Star Trek Sim/ Star Trek RPG
USS Eagle, NCC 2185

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LTjg Richards,ASEC, & Ensign Hanson, AENG

JOINT LOGS
Joint Logs by Myth and Nouri

Title: Hanson's Harriedness
Setting: USS Eagle
Time:  Immediately after "Leah's Luck, Part Two" ( https://usseagle2185.tripod.com/rbwomzb23asechanson4ll.html )
Location: LTjg Richards' Quarters

After escaping the Medical sweep and the questioning of the female AMO, Leah had gotten back to her actual assigned duty of checking out Aren's quarters. She'd conducted a careful physical search for anything conspicuously out of the ordinary as well as a tricorder sweep. The tricorder had turned up a few odd DNA traces and the computer terminal had spit out one very odd message. LCDR Unstoffe had left her with further orders to get Hanson to check the terminal. Now ... she just had to convince Hanson to do it, which was not proving to be easy at all.

Ensign Hanson finally showed up after beginning to believe that maybe, just maybe, LCDR Unstoffe did really want him to check the terminal out. Regardless he hid the bots so that Leah could not find them. He grabbed his gear and headed over to the guest quarters.

Hanson entered, plopped himself down at the terminal and typed in a few perfunctory routines. He looked up and said, "No doubt. It's him. Is that all you wanted?"

Leah had had enough time to reconsider her actions while she'd searched the quarters. She purposely stuck to formalities for the moment. Once Hanson had completed his work there would be time to deal with the other ... issues. "Check for tampering. Or if anyone else accessed it. Be thorough."

Hanson typed some stuff that may not have been relevant. "Nope, no tampering," he announced.

Then again, patience was overrated. "You're messing with me," Leah accused. She might not be entirely sure what a careful search might entail for something this technical, but she was certain it would take longer than his halfhearted tapping had taken.

"Do you want me to put the terminal back the way it was?" Hanson asked. He was clearly done and trying to leave.

"I want you to check it out. Pull it apart if you have to, or whatever you people do, but actually do it!" Leah answered.

Hanson rolled his eyes and took off a panel. He mucked about, again perfunctorily. "Yep, it's fine," he announced tediously.

"Done. You can shut it down," he said. He got his gear and got up to leave.

~I'd rather shut YOU down.~ Leah moved to keep herself between Hanson and the exit. "We're not done yet." That covered both their assigned task and the other stuff.

"I did what you wanted me to do. I am done. I am so outta here. What a waste of time," he said reaching into his gear bag.

"NO. You're not." Leah switched her focus from the terminal to their personal issues. Maybe switching back and forth would trip him into agreeing to do his work without being so darned annoying. "You lied to the AMOs."

Hanson sighed. "Well, I know better now that to hold my breath for a thank you. You owe me, yet again," he said caustically.

"But you didn't DO anything yet! This is important." Leah pointed past him to the computer. "And it's your duty. Don't you care about anything?!" In her book duty was about the only reason to bother getting up in the morning. His apparent lack of interest was inconceivable.

Hanson got defensive. "I care about plenty. It's just not what you care about. In fact, it is probably what you don't care about," he said deliberately to irritate her further.

Arguing with this guy was pointless. He just turned everything around and gave her a headache. "Now, what the heck is that supposed to mean?"

Hanson gave her another enigmatic shrug. "You know," he said.

"IF I knew I wouldna asked!" she replied.

"Never mind," Hanson said. He didn't care anymore about winning an argument and tried to leave again.

"Oh no you don't!" Leah kept blocking the door. "YOU owe me now, anyway." She switched topics again.

Hanson snorted derisively, "Nothing on your tally side."

"Oh yes you do! Now there's an AMO after me all 'cause of you!" Obviously that wasn't exactly an accurate account of the details, but if he'd kept his tongue in his mouth she might have found a way to talk her way out of this mess. And more importantly if he wasn't so aggravating, she wouldn't have broken his nose in the first place!

"Me? Why is the AMO after you? I thought I made up a good story so you wouldn't get reported," he said sincerely.

"What?!" That excuse didn't make any sense to Leah. "She wants me in for therapy or something!" The way she said it made it sound like a death sentence.

"Don't blame that on me. I AM not the one breaking other people's noses," he reminded her.

"You coulda just said you slipped, fool. THAT woulda been a better story!" And surely a more plausible one considering the state of Leah's floor. There was plenty to trip over. His botched attempt at protecting her was a surprise and she wasn't sure what to make of it.

"Slipped? On my nose?" he repeated. "Actually I did and they didn't buy it," he said.

Leah held back a sharp retort and paused to look at the Ensign. He was much more pathetic looking than usual, and not just because of the nose. Against her instincts, she held back from flattening him. "It's better than some rejected crush nonsense."  

Hanson just shrugged.

"Well, whatever." Leah wondered how she might talk her way out of the proposed therapy sessions. Probably anything she tried would just dig her in deeper. "So ... why don't you care about this?" She gestured to the computer. "Usually you're more ... dedicated than that." Single minded might have been a better description. The last time she'd watched him work it was like he'd forgotten the rest of the universe existed.

