Alone in the Light, Part 10
Title: Alone in the Light, Part 10
Author:
j_green_teeth
Universe/Series: reboot
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 6423 of ~41,000
Warnings: Minor/OC Character Death, discussion of Suicide (highlight to view complete warnings)
Characters/Pairings: Kirk/Spock, implied Scotty/Uhura, OC/OC, ensemble, Many OCs
Jim woke up late and skipped breakfast the next morning. Spock was already in conference room nine when he got there and he looked like he had something to say.
Jim didn't let him start. "So I figure we should take another look at the victims' friends and enemies. There might not be a direct connection between them all but they might all be connected to one person."
Spock replied stiffly, “I wasn't aware anyone in the crew had enemies aboard.”
“They were murdered, Spock. Of course they had enemies,” Jim told him.
Spock stared at him for a moment then decided to move the conversation on. "Do you wish to assume there is a single perpetrator?"
"Until we have good reason to think otherwise. Yeah, I think we should." Jim sighed.
"I will not challenge the assumption." Spock was looking at his hands where they rested on the table. Jim stared at Spock's bowed head. His pose reminded Jim how hard this must be for Spock. That Spock had to acknowledge there was a killer aboard must have pained him to his Vulcan soul. Spock wouldn't challenge the assumption because he didn't want to think that there were many killers on the Enterprise. Jim wanted to hug him.
Shaking himself he said, "Anyway, I think we need to start working on this in a different way. We need to get positive indications that someone is involved. The process of elimination isn't going to get us very far."
"As you say." Spock met Jim's eyes and nodded.
Since there was next to nothing on the table about Vick or Swanson, Jim asked Ensign Asher to join them. He sat on the edge of his chair, seemingly ready to spring at the slightest command.
Jim started, with a pleasant smile, "Ensign, what can you tell me about Lieutenant Commander Vick?"
"She was Lieutenant Commander on the Resz before she transferred here, sir. She had been in security her whole career. She had certifications in knife and unarmed combat. She was seventy-eight sessions for weapons, well above the required fifty." Asher nodded to himself.
"What about her personal life?” Jim prodded. The duty records for the victims hadn't yielded any shared experience between the four.
Asher looked sideways at him and lowered his voice even though it was just the three of them. “Most of this is speculation and gossip, sir.” Jim gave him a little 'go on' gesture with a flick of his fingers. “I think she had been involved with a few people on the Resz but nothing serious. She hit it off with Lieutenant Commander Baal pretty soon after she came on board. I think they were serious for a while. Maybe two months ago, it ended. I’m not sure which of them did the ending. The Commander wasn’t exactly happy about it, but she wasn’t crying her eyes out either.”
“Do you know if she have many friends?”
“A couple that she corresponded with, I think. She always knew what was going on on the Lazarus and the Hoshi. Not sure who or how she knew them.” Asher's eyes flicked to Spock and back to Jim.
Spock finally joined in the conversation. “What about on board the Enterprise?”
Asher shrugged. “She spent a lot of time with the other security officers, sir. I think she saw herself as a mentor for a lot of us. Other than that she sparred with Quartermaster Motto pretty regularly.”
Motto was Baloo's boss so Jim asked. “Do you know if she ever talked to Ensign Baloo?”
“I don’t know, sir,” Asher replied.
“Okay. What about Ensign Swanson? What was he like?”
Asher sucked in his cheeks. “Kind of an odd duck, sir. I mean, he was always professional but never really more than that. Pretty quiet, too. I pulled guard duty with him a few times and he could go for hours without talking. He must have had something interesting going on inside his head.” Jim leaned back mulling that over. It was odd. Most departments were as thick as thieves after a few months in close quarters.
“What about his acquaintances, Ensign Asher?” Spock questioned during the pause.
“I think he palled around with a bunch of different people but I’m not sure how close they were.” Again, Asher shrugged.
“Like who?” Jim asked making sure he made eye contact.
“Some of the Engineers, I think some of the techs too. We joked a bit that he had missed a turn at the Academy and went down the wrong track.”
“And how did Ensign Swanson respond to such jokes?”
“He did seem to care,” Asher answered, a touch defensively.
“Can you think of anyone who would know more about either of them?” He and Spock would need more information to work with.
Asher looked at the ceiling while thinking it over. “For Vick, Baal or Motto; for Swanson, Finn might know some more, or maybe Reese. I think they had more shifts with him than I did.”
“Thanks, Ensign, keep it-”
“-quiet, sir, of course.” Asher nodded sharply.
“Dismissed.” Jim watched him go. “He seems smart. Okay, let’s look at Baloo’s and Bestine's files and see what Vick found out about their friends.” He flipped on the PADD. “Malea Bestine. Friends with Lieutenant Quing. Well-liked by the rest of the medical staff. Might have had something going with Ensign Garrett. There’s a note that Ensign Janis was reprimanded for a verbal altercation she had with Bestine.”
Spock looked at the other PADD in a way Jim knew meant he had it memorized. “Ensign Baloo is reported to have had a mildly antagonistic relationship with Ensign Randall Stein. Probably due to their friendship with Ensign Cho. In general he was well-liked by the others working with the quartermaster. He may or may not have had a friendship terminate with Ensign Garrett in the last one-point-five months.”
“Did Vick interview Motto about it?”
“Affirmative.”
“What about this Ensign Garrett? Asher said that Swanson hung out with a lot of the techs. It's possible that Swanson knew him too.” Jim drummed his fingers on the table.
“It is worth interviewing him. He may know if another connection exists between Ensigns Baloo, Bestine, and Swanson.”
Jim pressed down the comm on the table. “Connect me with Security.” There was a moment of white noise before the reply. As much as Jim itched to chase down Garrett on his own, he knew he needed to delegate.
“Lieutenant Finn here.” Come the tinny response.
“Lieutenant Finn, I need you to locate Ensign Garrett for me and bring him to conference room nine.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Jim cut the comm and swiveled toward Spock. “What else have we got?”
“Lieutenant Commander Vick was found in Engineering and Ensign Swanson may have had friends there,” Spock responded.
Jim wrinkled his nose. “Somebody could have thought Vick was responsible for his death and pushed her into the pipes as revenge?” But that didn’t feel right.
“Lieutenant Commander Vick may have discovered some maleficence when she started investigating his death. She may have entered Engineering looking for evidence, and been killed to prevent her from finding anything. Or she may have been there for a completely unrelated reason.”
“If she was looking for something did she find it?”
“We have very little evidence from which to speculate. If she was meeting someone it was likely the murderer since no-one has come forward to claim they were going to met. It is unlikely she would be there for personal reasons. So she was probably there in a professional capacity.”
“Hmm.” Jim leaned back to study the ceiling.
“There was nothing on her body that, at first investigation, appears to be evidence.”
“So if she found anything the killer must have taken it off her before she went over.”
Spock cocked his head. “On what do you base that assumption?”
“How would they have gotten down there? It took us hours to retrieve the body even with the grav pad.”
“Lieutenant Keenser scaled the distance in 7.43 minutes. And the body was unattended for sixteen hours.”
“His species is designed for it. Anyway, the person who bashed Baloo’s head in was about the same height as he was.” Jim swung himself straight in his chair.
“So we have reached no conclusion about what Lieutenant Commander Vick was doing in that part of Engineering.”
“Nope.” The intercom buzzed. “Kirk here.”
“Captain, you need to come to the art gallery.” Lieutenant Finn sounded panicked.
Jim bit down on a preemptive curse. “What’s going on, Lieutenant?”
“I found Ensign Garrett, sir. He’s dead.” Jim turned to Spock, his jaw hanging open. Spock closed his eyes. They could hear Finn swallow hard over the comm. “And-and so is Annelee.”
