Dawn of A New Era (2)

Posted on Thu 8th Feb, 2018 @ 2:51pm by Lieutenant JG Kellian Michaels

1,052 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: A Phaser as Deadly as a Candlestick

Isabella walked off of the shuttle and examined her new home away from home. As the shuttle exhaust cleared from her eyes, she quickly examined her new surroundings. With a quick nod to the shuttle pilot, she picked up her small cylindrical duffel bag and made her way to the door of the room.

With the usual whoosh of the doors, the new Chief of Security made her way into the corridor of the ship and tried to pull from memory the location of the nearest turbolift. For a few seconds, she stood in the middle of the corridor looking back and forth in each direction thinking to herself.

"Now, let's see. I remember from the starbase schematics that my quarters are on deck 27, so the nearest turbolift should be..."

And with a thud, Isabella bumped into someone, knocking her duffel bag onto the floor. "Oh, excuse me!" Isabella stated while reaching down to gather her bag from the ground.

"It's quite alright," Jade said. "I should have been paying more attention, but I was looking for someone who is supposed to arrive about now. I hope nothing is broken."

Isabella held up her duffel bag to eye level and gave it a quick look over. "Nope nothing broken here." By habit, she smoothed out her uniform and finally gave a look at the individual she bumped into.

"Hi, my name is Isabella." The new security officer extended her hand to the woman before her.

"Jade Lantz," the jazz club owner responded, shaking the officer's hand briefly. "Welcome to Vanguard. I think you'll like it here. I own Orchids & Jazz, on Deck 600 in the Promenade. Stop by in the next few days, and have lunch on me."

At the turbolift tube, Kellian stepped out of the next lift to arrive at the docking terminal deck. "Terminal 3, not 8," he muttered under his breath, annoyed with himself for misreading the message he'd received. He heard voices down the corridor leading toward the terminal and hoped he wasn't too late to meet the new Security Chief. As he neared the people speaking, he recognized one of the voices as Jade Lantz's, which was amusing, as he'd only recently spoken to her while lunching at Orchids and Jazz. If the other voice he heard was his new DH, though, now wouldn't be a great time to tease her about stalking him.

Jade glanced up to see Lieutenant Michaels approaching. "Oh, here's one of your team now, probably coming to collect you. Now don't forget, Orchids & Jazz. Great music, and even better food."

"And every word of that spiel is true," Kellian said to the tall, dark-skinned woman standing with Jade. He went to attention, extended his hand, and smiled. "I'm Lt. Kellian Michaels, acting security chief. Are you Lt. Perry?"

"I am." Isabella said as she extended her hand out to Michaels. "I take it you have been holding everything down?" Perry looked over the young man and noticed immediately how fit he was.

"Doing my best to, at any rate," Kellian said. "Welcome to Starbase Vanguard, Lt. Perry. We're very glad to have you here." He glanced past the two ladies and then at Jade. "Any sign of the person you're waiting for?"

"No," Lantz shook her head. "Probably missed the departure, or had a change of plans. It happens," she shrugged. "I'll let you two get back to work, and I'll do the same. You'll love it here. Lots of wonderful cultural things to do, and the Lieutenant can tell you about Tivoli Gardens, too. He's spent a lot of time there recently, of necessity. I hope to see both of you again soon." With a smile aimed between the two of them, she walked back along the concourse toward the turbolift.

"Thanks for meeting me here, Michaels. It means a lot to me that you took the time to welcome me here," Isabella stated to her colleague.

"Oh, you're welcome. It seemed only polite," Kellian said. "This place is huge--and I thought this might also be a good way to get you apprised of recent developments. We've had a couple of serious crimes here recently, which is unusual for Vanguard."

Isabella was listening intently to everything Kellian had to say. "How serious are we talking and where are we at with the investigations?"

"Two murders, within 24 hours of each other," Kellian said. "Both I think were premeditated. The first one--tidy as an assassination. The second one--bloody and gory, with the weapon left in the victim, we think to throw suspicion upon Klingons. The murder weapon was a d'k tahg, and the death occurred in a Klingon night club. The crew have been working the cases well, but we've yet to make an arrest for either crime. In the more recent case, we've been able to single out the suspect through security footage and expect to identify that person pretty quickly. The earlier case has been...trickier. SCIS is involved, as the victim was one of their agents. There are also...non-traditional elements, some of which generated evidence that isn't admissible in court."

"Was it how the evidence was acquired that made it inadmissible in court?" This piqued Perry's interest. She had already decided that if it was because of the way the SCIS had recovered the evidence... well she was gonna have to a have a talk with someone.

"Ye-es," Kellian admitted. "The inadmissible evidence was obtained in so bizarre a manner that I hesitate to tell you," he continued. "A portrait artist currently living on the station came to Security the day we found the first body, with sketches she had drawn of the crime scene, the prime suspect, and the victim. Unfortunately, she only got a victim's-eye view of the perp, and that image didn't include the perp's face. I'll show them to you when we get to your office. She had tried to report the victim as a missing person in hopes that we would look for him. Petty Officer Morgan recognized the victim from when we had recovered the body earlier that day."

"Kellian, mind walking me to my office while we discuss these murders some more?" Isabella asked her new right hand.

"I don't mind a bit," Kellian said and showed Isabella where the turbolift was.

 

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