Part 8: A Hidden Rat

Posted on 28 Sep 2016 @ 6:37pm by Lieutenant JG Eelim Galan & Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Commander Langdale Wiggins & Commander Luke Wyatt & Chief Warrant Officer 3 Greg Mitchell
Edited on on 28 Sep 2016 @ 6:48pm

3,720 words; about a 19 minute read

Mission: Episode 12 - Recluse
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 2, Airlock One
Timeline: MD -06 0200 hours

[ON]

PO Nelis was the second one to arrive at the scene. CWO Mitchell was there first. She looked around and then pretended that she was shocked. She was to be honest seeing all that blood on Gyce It's like she tried to save the Cardassian but he was probably long gone by now. "What happened?" She asked feigning concern.

"That's what we need to find out," Gyce spoke as she forced herself out of her reverie and her her brown eyes scan the area. "Lieutenant Galan was attacked. I need to return to my office to pull up combadge feeds and cross-reference them with bio-reading status."

Nelis looked around at the little group that had formed. She knew she should keep her mouth shut but she had to make sure. "Attacked how?" She gestured to the blood on the ground. "There is so much blood...he's dead right?" She felt she should get an award for her acting skills. She really sounded concerned and she was...that he was in fact alive.

"I don't know," Gyce spoke with a small hint of worry on her face. "I need you to lock the area down though. When Chief Warrant Mitchell gets here, tell him I wish to see him."

Nelis gave a nod. "That's not a problem." Something struck her. Gyce actually looked worried...but was it the situation or about the damned Cardassian. She figured it was the situation. Just as he was about to say something Mitchell walked in.

Greg had been patrolling a deck above when the call went out that one of his superiors had been attacked. As he sprinted to the scene, one thought went through his mind: Who in our tiny crew of people thought attacking someone on a tiny ship was a good idea?. This thought was followed by a prayer that the Lieutenant that was in sickbay was going to be alright.

He walked to the airlock. "I'm here. What happened?" he asked, getting right to the point, before spotting the pool of blood on the floor. "Ah shit...."

Luke had heard about the incident, unsurpassingly news traveled faster than the speed of light on the small nova class and he quickly found himself entering to door where a handful of other officers stood "Oh wow" he said more in awe at the amount of blood "It's like the first day I arrived on the ship, except there was more star fleet security guards on the floor wishing they hadn't decided to fight me. What happened?" He asked no one in particular.

It was Nelis, the lovely Bajoran woman who spoke, "Eelim got gutted." She said somewhat coldly. "We don't know if he survived or who done it."

Luke studied the scene before him " I guess we should check in with medical once this place is locked down. We should also get a list of anyone who was involved in the dominion war or had relatives and finally anyone who didn't like the guy." He stopped before realising he actually wasn't chief any more "that what I think any ways, lieutenant?" He said looking to gyce.

"More importantly ma'am, shouldn't we do a scan of the ship? See if there is anyone at a place they aren't supposed to be?" Greg asked, staring at the blood on the floor. "And put the ship on lockdown?"

As those around her were all talking Nelis stood back going over things in her mind. She'd left her com badge in her quarters during the incident. Gotten rid of everything that could lead to her. She'd wiped down the knife and used Eelim's codes to open and close the armoury weapons storage unit. She wondered if she'd wiped all from the J tubes. She'd have to sneak back later for that one.

One of the other petty officers piped up. "Ma'am...I think I might have something that might help." PO Jensen said. "I..."

Greg turned to look at Lt. Gyce for an answer to Jensen's comment, but saw that she had slipped away as they were examining the scene. "Ah...crap. She must be checking in on the victim. Alright, who's the next highest ranking security officer here?"

After a few minutes of silence, the realization hit Greg, "Crap, it's me isn't it?" He paced around for a minute, pondering the situation. He had to handle issues before, but he never expected to take the reigns on a ship he was new to. "Alright, let's see." He turned to Luke, "Commander, we'll get those records in a moment. I'm going to get the rest of the officers down here ASAP to lock the area down. Jensen, what was your suggestion?"

"It's not a suggestion," Jensen said. "It's...Eelim told me that his personal logs were broken into a few days ago. I think it might have something to do with it."

"His logs? Why weren't we briefed on this? Was Lieutenant Benice notified?" Greg asked. "And did anyone try to trace it?"

"No. He just mentioned it to me told me he'd figure out what was happening."

PO Nelis supressed a hiss. She'd been careful but what if they traced it to her? Damn! She'd have to think quickly.

