Save'ena - Speed Run Best Time Ever part 2 of 2

Posted on Tuesday 15 January 2019 @ 09:15 by Commander Save'ena (Sav) Tillatix & Lieutenant Colonel Kachiko Bayushi
Edited on on Tuesday 15 January 2019 @ 18:11

Mission: Academy Days
Location: San Francisco Star Fleet Academy Hanger
Timeline: 2391, Wednesday, November 13th, 11:42 am
2676 words - 5.4 OF Standard Post Measure

ON:

===== Secure Meeting Room 5 =====

PO1 McGraff noticed the feed to Tillatix's room went down. He turned and called out, "Warrant Reynard, feed from Cadet Tillatix's room just went down."

WO4 Reynard turned sharply and barked out, "What occurred?"

PO1 McGraff motioned to the dead screen on the left, saying, "An MP I did not recognize entered the room, began questioning her, and then hovered near the wall under the scanner and it went out."

WO4 Reynard looked at Kachiko even as he said, "Petty Officer Mullins get there now, protect Tillatix, follow Captain Bayushi's lead, got it?"

"Computer, site to site transport, two to just outside debriefing room 13," the Marine said. "Disengage door locks on the door for Debriefing Room 13. Energize." Kachiko pulled on her helmet, the suit audibly sealing before the transporter took her.

The hanger bay, connected to the Academy Main Frame, Kachiko's voice imprint was immediately recognized and overrode all other command codes that may have stopped transport or the door unlocking. PO Mullins and Kachiko appeared outside of the room, and in front of rather startled MP's.

One started to raise his hand when PO Mullins flashed his investigator badge with its Field Judge marking. The MP still said, "Umm, wait, the room is sealed, and there is an MP Envoy inside asking Cadet Tillatix questions....." his voice trailed off as the two who just came in ignored him.

Now outside of the debriefing room, Kachiko glanced at the Petty Officer as she drew her ever-present black phaser. She wasted no time and keyed open the hatch, weapon ready and trained on whatever may be on the other side of the hatch.

The door opened upon the following scene: The MP inside was stalking towards Cadet Tillatix while yelling at her. She, for her part, was sidling around the table, trying to answer but not able to as the MP was not giving her any space for interjecting.

MP: "How COULD you break THAT Record. It is for JAK and the Kennedy's, JAK deserves it over anyone else.. how dare you take from him his record... rescind.. rescind your record, let him HAVE IT!!"

Sav: "Because I... No its.... anyone can... He should have flown... why the hell shou... CAN I SPEAK?!?" Her ears perked at seeing Kachiko with another come through the doorway. She looked expectantly.

The MP was not having it. He said, "Nice try... I won't fall for that trick of pretending someones behind me when there isn't... now, Rescind... or else..."

"Or else you're going to spend the next several Terran years in the brig, young man?" sounded behind the man.

MP Ensign Terrance Dixx stiffened, dry swallowed, and then said, "Oh.. there is someone behind me." As he turned around, he composed himself. He was not sure why Uncle Kennedy was so hot about that record. After all, records were meant to be broken. What he didn't know was that while the new record was scrutinized, the old one would be also to look for indiscretions as well, and while JAK's evidence had 'disappeared', it was still there in caches in the academy's network and Admiral Kennedy couldn't have the video and flight data analyzed at the same time, it would show the cheat program running.

Dixx looked at the two before him, both smaller than the lanky, tall Ensign, and noted their ranks and name tags. He nodded to them, "Petty Officer First Class Mullins, Captain Bayushi, you can lower those phasers. I mean no harm to Cadet Tillatix. I am just seeing if she will rescind her official record and take pride in leaving it at a personal record, which can remain in the books."

"Why do you care about this record?" Kachiko asked plainly.

Dixx seemed puzzled as he took in a breath, and let it out. "I haven't a clue why Uncle, err, Admiral Kennedy wants JAK's record to stand. Records are made to be broken. But, he asked me to please try, and so, here I am."

"By chasing the Cadet around the room, that's supposed to be convincing?"

Dixx snorted out in self humor and replied, "Oh, that. Admiral Kennedy said to be belligerent and loud as that usually works with young cadets, and in my MP experience at clubs, that is how you get the acting up ones out and away."

PO1 Mullins shook his head, then said, "Sir, if you noticed, Cadet Tillatix is neither drunk nor disorderly. She's also of an alien race, one of who, when backed into a corner, stand up even higher on principles and truth. If she had any notions of dropping the official record and keeping the personal one, you chased that away. Right, Captain?"

"Indeed. The record is apparently a point of pride for the Admiral and beyond your uncles apparent animosity for Cadet Tillatix," Kachiko sighed. "There shouldn't be a problem."

