Reasonable Doubt

Posted on 24 Aug 2023 @ 5:46pm by Commander Morgan Tarin & Petty Officer 1st Class Gabriel Stark

2,035 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Episode 18 - Cold Station 31
Location: USS Galileo-A - Deck 2, Captain's Ready Room
Timeline: MD 12, 1104 hrs

[ON]

Gabriel took a moment to tug his jacket straight before pressing the chime to Tarin's office. He gripped the PADD tightly, letting out a long breath as his fingers drummed on the back of it. He didn't relish telling the Captain what he'd found out. On the contrary; the phrase 'shoot the messenger' had flashed through his mind.

There was a several-second delay while Tarin pulled her uniform jacket over her bare arms and vest to formally dress herself. "Yes, come."

Gabriel moved inside, taking a slight breath to steel himself against having to deliver the bad news. "Captain, we have a new prime suspect for the murder," he kept it to the point, because he knew she wasn't going to like it.

The interior of Tarin's temporary office contained none of her private amenities or personal decorations. In fact, all of those which remained belonged to Captain Saalm, the starship's true commanding officer who was away on a private, classified assignment. Morgan hadn't thought it proper to disturb her legacy nor her decorative tastes; this was, afterall, a temporary assignment. As she finished zipping her uniform jacket to its collar, she couldn't help but be reminded by the various Orion decorations that this was not, in fact, her ship. Yet when the security officer appeared in front of her with new news, it felt strangely personal. As if she were more than a temporary steward.

"Stark, good," she quickly replied, anxious to put an end to this security investigation once and for all. "What do you have for me?"

Moving to close the gap between them, Gabriel offered over the PADD that contained his written report. Then, he pulled his shoulders back and decided it was better to rip the plaster off. "The evidence points to a Klingon, Brin't'a."

The acting captain slowly accepted the PADD while frowning with sudden skepticism. "Brin't'a...the Klingon security chief who attended our diplomatic dinner?" she attempted to clarify. She hadn't thought of that name for some time. Based upon Tarin's short observation of the woman, the Klingon officer - while extremely pontifical - hadn't projected any outward indications of intent to murder. "Explain."

Gabriel nodded, clearly prepared for the question. "I enlisted the expertise of Vansen. We were unable to make out any more of the Sickbay footage," he started, his tone of voice almost gentle, as if breaking personal bad news to someone. "But we were able to trace the kill command for one of the Sickbay feeds to a console on Deck 2. We found only one anomalous use of that console in the preceding 24 hours, and the session included the inputting of a command that could be remotely activated off ship to gain access to our security systems. Cross referencing the movements of everyone on the ship to the time of that session, it was clearly a Klingon who was using that console at the time and not one of our crew members. They'd also managed to corrupt the two main security feeds that would record them at the console, but missed the camera at the corridor intersection that has a side on view from a few meters away. As you can see in the report...the playback is clear enough to identify that it was Brin't'a at the console. She also matches the height that Vansen was able to work out from the Sickbay cloaked figure."

Tarin's attention shifted from the petty officer's vocal explanation down to the PADD he'd handed her. She sat in silence at her desk for several minutes while scrolling through the fully-prepared report and its various forms of evidence. She reviewed the provided data network access logs in conjunction with the visual security feeds and their corresponding timestamps. Her eyes seemed intensely focused on the information she was absorbing. Tarin eventually looked up from the slim silver device. "If this is true...how was she allowed to roam Galileo and perform this action without any of our crew members noticing? And for what purpose? Why would she kill her own captain in such a dishonorable manner?"

Gabriel tilted his head as he thought on the questions, relaxing at her taking it better than he had expected. "The last two questions, you'd have to ask her...but somehow, I suspect we won't be granted an interview," he offered lightly but wryly. "As for the first, if I can be frank, Captain? She should never have been allowed to roam the ship alone, unfortunately it was an inevitable symptom of our department being so understaffed."

The petty officer wasn't wrong. The starship's small Security department was currently half-staffed which undoubtedly meant gaps in patrol coverage were to be expected. Shaking her head slowly in a still-dubious manner, Tarin tried to piece the puzzle together. "So. You believe Brin't'a infiltrated Galileo's systems while she was aboard during the diplomatic event, then left with her delegation only to return hours later to personally assassinate Captain KehG?" She tried to reconstruct the timeline in her own head.

"Yes," Gabriel took an absent step closer as he started to get more comfortable with talking it through. "It was shortly before they all beamed back to their ship in fact, that she accessed the console on Deck 2, left a 'backdoor' in the system so that later, she can activate it remotely to bypass security, corrupt the feeds and beam in without detection. She's also wearing some kind of personal cloak as we saw in that snippet of Sickbay security footage we managed to isolate...that wasn't distortion, that was what was recorded. I...spent very little time with them though, so I can't really speculate on the why."

