Investigation Part 1

Posted on Sat Aug 27th, 2011 @ 9:39am by Major Patrick Smith

Mission: In Our Time of Need
Location: SB900

"Sergeant Ninian report!" Smith barked quite uncharacteristically as he entered the bay with the ruined fighter.

Ninian was talking to one of the pilots and spun round in surprise. "Sir its been confirmed that the parts came from the Bounty Hunter Store."

Smith knew that already. He had done the checks himself, but there was just something about hearing it from a second person that helped to make sure he was on the right lines. "Ok thanks. Salvage whatever you can from the fighter. We are pretty much done with it as evidence, and anything we do need will be no use to you anyway."

"Aye aye sir."

Smith walked to the Command room and looked at the components again. Scrolling down through them he spotted the detonator. It was a pretty basic timer device that they would use to set off explosives. Weird thing in hindsight to have in the Marine flight deck stores Patrick mused. He was still waiting for tests to come back to help narrow down when it was planted as the mini drive on the device would tell them how long the timer had been set for. He doubted it would have been on long as there would have been no guarantee the pilots would have been in space otherwise.

He took a look at the crew roster for everyone who had access and looked through it for anyone who might have wanted Jim dead. The first name his eyes fell too was that of Jad Raynar. He had the history, but that was also as Smith suspected a reason why he wouldn't. Jad's entire life seemed to be the Marines now and Smith doubted he would have thrown it away just because Jim was a better pilot with the scars to match. The next obvious choice if you followed the line of Jealousy thinking would be that it was Smith. And Patrick sitting there thinking about it could see how that would work... Except he hadn't been in that store since he had arrived and was checking the place out, long before Jim hard appeared.

Patrick continued flicking through until he spotted a name on the list. that drew his attention. He nearly put it out right away as the man had no reason to want Jim dead. But if you looked at it from a different direction it could have been a set up. But either way he had no proof.

As if by queue the door opened and in came Sergeant Ninian. "Sir the lab has sent the results in. The timer was set to just 10 seconds."

Smith just laughed. "10 seconds is a tad unlikely. That would mean the bomber was strapped to the hull."

"Yes sir. But sir the lab also found evidence of a transmission on the drive."

Smith nearly kicked himself. "Of course! That would mean that someone on the base could have detonated it once they knew he was on the OP."

It was Ninian's turn to look slightly out of it now. "Yes but how can we work out who it was. No one would have done it from their own fighter."

Patrick had a spout of new life despite the lack of sleep. "Ahh yes. But they could have used a remote detonator linked to the timer. We can use the bases sensors to pick out our man!" Smith pulled up the sensor logs yet again and turned them towards the group of Vampires. There were a few possible transmissions just before the detonation to pick from. But it wasn't clear just which one.

Thinking quickly he looked around the room before walking to a console and pulling up the war game runabout logs. The runabout was always floating during a wargame and Patrick knew that while the logs were for recording the radio chatter and the actual positions the sensor logs could be used to narrow it all down. Matching the logs shown from SB900 and the runabouts together he eliminated the ones which were further away from Jim's fighter and left only 3 possibles. And one belonged to the man Patrick suspected.