This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. SIMON SPOTLIGHT An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020

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ISBN 978-1-4424-1409-9 (hc) ISBN 978-1-4424-1241-5 (pbk) ISBN 978-1-4424-1425-9 (eBook) Library of Congress Control Number: 2010935106

Contents

CH.1.12 Fogbound

CH.2.12 The Delta Quadrant

CH.3.12 Two Exams

CH.4.12 Black Bits

CH.5.12 Stalked

CH.6.12 Smart Dust

CH.7.12 Shadow Hours

CH.8.12 City Lights

CH.9.12 Delta Origins

CH.10.12 Tanika Station

CH.11.12 Pyramid Scheme

CH.12.12 After the Dust Settles

CH.1.12

Fogbound

In the summer of 2255, the San Francisco fog was like a living entity. Pushed ashore by ocean winds, it would creep and crawl over the city’s famous hills like a great white leviathan. Most nights that July, the city was smothered in the fog’s wet hide. Twirling white tendrils drifted down streets and alleys.

But if you could get above the fog layer, it was a breathtaking view.

At eight hundred fifty feet aboveground, the woman bound and gagged in the beacon cone at the top of the Transamerica Pyramid was well above the fog.

It was a breathtaking experience—quite literally.

Jacqueline Madkins—Jackie to her friends—was a tough gal. From her sensible shoes to her sensible haircut, she radiated a no-nonsense air that had served her well in her career. She’d been running security operations in the famous 286-year-old pyramid, the crown jewel of the San Francisco skyline, for almost ten years. She was one of only four people in the world with unrestricted access to the beacon cone.

So when SecureCam Omega went offline earlier that night, she’d groaned in disbelief.

Jackie was alone in the security control center on the thirtieth floor. Her security team, a crew of twenty guards, was making its regular rounds. It was quite an operation. She sat at a bank of monitors flickering live feeds from the building’s one hundred sixty surveillance cameras. She started tapping SecureCam Omega’s feed button on the camera control console.

Blank screen. It was as if the camera went dead, but Jackie knew that couldn’t happen. She shuddered involuntarily as a strange chill ran down her spine.

The top two hundred twelve feet of the Transamerica Pyramid was a hollow, translucent lumenite spire. Inside the spire, a steep staircase zigzagged up to the cone that housed the one-thousand-watt LED aviation warning light, a flashing red strobe. SecureCam Omega—the one that was apparently on the blink—surveyed the beacon chamber. Getting to it was a long, hard climb.

Jackie thought about that climb and looked down ruefully at her feet. “It’s not that I don’t like fabulous shoes,” she’d recently explained to her sister, Dawn, “it’s just that they are not exactly practical in my line of work!”

Suddenly, her comlink buzzed. She hit a button on her belt unit.

“Talk to me, Will,” she said.

“Did you just see that?” blurted the voice of Will Rosen, one of her night-team guards. He was just a teenager, and he sounded shaken.

“See what?” asked Jackie.

“The flash!” cried Will.

Jackie swiveled her chair to another console and checked what she called “the big board,” a full schematic of the entire building. Blue glowing icons marked the real-time locations of all twenty team members. Each icon was numbered.

“Okay, I got you marked up on forty-eight,” she said. “Is that right?”

The Transamerica Pyramid’s entire forty-eighth floor was a single, spectacular conference room. It offered a full 360-degree view of the city.

“Confirmed,” said Will. “It was, like, right outside the window.” His breathing was short and shallow. “Very bright, like an explosion.”

“I didn’t hear anything,” replied Jackie.

“Neither did I,” said Will.

“This is getting really weird,” Jackie muttered.

“What’s that?” asked Will.

Now her red line was ringing. This was a direct emergency hotline to SFPD. “Nothing. Sit tight, Will. I’ll be right up,” she said, and cut off the comlink. Then she picked up the red receiver on the console. “Pyramid security, this is Madkins.” She spoke with professional calm.

“Yo, Jackie, you okay over there?” said a voice on the line.

“Hey, Sam,” she said. It was Sergeant Sam Kalar at SFPD’s central district station, just down the street. “What’s up?”

“We got people reporting a big lightning strike on the pyramid,” replied the voice. “Calls coming in left and right.”

“One of my guys saw a flash, but no sound,” said Jackie. “I think we’re fine. I’ve got power, all systems running. But we’ll check it out.”

“Okay,” said Sergeant Kalar. “Let me know.”

“Roger,” she said, and hung up.

Time for my workout, she thought grimly.

Fifteen minutes later, Jackie was still lumbering up the spire staircase. She was in good shape, but this was the equivalent of climbing a twenty-one-story spiraling fire escape. After a few rest stops, she finally reached the landing that supports the final twenty-foot ladder leading up to the beacon platform.

“Going in,” she said into her comlink.

“I got you marked, boss,” came the voice of Will.

Jackie slowly hauled herself up the ladder through a narrow opening into the small cone-shaped room. A glass pyramid cap at the top housed the Halo3000 aviation warning beacon. The red strobe flashed forty times per minute with an intensity of twenty thousand candelas, bright enough to cause retinal damage. But a shield platform underneath the beacon let Jackie scan the chamber without danger.

“No damage up here,” she said over the comlink, an obvious note of relief in her voice.

“Copy that,” said Will.

Then Jackie spotted the malfunctioning camera near the floor. With a simple twist, the unit clicked off of its base. She tucked it into a side pouch she’d worn for just this purpose.

Nothing to worry about, she told herself, allowing relief to wash over her. She mentally chastised herself for having felt so worried over nothing.

As she approached the ladder for descent, a slight hissing sound from above caught her attention. She glanced up at the beacon’s shield platform. Wisps of black were slowly drifting downward.

“What the . . . ,” she said.

“What’s that, boss?” called Will.

“I see smoke up here,” she said, puzzled. “Up in the beacon housing.”

She listened to crackling silence over the comlink. Will was as perplexed as she was. “We’d better get a repair guy up here ASAP,” she said. “There’s a number in the database for Aviation Safety Systems. Call right now and, oh my god . . .”

Black smoke was now pouring into the chamber from above. It shot down in three long plumes. Each plume started circling Jackie and tightening its spiral. She could feel the smoke slithering over her bare arms, face, and throat. The last things she felt before falling unconscious were the distinct sensation of a powerful pressure strapping her arms to her sides, and a thin film spreading across her mouth, sealing it shut.

“Jackie, do you read me?” called Will over the comlink. “Jackie?”

Jackie couldn’t reply. Moments later, she lost consciousness.

CH.2.12

The Delta Quadrant

Starfleet Academy life was grueling.

Weeks of rigorous, unending study. Physical and mental training that no sport could prepare you for. Brutal hours in the tactical simulators, followed by humiliating debriefing sessions filled with failure analyses. And then there was the competition—the finest minds and bodies in the entire galaxy, pitted against one another daily, hourly. It took a toll.

The Starfleet cadets needed to blow off steam.

Chestnut Street in San Francisco—where the beautiful people and aliens prowled, mated, and dated—was a favorite hangout. Tonight the city’s infamous fog swirled like a pale fluid. James T. Kirk, Leonard “Bones” McCoy, and a Tellarite cadet named Glorak strolled down Chestnut Street looking for fun while trying to avoid collisions. Visibility was low. The fog was so thick that bodies appeared and disappeared like ghosts—for example, that Chinese lady carrying a huge, live lobster.

“Good god!” said McCoy, jumping out of the way.

Kirk laughed and watched the woman pass. The lobster was waving its rubber-banded claws like a symphony conductor. Kirk pointed at the crustacean. “I’ll see you at dinner, Bernstein!” he called. A few steps later the apparition melted back into the white mist and disappeared.

Glorak wrinkled his piglike snout and said, “Your oceans produce such strange creatures!”

“Don’t get me started on oceans,” grumbled McCoy.

Kirk turned to Glorak. “Bones hates oceans worse than he hates space,” he explained.

“You . . . hate space?” asked Glorak.

“Yes, I hate space,” said McCoy.

“Interesting that you’ve chosen a career with Starfleet, Dr. McCoy,” said Glorak.

“Oh, is it?” said McCoy testily.

Kirk slung an arm around McCoy’s shoulders. “‘Space is disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence.’ I believe that’s an exact quote.” Kirk blinked up at a neon sign glowing in the fog. “First words you ever spoke to me, Bones. Kinda makes me nostalgic.”

McCoy glared at Kirk. “Nostalgic for what?”

“For simpler days,” said Kirk. “For . . . innocence.”

“One thing you’ve never been, Jim,” said McCoy, “is innocent.”

Kirk whacked McCoy on the back. “Speaking of which . . . let’s find girls. I hear they tend to flock in this vicinity.”

McCoy shook his head. “I can’t even find the damned sidewalk.”

“I warned you about that Andorian ale, my friend,” said Glorak darkly.

“I’m talking about the fog, for god’s sake,” said McCoy.

“Oh,” said Glorak.

“Come on,” said Kirk. “Let’s find that new club.”

Word around campus was that a holo-karaoke bar had just opened off Chestnut. It was called the Delta Quadrant, and rumor had it that some female cadets were planning a birthday outing there that evening. Kirk despised karaoke, especially this new version where you could sing your song surrounded by holographic projections of the actual band. But, Kirk loved female cadets. So it was an acceptable trade-off, tactically speaking.

The three cadets continued up Chestnut, dodging loud groups of bar-hopping pedestrians. Kirk stopped a few people to ask directions to the Delta Quadrant, but everyone he encountered was either a little too drunk—or too eager to get home with that evening’s conquest—to stop and give clear directions. So the trio kept getting lost down side streets. As usual, Kirk pushed ahead of the others.

“I’m making poor command decisions,” he muttered to himself. Glancing down a dark alley, he spotted several dark entities twirling in the whitish fog. He stopped to watch, mesmerized. Their jerky movements seemed inhuman. Odd, hissing voices wafted toward Kirk, and a chill seized him. But then the entities suddenly evaporated. The figures literally melted away into the fog.

When the others caught up, Kirk pointed down the alley. “Did you see that?”

“See what?” asked McCoy.

“Creepy people dancing and, like, . . . hissing,” said Kirk.

Glorak snorted loudly. “You sure they were dancing, Kirk?”

McCoy glared at Glorak. “I hate it when you suck in your snout like that,” he said.

Glorak smiled at McCoy and sucked in his snout a few more times.

“Yes, that’s it exactly,” McCoy said, disgusted.

Kirk stared into the fog. The vision had been unsettling. After a few more seconds, he shrugged. “Whatever.”

Kirk, McCoy, and Glorak pushed ahead through the night’s white shroud. As they turned the next corner they heard loud music pulsing from an open doorway just ahead. Above the door, a 3-D holograph of the Greek letter delta hovered in the air, spinning eerily in the fog.

“Ah, that must be it!” cried Glorak.

As Kirk rolled into the club, he expertly scoped out the room. Within moments, his eyes settled on the lovely Cadet Uhura, sitting at a corner table with the voluptuous, red-haired, green-skinned Gaila. Kirk smiled—this was a triple score. First, like all good Orion girls, Cadet Gaila loved men. Second, Gaila was a computer lab tech, and it always paid to be on good terms with someone who had access to Starfleet guts. And third . . . well, one of Kirk’s favorite pastimes was trying to make the straight-laced Cadet Uhura uncomfortable. She was absolutely adorable when she squirmed.

“Gentlemen, lock your targets,” said Kirk.

“Right,” said McCoy. “Every man for himself.”

“Standard rules of engagement?” asked Glorak.

“Correct, Mr. Glorak,” replied Kirk. “Rendezvous here at 2200 hours.”

“But Mr. Kirk, that’s curfew!” said Glorak.

Kirk nodded. “Good point, Mr. Glorak,” he said. “Make it 2155.”

“That leaves little room for error.”

Kirk glanced over at Uhura and Gaila. “I don’t anticipate errors,” he said, grinning.

Kirk moved across the room like a man with a mission. He passed the club stage where a wobbly Andorian girl with white hair and fishnet tights was making a fool of herself singing an ancient Madonna song. She blew Kirk a kiss as he passed. As he approached Uhura, Kirk was disappointed to see that his fun had been compromised: She looked to be already uncomfortable, and it wasn’t because of him. Next to her, Gaila loudly ordered another drink that she clearly didn’t need.

“Hello, Cadets!” said Kirk brightly.

“Jim Kirk!” shrieked Gaila. She pointed at him. “Look! It’s that Jim Kirk!”

Uhura nodded. “So it is.”

“He’s hot!” she whisper-yelled to Uhura. Gaila then exploded into a honking laugh that sounded like alarmed waterfowl rising from a lake. The noise was so frightening that Kirk nearly backed away.

“Wow,” said Kirk, nodding. “Impressive levity there.”

“S’my birthday,” slurred Gaila. She attempted to lean seductively toward Kirk and almost fell off her stool. “Where’s my gift, Jim Kirk?” She grabbed a handful of his shirt. “Is it in your pocket?”

“Oh, well, see, I didn’t . . . , ” began Kirk, but Gaila cut him off by waving wildly at a passing cocktail waitress.

“One more!” she screamed over the thumping music. “Right here! Green drink for green girl!” She pointed at herself, laughing hysterically.

The waitress glided in close. She said, “I already got your order, hon. But are you sure you want it?”

“I think it’s a poor decision, Gaila,” said Uhura.

“Excellent!” said Gaila. She looked up at Kirk. “I’m excellent.”

“I can see that.”

“You’re a little too excellent, Gaila,” said Uhura.

Nearby, the bartender slung a slushy green drink onto the service stand. As the waitress hustled off to snag it, Gaila suddenly slid off her chair and onto the floor at Kirk’s feet. She started giggling uncontrollably.

“Whoooops!” she howled.

People at the next table laughed, but looked a little uneasy.

“Wow,” said Kirk. “You’re really hammered.”

“Thank you!”

As Kirk helped Gaila back onto her chair, she flung her arms tightly around his neck. Kirk was momentarily tempted, but then he caught a look from Uhura—a cross between “Don’t you dare!” and “Please god, help me!” So he unlocked himself from Gaila’s grip and shot off to intercept the cocktail waitress.

“I’ve got this,” he said, dropping money on her tray and snagging the drink.

“Don’t give it to green girl,” said the waitress wearily.

Kirk nodded and quickly slipped the drink to a stocky, jovial Xannon cadet named Braxim at the next table.

“On the house,” said Kirk.

Braxim smiled broadly. “Thank you, Mr. Kirk,” he said.

“Don’t mention it.” Kirk leaned down. “And I mean that literally.”

Braxim laughed heartily. “I have been watching the Orion girl,” he said, beating his chest for emphasis as Xannons do. “You will need assistance, I am sure. Orion girls can be most unruly. Trust me—I know firsthand.”

“Thanks, friend,” said Kirk, making a mental note to ask for more information on that firsthand knowledge sometime.

When Kirk returned to the table, Uhura was trying to convince Gaila to head back to the Presidio, the site of the Starfleet Academy campus. But the Orion girl abruptly jumped to her feet and, without a word, staggered off to the restroom.

Uhura gave Kirk a dark look. “As much as it pains me to say this to you, of all people,” she said, “I need some help.”

“Okay,” said Kirk.

“I doubt this girl can walk all the way back to campus,” said Uhura. “Let’s drag her to the Powell Street shuttle. It’s just a few blocks.”

Kirk nodded. “For a price,” he said.

Uhura narrowed her eyes. “Are you kidding?”

“Just tell me your first name,” said Kirk, smiling at her in a way that made most girls swoon.

Annoyingly, Uhura just stared at him.

“So . . . no deal?” asked Kirk. Uhura rolled her eyes and started after Gaila. “Okay, well, I’ll help you anyway,” called Kirk as she hurried away, “whatever your name is.” As Uhura ducked into the restroom without responding, he added: “I’ll be waiting right here, sweetheart.”

Kirk spotted McCoy nearby and quickly pulled the doctor away from a few prospective “patients.” “We need to escort Uhura and Gaila to the shuttle landing,” he said quickly.

“Why?” asked McCoy. “It’s just four blocks away. And you’re kind of interrupting something here,” he said, motioning discreetly to a cute blonde sipping a pink drink.

Kirk winked at her. She winked back. Focus, he told himself.

“It’s foggy out,” replied Kirk. “Dangerous.”

“Are you joking?” exclaimed McCoy. “These women are Starfleet-trained in self-defense, Jim! They can handle themselves just fine.”

“I know that,” says Kirk. “But Gaila is messed up, bad. Uhura needs help getting her back to the dorm.”

“Good god, Jim, I’m a doctor, not a babysitter,” said McCoy, his eyes returning to linger on the blonde.

“Some medical skills might be useful here,” said Kirk.

“That girl doesn’t need my skills.”

Kirk grabbed McCoy’s jacket. “Look, I need you, Bones,” he said. “This Orion woman scares the hell out of me.”

McCoy grinned. “Well, that’s a first.”

“And I think we’ll need a couple more guys,” said Kirk, scanning the club.

Ten minutes later, Glorak and Braxim stood with Kirk and McCoy near the door to the women’s restroom.

Tellarites and Xannons were both stout, strong races, so this duo was a nice addition to the escort detail. And Braxim, like most Xannons, was a fun-loving fellow who loved company. With his big barrel chest and bony forehead protrusion, he seemed to be forever leaning forward.

“I love nights such as tonight!” he exclaimed, giving his chest a quick thump. “I find coastal fog to be most bracing and romantic, particularly when it lacks a methane component!”

McCoy nodded. “Yes, methane fog does put a damper on romance,” he agreed.

Suddenly Uhura burst from the women’s room, alone. “Did she come out?” she asked, frowning.

“Gaila?” asked Kirk. “No.”

“Are you sure?”

Kirk looked around. “We’ve been here ten minutes or so,” he said. “When did you see her last?”

“Just a minute ago,” she said. “She was in a stall. I went out to wash my hands, and then she was gone.” Uhura ducked back into the restroom, then popped back out.

“The window’s open!” she said angrily.

“Crap. Let’s go,” said Kirk.

The five cadets hustled to the club entrance. “Bones, you check any alleys around the club with Glorak,” said Kirk quickly. “Braxxy and I will head up to Chestnut. She can’t be far.” He turned to Uhura. “You should stay here in case she comes back looking for you.”

“Oh, she won’t,” said Uhura with irritation, stepping outside and scanning the foggy sidewalk. “She’s on the prowl. I’ve seen Gaila like this before. She’s relentless.”

“I fear for the men of this city,” muttered McCoy.

“She is quite inebriated,” said Braxim, squinting out at the fog. “How far could she go?”

Kirk looked at McCoy.

“Pretty far,” they said simultaneously.

The cadets split into two search parties—the result of good Starfleet away-team tactical training. McCoy, Uhura, and Glorak deployed toward the Powell Street shuttle landing, four blocks up Russian Hill—a steep climb. Meanwhile, Kirk and the brawny Braxim started tracking up and down Marina District streets. A sudden inland gust churned up the milky fog around them. It drifted in jagged tendrils, seeming almost alive.

“Still like the fog, Braxxy?” asked Kirk, wiping his eyes.

Braxim smiled wryly. “It does seem unfriendly now,” he admitted.

Kirk pointed to an old-fashioned neon sign, PAK’S GROCERY, glimmering on the corner just ahead. “Your turn,” he said. “I’ll scout ahead a bit.”

As Braxim ducked into the store to search for Gaila, Kirk moved along the street looking for alleys.

Suddenly, he heard Gaila. She was singing.

“Gaila!” he called out. “Yo, girl!”

Kirk followed the sound to the entrance of an alley running behind some classic row houses. Abruptly, the singing stopped . . . replaced by a hissing metallic voice. Now Kirk heard Gaila gasping. He ran up the alley until he could see a vague outline of Gaila with another murky figure, dark in the pale fog, wrapped like a black cloak around her. He hesitated for a brief moment, wondering if he was interrupting something. Was Gaila gasping or choking?

Kirk decided she was probably not enjoying the encounter. She sounded like she was convulsing. If he was wrong, he’d deal with it. He had to make sure Gaila wasn’t in trouble.

“Hey!” shouted Kirk. “Hey, you!”

As Kirk shouted, the figure that had been all over Gaila reared up—huge now, maybe seven feet tall. The hissing morphed into a familiar sound, but Kirk couldn’t place it. Kirk shouted again, using his “command voice” (learned in Fleet Command and Control Methods) but the dark entity did not move.

Then Gaila groaned in agony. Now Kirk was pissed.

He dropped low, lunged, then sidestepped and unleashed a jab kick. He was sure he had a clean, easy shot at the attacker, but his foot struck nothing but air. Suddenly he was locked in a vise grip. The guy was incredibly strong. Kirk couldn’t move his arms. Then it got worse—fast. He felt a sticky sheet being pulled over his head. The sheet tightened across his face. He couldn’t move, and he couldn’t breathe.

Then Braxim burst through the fog.

“I called the police!” he shouted at the attacker, holding up his open hand-held communicator. “I called 911!”

Suddenly the sheet peeled off of Kirk’s face. He fell to the ground, gasping for air, and looked up to see the fog rolling toward Braxim’s feet.

In an impossibly deep voice, the entity spoke a phrase in a language that Kirk did not recognize. He seemed to be speaking to Braxim.

Then the attacker completely melted away into the thick fog.

CH.3.12

Two Exams

The next day at Starfleet Medical College, the Academy’s chief medical officer, Dr. Charles Griffin, ordered a team of top cadet physicians, including Leonard McCoy, to assist in a full examination of Cadet Gaila. Although the San Francisco police participated in the initial crime scene investigation, conducted interviews with Cadets Kirk and Braxim, and filed an official report, the incident was considered a Starfleet matter now, under military jurisdiction.

The Orion girl, unconscious following the attack, woke up with no memory of the incident. Other than a lingering dry cough, she seemed largely unaffected. In fact, she was in remarkably good spirits; Gaila found young male doctors like McCoy so interesting.

“Please, don’t move while the doctor is conducting a scan,” McCoy said for the third time.

Gaila glanced around the small exam prep room. “What doctor are you talking about?” she asked, confused.

McCoy held up the scanning attachment of his medical tricorder.

“Me!” he said, exasperated.

“Oh,” said Gaila. “Do doctors always refer to themselves in the third person?”

“I have no idea,” said McCoy. “Stop moving.”

He activated the scanner and moved it slowly upward in front of Gaila to conduct preliminary imaging and analysis of her torso.

“It’s hard to sit still,” whispered Gaila.

“Why?” asked McCoy. “Are you in pain?”

“No,” replied Gaila.

McCoy frowned at the tricorder read-out screen. “Then what is your problem, woman?”

She wriggled on the examining table. “This hospital gown is like . . . it’s like sitting on sandpaper.”

“So take it off.”

Gaila widened her eyes as McCoy punched a few buttons and held the medical device out for a second scan of Gaila’s body. When he looked up, she gave him a sly look.

“Is that a Code Seven medical directive, Doctor?” she asked, lowering her gown off her shoulders.

But McCoy simply looked back down at the device in his hands. As his eyes followed the tricorder upward, he saw something just below Gaila’s chin. The doctor reached out and ran his index finger across the nape of Gaila’s neck.

She shivered under his touch. “Mmm, that’s nice,” she said.

“Cadet, when did you bathe last?” asked McCoy, gazing at his finger.

“Yesterday,” she said.

“You’re sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” she said, a little indignantly. She pulled up her gown, realizing her seduction attempt might be a lost cause. “And I would have showered this morning, but I woke up in an intensive care unit connected to a bunch of tubes.”

McCoy held up his finger. It was smudged black.

Gaila looked confused. “What’s that?”

McCoy stepped to a nearby console. He tapped another button and began recording a report:

“Preliminary physical exam reveals a chalky black residue on Cadet Gaila’s skin,” said McCoy. “Medical tricorder imaging scans also indicate internal traces of a microscopic contaminant, with hot spots concentrated in two internal organs.” He paused, then added: “Including one unique to females of the Orion race.”

Now Gaila was frowning too.

“Dr. McCoy, are you talking about an infection?” she asked.

“Possibly,” said McCoy. “Or maybe an injected substance. The medical tricorder analysis is inconclusive, which is odd.” He held up the device and glanced at the readings again. “Very odd.”

Now Gaila looked worried. “You think this guy infected me? With what?”

McCoy’s voice softened a bit. “Hard to say,” he said. “But I wouldn’t worry, Cadet. Your vital signs are perfect, and my scans show no toxins, nothing malignant or invasive attacking you. You seem perfectly healthy. And your friends stopped the attacker before anything serious happened, thank god.”

Gaila started to reach toward her neck but McCoy quickly grabbed her hand.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m going to need samples of that for lab work.”

Gaila nodded, looking uneasy.

“So what happens next?” she asked.

McCoy pulled on sterile gloves, ripped open a sampling kit, and took out the swab. As he dabbed it on Gaila’s neck, he said, “The chief medical officer of the college, Dr. Griffin, will supervise a comprehensive full-body scan. Then we’ll take some fluid samples—blood, saliva, urine—and send them off to pathology for testing.” He smiled reassuringly at Gaila. “Just to make sure you’re okay.”

Gaila nodded again. She said, “I wish I could remember what happened last night.”

McCoy’s reassuring smile disappeared, and he grew serious again. “Young lady, the Marina District is upscale, but it’s still urban,” he said. “Running off alone into the city night is not a tactically sound plan of action. Especially when impaired.”

“Doctor, are you suggesting that I was asking to get attacked?” said Gaila, her nostrils flaring a bit.

“No!” said McCoy. “Of course not.” He cleared his throat. “But still . . .”

“Listen, Doctor,” said Gaila in a lowered voice.

Now McCoy looked nervous. “Yes, Cadet?”

Gaila leaned toward him. “You may be cute, but you need to work on your bedside manner,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s not very good.”

