Thank you very much Firebirdgirl (I'll try to find the way to edit chapter contents to change worp to warp) and Aditu for reviewing. Hey Firebirdgirl, you are breaking my very carefully designed suspense about the fact that she's going to be good friends with Harry; try to make an effort not to spoil my efforts so publicly lol ;-)
Well, it's been a time since I posted on this story because I've been busy with another (as it tends to happen…), but here is the next chapter… more action is called for!
Chapter IV. Hacking skills…
"Enshign Kim?", Merrrshika asked when she came near him in the mess hall.
"Yes?", he asked, turning around.
That's when he saw it was her. He should have recognized her accent, he thought. His expression changed, and he said:
"Oh, Mershika. You finally decided to take your meals with everybody else here?"
"Not rreally," she answered. "Chakotay told me you werre the perrshon I should ashk forr forr a new item design and the computerr told me you werre herre, sho I came to shee you."
"A new item design?", he asked.
"I would need shomething nearr what you call shunglasshes."
He burst into laughter, before he noticed that the vertical slit of her eyes was practically closed, and that she was constantly squinting. Moreover, she was holding her back to the closest light.
"Ourr planet is farr away frrom the shun, and therre is a huge planet jusht beforre ush. The light that comes therre is faint, and not it the shame shpectrrum as yourr light. The doctorr shays I need shunglasshes beforre I become blind."
Harry got down from his stool, and said:
"I'm sorry. Come with me in engineering, we will see what we can do to help you."
She smiled, and it pulled a little more her eyes into an almond shape. Harry forced his stare away from her to the door as naturally as he could. No doubt Paris would be laughing at him about that particular stare later on. Harry half-smiled to himself, and let the Mirrresh go into the turbolift first.
When they got to engineering, B'Elanna greeted them. More precisely, she nodded to Kim, and did not care to look in Merrrshika's direction. It saddened her a little; she had not expected the engineer to be angry that she managed to hack through Voyager's security codes, but she would soon be intimately acquainted with the half-Klingon's grumpiness. Merrrshika did not dwell on it, however, because she had to follow Kim to a console where he immediately began to load the ship's database about the planets they had charted.
"Can you tell me a little about the system your planet is in?", Kim asked. "If I can find it in the database I will be able to reproduce the light specter there. So I will be able to program a material that will filter our light."
"We arre in the shyshtem of a classh thrree shtarr, in a forrming nebula," she answered, searching her memory; she was not an astronomer. "It emitsh an incrredible amount of gamma rrays, maybe that can help you to identify it."
She hesitated, frowned, and added:
"Therre… Therre is anotherr sholarr shyshtem nearr ourrs, about to collapshe if I rremember well."
Kim captured the data into the computer, and the machine announced that the database would be ready in thirty minutes.
"We can wait here or come back when it is done, if you prefer," Kim offered.
"Shomewherre elshe. Too brright in herre," Merrrshika said, starting for the door.
She went out of engineering only to find herself in the hallway, almost as brightly lighted. She closed her eyes for a second. This aggressive light was giving her a throbbing headache, and the back of her eyes hurt. When she opened her eyes again, ensign Kim was standing in front of her, looking concerned.
"May I help you?", he asked.
"No thanksh," she answered with a weak smile. "I will be in my rroom. I will come back in half an hourr."
"Ok," Kim agreed. "Well, see you later."
"Laterr," she said as she went away.
She walked with her eyes half shut until she reached the room that had been assigned to her. She closed all the lights, then also the curtain over the window that showed the space. She sat, eyes open in the almost complete dark. She could feel the tired, tiny muscles of her irises as they relaxed, the pain dulling, the headache going away. She gently massaged her temples, repressing an instinctive purr. Finally, she leaned sideways on her chair and dozed off, purring.
She was woken by the door ringing. She had said the "come in" before she was truly awake and aware that it was very dark in her apartments. The door swooshed open on a huge rectangle of violent brightness. She covered her eyes with one hand, repressing a small cry.
"Mershika?", Kim's voice called with hesitation.
At that moment, she was yawning, both hands over her eyes. It took her a while to answer.
"Computer, minimum light," Kim asked.
"It was impossible to execute this command," the feminine voice of the computer declared.
"Why?", Harry asked, more intrigued than angry.
"Because Merrrshika turned the light off," the computer answered as though it was sheer evidence.
"Computerr, minimum light," Merrrshika ordered.
A feeble radiance illuminated the place, but it was sufficient to make her grimace.
