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Star Trek: Iliad

The Science Officer was surprised to hear P’rmess say that. Their felinoid crewmember seemed so forward and friendly that it was hard to imagine her having difficulty interacting with anyone. In fact, the Vulcan suspected that many of the researchers here would be very happy to spend some time with the crew’s chief engineer — if only out of curiosity about her cybernetic tail.

On the other hand, that wasn’t exactly the kind of reaction they were looking for on this mission. T’Vara understood, too, what it was like to be the odd person out in a room. There were likely quite a few Vulcans among the Federation’s staff here, but she doubted there were any Caitian-Kzinti hybrids. She gave P’rmess a brief nod, then stepped forward to join Stephens and the Captain at the front of the group.

“If it helps, Commander, I believe a level of concern is warranted,” she said, clasping her hands behind her back and leaning slightly towards him as they waited. “That they knew about the device at all suggests some level of inside information, which could mean a collaborator on the ground. I will take your advice and be cautious.”
 
Walking out of the shuttle, and into the sunlight, caused Nellis to visibly tense up. Feeling his eyes stray upwards, he felt his heartrate skyrocket for a moment. He felt like one wrong step would send him flying off into the endless blue sky, like the gravity under his feet was wrong or it would somehow fail him in the moment. The vast openness of the planet made him feel a sense of virtago. He thought he had left that particular fear behind when he had joined the academy, but there was some part of him that knew he would always be agoraphobic. Maybe stevens was right and he had just turned down a good suggestion from a capable commander? T'Vara said she agreed that caution was wise.

Nellis was trying to conceal the panic, discomfort, and vertigo he got when he was planet side, he would much rather be in a zero G suit in orbit on his ship than here. He stepped inside the building, and once a roof was over his head, cutting him off from the endless blue horizon he felt more secure, and comfortable, and was able to address the crew once more.

He did turn to P'rmess. "Speaking of the device, they were able to keep that thing stable for over a hundred years, despite it using elements of unstable protomatter taking a look at the holding vault and how they were able to construct a stasis field for it would definitely be a good priority, if we can reclaim the device we will need to make sure it remains stable while it gets transported back here."

Nellis nodded the idea that there could be a collaborator. They were greeted by a small welcoming party. One of which was indeed a vulcan science officer, and flanked by two members of security.

"Greetings, welcome to the daystrum institute of advanced robotics, and technologies, I am T'Kurs, the dean and chief administrative officer." Nellis reached out to shake the Vulcan's hand, he really should have known better as his offer was rejected with a quirked eyebrow.

"I will show you to the security breach. Most non critical personnel have been sent home while the institute is on lock down, we are operating with only a handful of personnel while we look into the situation."
 
"Yes Captain, I will be taking notes, as you wish." P'rmess replied, the middle of her sentence coming out faster and in a lower voice, giving something else for the momentarily distressed man to focus on. Not knowing T'Vara's somewhat similar thoughts about her, but the Caitian hybrid did gave good hugs, and she occasionally helped her hard working engineering crew in the past to calm down by petting her - most of the humans seemed to be fascinated with her cat like fur she took great care of, and there was enough wild animal like muscles and curves under that to fascinate others. Of course that she had the perfect light and sound massager - a sonic screwdriver - built into her tail and could use it creatively helped.

But for now she was trying to let the command staff work, and was mostly just trying to stand aside and fit in somehow, as she rarely had to interact with the upper echelon - being part of them as acting chief engineer was making her nervous and stressed, thus the emergence of her hedonistic side and the look for companionship - which wouldbe ideally a big group hug that kept on into bed.

No, it wouldn't be proper, she thought, and was trying to shake off the emotions and thoughts staying away from the Science Officer to make it harder for the Vulcan to pick up on the 'disturbance'. Which was kind of hard, as P'rmess had to go and work with her now...

Brandishing her engineering tricorder to hide behind, the orange on orange tabby catwoman deftly followed the lead. Even with her eyes looking downward she would miss hitting anyone or anything while she was taking in her surroundings with all her senses - and that of the tricorders.
 
