Needle in a Haystack

Posted on Sat Jun 10th, 2023 @ 9:38pm by Ensign Ilan Ocara & Lieutenant JG Corvin Hartjin

Mission: S1 Episode 5: Ex Post Facto
Location: Banea
Timeline: Date 2371-08-19 at 1130
6663 words - 13.3 OF Standard Post Measure

ON

Corvin still believed that glassing the entire planet and planting an Imperial flag atop the slag was a more appropriate fate for the Baneans than the little mercy they'd been given as a reprieve. At the same time, the crew of the Vengeance began or continued their investigations into Lyra's disappearance. While the details they had gleaned weren't ideal, they at least had more to go on than the barely coherent ramblings Andrei had given him. He still felt that seething anger inside him towards the other man for forcing her to go alone into unknown territory; while he had sworn to protect Andrei, his first loyalty was to Lyra.

Always to Lyra.

He'd taken time after the Baneans had surrendered to review the 'investigation' that their authorities had conducted and found it was lacking; while there was at face value more than enough evidence to convict her of the assault and murder, it felt off. While he knew Lyra could be vicious and violent, it was never just because or without cause for it. It was a pragmatic violence if he was feeling eloquent, which he was still getting used to, but he was working to adapt. To be better.

Though becoming Lyra's second, he had discovered a previously unknown fondness for investigations while going through his officer's training. It had come as a surprise to him, but figuring out the who and why of something intrigued him. But he also knew he would need to be careful with it.

He was reading over the PaDD with the details of the investigation once more, still dressed in the combat vest and gear, his weapons clearly on display, he could feel the Baneans watching him suspiciously, but they all kept their distance, and even those who were forced to interact with him did so only for as long as necessary. He wanted the Terrans to become these people's boogeymen. He was walking with Ilan as they'd been assigned to investigate the office where Lyra had supposedly murdered the Banean Jalak; he was glad for the help since the scientific portion of this was a little outside his wheelhouse.

He glanced over at the dark-haired woman as she tucked the device away. "This all seems neat and tidy with a pretty little bow on top; I know the forensics report was thin, but was there anything in it of substance?"

“Not really.” Ilan replied as they walked down the hallway toward the office where this crime was committed. “It’s like they don’t really believe in forensics at all. There’s evidence to place Lieutenant Cassiel’s there, but not really anything to point to murder as it were.”

She was pensive as she spoke and walked, though was glancing down at the PADD in her own hand now and then. When word came of Lyra’s capture, the anxiety that had claimed Ilan had thrown her off from her usually extroverted, gung-ho self. She was doing her best to hide it, and usually she was pretty good at it. At least right now she had work as an excuse. She rubbed the back of her neck and sighed. “We’ll find something though I’m sure. One way or another. Are you doing alright? I know this is probably a lot for you.”

"Not sure what I expected," Corvin replied; he wasn't necessarily an expressive man when it came to his emotions, save anger, which was one he was pretty good at expressing, but deep beneath it all, he was worried about Lyra, that worried was gnawing at him and turning to anger despite his best attempts to remain professional. To keep his focus, work was helping; it was a distraction, at the very least. "I'm coping; after a fashion, I haven't killed anyone, so I call that progress, even if I want to beat Andrei until I've ruined something pretty."

"Why Andrei?" Ilan asked, now lifting her head totally and looking at the back of Corvin's head. It was quite a blunt admission and spoke to an apparent deep trust he had with her. Unless he was foolish enough to say that to anyone... and she supposed she wouldn't put it past him. "What did he have to do with it?"

Corvin knew he'd said too much with that, but his anger and frustration were boiling over as he stopped at the door to Jalak's office, reaching up to rub his forehead as he sighed. He struggled with knowing that and wanting to tell her more, he was being foolish in just letting that out and it was a dangerous thing to be said but after their encounter on Anorra at the nightclub he felt that he would speak more freely with her.

"My loyalty is to Lyra and he is responsible for her being in this situation because they split up," He felt like a raw nerve and he didn't know what to do with that. His normal response of fucking or killing something wasn't an appropriate response and so he had let his tongue slip. "I just...I'm her second and I'm meant to be her right hand, protecting her from threats and I can't do that when the Commander plays things fast and loose like he always has."

