Emerald Flight: “Human Factors” (continued)

She reached her quarters and paused before opening the hatch. Three storage compartments separated her quarters from those of the other officers on this deck. While an unusual arrangement, it was necessary. She would have preferred to have been provided quarters adjacent to the Infirmary, but the Captain had refused. It was one of the few times that the Captain had not granted one of her requests. The Captain had explained that she thought it was a bad idea for crew members to have quarters close to their usual duty posts.

“It encourages bad habits,” the Captain said. The tone of her voice, though, implied that she was quoting a phrase from someone else.

Hope opened the hatch and stepped inside, not waiting for the lights to illuminate the room. Crossing into the sleeping area, she began unfastening her uniform, grateful to soon be out of it. Normally, she did not mind. While it might be viewed to some as merely another set of clothing, for her it was a symbol. Far different from the design of Aerian attire, it was a mark of her acceptance among the Humans—and her acceptance of them as colleagues and, yes, even friends. That set her apart from nearly all other Aerians. It was not that her people were necessarily xenophobic, but there were insular and isolationist. And, Hope knew, those attitudes had doomed her race.

Shrugging out of her uniform, she hung it neatly in the shower unit to be cleaned. From her closet, she chose a loose-fitting robe of a fabric so pale and translucent that it appeared to be woven from strands of alabaster and silver. Those were not, of course, the Aerian words for those materials. The Captain had used them, one evening when she had been forced to consult with Hope during off-duty hours and Hope had not had a chance to change back into more appropriate attire.

After donning the robe, completely bare beneath it, she crossed to the small desk mounted against the bulkhead. As she expected, she had received no personal messages during all of the time that she had on duty, although she had three inquiries as to her availability to attend three different medical conferences. She was unfamiliar with any of the requestors or their organizations. She made a mental note to research each of them, although it was unlikely that she would choose to attend.

These were not the first such offers that she had received, but the Chief Engineer had informed her that, while they might claim to be interested in her medical expertise, what they really wanted was the bragging rights to claim that they had the one and only Aerian medical officer in the Fleet at the conference. He had told her, and she had been forced to agree with his hypothesis, that she would be as much on display as any of the other planned exhibits. While slavery had never been conducted on her home world, she was aware of the practice. The idea of her being placed on display, even if not literally so, made her uncomfortable in ways that she could not wholly explain. Although fully accepted by this Crew, she was fully aware of the attention that she drew when they visited other Human colonies and stations.

She crossed to the sleeping platform and lay upon it. Its firm padding barely yielded beneath her. Staring toward the ceiling, but not seeing it, she reviewed the events of her day, organizing them so that she would be able to access them more efficiently when she awoke. While all of the injured crew members would almost certainly survive, the cause of the Tactical Officer’s abnormal behavior unresolved. The results from the tests that Lieutenant Ramsey had run so far had revealed no obvious cause. She would need to study it further.

Although Hope attempted to maintain her focus, it kept slipping away. With effort, she was able to regain it, but her periods of productive concentration grew shorter each time. Finally, almost realizing that she had done so, she surrendered to her resting state.

#

His world existed as a thick haze. It was mostly white, but indistinct shapes moved within it. He did not believe that he stood inside it, nor did he think that he floated within it. What faint sensations he experienced told him that he still dwelled within his body. It was not, he believed, death.

Although his surroundings appeared to have no substance, its state seemed to change. Gray shapes passed across it, but none of them take on form. He heard sounds, faint hushed noises that might have been voices. They seemed to come from far away. He could not fit them into patterns that he could understand.

He was no longer in the cave—he was certain of that. He had been captured by the intruders. He had defeated some of them before they had used their strange weapons to subdue him. He remembered falling to the ground, his limbs no longer under his command. Strange, bright lights had shone around him. There had been voices then too, but those he had almost understood. And then there had been darkness.

Images of faces flashed through his mind, teasing at memories that he could not recall.

Were they the intruders from his cave?

That seemed to be both right and wrong at the same time, but he did not know why.

He thought that he might be able recognize them, to . . .

. . . to what?

His thoughts became unfocused again, as if caught in the currents of the haze that surrounded him. Despite his efforts, they drifted . . .

The haze dimmed, turning gray,, but more solid than smoke. Darkness gathered at its edges like clouds before a storm. The darkness deepened around him and, without knowing it, he once again slept.

- 7 -

“I can’t do that, Captain,” Ramsey told Devereux. “Hope’s instructions were very specific.”

Devereux opened her mouth, but to her surprise, Ramsey interrupted her.

“I’m not allowed to release you,” Ramsey said, the words taking on an almost melodic cadence.

She sighed, but still faced Devereux.

“Captain,” she said. “Hope’s scheduled to be back on duty in two hours. Can’t you wait that long?”

Devereux knew that she could force her authority as commanding officer of the ship, but felt some measure of sympathy for the young officer.

Who’s she more afraid of? Devereux wondered, eyeing Ramsey. Me or Hope?

She had a hunch—and really did not want to find out whether or not it was correct.

“Fine,” she conceded, settling herself back into the bed. “Two hours,” she added, but without any real heat.

“Thank you, Captain,” Ramsey said.

Devereux could see by the young woman’s posture that she was even more relieved than her words indicated. As for herself, Devereux had reached that stage in her recovery where she found it difficult to remain in bed. Her head still ached slightly, but the discomfort was easily ignored.

I’ve had worse from taking a ball to the head during a match.

She almost winced at some of those memories from the Academy rugby field. She had completed her mid-term examination in—what?—slipstream physics and nearly aced it. But she had no memory whatsoever, then or now, of ever having taken the test. It was not as though someone else could have taken for her, but she did not remember it.

After watching Ramsey for a few moments as the medical assistant tended to the other patients, Devereux activated the tablet that she held and reviewed the shift status reports. She was almost two days behind on them and did not any more of a backlog than she already did.

She read with approval that all of the damage to Cargo Bay One. Repairs to the bulkhead had taken quite a bit longer than expected, but the impact to other maintenance tasks on the ship appeared to be minimal.

Certainly nothing critical, Devereux noted as she read the reprioritized list of tasks.

Ensign Chien’s readings of the nearby star cluster had yielded nothing extraordinary. Devereux was sure that Chien was disappointed, but she knew that even unremarkable readings could be valuable in trying to unlock the secrets behind the design of the universe. If most star systems they surveyed turned out to be “unremarkable “, then that might mean that a great many of the ones scattered across this part of the galaxy might be as well, making it easier to determine which ones might be more interesting to study.

Devereux looked over toward the next bed. It was empty. Choy and Nang had both been released from the Infirmary. Each had been approved only for light duty for the next two days. Owens remained in a coma. According to both Hope and Ramsey, though, his condition continued to improve. On the last bed, Bayer was asleep, probably from a sedative. Unlike Owens, he was almost free of support bandaging. Most of his more severe injuries had been internal ones. Hope had repaired them, but the Security officer needed time to recuperate.

That brought her thoughts back to Hawkes.

Ramsey had been frustratingly uninformative about what she and Hope had managed to learn about the Tactical Officer’s condition and what had caused it. Devereux had finally relented when she realized that Ramsey probably did not understand what the results of the tests had revealed.

And if she doesn’t know, Devereux admitted, then I certainly won’t be much help figuring it out either—even on my best days.

She was tempted to bring up Hawkes’ personnel file again, but after reviewing as many times as she had already, she doubted that she might uncover anything new. Hope had indicated that neither his medical history nor psychological profile showed anything that might explain his behavior. Both had been stymied, however, by the mysterious five-year gap in his service record. Based on her experience in the Special Operations branch, Devereux could understand how that could happen. Still, it was possible—even likely—that something that happened during that period might provide some clues as to what drove Hawkes’ behavior now.

Hope entered while she was considering that, and wondering whether she had enough pull with the right people to possibly to get a peek at the sealed portion of Hawkes’ file. It would depend, she knew, on which branch of the Fleet had ordered it to be sealed. Some of the organizations were more than just a little bit touchy about other branches knowing their secrets.

“Captain.”

Devereux turned and flashed Hope her brightest smile.

“Hope!”

Hope studied her for only a moment before she walked over to examine the medical displays linked to Devereux’s bed. She took a long time doing so, which concerned Devereux at first, and then made her wonder whether Hope was doing it deliberately. Finally, Hope stepped back and stared at Devereux.

“You’re going to release me, right?” Devereux asked, although she made it sound a lot less like the question it was.

Hope surprised her by continuing to study her in silence for a long moment before answering.

“Yes.”

Devereux was torn between relief that her captivity within the confines of the Infirmary, and wanting smack Hope for dragging it out.

“Great,” Devereux said, sitting up and sliding onto her feet from the platform.

Emerald Flight: “Human Factors” (continued)

Remaining precisely two paces behind the stretcher, Hope outlined the next several hours in her mind. She had already performed a mental triage, assessing the severity of the condition of each of the injured Crew and the Captain. It was difficult, she found, not to place the Captain at the top of the list, but her injuries, while serious, were not as critical as those of Engineer Lieutenant Owens or Security Lieutenant Bayer. Even with the assistance of Sciences Lieutenant Ramsey and the other medical aides, Hope knew that she would be involved in surgery and other critical care for several hours.

While she would not need to eat anything for at least two more days, she knew that the Crew would require food within the next few hours. She quickly altered her planned schedule to accommodate for this Human limitation. Next, she mentally reviewed her inventory of medical supplies, checking to see which of them were currently available in the Infirmary and what might need to be acquired from storage. She lifted her tablet and quickly requisitioned two more complete sets of surgical equipment. When they reached the Infirmary, she would assign Engineer Zee to begin additional cultivation of Human general replacement cells. Based on Hope’s initial medical evaluation of the injuries, she expected that she would need to grow replacement bone cells to speed the recovery of Security Lieutenant Bayer and Security Ensign Nang, as well as possibly a spleen for Engineer Owens and a kidney for both him and Security Lieutenant Bayer.

