"Ensign Tanner, what are you staring at?" Chief Engineer Jevor said irritably to one of his assistants as he completed his log entry. "Focus on your work, or I'll have you relieved."
The young Human Ensign blushed and quickly went back to work, "Sorry sir."
Jevor shook his head, grunting in acknowledgement, and went back to his work reconfiguring the inside of a panel. He was in the middle of making some adjustments with one of his tools, when the conduit shocked him, and he yelped in pain.
"Commander are you okay?" Tanner inquired.
"Dammit Ensign! Didn't I tell you to reroute power from the junction?" Jevor swore.
"I did reroute it, sir," Tanner stated.
"Well then you didn't do a very good job. What are you trying to do, kill me? Incompetent fool! You're not at the Academy any more you know; this is a real starship with real hazards," Jevor reproved. "Get out of my sight!" Jevor glowered at Ensign Tanner while the latter sulked for a moment. "Get moving!" he yelled at the Ensign, gesturing with one hand for him to leave; Tanner then left, and passed Lieutenant Reiv, who had been standing in a doorway and had witnessed the exchange.
"Tough day?" Reiv asked, entering the room.
Jevor made a face at him, "We just can't get good help these days, it seems. I don't know what they're teaching these new Ensigns at the Academy, but it must not involve Engineering training, or instructions on following orders." Jevor paused, but Reiv didn't have anything to say to his outburst. Continuing less harshly, Jevor continued, "So, what do you need?"
"Well, since I can't work on any of the reports the captain wants . . ," Reiv began.
"I'm working as fast as I can, dammit! I've got an Engineering section full of lazy Ensigns, and I'm only one Andorian!" Jevor seethed.
"Calm down, Commander," Reiv said, putting up his hands. "What I was going to say, was that since I can't work on the reports the captain wants, I figured I'd come down and see if I could give you a hand with anything."
Jevor's gritted teeth turned into a smile as he grabbed Reiv roughly by the shoulders and shook him. "See now there you go!" he said. "There's the Lieutenant Reiv I know! Always willing to lend a hand where one is most assuredly needed. I tell you, if it wasn't for people like you and me on this ship, nothing would ever get done."
Jevor and Reiv worked for about a half an hour before work related conversation turned to more personal matters. "So Lieutenant, if it's not too personal a question, how are you holding up these days?" Jevor asked from inside a Jeffries tube.
"Pardon sir? Where did that come from?" Reiv asked, looking up from a panel he was doing calibrations on.
"Well I was just recalling your recent misfortunes," Jevor replied bluntly, sticking his head out of an open access panel in the wall. "I thought I'd ask, that's all."
"Just fine actually, thanks," Reiv replied, busying himself with work.
"I'm sorry Lieutenant, I should've minded my own business," Jevor apologized as he leaned out and observed his co-worker. "I mean, I guess if it were me, I'd be harboring a lot of anger," Jevor went on. "Anger at the injustice of it all, anger at the Cardassians, and anger at the captain."
"At the captain?" Reiv asked, his attention caught by this comment. "Why would I be angry at Captain Freeman of all people?" Reiv watched Jevor climb back into the access panel and out the Jeffries tube, back into the room, and walk over to where Reiv was standing.
"He wouldn't let us finish them off; the Cardassians I mean," Commander Jevor pointed out.
Reiv shook his head, "That was the right decision; the safety of the ship and crew was more important than vengeance."
Jevor smiled and put one hand on Reiv's shoulder, "You didn't seem to think so at the time, did you? I seem to recall you struck the captain with your fist and called him a coward, in a fit of rage. Isn't that about how it happened?"
Reiv looked down at the panel he'd been working on. "Yes," he said in a quiet voice.
Jevor patted him on the back, "There's no reason to feel shame for that, Lieutenant! You were right after all, and he was wrong."
"What are you saying?" Reiv asked, looking Jevor in the eye.
"Nothing really; all I'm saying is you were right," Jevor shrugged.
"Do you think Freeman is a coward?" Reiv asked matter-of-factly.
"Do you?"
"I asked you first."
"Well then, I'll answer; I do think Freeman is a coward," Jevor replied nonchalantly. "I think the incident with the Romulans, where the ship got boarded and he was tortured, might've made him lose his nerve. He's served well, and perhaps deserves a nice cushy desk job tucked away on Earth; he doesn't really belong out here in space any more I don't think."
Reiv slowly put down his tricorder, and spoke evenly, "Commander, the way you are speaking is disrespectful and mutinous; what's gotten into you?"
"I opened my eyes, Lieutenant," Jevor replied.
Before they could debate the topic further, the intercom interrupted them. "Sickbay to Commander Jevor."
Jevor touched his comm-badge, "Go ahead Doctor. What is it?"
"I need to see you immediately," Chief Medical Officer Giovanni replied vaguely.
Jevor sighed, "I'm on my way. This had better be important Doctor. Jevor out." He nodded to Reiv and left for the Sickbay.
When he arrived, Jevor had to wade through a crowd; there were two guards outside Sickbay and six more in the main operating room itself. One of them was the security chief, Lieutenant Ivanovna, who saw Jevor enter the room and nodded to him. Doctor Giovanni was entering some information into the ship's computer and finished as Jevor made his way over to her.
