Identity theft, p.6
Identity Theft, page 6
“Long overdue,” he said. “But we picked up right where we left off, as though it hadn’t been ages since we last saw each other in the flesh.”
Sulu smiled, clearly happy for Chekov. “You’ll have to tell me all about it later.”
No way to avoid it, Ryjo thought, not looking forward to that conversation. If anything, he was more anxious about socializing with Chekov’s peers than he was about performing his professional duties. The latter had simply required a crash course in Starfleet procedure, along with certain security codes, which he had accessed via an exacting biometric scan in the privacy of Chekov’s quarters; the former would test his improvisational skills and knowledge of Chekov’s interpersonal relationships. He could not afford to get overconfident; just look at how quickly Chekov had recognized “Grigori” as an imposter. He would have to do much better than Vonnu had if he hoped to succeed in his mission—and honor his father’s memory.
“I want to hear all about your shore leave as well.” He grinned back at Sulu. “Hope you didn’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
“If only!” Sulu chuckled. “Seriously—”
The turbolift doors whooshed open, heralding the arrival of an older, somewhat weathered-looking human male whom Ryjo instantly identified as Doctor Leonard McCoy, the ship’s chief medical officer and another longtime associate of Chekov. According to the files provided by the Exiles’ allies in Klingon Imperial Intelligence, McCoy had treated Chekov on numerous occasions over the last couple of decades, including more than a few close brushes with death.
“Home sweet home.” McCoy crossed the bridge to the command well, where he leaned against a guardrail near the captain’s chair. “Glad to see you haven’t blown the place up in my absence.”
“The day is young,” Kirk quipped. “Mission accomplished, Bones?”
McCoy nodded. “We’ve done what we can, but I’m confident that the Tykon authorities now have the tools and training they need to bring the pandemic under control before it spreads any further… and quickly extinguish it altogether.”
“Good work. You and your medical team are to be commended.”
Ryjo was glad to hear it, too. The Empusan Fever pandemic had been just the opportunity the Exiles had needed, allowing their friends in high places to request the Federation’s assistance, knowing that the Enterprise would be passing by the sector on the way to Voyzr. Truth be told, Ryjo privately suspected that the Klingons might have covertly engineered the outbreak for just that reason, but that was way above his rank in the movement. He didn’t need to know what had caused the pandemic, and he didn’t want to know. He was just relieved that the pandemic would be over soon, now that it no longer served any purpose.
“And has the rest of your staff also beamed back aboard?” Kirk asked.
“The whole team,” McCoy said, “who, frankly, are entitled to some well-earned rest and recreation of their own at this point.”
Sulu leaned over and whispered slyly to Ryjo, “Including a certain nurse.”
Nurse? Ryjo nodded and winked at Sulu, as though he had any idea who the other man was referring to. Was Sulu involved with one of the ship’s nurses or hoping to be? There had been nothing about that in Ryjo’s briefings on Hikaru Sulu, so maybe it was nothing serious? Thank the stars that the bridge was not the place for idle gossip or locker-room chat. He would have to try to subtly draw the particulars out of Sulu later, assuming the topic ever came up again.
“Commander Uhura.” Kirk swiveled toward a human woman, handsome by their standards, stationed at the communications station. Nyota Uhura, yet another close acquaintance of Chekov’s, whose file Ryjo had studied extensively. She had served under Kirk even longer than Chekov. “Has everyone returned from shore leave?”
“Aye, Captain. All present and accounted for.”
“Very good. In that case, I see no reason to delay our departure any longer.” Kirk leaned back into his chair, fixing his gaze on the viewscreen. “Mister Chekov, set a course for Voyzr. Mister Sulu, take us out of orbit.”
“Aye, sir,” they responded, practically in unison.
Easy now, Ryjo thought, suddenly very glad that he hadn’t taken Sulu’s place instead. Better the navigator than the helmsman. You can do this. You’ve done it a thousand times in the simulator…
Despite his nerves, he felt a surge of excitement as well. Not only was his vital mission finally underway, but he was actually heading out into deep space for the first time ever, having spent pretty much his entire life on Tykona. He couldn’t even remember Voyzr, which had been taken from him as an infant. Tykona, for all its hardships and humiliations, was the only home he’d ever known.