Stephens would follow the Captain and his own tricorder would be out taking readings as they went along; anything could prove to be a clue, even if it wasn't left at the scene of the crime. He also had quietly linked up to the shuttle's escape transporter, and would beam in a couple of phasers in the event of an emergency. Of course, he couldn't recall if they used a shuttle because of a transporter inhibitor field, but it was still his best option for arming him and the Captain if the situation deteriorated to the point the potential collaborator resorted to violence. The theory had merit, as the Genesis Device is a very specific target for thieves, and its existence was a closely-guarded secret. He closed his tricorder and put his head on a swivel the moment they passed other personnel. Anyone with a high enough clearance might be a suspect.
 
Ensign Leata fell in behind the Captain and Commander Stephens, the interviews were a one off thing and she would witness them first hand. She could always inspect the crime scene later, especially if the Science Officer and Engineer found something difficult to explain. She saw the logic in both the Captain's and First Officer's view on weapons, her programming was sophisticated enough to understand that sometimes there was no right answer, just competing constraints where compromise had to be made. Captain's were tasked with having the final word on such things, at least upon their own ships, but most had more experience than Captain Keoh and fewer feline distractions.

The andriod rarely felt vulnerable though she was by no means impervious to weapons, but she could be quite lethal on her own if the situation dictated it. With her unused processing power she had been reviewing the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle that seemed relevant to their current mission. A fictional detective named Sherlock Holmes used deductive reasoning to solve crimes. She had some small familiarity with crime scenes though most of the cultures she had associated with before Starfleet were rarely interested in solving crimes in any sort of systemic fashion.

She noted the protocol differences between human and Vulcan, she related well with Vulcans and appreciated their logical approach to the universe. Daystrum personnel, in her experience, needed to be kept an eye on, they had an intense interest in androids that was not always benevolent from her perspective. T'Kurs seemed to ignore her, which was welcome enough, but they could be clever. She followed at a slight distance, content to keep the Captain and Commander between her and the scientist. She had noted T'Vara's hands behind her back posture and emulated as they proceeded. She kept her mind open, collecting data before making conclusions or even hypothesis regarding the theft.
 
It was remarkable how quickly T’Vara developed a dislike for T’Kurs. True, the captain had erred by offering his hand to a Vulcan — but as the chief administrator for a multi-species Federation institution T’Kurs was no doubt entirely familiar with that customary Human greeting. It would have cost the dean nothing to acknowledge the custom, yet they instead chose to engage in a stereotypical display of cultural superiority. It was a common arrogance amongst her people, and it was one that irked the young science officer to no end.

Of course, she was still Vulcan. Her personal opinion of T’Kurs would have almost no influence on her actions. T’Vara fell into step behind without hesitation as the institute’s personnel began to lead the way, and spoke up in the gap left by their captain.

“We appreciate your taking the time to welcome us yourself, Dean. I am sure you have many demands on your time, this incident notwithstanding.” Well, that was a little petty; she was sure T’Kurs had plenty of other things they’d rather be doing, and she couldn’t resist reminding them of that.

“I am Lieutenant T’Vara, Odyssey’s chief science officer. I have been in touch with your office since yesterday, when I requested that files be prepared on any personnel who might be familiar with the device in question. If those files are ready, I ask that they be provided to our Ensign Leata as soon as possible.”

T’Vara did not indicate who she meant by ‘Ensign Leata’; after all, there was only one Ensign with them, and the reason she’d be the one to receive the files seemed obvious. T’Vara reasoned that the android’s processing power would be more than sufficient to study the files while assisting the captain and Command Stephens; and if there was anything interesting to find in there, the files might even prove helpful during their questioning.

The Vulcan hadn’t really noticed P’rmess’ attempts to avoid her yet, or that Leata was keeping her distance from T’Kurs. She was much more aware of Nellis’ tension, but she couldn’t see a way to help with that without undermining him — so she stayed focused on doing her job, the picture of Vulcan focus.
 
P'mress was helping the Dean from the background by 'surreptitiously' pointing at Ensign Leata at Lt. T'Vara's words, using her tail and free hand. Better than to accidentally being handed the files... Her fur was kind of standing up from the mentioning of any files being handed over, as she already disliked the 'paperwork' that came with having to be the acting head of engineering.
 
"I had my chief of security compile the list, but due to the nature of that device very few people on ground had actual knowledge of it's existence." T'Kurs' eye passed over Ensign Leata who had been staying in the back when T'Vara called her out and P'mress brought attention to her, his eyebrow quirked in that look of stereotypical superiority only it got worse. He chewed his lip as if was considering something, for a moment he looked less like a vulcan, and more like a ferengi who was looking at the Devine treasury. "Fascinating."