Everybody knew that Starfleet Academy’s Command College was where the hardcore competitive juices flowed. It was where Starfleet’s best and brightest—the future flight commanders and bridge officers—were chosen. And those lacking the “right stuff” were weeded out. It was the theory of natural selection in action.

It was James T. Kirk’s favorite place on campus.

Except for today. Today, Kirk was getting his butt kicked by his Team Alpha nemesis, Cadet Viktor Tikhonov.

Worse, the butt-kicking was being administered in one of Kirk’s favorite activities—Advanced Tactical Training, or ATT.

Well-trained tactical away teams, i.e., landing parties, were critical to the success of the overall Starfleet mission. The training was very physical but also called for creative decision-making in extreme situations—the kind of command skills Starfleet wanted in its future leaders.

Only top-performing Academy students were invited to ATT, and fewer than half of those actually passed the course. Cadets were divided into teams of five and put through six hard months of intensive training and competition. The best two teams then entered a final testing round, a series of three tactical scenarios. Each scenario focused on one of the three primary away-team mission types: Security, Science, and First Contact.

“First Contact” was the Starfleet term for encountering a new race and conducting initial Federation diplomacy in the field.

The two remaining cadet teams were dubbed Alpha and Delta. Each team was required to select a leader for the final testing round: Kirk was elected Team Delta captain, while Team Alpha chose Tikhonov. The Academy faculty had already noted Kirk’s bold, intuitive leadership qualities, and his teammates liked and respected him. Two weeks earlier, Kirk had led Delta to the highest score in the First Contact mission final.

But Kirk’s rival, Tikhonov, was as good as he was arrogant. And he was very arrogant.

Now the Alpha captain was leading a devastating romp over Kirk’s crew.

That Monday’s exercise, called the Derelict Cairo scenario, was the Security mission final. It was an exhausting, dangerous test that pitted two away teams directly against each other aboard an abandoned, powerless, Constitution-class heavy starship cruiser, the USS Cairo.

Armed with phasers locked on light-stun setting, the two cadet teams were simultaneously shuttled into separate hangar bays in the Cairo’s cylinder-shaped secondary hull. Each team’s objective was to race up the ship’s connecting pylon onto the eleven-deck, saucer-shaped primary hull.

There, the goal was to secure the Cairo’s main bridge and hold it against the opposing team for two uninterrupted hours. A timer was installed on the helm console in front of the command chair; it had a red Delta button and a blue Alpha button. To secure the bridge, any cadet could press his or her team’s button to start the timer. If that person’s team’s button remained pressed for two consecutive hours, they won. If the other team managed to press their own button, the timer reset to zero.

Thus the Derelict Cairo scenario could go on for many hours. One infamous battle back in 2249 had gone on for two full days.

The task was complicated by the Cairo’s zero-gravity, low-oxygen environment. Cadets wore infinite rebreather masks that reduced visibility, and because they were weightless, cadets had to kick off walls and other surfaces to maneuver.

That morning, Tikhonov had been efficient and relentless. The Russian’s physical skills were unmatched at the Academy and perfectly suited to the setting of a powered-down starship. His team had secured the bridge in record time.

Now Kirk was desperately trying to rally his crew.

“Mr. Glorak!” he hissed into his communicator as he floated along a silver air duct. “Do you read me, over?”

A phaser bolt suddenly ricocheted down the duct. Luckily, it missed him. In a panic move, Kirk punched out a duct grate just below his face, heaved through the opening, and floated down into a dimly lit room full of sofas.

“Glorak?” he said. “Anybody? Is anybody out there, over?”

Glorak’s voice crackled from the communicator. “Captain Kirk,” he snorted. “I’ve lost the squad, over.”

“What?”

“The squad, Captain!” replied Glorak, sounding tense and frazzled. “Gone. I’ve got Mr. Raynor and Mr. Marcus both down, unconscious, and . . . Yes—yes, it looks like Simmons has been taken prisoner.”

Kirk couldn’t believe it. “Are you kidding me?”

More phaser bolts ripped across the room.

Kirk caught a glimpse of two hostiles in their blue Alpha vests; Delta wore red vests. He clipped his utility belt to a nearby wall rung to keep from floating out into the open, and then quickly reviewed the situation.

Kirk had assumed that Tikhonov would take advantage of his superior strength and pull himself through the ventilation system on a beeline run to the main bridge, deploying the rest of Team Alpha to cover his trail. So Kirk had chosen to mirror that tactic. He’d sent his full Delta team, led by Glorak, along the most obvious route to the primary hull—straight up the torpedo exhaust vents. This way they would engage and occupy the Alpha squad. Meanwhile, Kirk would take a roundabout route via a series of forward observation decks. He’d scoot along air ducts to the Sickbay Complex and then veer up through five decks of crew quarters into the docking port directly behind the main bridge.

From there, Kirk planned to surprise Tikhonov, maybe gun him down in a classic duel, and hold the bridge. By himself. Kirk thought this was a great plan—in theory. He was now realizing this was not such a great plan in execution.

“I’m taking heavy fire here, Captain,” called Glorak. “Where are you?”

“I . . . don’t know,” whispered Kirk. “This looks like a recreation area. I think I took a wrong turn.”

“Nice,” said Glorak.

“How’d you lose so many guys, man?” asked Kirk, his voice rising a bit.

“Ambush,” replied Glorak. “Mr. Tikhonov nailed Raynor and Marcus from a torpedo launch tube! Very impressive accuracy, I must say.”

“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 series 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?”

Detective Bogenn sighed. “It’s worse than that.” He looked at Uhura, then at Kirk. “You’re both new to the city, correct?”

Uhura and Kirk both nodded.

“So you’ve never heard of the Doctor?” said Bogenn.

Kirk shook his head no, but Uhura frowned in concentration. After a second, she said, “Wasn’t there a serial killer in San Francisco that they called the Doctor? Like, twenty years ago or something?”

“That’s right,” said Bogenn.

“And you think this is the same guy?” she asked.

“Without a doubt,” he said.

Detective Bogenn gave them a quick rundown of the case history. Eighteen years ago, during the dense summer fogs of 2237, a string of seven disturbing murders rattled San Francisco like a series of aftershocks. The killer was dubbed the Doctor because each victim was found intact—no trauma, no incisions—yet missing entire internal organs, as if they’d been surgically removed. The Doctor struck only on foggy nights. Nobody ever saw him. After the last murder in August of that year, the killings stopped. The Doctor never struck again.

“But he’s back now,” said Bogenn.

“How do you know?” asked Uhura.

Bogenn brought up the medical examiner’s report.

“Postmortem scans show the Orion woman missing two organs,” he said. “Yet not a mark on her body, anywhere.” He turned to Admiral Tullsey. “Your Cadet Gaila is a lucky girl.”

“I guess we have Mr. Kirk to thank for that,” said the admiral.

“And Braxim, sir,” said Kirk. “The attacker didn’t really back off until Braxxy showed up, yelling about calling for help.”

Now Bogenn smiled. It looked more like a grimace, but he was clearly pleased about something. He turned to Uhura.

“That leads us to the reason you’re here, Cadet,” he said.

“I was wondering about that, Detective,” said Uhura carefully.

Detective Bogenn stood up.

“Listen, I’ve been in Homicide eighteen years,” he said. “Started back in thirty-seven. Yeah, the Doctor was my first case. What a way to start, right? I was a junior-grade detective then. The old guys, the veterans, they all said they’d never seen a case with so little physical evidence. No witnesses, no prints, no residues, no scent for the dogs, not so much as a shoe scuff at any of the scenes. Nothing. Just the bodies, lying there, organ-farmed.”

Now Bogenn turned to Kirk. “But by sheer dumb luck, we’ve got something on the bastard now.”

He tapped a button on his electronic notepad and held it up.

An audio recording played. It was Braxim’s voice shouting out: “I called the police!” That was followed by a pause . . . and then came the sound of a deep, chilling, inhuman-sounding voice. It spoke a phrase that sounded clear and precise . . . and yet also entirely unintelligible.

“This was pulled from our police emergency data bank,” explained Bogenn.

“That sounds like an old-fashioned robotic voice,” said Uhura.

“Yes,” said Detective Bogenn. “We think it’s a voice filter mask, although unlike any we’ve heard before.”

“Can I hear it again?” she asked.

“Of course,” said Bogenn. “But first, listen to this. The second attack occurred just fifty-three minutes later, outside a gallery in the Soma District. The Orion woman managed to call for help too. Unfortunately, she didn’t have rescuers like your friend did. But she left us this.”

A second recording played. Kirk and Uhura listened to a few disturbing seconds of gasping breath, then a strange, metallic humming. After that, the same voice resonated in a deep bass register, speaking a somewhat different phrase but equally unintelligible. And then . . . silence.

Uhura said, “When you really listen, it sounds like multiple voices speaking in unison.”

Bogenn nodded. “We noticed that as well. We think that’s an effect rendered by a voice-filter mask,” he said. “These masks are very popular with criminals these days. The good ones totally deconstruct voice patterns in ways that make it impossible to find matches in our VOX database.”

Now Admiral Tullsey looked at Uhura and said, “Does that language sound familiar to you, Cadet?”

Uhura asked for a playback, and Bogenn obliged. She listened with intense concentration, blinking her eyes rapidly.

After the recordings ended, she said, “Fascinating.”

“How so?” asked Bogenn.

“It’s no language I know,” she replied. “But something in the phrasing sounds oddly familiar.”

Admiral Tullsey said, “Since last night, this recording has been analyzed by the SFPD, the FBI, the United Earth Security Agency, and three interplanetary intelligence organizations. So far, nobody can make sense of it. So now it’s in our hands.” The admiral opened a dossier on his desk. “We’re the best at alien languages. And according to Cadet Uhura’s instructor, she is the most gifted xenolinguistic analyst in Starfleet.”

Kirk looked at Uhura, impressed. Not bad for a first-year cadet.

Detective Bogenn handed Uhura a data stick. “Anything you can tell us about this would help,” he says.

“I’ll do what I can, Detective,” said Uhura.

“Your instructor couldn’t say enough good things about you,” added Bogenn.

Now Uhura looked oddly uneasy.

Kirk decided to intervene. “Uh, you mentioned organ-farming, Detective,” he said. “Do you think that’s what this guy’s doing? Harvesting and selling organs?”

“Maybe,” said Bogenn. “But then the question would be, how is he extracting them? Like I said—no incisions in the body. No trauma. Just empty cavities where the organs used to be.”

“Wow,” said Kirk. “That’s just . . . gross.”

“Yeah, it is,” said Bogenn.

The meeting ended with Kirk, at Bogenn’s request, presenting a thorough recollection of his encounter with the Doctor.

Later, as they left the commandant’s office together, Kirk leaned close to Uhura and whispered, “Teacher’s pet.”

Uhura blushed a bright red.

“Shut up, Kirk,” she said.

She’s so cute when she’s embarrassed, Kirk thought.

McCoy glanced around the pathology lab.

A truly impressive brain trust was gathering here, and growing by the hour. At the whiteboard, a Nobel Prize winner from Starfleet Academy’s biotechnology lab named Dr. Dat Nguyen was chatting with Dr. Reyjik. Nguyen was drawing diagrams that looked like a child’s scribbling to McCoy. Dr. Nguyen had done groundbreaking work on plasmids, viral vectors, and horizontal gene transfer . . . topics that McCoy knew absolutely nothing about. At least Dr. Reyjik seemed to know what Nguyen was talking about.

Meanwhile, the left eye socket of Dr. Wallace Marston, one of the Federation’s leading experts in alien life-forms, was glued to the quantum microscope’s viewing piece. His eyeglasses were pushed up onto his huge, shiny forehead in classic scientist-geek fashion. A very large man with a naturally booming voice, Marston was known to speak his mind in tactless outbursts that intimidated colleagues. McCoy liked him.

“I hesitate to call this an organism,” boomed Dr. Marston.

Dr. Nguyen stepped toward the microscope at the head of the class.

He said, “Actually, I tend to agree with you, Wally.”

Marston adjusted the scope settings. “Granted, this substance seems to be alive . . . in a sense. But there is no recognizable organic structure in the individual cell units, or whatever they are. Not like any I’ve ever seen, anyway.”

“They certainly move in a highly organized manner,” said Dr. Nguyen.

“Like a flock of birds.” Dr. Marston nodded. “Or better yet, bees. As if there’s a controlling hive mind.”

“But look at that amazing structure!” said Dr. Nguyen, almost bouncing like an excited kid. “Each one is a perfect twelve-sided polyhedron, yet less than half a micron in diameter.”

Across the room, Dr. Reyjik began to root around in a neatly divided specimen drawer.

“Gentlemen,” he called out. “I would like to try something.”

He pulled out a small vial of fluid. Then he approached the microscope.

“We have a fairly large sample of the alien substance—whatever it is—in the microcontainment chamber,” he said. “I’m going to dock another chamber and split the sample in half. Then I’ll introduce a unicellular intruder to one chamber.” He held up the vial. “A good old-fashioned amoeba proteus.”

“Excellent!” said Dr. Marston, rubbing his hands together.

“Most exciting,” said Dr. Nguyen, his head bobbing in agreement.

McCoy tried not to laugh at their nerdish enthusiasm as Dr. Reyjik prepared the specimen. The pathologist flicked a switch and a big viewscreen lowered from the ceiling. Inside the microscope’s viewer, a microcamera began to record the image and project it onto the screen.

“Okay, inserting the monster now,” said Reyjik.

All four doctors turned to watch the big screen. The amoeba was indeed a monster by comparison—at more than two hundred microns wide, it was four hundred times bigger than each of the tiny alien bits. Reyjik had to zoom back the view so the full amoeba could be seen on-screen. All of the creature’s organelles could be studied clearly in the remarkable quantum field view. As the big organism pushed out a pseudopod (a blobby sort of arm) toward the swarm of polyhedral bits, the particles began to swirl in a lazy cloud around the big guy.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” said Dr. Marston in his foghorn of a voice.

“It’ll try to eat them, right?” asked McCoy. “I mean, like, suck them in and ingest them.”

“Oh, most certainly,” said Dr. Reyjik.

For a few seconds, that appeared to be exactly what was happening. The amoeba would extend toward a cluster of bits and engulf them into its jellylike interior. But very quickly, the situation changed.

The scientists’ facial expressions changed as quickly as the state of affairs in the sample chamber.

“Good . . . lord!” exclaimed Dr. Nguyen.

As if triggered by a flipped switch, the alien bits suddenly burst into a roiling frenzy. They seemed to be replicating rapidly too; within seconds, the entire screen was blackened by particles. The foglike swirl was so thick that it blocked any view of the big amoeba. And then—again, as if suddenly switched off—the wild blur of motion ceased. And there was the amoeba.

McCoy took a step toward the screen. “Those things are attached to every bit of it,” he said.

Dr. Reyjik stared in awe. “It’s completely coated!”

Reyjik zoomed in the view for a closer look. As he did so, the amoeba began to pulsate. Moments later it exploded. McCoy knew the event he viewed was microscopic, but it truly looked like a bomb detonation.

“The amoeba is gone!” cried Dr. Nguyen.

“Unbelievable!” boomed Dr. Marston.

But the craziness wasn’t over yet. For a few seconds the black bits drifted apart like dissipating smoke. Then the outward movement stopped, and the particles slowly began to drift back together.

In less than a minute they had recreated the shape of the amoeba.

McCoy stared in amazement.

“Those crazy things were smeared on my patient’s neck,” he murmured. “My god, some of them were inside her.”

Then came one last surprise. The black particles lightened in color, then became translucent. Inside, the stunned viewers could see every organelle of the original amoeba, perfectly recreated.

“My god, they learned its shape and structure,” said Dr. Marston in a hushed voice.

“Perhaps its function, too,” added Dr. Nguyen.

“Yes,” said McCoy. “And they killed it in the process.”

CH.5.12

Stalked

Uhura, eager to help in any way she could with the investigation, wasted no time in getting started. Within thirty minutes of the meeting in Admiral Tullsey’s office, she was in the Academy’s xenolinguistics lab running language recognition scans on the emergency recordings.

“Computer,” she said, speaking distinctly to the console panel in the lab’s sound booth. “Run module Tella-dot-zero-one on both samples.”

“Acknowledged,” responded the console.

This routine would scan both recordings of the voice for any known strands or fragments of the primary Tellarite language dialect. The computer’s quantum drive began to hum.

Earlier, Uhura had re-listened to the killer’s “words” a number of times. As spoken phrases, they remained odd and unrecognizable. But something in them tapped at her memory. She had a large personal database of knowledge. Language was Uhura’s lifelong passion; she’d first tinkered with language recognition software when she was twelve. These particular modules that she ran on the emergency recordings were her own custom programs.

“No matches found,” reported the console.

“Log the result in the master chart,” said Uhura as she typed notes.

“Result logged,” said the console.

“Please run subroutine Tella-dot-zero-two with the same samples,” said Uhura.

“Acknowledged,” replied the console.

She’d grown up speaking English and two Eurasian languages plus two separate Swahili dialects. Uhura had always loved the music of spoken words, the way different languages across the galactic quadrant constructed similar and familiar sounds to express the same things. It amazed her that gusts of air—exhaled from lungs, oscillating the vocal cords, shaped by throat, tongue, lips, and jaw into vibrations of sound—could convey such a stunningly complex range of meaning. Thus she loved not just the words themselves, but the way they were spoken.

“No matches found,” reported the console.

“Log the result, please.”

“Result logged.”

Uhura lowered her head. A long night likely lay ahead. Normally she enjoyed immersing herself in her work. But tonight she felt an immense loneliness. She knew this project was hitting close to home.

She glanced at the data stick from Detective Bogenn inserted in the computer console.

A killer’s voice, she thought.

Then she heard the lab’s exterior door open and close.

Uhura swiveled her chair toward the door of the sound booth. The lab, like all campus buildings, was highly secure. But as she heard footsteps approach, she tensed and stood up to face the door. When the booth door whooshed open and she saw who it was, she felt so relieved she almost laughed.

“I hope I didn’t burden you with my recommendation, Cadet,” said the figure in the doorway.

“No, sir,” said Uhura, smiling. “I was . . . I am . . . honored.”

Her instructor nodded. “Good,” he said. “You were, of course, the only logical choice.”

“Really?” said Uhura in a slightly teasing voice. “You mean you didn’t just pull my name out of a hat?”

He looked confused. “That wouldn’t be logical.”

Uhura sighed, sat back down, and swiveled back to face the console. Then she said, “Would you like to review my findings?”

Uhura’s instructor stepped up behind her. He placed one hand on the back of her chair and leaned in close.

“Yes,” he said.

Uhura nodded, warmth spreading inside her at his closeness. “Computer,” she said, “please bring up the results log for Commander Spock.”

“Acknowledged,” said the computer.

Kirk’s favorite low-key off-campus hangout was Brewsky’s.

Just a ten-minute walk from the Academy’s campus, Brewsky’s was a classic San Francisco Beat-era coffeehouse at the corner of Union and Fillmore. Kirk liked the smoky espresso and the low-key jazz. He really liked the laid-back baristas in their short skirts and black berets. Holiday lights were strung up year round. Something about that relaxed him. It eased the stress of being a fleet officer candidate at the most demanding school in the known galaxy.

The night was clear and the west winds had died down, keeping the fog offshore. But on the way to Brewsky’s, Kirk still glanced down every alley he passed, and he eyed a huge hooded alien leaning against a LiquiLED light box. On a whim, Kirk decided to see if he spoke using a voice filter mask.

“Hey pal, I’m lost,” he said to the towering creature. “Is Fisherman’s Wharf that way?” He pointed up Russian Hill in the wrong direction.

The cowed head turned slowly toward Kirk. Then the fellow reached up and slid off the hood. It was a dour, wrinkle-faced Hupyrian.

“Oh, sorry, man,” said Kirk. Hupyrians were a servant race that typically swore a vow of silence. They spoke only to their Ferengi masters.

The Hupyrian pointed toward the bay.

“Thanks. You have a good night, sir,” said Kirk. He clapped the big fellow on the arm and continued down Union Street.

At Brewsky’s, Kirk stepped to the counter.

“Triple espresso,” he said.

The girl behind the counter was new. She looked at him and said, “Triple espresso what?”

Kirk eyed her. She wore a name tag: HANNAH.

“Please?” he added, flashing a smile.

She turned to measure out beans and scoop them into the grinder.

Kirk watched her work for a second, enjoying the view. Her hair was dyed blue and hung all the way down to her waist. She was dressed in classic beatnik style: tight black turtleneck, a very mini black miniskirt, and black boots. Her bright blue eyes had an exotic curve under the sexy fringe of her bangs, and suddenly they were looking right at him.

“Anything else?” she asked.

“No,” said Kirk.

“Okay.” She stared straight at him until he shrugged and started toward his favorite table in the corner.

“I’ll be right over there, Hannah,” he called over his shoulder.

“How do you know my name?” she asked.

“Your name tag,” said Kirk. He pointed at it. “See? There it is.”

She looked down at it and blushed. “Right,” she said.

“When you wear a name tag, Hannah, it gives people the legal right to call you by your name,” said Kirk, his confidence boosted by her telltale blush.

She looked him over. “You’re a Starfleet cadet, aren’t you?”

“Why, yes I am,” said Kirk. He glanced down at himself. “How can you tell?”

“I dated a cadet last year,” said the girl.

“Ah, so you’re an expert on cadets.”

She nodded. “Unfortunately.”

“Okay, well, I’ll be at the corner table, Hannah. Just give me a holler when that delicious brew is ready.”

“I’ll call your name,” she said.

“Good plan,” said Kirk, walking away.

“Of course it would help if I knew what it was,” said Hannah.

“Come join me and I’ll tell you,” he said.

Hannah laughed. “How about I just call ‘cadet’?” she replied with a wink.

An hour later, Kirk was hip-deep in his studies.

It felt good, even therapeutic. With Starfleet’s science directives open on his reading pad, he highlighted and dragged key passages over onto his linked notepad, then scribbled notes furiously. Pondering the core purpose of Starfleet’s mission was finally wiping his mind clean of Team Delta’s loss to Tikhonov’s Alpha, and of his surreal brush with a serial killer the night before.

Kirk was suddenly aware of a black-clad figure to his left—the new barista, Hannah. She was wiping down a table.

“What are you studying, Cadet?” she asked without looking at him.

Kirk tilted up the reading pad. “Science,” he said.

“What kind of science?” she asked.

“Cadet science,” replied Kirk.

Hannah turned to face him. She put her hands on her hips.

“You’re funny,” she said with a dry look.

“I’m hilarious.”

“Maybe I can help you,” she said. “I like science. In fact . . . I’m a scientist.”

Kirk nodded. “What kind of scientist?” he asked.

“I’m a botanist,” she said with pride.

Kirk tilted his reading pad back down on the table. Suddenly he didn’t want to study anymore. “Hmm . . . a botanist.” He was impressed. Gorgeous and smart, he thought.

“Well,” she said, shrugging, “actually, I’m a graduate student.”

“Ah, so you’re a near-botanist,” said Kirk. “Where at?”

“San Francisco State,” she replied.

“Cool,” said Kirk.

Hannah looked at him again for a few seconds without speaking. Her gaze drove him crazy. If she continued looking at him like that, he was going to need a cold shower. Then she turned and started wiping down another table.

Kirk opened his mouth to speak several times as she polished the old-fashioned linoleum surface, but he reconsidered each time. This girl did something to him that no girl ever did—she made him nervous.

Finally he tried, “So I’ve got this big science test Monday.”

Hannah kept working on the table, but she was listening.

“Most important exam of my entire career,” said Kirk. “Much at stake. All hangs in the balance.”

She picked up a wadded napkin. “Over one test?”

Kirk smiled, happy to have her attention again. “It’s a simulation, actually.”

Then he described what little he knew of the Tanika Station scenario. It was a competition, but not head-to-head. The two away teams, Alpha and Delta, would deploy into the same alien environment at different times. The task was to carry out basic science directives that every Starfleet officer and enlisted man was expected to execute in any “discovery setting.”

“Basic science,” said Kirk. “Observation. Run a few scans. Take samples. That sort of thing.”

“You’re supposed to discover things,” said Hannah.

“I guess,” said Kirk. He shrugged. “What do you think? As a scientist, what’s your take? Any advice?”

Hannah eyed him and bit her lip as she thought. Kirk tried not to squirm.

“Okay,” she said. “First off, I despise the term ‘discovery setting.’”

Kirk’s eyes widened. “Why?” he asked.

“When a botanist goes out in the field,” she said, “it’s like being invited into someone’s house, except you’re not really invited. That’s the first thing to remember.”

Kirk nodded. “That makes sense,” he said, kicking out the other chair at his table, inviting her to sit down.

Hannah tossed her towel onto the table. “You’re intruding, uninvited, into somebody’s home, the place they’ve lived their whole lives, the place they love. It means everything to them, this place.” She looked at Kirk and sat down. “So are you discovering it? It’s been there a long time. Centuries. Longer, maybe. But now your very presence is changing it. Maybe just by walking through a discovery setting you are disturbing things, altering them permanently. Maybe you’re even destroying something. Something beloved and sacred to somebody else.” Her cheeks glowed as she spoke. She was clearly very passionate about the subject.

“I see what you’re saying,” Kirk said. “But you know, Starfleet doesn’t just pull on the heavy boots and stomp around in every habitat we find.”

“Right,” said Hannah, rolling her eyes. She stood up from the table.

“Look, Starfleet General Order Number One,” Kirk said, speaking quickly, “generally known as the Prime Directive, puts us under the strictest orders to make no attempt to alter the natural course of any prewarp society. I assume you’re familiar with the Prime Directive?”

