Conti agreed to go to Medical so she could seek some help. Shasi volunteered to escort her down there as soon as she was ready. When Conti and Shasi left the office, I contacted Eri in Medical to let her know what was happening with Conti. I felt confident Eri would be able to help her, and the fact Conti agreed to go to Medical voluntarily to seek the help that was available, help she so clearly and desperately needed, was a big help for everyone involved. We all expected her to be much more receptive to help when she went voluntarily.
I wondered if this last bit of trouble had affected anyone else on the ship. Everyone on board, particularly the crew, had already been subjected to an enormous amount of stress during this voyage. If the crew were badly affected, we needed to deal with the fallout quickly, or at least as quickly as possible. We all needed to continue performing at our highest level until we reached safety. We simply could not afford to lose any more of the crew, nor could we risk their performance deteriorating. The last thing we could afford was for the crew to give up, right then, and for the next few weeks, I needed them to be more determined than ever. I commented on this to Anne and she agreed with me, we had to deal with any morale issues as quickly and as effectively as possible, as the acting first officer, this would be her responsibility. I decided that as soon as the current crisis was resolved, I would show my face again, try being visible and hope the crew found my presence to be a reassuring influence. I also decided I should speak to Eri about the issue, or ask Anne to do so.
I contacted Sarolin and asked him to call by to see me because I had a small task for him. While I waited for Sarolin, Shasi came back from escorting Conti down to the medical bay. I mentioned our concerns to her while we waited for Sarolin. She thought about what I told her for a few minutes then said she would ask Ani and the other Troopers to keep an eye out for problems as well. She reasoned that more eyes were more likely to identify any issues of this type that may crop up.
When Sarolin arrived, I had him sit with us while I explained my concerns about morale to him. I told him that if people were struggling with our current situation, I would prefer to be able to arrange assistance sooner rather than later and not allow the problem to fester till it became a major issue. The last thing we could afford was for someone to lose it at a critical moment. Such an event could result in us failing to make it to port. We were far too close now for me to let that happen. I asked him to keep an eye out for morale problems and he agreed to do so and report anything he observed back to me.
In any case, if I knew about a problem and what form it was taking, I would at least have some chance of dealing with it, or so I believed, and still do for that matter. Once we finished our discussions with Sarolin, he left to see if he could identify any issues that he thought might require my attention. He understood my concerns and was fully aware this wasn’t about punishing people with a problem but was intended to allow us to offer them the help they needed, preferably before things were out of hand. Once again, I realised how lucky I was to have the support of a crew such as this. I would not have been able to achieve our common goal without this support.
In the meantime, Anne, Shasi and I continued with our task of coordinating the investigation. Now the Troopers were zeroed in on the exact time of the escape from the brig, they were able to quickly follow the escapees as they made their way through the ship relatively easily. They fairly quickly found the points and locations where our crew-members were attacked and stripped of their uniforms. At the same time, one Trooper was working his way backwards through the brig footage but had not been able to find the knife handover, at least not yet.
Finding out how they managed to obtain that knife was critical. We needed to know if it was simple carelessness, or stupidity or if someone deliberately betrayed the crew. If it was a betrayal, we needed to make sure we shut down the possibility of it ever happening again, at least on this voyage. We needed to identify and secure any co-conspirators who were still running free in the ship. Till then one team of Troopers continued to interrogate our prisoners, slowly drawing every detail of their plot from them, while another built up a solid picture of the sequence of events starting with the break out and ending with the recapture of the prisoners. The remaining Troopers beefed up ship security in case somebody tried something else.
“Tell me,” I asked,” do you ever run random inspections of the prisoner’s cells in the brig, you know, looking for contraband or attempts to breakout? For that matter, do you have the ability to monitor their conversations?”
Ani replied, “Yes Colin, we do both. We do turn the cells over on a daily basis. It usually stops them getting very far with escape preparations or any other plotting they might be working on. Our daily inspections upset the prisoners no end but, their opinions don’t really matter and our Troopers enjoy it as well because it gives them something to do and they really don’t like those pirates.
You need to understand Sir, most people in the Federation have suffered at the hands of the pirates themselves, or they know someone who has, or they’ve seen the aftermath of a pirate attack. In answer to your question, in the past, there have even been reports of prisoners being caught after they managed to obtain or even make relatively simple tools. In some cases, they were well on their way to removing panels in their cells which might have made an escape possible.
There has even been one case where a prisoner managed to escape his cell, wander the ship, visit his friends then return to the cell before his absence was noted. When his achievement was eventually discovered he told the investigators his reason for doing all this was that he simply didn’t like being caged up. Thankfully, he was in the brig for failing to follow a stupid order an officer had given him so he wasn’t a danger to anyone. I think that particular guy also did it just to show he could and he probably also did it to spite the officer who’d put him there. As it turned out, they simply could not keep him in a cell for very long, actually they couldn’t keep him in a cell for more than a couple of days, not if he didn’t want to be there. So now we carry out daily checks.”
