Through a Glass, Clearly
Posted on Fri Jun 26th, 2026 @ 2:54am by Lieutenant Commander Casey Virel & Lieutenant Nathaniel Voss
1,309 words; about a 7 minute read
Mission:
Episode 2: Mine of Taurus
Location: Sensor Control Suite
Timeline: Current
The primary sensor control center aboard the USS Scharnhorst was more laboratory than command center. It lacked the drama of the bridge, trading panoramic views of the stars for layered LCARS displays, astrometric projection tables, and a constant chorus of processors analyzing data faster than most officers could comprehend. Holographic telemetry drifted through the air like translucent ribbons, each one representing another facet of the ship’s extensive sensor network.
At the center of it all stood Lieutenant Nate Voss.
Several floating displays surrounded him, each dedicated to a different component of the survey currently occupying the Science Department. One modeled atmospheric density fluctuations over Teagan VIc. Another displayed spectrographic returns from orbit. A third continuously rebuilt a three-dimensional image of an ancient city, only for portions of it to dissolve into shimmering distortion before beginning again.
The doors slid open. Lieutenant Commander Casey Virel entered, carrying a steaming mug of coffee and a PADD tucked beneath one arm.
“Mister Voss.”
Nate glanced up and smiled. “Commander.”
“I was told you needed Operations.”
“I do.”
Casey looked around at the sea of scientific data. “I’ll admit, I was expecting smoke.”
“You’ve worked with engineers too long,” quipped Voss.
A corner of Casey’s mouth twitched. “I’ve worked with Starfleet too long.”
The Sciences division had spent the better part of the previous week directing a remote archaeological survey of Teagan VIc. The abandoned city dominating the planet’s northern continent appeared to predate Federation civilization by nearly nine thousand years.
The ruins themselves were astonishing. The images were not. Every attempt at high-resolution orbital mapping suffered from the same problem. The upper atmosphere contained an unusually stable suspension of microscopic piezoelectric silicate crystals. Rather than simply disrupting the sensor beam, they refracted portions of the subspace return across dozens of nearly identical frequencies. The result was a coherent distortion pattern that blurred every structure beneath it.
Science wanted images accurate to within fifteen centimeters. The Scharnhorst was currently producing seventy-one; close enough for geology, but hopeless for archaeology.
Nate expanded a mathematical model.”I’ve exhausted everything Science can compensate for in software,” he said.
Casey stepped beside him. “So why am I here?”
“The atmospheric distortion isn’t random.” He overlaid several frequency plots. “It’s coherent.”
Casey’s eyes followed the graphs. “The crystals are delaying portions of the return signal.”
“Exactly.”
“If I can tighten the phase synchronization between Sensor Arrays Three, Five and Seven…”
“…my reconstruction algorithm can mathematically subtract the atmosphere,” finished Voss.
Casey studied the figures another moment. “You want four-picosecond alignment.”
“I do.”
“That’s ambitious.”
“I’ve heard you’re good at ambitious.”
Casey looked sideways at him. “Flattery isn’t usually part of a calibration procedure.”
“I was simply presenting observational data.”
“Science officers really will classify anything as data, won’t they?”
Casey accessed the Operations control architecture, bringing the Scharnhorst’s primary sensor pallets into a holographic engineering model. One by one he adjusted the emitter timing.
Array Three. Array Five. Array Seven. Tiny corrections, fractions of nanoseconds. EPS load redistribution. Subspace field harmonics. Every change immediately propagated through Nate’s reconstruction software.
The holographic city sharpened. Broad avenues emerged. Collapsed towers, elaborate plazas. Rows of buildings previously hidden beneath atmospheric noise.
Casey nodded with quiet satisfaction. “There.”
Nate compared successive scans.
“Resolution just improved to thirty-eight centimeters,” commented Voss.
“Better,” said Casey.
“Much.”
“But not fifteen.”
“No.” Casey frowned. “And I don’t understand why.” The sensor alignment was nearly perfect. Too perfect. Nate’s reconstruction software should have converged. Instead, every few seconds the correction matrix reset itself.
The change was minute, almost impossible to notice. But enough to prevent further refinement.
Casey folded his arms. “The atmospheric model hasn’t changed,” he said.
“No.”
“The sensor geometry?”
