Shadow nooded  with a bit of a smirk,..I guess you're   right?  still Evert sword  collected from  a Commander, was one that lost?

 He laid   it on  Beth's  Desk,..Beth can send  it  out with the next packets to Fuji, she has to send Gresh  somethigns  anyway.. we'll have he   triple up the  checks on any of the people close to  Maris...

 ..Keep the  eagle?..if nothing  esle it could copme in handy   for a special weapon.

 ..Now? Lets go back to the party, so the Admiral  and the board can leave...

 Ellen is  Grinning  wildly   as she  loks at Roy and   the LC...


>>>>>>> to  Field...Roy, Shadow  ect.

It seemed to her that most of this was going to go around and around until various pieces in this puzzle fit.  She gave them the info she gathered and her reactions to it.  For now that seemed to be all that could be done.  She did tell them if there was a Delta Action, she wanted in, especially if and where McGaha fit in.

For now though it was time for a bit of rest and keeping the info from Haley.  Yeah she did want them reunited, but if he was the one who instigated the incident that was never gonna happen.  She'd tell Haley he was shanked in prison.  Tell her later in her life when she'd be better to cope with it and understand reasonings.

With the 3 being informed she did her job without risking being caught for spying, that was all that mattered.  she gave her salutes and then went on her way to get out of her flight suit.


<end flex>

  <<<<<<<<<<  ellen returns   from party.

    Larry  was standing  up looking , looking through the window  to the  questioning  room...  he had a deep burble going on.

   he  pawed at the Metaglass  and Burbled  more. The SEC trooper walked over, pulle dout her COM   to get  ROY..

  SM!!.. We have  a Problem...sorta....

Roy was on his way back from the party when he got the call.  "What the hell is a 'sorta problem'?" he demanded into his comm, as he broke into a quick jog towards Security.

  Ellen stood  By the  window  with   LArry ( who as alomost 2  feet taller then her  as he stoon on his hind  4s...

    Um....  it depends.....but... it doesn't look like   any of them  are gonna be talking...

Roy swept into Security almost immediately after she finished speaking.  "Can't you just give a simple straight answer?" he said, first 5hing, as he started walking toward the cell.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

  Inside  the  Room, the   'one armed' officer.. and  two others  were missing thier heads...

 The   4th Vampic   was in the  far  corner.. with   the heads piled  around him, his  left arm was Missing   its hand... the  Right hand   was  Bloody all he way up to the shoudler...., He also seemed to have ripped  his own   throat  out, judging but the  wad or  Flesh and  'throat'.. that was  clutched in that Bloodied hand.

 ..They were sleeping, when  I went to the party..... MArx was  here, Until he  had to patrol the  passage  around  the Techs labs and such?..he should be back soon...his due  in 5 more minutes...anyway? It looks like that  Gut  tore off his own  hand..so he  could kill the others…then... himself?

 Larry      Just  snorted  on the glass  causing  'fog' to come and Go..blurbled a  but as  he pawed at the glass.

"Well, shit..." Roy said, simply and succinctly.  He walked over and looked in the cell again for a moment, before slamming a palm against the wall with a flurry of muffled curses.  He fell quiet, looking at the bodies in disgust.

It was hard to tell, with all the blood, but it was possible that the Vampics could have done this very quietly, and that, had Ellen been present, it still would have happened. Roy felt no need for disciplinary action...but she HAD been Officer of the Watch.

That made her responsible for a couple of onerous tasks.  "Pull the surveillance on the cell for the last twelve hours, find out when, exactly, the Vampics did all this...then look through the last three hours before.  See if they said anything remotely useful."

 Ellen  nodded,..aye , SM, already done...  she  turned  to head to her  Desk , she  smile dat Shadow and shade abd began to   go through  feeds.

 Larry thumped his tail slowly a  couple times   as he burbled .

   Shadow   peered into the  window...wow....  they  either  have some kind of  'code' about being captured, or they were afraid   we would make them talk, and  made sure they didn't

 ..You want me to tell the Admiral, or  do you want to... Beth and Lyri won't  be  down, they'll be  heading  to teh CAptain's quarters ...

Roy scowled, looking into the cell one more time.  "They were in Security custody, that makes them my responsibility.  I'll tell him..."  He wasn't worried that the Admiral would be angry...just that he knew that the Admiral would be just as disappointed as he was that it had happened.

"I guess, on the positive side, our reputation is being taken seriously.  The prospect of interrogation was daunting enough that they decided on another way out.  Pretty sure that wouldn't have happened a year ago..."

