Assassination Game (11 page)

The turbolift opened behind him. Nyota Uhura, punctual as always, unlike so many other humans. Another thing Spock did not understand. How was it so difficult for humans to arrive where they were supposed to be at a prescribed time?

“Nyota,” Spock said. “I was concerned to hear that you were on the dais when the president’s shuttle exploded earlier today.”

“Were you?” she asked.

Spock frowned. “Of course. Why should I not be?”

Uhura shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t figure you’d be too upset about it.”

“I did not say that I was upset; only that I was concerned.”

“Right.”

Spock was the first to admit, his understanding of human emotional responses was limited, but he nonetheless felt as though he had done or said something to hurt Cadet Uhura’s feelings. It was also his experience that admitting he did not understand how he had been in the wrong often compounded the problem, so he pushed on.

“I am relieved you were relatively unharmed.”

“Thanks. Can we get on with it?”

“By all means,” Spock told her. Uhura’s no-nonsense approach was something else he admired in her—and found lacking in so many other humans.

“I was contacted by the Graviton Society,” Uhura told him “I’m in, and they already have a job for me. They want me to steal a Varkolak sniffer.”

“Sniffer?”

“One of their scanning devices.”

Spock processed this information. The society had no doubt chosen her for this task as she had access to the Varkolak that few other cadets had, and possession of one
of the highly advanced sensor units would certainly be a valuable piece of intelligence. It was also significant for another reason.

“This is the first time since my association with the Graviton Society that they have advocated something illegal,” he said.

“Not just illegal, Spock, but dangerous. If I’m caught …”

“Yes. The interstellar ramifications would be significant.”

“That’s an understatement,” Uhura said.

It was Spock’s experience that most humans tended to
over
state matters, but he felt this was not the time to press the point. “I think we must take this request as both evidence of potentially larger, more nefarious activities on the part of the society,” he instead told her, “and a measure of your loyalty to the organization.”

“You mean, like some sort of initiation test?” Uhura asked.

“Possibly, though this task would seem to be above and beyond the usually frivolous requisites for admittance to less political fraternal organizations. There is also the possibility they are testing your relationship to me.”

“Which is what?” Uhura asked.

Spock blinked. “Covert agent to fellow covert agent.”

Uhura nodded. “Just checking.”

Again, Spock felt as though he had given the wrong answer, even though it had been the most accurate one.

“Will it be possible for you to accede to their request?” he asked her.

“You mean you want me to do it?”

“I acknowledge that the activity is illegal, and potentially dangerous. I only ask if it is possible.”

“Maybe. I don’t know. I’m supposed to go back with the linguistics team for more face time with the Varkolak, but they protect those sniffer things like they were state secrets.”

“As well they should. If you can at least make an attempt, that may satisfy your handler within the society. Should you prove successful, it would solidify your position of trust within the group and potentially open up larger, more important avenues of investigation for us. If nothing else, the ultimate destination of the sniffer, as you call it, could tell us just how high into Starfleet’s ranks this organization really goes.”

If Spock was any judge of human facial expressions at all, Uhura was still unsure.

“If you were caught in the attempt, Starfleet would of course be made aware of your role in my investigation, and you would be cleared of wrongdoing,” he assured her.

“Yeah. But that’s not going to go a long way with the Varkolak,” Uhura said. “Look, Commander, there’s something else. Something I overheard as Dr. Lartal, one of the Varkolak, left the interrogation room today. One of his men
asked him, ‘Now, how will you kill her?’ Or maybe, ‘Now, how will you catch her?’ It’s hard to say. But the reference was definitely from the Varkolak terminology for a hunt, so ‘catch’ and ‘kill’ in that sense seem to mean the same thing. Lartal attacked the other man, telling him to be quiet, but he saw me. Spock, he knows I understood every word.”

“Then you must abandon the Graviton Society and their request immediately, and recuse yourself from further linguistic studies with the Varkolak.”

Uhura looked shocked and, if Spock was “reading” her correctly, almost …
pleased
by his words?

“You—you want me to want me to just walk away?” Uhura asked.

“This information drastically changes the situation. Your safety in this endeavor is now a grave concern,” he told her.

Uhura stepped closer, and Spock fought back the human, emotional part of him that yearned for her, and the physical part of both halves of him that desired her. “Spock … I didn’t think you cared.”

“I do care,” he assured her. “The mission has become untenable.”

“The mission,” Uhura said. She stepped away. “Don’t worry, Commander. I can take care of myself.”

Uhura went to the turbolift and left without saying good-bye, which Spock knew was odd behavior for a
human. Again, he assumed he had done or said something to offend her, but he had no idea what.

Spock looked back out the window at the now pink and orange yet incongruously sunless sky and wondered again at this world that remained so foreign and mysterious.

