Death Count Read online

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  “SOMEONE PLANTED A BOMB?” SULU ASKED. “WHO?”

  Sulu dropped to his knees to open a small storage carton, but Chekov’s hard grip on his shoulder stopped him. “It could be rigged to blow when we open it.”

  Chekov pulled out a small sensor and ran it across the carton’s surface. Sulu immediately recognized the security code: EXPLOSION IMMINENT.

  “Out!” Chekov dragged Sulu to his feet and shoved him toward the door. “Get out of here!”

  “But—”

  “Sulu, don’t argue with me! Even if I manage to get this blast contained, it’s going to breach the corridor. And with all the physical evidence gone, the captain’s going to need your report to catch the murderer. Now get out!”

  Logic warred with loyalty inside Sulu and won. He cursed and tore himself away from the cabin. The last memory he took with him was of Chekov’s intent face as he worked the blast foam over the small white carton …

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  DEATH COUNT

  Chapter One

  AN UNEXPECTED BLAST of neutron radiation clawed across Sulu’s helm display, obscuring his fix on the binary Beta Herculani star system for a crucial moment. The distress beacon from the crippled shuttlecraft he’d been tracking faded into static, overwhelmed by the fierce gamma ray emission of the neutron star coming up close on their starboard side.

  “Chekov!” Sulu’s fingers raced across the board in a desperate attempt to restore their heading. He felt an ominous lurch as the ship slid into the binary’s gravitational pull. “Get me a fix on the major star.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to do.” The blood-red glow of ionized hydrogen filled the navigation screen, casting shadows onto Chekov’s face as he bent over his panel. “I can’t find it.”

  “What do you mean, you can’t find it?” Sulu spared just enough time from piloting to give his companion an incredulous glance. “It’s a red giant! How can you miss a star that big?”

  “By having something go wrong with the ship’s sensors, that’s h
ow!” Chekov sounded as irritated as the upward-slanting light made him look. “Our last fix was two eleven mark six. Try that.”

  Sulu tapped the heading into his computer, then groaned when he saw the arc of their trajectory begin to build on the display. “Bad guess, Pavel.”

  He swung his chair around to aim a punch at his navigator’s shoulder. The fist rebounded from such tightly clenched muscle that he wondered if the Russian even felt it. “We’re going down the gravity well.”

  “Maybe we can slingshot ourselves back out.” Chekov glanced up, scowling, as radiation alarms began to howl around them. “It would help if you’d pay attention to your screen.”

  “No, it wouldn’t. We’re dead.” Sulu leaned back in his cushioned chair, watching the main screen fill with the searing blue-white fire of pulsar emissions. “As long as we’re doing a swan dive into a neutron star, I at least want to see what it looks like.”

  “Sulu, that’s not funny—”

  Without warning, the lights on all of their display screens went dark. Air hissed into the chamber, and the door of the space simulator popped and swung open. “Haven’t you two managed to rescue that lost shuttle yet?” Uhura asked from outside. Her dark face gleamed in the mercury-orange glow of the space station lights, looking both amused and resigned. “You’ve been in here for half an hour.”

  “We’ve rescued it five times.” Sulu saw her baffled look and smiled. “Chekov keeps bumping us up to the next level of difficulty. If you ask me, I think he just misses working navigations.”

  The security chief swung his chair around to glare at Sulu, a trace of red just visible on his neck above his dark shirt collar. “You’re the one who noticed that the Exeter broke our old scoring record on its last shore leave here. Do you want to set a new one or not?”

  Sulu opened his mouth to reply, but the bone-deep roar of an arriving ship interrupted him. “Announcing arrival of ATS Shras at Space Station Sigma One,” said the crisp, metallic voice of the traffic control computer. “Passenger transport Shras, of Andorian registry, is now docking at berth 416C.”

  “This is our last day of shore leave on Sigma One,” Uhura reminded them after the docking noise had faded. “You’re not going to spend all of it in the simulator, are you?”

  “Why not?” Chekov looked surprised.

  Sulu snorted. “Because it’s also our first day of shore leave on Sigma One, thanks to the Federation Auditor General and his on-site efficiency audit!” He spun his console around to watch their score click up on the control panel behind them. The number steadied in the low hundred thousands, and he heard Chekov grunt with disappointment. “Hey, what do you expect?” Sulu continued, “I’ve spent the last three days running so many efficiency drills for the Federation auditors, I’ve forgotten how to actually pilot a ship.”

  “I hope you regain your memory before we leave port,” the Russian retorted. “Otherwise, I’m staying here.”

  “With the auditors?” Uhura asked mischievously.

  “Hmmm.” An answering smile tugged at Chekov’s face. “Maybe I’ll take my chances with Sulu, after all.”

  “I’m flattered.” Sulu unhooked his safety harness, stretching the tightness from his shoulder muscles. “So—is it my turn to pick where we go next?”

  Uhura nodded, and Chekov threw him a hopeful look. “We could keep playing,” he suggested.

  “Not a chance.” Sulu scrambled out of the simulator chamber before Chekov could prompt it to start again. He never failed to be amazed by how persistent the Russian could be in pursuit of a goal. “I’m not going to spend my entire shore leave piloting a starship. I can do that when I’m on duty.”

  “I can’t,” Chekov pointed out.

  “Tough.” Smiling at his friend’s frustrated look, Sulu swung through the narrow hatch and straightened, brushing wrinkles out of his sleek gray jumpsuit. “Come on. There’s one more place I want to go before we head back to the Enterprise.”

  Chekov groaned and hauled himself out in turn. “We’re not going to eat again, are we?” Around them, a crowd of mixed commercial spacers and off-duty Starfleet personnel surged through the station gallery, ducking in and out of storefronts. A few bulky forms in dark red police armor circulated among them, looking out of place amid the sparkling lights and signs. “I’m tired of trying to find restaurants you two haven’t visited yet.”

