A Decoded Surprise

[Taalix 0]

"A Decoded Surprise"

Taalix Rokara's Duty Log

Stardate 0506.15

 

Taalix was worried and unsure of what to do next. But she had not really been anything else since she had arrived on Aegis, and today was certainly no exception.

 

…………………….

 

Taalix had left Main Engineering just a few hours earlier. She, along with her science department colleagues, planned on transporting any wreckage left from the blast into cargo bay 5 and run a preliminary analysis on it.

 

She had not been able to locate Morson to update him on their plans, so she tried to contact Lieutenant Commander Hawke. Taalix received no response from her either.

 

Next, she contacted Security Chief Quark to see if a security and science combination team could be put together to examine the wreckage. Unfortunately, Quark was busy and was not able to speak with her.

 

After all that, it was no surprise that Taalix was starting to feel a bit bothersome. However, she knew that both Hawke and Quark must be extremely busy with everything that was going on, so she tried not to take it personally.

 

She decided to continue on to the cargo bay with the rest of her team. At least they could beam in the wreckage and take some preliminary scans. As long as they did not do any invasive tests that would disturb possible evidence, Taalix supposed that they could get a head start on analysis of the debris.

 

And that way, she could also feel like she was accomplishing something instead of running all over the station looking for superior officers that had other things to worry about.

 

However, it turned out that someone was looking for her. Soon after she entered the cargo bay, her commbadge clicked on with an unexpected voice. It was Admiral Meve.

 

There was a transmission that needed to be decoded and he wanted them to work on it. As soon as Dent routed the information to the cargo bay, she had stepped over to the console and had a look at it.

 

The data signature itself was encrypted, but Taalix managed to play the audio portion of the message in the cargo bay so the whole team could hear it. She attempted to reduce the noise and realign the frequency levels, but she was doubtful she would be able to decode it successfully. It was just too garbled and there was too much static to be able to decipher without a lot better equipment, and from the way the Admiral had sounded, it seemed like she did not have the luxury of spending a few days trying to track that equipment down.

 

So she turned to the data portion of the transmission, which she hoped she would have better luck with. It had been securely encrypted with a Cardassian code, so Taalix searched the computer's database for known Cardassian encryption keys in order to decrypt it.

 

The computer responded, "No possible matches found."

 

Next, she decided to check the database again, this time for known Cardassian coding techniques. She realized she would not have too many options left if this did not work out.

 

Soon the computer responded again, this time with something different. "Potential match found." She eagerly looked to the console to see what the computer had come up with.

 

Unfortunately, Taalix would not be able to simply decrypt the message like she would have been able to with the key. Because she had only found the coding technique, the computer would have to run several processes to decode each letter. She began tapping at the console, taking a guess as to what may hold the crucial information the Admiral had wanted.

 

The first few bits of data had been nothing worth noting, but soon she picked a part of the data stream that had something interesting contained within…the destination coordinates.

 

She stood up with a smile on her face, proud that she had managed to find something. "Computer, chart the coordinates contained within the decoded data and display their location."

 

When the map of the quadrant displayed in front of her, the grin quickly faded and was replaced by disbelief. The blinking dot indicated that the destination of the transmission had been at the edge of Breen space closest to Cardassia. To be precise, it was a communications relay near the planet Portas.

 

With a sinking feeling in her stomach, Taalix turned back to decoding more of the data. More unscrambling resulted in finding out that the message had originated from the Prime Minister's office on Cardassia Prime.

 

This did not look good at all. With the recent events aboard Aegis and on Cardassia, Taalix suspected this transmission was not exactly an innocent exchange between cultures, especially if it involved the Breen.

 

She was eager to try to unscramble more of the data, but she thought Admiral Meve should know what had been discovered so far. She tapped her commbadge and tried to contact him, but once again, she was told to wait.

 

Taalix became frustrated. She had been sent this transmission to decode, which turned out to be something completely unexpected. Someone needed to know what she had found out, because this could mean even more trouble for the Aegis.

 

She thought for a moment about what to do, then tapped her commbadge again.

 

"Ensign Taalix to Lieutenant Dent."