Yesterday, 12:26 PM
Riley stayed at the hatch, attention split between the corridor and the quiet behind her. The open doorway gave her a clean line down the passage—no one approaching, no sudden movement, just the low thrum of the ship beneath her boots and the soft ambient lighting that made everything look calmer than it had any right to be.
Behind her, the VIP quarters sat too still. Nothing clattered. No voices from inside the suite beyond the measured exchanges of the security officers. No muffled shuffle from the bedroom or the bathroom. Just… space.
Crescent’s voice carried from inside the quarters, blunt and certain. “This Tomer is a ghost. Either this room has been scrubbed on the microscopic level, or he has never been here. At all.”
Riley didn’t comment. Crescent had tools and expertise Riley didn’t—and the conclusion sounded like the kind of thing you only said when the evidence forced you to. The words still left a sour taste.
Never been here. That meant the commbadge in Riley’s hand wasn’t something misplaced. It was something left. Or taken off. Or planted.
The computer’s voice was easy to hear from where she stood—too calm for what it was describing. But Riley didn’t try to translate it back to anyone. Instead, she did what she could do: anchor herself to what her own eyes and systems could confirm.
She slid her PADD up from her side—still logged in from earlier—and went straight to the security alert feed. The interface populated in neat lines: routine corridor checks, scheduled maintenance notices, and then the entry that made her pulse hitch.
There it was: an unauthorized maintenance hatch access. Time-stamped. Flagged. With a hatch designation and section attached.
Riley stared at it for a heartbeat longer than she needed to, just to make sure she wasn’t reading what she expected to see. The alert didn’t change. The details didn’t vanish. It was real, and it was recent.
Impulse Deck.
Down where a diplomatic advisor had no business being.
Her thumb hovered, then tapped once more—drilling just far enough to confirm the hatch routing without getting lost in menus. A junction reference. A maintenance corridor identifier. A trail that could be turned into positions—places for Security to stand, to watch, to deny.
Riley’s thumb stilled. She drew a slow breath, then angled the PADD toward d’Tor’an without crowding her, keeping her tone appropriately junior. She didn’t stride in. Didn’t raise her voice. Didn’t try to sell certainty she didn’t have.
“Chief… I’m seeing an unauthorized maintenance hatch alert here,” Riley said quietly. “It has the hatch ID and section.”
She hesitated—just enough to make it clear she wasn’t trying to take over, and just enough to give her department head room to dismiss it if there was something bigger Riley hadn’t grasped yet.
“If you feel it’s worth acting on, I can forward the details to the Security Complex so they can cover the nearby access points,” she added.
Riley kept her posture steady at the threshold—still the first line of awareness for this compartment—PADD held where the Chief could glance at it if she wanted, commbadge still in her other hand like a small, stubborn question with no good answer yet.
== Tags to d’Tor’an & Crescent ==
Behind her, the VIP quarters sat too still. Nothing clattered. No voices from inside the suite beyond the measured exchanges of the security officers. No muffled shuffle from the bedroom or the bathroom. Just… space.
Crescent’s voice carried from inside the quarters, blunt and certain. “This Tomer is a ghost. Either this room has been scrubbed on the microscopic level, or he has never been here. At all.”
Riley didn’t comment. Crescent had tools and expertise Riley didn’t—and the conclusion sounded like the kind of thing you only said when the evidence forced you to. The words still left a sour taste.
Never been here. That meant the commbadge in Riley’s hand wasn’t something misplaced. It was something left. Or taken off. Or planted.
The computer’s voice was easy to hear from where she stood—too calm for what it was describing. But Riley didn’t try to translate it back to anyone. Instead, she did what she could do: anchor herself to what her own eyes and systems could confirm.
She slid her PADD up from her side—still logged in from earlier—and went straight to the security alert feed. The interface populated in neat lines: routine corridor checks, scheduled maintenance notices, and then the entry that made her pulse hitch.
There it was: an unauthorized maintenance hatch access. Time-stamped. Flagged. With a hatch designation and section attached.
Riley stared at it for a heartbeat longer than she needed to, just to make sure she wasn’t reading what she expected to see. The alert didn’t change. The details didn’t vanish. It was real, and it was recent.
Impulse Deck.
Down where a diplomatic advisor had no business being.
Her thumb hovered, then tapped once more—drilling just far enough to confirm the hatch routing without getting lost in menus. A junction reference. A maintenance corridor identifier. A trail that could be turned into positions—places for Security to stand, to watch, to deny.
Riley’s thumb stilled. She drew a slow breath, then angled the PADD toward d’Tor’an without crowding her, keeping her tone appropriately junior. She didn’t stride in. Didn’t raise her voice. Didn’t try to sell certainty she didn’t have.
“Chief… I’m seeing an unauthorized maintenance hatch alert here,” Riley said quietly. “It has the hatch ID and section.”
She hesitated—just enough to make it clear she wasn’t trying to take over, and just enough to give her department head room to dismiss it if there was something bigger Riley hadn’t grasped yet.
“If you feel it’s worth acting on, I can forward the details to the Security Complex so they can cover the nearby access points,” she added.
Riley kept her posture steady at the threshold—still the first line of awareness for this compartment—PADD held where the Chief could glance at it if she wanted, commbadge still in her other hand like a small, stubborn question with no good answer yet.
== Tags to d’Tor’an & Crescent ==