The Operative (A Star Trek novel)

Chapter Ten

Two security guards snap to attention as Kirk, Spock, and Flynn enter the brig's holding area. One is on either side of Montenegro's cell. Each has a sidearm within easy reach.

"As you were," Kirk says, and they relax.

Kirk has spent most of the afternoon since Montenegro beamed aboard huddled with Spock and McCoy trying to piece together exactly what Flynn is, given the clues about being an "augment" and his obvious heightened strength. Spock was the most help. Though there were no records of any contemporary augmented humans, history was rife with them. In particular, in the decades leading up to the Eugenics wars, it seemed that every nation, company, or any other organization of any size was either producing some form of augment or trying to find out how.

Kirk realizes with a start that he had actually had two run-ins with something rather like Flynn, at least in a way: a megalomaniac named Khan, rescued by Kirk from a spaceborn cryogenics ship. Luckily, Flynn has yet to show any of Khan's ambitions, or his frightening raw intelligence either, for that matter. Khan had been eerily strong. Flynn, on the other hand, from what Kirk has seen so far, could probably have destroyed Khan without working up a sweat.

And within the holding cell is another like him. Kirk doesn't blame the guards for looking edgy.

Flynn motions the guards away, but they only look at Kirk. When he nods, they leave.

The three of them regard the prisoner through the force field "door" of the cell. With its own power source, it could maintain the force field for almost a week, were the ship to lose power—long after life support would fail, as a matter of fact. Very few things Kirk has ever encountered in his wide experience can penetrate a working cell door, and those that can bear no resemblance or relation to anything human.

And the woman behind the door looks very human at the moment.

She slumps on the bunk, head back against the wall, eyes closed. Her posture suggests complete exhaustion. Dark semicircles, almost black, underscore her eyes. Her face is drawn and haggard, looking fully ten years older than when she was transported aboard.

Flynn is in a position to appreciate how she feels. He leans his shoulder against the wall by the door, arms crossed, and studies her. He has consciously altered the characteristics of the skin under his eyes to hide the worst of the rebound's visible effects, but inside he still feels wretched.

"Aren't you afraid," she says, the sarcasm sounding tired and forced, "that I'll break down the door and ravage the ship?" She hasn't even bothered to open her eyes. "What's happened to my ship and crew, you bastards?"

"They're safe, Captain," Kirk says, ignoring the insult. He would probably have said worse in similar circumstances. "Flynn went back over and turned the jamming device off, then it was relatively simple to round up the rest of them. They are confined to their quarters at the moment, but they are are in comfortable cabins." After Flynn had made sure they weren't also augments. "Your ship is still cruising on the same course. Enterprise is riding herd on her at the moment, and we have put a crew aboard."

"Flynn, eh? That the name of your pet augment?"

The pet augment decides it is time to have a word.

"I'm surprised you're awake," he says. "Unless I miss my guess, you have an agonizing headache and you'd die from exhaustion if you just weren't too tired to bother."

"Yah?" she says. "What makes you think I'm not feeling just great?"

"Because my head is pounding, and I'd die from exhaustion if it wasn't so much trouble."