He deposited the items on his desk and surveyed them, hands on hips, before lowering himself to the edge of his bunk and working his boots off with a grunt. He pulled his blue tunic off and tossed it in the general direction of the recycler and sighed as he tugged his black undershirt into place, then settled at his desk and reached for a bottle and tumbler from the shelf behind him.

Where to start? he wondered as he twisted the lid from the bottle, a stout polycarbonate flask with elaborate and alien script across the label. The disturbing ferocity and intensity of Solorio's paintings notwithstanding, he decided that they were not likely to reveal substantive information about her motive or intent. He tilted the bottle toward the tumbler and blinked as the rush of exotic, earthy fumes from the stream of greenish fluid hit his sinuses, filled the glass halfway, considered, then topped it off. He picked up the journal and opened it to the first page, tamping down guilt over the necessary invasion of her privacy. She would have a conniption if she knew, he thought wryly.

Stardate 5890

1900 hours

Well, here I am—transferred in this morning. It's a beautiful ship, huge compared to the training ship we used at the Academy. The first officer was in the transporter room when I beamed over. That one is intimidating. I've only met a few Vulcans before, in grad school, and even though the rumors are that he's half human, you wouldn't know it from the way he speaks and behaves. He looked at me and I felt like a specimen in a Petri dish. He was polite enough, showed me to my quarters, but definitely don't want to get on his bad side. Do Vulcans have a bad side, though? Seems like that would be illogical.

Haven't met the captain yet, but that's not a surprise. He doesn't have time to shake the hand of every new low-level crewmember. I'm sure I'll run into him sooner or later; even with four hundred and thirty crew it's inevitable. I've heard stories about him, but who knows? I won't have much to do with him, I guess, it's not likely they'd let me near a bridge station with my operations record, and I don't expect I would be in demand for away teams. Not sure I'll get to see much, stuck in a lab in the back corner of Sickbay, but it's good to be out here, anyway.

McCoy paused there. He considered not for the first time the irony of it—how people signed up, spent years at the Academy, then competed for a coveted spot on the flagship of the fleet, sent out to explore new worlds and all that jazz, but then might end up never seeing or experiencing much outside of their day-to-day duties, other than the occasional shore leave. It was different on smaller ships, he knew from experience, where everyone pitched in and it didn't take long to end up back at the top of the duty roster. And then, of course, there were people who joined up just to get away to anywhere but their old lives and ended up biting off more than they expected. Not that he would know anything about that, of course. He moved on to the next journal entry.

So it looks like I'll at least get to work pretty independently. There will be routine things that need to be done every day but also special projects, and I get the impression my predecessor was none too conscientious about keeping on top of those things, but the head nurse says I'll have latitude to work on research projects of my own. So maybe I'll finally get to tackle that Leutscher virus mapping project. She—Lieutenant Chapel—seems nice enough, but a little standoffish. I'll just wait and see with her.

The CMO though, he's…well, hmm. I asked around about him after I found out about my transfer here. Lissa said she knows him from a journal peer review and apparently he's some sort of wunderkindhere McCoy snorted and looked away for a moment, squinting as he tried to recall who she was referring to and landing on a vague memory of a neurosurgeon from Centauri VII with long legs and a short temper, marveling at what a small universe this was sometimes—and that he can be "grumpy but don't take it personally."

Well, that was fair, he conceded. He flipped to the next page.

When Chapel took me to his office to introduce me, he was in the middle of re-assembling something, some kind of scanner device. It was scattered in a dozen pieces across his desk, and he had the most ferocious frown when he looked up, I had to stop myself from turning right around and walking out and right back down to the transporter room. Then Chapel laughed a little and said, "Have you lost the specs for it again?" and he laughed, too, and I could tell from the way she looked at him that this was to be expected with him. All bark and no bite, as Emmalin used to say. He invited me to dinner with him, Chapel, and the captain tomorrow. I couldn't really say no, so there's that to look forward to/dread. I'm sure I'll either say something inappropriate, or I'll freeze and sit there silently the whole time. Who knows, maybe I can work in both of those faux pas.

