The second piece of the puzzle...

Posted on 10 Jun 2023 @ 9:50am by Petty Officer 1st Class Gabriel Stark & Petty Officer 1st Class Ember Locksley & Ensign Mimi

1,325 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Episode 18 - Cold Station 31
Location: USS Galileo-A - Security Office
Timeline: MD 11, 0545 hrs

ON:

Gabriel set water down on the table in front of Mimi - in a paper cup - before joining her at the other side of the table. Dr. Locksley had insisted that she should sit in on Mimi's interview to keep an eye on her condition, given that she still wasn't fully recovered from the amount of trauma visited upon her in a single day. Gabriel had talked her down to watching from a monitor so she could intervene via commlink *if* any medical concerns arose, but that was as far as he was willing to give. This whole debacle was giving him a permanent headache, and he didn't need anything else adding to it.

"I hope you're recovering well from your injuries?" he asked as an opening gambit. From a professional point of view, it logged that he was showing concern and recognition for her predicament. But in reality, he also wasn't a bastard, and hoped that it was the case.

"I was told the knife missed anything vital, but it will still be a while till I am.... one hundred percent." Mimi replied, she felt horrendous but was putting on a brave face.

Gabriel nodded, taking a moment to let them both gather their thoughts. "I need you to take me through what happened, from that first fight at dinner to the Captain's death."

"He admitted he was the one responsible for mass.. a.... killing a whole colony of nekomi, the colony I grew up on, the colony I was the person found alive on after the klingons left." Mimi said, her fur bristled and her tail twitched as she spoke.

The physical reactions weren't lost on Gabriel, and he sat back from his Padd just to take her in, allowing a moment for her to catch her breath. "So you attacked him?" he asked quietly, wanting to ascertain who 'threw the first punch'.

"I tackled him out of his chair and slashed at his face." Mimi said nodding slightly.

He nodded softly, admittedly relieved for her bluntness. It was a sign she wasn't trying to put a veil over what had happened. At this point at least. "What do you remember after that?" he asked, his understanding being that it might be something of a blur.

"It is very hard to get a Nekomi to attack you but when we do it is..... extreme, we can get extremely fierce and... somewhat blind to what is going on around us." Mimi explained. "We kept fighting till someone stunned us, I know we stabbed each other."

Gabriel nodded slowly, noting her wording down on the padd. So far, it didn't differ from what they knew from the reports, so that was one less headache. "And what do you remember about Sickbay?"

"Not much, I was under sedation, I didn't wake up until I heard KehG shouting." She answered. "But something definitely happened, I felt something in the room with us."

"Felt?" Gabriel asked quietly, intrigued by the word she had chosen. He didn't know much about her physiology, something he realised he needed to remedy for the investigation, but her wording implied some kind of sense beyond hearing.

"More a...." Mimi made a few unusual sounds as she thought for the right word. "Primitive instinct, something I did not recognize came close to me. It was not anyone from the ship, I know all their scents and it was not any of them."

Gabriel managed to curb his curiosity and stop himself from asking a million and one questions about her very cool senses and how they worked. It was quite literally not the time or place. "So what happened when you woke up to KehG's shouting?"

"I saw a klingon knife in my hand covered in his blood. I dropped it straight away." Mimi replied. "I do not know where it came from. KehG fell off the biobed and started crawling towards me bleeding everywhere."

"So KehG seemed to believe it was you," he half pointed out, half mused as he made a note of it. "And when you attacked him that way, you must have been baying for blood."

Mimi cocked her head to the side slightly, the way Gabriel constructed his sentence confused her slightly and she took several long moments to respond. "When we fought I wanted nothing less than his death as a.... raged Nekomi would given what he did to us." Mimi said fully admitting she would have killed him given the chance. "But if I wanted him dead I would have fought him, not stabbed him in his sleep."

Gabriel sat back at the words, just watching her for a long moment. He was conflicted. Because he believed her. What she said made sense. It was one thing escalating violence in a fight. Quite another to stab a prone man in cold blood. But that left another disturbing option. That an unknown killer had been, or still was, aboard the ship. "What did KehG say after the second attack in Sickbay?"

"He crawled over and tried to choke me, wanting to take me with him to the afterlife." Mimi replied. "I managed to activate the Emh to help me as no one had arrived yet."

Her version matched the evidence they had. And none of it sat right. The headache behind Gabriel's eyes sharpened as he tried to reconcile the proposed timeline. So, what...Mimi would have got up, taken a knife and stabbed him, all while sedated, as confirmed by the medical staff, and then taken herself neatly back to bed...laid back down...for the victim to then follow her back and choke her while newly laid out. "This...sense you had. Of someone else. Do you think you could recognise them if they were close to you again?"

"Maybe." Mimi said after a long pause where she had slumped back innher chair slightly and closed her eyes; her face going through several different expressions as discomfort and a little pain moved across her stomach area. "It was not any of our crew, I am sure of that."

Gabriel nodded gently, not needing the doctor monitoring to tell him she was flagging. "Thank you, Mimi, we'll finish there. We can talk again if I need anything else," he assured, shutting down the recordings. "Do you need me to call the doctor for you?" he looked her over with concern. She had to be exhausted with how much she'd gone through in such a short space of time.

Mimi groaned slightly. "That may be a good idea." She said exhaling heavily.

Gabriel moved to help her up, offering an arm as he led her back to the brig. The upside of a tiny Security office meant nothing was far away. He was just about to raise the shield when Locksley arrived, already shaking her head.

"I want to check her over first," she said firmly, clearly in no mood for an argument over it. She moved inside without being invited, not noticing Gabriel's slight chuckle as he hung back to give them space.

Ember moved the tricorder probe slowly over her as she knelt by her side. "You did well," she said softly, but kept her eyes on the readouts.

"Thanks." Mimi said relatively weakly. "I feel terrible..." She paused as her stomach made an uncomforting noise. "and hungry."

Ember reached into the medkit, pressing a hypo to her neck to make her feel more comfortable. "I'll ask him to bring you something. In the meantime, try your best to relax and rest. You're going to need it."

"I will try." Mimi said, slowly she bought her legs up onto what counted for a bed in the brig and lay down.

OFF:

Ensign Mimi
Assistant Chief Operations Officer
USS Galileo-A

PO1 Gabriel Stark
Security
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Blake]

Dr. Ember Locksley
Medical
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Blake]

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