Once again I must thank everyone who's been following along. Special shout-out to the reviewers of the first half of this story:
CajunBear73, A Plump Hutt, campy Wanderer3, MrDrP, Gj agent and CowtionFish.
Huge thanks to everyone who's favorited this story. I promise not to make y'all look silly by abandoning it.
It's been quite an experience so far and I hope that the second half satisfies everyone who's following along.
This is a public service announcement from Starfleet IT: For the love of all that is holy, please stop leaving PADDs lying around without as much as a lock screen. And please stop just loading whatever crap you find onto Starfleet computers! A starship was recently crippled because some idiot smuggled in a Ferengi "relaxation program" they acquired on shore leave and tried to run it on the ship's computer. When in doubt, don't go bother your chief engineer, just don't touch anything!
Chapter 9: Audentes Fortuna iuvat
Ahead of the Enterprise's arrival at Starbase 375, everything had been meticulously prepared for Monty Fiske's fact-finding mission. Records were classified and stashed away, the few crew members who had interacted with Ron were assigned to shifts that would not overlap with the visit and ordered not to discuss his presence with anyone besides the senior staff. Most impressively, the Rio Grande's logs were altered to suggest that Ron had left the ship as a distraction of some sort. Most importantly, however, a painfully long tour of the ship was awaiting Fiske, led by the only officer guaranteed not to get tired.
The conditions were perfect for a little espionage and Kim was going to take full advantage of them.
Unlike on a ship, the practical realities of the constant traffic flowing through a starbase imposed very high costs on basic security measures. Careful tracking of visitors was impractical due to the volume of false alarms – something as simple as a visitor getting lost on their way to their quarters would represent several wasted hours of work and mobilize scarce security resources for nothing, if handled like it would be on a ship. In practical terms, most facilities addressed this by imposing greater restrictions on movement in key areas, at the cost of large parts being as secure as a typical hotel – which is to say, not very secure. Breaking into Fiske's quarters was an easy task. Doing so undetected posed a few minor challenges to a seasoned security officer such as Kim.
Access controls for less-than-secure sections could be bypassed with physical tokens, standard practice for maintenance or security teams to access private quarters when needed. The sheer size of most starbases meant that a lot of these were always in circulation and a lot of them got lost – left behind, thrown out, dropped into inaccessible areas... It also meant that they were not carefully tracked, nor were they assigned to individuals. A quick visit to the station's security office with the stated purpose of reviewing a list of troublemakers being offloaded from the Enteprise was all it took for Kim to obtain a suitable token. Now she just had to wait for the confirmation that Fiske was occupied.
"Data to all security teams, we are starting Ambassador Fiske's visit," Kim's combadge sounded.
Time to roll.
Kim left the café she had chosen as the spot to wait it out until her next move – hanging around close to guest quarters was bound to draw attention after a few minutes – and made her way to Fiske's quarters. By her estimation, it would take 10 minutes to get there avoiding turbolifts (and the inevitable log entries that would result from their use), a very comfortable figure for a tour meticulously planned by Data to consume at least four hours. Nobody gave the lieutenant carrying a standard utility case more than a passing glance – the black synthetic leather gloves were unusual, but technically approved uniform items – and she arrived at her destination on schedule. She brought the bypass token close to the door's control panel, causing it to open (without her voice being logged).
The quarters were slightly larger than the Enteprise's typical guest quarters and furnished in much the same style. What was atypical was the quantity of PADDs strewn about, at least 20 at first glance.
Oh boy, this is going to take longer than I thought.
Copying the data off an unsecured PADD was a quick process, not more than 5 minutes in the worst case, plus time to plug it in and establish the connection. The real challenge was doing so while hiding the fact that they had all been moved around in their owner's absence. Kim started by photographing the room, both to have a reference and to analyze later for any relevant information. Besides the PADDs, a gi had been thrown haphazardly onto the bed, and a few more minor trinkets were scattered around. She looked around for a place to hide a bug and chose the desk, whose wooden construction provided suitable nooks and crannies, its position would allow for decent results throughout the room.
There we go, that should do the trick.