Captain Nellis was more comfortable inside the building rebuilding his stature and calming himself down. He knew this would come up again however, but for now he bid his time. Focusing on the objective at hand, while Nellis did see the look that crossed T'Kurs face he also knew the man was a Starfleet scientist, and while perhaps a bit naive he expected the dean of the largest scientific institute in Starfleet to be able to keep his hands to himself and respect the laws and hearings put into place regarding artificial intelligence and their sentient rights.

"I would like to depart with my commander to your security center, any and all scans would be helpful." Ships normally had to decloak in order to beam things aboard or fire their weapons, it was a very energy inefficient system, so he wanted to know why nothing in orbit had picked up what type of ship had flown away, they didn't know if it was Klingon, Romulan ship or some other benefactor who had stolen the device, and that made it much more difficult to narrow down the weaknesses of what they would be looking for even with the Odyssey's advanced sensor array.

One of the security officers broke off with Nellis and Commander Stephens and Leata towards the security center, T'Kurs eyes following her for a long time as she walked away.


[The vaults]

Daystrum accademy's vaults were located several stories underground by a turbo lift, walking into the crime scene and in particular vault 43 where the item in question had once been held the thieves had left transporter boosters in place due to their hasty exit. the containment unit had been cracked with a phaser, but much of the actual containment unit was still in place. The vault it's self had very few visitors, and the area around it mostly collected dust. The outside of the containment unit did not say what had been inside it, rather just a serial number that had to be plugged into a database to find out it's actual contents.

"We did the biological sweeps already, and I believe we sent your ship our list of perpetrators." T'Kurs said standing back from the area, however he was not focused on the broken vault, as his eyes had drifted towards P'rmess' mechanical tail now that that Leata had left them. His posture said that he was pretty much bored with this investigation but he had to stick around as he was one of the few people who knew how the vault operated.



[security center]

Nellis walked into the monitoring room of the security center. The far side housed an in station brig, but he was here for the computer core wanting to take a deeper look at the computers logs and files. "Leata you take the seat." He said gesturing for her to take over the search through all of the logs and archives the computer core had on hand. He leaned in close to her and Stephens. "Be discreet, but see if any of the logs have been modified since the break in."

Nellis turned to stephans. "A word number one?"

"By now you have likely noticed my... discomfort when we were outside." He said wanting to put this out into the open exposing a bit of the truth about himself. He set himself down in front of a monitoring station. "I grew up on starships, this is the first time I've stepped foot on a planet in a few years... they make me uncomfortable." How this particular quirk of his personality had been overlooked was a mystery most could solve rather easily.

"The blue sky... the clouds... it's not natural. without anti gravity plates under my feet I feel like I could just float into space." Nellis was a bit more defensive than he should have been. "In the future, you will be handling away missions that involve planetary assignments."
 
Stephens nodded, his expression one of understanding. "Of course, Sir. My brother has agoraphobia, and since being on away missions is a big part of being in Starfleet, he was upset that it would make it difficult to join. Plus, Starfleet protocol dictates that I'd be the usual choice to lead a landing party anyway, so we have that to cover our proverbial bases. Would you like me to start looking for available counselors after we recover the Genesis device?" He was trying to be helpful, but he really didn't know if his suggestion would be taken well or not. "Bajor is a beautiful planet, by the way. I hope one day you'll get to enjoy it." Clearing his throat, he spoke in a normal volume now that they were past the sensitive subject, "Orders, Sir?"
 
"You should tell him that there is plenty of work that you can accomplish from space. I recommend the Starfleet engineering core, worked with them for a while out of the academy a lot of my away missions i lead were evo-walks disassembling old stations. It is a lot easier to take things apart than assemble them... When I was a commander I was lucky it was mostly patrols around the Romulan neutral zone. Boring job, but boring is good sometimes." Nellis had actually expected his commander to be more antagonistic of the confession, or perhaps even mock him, maybe under less time constrained situations that would have been the case.

"A ships counselor would be good for a number of reasons, but I think focusing on bridge crew would be better. We aren't on a diplomatic envoy mission." He did feel like the mentioning of Bajor was a bit of a dig on him, but if that was the worst his acting first officer would give him than it was fine.

