Editing The Sevant Murders (section)

==The Murder==
===The Saboteur's Conspire===
USS Nimitz - Lower Decks - Saboteur 1 & 2 -  16:00)


"You realize what you are asking me to do, yes? This is something of a switch in our tactics."

The second figure nodded in the half-light. "Oh yes, I'm well aware. Our previous tactics didn't work, and now the engineering staff is constantly looking for signs of tampering."

"Ok, but Why not higher up, the Captain has a couple brats..."

He was interrupted. "Those two are not her natural family. It wouldn't make nearly so large an impression, they can be targeted later if this message is not heeded."

The first figure scratched at his beard, "When."

"Now."

The first figure cocked his head at that, "It's the middle of the day, everyone awake and running around madly. The target is telepathic, one mental scream and it's over for me. There are enough other empaths and telepaths on this ship as it is."

The second figure smiled crookedly. "I have taken care of that. The dinner they ate not ten minutes ago was, shall we say, heavily laced in sleeping powder. Which is why it must be now, if you fail then they will alert security that something is wrong once they wake up."

Silence for many moments followed that statement. The first figure considered the position, then said "What do you want me to do."

He was handed a PADD with a simple note on it, and a second PADD with some technical codes and instructions. "You can activate the transporter system with this second PADD, from anywhere on the ship. Place the first on the body, it will serve as a warning. Get out, and beam the target to somewhere close-by the Archaeologists quarters. They should get the message quite clear. We will both have to lay low for a time after this, but it should work."

"I'm not so sure," was the firsts response. "However, I have little choice."

The second breathed in, and gave a deep nasal wheeze/chuckle. "You are absolutely correct, you don't have a choice. Do it."

He licked his lips, "You must be getting desperate."

The second figure smiled, almost gently, before turning away. "Desperation is such an, ugly word."


===The Murder===
(USS Nimitz - Officers Quarters - Saboteur 1 -  16:14)

After making sure the passage was clear, which it was bound to be at this time of day, the lone man stepped into the quarters of his quarry after clearing the security on the main outer door. Everything was quiet, nothing immediately appeared to be amiss. 
He sighed deeply, and shuddered at the thought of what he was about to do. This was not why he had come aboard, but with what his so-called partner had hanging over his head... he had no choice at all. 

He walked around the couch, and cocked his head to the side. A girl, no older then 13, was laying on the floor. The saboteur chewed on his lip, and turned from the scene to look for the other two. He found them both in one of the bedrooms, a little girl was laying in her bed, holding her stomach while a woman was slumped sitting in a chair next to her. A book had fallen from the woman's hand, it appeared they had been reading. 

The man blindly wiped at his mouth, though there was no spit to wipe away and hadn't been since he had first gotten these orders. His stomach did a flip, but he quelled it with thoughts of retribution should he fail. He listlessly walked out of the bedroom and back into the living room, rubbing at his forehead and muttering curses to himself as he contemplated what he was about to do. He sat looking at the girl on the floor again, apparently she had fallen off the couch. He closed his eyes, "Just. Do. It." 

Slowly he walked around the couch to where she was laying, and then grabbed her under the arms and pulled her away. She wasn't heavy, exceptionally light in fact considering her apparent age. But he hardly noticed as he pulled her into the bedroom with the rest of the family. He picked her up, almost gently, and laid her out next to her younger sister. 

He contemplated the scene for several moments, then pulled at the arm of the woman and managed over the course of a couple minutes to manhandle her onto the bed as well. She was VERY pregnant, he hadn't known that before. He would be taking at least four lives, not three. As large as she was however, he didn't doubt she had twins. 

"I'm sorry," he said to them as if they could hear him. "It is you, or my own. I can only pray the Commander finds some solace in the fact that none of you will feel any pain." He had been looking at a family picture of all of them, in happier times, as he had been speaking. They looked to be on a Holodeck, fishing off some sort of dock. The Father of the children was in the lake, sputtering, while the wife and children looked on in laughter. 

Commander Sevant would be beaming back to a very cold homecoming, after this night.

He muttered to himself some more as he took the family picture, and on impulse put it in his uniform. He would look at it later, and atone for the wrongs he was about to do. Without any other warning he took a knife from an inside pocket and bent over the three prone bodies. His had hesitated at the throat of the woman, Victoria, and a small tear fell from his cheek onto hers. 

"I'm sorry."

...

Five minutes later he exited the quarters, all three of them were done, nearly bled dry onto the sheets of the youngest girls bed. The PADD which he had been instructed to leave with the corpses had been left on Vicki's chest, held in place by a hand from the oldest daughter. He had placed communicators on all three, and had imputed the communicator codes into the 2nd PADD he was holding. 

He had stayed longer then he should have, but he felt detached, and had watched them take their last gasping breath, not once had they awoken from their deep drug-induced slumber. 

All that was left was for the bodies to be deposited in a very visual place, so several people would get the idea they were not safe if they continued in their plans to work on this planet. He had no personal idea what was so important about some ruins, he hadn't been told why all this effort needed to be expended, and he found he didn't want to know. 

He stepped into a turbolift, and pressed the button on the PADD as the doors closed. A few moments later the PADD fully erased itself, the job was done. Engineering would now be tracking that a transporter beam had just been engaged, right past the security lockouts. The origin and target would be logged, a security team would be sent to the hallway in front of the Archaeologists quarters. 

What they would find, no doubt, would be a lot of Scientists hanging about a certain place in the hallway. Some might be crying, others would be cursing, yet others would be ashen and say nothing at all. 

When security managed to clear the hallway and get to the center of the disturbance, they would find three dead bodies, death from loss of blood because their throats had been cut. Two children, one woman and at least one unborn child.. that of the Sevant family. 

The turbolift door opened again, and he walked through it quickly, heading for his quarters. He felt the need to be violently ill, he had just committed mass-murder to convince some weakling scientists not to beam down to a planet.

(reply: Security, engineering, any)
(posted by Trout)

'''''Authors Note:''''' The PADD on Vicki says "Do not go down to the planet, or this might happen to you. There will be others if this warning is not heeded, keep your children tight safe and snug in bed."

===The Murders are Noticed===

(Deck 8, Outside Archaeologists' quarters - 1653)

'Grandpa' looked onto the scene in front of him, his face the very image of aplomb. All to often he had seen gristly scenes, even his job was to dig up the bones of the long since deceased, and try to make sense of them. However, there was a distinct difference between the deaths of three human females and the bones of some long forgotten civilization. 

Especially when those three carried a very obvious note directed at him, and his other companions. 

"Ok, everyone, back to your stations please," announced a security officer of some sort.  "There's nothing more to see here."  

The Chameloid turned in his old'ish human form, and pulled at his beard as his colleges slowly broke away, most of them muttering to each other.
Only a couple stood for longer, one of them was Melina Lockwood, the woman Zach hated with what appeared to be every fiber of his being.
Grandpa considered her for many moments, until she turned to him with a small grin on her face. 

He cocked his head as she turned around and started walking away. "Just what is so amusing." he said in a deathly low tone as they left the scene. 

"Nothing is amusing, you perverted old man." she said in her husky way, "I just find these tactics to be useless. And the message, how cliché can we get?"

"Three people lost their lives Lockwood, you might do good to remember that."

She stopped, and looked over at him with a raised eyebrow. "And more will probably die before we are done, so?"

The Chameloid narrowed his eyes, "You are heartless."

She smiled at him, every so slightly. "No, I'm practical. Good day."

Grandpa watched her walk off, and shook his head. He licked his lips, a mannerism he had picked up from working around far to many humans, and shrugged.