Third Annual BF betleH Tournament

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Day 2 - Semi-Finals >> Early morning >> Ing Reports In
(Message started by: Ing The Puny on Feb 23^rd, 2005, 12:57am)

Title: Ing Reports In
Post by Ing The Puny on Feb 23^rd, 2005, 12:57am

<Xavier Fleet Yards, VIP section>

It was very early in the morning, before many people were up and about when Ing stepped out of the turbolift, accompanied by the mandatory security officer. He headed down to K'Hare's quarters, where the totlh was expecting him. It was K'Hare, after all, who had arranged for Ing to be cleared into the VIP quarters.

"Enter!" K'Hare growled when Ing pressed the door chime.

The door opened, and Ing stepped inside, motioning the security officer to stay in the corridor so the two could talk privately. "Still annoyed by the Federation door-chimes, Sir?" Ing asked rhetorically, then got straight to the point, "I have that report you wanted about the Mirror Universe activity."

K'Hare waved Ing over to his desk, and re-opened a barrel of bloodwine left over from some previous engagement, grabbing a pair of tankards and filling them. Handing one to Ing - who nodded that he hadn't yet eaten today - K'Hare said, "yIja'."

"There is a lot of information," Ing began, and handed K'Hare an odd-looking PADD. He explained, "All the information is copied on that PADD. The thumbprint scanner doubles as a DNA checker, so only you can access it." Ing paused. "Well, you and perhaps your double, if he has the same thumbprint."

"Which is a good point to start with," Ing began, "DNA tests reveal that the two Khoals have the same genetic structure. While their fingerprints are different - as with identical twins - they are substantially genetically identical. To confirm this, the girl that Q'olavraH brought back with her checks out to be - genetically speaking at least - the daughter of you and her. That is, her genetics match up with YOUR genetics, as well as our Q'olavraH's."

K'Hare sensed the hesitation in his voice. K'Hare looked at the PADD and saw the cause. There were slight variations in some of her romulan DNA when compared to his. He didn't bother to ask how Ing had his DNA. It would be easy enough to get. But the differences, they showed a base pair here, a base pair there, there were differences. A normal DNA check would not have noticed this. As usual Ing was thorough and impossibly fast with the results.

"Now, as to the matter of the ears," Ing continued, glancing at K'Hare's ears for emphasis, "We ran a test to see if you would have grown Romulan ears, as shown in those silly leaflets of Ta'pez's. Interestingly enough, you apparently could grow either Romulan or Klingon ears depending on specific conditions in the womb during your gestation. Turns out, there was a roughly 30% chance of you having been born with Romulan ears. And, interestingly enough, if the conditions in your mother's womb had been unstable during the critical period of gestation, there is a remote chance that you could have been born with one Romulan ear and one Klingon one."

It didn't help that in his excitement Ing was forgetting how much this annoyed K'Hare. Ing thought it was a fascinating challenge while K'Hare had to control himself to remain calm. He drained his tankard for the aide it provided. In the PADD was an analysis where Ing projected that the other K'Hare had an almost 2% greater chance of having the ears based on the differences in wovqut's DNA and extrapolating. K'Hare would have found it interesting reading if it wasn't so personal.

Ing waited for K'Hare to nod in understanding. "So all the evidence points to the people from the Mirror Universe being genetically identical to their doubles from ours, which explains why Ing2's blood tested as being identical to my own. When I get back to the station I can look again, do certain more specific scans that I didn't do before and maybe find a measurable difference."

"Next,..."

tbc

OFF:
JP by
Ing The Puny
and
K'Hare totlh

Title: Re: Ing Reports In
Post by Ing The Puny on Feb 23^rd, 2005, 1:00am

"Next, the armor." Ing paused for a moment. "Aklev reports that the armor is made from some unknown metal alloy, much tougher than anything we use for personal armor in this universe. Which explains how mIv tuQ K'Hare was able to grab Q'olavraH's blades without injury. However, there is nothing in the armor that would have enabled the speed and reaction time he demonstrated in doing so."

Ing let that sink in for a second. "There is a power source built into the belt, but it appears to only operate a hand-stunner built into the glove and a remotely controlled stun system. That is the complete extent of special systems that Aklev was able to discover." Ing paused for a moment. "I'm not saying that Q'olavraH was wrong about his speed, but it is possible she was still suffering from the effects of the stunner - or they may have drugged her. I suspect she would have noticed, but those appear to be the most plausible explanations at the moment."

"This stun system, this is how he was able to disable Khoal from the control on his wrist? Can we us this?"

