Interlude – Pt 10 - In the Library, with the Candlestick.....
by Commander Chelsea Dunham & Commander Richard Dunham
Post Details
OLD: Eventually they reached the clearing and were taking in their cases when they heard a scream from the cabin opposite. A woman ran out clutching her hair in distress, rattling on in an alien language and collapsed against the balcony balustrades sobbing.
Instinctively Chelsea dropped her bags, snatched up the Med-kit that was never far from her and ran towards her over the sloping ground. Reaching her side she put her arm around her and tried to get her to speak slowly but she was clearly in too much distress. She kept repeating about *Grath* and pointed inside.
By this time Rick was at Chelsea's side. "I'll administer a sedative, had you better see what *Grath* is, inside?" she asked him.
Dunham with Kim in tow, passed through the shadowed doorway from where the distressed women had emerged. Only a matter of seconds later another scream could be heard from Kim, Dunham appeared in the doorway, holding himself up by its frame, he looked deathly white, a gagging sound emerged from his throat, and he promptly throw up on the porch. He wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve, straightened himself and re-entered the room to recover his erstwhile niece.
NEW:
Chelsea had administered a hypospray of sedative to the distraut woman but before she became too groggy to tell them much, she had to ask questions quickly.
"What happened?" was her first but it was met with a babble in the alien language that was too fast and non-sensical for the universal translator to pick out much in the way of distinct words. All she got was "murdered" "My Grath" and "Arlaw".
The latter was suspiciously reluctant to assist or even come forward but Chelsea waved frantically at him and insisted he come close enough to hear her. He hovered closer and Chelsea had to call across to him to tell him he should send for assistance. At this point she had no idea what had happened to Grath and she couldn't leave the live woman to tend to a dead body so she had to wait for Rick to get Kim out and see to them first.
The alien woman began to swoon but as she sank into Chelsea's arms she caught sight of Arlaw from a short distance away and began to shriek again, waving her arms at him, yelling unintelligibly, with the translator again unable to pick out many words, none of them different from before.
Arlaw took fright and almost ran all the way back to the hover-buggy, tipped the remaining cases onto the grass and took off down the hill towards the complex.
Dunham re-emerged from the darkened room. He carried Kim in his arms who hung from his neck like a baby chimp. The initial shock had left her, with only the muscle tiredness that came from a massive shot of adrenalin, and stunned expression, though her eyes held an element of morbid fascination. Dunham put her down on the steps of the porch, he then turned and knelt down besides Chelsea, he whispered and indicated the room with a nod of his head, “dead dude in there looks like.....well it looks like something clawed across his chest." Dunham paled it was the first time he had seen a body like this up close, and not on a holo vid.
"I'll get in there to him in a sec." Chelsea nodded. "Can you take over with her?" she indicated the fainted woman. If she comes round she should be woozy and calm, if she's still agitated, give me a shout and I'll put some more sedative into her, but frankly it's unlikely as i already shot her with enough to put an Ozian Felemant on it's knees so she ought to stay out for hours".
Dunham nodded, knelt down next to the fainted women, to monitor her vitals, he kept a couple of fingers on her pulse, his Starfleet basic first aid training kicking in.
Chelsea got up, put her hand on his shoulder and took a quick look at Kim. "Keep her warm and don't leave her alone. I won't sedate her unless she needs it, but she might go into shock so if her skin seems cold, transparent or sweaty or if she starts shivering, call me at once please?"
Dunham pulled Kim closer with his free arm, and wrapped it around her comfortingly, he nodded to Chelsea, and mouthed I love you, before she headed into the room.
Chelsea blew him a silent kiss, placed a less silent one on Kim's forehead and went inside the cabin. What she found there was just as horrible as she had expected, judging by Rick and Kim's reactions.
When she had done a makeshift autopsy and determined the cause of death, Chelsea did her best to make the old man decent by covering him in a rug and laying him straight.
She went back into the fresh air and took in several deep breaths before returning to the others. "We need to inform the authorities, whoever they are. Why did that Arlaw run off? And why was the woman yelling at him? The old man was clearly scared to death by whatever savaged his chest. His heart gave out." she explained quietly to Rick, whilst checking Kim over again with her scanner just in case.
