Wakith Intrigue

[Cptn Corizon 0]

The Oberon skated along the the edges of a cloud of asteroid bits and pieces. On the bridge science officer Haskie N'Saar was doing a double, no triple take on the readings on her screen. Glancing towards the communication console across the bridge from her, she caught the attention of Garrett Johnson, a young, auburn haired ensign whom, though she'd not admit it to him, was not only dashingly handsome but one of the most skilled officers on the ship.

 

“What's up Hask?” He said in his typical boyish manner, his hair flopping as he made his way across the bridge of the New Orleans-class vessel.

 

She smiled slightly at her 'nickname,' and pointed to the screen. “We've been taking advantage of our proximity to the Soramaro Array,” she said. “We've been sending the information and readings we got on that whole business back at the Uturian Cloud back to Earth and to some scientists at the Nallin Science Outpost...they're doing some work on intergalactic weather phenomena...”

 

The look on Johnson's face told her that she should probably cut to the chase, as the humans might say. “Well we'd been experiencing some interference...”

 

“Ion storm maybe?”

 

“No,” her response was quick, but not condescendingly so. “I started actually looking at the feed, and it appears that there's some sort of...I don't know...interlaced message being bounced through the array, but it's really garbled and...”

 

Now Johnson was interested and he was already looking at the readout on her screen. “It's almost like some one is interlacing a message across a dozen or so bands of subspace channels.”

 

N'Saar nodded. “I wouldn't have even noticed if we weren't sending the information out on a couple different channels.”

 

“I am bringing up the entire register of channels that Array is equipped to handle,” Johnson said as his fingers worked over the console. “It looks like its on twelve...maybe thirteen different channels. Let's see if we can isolate one.”

 

A few minutes later Johnson had managed to isolate a piece of the message, but all he could make out was a scrambled, solitary shape. “That's interesting.”

 

“What if in order to read the message you have to bring all the pieces together?”

 

By now, the officer on watch, Lt. Commander Alex Huzina was curios what the two officers were doing and had made his way over to watch over there shoulder. “Perhaps,” he said grabbing their attention. “But are you sure we should be doing this?”

 

“Well there's no harm is there?” Johnson said.

 

Smiling at his enthusiasm, N'Saar quickly added, “Besides what ever that is...it's interfering with normal ship-to-shore communications. Don't we have an obligation to to investigate it.”

 

Huzina grinned, he as just as curious as they were. “I think so. Crewman Ellington, get Commander Jueng up here, and ask him if we should rouse the Captain.”

 

“Yes, sir.”

 

“Alright I think I can manage to isolate all the different pieces...let's see what happens when I...”

 

Johnson's fingers flew over the console as he extracted the feed from each of the different communication channels and overlaid them on each other. The whole process took probably twenty-minutes, and gave enough time for Jueng to appear on the bridge and take up a position flanking Huzina.

 

Huzina started to talk, but Jueng waved him off. “Ellington filled me in on the way up.”

 

“Good, I think Johnson is about ready to compile the strands from the different channels.”

 

“...And done.”

 

The screen went dim for a few seconds as the computer processed the commands. When the screen came back to life, instead of communications feed, or even raw data...something none of the crew had expected to happen, happened: the entire bridge went dim as the red alert klaxon began to chirp and the lighting switched to combat mode, every screen on the bridge flickered, then just as Johnson/NSaar's console was already doing a large single glyph filled the screen.

 

“Gamma?” They all asked at the very same time.

 

“I think,” Jueng said after a few moments of silence. “Someone should get the Captain up here...”

 

“Way ahead of you,” they all heard the unmistakable voice of Captain Corizon come from a few feet behind them. “What in the devil is going on?”

 

“We'll sir...”

 

He waved a hand. “Gamma.”

 

“Uhhh....” Johnson said, though the rest of the group were doing the same thing visually. “That sounded like you know what that means?”

 

“Yes,” Corizon's voice tinged with annoyance, though it did seem like it was directed at the crew. “Why did you happen upon a communication—no I don't want to know—how did you manage to do that?”

 

Johnson started to speak, but N'Saar cut him off. “Sir we've been using the Array to send information back to Starfleet science and we'd come across interference...Johnson was helping me see what it was when we noticed a message being interlaced in pieces across a dozen channels.”

 

“I cleared them with seeing what it was,” Huzina said quickly, hoping to keep the Dameon's wrath from lashing at the two younger officers.

