July 2005 - Post Selection (1)
ON: The Search
Day: 8
Time: 10.28 Scene: Washroom off the Anti-Chamber of the Sacred Chamber
Hadley glared at the washroom. He grimaced menacingly at the basins and at the stalls. He glowered with all his might at the beautiful, flawless tiling. He barely managed to refrain from smashing the beautiful mirrors set into the wall.
"Uh, Chief?" Munro (npc) called out. "What should we do?"
Hadley grunted, forcing himself to relax and relax his grip on the butt of his phaser. "What was that Ensign?"
Munro said, "What do you want Ensign Rogers and I to do?"
Hadley's head whipped around. "Where's the Captain? Oh bloody hell... Ken, you're on Captain escort duty. Go, now. You stay with him, and keep your phaser armed. Do whatever he says, but you follow him. And if anyone even tries to lay a finger on him, you shoot first and lay the blame with me if someone gets angry."
Ensign Rogers (npc) saluted and bolted out the door. Lieutenant Sulvik ducked out of his way, exiting into the anti-chamber. Hadley was left alone in the room with Ensign Munro (npc).
"Okay Michael, here's how this is going to work. You start by the door, I start by the far wall. Scan everything. I don't care what it is, scan it. We need to blanket this entire room. And if we don't find anything, we're going to look again. We're going to find Ms. Craig right now, got it?" Hadley didn't wait to see if Munro would nod or salute. Michael (npc) was eager to please, he'd do as he was told.
Hadley started at the stalls, seething inwardly at himself. Bloody hell. So much for the value of experience, eh? All that stuff the Captain had said about duty and helping the crew... Hadley had failed at the first opportunity. He'd had a bad feeling about this frog people, and yet he had failed to act on it. Of all the... Robert stopped himself. He was being ridiculous and he knew it. He could almost hear Sulvik's voice as he thought about how illogical he was being. What was he supposed to do, send an armed guard with every member of their party whenever they used the rest room? It wasn't as if Ms. Craig would have allowed it even if Hadley had wanted to. He forced to calm down and unclench his teeth. If he was going to do his job properly, he needed to be icy cool.
Munro almost shouted, "Boss! I got something! Very faint energy trace."
Hadley was across the room in a heartbeat. "Where?"
Munro pointed to a section of the wall. "Right here. It's about 1/50th the strength of the residue from a standard Federation phaser pulse and it's decaying amazingly quickly. I'd say it was probably an incredibly weak weapon."
Hadley shook his head. "Let's give Craig more credit than that. If the weapon was that ineffective we'd see some evidence of a struggle. It could just be an alternative power source, or a weapon designed for stealth like an Andorian Needler. But it lends credence to the Captain's theory of a kidnapping of some kind."
Hadley glanced around the room casually and froze with a shock. He moved carefully over to the closest mirror, being careful to control his breathing. "Munro, have you been near this mirror?"
Munro moved up behind him. "Not yet, sir. What is it?"
Hadley leaned forward and wiped his finger across the mirror. "Condensation. Or maybe frost. In a straight line across the mirror. Almost as if..."
Munro breathed out. "Someone shot a beam at somebody standing in front of the mirror."
"Exactly Mr. Munro. Although I've never encountered a weapon that gave off cold moisture as a residue." Hadley tapped his commbadge. "Lieutenant Hadley to Captain Persson."
+"Captain Persson here, Lieutenant. What do you have for me."+
"We detected some faint energy readings as well as some strange moisture residue on one of the mirrors. It's consistent with a weapon of some time being fired at close range. Coupled with the sound we heard, I'd say the circumstantial evidence points towards a kidnapping. Or else the most efficient disintegration I’ve ever seen."
+"I prefer to believe that Ms. Craig is still alive at this stage Lieutenant Hadley. She wouldn’t make sense as a target for an assassination. Not, at least, on this mission. Furthermore, I find it doubtful that Craig’s commbadge would have escaped destruction."+
"I’ll keep looking, Captain,” Hadley said. “Permission to pursue any leads we might find?"
+"Within reason Mr. Hadley. Contact me before you do anything… rash. Persson out."+
Hadley turned back to the seemingly empty room. Now what. The Captain was right. Why assassinate Craig when so many chances to kill Captain Persson had been made available to whoever these guys were? Which meant that this was a kidnapping. But where the hell had they taken her? And what if it had been an assassination? Where had the assassins gone? And why would they go after Craig and not the Captain?
Hadley began running his tricorder around the room again. He heard the sound of someone clearing their throat. Hadley spun around. Sulvik was standing by the mirror.
"It occurs to me," the Vulcan said, "that we might be well served considering one of the axioms of a favored fictional character of mine. Sherlock Holmes might, in this situation, advise us to narrow the problem down to its core. Namely, if this is a kidnapping, where did the kidnappers take Ms. Craig if not out the door and without using a transporter? If this was an assassination, where are the assassins? We are looking for the escape route."
