The cops and the woman stared at Reinalds, stunned. Behind the couch, Kirk froze, desperately wracking his brain for a way to get him and the crew out of this mess. "Analysis, Mr. Spock," he whispered.
"I have no idea what is going on, Captain, nor what we are going to do about it," Spock responded reassuringly.
"Lovely."
Meanwhile, Reinalds was standing there awkwardly, doing nothing, having already contributed to this 'lovely' situation, and now at a loss as to what to do next. He blinked a few times, and then looked up at the ceiling, as if the reason for his irrational behavior was floating above his head. When he discovered that it was not, he simply scratched his head and said, "Um."
"UM?" the first cop suddenly screamed, making everyone else in the room jump. "UM? You murder this girl, take away a bright, happy young life, and all you have to say for yourself is 'um'?"
"I… well… um…"
"How could you do such a terrible thing?"
"Um…" Reinalds stammered helplessly.
The cop took out his gun and aimed it at Reinalds. "I swear, the next time you say 'um' I'll shoot you though the head, you dirty, low-down criminal!"
"Er, I don't think we're allowed to that, sir," the second cop whispered to him.
"Oh, right." The first cop put away his gun. "Well, then I'll –I'll…"
"Throw his ass in jail, sir?" the second cop suggested.
"I'LL THROW YOUR ASS IN JAIL!"
Reinalds thought about asking, 'What will you do with the rest of me, sir?' then decided it would be a bad idea. He instead said, "Oh, I don't want that, sir."
"Well, you'd better not say 'um' again!" the first cop threatened.
"I won't, sir."
The cop nodded.
"All right then. To business. Did you kill this girl?" he asked. "And remember, you are under oath."
Reinalds didn't remember taking an oath, but answered, "No, I didn't."
"Are you sure?"
"Pretty sure, sir. She just dropped dead while we were talking."
"Just dropped dead, did she?"
"Yes, sir."
"Hmm…" The two policemen stared at him for a long, long time without saying a word. Reinalds started to get nervous. What if they didn't believe him? What if he got shot? There was some part of him, some deep, innate part of his consciousness, that expected to get killed at any moment. It was always there, whispering for him to watch out, no matter where he was or what he was doing. He wondered why this was, and why it only happened when he was in uniform.
"Then why the hell, "the first cop began, snapping Reinalds out of his reverie, "did you say that you did?"
"And why did you say 'we'?" the second cop asked.
"And why were you behind the couch in the first place?"
"And why are you dressed up like 'Star Trek'?"
"Well," Reinalds fumbled, "because…you see…I…um…"
A lot of things suddenly happened at once.
The first cop screamed, "DID YOU JUST SAY 'UM' AGAIN?" and tackled Reinalds to the floor. The second cop tried to intervene, but tripped over Amanda's dead body and fell on top of them. Kirk decided it wasn't doing anyone any good to continue hiding behind the couch, so he jumped out from behind it, along with the rest of the crew, and pulled the cops off of the red shirt. The aforementioned cops immediately turned on them and began punching away. In the midst of all this, the nervous woman had fainted and was in serious danger of being trampled, and the two fake cops were taking advantage of the chaos by quietly and inconspicuously making their way to the door. They were almost free when all of a sudden a tall man with dark hair, dark sunglasses, and a trench coat appeared in the doorway and shot them. He stepped over their bodies and, taking impeccable aim, raised the gun and shot the two real cops as well.
When Kirk and crew realized that the cops they had previously been fighting were no longer fighting back, they straightened and looked at the strange man, who now stood there silently, a hand up against the doorframe and the other at his side, the gun dangling from his fingertips. There was an awkward silence as they studied each other. Finally, Kirk stepped forward.
"Who are you?" he demanded. "What's going on?"
"Puppies," the man replied.
Kirk blinked. "What?"
"Puppies," the man repeated, and raised the gun.
Kirk barely had time to drop to the floor before the gun went off. He dove for the man's ankles, trying to bring him down, as Spock went for his neck. The Vulcan pinched the nerves hard, and waited for the man to collapse.
The man simply glared at him, angrily yelled "Puppies!" and fired his gun into the air. Spock nodded to himself, then calmly punched the man in the face, ducking out of the way as the man moved to return the favor. Meanwhile, Chekov had leapt on to the man's back, and Sulu was pulling at his shoulder, trying to get the gun. McCoy tended to Reinalds a few feet away. Reinalds sat there.
The man shook them off and grabbed Kirk, putting the gun to the captain's head. "Puppies!" he warned the rest of the crew, backing away. "Puppies!" His fingers tightened on the trigger. "Puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies…puppies, puppies."
"What's he doing, sir?" Sulu whispered to Spock.
"I believe he is trying to communicate with us."
"Yes, but what is he saying?" Chekov wondered.
"'Puppies', obviously."
Behind them, McCoy let out an exasperated sigh. "He meant what it means, Spock."
"Ah." Spock tilted his head thoughtfully. "That I do not know. However, it most likely has something to do with the deadly weapon that is being pointed at the captain's head."
"Oh, okay." Chekov replied.
They lapsed into a content silence, pleased with their mutual understanding of the situation.
"Oh God!" Sulu shouted suddenly. "He's going to kill the captain!"
Everyone was quite disconcerted at this new development. "What should we do?" Chekov cried. "We have to do something!"
"But what?" Sulu replied. "If we attack him, he'll shoot Captain Kirk!"
"What indeed," Spock mused. He seemed to come to a decision. "Gentlemen, when force is no longer an option, diplomacy must come into play. As it happens, my father is an ambassador, so I am rather adept at the art of negotiation." He turned back to the man, took a friendly step forward, bowed his head slightly, and began to speak.
"Puppies. Puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies. Puppies. Puppies, puppies? Puppies."
The man stared at Spock as if he'd just sprouted bunny ears. Spock nonchalantly patted his head, just to make sure he had not.
"Puppies…?" the man said, suspiciously.
"Puppies," Spock confirmed.
The man's face suddenly contorted with rage. "PUPPIES!"
…~…
Kirk, who had been watching all of this as if in a daze, felt the barrel of the gun press harder into his skull. He sensed that this was not going very well for him, and indeed, that was an understatement.
He saw his life pass before his eyes, followed by a wriggling purple dinosaur.
Well, that's odd, he thought. His stomach growled.
As if from far away, he heard himself begin to laugh.
"I was always afraid," he managed to say, "that I'd get caught with my pants down."
The gun went off.
