The Inquisition of Kevin Mitchell Pt.1

Posted on Fri Jun 12th, 2026 @ 8:32am by Lieutenant JG Kate Kono & Ensign Kevin Mitchell & Captain Shran dh'Klar

3,812 words; about a 19 minute read

Mission: Sins of the Empire
Location: Holodeck (unknowningly)
Timeline: Between Missions

They say in Starfleet you have everything you could possibly need, if you choose to live that life of luxury. A meager, sedentary life sitting at home, getting laid, having a family, pulling food out of replicators for a hundred and seventy-odd years before you eventually die of old age. I could never understand why anyone would choose that when there were things to explore, people to meet, and a feeling of being needed in this universe. Sure, you can go on in ignorance hoping that one day the Gamma Quadrant won’t land on your head while other people out there die for your way of life. What does that make you though? A coward. I’ve heard stories about Picards family, sitting out there in that orchard making wine all day while they criticized Jean-Luc for his decision to be a Starfleet Admiral. It should have been him criticizing them for squeezing grapes all day while he was out there protecting what was left of his sorry excuse for a family from being integrated into a god damn processor chip in the name of Assimilation.

People assume I’m out here in a Starfleet Uniform because I have the same poetic drive as Picard, Janeway… Sisko — space Jesus… That’s the lie I have to live with every single damned day. The truth is — the truth I never tell anyone is that I’m only out here because I don’t want to be labeled a fat, lazy, ignorant, coward that hides behind the brave men and women that protect this utopian paradise and every freeloader in it that doesn’t war the uniform.

If that labels me a hero, if that gets me laid by the assassin assigned to kill me for a while before I get her first, if that means hurting people that would have been friends had I just stayed at home without the uniform and settled down with Christy Benjamin from High School, then screw them, screw Christy, and hello Jenna Jayne. My lovely would-be murderer who is so good in bed, the inertial dampeners of the ship probably have to be recalibrated every time she gets on me for a ride.

I can't help but smile at her as I trace my fingers along her flawless skin. I don’t give a damn if it wakes her up. She’ll have plenty of time to sleep when she’s dead — I’ll make sure of that, myself as I kiss her after she stirs, I can’t help but wonder just how I’ll do it; I don’t have a plan just yet. I’m hoping for something painless, or at least quick. It’s not every day I plan on killing someone; just — very day since the day I found out she was a Section 31 assassin assigned to finish me off. As I run my hands down her belly and into other regions where I’m sure many men have gone before, I can’t help but wonder if she’s plotting all the ways she could possibly kill me, too.

I’m comfortable right now because I know she hasn’t actually been given the order yet. I’ve been monitoring all her communications, and she was told to wait. All I have to do is pay attention to that and then I’ll know how much I can enjoy her company before I have to do the deed. Gina Jaye… Why did they have to pick the cute ones to die?

"Where are you going?" Gina asked, stirring and propping herself halfway up on one elbow as I moved toward the bathroom. "…you're not due on shift for another hour."

The sheet had left a red crease along her cheek. I looked at it for a second. This is why I'll never get married—all these small moments that demand accounting for, the endless footnotes of living with another person. Though maybe the irritation isn't about that at all. Maybe it's simpler: it's hard to care much about explaining yourself to someone who has maybe four days left. Like taking the time to carefully configure a data terminal you're about to run through a car wash.

What’s the point?

And why does she even care? She's got me scheduled for termination in a matter of days. What does it matter to her if I burn my last few hours on a holodeck run? You don't get to play concerned about someone's sleep schedule when you're the one planning to put them in the ground.

Rookie.

"Oh, I'm just getting ready early. Last thing I want is Na'Riss chiming away at my door before I've had a chance to breathe," I say, letting the Vulcan take the weight of what's really sitting on my chest. Deflection — cleaner than trying to bury something alive. I step into the sonic shower and let the vibrations work at the knots in my shoulders, my forehead tipped against the cool wall. My eyelids are heavy, that specific gravity of a short night. But the night was what it was. Worth every lost hour. More than worth it.

"Why is she even bothering us? This isn't her department!" Gina's voice cut through the oscillating drone of the sonic shower, sharp enough to be heard over the vibrations humming through the walls.

There it was—the quiet, gone. The tax you paid for warm company in cold quarters. Trading peace of mind for something softer was the kind of arithmetic that looked different at twenty than it did at thirty. Through the frosted partition I could make out the blurred silhouette of her, one hand braced against the shower wall. She had all the pieces in front of her if she'd just lay them out.

