<FWG> <Meridian> "Trust" (Leirone/Pierce)
- From: Jason Ziredac <ziredac@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: fwgalaxy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 28 Sep 2008 07:10:52 -0700 (PDT)
Trust
by Detective Jack
Leirone
&
Rear Admiral Kyle
Pierce
The commanding officer of this little ship was kind enough
to grant a little room to Detective Jack Leirone. One little window to this
little galaxy glowed gloomily above the little bed. Aft-facing cabins were oft
skirted and ill-wished amongst new crews, as one would have their celestial
view curtailed by pulsing nacelles and a feeling of falling away. Jack had
fallen away throughout his entire life, and he’d tell any complainer that
watching stairs hurl themselves away from you at the greatest speeds man would
ever find was nothing similar to what falling away was actually like.
Jack dropped his bag on the mattress and leaned against the
frame around his window, pressing the side of his face against the cold glass,
trying to catch a glimpse of Andrecia; it had looked so pretty from the
station’s windows that he wanted to see it again. However, his slighted cabin
issued its first shortcoming: the planet was out of view.
Angelic. Andrecia had looked angelic.
Pale, white, iridescent.
He didn’t know why, but seeing it filled him with an
unnamable harmony. Like there was a violin ensemble backing a harp, droning on
dissidence, discordance, but fitting together like a puzzle. To confuse, to
pull forward, to hypnotize, to enrapture.
Purely exaggerations, mind you, but then again, maybe it was
just the way his manmade eyes worked. They often saw things others could never
see.
An invasive ring came from his bag: the undeniable call of
his private band transmitter. No other legally existing person in the
galaxy had anything like this. Untraceable, perfectly clear and powerful, the
envy of every drifting derelict with surviving crew you’d ever imagine. Damn
thing hardly ever lost power too. He was normally joyous when time would come
for its use, but so soon after coming on board?
Probably just the office with a “confirmation call.” Are
you on board, Detective? Have you made contact with Admiral Pierce, Detective?
Annoying,
pestering government officials.
Jack clicked the screen on. Greeting him was a face he
didn’t know: youngish, black hair, awful sideburns. ID came up on him as
Detective Selsing Morgi—parents must have hated him too.
“Leirone here.”
Detective Leirone, Detective Selsing Morgi. Not your
kind of Detective, but…I’m with the Hendricks Police Department down here on
Andrecia. I understand you’re on board the USS Meridian, am I correct,
sir?
“Yeah, you are. How’d you get this frequency code?”
Came up on the registry, I’m sorry, sir, is this…?
“Don’t sweat it, Morgi. Standard procedure for a planet’s
law office when someone commits a crime and jumps the world is to send out an
APB to federal officials, and to scan for any in the immediate vicinity, with
whom you’d make contact should there be any. So what did who do when, where,
and why?”
The circuitous question that was choked with the five W’s
seemed to boggle Sideburns Morgi on the base level, but he just blinked and
gave a standard report. Homicide, crime of passion, it seems. Ex-husband
came home and killed the Missus while the new hubby’s MIA after the Borg
attack. Seems I may have lucked out here, because our suspect is a crew member
of the very same ship that you’re on.
Jack’s head instantly swam with the unfounded accusations Pierce
might have about him getting this bit of news before any commanding
officer of the crew. PD regulations were PD regulations, though. Just a matter
of damned coincidence.
I’ll send you the profile. Shall I inform the CO of the Meridian
as well, sir?
“That’s okay, Morgi,” said Jack. “I’ll tell him. You have
yourself a good day.”
You t—The channel closed on him. Jack flipped his
transmitter over to access the other gadget that only people who didn’t
exist had. A super-tricorder. From here he accessed Morgi’s message and
linked it to the room’s computer (taking special care to make sure that all
third-party monitoring was severed, of course).
The face looked familiar.
Then again, didn’t they all?
“All right, Doc Auron. You’ve got some explaining do.” As he
was not an officer of Starfleet—in fact, something much better than that, as
you’ll see—he glanced up and said, “Computer, recognize voice pattern Jack
Leirone, Presidential Detective, code four-delta-seven.”
VOICE PATTERN RECOGNIZED, ACCESS GRANTED TO ALL MAINFRAME
OPERATIONS.
