Lt Imril - [Begin Act I] - A Well-Mannered Shipjacking
Chris Taylor
(( The Afalqi Project, Hangar 1659 – Meranuge IV ))
The hangar was large and hollowed-out. Not only of the precious vessel it had once held, but of any sign of the native people of Meranuge IV. Not a single grey-skinned, technicolor-haired individual present. Only five Starfleet officers in black uniforms accented in primary colors. The other major sources of color being the glowing screens of active consoles, separated in some cases by significant height and distance.
Ensign Tarsan rocked on his feet, ever so much the image of an eager greenhorn.
But Imril stood in cool stillness. The silence of the chamber filled by the memory of a very unexpected communique which they had received just after their promotion. As every silence of late seemed to be.
“Hello, Imril. I’m your sister…”
Munro: The Captain -
The Commander’s voice didn’t carry very far in the cavernous void left by the Da’al vessel. But it was enough to chase that matter away in favor of the current crisis.
Munro: :: slightly lower :: The Captain has ordered us to find any clues as to what may have happened to the Afalqi. If you need to refresh yourselves on the file, please take the time. Now is not the time to make mistakes. Even being here is an important step in the Federation’s relationship with the Da'al.
Cole: Understood. We’ll keep it clean, keep it respectful, and we won’t assume anything until we can verify.
Tarsan: Understood Commander.
Bancroft: ::single nod:: Aye, Commander.
Imril: Aye.
Munro: Lieutenant Imril and Ensign Tarsan focus on the ship. I'd like to know if there was anything about the Afalqi that made it especially valuable to outsiders. The Da'al have given us temporary access to the basic Afalqi schematics, but a lot of that has been redacted. ::shrugs:: Let's see if we can fill in the gaps ourselves without causing a diplomatic incident.
Roy’s gaze shifted briefly toward Imril, his eyes already guessing the line of investigation the senior engineer present intended to pursue.
Tarsan: Yes ::voice coming out higher pitched than normal before he cleared his throat:: Yes Commander!
Imril winced slightly at the ensign’s exuberance, and resisted the urge to rub their ear.
Munro: :: to Cole and Bancroft :: We're going to have a look around the hangar, see if we can find anything interesting. Roy I'd like you to run some bio scans. Cole, I'd like a timeline of what happened here. If we're going to go chasing after that ship, I need some answers to a lot of questions.
Cole: Got it. I’ll build you a timeline from whatever the room tells me.
Roy slipped the medkit from his shoulder selected his tricorder and a smaller scanner with quiet ease.
Bancroft: On it, ma’am.
Munro: :: to them all :: Any questions?
Cole: Just one. Do we know who had authorized access to this hangar in the last seventy-two hours, or is that one of the things our hosts will be… selective about? ::beat:: One more thing, have the Da’al already collected anything from the scene, or are we looking at how it was discovered?
Tarsan: Will the Da'al allow us to speak to any of the engineers who didn't leave with the ship... ::pausing:: if there are any left, that is?
Bancroft: No questions, Commander. ::beat:: Yet. I’m sure that won’t last long.
Imril: I’m interested to know how many engineers, and other folk, did leave with the ship. And if the Afalqi picked up more on their way out of the system. The size of the crew needed to run the ship could tell us something about it that’s not on the schematics. ::Huff:: What we’re allowed to see of them.
Munro: Response
Cole: Then let’s not waste the chance to look before procedure turns into a wall.
Roy glanced sideways at her, mustache akimbo.
Bancroft: That happen often to you, Nat?
Imril simply chuckled at the joke. They had a feeling that good humor would be hard to find as this mission went on.
Munro: Response
Cole: I’m going to work the perimeter and spiral inward. People notice the middle. Mistakes usually happen at the edges.
Bancroft: ::pointing:: I like the look of that console over there as my starting point.
Imril: Save me one, Roy. ::Looking across the hangar:: Oh, wait, there’s plenty to go around.
Munro: Response
The team separated without discussion.
Roy drifted along the outer arc of the gantry structure, headed in the general direction of a lone console.
Imril remained by the new ensign, for the moment.
Tarsan: ::to Imril:: Lieutenant, where would you like to start? If- uh if you don't mind, I can pick up the engine specs?
Imril tapped some commands on their padd, releasing all of the Afalqi’s specs -- what had been granted of them, anyway -- to the ensign’s padd.
