The Investigation (part 1)
Posted on Thu Oct 19th, 2017 @ 8:55am by Commodore Samantha York & Lieutenant Mira Jayna & Lieutenant T'Pral & 1st Lieutenant Leroy Mangalia & 1st Lieutenant Lilliana Bourne & Captain Cameron Bourne
1,142 words; about a 6 minute read
Mission: Pulling Together
ON
[Horus]
Jayna was tasked with prepping the Horus to scan the area around the blast to see if its sensors could pick up anything the Calypso missed. While the Calypso had good scanners, it was more a science vessel and not equipped for crime scene investigations; so it was hoped that Horus would be able to detect trace elements that were missed.
When she had everything prepped, she headed for the ramp. "Horus, I'm going to help the ground team. Let Logan and Remy know."
[Transporter Room]
Sam was dressed in olive drab BDUs and a t-shirt with a llama on the front, standard dress for when she worked on an archaeological dig. As this was an unofficial investigation, she was officially off duty and on shore leave. Today, her shore leave happened to include taking a look at what was left of the statue of Spock.
Jayna walked into the transporter room. "I thought you could use an Intel officer on the ground."
"Thank you, Ms. Miri," Sam said, "I could indeed."
Walking into the transporter room, Cam and Lilliana were both wearing marine BDU's and were both carrying full packs on their backs. "Hello captain, nice day for survival training?" Cam said, stopping just inside the door.
Walking in in darker Marine BDU's (think Enterprise) Leroy was covering the knife he always kept strapped to his right and left wrists. "Oh, hey guys," he said looking up, and dropping his go bag. "Didn't expect to see anyone else here."
"Glad to have your help," Sam said. "Since I'm not sure what we'll find. The Vulcans have investigated, but because of the political situation, they would like us to have a second look. If you're ready, we can beam down."
"Après vous, capitaine mon capitaine," Leroy said to Sam waving his open hand to the transporter pad. "Ready when everyone else is."
Lilliana smiled, "this should be fun" she said, stepping up onto the pad.
Sam and Jayna stepped onto the transporter pad. When the team was assembled, they beamed down to the site of the explosion.
"Fan out and see what you can find," Sam said.
Leroy looked around for a minute before producing a black baseball cap, placing it on his head to cur down the sunlight. "Excuse me," he said walking up to one of the locals after a few more minutes searching. "Were you here when the statue exploded?"
The Vulcan male was busy repairing one of the homes that was impacted by debris from the explosion. He was carefully and systematically spackling the plaster exterior. His shoulders dropped slightly at the interruption, his eyes flashing to the side before he placed the trowel back into the trough of wet plaster. He turned to face Leroy, his spread fingers meeting each other before his abdomen.
"Yes, I was here. This is my home," he said. It seemed like he was attempting to hide annoyance behind the words. His skin was a bit more olive than most Vulcans, and his clothes, while Vulcan in nature, had a more utilitarian feel than the usual robes and tunics.
"My name is Leroy," the Marine said composing his hand to the traditional Vulcan salute. "One of my crew mates was injured in the blast, and I wondered if you'd seen anything before the explosion." Leroy looked the damage over, then looked at the unusual robes, not noticing anything out of the ordinary. "I'm sure It T'Pral and her Mate would appreciate any information you could give us."
The local returned the salute, but his annoyance was becoming more evident. "I do not know this... T'Pral. Many of us were injured, some killed. I was not here when the incident occurred, I was at my place of employment."
"Didn't you just say you were here? So which one was it, here or at your place of employement?" Leroy glanced around, wondering if any of his crew was here. "Look I'm not all that familiar with Vulcans, but a slip of the tongue isn't the norm for your species."
The man rolled his eyes and pointed up a nearby hill at a low building. "The administrative center where I work. I was in town, if not at this exact location." At Leroy's comment about Vulcans, he narrowed his expression. "I see you Federation types do not keep up with local news. I am, in fact, not Vulcan. I am Romulan."
Perking an eyebrow Leroy smiled. "Alright then, down to brass tacks. Since I don't have to dance around the logic, what do you think happened?" Leroy also started bending over to help the man rebuild his house. Sometimes a little help got the conversation flowing.
"I cannot hazard a guess," the Romulan replied. "Violence is near unheard-of on Vulcan, much less destruction of an effigy to a beloved figure." He eyed Leroy as the other proceeded to try to help. He sighed deeply, "If you insist on helping... here, apply the plaster in this fashion," he said as he demonstrated.
[Near the blast site]
Samantha went to ground zero to see what she could find.
Jayna followed her. "Interested in CSI?" she asked.
"I'm interested in information, so yes," Sam replied. She pulled out a science tricorder and began to search for anything out of the ordinary.
Jayna nodded. "Horus should be able to get some great images, but I want to find physical evidence. We need to recreate the explosive device to figure out who is behind this." She had her own tricorder she used to search the debris. She was more intrerested in moving things and looking around than in simply scanning.
Sam nodded. The two began to carefully make their way to ground zero, scanning for anything that seemed out-of-the-ordinary.
The Vulcan authorities had covered most of the area pretty thoroughly, so Sam chose to go a little further out to the edges of the blast radius to see what she could find. Her tricorder led her to a small piece of the device embedded in a tree. "Jayna, I found something."
Jayna came up to the Commodore and scanned. "It's Romulan."
"Indeed. Can Horus use this to scan the area for any other bits of debris so we can get a better idea of what the explosive device was?"
"Of course." Jayna tapped her combadge and had a quick conversation with the intel ship. A moment later, the piece of shrapnel dematerialized. "He said there's an 82.13% chance of finding more pieces."
Sam nodded. "Good. Let's keep looking."
(To be continued...)
Lieutenant JG Mira Jayna
Assistant Chief Intelligence Officer
Commodore Samantha York
Commanding Officer
Marine Captain Cameron Bourne
Marine Advisor
1st Lieutenant Lilliana Bourne
Marine CO
1st Lieutenant Leroy Mangalia
Flight Leader
Romulan
NPCd by T'Pral
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