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Chapter Four
Pavel Chekov hesitated outside the captain's quarters. Was the information he had discovered whilst following up a number of leads resulting from a cross-reference check on information relating to the Curie incident, interesting enough to warrant disturbing his commanding officer?
Dr McCoy's instructions had been crystal clear, earlier, when he had contacted Mr Scott on the Bridge. James Kirk was not to be disturbed by anything less pressing than a full red alert. Chekov deliberated, then turned away. The Captain would wake soon, and when he did, the information could be relayed to him immediately.
The Rec room was buzzing with conversation when Pavel walked in a few minutes after leaving Kirk's quarters. Whilst he was hovering by the replicator trying to decide which Russian delicacy to request, he became aware of the sound of voices raised in anger and he turned just in time to see John Visnic and Ben Ryan stand up and confront each other across their table.
The hum of conversation in the Rec room stopped abruptly. Chekov watched in disbelief as Visnic suddenly upended the table, grabbed a knife and waved it threateningly at Ryan. Several onlookers, including Chekov, moved purposefully in Visnic's direction, but before they could intervene to restrain him, Ryan too had picked up a knife and, pushing the upturned table aside, lunged at Visnic, plunging the knife into his throat.
"Call security! And a medic!" Chekov yelled to whoever was listening as he advanced on Ryan who had pulled the bloody knife from Visnic's neck and was sweeping the air in front of him to ward off any attempts at disarming him.
Fortunately, he forgot to watch his back and Pavel saw his chance. He darted behind Ryan and threw himself at him, encircling the larger man's chest from behind in an effort to grab his arm and force him to release the weapon. Before he could do so, Ryan shook him free and, just before another two crewmen had a chance to grab his arms, he spun around and hurled the knife hard at Chekov's chest.
Before he could even register the blow, Pavel's condition was critical. He experienced nothing of the shock that he would have felt if he'd realised that the blade had penetrated his heart. Pain, and the sudden, frightening struggle to breathe alarmed him deeply. In the seconds during which he was still conscious, Chekov looked down in horror to see a widening patch of crimson staining his gold shirt.
Someone had called for medical assistance. McCoy and his team arrived in the Rec room to a scene of carnage. Two crewmen lay on the floor drenched in blood, and, glancing between the two, McCoy was forced to make a speedy assessment of the situation. Visnic was alive; a profusion of blood – probably arterial drenched his red shirt and spattered the floor around him, but a resourceful crewman had pressed something – McCoy was not about to investigate what - against the source of the bleeding to stem the flow and the doctor signalled to Nurse Chapel to take over whilst he knelt beside the rapidly failing ensign.
"It was touch and go, Jim." He explained to the Captain five hours later, after performing life-saving surgery on the young Russian. "The blade pierced his heart and ten minutes was all he had. Fortunately I'd been summoned when Visnic was stabbed and was already on my way. But I've had to induce a coma to keep him stable until we get to Starbase Ten. I can't risk further surgery with our back up power compromised."
Kirk glanced over at the biobed where Pavel Chekov looked at peace after his recent trauma. "And Visnic?" he asked, his eyes still on the young ensign.
"Well, despite the dramatic blood loss, his injury wasn't too serious. I've repaired the damage and pumped him full of fresh blood. He'll make a full recovery. But there was something a little odd about his readings. I'd like to keep him here for a while, run some tests."
"Odd?" Kirk asked, his interest piqued. He had known Leonard McCoy too long to take such a remark as lightly as it had been made. McCoy rubbed his chin and frowned. "It could be something or nothing, Jim. His stress levels are higher than I would expect them to be. He seems unduly anxious about nothing in particular and everything in general. Above all, he's convinced that Ryan has been, 'out to get him' since we returned from Skara."
"I've just come from the Brig. That's pretty much what Ben Ryan said about Visnic." Jim said. McCoy's eyebrows arched and he pursed his lips.
"Maybe I'll check him out too," he said, thoughtfully, looking at Jim, "Are you okay, Jim? No anxiety, irritability?"
"You think this has something to do with the poisoned arrows?"
"I don't know yet, Jim. If it is, it's nothing I've come across before."
"Let me know if you turn anything up," Kirk said, and, with one last look in Chekov's direction, he left sickbay and headed for the Bridge.
