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  “Tikhonov is there?” exclaimed Kirk. “Then who’s on the bridge?”

  “I have no idea, Captain,” said Glorak. “But I can’t . . . unh.”

  Kirk looked at his communicator. “Glorak?”

  “No, Mr. Kirk,” replied a familiar Russian accent. “This is not Glorak. This is the voice of your humiliating defeat.”

  “Hey, Viktor,” said Kirk, trying for nonchalance.

  “Your entire team is incapacitated, comrade.”

  “Except me.”

  “Yes, except you.”

  “Then I see you’ve fallen right into my trap,” said Kirk.

  The Russian chuckled. “You will make a fine third officer on my ship’s bridge someday, Mr. Kirk.”

  “Speaking of the bridge, I’ll see you there, Vik,” said Kirk. “Bring all your guys, though. I want a fair fight.”

  Tikhonov laughed again. “I like you, Kirk,” he said. “I’m pulling back my scouts from the Officers’ Lounge so you can surrender with dignity.”

  “I’m in the Officers’ Lounge?” asked Kirk, looking around.

  “Yes, Mr. Kirk.”

  “Oh.”

  Sure enough, the phaser fire stopped. Kirk cautiously lifted his head above the console. The room was now deserted. No blue Alpha vests.

  “Gosh, thanks, Viktor,” he said.

  “Do you wish to negotiate terms of surrender?” asked Tikhonov.

  Kirk smiled and clicked off his communicator.

  “Kirk out,” he said to himself.

  He pulled his tricorder from his belt. Dialing up a schematic of the Cairo air duct system, Kirk plotted a course to the bridge, setting waypoints—something he should have done before. He was surprised to discover that this room was on C Deck, just two decks directly below the bridge.

  Kirk unclipped his utility belt and kicked upward off the console, toward the open ventilation duct just above him.

  “This should be fun,” he said.

  McCoy couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He rapidly tapped the digital pads on the quantum molecular microscope, making focus and scan adjustments.

  “I told you,” said a man in a white lab coat. He gazed excitedly over McCoy’s shoulder. “See? I am not crazy.”

  McCoy squinted into the microscope again. He made some more adjustments. Then he looked up.

  “They’re moving,” he said.

  “They are so much more than moving, Dr. McCoy!”

  “That’s true,” agreed McCoy.

  The man in the lab coat was Dr. Naamba Reyjik, director of the pathology lab at the medical college. His smile revealed two rows of gleaming white teeth that seemed illuminated against his dark skin. He slapped McCoy on the back.

  “This is undoubtedly a First Contact!” said Dr. Reyjik, jabbing a finger upward to punctuate his point. “There is nothing like this in our experience, my friend. Nothing in the Starfleet database even comes close. Believe me, I checked. I spent the last two hours checking. I have my whole staff checking. There is no precedent in the medical or scientific literature.”

  McCoy nodded. He felt a pang of excitement too. Then a realization hit him like a concussion grenade.

  “Good god, my patient!” he blurted.

  McCoy burst from the lab, nearly running over a group of research interns. He made a full sprint down the corridor to the turbo lift, which was open and unoccupied. McCoy dived inside, fist-punched a button, and rode the lift down to the diagnostic ward. There, he leaped out and continued his sprint past two concerned nurses at the ward station.

  When he arrived in Gaila’s room, she was in a fitful sleep.

  McCoy hurried to her side. He knelt there and gently shook her awake. She sat bolt upright . . . then started vigorously scratching her abdomen.

  “Dr. McCoy,” she murmured sleepily, smiling, “have you been watching me dream about you?”

  McCoy watched Gaila claw at her ribs a few seconds, then she suddenly stopped and looked at her hands.

  “Wow,” she said. She touched her abdomen in several places. “It went away.”

  “What went away?” asked McCoy.

  “The itching inside,” replied Gaila. “Just like that. Huh. Guess it was . . . just the dream.”

  “Tell me about your dream,” said McCoy. He reached for the medical tricorder on the stand next to the bed and activated its scanner.

