The Operative (A Star Trek novel)

Chapter Twenty-Six

McCoy is awakened by a sound he assumes is what people who have never dealt much with death would call a "death rattle," though it's a trifle loud. He sits up and looks at the source. Flynn is sitting with his head between his spread-apart knees, coughing blood and other vile-looking things into a wad of rags.

It's morning, he realizes, and the few others in the hideout are staring at Flynn with emotions ranging from fear to concern to disgust.

He quickly moves to help. Flynn shakes his head and puts out a hand to wave him off, then another fit of coughing wracks him. McCoy is amazed that he can do that much. It's pretty clear he is dying.

The coughing subsides finally.

"Sorry," Flynn says, his voice weak-sounding. "That's a crappy way to wake everybody up."

"How do you feel?" McCoy says, still sure he's talking to a dead man.

Flynn must see his thoughts by the expression on his face, for he laughs a little, which causes more coughing.

"I'm okay, believe it or not, more or less," he says finally. He waves a hand vaguely at the mess between his legs. "Just my body clearing out some dead lung tissue. Really, it's not as bad as it looks." He looks down at the rag again, makes a face. "Guess it couldn't be."

McCoy looks Flynn over carefully. He is very pale, but otherwise seems, as he says, to be okay. The cuts and bruises from the fight are barely visible. Even his broken arm—which, McCoy is horrified to see, Flynn unsplinted during the night—seems whole, though apparently still tender when he experimentally presses where the break was.

"Damnedest thing I ever saw," the doctor mutters to himself.

During this time, O'Connor has come over to where Flynn is lying and has put her hand on his shoulder across from McCoy, as if helping him sit up. Instead of shrugging her away, as he would have expected, the spy actually at one point pats her hand and smiles at her reassuringly. Montenegro, McCoy notices, remains seated across the room, watching the tableau expressionlessly.

Finally, Flynn gently removes O'Connor's hand and pushes himself to his feet. He is unsteady, but remains standing.

"Your friend was really something," he says to Montenegro. "I haven't been this badly beaten up for a hundred years."

"Welcome to my planet," she says.

He chuckles, which turns into a little more coughing.

"Well, work to do. No rest for the wicked. I was thinking while trying to sleep last night about what we should do..."

He is interrupted by Chekhov and LaRue barging in from outside. Without knocking—which almost gets them shot by the woman on watch inside.

Chekhov looks momentarily sheepish, but then his excitement overcomes him, and he grins.

"The Enterprise is back!" he says. The others cluster around.

The crewmen have been doing routine check-ins every day on a coded channel, from different locations each time to avoid discovery, with no success. This morning, however, they were answered by Scotty himself. He reported that the three Starfleet ships were in orbit and were being harassed, but not yet attacked, by intrasystem fighters. Their shields are up, of course, so there is no question of beaming up Flynn and the others, even if that were desirable.

Flynn absorbs this news pensively. McCoy is pleased to see color returning to his cheeks, and his gait getting steadier as he slowly paces.

"What do we do now, Captain?" Chekhov asks, winding down at last.