Space Odyssey: Spectre

He was quietly humming when a familiar person came to visit. He had finished his design for a modified vibrational scanner awhile ago. At this point he was thinking about weapon modifications and looking into cybernetics. Now that he is thinking of it he might as well develop a useful hobby.

"Kid…" Steel looked up to see Commander Dakota who was making a remarkable expression. "It has barely been a month. But I will say of all ways to betray the empire, I doubt leaking the existence of an ancient ship could have been your plan." For a moment he said it in a completely serious tone and then he let out laughter, "I am messing with you. So who do you think is setting you up?"

"The Inquisitor, the doctor was hush-hush but he really did not like the dude. I am guessing they have butted heads several times before. Then he blew off another cadet's arm, which was supposedly an accident. I am guessing that was not an accident." Steel explained, "if I had access to the ship's systems I am sure I could hack into everything he owns and find out all his dirty secrets." He waved the info pad he had in his hands.

Dakota rolled his eyes, "no can do. We want to play this by the book. The politicians in the military are going to be mincing through every piece of data. So we got to prove your innocence first. Any ideas?"

"I need the evidence to-"

Dakota held up an info pad interrupting Steel. "Like this?"

Steel walked up and took the info pad, quickly scrolling through it. He frowned at the time of the signal sent to an information broker. Then he checked and confirmed the source of the location. Frowning, he considered something. He made a few notes on his other pad.

"I think I got it. But was this all the evidence he supplied?" Steel asked in surprise.

"Yes, I also got word that he is greasing palms on higher level members of the Inquisitors to help him force the issue." Dakota nodded, "you found the hole you were looking for?"

"Yes sir. If my captain is not in on it, tell him to look at deployment times and to compare them to the time of the call." Steel answered. "Honestly it is not bad work, I am guessing he actually has some talent in CyberOps. Too bad he is an idiot, he should have used gaps in time when I could be blamed. Instead he half-assed it and relied on his political connections."

"Ha… You know that is another reason I know you did not do this. If you did it, I doubt you would have gotten discovered." Dakota pointed out.

Steel gave a cheesy smile, "thank you sir."

Dakota rolled his eyes but then Tani walked in and saluted, "sir it is time for the trial." Dakota frowned and nodded. Walking out the door without another word. "Damn Cadet, what did a legend like Commander Dakota want to talk to you about?" She walked up and opened the cell door.

"Him? Oh, he was the head of my academy and took a special interest. When my class graduated he was handed his current posting as a reward. He knows how good I am with tech so he is confident I am innocent. Anyways, should we?" Steel asked.

"Okay. Let's go. It is a full showing of the command structure. Everyone from a Sergeant and up that is on this ship will be in attendance. So will I and Commander Dakota, then there is also an Inquisitor from his ship, a Meyer." Tani explained as she walked him to the hangar bay, "she makes me the most nervous, I just hope she won't cause problems."

That managed to get a chuckle out of him, she really gave a shitty first impression. But regardless he had a feeling the only person he had to worry about was Inquisitor fatass. He gave the impression of someone who had done this before. "What do you know about Sender?" Steel asked.

"The fatass? He joined our ship a month before you did. But he and the ship doctor served on the same ship, so he would know better. The fact he won't talk about it actually bothers me a bit." Tani narrated as they walked to the hangar.

"Thanks, I think I have the situation mostly figured out." Steel nodded as they arrived at the door and walked in. She was not kidding, it was a full attendance. The hangar was set up as an impromptu courtroom with Captain Mendez, Commander Dakota, and Inquisitor Meyer serving as the judges.

Steel was directed to the table in front of them while Sender was sitting at the other table. He sat down and the entire room began quieting down.

"Good, now that we are all here we can begin. Inquisitor Sender. You wished to present evidence that Cadet Steel is a traitor? Cadet Steel, would you like a representative to speak on your behalf to look over and refute the evidence as it is presented?" Commander Dakota, who was in the center of the judges, spoke.

"Yes sir-" Sender was interrupted by Steel immediately.

"Nah… I can defend myself." Sender frowned and looked over at Steel.

"Good. The evidence, Inquisitor Sender?" Dakota asked.

Sender took a deep breath before he began, "yes sir. After the attack I took initiative to look for anyone that sent a message to any information brokers that the Inquisitors knew about. I found that Cadet Steel sent a message to one such broker. Which led to the attack." He walked up to the judges bench and handed over an info pad.

"I would like to refute this," Steel spoke up. "During the supposed time of the message I was on the surface."

"So?" Sender shrugged it off. This guy was way less intelligent than he thought.

"So, the message was sent from the ship. Check the logs not only is there irrefutable proof I was on the surface. But it also says where the message was sent from and it was sent from the ship, which is where the message's vin number is." Steel explained.

"So… you just found a way to redirect it from the surface to the ship. From what I understand you are good with technology." Sender now seemed to be fumbling, grasping at straws.

"Oh you are completely right, but to do something like that I would need at least fifteen minutes and to be exclusively focused on that. But I did not get the opportunity before I went to the surface." Steel shrugged.

"Can we get a technician or engineer to verify what Steel is saying?" Commander Dakota looked up from the info pad. He was really good at faking what he was thinking.

"Sir." A man stood up and saluted. "Honestly sir, our best engineer or technician could probably do that in twenty-five minutes at most." He then sat back down.

"Very well… Cadet Steel you are innocent of selling information and betraying our countrymen. Is there any disagreement?" He looked to his sides to see both Meyer and Mendez shaking their heads.

Now Sender was starting to become confused, as a fellow Inquisitor Meyer was supposed to back him up. "But we still have a traitor in our midst." Dakota's words caused a shuffle through the audience.

