SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2380 STRENUUS SYSTEM, NEBULA IC 434 EMPIRE OF SALUSIA "Tell me something about this planet we're going to, Lieutenant," said the heavily muffled figure sitting in the jump seat behind the pilot's station of the Salusian dropshuttle as it buffeted its way through the upper atmosphere. "I'd never heard of it before I was sent out here." "No reason why you should've," Lt. Kearna Adaji, fourth officer of Her Majesty's frigate Swiftsure, replied from the shuttle's helm. "Xawin's a frozen rock. It's Class G, roughly the same size and gravity as Salusia, with an atmosphere composed mostly of ethane and just enough of it to support some rotten weather. Average surface temperature about 200 below, Fahrenheit. No indigenous life, no permanent settlements. There's some mineral value down there, and we occasionally get wildcat miners staking claims, but the climate usually discourages them quick enough." "So what we're here to investigate is unusual." "Very much so, if the preliminary reports are accurate. I mean, -something- must be pretty damn weird down there if Command saw fit to pull us off sector patrol, reroute us to Zeltos to collect you, and haul you out here. We don't often get emergency override tasking from the Royal Reconnaissance Office." The passenger nodded thoughtfully. "I don't suppose you can tell me what was -in- those preliminary reports." "No sir," the lieutenant replied. "My orders are very specific. Recon wants you to go in cold. No pun intended." The passenger chuckled, but otherwise didn't reply. Lt. Adaji busied herself with vectoring to their designated landing point, bucking some gusty winds as she did so. The shuttle's repulsorlifts whined in protest as the blocky vehicle's hull tried to weathercock into the wind and Adaji restrained it, settling it onto its skids facing away from the anomaly. Her passenger, and the four ODSTs assigned by the Swiftsure's captain to escort them in case of trouble, unbuckled and stepped to the back of the shuttle, triple-checking their environment suits. Moments later, Adaji joined them, sealing her own E-suit helmet, and punched in the code to decompress the rear compartment and lower the ramp. With the Standard-pressure atmosphere in the compartment vented, Xawin's thin, frigid, unbreathable air rushed inward, driven by the wind. The ODSTs cursed under their breath and dialed the environmental conditioning systems in their armored E-suits to a warmer setting. Adaji shivered and did likewise. The passenger walked slowly down the ramp, his body language evincing first surprise, then astonishment, then intrigue, as he took in the sight Adaji's careful parking job had prepared the way for him to see. After the first shock of the cold had passed them, the marines moved out in formation after him, weapons at the ready in case there was trouble - and then they halted behind him, staring in disbelief. Even Adaji found herself pausing, and she, alone among them, already knew what was there. A few hundred yards away, a shape at once immediately familiar and so out of place it momentarily defied recognition lay on the rocky, snow-draped ground, tilted toward them at a slight angle, its leading edge crushed into the face of a cliff. Behind it, stretching off into the distance, was an enormous furrow it had carved out of the ground in the course of reaching the point where it now rested, flanked by huge banks of churned-up snow and weirdly serried ripples of friction-thawed, now-refrozen permafrost. "Is... is that what I think it is?" one of the ODSTs asked. "If you think it's the saucer section from a Constitution-class Federation starship, then... yes," the passenger replied. "What's it doing here?" the ODST wondered. For a few seconds, Detective Inspector Giol'bertis Grissom of the Royal Salusian Mounted Police didn't reply. He took a couple more steps forward, walking off the end of the ramp, and stood in the snow, his bright green Mountie E-suit standing out in sharp contrast to the ODSTs' black armor and the brilliant white snow. Then, his face just visible through the bowl of his helmet, he looked back over his shoulder at the marine who'd spoken and said with a faint smile, "I suppose that's what I'm here to find out." /* The Who "The Seeker" _Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy_ (1971) */ Eyrie Productions, Unlimited presents UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES EXILE Manhunt Part 1: The Mysterious Affair at Xawin Benjamin D. Hutchins (c) 2009 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited While Adaji stayed at the landing site to inform the Swiftsure that a more elaborate investigation was going to be required, Grissom took two of the ODSTs and hiked to the top of the bluff against which the wrecked starship had come to rest. The four ODSTs sent planetside for the initial survey hadn't been looking forward to it. Xawin was a cold, useless nowhere, and this mission was sure to be a cold, useless nothing. You didn't send Orbital Drop Shock Troopers, men and women trained to be the very tip of the point of the Royal Salusian Marine Corps spear, to investigate something like this, let alone to nursemaid some... -civilian-. When Grissom announced that he intended to climb the bluff, the two marines detailed to go with him traded rueful glances. They didn't mind hiking a couple of miles uphill in ankle-deep hydrocarbon snow; they'd had much worse in training. What they minded was that this guy was never going to be able to keep up. Grissom proceeded to reach the top well ahead of them, and now, as they flanked him at the top of the ridge, it was with a bit of respect that one of them asked, "What are you expecting to learn from up here, sir?" Grissom stood looking down at the dorsal surface of the starship hull for a few minutes, his face thoughtful. From this angle, the name and number of the vessel were apparent, printed in red-outlined black capital letters: U.S.S. INVINCIBLE NCC-1717 Then he turned to face his questioner and said, "Interesting things, Corporal... interesting things." He pointed. "For instance, what do you make of the markings?" The corporal and his colleague both peered down at the ship. Presently, the lower-ranking one turned to Grissom and said hesitantly, "... They're in the wrong typeface?" "Very good," said Grissom. "Which means it may not be a Federation ship at all - though if it's an attempt at counterfeiting one, it's implausibly bad. "More practically, there's almost no weathering on the markings; this ship hasn't been here more than a week or two. Also, the carbon scoring on the leading edge of the saucer is obvious enough, that's from atmospheric entry. But those marks there... and there? Indicative of phaser strikes directly against the hull. And -that-... " The corporal nodded. "That's a photon