JP: Nilsen, Lahl, Dieter, T'Reth, Caras, Astrolabe: Star Trek: SCI (2 of 5)
Avander Promontory
Part II
(( Shdam’s Arcade and Ancient Amusements (Scene of the Crime), Port Coray ))
The crime scene was the small cramped staff room of the arcade, a small replicator stood in the wall watching over the circular table and four chairs. A counter top was provided on two walls for any further food preparation. A bright harsh, but workable, white light was embedded into the ceiling. The walls were, at one point, something resembling white but now in addition to years of smoke, dust, and whatever else was in the air, they were now decorated with a small smattering of blood that had been lazily wiped clean. If those walls could talk, they’d scream, just like the victim did in their final moments.
The victim, one Shdarn, a Wadi male, was lying face up. His head mangled and mutilated from several strikes to the head and body. One noticeable laceration cut right across his face from the bottom right of his mouth, across his nose, and up to the corner of his eye, splitting the eyeball into two pieces. Dried blood had since sealed the wound
At this gruesome scene, the medical investigator was already getting to work. Sahiana Ordana wore a thin black jacket, which had a formality akin to military style, buttoned entirely to the base of her thick scaly neck. Her shoulders were wide, and she towered over most whom she met; her voice, like many of her fellow Dachlyd, had a slightly raspy undertone.
Her green scales, however, did not follow the same perfection she demanded from her clothing choices. An almost black trail of dark scales started from the tip of the ridges on her forehead, over the top of her eyes, and then towards the back of her head. It then curved around her ear, which was further back than other humanoids, and then down her neck and under her jacket.
Life was cheap on the Port, and once you were dead there was rarely anyone to pick up the corpse and while the scene was contaminated, something which brought annoyance to all involved
Ordana: There is most certainly something fishy at play here. Just this crime scene alone has had the footfall of half the quadrant.
T’Reth raised an eyebrow at the assertion that half the quadrant had trod through this narrow space. In her opinion, exaggerations had no place in a criminal investigation. In fact, she felt exaggerations just had no place among intelligent conversationalists. Nevertheless, the team would benefit from a medical specialist, despite their somewhat irksome mannerisms.
Dieter: (responding dryly) The bashed in face wasn’t a give away? This place certainly doesn’t look like a hotbed of criminal activity.
T’Reth: Did the deceased put up a defense?
Ordana: I don’t believe Lt Nilsen did it at all. Look how he was acting down there, I’m not a psychologist, but it’s clear he’s taking the fall for something here.
T’Reth strained her neck to apperceive what the doctor was trying to indicate. She wasn’t sure she saw anything noteworthy. Maybe she misunderstood the doctor.
T’Reth: (archly) Perhaps we should leave such speculation to a psychologist. Is there any more to learn here?
T’Reth didn’t particularly mind gruesome crime scenes, but their time might be more productively spent elsewhere. Plus, the floor was sticky.
Dieter: Our goal is to get enough reasonable doubt that we can cast suspicion elsewhere. Starfleet’s looking to not have their name get too muddied in all this. (beat) And, that kid certainly looks and acts guilty as hell.
Ordana had been watching proceedings on her PADD. She wouldn’t normally do this as it would often lead to an unconscious bias being formed, but given the exceptional circumstance of this case and the rather curious lack of procedure from the authorities here in regards to crime scene preservation, she elected to make an exception!
Ordana: He might be nervous, yes but he clearly has nothing to hide. I think we should be careful with him too, I wouldn't be surprised if our friendly magistrate tries to make him buckle. At this point, he looks as if he’ll confess to anything just to get this over with.
As her curiosity got the better of her; she ended up watching those proceedings prior to the arrival of the rest of the team. She felt a concern for Nilsen. One she couldn’t place and the only words she had was “wrong place, wrong time”
T’Reth: Our role is not to coddle the accused. (beat) And not make assumptions about guilt or innocence. Just to follow the facts.