"It's just obvious," he said.

Hanson could be truly infuriating. Leah didn't like the implication that she was just to stupid to see what he was getting at, but she still wanted to get to the bottom of this. "What's obvious? Why you don't care, or that it's the Captain?"

"I don't need this. I have to go. It is the Captain," he said.

Leah shut her eyes for the moment pushing aside visions of shattering his bones. "How can you be so sure?" Her attempt at a level tone only revealed how frustrated she was.

"It's obvious. I know. What do you want me to look for?" he asked. ~~Perhaps this thick headed security officer only had one thought how to check something and if I didn't pay obeisance to it, I'll never leave.~~ he thought. ~Best to do whatever she was expecting and leave.~

She forced herself to stick to a reasonable answer and avoid yelling curses at him, despite the pleasure that would bring. "Well, IF someone wanted to kidnap this ... guy -" She purposely left out the fact that Aren had been a spy. Leah wasn't sure what Hanson might know about that. "- and then keep us from going after him by leaving that message, how could they fake it?"

Hanson looked less bored and replied, "There are a number of ways to check for that."

~Finally!~ It looked like maybe Hanson would get to work after all. "Then could you perhaps do so?"

The bored look returned. "Yes," he said.

Leah chose to ignore his boredom for the moment - that was his problem. "Good."

Hanson mucked about again, seemingly more serious this time, but there was no great light of interest on his face as there usually was.

As Hanson resumed his work Leah kept an eye on him and mentally replayed their conversation. It almost seemed like Hanson had some other reason for believing it was the Captain... "Hanson ... why are you so sure it's the Captain?"

"I know," he said simply with his head stuck deep in the console.

"Right, but how?" Leah thought out loud, "You weren't in here ... did he tell you?" ~Why the heck would he do that?~ Hanson just didn't seem to be worth confiding in.

"No signs any external power source was added and removed except for what the Captain used," he said.

The enigmatic Ensign decided it was fine to tell her now. "Yes, we talked about it," he said.

She didn't bother asking Hanson why the Captain had done that for the time being. "When?" She tried to seem non-threatening while also avoiding the appearance of trying too hard.

Hanson shrugged again. " A while ago. I don't know how much I can say. I have to ask him. Any word on how he is doing?" he asked. He was clearly worried about the Captain. The Captain was one of the few people on board who was nice to him. Hanson figured he could stop with going through the motions now, got his stuff wrapped up, and closed up panel on console. ~The sooner, I leave the better,~ he thought.

"I don't really know." Leah hadn't heard much, in between the Orion attack at the robot problem she'd been pretty busy. "You should tell Unstoffe what he said." It would be pointless to try and get Hanson to tell her after the nose and all.

"I am not telling anyone what he said. I'd have to ask him first," he explained.

"You don't think he'd trust LCDR Unstoffe?!" Leah was surprised by he suggestion. Granted, she tended toward an almost paranoid mistrust of people but generally superior officers were exempt from that. Duty should preclude any reason to lie or otherwise be deceitful, ideally.

Hanson shrugged and deduced aloud for her, "If Unstoffe asked you to ask me, etc., then Unstoffe does not know; therefore, the CO had not trusted him with that information."

"OR he didn't have time to," Leah pointed out.

"Either possibility is viable," he said. He didn't care. As long as there was a chance the Captain said something to him that should not be repeated, he was not going to repeat it. For his many faults, Hanson could be very loyal. Oddly, he shared Leah's distrust of most people and had that besides a messy room in common with her. However, his sense of duty stemmed more from personal loyalty that than any Starfleet reg or directive.

~Arg!~ "Fine. Are you sure Aren didn't do anything to the terminal, maybe send a message to the Orions?" She dropped the trust issue for the moment, with any luck Hanson could go double check with the Captain soon and then spill whatever he knew.

"Good point," he said. ~I can't believe I just said something nice to her,~ he thought. "Just because I know about this doesn't mean something else couldn't have happened. I do know that the terminal was only active with enough power for you to get that message. I'll have to check the quarters for some alternate way. Why a message to the Orions?" he asked.

In her opinion THAT was obvious. "They showed up and Aren and the XO are missing, that's why." Leah shrugged. "Or anyone else, I guess." It was a bad idea to focus on only one suspect - all possibilities had to be considered and investigated.

Hanson looked more interested now in doing his job, but groaned.

"What?" Leah asked, noticing Hanson's groan.

"Well, there's so many places to hide something. This will take a long time.  Mostly likely any evidence would have gone the way of the Orions, but why trash the quarters and keep searching every one's rooms?" he asked.

"I don't know, but the only way to find out is to check out every possibility, right?" Leah guessed that would be a handful for one person to do. "Is there some way I can help?"

"I need to know what you have checked. How broad you were checking, etc., and more about the Orions and the person who was supposed to be living here. I need to be able to think like these people to aid in how to be looking," he said sounding a lot like the Captain.

