Chapter 10: The Medium is the Message

AN: If you have read my profile, you will see that I have been away from this fic as my partner died very suddenly. I have now resumed posting — I need the distraction in my life, but talking of distraction, I did debate whether I should hold off putting up this next chapter as my ability to concentrate isn't what it ought to be. Still, I want to crack on. I would, however, ask that if I have delivered myself of a howler, say where I contradicted something already mentioned earlier in the chapter, or as in an earlier chapter, where I'd actually had one party of characters make an entrance twice (facepalm!) you send me a PM, for which I shall be eternally grateful.

AN2: Maybe I should have held off anyway, because on subsequent read throughs I wasn't happy with what I produced. I have therefore reposted this chapter with slightly revised text.

AN3: At some point I am going to revisit Scott's dialogue. I was trying to go for an accent and I think I missed by miles and miles and miles. I don't think it works and it's now annoying me so much, I am debating whether to start from the beginning and rewrite and repost those sections, where he appears.

AN4: My thanks to HeronS for finding a typo

xxx

The medium is the message. ~ Marshall McLuhan

xxx

The intercom in his bunk warbled for his attention. "Lieutenant Kirk to the Bridge." Half asleep, he smacked his face into his bunk's privacy screen, before registering he'd pulled that down earlier for some quiet in pursuit of a spot of shut eye. He hit the switch to retract it, grabbing uniform shirt — these days happily adorned with Scorpion's insignia — and pants as he went, padding onto Sting's Bridge, barefoot and still in his underwear. Scott had the watch; Ensign Irina Stepanova occupied helm.

"Where are we?" he asked, hauling on his clothes, while attempting to make sense of that part of the command console's readouts not blocked to his view by the presence of the engineer.

"ETA thirty minutes to Surakkan," said Mr Scott, surrendering the command station to him.

But he could see for himself. In the viewport, the target star fattened and he concentrated on his breathing. This was exhilarating, but it wouldn't do to get over excited. "Acknowledged. Helm, reduce speed to seventy-five percent of warp one."

"Seventy-five percent warp one, aye," said Stepanova.

It had to be said the reason Garrovick had entrusted him with this mission probably lay more with whom he had at his disposal to commit — Scorpion's staffing resources were laughably over stretched, which was why Stepanova, mere months out of the Academy, sat at helm. Still, on hearing Garrovick describe and offer him Sting's next mission, he had had to moderate his enthusiasm and resist biting his new captain's arms off at the elbow at the prospect of this mission.

Captain Garrovick, with a command style that was a breath of fresh air, was starting to make an impression. How could he not? A captain who actively sought opinions and ideas from those under his command, a captain who did not second guess his subordinates and seek to micro manage every situation by putting his officers in leading strings, a captain who listened.

Nevertheless, Garrovick was not so foolhardy as to omit a failsafe. That failsafe manifested in the person of Montgomery Scott. The engineer was now reduced to the same rank as he, but possessed of greater experience and seniority. By some miracle, or maybe Garrovick had performed some clever horse-trading with Command, the engineer remained with Scorpion, even though he was over qualified for, and an awkward peg for, the slot as Scorpion's third string engineer. Aboard Sting, Scott's overt role might be cajoling and cosseting engines with a yen for spectacular tantrums, but he was perceptive enough to understand the engineer was there to pick up the pieces if he imploded under pressure. He owned few illusions. When it counted, if his performance fell short, Garrovick would find another for Sting's centre seat.

The evolving data stream on his console clawed back his attention, concentrating his mind on Sting's approach. A slower pace pushed back their ETA, but he wanted nothing to give the game away about their presence. So far, so good. He resisted the temptation for a full sensor sweep; too much chance it would alert the Pasherini to their presence. They would have to eyeball the approach to their destination on passive systems. He spared a glance for Stepanova, but she exuded a reassuring air of quiet competence. Surakkan resolved itself into a small dot in the viewport. The place was busy, comm traffic announcing the comings and goings of Pasherin and Orion vessels; no alerts to their presence. Minutes later the dot transformed into Surakkan and its main satellite, whose name escaped him.

Seven years ago the Pasherin attack on Surakkan had been brutally effective. Vulcan ships that moved to defend their colony had been pulverised within minutes, which was bad for Vulcan and her colony, her ships and crews, but good for them. There was a decent coherent debris field at a stable Lagrange point, where Sting could take cover.

"Bring us out of warp, Ensign."

"Aye, sir."

"You know where we're headed, Irina. Bring us in on impulse and match course and speed with that debris."

