(Authors Note - I shortened a couple of scenes so I could fit it into the challenge, but I think it still turned out ok. The two main scenes that got cut were Setal snooping around, and a final conversation between Kaziarl and an uninvited guest. Hope everyone likes it)
Admiral Julia Hera paced the corridors of the USS Andromeda, speaking to several department heads and diplomatic officials. She didn’t usually get to escape the confines of her space station, and when she did she tried to relish every moment of it. Whoever it was that encouraged her to take the promotion to Admiral had been entirely wrong about how glorious a job it was.
Today, however, was not quite so enjoyable as she had the feeling of being interrogated about matters of safety and security.
“Senator Yali,” she sighed for the hundredth time today. “I assure you the safety of the representatives are our primary concern.”
“I am sure you believe that to be so Admiral,” the senator replied smugly. “But the Wadi are not convinced.”
“Funny, I got the impression that your people enjoyed a certain amount of risk,” she responded dryly as she turned a corner. She closed her eyes for a moment, pressing her thumb and forefinger against the bridge of her nose. This one’s going to be a doosy, she thought. I can already feel it.
“For your sake I shall ignore that possibly insu-“ the representative stopped mid sentence, causing the admiral to turn towards him. She stood there, staring past her with a look of terror. Slowly, the admiral turned around to see what the Wadi senator was looking at. She was faced with a Vorta, leaning against a doorway as the life drained from his eyes. As the Vorta fell forward, his blood smeared on the wall revealing a knife in his back.
“Oh my god,” she gasped as her hand moved to cover her mouth, silencing the questions that were waiting to be asked. “Admiral Hera to sickbay, we have a medical emergency on deck 19, section 31Baker.”
This is not good, she thought as she waited for the med teams to arrive, this is SO not good.
The four starship captains, along with their XO’s, met with the admiral on board the USS Andromeda. Everyone was shocked when they heard the news, yet at the same time it seemed like something to have been expected. News of the Senators assassination had already spread among the crews, and likely to the different home worlds represented here.
“Admiral, what the hell is going on?” Captain Garret asked bluntly. The younger captain among them, granddaughter of Captain Rachael Garret, seemed nervous at most times. But to her credit, when the situation called for it she had the capacity to be very focused.
“You know the same thing I do,” Hera replied as she looked from one officer to the next. “Senator Tiyan, from the Dominion delegation, has been killed. He was discovered 3 hours ago by myself, Senator Yali, and Senator Rengar with a knife in his back.”
“Is there any way to identify the knife?” asked Captain T’Kendra in a calm, Vulcan manor.
“They are doing a detailed analysis right now,” the Admiral explained. “Preliminary results indicate generic, easy to find materials, and no specific cultural marks.”
“Security logs?” came Robbolino’s inquiry.
The Admiral simply shook her head before answering. “He went into his quarters in one piece, activated privacy mode, and walked out with a knife in his back. No sign of anyone else going in or out during that time.”
They sat silently for a moment as what little information they had settled on their minds. After a short time, Captain Williams was the next to speak.
“So what do we do Admiral?”
Hera opened her mouth, about to speak before getting cut off by Captain Kaziarl, one of the few people who could get away with it.
“We figure out who in Gre’thor killed the senator before war breaks out,” he said quickly, not worrying about hurt feelings. Admiral Hera simply looked at him and nodded, knowing that he was right.
“I want each of you to head an investigation on your own ship,” she ordered calmly. “That knife had to come either from one of our people, or one of the delegations, which means it had to come here on one of the ships. Find out how, and quickly.” She waited for all of them to nod, and signal that they understood her orders. After that she stood, straightened her uniform, and said one word. “Dismissed.”
When Kaziarl returned to his ship, he walked straight to his ready room and locked the doors behind him. From there, several quick, alpha numeric messages were sent to different stations. Communications were blocked, transporters taken off line. The shuttle bay was secured and could only be opened on his orders. If there was a single hair to be found that could lead them to the killer, it wasn’t going anywhere.
Shortly after the ship had been locked down, Kaziarl called for the senior staff to meet with him. The all quietly filed into his ready room and sat on the couch stretched along the large windows. He offered them cups of tea, coffee, or other items from the replicator as per the usual, then sat down behind his desk.