“Patch me into the ship’s communication channels.”
PRESIDENTIAL DETECTIVE LEIRONE NOW LISTED IN COMMUNICATION’S
REGISTRY VIA VOICE COMMAND. AUTHORIZATION COMPLETE UNDER CODE.
“Thank you. Communicate: Leirone to Pierce.”
--
Kyle was waist deep in litigation with the quartermaster.
Awful bastard just would not listen. What use was the rank of rear
admiral if you couldn’t get a quartermaster to bend on the rationing
parameters? Eventually, he had to get up from his ready room desk, march off
the Meridian and straight down to the uncooperative jackass’s office.
And after ten arduous, argumentative minutes, Kyle Pierce got the worst
victorious answer one could ever get.
“Fine, Admiral, I can do it just once. But I will
have to go through a lot of paperwork.” The icing for this bad cake: “And I’ll
need you to wait here so you can authorize you receipt.”
Whomever made the art hanging on the walls of the
quartermaster’s office should have been glad of a society free of monetary
value,
lest they’d grown too fond of their little hobby to have a day job. Not only
that, but the quartermaster said his replicator was out of order—not that the
discourteous fellow would have offered Kyle anything either way. Last time he’d
asked the quartermaster how much longer it would take, he’d told him that he
was almost halfway finished.
It’d been an hour and a half.
Then came what would really brighten his mood.
Leirone to Pierce.
Nothing ever got by Kyle unchecked, as is well known by now.
“Leirone. How did you get a combadge?”
I didn’t. Listen, there’s a situation aboard your ship
that you need to be made aware of. As had been directed in our meeting, I am
notifying you without action.
Great. “Go ahead, Leirone, what’s the situation?”
It appears that the Hendricks Police Department on
Andrecia have a warrant out for the arrest of your Chief of Medical, Zachary
Auron. Seems he’s wanted for the murder of his ex-wife.
“Damn it,” Kyle muttered. “That’s troubling news, Leirone.
I’m baffled as to why you know about this before me.”
Well, standard non-military police proceedings when a
suspect of a felony is believed to have left the planet are to post an APB for
all federal law agents. And if scans show that one is in the immediate
vicinity, he or she is contacted directly. Hence, me. Sorry that it happened
that way, Admiral, but as directed—
“Yes, you didn’t handle it yourself. You gave the situation
to me. Good. Thank you. I’ll admit, I was skeptical that you would follow such
a stipulation.”
That hurts my feelings, Admiral, said Leirone
amicably.
“Not that it was my intention, but your feelings are the
least of my worries, Mr. Leirone. I’m currently stuck here at the
quartermaster’s office, so I’ll alert Security to…” Damn it. The Meridian
was in dry dock, the crew was decimated, and the only thing that existed in the
department of Security was a half-empty roster. “Never mind. I’ll be there
shortly.”
He made for the door.
Or, Leirone’s voice persisted, you could let me at
least locate and contain the suspect for your procedures. With your permission,
of course.
Kyle did not want to do that. He did not want to lean
on the strict rules he’d already set up for the strange presence of this
detective so soon into his (hopefully) temporary stay on the ship. But this was
somewhat of an emergency, and it would take him at least fifteen minutes to
walk back to the ship. Plenty of time for a murder suspect to disappear or
cause more problems if they knew someone was after them.
He sighed. “You are authorized to contain him. Contain him.
Obviously with our access codes, you’re capable of locking down rooms and
enabling force fields.”
Yes, I am.
Troubling. Mightily troubling. “Locate the doctor and hold
him wherever he is. Do not interrogate or apprehend. I repeat: do not
interrogate or apprehend. I won’t have anybody who’s not a registered crew
member making an arrest.”
You got it, Admiral. Anything else?
“No. That’s all. I’ll still be there shortly to assess the
situation. ETA, fifteen minutes. Pierce out.”
Kyle beelined for the door, but the quartermaster called out
to him, “Admiral, if you leave without authorizing the receipt—”
“Oh I’ll be back, don’t you worry.”
--
“Computer, locate Zachary Auron.”
DR. AURON IS IN HIS QUARTERS.