"I admit I don't know what we are looking for, but the list of names who knew the... device was here is rather short. Finding them and talking to them would be a good first move while Leata goes through the database." He looked at the names on the list that had been provided to Leata.

T'Kurs' name was here, but Nellis doubted that interogating the vulcan dean of the science facility would provide them any additional information on the matter. Which left a few other names.

Commander Zhani th'Nessa, the andorian chief of security, Lieutenant Cormac Volante an archivist, and lastly a singular name, Jarv with no associated rank or role. "Your pick who do we interview first?"
 
"Jarv," he responded, picking the name at random, although the fact that the person was something of an unknown entity could have had something to do with it. "Ensign, do you believe that you can detect visual abnormalities that suggest a person is lying on a security monitor?", he asked, turning to Leata. The idea was for her to lend her skills in aiding in their interviews while at the same time allowing her to keep reviewing the records. If she answered in the affirmative, he'd have additional instructions before they got started.
 
Had she been burdened with human emotions and anxieties, she might have shot T'Vara a cold stare for mentioning her to the Dean. But instead she gave the Vulcan a nod of acknowledgement as his eyes fell upon her. She was unaware of P'mress gyrations behind her, thinking largely as the two Vulcans that by process of elimination based on rank, the Android was clearly the intended recipient. It would make for a somewhat amusing scene if Leata had more thoroughly explored humor. She was familiar with the human concept of 'feeling one's eyes upon them' but thought it nonsense. However when she turned to confirm the group was splitting up, there was T'Kurs staring at her with more than idle curiosity.

She took the seat as ordered. "Aye Sir" . Her fingers were a blur as she input instructions into the console in the primitive fashion still used as an interface. As she was within earshot she heard the conversation between her superior officers, perplexed in a way by such an irrational fear.

"Excuse me gentlemen." She said as her fingers continued at their rapid pace and her eyes remained focused on the data streaming past the console in a blur. "But shouldn't we consider those without documented knowledge of the device?" She acted as if the mere prod should make it obvious as to her intention. "Obviously, someone intent on stealing such a device, might have informed a compromised accomplice stationed here. In which case our list might be inadequate?"

"Here are an additional seven names of low level staff that do not have high level security clearances. They are low level maintenance and custodial staff, but they would have the requisite access to the general area of the vault. After all, even high security areas need to be cleaned and maintained from time to time."

After about seven minutes, her fingers went still and soon after her eyes turned towards the two officers. "These 3 files have been modified, another four have been deleted. Both groups are encrypted but the Dean likely has a a key that would make the task much easier." She suggested, even if she wasn't excited to see the Dean again so soon.
 
Stephens nodded at the android in acknowledgement. "Good idea. Among organic beings, sometimes those who go unnoticed on a daily basis are prime suspects for espionage. But I asked you a question, Ensign, and I expect you to answer it!" His tone was formal, commanding, the kind that demands attention from a subordinate.
 
She hadn't so much ignored Commander Stephens question as had prioritized it below that of the captains and her own idea. Both of which she felt were more timely in needing addressed. She was well informed as to the rank structure of Starfleet, and bound by its rules. Commander Stephens was of course correct, technically she owed him an answer. But she found the rank structure a bit arbitrary and at times grating.

"My answer, Commander Stephens, is that there are a great many signs of dishonesty and evasion given out by most species on this station. They are both visual, auditory, and olfactory and I am capable of detecting them all. However what they mean is often open to interpretation and very contextual as to the individual. Lie detecting is an ancient pseudo science that is generally inadmissible in formal legal inquiries."

She looked towards the captain to be sure he was engaged and aware of the conversation as it would be his opinion that would matter most here. "Someone may be trying to hide something because they are guilty but it also might be that they don't like Starfleet, or they think the questioner is an arrogant prick. It is simply very open to interpretation."

She paused to let her words sink in then offered her own take on the situation. "However, if it were suggested I could do what you suggest, it might prompt the suspect into being more forthcoming in their answers, even if I don't actually perceive any meaningful data from them." She looked back at Commander Stephens, if he was hoping for some sign that she felt cowed by his tone, he would be disappointed.
 