"You Dunhams are tough." she commented. "There's no sign of shock although I don't think Kim wants to do *that* again any time soon, do you baby?" It was a rhetorical question as it was very obvious that the opposite was the case.
Kim gave Chelsea a mischievous lop sided smile, and then a hug. “The toughness must run on the x chromosome of family line. Them Dunham girls are made of tough stuff” Dunham got up from his kneeling position and took in a breath of fresh air. “Just what the hell is going on here anyway? I mean what could claw a man; superficially but basically scare them to death? It’s not going to be a quite holiday is it?” he said rather mournfully.
Chelsea grinned at him. "Awww, but you're the flyboy who lives on adrenylin!" she teased, nudging him playfully.
“That’s different,” he said with a smile. “Space combat is more graceful, and sophisticated, not up and personal like this. I’ve never seen a body like that before.”
"Few have" Chelsea acknowledged. "It's not a common way to die. Like you, I wonder how it could have happened." They waited for help to arrive and it seemed a long time coming but eventually a hovercopter made its way into the clearing and landed.
A large, uniformed man strutted out of it and up to the three of them, eyed the prostrate woman and planted both his large feet firmly down. He raised the sun-visor from his helmet and gave them all a slow, obvious and slightly unfriendly looking *once-over* before he spoke.
“What’s going on here then?” he asked in a stern quizzical tone. Dunham eyed the man up and down he was some sort of law enforcement officer, “we have a dead body in there sir.” Said Dunham with a nod of his head in the general direction of the doorway.
"Dead?" The 'eyes of the law' opened wider and his eyebrow shot up. "No-one said anything about dead!" he choked, suddenly taking this much more seriously. Chelsea stepped forward and accompanied him into the cabin, explaining the medical details as they hurried across the short distance. Once inside, the dead man looked much more presentable than he had done when Kim and Rick had found him, his wounds cleaned of excess blood, his eyes respectfully closed and his whole form covered with a blanket, all of which Chelsea had done without too much disturbing of the scene.
Leaving the Marshall to his investigation, Chelsea came out again and as she rejoined Rick and Kim, the woman awoke and began to moan, less distressed now the light sedative had taken hold and the shock had worn off.
As she began to try to tell them something, the Marshall re-emerged and went round the back of the cabin as if looking for clues but they all heard the sound of him vomitting and looked away tactfully when he came back pale but seemingly over it.
~I guess they don't get many deaths around here~ Chelsea thought to herself, wondering how come a policeman wasn't used to seeing bodies.
"I need you all to come with me." he said brusquely, flicking his communicator on and speaking to someone in a remote base. His eyes fell on the bemused woman as he was talking and he looked surprised. Chelsea could almost *see* his brain working out how many people he had spoken to and realising there was another suddenly.
"Shouldn't you be going after the bloke that ran away?" said Dunham not taking the man very seriously,
Dunham was a Starfleet officer and he felt indignant to the fact that some local planetary authority cope was going to possibly arrest him for questioning. He put his arms around his niece protectively and went to stand by Chelsea, he felt around for her hand aimlessly without even thinking about it. When he found it he held her hand tightly.
Chelsea sensed the protectiveness in Rick and a wave of love washed over her. He was so chivalrous, always. She squeezed his hand back.
"It's okay, I'm sure it's just a misunderstanding" she tried to calm things down.
The law enforcement officer, glared at the starfleet officers and the young child in their protection, "Maybe you did it?" he said with a cocky smile.
"Did? Did what? You mean we're suspects? But that man... Arlaw.. he was here when we found the body... and the wife too." Chelsea protested.
"I don't see any man here, do you?" said the officer, "and this women is not able to co-operate your story at this time...so you will come down to the station with me."
Dunham rolled his eyes, just once, just once he would like things to go smoothly and without incident, and enjoy some peace and quiet. Dunham pleaded a little, and tried to appeal to the officer. "Sir, please we are clearly not suspects, and were on holiday...."
"Holidays cannot take precedence over murder, Mister..... " The officer got out his padd and poised to make a note of names.
"Lieutenant Richard Dunham" he said simply.
"Lieutenant Commander Chelsea Adams" Chelsea added and nodded to Kim to say her name too.