Hadley held up the tricorder to Sulvik. "Solid walls around. There are no force fields or holoemitters. If they’re using some sort of masking mechanism, it’s a technology that the tricorders can’t understand."
Sulvik walked over to the wall and reached out a hand casually. He rapped once on the wall. "Then I suggest we resort to more primitive tests."
Hadley stared at him blankly for a moment and then understanding dawned. "Ensign Munro," he snapped, "Begin knocking on the wall. Shout out if you hear anything odd, likely a hollow echoing noise. We’re looking for an empty space beyond the wall. The tricorders aren’t picking anything up, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t anything there."
It was a work of only a couple minutes before Hadley found a place on the wall where there was a strange echo. Sulvik and Munro (npc) moved over and they soon had the area bracketed. It was about man height and wide enough for two people to walk abreast, provided they squeezed a bit. That huge Klingon science officer, though, could have taken up the whole tunnel on his lonesome.
Sulvik stroked his chin with one hand, his nausea seemingly suppressed or forgotten. "I cannot detect any apparatus for opening the entrance to this passage. Perhaps if we-"
Hadley cut him off. "Stand back Lieutenant, if you please. You too Ensign Munro. Out the door now." Hadley backed up and leveled his phaser at the wall.
Sulvik and Munro made a prudent exit as Hadley upped the power level on the phaser and slid halfway behind cover in the doorway leading to the anti-chamber. He thumbed the trigger and a red beam lanced out, striking the wall. There was a rumbling boom and the sound of tiles smashing. A cloud of sweet smelling dust blew out into the anti-chamber, clouding the vision of Sulvik, Hadley, and Munro. They all coughed and waved their hands in front of their faces as the dust cleared.
Hadley advanced into the room and saw a gaping hole in the wall; a passage leading off into darkness was clearly picked out before them. The walls were smooth but had a much more rough-hewn look than the rest of the building. Robert couldn’t tell if it was part of the original construction or if someone had dug through the foundations to get into the washroom from the outside. Either way, Hadley was convinced Amarin Col (npc) had had something to do with this. And Robert was going to find out exactly what it was.
Hadley stuck his head down the tunnel and looked back. "Well gentlemen, shall we?"
Lt Robert Hadley
Chief of Security
USS Dark Matter
Day: 8
Time: 10.28 Scene: Washroom off the Anti-Chamber of the Sacred Chamber
Hadley glared at the washroom. He grimaced menacingly at the basins and at the stalls. He glowered with all his might at the beautiful, flawless tiling. He barely managed to refrain from smashing the beautiful mirrors set into the wall.
"Uh, Chief?" Munro (npc) called out. "What should we do?"
Hadley grunted, forcing himself to relax and relax his grip on the butt of his phaser. "What was that Ensign?"
Munro said, "What do you want Ensign Rogers and I to do?"
Hadley's head whipped around. "Where's the Captain? Oh bloody hell... Ken, you're on Captain escort duty. Go, now. You stay with him, and keep your phaser armed. Do whatever he says, but you follow him. And if anyone even tries to lay a finger on him, you shoot first and lay the blame with me if someone gets angry."
Ensign Rogers (npc) saluted and bolted out the door. Lieutenant Sulvik ducked out of his way, exiting into the anti-chamber. Hadley was left alone in the room with Ensign Munro (npc).
"Okay Michael, here's how this is going to work. You start by the door, I start by the far wall. Scan everything. I don't care what it is, scan it. We need to blanket this entire room. And if we don't find anything, we're going to look again. We're going to find Ms. Craig right now, got it?" Hadley didn't wait to see if Munro would nod or salute. Michael (npc) was eager to please, he'd do as he was told.
Hadley started at the stalls, seething inwardly at himself. Bloody hell. So much for the value of experience, eh? All that stuff the Captain had said about duty and helping the crew... Hadley had failed at the first opportunity. He'd had a bad feeling about this frog people, and yet he had failed to act on it. Of all the... Robert stopped himself. He was being ridiculous and he knew it. He could almost hear Sulvik's voice as he thought about how illogical he was being. What was he supposed to do, send an armed guard with every member of their party whenever they used the rest room? It wasn't as if Ms. Craig would have allowed it even if Hadley had wanted to. He forced to calm down and unclench his teeth. If he was going to do his job properly, he needed to be icy cool.
Munro almost shouted, "Boss! I got something! Very faint energy trace."
Hadley was across the room in a heartbeat. "Where?"
Munro pointed to a section of the wall. "Right here. It's about 1/50th the strength of the residue from a standard Federation phaser pulse and it's decaying amazingly quickly. I'd say it was probably an incredibly weak weapon."
