The Assignment
Star Trek – Animorphs
He chose the moment as memory dictated. Perfect by vulcan technique and yeerk discernment of the mind.
The Enterprise, honoured flagship to the human-central United Federation of Planets. All personnel held to terrific standard. Units competent, leading by example.
A theoretical method of control unreached by the Yeerk Military and perhaps the most venerable Council of Thirteen. Great minds of the Empire, potential in such uneducated and deeply inferior species! Comparable only to those few quite mad enough to succeed as a Visser's direct subordinates.
Herun 332 knew enough to understand the quietude of his host.
Spock retained those respected few. Without the need for violent competition, they retained him.
A difficult man. An efficient subordinate.
Therefore no better moment could be chosen than to arrive quietly. As routine expected.
Cleared for entry, the open shuttle bay collected the Galileo in vacuum. No warm bodies to greet their passage besides watchers in the windows, Herun sat in comfort, fiddling with crossed safety restraints.
Conversation fell to murmurs from the code-sealed back compartment. Visible as his green flush might be from the viewing platforms, Herun remained eyes-forward.
A sincere hope they might suffocate back there tightened his grip on the instrumentation. It preceded heat pulling blood to the surface as he noted again, a circular form of thought-taking peculiar to Spock, the peculiar organic material blocking excess lifesigns from security scans.
One less problem. He thanked whoever might be listening for bizarrely useful lesser organisms and their bio-organic compounds.
Controls trembling just so underhand, Spock's flawless recall for transition from space to internal tractor beam withdrew the yeerk to wait.
Unfortunate for the ship's computing regulations on unnecessary termination avoidance. Yet the short bark of galard and scrape of stumbling feet curved the sharp line of his lips in an inhuman smile.
If Sub-Visser Four-hundred-three insisted upon complicating operations, his loyalty must belong to satisfying normal procedure. Not self-deluded grandeur. Not more, useless bodies.
Most unfortunate. Herun did not extrapolate on the changes his people would make upon seizing the Enterprise.
His host had facility enough to know without such posturing.
Security measures stretched to scanners on hangar entry. His shuttle flew serene as the celestial Madra, alloys registering as Starfleet standard to satisfaction of their smiling crewmen watchers.
Inventory took longer. He came prepared.
Herun found his new mouth able after many minutes of speaking. For a self-appointed recluse aboard a vessel populated by humans, Spock apparently found the time to practice tongue-wagging. It sincerely tempted a yeerk to break his perfect control.
Tight rein to remain the experienced soldier. He controlled an insane urge to bare teeth and bring shame on his captive.
To enjoy it. To enjoy him.
Herun 332 of old would sacrifice a hundred lesser forms for this ease in impersonation. A host inclined against emotional fluctuation!
All so fickle. Changeable, experiential.
Somehow aware - a worthwhile observational instinct - a grimace stole his distraction. The Flight Deck Officer, becurled lady of forty years, swift and unforgiving.
"Commander, Mr. Scott on intercom."
Herun paused mid-elucidation.
Stiff-necked, a cold glance masked Herun's dive into less recent memory. Mr. Scott. An engineer. No, the Chief Engineer. Spock knew him.
Spock inclined their head.
Herun 332 returned.
A hard shove seized that forked tongue under rightful command.
"Lieutenant Sek. Priority command in my absence." Knowing looks between the four chosen companions, a nod from Heraff 866. "Defer to his experience in storage and deployment of our cargo."
His wave cut short to avoid a surge of worry. Concern worded so by a captive audience, a very dim part of him noting the strangely helpful inclination.
Herun 332 locked eyes with Heraff. Every psychic inclination his host possessed bit across imminent death in return for any sign of incompetence.
The lieutenant swept a sleeve over his forehead. Smiled and made their excuses.
Certainly no sign of fever, no ma'am. Faulty air conditioning. A long trip with returning crewmates.
Passing a familiar haunt of rolled eyes, Herun strode to the active Comm unit.
"Commander Spock here. Mr. Scott, do you read?"
The panel lit to a certainly unsmiling face. An impression to stir less useful memories, Herun forced himself forward, mask forebade in cold efficiency.
Source of perturbation in loudly romanticist humanity, the proud scotsman stared somewhere off-screen.
'Scotty' spat, cheeks aglow. "Sir! You've got to come quick! She's-"
"NEiIIIGHHHRRRRRRRRRUUUUUUUOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWHHHHLLL!"
The vulcan's stomach chilled. Nausea slunk in those icy mists.
Wrong.
No, not wrong. To a point, perhaps, familiar.