"I work for the intelligence department—under Kate Kono. Third in command is A.J. Reid—" I paused to let the name land. "A.J. Reid is getting his brains screwed by Na’Riss…”

“So Na’Riss is what? His little go-getter?”

Gina already knew the answer, so I let the question hang there unanswered. Women want to linger in it afterward, stretch the whole thing out with words, make it mean something. For me, the sheets were barely cold before my mind was somewhere else entirely—already calculating, already thinking about next time, the way a gambler eyes the door before he's even raked in his chips.

I even replicated a fresh set of bed sheets to get my point across. She helped make the mess last night. It was her turn to get rid of the evidence.

The evidence…

Lieutenant Kono mentioned evidence. I couldn’t believe the damned runabout was still having problems after what I had to do to it. I heard they almost all died. It would have been a shame about Kate and Janelle. Janelle more than Kate of course - Kate looked a little thin but she didn’t look too bad in a bikini back on Risa.

Janelle, though… She was worth another change of bedsheets if he could just get her between the covers. But first things first — the evidence. Had they determined the runabout was sabotaged? And if so, could they trace it back to its source? These were the questions that needed answering above all else, and fortunately, I was in exactly the right department to go digging.

I turned the corner and walked directly into the bane of my existence — Na'Riss.

"You appear fatigued. Ensign Jaye's quarters were unoccupied last night." She raised a single brow, her expression as flat and cutting as a blade.

I had just about had it with her. I took a slow breath and thought carefully about what I wanted to say, then thought better of it.

"Yeah, well — I'd be willing to bet yours weren't exactly full either."

I didn't wait for a response. I stepped around her and kept moving, feeling the weight of those dark Vulcan eyes on my back all the way down the corridor to the mess hall.

Once I was there, I remembered why I preferred eating breakfast alone in my quarters. AJ was holding court at a corner table, a set of dominoes spread across it, his big hands gesturing as he tried to explain the rules to a few bewildered crew members.

"Aye, brodda!" he called out when he saw me, his accent thick as sugarcane. "When yuh done get yuh food, come nuh! Mi ago teach yuh di greatest game dis whole eart' evah see!"

I resisted the urge to rub my temples—the universal translator had never once managed to smooth out an accent, and after a sleepless night, AJ's was hitting different. I waved anyway.

"You don't want me learning that," I said. "Once I figure a game out, I will clean you out and make you wish you never opened your mouth."

AJ's whole face lit up. "Dem is fightin' words, yuh hear mi? Now mi haffi teach yuh fi true!" He jabbed a finger toward the food line. "Gwan get yuh food and eat it quick—because when yuh come back, mi ah go lay down di rules."

"Remember—" I leveled a finger at AJ and wagged it, the grin spreading across my face before I could stop it. "—you asked for this."

AJ tipped his chair back on two legs and let out a long, rolling laugh that filled the room. I turned and made my way toward the replicators, still feeling the shape of that unwanted smile on my face.

I was waiting on my food at the replicator when I noticed Kate Kono and Ben Dalton making their way through the mess hall together. Their uniforms were spotless—freshly replicated, no question. You could always tell with those two. On the days they found time for each other, they walked out looking like they'd just stepped off a pad; on the days they didn't, they'd been lounging around long enough in yesterday's clothes to look like they'd wrestled a sled dog. I'd never understood the appeal of keeping animals. What caught my attention, though, was the tail end of their conversation as they passed behind me.

"… and when we scan the chip that was left in the Runabout with a biometric sequencer, according to Viviana, we'll be able to narrow down the DNA signature of whoever handled it last—right before it was plugged in!"

Oh shit. Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

Asking is out of the question. I can still feel those eyes on me—the moment I slipped the chip home and looked up to see every face in the room zeroed in on mine. They’ll connect the dots soon enough. Unless the chip vanishes. Or I do. So much for hiding behind this uniform. I need leverage, something to dangle over Section 31 before they decide I’m expendable. I snatch my replicated meal and slip away, dodging AJ’s offer to join whatever game they’re playing.

The second Gina Jaye senses Starfleet is closing in on my Section 31 ties, she’ll speed up her timetable—and put me six feet under. Dead operatives don’t talk. Captured ones spill everything. One domino—that’s all it takes. Knock it over, and the rest of her network crumbles. But Section 31 never leaves loose ends; they send someone to tidy up. My only play: become more valuable alive than dead. And fast.

