by Ilsa J. Bick
“Isn’t Captain Connors likely to be a little prejudiced? You claim two of his crewmen were murdered.”
“And you’re not prejudiced? One of your officers is also dead.”
Out of her left ear, Garrett heard Stern give a muffled curse. Swiveling on her hips, Garrett silenced the doctor with a look. Garrett faced forward again, staring at stars, talking to a woman she couldn’t see. “That’s not the point, and you know it.”
“Captain Garrett.” A little pause, as if Batanides were a disapproving schoolteacher. “Be reasonable. You have your orders. Further, Halak’s shuttle is to be put under guard, and secured. The shuttle and its contents are evidence, and a team of SI agents will be dispatched to bring the shuttle back to Starfleet Headquarters for further study. As for the Enterprise, you are to proceed to the Draavid nebulae cluster.”
“The work isn’t exactly urgent. I don’t expect a new star to pop into existence in the next two weeks. Surely that mission can wait,” said Garrett. Privately, she was appalled. Mapping protostars was the sort of mission Command handed to junior crews—and green captains. Garrett was certain Burke had a hand in this, convincing Batanides to get them out of the way until SI’s investigation was over. A trip to the Draavids would put them in a virtual communications blackout, and out of circulation, for two weeks.
“I think not,” said Batanides. The woman had all the emotional reactivity of a Derellian seaslug. Garrett wondered if anything rattled the SI officer and decided, probably not. “Those are your orders, Captain Garrett. You should be receiving official confirmation any time now. Lieutenant Burke?”
Garrett heard the scrape of Burke’s boots against the deck as she came to attention. “Ma’am?”
“When do you estimate arrival at Starfleet Headquarters?”
“If we leave within the next two hours—eight days, Commander.”
“That’s absurd,” Garrett interrupted. “Sivek’s warpshuttle can only make warp four. The trip will be unnecessarily long. We can cover the same distance in far less time and bring the shuttle to Headquarters without your having to send out a team. Frankly, I would think that you would be eager to…”
Batanides cut her off. “Thanks, but I wouldn’t want to keep you from your next assignment. The time won’t be wasted. We’ll use it to completely decrypt the information Lieutenant Burke pulled from the shuttle log.”
Garrett racked her brain for something else to say, some other avenue of protest, and could find none. She heard the unmistakable quaver of an incoming message, and looked over at Bulast, who was already turning in his seat.
“Admiral Stout’s reply, Captain,” he said, sotto voce. He scanned the message and read verbatim. “Your protests noted and entered into the official record. Commander Halak to be remanded without further delay. Orders are to proceed to the Draavid nebulae cluster for astrometrical analysis. Signed W. Stout, Admiral, Starfleet Command. Authentification code verified.”
Garrett’s brows met. “That’s it? No other response to my inquiries?”
“No, Ma’am.”
Batanides, again: “If there’s nothing else, Captain?”
“Yes. I want to be informed when Commander Halak arrives.”
“Don’t worry, Captain. He’ll get here safe and sound.”
“Well, if you wouldn’t mind,” Garrett said to air, “if it’s not too much trouble, I want to be informed, Commander. And I insist upon being included in the formal inquiry via subspace. I do have that right.”
“You may ask,” said Batanides, ambiguously. “Your request will be forwarded.”
“Thanks.” Garrett glanced at Bulast, who nodded and moved to forward the request to Stout. Despite Batanides’s reassurances, Garrett wasn’t taking any chances on her messages evaporating into subspace.
“Anything else?” Then, not waiting for a reply: “Very well, you have your orders, Enterprise. Batanides, out.”
“Well,” said Burke, after a moment, a that’s-that lilt in her voice, “Captain, it sounds like we both have our orders. We should be ready to get underway shortly.”
Garrett gestured irritably. “Fine. I’ll have security meet you.”
“No need. Sivek and I can handle the prisoner.”
“Regulations demand that a security officer…”
“Captain,” said Burke, with such good humor Garrett wanted to yank out the woman’s tonsils, “I respectfully remind you that Commander Batanides specifically declined your offer for security to accompany us to Headquarters. And now if you’ll excuse me.”