With her biomechanical tail covered in fur similar to her own, P'mress realised that the inbuilt tool was peeking out at the end in all the excitement. Grooming the hair over the now fully turned off sonic screwdriver - instead of having it on stand by - she could concentrate on the physical evidence. As they only scanned biological remains, she started with scanning for scratches, microfractures, mineral oils, and then going up to take samples of the air and check the nearest filters and logs of the life support system. There was a tolerance, so not every small difference would trigger bio-containment, but even if they was disintegrated by the usual molecular scrubbers, they could leave a log addition...

Of course it was more like justa slight hope to find anything that way. P'mress main work would be finding out where the transporter boosters came from, and how and when they workedlast, maybe where they went - or what kind of transport they strenghtened last. She could try triggering a repeat of the last transport, but for that, she would need contact with the transporter chief on board the U.S.S. Odyssey.

"Lt, Maybe I can try hunting down the shadow of the transport, using the Odyssey to guess the point in space and the mass that was transported... But it needs the ship closer and a synchronysing with the transporter inhibitors of the Institution, with a recalibration of the ship's scanners and one transporter bay. Eventhen I give it only about a twenty percent chance to show where they transported, if we are lucky, even a mirage of what was transported. Not enough to see faces, but maybe enough to get an idea of equipment and basic forms. ... Or we can get spacesuits, and just try re-triggering a transport to the target site. Both possibilities are mutually exclusive, and I fear that even trying any of them could overload the boosters, destroying evidence..."
 
“You did,” T’Vara said, acknowledging the Dean’s words with a slight nod in his direction. She’d noticed his lack of interest — or rather, his wandering interest — and found it rather distasteful, especially for a Vulcan, but she kept that opinion to herself. Part of her almost found it suspicious how easily he was distracted and how openly he wore his thoughts… but then, he had presumably spent quite a lot of time around humans. And perhaps she’d spent too much, as well, if she was letting her personal dislike influence her judgment.

For her part, the Science Officer focused her initial investigation on the containment unit itself. While P’rmess was taking samples of the air and checking life support filters, T’Vara used her tricorder to record data on radiation and other trace fluctuations in the area — starting around the container, then eventually holding her tricorder inside it once she’d confirmed it was safe. The data was unlikely to provide any particularly enlightening information by itself, but they’d be able to use it to narrow down their search and better lock their scans onto the stolen device and any trace signature it might leave in its wake.

The transporter boosters were T’Vara’s next priority, as physical evidence directly linked to the culprits, but before she could turn her attention that way, P’rmess already had things under control. T’Vara heard out her idea, then nodded in agreement.

“An interesting idea. I believe that the potential gain is worth the risk. We already have recordings of the intruder’s physical appearances from the Institute’s security systems, but if we can identify the coordinates they were transported to, it would significantly speed the Odyssey's search. I will contact the captain for permission. In the meantime, would you mind examining these phaser burns? I would like to know what kind of weapon produced them.”

She indicated slight scorch marks against the metal where the intruders had cut through to the vault’s shielding controls, then stepped away from the vault herself for a moment and tapped her comm badge.

“Lieutenant T’Vara to Captain Keoh. P’rmess has an idea that may allow us to learn more about how the intruders transported out, including where their ship was located, but we will need to move the Odyssey closer and tie our transport system in with the Institution’s inhibitors. We may also damage the transporter enhancers that they left behind. Do we have your permission to proceed?”

She didn’t mention the part about potentially beaming one of them into orbit. There was no need to distract him with that detail.
 
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Jarv was certainly the stand out of the names, as the other names seemed to make sense. Added to that list rather quickly was the janitorial and maintenance crews, which the files had overlooked. Leata was definitely the correct person to go through any database. Keoh leaned in on the android as she told him that four files had been deleted, and another three had been altered. He nodded glad to hear that his hunch was correct.

While Jarv and the other members of the low ranking staff were interesting, the fact that secure files had been altered and deleted pointed to someone more high ranking was in league with the thieves. For a moment he thought back to the dominion war, the changelings and how they had replaced key members of the federation during their time at war. He quickly squashed that little fear, the dominion war was over, treaties had been signed, and the changelings were on the other side of the galaxy, hopefully never to be heard from again.

This on the other hand seemed different. Something about all of this seemed strange. He was snapped out of his thoughts when he heard Stephens talk to Leata. His first officer was a lot more strict with his tone than Nellis was it seemed. Nellis tended to believe you could catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, but he also understood that sometimes the firm hand was needed, and that roll often fell to the commander who could keep a closer eye on the pulse of the crew.

