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Gauron's taken it upon himself to update the inventory lists for Weapons and Possessions, and make sure everything's in proper order - it's a task that should keep him well away from everyone else for a while, because sometimes, he just has a bad habit of grinding salt into the wounds. Usually, his ruthless pragamtism is an asset, but when it comes to mourning, there's only so much of it he can put up with before he starts being a jerkass about the fact that feeling sorry for yourself accomplishes nothing, and is likely only to lose you whatever you've got left. He's well aware that just being completely right won't earn him any friends, under the present circumstances - and, for the first time in his life, circumstances make it important that he actually try to get along with people.

So he's shut himself up with Stacy, the equipment lists he made for the zombie attack, and the inventory he's brought back from the Vatican, for now. He's pulled up several of Stacy's older inventory lists to compare against the one they've just finished compiling, along with any official or unofficial sign-out lists she might have that go beyond just the weapons she's returned to newly podpopped crewmembers. He doesn't yet have an accurate way of recording whether the ammo from the zombie fight that he didn't bring up with him was expended or is in the possession of crew members, but he supposes he'll figure something out. In the short term, though, a worrisome trend is beginning to emerge as he compares and updates the list: there are a lot of pieces that seem to have just vanished. Of course, the pirates come immediately to mind as the probable culprits, but he's checking through any video logs Stacy has of the area and trying to compile a timeline of the thefts, just in case. After all, it's not like they know everyone who's onboard; there's still that red-haired maniac who turned up briefly during the Yeerk charlie-foxtrot running around unaccounted for.

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Jean-Paul was still lost in his daze. Between the revelation he learned from his saviors and what he heard Terry say, he wasn't sure WHAT to think. But, for now, he had to get his mind off of it. And to do so, he'd do what he always did - improve the Batsuit.

Because he had arrived just before the invasion, he never got the chance to find the rest of his armor. It had to be somewhere in this room. And knowing his luck? He'd tear apart the place just to find it.

Just as well, he needed something to do if he couldn't improve the suit at the moment.

Gauron looks up as Jean-Paul enters Weapons and Possessions. "Looking for anything in particular?" he calls. One upside of all the organizing he's been doing is that he's gotten to know exactly where most of their current crew's stuff is located

Jean-Paul's head turned to face Gauron, surprised that he had been caught. Then again, with him probably one of the few around here, it wouldn't be hard NOT to be caught.

"The suit. I'm looking for the suit." he said. Yes, it's vague, but then again, he's the one wearing the metal Batsuit pieces.

Gauron knows he's seen something that looks like the batsuit pieces Jean-Paul's wearing while he was taking inventory. "I think it's down this aisle." He leads the way.

It's kind of interesting--the more Gauron looks at the incidents he's finding in the video and audio, the more he finds incidents where an unknown someone is almost caught on record, vanishing out of range before any details can be captured.

All dating roughly between the first round of podpops and the present, too.

But - there is one case. It dates to some uncertain time before the Yeerk incident (given the weirdness of the ship's timeflow). A man with red hair, on camera just long enough to stick his tongue out at it and then lug a small rocket launcher out of frame...

However, the almosts are enough to tip Gauron off that it might be two different people. He can't be quite certain, but it seems like the way the mysterious figure in the other videos moves is a little different - not to mention, why would he keep himself hidden for all these months only to finally reveal himself so blatantly when he's stealing a single rocket launcher? The red-haired man is just daring them to catch him, to try to do something about him - whoever was in the other videos was a lot more furtive, and, judging from the logs, had taken a lot more stuff. Yeah, Gauron definitely needs to get Leon down here to look at this. He sends him a comm message. (http://community.livejournal.com/trans_channel/57908.html)

Leon had, admittedly, been rather laissez-faire in regards to the weapons. The crew had certainly earned the right to hold on to some of the more powerful ones, and it's not like anyone was going anywhere anyway. Not to mention he had about ten-thousand other things he was juggling at the same time, all while recovering from getting blown up.

He was grateful for Gauron's initiative on this.

Leon was still walking with a limp, but now that he had a chance to get treatment, cleaned up, and a ton of sleep, he didn't look entirely run over when he arrived.

