Secrets, secrets everywhere

Posted on Mon May 4th, 2026 @ 2:30am by Lieutenant Mark Valleroy & Petty Officer 2nd Class Trisha Reyes & Corey Valleroy & Connor Valleroy

Mission: Die Hard: Chimera Edition

The day was getting started in the Valleroy quarters. Three people bustled about getting ready for their jobs - one for his duty shift and two for school.

"Remember to grab your projects for school," Mark reminded his two nephews, referring to the projects that were being worked on for the school science fair. "I don't want to be getting an earful from Miss Williams about you not remembering."

"But I thought you liked hearing from Miss Williams," Connor said with a bit of a grin.

"Not about things like that I don't," Mark replied.

"Wait - you're not seeing Miss Williams, are you?" Corey asked, sounding a bit shocked.

Mark paused for a moment. "Yes, I see her about, and especially when I'm checking up on you two, Not sure what you mean by that."

"I mean, you're not, y'know, dating her or anything like that," Corey said.

"And what would be wrong with that if I was?" Mark asked.

"'Cause dating our teacher would be really weird!" Corey replied.

No weirder than anything else going on around here relationship-wise, Mark thought before responding with "You don't need to worry about my personal life or that of your teacher, young man. Miss Williams is an adult, and if she considers me suitable dating material that's nothing you need to worry about."

"Yeah," Connor said. "Besides, I think Uncle Mark might be more into that dragon lady."

"The dragon lady?" Corey said a bit hesitantly. "I don't know. I mean, I heard there was one time they hung out together on like the holodeck or something, but still..."

"That 'dragon lady' has a name, you know," Mark replied. "And no, Lt. Rala and I are coworkers and hopefully friends. Nothing else is going on. Just like when you hang out with your friends. Anyway, I'm off. You'd better get going, too." With two declarations of "See you tonight, Uncle Mark" in his ears, Mark headed off. He had received a message from PO2 Reyes requesting a meeting over something, and he was curious as to what it was about.

He met up with her in the quartermaster's stores on deck 11. "Thanks for meeting with me, Lieutenant," she said when he arrived.

"Admittedly, I've been looking for an excuse to have a bit of a change of pace that doesn't involved getting into a firefight with the locals," Mark said. "So what's up that brings me down into your parlor?"

"Well, this may be nothing, but I thought I'd log this in with you anyway, just so it doesn't turn into one of those things that comes back to bite me later." she said. "There have been certain components from storage that seem to have gone missing."

"Missing? I'd ask you if you were sure about this, but that would be a dumb question to ask, wouldn't it?"

"I wouldn't put it that way when addressing a superior officer," she said, "but yes, it kind of would. Now, don't get me wrong - the missing items aren't anything that are critical to the continued proper function of this ship or any area in it by any means. In fact, they seem to be old parts that have been replaced by engineering and were awaiting recycling back into the ship's replicator system. I first noticed it when some old tubing that had been used for the water system in the hydroponics bay wasn't where I had seen it just a couple of days before was no longer where I'd seen it."

"Interesting thing to swipe, if someone was indeed swiping stuff," Mark said. "Of all the stuff to grab, why that? And are you sure that someone like Crewman T'Vel hasn't simply been working on the recycling and you just haven't heard about it?"

Reyes nodded. "I wondered if something like that might be happening, so I did a sort of unofficial inventory of the stuff waiting to be recycled, and noticed several other random items missing as well. It's stuff that you'd almost have to dig to get to, so it would seem to rule out someone who had a few spare minutes on their hands and who decided to help with the recycling just to pass the time. Interesting thing, though, if I were to hazard a guess, going by what seems to be missing it would almost seem like someone's been working on...well, a home distillery, for lack of a better term."

"So someone's decided to take up making moonshine?" Mark said, not sure whether to be shocked or a bit impressed (or maybe both).

"It would seem like that's a possibility," Reyes said. "It would also match up with a couple of rumors I've been hearing about in the lower decks. Nothing really concrete, but when you start putting 2 and 2 together... Anyway, like I said, I thought you should at least be mindful of it, just in case there's something to 'officially' be concerned about."

"Thanks for letting me know. I'll keep an eye on it, and perhaps do a bit of poking around myself. I realized that out here, it can be difficult to get actual alcoholic drinks, especially for those who prefer the real thing over synthehol, and there's something to be said for members of the crew showing ingenuity, but this ship still isn't in the best of shape, despite Engineering's best efforts. I wouldn't want to have to explain to the captain why a homemade distillery blew up and took out half the ship with it, and it might not be a good thing if any of the kids on board were to accidentally stumble across it."

Reyes nodded, and Mark headed out to head to the bridge.