Jim got up and walked over to the wall, pulling back he swung, shoulders, hips and feet moving to drive his fist hard into the wall. His fingers blazed with pain. His scrapped second knuckle started to ooze blood. He breathed in once, twice then turned towards Spock and the comm.
“Get Medical down there now and post guards around the door. Don’t let anyone in until I get there.”
Jim struggled to keep his pace to a brisk walk as he headed out the door, before deciding that everyone would know soon enough and heading to the gallery at a jog. Spock was a silent, reassuring presence behind him. He was forced to slow down when he got within a few doors of the gallery. People were standing in the hallway in groups of twos and threes whispering to each other. The frequent glances toward the two security officers in front of the door made it clear what they were talking about.
Jim marched up to the door and stood with his back to it. Looking up and down the hall he said, “Whatever has happened in this room will be thoroughly investigated by the security personnel and myself. Rest assured, we will release details when all the facts are know. Until then, please remember your duty as Starfleet officers and return to your assignments.” No-one moved. “We are doing everything we can to figure this out. But to do that I need each one of you to continue the work that keeps this ship running.” A few people drifted back a step. Jim used his best command voice to say, “Dismissed.” Finally the groups broke up.
He turned, nodded to both of the security guards, and entered the gallery. It looked pretty much the same as the last time he had been there. There was a petty officer in red carefully documenting the room but he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Jim followed the sound of voices around the first corner. There were Finn and Asher quietly arguing over the two bodies. He wrinkled his nose. There was an odd charred smell that the ships air recyclers hadn’t cleared up. Petty Officer Annelee Morn’s black hair was caked with blood. Streams of it had run down onto the floor, turning it a deep red. Jim swallowed heavily and looked beyond her to Ensign Garrett. He was laid out in front of the damned holo that haunted Jim's dreams. His hands were cracked and blackened. His mouth and eyes were wide open, giving him a stunned look. Jim turned away from the bodies to talk with Finn and Asher. “What do we know?”
Asher nudged Finn when he didn’t say anything. Finn jerked then spoke.“You asked me to find Garrett. So I asked Lieutenant Duke where he was. Duke told me he had gone on maintenance rounds and that he had closed all the incident reports before this one. So I came here to track him down for you and I found them like this.” Finn ran out of steam. His eyes were focused beyond Kirk to the bodies.
Jim prompted. “You didn’t see anyone else here?”
Finn's eyes snapped back to him. He shook his head.“No, sir. I called Asher and we did a sweep. No-one was here.”
There was a commotion in the front room. Jim ducked back around the corner to see Bones and Dr. Lars hauling two stretchers loaded with several pieces of equipment. “Bones, I need a preliminary report; Petty Officer, get those bodies documented if you haven’t already.” He poked his head back. “Finn, do you have the maintenance request Garrett was working on?’
Facing away from the bodies Finn was more with it. “Yes, sir, here.”
Jim scanned the PADD Finn handed him. He stalked over to the comm. “Engineering.” There was a click. “Find Scotty and tell him the Captain needs him in the gallery pronto.”
There was a startled, “Yes, sir,” through the comm.
Jim stared at the seascape Scotty had fixed weeks ago. “Finn,” he called, “find me Ensign Singh.”
“Aye, aye, sir, I'll get-” Finn rounded the corner and started for the door. “I’ll just-”
“Lieutenant. Delegate.” Finn may have been Vick's second but he was not ready to be in charge. But Jim had to work with what he had.
“Yes, sir.” Finn slipped through the door.
“Captain, you have an idea?” Spock spoke for the first time since they had arrived on the scene.
“What are the chances of three different holos having shorts in the same three weeks?”
“.0015%. Although if the same person installed them all they might have a recurrent installation fault. You conjecture that these faults are not the result of chance or ineptitude?” Spock looked at the seascape and raised an eyebrow.
“Yep, It looks like an attempt to make Ensign Garrett’s death look like an accident.”
Spock pointed out. The shift of his shoulders told Jim he had tightened the grip of his hands folded behind his back. “Petty Officer Morn’s murder was not concealed in any way.”
“I think that she stumbled on whoever rigged this panel to kill Garrett. Suddenly there was a witness and they had to kill her, too.”
“Would that not nullify the attempt to make the circumstances of Ensign Garrett’s death appear accidental?”
“Yeah, but we still don’t know who did it.” Jim said with a grimace.
Scotty trotted in. “Captain, you needed me?”
“Yes, Scotty, when you fixed that holo over there what was wrong with it?”
“The cable between the image regulator and the power had come loose. I can show you.” Scotty said already moving towards it.
Jim grabbed his shoulder. “Carefully. It could be booby-trapped.”
Scotty whipped out a tricorder and started scanning the panel. After a few encouraging chirps Scotty slowly slid his ever-present panel pick in and around then with a flick of his wrist popped the panel off. He studied the wiring for a moment. “That isn’t right.”
“What’s wrong?”
Scotty poked at the wires with his pick, frowning. “Someone’s been in here since I fixed it.”
Jim and Spock both stepped forward to examine the wires. “Explain.”
Scotty traced it with out touching it. “See this red wire here? I put it to the right when I do work like this. The plug can go either way on this connector but I always keep the red on the right.”
Jim eased himself back remembering Garrett's charred hands and empty eyes. “So it's booby-trapped.”
Scotty turned his head sideways, squinting at the wires that disappeared upwards into the ship. “Nay, I don’t think it is.”
“What?” That wasn't the answer he had been expecting.
Spock who had been looking at the holo said. “There are no visible flaws in the holo matrix.”
“Its working fine. It looks like a solid connection. I don’t see any other funny business.”
“So someone fixed it again after you did?” Jim would have to ask Lieutenant Duke to pull the maintenance logs to see if anyone had worked on the holo after Scotty.
Scotty shrugged. “Someone did something.”
“Okay, once the bodies have been take to sickbay I want you to get someone to check every holo in here.” Jim had a hunch they would be fine but they still needed to be checked by someone on the look out for sabotage.
“'O course, Captain.”
Jim poked his head around the corner again. “Whatcha got, Bones?”
“Two dead bodies, a twitchy staff and an ulcer in the making.”
Jim huffed not quite a laugh. “What happened to them, Bones?”
Bones pointed back over his should with a finger. “He was electrocuted by some godforsaken part of this tin can.” There was a muffled, 'Don’t mind him,' from Scotty.
He switched to point with his thumb. “And she was hit repeatedly by some kind of blunt object.”
“Nothing strange?” Bones gestured wildly at the two corpses. “Right, let me know if you find anything.” Jim left Bones and Dr. Lars to it. He really hoped they would come up with something.
It took the rest of the day to sort out the bodies and the gallery. Asher had confirmed they were finished documenting, enough for Bones to take the bodies away. Finn returned with Ensign Singh shortly after. Jim spent a couple of unproductive minutes grilling him about the holos and their problems. Ensign Sigh denied any knowledge of when the holo arrays had been set up or who had done the job. He had given the specs to the ops department and they had added the temporary walls and the holo arrays. He had only noticed the problem that first night because Scotty had been fiddling with Sun’s seascape. Later, when he came back to check up on things, he realized that the ‘Bird of Paradise’ was having a similar problem. So he had checked all the pieces. That was when he had found the problem with ‘Watchful’. He'd made the repair request and that was all he knew about it.
At the same time Spock had been tracking Petty Officer Morn’s activities. Lieutenant Umba calmly explained that Annelee had been given the part of her shift off because research required the main anthropology lab be completely dark. A chain of events that supported Jim's theory that Annelee had stumbled on to the scene. Lieutenant Umba took the news of the death with an eerie calm. Hell, her entire manner up to this point had been pretty damn creepy, and what was her connection with Lieutenant Commander Baal? Baal, who had been involved with Vick who was friends with Motto who was Baloo's boss. Jim sighed. It was terrible to have to think about which crew members might murder others, and it was horrifying that he didn’t have to think hard to come up with several names.