"Terrific,", Greg mumbled. He backed against the wall, rested his head in his hands, and thought for a moment. Smaller ship. Less crew, not Sovereign class. Only me and a few other officers so only a few of us can handle this. One officer in sickbay. Officer is....Cardassian. As a matter of instinct, Greg quickly and subtly glanced at the Bajoran woman who was in the room...and whom he had never met before.

Quickly he looked away, hoping she hadn't noticed. Bajoran, Cardassian, Bajoran.....alright, you may be stereotyping, but let's put her up on your mental list. But we need to gather more facts and more suspects..... He kicked off the wall and tapped his com badge.

"Chief Mitchell to Admiral Saalm." It was weird, this was only the third time he had actively communicated with the Admiral. He tried to avoid the site of high ranking officers as much as possible.

After a short pause, Lirha's voice came through clear yet sleepy over the commbadge link. "This is Saalm," she answered, wondering why Security was summoning her in the middle of the night. There was a prominent flutter of anxiety in her chest to accompany said feeling.

"Ma'am, we have a major security situation going on in Airlock One. I don't know if you have been briefed or not. Lt. Benice is gone, I guess she went to check up on victim in sickbay, so I'm going to need your authorization for this."

Greg walked over to the wall and rested one hand on it. "I'm going to need the personnel listing for everyone in this area for the past few hours. And I'm probably going to have to lockdown this corridor and have some back up sent my way. We may have a 10..." He corrected himself, as he was about to use the police code that the Admiral probably wouldn't recognize. "We may have an attempted murder suspect on board. That's why I am contacting you directly."

"...Security issue? Major?" What? Lirha thought. Her mind now raced as the severity of the summons slowly settled in. "I am on my way," she promptly added before cutting the transmission off. As much as she hated to be disturbed during her sleep, she was the captain and always on duty regardless of the hour.

It didn't take long for her to get dressed and pull her hair back into a high ponytail before heading out of her quarters. The trip down the turbolift to Deck 2 was even shorter, and she soon found herself arriving in front of the warrant officer who'd summoned her. "Report, Mister Mitchell."

Greg was surprised when the Admiral herself decided to show up at the crime scene, something that he had never seen before. Nevertheless, me motioned for her to step outside the airlock with him.

"Sorry to wake you ma'am. I got a call about thirty minutes ago of an altercation here in the airlock. I arrived on scene, and found a puddle of blood in there. I got informed that the victim, Lieutenant Galan was stabbed and left in here. He was found and taken to sickbay."

The sound of footsteps echoed as two other security officers ran down the hallway. Greg motioned them to take guard inside the airlock with the others before continuing his briefing. "Lt. Gyce was here, but during our interview process with the witnesses, she disappeared without informing any of us. Because of that, I took over as responding officer. As of now, I'm trying to gather a list of suspects."

Lirha looked down at the pools of blood on the airlock's metallic floor. This was the first time she'd ever dealt with a situation like this aboard Galileo: apparent crew-on-crew violence which had almost killed someone, and now a suspect supposedly on the loose. "Where is the witness? ...Who did this, chief?" she asked angrily with fluid emotions slowly building inside of her.

That's one of the things I am trying to find out ma'am. The primary "witness", and I use that term lightly, was Lt. Benice. She was the one who found him, but I couldn't question her in time. The other one, Petty Officer Jensen, informed me of a recent break in of Lt. Galan's logs. I have one possible, and likely suspect right now which is why I brought you out here."

Greg looked back in at Nelis before continuing. "All things considered, ma'am, Petty Officer Nelis managed to arrive here pretty quickly. Not long after I did, in fact. Add to that she is, well, Bajoran, which puts her higher on my list. I've never worked with her before, so I don't know her attitude regarding such matters. She has seemed to be fairly nervous since I arrived, but that could be because of the situation at hand."

He glanced over at the guards. "I didn't want to stereotype, which is why I want access to crew assignments in this area, plus personnel records on everyone in this area to see if they had any issue with Lt. Galan. I also think we should find some way to backtrack the log break in if we can. I brought the two other guards down here to keep the are secure and the witnesses in tact before questioning. Without Lt. Benice, I may be the security officer in charge of the situation, but you are the senior officer on scene ma'am. It's your call."

Nelis had heard. She backed up. "Excuse me?!" He yelled. "Just because I'm Bajoran? I'll have you know Eelim took over shift from me and I was in my quarters which are not far from here." She'd left her com badge in her quarters so if they looked at com badge readings she'd read as.... Then it hit her. She wasn't wearing it now. Damn! Double Damn! She had to distract. "Listen Why don't I go check on Eelim...." She hoped to leave the situation. Quickly....

