Fatal Containment

Fatal Containment - Chapter 35

Chapter 35

He made his way to the brig, his steps echoing in the quiet corridors.

Trevor sat on the cold, metal bench locked behind the energy barrier of a cell, He had been falsely accused of tampering with the ship's security system, and despite his protests of innocence, he had been thrown in the brig.

He looked up as Connor and approached, his face split with a grin.

"Really," Trevor said, looking up at his friend.

"I think this suits you, Trevor," Connor joked as he surveyed the bars and simple cot.

"You nearly destroyed the ship," Trevor said, an understatement as he was forced to ride out the battle in his little room.

Connor nodded in a nonchalant way. "True, but we got Cheryl back. The captain... Owen stayed behind."

Trevor's face fell, but he nodded. "Of course, he did."

Meanwhile, Cheryl was in the security office with Macey Gifford, reviewing the hexadecimal representation of the security log files. She was pointing out the timestamps and markers for the time periods surrounding the high vacuum and reactor bay incidents. It felt good to be using her intellect to track own evidence to clear Trevor. He was cute and useful to have around after all.

"Look here," Cheryl said, pointing at the screen. "These are override stamps. The captain countermanded the security systems and shut them down in the high vacuum lab."

Macey frowned, studying the logs. "What about Reactor Three?"

Cheryl drug the scrub head to the approximate time she had been abducted, and nearly subsequently killed, in the reactor room. "Here, the captain enabled the override, but it was sergeant Klaus that started the diagnostic."

As they delved deeper into the logs, the mystery of the captain's actions began to unravel. The captain had been working with Candice to sell Tyrell's technology to the Kantian mercenaries. But Maxim must have discovered what they had planned and threatened to throw Candice off the team. Candice took out Maxim, with the captain's cooperation and the team was to be delivered to an unknown buyer, that they now knew was Robert Andreas Wölfflin and his mercenary company. They had the money and an invincible communication system would have given them near omnipotence across the entire galaxy.

Connor was filling in his friend, through the bars of his cell.

"The Captain would never hesitate in battle," Connor told Trevor. "I don't think 'hesitation' is a word he even knows. But thinking back, he was watching his pocket chronometer as he knew exactly how much damage the incoming missile would do to our port side shield. Once he was sure it would detonate, he ensured the scan array would be facing the incoming weapon.

"But how did he..." began Trevor, but then he corrected himself. "The captain signs off all requisitions, so he knew we were out of power inducers." Trevor filled in. Connor nodded.

"And he had worked out that the abandoned mining operation was between us and the Murak star system." Connor finished for him.

Cheryl and Macey walked down the hall to Trevor's cell.

"We're still going over the logs. It might take a while," Macey began. I think we're going to head to the mess hall, you coming commander?"

Trevor groaned, sinking back onto the bench. "Great, just great."

"Trevor, we're still investigating and it's not looking good for you," Cheryl said with a frown."

Trevor's face paled as he looked up at Connor. "But I didn't do anything! You said so yourself!"

Cheryl and Macey exchanged a knowing glance, then burst out laughing. Trevor looked at them, throwing his hands in the air.

Cheryl wiped a tear from her eye. "Oh, Trevor. We're just messing with you. You're cleared. The logs show the overrides came from the captain both times."

Trevor let out a sigh of relief, then glared at them. "You two are terrible. I thought I was going to be stuck in here forever!" Cheryl and Macey just laughed harder as Macey entered the voice print to shut off the energy barrier. It was good to have a moment of levity amidst the tension and danger they had all been forced to endure the last several days. As Trevor stood, working the kinks out of his back from sleeping on the metal bed, he gave each woman his best smoldering look.

"Maybe we should just keep him here," Macey suggested.

"At least that way we would know he was staying out of trouble," Cheryl confirmed. "And we'd have access to him anytime we wanted."

"No thank you," Trevor said as he edged past both officers. "Besides, I want some real food. This slop you have down here is pretty low fare, PO," Trevor complained.

"Hey, I bring you the same food the other enlisted eat," she responded, puffing up.

"Exactly," he said. "Come on commander, let's head over to the officer's mess. I know where the real coffee is kept."

With that the two ladies smiled as Trevor nowhad his freedom and could roam about the ship looking for who he could charmnext.