Leonard McCoy staggered back to his dorm room like a man coming home from a three-day bender. After ten straight hours of triage, he could barely hold himself up. The exploding shuttle had knocked him unconscious and blown him ten meters off the dais, but after he’d come to his senses, he’d dived in to start treating the wounded. It had been chaos there and in the Academy hospital, where everyone had been taken for treatment. There were dozens of people with lacerations, broken limbs, and burns, not to mention every visiting doctor from thirty-four sectors and two quadrants crowding the ER to lend a hand. But there were no fatalities, thank goodness. Even the president of the Federation had mostly escaped harm, though she’d been whisked away to some other more protected medical facility. At least that meant they hadn’t been tripping over presidential security guards too.

He could barely utter his name clearly enough for his door to recognize him, but finally he got into his room. Kirk wasn’t there, which probably meant he was spending the night somewhere else again. McCoy was grateful for the quiet. He collapsed facedown onto his bed, still fully-clothed. Tomorrow, bright and early, he and the rest of the medical cadets would be back in the lab, sifting through the thousands of shuttle fragments for DNA evidence. But for now, McCoy could at last enjoy a peaceful, blissful night’s sleep….

There were dozens of them. Hundreds. More patients than he could possibly hope to take care of. They had gashes on their arms and legs, burns on their chests, broken bones, internal bleeding, head trauma. McCoy rushed from biobed to biobed, doing what he could, calling for help, but he was the only person there. No nurses, no other doctors, no one but an endless stream of patients—Humans, Bolians, Andorians, Vulcans, Ktarians, Denobulans, Trill, Mizarians, Rigelians. They kept coming and coming and coming, all of them in pain, all of them crying out for him to help them. But he just … couldn’t … get to them all in time.

The door chime sounded, and McCoy called for
whomever it was to come in. Heaven knew he could use the help.

The door chime rang again. And again. And again.

“Come in! Come in, damn it! I can’t come to the door!” McCoy cried, rushing to the next patient.

The door chimed again, and McCoy jerked awake. Where was he? What time was it? He was on his bed, in his uniform, and it was pitch-black in the room. He dragged his alarm clock over to him, knocking an empty glass to the floor with a thud. 0226. His alarm wasn’t set to go off for another two and half hours. He’d been having an awful dream, about an ER with a neverending stream of patients—

The door chime rang yet again. For real this time. McCoy dragged himself out of bed and lurched to the door. He pushed the admit button, and the door slid open onto a brightly lit hallway that made him wince. But no one was there. He leaned out the door to squint up and down the hall. Still nobody.

The door chime went off again. No, wait. Not the door chime. His half-asleep brain was starting to work again, and he realized it wasn’t the door chime at all. It was the sound of his communicator. He closed the door against the awful light and fumbled around for his satchel. Found his communicator and pulled it out. Someone had been trying to call him for fifteen minutes. Who the devil
called at two thirty in the morning? He glanced at Jim’s empty bed. If this was Kirk and he wasn’t missing an arm or a leg, he soon would be. McCoy flipped his communicator open.

“Who the hell calls at two thirty in the—”

“Priority One call from Nadja Luther,” said a recorded voice.

“Leonard? Leonard, it’s Nadja.”

Weariness drained from McCoy and he stood up straighter. “Nadja? What’s wrong? Why are you calling—”

“Leonard, I need you to meet me at Cavallo Point, right away,” Nadja said.

“What? Now? Why?”

“Please, hurry,” Nadja said.

“Nadja? What’s wrong? Nadja?” McCoy said.

“Priority One call ended,” the computer voice said again, and his communicator went silent. McCoy immediately tried calling her back, but there was no answer. He replayed the conversation again; the whole thing automatically recorded as a Priority One call. There was such urgency in her voice. Such panic.

McCoy grabbed his satchel and charged out into the bright hallway. He tried Nadja again, and when he got no answer again, he picked up his pace. Cavallo Point was a public area out past the marina on San Francisco Bay. Ordinarily he would have taken a ground shuttle,
but they weren’t running this late at night. The only people around as he hurried from Yi Sun-Sin Hall were the Academy’s few nocturnal students, going to and from class. One of them gave him a second look as he hurried past. McCoy realized he must have looked like death warmed over.

He hurried across the old parade grounds and past the Academy administration buildings, where only the exterior illumination lights were on. He didn’t see a soul as he reached Sommerville Road and hurried down past the marina and up to Cavallo Point. He was so tired, he felt like he was running the Academy marathon, an event he had absolutely zero interest in participating in. He reached the point at last, stopping just long enough to put his hands on his knees and catch his breath.

“Nadja?” he called. “Nadja? It’s Leonard! Leonard McCoy!”

Of course it’s Leonard
McCoy, he chided himself. How many other Leonards does she know? But he was tired and worried, so he cut himself some slack.

“Nadja? Nadja?” he tried again. No answer. He was starting to really worry. He tried her communicator again and got no answer again—nor did he hear it ringing anywhere nearby.

After a cursory search of the small area illuminated by street lights, McCoy decided it was no use. She wasn’t here—or if she was, he couldn’t locate her. It
was time to bring in some help, he realized.

“Academy Security,” he told his communicator, and he cursed with frustration as he waited for them to pick up.