Observe

Posted on Tue Nov 24th, 2015 @ 7:39am by Captain Charybdis MacGregor & Commodore Raul Mizumoto
Edited on on Sat Apr 28th, 2018 @ 9:53pm

0 words; about a 1 minute read

Mission: Taking Chances
Location: USS Bonne Chance, Deck One, the Bridge
Timeline: 2265
Tags: mystery,bridge

Because she needed it, first she slept. Six hours could hold her for quite a while, after all. Then she began her investigation before her duty shift began, and planned to continue it on the Bridge.

She would need access to the communications station to follow the chain of orders... and she realized that she might possibly want to get minutes from any staff meetings the Captain may have held, in case something significant had been raised in them. Those could also be accessed through Communications. But for the meanwhile she focused on what she could find in the ship's library and through the ship's computers.

Refitted, yes; but the Bonaventure was not a new ship. She had a history... she was the third of the Constitution class heavy cruisers built, and she had been in service for over three years now. Her first captain was a man named Van Horne, and she only discovered that by accident. It seemed that she ship's memory banks and data tapes had been wiped while she was in the shipyards, and that was when the personnel shuffle had first begun.

Setting out she had been commanded by Le Baron, a newly-frocked Captain with his first command, recently transferred to Command from Engineering. His first officer had been one Commander Jexe O'Dag, his Chief Engineer one Lieutenant Commander Hank Morgan, Lt. Commander K'rilish was head of Security, Lt. Owen Cross was Chief Science Officer and the Chief Medical Officer was one Lieutenant Siivas McKenzie.

Of all of those people, the only one she could still find in the crew roster was Lt. McKenzie. Every single member of the senior staff had rotated off the boat at Big Rock, apparently another starbase, before coming here. She investigated the orders, and that was easy enough... they had all requested transfer.

Every single one. Save McKenzie.

She took a side moment to research Deltans... her xenobiology was weak on a generous day, and for the most part all she knew for certain were how to visually identify the very obvious and easy to identify races, like Andorians. She read up on what the ship's library had to say about them, then sat back for a few moments and digested the information.

Deltans are a species with basic psionics common to all members, with the ability to train themselves to expand said abilities to a telepathic degree that is as yet unknown. Deltans are known to possess experiential empathy, wherein they can share experiences, memories, and sensory impressions. They can sense emotions in non-psionic individuals.

If the Chief medical Officer was telepathic, that could certainly explain why he was so quiet with his nurse... perhaps she was telepathic as well. That... could be rather problematic. She would have to be very, very cautious around Sickbay, she realized, and then she considered with a shock that she walked Deck Six regularly to think her problems through.

Nothing had been said thus far, so it stood to reason that he had not been peering inside her mind and ferreting out her secrets. Thus if he were capable of such feats then perhaps he held himself to some sort of code of ethics... after all, it was a violation of privacy, and the data tapes said that the Deltans swore oaths of celibacy just to serve in Starfleet, because they considered it unethical to take advantage of a sexually immature species.
She laughed aloud at that. Given what she had observed from sleeping with a number of human males, she quite agreed with the Deltans on that point.

So obviously her investigation would have to include the Doctor, but would it be as an ally or as an opponent? No sense in trying to decide yet... just because he was the only senior staffer left did not make him suspect... but it did mean that he likely had more answers than anyone else. She hoped he would be an ally... she had liked him on first meeting him, even with the tentacled horror that still made her shudder when she remembered it in his Sickbay. It dawned on her that he was one of the first people she had ever met who had encouraged her to be herself, and not feign the Vulcan front when it served her purposes.

Food for thought, that. And definitely points in his favor- obviously he was far more racially tolerant of diversity than she herself was, and he preferred for individuals to be just that. Duly noted... she wondered idly if the Captain was a speciesist.

It was 0715, so she showered and dressed for the day, then grabbed the data cards she would need with her pdd and headed for the officer's mess. It was practically deserted, with a few Command engsigns and an Engineering lieutenant being the only crewmen in residence. She wondered what the crew lifeform readings would look like today... the ship was indeed becoming a Flying Dutchman at quite the rapid pace. She wolfed down her breakfast and for the first time noticed that the taste of the food was off... she wondered if there was something wrong with the food dispensers as well, and resolved to check the maintenance records there as well. No matter... for now, food was food and it would keep her going through the day.

