Bloodthirst (27 page)

“Yes, sir,” Nguyen whispered.

“Tomson out.” She thumped the control with a fist and swiveled sideways in her chair so that she could stretch out her long legs. Fleet-issue furniture was too small and confining, but she refused to ask for anything custom-made.

It was ridiculous, feeling guilty about Stanger. How was she supposed to know the man was going to die?

You didn't. But you broke your own rule; you listened to the rumor mill.

Maybe. But the plain fact is, the man was demoted. People don't get demoted without cause.

No. But you had to rub it in.

Enough. The man was dead, and there was nothing more she could do. Of course, there was always a posthumous commendation.

What for?

It took a lot of nerve for him to come up to you and ask to be in charge of the night-shift search. He offered to pull a double shifter, remember?

She remembered. Before she could change her mind, she swiveled back to face her terminal, typed up the order, and verified it with a retinal scan. She had just finished when there was a buzz at the door. Esswein, perhaps, with news of Adams' capture? “Come,” she said, and turned off the lock. The door slid open.

Jonathon Stanger stood in the doorway.

"Stanger,”
she said with enormous relief, and stood up, vaguely aware that she was grinning hugely. “Stanger, they said you had died.”

Stanger stared up at her with wild, feverish eyes. His skin was as sickly gray as it had been when Tomson last saw his corpse, and his uniform was disheveled. “Please” He stepped inside. The door closed behind him, and he moved forward until he stood in front of the desk.

Tomson stared back. The reality of the situation passed through her with an ugly shudder. “You
did
die,” she said softly. Repulsed, she stepped away from the desk until her back was pressed against the wall.

It was then that she made out the small utility knife clutched in Stanger's right hand. His eyes were insane with need. “I don't want to hurt you,” he said earnestly, and raised the knife.

Tomson tensed, ready to defend herself. “Damn right you don't,” she said.

MCCOY GOT TO sickbay just as M'Benga finished sealing the cut on Tomson's hand with synthetic. M'Benga had not explained the crisis, had only promised that it was urgent, though Tomson seemed in fair shape. She'd obviously been in some sort of struggle; besides the cut, there was a rip in the shoulder of her red tunic that revealed skin so translucent, McCoy could see the blue-green blood vessels pulsing beneath.

“Don't worry,” M'Benga was saying to her. “The hand'll be good as new in a couple of days.”

“That's a pretty deep cut.” McCoy peered at Tomson's wound. The lieutenant held her injured hand out in front of her and gazed at it critically, as if inspecting a fresh manicure.

M'Benga looked up from his work. “Doctor. Sorry to bother you twice, but it's been some night.”

“No problem.” McCoy had lain awake, just as he'd expected, running over in his mind what he might have/ could have/should have done differently for Chapel and Stanger. “It's almost time for my shift anyway.” Which was a gross exaggeration.

M'Benga glanced meaningfully at Tomson. “The lieutenant here has quite a story to tell. It explains that little problem we discussed earlier.”

Stanger's body. “My God.” McCoy was sickened. “Adams
stole
it? Then Chris”

“Relax.” M'Benga put a gentle hand on his arm. McCoy thought he spied a quirk tugging at one corner of M'Benga's mouth, as if the man were trying not to smile. “Adams didn't steal anything. And I've got stasis locked up tighter than a drum. Chris is safe.”

Chris is safe.
Something about the way he said it”
Chris
, not
Chris' body
'caused an irrational hope to surface in McCoy.

“Tell him.” M'Benga turned to Tomson.

She focused small, humorless eyes on the doctor. “You're not going to believe this.”

“For God's sake, just tell me what happened,” McCoy snapped, desperate to know.

“Ensign Stanger attacked me.” She said it soberly, with total and irrevocable certainty; so that no one could have doubted that it was the truth. “He's alive, Doctor. I am not insane, I have not been drinking or taking any type of drug. He seemed—desperate. As if he felt compelled to hurt me but, at the same time, didn't want to. I tried to restrain him, but he had a knife and managed to get away.” Anyone else would have simply been glad to have survived. Tomson, of course, felt she had to explain why she had not personally delivered the prisoner to the brig. “My people are looking for him now.”

