by Alan Gratz
“No. Damn it!” Kirk cried. Of course. He’d been so stupid. He sprinted around to the north side of the building in time to see Lartal scrambling up the side of Surak Hall, the closest building to the assembly hall. Kirk gauged the distance between the two rooftops for a jump, but his brain immediately told him it was impossible. For a human. But apparently not for a Varkolak. Or a Varkolak trained in athletics, like Lartal.
“There’s no way you’re a doctor!” Kirk called across the chasm.
Lartal smiled and saluted Kirk, as if to acknowledge it. “I’m sorry, Kirk! I just want you to know that—”
But Kirk never heard the rest because the building beneath him exploded, and he fell.
CH.17.30
Usual and Unusual Suspects
The Academy hospital was chaos again. Doctors were tripping over themselves to see to the victims of this second—and more deadly—bomb blast. Most of the victims were doctors themselves, and wanted a hand in deciding their own treatments, which only complicated matters. Still, it could have been worse: The bomb had exploded inside the great hall during a session break, sparing everyone in the lobby from the blast. But forty-six people were wounded and thirteen were dead—including, word had it, Admiral Wójcik, the head of Starfleet Medical.
McCoy hurried from biobed to biobed, treating cuts and breaks and bruises. As he worked, he felt like he’d been here before, already had this nightmare, but he worked on without comment. This was no time to lose his head.
A new patient was brought in, later than all the others, and McCoy hurried over when he recognized the familiar face.
“Jim! Jim, what’s happened?” McCoy asked, but his friend didn’t answer. Kirk’s eyes were closed, and he had swelling on his face. One of his pant legs was torn and bloody.
“One of the Varkolak just brought him in,” a nurse told him. “Looks like a broken fibula, multiple scrapes and bruises, and he’s got second-degree burns on his back and posterior.”
McCoy ran his medical tricorder over Jim and checked the biobed readings to confirm the diagnosis. “He’s also got some internal bleeding,” he said. “Get me ten ccs of hydrocortilene and prepare another hypospray with kelotane for the burns. We need to get him stabilized.”
McCoy put a cortical stimulator on Kirk’s forehead and activated it, syncing it with the biobed. The nurse handed him the hydrocortilene hypospray, and he double-checked it before injecting it into Kirk’s neck. “Cut that uniform away. And get me an osteoregenerator,” McCoy called, although the nurse was probably already on it.
“Bones.” Kirk moaned.
“I’m here, Jim. You’re going to be all right. By tomorrow you’ll be back to chasing skirts.”
“The Varkolak …” Jim muttered.
“The Varkolak set the bomb,” someone said from the next biobed over. It was Daagen, tending to a patient there. “It’s clear now. They should be expelled. It may even mean war.”
“No,” Kirk muttered.
McCoy’s blood began to boil. “Last time I checked, in the Federation, people were innocent until proven guilty, Daagen.”
“How many people have to die before you and the rest of the idealistic fools in Starfleet come to your senses?” Daagen argued.
Kirk grabbed McCoy’s tunic and pulled him close. “Lartal … He ran away. I chased him. Up on the roof …”
“Yes, apparently he’s the one who brought you in. Now, hush. I’m just going to re-set this bone. You won’t feel a thing.”
McCoy prepped a hypospray with fifteen ccs of anetrizine and injected it into Kirk’s leg. The nurse handed him the osteoregenerator and he tweaked the intensity. “Have a trilaser connector and a dermal regenerator standing by,” he told his nurse. When he glanced up, he saw two security officers headed his way.
“You there,” he told them. “Keep an eye on that man.” He pointed at Daagen. “That man’s a menace.”
Daagen sneered at him from across his patient’s biobed, but the security officers didn’t seem to be interested. They flanked McCoy instead.
“Cadet Leonard McCoy?” one of them asked. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to come with us.”
“I can’t answer questions right now, damn it. Can’t you see I’m about to perform surgery?”
“I’m afraid you’re under arrest, sir.”
