“Then where’s my boy?”
Kirk swung his legs off the edge of the medical bed. It was only then he realized how high off the floor he was, and knew he was where he had never wanted to be again—back on Remus. This was a Reman medical facility. He’d hoped this infirmary might have been on a Reman ship or ore-processing platform, still on orbit. But the room was too quiet, just as the corridor leading to Virron’s rooms had been.
Kirk had another thought. The intruders—different size, different height. Whatever they were, they hadn’t been large enough to be Remans.
“Picard did see one positive sign in what happened,” McCoy said. “If you think about it, Joseph was rescued from a group of people who were determined to kidnap him at gunpoint. Picard says that means whoever has Joseph, he’s likely not in danger. And I’d tend to agree with that.”
Kirk squeezed at his temples to ease his headache. If Picard was right, then there was one way the situation could make sense.
“The intruders, Bones…they were too small to be Reman. So let’s say they were Romulans, determined to keep Joseph from becoming the new Shinzon.”
McCoy nodded grimly. “Picard told me about that, too.”
“Then it’s possible Joseph was ‘rescued’ by the Remans.”
“Well, that would cover the motivation.” McCoy looked thoughtful, then shook his head. “But not the physics. It still doesn’t explain how Joseph was beamed through shields by a Starfleet transporter.”
But Kirk had thought of a way to make the puzzle’s pieces come together. “Remember, there’re dozens of Reman ships orbiting with us. Even three warbirds. Odds are one of them—maybe all of them—are outfitted for covert operations. They could easily have modulators to change the appearance of their transport beams.”
“But what about the shields, Jim? How did the beam get through the shields?”
Kirk had spent enough time analyzing what had already occurred. He needed to take action, plan for the future. He jumped down from the table, nearly keeling over in the unexpectedly rapid drop. “I don’t care how they did it, Bones. It only matters that somehow, it was done. The Calypso isn’t a starship. All its systems are simpler. Give Scotty ten minutes to run a diagnostic and he could probably pinpoint exactly how our shields were defeated.”
Kirk abruptly realized that he and McCoy were the only two people in the infirmary. “Where is everyone else?”
McCoy frowned. “Scattered to the winds for all I know. I woke up in another infirmary.” He waved a thin hand toward a closed door. “Somewhere down the corridor out there.”
“Woke up?” Kirk asked, wondering why his next question had taken him so long to ask, hoping the delay was not an indication of mental confusion he could not afford. “How did we get here?”
“A Reman doctor…that is, a Reman whose name, apparently, is ‘Doctor,’ could only tell me that we also had been ‘rescued’ from the Calypso, which is now adrift without power.”
McCoy looked around the dimly lit facility, its only apparent source of illumination the soft glow from the displays and controls of a few banks of unfathomable medical equipment. “So, welcome to Processing Segment Three.”
“Do you know how long we were out?” The more time had passed, the farther away Joseph could be.
McCoy shook his head. “No Starfleet communicator, no easy way to compare units of time. And the Remans don’t use stardates. I suspect the disruptor victims were out less than an hour or two, but—”
Kirk had to interrupt. Another delay in my responses, he thought, troubled. It wasn’t like him to forget to inquire about the others who’d been with them. “What are the injuries? Who’s affected?”
“La Forge was already conscious when Doctor brought me round. When La Forge pointed me out as another physician, I was next to be revived, to help the Reman. Picard was out, worse than you. He’d been shot at least twice. Scotty got banged up on the bridge. They stunned him but he caught his head on a console on his way down.”
McCoy had missed one of their party. “What about Doctor Crusher?”
McCoy replied with a haunted expression. “Not good at all. Jim, do you remember what hit her?”
Kirk replayed the fight on the Calypso.”The cabin door. It was blasted straight into—” Kirk looked at his hand—the one burned when the door had been shot. “I could have sworn…”
“You did,” McCoy said. “Not as bad as the last time, but you had first-and second-degree burns on your thumb and palm.”
Kirk’s hand was unblemished. “Good work, Bones.”
“Don’t thank me. It’s good old Reman medical science at work. At least, Reman trauma care. They’re extremely sophisticated when it comes to treating industrial accidents. That’s why they’re treating Crusher and Scott.”
“What about Picard and La Forge?”
McCoy waved his thumb at the door. “As far as I know, still back in that first infirmary. They brought you and me to this one for the regeneration equipment to treat your hand.”
“So…we’re here. Jean-Luc and La Forge are someplace else. And Scotty and Crusher are in…intensive care?”
“Something like that.”
Kirk knew his only hope for getting Joseph back was to have a full team. But the team had been separated. A chance occurrence? Or deliberate manipulation?
He stepped closer to McCoy, leaned back against the counter beside him, carefully checking the infirmary for surreptitious audio and visual pickups. He guessed any infirmary intended to treat Reman slaves would be subject to observation by a Romulan Assessor.
“This doesn’t feel right to me,” he said in a low voice.
McCoy snorted. “Then I pronounce you fully recovered.”
“Seriously, Bones. My son’s gone. We don’t have a ship. And we’ve been split up.”
McCoy unhooked his cane from the counter, tapped it decisively on the floor. “My first duty was to my patients. I’ve discharged that. So you tell me: What do we do next?”
There was only one answer to that as far as Kirk was concerned. “Get Picard and La Forge. Strength in numbers.”
McCoy gave him a quizzical look.
“What?” Kirk asked.
“Something about the way you said that. You know, when Joseph and I barged in on you in Picard’s cabin, I got the sense that…things weren’t going too smoothly?”
Kirk wasn’t about to reveal to an unseen observer what Picard had confirmed about there being a third mission. “Later,” he said, looking up at the ceiling. “When we don’t have an audience.”
“Like that’ll ever happen.” McCoy pointed to the door with the tip of his cane. “You first, hero. In case there’s a sniper.”
Despite everything, Kirk smiled. “So comforting to know that someone’s looking out for me.”
There was silence then, as both of them immediately thought of someone else who should have been there to share this moment of action, and danger, and confronting the unknown.
Kirk’s throat tightened.
“Yeah,” McCoy said with a shake of his head. “Me, too.”
Kirk headed for the door out of the infirmary.
It didn’t slide open at his approach.
He pressed the door control, tried several toggles. “Locked,” he said.
“Are we surprised?” McCoy asked.
Kirk looked around. “See anything that looks like a communications screen?”
McCoy pointed to a wedge of green metal on a wall beside a medical console. The wedge was about a third of a meter tall, no more than ten centimeters across. There were several controls arranged in a precise grid on one angled face. A blank display screen and speaker grille were on the other.
Kirk went to it, peered closely at the controls. “These controls…they’re all the same color, none of them marked.”
“Tells you what it’s like to live on Remus. If you haven’t been specifically instructed in how to use something,
