Framing Question

Posted on Mon Jul 16, 2018 @ 8:43am by Lieutenant Cassandra Kennings & Lieutenant Arashi Tanaka Mr.

2,147 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Divide et Impera ~ Chapter 2: Heralding the Chase
Location: Cassandra's Office
Timeline: Concurrent with The Door, The Gale and The Emerald City

Cassandra had left the bridge around the same time the Captain had. She didn't anticipate they would be gone for more than a few hours, and she had work to do.

There were only a handful of people on board who had the scientific and technical backgrounds to remotely program the replicators and holodecks to deliver a poisonous material that wouldn't register with the security systems. What Cassandra couldn't figure out was, if the poison was a two-part system, how were both parts delivered without anyone noticing?

Her list of suspects had included the Captain, Commander Torres, their science officer, Yarin, Nicole, Penny and, technically, herself. However, since she knew she hadn't done it, she was able to clear herself from the list. She was also relatively sure she could rule out Nicole and Penny given their particular histories. She'd also come to the grudging conclusion that the Captain was not behind this. For all her faults, she didn't seem the kind of person to ally herself with Blackhawk.

But now there was an extra name, thanks to a new suspect. Cass was relatively sure it was a frame-up, similar to how using Doctor Mackenzie's likeness in the holodeck was done to implicate her, but it worried Cassandra that the suspect pool was again widening, not shrinking.

She walked into her office and tapped her combadge. "Sanders to Security: Please escort Mister Tanaka to my office for an interview. Authorization Sanders-Delta-3-Green."

She closed the transmission and walked over to the large, wooden cabinet that towered in the far corner. She ran a finger along the center of the front and the seam between the panels split and it opened up. She pulled out a pair of china cups and a teapot, as well as fresh tea leaves and a small vial. She replicated some water and a heating element and filled the pot, setting it to boil.

By the time she sat down in her armchair, the teapot was starting to steam and when the chime rang it just began to whistle.

Brig

The security guard responded to Sander's hail. "Roger that. On our way." He said and motioned for a guard to take Tanaka out of his cell. Tanaka had been in the brig for a few hours and was concerned about what had happened. He had somehow caused a superior to get hurt or worse or so he thought. He really didn't know what to think or do but he knew that he would find a solution. While he was thinking two guards armed with phasers on stun came in to speak with him. "Lieutenant Sanders wants to see you. Let's go and not keep her waiting." the guard said. He shut down the force field confining Tanaka and cuffed him.

They escorted him out of the brig and to the turbolift. Tanaka looked very solemn as they arrived at their floor and walked out of the turbolift.

Cassandra's Office

They had rung the chime on the door and as the door opened they led Tanaka inside. "Tanaka is here for your interview, ma'am." the guard said.

"Thank you, Ensign," Cassandra said. "You can remove his restraints."

"Ma'am, that is not--"

"--your concern, Ensign," Cassandra finished for him. She stared him down, letting his rank hang in the air. The guard removed Tanaka's restraints and nodded to her. "We'll be just outside the door," he said.

"Thank you," Cassandra said and let them leave.

"Lieutenant Tanaka reporting as ordered." Tanaka said and waited for a response.

"Please sit down, Arashi," Casandra said, gesturing to the chair across from her. She poured out two cups of tea and leaned forward, handing him one. She sat back and took a sip of her own. "How are you faring?"

Arashi took the tea and sat down. "I am confused and angry about what happened. I was an unwitting assassin and hurt a fellow crewmember and I don't even remember if I even did anything or not." He said and took a sip of his tea, anger evident in his voice. "I am not sure what is even going on, even if I didn't do anything!" He was angry and realized that he had shouted.

"I apologize for the outburst." He said after taking a deep breath to calm himself. "If I did this without knowing about what happened, what does that mean for me?" He took another sip of tea, the warmth of it calming him to an extent.

"It means you have a guilt complex that we really should discuss," Cassandra said. She crossed her legs and tilted her head, looking him over. "Why is your first thought that this is your fault, rather than someone framing you?"

"I don't know...I didn't pay attention and someone used that against me. Even if I am not at fault, I should have known something was going on. That lack of attention to detail laid up a fellow crewmate in sickbay, who could possibly die due to my stupidity!" Arashi said, with a grim smile on his face. "If she dies, it is on my hands...I should have seen something was wrong. A crewmate already died on my watch, I will not allow it to happen again even if it means that I resign from Starfleet and turn myself in."

Arashi took another sip of tea and took a deep breath. He was feeling like even if he didn't use the whatever weapon that used on
Lieutenant Anderson, he was responsible for it. If he wasn't, he swore to himself that he would make the person that did this pay with his life.

Cassandra reached into her dress pocket and pulled out her gold compact. She flipped it open and stared into it for a moment, then sat back in her chair. "Right now, on a space station in the Beta Quadrant, there's a woman who's been mugged. Her valuables were taken and she was roughed up rather hard." She sipped her tea calmly. "Are you at fault for that too?"

