Explosive Debrief
Posted on Sat Jun 21st, 2025 @ 1:49pm by Lieutenant Commander Corin Layal & Lieutenant Christopher Blake & Lieutenant Sarah Graesyn
Edited on on Sun Jun 22nd, 2025 @ 12:08am
1,473 words; about a 7 minute read
Mission:
Episode 2 - The Sins of History
Location: The Office of Corin Layal - Deck 6 - USS Artemis
Timeline: MD010 1715 hrs
Chris Blake walked through the halls toward the office he had been directed toward. This part of the Artemis wasn't unfamiliar to him, but he liked not having a reason to be down here. Let him fly the ship and someone else could worry about all the law stuff. Then again, Layal had been curious about the safety features of the ship so this could possibly be just more questions.
He stopped just short of the door and pressed the chime.
"Come on in," Layal called out reflexively when she heard the chime. The JAG office had become such a hub of activity lately she was contemplating just having the door held open.
"Lieutenant Blake, I don't think I was expecting you? To what do I owe the pleasure?" Layal greeted the second officer with a warm smile.
Chris stepped in and sighed before he began. "Did you hear about the Leto yet? Not sure if it'll have an impact on your case or not but we had a close call."
"There was an explosive device placed on the hull while we were picking up the target from the station. Sensors on the Leto didn't pick it up, but the Artemis did. I'm thinking the Badlands actually interfered with it long enough to allow Lieutenant Graesyn to disconnect it."
Just then Sarah approached the door and pressed the chime herself. She was carrying a PaDD in hand and had come from the shuttle bay where a full inspection of the Leto was currently underway.
Layal chuckled to herself. "I'm going to prop that door open," she commented before calling out, "Come in," thereby activating the office door to open.
"Lieutenant Graesyn, are you also here about the Leto?" Layal asked. "I'm not sure where I come in just yet, but I'm listening. We were just getting started."
“In a manner.” Sarah stepped in fully and offered the PaDD to Layal. “My team and I have been working on a full inspection of the Leto and her systems and there are a few things that don’t make sense to me. On the surface she checks out and is at regulation specs… digging deeper though there are anomalous sections of code riddling her computer.”
She turned to Chris and nodded. “I don’t think the Leto’s sensors failing to pick up that explosive was an accident, Lieutenant Blake. Certainly nothing that you had influence over.”
"Do you have evidence of tampering?" Layal asked.
“Preliminary results are all on that PaDD. We are still combing through her systems to verify our suspicions. Right now it is looking like the Leto picked up some form of hidden subspace transmission hidden among the background frequency of the Badlands radiation…. That being said it is going to take another couple days to finish our inspection.” Sarah looked to Layal; the seriousness evident as she pointed to the PaDD
"What kind of transmission?" Layal prodded further. "Something that interfered with your sensors?"
“It looks at current like she received some form of shortwave transmission that forced her sensors into a power cycle and subsequent self diagnostic. If Lieutenant Blake wasn’t the pilot that he is the results of the mission may have turned out to be much different indeed.” She looked to Chris, noting that he was silent and listening.
Chris looked down slightly. He hadn't known. He should have seen the changes in how the Leto behaved and didn't. He gritted his teeth and breathed out through his nose before continuing. "That explains why the sensors didn't pick it up, but where did the transmission come from?"
“That I don’t know. I am waiting for the extraction of the Black Box which my team is conducting now. If I had to hazard a guess though… it was a shortwave transmission from somewhere inside the station near the docking port that we were attached to. I had an odd feeling that the entire mission was a little too smooth and easy.” Sarah rubbed her temple and groaned at the thought of the coming sleepless hours.
Layal responded with a slow, measured pace. "Odd that the mission went too smooth and easy, yet if this was their plan, it wasn't very fail safe was it." The prosecutor looked back and forth at each of the officers. "Are we even sure that the explosive is it? Maybe there is something else. And if this bomb had gone off, when would it have detonated? Why did they let you get so close to the Artemis?"
“From what I saw while removing the explosive from the Leto’s hull it had a low-grade shielding system built into it. If the sensors near the shuttle bay hadn’t picked up the device a detonation inside the shuttle bay would have crippled the Artemis for weeks… and in The Badlands that would have been bad; not to mention it potentially could have destabilized our Warp Core...” She looked tiredly between Layal and Chris. “…personally I would have been hoping that the mothership wouldn’t scan or place too much scrutiny upon its own shuttlecraft before docking.”
"What was the goal, then? The endgame usually leads to the best list of suspects. If this had been fully successful, we think the device would have gone off after the shuttle had docked, causing some damage to Artemis?" Layal's question now prompted by Graesyn's further theories. "They weren't trying to kill Vamcet? Or were they? That may be important."
“Guesswork isn’t exactly my specialty or forte, Commander. That being said with what knowledge I have of Cardassians… letting the Gul be taken alive will look bad on every single soldier from the lowest grunt to the station commander.” Sarah was careful not to lean too heavily into opinion but tried to stick to the facts of the matter.
"Whatever their reasons, they failed. Can we turn their failure into some additional protocols for us? Better scans, beef up the systems on all the shuttles so this doesn't get past us again?" Chris asked. "And I would guess it's too late for us to fake an explosion and let them think the succeeded."
“That suggestion has some merit, Lieutenant. Perhaps we can work together to fine tune the protocols and develop a redundant loop in case of similar events.” Sarah had to suppress a chuckle at the second half of his question. “I’m afraid so; I think faking an explosion now would be more suspicious than letting them assume that the device failed for some reason.”
"So, was there something that the JAG office could help with?" Layal asked. "Without any more solid connections that Vamcet was involved somehow, I doubt it's worth even trying to use this in his case. I'd like to see charges brought for whoever is responsible. Interference with the ongoing case gives us jurisdiction where we otherwise may not, but investigation is tricky. You are basically stuck with what you have from the device and our shuttle. We're not getting access to the station again."
“Another 24 hours and the inspection will be complete. I’ll have traced the source of the transmission back to its initiation point. You’ll have a full debrief on your desk when we finish.” Sarah nodded to emphasize her words.
Layal's eyes widened in surprise. "That will be interesting if you can get it. I'll be curious at the very least."
Sarah refrained from commenting on her prior experiences with Cardassians, opting instead to lean on her engineering expertise and that of her team. “We recently acquired a communications specialist in my Department. It is not a promise that I make lightly but it is definitely one that my team and I are capable and ready of fulfilling.”
"Let me know where I can help." Chris commented quickly. He wasn't an engineer, but he knew his ship specs. Besides, he didn't like the idea that something affected the shuttle on his watch.
“Of course.” Sarah gave a curt nod to her fellow officers. “I will keep you both apprised; but my crew is going to need me back down there.”
"Of course," Layal stood up, understanding that the lieutenant was about to take her leave. "I'm available if you need anything."
A Joint Post By
Lieutenant Sarah Graesyn
Chief Engineering Officer, USS Artemis
Starfleet Criminal Investigations Unit
Lieutenant Commander Corin Layal
Judge Advocate General, USS Artemis
Starfleet Criminal Investigations Unit
Lieutenant Christopher Blake
Chief Flight Control Officer, USS Artemis
Second Officer, USS Artemis
Starfleet Criminal Investigations Unit
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