A dark look passed over Hannah’s face.

“The Prime Directive is a joke,” she said.

“Why?” he asked.

“It’s a smoke screen,” she said.

Kirk was perplexed. “How so?”

She sighed and began to wipe down another table.

“Let’s just say that I’m pretty cynical about Starfleet’s so-called mission,” she said wearily.

Kirk got the feeling he’d just tapped in to a vein of conversation that Hannah had already deeply mined . . . perhaps in her previous relationship with the Starfleet cadet. But Kirk couldn’t just drop the subject. Despite his blatant disregard for many Starfleet rules and regulations (especially those governing a cadet’s personal life), he was actually a true believer. He believed in Starfleet’s core mission of exploration, discovery, and peaceful contact. And right now he felt very compelled to garner Hannah’s approval and respect.

“You think we’re just a bunch of gun-toting thugs, right?” he asked.

Hannah folded her arms. “You’re taking this a little too personally, Cadet,” she said.

“The name is Jim,” he said.

“Okay, Jim,” she said. And then she finally smiled at him, and the tension was gone. When she smiled, Hannah was absolutely stunning.

“Jim Kirk,” said Kirk, dazzled. He was blatantly staring now.

“Listen, Kirk, I’m sure you believe in your mission,” she said. “I’m not cynical about Starfleet cadets. Most of you, anyway.”

Kirk braced himself for criticism. “So what’s the objection?” he asked.

“I think you’re tools,” she said.

“Ouch,” said Kirk.

Hannah sighed. “The United Federation of Planets was formed as a result of a brutal, bloody war that almost wiped out two civilizations,” she said. She pointed at the sky outside the coffeehouse window. “The Romulans are out there, just one light-year beyond Federation space. The Neutral Zone is nothing to them. They’re building up, biding their time. You know they are. They’ll come at us again soon. Meanwhile, we’re in a race for allies and resources. We want our side bigger and stronger than their side when the time comes. Thus Starfleet was born.”

“So you’re saying Starfleet is all about alliance and conquest?” said Kirk.

Hannah sat down across from him and leaned forward, an intense look on her beautiful face. “You know it is,” she said.

Kirk broke her gaze. He looked down at his reading pad.

“And so these science directives are just . . . some sort of sham,” he said.

Hannah noted Kirk’s reaction. She sat back and took a deep breath.

“Sorry,” she said. “I’m passionate about this issue. Obviously.”

Kirk waved a hand. “Hey, it’s cool,” he said. “It’s good to get perspective. You know, see how regular people think.”

Hannah laughed. “So you think I’m regular?” she said in mock horror.

Kirk grinned. “Compared to the people I’m surrounded by every day, you are, like . . . extraregular.”

“My mother would be so proud,” she said.

Kirk pointed over at the counter. Two ratty guys in leather were examining pastries in the display case.

“Customers,” he said.

“Oh, yeah, I have a job,” said Hannah. She stood up. “I haven’t fully gotten my mind around that yet.”

“I can tell,” said Kirk.

“Funny, Kirk,” she said.

As Hannah went back to the counter, Kirk thought about what she’d said.

The United Federation of Planets was originally formed in 2161 as a peaceful alliance between Humans, Vulcans, Andorians, and Tellarites. It had grown since to include many more star systems. But she was right: Interstellar unity didn’t happen because scientists wanted to hold hands and explore stuff together. The impetus for the Federation Charter was the Battle of Cheron, a nuclear exchange that capped four brutal years of war between Earth and the Romulan Star Empire that nearly decimated both sides. The original members certainly joined together for security purposes—defensive, military purposes—with an eye on the expansionist Romulans, and, later, the Klingon Empire.

But did that mean Starfleet’s mandate for peaceful exploration was just a clever cover story for darker goals?

Wasn’t the acquisition of knowledge a good thing?

Or was Starfleet just a tool for conquest and economic expansion?

Kirk gazed down at the science directive document open on his reading pad.

2.1 The primary role of all Starfleet personnel is that of ambassador. A secondary purpose is field research.

2.2 When encountering new life-forms, regardless of their level of sentience, the default Starfleet posture is one of benign greeting.

2.3 Once trust is established, scientific research may begin.

2.4 In the case of a hostile response, all Starfleet scientific activity will be suspended until diplomacy establishes or re-establishes trust.

2.5 Trust between observer and observed is the bedrock of good science.

Trust, he thought. Interesting.

He looked over at Hannah. Yes, she had a few sharp edges. But like a good botanist, she was treating the two specimens at her counter with total respect.

To kill time until she returned, Kirk grabbed his notepad, inserted earbuds, and punched up some old media accounts of the Doctor killings from eighteen years ago. They described him as cold, clinical, calculating, and relentless. Speculation ranged from rumors that he was everything from a surgeon to an unknown alien to a vampire. The SFPD was very tight-lipped about crime scene details and autopsy results, so reporters were frustrated. They spent their time whipping up dread. One favorite angle was: He could be anybody! That nice guy sitting next to you on the shuttle? Maybe that’s him. Maybe he’s your neighbor. Your real-estate guy. Your accountant—yes, even your accountant fits the profile.

Fear of the unknown always drives us to create a profile, thought Kirk. But in all that profiling, none of the experts ever suggested the Doctor might be a seven-foot-tall dude wearing a voice-filter mask.

Kirk clicked a button on his reading pad and watched a few man-on-the-street interviews. People had been really afraid. Restaurant and club owners complained about empty floors on foggy nights. Nobody was going out. Home-security companies made a killing.

Kirk wondered, Are we in for another summer of this insanity?

Out of curiosity, he checked the latest news. Interestingly, he found no report on last night’s attacks. SFPD and Starfleet were locked down, for now. Earlier, as Kirk and Uhura had left the commandant of midshipmen’s office, the admiral issued a direct order in no uncertain terms: Speak to nobody—not family, not friends, not anybody—about the incident. Of course, Detective Bogenn briefed the Starfleet medical team treating Gaila, so Kirk had already discussed the matter with McCoy. But nobody else was in the loop.

Kirk knew it was only a matter of time before word leaked out.

He looked over at Hannah again. When did she get off work? Would she walk home alone through the district? Word had to get out soon. You didn’t want public panic, of course, but then again you didn’t want drunken fools stumbling down dark, foggy alleys like Gaila had done last night.

Finally Kirk clicked on a news link that brought up a cheesy special report, aired in July of 2247, ten years after the “Summer of the Doctor,” as the report garishly called it. It was standard media melodrama, but Kirk was struck by some of the facts—in particular, the wide variety of victims. The Doctor didn’t appear to have a preferred type. One of them was a young woman, Emily Karcher, a student at USF. She was walking back to her dorm late from her work-study job in the campus sandwich shop when she was attacked. . . .

Hannah suddenly appeared at his side.

“Have you studied the Starfleet directive about pillaging yet?” she asked, grinning and trying to peek at his screen.

Kirk jumped. He popped out his earbuds and closed down the screen.

“Whoa,” said Hannah, holding up her hands. “Sorry.”

“I didn’t hear you coming,” said Kirk.

“I tend to move silently,” she replied. “I’m kind of like a cat. Well, except I don’t like fish parts.”

Kirk clicked off the video report. “Hey, listen,” he said. “What time do you get off work?”

“You don’t waste any time, do you?” she asked.

Kirk was flustered. “No, uh, that’s not . . . I’m not . . . this isn’t, like, asking because . . . uh,” he said, and then stopped.

Hannah’s teasing smile reappeared. “Smooth recovery, Jim.”

“Look, just never mind, okay?” he said.

“I don’t get off until after your curfew,” she said simply.

“Okay, well, it’s not foggy tonight anyway.”

She looked quizzically at Kirk and was about to speak when his communicator beeped. He looked at the incoming number. It was McCoy.

“I should take this,” he said.

Hannah gestured to go ahead. She grabbed a nearby spray bottle and started squirting the front window.

“Kirk here,” he said into his communicator.

“Jim, get your tail over here to the pathology lab at Medical, immediately,” said McCoy with urgency. “And I mean right now. We got some very interesting results on Gaila’s samples.”

“On my way,” said Kirk. He turned to Hannah at the window. “Big, big meeting,” he said, pointing at his communicator. “Very important.”

“See ya,” she said quickly.

“Hannah, there’s something I need to tell you,” said Kirk. “But I can’t yet because I’m . . . under orders not to.”

“Right,” she said.

“Listen, just . . . be careful tonight,” he said. “Going home, I mean.”

“I’m always careful,” she said. Behind her, newly sprayed cleaning solution was smeared in a translucent sheen on the window. It looked like a weird aura behind her.

Kirk quickly packed his things and headed for the door. On the way out, he said, “I’ll be back.”

Hannah glanced over at him from the window. “That is a vintage Starfleet cadet line,” she said.

Kirk smiled and pointed at her. “I mean it,” he said. “I’ll be back. When do you work next?”

“Thursday,” she said with a nonchalance that pierced Kirk’s heart.

Kirk kept pointing at her as he stepped through the doorway out onto Union Street. “I’ll be back,” he said again.

“Whatever,” she said.

This girl is gonna kill me, he thought.

Starfleet’s medical college complex was an adjunct of the main academy, and was located in the northeast corner of the sprawling campus. On the way, Kirk jogged past the gorgeous but eerie Palace of Fine Arts. In the dark, it looked like a haunted castle. The cypress trees that clumped around the glimmering palace pond looked stately and graceful by day, but now they just looked spooky.

Then he saw it: a tall, dark figure.

It seemed to float through the shadows of the big stone arches lining the palace walkway near the pond. Kirk slid to a halt. The figure halted. Kirk started to jog again. The figure started moving again.

He’s following me, thought Kirk.

“Hey, you!” he yelled. He started running toward the figure. Kirk had no weapons of any kind. But he had a feeling about this guy.

And he was right. The dark figure darted around a stone pillar, then bent down to duck under an arch. When Kirk reached the arch, his head cleared it with two feet to spare.

Okay, he’s huge, thought Kirk, sprinting hard.

But he stayed on the figure’s tail as the big guy glided past the palace and onto the dark streets north of the parking lot. Then Kirk saw him duck between two rows of houses.

Great, another alley, he thought.

He skidded to a halt at the alley entrance. The figure stood stock-still just thirty feet away, facing him. Instinctively Kirk flipped his communicator open and punched the record button. He held it up.

Go ahead, he thought. Speak, fool.

And the figure spoke. It was the same creepy, low-pitched metallic voice. But this time, Kirk had no problem deciphering the phrase.

The voice simply said: “James T. Kirk.”

Then he turned away, moved impossibly fast down the alley, and darted lightly up the street.

By the time Kirk got through the alley, the Doctor was long gone.

CH.6.12

Smart Dust

In 2255, Mount Zion Hospital boasted the best Level-1 cardiopulmonary center in the Bay Area. So when the paramedic team found a woman in the Transamerica Pyramid suffering from acute respiratory failure, Mount Zion was the logical choice for delivery. It was close by, and it was a good place to take someone whose lungs were ripped to shreds.

In the ICU, Jackie Madkins was heavily sedated, so getting a coherent story would have been difficult. In any case, the endotracheal tube running from the ventilator down her throat into her ravaged lungs made it impossible to conduct any interviews just yet.

The on-duty physician, Dr. Joseph Revier, spoke into a diagnostic console microphone near her bed.

“Smoke inhalation likely, based on multiple factors,” he reported. “Initial call indicated a smoke influx, reported to the caller by the patient . . . although the emergency response team found none at the scene. Other primary evidence: heavy concentrations of black particulate residue found in patient’s nose, mouth, and respiratory passages.” He glanced over at the resting woman and frowned. “However, lung scan results are contradictory. Tricorder molecular scans also remain unresolved.”

His med-com beeped. He flipped it open.

“Revier here,” he answered.

“What’s with the sample, Joey?”

Revier frowned again. “What do you mean?”

The voice on the other end laughed. “Dude, the sample vial you sent us is empty,” he said. “You been diverting again, bro?” “Diverting” was a hospital term for stealing prescription drugs for personal use.

“What? I packed that thing full,” Revier said, sitting up straight. “That vial was black.”

“Well, it’s crystal clear now.”

“Crap,” said Revier. “Something got switched up in delivery, maybe. Whatever. I’ll get you another one right away.”

“Cool,” said the lab tech. “You joining us for the game tonight?”

“Hell yes,” said Revier.

A passing nurse tapped his shoulder and pointed over at the bed.

“What’s that?” asked the nurse.

Dr. Revier turned to look, then blinked rapidly.

A black, smoky haze hung in the air just above Jackie Madkins.

Uhura wasn’t sure if her Aunt Uhnu actually butted heads with a rhinoceros—she kind of doubted it, although Uhnu was certainly crazy enough to do such a thing. More likely Uhnu had simply fallen and hit her head, or suffered a small stroke. But the rhino story was the family’s exotic way of explaining Uhnu’s strange babbling.

Later, med-scans would reveal severe damage to key language centers in Uhnu’s brain, the areas of her cerebral cortex associated with word order and meaning. Uhura already knew this intuitively, however. From a very young age, Uhura was the only one in her family who could understand Aunt Uhnu during these episodes.

The reason: Uhura would listen more to how Uhnu was speaking than to what she was saying.

This experience of “translating” Uhnu’s gibberish was an early lesson in the importance of prosody—the rhythm, loudness, pitch, and intonation of speech . . . or, as Uhura explained it as a child, “the talking music.” The brain’s prosody functions are clustered in the opposite brain hemisphere from the word-meaning functions, and they were undamaged in Uhnu’s brain. So the music of her expression was precise, but the actual words themselves were chopped up in odd ways.

Uhura had discussed this issue with her instructor, Commander Spock, several times over the past year.

“When translating languages,” she told him, “I find that sometimes it isn’t enough to listen precisely. Sometimes you have to listen . . . differently. Like listening to music.” She laughed and said, “That probably sounds lame.”

“I find perfect logic in what you’re saying,” Spock had replied.

And that’s how Uhura made her first breakthrough on the Doctor.

The nagging familiarity she heard in the killer’s voice had to do with the rhythm of his phrasing. Uhura was a master of all three Romulan dialects—they were her best alien languages. After one particular replay of the recordings it hit her: She was listening to Romulan rhythms, if not Romulan words exactly.

Of course, the samples were so brief that it was difficult to verify. She created a spectrogram for each 911 sample—a digital picture of the phrase—and ran it through a stress-inflections module she’d created for her Romulan translation software. This turned up a number of Romulan phrase matches. A few too many, in fact.

“Computer, how many matches do we have at ninety percent likelihood and above?” she asked the console.

“Sixty-two,” replied the console.

“Sixty-two?” exclaimed Uhura. “Are you sure?”

“Checking now,” said the computer. “Yes, sixty-two confirmed.”

“Great,” said Uhura.

The computer had a sophisticated speech recognition database and was quite familiar with Uhura’s speech patterns. So its internal analysis of Uhura’s response correctly identified her tone.

“You are displeased with the result,” said the computer.

Uhura always found it somewhat amusing when the computer tried to analyze and identify her state of mind.

“No, I’m thrilled,” she said.

After a pause, the computer said, “You are being ironic.”

“Very good, computer,” said Uhura. “I’m proud of you.”

The console did not respond. Uhura grinned. Praise does not compute, she thought. This computer was starting to assume her personality. “Give me a printout of all sixty-two Romulan prosodic phrase matches and their translations, please,” she said. She rubbed her temples. “And please note that I’d kill for a cup of coffee right now.”

“Request is printing,” replied the console, and the laser printer across the room clicked to life.

“And my coffee?” asked Uhura.

Another pause. Then the computer said, “I’ve sent a warning to the on-campus cafeteria.”

Uhura started laughing loudly.

Not far from Uhura, in the next building, Dr. McCoy was poking a finger at Kirk.

“You chased him?” said McCoy incredulously.

Kirk shrugged. “He was following me.”

“Do you have a death wish?” bellowed McCoy.

“I don’t like being followed,” replied Kirk.

“For the love of all things holy!” exclaimed McCoy.

He dragged Kirk by the arm over to one of the lab’s console monitors. “Come here, friend. Let me show you what we learned about this guy you just chased.”

McCoy punched up the video of Dr. Reyjik’s amoeba experiment and briefed Kirk on the unsettling characteristics of the residue found on Gaila’s skin and her internal tissue samples.

“That’s just . . . creepy,” said Kirk, watching the black bits swarm the amoeba.

“Even though it acts like a biological entity, its structure just seems a little too . . . perfect, doesn’t it?” said McCoy. “I mean, look at it, Jim.” He froze the screen and clicked in for a close-up of just a few bits. “Every one of these submicron bits looks precision engineered.”

He clicked the play button and the microscope video continued. Kirk watched with intense fascination. When the amoeba exploded, Kirk flinched. When the swarm re-created a translucent amoeba, his mouth dropped open. When the video ended, he just stared at the blank screen.

“Wow,” he said quietly.

“Yes, exactly,” said McCoy.

“So what is that stuff, Bones?” asked Kirk. “And how did the Doctor get it?”

“I don’t know, Jim, but that damned nickname really angers me,” said McCoy. “Why would they call him that? I’m a doctor. He’s not.”

Kirk was surprised. “It’s not like you to get so angry, Bones,” he said.

“Anyway,” said McCoy, waving it off, “that perfect polyhedral structure convinced me to walk our dust sample over to the materials science lab.”

“And what did they say?” asked Kirk.

“Hang on,” said McCoy, flipping open his communicator. “Let’s get an expert in here.”

Ten minutes later, Dr. Parag Chandar knocked on the door. He looked far too young to be running any lab, let alone one of the most advanced nanotechnology centers in Federation space. He was a good friend of McCoy’s; they played squash twice a week together.

“Ah, James Kirk, the man himself,” said Dr. Chandar amiably as he shook Kirk’s hand. “We meet, finally. Leonard tells me much about you. It’s remarkable how much money you owe him, Jim.”

Kirk laughed. “Yeah, well, I pay him back by keeping Starfleet away from his Ole Miss transcripts.”

“Gosh, I’m so glad I finally got you two jokers together,” said McCoy.

Dr. Chandar pulled a small silver cube from his pocket and plugged it into a data port on the lab’s main console. “Let’s take a look at our little guy, shall we?” he said. A few windows popped up on-screen. He tapped the touch screen to open one. “Here’s a good place to start.”

The window displayed a slowly spinning 3-D schematic of a single black particle.

“Amazing, isn’t it?” said Chandar. “Like a cut gem.”

“Incredible,” said McCoy.

“So what is it?” asked Kirk.

“Let’s call it a nanite,” said Chandar. “We could call it a nanorobot, or nanobot for short, but that term seems clunky and doesn’t do it justice. Nothing does, really. This guy is amazing. He’s technically a machine with substantial computing power, but he acts like a living organism.”

“Interesting,” said Kirk. “If it’s a machine, who built it, and for what purpose?”

“Excellent questions, Cadet,” said Chandar, smiling.

“Got any answers yet?”

“None whatsoever.”

“We just found the damn things last night, Jim,” said McCoy.

“I know.” As Kirk watched the particle on-screen, the side with the white etching rotated into view. “What’s that white mark?”

Chandar shrugged. “No idea,” he said. “That exact same glyph is on every nanite we examined. Some of the guys think it might be the manufacturer’s ID, like a logo or something. Others suggest it’s a time-date stamp, or maybe a code or message.” He shrugged again. “We had fun with that one.”

McCoy looked at Dr. Chandar. “So how does this thing work, Parag?”

Chandar tapped open another window on the monitor screen. In this video, several nanites swirled around one another, then locked together to form a larger entity.

“Each speck is smart,” he replied. “Each likely has many gigabytes of computing power. It moves effortlessly.”

Dr. Chandar opened a third window. This one showed nanites swarming to coat the amoeba’s cell wall, locking together into a deadly blanket.

“And there’s clearly communication between nanites,” continued Dr. Chandar. “Each likely has a built-in receiver, because of the way the whole swarm acts as an intelligent superentity.” He gestured at the on-screen image. “Look at it, gentlemen! All those bits moving with one purpose, one mind. Like hive insects.”

McCoy didn’t even try to hide his disgust.

“I hate insects,” he said.

“Sorry,” said Dr. Chandar.

“Are they following internal programming,” asked McCoy, “or just doing what they’re told by somebody else? I mean, does the swarm think, or just follow orders?”

Chandar shook his head sheepishly. He raised his palms.

Kirk scratched his face. “Hmm. So these things can get inside of people?”

McCoy fielded this one. “They’re subcellular, Jim,” he said. “Unbelievably tiny. Built at the molecular level. Small enough that they can easily penetrate skin or other membranes and migrate to targeted organs.”

Kirk pointed at a nanite. “Say, what are those little nubs and pockmarks on each side?”

Parag enlarged the window to full-screen size and zoomed in.

“Universal connectors,” said Parag. “Pins and ports.” As two nanites locked together on-screen he added, “See how they match up perfectly? This brilliant design allows the swarm to form an infinite array of shapes and functions. You saw an example: First, it physically scanned and analyzed the structure of the amoeba. Next, it self-replicated to create the approximate number of bits it needed. Finally it linked into a perfect model of the amoeba, including internal structure, organelles. All in a matter of seconds!”

“That is impressive,” agreed Kirk.

“But that’s not the only advantage of the design,” continued Chandar. “Since each nanite is essentially a self-contained computer, the connectors also let them link into a distributed computing network!” He stared at McCoy, his eyes blinking with delight, clearly expecting a reaction.

“Parag, I’m a doctor, not a computer scientist,” growled McCoy. “Can you explain, please?”

“Well, think of Einstein’s brain,” said Chandar.

McCoy glanced at Kirk. “Do I have to?”

“Listen, what exactly was Einstein’s brain?” said Chandar. “We’d all agree it was a remarkable organ. Every brain is. But it was merely a collection of neurons, right? Cells. Individually, each neuron is not that smart. But when they work together, twenty or thirty billion of them, well, they can think the way Einstein thought.”

Dr. Chandar pointed at the slow-motion replay of nanites linking into a chain, then into a solid figure.

“The swarm,” he said, “when connected by these links, becomes an immensely powerful supercomputer. The level of its artificial intelligence must be very high.”

He gazed at the screen. “Little Jack and his brothers are more sophisticated than any nanotech we’ve ever developed or even put on our dream board.”

“Dream board?” asked Kirk.

Chandar adjusted settings on the console touch screen.

“That’s where we log all our nuttiest ideas,” he said. “You know, the ones that nobody thinks are possible.” He grinned. “And of course they eventually become our gold-priority projects.”

“Clarke’s Second Law,” said Kirk, nodding.

Chandar was delighted. “Precisely!” he said.

McCoy looked annoyed. “What the hell are you two talking about?”

“Arthur C. Clarke, my friend,” said Chandar. “A great writer who happened to be a visionary man of science. He stated his famous laws of prediction nearly three hundred years ago: ‘The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.’”

Kirk watched the rotating model of the single nanite with an amused grin. “So you named it . . . Jack?” he asked.

McCoy rolled his eyes. “They name everything over there,” he said. “Lab equipment, specimens, vehicles. Vending machines.”

“Well, this fellow deserves a name,” said Chandar, eyeing the screen with near reverence. “It’s a miraculous technological achievement. Almost magical.” He gave Kirk a sly glance.

Kirk nodded. “Clarke’s Third Law,” he said. “Even you know this one, Bones. ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’”

“Well, gentlemen, maybe it is magic,” said McCoy darkly. “But we’ve seen what this magic dust can do to a living organism. Sorry, but I’m a doctor, and that disturbs me.”

Kirk nodded. “Good point, Bones,” he said.

“And one other thing, Parag,” said McCoy to Chandar. “You said it underwent self-replication. How could it do that?”

Chandar opened another window on the screen. This showed the sequence in which the frenzied swarm imploded the amoeba.

“This swarm appears to scavenge organic materials for its building blocks,” said Chandar. “Then, with remarkable efficiency, it generates a sort of factory that pumps out new nanites.”

“It scavenges organic materials?” repeated McCoy.

“Yes, Leonard,” replied Chandar.

“Don’t you mean, it crushed the amoeba and then used amoeba guts to build nanite babies?”

At this, Chandar lost a little of his enthusiasm. “Well, yes,” he said. “That would not be an inaccurate statement.”

McCoy gestured abruptly at the screen. “Okay, so let’s start asking some obvious questions,” he said, his voice rising. “Like, why is some lunatic out on the streets of San Francisco using a smart dust swarm to liquidate the organs of perfectly innocent people?”

Kirk nodded. “And where did he get it? How does he control it?”

“Maybe he doesn’t!” said McCoy. “Would you look at that stuff? Maybe the damned swarm calls the shots!”

A grim admiration crept across Kirk’s face. He could always count on McCoy to look at the Human side of any equation. The tone in the room had certainly changed. He said, “Whatever this stuff is, we need to get your new information into the hands of the authorities investigating this case.”

Chandar smiled and nodded toward the console. “I’ll leave the data cube with you,” he said. Then he turned to McCoy. “I must go now, Leonard,” he said. “There is so much more to do. We’ve really just started.”

McCoy grabbed Chandar’s hand and shook it. “Thanks for the lesson, Parag. It was most enlightening.”

After Dr. Chandar left, McCoy sat down at the console and gave Kirk a sharp look. “Do you see now why you shouldn’t try to confront huge killers just because they’re following you?”

Kirk sat in a chair next to McCoy. “Hey, I chased him off,” he said.

“Are you sure about that?” asked McCoy. “You probably just led him to the campus.”

“He ran away.”

“That doesn’t mean he stopped following you.”

Kirk sighed. “You just want to argue now, don’t you?”

McCoy slumped wearily. “No, I’ll pass on that,” he said. “Let’s just get this cube to the admiral and call it a night.”

