Fatal Containment

Fatal Containment - Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Cheryl walked into her cabin on Deck Seven aft with a fierce grin on her face. She knew that her vengeance was going to be sweet and savory tonight. It had been a long shift filling in for Ensign Patterson in the Biogenics lab in addition to her own shift, but she had still managed to collect and assemble all the components for her "special" project and put them in place just an hour ago. In fact, Lt. Commander Hanson should be getting his surprise any minute now.

It didn't help that Trevor Hanson was one of the most handsome officers aboard the ship. His short, perfectly wavy auburn hair and those roguish good looks were enough to get any girl's heart beating quickly. His manly voice and immeasurable charm kept her thinking about him more than he deserved. She tried hard to ignore her feelings towards him. After all, he was also a department head and strictly speaking, should be considered off-limits. But her feelings bade otherwise, especially since he was the one that had attacked first.

Cheryl walked over to her dresser and looked at herself in the mirror. Her uniform had a slight smudge from a chemical stain where she spilled a portion of the genetic precursor from Patterson's biology experiment, but she knew she wouldn't have time to change. She carefully removed the smudge with a handkerchief she withdrew from a stack in her drawer. Then, she picked up a brush and quickly gave her sandy curls a few brisk strokes, in sets of five, before tying her usual green ribbon in them. There was just enough time for one last glance to make sure there were no dark circles under her eyes and ensure her breath was clean before she got the call that she knew was coming.

She couldn't help but admire Hanson's own cabin prank on her. Somehow, he had managed to connect her bathroom controls to the red alert klaxon, so that it would sound when she turned on her shower—but only in her cabin. The effect was brilliant, as she had quickly rinsed the soap from her hair, thrown on her uniform, and run to her duty station only to find out that there was no actual emergency.

But cabin pranks, as they were called by the initiated, had apparently been going on aboard the Dominion for as long as there had been officers aboard. It was common knowledge aboard the ship that when a new officer came aboard, they had better keep a sharp eye out because you never knew when yours would be sprung on you.

"Lieutenant Kinson," a terse voice uttered from the intercom on the nearest wall. "Report to main engineering immediately." The voice coming from the intercom sounded rather annoyed, which was to be expected.

"Kinson, acknowledged," she said as she pressed the intercom button and ran into the hallway at a brisk trot. Tiny lines at the corner of her mouth tilted into a slight smile against her will. If only she had a winter parka, that would complete the effect.

After all, it wasn't that hard to create the atmospheric conditions necessary to make it snow. She just couldn't get the effect to work in Hanson's cabin—at least not without re-plumbing half the ship's environmental systems to do it. So she had done the next best thing.

As she jogged briskly toward the end of the passageway, she played out in her mind how the exchange would take place. He would appear angry, but would begrudgingly accept that he had been beaten. She would say something witty and he would laugh and fix her with those big, beautiful brown eyes. Silent communication would pass between them as an unspoken promise that they would keep their behavior professional, but would secretly desire each other.

As Cheryl slid merrily down the maintenance ladder leading to Deck One, she dodged a crewman working on a plumbing manifold and rounded the corner into the compartment marked MAIN ENGINEERING. The scenery was even better than she had hoped for.

There was almost an inch of accumulation on the floor and the artificial clouds she had made form were hovering gently, just below the ceiling, dumping a considerable amount of snow all about the compartment. She struggled very hard not to giggle. But that was before she heard the unexpected bellow of the ship's first officer, Lt. Commander Connor Leary, call her to attention.