Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Who watches the watchers?
That would be me, I watch the watchers. I had set up a program that automatically connected me to the console used to access Voyager's system, giving me both a view of the screen and the view from the camera.
Seska was currently listening to Janeway on the bridge while clumsily trying to gain access to the engineering systems.
Pathetic, really.
She touches my systems, fumbling in ignorance, incapable of understanding. A year or close enough to it, she has had access to our systems. She had breached some minor systems such as inter-ship communication, but anything important was still locked down.
Whatever her expertise in the Obsidian Order was, it was not computers.
Oh, didn't I mention that? She's not a Bajoran, she's a Cardassian. She has undergone significant genetic and cosmetic surgery to look like a Bajoran to infiltrate the Maquis.
It wasn't even hard to figure out, she used Cardassian algorithms to try to break my encryption. And she wrote things in Cardassian.
Even if she had learned to work by studying Cardassian methods, no Bajoran, especially no Maquis would write things in Cardassian.
Figuring out she was a Cardassian rather than a traitor Bajoran had been a bit trickier, whoever worked on her had done a good job.
But I checked their medical records. She had avoided every single examination in one manner or the other and then after their doctor had been replaced or killed, entered new records into their systems.
Didn't need to be James Bond to figure out the rest from context, even if whomever did it did an excellent job.
Tuvok worked for Starfleet, Seska worked for the Cardassians.
Did anyone on Chakotay's ship work for him? Because with those two he's down by ten percent already.
Wonder if we'll find a Klingon and Romulan too? Maybe Chell turns out to be a Torian in a Bolian suit?
Note to self, don't join the Maquis, their OpSec is horrendous. It's a wonder they managed to stay in front of the Cardassians so far. Or maybe that's because the Cardassians were even worse?
No, if they were, they wouldn't have been as much of a pain in the arse of the Federation during the war.
I idly watched Seska paw at my security like a cat at a pane of glass.
What remains is what to do with you?
I could just go pull the plug, she only had one connection after all, and then go tell the Captain while shutting their ship down so they can't run away.
But as funny as that'd be, I bet that would make Torres mad at me. She'd be annoyed enough at me about the hack as is and I need to keep a good working relationship with her.
But shutting their entire ship down seemed like overkill anyway, I had not detected any sign of anyone but Seska being involved.
Question was, was she just doing this because of who she was or was she actually working with the Kazon?
Which was the really important part, I didn't really care if she listened in at the moment, I needed to know if she was working with the Kazon.
But I couldn't really leave her just doing what she was doing, she may get lucky eventually.
So I'll give her another couple of days and then I'll shut things down.
But I have a feeling that not letting Janeway know would make her annoyed. Captains are picky like that. But I couldn't just go to her ready room about it either, Seska was keeping an extra ear on that place.
Which is likely why she was not in contact with the Kazon at the moment, she heard me and Kim discussing it with Captain Janeway.
She likely tried to set up an ambush while we were away, but our erratic schedule stopped that anyway.
If she was even involved with that and this wasn't just regular spy stuff.
I opened a channel once the link to the Val Jean went down, "Zephyr to Janeway."
"Janeway here.
"Captain," I said, "I have discovered an issue with shuttle three. I think you want to see this."
"On my way. Janeway out."
I simply waited next to the shuttle, sitting down on the deck next to the shuttle I had pretended to work on for the last couple of hours until Janeway walked into the shuttlebay.
"Lieutenant," she said as she approached, "What have you found?"
I just snorted and motioned for her to enter.
She did and I followed. A tap and I was forced to crowd a bit forward, bending my tail in an uncomfortable manner as the ramp closed behind me.
As Janeway turned to me, I reached out and snagged her combadge between two claws and crushed it like a bug as her eyes went wide, "Apologies, Captain," I said before she could react, "I need to make sure we're not overheard and the internal comm system is bugged. I'm not certain yet if all com badges are set to record at all times, but I'd rather be sure. And I know the shuttles are clean."
Her eyebrows went up and strangely enough, she seemed to relax slightly, "Explain," she then said seriously.
I filled her in on my suspicions, actions, and what I had uncovered so far.
By the time I finished, her arms were crossed and she was leaning her hip against one of the consoles for support, looking lost in thought.
"I may have overstepped my bounds a bit here," I finished up with.
"You did," she said, eyes still focused somewhere else, "But that matters less than our systems being compromised. How sure are you that she doesn't have access to any critical systems?"
I shifted my wings in a shrug, or at least as much as I could while crammed into a tin can, "As sure as I can be. She's sneaky, had to be for it to take so long for me to notice, but this is clearly not her field of expertise."
That, and one of the first things I ever did when taking this role was to beef up computer security.
But I clearly need to increase it further, the fact that she managed to gain any access at all was insulting.
Janeway slowly nodded, "Alright," she said, "This is something I think needs to be discussed with Chakotay. You are certain he does not know?"
"That I am certain of," I agreed, "I'm not certain nobody else at all is involved however, but she could have done all this on her own."
"Any motive if she turns out to not be involved with the Kazon?"
I considered that and then shook my head slightly, "Nothing specific I can think of, may simply be information gathering and contingencies on her side. Or she may simply be bored."
She nodded again, "Alright, I need everything you have-"
"PADD on the console next to you."
That got a small smile and she took it, "Excellent. I think I'm going to invite Chakotay to lunch tomorrow. Do you think you could block everything from my cabin?"
I considered it, "That may be suspicious," I said, "But if you push it back a day or so to ask him, I can have a full diagnostics of the comm system scheduled. With no comm active, the link between ships would be down naturally for about forty minutes."
Janeway made a sound of agreement, "Don't want to risk setting her off," she agreed thoughtfully, "How does Saturday at 13:00 sound?"
"I'll schedule the complete diagnostic so the comm system will be offline for an hour then," I agreed, "I'll keep watching what she does and keep you updated."
"Good work, Lieutenant," she said, "Written communication should be safe. Pen on paper."
"Should be," I agreed.
"If there are any changes of plans, I will send you a runner."
"Agreed, sir."
