Profiling

Posted on 18 Apr 2020 @ 11:50am by Lieutenant Quinle Rahl & Commander Kristiana Petrova

881 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: Changing Faces
Location: Counselor's quarters

Kristiana was a woman on a mission. She had her ideas about what had happened, but she'd be the first to admit that she understood considerably more about subdoing someone than profiling them. As such she headed to Lieutenant Rahl's office, intent to ask her some questions too. Once she reached the office she rang the doorchime.

Quinle was in her office, there was a glass on her desk filled with two fingers worth of something akin to rocket fuel untouched since she had put it there, staring down into the amber fluid. “Enter,” she replied automatically at the chime, turning to face the doorway, leaving the glass resting behind the soft frame of the counselor as she leaned back against her desk.

"Counselor." Kristiana gave a nod as she entered. "Got a moment for me? Need to figure out what kind of person would do this kind of murder, under these circumstances, in public. I have my thoughts, but I'd like to hear yours."

“Of course, this needs to be a priority for us all.” Quinle agreed. “Throughout history there have been a number of studies on these types of mindsets. As we do not know of other deaths such as this in this universe we are limited on our resources, unless their security wishes to assist us.” Ticking things off on her fingers, “Without motive we know the killer is organized due to the planning and the ease of the kill without us knowing. It seems unlikely that the killer did this just on impulse. There is a chance it was just an opportunity but I doubt it. This was planned, possibly with political reasoning. Many reasons for that, from a hate crime for the different to just making us look bad by an ambassador not being safe on our ship.”

"Well, the obvious motive would be to upset the peace talks. It's too high profile to be a personal grudge and I can't think of any reason someone would go to that length to make us look bad, though that's still a possibility we can't rule out." Kristiana mused, rubbing her chin in thought. "It has to be someone with personal knowledge of the victim, they used a poison that acted on the victim's allergies."

Quinle nodded, “Which heralds back to an organized killer. This is not impulsive and likely a professional killer, though there are those that kill high profile for making a namesake.” Clear from her thoughts she had been considering all these things, though there was a shadow in her eyes remaining. “Whatever the reason, we have to solve this, and quickly. The other ambassadors are already questioning this mission.”

"Agreed. This whole thing is a headache." Kris rubbed her temples, closing her eyes for a moment. "You mentioned that there are some who kill high profile to make a namesake. If this is one of those, we should expect someone to claim responsibility, soon. But I don't think that's the case here. Just a hunch."

“I do not feel as such either but it is a possibility.” The counselor sighed, “My doors are open to everyone, even the Ambassadors, I will be reaching out though. The one clearly can project emotion and the last thing we need in this is her complicating things. Like a political assassination is not complicated enough.”

Kristiana nodded. "Still not much to go on, but at least I've got a clearer idea of what to look out for," she said, pensively. "Is there anything more you could tell me?"

Quinle paused slightly. “We can say our crew is in the clear except one thing, what if the killer is a shifter?”

Kris shook her head. "I considered that, but I've double checked personnel records from before our jump to now, and everyone's accounted for. Maybe it was a shifter that took the face of someone else for a period of time during the banquet, but the computer's been tracking every attendant's movements since the blackout, and nobody's done anything suspicious."

Nodding and stand up from her lean against the desk, Quinle offered a slight smile. “That will make things a little easier, though tracking a professional killer will never be easy, precisely because it is their profession.”

"Being a damn good security officer is mine." beat. "Was. Before I promoted to two-ex-oh." Kris smiled. "Anyways, thank you for the insight."

“Happy to help. If you need anything else I was going to head down to speak to our other ambassador.” Ignoring the drink she had on her desk as if it was completely out of her mind now, “I will try and keep close to her and see if I can notice anything.”

"Good idea. Let me know if you find or notice anything that might help," Petrova said with a nod. "Thanks again, Quinle." she added, heading out.

Stepping out after the XO Quinle felt the rush of air as the door closed behind her. “I will, and if you have news for her I suggest not telling her alone, with her projection it will likely be best to have a couple people with her, an empath to tamp her down, if possible.” Turning on her heel she made her way down the hallway towards the Ambassadorial rooms.

 

RSS Feed