In the Running: Interview

Posted on 06 May 2022 @ 5:22pm by Lieutenant Theodore Winslow & Yuliette Marayan

Mission: M3 - Into the Deep
Location: Security Offices -Interrogation room
Timeline: following "In the Running: Promising"
2269 words - 4.5 OF Standard Post Measure

Theo looked at the screen to see the room that he had left the woman in twenty minutes or so ago. He was still at a loss of what to do with her after informing the Captain of the situation on the base of her and her request for asylum but he had not gone into anymore as he really did not know what he was facing yet. It could be a situation that went higher than both of them but he at least had informed her of the potential. Better to inform now than have to do it when the situation was out of hand.

He looked at his large mug of coffee and PADDS with the information he had collected so far on Yuliette Marayan. There was not much so he would need to know it from her but he went over it one more time quickly. He picked up the mug of coffee and the bottle of water he had for the woman and headed back into the room where he had left her waiting.

The first few minutes in waiting had been spent making surreptitious glances around the room, trying to ascertain which corners, edges and seems held the cameras, listening devices and sensor mounts. A few were obvious. Did starfleet also hide less obvious things? They were always watching, always listening, always recording. Why wouldn’t they be? Yuliette finally closed her eyes, gripped one of her hands with the other and rocked gently while humming a few bars from a pop song on Risa. She repeated the refrain to herself up until the door lock popped open, and she sat up straight again, her eyes involuntarily wide with anxious anticipation. She ran a nervous hand through her short shock of dark hair as the Security Chief returned. In his bulk and demeanor, he reminded her of the enforcers she’d known. He was patient, but she had to remind herself a lot of people with mean streaks had long fuses.

“So I have some questions for you Ms Marayan.” He announced as he walked in, putting the water down on her side of the table before sitting down on his own side with his coffee. It was a standard interrogation room like every other one he had been in over the years, chairs, table, cameras. Nothing changed around Starfleet interrogation.

“It’s Doctor.” She said simply. It seemed a fair point and it was the first time in a long time that she had been using her real name. It seemed like as good a time as any to ask for her credentials as well. “Doctor Yuliette Marayan. I earned my degrees and did my residency on Risa before working at a clinic on Rho Saro, my homeworld.” It was enough, she was sure, to corroborate what had to have come up on record with her real name. At least for a start.

“Apologises Doctor Marayan.” Theo corrected himself. “I have some questions.” He repeated this time with the correct title. It was a title that he was sure she had worked hard for. “So let’s start at the beginning. Why did you want to avoid detection with fake identification?” It seemed the logical question that would give him the most answers. “It’s well mapped out and would have cost a lot of credits.”

Yuliette considered. If she wanted this man on her side to secure the political asylum she very much needed, she would need to put all the cards on the table for him. She exhaled and rested one palm on the table top, fixing her eyes with his, and speaking with much gravity. “When you check my name, my real name, with Rho Saro, you’ll find I’m wanted for a list of reasons, among them Treason, Collaboration with enemies of the state, and Murder. If I thought I would stand a fair trial, I would never have left my homeworld.”

Theo raised an eyebrow at the lift. “That list is quite extensive Doctor Marayan for someone so young.” He murmured slightly taken aback by the list and the possibility that this woman was guilty of them. She did not look the type but looks could be deceptive.

“I’ve spent most of the past year avoiding detection, but my identity was threatened and I decided to try to move to a Cardassian Colony. I acquired the false Identity as Neone for the purposes of travel. I… thought it was a clever name.” There was a note of a smile on the corner of her mouth as she fished for a dash of approval from Theo. “I could be… N. E. One… for just long enough to make the journey. I had been using the pseudonym already and... I admit I was growing accustomed to it.”

“It has a witty charm to it but does you no favours really as once it was tracked it was easy to see through.” He mused sadly, leaning back to look at her. “And why would you head to a Cardassian Colony?” He was genuinely interested in why there of all places. He was not sure that Cardassian’s would have accepted her with some of the leanings they had at the moment.

“I just thought I might do better at blending in. The last place I landed had a large Bajoran population… most didn’t especially favor my being there. Honestly… I don’t even speak passable cardassi. But I’ve been working on it.”

Theodore pursed his lips in an attempt to not smile at how badly thought out it all was but he did not want to antagonise the woman. “So these charges of Treason, Collaboration with enemies of the state, and Murder to name a few forgive me for asking why would they be set against you?” He felt like he was missing something important that would shift his thoughts one way or another on the whole situation.

“It’s a long story.” Yuliette looked into her hands, pressing some of her fingertips and stretching them as she often did to keep her fine control for surgery. The little action had become an entrenched habit to the point of self comfort. “The shortest throughline is that my Father worked in enforcement for the last Rho Saran administration. I wasn’t privy to much of anything he did all my years growing up. He kept his business and private life quite separate. Following the uprisings, there’s been a... cleansing of the previous order. I’m not sure what is or isn’t true of the accusations against my father. As for the ones against myself, I did my best not to be brought in to be charged and find out what they may have manufactured on me. I was detained for some weeks in service as a surgeon, and at my first opportunity left my homeworld. I’ve been hiding in the months since.”