The main hatch to the Infirmary opened and Sciences Ensign Zee and Sciences Lieutenant Ramsey moved the stretcher inside. Upon entering, she saw that Bayer had been placed on the first diagnostic bed and that it had already been configured in critical care mode. Security Ensign Nang, Engineer Choy, and Engineer Owens occupied the next three beds. The Tactical Officer, she knew, had been secured in one of the isolation pods. That is not the order in which she would have arranged them, but Hope was not going to move them now. She made a slight change to her planned routine.

Sciences Lieutenant Ramsey left the stretcher and went over to the bulkhead adjacent to the fourth diagnostic bed. She tapped at its controls and another platform slid out from the bulkhead. With practiced motions, she dropped the supports down and activated the bed’s monitors. She returned and helped Sciences Ensign Zee maneuver the stretcher to a position next to the diagnostic bed. Carefully, they lifted the Captain again and placed her gently onto the bed. Its displays changed immediately as it began recording and analyzing data about the Captain’s injuries.

“I’ll go scrub up?” Sciences Lieutenant Ramsey said. It was only half a question.

“Yes.”

Sciences Lieutenant Ramsey turned and headed for the surgical preparation area. Hope turned toward Sciences Sciences Ensign Zee.

“Prepare him,” Hope said, pointing directly at Engineer Bayer.

“On it,” Sciences Ensign Zee said, and moved toward the first diagnostic bed.

Once certain that Sciences Ensign Zee was with the correct patient, Hope turned and followed Sciences Lieutenant Ramsey. Before she entered the chamber, though, Hope turned and took another look at the Captain, once more resisting the urge to treat her injuries first.

#

Dreams overtook him. They were strange, disjointed things. Yet, in some ways, they seemed more real than the events in the cave had. The world in them was bright and angular. The beings in them—so many of them!—moved with strange purpose. He thought he should know them, that each one had a name that he understood.

But they had entered his cave and nearly discovered him. So he had attacked them, defending himself against them before they could use their strange weapons against him—weapons such as the one he had claimed for himself. He had no memory of having acquiring, nor was he certain that he even understood how to use it, but his hands and fingers had remembered.

One of them, the one with short light-colored hair, has fought well. That had surprised him. The others with her had been little challenge, falling to even the most basic of his fighting skills. She had not been the tallest or the strongest, yet she had nearly defeated him. Few others in his memory had done so well. He had nearly won, and then new ones came. Before he could defeat them, for surely he would have, they had used their strange weapons on him. Some kind of magic had consumed him, preventing his body from obeying his commands. Then the darkness had come.

Now, he was in yet another strange place. It was not his cave. The smells and colors were wrong. There were voices, but oddly distant. He had trouble focusing on them, as if he were still caught in sleep. Still, he could not move.

No, he realized. This is different.

The magic no longer held him. He was captured, bound to some kind of platform. This he understood.

I will be sacrificed to appease their gods?

If they were anything that the ones he knew, they would not take defeat lightly. They would insist on punishment, perhaps of a most brutal kind.

The sounds were wrong here as well. They lacked the songs of the birds and the wind. They were, instead, bird-like noises, but harsh and not at all pleasant. They did not soothe, but demanded one’s attention. He did not like them. Still, he sensed that there might be a pattern to them, perhaps an attempt to communicate . . . or to control him.

He listened to the steady cadence of the sounds, trying to decipher their meaning. As he did, without realizing when, he lost them and succumbed, once more, to the comforting darkness.

- 6 -

Devereux awoke slowly, drifting up from a sedation-induced haze. She recognized the sensation for what it was, and forced herself to punch her way through it. While she did not exactly snap awake, full awareness came to her in rush. It took her only a moment to recognize that she was no longer in the cargo bay. She was surprised, at first, to find herself in the Infirmary.

Where else would I be?

Part of her, she thought, had probably hoped that she would wake up in her own quarters, able to dismiss the events of the past several hours as a particularly unpleasant dream. The dull and distant aches of her body told her otherwise. She wondered how many drugs Hope had pumped into her to help distance her from the pain.

Devereux tried to rise . . . and regretted the action immediately. Her head swam and then ached. The muscles in her arms trembled, tingling painfully with the effort. Lowering herself back onto the bed, she realized that she had probably not been nearly as graceful about it as she would have like. She lay there, waiting for the vertigo to pass. Her skull throbbed in cadence with her heartbeat.

The pain began to fade. She tried to rest, but her mind hummed with questions. Ramsey must have seen her try to rise, or been alerted by the medical monitors, for she arrived a few seconds later. She was, Devereux noted, still dressed in surgical coveralls, but had discarded the outer covering.

“Captain,” Ramsey greeted her.

The lieutenant’s expression was not so much grim as tired. Quick images of Hawkes leaping at her, of the still bodies of her crew, flashed through her mind. Devereux wondered just how much she had missed.

Ramsey checked the data displays, made an adjustment to one, and then returned her attention to Devereux.

“Hope’s still in surgery, Captain,” Ramsey explained, checking another one of the medical readouts.

“How bad?” Devereux’s voice was a hoarse croak.

“Bad enough,” Ramsey replied grimly. She sighed wearily and tapped a control on one of the consoles positioned above Devereux’s head. “We’ll pull everyone through,” she said, sounding confident through her fatigue. “But a few of them will be off the duty roster for a while.”

Devereux looked away for a moment, processing that information. She felt too tired to even nod her understanding.

“Hawkes?” Her voice sounded less gravelly now, but came out soft and quiet.

“No real change,” Ramsey said. “Hope’s still running tests.”

This time, Devereux did manage to nod. Her head felt twice its usual mass.

“Just rest for now, Captain,” Ramsey told her, managing a weak smile. “Repairs are underway. There’s really nothing else you can do right now.”

Devereux wanted to deny that statement, but found it difficult to do so.

If I can’t even get myself off the bed . . .

As if reading her thoughts, Ramsey said, “Stay put, Captain,” she cautioned Devereux. “Or I’ll put you back under.” Ramsey’s smile brightened just slightly. “Hope’s orders.”

Devereux forced herself to settle back against the bed’s padding, surprised at how little distance that really was. She closed her eyes and, without much surprise, went back to sleep.

When she awoke some time later, the Infirmary felt different than it had before. Her perceptions seemed more distinct than they had earlier, telling her that the sedation had worn off. While she was not actually in pain, Devereux felt that she could sense every bruise and strain across her body. In a way, it was a familiar and comforting sensation, as it reminded her of the results of a few of her rougher rugby matches while at the Academy.

“Captain.”

Devereux turned her head—easily this time, she noticed—and saw Hope standing there. The Aerian physician stared down at her with dark, alien eyes. Devereux wondered, as she often did, what they saw.

“You will recover.”

Devereux managed a smile. “I’m glad to hear it.” Her expression sobered. “And the others?”

“All will recover. Some will take more time.”

Devereux nodded slowly her understanding.

“I will provide a report. Later.”

Devereux’s smile widened and she almost chuckled aloud. “Understood.” She looked toward the isolation pod. “What about Hawkes?”

“Analysis continues.”

“Anything so far?”

Hope hesitated uncharacteristically for an instant. The back of Devereux’s neck prickled with alarm.

“Nothing conclusive.”

Devereux stared up at Hope, but the Aerian’s alien expression revealed nothing. She was tempted to press her Medical Officer for more, but she suspected that such an effort would prove futile. Hope very rarely expressed opinions without having a full set of data with which to back them up. It was clear that, whatever information she had gathered so far, Hope remained unconvinced of its certainty.

Devereux settled back again, feeling clear-headed, but still tired and sore. She had known that the Tactical Officer possessed expert skills in a variety of hand-to-hand combat skills and martial arts. Short of some light sparring, though, she had never been at the receiving end of any of it.

What set him off like that?

“Hope,” she said, her voice stronger now. “I want to see Lieutenant Hawkes’ personnel file again.”

Hope hesitated again before responding.

What the hell is going on?

“Yes, Captain.”

Devereux shifted herself into more of a sitting position. Vertigo danced at the edges of her vision, but she fought it back. She had no doubt that her own medical report would list a concussion among her injuries. It did not seem to be a very serious one, as she could find no gaps in her memories of the past few days, but then she wondered just how long she might have been out. It did not feel like it had been more than a few hours, but she knew from experience how heavy sedation could interfere with one’s sense of time.

Hope moved away toward to check the next diagnostic bed, clearly in no hurry to fulfill Devereux’s request. Devereux almost called her on it, but then let it go.

Her first duty is to her patients, not to her impatient commanding officer.

Devereux knew that she would never put her own needs above those of her crew, especially ones who had been injured trying to protect her in the line of duty.

The personnel file could wait, she decided, although she was not wholly pleased with the delay. Nonetheless, she settled back to wait, and wondered whether if she might allowed to eat soon.

#

Elizabeth entered the bridge, reassured by the steady cadence of the command crew’s routine. Other than looking up from their stations when she entered, they seemed to be unaffected by the dramatic events that had taken place in the cargo bay. She was certain, unofficial communications channels being what they were, that most of them had received some kind of report on what had happened. Unless asked about it directly, she decided not to volunteer any information.

The command deck, she saw, was still littered with extra control panels and spare parts. The command console itself, she suspected, would remain uncooperative. Although they had managed to override the lighting and hatch controls on the cargo bay pretty much by brute electronic force, she knew the same techniques had failed the Chief so far in getting the command console to obey their commands.

She stopped behind the helm station, looking over Pyrafox’s head to stare at the field of stars currently visible on the main bridge display. It looked much as it had when she had left the bridge . . .

How long ago?

Looking at the main bridge chronometer, she was surprised by how little time had passed since she had started her duty shift. It felt like much longer, chiefly because she seemed as if she had spent several hours in the darkness of the cargo bay. She certainly felt tired enough to have completed an entire shift.

Stress, she told herself. And adrenaline crash.

She considered ordering coffee, but the thought of it burned at the back of her throat.

Tea?

