Stardate: 70215:0314
Title: Unfinished Business (Part 2)
Authors: Ambassador Thessyr Tal and Lt. Yonatan Levi.
Time: After 'Doppelganger'
Scene: USS Relentless, XO’s office


While Yoni seemed to be disconnected from the world around him, Thess could sense the feelings that stormed inside the Ensign’s head, easily sensing frustration. But he could also feel another voice, another consciousness as well. This one was separate, trying to calm down the first voice, to lower the stress.

*Curious,* Thess thought to himself and cocked his head, watching the other officer. *Schizophrenia or… almost like a new blending between a Trill and his
symbiont?*

"Ambassador, Relly." Yoni addressed them.

"Lieutenant," Thess greeted him with a nod and a smile.

"Yonatan." Relly addressed him with his full first name. Funny, almost nobody called him that, besides his parents - most people preferred to address him with the shorter version; still it was a good reminder of what was his given name.

"How can we help you, Lieutenant?" Thess asked. They were still in the XO’s office or he'd have offered hospitality. "Do you need Commander Winters?"

Yoni felt the relatively mild attraction this Deltan evoked. However, the sexuality wasn’t as strong as other Deltans that he had encountered. The Ensign forced himself to objectify his urges and focus on his task ahead.

"No, Ambassador." He mumbled softly and turned to Relly, "I will be blunt. Relly, I need to know; when you were attacked, the intruder – what did he take? What was he looking for?"

"I'm not sure," she seemed confused. "He was looking through files and secure data," She thought about it for several seconds. "There was a lot of sensitive information contained in those sectors, the most recent additions of which had been the Omega bomb."

Yoni nodded and typed on his PADD, bringing up those file clusters, examining them. She was right, of course; it contained everything a good thief needed: security logs, specifications, and sensitive tactical information. It was like a treasure box containing everything someone needed to steal an Omega Bomb, fake the security logs and cover one's trails. A treasure box that was locked inside a safe and guarded by a child…

However, trails or no trails, Yoni believed that nobody could cover himself perfectly when it came to computer crimes. One thing he knew was that when you a file was accessed, the system modified it, therefore usually changing its size, even if the modification date remained the same. In theory, all he had to do was to compare the original file with the current one.

*Nice idea,* the entity inside the Operations Officer woke up.

*Yes, it is. But could you try and help instead of petting my ego!* Yoni transmitted back in his mind.

*Give me a moment,* the alien consciousness said and disappeared.

Thess had remained quiet, monitoring what was going on between the Lieutenant and Relentless and also what was going on inside the young officer’s head. He had the impression the other entity was exactly that - a separate thing in and of itself and…. at the moment… symbiotic.

"Relly, do you have your backup recovery from the last few days?" he asked her.

"Of course. I have backups of those files stored on iso-media," she shrugged. “But even at superluminal speeds it takes time to restore the entire computer core, even for me."

"Do it," he said, almost commanding. "But don't overwrite the files immediately – rather compare data content and sizes and tell me which ones were modified recently, besides the security logs that were faked."

"The order to restore the core has already been given, Yonatan," she replied, giving him an irritated look. "The missing files are being added back; the existing files are not to be altered to keep the forensics samples intact. Comparing the system map shows that those sectors contained ninety-six giga-quads of data prior to my attack," she paused and looked a little pained, "now have the shape to contain ninety-five point six-seven giga-quads."

"Meaning the system map was altered – either to fit to the current total size of the files at that section, or to 'forget' some of the files out of those files clusters, leaving them unmapped?" Yoni inquired.

"Yes," she nodded. "The map is updated by the system backups and the entropy of energy in subspace, which my computer systems operate through. As such, the map is showing 'shrinkage' from a void of data - data was removed before the dump that deleted those files. With some work we can likely restore the original file configuration to show exactly what was first removed." She cocked her head, "I believe then we can backtrack through the system to determine the access point. Gene-traces might be accessible from there."

"How long will it take you to determine what files or specific data was removed from the system first, before you try to backtrack the access point?" Yoni asked. He had the feeling it will take longer to backtrack the source, and right now he needed to know what their intruder was hiding or what was sensitive that he had decided to tamper with the whole system map. Finding out this information, Yoni believed, would help them to predict his next move, his next target. The thought of a backdoor installed in the Relly systems had occurred to him, one Relly might not be able to sense until it was triggered.

"Approximately an hour," she responded thoughtfully, "maybe a little longer. The iso-linear morphography is a little… tricky."

"Good enough," Yoni had to agree, although he was obviously slightly disappointed with the answer. In one hour the saboteur could be far enough away not to be detected, if he wasn't already. "Let me know as soon as you know. It could give us a clue to what this person is up to."

"I will," she nodded in agreement.

"Well then," Yoni said eventually and headed to the door, "I will go look at their cargo. Thanks for the five minutes." He nodded to them and headed to the door.


===================
Ambassador Thessyr Tal
Ambassador, FCS
USS Relentless
NCC-11966
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&
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Lieutenant Yonatan Levi
Operations Officer
USS Relentless
NCC-11966
===================