On the Bridge, she nodded to the pilot and navigators, whom she had not met, and sauntered to where Lieutenant Corben was back underneath the Navigation subsystem console again... at least, she assumed that's who it was. She crouched down next to the protruding legs and projected her most cheerful morning voice into the panel.

"Good morning, Lieutenant Corben!"

His return acknowledgement was muffled, but she understood it, patted his leg and continued the conversation.

"Do you wish for me to cover your station while you work? It is not an inconvenience for me to do so."

Speaking in a Vulcan dialect often achieved better results with humans, she had found, and this time was no exception. His hand worked its way back out of the console with the Comm earpiece in it, and she took it from his outstretched fingers.

His comment was muffled, but again, she understood it. "You are quite welcome, Lieutenant. It is my pleasure."

The science officer logged into the Science station and began generating reports, then started a shipwide scan for lifeforms. Then she strolled to the Communications Station and began reviewing the orders that had passed through since the Bonaventure left the shipyards.

"...Star Liner Class 314, has gone completely missing..."
"...Maraxis Nebula? That's an extremely dangerous area..."
"...most affluent and influential members of the Federation. Scientists, Ambassadors, Senators..."
"...All senior staff is to report to Conference Room A in 0800..."

She checked her sensor scans... one hundred and seventy-nine sentients aboard plus one felis domesticus. Since yesterday the crew complement had decreased by another thirty-two crewmen. What in the name of Hades was happening here?!? She returned to the Communications station as Gunny O'Neil and Chief Dover were relieving their stations, and she nodded to them while she worked. She checked the logs for the minutes from the staff meeting, and sure enough, it had been recorded. She began reviewing it as well.

"...I look forward to breaking that habit of yours Lieutenant..."
"...all available data on the ship here..."
"...Tight deadlines are the Officer's crucible..."
"...main concerns are on the status of our shields, sensors and transporter..."
"...the Maraxis Nebula, sensors and transporters may be impaired..."
"...Ion Storms in that blasted nebula tend to short out your shields..."
"...must be other ships better equipped for this..."
"...It doesn't add up..."

From there she investigated the Captain's Log, which was not personal, thus to be accessible through the ship's computers. There was only one entry, which she found unusual... most captains, particularly of large ships like this, tended to be a bit proud, and tended to go on when it came to their logs. But Le Baron had only one entry, short and simple:

"Captain's Log Stardate -57225.22. I am pleased to report that my crew has pulled through on the very tight deadline for launch. The Bonne Chance may not be 100% ready, but thankfully Big Rock is practically on the other side of quadrant which gives us plenty of time to finish up our work. We are taking our first baby steps on the five year haul."

Curious and curioser.

The orders and requisitions from the shipyards all seem to have been wiped in a data accident, which only made her more suspicious... it had been investigated by the Security head and the XO and closed just after leaving spacedock. Now she decided that it was time to investigate the rank shuffle aboard the ship when she saw the legs beginning to stir, and she realized that Corben needed help to get out from under the control panel again. She shut down the Communications Station processes, wiped the logs of her activities and started a level 3 diagnostic on the panel, then moved to help him when Commander Ak'Ahar bumped into her, moving to do the same thing.

"Oh! My apologies, Commander," she said with a smile, and he grinned back. "No need, Lieutenant. You looked busy over there."

"Yes sir... running reports and diagnostics, chasing down some gremlins in the works," she said with a smile, and he looked at her curiously. "Old Terran phrase, sir," she added hastily, and he shrugged as he hauled Lieutenant Corben out from his labors.

With her excuse accepted, Charybdis returned to her station and began reviewing personnel records. The Capellan Commander had been promoted only three weeks earlier, at Big Rock, from Lieutenant to Commander and made the executive officer. Such a thing was not unheard of, but given all of the suspicious circumstances it did seem odd. She hoped that if there was a conspiracy afoot that he was not involved... she liked the big man and she wanted to believe he wasn't involved in something untoward.

Running diagnostic systems and observing where work crews were assigned yielded different results... most of the shortages and systems that were limping along were now up to speed, and while the Bonne Chance wasn't in the running to be flagship of the Federation fleet, she was at least serviceable at this point.

Thus Charybdis had more facts now... but she was still no closer to answers. She hadn't even managed to ascertain why they were at Starbase 4, after putting in at Big Rock. Charybdis looked in the ship's library to research Big Rock, and that's when she stopped cold.

There was no record listed for any such Starfleet station.

 

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