"Foxtrot Golf to Foxtrot Two, do you read the bug?" Kim's combadge vibrated once as acknowledgement. She moved to the farthest corner of the room, "And you're sure I can't just shorten it to 'Fox'?" The combadge vibrated twice, shooting down Kim's suggestion, but confirming that the listening device was functioning well.
It was time to get to work on the PADDs, all 23 of them – assuming no more turned up underneath other objects. For each of them, Kim plugged it into a provisioning unit loaded with forensics software, which automatically extracted all user data and relevant system information. She briefly inspected what was open in them while the automatic tool did its work, most dealt with ancient prophecies from across the quadrant, a few specifically focused on Monkey Kung Fu. When the provisioning unit confirmed that all data had been secured, she put the PADD back in its original position.
The process left Kim with time to inspect the room for additional items of interest. Stashed away under a neat pile of clothing, she found what seemed to be the Klingon equivalent to the Starfleet PADD. Even in Klingon script, the lock screen was hard to mistake for anything else. Kim felt she could probably hack into the device somehow, but not without additional tools. She photographed it for later analysis and put it back in place. There were still a few PADDs to go through, but if the tour was going on schedule, it might have been possible to go back to the Enterprise and grab a forensics kit for Klingon devices.
28 Starfleet PADDs in, Kim was reasonably confident no others remained to be found, without a more invasive search. Not all was good news, however.
"Data to all security teams, the Ambassador's visit has been concluded."
Oh snap. No way that was four hours!
"Foxtrot Golf to Foxtrot Two, I'm still copying the last PADD and it's going to take at least five more minutes! I need a distraction, otherwise there's no way I can get out of here undetected!"
"On it, Foxtrot Golf," Ron answered over the combadge.
Kim looked back at the PADD. Five kilobytes per second!? 100 kil… 5 Megabytes… ZERO bytes per second!? Any attempt at rational analysis by averaging the erratic reports did little to calm her anxiety at this point, even though the process indicated 96% completion.
Suddenly, the station shook and a warning was heard: Decompression event in main docking bay. All personnel, evacuate the access bridges.
That was sure to be disruptive, with people unable to move between the station and docked ships other than via the transporters until the situation was resolved.
"Data to all security teams, the Ambassador is still safely aboard Enterprise."
Holy crap Ron, I could just about kiss you right now.
"Foxtrot Two to Foxtrot Golf, one badical distraction is served. You should have ten more minutes before they give the all-clear."
"You rock, Foxtrot Two!"
Kim turned her attention back to the last PADD, it was nearly done. 99%... 100%!
She quickly put the device back in its original location, at the bottom of a haphazard pile of four PADDs, closed her bag and bolted to the door, shifting her gait to a nonchalant walk that would not draw any attention. She made her way back to the more public areas of the station, from where she took a turbolift to the Enterprise's docking position, blending in with the crowd of Starfleet personnel waiting for the decompression even to be resolved. After a few minutes, a technician emerged from the airlock.
"Alright folks, it was just a false alarm caused by a faulty sensor, you can all relax and go wherever you were going!"
The crowd was generally appreciative and began to move through the bridge. Kim was about halfway across when she spotted Data escorting Fiske back to the starbase. She focused on not reacting to his presence and kept up with the crowd's pace. Still, from the corner of her eye, she could tell that the former ambassador to Qo'noS had spotted her and visibly flinched when passing her.
Uh oh. Should have waited on the station…
Back on the Enterprise, she headed for Ron's quarters, which also served as the improvised control center for the operation. When she entered, Yori was sitting at the large table, operating a portable computer terminal.
"Alright, what's the sitch, Monkeyfist was on board for barely two hours!"
Kim's roommate answered her, "Welcome back, Kim. I believe we overplayed our hand by deploying Ensign Bob so early. Everything was on track until the group arrived in Cetacean Ops. Things started well enough, but when Bob started his usual speech about flipper accessibility, Fiske seemed to just break down."
Bob was the Health and Safety officer for Cetacean Ops and he took his job seriously. Unfortunately, most of his land mammal colleagues found his attention to details relevant only to cetaceans terminally boring. A few months prior, Kim had led a training course for humanoid security personnel and Bob insisted on prefacing the underwater combat module with a half hour lecture on the dangers of humanoids slipping and falling close to bodies of water, plus 90 minutes of warnings on the various failure modes of phasers when exposed to marine environments.
