Spirit Walk_ Old Wounds (Book 1) - Christie Golden [80]
But I asked Data’s permission when we worked together, part of him stubbornly responded. I asked the Doctor.
He felt a slight pain in his temple. The inner dialogue was giving him a headache. He frowned; he really must be tense. He rose and went to the replicator, requesting a glass of water with lemon.
And see, you didn’t ask the replicator to very nicely get you a glass of water.
“Okay,” he said aloud, “enough of this.” He realized his hand was trembling as he drank the water.
Phaser fire, screaming through the night. He ran as fast as his legs would carry him. Finally, he saw her, spared somehow in the midst of the destruction that rained around him. Vallia’s Revenge. There were dozens of them already here and he breathed a quick gusty sigh of relief at the faces that turned to him. Javan, Kehl, Rakkial, M’Vor—beloved friends and their families who were behaving as good little Maquis children always did, their eyes huge with terror, but staying silent and obedient.
Staying alive.
With hands that were numb from clutching his phasers, Gradak entered the code. The door hissed open, and they flooded inside. He looked around, searching for more. It wasn’t hard; Maquis were everywhere, desperately crowding to get in ships, get off the moon that had once offered protection but now was a deathtrap….
Sudden, sharp pain brought Kaz back to the present. He stared at his hand. Bright shards of glass were covered with blood that slowly dripped down to the floor.
“Jarem.”
The voice was calm, but a thread of worry snaked through it. Kaz shook his head. The name was familiar—
Because it’s my name—
Memory rushed back to him, and he looked up to see Astall standing just inside the door. When she saw recognition in his gaze, she ran toward him, taking his injured hand gently in her long purple fingers. With as much care as he himself would have taken, she removed the glass shards and placed them on a tray, then reached for the autosuture. The lacerated flesh closed and the blood disappeared.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, his voice shaking. If she hadn’t come in when she had—
“We were going to meet for lunch,” she replied calmly. “Now, tell me what happened.”
He licked dry lips. “I started to have a headache,” he said. “I was thinking about something and I went to get a drink of water. Then suddenly I was back in the dream, except this time it wasn’t a dream, because I wasn’t asleep.”
“A hallucination.”
Sickened by the term, knowing it was true, knowing what that would mean, Kaz nodded.
She looked up at him with deep sympathy, her ears drooping. “I’m so sorry, Jarem. But I’m afraid I have to officially remove you from duty.”
“No!” he cried. “There are steps we can take. Look, the mission’s almost over. Once we’re on our way back, I’ll remove myself from duty—”
He was frantic, babbling. This was his first mission aboard this starship, under the captain he so liked and admired, and he was cracking.
Astall looked at him searchingly. “What steps?” she asked.
He gave her a grateful look and squeezed the hand that held his. “There are two options,” he said. “One medical, one mental.”
“Go on.”
He released her hands and went quickly to the computer. Tapping the controls, he called up a visual.
“Isoboromine,” he said. “It’s an organic neurotransmitter that mediates synaptic functions between the host and the symbiont. If the isoboromine level is too low, the interphase between host and symbiont gets off-kilter. We could both die. I did a scan after we talked to Chakotay.” He looked up at her. “While I don’t want to admit defeat yet, I have no desire to endanger anyone on this crew.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “I never thought you did, Jarem.”
He gave her a grateful smile and continued. “The scan showed that my isoboromine levels are below normal. I’m not sure why or how—whether the levels were depleted because of our attempt to bring Gradak forward, or if