So Many Questions, So Few Answers
Posted on Sun Jul 16th, 2017 @ 7:34pm by Captain Liarra Von & Lieutenant Commander Marit Lantry M.D., Ph.D. & Commander Talia Varen
Mission:
Shadows and Whispers
Location: Main Infirmary, Intensive Care Unit
The door to the observation room slid open, and through them strolled an anxious Captain Von and Doctor Lantry. A security guard waited outside the door. She paused at the end of the biobed while Doctor Varen completed her scans. "How is, he Doctor? If he's stable, we need to ask him a few questions."
"He's stable, but I have him under pretty heavy sedation at the moment so that he doesn't aggravate the healing." Pursing her lips the Vulcan hybrid looked up at her captain. "Have a seat. It might take him a while to wake up."
"Can you start to wake him." Her tone of voice indicated that it was not a question. "We need to know if he was working alone, or if there are others waiting for another attack. After all, someone had hired some mercenaries to make sure we were dead. I have a hard time believing that he did that." Von took a seat near the bed, but she watched Vernon carefully.
Her fingers drifted over the dials on the biobed, dialing back the sedation she'd kept him under since he tore his wounds open trying to fight the restraints they had him in. Couldn't have him running around, trying to hurt anyone else.
Marit waited a nervous anticipation as the doctor gradually reduced their patients sedation. There was no question they all needed answers, but the counselor was wary of having the captain around. It wasn't that she didn't trust her, it was just that she had been through a traumatic experience, and there was no telling what the attacker would have to say or what he might do just to push the right buttons.
After a short time Vernon started to come around, but with the lower sedative level, the pain from both the surgery, and his fight with S'er'in'e, were starting to come back. As consciousness came back and he became aware of his surroundings, he started to struggle against his bindings, but to no avail. He quickly gave up. His head turned to the side and he caught sight of Von staring back at him.
"Welcome back, Daniel," Von called out, careful to keep the tone of her voice civil. She had dealt with prisoners and criminals before, but this was the first time that anyone had ever specifically tried to kill just her. Even her run-ins with the Sojourners hadn't been this individually targeted, though she hadn't ruled out the possibility that they were involved. She leaned forward towards Vernon, keeping her voice low. "Don't worry, Colonel S'er'in'e wasn't critically injured. We both thought that it was best that he stayed away from this conversation. I'm sure you agree." Her eyes darted towards the bandages on his chest, still covering sutures from his surgery.
Vernon's voice was shaky. "Wh, what do you want?" he asked.
"We just want to ask you a few questions," Von replied. She gestured first to the woman next to her, and then to the doctor on the other side of the biobed. "Doctor Lantry is here to assist me, and Doctor Varen over there will make sure that you're taken care of." Von stood up slowly, careful not to seem too aggressive. In the back of her mind she would have loved to have roughed him up, but given his physical and emotional state, that seemed like a bad idea. She moved closer to the bed. "I need to know if you or anyone else has put anyone else on this station at risk."
When he tugged again at his restraints Talia stepped into the line of sight and spoke "If you continue, I will have to temporarily paralyze your body. I do not wish to take such measures."
Daniel looked around the room and considered trying to get loose again, but he soon realized that he wasn't going to win that fight. "They told me that they wouldn't go after anyone else. I never wanted to harm anyone but you." There was a hint of contempt in his voice when he spoke to Von.
"Who are they?" Liarra asked as a follow up. She ignored the other part for now. If there were others involved, she needed to know that now.
Vernon shook his head. "I don't know. They contacted me, never mentioned their name. All I know is that I'm not the only one you've wronged."
Liarra looked over at Lantry before turning back to Vernon. "What have I done to wrong you?" As she asked, she thought about what she had read in his record. "Ah, I think I've got it. Your family, right? You lost your wife and two daughters when the Sojourners bombed the station." It wasn't a question.
He started to squirm again, but stopped when he received a look from Doctor Varen. Vernon nodded.
Von leaned back in her chair. "You know I wasn't even at the station when that happened. I wasn't even in command. I was conducting a training exercise at the time. But you still blame me, don't you?"
Vernon tried not to look at her. "Maybe you couldn't have done anything to save my family. But how many more lives were lost because you did nothing? How many more families were shattered because you did stop the Sojourners when you had the chance?"
He had managed to strike a nerve, but Liarra held her ground. She refused to show him how much she was hurt by the accusations. If she had had her way, Starfleet would have sent a task force to properly deal with the Sojourner threat. But politics called for a containment policy instead of direct military action, a policy that Von felt prolonged the conflict. "You blame me for a decision made on Earth. It was a political decision, and one that was out of my hands. But I have a feeling that you knew that already. Did you hire the mercenaries that came after us after your bomb failed?"
Vernon looked back to Von with a confused look on his face. "I never sent any mercenaries. I have no idea what you're talking about."
Liarra wasn't sure if she could believe him, and looked to Lantry for her thoughts.
Talia scanned him slowly, once more. She administered something to him, nodded her head and sat back down.
The counselor gave the Captain a simple nod, indicating she thought he was telling the truth. Unless he was a master psychopath, she figured it would be difficult for him to lie while being in such pain. If it were true he had done this because he had lost his family, that made him being a psychopath less likely. In the brief exchange the two women shared, the counselor searched the other woman's face for any signs of distress. She knew Vernon's accusations had to hurt more than she was letting on. Even though they all knew intellectually, what Vernon was saying was nonsense, every captain felt responsibility for the things that happened to his or her crew regardless. "Perhaps the people you work for sent them. What I don't understand is if you had a personal grudge to settle, why would you need anyone else to be involved?"
Vernon's struggling receded after the doctor's hypospray. The mild sedative numbed his body, but his mind was still awake. He resigned to his fate of lying in the bed confined. "I didn't ask anyone else to be involved. My personal grudge was, I thought, mine alone. But these people contacted me, told me that I could be doing a great service to the Federation if I acted on my feelings. Colonel S'er'in'e was not the target." Vernon grimaced at the thought of the feline clawing his chest. "I never wanted him to get hurt. He just got in the way."
Von tried to remain stoic through the ordeal. Lantry's suspicions were correct that she was harboring some regret over what had happened. Added to that was the anxiety that there were others out there that wanted her out of the picture, as a personal grudge or something political. Maybe Vernon didn't known who persuaded him to attempt to kill her, but that only made it worse in her mind. How could she rest when there was still someone out there that wanted her dead.
But Liarra tried to shake those thoughts from her mind. She leaned back in towards Vernon. "Daniel, I know losing your family was difficult. I lost a child once, and I was devastated. But it didn't make me want to kill the doctors that couldn't save his life. I'm sorry for your family. I really am. But killing me wouldn't have brought them back."
Vernon shook his head. "Maybe not, but it would have eased the pain." He turned his head away from the captain, making it clear that he wanted no more of the conversation.
Von rose to her feet. She had a feeling she wasn't going to get anything more out of him for now. "Take care of him doctor. When he's well, he'll be facing court martial. And there's going to be a lot more questions for him."
Captain Liarra Von
Commanding Officer
Lt. Commander Talia Varen
Chief of Medicine
Lt. Commander Marit Lantry
Chief Counselor
