Mad World

Posted on Tue Jun 23rd, 2020 @ 5:35am by Cailus Griffin & Captain Nycolas Temple & Commander Owen Nash & Lieutenant Arlowe Tate & Lieutenant Kalin Brennan-Griffin PhD & Lieutenant Krysia Kaleri-Smith & Lieutenant Alexandra Alves MD & Lieutenant James Smith
Edited on on Fri Jul 10th, 2020 @ 5:32pm

Mission: Death in Paradise
Location: Deck 2 - Conference Room
Timeline: After "Murder She Wrote"

ON:

There was no time to lose. A murder had been committed on Paradise Outpost and the Pandora crew were the primary suspects. Add this to the recent revelations of an unknown person sneaking around the ship, and communications between the ship and the station offering to help "eliminate" the Federation presence - it was clear someone from the Pandora was enacting a nefarious agenda right under their noses.

With Lieutenants Sandoval and Parrino searching Paradise for remaining Pandora crew members on the station, Captain Temple gathered his available senior officers in the conference room to figure out a plan to deal with the murder and traitor. Not everyone knew the whole story yet, some only had snippets of events, and others nothing at all. But news of the murder was spreading through Paradise and the ship, and it wouldn't be long before everyone knew a Starfleet officer was being blamed for the killing. He had to bring everyone into the investigation in order to stop more incursions and deaths; never forgetting that someone on his ship was actively betraying them.

With most of the senior team in front of him, Nyx stood from his chair and began, "As far as we can tell, these events started happening on our journey from the Indigo Sky to Paradise. An unknown person used First Lieutenant Arnaldo's access codes to gain entry to an auxiliary storage room, the botanics lab, and Marine Country. They were interrupted by Marines in the last location, but not before attempting to use their console to send a message. While we were in orbit of the station, there were a series of deeply encrypted communications sent from Paradise and the Pandora. One seemed to be threatening the Pandora away from the station, and another offered assistance in eliminating the Federation presence."

He frowned, taking a small beat, before continuing, "Then, at around one a.m. ship time last night, a body of a Paradise Security guard was found murdered in an alley way in the Entertainment district. Paradise recovered a Starfleet PADD from the body, with the victim's blood on it. I do not believe these incidents are coincidental. I believe that it is highly likely that our traitor attempted to meet their contact and something went wrong. We have a list of thirty Pandora crew members who were on Paradise at the time of the murder. This list includes senior officers. Our job is to find out who it was. I believe we find the murderer, we find the traitor too."

Krysia’s heart sank, it seemed nothing was going to simple anymore. “Do we have any clues at all? Anything to give us an idea of who might want to betray the ship let alone commit a murder? I haven’t sensed anything untoward.”

This wasn't good at all. Tate sat in the chair most of her tattoos covered by the uniform that she now wore. As Chief of Operations, she was new to the ship and to the position but she wasn't knew to meetings and the horrors that Starfleet had to deal with. Going after a murder on a station was not going to be easy it was massive and the clues were likely not going to be easy to suss out. But, she hoped that the team at this table, and the people underneath them would be able to do this.

Owen was sat in the conference room listening to the information that Nyx was explaining to the senior officers gathered there. Having recalled his previous meeting with both Nyx and Cailus, this now confirmed both his and theirs worst fears of an outcome.

The question in his mind though was the same as Krys, although he had another concern. "Do you have the list of officers who were on board the station during the time of the murder? I refuse to believe that a member of the crew could be involved," he said.

"While we know when the body was found, we don't know yet when they were murdered." Nyx replied. "As such, we have a list of people who were on the station generally last night that could be suspects. But there were quite a few officers, including myself."

Alexandra listened through the Captain's explanation, formulating some questions in her mind. "Have they done a throughout medical examination on the body and the blood traces on the PADD?", she spoke up, "Is there any chance we can examine them ourselves or take a look at the data?"

