Posted by Ensign Rand Farquharson (Yeoman First Class) in Side-Sim Pranks and Jokers

Posted by Ensign Kovan ch’Sirhc (Engineering & Communications Officer) in Side-Sim Pranks and Jokers

Posted by Ensign Rand Farquharson (Yeoman First Class) in Side-Sim Pranks and Jokers
Posted by… suppressed (1) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)
Kovan shrugged. He didn’t need a pep talk, or to be defended. After all, he deserved whatever scorn or dislike he received. And it was true he acted in accordance to regulations and Starfleet standards, but without that guidance. . . Well, it was for the best that he had rules to live by. Kovan lead the way into the mess hall, not stopping once as he marched up to NE Baker. Their back was to them, and deep in argument with the cook.

Rand wasn’t defending him or giving him a pep talk, simply stating things how she saw it. It also illustrated their similarities and what might be the focus of these ‘pranks.’ Rand didn’t have time to defend someone else or make justifications for their actions. That was their responsibility, unless of course they were assigned to work on the same project.

He grabbed Baker by the shoulder, physically turning them around and spoke before they could. “The Yeoman and I have questions for you, NE and you’re going to answer them.” Perhaps sensing Kovan’s foul mood, or because they were already tired from their own argument with Baker, the cook made himself scarce. NE Baker, however, glared something fierce before smirking.

“Ask away. I don’t know what your deal is but I got my own work to do so make this fast.”

Ensign ch’Sirhc (COMMO, ENGR)

Rand’s eyes went wide. She’d heard Andorians could be more physically confrontational, but Rand wasn’t prepared for it, and she didn’t know if that was true, or if Kovan’s actions were simply a manifestation of his frustration. But either way she didn’t want to get into trouble for getting into a physical altercation. Rand stepped between the two of them. “We just wanted to ask why you returned your uniforms to the laundry. Apparently several people were given uniforms that were damaged, and the crew working there don’t know how it happened. So we’re trying to find out how and why that happened.”

Yeoman Rand (I guess I’m the good cop?)

Kovan scowled when Rand moved between him and Baker, but he released his grip on the NE, letting them stumble back and regain their footing on their own. Baker made an exaggerated show of brushing himself off and fixing his uniform before answering Rand’s question. “What, were you two demoted and set to scrub work? Let me guess, you didn’t smile enough?” Baker said to Rand.

Kovan looked as though he were about to grab for Baker again, but refrained at the last moment. “Answer the question, Baker. Someone defiled Starfleet uniforms for an idiotic prank. Take this seriously or we’ll make this a lot harder on you.”

Baker huffed, tipping his shoulders back slightly to puff out his chest more. “I don’t know anything about damaged uniforms. I was in a rush and didn’t notice I had the wrong uniforms until too late.” Then, as though he just thought of something particularly witty, added with a sly smile, “You perfection types may not understand this but real people make mistakes sometimes.”

Ensign ch’Sirhc (COMMO, ENGR, Bad Cop)

“So you picked up the wrong uniforms, put one on, wore it to your shift, and then 3 hours later, after your first break but before your meal break, brought them back? Were they labeled incorrectly?” Rand was polite as always, she was to everyone. She’d never had interactions with Baker before, and didn’t understand the open animosity. But if he stuck to that time line, which is what happened according to the records and computer, then he was lying. Baker was in the science Dept. Any of the lab heads or Lt Cmdr Alden would have let him go back and get his correct uniforms. Alden was a stickler but mix-ups like that happened, and the lab heads knew that. And Baker would not have had to sneak off to fix it or hide the mix-up.

If he gave a different time line then either he was lying or someone altered the logs.

Yeoman Rand

A flash of confusion crossed over Baker’s face. Then gone as fast as it appeared. “No,” He said, his tone different now. More measured, and even than his earlier unaffected speech. “I figured the mix up twenty minutes later. I don’t know where you got that information but it’s wrong.” Baker stood straighter, and made a point to maintain eye contact with either one of them.

Kovan’s eyes narrowed at the NE. “Either you’re lying Baker or the computer is. And computers tend to not do that. Fess up and maybe the Yeoman will go easy on you.” Baker, however, held his ground. “All I got was the wrong uniforms. And I returned them. Here-Letmejust-” The NE pulled out his PaDD and hit one button when suddenly the device screen went haywire, flashing strange symbols and patterns before rapidly scrolling through text and emitting an unholy series of beeps and boops. “What the!” Baker fiddled with the buttons but couldn’t get his PaDD under control.

Ensign ch’Sirhc (COMMO, ENGR)

Maybe she would go easy on Baker? She had no authority to do anything one way or the other, except to report it and let Rogers deal with it. And this right here was why people ended up not liking yeoman. People had an over inflated idea of their importance. “Computers don’t lie but they can be lied too.” She looked at ch’Sirhc, “So the computer records have been tampered with, and that’s a serious offense. Sabotage of any ship’s system is a court martial offense.”

