Now That's An Entrance
Charles Cadwallader
[Medical Cargo Bay, Deep Space 6]
“Corpsman Donahue, see that everything here is catalogued and processed on their way!” bellowed the large orderly in the standard blue of Starfleet Medical as he departed the cargo bay.
Like any other day of the week many shipments of goods and supplies were moving in and out of the many bays of the space station. A young red-headed corpsman signaled his docking crew partner to follow him as he hopped to get the job done.
“I’m telling you Frank,” said a fellow corpsman who moved to maneuver a pallet with an auto lifter, “things have been right depressing around here.”
Frank Donahue, a corpsman with Starfleet Medical could only smile and nod to his long time friend who was prone to his bouts of paranoia, “I know what you mean Carl.”
Suddenly Frank found himself dodging a falling canister, roughly rectangle shaped. The crate struck the floor with a loud metallic clang as Carl was cursing the loading team from Outpost 23 for not balancing the pallet correctly.
“Damn it, you see that Frank, stupid monkeys don’t even know you should be putting something like that centered so it doesn’t shift in transport!”
Picking himself up from the ground, Frank Donahue brushed dust from his uniform, “Well you better open it up Carl and make sure we haven’t really torched the day.”
Noticing that his friend wasn’t moving Frank inclined his head to get a better look at the cargo, “What’s the matter Carl?”
“The packing slip…” Carl’s voice trailed off as he indicated the PADD attached to the side of the crate. He had activated it to check the contents and found a memorial marker stating that this container housed the remains of one Yuri Makerov, General, Retired SFMC.
It wasn’t all that out of the ordinary that a body would be transported back home or something as this one said it was, the problem was that the customs inspection seal that covered the gasket looked was broken, indicating that it might have been opened.
Frank straightened his shirt a moment while he thought and then grimaced as he realized what needed to be done. “Okay, Carl, make a note in the deck log that we discovered a broken customs inspection seal on this piece. With respect we will now comply with regulation and inspect the cargo to make sure nothing was lost.”
An obviously disturbed Carl backed away and made the proper notes in the logs, he furthermore ordered the station’s scanners to record the situation and log it for the Officer of the Watch. Corpsman Donahue nodded to his friend and bent down and hit a release latch.
In what looked like peaceful slumber on a padded bed, rested a sharply dressed Marine, with the markings of a General and a nametag that read Makerov. Apparently he had been interred with full regalia as due his rank and status. Frank quickly scanned the unmoving body and made sure everything matched the departure manifest. The mass and volume all worked out to be the same, indicating that nothing had been disturbed.
“What do you make of it Frank?” Asked a nervous Carl.
Closing the case back up and walking over to make a note of his inspection on the console that his friend was standing at, Frank smiled, “It looks good Carl, must have broken when it fell, stupid frakkers at O23 messed up when they misbalanced that load.”
Carl sighed with obvious relief; that was the end of that, “I’ll re-balance the load and we can grab another inspection seal.”
“Sounds good buddy, then I can buy you a pint once we’re done with this,” Frank said leading his friend from the bay while they went to grab materials.
Seconds later the rectangular crate opened slowly and a figure of a dead marine rolled out onto his belly, the load had been balanced perfectly, but waking up while being offloaded from the transport ship had momentarily disoriented the man and he’d rolled in his confined space. Thankfully his bio signs had been masked enough and he’d been still enough following his crashing to the deck that the corpsman hadn’t been alerted to his presence.
He quickly deposited the dress uniform that he had been wearing over a light workout outfit for the last few weeks while in stasis in the crate. All the timing had gone exactly according to plan, so now he repacked the crate with previously hidden weights, closed it up and locked it again before slipping back into the shadows.
This obviously not dead intruder checked that his bio signs were still being masked by a device strapped on the inside of his left wrist, looking like a small chronograph. It was also functioning perfectly as the two corpsman re-entered the bay. The shadowy figure tensed as he saw the one who had opened up the box earlier bend down, thinking perhaps they might check once more, but instead he simply affixed a new seal and helped his coworker re-balance the pallet it had been stored on.
After the two crewmen had left the figure emerged from the shadows of the bay and slipped out the hatch, muttering to himself about cloaks and daggers and how Bob Martens got all the fun, masquerading in broad daylight.
Formerly a Colonel in the Starfleet Marine Corps, Jean Chandler who most everyone called Tank had arrived on Deep Space 6.
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Charles E. L. Cadwallader
"Aut viam inveniam aut faciam" - "I will either find a way or make one"