I drop onto a stool in the mess hall and stare at the bland tray before me. Everyone’s here at breakfast—my unsuspecting audience.

I run through the plan in my head:

First, engineer a transfer under the guise of homesickness—get posted near Earth. It’s the safest cover I can buy. I’ve worn the uniform long enough; I can slip back into civilian life for a while, then dive back in if I crave the rush.

Second, steer clear of Ensign Jaye while I discover what DNA evidence they’ve extracted from that Runabout chip. If it’s inconclusive, I’ll have to purge the memory banks myself. I’ll need help in Engineering—Na’Riss is the perfect mark: gullible, disposable. I’ll feed her a lie, isolate her with bogus orders, get the wipe I need—and leave no trace of my DNA on the trigger.

Finally, I’ll call Section 31 and remind them I’m not their loose end—I’m their greatest asset. I’ll catch the next station transfer as a jump-seater, vanish into the crowd. They’ll congratulate me on outsmarting everyone; I’ll just smile and walk away.

***

I slipped into the Medical Office after looping the sensors. Janelle was still out — whatever she got stuck by on that planet really did a number on her. Viviana's station was dark, her chair empty. I moved quickly, the way you do when every second in a room, you're not supposed to be in feels like a countdown. The computer gave me records, dates, file names — the clean version of events. What it couldn't tell me was where Viviana actually kept things, the way people tuck the important stuff into the corners a system never thinks to index. That part took eyes. I scanned the room — desk, drawers, the small cabinet above the bio-bed. Then I stopped. Because apparently nobody holds down a post before 0900 around here, which, fine. Fine. But the one time I needed twenty extra minutes with Gina Jaye, you'd have thought I'd shown up to the Intel Office in a bathrobe.

No neon sign. No holographic arrow hovering over the Isochip like it was the only thing that mattered on this ship. Just a quiet room and the sound of my own breathing. Funny thing about having your career—your life—balanced on a single piece of evidence: it doesn't stop anyone else's morning. Somewhere on this ship, AJ was still teaching dominoes. Kate and Ben were probably finishing their coffee. And here I was, the hinge on which everything turned, rifling through someone else's drawers like a thief. How many times had I been that hinge for someone else without ever knowing it? The Runabout. The planet. For Shran, Kate, Viviana, Janelle, and Phoenix, it was the worst day of their lives. For me it was a Tuesday. Maybe that's what this life does to you—not just the uniform, not just the work, but the slow erosion of the weight of other people. You stop feeling the dominoes fall.

On the PaDD on the desk: Transfer of item to Science Department for immediate review by order of Chief Intelligence Officer Kono. No item description. Stardate marked just after her return from the planet. My chest did something complicated. Not a holographic arrow—but close enough. The chip was in the Science Department. Inara's territory. I let out a slow breath through my nose. Of all the people on this ship, of all the departments, of all the mornings. Inara, who I was fairly certain had never once eaten lunch in her life, and who was, by any reasonable measure, completely out of her mind. The kind of out of her mind that gets results, which is the worst kind, because it means nobody stops her. I'd heard things. Ensign Pryce had wandered into her lab once looking for a power coupling and came out three hours later unable to account for the time and smelling faintly of something sulfuric. Reyes from Engineering swore he'd been conscripted into holding a containment field steady for forty minutes while she finished something she refused to name. Both of them said the same thing afterward: she hadn't even looked up. Just pointed at where she needed them and kept working, like their presence had already been calculated into the outcome. The chip was in her lab. Which meant I had to go in there, uninvited, and secretly wipe it clean of any biological evidence that pointed to my DNA, without triggering whatever it was in her that Reyes had described as "the look right before she stops being polite about it."

I set the PaDD back down on the desk. Squared it to the edge the way I'd found it. Janelle hadn't moved—still under, still breathing in that slow, medicated way that meant she wouldn't remember any of this. I didn't look at her on my way out. Easier that way. For both of us, probably.

Inara's lab was thirty meters away when Shran came around the corner.

I had maybe two seconds. His antennae were already angled forward—that particular forward, the one that meant he'd clocked something before his brain had finished deciding what. The officer beside him kept walking. Shran didn't.

"Remind me again—"

"Ensign Kevin Mitchell, sir." I didn't let the pause breathe. Letting it breathe was how you lost.

