Assassination Game (14 page)

“Bones, it’s an emergency. I wouldn’t call you if it wasn’t important.”

McCoy looked back through the glass wall at the cadets running scans on the shuttle fragments. He hated to bail on something that could help solve the mystery of
the explosion, but it was really nothing more than putting debris under an electron resonance scanner and pushing a button. There were plenty of cadets to do the job. And this was Jim asking.

“All right. I’ll be there.”

Kirk waited just inside the doorway to the Academy Sports Complex, watching the sidewalk outside. The security officers at the entrance watched Kirk. He smiled lamely and waved. After the assassination attempt on the president, just standing around looked suspicious. One of the security officers had just started to approach him when Bones hurried in, a portable medical kit in his hand. Kirk went outside to meet him.

“Where does it hurt? What’s happened?” Bones asked.

The security officers stopped him to scan and log him in.

“Damn it, people, I’ve got a medical emergency here,” Bones griped. They had barely finished scanning him when he pushed ahead, medical tricorder in hand and already on. “You’ve got a minor contusion on your forehead, Jim, but it’s nothing serious. You were right to call me, though. Head injuries are nothing to mess around with.”

Kirk pulled Bones out of earshot of the security officers. “No, no. That’s not why I called,” he told his friend. He glanced back over his shoulder. “I need you to walk me
back to the dorm. Finnegan could be lying in wait for me anywhere.”

Kirk could practically see the blood rising in Bones’s face, like in some cartoon.

“You called me away from scanning debris from the explosion so I could play chaperone for you in some stupid game? Jim, of all the absolutely ridiculous—”

“You were scanning the debris?” Kirk asked, trying to change the subject. It was easy—and fun, too—to get Bones riled up, but it was just as easy to get him distracted. Anything about his work would do. “Did you find anything?”

“Yes, damn it, I did,” Bones said. His anger ebbed away as he shifted gears to medical mode, just as Kirk had predicted. “Jim, listen. I found traces of kemocite on some of the debris.”

Kirk waved Bones quiet as they made their way back through security, then picked up the conversation again on the way back to the dorm.

“Kemocite? Vent plasma from a shuttle’s engines and add kemocite to it and …”

“Boom,” Bones said. “Yeah. And you know who uses kemocite to power all their gadgets.”

“The Varkolak,” Kirk said. “I know. I just don’t get it.”

“Get what?”

“Lartal, this Varkolak. Bones, I don’t think he’s a
doctor … but I don’t think he’s behind all this, either. I know he dove away from the explosion milliseconds before it went off, but he took me with him. Bones, he knocked me to the ground. To protect me. I’m sure of it. Why would someone set a bomb and then make sure no one got hurt by it?”

“Maybe he didn’t set it,” Bones said. “Maybe it was one of the other Varkolak.”

Kirk shook his head. “No. Lartal’s not a doctor. He’s a command officer of some kind. I’m sure of it. Unless you know any doctors who can reach red level on Velocity. And win.”

“Hell, I can’t get past indigo,” Bones said. “Is that where you got the bump on your noggin? You mean, he
beat
you? Jim, I thought you hadn’t lost a Velocity match since you got here.”

“I lost this one. On purpose. I took a dive, Bones.” Kirk stopped. “I let the Velocity disk tag me and played dead. Or unconscious, anyway.”

“What on Earth for?”

“I wanted to see if Lartal would try to steal one of the phasers.”

Bones scoffed. “You can’t take Velocity phasers out of the arena. The alarm would go off.”

“Yeah,
I
know that, and
you
know that, but Lartal doesn’t know that. He could have hidden one inside his
uniform and tried to walk out with it. But he didn’t, Bones. He didn’t even try to take the thing apart. He just sat there with me and waited for me to wake up.”

“Maybe he knew you were faking it.”

“Maybe. I don’t know. Bones, I’m telling you, I don’t think bombing a shuttle is these guys’ MO. When we were playing Velocity, I could swear Lartal gave me a chance to get to my feet before he sent the disk after me. It’s like they’ve got some code of honor or something.”

“Well, they’re looking for DNA evidence right now to see if they can corroborate the kemocite traces. Which is what
I
should be doing, not playing nursemaid to—”

“Bones, are you all right?” Kirk asked, trying to change the subject again. “You look like hell. Have you been getting enough sleep?”

“No, damn it, I haven’t. That’s another thing. Last night, at two thirty in the morning, I got a call from Nadja.”

Kirk raised the old eyebrows. “Hot and heavy house call?”

“Hardly,” Bones groused. He explained everything that had happened last night as they walked. “And then, this morning, this medical cadet, Daagen—one of those ‘Federation First’ idiots—hands me her communicator and tells me he just ‘found’ it on his desk.”

“He prank called you? But it’s not Dead Week.” Dead Week was the week of pranks and insanity that usually happened right around finals time, when cadets
needed to blow off some steam.

“No. And it’s not funny. He says he didn’t do it, but for cryin’ out loud, Jim. Who else would do it? And why?”

“And why go to all that trouble?” Kirk asked.

