[snip]

Ranlei scanned the drill again, but this time she set the tricorder to detect life signs or anything that was not a normal component of the drill. She sighed as she did so. She wasn’t happy with herself. It was normal for her to flirt and tease but the fact was she had put a great deal more effort into teasing the COS than was customary for her. It was many small reasons really He had hidden behind the Captain when they cracked the environment suit for a start. He didn’t react to or acknowledge her when she flirted for another. Time she thought to get back to work and stop being childish. She had allowed herself to fall seriously for two other men both had caused her a great deal of misery. John had turned out to be married and had accused her of being a prostitute using her pheromones on him when his wife caught them. She had been so hurt she wanted to be locked away but had said Military Academy rather than prison. That had eventually led her to Star Fleet. William was at the academy with her. They had planned on getting married. It was when he brought her to meet his family things had fallen apart. It still hurt to much to think about. Terms and phrases she had ignored her entire life suddenly had hurt like red hot knives. No never again.

She scanned the drill again after she wiped the tears from her eyes. Her jaw set and determined as she bit down on her feelings so hard that her teeth and jaw ached. This time the tears did not obscure the readings.

Ensign Ranlei Greene. Engineer.

Scans of the drill showed several old power relays had shorted out likely from age and use or dirt getting into the works. Several components were also seen as being placed partly incorrectly likely by Shanok not being fully versed in engineering matters she could figure. But the stand out on the scan was a low band fading energy pattern on the lower left side of the drill. Where once she would get her eyes on it might remind her of a burn scar from a weapon or explosive. Scans confirmed it was only a week or two old to boot!

GM CockRoach

Ranlei focused her scan on the the low frequency energy signature , “lieutenant are you sure Shanok is alone on this planet?”, she asked as having failed to find any wildlife she started disassembling the drill. She put in requests for fabrication to the ship for each worn part as she removed them. When she dug into the innards of the drill enough to get to the burned area her suspicion solidified. “I will not recommend Shanok for any certificates of merit for his ability to repair his equipment. At first I thought his own sloppiness was why it was broken. But this drill seems likely to have been sabotaged.”, she called to the security men. She scanned to see what type of weapon had left the burn with a particular bias towards plasma as the likely culprit.

Ensign Ranlei Greene. Engineer.

Simon’s neutral expression changed to one of concern at the mention of sabotage. He quickly headed over to the drill and told Chavez to keep an eye out. “We only found a single life-sign when the ark angel scanned the planet, but that doesn’t mean nobody else is here. There are certain groups of people who have found a way to mask themselves from such scans. Some of your kind are capable of it,” he said as he pulled out his own tricorder and also scanned to see if he could identify the signature of the weapon.

Lieutenant (J.G) Simon Starr, CoS

Ranlei humphed at Simon when he brought up some of her people, but she smiled and nodded, ‘Well if you look at the carbon scoring it looks like a low energy blast was applied Sir. Could of been a phaser on stun, or a Disruptor set to low yield. My bet would be either a plasma weapon or torch at low power based on the fact that we are perched on the edge of the Romulan neutral zone and our run in with the Guridians who were a Romulan client state till recently. That and they seem rather focused on stopping the dissidents we rescued. But can’t rule out Ferrengi or Orions since either faction would happily hire out services to anyone who will pay.” , and she turned her attention back to scanning. “By the way sir if we do have a saboteur on planet there’s always the possibility this is a distraction to keep you busy while they nab the doctor.”, she said remembering the recent spy device they had disassembled.

Ensign Ranlei Greene. Engineering.

The closest match to the energy blast was likely some kind of plasma based drill or tool. Scans seemed to match those in use by the Vulcan science directorate on record from the early-mid 23rd century. Life sign scans also came in showing dna prints which matched a Vulcan probably Shanok as well as others much much older likely the last users of the drill before Shanok got assigned to it. The only other oddity was a dna signature which did not match known species near the burn mark indicating a possible blood splatter.

GM CockRoach