"The only unusual thing I found here was a few DNA traces. As for Aren... I don't know much." Actually, most of what she did know was only from rumors in the security department.

He shrugged. "Easier to find how someone hid something if you know them. Do you know which side he spied on or anything of that nature? Or any conversations with him? An accent?" he said, sounding a lot like the Captain again.

"No accent. Rumor says he was a defector with important information. That's all I know really." Leah was a bit embarrassed at her lack of knowledge, especially after just having accused him of shirking his responsibility.

Surprisingly, Hanson didn't jump on her for not knowing. "Not much to go on," he said.

"Unless you know something more...?" Leah suggested. After all the Captain might have mentioned something while he was busy confiding in the Ensign.

Hanson thought and said, "I guess that's all we got to go on." He wasn't going to say anything more about what the Captain said to him." So what exactly do you want me to look for? Some device to communicate with another vessel? Best to check out the ship's logs and scans for anything like that. I don't think we can find a device because if there was one it would be taken when he left."

"I'll check - but a thorough physical sweep would have to be conducted too. Just to eliminate the possibility that the message went undetected." She didn't press him to spill all his thoughts, it seemed like that would be counter productive to the goal of getting him to work on this.

"I can do that. It will take a long time though. I'll have to get some sleep and go on duty in engineering," he said.

Leah scowled. How could he think of sleeping now that they had a course of action picked out? "You could get a team to help you. Speed things up a bit, right?" Plus, if there was a team at work at least some of the work would actually get done. Hanson couldn't be relied on as far as she was concerned.

"Yes, but shouldn't this be kept very secret?" he said.

"...just call it a careful search. They don't need all the back ground." The suggestion made sense to her. In security, at least, you did what you were told without asking too many questions.

That made no sense to Hanson, of course, as a scientist and engineer. "No. Can't search for a device and not say what it is or give some specs on it," he said.

Leah shrugged. "Then you'll have to give 'em specs. We can't waste time doing this ourselves." It was more important to get the search done than to worry about maintaining perfect secrecy.

"Yes, I'll get to a working terminal and point out some things for you all to look for," Hanson replied.

She grinned. ~Finally- some action!~ "Good." Even a boring search would be better than arguing with this guy. At least it would be productive!

Hanson's stomach growled and it gave him another idea he learned from the Captain...  "Food. Let me see any food in here," he asked.

Leah rolled her eyes. ~Doesn't this guy ever NOT eat?~ "Specs first- THEN food. Enough Wasting time." In her rush to doing something, ANYTHING, constructive Leah dropped the pretense of niceness, if only for a second.

"No, food tells a lot about a person," he tried to explain. It also might give him a time frame to use.

"Hanson. This is a little more important than you being hungry, don'cha think?" Leah tried to present a reasonable argument rather than resorting to yelling or trying to pull rank. It was dawning on her slowly that neither approach worked on Hanson.

It was Hanson's turn to roll his eyes. "It can tell us possibly some regional preferences and how long he was here," he tried to explain.

"Then ask the computer!" She wasn't in the mood to hang around more than was absolutely necessary.

"No, that's your job," Hanson said with an evil grin. He was not going to play security officer and do her job for her. "Get back to me after you find out. I am going to type this up and get some sleep. I have to be in earlier to work tomorrow or is it today already?" he said yawning.

~So much for being nice~ "We should get a team searching now, THEN you can sleep." Leah snapped, only a few seconds from trying to pull rank again. Maybe this time it would have better results, since Unstoffe was theoretically backing up the request.

"CSEC only asked me to check terminal. Rest is yours. Good night," he said. ~There she goes again. I am out of here,~ he thought.

Then again, maybe it wouldn't change a thing. "Wait! At least make some note of what we're looking for." Leah was desperate enough that that came out as something of a plea.

"That's why I am off to a terminal," he said noting the nicer tone that came out of the security officer. ~And to sleep, perchance to dream of this girl I like..~ he thought.

Leah ground her teeth together. He might have said so before, instead of acting like he was off to snooze. "GOOD."

Hanson shrugged. "Whatever," he said, picking up his stuff.

But one thing had been gnawing at the back of Leah's mind ever since she'd been questioned by that darned AMO. "Hanson, what on EARTH possessed you to tell them I liked you?!" There was no one in the universe she disliked more, really. He was so aggravating!

"Because you do," he said a bit impishly and impudently.

Almost any other response would have resulted in his being pummeled. This one caught her completely off guard and she burst out laughing. Between laughs she gasped out, "Are.. you ... nuts?!"

"Gotcha!" Hanson said laughing even harder than Leah. "See ya," he said making his escape.

Leah's laughter died off. As he left she muttered in response, "Hope not." Not having to deal with him for a while would be a welcome blessing.

Leah gave Hanson a few minutes to vacate the corridor before stepping back outside. "Computer, reseal these quarters." She waited for the computer's confirmation before heading off to gather a team to hunt out whatever gizmo Hanson specified.

Hanson scurried back to his quarters, hoping to get at least four hours sleep.

    

Hail the Captain of the USS Eagle

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