Caretaker - L. A. Graf [42]
What's wrong with me what's wrong with me what's wrong--?!
"No!"
The scream sounded human enough, although the volume wasn't something Kim had ever heard before. He jerked toward the painful sound just as one of the quiet medical attendants crashed into a table filled with equipment and shattered it to the ground. A boil of movement exploded from where the attendant had been, and a powerful figure leapt over the downed man with no more effort than Kim would have expended in swatting a fly. He couldn't believe anyone could look so graceful in a thigh-length hospital gown.
She whirled as if sensing him, and their eyes locked for just a moment.
I know you! Kim thought in stark surprise. He remembered her face--dark, big-boned, and brooding--on one of the slabs in the back of the holographic barn. Oh, God, that seemed like a century ago. She must be one of the Maquis. Which meant he wasn't here alone.
Or maybe everyone else but the two of them were gone. ...
Kim didn't have a chance to ponder the details. Orderlies were suddenly filling the room, and the Maquis female nearly killed two of them, fighting her way toward the door. She almost made it, too. But the attendant who had first smiled down at Kim and spoken without making the words wormed his way into the struggling knot of bodies with some unrecognizable device clutched in his hand.
(Hold her still!)
She howled like an animal, bucking underneath the combined weight of so many enemies. Then the smiling attendant--not smiling now, Kim noted grimly--reached past the wall of orderlies, and Kim heard the unmistakable hiss of a hypospray just before the Maquis fell still and silent at the bottom of the bundle.
The attendant heaved a groaning sigh and flopped back to the ground in evident relief. (Bring her over here,) he instructed as he climbed wearily to his feet.
Kim hugged the sheets against him as he watched the orderlies gather the unconscious woman with a gentleness that was almost bizarre. It wasn't their silence that held him riveted, or even the reverent care with which they now handled someone they had so mercilessly plowed to the ground only moments before. It was the coarse, ropy growths discoloring the Maquis's arms and neck that trapped his attention.
That, and the very real knowledge that whatever was wrong with them might very well be what had happened to the rest of the crew. Which meant their chances of survival were not very good.
He wished their captors--caretakers?--had left him something more to wear than this gown and this blanket. Thinking of death with no one else here beside him, Kim suddenly found this dull alien hospital unbearably cold.
Chapter 10
"Captain's Log, Stardate 48315.6..."
Janeway cycled through the images on the data padd as it lay, unprotesting, on her desk. Picking it up seemed too much effort at such a late hour. Besides, that would require lifting her head off her other fist and actually sitting upright, which was not part of the bargain she'd made with her body for tonight. As long as she didn't require herself to be energetic and proper, her brain was allowed to stay functional long enough to file her last reports, review the damage and casualty lists, and decide everyone's role for the cleanup and repair teams tomorrow. So far, using one hand to tap at the controls had not been a violation of treaty, but she was fairly certain any movement approaching sitting up or standing would be. Scrubbing at her eyes, she forced her attention to divide again so she could finish her log and organize the repair details somewhat simultaneously.
"We've traced the energy pulses from the Array to the fifth planet of the neighboring system, and believe they may have been used in some fashion to transport Kim and Torres to the planet's surface."
The computer chimed, very politely, and she was forced to raise her head anyway so she could glance at the