Forewarned is Forearmed "
By: Jeff Westfall, Tactical Officer, [PST]
Ian Hunter, Commanding Officer, [PC]

Stardate: 58205.25 1140

Jeff Westfall knew that the Senior Staff Officers had been summoned to a briefing in the bridge observation lounge in one hour, per the instructions relayed by Ensign Forrester. Things had changed rapidly when the ship went to Yellow Alert.

He had been able to ascertain that there were no "hostile ships" in the area, from what he could gather. He had gone back to his quarters to get several PADDs out with reports he had compiled since the "Re-taking of the USS Zion" following the prisoner uprising that led to their mission to Rura Penthe.

He didn't trust leaving reports about *his* tactical strategies on the ship's on-board computer system, anymore, since Birkhoff had *SO thoroughly compromised all the computer systems. He was still bothered by the fact that Birkhoff had *somehow* managed to compromise all of the key systems and override the security protocols.

He sat at the briefing table with his PADDs, comprising several different streams of amendment in proceedure to run by the Captain. First off was the recommendation that all of the ship's communications should be routed through multiple cryptographic signal processors to secure all the communications (regardless of origin). In case of a similar circumstance as the prisoner revolt/boarding party/seizure of key command personnel, they would be able to communicate as a "task group" and co-ordinate with other "task groups" by pairing off. That would make intelligence gathering a little easier.

He had plans to ask the Captain to request the Marine detail to cover "point duty" on key access and control corridors and systems. Their configuration and expertise was specific to penetration of enemy defenses, and as such Jeff thought that their counter-measures would be better to repel attack and hold "Heavy Ground" better than the the Zion's own security officer corps could, because they were able to dig in, and stay put in a static position.

He felt a real debt of gratitude to Max, the Klingon XO who had been part of the exchange program. His grill and drill till everyone "drops" method was tough, but the crew now knew that they had been well schooled in overcoming a larger and stronger enemy.

Then there was the matter of food and materiél, he'd have to make a note to speak with the new Computer Specialist, Ensign Tappert--there were undoubtedly ways that the replictor systems could be re-assigned to separate control systems to isolate them from the command and control systems.

Jeff had the thought that she would be *much* better able to camouflage their linkage in "other parlance" that would make them harder to attack.

The other thought Jeff had would make a recommendation to dedicate one of the holodecks to be a ship's training simulator with its own *ISOLATED* processing system, cut off completely from all of the ship's actual "production/processing" systems. Essentially, in a bubble, the system would have all of the ship's software and diagnostic routines from the actual ships' systems that could be run "in real time" with analysis routines to breakpoint critical failures--without compromising the ship's systems (by virtue of the fact the simulator would have its own safety back-up, being firewalled to the command and control systems. He was sure the actual sensor logs could be imported to emulate the Zion's reactions and performance in "Real-time".

How Birkhoff had managed to compromise *EVERY* critical system he'd like to torture out of him, and then kill him for it, if he ever had the chance, of that he was *QUITE* certain. He really had to make an appointment with Counselor Zoei about that. He knew well that the kind of reaction he felt was often indicative of post-traumatic stress disorder, and he needed to be thinking clearly all the time. At Yellow Alert, it would have to wait. Would he be "The Death of the U.S.S. Zion"? At times like this, he was sure of it.

He tried to push the negative and intensely personal thoughts out of his head, to concentrate on summarizing the Ship's Readiness. All the crews had responded to the Yellow Alert, all the ship's weapon systems were on-line, the ship's sensor array were working to within 1.5% of optimum shipyard specs now that he'd had the time to check their calibration.

He wasn't sure there was anything else he hadn't covered. The door to the lounge slid open, and in walked Captain Hunter. Westfall stood at attention and saluted his Commanding Officer stiffly. "Good Morning, Captain," he said.

"At ease Westfall." said Hunter. He sensed Westfall had something to discuss. In fairness, he had not really given him the needed to review tactical matters together. Hunter sat down at the end of the conference table, "you are a little early Jeff, is there something you wanted to discuss?"

"I thought I'd better get here early and go over what I've got to submit from the post prisoner revolt review. I think I've managed to come up with some ideas that *may* be of use to us, should we ever find ourselves in a similar circumstance".

Hunter took the PADD from Westfall and began reading it. "These are good points Westfall," said Hunter. "Let's go to the ready room to discuss these before the meeting."

I'd appreciate that, Captain, I've been doing some thinking about it a lot lately, and I think *some* of the ideas are worth investigating, I'm just not sure how to go about planning the implementation of whatever is worth going forward with, I'm a Tactical Officer, not a computer systems analyst...I know how to find weaknesses in weapons systems and defensive gear and exploit flaws. Basically, I think we might be able to turn the holodeck into Sim_USS_ZION, patterned after a 21st Century computer game, *BUT* we need to make sure that the safeties can't be circumvented without GREAT and SEVERE difficulty. I don't ever want any member of this crew to have to have an arm re-grown (or worse).

They walked to the ready room and sat down as Hunter contineud to read the report. When he was finished he handed the PADD back to Westfall.

"Mean while, we have some serious matters at hand. Some of these items could be beneficial. We should review them in more detail later today," said Hunter.

"I know we're at Yellow Alert, and all stations report "Manned and Ready," I know Sick Bay is ready to receive casualties and triage. And I noticed we've changed course. "Captain Sir! Your Tactical Officer bets you ten credits, "There's a direct cause and effect relationship between the course change and the yellow alert," Westfall said "Oh well, I like Miranda's better than anything on Qul Tuq anyway, and I love Miranda's coffee. Q-T's coffee always tastes like mud to me, no matter where you buy it from". That and I don't have time for a coffee break anyway {Yellow Alert}.

I'll have to talk to Counselor Zoei about my nerves too, *VERY* soon ...I cannot put it off much longer, or I'll be putting *my* performance at risk too.

I know I'll need to consult with Ensign Tappert about the computer work and the encryption, and the holosuite interface/protection, but that would require that Chief Silvio and Ensign Tappert "in the loop" as well, and I wasn't going to broach the subject with them until I'd cleared it with you. I'll see if I can speak to Counselor Zoei to let her know what's going on, just so she's informed of my situation. I'm just not feeling the most comfortable in my own skin at the moment. "

"I understand," said Hunter rising up from his chair. "We'd best head over to the meeting."