Silent Witness

Posted on Sat Apr 23, 2016 @ 1:35am by Civilian 'Key Holder' Yolanthe Ibalin & Commander Caleb Ryan & Commander Amia Telamon M.D.

910 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Pangaea (Wrap up)
Location: Pathology Lab
Timeline: MD11/1130

::ON::

The body of the victim was lain out on the white biobed in the pathology lab, covered in an equally white sheet. Charis's eyes were closed, but she couldn't have been mistaken for sleeping. On the left side of the skull was the deep depression where she had been battered against the promenade floor. She had been carefully cleaned by the technician and was ready for examination

Amia always took in a breath before performing any autopsy. It was a form of instinctive pause out of respect. It also, regrettably, gave her a whiff of the preservation chemicals which reminded her how much better it was to be alive. She knew there had been some close calls in her life and these kinds of duties were a reminder of her own good fortune.

She began with a full scan of the whole body and chalked up the obvious injuries together with the more mundane routine 'not injured' items on the check list.

Physically, the victim was a healthy Deltan, roughly equivalent to a human adult of twenty-five years old. She had a broken arm, on the right side, and signs of common dancer's injuries, a tearing knee ligature and early stage Achilles tendonitis.

The head injury was severe, three overlapping depression fractures along the left side of the skull. It had effectively flattened the rounded side. There was damage to the grey meninges and the grey matter, though little evidence of bleeding inside the cranium. The skull injury couldn't have been the cause of death.

Caleb stood outside the autopsy suite, staring in through the window. He sipped his coffee as he waited for the doctor to be finished to give him the report.

As the scanners kicked into higher gear, more details were fed to Amia's padd. She had last eaten five hours before death, there were faint remains of vegetable matter and the residue of a sports drink in her stomach. She was slight dehydrated, but showed signs of a balanced blood/body chemistry, presumably from the sports drink.

But the brain showed the most surprising results. Zero serotonin, zero epinephrine, zero dopamine, zero norepinephrine, zero psilocyanine, zero gasotransmitters, zero amino acids, zero peptides. There was nothing in the girl's brain but the physical structures and the blood, not a neurotransmitter to be found.

"I have never seen anybody drained of all their brain electricity like this before. If there are no neurotransmitters then the whole brain will have ground to a halt, like one of those old century engines, running out of oil or lubricants. Dry as a desert. It's just...fascinating? But terrifying at the same time. What a horrible way to die!" Amia exclaimed.

Caleb frowned. He tapped his finger against his leg as he listened to Amia and then reached out to press the comm control. “What could do somethin’ like that, doctor?” he asked. He wasn’t a doctor or a scientist. His medical skills extended to field medicine and triage.

"I have NO idea. I wonder if it was an electrical drain, but I don't know of anything that can willfully drain off, or even conduct, the kind of corporeal impulses that we're talking about," Amia answered, very puzzled.

“Some kind of alien entity?” Caleb asked. “There have been no anomalous occurrences of unidentified creatures on the station. I’ll have a security team run some more detailed scans of the crime scene, though a science team might be better,” he mused. “See if they find any anomalous energy readings.”

"There's no energy readings around the body." Amia had already scanned for that. "I wonder what to tell them to keep an eye out FOR?" she mused.

Looking through the med-padd she saw notes made by the paramedics who were first on the scene. "But then again, it says here that there was an energy field around the patient before -- or soon after -- she died. They observed that it dissipated away quickly. I wonder if… could it be possible that that field was the alien life force leaving...?" she mused.

“Could be,” Caleb mused himself. “Send the data to Science, see what they can tell. Mark it as evidence so they know to use chain of evidence protocol,” he told her. “No foreign DNA on the body?” he asked. “Any strange biomatter?”

"No DNA, no. But there is some...well, a kind of sheen. A film of something. The kind of residue that would be left if a moist substance had been in contact with parts of the victim. It's heavily present around the neck, down the spine, and in the hair on the body's head. We've taken something from under the finger nails, but it's testing up as some kind of material, like cloth or rope or something else inanimate, nothing biological," Amia replied.

“Okay, send it all up to Science. Let them take a crack at it.” He sighed. “Do Ah need ta put together a Forensics team?” he wondered. “Anythin’ else ya can give me, Doc?”

"No, Commander, I don't have any answers." Amia was straight with him.

“Thank you, Doctor,” Caleb said. “Keep me informed of your progress, and let me know when Science gets back to ya.” He released the intercom button to allow Amia to get back to work. He picked up his coffee and turned to go.

::OFF::

Lt. Cmdr. Caleb Ryan
CSTO

Lt Cmdr Amia Telamon
CMO

 

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