Habeas Corpus - Investigation

Posted on Thu Oct 15, 2015 @ 5:25pm by Captain Isha t'Vaurek & Commander Caleb Ryan

1,677 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Pangaea (Wrap up)
Location: Captain's Quarters
Timeline: MD 4/1100
Tags: habeas corpus, pangaea

Caleb wasn’t looking forward to his as he headed out of the security office. It was always awkward investigating a superior officer. It was hard to be objective, and Caleb and Captain T’Vaurek had started off on the wrong foot and so far had never seemed to have fallen into step together in the short time he had been here.

Caleb knew what he had seen – or thought he did: the captain plunging the knife into the alien woman. But then Caleb had also been seeing a lot of strange things at the time and it was hard to sort out just what was real and what wasn’t. So unreliable witnesses, added to the fact that he had no body and no murder weapon, made this exceedingly delicate.

Caleb stopped outside of the door to the captain’s quarters. He punched his security code into the door controls overriding the security lockout that confined the captain to her quarters and then he hit the door chime.

"Come in."

There was nothing to suggest the emotional trauma of the previous day, nothing to suggest anything as untoward as a broken fingernail.

Isha sat on one of the low sofas on either side of the coffee table on which stood a tray with a full tea pot and glass cups. She turned her head slightly to see who it was then as she spoke inclined her head towards the other sofa.

"I wondered when you'd show up," she said.

“There has been…a lot to do,” Caleb said, stopping a bit away from her, his hands behind his back. “And Ah didn’t want to delegate this out. We need to go over just what happened, sir,” he said. “May I sit?” He nodded to the sofa opposite Isha.

"Please do," Isha said without emphasis. Without asking if he wanted any she leaned forward and poured two cups of tea. "How can I make your life easier?" she asked.

“Thank ya, sir,” Caleb said, pulling his tea toward his side of the table, but not yet picking it up as he stared across at the Romulan woman. He spent so much time in intelligence work keeping tabs on Romulans, he found it hard to trust her. He knew he had to put that aside, though.

“Ah need to ask you a few questions, Captain,” Caleb said. He pulled out a small recording device and set it on the table between them, pressing the record button. “First off, Ah have to advise ya of your right to have legal counsel present for this questioning,” he told her. “Anything ya say can be used if legal proceedings commence.” He looked at her to see if she understood.

The idea was preposterous! A flat, humorless laugh escaped her lips. "When a faction of the Senate convened a tribunal to try me for treason I represented myself. I have no need of legal assistance." She reached for her tea as casually as she would if she was entertaining a friend.

Caleb nodded. “We have an old saying on Earth,” he told Isha. “’He who represents himself has a fool for a client.’” He smiled wryly. “This isn’t the Senate, or Romulan law. But as you wish.” He sat back.

“Why don’t we start with the events leading up to the confrontation on the Promenade, before security arrived? When did you get there?” Caleb began, his own tea untouched for the moment.

"I was having tea with Raedhoel. Odd, because he's been missing for four years. There was a lot of noise and light. I went to see what was going on. That creature was supposed to be in custody. How did she get away after she was taken from my office? How did she manage to get hold of Eviess?"

Caleb jotted a couple notes on his padd about looking into this Raedhoel. “The fae seems ta have…teleported out of custody,” Caleb explained. “We had been searching for her when the…commotion on the Promenade began,” he said. “We don’t know how she got your daughter, or why. The internal sensor net is a mess after the beating the station took. So what happened when you arrived?” Caleb asked.

"I don't remember entirely," Isha paused, trying to call the scene from her memory. "Ibalin had her, the bartender," she said, with obvious distaste. "I took my baby from her, she was so weak. I was ready to kill her, but Eviess told me it was the Fae. She said, she said... It was Tanis. She said if I helped she'd let me live. It wasn't the Rainbow Princess."

Caleb frowned. “Helped her how?” he asked.

"Helped her find the others, I suppose," Isha said. "Eviess could see them. She discovered them when the rest of us were blind. There were many of them, five or six maybe, all intent on tearing up each other as well as the Promenade."

