Suspiscion Abounds

[Cptn Corizon 0]

with thanks to Tandy

 

Tandaris walked into Corizon's office. He had not been in here before and took the time to look around, but before he could clean anything about Corizon's personality from the decor, the door behind him slid shut sibilantly and he turned to look at Corizon. Tandaris cleared his voice and said, "You wanted to see me, sir?"

 

There was a mountain of PADDS scattered about the desk, behind them the visage of the Dameon hadn't looked up yet from whatever it was he was reading. "Yes," his voice echoed slightly accross the walls. "Please, have a seat."

 

Tandaris looked at the two chairs in front of him. Left or right? Which to choose? Left--no, maybe right--nah, he was sure that the left one looked more comfortable. Then again, if they were both standard-issue Starfleet furniture, they would be uncomfortable and also make him look fat, so what did he care? He sat down in the left one and waited for Corizon to continue.

 

"I understand," Corizon continued to tap away at the PADD, his ears cocked to either side. "That you've came across...what did the file call it, a possible 'virus' in the Excalibur computer systems?"

 

Tandaris winced and considered his reply. "Yes, rather a series of suspicious commands that we think were deliberately planted by sources unknown. It started, as far as we can tell, from a series of bio-neural gel-paks on Deck 4, in section 12. The gel-paks sent anomalous commands to several other relays throughout the ship, commands that the computer could not process and seemed to be able to override our normal preventative measures to keep the memory buffer from overloading like it did."

 

"And you never bothered to report this to anyone," Corizon finally looked up, glancing directly at Tandaris, "Until now?"

 

"Ensign Tr'Lorin and I just barely discovered it. After replacing the gel-paks, I was preparing to write up a report of the issue to Commander Xavier. But I wanted to try and see if I could track down the source of the commands first, Captain. That's the strange thing--the gel-paks keep logs of every instruction they receive. The ones affected by Deck 4 have records of receiving the commands. But the ones on Deck 4 are clean. The commands, for all intents and purposes, appear to have been directly introduced from an outside source."

 

Waving one hand slightly, Corizon glanced back to the PADD's in his other hand. "It certainly is quite the puzzle..."

 

From the massive amount of paperwork on Corizon's desk, Tandaris gathered that the first officer was rather engrossed with the minutiae of planning whatever their next move was. Unfortunately, he was still unclear as to why he was here. "Sir, if I may ask . . . how did you find out about this anyway? And why didn't you call Commander Xavier?"

 

"There is little that goes on aboard this vessel," Corizon found himself saying this for the second time in one day, "that I don't know about. Secondly, I was curious to hear your own assessment of the issue, especially considering how close the origin of the problem is to your own quarters."

 

That last bit would have caused Tandaris to spit out his beverage (or his fudge) had he been consuming either substance (possibly out of his nose). "Excuse me, sir, I thought you said my quarters."

Raising an ear slightly, along with a corresponding eyebrow, the Dameon looked again at the young Trill before him for a few moments before speaking. "I wasn't aware that the Trill species were hard of hearing, perhaps I should have my universal translator checked?"

 

"How could this be coming from inside my quarters?" Tandaris asked, now feeling quite uncomfortable.

 

Lifting the other ear, "Who said anything about inside your quarters?"

 

"Didn't you--" Tandaris thought about it, "--but I . . ." he thought some more, ". . . oh. I thought you said inside my quarters. But what does the proximity to my quarters have to do with it?"

 

"Given who else lives in that block of quarters and also that the ship has been virtually unreachable to non-Federation personnel, I'd say a great deal."

 

"I assure you, sir, I had nothing to do with this. I only noticed the incident while I was running tests on the computers."

 

"I don't think I made that accusatory, perhaps I should have that universal translator of mine looked at..."

 

"If I didn't do it intentionally, how could I have done it inadvertently?" asked Tandaris, now far more confused than ever. "I haven't touched those gel-paks in my entire stay on the ship; there's no way I could have accidentally infected them with this. . . ."

 

"Perhaps not you..."

 

Tandaris sincerely thought that ellipses should be eliminated from the language altogether. "Then, again, I fail to see what my quarters have to do with this." The only other occupant of his quarters, the stuffed Umb, was not an expert at engineering.

 

Corizon seemed distracted, in deep thought. After what would have had to seem like an eternity, he finally opened his mouth. "I want you to find who or what is responsible for this. We can't afford to have a security breach on this ship with our upcoming mission. I don't care what resources you have to use, just do it. And report your findings to me—personally."

 

Finally the captain was starting to make sense. Tandaris said, "Of course, sir. I'll get on that right away. Anything else?"

 

Corizon shook his head and went back to working, the sign he was done with Tandaris for now.

 

Tandaris stood up and left the office. He walked down the corridor for a few meters then stopped and collapsed against the wall, letting out the breath he realized he had been holding. On the one hand, Tandaris was an engineer, not a detective! But someone had interfered with his computer systems, and he did want to see that person brought to justice...which meant he needed to find them, track them, and catch them. He decided that he would further examine the gel-paks from Deck 4 to see if he could determine when the virus had been planted.

 

In his quarters on Deck 4, nothing moved. Umb sat near the checkers table staring blankly into space. The bed was made, everything was organized, nothing was amiss. And in a drawer buried beneath several other knick-knacks and curiosities, the lights on a particularly peculiar device blinked steadily.