Stern waited until Burke was off the bridge before exploding. “Captain, you’re not going to let them take Halak. Not like this!”
Garrett turned a bleary eye on Stern. “We have our orders, Doctor.”
“But it’s damned irregular, it’s not…”
“Doctor,” said Garrett, mounting the two steps to her command chair. She sat. “Please make sure Lieutenant Burke has a copy of your medical evaluation. Tyvan’s, too.”
“But, Captain,” Stern began.
Garrett didn’t even turn around. “Dismissed, Doctor.” She waited until she heard the hiss of the turbolift doors open and closed. “Mr. Bulast, any follow-up orders?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Excellent.” Then she nodded to Castillo at the helm. “All right, Mr. Castillo, you heard the woman. Lay in a course for the Draavid nebulae cluster. I want us to be ready to get underway as soon as the T’Pol clears.”
Castillo moved to comply. “Yes, ma’am.”
Garrett swiveled her chair to face Bat-Levi’s station immediately behind and to her right. “Commander, you’ll continue as XO until further notice.”
“Aye, Captain. Thank you, ma’am.”
“Don’t mention it. You’ve done a fine job. I want you to coordinate the astrometeorological and photoradiographic sections. Have them draw up duty rosters for around the clock shifts.” Because I’ve had it with that particular duty. Time to train her up and whip these people into shape. Give them something to focus on.
Bat-Levi looked a little surprised. “Around the clock?”
“You heard me. I want those rosters ready by 0700 tomorrow.”
“Right away, Captain. How far out do you want those rosters to go?”
“Mr. Bulast?”
“No specs on duration, Captain. Just orders to report before communications blackout.”
“Nothing about the mission’s duration?”
“None.” The Atrean’s eyebrows were very full and black, so that when they moved into a frown, they looked to Garrett like two furry caterpillars, mating. “That’s a little odd, Captain. If you don’t mind my saying.”
Propping her left elbow on her chair, Garrett stroked her lower lip between her left thumb and forefinger. “Yes, it is, isn’t it?”
Bulast was already preparing a channel. “Would you like me to query?”
A half-formed idea flashed in Garrett’s mind. Beg forgiveness later. “Negative.”
Bulast paused, his hand in midair over his console. “Captain?”
“You heard me, Mr. Bulast.” Garrett caught the whirr of Bat-Levi’s servos as her first officer stepped down from the deck and came alongside Garrett’s left elbow.
“Captain,” Bat-Levi’s voice was low, “the duty personnel will require some idea of how long you expect to monitor the cluster. If nothing else, engineering needs to know how much power they’ll have to steal from nonessential systems. The Draavids are pretty dense, and our current sensor configuration won’t do the trick of piercing through the cluster’s outer layers. Plus, they’ll have to provide for maximal shields.”
“You tell engineering that I want them ready for anything. Whether we stay five minutes or five years, I want everyone prepared for all eventualities, and I mean all: shields, power, sensors. Understood?”
She saw the confusion in the woman’s face, but Bat-Levi just gave a quick nod. “Yes, Captain. Right away.”
“Good.�
�� And damn Batanides, anyway. Garrett had no intention of remaining at the Draavids—and in the dark—for two weeks. Their orders hadn’t specified how many protostars they should map. So, five days for Halak to get to Starfleet Command, two from them to reach the Draavids. Figure on three days, round-the-clock shifts to map four, five protostars, and they’d call it quits, get the hell out of the Draavids’ radiation sink, and get Command on the horn in time for Halak’s inquiry.
But why was she so interested, all of a sudden, in trying to save Halak’s neck? The weight of the evidence, real and conjectural, was enough to scuttle a battle cruiser. Something was off, though. Things had gone just a little too fast, too conveniently. Maybe Halak had done everything SI claimed, or maybe he’d only done half and SI was filling in the blanks. Now these orders that would take them to hell and gone: Something was up. But why do this, and for someone she’d shown all the warmth of a Lampan icemonger? A man she was guilty of having juried and judged against a dead man?
Maybe, Garrett thought, because she was guilty, too, and it was as simple as that.
