The Assignment

Star Trek – Animorphs


"Tea, Doctor?"

"Hmm?"

Reports, reports, reports. Entire PADDs filled to capacity.

Crew physical results, updates to standard medical procedure, required reading for next annual and his own requisition forms.

Waiting for signatures. A scrub down his chin caught stubble against his palms.

A beckon from past the desk raised Leonard's chin from his chest. One of the younger practicing residents waited, half of her body ducked inside. He winced.

"Oh, coffee, please." He stretched. "Hold the sugar."

Sounds of the connecting medical ward travelled through an open gap left by the young lady. Soft voices by his office door drew a short puff from his nose as Leonard noted the absence of any highfalutin first officers.

The latest PADD blinked a tardy 5803.72.

2 percent off-mark. Peculiar.

The swivel chair groaned. His femur complained louder.

A swift pace through and out of his office scattered two nurses to the winds from their little talk-fest. McCoy took the moment to stare around his Sickbay.

Soft multi-coloured lights to both relax the eyes and stimulate the bedridden mind glowed by bedsides of their most recent unfortunates. Folded linen waited for change-over in ten minutes, two lovely individuals from Maintenance of the feminine persuasion discussing recent events with his head nurse.

A tidy set-up and generally pleasant place to recuperate if he did say so himself.

Rainclouds to a most surely sunny day, five surgeries layered on top of everything else. Gossip ran thick as syrup on days like this. Kept below regulation levels for noise but not quite low enough for propriety's sake.

It increased and multiplied. Like mold. Or an aggressive bacteria.

A sweet smile met Leonard's imperious look with a most welcome mug of replicated brew. He took it automatically.

Dogsbody of the day by way of Sickbay's communal chores chart, a Ms. Huerta bobbed in place. Thick eyelashes masked a gaze flickering between his badge and the ground.

"Thank you." He took a sip.

"Of course, sir."

Bitter and so sweet on growing tension by his ears. McCoy spared a thumb to massage the area, scowling.

The young lady didn't leave. Weight shifted to one side transferred his ire into a heel grind. "Is there anything else?" McCoy finally asked.

She motioned back to his office. "Doctor, may we speak for a moment?"

He squinted, curious despite the weariness starting to clip his better side's wings. Huerta bounced on her toes and glanced at a time display on the wall.

Agitated, perhaps. She seemed restless.

Leonard determined a long time ago that no medical service ran as it should without a strictly human head on top of things. He never ignored that small voice telling him when to act from a spot of empathy to his fellow man.

Ms. Huerta deserved that compassion as much as the next red-blooded sapient being.

His nod and gentle touch on the young lady's back moved their chat along.

Gustily breathed at the familiar ensemble of work desk and little else, Leonard arranged a walk-happy posterior to lean back on his desk.

Mug raised to his lips, he observed quiet fidgeting much closer to the closed door.

"Go on," he urged.

"Um... the time slot for the Commander began two minutes ago," she began with a deep breath, "and personnel have reported weapons fire belowdecks."

Coffee spluttered searing droplets down his chin. It cooled as he struggled to speak. "Weap - weapons fire?!"

Huerta rushed to placate. "False reports! No injuries and no evidence of any wrongdoing. It may not even be true."

"Why - where's Security?" Mind racing, Leonard left the mug on a nearby shelf, eyes elsewhere. "Who made the report? Damn it," he wheeled on the startled intern, "Nurse Chapel?"

"Sir!" Tanned cheeks a shade darker, the intern bowed as if weighed beneath his questions. "Doctor, there wasn't any weapons fire, it's not true!"

"Then why waste breath tellin' me fibs?" Leonard near bellowed.

"I'm not -"

"Ms. Huerta," he growled.

Titanic effort in fingers strangled white brought the crewman's nerves under control. She stood tall, hands tucked swiftly behind her back.

"Mr. Spock asked me to relay those false reports and to request his examination be done in his -"

"His personal quarters." McCoy threw his hands in the air. Let them fall to his hips where they gripped reliably solid bone.

False reports of weapons fire, from Spock? No injuries, apparently, though he'd make sure of that particular once Leonard dealt with the recalcitrant vulcan. Or better yet, send a runner and hear the details for himself.

Why on God's good Earth would Spock care about informing him, of all people? What's gotten under his skin?

"Thank you, Ms. Huerta. You're dismissed."

It took very little time to collect the pre-packed kit necessary aboard a ship of Sickbay-wary idiots.

See Commander Spock in his quarters, Bones. Make a house-call when coming round to a real examination table and a trained team of professionals on a five-minute stroll from anywhere on the ship became just too much bother, Bones.

