<div dir="ltr"><span id="gmail-docs-internal-guid-900fdb11-7fff-7e69-1ce7-42f7fed8ebf1"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Mission: Murder on the Exeter Express</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Day:03</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Stardate: 2554:12:03</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">(USS Exeter – XO’s Office - Commander Ailynn Bracken/Lieutenant Ire Williams - 1130)</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Ire tapped the admittance button on the office door, the door opened and he entered. </span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">“Commander Bracken. I have been told to report to you for debriefing.” </span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Ailynn looked up from the PADD that she’d been reading, and regarded Lieutenant Williams. “Ire, of course, come in sit down.” she motioned to the replicator. “Can I get you anything?”</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">“No thank you.”</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">She nodded. “So. I need to find out the events before Myself and the team beamed into the holodeck last night. First things first Lieutenant, how did everything begin?”</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">“I was in the Ops department and then all of a sudden we were transported to holodeck 3. We were all placed in stasis fields by Maxine.”</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">“Maxine being Ensign Green.” Ailynn said carefully. “Did you recognise her at all?”</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">“I don’t know she was I had not met her before she was not in my department but some of the other seemed to know her.”</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">“I see. So you were kept in stasis fields, what happened next?”</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">“This Maxine seemed to take a dislike to David Clarke and Nesha Kervick. Then out of nowhere she electrocutes Clarke because she said that he was an absolute bore.”</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">“Just like that?” She asked puzzled. “The safeties were all off when you arrived I assume?”</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">“Yes but we only found out when Clake died.”</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">“I understand. What happened next? How did Nesha end up being killed?”</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">“Something had happened between Cortez and Maxine. I was dealing with Greta at the time but Maxine was going to make Cortez pay for her insolence and she killed Nesha like she had Clarke with electrocution.”</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Ailynn nodded, a gentle frown of concern and concentration on her face. “I’ve jumped a step it seems. Forgive me, tell me about Greta, Greta was in there too?”</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">“Yes Greta. Maxine though it would be funny for me to fight her to the death. So she made a hologram of her and made it attack me.”</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Ailynn nodded. “I understand. So she made you fight Greta, killed Nesha to spite Lieutenant Cortez. Did she give any indication about how she knew so much?”</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">“She spoke a lot but I did not hear everythings she was saying. She did talk about body swaps and wishing she had picked the captain and talked about being an empress.”</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">“And the others, how where they tortured?”</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">“She made Ensign Sleeford hold his breath for one moment as she tried to drown him. She then electrocuted Lieutenant Cortez anyway even after making her watch Nesha’s death. Lieutenant Corsixa, Ensign More and the Intern </span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Wakeman had to do truth or die questions while Ensign Sleeford was drowning. I am sorry that I am not more specific but I was not concentrating on what was happening to them at the time.”</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Ailynn smiled gently and shook her head. “It’s perfectly okay, the more information that we have, the better, but it’s understandable that you’ll have gaps all things considered.” She paused a moment. “You have no recollection of the questions that were asked?”</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">He paused for a moment thinking back on all the crazy things that Maxine had said.  “ She was goading Ensign More telling him that he was a bully and that he was a petulant child and that he was his own worst enemy.” he paused again. “He was the reason for Lieutenant Cortez for getting electrocuted.  Intern Wakeman was asked if her potential was going to be awakened or would she not be enough and if she was wasting her time in starfleet. Ensign Hammerfield was asked why she transferred from engineering from tactical? Was she afraid of death or was she weak.  I can not remember any other questions she asked the others.”</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Ailynn nodded, making a mental not of a couple of things. “Okay so I think that we’re into the home stretch.” She drew breath, An oblique thought crossing her mind, before we go further, can I ask a silly question? Did you recognise anything about Maxine at all? The words she used, her cadence of speech perhaps?”</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">He shook his head. </span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">“No I did not. Nothing she said or did was familiar to me.”</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">“Hmm. Nothing that compares in any way to anything that you may have heard recently?”</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">“No.”</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Ailynn nodded, shifting her thoughts once more. “Okay, last couple of questions. You managed to kill Maxine. Can you tell me the events that led up to this.” She shifted in her seat. “And can I impress on you to be as exact as possible.”</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">“She was taunting me about killing Greta. She told me that I had a free shot, then dropped the stasis field and I took the opportunity. She had already killed four people, tried to drown another and hurt others. This looked like the only option and as I was the closest person I took the opportunity to stop her from hurting other people.”</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">He paused for a moment.</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">“I stopped her but she had some kind of failsafe which dissolved her body once she died. As soon as she died the holodeck shut down and you all transported in.”</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">“Are you able to tell me what you used to make the strike? And where? The….Free shot as you say?” Ailynn looked at him, regarding him calmly, though her full intellect was switched on. </span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">“I used one of the two dagger that she had given to me and Greta for the fight. It went through her ribs and into her heart. She died and then  very quickly dissolved but she did say something before she died.</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">He paused for a moment as he tried to recollect what maxine had said.</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">“She said ‘My time is at an end. I underestimated you Exeter, and I paid the price. All because I needed to make sure Tyko Nix died. And now here I am dead. I was to be an empress, in the end, I was just a footnote in history. Sad. End program.’ and then you all came in.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><br></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">“So...you stabbed her, and after she spoke those words...she dissolved to ash? Sounds awfully like you used a phaser Mr Williams. Where did you get it?” In her mind she knew he hadn’t, she just wanted to see his reaction. Her face remained utterly expressionless.</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">“I did not have a phaser. I would have used the phaser earlier if I had had one. I had the dagger which was my only option.”</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Ailynn nodded. “So she was stabbed by you, gave her swansong, and then...the next bit I saw on my arrival into the room, but I want your take...she ‘dissolved’ Your thoughts?” she pushed him.</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">“Some kind of fail safe that activated when she died. She knew that she was going to get caught so she needed to die so that we could not catch her.”</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">“I understand.” She drew breath, and held his gaze. “With all this fresh in your mind, what would you do differently?” her tone was gentle, but her gaze impasse as it was, was reading his every response.</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">“Choose truth not death.”</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Ailynn nodded, and once more held Ire’s gaze, with a gentle smile fixed to her face. “I have nothing more, If there’s nothing else you need to add Lieutenant? Anything at all?”</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">“No Commander.”</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">“Then you are dismissed.” Ailynn nodded a friendly dismissal. “If anything else occurs to you Ire, anytime. You can talk to me….Ire. you hear me?”</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">“Yes.”</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">“Dismissed Lieutenant.” She nodded toward the door, her eyes deep in thought.</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Ire stood up from his chair, turned and left the office without a backward glance.</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Sighing gently, Ailynn leant back in her chair, and watched the doors close…</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">(Reply none)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(29,34,40);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">(Posted by Mark and Robbie)</span></p></span><br class="gmail-Apple-interchange-newline"></div>