He shook his head, looking away from the carnage, as he walked over to a desk, opting to use the ship's comm system, rather than his own personal comm unit.  "Admiral Hack, I'm afraid I have bad news about the Vampics we captured..."

(Flex)

 ...What is it SM?... they  decide to talk and   cheat  Shadow  out of practicing his knife play?

Roy grimaced.  That would have been better...

"No, sir.  They decided to beat him to it.  Looks like one of them decapitated the other three by sheer brute strength before tearing out his own throat.  No sign of any weapons involved, but there's a helluva lot of blood."

(( Flex ))
  There was  Silence on the othe rned of the  COM.... Ellen  bit her  lip a bit.. Shadow sat on the edge of Beth's  Desk and tried to read the reaction in  Roy's  face.

 ..ahhhh.. well.... I never like  my threats to be lies, if they are? They  are worthless  threats.... We didn't lose anything, we had....

 scan the   chips if they are still good,  have the Bodies   tossed into the Black... no bags.. they don't deserve them...

 ..Oh?...And Roy... let it leak out, that they killed themselevs, rather then FAce    'Hermes Questioning"... maybe have an Open COM to the other  Ship's  SEC... word  will get around.... they'll either start killing themselves , rather  then be captaured.. or  spill everything they know , right away.

 Shadow    looked over to Larry,..damn shame you don't like the way they Taste.... you could   fill up pretty  quick...


 Larry just  opened his   mouth and made a    Gagging sound... the shook his  body.

Roy's face was an inscrutable mask during the conversation.  "Yes, sir.  Already made that comment to the LC, sir.  But we'll get the rumor mill churning."  He had an idea for a way to make the news spread quickly through the fleet...

He sat down at a computer and banged out a quick memo to all the Marine COs in the Delta Fleet, advising them to begin training troops in the use of full restraints to prevent suicide by captured enemy personnel in order to escape interrogation.  He made sure to highlight the fact that recent events had made this an 'advisable' addition to the training programs in place for their troops already.

He didn't expect the officers to say much about the conclusions...but the NCOs, those with any field experience, would read between the lines and start telling their platoons to make sure nobody else got away with killing themselves before questioning.  And once the troopers started talking about it, word would spread quickly.  He thought briefly about including a caution against letting rumors start based on the training...but that would be a little too obvious, he felt...and there was always a chance that someone would take that part to heart and actively enforce it, which would defeat the whole purpose.

He sent it off, his face still set in a neutral expression.  "How's that search coming?" he asked, absently, starting to flip through incident reports to see if there was anyone in either Security or the boarding crews who were involved in incidents worthy of disciplinary action.  He had a clean-up project that would get most of them seriously considering the choices they made...

 ((Flex))

 Ellen   was freaked pout  as she pointed to  the  screen, then   sent  the feed  to the  screen Roy was using.

   The  Vampic s were  taling  very low.. the  Volume  up all they way barely caught a  word   of  two that passed backed and Forth..

 The Fellow   who  did the    'dirty work'..   Screamed  as he    snapped his arm at the  wrist..  before finishing  the removae of the  wrist.. the  CAM  caught the  Blood  flow.. almost like  squeezed    sponges.

   being   able  to  twist, he managed  to   bend  a Leg back in his chair and tip over.. sliding the restraints over the  leg, thus  freeing the  other one, Using His   legs he snapped  off the  arm and was free,,

  he  went to the One armed   Officer.. said   somethign  two her, snapped her neck  and  tore off her head,.. then he  went to the other  two.. the last one    struggled  a bit..but  died  any way.... the   weaken Vampic then when to the  corner, with his   comrades  heads near hum, and tore out his own throat.

 Cams also showed LArry   beating on the class with his claws, to no avail.

Roy watched, impassively.  When the playback was done, he said, "Get the audio track isolated...I want the last twenty minutes, for sure, Beth may want more.  I don't care about video, most of it is pretty much what I expected to see.  But I want that audio saved in a different file, for Beth to be able to process...see if we can enhance it and get details about what was said.  They may have mentioned something in their plan for this that we would have wanted to hear."

He settled on two new troopers who'd been detained for starting a fight at the gym, and sent orders for them to come clean up the cell.

"I guess, until Beth gets a look at that audio, we've done as much as we can do on this..."  He opened the door, grabbing the chip reader they used on their boarding actions, and checked the chips on each body.  "Make notes of names and ranks on these scans," he told Ellen, when he handed her the reader.  "Maybe our resident Vampics can tell us something about who these four were..."

