438: Red Handed: One

by Dane Cristiane
80728.19
During and after Don't Step on the Mome Raths

-=Crew Quarters, USS Alchemy=-


Finally back to the ship after his day memorizing the Articles at the Archives, Dane felt that he would be able to do all right on his paper for Blane, if all Blane wanted was recitation.

If he wanted true 'meaning' in the paper, Dane still could be in trouble.

He knew the rules were on the books for a reason, and could quote them chapter, verse, and sub-paragraph. But where he was standing right now, their reasons for existing and meaning seemed far removed from him and hard to grasp.

The most amusing part of the day had been catching Landry Steele dead to rights, as she pretended to be reading Quantum Mechanics Today on the PADD she was holding but with the push of one button Dane was able to confirm that she had merely brought up the cover of the latest issue of QMT to hide the fact she was actually reading Risan fashion magazines.

When he pointed out to her that she'd been revealed, she had simply shrugged and said,

"Necklines are plunging and hemlines are climbing this fall. So the Risans say."

Now back aboard ship, he had to turn his attention, seriously, to only the task at hand.

He'd been over it again and again. Looked everywhere that Vox had suggested, and everywhere else he thought to look.

Nothing.

If Zanh had logged, said, or indicated in any other way to anyone that she remembered Keiran O'Sullivan, she'd done a damn good job of keeping it quiet. Every tactic he'd taken to try to prove otherwise had left him empty handed.

Only the bare minimum of crew remained on the Alchemy now, and even those left behind went in shifts down to the planet to try to get something out of shore leave.

Everyone, that was, with the exception of that bulldog Blane, who it seemed was for some reason deathly allergic to the very idea of taking a vacation day.

Damn him.

Now, Dane was going to have to try one last resort, or otherwise face going back to the Admiral with the news that he'd found nothing to substantiate his suspicions that Zanh was withholding information from him.

Dane moved stealthily through the corridors, making sure that no one saw him. He'd taken care to put the security camera outside the room that Zanh had chosen to occupy during the trip on a loop, a false feed of the empty hall going to the security systems so his little breaking and entering adventure wouldn't be recorded, or revealed.

He could hardly believe he was doing this.

He wondered why it bothered him at all when he was so certain that it shouldn't. Zanh had done nothing but cause him pain since he'd come aboard her ship.

Well, save his life and cause him pain, but he figured that she had only done the former because she didn't want to have to tell the Admiral she'd lost his recruit. Not because she cared about him at all.

He used another trick he'd learned during his TI training to bypass the lock on the door, and entered the tiny room.

He looked around, thinking that likely she had taken the object he sought to the planet with her...and this was all for nothing.

Then he noticed that the indicator light on the small locker across the room was glowing green. That meant that it was locked, and that meant she'd had something she wanted to conceal and not take with her to Betazed.

He moved to the locker, and using another of Vox' magic tricks, began the work of releasing the lock.

He couldn't believe how simple it was to get around the technology considered to be so secure by Starfleet, if you only knew how to do it.

A moment later the locker door released with a slow hiss and he pulled it back, revealing just what he had been looking for.

*Jackpot.*

She had decided not to take her suitcase with her, apparently, on her initial trip to the surface.

*Big mistake.*

He wasted no time in taking it from its hiding place and laying it down onto the bunk. He tossed aside several articles of clothing she'd left abandoned on the bed in her haste to leave the ship, and sat down.

He unlatched the ancient clasps holding the case shut, and began rifling through the contents. There appeared to be a journal of some sort, and he flipped through it, eyes scanning enough for his brain to process the words in search of one particular name, but just short of committing every single word to memory.

He didn't want to know everything there was to know about the woman, he just wanted to do his job.

He found her Temporal Compass but didn't touch it, knowing better than to screw with the crazy thing. He found a bundle of what appeared to be old letters from the Vedek tied together with string, and disregarded them. They were not relevant to his cause.

It was only as he was just about to give up and hurry to return the suitcase to the locker and leave that he realized the answer had literally just fallen into his lap.

He laughed as he saw the crimson wax seal, imprinted with the signet ring he'd seen on Keiran's hand every time he ever saw the man.

He knew somehow that this was it- if any piece of evidence was going to damn Zanh as a liar, this was it.

He hurried to open the envelope, sliding the thin paper out as quickly as he could without tearing it, and focused his eyes upon the words intently. He committed the first page to memory instantly, his heart racing as he realized that the very first line of text was exactly what he had been searching for.

With all of the technology available, all of the things that could have betrayed the truth she was hiding, Dane just couldn't believe that a handwritten letter that she'd been careless in keeping was the thing that had done it.

He flipped the first page over, but before he could take the mental snapshot of the words it contained as well, he heard the door open and the sound of a phaser being unholstered.

Zanh Liis hurried forward, confused, and tilted her weapon away from him when she realized who it was that was sitting on her bed.

"Dane!" She exclaimed, realizing that she could have shot him. Then, she realized that maybe she should have. Her voice dropped to a raging growl as she observed what he was holding in his hands. "What the holy hell are you doing with that?"

*Shit,* Dane thought. *I am so screwed.*

"Captain, I'm sorry,"

"Don't even." Liis put her phaser down and grabbed him by the shirt, lifting him up from the bed with strength that shocked the callow youth. "Don't you dare 'Captain' me. You tell me exactly what you intended to do with that letter or I will make you sorry."

--------------------------------

Ensign Dane Cristiane
In deep and sinking fast
USS Alchemy