Waste his time, see if McCoy'd keep that particular nausea-inducing hypospray in his office and out of his hands when he finally crossed that cursed threshold. See what happens.

He nodded to M'Benga. Scooped up his personal PADD to tuck under an arm, generally annoyed at the world. Remembered to task the spare lad of the day through to 'belowdecks' in search of real injuries.

Leonard spared the barest smile to a stiff-lipped Ms. Huerta on his way out.


The press of trouser legs clung hot against his calves.

A spirited pace to the threshold of their ailing first officer passed crew members few and far between. Despite supposedly controlled atmosphere he could have sworn to sweat gathering in deep-set frown lines.

A pause before Spock's door gave opportunity to mop a shoulder sleeve past his brow.

McCoy entered to a pleasant chime and his own strangled grunt.

For once in his thoroughly occupied career Leonard wished for longer on-duty sleeves. Already ill at heart with the day's complications, pursed lips met deep gravity by way of his best scowl yet.

"Mr. Spock, It always surprises me how comfortable space travel has become and how far you like to push yourself away from such reasonable thinking."

Reclined on crossed legs, Spock deigned to open his eyes. "Hello, Doctor."

"Yeah, yeah."

Sinking to perch on a knee somewhat near the obnoxiously tall officer's level produced one heck of a heartfelt groan.

Spock had chosen to meditate in the exact middle of the room. Thankful for small mercies, a note for the space to move about his centrally-located examinee lightened Leonard's face by a nostril hair. "Save it."

Mild as milk through the initial scan and blinking into a small penlight thrust dangerously close to his retinas, Spock held his pose. It looked remarkably uncomfortable.

The doctor chewed on the inside of his cheek.

That unsettling set of tourmalines made for Spock's sole movement throughout. They twitched. Up at McCoy. To his forehead. To the door. Past his shoulder, at the walls or his art or whatever kept Spock occupied on his own.

McCoy stopped.

Spock's gaze fled as if startled. He seemed to like a spot just over the doctor's shoulder.

Abnormality. A tap at the side of his tricorder held in opposite hand marked the spot. He peered at it. Resisted the urge to shake it.

A hum didn't seem quite momentous enough. He cleared his throat loudly instead.

"Is there a problem?" the vulcan asked at half his normal volume.

"Yeah," Leonard levelled tone the same, second knee grounded to rest back on his haunches. "Spock. I hate to be the one to tell you this..."

"I find your lack of sincerity most disturbing, Dr. McCoy."

A glare shed that bare haze of concern before properly expressed honesty.

"My apologies Mr. Spock for deploying some airbrakes! Now I'm sorry," and somehow it remained true, blast that deliberate inexpression on his incorrigible associate's slanted face, "but there's some bad news, and it's not pretty."

"Information does not include the sentimental aspect so treasured by humans, Doctor. I do not require this 'news' to appear attractive."

"Spock! Can you just shut up?" McCoy ripped into a coarse cough. He glared through air sweltering a faint shade of orange, nose buried in the crook of his arm for courtesy's sake.

Spock opened his mouth. And closed it.

Glancing again at some painting or mystical cultural object for whatever granted some sense of comfort, the officer instead collected his hands together to make an arch over his lap.

Bones huffed.

"Alright. Look, we should get to Sickbay. I need some better analysis of your central cortex. Then, maybe... Well."

The equivalent of dawning horror drew an eyebrow to somewhat below the exact hairline. Not exactly shocked but certainly curious, his patient leaned in.

McCoy leaned back.

Tricorder clutched to his belly, knuckles white for a periodically clenched grip, his half-sneer took some of that reaction to a place he knew how to deal with.

"Doctor." A whisper, barely a breath of air just caught in both sound and those immediately expressive eyes. "Why do we test the spirits?"

The spirits? This again?

Quirked tilt of his head brought Leonard into coveted private space, hand scanner active to record what he feared related in symptoms. "Never struck me as supersti-"

A grip seized his wrist. A grip so cold as to burn the life straight out of a man.

Spock's hooked nose curved over his captive arm. The vulcan rearranged his fingers in a pale biological cuff.

"If you please, Serat 4893," said Mr. Spock.

Intense stare played off-target, more alerts than fractured memories dragged Leonard's breath in stops and starts.

A quick inhale thickened to spin the room corners.

McCoy twisted his entire arm.

An easing away from Spock turned to a scramble. Had to keep some distance. Some safety. Privacy!

But it weren't those worn-out leggings of a dark mirror and misplaced trust to drive talons straight into neck muscle.

Warm weight pressed against his back.

Another's hand gripped McCoy from behind like it wanted to strangle him. Thin fingers hunted to ferocity. Hungry for his cranial nerve.

