All These Clues, and Us Without Any Answers
Posted on Thu Nov 30th, 2023 @ 8:57am by Lieutenant Colonel Shaun Bradley & Lieutenant Helena Issacks
1,714 words; about a 9 minute read
Mission:
Pressure
Location: Security Offices, Command Center
Timeline: MD 01, 2301 Hrs
"Nothing."
Helena gestured to the disheveled mess of her office. Half opened crates were laying about, while the tabletops were a mess with PaDDs and what looked to be someone else's personal effects. The woman had no use for such an odd cowboy hat.
The only place that seemed neat and tidy was the overhead holographic display, which had images and reports floating about, linked to each other with differently colored lines. Helena herself? A mess. By this point, it had been over 24 hours, and anyone who knew anything about kidnappings knew that the longer this all went, the less likely they would find the victim fully intact. In Starfleet, the longer it went, the more likely it was he was turned into an energy being or was going to come back many years older or younger. She heard all the rumors and stories about people returning .... Differently.
"They didn't take anything else from his home but a damn plant," she stayed with a rather unladylike grunt. "The big dog's a loose end, and that cat nearly tore my face off - but he was a no lead too. Can't find that other dog, but all our scans are all over the damn place." She folded her arms, looking over to Shaun. "Waiting to hear back on some bioscan reports on our suspect, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that may raise more q's than a's."
Carefully lowering the PaDD in his hand, less to place it down, and more so that he could momentarily look up at the Security Officer, Shaun's eyes darted to her for a second, before back to his own look. "No outbound craft either, so we are likely looking at him still being on the planet. Which is better, but it still raises more questions. First of all, do we know Which plant?" Something about all this didn't sit right with him, and he was trying to pin it down, though a sour feeling was building in his gut. He had a suspicion that whatever was going on had to do with the Captain's friend, and wanted to rule that out early on.
"His yeoman said it was something he got as a gift during some Gamma Quadrant exchange." Helena pointed toward a floating scroller of text about said missing plant. "Said something about how he was holding onto it for the science types and had agreed to let them scan it so long as they agreed not to cart it off because it's not from around here. It was in a pot, so there wasn't any soil or debris left behind either. None of that. One of the investigators did peer in on what they could on his desk too - didn't find much there. But someone left the console open to an old file about the Io cold case. I don't really want to find out those two things are connected, but if they are... Could be trouble."
Scratching absentmindedly at his face, Shaun placed his PaDD down finally. "Okay, so the plant is just some scientific experiment of vaguely sentimental value. It could be the Gamma Quadrant equivalent of a succulent someone thought was worth selling on the black market. That's not super helpful." He gestured vaguely around, trying to remember what happened with the Io. "I am only vaguely familiar with the whole Io incident, can you explain more?" Shaun had read about it, of course, but only tangentially as he needed to before arriving, but as it hadn't been a serious concern he'd quickly abandoned any interest.
"I know about as much as you do," Helena stated plainly. "Io was sabotaged on entry to the colony, crash landed. There's a small team still looking for what's left of a nacelle and some of the bottom half of the ship, but whatever didn't burn on entry? We're in it." She gestured about the office space. "Any evidence of a suspect was hidden under a lot of misdirection. Lost our chief of security to all that mess, but Captain Mahone decided it was a bridge we already crossed and ordered it closed. Aside from our little salvage team, there hasn't been much thought since that point. Not till now."
She looked up to the scrolling text projecting above. "There isn't a sign that his console was tampered with, so we could easily say that he was looking at it himself, but I don't want to rule it out. Not if it's coming back to bite us in the butt."
"Any hits on the security footage?" Shaun asked, changing gears. "Anything we can go off of, or are we assuming they beamed in? Because it seems like we have ghosts, and I want to know more about where they were."
"Scrubbed. Both in his home and his office. They're scrubbed for a whole week - except for this one thing." She waved her hand to call up the footage, which projected a normal scene of Haechi and Luka taking a break in the office in moonlight. "Two days ago. This sort of thing goes on for a few hours. I'll have a team scrub it for evidence an alterations, but it's a weird moment to clip. But it's the only day he was logged to be staying in the office all night long as well."