Caleb frowned. “Why didn’t we know this before?” he asked. “We could have tried to avoid all this.”

"We knew it only when the Fae was brought to my office. Had I said my four year old daughter is babbling about there being fairies on the station what would you have said? Such imagination! If anyone is to blame it is that bartender for encouraging her. She could have come forward and said she believed Eviess was not making up stories."

Caleb nodded. “Okay,” he said. “That’s not what we’re here ta focus on, anyway,” he admitted. “So you came across the Fae on the Promenade, the light and sound show and all that. Eviess was…sick? Injured somehow? Then what?”

"I don't know. All I know is that it was that creature who had done it to her. I walked through fire and debris to take my revenge, as is my right. The other one, the one Eviess said was their Queen, told me she could take her she said, “She may have a day, or a week, or a year. I cannot reverse the effects of my sister’s cruel spell, but I can give your daughter life.” She also said. ’I would seal the relationship between our people’s with this arrangement,’ like Evie was a hostage, but she denied that. She was to allow her to live in another dimension where time is different. She is alive and will never, ever grow old."

Caleb nodded and jotted down a few notes on his padd again. “Is there anything else you would like to add in your defense?” he prompted her. Caleb wondered a bit at her candor. Surely she knew that her word was almost the only factual evidence they had. With her confession, Isha was hanging herself. He was a father and he knew almost too well how she felt. He had lost his wife and nearly his daughter. He knew what he would have done if he could have gotten his hands around Daimon Dys’ throat.

Isha placed her cup back on the table and looked for a moment at his untouched one. "Merely that you have no body, no victim, and that any witness, myself included, cannot be sure of what happened due to the hallucinogenic influence of the alien drug. I believe the term under Federation Law is a throwback - habeas corpus. You must investigate, of course," she added.

Caleb nodded. “That is for the advocates to determine,” he agreed, though he thought she might be right. He took a breath, hating to say it. “There is still the matter of your missing daughter,” he reminded. “That seems to corroborate your telling of events. Circumstantial, perhaps, but something a good prosecutor could sink his teeth inta.”

She leaned back and let her hands fall to the sides. "Who is to say what happened? Unless my daughter's guardian,” hat was the term Isha had adopted for Rusalka, she having no choice other than to trust the Fae Queen or risk her daughter's death, “returns, then even the most duplicitous of advocates would have trouble."

Isha blinked, very slowly. "I have no intention of standing in the way of your investigation, Commander Ryan. Indeed, I consider myself most cooperative. What's done is done, and the only reliable word on the matter is that of one who rules in another dimension."

Caleb nodded. He reached over and stopped the recording device. For politeness, he picked up his cup of lukewarm tea and drank it down. “You have been cooperative, thank ya, sir,” he said, picking up the recorder. “Ah think Ah have what Ah need. Ah’ll let ya know if Ah need any more statements. He stood and offered the captain his hand.

“For what it’s worth, Ah might’ve done the same thing if it had been Zandy,” he said sympathetically. “An’ those two were tearin’ up the Promenade somethin’ fierce. Some innocent was bound ta get hurt an’ they needed ta be stopped. An’ that will be in the report Ah turn over ta the prosecutor.”

"Thank you," Isha said, accepting the proffered hand briefly. Part of her was tempted to abscond. If she was gone from the station there would be nothing they could do to find her or fetch her back. It would be tantamount to an admission of guilt. She could not do that. In her mind there was nothing to be guilty of. Besides, in this place, in this dimension, she could believe herself close to Eviess and imagine that one day she might see her again, if only for a moment.

Caleb nodded. “Well, Ah gotta go an’ get yelled at by Ferengi,” he told Isha dryly. “If there’s anythin’ ya need, just ask.” He pressed the door control, entering his passcode to unlock it, and strode out of the captain’s quarters.

(end?)

Lt. Cmdr. Caleb Ryan
Chief Security/Tactical Officer

Captain Isha t'Vaurek
Commandng Officer
Deep Space Five

 

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