What Has Been Seen Cannot Be Unseen

Posted on Wed Feb 13th, 2013 @ 7:32pm by Lieutenant Nick Marcinko & Lieutenant Commander Leto

Mission: The Struggle Within
Location: Archadia Prime - Veist's Residence
Timeline: Current

It took about thirty minutes to find his way to the location Leto had given him--Nick still had a little trouble finding his way around the winding streets of the city, but he found the out-of-the-way house that had been cleverly built back in the treeline and all but hidden from view from the casual passerby, or those that didn’t actually live in the area. As was standard practice he circled the residence a few times looking for traps, sensors or anything else that may be detrimental to him or Leto. Given Zoudin’s occupation, he wouldn’t have put it past the man to have bobby-trapped the place in some way. However, the grounds were clean. Apparently his close association to ‘Imara’ had made him deactivate anything he had in place to keep her from being injured...or he thought the house’s location was security enough.

He entered the back door as Leto had suggested and walked through the place. It turned his stomach as he neared the bedroom and couldn’t bring himself to go in. He closed the door. As he walked through the rest of the residence, the lights still out, he noticed the mess that had been made from the attack. The blood pool was still in the floor and it had dried now, but the coppery smell was still lingering in the air.

The front door rattled. He turned and hid behind the island in the kitchen and pulled his knife. It was probably Leto arriving but he couldn’t take any chances. Things were not what they seemed on this planet of Federation hopefuls.

The door slid open and Leto hurried in, closing it behind her. “Nick?” she whispered.

Not taking any chances, Nick slid his head to the side of the island and looked at the door to make sure she was alone. Satisfied he stood and sheathed his knife. “What are we looking for?”

“That’s just it, I’m not sure.” Leto moved around the front rooms, closing curtains, then moved on to the other rooms to do the same. Only once all the windows were covered, did she come back out and turn on some lights. “All I can say is we’ll know it when we see it. Knowing Veist, it will be hidden well too.”

He said nothing else and began looking through the kitchen cabinets, checking the floors and walls for hidden access points and he wasn’t exactly being quiet about it. More than once he threw pots or pans on the ground. He was still angry and hurt and now he was having to go through the most personal effects of the man that he hated.

Leto watched him for a few moments, then turned and vanished into the bedroom, knowing Nick wouldn't set foot in it, to begin the search. She started with the dresser and one by one, checked all the drawers for hidden compartments, but came up empty. She then checked underneath it and behind to make sure nothing was stuck there out of sight. That done, she moved on to the closet.

He’d finished wrecking the kitchen and had moved to the living room. He took great pleasure in destroying several things that must have been prizes for Zoudin. Holo-images of people and places, little knick-knacks that had to have been trophies of some sort and a longsword that he bent with his foot and managed to twist into an unusable shape. But he came up empty. And by now his rage was getting the better of him. He realized that he was spending more time simply destroying things rather than looking for hidden compartments or a small cache of...something.

After what was almost two and a half hours he needed a bathroom break. He made sure to piss all over the place just to tarnish the memory of the shit stick that had more or less ruined his life. He kicked the toilet, rammed his knee into the sink knocking it cockeyed from its attachment to the wall. Then he noticed something odd.

As he was just about to ram his size thirteens into the side of the traditional bathtub the floor gave way a bit. Stopping mid-kick he leaned down and tapped the side of the tub, then the floor right beside it. He took the side of the tub and tried to pick it up but it didn’t move until he noticed an extra toilet paper spindle on the wall. With a turn the floor let out a small amount of pressurised gas and the bathtub tilted, revealing an opening. He checked it, too, for booby traps and then stepped down onto the small stairs to a tiny room under the house.

Jackpot.

In the bedroom, Leto could hear the path of Nick’s destruction but she kept silent. Things were bad enough, telling him to stop would only make matters worse. What tipped her off, however, was his sudden silence. She hurried from the bedroom and down to the bath. Whatever she’d expected to see, a hidden staircase wasn’t it. Kneeling down by the opening she called softly.

“Nick?”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t want to speak to her. Hell, he was barely able to look at her after what she had done. Instead, he continued going through the records that Zoudin had apparently kept on every mission he’d done for the past fifteen years. It was going to take a while to sift through it all but he was sure that if he’d kept such meticulous records of past missions that he’d also have kept some sort of evidence that they could use against Aegina and her goons. And if that was the case, the PM and quite a few of her own would be ousted from the palace.