"Gauron," he stated in greeting, "what happened?"

"I hate to be the bearer of bad news when you've already got so much to deal with, but I figured it was better you know about this as soon as possible." He turns back to the screen, bringing up the video clips. "I found this in the surveillance logs." Once they've finished playing, he brings up the list of equipment he's compiled. "And these are the items that have been taken from Weapons and Possessions that I have no way to account for." It's enough to outfit a small personal army very well, and includes everything from high-end small arms to more worrisome-sounding things like personal shield systems, flight packs, and encrypted-telepathic combat tracking systems. Once Leon's had a chance to look through it, he switches back to the video clips, starting with the one of the strange man sticking his tongue out at the camera. "I don't think Red's our only culprit, either."

"Shit." This was a problem. A huge problem. And it was no wonder that said redheaded bastard was somehow involved in this. But who else was with him?

"No, he's not. But we still need to locate him." The only question was how. That guy was like a ghost, appearing and disappearing at will. "Whoever else has been in and out of here was smart enough to stay mostly out of sight."

Leon looked over the logs again, mostly checking over the timestamps. "Whoever did this started several months ago... about the same time as Stacy started popping out crew members. That at least narrows down the list of suspects."

"Between that and the fact that the logs haven't been altered to hide these, that pretty much rules out the pirates. We haven't gotten any of it back yet, so I think we can rule out Luthor, too - if it was him, he probably would've been keeping these to use as a peace offering to GTFO when they ran into him." Of course, he hasn't heard that their surviving Braniac 5 knocked Lex out before he would've had a chance to trot out the gear. Oops. "If he's had more than read-only access to the logs, I wouldn't put it past him to have stolen other things - but the way the logs have been handled so far, he could probably just as easily have hidden his thefts in plain sight."

Which was what Gauron had done; everything he'd kept from the zombie attack was meticulously recorded. However, the only thing more dangerous than a weapon mysteriously vanishing from W&P was one that was properly signed out to a crewmember going missing. Because he couldn't afford to tip the thief off by cleaning out his bolt-holes, he'd deactivated a few grenades and used the casings to disguise shielded audio and video bugs, which he'd planted when he finally decided to go get some rest. So far, though, nothing had been taken from his caches, and he'd made sure everything was better hidden while he was at it. "I'd still ask him if he knows anything about these, without giving him a detailed list - he might be able to help with the investigation. But then, that's not really my call, and either way, we need to tell Captain Picard and probably the Master Chief about this first."

"According to the reports from the others, Luthor never came back to this area of the ship once he left." Which means he could be partially responsible for some of the earlier thefts, but not for the entirety of them.

"If we could pull a Weapons Audit without half the crew getting all paranoid, defensive, and idiotic, we'd have a more complete idea of what we're looking at. But knowing them, they'd panic and start hiding what they have because they think we're going to confiscate it all, and that would just slow down matters." While Leon generally kept an even tone, there was more than a little disgust that crept into his voice at that.

Leon scrolled through the list of missing items again. The more he looked through it, the more it bothered him. There was something staring him right in the face and he knew it, but he couldn't place it--

Oh... oh now he could. He gritted his teeth and had to restrain himself from slamming a fist down on the side of the console. "Xander Harris," he muttered tersely.

He pointed to the screen, where the listing for a missing Gravity gun was displayed. "Xander had this weapon during the whole Yeerk mess. It's sitting in an evidence locker in the Precinct right now. Whoever armed those idiots... if they're not the person who did this, then they damn sure know who is.

"And I missed it..." And that frankly, is what pissed him off. That he left several loose ends because everyone was busy either arguing over his actions or preparing for the bridge run.

He could kick himself later, though. Now he needed to get on top of this.

He scrolled through the records again, an idea forming in his mind. "Gauron, I need you to do me a favor..."

"I've already registered the weapons everyone on Left Behind was using during the zombie attack, and I have a record of the ones that weren't checked back in - not the ammunition, though, that got a little too crazy to keep track of in the end.