 

They all seemed surprised when in the place of growling Corizon was looking at the console closer, mostly at the readout on the messages. “Can we track where the message is originating?”

 

Blinking, but not asking any questions, Johnson began tapping quickly. “Wakith.”

 

Lifting an ear as the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. “Clear the bridge, everyone but the four of you...shoo.”

 

“Sir?”

 

“You heard me...everyone but the four of you.” Obediently the bridge crew exited leaving only Johnson, N'Saar, Huzina, Jueng and Corizon staring at the Gamma insignia on the monitors of the Oberon bridge.

 

When the last of the crew filed out, Corizon let out a small sigh. “Gamma codding is used only by Starfleet Intelligence, ATAG and Starfleet Command. It's somewhat of a closely guarded secret.”

 

“Sir?”

 

“It's used when one of those organizations want to send something to someone else in the organization without anyone knowing about it. It's stealthy, well encrypted and hard to track.”

 

“It's designed so that even if the wrong people in Starfleet come across it and figure out how to put the message back together it will lock out the computers till someone from SI can fix it.”

 

“I assume that means someone knows we've came across this?”

 

“If I weren't aboard, yes?”

 

“Sir?”

 

“Computer, release Gamma Lockout.”

 

“Authorization required.”

 

“Authorization, Corizon, Ah-Windu. Captain. ATAG Identification: Five, Nine, Beta, Two, Dash, Five, One, Theta, Charlie”

 

“Voice print recognized: Captain Ah-Windu Corizon, ATAG Field Operative. Releasing Gamma Lockout now.”

 

“What the hell is ATAG?” Jueng couldn't help himself.

 

“Advanced Tactical Assessment Group.”

 

“Never heard of it,” Johnson said despite himself.

 

“I don't doubt it. ATAG is a classified organization tasked with assessing tactical threats to the Federation.”

 

“So you're some sort of secret agent planted on our ship?” Huzina questioned, looking directly at the Captain.

 

“Not knowingly,” he said, slightly annoyed at the game of twenty questions.

 

“What does that mean?”

 

“It means that I haven't been contacted about being on a mission for ATAG since I got back from the Gamma Quadrant.”

 

They all looked at him. “You mean this was an accident you being here.”

 

“I am beginning to suspect otherwise, but you leave that to me.”

 

“Yes, sir,” came the unison reply.

 

“Now lets see what this message is about.”

 

“Aye.”

 

“Computer, play back message, authorization Corizon Beta One.”

 

The screens on the bridge flickered, and all but the main screen went dark. Soon the main viewer flashed with an image of the Starfleet parabola, followed by a detailed message from a shadowy Starfleet officer. It was a status report on the Wakith system.

 

After listening to it, Corizon could see why they wanted them out of the area. “Those son's of bitches.”

 

 

The others were almost too shocked to say anything. Corizon though was going a mile a minute. “Jueng, did we file a flight plan with 113 before we left?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Damn.”

 

“Sir?”

 

“Johnson...how good are your hacking skills?”

 

The young ensign wasn't sure how to respond. Actually no one was. The entire last five minutes had seemed like something out of a movie, and here Corizon was behaving like this was par for the course. Not only was he not just shocked at the communique but he seemed like he was already well into planning something.

 

“Uhh well...that depends.”

 

“Can you hack one-thirteens databank's to plant a new flight plan for us?”

 

They were all blinking, and looking at Corizon again. “Sir?”

 

“We need to be...”

 

“Huzina, how many hours are we from Wakith now?”

 

“At maximum warp?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Twelve.”

 

“How many hours till their,” he pointed at the screen, “zero hour?”

 

“13, sir.”

 

“We need to project our course so we'd be with in half an hour of that local space.”

 

“I don't understand sir, you're not possibly planning on going in guns blazing are you?”

 

“No.”

 

“Then what?”

 

“I am planning on interrupting their little party. They'll call it off if they see another fleet ship.”

 

“Then why all the subterfuge? We can be there before the party.”

 

“Right, but we need to make it look like sloppy work on their part. I don't want us all to get court martialed.”

 

“Come again?”

 

“Unauthorized viewing of a Gamma-level document is a court martial offense.”

 

“Even if the contents expose illegal activity?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Damn.”

 

“I guess we don't have much choice then?”

 

“Not really.”

 

“Then we'd better get to work.”