She could not decide which variety sounded appealing, so she finally let that idea go. Getting something to eat seemed like a good idea.

Comfort food, her roommate during her first year at the Academy had called it. Annette had needed plenty of it, Elizabeth recalled. She had flunked out before the end of her first year.

Elizabeth understood the concept, though, particularly now. A large, steaming dish of pasta and cheese would be ideal right then. She could picture it clearly in her mind, even to the memories of the aroma and taste.

“Commander?”

Karr’s voice interrupted her culinary daydream. As Elizabeth turned her head in the direction of the Tactical station, the scent stayed with her a moment longer.

“Yes, Lieutenant?”

 

#

Rusty supervised the repairs to both the bulkhead and the cargo bay hatch locking mechanism. Although the latter had caused the greater problem during the situation with Hawkes, it was the easiest to fix. A simple swap of the control board, a little reprogramming, and then it was as good as new.

Better than new, Rusty mused, as he waited for Benitez to finish verifying that the modified programming worked as they had expected. With the new authorization routines in place, it would prevent someone from overriding the system as Hawkes had managed to do.

At least until next time, Rusty considered wryly. Until someone else finds a new way to circumvent it.

The repairs to the damaged bulkhead were taking more time than he had originally estimated. The actual replacement of the bulkhead panel would be straightforward, he hoped, but during their passage through it, someone had damaged some of the conduits within the bulkhead. He suspected that it might have been one of the medical teams trying to push their stretcher through the narrow opening. The security video feed might indicate who it was, but it did not really matter now. The damage would be repair, and the aft astronomy station would stop complaining about intermittent computer network access and power issues.

“Carson,” he called over to the team working on the hatchway’s main control panel.

“Yeah, Chief?”

“Give me a download of the access log there before you reset it. I want to check something.”

“On it, Chief.”

Rusty turned back toward Benitez, watching as the technician completed his tests.

“That should do it, Chief,” he reported. “It checks out on all fronts. I’d risk my rep on it.”

“Want to stand in the hatchway while I test it?”

Benitez’s eyes widened slightly with mock horror. “I wouldn’t go that that far.”

Rusty grinned back at him. “No sense of adventure, eh?”

The technician smiled back with a definite twinkle in his dark walnut-tinted eyes. “Let’s just say I’ve got no desire to be half the man I am today.”

“Too bad,” Rusty remarked idly. “It’d be easier for you to fit those aft maintenance tubes.”

“Just what I need,” Benitez said. “Extra duty.”

“Nah,” Rusty countered. “It’d take half as long because there’d be two of you.”

“Point,” Benitez conceded, chuckling. “But I’ll pass.”

Rusty finished checking the technician’s work. At forty-five, Benitez was one of the older members of the crew. Rusty liked him. He brought a certain level of maturity to an otherwise fairly young team, but he managed to keep up with most of them—both in endurance and wit. He had enlisted after his children had graduated from college and gone off about their own lives. Rusty had never learned what had happened to his partner, other than to guess that they too had followed their own separate paths somewhere along the way.

Tapping instructions into the panel, Rusty checked the diagnostics readouts again. They agreed with Benitez’s assessment, as he expected. The technician never pronounced a job finished unless he was certain that it was.

Rusty glanced toward the now-open hatch. He wanted to actually test the new program by opening and closing the hatch. With repairs still in progress, though, he did not want to take any chances that something might go wrong and lock them all inside the cargo bay . . . again.

“All right, Bennie,” he told the technician. “Let’s close it up and see if the children need any help.”

Benitez chuckled, even though it was an old riff between the two of them. “Got it, Chief.”

Rusty rose, patted the older man on the shoulder, and then headed toward the team working on the damaged bulkhead. From a distance, he could not tell whether they were making progress or not. Damaged bits of components and conduit littered the deck. It looked as if a child had taken apart a large kitchen appliance and then left all of its part strewn about. He reached down and retrieved a piece that had rolled away further from the rest and examined it as he kept walking. It was a piece of junction tubing, sheared off at one end.

No wonder Astronomy was whining about their computer access speeds.

He could see how, in shearing off from the rest of conduit, the coupling might have sliced through several layers of digital fiber. Turning it over in his hand, and then raising it to get a better look at it using the overhead lighting, he considered ways in which it might be possible to reinforce it in the future.

“That’s assuming that we’re going to start shoving medical equipment through the walls on a regular basis,” he murmured.

Niguchi apparently heard him, for the young technician asked him, “What was that, Chief?”

“I said,” Rusty said, raising his voice enough so that it could be just overheard by the other members in Niguchi’s team, “that I’ll have all your asses if those repairs aren’t finished before eighteen hundred. You’re standing between me and a double Scotch.”

There was general laughter, but Rusty saw that the technicians moved now with a bit more speed. He paused before the bent sheet of bulkhead material that had already been removed. Studying the curve of the torn edge, he gave low whistle of admiration. Owens had managed to do quite a number on it.

“Remind me never to get into a bar fight with that guy,” he mused in a low whisper.

He studied the torn edges of the sheet again before placing it back down on the deck.

Footsteps sounded from his left. Without looking up, Rusty knew that it was Carson. The blond-haired technician offered him a tablet.

“Here’s a copy of that log you wanted, Chief,” he said. “Anything else?”

Rusty frowned slightly, tapping the tablet lightly against his open palm.

“Did you log any images of the damage before you went in?”

Carson looked surprised.

“Of course, Chief,” he replied. “We needed the baseline before we started repairs.”

Rusty nodded approvingly. Tapping the tablet with his forefinger, he told Carson, “Send me those too.”

The technician nodded, looking puzzled. “On it, Chief.”

While the engineers completed their repairs, Rusty began reviewing the data from the hatch control’s access log.

Emerald Flight: “Human Factors” (continued)

Rusty looked toward Hope and began to open his mouth. It was only because of her distance, and that she was already tending to Bayer and Choy, that he did not call out to her.

“Go help Elizabeth,” Devereux instructed him tightly, motioning in the direction of the cargo bay’s main control panel. “Lights,” she told him. “And we need that hatch open.”

Rusty studied her for a long moment. She could tell that he was preparing to protest her order. In the end, though, he complied, turning away with a frustrated grimace.

Devereux watched him go, her eyes following the bright beam of his light as he disappeared into the darkness.

I’m not sure I’ll ever understand him.

Since returning to the Fleet, he had become almost a model officer.

Almost.

Sighing quietly, she attempted to stretch some of the tension from her shoulder muscles. She regretted that immediately, as it brought back some of the pain. She almost staggered for an instant, biting off a low moan.

Oh, Hope’s going to let me have it . . .

Although she could usually convince her Chief Engineer to back down, her Medical Officer was another matter. It was, Devereux realized, that Hope was defiant, or perhaps even stubborn, but she was . . . persistent.

No, she thought. That’s not it either.

Her attention snapped back to the present at the sound of more clanging at the bulkhead. She wondered now how much damage the medical teams might be doing to the components that it contained.

It’d be nice if they got the hatch working, she thought wearily. At least the lights—

As if hearing her thoughts, several of the overhead illumination panel flickered into brightness. Only about a third of them, she noticed, but it was far preferable to the earlier, almost impenetrable, darkness. She had to squint slightly, and then only for a few moments, finding that the partially restored lighting was less of a shock than full illumination would have been.

Looking around the cargo bay, she now had a clear view of Hope tending to Bayer and Choy, while Ramsey and Zee assisted Owens and Nang. In the increased illumination, she almost shuddered to see just how serious their injuries now looked.

A second medical team came up from behind her. Without turning, she instructed them to assist with Owens and Nang. One of them, Kennedy, an exo-biologist from the Sciences division, apparently temporarily pressed into service as a medical aide, hesitated, looking down at Hawkes.

“Captain?” she asked tentatively.

Devereux’s eyes turned in the direction of Kennedy’s gaze. Somehow, for a moment, she had forgotten about Hawkes.

She looked back up and quickly assessed the situation of the other teams. Nang and Owens still lay on the deck, as did Choy. Owens was attempting to rise, but Devereux could see the spasms in his arm muscles from where she stood.

“Who has the restraints?” she asked Kennedy.

“Um.” Kennedy swallowed nervously. “We all do.”

Devereux stared at the young, brown-haired ensign and then began to chuckle softly, afraid for a moment that she might be unable to stop.

Post-combat fatigue, she warned herself.

Devereux stared down at Hawkes. He was still out from the heavy stunning that he had received. Normally, he would likely be out for at least another twenty minutes or so.

How long had it been?

She then realized that she had no sense of how much time had passed since she and the others had entered the cargo bay.

Looking toward the two Security officers, she said, “Get him strapped in. Help her get through the bulkhead if she needs it.” She turned back to Kennedy. “Put him in lockdown in the isolation bay.”

Kennedy swallowed hard again. She looked uncertain.

“I’ll send Security with you,” Devereux reassured her.

Kennedy nodded, looking relieved.

Devereux turned to check on Hope’s progress. The cargo bay spun as vertigo overtook her. Instinctively, she reached out for balance, but there was nothing to grab onto. She heard voices. They might have come from Kennedy or one of the Security officers, but they sounded too far away for that.

Darkness had already begun to consume her even before her head hit the deck.

#

The n-wrench clattered to the deck when Elizabeth heard the footsteps approaching. Her brain caught up with her instincts an instant too late and she swore as the sound of the tool impacting the deck echoed across the chamber. Kneeling to pick up the n-wrench, she half-turned to face the intruder as he approached.

“Damn you, Chief,” she muttered. She said it loud enough for him to hear her, but not so that anyone else nearby would.

Rusty’s face wore a grin as he stepped into the path of her light beam. She had not known that he could move with such stealth.

Usually sounds like a baby elephant approaching on these deck plates.

She realized, though, that she might have been engrossed in her task and in her thoughts to recognize his approach until he had come near enough to be easily heard. Elizabeth doubted that silent explanation, though.

Not as keyed up as I am right now . . .