“Well, if this doesn’t change him, then nothing probably ever will. He’ll always be like that, and that’s the type of ‘like that’ that will get people killed in the end.” Ilan said and sighed softly. “We need to focus on this though. If we are going to find her we need to explore and exhaust all our options and try to pick up the pieces they didn’t think were important. Murder or not, they had no right to do what they did to her.”

"You're right, we need to focus here and now...to find Lyra and make the Baneans answer for what they did." He replied with a nod before looking at the office door. "Ready to go in?"

"Yeah, I am." Ilan confirmed with a nod, not really wanting to dwell on Andrei or his part in this. It wasn't important in the grand scheme of things right now. In fact, she preferred not to dwell on Andrei much at all, and not for the reasons most would assume.

As they entered, they were greeted with a rather sterile space. It had all the elements of a large office - a desk, a chair, a window that extended the entirety of the back wall, storage spaces along the room, and a small seating area with a white couch and a couple of chairs surrounding a low table. There were no signs of this place being occupied and it was quite likely the Baneans had cleaned out Jalak's personal effects and items.

There were also no signs of a murder.

There was no blood, no overturned chairs, no scorch marks. Nothing. It looked more like Ilan and Corvin were entering a room they were looking to purchase and use rather than investigate for evidence of their lost comrade.

"Well, this looks like it will be useless."

"Blood and fluids have a way of getting into places that are either difficult to clean up or get overlooked," He replied while pulling out his tricorder to begin scanning for any traces of evidence that might have been left behind, if he didn't find anything, they would go with a re-enactment of what had occurred but they only had what he considered to be the account of the Baneans.

Ilan's brows lifted slightly as she looked at Corvin's back when he was turned away. Did he think as a scientist she was unaware of that fact? She shook her head, knowing he was stressed and decided to just let it go.

"Anything specific you want me to do, lieutenant?" She said in a way that prompted him to remember he was actively in charge of this situation and needed to make clear what he wanted from her.

"Help me scan the room to see if there's anything that contradicts the Banean's story, though I'm not sure what that would look like though." He replied while looking around the austere room, wondering if they were on a fool's errand.

"We'll start at opposite ends of the room, working towards the middle," He indicated the opposite side of the room to Ilan. "That'll be your start point."

"No problem." Ilan replied and moved with ease and really no sense of haste to where he had indicated. She pulled out her tricorder and started to scan the area but she was at least being thorough about it.

"So what do you think will happen if we don't find her?"

"I suspect if we don't find her, the Captain is going to make an example of the Baneans as a warning against what happens should someone take a Terran." He replied, trying to focus on the spark of hope that they would find Lyra.

"I'll personally put every last member of the leadership's families to the blade while the leaders are being slowly flayed alive before being burned."

Ilan listened to him, but she didn’t really buy into it… probably because she knew he would never be allowed to do that. At least not if Andrei Petrov really felt genuine attachment to Lyra Cassiel. While she was no shrinking violet, she didn’t really want to imagine the things he might do to the people who took his woman from him.

It was romantic in some twisted way.

“Yeah, he probably will… if his son doesn’t get to it first.” Ilan pointed out as she looked down to the tricorder in her hand, looking for anything out of the ordinary but not finding much.

Corvin went quiet as he nodded at Ilan's words, uncertain of how he felt about Andrei being the one to take revenge. He didn't feel that the other man had that right, but he had seen the...righteous anger? He wasn't certain what to call it but it had been a different sort of look than he was used to seeing on the other man.

Cocksure and swaggering, bravado in spades but the acting Security chief had never seen anything like what possessed Andrei now. "You're right, Andrei will probably already be placing heads on pikes if we don't find Lyra."

He turned his attention back to his tricorder, frowning as he started tapping at the buttons, moving back and forth near one of the walls.

"Finding anything?" Ilan asked after a few minutes, her path leading her over toward the couches and chairs eventually. This felt futile, but they had been given orders and they would follow them.

"I'm picking up something here at the wall," He replied while he adjusted his tricorder, continuing to scan as it beeped louder and longer. "Maybe an entrance or something."

