Star Trek_ A Choice of Catastrophes - Michael Schuster [17]
“I wish Mister Spock were here,” said Chapel, a little wistfully. “He could tell us if something was out there.”
McCoy snorted. “I doubt it. Vulcans are touch telepaths. He’d be just as oblivious as you and me.”
“He could do a mind-meld,” Chapel pointed out, almost stubbornly. “Go straight to the source.”
“And I bet he could also play us ‘Pop Goes the Weasel’ on his damned Vulcan lute!” McCoy snapped. “We need to focus on what we can do, not what we wish we could do.”
“Right now, we can’t do anything!” Chapel forced the words out abruptly.
McCoy stared at her for a moment, not sure of how to respond. She was right, but he wasn’t prepared to admit defeat just yet. With a stab of his finger, the doctor snapped the monitor off, then stood up. “I’m going to go get something to eat. Biopsy Bouchard’s brain and get the sample to Harrison in the lab,” he said. “And when Thomas gets back, consider yourself off duty. Get some rest, Christine. That’s an order.”
She said nothing, giving only a hint of a smile.
They both headed out of his office, Chapel a few steps ahead of McCoy. His destination was the recreation room on this deck, which wasn’t far. McCoy walked slowly, wanting to spend some time alone with his thoughts. With the ship on Red Alert, most of the crew were at action stations, and those who were in the corridors were on urgent errands. Something must have damaged the power conduits in this section, because the lights were dim, giving everything a dusklike feel.
The doctor’s conscience was rearing up: he knew he’d been short with Chapel. Tired and stressed, McCoy was taking it out on her. And she—as usual—accepted it and did her duty.
No surprise—she’s out here because it’s her choice. Not because she feels this need to keep on moving, like you do.
Chapel had initially gone into space to find her missing fiancé, Roger Korby. Enterprise had located Korby two years ago, discovering that he’d been dead for years. And yet Christine had stayed on board, never once expressing to McCoy a desire to move on, or even to return to her career in bioresearch. She seemed settled in a way that he wasn’t.
He resolved to apologize to her once he got back to sickbay. Maybe he’d even bring her a sandwich.
After a few minutes’ slow walk deep in thought, he reached the rec room. It was almost noon. Normally the room would be full of officers and crew talking, eating, playing games, even singing. Today, there were a scant dozen in here, silent as they wolfed down their food. Eat and run.
Run. Ha! The Enterprise couldn’t afford to run. It did little more than crawl at warp one. McCoy hoped that they cleared this spatial distortion soon; at this speed it would take months to get to Mu Arigulon.
As he made his way to the food slots, the doctor passed a lieutenant with a familiar face whose name escaped him. Sitting at a table by himself eating mashed potatoes, the sandy-haired man nodded at McCoy, who nodded back. The man had been assigned to sickbay for a rotation. Connors.
McCoy continued to the slots. With something in his stomach, he might just be able to find the inspiration he needed—
The whole deck rose beneath his feet, vaulting him into the air, and the lights chose that moment to fail again. Before his mind could fully process the absence of gravity, McCoy plummeted back down, accompanied by the sounds of things crashing hard. His training kicked in, and he pulled his legs up to his chest in a tuck as he made contact with the deck once more. A jolt of pain ran through him. Doing his best to ignore it, the doctor rolled backward and then on his side.
He still couldn’t see, but the noises around him were terrible. Crashing, shattering, groaning.
Lots and lots of groaning. People in this room needed his help. No time to moan about his hurting backside; he had to get up and get going.
Spock was intrigued. Having finished their orbital scans,