torpedo impact. Looks like the saucer's completely holed. But there's no radial streaking, no sign of deflector grid burnout." Grissom smiled. "Which means... ?" "Their shields were down when the fight started." "Exactly." Grissom turned back and looked down at the wreck. "That doesn't make any sense," the other ODST, a woman, objected. "What Starfleet captain would just sit around with his shields down and let somebody tag him at least three times?" "One who didn't have a choice," the corporal declared. Grissom eyed the armored young soldier. "An astute observation, Corporal. What's your name?" "Sorenzu, sir. Chelin Sorenzu." Grissom turned to the other. "And you?" "Spaceman First Class Jaleen Orman, sir." Grissom nodded. "I don't usually encourage speculation during a site overview, but in this case, we don't seem to have much to lose, so: Would either of you care to speculate as to what could leave a starship captain with no choice?" "Main power failure?" Orman hazarded. Sorenzu nodded agreement. "That's going to be hard to establish without the engineering decks," Grissom said, "but it's logical." He took a communicator from a pocket of his parka. "Grissom to Swiftsure." "Go ahead, Inspector," replied the voice of Commander Soandso, the frigate's captain. "I've got half of a starship down here, and it didn't get far on its own," Grissom said. "It would be interesting to find out where the rest of it is." "Roger, understand. We'll break orbit and start a sweep as soon as we've finished putting down your command post." "Thank you, Captain. Grissom out." A larger dropship, an ExoSal Avenger, arrived from the Swiftsure while Grissom, Orman, and Sorenzu were making their way back down the bluff. By the time they arrived, a full platoon of the Swiftsure's marines were securing the area. "Commander Soandso's out looking for the other half of your mystery ship, Inspector," Lt. Adaji reported when Grissom walked into what was rapidly becoming a camp. "Swiftsure left a hyperwave buoy in geosync to mediate our comms while she's gone." "Good. I need an uplinked terminal." Adaji smiled. "Step into my office," she said, and led the way aboard the Avenger. "You get started researching the ship. I'll take half the platoon and establish a full perimeter around the wreck. The others will stay here with you." At Grissom's curious look, she went on, "We've had some unconfirmed reports of pirate activity in the area. It's not too likely, but it's just possible that we're not as alone on Xawin as we think." Night was falling and the temperature plummeting still further when Adaji and her half of the marine force returned. She found Grissom in the Avenger's cargo bay, which had been converted into a makeshift but fairly-well-equipped forensics lab. "We completed a full sweep around the wreck," she reported. "No signs of life. Most of the hull seems relatively intact, though. If anyone survived the crash, they could still be using it as a shelter." Grissom looked up from the terminal he was using and said, not really as a reply, "I've discovered two more fascinating facts about that ship." Adaji tilted her head inquisitively. "What are they?" Grissom smiled slightly. "First fact: It doesn't exist." Adaji blinked. "What?" "I've spoken to the Starfleet Bureau of Ships - their equivalent to the Royal Navy's Construction and Commissioning Office. There -is- no USS Invincible. No Starfleet vessel has ever had that name. Second fact: Our mystery ship's hull number, nebula comet comet one seven one seven, belongs to a ship that was destroyed 50 years ago." Adaji blinked again. "Fifty years ago? The Federation didn't even exist then. And anyway, this wreck is fresh." "I know. The ship with that hull number was a United Galactica Navy vessel, UGS Yorktown - a Block I Constitution-class cruiser, one of the first twelve made. She was destroyed 1200 light-years from here, at the Battle of the Kedaris Rift." Adaji sat down at the station next to Grissom's and put her chin thoughtfully in her hand. "Then what are we dealing with here? Pirates?" "Pirates who had the wherewithal to get hold of a heavy cruiser and fit her with the markings of a fictitious Federation vessel, but not to get a simple thing like the typeface right?" Grissom looked doubtful. "It'd be a hell of a ruse. Most merchant captains aren't going to bother checking the Starfleet registry to make sure the ship ordering them to heave to for inspection is legitimate." Grissom nodded, conceding the point. "Still... I think we might have heard about it if someone was missing a ship as big as a modern warp cruiser. And what kind of pirate band has enough people to crew a ship that size?" "True," Adaji agreed. "A Mark V Connie takes a standard crew of 430 people. Not many pirate leaders could keep a gang that size under control. Pirates aren't known for their military discipline." "I suspect the truth in this case will turn out to be simpler... and stranger." Grissom got up. "I need to get aboard that ship. There may be answers in there - and possibly survivors who need help." "It's too cold and dark to go hiking around looking for an entry point right now," Adaji told him. "We'll bunk up tonight and I'll muster a search party at first light." SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2380 Grissom consulted the deck plan on his holographic PDA. "Okay. We should be on C deck, starboard side." Adaji nodded. "This doesn't look like any starship I've ever been on. It's sure not Starfleet. Where are the red doors?" She sighed. "This is getting weirder all the time. Still, if she's laid out -anything- like a Connie, the computer core will be at the center of this deck, directly below the bridge. It's our best bet for finding some answers." She turned to the ODST next to her. "Anything, Sarge?" The sergeant shook his head, intent on the display of his tricorder. "No lifesigns within range." He tooks his eyes off the instrument and met the lieutenant's gaze. "Looks like nobody's home." Grissom sniffed the air, looking first one way, then the other up the radial corridor. "I don't smell anything," said Sorenzu. Grissom nodded. "Exactly. The ship crashed at least a week ago. Snowpack conditions outside tell us that much. Judging by the lighting, the wreck's on emergency power, but it's still fairly warm in here. And it's almost -certain- that a crash this violent, to say nothing of the battle that led to it, killed some - if not all - of the crew. So why -don't- we smell anything?" They found their answer twenty minutes later, in a secondary cargo hold near sickbay. "Dau'kar," Adaji murmured from the doorway, her breath forming a frosty cloud. Someone had shut off the heating to this hold, and the reason why was obvious, laid out before her on the floor in neat, respectful ranks: Whoever had done it had been converting the hold into a makeshift