AI's and Intel and Command, Oh My

Posted on Sat Oct 22, 2016 @ 4:47am by Commodore Michael Aravan & Lieutenant Commander Alex Rho

Mission: An Orion to Die For
Location: USS Triumphant, Intel Offices
Timeline: MD 2 || 1730 hours

The Victorious had landed safely and the teams were exiting and dispersing. Alex had thanked the other personnel for their assistance on the mission and then turned to head for the Intel Department. Most of the other agents were heading back, as well. He grinned as he realized that an Intelligence officer's work was never done. Alex still had the device in his hand that Nanrun had given him earlier. It needed to be analyzed right away and a report written up before he briefed the Captain.

It wasn't long before the bearded Intel Chief was passing through the hidden door in his office to the main working area for the department. A few corridors, twists and turns, and he was entering the Intelligence Analysis Facility. When the doors swished closed behind him, a few people looked up and he nodded. "Alright, who's up for a challenge?" he asked.

The hub of the Analysis division went from hustle and bustle filled with called reports, good natured ribbing and code words to uttler silence in the few seconds it took for the Chief's request to filter through the system. It was picked up again seconds later by a plethora of Intelligence chatter filled with buzzwords and the occasional "Sorry, Boss, no can do." "Hands are tied." I would but..."

A Nausicaan stood up from his cube and with a PADD in his hand and tapped something on it and the chatter and buzz vanished again, as well as most of the agents that had supposedly been generating the noise and activity to just the regular agents who had apparently been ignoring everything that had been going on around them while they worked quietly. "Whatdayaneed, Alex?" he asked.

"First of all, it looks like I need to get in here more often," Alex said with a laugh. "Second, it's this." He held up the data retrieval device. "It contains information from the infiltration mission we were just on. I need it checked out right away." He handed the device to the tall Nausicaan.

'Dorsy' as the Nausicaan was known, looked at him. "WhatdaIlooklike?" he asked. "A hacktical officer? Huh? Do I?" He took the device and sniffed it, then looked as if he were about to bite it before he looked at Alex. "Er...you didn't mean this way, did you?" he asked, then continued. "Didn't think so. Did you try F.R.E.D.?"

Alex stood there and grinned. Having a Nausicaan Intelligence Analyst was going to be interesting. He really needed to walk these sub-departments when he had the chance. "No, Dorsy, I haven't met Fred, yet. Why don't you point him out to me."

"Not Fred, F.R.E.D.," Dorsy said with a roll of his eyes. "Haven't you even read the manual or did you just use it to set your coffee on?" He turned and went to a console. "F.R.E.D.! Show your godless heathen ass!"

A hologram of moving horizontal and diagonal black and yellow lines showed up, then a man with yellow cornrowed hair wearing a pair of sunglasses, a black jacket and white shirt showed up. "F-F-Forensic Recovery of Evidence Device is now online!" it said. "But you can call me F.R.E.D."

Alex chuckled as hologram appeared. "F.R.E.D., well met." Alex turned to the Nausicaan. "No, not the coffee. I use the Starfleet Officer's Manual for that."

"I figured," Dorsy said. "Now if you need anything else from me, forget I'm here." He turned and headed off again.

F.R.E.D. coughed. "What can you do for me today and who are you? The rude one never bothered to introduce you."

Alex left the first one alone for a moment. "Alex Rho, Intelligence Chief," he said. "And what I can do for you is to give you this data retrieval device. And what you can do for me is to analyze the information on it. The rude one tried to bite it. So if there's teeth marks, they're his."

"The p-p-pleasure's all mine, Alex Rho," F.R.E.D. replied. "If he does bite something, bite him back, but be warned that you might find a mint on your pillow if you do. Lay the device on the console and we'll see what it has."

"I will heed your warning, then. Maybe there's another way around," he said. "At any rate, here is the information." Alex placed the device on the console as instructed.

A light blue scan went over it from bottom to top and F.R.E.D. flickered before information on the device itself scrolled across the screen, then the information from the station logs began to come up.

A summary of the logs was displayed indicating that the counselor of the station had began acting erratic followed by the Operations and Security officers and finally the Engineers. It seemed that an internal mutiny was taking place in a quiet, organized fashion and no one noticed a thing after some initial confusion.

The log of ships coming and going from the station were all registered to the Federation or contracted with them and all the passengers seemed to check out, but in the end, everyone on the station had simply boarded a unknown ship and abandoned the station.