"Kimberley Erica Margaret Dunham" the teenager gave her full name, looking terrified. Chelsea immediately took her hand and squeezed it. "Don't worry honey. The officer will contact Starfleet and they'll confirm who we are and that we're reputable citizens."
"Reputable citizens do not destroy crime scenes! How many times have you been in and out of there? How much evidence has been destroyed at this crime scene, because of your lack of awareness? I bet you moved the body around to? You know there is a certain order to these things, and I don't appreciate off worlders damaging crime scenes!" The officers nostrils flared slightly as the tempo of his rant increased. Dunham stepped forward and firmly placed himself between him and the rest of the group.
Chelsea could see Rick's defensive move and loved him for his reasons for putting himself up to protect *his girls*.
"We went in there because this lady was indicating there was someone inside who needed help. I'm a doctor and if there was anything I could have done to save the poor man's life, it would have been ultimately more productive than pussy-footing around to avoid spoiling clues. As I think I just said earlier, I touched the barest minimum and treated the scene with the utmost respect. We might be off-worlders to you but we're officers in the Federation of Planets' Starfleet and we know all about being disciplined when the situation requires it." she attempted to diffuse the man's frustration and officiousness.
The security officer glared at the two starfleet officers, his nose twitched like a nervous rodent. His eyes studied them both intently. "Stay here," he said as more security, medical and forensic personnel de-materialised onto the crime scene. "Go to were ever it is your staying, I will want to question you later, and in no way leave the planet."
"Very well, we are in that cabin over there" Chelsea confirmed, pointing. He nodded and the three of them left, walking across to their cabin, leaving the semi-conscious woman to their care.
"I feel bad leaving her with such a grumpy guts" Chelsea muttered.
"Yeah tell me about it" mumbled Dunham to himself as they marched off to there rooms. "though I suppose we better let the man get on and do his job" said Dunham trying to be a little bit more zen in the situation and not let any anger get to him.
OFF:
TBC.....
A JP Between:
Lt. Cmdr. Chelsea Adams
CMO - DS5
and
Lt Richard Dunham
Squadron Leader
by Commander Chelsea Dunham & Commander Richard Dunham
Post Details
| Title | Pt 10 - In the Library, with the Candlestick..... | |
| Mission | Interlude | |
| Author(s) | Commander Chelsea Dunham & Commander Richard Dunham | |
| Posted | Tue May 25, 2010 @ 12:10am | |
| Location | Log Cabins - Holiday Complex |
Instinctively Chelsea dropped her bags, snatched up the Med-kit that was never far from her and ran towards her over the sloping ground. Reaching her side she put her arm around her and tried to get her to speak slowly but she was clearly in too much distress. She kept repeating about *Grath* and pointed inside.
By this time Rick was at Chelsea's side. "I'll administer a sedative, had you better see what *Grath* is, inside?" she asked him.
Dunham with Kim in tow, passed through the shadowed doorway from where the distressed women had emerged. Only a matter of seconds later another scream could be heard from Kim, Dunham appeared in the doorway, holding himself up by its frame, he looked deathly white, a gagging sound emerged from his throat, and he promptly throw up on the porch. He wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve, straightened himself and re-entered the room to recover his erstwhile niece.
NEW:
Chelsea had administered a hypospray of sedative to the distraut woman but before she became too groggy to tell them much, she had to ask questions quickly.
"What happened?" was her first but it was met with a babble in the alien language that was too fast and non-sensical for the universal translator to pick out much in the way of distinct words. All she got was "murdered" "My Grath" and "Arlaw".
The latter was suspiciously reluctant to assist or even come forward but Chelsea waved frantically at him and insisted he come close enough to hear her. He hovered closer and Chelsea had to call across to him to tell him he should send for assistance. At this point she had no idea what had happened to Grath and she couldn't leave the live woman to tend to a dead body so she had to wait for Rick to get Kim out and see to them first.
The alien woman began to swoon but as she sank into Chelsea's arms she caught sight of Arlaw from a short distance away and began to shriek again, waving her arms at him, yelling unintelligibly, with the translator again unable to pick out many words, none of them different from before.
Arlaw took fright and almost ran all the way back to the hover-buggy, tipped the remaining cases onto the grass and took off down the hill towards the complex.
