“What do you mean, she’s reached level thirteen?”  Schmidt’s voice boomed through the small observation room as Icheb grimly delivered his report.

“I mean that she has defeated twelve levels of encryption and has just two more remaining before full system shutdown,” Icheb replied, in a bitterly resigned tone.

Schmidt looked at the collection of cryptologists and engineers packed into the tiny space.  “How is that possible?” he demanded. 

Everyone but Icheb shrugged helplessly, looking awed.  The Andorian spoke up first.  “Sir, I don’t know how she’s doing it.  She just keeps at it.  I’ve never even seen half the tactics she’s using.”

Schmidt turned on Icheb.  “Did you cheat?  Did you somehow convey the codes to her prior to the test?”

Before Icheb could speak up, the Andorian did it for him.  “No, sir,” the woman said emphatically.  “I’ve been watching her for six hours.  She’s angry about the encryption, and she’s not faking it.  She’s just incredibly determined to succeed and has the talent to back it up.” 

Schmidt cast the Andorian a skeptical glance; then eyed Icheb suspiciously for another moment before offering a slight shrug and settling into a chair near the main display.  “She won’t win this by hacking,” he reminded them.  “This is the survival exam, not a cryptology final.  She’s going to have to leave that capsule one way or another, and face the elements head on.”

Icheb fought to keep his expression neutral.  He felt the urge to yell at the older man, to tell him to alter the weather controls to give Maren a fighting chance, but he knew his words would fall on deaf ears, and that any outburst would be seen as proof that he couldn’t safely work with Maren in his chain of command.  Instead, he stared ahead at the screen, watching her crack some of the best code he’d ever written.  For the first time since he’d met her, he hoped for her to fail.

****

“There goes unlucky thirteen,” Maren muttered, as she finally conquered the thirteenth layer of encryption on the ship’s maintenance computer.  “How many levels of this are there?” she asked aloud.

She took a deep breath, squeezed her eyes shut, and rubbed at them.  They were strained and dry after so many hours working at decrypting the code, and it had long since gotten dark outside.  “Computer, local time?” she asked. 

“It is currently 22:31 hours and 16 seconds,” the computer replied.

No wonder she was tired.  She’d been at this for over ten hours, now.  She was pretty sure the snow outside had stopped, but in the pitch black of the arctic night, it was impossible to tell for sure.  She was disappointed there was so much cloud cover.  If she had to be stuck at the North Pole for the night, she would have liked to have watched the Aurora.

You should rest, she told herself, but the decryption wouldn’t let her.  Knowing she hadn’t yet defeated the programming drove her crazy.  She returned her attention to the module.  Just one more level, she promised herself.  Whether it was the last level or not, she would beat it, and then go to sleep.

When she looked at the screen, however, she stopped short and stared in surprise and confusion.  I know this code. I wrote this code.  She and Icheb had developed it together.  To her knowledge, no one besides the two of them even knew of its existence.

It’s a trap, she realized.  Not only had they set her up, they must have gotten Icheb to do it.  That explains the last-minute trip, she thought.  He’d said he was being sent to Andor for an engineering conference and wouldn’t be easily reachable for the better part of a week.  Something told her he was much, much closer than she had thought – in fact, there was a very good chance he was in orbit directly above her. 

She sat frozen in place, staring at the screen as her brain scrambled to catch up with the implications.  He had obviously tried to make it hard for her, harder than anyone would have ever instructed him to do.  That meant he didn’t want her to break the code.  This level, however, was different.  It was too easy.  They had written it together.  He had to have known she would recognize it immediately.  What did it mean?

It’s a warning sign, she realized, with a rush of apprehension.  Now what?  It occurred to her for the first time that she might be being watched, or at least monitored.  If they had gone to the trouble to set up this elaborate trap, it was incredibly likely they were tracking her progress.  She couldn’t just stop now, it would seem too suspicious.  And her pride all but demanded she complete the encryption just to prove how good she really was. 

She wondered what would happen if she actually broke through.  Nothing good, she guessed.  But how am I supposed to fake not knowing my own code?