Unfamiliar. The contrast of disagreement disturbed Spock's sense of logic. Most uncomfortable.
A scream.
Mr. Scott left afterimages in red, his hair blown up from a swift drop out of sight.
Herun repressed an illogical desire to peer 'down' over the screen edge.
Grey.
Folds of skin, tight bone and a long whisker broken near the base. In place of the unfortunate human, the thing known as one of Herun 332's greatest enemies pressed her shifting musculature against glass.
Moved.
His insides turned.
A huge yellow eye. Not a sign on Mr. Spock's bloodless face. The pupil splattered in drops of horizontal ink.
It shrank to needlepoint.
His lips moved on their own. Fury crushed Herun like a bug.
"Andalite filth."
ooo
Montgomery refused to blink. The thing might turn an ugly shade of spine-tingling unfortunate, and that he felt to his flexible boot tips.
It might react to movement.
It bloody well might react to the stench of sheer terror out of every pore, but you can't control hormones. Unless you're a little bit more than human.
"Spock better get here soon."
From the heart, now.
How they'd come to this - walkway blocked, careful sidesteps over his own feet, tongue ferociously bitten - and on his poor, lovely lady? A question Mr. Scott asked himself most evenings.
Rumours. Maybe letting on some to a chatty aide, or three. All kept in line of course, marching busy. An engineer worked best on a full mind and empty stomach, he always said.
But if a very important memo didn't appear at the next staff meeting, his precious set of Great Highland 'Pipes'd get beamed into the next star to burn up like his own poor wits!
Lines of slick light caught on two-inch long teeth.
Scotty's slip and scramble squealed complaint from his knee. It also left him untouched, squinting through the pain.
"Ye blighter! Gonna try and bite? Poor old me?"
Nothing in that puff-wrinkled face let on life-saving comprehension under a wheedled tone.
The way little Cindy's twisted claws pressed her toes out under her beastly weight. Scotty's blood near froze.
Her hooves spread. Split into four cloppety wedges.
A sharp breath left his slide over carpet with less effort than expected.
It followed.
Heaven help him. It ignored Oz.
Lolloping stride, head low, it approached. The hulk grew somewhere between graceful and disturbing.
His scamper left no room to stand.
Montgomery's head flashed clear as glass. This might be it. He might be distressed to recognize those words as familiar. Killed by a shapeshifting guest.
One for the books, he supposed. For any other starship, that is.
Crunch.
Scotty's hand laid over his heart.
The beast touched her jaw. It cracked.
Bony foreleg overgrown in grey hair she better resembled an alien beastie than previously Terran-limited forms. As if on stilts, her foot dropped back to a quadrupedal stance. She wobbled.
Panted. White behind her teeth. It caught his eye.
There's something about fear that fogs the mind. Keeps important equations from their ends, stops grown men in their tracks and ends a long career in dishonourable discharge.
But the Enterprise's Chief Engineer never quite understood it. He didn't take to flight when death stalked the crew and it never kept him from proving their ship a fighter among sheep.
Fear sharpened him. And he saw the bone, caught in those draconic jaws.
Scotty liked dogs. He remembered every one in his life, dreamed and played at taking a bushy fellow over hills and heather.
His fingers stroked the air, wishing to be brave enough. The scent of heavy breath gasped from those massive lungs thick enough to taste.
If Scotty turned his head just so, thought hard about a hot night in Albury's little planetside pub, he could just place that ragged urchin on her horsey shoulders. Great big fella. All jowls and hair. Choking.
On a bone, of course. Ate most anything, including huge chunks of lamb cuttings, caught between streams of slippery spit.
Its master'd been terrified, he remembered, and Montgomery's heart sure flipped an Argelian II dance number at her rolling eyes.
'Course, it could be that particular shade of sunflower yellow.
"Sir!"
On his feet before he knew it, Scotty revised his musings on not being inclined towards flight.
The harsh whisper kept on. "Get out of here!"
"Osmund, you're mad," the engineer muttered. "Jus' lie there and keep quiet!"
The mutter turned brazen, shouted as Scotty glared over Cindy's ruff. Her ears tucked flat.
Fresh out of veterinarians. No owners or helpful, partially inebriated locals. No presence of mind left, he assumed, to take a diplomatic approach.
A sharp piece it was. Scotty touched his own chin.
His ensign shook his head, pale and clutching his shirt to pull just above the bite. Oz's eyes wandered apart and back to focus.
"No' - not tryin' to be a hero. Dogs chase... hovercars."