Speechless, McCoy gaped at her. It didn't make any sense. Didn't make any sense at all. Stanger was
dead
. McCoy had watched each life function indicator on the man's monitor plummet to zero. Just as he had for Chris

M'Benga was quite obviously fighting back a grin. “Know what I think we should take a look at? The waste products in Chapel and Stanger's blood. I bet we'd find some mighty interesting ones like maybe some high serum magnesium levels.”

“My
God
, McCoy cried, jubilant. Of course! Tjieng had said tests indicated it was a smart virus. It could be—He grabbed the now-smiling M'Benga by the shoulders, afraid to have hope and at the same time reveling in it. “My God, Geoffrey; I should have run a blood chemistry”

“How were any of us supposed to know? That's not done on a corpse until the autopsy.”

“My God!” McCoy repeated, holding his reeling head. “I've got to see Chris!”

“I was thinking you might say that.” M'Benga cackled and gave him a joyful thump on the back. “Why don't you go down to stasis? I'll give you the code to get in. You've got a whole hour before your shift, and I can easily stay over if you need.”

But McCoy was out the door before he finished talking.

“Excitable, isn't he?” Tomson observed.

He had to go back for a tricorder and medikit and the code, of course. By the time he got down to stasis, he was trembling.

What if I'm wrong? Dear God, what if nothing happens?
Don't think about. Do what you have to do, and just don't think.

He coded the door to stasis open. Imagine, locking the doors to stasis!

To keep people out, or in?

Inside, two of the units had recently been put to use. One of them, the one marked STANGER, JONATHON, ENSIGN , had been opened. It was dark and empty. Next to it, Christine Chapel's unit glowed faintly.

McCoy stopped breathing. He stepped next to Chris' unit and stood there until he got up the nerve to open it.

She was enveloped from head to foot by the stasis field; its soft blue light gave her a distinctly ethereal beauty. Trembling, McCoy switched the unit off. The field melted away. Under normal lighting, Christine looked very much alive.

He picked up the tricorder that dangled by a strap from his neck and calibrated it to do life function readings. He directed it at Christine.

Nothing.

It was not unexpected. Remembering something he had studied long ago in a now-forgotten zoology class, McCoy leaned over the unit and, with one eye on the tricorder, screamed into Chris' ear.

“CHRISTINE!”

The tricorder gave a small
bleep
as it registered brain function. Chris was alive.

Sobbing with joy, McCoy buried his face in her shoulder.

Quince Waverleigh was dead, and Jim Kirk was to blame. At least, that was the way Jim saw it. It had been a bad afternoon, and an even worse night. For the past several hours, he had been staring at the expanse of white ceiling above his bunk.

Getting too hot to breathe.

He could have forgiven Quince if it were all just another one of his practical jokes. But he could not forgive him for dying.

Nor could he forgive himself.

If only I hadn't been so stupid. Mendez must have been waiting to see if I were going to follow up on any suspicions.

If only I'd sent the first message on a public channel and to Quince's apartment

The rational part of his brain knew that if Mendez wanted to monitor transmissions to and from the
Enterprise
, there was nothing he could have done to prevent Mendez from finding out.

Then why did you have to call Quince? You should have suspected you were marking him for death.

Because he trusted Quince, that was why. And at the same time, he had no idea what was at stake.
Would it really have been any better if it'd been someone else?

Yes. If it'd been me

He decided to get up and start his duty shift three hours early. He pushed himself to a sitting position and swung his legs around. He felt stiff, as if he had grown very old in those few hours of lying still. It would be good for him, would force him to function, albeit in a haze of suppressed pain. The grief had begun to funnel itself into a stronger, darker emotion: revenge.

He rose and dressed himself. He could no longer see Mendez as the grief-stricken father. That perception was gone, replaced by that of Mendez, the cold-blooded killer. Whatever personal tragedy the man had undergone did not give him the right to inflict the same on others.

