By Lara Valera Ryn and Denise Moreno
100331.10
Immediately After Raising Suspicions
-=Bridge; USS Poseidon=-
100331.10
Immediately After Raising Suspicions
-=Bridge; USS Poseidon=-
They say the greatest lure to travel the stars, or indeed any frontier, was the chance to discover something no one had before. Yet Denise felt like all she was discovering was new problems surrounding her from every side. With her own technical understanding and the information now displayed on the armrest of her chair she could not deny that Lara’s typed words had been correct. The sensor readings had been tampered with; maybe here, maybe in Engineering, or perhaps both.
Apparently casually to an outside observer, Denise scanned through them all over and over again. She was hoping to find one thing to prove Lara wrong but she couldn’t, and she knew this was not an accident. It was an act of sabotage which anyone who truly understood it would realise was a very risky and even stupid decision. Sensors were more than just the eyes of a starship; especially one as sophisticated as this. They were a large part of its mind, perhaps akin to the Cerebellum.
Philosophers and scientists would argue this point over that part of the brain, but none could argue that those sensors knew anything of what they really did. Automatic procedures would counteract radiation, loss of life support and fix shield modulation to prevent them simply drifting from their established purpose. Yet they’d do so much more when it came to a HRT. They maintained that delicate balance that was required to keep this ship together in its proper place in space and time. Even simple tests with a single corrupted entry of data could cause the incorrect reaction that would destroy them all.
This ruled out Brody in Denise’s mind. He may be many things, few of them good, but he was never a fool. Perhaps the noblest truth about him was that he was a man who would fight with his all for what he believed in. To risk for any cause losing this ship, let alone his own life, was not something of which Denise believed him capable. Even if he had a plan to escape he had to know that there’d be nowhere he could go that could give him what this ship could. He needed this to work as much as she did.
Turning now to do a mental evaluation, the closest thing to a hidden interrogation, she passed her eyes over the crew working away on this bridge. They all needed this to work. They each of them knew that they could never undo what had already been done. In time TI would be back online and they would come after them. They’d maybe even make jumps to ensure this never happened. There could be no escape from the crimes but to a time and a place where they ceased to be viewed as criminals because of them.
Obviously whoever did this had a reason for it. There were however far better ways to sabotage this ship. Perhaps they wished to disguise some plan of their own. Perhaps now hidden among the sensor readings, something either most obvious or least so from the console in Engineering, was the single incongruent blip that gave it all away.
It was likely that they could find it if they dug a little deeper, but as Denise’s eyes turned subtly to Lara and saw the woman’s eyes equally inconspicuously finding hers, she realised that they may not find it at the same time. Lara had asked her to trust her, but Denise could not bet an entire future on the familiarity of a single conversation.
She needed time to fix this, to find out the guilty party, but to do so without watching eyes so as to avoid tipping her hand too soon. The reality was that it could be any of them. The great risk taken by being willing to bend the rules, even for what you were certain were the right reasons, were that your own rules were equally as flexible to all those around you. Ironically, the one woman on this bridge who had openly declared herself as an enemy was the one woman that couldn’t have done it.
While directing her eyes elsewhere, Denise typed a message by touch into the console; an easy feat with the number of years spent typing up letters and documents for someone else by the same method.
Lara spotted the words forming on her console, and moved quickly but not so much as to be suspicious, to ensure that they were hidden from the perspective of the guard. Behaving like she was observing any other piece of data, she studied the message that was now displayed.
‘Responsible agent could be on Serendipity. They will monitor conversations. You must speak of this to no one.’
Lara read the message from Denise. It was a possible scenario. In which case, that same person could now be doing something to the Sera, something which could have repercussions long after this fiasco was over. Regardless of who the person was and where he was, it did not look good for any of them.
To acknowledge her receipt of the message, Lara coughed harshly. Everyone looked at her, but she gave a soft nod indicating that she was okay, one which she knew Denise would receive.
"Sorry," Lara said, "the ship is just a little dry." She turned back to the console and tapped a few final buttons, pretending to be finishing the work she had already completed. Transferring the numbers to a nearby PADD, she moved away from the console and stood up.
Her guard immediately materialized at her side, sizing her and her movement up. Lara waved the PADD in front of his face and tried to smile reassuringly. "I just want to report my findings."
The guard looked over at Denise, who nodded. He then motioned with his hand for her to approach the Captain. Lara did so, and in any other situation -- or universe or time line perhaps -- her movement would have seemed natural. Just a subordinate reporting to her superior. The normality of it all made it almost appear plausible, as if nothing were out of the ordinary, at least for a brief moment.
Lara handed the pad over to Denise, who skimmed through the numbers, more appearing to review the data without really doing so, giving the impression that she was seeing something new.
"Is this everything?" Denise finally asked.
"Yes. They'll need the numbers back down in Engineering." Lara held her own hand out, expecting Denise to drop the PADD into her outstretched hand so she could then be escorted back to Engineering.
Instead, Denise placed it on the arm rest of the captain's chair. She motioned to the guard, who immediately stepped forward and grabbed hold of Lara's arm. "Take her to the transporter room and return her to the Serendipity."
The command surprised Lara. But it was an innocuous enough command and the guard did not question it and Lara could not. All she could do was shoot Denise a quizzical look, but the other woman was reviewing the data again and clearly pondering what to do with it. Lara had no choice but to go with the guard as he escorted her through the ship.
She rather suspected that others among the Sera crew -- Ashton Ledbetter for one -- might already know the layouts and the schematics of this ship, but she decided that any piece of information she could obtain could be of use, even if it was just one route from the bridge to the transporter.
Promptly enough, the guard and Lara arrived at the designated room, and once they were inside, he less than courteously pushed her in the direction of the transporter pad. Lara obliged, thankful that she would be leaving this part of the job behind, but concerned for her crewmembers that remained here to figure out this mystery. Still, before she could even turn around and properly adjust herself on the transporter pad, she heard the ever familiar and comforting sound of the transporter kicking in, returning her to the Serendipity and what lay beyond.
Lt. Lara Valera Ryn
Science Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
and
Ensign Denise Moreno
Temporal Investigations
Commanding Officer
USS Poseidon
Science Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
and
Ensign Denise Moreno
Temporal Investigations
Commanding Officer
USS Poseidon