That was the end of the first two entries, and he had two thoughts: One, that his impression that the lieutenant was unusually perceptive was correct; and two, how different was his recollection of that initial meeting and the dinner the following day. She had presented herself with composure and confidence, none of the insecurity and self-deprecation from her entry seeping through, and he certainly didn't recall her saying anything out of place, though she was the quietest one at the table.

One thing stood out in his memory, though: whenever she was asked a question of a personal nature—where she grew up, did she have any siblings—she was exceptionally skilled at deflecting those inquiries. He had not let on that he knew the answers to those questions and more, having read through her high-level service records before even recommending her transfer to the Enterprise. She had proved to be a master at projecting a persona of her choosing.

He picked up his drink and downed a gulp of it, wincing as the smokiness burned its way down his throat and up his nose, and skipped ahead a few pages. This was a shorter entry, as were the next few, now spaced several days apart and revolving around her new acquaintances onboard, notes on inventory to order, complaints about the food replicators, her exasperation with trying to learn the layout of the ship (all of the corridors look alike. Why don't they have more signage, or an interface with the ship's computer? Maybe a directory in the lifts?)—that was a good idea, and he wondered if the human factors engineers would ever do something so practical; but there was nothing that would indicate she was planning anything covert and malicious or considering abandoning her duties. Then he reached an entry from about a month ago, and the shift in her handwriting caught his eye. Smooth and even printing was replaced with a hastily scrawled script, barely legible in places, her writing indenting the page.

Stardate 5928

I don't know what just happened.

I fell asleep, and then I woke up again, or at least I think I did. But my cabin was darker than it should have been. And I felt something there, a presence, something enormous and full of rage and pain. I couldn't move, I could barely breathe, I was

No, it wasn't real. It can't be real. My gods it cant be real. I fell asleep again but was I really awake? And then when I opened my eyes it was gone and the light was normal again and I could breathe my gods what was that I thought I was having a heart attack

I can't go back to sleep now I can't sleep again

No no no no go away please go away

He took another drink and felt a heaviness form in the pit of his stomach as he read and then re-read the entry, her dread and panic seeming to ooze from the page. He shook himself. Don't be silly, he chided. He suspected it was just hypnogogic sleep paralysis that she had logged in her journal. Her description was classic: perception of a malevolent presence, shortness of breath, a sense of dread, increased heart rate. It wasn't dangerous, and happened more often than people realized, but McCoy knew first-hand the almost indescribable terror and panic that accompanied the phenomenon. It was the inspiration for some horrifying pieces of human creativity—a snippet from Moby Dick, and thenFuseli's The Nightmare came to mind, perhaps the artist's efforts to exorcise his own nocturnal demons…

Suddenly the connection snapped into place, punching through the pleasant alcoholic buzz that had taken up residence in his head. He set the glass down with a thunk and reached across his desk to pick up the painting he'd examined earlier in the rec room. The dark looming figure took on new meaning in the context of a sleep hallucination, its looming malevolence resonating with his own recalled experiences.

So she paints what she sees in her dream, hoping to make it more tangible, maybe? Reduce it to a harmless layer of acrylic on a piece of aluminum? He sorted through the remaining paintings, finding variations on a theme, the same figure depicted in different media and on an assortment of materials, some with the symbols he had seen on the first, some with what looked like a star pattern or constellation that he did not recognize. He felt a twinge of empathy at her compulsion to define and control the dark entity that apparently haunted her dream. No, not dream, singular. More than once. Just one occurrence wouldn't drive her to these endless repetitions.

Skimming through the next few pages of her journal confirmed his suspicion—the dark figure had visited her consistently since that night a month ago, according to the stardates she recorded. Her handwriting became increasingly erratic, her entries both more sporadic and desperate, until they abruptly ended a week ago. He read the final entry, matched it up with a memory of his own, and slumped back in his chair, wincing with regret. Running his fingers through his hair, he closed his eyes and excoriated himself. Why didn't she ask for help? She was two doors down from me. No, he reminded himself, some of that's on you, McCoy.