"Sir." Stepanova nodded, already engrossed in the task. You had to hand it to the Academy — they taught helm officers to drive. Stepanova brought them in with a minimum of fuss and parked Sting on the outer limb of the field, putting her into a matching tumble, for which his stomach rejoiced at the presence of Sting's grav plating. He would have preferred to take her deeper into the debris, but the risk of collision was too great.

"Well done, Irina. Now we wait."

xxx

Wait and wait and wait.

Six hours later and excitement and tension had long since given way to boredom. Beside him Scott let out a sigh and smothered a yawn; he and Scott took turns to cat nap on the bridge, while in engineering, Gregory and Kyle spelled each other. Satisfied the Pasherini remained oblivious to their presence, and that nothing was likely to creep up on them unawares, he'd sent Stepanova to get some rest, because it went without saying once the fun started — whatever form that took — he'd need her sharp and on her game. He smothered a yawn of his own and eyed without enthusiasm the ration bar Mr Scott had brought him from kitchen stores.

The Pasherini remained oblivious to their presence, which was good. Sting monitored and recorded Pasherin communications, but since they had no access to Pasherin codes, all he heard was a wash of indistinguishable noise. Less good, but predictable.

He munched on the bar, which tasted about as bad as he'd feared — pistachio ice cream? You bet! — and stared at Surakkan. The Pasherini apparently shared a Vulcan appreciation for dry, hot places. The largest continental landmass was mostly desert, with lusher, smaller islands dotted about an ocean west of that continent. The landmass extended over the north pole, an area made all the more inhospitable by a steep mountainous region that formed a barrier stretching over most of the territory. The southern hemisphere was primarily ocean. In the main what wasn't hot as hell would likely freeze you to death. No thanks.

Their timing was good. The Pasherini were slap bang in the middle of constructing an orbital station and making good progress. Once complete, with a better platform for sensors, hiding out like this under Pasherin noses would probably no longer be feasible.

A warble emanating from a console caught his attention. Scott perked up and looked hopeful. He spared the engineer a mirthless smile. "A Vulcan ship. Not what we came for, but interesting." The Pasherini had captured a prize?

The occupant of the new arrival promptly disabused him of the notion. "This is Ambassador Sarek of Vulcan requesting clearance to enter standard orbit." Startling to hear words rendered in clear after hours of coded gibberish.

Scott's brows drew together. "Sarek? What's he doing here?"

"My thoughts exactly."

Scott dragged himself out of his seat, swapping his station for communications. "Voice match confirms identity. That's him, alright." He muttered something under his breath in Klingon. "In answer to my own question, I'm inclined to say,' nothing good'."

"Maybe, but he's hardly being clandestine in his approach. Everything in clear. No secret coded signals here."

"What happens when he speaks face to face, though?" Scott's scowl darkened, darkened even further at the effusive Pasherin welcome the Vulcan received. Evidently, Sarek was a frequent visitor. His memory cued up images of that Vulcan reception he'd attended what now seemed a lifetime ago, of a Pasherin laughing at some perceived witticism from Vulcan's august ambassador. A Pasherin ship positioned itself virtually on top of Sarek's smaller craft; the Pasherin bid Sarek lower his shields and further comm interaction ceased. Sensors were out of the question, but he assumed Sarek had been beamed aboard the larger vessel.

Nothing else happened for almost four hours, then the Pasherin ship broke off its close formation with the Vulcan craft and moments later Sarek's ship broke orbit, which left them to resume twiddling their thumbs and him debating whether he should turn into his bunk for a few hours. He had just about decided that would be a good idea, since Stepanova looked bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, when he spied an Orion vessel, an in-system shuttle if he was any judge, coming straight at them on a collision course. He checked sensors again. Well sort of coming at them.

"Who's flying that thing?" said Stepanova, appalled at the erratic trajectory, mortally offended for the honour of all pilots.

Surakkan Control desired the same information and were not bashful in demanding an answer. The Orion vessel responded and, at communications, a very youthful face lit up a panel, before he was shoved out of frame without ceremony by a much older individual. A training flight. He had received the required permissions, filed the needed flight plan. Surakkan Control should be aware he had promised his boy a little disruptor target practice. Yes, he had the permissions for that, too.

Stepanova swallowed. "Oh, I have a bad feeling about this."

"Easy, Ensign, that ship is too small to hurt us."