Dieter: (nodding) Let’s get on with it then.
T’Reth: Here (pointing) and here. These appear to be security sensors.
Dieter’s head turned and followed the path toward where she’d pointed.
Dieter: Good catch… but they look in rough shape.
T’Reth: Despite their damage, they may still have recorded something vital. Perhaps we can have… our lab analyze it.
One of the perks to traveling with this team was that their ship, the Themis, while only a small Nova-class, had been refitted to fully support criminal investigation and as such, had an extensive forensics lab.
Ty pulled out his tricorder and scanned the two cameras, and after a moment, reached up, grabbed the camera in his paw and pulled it out of their wall.
Dieter: There is some fragmented local storage. (beat) The axe may have silenced the victim, but this camera kept recording. ::putting on his SCI-issued shades:: Now, let’s see who’s on the chopping block."
(( Corridors near Shdam’s Arcade and Ancient Amusements, Port Coray ))
In the few hours since they had sent the recordings to their lab technician on the Themis, Dieter and T’Reth had interviewed dozens of potential witnesses. Most had little to say to the pair of interlopers from the Alpha Quadrant. Some of the characters, like the clone Cambrimi 45 and the vaguely avian Sa phto, seemed more likely to have witnessed the crime because they committed it, rather than as innocent bystanders. Then there was the surly, Ng Go’rin, a large creature that mostly growled at the investigators. He was guilty of something for sure, but perhaps not this murder.
The latter three were larger aliens, which corresponded to the footage their analysis had managed to recover thus far. Only 25% of the data could be reconstructed, even with the angles of the 2 cameras, they’d only captured the perpetrator’s grainy back. In the blurry footage there was an individual with a frame similar to Nilsen. But something felt off to Ty, he just couldn’t place his paw on exactly what.
Now they were doing a second round of questioning with the witnesses. An associate of Sa phto claimed to have witnessed suspicious characters around the time of the attack and they were trying to compare their accounts to the data recorded. Ty let T’Reth continue on as he focused on the witnesses' responses.
T’Reth: And you are certain that the individual you saw was a Starfleet officer?
The woman stared wide eyed at T’Reth, and for a moment she didn’t respond, but finally nodded and replied.
Gigranal: Yes, it was, it was a Starfleet officer. They had one of those strange triangles on their shirt.
The Undular nodded, the various wisps of what was something between hair and fur floated about her head in a cerulean tuft that was reminiscent of a giant puffball. Every movement sent it flittering in the middle, but the ends remained strangely still, as if only the center of the orb that consisted of her head was allowed any motion, and the tips were frozen.
T’Reth: Surely you don’t mean that literally.
T’Reth was beginning to lose patience with these unproductive interviews. It was already a conceded fact that the accused had been a frequent patron of the deceased’s establishment. Too much time had passed since the crime and too much publicity for her team to be getting accurate witness testimony, even from the best of witnesses, which this individual certainly was not.
Gigranal: Why wouldn’t I? I’m saying what I said. I saw what I said. Why would I not be literal? The officer wore a triangle.
T’Reth: (pulling up a holo) Did it look something like this?
A floating image of the standard Starfleet issued uniform appeared, spinning slowly with the ‘triangle’ delta insignia.
Leaning forward, Gigranal paused, and everything froze, not only the tips of her hair, but her entire being, as if she had been captured in a painting and forever immortalised in that particular position. A minute passed, and then she moved again, and while the tips of that hair shifted from one place to another, they remained set in the exact spot within their relative positions to one another.
Gigranal: Yes, that was it.
This again felt off to Ty, she should’ve been able to tell instantly if that was indeed what she saw. Instead, she made it appear that she was carefully assessing the details. It seemed however that their witness had enough of the holo show.
T’Reth: And the rest of their attire?
Gigranel: Yellow. Bright yellow. Too harsh on the eyes yellow.
T’Reth: Can you say which of these most closely matches what you saw?
