INOSCULATION

Chapter Two

Ensign Vorik woke with a strange since of dread. Calmly, he analyzed the emotion, attempting to determine its origin and cause. Finding none, he dismissed it, rose and continued his morning routine, dressing and meditating before taking breakfast in the mess hall and then reporting for his duty shift. He found himself anticipating seeing the human ensign T'Loran and wondered at that. There was little to distinguish her from the countless other human females on the Voyager crew. She had dark blonde hair that she wore in a simple style. Her eyes were somewhat peculiar in that they were completely black instead of blue or green. She was intelligent, calm, logical, and spoke Vulcan fluently. Their conversation yesterday had helped to alleviate some of the longing for home he felt. He wondered if she played kal-toh and, if so, if she would be amendable to joining him in a game one evening. If her background were true and she had been raised on Vulcan, then he wished to learn more of her since wide experience brought an increase of wisdom — provided such experience was not sought purely for the stimulation of sensation, of course. Pushing aside his anticipation, Vorik continued to Engineering and took his place at the EPS monitor console.

"Odd," he said softly as he checked the login information. It seemed that Ensign T'Loran had logged on to this very console at 0224. However, if his memory served him (and it rarely failed him), she was supposed to be on impulse control this shift. Indeed, she would not have been on the night shift at all since Alpha Shift was pulling doubles. He moved to the impulse control console and logged on from there. The strange feeling of dread returned.

"Ensign Vorik, what the hell are you doing at impulse control? Ensign Lauren is supposed to be there if she'd ever bother to grace us with her presence!" Lieutenant Torres shouted from across the room. "First she fails to turn up to cover for Darwin last night, leaving Suder in a lurch and now she's not reporting in for her assigned duty shift. For someone who wants to emulate you Vulcans so much, you'd think she'd do a better job."

"I believe she was here, Lieutenant," Vorik said calmly. "The EPS console shows her as having logged on at 0224. She never logged off."

"What? When I checked it with Suder earlier, it was blank."

"Perhaps he showed you a screenshot of an unaccessed terminal," Vorik offered. "With a few tweaks, it is easy enough to make it look active." Vorik walked over to the console with the half-Klingon. Quickly, they pulled up the console's event logs.

"Sure enough," B'Elanna spat. "That's exactly what the bastard did. But why?"

"I do not know," Vorik said softly. "But I will begin investigating immediately."

"You do that. I'll have security go check Ensign Lauren's quarters and pull the security monitors from last night. We also have something going on in the EPS conduits. It looks like there's a physical interrupt in the circuits in conduit one four one. That's what's been keeping us from going to warp."

"There is another interruption in the EPS on deck 11. I am attempting to localize it now," Vorik said. "It seems to be in one of the Jefferies tubes near the Aft Lounge."

"Oh my...," he heard Torres shout from the upper part of Engineering where the EPS conduit access panels opened. "Lieutenant Tuvok, report to Engineering immediately and send a security team to check in on Ensign T'Loran in her quarters."

"Acknowledged," Vorik heard the security chief respond.

"Ensign T'Loran, please respond. This is Engineering to T'Loran, respond immediately if you are able." Her comm badge chirped and Vorik heard her tap it.

"Yes?"

"This is security. There is no one in Ensign T'Loran's quarters. We are sending people to check on her room-mates now."