An hour later in the xenolinguistics lab, Uhura pored over the laser printout of all sixty-two common Romulan phrases that matched the rhythms of the killer’s phrasing. As she worked quickly through their translations, she found that most were easy to discard.

“Computer, I think we can drop this one too,” she said to the console. She read the phrase in Romulan: “‘Your sand fleas have already been ionized.’”

“Phrase thirty-one, confirmed as rejected,” said the console.

“Do you agree that a brutal serial killer would not say this to the potential rescuers of his victim?” she asked.

The computer whirred, then said, “I cannot respond to speculative queries.”

Uhura nodded. “That’s because you’re a computer,” she said.

She’d now winnowed the list to just twenty or so likely candidates. Fifteen of those were variations of the same phrase:

“‘Your [NOUN] has already been [PAST TENSE VERB].’”

Uhura glanced at the time. It was almost nine p.m. She smiled.

When Commander Spock left after his brief visit earlier, he’d promised to return before nine, giving them enough time to review any new findings before her ten o’clock hall curfew. One thing she’d learned about her Vulcan instructor: He was always on time. It was a trait she found most agreeable.

Another thing she found agreeable: Commander Spock’s high opinion of her abilities. When downloading the 911 call recordings from the SFPD data stick she’d gotten from Detective Bogenn, Uhura also found some background files that included a copy of Spock’s note to the commandant of midshipmen:

Admiral:

Cadet Nyota Uhura has my highest recommendation. Without a doubt, she is perfectly suited for this assignment.

Nyota is unmatched in xenolinguistics and has displayed an unparalleled ability to identify sonic anomalies in subspace transmission tests, a critically important trait for any Starfleet bridge communications officer. Given the requirements of this assignment, her skill set would seem to be a perfect match.

I shall endeavor to assist Cadet Uhura in whatever she needs. Be assured that I will give her investigation my highest priority attention.

Commander Spock

Yes, this was agreeable, all of it: Spock’s deep well of knowledge; his uncompromising personal and professional integrity; his careful attention to her academic progress and training. And now the wording of this recommendation seemed to validate all of her secret hopes for the future. Bridge communications officer on an expeditionary starship! This had been Uhura’s dream job since she was a precocious little girl.

She checked the time again: 8:56 p.m.

“Okay, where is he?” she asked aloud.

“More parameters required,” replied the console.

Uhura applied a quick coat of lip gloss. “That was a rhetorical question, computer,” she said.

“Rhetorical question,” repeated the console. “A question posed for dramatic effect without the expectation of a reply.”

“Correct,” said Uhura.

“You do not require knowledge of the subject’s location?” replied the console.

Uhura thought about this. “Okay, so maybe it wasn’t quite rhetorical,” she said.

“Please input parameters for the subject,” said the computer. “Once target is identified, I will run a search subroutine scan.”

Uhura was amused again.

“Computer, you are becoming my most entertaining companion,” she said. Then she frowned a bit. “I guess that says something about my personal life.”

As the computer processed this confusing information, Uhura’s communicator beeped. She flipped it open.

“Hello?” she answered.

“This is Commander Spock,” replied Spock.

Uhura smiled. “Hello, Commander.”

A short pause. “I apologize for the late call. I’ve had meetings in Admiral Tullsey’s office. Starfleet Medical has presented some new and very fascinating information about the attack on Cadet Gaila. I’ll brief you when I arrive in approximately fourteen minutes.”

“Yes, sir,” said Uhura.

“Are you making progress, Cadet?” asked Spock.

“Good progress, sir.” Uhura nodded.

“Excellent,” said Spock. “Well, then. I’ll see you shortly.”

“Yes, Commander,” said Uhura. She listened as Spock clicked off the connection.

Uhura flipped the communicator shut. She smiled to herself, and then turned to the computer console.

“Please cancel the search,” she said.

“Search canceled,” replied the computer.

Uhura made sure things were in order at the console. She checked her hair in the mirror. With thirteen more minutes to kill, she got back to work, thinking she’d be thirteen minutes more prepared when Spock arrived.

She ran a search string on Romulan sonic fragments.

As she did so, a thin trail of black smoke slowly drifted through the window behind her.

Oddly enough, the window was closed tight.

CH.7.12

Shadow Hours

At 9:10 p.m., Kirk and McCoy were walking into the campus residence plaza. They could hear laughter drifting out of open dorm windows on this unusually clear, warm summer night. A full moon, rarely seen, cast its pale glow on the main quad.

“What a long day,” said Kirk.

Three dark figures crept past in the hydrangea bushes along the plaza walkway. One carried a live, flapping chicken by the feet. All three wore green, glowing skull masks.

“Apparently, it’s not over yet,” said McCoy, watching them.

“Kirk!” hissed one of the figures. “Over here!”

Kirk rolled his eyes. He walked over to the bushes.

“Nice chicken,” he said.

“Yes, I’m convinced it’s a good one,” said the figure.

“Ah, Rodriguez,” said Kirk. He gave McCoy a look. “I’d know that voice anywhere. What’s going on?”

“We need your help,” said Rodriguez. “We’re trying to chicken this dude over in Nimitz Hall but his window’s locked.” Rodriguez pulled off his skull mask. “What kind of idiot would lock his window on a beautiful night like tonight?”

Kirk smiled. “Think, Rodriguez,” he said. “Why would a guy lock himself in his room?”

As Rodriguez rubbed his chin, thinking, the chicken began to squawk and flap wildly.

“It’s pecking my hands!” cried the skull-face holding it.

“I told you to bring the Kevlar gloves,” said the third skull. He looked at Kirk and shrugged. “I told him. The guy never listens.”

Kirk nodded. “Sure you did, Sweeney,” he said.

“Whoa, you know my voice?” asked Sweeney. He pulled off his mask.

“Deaf guys know your voice,” said Kirk. “When you talk, dogs run away. Ever notice that?” He turned back to Rodriguez. “You got an answer for me yet, genius?”

Rodriguez grinned big. “He’s got a girl in there,” he said.

“Bingo,” said Kirk. “You can graduate now.”

“Wow,” said Rodriguez with moonlight glinting in his eye. “It’s too perfect. But man, how do we get in?”

Kirk turned to McCoy. “Is it like this over in the medical wing?”

“Worse,” said McCoy.

“Worse?” said Kirk. “Really? But you guys are so much older.”

“Exactly,” said McCoy. “We’ve had more practice.”

Students in the medical college had already earned MDs before beginning their Starfleet training. Thus they were typically four to five years older than cadets in the Academy’s other colleges.

“So can you give us a hand, Kirk?” asked Rodriguez.

“Guys, I’ve had a long, hard day,” replied Kirk. “Sorry.”

Rodriguez nodded and pulled the skull back over his face. “Okay, let’s move out, squad,” he said to the others. “Don’t drop that chicken, Bartley!”

“It’s pecking my hands!” cried Bartley.

Kirk turned away but asked, “Who’s getting this chicken?”

“Tikhonov,” said Rodriguez.

Kirk stopped in his tracks. He turned back.

“Viktor Tikhonov?” he asked.

“Yeah,” said Rodriguez. “I hate that guy.”

McCoy stepped up beside Kirk. “Jim, you’re getting that look in your eye,” he said.

“What look?” asked Kirk, grinning at Rodriguez.

“The one where you end up in front of the Cadet Oversight Committee and plead for one more chance to stay in Starfleet,” said McCoy.

Kirk nodded, still grinning.

On-campus social life often had a commando-like, competitive edge to it. Plots were hatched. Strike teams formed. Alliances made, then shifted. Coveted objects were stolen, recovered, and then stolen again. Unwanted objects delivered.

One example: A holo-bust of the infamous twenty-second century naval commander Rear Admiral Carleton Schiller had been trading hands for the past fifteen years. Originally nabbed from a nook in the Academy library as a prank, Schiller was subsequently stolen by another cadet squad in a daring daylight raid. Since then, Admiral Schiller was considered an object of immense value in the Academy residence halls. Even the briefest possession would bestow great prestige on the holder. He often made dramatic appearances at public events, usually followed by a power blackout. This led to the traditional shout of “Schiller!” and a mad scramble to track him down. Insane amounts of logistical planning went into these appearances. Some said Schiller was responsible for training many of the brightest tactical minds in Starfleet.

Many such activities occurred during what Academy cadets traditionally called “shadow hours.” These were the two hours every weeknight between 8:00 p.m., when all formal activities ended, and 10:00 p.m., when curfew went into effect. They were supposed to be study hours. Sometimes they were; sometimes they weren’t.

Cadet residence halls were not like typical college dorms. Codes of conduct were strictly enforced. Weeknight curfew was 10 p.m., with lights out by midnight. Formal rules of behavior applied—at least in the settings of training, assembly, and classroom. Rank was respected. Cadets also generally ate and exercised together in what Academy literature called “an enhanced morale and team-building atmosphere.”

But smart cadets figured out creative ways to have fun inside the margins. Shadow-hours activities frequently stretched outside the bounds of Academy rules and regulations. Cadet James T. Kirk embraced this tradition, and usually pushed it to its limits.

It should be noted that Starfleet cadets had more personal freedom than typical military cadets—after all, Starfleet did see exploration and pursuit of knowledge as its primary missions, not war. Inventiveness, intellectual curiosity, and original thinking were valued traits in Starfleet cadets.

And it was no Spartan bunkhouse existence, either. Upperclassmen lived in roomy, well-appointed apartment quarters. First- and second-year cadet quarters were more dormitory style, but the residents were free to personalize their spaces. All residence halls were coed; male and female cadets would soon be spending months or even years at a stretch as shipmates on expeditionary voyages, so it made sense to get everyone used to it now.

Kirk sauntered down the corridor, whistling. This was the second floor of Nimitz Hall. He’d never been here before, as far as he knew.

A girl wrapped in a towel stepped from her room into the hallway. She stopped when she saw him.

“Jim?” she said.

Uh-oh, thought Kirk.

“Hey there,” he said. Tara. Teran? Taysha. Starts with a T . . . ?

“Where’ve you been?” she asked.

“Trying to stay afloat,” he said. “You know.” Tracey, maybe?

She gave him a look. “I don’t know how you do it,” she said.

“Neither do I,” said Kirk. He had no clue what she was talking about. “Say, I’m looking for Viktor Tikhonov. I think his room is somewhere on this floor, right?”

Now she smiled. “What do you want from that idiot?” she asked. “Another beating?”

Kirk smiled wryly back.

“Ouch,” he said. He mimicked a knife jab into his heart, then twisted it.

She turned and strolled down the hall. “You’re at his door,” she said.

Kirk turned to the door next to him. “Ah, thanks,” he said. “Thought it looked familiar.”

The girl snickered as she stepped into the women’s shower room.

“I’m Holly, by the way,” she called as the door closed.

Ah, now I remember, he thought with a smile. “You look good in that towel, Holly!” he called back.

The door clunked shut behind her.

He glanced up and down the corridor. Deserted. Odd for Nimitz, a notoriously crazy hall, but whatever, he’d take it. He put his ear to Tikhonov’s door. Good old-fashioned American metal thrash-rock was throbbing loudly in the room.

Real romantic there, Viktor, thought Kirk, amused.

He pulled a sealed envelope from his pocket and slid it into the side doorjamb. Then he pounded loudly on the door and hurried down the corridor to the men’s restroom. He peeked out to see Tikhonov’s door hiss open; the shirtless Russian emerged, flushed and angry. The envelope fluttered to the floor in front of him. He picked it up, tore it open, and read the note inside. Then he withdrew into the room.

As the door hissed shut, Kirk started counting: Ten, nine, eight . . .

Before Kirk could get to five, Viktor burst out of the room fully dressed and obviously pissed. He turned back and said, “Just relax! I’ll be back in ten minutes.” As his door hissed shut again Tikhonov pounded down the corridor to the stairwell.

Kirk waited a few seconds. Then he strolled down the hall and tapped on Tikhonov’s door.

“Yes?” called a female voice.

“Campus security, ma’am,” replied Kirk.

When the door opened, he flashed a phony badge. The girl inside wore a skimpy white robe and was very attractive. Kirk nodded in approval.

“You’re not Cadet Tikhonov,” he said.

“What’s wrong?” asked the girl.

“Just a seal check,” said Kirk. “Routine.”

“A seal check?”

“Window seal, ma’am.”

The girl’s face twisted a bit. “Why now?” she asked.

“We wait until shadow hours to increase the likelihood that cadets are in their rooms,” said Kirk, trying to sound authoritative. “We try to avoid unauthorized keyless entry whenever possible so as to respect the privacy of the cadet corps, as it were.”

The girl rolled her eyes. “Whatever,” she said.

She stepped aside and Kirk walked to the room’s only window. He unlatched it, then started opening and closing it loudly, again and again. Each time he lowered the sash to the sill he slammed it with gusto.

He looked back at the girl, who was busy examining her manicure. Kirk raised the sash and pretended to examine the side jambs. He ran his finger along the sill.

“Looks good!” he bellowed.

He closed the window, neglecting to relock the latches. Then he strode back through the doorway into the corridor and spun smartly to face the girl.

“Thank you, Cadet,” said Kirk. He snapped a salute and held it, gazing at the girl.

After a few seconds, she shook her head in disbelief and saluted back.

Kirk whipped down his hand and marched off down the hallway.

Outside Nimitz, Kirk walked toward a clucking tree.

“Load the chicken,” he said to the tree.

“Do we have a clear launch vector?” asked a voice in the tree.

Kirk looked around.

“Yes,” he said.

“My hands are totally pecked,” whined a second voice.

Kirk patted a lower branch.

“Good luck, gentlemen,” he said. “I want reports on my desk at 0700 hours.”

“Roger that,” said voices in the tree.

Kirk walked toward his dorm, Farragut Hall, with an extra bounce in his step.

In Kirk’s room, McCoy took a swig from his miniflask and then held it out. Kirk nabbed it and took a swallow, then grimaced.

“My god, Bones, what is this swill?” he asked.

McCoy nodded at the flask, grinning. “A little home recipe from Mississippi.”

Kirk stared at it. “I’m drinking moonshine?”

McCoy grinned. “You’re a lucky man,” he said. “So let’s think ahead for once, shall we, Jim? What if Mr. Tikhonov finds out about your window caper?”

Kirk took another swig and started coughing.

“It is my fervent hope,” he said between gasps, “that he comes looking for me.”

McCoy frowned. “Are you kidding?” he exclaimed. “He’s not only an animal, he’s feral.”

Kirk wiped his mouth and handed back the flask, which McCoy stashed in his hip pocket.

“Listen, Bones, let me tell you something about Viktor Tikhonov,” he said. “He’s a damned good cadet, and if I ever get jumped by a squadron of cloaked Romulan birds of prey, Viktor’s the guy I want leading my security team.”

McCoy nodded. “But . . . ?” he asked.

“But he’s under the mistaken impression that he’d be a good starship commander,” said Kirk.

“He’s doing quite well in the ATT testing,” said McCoy.

“Yes, he is,” said Kirk. “He’s an excellent away-team leader. His tactical thinking is sharp. Better than mine, Bones. I admit it.”

McCoy smiled. “Again, but . . . ?”

“But that’s different from commanding a Constitution-class heavy cruiser with a crew of hundreds and a mandate to make peaceful contact with whoever or whatever you meet out there,” said Kirk gesturing toward the sky.

“Yes, that’s true,” said McCoy. “And I have no doubt you’re destined to be that starship commander, Jim, and maybe Viktor Tikhonov isn’t. But that doesn’t explain to me why you want him to come looking for you.”

Kirk folded his arms.

“So Viktor and I can have a little heart-to-heart talk about . . . the qualities of leadership,” he said.

McCoy laughed. “I don’t think that’s what will happen, my friend,” he said. “Not if he comes after you with boiling blood and a pair of chicken-scratched hands.”

“Bones,” said Kirk, leaning toward McCoy for emphasis, “I can take care of myself.”

“I know,” said McCoy. “But just in case . . . well”—he pulled out the flask again—“I suppose I’ve got your back, you crazy Iowa pig farmer.”

Kirk grinned. “We grew wheat,” he said.

“Whatever,” said McCoy.

Kirk’s communicator beeped. He flipped it open: an incoming text. As he read it, he frowned.

“It’s Glorak,” he said. “There’s something going down across campus.”

“What is it?” asked McCoy.

“‘Emergency vehicles incoming,’ he says.”

“For who?”

Kirk shrugged. “He didn’t say.”

Several fire department hovercrafts, halo-lights flashing, had already settled on the central quad by the time Kirk and McCoy arrived. The focus was the Institute of Xenology building. It was sealed off, and a crowd had gathered on its front lawn.

Kirk approached a tall Betelgeusian cadet and asked, “What’s up, Beeker?”

The cadet shrugged his avian shoulders and opened his speaking mouth. “Fire, I guess,” he said with a tongue snap. “Not really sure yet.”

Kirk spotted Admiral Tullsey’s adjutant, Lieutenant Commander Renfield, standing just inside the yellow barrier tape. As he started toward her, an SFPD police cruiser glided in for a landing nearby.

The adjutant spotted Kirk and waved him over. “She’s okay, Cadet,” she called as Kirk approached.

“Who’s okay?” asked Kirk.

“Your friend,” replied Renfield.

“My friend?”

“Cadet Uhura.”

“What!?” exclaimed Kirk. “Where is she?”

Lieutenant Commander Renfield lifted up the yellow tape and Kirk ducked under.

“ICU at the medical college,” she said.

“What happened?” asked Kirk.

“Reports are sketchy,” said Renfield, arching one of her scary eyebrows. “Apparently there was a fire in the xenolinguistics lab. A particulate detector set off the building alarm.”

“Uhura was working on those 911 recordings, no doubt,” said Kirk.

“No doubt,” said Renfield. “Two students evacuating the library heard her coughing. They found her in a research pod filled with smoke. Thank god they managed to drag her out. All three suffered serious smoke inhalation, it seems.”

Kirk nodded. “I take it they put out the fire,” he said, gesturing toward the firefighters.

“Well,” said Renfield, “that’s just the thing.”

Kirk frowned. “What?”

“The emergency responders found no fire,” she said. She gave Kirk a look. “In fact, they found no smoke whatsoever.”

Kirk was confused. “You said they suffered smoke inhalation,” he said.

Lieutenant Commander Renfield shrugged. Then she said, “Well, we did find a black residue on all three of them. So I suppose that—”

Kirk immediately spun around to look for McCoy. “Bones!” he yelled. “Bones!”

McCoy pushed through the crowd to join them. Kirk gave him a quick summary of the situation.

“Did you see this residue, Lieutenant Commander?” asked McCoy.

“Yes,” she answered.

“It was black and chalky, correct?” said McCoy.

“Yes, it was.”

McCoy’s emergency pager suddenly went off. He checked its message, then looked at Kirk. “It’s Dr. Griffin,” said McCoy. “He wants me to report to ICU immediately.”

“Good god, Bones,” said Kirk.

“I know, Jim,” said McCoy.

“You gotta get that stuff out of her,” said Kirk urgently. “Before it . . .”

“I know, Jim,” repeated McCoy.

They both ducked back under the yellow tape and began to sprint toward the hospital wing of the medical college.

CH.8.12

City Lights

Spock stood in the ICU waiting room, hands clasped behind his back. He didn’t pace or fidget, despite his unsettled emotions. This was due to the calming techniques he’d learned as a boy from his mother. Ironic that a Human woman so often guided by deep feeling could teach a Vulcan male to find such peaceful, meditative corridors in his consciousness.

One of his older colleagues on the science faculty, Dr. John Telemark, stepped up beside him.

“I’m sure they’ll be fine, Commander,” he said.

Spock nodded. “Yes, the medical team took both male cadets off their ventilators almost immediately. I was told they’re alert and doing well.”

“Good news!” said Telemark. “And the girl?”

“Stable but still unconscious, according to the last report,” replied Spock, quickly glancing toward the double doors leading into the care unit where Uhura was.

Telemark gestured in the opposite direction, down the corridor to the hospital’s main lobby.

“Quite a few cadets keeping vigil out there,” he said.

Spock allowed himself a thin smile. “The cadet corps has an intriguing social psychology,” he said.

“How so, Spock?” asked the older professor.

“Cadets spend an inordinate amount of time devising ways to humiliate one another,” he said. “It is a most peculiar practice. And yet when one of their own is imperiled, they become as protective as a Hyborian mite colony.”

Telemark smiled. “Well, as a distinguished recent gradu-ate, I guess you’d know,” he said.

“Cadet training was an interesting time,” said Spock.

Dr. Telemark glanced toward the lobby again. “That Delta team captain is out there, I forget his name. They say he’s an impulsive fellow. I don’t expect he’ll fare well in Tanika Station next week.”

Spock bowed respectfully, but said, “I’m learning that Human decision-making is often a curious process. In certain subjects, decisions that may seem illogical at first often turn out to be tactically sound.” He frowned. “The Human brain seems to be a mystery to itself. It makes what appear to be snap judgments and rash choices that, as it turns out, have in fact been sufficiently processed subconsciously.” He looked at his colleague. “I believe you call it intuition.”

Telemark smiled again. “I call it flying by the seat of your pants,” he said.

Spock raised an eyebrow. “An interesting metaphor, Doctor,” he said.

“Well, that young cadet from Iowa thinks he’s ready for your Kobayashi Maru scenario.” Telemark chuckled. “But frankly, I don’t think he’ll get past Tanika Station on Monday.”

As Spock began to reply, Dr. Griffin burst through the ICU doors and approached with his shock of white hair and a crooked smile.

“Hello, gentlemen,” he said.

“How are they, Doctor?” asked Spock quickly.

“Hard to say definitively,” said Dr. Griffin. “They certainly seem well enough. Cadet Uhura suffered the worst inhalation trauma, but there’s no thermal damage to her airway passages. Most of the problem seems to be the metabolic acidosis, and a bit too much tissue-level oxygen debt.”

Spock and Telemark looked at each other.

Dr. Griffin smiled. “Sorry,” he said. “Ah, her blood’s a little out of whack. But we’re fixing it. In any case, she’s resting comfortably on a ventilator and her vitals look good.”

Spock felt his face release tension.

“So she’s out of the woods, Charlie?” asked Telemark.

“I think so,” replied Griffin. “But I’ve got a young doctor in there who thinks the carbon residue on Cadet Uhura is somehow active.”

Spock’s eyebrow arched again. “Active?” he asked.

Griffin bobbed his great white head. “Yes.”

“In what way, Doctor?” asked Spock.

“Not sure, Commander, but he’s taking soot samples from her nose and mouth right now,” replied Griffin. “He’s also planning a bronchoscopy to examine her airways and to suction debris. Dr. McCoy seems to believe that this smoke is . . . well, more than smoke, I guess.”

Spock considered that. “It is indeed curious that no residual smoke was found in the lab.”

“Well, gentlemen, I have a police report to make,” said Dr. Griffin. He nodded toward a grizzled-looking man in a rumpled coat approaching from the lobby. “Hello, Detective Bogenn,” he called. “Let’s meet in my office, shall we?”

As Dr. Griffin and the detective walked off, Spock’s eyebrows furrowed.

“Active smoke residue,” he said. “Curious.”

Dr. Telemark sat down in a lounge chair and sighed.

“Well, Spock, perhaps we should go over the holodeck calibrations again for next Monday’s simulation,” he said. “We want Tanika Station’s mysteries to remain impene-trable for our cadets.”

Spock sat down next to him.

“Since I expect to be here quite a while, Doctor,” he said, “I believe that’s an excellent plan.”

Dr. McCoy barely had time to order a bronchoscope unit to ICU before observing an event that he fully expected to see. The critical care nurse assisting him with Cadet Uhura suddenly backed away from the bed.

“Uh, Doctor?” he said.

McCoy turned to see what appeared to be a smoking body.

“Yep, there it goes,” he said.

“Is she . . . burning?” asked the nurse, looking panicked.

“No,” said McCoy. “Relax, Harmon.” He pointed at the bedside console. “Do you have the observation cameras rolling?”

“Yes, sir,” replied Nurse Harmon.

McCoy watched intently as the hazy smoke slowly rose from Uhura’s body and gathered into a black, doughnut-shaped cloud. It hovered a few moments directly above her, then suddenly shot to the ceiling and disappeared.

It left no trace behind.

“She’s clean now,” said McCoy. He grabbed a tricorder scanner on the nearby stand. “But we need an organ scan, stat. If her organs are intact, I expect she’ll wake up soon, so let’s remove that tracheal tube too. And Harmon?”

“Yes, Doctor?” said the nurse, still staring at the ceiling.

“Call pulmonary and cancel that bronchoscope,” he said.

The next two days proceeded in a relatively uneventful fashion at Starfleet Academy. Students went about their business by day, and schemed, commando-raided, partied, and coupled up by night. Meanwhile, the Academy’s medical and scientific staff were comparing notes and conducting more studies on the mysterious black substance.

As Kirk tried desperately to prepare for the upcoming Science mission final, nagging questions kept popping into his head:

How does the Doctor control the swarm?

Why did the swarm target Uhura? Why did it spare her? What are its operating protocols?

Did I lead it to her somehow? Did it follow me to campus?

How does the killer know my name?

It sometimes seemed as if he’d imagined the encounter at the Palace of Fine Arts; it was so surreal. When he’d run into Detective Bogenn that night in the hospital lobby and finally reported the incident, Kirk got the impression that the detective was skeptical. But then he whipped out his communicator and there it was—“James T. Kirk”—in all its creepy, voice-filtered eeriness. Uhura wouldn’t have to translate that.

So Kirk spent two days trying to put the Doctor and the swarm out of his mind in order to focus on Tanika Station. He studied his Starfleet science directives for hours. He met with his Delta teammates each day to review Science mission protocols, brainstorm possible scenarios, and then game-plan and role-play a response to each one.

