NOTE: Just a reminder that this does all take place between the Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan.
And once more thank you to all you readers out there!
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
Twenty minutes had gone by since Liberty had uttered her staggering words. In that time, both Kirk's argued vehemently, and some of it managed to stay within the subject, while the Doctor tried to keep his near heart failure from interrupting the ongoing verbal brawl. Once the shouting, bellowing, and gesturing on the Admiral's part had subsided and the Doctor's breathing and color had returned to normal, Liberty settled on an arm of the couch to begin, in rapid fire mode, to make her case.
Kirk was standing at the window, meditatively staring at his own reflection, when she had finished, and grudgingly admitted to himself that, at the moment, what she said made sense. Behind him, McCoy was stretched out on the couch again, gazing at the ceiling. Occasionally, the blue eyes darted to the back of leather jacket clad woman who seemed to be enjoying bringing down the walls of Rome around their ears. What really rankled his fur was the idea that she made more sense than anyone else had in the last few days.
Studying the Admiral from her perch, Liberty patiently pursed her lips, already certain that the man had made up his mind and was trying to grasp the reality of it. She had expected the reaction, considering it wasn't the first time she had to deal with someone react to news that went against their purist thoughts of certain establishments. She was impressed that once everything had settled down, he had taken apart, analyzed, and then accepted what she had said. Not that she was worried about it, or was going to let it break her heart if he decided to prove how mule headed one man can be and possibly destroy the entire planet because of it. Annoy her, maybe, but not break her heart.
"Why would anyone from Star Fleet take such a risk to follow her? To follow her until he found the right opportunity, to corner and kill her before hiding the body long enough for an accomplice to plant it in my apartment? Why would anyone jeopardize their entire career like that?"he slowly inquired to himself as well as the other in the room.
"Probably for the same reason Tane would take the chance to wait for you two to leave for Dalcrom and put the girl's body in your apartment." Liberty explained, meeting Kirk's hazel gaze when he moved away from the window when she started to speak. "A whole lot of money and promises of more when everything is finished. You can't tell me you haven't personally run across someone in your extensive travels that didn't do anything unless they were assured of monetary gain from it. Other than those who are in comfortable positions in well known organizations."
Choking down both rejoinder and the matching sneer at the last comment, Kirk started walking back toward the couch. "I don't suppose you have any of your own ideas as to who it is involved with this? And please try to keep it to a short list."
An eyebrow twitched at the Admiral's sarcastic tone, but a pinhole-sized glimmer of amusement achieved a moment of life in the turquoise stare when Liberty regarded him. "No, I don't. But then again, I've only been here a couple of hours. If you wanted me to give you all the answers, you should've called me in sooner."
Oddly, a smile with an undertone of humor flickered over the Doctor's face and remained there, even when Kirk gave him an unappreciative look as he walked by. He may wind up dead or worse, dishonorably discharged and unemployed without a pension, but at least he was going to enjoy the notion that the man who got him into this was going to be suffering for it as they went along.
"It has to be someone that was either a past associate or comrade in arms to one of those yahoo's in Dalcrom. It was probably Tane, as long as he finished setting up the whole tete-a-tete for you. Of course, from what the Doctor has told me, it would be hard to pick just one from that bunch. But fear not, I have Eugene back home working his little fingers and gray cells to the bone, searching out all the information he can scrap off the floor as well as from under it concerning everyone the Doc was capable of remembering after we got back to my place and managed to get down five ounces of bourbon. I would say that in less than hour, we should have our culprit or the other way around. Depending on how our luck holds."
"You're not a real morale booster, Liberty," grunted Kirk, as he stopped in front of her and gave her an ill-natured look.
"That isn't why you sent for me, J.T." Liberty replied, straightening up from the couch. "And I wouldn't want to cut in our Pollyanna routine. I couldn't pull it off, since it's difficult to be so darn blindingly optimistic and throw up at the same time."
"I hope you don't mind if I interject here with a question that is relevant to the reason we're supposedly all here." Sitting up on the edge of couch, McCoy gave the pair of Kirk's a contemplative look. "I mean, if you're right, and I'm not saying you aren't right, Liberty, but if this Finnegan girl was going around knocking on doors asking for help to anybody and everybody in this town that had the thinnest connection to either Star Fleet or the Federation, how did the killer know that Jim would be the one to foolhardy enough to agree to help?"
"Simple."
"Oh, sure," grumbled the Doctor with a roll of his eyes.
