The requisitioned data came in overnight. In dribs and drabs, civilian owners of warehouses and processing facilities cooperated with Starfleet orders to hand over their precious records, all of them lodging protests that it wasn’t the Rooks’ problem to field. Cassidy could kick that upstairs to someone in PR, someone whose job it was to smile and apologise while they got on with the job of finding a murderer.

They used the display panels in the main office rather than Aryn’s tiny cubicle, and he stood at the central console, bathed in the flickering blue light of overlapping surveillance feeds. While Cassidy, Rosewood, and Q’ira lingered at the periphery of the room, his fingers tapped out a rhythm as he skimmed through one data stream after another. The coffee next to him had gone cold two hours ago.

‘Got it,’ he said at length, and the others sat up. ‘Grey Hartak K-11 van. No eyes on the dump site itself, but Q’ira was right. It took a path away from any of the city’s traffic management cameras, anywhere the civic surveillance would spot it, and I lose it near the alleyway before it comes back. Right location, right time, right path.’

‘Knowing where to go to not be seen,’ Cassidy mused, tapping his chin. ‘Who’s it registered to?’

Aryn brought up another screen. Every vehicle which remotely matched that description he’d spotted on any of the feeds, he’d already been checking the vehicle registration database. ‘Archibald Bron,’ he said after a beat. ‘He’s dead. Killed in the occupation, May 15th.’

Rosewood made a noise of irritation. ‘Of fucking course he was.’

‘So now we gotta find all his friends and family, whoever used the vehicle after he bought it?’ said Q’ira, already sounding bored of this legwork.

Cassidy turned to Rosewood. ‘Gives us a chance to narrow things down on motivation. Any luck with why someone wanted our civic planners dead?’

Aryn made a small noise. ‘I’m not done…’

But Rosewood was already sighing and flicking through his PADD. ‘All three were civilian administrators. All three were in infrastructure oversight. All three stayed in post during the occupation.’

‘In post?’ Q’ira echoed. ‘The Vaadwaur needed them?’

‘Someone had to keep the lights on, and the administration of Alpha Centauri City is huge,’ Rosewood pointed out. ‘You quit when the Vaadwaur are calling the shots, and you leave millions of people to go without food or power. Were the Vaadwaur gonna fix that?’

She looked at Cassidy. ‘Is that a good enough reason to shank someone? Surviving?’

‘There’s a bit more,’ said Rosewood. ‘On one of them, at least. I was going through records of the Vaadwaur’s big showy transmissions. You know, like Drehm did to keep people in line. This one was a public execution of some dissidents. One of our victims, Castaneda, was there.’

‘I assume not getting shot,’ said Q’ira.

Rosewood shook his head. ‘Stood right next to the Vaadwaur soldiers. Shining example of the good kind of occupied person.’

‘That’s something,’ Cassidy said.

‘Maybe.’ Rosewood shrugged. ‘We’re assuming the motivation here’s to do with the war. And like… hundreds of people stayed in post during the occupation. Hundreds kept the city functioning. Why target them? And why target these three?’

‘It’s a start. Until we can find the owner of the -’

‘Hey!’

Only then did they realise Aryn had had his hand up for a minute now, making pointed noises neither of them had listened to. At his snap, they turned, and he immediately looked sheepish.

‘I didn’t say I couldn’t find who used the vehicle,’ he said, abashed. ‘I’ve been going through all the public surveillance we have access to, and it’s popped up in a few places over the last few weeks. I’ve been able to make a positive ID on a driver three times. Always the same person.’

Aryn turned back to his screens, reaching out to bring up a fresh file. Rosewood’s stomach lurched when he saw the tell-tale formatting of a Starfleet personnel record.

‘Lieutenant Talia Vaughn,’ Aryn read out. ‘Native of Alpha Centauri, graduate of Alpha Centauri’s Starfleet Academy campus, spent four years on starship assignment before coming back to work as an engineer at Centauri Station.’ He hesitated. ‘Her post-occupation debrief speaks of extended participation in the resistance. Among the allies she’s said worked in her cell, she lists… Archibald Bron, executed by the Vaadwaur for “crimes against the Supremacy.”’

‘Son of a bitch,’ Cassidy swore. ‘So she’s got his vehicle, which couldn’t be easily traced to her, and… what, spent the last six weeks fucking with the Vaadwaur?’

‘Sabotaging power grids, running covert maintenance for resistance shelters, securing and modifying munitions for the resistance’s use,’ said Aryn.

‘And,’ mused Q’ira, ‘learning exactly how to move about the city without being spotted by the surveillance systems the Vaadwaur will have taken over during the occupation.’

Cassidy looked at the record on the screen, at the image of the young human woman, her short black curls shaved on one side, wearing a bright smile that spoke of a time before the occupation. ‘Tell me she’s not gone off the grid.’

‘No. She’s been part of the infrastructure rebuilding here in the city.’ Aryn winced. ‘She’s literally on duty right now.’

Rosewood straightened. ‘Do we pick her up?’

‘No. We’re too noisy. Get her brought in by the local Starfleet security unit,’ said Cassidy. ‘Like it’s a standard debrief or security check. I want to talk to her before we start throwing our weight around. All we’ve got is a string of coincidences and the possibility she was in the right place at the right time.’

Q’ira, watching the surveillance feeds, gave a small huff. They looked at her, and she grimaced. ‘It’s just ironic, isn’t it? She spent weeks dodging surveillance cameras to stick it to the bad guys. But it turns out we’re better than the Vaadwaur at keeping track of who wanders Federation streets.’

Rosewood swallowed a bitter taste. ‘We’re going to have to step exceptionally carefully if this is as bad as it looks. If we’ve had to use emergency war-time powers to hunt down a Starfleet officer…’

‘Then we better get it right,’ Cassidy pointed out. ‘That’s what I’m more worried about – that we use these powers, collar the wrong person, and then you’ve got bleeding hearts crying about invasions of privacy and miscarriages of justice.’

‘Is that worse? Worse than us using emergency powers to hunt down a vigi-’

‘We’re not using that word,’ said Cassidy hotly. ‘Definitely not before we know anything.’

‘Then it is worse,’ Rosewood surmised.

‘In my disaster scenario, we’re just the bad guys oppressing some poor innocent,’ Cassidy pointed out. ‘That’s pretty bad.’

‘It is. But in my disaster scenarios, there’s no clear good guys or bad guys or innocents, and then the public get their hands on everything.’

Cassidy was silent for a moment at that. ‘We agree on one thing, then. The public don’t get to know shit.’

Aryn sucked his teeth. ‘The fact we requisitioned this surveillance data is already going to start ripples…’

‘I know.’ Cassidy pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Keep looking through what you’ve got. Anything on Vaughn; what she’s been doing the last weeks, what she had for fuckin’ breakfast. See if you can find anything to link her to our victims.’ He dropped his hand. ‘I’m gonna go get her brought in. And pray to God she sings.’

‘Huh,’ mused Q’ira as Cassidy left, looking at Rosewood and Aryn with too broad a smile. ‘I was wrong. This is a lot like when the Syndicate hunted someone down!’