PUPPET ON A STRING

You'll get the hang of it.

Hoshi's fingers slackened their hold on the phase pistol, the lucidity gone from her shaking hands and the thought which puppeted them. That was how she felt, a puppet worked by unseen hands, its strings finally cut.

The phase pistol slipped from her oily grasp and clattered carelessly to the deck, the sound ringing hollowly into harsh echoes, eventually drowned by the strident blare of the sirens. Reed was not moving.

She stumbled forward the few steps between them, her nerveless legs nearly spilling her to the deck beside him, and dropped to her knees like a stone in the dissipating smoke. Her fingers reached out to him, meaning to check his pulse—but she recoiled, and let her hands fall back to her sides. One of three things could be true, and two of them were horrifying enough that the suggestion of them held her back. There was a chance, a slim, outside chance, that he would wake again, and that he would be as helpless to hold back from harming her as he had been to step away from that panel. There was a chance he would be fine, unconscious and unharmed . . . but there was also a chance, a far greater chance, that the pulse she had almost reached for would not be found.

She knelt, dazed, watching his wan face and closed eyes while around her the smoke cleared and the saturating smell of sherbet and lemon and crackling ice in a warm glass filled her nose and head. Sleeping, he had been only restlessly stilled, without peace; now, he finally looked tranquil.

she breathed—not expecting an answer, but testing for one, in case the first of her fears should be true, and he should wake again.

There was nothing. He lie motionless, pale, silent, every bit the severed puppet she herself felt like—only in his case, that analogy was too close to the truth for comfort.

Suddenly, choked off between screams, the sirens stopped.

Behind her, muffled by the swell of shock around her, there came the purr of the doors opening, and the dull, even thuds of booted feet entering hastily. Of course; with the ship now stepped down from tactical alert, the emergency lockdown that had sealed engineering would be released.

A gentle hand touched briefly on her shoulder and was gone, and she stirred, barely registering the presence of another behind her. She tore her eyes from Reed's horrible stillness, and raised them to see Trip standing over her, urging her away with concern etched deep into his clear, direct eyes. Soft, for all the conscious professionalism hardening them like diamonds. He had retrieved her discarded phase pistol and was holding it loosely at his side in his free hand.

You did good, Hoshi, he murmured, his singsong lilt subdued.

Hoshi allowed Trip to raise her to her feet, grateful of his failed attempts to make her feel better—but no matter what she did her eyes always returned to Reed, and held there. He . . . he'll be all right . . . won't he? Her voice faltered giddily.

Phlox is on his way, Trip replied carefully, pulling her insistently aside by the elbow. The cap'n just called him.

Hoshi nodded, her open mouth speechless, her lips trembling as her teeth began to chatter stupidly. She had finally learned to aim straight at a live target—and ended up shooting the friend who had spent his time and effort to teach her how. She wondered, grimly, if he would be proud of her. That would be so like the irritable Malcolm Reed she knew.

Captain Archer arrived in engineering only moments later, a security detail circling him with phase pistols poised. Hoshi swallowed a bitter knot in her throat. Normally, Lieutenant Reed would be heading that detail, confronting an intruder, protecting the captain. Only this time, he was the intruder.

Archer's long, even stride was purposeful, controlled, his bearing that of authority and assurance. He knelt, silently, and pressed his index and middle finger into the hollow beneath Reed's jaw. Archer's face remained expressionless, even his color refusing to drain or mettle in response. The three security men kept their phase pistols trained on Reed until Archer raised his hand to hold them back.

Stand down, he ordered. His voice was even, and Hoshi wished he would say something, anything, to let her know the lieutenant was all right. He must be all right . . . mustn't he? She had only stunned him.

Trip's hand still rested on her arm, and he stood close, silent, his face the same expressionless mask as the captain's.

You okay, Hoshi? he asked, finally.



You're shakin'.

She half-turned to him, thankful that Trip's heady aftershave canceled out the tangy ghosts that still lingered beneath the smoke. She didn't dare reply. If she opened her mouth, if she tried to produce even a sound, she would cry. She didn't want to cry in front of everybody, here, now.