He was moving it around a section of the wall that looked like any other in the room, a dull coppery/bronze color that didn't stand out in any way until the beeping on the tricorder stopped, following a hiss. A concealed door slid back and into the wall to reveal a passage beyond lit by a line of lights. "Not relevant to our investigation, but this wasn't in the information the Baneans provided, so I wonder what else they are hiding from us."

“Huh.” Ilan mused and abandoned where she was for the moment in favor of walking over to Corvin. She peered into the very dimly lit passage and looked around. “Wonder where it starts then, if it ends here. Or maybe it’s some sort of network.”

"I'm pulling up the schematics of the building to see if it shows." He closed his tricorder and pulled out his data pad, pulling up the schematics of the room and the building they were in, flipping through the layout looking for anything that might indicate the hidden entrance. "It's definitely not showing on their official layout, so no way of knowing unless we explore it, I could call for a probe to map it while we work here, unless you want to explore it after informing the Vengeance?"

He looked to Ilan to see how she felt about that idea, though they also didn't know how far it went and he didn't want to get lost in there.

Ilan put a hand on her hip and gave him a smile of tolerance and understanding. Those pips on his neck were still so new to him, and not that long ago she had outranked him. His deference to her was natural given that fact, but now it was out of place.

“That’s up to you, Lieutenant. If you're looking for suggestions, I’d say probably the probe. Who knows what’s down there and it wasn’t really part of what we were doing unless we have some reason to believe Lieutenant Cassiel was in here.”

"Right...I'm the one in charge now," He frowned while taking a moment to remember that he was the officer in this situation as he reached up to tap his commbadge.

=/\= Hartjin to Vengeance, I need a seeker probe beamed down to my location; we've located a hidden passage that wasn't on the plans the Baneans gave us. =/\= He ordered, closing the channel after receiving confirmation and a moment later the hard shell case containing the probe appeared on the ground next to the Security Chief through a haze of blue. Kneeling down, he opened the case to reveal four spherical probes that he began the process of turning on and syncing to his PADD.

"I'm still getting used to the officer rank, better at executing the orders than being the one giving them." Corvin glanced over at Ilan.

"You'll get used to giving, and as for accepting, well... let's find your boss and you can get back to the norm." Ilan's smile eased and she turned back to where she had been and moved to the seating area. Activating her tricorder again, she looked down at the small screen while Corvin dealt with the probes. He would get there, eventually.

"I'm reading some human DNA here. No doubt it is the lieutenant."

"No doubt," Corvin agreed as the probes lifted off and set out into the passageway to map it. He checked the readouts and synced it up to the Vengeance before turning back to his companion as she stood near the seating area. "What kind of DNA are we talking about traces or something more substantial like blood?"

“No, just hair.” Ilan replied and knelt down to get lower to the cushions, then frowned as she shifted around to the floor. “But… down here… there’s hair and skin cells too; not in a random flaking way but more like… someone who had fallen?”

"Fallen?" He moved to stand near Ilan, watching as she scanned the floor. "Similar to if she was forcibly taken to the ground or did she collapse?"

“That I can’t really tell. She hit the ground with some force, but Cassiel isn’t exactly a dainty flower.” Ilan pointed out as she scanned over the area and tapped her tricorder to try and glean more information.

"I don't think anyone that knows her would ever call her dainty." Corvin chuckled a little before he looked at the floor and tilted his head. "Do you think you can scan the floor to render an image of how she might have looked and share it to my PADD? It might give us some insight into how she ended up there."

Corvin wasn't sure where his thoughts were on this, they were all a bits scattered since the DNA showing that Lyra had been on the floor was disconcerting to say the least given that she wouldn't have allowed herself to be put there by anyone - let alone an alien - unless something had happened to her. He tried to keep thoughts of what that could have implied as he watched Ilan. "Are there any traces or signs that they might have tried to force themselves upon her?"

"I can try but chances are..." Ilan drifted off slightly, focusing a moment, then shook her head. "No, there's been too much foot traffic to get any sort of image. As for your other question... assuming I'm understanding what you're getting at, there's no evidence of that either."

Her nose wrinkled slightly at the thought.

