<USS Avalon> "The Jigsaw Puzzle"

“The Jigsaw Puzzle”
by Commander Javan Sierra
Junior Lieutenant Gregory Orton
Junior Lieutenant Savannah Eckstein
& Ensign Evan Benevente



Javan’s ears perked as he heard Lieutenant JG Melanie Redgrave’s report about their apparent killer. It didn’t quite register at first, but after thinking about it momentarily he sighed and realized that it was the most logical conclusion given the circumstances. Placing a PADD on the desk, Javan walked into the security office’s central room. “All right, listen up.”

The people on shift merged into a position in which they could hear him and went silent. It was nice to finally have some sort of obedience on board after nearly two years in space. They finally knew when to talk and when to shut the hell up. “OK, as you are all undoubtedly aware, there has been a murder on board. That is the reason for Captain Ketchum’s return to the Avalon.”

Muffled suspicions circled the group in record time, but Javan raised his hands to silence them quickly. “I know that you all have questions and worries and things of the sort, but as security officers we have to do our duty to protecting the Avalon and the people on board. It is because of that we are investigating the possible killer.”

“Who is it?” Zachary Winters said as the small group parted like the Red Sea. He had a habit of beckoning out above the rest to draw attention, or spur on the information - Javan wasn’t quite sure which one it was.

Javan looked down at the Lieutenant, not really wanting to tell the whole crowd, “We believe it is Petty Officer Lol Kendrick,” he quickly neutralized another rousing of concern from his subordinates, “you guys all have your assignments, so listen up. Savannah?”

“Yes, sir?” The red headed woman stepped up and placed her hands behind her back in that attention-grabbing posture. Mostly because it shoved her chest out and every guy in the room looked straight at her, “what are my orders?”

Smiling slightly, he tilted his head, “his office, Lieutenant. I want all his informational records he had on Flubb and on the ship itself. If anything, and I definitely mean anything, looks out of place or suspicious then I want you and your team to document it and bring it here for further analysis.”

“Benevente?”

“Yes, sir?”

“I want you to go through his quarters. I know that Forensics has already combed it, but I want you to go in there with our teams and look for anything that may have told us where he may have gone. He’s on the run,” Javan stopped, “we’re going to find him.”

Evan nodded and took his team and left. Savannah, realizing that she must do the same, took her team and followed as well. The group raised their commotion again and broke into small conversation about why and what he did it for. Javan loved the idea of speculation, but in his heart he knew that it wasn’t going to get them any closer to finding their escaped criminal.

“The rest of you, I want you on deck-by-deck searches. If he dropped anything, I want to know. If he left anything as a calling card, I want to know. I want to find him. We know he’s not on board, but I want to know how he got off the ship.” Javan moved over to his office and beckoned Orton over to his door, “Lieutenant, I want you to find out how he got off this ship. Transporter, shuttle, spacewalk to somewhere, anything. I want to know.”

Orton nodded, smiling at the confidence that he knew the Commander had in him, “of course, sir, I’ll be sure to contact you with any information I find.”

“Be prompt, Greg.”

“Aye, sir.” And he scampered off.



***********



Savannah Eckstein and her team barged through the Forensics marking on the door as a secured location and went to work. Overturning crates and looking through desk drawers became the norm. PADDs and work rotations were scattered all over the floor. Pictures were taken off the wall and spots where things were already missing were examined in great detail.

“Lieutenant?” A young crewmen motioned her over to the desk drawer. Inside was a phaser and a standard-issue tricorder. “Somehow, I don’t think that these things should’ve been in here.”

“I am inclined to agree, but we know that he did it so this discovery, unless you can think of somewhere he may have went given this material, is worthless,” she tried not to be extra harsh, but her calling to the insignificant findings was costing them time - time that they didn’t have.

The crewman looked at her and smiled, “think about it, Lieutenant, he didn’t take it simply because where he was going he didn’t need it. Which limits his possibilities to Starfleet outposts or Federation-friendly regions, right?”

The logic slammed her in the face, “I guess that’s right, but we’re heading into the heart of the Federation, that doesn’t limit our options very much...”

“But it does limit them.”

“Yes, I suppose you’re right,” she felt inferior, “bag it and bring it to Commander Sierra.” As the crewmen moved off with the new evidence items in hand, she noticed another crewmen motioning her over. Sighing, she moved next to her, “what is it, Lana?”

“There are a lot of PADDs here focused on Lieutenant Snuffy, ma’am. His work rotations, his holodeck access times, his levels of clearance. It seems our Information Coordinator liked coordinating his information with our Chief Science Officer,” the woman smiled at her own joke, which wasn’t all that funny. “Something to look into, I think.”

“Bag it.”



