Homecoming - Christie Golden [55]
“I don’t believe the Doc had any part in this!” Paris said loudly.
Cagiao turned to glare at Tom, and Janeway guessed that Paris was trying his patience. Quickly, she said, [162] “Tom, answer their questions, and we’ll find out what’s behind this as soon as possible. That’s an order,” she said, when he opened his mouth to protest. From another room came a loud wail.
“That’s my daughter,” Tom said. “Let me go to her.”
Cagiao nodded, and Tom was permitted to rise. But a Starfleet security officer accompanied him.
“Commander, it does sound like the Doctor might be able to give you some valuable information about Baines,” Janeway said. “But I’m afraid I have to agree with Mr. Paris. I don’t think the Doctor would do anything to put human lives in jeopardy.”
“They’re not, not at the moment at any rate,” Cagiao said, “although who knows what kind of riots we’ll get once people realize the full extent of this thing.”
“May I speak to him?”
Cagiao shook his head. “I’m afraid not, ma’am. Our orders were quite clear.”
Janeway set her shoulders. “I outrank you, Mr. Cagiao, and I probably outrank anyone involved in this, so I think you had better—”
“No, ma’am,” said Cagiao firmly, “you do not, and as I said my orders were very clear. The Doctor is not allowed to speak to anyone until he is released.”
“May I ask the name of the person who issued this order?”
“Admiral Kenneth Montgomery.”
AGE FIFTEEN
She is the top student in her class and has already been accepted to Starfleet Academy. She has skipped three years and does not mind leaving her classmates behind each time, as she has never made a real friend in her life.
He wants her to call him Dad, but the owner of the Hand is not her father. And in one of the few acts of rebellion she has ever permitted herself to display, the girl refuses to use the term. He is merely her mother’s husband, and she has learned to turn her fear into hatred. It is a powerful shield, hatred, and she does not quite realize that it does as much damage to her soul as her stepfather has done over the years to her body.
Her body has no scars. They are all inside. All the wounds have been turned inward, where they fester like an invisible cancer.
She enters data on her padd, lost in the [164]mathematical equation, buoyed briefly by a reality that is solid and provable and beyond dispute. It is a rock to cling to in the stormy ocean that is her life, a storm that no one else knows of or can even glimpse.
The door to her bedroom hisses open, and she tenses. Nausea roils inside her. She pretends she does not hear. The owner of the Hand, her mother’s husband, comes behind her. She can smell the alcohol on his breath and she shivers. He mistakes her shudder for one of passion. This is not the first time he has come to her room, drunk and swirling with a dark desire.
He reaches for her, groping, hurting. The Hand. She despises the Hand. She imagines herself jumping to her feet, her clothing ripped and the bruises and fluids still evident on her body, screaming for her mother, for justice, for an end to something she knows deep inside is dreadfully wrong, dreadfully evil.
But the words cannot get past the cold lump in her throat, and her body will not move. And the Hands continue their assault.
Chapter 14
IT WAS TOO BAD, JANEWAY THOUGHT as she sat at her computer, that Brian “Red” Grady had been passed over to head Project Full Circle. She knew the jovial, red-haired commander would never have thrown the Doctor in the brig like this. And he was much more pleasant to deal with than Montgomery. But then again, she thought Attila the Hun might be more pleasant to deal with than Montgomery.
“Admiral Montgomery,” Janeway said to the handsome but forbidding visage on the screen. “You’re a difficult man to get ahold of.”
“Apparently not that difficult,” he said acerbically. He did not look at all pleased to see her, but she had expected that.
[166] “I understand you’re holding the Doctor,” she said. “I’d very much like to speak to him.”
“That’s not possible.”
“Of course