion, this colony may no longer appear to be of any interest to the Romulans." It didn't make a lot of sense to Velia at all, considering what effort it must have taken to establish the group in the first place.

"Yes, ma'am," Oliver replied quickly, "I...uhh...it's possible that a change in the Romulan government resulted in the colony being abandoned."

"What kind of change?" She sat up straight again. No matter if she liked it or not, this shifty little man just may be on to something. Prideful yes, but stupid no. Velia would take aid where she could get it, and fume about it later.

"You know...a new Praetor, a shift in the mood of the senators, something like that," Oliver replied, tapping at the workstation. He pulled up the official records of what was known on the Romulan Empire and focused in on the approximate time of the administrative report. If he was right, and he was starting to wonder if he was, then they might find the answer to the woman's question.

“So you said this is the last reference to the colony in Senate reports, right?” Velia leaned in again, no longer concerned with Oliver’s personal comfort. “So where is the first mention of it?” This was the closest brush Velia’d had with teamwork in a long time, and it was turning out not so bad.

Oliver paused. He had been so focused on finding any scrap of information he could that he had not thought to look for when the colony was first mentioned in the official records. Sheepishly, he lowered his head, hoping that his embarrassment wasn't too obvious. This is just the kind of thing that will keep you pushing papers for the rest of your life, an angry voice shouted in the back of his mind, Do you even think?

"I'd think it'd be more helpful if you were looking at the screen, crewman." Velia shook her head and breathed deeply. Progress was tempered for a moment by her impatience and the overwhelming desire to move him to the side and dig on her own. In fact ... "tell you what," she said, leveling a gaze on him. "We'll both look." She moved back to her own workstation and followed his lead. "What year is that?" His observance of it being first mentioned 'sometime' in the 2360's was a pretty general one.

Realizing that he had not been paying attention, Oliver mumbled an apology. He turned his attention to the workstation and searched for a moment. "According to this, late 2369, ma'am," he answered.

"Okay so, if we start in 2360, is that too early?" Apparently, whatever the jittery man did in his spare time, he seemed to have a pretty good grasp of this Colony ... or as good as one could have, Velia supposed. She certainly wouldn't have thought to look in Senate records for mention of a nondescript settlement; at least, not for a few hours, anyway. "And what does that entry say, exactly?" Again she eyed him. "And stop calling me ma'am. You may call me Ensign."

"Yes ma...Ensign," Oliver replied, correcting himself in mid-sentence. The woman's rapid-fire questions might have caught another crewman off guard, but Oliver had spent much of his career multi-tasking and dealing with such inquiries. Taking a deep breath to try and steady his nerves, he quickly replied, "I guess 2360 would be as good of a year to start in as any other. The exact record isn't very specific. It just seems to be a status update on the Nerus V Colony, but it's the last one that appears in the official record of the Senate."

One more of these go rounds, and Velia was going to find a pen and a pad of paper and draw the crewman a picture of what she was asking for. Monitoring her tone carefully, she tried again. "What is the status update though? Is it favorable, poor, indifferent?" Maybe they should try this another way. "Okay, what do we know about the Romulan senate from that time period as far as power shifts? You maybe be on to something with that viewpoint," she admitted.

"Several of the incumbent senators retired or were replaced by younger politicians, most of whom seem to have come from an academic background," Oliver said, looking over the Senate demographics for that year, "There was also a new Praetor who ascended to power in 2370."

"Here," she motioned to him with a backward wave of her hand. "2361, and late in the year at that. They moved them in during mid October." She frowned. "Well that's a hell of a time to drop settlers into unknown territory, without established shelter or food supply," she mumbled. Someone hadn't done a whole lot of planning.

Oliver looked over at the readouts. The Romulans had always been a proud people, according to what he had learned in school. It was possible that they saw the establishment of a colony as a challenge, though he certainly wouldn't have been up to it, especially at that late in the year. "I'm sure they had their reasons," Oliver mumbled, though he had no idea what those might be.

"Were these just normal settlers?" If they were the type of people that the Romulans would have just as well done without, Velia could see where it may have been a sort of 'adapt or don't' situation. She sighed heavily, "I just don't get it. There seems to be no purpose to any of this. Is it at all possible that they just ... made a mistake? Maybe they just wanted to expand, maybe something's happening 'in house' that we're unaware of and in trying to branch out they simply failed? Or at least didn't achieve enough stability for the Senate to consider it a worthy enough cause to continue wasting effort and supplies on?"

"I suppose," Oliver replied, looking over the information on his screen. Based on the reports he had been reviewing for Iluvar, it was quite possible that the Senate had decided to no longer support the Nerus V Colony. One of the biggest accusations the Romulan Imperial State had against the Senate was that the Senate had left the frontier worlds to fend for themselves.

"That's the problem," Velia told him without turning. "This mess is a whole lot of 'suppose'."

OFF:

A JP

by

Ensign Velia Moretti
Intelligence Officer
USS Pandora

and

Crewman Oliver Patterson (NPC)
Captain's Yeoman
USS Pandora
played by: RAdm Iluvar