There was some relief at the admission that there was no evidence of the aliens having forced themselves on Lyra. He nodded slowly while considering what they had, which was little more than nothing that brought up more questions than it really answered as they looked at the spot that Ilan had been scanning. It was empty space on a seemingly immaculate floor that indicated Lyra had been forced to the ground and to lie there.

Why, though?

"Lyra would have resisted, especially if the Baneans had been trying to capture her," He sighed and pondered the couch and the floor. "Do you think any of the hairs might have a follicle intact? Anything that we might be able to test to see if she was drugged or anything that would explain her being on the floor?"

"I will do the scans but you'd have to send them to medical for that kind of analysis. Who knows what they would have used - I certainly don't - but medical might be able to identify markers for that kind of thing." Shifting a bit more, Ilan pointed her tricorder directly at the area and adjusted the scanning parameters.

"When we are done with this we should head over to where she was taken from. We might have better luck there."

"I agree, there's more going on here, a conspiracy or something that our hosts weren't all seemingly included in," He sighed, his anger stirring again as he remembered the recording that showed their last known sighting in Lyra, that anger causing him to clench his fist tightly.

"Something definitely isn't right, I agree." Ilan nodded, finishing her scans and then looking up to Corvin from the floor. "Anything else here then, Lieutenant?"

"No, there doesn't seem to be anything here, or at least nothing else that would prove connected to Lyra's disappearance." He looked around once more hoping that he might see something that would shed light on where she had been taken.

"When you're ready we can head over to the holding cells."

“I’m ready.” She stood quickly and pocketed her tricorder. Hopefully, there would be something there, but the Baneans had already done a more thorough investigation, given the nature of the crime in that case. More than they had done for the murder. It was backward, but dwelling on that wouldn’t do them any good.

Corvin tapped his commbadge and had a pair of armed security officers set in place near the secret door to guard both it and the drone to prevent any interference from the Baneans before he turned to leave with Ilan. Once they were out of the room and making their way down the window-lined corridor overlooking the government plaza that had been spared the worst of the orbital bombardment, there were still signs of it on the buildings outside of the plaza that had been cut in half or obliterated. At the same time, repair crews were trying to fill the enormous gouges torn through the planet's surface.

"What do you think of the Baneans? I know you like encountering different alien beings."

“I like it a fair bit less when they’ve abducted and subsequently lost one of our people.” Ilan said pointedly. While she was not recognized as Terran fully (not that Corvin seemed to realize), she and her family identified as Terran and were, for all purposes, pure Terran thanks to their genetic manipulations.

A pure Terran with modifications to make her even greater. It threatened the others.

"Fair," Corvin replied; it wasn't an in-depth answer. Still, he was trying to get a different perspective on the Baneans, if he should hate them as much as he was if he should be willing to burn down everything to bring Lyra home; he had sworn his loyalty to Lyra, to serve and protect her even if he refused to examine whatever feelings he might have towards her. That was not his place; he was there to help and serve well. But he wondered if his anger was being driven by more as he glanced at Ilan. "I just wanted a different perspective on them; I'm willing to turn every weapon system the ship has towards the planet until they have been rendered down to just a few free-floating atoms, and the planet is nothing but sterile glass."

He hated the Baneans, but he also wondered if his hatred towards aliens should have mellowed a little or if it would be better to remain ready with a finger on the button that would start the utter destruction of every other alien in the future. The blood didn't bother him, but his new position as an officer left him wondering if he could continue to be so virulently hateful. Outright bigotry was respected and even required as an enlisted; if you weren't overt, others tended to doubt your resolve and loyalty to the Imperial Throne. "Just some self-reflection."

Ilan considered what Corvin was asking for a moment more. Finally, she crossed her arms under her chest and let out a sigh. "Okay, separating this whole thing with Lyra from it all, they seem like an interesting species. They seem like they lean more toward pacifism, but not completely into it obviously. The fact that they did away with their death penalty for murders speaks toward that and that their idea of justice is to make someone relive that moment over and over but still live a normal life otherwise is... interesting."

"I know everyone is skeptical about it, but I guess I kind of agree with them so far as what would be the point of them lying to us now? They have to this point done everything they said they would and have been helping us... so..."

