"Aarjic, Zeraint, Batlh"

Posted on Thu Apr 23rd, 2015 @ 11:55am by Captain Aidan Rackham & Chief Petty Officer Edward Vane

Mission: The Night Cries
Location: Central Monitoring Facility, Government Compound, Pike City
Timeline: 2278.46: 1000hrs.

Rackham bounded up the steps toward the Central Monitoring Facility as the sun finally hit the heights of the sky over Pike City, Vane hot on his heels. The buildings, many of which gleamed with the alloy from recycled colony ships, squatted on the skyline as he turned and looked out to the forests beyond. He stepped through the double doors and into the whining throng of the Central Monitoring Facility. There were comms officers dotted all around with the traditional earpieces stuck fast to their ears. "Commander Rackham?"

A woman wearing a grey tunic emblazoned with some unfamiliar insignia approached him. "Ruth Yukov, Central Monitoring. We've been examining the recordings as per your request."

Vane looked the woman up and down, catching her gaze. She stared at him for an uncomfortable moment. He pretended not to notice. "And did you find anything?"

"Nothing of any use, I'm afraid." She replied, noting Rackham's distracted air. "There's quite a bit of coming and going in Pike City around that time. It tends to be when people are leaving the hostelries and heading home for the evening. There's nothing which seems exceptionally out of the ordinary."

"If it's all the same to you, we'd like to take a quick look at the tapes." Rackham said suddenly, finally able to focus over the constant bleeps and hum of activity.

"Certainly, right this way."

"We're looking for anything out of the ordinary." Rackham said, apropos of nothing and not specifically to either of his companions. In truth he said it more for himself that anyone else. He had to believe that there would be something out of the ordinary in those recordings otherwise they were up a creek without a paddle.

"Actually," Vane said, looking at the Commander, "we may also be looking for anything that is too ordinary. Room service, cleaning crews, maintenance... Anyone who may have had access to the floor should be reviewed."

Yukov shot the Cheron a quizzical look. Five seconds in the room and he had already picked up something she'd missed. They had been so busy looking for someone who didn't fit in that they had all but cleared anyone who looked to be going about their evening business.

"Please, take as long as you need." She told them as she sat them at an access terminal and showed them how to move through the footage.

"Shall we start with the streets outside the hotel?" Rackham asked genuinely, having realised that Vane had a much clearer idea of what they were looking for.

Vane nodded. As he was queuing the recordings he glanced at the woman. "Do you log when doors are accessed?"

"Not on private property, no." She seemed slightly taken aback by the idea that it might be common practice on Federation worlds. "The access doors on this facility, the medical centre and the administration centre are the only ones which we monitor."

"Unfortunate," Vane said. "You should update your security systems to monitor the hotel room doors. Could be a selling point for your services," he added. He brought up the street-view. "How many external cameras do you have?" he asked.

"We have the exclusive contract for surveillance technology in Pike City," Yukov was beaming with pride as she spoke. "We have two cameras which intersect every street in the city, as well as a number of non-governmental contracts with smaller organisations. Unfortunately the Garrioch isn't one of them. Although you can rest assured they will be now."

Rackham cocked an eyebrow in her direction. "When the Federation contract comes up for renewal, I'll be sure that it's logged in the file that you saw the murder of a Starfleet officer as a business opportunity."

"Oh, Commander Rackham. I didn't mean t-" She stopped herself, deciding to stop digging. "The external cameras on Walker Street will have picked up anyone entering or leaving the hotel by the front door."

"How many other doors does the hotel have?" Vane asked. He wasn't sure she would know, but it was rhetorical anyway; even one more door rendered the entire exercise pointless. He doubted the hotel had just one or two. "There's probably at least three or four more ways in and out of that hotel," he said, ignoring the woman now and looking at Rackham. "A service entrance, emergency access, roof access, and maybe another secondary general entrance on the side. Do you know if they store floor-plans here?"

"No, we don't I'm afraid." Yukov replied. "I'll get onto the central permits office and try to upload one to you."

Rackham held up a hand, stopping her in her tracks. "There's no need. It's all here in the police report. One main entrance, two service entrances, one with a loading bay. Emergency exits at each end of the hotel and roof access. The cameras won't give us what we need unless the killer came through the front entrance."

After a short period spent in fruitless analysis, Yukov appeared by their side again. "How are you getting on gentlemen?" She asked, her earlier embarrassment now behind her.

Rackham grunted something to imply that it was going horribly.

"I wonder if you might be able to help us out with something." She placed a small box on the desk in front of them and pressed the cycle through button. "Some of our comms monitors have picked up an odd signal coming in on a small wave band, we're wondering if it's an encrypted Starfleet signal?"

The box began to play an eerie, hazy noise which rose and fell through layers of static. It whined and droned all in one while a tone, a very flat high pitched tone played over the top.

It was like nothing Rackham had ever heard. It seemed like it could have been music, shifted out of time by some cosmic disturbance but then a phrase cut through the tones. "AARJIC, ZERAINT, BATLH."

The voice was female, measured and calm with no discernable accent other than the slight hint of Klingon on the last word. Rackham was no linguist but he could hear the change in the accent and it definitely wasn't any Federation transmission he was aware of.

"Is it like that every time?"

"Sometimes it can be days between the words- they're never the same." She replied quietly, clearly deep in thought. "It's not something you're familiar with?"

"No." Gunning stated, elongating the syllable as the message continued its eerie tone. Suddenly it cut out. Replaced by those words repeated. Aarjic, zeraint, batlh.

Yukov looked like a rabbit caught in the headlights. "That's not right."

---

Commander Aidan Rackham
Executive Officer

Chief Petty Officer Edward Vane
Boatswain
USS Farragut

Ruth Yukov
Monitoring Facility Supervisor
Civilian