Laveykin Hub, Supay - 3307-04-04 11:00 GST
Brian Taggart, the deck chief of the Laveykin Hub outfitting deck, strode over towards his console area on the deck. Waiting for him there were Carlos, one of his technicians, and two women from Tewanta, the inspection team he was warned about. One of the women was wearing a full hazardous environment suit, a fancy model, by the looks of it, while the other wore a lighter suit more suitable for maintenance work in a vacuum. The level of protection those suits provided was excessive in his mind. His deck was perfectly safe. There hadn't been an incident in over six months. There definitely hadn't been any since the Buurian Protectorate took over the station and installed a new batch of time consuming safety procedures. At least they had the visors retracted: if they had the visors up, he'd have not been able to take them seriously. Even now, their level of paranoia made him feel like they had never set foot on a outfitting deck before.
"Good morning, ladies. You must be the inspection team I have been told about. Brian Taggart, the deck chief here.", said Brian extending his hand.
The woman in the maintenance suit shook his hand. A firm grip he noted, slightly surprised. "We are indeed. I'm Agent Hiroko Watanabe and this is Specialist Kayleigh Rouse." The woman in the H.E. Suit waved. Up close he could see that the suit had an oily green metallic sheen.
"A bit overdressed for inspecting an outfitting deck, aren't you?", he said with a chuckle. "I guess you two haven't much experience with what we do here."
The two women shot each other concerned glances.
"Oh brother!", said Kayleigh. "We had better get started on this straight away. Can you take us to where you store the enzyme missile warheads, please."
"Sure thing, but I think you will find this whole inspection to be a waste of time. It's this way."
"Hopefully, you are right.", said Hiroko.
"Nice deck you have here. Pretty tidy.", remarked Kayleigh.
They passed a few technicians, who nodded to Brian and smirked when they saw the two women in their protective gear. On the other side of the deck area they reached a large airlock door. It's control panel displayed that it required a level 1 security clearance to open.
"It's behind a secured door, at least, unlike on Payette Dock.", Kayleigh said to Hiroko.
"That is true.", Hiroko replied. To Brian she said, "This should be behind a level 2 clearance door. These munitions are very dangerous."
"You're over reacting a little aren't you? My people are trustworthy. Besides we don't have space for a dedicated storage room for these things and higher security level would slow down our operations. You little ladies haven't the level of experience with these things that we have."
Kayleigh threw him a quick glare and shook her head. She stepped forward to the console and opened the door. The three of them walked in and Horoko closed it behind them. The room had three weapon large lockers and two loading gurneys placed up against the wall, out of the way. Tidy and optimized for efficiency, Kayleigh noted.
"Which lockers hold the enzyme warheads?", Kayleigh asked.
"Just locker 2, there at the end.", Brian replied. "I can assure you that everything is in order. I checked things here myself two days ago."
"It has a keypad lock, which is good.", Kayleigh said. Hiroko make a note on her hand terminal. "Are there any explosive munitions in the other two lockers?", Kayleigh asked.
"No. Just railgun slugs of various sizes."
"Good! It is not ideal that they are not stored on their own, but better than the setup they have at Vespucci Hub.", Kayleigh replied. Hiroko nodded, making another note.
"You can check the status of the munitions on the locker's terminal screen. There are twenty four warheads there, exactly as there should be.", Brian said.
Kayleigh, checked her hand terminal, punched in a four digit code and the examined the terminal screen.
"Yep! Twenty four warheads there.", Kayleigh said. Hiroko made a note as Brian stood by, looking irritated.
"Can we wrap this up?", Brian asked.
"Soon. Just need to check a few more things.", Kayleigh replied.
Kayleigh navigated to another screen. She paused for a second and checked another screen.
"The power draw is a little low and the temperature is a little bit too high. We need to open this up. Stand back, please."
Kayleigh deployed her suit visor. A fraction of second later Hiroko did the same.
"Is this really necessary?", Brian asked.
"Stand back, please!", said Hiroko, squaring up to him. Brian took a step back, slightly surprised by the agent's aggressive posture.
Kayleigh issued the command to open the locker and stepped back as the locker door opened and the tiered trays slid out. Cold air and mist poured out of locker."
"Oh frak! Hiroko, we have a problem. A big problem.", said Kayleigh.
"A leak?", asked Hiroko.
"No. Not a leak, but possibly worse than that!"
Hiroko walked over to stand beside Kayleigh. "What am I looking at?"
"See those two warheads there on the bottom row?"
"Oh frak! They're different."
"Yeah! Regular dumbfire missile warheads."
"What? Impossible! You must be mistaken!", exclaimed Brian.
"See! Those two there!", snapped Kayleigh, pointing at the warheads in question.
"Randomius! How?", said Brian, as he looked at the two dumbfire missile warheads, his face going pale.
"We need to access the deck logs and to get a security team down here now.", said Hiroko. Kayleigh closed up the weapon locker.
"Is that really necessary?", Brian asked with a tremor in his voice.