"Well, I'd have never thought it of -"
"Hey!"
Air flew over his head, spine thrown down at the hip.
Solid wall to his back, Montgomery propelled himself several steps down the hall.
Cindy remained hanging her big head, hacking. Gazing at nothing. The jut of her jaw drooled freely on the floor to give the air of a stunned mullet.
Ensign Oz propped himself against a door. The security override sealed it shut. Sweat shone his forehead from across the way.
"Sorry."
Tongue run on that tooth bent to curve an l in his gums, speed ran another few calculated suspicions on her destructive potential.
Fast. If not a little imprecise.
Tiny deficits and minor changes in his Lady's anti-matter vasculars tuned a man's senses. So many years fine-tuning and testing, keeping to perfected efficiency levels, perhaps a little in reserve for those real dog days.
Her most shapely alloy skin, round a terrible beating heart. No, the Enterprise held no secrets from him.
Those senses proved true. A slight tremble in enormous yellow eyes. Shrunken pupils, likely blinded and confused. A swaying barrel chest.
She didn't look at all well.
No extra hands but his own. And Scotty couldn't risk tucking fingers between those teeth.
Pressed lips kept him stern, thinking liquid through the seconds of finding cracks round a wall panel. Unclipped nails guided by his particular brand of intuition dug in and yanked. It pried away.
The hairs under his sleeves stood at attention by a light whinny.
Montgomery dove into his best-loved inorganic arteries.
Pulse pestering the delicate work, a pause to rub his face came costly.
Bellowing, an old set of fire stokers with a nasty wet twist grew louder. Labouring. Faster.
Past surface wiring, a pipette rare but for this level of the ship. It came free. End pinched tight, the elastic tubing came where he pointed it.
Scotty nearly ended his life's adventures as the ship's floor shook once. Hard.
Tip of tongue between teeth, the breathless engineer thrust himself around. Aimed.
Her snout pointed into carpet by the natural bend of her neck.
I'm the sorry one. Forgive me, missy.
He released the pinched nozzle.
Pshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
She staggered back.
"HHHHHUUUUUAAAAAAAAAARRGHHHHH!"
Scotty couldn't look away. Until he had to.
Around when the fur slagged off her face. Flesh and specks of what must be bone left behind, pocketed by raw engine coolant.
An indescribable smell.
Come to his senses, the tube sealed shut by quick fingers, he deactivated the coolant flow.
Back turned. Scotty breathed over his hands. Felt it touch his cheeks, forehead, running them through hair.
A soft sound. Running feet. Coming to the rescue.
They settled the twitch along his spine. A nerve taken since the damned animal stole that lovely little girl's voice away.
A shout went unanswered. Frowning mounted a little more tension on his beleaguered face.
Work done. But so much, too much, unfinished.
Poor Oz.
Taller and infinitely better fitting the red, a touch at his back and careful encouragement to stand up drew the frown away. Three security officers. Not his boys but plenty welcome.
Scotty managed a nod and toed past.
His ensign's closed eyelids squeezed a very quiet huff into his palm.
So he remained. So the good doctor found him.
And some interminable amount of time later, so did a noticeably perturbed Mr. Spock.
ooo
Joints showed beneath transparent skin of hands at work. First the lips. Damp air on fingertips, breathing clear. A gentle touch over the young man's clammy hair set Dr. McCoy's own heart to a regular beat.
Particular veins over knuckles denoted, in his opinion, a desirable range of experience. Ensign Osmund would probably agree.
A quiet choice of tablemate, he'd last seen Osmund at mess call.
It sat wrong to break fast with a man and see him dead before the fellow digested his porridge.
His sigh rang clipped as the orders to his attentive medical team. Sat back on haunches, Leonard's wrist propped on his knee. Sweat slicked from hair went uncared-for.
It seemed an odd time to smile. But the worry squashing their ruddy-faced mechanical genius prompted genuine merriment at McCoy's news.
He took just a confirmation from an ease-of-access medical scanner before clapping Scotty on the shoulder.
"Looks like we won't be amending any personnel reports for another rotation. Our hero saved himself some paperwork!"
"...No hero."
The expected went happily unnoticed. Leonard moved the both of them to an open archway. Scotty mumbled into a dark sleeve.
In lieu of an escaped mad guest, their Chief Engineer's words, not his, the corridor shutdown ended with her collapse. It meant a quiet place out of the medical response team's way and a more private debrief.
Perhaps more personal.
Ensign Oz' life signs bleeped from his waiting stretcher, followed by a watery gaze.
