Bugged Out

Posted on Tue Jul 11th, 2023 @ 7:28pm by Ensign Sophie Bishop
Edited on on Tue Jul 11th, 2023 @ 7:33pm

864 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: Year One: Whispers in the Wind
Location: Jefferies Tube near Comms Array
Timeline: MD -005 - 0730 Hours

To say that after the foosball win in the DMZ that Sophie was feeling a little tender would be an understatement. Her competitive side had come out and with the help of the XO they managed to wipe the floor with Davaris and Stewart, much to Davaris’ displeasure.

“You should have swapped with Jason.” Olivia said as Sophie and she crawled through a jefferies tube.

Sophie held up a hand as she held the other over her mouth. She was definitely suffering and crawling through these tubes did not help. “Is it hot in here? I swear we need to check the environmental controls…” she trailed off as she unbuttoned her top collar.

“No… you just drank too much last night like I told you not to.” Olivia shook her head. “Jason said he’d swap with you but no, you had to be a big girl and say you could handle it.”

Sophie burped a little. “I can.” she shivered. “I just didn’t think we’d be crawling around in these today. If I had a bridge shift…”

“You’d be able to get a hug from the XO again?” Olivia arched an eyebrow, a small smirk also forming on her lips.

“That…” Sophie exclaimed. “Was just celebration energy…” she blushed knowing she had a small crush on Commander Greco.

“Yeah, I’m sure it was. Nothing to do with the drinks you’d had, the fact you are a closet competitor and that you were so happy to wipe a smile off the two big women on the bridge you spun around and hugged the only man on the bridge they probably have a dislike for.” Olivia giggled to herself.

“Shut up.” Sophie chastised her. “Let’s just go find this fluctuating relay.”

A few moments passed as they picked up their repair kits and crawled up the tube.

Sophie couldn’t help but think about how great Steve smelled as she crawled on her knees, but also a side thought about how they could at least have made the flooring in the crawl spaces a little softer on the knees.

“Why are you stopping?” Olivia asked impatiently.

“My knees are sore…” Sophie stopped and sat rubbing them with the palms of her hands.

“What are you, 100?”

“No!” Sophie answered petulantly. “If they’d put some carpet down here or soft tiling it would be fine!”

“You’re just fragile… we’ve done this a hundred times and you’ve never complained before. The panel is just there. Come on.” Olivia dragged a reluctant Sophie up the jefferies tube a little more by the arm and they stopped by the panel.

Olivia looked at Sophie, a telling look that indicated for her to remove the panel.

Sophie did so and scanned the opening. “That’s strange…” she commented. “There’s nothing wrong with this compartment but I’m still detecting a fluctuation in the power coupling.” she closed her tricorder and then took a closer look with her eyes.

“Dont!” Olivia yelled as Sophie waved her away as she put her hand inside the open section.

“It’s all isolated. There’s nothing that can—” As if by coincidence something zapped Sophie and she got a small shock. She pulled her hand out and gave it a small shake before sucking her index finger a little. “Ehhh ouch.”

There was a small shimmer, like a cloak fluctuating before failing to reveal a small device.

Sophie looked up to see exactly where they were. “This isn’t good. That is connected to the main communications array. We don’t have a power fluctuation, we have something syphoning power so it can stay cloaked and listen in on our messages. Low grade though… but I don’t know what species it belongs to.”

“Can you remove it?” Olivia asked.

“I think I’ve–” Sophie had already opened her repair kit and taken some tools out. She’d managed to isolate the power supply of the device and place a divide between its connection to the comms array and its transmitter. It wouldn’t be able to self-destruct, but it would soon deactivate without the power from the power node it was attached to. “Got it!”

“Ugly looking thing.”

“I don’t think they are going for an aesthetically good looking covert recording device Olivia.” Sophie huffed. “We need to get this to Commander Davaris and Ste– eh I mean Commander Greco.”

“Yeah, I know who you want to show it to first.” Olivia teased but held up her hand to stop Sophie’s rebuke. “I’m kidding Soph, let's go. Only someone on the crew could have put that there and I am not wanting to be in the spotlight of people thinking it was us just because we found it.”

Sophie nodded and put the panel back on the power junction and packed up her gear, carefully placing the device now in stasis into her repair kit.

Who had placed this? What were they listening to, or were they planting information? Her lack of experience gave her no real insight and she knew someone a bit older would know what to do.

 

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