Police Brutality

Posted on 18 Mar 2013 @ 12:25am by Lieutenant Jared Nicholas
Edited on on 19 Mar 2013 @ 1:09pm

2,320 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Episode 03 - Frontier
Location: USS Galileo: Deck 4, Panne's office
Timeline: MD5: 0830 hours

[ON]

Ensign Jared Nicholas had apparently been up to no good. Maenad was reading a pile of reports that had been building up on her desk for the past several days; most of them were about departmental readiness and the preparedness of their facilities, but there was one report that had somehow buried itself in all the most important stuff. In all the preparations that had been going on over the past few days, Nicholas' absence in the brig had, to her, gone unnoticed. At first, Maenad thought that maybe that was some fault on her part, but she quickly shifted the guilt somewhere else; Ensign Nicholas reported to Kiri, like most of the department. The only people that reported directly to her were Cho and Petrov, unless she said otherwise. But Kiri had never mentioned any of this her; had she not noticed, either?

Maenad pressed her lips as she wondered. The chain of command was a ridiculous notion to her, anyway. She couldn't fault Kiri, though, she concluded; she had ordered the department to rest until they got to Rojar. Science's duty shifts were minimal since they left Vega, and they were operating on skeleton crews to accommodate the leisure time Maenad had assigned them. Being a language specialist wasn't a particularly demanding position for a survey mission, after all. Maenad decided to let it go.

She wanted to speak with Ensign Nicholas, however. It was far from Maenad to take an interest in the things that other people did, but the words sexual misconduct on the report in front of her demanded that she at least ask him about it. She sunk a little as she read it over for a third time; a member of her department, Jared Nicholas, was allegedly caught engaging in an explicitly sexual act in a place as public as the mess hall. Was it true? Maenad narrowed her eyes as she raised her eyes to stare across her office. It was unfortunate that, given the security department's deserved reputation, anything coming out of Stone's office had to be taken critically. After what had happened to Athlen and then Pendleton, she was forced to second-guess security's perception of reality.

With a sigh, Maenad tapped her commbadge. "Panne to Mister Nicholas, report to my office as soon as you can, please." And that was that. She now had to prepare herself for what would be, to her, one of the most uncomfortable types of conversations a person could have.

Jared had been conjugating Ferangi verbs and was lost in the nuances of the language. It was fascinating. Then he heard his comm badge beep.

^=^On my way sir^=^he intoned. He went over in his mind the possible reasons for her request. Right at the top, the pinnacle was his encounter with Ansen.

He had been sitting at the desk, shirtless. He replicated a fresh uniform shirt and headed to see his boss, feeling very much like he was headed to the principals office.

After a turbolift ride that he wished had been just a little bit longer, he arrived and pressed the chime.

"Come in," Maenad said expectantly. Jared Nicholas appeared and she told him to sit down in the chair before her desk. Being a forward person, and having little desire to dress up her reason for calling him here, she got straight to it. With a finger she awkwardly scratched behind an ear. "Uhm, I hate to do this," she began truthfully. "I have a report here about you spending some recent time in the brig..." Maenad looked up at him after she'd skimmed over the PADD again. "I would rather hear it from you about why, Mister Nicholas, than from this secondary source summary out of ship's security."

Jared blushed slightly. He had, had a pretty good idea about what was happening and now that had been confirmed. He decided the only way to deal with this was by being honest.

"Well sir, the other night I was unable to sleep. Space lag, or whatever you want to call it. So I decided to visit the kitchen and get something to eat. I met Ansen Palwak there. We started talking and found out we had a lot in common. He had been through some pretty nasty things, losing his brother and all.

I just meant to comfort him, but one thing led to another and we wound up having sex in the dinning room kitchen. It was late, the doors were locked an no one was around.

In retrospect in was a foolish thing to do, or rather it was a foolish place to do what we did. At the time we didn't think we were doing anything wrong. Didn't consider the area to be a public one. Mr. Stone, the Captain and the XO disagreed."

He left out the detail about Stone's over-enthusiasm and the breaking of his nose in the arrest. He wasn't trying to get sympathy.

Maenad leaned back in her chair. She actually felt sympathy for the man. He was weird and whatever, but who wasn't? But a frowned slowly began to appear on her eyes and cheeks. Her lips compressed. Yes, they should have been a little more careful, but did such a thing really warrant jail time? If no one was around, how were they caught? The whole idea of what happened began to eat away at her, enraging her. "How were you caught, then, if you were alone?"

"Security tapes. We weren't interrupted, no one walked in on us or anything like that. It was just recorded and when Stone and the XO watched it they were less than thrilled. We weren't doing it expecting to be noticed. It just happened. We both, needed to be with someone, we've both been through things. I can't say that I am ashamed of what we did. Next time, if there is a next time we will have to be more discrete. I hope I am not making you feel uncomfortable."

Maenad's eyes were wide now and she leaned forward slowly as he told what happened. She ignored the last question; she was uncomfortable, but it wasn't because she was embarrassed, it was because she was angry. "You were recorded?" she snapped, disbelieving. "And you were watched?" She bit her lip for a second, her knuckles were white on the arms of her chair. "Were you aware that you were being recorded?" She didn't give him time to answer. There weren't supposed to be cameras everywhere on the ship, and if there were there had to be notification. These must have been some new installation by Stone. Never before in her life had she heard of such a thing. Starfleet was strict with its privacy laws; when intruders came aboard, they relied on sensors over cameras. That was how extreme Starfleet took watching its people.