Imril: Right now, while we have access to the hangar and it’s computers, I’m going to go see what those computers have to say about what happened here. But we’re going to go over all of these so-called specs soon enough. See what’s there. What doesn’t need to be there. What probably shouldn’t be there. What all of those things put together can tell us about the parts of the ship that we’re not allowed to see.
Imril: My guess is if there’s something aboard the Afalqi that our hosts don't want us to know about, it might be something the theives thought was important or valuable enough to take control of for their own reasons.
The Afalqi was officially designated a Science And Exploration craft. A title which could cover anything from a flying scanner array like an Oberth-class ship to a vessel dedicated to testing and shaking down experimental technologies. The state and arrangement of accessible ship's systems could point to what such technologies were.
A prototype cloaking device, for example, would require significantly more engine power than other ships of the Afalqi’s size, and distinctive safeties on the weapons and energy sheilds to keep them from operating while the cloak was active.
Tarsan: I was thinking that I might check for any technology that would have allowed them to escape from the hanger without being seen, wormhole generators, and so on?
Imril thought back to their time with Lt. Gnai, simulating the aftermath of the wormhole which destroyed the original Galadornan homeworld. The gravitational forces involved in forming even a wormhole small enough to move a starship through would have had a much wider impact across the building, its surroundings, and the atmosphere.
Imril: If a wormhole had come through this area, we’d be picking through the pieces of a disaster area. So I think we can rule that out. But you've got a good idea, so run with it. Go ahead and scan this place from top to bottom while you're at it. We may want to rebuild this crime-scene in a Holodeck later.
A criminal conspiracy on Galaris IV had been unravelled in part by a forensic simulation.
Imril parted ways with the ensign, headed for another control console. One on a higher platform, once of several positioned along the wall, where they could get a view of the hangar from higher up.
Munro/Cole: Response
In the distance, Roy initiated a sensor sweep.
Cole was not far off, moving along the perimeter with methodical pace.
Bancroft: ::idly:: Place seems pretty intact for having just hosted a large-scale heist, no?
Cole: Response
Imril climbed up a ladder as they spoke.
Imril: It screams ‘inside job’ pretty loudly. We already know that the ship’s Chief Engineer appears to be involved. Maybe they had help on the administrative or security side of things?
Munro/Tarsan: Responses?
Bancroft: Right. I mean – even the chairs at the consoles. Not a single one out of place. They’re all even pointed the right direction.
Cole: Response
Of course, the ship had to get past more than the hangar door. Imril set their padd down against a safety railing a swiped over to the folder pertaining to the Da’al end of this investigation. Looking for an idea of what happened after the ship got away from this place.
Imril: The ship’s transponder wasn't picked up in the skylanes by local traffic scanners or any privately-own scanners that the local police are aware of. The more mundane reasons for that would be that someone installed a second transponder, or the thieves had help from outside this facility in covering their passage to open space.
Imril: ::Calling to Tarsan:: Any news on more interesting ways of getting away unobserved, Ensign Tarsan?
Munro/Tarsan: Responses?
Roy’s tricorder trilled.
Bancroft: ::frowning:: PCE-4? A tiny amount, but it’s definitely PCE-4. This is just a hangar, right? Not a clean room?
Cole: Response
Imril was familiar with the sterilizing agent, as it had a tendency to come into use following the more gruesome engineering mishaps. Burnt skin stuck to an overheated plasma coil, and so forth.
Imril: I know PCE-4 is the go-to sterilizer in Starfleet. But how common is it on this planet? Something to check on with the hangar’s quartermaster.
Munro/Tarsan: Responses?
For all this stopping and theorizing, Imril had finally reached their target computer. And got it ‘speaking’ in Federation Standard.
Imril: I’ve got hangar computer access. Looking up Security sub-directories.
Munro/Tarsan/Cole/Bancroft: Responses?
Considering the caginess that a certain Da’al colonel had exhibited on the Genesis Planet, Imril wasn’t particularly shocked to find several of their information requests rebuffed by security overrides.
Imril: Surprise, surprise. More redactions. Some of them dating back to when the Afalqi was first docked here.
Munro/Tarsan/Cole/Bancroft: Responses?
Imril: Would it be terribly undiplomatic of me if I started peeking behind some of these black bars?
Munro/Tarsan/Cole/Bancroft: Responses?
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Lieutenant Imril
Engineering Officer
USS Artemis-A
A240110I12