She could consciously limit herself to Starfleet algorithms, but that would be too obvious now that she’d used every Borg trick in the book to hack through the other thirteen levels.  She would have to try at least a few Borg algorithms.  There were plenty of Borg tactics that wouldn’t work on this code, but remembering what they were without access to her personal database?  She had a great memory, but it wasn’t flawless like Icheb’s cortical array.  It was possible for her to forget things.

To buy herself time, she started with some advanced Starfleet decryption protocols that she knew wouldn’t work, because she and Icheb had designed this code specifically to defeat them.  As the computer churned through the computations, she wondered what the trap was for.  She also wondered what else might be booby-trapped in this simulation.  Suddenly, the choice of 13B for her nutritional supplements seemed more like a calling card than a coincidence.  She didn’t know whether to be grateful for the warning or upset by the betrayal.  It’s not as if they would have given him a choice, she realized.

Her fingers instinctively went up to where her combadge would have been had it not been confiscated prior to the exercise.  The empty space jarred her out of her thoughts.  Of course you can’t call him, she chastised herself.  She glanced over at the screen, where the computer was reporting the failure of her first decryption attempt.  One more Starfleet algorithm, then I’ll switch to Borg, she thought.  Best to keep switching back and forth for a while before “giving up” for the night, just to maintain the illusion that she was really trying. 

She typed in the code, then pulled the blanket closer around her and settled back into her seat.  It was just cold enough inside the pod that she could feel her metabolism slowing down.  She knew her biometrics were being monitored; that was standard for the survival test, just in case someone sustained a life-threatening injury before they could manually activate their emergency beacon.  That would actually work in her favor now that it was nearly midnight.  If she drifted off to sleep mid-decryption, it would be utterly believable.

Suddenly realizing how tired she really was, she let her eyes flutter closed.  It took only moments before she was fast asleep.

****

Thousands of kilometers above, Icheb breathed an almost imperceptible sigh of relief as he watched his girlfriend slip into unconsciousness.  So far, his plan was working.  She’d recognized his warning sign – he’d known it the moment she chose the first algorithm for her attack on the fourteenth layer.  He looked over at the biometric readout screen.  Her body temperature was slightly low, but not dangerously so.  The light inside the capsule was dim, but he could just make out her sleeping face, illuminated by the glow of the maintenance computer screen.

“All right, show’s over for tonight,” Schmidt announced to the assorted spectators in the monitoring room.  The others seemed simultaneously disappointed and relieved that she hadn’t broken through all fourteen layers, and they murmured observations and predictions amongst themselves as they filed out of the chamber.  Schmidt glanced over at Icheb and nodded.  “That means you too,” he said.  “Go get some rest.  I assume you’ll want to be back here at the crack of dawn.”

Icheb stared at the man for a moment before mustering a flat, “Yes, sir.”  He was having a difficult time concealing his disdain for the commander. 

Apparently, Schmidt noticed.  “Lieutenant,” he said sharply, forcing Icheb to look him in the eyes.  “I realize that this has been a difficult assignment for you, and that’s fine.  You don’t have to like it, and you don’t have to like me.  But if I find out you’ve tampered with her test in any way, or given her an inside advantage, I will personally see to it that your career ends here.  At the very least, I’ll see that you are never, ever assigned together in any capacity.” 

Icheb stared at him levelly, careful not to allow his facial expression or body language to give anything away. 

“I’ve been following both of your careers since that girl won the Daystrom Prize in ’80,” Schmidt continued.  “Certain of the Admiralty are hell-bent on fast-tracking you both to command positions on the return trip to the Delta Quadrant.  I don’t think either of you are ready, but you’ve managed to handle everything we’ve thrown at you so far, Lieutenant … everything except this – being pitted against her.  So just think of this as an unofficial post-Academy psych exam.  If you pass, I’ll leave you alone, with my congratulations.  If you fail, you’ll have to pick between your career and your girlfriend.”  He locked his eyes on Icheb’s, giving him a look that sent chills down the ex-drone’s spine.  “Choose wisely,” he said. “You’re dismissed.”