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 Kovan ch’Sirhc (Engineering & Communications Officer) in side - sim: The Infiltrator
Posted by… suppressed (18) 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.

During the night shift someone went into the lab that wasn’t on duty roster but they didn’t look like LaCroix and they were wearing a science uniform. It was during night shift’s lunch, no one else was in the lab.

Morgan tried to get a solid pic of the officer and run facial recognition for the crew but nothing. So she started back tracking their movement to see if she could get a solid picture or where they were coming and going. “Rand do recognize this person?” Rand shook her head no. Maybe later she might but she was too distracted to make a clear connection if there was one.

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. “Can you run this engineer too. He did some maintenance in the lab for different equipment.” Rand nodded took his name and started double checking his file.

That engineer that had worked on another piece of equipment checked out, he was who he said he was, was in duty at the time, and answered a work ticket.

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

While Morgan did that Rand ran a report to see if there was anyone who was consistently missing their shift or trading shifts or out sick. She was also continuing to double check the crew.

LaCroix picked up shifts frequently but never missed out sick, never traded away a shift. There were a couple of frequently sick people and shift swappers, but it looked unrelated.

Morgan raised a brow. “I think I need to talk to LaCroix again.” Rand nodded, “Yeah. I need to get back. Incase he wakes up before my rounds start.” Morgan hesitated only a moment, “Rand I don’t want you going anywhere alone. This group might be after the Alden’s but it’s no secret that you and Cmdr Alden are engaged. They might decide to go after you too. I don’t want you going anywhere alone.”

Moving down the corridor Rand suddenly moved away from Morgan and stopped the officer heading the other direction. “Kovan.” She called out as she moved toward him. “We need your help.” Another investigation and Rand trusted him. She told him everything she knew and then left him with Morgan making her way back to Sickbay.

Rand

LaCroix didn’t seem to be up to anything. His quarters were quiet, no one saw him leave. If he was guilty, he was certainly trying not to look it. And no one who knew what they were doing in the business of killing people would try anything with so much attention on them.

~ LaCroix

Kovan, recently off-duty, stopped when he heard his name and turned to see Rand. She looked like she’s been through hell but Kovan wasn’t about to say anything. “Of course,” He said and listened carefully to what Rand had to say. To be frank it was quite a lot, but Kovan gave her his full attention. “I’ll do my best.” He told Rand, because while he didn’t give a damn about most of the crew, he liked Rand and was willing to help for her sake. So he joined Morgan and asked her, “So, what do you think about all this?”

Kovan

Morgan followed Rand as she talked to Kovan. “Based on what the other two engineers said it sounds like sabotage. But they also fixed it and messed with the equipment rather than leaving it to be examined.” Morgan handed him the incident reports.
The original ticket was for random shutdowns of the machine, signed by Alden. It was answered by an Ensign LaCroix, whose DNA signature matched that found on the machine.

The ticket said it was having random shutdowns. Meaning when it was used, it would turn off at random times. LaCroix found that the power supply was improperly connected… sort of like a cable coming loose but different. He fixed it by reconnecting it. He says he must have reconnected the wrong thing, and doesn’t even know how he could’ve done that. Any Engineer worth his salts would double check, especially when dealing with the power circuits.

Gallagher followed the cable back and then frowned. He reported that this was the cause of the machine’s issue. It was shutting down because somebody rigged it to.

LaCroix claims all he did was plug the cable back in. He thought it was the power, but look, it leads up to the controls. This is why it overloaded. Someone switched them around previously, like a setup.

Gallagher then switched them back how they were supposed to be. “It was set up so that any one of us could’ve made this mistake.”

“There aren’t any other recent work tickets for it. Whenever it was set up, it was done off the books. Also I found this video,” Morgan showed him a video of someone going into the lab, not on the duty shift, when the lab was empty. The person was an average height, like 5‘6’‘ish and build is pretty average, not athletic or anything, but not chubby either. That matches LaCroix, but it also matches a couple of scientists and several other crew members.

Once on Deck 9 she grabbed Franks and unlocked the lab to let Kovan have a look at the machine.

Morgan

Kovan read through the incident reports carefully. He knew Gallagher and was familiar with the man’s work. LaCroix. . . Kovan knew of him but they hardly interacted aside from the odd shared shift. He’s pretty sure LaCroix only came aboard about a month ago. He replayed the lab footage several times, watching the person carefully. Kovan studied the body language, the length of the stride and the movement of the arms. Studying people was apart of learning languages and Kovan was a practiced observer of body language.

LaCroix was known by those who did know him for good, if rushed, work. He did not have a reputation for being a slacker in the month he’d been aboard. The person in the video looked confident. They looked quickly to see that no one was coming, careful not to reveal their face to the camera, and then walked right in with an assertive, wide stride, arms swinging relaxed by the person’s side. The person was at least, not andorian, no antennae, and probably not Vulcan, the ears did not look pointed though from this distance it would be hard to tell.

Now in the lab Kovan approached the machine in question. “Switching power connections doesn’t take a genius to figure out. Anyone with basic engineering knowledge could do it. But knowing which connections to switch to cause a deadly overload? That would take some know-how.” For now he circled around the machine, putting himself in the shoes of their assassin.

I would have studied the commander. His work habits, his schedule, what projects he was working upon. I would know the schedule of the scientists, to find my opening. Maybe I am a scientist. I would know which machine to tamper with. But would I know how to cause the overload? If I did. . . why not outright rig the machine to overload when used? Why switch a connection, then rig the machine to randomly turn off during use? I don’t want anyone to suspect me but my plan could have been ruined by a more thorough engineer. Why the run around? The engineer could have tested the machine. They could have double checked the circuitry. Kovan turned to Morgan, “Would it not be more direct to rig the machine to explode when used by the commander?”