  Misunderstanding why he was asking, Gaila fluffed her hair and adjusted her gown. “It was weird, Leonard,” she began in a breathy voice. McCoy winced at her use of his first name, but he didn’t interrupt her. “I was walking in the fog, like, on a city street. The fog was heavy, but it wasn’t wet like fog. It was dry and scratchy. It was sticking to me, getting in my eyes.” She waved a hand in front of her face for emphasis. “Very unpleasant.”

  McCoy said, “Hold still, please.” He started a new tricorder scan of Gaila, starting at her feet. “So what happened, Cadet?”

  “Please, call me Gaila,” she said, batting her eyelashes.

  “I prefer ‘cadet,’” said McCoy. “Right now I’m a doctor, not your friend.”

  Gaila rolled her eyes. “Whatever.” The breathy voice was gone. “So then I started itching all over. It felt like the fog was under my skin, in my mouth and nose, even inside me. But I started crying, and it all changed.”

  McCoy pressed a tricorder button. “How so?” he asked.

  “I don’t know, exactly,” said Gaila, frowning. “I just remember wiping my eyes. My hands were black.”

  “Black?” asked McCoy.

  “Yes.”

  Now McCoy reached out and touched two fingers under Gaila’s chin. He lifted her head gently.

  “Cadet, we asked you not to bathe yet,” he said.

  “I didn’t,” she said.

  There was no sign of the chalky black residue on Gaila’s neck. McCoy looked at the tricorder readout.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said.

  The room’s door suddenly swung open. It was Dr. Reyjik. He nodded at Gaila and turned to McCoy.

  “It’s gone, isn’t it, Dr. McCoy?” he said.

  McCoy arched an eyebrow. “How did you know?”

  Reyjik widened his eyes. “Because the . . . substance is trying to escape our quantum containment chamber, even as we speak,” he said. “I’ve been watching it for several minutes. Remarkable. But since the particulate matter would have to be subatomic in size to egress, it is failing in its attempt.”

  “My god,” said McCoy, shaking his head.

  Gaila looked from one doctor to the other.

  “Can somebody please tell me what’s going on?” she asked.

  McCoy held up the medical tricorder. “According to these readings, the microscopic contaminant, whatever it was, has fled your body. It is completely and utterly gone.”

  “Where did it go?” asked Gaila.

  McCoy and Reyjik exchanged a look. Then McCoy shrugged.

  “Home, I guess,” he said.

  Five Alpha males, led by Viktor Tikhonov, would soon converge on the main bridge of the USS Cairo. Floating in the turbo-lift shaft behind the bridge, Kirk surveyed the situation. It didn’t look good.

  After scooting up air ducts, Kirk had arrived to find the bridge deserted. The two Alpha scouts he’d engaged in the Officers’ Lounge had most likely secured the bridge earlier—their blue Alpha button on the timer was pressed when he’d arrived. But now the two were nowhere to be seen.

  Kirk had already slapped the red Team Delta button to start the timer in his favor. After that he found a crowbar in the bridge toolkit, and pried the turbo-lift doors halfway open—not an easy task in a weightless environment—and pulled himself into the open shaft. Three floors below, the disabled turbo-lift car blocked the shaft. Now all he had to do was defend the bridge for two hours while outnumbered seven to one.

  Kirk didn’t believe in no-win scenarios. But he was realistic. The odds were stacked against him.

  Gotta take out Tikhonov at
least, maybe one or two other guys too, he thought. That way, even in defeat he could emerge from this disaster with some shred of dignity.

  So Kirk waited patiently.

  He listened carefully.

  And what he heard was . . . perfect silence for sixty-eight excruciating minutes.

  What is Viktor doing? he wondered.

  The whole time Kirk had his phaser pointed at the main air duct on the bridge’s ceiling because he fully expected a Team Alpha rush from the ceiling. It was the best way for Tikhonov to leverage his superior numbers.

  Sure enough, at the seventy-minute mark a loud rattling came from the ceiling duct. Kirk slowed his breathing and aimed. Suddenly, pulsing phaser blasts began pouring out of the duct. Kirk held his fire. He could tell that the Alpha shooters had no idea where he was.

  Glittering bolts of energy flew from the open duct in all directions, ricocheting off consoles and chairs. No doubt they’re laying down a cover fire, thought Kirk as he held his aim through the half-open turbo-lift doors, ready for the rush.