"So, what?" Maenad began to ask, "You were arrested the next day? You were doing your work, you were in your quarters, what? How were you arrested? What was the charge? How long were you held, who defended you?" Her questions came in rapid fire. She wanted to know everything now. While Jared and Ansen should have executed better judgement, two wrongs didn't make a right.

"It was the next day. I was in the lab. Stone came in and as soon as he did I knew something was up. I tried to explain what happened, but he wouldn't listen. He had orders from the XO and I could tell he was enjoying the whole thing.

I told him I wouldn't resist, that I'd go quietly and asked him not to put cuffs on me. He slammed me against the wall cuffed me and made a big spectacle of the whole thing. I think he mentioned 17 different regulations that were involved.

I have to admit I was reall pissed off at first. Had they pressed charges and sought a courtmartial like I think Mr. Holliday wanted to I would have pressed charges of my own.

I was only held for a day or so and the Captain decided to drop the matter. I have lost my holodeck privallage for two weeks and am pretty much confinted to my quarters for a couple of days."

Maenad pressed her temples between her thumb and forefinger. "He... slammed you... against a wall?" she asked, just to make sure she'd heard correctly.

Jared let out a sigh, "Broke my nose to be honest with you. I have to admit I almost lost it. But he wanted me to resist so he could sic the damned dog on me."

"Broke your nose?" she shrieked. The dog comment only made her angrier. That dog was a menace. "You should press charges, Jared," she said forcefully. "Whether you committed an offence or not makes no difference, you have rights! I will not allow my staff, or my labs, to become a place where such indiscriminate violence is tolerated. And dogs aren't allowed in the labs anyway, we have sensitive equipment and sterile surfaces where dog hair and slobber would contaminate the environment." She raised a finger. "Don't worry, Jared, whatever you decide to do, I will be taking this straight to the captain. You said that Commander Holliday knew that all of this happened and no actions were taken against Mister Stone?"

"I'll consdier pressing charges ma', sir. I did inform Mr. Holliday what Mr. Stone had done and he didn't seem to think it was that big of deal. In fact unless he was playing the 'bad cop', if it were up to him I'd be off the ship and out of Star Fleet. You know something, you're correct. I do have rights. I appreciate you're having my back on this.

Look between me and you, the time I spent in the brig was appropriate for my lack of judgment, though I think any more serious repercussions would
have been out of line. But Stone, well Stone has issues.

Would I like to kick his ass? You damned right I would, Do I want to do anything to seriously hurt him No."

Do you know anything about my background?"

Maenad held up her hands. She didn't want to talk about anybody kicking anybody's asses. But she wholeheartedly agreed, like Jared said, that Stone had serious issues. She didn't trust him, especially after learning of his brutal assault on the man in front of her. What appalled her more was learning that a blind eye was turned to it. "I will make sure the captain is made aware of how you were abused, Jared," she swore. Maenad couldn't imagine Lirha ever allowing that kind of behaviour on her ship, or letting it go unpunished. "I only know your Academy history," she replied to his question.

He let out a long breath. Unsure of whether he wanted to tell her. "Let's just say I've heard rumors about Stone, what he has gone though. We have similar stories. He wasn't the only that was tortured."

"I don't listen to rumours, Mister Nicholas, and neither should you," Maenad said rather simply, even a bit impatiently. "We all have our problems," she continued, "and we should only worry about our problems. Other than your experiences related to Mister Stone, how have you been fitting into the department?" she changed the subject, crossing her legs beneath the desk.

His left brow quirked but other than that he showed no reaction. "I am fitting in quite well, other than that, thank you for asking."

"Good," she said. "Will you be joining us on any of the away missions?"

"If I am allowed to I would love to."

Maenad smiled, showing a little of her teeth. She didn't see any reason why he shouldn't be able to. "Yes, we'll see what we can do. I will speak to the captain about Stone's abuse."

"Thank you sir, that is all I can ask. Just ask her not to go too hard on him. The man has issues, however he acquired them. I agree that something should be done, but punishing him just for the sake of punishing him, well I don't see what good that would do."

Maenad stared at him blankly. In her mind, it was Jared who had issues; he was brutally assaulted and could have been killed. A broken nose, if hit the right way, could be lethal. Physically assaulting someone for privately breaking protocol, and twenty-four hours later while the man was minding his own business at his place of work, was many, many, times worse than being intimate with somebody. Just thinking about it again was upsetting her. She said nothing more about it and nodded to the ensign, giving him a faint smile. "Thank you for clearing this up with me. As far as I am concerned, all is forgiven. Keep your intimate encounters in the privacy of your quarters. Your personal life is none of my business. What the captain decides to do about the report is her decision." She closed her eyes for a second and shifted in her chair, exchanging crossed legs. "I need to prepare for the away mission, Mister Nicholas," was his cue to leave. She pushed a strand of hair behind an ear, watching him politely.

Jared nodded and turned and walked out of the room. He let out a sigh of relief as the doors closed behind him. He wanted in the worst way to go and pay Stone a visit, instead he decided to heed his own advice and he walked back to his own place to resume his studies.

[OFF]

Lieutenant (JG) Maenad Panne
Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo

Ensign Jared Nicholas
Language Specialist
USS Galileo

RSS Feed