Even with Hawkes sprawled unconscious on deck—he still was, right?—her nerves still quivered with nervous energy.

“Whatcha got?” Rusty asked her, ignoring her discomfiture.

Elizabeth tapped the n-wrench lightly across her palm, still toying with the notion of rapping it across the Chief’s skull.

“He’s got all of the systems locked down tight,” she told him, stepping aside as he moved in to check the panels for himself.

“Hmm,” Rusty mused, tapping experimentally at some of the controls. He looked up toward the shadowed ceiling. “At least he left us air.”

A sharp knot twisted Elizabeth’s stomach. She had not considered that element of it.

Settle down, she coached herself. He needed the air in here too.

Her eyes swept across the ceiling now too.

Probably plenty of air in here for one person, she thought. Probably for several hours. She then recalled that the actual airflow was only half of the equation. The airflow was also what kept the interior habitable, as it also carried heat throughout the ship. Even if Hawkes thought he had enough air to hide in the cargo bay for hours, the temperature would drop well below freezing long before the oxygen wore out. From what she had seen, he had been dressed in nothing other than his duty uniform, so he had probably expected to maintain a comfortable atmosphere.

Unconsciously, Elizabeth rubbed at the sudden chill that ran along her upper arms. She had not felt it before. The ship’s cargo bays were typically not kept as warm as the more commonly used areas of the ship. This was partly because the air tended to cool more quickly in the large space, and there was little reason to keep it heated to a comfortable level unless crew members were working in it for an extended period of time. Elizabeth could recall a number of times when she had been off-duty and wanted something that had stowed for long-term storage in one of the cargo bays, but had decided against it because of facing its chill.

“Let me try something,” Rusty said, breaking her reverie. “Hand me that Number 3 probe.”

Elizabeth pulled the tool from the equipment case and handed it to him.

“Maybe I can trick it into a maintenance mode,” Rusty murmured aloud. “It’s just the lights, after all.”

He poked at the innards of the panels for a while, muttering a constant string of what was probably an equal combination of prayers and curses. She did hear “Morris” referred to several times—and not always in a grateful way.

“By the Eight Gates of Hell,” he swore, yanking his hand suddenly from the interior of the panel. Then he cackled aloud when lights began flickering on above them.

Elizabeth looked up, blinking, and then back down at the deck, waiting for the sudden spots to fade from her vision. When she looked up again, her vision had cleared, but illumination remained low.

“Better than nothing,” Rusty pronounced, sounding pleased. “Better’n stumbling around in the dark.”

Elizabeth had to agree with that statement, although she did not say so aloud.

Rusty chuckled and Elizabeth had the uncomfortable feeling that he was, once again, reading her thoughts.

No, she told herself. Just my expression. She glanced at Rusty’s back. Right?

“C’mon,” he told her, picking up the equipment case. “Let’s check out the door.”

Elizabeth followed him after a moment, finally remembering that she was supposed to be the one in charge here. She said nothing immediately, though. Every phrase that came to mind sounded either arrogant or whiny.

He is the Chief Engineer, she reminded herself. But that still felt like a rationalization. How does the Captain do it?

During all of the time that Elizabeth had served on this ship, both before and after her promotion to First Officer, she had seen Devereux handle Rusty with expert ease and patience.

Well, most of the time, Elizabeth admitted to herself silently. She could recall more than one occasion when the Captain had lost her patience with the Chief, but she generally gave him free rein to do his job as he saw fit.

Generally, Elizabeth observed. Within limits.

But there was something more to it than just that, Elizabeth was certain. She had never been able explain the Chief’s shift in behavior since he had returned to duty in the Fleet. Several months had passed since then, but he had still managed to evade or deflect both her direct and subtle questions about it. That had been about that she could do, she realized.

You can’t put someone on report because he follows orders and does his job.

She wondered if the Captain knew. Something told her, though, that Devereux was as puzzled as she was by the Chief’s change in attitude.

Rusty paused by the hatch’s control panel and inspected it. It appeared to be undamaged, physically at least. He tapped out a few commands on its surface and then turned his head toward the hatchway. Elizabeth heard a few faint electronic clicks, but the hatch remained closed.

“Didn’t think it’d be that easy,” the Chief Engineer remarked, almost under his breath.

He strolled over to the hatchway, studying its frame and the hatch itself. Elizabeth saw nothing unusual. That the Chief kept looking told her that he had found nothing yet either.

“Nice . . .” the Chief remarked suddenly.

On the opposite of the hatchway, less than a meter up from the deck, was an open maintenance panel. It was barely larger than her hand was open, revealing a tiny patch of exposed circuitry. Elizabeth tried to remember what part of the hatch’s operations the panel accessed, but came up blank at first. The Chief, though, seemed to know instantly.

Of course he does, she concluded with wry amusement.

Without any hint of self-consciousness, he dropped down onto the deck, lying on his stomach as he peered inside the open panel. Without turning his head away from the open panel, he reached over and slid the equipment case closer to him. Still without looking, he reached inside and withdrew a small tool. He held it in front of the open panel and then hesitated.

“Here goes nothin’,” he remarked aloud.

Slowly, he inserted the tool into the open panel and began making adjustments.

Elizabeth held her breath without realizing it, watching as the Chief Engineer did his work. A bright flare of light illuminated his features for an instant one point, throwing his tense expression into high relief. Rusty mumbled something that Elizabeth was almost certain was a vague reference to either Hawkes’ or the panel’s parentage, but kept working.

Blinking against the brief afterimage that the flash had seared across her retinas, Elizabeth did not look away as the Chief worked. Finally, he grunted, but remained in his place on the deck.

“Try it now,” he told Elizabeth.

It took her a moment to realize that he meant for her to try the hatchway controls again. She walked over and quickly studied the panel. It looked no different than it had before, but she followed the Chief’s instructions and tapped out the code to open the hatchway. It chirped at her in acknowledgement, but nothing happened.

“Don’t use the override code,” Rusty called to her. “Use the standard one.”

Elizabeth’s cheeks tingled with embarrassment. She entered the other code. Again, the panel acknowledged and accepted it. This time, though, the hatch’s operating mechanism engaged and the it began to slowly open.

“About time,” Rusty muttered aloud.

Elizabeth did not know whether his remark was directed toward her or the hatch; she was not about to ask.

“All right then,” Rusty said, already back on his feet.

Elizabeth was constantly amazed at how limber and graceful he could be, given his bulk. Granted, she knew, it was almost all muscle. Rusty flashed her a quick smile, as if he knew, once again, what she was thinking. Elizabeth’s began to burn again.

“Let’s get back to the Captain,” he said.

#

As he and Elizabeth strode back toward where the Captain waited, Rusty thought over the modification that Hawkes had made to the cargo bay hatch’s locking mechanism. It had been a clever bit of circuit engineering, one that Rusty was surprised that he had never thought of. He could remember at least instance in the past where it might have come in very handy.

Tricking into a permanent maintenance safety state, Rusty thought admiringly. Nice one.

With the hatchway controls in that state, with the hatch locked into its current position—in this case, closed—to prevent it from accidentally operating while undergoing maintenance, it would almost impossible to even override it.

Without reworking the circuits again.

Which he had just done. Thinking back on it, though, he was surprised that it had not been booby-trapped in some way, in order to prevent someone from undoing what he had done.

“Just another sign that he’s not all right in head,” Rusty murmured.

“Did you say something, Chief?” Elizabeth looked toward him.

Rusty smiled, amused. “Nothing important,” he told her. “Just thinkin’ that the Ol’ Fossil went to a whole lot o’ trouble to keep us out of his hiding place.”

Beside him, Elizabeth suddenly broke into a run. Without looking ahead, he knew what she had seen. He increased his pace as well, now moving at a fast trot to where the Captain lay unconscious on the deck.

“Where’s Lieutenant Hawkes?” Elizabeth asked, her head snapped from side to side as she searched the deck.

“He’s been taken to the Infirmary,” Ramsey told her. “In restraints and under guard.”

Rusty saw Elizabeth relax and then kneel next to the Captain. Hope was tending to her, having sent Zee to assist with the care of Bayer and Choy.

“How is she?” Elizabeth asked. Her voice was tight with tension. “What happened?”

Hope did not look up.

“Concussion. Minor. She will recover.”

Both Rusty and Elizabeth breathed audible sighs of relief. It was almost comical, but neither of them even formed a smile.

Rusty stared down at the dark purple discoloration that covered most of the left side of the Captain’s face. He had a good idea of how hard the blow must have been to have caused that much bruising. Frowning deeply, he watched as the medical aides, with the assistance of two Security officers, secured Bayer and Choy unto stretchers. Owens and Nang, he realized, were already gone.

“Well,” he said softly, as much to himself as to Elizabeth. “I’d better get repairs started down here.”

“Thanks, Chief,” Elizabeth replied. Her tone was distracted and distant. Her eyes remained on Devereux as Hope continued her examination.

“I guess you’re in charge for now,” he said, his voice quiet.

At first, Elizabeth did not react. Then, the tension returned to her shoulders. It was as if her posture sagged and straightened at the same time.

“I guess so,” she agreed softly.

Rusty rested a hand lightly on Elizabeth’s shoulder. He understood how she felt. This was different from taking a shift from the Captain, or Devereux just being away from the bridge. The command decisions would be hers—at least until the Captain returned to duty.

It might only be a few hours, Rusty told himself. Or a few days, he added silently. He was not willing to bet much on the first.

After giving Elizabeth’s shoulder a light squeeze, he reached down and activated his comm unit.

“Engineering.”

“Yes, Chief?” Aruna clipped accent from the small speaker.

“Aruna,” he said. “I need two repairs team down here right away. Have one of them bring a sheet of Number Four bulkhead.”

“Got it, Chief,” she responded after a moment. “Anything else?”

“Double scotch,” Rusty replied without hesitation. “No ice.”

There was only the briefest delay before Aruna responded with, “Sorry, Chief. The still’s empty.”

“Can’t leave you all alone for even a minute . . .”