Unfortunately, one other thing made full concentration difficult as well.

He couldn’t stop thinking about the stunning girl from Brewsky’s.

So when Thursday evening finally came, Kirk found himself jogging down Union Street and bursting into occasional adrenaline-fueled sprints. Meeting girls rarely made Kirk feel jittery, but Hannah was unlike any he’d ever met. He kept retracking their first conversation. She made him think. He liked that.

When he arrived at Brewsky’s, a line of five had formed at the order counter. Hannah gave him a quick glance and took orders with a sly smile. Kirk eavesdropped on her banter with the customers in front of him. She was good with people.

“What can I get you?” she asked him.

He slapped down his payment chip. “Triple espresso,” he said.

She just looked at him.

“Please,” he added.

After paying, Kirk moved to his usual corner table and set up his e-pad. That morning, Thursday, all of the participants in next Monday’s Science mission final had received a single page of instructions on what to expect. Kirk had read it carefully several times, each time amazed at how little they would know going in. He scrolled through it one more time, looking for subtle hints or hidden clues between the lines.

“Cadet?” called out Hannah loudly from the counter. “Is there a ‘Cadet’ here?”

Kirk looked up. She was gazing around the room.

“Your espresso is ready, Cadet,” she called sweetly.

Kirk grinned. He went up to the counter.

“Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t hear my name. I was too engrossed in my studies of fascism.”

“It’s a good major,” she said.

Kirk picked up the espresso cup. “Yes, plenty of job opportunities.”

Another girl behind Hannah was tying on an apron. She said, “Have a good night, girl.”

“Thanks, Jen,” said Hannah. She started untying her own apron.

Kirk frowned. “You’re off?” he said, glancing at his watch. “It’s only seven.”

“Yes, I’m off,” she said.

“You said you’d be working tonight,” said Kirk.

“I did work,” she replied. “Now I’m off.”

“Oh,” he said, disappointed.

Hannah turned to the new girl. “Can I get a short mocha?” she asked. “No whipped cream. For here.” She pointed over at Kirk’s table.

Kirk slowly brightened. “Ah,” he said.

Jen, the other girl, smiled. “Who’s that?” she asked, nodding at Kirk.

“That’s Jim,” said Hannah. “He’s a Starfleet cadet. Jim, this is Jen. She’s a poet. I’m sure you guys have a lot in common.”

Jen waved. “Hi, Jim,” she said.

Kirk waved back.

Jen looked him up and down. “Cute,” she told Hannah.

“You think so?” replied Hannah, feigning surprise.

She ducked under the counter and sauntered over to Kirk’s table. Almost glassy-eyed, Kirk followed. As he sat down he flipped his e-pad shut.

“Hey, don’t let me interrupt your studies,” she said.

Kirk just laughed.

Some things Kirk learned about Hannah:

She was born and raised in Fresno.

Her father was a botanist. Her mother? A botanist.

She loved plants.

She hiked in the Marin Hills north of the city every weekend.

She broke up with her cadet boyfriend in part because of his addiction to holodeck games.

Another reason: He was a self-centered jerk.

The best reason: He didn’t like the movie Casablanca.

She loved San Francisco bookstores.

And although she was fond of flowering plants, she had a special affinity for mosses and liverworts.

Some things Hannah learned about Kirk:

He hated Iowa.

He loved Iowa.

He had a police record in Iowa.

He missed Iowa.

He never wanted to go back to Iowa. At least he vowed never to return until his stepfather, Frank, left the state.

He was born in Medical Shuttle 37.

He loved his mother.

He loved everything he knew about his father.

His father had saved the lives of more than eight hundred people—including Jim’s—while giving his own life to do so, and Jim wanted to do at least that much good during his own career.

And he liked to go fast.

They’d been talking for more than an hour when Hannah suddenly said, “Let’s walk.”

“Sure.” Kirk grabbed his jacket.

“Nights like this are rare,” she said.

Kirk glanced at her. “True,” he said.

Hannah was wrapping a green silk scarf around her neck. She grabbed her jacket too and said, “We just don’t get much summer here in summer.”

“No kidding,” he said. He glanced out the window. It was the second clear, fogless night this week.

They stashed their bags behind the counter with Jen and headed out onto Union Street.

“Where to?” asked Kirk.

“How about a cable-car ride?” she replied.

“Let’s do it,” said Kirk.

It was a short stroll up to Hyde Street where they hopped aboard a car on the Powell-Hyde line. They rode it downhill to the turntable on Market Street, where cars were spun for the return trip. There they transferred to the Powell-Mason line that ran back north over both Nob Hill and Russian Hill toward the wharf. As the car clanked out of the turntable and rolled uphill on Powell, Hannah suddenly grabbed Kirk’s hand.

“Look,” she said, “I appreciate tonight. I think it’s great that you like me.”

Amused, Kirk looked at her. “Gosh, and here I thought I was so subtle,” he said.

Hannah waved her hand. “My point is,” she said, “I appreciate your interest in my life. But don’t avoid talking about the Academy. I know it’s important to you, and I will try not to judge. Okay?”

Kirk shrugged. “I don’t want to bore you,” he said. “Or say something militaristic that makes you jump off the cable car.”

Hannah laughed. “Hey, I know it’s intense at the Academy,” she said. “I get that. It’s all-consuming. And it should be. I mean, space isn’t grad school; it’s life and death. The Romulans are coming. I get how you have to pour yourself into it . . . or else you don’t make the grade.”

“Ah, let me guess,” he said. “That cadet you dated, all he talked about was the Academy. And himself.”

Hannah looked down, and Kirk knew he had hit a nerve.

“I’m not that guy,” said Kirk. “Okay?”

“Okay,” she said.

They both held tight to the grip poles as the car lurched around a turn on Jackson.

“Of course, I do have a pretty high opinion of myself,” said Kirk. “And I need someone like you to help keep that in check.” He squeezed her hand. “You’re doing a good job.”

She smiled her amazing smile, and Kirk felt his heart skip a beat.

“Okay, so what’s up with your Science test on Monday?” she asked.

Kirk squinted. “You really want to hear about it?”

Hannah nodded. “Yeah, I’m all ears.”

Spock stood at the window of Uhura’s hospital room. He faced north toward the Golden Gate Bridge, which stretched away at a sharp angle less than a mile away. A towering fog bank was beginning to roll over the span like a massive tidal wave.

“The inland wind is ruining our perfect night,” said Spock, turning to the bed.

Uhura burst into a coughing fit. Spock took a step toward the paging button in concern, but she waved him away.

“No, no, I’m okay,” she said, clearing her throat. “Really. I’m good.”

“Maybe you should try another round of supplemental oxygen,” said Spock. “Dr. Griffin said the pulmonary irritation could flare up again.”

“Thank you, Commander, but that won’t be necessary,” she said.

Spock took a deep calming breath. Then he said, “I fear I am on the verge of annoying you, Cadet.”

Uhura laughed, which triggered a cough. Then she said, “And I worry that I’m keeping you from more important things.”

Spock’s eyes widened. He was still learning Human inflections and connotations, and he wondered, Is Nyota signaling a desire that I should go?

“Perhaps I should let you rest?” he said, unsure of how to proceed.

“No!” She answered a bit too emphatically, and covered by quickly adding, “I mean, I think we still have some issues to review. From my lab work.”

Spock nodded. “I do feel somewhat responsible for this incident,” he said.

“Why?” asked Uhura, puzzled.

“A simple logic string,” he replied. “You would not have been in the lab so late if I had not recommended you to the commandant for this task.”

“Really?” she replied, almost indignant. “Commander, I thought you knew me better than that.”

Spock turned back to the window. “Why do you say that, Cadet?” he asked.

“I’m in that lab almost every night,” she said.

“Oh,” said Spock. “I was not aware of your evening routine.”

Uhura looked him in the eye and smiled. “You will be eventually,” she said.

Spock raised an eyebrow. He gazed down at neat rows of white gravestones. The medical college grounds sat adjacent to the San Francisco National Cemetery, a military burial site. Just to the right sat the Officers’ Lounge, a well-lit place where Starfleet royalty liked to sip debilitating concoctions and tell war stories. Spock avoided it religiously.

Uhura wondered if she had gone too far. She pressed a button on her bed rail to lower her head a bit. “I’ve only been your student a short while,” she said.

“Yes, true,” he said.

“In another six months you’ll probably wish you’d never met me,” she said.

Spock allowed himself a smile. “You are relentless in your pursuit of knowledge,” he said. “However, I find that to be a most admirable trait, Cadet. One of many you possess.”

Uhura breathed a sigh of relief.

The fog’s gloomy front rank was pushing through the Presidio now. Above, the lights of the Golden Gate were blinking out of view, one by one. Spock watched the murk spread like surging water across the perfect military rows of grave markers below him. He almost flinched as a ragged fog specter, pushed hard by the sea wind, flew straight into the window. It broke apart on the pane like a boiling white fluid.

Spock closed his eyes. Then he opened them and turned to Cadet Uhura.

“So let us work,” he said.

“Yes, let’s,” she replied.

Kirk gave Hannah the latest update on the Tanika Station scenario. It wasn’t much; all Kirk knew was that Team Delta would be shuttled into an enclosed environment and (according to the prep sheet) “carry out Starfleet science directives in a First-Contact setting.”

“An enclosed environment?” she repeated.

“Correct,” said Kirk.

“So you’re not planet-side?” she asked.

“Doesn’t sound like it,” replied Kirk. “And we already did the First Contact mission final, so we’re assuming Tanika Station will be uninhabited.”

“So your job is to explore, observe, then acquire and analyze science samples,” she said.

“Yes,” said Kirk. “But these exercises are designed to be unpredictable. So, any advice?”

“Just don’t kill anything, soldier,” replied Hannah. Then she impulsively leaned over and kissed him.

“If I promise not to kill anything, will you do that again?” Kirk asked, pulling her closer. The air seemed to crackle with electricity. Kirk went in for another kiss, when suddenly the cable-car bell rang. “Columbus Avenue, hang on, half left!” called out the conductor, shattering the moment.

“Hey, you ever been to City Lights?” asked Hannah with sudden excitement.

Kirk said, “No. What is it?”

“What is it?” she repeated. “Are you kidding?”

“No.”

Hannah turned to the grip man at the car controls. “Next stop!” she called. As the car rounded the half-turn onto Columbus and braked to a halt, Hannah checked her watch. “It’s getting late,” she said to Kirk. “What about your curfew?”

“I’ll be fine,” he replied.

City Lights was a bookstore, and it was generally considered the birthplace of the 1950s Beat generation. Two years prior it had celebrated its three-hundredth birthday, a remarkable achievement in an age where bookstores didn’t much exist anymore as actual, nonvirtual places. True, City Lights was as much a museum as anything. But it was still a cool place to hang out, look over old-fashioned printed books, and have a cup of good old-fashioned slow-brewed coffee.

Kirk and Hannah hopped off the car at Columbus Avenue and started walking toward the famous bookstore. Kirk grabbed Hannah’s hand. She snuggled closer to him, and he wrapped his arm around her.

Columbus slashed the city at an angle, running from the North Beach waterfront all the way to the soaring towers of the Financial District. It dead-ended right into the Transamerica Pyramid. As they crested the hill near the park at Washington Square, the glittering skyline was etched sharply against the darkening sky. A few blocks later, the great pyramid loomed directly ahead of them.

Hannah pointed at it.

“Hard to believe that was one of the five tallest buildings in the world when it was built,” she said. “Now it’s the runt of the skyline.”

This was true. In 2255, many skyscrapers in the district towered far above the Transamerica Pyramid. Some were nearly twice its 850-foot height.

“Well, it’s still the only pyramid, I guess,” said Kirk.

“Right,” said Hannah. “The sacred shape.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, thinking, This girl can make anything sound sexy.

Absently Kirk noticed the first tendrils of fog creeping through buildings up ahead. As he crossed Green Street, he turned to see streetlights being blotted from view in the distance as the fog advanced. The wind was picking up. He zipped up his jacket.

Hannah formed a shape with her hands. “Many ancient cultures saw the pyramid as some kind of mystical shape,” she said. “Some still do.”

Kirk was amused. “Well, they make great tombs and casinos,” he said.

Hannah nodded. “The pyramid’s geometry is supposed to intensify electromagnetic frequencies that create a perfect scalar resonance.”

“Yes,” said Kirk. “I understand this effect whitens whites and brightens colors. It also kills germs that can cause bad breath,” he said, leaning in for a quick kiss.

Hannah laughed and kissed him back.

A brilliant flare of white light suddenly flashed in the sky up ahead, near the tip of the Transamerica Pyramid.

“How’d you do that?” Hannah asked after a moment. “Do you control lightning, too?”

Kirk was alert. He listened for a few seconds. “No thunder,” he said. “Hey, I grew up in Iowa. Where there’s lightning, thunder follows.”

Three more blinding flashes lit the sky in rapid succession, like a pulsing strobe.

“Definitely not lightning,” said Kirk.

“Maybe it’s some kind of aircraft warning,” said Hannah. “’Cause, wow, look at the fog!”

Heavy fog suddenly poured across the street from right to left, coming from the seaward direction. The wet chill felt like a sudden freeze.

“Yikes,” said Hannah. “Let’s get to the bookstore.”

They picked up the pace down Columbus. Kirk felt a sudden sense of dread. His peripheral vision had caught a glimpse of movement directly behind them. Now he spun around, and nudged Hannah behind him.

A tall, hooded figure seemed to hover in the air just up the sidewalk, about ten feet in front of them.

Kirk’s jaw clenched so hard, it popped. Then his tactical training kicked in. He took a deep breath and cleared his head.

“Hannah,” he whispered over his shoulder. “Get ready to run.”

Kirk kept his eyes on the dark figure. It moved toward them. Kirk backed up, forcing Hannah backward too.

“Listen carefully,” he said quietly. “If you see any sign of black smoke, any sign at all . . . run. Do you hear me? Run like hell.”

“I hear you,” said Hannah calmly.

“Don’t let it catch you.”

“Right.”

A second dark figure coalesced in the fog next to the first. Kirk blinked and looked again.

“Great,” he said.

Hannah peered around him.

“You’re Starfleet, Kirk,” Hannah whispered. “Kick some ass!”

CH.9.12

Delta Origins

Starfleet Academy’s cryptology lab was the best code-breaking unit in the known galaxy, and its Cheetah3000 massively parallel quantum processor was custom-made for extracting meaning from something like a single white glyph etched on a black bit.

Yet McCoy was still stunned at how quickly the supercomputer cracked the code. Less than twenty-four hours after he’d submitted the white marking for cryptoanalysis, the machine spit out a result with an estimated 99.9999997 percent probability of being accurate.

As McCoy sat in Dr. Chandar’s nanotech lab in Hawking Hall, the Academy’s science center, watching live video of a nanite swarm, he reviewed the results with his friend.

“The category of meaning is not surprising or mysterious at all, Parag,” said McCoy, scrolling down the document. “It’s a date and origin stamp.”

“Just as we suspected,” replied Chandar. “It was so clearly a simple ID mark.”

“Ah, but wait,” said McCoy. “Here’s where it gets interesting.” He turned the pad toward Chandar. The screen displayed a swirling mass of stars. “The white glyph is actually an embedded strand of numerical data that, when plotted in 3-D, produces this stunning holo-image. It’s our galaxy, Parag! The Milky Way! Re-created in remarkable detail.”

Dr. Chandar stared in amazement. “A star map,” he said.

“Exactly,” said McCoy.

“And does it display travel waypoints so we can see where the swarm has been?” asked Chandar.

“Unfortunately, no,” replied McCoy. “Each nanite’s galactic map has only two sets of spatial coordinates marked. One is Earth, as you would expect—the swarm’s destination marker.”

He tapped on his pad’s screen, and the view zoomed through star clusters until it centered on the solar system and zoomed in on blue Earth. The planet was highlighted by a glowing aura.

“Now here’s the other marker,” McCoy continued. “We have to assume that this set of coordinates marks the swarm’s place of origin.”

He tapped the screen again. This time the view careened through the star systems of the galaxy’s Alpha Quadrant and zoomed clear out of known space.

Dr. Chandar’s head jerked at an angle in bewilderment. “That is no region of galactic space I’m familiar with,” he said.

“Yes,” said McCoy. “You are not familiar with this region because nobody is.”

The view settled on a glittering region that appeared to be a mass of swirling debris—comets and asteroids, perhaps, and other planetary fragments.

McCoy looked gravely at Chandar. “Parag, this is a core ward sector of the Delta Quadrant.”

“What?” cried Chandar in disbelief.

“Unknown space,” said McCoy, nodding. “We don’t even have sensors there.”

“But our nearest border with Delta is thirty thousand light-years away,” said Chandar. He whipped out a calc-pad and did some quick figuring. “A Constitution-class starship traveling at its maximum velocity of Warp Six would take, let’s see . . . more than 138 full Earth years just to reach the edge of that quadrant.”

“Precisely,” said McCoy. “And that’s why the date stamp is so interesting.”

Dr. Chandar’s face lit up with an involuntary smile—all his neurons were firing.

“The date stamp,” said McCoy, “based on standard galactic time computation, indicates the swarm was created or activated just two months ago, standard Earth time. So either it was created en route from the Delta Quadrant . . . or it got here unbelievably fast.”

Chandar nodded. “Perhaps via some sort of transwarp corridor?”

“Well, I’m not a physicist,” said McCoy.

“No, you’re a doctor,” said Chandar. He pointed at his monitor, where a nanite swarm swirled lazily in live video on-screen. “And that’s why I think you’ll find this fascinating.”

McCoy rolled his chair closer to the monitor.

“Oh, wait,” McCoy said. “There’s one more thing about the glyph.” He punched up the Cryptology report again, then scrolled to a section, enlarged it, and held it up for Dr. Chandar. “Does this number mean anything to you, Parag?” he asked. “Anything particular in the world of, say, nanotechnology?”

Chandar stared at the pad’s screen: 5618.

“‘Five-six-one-eight,’” he read. “Hmm. No, not right offhand.”

McCoy looked at the pad. “Because this simple number forms the entire bottom quarter of the glyph, according to the cryptoanalysis.”

“That would suggest it is important,” said Chandar.

McCoy gave the on-screen number another look, then shook his head and closed up his digital pad. “I guess we’ll run it past some of the other labs,” he said. “It must mean something.”

Dr. Chandar rubbed his hands together and scooted his chair to the microscope.

“Okay!” he said. “Now watch. This is fun!”

Kirk had an idea.

“Take off your jacket!” he said to Hannah.

“What?”

“Your jacket,” he said, pulling off his own.

The two dark figures stood unmoving as the fog thickened. It was cold and wet, and now Kirk and Hannah shivered without coats on.

“If you see anything that looks like black smoke, start fanning as fast as you can,” whispered Kirk. “Like this!” He started flapping his jacket up and down.

Hannah gave him a sideways glance. “Have you lost your mind?”

Kirk took a step toward the figures, wildly flapping his jacket. As he did so, a third dark figure appeared between the other two. In a deep voice, this middle figure spoke.

“What the hell are you doing, mate?”

Kirk stopped flapping.

“Who’s there?” he called. “Show yourself!”

The three figures moved slowly forward until their facial features were vaguely visible. It was clearly three Human males, all tall, all dressed in dark, hooded jackets. All three had heavily tattooed faces.

“What are you guys, a basketball team?” asked Hannah. Still shivering, she slipped her jacket back on.

The two fellows on the outside laughed, but the guy in the middle just leered dangerously at Hannah. He had a mouth full of silver-carbonate teeth filed to gleaming points. He pulled off his hood to reveal a shaved, tattooed head. A row of razor-sharp skull studs ran down the middle of his scalp to form a very painful-looking mohawk.

Kirk knew the branding. These guys were part of the Mongol Saints, the most violent gang in the Bay Area. Based in Oakland, Saints often traveled in threes, looking for easy marks.

Kirk smiled and relaxed.

“Sorry, guys,” he said. “Whew! Thought you were someone else.”

Hannah, also having realized who was standing opposite them, stared at him, mouth open.

Kirk, still holding his jacket, draped his other arm across Hannah’s shoulders.

“Did any of you fools see the bright flashing lights on the pyramid?” he conversationally asked them.

The hoodless guy in the middle stopped leering. The way the other two flanked him, it was clear that he was the leader.

“No,” he said. “Say, that thing with the jacket—that was really funny.”

Kirk sighed. “Thanks,” he said. “Hey, listen, it’s cold. Care to join us in the bookstore? It’s just down the block.” He grinned and looked the stud-head in the eye. “I’ll buy you a peppermint latté.”

He was not amused. “No thanks, mate,” he said. “We’ll take your girl, though.”

“No, I don’t think you will,” Kirk said calmly. His arm was still around Hannah. He reached down with his free hand, flipped the communicator open on his hip, punched in a quick code, and flipped it shut. Then he spun Hannah away from the trio and started walking away from them.

“Good luck with the surgery, guys,” he called back.

Behind him he heard one of the wingmen say, “What surgery?”

“Jim, what are you doing?” asked Hannah, twisting to look over her shoulder. “They’re coming!”

“I know.” Kirk smiled. “Just walk.”

A small group of people popped out of the fog and passed them heading the other direction, but Kirk knew it wouldn’t matter to the Saints. They enjoyed brutal public beatings.

“Jim, I’m scared,” whispered Hannah.

“Don’t be,” he said. “You are safe with me. I promise.” He tightened his grip around her slender shoulders.

Behind him, he heard the metallic ssshing! of razor-knives sliding open.

Dr. Chandar adjusted the microscope. The live camera feed shuddered on the monitor. On-screen, the nanite-filled containment chamber slid sideways until the micro-camera centered on what looked like a hazy gray wall. It split the screen in half.

“See that?” said Chandar, pointing at the wall on the monitor. “That’s the containment field boundary.”

McCoy nodded. “The nanites can’t pass through it,” he said.

“Correct,” said Chandar. “Yet somehow, via some sort of subatomic microsensor array perhaps, the nanite is able to get readings on things that lie beyond the impenetrable boundary.”

“How do you know?” asked McCoy.

“Watch!”

Dr. Chandar picked up a long needle. He moved its tip to the edge of the nanite containment chamber locked in the microscope’s specimen tray.

“This a sterile, chrome-plated teasing needle used for dissection,” said Chandar. “Look, there it is.”

On-screen, the needle’s microfilament tip appeared as a massive, blocky figure just outside the containment wall. The nanites continued their lazy swirl.

“They’re not too curious about it,” said Chandar. “In fact, they ignore it, even if I tap the chamber.” He smiled. “Now watch.”

Chandar scraped the needle’s sterile tip back and forth lightly across the back of his hand. “Let’s add some Human epidermal cells, shall we?” Then he moved the needle tip back to the edge of the containment wall.

“Holy cow!” said McCoy.

The swarm was in a frenzy now. Bits gathered at the boundary, moving so rapidly that they blurred. In just seconds the swarm had blackened the screen as thousands of nanites pushed frantically against the barrier.

“Amazing,” said Chandar. “There’s clearly some kind of marker in my biology that triggers the swarm’s curiosity.”

“Have you tried this with other biological specimens?” asked McCoy.

“Dozens,” said Chandar.

“And?”

“Well, the swarm finds them interesting at first,” said Chandar. “But it seems that when its sensors determine that the sample isn’t Human biology, the swarm deactivates.”

“What about alien biology?”

Chandar set down the needle. “Same thing. Initial interest, then it drops away.”

“So the swarm is particularly curious about Human cells,” said McCoy.

“It seems so.”

McCoy stared at the screen. With the skin sample gone, the swarm’s frenzy had ended quickly. Nanites were drifting around the solution chamber again.

“Deactivates,” repeated McCoy.

“What are they?” asked Dr. Chandar. “I wish we had our own swarm of these guys.”

“Why?” asked McCoy.

“I tell you, Leonard,” he said, “if we could tap into their telemetry and figure out how they tick, then maybe we could control them and turn them loose on themselves.”

“Yeah, swarm and antiswarm,” grumbled McCoy. “They could tear one another to subcellular bits. Then we could get on with our damned lives.”

Chandar laughed. “No, Leonard, that’s not what I mean,” he said. “They could study themselves, model themselves, learn themselves, and then report to us what the hell they are.”

McCoy glared at the monitor.

“I’d rather they just tore themselves apart,” McCoy said.

“I understand,” said Chandar. “It is dangerous, this swarm. And god only knows what it could do if turned completely loose. We could have a gray-goo scenario on our hands.”

“What the hell is that?” asked McCoy.

“Gray goo?” said Chandar. “A self-replicating neural swarm that basically goes out of control and eats entire planets.”

McCoy swiveled to face his friend. “What?”

“Don’t worry, it’s not a likely scenario, but it is possible,” said Chandar.

“Explain,” said McCoy.

“Gray goo is a term coined in the early days of nanotechnology research,” said Chandar. “It starts with a swarm of nanomachines, just like our nanites here. They’re programmed to self-replicate—to scavenge matter from an ecosystem, tear it apart at the cellular level, and then use the pieces to build copies of itself.”

McCoy stared at the screen.

“In the gray-goo scenario, something goes wrong,” continued Chandar. “Could be an error—an accidental mutation, say, or maybe a coding glitch. Or it could be deliberate—sabotage, or a doomsday war device. In any case, the swarm kicks into a frenzy of nonstop replication. It attacks and breaks down every bit of matter it finds. It turns everything into a gray chemical soup of elemental pieces. Then the swarm’s internal nanofactories use the soup to build nanite copies.”

“Hence, gray goo,” said McCoy.

“Frightening, isn’t it?”

“It’s the most frightening thing I’ve ever heard, Parag.”