"Sir." Stepanova gave him a dubious look, but Scott backed him up with a bored nod and her nerves subsided. He forbore to mention that the little craft's armaments might not be a problem if aimed directly at them, but if weapons fire imparted a lot of kinetic energy into the debris field, it would likely result in some of that material careening out of a stable formation. If a piece of larger debris hit Sting that would probably constitute a bad day at the office.

"Still," he said, "no point in taking unnecessary risks. Ensign, be ready to break out of here and go to warp, course one zero zero mark ten on my order. Mr Scott advise Gregory and Kyle to suit up down there." Venom class had a reputation for fragility, even with shields up, but the latest iteration of his ship's design had led to incorporation of a stouter construction around the Bridge. He'd pored over Sting's specs for weeks; he'd trust to that to protect them in a collision.

He fixed his gaze on the small Orion craft, whose youthful pilot evidently remained in control, at least he assumed so from the evidence of an impetuous approach toward the debris field, which necessitated a sharp intervention to trim attitude and take off some of that acceleration. The piloting skills showed little improvement over the next twenty minutes, which led Stepanova to wince and put her face in her hands at some of the antics. He grinned at her. At least she had stopped being anxious. Something clicked in his mind and he froze in his chair.

"What?" said Scott, always perceptive.

"Scotty, I think that shuttle is what we're here for."

"Ye what now?"

"Think about it. That type of piloting reminds me of a comedy pianist hitting precisely all the wrong notes for best comedic effect. It's too perfectly bad to be true."

Stepanova, almost in the middle of a motion to cover her eyes again, arrested all movement and stared at the tactical display on his console. "You know, sir, I think you're right."

He was not normally one for second guessing himself, but about thirty minutes later a disruptor burst close to Sting gave him cause for concern. Debris pattered against the shields, which held up well enough.

"What the…?" His tactical panel lit with a red tell-tale.

"Something has breached the shields and is attached to the hull," Scott said, in a matter of fact tone.

"T-t-torpedo?" Stepanova said.

"I don't think so," he said. It, whatever 'it' might be, had slipped through the shields without fuss and with an effortless ease; not even the Pasherini had that capability. "I'm going to check it out. Mr Scott you have the conn."

Twenty minutes later suited up in his EVA gear, he had Gregory open the tail hatch for him.

She looked pensive and so he gathered she knew about the thing attached to the hull. She petitioned him to send her in his stead, and, when he said no, begged him to wait until she recovered the sort of containment vessel used for holding anti-matter. Mindful of the clock ticking and that the Pasherini might finally wake up to their presence, he denied her and only submitted to her ridiculous insistence he be tethered, to get the show on the road. Perhaps he was being a little cavalier, but he did not think whatever it was was a threat to them. He stuck by his first thought that it was what they had come here for, even in the absence of proper hard data.

It took him less than ten minutes to find it, stuck to the dorsal surface of Sting, set back about two metres from the Bridge.

He moved closer for a better view and stopped in his tracks. He had never seen the like. A stalk-like structure undulated before his gaze and put in mind some undersea organism caressed by a gentle marine current. The undulation paused momentarily in its dance and revealed something at the stalk's tip, about the size of his hand, that looked like a leaf made out of the most delicate lace.

Nothing like a torpedo.

He touched the contrivance, which was his first mistake. It all lifted away in his hand, leaf parting company from the stalk; he grabbed for it, but it came at him under its own motive power, impacting him on the chest and before he could react, the leaf penetrated the skin of his suit. He cried out, expecting imminent death, but his suit healed behind the intrusion. His breath rasped, loud in his own ears, and he ignored Scott's demands he respond, incapable of doing anything other than breathing and letting his suit deal with an all over clammy sweat. He felt something ripple, burrowing deeper, until it made contact with his skin, and then, as though seeking a bearing, it paused, before seconds later a pliant chill prickled at the nape of his neck, a chill that migrated to and settled at the back of his head. The chill made him shiver, but nothing happened for what felt an age, but was probably an interval of mere moments.

Panic receded. Breathing under control, he was about to respond to a now frantic Scott. He swallowed and made a tentative move, which was his second mistake. Pain shot through his skull and his vision dimmed. He gasped, but all he could feel was the agony in his head, before a blessed oblivion overtook him.

xxx

"Lieutenant Kirk!"

"Sir! Wake up!."

"Kirk! Jim!"

"He is. He's waking up, Mr Scott!" Female voice. Gregory.

Don't shout! Please, don't shout. Pain. Lots. An insistent nudge at his shoulder. He opened his eyes a crack and spotted Scott and Gregory leaning over him. It took him a moment before he realised he was out of his EVA suit and lying in his bunk. Thoughts like molasses.

