Finding the Facts from Security

Posted on Thu Sep 29th, 2016 @ 7:29am by Ensign Kela Sirel & Commodore Samantha York & Lieutenant T'Pral & Lieutenant Arnon Barak MD, PsyD
Edited on on Thu Sep 29th, 2016 @ 8:01am

1,559 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Shadow Dance
Location: Jenefran Palace
Timeline: Day 2, afternoon/evening

ON

"Doctor Arnon Barak, Mister Rroden," Arnon was saying. "A pleasure to meet you, though I wish it were under different circumstances. As you may have heard, His Majesty has requested the assistance of Starfleet in the effort to locate Her Highness, the Princess Kalikana. My colleagues and I are hoping to review any information you have and any conclusions you may have drawn and then see if we can add anything useful."

Rroden bowed. "Yes, I have been informed. Unfortunately, I do not have much to show you. There was a problem with the recordings in the garden for the space of an hour. That appears to be the time the Princess disappeared."

"That is most... unfortunate," T'pral commented flatly, holding her folded hands behind her back stoically. "Have you investigated a reason for the equipment failure?"

"You're joking, right?" Kela said as she crossed her arms. "There are only two reasons for for recordings not doing their job. One is mechanical failure, which would have been reported and was repaired after exactly and hour. And two, someone didn't want to the recorder to be seem them and established a window of exactly one hour so as not to be seen. I am willing to bet we are looking at the second."

The Vulcan raised an eyebrow. "I do not joke. Knowing the reason will provide a clue to proceed with. If it is proved to be mechanical, we can rule out deception. If it was... deliberate, then we can focus on that aspect." She chose to remain silent on other means of failure, including natural phenomena, or, for lack of a better term, 'human error'.

Rroden shook his head. "We have not had a failure in over a decade. There is a question as to whether the degaussing of the space vessel had something to do with the malfunction, but it was just the cameras in the gardens. The ones inside the palace were unaffected."

Arnon's ears pricked up and the mention of the degaussing of the space vessel. He wasn't sure what that was about.

"Excuse me," he said. "Degaussing of the vessel?"

"It's another way of saying demagnetize." Kela said quickly. "She thinks that when they demagnetized the ship it might have messed with the recorder." She looked over to Rroden and asked. "Has this been something that's happened before? Have you had problems with the recorders when you've degaussed other ships in the past? If you said you have not had a failure similar to this in decades then how could it be related?"

"I did not say it was related," Rroden said. "I merely stated that it had been quite a while since we had a problem with the security monitoring. We routinely degauss our larger ships, but that has not been a issue before. That does not mean it was not the cause of this problem. As I said, we do not know why the cameras in the gardens failed. As far as I know, it could have been solar radiation. All I know is that we have no sign of anything out of the ordinary in the palace and an hour where the garden monitors failed."

T'Pral considered the situation. "Was there anything different about this degaussing event? If it has not been an issue before, it stands to reason that if it was a factor there would be differences. For example, a failure in the electromagnet shielding allowing spurious EM radiation to reach the surveillance equipment."

Rroden shook his head. "Not as far as I know. This failure is unprecedented."

"And how does that lead away from anything I said about it being deliberate?" Kela added, looking between the both of them.

"I can neither confirm nor deny that it was deliberate," Rroden said politely. "We do not know the cause, so I cannot give you a reason. It would be unprecedented for it to be deliberate, but at this time we cannot rule out the possibility. Members of our security detail are investigating. The King has asked that I let you see what we have and what we know -- which is not much."

"Can neither confirm nor deny. Now doesn't that sound familiar?" Kela commented as she looked over to T'Pral, than back to Rroden. "Doesn't it strike you as interesting that for exactly an hour your recording devices just happen to shut down in a particular area? Maybe not just this area but others. Just for conversation sake, consider the possibility that it was on purpose. That someone programs the devices to systematically stop recording in key areas. Areas where said person would be passing through. Doesn't it seem possible that someone used their knowledge of your security system in order to get from one place to another by only going in areas where they knew the recording devices would be disabled in order to keep from being spotted or and incriminated?"

"The entire incident is interesting," T'Pral commented, remaining stoic in the presence of such emotional responses. "We must logically eliminate each possibility until we arrive at the truth. At this juncture, I cannot say we can yet eliminate any of them; deliberate act or accident. There will be traces for us to pursue in either case. If it was deliberate, the actor should have been recorded approaching the palace. Or, there should be a record of the access to the computer system. An accident should have some electromagnetic traces in the system itself; fried circuits or microcontrollers. A malfunction would show up in a detailed diagnostic. Reviewing each of these will assist in determining the exact cause of the failure."

"Unless its someone who knew about the form of traces the used and found ways around them. Shutting down the device that would catch them on approach and removing any trace of their access in the system. Someone familiar with the security around the palace and with the computer system would be able to do that." Kela paused slightly. "We need someone familiar with things like this." She looked over to Rroden. "Do you think you can grant use access to your computer system?"

"Each of the external cameras has its own recording device," Rroden explained. "We can watch live feeds from the control room if we wish. Twice a day one of the security team replaces the recording disks in each of the external cameras and brings them here where they are loaded into the main computer. The disks are stored for the space of six months and then recycled. This makes it more difficult for someone outside to go unseen. The cameras overlap, so if one is tampered with, another will likely catch the culprit. It has proven most effective for the last 20 years."

He led them to a small back room where the main computer filled one wall. "You are welcome to look at the computer, if you think it will help."

"I would like to view the malfunctioning cameras and the tapes thereof," T'Pral said, a hand reaching around to pull a tricorder from her belt holster, "as well as an unaffected example. Logic indicates, due to your procedures, that is the most likely location of tampering or interference."

"Well," Arnon said. "We seem to be getting along famously. If the technical aspects of the incident can be ascertained, we can interview anyone the facts suggest may be either a suspect or perhaps a witness, knowing or unknowing. Better to know the answers to some of the questions before we ask them. Easier to pick out important facts that a witness may not have realized were important that way."

Not to mention that hard physical evidence made it easier to catch someone in a lie. Arnon didn't bring this up, however. Telling their hosts that their people could not be trusted would not engender cooperation and cooperation was necessary if the Starfleet officers were going to get to the bottom of Princess Kalikana's disappearance.

Of course, Arnon could sense whether or not someone might be lying by their internal physical and emotional reactions, but those could be faked to a certain extent. The physical reactions to lying were brought on by the subjects mental and emotional state. If the subject in question had some skill or experience controlling those, that would throw off Arnon's senses. In cases like these Arnon's senses were best used in conjunction with hard physical evidence that he could use to gauge the reactions of his subject. Regardless, Arnon didn't think now was the time to bring up his sensory empathy. This might put the Jenefrans off the idea of allowing the Starfleet officers to help, as much if not more so than suggesting that their people were not trustworthy. The Jenefrans were a touchy and defensive lot.

"Well," he said. "We should probably get cracking. Mister Rroden, is there somewhere these officers can work?"

Rroden mentally ran through the rooms in the palace. "There is one not far from there you can use," he said. "If you will follow me..."

OFF

To Be Continued

Rroden
Jenefran Security
NPC York

Lieutenant T'Pral
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Calypso

Lieutenant Arnon Barak
Chief Counselor
USS Calypso

Ensign Kela Sirel
Tactical Officer
USS Calypso
NPC Wolfe

 

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