"It seems Paradise are only interested in investigating us. They have so-far ignored any requests to examine the body." Nyx answered.

“Then what about a different avenue?” Krysia looked at Nyx. “Whoever this killer is they’ll be nervous about being discovered. What about organising a gathering of the crew, anyone whose that nervous will stick out like a sore thumb to me. Unless, of course, this person is good at holding his or her nerve.”

"Respectfully, no." Cailus' blunt words had all the compassion of a butcher's knife, his eyes as cold as his tone. "There are several problems therein. One is that telepathic and empathic evidence is inadmissible in Federation. Another is that by regulations, I cannot permit you, Lieutenant Kaleri, or any other suspects to assist this investigation." The Security Chief's glanced at Nyx. "Sir, that means you too. Until I unequivocally prove your innocence, regulations forbid me reporting the details of the investigation to you. I will be reporting to Commander Nash in the interim."

Krysia looked at Cailus in surprise she hadn't considered herself one of the suspects. "I'm a suspect?" She could have said there and then that she wasn't on the station at the time of the murder but that would be proved as the investigation went along. "I'm sorry I wasn't expecting that." She looked at James grateful she was in bed with him at the time. If it was before then she was in her office alone with no alibi at all.

"Everyone who was on Paradise at any time last night is a suspect." Nyx answered gravely. "And in order to fulfil Chief Katya's wishes, we must thoroughly investigate everyone on board this ship. As such, we will be hosting some of Paradise's Guards should they wish to search the ship."

"If they don't allow us to do our own investigation or even look at their findings, they can bend the truth against us any way they like.", the doctor sighed.

“We’re in a difficult position.” Nyx agreed, “From what we’ve been told of Paradise’s security department, they appear to be a law unto themselves. That’s why Lieutenant Griffin will holding his own investigation to ensure due diligence is followed. But, it is still highly likely that the murderer is our traitor too. If that’s the case, then the Pandora is responsible.”

Krysia sighed but brightened up a little as she realised she did have one person who’d seen her in her office after her return and that was Owen. At least that gave her an alibi but Cailus was right when he’d said telepathic and empathic evidence wasn’t admissible in an investigation, so even if she did pick up on anything from anyone she wouldn’t be able to use it. She sat quiet waiting to see if anyone else had any ideas.

James had been listening to everyone and taking it all in, so far the only ones that were a suspect were the ones that had remained on the Pandora. James spoke up, “I’m still going over the communications and haven’t deciphered everything else yet, but I would advise that security places a person with each of our personnel, no one should be left alone it would only cause more questions and possibly problems.”

"I'm not sure we have enough Security members to watch everyone individually." Nyx replied with a sigh, "So we're recalling everyone back to the ship. This will make investigating us easier if we're all onboard, anyway. The only Starfleet personnel allowed on Paradise from now on will be the investigators."

“May I volunteer to be the first one questioned Sir?” Krysia looked at Nyx then at Cailus. “Given my pregnancy I’d rather go first than get stressed out waiting for my turn to come round, not that I’ve got anything to hide.”

"Perhaps that won't be necessary?" Shae spoke up, hoping to save Krysia that stress. "I saw her in the halls last night, so as of that time she was on the ship, and as long as the station didnt register her return then she is in the clear," the scientist offered. "As for myself, I haven't been able to find the time to visit the station at all, so I can assist with the investigation, if necessary. "

Krysia smiled and nodded to Shae as she spoke up on her behalf. "Thank you Lieutenant."

Cailus nodded at both women, although he still looked stern as ever as he looked at Krysia. "Rest easy, ma'am. I don't seriously believe you to be involved, and I expect to have you officially cleared within a couple of hours. In any event, I currently have a dozen security officers on Deck 17 setting up for the murder investigation." Cailus glanced up the table at the Captain. "Sir, with your permission, I would like everybody who was on the station last night to submit a written statement of what they were doing, where they were, what times they were at various locations, and so on. The computer and my personnel can then analyse those reports to create a coherent timeline. It's the quickest way to find discrepancies, clear people of suspicion and narrow down the list of suspects, most particularly by finding anyone who was alone at any point during the night."

