The Scavenger Hunt (Part 1 of 2)

Lieutenant JG Malakia Savage was getting settled in onboard the USS Leviathan. The corridors and seemingly endless passageways onboard were becoming familiar, along with her place of "business", the Security Office. Like clockwork the half Terran half Vulcan woman entered the Security Office, only this time to see Major Jon Phanan sitting behind the desk.

"Major..." She started, slightly perplexed by his presence.

"My apologies Ms. Savage." Jon rose from the chair and stretched out slightly. "I keep forgetting this isn't my office any longer." Jon grinned. "I just stopped by to convince our two 'guests' to give up some information. I gave them a choice on how they wanted to proceed today."

Malakia looked over at the one First Lieutenant without the broken arm. He now had a bruise on his forehead. The other First Lieutenant, whose arm was once broke, but now healed, had a swollen eye. "They chose the hard route."

"I would say." She turned her attention from the two captives over to Jon. "Did they give up any useful information ?"

"Unfortunately, for them, no." Jon sighed. "I'll be back next week to see if they choose to give up anything." Jon turned around to face the two Lieutenants. "See ya next week boys !" He grinned at the new chief of security, and then made his way out of the security office.

Marine Quarters : Jack Truman & Robbie Gleason

"Get anything out of 'em ?" Second Lieutenant Robbie Gleason asked from his laying position in his "slot" bunk in his quarters.

"Unfortunately, no." Jon looked over to Second Lieutenant Jack Truman. "What you up to Jackie ?"

"Surveillance." Jack watched the moving image on the screen. The personal viewer that was on the desk that the two Second Lieutenants shared was divided up into four sections. One of them had an image of the first First Lieutenant that Major Phanan had exposed, one First Lieutenant Mark Jazek. The second "Klingon" was exposed to be First Lieutenant Jay Sherman. The second image on the screen was of him in his cell. The other two images were of two female Ensigns.

"Get your mind out of the gutter." Jon playfully smacked Jack in the back of the head.

"All right, all right." Jack sighed and cleared the images of the female Ensigns off the screen. "You never let me have any fun."

Jon shook his head, and then addressed the two again. "I need help. The Captain has asked me to figure out who these two Marines are working for."

"Quite a task," Robbie commented.

"That's why I need your help. Robbie, I want you to perform medical checks on those two clowns. Get blood samples and run analysis on them. Look for anything out of the ordinary."

"Yes sir."

"Jack, I want you to look up any information on the two names and service numbers those two keep giving us. Dig up any information you can. I want to know where these guys liked to go out to eat, if they had any pets, whose sister they had to date to go to the prom, etc., etc."

"That's what I'm good at." Jack grinned and minimising the two camera windows, opening up another window to begin his searches.

"Oh and Jack. Don't do anything illegal." Jon remarked. "Unless you're one hundred and ten percent sure you can blame someone else."

"I'll keep that in mind sir."

"Good." Jon looked at the two. "Good luck gentlemen. I'm going to go gather any information I can on this General Ka'Rok that Commander Harris was a good friend with and who was on his crew. Hopefully we'll be able to come up with some useful information." The two other Marines nodded and Jon left their quarters. Soon enough, he was on his way.

Ship's Library

"Well, well, well. I must be hallucinating. A Marine that can actually read ? I must be dreaming." Brayden McCaffee grinned. Jon turned away from the computer screen in the ship's small library room and turned to face Brayden. Brayden quickly looked over the garb of the Marine and then caught a glimpse of the rank insignia on his collar.

"Can I help you, Cadet ?"

"I'm... sorry sir. I thought you were someone else."

Jon stood up and walked over to Brayden. He had a good two to three inch height advantage, along with another twenty or so pounds. "Who might I have been ?"

"Second Lieutenant Truman." Brayden replied carefully.

"Let me give you a piece of advice. Don't go into a room throwing out insults before you actually know who's in it."

"Aye sir." Brayden stood silently.

"Dismissed Cadet."

"Aye sir !" Brayden turned and exited the library swiftly. On the way out, he bumped into Counsellor Devore. He then apologised and continued on his way. Sierra watched in confusion as he left, and then looked over to Jon.

"What did you do to him ?"

"Oh, nothing." Jon grinned. "Just teaching him some respect." Jon sighed. "I can barely remember when I was that young."

Sierra gave him a confused look. "How old are you ?"

"Twenty five."

"You're only a few years older then he is."

"It's not the age difference. It's the experiences. I was bussing tables in a coffee house till I was sixteen and then enlisted in the Marines. From there, I've seen nearly 120 different species of aliens, travelled to about 60 foreign planets and have been on three ships. My life has been a blur." Jon sat back down in his chair and turned himself around to look at the monitor again.

"Anyway... What are you looking at ?"

"Just a little side project." Jon typed in some more information into the PADD he had next to the terminal control panel. Once he finished with the PADD, he closed out the terminal. "I'm trying to solve a giant piece of a puzzle."

"Ahh.... Well, I hope you get to where you're going Jon." Sierra smiled.

"Thank you." Jon returned the smile. "Have a nice day counsellor." Jon then made his way out of the ship's library back to his quarters.

Marine Quarters : Jack Truman & Robbie Gleason

*Nope.* Second Lieutenant Jack Truman was going through the files on Jay Sherman and Mark Jazek. *Nope, nope, nope. This is hopeless.*

He continued to scroll through the lines of text about how he served as an exemplary Marine throughout his career. Then, he came upon the last few parts of his file. "ENCRYPTED. LEVEL ALPHA SIX CLEARANCE LEVEL REQUIRED."

"Odd. Level Alpha six clearance codes are only for high ranking officials. This could be interesting. Computer, cross-reference this file with First Lieutenant Jay Sherman's file."

<Processing. The occurrence of an Alpha six security clearance is needed to open the remainder of the file.>

"As I thought. Well, this should be fun." Jack, in his chair, rolled across the small room over to a set of lockers against the wall. Opening one, he removed his decryption code breaker and closed the locker. He then slid back over to the computer terminal. Jack began tapping in a few codes into his decrypter and then activated it. The decrypter went to work decrypting the secured files. After a few minutes, the machine beeped and the two files were decrypted. One thing stood out above all of the information on the page. 'COMMANDING OFFICER: REAR ADMIRAL THOMAS BEARD.' Jack smiled at the screen. "Gotcha."