Post 231: Shadows in the System

Posted on Sun Mar 2nd, 2025 @ 1:52am by Lieutenant Commander Michael McMahon & Lieutenant V'Lar

2,503 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Secrets

There were many things V'Lar had never imagined herself having to think about - committing what was in effect a cyber attack on the Federation computer system was just the latest in that string, but the circumstances that they found themselves in had changed the way in which they had to think, this was now about survival. Stepping into the intelligence hub's upper level she began stretching out her fingers and arms, warming up for what they were about to do.

Mike McMahon stood on the lower level, watching V’Lar prepare. His arms were crossed, but his expression wasn’t one of doubt—just quiet calculation.

“You sure about this?” he asked, not as a challenge, but as a genuine question. He had learned to respect her work, even if he sometimes wondered where her ideas came from.

Still, he knew she wouldn’t be doing this unless she believed it was necessary. He exhaled and rolled his shoulders. “Alright. Let’s make it count.”

"Ok so step one." V'Lar said "Isolating our own computer system... sounds easy but isn't. Every computer core on a ship, base, colony etc has a data umbilical that links into the central hub, so we need to cut that first, problem is there isn't a procedure for it because it's never been thought about before never mind done."

Mike let out a short breath, glancing at the main console before looking back at V’Lar. “Figures. The one time we actually need a failsafe, there isn’t one.”

He ran a hand through his hair, already working through the implications. “Alright, so no official procedure means we make our own. But if these systems are designed to stay connected, cutting the link the wrong way could cause a cascade failure or corrupt the data transfer.”

His eyes flicked over to her hands as she flexed her fingers. “How do we keep the system from panicking? If we stagger the disconnections, maybe we can trick the computer into thinking it’s a normal recalibration instead of a total shutdown.”

He exhaled, shifting his stance. “Or is there a way to convince it that we’re still linked, even when we’re not? Some kind of loopback or ghost signal?”

He wasn’t a hacker, but he understood systems—and more importantly, he understood the kind of pressure they were under. They didn’t have the luxury of trial and error.

“Unless you’ve got a better plan.” His tone wasn’t dismissive—if anything, it was expectant. V’Lar had a way of seeing things others didn’t.

"There'd be emergency procedures right? Things that would kick in under certain circumstances?" V'Lar said "What happens if in the middle of a scheduled update the ship or station gets caught in an ion storm or some form of spatial phenomena? There'd have to be something that happens then. That may well be our trick."

Mike’s expression shifted, the gears in his mind clicking into place. He gave a short nod. “Yeah… yeah, that makes sense. If the system thinks it’s dealing with an external anomaly, it might put the connection into a protected state instead of trying to force a reconnection.”

He turned toward the console, running a hand over the edge as he thought it through. “We’d need to simulate the right conditions—something that wouldn’t trigger a full system lockdown but would still make the central hub assume we’re in a bad spot. Ion interference or a subspace disruption… something it already has protocols for.”

His gaze flicked back to V’Lar, a small, almost impressed smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth. “Clever. If we pull it off, the system will isolate us for safety, and we won’t even have to force the cut.” He exhaled, rolling his shoulders. “Alright. Let’s make it happen.”

V'Lar went to the console next to the one Mike was using and began typing "This might be a little bit of trial and error because we don't know what will be considered serious enough." she said "But let's start with a highly rated ion storm and see if that does it, the second we end up isolated we can bring a digital partition wall down and isolate our system."

Mike stood back from the console, watching V'Lar’s fingers move over the keys. His mind was already racing ahead, anticipating the next steps. He crossed his arms, tapping his fingers against his bicep as he assessed the growing complexity of the task at hand.

"Once we have the isolation," Mike said, his tone turning more analytical, "we’ll need to make sure the system doesn’t flag us as an actual malfunction. I’m thinking we’ll need a false feedback loop, something subtle to simulate damage without triggering a shutdown."