Dunham re-emerged from the darkened room. He carried Kim in his arms who hung from his neck like a baby chimp. The initial shock had left her, with only the muscle tiredness that came from a massive shot of adrenalin, and stunned expression, though her eyes held an element of morbid fascination. Dunham put her down on the steps of the porch, he then turned and knelt down besides Chelsea, he whispered and indicated the room with a nod of his head, “dead dude in there looks like.....well it looks like something clawed across his chest." Dunham paled it was the first time he had seen a body like this up close, and not on a holo vid.
"I'll get in there to him in a sec." Chelsea nodded. "Can you take over with her?" she indicated the fainted woman. If she comes round she should be woozy and calm, if she's still agitated, give me a shout and I'll put some more sedative into her, but frankly it's unlikely as i already shot her with enough to put an Ozian Felemant on it's knees so she ought to stay out for hours".
Dunham nodded, knelt down next to the fainted women, to monitor her vitals, he kept a couple of fingers on her pulse, his Starfleet basic first aid training kicking in.
Chelsea got up, put her hand on his shoulder and took a quick look at Kim. "Keep her warm and don't leave her alone. I won't sedate her unless she needs it, but she might go into shock so if her skin seems cold, transparent or sweaty or if she starts shivering, call me at once please?"
Dunham pulled Kim closer with his free arm, and wrapped it around her comfortingly, he nodded to Chelsea, and mouthed I love you, before she headed into the room.
Chelsea blew him a silent kiss, placed a less silent one on Kim's forehead and went inside the cabin. What she found there was just as horrible as she had expected, judging by Rick and Kim's reactions.
When she had done a makeshift autopsy and determined the cause of death, Chelsea did her best to make the old man decent by covering him in a rug and laying him straight.
She went back into the fresh air and took in several deep breaths before returning to the others. "We need to inform the authorities, whoever they are. Why did that Arlaw run off? And why was the woman yelling at him? The old man was clearly scared to death by whatever savaged his chest. His heart gave out." she explained quietly to Rick, whilst checking Kim over again with her scanner just in case.
"You Dunhams are tough." she commented. "There's no sign of shock although I don't think Kim wants to do *that* again any time soon, do you baby?" It was a rhetorical question as it was very obvious that the opposite was the case.
Kim gave Chelsea a mischievous lop sided smile, and then a hug. “The toughness must run on the x chromosome of family line. Them Dunham girls are made of tough stuff” Dunham got up from his kneeling position and took in a breath of fresh air. “Just what the hell is going on here anyway? I mean what could claw a man; superficially but basically scare them to death? It’s not going to be a quite holiday is it?” he said rather mournfully.
Chelsea grinned at him. "Awww, but you're the flyboy who lives on adrenylin!" she teased, nudging him playfully.
“That’s different,” he said with a smile. “Space combat is more graceful, and sophisticated, not up and personal like this. I’ve never seen a body like that before.”
"Few have" Chelsea acknowledged. "It's not a common way to die. Like you, I wonder how it could have happened." They waited for help to arrive and it seemed a long time coming but eventually a hovercopter made its way into the clearing and landed.
A large, uniformed man strutted out of it and up to the three of them, eyed the prostrate woman and planted both his large feet firmly down. He raised the sun-visor from his helmet and gave them all a slow, obvious and slightly unfriendly looking *once-over* before he spoke.
“What’s going on here then?” he asked in a stern quizzical tone. Dunham eyed the man up and down he was some sort of law enforcement officer, “we have a dead body in there sir.” Said Dunham with a nod of his head in the general direction of the doorway.
"Dead?" The 'eyes of the law' opened wider and his eyebrow shot up. "No-one said anything about dead!" he choked, suddenly taking this much more seriously. Chelsea stepped forward and accompanied him into the cabin, explaining the medical details as they hurried across the short distance. Once inside, the dead man looked much more presentable than he had done when Kim and Rick had found him, his wounds cleaned of excess blood, his eyes respectfully closed and his whole form covered with a blanket, all of which Chelsea had done without too much disturbing of the scene.
