Death and Taxes

Posted on Fri Jan 19, 2018 @ 11:46pm by Lieutenant Nicole Anderson & Fleet Captain Rhea Kennit & Lieutenant Commander Miguel Torres & Lieutenant Penelope Naroot & Lieutenant Arashi Tanaka Mr.

1,995 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Divide et Impera ~ Chapter 2: Heralding the Chase
Location: USS Victory
Timeline: 0300

Holodeck

Penny's hips moved smoothly as she navigated her board down the length of the wave as the curl moved over her. She watched the wave, trying to track its movement as she navigated it. She'd made it pretty far when her board suddenly shifted, she overcompensated, and down into the drink she went.

Both she and her board bobbed to the surface and she wiped her hair out of her face and swam quickly back to shore. As she walked onto the sand, shaking water out of her ear, the comm system came to life. "Davenport to Naroot."

Penny sighed and put her hands on her hips, looking up to the sky. "Arch," she said. The holodeck arch appeared and she tapped the comm panel. "Go ahead Markus."

"Sorry to bother you on your off time, boss," Markus said, "but how long is Grayson going to be on leave? Not showing up for the escort ship is one thing but I had to cover him last night and a little warning would be nice."

Penny stopped wringing the water out of her hair and frowned. "He isn't on the sick list. I reviewed it yesterday."

"Well he wasn't feeling well a couple days ago and he's been in his quarters since then, so if he isn't sick, he needs his ass kicked," Markus said.

"I'll look in on him," Penny said. "Naroot out." She grabbed her towel and her shoes and sighed, ready to figure out what kind of punishment Grayson had just earned.

Five minutes later she was standing outside Grayson's door, ringing the chime impatiently. "C'mon Martin," she said, tapping her foot. She rang the chime again and hit the comm panel. "Martin, up and at 'em!" she said. She huffed and entered and override code. The doors opened and she walked in. "Martin, what the--holy hell!" she shouted, covering her nose quickly. She immediately expelled all the air in her lungs and was supremely glad she didn't have to draw any more in just yet.

The smell of excrement and decay was unmistakable, and she'd become very familiar with it from her time in Medical. Grayson was in his bed, and Penny did a very cursory look before walking back out of his quarters.

When she was clear of the door, she took a breath of clean air and hit the comm panel on the wall. "Naroot to Security...report to Lieutenant Grayson's quarters.

A few minutes later, Lt. Tanaka arrived at Lt. Grayson's quarters and saw what had happened. He stepped into the room and almost wretched from the stench. Not sure of what to do just yet, he made sure that the lieutenant was okay. "Are you all right ma'am?" he asked, as the rest of his security team did their job scanning the room. He walked around to make sure that no one contaminated the crime scene. The air system was pumping out the old air and pumping in fresh air as fast as possible to keep the smell out of the room for the humans.

"I'm all right," Penny said, nurse mode kicking in. "The body's been dead long enough for it to release its waste and fluids. Based on the bruising under the body it's been sedentary for a while. The smell tells me he's been dead about 48 hours. I didn't touch anything in the room, only the door panel."

"Okay. There seems to be no fingerprints other than his and a prelimanary check of the body seems to find no signs of trauma
so I suspect something else to have been done here but we won't know until we get this body down to the infirmary." Arashi said. "Heaven help the one that perpetrated this crime because there will be hell to pay for this."

"Hear hear," Penny said, tapping her combadge. "Naroot to Anderson."

There was a muffled cough and then a slight grog in her voice as she sighed and said, "go ahead."

"Code fourteen, Lt. Grayson's quarters."

There was only the briefest of pauses, accompanied by the rustling of sheets before Nicole said, "I'll meet him in the morgue. Get him moving."

"Yes Ma'am, we'll have him sent over immediately."

Arashi got someone to beam the body to Sickbay for the autopsy and scanned the room once more just to be sure that there wasn't anything that he was missing.

Penny pulled her silver wand out of her sleeve and scanned the body quickly. She looked at the readings and said, "hm" then walked over to the replicator. She keyed in a dish and, when it materialized, took it and carried it to the door. "His last meal. I'll bring it to Sickbay for analysis."

Arashi nodded and escorted her out, then closed the door and locked it to make sure that no one would be going in or out.

After Arashi had locked the door he had many questions about what had happened. He decided that he would try and get the personnel file on Grayson to try and shed light on why someone would want to kill him. His way of doing his job demanded that he at least try to find the perpetrator who killed a fellow shipmate on his watch and punish him. "I am going to see if I can get Grayson's personnel file and see if I can get at least a motive as to why he was killed. I think that there is something going on here that is rather suspicious. No one gets killed like this without a motive on the killer's part." Arashi said as he escorted Naroot to the sick bay.


