Death Count Page 7

  “Well, that’s good to know. I was wondering why you left it upside down.” Despite himself, Sulu felt a grin surface through his distress. It was impossible for him to resist teasing Chekov. “I figured even you would know the water would run out of it that way.”

  The Russian gave him an exasperated look. “Do you want me to help you with this or not?”

  “Sorry.” Sulu went back to picking up plants while Chekov examined the trail of debris, tracing it backward toward the door. He paused there, tapping some sort of security clearance into the locking mechanism and watching it flicker with color-coded information.

  “So, Sulu,” he said absently, “when did you leave your door open today?”

  Sulu cursed as his fingers tightened a little too hard on a Denebian lemon cactus. “I didn’t! I locked the door when I left for my shift on the bridge, and I didn’t come back until just now, when I found the place like this.” He pointed an accusing finger at his friend. “If anyone left the room unlocked, it was you.”

  Chekov’s dark hair ruffled with the vehemence of his headshake. “No, I locked it when I left. Trust me.”

  Uhura threw Sulu a reproving look as she hung clothes back in his wall closet. “Security guards don’t tend to forget things like that,” she reminded him.

  “I know.” Sulu let his irritation drift out with his sigh. He picked up a pot of half-wilted star orchids and put them back on the table to be watered. “Someone must have broken the door code.”

  “Impossible,” Chekov said curtly. “The locking unit in your door is designed to keep anyone from using random codes to break in—three wrong code entries in a row locks the door until someone from security resets it. And, according to its record, the only code entries it got today were the correct ones.” He drummed his fingers thoughtfully on the door frame. “Whoever got in here knew your code number.”

  “Well, that’s impossible, too,” Sulu retorted. “No one who knows my code could have done something like this to my plants!”

  Uhura shook a flattened moss rose out from one of Sulu’s uniform jackets and frowned. “I can’t think of anyone on board ship who would have wanted to do something like this,” she admitted. “Can you?”

  Chekov grunted. “Maybe the auditors wanted to see how efficiently we clean our rooms. And pick up our clothes—” His eyebrows lifted quizzically as he watched Sulu put another shirt away. “Do you always hang your shirts in groups by color?”

  Sulu felt his cheeks prickle with embarrassment. “Don’t you?”

  Uhura’s chiming laughter sparkled through the room. “How can he? His shirts come in one color: Starfleet gold.”

  “I have a black one for wearing on shore leave,” Chekov said defensively.

  Sulu gave that remark the silence it deserved. “You really don’t think it was one of the auditors who did this, do you?”

  “People who would set off an intruder alert just to see how quickly we respond would do anything,” Chekov said gloomily. “But no, I don’t think they did this. There’s no way any of them would have known your code number.” He bent over the locking panel again, as if the remark had reminded him of something. “That’s one thing we can do something about.”

  Sulu watched him warily. “What are you doing?”

  “Programming a new code number for your door.”

  “No!” Sulu scrambled to his feet in alarm. “Don’t do that! The last time we changed it, I kept locking myself out for a week.”

  Predictably, Chekov ignored him, and when Sulu looked at Uhura for support, all she gave him was a shrug. “Don’t look at me,” she said, while she closed his closet. “I’ve never understood why a man who can recognize star coordinates at a glance can’t remember a four-digit access code.”

  “But that’s exactly the problem,” Sulu argued. “Whenever I try to use coordinates as a code, I can never remember which star I picked.”

  Chekov grunted. “I have a suggestion. Let me pick the access code for you. I can come up with something totally meaningless—”

  “Yeah, you’re good at that,” Sulu agreed with another irrepressible grin.

  The Russian scowled at him. “Do you ever want to see your water chameleons again?”

  “All right.” Sulu spread his hands in defeat. “Make up an access code for me.”

  Chekov tapped a programming prompt into the lock. “How does 7249 sound?”

  “Like a number I’ll never remember.” Sulu swept up the last of the potting soil and crushed leaves, dumping them both into the waste disposal unit. “Will you remember it?

  “Of course,” said Chekov. “It’s the first four digits of the serial number on my phaser.”

  “Oh, great.” Sulu tossed him a mocking look. “So now, anyone who wants to know my access code can read it off your hip?”