Kovan

All questions answerable only by the person responsible. Morgan shook her head to Kovan’s question. “May have only wanted to hurt the commander. From what they,” she jerked her head to Rand meaning her and Randy, “explained, there was a direct threat to the commander’s life. And now he’s in Sickbay in critical condition. So I’d say it was an effective plan, whatever it was. Also, Randy said only the CSO is allowed to use that piece of equipment, so there was a high likelihood no one else would touch it, let alone try to use it before the Commander did.”

~ NE Morgan, Security

Only the CSO was allowed. Kovan nodded, and moved towards the piece of equipment in question. When that was the case then why? If I was an assassin and I knew that this would get me the result I wanted then why would I not outright rig this machine to explode? Kovan opened the side panel of the machine to reveal the mechanical insides. This all began with the report of random shutdowns. He looked for the connection to the power supply and determine just how this all went down. How LaCroix determined the problem and follow the steps he took to fix it. What caused the random shutdowns?

The paperwork was filled out and well documented. LaCroix had first checked all connections within the machine. Finding no problems, he’d opened up the inside and checked the power supply. That was when he found the faulty internal connection, and connected it. It had appeared to be the right one, cables in the machine were colour-coded. LaCroix had neglected to follow the connecting cable to be sure it was the right one, instead relying on the colour code. The faulty internal connection had been to blame for the shutdowns, LaCroix wrote in his paperwork. LaCroix had simply corrected the faulty connection, and the machine had appeared fixed. Gallagher had said the same, that the faulty connection caused the original shutdowns, the cable swap was a believable mistake. The shutdowns were simply a means for the machine to have needed repair, to deflect suspicion.

There was a piece of the puzzle that wasn’t clicking into place. Kovan didn’t particularly like gut-feelings, especially his own, but he knew he couldn’t ignore them this time. I’m an assassin and I want to kill the commander. I’m assassin and I want to get away with it. Starfleet and the Federation may seem all peace-loving and other hippy nonsense but Kovan knew just how serious the Federation could be when one of their own was attacked.

In the reports it said that Gallagher found that connections were switched so that the power was rerouted to the controls, causing them to overload. Rigged so that anyone could have made the mistake. . . But could they? Kovan got to work, examining the equipment to determine the skill level of the assassin and every step they could have taken for this attempt.

Kovan

It was a cable swap. It didn’t necessarily take an engineer to do, but the equipment wasn’t a basic contraption. More than likely, this assassin had engineering knowledge to be able to pull it off without electrocuting themselves in the process. The cables were colour-coded, the cable had been replaced with one that was the correct colour for a power cable when it was in fact the control cable. Basically, LaCroix had accidentally plugged the controls directly into the power supply. It wouldn’t have caused an overload until the machine was used, meaning only the commander would be hurt. If the machine were rigged to explode, it would likely hurt others in the lab. Electrocuting him would only hurt him unless someone else had the lapse in judgement to try and touch Alden before the current stopped flowing through his body.

~ NE Morgan

This took someone with skill and know-how. Kovan pulled back from the machine and simply stared at the exposed insides for a moment. He sighed. Then ran his hand though his hair, loosening it slightly from around the tie at the nape of his neck. I’m an assassin. I want to get away with this. I only want to kill the commander. So I’m a good assassin. Kovan re-read through the reports and documentation one more time. Suddenly, he was struck by an idea. Kovan shot up and rushed towards the small engineering console tucked into the corner of the room.

Here he began to pull up the energy usage reports for all the equipment in the lab. Then narrowed the results down only to the equipment in question. Kovan paid close attention to data represented in line graph form. A faulty connection is a faulty connection. If it was improperly connected then it should be obvious from the power-usage reports. Kovan studied the data of the equipment’s power imput and output. He should be able to tell if the machine was using less or more power than normal if due to a faulty connection, or potentially see when the connection was made. There were dips where the equipment was not in use and on minimum power but surely there would be some slight rise or dip that would indicate a change.

Kovan

The graph would show the dips dipping lower than was typical for the machine, hence the shutdowns. It started about two weeks ago, which was congruent with the work ticket for the equipment.

Morgan, still standing behind Kovan, was watching him work, writing notes in her PaDD, keeping track of information. “Well? What do you think? Did you find anything?”

~ NE Morgan

“Look here,” Kovan pointed at the graph showing the start of the power fluctuations. “The power usage is congruent with the work ticket LaCroix answered. Two weeks ago. . .When was that footage you captured taken?” He asked Morgan.

Kovan

Morgan tapped at her PaDD and then looked up. “Two weeks ago. Whoever that was, might be our assassin. But they’re… Pretty plain looking. All I can tell from the video is they’re not Andorian, and probably not Vulcan. Looks more masculine than feminine, but I can’t rule out a woman based on the video. And a lot of the crew is about that height and build.”

~ NE Morgan

Alden was still in surgery and Randy nor anyone else had come out to tell her what was going on. Seemingly on autopilot, Rand wandered back down to the corridor get tea from the mess, make sure that meals were on schedule to be delivered, and then go check on Nibbles. Rand wasn’t really thinking she was just functioning. She became aware of that when she got to the lab, the door was closed, and locked.

Rand

Morgan and Kovan were still in the biology lab while Kovan did his own check of the machine, so when Morgan heard someone at the door, she unlocked it and let it open, standing in the doorway so whoever it was couldn’t just walk in. But when she saw who it was she stepped out of the way. “Rand. I thought you’d be in Sickbay,” She said softly. “We’re still investigating in here.”

~ NE Morgan