"Leata, do what you can to restore the altered files, I'd much like to see what you can find, if you can retrace and bring the deleted files back as well that would be good for us. If you can get those have them sent to the Odyssey." If they had been deleted once they could be deleted again, and they would need as much evidence as they could get their hands on if they were going to make accusations against anyone here.

Nellis perked up slightly hearing T'Vara's voice come in through the communicator. Tapping his badge. "Captain, here." He tried to keep his more serious tone. "permission granted, I'll have the helm await P'rmess's command."

"Captain Keoh to the Odyssey, coordinate with Chief Petty Officer P'rmess and be ready to move to the coordinates they provide."

"Number one, after ensign Leata is done with the security files I think we can begin with our interviews in narrowing down our targets, starting with Jarv, and working our way down the seniority of command. I want to clear the suspicion off the high ranking officers first so we can better work with the people here on the ground."
 
As the captain leaned in to observe the files in question, Leata sat patiently for him to take in the information. She had long since stopped remarking on how long it took most biologicals to look at a computer display and comprehend what was being shown to them. It was merely a few seconds but when one has a processing speed approaching 100 trillion operations per second, it seemed almost painfully slow. She used to ask if their visual processing systems were in need of adjustment, sort of the android equivalent of asking is someone is blind. A few angry rebukes and she simply learned to be silently patient as she was now.

"Aye Sir." She said crisply as she used the captain's order as an excuse to disengage from her conversation with the commander. He would either accept her answer or query further, she added his response to her profile of him, just as she did with the captain and every other sentient entity she had met. She used her data on each of them to refine her interactions with them based on her perception of their temperament, trustworthiness, skill level, and various other attributes. She didn't so much like or dislike particular individuals, but she did tend to rank them by the complexity of their respective response algorithms.

Though it was not directed to her, she did note well the planned interrogation schedule from the captain. She then chimed in with an update. "Captain, there is a 98% change of recovering the data if a coordinate with the station IT officer. If I do it clandestinely, the percentage of success drops to 78% with a 12.7% chance of being detected. How would you like me to proceed Sir?" It was, at least to her, logically obvious that if files were tampered with, the IT team might be responsible or at least involved.
 
Stephens nodded, a little apologetic that he'd reacted so harshly when the situation might not have called for it. He listened to the conversation between the Captain and Leata, and he interjected at the end. "If I may, would it help if we coordinated with someone from the Odyssey? One of our own computer specialists might lower the chance of being detected, without having to involve any potential suspects. As low as the illustrious Leata has estimated the odds of detection to be, there's always room for improvement. As for the suspect list, and the order in which we interview them, I believe that we should make them believe that the Ensign can in fact tell when they're lying, and we should interview the high-ranking personnel first. If files have been deleted, then there is at least one senior staff member involved in the theft, which is probably the conclusion you both came to, of course."

He stood against the wall near the door, feeling fairly pleased with himself but not outwardly showing it. However, he couldn't help but feel like he wasn't contributing as much as he could. Even though his specialty was Engineering and he would soon be putting on a red uniform, he still felt like 'one of the crew,' ready to roll up his sleeves and get to work, much like his favorite Professor back at the Academy. He'd need to adjust, certainly. "Orders, Captain?", he asked.
 
After giving out her strong suggestions to the technicians onboard the Odyssey through coms, but in their own technical jargon, P'rmess did had time to refocus on the scorch marks.

"Curious... These seems to be from a type of plasma weapon, similar to the Ferengi hand phaser. I heard that plasma phaser was a proposed Starfleet weapon for use against the Borg too sometime before stardate 44 thousand or so... Then the regenerative phaser debuted. So, something that could be used in dampening fields or radiogenic environments where conventional energy weapons would be useless." she mused mostly for herself, but aimed her words towards Lieutenant T'Vara.

Then she returned to coordinate the hi-lo-jacking of the transporter boosters. Just as with the ship scale transporters, there was a buffer inside them to strengthen whatever method was used on the other end of the transport. What people usually forgot was purging the memory fully, seeing that the next transport would do it automatically, and it was not enough to reconstruct the whole copy of a more complex material.

