ENS Chevalier - Heartclicks song of Heads or Tails
CPT Arianus
((Operations Office, Deck 5, USS Artemis-A))
Jaseb
nodded to Commander comment on the Untruthful closeness of his Other.
Dakora:
Not surprising. That guy has enough hardware on him to make a Borg
jealous. It’ll have to do though. Call me if you’re able to
narrow it down further.
Chevalier:
Sir, I cannot do much from there, sir. If he's interfering with the
sensors, to detect his presence we will need to get closer to him
personally. I know what we are looking for...
oO And
definitely, I will not share that with caecus.. Oo
Jaseb
turned to Lt. Commander and saw his face, so he did not finish what he
wanted to say.
Chevalier:
...but I can send an algorithm to Your PADD as well, understood, sir.
Jaseb
quickly mirrored his sensor data cleared of most suspected ghost
sensor reflections to Commander's PADD.
J
Kader: What could he even want down
there I wonder.
Jaseb
looked at the NAV ensign with a suspicious expression on his face, and did
not answer, as Kader brought Commander's attention to himself as
well.
Dakora:
And you, Mister Kader, if you’re not too intoxicated, need to get
to your muster point for the Red Alert, because I doubt it’s here.
J Kader: Won't be a problem. Merely synthehol sir, legally a refreshment. Do be careful on your way to deck 12. Actually, might I suggest an armed escort?
Chevalier:
Your place is at the bridge, ensign, as my place is here. ::still
facing to his console as he continued with data transfer::
Lt.
Commander nodded and cut with that any discussion in this direction.
Jaseb completed the data transfer and returned PADD to
Commander.
Commander took his PADD and left. As the door was
closing behind him, Jaseb's mechanical hand slowly slid under his
console and gripped the butt of the hand phaser. Jaseb turned his
head at the ensign Kader.
J Kader: Then I am off as well, ::To Chevalier.:: nice meeting you, ensign. Say, do your sensors say anything about any Desdemona crew members on the upper decks as well?
Chevalier: I was not checking that yet, Mr. Kader.
J Kader: Oh I definitely wouldn’t want to run into any of them if possible.
Chevalier:
Don't worry ensign Kader, if sensors register any impostors, they
will automatically notify the ship's Security. There is no need from
my side to do anything.
Kader
nodded, and departed as well.
Jaseb checked the nearest security
unit to alert them about the ensign, but what he saw, averted his
interest. Security reported crime on the lab deck 11. He quickly
started to read a report. Someone killed a member of the crew in
Hazardous Lab and security was analyzing the scene at the moment. It
was not nice nor good. But at least Jaseb knows. J was in that part of
the ship. Chevalier looked at the chronograph. A precious minutes passed and he forgot about Kader. He quickly checked the bridge
sensors and they confirmed it. Kader was on the bridge. So he took
his station in the end. Jaseb smiled. Maybe he was just paranoid...
((Minutes
later... Operations Office, Deck 5, USS Artemis-A))
Ensign
Chevalier was on fire. He was capable to pinpoint J's location to
somewhere at the decks 14 and 15. Heads or tails...
oO
Take it or leave it, Jaseb. Sooner than later, you
will need to pinpoint some location for the commander before he
will kill someone else... Oo
His interim voice annoyed him in the same way he was motivating him. But it started to make sense to him.
He was starting to see the pattern of how whatever J was using to
confuse the sensors was working.
Chevalier:
Yes, yes, I have you. That's
you!
Ensign
quickly updated Commander's PADD with the location. Deck 15, section
3-5-9. Somewhere there J was. Still it was a large location, about
twelve rooms and two jeffries tubes system entrances, but it was a
place to start. Five contacts. Four ghosts. No, three, this one did
not repeat itself within the last eight cycles. That is a ghost. Delete.
Jaseb expanded the display of the sensor around the contacts. One
particular really caught his eye.
There
was Captain MacKenzie, Lt. Jovenan, two security officers...and J.
Was this one?
Contact
disappeared. Jumped three rooms behind the security officers. Others
unconfirmed did it as well. One more could be marked for deletion. That one jumped two decks, too much. Heads or tails.
Chevalier
did not have a coin to toss. Did he even need it?
No.
It was J. He marked this contact as the true detected signature of his
Other. Jaseb hoped he chose the right one. But he did not need to
wait that long. Signature of Lt. Commander Dakora appeared next to
the security officers. Almost at the same time sensors marked
shooting by Captain MacKenzie and a life-sign of Lt. Jovenan
disappeared. One click. Two clicks. Third click of Jaseb's mechanical
heart passed.
And
ghosts vanished from sensors as one. Only one remained, next to the
captain. The one which was real J.
It
took two more heartclicks for his brain to catch up with Jaseb's
mechanics. To see J's dot moving.
Chevalier:
Frak! No, no, no, no, no...
Ensign's
fingers quickly pushed the commands to activate his worm in J's brain
to open backdoor access to J's cybernetics.
Red
letters on his screen were something that he did not want to see.
:: ACCESS DENIED ::