Trapezius and platysma muscle flexed to his loud shout.

A grunt overhead went uncared-for.

Except for the drop of that second hand. It went swift as the release of his wrist.

Blinding grey mist fuzzed between a mind to use that hypospray and the more dominant thrill of terror. It blew aside so harshly Bones found himself on foot and charging the door.

Let go. Released and not on the floor, drooling like a vegetable.

Arms free and pumping, the doctor ignored blasted curiosity and ran straight into the sliding door.

He bounced. McCoy cursed past his whingeing nose. Waved a hand over the doorframe and slapped the electric eye. Malfunctioning?

No. Had to be deliberate.

Locked in.

Trapped.

Tender skin of his wrists throbbed. Swallowing past a knot in his throat steadied enough to turn and face the danger.

Blessed Spock, he'd gone mad. Attacked his own CMO!

On the other hand, there stood his brain-afflicted patient.

Not approaching with grabbing hands. Not producing a weapon. A harmless prime assault suspect.

Spock loomed over a dark shape on the floor.

"Computer."

Voice dry as the oppressive atmosphere of his private quarters, the vulcan tucked viper-quick hands behind his back. "Lights to 80%. Doctor."

Smacking lips didn't quite wet them enough to speak. Still braced, Leonard barely nodded.

Lights increased to banish the shadows in corners. Spock's properly clear-shaven face and the very youthful being at his feet almost drew the doctor in.

Almost.

"Dr. McCoy."

If that familiar dull tone marked Spock's tendency for sarcasm, this certainly made it up there for the worst possible times to show off his human side. "Your patient."

Of course Leonard couldn't help peeking.

Human. African-American. Yes, young as he'd thought. Black curls and a set of Starfleet regs billowed at hem and arms, almost drawn tight across the chest.

McCoy hit the carpet. He had to be sure.

Pulse. Her head twisted to the side. A soft nudge rearranged it to lie straight from her shoulders. Airways. Hands cold, absent-mindedly rubbed between his own. Pupillary response growing stronger. Peeling the eyelids back woke a metallic taste on the back of his tongue.

His thumb wiped the small drop of blood from her cheek where she'd first hit the ground.

Alive. Enough to be sure. Spock hadn't accidentally killed their Cindy.

A heartfelt glare met Mr. Level-and-Collected.

"Are you out of your god-forsaken mind, you half-breed lunatic?!"

Spock's long finger stroked down that sharp chin. "An unfortunate and necessary deception." The vulcan stepped down to rest a hand on Cindy's side. "Please begin your scan. The result should imitate my own."

For once in his life, Leonard McCoy burst with enough questions to shut his mouth.

Imitate his own. That's good as a confession.

Hadn't he experienced plenty mind-altered aliens across their galaxy? Hadn't he allowed a good amount of foolishness out of sheer bloody-minded determination to be the bigger man?

He touched his wrist. Letting go to pick up his forgotten tricorder loosed a sweaty strand of hair to tickle his nose. Rubbing it away passed momentary darkness over heated eyes.

Blowing his lips out, Leonard began. On-screen data sank the line of his shoulders.

Spock was right. Localized to the brain. Actually moving if the readings could be trusted. Some form of tumour, alien to the body in genetic makeup.

Another sick patient. But how?

"Can't be right. Tumours aren't contagious." Bones tuned the frequency over lobes of brain matter specific to patient zero, compensating for lower levels of activity.

"No tumour, as further examination," his eyes almost twinkled, "will prove. Cindy and myself are now living examples of the threat she has fought so hard to destroy."

"You mean... No. Not here." Aghast and fascinated in one breath. "The Yeerks are on the Enterprise?"

"Do keep up, Doctor. Infestation is now inevitable."

"So we're doomed." He let the tricorder fall on his lap. Gazing down let the minute flare of the girl's nostrils be proof of her still being alive. Despite everything she kept breathing. Even a parasitic mollusc tapped into the spinal column keeping the body mobile but totally out of control didn't eliminate that basic function.

"Indeed not. I would not have expected such fatalism in one so illogical."

"I've heard that realism is a major quotient for intelligence," McCoy said.

"Thus my concern."

Hackles bristling, that stuffy not-smiling face might have met a good fist if not for a whimper.

Most fortunate for his knuckles, loud stirring from the unconscious Cindy prompted everything else to sit down somewhere else.

McCoy took hold of her shoulders. She moved to his touch, aware perhaps but blinking from a deep reverie.

Spock seized her head.

Leonard swatted the yellowed hands. The vulcan remained latched to her temples.

"Spock! Let go of my patient!"

Spock enunciated quite firmly. "No."