“Now hold on, hold on there a minute, Jo. My God, you’re as twitchy as a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rockers.”
“For crying out loud, Mac,” said Stern, pacing back and forth like a caged leopard. “You’d be a little twitchy too, Starfleet Intelligence pulled some stunt like this on your ship.”
“Well, now,” said McCoy, drawing the words out in his best Georgia drawl and knowing it irked the hell out of Stern (which, she figured, was precisely why he did it). “They don’t put us old coots on ships, and so I don’t have any basis for comparison. Now sit down, would you? You’re giving me a headache, what with you shooting back and forth like a shuttle on overdrive. Going to need the services of your own ship’s psychiatrist, you’re not careful. How is that boy anyway?”
“Beats me.” Stern slid into a chair. “He’s not a chatty guy. You know, he’d do himself a favor if he were more visible about ship. On the other hand, his plate’s full, what with everything going on.”
“Well, that’s classic shrink behavior. All psychiatrists are a little squeamish when it comes to dealing with real people, and vice versa. I’ll bet it’s a tough row to…”
“Mac.” Stern washed her face with her hands. “Forget Tyvan for a sec. He’s a big boy. Now, are you going to help, or not?”
“Jo,” said McCoy, his creased and weathered features arranging themselves into a study of sincerity. “For you, anything. Just…I don’t think there’s a thing I can do on this end.”
“That’s crap. Snoop around. Dig up the autopsy reports on Thex and Strong. For crying out loud, you’ve practically been there since they laid the concrete.”
“I’ll overlook that reference to my age,” said McCoy, though his watery blue eyes sparkled. “You know, you’re about the only person I let get away with that.”
“Do you good, somebody take you down a notch or two. You always have been a stubborn old coot.”
“And you’re one of my best firebrands. My God, I don’t think there’s anyone else can get my blood pressure going. Remember that case where that Andorian…?”
“Mac,” said Stern, loudly. “Memory Lane some other time. I need help here.”
McCoy pooched his lips in a sulk. “Memory Lane’s what we old-timers do best. Besides, you used to be a lot more fun. Get a couple bourbons in you and…”
“Would you cut it out?” Stern hated it when McCoy played the age card, something he did when he wanted things his way. True, he did look much older than she remembered: the wrinkles more deeply etched, that white thatch of hair a little more unruly and in need of a good combing. Well, that was only to be expected. After all, McCoy was over 100. “Mac, I have a time limit here. They’re taking him out in an hour, maybe less. Then, we’re heading to the Draavids, and there’s no way anything you send via subspace will get through. Now, are you going to help, or what?”
“All right, all right.” McCoy held his hands up in surrender, his tone letting her know that he understood he was pushing her too far. If she’d had the time and inclination, she might have played along, and not just because McCoy had been her best, and favorite, teacher. “Jo, I’ll be straight with you. I’ve read your report—mighty fine piece of detective work there, by the way, you picking on the discrepancy in those knife wounds and dirt samples, mighty fine. Probably would have passed most of these younger folks right by.”
“Thanks. But, to tell the truth, I wish I’d never thought to look at the damn stuff.”
McCoy’s face pruned. “Whatever for? He was caught in his own lie, far as I can see. That dirt,” he made a sharp downward motion with his closed fist, “nail in the old coffin. Places him somewhere totally different.”
“But that’s what bothers me, Mac. On the one hand, you’ve got the fact that Halak lied. On the other, you’ve got Starfleet Intelligence conveniently making connections that rely on part-fact and part-conjecture. And just because Halak lied—well, omitted the first fight, the meeting with this Arava character…”
“Kind of a big hole there.”
“It still doesn’t follow he lied about Ryn III, see what I’m saying? This whole revenge theory thing, it sounds too, too…”
“Connect the dots?”
“Pardon?”
“Never mind.” McCoy batted away the comment with a flap of his hand. “Before your time. What you’re saying is you’re hearing true, true, unrelated.”
“Or true, false, unrelated. That’s right.”