***********



Evan Benevente rushed into Lol Kendrick’s quarters with his team and found it an abominable wreck with everything, literally, thrown everywhere. Either this man wasn’t a tidy individual, or he left in a hurry. Evan told his teams to spread out and start searching to the quarters inch by inch. “Everything, look at every piece.”

The teams spread and began looking through the closet and under the bed and all the places you would expect someone to hide something. However, after about fifteen minutes of finding nothing, Evan was nearly ready to give up on finding anything of value. “All right, guys, let’s pack it up.”

“Ensign!”

Evan’s head swivelled and his eyes darted to a young Petty Officer staring at a bunch of equipment thrown into the corner. The machinery didn’t make much sense to Evan, but the Petty Officer was on top of it, “what is it Petty Officer?”

“The chronometer, sir. In his hurry to leave his quarters, he must have bumped it off the night stand. It froze into the exact time in which it hit the floor. Looks like about twenty hours ago.” The Petty Officer handed the broken contraption to his superior and moved over to start looking through more stuff.

His mind raced and his eyes went wide. “Damn, that means he’s got almost a day on us already. Commander Sierra is going to have a heart attack about this.” With that he ordered the scene secured and took off running with the clock in hand.



***********



Junior Lieutenant Gregory Orton was secluded in the communications relay room and was pouring over all the outgoing messages. It saddened him to see certain crewmembers weren’t corresponding with him, but he figured that it was better for them if they didn’t. It was so easy to assume about people he didn’t know that he found himself doing it a lot. In truth, it was fine to focus on that than on Lexie - he missed her.

Returning to his task at hand, he realized that Lol hadn’t made any transmissions anywhere within the past couple of weeks. Strange, he thought, considering there were plethora of communications from him to other places in the weeks leading up to the time Flubb came on board. Interesting, but it didn’t help him.

“Maybe transporter records,” Greg said to himself as he accessed the subroutines to see the transporter logs. As he expected, however, there wasn’t anything with Lol in the database and, for the record, there wasn’t a transporter log from anyone but the delegations being secured in quarters. “Well, damn. That leaves me with shuttle records.”

There was one.

“What the hell?”

The shuttle, as indicated by the ship’s computer, was the Runabout Arthur. And, approximately twenty hours ago it left the USS Avalon with the Chief Science Officer aboard. With Lieutenant Snuffy was an observer from the Jacon homeworld - Vikmil. Orton’s hopes were dashed when he learned that it was almost a day ago. Given the search time he had to have left the ship before then.

No transporter records to confirm.

No airlock depressurization to point the finger.

One shuttle that was way too early.

Or, was it?



***********



All of the information and evidence collected had been piled onto one table in the middle of the security offices and Javan Sierra was pouring through it with malice. The ideas and theories that were being thrown his way were, no doubt, worthless as all hell. Abducted by the Orion Syndicate, working with the Klingon Honor Guard, and a million other stories just weren’t even plausible.

“Sir, we think it’s a friendly place where he’s gone.”

“Friendly?”

“Yes, like a Starbase or Federation ally. He left his side-arm and tricorder in his office. I would assume that he knew that he wasn’t going to need them where he was going,” Savannah pointed out from a chair across the room. Her folded arms made her look lost in thought, but she was just going over the different scenarios.

Gregory Orton had just walked into the office with his findings, or lack thereof. Looking around the room he moved up to Commander Sierra. “Sir, I don’t know how he left. I have no transporter logs or spacewalks or anything of the sort. I have an authorized launching of the Runabout Arthur almost twenty-four hours ago. Lieutenant Snuffy and the observer from Jacon were onboard, but it was authorized. And, in addition, it was a day ago.”

Evan Benevente, who was eavesdropping but not trying to, stepped up. “How long ago? Exact number?”

Bewildered, Orton poured through his PADD, “about twenty hours ago, why?”

Evan pointed to the clock, “that was in Lol’s quarters. He broke it about the time he was leaving his quarters. And, given the stilled image on the front of the device, it places it breaking about twenty hours ago.”

Things clicked in Javan’s brain, “That’s how he left. He stowed aboard Lieutenant Snuffy’s shuttle and took the journey to the Starbase. There he could go anywhere and become anyone. This just got a lot more difficult. Do you know where it was headed, Lieutenant?”

“I think so,” Orton looked at the contents of the PADD again, “Starbase 33.”

“Eckstein, Hollander, you’re with me. Meet me in the shuttlebay. Mr. Orton, coordinate with Ms. Redgrave in Forensics to clear up this matter and get it officially entered into our logs and hers,” Javan stopped just into the corridor and turned around, “Mr. Winters, contact Starbase 33 and tell them of our situation, maybe they can halt the launching of ships until we arrive and do some searches.”

His teams nodded. The hunt was on.



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