A new image replaced the hovering uniform, this time an array of 12 different men that had similar but distinctly different features. It reminded Deiter of those ancient human shows that his friends used to drag him to… what did they call this… a lineup?
Once again, Gigranel’s head turned, but those tips remained fastened in place. The eyes, completely devoid of any colour beyond white and set within a pale gray face fell upon the man in question and one of her nine fingers upon her left hand jabbed at the accused.
Gigranel: That one.
T’Reth: Thank you. That will be sufficient.
Deiter: Yes… thank you. One more thing, we just need a voice ident on him as well. It looks like they were arguing, and at one point he was shouting at the victim. Did you observe that as well?
Gigranel blinked, her bulbous eyelids winking the stark white out of sight, then revealing them as the curtain’s rose.
Gigranel: Could you not hear the argument?
Deiter: (shaking his head) Unfortunately the surveillance devices didn’t have audio recording enabled. oO Probably safer if they were backroom dealing. Oo I’m going to play a sample of the suspect’s voice, and you let me know if it matches.
Ty played the audio clip; unbeknownst to Gigranel, it was not Lhandon’s voice on the tape but a young woman’s. To anyone that’d heard Nilsen’s pitch and Gaultan speech patterns, it would be obvious that this was not the man’s voice.
Gigranel: Yes. Yes that’s his voice.
T’Reth: And you are as certain about this as you were about your visual identification?
Once again, the puffball hair froze, as iff the ends had been caught in a stasis, even though the head itself nodded.
Gigranel: I am. Is there anything else?
T’Reth exchanged a knowing glance with Ty, who bowed his head appreciatively.
Deiter: (smiling) No, thank you.
(( Conference Room, Deck 1, USS Themis ))
Just off the main bridge in the compact Nova-class ship the conference room had been designated as their “Crime board” room. Every wall space was covered with screens and holoprojectors, displaying all the information the investigators had turned up to this point. It wasn’t much.
Dieter: So do we have any likely suspects?
T’Reth: Ng Go’rin is a plausibility. If it’s not Mr. Nilsen.
Dieter: I’m leaning toward Gigranel, or an associate of hers. Everything just seemed off, like she was overly prepared for our presence, and then the incorrect voice ident. ::pounding the table:: Damn those cameras… we need more.
T’Reth: Lack of evidence is not evidence of lack
The lead agent stared at the Vulcan, waiting expectantly for her to elaborate further.
T’Reth: Just because we do not have the necessary information, it does not mean it does not exist. The damage to the camera is unfortunate. (beat) It may have been deliberate.
Ty nodded, given ti was tucked away in the corners of the ceiling, it was likely subject to foul play.
Dieter: Did they leave behind any prints… 9-fingered handprints?
T’Reth: Nothing that we’ve been able to ascertain thus far. Two of the beings we interviewed earlier might be worth a second look–
An alert ping across their devices.
T’Reth: It’s the lab, they have something for us.
TBC
--
Starring:
Sahiana Ordana
Medical Examiner
Starfleet Criminal Investigative Team
&&
Lieutenant JG Lhandon Joseph Nilsen
Assistant Chief of Operations.
USS Octavia E Butler
O240007LN1
He/Him/His (Both player and character)
Ensign Kimonzi Lahl
Engineering Officer
U.S.S. Octavia E. Butler
O240107KL4
Lieutenant Ty B Dieter
Lead Investigator
Starfleet Criminal Investigative Team
O240005JH3 / O239910AP4
&&
Lexiudex
The Right Honorable Prime Magistrate
Autonomous Authority of Port Coray
O240005JH3
he/him/his (player)
Special Agent T’reth
Starfleet Criminal Investigative Team
O239910AP4
Ensign Morro Caras
Engineering Officer
USS Octavia E. Butler
O240106MC1
Astrolabe
Forensic Scientist
&
Gigranal
Undular Witness
M239008AD0