  “Don’t worry, you won’t have to.” Uhura brought her hands out from behind her back and waved a steaming pastry under Sulu’s nose. The spicy smell of baked fruit wafted through the overfiltered station air. “I found a new bakery while you were playing with neutron stars. Here, I bought a pie for each of you.”

  Sulu took the fruit pastry from her, smiling. “Uhura, this is why I like to go on shore leave with you. Mmmm, this is great!”

  Chekov lifted the pastry to eye-level, inspecting it suspiciously. “What’s the yellow stuff inside?”

  “I’m not sure.” Uhura reached in her bag for a third pastry. Her robe swirled when she moved, its dappled African colors almost as vivid as her fine-boned face. “I couldn’t quite make out what the baker called it. I think he said Elysian cloud-apple—hey, watch where you’re going!”

  A red-suited policeman shoved his way between them, paying no attention to Uhura’s protest. The small communications officer was forced to skip sideways to avoid being trampled, losing her pastry in the process. “Hey!” she said again, more angrily, as bright yellow filling splattered across the pavement. “Didn’t you hear me?”

  “Apparently not.” Sulu reached out to steady her with one hand as the armored officer swept past them. He used the other to hang on to Chekov. “This isn’t the Enterprise,” he reminded the security chief. “You’re not in charge here; they are.”

  “No, they’re not.” Handing Uhura his pastry, Chekov turned to watch the policeman disappear into the crowd. Sulu could tell from the set of his back that he wanted to follow. “Sigma One security guards wear black, not red. And they don’t walk around dressed as if they’re expecting a riot. I don’t know who those people are, but they’re not station security.”

  “If you’d checked the station newsboards before you jumped into that simulator, you’d know who they are,” Uhura informed him, swiping at the fruit stain on her robe. “They’re Orions.”

  “Orions?” Chekov swung around with a scowl. “What are Orions doing on a Federation space station?”

  “What are Orions doing in uniform?” Sulu turned to stare in surprise after the suited figure. Up until now, the only Orions he’d seen were the scruffy pirate variety, the ones Starfleet kept chasing out of the far corners of Federated space. These riot-suited aliens with their phaser rifles and grimly visored helmets were a different breed entirely. “Did Starfleet let an Orion military ship dock here?”

  Uhura shook her head, making her earrings jangle. “It’s an Orion police cruiser, on some kind of search-and-seizure mission. The newsboards said Sigma One had granted it a temporary writ of authority, but I think the Orions just had the station outgunned.”

  “Then they came in before the Enterprise did,” Chekov said flatly. “How long have they been on board Sigma One?”

  “I’m not sure.” Uhura glanced around as another outburst of indignant shouts marked the policemen’s path through the crowded gallery. “I gather it’s been long enough for them to be annoying. Of course, with Orions, that’s not saying much.”

  Quietly enjoying the tavern’s collage of well-mannered patrons, his feet stretched beneath the table to rest on the chair across from him, James T. Kirk took note of the moment the wicked clock-spring of tension inside him uncoiled and melted away. He closed his eyes and sighed deeply of the place’s anachronistic smells—wet wool, warm oil-wood, the distinctive sting of the brandy he held cupped, untouched, between his hands. This wasn’t the sort of place he’d have enjoyed on shore leave twenty years ago, but for an administration-badgered starship captain of just over forty, it more than fit t
he bill.

  “Mr. Scott,” he sighed aloud to his chief engineer, “this is the best idea you’ve had in ages.”

  “Aye, sir.” He could practically hear the smile in the engineer’s thick brogue. “I thought it might be.”

  A good-natured snort from beside Kirk made the captain crack one eye. “I could stand it if they served some real food,” Leonard McCoy complained as he scowled over a printed menu card. “What the hell is ‘bubble-and-squeak’”

  “Something my father used to threaten us with when we were children.” Scott scooted his chair around next to McCoy’s and tipped the card so he could read it. The red-and-black splash of wool tartan over one shoulder stood out brightly against his white cardigan. “Not all Scottish food is something to be proud of, I’m afraid,” he cautioned the doctor, looking worried. “We gave the world haggis, too, you know.”

  “Oh, good Lord… .”

  Kirk laughed, pushing up the sleeves on his summer-weight blazer. He was already regretting having left the ship in something so light—he’d forgotten how chilly space stations could be with only one ship’s worth of crew wandering around on board. “Be daring, Bones. Bubble-and-squeak is just a name.”

  “Sounds like boiled mice.” McCoy flipped the card to the wood table with a sigh. “Next time, I’m going on shore leave with Uhura. At least, she knows where all the good restaurants are.”

  Kirk grinned and closed his eyes again. “Man does not live by bread alone.”

  “Man doesn’t live by bubble-and-squeak, either,” the doctor retorted.

  The captain laughed, but didn’t answer. Personally, he hadn’t thought about eating for a while—and wasn’t surprised to find the thought still didn’t interest him much. After spending the last three days chewing up his stomach in frustration over four nosy Federation efficiency auditors poking through his ship, he didn’t think he’d want to put food down again until the Enterprise was well away from Sigma One. He intended to start that departure just as soon as the last shore leave personnel returned to the ship this evening—himself included.

  “Jim, are you going to drink that brandy or just stare at it?”

  “You’re the one that keeps telling me that staring at it is healthier, Bones.”

  McCoy swatted the bottom of Kirk’s foot with one hand, and Kirk had to jerk fully upright to keep from sloshing brandy all over the lap of his trousers. “Don’t get smart with me, Captain. You’re supposed to be here to relax.”