Five of their attackers were still standing. Hiding behind the cryopods, they were firing rapid shots at the Starfleet party.
“Get on!” Seven Deers yelled, straining to make herself heard. Tra stayed where he was, as if he hadn’t heard her. “Crewman, get the hell on the platform!”
“You need somebody to draw their fire!” Tra shouted back. “I’ll keep them distracted.”
“Don’t be dumb! Rawlins has been hit. That’s an order!”
His phaser in his left hand, Tra stretched out his right arm behind him to feel for the cage. He took another Farrezzi down. The return fire showered the elevator in sparks. Seven Deers felt something hot on her forehead, a burning sensation that wouldn’t go away. She put her hand to it but yanked it away when the pain got worse. Her fingers glistened.
The air was smoky from the Farrezzi weapons. But Tra was on the platform.
“Hold on,” Seven Deers said, getting up from her crouch to crank the lever upward. Her head began to swim, and a wave of nausea engulfed her. The elevator began to move, rumbling strangely. It hadn’t made that noise before. Unconcerned about the weapons fire, Seven Deers slumped to the floor of the cage and began to consider problems that could have caused the irregularity. It was hard to focus.
All she wanted to do was close her eyes and sleep.
She closed her eyes.
NINE
Sixteen Years Ago
The next year of Leonard’s medical studies starts well. But things gradually deteriorate as his work begins to overwhelm him again. He spends less and less time studying in the apartment, doing his work in Bradley’s, a café near campus. This reduces the friction between Jocelyn and him, but whole days go by where the only time he spends with Jocelyn is when they’re asleep.
As his clinical work wraps up, Leonard begins planning for his internship. “We’ll have more time together, then,” Jocelyn says one evening when he comes home early. He falls straight into bed, clothes still on, worn out from a grueling day. She sits on the edge of the bed—it’s the first conversation they’ve had all week.
“I don’t know about that,” Leonard says. “I’ve been talking to Armstrong, and when he did his, he—”
Jocelyn interrupts him. She wants a baby. Having a child will bring them closer together. Lying there on the bed, holding her, Leonard can’t think of anything he wants more. They begin trying the day he graduates from medical school.
After four months, they succeed. Leonard isn’t able to spend as much time with Jocelyn as he’d like to—he’s hip-deep in his internship—but they’re spending more time together than they have before, and things are better.
Joanna is born as Leonard’s internship ends, and she’s wonderful, beautiful, gorgeous. Leonard is absolutely in love with her. He and Jocelyn have decided that it’s best for him to wait a year before beginning his residency so that he can help with the baby. He’ll spend the year working part-time at a local hospital. It’ll make things better.
Although Leonard loves every moment he gets to spend with Joanna, what he realizes is that he and Jocelyn have changed over the past seven years. Medical school has made him more serious, more driven than he was as an undergraduate. Jocelyn is less tolerant of Leonard’s crabbiness.
Leonard spends the year pining for the job he should be doing. He wants to be a doctor, he wants to make people better. He’s seldom at home helping with Joanna, but often at Bradley’s, hanging out with the Emory medical students.
That is where he meets Nancy.
Stardate 4757.9 (2105 hours)
The Farrezzi who had been loading carts were gone. Kirk nodded at Giotto. “Time to go, Commander.”
The gray-haired man grimaced. “You’re sure we’ll find our men in there? Pardon me, sir, but I’m not.”
“Neither am I,” Kirk replied, “but this is our only chance. We’ll board that ship and look in every storage closet if we have to. If Yüksel and Chekov are there, we’ll free them. If not, we’ll do everything we can to stop those slavers.” The captain wasn’t sure when he’d decided on this action, but if it was a violation of the Prime Directive, he’d sort it out later.
He had lives to save—both his own men’s and innocent aliens’.
Giotto relented. “Aye, sir.”
The captain was aware of how his crew saw him, but he didn’t think of himself as reckless. He did what needed to be done, even when that meant putting himself in danger. It rankled him that after serving under him for a couple of years, Giotto hadn’t accepted this about his captain.
