The Living and the Damned - Part I
12 Nov 2017Jellicoe
"I want you to fine someone." Kira Goméz said in her usual self assured way as she sat in Jellicoe's ready room. She looked good in a flight suit Jellicoe thought, her shapely form highlighted by the close fitting outfit, Kira may have been past sixty but she still had a body women forty years her junior would be proud of."Someone in particular or will anyone do?" Jellicoe quipped.
"This is no time for your juvenile levity Stannis, some very dear friends of mine are suffering terribly so can I please have your full attention?" Jellicoe nodded, suitably chastened in a way only Kira could make him feel. "Good. Now a girl has gone missing, her parents are in bits, they're wonderful people, kind and gentle and it's destroying them, I've known them since university and it's breaking my heart."
"What have the police turned up?"
"It's outside Alliance jurisdiction, they're hamstrung."
Jellicoe steepled his fingers, resting his chin on his thumbs. "Alright, what are the details?"
"She's a scientist, a brilliant one, exceptional in her field but very innocent, most of her life's been spent in academia devoted to her research. She's such a lovely, sweet girl I've known her all her life." Kira was becoming agitated in a way Jellicoe had never seen before.
"Take your time." He said gently.
"I'm alright." Kira insisted. "She was given a research grant to pursue a line of study and a ship." Jellicoe winced at this, Kira appeared not to notice. "She began well enough but then she just disappeared, nobody's heard from her in six weeks."
"Any reason to believe she isn't just getting on with her work? Or just taken the ship and gone off to see the galaxy? Space can change people, the vastness and the freedom of it."
"No, I'm certain something's happened, she wrote constantly to her parents, to her friend then the messages suddenly stop. What?" She asked picking up on Jellicoe's expression.
"Kira." He said gently. "Tens of thousands of people disappear in space every year, each one with a family and friends sick with worry and desperate to find them, only a handful have a happy ending."
"Don't you dare try to weasel out of this Stannis Jellicoe." Kira's eyes flashed and for the first time ever Jellicoe heard genuine anger in her voice.
"I'm not trying to weasel out of anything, if you say look for this girl I'll look for her to the ends of the galaxy, but there's a hundred things that could have happened to her and ninety nine of them aren't good." His voice softened. "I don't want to give anyone false hope that's all."
"What do you think's happened to her? Be completely honest." Jellicoe looked long and hard at Kira, when people ask for complete honesty he thought, they rarely meant it, they wanted reassurance, they wanted to be given reasons to carry on believing that their comforting fantasy would, against all the odds, turn out to be true, ordinarily he would never have expected that of Kira, but then he had never seen Kira so affected or agitated before, still, she always knew when she was hiding something."
"Her communications abruptly stopped with no reason or warning, there's been no ransom demand or distress call, based on that I'd say she's probably dead." He said brutally. "Killed in some random attack."
"Why would anyone attack and unarmed research ship?" Kira asked. "They had nothing of value on board."
"Out there there doesn't have to be a reason. There are people out there who will kill you just for the sheer pleasure of killing, and they will keep on killing until somebody kills them. Like I say, space can change people."
"There must be other possibilities."
"There are, most of which have the same result, she could have crashed on a planet or got too close to a star or put in at the wrong port in the wrong system and been killed for looking at the wrong person in the wrong way."
"There must be a chance she's still alive." Kira said desperately, it was a side of her he had never seen before, struggling to come to terms with events she couldn't control in a world she did not understand.
"There is but it probably doesn't help us find her, she could be in a life pod who's distress beacon is malfunctioning or stranded on a planet with no coms, if it's either of those we've no chance, she could have been taken by slavers in which case we might be able to track her some of the way but once she's been sold all trace of her identity will be erased and the trail will go with it."
"If she is sold as a slave what will happen to her?" Kira asked quietly.
"She's a specialist, a scientist, someone may want her skills."
"Don't hide things from me Stannis, what will happen to her?"
"An attractive young woman?" Jellicoe said as gently as he could. "Do I really need to spell it out?" Kira blanched, but the determination in her eyes was stronger than ever.
"Where do we start then?" She asked.
"We need information, as much as we can get. This isn't like the holo-vids it's the small details that matter. I need to build up a picture of her, how she thinks that kind of thing. I'd like to speak to her parents and this friend she was close to."
"Okay I'll arrange it, and Stannis, thanks for not hiding anything about your world, I think I understand you a little better for it."