“Do you have any proof that the charges are malice? Anything that can be used to help prove that you are innocent of them?” Theodore asked using the PADD to bring up more information as they spoke. Everything she had said so far seemed to line up with what Starfleet and the Federation knew about Rho Saran and the administration changes that had been occurring for the last few months.

She shook her head. “I destroyed all of my devices so as not to be tracked by them. I haven’t got any records or evidence of anything. I left with my overnight bag from the clinic. A toothbrush, a change of clothes, and a field kit. Other than snatches I heard eavesdropping from my lock up, and what a stranger told me when she let me out… I’m not sure what I’m exactly meant to answer for. I had the impression they believed I was killing or torturing patients. There was much difficulty getting proper supplies and I was serving under compulsion. Not all of the dissident fighters survived their injuries. I gathered that my father was chief among the targeted persons in the fight and that were it not for a couple of level heads in the camp, and my skill set, I’d have been shot cursorily when found in the wreckage of my father’s shuttle. They had overtaken one of the anti aircraft missile sites and downed the shuttle my father had sent to the desert clinic to collect me. The pilot and security agent… didn’t survive the attack.”

The entire cockpit had been sheared through by the missile. The suddenness of the moment had punctuated her memory quite clearly before she blacked out in the free fall. She took a moment to recollect herself and cleared her throat. “Some days later, while locked up for the evening… I listened through the pipes as they planned a trap for my father. Frankly, I doubt he would have fallen for it. But the woman in the camp who had been advocating for my life…made a way for me to leave that night. They had a convoy headed to the city— under cover of darkness and her riding gear, I took her place. At the space port, I found someone who owed me a favor and shipped out of Rho Saro in a cargo hold.”

Theo nodded. It was going to be difficult without any proof of lack of guilt but it was not unheard of with the news coming out of Rho Saro. “Very lucky.” He said lightly moving to grab another bottle of water from the replicator and held it out. “Air con gets me sometimes.” He said to cover up her cough.

Yuliette accepted the water and regarded him for a moment before twisting off the cap. “From there I hid out for a while on Starbase 109. They have a few decks with special self governing rights due to a high refugee population that had made a home there for a few decades. As much as I stood out demographically, there were no searches or claims made. Several officers visiting seemed disinterested in making any problems for me, so I did some odds and ends for cash trying to afford a trip out to Cardassian territory. With expenses, I wasn’t able to put together very much. But one of my father’s agents caught up to me. I thought he was going to try to deliver me to my father, but… it turned out he wanted my help with surgery, for a poison loyalty trigger. That you will find in my things. It’s in a sealed bag in the med kit.”

“I wondered what that was.” He admitted. Her items had been scarce but some of the items had made no sense. A loyalty trigger was monstrous in his opinion but it spoke volumes about her father. “Any particular reason why you kept that?”

She pursed her lips in thought for a moment, considering what to share before deciding to be plain. “I wanted the chance to get at it in a lab in case it ever came up again. Really though? I just needed to prove to myself I wasn't going mad. My father was a very private man, but I admired him a great deal. It was a difficult pill for me to swallow. When I recovered the toxin, I felt like I wanted to confront him, to ask him directly what the hell it was all about.” She scratched an eyebrow and sighed down at the table, discouraged at the imaginary confrontation that really could have no good outcomes. “Anyway. After Merton caught up to me, I guessed others would be able to locate me as well. So I took advantage of a less-than-ideal offer from someone who was able to secure a false identity and cover my ticket. And here I am.”

One could see how sinful cycles of pain could infect successive generations with the power that this woman’s father seemed to have because the sins of the father did not seem to infect her. She seemed to be self assured and wanting to escape but it was not down to him what happened next. He had to get the facts for someone else to decide her next move. “And here you are indeed Doctor Marayan. It is certainly one of the more interesting adventures I have heard recently. Is there anything else you would like to add before I find you a brig space for the night?” He asked wishing he could do more than find her space in the brig but the process was clear for now especially with the charges.

For a spell, she fell quiet. It had been the first time she’d explained the entirety of her general situation to anyone. She had little to support her case, so understandably Lieutenant Winslow was limited as to what he could do from the point of law. Yuliette wasn’t especially sure how to read through his near stoic mask. She didn’t especially feel like any further pleas made would change anything and as such felt resigned to whatever might shake out of the processes. Her life was in the hands of the system. “I suppose not. It will be nice to rest somewhere secure for a night, at least.”

Theo had so much he could say about that comment but decided against it and just showed her the way out of the interrogation room. There would be more questions later.