“Do you think it’s wrong?”
“I think it’s unduly harsh. Why do you think I have no concept of helping peo—” Then it dawned on him. “Because I didn’t rush to help you when Kemper was forcing you to do calisthenics.”
“I…wasn’t thinking about that specifically,” said Shelby in a guarded tone, “but now that you mention it…”
“Betty, for God’s sake! What would you have had me do? Run to the rescue as if you were incapable of handling it yourself? Then you would have been insulted, just as you were when Calhoun stepped in.”
“Maybe,” she admitted. “Maybe I would have been insulted. A little.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“The problem is…” She fumbled for words. “The problem is that…at least I would have known you cared enough to try.”
“I didn’t try anything because I do care. I care too much about you as a person to think of you as…as a damsel in distress. Someone whom I just whisk up in my arms at the first sign of trouble and announce, in my best manly basso profundo voice, that everything is going to be just tickety-boo. What sort of way is that to think? It seems to run in utter contradiction to everything I know about you!”
There was a long silence, and finally she said—her head cocked slightly—“Tickety-boo?”
“Yes. Tickety-boo,” he said with a widening smile.
“Don’t you ever say anything normal?”
“I try not to. Betty,” and he stood and rested his hands on her shoulders, “I was just being foolish. I should have known better than to be jealous, especially when all you’re trying to do is be a good friend and good cadet. Can we simply write this entire, ugly business off to the concept that I’m churlish, an utter cad, and move on from here?”
“Absolutely a tickety-boo idea,” she replied, stood up on her toes, and kissed him. “I have to go!” Then she turned and ran out the door.
Wexler reached down, picked up the note padd, and extended it while saying nothing. Moments later the door hissed open and Shelby charged in. She had her mouth open, ready to speak, and then saw that he was just standing there holding the padd. She bobbed her head once in appreciation, grabbed it, and bounded out of the room.
He watched her go, reasonably sure that this time she wouldn’t be coming back. Wexler was alone with his thoughts.
His thoughts…and the image of a young Xenexian cadet side by side with the woman he loved.
And he knew things were not remotely tickety-boo.
Chapter Six
Now
i.
Shelby rose from behind her desk in her ready room, hardly able to credit what Arex was telling her. Kebron was standing next to Arex. He didn’t look any happier about it.
“Are you serious?” she asked when she regained her voice.
“Captain, I know at the moment it looks bad…”
“Looks bad?” She came around the desk and looked up at the Brikar. “It’s nice to know, Mr. Kebron, that after all this time, your knack for understatement remains consistent.” She turned to Arex. “He’s loose? In the bowels of the ship?”
“I wouldn’t say ‘loose’ and ‘bowels’ so closely together,” suggested Kebron, “simply because it suggests another image entirely, and—”
“Shut up, Kebron.”
“Shutting up, Captain,” he said promptly.
“My security teams are fully mobilized,” Arex assured her. “The problem is being attended to. But we wanted to inform you immediately.”
“Thanks ever so.” She hit her combadge. “Shelby to transporter room.”
“Transporter room, Heisenberg here,” came the voice of the transporter chief.
“Heisenberg, I’ve just been informed,” she said with a menacing stare at the security heads, “that Mr. Janos is running amok somewhere within the ship. Lock on to his combadge, grab him, and then redirect him straight into brig five-A, would you please?”
There was a brief pause and then his voice came back, sounding regretful. “We’ve got a lock on his combadge, Captain, but that’s all it is. It’s not giving us any life readings. He’s ditched his badge.”
“Perfect. All right, then: Access ship’s internal sensors and locate his biosigns. There’s no one else on the Trident with readings like his. It shouldn’t take you more than sixty seconds to locate him.”
“I’m…not so certain about that,” he replied.
“Heisenberg, I don’t need uncertainty from you right now,” Shelby said. “Can you do it or not, and just for your information, the ‘or not’ is not intended as an acceptable option.”
“Under ordinary circumstances, Captain, yes. But here’s the problem,” said a frustrated Heisenberg. “We’re experiencing a rash of power and systems outages. Totally random, as if…”
“As if someone is ripping at operating systems in the innards of the ship?” suggested Arex.
“Yes,” Heisenberg said. “Exactly like that.”
Kebron moaned and put a hand to the side of his smallish head.
“So you’re saying you can’t lock on to him?”
“No, Captain, you’re saying that. However, I wouldn’t rush to disagree.”
“Wonderful,” snarled Shelby. “Perfect. All right. The orders are standing. Try to lock him down, de-mat him, and then dump him in the brig. The moment the situation changes and you have a shot at dematerializing him, inform me at once. Shelby out.”
She stepped back, leaning against the wall, and very softly thudded the back of her head against it several times.
“Shall I inform Captain Calhoun?” asked Kebron, looking a bit cautious. “I just figured he should know, but I don’t want to chance getting you even angrier than you already are.”
“Lieutenant,” she said through lips pulled so tight they looked like a rubber band stretched to its limit, “I don’t think it’s possible for me to be even angrier than I already am.”
