The Traitor's Tears

I

Mac'hla crossed her legs under her computer as she worked, calmly running diagnostics in any little differentiation in naturally occurring frequencies.

So far, nothing interesting had shown up.

"Lieutenant?" Spock said suddenly, coming up behind them.

They jumped and rammed their knees into the underside of the computer.

"Yes, sir?"

"Something keeps appearing on the sensors, but I cannot find a chemical composition on it. Could you tell me what this is?" he asked, showing her the readings.

Mac'hla typed it in and a small mass popped up on screen.

He placed his hand on the back of her chair and leaned over to look at her screen.

"Silicon, Oxygen, and Nickel. Approximately 6 meters in diameter. It is a meteoroid, sir." she explained.

"Thank you, Lieutenant." he replied, "Has anything shown up on your scanners?"

"Meteoroids and naturally occurring debris, but nothing of interest, sir."

Spock nodded and walked back to his station, clearly bored.

In fact, it seemed that everyone was bored.

Ah, so that was why he had come over. He was looking for conversation.

Mac'hla was mildly amused by Spock's human-like actions.

Nothing had happened in the past two weeks. No transports, no visits, nothing. Just traveling through space, exploring.

Mac'hla, however, was not bored.

It was their first day back to work after the blackhole incident, and being allowed to return to duty was very exciting to them.

Doctor McCoy had insisted that she remain in sickbay for nearly two weeks as her joints recovered from the massive stretching.

It had been horribly boring, just sitting in bed and reading. To some that may sound delightful, but to the energetic Lieutenant it was absolute hell.

Though Mac'hla's joints still ached some and their head occasionally felt stuffy, being back on the bridge was a relief– even if they weren't doing anything.

Their headache was soothed by the rhythmic beeping and whirring of the computers and the hum of the warp engine.

Yeoman Rand was kind enough to bring everyone tea and coffee, which seemed to brighten up the crew some.

"Thank you, Miss Rand." Mac'hla said as she took a cup of tea.

"You're welcome, dear." she smiled, "It's good to have you back."

"Thank you. I have missed working."

"Never thought I'd ever hear anyone say that." Scotty chuckled.

"Humans do not like work. They see it as a challenge. Vulcans, however, seek out work as it is a logical way to spend time."

Kirk rolled his eyes from the Captain's chair, "Is that why you kept sneaking out of sickbay at three in the morning?"

"My plants needed care." Mac'hla defended, turning green in embarrassment.

Uhura smiled, "I can't imagine Doctor McCoy was too fond of that."

"A hyperbole that humans use in this instance would be 'he nearly had a stroke'."

The bridge burst out into laughter, shocked by Mac'hla's joke which was actually funny.

Mac'hla, however, did not understand why this was funny but decided to leave it. They never quite understood human humor.

Although, Mac'hla's sense of humor wasn't all that normal either. The first and only time anyone on the ship had heard her really laugh was when someone had thrown a metal bowl and it bounced off Kirk's head with a metallic 'boink!'

It had sent Mac'hla into a fit of embarrassing laughter, much to everyone's surprise. Though they tried, every time they thought of it they couldn't help but let a giggle slip out.

Mac'hla turned back to their computer and spotted an anomaly. For just a second, a blip showed up on their screen. The next moment it was gone.

"Captain, something showed up on my screen just a moment ago." she said.

Kirk stood and leaned over her shoulder.

Mac'hla gently scanned back a few seconds and carefully froze the screen right when the anomaly had shown up.

"What is that?" he asked, squinting.

"I am unsure, sir. It was there one moment and gone the next."

"Natural interference?" he suggested.

"Natural interference is filtered out and projected as a green line. This is a red blotch."

"Red... isn't that the color used for klingon vessels?"

"Aye sir," Mac'hla replied, "However if it were a vessel, it would still be there."

"Right. Spock, and Klingon signatures around here?" he asked.

Spock put something into his computer and replied, "Yes, sir. There were three klingon ships passing through this area approximately 27 hours ago."

Kirk nodded, "You're probably picking up a small piece of debris from the vessels, Perhaps their ships were damaged."

"Should we not investigate?" Mac'hla asked, "Is leaving it a risk we should take?"

Kirk shook his head, "Send the coordinates of the anomaly to the helm."

Mac'hla sent over the coordinates and turned to face the helm, watching the viewscreen.

"Coordinates are in, Sir." Chekov said, spinning to look at the Captain.

"Execute, impulse speed."

The ship soared forward and Mac'hla stared at the screen waiting to see if anything was at the coordinates.

Mac'hla sighed as they neared the coordinates. There was nothing there.

"Nothing picked up on the sensors, Captain." Spock informed Jim.

"Sir, there was something here." Mac'hla insisted, "Perhaps we should survey the area."

"Lieutenant, there is nothing here and nothing is on the sensors." Kirk said.

"But there was, we–"

"Lieutenant, that is enough." Kirk said firmly.

Mac'hla bit her lip, "Aye sir."

Perhaps she was over compensating for her missed time and trying to find something to do.

The lack of action recently must be getting to them and they are subconsciously creating problems to keep their mind busy. Surely there was nothing wrong... right?