Which he would almost surely never see again.
A bittersweet pang leavened the turbulent emotions churning behind the stolen face he presented to Kirk and the others. He couldn’t help thinking of Dise and how they had left things when they parted. If only he could have seen her one last time before leaving Tykona, tried again to make her understand why he needed to do this. Of the vow he’d made at his father’s deathbed.
Forgive me, Dise. In a better universe, we could have had an amazing life together.
But that was not meant to be. History and heritage had set him on this course the moment their people were banished from their native soil a generation ago. A world that the real Chekov no doubt remembered better than Ryjo did.
All because of James T. Kirk and the crew of the Starship Enterprise.
“Setting course for Voyzr, sir.”
Eight
“Offal,” Picco swore as he failed yet another labyrinth puzzle on his data slate. Maybe he needed to lower the difficulty level?
The bored Voyzr nibbled on a bag of seasoned leaves and twigs as he glumly kept watch over the captured Starfleet officer strapped to the biobed in the locked chamber, which doubled as both a medical unit and a prison cell. Maintaining a guard over a prisoner who was already locked up and under restraint struck Picco as redundant, but Trath wasn’t taking any chances. Yawning, Picco consulted a wall chronometer, which cruelly reminded him that he still had a few more hours on his shift. It was the wee hours of the morning, with dawn still distant, so everybody else in the villa—including the prisoner, Chekov—was surely asleep. Not for the first time, Picco cursed his bad luck at drawing the graveyard shift.
A hard plastiform chair seemed almost deliberately uncomfortable, perhaps to keep him from dozing off, but his eyes were drooping anyway. He was on the verge of requesting a mug of hot mushroom tea from the automated food slot when Chekov began stirring fitfully beneath his bonds and moaning piteously.
Maybe he was just having a nightmare? Picco couldn’t really blame him, considering his circumstances. The Voyzr couldn’t imagine waking up in somebody else’s body and finding yourself a prisoner to boot. Picco grimaced at the other man’s groans; that this Chekov person looked and sounded like young Ryjo only made his evident distress all the more troubling. Picco knew intellectually that this was an enemy combatant before him, party to the injustice inflicted on his forebears a generation ago, but his eyes kept telling him a fellow Exile was suffering.
“AARGH!”
Chekov let out an anguished cry and began writhing in torment. Picco lurched to his feet, his fatigue and boredom instantly vaporized by whatever was happening to the prisoner. He rushed across the darkened chamber, exiting the soft white glow around his seat. “Lights! Full!”
Overhead illumination fired up, fully exposing the prisoner’s convulsions. His eyes were wide open, pain and fear contorting his all-too-Voyzr features. Agonized moans escaped his lips. He shook like a leaf in a gale.
“What is it?” Picco asked, worried. “What’s wrong?”
“Turn on the lights! I can’t see. I can’t see anything!”
“What the blight are you talking about?” His heart sank as a ghastly possibility occurred to him. “The lights are on.”
“No! You must be lying. Tell me you’re lying!” Chekov squirmed upon the bed. “My stomach, it hurts so much. My guts feel like they’re twisting into knots!”
Picco gulped. Was this for real?
He waved six fingers before the prisoner’s eyes—Ryjo’s eyes—but the bulging orbs merely rolled wildly in their sockets, staring sightlessly at nothing.
“You really can’t see? This isn’t a trick?”
“What are you saying?” Chekov managed between groans. “That I’m blind?” Hysteria tinged his voice. “Bozhe moi, I’m blind!”
Picco’s blood went cold. He recognized the symptoms—sudden blindness, excruciating stomach cramps—which had been all over the global news media for weeks. They were the first early warning signs of…
Empusan Fever!
“Oh, ordure.” He backed away fearfully, a hand over his snout. Last he’d heard, the viral outbreak was still an ocean away but spreading at an alarming rate. And highly contagious.