Heart's Desire

Stardate 5962

"You sure about this, Tara?"

I sensed that Brodie had initially been determined to view me as mere cargo, like everything else legal and otherwise he ferried between planet and port, but that an uneasiness with the ethics of his decision had come to settle over him through the short voyage to the coordinates I'd specified. I thought he might even had come to enjoy my company over the last two days, as I had his.

"I've spent enough time navigating around the backwaters of this quadrant to know your destination is uninhabited, barren, and nowhere near the regular flight path of any ship, Federation or not," he continued, his voice taking on an urgent note.

"Yes," I replied without hesitation. "I am sure."

He shook his head and grunted, then let the silence settle for a moment, checking fuel levels and angle of approach as we neared the planet.

"Thirty thousand kilometers out," he said, keeping his eyes on the viewscreen. "You have enough supplies?"

"Yes," I said, a tinge of exasperation entering my tone. "I have supplies, I have the best survival training in the Federation, and I have common sense."

"But you don't have any sort of communication device," he countered, and risked a glance at me.

My jaw was set in a stubborn line that surely he had come to recognize in even the short time we had spent together, and he sighed, apparently resigning himself to my course of action.

"All right. Any idea where you want to set down?"

Well, that was the question that had been burrowing through my head with increasing urgency throughout our little journey. I had halfway expected that I would receive some sort of indication, a sign, a psychic pulling-toward as we neared, but I'd felt nothing yet.

"Let's take a look at the possibilities when we reach orbit," I said with as much confidence as I could muster.

He sighed again, more quietly this time. "Yes, ma'am. Your nickel, as they say."

The little planet was suddenly there, growing larger on the viewscreen more quickly than I'd expected, but then, it wasn't like I had a plethora of experience in planetary approach outside of a simulator. I leaned back in the co-pilot chair and tried to arrange my features into a reasonably calm expression.

Brodie settled the shuttle into orbit and we surveyed the surface below in silence as we passed over once, then twice. It was shrouded in a dense cloud cover, with glimpses of scattered barren landmasses and vast bodies of pewter-colored water. He shot the occasional glance at me, first inquisitive, then troubled. Finally, he spoke up as we crossed the terminus for the third time, gliding in between the planet and its solitary, tidally-locked moon.

"I don't have the fancy instruments you have on a starship, lassie. I can't tell you much more than you can see with your own two eyes."

"What can you tell me, Mister Brodie?" I demanded, and I knew my anxiety was making me pricklier than usual, but I could not contain it. "This may not be a starship, but it's hardly a rusted-out bucket of bolts from the backside of the Martian dry dock, either. Now, I paid you, fair and square. Are you an honorable pirate or not?"

He scowled at me then thrummed his twelve fingers on the instrument panel, glancing between the planet and the starfield, then sighed and flicked his hand across a display.

"No signs of civilization—no transmissions, no power grids, no atmospheric emissions. Old radiation, mostly toward the northern part of that continent," he gestured at the largest one, stretched along the equator. "I would stay away from there if I were you. Looks like," he squinted at a topographic scanner, "several abandoned cities, with smaller settlements clustered mostly around the urban areas. Temperatures vary from minus six degrees to twenty degrees Celsius, and the atmosphere will do ye no harm. And I will have ye know," he added, hurt infusing his glower, "I am no pirate, lassie. A smuggler at best."

I snorted and closed my eyes and listened, waited for the knowing to settle into me, to guide me to it as it had done so far. I ignored Brodie's uneasy stare drilling holes into me and took a deep breath, then gasped as it hit me in my gut, knocking my breath away.

"There." I wheezed and sat forward, the chair squeaking in protest, and pointed at one of the smaller northern land masses peeking out through the cloud cover, trying to control the trembling in my hand. "There's a city, toward the center. Take me there."