The pair waited a few seconds to make absolutely sure that no Farrezzi was going to get in their way. The ramp into the nearest spaceship was twenty meters away. Shaded from the hangar’s bright orange light by the ship, their uniforms didn’t stand out. Phaser in hand, Kirk sped up the ramp. He tried not to think about what would happen if they were caught.
The ramp led into a cargo bay as spacious as the Enterprise’s. It was circular, with a giant column in the center connecting it to the upper levels of the ship. Glancing around, Kirk was surprised to find only a few pods. He’d seen dozens moved inside. It wasn’t a storage area, then.
There were five doors on the central column that he could see. “We have to split up.”
Giotto’s expression clearly showed how he felt. “Be careful, sir. I don’t want to tell Mister Spock that I let you go to your death.”
“I don’t plan on dying any time soon.”
“Few people do.” Giotto looked around the bay. “There’s one open door—you take that, sir, and I’ll cover you.”
“Good luck. Let me know when you find them.” Kirk headed toward the open doorway.
“You too, sir.”
McCoy had no idea what was wrong with him, but it was getting worse. Now he was seeing people. If this had been happening to anyone else, he’d have had them relieved of duty.
“Ah, but you’d like to think you’re too essential for that, wouldn’t you?” Jocelyn followed him as he headed back to sickbay. He needed to look at that research on quantum entanglement and telepathy, and at Ensign Padmanabhan’s data packet.
Jocelyn looked exactly the way she had all those years ago, on the last day of the divorce proceedings. A head shorter than McCoy, she had long, dark brown hair tied in a ponytail. The simple truth was, she looked great. He, on the other hand, looked twelve years older. He wondered what she thought of him.
No, that was nonsense! Jocelyn didn’t think anything of him, she was a hallucination, damn it!
McCoy headed straight to his office. Odhiambo looked at him as he passed her, but said nothing. Of Chapel, there was no sign. Good—maybe she’d gone back to her quarters to rest. He sat down at his desk and called up the Harding-Cyzewski paper. He was going to read this, and he was going to save those espers—
“Only you can do it, that’s right,” said Jocelyn. “That’s the way it’s always been. That’s the argument you’ve always used for shutting out everyone around you.”
No, it was true! He was the only person who could save the patients who were lying in sickbay, unhurt yet dying. He wasn’t going to let her—
“If you’d just admit the truth about why you’re here, then you could admit that you can’t save them,” Jocelyn continued. “You’re not here because this is what you want to do. You’re not even here because you’re good at it. You’re here because it lets you get away from me. And what kind of reason is that?”
She had him there. So many people signed up for star-ship duty because it was their calling. Look at Jim—that man was at home on the Enterprise bridge. But for McCoy, it was because he didn’t fit in anywhere else. That was why he’d moved from assignment to assignment. This ship was beginning to feel like a place where he could stay… so of course it frightened him.
“Never anywhere long enough for everyone to find out that you’re a fraud. You stayed here too long,” she said. “Your third year here’s just ended—you haven’t been in one place
this long since we met. And now it’s done you in. You should have kept running, Leonard.”
If he hadn’t known that there was no way for Jocelyn to be in the depths of deep space, he’d have sworn she was here. A light fixture on the wall shined straight onto her, giving her complexion a weird, otherworldly look, and she had a shadow.
She wasn’t there, and McCoy knew that. He wouldn’t let himself think she was really there. His ex-wife was a figment of his overstressed mind. If he ignored her, she’d fade away. He was going to read this article, he was going to figure out what was wrong with those espers, he was going—
“The problem with you, Leonard, is that you didn’t choose to be here.” Jocelyn crossed the rest of the room, sitting down on the edge of McCoy’s desk.
Hell, he could even smell her. She’d never been one for perfume, but when you live with someone long enough, you remember how they smell. His reaction was curious: a mixture of comfort and anger. If only they’d been able to make it work. If only he’d been able to make it work. Then he wouldn’t be here right now, trying to solve this blasted—
“You merely chose to get away from me. That’s all you’ve ever chosen.”
