<USS Avalon> Log-Deception....Dissention....Destruction PT1
- From: Dodge Thomas <dodgethomas2000@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: avalon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2003 10:16:26 -0700 (PDT)
Deception?.Dissention.?Destruction
PT1
?Come on Hobbes, it?s nearly eleven o?clock. I?m getting tired.?
Hobbes let out a heavy sigh, leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes.
?You?re right Annie. Let me close up here.?
Anilla Aguatequa squinted at his screen. ?What kind of energy waves are those??
?Zeta band radiation. I was--uh--running a few tests on the--uh--differential
spread and decay.?
Anilla cocked her head and perked an eyebrow. ?Oh. So----you wanna grab dinner
or something??
?Yea yea?sure. Just let me drop off this information.?
?Okay. I?ll wait outside.?
Hobbes listened as the doors to engineering slid shut. It was quiet and that
was good. He stood, pressed a few buttons and removed the isolinear chip from
his console.
?That delay was unpleasant.?
Hobbes jumped, the female voice startling him.
?You?re early?I?m?I?m sorry. I didn?t know.?
?Yes, you did.?
?It couldn?t be helped--she wouldn?t leave me alone.?
?I?m afraid I?ve grown tired of your incompetence.?
?What!?? Hobbes rubbed his hands together nervously, edging towards the exit.
?You served your purpose.?
?But--But you promised to pay me!?
?Oh don?t worry, I will.? A black weapon emerged from the woman?s robes.
?No! You can?t do this!?
?Hobbes my dear, what?s the first rule in dancing with the devil??
?I--I don?t know. Please don?t do this.?
The doors to engineering slid open.
?Hobbes,? Anilla spoke casually. ?Are you com--? A look of shock overcame her.
?Who--??
The woman squeezed the trigger.
Two blasts of energy emerged from the weapon in quick succession, followed
immediately by two more. All four ripped into Hobbes? upper chest cavity,
tearing through his body. Two of them continued on, striking Anilla in the
right shoulder and ribcage before finally dissipating. She spun into a
bulkhead, then slipped to the ground, blood marking her slow and painful
descent.
Hobbes took a step back and gasped, two huge, gaping wounds in his body. A
strangled look of surprise still lingered on his face. With one final and all
together shocked gurgle, he too collapsed onto the floor in a bloody heap.
?Don?t.? She answered her question smugly, slipping the weapon into her robes
and exiting engineering casually, pausing only to extract the isolinear chip
from the now stiffening hand of Ensign Hobbes Harvey.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Sirius Black was almost ten minutes late for his shift, but he didn?t care. He
was constantly late and no one ever said a thing.
So when he arrived at the doors to engineering only to be halted by an armed
security guard, he was a little surprised and more than a little afraid.
?Here now, what?s going on??
?We?re under orders to restrict access to this station.?
?Why??
?Security reasons.?
?Sirius! Sirius, did you hear?? Dodge Thomas was practically sprinting down the
corridor.? He stopped short when he saw what was happening in the corridor.
?You three don?t need to restrain him, he?s just reporting for his scheduled
shift.?
The three guards gave him a distrustful look.
?Sorry, Lieutenant Dodge Thomas, reporting as requested.?
?Our apologies, sir. The commander wants you inside immediately.?
Dodge nodded and patted Sirius on the shoulder. You should go home now. There?s
nothing here for you to see.?
?Aye sir.? Sirius looked at the doors to engineering nervously, then glanced at
the guards in succession. ?Hope you boys can get the job done.?
One of the guards glared. ?We always do.?
Dodge sighed and looked at one of the guards squarely. ?Do you mind??
?Oh, sorry sir.? The guard fumbled as he stepped aside.
The doors slid open and Dodge gasped. Blood was everywhere. More blood than he
had seen in a long time, and more blood than he had ever wanted to see again. A
white sheet lay on the floor covering some hulking lump. Red stained it in
several areas.
?What?--Who??
?Ah, Dodge, so glad you could make it.? Commander Javan Sierra glanced at
Dodge, then returned to Doctor Kaiser. ?Anything else??
?Not right at the moment. The thoracic and epigastric regions of his body have
been severely traumatized. His heart and lungs, not to mention a good deal of
his upper gastric organs are in pieces all over the wall and floor.?
?Yes, but what can you tell me? What happened??
Carson Fuller stood up from his crouching position on the floor. ?I?d say,
Commander, he?s dead.?
?Yes, of course he?s dead. Any fool could tell that!?
?And I?d say that someone probably murdered him?unless he managed to hide the
weapon sometime after fatally expulsing his insides and scattering them all
over the room.?
Javan glared at Doctor Fuller, his lips becoming thin lines. He opened his
mouth to say something, thought better of it, and spoke. ?Fine. Keep me
informed. I want a full medical diagnostic done on this one and a complete
forensic follow up. I also want to be fully briefed on the autopsy and
analysis.?
?But sir.? Carson protested. ?Those are basically all the same thing. That?s a
lot of work for a few differentials!?
Javan tilted his head and smiled innocently. ?Is it? Odd. Carry on then.? He
nodded, turned and left.
