Pavel refuses to believe that a Starfleet member could be a traitor. He just won't believe it. Neither can Ellen.
Dr McCoy tells them, cynically, that anyone can be corrupted, that anyone can be a traitor. Nurse Chapel tells him to stop destroying their youthful innocence and naivety.
They still refuse to believe it and they are going to prove it. Going to the Computers area, they ask Ensign Wilkins how powerful a computer is needed to hack a Starfleet network. He replies that as far as they know, none can. Even a Starfleet supercomputer cannot. Commander Spock believes there is a traitor. It's the only logical answer, but they cannot, will not, accept it. There must be something else, something that they've overlooked.
They sit in his quarters that night, after their shift, trying to puzzle it out.
'Pavel, do you think that you could back trace the signal of the transmission?'
'Nyet. Eet's too vell encoded.'
'But how powerful a computer would you need to hack a Starfleet computer, one with top secret information?'
'Wery powerful. Eet shouldn't exist. Ze technology is not in existence yet.'
'But it does. Wait, where have I heard this before?'
'Wulcan! Ze Narada!'
Their eyes meet.
'Ze computer-'
'-Is from the future!'
'Keptain!'
'We know how the pirates got the Starfleet translators!'
'Zey used computer from ze future!'
Kirk, Spock and McCoy stare at them.
'Chekov, Lee, how is this possible? Are you saying that more stuff from the future came through that black hole?'
'No Captain. We know that the Narada and its Crew were imprisoned on a Klingon Prison Planet for almost 25 years. We don't know how they escaped. We have a theory now.'
'Going through ze recorded transmissions, ve found zat a group of pirates vere also imprisoned zere at ze same time. Ve zink zat Nero made a deal vith ze pirates: help him escape and he gives zem a computer from ze future.'
'So you're saying that Nero is still screwing up our lives?'
'Unfortunately yes Captain.'
Bones, as usual, is extremely cynical about the 'kids' abilities. Even after almost a year, he still doesn't believe in them.
'You might be 18 now, but that's just so damn ridiculous!'
Commander Spock comes to their defence and they get a weird sense of déjà vu.
'Ensign Chekov and Ensign Lee's suggestion is perfectly logical. Unfortunately, I discounted the possibility of interference left over from the Narada Incident, but I can check their observations. My preliminary analysis suggests they are indeed correct.'
'Spock, Chekov, Lee, can you locate this computer? We need to destroy it, before it brings any more harm .Uhura, send a transmission to Admiral Pike, update him. Then go through the transmission tapes, check if the pirates were imprisoned at the same time. Get Security to interrogate the leader, or any of them that they can make talk.'
'Yes Captain.'
