LTJG Lhandon Joseph Nilsen - The Cubic Crate
Lhandon Nilsen
((T-1 Independent Bay, Operations Centre Lower Floor, Deck 7, USS Octavia E Butler))
Nothing had felt right. Nilsen had expected some sort of comment about his ability to unlock the cubic lock, perhaps a quip or a joke. But there was nothing. After unlocking the cubic lock, Nilsen had been very proud of himself. His past had come to his aid, but the contents of the crate didn’t make sense. Food replicators, protected by a lock? Food replicators were commonplace, and if he had wanted to, Lhandon could have made one quite quickly using the OEB.
Nilsen: Richards, what does that manifest say this should be?
Richards: It's just standard medical supplies.
So why the effort to hide it, and to fake the manifest?
Nilsen: Well that’s wrong because our star prize is Replicator units. Entire Replicator units.
Arlill: That’s definitely unexpected.
No one else had any other words.
Arlill: What should we have been expected?
Richards: Ancient earthen artifacts.
There was a little laugh from Lhandon, the sarcasm not lost on him.
Nilsen: Really?
Richards: Yup. Like maybe one of those old bicycles, you know, the ones that sprayed toxic fumes out the back?
Nilsen: I’d be the happiest guy on the ship we found them, but I'd never hide them behind these stupid locks. This crate as you said should have just been medical supplies. Erm…::taking the PADD:: I can’t read half of these names, but I think these are meant to be Analgesics, Antivirals, Anti-inflammatory drugs, Antiradiation drugs and a motherlode of hyposprays
Toxin: That’s obviously not what we got.
There was a pause, all three of them were thinking?
Toxin: So, what's next? I can escalate this through the chain of command. However, there's a risk that our "entrepreneurs" might get wind of it and go silent.
Richards: I don’t think there’s any need to run it up the chain just yet. We can solve this. We already cracked the cube lock.
Nilsen: I don’t know, I mean, it’s already gone from me to Richards to you sir, and like you said we don’t want others getting wind of this.
Toxin: We need to act quickly. Even though the T1 is a secured room, anyone interested in this crate will undoubtedly find its sudden disappearance unsettling. Why don't I stay here to continue the analysis while you two collate the information you've collected to find any correlations? I can monitor things here.
Richards: Are you sure? Maybe one one of us should hang around to help you with that?
What had started as a little mystery was now causing something to happen. But what? Lhandon had looked at both Richards and Arlill, watching the level of suspicion rise. The situation had been in danger of escalating, and he had felt unease in his stomach as Richard's gaze had fallen to meet Arlill's. There had been a silent poison that started to erode the trust within this room, and this poison had found its way into Arlill and Nilsen's relationship. Lhandon had noticed that Arlill had been more stressed, worked harder, and was always engrossed in PADD words. o0 There’s no way 0o
Nilsen: I mean erm…
He wasn’t able to finish his sentence.
Toxin: No it’s fine, I don’t mind at all. (beat) I don’t think I need to make this an order (beat) right?
Richards: You got it, Sir.
Yet, the seeds of doubt were being sown and Nilsen felt a cold shiver run down his spine. Something was wrong. Very wrong. And the sinking feeling in his gut told him they were just scratching the surface. He tried to distract from this by asking what he felt was a somewhat dumb question
Nilsen: So what we do next? Any ideas?
RIchards: If someone is missing their crate. They might come looking for it. We should check surveillance of the shuttlebay, just to be safe.
Nilsen: That makes sense
Arlill: Response
Richards: But they might be too smart for that, especially with the…
Anton nodded once more at the cubic lock, and Lhandon continued the thought
Nilsen: The cubic lock…I dunno. I know with the camera Sherlock would know in her sleep if something was up with them. I’m guessing you can access them and have a look?
Richards/Arlill: Responses?
Ideas were flowing through the ops brain of Lhandon, Nilsen found early on in his life that operations was a natural fit, and while he tried to cast it aside during his academy years, it was proving very useful here
And here, something wasn't adding up
Nilsen: Here's what I don't get, why this? We have food replicators, the other had basic stuff like EPS control units, and sensor parts and we've more or less confirmed this is a smuggling job.
As Nilsen tried to piece this all together, he began to unconsciously fidget and his fingers drummed rhythmically on the surface of the crate, a sign of his mind racing with thoughts.
Nilsen: But also to get access to the cargo bay of two Federation starships and deep space nine is no easy feat, so why go through all this effort for this basic stuff?
Arlill/Richards: Response
Nilsen: Like this is the kind of effort you put in for smuggling weapons or anything illegal, not for basic supplies, and if you were moving some illegal certainly wouldn't put a cubic lock on that, you'd have a lot more security around it.
Arlill/Richards: Response
Nilsen: I dunno, something isn't adding up but I think we should put this crate back, like we never touched it but ::beat:: we should put a subspace beacon, something small we can hide, a passive one that only gets pinged by navigational buoys. Then we watch to see where it goes.
Tags/TBC
Lieutenant JG Lhandon Joseph Nilsen
HCO & Acting Asst. Chief
USS Octavia E Butler
O240007LN1
He/Him/His (Both player and character)