"Unless it was the intended target..." Shaun said, his mind playing with the idea. "When pirates are looking to make a ship look like it had an accident they usually set off detonation changes inside the ship to make it look like some kind of terrible engineering accident. A good pirate crew will trap people in different rooms before they vent it, take a smattering of everything and run off. A bad pirate crew will leave everyone in the cargo hold, and only take the valuable stuff. The biggest idiots will steal everything but the most valuable. Hope is Starfleet misses the message and they can come back, which makes catching them even easier." He noted the plant and the state of the content. "Can we pull the Captain's computer logs for that time - I'll authorize it - and see what file he was actually looking at?"
Helena gave a silent nod, turning to the holographic screens. It was not long before the big, bright 'Access Required' screen loaded up. "You know," Helena crossed her arms, giving Shaun a moment to enter his access. "That investigation was such a clusterfuck. They lost their security chief over it. Whoever was responsible for it? Real good at finesse work, that's for sure."
Shaun punched in his codes, and watched as the system authenticated his temporary command access. When it finally pushed through, he nodded to Helena. "Finesse is a double edged sword. If you are careful and never get sloppy, you are easily able to keep up and always have the blade turned as you need. But if you are cocksure of your skill, and you rely too much on it, it'll bit you hard."
"Here's the hope they were relying too hard," Helena stated, moving to call up the necessary information. As she did, she pulled up a PaDD absently to get updates on other avenues of the investigation. But she paused and frowned when she felt something odd and dusty on her hand. She looked down, eyes widening. "... Huh."
Without prompting, she turned the device in her hands. It looked like a normal PaDD, save for the corroded polymer shell and the cracked screen. And the message, written in ominous red atop the screen that spelled out 'Help Me'. She gave Shaun an alarmed look. "... This wasn't here when I walked through the door this morning."
Shaun took the device and looked it over carefully, his fingers playing with the material. "I've seen PaDDs like this come out of war zones, but never spots like this..." he said, carefully rubbing his thumb along it. Placing it down he crossed to where a section of tricorders sat charging and picked one up, tossing it across to the room to Helena, while he picked up a second PaDD and carried it across. A quick reference from last Christmas and some photos of signed presents from his own personal archive confirmed it. "That looks like the Captain's writing alright, though I haven't the foggiest what he wrote it in..."
"Huh." Helena took a scrutinizing look at the device, before pulling an evidence bag from her desk and slipping it inside. "I'm gonna assume we want all the tests done on it."
"A full suite probably wouldn't do us any harm," Shaun added.
Looking from the bizarre phenomena that would have her question her assignment choices, Helena tilted her head toward the 'SEARCH COMPLETE' on the scroll they were waiting upon. She waved her hand, and a screen was displayed. "This should be the exact play-by-play of what he was looking at," she explained, as the holographic console screen replayed where the Captain had gone off to. Through the information about a malamute dog breeder and pages on dinosaurs was a file that read 'Io'. It was authored by a one Lieutenant Cabid of Starfleet Intelligence.
Taking note of the Lieutenant in question, Shaun nodded. "Well, we have a lead, I believe I have a call to make." He stood from his chair, and gave his uniform a quick pat to settle it. "Keep it up Lieutenant, and if anything else comes up, let me know and I'll keep you apprised if anything useful comes from this call. Unless you need me for anything else?" He asked.
"Lil booze couldn't hurt," Helena joked dryly, before shaking her head. "We should be good. I'm gonna get this thing to evidence and make sure they take scans - and then call Sciences to make sure they get all the scans we don't have." She wiggled the bag full of odd, disintegrating PaDD. "Hopefully nothing else weird crops up. But when have we ever been that lucky?"
Shaun knocked a knuckle on the door frame as he walked through. "Never say it out loud Lieutenant," he quipped as he headed out of the offices.
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