"Wait a minute." Greg said, stepping in front of her. "Ma'am, this area is on lockdown and you are a potential witness. Now I didn't mean anything personally by that. I have to run through all the options." Of course her attitude on the situation was not helping things. "I'm sure the docs and Lt. Benice are taking good care of him. Now if you'd just step back here, we'll get this out of the way. I'm like you, I want to find whatever son-of-a-bitch did this as well."

He turned to the Admiral. "Sorry ma'am." He said, regarding his language.

Nelis stepped back a bit, waiting. Maybe if she just played it cool.

"Nobody leaves this area until further instructed," Lirha ordered as her eyes traveled back and forth between the warrant and petty officer. She gave the senior-most man a quick nod of approval. "I will grant you all the clearance and access you need to conduct your investigation," Saalm added to Mitchell.

"Thank you ma'am." Greg replied, before turning to Nelis. During his career as a police officer, coupled with his career as a ship security officer, Greg picked up the habit of being able to read body language.

Facial twitches, direction of eyes when answering questions, lack of eye contact, arm position, sweat. All of these were indicators of if a person was lying or not. And Greg had to admit, the lady in front of him exhibited some of those issues. Her wanting to leave so badly did not help matters.

But Greg suppressed all this as he spoke to Nelis: "This shouldn't take long, ma'am. We'll get you on your way as soon as possible."

"Sure." Nelis added in a shaky voice. "I just want to go check to see if Eelim is dead...I mean alive....if he's dead or alive."

"We'll handle that ma'am. Just stay here." Greg wasn't getting any less suspicious and was about to question some more when the Admiral spoke.

Tapping the commbadge on her breast, Lirha then summoned her new executive to the scene. Less than two days into the journey back to Starbase 234 and already there had been an incident aboard Galileo. She was still having a difficult time processing this when the communicator chirped. "Commander Wiggins, please report to Deck 2, Airlock One immediately. We have a situation."

It didn't take long for Wiggins to arrive even if he'd been asleep for a little over an hour now. When he walked in, his medium lengthed hair was sticking up in places and he self-consciously played with it, trying to make it stay flat; which without the thirty minute careful process it usually took to make it perfect, made the task impossible.

"What's happened?" He asked in between a yawn.

Greg stepped up, arms still crossed while he pondered what to do next. "Well, sir, it seems we've had an aggravated battery incident. Lt. Eelim Galan, one of my superior officers, was found by Lt. Benice laying in here and bleeding to death. He had been attacked by someone. We're trying to figure out who did it. Considering the Lt. Eelim is a Cardassian though, it's easy to figure out why some dick decided to have him killed."

He looked back at the airlock. "Not that it excuses the suspects actions."

Jensen walked up to Greg and pulled him aside. "Can...I see you a moment, sir?"

Greg walked over with Jensen, arms still crossed as he pondered what to do next. "Yes, Mr. Jensen."

Jensen leaned in, "Sir, I just spoke to the medics, I took the liberty of calling sickbay, Eelim is critical but will survive they say that a serrated battle knife was used. I know that Eelim reported a missing knife to Gyce earlier today. I think we should go to the armoury and check the stocks. There might be prints there."

Greg rubbed his forehead, "A knife? No-one is telling me anything today. Alright, let's do that. I'll have these guys," Greg said, pointing to the two other security guards, "keep an eye on things here." He turned to Lirha, "Ma'am, we'll be back ASAP."

"Now hang on a minute," Wiggins looked a bit annoyed at something, but he also looked sleepy so it was hard to really tell. "Where are you going? I need more of a report than that. Have we begun ship wide internal scans? Are we reviewing computer logs and security feeds for this area? Are we tracing Lieutenant Galan's location over the last couple days? Have we locked down and secured means off the ship like shuttle bays, and transporter rooms? So on, and so on."

Greg had taken one step forward with Jensen when the question went out and he froze in place. He was also doing overtime and tired as heck, running on a lack of sleep due to some other overtime the past few days. Needless to say, he was already annoyed with being not briefed on ANY of the events that had led up to this. As such, he had to stifle the insubordinate response he wanted to give to the new XO he had never met before and instead turned around to address the Commander.

"When I arrived, sir, I placed the entire area on full lockdown. As you came down here, I sent out the request of back checking the logs. All security departments are on alert, and as responding officer I have briefed them. As for the witnesses and security measures here, I have officer Hopper..."

"Wilson, sir." The guard corrected.

"...Wilson here interviewing witnesses while Officer Rivetti keeping this area secured until another available officer arrives."