James looked around, “I’ve been too busy to get to the station the closet I’ve been is our trip to the docked ship and then back. However, I can assist in the investigation in anyway, plus I’ll be busy in my office trying to decipher more of the messages I retrieved.” Smith stopped for a minute before continuing, “Captain I also request that Intel offices be off limits to all personnel except those that need to be their which would be all my Intel staff. Also only those with Level one security clearance should be allowed while I’m running my investigation from my end and don’t need someone corrupting the data that we are trying to decode.”

“Definitely.” Nyx replied, “We need to find out what the rest of those messages say.”

"Has Vieers been to the station? I know she's in Operations now, but that doesn't change the fact that she's a brilliant Linguist, and if she's not a suspect then maybe she could assist with the decoding?" Shae offered. "I'm sorry, that's if you decide that you need the help," she quickly said to Smith

Nodding James said, “I don’t believe she’s been to the station, but If Vieers is available I would be happy to have her assist.”

Nyx nodded, trying to hide his surprise that Shae would advocate for Vieers. Instead, he tapped on his PADD and showed the encoded messages on the large screen, “Any help would be appreciated. However, looking at the encryptions involved, this is sophisticated but flawed work. They’ve attempted to use a multi-layered framework run through an original, non-native program. Normally that would be too complex for even the ship’s computer to break right away, which would suggest post-Academy Intel-level training. I actually wrote a thesis on this kind of encryption once. But,” he sighed, as if slightly disappointed, “the application of the program is sloppy; they’ve cut corners and left exposed algorithms. It’s not unravelling entirely but it implies poor workmanship of an otherwise near-impenetrable system.”

"Hopefully, we can all clean ourselves of these ridiculous charges very soon.", Alexandra said, "So we can all work on finding out what did actually happen." She had only visited the station once, and has multiple people who can confirm that she was together with them during that time.

Owen had taken note of Cailus' confirmation that with Nyx as a suspect, the Chief Security Officer would be reporting to him. It wasn't a situation he wanted to be in, however with alibi's required as crew members were brought aboard, he was glad he had one with Krys.

"I'll be expecting reports as soon as possible with regards to the investigation Mr Griffin," he started. Looking over at Nyx, he continued. "The last thing I want is any member of this crew being implicated in this murder... I can't believe that we have anyone on board who is capable of performing such as act."

"I will allow Lieutenant Griffin to conduct the investigation in whichever manner he sees fit." Nyx replied, before giving a weighted pause. "If anyone knows anything, or saw anything even remotely relevant, I urge and instruct you to tell Mr. Griffin immediately. There will be no secrets on this ship." He jabbed his finger into the desk to make his point. "Is that clear?"

Krysia nodded in general answer to Nyx's orders. She had Owen and James as alibi's for part of her evening but there were gaps in-between not that she had anything to hide or really worry about.

"Very well," Owen said. "I can confirm that I was on board last night. I have a full alibi, I'm happy to submit my report to Mr. Griffin." He felt it right to be clear and as Executive Officer to set the standard ahead.

Tate cleared her throat and leaned forward. "There should be biometric signatures on the ship, especially in the door ways that were entered. And while many of our crew would have gone to various places on the shuttle we may be able to at least get a generalization on who was and was not in the area. There will be some that we can maybe eliminate from the start. Also, there should be security cameras that we can access with a request and therefore, maybe get some information there. It won't be where the murder happened but there should be some cameras around leading to the area. Just thinking out loud really."

"We'll be thorough." Nyx replied with a nod. "Any other business? Alright, let's get to work." The Captain announced with a firm tone. He watched as the officers departed one by one, hoping that one of them was not responsible for this murder.

OFF