VOYAGERS! - The Voyager Chronicles
THE CRIME OF ALL TIME - BOOK 3
(Sequel to Tastes of Freedom)
By DA Daugherty (VoyagersFan)
October 2007 (Revised 05/2009)
Previous disclaimers apply
Chapter 9 – A STATE OF CONCERN
Inside the main conference room of Voyager Technical, a meeting was about to take place to discuss the current state of affairs including the theft of the ACS100 and the apparent abduction of so many Voyager field personnel. With the last of the attendees making their way into the room, Chancellor Garth called the meeting to order.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, shall we begin? I have one last minute change to report. The Prime Minister will not be in attendance today. He had some urgent business to attend to on the other side of the planet. He will return tomorrow morning and I will brief him on the outcome of this meeting at that time."
"The reason I have called this meeting today is due to the recent unexplained events which have occurred at Voyager Technical and Mission Control. It is these events which in my opinion could and will have a devastating effect on this planet if they are not resolved in a timely manner. With that said, I will turn the floor over to Director Blake."
"Thank you sir. I will start by giving you an overview of those events which have occurred over the past few days. Once I have completed my explanations, I will entertain questions from the group and allow my staff to further explain the details. I would like to ask that you please hold all of your questions until I have finished."
"The situation as you might want to call it, started with the first unusual event, which occurred several nights ago when someone broke into the R & D department and stole our newest prototype omni, the ACS100. It was discovered missing the next morning and there was no obvious signs of intruders or forced entry. "
"The next unusual event occurred that same night. As the security guards made their appointed rounds, somehow, none of them were recorded on any of the building's cameras. If you review the video tape log for that evening, it looks as if no one was in the building at all. We have since determined a very unusual malfunction occurred with the building security system that night."
"As if that wasn't enough to keep us all on the edge of our seats, Mission Control discovered another rather odd situation in their area early yesterday. It seems over ninety percent of our field personnel had been dispatched out in the field. The vast majority of them have been in the same time zone and location for more than 3 days. None have yet to report in."
"Finally, we sent someone into several of the aforementioned time zones to investigate. In each area, the assigned Voyager had disappeared without a trace. In one circumstance, the Voyager in question was observed to be in a struggle with what apparently was an invisible entity moments before he vanished into thin air."
"This is a summary of the events which have occurred thus far." With that said, I'll open up the floor for questions and discussion."
At this point a member of the Council of Six spoke up.
"I unfortunately have no knowledge of this ACS100 omni. Could one of your staff enlighten me as to the details of this device?"
"Sure. " Blake replied. "Mary, the supervisor in the R & D department can tell you about it… Mary if you would."
"Ok…Sir. I'd be more than happy to." She replied.
"Gentlemen, the ACS100 is the latest development in omni technology to come out of R & D. It has the same features and functionality of the standard omni, but with two distinct improvements. First, it is voice activated. Instead of using buttons or dials to input commands, places and dates, you can just speak them aloud."
The group began to gasp and whisper amongst themselves upon hearing this feature.
"The second of its improvements involves the addition of a cloaking device, which renders the user totally invisible when faced with a dangerous situation or when the user wants to observe an event, unobtrusively. Hence the source of its name ACS stands for Automatic Cloaking System."
"I have a question." Henderson interrupted. "This is not about the ACS100, but about Mission Control. Is it normal to have that many field personnel on assignment at the same time?"
"No it's not unusual, since the number of time errors fluctuates to both extremes." Roberts explained. "It's just very unusual to have that many field personnel who have not checked in."
Another member of the Council of Six spoke up. "Director Blake, you made a reference during your summary that you believe these events are somehow related. Can you explain further?"
"Yes, I believe all these events are connected." Blake replied. "If you look at the events in the order they occurred, they do have an obvious pattern. First you disable the security system or cause its malfunction. Next, you steal the state of the art omni which has the ability to render the user invisible. Then you go into several of the time zones where field personnel have been assigned to and obviously kidnap them for some reason or another. The only questions at this point are why and what is the next event to occur?
"Ok, assuming you are correct in your observations, does anyone here know who has the most to gain by doing this?" Davis asked.
"I would have to say… and it's purely speculation at this point…" Garth interjected. "It must be some organized group of the criminal element of the planet. If in fact, that is the case, the next important question is what are they trying to accomplish?"
"Have we discovered how they subverted the security system?" Henderson asked.
"I have the best technician at I S & T looking into that now." Blake said boldly. "Mr. Mallory, would you like to take that question?"
Mallory had been sitting quietly at the end of the conference table. Now quite uncomfortable, he began to speak.
"Yes…" He said as he cleared his throat. "Yes, I'll respond to that question. At this point sir, I have determined that someone external to the division tapped into the Voyager Computer Network and at the appropriate moment, disabled the security system alarms and put the cameras in a loop. Whoever it was, they erased all traces of their access once they were finished. I have not been able to trace their connection, but I am still investigating."
Another member of the Council of Six spoke up. "Ok. It looks as if we have a major security breach here and the potential for the entire Mission Control department to collapse. I don't know about the rest of you, I believe we need to take action now."
"What should we do?" Davis asked. "Or more specifically, what can we do?"