?Asshole.? Carson mumbled as soon as the doors slid shut behind him.
Dodge cleared his throat, catching the attention of both Forensic Doctors.
?Will someone kindly fill me in on what just happened??
_____________________________________________________________________________________
?Can you believe it? Four complete reports! On the same fucking thing!
Unbelievable!? Carson clenched his jaw and activated his tricorder.
?You were a bit rude to him.? Lindsay sighed, pulling her hair back before
stretching a pair of diagnostic gloves onto her hands. ?You always have to have
the last word, don?t you??
?I don?t know what you?re talking about.? Carson replied as he also put on his
gloves. ?The man?s an arrogant bastard, ignorant and--?
?And he?s our new boss, so you better start respecting him. For Christ?s sake,
Carson, this is only our second day and already you?ve got management pissed at
us.? She uncovered the body. ?Subject is a male, approximately thirty five, six
foot four maybe two hundred and twenty pounds--with all his organs.?
?I don?t think I can work with this man, Lindsay. He?s too much like Magistrate
Prillis on Drendor Five. Remember him??
?Of course I do. Massive heat related trauma and damage to the entire anterior
surface of the body. It appears that large portions of the victim?s uniform has
been melted to his skin. Carson, look at this will you??
Carson sniffed and leaned over. ?What??
?Look at the burn pattern.?
?So??
?See the spirals? This wasn?t done by any federation weapon. Maybe a disrupter
could have cause this??
?No, disrupter burns are more scattered, the energy is far too unfocused to
create such a precise marking.
?This actually looks as if it was caused by a pulse-energy weapon rather than a
phaser. See? There are four distinct cavities. A phaser would have simply
sliced the flesh apart. These are impact wounds. There and there. See? The
sternum, scapula and most of his thoracic vertebrae have been charred and,? he
glanced at a container of various parts, ?expelled, but they weren?t vaporized.
I?d say whatever weapon was used utilized a phased particle charge.?
?That would carry enough energy to both burn and crush. And the damage would be
consistent with the girl?s wounds. Hers were less pronounced, more like a
plasma burn than anything else.?
?But who uses phased particle weaponry? It was banned by the Aldonian Treaty
over twenty years ago.?
?Well, the Borg, but I doubt we have any drones running around the ship capping
off engineers.?
?The Gorn do.?
?And the Cardassians.? Someone spoke from behind them. ?How goes the autopsy
doctors??
?Commander Sierra, what a pleasant surprise.? Carson said sarcastically,
ignoring the angry glare Lindsay gave him.?
?I doubt that.? Sierra nodded at both of them.
Lindsay smiled graciously. ?It would appear that the victim was?gutted?by a
weapon of non-Federation origin, possible Gorn or Cardassian.?
?Indeed. That is interesting. Keep me informed of any changes.?
?I?d like permission to return to engineering, to run some scans.? Carson asked
amiably.
Javan stared long and hard at him. ?Granted.? He said finally. ?I want to know
everything that I can about this?incident.?
?Aye sir.?
The two doctors watched as Commander Sierra turned and left. Lindsay smiled and
gave Carson a playful jab to the ribs.
?See? That wasn?t so hard.?
?Just shut up.?
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Dodge turned the lights to his quarters off and sat in the darkness.
A quiet stream of constant noise poured fourth from the dark figure who was
currently rocking back and forth in the corner.
?Ed. Shut up.?
The holographic cat did not shut up, nor did he cease rocking back and forth,
an activity that produced an distinctively aggravating sound as the cat?s body
met the bulk head over and over and over again. Dodge?s left eye twitched
involuntarily.
?Ed. Shut-up. Now!?
He turned the lights back on, watching in grotesque fascination as the cat
jumped up and screamed.
?Fmaldo-glimbo-nu!?
?Right.?
Apparently, darkness or not, Dodge wasn?t going to be getting much sleep.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
?It?s strange how this should happen, you know?? Carson pointed out absently as
he and Lindsay Kaiser ran a manual sweep of engineering.
?What do you mean??
?Well, it?s obvious that some kind of high energy weapon was put to use, right??
?Sure.?
?So then why didn?t the safety alarms go off??
?What do you mean??
?I mean, you fire a phaser inside the ship without authorization and bam!
You?ve got security guards with the big guns baring down your throat.?
?So??
?So, no alarms, no guns. Whoever did this knew what they were doing.?
Lindsay?s tricorder gave a whining beep. She read it for a moment then spoke.
?I?m picking up a residual holographic imaging shadow.?
?What??
?It looks like someone was using a portable holographic simulation device,
right around the same time as the incident.?
?But nobody onboard this ship possesses that kind of technology.?
Lindsay thought for a moment, then looked at Carson.
?Except your new friend, Dodge.?
?Oh my god--But why??
?Does it matter??
?We have to stop this now, before anything else happens.? Carson tapped his
combadge. ?Fuller to security, we need immediate assistance in Lieutenant
Thomas?s quarters.?
He waited for a moment, but there was no response.
?Shit. He must have cut communications.? Carson stared up at the ceiling.
?What do we do now, then??
?We bring him down ourselves.?
?Right.?
?Let?s go.?
---------------------------------
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