Dr. Chandar held out his hands. “Like I said, only theoretically possible,” he said. “When you think about it, viruses are nearly perfect nano-entities. And yet they don’t run amok, eating everything, breaking everything down into goo. Our planet’s ecosystem has remarkable defense mechanisms that can fend off even the most aggressive viral attack, over time.”

McCoy groaned. “Well, I feel much safer now,” he said.

Chandar laughed. “I’m glad, Leonard.” He gazed at the monitor again. “But the thing is, a nanoswarm could be an unprecedented research tool, if used properly.”

“Right,” said McCoy. “As long as it doesn’t eat us first.”

His pager suddenly beeped.

“Hmm,” he said, checking it. “It seems I’m wanted in the shuttle hangar transporter room immediately.” He looked up at Dr. Chandar. “It says . . . on the double.”

Chandar gestured toward the door.

“Run like the wind, Dr. McCoy!” he said with a smile.

Kirk pushed up his shirtsleeve, revealing a medallion strapped to his upper forearm. He tore it off and fastened it around Hannah’s arm.

“What’s this?” asked Hannah.

“See you in twenty minutes,” said Kirk, giving her a quick kiss.

Behind them, the three Saints howled. Kirk looked back at them. They were huge.

“Okay, maybe thirty,” he said.

“Jim?”

He flipped up a crystalline cover on the medallion and punched the inset red button. Targeting scanners got an instant coordinate lock on Hannah. Her molecular structure was scanned on a quantum level, her body was disassembled into a matter stream of subatomic particles, dumped into a pattern buffer, then transmitted via subspace frequency to the shuttle hangar at Starfleet Academy and finally reassembled on the transporter pad.

To the Saints, it just looked like she had just dissolved before them.

“What the hell?” shouted one Saint. “Where’d she go?”

Kirk shrugged. “I sent her home,” he said. “I didn’t want an unfair advantage over you.”

Mongol Saints were famed street fighters—dirty and deadly. But Starfleet close-combat training was based on the brutally aggressive, efficient, no-nonsense principles of Krav Maga, originally the old Israeli Defense Force combat system. The fight was over in fourteen seconds. Kirk suffered a superficial razor-knife slash to his left forearm. The Saints suffered two dislocated elbows, one broken hand, one collapsed cheekbone, and three broken noses. And for Hannah, as well as all the other women in the neighborhood, Kirk inflicted a few additional nasty blows that promised to keep them out of commission for a little while.

When Hannah stepped off the shuttle hanger transporter pad in a daze, the console was unmanned. But most Starfleet transporter stations were preset to receive emergency transports at any time. She looked at the armband strapped around her bicep.

A uniformed man rushed in. When he saw her, he halted and folded his arms.

“I should have known,” he said. What he thought was, Where does he find these girls?

Hannah looked at him. “Where am I?” she asked.

“This is the hunting ground of Cadet James T. Kirk,” said the man. “I don’t suppose you know him?”

Hannah looked around. “He’s in trouble!” she blurted. Then with a hint of annoyance she added: “Who are you?”

“My name is McCoy, Leonard McCoy.” He gave her a sharp look. “What do you mean, trouble?”

“Three guys were about to jump us,” she said.

McCoy glanced at her arm. “So he slapped that thing on your arm and zapped you here,” he said. “Tell me about the three guys. Where was this?”

“Big gangbangers,” she said. “Like, biker big. Huge. Three of them. We were on Columbus Avenue.”

“On the street?”

“Yes.”

McCoy smiled. “Well, Jim should be here any minute.”

Hannah frowned in disbelief. “Did I mention that there were three of them?” she asked. “Three guys?”

McCoy nodded. “Yes, you did,” he said.

Hannah pulled the emergency transporter band off her arm and tossed it abruptly to McCoy.

“Why aren’t you worried?” she asked sharply.

McCoy stepped toward her.

“I am worried,” he said. He glanced at his watch. “Right about now, those three guys need a top-notch trauma center, and I’m not sure there’s a good one in that neighborhood.”

CH.10.12

Tanika Station

The following Monday morning, Dr. McCoy huddled with Team Delta in the ready room of Shuttle Hangar 1. He was there at Kirk’s request to run preflight checkups before the five-man team boarded the Gilliam, a Class F-shuttle bound for the top-secret location of Tanika Station. The cadets wore the compression biosuits they’d been issued, an indication that their destination was in space.

Everyone was tense and silent. A burly crew-cut cadet named Raynor seemed to be even more tense than everyone else, and he paced back and forth.

“What’s the delay?” he asked in irritation. “We’ve been here two hours, waiting.”

As McCoy packed up his medical tricorder, he glanced around the room.

“You men are unbelievably ugly,” he said. “That might have something to do with it.”

“Really?” replied Glorak from a window overlooking the cargo bay. “You think so?”

“Yes,” said McCoy. “You especially.”

Glorak snorted a laugh. His Tellarite snout popped in and out.

“See?” said McCoy. He shook his head.

“He’s right,” said Marcus, a skinny cadet from Seattle. He pointed at Glorak. “You should be shot and processed in salt.”

Glorak nodded back. “Along with your mother,” he said politely.

Marcus, grinning, acknowledged defeat and held up his palm. Glorak reached over and high-fived him.

Kirk shot McCoy a grateful grin.

It had been a long weekend. On Saturday the team lost a member, a cadet named Simmons, who, despite his stellar Academy record—or maybe because of it—suddenly packed up and fled home to Omaha. To replace him Kirk had recommended Braxim, the Academy’s only Xannon cadet. Kirk knew that his easygoing demeanor would be a plus for team chemistry. He needed someone to offset Raynor, who Kirk feared had a tendency to be a loose cannon. And he didn’t need that on his team. Braxxy was strong and smart and had performed well with his own ATT team, which got ousted in the semifinal round of testing.

Across the room, Braxim stood up and tried to stretch. His micro-elastic biosuit clung to him like a second skin.

“These are decidedly uncomfortable for a man of my girth,” he said. “But I guess it’s better than bloating up like a week-old corpse.” The biosuit’s purpose was to maintain counterpressure in the vacuum of space, where decompression caused Humanoid flesh to swell up to twice its normal size.

Kirk grinned over at McCoy. “Sure you don’t want to join us up there, Bones?” he said.

“People should just stay on their planets,” muttered McCoy.

Braxim laughed his foghorn laugh.

“Doctor, I’m tempted to agree with you,” he said. “My Xanno ancestors emigrated from rock to rock for four hundred and fifty years. We planet-hopped across two quadrants, finding nothing but pestilence and racist rejection. We crossed mountains, deserts, oceans, voids, and asteroid belts looking for a home. My people camped on countless miserable way-station planets until we found New Xannon.”

Suddenly a red light flashed over the ready-room door.

“Team Delta,” called a voice over the speakers. “Your shuttle is ready. Prepare to board.”

Raynor punched the air. “Yes!” he said.

“Please proceed to Pad Fourteen,” added the voice.

As the five cadets began to gather up their gear, McCoy approached Kirk looking a bit embarrassed. Seeing this, Kirk asked, “What’s up, Bones?”

“I’m supposed to give you this,” said McCoy.

He slipped a small felt bag tied with green ribbon into Kirk’s hands. Kirk untied and opened it. Inside was a botanist’s eyepiece on a lanyard, and a note.

The note read:

Always check for glands on the underside of leaves. Look for growth patterns and try to figure out, “Why?” Never assume the plant you see is all there is. You are damn sexy when you’re about to kick some ass. I’m off at seven. Hannah xo

Smiling, Kirk folded the note and slipped it with the eyepiece into a hip pouch on his biosuit.

“And let me add, Jim, this girl is a something else,” said McCoy, widening his eyes.

Kirk grinned. “She’s a good one,” he said.

McCoy nodded. “I like her,” he said.

“Me too.”

“Although she does remind me a bit of my ex-wife,” said McCoy with a dark look.

Kirk clapped McCoy on the shoulder. “Friend, not every bright, beautiful girl is out to tear the flesh from your bones,” he said.

“I hope not,” replied McCoy. “I’ll walk out with you.”

The team walked single file between the rows of support craft lining the walls of Shuttle Hangar 1. Behind Kirk and McCoy, Braxim was still talking about his home world.

“New Xannon is a beautiful place, my friends, much like your Earth!” he exclaimed. “Yet it is thirty-two thousand light-years from our planet of origin, and that makes me sad.” He shook his head. “I sometimes wonder if the tales are fantastic myths.”

Up ahead, McCoy could see the sign marking LANDING PAD 14. There, red landing lights flashed on the Gilliam as the nacelles that housed the twin ion-impulse engines began to whine.

At the shuttle door, McCoy grabbed Kirk’s hand and gave it a firm shake.

“Good luck, Captain,” he said.

“Thanks, Doctor,” said Kirk.

As Kirk hopped aboard, Braxim stepped up behind him, eyes twinkling. “By winning today, I honor my ancestors, Dr. McCoy,” he said.

“Yes, I’m sure word will spread clear back to your origin world, wherever that is,” said McCoy.

“Perhaps so,” said Braxim. “But it would take many years to reach the core ward sectors of the Delta Quadrant.”

Frowning, McCoy watched the big Xanno duck into the passenger compartment.

“Delta Quadrant?” he repeated.

Uhura’s heels clicked sharply on the pavement as she walked across campus toward the Institute of Xenology building. The irritation in her throat and chest had subsided considerably, with only a mild tickle remaining.

At the institute’s entry checkpoint she put her eye to the iris scanner. The device beeped and said: “Nyota Uhura, cadet first.” When the door hissed open, she stepped to the reception desk and flashed her security badge.

“Hi, Jerry,” she said.

“Hey, Nyota!” said the big security guard sitting at the desk. “Where you been?”

“Trust me, you don’t want to know,” she replied.

Jerry pointed at the sign-in sheet. “You got visitors waiting for you in the lab,” he said. “Couple of doctors.”

“What? I just left a full physical exam,” said Uhura with annoyance. She read the names on the sheet and frowned. “Yep, that one’s on my medical team. I don’t know this other guy.”

“I bet they just like checking your pulse,” said Jerry with a wink.

Uhura gave him a look. He put his hands up.

“I’m just saying,” he said with a grin.

When she reached the lab, Dr. McCoy rose from his chair and said, “Hello, Cadet.” Another young man in a lab coat stood and nodded.

“Doctor, your interns just checked my lungs twenty minutes ago,” she said.

“I’m not here about your lungs,” replied McCoy. “It’s about your translations.”

Uhura looked surprised. “What about them?”

McCoy gestured to the man next to him. “Cadet Uhura, this is Dr. Parag Chandar,” he said. “He runs the nanotech lab over in Hawking Hall.”

“A pleasure,” said Chandar, shaking Uhura’s hand and bowing.

Uhura smiled. “So what’s up?”

Chandar smiled brightly. “We have some information that might be useful for you,” he said.

Orbiting Earth at an altitude of two hundred fifty miles above the equator, the shuttle Gilliam fired a small side thruster, starting a gentle spin. Its nose pointed toward the center of a massive rotating space platform; the shuttle’s rotation soon synched with the platform’s spin. Then the Gilliam nudged forward into a large rectangular docking bay.

“Helmets on,” called the pilot. “Prepare for EVA.”

Team Delta exchanged looks. EVA: extravehicular activity. A spacewalk.

“Wow,” said Raynor.

“This is it,” Braxim added.

Kirk reached down and pulled a pressurized helmet out of the compartment under his seat.

“Let’s do it,” Kirk said.

The lightweight helmet slid over Kirk’s head then locked under a foamed neoprene flap in his biosuit’s neckline for a tight seal. He connected the helmet’s air tube to a small dual-purpose backpack; the pack held three hours’ worth of breathable air plus a set of small ion thruster-jets for spacewalk maneuvers. ATT program cadets got lots of training in biosuits, so Team Delta was ready to go in less than a minute.

On the flight up, the team had received a live video briefing from a simulated Mission Control. The dour-looking flight controller, Commander Jack Stetmann, appeared on-screen and reported the following sequence of “events” to brief them:

• Three days ago, Starfleet Intelligence intercepted a signal from a deep-space object of substantial mass.

• A patrol craft had tracked the coordinates to an active space platform of advanced design.

• Attempts to communicate with the facility got no response.

• A security recon team discovered a simple airlock, then entered and established an outpost.

• Preliminary visual and sensor scans revealed what appeared to be a vast alien ecosystem.

“A floating greenhouse,” the commander had called it. “We’ve designated it Tanika Station. Captain Kirk, your team is being deployed as a science unit for observation and sampling. Questions?”

Kirk said, “Any sentient life-forms? Inhabitants?”

“Negative.”

“Anything moving?” asked Kirk.

“Negative. Other than water.”

Kirk checked his notes. “Breathable atmosphere?”

“It appears so,” answered Commander Stetmann. “No noxious gases, just oxygen-based gases. However, the security team conducted no tests for microcontaminants.”

“Noted,” said Kirk. “Aside from the airlock, any other mechanical systems evident?”

“None visible, Captain.”

Kirk noted his phrasing, and checked his notes again. “Artificial gravity?”

Stetmann nodded. “There is gravity plating in the hull.”

Kirk smiled. “So we’re looking at a walk in the park.”

Stetmann’s face remained inscrutable. “Not sure what you mean, Captain.”

“Tanika Station appears to be an uninhabited alien conservatory of sorts,” said Kirk. “Like an arboretum. A park.”

“So it seems,” replied Commander Stetmann.

Glorak leaned toward the screen. “Do you recommend side arms at the ready, Commander?”

“Phasers are always recommended in alien settings, Cadet,” said Stetmann.

The EVA was simple and uneventful.

A few quick bursts of the backpack jets propelled all five cadets to the airlock at the far end of the docking bay. A single handle opened the door to the interior chamber, which was big enough for a platoon of twenty cadets. Inside, another handle closed and pressurized the airlock. Kirk immediately found himself standing on the floor.

“Ah, the graviton plate automatically activates,” said Glorak.

Seconds later, the team stepped out into Tanika Station. None of them were quite prepared for what they saw.

“Mother of god,” said Cadet Marcus.

Nobody else spoke.

The small clearing just beyond the airlock doorway was a like an elevated platform. It offered a panoramic view of the station’s interior, which was shaped like a vast oval bowl. The space was at least a mile long, three football fields wide, and as tall as a fifteen-story building. It dropped in toward the center, where a silver lake glittered at the bottom of the bowl.

Kirk raised a digital optics scope to his visor and surveyed the terrain. Around the oval, about a dozen narrow streams flowed down the sides of the landscape bowl—the water originated from spouts low in the station wall at the top. The streams wound through lush jungle vegetation before emptying into the central lake. A system of narrow walking trails crisscrossed over the streams and one another. Above, two wide solar strips ran the length of the ceiling, casting a full-spectrum glow. The colors were remarkably vibrant.

“This is . . . beyond words,” he murmured.

One of the spouts gushed from the wall just thirty yards from the airlock door. A dirtlike path led from the airlock down a gentle slope, then curved along the running stream.

“Is that actually water?” asked Glorak.

“My scanner says yes,” said Braxim, holding up his tricorder. “No surprise, really. Water is one of the most abundant molecules in the universe and seems essential for any living system.”

“These all flow into that central lake,” said Kirk, pointing.

“Incredible,” said Glorak.

Kirk took in the stunning panorama one more time, then turned his mind to the action plan. “Let’s keep the helmets on for now, gentlemen,” he said. “Mr. Raynor, take some air readings, please.”

“Right, Captain.” Raynor unpacked his tricorder, added an attachment, and started running scans.

Braxim gazed around in wonder.

“This place is rich with life!” he exclaimed. “You can just feel it!”

Kirk said, “It feels you too, Mr. Braxim. And it might not like you.”

Braxim held up his arms and turned around in a circle.

“I am no threat!” he called out.

Kirk had to smile at that.

Tanika Station did indeed teem with life, albeit strange life. A cool, humid breeze blew through the landscape. It felt like an English garden—natural and a bit wild, not the orderly rows of foliage found in a typical greenhouse.

“Sensors indicate good air composition, no sign of microbial pathogens,” called Raynor. “Nothing bad to breathe, Captain.”

“Okay, I’ll give it a go,” said Kirk.

He unlocked his helmet and lifted it an inch or so, breathing in the Tanika Station air. It was moist, pungent, and fragrant. After inhaling shallowly twenty times and feeling no dizziness or other effects, Kirk removed the helmet and tried a few deep breaths.

“I think it’s good,” he said. “Raynor, keep your hat on for a while, just in case.”

“Aye, Captain,” replied Raynor.

Glorak, Marcus, and Braxim pulled off their helmets and clipped them to their utility belts. The team spent the next twenty minutes setting up a rudimentary base camp with lab equipment near the airlock door. When they finished that task, Raynor popped off his helmet too.

Kirk slung a pack over his shoulders. He stepped to the trailhead. Ahead, the colors were so vivid, Kirk was reminded of a Matisse watercolor.

“Okay, gentlemen,” he said. “Let’s move to Phase One recon.”

Uhura stared in horror at the monitor on her lab work-station. On-screen, a black swarm was imploding an amoeba proteus.

“Those . . . things were in my nose and throat?” she said in disgust.

“Yes,” said McCoy.

“And you say they can go anywhere?” she said.

“Almost,” said McCoy.

“We were able to contain these specimens in a quantum field chamber,” said Chandar.

“Well that’s nice,” said Uhura.

McCoy nodded. “I find them just as disturbing and creepy as you do, Cadet,” he said. “But now you can see how the Doctor, damn his name, could remove Human internal organs without incisions or any other sign of trauma. See, he didn’t actually remove the organs. He directed these little bastards to enter the victim’s body and eat them.”

Uhura just stared at the monitor. A flash of anger lit her dark eyes.

“That’s beyond evil,” she said.

“I fully agree,” said McCoy.

“But how, exactly, does this information help my translation research?” asked Uhura.

Dr. Chandar froze the video screen.

He said, “Data extracted from the nanite swarm indicates that its place of origin is deep in the Delta Quadrant. No doubt this mysterious serial killer is a Delta alien as well.”

Uhura considered this for a moment. Then she said, “You’re suggesting that the killer might be speaking in some language indigenous to the Delta Quadrant?”

“Correct,” said Chandar.

She shook her head. “Doctor, the Federation has never had any contact, direct or indirect, with any Delta race or entity. Thus I’ve had absolutely no experience with any Delta language.”

“Actually, you have,” said Chandar, smiling.

Uhura frowned. “What do you mean?”

“The Xanno emigrated from Delta space,” said Chandar.

Uhura gave him a skeptical look. “I’ve heard that, but I assumed it was just folklore,” she said. “A creation myth.”

“Tell that to a Xanno,” said McCoy.

He pulled a sheet of paper from a folder and set it on the console in front of Uhura.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“It’s a highly classified, Priority Three level study of Xanno history compiled by Starfleet Intelligence prior to admission of New Xannon into the United Federation of Planets in 2229,” said McCoy. “You’ll find that the evidence for the Delta origin of the Xannon race is pretty definitive.”

Uhura scanned the document.

“Okay,” she said. “But I still don’t get how that helps me. There must be hundreds of thousands of Delta Quadrant languages. Why would this alien killer know Xanno, especially if the Xanno left that quadrant more than four hundred fifty years ago? Seems like a long shot.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” said McCoy. He pulled another sheet of paper from his folder and handed it to Uhura.

“And what’s this?” she asked.

“Eyewitness accounts of the attack on Cadet Gaila from the police report,” said McCoy. “Note the parts I highlighted. Both Jim Kirk and Braxim describe the same thing: the odd behavior of the so-called ‘black fog’ that suddenly rose up around Braxxy. That was undoubtedly a nanite swarm. And both cadets believed that the killer was speaking to Braxim when he made the statement recorded in the 911 call.”

Uhura’s eyes widened. “Yes, that is very interesting.”

Dr. Chandar nodded vigorously. “And I find it quite interesting that the swarm rejected Cadet Braxim.”

“Rejected?” said Uhura.

“Yes!” said Chandar excitedly. “Given what we know of the swarm’s inquisitive tendencies, it seems most unusual that it made no attempt to enter our Xannon friend and . . . well, conduct its research, as it were.”

“Yes, it looks like the good Doctor gave Braxxy a quick scan and then spoke to him,” said McCoy.

“As if in recognition!” cried Chandar, rubbing his hands.

“Possibly,” said Uhura. “Of course, Braxim didn’t recognize the spoken language either. So it wasn’t Xanno.” Her eyes lit up. “Or at least, not Xanno as it’s usually spoken.”

McCoy noted her sudden enthusiasm.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

Uhura started punching buttons on the console. She said, “My last scan for Romulan sonic fragments produced some match results. It seems possible that the recorded phrases are actually scrambled bits of Romulan, at least in part. But we could only match fragments to about sixty percent of the first phrase. And of course, they made no sense in the order they were spoken.”

“But now you’ll scan for Xanno fragments too?” said Dr. Chandar, grasping what she was thinking.

“Computer,” said Uhura to the console. “Let’s look for fragments in Sample One again. This time run it with subroutine XAX-zero-one, please.”

“Acknowledged,” said the computer.

The console made a rapid series of ping! sounds. Uhura smiled big at McCoy and Chandar.

“Each ping is a match,” she said.

“Thirty-one matches found,” said the console.

“Okay, show us the original spectrogram, please,” said Uhura.

A graph filled with jagged white lines popped up on-screen. It was the digital sound-picture Uhura had created from the 911 recordings of the killer’s spoken words.

“Those white frequency bands are the killer’s words to Cadet Braxim,” she said. “Computer, superimpose the Romulan sonic fragment matches onto this graph, please.”

About two-thirds of the white bands turned red.

“The red bands are the parts that appear to be fragments of Romulan words,” said Uhura. “Computer, now superimpose the Xanno matches as well.”

All of the remaining white bands turned blue, and many of the red bands turned purple where the red and blue overlapped.

“Wow,” said McCoy.

“Okay,” said Uhura, looking at the spectrogram. “As you can see, the Romulan and Xanno speech is not only fragmented, but also scrambled together in overlapping tracks.” She shook her head in frustration. “Unscrambling that mess would be like decrypting a coded military communiqué. I just don’t have the computing power to do that.”

McCoy and Chandar exchanged a look.

“Cadet,” said McCoy. “I think it’s time you met the Cheetah.”

Team Delta’s Phase One game plan was to simply explore, observe, and record. The original consensus had been to allot just one hour for this activity. But the team quickly tripled that time based on the sheer size of the specimen collection field.

Those first few hours in Tanika Station flew by fast. As Kirk jotted notes on his e-pad near a stand of spiraling lemon-yellow shoots that curled upward into spectacular interlocking patterns, he glanced over at Braxim. The big Xanno sat raptly next to a low murmuring waterfall.

“I could live here, Jim,” he said, watching water flow over a stacked jumble of smooth rocks.

Kirk closed the e-pad. “Maybe that’s possible,” he said.

Braxim smiled. “How so, my friend?”

Kirk gazed up at the spiraling yellow plants.

“Braxxy, this platform doesn’t exist just to test a handful of lowly Starfleet cadets once a year,” he said. “It’s clearly some sort of advanced bioscience facility.”

“It is a magnificent space!” Braxim boomed. He pounded his great barrel chest a couple of times for emphasis. “If I could work here every day, I would consider life a daily blessing.”

Kirk smiled, thinking about Hannah. “Yeah, I know someone else who’d share that sentiment.” It wasn’t the first time that Hannah had popped into his head. It seemed he couldn’t stop thinking about her.

Nearby, Marcus was snapping holo-photos of a patch of what looked like nubby red ice plant growing on the stream’s bank. The camera flashes were as bright as lightning, and Kirk winced. Not far from Marcus, Glorak stood calf-deep in the rushing stream.

“I’ve never seen such dense moss colonies,” called Glorak. “Look at those finely articulated sporophytes over there.” He pointed toward a cluster of moss capsules, all brilliant orange and fire red. “Look at the colors!”

Kirk glanced over at Marcus. “What’s your take on this place, Marcus?”

Marcus adjusted his camera lens. “I grew up near the Olympic peninsula, west of Seattle,” he said. “It’s a temperate rain forest—a jungle, but cool, not tropical.” He aimed at the spiraling yellow plants. “This place is a temperate rain forest on steroids.”

Just up the trail, Raynor waved his tricorder scanner around the paddlelike fronds of a bright green fern shuddering in the breeze.

Kirk called to him. “What about you, Raynor?”

“I don’t know, man,” replied Raynor. “Something about this place feels weird.”

Kirk had the same feeling, especially as they’d explored lower into the bowl and gotten closer to the central lake. A basin of sediment surrounded it, and the air smelled more pungent the closer they got to the silvery water.

“It does feel different here,” grunted Glorak from the stream.

“Yeah,” whispered Marcus loudly. “It feels like we’re being watched.”

Kirk agreed. Somewhere, fifteen or twenty vigilant test administrators and Starfleet senior officers were observing and logging their every move and spoken word. But this feeling was more than that. To Kirk, it almost felt as if the environment of Tanika Station was watching them.

After three hours of careful observing, imaging, and note-taking—all the while following Starfleet science directives to the letter—Team Delta climbed back to base camp to prepare for their Phase Two specimen-collection activities. As the cadets unpacked their science kits, Kirk remembered Hannah’s gift, the botanist’s eyepiece. He pulled it from his hip pouch and slung the lanyard around his neck.

“We Tellarites are deeply fond of nature,” said Glorak as he loaded items into a pack.

“Yes, it’s an excellent place to root for truffles,” said Marcus.

Glorak laughed. He was always good-natured about the endless pig jokes people tossed his way.

“Well,” he replied, “speaking of that, I suggest we start by rooting in that central basin around the lake. The growth patterns there are unusual, and the specimens promise to be quite curious.”