morgue. "There must be hundreds of them," said the sergeant who'd scanned earlier. "Half the crew at least." Grissom advanced into the room and knelt next to the first body, a young woman. "Blunt force trauma," he observed quietly, speaking to no one in particular. The ODSTs' medic, Corporal Tagan, scanned the body with his medical tricorder. "Fractured skull... internal injuries... broken neck." "I've seen injuries like this before," said Spaceman Orman quietly. "When I was in Basic, my training squad's Pelican went down on Salu II. Engine failure. We lost five guys, including the flight crew. My squad leader was standing up when we hit the ground. He... looked like this when they pulled him out of the wreck." Tagan nodded grimly. "Unsecured, nothing to stop him except the forward bulkhead. Nasty." "This woman was at a duty station," Grissom said. He moved to the next person, a tall man with dark skin; Tagan followed, scanning again. "Both arms broken, flailed chest, significant neck trauma," the medic said. "He was sitting down. Either he hit the console he was sitting at, or it broke loose and came to him." Grissom nodded. "Neither scenario ends well." Grissom and Tagan took a quiet inventory of the room while the rest of the ODSTs and Adaji remained warily by the door; then they returned to the group to report their findings. "There are 221 people in here," Grissom said. "All uniformed, all cleaned up, all laid out neatly." "A lot of them show signs of first aid," Tagan added. "Their CODs vary, but all are consistent with the kinds of things that happen to people in a major space battle followed by a starship crash. Burns and blast damage, mostly to people who look like they were part of the engineering crew; lacerations from flying debris; impact injuries." "And," Grissom added, "look at these uniforms." Adaji nodded. "I've never seen anything like them, either. But the insignia's familiar enough," she added, pointing to the arrowhead badge on one dead spacer's red uniform jacket. "Has Starfleet issued a new style manual while I wasn't looking?" Grissom asked. It was a rhetorical question, but Orman answered it anyway. "No sir, not unless it's happened within the last three weeks. We liaised with USS Reuben James at the end of January. They didn't look anything like this." "Whatever the specifics mean," Grissom mused, "the fact that they're wearing uniforms at all tells us one important fact." He made eye contact with Adaji and went on, "These people were professionals." Adaji nodded. "I'd say that shoots holes in my pirate theory," she admitted. "Not that it was holding up very well anyway. Apart from the battle and crash damage, this ship's too... well, too -shipshape- for the crew to be wildcat spacers or outlaws. But... what are we dealing with here? Some kind of Starfleet black ops ship? Too secret for BuShips to admit it exists?" "With full insignia?" Grissom replied. "I suppose it's possible. More likely the ship is experimental. That explains the curious configuration. The uniforms may belong to some sort of... -testing command- we're not aware of." He put his hands on his hips and looked around the makeshift morgue. "At any rate, we know one thing for certain now: Somebody survived the crash. Several somebodies, I expect; it's possible that a single survivor did all this, but not very likely." "Two hundred twenty-one people, that's a little more than half a Connie's crew complement," Adaji said. "If they had a standard crew aboard, we're still missing 209 of them." Any hopes Lt. Adaji might have had that the matter would be clarified when they reached the ship's computer core were dashed almost immediately, because although the facility was in the part of the ship she expected it to be in, it was clear when the team gained entry that it was... different. "What the hell is this?" she wondered. "This isn't anything like what's supposed to be here." "Some kind of experimental system?" Orman hazarded. "Well, the working hypothesis -is- that this is some kind of testing vessel," Sorenzu said thoughtfully. "This doesn't look like a factory install." The young marine had a point at that, Adaji thought. Where the glowing crystal-circuitry column of a Daystrom duotronic processor core should have been, in the center of the circular room, there was instead a sort of rostrum that looked as if its base had been welded to the floor over-top of the socket where the DPC belonged. The welding job was neat and tidy, not a sloppy hack job by any means, but it didn't look shipyard-precise either. Someone had done it, and numerous other modifications around the room, by hand. "This pedestal is some kind of I/O system," said Grissom, peering at the top of it with a penlight. "Cluster of connectors here, not all of which I recognize. Whatever took the place of the ship's regular processor core must have been sitting on top... and whatever it is, it's not here now." "Survivors must've taken it with them," Sorenzu grunted, shining his handlamp up and down the wall panels on the far side. "A computer that size couldn't be powerful enough to operate an entire starship," objected Orman. "Ordinarily I'd agree with you, but... " Sorenzu shrugged. "I don't see another one. Not in here, anyway." Adaji's communicator trilled. Flipping it open, she answered tersely, "Adaji." "Lieutenant, Soandso here," replied the voice of Swiftsure's commander. "We found the other half of Inspector Grissom's ship." A dry chuckle. "What's left of it." Grissom looked up from his examination of the connector cluster. Raising his voice slightly so the captain would hear him, he asked, "Where?" "Out beyond the orbit of Thesalgon, the system's outermost gas giant," Soandso said. "There isn't a lot left, but my sensor officer thinks she knows what happened. We passed through a sizeable gamma-ray pulse on the way out here, and there are significant traces of subspace disturbance." Grissom nodded. "Warp core rupture," he said. "That's how we read it. That ship entered the system with a serious drive malfunction, and just outside the city limits, so to speak, it looks like they went over the high side." "And Xawin was the only even remotely hospitable place within sublight range," Adaji concluded. "Damn. You know it's a bad day when this rock is your best chance at a safe haven." "Captain, are there any signs of another ship out there? Any indications that a battle took place?" "Negative, Inspector," Soandso replied. "We're running a search grid outward from where Scopes pegs the epicenter of the warp core cookoff, but so far there's nothing but what my engineer describes as 'seriously hinky drive trace'." Grissom arched an eyebrow, though of course Soandso couldn't see him. "'Hinky'?" "He watches too many cop shows," said Soandso without evident irony. "If the grid search doesn't turn up anything by 1300 we're going to follow