At the same time, fully aware of the contradiction, Jim wanted Mendez dead. Part of his bitterness stemmed from the knowledge that he would never bring himself to fulfill that desire. Still, he was going to bring Mendez and his associates down.

The question was,
how?

There was time. Mendez might be plotting to silence Kirk even now, but wiping out a starship like the
Enterprise
would take considerable planning. There was time to get even.

And revenge is a dish best served cold

Jim glanced into the mirror over the dresser and tried to smooth the angry grief from his face before heading for the bridge.

At the navigation console, Lieutenant Sulu suppressed a yawn. Anything that suggested relaxation would have been out of place; since the announcement of Chapel's death, the bridge had been a tense, unhappy place.

Even more so today. The captain had already been on duty when Sulu got there—fifteen minutes early—sitting in the conn with a stern, forbidding scowl on his face. Gods knew, they were all upset about losing Christine, but Sulu's instinct told him that the captain had suffered an even greater loss.

And so the day-shift bridge crew reported one by one for duty, murmuring hushed greetings to those they replaced.
As if we were at someone's funeral
, Sulu thought. He sneaked a sideways glance at Chekov, but the navigator stared somberly ahead at the viewscreen full of stars.

This is going to be an awfully long day.
Sulu sighed and glanced down at his panel. Everything normal, everything as it should be. Except that Christine was dead and something was eating the captain alive

The bridge was so hushed that when the captain's intercom whistled, Sulu gave a start. He didn't intend to eavesdrop on the conversation; after all, it was none of his business. But the bridge was so quiet, it was impossible not to overhear. He could tell from the way Chekov tensed next to him that the Russian was listening, too.

Kirk punched the intercom with his fist and grunted into it.” Kirk here.”

“McCoy here. Jim, you're not going to believe this.” McCoy's voice was trembling with such strong emotion that Sulu could not tell if it was grief or joy.

“Try me,” Kirk said dully.

“Ensign Stanger attacked Lieutenant Tomson early this morning.”

Kirk sat up very straight in his chair. His voice became more animated. “Stanger is
dead
, Doctor. Is this your idea of some sort of bad joke?”

“Stanger
isn't
dead,” McCoy said, with maniacal good cheer. “Neither is Chris.”

Christine was
alive?
Sulu no longer pretended not to be listening. A broad smile on his Asian features, he swiveled in his chair to face the captain. So did Chekov. So did Uhura. Even Spock glanced up from his viewer.

“It's true, Jim,” McCoy raved on. “It only makes sense. We knew it was genetically engineered. It's a smart virus. It does whatever's necessary to keep the host alive for as long as it can. Adams probably never even remembered! Of course he didn't tell us! How were we supposed to know? It was hibernation, Jim. I should have guessed from the very beginning. I guess I subconsciously knew all along.”

The captain's frown faded somewhat. “Doctor, you're babbling.”

“Babbling?” McCoy laughed. “Babbling! You're damn right I'm babbling! And I intend to babble the rest of the day.”

Kirk gave a small smile. “Why don't I come down and see if we can figure out what you're trying to tell me?”

McCoy cackled. “You do that, Jim. You just do that! McCoy out.”

Kirk stood up, his mood apparently somewhat improved. “Mr. Spock if you would accompany me to sickbay.”

The Vulcan turned to look at him, the barest ghost of a questioning look crossing his face and then disappearing. “Yes, Captain.”

“I need someone to protect me from Dr. McCoy,” Kirk said, as if an explanation were expected. “Mr. Sulu, you have the conn.”

“Yes, sir,” Sulu answered, already routing it through to his own station at the helm. Odd, for the captain to ask Spock to go with him. There was no need Sulu could see to have the Vulcan along but then, command had its privileges. And it would give those on the bridge the opportunity to talk freely.

The turbolift doors closed over the captain and his first officer.

“Christine's
alive!”
Uhura exclaimed, and everyone laughed delightedly and began talking at once.

“But what ?”

“How could it be ?”