“Tan?” Giacomo queried.
All eyes turned to Tan. Helifted his head, his eyes shifting rapidly between them.
“Make a choice, Mister Tan?”McReidy told him.
His calm look rattled her.
“With the commander.”
“Up.” Giacomo indicated with thephaser, and Tan stood.
Gillespie tucked his phaserinside his jacket. He struggled with John’s dead weight, but managed to pickhim up and sling him over one shoulder, then took the phaser from Giacomo andindicated Tan precede him. “Back in a minute,” he told the others.
“Where to?” Giacomo was back atthe helm. The alien ship was well out of range.
“Anywhere except where thatship’s going,” McReidy answered.
Back to top
Chapternineteen
John woke. His head thumped andhis chest ached. The ceiling slowly came into focus and it took him a fewmoments to recall what had happened. That’s right. McReidy was in command,and Giacomo had shot him!
He sat up on the bed and droppedhis feet to the floor. He rubbed his chest with the heel of his hand and tooka couple of steadying breaths. His head cleared and his nerves tingled as thelingering effects of the phaser blast leached out of his system.
He was in the brig. That wasperfectly obvious – he’d been there before. Somehow all ships’ brigs lookedalike from the inside. Well, he couldn’t stay here all day.
He switched his communicator on. “Computer –”
“Unauthorised access,” thecomputer interrupted and switched his communicator off.
He let out a low growl, stood upand walked to the door.
“Locked, sir.”
John’s attention moved outsidethe cell. Tan was sitting comfortably on the bed in the cell beside him.
“Are you all right?”
“They only shot you, sir.”
John cringed involuntarily. “Howlong?”
“A couple of hours.”
John turned back to the door. Heknew where the lock panel was, but couldn’t access it from the inside, short ofripping the whole wall out. And he was not exactly equipped to do that.
He turned his back to the door,put his hands on his hips and sighed heavily. He looked around for another wayout. At first glance, it appeared to be impossible. Time was something heseemed to have plenty of, however a thorough examination only confirmed thatescape was impossible. He was stuck here until he could think of somethingelse.
Tan watched him with the air ofsomeone who knew better. John realised he’d probably done the exact samethings the moment he’d been put there.
“Any idea what’s going on?” Johnasked.
Tan shook his head. “None, sir.”
“Guess we better find out. Ssh.” John put his finger to his lips.
He switched his communicator onto receive, linked into McReidy’s communicator and began eavesdropping. Thebridge was unusually quiet. He could hear McReidy’s soft breathing coming throughhis communicator.
For a moment, he wondered if shewas still on the bridge. The soft background noise that was so often not heardtold him she was. An occasional voice was Giacomo’s or Gillespie’s, and anorder from McReidy seemed shouted in the quiet. They were as willing to accepther orders as they had his.
Nothing told him what was goingon or why it had happened.
Tan attracted his attention andhe looked over to see the communications officer cutting his fingers across histhroat. He switched his communicator off.
“What?” he asked.
Tan leaned forward. “You couldlink into the ship itself, sir.”
John smiled. “Now, that’s athought.”
“Not through my console, sir. Wewired security and communications into each other when we refitted the helm. Extra backup. Lieutenant Gillespie would pick anything up.”
“Homing beacon,” John decided. “The computer can’t deny that.”
Hacking his own ship twice in amatter of months. The irony that this time it was McReidy who’d stolen theship from him didn’t escape him.
He took his communicator off andhad a look at it, then checked himself over from top to bottom, turning out allhis pockets to see if there might be anything of use. He frowned as hesurveyed the small pile of contents on the bed. What he wouldn’t give rightnow for Anthony’s knowledge!
“Sir,” Tan whispered urgently.
John heard the footsteps. Heturned and sat down in one move, blocking his belongings from immediate sight.
Helen and Lynn were heading downthe corridor. Helen had a tray of food; Lynn was a few steps behind with aphaser comfortably raised.
“Commander, Lieutenant, remainseated and don’t move,” Lynn instructed as she stopped at a distance to takethem both in.
Helen’s eyes were a little glazedand it appeared she was going through the motions of supplying the food. Shetapped the keypad and opened the door to Tan’s cell. Lynn turned her weapon tothe communications officer.
He didn’t move as Helen squatteddown, took a bowl and a cup from the tray and placed them on the floor justinside the door. Then she stood up and locked the cell.
Lynn turned her weapon to John.
Cartography and linguistics, Johnnoted. As far from the bridge and engineering as you could get. Whatever wasaffecting his crew was all over the place.
“Thank you,” he spoke quietly toHelen as she put his food down, the warm smell of chicken teriyaki noodlesteasing his nostrils.
She didn’t acknowledge him,locking the cell and heading back down the corridor with Lynn.
“Smells good,” Tan commented whenthey were out of sight. “I guess if they were going to poison us, they wouldhave just shot us.”
John shuddered slightly. It wasall right for Tan to talk so casually about being shot because he wasn’t theone who had been shot!
But he had to agree.
Both men ate in silence.
When John was nearly finished, helooked at the fork, turning it around, checking the width and point of thetines. He slurped the rest of his noodles, put the bowl down and turned backto his communicator.
He needed more of a point and thetine scratched across the back of the communicator before he managed to workthe cover loose. He peeled it off and began probing into the works. He pausedevery now and then to check what he’d done and to figure out the nextadjustment.
At Tan’s whisper, he droppedeverything and sat quietly.
Helen returned for the emptybowls and cups. Lynn again kept her distance and oversaw everything.
Tan and John remained seated ontheir beds as they had earlier.
Helen was about to lock John’sdoor when she stopped. She looked at the tray, then back to him. “Commander.”
“Yes?” John looked up fromstaring at nothing.
“The
