Posted by Ensign Rand Farquharson (Yeoman First Class) in side - sim: The Infiltrator

Posted by Commander Roman Alden (First Officer & Chief Science Officer) in side - sim: The Infiltrator

Posted by Ensign Rand Farquharson (Yeoman First Class) in side - sim: The Infiltrator
Posted by… suppressed (3) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)
“Okay let me get in there with the tricorder.” She bent down and using the wand off Randy’s tricorder she scanned for any biological trace left behind. She scanned everything, not just the obvious. The obvious might have been cleaned, the not obvious may not have.”

Both engineers moved out of her way. Unfortunately, there weren’t any fingerprints anywhere that LaCroix and Gallagher hadn’t just touched already.

Franks was shaking his head, then stopped, “Gamma shift during their meal break possibly.” He looked at Morgan. “Can you check the feeds? The lab has constant video feed because of the animals.”

Morgan nodded, “Alright, Lt I want the lab locked up. No one comes in without security or the Captain. I know you have to feed the animals. Do it quickly and then everyone out.” It was clear to Morgan it had been purposely sabotaged. And both engineer were her first suspects. Maybe Rand already had it narrowed down.

Rand

Neither engineer showed any obvious signs of guilt. Well, LaCroix looked plenty guilty, but more the I-just-nearly-killed-the-XO-kind-of-guilt than the I think I might get caught kind of guilt. Gallagher just stood awkwardly, not wanting to leave without Morgan’s say-so.

~ The Engineers

As Franks closed the lab up, Morgan turned to the two engineers. “I need you to go with Redshirt Ward and fill out an incident report and then you can go back on duty, but don’t talk to anyone about this.” NE Ward took them up to the security office to make the report and then Morgan set a security lock on the door with Franks. Franks had to go make adjustments for the labs and Morgan went to medical.

Rand was still sitting, waiting, her gaze trying to burn a hole through the door to the surgical suite to see inside. Morgan walked up to her, surprised to not see Randy until she realized he was probably with Alden. Rand was pale her face faintly pinched like she felt ill, her hands alternating ringing and clasped together in her lap.

Morgan sat down next to her. “Rand I need you to come with me.”

Rand shook her head, “I need to be here when he wakes up.” Roman was going to out right panic when he woke up in sickbay and couldn’t leave and had had surgery.

“Rand, look at me.” Morgan waited till she had the woman’s attention. “I need you to help me figure out who did this.”

Rand blinked at her…who did this? It wasn’t an accident! She sat up a little straighter. Then nodded and stood up. She nodded, “We can talk in my office.”

In her officer Rand told Morgan about the checks she was running and who she had cleared so far. She looked to see if any of the information had come back on the support crew yet. “Rand I want you to check out LaCroix and Gallagher from engineering and then come find me.” Rand nodded. She ran those names and also just ran a check, again, on each department to see if any of them came up with an obvious over staffing.

There wasn’t obvious overstaffing in any department, despite the roster for the Sentinel as a whole still sitting at 121. Gallagher’s file said he’d been on sentinel nearly a year. Before that, Academy. LaCroix’s also matched what he’d said in the lab, he’d been on Sentinel for about a month. They were both qualified with believable qualifications. Their names matched known files, and their photos matched too. Gallagher was featured in an older crew photo for the Challenger and an Academy class photo. LaCroix’s were trickier. His name was listed in the class year his file said he should have been in, but he was absent the day of the class graduation photo. Being so new to the Sentinel crew, he wasn’t in any crew photos yet, and having no prior placements he wasn’t in any other crew photos either. His file matched the grades and qualifications the Academy listed for one Lorenzo Vincent LaCroix. If it was a faked file, it was a good one. But without any older photos to compare, there was no obvious way to tell whether the guy on the ship was the same guy who went to the Academy.

Rand checked sports teams and candid shots in the Academy year books. Also student ID photo. All four years and each semester. Social media was still a thing too.

LaCroix wasn’t the athletic type. His file listed no extracurricular sports or team activities. But he was in the other three years of Academy books and there was a social media page. The photos looked.... Remarkably similar. Someone else detail oriented than Rand might pass them off as the same person. But there were small differences if she looked close… The shape of the eyes, the teeth.

If she checked public records, there were none. More than likely before Academy LaCroix lived with his parents. His file said he was from a small town in Illinois.... Homeschooled.

Homeschooling families often shared a graduation ceremony and hosted co-ops and participated in sports together, so Rand searched such listings and groups in the small town as well as the bigger cities. She called Morgan on the comm to tell her Gallagher checked out but LaCroix was being more elusive.

She would find the same information in any photos she found of homeschooling groups like that. The same kid as the first three years of Academy.

While the searches were running, Rand pulled up the engineering duty roster. She wanted to see if LaCroix and Gallagher were actually being given a duty shift and assignments, or if they were just showing up random places and working. She also checked to see who was assigned to their quarters and who their roommate was. What most people didn’t know till they arrived was junior officers bunked alone. Only enlisted double bunked. Not every ship was like that though. Rand loaded pictures of, what she was calling the “real LaCroix” onto a disk and then headed for the security office.

They both had duty at the times in question. However, LaCroix covered a shift for another engineer who was out sick that day. The intruder had done their homework - there was no mistake regarding either Ensign’s bunking assignments. They were bunked alone, in their correct quarters.

Morgan returned to the security office to watch the video feeds on the lab.

Rand

The feeds showed nothing useful. When Mr Wyvern had been moved out, it had freed up space for the other, smaller enclosures. Now, there weren’t any in that part of the lab, so the feeds didn’t show the area. And whoever had done it had known to avoid the feed cameras.

~ Roman

Morgan wasn’t giving up that easy. She had Ward track both LaCroix and Gallagher after they left security to see where they went and what they did. Deck 9 like all the decks and complete coverage of the corridors. Morgan tracked the last week of gamma shift traffic to see who went into the lab and what time and had Franks bring her the duty roster.

Morgan and Rand

Gallagher went to the rec room and watched a movie with some of the other Ensigns until later in the night and then went to his quarters to bed. LaCroix went straight to his quarters, read a book from the ship library for a few hours on his PaDD and then went to bed early. What Morgan saw on the roster matched the traffic she was seeing in the tapes. There were the regular visitors to the lab who wouldn’t be on the lab’s duty roster. There was an engineer who visited but was not LaCroix and there was a work ticket for a different piece of equipment, answered by the engineer Morgan saw on the tape. Whenever the equipment was rigged, it wasn’t during Gamma shift.

~ Roman

Morgan knew how meticulous Alden was, so if someone was messing with the machine, that only he was allowed to use, out of turn he would have noticed, so Morgan started looking the other shifts but when Alden wasn’t in the lab. It also occurred to Morgan that this a matter of opportunity. The machine malfunctioned and so LaCroix rugged it when the opportunity came up.

Rand walked in. “Morgan you have facial recognition programs down here, right?” Morgan nodded, “Yeah. What did you find?” Rand gave her the disk of older photos for LaCroix. “I want to run his highschool photo I found against his Junior year Academy picture. Make sure they are the same and if they are or not run them against a picture of LaCroix here on the ship. He hasn’t taken a crew photo yet but I was hoping you could get a shot from the feeds.”

Morgan nodded and found a shot from that day in the lab and ran all three pictures to compare them.

Morgan and Rand

The pictures from his junior year and high school matched, but the program could not match them to the photo from the feed from the Sentinel.

~ Roman