the trail and see where it leads. Everything secure on your end?" "So far, so good, sir," Adaji told him. "We're exploring the wreck now. No sign that anyone alive is still aboard, but there are indications that some people did survive." "Okay. Keep me posted. Soandso out." The ship's bridge was much like the rest of it: superficially familiar, but upon closer examination, not quite right. It had the expected layout, but Grissom had never known a Federation starship's bridge to be so... white. Not that it was so obvious that it -was- white, with all the streaks of soot and other clear indications, as if any more were needed, that this ship had been in a fight; but white it was, with accents of royal blue and black-faced consoles. The bridge of the last Starfleet vessel Grissom had been aboard was mostly done in shades of grey with black and red accents. He decided he liked the white and blue version better, though his preferences were, he acknowledged, entirely irrelevant. Like the rest of the ship, the bridge was vacant. Some of the consoles were blown, and others were bloody. There were streaks of blood on the bulkheads as well, as if people had supported themselves with bloodied hands while making their way aft to the turbolifts. Grissom treated the room like any blood-spattered crime scene, recording the positions and shapes of the stains photographically before taking swabs from each discrete sample. "Starfleet Medical maintains a complete DNA database of serving officers and crew," he explained to Orman as he swabbed what he thought, assuming the consoles in this bridge were laid out as he expected, was the weapons officer's station. "These samples may help answer the question of whether this really is a Starfleet vessel." "Damn," said Adaji, standing next to the larboard turbolift. "What?" Grissom asked, glancing back over his shoulder at her. "I was hoping the ship's dedication plate would tell us something," Adaji replied, pointing her handlamp at the bulkhead next to the lift door, "but it's gone." Indeed, the beam of her lamp revealed only a rectangle of conspicuously cleaner wall with a small hole in each corner. "Well, that's -one- thing that's Starfleet-normal about this ship," said Sorenzu. "It's SOP for them to take the bridge plaque with them when abandoning ship, if they've got time to take it off." "Here's another," said Adaji, who had left the lift doorway and moved on to the station on the after bulkhead, between the two lifts. Grissom left Orman and rounded the end of the station. Adaji used her lamp to illuminate a green smear on the edge of the console, next to a distinctive upright viewer that looked a little like the business end of an electron microscope. "Vulcan science officer," she said, grinning. With a nod, Grissom photographed the smear, then swabbed the edge of it and tucked the swab into his growing collection. Then he went down into the bullseye and examined the captain's seat. This, too, had a bloody smear on it - red this time, most likely human or Salusian. This particular smear was a very distinct shape, and in a very distinct spot. Grissom could easily make out the palm and fingers of a hand, a right hand, curling around the end of the command chair's right armrest. In his mind's eye, he pictured the captain, perhaps wounded by flying debris during the battle, grabbing hold with both hands to brace himself as the saucer plunged through Xawin's thin atmosphere and plowed into the icy ground. Adaji stepped down beside him, looked, and nodded. "Inertial damping would've been minimal, if not outright nonfunctional, by that point. The final impact must have been terrific. Look what it did to the cosmocompass," she said, pointing to the smashed wreckage of what had been the large navigational instrument between the helm and navigation stations. "Mm. But the seat's internal tractors must still have been working," Grissom said. "Otherwise, the captain would've gone straight into the main viewer on impact. This seat doesn't have physical restraints." He took an adhesive lifter from the inside pocket of his vest and applied it to the underside of the armrest, capturing the fingerprints of the unknown captain's right hand. The left armrest wasn't bloody, but a few moments' old-fashioned work with fingerprint powder and brush raised the prints of his left hand as well. "Have you noticed a pattern?" Adaji observed when he had finished. "Everything in this ship is -wrecked-, but it all looks... -advanced.-" Grissom straightened, stowed his samples away, and then joined her in looking around. "That supports the hypothesis that she's a technology testbed." "I don't know... look at these consoles. Some kind of -touch panel.- I've never seen anything like it." She rubbed at the back of her head. "It all seems more revolutionary than evolutionary." "Maybe she's from the future," Sorenzu remarked. He meant it as a (rather weak) joke, but Grissom gave the notion a thoughtful nod. "It's not unheard of," was all he said. A full search of the wreck took most of the day, but apart from the bridge, the computer center, and the makeshift morgue, only one place turned up anything really interesting. "Everything else we've encountered so far has been basically where it belonged," Adaji remarked. "If that pattern holds, then this would be the captain's quarters." Grissom went to the closet next to the double-wide bunk on the far wall, opened it, and looked inside. "Well, if it's not, whoever lives here must have been doing his dry cleaning," he said, indicating the three uniform jackets hanging there. Adaji looked around. "Not many personal effects. Our mysterious captain travels light." "Or he took his things with him," said Grissom. "You think he got out?" "His body's unaccounted for, and it's unlikely he was in Engineering during a ship-to-ship engagement," Grissom reasoned. "Besides, someone had to lead the survivors to wherever they went when they left here." He opened the drawers of the captain's nightstand, starting at the bottom, but found nothing apart from some identical - presumably standard-issue - socks and skivvies. "-That's- odd," said Orman from the small office adjoining the bedroom. "What's odd?" Grissom asked, walking to the door. "The captain's safe is empty, it was standing open," Orman said. "But that's not the odd part. The odd part is that there's another keypad inside it." Looking intrigued, Grissom crouched next to the open wall safe and played his penlight around inside. "So there is. Installed by hand, from the look of it, like the modifications in the computer core room." He rummaged in his bag of tricks and took out a small optical scanner. "Let's see if we can find out what the combination is." "How can you do that with an optical scanner?" "The keys that are pressed most often will be slightly more worn than the rest," Grissom explained