  “I don’t walk around armed with a phaser at all times—”

  Uhura cleared her throat and headed for the doorway. “I’m going to dinner,” she announced. “Are you boys going to come with me, or are you going to stand and argue with each other all night?”

  Chekov sighed and shook his head. “I’ve got to tell the captain that we’ve had a violation of ship security. Even if Sulu left his door wide open, the fact that someone did so much damage to his room makes it an act of premeditated vandalism. Captain Kirk will want to know about it immediately.” He opened the door for her. “I’ll join you later, if I can.”

  “I know what your ‘laters’ mean—usually that we won’t see you again for a week.” Uhura paused in the doorway as he went out, glancing back at Sulu. “Aren’t you coming, either?”

  Sulu shook his head. “I have to water and repot a bunch of these plants if I want them to survive. You guys can bring me back something if you’re feeling generous.”

  “It’s a promise.” The door slid shut behind her, then opened a moment later to let Chekov lean back around the jamb. “I almost forgot—Dr. McCoy said you missed your radiation scan today. He wants you to stop by sickbay tonight.”

  Sulu glanced down at his drooping plants and shook his head. “It’ll have to wait until tomorrow morning.”

  Chekov offered a warning frown. “He won’t like that.”

  “I know.” Sulu shrugged. “But it’s just a medical check. How annoyed can he get?”

  “Mr. Sulu.” A breakfast tray slammed down on the rec room table with an irate clatter, followed by a thump as Dr. McCoy dropped into the empty chair on the other side. “Do the words ‘permanent genetic damage’ mean anything to you?”

  Sulu flinched and looked up guiltily from his half-eaten stack of lingonberry pancakes. “Um—that I’m going to get yelled at?”

  McCoy snorted and began to butter his toast. “Damned right you are.” The background hum of food processors delivering a steady stream of meals to the first shift crew could not disguise the exasperated snap in the doctor’s voice. “That was an emergency radiation scan you missed last night, young man, not a routine physical. It would have served you right if you’d woken up this morning looking like a giant carrot!”

  Sulu ducked his head, trying to avoid Uhura’s amused glance from farther down the table. McCoy would never forgive him if he started to laugh right in the middle of a scolding. “I’m sorry I missed my appointment, sir. I had a slight crisis—”

  “Doctor.” Spock looked up from the table’s other end, setting down the electronic reader that usually accompanied him to meals. “I am not aware of any cases of severe cellular mutation resulting from subspace radiation exposures as brief as—”

  “Dammit, Spock, it was just a figure of speech.” McCoy gave the Vulcan a disgruntled frown while he stirred his coffee. “How the hell am I supposed to intimidate anybody aboard this ship with you constantly contradicting me?”

  “If you did not indulge in such extreme exaggerations, Doctor, contradiction would not be necessary.”

  McCoy snorted. “If the line officers on this ship would show up for medical exams when I
tell them to, intimidation wouldn’t be necessary, either.” He shot Sulu a glare as he started to pick up his tray. “Don’t you try to sneak out of here, either. I’m going to haul you down to sickbay for that scan as soon as I’m finished with breakfast.”

  Sulu grimaced as he checked the time display on the nearest wall monitor. “Dr. McCoy, if I’m late for two bridge shifts in a row, Captain Kirk will—”

  “—make you stop eating breakfast with long-winded doctors.” The captain set his own steaming tray down on the table beside Sulu, a smile tugging at his hazel eyes. “Bones, I could hear you yelling clear across the room. What’s the matter now?” He cocked an eyebrow at the bowl of steaming yellow mud on the doctor’s tray. “Food processors malfunctioning?”

  The Southerner gave him an incensed look. “I asked for grits,” he informed him in dignified tones. “And if you didn’t set such a bad example for your officers, I wouldn’t have to yell at them. Do you, by any chance, think you’re immortal?”

  Kirk picked up his fork, trading long-suffering looks with Sulu. “Bones, we’ve been over this before. The food processors remove all the saturated fat from bacon and eggs when they’re synthesized—”

  “I’m not talking about the coronary bypass special,” McCoy retorted. “I’m talking about your DNA. For all you know, it could be even more scrambled than those eggs.” He swung around to point a spoonful of grits down the table at Spock. “Don’t say it.”