Alex watched as all the information came up. "Erratic officers...a quiet mutiny...abandonment..." The Ullian-by-birth shook his head and starting thinking out loud. "This isn't good at all. Why would Starfleet personnel simply board an unknown ship and abandon the station? A Tactical Command station, at that. And why were pirates trying to destroy the computers?" Alex then wandered off into his mind for a moment. Did the pirates have something to do with why everyone walked out? F.R.E.D., I need you to put this information, all of it, on a PADD for me."

"There is more, Alex, but the summary of the sensor logs is what is on display," F.R.E.D. replied as he complied. "Do you wish a log by log summary? Most of it is cut and dried day-to-day operations. I gave you what seemed the most interesting."

"Yes, a log by log summary would be good only to say that I can provide all the information from the station if needed. But what seems the most interesting is what we're looking for," said Alex. "Or out of the ordinary, for that matter. So what else do you have?"

"A lot of personal logs, mainly who is dating who and who broke up with who, letters home, personal thoughts and the normal Operations logs that take up terraquads of data," F.R.E.D. responded. "There is a few corrupt ones that will take a while to verify and repair."

Alex nodded. "We can leave the personal logs, letters home, and such in a secure file on the Intel Network. No one really needs to see those at the moment. Though, if it comes down to it, they could provide some insight as to why the people left. And the corrupt ones, take the time you need. But remember, I need them as soon as possible. I hope there's something in them that would add to what we've found so far."

"You...need them as soon...soon...soon as possible, but take my t-t-time?" F.R.E.D. asked as it tried to process the Chief's statement.

Alex smiled. He liked having fun with holograms. They were like androids, so literal. "Gotcha," he said. "But seriously, as soon as you can get them, F.R.E.D."

"Will do, Alex," F.R.E.D. responded. "I'll have them transferred to the PADD as soon as they're finished. Anything else I can do for you? Get you lunch or a date, perhaps?"

Alex eyed the hologram. They were his weakness; he couldn't read them. "I can't think of anything else at the moment, F.R.E.D. I'll pass on lunch, but I'll keep your offer of finding a date for me in mind." He smirked at his last comment. "Thank you."

"You're welcome. Now if you'll excuse me, one of us has work to do," F.R.E.D. responded before the hologram flickered and vanished.

---

Once Alex had the PADD in hand with the information that he had requested from F.R.E.D., he tapped his combadge. "Rho to Aravan. I have the information our infiltration teams retrieved from the Tactical Command station before it exploded. I can brief you at your leisure, sir."

=^=Meet me in my ready room in five, Lieutenant,=^= The Captain's voice responded a moment later.

"Understood, Captain. Rho out." The Ullian tapped his combadge, ending the conversation. With the size of the ship, he decided to go ahead and a start on the trip. It would probably take him five minutes. Alex grabbed the PADD and headed out the doors. A few moments later, he stepped off the turbolift onto the large Bridge. He made his way over to the door and rang the chime.

"Enter," Michael called and activated the door. He stood facing some of the bonsai trees which lined a shelf on the back wall and turned when the Chief of Intelligence came through. "What do you have for me, Mister Rho?" he asked as he moved to get a cup of coffee.

Alex approached the Captain's desk and stood there, PADD in hand. "We have some rather interesting information, Captain," he said. "Interesting as in odd."

"We've had a few interesting and odd things happen since you were gone, so let me have it," Michael said as he took a drink of his coffee and sat down at the head of the table. "Get some coffee and tell me everything."

"Thank you, Captain," Alex replied. He put the PADD on a chair in front of the desk and went to get a cup of coffee. He came back and sat down in the other chair, picking up the PADD. He took a sip and grinned. "Delicious coffee. So, to start off, the only live personnel found on the Orion Sector Tactical Command station were pirates. Other than that, the station was quiet. Empty." He took another sip of his coffee and let that sink in for a moment.

"Did you bring the prisoners back to be interrogated?" Michael asked as he listened, giving a nod to the comment on the coffee.

"There were no prisoners," Alex stated. "We had to evacuate the infiltration teams with what intel we could gather, Captain. I'm sorry to report that Orion Sector Tactical Command has been destroyed along with the pirates."

Michael frowned. "Were they confirmed dead?" he asked as he set the cup of coffee down.

Alex saw the frown and fought opening his mind to the general emotional feel in the room. "No," he replied. "We didn't stay around to find out after the station exploded. There were four ships of various configurations inbound on our position. Or rather, the station's position. We were able to determine Klingon, Romulan and Cardassian configurations."