"What did you do to the computer, again, Mershika?", Kim asked, coming forward into her apartment, careful where he walked.
He hit a low table, and held back a swear. He thought he would have a blue on his shin, just where it was the most painful, but he would survive. He caught what was about to fall because of his collision, then called:
"Mershika? Are you alright?"
"Yesh, yesh," she answered with a tired voice. "I fell ashleep in the darrk. I wanted shomething to trry a new borrg lock on. I thought the light effect in my aparrtment wasn't a too imporrtant prrogrram."
Kim grinned a little at her.
"I will have to do a report to the captain," he said, falsely threatening. "Where are you? I don't see very well in the dark."
"Herre," she said.
She stood and touched his arm lightly. He startled, because he had no idea that she had been sitting in the chair instead of in her bed. And she moved silently, as a cat would.
It was a little amusing to see him strain his eyes in the dark, and obviously not see where he was going. He had his hands extended in front of him, but not extended enough to really warn him in time if he was about to collide against something, but not relaxed as though he trusted his sixth sense to guide him in the dark.
"So, are you ready to go back to engineering?", he asked.
"Yesh, we can go," she said with a smile.
He let her get out first, as always, gentlemanly enough. She couldn't help but squint her eyes and grimace when she stood out of her room to the brightly lit corridor. Harry did not make any comment.
When they reached engineering, the database was truly finished. Kim gave a few good words to the computer. Merrshika smiled; he acted as though the ship understood him, even if it was inorganic. It was sad that none of them had ever experienced the communication with an organic vessel. It was warm and comfortable, and not cold and impersonal as this place. It was darker, and it was home. She sighed as she remembered her own shuttle, Merrraka, wounded to death by a photon torpedo of Sherrrim's ship. The shuttle had sacrificed her last strength to carry Merrrshika far enough away for her to be safe. Then she had died. The borg sphere had felt deeply cold and unsettling after that, and Voyager was not very comforting so far. The people were nice, but the place was cold, squarish and bright.
Soon planets began to stream across the screen, and she had to forget about Merrraka and concentrate on recognizing any of them.
"Therre!", she exclaimed after a moment.
Harry made the planets stream in reverse order.
"Thish one!", Merrrshika exclaimed with enthusiasm. "Look at the colorr! And rread the rradiation levels; thish is my planet."
She smiled fondly at her planet's image on the screen. Kim, looking at her, saw that she was already homesick. He was himself homesick, not able to wait until he saw Earth again, and more precisely a certain view of San Fransisco from some apartment… He was further from his home than her, but at least he had a hope of seeing it again.
"Computer, create a database about this planet. Create an image of the electromagnetic spectrum by wavelength and abundance," Harry ordered.
"The database will be...", the computer stopped.
Then there was the sound of the computer turning online. Merrrshika knew that symptom.
"What now!", B'Elanna exclaimed.
The time she needed to turn around and grab her tricorder on the table behind her, the strange display had disappeared from her screen.
"Oh? Ok,", she told her console, "you wanna play with me?"
Merrrshika noticed that B'Elanna's talk to the computer was considerably less nice than Harry's. She made three steps, and stopped in front of B'Elanna's console.
"Is therre an emerrgenchy shtop command on thish conshol?", she asked in an authoritarian tone that annoyed B'Elanna.
"Yes," she answered reluctantly.
"What is it?", Merrrshika asked, looking B'Elanna intensely and straight in the eyes.
"The good old control-alternate-delete."
"Do it!", Merrrshika exclaimed. "I believe shomebody's trrying to hack you. I need to shee his code to shtop him."
B'Elanna rolled her eyes, then sighed, then slowly pushed together the three buttons. All programs stopped; the engines had a few misfires, then stopped; the surrounding consoles stopped to answer, and a teleportation was cancelled because of the interruption of the strings of calculation.
The screen was black for a few seconds. B'Elanna started to bring her hand to her console to restart it, but Merrrshika said:
"Wait! The shecurrity delay with firra code is twelve sheconds."
"Security delay?", Harry asked.
"If therre is an emerrgenchy shtop, the firra prrotocol automatically shetsh a twelve sheconds delay in all shending codes. It is enough forr mosht computerrs; onche shtopped, people reshtarrt it afterr thrree or sheven sheconds, depending on species, in generral."
In the middle of her sentence, lines of symbols started to stream through the black screen of the chief engineer's console.
"Firra code," Merrrshika diagnosed with a crooked smile. "Not amateurr worrk, though," she observed, bothered.