He glanced at V'Lar, his expression focused but with a hint of excitement in his eyes. "I'll set up the secondary protocol to monitor for any signs of irregular behavior on the network. While you work on the ion storm simulation, I'll create a contingency plan in case the system doesn’t respond the way we expect."

He turned back to the console, his fingers dancing over the controls as he began to prepare for the next phase of their plan. "Let's make this look convincing."

"It's a good thing we lost a lot of sensor network coverage in the attack or this would never work." V'Lar said as she layered the readings of an ion storm onto the stations sensor feedback "The central hub has no secondary reference point so it has to believe the readings we're sending it. Now we just need to simulate what would happen to data output in such circumstances" she typed in the commands "So we're faking degraded signals, increased radiation, a few energy spikes which causes the odd missing data packet..."

Mike nodded, his focus unwavering as he worked through the setup. "Yeah, without those secondary references, the system's blind. It’s the perfect window to slip something past it."

He glanced at the readouts on his console, then back to V'Lar with a brief, appreciative nod. "Nice. Missing data packets will definitely add to the illusion. If we can make it look like the storm's disrupting our communications without it looking too severe, the central hub will think it’s a normal response."

He paused for a moment, adjusting a few settings on his end. "I’ll adjust the subspace interference model on my side to mirror what we’d see if the ship were really in the thick of an ion storm. That should keep the system from questioning the readings we’re sending." He met her gaze again, his smirk returning. "If this works, we might just make history with this little trick."

"I get the impression making history is going to be a regular side effect of our current predicament." V'Lar said "Ok I'm degrading the communications output and increasing the shield energy output to simulate the storm increasing in intensity and upping the reported radiation count to match." she turned her attention back to the console for a moment "Now let's find out just how much pushing this is going to take."

Mike chuckled softly, his eyes still locked on the data streaming across his console. "Yeah, I think 'making history' is becoming a bit of a trend lately," he said, his voice laced with a touch of irony. "But if we pull this off, it'll be one for the books."

He leaned closer to his screen, fingers hovering over the keys as he made some final adjustments. "Alright, let’s see how much this system can really handle." His smirk grew a little wider. "If this doesn’t work, we may just have to improvise a bit more."

As he entered the last few commands, his attention flickered back to V'Lar. "Ready when you are. Let's see if the system buys what we’re selling."

"Uploading simulation now." V'Lar said pressing the command sequence, still smiling, "Let's hope for good news."

Mike held his breath as the command sequence executed. His fingers hovered above the console, ready to adjust at a moment's notice. For a split second, the station's systems seemed to freeze, a brief moment of tension hanging in the air. Then, slowly, the readouts began to shift.

The communications data started to flicker, just as they’d planned. The shields' energy readings spiked in intensity, mimicking the ion storm’s growing strength. Radiation levels surged, and small bursts of interference caused data packets to occasionally vanish. It was all perfectly controlled chaos, a precise dance of simulated disaster.

"Definitely your uncles nephew." V'Lar said "We've got a weakening in the incoming data stream from the hub."

Mike let out a quiet but victorious laugh, his eyes gleaming with satisfaction as he watched the results unfold. "You’re not wrong," he said, his tone light but with a hint of pride. "It’s all in the bloodline. I could always make a change to intelligence."

He tapped a few more commands into his console, carefully monitoring the weakening data stream. "Perfect. This is exactly what we need." He glanced at V'Lar, his smirk returning. "Seems like we’re in the clear for now. Once the isolation locks in, we’ll have the time we need."

He exhaled slowly, stretching his fingers. "Now, let's finish what we started. We’ve got a window—let’s make sure we use it."

Breaking the umbilical link was the hard part of this particular problem, now they'd achieved that it was by comparison a relatively simple means of preventing it from being reconnected. "I'm building a partition wall around our computer database, that'll keep our data secure for the moment." V'Lar said "Commander if you could remodulate the communication relay readout to mimic something from the historical database, that combined with the fact that we've not got our transponder on right now should fool the system into thinking there's nothing here that's Starfleet."

Mike gave a sharp nod, his fingers already moving across the console. "On it," he said, his focus narrowing.