“Arrest? What in the Sam Hill are you talking about, man? For what?”
“For possible involvement in the shuttle explosion.”
McCoy couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Is this—is this a joke? It’s damn poor timing, if it is.”
“I’m afraid it’s no joke, sir. If you’ll put down the instrument and please come with us.”
The doctors and nurses at the surrounding beds stared at him, and McCoy felt his already barely organized world spinning out of control. The next biobed over, Daagen smirked at his misfortune. Daagen. If the Tellarite was behind this …
One of the security officers put a hand to McCoy’s arm, and he jerked away involuntarily.
“No,” Jim whispered from the biobed. “No, officers, he couldn’t have—” he tried to say, but that was all he had. He needed surgery, and he needed it now.
The security officer took his arm again, and this time McCoy couldn’t shake him off.
“There is a medical crisis going on!” Bones protested as they pulled the osteoregenerator from his hand and dragged him toward the door. “I’m a qualified physician being taken away in the middle of a medical procedure! This is preposterous!”
“Don’t worry,” Daagen called. He stood beside Kirk’s bed now, osteoregenerator in hand. “I’ll take care of your friend.”
Admiral Barnett set a scarred, twisted piece of metal on the table with a thunk.
“Is this supposed to impress me in some way?” Lartal asked. He and the rest of the Varkolak contingent—doctors, security, and staff—sat in chairs on the other side of the table, surrounded by a small army of Starfleet Security officers.
“It’s certainly made an impression on us,” Barnett said. “This is one of your sniffer devices. Or what’s left of it. Our investigators found it in the wreckage of this morning’s explosion in the assembly hall. It was used to trigger the explosive device that killed thirteen people and injured forty-seven more.”
“I don’t recognize it,” Lartal said.
At the far end of the table, Uhura felt the world drop out from under her. She recognized it. It was the sniffer she had stolen from the Varkolak’s compound. The scanning device she had passed on to her contact in the Graviton Society, under Spock’s direction. Thirteen people killed. Forty-seven injured. And she had been the one to give the bomber the detonation device.
“Do you deny this is one of your scanners?”
The Varkolak picked it up, sniffed at it, then put it back on the table. “No. But we had a similar device stolen from our quarters just the other day.”
“Stolen,” the admiral said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Right. And I don’t suppose you reported this alleged theft.”
Lartal sat back in his chair. “Why should we report a theft to the very people who stole it?”
“You think Starfleet stole your scanner,” Barnett said.
“Starfleet, or someone acting on its behalf. Who else would do it? Who else had access? We are being framed for this tragedy, Admiral. Or perhaps you know that already.”
Only Lartal was defiant. The rest of the Varkolak looked cowed, their ears downturned. Uhura couldn’t help but feel the same way. If she had a tail, it would most certainly be between her legs. Lartal was right. She was the thief. Someone was framing them for this. She knew she should say something, but she was afraid. It wasn’t just her Starfleet career. That was finished. It was the scandal it would cause. The fallout it would bring. Maybe even a war.
She had to talk to Spock. He would know how best to handle it. They would have to come clean, about everything, but he would know how best to do it.
The d
oor to the interrogation room slid open, and Kirk hobbled through. He looked like hell. His face was bruised, his chest was bandaged, and he was favoring his right leg. Uhura’s heart sank. Kirk knew she had taken the sniffer. The truth would most certainly come out now, before she could figure out a way to soften the blow.
“Admiral, sir. I’m sorry I’m late,” Kirk said. “The doctors weren’t too keen on letting me out of sickbay.”
“Go back, Kirk. We don’t need you here right now,” Barnett told him.
“Are you accusing Lartal of setting that bomb in the assembly hall?”
“I said go back, Kirk. That’s an order.”
Lartal stood. “Wait. I am being accused of a crime, am I not? Under your law, I believe I am afforded the right to an advocate, yes?”
The admiral frowned. “Yes, but—”
“I choose Kirk as my advocate, if he will agree.”
