Two's Company
Posted on 20 Feb 2015 @ 5:29am by Lieutenant JG Kalos Jang Ph.D. & Lieutenant Benice Gyce Ph.D.
Edited on on 20 Feb 2015 @ 4:00pm
1,372 words; about a 7 minute read
Mission:
Episode 07 - Sojourn
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 4: Jang & Gyce's Quarters
Timeline: MD 10: 0700 Hours
[ON]
Kal had spent most of the previous day just getting cleared for duty. Once that was all finished, he'd decided to jump in with both feet. He spent most of the rest of the day getting his lab set up the way he liked it. For the most part, that meant organizing notes, reviewing his most promising research avenues and figuring out what the science labs on the Galileo had to offer. It was an impressive set up, as he'd been told it would be. He was happy to take advantage of the quiet that shore leave afforded him, and he worked well into early the next morning getting everything set up. It was 0200 before he peeled himself away and walked to his quarters. At least he was staying on the same deck where he had his lab. If only there was an ice cream shop between here and there, it'd be like they set it up just for him.
His roommate was already in their bunk by the time he arrived, but they'd taken the bottom bunk instead of the top, so he figured they'd get along just fine. He tossed his duty jacket and vest on the desk nearby, kicked off his boots and climbed up into bed. He'd gotten used to early mornings from working at the Academy, so he awoke at 0700 on the dot, whether he liked it or not. This time, he didn't like it. He swung his feet off the edge of his bunk and jumped off, stumbling a bit as his equilibrium stumbled to return. Standing in his undershirt, uniform pants and socks, one eye open and the other closed, he declared to nobody in particular, "I need waffles."
"They've got a mess hall for that," spoke a humored voice from behind the bottom bunk's privy curtain.
The voice was female and familiar to him, for sure. Plus, there was the tiniest of techno noises emanating from a PADD or other electronic devise.
Kal turned to the privy curtain and realized that he did have a roommate. That was going to take some getting used to. And why did she sound familiar? For a brief, ridiculous moment he was terrified she was an ex-girlfriend. "We do have a mess hall for that," Kal agreed. "So...I'm Kal. Pleased to meet you. Kinda, I guess." He waved at the curtain.
"I believe you attended a Bajoran orchestra concert with me," the woman said as she stuck her head out of the curtain. "I'm Gyce."
"Gyce! Right," Kal smiled then, relieved to see she was somebody he knew. And also not an ex-girlfriend. "Hey. So I guess we're bunking up together, huh?" He nodded at the curtain, which was still making quiet electronic sounds. "You playing a game or something in there?"
"I'm working," Gyce answered joyfully. "Engineering linked my private computer to the CCTV systems of the ship. So I can go anywhere I please and monitor the day-to-day activities of the ship."
"Huh. You can do that? That's...weird." Kal went to the bathroom, and when he came back brushing his teeth he asked, "So, like, if I'm walking through the corridors, and I pick my nose, you can see that?"
"If it happens in a public place, yes." Gyce tilted her head further out of the curtain and just smiled, "However, there are no surveillance systems in quarters."
"That's good," Kal said. He looked around the quarters, but of course there wasn't anything to be seen. Back at the nanoengineering labs, they could make sensor devices so small you couldn't see them unless you had your face right up to it. "So you just watch for trouble in your downtime?"
"When there is no major case for me to look at? Yes. But looking at the CCTVs all day actually can be quite telling," Gyce spoke fairly candidly. "More so when people don't realize they are being watched, they do stupid things."
"Yeah, I know. I'm one of those people. Doubt I will be ever again, though. You guys get audio on those, or just picture? You know what, never mind. I don't think I want to know."
"We can pull an audio feed when we want to look back at an event, but if the cameras are monitoring multiple corridors and public locations? It makes it very hard to filter. So it is best not to have the audio running unless we are centered on a specific feed," Gyce answered very candidly.
"Wow. I'll never assume I'm alone again." Kal shook his head. "So you're some kind of investigator, right? Like a detective? What's that like in Starfleet?"
"It's a lot of waiting. Because you don't get a case every day. And once you do, it's very challenging," Gyce admitted with a small smile of fulfillment. "See, I'm not a telepath, so I have to be able to see the lies suspects tell me, by other means. And I have to figure out if those lies are tied to the case, or lies told out of shame, for something unrelated. Those lies, often send cases off-course quickly."
"That sounds like real detective work. I read these books, crime novels, from all over. I read that stuff, all the time." He sat down at the little table in their room. "There's always a guy that's lying about something and two cases turn out to be, like, one interlinked case. I was never sure how much like the books real life was. Back home, a detective was always just a guy who cost more to pay off than regular cops."
"There are good and bad cops all over," Gyce admitted rather grimly. "Unfortunately, I myself had to arrest my last CO, who was a bad law enforcer."
That got his attention. "No kidding? That sounds like a hell of a story. What happened?"
"He..." Gyce stopped for a long moment. The man trained her on-the-job, after graduating. Speaking ill of him still felt wrong on some levels as a result.
It took a few moments to regather her thoughts before she finally answered, "He was arrested for treason. Charges were selling arms to the enemy, and trafficking."
"I bet." Kal leaned forward, curious to know more. "How'd you catch him? Did you have to go undercover? I love it when people go undercover."
"I've gone undercover many times," Gyce answered almost detachedly from that entire situation. "But in this case, it was simply paying attention to his behavioral patterns. Usually that tells you something is going on, when a person's routine and behavior shift. And in his case, I simply followed him one day and discovered him making a deal in one of Starfleet's abandoned weapons depots."
"Huh. That's pretty cool." Kal thought that over for a long moment. It had the elements of a good crime story. Of course, ideally, the arrest would have taken place in the rain, following a firefight or maybe a little hand-to-hand combat. Definitely hand-to-hand combat. But it was still a pretty cool story. "I wonder if I could make a tracker that couldn't be detected by sensors," he wondered aloud. "Small enough not to be seen. Can't be picked up by detectors or tricorders." He grabbed his PADD to jot down the idea. Then he turned his attention back to Gyce. "You wanna go get some waffles?"
"I'd love a bite," Gyce agreed, and pulled her cane off the rack on the wall. Then she rolled out. Uniform and all, as if she was an insanely early riser.
"Incidentally, there are many ways of tracking people, using only a tricorder." Gyce looked at him a moment as she limped over to the desk to get her messenger bag with her computer in it. "However, I do not think it wise to give out too many secrets of a detective's trade."
"I'll break you down," Kal said as he shrugged into his jacket. "I'm a hell of a guy."
"If a Cardassian Gul couldn't, I doubt you will," Gyce winked at him.
[OFF]
Lieutenant JG Kalos Jang, PhD
Nanoengineer
USS Galileo
Lieutenant JG Benice Gyce, PhD
Security Investigations Officer
USS Galileo
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