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Chapter 20

Captain Kirk did not waste time to gather his team. He hoped to find in the remains of sickbay some medical devices and drugs which could be used by Dr Triss and her staff.

In fact, his wish was also to find the bodies of his missing crew. Jim thought that it was unlikely that all the crew present in sickbay during the explosion has been sucked by the sidereal space. He has planned to search every corner of sickbay, in the tangles of beds, materials and other sheet metal, in order to find their bodies and that of Bones.

However, as Spock had reminded him, this mission could be dangerous. Indeed, Kirk and his men are going to explore rooms and corridors without artificial gravity and atmosphere, in spacesuit surrounded by debris.

"Be careful, Captain!"

"Spock… now that Bones is no longer here, I can't be a daredevil anymore. You know why I want to come back in sickbay, right?"

"Yes, Jim…And I would like to …wish you good luck, as McCoy would have said.

While Jim was entering the airlock separating his team from the condemned zone, the chief-engineer appeared at the entry of the corridor, running and shouting: "Captain Kirk! Wait! You must see this!"

"Scotty? What is it?"

"You won't believe it, Captain. The corpses…" He said, breathless. "The corpses…they don't belong to our men!"

"What? What do you mean?" Jim asked while removing the helmet of his spacesuit.

"As I said, Captain, they are not our men! We have recovered all the bodies that have escaped from sickbay after the explosion …"

"Escaped, Mr. Scott?" The Vulcan interrupted, both his eyebrows raised in unison. He had taken from the hands of the engineer his Pad on which had been compiled many pictures and the description of the corpses.

"Well…Okay they did not really escape…But you know what I mean… We have used the beam tractor to remove all the corpses and we've put these bodies in the shed of the shuttles. Sixteen bodies and other pieces of body were floating among the debris. Look! These are not our men! They don't have the uniform of Starfleet, Sir! In fact, they are all naked for what I see…Most of them have been mutilated but I doubt this has been caused by the explosion…They are ugly but seem intact."

"Gentlemen," Spock said, "I think I know to whom belong those corpses…They are the settlers of Deltaxylone!"

Jim and Scotty stared at Spock, new questions in their minds.

"Uh…If those bodies aren't our men, where are they?" Scotty asked.

"My question is: how the settlers of Deltaxylone went outside? All of them were in the autopsy room which is an airtight and sealed zone!" The Vulcan asked with a puzzled look.

"Spock! Bones was there! He was wearing a special suit with an autonomous supply of oxygen! It is possible that he survived!" Jim was so excited. He wanted to verify his hypothesis so he turned towards the airlock again.

"Captain…Jim! If the settlers have disappeared into the crack of the hull, this means one thing: the autopsy room has also been blown away by the blast."

"I disagree with you, Spock. In this case, why do we not find more bodies? Why none of our men are among the settlers? Not a single one! Why? This is not logical!" Jim said, circling around his two friends, still deep in thought.