“Clearly not,” Aruna said, a clear chuckle in her voice. “Repair teams are on their way.”

“Thanks, Aruna. Out.”

Rusty tapped his comm unit, ending the call from his end. He looked over to find Elizabeth staring at him. From her expression, it was clear that she had no idea how to react. It required some serious effort for him to maintain a bland expression.

“Something wrong, Lizzie?”

Elizabeth’s eyes widened slightly, but she still appeared to be at a loss for what to say.

“I didn’t think you liked Scotch,” he explained, keeping his voice calm and apologetic.

Elizabeth’s mouth opened and then she got it. “Oh . . . YOU!”

Rusty grinned, laughing hard from somewhere deep in his abdomen. A moment later, Elizabeth joined him, laughing so hard that tears began streaming down her cheeks. It was, Rusty knew, just the catharsis that they both needed.

His laughter eased off, but it took Elizabeth a bit longer to recover. Nearly gasping for breath, she dabbed at her eyes with the sleeves of her uniform tunic.

“Better?”

She nodded, smiling at him. “Yeah,” she said. “Thanks.”

Rusty tilted his head to one side in silent acknowledgment, smiling back at her. “Shouldn’t you be on the bridge?”

“Yeah,” Elizabeth agreed. Her eyes shone. “I should.”

She straightened, her posture conveying once again the confidence that Rusty knew that she so seldom felt. Her face took on a serious, but no longer grim, expression.

“Carry on, Chief,” she told Rusty. “Keep me posted on the status of the repairs.”

“On it,” he responded lightly, “Commander.”

Although he could not see it, he was certain that she was almost grinning as she headed out of the hatchway and out into the corridor beyond it.

Moments later, the two repair teams appeared, each with an equipment cart. Sanderson trailed them, carrying a large sheet of titanium alloy. He strode toward them, ready to issue their assignments.

“Let’s get this done.”

#

Hope knelt before the Captain, passing the portable medical scanner over her unconscious form. She had known that the Captain had been seriously injured, but the Captain had masked it well. Her condition was not as severe as either of the Security Officers, but she still required considerable medical attention. She was in no immediate danger of dying, but there existed a high likelihood that she might if her injuries were not treated.

As she studied the data provided by the medical scanner, Hope found herself surprised that the Captain had managed to remain not only conscious, but lucid and aware prior to her collapse. Reaching into her medical case, Hope withdrew a hypo and prepared two injections. The first one would ensure that the Captain remained heavily sedated until her condition could be stabilized in the Infirmary. The other one would help slow the internal bleeding caused by her injuries.

Hope looked around the cargo bay, seeing that everyone else present was occupied with other tasks. She reached down and gently caressed the Captain’s face, running her fingertips lightly along the dark bruise that marred its beauty. The deep color of the injury began to fade. The Captain’s features relaxed, but that was, Hope knew, as much the result of the sedative as from her touch. She lifted her hand away just as Sciences Lieutenant Ramsey approached.

“Everyone’s on their way to the Infirmary,” she told Hope. “Do you need me to help you here?”

“No.”

Ramsey nodded, her expression showing little surprise at Hope’s rejection of her offer of assistance.

“Okay,” Sciences Lieutenant Ramsey said. “I’ll head back to the Infirmary then.”

“Yes.”

Sciences Lieutenant Ramsey gestured to Security Ensign Zee. The temporary medical aide brought the stretcher closer, but then hesitated, awaiting Hope’s orders.

“Can we move the Captain?” Sciences Lieutenant Ramsey prompted Hope when she did not provide instructions.

“Yes.”

Hope rose and stepped back, giving Sciences Lieutenant Ramsey and Security Ensign Zee ample space to maneuver the stretcher closer to the Captain. She would have greatly preferred to lift and move the Captain herself, but Hope knew that she lacked the strength to easily do so alone. The Captain’s condition was serious enough without possibly adding to her injuries.

After adjusting the Captain’s position on the deck, Sciences Lieutenant Ramsey and Security Ensign Zee lifted her easily and then placed her gently onto the stretcher. Sciences Lieutenant Ramsey fastened a single strap across the Captain’s abdomen for safety and then Sciences Lieutenant Ramsey and Security Ensign Zee directed the stretcher toward the Infirmary.

“Are you coming, Hope?” Sciences Lieutenant Ramsey asked when Hope did not follow immediately.

“Yes.”

Hope gathered her equipment, restored the items to their proper places within her medical case, and closed it securely. Sciences Lieutenant Ramsey and Security Ensign Zee waited for her at the hatchway. Without a word, one of them on opposite sides of the stretcher, they moved into the corridor.

They moved slowly, careful not to jostle the Captain any more than was absolutely necessary. As they walked, Hope studied the Captain’s face, pleased to see that the bruising had continued to fade. The Captain’s hair, which normally shone with a golden-yellow color, lay dark and plastered against her forehead and the sides of her head.

Hope found herself torn. The Tactical Officer, whom she considered Friend, had done this to the Captain. There was little doubt that the Tactical Officer had acted from other than his normal behavior. There was, Hope was certain, some other factor at work here that drove that uncharacteristic behavior.

Yet, she reminded herself. He attacked and wounded the Captain.

On her home world, that would give her sufficient warrant to kill the Tactical Officer, regardless of his present physical condition.

But his mental condition . . .

Unless under extremely exceptional circumstances, one’s mental state of being was also taken into consideration before such a punishment was rendered on her home world.

The Captain would recover, Hope knew. Whether they would discovered what had provoked the Tactical Officer’s attack, that she did not know.

Emerald Flight: “Human Factors” (continued)

Devereux did not watch as her First Officer strode away. At first, she thought about having one of the two Security officers accompany, and the decided against it. Looking down again at Hawkes, she thought, Who’s going to bother her?

“Cap’n?”

The Chief Engineer’s voice sounded from the direction of the torn bulkhead. His baritone echoed far into darkness of the cargo bay.

“Over here, Chief,” she called to him, waving her arm so that her wrist light provided a clear beacon in the darkness. She found herself unsurprised to find that he had arrived.

It’s turning into a real party in here, she thought sourly as she glanced back over at Nang and Owens.

They were noisy in coming, but then she could not see how they could not be.

At least two medical aides, plus two stretchers, and all of their equipment . . .

Still, after the relative quiet of the cargo bay before they had arrived, it sounded like Chop had a half dozen cargo lifts running inside there.

She saw the beams of their portable lights, squinting when one of the flashed directly in her eyes. Blinking, she stopped waving her arm and just called out to them. Rusty’s eyes widened when he saw her, but she gestured toward Nang and Owens before he could speak.

“Start with them,” she told Ramsey and Zee as they paused their stretchers behind the Chief Engineer. “Hope’s with Bayer and Choy.”

Zee looked over toward their fallen crewmates, while Ramsey acknowledged Devereux with a crisp, “Yes, Captain.” They both turned their stretchers almost in tandem, heading toward Bayer and Choy.

“Cap’n,” Rusty started. His eyes remained fixed on the what was certainly a darkening bruise across her left cheek. “What about--?”

“I’m fine,” she cut him off.

Emerald Flight: “Human Factors” (continued)

Knowing that there was nothing that she could do for Hawkes, she left him under the watchful eyes of the two Security officers and went to check on Owens and Nang.

She was surprised to find Nang in better shape than Owens. Both were unconscious, but Nang was coming around. An angry scrape ran the length of his left cheek. Devereux suspected that it would develop into an ugly bruise before morning unless Hope treated it soon.

Blood ran freely from Owens’ nose. Possibly from his mouth as well, Devereux decided. It was difficult for her to tell for certain without a closer examination. She was reluctant to move either of them, for both had experienced strong blows to either their head or neck. Carefully, she checked for a pulse at Owens’ throat.

She found it, although it seemed to be slow and irregular. Although his uniform covered most of his muscular bulk, Devereux suspected that she would discover at least a half dozen serious bruises forming. He would be in serious discomfort for several days, she guessed. Without removing his uniform tunic, there was no way to be certain. Not that the idea was not tempting for other reasons, for he was superbly muscled, but she felt safer leaving such an examination to those with more thorough medical training.

A series of loud banging noises came from behind her, from somewhere in the direction of the hatchway.

“Elizabeth,” she said. “See if there’s anything you can do about the lights or the door.”

“Yes, Captain,” her First Officer replied.

Elizabeth headed back toward the hatchway, back into the darkness of the cargo bay.

Emerald Flight: “Human Factors” (continued)

Elizabeth had summoned Hope using her comm unit. She returned to Devereux’s side, casting wary looks down at unmoving Tactical Officer.

“He’s still alive?” It was as much a statement as a question.

Devereux nodded.

“Just stunned,” she said. A lot, she amended silently.

Hope appeared with surprising swiftness. Her approach had been so quiet that she was almost among them before Devereux realized that she was there. She stood, staring down at the motionless Hawkes, but awaited her Captain’s commands.

“Stunned,” Devereux told her. “But stable.” She looked toward the fallen Bayer and Choy. “They’re probably in far worse shape.”

Hope glanced in the direction that Devereux had indicated and looked down again at Hawkes. Devereux expected her to protest, or make some other kind of observation, but she merely tilted her head in acknowledgement.

“Yes, Captain.”

She headed toward the fallen officers, moving almost silently across the deck.

Devereux looked toward Elizabeth, who held her gaze, waiting for her orders. The Security officers with her maintained their aim on Hawkes. Devereux tapped her comm unit.

“Infirmary, this is the Captain,” she said. “I need an emergency team in Cargo Bay One.” She took a slow, shallow breath before adding, “Bring restraints.”

She glanced up at Elizabeth. Her First Officer’s expression was grim. It was not, Devereux noted, an attractive look for the young officer. She could see, though, that Elizabeth, although uncomfortable with her orders, agreed with them.

Devereux rose finally, relieved to find herself steady on her feet. She ached all other and knew that it was only going to get worse. Now that she felt her injuries, she wondered if she might not have a fractured rib or two.