~*~*~*~
Jim did return to the bridge at the end of alpha shift. With this latest set of murders he had to get in touch with Command. He needed to inform them of the deaths and the fact that the Enterprise crew complement had gone below ninety percent of the standard. It wasn’t much comfort that they were already on their way to pick up new crew. “Lieutenant Uhura, when’s the next window for real-time communication with HQ?”
She didn’t even have to look. “Three days, Captain.”
“Right, I’ll put together a data packet to send out tonight.” It wasn’t real-time, but it would still get there in under a day. “Sulu, how long until we reach Plix?”
“Twenty eight days, sir.” Came the prompt response.
“Send a message to HQ now. Tell them we’re under ninety percent crew complement and still twenty-eight days out from the nearest base. Maybe we can arrange something with the Plix Ground Base. Have a ship meet us halfway.”
“Captain?” Sulu said as calm as ever.
“Yes, Sulu.”
“We’re only four days away from Outpost ZZ-9pza.”
Jim sighed then straightened in his chair.“New plan. Change course to Outpost ZZ-9pza. Uhura, inform HQ and the Admiral on Plix of the change and get me a live link with whoever is in command of Outpost ZZ-9pza ASAP.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” Sulu turned back to his station already making the necessary course adjustments.
“Sulu, how long will it take us to get to Plix after we’ve picked up crew from ZZ-9pza?”
“Twenty nine and a half days.”
Jim sighed. Just his luck. The outpost was out of their way but regulations were clear. The Enterprise had to report to the nearest Starfleet installation.
Uhura said, “Captain, Commodore Anwir can speak to you immediately.”
Jim stood up. “Put him through to my office.”
Jim activated the small video console on his office desk. The picture resolved to a show an older man with straight black hair and dark eyes. Uhura would probably use the word 'austere' or 'severe'. To Jim he just looked like a hard-ass. Carefully burying the fires of teenage rebellion, Jim gave him a polite smile. “Commodore Anwir.”
“Captain Kirk.”
There was an awkward pause. “How are things on Outpost ZZ-9pza?”
“They continue apace. Not as interesting as life aboard a starship, I venture.”
“Well, you know, the Chinese have a curse; something like ‘May you live in interesting times'.”
“And you feel you are cursed, Captain?” There was an unmistakable note of scorn in his voice.
Jim didn’t roll his eyes but it was a near thing. He had met a lot of superior officers who resented his immediate promotion to Captain. “At the moment, yes. I’ve had several crew members die recently from apparent accidents. Enough that we've dropped below a safe personnel level.”
“And so you’ve come to commandeer mine?” Anwir sneered.
Jim gritted his teeth. “I, in accordance with Starfleet regulations, have diverted to the nearest installation that could supply more crew.”
“Ah, one must follow regulations, mustn’t one?” Another jab at Jim's unorthodox rise to Captaincy.
Jim gave him a hard little smile.“Yes, so unless you can cite extreme circumstances, I’m going to need five people.”
“You expect me just to give you five of my people?”
Jim curled his fist out of range of the view screen. “Yes, the station’s standard crew is one hundred people. Unless you’ve lost people, five should be no problem.”
Anwir pursed his lips and said haughtily, “I will have to check with my superiors on Plix.”
“You do that.” Go be a jackass to them, Jim thought. They'll tell you the same thing I did.
“Captain.”
“Commodore.” Jim cut the transmission with a vicious stab at the button. No wonder Pike liked Jim, if this was the kind of pompous ass he was used to dealing with. Sighing, he went about putting together all the reports he needed to send to HQ.
~*~*~*~
The next day had Jim and Spock tracking down people all over the ship. First they had gone to talk to Lieutenant Duke, who wasn't head of Maintenance but knew who was fixing what and where. He had pulled up everything he could find about the holos in the art gallery, and stood nervously back while Jim and Spock looked it over. There wasn't much, just the installation and maintenance requests Ensign Garrett had been on. Jim sighed and asked Lieutenant Duke to let them know if any other requests came through for the room.
They also swung by Engineering to ask Scotty about the other holos. Scotty said that they had looked but hadn't found anything wrong with any of them.
After that they went to see Quartermaster Motto. Motto looked how a quartermaster should look, in Jim's opinion. The man was built like a proverbial brick shithouse and had the perpetual expression of someone smelling said shithouse. Now sitting behind his desk, he looked more worn than anything. Spock asked him about Ensign Baloo and seemed satisfied that the man's answers matched what was in Lieutenant Commander Vick's reports. Jim took over when they started talking about Vick. Motto told Jim that Madeline's hobbies included sparring and cooking. Of course on a starship she did more of the former than the latter. She had also been mentoring several of the Security officers, just like Motto was mentoring his people. Motto was completely honest, telling Jim that the friendship had started with the two of them bitching about all their underlings being wet-behind-the-ears kids. The only time the man clammed up was when Jim asked him about what happened between Vick and Baal. Motto hemmed and hawed and in the end all Jim could get out of him was that Vick had been pissed, but not heartbroken. Jim speculated, based on the man's half-guilty, half-defiant expression that Motto had selfish reasons for wanting Vick and Baal to split up.
Following that thread Jim decided to get Baal's side of the story. Baal was in the astrometrics lab. Jim thought he looked a bit shifty when they came up to his console, but that could just have been a reaction to having the Captain and the First Officer show up unannounced during his duty shift. The man didn't relax when Jim explained they wanted to ask him a couple questions about Lieutenant Commander Vick. He acknowledged that he and Madeline had been dating. He fumbled with the buttons on his console as he told them that the breakup had been a mutual decision, but that could have been because Spock was looming over him. Jim left after a few more questions, ignoring Spock's incredulous eyebrow. As they walked away, Jim tried to explain to Spock that sometimes when a breakup is 'mutual' it just meant that both people had done the screaming.
Spock suggested another look at the art gallery on their way to sickbay. Jim agreed. He wanted to see what the place looked like again without all the bodies and Security personnel. What Jim wasn't expecting were the eight crew members who had decided to visit the gallery as well, each of whom became very interested in this or that piece when Jim and Spock entered the room. Jim gave the room a quick look then chivvied Spock out again.
When they got to sickbay, Bones couldn't tell them anything new. The apparent causes of death were the actual causes of death.
After that they went back to the conference room. Jim dropped into a chair and closed his eyes trying to decide what to do next. So of course Spock took the opportunity to stage a conversational ambush.
“Lieutenant Uhura and Ensign Lichee only recently asked me to join their ensemble after Lieutenant Trye announced he would not be able to devote sufficient time to rehearsals.”
Jim groaned. It seemed like much longer than a day and a half since he had stormed out of the concert hall. “It's fine, Spock. ”
Spock cocked his head at Jim. “It is obviously not 'fine'. You were quite distressed when you learned of the concert.”
“It's fine. Really. I'm sure you're going to have a great concert.”
Spock pursed his lips ever so slightly. “Both Lieutenant Uhura and Ensign Lichee are competent musicians, so that is a logical assumption. I would, however, prefer you reserve judgment until you have witnessed the performance yourself.”
“So I'm invited?” Jim couldn't help but ask.
“Yes, the concert is open to the entire crew. I am also personally requesting that you attend. Will you come?”
“I would love to,” Jim said, and damn it if it wasn't true.
They both let the topic drop then and got back to work. They need to start finding out as much as they could about Branson Garrett and Annelee Morn.
