Spirit Walk_ Enemy of My Enemy (Book 2) - Christie Golden [44]
“The phasers,” he said aloud. He’d check the phasers that Chakotay said he and Ellis had fired in self-defense. Quickly he went to the computer, gave it the proper access codes, and it told him which phasers had been assigned to Chakotay and Ellis yesterday.
Unfortunately, he didn’t have the security clearance to examine the phasers physically. But he knew someone who did, someone who, like him, was expressing some worry about Chakotay.
It was time to bring in an accomplice.
Chapter 13
HARRY KIM WAS AWAKE the instant he heard the door to his quarters hiss open.
He lay, unmoving, keeping his breathing regular, and not for the first time wished he could permanently kick his habit of sleeping with an eye mask on.
He heard the sound of the door closing. The footsteps, soft and careful, came closer to his bed. Still Kim feigned sleep, his eyes wide open beneath the mask, his body ready to jump.
A hand touched his shoulder. In one smooth motion Kim erupted from the bed, grabbed his attacker around the neck with one hand, ripped off the mask with the other, and cried, “Lights!”
A nanosecond later he realized that his intruder was none other than the ship’s doctor, who gazed up at him with startled blue eyes. At once Kim loosed his grip.
“Sorry,” he said.
Kaz sat up, rubbing his throat gingerly. “Good thing I have spots here or else I’d be wearing your fingerprints,” he muttered. “Mr. Paris indicated that you weren’t a light sleeper.”
Harry’s mind went back to the time, so long ago, when Paris had done almost the exact same thing—walked in on him in the middle of the night to drag him off to a make-believe French bistro. He was hit with a sudden longing for those times, difficult as they had been, and a keen sense of missing his old friend.
“I was an ensign then,” Kim said. “Now I’m a lieutenant and chief of security. Speaking of which,” he added archly, “how did you get in here, and oh, by the way, do you know what time it is?”
Kaz shrugged. “Gave my clearance code and told the computer to override the lock as it was a medical emergency,” he replied. “And I know what time it is. Harry, I need your help.”
Kim was alert at once. Tom might have busted in on him for a lark, but Kaz wouldn’t. He wouldn’t be here if there weren’t a problem. A big problem.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“I’ll explain while you get dressed,” Kaz said. “We don’t have a lot of time.” He hesitated. “Now that it’s come to it, it’s hard to know what to say.”
“Let me see if I can help you,” said Kim, reaching for his uniform. “You’re worried about Chakotay. You think he’s acting strangely.”
“Yes, I do. And I suspect you share that opinion.”
Kim ran a comb through his hair. “I do. I’ve known Chakotay for seven years, Doctor. I would never have expected him to behave the way he is. This reluctance to return to Loran II, his refusal to contact Starfleet Command or even Admiral Janeway—hell, you know what good friends they are. Chakotay should have told her about the situation immediately.” He shook his head. “I don’t know what’s going on with him.”
“Neither do I, for certain,” Kaz said. “But I’m here because I need you to check on a couple of phasers for me.”
“What?”
Kaz sighed. “This all sounds preposterous, but…I couldn’t sleep tonight, so I began the SOP autopsy on Commander Ellis.”
Kim frowned. “I thought the captain ordered you not to do it.”
“Well, he actually said for me not to spend time on it, since it was such an open-and-shut case. But he didn’t exactly forbid me to do it. So I started, and Harry, what I found…I can hardly believe it. The body shows every indication of having been in stasis for six years.”
“What?”
“I know, I know, I thought there had to be a computer error, too. But my tricorder confirmed it. Also, there were no traces of the creature that killed him. And I mean none—not a hair, no skin cells, nothing.”
Kim, who a moment ago had been the model of Starfleet efficiency, now stared at Kaz with his mouth slightly