McCoy switched off his monitor with an angry jab. Physician, heal thyself was the old saw. If he couldn’t figure out why he was hearing voices and seeing people, then there was no hope for his patients.
He left his office, Jocelyn trailing behind him, peppering him with questions. How did he expect to stop his patients from dying if he wasn’t able to do anything about it? Determined to get to the bottom of this, he fetched a psycho-tricorder from the equipment cabinet. The device was designed to gather relevant neurological and physiological data. It could tell him if there was anything wrong with him.
It could tell him if he was going insane.
After a few seconds, the tricorder reported heightened brain activity, but nothing else. A good CMO would relieve himself of duty. It was the right thing to do.
“Then do it!” Jocelyn said. “Do the right thing for once in your life!”
Chapel and the others then would have to face this crisis alone. No. The Enterprise needed a doctor. A neural suppressant was called for, something to clamp down on heightened brain activity. Jocelyn needed to disappear.
If there’d been another way, he’d gladly have done it. Time was running out. McCoy loaded up the hypospray and injected himself.
“Drugged up,” said Jocelyn. “Oh, very professional for a medical practitioner. You’ll be in top form with your brain slowed down.”
“Shut up, Jocelyn.” Back in his office, McCoy reopened the article and began reading, waiting for Jocelyn to add another biting comment.
Nothing came. When he looked up, there was no trace of her anywhere. He gave a relieved sigh. It had worked.
McCoy continued his reading, but to his dismay he quickly found it was hard going. Not because of voices, but because his body could no longer ignore the effects of exhaustion. Every sentence posed more of a struggle than the one before it. He’d used too much neural suppressant, McCoy realized with dismay.
Pulling himself together, McCoy was able to hold on until he finished reading. He decided he should rest his eyes for just a moment. That would be fine, wouldn’t it? He’d earned it.
The darkness was so wonderful, and within seconds McCoy could feel himself relaxing.
He didn’t open his eyes again.
With the shuttle safe inside the warehouse, Spock was using its computer to assess all the data they had collected. After changing its course repeatedly, the storm was now again headed for the city district the Hofstadter had landed in, more powerful than ever. It behaved like no known weather system. Its course was erratic, its power spikes unpredictable, and its speed highly improbable. Spock had no theory that would explain all of the storm’s unusual features.
The Vulcan had begun reading Ensign Saloniemi’s report on alien texts when the computer announced an incoming signal. Crewman Tra sounded exhausted and tense. “Commander Spock,” he said, “Ensign Chekov’s also been taken by the Farrezzi. The captain and Commander Giotto followed him, hoping to free him and Yüksel. We were ordered to leave. But Columbus is being followed.”
Spock limited himself to asking, “How many are there, and how close are they?”
“Numbers unknown. We’re faster, sir. As we took off, we were hit before we raised our shields. Our phaser emitter is damaged. They’re out of range right now, but we can’t fight back.”
The presence of other craft changed Spock’s priorities. “Are there any injuries?”
“Rawlins has been shot, and Seven Deers is unconscious. They need immediate treatment.”
“What is your shield status?” asked Spock.
“Fully functional, there was no external damage. They just got the phasers.” Tra sighed. “Lucky shot.”
“The Hofstadter’s shields are damaged. It is unable to fly through the storm,” Spock said. His scans had showed that the interference pattern was growing worse. “How long will you need to reach our location?”
“If I go suborbital, about half an hour.”
“Acceptable. Crewman, I will need every piece of information you and your team were able to gather about the natives. Send us the data, complete with your latest tricorder logs.”
“Aye, sir,” Tra said.
“Hofstadter out.”
While Spock had been entertaining the theory that the population had not disappeared, as that would have been a logistical impossibility, he had not expected the other team’s discoveries to be so incident-ridden.
