Always Something
Bob Martens
"Come in."
Bob closed the book that he had been reading and stood up from his
tiny couch. Straightening his clothing, he waited to see who would
come through the door next. He lightly touched his personal phaser he
now kept on his person at all times just to make sure it was still
there.
An excited chief engineer burst through the doorway seemingly before
it was completely open. An excited chief engineer was almost as
dangerous as an angry chief engineer, but it usually meant more
trouble for the CO.
"Sir, I have important information to share and we need to get on the
move as soon as possible ... Colonel ..." Bob cut her off just a
little bit by bringing his cup up to his lips and drinking quietly.
"Let's have it," he said as he extended his left hand to grab whatever
device she was going to thrust into it. Sadly, it was just a standard
issue padd. Skimming the information he was immediately impressed with
what she had found.
"Colonel Chandler and I have been working on it for a little bit,
trying to piece together whatever we could about any possibly related
disappearances or deaths. These are the initial findings."
Bob kept looking over the information. He wasn't about to ask how she
had come to the information that was here, but he was happy that she
was on their side ... whoever "they" were going to be.
"Too much to be coincidence, eh? All in the window of time we were
looking for, all with some sort of connection back to either the
colonel or myself," Bob smiled. "Excellent work."
Treyla couldn't contain herself much longer. She had put too much
effort into the work. "So when can we leave? I know things are still
not ready, my 20-hour days are testament to the fact that we are
trying to pull off a miracle here, but we need to get moving to
investigate before all of the trains go cold."
Bob smiled a little. "The trails are already cold."
"You can't be serious. If there is any way we could find anything out,
anything at all, we need to go! We need to at least try!" She said,
raising her voice.
"Right now, we have names, and all we know is that every single one of
them is probably some sort of trap set specifically to get us to come
after them."
"We can't!"
"We have to be rational about this. There are going to be more and
part of our job now is going to be finding out who is going to be
targeted next and warn them."
"SIR!"
"Lieutenant ... we're going to figure this thing out, we have to.
However, right now we are in no position to go after these decidedly
dead ends. Keep looking and let me know what more you find out."
"Ugh!" Treyla let out a groan and took her padd and threw it against
the bulkhead as she left the office. Storming out, Bob let out a small
sigh of relief and took another drink of water. He could see Tank just
outside the door.
'No rest for the wicked, I guess.'
[TAG TANK'S POST]
Bob looked over the bio that had been handed to him and grinned. "This
is exactly the kind of person we need. I hope you don't mind me
asking, but I need to get started on this ... dismissed."
Tank smiled and headed out of the room. Bob walked over to the
computer terminal, sat down, drank some water and got to work. Time to
track down Mr. Krezek.
Sincerely,
Bob Martens
http://bobmartens.net
@boblmartens