Star Trek: The Original Series: The More Things Change by Scott Pearson Page A

painfully. His nonanswer actually implied some information. He may have been hired to take Dax. Or maybe any Trill , she thought. Trill secrecy could lead to curiosity from dangerous places.
    She paused long enough that Spock entered the conversation. “Doctor, I think the logical course of action is to do whatever is necessary to keep Commissioner Dax alive.”
    Chapel understood he meant keeping herself alive as well. Clearing her throat, she said, “My patient will die without treatment, and this raid of yours will be pointless.”
    “Pointless? No, this is a reward for my gamble. My idiot crew thought shadowing the Enterprise on its way to another boring Federation conference would be pointless, but then a shuttle went off on its own. And who was aboard but a Trill. And if she dies, we still have a human female—and a Vulcan with a generous price on his head in the Romulan Empire.” He moved the disruptor from Chapel’s throat and poked its emitter roughly against Spock’s temple. “Dead or alive.”
    A bounty hunter , Chapel thought. He’ll sell any or all of us to the highest bidder. She gave Spock a look she hoped was encouraging, then turned back to the Orion commander. “I’ll need someone to carry her.”
    The Orion commander smiled and stepped back from Spock, but he kept his disruptor pointed at Spock’s head. “Dulan, go with her.”
    The guard nodded and gestured with his disruptor rifle at Chapel. She led him into the aft cabin over the demolished door. Dax’s eyes were closed, her skin pale. Chapel scanned her briefly. There was nothing she could do. They were running out of time, and desperate measures were called for. Chapel steeled herself as she would before delivering bad news to a patient or a patient’s family.
    She turned toward Dulan, who stood a meter and a half away from her, his disruptor pointed at her midsection. In her best neutral doctor’s voice, Chapel said, “I need to prepare her medication. It will only take a moment.” She gave him a poker-faced stare until he nodded grudgingly. Chapel opened a drawer in the diagnostic bed and began mixing a vial of the sedatives she thought would act quickly on an Orion. Dulan watched her closely as she whipped up the potent drug cocktail and loaded it into a hypospray. She leaned over Dax, then hesitated.
    “Go ahead, give it to her,” Dulan said.
    She looked up at him. “Listen, we both know that I’ll probably be separated from my patient, whether by being put in a different cell or being killed. Let me show you the best point of injection so she can continue receiving her meds if I’m not there. I’m sure she’s worth more to your commander alive.”
    Dulan looked uncomfortable. “I’m not even a field medic. Show someone else.”
    Chapel stifled a smirk. Is this big hunk of Orion muscle squeamish? “Come on,” she said firmly, “the treatment’s as easy as plomeek soup. I’ll show you.” She was certain Spock’s sensitive hearing would pick that up.
    She leaned back over Dax. “You can’t see from back there. There’s a very specific point on her neck . . .”
    Dulan stepped forward and craned his thick neck to see where Chapel was pointing a finger at a specific Trill spot on the side of Dax’s neck. When she was sure she had his full attention, she said, “Just remember the shape of this spot. That’s where you need to place the hypospray.”
    As she finished the sentence, she was already injecting Dulan in the abdomen with the hypospray in her other hand. He didn’t even have time to blink before he slumped forward. Chapel tried to guide him quietly to the deck, but he was easily over a hundred kilos and went down like a bag of rocks, his disruptor clattering alongside him.
    Chapel stooped to grab the disruptor. At the same time, the face of the Orion commander appeared in the doorway. He leaned further in, a look of shock on his face. His disruptor wasn’t yet visible, as his arm was across his chest,