"What's up Doctor? I'm really very busy. The captain wanted these damn repairs and . . ."
"The captain is barely alive," Giovanni interrupted. "He was attacked in the holodeck by Commander Yilaan; stabbed three times with a sword as a matter of fact."
"I found her sitting and laughing, counting holodeck coins, the captain's blood on her hands," Ivanovna reported, walking over to join the conversation.
"By the four moons of Andora," Jevor swore. "She's in the Brig, I hope?"
Ivanovna nodded. "Incidents of violence aboard this ship are increasing dramatically sir. Still no word of anything unusual from the Medical and Science divisions."
"I haven't had the chance to finish repairs yet. Reiv's been helping, but my Engineering team is largely incompetent," Jevor complained. "We should be finished soon. Who's the duty officer on the Bridge?"
"Lieutenant Zaras, but her shift ends shortly," Ivanovna replied.
Jevor tapped his comm-badge, "Jevor to the Bridge."
"Bridge; Lieutenant Zaras here Commander," her voice came back.
"Lieutenant, sound General Quarters Three," Jevor replied. "Stay in command on the Bridge until I arrive. Understand?"
"Aye Commander," Zaras responded.
Jevor smiled and nodded. 'Someone else willing to do their duty,' Jevor thought to himself. 'And a Human at that. Maybe the Academy didn't do such a bad job after all.' He turned to Ivanovna and spoke aloud, "Lieutenant, I want you to post guards on every deck. We'll have some order on this ship, dammit!" Jevor then brusquely left the Sickbay without waiting for Ivanovna's reply.
General Quarters was then sounded, requiring all off-duty personnel to stay in their quarters until the order was rescinded. Ivanovna was about to leave to carry out Jevor's instructions when she was touched on the arm by Doctor Giovanni. "Lieutenant, could you stay for a moment?"
"What is it Doctor?" Ivanovna asked.
"There's something very bad happening on this ship, and I don't think we can wait for those repairs of Jevor's to be completed to try and figure out what's going on," Giovanni stated, handing Ivanovna a medical hypospray. "I want you to take this and sedate Yilaan and bring her here so that I can run tests."
"That isn't safe Doctor," Ivanovna objected. "She could injure someone else, maybe even kill them."
"Sure it is! Once she's here I'll put her in restraints and keep her sedated. I'm sure your guards can handle anything unusual that crops up," Giovanni said, patting Ivanovna on the back, causing her to flinch.
Ivanovna made a face. "Very well Commander; I'll see to it myself after I've posted the guards," Ivanovna relented, taking the hypospray and leaving Sickbay.
Commander Yilaan, however, had other plans. From the moment she'd awakened from being heavily stunned and thrown bodily into the Brig, she'd been plotting a means of escape, and who she was going after next with her new-found thirst for blood. Once Ivanovna and the others had left, only a single guard had remained. He, and the Brig's force field, were all that stood between her and freedom.
At first she'd merely talked to the young man, asking him politely to help her out, stating that she'd been wrongfully imprisoned. He did, of course, refuse to be of assistance. Round and round the conversation went as she cajoled the man one moment and reproved him the next. She offered him everything she could think of, but he prudently ignored her, while the occupants of the other cells laughed.
"Well, I see I'm wasting my time, aren't I Ensign Goran? You're so gallant, so incorruptible; nothing I say will convince you to help me will it?" Yilaan said smoothly. The guard merely shook his head. "Very well then," she replied, her eyes widening into a penetrating stare; all at once the Ensign's eyes were wide as well, and he gasped.
"How does that feel, Ensign? To have a beautiful woman drilling into your mind like that?" Yilaan asked, mocking the increasingly helpless Ensign, as she opened her mind and used her telepathic abilities to overwhelm his consciousness. "To have her be in total control of you in sixty seconds flat," she breathed, as the Ensign began to cry out in agony, falling to his knees as he did so. Yilaan squeezed her eyes tightly closed and then open again quickly, snapping her fingers at the same time. The Ensign jerked as if shocked by an electrical current.
"Now that I have your attention, Ensign, there's something I need you to do for me," Yilaan stated, motioning with her arms. "Lower the force shield of this Brig cell." The Ensign, with blood beginning to trickle out of his nose, moved like an automaton as he carried out her instructions. In a moment the force shield was down, and Yilaan stepped out slowly, and walked casually towards the Ensign who stood, unmoving, by the desk in the Brig's outer office. The occupants of the other cells cheered and begged her to release them. She raised one finger, indicating for them to be quiet.
She approached the ensign and ran her hand down one cheek and across his neck and chest, while the other quietly removed the guard's phaser. She then took a step away and snapped her fingers; the Ensign fell to the floor like a discarded sack of flour. "I hope it was good for you," Yilaan called after the unconscious Ensign. She pressed a few buttons on the desk's controls and the force fields keeping the other twelve prisoners in the Brig were lowered. She walked casually outside, striking the door guard on the bridge of his nose as she passed him, knocking him senseless. As the door guard collapsed, and the other former prisoners cheered and rushed past her, she eyed her phaser; she was just about to set it on 'kill' when a thought came to her, that it would be better to leave it on 'heavy stun' for now. 'You never know when some of these people could be useful in the future; why chance an accident?' She shrugged, laughing at it all as she made her way casually down the hallway.
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