  The noise and flashing phaser fire from the ceiling duct was distracting. So distracting that Kirk didn’t notice the temperature rising in the turbo-lift shaft until it was too late.

  The last thing he heard before drifting into stunned sleep was the sound of Viktor Tikhonov and another Alpha cadet peeling back the melted roof of the turbo-lift car directly beneath him.

  Kirk maintained consciousness long enough for one last thought: I just got skunked.

  CH.4.12

  Black Bits

  Cadet Uhura flipped pages of a so-called “women’s magazine” as she sat in the visitors’ lounge of the medical college hospital. She stopped at an article entitled “Ten Good Reasons to Date an Older Man.” A sardonic smile spread across her lips.

  The phone at the ward station trilled. As the nurse picked it up, Uhura tossed down the magazine. She stood up and started pacing.

  “Diagnostic ward,” said the nurse.

  Gaila had called Uhura that morning sounding completely healthy and even happy. “Don’t bother to visit, I’ll be out of here soon, unfortunately,” the Orion girl had said. “Some of these doctors are crazy hot, girl. I’ve got my eye on one, and I think he’s totally into me!”

  But a few hours later Gaila had called back, sounding confused. “They found something on me, or in me, or whatever, so they have to run tests,” she’d said. “Plus something happened. They won’t tell me what. But now everybody is all business around here.” So Uhura had promised to visit. Gaila was easily her closest friend at the Academy. They’d even talked about rooming together in the future.

  “Are you Cadet Uhura?” asked the ward nurse suddenly.

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Uhura.

  The nurse held out the phone. “For you,” she said.

  Uhura frowned. Nobody knew she was here except Gaila. She took the phone and said, “This is Cadet Uhura.”

  A deep voice rumbled on the other end. “Cadet, this is Vice Admiral Tullsey.”

  Uhura’s eyes grew big. Admiral Tullsey was Starfleet Academy’s commandant of midshipmen.

  “Yes, sir?” she said, reflexively straightening her back.

  “I need you to report to my office immediately,” he said.

  “Yes, sir,” replied Uhura. “Can I ask what—?”

  The phone clicked as the admiral hung up.

  “I guess not,” said Uhura.

  She handed the phone back to the ward nurse. “Nurse, could you please tell Cadet Gaila that I got called away unexpectedly?” she asked. “Tell her I’ll try to come back later this evening.”

  “Sure,” said the nurse.

  “Will I need an after-hours pass?” asked Uhura, unclipping an ID badge from her hip and holding it up. “Here’s my security clearance, level C.”

  The nurse nodded. “I can tell you’re a by-the-book kind of gal,” she said.

  Uhura gave a wry smile. “Some people like that about me,” she said. “And some don’t.”

  The ward nurse laughed. “Well, I’m sure your instructors appreciate it,” she said, scribbling on a slip of paper and handing it to Uhura.

  “Mmm . . . one of them does,” said Uhura.

  After the post-mission debriefing session for Derelict Cairo, a humbled and dejected Cadet Kirk limped along a dormitory corridor toward his quarters. It seemed that Tikhonov’s phasers had been poorly calibrated. At least that was the excuse they used to explain why their light-stun setting had an extra kick that left most Team Delta members with pounding headaches and nasty bruises.

  A hatchet-faced cadet named Vanderlick thrust his head through a doorway.

  “Hello, Custer,” he said with a nasty grin.

  Kirk pointed at him. “I held the bridge for seventy minutes,” he said.

  “Most of that time, Team Alpha was playing magnetic dominoes in the Officers’ Lounge,” said Vanderlick.

  “Who told you that?”

  “Tikhonov,” said Vanderlick.

  “And you believe that guy?”

  “He uploaded the video,” said Vanderlick, flipping open a PDA. “Good stuff.” He held out the screen toward Kirk. “Check it out. You drool like a baby when stunned by a phaser.”

  Kirk pushed past Vanderlick to his room and dropped onto his bunk. He wanted to sleep for a week. But all he could do was stare at the ceiling and replay the painful mind-movie of his Cairo debacle, over and over.

  After an hour of that, he tried to look ahead.