  The Vulcan lifted an austere eyebrow. “If you insist on using inappropriate analogies for complex scientific concepts, Doctor, I certainly cannot stop you. However, I would like to point out that—”

  “Was the radiation pulse really that bad?” Kirk demanded, cutting through the argument with the ease of long practice.

  McCoy shrugged. “How should I know? According to Spock, all the bridge stations were too busy throwing off false alarms to record anything useful.” He threw a challenging look at the Vulcan, who, as usual, ignored it.

  “Our data record is fragmentary, Captain, but computer analysis suggests a short-duration, low-frequency event, most likely from a distant neutron star. It appears to have been confined to the upper decks of the ship.”

  Memories of long-ago astrophysical lectures nudged at Sulu, and he gave the science officer a curious look. “Isn’t that odd behavior for stellar subspace radiation, sir?”

  “Indeed.” Spock steepled his fingers thoughtfully. “I suspect that gravitational lensing from Sigma One—”

  “It doesn’t matter where it came from or how it got here, Spock.” McCoy dropped his spoon into his empty bowl with a impatient clink. “As long as it contained unknown levels of subspace radiation, I want to scan everyone who might have been exposed to it. It’s like rabies—if you don’t catch the dog, you’ve got to take the shots.”

  Kirk sighed again, clearing his plate and reaching over to help himself to the last of McCoy’s toast. “All right, Bones, you’ve made your point. You can run me through your DNA descrambler.”

  The doctor blinked in surprise. “Right now?”

  “Why not?” Kirk picked up his tray and slid it into the nearest waste disposal unit. “Mr. Spock can take command of the bridge until I get there.”

  “How about your helmsman?” McCoy persisted, dropping a hand on Sulu’s shoulder when he rose to clear his breakfast tray. “Can I scan him now, too?”

  “Anything to make you happy, Bones.”

  “Well, hot dog.” Smiling broadly, McCoy dumped his own tray and herded them to the door. “Now, if I could only get that big liaison officer from Sigma One—what’s his name?”

  “Purviance,” Sulu said.

  “Right, Purviance. He snuck out of sickbay yesterday before I could get him—might as well catch all my fish at once.” McCoy’s face brightened when he spied John Taylor’s tall form emerging from the turbolift opposite the rec room door. “Hey, Taylor. Where’s your liaison officer?”

  The head auditor threw him a suspicious look, as if he didn’t trust what might be behind the question. “He’s assisting Gendron today. I sent them down to check dispatch records on the Deck Seven transporter.”

  “Good. We can stop by and collect him on the way to sickbay.” McCoy followed Sulu into the open turbolift, reaching back to tug at Kirk’s elbow when the captain paused to frown at the auditor. “Come on, Jim. Radiation scan, remember?”

  Kirk’s mouth tightened, but he allowed himself to be pulled into the lift. “What the hell are Federation auditors doing checking our dispatch records?” he demanded once the doors had closed. “I thought they were supposed to be improving our efficiency on this trip.”

  “Deck Seven,” McCoy told the lift, then turned back toward the captain as it began to move. “Jim, as far as I can tell, their idea of improving efficiency means enforcing every regulation some Federation bureaucrat ever dreamed up.”

  Sulu frowned, visions of red tape and endless paperwork groaning through his head. “Hasn’t anyone ever told them that some of those regulations weren’t meant to apply to Starfleet?”

  “Apparently not.” McCoy’s eyebrows knitted in a scowl. “They’ve already threatened to report me because I let my doctors conduct medical research while they’re on duty. I can’t seem to make them understand that we’re not some factory ship hospital, dealing with daily accidents.” The turbolift hissed to a stop. “Hold the lift here,” the doctor told them while he waited for the doors to open. “It should only take me a minute to—”

  “Bones—” Kirk’s swift yank brought McCoy to a halt before the doctor could step out onto the deck. Sulu followed the captain’s gaze down to the corridor floor and felt his stomach lurch with dismay. A iron-dark trickle of blood crawled across the clean bright metal, inching its way out through the closed transporter room doors.