“Help me, please!” Chekov bucked and twisted beneath his bonds. Violet Voyzr blood dribbled past his lips. “Make it stop. Somebody make it stop!”
Picco wanted desperately to flee the chamber before he could be infected, but he also knew that Ryjo’s mission depended on Chekov’s continued survival. He ran for a wall-mounted intercom unit instead of the door.
“Paging Doctor Morval! We have a medical emergency!”
Chekov’s cries and whimpers scraped at Picco’s nerves as he waited anxiously for a response, alternating between glancing worriedly at the prisoner and turning his face away from him. His eyes sought out the diagnostic display screen above the bed; he didn’t see anything obviously amiss with Chekov’s vitals, but what did he know? He was a foot soldier, not a medic. Seconds seemed to slow to a crawl before Morval’s groggy voice issued from the speaker:
“What is it? What’s the matter?”
“The Starfleet prisoner. I think he has the Fever!”
The sleepiness evaporated from her voice. He could practically hear her being jolted awake by his report.
“I’m on my way! Take care of him till I get there!”
“But—”
The intercom went dead, yielding only static, before he could request further instructions on how to treat the patient and avoid getting infected in the process. His brain hastily reviewed what he knew about the progress of the disease: blindness and stomach cramps at first, followed closely by nausea, vomiting, explosive hemorrhaging from every orifice, delirium, organ failure, and, ultimately, death.
Morval couldn’t get here fast enough.
“Help me, whoever you are,” Chekov pleaded. “I think I’m going to be sick!”
Nausea, vomiting, followed by blood from all over…
“Hold on!” Picco shouted, panicking. The last thing he wanted was contagious effluvia spraying everywhere, contaminating the sheets, the bed, everything. Overcoming his instinctive aversion, he dashed to Chekov’s side and began hastily undoing the straps holding the writhing prisoner down. “Wait until I can get you to the lavatory.”
“Hurry!” Chekov’s jaws clenched, as though trying to hold back whatever was coming. His damp nostrils flared as he started hyperventilating. Grunts and groan seeped through gnashing teeth. “Urrrrgh!”
There was no time to rummage through the assorted drawers and cabinets for whatever protective gloves or masks might be available. Picco undid the straps and nervously helped raise Chekov to a sitting position. Newly freed, Chekov’s hands clutched his abdomen, which was hidden behind a flimsy hospital gown. Gagging noises escaped his throat.
“Why is everything spinning?” Chekov mumbled, his head rolling slackly above his shoulders. Bloody drool dangled from lips. “Who turned off the gravity?”
“Keep your mouth shut. Don’t you dare throw up on me!”
Chekov looked around blindly. Picco yanked him to his feet and grabbed his arm to guide him. “This way. Quickly!”
Chekov’s eyes snapped into focus as he grabbed onto Picco’s antlers and yanked the guard’s head down toward Chekov’s knee, which rose up to meet Picco’s lower jaw before he even grasped what was happening. The impact staggered the guard, snapping off a tine from his right antler and leaving him defenseless against a combo of short, hard punches to his head and stomachs. One last thought flashed across Picco’s mind before everything went dark for him.
At least he wasn’t going to be infected.
* * *
“Never mind, tovarich. I feel much better now.”
Chekov thanked his lucky stars that he’d paid attention to Doctor McCoy’s briefing on Empusan Fever—and that his new, hopefully temporary body was apparently young and vigorous enough to be handy in a fight. He spit out a mouthful of blood, the inside of his mouth smarting where he’d bitten it, and tossed aside the broken piece of antler, which clattered onto the floor. Chekov hadn’t meant to snap the other man’s antler; he still didn’t know his own strength.
He quickly relieved the unconscious guard of his disruptor pistol and a universal translator pendant, while casting an envious eye at the man’s attire. He wished there was time to appropriate the man’s tunic, kilt, and boots, but Doctor Morval—and who knew who else—were already on their way. As Spock might put it, alacrity was the order of the day, and not just for Chekov’s own sake. He was only too aware that more than just his own identity and freedom were at stake. His body had been stolen for a reason, and given that Voyzr were responsible, it was safe to assume that the imposter was out to sabotage the rapidly approaching peace celebration. He needed to alert the Enterprise before it was too late.