  Teams Alpha and Delta were now deadlocked at one win apiece in the final round of ATT testing. The only remaining test—the Science mission final, called the Tanika Station scenario—was set for the following week. It was considered the most challenging and important away-team exercise. After all, the official Starfleet Academy motto was Ex astris, scientia: “From the stars, knowledge.”

  Kirk was so deep in thought that when his room phone rang, he started and bolted upright.

  Ten minutes later a dazed Kirk was walking across campus toward the commandant of midshipmen’s office. Other cadets who tried to greet him were stopped short by the look on his face.

  Maybe I lost so bad, they’re kicking me out of Starfleet, he was thinking. It was a plausible thought. In the debriefing session the senior staff officer noted that this was the first skunk in the history of the Derelict Cairo scenario—a “skunk” being the winning team lost nobody while the losing team lost everybody. This brought cheers from Team Alpha and admiring looks from the faculty overseeing the test—all aimed at Tikhonov.

  And why else would Tullsey himself call? The admiral had been particularly blunt and humorless on the phone.

  When Kirk entered the commandant’s waiting room, he was surprised to find Cadet Uhura sitting there.

  “Cadet,” he said.

  Uhura looked up, then did a double take. “Kirk,” she said. “You look terrible.”

  “Thanks,” he replied. “You look great, as usual.”

  Uhura ignored the compliment. “Seriously, Cadet. What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” said Kirk, plopping heavily into a chair. “Why are you here? You getting kicked out too?”

  Uhura couldn’t suppress a laugh. “Yeah, right,” she said. “I don’t think Starfleet kicks out its favorite hotshots.”

  Kirk looked at her. “You think you’re a hotshot?” he asked, confused. I always thought she was so humble, he thought.

  “No, I think you’re a hotshot.” She crossed her hands on her lap. “Let me rephrase that. Starfleet . . . thinks you’re a hotshot.”

  “Not anymore,” said Kirk with a bitter laugh. “I just set a new record for worst performance on Derelict Cairo.”

  Uhura’s perfect little nose wrinkled in an expression of irritation that Kirk found adorable. “Oh, spare me, will you?”

  Kirk leaned toward her. “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “Kirk, everybody knows that the two cadets chosen as team captains of the finalists in the ATT seri
es are the favorites of the Command College,” she said. “So spare me your pity party.”

  A thin smile spread across Kirk’s face. He sat back in his chair and didn’t speak.

  Then a door opened. A scary-looking woman with arched eyebrows leaned into the waiting room. This was the commandant’s adjutant, Lieutenant Commander Judy Renfield.

  Kirk and Uhura stood at attention.

  “The admiral will see you now,” she said crisply.

  Uhura stood up even straighter. “Yes, uh . . . which one of us?”

  “Both of you, Cadets,” answered Renfield.

  Kirk and Uhura exchanged a look, then shrugged and stood up.

  Admiral Tullsey was speaking to a tough-looking older man in a rumpled suit as the cadets entered his office. The man acknowledged Kirk with a weary nod, and Kirk flashed to a memory from the previous night. This man had been one of the SFPD cops on the scene after the ambulance arrived for Cadet Gaila.

  As Admiral Tullsey rose to his feet, Kirk and Uhura both snapped to attention with crisp salutes.

  “At ease, Cadets,” said Tullsey, returning the salute. “Have a seat.” As the cadets slid into two chairs obviously arranged for them, Admiral Tullsey gestured to the older man. “This is Detective Harve Bogenn, SFPD Homicide.”

  “You were at the crime scene last night,” said Kirk.

  Detective Bogenn nodded. “I was,” he said.

  “Actually, Detective Bogenn was at two crime scenes last night,” rumbled the admiral with a severe look.

  “Oh, no,” said Uhura. “Was there another attack?”

  Bogenn pulled out a small electronic notepad. “I’m afraid there was,” he said.

  “Another one of ours,” said Tullsey, shaking his head. “She worked in Starfleet Orbital Operations. Another Orion gal.”

  Uhura looked sick. “Worked? You mean . . .”

  “As I said, Cadet, the detective works in Homicide,” said Tullsey.

  “Was it the same guy?” asked Kirk, stunned.

  Bogenn nodded. “Just an hour later, across town.” He glanced down at something on his notepad.

  Kirk looked over at Uhura, who was clearly upset.

  She said, “This guy’s a murderer?”