Investigation - Maybes and perhaps

Posted on Sun Sep 10th, 2017 @ 8:00pm by Captain Rueben Gregnol & Alika Mahone

Mission: Mission 4 - Combustion
Location: Deck 2 - Briefing Room
Timeline: MD 04 13:00
767 words - 1.5 OF Standard Post Measure

Rueben walked into the room and saw the two women waiting for him. He shrugged his lateness away, they were both just early, Captains were practically perfect in every way according to his previous Captain on the Victory. He had been the only Captain Rueben had ever respected enough to miss when his life had changed. "Drink?" He offered bored of having these conversations now. If he was bored he could only imagine how bored Alika was maybe he could get the new Security Chief involved in the next few to give her a break.

And Alika was bored. As she waited for Rueben to arrive, she had attempted this intimidation tactic that she saw on her crime holos. But as the minutes wore on, she began to transform into a sad (but still 'angry') snowman, melting into her seat until the other arrived.

When no one wanted anything he started the prepared questions. ““Where were you located between twenty-Three hundred hours the night of the fire and oh-three-hundred hours that morning??”

"I was in my quarters, Sir, until the alarms went off." Bettina understood the line of questioning and wasn't worried, she didn't have anything to hide.

“Who can verify your whereabouts?”

"No, Sir, I was alone." She shrugged, then suggested, "I guess the time markers for my door would confirm it."

“When was the last time you were in the Cargo bay where the fire occurred?”

"Oh, um...the day of the explosion?" She really had no reason to be there and was wondering now what had happened the night before. "I was there with a rescue team after the area was secured, but there really weren't any casualties, so we weren't there long."

Alika leaned forward, squinting. "That's a lot of uncertainty there. You guess the time markers could confirm it... maybe you were there last the day of the explosion... Maybe you put a dangerous vat of exploding acid in the cargo bay..."

"What?" Bettina's nose wrinkled up as she looked at the woman. "I didn't say anything about acid...and...I guess I don't guess about the time stamps...I know the computer will show where I was."

She didn't understand the personal attack and it put her off balance, although she knew she hadn't done anything wrong. Of course, the only way to prove that was for the computer to confirm her locations. "I've never been in the cargo bay except that day, to help...Oh, and the day I came aboard, to get some personal things..."

Rueben looked at Bettina carefully. Did she not understand that she was being investigated? "Mahone is correct there is a lot of guessing in your answers. You do understand you are under suspicion right?" He checked thinking that the woman for being a nurse wasn't being very smart right now.

"Suspicion of what?" Well, blowing up the ship, of course, but it was absurd. "So, um, I guess I'm guessing because I would have thought that you'd have consulted computer records before talking to people?" She didn't have access to those things, so she really could only guess that there were time stamps, particularly on her comings and goings in her own quarters...and it seemed to her that it would save them a lot of time to have done that...unless they were just trying to trip her up for some reason that she couldn't fathom.

"All those things can be faked especially on this ship," Rueben said looking at Alika again. This had to be the most interesting investigation he had done to date and as Chief Security, he had done many. It was harder and grittier than Starfleet one, and the crew seemed to think they were on a ship that worked. "The sensors only work half the time and only in certain areas. Everyone is under suspicion." He added.

Bettina sighed, then shrugged. So much for a dream assignment. "Well, I don't have a bunk-mate," she commented, not liking this one bit, but, of course, having no choice in the matter, "so there's no other way to prove I was there...don't know what else to say." There wasn't anything more, if any evidence that could clear a person could be tampered with, it seemed academic to even ask questions at all.

Rueben just shared a look with Mahone that said it all.

OFF::

Rueben Gregnol
Captain
SS Mary Rose

Alika Mahone
Second Officer
SS Mary Rose

Bettina Davies
Field Medic
SS Mary Rose