“Listen, Jim … I know this is going to sound crazy, but what if Daagen is up to something? Something more serious?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, like, what if he and his ‘Federation First’ buddies pulled that stunt at the opening ceremonies and are trying to pin the blame on the Varkolak?”

Kirk couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “A
cadet
? Someone from Starfleet? I just can’t believe that. We take an
oath
, Bones—”

“I know, I know. But some people may believe in that a little more than others.”

“Still. There’s no way. I don’t know who was behind it, but I refuse to believe it was someone in Starfleet.”

“You’re too trusting, Jim.”

“I have to be, Bones. Otherwise, what’s the point? So, what’s next for you and Nadja? Got a hot date lined up?”

“Jim, we’re talking about a terrorist bombing here, and you want to know how my love life’s going?”

“I have to, Bones,” Kirk said. “Otherwise, what’s the point?” He grinned. “Come on. You’ve been thinking about it too. I know you have. Spill.”

“All right. Yes. I do have something lined up. I’m taking your advice and we’re going out for dinner under the stars.”

Kirk tapped Bones on the shoulder with his fist. “There we go! I knew you had it in you. So, where is it? Somewhere in the city?”

“No, it’s a little farther out than that. I had this idea. I'm going to—”

“Sounds great, Bones,” Kirk told him. He’d just spotted Cadet Rhinehart walking alone toward the cafeteria. He was Kirk’s next target in the Assassination Game. He took off at a run, trying to catch him before he got company. “Thanks for the escort. See you back in the dorm!”

“Glad I could miss out on important lab work to be your babysitter!” he heard Bones call out from behind him. “You owe me, Jim!”

The Academy Observation Tower was bright and sun-filled when Uhura stepped off the turbolift that day at lunch. Ordinarily, the added sight of Spock waiting there by the window would have made the picture more perfect, but now he stood like a dark cloud on her horizon. She would tell him her news as quickly as possible, she told herself, and maybe that way stay out of the rain.

“Nyota,” Spock said.

“Commander Spock.”

Spock heard the formality in her voice, but did nothing more than raise an eyebrow, damn him. Whatever.

“Have you had an opportunity to acquire one of the Varkolak sensing devices?” Spock asked her.

“No. I mean, yes, I had an opportunity, but it didn’t work out.” She told Spock about the Varkolak who had visited the Academy Sports Complex that morning and her attempt to sneak into the men’s changing rooms to steal his scanner. That
elicited another raised eyebrow from him, but nothing more.

“I was interrupted by a cadet named Hikaru Sulu. Do you know him?”

“I am acquainted with him, yes. From my work with the Academy simulators. He is an able pilot.”

Uhura rubbed her sore neck. “He’s also good at karate too.
And
he’s a member of the Graviton Society.”

“Is he?”

“He approached me this morning. Asked me to spar with him. While we were fighting, he let it slip that the Gravitons are planning to get rid of the Varkolak.”

“Indeed?”

Uhura laid out the plot for him. “You’ll have to tell Starfleet Security. They can post extra guards on the communications tower.”

“I will take care of it, thank you.”

“So. Okay, then,” Uhura said. There was really nothing more to say. “I’m going to get some lunch before my next class.”

Spock moved to one side to reveal two cartons of Chinese food from a restaurant just off campus. “I took the liberty of procuring two orders of kung pao vegetables. Your favorite, if I am not mistaken. I thought we might eat lunch together.”

Uhura was stunned. “You mean … like a date?”

Spock frowned. “I merely meant to offer sustenance,
as I have imposed upon your scheduled lunch hour. And as we should not be seen together during this operation, dining together in the faculty cafeteria or the student dining hall is inadvisable.”

“Right,” Uhura said. “I uh, I appreciate the offer, but I have other plans.”

“I understand,” Spock told her as she walked to the turbolift, but she doubted he did.

“Ready for our big date?”

Nadja Luther looked ready. She was wearing a lowcut, sleeveless dress that hugged her slight body—nothing too fancy, but not too casual either—and had her long dark hair done up on top of her head. McCoy caught the dull shine of something metal holding her hair in place, and shook his head.

“Don’t tell me—that’s a spork.”

Nadja slipped her arm in his. “Well, you never know who you’re going to end up alone with, do you?”

“Well, I hope you’ve got it narrowed down, at least.”

Nadja flashed him her beautiful smile, and McCoy felt an onset of what he might have diagnosed as presyncope, the light-headedness that preceded a fainting spell, though his symptoms were no doubt psychological, brought about by hyperventilation. In layman’s terms,
Nadja was currently working some serious mojo on him.

“So. ‘An evening under the stars,’” Nadja said. “Does that mean a night picnic? A fancy dinner under twinkling lights? A hidden garret under the stage at Madame Tussauds in Hollywood?”

“You’ll see,” McCoy said. He wanted to keep it mysterious. He’d put a lot of planning into this.

McCoy escorted Nadja across campus, but instead of heading for the streetcar line into Sausalito or the ferry landing to take them across the bay to San Francisco, he led her to one of the Academy’s transporter rooms.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” she told him.