Dixx snorted again to himself, saying, "Okay, that I didn't realize." He frowned, then asked, "Can I be blunt? What in the hell is so important about this record anyway? Why can't the Cadet just enjoy that she had everything click together on a run and call it good?"

Behind him, Sav had relaxed as the interchange between the officers and PO1 occurred. An exasperated sigh was heard from her at the mention of Admiral Kennedy, with a thought of, 'Him? Again? WTF?' However, at the end of the exchange, there was light questioning churr sounding from her at Ensign Dixx's last question. She looked over at Kachiko and said, "I am wondering that myself, Ma'am, fyi."

"I don't think that it's the record itself, Cadet, but your personal involvement. It feels like the Admiral will not allow you to best him or his family," Kachiko gestured to the Mephetian Cadet to follow. Then she turned back to the Security officer, "Expect a subpoena soon."

MP Ensign Terrance Dixx looked confused at first, then shrugged it off. He had nothing to hide and would testify before a board of inquiry at any time. "Alright, Captain Bayushi, if you think one is needed. I'll be ready." He waited for the group to leave before getting out of there himself. He still could not believe that this was over a cadet record.

Sav moved around the table to follow Kachiko and PO1 Mullins. She gave Ensign Dixx a quick smile and nod of her head. She didn't want him to harbor any ill will towards her, and it sounded like he was caught between an uncle and a hard place. She walked with the two and entered the integrity office.

Warrant Officer 4 Reynard smiled to the trio when they came in. He came over and held out his hand to Sav. "I want to congratulate one of the best piloting speed runs I have ever seen, great going, Cadet Tillatix."

Sav blushed as she shook his hand. She churred gently and replied, "Thank you, very much, Sir. I quit worrying about others and just enjoyed myself for a change, and as flying is my passion, welllll..."

WO4 Reynard looked to his crew. "Alright, fellows, you know what that means. Bring up Cadet Joseph A. Kennedy's speed run. We have to verify it next so it can remain in place."

Lt. Rebecca Stilstein frowned as she asked, "Wait, what? Is that normal?"

WO4 Reynard nodded and answered, "Yes, it is. Whenever a speed run is entered into the leader board, the next place down is always scrutinized to verify it remains in the leader board. This is SOP, and in the past has caught some cheaters before. Of course, we aren't expecting anything different here, but, we always do our due diligence. Anything you want to add for her, Captain Bayushi?"

" Not really, beyond that the Admiral and I both ensured, personally, that no one interfered with the shuttle or loaded any cheat systems. We both did so personally," Kachiko offered Save'ena a grin.

Meanwhile, Sav had sat down at a nearby table and was blushing profusely as the field judge team were congratulating her as well as getting her coffee, a muffin, and making sure she was comfortable. She was not used to this treatment at all, and it made her look very cute to the team. She looked over to Kachiko with a helpless expression on her face as she watched the team bring up, or try to bring up, JAK's record.

Lt. Cmdr. David McCampbell, her flight instructor, sat at another table and took a sip of his coffee, waiting for everything to play out. He had no doubt the record was legit, after all, he was the one who had been grading her on her tests and flight 'training', if it could be called that. Hell, Tillatix had been showing his teaching staff 'how to fly'. She never once needed any 'training'. She was a natural, and she deserved the attention she was getting. He only sighed as he glanced Rebecca's way, wondering why the hell for the beef against his best student in a long time of training cadets.

At the diagnostics platform, PO2 Crevis shook his head and called out, "Sir, we have a problem." WO4 Reynard frowned and came over, asking, "What sort of problem?" Crevis shook his head and said, "Cadet Kennedy's data and video evidence for his speed run, it's missing. It's not attached to his record, its not in the speed run database, and not in the Cadet Flyer's archive. Hell, sir, according to the metadata and checksums, it was never attached to his record or speed run database." WO4 Reynard hrmmed and said, "Find it." He turned towards Vice Admiral Yu Xsin Chen and Kachiko, saying, "I think I know why the Admiral has been having people lean on Cadet Tillatix to withdraw her official record. Vice Admiral Chen, Captain Bayushi, anything intel can help with?"

The elder half-Vulcan nodded once at the Marine, whom strode over, "I'm guessing that you're able to deduce from my black uniform that I have access beyond everyone else. Give me a moment. Computer, authenticate Bayushi Dagger 8, authorization Commander Meyer is such a n00b! Enable."

Affirmative, Commander Meyer is the scrubbiest nub nub rub a dub. Access granted. Welcome back, Dagger 8.

"Thank. Begin search of all Starfleet systems for file Zeta Six Two dash Bravo Bravo One Six Two forward slash Juliet Alpha Kilo."

Searching.

