be hurt in some way. Everyone but him. He felt stiff and sore, but
had no obvious injuries. The lieutenant moved restlessly to the next
section. He still hadn't located Malista.
The next panel slid away to reveal Sven Haldersen seated on the floor,
leaning back against the bed. He was naked from the waist up and his
boots were missing. His uniform trousers had been precisely sliced
away just above his knees and his feet were a deep shade of
blue---from his ankles to the soles of his feet. There was a line of
demarcation that seemed to indicate the coloring had been placed there
deliberately.
Tom stared, trying to make sense of what his eyes were telling him.
Haldersen didn't appear to be injured, but he wasn't moving. Sweat was
pouring from his body in rivulets. While Janine's room was colder than
normal, it appeared that Sven's was much warmer. From his point of
view, Paris couldn't tell if the other man had other injuries or if he
was even conscious.
Shaking his head, the lieutenant gave up and moved to the next
section. Nothing. He stepped back and forward again. Waved his arms
trying to find a trigger. Nothing. There was no panel there? Or had
he done something differently this time?
He moved to the next section of the wall. A panel slid down. He moved
in as close as possible. Finally. There she was. Malista was lying on
her side on the bed. She was facing him, eyes closed. Unconscious?
Asleep?
But unlike the other rooms, there was someone else in there with her.
One of their captors? The figure advancing toward Malista had its back
to Paris. It was at least eight feet tall and was enveloped in some
kind of shroud of dark brown material, like a hooded robe. What were
they going to do to her? The pilot slammed his hand on the panel,
hoping he could awaken Malista----warn her. He knew it was futile. But
he had to try.
"Malista!" he shouted. He even tried thinking loudly, hoping somehow
that telepathy would kick in, though he'd never been telepathic
before. "Damn it! Get away from her!"
The figure stopped next to the bed. A slender, green, tentacle-like
limb extended a four-fingered hand toward her.
The young woman suddenly exploded into a flurry of motion. Her
uppermost leg snapped out to kick and her booted foot sent the alien
lurching backwards, nearly toppling it to the floor. Shadow did a
rolling back flip off the bed, landing on her feet beside it on the
opposite side from the alien. She moved to keep the bed between them
as the hooded figure stumbled forward once more.
Another hooded figure appeared behind her. Tom held his breath,
willing her to turn around, to notice. She did, but it was too late.
The second alien had wrapped a tentacle around her waist and was
lifting her from the floor. It was his mistake that he didn't pin her
arms or legs. She was struggling wildly---kicking, wriggling, hitting
fiercely, gouging with her fingertips and nails. The alien's grasp on
her faltered under the ferocity of her attack.
She abruptly dipped her head and bit the tentacle that was holding
her! The alien lost its grip and she squirmed free, slithering
bonelessly out of its hold. She dodged around him and managed to get
her back to the wall opposite Tom's position.
She was cornered. The aliens on either side of her were moving towards
her now. Her hand flashed down as she raised her right knee. She
pulled a knife out of her boot!
A big wicked-looking knife with an eight inch blade. The aliens
hesitated. They must have recognized it as a weapon.
Paris choked on his indrawn breath. "Damn! Where did that come from?"
She was holding it as if she knew how to use it. He thought they'd
taken that knife away from her after her suicide attempt. Evidently
she'd gotten it back. But what was she doing with it in her boot? Did
she carry it all the time? Now that was a scary thought for several
reasons. More importantly, would she have the nerve to use it to
defend herself?
That question was answered immediately. The aliens halted their
advance toward her and turned toward each other. From their attitude,
they seemed to be conferring. Malista never took her eyes off them.
Her features were contorted into a mask of resolute fury, almost as if
she was daring them to get near her again.
The aliens backed away from her and stepped apart, going to either
side of the room, leaving her a clear pathway between them. They
started toward her in a pincer movement, forcing her to move away from
the wall to get away from them. Shadow watched them suspiciously, as
did Paris. She moved to the center of the room and jumped up onto the
hexagon-shaped bed, ready to move in any direction.
The aliens kept coming, as if shepherding her in the direction they
wanted her to go. Which seemed to be toward Paris' cell.
The lieutenant heard a faint noise. The wall to his left, the one that
hadn't had a viewing section, abruptly slid away, forming a portal
between the two rooms. The aliens stopped moving. They seemed to be
waiting for something.
Paris stepped to the doorway. "Malista!"
