Redshirts

the eye again, jabbed it a second time and got the thing to reel back again, but this time Dahl was too dizzy and sick to move.
    One sacrifice and whoever’s left is safe, my ass, he thought, and the last thing he saw was the thing’s very impressive set of teeth coming down around his head.
    *   *   *
    Dahl woke up to see his friends surrounding him.
    “Ack,” he said.
    “Finn, give him some water,” Duvall said. Finn took a small container with a straw from the holder at the side of the medical bay cot and put it to Dahl’s lips. He sipped gingerly.
    “I’m not dead,” he eventually whispered.
    “No,” Duvall said. “Not that you didn’t make an effort. What was left of you should have been dead when they brought you back to the ship. Doc Hartnell says it’s only luck that Q’eeng and Taylor got to you when they did, otherwise that thing would have eaten you alive.”
    The last phrase jogged something in Dahl’s memory. “Cassaway,” he said. “Mbeke.”
    “They’re dead,” Hanson said. “There wasn’t much left of them to get back, either.”
    “You’re the only one from the away team still alive,” Hester said. “Besides Q’eeng.”
    “Taylor?” Dahl croaked.
    “He got bit,” Duvall said, correctly interpreting the question. “The things have a venom. It doesn’t kill people, it turns them psychotic. He went crazy and started shooting up the ship. He killed three of the crew before they brought him down.”
    “That’s what they think happened at the colony,” Finn said. “The doctor’s record shows that a hunting party got bit by these things, went back to the colony and started shooting up the place. Then the creatures came in, took the dead and killed off the survivors.”
    “Q’eeng was bit too, but Captain Abernathy had him isolated until they could make an antivenom,” Hanson said.
    “From your blood,” Hester said. “You were unconscious so you couldn’t go crazy. That gave your body time to metabolize and neutralize the venom.”
    “He was lucky you survived,” Duvall said.
    “No,” Dahl said, and lifted his arm to point at himself. “Lucky he needed me.”

CHAPTER EIGHT
    “What are these?” Dahl asked from his bed, taking one of the buttonlike objects that Finn held in his hand.
    “Our way to sneak up on Jenkins,” Finn said, passing out the rest. “They’re delivery cart ID transponders. I pried them off disabled carts in the refuse hold. The cargo tunnel doors register each time they’re opened and closed and look for identification. If you’re a crew member, your phone IDs you. If you’re a cart, one of these do.”
    “Why not just leave our phones behind and have no ID?” Hanson asked, holding his button up to the light.
    “Because then there’s an unexplained door opening,” Finn said. “If this Jenkins is as paranoid and careful as Andy here thinks he is, that’s not going to escape his notice.”
    “So we leave our phones behind, take one of these, and go on after him,” Dahl said.
    “That’s the plan I came up with,” Finn said. “Unless you have a better one.”
    “I just spent two weeks doing nothing but healing,” Dahl said. “This works for me.”
    “So when do we go find this guy?” Duvall asked.
    “If he’s tracking the captain and the senior officers, then he’s going to be active when they are,” Dahl said. “That means first shift. If we go in right after the start of third shift, we have a chance to catch him while he’s asleep.”
    “So he’s going to wake up with five people hovering over him and staring,” Hester said. “ That’s not going to make him any more paranoid than he already is.”
    “He might not be asleep, and if he catches sight of us, he might try to run,” Dahl said. “If just one of us goes, he might get past us. He’s less likely to get past five of us, each coming in from a different corridor.”
    “Everybody be ready to take down a yeti,” Finn said. “This guy is big and hairy.”
    “Besides that, whatever the hell is happening on this ship, I think we all want to know about it sooner than later,” Dahl said.
    “So, right after third shift,” Duvall said. “Tonight?”
    “Not tonight,” Dahl said. “Give me a day or two to get used to walking again.” He stretched and winced.
    “When do you get off medical leave?” Hanson asked, watching his movements.
    “Last day today,” Dahl said. “They’re going to do a final checkup after you all leave.