Kirk studied the Varkolak for a moment, then nodded. “But we’re going to need some answers, Lartal. All of us.”
Lartal didn’t say no.
“You came back for me, didn’t you? After the explosion,” Kirk said. “They told me you were the one who brought me to the hospital.”
“I did.”
“And that’s where you were apprehended, wasn’t it?”
“It was,” Lartal growled.
“But there is the sniffer, Kirk,” Admiral Barnett said. “One of their scanners was used to detonate the bomb.”
“Which was stolen from us,” Lartal reiterated.
“A sniffer was used to—” Kirk said, putting it all together. Kirk turned to look at Uhura, but she kept her head down. He had every excuse to expose her now, every right. She decided she wouldn’t deny it, and she braced herself for the revelation.
“You … have to admit it’s possible, Admiral,” Kirk said. “There are a dozen people in and out of the Varkolak rooms every day.”
Uhura looked up, on the brink of tears. He hadn’t called her out. Hadn’t told them what he knew. He spared her an anguished glance, but that was all.
“Are you suggesting someone from Starfleet would actually steal one of their devices, Kirk? And what, blow up their own assembly hall, kill their own people, just to implicate the Varkolak? I refuse to believe it.”
“I agree. But why would Lartal walk right back into the hands of Starfleet to bring me to the hospital if he was the one who set the bomb? Why would he care if I bled to death on that rooftop or not? He had gotten away from me and the security detail. I’d lost him. He was free.”
“And what was he doing, running from you and the security detail in the first place?” the admiral asked.
For that, Kirk had no answer. He turned to Lartal. “It’s now or never, Lartal. Are you going to tell us why you’re really here? I know you’re not a doctor.”
“It is time to tell the truth!” one of the Varkolak doctors exclaimed.
Lartal twisted in his chair and growled, then barked something in Varkolak. “‘I will determine … decide something to say,’” Uhura translated without thinking. “Maybe ‘I will decide what to say.’” The Varkolak doctor put her head down quickly and was silent.
“Lartal, she’s right,” Kirk told him. “If there’s a reason that could help, you need to tell us.”
Lartal growled, then seemed to relent.
“ZanpantzarrRak,” he said.
Kirk frowned. “That word. You used it before. When Finnegan was after me.”
“‘The chase,’” Uhura said, despite herself. “‘The pursuit.’”
Kirk put it together. “You’re chasing someone. That’s why you wanted to get off campus. Why you scanned everything, why you marked where you’d been. You’re chasing someone who’s in San Francisco.”
“Chasing someone? Here on Earth?” Admiral Barnett said. “Who?”
Lartal looked away.
“His mate,” Kirk said, and Uhura and everyone else in the room looked at him in surprise. “That’s what you meant when you asked me if Finnegan was my mate, didn’t you? I didn’t understand what you were talking about.”
Lartal nodded reluctantly. “The ZanpantzarrRak is an age-old ritual on my planet. An institution. When we mate, the female runs someplace far away and difficult to track, forcing the male to find her. In the past, it was a test of his tracking abilities, allowing only the best and strongest males to mate. A means of selective breeding, as I’m sure the doctors can elaborate. Today it is a ritual we honor to keep our hearts and minds wild.”
“You’re telling me there’s a Varkolak here, on Earth, hiding out in San Francisco? Impossible!” Admiral Barnett exclaimed.
Lartal smacked the table with his paw, making everyone jump. “Not impossible! Not for a woman like Gren! She is as clever as she is beautiful. To hide here, among our enemies, in this most difficult place to find her? It only proves her cunning.”
Two or three of the other Varkolak males growled their approval, which didn’t seem to offend Lartal in the least.
“‘The doctors can elaborate,’” Kirk repeated. “That’s what you said. Your mate, the chase—that’s the only reason you’re here, isn’t it? You’re not a doctor, are you?”
“No,” he said. “I am a captain in the Varkolak Armada.”