Leonard favoured a no-contact visual check over immediately sticking fingers into orifices. His friend and crewmate's hearth rhythm behaved itself on a lightweight hand scanner.
Satisfied, the doctor trailed his gaze across the unfortunate elephant in the room.
Cindy. Unchanged from stolen seconds of a panicked comm call. Somewhere between the build of a rather beautiful thoroughbred and an increasingly monotonous lupine tenacity.
She gasped for air. The deep wheeze was not unlike a blocked wind instrument.
Bloodshot eyes. Short breaths at an increased rate. Growing beats per minute. McCoy cast for another subject. Wondered if touch might be welcome, or in Scotty's case, a potential threat.
"In Georgia we'd shoot anything that made that noise."
Mr. Scott's hands went straight to his mouth.
A benign urge to giggle tickled the centre of Bones' forehead. It wrinkled.
"I'm kidding." A jump of his heart almost set the doctor on a crash course with the prone little girl. He mastered himself. Of course he was kidding, don't look like that Scotty, you know better. "What's wrong with her?"
"I don't know!" He gesticulated, fierce. "She just - went berserk! On the tour, you know, takin' her round the engines, out of that little room... showin' how they worked. Bless her heart, poor thing yawning..."
A whisper through the uniforms busy about the charred floor and two victims caught McCoy's eye. It narrowed by reflex.
"I thought it was a great idea!" Tugging on his hair with a fist. "Then she saw the transporter room, and -"
"And?"
"She just fell apart. Fell - stopped asking questions. That caught me." The scotsman rubbed at his shirt hem. "Actually. Well, the hair on her arms may have been a bit surprising. And the -"
Conical shape of hand drawn from his face, pinched as if to show the snout. "The face. It got long."
A quirked eyebrow kept Bones' eyes bright.
"I should'a thought it." Scotty shook his head slow as jelly. "That's where it happened. The missy beamed up all wrong, must be. Keep thinking it must've been the transporter."
The doctor's head tilted to the side. He cleared his throat.
Agony blasted through every filter, every thought and layer of white noise to clap hands over their ears.
Not words. But Leonard knew who screamed.
And fell silent.
Unpremeditated murder in every line of his body, McCoy turned on an impassive second officer.
Blasted vulcan didn't hide his open hand. Didn't bother.
It dropped to his green-slushed side like a dead thing.
Cindy, at his feet, sprawled different than moments ago. More bone and hair than good, healthy muscle. She didn't move.
He did it. That no-good, hare-brained -!
"I didn't give the call to put her down, Mr. Spock!"
No need for a pulse check. Lava roared to the call, blood hot and ready.
"I presumed through lack of contrary evidence to prevent further havoc, doctor," the vulcan breezed like a Cornish milkmaid on a merry, cotton-picking journey.
"And that's just your medical opinion, is it?" Spat over a zealous grimace. "Sorry! Must have missed that memo! I'll just go pack my bags, shall I? Let my head nurse know she's got a new supervisor? Lord knows!"
Rage threw bare arms in the air, already pacing before a wide-eyed and infuriatingly expressionless Scotty. "She might even welcome it!"
Don't you dare say a word, you scottish highborn knucklehead. No-one's getting between him and the toothpick-eared cretin this time!
That black stare held every inch of back-biting, coma-inducing stubbornness the medical officer had come to withstand the past five years.
"As the ranking officer my decision was based upon reduction of risk to our crew. Had you advised differently, doctor, neutralization would be no less necessary."
It came along with a dose of something new. A brand new set of his hackles on an edge McCoy didn't know he had.
Mouth open to snap a really witty comeback and Spock did was drove him mad, every single time.
Spock's narrow, tritanium-rod spine answered McCoy with the flat nothing of vulcan couldn't-care-less attitude.
Gestures to the three officers and use of their four-man strength carried Cindy away.
He watched them go, aggrieved. "Typical."
Scotty flicked his eyes from almost gone down the hall, a few steps after his wounded man.
"It's Mr. Spock, Doctor. He's got a lot on his mind. Always does."
Bones repressed the urge to spit. Not in front of the ship's most ardent fan.
The carpet didn't deserve his wrath, besides.
"And I'm gonna make some more to think about. You'll be alright, won'tcha? Going to Sickbay?"
"Aye."
A worried smile didn't reach his eyes. "Good man."
Better than most.
He should never have let her go. Just a little girl. Those eyes...
He marched on hot feet.
And let loose a strangled yell. This wasn't the way to some comfortable guest quarters.
Spock and his cohort were heading to the brig.