A personal cloaking device? She'd never heard of this sort of technology throughout the many years of her career. Uncertainty permeated her thoughts while she still struggled to understand how this new evidence was leading to an acquittal of Ensign Mimi. "You admit you don't have a motive for Brin't'a to kill her own commander and you don't have visual evidence that she was the one in this sickbay recording. The computer's height extrapolation could match any of the other five-hundred Klingons aboard Praxis." Tarin looked back to the PADD then back up. "Or someone on Galileo."

Gabriel shook his head gently, motioning to the padd in her hand. "You'll see that the heat signature from the cloaked person was colder, in line with the lower Klingon body temperature. We know the Sickbay doors didn't open, so the killer must have already been in there or beamed in. That also aligns with the Nurses' statement. A transport from our transporters would have been logged, and none were. So it wasn't our transporter. We know the Thalium was sourced from Klingon territory. And seeing as we've established that Brin't'a was the one who bypassed security to allow the murderer to beam in, *and* corrupted digital evidence from the murder scene, that means it must either have been her who beamed in and carried out the murder, or she was directly working with someone else as an accomplice to murder..."

Gabriel paused to let the train of thought sink in, for both of them, before addressing her other question. "And as for motive...it might satisfy our curiosity, but in terms of proof...well, demonstrating the motive isn't actually necessary in proving a crime...it's a useful tool for investigators to narrow down the right suspects to investigate, but it's not a required element when it comes to proof of crime. Only means, opportunity and *intent* are...the first two I've already spoken to, and the intent is clear; deliberately compromising our systems in order to commit a murder and wilfully destroying evidence in an attempt to cover it up," Gabriel spread his hands to either side, tilting his head thoughtfully. "I didn't spend much time with the Klingons, I wasn't at the dinner, so I don't know their dynamics...but from previous experience? There's a lot of power play that goes on in their culture."

Tarin leaned back in her chair and softly massaged her temples. This whole situation was a mess. Brin't'a, KehG, Mimi. How and why had she allowed this to happen aboard her own starship? The complexities of understanding Starfleet criminal charges were nuanced yet also relatively simple. In this case, as much as the petty officer continued to focus on proving the Klingon woman's guilt, the actual case to be made was different and much simpler. She briefly returned her attention to the PADD then raised it in her hand. "Your investigation's turned up a lot of compelling data," said Tarin after a short moment. "Unfortunately, none of it can prove Brin't'a is the one who killed Captain KehG. Your evidence is circumstantial, not definitive." Without visual or sensor analysis confirming the woman was at the scene of the murder, there was ultimately nothing the acting captain could pursue further.

"But," she raised her eyebrows to Stark and wiggled the PADD, "what this does show is that Ensign Mimi wasn't the one who killed the Klingon captain. And that's enough for me to exonerate her."

"Well it's a start," Gabriel gave a small smile at the words, folding his arms with satisfaction. Because what he wanted more than anything was to get an innocent woman out of the brig. "What I would say though, Captain? That evidence does show that Brin't'a is guilty of a crime here. At the very least, it's enough to prove she's an accessory to murder. So at least it's the first step to finding out if there are more threads to pull at here."

The commander agreed wholeheartedly with Stark's last statement. Brin't'a might or might not have directly killed Captain KehG, but she was certainly involved. Somehow. Right now, however, she was mostly relieved that one of her own officers hadn't committed a heinous crime under her watch. "It's probably time I speak to Commander Kuran. I still need to inform him of his captain's death in our sickbay. I'll present your findings and do my best to coerce more information from him." She slowly nodded to herself now that she had a prominent lead to follow. "Good work, petty officer."

Gabriel nodded with a small smile, letting out a soft breath of relief. He wasn't naïve. He knew the Captain couldn't go in there all guns blazing, demanding frontier justice. With something this politically sensitive, a longer game would likely have to be played out. "My pleasure, Captain," he said softly but honestly. Seeing Mimi shut away had become more and more difficult.

"Have you showed this," her eyes flicked to the PADD of evidence he'd presented her, "to Commander Blake yet?" While Tarin was Galileo's acting commanding officer and possessed full and final authority, she wanted a second set of eyes on the data before she officially took further action.

"No, I came straight here after compiling it," Gabriel confirmed, not sure if that was the right protocol as reports usually travelled upward through the chain...but this had felt sufficiently urgent and confidential to bring straight to the Captain.

"Good." Tarin felt fortunate that she was the first one to receive this report. After all, she'd tasked Stark with conducting the investigation in the first place, but the fact that he hadn't undermined her authority was a welcome relief. "Go see her and present your results. Then Commander Warraquim. They both have to corroborate your findings before the ensign can be released from the brig. Hopefully that won't take long." She tapped the PADD to transfer its data to her own administrative console then handed it back to him. "Dismissed."

Gabriel nodded sharply to show he understood as he took the PADD back. He turned and left quickly, his step decidedly lighter as he made his way to the First Officer's office, eager to get this sorted out once and for all.

[OFF]

--

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

CMDR Morgan Tarin
Acting Commanding Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Saalm]

RSS Feed