Cindy's neck tensed. She wavered uneasily in the vulcan's terrific grip, rolling shoulders against carpet. And she opened her mouth to yell.

McCoy swung an open hand. It slapped sleeve to a disappointingly soft clap.

"Desist, Doctor. I am not harming Cindy," Spock said. "I am removing the tumour."

This did not detract from the urge to remove Spock.

Lips moving, those spidery metacarpals moved in a way he'd never seen before. Stroking. Moving, tips following invisible tracks across her awakening skull. Awful familiar tracks.

Nerve endings.

Leonard forced himself down from another blow. No telling what disrupting a telepathic touch on the nervous system might do, separated by even a millimetre of enraged medical attention.

Spock's hands ran down nerve highways as if he could see them above the skin. A low mutter seemed at odds with the intense, almost possessive hunch over Cindy.

She jerked.

Almost dislodged, Spock's left hand tensed so visibly McCoy's stomach twisted. He knew the strength behind that grip.

No matter how the girl yanked, she'd never get away.

Cindy's yell transformed into grunts. Shouts.

"Cullem fallat! CULLEM FALLAT!"

"Peace. My mind to your mind. My thoughts to your thoughts." Spock let out a small sound. It may have been a whine. "We are one."

Sick, Leonard could only watch.

It took the space of wondering if he should find a receptacle in Spock's vulcan lute to relieve the nausea, gripping the loose skin of his throat, to see it.

A shimmer. A tiny glimmer of light. Wriggling.

It emerged from Cindy's ear and in no time at all dropped past the lobe.

Spock released the girl's face and sat back against propped arms. Face drawn, the vulcan stared with as much revulsion as Bones'd ever seen.

McCoy didn't blame him.

Perhaps an inch long and the most putrid shade of sewage green to be bestowed on organic life. Classic gastropodal movement, perhaps less so for four proto-flippers waving in the air.

Focused on the little thing, McCoy actually crawled back from raised facial palps.

The blunt head waved in his direction. He had the unsettling feeling it knew he was there.

Yeerk. His jaw settled to duracrete as a fist formed just as hard.

As it writhed a brief gesture let in on Spock's much paled face. The officer beckoned. He pointed to a nearby desk. McCoy saw a glass vial filled with clear fluid sitting on its surface.

He raised an eyebrow at Spock. "Water?"

Spock pursed his lips. "Please collect the specimen. I am presently... unable."

McCoy straightened his shoulders after a moment. A real medical man, no bodily fluid deterred Leonard H. McCoy.

Glass cooled his fingers, fluid dribbled on carpet in an unsteady crouch by Cindy's head.

Spock caught a glance his way. Still shaken, the vulcan had no trouble dragging her back from the slow parasite.

It felt exactly as it looked. The rough texture below yellowish mucus reminded him uncomfortably of palpating a tongue. Slippery and surprisingly muscular despite its small size, the dastardly thing plopped into the vial.

He finally allowed himself to sigh. It echoed in the First Officer now reposed on criss-crossed legs.

Leonard wiped his fingers on the ground. He kept doing it.

"Spock. Mind explaining what the hell you just did?" Hoarse as if he'd been the one screaming. The sound of his voice clued McCoy into Cindy, shaking behind closed eyes.

"Revealing the origin of the 'spirits'. This one," cool glance at the vial, "I have proven malicious."

"No kidding. She pinched me." McCoy grabbed at the sore points between his neck and shoulder. "A nerve pinch?"

"An attempt." Glee bloomed life in his companion's hollowed cheeks. Not a smile. Just bunching musculature. Spock's gaze fell on Leonard's massaging fingers. "I assume you are convinced of the danger?"

"Please don't tell me this was your idea, because I'm not in the mood for any hare-brained antics," the doctor growled. "Spock. She tried to nerve pinch me."

"Not she. He did. Serat 4893."

"Oh, my mistake. Mr. Serat four-eighty-whatever tried to nerve pinch me. Thanks for clarifyin'."

McCoy dared the next words out of Spock's mouth to be anything close to gratification.

A weak gasp of air. His eyes shot to Cindy.

She sat up. Ran pink nails down her ear, every ridge and fold searched between thumb and forefinger. As he watched, already up and crabwalking to her side, the girl turned drastically pale.

"Gone. It's gone. It's gone."

Girlish lips split into the widest grin their young charge ever made onboard the Enterprise. She laughed.

McCoy accepted the brief hug, arms akimbo, chuckling himself. Not precisely happy, he thought, smile wider from Spock's sway before Cindy's launch around his thin frame.

But a compulsive check to his pulse confirmed the lack of pounding in his ears. They were okay. Cindy, apparently another trouble magnet, alive and free.

For now.