“The Vorta representative has been murdered,” he stated blankly, watching each of them for their reaction. “The admiral believes the killer, or killers are on one of our ships. In case it was more than one individual, we’ve cut communications between ships.”
“Sir, this is impossible,” Lt. Walch exclaimed. “I inspected every inch of this ship before any delegates came aboard, not to mention the security protocols during their stay.”
“And I trust your judgment Lt,” he replied. “I trust all of you, but we can’t overlook anything.”
“Yes sir,” she said quietly. He supposed he had to understand how she felt. Her pride was like his honor, and that was something he hated being questioned.
“So what do we do now Sir?” asked the XO, getting them back on the subject.
“Veldan, I want you to deal with the Delegates,” explained Kaziarl. “They are going to be confused, and scared. Not to mention they will probably start pointing fingers at each other, and us. Shar, Walch; you two start looking for clues. Someone was able to get into the delegate quarters on the Rommie without being seen, which leads me to believe they beamed in while Privacy Mode was activated. Check sensor logs, data logs, transporter logs… Everything.”
“Yes sir,” the two officers replied in unison.
“That’s everything for now,” he said as he leaned back in his chair. “I want hourly updates. Even if you haven’t found anything, I want to know that you’re looking. Dismissed.”
The officers stood and started leaving the room, except for Setal who lagged behind for a moment.
“Can I help you Lt.?” Kaziarl questioned.
“Sir, if I may ask, is there a reason you didn’t give me a task?” she asked, meeting him eye to eye.
“You are concerned that because you were Tal Shiar, that I might suspect you?”
“The thought did cross my mind Sir.”
“Have a seat Lt,” he replied, gesturing towards the couch. “To be honest, the thought crossed my mind. However, there is something I wanted to discuss with you.”
“Alright, what is it?”
“The last time I was on leave, I went to DS9,” he explained. “I shared a barrel of blood wine with a certain Strategic Operations Officer. You’d be amazed what two Klingons will talk about when drunk.”
“I’m sure it’s fascinating Sir, but-“ Kaziarl raised his hand to stop her as he continued to speak.
“He told me about a group within Starfleet, you might of heard of them in your dealings among the Tal Shiar.”
“Yes sir, I believe so,” she replied, thinking back to her old life. “Section 31 if I recall accurately.”
“Yes, exactly. According to Worf, they’ll do anything, even to the point violating every single law that we protect.”
“And you think they might be involved here?” she asked.
“I wouldn’t put it past them if what I’ve heard is true.”
“But sir, why tell me?”
“Because if there is an S31 operative on my ship, I think it’s a safe bet that you are least likely to be it,” he said confidently. “And because of that, you are the only one I can trust right now.”
“I’ll do what I can sir,” she stated calmly.
“Good, I want you to keep an eye on things. If you see anything that seems unusual from a covert point of view, let me know.”
“Yes sir, anything else?”
“No, dismissed.”
Is it possible? Thought the Starfleet officer while pacing the corridor. No, they can’t suspect me. I was too careful.
The officer continued on their path, confident of success. Everything had been meticulously planned and prepared months ago when the officer’s superiors first had learned about this alliance. The officer knew there was no way the simple minded people on this ship would never find anything.
Lt. Walch and Lt. Cmdr ch’Thane proceeded to the security office. She had personally seen to some design changes the last time the ship was in for refit, and she was very proud of her systems. Walch was confident that there was nothing that happened on this ship that she didn’t know about first. Biometric sensors fed her life sign readings, and told her exactly where everyone was at when in active mode. When they were inactive, the system did a passive sweep every thirty seconds checking to make sure the crew was still in good health, and to make sure there were no unauthorized people onboard. Energy dampeners could drain enemy weapons at the touch of a button, leaving Starfleet issue weapons charged and ready. Logs were automatically kept on all incoming and outgoing shuttles, docking hatches, and transporters.
“You seem tense Lt,” Shar said, interrupting her train of thought.