"Oh, really. You get his name right?" Wilson protested.

"Meanwhile, we are going to check the armory for any missing weaponry that may have somehow slipped by the master at arms, due to the fact that a knife that I was told nothing about for some reason was used in the attack."

Greg, during this whole ordeal, was putting on the most polite smile he could to cover his long pet peeve of having people tell him how to do his job. "I will remain in full contact with everyone sir. But I'll go only with your permission." While mentally, he thought to himself, Now will you let me do my f***ing job so I can get this investigation started?.....wow, I really am grumpy tonight.

As hard as Greg tried to cover his feelings with the forced polite smile, the undertones and sentiments didn't go unnoticed to the Betazoid hybrid. His intuition told him he'd struck a nerve, which was understandable. While Wiggins had never met Greg, everything he needed to know about the man unfolded in the minute it took for him to explain the situation fully to him.

He put up his palms to Greg as if the man's inner hostility was something palpable to him that he could push back. He didn't have the patience this early in the morning to correct the man's misinterpretations. Wiggins was far from being a micromanager, he was a delegator and the last thing he'd do to a crewmember is interfere with their job, but he needed the facts from him, not anyone else.

If they'd had more time, Wiggins would have explained that to Greg, but instead, he said, "If your next step is the armoury, then I'll accompany you. As the supervising officer, I'll grant you all access and clearances unless the admiral has already done so. But I would like to observe." Wiggins took a step towards the exit when he stopped and turned to look at Nelis. His eyes squinted and if anyone observant were looking at his eyes they changed from a grey-blue to a brown. He said to Greg, "Who is this?"

Greg, feeling calmer and slighty guilty over his insomnia induced grumpieness, slicked his hair back whither his hands and turned to look at Nelis. "Her? She's a Petty Officer. Nelis I believe her name is. I was about to let Hopper..."

"Still Wilson, sir." The guard replied.

"...interview her." Greg turned to the Commander and lowered his voice to where he was sure the Petty Officer wouldn't hear this time. "Between you and me, sir, she's been pretty jumpy all night and eager to leave. Now, I'm putting aside her culture's differences with the victim's for now so I don't stereotype, but she is near the top of my list of suspects. That's why I wanted to get the logs checked and the weapon found."

Nelis' anger went up a notch. Look at them all! They should be thanking me on their knees! I rid the ship of that Cardassian...or at least I would have if Gyce hadn't interfered and saved the idiot.

She noted the XO and Mitchell's scrutiny and tried to stand still. She'd been careful, she'd used Eelim's codes to go into the armoury and she'd cleaned and wiped the knife and put it back again his codes. She'd used gloves, taken off her combadge...Damn! Double Damn! She hadn't wiped the J tube down when she'd gone inside... Why didn't they see that she was doing them a favour. She started to feel trapped. It took all her strength to walk up to Mitchell and the XO. "Um...Sirs..." She said in her sweetest voice. "Maybe I should go check on Eelim, the poor man might think his co-workers forgot about him." She'd also use the opportunity to finish the job. Maybe when Eelim was gone they'd thank her. He was Cardassian after all.

Wiggins took a deep breath and let it out slowly as he turned towards Greg. With his back turned away from the Bajoran, he exchanged a look with Greg that read, 'I see what you mean'.

The XO turned back towards Nelis, "Hopper here needs to do an interview with you first." Wiggins spun around to face the guard quickly looking apologetic, "Wilkens--No, wils...Wilson." Wiggins looked at Greg, "I think I'd like to observe her interview. You'll link up with me when you can?"

"Son of a bitch, do I have to stitch it on my uniform?" Wilson asked Rivetti.

Greg nodded at the commander. "Aye sir." He turned to Nelis for the third time. "You, stay here till relieved." Then he pointed at Wilson. "Contact me if you have anything."

"...aye Chief." The guard mumbled.

Greg looked back at Jensen. "Alright Petty Officer. Let's get this looked at."

Nelis' lip twitched. She studied the XO. She followed Wilson and the XO to the interview room.

[OFF]

----------

RADM Lirha Saalm
Commanding Officer
USS Galileo

&

Lieutenant Commander Luke Wyatt
Chief strategic Operations officer
USS Galileo

&

Commander Langdale Wiggins
First Officer
USS Galileo

&

CWO3 Greg Mitchell
Security Officer
USS Galileo

&

PO Nelis,
Petty Officer,
USS Galileo
(PNPC played by Braxton MacKenzie)

NPCs - Gyce, Jensen, Wilson

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