"I was listening to it, KP, and I have to say: That was the most boring twenty minutes of my life. If Monkeyfist hadn't stormed out of Cetacean Ops, I probably would have fallen asleep before Bob finished his tirade on flipper-accessible first aid kits. I almost felt sorry for the freak. Rufus didn't even make it past the water temperature conversation before falling asleep…" Ron pointed at the Naked Mole Rat, who was resting on the table, leaning against a carrying case.
"Well, I guess that explains why it was cut so short… But how did you trigger the decompression alarm?"
"Well, I showed Yori some magic sword action…"
Kim raised an eyebrow.
"I asked her how we could cause the maximum amount of disruption without hurting anyone, and Yori suggested the pressure sensor. So I just told the sword to fly over and short out the thing."
"Hai, it was a most impressive display by Stoppable-san. It would have been even more so had he not lost his pants in the process." Yori was giggling while Ron had an air of resignation to him. Kim was astonished.
"Excuse me? You 'lost your pants'?"
"Well," Ron answered as he reached for the back of his neck, "more like they dropped to the floor when the belt was cut by the Lotus Blade flying past. Used to happen to me a lot – the pants dropping, not the sword part, though that did happen once…"
"It was a most impressive display of precision with a sword, many thanks for the honor, Stoppable-san."
"The Ronman is all about honor, just ask –"
Ron was interrupted by Yori giving him a kiss on the cheek, much to Kim's shock.
"I must go now to review the department's duty roster," Yori said before walking out of Ron's quarters.
Ok, wow, what just happened here?
To Kim's surprise, Ron sat down on the couch with a downtrodden look. She sat next to him and gave an inquisitive look, to which he replied.
"That just reminded me of how I never met anyone I knew back in 2003, before I got here. It sounds obvious when I say it out loud, but here I keep running into people I know. I'm just dreading the moment I meet Barkin, you know?"
"Actually, Steve Barkin is the vice-president of the UFP… But he used to be assistant principal at my high school."
Ron was incredulous and examined Kim for any signs that she might be trying to fool him, but he quickly realized she was serious.
"Well, at mine too, back in my day. Not that he ever went into politics before I left..." He hesitated for a moment, "Please don't misunderstand me, meeting you here is the best thing that's happened to me since I left for Norway, but this is all wrong. It's like reality is all out of whack."
"The best thing…?" Kim inquired in a soft voice.
"Sorry, KP, didn't mean to make things weird."
She grabbed his hand to reassure him, "Not at all, it's just that nobody had ever said that about me."
"Just telling it how it is," he said with a smile.
"So, on the topic of 'telling it how it is'… What's the sitch between you and Yori?"
"Huh? What sitch?" Ron looked rather confused.
"You know she likes you, right?"
"Wait, what!? She does!?" Ron's voice evidenced his deep frustration, "Why can't you women make it more obvious, instead of pulling this ninja nonsense!?"
Time to be bold.
"Well, if you insist…"
Kim moved her face closer to Ron's and pressed her lips against his. His initial surprise quickly subsided, and he leaned into the kiss – literally and metaphorically – and embraced her. For Kim, it all felt surprisingly natural, despite knowing Ron for only a little over a week. As they broke the kiss, Kim saw that Ron's face was now dominated by a goofy smile, with no traces of coherent thought.
"Wow," he said after a few seconds.
"Mmm-hmm…" Kim answered in her best sultry voice, "I hope that wasn't too obvious for you…"
"I'd say it was just obvious enough…" His conscious thoughts seemed to be slowly returning, "Say, in case Rufus there doesn't know Starfleet regulations regarding officers being invited to guest quarters…"
Kim giggled, "Mmm, looks like I got myself a bold one… I believe you said something about 'third date' once?"
Ron was flustered, struggling for an answer and Kim wasn't making things easier for him. She cut his anxiety with another kiss, which he gladly returned.
"The good news is that I can stay… as long… as I want… when I'm not on duty. And I just came off duty."
Ron's answer boiled down to a single word: "Booyah!"
Audentes Fortuna iuvat - Fortune favors the bold. In modern parlance "yolo".