Doctor Phlox arrived soon enough, and his stocky body obscured her view of Reed where he lie. Trip took her forcibly by both shoulders, pulling her to him and away from the scene, and she let him, recognizing that he was too strong for her to resist. She went limp in his hold.

He slipped an arm around her shoulders for support, and she leaned gratefully into him. She looked up once into his face, long and hard, hoping to find the glimmer of reassurance she needed. He was trying, but that rare, stern quality had settled into his face, transforming him instantly from Trip into Commander Tucker. He was white as paper and looked as brittle, his cool eyes frozen into distance. He didn't need to say a word.

She knew that there was something terribly wrong.

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Reed was rushed straight to sickbay, Phlox and Archer half-running alongside. Trip had fought to hold her back, but she had known this was her fault, and not known just what was her fault—so she struggled out of his grasp, and sprinted after them. If Trip was angry with her for that, he didn't show it; he just followed her, silently, and knowing better than to try and restrain her again.

Phlox cushioned her from charging headlong into sickbay after them, stopping her with an outstretched hand.

I'm sorry, Ensign. I'm going to have to ask you to wait outside. Phlox's bright, uncommitting gaze alighted briefly on Trip, then flickered back to her. You too, Commander.

Hoshi opened her mouth to protest, but Trip's hand curled around her upper arm again, and nudged her back from sickbay's door. He's givin' the orders, here, Ensign, he said, not unkindly. He'll let us know once they have somethin'.

She didn't care. It was her fault, all of it, and she had to see for herself. There must be far more going on in there than a routine medical procedure; their collective silence alone made that much indisputable. She had known those nanobots might be unpredictable; she had known, and had cast all her instincts aside, trusting rather to a superior officer's opinions . . .

. . . or had she merely been afraid?

She pushed past Phlox, frantic. In her panic, small though she was, she was more than even the bulky doctor or the athletic commander could hold back.

Archer was standing beside the biobed where Reed lie, still motionless, and shockingly peaceful. Hoshi stumbled to a halt before them both, eyes raking the biobed for any hopeful signs of life, lungs breathing in deep in hopes of that distinctive, acid, living scent that had poured from him since all of this begun.

His chest wasn't moving. And all she could detect in the air was the sterile tastelessness of sickbay, and the acrid suggestion of her own sweat, flooding from her in rivers beneath her crumpled uniform.

she questioned, not taking her eyes from the bed. Her voice shuddered into broken syllables, some lost in a whisper, the rest tight as an over-taut bowstring in her throat.

Archer came forward, slowly, and halted in front of Hoshi. He placed his body, deliberately, between she and Reed, breaking her senseless stare. Her gaze was drawn, forcibly, to the captain.

Hoshi, I . . . There. There it was, the proof she had needed before the words were even spoken. At last, Archer's voice faltered, and the professional exterior collapsed like a card house in a breath of wind. I'm sorry, Hoshi. He's dead.

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Trip had made only a token effort to hold her back, this time; now or later, she was going to find out the truth before the night was through. Better now, in relative privacy, and from the captain himself, than later, after hours of false hope.

He allowed Phlox to usher the mortified girl away, watching quietly from a discreet distance and unable to help but remind himself just how young and innocent Hoshi was. He gulped back the sour tint to his mouth, shifting the phase pistol's treacherous weight in his hand.

An echo filtered through his head and was lost again, a sharp point of memory in a paralyzed gulf, then gone. I've invested far too much time trying to figure you out, Mr. Tucker.
Same could be said for you, buddy, Trip murmured. He hesitantly sidled his way around the far wall to Archer, not wanting to attract Hoshi's attention, and pulled him aside.

Archer's look was grave, clearly expecting more bad news, but hardly expecting that news to be worse than the last. What is it, Trip?

Trip brought the phase pistol round slowly, tilting its gauge upward to show Archer. He kept his voice low enough to escape the doctor's ears, and Hoshi's. I checked Hoshi's phase pistol, Captain.

My phase pistol, he thought coldly. It was my phase pistol, not hers. He gulped again, unable to say what needed to be said, knowing he had to.

It's set to kill.