One tentacle came up slowly and gestured in the direction of Tom's
position. They were telling her to join Tom? Now that was an order she
could live with. Keeping a cautious eye on the aliens, she bounced off
the bed and sprinted to the doorway.
Before Paris could do more than blink, Shadow was across the room and
had thrown her arms around him, her weight driving him back a step
into the room. The door panel slid shut behind them. "Tom! Are you all
right?"
He fought back a wince as his sore muscles and stiff neck rebelled
against being jostled by her embrace. He was devoutly grateful she had
the presence of mind to keep the knife turned away from his body.
She tucked her head into the curve of his neck. The young man dropped
his gaze to the top of her head. Her arms were wrapped around him, her
head resting on his chest. His arms encircled her and squeezed gently.
"I'm fine. Are you okay?"
"I'm much better now that I know you're all right. Oh, Tom!" She
exhaled on a shaky sigh as she squeezed him a little more tightly.
"Yeah, Sis, but if you break my ribs, B'Elanna's going to be really
ticked at you!" he murmured, easing her away to arm's length so he
could examine her. "She thinks they're *her* special target."
"Are we the only ones? Or---" She lifted her knee and slid the knife
back into its sheath in her boot.
Tom's eyes followed her actions and he made a mental note to ask her
about that later. She was carrying a knife? He hadn't expected that.
Damn. He'd told the EMH that she wasn't dangerous. She must have been
more frightened of her harassers than she had led him to believe.
Tom shook his head in answer to her question. He stepped back, took
her hand and turned them towards the other window panels. There were
only smooth walls facing him on all sides once more. "Malista, I
swea
r, there were windows here a minute ago. All six of us are here. I
saw the others and they may have been injured. Are you sure you're all
right?"
She held up her left hand for his inspection. "Someone gave me an
unscheduled manicure." The fingernail on her left index finger had
been chopped off, almost to the tip of her finger. There was a hint of
bleeding around the rough edges.
"Your hair is falling down, Sis," Tom noted. Her bun of steel looked
more like a disintegrating ponytail now. "And you're missing a big old
swack of hair here, girl." He lifted a thick tress of the soft black
curls in his hand.
"A swack of hair?" she repeated scornfully, as she lifted her hand to
check it out. "It's called a lock of hair, Tom. Or a tress. Not a
'swack'."
About three inches was missing from the length of one section of her
now unruly mane. She pulled the pins and ties from her hair, and
finger-combed it as well as she could, trying to restore some
semblance of order. She settled for trapping the long strands in a
loose ponytail at the base of her neck and pinned the short strands
out of her eyes.
"Details, details. Why would someone want a fingernail and a
swack---oh, all right!" He corrected himself as she gave him 'a look'.
"A lock of hair?"
She shrugged. She couldn't think of a good answer for that one.
"Souvenirs?"
If only The Six were taken, then Tom Paris was the senior officer
present. Though he hadn't thought about it consciously, he'd already
begun to take charge of the situation. He was responsible for his
fellow crewmen and he wanted to check on 'his' people. Frustrated by
his lack of information, Tom turned and strode toward the wall, hoping
to trigger the panel once more. He stopped in his tracks at Shadow's
horrified gasp.
"Tom!"
He spun on his heel, looking for a threat to her. "What?"
She was staring wide-eyed at him. "Come sit on the bed," she directed.
"Why?"
"Just do it." She'd never been so bossy with him before. Something was
wrong. And it had to do with him. He was sure he wasn't going to like
this, but he obediently sat on the edge of the bed. She knelt next to
him and slightly behind him. He felt her hands tugging at his collar,
brushing his blond curls aside. He'd been meaning to get a haircut,
but....
"Tom," she said in carefully measure tones. "You have a circular
bruise on the back of your neck. Just at the base of your skull. It's
a bright purplish blue and about an inch in diameter."
"Can you tell what caused it?" He kept his own voice level with
difficulty. He wished they had a mirror. He wanted to see for himself.
It unnerved him to know that someone had been tampering with his body
while he was unconscious. He should have suspected something of the
sort when he'd seen the condition of his fellow prisoners.
Her hand closed on his shoulder, simultaneously offering and seeking
comfort. "If I had to guess, I would say someone took a sample.
Possibly of spinal fluid?"
"No wonder my neck is stiff," he commented, cautiously turning his
head from side to side.
"Tom, I want you to take your shirt off. I want to make sure this is
all there is to find. You weren't aware of this?"
"No," he muttered. "I didn't notice anything. I thought I was fine.
