Instincts
Posted on 27 Aug 2023 @ 2:08pm by Captain Corvus DeHavilland & Commander Thaddeus Zayne
Edited on on 10 Feb 2024 @ 12:07pm
Mission:
M4 - Falling Out
Location: Obsidian Command
Timeline: M4D2 - 1322HRS
2201 words - 4.4 OF Standard Post Measure
It wasn’t very often that he came to this part of the station. Most of the time his duties kept him in the CIC, but it was perfectly within the realm of normal for the station's First Officer to poke his head in anywhere he felt it needed to be. He wasn’t really the shake hands and be friendly sort like he knew many XO’s to be; the one the crew was friendlier with than the Captain. He had his own way of things and that way appeared to work just as well as. First Officer as it had in his positions as a chief of staff.
Thad was standing in the docking bay control room, overlooking the ongoing repairs and construction work throughout the station. But it wasn’t the overall repairs that had his attention, it was a specific set of repairs going on just beyond the viewports he was standing in front of.
Workbee’s were swarming the Pathfinder, repairing the damage from their recent away mission. Zayne had the repairs list on a holo panel in front of him on the glass he was looking through, reading through the items that needed repair. Everything seemed normal. The ship had tangoed briefly with some nasty Pyrryx vessels. He’d seen the damage that they could do, so the list of items made sense. In fact everything made sense. Soup to nuts, everything he’d gone over fit what he’d been told.
It was times like these that he resented his upbringing in Starfleet. He’d wanted a quiet life in Security but had been taken into a side job by circumstances beyond his control and found his career derailed for nearly seven years. During that time he’d learned to be suspicious of everything, and that skillset had served him well in Strategic Operations. It helped him spot the single point of clarity in the chaos that helped unravel a poorly executed plan. He was good at that. But it was times like these that he hated those skills. Nothing was out of the ordinary here, so why was he here hounding through it all as if there was? Why did he have this nagging voice in the back of his mind trying to convince him that there was something not right.
Zayne frowned and perused the list once more, flicking along the line of repair items unconcerned for them. That was until he got about sixty-percent down the list and something struck him. He scrolled back to the top and then slowly made his way down, checking them every few items in detail. Thad frowned rolled his tongue across his teeth pensively. Why did none of these repair orders come from Commander Quinn. All of them had been authorized by Ensign Tilmer - dated before their return to the station. These lists had been pre-prepared so that when they arrived they could get straight to work.
What was odd wasn’t just that Tilmer had authorized them, it was that the fact that they were wasn’t blatantly displayed. Why would anyone go to any length to keep that from being obvious. Thad rolled his neck uncertainly. It could have been nothing, and it probably was nothing, but he’d been in this game too long to be able to let little inconsistencies go. They were usually the building blocks to something more.
“Everything alright, Commander?” A soft, accented voice interrupted his thoughts, turning him to the right a Chief Petty Officer in engineering yellow stood there, a Lorthite, if he recalled correctly. Their species were lizard-like with mottled brown skin with lumps and protrusions along their sloped faces. To him, they looked like Gecko’s in a Starfleet uniform but their species had an affinity for Engineering. She looked at him with her big bulbous eyes with what passed for a smile on her lips showing an array of sharp teeth.
“Yes, thank you,” Thad nodded, “I was just finishing up here. Your teams are doing an excellent job, Chief Ko’loa.”
She dipped her head gratefully, “Thank you, Commander.”
Thad closed the holo he was looking at and turned to leave, grabbing a spare padd on the table meant to be reused, and leaving the Chief to manage her teams. He paused outside in the hallway, turning to the computer terminal and activating it with his command codes. Thad quickly moved through the screens he needed and transferred the information he was looking for into the data PaDD in his hand. Satisfied, he walked to the lift, PaDD in hand reading quietly.
He was no longer looking at the repair lists but the logs themselves, going all the way back to their arrival on Korin. Thad had no idea what he was looking for but he was doing it anyway. Maybe it was his suspicious nature, his professional experience rearing its head, or maybe it was just the grief he was feeling at having lost a friend forcing him to see shadows when there weren’t any. Whatever it was, he knew he wouldn’t sleep until he could put it out of his mind. And that only came by exhaustively reviewing the data until he found the reason why his instincts were nudging him, and explaining that away.
Zayne hardly noticed as the lift arrived and he stepped on. It went quickly up a few levels before slowing to a stop again and the doors opened to admit a trio of crew, amongst them was Captain DeHavilland who smiled at her First Officer as she came in and stood next to him, behind the others.
“I was heading up to find you,” Corvus smiled to her XO. “Anything important?” She asked, looking over at his PaDD.
“Just some due diligence,” he shrugged, powering it off. “What’d you want to see me for?”
“I wanted to see how we’re doing for the delegation that’s on its way. Diplomatic department’s having kittens about it. Everything has to be just so,” she explained as they rode. “Any trouble meeting their needs?”
“No,” Thad answered. “There’s plenty of spare quarters for VIP’s. I’ve already arranged Security details for all of them as well as cordoned off their section of quarters just in case. They have full use of the spaces in the environmental ring and I’ve even locked down one of the holodeck blocks for their exclusive use,” he explained. All of that was easy work that didn’t take much time at all. He’d spent longer explaining to his Yeoman what she needed to prepare for than it’d taken her to actually get it done.