-----> From Hanger Dec

Zob walked on in and grabbed a cup of coffee and went over to his locker and started putting stuff away it was then he turned to Ellen and Hawkes, "Hope you two had a good shore leave" he then noticed the guy, "Whos this?" he asked curiously.

  Ellan shook her  head,Don't know  for  sure.. His chip  says  he is   Bobby Cornwright?... he said his name  was  Norton Frances...   LC thinks he might be a left ovver Duster.. we have to  wait for    Some one to come in and havbe a Talk... we know one thing?  Chips down lie.. even if they  cut off an  arm and transplanted it?.. , doesn't change the Info...

Zob rubbed his chin for a moment then took a sip of coffee, "I can come back after bit and have a talk with him" he then went back to his locker changed out some stuff before heading back to his quarters to go work on his new suit of armor.

------> Non Com Quarters
This message was last edited by the player at 16:52, Sat 23 Nov 2019.

  Lyri   waves to Zob  as he leave, she  is  carrying her    Rifle. her  armor is in a  Mesh Bag..  she   gets a fresh   cup of Coffee  and  fixes it..

 ..well..everyone got  sun.. some more  others... but  at least we won't look  like a ghost ship  any longer.

 Ellen  nodded,we still have this guy.. his name don't match his  Chip.

    Lyri looked  at the guy  she was  takign apart her  sniper  rifle   with  hands  movign almost as fast  as   Beth on a  Keyboard, but her eyes  were on the   priosner.

  well.. buddy?   I'll  make this simple for you... If you're  EDT  or   a Duster... There's a good bet  you'll be walking home... if your  a salver or smugglers.. , it  depends on what you can do for us...and? what kid of mood the SM is in... If you're  a spy..well... You'll get to meet the Nice LC inperson, and  he'll have a  chat with you.

 The Fellow  glanced  around.., a bit more nervous  then before.. Ellen held  a  platter out to him....Donut?

 the fellow took one   and looked aroudn   as he nibbled on it.

——> Rec Dec

It was just as she was arriving at SEC that she would receive another message from Lizzy. Pausing to lean against the wall as she read it, Izzy would giggle as she saw the series of hugs and kisses at the end of the message before sending one of her own.

Comm message to Lizzy: “ok I’ll see you when you’re finished, I’ll have to see if I can find something pretty to wear for tonight ;) “

After sending the message she would step into SEC with a plain cardboard box under her arm. Walking up to whoever was on duty Izzy would offer them a cheerful smile as she politely asked ”excuse me, is the sergeant major available? I have something I think he’d like to see”

  Beth and Lyri were  at SEC  at 0600... already going through  information.

  Beth Looked up,..The SM   is  in the  tunnelswith Shadow.. he's  runnign Pilots  and  Volunteer  SEC to death.. whnat do you need?

Discovering that Roy was running in the tunnels with Shadow and the rest of the pilots Izzy would hesitate for several moments clearly unsure as to what to do "oh...um...well I don't really need anything, it's just that I've kind of got him a gift, well not a gift exactly more of a good will gesture though I suppose it wouldn't hurt for you to see it" she said placing the box on Beth's desk and opening it up.

Once she'd removed a layer of polystyrene packaging Beth would be able to see a spherical object roughly the size of a grapefruit with a single large lens embedded within it's centre and a pair of studs for mounting whip antennae. It's casing was heavily scratched and dented and it was clear that someone had tried to cover the original bright blue paint job with homemade desert camouflage "It's my old MKI, after the Mountain mission I figured that you guys might like it for reconnaissance work...once you got it working again that is, the early models were a little...um...delicate" Izzy explained remembering how this particular drone had been taken out by a mortar round, losing her an entire days worth of footage "...The technology is as basic it gets but I figured that if you could reverse engineer it then it might come in handy"

 Beth  smiled   slightly, Lyri  stood up  and Looked  at the   drone.

 well?  Its  up  you?  Roy's  running , he has  some SEC  people up there too?.. If  you want to   give it to  him yourself? I can Ping you when he's in?.. or   I can have him contact  you when he comes  in, if you want to leave it?

-----> From Non Com Quarters (Current Time)

The next morning Zob came down to SEC he waved to Lyri and Beth as he grabbed a cup of coffee and checked his locker, "So whats on the agenda today?" he asked wondering about his work order.