as he screwed the scanner into his eye like a jeweler's loupe and switched it on. "The difference isn't usually discernible with the naked eye on keypads made from modern materials, but with a little magnification and some alternate lighting... " He fell silent as he examined the second keypad; then, double-checking the fit of his glove, he reached in and tapped a code. That did nothing, so he tried another combination; then another. On the sixth try, there was a beep. For a second, that was all - just a beep. Then, with a quiet servo whine, the bunk out in the bedroom slid sideways, revealing a rectangular opening in the deck beneath. "Hmm. There's a feature you won't find in most captains' staterooms," said Sorenzu. He shined his handlamp into the opening, revealing a narrow, steep staircase, almost a ladder, like the ones often found in starship engine rooms. Grissom led the way down, with Adaji and the two ODSTs right behind him. The ladder led to what, on a normal Constitution-class starship's plans, should've been the forward VIP quarters, three staterooms like the captain's above. Instead, the whole area had been opened up with the removal of interior bulkheads, sealed off with the removal of corridor doors, and turned into... what? "It's a hangar," Adaji said. "Look. Small spacecraft service and maintenance equipment... the forward bulkhead's been converted into a door... atmosphere retention field projectors at the edges." Grissom walked slowly to the center of the empty room, shining his light on the floor; in the middle he paused and crouched down. "Whatever was parked here has a minor hydraulic leak," he remarked. "That rules out a shuttlecraft," said Sorenzu. "They don't have hydraulic systems. Starfighter, maybe?" "These looks like fusion scorches," Orman said from where she stood examining the aft bulkhead. "More on the deck here... and here." "A Valkyrie," Adaji said. The others turned to look at her. "I've seen that blast pattern before. My first posting was aboard a carrier, HMS Furious. The VF-1s always left marks like that on the launch shields. From their vectored-thrust nozzles. They angle them downward for takeoff." Grissom finished taking a swab of the hydraulic fluid - because why not? - and straightened up. "What kind of starship captain has the space below his quarters converted into a hangar for a single Veritech fighter?" he wondered rhetorically. "This whole thing is getting screwier by the minute," Adaji agreed. They returned to the Avenger just before dark, at which point Grissom immediately retired to his makeshift lab to begin processing all the trace evidence he'd collected during the search. He was well into the swing of things by the time Adaji appeared, two hours later, carrying a thermos bottle. "You missed chow call," she said. "Brought you some soup." "Thank you," said Grissom, his tone a touch absent but no less sincere, not taking his eyes off the holoscreen of his portable. "Any luck with the genetic samples?" "No matches in the Starfleet personnel database," Grissom replied, "which doesn't particularly surprise me. What's surprising is what I -didn't- turn up." "Such as?" Adaji prompted. "Not one of the bodies in that makeshift morgue, nor any of the blood samples we found anywhere in the wreck, is Salusian." "That -is- weird," said Adaji, frowning. "There are thousands of Salusians in Starfleet. The Royal Navy contributes almost ten percent of the fleet's personnel, and lots of others join Starfleet outright." "I know. But, if the evidence is to be believed - and evidence can't lie - not one of them was assigned to this ship." "Unless they were all on the engineering crew," Adaji pointed out. "That doesn't seem very likely, though." "No, though it -is- an outside possibility. We're not the only species conspicuous in its absence, either. I found no turians and no humans of any lineage other than Earth's." "A Starfleet ship without any turian security officers? They're Palaven's chief export," said Adaji, only half-joking. "None," Grissom said. "And what's more, no Corellians, no Zardons, nobody of Zentraedi extraction, and no one showing any signs of 21st-century Earth's colonization engineering - Hoffmanites, Isisren, and so forth. I -do-, however, have at least a dozen samples I can't identify at all, and one I certainly -wasn't- expecting to find aboard a Starfleet vessel." "What's that?" "Your Vulcan science officer." He tapped one of the slides ranked on the worktable beside him. "She's half-Romulan." Adaji raised her eyebrows. "Really," she said. "Yes. And the captain... I'm still grappling with his profile. He's human. From Earth, I think. But he's not in the Starfleet database either, and he has some -very- strange markers that I'm still... " Grissom trailed off, staring into space, as a couple of pieces came together inside his head with a click. Adaji blinked. "Grissom? You okay?" "I'm searching the wrong database," he said, not really to her. Then, fingers flying, he changed his parameters and launched the captain's anomalous profile into the system again. The result came back in less than five seconds, accompanied by a high-pitched alert tone. UNITED FEDERATION OF PLANETS DEPARTMENT OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE CO-OPERATIVE GENETIC TRACKING SYSTEM (COGENT) DNA SEARCH RESULT: POSITIVE MATCH SUBJECT: HUTCHINS, BENJAMIN D. AKA: GRYPHON SPECIES: HUMAN (EARTH) DOB: 1973.06.20 SC APPARENT AGE: 25? (SEE NOTE BELOW) SEX: MALE HEIGHT: 5'9" WEIGHT: 175 LB. EYES: BLUE HAIR: BROWN DISTINGUISHING MARKS: TATTOO ON INSIDE RIGHT FOREARM (SEE NOTE 2 BELOW) ALERT! ***FDCJ PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER ONE*** WANTED FOR: MURDER (MASS) MURDER (MULTIPLE) MURDER (SERIAL) RAPE KIDNAPPING GRAND THEFT ARMED ROBBERY AGGRAVATED ASSAULT AGGRAVATED ASSAULT UPON A POLICE OFFICER IMPERSONATING A POLICE OFFICER IMPERSONATING A MILITARY OFFICER IMPERSONATING AN AGENT OF THE CROWN UNLAWFUL FLIGHT TO AVOID PROSECUTION EVADING PURSUIT RESISTING ARREST USE OF FALSE IDENTITY DOCUMENTS USE OF FALSE STARSHIP REGISTRY DOCUMENTS POSSESSION OF CONTROLLED TECHNOLOGIES LESE MAJESTE IN CONNECTION WITH THE MUSASHI INCIDENT OF 2288 AND SUBSEQUENT CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR NOTE: SUBJECT HAS BEEN TREATED WITH OMEGA-2 LIFE EXTENSION RETROVIRUS. HE IS IMMUNE TO MOST CHEMICAL/BIOLOGICAL/RADIOLOGICAL AGENTS, RECOVERS VERY QUICKLY FROM NON-FATAL INJURY, AND DOES NOT AGE. NOTE 2: SUBJECT TECHNICALLY REMAINS KNIGHT-DEFENDER OF THE SALUSIAN CROWN AND MAY STILL BEAR SALUSIAN SHOTCODE TATTOO TO THAT EFFECT. ** THIS SUBJECT IS AN EXTREMELY DANGEROUS CLASS A FUGITIVE AND MUST BE CONSIDERED ARMED AND HOSTILE AT ALL TIMES ** ANY ARREST ATTEMPT SHOULD BE LEFT TO SPECIALLY TRAINED AND EQUIPPED CLASS A FUGITIVE APPREHENSION PERSONNEL. Adaji leaned over Grissom's shoulder to read the report, then