A Hot Cup of Coffee
Part 5 of 5
Synopsis: The saga about coffee... and having too much of it.
A Hot Cup of Coffee
The turbolift doors slid open and four of the crew walked out: Torres, Gerron, Niccoletti, and Jenny Delaney. Niccoletti had a bruise on her left cheekbone.
"What's going on?" Torres demanded.
"Controls were locked out by the assailant and engineering flooded with coolant. There were no survivors," Seven's voice came through the comm. "I have also ascertained that there are no enemy ships within scanning range and no habitable planets. This is an attack from within."
Chakotay exchanged a glance with Torres. "B'Elanna, I want you to go over the sensor readings of the leak in engineering. Sue, you and Gerron, run to environmental control and see if you can't get engineering cleared out. Seven, scan the ship on phase-variances for an intruder."
There was no reply over the comm line. "Seven of Nine, respond." Silence. "Gerron, take ops and scan on phase-variances for an intruder. Rollins, help him." He motioned for B'Elanna to follow him into the briefing room.
Once in the privacy of the briefing room, Chakotay turned to the engineer. "Seven traced the source of the remote signal to Samantha Wildman's quarters. I sent Rollins and Renehan down to search for the transmitter. Guess where they found it? In that doll Samantha bought for Naomi on Mestrial. Apparently, it was activated by Sam's comm signal."
B'Elanna frowned. "Sneaky. Is it possible the transmitter was put in there before it left Mestrial?"
Chakotay shook his head. "The parts are all Starfleet, and most were from Sam's quarters."
The engineer frowned. "We know Sam didn't do it." She remembered the exchange between the ensign and Paris at the start of the game. "It couldn't have been Naomi, could it?"
He shrugged. "They never found her body, but I seriously doubt Naomi would be capable of carrying out these attacks."
"Me, too," she admitted. She reached over and flipped on the screen. She tapped a few buttons to bring up the sensor readings. She gasped as she read HUMAN MALE. "Chakotay! Sensors picked up one human male in the Jeffries tube outside environmental control just before the coolant leak!"
The "captain" leaned over her shoulder, a fresh cup of coffee in hand. Despite all the disruptions in power, the replicators were still functioning. "There are only two human males left alive, though! And Rollins was here the whole time!"
"With the exception of going to find the transmitter."
"He and Renehan were together."
"Maybe they're in on it together."
Chakotay shook his head. "Both were eliminated almost immediately, remember? Neither one of them had access to the gel packs in Sickbay or Samantha's quarters."
B'Elanna rested her head against the panel. "I'm really getting sick of this, Tom."
* * *
Janeway returned to engineering with a fresh cup of coffee. "How's it going, lieutenant?"
Tom looked up from the console, a delighted grin on his face. "For me, great. For them, horrible."
The captain watched as Chakotay ordered a cup of strong black coffee and B'Elanna made her discovery. Then she heard B'Elanna say, "I'm really getting sick of this, Tom."
"Are you enjoying this?" she asked.
"Immensely," Paris replied. "I haven't adjusted the parameters in over half an hour."
Janeway stared at the screen, watching as the two remaining players argued over the validity of the sensor readings.
Suddenly several seemingly- inconsequential bits of data collided in her head in a moment of brilliant realization. "Oh, no," she whispered.
"Yes?"
Janeway smiled. "Tom, you really have out done yourself this time."
"You see why you were eliminated early?" he grinned. "The killer knew it wouldn't take you long to figure out who he was."
Of course he did, Janeway smiled to herself, and waited for B'Elanna and Chakotay to figure it out, too.
* * *
"Okay, so maybe the sensor readings are wrong! Still, we have to get to engineering so we can do a body count. If one of the nine isn't accounted for, we'll know who our killer is." She bit her lip, looking around for something to smash. "And if all nine are there, Tom is really going to get chewed out."
Chakotay nodded, frowning. "Chakotay to Niccoletti."
"Damn," B'Elanna whispered when the comm stayed silent.
"Computer, status of Ensign Niccoletti and Crewman Gerron."
"Ensign Niccoletti and Crewman Gerron are dead," the emotionless voice replied.
"Damn," B'Elanna repeated, eyeing a chair speculatively. The two officers stepped toward the door. The doors slid open revealing... carnage. Rollins, Delaney, Renehan, and Gerron lay sprawled on the floor, their faces blue.
Torres choked on the gas still in the air. "The killer was still in environmental!" she gasped. "Computer, scan all of deck nine! Search for lifesigns."
"Affirmative. There is one human male on deck nine."
Chakotay coughed. "Is the coolant still in engineering?"
"Negative. The coolant was purged from engineering nine minutes ago."
The "captain's" hand trembled and he dropped the coffee. The cup fell halfway to the floor and froze, then faded away.
"What the...?" Chakotay began.
"Commander Chakotay has lost the game."
He swore. "What happened? Tom! This game is impossible!" Still grumbling, he left the holodeck, calling over his shoulder, "Don't touch the coffee!"
"Don't worry," she replied as the program resumed. She picked up the coffee mug and smashed it against the wall.
Six down, Torres thought darkly. Me to go.