"My head."

"Is it true? He's awake?" asked a third voice.

"Irina, whose fly—?"

"The computer, Mr Scott. No Pasherin around for lightyears, sir. Even if there were, they won't catch us at warp nine."

"Lass, the Pasherin might have something to say about that. The lieutenant is awake, but gi' him a little privacy and go back to yer station, Ensign." It wasn't a request; a moment later the bridge port wheezed shut, silencing the bridge noise that grated on over keen senses.

Gregory leaned in. "Do you feel sick, sir?"

Oh hell, yes! A receptacle magicked before him and Scott hauled him into a sitting position. How long had he been out? He remembered eating that disgusting ration bar, yet his stomach was empty. He might have vomited earlier, but he somehow didn't think so. Gregory handed him a cup of water and he rinsed out his mouth and then swallowed a cautious sip.

"My head hurts more than that hangover I had after celebrating my promotion."

A smile briefly overlaid Scott's worry lines. "Well, since I don't know what we're dealing with, I'll no risk a hypospray for ye this time." Scott held up the leaf and his heart skipped a beat. "Easy, it's spent. Sting pulled — ha! — so to speak. I've heard of others being hit by one of these things."

"Talking of Sting. What's our status?"

"Everything tickety-boo. Currently travelling at warp nine to make our rendezvous point with Scorpion. ETA approximately six hours. Gregory hauled ye back inside, cracked open yer helmet and saw that Mighar thing. We assume ye were right about that being what we came here for, but whether it was or not, we thought we were goin' to lose yer. Started fitting and then yer vitals dropped. We did what we could, but ye needed proper medical attention and so we left Surakkan space. The Pasherini, I am pleased to say, apparently remain none the wiser we'd been loitering on their doorstep and hanging on their every word for the best part of a day."

He put a cautious hand to a head, which insisted it was three times normal size; he ignored the feeling. "I was outside the ship?" Even his scrambled senses couldn't miss the look the engineers exchanged.

"You don't remember?" Scott asked.

He started to shake his head before a rising wave of nausea dissuaded him. "No."

Gregory frowned at him. "What do you remember, sir?"

Good question. Confused impressions. Pain, when he pushed to make sense of those impressions and then something briefly stabilised. "Giving you a hard time for insisting I should use a containment vessel. Not much else. I don't remember exiting the ship. Remind me not to argue with you, Alex. How long have I been out of it?"

"Eighteen hours."

"Eigh…?" He slumped back against the bulkhead inside his bunk, weak as a kitten.

Scott levered himself off the floor, grunting at stiff knees, and sat upon the bunk directly opposite. He patted an adjacent space and, after a moment, Gregory sat and both engineers stared at him as if contemplating an esoteric engineering problem. He tried to focus, yet his attention span was unequal to the task. His eyes drifted shut.

Gregory nudged his knee gently with her foot. "Sir, wake up. I promise I'll keep this brief." He forced open an eye, sat up, attempted to concentrate. She exchanged a look with Scott, who encouraged her to continue. "Do you recall any strange memories, strange dreams?"

"Nothing. Out for the count."

"Nothing? Nothing at all? Really, sir?"

"Yes, really," he said, an edge creeping into his voice. "Gregory, what's this all about?"

"Maybe we should do this later, when you've had a little more rest, sir. You keep drifting off—"

"Rest, my… No, you don't get to pique my interest and leave me hanging. Tell me where you're going with this."

She glanced at Scott, who gave a small nod. "I've seen one of these things before. It's Mighar technology."

"Mighar. They keep themselves to themselves. Isolationists with a cherry on top."

"Aye," said Scott, "but, since the war, I've heard of their technology turning up in our space a few times. Wishful thinking they might be casting their lot in wi' us, but would be interesting to know the source of those things. Go on, lass."

"Yes, well, back when I was at Starbase 21, I was part of an EVA team that recovered one of these off Intrepid's hull." She paused. "None of us had seen the like; it was patently neither Pasherin, nor Orion technology. You know, in retrospect, I think Intrepid's crew were oblivious to its presence. Anyway, we brought it aboard our repair tender, stashed it in a storage locker and informed Starbase Operations what we were bringing in. It looked like an inert piece of metal, right up until it passed clean through the door of that locker without making a mark and struck one of our guys.

