Tanar made the attempt to bypass security but it didn't work.
"Well, it was worth a shot," he comments to no one in particular. "At this range we should the have the password from Clarion in an hour or two. Trying to defeat security could take anywhere from one to ten hours so we might as well wait. And hope they haven't been changed," he adds with a slight frown. "Anyway, let's see what the black box has for us while we're waiting."
After reviewing the black box logs with Liam, Tanar closes his eyes and thinks for a few moments, going over the recorded events. After a few moments, he opens his eyes and look at Liam. "Stowaway, " he says by way of opening the conversation. Flipping on his comm he calls out to the team. "I think it's possible there was a stowaway on board from sometime before departure until about 20 plus hours into the flight. Start checking all the nooks and crannies on this ship for somewhere somebody or something could have hidden. It's going to be somewhere the princess wouldn't normally go during the first day or two of a trip. We don't know whether it was biological or mechanical but I'm betting biological. They probably left traces. Let's see if we can find any."
Switching off the comm, he refocuses his attention on Liam. "There is another possibility but it doesn't quite jive with what we've found. This could all be a ruse by the princess to disappear and throw everyone off her trail. You're closer to the royals than anyone else here. Does she have any relatively close friends out in the asteroid belt?
"I don't think that is what is going on. Several points don't fit, like the call to the unregistered com, closing the cockpit door, and locking out the main cabin computer among others. And why sacrifice her ship? So I don't think that's the first line of inquiry but let's not completely rule it out. Here's what I think happened, what are your thoughts and what am I missing?
"Someone stows away on board before the princess boards to leave. The ship gets underway and the princess settles into a routine. The princess goes to sleep after a moderately long first day, finishing up the jump calculations and getting everything squared away. The stowaway exits their hidey-hole and sends the "here" comm to someone. That's the signal indicating that they stowaway is in place and ready and for the getaway ship to start closing in. It's probably been following out of sensor range for most of the trip. If we had an acknowledgement message we'd have a feel for the distance to the receiver but oh well.
"The stowaway enters the cockpit, shuts the door and shuts down the computer in the main cabin, waiting for their backup to arrive. The princess wakes up sooner than expected and notices that the main cabin computer is down and starts to reboot it and log on. Our lurker realizes this and goes to intercept her as he doesn't want her to see the ship that is now approaching and almost in range. Now why they didn't subdue here sooner I don't know. Maybe she wasn't asleep and they just slipped into the cockpit. That's a bit fuzzy. I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader to fill in the details
"Anyway. Our stowaway has a scuffle with the princess and wins. That gives us the blood and broken glass. They are now in complete control of the ship and send the "Secure" message, indicating such. They wipe the logs, the getaway ship arrives. The princess is transferred and the runabout is sent on it's merry way while they head off. Just to be safe, they take a route away from the runabout that is not toward their destination but close enough that once out of sensor range, they can easily change direction.
"Had we not gotten here before it hit jump speed, the runabout would have entered the Void and never exited. It would have vanished and taken all the evidence with it. The princess would have to be assumed lost and they could do whatever they want with her and none would be the wiser until they brought her back to public awareness for their own purposes.
"Their biggest mistake," Tanar adds, "is probably right here," he says as the taps the log display for the command to erase the main logs, "where they erase the logs. They didn't issue any commands to stop logging and they erased and reset the logs more than half an hour before the getaway ship arrived. They should have had that command set up on a one hour delay after they left to allow themselves enough time to get out of range before everything was wiped. As it is, we'll have full coverage of the arrival, transfer and departure so we should at least be able to get an ID on the ship, even if we don't have any internal cameras to see the participants (OOC: are there internal cameras in the runabout?). All we have to do is get access to the computer.
"I've probably got it all wrong," he finishes. "But it makes a great story," he adds with grin. Finished with his discourse he sits back to listen to Liam's reaction and ideas.
He also opens a comm link to the Pelican. "Captain, there is a possibility we had a stowaway on board. Have the station go back through their logs, computer, audio, video, and mass if they've got them, of anyone who entered or approached the princess's ship in the last five days. Have them specially look for anyone that entered but was never seen to exit the ship. Regardless, they need put people to work getting in face-to-face contact with anyone that entered the ship whether they appeared to exit or not. Let's see if anyone is missing. Tanar, out."