“Okay, so you want me to do some digging around. The reports on Thex and Strong,” McCoy tugged at a wattle of loose flesh under his chin, “yeah, maybe I can get to them. And how about I nose around about this Burke character, and Batanides?”
“That’d be great, Mac. We’re in the dark here.”
“All right, let me think on this, let me think,” said McCoy, musing. His rheumy blue eyes, deep in their valley of wrinkles, took on a faraway look, and he touched a contemplative finger to his lower lip. To her dismay, Stern saw that he’d developed a slight palsy she didn’t remember seeing before. McCoy might make jokes about his age, his surgeries, but he really was getting up there in years. With a pang, she realized that she hadn’t made the time for him the last time she’d been back to Earth. She knew this was because if she spent time with McCoy, she might be tempted to stay. She really didn’t know what their relationship was. They were colleagues, friends. Not lovers. Well, not physically anyway—Stern just wasn’t the romantic type—but McCoy was her closest friend, closer than Garrett. Maybe McCoy looked at Stern the way a father did a daughter. Or maybe they were just two lonely people who enjoyed each other’s company. Or maybe there was love there, somewhere.
“By the way,” she asked, “how’s the heart?”
“What?” McCoy looked up, startled out of his blue reverie. “Oh, that. Which one?”
“Putz. The new one.”
“Oh, I knew what you meant. And it’s fine, fine.” McCoy thumped his chest with a closed fist. “Make these things better and better. You watch. I’m going to outlive a couple of Vulcans I know. Certainly long enough to see that ship you’ve abandoned me for get decommissioned. You mark my word, Jo Stern, when that day comes, you are just going to come crawling back here, begging me to take you on staff.”
“Tell you what, Mac. That happens, I’ll buy the drinks and we’ll get three sheets to the wind, okay?” She folded her arms and leaned in. “Now, you going to do this?”
“My God, you’d plague a fence post. All right, here’s what I can do,” said McCoy. “I know a couple people; I’ll put some feelers out, see what I get, all right?”
“Fast.”
“Fast.”
“That’s a start. Thanks, Mac. Really. I owe you.”
“I already know what I want.”
“What’s that?”
“You take your next leave with me. We’ll go on a trip. Some nice R and R.”
Stern hesitated for a split second then said, “You got it.”
“Good.” But McCoy eyed her carefully. “You’re still as nervous as a turkey around Thanksgiving. We Georgia boys have a more impolite saying, about skillets and such, but this is an unsecured channel.”
“Never stopped you before.” Stern chafed her arms. “Sorry. Just want to do something, that’s all.”
“You want to do something?” McCoy pursed his lips into a wet rosebud. “Tell me, you give Halak a clean bill of health?”
“I discharged him from sickbay three days ago. Why?”
“Oh, nothing, nothing. I was just thinking: How long that poor soul been languishing in your brig?”
“Since yesterday.”
“Yesterday.” McCoy’s snowy white eyebrows reached for his hairline. “Over twenty-four hours without medical attention. And now he’s going to spend another four, five days, no medical care, cooped up on a godforsaken Vulcan warpshuttle, no doctor to make sure he’s comfortable, change his bandages.” He paused. “Give him his vitamins and such.”
“Vitamins.” Stern’s eyes slitted. “Vitamins?”
“Vitamins.” McCoy’s look was one of supreme innocence. “There are some powerful bugs out there, Jo, powerful bugs.”
The silence was so complete Stern imagined McCoy heard her swallow even over subspace. “Mac,” she said, “he’s in the brig—in isolation. No visitors.”
“Who’s talking visiting? You’re chief medical officer. And he’s your patient.”
After a moment, Stern’s lips split in a broad smile. “Mac, if my day gets any better, I may have to hire someone to help me enjoy it.”
“I’ll do it for free.” McCoy looked supremely pleased. “That’s my girl.”
Two hours later, Bulast said, “T’Pol signals they’re ready to depart, Captain.”
Despite having prepared herself, Garrett experienced a stomach-twisting lurch of apprehension, the way she had when she was a little girl and someone jumped out of the shadows. She kept her voice bland. “Very well, Mr. Bulast. Wish the T’Pol a safe journey.”