~*~*~*~
When Jim finally sat down at his desk he found a terse message from Commodore Anwir acknowledging Jim's request for crew and telling him that he had selected five people that the station could do without for a while. Jim idly pondered how the man could imply that he was doing Jim and the Enterprise a great favor while at the same time conveying that the five crew members were the most worthless Anwir had to offer.
~*~*~*~
Alpha shift was over and Jim had called a halt to their investigation. It was time for food and football. He felt a bit guilty about taking the time when they had two obvious murders and another four deaths that he was convinced were not accidents. But, like Dr. Evans said, the crew needed to see their captain, and Jim would prefer they see him winning a game. Beyond that he needed some time to let things settle in his mind. Right now his thoughts were bouncing around like marbles. One fact would hit another and ricochet to send more flying. Which of the facts they had mattered? He had no idea.
Jim had grabbed a bite in the mess. Spock hadn’t come along, citing an obligation in the labs before he would be able to referee. They were back to their weird game where Jim was almost but not entirely sure that Spock was interested in him. It was something in the way Spock watched him. His eyelids would sink a bit while his eyes tracked Jim’s every move. Jim sighed. Now was hardly the time to be thinking about what the hell was going on between them.
He was on his way down to the gymnasium when a woman ran straight into him. She had had her face in her hands and ended up with her face and hands in his chest. She was already mumbling an apology as she raised bloodshot eyes to him. Her expression tightened. She started, swallowed and said, “I’m sorry, sir. I’ll just...” She trailed off into a sob.
“Hey, hey.” He gently took her shoulders and steered her towards one of the small exercise rooms. There was a low bench along the wall and he got her to sit down next to him. “What’s wrong?”
“He...” She hiccuped a sob and took several deep watery breaths before starting again. “He’s dead.”
Jim's stomach dropped. “Who’s dead?”
“Branson.”
He breathed out slowly. Ensign Garrett's first name was Branson. Thank God there wasn’t another one. “Yes, I’m sorry.” She started weeping again. “So you knew him?” He could have kicked himself it was a stupid thing to say.
“Yes. We...” A deep breath. “We had a thing.” That was news to Jim. “He was so sweet and charming. And now he’s dead.”
He put his arm around her shoulder as she shook. “I know, I know, I’m sorry.”
“I-I feel like it's my fault.” She kept her eyes on her hands tightly clasped in her lap.
“You can’t think like that.” Well you could but it would destroy you or lead to yelling matches and a pissy first officer.
“But the holo. It was my fault.”
Jim drew in a quick breath. “What about the holo?”
“It was my holo. Only something went wrong with it and,” she stuttered, voice going higher, “and-and he died. He died trying to fix my stupid holo.” Jim rubbed her shoulder. “I was so proud of it. I thought it turned out so well. I wanted him to see it and then he did and he’s dead.” He continued to rub his thumb back and forth in small motions on her shoulder, while Elizabeth cried.
“Somebody rigged it. It could have been done to any one of the pieces.” Jim wasn’t sure he believed that. Rumor had it that Bestine had been involved with Ensign Garrett. Now here was Petty Officer Daws, claiming to be his girlfriend too, and he was killed by her holo. Jim decided to follow that train of thought. Elizabeth gave a shuddering sigh. “So, you said you had a ‘thing’ with Branson.” Not quite a question.
“I, yeah.” Her face relaxed a hair. “It’s sort of been going on since we left Earth, but not really.”
“It sounds,” Jim pursed his lips and paused for effect, “complicated.”
She didn’t smile but her frown lessened. “The first time we met he was being kind of an ass.” He nodded. “One of the idiots he was hanging out with asked if he wanted to get up close and personal with me. Before he could say anything I told him that I wouldn’t touch him with a ten-foot pole. Everyone thought it was hilarious but Branson took it seriously.” Her lips twitched. “Sort of. I was down in his area gathering reports and Gunther, his supervisor, asked him to give them to me. So Branson,” she sniffled, “put them on the floor and kind of kicked them over to me. I didn’t know why he had done that. He said he would be a cad of the highest order if he did not respect a lady’s wishes and therefore he would stay ten feet away from me.” Jim blinked and shook his head a little. “I guess you had to be there. So I told him I could probably stand nine feet.”
“That’s...” Sweet, bizarrely cute.
“Yeah.” She hiccuped.
They sat in silence for a while. Jim let the subliminal hum of the ship comfort him. Elizabeth bit her lip. “Captain, do you think you could do the dark for him?”
“Do the dark?” Jim wrinkled his forehead in confusion.
“Sorry, I forget that not everyone grew up in space. It's a spacer tradition, when someone dies, to turn off all the lights on a ship, just for a few seconds. My grandfather said it was to let the person’s soul see heaven.” Jim was a little confused, and it must have shown on his face. “Because the ship is usually the only light for hundreds of light years, the soul supposedly gets confused. It tries to go towards the light but the ship is so bright it can’t see where it's supposed to go.”
Head nodded slowly. “So you turn the lights off so the soul can set its bearings to the afterlife?”
She gave him a weak smile. “I know it sounds a bit silly but when I was a kid, I’d always feel this moment of lightness.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” Not much, probably. Even if turning off all the lights on a Constitution-class ship wasn’t enough of an undertaking, Jim wasn’t hot on the idea of turning all the lights off when there was a murderer on the loose.
“So, a year. That’s a long time.” It was the best opening he could think of. He didn't have a lot of experience with long term relationships or even people in long term relationships.
Elizabeth blinked at him. “I suppose it is.”
“Without touching, I mean.”
She rolled her red eyes at him. “It started slow. We exchanged ‘tokens’. I’d leave him a letter or a sketch. He’d leave me a poem or a bit of candy. At five feet he gave me this tiny robot. If you press its top it will walk five steps and raise a little sword and say ‘release the fair maiden'.”
“Wow.” Branson certainly had style.
“He had this whole thing about defending my honor from the unworthy knaves. Mostly to ‘advance his own suit'.”
Jim was familiar with beating the competition to get the girl to swoon in his arms. But he had never done it with that much whimsy.
Elizabeth continued without seeming to realize that Jim was silently critiquing Ensign Garrett's seduction technique. “He hid an orange in my underwear drawer a couple weeks ago. When I asked he denied putting it there and insisted on sleeping at the foot of my bed to defend me against the lecherous grocers of the ship.” From the way she smiled, Jim would bet that if Garrett had started the night at the foot of her bed, that wasn’t where he'd ended it, sly dog.
“Sounds like he was a great guy.”
“He was.” She stared at the opposite wall. She smiled but it lessened by degrees and a thin line crept up on her forehead. “You’ll try to do the dark for him, Captain? Please.”
“Yeah, I’ll see what I can do. But I’m not sure I can make it happen.”
She frowned, her lips disappearing. After a tense moment she said, “The Enterprise has too many ghosts already. I don’t want him to become one too.”
“Ghosts?”
“I know, I know. Starfleet is all about science and discovery,” she looked away, “but sometimes I feel like they’re still here, just watching. Waiting for something.”
Jim paused considering how to ask his next question. “Have you talked to anyone else about this?”
She gave a bubbly wet laugh. “Dr. Evans, you mean.”
“Or McCoy, or anyone.” Jim defended.
She shrugged and said, “I talked to Malea about it when Ice Heart died. She said all the usual things, that I could handle grief in my own way, but I needed to realize that she was gone and move on.
“Did you know her well?” Jim tried not to give away his interest.
“Ice Heart, enough to say hi to. But our paths didn’t cross much.”
“What about Ensign Bestine?” Jim asked.
“I don’t know if she knew Ice Heart.” She blinked. “Oh, you mean me. Mostly I knew of her.”
The door slid open before he could follow that thread.
“Captain!” And there was Spock, in exercise reds and referee jersey. And a phaser?