“Damn straight I’m tense,” she replied. “This is the Captain’s ship, but I’m the one in charge of security. There’s no way someone beamed from this ship, to the Andromeda, and back without my knowing.”
“Then perhaps the transporter logs would be a good place to start,” he proposed. He had found out from previous experience that trying to get the Security Chief to ‘calm down’ never worked. In fact, it had been shown on more than one occasion that she worked more efficiently when aggravated.
Once they arrived at the security office, Walch immediately began pulling up logs. And what she saw, she didn’t like.
“Someone disabled the biometric sensors,” she said in awe. “Even the passive sweep; there’s no way to tell who left the ship.”
“How long have they been down?”
“2 days,” she replied. “These readings displayed now are just looped, to make it look like it was working right.”
“And the transporter logs?” he asked as he moved to look over her shoulder.
“Checking,” she replied as her fingers moved over the console. “Odd… I set the security logs to check the transporter systems every 15 minutes, and to automatically update whenever in use.”
“Your point?”
“Look here,” she pointed to a serious of log entries. “2215, status normal. 2230, status normal. 2235, null.”
“So at 2235, the system recorded an event, but not what happened.”
“It looks that way, and it is here again at 2258; probably the return trip.”
“Alright, you keep looking; I’ll go check the transporter room. Also, pull up the duty roster, see who was in charge at the time.”
“Aye sir.”
The delegates that had been brought aboard the Chimera met in the conference hall. It wasn’t a very big room, but it also wasn’t a very big ship. As such there were only two groups of delegates on board, and Veldan hoped that would make this a little easier.
As she walked in, she couldn’t have been more wrong.
“It was probably your government that did it,” yelled one delegate, from the Dosi Consortium.
“Hardly, Rengar,” replied Yali, the delegate from the Wadi Tradespeople. “It was more than likely one of your ignorantly aggressive people.”
“Gentleman, please,” Veldan interrupted. “You need to calm down.”
“And you are?” asked Yali, in a snide tone that Veldan didn’t like.
“Commander Veldan,” she replied, standing as tall as she could. “First officer of this ship. Now you can all calm down, or I can stun you. Your choice.”
The delegates looked at her questioningly, wondering if she would carry out her threat. After a moment, they seemed to come to the mutual agreement that it would be better not to test the Klingon officer.
“Good, now I need to ask you a few questions,” she said as she gestured towards the table. “Do either of your governments know of anyone who might want the Senator dead?”
“You must be kidding,” replied Rengar as he took a seat. “Anyone who has ever been under the heal of the Dominion.”
“Especially people like the Taplan’s,” Yali interrupted. “They were given the blight, it would seem they would have reason for revenge.”
“As would you Wadi!” claimed Rengar accusatorily.
“Ha! You’re the aggressive one Rengar,” he retorted, meeting the Dosi eye to eye. “You would freely attack your own allies.”
“Say that again, and you might find a knife in your own back.”
“That’s enough,” Veldan exclaimed, raising her voice to get their attention. “As of right now you are all restricted to guest quarters, and security will be posted at your door to ensure your safety.”
Both the delegates stood up, Rengar speaking first.
“This is an outrage,” he said, opening his mouth to speak again before Veldan cut him off.
“I don’t care, now you can either return to your quarters or I’ll drag you there myself.”
The delegates stood there for a moment, regained their composure, and left the room. Veldan sighed as she enjoyed the silences following their departure.
I hate politicians.
When Shar entered the transporter room, Ensign Sateen was on duty. As per the captains orders, the transporter had been taken off line and locked down, so Sateen looked bored. Not that transporter duty was inherently exciting to begin with, but now there was even less to do.
“Good morning Sir,” she said as she snapped to attention. “What can I do for you?”
“I need to see the logs from last night Ensign, between 2230 and 2300 hours.”
“Yes sir,” she replied as her hands moved over the console.
“Good, and while I go over these, do a DNA scan of the transporter pad, see if there’s anything there that shouldn’t be.”
Ensign Sateen moved to the storage locker and pulled out a micro scanner, then went about her assigned task as Shar checked the logs. The logs troubled the Andorian, but not because of what was there. It wasn’t as though the logs had simple been deleted, some bits of raw data would still exist. According to Walch’s security logs, something occurred at those times, but the transporter logs themselves didn’t show anything. It was as though the event never happened.
