On Duty

Posted on 18 Dec 2015 @ 1:22am by Chief Warrant Officer 3 Greg Mitchell
Edited on on 18 Dec 2015 @ 4:24am

1,609 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Episode 10 - Symposium
Location: Jupiter Station
Timeline: MD12 - 1400 hrs

[ON]

Jupiter station. One of the oldest Starbases in the history of the Federation. Stretching all the way back to the United Earth government in the late Twenty Second century, this double spired tri-leveled station had a magnificent view of the nearby Gas Giant. Being the first station outside the asteroid belt and away from any terrestrial planets, it felt like a modern Gateway Arch. Comparable to the tall arch built in St. Louis as a pathway to the West, Jupiter Station acted as a pathway to the rest of the galaxy...the final frontier. It was a new Old-West, an new future, a new adventure.

And like any civilization, anywhere, it had some jackass who decided to make trouble. Such was the thought going Greg's mind as he chased a gentleman through the shopping district of the station. Lined with restaurants, alien shops and other attractions this crowded part of the station was jammed packed with tourists, Starfleet personnel, visiting species, merchants, and other passer-by's. It felt like any other market on any other world. So ten minutes ago, when Greg got a call about an assault going on at a nearby Ferengi shop, he wasn't that surprised.

What he WAS surprised about was the fact that it wasn't the Ferengi causing the trouble. They had a reputation for trying to con people, and he figured that was the case. It WAS the case, sort of. The customer, a human, had decided to buy a brand new....something, Greg didn't really care, it was small, electronic and did.....something. That thing evidently broke and the customer wanted his money back. The Ferengi pulled some sort of legal terminology basically saying the gentleman was screwed.

That didn't go over too well. The customer proceeded to start yelling out threats and extremely offensive racial slurs to the merchant. That was the assault call. Since being transferred off of Starbase 418, Greg had been lending the Jupiter Station security a hand until his new posting arrived. It was better than sitting around doing nothing. Therefore it was by an act of God that Greg was even near enough to respond to the call.

After arriving, though, the human proceeded to throw the object at the Ferengi (increasing his charge to aggravated battery) and took off in the opposite direction. At that point Greg's back-up, a young security officer that he only knew as Jake, had arrived.

Thus, the chase had begun...

Running through the market, Greg watched as the suspect pushed aside civilians in his attempt to get away. Though where he was heading, Greg could not tell. This station was covered in security cameras. Surely one would pick up whatever hole this man tried to crawl in. But Greg couldn't take that chance. He proceeded at full sprint after him, with Jake on his tail.

Greg couldn't fathom it: Unbelievable. Un-friggen-believable. There's some big wig convention coming up on this station, so I figure it's going to be a nice cozy temporary assignment because who in their right mind would want to go to something big to pick a fight. Obviously, you weren't thinking. I mean, how many football games at the U of I did you have to direct traffic for? How many Halloween parties and unofficial St. Patrick's day riots did you have to put down? You're slipping man. In your old age, you're slipping.

The gentleman made a sliding jump over some small bar/restaurant and took off to the back. The owners were yelling and throwing objects at him.

"'Scuse me. Coming through!" Greg yelled, and the owners backed away from the door. Greg now found himself in some service hallway in the station, connecting other stores and the fire escape corridors. He looked back at Jake and nodded. Jake was smart enough to get the hint and ran around the outside of the building to meet up at the other side.

Greg pulled his phaser out and checked that it was set to stun. Then he slowly inched forward. "Station Security! You ARE under arrest! Let's get that out of the way now." he yelled down the multiple hallways, trying to figure which way to go next. "You're just making this harder on yourself. Just come back and we can talk about this."

He was about to choose the center hallway when he heard a noise off to his left, an inhale like someone out of breath. He pointed his phaser that way. "Hands. I want to see them, right now." He ordered and inched forward again. "This is your last warning."

Just as he took another step, the gentleman appeared behind a couple of containers and took off running to one of the fire exits.