"Aklev said the stunner seems to have the capability to be activated by remote control," Ing added, "Although we did not find a remote, so we can only assume that the CO of a ship, maybe the XO, has one." Ing smiled. "But I had the same idea. I should be able to rig up a device that will activate the stunning system in each mail shirt if we encounter them but I would assume that mIv tuQ K'Hare doesn't have the system in his armor."

K'Hare nodded in agreement. "I have heard the jokes going around... how this other is being referred to as `K'Hears` but I think simplicity suggests DonK'Hare, DonIng, and so forth."

Ing nodded and continued unabashed. "Now on to the most troubling piece of news..."

tbc

OFF:
A JP by
Ing The Puny
and
the guy who's lucky he's not named KI'Hote..

Title: Re: Ing Reports In
Post by Ing The Puny on Feb 23^rd, 2005, 1:07am

Ing nodded and continued unabashed. "Now on to the most troubling piece of news. I think I know how their mysterious weapon works." Ing saw that he instantly had K'Hare's full attention. "I believe they are simply transporting the hull sections through into their dimension. That's why no one's ever been able to find the ship that is making the hull sections vanish - it doesn't exist in our universe. And that's why they can do it through shields as well: since the transport beam comes from the other universe, the beam never passes through the ship's shields, it simply takes effect in our universe inside of the shield.

"Of course! They are already inside the shields." K'Hare had almost balked at Ing's preface. When Q'olavraH showed up she had transported in and the station's security had scanned her and gotten the quantum variance and adjusted the shields. That should prevent them from transporting and in fact, there had been no incidents. But it was too soon to be confident there would be no more. The base was so big that being that it wouldn't be hard to 'be inside' it if there was no matching facility in the mirror universe.

"But to make it even worse," Ing continued, "They obviously have some means of scanning into our universe, and communicating back and forth between universes. That's the only way they could know when your double was in danger, and act to rescue him - both when we encountered the Scott, and when Ta'pez fought him."

"That is inconsistent with all the theories of parallel dimensions." K'Hare frowned. "It simply isn't possible to scan other dimensions that precisely. The energy from your scan will interfere with itself."

"Well, it's clearly possible to send a transporter carrier beam across," Ing replied, "So they could send across some kind of probe, which could communicate back to them via another transporter carrier wave - it wouldn't have to be powerful enough to actually transport something, just enough to get through and convey information." Ing started pacing as he conjectured, unconsciously imitating a habit of K'Hare's. "So if each one of them carried a similar device, they could send back a signal for the other-universe transponders to lock onto. Allowing them to beam across… Well, anything, from people to hull plating."

"Of course, beaming over a probe would be likely to be detected, since they would have to use several probes to locate a ship," Ing thought out loud, "But since transporter beam effects seem to project into the other universe, perhaps they can detect transporter use in our universe. In which case they would know where the ship or base was located, and be able to probe directly into the ship."

K'Hare nodded understanding. "So you think that they can passively scan for various signals and approximate locations of the ship on the other side? Clever. There would still be some noise in the data... the damage to the Scott... it seemed too precise." K'Hare frowned, considering the possibilities.

"The damage to the Scott was done with one of them present with a device to send a signal back for the transporter to lock on to," Ing surmised. "At least, according to this theory. But the point is that if they can locate a target in our dimension, then they can place their ship in their dimension at the same physical location the target occupies in our dimension. Then they can scan that ship and beam someone aboard - no matter what adjustments our ship makes to its shields. The transport would physically be a transport in place, from one location to the same location in the other universe, and the transport beam would never intersect the ship's shields. So all the fancy MLSS-or-whatever shields you want to try to use, they won't do any good." Ing continued pacing.

"Worse, ..."

tbc

OFF:
A JP by
Ing1
and
miV tuQbe' K'Hare

Title: Re: Ing Reports In
Post by Ing The Puny on Feb 23^rd, 2005, 1:11am

"Worse, they can beam over someone into an access shaft, where that person can get direct access to the ship's systems without any chance of being observed by someone on the target ship. roS and I are pretty certain that's how they took out the Scott. Someone got access to the central computer there and shut down all the safety systems, and whoever did it was good enough that they wiped all traces of their presence from the Scott."

Ing didn't mention it, but both he and K'Hare were perfectly aware that he meant his own double. "To stop these attacks, a ship or station would have to constantly monitor its internal sensors for signatures of inter-universe teleportation. And the crews must be alert to what that means - that intruders can potentially be introduced into the ship in any location. We should also work on a way to jam their transporters, first so that they cannot cause hull breaches, and also so that we can trap their raiding parties in our universe in order to capture them."

K'Hare nodded. "So you are suggesting we alter the signature of our ships, our bases as well as taking all the obvious precautions? If, for example, we realign a transport coil or move our communications array, their extrapolation of our position would be wrong and they would beam off their intended location."

