The Leads Run Dry
Posted on Thu Jun 29th, 2023 @ 5:50pm by Ensign Davna & Cornelius Warner MS
2,229 words; about a 11 minute read
Mission:
Roll With It
Location: Cornelius's Home
Timeline: MD 01 : 0923 Hrs
The trek from the Command Center down to the Silver Tongue was one Davna had took many times before. But this time came with a teleporter shimmer and a determined glint in her eye. While she had the manners to not teleport into the building, she did not have the patience to call ahead. Nor would she have if she did. But anger flared through her nostrils as she stormed up to the door. Her Daucin companion stashed itself in the messenger bag she had appropriated for such a purpose, eyes peeking out the opening.
But the resulting knock on the door came to deaf ears. It was early, she supposed, but if she discovered that he had plucked the Captain out of colony on her watch, whatever Shaun might have found on his arrival would have been questionably identifiable. Which came with another knock, and one more still before a tired member of the early brew staff grumbled himself toward the door. The poor man did not get a chance to breathe before Davna's hardened glare had him freeze.
"Is your boss here?" she asked in a slow, even tone. At the resulting slow head shake from the terrified human, Davna's eyes narrowed. "If I find out you've lied to me, I'll make sure you regret every second of it."
After bidding a curt farewell, Davna's teleporter journey took her straight to the address she believed to be Cornelius's home. While it was a verified address, her current suspicions of the Captain's whereabouts had even the brewmaster in suspect.
She stared long and hard at the door, words boiling in her pit of rage before her hand went for the ringer bell.
It took a minute. Probably longer than Davna would have liked, but a moment later, the unmistakable sound of a latch turning and the door opening resulted in Cornelius standing in just a pair of loose pyjama trousers and slippers he'd had the forethought to grab. He had not, in his sleep addled confusion thought to grab a shirt, and even as he had reached for the door he'd angrily mused to himself that whoever it was was going to have to deal with that as it was his home and - for him - ungodly early.
When the door opened and he found Ensign Davna standing there, it took him a good long second to put his thoughts together. He'd closed out the bar last night, and only gotten home around 4 am, himself having a celebratory round with his staff at having their place of employment no longer made into a fantasy inn. So, half dressed, slightly hungover, and now very annoyed, her only managed a "What, Ensign?" in a tone that slipped through far more of his past life as a full on Starfleet officer than he had ever intended to let go. But, with the correct level of annoyance to match her scathing stare, he stuck to it.
The temper flared out Davna's nostrils. "Don't get smart with me," she snapped. Cornelius was going to the the unfortunate victim of the Orion's pent up anger, whether he realized it or not. "You better not be hiding Captain Mahone in there, or I'll stomp all over your everything myself!"
The fog of sleep still heavy, Shaun now finally looked the woman up properly, and took a solid minute to consider the question. A part of his brain was screaming to ask the intelligence inspired questions. However, the tired bartender instead won, and a hand went up the back of his head and he rubbed at the back of his skull. "Why would Luka be here?" It took a bit longer, but the gears started to come together, and his brain cleared more. He straightened a little, and then stepped aside "I feel this might be a better conversation to be had inside," he added to the movement.
"I don't know, but he sure talks about you enough." Davna's fury bubbled, but the small Daucin paw peeked out to tug at whatever article of clothing it could get a hold of, reminding Davna to let it simmer. She took a deep breath, before stepping into the abode. "After the whole incident with the two of you nearly poisoning each other, I thought he'd have gotten another bright idea to get something brewing with you."
"It's been a few days since I have seen him," Cornelius said, disappearing up the small steps to his bedroom loft, and returning a second later with a shirt. "He picked up a couple growlers, teased me about rumours he heard about the Silver Tongue during the bubble incident, and then was on his way. I haven't seen him since." Walking across the open concept of his main floor, he mashed at the coffee grinder and filled his drip coffee pot with water. Dumping the freshly ground beans into a fresh filter, he filled the tank and pushed the carafe into the slot before pushing the brew button. "What's happened?"
Davna's eyes narrowed as she watched the man go about his business. Her frown deepened when she realized that Cornelius was very likely telling the truth. What good would it serve the bartender to lie to her about that?
Other than potentially throwing her off his scent, but Luka tended to be a better judge of character than potentially befriending those in weird espionage groups she didn't bother herself with. It did no use for her to lie to him, either. If he knew something, it might have helped. "... He's vanished. There was an altercation at his home, but no one knows who or what might have caused it."
Cornelius paused, a coffee cup in hand that hung loosely. It was his turn for his eyes to narrow and consider the woman standing in his living room. The machine hissed, finished with providing its brew, and he pulled the pot and filled one cup, then another, passing it to Davna as he sunk into one of the leather chairs that adorned the edges of the sunken living room. He considered the fire place in the middle, his mind turning over it. Who would kidnap Luka, and why? Who would have the resources to do it without several different people catching it, and more importantly the pesky and questionably legal data mining net the Marines had established. Brilliant, he noted, but a nuisance. The last thought snuck through the hardened history of Intelligence, and caused his knee to bounce, a quirk he'd told himself he's stopped two decades prior but really hadn't. He placed the coffee cup down on the table beside him, a gift from his grandfather nearly as old as the federation, and future him screamed in annoyance about the coffee ring unfolding in the antique wood.