"Listen buddy!", said Kayleigh, "It's our job to inspect the enzyme missile warheads at our facilities and take whatever steps are necessary to ensure that they are stored properly. And you appear to have lost two!" Hiroko noticed that Kayleigh's hand had settled on the butt of her power transfer tool.
"These are the type of warheads that NMLA terrorists have used to disable stations recently.", said Hiroko, "If this facility is harbouring such terrorists, then it is a matter of time before an Imperial expedition force shows up here. IISS are considerably less gentle and forgiving than our security teams, so it is best for us to get on top of this as quickly as possible, don't you think?"
Brian swallowed hard and mumbled, "Okay."
The three of them walked swiftly back to Brian's console. The passed Carlos on the way.
"Everything okay, boss?", asked Carlos. The trio ignored him.
At the console Kayleigh brought the access log entries for the weapon locker 2. There were two entries: the time they were initially loaded in and an entry for her access three minutes ago. She thought for a while and then brought up the environmental log entries for the locker. She scanned the list and found what she was looking for.
"The access logs for the locker have been tampered with", Kayleigh said, "But there was a spike in the temperature on December 5th, at 01:31 in the morning. The temperature increase profile looks similar to the current profile."
"So, consistent with someone opening the locker?", asked Hiroko.
"Yes", Kayleigh replied.
"What do the access logs for the room look like?"
"They've also been tampered with."
"Frak!"
"I am checking the access logs of the dumbfire lockers from the hour before our locker was opened.", said Kayleigh, typing on the console's virtual keyboard. "Got it! One access, by technician James Bond."
"He no longer works here. He didn't show up for his shift on the 7th of December, and hasn't been seen since. He was a bit of a loner, but did good work. We filed a missing person report for him.", said Brian. "I can't believe he would do such a thing."
"He sounds like our guy, but I will need to interview you and your staff to get a full picture of what happened." Brian swallowed hard, concern written all over his face.
Two security team members arrived. Hiroko walked toward them.
"I'm Agent Watanabe from BPIA.", Hiroko said, as she sent her ID and authorization level details to their suit huds, "There's been a theft of some munitions here. Secure the area. Nobody allowed in or out until we get back."
"Where are we going?", asked Kayleigh.
"We are heading to OPS."
Laveykin Hub, Supay - 3307-04-04 12:11 GST
Mira Lorde sat at her console, in Laveykin Hub OPS, waiting for a database restore to complete. Standing by her shoulder was Agent Watanabe. Sitting at a nearby console was Specialist Frye, who was wearing a H.E: suit, much to Mira's alarm. The two women had arrived fifteen minutes ago looking for specific traffic logs, security scan logs, customs logs, and video footage. They wouldn't say what it was about but it seemed very serious. It had taken about about ten minutes to verify the womens' credentials, following the full protocol, but they both checked out and, despite their obvious impatience, seemed satisfied that she was doing the check. The data they were looking for was from December 5th, so it was, inconveniently, not currently in the active database. She was creating a new database from archived data for the day. There was petabytes of information involved, so it was taking a few minutes.
"Are you sure the cargo would have been moved that day?", Specialist Frye asked Agent Watanabe.
"Almost certain. Storing it on the station for any length of time would just increase the risk of detection. Besides, the thief had had full access to a nice safe storage area for the items. No point in moving them from there until he was ready to leave the station."
Mira's console beeped.
"The database is ready!", she said.
"Great!", replied Agent Watanabe. "To start with, can you get us video footage of the outfitting deck from 01:20 to 01:50?"
Mira entered a query. Her terminal emitted an angry beep.
"I'm sorry, but the footage from that time is missing.", Mira said.
"Frak!", Agent Watanabe replied. "How much footage is missing?"
"Everything in that area of the station, between 1:00 and 2:00"
"Frak!"
"I have an idea.", said Specialist Frye. "Can you show us the footage for the ten minutes just before and the ten minutes just after the missing footage?"
"Sure", replied Mira.
"What are you looking for?", asked Agent Watanabe.
"Well, I was thinking. It would be hard to get the cargo unnoticed to a ship the way it was. So, perhaps, he put it in a cargo pod."
"Good thinking!", replied Agent Watanabe.
"There!", said Specialist Frye. "There's a pod stacked near the fire fighting equipment at 00:59 that is gone at 02:01"
"Can you query for cargo pod transponders in that area around that time?", asked Agent Watanabe.
"Two seconds!", said Mira. "Got it! There's one transponder."
"Search cargo loading logs for that pod!", said Agent Watanabe.
"It was loaded onto a Cobra Mk 3, called Purple Ghost, owned by pilot, Samara Faulkner, at 15:53."
"Just before a shift change by system security.", remarked Agent Watanabe.
"Thanks Mira. You have been more helpful than you know." The agent walked over to the terminal her comrade was seated at.
"So is that the ship?", asked Specialist Frye.
"Almost certainly.", replied Agent Watanabe, as she typed on the console. She hit the enter key. A minute later the console beeped.
"Okay! The ship departed at 16:01. It landed again in another station at 17:05."
"Where?", asked Specialist Frye.
"Ohm Colony, in the HIP 82030 system."