She pushed a few buttons, but she was slow, the keyboard and interface not of a familiar design.
"It sheems like a teleporrtation hacking," Merrrshika hesitated. "That hackerr is trrying to go thrrough yourr shyshtem to download yourr teleporrtation shequenches. Thish way, if his ship has a poorr technology, he can get his teleporrtation rrange a lot higherr."
Harry and B'Elanna looked at each other.
"Do you want me to shtop it?", Merrrshika asked with half a smile. "If the hackerr does use yourr teleporrtation shequenches, it won't affect yourr teleporrtation rrange… Exchept that you might be accused of teleporrting a gamma bomb on the home worrld of a shpechies you neverr even hearrd the name of."
"Stop it!", B'Elanna exclaimed.
Merrrshika resumed her typing, erasing more often than she actually typed.
"May we help you?", Harry asked.
"Yesh! Can you lowerr the luminosity of thish conshol? I will have to work at leasht an hourr and a half to hack thrrough his shecurrity. If you could lowerr the luminosity of thish whole rroom, it would be perrfect."
B'Elanna lowered the hall's and the console's brightness. Once done, Merrrshika asked that her keyboard-interface be brought to her; she had designed it herself to fit her needs. It was in her apartments and Harry went to fetch it. B'Elanna stood behind Merrrshika's chair, looking over her shoulder. The hacker was used to people looking at her as she worked. It was not un-focusing her too much. Finally, Harry came back with her keyboard-interface and busied himself to connect it with B'Elanna.
It had been approximately seventeen minutes since she started to laboriously sabotage the teleporting sequences before they were sent to the unknown ship. Once she had her own console on her knees, she sabotaged the relay itself, so it would automatically corrupt any outgoing information. This would keep the other busy for a while; she had at least a chance to get through his security. Merrrshika inserted an absolutely incoherent line of code in the middle of the coding of the communication relay. It was made of unconnected parts of fira code used by the hacker to hijack the relay; he would probably believe that he had caused the malfunction and he would take some time to hijack another relay.
Just as she was finishing this, Janeway burst into engineering. The first thing she said was directed to Merrrshika:
"Can you explain to me, or do you need to concentrate?"
"I would prreferr to conchentrrate. Enshign Kim and lieutenant Torresh can explain you mosht of it. Shorry captain, but thish hackerr is almosht as good as me."
Harry and B'Elanna explained what was happening to Kathryn. After a few minutes of silence, the computer made the noise of getting online again. Merrrshika, rolling her eyes, swore in mirrresh.
"He's fasht!", she noted.
"What just happened?", Janeway asked.
"I shabotaged the rrelay he was using; he jusht hacked a new one. I can't shcrrap thish one too, he will underrshtand what I'm doing. I will have to manually change the teleporrtation shequenches beforre they rreach the communication rrelay. But as long as I keep doing that, I can't hack him. Is therre anybody with a sholid forrmation in prrogrrammation?", she asked in despair.
"I'm used to holographic programming," Harry informed her. "Could it be enough?"
"It will have to do", Merrrshika said as she went on with her typing. "Could you use the otherr console while I'm using thish one?"
Harry took a seat and smiled a little as he politely asked B'Elanna to heighten the brightness of the console.
"Ok, Harry, do you know how to exhit a coding page in manual contrrol?"
"Yes. I guess I do that?"
"Absholutely. Onche done, open a new one. Find the folderr forr a communication rrelay that contains morre algorrithms and prrotocols than the otherrs; trry to use a computerr diagnoshtic to find it. If it doesn't worrk, you will have to shcan thrrough them all manually. Shtarrt with the long rrange ones."
Harry busied himself for a moment, then he informed Merrrshika:
"The computer doesn't have enough resources to run a diagnostic. I'm starting the manual scan."
Janeway didn't understand much of what they were talking about. She also was seeing the never-ending lines of code align themselves on Merrrshika's alien console. Looking at the quick movement of the hands of the feline, Kathryn couldn't help but think of Tom. His hands moved the same way when he was piloting the ship, with the same speed, assurance, and efficacy.
"I found it!", Harry exclaimed after a good moment.
"Grreat! Open the awaiting trranshmisshions page; everry line, change a numberr. Don't change a numberr in the shame clushterr of each shequenche. If you do sho, they will be easierr to correct if I can't manage to errase his incoming trranshmisshion memorry."