Glancing over at McCoy, Liberty gave the man a look that was to him, anyway, thankfully undecipherable before elaborating.
"It's highly feasible that she may have gone to the killer, unknowingly at the time, to ask them for help. Now, by this time, you have to figure that Tane or someone from Dalcrom has notified him of the girl and her intentions. If she does show up at his door, he probably managed to put a tracer of some fashion on her." As she talked, she once again pulled the cigarette case from within the folds of her jacket. "These days, if you know what rock to look under and have either the cash or blood to pay for it, you can pick up a tracer that also has a listening device built in. You could slap someone with it, and they wouldn't have a clue. You could follow them from Waukesha, Wisconsin to the Great Barrier, as well as listening to them murmur sweet nothings in their sleep. The only draw back is the listening capability is short range. At it's greatest, from one side of Star Fleet ground to the other. But for what he needed it for it worked perfectly. And when Tane moved the body, he removed the tracer."
"And that's simple?" asked McCoy, looking up at Liberty with a pale blue dubious gaze.
"For me, it's simple," replied Liberty, after lighting the cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth. "I don't know what it is for you."
"How then, did Captain Talmon know that her body was in my apartment?" Kirk questioned, ignoring the minor bantering between the two. "You're not going to tell me that someone in Star Fleet has seen fit to start bugging senior officer's private residences?"
"Okay, I won't tell you that." Liberty said, sliding her lighter back into her jacket, then blew a thick cloud of smoke into the air. "But I don't think that's what happened. I'd be willing to bet the Doctor's retirement benefits that when this is all over with, you can go back into the files and find that old reliable Mr., Mrs., or Commander Anonymous sent a message in. It's an old story, J.T. It's just after this many years charging into the bright future of super intelligence, a lot of us have become ignorant of what's still going on around us."
"What are you saying? That if I cheese off some breeches wearing Commander one day, he may have a bug put into my shower or in my drawers?" McCoy worriedly murmured, face scrunching up in heavy recollection.
"In your case, Doctor, those are two of the last places you'll have to worry about debugging." Liberty said, with a touch of what may have been comfort, but coming from this woman, McCoy was seriously skeptical of the idea.
Barely listening to the Doctor or Liberty, Kirk wandered back over to the windows. The fog had shifted and raised some, but the weather conditions that were still persisting made it difficult to make out anything distinguishable below. He found himself straining to find an outline of anything that may have been a person as his silently mulled over Liberty's elucidations. It all made sense, when configured with what he knew first hand, as well as the other pieces he had before she had shown up. And he wasn't so catechized by regulations and loyalty that he hadn't noticed the slowly growing restlessness that was seeping through the walls of Star Fleet. He had just let his own problems take complete precedent over his judgment and resolution.
It also reminded him of his thoughts a year ago when he had been staring out the view ports of the starbase at the space dock and the starship tugging against its moorings. And now he was beginning to question the decisions made by Star Fleet and his own that had been based upon what had been explained to him. Add the ugly situation he had managed to get himself trapped into, and he began to sullenly realize that his career and the more personal blow his reputation was in far greater jeopardy than he had anticipated.
"They're watching me because they do believe I have something to do with either Toni's death or why she came to San Francisco." He only half realized he had spoken the words out loud when he finished, and found himself gazing in the window at the reflection of McCoy and Liberty staring at him.
For a moment, neither spoke as McCoy glanced up at the woman beside him, then back over at Jim. He had known his friend enough years to have the sneaking suspicion that there was more going on in Jim's head than he was willing to relinquish now, and it more than mildly riled the Doctor, considered the circumstances. But for some unknown reason, he took an unusual step for him and kept his tongue, having the idea that right now, he wasn't the right one to be answering.
"Pretty much," sighed Liberty, with a solitary nod. "Talmon is having us followed because he's already convinced himself that you did murder the girl, and he doesn't trust me any further than the Doctor could throw a ten pound bag of manure. Star Fleet Command isn't too sure what to believe, especially with Talmon in charge of the case. But between them and the Federation, they both have to be curious. Whether they do or don't believe that you killed her, they are still going to want to know why she was here as well as how and why you've become involved. They all realize that something is going on, and you're the one they can link with it. Now they want to know what it is you're linked to."
"Wonderful," snorted the Doctor, rolling his eyes heavenward, then gave Liberty a hard, challenging look. "Why the Federation?"