Next: Part 11
Author:
j_green_teeth
Universe/Series: reboot
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 6423 of ~41,000
Warnings: Minor/OC Character Death, discussion of Suicide (highlight to view complete warnings)
Characters/Pairings: Kirk/Spock, implied Scotty/Uhura, OC/OC, ensemble, Many OCs
Jim woke up late and skipped breakfast the next morning. Spock was already in conference room nine when he got there and he looked like he had something to say.
Jim didn't let him start. "So I figure we should take another look at the victims' friends and enemies. There might not be a direct connection between them all but they might all be connected to one person."
Spock replied stiffly, “I wasn't aware anyone in the crew had enemies aboard.”
“They were murdered, Spock. Of course they had enemies,” Jim told him.
Spock stared at him for a moment then decided to move the conversation on. "Do you wish to assume there is a single perpetrator?"
"Until we have good reason to think otherwise. Yeah, I think we should." Jim sighed.
"I will not challenge the assumption." Spock was looking at his hands where they rested on the table. Jim stared at Spock's bowed head. His pose reminded Jim how hard this must be for Spock. That Spock had to acknowledge there was a killer aboard must have pained him to his Vulcan soul. Spock wouldn't challenge the assumption because he didn't want to think that there were many killers on the Enterprise. Jim wanted to hug him.
Shaking himself he said, "Anyway, I think we need to start working on this in a different way. We need to get positive indications that someone is involved. The process of elimination isn't going to get us very far."
"As you say." Spock met Jim's eyes and nodded.
Since there was next to nothing on the table about Vick or Swanson, Jim asked Ensign Asher to join them. He sat on the edge of his chair, seemingly ready to spring at the slightest command.
Jim started, with a pleasant smile, "Ensign, what can you tell me about Lieutenant Commander Vick?"
"She was Lieutenant Commander on the Resz before she transferred here, sir. She had been in security her whole career. She had certifications in knife and unarmed combat. She was seventy-eight sessions for weapons, well above the required fifty." Asher nodded to himself.
"What about her personal life?” Jim prodded. The duty records for the victims hadn't yielded any shared experience between the four.
Asher looked sideways at him and lowered his voice even though it was just the three of them. “Most of this is speculation and gossip, sir.” Jim gave him a little 'go on' gesture with a flick of his fingers. “I think she had been involved with a few people on the Resz but nothing serious. She hit it off with Lieutenant Commander Baal pretty soon after she came on board. I think they were serious for a while. Maybe two months ago, it ended. I’m not sure which of them did the ending. The Commander wasn’t exactly happy about it, but she wasn’t crying her eyes out either.”
“Do you know if she have many friends?”
“A couple that she corresponded with, I think. She always knew what was going on on the Lazarus and the Hoshi. Not sure who or how she knew them.” Asher's eyes flicked to Spock and back to Jim.
Spock finally joined in the conversation. “What about on board the Enterprise?”
Asher shrugged. “She spent a lot of time with the other security officers, sir. I think she saw herself as a mentor for a lot of us. Other than that she sparred with Quartermaster Motto pretty regularly.”
Motto was Baloo's boss so Jim asked. “Do you know if she ever talked to Ensign Baloo?”
“I don’t know, sir,” Asher replied.
“Okay. What about Ensign Swanson? What was he like?”
Asher sucked in his cheeks. “Kind of an odd duck, sir. I mean, he was always professional but never really more than that. Pretty quiet, too. I pulled guard duty with him a few times and he could go for hours without talking. He must have had something interesting going on inside his head.” Jim leaned back mulling that over. It was odd. Most departments were as thick as thieves after a few months in close quarters.
“What about his acquaintances, Ensign Asher?” Spock questioned during the pause.
“I think he palled around with a bunch of different people but I’m not sure how close they were.” Again, Asher shrugged.
“Like who?” Jim asked making sure he made eye contact.
“Some of the Engineers, I think some of the techs too. We joked a bit that he had missed a turn at the Academy and went down the wrong track.”
“And how did Ensign Swanson respond to such jokes?”
“He did seem to care,” Asher answered, a touch defensively.
“Can you think of anyone who would know more about either of them?” He and Spock would need more information to work with.
Asher looked at the ceiling while thinking it over. “For Vick, Baal or Motto; for Swanson, Finn might know some more, or maybe Reese. I think they had more shifts with him than I did.”
“Thanks, Ensign, keep it-”
“-quiet, sir, of course.” Asher nodded sharply.
“Dismissed.” Jim watched him go. “He seems smart. Okay, let’s look at Baloo’s and Bestine's files and see what Vick found out about their friends.” He flipped on the PADD. “Malea Bestine. Friends with Lieutenant Quing. Well-liked by the rest of the medical staff. Might have had something going with Ensign Garrett. There’s a note that Ensign Janis was reprimanded for a verbal altercation she had with Bestine.”
Spock looked at the other PADD in a way Jim knew meant he had it memorized. “Ensign Baloo is reported to have had a mildly antagonistic relationship with Ensign Randall Stein. Probably due to their friendship with Ensign Cho. In general he was well-liked by the others working with the quartermaster. He may or may not have had a friendship terminate with Ensign Garrett in the last one-point-five months.”
“Did Vick interview Motto about it?”
“Affirmative.”
“What about this Ensign Garrett? Asher said that Swanson hung out with a lot of the techs. It's possible that Swanson knew him too.” Jim drummed his fingers on the table.
“It is worth interviewing him. He may know if another connection exists between Ensigns Baloo, Bestine, and Swanson.”
Jim pressed down the comm on the table. “Connect me with Security.” There was a moment of white noise before the reply. As much as Jim itched to chase down Garrett on his own, he knew he needed to delegate.
“Lieutenant Finn here.” Come the tinny response.
“Lieutenant Finn, I need you to locate Ensign Garrett for me and bring him to conference room nine.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Jim cut the comm and swiveled toward Spock. “What else have we got?”
“Lieutenant Commander Vick was found in Engineering and Ensign Swanson may have had friends there,” Spock responded.
Jim wrinkled his nose. “Somebody could have thought Vick was responsible for his death and pushed her into the pipes as revenge?” But that didn’t feel right.
“Lieutenant Commander Vick may have discovered some maleficence when she started investigating his death. She may have entered Engineering looking for evidence, and been killed to prevent her from finding anything. Or she may have been there for a completely unrelated reason.”
“If she was looking for something did she find it?”
“We have very little evidence from which to speculate. If she was meeting someone it was likely the murderer since no-one has come forward to claim they were going to met. It is unlikely she would be there for personal reasons. So she was probably there in a professional capacity.”
“Hmm.” Jim leaned back to study the ceiling.
“There was nothing on her body that, at first investigation, appears to be evidence.”
“So if she found anything the killer must have taken it off her before she went over.”
Spock cocked his head. “On what do you base that assumption?”
“How would they have gotten down there? It took us hours to retrieve the body even with the grav pad.”
“Lieutenant Keenser scaled the distance in 7.43 minutes. And the body was unattended for sixteen hours.”
“His species is designed for it. Anyway, the person who bashed Baloo’s head in was about the same height as he was.” Jim swung himself straight in his chair.
“So we have reached no conclusion about what Lieutenant Commander Vick was doing in that part of Engineering.”
“Nope.” The intercom buzzed. “Kirk here.”
“Captain, you need to come to the art gallery.” Lieutenant Finn sounded panicked.
Jim bit down on a preemptive curse. “What’s going on, Lieutenant?”
“I found Ensign Garrett, sir. He’s dead.” Jim turned to Spock, his jaw hanging open. Spock closed his eyes. They could hear Finn swallow hard over the comm. “And-and so is Annelee.”