But hidrogen was not a complex material, and living tissue had enough water with hidrogen atoms in it. Also, what she really hoped to recover was the coordinates, and not specifically every atoms, just the close approximate of them. In the end, the re-energized ghost image would be more like a cloud of hidrogen, but if observed by the ship's sensors, it would be a good picture of what was transported. Maybe even telling more than the numbers and sizes of the living people... Best case, even their race and sex could be told - as their clothes did not had much hidrogen atoms in them usually.

"Lieutenant, I am quite sure that the material that was stolen could not be transported this way." she realised when the whole experiment finally went down, sparking up the boosters and getting them some after images that she tried to record onsite with her tricorder. "Maybe whoever worked with the thiefs set these up, and transported in the others." she said, as it was obvious that the transport had been an incoming one, so unfortunately no coordinates on the outside.

"We are looking for another way of them leaving with this volatile thing they came for. They would need a warp capable shuttle ... like the one we got here in!"
 
T’Vara nodded her understanding as P’rmess described the weapons which had created the scorch marks. Knowing that they were plasma weapons didn’t mean much by itself, other than that the thieves had come prepared for the Institute’s defenses — plasma weaponry wasn’t hard to come by if one had the latinum to spend, after all — but it was another data point that might prove useful later. With that out of the way, the Lieutenant set about helping P’rmess with her transporter experiment.

Despite her earlier modesty, P’rmess was quickly proving to be a valuable asset on this investigation. T’Vara was grateful that the engineer had agreed to the suggestion that she come along, in the end; while the science officer could follow the theory of what P’rmess was doing, she doubted that she would have come up with this particular idea on her own, and even if she had, she wouldn’t have had the technical know-how to pull it off herself. The Vulcan tapped a few settings into one of the booster pylons at P’rmess’ direction, then stepped back to take her own scans as the experiment came online.

The Vulcan’s eyebrows knitted as she examined the data. The hydrogen after-image was consistent with the footage they had received from station security — two adult male humanoids, matching the approximate height and weight of their Vulcan suspects. The footage showed the men transporting out, however, which matched the eyewitness report from security personnel. If they had in fact transported in, then either both the report and footage had been tampered with prior to transmission… or the security staff were collaborating with the thieves.

The Captain had to be warned. T’Vara reached for her combadge again. “T’Vara to Captain Keoh.”

There was no response.

“T’Vara to Odyssey.”

Silence. Her signal had been cut off.

The thieves must still be here. They had been waiting for something — perhaps for the Odyssey crew to be tied up in their investigations. To what end, she wasn’t sure yet.

Without hesitation, T’Vara turned on her heel and started to stride urgently for the exit. “Dean T’Kurs, your security staff has been compromised,” she said, as she approached the administrator. “Find yourself somewhere safe and attempt to trigger the alarm if you can. P’rmess, we need to secure the shuttle.”

Whatever the thieves intended, the crew were going to need their weapons — and those were back on the shuttle, a considerable distance from the vaults. T’Vara broke into a run.
 
The Vaults.

T'kurs stood silently for the moment his hands behind his back in that stereo typical vulcan manner. Allowing him to reach subtly under his shirt. Watching as the communications were cut off, and T'Vara's hails to the Odyssey in orbit were silenced. As she moved to head towards the exit, T'Kurs smiled. Moving in to cut them off. "I am aware."

T'Kurs could finally let his posture drop. for the first time in years he could allow himself to smile, and laugh at just how pathetic the federation was. "You have no idea, how long things have been in motion. How painful and slow all of this has been for me. I honestly have no idea how any Vulcan does it, and yet it is pathetically easy to fool any of you. all 'logic says this' and logic dictates that. I know I shouldn't be talking, but I feel like I haven't gotten to use my voice in eight years!"

There was an attempt to grab T'Vara assessing the Vulcan and her heightened strength as more of a threat as he reached there was a flash of metal as he drew a knife on her. Attempting to end the fight in the archives quickly so he could kill them and get to the bug out point.



security center

It was a rough choice, coordinate on the ground with someone who was potentially compromised, or try to bring in someone from the odyssey. "Good suggestion commander Stephens." Nellis tapped his com badge.

"Captain Keoh to the odyssey." no response. he paused for a moment, that was strange. Nellis understood the need for a transport blockout, but they had just been talking with the Odyssey. He went back to the files for a moment looking them over. A name suddenly very much sticking out on the list, but in a very different way. He picked up the pad and double checked mumbling under his breath as he connected the dots all too slow.