He was wondering where this was going. "Of course not but that really doesn't have anything to do with this does it?" He said his curiosity about what she was asking betrayed in his voice. "I mean I am assigned as a security officer to this ship, am I not? That makes me partially responsible for the safety of the crew of the ship. But what are we trying to get at here? That someone tried to plant a seed of doubt in me with these actions or did I do these actions of programming the hologram to attack Anderson with out knowing?" He clenched his fist but resisted the urge to punch anything that was in reach of his fist.

"My point, Arashi," Cassandra said, "is that you are about as involved with that mugging as you were here. Yes, as a member of Security, the safety and security of this ship and crew are your responsibility, but your willingness to put your own neck into the guillotine does not help us find the person who really did this. So it would help if you stopped thinking like a guilty person and began thinking like an innocent one." Her voice snapped a bit with authority at the end and her violet eyes bored into him over the rim of her teacup.

Arashi knew that she was right, but he wasn't sure that he knew where to begin. He was sure that he had done this somehow but if Sanders wanted help in figuring out who did what they did then he had to work with her on it. "You're right, of course, and you have my sincere apologies for my attitude about this so far. But where do we even begin?" He said. "They had to have had knowledge of computer systems to even tamper with anything and not trigger an alert. So where do we start?" Arashi thought about what he had done after the previous mission.

"We start there, the computer," Cassandra said. "When you went to your holodeck, what program did you pull up? What were your commands? Walk me through every moment of that holoprogram--no. Wait; I have a better idea."

She stood up and set her teacup down, grabbing her handbag. "Let's go for a walk."

Arashi finished his tea, which had calmed his nerves considerably since the beginning of the conversation, and followed Sanders. "I remember after going to my quarters and dropping off my gear, I went to the holodeck and activated one of my sword training programs. Multiple opponents, random weapons and attack patterns, which I will show you when we arrive at the holodeck. I grabbed my training sword and activated the program" He said as the walked. "So what do you think? Did they maybe piggyback a signal through my program on the Holodeck?" He was glad that Sanders had given him some serious talk. He knew that all of his talk of basically martyring himself for something that he wasn't responsible for was counter-productive at best, self-destructive at worst.

Cassandra walked to the door, Arashi at her heels and moved quickly out and down the corridor. "With us, gentlemen," she said to the security officers who did a double take and had to hurry to keep up.

As the procession approached the holodeck, Cassandra tapped the control panel to make sure it was free. She nodded and stepped back. "All right, I want you to call up the exact same program, same parameters, exactly as you did," she said. She pulled a tricorder out of her bag and set it to interface with the computer, entering a series of access codes.

Arashi nodded and set up the program. "Computer activate Holodeck training program Arashi 01. Multiple opponents, random weapons and attack patterns." He said and he made sure that everything was set up. "That is what I had going when I got back and decided to take some downtime. I had done some stretching before I started the program. Do you want me to activate the program or is this fine?" He looked at the holograms, wondering how someone could have done what they did.

"Computer," she said, "activate program at 1/1000th normal speed." The computer beeped and the opponents appeared like statues, barely moving past the periphery.

Cassandra's tricorder suddenly beeped and she brought it up. "A second program was triggered," she said. "Holodeck 2 is now running." She flipped open her compact and looked into it for a moment. "Computer," she said, "end program."

The holodeck emptied once again, her tricorder stopped beeping, and she closed her compact. "All right, let's do another test. "Computer," she said, "run program Sanders Equestrian Practice." The holodgrid disappeared and the Kansas prairie spread out before them, a tall chestnut stallion standing beside her. Her tricorder beeped again and she checked her compact again. "Computer, end program," she said.

She turned to Arashi and smiled. "Good news," she said, "you were framed. Whoever did this triggered a program within the holodeck itself to start a secondary program in Holodeck 2. It wasn't from you or anything in your program, because mine just set it off as well. If the computer can trace where the code was entered from, we may have found our killer."

Arashi nodded and turned to Sanders. "Well, what do you want me to do now?" He asked with a slight sound of elation in his voice. He was happy that he was innocent of what he thought he did.

"For now, I think we can have you return to your quarters. I would suggest not letting anyone in for your own safety. I'll clear it with Lieutenant Casey."

"Roger that. Thanks for helping out of the mess that I was in." He said. "I really appreciate all of it."

"Well--" Cassandra began.

"Doctor Sanders," the computer said, interrupting her, "this is your requested alert that we are fifteen minutes from station DQ8."

"I have to get to the bridge," Cassandra said, rushing him out of the holodeck. She looked at his escort. "Escort him to his quarters and confine him there until further notice," she said.

The guards nodded and turned to flank Arashi.

He walked out with the guards by his side, as the escorted him back to his quarters. before he left and as Sanders left for the bridge he smiled at her in thanks for her help in clearing his name. He arrived at his floor in the turbolift and was escorted to his room. After the guards left to guard the door, he replicated himself some miso soup and grilled salmon with a bowl of rice and sat down to eat.

JP

Lt. Cassandra Sanders
Ship's Counselor

Lt. j.g. Arashi Tanaka
Security

 

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