“Yeah, there’s some wacky stuff down there,” agreed Marcus.

“Good plan,” said Kirk. “That basin is clearly the nexus of this environment.”

The team set off down the path. As Kirk trekked between rows of bizarre periwinkle horsetails waving in the artificial breeze, he felt Hannah’s eyepiece swinging on his neck. He wondered how she would be running this show. As they descended into the basin surrounding the lake, Kirk noticed that the pungent, almost metallic smell was now stronger.

Up ahead, Glorak suddenly stopped, looking confused.

“What are these?” he asked. He turned to Kirk.

Glorak stood next to a pair of shaggy plants, gnarled with yellow vines and hung with multicolored, fruitlike pods. They grew from a mound of black, sludgy silt on the stream bank. Each stood about three feet tall and spread equally wide. Each was a remarkably complex coil of shapes and colors.

“Wow,” said Marcus, unpacking his camera.

“Those weren’t here before,” said Raynor, rubbing his crew-cut hair in a move Kirk had come to recognize as a stress tick. He glanced off to the left. “Look, there’s more.”

Sure enough, several dozen of the bright, twisted plants grew along the lakeshore. Some were bigger and more colorful, featuring more knots of tissue, bulb, and vine—clearly in a more advanced state of growth. But others were no bigger than small houseplants.

“They’re beautiful,” said Braxim.

“Yes!” said Glorak, excited. He slung off his pack and slid a sterile plant trowel from a side sleeve. “They obviously grow with great speed. If we can get one of the smaller samples under the microscope at base camp immediately, we may be able to record some of the cellular growth.”

Kirk just stared at the nearest organism. He took a few steps closer to it.

Meanwhile, the others were following the Delta game plan. Marcus locked his camera atop a titanium tripod and opened its legs wide.

“I’ll overlay the collection grid while you guys snip samples,” he said.

Meanwhile, Raynor was checking his plan notes. “Okay, we’ll need images and samples of primary organ structures from a healthy, mature specimen,” he said. He unsheathed his laser pruning shears and stepped toward one of the taller plants. “This one looks good and strong.”

Next to him, Braxim began to pull out plastic specimen bags. “You snip, I’ll collect,” he said to Raynor.

As all of this was going on around Kirk, he watched silently. His mind was racing.

“Hey, stop!” he said suddenly.

All four of his team members stopped and looked at him.

Kirk stepped toward the mature plant that Raynor had been about to cut a sample from. “This plant looks familiar,” he said.

Raynor shrugged. “So?”

Kirk pulled out his e-pad and tapped the screen a few times. He held it out toward Raynor.

“Check it out, man,” he said.

Four windows were opened on-screen. Each displayed an image of a different plant specimen they’d studied higher up in the Tanika Station bowl. All four species were now visible as organ systems integrated on the new plant growing on the bank.

The other cadets examined the images.

“Wow,” said Marcus. “This is a superplant.”

“These other species must be migrating downstream and combining somehow,” said Glorak.

“Yes,” said Braxim. “They’re definitely merging together into more complex structures.”

“I don’t like the word structures,” said Kirk. “Let’s call them bodies with organs, shall we? Because that’s what they are.”

“What a discovery!” said Glorak. He held up his trowel. “We must dig out a sample.” Then he leaned closer to Kirk and whispered, “Dissection and learning its recombinant mechanisms could be the key to winning this scenario, Jim.”

Kirk shook his head. “No. Wait,” he said. “All we did was follow a path. Any fool could make that so-called discovery. If the Science mission final is that simple, I’m sure even Viktor Tikhonov passes with flying colors.”

“So what are you saying?” asked Raynor. “You think these plants are intelligent? Because they sure don’t look like it.”

“Neither do you,” said Kirk, “but we don’t just chop you up into lab samples.”

“Jim, it’s just a plant,” protested Glorak. “You eat vegetables, do you not?”

“Guys, look around,” said Kirk. “What’s the basic dynamic of this ecosystem? So far it’s entities of lower complexity combining into entities of higher complexity.” Kirk gestured toward the big, complex plant. “Does that look like a vegetable? And do you think all this recombinant magic stops with him? We’ve only been here three hours! In three more hours, this plant might evolve into Viktor Tikhonov.”

The group continued to look skeptical.

“But then it would be a vegetable,” said Marcus, breaking the tension.

Kirk laughed. “Look, all I’m saying is this: If we take our samples, what further development have we stopped? And what are we killing in the process of collecting samples?”

Raynor just stared at his laser shears with intensity. He was itching to collect samples.

“I know your story, Kirk,” he said. “We all do.”

Kirk turned to Raynor. This was it, he knew: The moment your crew goes with you or not. There are moments where command is won or lost. Kirk felt it here. And there was no formula to follow. Just your gut.

“What’s up, Raynor?” he asked.

“Most of your life, Starfleet was the last place you wanted to be,” said Raynor. “But me, I’ve wanted to be a starship bridge officer since I was six years old.” He glanced over at the others. “What if he’s wrong, guys? What if that’s just a dumb plant, and we fail our Science mission final because of some ridiculous tree-hugging theory?” Raynor rubbed furiously at his head. He was getting very agitated.

Kirk looked at the lake; it was as smooth as a mirror. He took a deep breath. He knew he was right and Raynor was wrong. But Raynor’s point was valid, and he needed to be dealt with in a way that wouldn’t alienate him. He tried to think from Raynor’s perspective. What did he know about him? The guy was obsessive about detail in lab sciences. Cadets hated being his partner for lab work because he was never satisfied with results. Kirk knew how to proceed.

“What are you trying to say?” Kirk asked, looking him straight in the eyes.

“I’m not saying anything, Captain,” said Raynor.

Kirk nodded. “I just don’t want to be a sloppy scientist. I don’t want to make critical mistakes because I hurried when I didn’t have to. Let’s just take a step back here, okay?”

Raynor’s eyes widened, but he didn’t speak.

“This basin down here,” said Kirk, “this silt, the lake—it’s different. It’s special. We all feel it. It’s some kind of broth of life.” He held out his arm. “But it’s still outside our normal frame of reference.”

Braxim folded his arms. “Maybe we should stop thinking of this place as a science test,” he said.

Kirk nodded. “See, I think we unconsciously assume that whoever built Tanika Station must be guys who look like us,” he said, gesturing around him. “But if this was an actual alien worldlet, maybe they wouldn’t. Maybe they’d look like him.” He pointed at the plant. “This guy might be the creator, for all we’d know right now. Or at least a link to the creator’s mind.”

Raynor stepped up to the gnarled plant. “I guess I just don’t see it,” he said.

“Look, I’m not saying you’re wrong, Jack,” said Kirk. “I’m just saying, no careless science. Let’s stick with nonintrusive methods for a while . . . you know, before we start cutting up our hosts right here in their living room.”

Raynor thought, and finally nodded. “Yeah, okay.”

“Cool,” said Kirk.

It was then that Kirk had his first insight into the mind of the Doctor prowling the city fog miles below.

He’s an alien in a place he doesn’t understand yet.

He’s a scientist.

And his research is sloppy.

Meanwhile, Marcus resumed his photography. He rotated the camera thirty degrees at a time atop the tall, slender tripod to lock in images of the surrounding specimen grid. As the strobe flashed rapidly, Kirk squinted again at its dazzling brightness. He noted the tall, slender shape formed by the three tripod legs: an elongated pyramid with lightning pulsing at the top. He’d seen it before, walking down Columbus Avenue with Hannah.

Those flashes atop the Transamerica Pyramid were alien imaging scans of the city.

Somebody was up there shooting a grid overlay of San Francisco, he thought. For their specimen-collection activity.

Suddenly the interior of Tanika Station was pierced by the loud, throbbing, intermittent wail of a siren. All activity froze as Team Delta gazed up at the sound source somewhere on the station ceiling.

Kirk’s communicator beeped. He flipped it open.

“Kirk here,” he said.

“Delta, this is Mission Control,” replied the voice of Commander Stetmann. There was an edge to his voice that hadn’t been present in the mission briefing. “We have a situation.”

Now a deep, metallic groan echoed from the far wall of the bowl. It overwhelmed the pulsing wail of the siren.

“What’s going on, Commander?” Kirk shouted over the noise.

“Sensors indicate a station hull breach,” replied Stetmann.

Kirk hesitated. Was this real . . . or part of the simulation? He looked in the direction of the sound. It didn’t sound simulated.

“Roger that, Control,” said Kirk. “Is it reparable?”

“Negative on that, Delta,” replied Stetmann. “We estimate total hull integrity failure in less than sixty minutes.” There was a pause. Then: “Get your team out of there, Captain. Fast.”

“Acknowledged,” said Kirk. “Kirk out.”

He flipped the communicator shut and turned to his away team.

“Helmets on, gentlemen!” he yelled.

CH.11.12

Pyramid Scheme

As the Gilliam’s retro-thrusters pushed it backward out of Tanika Station’s docking bay, Kirk’s gaze was glued to the shuttle window. He was anxious to see the platform’s exterior hull. He was still unsure what was real and what was simulation.

But before the Gilliam could clear the bay walls, duranium blast shutters slid down over all windows in the shuttle’s passenger cabin.

Impulsively Kirk pulled off his harness and rushed forward into the cockpit. But he arrived just in time to see blast shutters slide down over the cockpit windows as well.

“You might want to buckle up, Captain,” said the pilot.

“Do you know what’s going on out there?” asked Kirk.

“I’ve got orders to get clear fast, so that’s what I’m doing,” said the pilot.

Kirk nodded. He returned to his aisle seat and yanked down the seat harness.

The pilot’s voice came over the cabin speakers.

“Welcome back to the Gilliam,” he said. “This is Captain Spruce, your pilot. Due to the possibility of an imminent explosive decompression of massive force, we’re going to raise our deflector shields. I hope you’re buckled up, gentlemen. If it comes, it will be off the scale. We’ll be accelerating away very fast. Full-scale acceleration coming in five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one.”

And then a g-force of 6.7 plastered Kirk into his seat.

His vision went gray for a few seconds, then black. He felt himself creep up to the very edge of consciousness, but the acceleration halted after about ten seconds. Kirk was disoriented at first, but recovered quickly, as did the other cadets. Then the blast shutters slid open all around the cabin.

Kirk and Raynor, who was buckled into the window seat, both leaned to look out. But Tanika Station was not visible from their angle.

Kirk sank back into his seat. So did Raynor.

“Do you think it really exploded?” asked Kirk.

Raynor shrugged.

“If that station had a catastrophic decompression, they’re going to have a big debris problem downstairs,” said Kirk.

Raynor just looked at him.

Kirk nodded. “Never mind,” he said.

Then they all sat in silence for a long while.

Kirk had plenty of time to wonder if Team Delta would get another shot at a Science mission final. Or had they already failed? Their Phase One observation, mapping, and site-recording activity had been good at least. Or . . . well, maybe not. He had no way to compare Delta’s performance to that of Tikhonov’s Alpha squad.

All Kirk could do was sit and wait.

Uhura entered the office of Dr. Patricia Park, a well-known mathematician and head of the cryptology lab at the college. Dr. Park was sitting at her desk, shuffling papers and muttering to herself. When she spotted Uhura she jumped up and stuck out her hand.

“Patty Park!” she announced.

Uhura stepped forward and shook hands. “Cadet Uhura, Professor,” she said. “It’s an honor.”

“Yes, I’ve heard about you from Spock,” she said loudly.

Uhura was taken aback, but managed to say, “Oh. Well, good things, I hope.”

“Are you kidding me?” blurted Dr. Park. She started laughing. Then she waved a hand. “Anyway, let’s get down to it.” She suddenly ducked out of sight behind her desk.

Uhura stood there, smiling awkwardly. After almost a full minute she said, “Professor?”

Park popped up so quickly Uhura almost screamed.

“Yes, Cadet?”

“Sorry,” said Uhura, bringing a hand to her mouth. “I thought you . . . might need some help.”

“Oh, we all need help,” said Dr. Park.

She looked at Uhura for several seconds.

Uhura smiled uneasily. She was about to speak to break the awkward silence when Dr. Park snapped her fingers and pointed at her.

“Ah, right, you’re the Romulan project,” she said. “Right. I knew that!” There was a knock on the door. “Come in!” she called absently.

Dr. McCoy opened the door and entered the office. As he was about to introduce himself, Dr. Park suddenly dropped out of sight again. McCoy stopped short and frowned at Uhura, who shrugged. But this time Park popped right back up with a folder.

Reaching out his hand, McCoy said, “Professor Park, I’m Dr. Leonard McCoy from the medical college.” Dr. Park shook hands with such great vigor that McCoy almost burst out laughing. He managed to say, “Sorry I’m late. I was in the commandant’s office.” He glanced over at Uhura. “Cadet, your friend Detective Bogenn from SFPD was there with some new developments in the case.”

“We’ll talk later,” said Uhura, nodding.

Dr. Park plucked a sheet of paper from the folder and held it up.

“Here’s your first decryption,” she announced.

McCoy looked at it. “The whole thing? This soon?”

Park smiled. “Doctor, would you call a family into surgery and say, ‘Folks, I’m about halfway done with that triple heart bypass, I just wanted to chat about my progress’?”

McCoy was amused. “No,” he said. Then he added, “I like your style, Professor.”

“Grade-grubbing doesn’t work in this office, mister,” said Dr. Park with a sly look. She turned to Uhura. “Well, the Romulan part was easy. Almost beneath us, I must say. The phonic scrambling is an old Romulan military code, one that United Earth Intelligence Agency cracked almost a hundred years ago, not long after the war kicked into full gear.”

“A hundred years ago?” repeated McCoy. “How the hell does a guy get a code like that?”

“Good question,” said Dr. Park. “The Romulans stopped using this basic encryption method long before the war ended, and it’s never been seen since. Once we tapped into the archives, Cheetah nailed the Romulan bits in about two minutes. The Xanno bits weren’t much tougher, because the encryption pattern was the same. The user simply applied the scramble to the Xanno language.”

She slapped the paper onto the desk. Uhura pulled a pencil from her case and looked at the breakdown.

“I don’t know Xanno well enough yet,” she said. “But there’s enough overlap that I can probably get most of this.” She penciled in a translation quickly. “Okay, this is the first phrase, the one spoken to Cadet Braxim,” she said.

McCoy stepped up beside her to read it.

Your species has already been absorbed.

“Absorbed?” asked McCoy. “What does that mean?”

Uhura looked down at the Romulan version again.

“The Romulan verb translating to absorbed may also be interpreted in a slightly more aggressive way, depending on context,” she said. “Something that in English might be more like incorporated . . . or assimilated.”

“Your species has already been assimilated,” said McCoy with a wry grin. “Sounds like Xannon anatomy is old news to the Doctor.”

“Maybe because of their shared roots in the Delta Quadrant,” said Uhura. “They’ve encountered each other before.”

“Exactly what I was thinking,” said McCoy. “The Doctor is only interested in organs he hasn’t eaten before.”

Uhura looked up at Dr. Park, who had been listening carefully and had a funny look on her face. “What is it, Professor?”

“Doesn’t it strike you as odd that this person you recorded is speaking directly to folks using a Romulan military code scramble?” she asked. “I mean, this speech is coming right out of his mouth, right? Or is he wearing some sort of scrambler device, like a voice-filter mask that also encrypts speech? And if so, why? Doesn’t he want to actually communicate with the people he’s speaking to? Why speak in a code they cannot possibly understand? Or is he just an idiot?”

Uhura and McCoy looked at each other for a second. Then McCoy scratched his chin.

“Good questions,” he said.

“I’m sure the SFPD is wondering the same thing,” said Uhura. “Although, of course, they don’t have the benefit of our decrypted translations yet.”

Dr. Park brightened. “Ah yes,” she said. She pulled a second sheet of paper from the folder and put it on the desk. “This one had the same parameters, although the third language complicated things enough that Cheetah really chugged and took an extra forty-seven seconds to decode it.”

Uhura’s scans had found Romulan, Xanno, and English phonic fragments scrambled onto three overlapping tracks on the second recording, the one made from the Orion woman’s emergency call.

Dr. Park smiled at Uhura. “And I have a surprise for you on this one,” she said.

Uhura was intrigued. “This is the recording that ended with all that static?” she said.

“Yes and no,” said Dr. Park. “It ended with what might sound like static to the untrained ear. But my people are trained.”

McCoy and Uhura exchanged a look.

Dr. Park continued. “That static is actually a holo-image data transmission. Again, kind of old school, and kind of strange. Who speaks in binary file-transfer language?”

Once again, Uhura put pencil to paper and came up with a translation. “With the language overlaps, we have different shades of meaning on some of the words,” she said. “Again, the static is at the end. So that’s where I left a placeholder for the image data transfer.”

The translation she wrote down:

Species unknown to us. Acquire/assimilate samples that contrast with 5618. Reassemble/regroup at base [IMAGE DATA].

McCoy read it and shook his head.

“He spoke this, and then the cold-blooded bastard released his nanite swarm,” he said, “to model her liver, heart, and an organ unique to Orion women called the pherol gland. And in the course of modeling them, it destroyed them.”

Uhura pointed at the number. “What does five-six-one-eight refer to?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” said McCoy. “That same number is part of each nanite’s ID stamp.”

Uhura turned to Dr. Park. “So what’s the surprise?” she asked.

“This,” said the professor.

She opened a drawer and pulled out a small holo-projection disc the size of a coaster. It was the kind of disc that people put on their desks to display favorite holo-images. You could plug a data cube full of images into the device. The 3-D images projected up from the disk and cycled every few seconds.

“It was easy to decode the raw data—it’s just numbers, after all,” said Dr. Park. “The harder step was to find archival programs that could read the old code and project the image,” said Dr. Park. “But we found them. Then we just popped it all onto this cube.”

She plugged a cube into the projector disk.

“So based on the translation,” said McCoy, “this image we’re about to see is the base where, apparently, a regroup was supposed to happen.”

Dr. Park pressed the on/off button on the back of the holo-disc.

Up rose an old-fashioned, greenish hologram of the Transamerica Pyramid.

“Good god,” said McCoy.

At the very tip of its spire, a red bead of light flashed brightly.

Kirk couldn’t take much more introspection, so he tried daydreaming about Hannah.

It was a ninety-minute shuttle flight back to Starfleet Academy, and the first hour was spent in utter silence. The guys were spent. Marcus and Glorak fell asleep sitting up. Raynor just stared out his window. Only Braxim seemed to have any energy. He spent it reading through his notes, prepping for the post-mission debriefing session.

Suddenly the cabin viewscreen crackled to life.

“Team Delta to attention, please,” called Commander Stetmann.

Glorak awoke with a piercing snort. Everyone sat up at attention.

“I’m turning Mission Control over to Admiral Miller,” said Stetmann.

Stetmann slid off-camera and was replaced by the large, fleshy face of Rear Admiral Ben Miller, the Academy’s chief of testing services.

“At ease, Cadets,” said Admiral Miller. “Gentlemen, I’m here with the test administrators and the assessment team.” His eyes turned to Kirk’s side of the cabin. “Team Captain Kirk, I presume you will act as team spokesman?”

Kirk glanced across the aisle. Everyone nodded. Then he turned to Raynor. Raynor nodded too.

“Yes, sir,” replied Kirk.

“Good,” said Miller. He looked down at something just below camera view. “I have your final assessment here. Given your performance, it was remarkably easy to compile.” He paused. “I don’t recall a summary assessment coming together quite this quickly before.” He looked toward Kirk. “Ever.”

The admiral likes rubbing salt in the wound, thought Kirk. He resolved to maintain perfect composure and give nobody the pleasure of seeing him squirm.

“Yes, sir,” he replied coolly.

“Now, I’ve been administering Tanika Station for almost seventeen years now,” he said. “As in most of our simulations, there is no black or white, wrong or right answer. Teams can follow many courses of action and achieve varying degrees of success. Our grading methodology is very flexible.”

Kirk thought: And here it comes.

“But, Cadet, this is the only time we’ve seen a team take your course of action,” he continued. “First off, do you have any questions?”

“Yes, Admiral,” said Kirk. “Was the hull breach real or simulated?”

“Simulated,” said Admiral Miller. “We like to see how cadets react to uncertainty and the possibility of real danger.” He smiled. “Your team evacuated the station with calm, sharp attention to detail. Very impressive.”

“Yes, we retreated well, sir,” said Kirk.

Kirk heard group laughter offscreen. The admiral was amused as well.

“We have a new simulation programming chief here at the Academy,” said Admiral Miller. “He’s a recent graduate, and he’s given some of our traditional scenarios a thoughtful overhaul, including Tanika Station. In this testing, we seek to assess how your group decision-making and command judgments reflect the Starfleet mission. His insight is quite keen on these issues.” The admiral punched a button on his desktop. “I’m going to read his summary of your performance because I think it speaks for the entire assessment team.”

Kirk braced himself. He glanced over at Raynor, who looked like a prisoner at sentencing.

“‘Tanika Station,’” read Admiral Miller, “‘is a dormant alien world, reawakening. As such it presents a unique challenge for Starfleet science personnel. Its ecosystem offers much that is familiar to cadets, yet functions in a way that is entirely unfamiliar. Team Delta correctly recognized this meta-reality. The team’s decision to refrain from standard specimen collection was the most correct and most logical response possible.’”

Kirk turned to look at his teammates across the aisle. All three were grinning back like jackpot winners. Glorak even gave him a thumbs-up, which from a Tellarite is a sight to see.

Then he felt a big hand on his shoulder.

It was Raynor, next to him. He gave Kirk’s back a quick whack. Then he folded his arms, unable to suppress a goofy smile.

Admiral Miller read on: “‘Sampling would have harmed Tanika Station’s highly intelligent inhabitants, whose complex biological systems—body tissues; organs including a distributed brain structure, appendages, and connective tissue—are formed via organic synthesis reactions that are extremely rare on planets with carbon-based life forms, but do in fact exist. Taking specimen samples would disrupt the delicate processes and, in essence, kill inhabitants.’”

Like, say, somebody “researching” Humans by removing their organs, thought Kirk.

Half an hour later, Kirk stepped off the Gilliam with his Delta teammates onto Landing Pad 14. It had been nearly twelve hours since they’d reported for duty that morning to Shuttle Hangar 1. Now the sun melted into the Pacific horizon, invisible behind the columns of fog advancing on the city.

McCoy stood at the landing pad. He had a large backpack on one shoulder and held another one in his arms.

“Hey, Bones,” called Kirk. “We passed.”

“Of course you did!” said McCoy, raising his arm for a high five. “But I hope you’re not tired.”

“I’m exhausted,” said Kirk.

“Then you’ll have to rest up in the police cruiser,” said McCoy.

“What?”

“Follow me,” said McCoy. He tossed the backpack he held to Kirk. “I’ll brief you on the way.”

Kirk could see the fire in McCoy’s eyes. “What’s up, Bones? On the way to where?”

“The Doctor’s lair!” said McCoy with a wicked grin. “We’re going to nail the bastard tonight.”

Kirk was stunned. “You know where he is?”

“More or less,” said McCoy, jogging ahead. “C’mon, man, speed it up. The fog’s rolling in!”

Kirk swung the backpack onto his shoulders and started jogging to keep up. “What’s in the backpack?” he called.

“A vacuum cleaner,” said McCoy.

Kirk started laughing. “It feels like it. This pack is heavy. What’s really in it?”

But McCoy wasn’t kidding.

Ten minutes later Kirk found himself in the backseat of an SFPD hovercraft. He was crammed between two people: McCoy and Cadet Uhura. Kirk was almost too tired to enjoy being in such a tight space with Uhura. Almost.

“This is cozy,” he said to Uhura.

She rolled her eyes. “I think you’re still feeling the effects of zero-g there, Cadet,” she said.

“Could be,” said Kirk. He glanced down at the laptop case on her lap. “Mind if I check my e-mail?”

Uhura gave McCoy an exasperated look.

“Jim, let’s go over the plan,” said McCoy.

“What plan?”

“The one we hastily devised with no real thought given to any contingencies,” replied McCoy.

“I know that plan,” said Kirk. “I use it a lot.”

On the jog across Shuttle Hangar 1 to the policecraft, McCoy had brought Kirk up to date on Uhura’s translations and the Transamerica Pyramid hologram. Now he opened a side pouch on the backpack that sat on his lap.

“Jim, the Doctor may be a tough guy, or not—nobody really knows,” he said. “But we do know that his nanite swarm is lethal and almost unstoppable if it decides to come after you. So Parag and I did a little testing in his lab this afternoon.”

McCoy pulled a standard type-two phaser pistol from the side pouch.

“First, we have this baby,” he said. “It’s slightly modified. When you fire a wide-field spread shot in this setting, you vaporize all nanites within the primary area of effect. The problem, of course, is that any surviving bits self-replicate so quickly that the swarm can just keep coming at you.”

Kirk pulled another phaser pistol from his backpack. “It’s preset to disruptor effect?” he asked.

“Right,” answered McCoy. “Now, it only takes a few thousand nanites, enough to fill a grain of sand, to create a microfactory that produces more nanites. If just that many get inside you, they can start tearing apart your flesh at the cellular level and then use the molecular debris to crank out more nanites. In less than a minute you’d be consumed from the inside out.”

“Wow,” said Kirk, his smile fading. “That sounds unpleasant.”

“But Starfleet doesn’t recruit geniuses like Parag Chandar for nothing,” said McCoy. “Remember that a nanite is a computerized machine. It relies on a data stream for instructions and operation. Parag ran a few tests and learned that very high-frequency sound disrupts that data stream in these nasty buggers.”

McCoy opened the backpack’s other side pouch and pulled out a small device about the size of a wallet.