"I believe I can locate them, fairly quickly." Steel raised his hand.

"Very well. Someone, hand Cadet Steel a data pad connected to the ship's systems." Commander Dakota called out.

Tani actually pulled one out and handed it to him. Steel immediately set to work, first he traced and sorted through the false information that was put up. Then he looked through Sender's account records, then he looked through the accounts he had illegally set up. Quickly finding what he was looking for. He did all of that within the first ten minutes.

He decided he might as well find some more. Which is when he frowned, "well damn." He spoke out loud then shook his head.

"Problem Cadet?" Dakota asked.

"Sort of." He stood up near the Inquisitor Sender. "I was not able to verify who sent the message because it was in fact sent using my contact information by someone else. So I instead checked bank accounts and discovered that Inquisitor Sender has an illegal one that received two payments at the time of the call."

Sender tensed up and was about to say something, but Dakota's stone cold face did not miss the fact that Steel had not finished.

"What else?" Dakota asked.

"He had received money from the same account several times before. He also sent money to various other accounts which are illegally owned and unregistered. I am guessing by other members of the Inquisitors. He has likely done this before, sold information and then blamed it on someone innocent." Steel answered as he sent the file to the data pad Dakota was looking at.

"For all we know that could be your account-" Sender started speaking quickly.

"The account is twenty years old. I am only seventeen. Also the account is registered to an alias of yours that you have previously used for undercover work. But that unfortunately for him is not all I found." Steel was about to continue on but Inquisitor Sender pulled out his sidearm.

Sender brought it up to shoot at Steel's head but he grabbed the barrel and pointed it down at the ground. It went off as Sender was red in the face with anger. Steel flinched as felt something grazed past his leg and pain going up it. While his left hand held the barrel of the gun, his right arm snaked up for a quick jab right into the man's jaw.

The fat piece of lard dropped onto the ground. His entire body went slack. Steel glanced around and saw that several people had pulled out sidearms or raised weapons. All of the judges were likewise surprised and standing with chairs pushed over.

Steel just held up the gun he was still holding and nodded. It was some type of revolver. It actually looked pretty nice. "I will be honest, I did not think he was that quick of a shot." He started looking down at his bleeding leg, it was only a graze. If it had hit he would have lost his entire leg.

"You knew he would attempt to kill you?" Meyer aske as she came around and looked down at the man.

"Yeah, I also knew any of you would have killed him the first chance you got. But we need to know what information he compromised." Steel answered then thought of something, "the reason he flipped out was because I learned why our good ship doctor dislikes the man."

"Someone get the doctor to patch up Steel while he tells us the reason." Dakota quickly stated.

Steel went and sat on a chair, "it is because the scumbag used his position to rape members of various crews and then pressure them into staying quiet." The doctor walked over with a med kit and cut open Steel's pant leg. "I know you won't disclose names due to doctor privacy laws, but how many were on your ship?"

The doctor flinched and then nodded, "seventeen, but I asked around and there were other ships he did it on."

"I figured as much. I am sure if you ask Cadet Charlie when she wakes up she will confirm that she rejected his advances as well. Which he did not take well, hence the friendly fire. He did that on prior ships before as well, but it was disregarded." Steel explained. Causing many people to frown and the talking amongst them to increase.

"Haa…" Meyer mumbled something in a different language. "We will need to interrogate him but we need to keep what we discovered a secret. Unfortunately it means we can not publicly charge the dipshit."

"Fortunately we do not need to. We will keep him aboard the ship and interrogate him. Means he is all yours ship captain, regardless I believe you have an announcement to say to your entire crew." Dakota told Captain Mendez.

Mendez hummed before he nodded to someone who was standing off to the side. The people walked up and handed him a device. "This is your Captain speaking, as you might already know as of 0900 of yesterday morning the Crystoph Federation declared war against our mighty empire. Therefore the Kitinol Offensive will get minimal guarding. There will be one ship per planet while the rest head to the front lines to push back into federation space."

"We will be staying behind. We have been given an Alpha level classified mission and all communication going off the ship will go through the most senior officer or the ship communication officer. Even if we are nowhere near the front lines we should expect another attack at any time. Be prepared to provide support to our troops on the surface. As for the cadets, speak to your commanding officer for changes in how we will operate." The Captain handed back the device as his voice stopped being broadcast to the rest of the ship.

"Cadet Steel, Sergeant Cornwall, and Corporal Tani. I need to speak with you three." The captain announced as the rest of the staff quickly filed out and left the room while some of them stayed and put away the chairs and tables used for the impromptu trial.

Steel walked over and joined the command officers. "Sir."

"Cadet Steel we are going to be moving the central camp to on top of the mining site. I want you to work with some engineers and figure out how we are organizing it." Mendez immediately told him.

Steel pulled out the pad with his vibrational scanner design. "Sir, I designed this in my down time. I just need some engineers to check over my design." He explained.

Mendez took the pad and nodded before handing it to Commander Dakota. "You mind helping us with that before you leave?"

"Certainly, why do you need a specialized scanner? Can't you just use the ship's scanner?" Dakota asked.

"Negative sir. The dirt and rock has particles that make it impossible for our scanners to detect. Fortunately it seems to only be native to one area of the continent." Mendez explained getting a nod from Dakota in response.

"Cornwall, your squad is the one that gets to deal with the corrupt Inquisitor. We have no one that specializes in interrogation on board so figure something out. Tani, get your squad equipped with varying weaponry. Cadets included. Plan on having artillery, gun lines, and aircraft stationed at the base. Enough barracks for two squads and some extra for pilots." The captain then waved them off. Each moved off to follow the captain's directions as he went to give out more orders.