"At first Operations put us to work as part of the team examining the device and, because one of ours was in Sickbay, we worked round the clock on the thing and made strides in figuring out what it was, where it came from. In essence, however advanced the design, that," she said, pointing an accusatory finger at what Scott held in his hand, "is just a thing for recording information, be it text, audio, visual files etc, etc. All of which is quite conventional, in fact, and we apparently recovered material like schematics of a Pasherin base that made the higher-ups ecstatic. Except…"

"Go on."

"There were rumours that both Mr Scott and I have heard over the years that some Mighar devices could store and playback memories. When we were investigating it, the nearest we could tell, it looked like those rumours were pretty accurate, even though we didn't figure out why for some reason, when it came to memories, the device seemed to play once and only once. My theory was it learned humans were not compatible and triggered a failsafe mode. Bit late for our guy, who got unlucky when the device picked him as a subject, by that stage. He was out of his head for two days and then went downhill, raving that Starfleet was riddled with traitors. I was advised he walked out an airlock minus a suit on the third." Gregory lapsed into silence, lost in thought.

"So d'ye ken why young Gregory and I are worried about ye?"

"I feel fine."

Scott gave him a baleful glare.

"Exhausted, my skull feels like it's in a vice and I'm concentrating on keeping the water I just drank down, but do you see me raving?"

A beatific smile settled on Scott's face. "A matter of opinion. Myself, I think ye're a bampot."

He'd walked into that one. "Gregory said something about schematics on an earlier device. Have you looked to see what's on this one?"

Gregory's face fell.

"What?"

"Perhaps later, Jim," Scott said.

"Perhaps now, Mr Scott!"

"If you discount what we recorded of Pasherin comm traffic and ship movements, I think we made a wasted journey. I've checked it out and it looks empty to me. It pretty much looks like it's been wiped. I'd need access to better equipment to figure out if the wipe has a signature, but I'd lay odds whoever our friend is on Surakkan, I think they've been compromised." Glum engineers.

"Aw, for—"

"Aye. It's another reason I ordered warp nine for our return leg, even though my engines aren't at all happy about that. If there is a compromised operative, then no telling if the Pasherini might have learnt of our presence and come looking for us. I thought it better to be safe."

He attempted an acknowledgement. He should be crushed by the disappointment of a failed mission, but sludge occupied his brains. Just give him a minute to respond. He was only vaguely aware of someone lifting his legs atop his bunk, positioning a pillow under his head, blanket tucked under his chin, lights dimming, before exhaustion and oblivion claimed him.

xxx

"Ah, Mr Kirk, come in, take a seat," said Garrovick, dropping into his own chair behind his desk.

"Sir."

Something was up. Scorpion had arrived at Starbase 15 two days ago; since then, other ships under Admiral Fitzgerald's command had joined them in what had all the hallmarks of something more than routine manoeuvres.

The captain's ready room buzzed with activity, crew in and out, and just out had come Scott and Gregory. Scott gave him a relaxed nod in passing; Alex glanced at him and then looked away. Didn't take a genius to figure he had been the subject of whatever conversation his captain had just conducted and Gregory's reaction suggested the discussion had not been one his ego would find flattering. Seaton was there, too, in an out of the way corner, doing her best to make her six foot frame as inconspicuous as possible, which usually meant she was there to monitor and say little.

"Doctor McCoy has cleared you as fit for duty?"

"Yes, sir." He controlled a surge of irritation. Ever since his encounter with the Mighar device, it seemed all of his shipmates laboured under the apprehension he was about to suffer some sort of meltdown. Yes, upon Sting's rendezvous with Scorpion, he had been conveyed to Sickbay — something he had barely been aware of at the time — and had slept another eight hours straight once in Doctor McCoy's care, but he had woken, feeling the better for the rest, chafing at McCoy's disinclination to release him and the tests the doctor insisted on putting him through, all of which he had passed, much to McCoy's disgruntlement.

Despite all protestations to the contrary, Command, and S & I in particular, maintained a belief that implanted Mighar data existed inside his skull and could be accessed if only they found the right key, ignoring the important little detail that the device was to all intents apparently compromised. So once McCoy had finished with him, Excelsior summoned his presence. In the lion's den of S & I, it had been Gary Mitchell who met him on Excelsior's transporter pad and accompanied him to Admiral du Plessis's ready room. His friend's presence had lowered his defences, and, as if to also put him at ease, du Plessis had been pleasant, but within moments of him taking the proffered seat, he had been zapped by a med-tech with something in a hypospray and the next four hours had been a blur.