Spock began powering up the shuttle as he awaited the arrival of the data packet. Once he had read it, he flipped open his communicator. Some of the landing party were exploring the warehouse.
“Spock to Hofstadter party. Return to the shuttle immediately.”
M’Benga was back first. “What’s going on, Commander?”
“Doctor,” Spock said, “the Columbus is incoming, carrying two casualties.”
“Who?” M’Benga asked.
“The wounded are Lieutenant Rawlins and Ensign Seven Deers. Captain Kirk, Commander Giotto, and Ensign Chekov are missing, in addition to Specialist Yüksel.”
M’Benga’s voice was shocked. “How did this—”
“I will send further details to your tricorder.” He sent the data packet to the rest, who had come aboard while Spock and M’Benga had been conversing—with one exception. “Where is Mister Scott?”
“He said he had something to finish up,” said Kologwe. “He’s working on the shields.”
“Continue the preflight checklist, Lieutenant.” Spock stood up.
The Vulcan stepped out from the brightness of the shuttle into the relative dark of the warehouse. He could hear the whistling winds outside, much louder than only a few minutes before. The thunder—and, by extension, the lightning—seemed to have momentarily abated.
Scott was busy working on top of the Hofstadter. Spock could hear the buzzing of a hyperspanner. The engineer yelled down, “Give me just a minute, Mister Spock.”
Spock stepped up onto the warp nacelle of the Hofstadter. The engineer’s hands were in an opened access panel. “The Columbus is en route with wounded,” Spock said. “A combat situation may be imminent. Is the Hofstadter capable of flight?”
“I’ve fixed the damage from the lightning strike,” Scott replied, “but I want to adjust the shields. You canna fly up through the storm if the shields dinna work.”
“The shield malfunction is due to external interference,” Spock pointed out. “Can you remedy it?”
“Aye,” he said. “Give me a few minutes. We canna help the Columbus if we’re torn apart.”
Spock considered. “Continue your work.”
The engineer lifted his head and smiled. “I’ll do my best, sir.”
“The data from the Columbus indicates that its shields are unaffected,” said Spock. “This suggests that the Hofstadter is more suscep
tible.” Spock knew some of the differences between the G-class Hofstadter and F-class Columbus, but not as thoroughly as Scott.
Scott paused his work for a moment. “The Hofstadter is a later model,” he said, thinking aloud, “and the power conduits that feed the shields are larger—leaving less room for insulation. The interference could be through… That narrows it down, Mister Spock.” The engineer resumed his work.
Spock returned to the pilot’s seat to examine the report from the Columbus. It was not unheard of for a planetary population to go to great lengths to save itself, including mass migration and climate modification. It was an unorthodox solution to place the entire population in hypersleep. It appeared to have worked. The atmosphere of Farrezz was near normal levels for the life-forms the Columbus team had found.
The shuttle was ready for takeoff. However, Scott continued to work on the shields. Spock conferred with Jaeger about the storm system. If the Columbus was still being followed, the Hofstadter crew would need to leave this location as quickly as possible, and he did not want to incur any more damage from the storm.
Spock’s discussion was interrupted.
“Hofstadter, this is the Columbus. We’re five minutes out. Can you ready the door?”
“Hofstadter receiving,” answered Spock. “Which door?”
“The southwestern, sir.”
“We will be ready.”
Spock closed the channel and called for Kologwe to join him. They headed back into the warehouse. Mister Scott was no longer on top of the Hofstadter, but bent over a nacelle, adjusting his hyperspanner.
“What’s going on, sir?” asked Scott. “Are they all right?”
“We will know in a moment.”
Spock quickly strode across the warehouse. He noted Lieutenant Kologwe was carrying a phaser rifle. “A logical precaution, Lieutenant.” Spock activated the door’s opening mechanism, and Kologwe pointed the phaser rifle through the growing aperture. The wind raged through the opening, carrying gusts of rain, clumps of dirt, and bits of debris. When the door had retreated fully, Spock was barely able to remain standing.
Star Trek®: A Choice of Catastrophes Page 16