“Great,” Corvus smiled, “Nothing to worry about then.”
“No,” he shook his head, “None at all.”
They rode in silence for a few moments. Thad’s mind was still trying to piece together what was off, and he decided he’d pull on a thread and see what happened. He tried to give the Captain a patient and friendly smile as he asked, “How did the Ensign’s do on their first away mission?”
“Pretty good,” she agreed. “Obviously they need a lot of polish,” she chuckled. “Ensign Wiser is one to watch.”
“Good to know,” Thad replied. “Anyone to be concerned about?”
Corvus thought about that for a moment and then shook her head. “Well. Ensign Wiser,” she sighed. “He came back from his away mission a little… shaken,” she said. The lift slowed and the other people got out and they rode on.
“I’ll check in with Wiser then. Maybe there’s some opportunities for him to get a little more experience. For his next away mission,” he suggested.
“I think they could all use it,” DeHavilland countered. “But yes, I’m sure a friendly face would be helpful for him."
“It’s good that we have a good crop of Ensigns,” he continued, “Clearly Commander Quinn thinks highly of Ensign Tilmer. That’s a very good sign.”
Corvus’ face twitched slightly, “Oh, does he?” She asked.
“I presumed so,” Thad answered, a little sweeter than he usually was. “All the repair requests for the Pathfinder were authorized by Ensign Tilmer,” he explained. “I doubt Commander Quinn would have given him that authority if he didn’t have faith in his abilities to manage it,” he said.
“I suppose not,” Corvus replied tightly, trying to give him a smile. She met his eyes, uncertain if he was baiting her or if he was just asking questions. She shrugged the feeling off. Thad was a good Officer and an excellent XO. He as just doing his job. She was letting her guilty conscious get the better of her.
“It has been a while since I’ve been in Engineering, I avoided it best that I could after my posting here. No need to set things off unnecessarily,” he continued on. Being seen in Engineering so soon after relieving the Chief’s wife of the job she’d brought him here to do with her had seemed not only like bad form, but a bad idea. “But I should probably check in on things.”
“I don’t know, Thad,” she replied honestly, “I’m still not sure Commander Quinn’s going to be all that receptive to you,” she explained. It was the honest truth that he probably still didn’t want to interact with Thad, but more importantly now, was that he didn’t like putting Quinn in a position to have to lie about what had happened. She didn’t trust him to hold the line, or at least hold it convincingly. “To be honest, he hardly interacts with me beyond his data PaDD reports,” she tried to convince him. Not that she wanted to. Before they’d gone, with the specter of Calliope’s removal over her head she hadn’t wanted to deal with him because it’d be hard to explain. Now, she wanted nothing to do with him whatsoever. The only thing that kept him on this command was that she couldn’t dismiss him for cause.
The lift doors opened to the main level and they stepped out, Corvus turning towards the stairs up to the CIC but Thad walking almost straight to indicate he meant to go to his office.
“I’d let it lie a bit longer,” she suggested finally.
“Alright,” he agreed. “I’ll stay back,” he nodded, gesturing to his office. “I have a couple things to finish up and then I’ll join you upstairs. But I’ll make a point of checking in with Ensign Wiser, and Ensign Tilmer,” he smiled.
“Sure,” Corvus replied tightly, not trusting herself to say anything more. “See you up there,” she said, then turned and headed up the stairs.
Thad watched her go for a moment, his eyes on her but his mind elsewhere. Finally, he turned and walked down the corridor towards his office, stepping through without a word and tossing the data PaDD on his desk. He sighed and folded his arms as he looked out his viewport at surrounding space. It wasn’t as grand a view as the one in the Captain’s Ready Room, but comported to what most XO’s in the Fleet got, it was just about palatial.
“Computer,” he said finally, hearing the soft electronic tones of affirmation that she was listening. “Transfer all crew logs from the Pathfinder since it’s last departure from Obsidian Command to my terminal,” he ordered. “Emphasis on log interactions regarding Ensign Tilmer,” he clarified.
”Working,” the computer replied.
Thad walked over to the terminal, watching the data being fed into it by the computers routines. He had come into this thinking that he was just being over suspicious. That his nature and experience in intelligence gathering and strategic planning had coupled with hckis grief to make him see shadows when there were none to see. He’d left the repair des thinking that, but reviewing logs just to put his mind to rest. But now, he knew something wasn’t right. He knew that his suspicion that something wasn’t where it was supposed to be was founded. There was no other explanation.
He had spent seven years of his life, of his career, in a deep cover position at the behest of Federation Security and Starfleet. He’d survived that long, that close to beings that wanted to destroy everything that the Federation stood for, by learning to be just as clever and cunning as they were. But if there was one thing above all that he was better than most at, that had helped him scale the ladder of that organization so well, it was his ability to spot a lie. Even when the Betazoids and similar sorts couldn’t. He’d survived, and he trusted his instinct on it even when it was a subtle nudge and right now, his instincts weren’t giving him a subtle bump. They were screaming at him.
Corvus was lying.