What had happened to his friend?
"I have friends probably still in Intel, I can make some calls, see if their sniffers got anything. And the Marines can help, they have their own intelligence and security. Did you check his cabin? He could be there." The words were just words, pre-programmed, knowing that of course the Ensign had checked the cabin, and of course Shaun was already involved. Hell, he was the next highest ranking officer, he was probably in charge. That meant Intelligence already knew, and the fleet was already hunting. It still felt nice to say them.
Davna chose to keep standing, pacing rather, about Cornelius's living area. She accepted the coffee, the first she would have had all morning. "His cabin, his office, all of his usual haunts. His brother is probably searching everywhere in Engineering just in case he fell into something dangerous," she stated. "Whoever's done this knows what they're doing. And we have no identity behind it. There's a trace; blood in his cabin, but there's no identification. So they aren't even someone we can find."
Mentally stopping his leg from bouncing, Cornelius mulled it over. No record meant they were either not part of the shared Federation database, or they had had their information removed. "Just living members, or dead?" The question was out loud, and not really to anyone in particular, and more of checking boxes. It's what he'd do if he was sent as an assassin, pretend to be dead. Federation databases were notorious for removing "This person has been dead for a few years" from their lists. "Sorry," he said, looking at where Davna was pacing. "Trying to be helpful, and really old habits die hard. Any way I can help?"
Davna hesitated for a tick. She hadn't thought about looking into deceased personnel, but she was far from the one doing all that analysis. That was security's job. Or medical's. Whomever's. "I don't know," she stated plainly. "Captain Mahone had more friends than enemies, but he kept a lot close to his chest. If there's something that we're missing for this investigation, the only person who'd know is the Captain. If there's anything you can think of, at this point? I'm not going to say no. I don't know about the Lieutenant Colonel, I won't speak for him, but I'd rather we found him by whatever it takes. Clearly whoever wanted him didn't hesitate to take him by whatever means... so why should we?"
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions," Cornelius said, his voice carrying a bit of a deeper tone. "Whatever it takes is how a rogue element of Starfleet Intelligence attempted to justify genocide, so we should be careful using that phrase. But that said, I agree. Tell the Colonel I am available if he thinks there is anything I can do, and you need to take a few minutes to rest. Finish the coffee, let me see if I have bread for toast, and let's send you back out into the world." He stood from his chair and entered into the kitchen, muttering to himself, before returning to the room with what was clearly replicated toast with chocolate sprinkles. "It's a Dutch thing, back on Earth, and a weakness of my own. White bread, butter, brown sugar and special chocolate sprinkles. Makes a great pick me up for breakfast." He placed it down on the coffee table. "Now eat, and don't make me get Luka out of my closet to order you to," he said, a smile spreading as he returned to his more regular joking self. "A joke," he added.
Davna hesitated a tick, thinking on if 'genocide' was on her list of 'unethical events she would have done for her Captain,' but shook it from her thoughts. Of course she would not have gone through with the act, nevermind the fact that Luka would have been horrified at the idea of it. In that moment of time, she found herself presented with the odd toast-y treat, but did not argue as she gave it a taste. Bread and sugar was much more normal than some of the food items she had been presented with in the past, and as she tasted it, she realized the pick-me-up was much needed.
Her gaze shot towards Cornelius as he made his joke. "He better not be, or we're going to have some problems." She waited a tick, before continuing, "I'll let the Colonel know. I planned to anyways so that you wouldn't end up with a whole full-fledged investigation on your hands." Despite her suspicions, she was fairly convinced if Cornelius had Luka hidden somewhere, he would not have wanted to have been found so easily. "If he contacts you somehow, just... let me know? It's not like him to just disappear, but if he did on his own volition, I feel like he'd say something."
"I will. I feel I have come to know him well enough, to know he'd make a call first if he was going to disappear. Or at least leave a note..." The man trailed off again, a half pace as he thought it over, rocking now slightly back and forth. "If I were your team - and a reminder I am not Starfleet - I'd check ionic readings. The atmospheric monitoring satellites should double as ionosphere monitoring. You can hide a lot, but impulse engines still interact with that layer and leave a trail. The system would have flagged them as some kind of weather anomaly, but it would be low level of importance. That'll at least tell you if there was a cloaked ship."
Piece of oddly-confectioned toast in her hands, Davna stood. "I'll have to bring it up with the Colonel. I'd be surprised if someone hasn't tried to get him to stop turning over every rock in the colony." But if the leads were all dry, Davna might be tempted to see if she could get the colony turned upside down to see if the Captain fell out.
"I should go help," Davna added on, purposefully vague. She bowed her head and tipped the piece of toast gingerly. "Thank you. Hopefully we'll find him sooner rather than later."
She bid Cornelius a swift goodbye, promising to tell him if anything important came up. But she would have to report back the bad news.
It seemed no one knew where Captain Mahone was. And that was deeply concerning.
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