“OK,” I replied, “that means that if we know when those cells were last looked at before the breakout, we have another provisional end point. It is probably not very likely they could have hidden anything in one of those cells well enough that it wouldn’t be found during successive inspections, not unless the Troopers are being lazy, blind or corrupt. I for one, do not believe for one second that any of those traits is possible with our Troopers.”
Shasi checked the records for the last brig inspection and found it was only three hours before the actual break out. She fed that information to the Trooper who was working his way back from the break out so he could refine his search further and zero in on the knife handover.
Finally, he was able to identify the exact time the prisoners were given food prior to the breakout. It was only two hours before the break out and was the only logical time a knife could have been given to one of the prisoners. Shasi and I went down to the suite where the Troopers were analysing the camera footage while Anne continued working the other end of the problem. When we arrived at the video suit, the analyst zeroed in on the actual meal delivery. We were quite surprised to see one of Conti’s attendants a female Tangesha named Hersi delivered that particular meal. It seemed the person who usually did it was sick so Hersi volunteered to fill in and take the food down to the prisoners. We couldn’t see her do anything suspicious while she was in the brig, but we thought this was the only time a knife could have been given to one of the prisoners after the previous cell inspection. We reran the footage of the food delivery several times, forward, backwards, one frame at a time but we still couldn’t see anything to hang an accusation on. We looked at a schematic of the ship and plotted the two most direct routes between the mess and the brig.
We accessed the camera footage along each of these two routes watching her actions but she didn’t follow either of these two direct routes all the way to the brig. On the way to the
brig, she deviated and the deviation simply didn’t make sense. It took her quite a way off the direct route and even I wouldn’t have followed it in the early days after I first woke on FNS Destiny. Fortunately for us, many of the cameras were relocated and hidden prior to our being boarded by the pirates. In addition to this, additional cameras were added in a few places where there were blind spots. She could not have known about any of this, it simply wasn’t something any of us would have told a new passenger about, there were still too many other things occupying our minds. Her detour took her through an area that would have normally been a blind spot in this class of ship but additional cameras were added in that area so we could see what was going on if the pirates made it there. We were able to observe her remove the knife from under her tunic, wipe it then hide it in the food she took to one of the prisoners. She then proceeded along her chosen route till she eventually arrived at the brig to feed the prisoners. When she eventually left the brig after feeding the prisoners, she did not deviate at all, taking a direct route back to the kitchens so she clearly knew the correct route to take between the mess and the brig.
I called Anne to ask her to come down to see us in the editing suite. While Anne was on her way, I asked the Trooper who was working this footage to cut the data from the various cameras together so we could watch her entire trip from the mess kitchen, to the brig, the act of feeding the prisoners, then the trip back to the mess. I wanted him to maintain the time stamps on each piece of video and to add a camera ID for each piece of video. We had a schematic of the current location of every camera on the ship so we could look at the finished product and tell exactly where in the ship it was, what direction the camera was pointing, which direction she was walking, everything. I intended for us to add a copy of that schematic to the final package I hoped to hand over to the Federation authorities when we eventually arrived at our destination.
When Anne arrived, we showed her the incriminating footage before I asked her to help me deal with this. I felt that because Hersi was a member of the Lady Conti’s group, we needed to let Lady Conti know who betrayed the ship simply as a matter of courtesy. I wanted to tell Conti at the same time as we made the arrest but I was willing to listen to Anne’s advice on the matter and made sure I told her so. We really could not afford to risk Hersi being tipped off about our knowledge of what she’d done, not till after we made the arrest and secured all the evidence we were able to gather. When I thought about all the events leading up to this point, I started to wonder about her. Did she help the pirates because of a Stockholm syndrome type of reaction, or was she simply a plant, someone the pirates were able to insert in Conti’s retinue so they could kidnap someone important?
Anne was still staring at the video record when a thought occurred to me. I said to her, “Anne, do you know when Hersi joined Conti’s retinue? I can’t help but think her being there ties a whole lot of things together.”
Anne thought for a while then said, “If I remember correctly, just after the start of the Lady Conti’s tour. Another member of the retinue suddenly fell very ill and she was sent by the Lady’s father as a replacement.”
I wondered aloud, “So she joins the Lady Conti’s retinue when someone falls ill. Then she substitutes for a regular crewman to deliver meals when he fell ill. I am beginning to see a pattern here. Did anyone check with the Lady’s father?”
Anne replied, “You’re right about a pattern. In answer to your question, no, she had all the correct paperwork, why would we check?”
I just looked at her and shook my head before replying, “I think she might have been a pirate plant. I suspect she told them about your itinerary, letting them know where you were going to be, and when. I don’t think the attack on the yacht was a random event, I think it was planned, the yacht was specifically targeted. Lady Conti was targeted, perhaps as a hostage for some purpose, perhaps for ransom. We may never know the real purpose.”
Anne looked horrified at what I was saying and seemed a bit dumbstruck by the implications. For my part, I thought the security implications on their own were mind boggling. I asked Anne how she thought we should proceed.