"I think the most important question that needs to be answered at this moment is that of motive. Why are our doubles scouting our universe? Or at least, that is what I think they are doing - why else would they want to steal computers, if not to gain information on us? But if they are scouting us, what are they scouting us for? We could be looking at an impending invasion here. It wouldn't be the first time that idea has occurred to someone - when researching the mirror universe, I found a report of a Ferengi delegation sent to the Mirror Universe to attempt to open trade relations. It ended badly, but where a Ferengi will try to open trade, a Klingon will try to conquer." Ing paused for a second, "Or a Romulan, for that matter. Your double and Khoal's seem to be as Romulan as they are Klingon."

K'Hare had let the student ramble because his science was so good. But he was young and inexperienced. He was so smart and worldly and cynical in so many ways, it was difficult to remember that he was naive in others. "But there is one big question. Why are they here, at XFY? Attacking lone ships to get tech or information I understand. But why come to XFY while I am here, assuming I am the target? And if so, why no attack since Q'olavraH arrived."

K'Hare watched the cogs turn inside the student's head, "I have considered that she was allowed to escape. That she was sent back with some false information as part of some elaborate scheme but if that is plan, it is hidden well. This Khoal should help if he wakes. What is his prognosis?"

"Khoal suffered massive neural trauma," Ing explained. "The vulcans seem to think that it is due to a traumatic mind meld, but according to Q'olavraH, he seemed fine until he transported across. I think he caught the edge of a phaser or disruptor blast as they were dematerializing for transport." Ing obviously didn't give much credence to mind melding in general.

"It is possible Q'olavraH was allowed to escape," Ing continued. "But if so, why did they allow us to obtain a suit of their armor? Unless this particular suit of armor is part of the ploy - the others could be equipped with the speed-enhancing mechanism instead of a remote stunner..." Ing continued to consider. "But the girl seems real enough. And why kill DonKhoal merely for the sake of a ploy?"

"I'd kill you, even be'eQaraH..."

tbc

OFF:
A JP by
"I can't believe he's a Klingon!"
and
"I can't believe he's not Klingon!"

Title: Re: Ing Reports In
Post by Ing The Puny on Feb 23^rd, 2005, 1:19am

"I'd kill you, even be'eQaraH to save the Empire, though I'd regret it. If DonKhoal was important to him, then the stakes are very high for him indeed." K'Hare paused to drink. "OK, we must wait on Khoal to wake up. Let's assume she did escape, that it wasn't planned. Then why haven't they done what they came to do? Did Q'olavraH's escape thwart it? Did it require DonKhoal? Or, did the station's reactions to her transporting in, specifically the modulation of the shields to interfere with the specific quantum flux somehow block them?"

Ing shrugged. Those were all good questions, ones to which he did not have an answer - yet.

K'Hare filled his tankard and drank. "If I decided to go after them on their territory, I would charge you with working out how. So, assume they have a base or ship and I know the general location. I need to pinpoint a precise location and beam over. Science Officer, how do I do it?" K'Hare understood the emotions that thoughts about the other you could stir up but he also knew that DonK'Hare probably used his Ing to accomplish the impossible. K'Hare needed Ing working on this problem and there was no use in dwelling on the philosophical points.

"The first thing to do is run some tests," Ing replied immediately. "We need to get a copy of the transporter modifications needed to reach the other universe, then we can go somewhere unobtrusive and beam a series of probes across and see what sort of activity from the other we can detect from here. I'll get working on the specs for the probes immediately, then I will get roS, So'l, and/or Aklev to work on the engineering designs. We need to know how to see into their space, and what rules govern transporting over."

OFF:
A JP by
Ing The Puny
and
K'Hare totlh

Title: Re: Ing Reports In
Post by K`Hare totlh on Feb 23^rd, 2005, 1:30am

"Make plans but don't start actively experimenting here. Restrict yourself to scanning only. All I need is the base CO confining me because of dimensional activity.

We are only here for a few days. I will hasten our return and you will have more resources at KDB anyway."

It was clear the meeting was over.

Title: Re: Ing Reports In
Post by Ing The Puny on Feb 23^rd, 2005, 1:37am

Ing nodded. "It will take time to design the tests, more to design the equipment to carry them out, and longer to fabricate or modify the necessary equipment. I'll get it done as quickly as possible, but it will be several days at least before we can actually start running the experiments."

With that, he left K'Hare's quarters, picked up his security escort and walked back to the turbolift. The science facilities on a Raptor-class were primitive at best, he wanted to take advantage of what Xavier had to offer as long as he was on the station.