It was a part to play, they needed answers and she was responsible for a filing a report about these ‘pranks’ and she couldn’t do that with false information and assumptions. She needed facts in order to report it. Her anxiety was threatening to ruin her composure but she needed to deal with this first. She couldn’t go to Rogers about pranks unless she had something substantial. She reached out and took the PaDD, “Here let me see.” She fiddled with it a bit, but couldn’t do anything with it so she passed it to ch’Sirhc, “I’m no engineer, maybe you can figure out what’s wrong with it.” Rand thought the malfunction was awfully convenient. “Let’ En ch’Sirhc take it and look at it, Baker and we’ll go get you a new one. I hope your files were backed up. Where are you working today? I’ll go get one and bring it to you.”

Yeoman Rand

Kovan knew Rand couldn’t do much, but he hoped Baker believed that nonsense seeing how aggressive the man acted towards the yeoman. Either way, it didn’t seem like they were about to get any more out of Baker. He had his suspicions regarding the computer logs, but kept them to himself for now. Baker was somehow involved with the pranks, and he wasn’t about to say anything while Baker was still in front of them.

Baker didn’t seem keen to hand over his PaDD, but did after only a moment’s hesitation. When Rand passed it off to Kovan (who flipped it over, broke the back of the case to forcibly rip the sound emitters out. The screen continued to spew gibberish but at least the device was quiet now.) Baker began to stammer, “They weren’t. . . I’m supposed to be in the mechanical science lab today. . .” The man had gone from cocky to petulant. “I can fix my own PaD-“

Kovan pulled the PaDD back, “Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of this.” He too had found the malfunctioning PaDD convenient. When you spent five hours undoing the work of a prankster coder, you develop a sense for the coder’s style and formatting.

Ensign ch’Sirhc (COMMO, ENGR)

Rand rubbed at her ear when the noise finally stopped and there was a general sigh of relief from the others in the lounge. “ch’Sirhc is very good at what he does, he’ll take care of it.” She pointedly glanced at the chronometer in the room, “We didn’t think this would take more than a minute, and we don’t want you to be late. I know how on point the department and shift heads are right now with a new captain on board. I’ll bring you a new PaDD to the mechanical science lab. Take me about 30 minutes to get it.”

Baker left and Rand followed ch’Sirhc out. “How good are you with those things? Think you can set one up to keep tabs on what he’s doing without him finding out?” It only took her 5 minutes to get a new PaDD signed out for Baker from the quarter master.

Yeoman Rand

Kovan watched Baker until the NE was out of sight. “Depends. The mechanical side: yes. The software side? Not so much. If Baker is our prankster and the one who reprogrammed my door then he’d notice anything I attempt to program into the PaDD. . . Unless.” Kovan asked for the new PaDD and gently removed the backing . He pulled a hyperspanner from his belt and got to work hiding a rudimentary tracker hidden beneath the hardware using parts from Baker’s original PaDD. “We can see where he goes and I don’t know about you, but I have a feeling Baker isn’t working alone.”

The other PaDD still worked, at least enough to access the screen and take a look at the internal code. He skimmed through lines of letters and numbers until he came across the errant code that caused the PaDD to go wild. There was a distinct difference in the style of programming and a total lack of documentation. Among other slight differences from the heavily standardized code utilized by Starfleet. “This is definitely the work of the same programmer. Either Baker. . . or whoever he’s working with.”

Ensign ch’Sirhc (COMMO, ENGR)

Rand nodded, “Probably he is. It would be too obvious, but for pranks? It’s all a bit much. I can pull shift schedules to cross reference. Both who he shares a shift with and who he doesn’t. I can also pull the food synthesizer records to see who is at meals the same time as him. If you tell me the date when your chime was altered I can run similar information for that day and today with the radio. I can also look to see who might have completed maintenance requests on your deck that day. Give us names to check.”

Rand

Kovan nodded, impressed by the level of thought Rand had given this. They’re certain to catch the pranksters at this rate. “I’ll keep an eye on Baker’s movements and keep a record of where he goes and who he talks to today. Between your list and mine we’ll pin down his partner or partners.” Kovan told Rand the requested date and the time he first noticed the changed chime. “Since my shift is over, I will ask around and see who else might have been pranked.” He added with a slight grimace. Kovan did not look forward to going around and questioning the crew, but he was determined to end this wild chase.

“We should meet up later to compare notes, when would you suggest?”

Ensign ch’Sirhc (COMMO, ENGR)

Rand was behind this morning because of the uniforms and then tracking Baker down. She thought a moment, “1400. There is a small Yeoman’s office on deck 3 right past the conference room. It’s no more than a closet, but no one uses it but me. We can meet there.” She took the PaDD once he was done with it and then headed to the mechanical science lab and gave it to Baker. He didn’t seem too pleased when a couple of the other techs told him he was lucky the yeoman took the time to run the errand for him. Probably saved him the whole day of headaches trying to do it himself.

