Star Trek_ A Choice of Catastrophes - Michael Schuster [78]
“Well done, Doctor,” Chapel said.
A small victory, but he was still glad about it. “Thank you.”
Aware that work was waiting for him in his office, McCoy decided to leave Huber in Chapel’s capable hands. When he got there, the research was all still on his computer screen, but he checked on the medical computer first. Nothing yet. It concurred that there was a possible connection between the espers and the distortions, but it hadn’t figured out what the connection was.
“Damn it all,” McCoy grumbled. “There’s too much uncertainty for my taste.”
“Nice to see you recognize your limits. Makes a change.” McCoy didn’t look up. He could tell that Jocelyn was hovering over his shoulder, reading his reports, not that she’d understand them herself.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, annoyed.
“You always thought you could do everything, heal every single one of your patients, but you can’t. While we were together, you’d always complain and moan about your inadequacy—or worse, aim your anger at me,” she said. “I’m not the problem—you just don’t know how to deal with stress.”
“I know perfectly well how to deal with it,” McCoy replied pointedly, trying to tune her out as he sifted through the medical computer’s data. “This starship has seen worse, and so have I.”
“Is that really true?” asked Jocelyn. “Is yelling at your wife really an effective way of dealing with stress?”
“I don’t yell!” he snapped, looking up from his screen. There she was, her face drawn into a taut frown. Arguing about arguments. As absurd as it seemed, it was a fight they’d had one too many times. “If you wouldn’t stick your nose in when—”
“Is something the matter, Doctor?”
“Don’t interrupt—”
The different voice gave McCoy a start. He turned to see Chapel hovering in the doorway. “No,” he said, hoping she hadn’t heard enough to think he was really losing it.
With a start, he realized that he’d been talking—talking!—to Jocelyn, and it had felt like the most natural thing in the world. He turned his head to see where she was, but she was gone. “No,” he said again. “I just need to clear my head. I’m going for a walk.”
Flipping off his computer, McCoy grabbed his medkit and headed out into the corridor. Jocelyn and his father were there waiting for him.
Ahead of Giotto, the tunnel curved to the left. At the end, it glowed orange, like all the lights on this damn spaceship. The tricorder told him that he was rapidly approaching the end of this particular tunnel, which led to a room. The tricorder also told him that the room was being guarded by one of the aliens.
Phaser in hand, Giotto slowly closed the distance so he could see without being seen. He didn’t hear anything other than a big creature sucking in air. Giotto waited until he was sure the guard was just standing there.
He charged around the bend, took aim, and fired. The Farrezzi guard—a particularly chunky specimen—dropped like a bag of rocks before Giotto had even stopped his sprint.
He took a scan of his surroundings. He almost let loose a cry of victory when one of the life signs he detected behind the door was human.
The other one was Farrezzi.
Giotto inspected the big, semicircular door that the Farrezzi had been guarding, but it didn’t have the usual release mechanism. This was either a cell or an interrogation chamber; the way to open it would be well protected.
Giotto went back to the unconscious guard. Straps of beige leatherlike material wound around the limbs, with pouches hanging off some of them, and the lower torso was covered with more faux leather, but in a darker shade. He went through the pouches, ripping them open and shaking their contents onto the floor. As he did so, he wondered briefly if he’d know what he was looking for once he saw it.
A metal ball rolled out of the pouch he’d just opened, hitting the