Shar employed every data recovery algorithm he could think of, and still nothing. It was not simply that the data had been deleted, but it was as though the data was never there. Only someone with intricate knowledge of Starfleet computer systems could bypass all the backups. He would definitely need to speak to the captain about this.
“Thank you ensign. When you are finished with that, send a copy of the results to myself and Lt. Walch.”
Sateen nodded as she continued working, feeling a little relaxed as her superior left the room. This whole situation had the crew on edge.
Lt. Cmdr. Shar to Lt. Walch,” his voiced made her jump slightly. She was getting so focused on the investigation, that she was almost oblivious to anything else.
“Yes Sir, Walch here,” she replied.
“Have you found anything out yet?”
“No sir, there’s no trace of system malfunction, or tampering. I can’t explain it.”
“Very well, how about the crewman on duty last night?”
She brought another screen back up, showing the duty roster.
“Ensign… Creedy,” she replied. “Went on duty at 2100, off duty at 0300. Hmm…”
“What is it Lt.?”
“I’m not familiar with this crewman, are you?”
“It is possible he was newly stationed to this ship,” he replied calmly. “Still, as near as we can tell he was on duty at the time. We will need to speak to him.”
“Aye sir, would you like me to call him into the office?”
“Not just yet, we’ll wait for the results of Ensign Sateen’s scans.”
“Yes sir, Walch out.”
While the others were dealing with the politics of the situation, and their own investigation, Setal was doing a little snooping of her own. After the captain had spared her life and offered her a position on the ship, she had done her best to leave her old life behind and start anew. Even so, she had to admit the skills she learned in the Tal Shiar did have their uses. As she sat in her quarters, she couldn’t help but note the irony that and ex-spy was looking for a spy.
Interesting, she thought as she looked at the scrolling text on her screen. She sent a quick text message to the captain, asking him to come to her quarters. She didn’t want to put any of this information over the comm.
After meeting with Setal, Kaziarl rushed from her quarters. He didn’t even stop to acknowledge different crew members along the way. When he got to where he was going, he used his command codes to override the door and walked in.
“Who are you,” he demanded of the officer inside.
“Sir? I don’t understand?”
“You know damn well what I mean.”
“I see… Well, have a seat.”
Kaziarl just stood there, watching the person in front of him. 3 months ago this person came aboard as Lt. Capell, but if what Setal had told him was correct that could have been wrong.
“Or not,” Capell muttered as he moved to the replicator. “First of all I’d like to say I am not your enemy.”
“I find that hard to believe if you are who I suspect you to believe.”
“Yes, I can imagine that is the case with the way things played out on DS9,” he replied mournfully. “Not all of my colleges are so… blunt.”
“Killing a diplomat seems pretty blunt,” Kaziarl said, unsure if he wanted to bash the man’s skull in, or throw him out an airlock.
“That wasn’t me Captain, I’m here to stop the one who did.”
“Oh really?”
“After the DS9 incident, we’ve been trying to lay low. Part of the reason we are able to do our job is because we can move about freely. Sloan made that… difficult. However, even now there are still those that think we should take a more public approach.”
“So you are telling me there is more than one agent on board?”
“Yes, and the other agent has gone rouge.”
“A rough S31 agent, that’s a bit of an oxymoron don’t you think?”
“We may not be answerable to Starfleet command, but we do answer to ourselves. I suppose you might call it honor among thieves, we’ve been called worse.”
“So if what you’re telling me is true,” he said skeptically. “Then who is the one who killed the Vorta delegate?”
“I don’t know yet, and if we move to quickly they might escape.”
“You’ll have to give me something,” he said sternly. “Or I could just throw you in the brig.”
“Actually…” Capell muttered thoughtfully. “That could work to our advantage. If the rouge agent thinks you suspect me, he could get sloppy.”
Kaziarl sighed, considering the alternatives. He really didn’t like the situation, but until he knew more he guessed there wasn’t much choice.