Rand made use of her free hour before lunch to run the information she’d told Kovan she would get. A few names stood out - Borgia (he worked with and never seemed to cross paths outside of the lab), Jilva (he was Vulcan and it seemed unlikely but Vulcan’s had a history of extreme anomosity toward Andorians. And they were always in mess hall together either at lunch or dinner), and then Ginna (a Tellarite engineer that was working on Kovan’s deck the day his chime started acting up) but then Ayden (another eng, Human, was there the day before).

Yeoman Rand

After parting ways with Rand, Kovan made the short trip to the crew lounge and began asking around about pranks and their victims. No one in the lounge were personally affected but seemed amused by the idea of it. Kovan wanted snap that it was hardly amusing to be the target but for the sake of the investigation kept quiet. Eventually someone recalled seeing an NE angrily dancing outside their room door. After some prodding they remembered the person’s name: NE Vash. It was as good a lead as he was going to get.

Kovan left the crew lounge and found NE Vash beside the door to his personal quarters, the control interface open and the circuits exposed. The NE noticed Kovan, and begged for assistance with fixing his door. With some prompting NE Vash explained that his door refused to open unless he danced for it. Another prank centered around door controls. Kovan was able to help the poor NE and together they were able to remove the prank code. Thankful for the help, the NE was able to name three others who were pranked including XO Roman. Apparently someone got hold of the XO’s PaDD and added to his schedule fake meetings all over the ship.

The other two were Ensign Gom and Ensign Macheskey. Gom was a Tellarite in engineering who hated getting his uniform dirty and kept a spare in his locker in engineering. After switching into the spare uniform top he suddenly began to itch uncontrollably and couldn’t stop until he stripped off the top and washed off in an emergency shower. Medical Ensign Macheskey, a human, was scheduled to take inventory of the medical supplies, but when she entered the room a bucket tipped and doused her in water that dyed her skin and hair Orion green.

No one knew of any other pranks, so Kovan assumed he had found all the victims up to this point. He arrived at the Yeoman’s office just after 1400 hours, and carried a PaDD with his notes on what he’s found. Kovan nodded at Rand and got straight to the point, “You want to go first or should I?”

Ensign ch’Sirhc (COMMO, ENGR)

“This is what I’ve found so far.” Rand handed him a stack of hand written papers. “Oh and my printer is now feeding out reports with a font that looks like a love sick middle schooler wrote it. Tried a different printer in the conference room, same thing. Apparently it’s connected to my login credentials, not just a tamper with my printer.”

Borgia (he worked with and never seemed to cross paths outside of the lab. Does not have the skill or training to alter her computer credintials)
Jilva (he was Vulcan and it seemed unlikely but Vulcan’s had a history of extreme animosity toward Andorians. And they were always in mess hall together either at lunch or dinner. Could create a program to alter her font permanently but does not have the skill to hack the computer clearance codes)
Ginna (a Tellarite engineer that was working on Kovan’s deck the day his chime started acting up)
Ayden (another eng, Human, was there the day before).

“We might get more hits or limit the number if we run your information.”

Yeoman Rand

Kovan took the papers, already thumbing through them as Rand spoke, “Our prankster, or one of them, seems fond of messing with people’s technology.” He handed his PaDD of notes over to Rand, then went back to her paper notes. The Vulcan in particular stood out to him. Vulcans, Kovan thought with contempt, No one would ever suspect a Vulcan of something so petty and emotional as pranks. Because Vulcans are above such base things Jilva didn’t have the ability to do all the pranks, but Baker

Yeoman Rand (Human. Ruined Uniforms)
En. Kovan (Andorian. Engr/Commo. Door chime hacked to play a song when passed. Audio devices planted in Engineering to play sounds only he could hear)
NE Vash (Human. Science. Door hacked to only open when danced for)
XO Roman (Human. XO. Science. Personal PaDD hacked to add fake meetings across the ship to his daily schedule)
En. Gom (Tellarite. Engr. Itching powder in spare uniform)
En. Macheskey (Human. Medical. Trapped door that dumped green dye on her)

Once Rand finished reading over his notes, he took back his PaDD and added Rand’s data to his own. The PaDD spent several seconds in computational thought, then presented the following information:

NE Baker frequently worked the same shifts with NE Vash and worked a shift with XO Roman before their PaDD was hacked. Ensign Macheskey logged a complaint against Ginna for what was described as inappropriate behavior. Ensign Gom also logged a complaint against Ginna for inappropriate jokes about his cleanliness. Inspiration struck and Kovan looked to Rand. “Does Baker have any complaints logged against him?” But there was more. The analysis reported unusual logs for Jilva and Borgia. Things like showing up to shifts late, leaving in the middle of shifts and other minor things. Nothing that would condemn them, but certainly raised suspicion. Ayden was absent from the report, making Kovan think he’s not involved at all.

Ensign ch’Sirhc (COMMO, ENGR)

ooc: Sorry for the delayed response! Hopefully this post made sense!