At which point the lights suddenly went out. “I stand corrected,” she said even as the light snapped back on almost immediately. “Janos?” she demanded.
“Very likely.”
“Get him. Gas the crawlways and ducts if you have to drive him out, but do whatever it takes.”
“And Captain Calhoun…?” asked Kebron.
“Leave him out of it for now. He’ll find out soon enough. I want to get this resolved before we have to drop all this negative news on him.”
Arex looked slightly concerned over that. Kebron was, as usual, dead-pan. Even with his new, more outgoing attitude, a vast range of facial expressions was not his strength. They both muttered “Aye” and headed out of the ready room. Almost as soon as they were gone, Kat Mueller walked in.
“How’d you know I was going to send for you?” said Shelby.
“My job to know, Captain.”
“I see. All right,” she said. She circled around back to her chair, sat down, and leaned back with her arms folded. “Janos has gone berserk. He’s running around in the inner workings of the ship, and apparently he’s doing enough damage—by accident or design—to prevent us from beaming him out of there and into a holding cell.”
“All right,” said Mueller.
“You knew all this already, didn’t you?”
“Yes, Captain,” she said. “It’s my job—”
“—to know, yes, I understand that. Arex and Kebron have people working on this situation, but I want you monitoring it and giving me updates every ten minutes. Understood?”
“Yes, Captain.”
But Mueller didn’t move from her spot, and Shelby regarded her questioningly. “Something else?”
“Captain Calhoun. Will you be informing him?”
“Not at present,” she said slowly.
“It’s his officer.”
“It’s my ship.”
“But Captain—”
Shelby put up a hand, instantly silencing Mueller. “Many has been the time, XO, where Captain Calhoun has kept his cards close
to the vest.”
“Making this…what? Payback?”
“Hardly. I would simply rather this situation be resolved before he is informed of it.”
“Permission to speak freely, Captain?”
“I think wild horses sitting on your face couldn’t stop you from speaking freely, XO.”
“You don’t wish to tell Captain Calhoun because you think it makes you appear as if you’re not in control of your own vessel. That you are incapable of handling matters yourself.”
“That’s not the case,” Shelby lied. Deciding to turn the topic quickly away from what made her uncomfortable, she said, “Give me an update, please, on Ambassador Spock, the Danteri, and the Tholians.”
“The personalities of the parties are somewhat unpredictable.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning,” said Mueller, “that either he’s on the verge of settling the matter amicably, or the Danteri and the Tholians are on the brink of all-out war.”
“I see.” Shelby took that in. “Let me know how that works out, will you?”
“If shots are fired across our bow, Captain, I assure you you’ll be the first to know.”
The lights went out.
“I feel better already,” said Shelby from the darkness.
ii.
In the dim lighting, M’Ress made her way with supple grace through the gantries and catwalks of the Trident. Her ears were fully extended, her tail was straight out, and she wasn’t moving on two legs, but four.
It had been a long, long time since she had felt like this, moved like this. For ages now, it seemed, her world had consisted of oppression and frustration, of moral gray areas. She hadn’t remembered until just now how much she despised such things. How much more she preferred pure, unencumbered instinct. But that wasn’t who she was (or pretended to be?). She had responsibilities, rank, an image that she had carefully crafted and clung to for all she was worth.
Rarely did she have the opportunity to dispense with all that. But this was one of those rare times, and she was thriving on it. More, she was loving it, so much so that it made her wonder why in the world she would ever want to go back to what she had been.
She was not wearing her uniform. She knew that the slightest encumbrance of civilization would impede her ability to do what she needed to do. So, once having entered the cross junction, out of sight of anyone’s eyes, she had stripped down to her fur and started moving. With the loss of every article of clothing she felt more alive, more vital than she thought possible. The only link she maintained to the world she left behind was her combadge, which she had attached to the back of her hand to make it easier to find in the darkness. Not that the dark was a huge problem for her; her eyes were wide and luminous and saw almost everything.
She made as much noise as a shadow as she glided through the twists and turns of the utilities ducts, her senses extended to their capacity. Her nostrils flared, picking up his scent. She made her way quickly, down and through gantries, up through catwalks. All maintenance people doing routine work had been cleared out. Everything was too unpredictable.
Part of her wanted to laugh. One being, with nothing but the claws at the ends of his fingers and some sort of basic animalistic instinct, was causing power outages throughout the ship. For all their sophistication, all their technology, they didn’t know how to handle him. And the other part of her reminded herself that it wasn’t funny. That he might die because of this. That someone had died, and she bore some responsibility for that. This wasn’t a game.
And yet it was.
Cat and mouse.
But despite her feline trappings, she wasn’t entirely sure which role she was playing.
She tracked him through to another cross junction, buried deep in the heart of the backup systems, and suddenly she lost him. It wasn’t that his scent had vanished. It was that his scent was everywhere. He had crisscrossed this particular area several times, leaving his spoor all over it. And she was having trouble determining which was the most recent. Worse, she couldn’t tell whether he had done it by happenstance or whether it was pure animal cunning.
That was when she heard him.