And, if he could, find and rescue Grigori as well.
Rushing to the door, he found it locked. With no time to figure out a stealthier way to bypass any security codes or passwords, he set the disrupter on maximum and blasted the locking mechanism instead. Firing the weapon set off a blaring security alarm, just as it would aboard the Enterprise-A, making it even more imperative that he escape the cell as swiftly as possible. Exerting his new body’s strength to the full, he managed to tug the door slightly open, only to smack the edges of his antlers into the sides of the narrow opening the first time he tried to dash through it. Yebena mat’! he cursed under his breath as he turned his head sideways to pass through unobstructed.
This was going to take some getting used to.
He found himself in a corridor in an unfamiliar portion of the villa, regretting that he hadn’t prevailed upon the counterfeit “Grigori” to give him a guided tour of the residence before everything went to Hades. And yet, there was something about the hallway that did feel strangely familiar, like a tickle at the back of his brain or a forgotten word at the tip of his tongue. Mere déjà vu, or a flicker of someone else’s memory lodged in Chekov’s new brain?
It was an unnerving notion, but not one he had time to dwell on. Disruptor in hand, he looked up and down the corridor, weighing his options, even as the strident alarm continued unabated. No hostiles had converged on his former cell yet, but he knew they were only moments away. Should he try to find his way to the villa’s personal transporter room and attempt to beam back to the Enterprise, or should he try to single-handedly rescue Grigori first, without even knowing where his friend was being held? Duty warred with concern for Grigori. It was vital that Captain Kirk and the others be alerted to the imposter in their midst, but did that mean leaving Grigori in the hands of the enemy until Chekov could return with a full security team later?
He hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
First things first: putting distance between him and his cell before company arrived. He hurried down the hall, following that itchy tickle in his brain for lack of any other compass, while keeping a close eye out for oncoming hostiles. Reaching an intersection, he instinctively turned right, expertly clearing the corner, only to have Doctor Morval emerge from a stairway right in front of him. She froze at the sight of him. “Chekov!”
“Keep your voice down, Doctor.” He held a finger to his lips, snout and all, and pointed the disruptor at her. “And no sudden moves, if you please.”
He discreetly switched the pistol to stun before herding her back into the stairwell, relatively out of sight. He had questions that needed answers.
“Where is Grigori? The real one, I mean.”
“You’ll never get to him. Not on your own. Trath’s people are already swarming the villa looking for you.” Her tone was contrite, not defiant. She wasn’t gloating. “I’m so sorry, Chekov. You have to believe me, none of this was my idea.”
She sounded sincere, not that it mattered at the moment. “You forget, I have my own hostage now.”
“Don’t count on it.” She laughed bitterly. “I’m more expendable than you are. Trath will sacrifice me in a minute to get you back under wraps. I’ve already done what he needed me to do.”
“What did you do to me?” he had to ask. “How did you do it?”
“A life-entity transfer, employing ancient Camusian technology, which you doubtless recall.”
“Of course.” It had been decades since Janice Lester had switched bodies with Captain Kirk in a deranged attempt to take command of the Enterprise, but he could hardly forget Lester-as-Kirk inspiring a mutiny when she ordered the summary executions of all who challenged her authority, including Spock, McCoy, Scotty, and even Kirk in Lester’s own body. That unsettling affair had certainly crossed Chekov’s mind after finding himself stuck in a similar body-swap.
“I should have known.”
Despite his immediate jeopardy, he seized on the fact that the transference had proved temporary in Captain Kirk’s case, which meant that he still had a chance to get his own body back, provided he could manage to keep his present form intact and at liberty until the transfer reversed itself.
“Keep looking!” a harsh voice trumpeted nearby, the clamor of pounding boots and agitated chatter impressing on Chekov that his newly Voyzr fat was still in the fire. “He has to be here somewhere!”
“Go!” Morval urged him. “I’ll divert them, buy you whatever time I can.”