"Was it possible that one of the incoming ships transported the pirates before the ship exploded?" Michael asked.

"If they were in transporter range, it's possible," said Alex. "But I doubt it. The sensors picked them up as veering off in different directions immediately after the station exploded. I expect they were as surprised at what happened as we were. Plus, the report from one of my team members is that the isolinear chips were removed, deliberately burned, put back in, and the self-destruct activated and put on a delay while hidden. Someone knew exactly what they were doing with Starfleet computer systems on a Command installation."

The Captain felt the start of a migraine coming on as he tried to make sense of the lack of information and the apparent cover up of Orion Sector Tactical Command. He got up and paced to the bonsai trees lining the wall and back. "Did you manage to get anything at all from it?"

"We did, Captain. We were able to retrieve some data from the station's computer before we evacuated," Alex said, taking a drink of coffee. "To summarize it, the station's counselor started acting erratically, followed by the Operations and Security officers, and lastly, the Engineers. As far as ships, all were registered to the Federation or contracted with them. The Security logs indicate that all the passengers were clear. Everyone simply boarded and unknown ship and abandoned the station. But not before setting everything in motion I mentioned earlier." He paused to set his coffee down and access the PADD he brought with him. "There were also some corrupt files that are currently being verified and repaired in our Analysis Division. As soon as they're complete and I've had a chance to look them over, I'll alert you. In the meantime, there were also personal logs, letters home, personal thoughts, and normal Operations logs. They're currently being stored in a secure file on the Intel Network."

Michael turned and listened to what the Intel Chief was telling him and nodded. "Analyse those and everything else, Lieutenant. I don't want a single scrap of information overlooked, no matter how insignificant it might be. I want dates, times, recipients, rank and everything in the order of events. Starfleet officers simply do not abandon their posts, get on unknown ships and leave their post. This reeks of a level of espionage that I doubt even our agency is capable of and the Tal Shiar and Obsidian Order got themselves killed off during the Dominion War with the exception of a few survivors."

Alex nodded. "Yes, Sir. I can do that." He tapped rather quickly on his PADD and made some notes. "I will ensure that everything is taken care of properly, Captain. And promptly. We will not be like the Tal Shiar and Obsidian Order." He slightly grimaced at the Captain's mention of a level of espionage that not even Starfleet Intelligence was capable of and decided to probe a bit. "A level of espionage above ours, Sir?"

"There's always organizations that specialize in intelligence gathering, Mister Rho," Michael said. "Not everyone operates by the Federation's standards and history has a way of repeating itself or others who attempt to recreate what others have done. The Orion Syndicate has been operating for a very long time, have they not? They don't get away with everything they've done without having some sort of intelligence organization, but we just don't know what it is."

He knew that Captain Aravan was right. The Syndicate had to have something in place. "Indeed there are, Captain. There are many of them. And yes they have." His time undercover as Farian businessman Tanner Gallal taught him quite a bit about the Orions and that Syndicate. But that was all Starfleet Intelligence need-to-know. Besides, what was the phrase...plausible deniability? "Then perhaps we can fill some of that void by the end of this mission."

"We can hope," Michael said. "As for plausible deniability, it's time to drag whoever this is into the open and expose them for what they are."

Alex grinned. "I like the sound of that Captain." It had been a while since he had been able probe minds, whether individually or in a crowd. And from what the Captain said, he might get to do that very soon. "Agreed, Captain."

Michael looked at him and gave a wry chuckle. "If I didn't know better, Lieutenant, I'd say that was a very un-Intel thing to say. I thought your type liked to hide from the light."

"We do shun the light, Sir," he said with a grin. "But I never said I would need to leave the shadows to drag someone into the light."

"Get on it, Lieutenant," Michael said. "Get with Operations if you need additional resources or contact Commander Weisz if you get new information. I want to know what happened at Sector Command and I want to know it soon."

"I will, Captain," he said, rising from chair. "Operations if needed and Commander Weisz with the new information. As soon as I have the information, the Commander will be the next one I contact."

Michael nodded. "Is there anything else?"

"No, Sir," he said. "At least not yet."

"Then get back and find out anything you can from those files," Michael said, feeling frustrated at the lack of information and his migraine started to remind him of the fact that Doctor Caticasse would undoubtedly have words with him.

"Understood." Alex turned and headed out of the room. He had a lot of things to do now.