[ USS Quasar - Morgue ]
Bren stood in the morgue of the USS Quasar looking at the labeled drawers in front of him. Each drawer was labeled with the name of a person that had perished on Padassa and the specific drawer he stood in front of carried the name "Varis Liev". It was possible he'd probably been standing there for almost 10 minutes, but he didn't notice it. He was waging an inward battle, torn between whether or not he should open the drawer.
So far the side that urged him not to was winning. Bren had carefully read through all of Rangi's reports and he'd studied the devices found in the necks of the people. They were consistent with the technology and data recovered from Padassa; the device had been used to capture the neural patterns of the prisoners and to convert them into viable information. It was technology beyond what he'd seen, though not entirely inconceivable. The fact that the Romulans possessed it was troubling, but explained a great deal about how they managed to obtain so much classified information about fleet movements and other sensitive areas.
From what he could gather, the facility seems to have been run by Harker, but just why exactly the Romulans would put a Human in charge of one of their covert facilities was something he didn't quite understand. One thing he did suspect, however, was that it was not the only one of its kind. Perhaps the largest of the sort, the Romulans would certainly be conducting the same kind of "research" elsewhere, especially if they captured any more Starfleet or Klingon or for that matter even Erassian personnel. It was something the Commodore needed to be warned about and that officers needed to be wary of. It was no longer a matter of resisting torture to avoid spilling Federation secrets. Now the Romulans could simply plug people into a machine and get the information they wanted, almost as easily as a telepathic scan.
Bren turned his attention back to the drawer in front of him and let out a sigh. He had not had a chance to speak to Rangi before she returned to Unity, but in all honesty he had been avoiding it. During their trip to Padassa he had read her debriefing report on what she experience while being captive on the station. While it certainly must have been traumatic for her, it was also painful for him to read about Liev's last days. No one wanted to imagine someone they loved in that state, being reduced to nothing. And because of that he just couldn't find the courage to face her yet.
Luckily the work on the station had kept him busy, but he knew he couldn't keep making excuses forever. When he returned to Unity, they'd have to talk about it. And perhaps talking about it to Jacobs wouldn't be a bad idea; in fact, Jacobs probably wouldn't let him avoid it for much longer. It was unhealthy to keep things bottled up, Bren knew that all to well, but right now the numbness helped to keep him going.
[ End Log ]
Captain Bren Ohmsford
Science & Engineering Advisor
1st Task Force, SSF