Leto’s eyes narrowed and she fought back the growl that burned within her. Instead, she descended the staircase and stopped immediately taking in what was here. It was an absolute treasure trove of subterfuge and evil deeds.

“We should get the records out and you can take them back to the station.”

Keeping his back to her he finally found something of interest and shoved it in her direction. It was details about his contact with Aegina when she was still in Parliament asking him to come to the planet to pose as an Archadian to help her move up in the political world using his specific bag of tricks. With the other evidence in the room about his past experiences, it wouldn’t take much, just from that information, to prove that Aegina knew who he was, what he was capable of and that her reasons for involving him were not on the up-and-up. As he let Leto digest that particular information he began stacking up more of the records to be moved upstairs and beamed directly to the intelligence offices in 900.

“If he has all this, there has to be a record of his dealings since.” She stepped further into the room and began to turn slowly, looking at walls and floor. It was time to think like Veist. She let her thoughts travel back to his confession on the shuttle. Such evidence would be out of sight, even here in this secret room. But where? As Nick moved, the light hit the stone wall and for an instant, reflected off something. Stepping closer, she could see a stone about Veist’s eye level that had a faint silver mark on it. It was one she knew as it was also on the arrow he’d given her.

“Nick, here!”

He turned, a bit perturbed at the whole thing. Sure, he knew what all of this meant and how it could essentially topple a government--been there, done that. But he hated where he was. All he could think about was what had transpired here.

With a huff he watched as she worked on the stone and pulled it free, revealing another small hidey-hole within this much larger one. There were several data PADDs within. Their extra protection behind the wall meant that they must have been very, very special to him...or very, very damning to someone.

She dropped the stone and pulled out the padds. A quick examination told her they were locked but that would be the work of minutes for Nick, if that. Silently, she passed them over to him.

Going back up the steps, Nick returned a few moments later with one of his code breaking PADDs attached to the ones that had been found. The first one was easy, four minutes’ worth of hacking and he was in. It was Zoudin’s personal information: real name, race, date of birth, parents...his entire history on one device. The second PADD took a bit longer. As Leto looked through the first Nick finally finished after almost ten minutes. It was what they were looking for. He placed it on the small bench next to her and began on the third.

“Jackpot,” she said softly. “This should keep you, Patrick and Kh’ali entertained for a little while, and Admiral Hawke as well.”

Nick’s face turned sheet white then scarlet red. His hands began to tremble and the display screen on the PADD he held shattered. “Sonofabitch!” he yelled. “Fuck this shit! Fuck you, fuck Zoudin and fuck this place! I’m out of here!” He threw the PADD across the room where it bounced on a canvas sack and clattered to the floor and stomped up the steps. The back door slammed shut as he left. He began running as he fumed, wanting to put as much distance between her and himself as he could. Finally, after half a mile, he stopped and realized that he couldn’t get much further away than 900. Moments later, he disappeared in a shimmer of light.

Leto gathered up the padds, took a few minutes to transfer the information from the one with the cracked screen to one of the others, then carried them all back up. Once she’d closed the secret entrance to the stairs, she moved back to the bedroom, sat on the bed and activated the information from the third padd.

Despite the damage to the unit the playback began where Nick had apparently left off. It seemed that Veist’s residence was rigged to record in every room of the house, a security feature, no doubt. This particular bit of recording showed both he and Imara deep in the throes of passion. It seemed that Imara was quite taken with him and they were mated to be sure. Checking the timestamp on this particular bit of data it showed that this session lasted over an hour and a half. There were more images and recordings on the device as well, all equally as disturbing.

She sucked in a breath and closed her eyes, holding the padd to her chest. She would have to remove this before giving the padds to Patrick. This had no bearing on the rest and it was bad enough that Nick had seen it. It would be devastating if he knew anyone else had seen it. Carefully, Leto pulled the pertinent info from that padd, consolidated all that Intel needed to know on one, changed the code on the other and rose, slipping them into her pockets. She had to get this to 900 immediately. First she turned off the lights, then secured the house. Once done, she made her way to the spaceport to catch a shuttle to 900.


--------------------------------
Lt.(jg) Leto
Nowhere to run to, baby...nowhere to hide....

&

MCPO Nick Marcinko
He ran, he ran so far away...