"By the way, in the interest of full disclosure, I've got four bolt-holes down in the city stocked with weapons and ammo - if there's an emergency, I'll tell you where they are, but for now, all you need to know is that all the gear in them is properly recorded, and I have them under audio and video surveillance. The recordings can be accessed from here," he entered the access code, making sure Leon saw it, "and I've got it set up to send an alarm to my omnicom if I get something."

At Leon's outburst over the grav gun, he starts wondering if he shouldn't really have been there for the battle, at least to watch - not that it's worth worrying about now. He can fill himself in on the details anytime.

What matters now is getting this mess sorted out before there's some other major catastrophe - after spending a few months aboard the ship, he's starting to understand where the discipline problems come from; between recovering from one major event and being hit by the next, there's precious little time to establish order. However, it has to be done, and Gauron's going to lead by example by stepping up to do his part.

When Leon asks him for a favor, he replies, "Sure - whatever you need."

The fact that Gauron had several boltholes wasn't a surprise to Leon. He half expected that. But the fact that Gauron admitted it was a surprise. But it worked in his favor, so it was all good.

"Whoever is doing this knows we've been so damn busy running from one crisis to the next, that we haven't had time to really sit down and take a look at the paperwork. They've gotten by on being subtle, waiting for someone else on the crew to be a distraction, then taking advantage of it." Which made him wonder what really was going on behind the scenes during the Yeerk mess. "If all of Security starts looking in to this, they'll know their advantage is blown." Which means that they'll either tunnel, or push up the schedule on whatever it is they plan on doing with those weapons.

"Luckily, you're not security.

"I want you to start asking around. Take whatever angle on this you want, just be subtle in your approach and keep me informed." And Gauron was a shady enough guy that he could pull off leveraging this information to acquire some weapons under the table for himself, or for someone else. Under different circumstances, he might be doing that very same thing. "I'll inform the Command Staff of the situation."

Gauron figured full disclosure was best, under the circumstances - and that, if he was bringing it up, basically offering to open them up to any of the crew who needed to take refuge in the city in the event of another emergency was pretty much what he had to do.

"Understood - I'll see what I can find out. In the meantime, though, do you mind if I come with you to talk to the Command Staff? I haven't had a chance to pay my respects to Captain Picard in person yet."

Leon thought about it for a moment, but he honestly had no reason to bar Gauron (or anyone, really) from talking to the Command Staff.

"Alright."

"Before we head out, I've got one last thing to ask you." Gauron brought up a different list of items, presenting it to Leon. "Is there anything in particular you think should be done with the personal effects of those who died in the zombie attack?"

He paused for a moment, then let out a sigh. Dealing with zombies was easier when he stopped thinking of them as people. But they were, at some point. Still, in thinking, he couldn't be entirely sentimental about this. He had to be somewhat pragmatic.

"Have their weapons moved to the general stockpile. A list of any other equipment they had should be given to Engineering. Personal items-- clothing, jewelry and the like..." If there was a next of kin available, he'd have those handed over, but that didn't seem the case. And he wasn't comfortable distributing that among the crew. "...have Stacy put it with the bodies, and they'll be buried with them."

He'd already moved the weapons; however, he'll get started on compiling the list for engineering. "All right. I figured I'd ask, just in case you wanted any of the personal items kept for a memorial aboard the ship or something."

"I'm not that sentimental." Besides, he killed a good percentage of them himself. Not exactly something he wants to be reminded of. Still...

"See if Stacy will tell you if any of them have any next of kin on board, even if they're still in the pods. Any who do, we'll hold on to their stuff. Everyone else... I'm not opposed to a memorial, but I don't see the purpose of stringing up their personal items to decorate it."

Leon's lack of sentimentality elicits a brief smirk from Gauron. "I've always thought those kinds of things were in poor taste, to be honest - but the way things are around here, it might be worth a shot if it'll help the crew realize just what we stand to lose by working at cross purposes." The fact that Gauron's one of the first to step up and do whatever he can to restore order in the wake of the big reveal isn't entirely promising, after all. "Anyway, I'll get started on organizing their things."

"Then see if you can use some of Brainiac 5's personal effects for the memorial. He's the only one of the dead any of us knew." And gave a damn about.

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