"Objectively, they do seem... enlightened," He admitted, but he still tasted the bile of what they'd done to Lyra in the back of his throat. He looked out the window again while pondering what Ilan had said about the Baneans, they were cooperating, they genuinely seemed like they wanted to be helpful, but how far would that go? He thought that was a question that his other colleagues might be asking themselves.

"What do you know of the Numiri? Have the Baneans shared anything about them?"

"I don't know much, no more than anyone else; that isn't really my area, you'd need to talk to intel." Ilan reminded him as they stepped into the lift that would take them back out of the building completely so they could be transported to the next area. "They are more aggressive than the Baneans by far, but the Baneans have just enough edge that it keeps the Numiri at bay."

She tapped on the button to summon the lift and fell into thoughtful silence as Corvin did next to her. They remained that way as they were taken to their next location, sharing bits of conversation now and then but nothing of serious substance while they focused mainly on their work.

Eventually they arrived at the building that Lyra had been held in which seemed to be centered around the Banean law enforcement activities, but wasn't an outright prison. It was abuzz with activity; Ilan and Corvin received their fair share of dirty looks, but the people were much too busy addressing the hysteria the Terran attack had caused. One of the officers took Corvin and Ilan back to the secured corridors where the holding cells were and to the room where Lyra had been held.

On the door there was a large red circle, but it quickly went out of view as the man opened the door for his Terran guests. "I'll be out here if you need anything."

Ilan stepped inside and opened her tricorder again. According to the reports they had received from the Baneans, they had done as thorough of an investigation as they could manage on their own. That coupled with the video they had provided painted some of the picture of what had happened, but maybe with their technology they could find more.

"Anything specific you want me looking for here?"

"Locate where the Lieutenant was in the room specifically, the Baneans carried out their own investigation but I want our own findings to double check there was something they might have missed." Corvin had been quiet for the entirety of the trip here and even when interacting with the Banean officers, he didn't say more than he needed while he looked around what he might have called a cozy, if spartan, cell.

"Any DNA and the like, but there isn't a lot here, it's a jail cell and they took her out of here pretty quickly," While continuing to look around. He frowned and looked back to the door.

"Officer, would you come here for a moment, I have some questions." He called out to their escort.

The Banean man entered the cell immediately when he was summoned. He had beautiful teal colored eyes which were contrasted by brown and orange feathers around his head. He looked young, eager, but also like a man who understood the urgency and severity of the situation. “Yes, sir?”

Ilan left Corvin to his own devices and moved further into the small cell carefully. She made a few adjustments to her tricorder and began an in depth scan of their surroundings. She wasn’t sure if this was a wild goose chase, or simply a scenario of the needle in the haystack and they just needed to find the needle.

"Tell me about your procedures for removing a prisoner from their cell and under what circumstances would they be removed from their cell?" Corbin questioned the eager young man, doing his best to look objectively at him and not immediately despise him since there was something more possibly going on and he was at least trying to do his best to help them.

“In this facility, prisoners are kept in their cells until a transfer to a larger facility is arranged or they are released,” the Banean man began. “Of course, emergencies sometimes might necessitate transport elsewhere for medical or security reasons. The procedure for moving a prisoner is the same, though. The time of transfer in and out of the facility is noted in our database as any charges or sentences against the prisoner. A small team of three to five is then sent to collect the prisoner, restrained by the wrists and ankles so they can walk but not fight. They are escorted out to a transport where final documentation is made, and then the transfer- on our end - is considered complete.”

"I see," Corvin continued listening to the man since it seemed everything was lining up. "When conducting a transfer would there ever be a reason that the transfer wouldn't be noted?"

The young Banean considered the question for a moment, not answering right away but it seemed he really was earnestly trying to do his best to answer Corvin’s questions. Whether that was genuinely how he was or if it was fueled by a need for self preservation was unclear. “There would be occasions though they are rare. Usually only when dealing with someone high profile.”

"And would our Lieutenant have been considered high profile? I know she was accused of killing one of their top government officials." The Terran man watched his Banean counterpart, curious about his perception of the Terrans and impressed that he didn't seem afraid or wasn't presenting it outwardly.

“She wasn’t accused, sir. She was tried, convicted, and her sentence was carried out.” The Banean noted with a slight frown. “The proof was irrefutable. That is beside the point though. She would fit the standard for such a label but there were no plans to move her to another facility that I am aware of.”