“Very well,” he said as he looked at the Lt. “But we had better make this look good.”
Before Capell could react, he found Kaziarl’s fist in his face.
Admiral Julia Hera paced the corridors of the USS Andromeda, speaking to several department heads and diplomatic officials. She didn’t usually get to escape the confines of her space station, and when she did she tried to relish every moment of it. Whoever it was that encouraged her to take the promotion to Admiral had been entirely wrong about how glorious a job it was.
Today, however, was not quite so enjoyable as she had the feeling of being interrogated about matters of safety and security.
“Senator Yali,” she sighed for the hundredth time today. “I assure you the safety of the representatives are our primary concern.”
“I am sure you believe that to be so Admiral,” the senator replied smugly. “But the Wadi are not convinced.”
“Funny, I got the impression that your people enjoyed a certain amount of risk,” she responded dryly as she turned a corner. She closed her eyes for a moment, pressing her thumb and forefinger against the bridge of her nose. This one’s going to be a doosy, she thought. I can already feel it.
“For your sake I shall ignore that possibly insu-“ the representative stopped mid sentence, causing the admiral to turn towards him. She stood there, staring past her with a look of terror. Slowly, the admiral turned around to see what the Wadi senator was looking at. She was faced with a Vorta, leaning against a doorway as the life drained from his eyes. As the Vorta fell forward, his blood smeared on the wall revealing a knife in his back.
“Oh my god,” she gasped as her hand moved to cover her mouth, silencing the questions that were waiting to be asked. “Admiral Hera to sickbay, we have a medical emergency on deck 19, section 31Baker.”
This is not good, she thought as she waited for the med teams to arrive, this is SO not good.
The four starship captains, along with their XO’s, met with the admiral on board the USS Andromeda. Everyone was shocked when they heard the news, yet at the same time it seemed like something to have been expected. News of the Senators assassination had already spread among the crews, and likely to the different home worlds represented here.
“Admiral, what the hell is going on?” Captain Garret asked bluntly. The younger captain among them, granddaughter of Captain Rachael Garret, seemed nervous at most times. But to her credit, when the situation called for it she had the capacity to be very focused.
“You know the same thing I do,” Hera replied as she looked from one officer to the next. “Senator Tiyan, from the Dominion delegation, has been killed. He was discovered 3 hours ago by myself, Senator Yali, and Senator Rengar with a knife in his back.”
“Is there any way to identify the knife?” asked Captain T’Kendra in a calm, Vulcan manor.
“They are doing a detailed analysis right now,” the Admiral explained. “Preliminary results indicate generic, easy to find materials, and no specific cultural marks.”
“Security logs?” came Robbolino’s inquiry.
The Admiral simply shook her head before answering. “He went into his quarters in one piece, activated privacy mode, and walked out with a knife in his back. No sign of anyone else going in or out during that time.”
They sat silently for a moment as what little information they had settled on their minds. After a short time, Captain Williams was the next to speak.
“So what do we do Admiral?”
Hera opened her mouth, about to speak before getting cut off by Captain Kaziarl, one of the few people who could get away with it.
“We figure out who in Gre’thor killed the senator before war breaks out,” he said quickly, not worrying about hurt feelings. Admiral Hera simply looked at him and nodded, knowing that he was right.
“I want each of you to head an investigation on your own ship,” she ordered calmly. “That knife had to come either from one of our people, or one of the delegations, which means it had to come here on one of the ships. Find out how, and quickly.” She waited for all of them to nod, and signal that they understood her orders. After that she stood, straightened her uniform, and said one word. “Dismissed.”
When Kaziarl returned to his ship, he walked straight to his ready room and locked the doors behind him. From there, several quick, alpha numeric messages were sent to different stations. Communications were blocked, transporters taken off line. The shuttle bay was secured and could only be opened on his orders. If there was a single hair to be found that could lead them to the killer, it wasn’t going anywhere.
Shortly after the ship had been locked down, Kaziarl called for the senior staff to meet with him. The all quietly filed into his ready room and sat on the couch stretched along the large windows. He offered them cups of tea, coffee, or other items from the replicator as per the usual, then sat down behind his desk.
