Double Trouble

Posted on Tue Oct 27th, 2020 @ 8:48am by Lieutenant Commander P’rel M.D & Lieutenant Dessame Sar

Mission: The Shadow of Arachne
Location: Brig.
Timeline: After "art of interrogation..."
1810 words - 3.6 OF Standard Post Measure

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The Bolian could feel hot tears on his cold cheeks as he recited what he knew to the Vulcan woman. Her stare was deathly, almost enough to break him on it's own; but the thought of his family having been captured by those Breen monsters was sickening. The worst of ideas ran through his frantically grasping mind; were they dead already, did they suffer, was she still pure only to him, were they in pain?

P'rel took a final look at the PADD in her hand, taking a quick moment to glance at the statement she had written as the Bolian officer had been verbosely spewing the oddest and most concerning of confessions. She handed it over to Brill, certain that she had accurately recorded his words. The slim device emitted a series of chirps as it biometrically recorded his thumbprint, and his quivering hand returned the PADD to her. "Lieutenant Sar will no doubt attend to you soon to formally place you under arrest" she said bluntly, standing from the table and indicating to Brill that he should step into the cell.

Brill nodded rapidly, his stomach churning like it was filled with a barrel of gagh; "and my family...." he said, wide eyes full of pain finding only cold and uncaring ones in return as he stepped into the cell.

"What about them?" P'rel asked dismissively, reactivating the forcefield.

Brill felt sick, deeply sick; he could feel that he had gone a deep shade of blue analogous to the pale greening of some other humanoids when nauseated. "You must rescue them".

P'rel looked at the PADD in her hand, containing the confession of a snivelling criminal and accessory to mass murder. She felt disgust for him, and made little attempt to hide as much from her expression; "as soon as we are able, I will alert the security on Zimbwat colony to take your family into protective custody" she said flatly and truthfully, turning for the door to the corridor, she would need to brief Lieutenant Sar and the Captain shortly.

Brill erupted, a mixture of pain, sickness, anger, hate and desperate worry; "you said they were captured!?"" he roared in a breaking voice; "you lied!".

Turning at the threshold to the door, she stepped aside for the custody officer to re-enter the room; looking at Brill she shrugged uncaringly, "I supposed a hypothesis". Leaving the devastated scum to rot with his thoughts, she started down the corridor and raised a hand to hail Lieutenant Sar with her comm. badge; there was little need as P'rel noticed her colleague coming around a near corner. "Lieutenant" she said in greeting.

Noise on the ship of Brill's capture had not been quiet. Scuttlebutt had done the rounds, speculation, rumour and intrigue. Slander, story and all the in-between. Truth be told Dessame was quite interested in the man, or what ever he claimed to be, and what he did. Why he did it.

He was on her ship, Kane's ship. Were they in danger? Were there hidden dangers around the corner?

Oh no... just Lieutenant P'rel ;)

"Afternoon Lieutenant P'rel. How is our 'guest'?" she asked.

P'rel held the PADD up, a gesture to indicate some level of success; "co-operative, after some appropriate persuasion". She handed the device over to Sar, "this is a statement, a confession of sorts, I believe once you've reviewed the contents you'll be best placed to decide on which formal charges apply for arrest", the Vulcan stated rather than asked, almost ordered rather than suggested. "I would be most willing to inform you of the main details."

"I can feel a lot from him even standing here." Dessame admitted as she took the PADD from the woman in front of her. "Mostly sadness and guilt, little anger and entitlement but he has just realised what he has done."

The PADD read like a novel of charges. Dessame rubbed her hands over her face as if to waken it up before her hand settled, cupped around her chin. "There are so many charges here I could lock him up until his grandchildren had children.

Dessame sighed. "I understand the threat to family as a motivator to do things, even evil things. I understand it, I don't condone it. He had the chance to ask for help, and didn't. Sometimes protecting your family comes at a price and sometimes that price, no matter how bad, is worth it if it saves them from harm. Even the loss of your own life." For a moment she remembered what she did to protect her sister all those years ago. Different circumstances but still the same kind of situation.

P'rel contemplated the Lieutenant's words for a moment, "there is no logic in his behaviour. The overwhelming probability suggests that both himself and his family would be killed once there was no further use for the Commander anyway" she thought about what Brill had told her, that Thot Tan and Thot Sek were trying to develop a Thalaron weapon, shaking her head P'rel continued "I appreciate the need to temper logic with emotion, but in this instance emotion has decimated all traces of the man's logic. To quote Ambassador Spock, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few". P'rel gestured that they should step to the side as a crew member tried to squeeze past them in the direction of the brig.