Jim got up and walked over to the wall, pulling back he swung, shoulders, hips and feet moving to drive his fist hard into the wall. His fingers blazed with pain. His scrapped second knuckle started to ooze blood. He breathed in once, twice then turned towards Spock and the comm.
“Get Medical down there now and post guards around the door. Don’t let anyone in until I get there.”
Jim struggled to keep his pace to a brisk walk as he headed out the door, before deciding that everyone would know soon enough and heading to the gallery at a jog. Spock was a silent, reassuring presence behind him. He was forced to slow down when he got within a few doors of the gallery. People were standing in the hallway in groups of twos and threes whispering to each other. The frequent glances toward the two security officers in front of the door made it clear what they were talking about.
Jim marched up to the door and stood with his back to it. Looking up and down the hall he said, “Whatever has happened in this room will be thoroughly investigated by the security personnel and myself. Rest assured, we will release details when all the facts are know. Until then, please remember your duty as Starfleet officers and return to your assignments.” No-one moved. “We are doing everything we can to figure this out. But to do that I need each one of you to continue the work that keeps this ship running.” A few people drifted back a step. Jim used his best command voice to say, “Dismissed.” Finally the groups broke up.
He turned, nodded to both of the security guards, and entered the gallery. It looked pretty much the same as the last time he had been there. There was a petty officer in red carefully documenting the room but he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Jim followed the sound of voices around the first corner. There were Finn and Asher quietly arguing over the two bodies. He wrinkled his nose. There was an odd charred smell that the ships air recyclers hadn’t cleared up. Petty Officer Annelee Morn’s black hair was caked with blood. Streams of it had run down onto the floor, turning it a deep red. Jim swallowed heavily and looked beyond her to Ensign Garrett. He was laid out in front of the damned holo that haunted Jim's dreams. His hands were cracked and blackened. His mouth and eyes were wide open, giving him a stunned look. Jim turned away from the bodies to talk with Finn and Asher. “What do we know?”
Asher nudged Finn when he didn’t say anything. Finn jerked then spoke.“You asked me to find Garrett. So I asked Lieutenant Duke where he was. Duke told me he had gone on maintenance rounds and that he had closed all the incident reports before this one. So I came here to track him down for you and I found them like this.” Finn ran out of steam. His eyes were focused beyond Kirk to the bodies.
Jim prompted. “You didn’t see anyone else here?”
Finn's eyes snapped back to him. He shook his head.“No, sir. I called Asher and we did a sweep. No-one was here.”
There was a commotion in the front room. Jim ducked back around the corner to see Bones and Dr. Lars hauling two stretchers loaded with several pieces of equipment. “Bones, I need a preliminary report; Petty Officer, get those bodies documented if you haven’t already.” He poked his head back. “Finn, do you have the maintenance request Garrett was working on?’
Facing away from the bodies Finn was more with it. “Yes, sir, here.”
Jim scanned the PADD Finn handed him. He stalked over to the comm. “Engineering.” There was a click. “Find Scotty and tell him the Captain needs him in the gallery pronto.”
There was a startled, “Yes, sir,” through the comm.
Jim stared at the seascape Scotty had fixed weeks ago. “Finn,” he called, “find me Ensign Singh.”
“Aye, aye, sir, I'll get-” Finn rounded the corner and started for the door. “I’ll just-”
“Lieutenant. Delegate.” Finn may have been Vick's second but he was not ready to be in charge. But Jim had to work with what he had.
“Yes, sir.” Finn slipped through the door.
“Captain, you have an idea?” Spock spoke for the first time since they had arrived on the scene.
“What are the chances of three different holos having shorts in the same three weeks?”
“.0015%. Although if the same person installed them all they might have a recurrent installation fault. You conjecture that these faults are not the result of chance or ineptitude?” Spock looked at the seascape and raised an eyebrow.
“Yep, It looks like an attempt to make Ensign Garrett’s death look like an accident.”
Spock pointed out. The shift of his shoulders told Jim he had tightened the grip of his hands folded behind his back. “Petty Officer Morn’s murder was not concealed in any way.”
“I think that she stumbled on whoever rigged this panel to kill Garrett. Suddenly there was a witness and they had to kill her, too.”
“Would that not nullify the attempt to make the circumstances of Ensign Garrett’s death appear accidental?”
“Yeah, but we still don’t know who did it.” Jim said with a grimace.
Scotty trotted in. “Captain, you needed me?”
“Yes, Scotty, when you fixed that holo over there what was wrong with it?”
“The cable between the image regulator and the power had come loose. I can show you.” Scotty said already moving towards it.
Jim grabbed his shoulder. “Carefully. It could be booby-trapped.”
Scotty whipped out a tricorder and started scanning the panel. After a few encouraging chirps Scotty slowly slid his ever-present panel pick in and around then with a flick of his wrist popped the panel off. He studied the wiring for a moment. “That isn’t right.”
“What’s wrong?”
Scotty poked at the wires with his pick, frowning. “Someone’s been in here since I fixed it.”
Jim and Spock both stepped forward to examine the wires. “Explain.”
Scotty traced it with out touching it. “See this red wire here? I put it to the right when I do work like this. The plug can go either way on this connector but I always keep the red on the right.”
Jim eased himself back remembering Garrett's charred hands and empty eyes. “So it's booby-trapped.”
Scotty turned his head sideways, squinting at the wires that disappeared upwards into the ship. “Nay, I don’t think it is.”
“What?” That wasn't the answer he had been expecting.
Spock who had been looking at the holo said. “There are no visible flaws in the holo matrix.”
“Its working fine. It looks like a solid connection. I don’t see any other funny business.”
“So someone fixed it again after you did?” Jim would have to ask Lieutenant Duke to pull the maintenance logs to see if anyone had worked on the holo after Scotty.
Scotty shrugged. “Someone did something.”
“Okay, once the bodies have been take to sickbay I want you to get someone to check every holo in here.” Jim had a hunch they would be fine but they still needed to be checked by someone on the look out for sabotage.
“'O course, Captain.”
Jim poked his head around the corner again. “Whatcha got, Bones?”
“Two dead bodies, a twitchy staff and an ulcer in the making.”
Jim huffed not quite a laugh. “What happened to them, Bones?”
Bones pointed back over his should with a finger. “He was electrocuted by some godforsaken part of this tin can.” There was a muffled, 'Don’t mind him,' from Scotty.
He switched to point with his thumb. “And she was hit repeatedly by some kind of blunt object.”
“Nothing strange?” Bones gestured wildly at the two corpses. “Right, let me know if you find anything.” Jim left Bones and Dr. Lars to it. He really hoped they would come up with something.
It took the rest of the day to sort out the bodies and the gallery. Asher had confirmed they were finished documenting, enough for Bones to take the bodies away. Finn returned with Ensign Singh shortly after. Jim spent a couple of unproductive minutes grilling him about the holos and their problems. Ensign Sigh denied any knowledge of when the holo arrays had been set up or who had done the job. He had given the specs to the ops department and they had added the temporary walls and the holo arrays. He had only noticed the problem that first night because Scotty had been fiddling with Sun’s seascape. Later, when he came back to check up on things, he realized that the ‘Bird of Paradise’ was having a similar problem. So he had checked all the pieces. That was when he had found the problem with ‘Watchful’. He'd made the repair request and that was all he knew about it.
At the same time Spock had been tracking Petty Officer Morn’s activities. Lieutenant Umba calmly explained that Annelee had been given the part of her shift off because research required the main anthropology lab be completely dark. A chain of events that supported Jim's theory that Annelee had stumbled on to the scene. Lieutenant Umba took the news of the death with an eerie calm. Hell, her entire manner up to this point had been pretty damn creepy, and what was her connection with Lieutenant Commander Baal? Baal, who had been involved with Vick who was friends with Motto who was Baloo's boss. Jim sighed. It was terrible to have to think about which crew members might murder others, and it was horrifying that he didn’t have to think hard to come up with several names.