“The Vorta representative has been murdered,” he stated blankly, watching each of them for their reaction. “The admiral believes the killer, or killers are on one of our ships. In case it was more than one individual, we’ve cut communications between ships.”
“Sir, this is impossible,” Lt. Walch exclaimed. “I inspected every inch of this ship before any delegates came aboard, not to mention the security protocols during their stay.”
“And I trust your judgment Lt,” he replied. “I trust all of you, but we can’t overlook anything.”
“Yes sir,” she said quietly. He supposed he had to understand how she felt. Her pride was like his honor, and that was something he hated being questioned.
“So what do we do now Sir?” asked the XO, getting them back on the subject.
“Veldan, I want you to deal with the Delegates,” explained Kaziarl. “They are going to be confused, and scared. Not to mention they will probably start pointing fingers at each other, and us. Shar, Walch; you two start looking for clues. Someone was able to get into the delegate quarters on the Rommie without being seen, which leads me to believe they beamed in while Privacy Mode was activated. Check sensor logs, data logs, transporter logs… Everything.”
“Yes sir,” the two officers replied in unison.
“That’s everything for now,” he said as he leaned back in his chair. “I want hourly updates. Even if you haven’t found anything, I want to know that you’re looking. Dismissed.”
The officers stood and started leaving the room, except for Setal who lagged behind for a moment.
“Can I help you Lt.?” Kaziarl questioned.
“Sir, if I may ask, is there a reason you didn’t give me a task?” she asked, meeting him eye to eye.
“You are concerned that because you were Tal Shiar, that I might suspect you?”
“The thought did cross my mind Sir.”
“Have a seat Lt,” he replied, gesturing towards the couch. “To be honest, the thought crossed my mind. However, there is something I wanted to discuss with you.”
“Alright, what is it?”
“The last time I was on leave, I went to DS9,” he explained. “I shared a barrel of blood wine with a certain Strategic Operations Officer. You’d be amazed what two Klingons will talk about when drunk.”
“I’m sure it’s fascinating Sir, but-“ Kaziarl raised his hand to stop her as he continued to speak.
“He told me about a group within Starfleet, you might of heard of them in your dealings among the Tal Shiar.”
“Yes sir, I believe so,” she replied, thinking back to her old life. “Section 31 if I recall accurately.”
“Yes, exactly. According to Worf, they’ll do anything, even to the point violating every single law that we protect.”
“And you think they might be involved here?” she asked.
“I wouldn’t put it past them if what I’ve heard is true.”
“But sir, why tell me?”
“Because if there is an S31 operative on my ship, I think it’s a safe bet that you are least likely to be it,” he said confidently. “And because of that, you are the only one I can trust right now.”
“I’ll do what I can sir,” she stated calmly.
“Good, I want you to keep an eye on things. If you see anything that seems unusual from a covert point of view, let me know.”
“Yes sir, anything else?”
“No, dismissed.”
Is it possible? Thought the Starfleet officer while pacing the corridor. No, they can’t suspect me. I was too careful.
The officer continued on their path, confident of success. Everything had been meticulously planned and prepared months ago when the officer’s superiors first had learned about this alliance. The officer knew there was no way the simple minded people on this ship would never find anything.
Lt. Walch and Lt. Cmdr ch’Thane proceeded to the security office. She had personally seen to some design changes the last time the ship was in for refit, and she was very proud of her systems. Walch was confident that there was nothing that happened on this ship that she didn’t know about first. Biometric sensors fed her life sign readings, and told her exactly where everyone was at when in active mode. When they were inactive, the system did a passive sweep every thirty seconds checking to make sure the crew was still in good health, and to make sure there were no unauthorized people onboard. Energy dampeners could drain enemy weapons at the touch of a button, leaving Starfleet issue weapons charged and ready. Logs were automatically kept on all incoming and outgoing shuttles, docking hatches, and transporters.
“You seem tense Lt,” Shar said, interrupting her train of thought.
“Damn straight I’m tense,” she replied. “This is the Captain’s ship, but I’m the one in charge of security. There’s no way someone beamed from this ship, to the Andromeda, and back without my knowing.”
