Garibaldi would have normally left this sort of complaint to someone else, but when he'd heard the circumstances, he just had to see for himself.
Besides, he was still on medical leave technically.
The situation just proved too tempting to just leave it to Zack and Lou to tell him about what happened later.
On one side, there was a drazi who, if standing, would have been about six feet tall and who probably weighed over two hundred pounds with a thick covering of hard, protective scales and a thick wrapping of bandages around his head.
On the other there was a fifteen year old girl in a sundress who looked rather embarrassed and respectfully nervous. Garibaldi could see through that to see that she didn't really expect to get in trouble for this. Said girl was a shade over five feet tall and probably didn't way much over a hundred pounds...if that.
The girl's mother was a bit taller and had the sort of muscle one saw on veterans who stayed in shape and in practice. And again, he knew Rally Vincent's reputations. In fact, he had been fairly certain that Rally was the person who had actually made the supposed assault and he'd been planning on using this as an opportunity to see the woman in action.
"Let me get this straight," Garibaldi said. "You had your ass kicked...by her."
The Drazi fumbled about a bit self-consciously.
"Yes," he said.
"She's half...less than half your size," Garibaldi noted, trying to unsuccessfully hold back a laugh.
"Yes," the drazi said.
"Are you sure you didn't just slip and fall?" Garibaldi asked.
"No, didn't just slip and fall," the drazi said. "Security cameras show...look."
He passed over a data crystal which Garibaldi took and put into a receiver. Pretty soon a segment of video was playing on the monitors showing a riot in full swing and the drazi plaintiff charging forward to almost knock over Shanti.
This was followed by the fifteen year old girl's beatdown of the drazi which only stopped short because her mother pulled her off.
"Wait a minute," Garibaldi said. "Let me see that again."
He rewound the playback to the point that the drazi struck Shanti and watched her beat him down again.
"No, no, this can't be right," the Security Chief said, rewinding the playback so that it ran through again. "I really just can't wrap my head around this."
And he replayed it again as the drazi squirmed.
"Wow, I guess you really were beat up by a little girl," Garibaldi noted.
A little girl trained in the Marine Corps martial arts, he noted to himself. And one with a serious amount of adrenaline going given what she apparently did even with that training.
"That looks like it hurt," Garibaldi noted with a stage wince.
"What?" the Drazi asked.
Garibaldi rewound the playback to where the drazi was slammed head first into a wall.
"That," Garibaldi said, pushing a few buttons so that the last two to three seconds of the fight was set on a replay loop. "Man, that hurts just watching that. You must get nightmares every time you see a girl."
Garibaldi turned about as the drazi was, ad infinitum, slamming into a wall and falling to the ground and looked to the people involved in the matter.
"Now, the way I see this," said. "And keep in mind that I'm not currently Security Chief so this is just friendly advice. You can press these charges, get the evidence stacked on for rioting and assault against you and prove self-defense for the girl. Not to mention having this video played publicly for court who knows how many times."
He jabbed his thumb back over his shoulder.
"Or you can let this pass and go finish playing Purple vs Green," Garibaldi finished pointedly.
The drazi looked uncomfortable and Garibaldi turned to look at the video again.
"Oh!" he said. "And down you go, wow, just like a rag doll. I just can't get over that."
Shanti was having a real trouble trying to keep a smile off of her face and even Rally's mouth was quirking slightly.
"I think this will be let pass," the drazi said finally. "I go now."
"Yeah, you do that," Garibaldi said turning about to watch the drazi go as he looked over toward Shanti and Rally.
He waited for the drazi to leave before continuing.
"You...have a temper," he noted, pointing toward Shanti. "To put it mildly. It takes a lot of effort to break a drazi skull, believe me. And normally that's not something a fifteen year old could do."
Shanti flinched and her face paled slightly, clearly it was something she worried about herself.
"We've been dealing with it," Rally told him. "And it was self-defense."
"Yeah, she broke a guy's arm a few weeks back," Garibaldi noted. "She needs to check herself or else security is going to start overlooking her age and the cute sundress."
"But you're security," Shanti said.
"Who me?" Garibaldi said. "I'm just some guy that woke up in the hospital a little bit ago. Trust me on this one, security is not going to hear a word of this from me. Besides, I don't think I'm even cleared for that sort of thing."
"But...aren't you in charge of clearing people?" Shanti asked.
"Would you clear me to look at security files?" Garibaldi asked.
Shanti opened her mouth to say something and then closed it again, furrowing her brow in confusion.
"Thanks for the advice, Mr. Garibaldi," Rally said, smirking as she stood up and gestured for Shanti to leave ahead of her.
"Oh, Miss Vincent," Garibaldi said as she reached the door. "You're a big name bounty hunter, you don't happen to know any computer hackers, do you?"
"Right," Rally said. "What do you need a hacker for?"
"Oh, sometimes I just like it if my files are a little bit harder to get into than usual," he said. "I'd check your file for known acquaintances, but...I'm not cleared for that. Which of course means, I'm not cleared to make any reports on you."
He smiled at her and waved.
"Smug jerk, aren't you?" Rally asked with a smirk before leaving the room.
"Smug," Garibaldi said wonderingly to the empty room. "Am I smug?"
He turned around to look at the looping video and winced again at the impact against the wall.
"And man that guy seems made to fall down," he said shaking his head.
Delenn held in the hallway as she heard voices around the corner near her quarters.
"What is Delenn trying to do, Lennier?" someone asked. "What are you two up to?"
"We're trying to ascertain the nature of Miss Vincent's presence here on the station," Lennier said.
"Her presence?" the other voice said. "The nature of her presence is obvious to anybody with a mind. She's an assassin. She's here to kill people. To kill Minbari."
"I've seen no evidence of this," Lennier said. "She's been perfectly sociable as far as I've seen."
"First Starkiller, and now that Stalking Cat," the other said. "And she's playing nice to both of them. She claims to be acting as a bridge between us and the humans. Does she intend for that to be a bridge of invasion?"
"Enough," Delenn said rounding the corner. "You have said enough. You speak of killing and blood spilt. This woman killed dozens of our people, but some of our people killed hundreds of hers. Blood feuds such as this never end if they are not brought to an end."
"She killed dozens of my people," the Minbari said. "I'm not sure those are your people. And there are ways to end a blood feud."
Delenn closed her mouth tightly and let her chin tremble emotionally before she swept aside and entered her quarters.
"It would be best now if you were to leave," Lennier said firmly but politely.
"This isn't finished," the man said.
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(Posted Sun, 19 Dec 2010 11:24)
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