A Little Hope

Posted on Wed Sep 5th, 2018 @ 2:37pm by Telhas thu'S'Terion Sa-Shasol'kor t'Cheleb-Khor
Edited on on Wed Sep 5th, 2018 @ 2:39pm

517 words; about a 3 minute read

Mission: Mission 1: The Return to Faltan
Location: ISV Kaiell, in Orbit of Faltan
Timeline: MD06 - 1730

Maiek had the investigations team assembled to get an update. They had spent the entire day analyzing the scans and data.

"What do you have for me?" the older man asked.

Uhlan Rovel spoke up. "Knight Commander, the really interesting question's rather what we don't have." He was young, ambitious, and what most people would consider a nerd. Normally he worked in Engineering, but Maiek had him assigned to his team.

"Explain," Maiek replied calmly.

Rovel stood up from his chair and walked to the large screen at the room's wall. He activated it and opened a file. "What we see here is the scan of the embassy's site. We can clearly see the crater of the explosion and the damage around." He highlighted some parts, which looked like blurs of colour. "This here, are DNA traces. They originate from where someone had been hit and they are in a specific pattern for each victim, depending on where they stood and with what impact and what source of force they had been hit."

Maiek rubbed his forehead. "You mean blood?"

"Uhmmm. Not exactly. This can also be minor traces, like pieces of DNA you find even when someone gets vaporized by a disruptor," Rovel explained. "You know, the perfect crime is not that easy. There are almost always traces left. It took me the entire day to find them in the scan data. Aaand," he added triumphantly, "to assign them to every individual person."

"Aha," Maiek leaned back in his chair. "And what is it we do not have?"

"Uhm, this." Rovel hacked some commands into the console and a very fine pattern of DNA appeared around the explosion crater, as if spray had settled from an origin inside the crater, but nothing showed in the crater. "This, Sir, would be Lady Nevala's DNA traces."

"And they are not there?" Lieutenant t'Veurn asked. The young woman had been an investigator before she joined the Duke's guards.

"Exactly!" Rovel grinned.

Maiek leaned forward. "Could we have missed them? Could they have been erased?"

"No chance we missed them, Sir," Rovel replied calmly, "And if they would have been erased we would have found transporter decay or any other energy decay around, which we did not. I have fitted the explosion characteristics and substracted the resulting decay from the scans. There is nothing. At least not outside the crater. Inside I have difficulty for the analysis. But outside, no."

Maiek rubbed his forehead again. "You are telling me she was not there?"

"I am telling you she was not inside the explosion," Rovel said fully confident with his reply.

"Hence not there," t'Veurn added.

"If she was not there when that thing exploded, where has she disappeared?" Maiek asked. After a moment he added "And when?"

Rovel shrugged and shook his head.

"Very well, you will get me an answer. Take whatever resources you need." Maiek went to the door and turned. "Anything else?"

His team did not say anything.

Maiek sighed. "Great. Then we consider Lady Nevala missing. I will inform the Duke. Jolan'tru everyone."

"Jolan'tru," they replied.

 

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