The Shuttle
Posted on Sun Nov 13th, 2016 @ 7:41pm by Captain Liarra Von & Lieutenant Commander Le Austin & Commander Soleck
Mission:
Shadows and Whispers
Location: Shuttle Repair Bay 219 (Locked Down)
"Thanks for coming down so quick," Austin said, tapping in the code that would allow access to bay 219 where Captain Von's wreckage was stowed. "I wanted to show you guys first hand what I found before I even logged it." He explained.
"Understandable, given the circumstances," The XO replied, nodding.
Von nodded as well. "Thank you, Commander. I'm anxious to see what you've found."
"Then I won't keep you waiting," He said, heading directly to the charred out shuttle and stepping up into it. The inside of the cabin had seen better days, but the engine compartment was where the worst of damage was apparent. Austin knelt down next to the access hatch and started pointing out details.
"That, right there," He said, indicating a rectangular section that had been burnt away, "Is the fire control box that controls the suppression systems. Whoever set this up was trying to make it look like everything was working just fine. They put what they used to start the fire in there, disguised as the control measures. All of that junk at the bottom of the hatch is the incendiary device. It's too fragged for me to tell you where it came from or how it got there, but it's definitely a fire bomb," He explained.
He then indicated a series of charred pipes running around the exterior edge of the hatch egress, "And the secondary fire suppression conduits have been micro-perforated so that when they pressurized and filled with fire retardant it just blew out in this fairly useless mist instead of being piped over to the nozzles that would have provided enough pressure to put out the blaze," He explained.
"So to say that this was intentional..." Soleck said, letting his statement trail off.
"Would be like saying Klingons can get cranky," Austin replied, nodding. "Someone wanted this ship to go down and they went to a lot of trouble to do it."
Soleck looked to the Captain, "Which means whoever did this may be exceptionally unhappy that you've returned."
"I'm not surprised," Von replied, her expression showing that she was deep in thought. "There were mercenaries of some sort on the planet looking for us. Colonel S'er'in'e had to kill one of them to get them off our trail. I was told by Colonel Maxwell that they detected some sort of ship, but it had left the system before they could intercept. Whoever want this ship to go down wanted to make sure that the job was done. At least enough to send backup. So the questions we need to answer are which of us was the target, who wanted us dead, and why. Any idea who could have had access to the shuttle prior to launch?"
"Guess what logs are corrupted and mysteriously didn't back themselves up," Austin said with a dry smile. "I'm having one of my guys scrub all of the entry and egress logs for the hangar your shuttle was in and cross reference those with crew movements and work orders. I can't give you a smoking gun, but I should be able to hopefully give you a short list of folks who were here without a reason on record," He explains. "I'm just hoping our would-be killer is too dumb too have thought that far ahead," He explained.
Soleck nodded, eye brow arched, "With your permission, Captain, I'd like to have a security escort assigned to you and S'er'in'e to discretely monitor your well being. Nothing obvious as to not alarm the station population, but close by in case anyone attempts to... finish the job," He explained.
When Griffiths had suggested the idea, Von was against it. But now that an attempt had been made on her or S'er'in'e's life, a little extra protection didn't sound so bad. "Let's try to keep it discrete. I don't need a marine escort every where I go, but some extra eyes and ears won't be a bad thing. The only concern I have is if we should tell the Colonel. I don't want to alarm him, but he may appreciate the extra precautions, given the circumstances. At least until we can figure out who was the target. It might be a good time to meet with him and see if he can think of anyone that might want him dead. I would think that his list would be a lot shorter than mine."
"Concur," Soleck said with a nod.
"Okay, well, I'll let you two muckity mucks handle all the official hand holding," Austin said with a smirk. "I'm going to go see if I can help my guys narrow down our list of possible offenders so I can get that data to you double-time," He said, offering a salute and waiting to be officially dismissed.
"Thank you, Commander. Keep us posted on whatever you come up with." Von turned back to Soleck. "I don't know if it's the stress of our ordeal, or something else, but Colonel S'er'in'e hasn't been opening up to me much of late. I want you to talk to him and see what you can learn about potential enemies."
"I am not sure what I could glean that you have not been able as one of the newer crew members, but I will do what I can," He replied with a slight bow.
"We will leave to you work, Commander," Soleck said, offering Austin a slight bow before turning away and heading toward the doors to the hangar with Von.
"The plot thickens and thickens, My Dear Watson," Austin sighed to himself before turning and heading back to his office to try and narrow down who might have done this. It was never easy. Not ever.
Captain Liarra Von
Commanding Officer
Commander Soleck [P: Le]
Executive Officer
Lt. Commander Le Austin
Chief of Operations