“Then perhaps the transporter logs would be a good place to start,” he proposed. He had found out from previous experience that trying to get the Security Chief to ‘calm down’ never worked. In fact, it had been shown on more than one occasion that she worked more efficiently when aggravated.
Once they arrived at the security office, Walch immediately began pulling up logs. And what she saw, she didn’t like.
“Someone disabled the biometric sensors,” she said in awe. “Even the passive sweep; there’s no way to tell who left the ship.”
“How long have they been down?”
“2 days,” she replied. “These readings displayed now are just looped, to make it look like it was working right.”
“And the transporter logs?” he asked as he moved to look over her shoulder.
“Checking,” she replied as her fingers moved over the console. “Odd… I set the security logs to check the transporter systems every 15 minutes, and to automatically update whenever in use.”
“Your point?”
“Look here,” she pointed to a serious of log entries. “2215, status normal. 2230, status normal. 2235, null.”
“So at 2235, the system recorded an event, but not what happened.”
“It looks that way, and it is here again at 2258; probably the return trip.”
“Alright, you keep looking; I’ll go check the transporter room. Also, pull up the duty roster, see who was in charge at the time.”
“Aye sir.”
The delegates that had been brought aboard the Chimera met in the conference hall. It wasn’t a very big room, but it also wasn’t a very big ship. As such there were only two groups of delegates on board, and Veldan hoped that would make this a little easier.
As she walked in, she couldn’t have been more wrong.
“It was probably your government that did it,” yelled one delegate, from the Dosi Consortium.
“Hardly, Rengar,” replied Yali, the delegate from the Wadi Tradespeople. “It was more than likely one of your ignorantly aggressive people.”
“Gentleman, please,” Veldan interrupted. “You need to calm down.”
“And you are?” asked Yali, in a snide tone that Veldan didn’t like.
“Commander Veldan,” she replied, standing as tall as she could. “First officer of this ship. Now you can all calm down, or I can stun you. Your choice.”
The delegates looked at her questioningly, wondering if she would carry out her threat. After a moment, they seemed to come to the mutual agreement that it would be better not to test the Klingon officer.
“Good, now I need to ask you a few questions,” she said as she gestured towards the table. “Do either of your governments know of anyone who might want the Senator dead?”
“You must be kidding,” replied Rengar as he took a seat. “Anyone who has ever been under the heal of the Dominion.”
“Especially people like the Taplan’s,” Yali interrupted. “They were given the blight, it would seem they would have reason for revenge.”
“As would you Wadi!” claimed Rengar accusatorily.
“Ha! You’re the aggressive one Rengar,” he retorted, meeting the Dosi eye to eye. “You would freely attack your own allies.”
“Say that again, and you might find a knife in your own back.”
“That’s enough,” Veldan exclaimed, raising her voice to get their attention. “As of right now you are all restricted to guest quarters, and security will be posted at your door to ensure your safety.”
Both the delegates stood up, Rengar speaking first.
“This is an outrage,” he said, opening his mouth to speak again before Veldan cut him off.
“I don’t care, now you can either return to your quarters or I’ll drag you there myself.”
The delegates stood there for a moment, regained their composure, and left the room. Veldan sighed as she enjoyed the silences following their departure.
I hate politicians.
When Shar entered the transporter room, Ensign Sateen was on duty. As per the captains orders, the transporter had been taken off line and locked down, so Sateen looked bored. Not that transporter duty was inherently exciting to begin with, but now there was even less to do.
“Good morning Sir,” she said as she snapped to attention. “What can I do for you?”
“I need to see the logs from last night Ensign, between 2230 and 2300 hours.”
“Yes sir,” she replied as her hands moved over the console.
“Good, and while I go over these, do a DNA scan of the transporter pad, see if there’s anything there that shouldn’t be.”
Ensign Sateen moved to the storage locker and pulled out a micro scanner, then went about her assigned task as Shar checked the logs. The logs troubled the Andorian, but not because of what was there. It wasn’t as though the logs had simple been deleted, some bits of raw data would still exist. According to Walch’s security logs, something occurred at those times, but the transporter logs themselves didn’t show anything. It was as though the event never happened.
