Read Online Bloodthirst by J.M. Dillard - Free Book Online

chamber and around the doctor’s waist. In spite of his discomfort, the humor of the situation was not lost on McCoy.
    â€œMy dear,” he murmured, “you have me at a disadvantage.” She didn’t answer, and McCoy dropped his lascivious air. “Inside the hypo with the blue coding on it. Set the indicator to four cc.”
    He felt a slight tingling as she administered the spray to his backside. The pain eased. He sighed and sagged back into her arms. “Have you considered a job in the medical field, Ensign?”
    She answered with a great tug; the doctor felt himself falling backward and slid out with a groan. Lamia staggered, still holding on to him, until the two of them finally regained their balance.
    â€œThanks,” McCoy said sheepishly, rubbing the offended muscle in his lower back. He did a couple of test stretches. “It’s much better.”
    Stanger narrowed his eyes at the hole McCoy had cut in the crystal, then glanced at the Andorian. “Do you think you could fit in there?”
    â€œProbably,” she answered, barely civil; apparently their feud hadn’t been resolved. McCoy was going to protest until he realized that although she was as tall as Stanger, she was at least a third narrower. She put her long, slender arms through the hole at first, then ducked her head and pulled herself in, sliding on her stomach onto the counter with surprising ease.
    McCoy shook his head. “Do you
have
to make it look so easy?”
    Lamia was already completely inside the chamber, crawling on her hands and knees. She retrieved the doctor’s communicator, clipped it to her belt, and then, with gentle deliberateness, began collecting the vials from the stand on the counter.
    â€œThey’re not sealed,” she said, looking up at the others. “If they contain samples, shouldn’t they be sealed?”
    â€œThey
should
, but maybe these folks were sloppy housekeepers,” McCoy said. “Try not to spill any of them.”
    Lamia peered down into the vials. “I don’t think there’s anything to spill.”
    â€œOf
course
there’s something to spill,” Stanger argued. “You’re not going to tell me that I came down here a second time for nothing.”
    Without saying another word, Lamia crawled to the opening in the crystal and thrust the vials at Stanger. He shied away involuntarily.
    â€œLook for yourself, Ensign,” she said, with a slightly nasty inflection on the last word. “There’s nothing there.”
    Stanger stared. Stiffly, McCoy reached for his tricorder and passed it over the open vials.
    â€œWell, I’ll be damned,” he said. “She’s right.”
    â€œNothing!” Mendez thundered on the viewscreen in Kirk’s quarters. The admiral’s heavy brows formed a threatening V above his eyes. The
Enterprise was
eight hours from Tanis, close enough at last for direct visual contact.
    â€œNothing, sir.” Kirk felt only relief at McCoy’s findings, but Mendez’s reaction struck him as odd. The admiral was furious at the situation and not doing a very good job of hiding it. “Tests were run on all labware confiscated on the base. No organisms of any sort were found in the laboratory.”
    â€œAre you sure there wasn’t some sort of mistake?”
    â€œMy people are extremely competent, Admiral. I trust their report.”
    Mendez hunched forward over his desk so suddenly that Kirk instinctively moved back, as though expecting him to come charging through the screen. “Did it occur to you, Captain, that it is a trifle odd to find a completely empty laboratory?”
    â€œYes, sir, it did.” Kirk managed to maintain his composure, though he cursed himself for flinching. Mendez was bullying a subordinate for no reason other than the fact that the admiral was disappointed. He felt a surge of contempt: how was it possible that this man was