He pulled up the historical database, quickly scanning for something that would sell the deception. "Let’s go with an old civilian relay station—something decommissioned but still in the records. Should be just enough to blend in without raising suspicion." He tapped in the commands, adjusting the signal modulation.

After a moment, he glanced at V’Lar with a satisfied smirk. "Alright, comms relay is spoofed. As far as the system’s concerned, we’re just a piece of old junk floating in space." His smirk deepened. "Now let’s see how long we can keep this trick running."

"As long as it's still working when the next check in from the hub comes in with the next update we theoretically should be ok." V'Lar said "That's in thirty minutes, partition wall will be up in five minutes, so as long as we read as non Starfleet when the hub wants to check in with us then we should be ok in terms of isolation." she took a breath now came the next tricky part "I'm cataloguing the file addresses for personnel, ship specifications, technological information and everything to do with the USS Voyager, now we need to build a nasty little program to ping back the hub with when it reads us as civilian in thirty minutes."

Mike leaned back slightly, rolling his shoulders as he considered the next step. “Alright,” he said, his tone thoughtful but edged with determination. “We need something subtle—nothing that’ll trip any red flags, but enough to keep the hub satisfied.”

His fingers moved swiftly across the console as he pulled up an old diagnostics routine. “We’ll craft a dummy response using a generic system check-in protocol. Something the hub expects to see from a civilian relay station. Just a routine ‘all clear’ ping with no requests for updates or data synchronization.” His eyes flicked to V’Lar. “That should keep it from digging any deeper.”

He tapped a few more commands, setting up the framework. “I’ll weave in a bit of randomized packet loss, just to sell the idea that this is an old system barely holding together. If they try to run a deep diagnostic, it’ll look like nothing more than degradation over time.”

His smirk returned, albeit with a sharper edge. “If this works, we’ll be ghosts in the system. No alarms, no questions.” He glanced over at her. “Let’s make it happen.”

"Ok inserting the virus into your dummy response. It'll upload the second the 'all clear' pings" V'Lar said continuing to type adding in the final few file addresses that needed to be wiped from the Federation system "And we're ready." she looked up at the nearest clock "Moment of truth."

Mike exhaled slowly, his fingers steady as he made the final keystrokes. “Alright,” he muttered, watching the clock tick down. “This is it.”

He monitored the data stream, his gaze flicking between the system logs and V’Lar’s input. “Virus is embedded, the packet loss is randomized, and the response is prepped for transmission.” He tapped a final command, locking it all into place.

Then, the hub sent its scheduled check-in request.

For a split second, everything felt like it froze. Then, the dummy response triggered. Data packets streamed outward, mimicking the expected report. The system processed the transmission, parsed the degraded signals, and—

Mike’s eyes locked onto the screen as the response came back.

“Looks like we’re still flying under the radar,” he said, a small grin breaking through. “No alarms, no secondary queries. We’re in.”

He glanced at V’Lar, nodding in approval. “That’s one hell of a trick we just pulled off.” He leaned back slightly, a spark of adrenaline still running through him. “A Pleasure working with You V'Lar. I needed something like this.”

"I could tell." V'Lar said "It'll take a little time to filter out but by the next update there should be no trace of anything we wanted gone." she took a breath "Guess I should go and cook dinner for my daughter before she goes and pulls another all nighter on her memorial project."

Mike chuckled, his smirk softening slightly. "Yeah, wouldn’t want her getting too lost in her work. Though, from what I’ve seen, she’s got your focus."

He stretched his fingers, finally letting himself relax now that the job was done. "And hey, if you ever need another partner-in-crime for a bit of digital mischief, you know where to find me."

With a final glance at the console, he locked everything down and leaned back. "Enjoy dinner, V’Lar. You’ve earned it."

********

Lieutenant Junior Grade V'Lar
Chief Intelligence Officer
Starbase Obsidian

Lieutenant Commander Mike McMahon
Chief Operations Officer
Starbase Obsidian

 

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