Hadley shook his head. "Let's give Craig more credit than that. If the weapon was that ineffective we'd see some evidence of a struggle. It could just be an alternative power source, or a weapon designed for stealth like an Andorian Needler. But it lends credence to the Captain's theory of a kidnapping of some kind."
Hadley glanced around the room casually and froze with a shock. He moved carefully over to the closest mirror, being careful to control his breathing. "Munro, have you been near this mirror?"
Munro moved up behind him. "Not yet, sir. What is it?"
Hadley leaned forward and wiped his finger across the mirror. "Condensation. Or maybe frost. In a straight line across the mirror. Almost as if..."
Munro breathed out. "Someone shot a beam at somebody standing in front of the mirror."
"Exactly Mr. Munro. Although I've never encountered a weapon that gave off cold moisture as a residue." Hadley tapped his commbadge. "Lieutenant Hadley to Captain Persson."
+"Captain Persson here, Lieutenant. What do you have for me."+
"We detected some faint energy readings as well as some strange moisture residue on one of the mirrors. It's consistent with a weapon of some time being fired at close range. Coupled with the sound we heard, I'd say the circumstantial evidence points towards a kidnapping. Or else the most efficient disintegration I’ve ever seen."
+"I prefer to believe that Ms. Craig is still alive at this stage Lieutenant Hadley. She wouldn’t make sense as a target for an assassination. Not, at least, on this mission. Furthermore, I find it doubtful that Craig’s commbadge would have escaped destruction."+
"I’ll keep looking, Captain,” Hadley said. “Permission to pursue any leads we might find?"
+"Within reason Mr. Hadley. Contact me before you do anything… rash. Persson out."+
Hadley turned back to the seemingly empty room. Now what. The Captain was right. Why assassinate Craig when so many chances to kill Captain Persson had been made available to whoever these guys were? Which meant that this was a kidnapping. But where the hell had they taken her? And what if it had been an assassination? Where had the assassins gone? And why would they go after Craig and not the Captain?
Hadley began running his tricorder around the room again. He heard the sound of someone clearing their throat. Hadley spun around. Sulvik was standing by the mirror.
"It occurs to me," the Vulcan said, "that we might be well served considering one of the axioms of a favored fictional character of mine. Sherlock Holmes might, in this situation, advise us to narrow the problem down to its core. Namely, if this is a kidnapping, where did the kidnappers take Ms. Craig if not out the door and without using a transporter? If this was an assassination, where are the assassins? We are looking for the escape route."
Hadley held up the tricorder to Sulvik. "Solid walls around. There are no force fields or holoemitters. If they’re using some sort of masking mechanism, it’s a technology that the tricorders can’t understand."
Sulvik walked over to the wall and reached out a hand casually. He rapped once on the wall. "Then I suggest we resort to more primitive tests."
Hadley stared at him blankly for a moment and then understanding dawned. "Ensign Munro," he snapped, "Begin knocking on the wall. Shout out if you hear anything odd, likely a hollow echoing noise. We’re looking for an empty space beyond the wall. The tricorders aren’t picking anything up, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t anything there."
It was a work of only a couple minutes before Hadley found a place on the wall where there was a strange echo. Sulvik and Munro (npc) moved over and they soon had the area bracketed. It was about man height and wide enough for two people to walk abreast, provided they squeezed a bit. That huge Klingon science officer, though, could have taken up the whole tunnel on his lonesome.
Sulvik stroked his chin with one hand, his nausea seemingly suppressed or forgotten. "I cannot detect any apparatus for opening the entrance to this passage. Perhaps if we-"
Hadley cut him off. "Stand back Lieutenant, if you please. You too Ensign Munro. Out the door now." Hadley backed up and leveled his phaser at the wall.
Sulvik and Munro made a prudent exit as Hadley upped the power level on the phaser and slid halfway behind cover in the doorway leading to the anti-chamber. He thumbed the trigger and a red beam lanced out, striking the wall. There was a rumbling boom and the sound of tiles smashing. A cloud of sweet smelling dust blew out into the anti-chamber, clouding the vision of Sulvik, Hadley, and Munro. They all coughed and waved their hands in front of their faces as the dust cleared.
Hadley advanced into the room and saw a gaping hole in the wall; a passage leading off into darkness was clearly picked out before them. The walls were smooth but had a much more rough-hewn look than the rest of the building. Robert couldn’t tell if it was part of the original construction or if someone had dug through the foundations to get into the washroom from the outside. Either way, Hadley was convinced Amarin Col (npc) had had something to do with this. And Robert was going to find out exactly what it was.
Hadley stuck his head down the tunnel and looked back. "Well gentlemen, shall we?"
Lt Robert Hadley
Chief of Security
USS Dark Matter