"Chief of security, Zhani th'Nessa... Andorian." He said looking around them, they were in the security center for the entire building. Nellis marked several people, This would naturally be where the chief of security would be... except... there wasn't any Andorian here. He saw humans, and Vulcans, and that was all they had seen since they had gotten here. and then the chaos started.

The captain didn't see the phaser till it was lifted up, and a shot was fired. Pain burned through his chest, his entire body going stiff, falling ungracefully to the floor as a rather sudden fire fight started up, the Vulcan's on the security team turning to fire on the humans that had been stationed here, along with Keoh who was struck down in the first seconds of the fire fight, stunned thankfully, but alarm bells were now going off through the building.
 
Leata was task focused but when she heard the captain unable to raise the Oddysey she looked into that little curiosity. "We are being jam...." She began to say but her voice was drowned out by the phaser blast that struck the captain in the chest. Fortunately the captain wasn't vaporized so she inferred that the phaser was set to stun which seemed odd given the lethality of what was stolen. She wasn't really certain who was on what side so she opted to get low and assess the situation. Taking stock of who was whom and calculating the angle from which the shot that hit the captain came from she deduced that it was the Vulcan's who had attacked him. Why they would do that made little sense but it was irrelevant to their immediate problem.

Having no weapon against phasers she decided to improvise. Seeing phaser blasts coming from the opposite side of the console she had been working, she simply listed and tipped it over on top of the vulcan who was firing. There was a slight groan of the lag bolts that anchored the console but as they snapped it flipped over quickly, sparks erupted from the conduits that fed power to the console and there was a whiff of ozone in the air to mingle with the plasma burns. The console hadn't been heavy enough to actually crush the Vulcan. His phaser hand emerged from underneath and took a blind shot at Leata who dodged it. The blast just missed Commander Stephens.

Leata reached down and grabbed the hand, placing pressure with one finger in the web of flesh between thumb and index finger his hand released the weapon as she quickly exceeded his pain threshold. She seized the phaser and with a quick shout 'Commander' tossed it to him as he had the better position. She then lifted the console and punched the Vulcan in the face, hard enough to render him unconscious but not quite enough to fracture his skull, or so she estimated. "I think we found another clue Commander." She said, in a conversational manner, though her voice raised a bit to be heard over the firefight.
 
Stephens connected the dots much faster. He was unable to prevent the Captain from being stunned, however, and he immediately ducked for cover when the phaser fire started, dragging Captain Keoh behind it. When Ensign Leata tipped the console onto one of their attackers, he grimaced slightly. Catching the phaser and firing at anyone with pointy ears and slanted eyebrows, Stephens chuckled at the Ensign's unintentional sarcasm. "You don't say, Ensign? Find another console and see if you can shut down the jamming signal. And while you're at it, try and remodulate the transporter inhibitor so it'll allow Odyssey's transporters to work, but not the enemy's." With his phaser in one hand, he pulled out his tricorder and attempted to use the uplink he'd established with the shuttle to lock it down or make it take off automatically, whichever was easiest. Almost the moment he either successfully did one of those things or realized it was not possible at the moment, he stunned a Vulcan (or so it appeared) wielding a phaser rife. Making a combat dive and roll, picking up the weapon in the process, he set it to wide beam stun and fired at a large group of hostiles, which made the subsequent dispatching of the rest much easier.
 
P'rmess just grabbed a transporter enhancer pole, and threw it at T'kurs, when it became obvious that he was monologuing and standing on the wrong side - that is, in front of the exit and T'Vara's hurry. She tried not to hit 'their' vulcan, but there was another two thick rod like missile she could easily throw towards the man... Vulcans was hard enough that even if she brained either one, they would just get a slight concussion.

Starfleet and 'civilized' people always forgot that there was cultures out there with more fight in them. And while Klingons was on par with the Romulans in technology warfare, the Kzinti was just plain nasty. She herself was part Caitian enough to look more laid back, but even the most house broken cat was able to go wild and fight when needed, the only difference being their size to the great wild cats.

P'rmess would have let the two Vulcan speak it out, if not for the others of the crew in possible danger. So, she barreled through the distracted Vulcans on all fours, even jumping over them if needed and possible. She would be fast to disappear in the corridor from any retaliation - if she just could get through any closed doors.

Being phasered down was still a possibility, of course.
 
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