Scott had the con but he all but leapt from the command chair as Kirk walked on to the Bridge. After enquiring about Chekov's health and updating Kirk on the ship's position, he asked, tentatively, "Captain. Are you quite rested?" Kirk grinned,
"I'm fine, Scotty. Get back to your engines. That's an order."
"Aye, Captain. I'll do just that. Did Chekov relay his information to you before the ..er..incident? He seemed pretty excited about it."
Kirk looked at Scott, questioningly.
"Something to do with the Curie incident that he'd been researching for you." Scott prompted. Kirk shook his head. As Scotty left the bridge he made his way over to the science station and asked the computer for an update on Chekov's recent findings. The results were unsatisfying. Chekov had been following a number of threads mostly concerned with the Curie's crewmembers. The Curie had been an exploratory vessel concerned primarily with scientific investigation and its crew had numbered only two hundred men and women. It had little means of defending itself against such a formidable aggressor as a Klingon battlecruiser and its complete destruction had gone down in the annals of recent space history as a particularly heinous and unprovoked attack.
Kirk leaned back in his chair and scratched the side of his head, as he did so, touching the spot where the arrow had nicked his skin back on Skara and scraping the scab that had formed over the graze. Blood dripped from his finger when he withdrew it. Feelingly suddenly little light-headed, he shook his head to clear the fug. The bridge reeled briefly and Kirk gripped the side of his chair. Then, just as suddenly, his head cleared.
Jim looked around the bridge furtively, to see if his momentary loss of control had been noticed. Uhura was busy at her station; Sulu was studying his navigation console. No one seemed to have noticed. Still, Kirk felt a sense of paranoia take hold of him and he scanned the bridge again, convinced that someone must have witnessed his moment of weakness, was watching him still.
As he concentrated on sifting through the data that Chekov had unearthed, the feeling of unease intensified into anxiety. Kirk was puzzled. It was a sensation that he was familiar with only when the situation warranted such a response – during a tense moment on the bridge or when a crewman's life had been threatened. To feel anxiety with no traceable cause was alien to him and more than a little disturbing. Embarrassing, even. He thought of McCoy's concerns about the Skarran toxin but dismissed any notion that this might be responsible for his symptoms.
Chekov had been busy. He had pulled up information on everyone who had served on the Curie. Kirk perused the list.
Many had been young scientists embarking on careers in their chosen field. Who knows what they might have achieved had they not perished at the hands of those Klingon monsters? Beads of sweat broke out on Kirk's forehead. His right hand was balled into a tightly clenched fist and his whole body trembled with restrained anger. His eyes swept furtively around the bridge. His colleagues seemed unaware of the intensity of emotion gripping their captain.
Kirk suppressed a grunt of impatience. Was this all that Chekov had come up with? Or had he seen a connection that Kirk was missing?
News that The Curie and all her crew perished reached Starfleet slowly. First the crew had failed to maintain routine communications with Starfleet, then word of mouth accounts began to filter through, rumours that the Klingons had attacked the ship in the neutral zone.
Klingons High Command had denied culpability for the attack, claiming that they had not ordered the destruction of the Curie. When they finally admitted to the unprovoked attack, they claimed to have been acting on intelligence that suggested the Curie was on a clandestine mission to destabilise Klingon interests on one of their colonies. It was a mess. Kirk sighed. How could the Klingons expect Starfleet to believe that the Curie was a threat to them? It was clearly a lie hastily manufactured to cover an overtly hostile act.
"Doctor McCoy to bridge."
"What is it, McCoy?" Kirk tried to mask the irritation in his voice. It irritated him all the more that his attempt would not fool his astute CMO.
"I've run those tests on Visnic and Ryan. As you and I were members of the same landing party, I think it wise to include us. Can you come along to sickbay?"
"I don't have time for your damned…tests, doctor. I have a ship to run." The words were out before Kirk had a chance to stop them. He didn't need to look up to know that heads were turning in his direction. A trickle of blood warmed his scalp and he wiped it away, smearing the blood on his sleeve.
"Captain, is everything alright?" Uhura's voice, concerned.
"Everything's fine, Lieutenant." His voice calm again but the effort of control was exhausting. He even managed to flash her a reassuring smile but he knew that just like McCoy, his communications officer could read him like a book. Kirk felt a pressing need to leave the bridge. "Mr Sulu…take the conn." He said, already making for the turbolift.