“Nice and easy. Computer, lockdown Dr. Auron’s quarters,
code four-delta-seven. Access granted only to myself and Rear Admiral Pierce.”
QUARTERS LOCKED.
Jack found his long, white coat and draped it over his
shoulders, firing his arms through the sleeves so quickly that the fabric
looked momentarily like liquid. Making sure to grab his super-tricorder, he
left his cabin and asked the computer to provide him Dr. Auron’s room number.
The turbolift ride was a short one, but the walk to the other side of the deck
was long enough to turn it into a slight jog. There was no emergency as long as
Auron was contained, but when pressing issues pressed, old Jack felt the
powerful hunger to get there first and maintain control.
Especially since he got this new job.
Once finding Auron’s quarters, he stood outside like a
gargoyle, but not as still. He tapped his foot and paced minutely, willing
Pierce to arrive quicker. Fifteen minutes ETA, now down to twelve.
“Let me just take a look-see,” he muttered to himself.
“Computer, me again, code four-delta-seven. Represent high-level security
holographic on Dr. Auron’s quarters in real time. Give it to me here in the
corridor.” This was another little joy he had in his new position. At all
times, all nooks and crannies of all Starfleet vessels were under constant
surveillance, but with privacy rights, not even the captain of the ship in
question was authorized to view any recordings. Hell, not even the head admiral
was. Only way they could see it was to gain authorization from a high, high
level federal officer.
Jack Leirone, a blind man, saw through the little walls of
another little man’s room. And he liked not what he saw. The image was scaled
down to fit into the hallway, putting the size of Dr. Auron’s bed at the size
of a largish shoebox. He knelt over the little room, peering in like God, and
there, leaning against the bed with his butt on the floor, legs sprawled out
before him, was Zach Auron. Deader than a doornail.
On the surface, at least.
Auron’s mouth was ajar, slack, shapelessly hanging off his
jaw. His eyes were freakishly bulbous, peering out of their little caves with
no aim. Beside him was an overturned vase with its flowers spilled out on the
floor two feet away. Tiny, plastic capsules, empty, were scattered by his
thigh. He looked like a marionette with no more strings.
Okay, he thought. That’s a new card to be played.
“Computer, confirm my listing in communications registry.”
DETECTIVE LEIRONE IS IN THE COMMUNICATIONS REGISTRY.
“Okay, terminate image. Communicate: Medical emergency,
medical emergency, Deck 7 forward, crew quarters of Dr. Zach Auron.”
This is Dr. Kurath, medical team en route!
--
“Computer, locate Zachary Auron.”
DR. AURON IS IN SICKBAY.
Kyle began to run when his feet touched the carpet of the Meridian’s
hall, but it was long before that that his heart had begun to race. One of his
own crew? One of his proud, upstanding officers: a murderer? Either there was a
mistake, or he had to adjust his sense of judgment when pertaining to a
person’s character. He was vaguely aware of Dr. Auron’s personality fault, but
of a wrath he knew not.
When he reached the outer Sickbay door, he saw nothing. No
commotion, not even a sign of the white-clad Jack Leirone. He must really be
keeping his hands off this. Good.
“Computer, remove lockdown on Sickbay, Pierce code—”
UNABLE TO COMPLY. THERE IS NO LOCKDOWN CURRENTLY IN EFFECT
ON BOARD THE MERIDIAN.
“What the hell?” Pierce approached the Sickbay door, and it
whizzed open. An emergency medical team was buzzing around a patient whose face
he could not see, and none of the doctors were the man he sought.
“Doctors, sorry to interrupt, but there’s another emergency.
Where is Dr. Auron?”
None of the team turned around; their minds were too fixed
on their patient. One voice piped up above the rest and announced, “He’s right
here, sir.” Kyle’s heart stopped its rush and sank immediately to the bottom of
a river. He rushed to the end of the table, sure to be far enough away from the
team so as not to get in the way. An eye blinked over to the lifesign monitor,
which read many weak signals which ought to be strong and many strong ones that
ought to be weak. And then he saw him.
Dr. Zachary Auron was the patient.
“We’re losing him!” said a doctor.