"I know who you are, Ensign." He took one step closer. Not aggressive—worse. Measured. "Remind me why you're on this level."

"Lunch break. Stretching my legs." I let the corner of my mouth do just enough. "Intelligence work is a lot of sitting down."

The antennae didn't move. Neither did he.

"Yes," Shran said finally. "It is."

He held my eyes for exactly one second longer than was comfortable, then walked past me down the corridor without another word. I didn't turn to watch him go. I counted to three, then kept walking toward the lab. Shran vanished around the corner and the breath I'd been holding came out of me all at once. Something about this felt wrong—deeply, specifically wrong, in a way I couldn't yet name. The chronometer was already chiming. AJ or Ben would come looking soon. I turned the options over quickly: a demerit for tardiness, or charges for nearly killing my Captain. Even unintentional, even accidental, tampering with an aircraft was the kind of offense that had carried hard consequences since the twenty-first century, back when people used to point lasers at helicopters from the ground and call it a prank.

Inara's lab was exactly as Kate had described it—down to the hum of the equipment, the particular slant of light. She'd told me about this place over lunch, more than a year ago, long before Ben. I hadn't thought much of it then. The chip was sitting right there on the counter, as if it had been waiting. I pulled out my wipe device and ran it over the surface, then navigated the partition menu until I found where the sequencing data was being stored. The DNA sequencing was complete. I deleted the local data. My hands were steady. I didn't let myself think about what that meant yet.

Partition 1200…

Simple enough to keep straight. Back in the Intelligence Office, it was all about timing—when Shran, Dalton, Kono, and AJ were scheduled to pull the results. A quick hack into the system would tell me everything I needed.

"Dere he is, mon—de man of de hour!" AJ called out, not even looking up from his console, grinning at the screen like it had told him a joke.

“Seems like I only see you at breakfast and lunch anyway,” I said. The joke had some weight to it though because it was true that everyone else had a little bit more where I had none. Somewhere along the line, it felt like there was a double standard which was another reason I couldn’t wait to get the hell off this ship.

Kate was one of those people who could say anything and get away with it. Tiny thing, always grinning, and people just ate it up. I watched her tell a joke once that didn't even land; you could see it not landing. AJ still laughed like she'd said something brilliant. AJ, who got demoted and still walks around like he owns the place, like people are honored just to hand him a coffee. Me, I show up every single day. I do the work. I do more than the work. And what do I get? I get the work done, is what I get. So when the Runabout went down with Kate on it, I'll be honest… My first thought was about Ben. Whether he'd finally be able to focus. He was sharper before her, I think. More serious. She was a distraction, is all. A pretty one, sure, but the ship wasn't exactly short on those. It would have been hard on him for a while. But we would have been fine. We would have been better than fine.

Ben just walked in, so I pulled up the array data and made it look like I was doing something with it. I'd snagged a fat packet off a listening post near the neutral zone—the kind of thing that sounds impressive until you actually open it. I set the AI loose on it and nudged it along where it got stuck, which is the whole job, really, for anyone with this clearance. It spits out a catalogue: recipes, grocery lists, someone's mother complaining about her knees. Intelligence… I used to think this posting would feel like something out of an Ian Fleming novel. Turns out I'm just a very well-credentialed librarian. That's why Section 31 meant so much to me.

For once, I had a real assignment — actual cloak and dagger work, not sitting in a dark room cataloging some admiral's grocery lists off a listening array. I was embedded among officers who outranked me on paper, reporting back on their every move, and not one of them had the faintest idea. The pips on their collars meant nothing. I was the one with the real orders. I was the axis the whole operation turned on, and they were just going through the motions around me, blissfully unaware. The worst part was that I couldn't even tell them. I had to sit there and watch Ensign Harrow get a commendation at morning briefing for reorganizing the duty roster while I smiled and clapped along with everyone else, knowing full well that nothing I did would ever see the light of day; not the late nights, not the risk, not any of it. Nobody was ever going to hand me a plaque for what I do.

… and after everything I did for them, Section 31 thinks they can just erase me? Send some honeypot to warm my bed and then put a knife in my back? Let them think it's working. Let them think I'm blind to it. When the moment comes and I flip this whole rotten game back on them, I want to see it on their faces—that first flicker of understanding that they chose the wrong person to betray.

(CONTINUED ON PART TWO)

 

RSS Feed