~*~*~*~
Jim did return to the bridge at the end of alpha shift. With this latest set of murders he had to get in touch with Command. He needed to inform them of the deaths and the fact that the Enterprise crew complement had gone below ninety percent of the standard. It wasn’t much comfort that they were already on their way to pick up new crew. “Lieutenant Uhura, when’s the next window for real-time communication with HQ?”
She didn’t even have to look. “Three days, Captain.”
“Right, I’ll put together a data packet to send out tonight.” It wasn’t real-time, but it would still get there in under a day. “Sulu, how long until we reach Plix?”
“Twenty eight days, sir.” Came the prompt response.
“Send a message to HQ now. Tell them we’re under ninety percent crew complement and still twenty-eight days out from the nearest base. Maybe we can arrange something with the Plix Ground Base. Have a ship meet us halfway.”
“Captain?” Sulu said as calm as ever.
“Yes, Sulu.”
“We’re only four days away from Outpost ZZ-9pza.”
Jim sighed then straightened in his chair.“New plan. Change course to Outpost ZZ-9pza. Uhura, inform HQ and the Admiral on Plix of the change and get me a live link with whoever is in command of Outpost ZZ-9pza ASAP.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” Sulu turned back to his station already making the necessary course adjustments.
“Sulu, how long will it take us to get to Plix after we’ve picked up crew from ZZ-9pza?”
“Twenty nine and a half days.”
Jim sighed. Just his luck. The outpost was out of their way but regulations were clear. The Enterprise had to report to the nearest Starfleet installation.
Uhura said, “Captain, Commodore Anwir can speak to you immediately.”
Jim stood up. “Put him through to my office.”
Jim activated the small video console on his office desk. The picture resolved to a show an older man with straight black hair and dark eyes. Uhura would probably use the word 'austere' or 'severe'. To Jim he just looked like a hard-ass. Carefully burying the fires of teenage rebellion, Jim gave him a polite smile. “Commodore Anwir.”
“Captain Kirk.”
There was an awkward pause. “How are things on Outpost ZZ-9pza?”
“They continue apace. Not as interesting as life aboard a starship, I venture.”
“Well, you know, the Chinese have a curse; something like ‘May you live in interesting times'.”
“And you feel you are cursed, Captain?” There was an unmistakable note of scorn in his voice.
Jim didn’t roll his eyes but it was a near thing. He had met a lot of superior officers who resented his immediate promotion to Captain. “At the moment, yes. I’ve had several crew members die recently from apparent accidents. Enough that we've dropped below a safe personnel level.”
“And so you’ve come to commandeer mine?” Anwir sneered.
Jim gritted his teeth. “I, in accordance with Starfleet regulations, have diverted to the nearest installation that could supply more crew.”
“Ah, one must follow regulations, mustn’t one?” Another jab at Jim's unorthodox rise to Captaincy.
Jim gave him a hard little smile.“Yes, so unless you can cite extreme circumstances, I’m going to need five people.”
“You expect me just to give you five of my people?”
Jim curled his fist out of range of the view screen. “Yes, the station’s standard crew is one hundred people. Unless you’ve lost people, five should be no problem.”
Anwir pursed his lips and said haughtily, “I will have to check with my superiors on Plix.”
“You do that.” Go be a jackass to them, Jim thought. They'll tell you the same thing I did.
“Captain.”
“Commodore.” Jim cut the transmission with a vicious stab at the button. No wonder Pike liked Jim, if this was the kind of pompous ass he was used to dealing with. Sighing, he went about putting together all the reports he needed to send to HQ.
~*~*~*~
The next day had Jim and Spock tracking down people all over the ship. First they had gone to talk to Lieutenant Duke, who wasn't head of Maintenance but knew who was fixing what and where. He had pulled up everything he could find about the holos in the art gallery, and stood nervously back while Jim and Spock looked it over. There wasn't much, just the installation and maintenance requests Ensign Garrett had been on. Jim sighed and asked Lieutenant Duke to let them know if any other requests came through for the room.
They also swung by Engineering to ask Scotty about the other holos. Scotty said that they had looked but hadn't found anything wrong with any of them.
After that they went to see Quartermaster Motto. Motto looked how a quartermaster should look, in Jim's opinion. The man was built like a proverbial brick shithouse and had the perpetual expression of someone smelling said shithouse. Now sitting behind his desk, he looked more worn than anything. Spock asked him about Ensign Baloo and seemed satisfied that the man's answers matched what was in Lieutenant Commander Vick's reports. Jim took over when they started talking about Vick. Motto told Jim that Madeline's hobbies included sparring and cooking. Of course on a starship she did more of the former than the latter. She had also been mentoring several of the Security officers, just like Motto was mentoring his people. Motto was completely honest, telling Jim that the friendship had started with the two of them bitching about all their underlings being wet-behind-the-ears kids. The only time the man clammed up was when Jim asked him about what happened between Vick and Baal. Motto hemmed and hawed and in the end all Jim could get out of him was that Vick had been pissed, but not heartbroken. Jim speculated, based on the man's half-guilty, half-defiant expression that Motto had selfish reasons for wanting Vick and Baal to split up.
Following that thread Jim decided to get Baal's side of the story. Baal was in the astrometrics lab. Jim thought he looked a bit shifty when they came up to his console, but that could just have been a reaction to having the Captain and the First Officer show up unannounced during his duty shift. The man didn't relax when Jim explained they wanted to ask him a couple questions about Lieutenant Commander Vick. He acknowledged that he and Madeline had been dating. He fumbled with the buttons on his console as he told them that the breakup had been a mutual decision, but that could have been because Spock was looming over him. Jim left after a few more questions, ignoring Spock's incredulous eyebrow. As they walked away, Jim tried to explain to Spock that sometimes when a breakup is 'mutual' it just meant that both people had done the screaming.
Spock suggested another look at the art gallery on their way to sickbay. Jim agreed. He wanted to see what the place looked like again without all the bodies and Security personnel. What Jim wasn't expecting were the eight crew members who had decided to visit the gallery as well, each of whom became very interested in this or that piece when Jim and Spock entered the room. Jim gave the room a quick look then chivvied Spock out again.
When they got to sickbay, Bones couldn't tell them anything new. The apparent causes of death were the actual causes of death.
After that they went back to the conference room. Jim dropped into a chair and closed his eyes trying to decide what to do next. So of course Spock took the opportunity to stage a conversational ambush.
“Lieutenant Uhura and Ensign Lichee only recently asked me to join their ensemble after Lieutenant Trye announced he would not be able to devote sufficient time to rehearsals.”
Jim groaned. It seemed like much longer than a day and a half since he had stormed out of the concert hall. “It's fine, Spock. ”
Spock cocked his head at Jim. “It is obviously not 'fine'. You were quite distressed when you learned of the concert.”
“It's fine. Really. I'm sure you're going to have a great concert.”
Spock pursed his lips ever so slightly. “Both Lieutenant Uhura and Ensign Lichee are competent musicians, so that is a logical assumption. I would, however, prefer you reserve judgment until you have witnessed the performance yourself.”
“So I'm invited?” Jim couldn't help but ask.
“Yes, the concert is open to the entire crew. I am also personally requesting that you attend. Will you come?”
“I would love to,” Jim said, and damn it if it wasn't true.
They both let the topic drop then and got back to work. They need to start finding out as much as they could about Branson Garrett and Annelee Morn.