"Who would be involved in the transfer process? Who approves such moves?" Corvin questioned, letting the subject about Lyra's innocence lie since she was a Terran and the individual she supposedly killed was an alien, a non-Terran, so as far as he was silently concerned it was her right to kill as many of them as she saw fit. Though he kept these thoughts to himself.

"For someone like your lieutenant, it would likely be the Commissioner themselves to approve the move and then the order would be filtered down through the appropriate administrative channels." The Banean lifted his shoulders slightly. "There was no order given."

Corvin frowned as he listened to the Banean man about the transfer procedures and who would be involved in the process. "Definitely outside of normal operations, do your people have any kind of anti-alien agitators amongst your people?"

"Not any that are considered some sort of real threat... we are also at war with the Numiri and have been for some time; that is the focus of our people more than any prejudices against alien races." The young man shifted slightly. "Your people being here was also far from common knowledge."

Narrowing his eyes a little at the mention of the war with the Numiri, Corvin pondered for a second but dismissed his question as being a little too ridiculous or far fetched that the Numiri could have known or infiltrated the facility since even the rest of the Banean people didn't know about the Terran's or Lyra. "Thank you officer, I need to go check with my colleague to see if she has found anything."

He stepped away from the young man before returning to the cell, looking around again from the doorway before his attention moved to Ilan. "Anything?"

“Well, definitely here. Again no real concrete signs of anything but that does track with the report the Baneans gave us.” Ilan was crouched down near the bed and was scanning it thoroughly. “She spent a number of hours here. I’d guess about six in total judging by what I’m seeing. Most of it was spent in the bed.”

She stood and looked at Corvin. “I also found skin cells on the floor which indicates she was there at some point, but only for an extremely brief period. Likely from whenever she was rendered unconscious. I also found some Banean cells on the floor; I collected some samples to analyze on the Vengeance.”

"According to the officer, there aren't any credible anti-alien groups on the planet seemingly because of their war with the Numiri and Lyra's presence here wasn't widely known." Corvin shared as he looked at the areas indicated by Ilan.

"He also told me that the prisoner transfer process requires sign off and that Lyra's transfer wasn't authorized by anyone."
Ilan just looked at Corvin for a moment when he supplied the information, then blinked and looked back to what she was doing. He was stressed so she wouldn’t think much of it.

“That’s not surprising given the recording we watched. If something is planned it generally doesn’t end with three people getting carried out.”

"Ideally no, but I don't think they counted on Lyra being a threat since she was already in their custody, which was their mistake to underestimate her." He replied while looking around the room and trying to will her location from the silent stone and metal that wouldn't really be able to give them much more. "So they came in to get her, and two of them were taken down, along with Lyra."

"Did you find any indications of weapon discharges?" He questioned Ilan curiously.

“I hadn’t gotten to that part yet.” Ilan replied. “I was finishing up the bio scans and samples first.” There was a pause, and she looked over her shoulder at Corvin as if she were mulling something over, but ended up saying nothing and looked away again. “I’ll just be another minute.”

"You look like you have something on your mind Ilan, what is it?" He asked, having caught the look she'd given him.

“Nothing important or relevant, really. I was just thinking you seem to have an extremely high opinion of the Lieutenant was all.” Finally, she stood and again adjusted her tricorder to account for weapons discharge so she could scan for that as well. Even if she was acting chief of science, she was condemned to a life of grunt work it seemed.

"Lyra...I mean Lieutenant Cassiel is a very capable officer and I can't see her just lying down and making it easy for anyone to manhandle her around, even if she was their prisoner." He replied, though his tone wasn't quite entirely chaste or professional as he spoke to her, it sounded a little more like admiration, the like that someone besotted with someone might give.

It was impossible to miss the tone in Corvin's voice as he spoke about Lyra. Admiration, worry, but mostly he sounded a bit like a lovesick puppy. Ilan wasn't jealous of course, that wasn't her way and she and Corvin weren't an item by any means, In truth, she was a bit worried for him. He had never struck her as the brightest man nor would he claim to be himself, but she had to hope he had enough sense to not try and press anything with Lyra while she was with Andrei. Andrei would likely find it amusing for a while, but eventually his patience may very well wear out.