  “What the hell—?” McCoy demanded.

  Footsteps pounded down the hallway. “Sir!” A transporter technician rushed up breathlessly beside Kirk, his arms full of record disks. The young ensign’s eyes widened with horror when he followed their gaze toward the blood-stained floor. “Sir, I swear—I was only away from my station for a minute! The auditors said they needed more dispatch records—”

  “Don’t worry about that now.” Kirk motioned the technician toward the transporter chamber. “Just open the doors.”

  “Aye, sir.” The technician stepped forward, his hand shaking slightly as he lifted it to activate the door. Sulu took a deep, steadying breath, and immediately wished he hadn’t. Despite the busy whine of the ventilating system, the air that rolled out the open transporter chamber smelled like rotten meat.

  “Oh, my God—” McCoy pushed past Kirk to stand locked on the threshold of the room, his shoulders jerking as if someone had hit him. Sulu forced himself to take one reluctant step closer, peering over the doctor’s shoulder. He choked and turned away, overwhelmed by the glaring evidence that they had arrived too late.

  Everything inside the room was red.

  Chapter Seven

  CHEKOV LEFT the transporter room only ten minutes after having gone inside. He didn’t know how McCoy and the medics could stand it—how he could expect his guards to clean up the area as though they were mopping up a coolant spill in engineering. Environmental suits, maybe. Pretend it wasn’t blood that made the flooring so tacky, force a separation between themselves and this awful reality by shielding themselves inside layers of plasfoam and plastic.

  Folding his arms on the corridor wall to rest his head against them, Chekov wondered if the engine room on the Kongo had smelled this bad.

  The transporter room door whisked open behind him, and a coppery feather of stench ghosted into the hallway. “You going to be all right?” McCoy asked quietly as the door drifted shut again on the smells.

  Chekov nodded, turning to lean back against the bulkhead instead. Just outside the transporter room, McCoy looked slim and professional in his green sterile jumpsuit, blood flecks and tricorder only adding finishing touch
es to his medical image. “I just feel a little sick,” the lieutenant admitted. He crossed his arms, embarrassed by what felt too much like weakness. “I guess I’m not used to this.”

  McCoy shook his head and came a few steps farther into the hall. “It’s not an easy thing to get used to.” He rubbed a thumb across the screen on his tricorder. “I don’t know if it’s good that we can.”

  Survival meant getting used to things, Chekov reminded himself. You had to keep moving, had to go on. “Do you have an identification on—the body?”

  McCoy nodded, and Chekov knew what McCoy would say from the way the doctor kept his eyes on his tricorder. He tried to make things easier by anticipating the news. “It’s Ensign Sweeney, isn’t it?” Thanks to Kelly’s new schedule, Sweeney had gone on duty at midnight last night, then hadn’t signed off at 0800 this morning. No one had seen him, he wasn’t in his room, and his post had been observed unattended as early as 0700. Try as he might, Chekov couldn’t ignore where that kind of evidence pointed.

  When McCoy finally looked up, the gentle regret in his eyes was as good as an answer. “During a normal transport, the system would have made a record of whom we were trying to beam out. In an accident like this, where the equipment apparently went off without any preparation or destination, it makes things harder.” He shook his head sadly. “I went over the DNA scans myself. I’ll have to send to Sigma One to verify the match on Lindsey Purviance, but there’s no doubt that one of the victims is Roberta Gendron and the third is Dennis Sweeney.” He sighed, like a doctor who feels he should have done something more. “I’m sorry, Chekov.”

  Chekov nodded, not sure what he should say. At least he was past being shocked by the news. That helped, at least a little.

  “So we’ve definitely got three victims?” Kirk’s voice sounded clearly from halfway down the corridor. Behind him, Scott followed with a diagnostic kit in hand. Chekov didn’t envy the engineer his upcoming job.

  “As near as we can tell so far,” McCoy said in answer to Kirk’s question. “I’m afraid the transporter didn’t leave us a lot to go on. Most of their cell structure was completely denatured, but enough DNA fragments are left to play medical connect-the-dots. So far, we’ve been able to reconstruct chains from three distinct humans. I’m hoping we don’t find any more.”