"As I recall" said P'rel, "on earth during the late 20th and early 21st century, there was a considerable fear of a weapon known as a 'suitcase nuke'; essentially a small version of a powerful weapon which could do significant damage, in the absence of being able to rain down mass destruction with the larger version..." her thoughts trailed off, analysing as she spoke to Sar, having not joined these dots before. "...something Brill said..." she took the Padd back and scrolled through to the correct section, handing it back to Sar she continued "...about investigating environmental precursors for the Thots, I cannot help but wonder if those precursors were in some way to amplify the effects of a small Thalaron device. Consider, a 'suitcase' device if you will Lieutenant...but with a sufficient precursor to amplify those effects over an area of a city...and then detonated in Paris during a full session of the Council...". Looking at Sar, it was clear both women were starting to realise how all the pieces might fall together...

"The safeguarding of a family you love defies logic Lieutenant. To those who are emotional, some more than others, the endangerment of family makes someone lose all critical thinking, all logic. It becomes I must keep them safe any way I can. If I just do this then they'll be fine, if I don't cause a fuss here then they wont notice me there and my family will be safe for now." Dessame replied to the Vulcan. "People are selfish, when they become threatened they close up, their allegiance is to themselves and their own. I'm sure you've seen that whilst undercover, or in other areas."

When P'rel started talking about Earth history Dessame was at a bit of a loss. She hadn't studied the history of Human's in all great detail but what she was saying did make sense when she took the PADD back off her. The small concealed device of destruction that could level a city with no damage to infrastructure. To wipe out the Federation leadership in one silent swoop would be horrifically deadly.

The Vulcan inclined her head to indicate agreement, it was in fact yet another example of her view that when it really came down it Starfleet officers were no different to anyone else in the galaxy. The outwardly projected view of Starfleet was that of selfless heroes and moral arbiters, but when push came to shove a Starfleet officer was no less likely to sell out their own values than a Ferengi. "Something else concerns me, more immediately than Breen plots in the grander scale of things" P'rel said flatly, at the same time trying to mentally link the two major components of the confession together and coming up empty; "Brill said that Breen have established a presence on Rondac III, the old Dominion cloning facility in the Alpha Quadrant. How could clones be part of this...?" she asked, genuinely at a loss on how Thelaron radiation weapons and cloning could be linked.

Dessame thought for a moment. "Clones?" she asked rhetorically. "I have heard that you have been in contact with the Intelligence Chief on Poseidon station. Maybe she has been successful in attaining more information that may help get us a clearer picture." She stated. "Cloning is against the law for a number of reasons, as is the use of Thalaron in any circumstance. As my understanding of the radiation is, is that is destroys all organic life. What if they plan to use the Thalaron radiation to quickly take out an outpost, a larger station and replace them with clones? Pretty largescale and unthinkable but the Dominion did try and infiltrate us before with changelings. This would just be a more ruthless and complex scale."

P’rel nodded thoughtfully. “The Dominion very nearly succeeded” she posited, a comment which was almost heresy amongst the Federation acolytes and devotees; “their strategy was an effective one, and logic would dictate that attempting the same plan with modifications may yield effective results”. P’rel resumed her full height and poised stature, becoming aware than she had become slumped in the conversation; “I shall speak with Lieutenant Aer aboard the Caliban, as she is presently, but first I will meet with Commander Kane”. The situation had become so much potentially larger than one traitor, one rogue officer; the idea of thelaron suitcase bombs, clones of starfleet officers and federation leaders....Captain Bennett would need to be informed as was getting way ‘above her pay grade’ as the human expression went. Her mistake before had been to act without consulting Kane, and she resolved this time to bring him in at the earliest opportunity.

"I think telling the Captain would be the best place to start. I saw what the Dominion did to Betazed after they left and I would not like a repeat, or 'second wave' to appear." Dessame replied. "For now I will keep Brill until we have a secure transport to take him back to Starfleet for a more permanent judgement."

Slightly nodding to indicate acknowledgment, P’rel folded her hands behind her back. “I will report to the bridge to find the Captain, please let me know if I can be of further assistance with the prisoner”. Proceeding down the corridor, the Vulcan decided she ought to check in with sickbay to see if her assistant was ready to return to duty.