Journal 3/25/11

Got a call from Camille - Cia's sister Camille - today. It was her first day at school since Cia got her back, and she managed to get in a fight. Start a fight, really. Cami called me because she didn't want Cia to know, and I went and picked her up. Apparently some girls were teasing her - provoking her really - and she was pretty direct about answering them. Took on 5 girls by herself, and looks like she wasn't getting the worst of it. The one that started the trouble, the leader of the little gang, got off without a scratch though. Too bad.

So I took Camille back to Cia's ship - the Fortune's Smile - to get her a little medical attention and talk to Cia about it. Had a talk with Camille on the way about about discretion, and why it wasn't good timing on her part - throwing punches like that at school - and I hope she understood. Spirits know, I was a lot older than her before I understood it myself. Got to the ship, took her to the CMO, Nerila Jani... something. Anyway, Nerila checked her out, set her thumb, all those kinda things. I talked to Cia, played it down a little bit, but really it was just a little fight. Kids, right? Cia seems like she would get upset easily about something like that though, so made it as un-alarming as I could. Hopefully that will be the end of it and Camille will show more restraint in the future. With any luck she can start settling in and make some new friends. Cia seemed a little stress. Guess it goes with the job, but I hope she's alright.

Got grim news - a couple pieces of grim news - on the Ideal. First, had a break with the crew that have been deserting. It isn't much, but one of the crew reported to the duty officer that while he was off-ship on leave some weeks back, a woman approached him and a friend in a bar. Apparently his friend left with the woman and returned the next day. Now, the interesting part is after that his friend acted very quiet for a few days, then up and vanished with all his things. Sounds like a pretty standard desertion, except after that, interviews with associates of several of the other deserters brought out variations on the same story, and at least 3 of them provided very similar descriptions for the woman. Means something, but I sure as hell don't know what. How did they get them off the ship afterward, and why? Espionage maybe? But why not just hold onto them the first time when they come back aboard? Well, we'll figure it out. Fedos or not, this just got top priority.

Speaking of the fedos, that's the other bit of grim news. They cleared them back from where the infestation 'bloomed' - that's the word that our biologist used, if you can believe it, 'bloomed' - and we found a body. Well, some of a body. It was fairly close to where the illicit supply cache was being built, and the fedos had been at it, of course, so there wasn't a lot left. Medical is having trouble even pinning down a time of death. Still, there is DNA, so we can check if it is someone from the crew or something that will make my life incredibly more complicated. In less grim but even more annoying news, despite getting them all concentrated in one part of the ship, the first attempt to get rid of the fedos didn't work. In fact, it backfired, horribly. They found pieces of fedo almost at the opposite end of the ship in the ventilation afterward. Small pieces. Anjell has given up trying to explain exactly what went on or why it didn't work. Apparently it involved herding them out using a grav generator? He muttered something about unforeseen factor contributing to shear and this is apparently why small pieces of fedo were rocketed through the system - along with their smell. He and Akrad assure me they have it all worked out now. I hope so.