Briggs listened to the friendly bickering between Kowalski and Patterson as they made their way through the boat. They had C deck, but they had worked far enough aft that there wasn't much in this section but storerooms. Kowalski and Patterson were arguing over where a stowaway would have the best chance of hiding, if one ever managed to get past security and get aboard. Kowalski thought the aft storeroom by the Missile Room would be the best bet, but Patterson argued strongly for the ventilation system.

Briggs smiled as he listened to them. He had come aboard to replace Steve Nash, who had to take a shore post, now that he'd been diagnosed with schizophrenia. After his behavior on the boat that last cruise, Briggs was amazed at the generosity of the admiral in offering Nash a post in the Institute's Radar division. He'd have thought that the man would have been let go as soon as possible, but Kowalski assured him that no one would ever be dismissed from the Institute without just cause. Patterson just said that Nash had been sick, and everyone knew that sick people sometimes did crazy things.

Briggs didn't know about that, but he had found Nash to be very helpful in explaining his job aboard the boat. He knew radar, of course, but to earn his dolphins, he needed to have a working knowledge of every system aboard. That was proving a lot harder than he'd thought it would. He was lucky that Pat and Ski had taken him under their wing, so to speak. What they didn't know about Seaview probably wasn't worth knowing…

He shivered. The boat had felt very different on the way to Venice, than it felt now, only a few hours after they'd left the place. He'd been excited about the visit, glad of shore leave in the exotic locale, and pleased with the souvenirs he'd bought for his girlfriend and her little boy. He'd been back snug in his berth, before the skipper and the XO left to tour Venice for a few hours. The boat had felt fine then, a shelter that seemed to welcome him home when he stepped back aboard her. But somewhere in the hours that the skipper was gone, she had changed…

The COB didn't say so, but Briggs knew that everyone thought that a stowaway had somehow sneaked aboard, hence Ski and Pat's good-natured argument. Their way of letting off a little steam, calming their taut nerves as they searched the boat methodically. Briggs knew he still had a lot to learn about submarines, but he was confident that he could learn it from these guys…

He pulled open a storage room door and peered inside warily. The atmosphere seemed to have darkened. He knew that Pat and Ski felt it, too, because their voices had gradually trailed into silence. One of them spoke to him now; Pat he thought. "See anything, Briggs?"

He didn't; but something had turned the shadows black, and sent them scurrying for the farthest corner of the room, and it certainly wasn't the light that he jerked on instinctively so that he could see. "I… don't know…"

He felt Ski come up behind him, but his thoughts were taken up with his own faltering courage. Oh, man… I'm going to have to go in there… He didn't want to; he really, really didn't want to. "I think we'd better check it out…" The words stuck in his throat, but he got them out somehow.

Ski, too, seemed to have difficulty talking, as if his tongue were stuck to the room of his mouth… "Okay. Pat, you wait out here." He nudged Briggs aside and went into the storage closet. Thankful not to have to face it alone, Briggs crept in behind him…

He never saw the attacker… Something surged out of the darkness in that corner, and he thought it might have been female. There was a smell to it that had a feminine tinge to it. But underneath the pleasant perfume, there was something else, something… vile… bloody… He back-pedaled, flinging his arms up, but whatever it was that he couldn't see went after Ski first, and Briggs heard him yell, but was frozen, powerless to do anything but slap wildly at the shadows that suddenly enveloped him. He heard rather than saw Ski's body thump to the floor, felt Pat come in behind them, but knew nothing more after that but the icy touch of something like a mouth against his throat and a strange lethargic fear that robbed him of even the power of movement…

He came to in Sickbay, sick and shuddering, with no energy even to lift his hand to his throbbing throat. He could hear breathing in the bunk above him, and when he made the effort to turn his head, slowly and painfully, he saw Ski's hand dangling over the edge, bloodlessly pale… The sight frightened him and he called out hoarsely, "Hey! Hey, Doc, what happened? Hey, isn't anyone here?"

His voice seemed to wither in the silence, hardly strong enough to break it, but almost before he finished speaking, Doc McKenzie was there, bending over him with a reassuring touch. "Settle down, Briggs. You've lost a lot of blood."

But Briggs was panicking now, after the fact. "What about Ski? Where's Pat? Doc, you gotta tell me what happened?!" He could hardly swallow over the pain in his throat, and talking was agony, but he had to know.

Doc glanced over his shoulder, and after a moment, one of the corpsmen appeared and hovered at Briggs' feet. Uh-oh… They looked like they were getting ready to restrain him. He lay very still, and looked pleadingly at Doc.

With a sigh, Doc gave in and begin to tell him about the attack…