Raising an eyebrow a quarter of an inch at the McCoy's pointed inquiry, Liberty kept her steady gaze on the Admiral. "It only seems feasible that if she had spoken to nearly everyone at Star Fleet for help that she would have also done the same with the Federation. I mean, if she was totally convinced that Dalcrom is bound to shut down Star Fleet, then to most, it would seem prudent to notify someone in the Federation in case Dalcrom was thinking that far ahead."
"Besides," she continued, turning a cool, meaningful eye down onto the Doctor. "While you were taking your cranky nap and J.T. was washing the stockade stink off, Eugene sent a report that the girl had been in Paris one week before she decided to come back to try Star Fleet again."
Seemingly on the verge of coming back with one of his numerous barbed repartees, McCoy blinked, then glanced over at Jim who had turned from the window to watch his friend's response.
"I'm gonna make some coffee. You want some?" He snarled at Kirk, then turned on his heels and headed for the kitchen before the Admiral had a chance to reply.
"I don't think his opinion of me has improved much," murmured Liberty after the Doctor had groused into the kitchen and started rattling around.
"The more cantankerous he gets, the more he likes you," Kirk said in a small attempt of alleviating the heavy mood.
"The man must love everybody then," was the quick deduction.
Walking back towards Liberty, Kirk ran a hand over the back of his neck, trying to ease some of the tension. "I don't suppose somewhere in that bag of deduction and guess work is a haphazard answer of what Dalcrom is planning on doing exactly?"
"Off the top of my head? No," she answered, ducking back into the computer room and bringing back one of the empty beer bottles to use as a temporary ashtray.
"To quote the Doctor, 'Wonderful.'" Kirk quietly sighed with even more disappointment.
"I said I didn't have an answer, J.T., but I do have a few ideas to offer, if you're willing to listen." Tapping a length of ash into the bottle, she nearly gave the man a smile when he cautiously gazed up at her from the corner of his eye.
"I hate to hazard a guess as to what you're thinking, Liberty, but I'm willing to listen," he said after a moment, still unsure if he had seen the corners of her mouth faintly curl upwards in encouragement.
With one final drag, she shoved the cigarette butt into the bottle and set it down on the floor against the side of the couch. "Whatever it is has to do with the work they do on the bases. If memory serves, they deal with the systems that do all the recycling of the oxygen within the bases as well as any other devices that are needed by species that don't breathe oxygen. In my little pea-sized brain, I can't help but think that would be the perfect way to get rid of everyone and still have a fully operational, unmarred starbase to play with."
"But...why? Especially if whoever is behind this is after revenge against Star Fleet and not to take over its position?" The words were spoken not in argument against Liberty but in bewilderment to all within the apartment.
"That I don't know. I'm sure whomever it is that we finally find behind this will be more than gleeful to tell us, even if we don't ask." Liberty said, the words holding the tone of someone who had gone through similar scenes every other week and was bored by it. "So, it would seem that our task is to find said person and let him have the delight of waving it under our noses until we can come up with a plan to stop him."
"So, what your basically saying then," McCoy stood in the kitchen door, holding a cup of coffee that was steaming as thick as the cigarette smoke that had slowly dissipated towards the ceiling. "Is that this unknown criminal is planning on totally disabling Star Fleet by doing what? Somehow infecting their air systems and taking over the star bases?"
"Bascially that's what I think I said." acknowledged Liberty, shifting enough so she was capable of glancing from one man to the other easier. "But you did leave out one part, Doc."
A tentatively petulant scowl settled on McCoy's face. "Yeah, what?"
"There isn't going to be room to hold that many hostages within a single starbase. As well as the fact, why go through all of this to take over one starbase or a small handful of starfleet ships? They aren't trying to simply make a point to the rest of the populace. They want to wipe out everything and everyone for whatever reason they deem important to them. Besides, we already know that they don't hold too much regard for life of any kind when it gets in their way. Why would they suddenly decide to change their principals when they're this close now?" Liberty pointed out, with only the slightest amount of reaction to the idea herself.
For several seconds, neither man said anything as they gazed at one another, then they became lost in their own horrified thoughts.
Coming around surprisingly before Kirk, McCoy cleared his throat softly and focused his blue gaze back on Liberty. "What do we do then?"
Rolling her shoulder as she slipped her hands into her back pockets again, Liberty shot a quick look over at the Admiral, and then glanced over at McCoy. "Well, I'd say grab your grass skirt, Doc. We're heading for Hawaii."
TBC