"As I see it, we have only one option open to us at this point." Garth interjected. "We need to stop the loss of personnel in Mission Control and we need to further investigate these disappearances of our current field personnel. However, there are not enough personnel currently available to do so. I believe at this critical juncture in our investigation, that we have no other choice but to activate the Voyager recall signal and get our remaining field personnel back to the planet and re-group."
Stunned by this rather unorthodox recommendation, those in attendance began to talk amongst themselves. After a few minutes of discussion, Chancellor Garth once again spoke up.
"Ok, you've had a few minutes to discuss my idea. I want to hear some feedback."
One of the members of the Council of six spoke up.
"While I feel this is a very critical situation, I'm not quite convinced the use of the recall signal is necessary."
Another Council member who disagreed with the statements of his colleague began to speak.
"Sir, I understand your concern. I also know, the recall signal has not been used in over a century and according to Voyager Code can only be used in the in the gravest of circumstances. Well, here we are. We're facing an unknown adversary here. One who has stolen a highly sensitive piece of equipment and has kidnapped our field personnel. I say we do it now! Activate the recall signal, get our people safely back here and double our forces against this foe."
"I agree also." Henderson stated pointedly. "There's strength in numbers. The more people we have to throw at this problem, the quicker its resolution."
Chancellor Garth looked over at Blake, who had been very quiet and pressed him for his opinion.
"Director Blake. We have yet to hear from you. How do you think we should proceed?"
"Chancellor Garth. I believe we need to continue our investigation and expose the culprits and their plan. I agree with you and the distinguished member of the Council of Six, we must have enough manpower to perform this task thoroughly. There is, at this moment not enough personnel available to do this. I also recommend we activate the recall signal."
All of a sudden, a deafening silence filled the room. After a brief pause, Chancellor Garth began once again to speak.
"Is there anyone else here who would like to comment on what has been said thus far?" He asked. "Are we all in agreement, then, to activate the recall signal? If there are any others opposed to this, please speak up now."
Garth paused for a moment as silence again filled the room. The attendees looked at each other to see if anyone was going to break the silence. After a time, he continued with the discussion.
"There being no other objections at this point, we will proceed with our plan. Mr. Roberts, if you will please initiate the recall as soon as we adjourn. The sooner we get our personnel back here the better off we will be."
"Sir, I will need the key to override the lockouts." Roberts said wryly.
Chancellor Garth reached down inside his shirt and retrieved a small key card attached to a gold chain currently hanging from his neck. He removed the key card and passed it to Roberts.
"Here is the key you require. Please return it to me when you are finished."
"I will sir." Roberts acknowledged.
"Director Blake, once our personnel have returned, we will need to schedule another meeting to brief them on what is known thus far and to develop a plan of attack. Can you and your staff arrange that?" Garth asked.
"Yes sir. When would you like to schedule it?" Blake asked.
"Let's meet in the auditorium one hour from now. I would also like to have those from your division who are here now in attendance also."
"That's no problem sir." Blake replied.
"Good…Good. The Council of Six and I will meet with the Prime Minister when he returns tomorrow and inform him of what has occurred."
"If there are no other questions or concerns, we will adjourn until later." Garth said as he rose from his seat. "Thank you all for coming."
The group disbanded and returned to their designated areas. Roberts and Connors, upon arrival back at Mission Control, began the task of activating the recall signal.
Connors walked over to her console and sat down. With Roberts now standing behind her she typed in a few commands and the computer responded in its rather mechanical sounding voice and flashed a large red warning box on the screen.
"Warning…You are about to initiate the Voyager Recall Signal. In order to continue please insert the appropriate control keycard into the slot."
Connors looked back at Roberts and asked, "Are we ready?"
Roberts smiled at Connors and in a confident, forceful military-like tone replied, "We're ready. Let's do this!" He quickly leaned over and inserted the keycard into the slot.
"Control keycard #1 has been inserted." The computer replied. "Awaiting voice authorization from Mission Specialist."
Connors looked at her terminal and began to speak.
"Computer, this is Mission Specialist Lindsey Connors, Id number 832516. Authorization…Alpha-6-3-Charlie-Victor."
Acknowledging her input, the computer replied. "Connors, Lindsey, I-d number…8-3-2-5-1-6, rank…Mission Specialist… Authorization confirmed."
The computer continuing its authorization sequence, again prompted for more information.
"Awaiting supervisor voice authorization for final 1 minute countdown."
Roberts leaned down and began to speak.
"Computer, this is Mission Control Supervisor Marcus Roberts, Id number 672925, Authorization…Gulf-7-8-Victor-Alpha"
Again, the computer confirmed the information given.
"Roberts, Marcus, I-d number…6-7-2-9-2-5, rank…Mission Control Supervisor… Authorization confirmed… Beginning final countdown to recall activation."
Suddenly the message: "01:Minutes 00:Seconds to Activation" appeared in middle of the screen as the countdown begun.
The two stood there silent, intensely focused on the computer as it completed its countdown. Once it reached the 10 second mark, the computer once again spoke.
"Warning, 10 seconds to Voyager Recall Activation"
"Warning, 5 seconds to Voyager Recall Activation."
"Four"
"Three"
"Two"
"One"
"Voyager Recall now activated." The computer said in its mechanical tone.
"And now we wait." Connors said as she sat back in her chair.
"Yes, now we wait." Roberts echoed as he removed the keycard and walked back to his office.