=/\= Flight Operations, USS Chimera =/\= Things were busy over the past several hours. Andy met the medical team in the Shuttle Bay. Scott Fisher nodded hello, and seemed a little creepily excited at the prospect of preparing an autopsy on the two officers recovered with the tractor beam after the shuttle was brought in. The tractor beam was shut down, and the force field was reinstated to cover the bay doors from the vacuum of space. The bodies of the two officers, vulcans, were gently put on stretchers, and Fisher led his team back to sick bay, animatedly tapping away on a PADD. Andy grimaced, upon seeing the two bodies. Death by explosive decompression was never pretty … but at least it was quick. He sighed. “Right,” he said to a couple of crewmen. “We need to inspect the ship … see if we can recover any logs.” The three men went into the shuttle. Andy noted that the explosive bolts on the rear hatch seemed to have been activated, as tactical sensors had indicated. He looked around the interior of the shuttle. There wasn’t much of any debris inside … anything loose would have been sucked out into space. Making his way forward to the cockpit, Andy nodded in approval. The flight recorder was still in fine order. He opened his tricorder and began to download data from the last 2 hours of flight. As the download commenced, Andy saw the bright crimson of the crushed and withered remains of a flower, wedged in the plating between the deckplates and the copilot’s chair. He gently removed it, noting its pungently sweet scent, and placed it on the copilot’s seat. After he finished up, he instructed the two crewmen to inspect the blown hatch, and see if there was any other damage or irregularities in the shuttle, and went back up to the Flight Ops office to download and start analyzing the information he got from the shuttle. The data had just finished its transfer, when the comm beeped. There was an incoming ship … a private vessel. That’s odd. First, Kinsi tells us to get the hell outta Dodge, and now they’re sending ships up to us? Mildly relieved to learn that they weren’t attacking, Andy opened the channel. "Consul Guzman to USS Chimera operations" Andy frowned. Consul Guzman? Someone related to the Exec? He shrugged and leaned forward to the comm. “USS Chimera here; this is Lt. Foster. How can I help you Consul?" Guzman replied that he wanted to transport aboard, but Andy found no indication that he was expected. A quick check to the crew manifest even indicated that Shane Guzman was on the station. What business would he have here on the Chimera? “Your visit is not scheduled,” said Andy. “Do you have any clearance I can verify?” Nonetheless, Guzman knew the proper procedures, and promptly forwarded clearance. Andy double-checked it, and found the consul’s information on the up and up. “Your clearance is verified, Consul.” Andy told him to stand by, and welcomed him aboard. With that, Andy gave control of the ops room back to one of the crew and returned to the bridge. =/\= USS Chimera, Bridge =/\= Andy took his seat near the rear of the bridge, and brought up the flight recorder from the shuttle, and began scanning through the data, keenly aware of Col. Bretam’s eyes impatiently smoldering in his direction. He first checked the mechanical data logs. What struck him immediately was that there had been no mechanical malfunction – the emergency bolts had been activated manually. For some baffling reason, the crew had deliberately blown the hatch, and killed themselves almost instantly. Andy then reviewed the cabin recorder, and watched, mystified, the events of a few hours ago. The shuttle took off without clearance from Kinsi (Skywalker must be sleeping on his watch, thought Andy with amusement). But that was insignificant compared to the behavior of the two vulcans on the cabin recording. The visual datastream showed the two officers behaving … well, for lack of another description, like they were on some kind of drugs. One seemed to be drunk, laughing and stumbling about in the cabin, twirling in his fingers the red flower that Andy had found earlier. The other seemed to be intensely frightened, looking at ghosts, and ducking in an attempt to avoid some unseen nemesis. The first briefly went into the cockpit, while the second appeared to be shouting into the air and waving his arms about. Shortly thereafter, the first officer returned back into view from the cockpit, as the second went out of the camera’s range. Only the very top of his head was visible, as he seemed to be accessing a data panel near the back of the ship – probably the emergency hatch controls. And indeed, after few seconds passed, the image shook, and the two vulcans were pulled violently into space to meet their end. Andy frowned, and isolated the final 3 minutes of the visual datastream, and the mechanical analysis and conclusion that the crew themselves had deliberately blown the hatch. He rose, and walked toward the command chair. “Sir. Report from the shuttle, as requested.” The Colonel took the PADD, and went through the data wearing a grim expression. Finally, Bretam tapped his console, and opened a channel to sickbay. Mercedes answered. Downloading the information from Andy’s PADD onto his console, Bretam Keylor spoke over the comm. "Doctor, I have sent the report Lt. Foster has compiled from the shuttle.” His voice grew cold. “It appears the two shuttle passengers caused their own demise." "They caused their own death?" she asked, and Andy nodded as the Colonel confirmed what appeared in the report. He told her he was sending Andy’s report, along with the sensor log, and instructed her to watch it carefully. He signed off the channel, and turned back to Andy. “Mr. Foster, a question.” Andy came forward, and stood at attention in front of the Colonel. “Aye, sir?” Bretam skipped through the visual log until he came to the point where the first Vulcan, the “drunken” one, was dancing in the middle of the cabin. “What is this he’s holding?” Andy looked at the frozen frame, and followed where Bretam was pointing his stylus. Ah. The flower. “Sir, that appears to be a flower. Although most of the unsecured items in the ship were sucked into space, a sample of the flower was wedged in between the deckplate and one of the chairs. I recovered it and placed it on the copilot’s chair. Bretam nodded and remained quiet for several moments. “Call down to the shuttlebay. Make sure the crewmen have bagged it.” “Aye, sir,” replied Andy, and contacted the two crewman who were working on the shuttle, and asked them what they had done with the flower he’d placed on the copilot’s chair. “Aw, sir,” griped the crewman over the comm. “Dontcha trust us to do nothin’ right? I swear. Just because you’re this great big Ossifer with yer bright shiney pips, ya think everyone else is a dim bulb.” In the background, Andy heard the other crewman shouting something about flying monkeys. Andy slowly turned to Col. Bretam. “Um, sir. I think we might have a problem.” Lt. Andersen Foster Operations Officer USS Chimera