"HEY!" Greg yelled. Unlike in the movies, you will barely ever hear an officer yell Freeze. It's too cliche, too unnecessary, too vague, and some comedian will inevitably act like he is shivering. Thus, the simple "stop moving" or "on the ground" usually works. When you run out of those, you move onto simple yells like "hey" and "knock it off". When that fails, and your attitude hits the roof, you realize something: this needs to be over right now. You start wondering: Why am I chasing this man? Why am I being polite with this man? He's obviously breaking the law, knows he is breaking the law, and wants to break the law. Thus, the niceness is over.

Greg watched as the man took off and made it to the door. Just about the time Greg was going to fire his phaser and knock the guy down, the man ran through the door.....and was tackled from the left by Jake.

"Oh thank you Lord." Greg exhaled and holstered his phaser, running to the door. As he made it through, he saw the man on the ground, face first, with cuffs on him. Jake lifted him up and took him to a quiet place to the side. "Nice tackle." Greg complimented, "Football?"

"High school, my junior year." Jake responded.

"Ah." said Greg. As they sat the man down on a seat, Greg pulled out his own pocket PADD and read him his Miranda Rights which were being displayed on the device. Usually, he wouldn't read the rights until he brought the suspect to the Security Office, but he needed a minute to catch his breath. When he was finished, he looked at the suspect. "Ok, sir. What is your name?"

"I want a lawyer." The man said.

"Good, you will get one in a minute. What is your name?" Greg asked again.

"You can't question me without a lawyer." The man repeated.

Greg rolled his eyes and lowered his PADD. "Sir, Miranda only goes into affect when you're under arrest AND being questioned about the case." he relayed the surprisingly little known fact about the Miranda Warning law, "I'm simply asking you your name. You gonna make this easier than you already have or what?"

"Bite me."

"Right....." He looked at Jake, who proceeded to toss Greg the man's wallet that he found when frisking him. "Didn't want to go through your personal stuff, but since you insist Mr....." he looked at the I.D. inside, "Wilson. The reason you are under arrest is because you assaulted and battered a merchant back at that store."

"He sold me a...." Mr. Wilson started.

"Uh, uh." Greg cut him off, "You lawyered up already. We can't talk about it without him or her present."

"I'm just trying to defend...." Wilson pleaded.

"Sir, we don't want to infringe on your rights do we? Let's do things by the book." Greg said.

Behind Mr. Wilson, he saw Jake laughing.

"Now then. Just sit there and relax for a minute while we get this sorted out." Greg tapped his comm badge, "Mitchell to dispatch."

==/\==Dispatch, go ahead Mitchell.==/\==

"I need you to run a 10-27 on a gentleman. Wilson: William, Ivan, Luke, Steven, Oliver, Nick. First name, Peter. Middle initial: R."

==/\==10-4 Mitchell. Stand by.==/\==

As they waited, Greg turned to the suspect. "So....planning on going to the symposium thing? I hear it's interesting."

"Shut up." Wilson said.

"Really? Do you need to give the attitude right now?" Greg rolled his eyes again, "Here I am trying to be polite and you are doing everything possible to avoid that. I mean come on man, there's a big science event coming up. Thanksgiving was a little while ago, Christmas is coming up. It's the happiest time of the year."

Jake laughed again then chimed in, "No one needs to be grumpy on Christmas."

"Exactly!" Greg said, "See? This guy gets it." he pointed at Jake. "But you are running around like you have a cob shoved up your..."

==/\==Dispatch to Mitchell==/\==, Greg's badge chimed in.

"Go ahead," he said, tapping it again.

==/\==Suspect: Wilson, Peter L. Wanted in San Antonio, Earth, for a fighting charge. Warrant for weapons smuggling in Armstrong City, Luna. Weapon found on transport. Proceed with arrest, dispatch out.==/\==

"10-4, dispatch." Greg said, shutting off the comm, "Wonderful. Look at that. You're quite the popular person around here. Jake, let's show this man where he's going to be staying for a while."

"No problem." Jake laughed, "You'll enjoy it. You get a room and a bathroom to yourself, not noisy at all, nice place to hang out."

"Yah, and you can wait for your lawyer, whenever he or she shows up. Then we'll talk again." Greg said, helping Jake pick up Wilson.

The Galileo couldn't show up soon enough.

[OFF]

CWO2 Greg Mitchell
Security Officer
USS Galileo

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