And that doesn’t even count all of the bruises.

She glanced over to where Hope tended to Bayer and Choy. Even now, neither of them moved. Looking back down at Hawkes, she felt even more troubled now. What if he had killed them?

Emerald Flight: “Human Factors” (continued)

He timed the leap perfectly. Having no idea where he hid, both of the intruders were facing away from him when he lunged at them. He impacted one almost squarely in the middle of its back, sending it sprawling facedown onto the ground. Something skittered across the ground away from it.

A weapon?

He ignored it for now, knowing that it was both out of reach and the invader would be too disoriented to search for it.

He rolled smoothly along his shoulders blades and back onto his feet. The other intruder was more prepared, but its reactions were slowed by surprise and the swiftness of his attack. He disarmed the invader quickly, slamming a fist against its wrist. It grunted with pain and its weapons dropped to the ground. Almost without thinking about it, he kicked it away into the shadows.

The intruder’s hands come up in a defensive motion, but it was too late. He was already in under its guard. He delivered two shift blows: one to its lower abdomen, and one to its chest. It dropped it to its knees. A sharp, snapping kick to its head tumbled it backward, where it landed hard against the uneven ground. It did not move afterward.

Turning, he checked the condition of the first intruder. It stirred, trying to rise, but clearly still disoriented. It shook its head slowly, as if hoping that might aid to clear it. It did not see him come in for another strike, this one across the back of its legs. They collapsed beneath it and it fell, attempting to brace itself with its hands as it fell. It held its balance for only a moment before he delivered a savage kick to its forearm. The sharp snap of bone breaking echoed for an instant. The invader screamed in pain and then gurgled into silence as he drove his boot against its throat. It fell to the ground, writhing and choking.

Someone shouted from his right. He spun, already in an offensive position even before he heard the running footsteps against the uneven ground. The other three intruders approached. Two of them held weapons and he knew that he could not defeat them both before they used them. The one in front did not carry a weapon. That did not mean that she was unarmed, he knew. It was possible that, like himself, she did not require weapons in order to defeat an enemy.

He assessed the tactical situation in the space between heartbeats and made his decision. With a feline-like grace, he launched himself at the unarmed intruder.

She deflected it well, but did not manage to fully defend herself against his attack. She stumbled, but recovered quickly. He was on her almost at once. Unlike the previous invader to his cave, she evaded his attacks well. She suffered surface injuries, and would ache later, but he was not able to as easily defeat her as he had the previous two.

The two intruders who had come with her remained back, out of his reach, but with their weapons out. As he expected, they hesitated, unwilling to possibly injure their companion while attempting to capture him. He kept in motion, never giving them a clear opening for more than an instant. Meanwhile, she fought well. A few times she even managed to get him into a hold from which he was forced to escape.

She breathed hard now. The exertion wore at her now, slowing her reflexes by the smallest fraction. It was not yet enough, he knew, but it would be soon.

At the beginning, she had called out words. They felt familiar, they did not resolve into meaning in his mind.

A challenge? he had wondered. Or a prayer to one of her gods?

She still breathed those words now, changing their intonation.

Pleading with him? Seeking mercy?

He defended himself easily against her next two attacks.

She must know that she will be defeated.

He heard three more sets of footsteps approaching. It distracted him for only an instant, as it did not change the immediate tactical situation. They would also hesitate to fire until they could be certain of their target.

The sound distracted her for an instant longer. He got within her guard, driving his hand into her lower abdomen. She gasped and then staggered, attempting to remain standing. Her achievement lasted only for a moment and then she fell to her knees, her head bent down before him as if in supplication.

One of the new intruders shouted something: a single sound. Its meaning flashed into his understanding an instant too late. He turned, moving to evade their weapons, and then his limbs refused to obey him. They tingled as if he had passed through lightning. Despite his efforts, they convulsed limply. He fell to the ground, unable to direct his descent. His head struck the hard ground, making his teeth ache. The sensation faded quickly. Murky darkness fluttered at the edges of his vision. It closed in, leaving him with only the smallest tunnel of faint illumination. And then, that too was gone.

- 5 -

Devereux rose to her feet, gasping, still fighting to regain her breath against her paralyzed diaphragm.

“Captain?” Elizabeth asked with concerned alarm. “Are you all right?”

Devereux nodded several times, still unable to speak, and wished that she had not. Vertigo swam through her, but she managed to remain standing.

“Get Hope,” Devereux gasped, waving weakly toward where Bayer and Choy lay sprawled across the cargo bay deck.

She knelt, grateful for the excuse to do so, and felt for the pulse at Hawkes’ neck. It was there, strong and regular. His breathing appeared to be regular, if a little ragged. Devereux wondered how much of that was from the exertion of their fight versus being stunned from a less than a meter away by at least two weapons.

Looking up, she saw that the Security officers who had arrived with Elizabeth, Lenz and Darwood, still held their weapons ready as if they expected Hawkes to leap up and continue his assault on her. Devereux thought it unlikely, but could understand their caution, giving the situation.

Emerald Flight: “Human Factors” (continued)

Hope stared hard into the darkness. Sounds echoed oddly within the space of the cargo bay, making it difficult for her to determine their source. She was forced to rely as much on logic as she was on her senses.

He has attacked.

Based on everything she knew, it was the most likely conclusion. Calculating their approximate rate of travel, she was about to estimate, within a few hundred meters, where each of the two teams were located. Taking into account the time elapsed since they had departed from her position, she deduced that they should have been almost within minimal visual range of one another. If the Tactical Officer judged it necessary to take offensive action, he would choose to do so when his chance at victory was better. That meant that he would attack before the two teams rejoined.

Hope listened, trying to better understand what might be happening. She considered heading to the location of the conflict, but the Captain had ordered her to remain where she was. The Captain—or one of the other Crew—would contact her if her medical skills were required. Until then, she would continue to wait.

She still wondered, though, what had triggered the Tactical Officer’s atypical behavior. In her mind, she once again reviewed the contents of his secured file, sensing at some intuitive level that the answer existed there. Nothing in his regular psychological profile had revealed any clues, nor had the results of the Tactical Officer’s last fitness examination.

Sounds came to her through the open bulkhead. At first, she thought the Chief Engineer might have returned, but the footsteps, even as distorted as they were, did not sound like his. From the mix of the sounds, she estimated that at least two people have arrived. The noises faded to the occasional scuffle of a boot against the deck.

Hope who they might be and why they had arrived there. So far, they had made no effort with anyone inside the cargo bay. She considered the idea that the Tactical Officer might not have been acting alone, or had been acting under the influence of some other being. After evaluating both scenarios, she dismissed them both as unlikely, deciding that the new arrivals were most likely Security Officers. Their lack of further activity was probably the result of them waiting for additional orders or for the arrival of the officer who had summoned them there.

The Captain?

No communications had been audible through her portable communications unit.

She removed the device from her belt and studied it. Based on the status indicators, it was activated and was functioning properly. Hope examined it more closely, turning it around in her hand, but could find nothing to indicate that it was not operational. Returning it to her belt, she turned in the direction where she had heard the first shouts. Peering into the darkness again, she tried to discern any movement or forms.

After a few minutes of effort, she stopped trying, having seen nothing new among the shadows. Although unarmed she considered disobeying the Captain’s order and seeking out the source of the sounds. The Captain and other Crew could be injured and unable to call for assistance. She was certain that the Tactical Officer was capable of rendering them so.

A new set of footsteps joined the previous ones on the other side of the bulkhead. Muffled voices carried to her, but were almost completely incomprehensible.

“Captain?”

The First Officer’s voice, although oddly toned, penetrated the space through the torn bulkhead.

“Captain?” The First Officer repeated, louder this time. Even with the strange reverberations caused by its passage through the bulkhead, the concern that it held was clear.

“No.”

“Hope?” the First Officer asked uncertainly. “Is that you?”

“Yes.”

“Are you all right?” the First Officer asked. “Is the Captain with you?”

“Yes. She is not.”

There was a pause and some muffled conversation before the First Officer spoke again.

“Okay,” the First Officer said. “We’re coming in.”

Hope waited while the First Officer and other two Crew made their way through the bulkhead. She followed their progress through the sounds that they made during their passage. At one point, she heard the First Officer speak several words that the Captain had long ago explained to Hope as meaningless sounds intended to convey displeasure or extreme disappointment. Hope had observed, during her time serving the Human crew, that, while purportedly without meaning, there seemed to be an extensive vocabulary of such word-sounds. The Chief Engineer, in particular, appeared to possess a considerable knowledge of them.

The First Officer’s head appeared through the ragged opening in the bulkhead. She paused, looking around, before sliding the rest of her body through the tear. Turning as she came through, she landed on her feet with surprising agility.

When she saw Hope observing her, she smiled, “That’s what eight years of dance lessons will do for you.”

Hope stared at the First Officer, attempting to comprehend the reference. Although Hope thought she understood the meaning, it seemed wholly out of context in the current situation.

A Security Officer pushed his way through the opened with considerably less ease than had the First Officer. When he was standing again, his hand went immediately to his weapon as he surveyed his surroundings. The second Security Officer entered about a minute later. He quickly echoed the motions of the first Security Officer.

“Where’s the Captain?” the First Officer asked.

“She went there.”

Hope pointed in the starboard direction that the Captain had originally headed.

“Have you heard anything from her since then?”

Hope hesitated a moment before answering. She had not been able to fully explain the cause of the sounds that she had heard coming from deeper within the cargo bay. Logical deduction informed her, however, that they must have come from someone in one of the two groups, if not the Tactical Officer. She had no data on which to base a more specific hypothesis.

“I do not know.”

The First Officer frowned and stared at her. “What do you mean?”

“There have been sounds.”

“What do you mean?” the First Officer asked Hope.

“I do not know.”

“Where did it come from then?” the First Officer asked her. The First Officer’s voice had risen in pitch.

Hope pointed into the shadowed expanse of the cargo bay.

“There.”