* * *
She raced to engineering, phaser in hand, heedless of the dead bodies. The coolant had, indeed, been purged of the gas and she counted bodies: four, five, six, seven, eight... and nine. All members of the engineering team and all dead.
"Tom! This is the last time I agree to play your stupid games! Do you hear me?"
The killer was devious and inventive. Somehow, and at some point, he had faked his own death. Who could it be? Carey? The killer was certainly more inventive than he was. He had to be as devious as—
Her eyes widened in horror. Who was the only other person besides the Doctor to have access to the supplies in Sickbay? Had been in Samantha Wildman's quarters several times in the past week? Somehow, she knew that means was far more important than motive, in this case, and she knew of only one person who had had access to everything... a person who had been eliminated early on because he was a senior officer...
Silent movement to her right, she spun, but her phaser was plucked from her hand and pointed back at her.
"I saved you for last." B'Elanna glared into her attacker's blue eyes. Blue eyes she had thought wonderful a scant three real hours before. His lips were twisted into his usual grin. But he didn't look handsome anymore: he looked evil.
"Why?" she whispered, all her rage beginning to build again. All of her crewmates and friends killed by this one person. "Why you?"
Tom Paris laughed. "Why not? I wrote this program... who would have guessed it would be me?"
"Why? Was this all your idea of fun?" she snarled. "You call killing every single crewmember on board 'fun', you demented hologram?" B'Elanna was sick to death of holograms.
He pretended to be shocked. "Why, B'Elanna! I'm surprised at you! You certainly thought this program would be fun. At least, that was the impression you gave me the other day."
"The only impression I'm going to give you is my fist in your jaw!" she spat. "You tricked me! You said the computer selects the 'bad guy' randomly! And how did you get out of Sickbay alive when Harry and the doctor were killed?"
Paris smiled. "Sickbay has holographic projectors, B'Elanna... that wasn't me in there. And, after this first game, the program will be random. I intentionally set up a narrative program that would ensure you were the last crewmember alive." He grinned wickedly. "You've got Seska to thank for the idea."
"Seska's dead, just like you're going to be!"
"Hey, easy! This isn't the way people work out their problems!"
"It is now. Tom, I'm going to kill you."
Paris laughed at her. "Which one? Tom the hologram or Tom the programmer?"
"BOTH!" she shrieked, diving for him. She forget he was holding her phaser until it was too late. "Damn!"
The phaser fired, knocking her backward on her rump. Tom stood over her. "Sorry," he said. "I gave you the least spectacular death of all. You lost." Then he faded, to be replaced by the holodeck ceiling.
As the computer stated her failure, B'Elanna leapt to her feet, searching wildly for something to fight. She wanted to bash something for real this time, like Tom Paris' head. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the doctor materialize and the double-doors open, admitting Wildman, Chakotay, Janeway, Kim, Neelix, and... Paris.
"TOM!" she yelled, her voice practically dripping with anger.
* * *
Janeway had barely cleared the holodeck doors when she heard Torres' angry shout. Paris looked around frantically for shelter as Janeway and the other officers exchanged worried glances.
"D-did you like the program, B'Elanna?" he asked nervously, edging back from the raging half-Klingon. Janeway was almost shocked to see a normally brave man looking very scared.
"Did I like it?" Torres demanded, storming over to Paris before he could get away and grabbing him by the collar of his jacket. "I don't know whether to keel-haul you all the way back to the Alpha Quadrant or save everybody headaches and shoot you myself!"
"B'Elanna—" Paris sputtered, eyes wide.
Janeway had had enough. "Lieutenant Torres..." she warned.
"I'll settle for a compromise." Torres smiled and wrapping her arms around the stunned lieutenant reeled him in for a deep kiss. He struggled briefly, thinking it some strange form of attack, before relaxing and pulling her closer.
"There go those hormonal levels again," the doctor sighed.
Janeway tried not to tap her foot, even though she was counting the seconds the two lieutenants embraced. At thirty-seven seconds, Torres finally released Paris, who stumbled back a few steps, gasping for air.
"I loved it," she whispered fiercely.
Paris smiled weakly. "Well, there's that steamy love-scene I promised," he quipped, "between the Starfleet conn officer and the Maquis engineer!" B'Elanna just laughed.
The tension having dissolved, Chakotay stepped forward. "It would be a whole lot less-frustrating if you wouldn't kill everybody. But, I enjoyed it, anyway."
"Not as much as B'Elanna, I hope!" Paris gulped. Everyone, the doctor included, laughed at the poor helmsman.
* * *
The alpha shift finally got back to normal. Janeway noted with pride how effectively her officers were able to recover from the previous week's excitement. They had solved more than one mystery, the day before, such as the mysterious behavior between Tom and B'Elanna.
As usual, Chakotay sat beside Janeway, poring over the day's duty roster. She noted that not everything was back to normal: Chakotay hadn't touched his cup of black coffee yet and it was growing cold. B'Elanna Torres and Harry Kim stood at Ops, working efficiently together to re-calibrate the ship's sensors.
Neelix entered the bridge, bearing a silver pot. "Coffee, anyone?" he asked innocently.
Chakotay, Paris, and Torres turned simultaneously. "No coffee!" they shouted.
Well, Janeway smiled to herself. Almost normal.