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“We’ve shut everything down that’s close to the hull,” Padmanabhan said as he programmed the computer in front of him. “I’m ready here, Lieutenant.”

“Connect all systems,” Uhura ordered.

“Sickbay is the most shielded part of the ship,” McCoy said. “The safest place on the ship.” That was the idea behind its location, at the center of the saucer section. Never before had there been a need to set up the control systems here.

“Anything else, Doctor?” Uhura asked.

“No, no.” McCoy headed back to his office.

Uhura was certainly qualified to command the ship, but she was running on stimulants. Maybe it was time to release Sulu for duty.

“Sulu isn’t going to fix anything,” said Joanna. “Admit it: you know this is it.”

“Shut up,” he said, not very loudly in case somebody overheard him.

“What’s going on?” Chapel asked. “What…”

“They’ve turned my lab into a command center.”

“I didn’t know things had gotten that bad,” Chapel said.

“It looks like it, Christine. Can you give me a hand? They could use some chairs over in the lab,” McCoy said.

“Yes, Doctor,” she said and followed him, each of them with a chair.

When they arrived in the lab, Padmanabhan chirped his thanks. They quickly returned to his office. Now chairless, McCoy sat on the desk.

“You should get some rest,” Chapel said. “I had my sleep, and you seem like you need it now.”

McCoy shook his head. “What I need is to get back to work on the espers.”

“I am perfectly capable of doing my job!” Chapel shouted. “Now leave me alone!”

What? He hadn’t said—

With rising dread, McCoy realized that Christine hadn’t been looking at him when she’d said that.

She’d been looking off to the side, past him.

“Christine…” he began, uncertain of how to phrase it. She looked anxious, but he plunged forward. “I just want to say… is there something going on?”

Her eyes locked onto his in apprehension. “What makes you say that?” Careful, just like he’d be if somebody had asked him the same thing.

“We need to be honest with each other,” McCoy said, aware that he was forcing her to make the first move, to admit her mind was playing tricks on her, to make herself vulnerable in front of him. “Christine, who do you see?”

“Oh, Doctor,” she said, relief washing over her features. “It’s him. I see Roger.” McCoy was aware of only one Roger, her long-dead fiancé.

As Chapel began to sniffle, he pulled her into a hug, all the while shouting out for joy inside himself.

“I thought I was going crazy,” Chapel said with a sob.

“So did I, Christine. So did I.”

THIRTEEN

Stardate 4758.2 (0540 hours)

The damnedest part of it all was that Scotty couldn’t do any of the work himself, stuck on his back. Mister Spock continued to dodge weapons fire from the Farrezzi fighters, while trying to protect the Columbus. Scotty was reduced to being a manual, cross-referencing scans of the recovered satellite and the working one while directing Cron Emalra’ehn and Jabilo M’Benga.

“Yellow wire to green wire,” he directed.

“Which yellow wire?” asked M’Benga. “There are three.”

Scotty looked again at the screen of his tricorder. “The medium-sized one.” M’Benga moved to connect the two wires, but Scotty caught him just in time. “Not that one—the medium one.”

“Damn,” M’Benga murmured, reaching into the guts of the machine. He grasped the correct wire easily; he might not have an engineer’s eye, but he had the sure hands of a surgeon.

“Easy, Doctor,” said Scott, turning his attention to Emalra’ehn. The security guard was using a hyperspanner to reactivate the defunct fusion microreactor. It needed an initial charge, and the preternaturally calm Deltan could hold his hands steady long enough to do it. “You’re almost there, lad.”

Emalra’ehn nodded. “This is trickier than that time on Argelius…”

“Concentrate,” interrupted Scotty wearily.

The Hofstadter rumbled as it took another hit. Spock had used some of the weather sats for cover, but the fighters had blasted straight through them. Two well-placed shots by Spock