"No, I suppose she wouldn't."

He frowned and looked around the room, there wasn't anything here and he knew that, whomever wanted Lyra had made her disappear though there were missteps, they were no closer to knowing who had taken her or where she was as he sighed. "I don't think we are really going to find anything here, and we don't know where any of the former Commissioner's co-conspirators are."

"What makes you think she is involved at all?" Ilan asked, looking up at Corvin and quirking a brow. This was the first time he was mentioning anything about that particular suspicion.

"She's been removed from her position, replaced, and the Baneans get really embarrassed to be talking about her, either she had screwed up royally before we got here, or they found out she did something or was involved and want to mention it as little as possible to us." Corvin answered while he moved over to the bed and started to visually inspect it as if he could will something to come to light. "Mind you I'm going off the Terran metric but no one ever wants to talk about the embarrassing fuck up that could cause even more problems, they want it to go away."

"I am reading very slight trace amounts of ionized particles consistent with energy weapon discharge." Ilan closed her tricorder and looked at Corvin. "Let's use some logic here, Corvin: if they knew she was involved, do you really think they wouldn't have had her trussed up on a silver platter when we arrived? Of course she got fired and replaced - she lost a Terran officer and our reputation is rather gruesome for such things. She's actually quite lucky she wasn't just served up immediately."

"Right. You're right, I just want to hurt someone, someone that I can hurt without there being consequences for it," He frowned and looked at his hands before dropping them. "I'm trying very hard to be an officer, to do this job because everything inside of me is clashing with the idea that I'm a lieutenant, that I'm the officer in charge...I don't know it was easier when I could go out with a few other enlisted and snatch someone in the dead of night and finding creative ways to make them talk because I don't know who to go out and snatch to make them talk.'

His voice had progressively gotten more forceful, his hands clenched tight, neck and jaw taut with anger, face red as he was expressing anger in a way that no one on the ship had ever really seen since they'd never really seen him frustrated before.

"I understand that Corvin but-" Ilan stopped and sighed, reaching up to rub her face as she looked at him. He wasn't in a logic based place right now. He was the other side of the Terran man - angry and near unreachable. She decided to change tactics and what she was about to do was a risk, but she decided to chance it.

"What would Lyra say if she saw you right now?"

"She wouldn't be happy with me or my behavior, probably pretty disappointed in my behavior." He frowned and that made him feel worse admitting that than not being able to protect or find her. His frown deepened as he considered this admission to her while trying to calm down, trying to emulate that calm control that Lyra always had. He struggled with that, it wasn't something that came naturally to him as he stood there and worked himself back down.

"Well, we certainly wouldn't want to disappoint her, and getting worked up right now isn't going to help us with any of it." She moved to him then and put a hand on his shoulder. "You'll get your chance to do whatever it is you want to do to these people, I'm sure, but right now you have to be patient and do your job."

Corvin seemed to have calmed down as he spoke about his anxiety and frustration with Ilan, it wasn't something that he could do with just anyone and he had to admit - even in a small part of his mind - that it felt good to be able to do even if it was a foreign concept for him. "Right now there isn't a lot to go on, we're just confirming that the Baneans have already found, I'm just not sure where a good lead is going to come from cause that's what we need right now."

"I don't know, but we are doing what we can right now at this moment." Ilan opened her tricorder and turned it to him. "Look at these readings - can you tell if the weapon used was on stun or not?"

Corvin sighed and nodded, taking the tricorder from Ilan as he looked over the readings she'd taken and actually focusing on them as he continued to examine them for a moment more. "The weapon was used on stun, with these readings I'd say it was a higher stun setting, meant to keep someone unconscious for a longer period of time than what's standard, so maybe they wanted to make sure that whomever was shot here wouldn't be causing them trouble until they could get them secured."

"Well, that sounds likely." Ilan nodded and took the tricorder back when he was done. "Shall we go back to the commander and give our report then?"


"Yes, we still have what you found to go over but I think we can give at least a preliminary report," He agreed while looking around the cell one more time before walking out with Ilan so they could make their way back to Andrei and report pretty much the same thing that the Banean investigation had given them.

END