whistled long and low before saying, "Okay, I didn't think it was possible, but this whole thing makes even -less- sense now. The captain of our Federation starship from the future is the Butcher of Musashi? Are you sure you're using that thing correctly?" Grissom looked for a moment like there was a response he'd like to make, then shook his head slightly and replied instead, "DNA doesn't lie. It doesn't necessarily mean he -belonged- in that seat, but he was the last person to sit there." Grissom ran another search, got the same result, and nodded. "Fingerprints confirm it. And it explains the Valkyrie hangar under the captain's quarters. Hutchins is known to travel with a VF-1 he stole when he left the Wedge Defense Force. It was the one he used as a WDF fighter pilot before that. He's had it for centuries, takes it with him everywhere he goes." "Well then... what's with the starship? Where did he get it? Where'd he find a crew that size willing to follow him? And why the Starfleet set dressing?" Grissom shook his head. "I don't know, Lieutenant. Physical evidence is often silent in matters of 'why'. What puzzles -me- most of all, though, is this." He punched a couple of keys and pulled up a less official "wanted" poster, this one carefully crafted by a corporate marketing department. Instead of the ex-WDF Records Office holograph that adorned the FDCJ profile, this one had a slightly blurry securicam holo showing a haggard, angry-looking Gryphon in need of a shave, making him look altogether meaner and more dangerous, and loudly advertised a multimillion-credit reward for his capture. "That's a lot of money," Adaji mused. "Mm. Courtesy of our civic-minded friends at the GENOM Corporation," Grissom added dryly. "What puzzles me is, if that -was- Benjamin Hutchins's ship, and someone shot it down... why has that someone not come forward to claim this reward?" "Maybe they didn't know it was him. Outlaws or pirates looking to make a display of strength against Starfleet, the Butcher's ship was in the wrong place at the wrong time." "Could be. Though in that case, why haven't we seen anyone take credit? Terrorists can only spread terror by bragging about what they've done." Grissom shook his head. "There are still too many pieces missing." "And every piece we find just makes the puzzle harder," Adaji added with a sigh. Then, stretching her shoulders, she said, "Well, Inspector, I don't know about you, but I spent too many hours in an environment suit today. I'm gonna grab a shower and rack out." "Good night, Lieutenant. Thanks for your help today." Adaji lingered in the doorway for a moment, considering the criminalist as he continued puzzling over the database records. He was about her age, mid-fifties or thereabouts, youngish for the fairly senior rank he held in the RSMP. Not a bad-looking guy, really, if you liked them bookish and intense; he was smart, perceptive, and she'd heard from Sorenzu and Orman about his surprising fitness. She wondered vaguely why someone like that was content to be a scopegazer for the Mounties instead of pursuing a career with the fleet. Ah, well. The Navy isn't for everybody, she reminded herself as she left the Avenger's cargo bay. Hers not to wonder what turned other people on, lifegoal-wise. She half-seriously considered going back and inviting him to share her planned program for the evening, but decided against it. A, there wasn't a lot of privacy to be had in the crew quarters of an Avenger, and B, he might not know what to make of the traditionally casual attitude naval personnel took toward such things. The offer might give him the wrong idea, or even offend him, and that would never do. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2380 "Inspector Grissom? Sir? Wake up." Grissom had been sleeping on the camp cot in the corner of the hold; now he opened his eyes and, after a moment, focused on the face of Jaleen Orman. "Yes?" he asked, raising himself to a sitting position. "What time is it?" "0530, sir. Swiftsure's just made orbit. I think you're going to want to hear Commander Soandso's report." Grissom got to his feet, raking his hands back through his close-cropped dark hair, and followed the young marine up to the dropship's control room. "He's here, skipper," said Adaji as Grissom entered the room. On the forward viewscreen, Soandso's thin, aristocratic face nodded. "Sorry to drag you out of bed, Inspector, but I figured you would want to hear what we found." "I'm all ears, Commander," Grissom said. "We followed the Invincible's drive trace almost to the termination shock. Then it just... disappeared, amid some of the strangest subspace readings I've ever seen in my life. I don't know what to make of it, neither does my engineer nor Scopes. I've made copies of all our sensor logs in case you want to take a closer look at it, but I'll tell you, I've been in space 20 years and I've never seen anything like it. It's almost like somebody set off an SDD out there, but no wormhole." Grissom scratched his head thoughtfully. "Subspace demolition devices are banned by every weapons-limitation treaty in the galaxy," he observed. "They're all but uncontrollable." "I know, but that doesn't rule out some nutcase having one anyway," Soandso said. "If that's what happened, though, I'm damned if I know how your mystery starship survived long enough to have a core breach near Thesalgon and crash on Xawin. By rights it should've been reduced to... -mathematical nonsense- right then and there." "Hmm. Very curious. I'm no subspace expert, but I know a few people back on Salusia I can ask to have a look at the data." Soandso nodded. "I figured as much. That's why I had Scopes make you a copy. I -have- found something you and Mr. Adaji might be able to take more immediate action on, though." "Oh?" "About 50 miles south of your current location, our surface scans show some sort of settlement. We can't tell too much from above the weather layer - there's a pretty significant storm blowing down there right now - but it looks like there's one main building and what might be a parking compound for a small starship." "I thought you said this system was uninhabited," said Grissom to Adaji, his tone not accusatory but thoughtful. "It is," Soandso answered for his lieutenant. "It's probably pirates or wildcat miners. Anyway, I want Mr. Adaji and our ODSTs to check it out, and I thought you might be interested in tagging along. You're missing a group of survivors; they might have headed that way looking for shelter or off-planet comms." The ride to the coordinates Soandso provided took Adaji, Grissom, and a squad of ODSTs (the rest having been left behind to secure the primary camp) just shy of an hour in the Avenger's M29 Grizzly infantry fighting vehicle. By the end of that hour, Grissom had decided that, excepting the obligatory ride back to the Avenger, he