“Give him another hypospray…”
“What happened here?” Pierce asked. No one answered. A wild
thread of his brain imagined a rebellious Detective Leirone bursting into
Auron’s room with a phaser drawn, slicing through the doctor ere a word could
be spoken. However, he rapidly noticed the lack of visible wounds to the
doctor’s exterior. Unless Leirone shot him in the back, he thought.
“His synapses are burning out, neuro-activity skyrocketing…”
“He’s going into cardiac arrest…”
He’s this. He’s that. We’re losing him. We’re losing him.
Give him more of this. Remove more of that. We’re losing him. We’re losing him.
We’re losing him. We’re losing him. We’re losing him. We’re losing him.
There was a hand on Kyle’s shoulder, so subtly placed that
he was not entirely sure how long it had been there. It was Leirone’s hand, his
left one, the one with a plain wedding band snapped behind the second knuckle.
The white of his cuff was almost blinding, like a sheet of paper when you walk
out into the sunshine of midday.
“I know what you’re probably thinking,” Leirone said to him
quietly. “I followed your orders and did not interfere. He was in his quarters,
and I locked him in remotely from my quarters, but I felt the need to just be
there outside the room. For support when you got there. If only just moral
support. Had the call recorded from the Hendricks PD anyway, in case you needed
it, you know. While I was waiting, I thought I’d just discreetly check on him,
on what he was doing…and that’s how I discovered that he’d…that there was an
emergency. I’m sorry, Admiral. I did what I thought anyone would do. What
anyone should be able to do.”
A doctor pointed across the biobed, across Zachary Auron’s
failing body, demanding of another doctor, “Hand me that hypospray. Come on,
now!”
Kyle’s eyes could not have been dared to blink as they
stared at the lidded ocular protrusions under Auron’s brow. His hands suddenly
felt four times their normal size, and his lungs felt full of lead. “As captain
of this ship, I am the father of these children. I don’t recall your file
mentioning children, but when you’re a father—when you’re a parent—you put the
life and well-being of your son or daughter first. No matter what kind
of trouble they’re in. Breaking the glass statue in the living room, tracking
mud
in the house, stealing from a friend, failing a class, talking back…if any of
these offenses coincided with an illness, or an accident, you feel all anger
and worry from their misstep whither away. All that’s left is whether or not
you will see your loved one in the morning, and in all mornings that follow.”
He turned to the white-clad detective, saying, “I am Zachary
Auron’s father. I am all these doctors’ father. I am Shawna Kenton’s father. As
captain, this crew is my family. Preserving Doctor Auron’s life is a higher
priority than finding his crime. Thank you for adhering to that.”
We’re losing him.
“Step outside with me, Mr. Leirone. Let’s allow this to
pass.”
--
The corridor lights were far less brash than those of
Sickbay, and Kyle could feel his eyes regain their composure. It probably all
looked the same to the blind detective, he thought, but he would have been
wrong. Without even a fourth of the crew the Meridian was used to
having, escaping into a hall was like sojourning to the space between worlds.
Here, all was quiet, and all was without right or wrong.
“Do you know what happened to him?”
Leirone nodded. “Overdose of a powerfully psychotropic
amphetamine currently unknown to most of the UFP. I’m planning on doing
extensive research to discover what this drug is and where it comes from. Most
likely, if he was guilty of the alleged crime, then he might have been
overcome with some strange form of grief that would drive him to overdose. If
innocent, he might—”
Waving a hand in accompaniment, Kyle blinked the details
away. “Speculation can be reserved for later, when he…if he pulls through.” Damn
it all, he was thinking. Not even out of dry-dock and I’m still losing
officers. What a bad year. “As for now, I’ll allow you exactly thirty seconds
to explain to me how you’re logged onto the communications registry.”
“As I mentioned when we met, my authority exceeds what you
cannot even see.”
“I find that hard to believe, Mr. Leirone. This Starfleet is
not so secretive, and neither is this government that they would employ such
powerful members of an elite unit that are
not widely known about. Until you came into my ready room, I hadn’t the
smallest inkling that there was such a rank as ‘presidential
detective,’ and that it counted as a military rank above everything else in the
damned scheme.”
“A government,” Leirone grunted with perfect severity, “is, by ubiquitous
definition, a body of power—not people—that is bound to keep a status quo. And
when the governed becomes so large as this United Federation of Planets, the
government must go to great lengths to ensure said status quo.”
