Jevor wandered down towards the room where they were analyzing the imagery from the two video systems. They were still only having luck with the one camera that was the farther of the two from the scene of the explosion. Jevor thought he'd try his hand with the other one. He nodded to the guards standing in front of the door as he attempted to enter the room; who then promptly stepped in front of him and prevented him from accessing the area.
"Sorry sir; no one but authorized personnel are allowed in here," one of the guards said gruffly.
"Ah, but young man, I'm here to help. I am Commander Jevor, of the starship Bristol, chief of engineering. I'm here to assist in the processing of that video."
The two guards looked at each other speculatively. "We weren't informed of a Commander Jevor sir," the other guard replied.
"Then I'll enter on my own responsibility; I am a Commander after all. These orders to keep people out never apply to those of high rank who are part of the process and here to help, do they?"
"I think we'd better check in with Lt. Commander Kuchma on this," the second guard said.
Jevor put his hands up quickly. "Oh, hey, no need for that gentlemen. I see your orders are indeed strict; I will not cause you trouble." He took one last look around and bid the guards "Good day!" before strolling back down the corridor.
He arrived at his quarters aboard the space station soon after that conversation. 'I'll not be put off that easily,' he thought to himself. He pressed his comm-badge, "To the computer aboard the U.S.S. Bristol, this is Commander Jevor, authorization Jevor-9-2-Beta-6-5."
"Authorization and voice-print confirmed. Go ahead, Commander," the Bristol's computer responded.
"The next time someone initiates a transmission from the ship to the space station, piggy back a transporter beam on the signal. Beam me inside Room 37 of Deck 19."
"Acknowledged."
Jevor smirked to himself and waited. About a half hour later he felt himself transported inside the video analysis room. Thankfully, no one was in the room when he arrived. The Andorian engineer examined the equipment and called up the severely damaged video, the one closest to the explosion. He sat through a bunch of static and garbled sections before back-tracking to the times that Hanarran appeared in the other video.
He slammed his open palm down on the table after reviewing those sections three or four times. "Dammit!" he said aloud, "I can't see anything in this." Jevor then tried various levels of image enhancement, pattern recognition, and color-swapping. 'Well, at least I can see him now, sort of anyway. Who's that with him?' "Computer," he said, addressing the station's computer. "Run a pattern enhancement on time index 0216 to 0218 of this video; blow up section 3 of it, and swap in artificial colors and textures."
"Swapping may produce inaccuracies; estimate 6% at current magnification, will increase exponentially as magnification is increased. Estimate 4% at current time, will increase to 12% by end of time frame," the computer droned.
"Yes, yes, just do it!" Jevor snapped irritably.
"Done," the computer said simply after a few moments.
"Computer, play the section," Jevor ordered.
The computer complied. Jevor sat and watched his friend stagger about; clearly drunk. There was a woman with him; Jevor gasped when he saw his friend kiss and hug the woman very voraciously and the two of them stagger down the hall together, kissing and groping the whole way. The image became fuzzy and somewhat distorted before reaching time index 0218, but Jevor had seen enough.
"My God," he said aloud, to himself. "That was not either of his wives; he has committed a terrible offense! With a Human woman at that! Lord knows what they did off camera."
He sat back in his chair and contemplated this for a moment. Jevor was thus completely taken by surprise when the doors to the image processing room flew open, and several security guards ran in with weapons drawn, along with Commodore Miller, and Commander Yilaan.
"You're under arrest Commander, for interfering with an investigation, and tampering with evidence," Miller shouted, pointing an angry finger at Jevor. "Though it was certainly a good try. If it wasn't for our good Commander Yilaan here, we might not have figured out that the energy surge attached to the repair crew's update was actually a piggy-backed transporter beam. I congratulate you on your resourcefulness. Take him away!"
"I'm sorry Jevor," Yilaan said, as the chief engineer seethed at her while being carted off.
"Look at the tapes, dammit! You'll see that Han is innocent. It's his own pride that's keeping him from the truth!" Jevor called after the commander and the commodore.
"No doubt, now that you had your chance to doctor the tapes, Commander! You'll be joining your friend on a rehab colony soon enough!" Miller shouted after him. "Dammit!" he then swore under his breath. As Lt. Commander Kuchma arrived seconds later, he turned and gave her the order to pull the station's engineers and have them meticulously go over the tapes to check for tampering of any kind. She nodded and gave the appropriate orders via her comm-badge.
"We'll be beginning trial proceedings tomorrow at 0900, Yilaan," Miller said, turning to face her.
"For Hanarran? Did you uncover a motive?" Yilaan asked.
"Yes to both questions," he smiled back at her. "Seems Hanarran has an older brother that would stand to profit from the King's younger son gaining the throne. He is a reformist and currently serving as the equivalent of our Secretary of the Interior. That's enough for me."
Yilaan nodded sadly as the engineers arrived to begin their examination of the tapes.
That evening, Commander Yilaan was having dinner with Lt. Reiv and Lt. Ivanovna, two of her fellow officers on board the Bristol. Yilaan was bringing them up to speed on recent events.
"Far be it for me to say that 'I told you so,' but....," Ivanovna responded to Yilaan's story, referring to her earlier comments that Jevor needed watching.
"Then don't!" Yilaan shot back at her. She paused, "I'm sorry Lt., I didn't mean to snap at you. I'm just worried about Jevor, that's all."
"As are we," Reiv inserted. "Though I certainly respect him for what he did."
"What he did? What he did was stupid! He should've worked within the system, not around it!" Yilaan retorted.
"Now you're starting to sound like the captain," Reiv teased. "Seriously though, friends are more important than laws. During the Cardassian occupation of my home world, all anyone had was their friends. You could trust your friends, wherein you couldn't necessarily trust your blood relatives not to turn you in to the Cardassians. A lot of times they would too, just to save themselves or other members of your family. Understandable I suppose," Reiv continued, pausing briefly, "but not desirable from a loyalty standpoint to be sure."
Yilaan shrugged as Reiv continued, "I guess my point is, is that what he did isn't any different from what any of us would do for our closest friends. And damn our careers anyway! We're supposed to be all righteous and upstanding and such, yet how many times has this uniform kept us from doing what we felt was right?"
"The Prime Directive is for our own good, as well as everyone else's. Non-interference keeps us from contaminating other cultures or stepping in and interfering with someone else's way of life just because we think they're wrong in some way," Lt. Katrina Ivanovna replied.
"Yes, yes. The Prime Directive. Very convenient excuse to stand by and watch entire populations get enslaved by an aggressor," Reiv said irritably.
Ivanovna half-rose out of her chair, her eyes flashing with anger. "Reiv, when the hell are you going to get that damn chip off your shoulder? You're trying to blame us for not being the policemen of the galaxy when you know damn well that's not what we're about. Beats me how you can wear that uniform and still sit here whining about...."
"Knock it off you two," Yilaan interrupted with an annoyed tone to her voice. "Reiv, your point about what one would do for a friend is a good one; I don't suppose any of us should be surprised at Jevor. That kind of loyalty deserves our respect."
Reiv nodded and sat back in his chair as he and Ivanovna glowered at each other briefly.
"So what do we do now?" Ivanovna asked of Commander Yilaan.
"We wait and hope, not just for Jevor's friend, but for Jevor as well."
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