Stuffed Engineer

Posted on 21 Oct 2025 @ 12:42am by Lieutenant Commander Camila Di Pasquale & Lieutenant Ranul Frex & Lieutenant JG Sunni Wallace

1,384 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Imposters Among Us
Location: Varies
Timeline: July 8, 2390 || 1230 hours

The order from Lieutenant Mitchell to arrest Lieutenant Frex, the Chief Engineer, came as a complete surprise to Ensign Shep Hollingsworth, but he got up from his seat and checked his tactical belt. "Hey, Ensign Wallace. Up for an arrest?" He asked his duty partner of the shift.

Sunni Wallace blinked, her brows lifting as she turned to face Shep. “Wait—arrest?” she echoed, the word tasting foreign in her mouth. It wasn’t every day someone on the ship got hauled in, especially not someone as high-ranking as the Chief Engineer. She rose from her seat, smoothing the front of her uniform with a quick swipe of her hand. “Why are we arresting him?” she asked, her voice low but steady, eyes already scanning their surroundings as if the answer might be walking toward them.

"Lieutenant Mitchell didn't say," Shep said. "It's our job to carry out orders, not question them."

She blinked and shook her head. "That's not what I was doing. I was just curious, because he will clearly ask what he's being arrested for," Sunni stated, gesturing for him to lead the way. "I like to be as prepared as possible."

"Sorry," Shep said a bit bashfully and tapped his combadge. =^=Ensign Hollingsworth to Lieutenant Mitchell. What are the charges against Lieutenant Frex?=^=

=^=Sabotage.=^= Shay answered. =^=If Lieutenant Frex has any further questions, the will be answered upon his arrival.=^=

=^=Copy. Thanks, Lieutenant,=^= Shep said and looked at Sunni. "This is serious. Computer, locate Lieutenant Frex."

"Lieutenant Frex is in Main Engineering, Section Two. Main Engineer's Office," the Computer replied back.

==Main Engineering==

Frex was down there in his office, working on catching up from the various projects that were going on at the moment. He still had a few teams working on the door situation, trying to make sure that it was good before they did some trial runs on it. However, there was the issue with the tricobolt devices that were starting to bug him. They had worked on everything and it should have worked! But, something happened and he was trying to figure out what.

Shep looked at Sunni. "Shall we?"

"Yes," Sunni replied, wondering how this arrest was going to be received. Not well, she gathered. Who would accept being arrested with a positive attitude? "I'm as ready as I'm going to be."

Shep put his tactical belt on and sighed. "Another day on the Black Hawk. Let's go arrest one of our own."
He headed out of Security for the turbolift, Main Engineering the goal on deck thirteen.

"I hope this doesn't happen often. I don't like the idea of arresting one of our own for something as serious as this," the young woman said with a frown. The whole journey to deck thirteen, and to Main Engineering, was quiet for her as she mulled over what could possibly possess someone to sabotage their own ship and crew. Those answers will come soon enough, she thought as they approached someone from Engineering. "We're looking for Lieutenant Frex. Can you point us in his direction?"

The Engineer pointed towards the Chief Engineer's office and said, "I want to say that he's in his office. But, you might want to double check since I don't think that he has left there for quite some time."

"Thank you," Shep said as he looked towards the office and gave a nod. "We'll check there." He looked at Sunni. "Let's hope this goes easy."

"Oh, I am certainly hoping for that," she said.

Frex was working along, going over some more of his PADDs as he heard someone at the entrance to his office. He looked up and smiled as he said, "What can I do for you guys? You guys don't usually come down this way very often. Anything I can help you out with or is this regarding the space doors for the hanger bay. That should be back up and running, even though we had to tweak some things."

Shep looked at the Chief Engineer. "Are you Lieutenant Frex?" he asked.

"Yeah, I am. Everything alright?" Frex asked, a curious and worried look upon his face, as he had knew Shep and most of the crew. So, why were they asking if Frex was who he was?

Sunni stepped forward, her hand moving to grasp his to bring behind his back without injury. "No, but it will be," she said. "Lieutenant Ranul Frex, you are under arrest for the sabotage of Starfleet property."

Without hesitation, she reached for her the restraints on her tactical belt using her free hand, then secured them around his wrists with a practiced snap. She paused, her expression unreadable, and recited his rights, each word precise and deliberate.

"Are you talking about what happened to the tricobolt devices? We still haven't done a full workup on them yet, or so I thought. What's going on here?" Frex asked, as he was listening to them read him his rights. Not once in his entire career or elsewhere had he been in trouble. Heck, he didn't even try jaywalking. Now, he was being walked out in handcuffs.

Once they were done reading him his rights, he said he understood them and they started to do the walk of shame. It wasn't a fun little walk to do. All those eyes on him, as though he had killed the Federation president or something. Then, came the whispers behind him. People were whispering to one another, trying to figure out what he had done, like Frex was wondering. He just held his head in shame for a moment, wanting to figure this all out.

Shep didn't know if he felt more like a traitor for arresting a potential traitor or an innocent crewmember who was trying to serve the ship. Once they got down to the Brig, he looked at Frex. "For what it's worth, we aren't judging you."

"We aren't. The whole innocent until proven guilty comes into play, but we have to follow protocol," Sunni said, offering him a sympathetic smile.

Frex rubbed the temples of his head and let out a bit of a sigh. He wasn't sure why they...anyone would think they messed with the devices. But, something happened to them and Frex knew that it wasn't their fault for doing their duty. He looked back at Shep and Sunni and said, "I'm sorry that you guys had to be the one to bring me down here. I know that there will be plenty of talk from all over the ship about what happened until it gets figured out."

"Commander Di Pasquale will put a stop to that if there is." Shep assured him as they arrived at the brig cell. "I need your combadge and any items you have on you, Sir."

Frex didn't even look at them when he took his combadge off and handed it over to Shep. He said, "Combadge is the only thing on me. I haven't been carrying a phaser or anything. DIdn't feel the need to. But, I know that you guys probably have to search me, just to make sure. Just...make it quick."

Frex extended his arms and let them do the search that he knew was coming.

"Sorry, Sir," Shep said as he accepted the combadge. "I trust you not to have anything else on you." After all, their uniforms held very little. He mused for a moment for that being the reason Starfleet didn't seem to have unattractive personnel.

"We'll return to bring you to interrogation when they're ready for you. In the meantime, try to relax if you're able to," Sunni said as she offered him a sympathetic smile. With that, she erected the forcefield and gave Shep a nod, then made her way out of then brig to await the order to bring him to be interrogated.

Frex just watched as the forcefield went up and Sunni and Shep walked out of the Brig holding area. Frex wasn't sure how long it would be before someone would come along and get him to do that interrogation. But, he was hoping it was sooner rather than later. As he walked to near the forcefield, Frex said to himself, "What in the heck is going on?"

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