Just sore from being in one position too long while I was
unconscious." He tugged at the hem of his black tee-shirt, groaning as
his aches and pains protested the movement.
She helped him as much as she could, then checked his smoothly muscled
back. "Tom, there are a series of---puncture marks up and down your
spine and several bruises on your back."
"So someone used me as a dart board while I was out? Can you tell if
they were taking things out or putting things in?" Unsurprisingly, his
attempt at humor fell flat.
"No. But I don't like this," Malista said grimly. "You'll catch a
chill. Here, put your shirt back on." She handed it to him and
suddenly giggled.
He stared at her in disbelief as he took the shirt from her hand.
"What? What's so funny?"
She ran teasing fingertips over the red gold curls that covered his
muscled chest.
He captured her hand, then released it as he pushed it away,
admonishing, "That tickles."
"I know it's silly, but it just popped into my head---" She giggled
again as she helped him pull the shirt on so he wouldn't have to
stress his sore muscles.
"What?" he asked patiently. He braced himself for an awful pun.
Malista was almost as bad as he was about cracking jokes when she was
uncomfortable.
"It just seems ironic that you're so---hairy. And Harry---isn't." Her
voice spluttered with girlish giggles.
"You little brat! I don't *believe* you. Bad jokes at a time like
this?" He rolled his eyes. He rubbed the back of his neck slightly and
groaned.
She grew serious immediately. "I'm sorry, Tom. Are you in pain? I wish
I had a medkit," she remarked contritely.
"There's no point in worrying. We can't worry about things we can't
control," he said. "What I want to know is: what was done to the
others? Wait! Let me see your neck!"
She plopped down next to him on the bed and obligingly turned. He
lifted her hair aside and peeked down the back of the collar of her
uniform.
"Nothing," he said on a relieved sigh. "I guess you were the swack of
hair and fingernail samples and I was the spinal sample. Samples? This
reminds me of something. I can't think of---"
"Tom, to tell you the truth, I'm scared." She seemed slightly ashamed
of the admission.
"You didn't look too scared when you pulled that knife!" he replied
with a proud grin. "I thought B'Ella said you wouldn't fight."
She held up her hands, palms upward. "This isn't a simulation. I woke
up and didn't know where I was or who they were. I pretended to be
asleep for a while, hoping they'd leave me alone. I didn't know what
had happened to you or if I was the only one here or not. But I
couldn't just lie there when they started coming at me. I didn't know
what they were going to do to me. Besides, George Natwick told me I
needed to use my fear to give me strength. He said I had to turn the
fear into anger and use it."
Paris tilted his head to one side consideringly. "Natwick just may not
be as big a nitwit as I thought."
"He is not a nitwit. He's a very nice person, once you get to know
him. He sort of reminds me of my brother Demetrios. Anyway, when I
woke up there, in that cell or whatever, I was so afraid that I had to
do something or go crazy. Then I remembered what George had said and
began to deliberately make myself mad."
"How did you do that?" Amusement shone through Tom's curious
expression, but she didn't mind. She knew it sounded strange.
"While I was lying there, pretending to be unconscious, I started
listing all the reasons I was angry with whoever had done this
."
"For example?"
"For example, how dare they kidnap us off our own ship? We didn't do
anything to them."
"You got that right!" Paris agreed, starting to feel a tingle of
irritation himself at the thought.
"And how it's all their fault that Harry is going to worry. About you.
About me. About us. He's going to be so upset. And no one is allowed
to upset Harry! Not if I have anything to say about it!" Her indignant
tone struck Tom as being funny.
Maybe he was more exhausted than he thought. He was getting loopy. He
started to grin again. "That's right. You're the only one allowed to
upset Harry. You're cute when you're mad, Sis." He chucked her chin
with his index finger.
"I'm not cute. Overgrown women are not cute," she muttered grumpily,
pulling her face away from his hand.
"Knock it off!" he growled irritably, gently grabbing her chin and
forcing her to meet his eyes.
"What?" She pulled away from him again, not meeting his eyes. She
recognized that tone of voice. She'd heard it from him before.
"Stop making fun of yourself. You are NOT overgrown." He paused. "It's
a matter of point of view. You and I are the right height. Everyone
else is undergrown."
"I can't *wait* to hear you tell B'Elanna that *she's* undergrown. Can
I sell tickets?" Shadow commented dryly, touched nonetheless by his
Trials 04 Shadow's Trial Page 37