Decrypting the Crystals - Part One (Back Post)

Posted on 03 Jun 2025 @ 6:14pm by Ensign Alexi Michelle Brevet

1,178 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: General Sim Postings
Location: Themistocles
Timeline: (Back Post)

[on]

Alexi sat in what she’d come to think of as her alcove. A small desk in the corner of her shared quarters. Dodd had given her a data dump from one of their past missions and had tasked her with decrypting it and pulling as much data as she could. She’d been informed it was from a Terran Empire base. That, in itself, was enough to cause concern. She had to figure out how to break the code, then find actionable information they could use.

Alexi really hadn’t had a lot of experience with Terran codes in the past. But if they were just the Federation from another universe, it was possible that breaking into the data wouldn’t be as hard as she thought. She took the first steps, loading the file onto a standalone computer terminal. One thing she had made sure was not tied into any other systems. She couldn’t risk this being some Trojan horse program that was designed to destroy a ship or Base’s main computer core. It had taken her a few days to convince the engineers to detach the main computers from this one and give it its own smaller processor. She didn’t need to be the cause of a major issue, and this was her way to try to prevent one from happening.

Dodd had requested an update in an hour; sadly, all she could tell him was that she was getting closer to cracking the decryption. She’s relayed that message via her combadge as she continued to work on the computer. After a few hours, she had managed to get to the lowest security level. At this level, what she found were mostly crew change reports. She read a few of them, and to say they made her ill would be putting it mildly. She had heard rumours about the Terran Empire’s method of promotion, but she hadn’t believed it was true. Not until she read these files. There were hundreds of “promotion by assassination” files. These people weren’t the best in their assigned roles, they were just better at killing superior officers. What hit her even harder was seeing the names of some of the dead from the Terran crew. Their counterparts are still alive and well on their ship. Of course, there were a lot of names not on the crew, but listed as slaves. Anyone not human seemed to be on that list. Not a single member of Alien races, other than Vulcans, was deemed worthy enough to be anything but slave labour.

She pulled the data off and stored it off the computer on her own set of crystals for Dodd to review if he wanted. It wasn’t really useful to her overall goal, finding out what they wanted. With that in mind she went to work on the next level of decryptions.

The CPO had been sitting in her small workspace for hours. Shifts had changed at least twice, but Alexi was barely aware of that fact as her fingers flew over the controls slowly but surely breaking the decryption. At some point, she realized someone had brought her a sandwich and a drink. She didn’t even know when that had happened or who brought it, but she appreciated it. She ate the sandwich little by little, taking bites in between entering more keystrokes on her computer. The lights had been dimmed for the most part, but her small alcove had enough light for her to be unaware of it. More than once, she had tried to find a more comfortable position in her seat. She finally stood up to stretch and took a few steps away from the computer, twisting her upper body to work out the stiffness in her back and shoulders. It wasn’t until then that she realized how late it was.

Alexi sighed tiredly as she looked at the computer. She’d made some progress, but she still had a ways to go. But even she knew that she needed to take a break for now. She saved her progress and secured the data crystals in the small safe she’d had installed under her desk. She secured the computer so no one else would accidentally try to use it and then slowly walked to her sleeping chamber. Entering the darkened room quietly, she could hear at least one of her roommates breathing steadily. She moved to her bunk, pulled off her boots and climbed in, fully dressed.

Her mind kept working on the problem even as her eyes drifted shut. She didn’t really sleep as much as she just rested her eyes. Her mind is still working on getting past the decryptions. About 30 minutes later, a thought in her half-asleep state had pulled her awake instantly, and she had to see if she was right. Quickly going back to the computer, she brought up the files. She paused her hands over the console. This could go one of two ways: her half-asleep brain had found a solution, or she was about to lose valuable information. She had been going on the assumption that they needed high-level encryptions and had been focusing her efforts on breaking codes. But what came to mind was that they would need to access this information more easily, especially if they killed their predecessor. She took a deep breath, and with a basic algorithm of offset alphanumeric within minutes, she’d gotten into the decrypted files.

Now she had to figure out what the hell they were looking for. The next several hours were spent looking over thousands of files. She skimmed most of them at first, looking for keywords. What was most interesting was that the Terran Empire seemed to be having a power crisis. Not of leadership, but actual power to run their ships. According to one set of logs, this particular vessel had breached the vail between the two universes at least three times. How they did that would be a vital piece of information to prevent further incursions. The more she read the more she knew she had to tell Dodd, and hopefully he would share that quickly up the chain of command.

And then The Captain had called her in and gave her more crystals. Now instead of just the one, she had four of them to go through.

They were looking for at two things at the moment. The first was a strong base of operations from which to mount attacks against the Federation and take over. The Second, and perhaps more important to their immediate needs was Dilithium. The Captain also wanted her to find anything that could explain why and where they were.

While she was planning to continue looking at the new crystals and access the files, her time was cut a bit short by a call to arms.

She sent what she had learned so far to Dodd, changed into a clean uniform and reported for duty in Security.

[off]

 

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