That had been yesterday. S & I and their games. Afterwards the admiral and Mitchell had offered a non-apology apology, couched in terms of what was at stake in the war. They should have saved their breath. Had they been upfront about what they needed, he would have submitted and got on board, but they had bushwhacked him, insisting the element of surprise had been deemed necessary. Afterward, disgruntled and cross, Mitchell had his work cut out to persuade him to accept an invitation to dinner by way of a better apology and to celebrate Mitchell's recent promotion.

In the face of all that his head remained obdurately uncooperative.

So Garrovick now reaped the irritation rightly earned and so richly deserved by S & I. He was practiced in the matter of covering annoyance at his superiors, however, instead schooling his expression into one of bland attention. In Garrovick's presence his irritation flagged; it irked him, but his sense of fairness insisted he could hardly blame Garrovick for caution when one of his officers had been incapable of anything other than an insensate deep sleep following an encounter with a piece of alien technology, a device whose capabilities were still not fully understood.

There were questions he wanted to ask. Should he risk Garrovick slapping him down? Reckoned Goodborne had immured him to the bite of a captain's disapproval. The hell with it.

"Sir, may I enquire was any data of a more conventional sort recovered from the Mighar device?" Behind him, Seaton fidgeted in her seat. He didn't know whether Garrovick knew Scott had already tested the thing and it was the sort of question Garrovick would expect him to ask. An omission might lead to dropping the engineer in it. He fully expected a sharp, non-committal: you may ask, followed by deafening silence. The captain's eyes narrowed and he steeled himself for a reprimand, but Garrovick sat back in his seat and gazed at him with that stare of his, always disconcerting in its intensity. Was that a hint of suspicion? Was he that transparent? He met the stare, refused to break eye contact.

Garrovick huffed out a breath. "Alright, I am sorry to say, since you were hurt in its recovery, that there was nothing on it. Initial analysis indicates it was wiped."

"Wiped?" So confirmation Mr Scott was correct.

"Our tests indicate the wipe had an Orion signature." Which was news and which probably explained the general unwillingness to accept answers about funny goings on in his head at face value.

"Do we know if our operative has been compromised, sir?"

But that question Garrovick did ignore. "At least your mission was not a complete bust. Du Plessis informs me the code breakers unleashed on the communications traffic you intercepted found some interesting material. Also interesting, the observations of Pasherin ship movements. All good stuff, with one gem in there that I would not normally speak of." Garrovick made it plain further enquiries about the Mighar device and the fate of the operative who had sent it would receive short shrift, but dangling a 'normally' into the conversation like that made him sit up and take notice. He smelt another mission in the offing. "The Pasherini are becoming concerned with their Vulcan friends. It seems their endeavours to court Vulcan opinion and push a peace accord is not progressing as they would have hoped. There are rumblings the Vulcans are planning an attack."

"An attack?" That meant Shukor. T'Pau. "Have you seen the data on Ambassador Sarek's presence at Surakkan, Captain?"

"I have. This is to go no further, but an observer tells me she and Sarek had a major fight after he arrived back on Vulcan. I understand T'Pau has reassigned him as extra diplomatic cover to the Orions."

"Ex—. Sir, Vulcan has barely any contact with the Orions."

"Correct. I presume that is her way of marginalising and denying him current intelligence."

"That's… interesting, sir."

A snort behind him from Seaton at the understatement. Interesting was indeed one word for it. A few other descriptors came to mind, but he sensed Garrovick had reached the limits of his subordinate's need to know.

"Yes, interesting," said Garrovick, a dry edge to his tone. "Very well, Jim, I'll take your assurance of your good health at face value." And McCoy's input. And Scott's. And Gregory's. "As it happens there is an errand for Sting and I would prefer you in the centre seat and not Stone." A fleeting grin appeared.

"Lieutenant Stone is a good officer, Captain." But not a man who could think on his feet. Garrovick gave him the stare again and he had a sense the captain was disappointed in his reaction. He was disappointed, too. Garrovick was also playing games — a distraction clothed in teasing. He expected something better than the dangling of such an outright clumsy bait for the purpose. Nevertheless his captain desired he redirect his energies away from the sensitive topic of spies and alien technology, so he obliged and took the conversational gambit. "Errand, sir?"

"Yes, Command in its wisdom has determined to turn Sting into a taxi service." Garrovick handed him a data pad. "There's your fare."

He studied the information, eyebrows flying towards his hairline. What was that about interesting again?

xxx

AN: please review. Reviews provide encouragement and keep me focused on writing new chapters. Even if you think this isn't working, constructive criticism would be much appreciated.