The First Officer looked at the Security Officer who stood to her left and then into the darkness. She reached down, removed an item from her belt, and then fastened it around her wrist. Hope recognized it as a portable light source similar to the ones that the Captain and Engineers had worn. The two Security Officers did the same, taking up positions on either side of the First Officer. All three of the Officers had now drawn their weapons.

“Okay then,” the First Officer said. “Let’s go.”

Emerald Flight: “Human Factors” (continued)

“Chief!”

Rusty over at Elizabeth as if noticing her for the first time.

“Yes?”

Elizabeth stared at him hard.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

He ignored the overt irritation in her tone.

“Trying to figure out why the good ol’ Lieutenant flipped his lid,” he said.

Elizabeth opened her mouth, clearly to either protest or berate him. Rusty went on before she could speak.

“Maybe we can’t undo what he did,” Rusty explained. “But maybe we can figure out why and when he did it.”

Elizabeth watched him dubiously, but nodded for him to continue. Rusty gestured toward the tablet that Karr had given him and then toward the command console.

“Even if the data is encrypted,” he went on. “We might be able to tell what commands he entered and when. That would at least give us a kind of timeline and, if we’re lucky, maybe some idea on how to undo what he did.”

Elizabeth studied him for a moment and then looked toward the command console. Rusty could see her mentally following his reasoning—and fighting the urge to assist him.

“Proceed,” she said tightly. “But keep me posted.”

“Absolutely,” he replied, holding back some, but not all of his grin.

Elizabeth stared at him for a moment. A complex play of emotions passed across her features. Then she turned, her walnut-tinted ponytail whipping across her back. Rusty watched her go, struggling with his complicated set of feelings. Taking a deep breath, he turned back to the control console.

While waiting for the console to complete its initialization cycle, he reviewed the access log that Karr had given him from the Tactical station. That had been a long shot, but it might show whether Hawkes had been planning his little surprise for a while or if it was truly as sudden and unexpected as it seemed. Occasionally glancing over at command console as its various indicator lights blinked on and off, occasionally changing color, he read over the access log.

After reviewing its contents for several minutes, the only entry of note that he found was from three days earlier, when Cavallero had apparently checked his personal messages using the console during his duty shift. If the Hawkes had made any unusual requests, he had managed to remove them from the log or, Rusty realized, made sure that they would not be recorded. Altering the access logs was supposed to be impossible, but Rusty knew that it could be done. He had done it. Not since the ship was upgraded, though, he admitted to himself. Still, if anyone else could find a way to do it, it would be Hawkes.

Placing the tablet aside, he was not wholly disappointed. He had not truly expected to find anything there, but he did not want to potentially miss any possible clues. Turning to the command console, he felt both pleased and relieved that his attempt had worked. Although running in diagnostic mode, the console was in a usable state. He could still could not access the console’s command overrides, but its basic functions—communications, computer network access, and, Rusty hoped, its activity log—should be available. Tapping the necessary controls experimentally, he grinned when the list of access log display options appeared.

“About time something worked,” he murmured, and began filtering the results to locate the ones that he wanted.

He sorted them in reverse chronological order, displaying the most recent entries at the top of the list. These, he suspected, would be the most interesting ones. In that, he found himself disappointed.

The last entry showed Hawkes logging off and locking the console.

So he didn’t just walk away . . .

“Of course, he’d probably log out even if he were sleepwalking,” Rusty muttered, and began looking over the previous entries

At first glance, he found them to be wholly routine. There were a few requests for additional computer access, and a security override on a maintenance hatch on Deck Two.

Nowhere near Cargo One . . .

Still, he made a mental note to double-check that shift’s maintenance reports.

He saw that Chien had requested special access to the port aft sensor array so that she could update their programming. Rusty traced the path to that compartment in his head, noting that it was near the Cargo Bay One, but none of the conduits or circuits overlapped, except one for the secondary power feed. As far as he could tell, that had not been affected by Hawkes’ lockout.

Other than for those, and a handful of other minor requests, it looked like a quiet evening. Rusty quickly encountered the transfer of command to Hawkes at the beginning of the shift and then skimmed over the entries from the previous shift. He frowned, staring down at the list of log entries, wondering if he should review those from Hawkes’ previous shifts. Off-hand, he could not remember how many of those would be stored locally within the console before they would be transferred to permanent core storage and then erased from the console’s memory.

“Commander!”

Karr’s shout from the Tactical station broke his concentration. He looked up, first at the main bridge display, and then at Karr.

“What is it, Lieutenant?” Elizabeth asked her.

“I just got a report from Cargo One,” Karr reported, her hands dancing furiously across the surface of her console. “But it was cut off before I got the whole thing.”

Elizabeth looked grim. “How much did you get?”

Karr shook her head with still trying to frantically work her console. “I’m not sure,” she admitted. “It sounded like someone attacked them . . . but it cut out almost immediately.”

Elizabeth exchanged a look with Rusty and then instantly made up her mind.

“Security,” she called into her comm unit. “Send an armed team down to Cargo Bay One,” she said. “I’ll meet them there.”

The acknowledgement came almost immediately.

“Yes, Commander,” the voice said. Rusty was not certain who is belonged to, but his mind flashed him an image of Ensign Burrows’ face. “They’ve already been dispatched.”

“Excellent,” Elizabeth said. “Bridge out.”

She turned and exchanged a look with Rusty, as if daring him to challenge her. He gave her his best innocent little boy look, even knowing that she would not be fooled in the least by it—at least not any more.

“Lieutenant,” she called to Pyrafox as she headed for the hatchway. “You have the bridge.”

#

Hope stared hard into the darkness. Sounds echoed oddly within the space of the cargo bay, making it difficult for her to determine their source. She was forced to rely as much on logic as she was on her senses.

He has attacked.

Based on everything she knew, it was the most likely conclusion. Calculating their approximate rate of travel, she was about to estimate, within a few hundred meters, where each of the two teams were located. Taking into account the time elapsed since they had departed from her position, she deduced that they should have been almost within minimal visual range of one another. If the Tactical Officer judged it necessary to take offensive action, he would choose to do so when his chance at victory was better. That meant that he would attack before the two teams rejoined.

Hope listened, trying to better understand what might be happening. She considered heading to the location of the conflict, but the Captain had ordered her to remain where she was. The Captain—or one of the other Crew—would contact her if her medical skills were required. Until then, she would continue to wait.

She still wondered, though, what had triggered the Tactical Officer’s atypical behavior. She considered again the contents of his secured file, sensing at some intuitive level that the answer was present there.

Emerald Flight: “Human Factors” (continued)

He had to make a choice, for they would eventually find him.

Together, he could not defeat all of them at once. While he was confident of his skills, they were too many of them. He would be able to defend himself, but eventually they would prevail.

Now. While they are separate.

He considered the two groups. The one that approached from his left consisted of two members; the one that came from the right had three. There was something, he could remember what, about one of the members of the second group. She was adept, possessing nearly the warrior skills that he possessed. It was possible that she might defeat him, particularly with the aid of the others in her group. He would have to face her, he was certain, but he wanted to do so on terms that might assure his victory. That made the decision simple.

The other one, he decided, and slowly turned in the direction from which they approached. Their torches will reveal them.

He crouched, waiting for them to approach. They would pass his hiding place, he knew, for he secreted himself well. Then he could confront them from behind, without warning.

And so he waited, counting their footsteps, prepared to leap upon them at precisely the right moment. They would fall before him. They would not take him.

- 4 -

Devereux moved through the darkness of the Cargo Bay One, wishing again that she had brought a weapon. Still, the two crew members with her were armed. She hoped it would be enough.

They kept within about five meters of the outer bulkhead as they completed their inner circuit of the cargo bay’s interior. Their wrist lights, she knew, gave their position away, but she doubted that served much to their disadvantage. It was difficult to mask their footfalls, so she we was certain that Hawkes, wherever he had secreted himself, was aware of their every moment.

She briefly considered that they should have used night-vision projectors and then discarded the idea. While they might provide a broader view than their wrist lamps could provide, they could not penetrate as deeply into the darkness. Coupled with an infrared sensor, they might have proven useful, but then the teams would have been burdened with additional equipment and less capable of defending themselves if suddenly attacked.

Would he? She wondered. Was that his goal? Or was he simply in hiding? If so, why? And from what?

During her years of service in the Fleet, she had witnessed several ways in which officers and crew might lose their hold on sanity. The persistent stress of knowing that only a few layers of titanium alloy kept one from a harsh, if relatively quick, death was documented as the primary cause. Combat fatigue was the another top one. Each person had their breaking point, she knew. She just never could have imagined what Hawkes’ might have been.

And why now?

Their mission was a simple one: deliver and transfer supplies between a colony world and a scientific outpost. Neither of them was located even close to disputed regions of space, so the chance of engaging in combat was low. It was rarely non-existent, but in this case it was unlikely.

So what then?

She had reviewed the Tactical Officer’s personnel file. As far as she could tell, he had never even passed through this area during any of his previous assignments. That their passage through it might be serving as some kind of trigger seemed remote.

But the mind is a strange and wonderful thing, she mused. Sometimes it makes its own connections.

“Captain?” Choy whispered. Something in the pitch of her tone told Devereux that it was not the first time that the petite engineer had tried to get her attention.

“Yes, Ensign?”

“We are getting close.”

At first, Devereux thought she meant that they might be getting close to locating Hawkes. Then she realized that, while she had been following her own thoughts, the three of them was approaching the point where they should meet up with the other team.

“Yes,” Devereux agreed, sweeping her beam around the area.

Other than for their view of the cargo containers, nothing else seemed to have changed in their surroundings.

Still . . .

“Hold up,” she called to the others in a rough whisper, raising a hand as a signal for them to stop.

She did not turn around, but heard the movement of their boots on the deck cease behind her. Slowly, she turned, passing the beam of her wrist lamp across the cargo bay at about waist height. It caused deep shadows to form in the structure above them, but illuminated nearly everything else in their surroundings. She focused on the narrow shadows between the cargo pods, knowing that they were much wider than they appeared from that distance.

