Star Law: A Marshal Cole Series

Chapter 14 (a)

Captain Cutler was livid and paced about the briefing room in the rear of the Niagara's bridge. "How did someone get access to our cargo hold?"

Present in the room was Marshal Cole and Miguel as well Security Chief Volks and Chief Petty officer Brunner. They were all seated. Boz stood to one side near the captain.

Brunner's face was crimson with embarrassment. "Sir, it appears one of my signet nameplates was used. The ship's universal code was written down beside it at my work station."

Cutler's shoulders slumped at hearing this. "Chief, I'm disappointed..."

Volks spoke up at this point. "There were a number of security breaches before Brunner, sir. We're still not sure how someone got access to crew areas and remained undiscovered."

Cutler looked over at the marshal. "You've been quiet Cole. You have an opinion on that?"

"The simplest explanation is that a crew member used another crew member's ID and knows how to avoid security detection," said Cole.

"He's right," grumbled Volks. "But I still don't know how ship security was foiled."

Brunner bristled at all this talk. "I take responsibility for my part in all this but I take issue with trying to pin this on another crew member." He looked over at Cole and glared. "You said that was the easy explanation. What is the hard one?"

Cole exhaled. "I'm not sure you are going to like that one either. Captain, if I may?" He stood and approached the front of the table. Cutler took a seat. "I said that looking at a crew member would be the easy explanation but it is fraught with issues."

Miguel leaned over and handed a datapadd to Cole who brought up images and video on the large boardroom display at the front of the table. "It's true that someone used Chief Petty officer Brunner's signet but how it was acquired and thereafter used raises questions. I asked Boz to go over the security video footage."

"But there is no video footage in the cargo hold during flight," said Brunner with a frown.

"That is correct," replied Cole. "But there is security footage of the hatch to the cargo hold. As you can see this is the video footage of Chief Brunner opening the door in the presence of Chief Volks, Deputy Champion, Crewers Takata and Gerders and Medtech Kar Oharat."

Cole put up the video showing Brunner punching his code in and the door opening. The fixed position camera showed all the people the marshal mentioned.

Boz stepped forward at this point. "Marshal Cole asked me to work backward from this point and see where Brunner's pass was used."

Cole brought up the next video and all it showed was snow on the screen. "This is the same hatch opened with Brunner's pass shortly before the container belonging to Ms. Aubrey Chase Chen. As you can see the video is scrambled. Could you please tell us how the ship AI reacted to this break in the feed, Boz?"

"The ship AI assumed a technical glitch rather than a security breach," said Boz.

"And why is that?" asked Cole.

"It is not uncommon for wireless cameras to have momentary static issues," said Boz. "Even with shielding, the camera image can be interfered due to electromagnetic leakage from polarized hull plating."

"That is something the ship does when in sub-light speed, yes?"

"And when in proximity to something like the Black Adder Cloud," said Boz. "Deflector shields, polarized hulls to protect the ship. However, it can cause energy surges, EM leakage."

Volks was starting to get annoyed. "Yes, yes, we all know about the security cameras. Are you saying you have found they were tampered with?"

"On the contrary," answered Cole. "We found no evidence of that at all. And yet we know they must have been tampered with. Please go on, Boz."

"The marshal is correct," Boz continued. "The ship AI and security monitor every glitch on the cameras. They concluded and continue to conclude that every instance of interference is naturally occurring."

"And yet here we have a five second glitch at the cargo door that we know was used to enter inside on false ID," said Cole.

Cutler sat up straight. "You mean whoever is moving about the ship has the ability to disable the cameras in such a way as to not alert any suspicion?"

"They did until now," said Cole. "We know a few things. First, to disable a camera and pass by unseen takes a minimum of let's say: 3 to 5 seconds. Also, our unknown subject requires a number of IDs and access codes to move about the passenger and crew areas. They likely have a few other tricks up their sleeve to avoid detection. Still, if we track the use of Chief Brunner's ID as well as camera outages lasting more than 3 seconds, we might start having a lead into who got into Ms. Chen's cargo container."