would endeavor not to ride in an M29 Grizzly again - at least not cross- country on a completely undeveloped planet whose most common terrain feature seemed to be jagged escarpments, and not with Corporal Chelin Sorenzu at the wheel. The uncharted settlement Soandso had found turned out to be at the end of a small canyon, with high walls on two sides and a low rise at the back; had that rise been a little taller, the place would have qualified as a box canyon. Along the main approach, entering the open end of the canyon from the southeast, the Grizzly's crew noted the burned-out remains of what had been a number of automatic defense turrets. These had clearly been blown up, and recently - strafed from the air, judging by the blast patterns on the rocks around them. Just as advertised, there was one structure, a prefab pressure building of the sort used in hostile-environment mining camps and freight depots all over the Federation. Parked next to it, within sprinting distance of the front airlock entrance, was the distinctive blocky shape of an Ares Corporation Landmaster hostile environment vehicle. It was the work of four minutes for the ODSTs to sweep the building and determine that there were no weapons and only a single power source - the shelter's own mini-reactor - inside, after which the now-familiar routine began once more. The first conclusion wasn't long in coming, though, characteristically, it was someone other than Grissom who drew it: "There's been a firefight here," Sorenzu said to the criminalist as he entered. Grissom gave the ODST a mild look, and for just a second Adaji wondered if one of his lectures on letting the evidence speak for itself would be forthcoming, but instead he nodded and said, "Military actions are your field of expertise, Corporal... show me what you see." Sorenzu pointed. "First indication's right here at the entrance. These scorches on the outer airlock door are from a breaching charge. Specialized demolition device. Takes out the center lock in such a way that the door can be re-closed without extensive repair. We use them on pressure doors we're going to want to shut again. Inner door, same story." Sorenzu had seen the way Starfleet Marines operated. It wasn't so different from the way the RSMC did things, come to that. To reduce a structure this small, they wouldn't have needed the ship's whole complement; just a standard stick of eight Starfleet Marines, faceless in their matte-grey low-vis vacuum armor, phaser rifles at the ready. (Assuming the mystery ship's Marines wore and carried anything like the regular ones, anyway. Lacking any other information, that's what he pictured.) They'd secure the perimeter first, make sure no one was hanging around outside the building - not very likely on a planet like Xawin, but Starfleet Marines were professionals, and the ones who shipped with the front-line ships like Connie-class cruisers were the best of the lot. Then they stacked at the door, four on one side, three on the other, while their demo man set the breaching charge on the exterior door. It was unlikely anyone inside the building would even notice when that charge blew the lock on the outer door. If they had someone on the ball in there, they'd spot the door-open warning light on the enviro panel, but when did anybody in a hellhole like this ever pay that much attention? No, the first indication anybody inside the structure had that anything was wrong was when the -inner- door's locking mechanism blew in with a sharp CRACK, followed by everyone's ears popping as the air in the main room rushed into the "front porch" - the marines wouldn't have bothered repressurizing it, though they would shut the outer door to keep the whole place from venting. Now, as he explained what he figured had happened to Grissom, Chelin Sorenzu could see them in his mind's eye, just as if he'd been there. He didn't know what Fed comms sounded like, so in his head the squad's comm traffic sounded like the chatter in an ODST's helmet set. "Inner door breach... -set.- Go in three. Two. One." Bang. "We're in." The commander's voice, with that special intensity that even the coolest, best-trained soldiers always had at go time: "Alpha squad - TAKE TAKE TAKE!" The rest went like clockwork. Swift, precise, surgical. The pirates never had a chance. The marines presumably gave them a chance to surrender, treating the assault as an arrest rather than a purely military takedown - else they'd just have vented the building and let Xawin's niggardly atmosphere do the work for them. Judging by the phaser scars on the walls in the main room, the pirates didn't take them up on it. "No bodies," Adaji observed. "There wouldn't be," Orman told her. "Starfleet issues phasers; marines carry a rifle model. Jack one of those things all the way up and it'll turn a humanoid into humidity in about two seconds." "A... vivid description, but not entirely inaccurate," Grissom agreed. "There are also a few trace elements involved. Elements which should show up in the building's atmosphere processor filters." "Assuming this dump has any," said Adaji grimly. She looked around as if something had just occurred to her. "Speaking of which, why is the life support even still -on- in this dump? Whoever knocked off the pirates obviously didn't stick around long - " "Sir!" Orman cried from the far corner of the room. "Lieutenant Adaji! I've got a survivor here!" The survivor was a youngish Vulcan woman, dressed in a utility coverall similar to those he'd seen on the corpses of what he and Tagan believed to have been engine-room crew. Hers did not quite fit, and it showed distinct signs of service and rank insignia having been rather roughly removed. Put in a straight-backed chair one of the ODSTs had found in what seemed to have been the pirate base's kitchen, she sat even straighter than the chair's unyielding construction required, with the sort of posture drilled into youngsters at finishing schools - spine erect, knees together, hands slack upon them. She seemed entirely relaxed, in spite of the fact that she was surrounded by armed, edgy people, and without regard to the livid green-black burn marring one high cheekbone. As Grissom frowned thoughtfully at her, she looked back at him with a perfect, glacial calm that the two ODSTs standing guard found faintly unnerving. "Miss, my name is Gil Grissom," he said. "I'm an investigator with the Royal Salusian Mounted Police. I have a few questions I need to ask you." The Vulcan raised one narrow eyebrow in faintly mocking reply, saying nothing. "We can start with who you are," Grissom prompted gently. She regarded him with green eyes for a long beat, blinking once. Then, elevating her chin slightly, she said in a clear voice, "Valeris. Lieutenant, Starfleet, MX39352769." "This isn't a military interrogation, Lieutenant," Grissom told her. "You're