He parted his white
coat and placed his hands on his hips. “The President is a good man. This is
hard for someone to judge when he is a mystery in and of himself, but he is
undoubtedly good. There is no partisan delegation to which
he belongs, and there is no set of beliefs to which he adheres except that all
men are created equal, and that no harm should come to a man
from another man. It’s that simple to him as a person, but not as a president,
so he must live by the rules set down by the federal laws, and he must stick to
his own duties. That means that every admiral, every person in power, is
trusted to lead in good intentions.
“Trusted. That means that a well-mannered weasel could slip into a seat of
power and therefore sully it. That goes for Starfleet officers, yes, but that
goes for colonial governors, regional governors, senators, even right down the
vice president, whose figurehead status is by far the most perfect. These
people were given their positions by matters of trial and right. It does not
take a good man to become a good soldier, and it does not take a good man to
start gathering pips. You are a good man, I can sense. But what if you weren’t?
What if Kyle Pierce, before any rank preceded his name, was a vile, selfish,
and corruptible man with the same drive to become the captain he’d later be?
You’d still be here, and you know it.
“And so, the
President sought people with whom he could do far more than trust. To trust is
weak when all it means is that you pass a test and
appease other admirals. Trust requires full knowledge of a person, and a good
sense. The President has that, and he found us personally. He spent a
great deal of time with all of us and eliminated those who had even a second of
hesitation when asked, ‘Are you a good person, through and through?’ We’re like
his children, only—forgive me for saying so—the bond is far stronger than
that which is between you and your crew. We are true family, and we are true
vessels of good.
“Our rank was
created in law, but our trust was created in hearts. And with that, we
have become extensions of the President himself. So believe it, Rear Admiral
Pierce: we are the first tier, but there is nothing to fear in that.”
Good speech. Clean, honorable, honest. He may not have
intentionally dodged the question given his fiery aplomb regarding his
profession, but Kyle still wanted to know, “But why is this not fully known to
everybody? Why did I not know?”
“Because bad people turn to good people when judgment is
knowingly upon them.”
Good enough. Made sense, on a really basic, banal, almost
religious level. Kyle had to will himself not to let his righteous hold over
this ship control him into arguing heatedly; they weren’t arguing about
happenings on the Meridian, they were arguing about happenings in the
galaxy. Off this ship, Admiral, that is where my jurisdiction lies. And
if it took a good sense to find a good man, Kyle liked to think that such sense
dwelled within him, and that Jack Leirone was a good man.
He may not have liked him much, but he was a good man.
It was just hard to believe.
“Fine,” said Kyle. “We’ll leave it at that. As for now, you
say you’re going to research this drug?”
“Yes.”
“Then, as commanding officer of this ship, I permit your
involvement given my current lack of sufficient crew. But I want you to divulge
every detail to me that you can find. I want to know.”
--
Jack couldn’t argue with that. “I would have informed you
either way,” he said. “On the matter of the alleged criminal status of Dr.
Auron, allow me to give you the contact information for the Hendricks PD, so
you can let them know that—”
“They contacted you, Mr. Leirone,” Pierce interjected. “You
may give them the report. I’ll include it in my report to Starfleet, but you
can let the authorities on Andrecia know that Dr. Auron is dead.”
Almost involuntarily, Jack’s eyebrow perked. “He’s not dead
yet, Admiral.”
“There are some things humans can know before they happen. Or
did your lost sense not heighten the remaining ones?” Pierce apparently cared
not for polite discretion.
Fortunately, Jack didn’t either. He merely nodded.
Out of habit, maybe, but probably just for lack of a better
term, Rear Admiral Pierce turned back to the Sickbay door and said,
“Dismissed.”
Once he was gone, Jack sighed so fully that his body
perspired from the effort. It was a rocky first few days on this ship, and he
hoped that they would be the rockiest. This was supposed to be a little stowage
on a little ship while he did his research and edged closer to where he needed
to go, not helping these little people in their little toils. Now he had
something with which to kill some time: research on a potentially illicit drug.
Anything to distract himself from the real reason he
was out here.
==
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- » <FWG> <Meridian> "Trust" (Leirone/Pierce)