Shar employed every data recovery algorithm he could think of, and still nothing. It was not simply that the data had been deleted, but it was as though the data was never there. Only someone with intricate knowledge of Starfleet computer systems could bypass all the backups. He would definitely need to speak to the captain about this.
“Thank you ensign. When you are finished with that, send a copy of the results to myself and Lt. Walch.”
Sateen nodded as she continued working, feeling a little relaxed as her superior left the room. This whole situation had the crew on edge.
Lt. Cmdr. Shar to Lt. Walch,” his voiced made her jump slightly. She was getting so focused on the investigation, that she was almost oblivious to anything else.
“Yes Sir, Walch here,” she replied.
“Have you found anything out yet?”
“No sir, there’s no trace of system malfunction, or tampering. I can’t explain it.”
“Very well, how about the crewman on duty last night?”
She brought another screen back up, showing the duty roster.
“Ensign… Creedy,” she replied. “Went on duty at 2100, off duty at 0300. Hmm…”
“What is it Lt.?”
“I’m not familiar with this crewman, are you?”
“It is possible he was newly stationed to this ship,” he replied calmly. “Still, as near as we can tell he was on duty at the time. We will need to speak to him.”
“Aye sir, would you like me to call him into the office?”
“Not just yet, we’ll wait for the results of Ensign Sateen’s scans.”
“Yes sir, Walch out.”
While the others were dealing with the politics of the situation, and their own investigation, Setal was doing a little snooping of her own. After the captain had spared her life and offered her a position on the ship, she had done her best to leave her old life behind and start anew. Even so, she had to admit the skills she learned in the Tal Shiar did have their uses. As she sat in her quarters, she couldn’t help but note the irony that and ex-spy was looking for a spy.
Interesting, she thought as she looked at the scrolling text on her screen. She sent a quick text message to the captain, asking him to come to her quarters. She didn’t want to put any of this information over the comm.
After meeting with Setal, Kaziarl rushed from her quarters. He didn’t even stop to acknowledge different crew members along the way. When he got to where he was going, he used his command codes to override the door and walked in.
“Who are you,” he demanded of the officer inside.
“Sir? I don’t understand?”
“You know damn well what I mean.”
“I see… Well, have a seat.”
Kaziarl just stood there, watching the person in front of him. 3 months ago this person came aboard as Lt. Capell, but if what Setal had told him was correct that could have been wrong.
“Or not,” Capell muttered as he moved to the replicator. “First of all I’d like to say I am not your enemy.”
“I find that hard to believe if you are who I suspect you to believe.”
“Yes, I can imagine that is the case with the way things played out on DS9,” he replied mournfully. “Not all of my colleges are so… blunt.”
“Killing a diplomat seems pretty blunt,” Kaziarl said, unsure if he wanted to bash the man’s skull in, or throw him out an airlock.
“That wasn’t me Captain, I’m here to stop the one who did.”
“Oh really?”
“After the DS9 incident, we’ve been trying to lay low. Part of the reason we are able to do our job is because we can move about freely. Sloan made that… difficult. However, even now there are still those that think we should take a more public approach.”
“So you are telling me there is more than one agent on board?”
“Yes, and the other agent has gone rouge.”
“A rough S31 agent, that’s a bit of an oxymoron don’t you think?”
“We may not be answerable to Starfleet command, but we do answer to ourselves. I suppose you might call it honor among thieves, we’ve been called worse.”
“So if what you’re telling me is true,” he said skeptically. “Then who is the one who killed the Vorta delegate?”
“I don’t know yet, and if we move to quickly they might escape.”
“You’ll have to give me something,” he said sternly. “Or I could just throw you in the brig.”
“Actually…” Capell muttered thoughtfully. “That could work to our advantage. If the rouge agent thinks you suspect me, he could get sloppy.”
Kaziarl sighed, considering the alternatives. He really didn’t like the situation, but until he knew more he guessed there wasn’t much choice.
“Very well,” he said as he looked at the Lt. “But we had better make this look good.”
Before Capell could react, he found Kaziarl’s fist in his face.