Captain's Quarters

The Priority One signal alert began beeping incessantly, deliberately getting louder to rouse the Captain from her sleep. It was a distinctive tone, indicating it was Captain's Eyes Only, and the signal was coming directly to her quarters. The person at the other end was someone who did not want to be seen by anyone, and could by pass the bridge at will.

Section 31 was calling.

A light sleeper anyway, the moment the alert chime sounded Kennit was awake. With Alec standing midwatch, she was alone. Glancing at the time, she roused from bed and walked to her desk where the computer display was lit with the incoming communication. The instant she saw the ID code of the originator her demeanor changed. Staring at the waiting signal on the screen, Kennit very deliberately reached out and denied the call, stopping the chime. She waited. It didn’t take long. Her system activated again, the same Priority One classification, the same originator ID. She denied the signal again. And again, within 20 seconds the call came once more.

Sitting down with a muttered curse, Captain Kennit at last acknowledged the signal and waited for the connection to route through the secure network. The image of a human male in his early 50s appeared. Bald, clean shaven with dark brown eyes he was lean and fit. Before Admiral Harv Bennett could speak, Kennit said “Getting old are we? You seem to have forgotten, I don’t work for you anymore.” Her voice was flat, slightly contemptuous and utterly cold. Admiral Harv Bennett, Commanding Officer of the Theoretical Research Division within Section 31.

"Yes 'we' are," the Admiral said. "You seem to have forgotten that this is not a social club you can simply drop out of. Besides, at the moment our goals coincide. You have a worm in the apple."

“I don’t forget.” she answered, her voice tinged with hatred. “I can’t. Thanks to your machinations and directions in fact. I’ve given you enough of my life. I’ve given you my life, and more. So don’t start with your bullshit subtle comments and word games. What do you want.”

"There's an attempt to undermine the Section," Bennett said. "A group headed by a rogue agent has agents working as we speak, and we believe there's an agent on board your ship. We don't know how they got past our screening, but we assume they've been working there since before you left Alpha Quadrant, or shortly thereafter. I thought perhaps it would be best to recall you to duty and let you sort your own ship out, rather than send our own agent to handle it."

Kennit’s eyes narrowed as she listened to Bennett speak. “Do you have any information on the identity of this rogue agent? I have recently had to deal with an imbedded Tao Shias spy, surgically altered at some length to pass as human, and an assassination attempt immediately following by a trio of Romulan officers who had minor surgical alterations to pass as Vulcan. The first one is still alive, under close guard. She’s requested political asylum. The others are too dead to question.”

"No Romulans are involved, to my knowledge. The only agents we've been able to apprehend are humans so far. His targets have been seemingly random, but we suspect this is part of a larger cat-and-mouse game. He's been blowing up ships to take out one operative, and is responsible for destroying habitats on half a dozen worlds. We believe he was personally trained by one of our senior agents, who faked his death some time ago. He knows how to blend in, disappear. Anyone who winds up in his way will wind up dead sooner or later."

Bennett's jaw twitched in distaste. "I won't pretend we're on the same side of anything, but I am doing you a favor by alerting you to this. I hope you appreciate that. Meanwhile, find out who the agent is before people start dying."

Rhea silently gazed at the features of the man on her com screen. She knew Harv would not give her the full details he held unless she gave him what he clearly wanted...formal acceptance of his desire to reactivate her status as his operative agent. She also knew, with 100% certainty that Harv would not have contacted her unless he felt he had no other option and needed her ..unique skills gained though a lifetime and indeed her life given in service to Section 31. There were no others like her. She was unique, even among the Borg..

She sighed, shook her head slightly and said “Fine. Reactivation order acknowledged, authorization zero five twenty alpha phi four. Now. Tell me what I need to know. I want all information you have on this suspected rogue, who you think this person is and why you have come to that conclusion, including investigation reports into his known activities, suspected purpose, and anything else I’m forgetting to ask for which you have compiled.

The Admiral reached over and tapped a panel, and the Captain's terminal lit up. "We don't have his name yet,but we have several aliases. We've only been able to apprehend a handful of his operatives, half of which think he's a military genius, the other half think he's some kind of demigod." He let out a huff and sat back. "The only common thread is his objectives seem to center around immortality. Mythologies or science, he treats them equally seriously. He's willing to kill anyone to live forever, so watch your back."

“No one lives forever.” Kennit replied, adding “Though some of us do come back...”

"Tell that to him when you find him," Bennett said. "Good hunting."

The screen went blank, and then dark.

“Fucking asshole..” Kennit muttered to the dark screen. Picking up a data PaDD and stylus, she downloaded the data she’d been sent to start her initial review.

A moment later, the comm system came to life. "Captain Kennit: Doctor Anderson requests your presence in the ship's morgue immediately," the computer said in a deceptively mundane tone.

The stylus snapped with a sharp crack, a jagged edge of metal slicing onto her fingers unnoticed. After a moment, she answered, “On my way.”

 

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