“Stable.”
“Your reconstruction algorithm?”
Nate checked. “No errors.”
Casey frowned. “So what’s rewriting your variables?”
Nate looked up. “…That, sir, is exactly the question.”
They began tracing the data path. Normally, the reconstruction software received calibrated sensor data directly from Operations. Instead, every calibration packet passed through an unidentified intermediary process before reaching Science.
Casey frowned. “There shouldn’t be anything here.”
Nate enlarged the flow diagram. “There wasn’t yesterday,” he said.
“Can you identify it?”
“I’m trying.”
The process reported itself as part of the operating kernel. Its permissions were absolute, its documentation nonexistent. It’s execution history…blank.
Casey moved to another console. “If it’s masquerading as part of LCARS, Operations should be able to see the privilege structure.”
His command authorization opened several protected maintenance interfaces unavailable to most officers. Rows of diagnostic information appeared. Memory allocation. Kernel permissions. Protected partitions.
Casey stopped scrolling. “…Nate.”
He walked over. “What have you got?”
“A process occupying protected memory.”
“That’s impossible.”
“It should be.”
Casey enlarged the entry. Sixty-two kilobytes. Almost nothing in the vast memory capacity of the Scharnhorst computer. Kernel-level authority. No registered owner. No creation event. No termination point. No maintenance history.
Nate quietly said, “It has no installation record.”
Casey nodded. “And no authorization chain.”
Nate began examining the executable itself. At first glance, it looked like Federation software. Variable naming conventions were familiar. Memory structures appeared conventional. Even the commenting format imitated Starfleet coding standards.
Then he looked closer. The logic wasn’t Federation. Control loops terminated in unfamiliar ways. Memory management ignored centuries of Starfleet best practices. Security routines seemed designed by someone who had studied LCARS from the outside rather than worked with it. Casey watched him read through the instructions.
“Recognize it?” asked Casey.
“No.”
“But whoever wrote this wanted it to look familiar.”
“Convincing enough that automated diagnostics would ignore it.”
Nate nodded. “And convincing enough that most programmers probably would too.” He searched the process metadata. One timestamp appeared. Nothing else. Both officers leaned toward the display.
Three weeks earlier.
Casey spoke first. “The Nighthawk.”
Nate looked thoughtful. “The timing fits.”
“During the intrusion?”
“Or sometime very soon afterward.”
Casey exhaled slowly. “If this embedded itself in protected memory then standard diagnostics would never have found it.”
“And every sensor calibration we’ve performed since then has unknowingly given it access to system resources,” said Nate.
Neither man liked that conclusion. Nate closed the code viewer. “I don’t want to touch it,” he said.
“Agreed.”
“If it’s dormant…”
“…let’s keep it that way.”
Casey encrypted the diagnostics and restricted access to his command authorization.
“No one else stumbles across this accidentally.”
“I’ll make a forensic copy for analysis.”
“But no removal attempt.”
“Not without authorization.”
Casey nodded once. “The XO needs to know.”
Nate agreed immediately. “Commander Rogers can decide how widely this gets distributed. If this really came aboard with the Nighthawk, Security and Engineering will both need to be involved before anyone starts pulling pieces out of the operating system.”
Casey reached for his now-lukewarm coffee and took a resigned sip. He grimaced.
Nate noticed. “I should probably apologize.”
“For what?” Asked Casey.
“You came down here expecting to spend an hour calibrating sensor arrays.”
“And instead?”
“We may have discovered hostile software embedded in the ship’s computer.”
Casey considered that for a moment. “You science officers have an uncanny talent for turning routine observations into major incidents.”
Nate smiled. “In fairness…”
“Yes?”
“The universe usually starts it.”
A reluctant laugh escaped Casey. “I’m beginning to notice.” He straightened his uniform jacket. “Come on. Let’s brief Commander Rogers before this becomes someone else’s unpleasant surprise.”
The two officers left the sensor lab together, the ancient city of Teagan VIc still rotating silently above the projection table—its secrets momentarily overshadowed by one that had been hiding aboard the Scharnhorst all along.
Lieutenant Commander Casey Virel
Chief Operations Officer
USS Scharnhorst
Lieutenant Nate Voss
Alien Archaeologist/Anthropologist
USS Scharnhorst
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