~*~*~*~
When Jim finally sat down at his desk he found a terse message from Commodore Anwir acknowledging Jim's request for crew and telling him that he had selected five people that the station could do without for a while. Jim idly pondered how the man could imply that he was doing Jim and the Enterprise a great favor while at the same time conveying that the five crew members were the most worthless Anwir had to offer.
~*~*~*~
Alpha shift was over and Jim had called a halt to their investigation. It was time for food and football. He felt a bit guilty about taking the time when they had two obvious murders and another four deaths that he was convinced were not accidents. But, like Dr. Evans said, the crew needed to see their captain, and Jim would prefer they see him winning a game. Beyond that he needed some time to let things settle in his mind. Right now his thoughts were bouncing around like marbles. One fact would hit another and ricochet to send more flying. Which of the facts they had mattered? He had no idea.
Jim had grabbed a bite in the mess. Spock hadn’t come along, citing an obligation in the labs before he would be able to referee. They were back to their weird game where Jim was almost but not entirely sure that Spock was interested in him. It was something in the way Spock watched him. His eyelids would sink a bit while his eyes tracked Jim’s every move. Jim sighed. Now was hardly the time to be thinking about what the hell was going on between them.
He was on his way down to the gymnasium when a woman ran straight into him. She had had her face in her hands and ended up with her face and hands in his chest. She was already mumbling an apology as she raised bloodshot eyes to him. Her expression tightened. She started, swallowed and said, “I’m sorry, sir. I’ll just...” She trailed off into a sob.
“Hey, hey.” He gently took her shoulders and steered her towards one of the small exercise rooms. There was a low bench along the wall and he got her to sit down next to him. “What’s wrong?”
“He...” She hiccuped a sob and took several deep watery breaths before starting again. “He’s dead.”
Jim's stomach dropped. “Who’s dead?”
“Branson.”
He breathed out slowly. Ensign Garrett's first name was Branson. Thank God there wasn’t another one. “Yes, I’m sorry.” She started weeping again. “So you knew him?” He could have kicked himself it was a stupid thing to say.
“Yes. We...” A deep breath. “We had a thing.” That was news to Jim. “He was so sweet and charming. And now he’s dead.”
He put his arm around her shoulder as she shook. “I know, I know, I’m sorry.”
“I-I feel like it's my fault.” She kept her eyes on her hands tightly clasped in her lap.
“You can’t think like that.” Well you could but it would destroy you or lead to yelling matches and a pissy first officer.
“But the holo. It was my fault.”
Jim drew in a quick breath. “What about the holo?”
“It was my holo. Only something went wrong with it and,” she stuttered, voice going higher, “and-and he died. He died trying to fix my stupid holo.” Jim rubbed her shoulder. “I was so proud of it. I thought it turned out so well. I wanted him to see it and then he did and he’s dead.” He continued to rub his thumb back and forth in small motions on her shoulder, while Elizabeth cried.
“Somebody rigged it. It could have been done to any one of the pieces.” Jim wasn’t sure he believed that. Rumor had it that Bestine had been involved with Ensign Garrett. Now here was Petty Officer Daws, claiming to be his girlfriend too, and he was killed by her holo. Jim decided to follow that train of thought. Elizabeth gave a shuddering sigh. “So, you said you had a ‘thing’ with Branson.” Not quite a question.
“I, yeah.” Her face relaxed a hair. “It’s sort of been going on since we left Earth, but not really.”
“It sounds,” Jim pursed his lips and paused for effect, “complicated.”
She didn’t smile but her frown lessened. “The first time we met he was being kind of an ass.” He nodded. “One of the idiots he was hanging out with asked if he wanted to get up close and personal with me. Before he could say anything I told him that I wouldn’t touch him with a ten-foot pole. Everyone thought it was hilarious but Branson took it seriously.” Her lips twitched. “Sort of. I was down in his area gathering reports and Gunther, his supervisor, asked him to give them to me. So Branson,” she sniffled, “put them on the floor and kind of kicked them over to me. I didn’t know why he had done that. He said he would be a cad of the highest order if he did not respect a lady’s wishes and therefore he would stay ten feet away from me.” Jim blinked and shook his head a little. “I guess you had to be there. So I told him I could probably stand nine feet.”
“That’s...” Sweet, bizarrely cute.
“Yeah.” She hiccuped.
They sat in silence for a while. Jim let the subliminal hum of the ship comfort him. Elizabeth bit her lip. “Captain, do you think you could do the dark for him?”
“Do the dark?” Jim wrinkled his forehead in confusion.
“Sorry, I forget that not everyone grew up in space. It's a spacer tradition, when someone dies, to turn off all the lights on a ship, just for a few seconds. My grandfather said it was to let the person’s soul see heaven.” Jim was a little confused, and it must have shown on his face. “Because the ship is usually the only light for hundreds of light years, the soul supposedly gets confused. It tries to go towards the light but the ship is so bright it can’t see where it's supposed to go.”
Head nodded slowly. “So you turn the lights off so the soul can set its bearings to the afterlife?”
She gave him a weak smile. “I know it sounds a bit silly but when I was a kid, I’d always feel this moment of lightness.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” Not much, probably. Even if turning off all the lights on a Constitution-class ship wasn’t enough of an undertaking, Jim wasn’t hot on the idea of turning all the lights off when there was a murderer on the loose.
“So, a year. That’s a long time.” It was the best opening he could think of. He didn't have a lot of experience with long term relationships or even people in long term relationships.
Elizabeth blinked at him. “I suppose it is.”
“Without touching, I mean.”
She rolled her red eyes at him. “It started slow. We exchanged ‘tokens’. I’d leave him a letter or a sketch. He’d leave me a poem or a bit of candy. At five feet he gave me this tiny robot. If you press its top it will walk five steps and raise a little sword and say ‘release the fair maiden'.”
“Wow.” Branson certainly had style.
“He had this whole thing about defending my honor from the unworthy knaves. Mostly to ‘advance his own suit'.”
Jim was familiar with beating the competition to get the girl to swoon in his arms. But he had never done it with that much whimsy.
Elizabeth continued without seeming to realize that Jim was silently critiquing Ensign Garrett's seduction technique. “He hid an orange in my underwear drawer a couple weeks ago. When I asked he denied putting it there and insisted on sleeping at the foot of my bed to defend me against the lecherous grocers of the ship.” From the way she smiled, Jim would bet that if Garrett had started the night at the foot of her bed, that wasn’t where he'd ended it, sly dog.
“Sounds like he was a great guy.”
“He was.” She stared at the opposite wall. She smiled but it lessened by degrees and a thin line crept up on her forehead. “You’ll try to do the dark for him, Captain? Please.”
“Yeah, I’ll see what I can do. But I’m not sure I can make it happen.”
She frowned, her lips disappearing. After a tense moment she said, “The Enterprise has too many ghosts already. I don’t want him to become one too.”
“Ghosts?”
“I know, I know. Starfleet is all about science and discovery,” she looked away, “but sometimes I feel like they’re still here, just watching. Waiting for something.”
Jim paused considering how to ask his next question. “Have you talked to anyone else about this?”
She gave a bubbly wet laugh. “Dr. Evans, you mean.”
“Or McCoy, or anyone.” Jim defended.
She shrugged and said, “I talked to Malea about it when Ice Heart died. She said all the usual things, that I could handle grief in my own way, but I needed to realize that she was gone and move on.
“Did you know her well?” Jim tried not to give away his interest.
“Ice Heart, enough to say hi to. But our paths didn’t cross much.”
“What about Ensign Bestine?” Jim asked.
“I don’t know if she knew Ice Heart.” She blinked. “Oh, you mean me. Mostly I knew of her.”
The door slid open before he could follow that thread.
“Captain!” And there was Spock, in exercise reds and referee jersey. And a phaser?
Next: Part 11