Plenty of room for someone to hide.

Frowning, she finished her sweep. She had seen nothing unusual, nothing that might give her a clue as to Hawkes’ location. Everything appeared to be undisturbed, although she knew that moving one of the cargo pods when a few millimeters required equipment. A closer examination might reveal where dust had been disturbed. Even in the tightly controlled environment of a starship, it was impossible to filter out all of the possible contaminants—and the cargo bay was the most likely place to find them.

She thought back over the manifest, trying again to determine if there had been anything listed there that might have attracted the Tactical Officer’s attention.

What about something that wasn’t listed?

Smuggling cargo aboard a Fleet starship was extremely difficult, but not wholly impossible. Her Chief Engineer had managed it on more than one occasion.

Was that it? she wondered. Was he hoping to catch someone in the act?

That did not make sense, she decided. While Hawkes might indeed attempt to catch a perpetrator while they were in the direct act of violating regulations or committing a crime, the rest of it did not add up. Unless he suspected her involvement—had he?—he would have alerted her in some way, even if she were off-duty. And the command lockdown, that would make sense if he suspected that she was involved, but the way the whole thing had played out so far did not satisfy her that that was the explanation.

Then what was?

“Did you find something, Captain?” Owens asked. He sounded impatient to be on their way.

“No,” she replied. “I—”

Although the noise came from some distance ahead, it was clearly the sound of something sliding across the deck. Voices, although their words were indistinct, followed, shouting with alarm.

Devereux broke into a run automatically.

“Weapons!” she called to Owens and Choy, noting that Owens had already drawn his.

Although Owens’ had a longer stride, Devereux had practiced speed. Choy tried to keep up, following them by a few paces.

Their wrist beams danced crazily across the interior of the cargo bay as they ran. Devereux pushed away a sharp wave of vertigo, focusing instead on the space ahead. As they came around the edge of the stack of cargo pods, her mind presented her with a frozen tableau.

Nang lay sprawled across the deck. Her weapon rested on the deck, more than a meter away, far beyond her grasp. Bayer struggled with another figure, his muscles bulging against the fabric of his uniform tunic. His assailant could only have been Hawkes, for Devereux recognized the whipcord silhouette of his body instantly. With an inarticulate grunt that might have been a curse, she charged at the two men.

#

Rusty entered the bridge and headed directly toward the Tactical console.

“What do ya got?” he asked.

Elizabeth arrived just as Karr brought up the access log on one of the console’s displays.

“Chief . . .”

Rusty waved her to be quiet. He sensed her annoyance without seeing it, and waited impatiently for Karr to finishing accessing the information.

“Here’s the data from the past twenty hours,” Karr told him. “It looks pretty routine.”

Rusty skimmed it quickly. Nothing leapt out at him as unusual.

But then it wouldn’t, would it?

“Transfer it to a pad,” he told Karr.

She obeyed quickly, even while appearing slightly puzzled. While the data was transferred to the tablet, she kept flashing quick glances up at Elizabeth. A few moments later, she offered him the tablet.

“Good girl,” he said, flashing her a quick smile. Despite her uneasiness, her cheeks did redden ever so slightly.

Clutching the small tablet, he headed for the command deck. Elizabeth followed him about a half-step behind, although trying match his pace.

“Chief.” She told it almost breathlessly, diminishing its impact.

Rusty was already removing the newly reprogrammed command panel from the command console. He tossed it aside, somewhat carelessly, and carefully searched through the other ones scattered there, looking for the one that had originally been in the console.

When the first one that he picked up was not the correct one, he tried to remember if he had sent it down to Engineering for more detailed testing. His concern proved unwarranted when the third one he retrieved turned out to be the one that he wanted. He slid it into place, but, before powering on the console, switched it into diagnostic mode. That would, he hoped, place the console into a diagnostic state before executing any instructions that might have been stored on the panel.

Emerald Flight: “Human Factors” (continued)

He must have used that one.

Although, technically, Hawkes could have used any console on the bridge to do what he had done, Rusty considered, he most likely did it from the command console. For him to use any other station on the bridge, except perhaps for Tactical, might have aroused interest. So far, no one on duty during that shift had reported him as being anywhere other on the command deck, other than for the occasional—and no doubt precisely timed, Rusty thought—circuit around all of the bridge stations.

He tapped this comm unit. “Bridge.”

“What is it, Chief?” Elizabeth’s voice asked from the speaker. It carried a definite undertone of expectation.

“Is Karr still at Tactical?”

There was a momentary pause before Elizabeth answered.

“Yes,” she replied. “She’s been there since the start of her shift.”

“Have her pull the logs from last shift,” Rusty told her. “I’ll be back up there in a few.”

“Okay,” Elizabeth agreed, sounding puzzled. “Did you find something?”

“Not yet,” Rusty told her. “And maybe I won’t,” he went on. “But at least it might something. On my way.”

He shut off his comm unit and stared down at the tiny diagnostic display thoughtfully.

“Maybe you did leave us some breadcrumbs,” he murmured, and then rose and headed back to the bridge.

#

Hope remained near the torn section of the bulkhead, staring into the dark. Light streamed in from the corridor through the rift, forming a diffuse halo around her feet, but it failed to penetrate very far into the space of the cargo bay. It did not matter, for she did not require it. Her large, dark eyes were well adapted to darkness. While she could not discern details, she could clearly make out the forms of the five crew members—the Captain, two Engineers, and two Security Officers—as they made their respective ways along the interior perimeter of the Cargo Bay One.

She had placed the portable medical on the deck next to her feet. She could retrieve it quickly, should it be needed. It was unnecessary to continue holding onto it while she waited for the others to return with the Tactical Officer.

They would return with the Tactical Officer, she knew. Even taking into account the Tactical Officer’s combat skills and techniques, he would be significantly outnumbered. What concerned Hope more was how many of the others might be injured during the process of capturing the Tactical Officer. His abilities as a warrior were equal to—in some cases even surpassed—those of most experienced Star Bloods. What made this even more remarkable was that the Human Tactical Officer had achieved this proficiency without the added benefit of the symbiotic armor that the Star Bloods possessed.

Hope heard voices, first the Captain’s and then Security Officer Bayer. Engineer Choy had not spoken; neither had Engineer Owens or Security Officer Nang. Hope determined that, if they had, they spoke at a volume too low for her to hear from this distance.

She studied the surfaces of the cargo containers, looking for signs of the Tactical Officer’s passage through the space. They offered many places in which he could conceal himself. It would be a logical strategy.

After several minutes, she ended her survey of the containers. She had discovered no obvious indication of his presence within the cargo bay. That did not mean, of course, that he was not there, only that he had been very adept at preventing his path and location from being easily determined. She found that reassuring in a way, as it meant that the Tactical Officer had not entirely lost his reason and knowledge. Whatever it was that drove his current, very atypical, behavior had apparently not wholly stripped his mind from him.

She listed in her mind the diagnostic tests that she would want to conduct on the Tactical Officer once he was transferred to the Infirmary. Briefly, she considered requesting that the Lieutenant Ramsey begin preparing the equipment. She decided not to, as she thought it more prudent to both keep all communications channels clear and to avoid making any unnecessary noise.

Turning, she attempted to locate the cargo bay’s main control panel. Engineer Owens had been unable to reactivate the illumination systems. It was unlikely, Hope decided, that she would have any greater success than had the Engineer. While she possessed some understanding of how the panel operated, she knew that she did have the knowledge that the Engineers had. That was not her function.

Having no other immediate tasks to perform, Hope began to examine the surface of the cargo containers again when she heard noise from the other side of the torn bulkhead. She stopped and quickly considered the hypothesis that the Tactical Officer might have misled their search for him and had concealed himself somewhere in area outside the cargo bay hatch. A quick analysis of the sound of the footsteps, even distorted from passing through the bulkhead, informed her that they did not match those of the Tactical Officer. Neither the cadence nor echo approximated his stride. The most likely source was the Chief Engineer.

Hope was surprised by his presence, as she had not heard the Captain summon him. Based on his behavioral profile, though, she could see that it was predictable that he might arrive without being requested to do so. She said nothing, though, waiting to see whether he could attempt to speak with her. He moved around out in the corridor, but said nothing to her. Several times, she heard him come close to the opening on the other side, but he never entered it. Hope thought it unlikely that he would attempt to do so, as she estimated that his physical bulk would be unable to pass through the opening without damaging components within the bulkhead, parts of his own body, or both.

She heard him speak several times. None of those communications seemed intended for her or anyone else within the cargo bay. After several minutes, the echo of his footsteps indicated that he was departing. For where, Hope did not know. She did not have enough information on which to base a hypothesis. The most likely locations would be the Main Engineering deck or the Bridge, as it was too soon for his duty shift to have ended.

Resuming her original posture and position, Hope once again stared into the darkness of the cargo hold. Unless either of the teams had been delayed, they should encounter each other within the next four minutes. Hope expected to receive some form of communications from the Captain at that time, even if it was only to report that the two teams had met. Until that moment, Hope would continue to wait.

#

Streams of light played across the surfaces of the pillars around him and along the ceiling above. None of them very close, as they did little to brighten his sanctuary. The voices, though, those had become louder, come closer. They were coming nearer, but not on any direct path, so he knew that they had not found him.

The pace and sound of their footsteps told him that they were human, or nearly so. They moved on two feet, which meant that it was unlikely that they were merely animals. While he did not discount the advantages of pure instinct, he knew that it could be easily fooled—or at least redirected. Intelligence, however, was another matter. That implied reason and the ability to plan. They would be more difficult to distract, to misdirect. He would need to be careful and cautious.

Listening, he had followed the sounds of their footsteps. They had separated into two groups, perhaps with the intent to flank him. They would fail in that, he knew, for he had chosen his refuge well. In his mind, he could envision the approximate location of each group. Having completed their exploration of the inner perimeter of the enormous cave, they were about to meet again. He had to make a choice.