DNA Doesn't Lie

Posted on Tue Aug 6th, 2019 @ 10:31am by

1,270 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: What Stalks The Night
Location: Sickbay

Walking into Sickbay, Bianca cast a quick glance around until her gaze fell on the somewhat familiar figure of Lieutenant Commander Xavier Patrovski, the Chief Medical Officer. Approaching, she offered a weary smile. "Commander Patrovski, my apologies for the unexpected intrustion so close to the end of your shift, but Captain Hood asked me to speak with you, regarding the cargo?" she spoke softly, clearly not wanting to draw too much in the way of attention. "Specifically, he wanted you to assess this, determine if it's genuine, and if it is, if it's been tampered with in any way," she continued, holding the gel pack toward him.

Xavier looked at what the First Officer had just presented. "Why has this been taken out of storage?" Taking the pack he entered its serial number into the log as genuine. The issue Xavier now faced was that he signed for the cargo, medically speaking it was under his observation that nothing contaminated it or otherwise. "Aside from you and me, who else has touched this that you know of?" Xavier asked already building up.

Entering the serial number on the pack the record flashed up. Rack C, Row 17B. "Its genuine." And Xavier's world got turned upside down with a heavy and heated sigh.

"I can't be one hundred percent sure," Bianca said quietly. "I found it laying on the ground in the middle of deck ten. Captain Hood touched it and so did Lieutenant Commander Reign. Before I picked it up off the deck, we don't yet know who had their hands on it, but we're reviewing the security footage so hopefully we can establish how it got from the Cargo Hold to deck ten."

"Well I can run a DNA trace scan on it, excluding people hopefully it comes up with something." That would take time though, more time away from his Fiance. "I can submit my findings when they come in. In the meantime I will run integrity scans and checks on the pack to make sure the contents is unaffected."

Bianca nodded slightly. "A DNA trace scan would be good, especially in conjunction with anything we find on the security footage, again, that takes time to run, and lots of manual intervention as I'm sure you can imagine. Assuming the pack is unaffected by anything, presumably it can go back into storage, just keep note of the serial number so we can track it if we need to. I don't pretend to know a lot about this particular gel, but my understanding is that it essentially imprints DNA among other things?" Bianca asked. "Is there any way to track the gel on it's own? Some kind of property perhaps that we could scan for in the ship to see if there is any more around that has escaped from the cargo hold?"

"No, there are no individual trackers for security reasons because if we can track it then who else might? I can tell you everything about this gel with the right clearances, which I don't have all of them. I could tell you where the gel was made, the date, who signed off on it. I can tell you everywhere it has been down to the storage facility and locker prior to it arriving on this ship. I can tell you where it was stored because I stored and verified it." Xavier explained. "This gel is so secret the implications of losing any are staggering with what can be done with it."

"And there in lies the problem," Bianca replied quietly, the implications of his statement not lost on her. "If this one was just laying in the middle of the deck it's a safe bet that it's not the only one missing from the cargo hold."

"Well I can go back and manually recount and check every single one but only I can do that and I wouldn't be able to take this one with me until the checks on it were completed. Both of which are going to take time." Time that few people had spare for.

"I think a recount is going to be necessary regardless," Bianca said calmly. "Please notify me when you plan to do that, I'll make sure my schedule is cleared so I can be there as well. At this point checks and balances are going to be required at every step of the way, and with so few of us that have the clearance to be there, well, it's slim pickings. In the mean time, I'll work with security and see if we can find out how that pack got up to deck ten. Maybe we'll get lucky and be able to put a face to our careless sneak thief."

"I'll do that." So a recount it was, not something he was looking forward to since once he started he was not allowed to leave until it was completed and each one signed off, again, by him. The only reprieve in this was that BJ was dragged into this mess to so his not being home for dinner had a valid reason, especially if she shared in it.

"I apologize Commander," Bianca said quietly. "I'm sure you have better things to do, and I have no doubt that this is going to be about as desirable to you as mud wrestling wild targ's, but with these new developments it is unfortunately completely necessary."

"Oh I understand completely. If I didn't I wouldn't have signed them on board the ship." But the Commander was right, there were better things he could have been doing with the time now usurped to counting gel packs.

"I'll leave you to it then, the sooner you finish the tests on the gel pack the sooner we can move on with counting and filing our reports. Once your tests are complete please make sure all results are forwarded to me as well so I can include them in my own reports?" She sighed and rubbed her temple slightly, already feeling the headache that just the thought of all this 'paperwork' was giving her.

"I was setting up the system as we spoke." The system was exactly that, what to do, where, who was to be informed. All of which would leave a trail to follow when the investigation was looked into, and it would be looked into. "I would ask that you don't permit anyone else to touch the gel in the Cargo Hold, only myself can do that." He didn't want anyone else touching it because then that would leave even more DNA traces, and they would be investigated too.

Bianca shook her head. "No one should be in there at this point. We will be increasing security and I will be working with Lieutenant Bradshaw to work out what else we can do. Only those with clearance are involved at this point and no one should be touching the gel regardless. I'm pretty sure no one wants to touch it. Fear of investigative reprisal is a pretty big deterrant," she said with a wan smile.

"I'll let you know when the results come in from the DNA trace scan and my inspection of the gel itself." Xavier answered knowing that both of them had a lot of work to do and not an abundance of time to do it in.

Standing up, Bianca nodded slightly. "Thank you Commander, I appreciate your time. I'll wait until I hear from you." Without waiting for another response she turned and headed out of his office. There was still an awful lot that she needed to do.

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