Harry and Merrrshika busied themselves with their task, not talking or moving too much, except for the quick flight of their hands over their consoles. B'Elanna, Janeway and the other crewmembers in engineering sat, stood, or bore a hole through the deck with their repeated pacing.
"Damned, there is no end to those damned teleportation sequences", Harry said, approximately forty minutes later.
"There is a few millions of them!", B'Elanna exploded, inactivity making her slightly aggressive. "This crazy hacker doesn't want to download them all?"
"Of courrshe not," Merrrshika responded. "He rran a shearrching prrogrram firrsht; he's downloading jusht a couple of thousands of them, the long-rranged shequenches, and the close-prechision ones. It was on the firrsht firra page, the one that you shaw appearring afterr twelve sheconds."
Janeway didn't ask what would identify a searching program for teleporting sequences in the middle of a page of code in alien symbols. She didn't really want to know either what a teleportation sequence looked like. She was the captain, and there were engineers for that. She had been a science officer, but she had always preferred astronomy to engineering.
"Merrrshika," Kim started. "Captain."
"What?", the two women asked, almost together.
"What do I do if I can't keep up with the sequences? The download is fast and I miss some sequences."
"Neverrmind," Merrrshika reassured him. "Do the besht you can, I'm jusht about to bypassh his lasht lock."
They continued to write on their consoles. Harry was holding his lips together tightly, only visible sign of his tension. Merrrshika's shoulders were tensed. It was utter silence in the room, but for the sound of the typing.
"Yeah!", Merrrshika exclaimed abruptly.
She typed with renewed fury, then Harry lifted his hands from his console, saying:
"Transmission interrupted."
"I crashed his communication shyshtem," Merrrshika triumphed. "I jusht have to find the prrogrram to delete and overrwrrite the teleporrting shequenches... You can shtop to corrupt the data, Harry."
She still typed for a moment, then let out a loud growl that startled everyone in the room. She continued to express what must be utter triumph in her mother tongue, before theatrically pressing the button to the top right of her keyboard-console. Once the button was pressed, a page of symbols without head or toe started to stream up her screen. Merrrshika let herself sink in her uncomfortable engineering seat, hands on her eyes, legs crossed in front of her.
"Deleted the rrechieved teleporrtation shequenches and overrwrriting it with a piloting virrush, to avoid any rrecuperration yet posshible. Rrepeating the virrus indefinitely until it overrwrritesh all the shequenches rrechieved."
Harry pushed a long sigh, rubbed his face with one hand and leaned into his console. B'Elanna smiled and gave him a congratulatory slap on the shoulder. Merrrshika smiled, and Janeway looked at her smiling. It was the first moment when she truly realized the Mirrresh woman's talent and skill. She also had just probably got them out of a lot of trouble.
"Good job, Harry. You too, Merrrshika. Thank you."
"Well, the pleasurre was all mine," the Mirrresh said with a smile. "I learrned to hack a levian lock combined with a firra and a gerrsh'kal lock, today. But I should have thought about shending him a communication virrush within the shequenches… Maybe it would have been enough and it wouldn't have taken almosht two hourrs."
"Come on!", Harry exclaimed. "Nobody cares if you would have saved an hour! You did a great job, and completely fooled the other hacker, that's enough for us all!"
She smiled, stretched her fingers, and said:
"Now, I would need yourr help, B'Elanna. We need to rrepairr the two communication rrelays and to close all manual contrrol interrfaches to give back rreshourrches to the main computerr."
"Ok. Which relays did the hacker used?"
"Comm/send/rel/far/esc/5456 was the one I firrsht shabotaged," Merrrshika told her.
"Mine was comm/send/rel/far/esc/5890," Harry said.
B'Elanna and Merrrshika, each on their console, got rid of parasite lines of code, then re-established basic parameters for these relays. Finally, they closed the coding pages and the manual control. After a moment, the computer turned online and resumed:
"…ready in fifteen minutes."
Merrrshika burst into laughter.
"Harry, would you mind if we come back to shee the database tomorrow? My eyes arre feeling tirred."
"No, I don't mind!", he exclaimed. "Captain, would you mind if I took the first part of my shift off? I… would appreciate an hour to eat something."
"You mean, you were off duty?", Janeway asked. "Of course you can have a break! What were you doing in engineering?"
Before Harry started his report, Merrrshika excused herself and took the way to her room, eyes squinting more than ever. She couldn't help it; the simple fact of closing the door, the curtain and the light made her purr of sheer relief. She closed her eyes, lay down on her bed and fell asleep in the dark.