She simply said, “Arrest the bitch now. I’ll deal with Conti when she wakes.”
I turned to Shasi and just nodded. She immediately jumped into action departing to round up a squad of Troopers and then to arrest Hersi the female who had clearly been at the forefront in causing all the recent trouble. While Shasi went to make the arrest, I contacted Eri to see when we would be able to talk to Conti.
Eri said, “Though I would prefer not to, I could wake her now if you wish.”
I replied, “No, don’t wake her, not till you think it’s appropriate. If she does wake, or at least when you are ready to, could you let Ensign Fraser know please.”
She said, “Yes of course. May I ask what it is about?”
“Yes,” I replied, “I can’t give you details right now, but we’ve just found out how the prisoners managed to escape and the person who assisted them is someone Conti knows, someone from her retinue. I’d like Ensign Fraser to break the news to her, but I suspect she may need some support from you.”
“I’ll let Ensign Fraser know when Conti is about to wake,” Eri said, “and I’ll also be there to help when she comes to see the Lady.”
I thanked her before ending the connection, then turning to Anne I said, “I don’t envy you this one. Having to explain to Lady Conti how she had someone within her circle who was trying to undermine our entire mission to find our way back to the Federation, someone who very likely betrayed her at least once already. For my part, I suspected Lady Conti would do one of two things, either she would completely lose the plot, or finding this out would help her to re-centre herself and she will take it calmly and just get on with her life.”
Anne laughed before replying, “You might be surprised how tough she is. She has been trained in leadership for her entire life. Part of that is having the ability to not only understand politics, but also to expect that sometimes, somebody you think you can trust, may betray you.”
I found myself hoping Anne was right in her assessment of Lady Conti. Not long after, Shasi contacted me to tell me they’d successfully arrested Hersi and secured the materials she had hidden in her quarters. She confirmed to me they were currently moving Hersi’s possessions to secure storage so they could examine everything to see what they could find. I thought I should see if Eri or one of her staff could try to identify which of those materials may have been used to make a crew-member sick. I made a note to ask Eri as soon as I had the opportunity. They would be looking for anything incriminating to build a better picture of what she was doing, why she was doing it and when she did it.
Sometime later, Eri contacted me to let me know Conti was awake and Anne was with her, explaining what happened. I decided I should wait till somebody let me know I was needed before poking my nose where it probably wasn’t wanted and asked Eri to let me know if I was needed. I know this was probably a cowardly position for me to take, but rightly or wrongly, it was what I did. Now we had all the escapees as well as all their assistant back in custody, and all the evidence we could reasonably expect to find was secured, I decided I could finally lift the lock-down and let the ship’s crew and passengers loose again. Most did not know what was happening and wouldn’t have known why they were locked into their part of the ship.
I was sitting quietly on my own in the Captains office, my mind bouncing from thought to thought, sometimes about my wife and family, sometimes thinking about how to keep in front of the pirate who was pursuing us, that is, if he was still pursuing us, sometimes thinking of the mutiny. Somebody pressed the buzzer to let me know they were outside and I opened the door to see Anne enter. She had Conti with her so I invited both of them into the office, clearly there were things they wanted, or even needed to say. When they entered, I pointed towards some of the more informal seating and we all took our places.
As soon as we were set
tled into the seats, Conti started speaking, “Captain, I would like to thank both you and Ensign Fraser for the sensitivity you’ve shown in dealing with the fact that one of my assistants has been responsible for the harm coming to your crew. I would also like to convey my regret that I may have inadvertently contributed to these events in some way. People in my position are targets for this type of thing but even so, we are rarely expecting it when it happens to us. Ensign Fraser tells me you made comments about our security in the Federation. Could you explain it to me please? I would like to hear your point of view, clearly we can learn from you.”
I thought, this might be a reasonably safe subject so I replied, “Well, just as an example, Ensign Fraser tells me Hersi joined you not long after your tour began when another one of your people suddenly fell very ill and could not continue. Is this correct?”
“Yes,” she replied, “it is correct. When one of my assistants fell ill, I sent a message to my father requesting a replacement.”
“So,” I asked, “how did you check her credentials? How do you know she is the person your father sent? Did your father even receive your request for a replacement?”
She replied, “Hersi had all the correct paperwork when she arrived, paperwork she handed me herself. Of course my father must’ve received my request, he sent Hersi.”
Patiently I pointed out the holes in what she told me, “Conti, the paperwork she gave you may have been forged. With the right sort of incentives in the right places, your father probably never even received the request. I’m not sure what your procedures are for this type of thing in the Federation but back home, paperwork that would allow you to identify someone would in a situation such as this, arrive separately to the person so you could crosscheck their identity. Of course, they would carry additional identification to allow you to cross check the identity. Another way you could achieve the same result would be to have a number of people waiting in reserve, either back home or traveling with you. You would have identifying paperwork with you for those people. An alternative though slightly less reliable method would be for the reserves to all be people who you already know personally.”
Star Man 1: Star Bourne Page 36