Meanwhile, Rebecca was looking shell-shocked. It was slowly sinking in about JAK's record, or rather, missing data backing up that record and what it meant for the now Commander Joseph Andrew Kennedy's speed run, and his starfleet Career. If he cheated, he would be scrutinized with a fine tooth comb, and could face disciplinary actions. Not a good thing for an upstanding family like the Kennedy's. Her lover was going to blow a gasket when this got back to him.

PO2 Crevis watched what Kachiko was doing, not minding she had taken control of his specialty diagnostics computer, well, face it, an approved hacking computer for deep code and data intrusive verification. He knew some of the subroutines she was calling up with her credentials was for Intel Ops only, but that didn't mean he couldn't admire her work. "Wow, Ma'am, you're very good, I love those subs. I really need to get PO1 rank and see about getting a transfer to deep ops analytics."

"Most of what you're seeing is classified beyond even Deep Ops analytics, however, I imagine that the Vice Admiral as our last head of Fleet Intelligence could audit you and potentially submit your name for consideration."

Intellac1, the special Intel A.I. attached to the Academy by Strat Ops Command, deep dove and found the Data cache desired by Kachiko. It had been squirreled away into a counseling subfolder in the medical academy staff section, meaning no one was to find it without having a senate, Academy Commander, and Academy Medical Chief approval, except as this was strat ops intel directive, it was given up. PO2 Crevis whistled as he saw Itellac1's signature keysum on the data. He grinned to Kachiko and said, "Thank YOU, Ma'am. Time to get crackin'."

"Have fun," Kachiko smiled. She tended to get along with Enlisted personnel better than she did with fellow officers.

WO4 Reynard's team had the data and video correlated very quickly. Crevis called out, "Hey, check this out. Cadet Kennedy used a shift sub erase worm with preprogrammed flight data. It's gone, erased itself, and adjusted the main routine checksums to be correct, but didn't get to the individual command que checksums." He brought up the flight data and dove into it, past each maneuver section and to the individual call cues for the systems affected. "See, right there, let me run a checksum verification program, and, mismatch for electronic calls to the maneuvering fields for the fighter turn commands. Umm, in layman terms, the maneuvering controls were being called before they were actually moved. I will mark the areas and we will correlate with the video to make sure."

WO4 Reynard had his team bring up the holographic field display once more, with Cadet Kennedy's video to the left and control data to the right. As the speedrun was shown, whenever data was flagged as acted upon by the worm, everything would slow down so the maneuvers and video could be scrutinized. Sure enough, the academy runabout with the fighter controls would start shifting its trajectory ahead of the Cadet actually moving the controls. There were fifteen places for this, twelve outside the asteroid field, three within for known large asteroid paths. The asteroid field and its movements helped prevent cheating, but this program had three moves, meaning an A.I. probably helped out for this worm.

Sav was confused as she watched the run to the end. She said outloud, without realizing it, "Why the hell did he use a worm for those maneuvers? He could have done better by getting practice with his sight reflexes on the Lunar practice runs. That's what they're there for."

Rebecca was stunned. With the way the field judge team presented the evidence, JAK had definitely cheated. And, that just proved, well, to her, that Tillatix didn't. None of those telltales were in Tillatix's run. She sat there in a daze.

Having noticed the young pretty Counselors distress, Kachiko paused next to her chair briefly, setting a hand on her shoulder, "It's not your fault that you were lied to. You are not implicated in the Junior Kennedy's cheating."

PO2 Crevis handed over the nicely 'wrapped up' data to Kachiko. "There you go, Ma'am, all Rommed with Intellac1's encryption seal and Field Judge WO4 Reynard's data seal. Once the board of inquiry gives the go ahead, JAK's speed run will be removed and Cadet Anderson's record will be moved up." He looked back at his displays, then smiled to Kachiko and asked, "So, Ma'am, can I help Intellac1 playing with the hackers in the honeypot?"

Kachiko looked over at Vice Admiral Chen, whom shook her head, "There are intelligence subroutines involved, backtracing the hacks. Everything involved is classified beyond your current clearance level."

PO2 Crevis give a short nod while saying, "Understood, Ma'am. Still, it would be fun to be involved in that. I will definitely put in for an Audit when I make Petty Officer first class next test in May."

The field judge team began wrapping up and packing away their gear. Sav followed Vice Admiral Chen and Kachiko out of the room. Her record was now recorded and verified and she now held the shortest time course record. However, with what was happening with 'JAK', she figured she would probably have to lay low, so lunch at the cadet commissary, then to her quarters, unless Kachiko was wanting to keep her nearby for now.

OFF:

Cadet Save'ena Amilia Tillatix
Apollonia Sponsored Cadet
San Fransisco StarFleet Academy

(Marine) Captain Bayushi Kachiko
Academic and Student Life Advisor
Starfleet Academy, Earth