not suspected of anything criminal at this time. We're just trying to find out what happened." "I have nothing further to say," Valeris replied flatly. Grissom regarded her for a moment, then nodded equably. "All right," he agreed. "In that case, let me share a few pieces of information with you." He indicated the tricorder he held. "You've recently been treated for a fracture of the left tibia, hyperextension of the right shoulder, concussion, and radiation poisoning. From all that, plus your presence here, I can deduce that you're a survivor of the Federation starship that crashed on this planet recently. Your uniform and the severity of your radiation burns gives me a strong indication that you were a member of the engineering crew." Valeris looked at him sharply - clearly she hadn't expected him to work all that out without any interaction with her at all. "As such," Grissom went on, unconcerned, "you may be able to shed some light on what happened to your ship. There's also the interesting fact that you were left behind. Why was that?" Valeris hesitated, then said, "I have a message." "What message?" She shook her head. "It is not for you." "Well, who -is- it for?" Her face shut down again. Eyes focused on nothing, she repeated, "Valeris. Lieutenant, Starfleet, MX39352769." Grissom opened his mouth, but before he could make another attempt, Orman and Sorenzu returned from their outside perimeter sweep. "Inspector," said Sorenzu, "you're going to want to see this." He led the way around to the back of the building, where the slightly lower walls of the canyon's end made a natural revetment, perfect for parking an aerospacecraft. The pirates had outfitted it with all the appropriate facilities; none of the equipment matched, and it had all been stolen from one place or another, but everything required for the operation and maintenance of a small starship. Based on the layout and the types of equipment present, Grissom was even reasonably sure he knew what kind. "Let's break it down for my report to the Admiralty," said Commander Soandso from the head of his briefing-room table aboard Swiftsure. "This strangely advanced Federation Starfleet ship that doesn't exist - commanded by the Butcher of Musashi himself, no less - appears out of nowhere at the edge of the system, most of it blows up out near Thesalgon, the saucer crashes on Xawin. The surviving crew members make sure to tidy up their casualties, remove the ship's nonstandard computer core, and then hike 50 miles across a tundra cold enough to freeze methanol, sack a pirate base, steal their ship, and... vanish into the aether, leaving behind a single member of the crew - a Vulcan woman who refuses to talk to any of us, but says she has a message for someone. Is that about it?" Grissom smiled slightly, as if he found the captain's bluster more entertaining than daunting. "Actually, I think only the squad of marines who took the pirate encampment walked there; then they used the pirates' Landmaster to retrieve the rest of the survivors. But apart from that, yes, I'd say that about covers it. For now." "For now?" "It'll take some time to analyze all the data you gathered on the subspace anomaly connected with the ship's appearance in the system, and there are still some avenues to be explored regarding the provenance of the vessel itself, not to mention the casualties," Grissom explained. "And we may yet turn up something regarding the spacecraft they left Xawin with. I'm reasonably certain it was a Telgorn DX-9 military transport. There aren't that many of those in civilian hands." "I wouldn't have guessed there were many super-advanced Constitution-class heavy cruisers with secret IDs and recycled hull numbers either, but I guess you learn something new every day," Soandso grumbled. "If you're lucky," Grissom agreed equably. Soandso eyed the investigator flintily for a moment, then smiled. "Well, hell," he said. "This is the weirdest damn thing I've seen in all my years of service to Her Majesty's navy, but I can't say it hasn't been interesting. If you've completed your investigation here, Inspector, we'll run you back to Zeltos and get on with our patrol. As for the woman, well, she claims to be a member of Starfleet. I'd say that makes her their problem." "She's my only link to whatever happened here, Commander," Grissom objected. "She's committed no crime, Inspector. You agree?" "Yes." "Well, then we have no reason to hold her." "She's a material witness - " "To -what?- No, Inspector Grissom, this is clearly not a Salusian matter, and I've spent enough of the Navy's time on it." The commander got up from the table, shaking his head with finality. "She goes to Earth, you go home, and my ship gets back to work." Gil Grissom caught a commercial spaceliner from Zeltos back to Salusia with three things he hadn't had when he left: the most curious mystery he'd ever been involved with; Kearna Adaji's contact information, complete with a PDA reminder of when she next expected to take leave on the homeworld; and the first confirmed sighting of Benjamin Hutchins's trail since 2356. Before boarding his flight, though, he made a call from a public telephone on the Zamora International Spaceport concourse, one he preferred not to make from his office nor his home. It didn't really matter; if someone managed to find out that he'd made the call from this phone, they still wouldn't get anywhere trying to track it. Grissom had once, as an intellectual exercise, tried to work out himself where the number he'd been given several years before actually reached. All he'd found out was that it hit several open galactic comm relays before, assuming his calculations were correct, hijacking a little-used subsidiary beacon on the Royal Salusian Merchant Fleet's private commnet and beaming a tight-beam hyperwave transmission into an uninhabited region of the Orion Nebula. This was unilluminating at best. As such, he had no actual indication that he was connected to anything, apart from a click and the slightly eerie "hollow" sound of an open line. "Grissom reporting," he said. "Positive indications he was on Xawin, in the Strenuus system, within the last two weeks. He's not there now, current whereabouts still unknown. Unable to provide further information at this time. Full report to follow." Then he hung up and went to board his flight home. /* The Crystal Method "Acetone" _Legion of Boom_ (2004) */ Eyrie Productions, Unlimited presented UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES EXILE Manhunt Part 1: The Mysterious Affair at Xawin starring Giol'bertis Grissom Kearna Adaji Chelin Sorenzu Jaleen Orman Oskar Penrith Winot Tagan Doran Soandso Valeris by Benjamin D. Hutchins with The Eyrie Productions Usual Suspects Gil Grissom created by Anthony E. Zuiker To be continued in Part 2: Fugitives and Messengers E P U (colour) 2009