Her heart began to pound and she forced herself to slow her breathing, even as she curled up into a tight, feral crouch. Her tail whipped back and forth as the low growl from her prey echoed around her. That was the big problem. She couldn’t tell for certain what direction the noise was coming from. Between the confusing scent trails and the ricocheting of the sound, it wasn’t possible for her to determine which way to expect an attack from.
Or would it be an attack? As unlikely as it seemed, she was hoping that would not be the case. That she would be able to reach him somehow, get through to him.
But her hackles told her otherwise. Furthermore, every nerve ending was quivering. She was possessed by the oldest survival instinct in the universe: fight or flight. She had no intention of fleeing, but she wasn’t certain that, if it came to a fight, she’d have any chance of winning. Or even surviving.
She steadied herself, reaching out with her senses, trying to determine where he was. Another roar, more echoing…
…and then another sound. The sound of talons, clacking on metal conduits behind her.
She spun, ready to lunge. He was perched not five feet away from her, his mouth drawn back in a snarl. She’d turned to face him just as he’d been about to pounce, and the fact that she suddenly was looking right at him froze him. For a heartbeat they locked eyes. His pupils were dilated, his nostrils wide as they drank in her scent.
“Janos,” she said, and her voice sounded strangled because her throat was tense. “Janos…it’s me. Do you recognize me?”
A voice came over her combadge. “Do you have him?”
She didn’t move a muscle. She felt as if to do so would cause him to charge. “I see him, yes.”
“Where is he?”
“Much too close.” Her pink tongue darted across her lips, which had gone very, very dry. “Janos…listen to me—”
His eyes seemed to retract into his head, and with a deafening roar, he charged.
She tumbled back, letting out an alarmed yelp, twisting away from the furious sweep of his claws. The space she was in was far too narrow. She barely had any room to maneuver.
There was a cross junction just behind her, but he seemed intent on not letting her get to it. She was on her back and he scrambled toward her, arms outstretched. M’Ress curled up her legs, braced herself, and thrust her legs out. One slammed flat into his chest, halting his forward motion, and the other—with claws extended—raked across his face, just missing gouging out his eyes. Janos roared and swung blindly at her with a sweep that, had it come into contact, would have ripped her open. But she was no longer there, having thrown herself down into the cross junction.
She tumbled away, knowing he would follow. But the access tube was narrow. She slithered through it quickly, feeling as if she were reliving her birth, and she heard his grunting behind her. He was too out of his mind with fury to try and find another route around in hope of cutting her off. Instead, despite his wider shoulders, he muscled his way along, ripping up relays, uncaring of damage he was doing as he pursued her.
She emerged from the access tube into a crawlway. The entire time she kept imagining she could feel his hot breath upon her, his claws sinking into her. He roared once more, and this time there were no echoes fooling her, no question as to where he was. He was right behind her, and if she slowed down in the slightest, he’d have her.
Practically doubled over, she sprinted down the crawlway, and then it opened up wider. She was somewhere in the utility corridors, a maze of catwalks (the irony was not lost on her) above and below.
The ramping beneath her feet shook from the impact as he came right behind her. She started to run, but here in the relative open he was simply too fast. The bouncing ramps nearly shook her off, and then he was upon her and she did the only thing she could. She threw herself off
the catwalk, allowing herself to fall down, down through the depths.
The catwalks whizzed past her and then she snagged one with a desperate, outreaching arm. It almost yanked the arm right out of the socket, and then she hauled herself up. She looked up. Janos was coming right after her, bouncing from one ramp to the next like a great gorilla. M’Ress knew he was athletic, but she’d never seen a display of physical dexterity like this.
Even as she watched him, he drew closer and closer with dizzying speed, and then she spotted a Jefferies tube to her right. A quick mental calculation warned her that it was exactly where Janos was going to land. She looked to her left. There was a solid wall.
Desperate, she broke to the right as fast as her feet would carry her. She got to the Jefferies tube bare seconds before he did and threw herself into it. She tumbled end over end, and still he pursued her. He was almost upon her. He wasn’t about to let her get away.
She tumbled out of the Jefferies tube into a brightly lit corridor, blinking furiously against the sudden change in illumination. M’Ress barely had time to orient herself before the thundering roar of Janos was upon her, and she back-rolled out of the way just as he crashed out of the tube into the corridor.
“Take him!”
It was Arex, with Captain Shelby and Kebron standing on either side and a brace of security guards surrounding him. Arex and the security guards had their phasers leveled upon him.
“Stun only unless I give the word!” shouted Shelby, and then phasers fired.
M’Ress crouched in a corner, watching with eyes wide. She gave no thought to her nudity. It was of no relevance to her. All she cared about was the intensity of the blasts as they hammered at Janos, staggering him.
He threw his arms up, trying to ward them off, and howled and bellowed and then incredibly, impossibly, began to stagger forward, batting at the phaser blasts as if they were irritating insects. It seemed to M’Ress that the corridor was shaking between his infuriated roars and the shrieking of the phasers.
And he was drawing closer, and closer still.