“This is an ultrasonic sound emitter,” he said. “It’s set to a specific frequency that—in the lab, anyway—seems to freeze any nanite within its wave radius. The frequency is about fifty kilohertz, too high for our ears, so you won’t hear anything when you activate it. But the sound is there.”

“Like a dog whistle,” said Kirk.

“Exactly,” said McCoy.

Finally, McCoy opened the backpack’s main compartment and pulled out a flexible rubber hose.

“The spire of the Transamerica Pyramid is an enclosed space that gets smaller the higher you go,” said McCoy. “Phaser fire might be dangerous up high in the spire. I wasn’t joking about the vacuum cleaner,” he added. “Your pack holds a portable vacuum unit used for collecting hazardous gases and microwaste at industrial or biomedical accident sites. It’s very powerful, so watch where you aim, pal.”

Kirk stared at the hose.

“We’re going to vacuum the guy?” he asked.

McCoy gave him a look. “Look, Parag coated the dust bags inside the canisters with a medical polymeric matrix sealant, permeable enough to let air molecules pass through but impermeable enough to contain half-micron nanites . . . for a while, at least.” He grimaced. “We think.”

“You think?” said Kirk.

“Well, a plastic bag is not quite like a quantum containment chamber, which is virtually unbreakable,” said McCoy. “Parag can foresee a scenario where a smart swarm analyzes its predicament, bonds into a solid state—like, say, a metal fist—and just punches through the bag.”

“That’s . . . almost funny,” said Kirk.

“Yeah, hilarious,” said McCoy.

Kirk turned to Uhura.

“Hi,” he said.

She just rolled her eyes.

“So what’s with the laptop?” asked Kirk.

Uhura slid a slim tablet computer from its sleeve. “This is our translator,” she said.

“I thought you were the translator,” said Kirk.

“Well, if the Doctor speaks, I record it and run a spectrographic analysis here,” said Uhura. “Then a subroutine scan unscrambles and translates anything he says almost instantaneously. This assumes he’ll use the same outdated Romulan military code, and also scramble known languages like Romulan, Xanno, and English. I have their databases in here.”

McCoy nodded admiringly. “She put this together herself, Jim, in about two hours,” he said.

“And you coordinated this with Detective Bogenn?” asked Kirk.

“Yes,” said McCoy. “He was skeptical until he learned of another ‘smoke inhalation’ incident the other night. Get this: It attacked security personnel up in the pyramid’s spire.”

“Wow, in the spire itself?” exclaimed Kirk.

The Transamerica Pyramid loomed up ahead. On the building’s north side, the blue police cruiser lowered through the fog to Washington Street. The SFPD had the perimeter locked down, with streets barricaded two blocks in every direction. Police vehicles clustered in the intersections with lights flashing.

“Don’t you think all this activity will scare him away?” asked Uhura, glancing around as she stepped through the cruiser’s rear hatch.

“I hope so,” said Kirk. “’Cause I’m going into battle with a serial killer armed with a vacuum cleaner.”

Detective Bogenn approached them from the main entrance of the building.

“Hello, Starfleet,” he said grimly.

The pyramid’s security control center on the thirtieth floor was an armed camp of SWAT units and regular cops hauling heavy weaponry. As they entered, Detective Bogenn, McCoy, and Kirk glanced around at all the hardware.

“Look at these jokers,” muttered McCoy.

Detective Bogenn led them toward an old-fashioned bank of elevators.

“Bigger guns make them feel better,” said the detective. “Especially when they have no idea what they’re facing. But then again, neither do I.”

A self-important-looking SWAT captain stood with his team blocking access to the elevators. They projected a studied air of military menace.

As Detective Bogenn moved toward the nearest elevator, the SWAT captain stepped in his way. Bogenn regarded him. “Yes, Captain Detroit?” he said.

Kirk burst out laughing. “Is that really your name?”

“Who are these kids, Detective?” growled the captain, ignoring Kirk.

Kirk whipped out the vacuum cleaner hose and said, “Starfleet maintenance. We’re here to clean up the mess, Captain.”

Bogenn turned to look at Kirk.

Kirk reached down and flicked on his vacuum unit. After a few seconds of loud whooshing, he turned it back off. Then he put a finger to the earpiece of his headset and spoke quietly.

“Hotel Bravo, this is Go Team Alpha, vacuum unit is operational, repeat, operational,” he said. Then he smiled at the SWAT guys.

Bogenn turned wearily back to the SWAT captain. “This is Starfleet jurisdiction, Captain,” he said. “Stand down, please.”

Captain Detroit and his men exchanged a few looks, but then the captain took a smart step backward.

“Thank you, Captain,” said Detective Bogenn.

As they rode the elevator up to its topmost floor, forty-eight, Bogenn looked over at McCoy.

“Doctor, I understand Starfleet wants me posted in the command center,” he said.

“That’s right, Detective,” said McCoy.

“Why?” he asked bluntly.

Kirk spoke up. “Because it’s unsafe.”

Bogenn turned sharply to him.

“Cadet, I’ve been hunting this son of a bitch for eighteen years,” he said. “He’s brutally murdered eight people, and there’s a ninth, a fine woman, fighting for her life on a breathing machine right now. I just saw her tonight. She’s dying. Only a double lung transplant could save her.”

Kirk nodded. “I understand, Detective,” he said.

“Do you?”

“Yes, I do,” said Kirk. “But with all due respect, this one’s not like anything you’ve ever seen, not at SFPD Homicide.”

Bogenn sneered. “You wouldn’t know what I’ve seen, son.”

Kirk nodded. “That’s true,” he said. “But this guy is so alien. . . . Well, he doesn’t think like anything you can relate to, not even in a twisted way.” Kirk pulled out his phaser and flicked off the safety. “To him, we’re like plants. We’re specimens. And he doesn’t fear us. Because his weapons are better than ours.”

Detective Bogenn pulled back his jacket and unsnapped the holster flap over his laser pistol.

“Well, in my book,” he said, “a killer is a killer. Period.”

Kirk shook his head. “If you try to fight him with that weapon, you’ll be dead in forty-five seconds.”

“Jim’s right, Detective,” said McCoy quietly.

Bogenn glanced up at the floor readout just as it hit forty-eight and the arrival bell dinged. “Fine. At least tell me who we’re looking at,” he said.

“Sir?”

“Who is he?” asked Bogenn. “What’s his motivation?”

“Ah,” said Kirk. He looked at McCoy.

“Hard to say,” said McCoy. “He may be a lone-wolf scientist, or hell, a scout for an advanced civilization. We just have no clue.”

“A scientist?” repeated Bogenn with raised eyebrows.

“Yeah, an evil scientist,” said Kirk.

Detective Bogenn thought about this for a few seconds. Then he said, “I can’t believe I’m letting two goofy cadets take point on this.” He shook his head. “We’re usually tossing kids like you into overnight detox.”

Kirk grinned. “The night is still young, Detective.”

The Doctor was ready for them.

The moment Kirk and McCoy stepped inside the towering spire an angry-looking cloud of churning black smoke descended on them from above. Here, on the spire’s lowest level, two thousand square feet of open space was spread around a central staircase. So it was fine for phaser fire.

“I’ll freeze them, you shoot!” shouted McCoy.

He had entered the atrium holding the sound emitter and quickly flicked it on. Above them, the smoke froze in place.

“It works!” cried Kirk.

“Of course it works!” yelled McCoy. “It’s lab tested! Now shoot the bastards, will you?”

Kirk raised his phaser and squeezed off a shot. The widespread discharge of nadium particles instantly incinerated the swarm. Charred bits dropped from the sky in a shower of ashes. Kirk and McCoy were coated in dusty gray and started coughing.

“Great jumping goats!” said McCoy, brushing ash out of his eyes and hair. “It gets you even when it’s dead.”

“Let’s move, Bones!” said Kirk. “He knows we’re here now.”

The two cadets started up the spiral staircase. The higher they climbed, the narrower and steeper the stairs grew. Both wore hands-free, voice-activated headsets to keep contact with Bogenn and Uhura at the command desk. About a hundred feet up, Kirk spotted another tendril of black haze dropping rapidly toward them from the top of the spire. It was narrower, so getting a good phaser shot would be tricky.

“Here it comes,” called Kirk, pointing at the plume.

McCoy, just below him, wielded the sound emitter. Again, the jagged cloud froze. Kirk aimed carefully, but couldn’t find a shot angle where he’d miss the stairs above.

“I’ll have to climb up and shoot out away from the staircase,” said Kirk as he clambered up the steps.

When he reached the same height as the quivering black cloud, he narrowed the phaser’s spread and aimed carefully. Before he fired, he heard the swarm’s noise—an eerie cross between a vibrating hum and a hiss. When he pulled the trigger, the blast vaporized the swarm . . . and melted a gaping hole about ten feet wide in the clear lumenite spire.

“Crap,” he said.

“Don’t worry about it. Let’s go!” called McCoy, pounding up the stairs from below.

They continued their climb. Another fifty feet up, Kirk suddenly stopped.

“Listen,” he said. “Do you hear that?”

McCoy listened. “I hear a hum,” he said, looking down at his feet. “Right there.”

Kirk’s eyes widened in alarm. He aimed the phaser at McCoy’s feet.

“Jump!” he shouted. “Jump down! Quick!”

Just as McCoy leaped, a black hissing swarm rose from the spot where he’d just been standing. It was an ambush. Kirk held his fire; the nanites were too close. McCoy quickly activated the sound emitter just as strands of oily smoke surged around him like the tentacles of a black octopus. The cloud froze again, but a few smears of black dust stained McCoy’s clothing.

“Damn!” he said, looking down. “It’s on me.”

Kirk reached in his backpack, pulled out the hose, and turned on the vacuum. He waved it around McCoy, and its powerful suction cleaned the air of black bits in just seconds. Then he carefully dabbed it at the dark smudges on McCoy’s clothes. It sucked up the nanites but also tore off two patches of the doctor’s Starfleet jumpsuit.

“Ouch. I told you it was powerful,” said McCoy, examining a reddened patch of now-exposed skin on his arm.

They continued upward, stopping every few steps to listen for signs of another ambush. The spiral of the stairs grew tighter and steeper, and the lumenite glass angled in closer on all sides as they climbed. Finally Kirk could see the landing at the bottom of the twenty-foot ladder that ran up into the beacon chamber at the top of the spire.

“Almost there, Bones,” he called down.

“Yeah, and then what?” asked McCoy.

Kirk had no answer. But he got one soon enough. As Kirk rounded the last curve of stairs and stepped onto the ladder landing, he heard a deep, metallic murmur and a hissing directly above. He looked up to see the hooded head of a dark figure looking down through the opening at the top of the ladder.

McCoy stepped up next to Kirk.

“It’s him,” hissed Kirk.

McCoy nodded. He raised his phaser and pointed it at the figure.

“Come on down, mister,” he called. “You’re now a prisoner of the United Federation of Planets.”

A second hooded head appeared in the opening, then a third. The odd metallic moan grew louder.

Kirk sighed. “This feels vaguely familiar,” he muttered.

All three figures remained motionless. The metallic moan intensified.

“Okay, so all three of you are under arrest,” called McCoy. “Are you gonna just stare at us and moan? Come on down!”

As if prompted by McCoy’s invitation, all three figures moved down through the opening. They appeared Humanoid, with black arms pulling them through the chamber hatch. All three were huge, like the seven-footer Kirk had seen attacking Gaila. But they crawled with a fluidity that gave Kirk a shiver of dread. This was inhuman, almost insectlike movement, light and weightless. As each figure cleared the chamber hatch, it crawled like a great fly away from the ladder and across the underside of the platform to the nearest lumenite wall. All three entities stopped suddenly and hovered there. They looked like vapory shadows on the spire’s glassy translucent surfaces.

“I don’t like this, Bones,” said Kirk.

Then another head appeared in the opening above. And another.

“We’re up to five,” said McCoy.

Bogenn’s voice barked in his ear. “Give me a sit rep, Cadet,” he ordered.

“We’ve got five Doctors,” reported McCoy.

“They’re . . . hanging on the inside of the spire,” said Kirk.

“What?” growled Bogenn. “Repeat that!”

“Would you call this a fair fight, Jim?” said McCoy.

“Almost,” said Kirk.

Suddenly another swarm rose up from the platform.

“Another damned booby trap!” cried McCoy as he whipped out his sound emitter and the cloud froze. But then, slowly, the swarm started swirling again, as if in slow motion.

“Good god, Jim, it’s evolving a tolerance for the frequency!” yelled McCoy in alarm.

Above them, the dark figures clinging to the glass emitted their own cacophony of sounds, hissing and moaning as before, then adding a piercing, nails-on-a-blackboard screech as well.

McCoy winced at the sounds. He looked at Kirk. “This could be very bad for us.”

Kirk raised his phaser and blasted the slow-swirling swarm into ash.

“But worse for them,” he said.

Then he swung the weapon upward. One of the figures was creeping down the glass toward them.

“I have a hunch about these guys,” he said.

Kirk fired again, vaporizing the approaching figure and burning a hole in the lumenite spire behind it. At this, one of the other figures seemed to explode, blowing apart in a puff of black smoke like an artillery air burst. Then the smoke began to swirl.

McCoy watched in horror.

“They’re all swarms!” he said.

Kirk fired again, targeting the swirling smoke. A bright flash, not seen in the other phaser strikes, erupted as the shot hit. Again, the incinerated bits dropped to the platform. Two of the remaining three figures broke apart into swarms and mingled together into a single swarm. Kirk aimed and fired. This time, the phaser’s nadion discharge seemed to flow like a fluid around the dark cloud.

“It’s adapting again,” said McCoy, “evolving some kind of shield.” McCoy pulled out his phaser and twisted the settings knob. “Parag said a smart swarm might do that.”

Kirk grimaced. “Did he say what we should do about it?”

“Yes, this,” said McCoy. He fired a more focused blast that burned a large swath through the swarm. “Adjust your phaser modulation to a higher frequency, Jim. It may only work for a few shots before—”

Suddenly Kirk’s backpack exploded.

A hissing swarm burst out. Kirk dove away and rolled hard into a wall. The swarm was all over him. He managed to activate his sound emitter, but it seemed to have little effect now. Meanwhile, the surviving bits of the swarm above dove like a downburst of wind in McCoy’s face, blinding him. Both cadets were coughing hard. Kirk felt the crawl of subcellular bits creeping across his skin, penetrating and migrating into his chest and abdomen. A wave of nausea racked him. Next to him, McCoy was starting to convulse. Both Kirk and McCoy knew they had only seconds left. Kirk felt himself on the edge of consciousness.

Looking up, he saw the Doctor’s face. The figure had descended, and stood over him. The “hood” was actually a swirling swarm, and from it a face appeared. It was the face of a woman he did not know. And then the face morphed before his eyes into . . . his own face. A pale, waxy, masked version of his face. It was the creepiest thing Kirk had ever seen.

“James T. Kirk,” spoke the figure. Just like the night by the Palace of Fine Arts.

What a lousy way to go out, he thought. Mocked by my own face.

He groped for his phaser, thinking to set it on overload. The massive explosion might tear off the top of the building, but at least he could take out this deadly mocking menace that was killing him now.

But his phaser was nowhere to be found.

And then he heard the voice again; the words were unintelligible. The last thing Kirk felt before blacking out was the reverse migration of nanites from his torso. The last thing he saw was a black torus of smoke hovering above his body.

Uhura, sitting next to Detective Bogenn at the command console on the thirtieth floor, heard the Doctor’s voice in the console speakers via Kirk’s microphone. The minute she did, she bracketed the coded clip and copied it to a sound file separate from the ongoing recording.

“We got that recorded,” she said.

“Give me a report, boys,” said Bogenn into a console mike. “Hey, Cadets! What’s going on?”

Uhura immediately created a spectrograph of the statement and then ran it through her translation loops. The whole process took just forty-five seconds.

“Here it is,” said Uhura. “The translation reads: ‘Assimilation is not advisable at this time. More five-six-one-eight study required. Terminate process and proceed to recharging chamber.’”

Uhura and Bogenn listened to the silence coming through the console.

“Kirk?” called Uhura. “Do you read me, over? Dr. McCoy?”

Kirk struggled to his feet.

Directly above him, he could hear the whine of a propulsion system powering up. He looked frantically for his phaser—still no sign of it. He scrambled up the ladder rungs into the beacon chamber.

“He’s running, Bones,” he said, panting. “He’s leaving.”

“Kirk, what’s happening?” called Uhura’s voice in his earpiece.

“There’s a flyer up here,” reported Kirk.

Kirk could see the flashing red strobe of the aviation beacon glowing around the edges of the ceiling shield platform. But as the engine whine grew louder, the red flashing stopped. Then it hit him: The beacon is a starship, he thought. The swarm had somehow assimilated the aviation strobe—the perfect disguise.

“Uhura, call Starfleet Operations,” said Kirk. “Get a sensor lock on that ship.”

Below him, McCoy groaned on the landing. Kirk looked down and saw him grab a railing with one hand and pull himself up to his knees. Amazingly, McCoy still had his phaser.

“Bones!” shouted Kirk over the rising engine whine. “Toss me your phaser!”

Kirk reached out. McCoy swung and hit Kirk’s hand with a perfect toss. Kirk cranked the phaser’s setting knob to sixteen, full power, and narrowed the firing spread. Then he stepped back down through the opening, dropped five rungs down the ladder, aimed the phaser straight up at the starship, and fired.

It was a spectacular blast.

Kirk’s shot blew off the entire top of the spire. The sturdy lumenite glass cone shattered like a delicate crystal goblet. Debris blew straight up . . . and then curved downward in fiery arcs as it tumbled in all directions.

Kirk clung to the ladder rungs and covered his face as the spire superstructure shuddered. Jagged chunks of cone glass dropped back through the blown-open top. Below him, McCoy was curled in a protective crouch against the wall on the landing. When debris stopped falling, Kirk glanced up through the jagged hole.

The west wind now whistled into the spire.

Directly above, a cube the size of a small hut hovered in the air, as if inspecting the damage. Its surface was textured with geometric patterns, and a ghostly, greenish light lit it from within. After a few seconds the cube slowly rose, rotating gently.

It looked so bizarre and unthreatening—a floating green cube—that Kirk just watched in fascination for a few seconds. Then he realized, That’s the swarm. But before he could draw another bead, the cube suddenly zipped upward at unimaginable speed.

It disappeared in less than two seconds.

CH.12.12

After the Dust Settles

Two days later, Cadet Uhura laid her hands flat on her workstation console in the Institute of Xenology’s xenolinguistics lab. A satisfied smile slowly spread over her face.

“Computer?” she said. “Please welcome me back.”

“Welcome back, Cadet Uhura,” said the console.

She felt good. This was home. Her participation in the hunt for the Doctor was rewarding. She’d helped crack the case. Now she could dive back into her work.

It was all good.

“Computer, please run a search for the number string five-six-one-eight,” she said.

“In what database?” asked the console.

“All databases,” replied Uhura.

“Acknowledged,” said the computer.

The door hissed open behind her. She swiveled her chair around. Her satisfied smile grew slightly wider.

“Hello, Commander,” she said.

“Cadet,” said Spock. “You look pleased.”

Uhura checked her smile. “Well, I am,” she said, patting the console.

“You should be,” said Spock. Arms folded, he stepped up beside her and noted what was on the monitor. “I am told you performed most admirably in the police case,” he said. “I am not surprised.”

“Well, I couldn’t let you down, Commander,” she said, folding her arms too.

“Oh, that is not possible.” He waited a moment and then quickly said, “I thought you should know about the results of the sensor trace, since you were the one who called it in.”

“You mean on the alien starship, sir?” she asked. “Because actually, I just passed along the request. That was made by—”

“Search completed,” said the console. “No significant results.”

Uhura looked surprised. “Really?” she said. “You checked all your databases?”

“Yes,” said the computer.

“Everything in the Starfleet neural network?” asked Uhura.

“Yes, everything that was not classified,” said the computer.

“Hmm,” murmured Uhura.

After a short pause, the console said, “We interpret that as a request for a verification search scan.”

Uhura laughed. “You really have me figured out, don’t you?”

“Beginning verification scan,” said the computer.

Spock found the exchange amusing. He nodded at the screen and said, “If I may ask, why the interest in that number?”

Uhura looked at the screen: 5618. “The alien nano-swarm had this identifier,” she said. “And my last translation from the swarm intelligence included the phrase ‘Assimilation is not advisable at this time. More five-six-one-eight study required.’ It communicated this immediately before withdrawing.”

“Fascinating,” said Spock.

“Do you have a theory, Commander?” asked Uhura.

“Regretfully, I do not,” said Spock. “Clearly the alien entity is referring to that which it was sent to study.”

“Well, it has a pretty nasty way of ‘studying’ folks,” said Uhura. “So, you were telling me about the sensor trace on the alien ship?”

“Yes,” said Spock. “Starfleet Operations managed to get a vector lock on the craft before it escaped. A remarkable achievement in such a constricted time frame.”

Uhura brightened. “So where did it go?”

“Unknown,” said Spock.

“But you said they got a vector lock on it,” said Uhura, confused.

“They did,” said Spock. “But then it disappeared, almost literally. The sensor readings at its last known waypoints indicated a transwarp velocity almost beyond comprehension.”

Uhura shook her head in amazement.

“So do you think it’s headed back to the Delta Quadrant?” she asked.

Spock tilted his head sideways a bit, considering the idea. “Could very well be,” he said.

Their eyes met for a couple of seconds.

“Commander,” said Uhura.

“Yes, Cadet?” replied Spock.

“I think I have some very interesting data on the phonology of Klingon aggressive-mode speech patterns you might enjoy reviewing.”

“Excellent,” said Spock. “I have fifty-seven minutes until my faculty meeting.”

“Perfect,” said Uhura.

And then they got to work.

At the Brewsky’s counter, Kirk cleared his throat a few times. Yes, the irritation was still there from his dust-storm encounters, two nights prior. But he had another motive.

“What’s a guy gotta do to get some service around here?” he called out.

After a few seconds, Hannah stepped out of the backroom.

“Hey, you,” she said, walking slowly toward him.

“Hello, barista,” said Kirk. “I see you still work here.”

“Apparently,” she said. “They handed me this apron when I walked in.” She gestured to her apron, which wasn’t much longer than her little miniskirt.

“That’s a good sign.” Kirk tried not to focus on her legs.

She stepped to the espresso machine, dumped three big scoops of fine-ground coffee in the filter basket, and then rammed the handle of the metal portafilter into place to start the brew. She glanced over her shoulder and smiled at Kirk.

Kirk said, “Hey, I didn’t say please.”

“You don’t need to anymore,” she said.

Kirk just stood and watched her work for a few seconds. She wasn’t self-conscious at all. He liked that.

He noticed that tonight she wore her hair up. He saw the hint of a tattoo on her neck, under the pile of hair scooped up, and was intrigued. He realized there was a lot he needed to learn about Hannah. “You changed your hair,” he said. “I like it.”

“I get bored easily,” she replied.

“Should I take that as a challenge?” asked Kirk with a glint in his eye. “Do I need to do something special to keep you from getting bored with me?”

Hannah shook her head and laughed.

“So when do you get off?” Kirk asked, drumming his fingers on the counter.

“Hmm . . . ,” she said, pretending to consider his question. Kirk held his breath and waited. “I just decided that it’s now. Jen!” she called.

Jen stepped from the back room. Her hands were powdered with flour. “Yes?”

“Okay if I split a little early tonight?”

Jen gave a sly look at Kirk. “Why?”

“Pretty please,” she begged.

“Give me five to finish up this batch of scones,” said Jen. “Then I’ll take the counter. And you owe me!”

“Thanks, Jen!” said Kirk and Hannah in unison.

Kirk strolled over to his corner table, feeling almost giddy at the thought of having a few hours of Hannah all to himself. He had a lot to tell her. He felt like a better man, thanks to her. Certainly a better cadet. He owed her, big-time. If he ever got to sit in the captain’s chair of a Starfleet capital ship, his decisions would be informed by her way of looking at things. Plus she was so damn sexy. Jen can’t finish those scones fast enough, he thought.

A few minutes later Hannah plopped down into the chair next to him.

“So what shall we do tonight?” he asked.

“Let’s study,” she said.

“Study?” repeated Kirk. Seriously?

“You got a test coming up?” he asked.

“No, I just like to study.”

Studying wasn’t what Kirk had in mind. He had been thinking moonlit stroll and then maybe a drink or two at a bar. Or dinner. Nevertheless, he agreed to her plan.

“But first,” he told Hannah, “I was hoping we could take a walk.”

“Okay,” said Hannah. “Why?”

“Because it’s really foggy and chilly out tonight,” he replied. “Uncomfortably cold, in fact.”

Hannah gave him an uncertain smile. “I like walks, but um, what’s your angle here?”

Kirk pointed to her jacket, which hung on a coatrack behind the counter. “Your jacket,” he said. “It doesn’t really keep you very warm, does it? In fact, that jacket sucks. Or am I wrong about that?”

Hannah looked over at her jacket.

“No, you’re right,” she said. “It sucks.”

“So, you will be freezing and I just can’t have that . . . so it will be up to me to keep you warm!” Kirk grinned at his logic. “Let’s go for a walk.”

Hannah stood up and slid her arms around Kirk’s waist. She pretended to be considering his idea. “So this walk is just a ploy to get a little closer to me?” she asked, looking up at him under lowered lashes. Kirk’s head was spinning.

“Just for a few minutes, I promise!” He held up his arms in mock surrender. “Then we can come back here and study.”

Hannah arched an eyebrow. “Cadet, who said anything about studying here? My apartment is just a few blocks away.” She playfully pushed him away, walked over to the coatrack, and pulled on her jacket. “Coming?” she asked over her shoulder.

Kirk suddenly thought studying sounded like the best idea he’d ever heard.