His words caused a stir in both camps. The Varkolak had obviously known, and now despaired of the truth coming out. On the Starfleet side, the news made the storm clouds gathering around Admiral Barnett even darker.
“So. You admit you’re here under false pretenses and you’re a military officer, not a doctor,” Admiral Barnett said. “And we’re supposed to believe all this chase business?”
“For what it’s worth, Admiral, I believe him,” Kirk said.
Lartal nodded respectfully to Kirk, but Kirk’s words didn’t seem to hold much sway with the admiral.
“Do you have any proof, Kirk? For any of this?” Barnett asked.
Uhura felt Kirk’s eyes on her again, and she stared at her hands.
“No, sir,” Kirk said.
“Then your opinion is noted, as is Captain Lartal’s testimony. The Varkolak will be detained in the Academy brig until further notice.”
Lartal jumped to his feet. “This is an outrage! We have done nothing wrong!”
The security officers in the room converged on the Varkolak, phasers out and at the ready. Lartal’s guards growled, but he silenced them.
“This will be seen as an act of war, Barnett,” Lartal told him.
Admiral Barnett said nothing more as the security officers led the Varkolak from the room. Uhura saw Kirk staring meaningfully at her again. She knew she had to come forward. She knew she had to say something. She just needed to talk to Spock first. Spock would know what to do.
She tried to say all that and more with her eyes, but she knew her desperate apology was no substitute for the truth. It would have to do, though, and she hurried from the room before Kirk asked her to say more.
Kirk watched Uhura go. If she kept her tongue, Lartal would hang for a crime he didn’t commit, and two civilizations would go to war. He had to trust her to know what she was doing, but it couldn’t wait long.
Admiral Barnett got up to leave, and Kirk caught him.
“Admiral, wait. Bones—Cadet McCoy—why was he arrested?”
“I’m sorry. I can’t discuss it,” Barnett told him.
“But what’s he done? What’s he been accused of?”
“Maybe starting a war, Kirk. If we didn’t do that here just now already.”
“Bones? Start a war? You can’t be serious! What, you think he had something to do with the explosion today? Then why are you holding Lartal?”
The admiral sighed. When the last of the linguistics team and security officers had left the room, he said quietly, “There is a possibility that the two incidents were initiated by different provocateurs.”
“Different—But you can’t be serious. Bones, bomb a shuttle? For what? How? Why?”
Barnet
t put up a hand. “I’ve said too much already. But they’ll all remain in custody until this mess is settled. If it ever is. Go back to the hospital, Kirk. You look like hell.”
“Aye, sir,” Kirk said as the admiral left, but he had no intention of going back to the hospital. There were too many people he needed to talk to first.
CH.18.30
Suitable for Framing
This time Uhura wanted to see Spock. Needed to see him. But all thought of romance was gone from her mind. They were in trouble. That was all that mattered now. They were in trouble, and she needed him to fix it.
Spock was waiting for her in the observation deck.
“Cadet Uhura,” he said as she hurried to him from the turbolift. “We must be careful. We are under suspicion by the Graviton Society. They have been feeding us false information.”
“Spock—Spock, be quiet and listen to me. It’s worse than that. Much worse than that. The sniffer. The Varkolak scanning device I stole. It was used to detonate that bomb.”
Spock frowned. “I had not heard this.”
“It hasn’t been released yet. But I was there, Spock. I saw it with my own eyes. It was the scanner I took. The scanner I gave to the Graviton Society!” She told him all about the interrogation, including how she’d kept quiet about her involvement. “We’re being used, Spock. I’ve been used. It’s my fault all those people died!”
Spock put a hand on her shoulder. “Nyota. Be calm. It is not your fault people have died. It is the fault of whomever planted that bomb. No doubt they would have done so, whether or not we gave them the means to assign blame to the Varkolak or not. And yet … I am confused.”
“About what?”
“Immediately following the incident in the assembly hall today, I was contacted by my source within the Graviton Society, with word that they mean to falsely implicate the Varkolak … after the fact.”