Leaving the Marshall to his investigation, Chelsea came out again and as she rejoined Rick and Kim, the woman awoke and began to moan, less distressed now the light sedative had taken hold and the shock had worn off.
As she began to try to tell them something, the Marshall re-emerged and went round the back of the cabin as if looking for clues but they all heard the sound of him vomitting and looked away tactfully when he came back pale but seemingly over it.
~I guess they don't get many deaths around here~ Chelsea thought to herself, wondering how come a policeman wasn't used to seeing bodies.
"I need you all to come with me." he said brusquely, flicking his communicator on and speaking to someone in a remote base. His eyes fell on the bemused woman as he was talking and he looked surprised. Chelsea could almost *see* his brain working out how many people he had spoken to and realising there was another suddenly.
"Shouldn't you be going after the bloke that ran away?" said Dunham not taking the man very seriously,
Dunham was a Starfleet officer and he felt indignant to the fact that some local planetary authority cope was going to possibly arrest him for questioning. He put his arms around his niece protectively and went to stand by Chelsea, he felt around for her hand aimlessly without even thinking about it. When he found it he held her hand tightly.
Chelsea sensed the protectiveness in Rick and a wave of love washed over her. He was so chivalrous, always. She squeezed his hand back.
"It's okay, I'm sure it's just a misunderstanding" she tried to calm things down.
The law enforcement officer, glared at the starfleet officers and the young child in their protection, "Maybe you did it?" he said with a cocky smile.
"Did? Did what? You mean we're suspects? But that man... Arlaw.. he was here when we found the body... and the wife too." Chelsea protested.
"I don't see any man here, do you?" said the officer, "and this women is not able to co-operate your story at this time...so you will come down to the station with me."
Dunham rolled his eyes, just once, just once he would like things to go smoothly and without incident, and enjoy some peace and quiet. Dunham pleaded a little, and tried to appeal to the officer. "Sir, please we are clearly not suspects, and were on holiday...."
"Holidays cannot take precedence over murder, Mister..... " The officer got out his padd and poised to make a note of names.
"Lieutenant Richard Dunham" he said simply.
"Lieutenant Commander Chelsea Adams" Chelsea added and nodded to Kim to say her name too.
"Kimberley Erica Margaret Dunham" the teenager gave her full name, looking terrified. Chelsea immediately took her hand and squeezed it. "Don't worry honey. The officer will contact Starfleet and they'll confirm who we are and that we're reputable citizens."
"Reputable citizens do not destroy crime scenes! How many times have you been in and out of there? How much evidence has been destroyed at this crime scene, because of your lack of awareness? I bet you moved the body around to? You know there is a certain order to these things, and I don't appreciate off worlders damaging crime scenes!" The officers nostrils flared slightly as the tempo of his rant increased. Dunham stepped forward and firmly placed himself between him and the rest of the group.
Chelsea could see Rick's defensive move and loved him for his reasons for putting himself up to protect *his girls*.
"We went in there because this lady was indicating there was someone inside who needed help. I'm a doctor and if there was anything I could have done to save the poor man's life, it would have been ultimately more productive than pussy-footing around to avoid spoiling clues. As I think I just said earlier, I touched the barest minimum and treated the scene with the utmost respect. We might be off-worlders to you but we're officers in the Federation of Planets' Starfleet and we know all about being disciplined when the situation requires it." she attempted to diffuse the man's frustration and officiousness.
The security officer glared at the two starfleet officers, his nose twitched like a nervous rodent. His eyes studied them both intently. "Stay here," he said as more security, medical and forensic personnel de-materialised onto the crime scene. "Go to were ever it is your staying, I will want to question you later, and in no way leave the planet."
"Very well, we are in that cabin over there" Chelsea confirmed, pointing. He nodded and the three of them left, walking across to their cabin, leaving the semi-conscious woman to their care.
"I feel bad leaving her with such a grumpy guts" Chelsea muttered.
"Yeah tell me about it" mumbled Dunham to himself as they marched off to there rooms. "though I suppose we better let the man get on and do his job" said Dunham trying to be a little bit more zen in the situation and not let any anger get to him.
OFF:
TBC.....
A JP Between:
Lt. Cmdr. Chelsea Adams
CMO - DS5
and
Lt Richard Dunham
Squadron Leader