Reaching overhead, her hand clasped the next rung of the ladder.  The metal bar felt slick.  Before she managed to grab the next rung with her other hand, her palm slipped.  Her grasp felt insecure.  Yuulik ignored the sensation; she ignored the fear.  

Move keep moving, she told herself; be first or die.  

She reached for the next rung, continuing her climb up the Jeffries tube.  Mid-reach, Yuulik glanced at her palm, looking for the source of the moisture.  She was disappointed not to see maintenance grease on her hand; she was grateful not to see blood.

She expected there to be blood.

Yuulik sniffed at her hand as she reached for the following rung.  Breathing in deep, she gauged there was nothing wrong with the ladder.  There was something wrong with her.  Her own perspiration was what jeopardised Yuulik’s grip.  She didn’t know if she was sweating from the climb or if she was rattled by what she’d left behind in the morgue.

But she hadn’t left it all behind entirely.  From beneath her, an imperious voice echoed up the Jefferies tube.  

“Give me a phaser.”  

Yuulik still involuntarily cringed whenever she heard the sound of her voice.  

“I command you.“

Yuulik snarled her response: “Shut up, Flavia.  You’re a civilian.”  

The pit of Yuulik’s stomach tightened.  She instantly regretted displaying such emotion to Flavia.  For a time, Flavia had been Yuulik’s superior in the science department; in another time, Flavia had been an enemy combatant.  As a representative of the Romulan Free State, Flavia wasn’t entirely an ally to the Federation, but she maintained certain diplomatic privileges aboard the starship Constellation.  

Since joining Captain Taes’ crew almost a year ago, Flavia had mainly played mind games on Taes and then immediately admitted her mind games to Taes in what must have been a critical component of a third set of entirely separate mind games.  As a result, indifferent ennui was all Yuulik chose to give Flavia.  However, the physical exertion had already taxed what was left of Yuulik’s famously slim patience.

“Give me a phaser, Yuulik.  You owe me,” Flavia demanded once again.  Disrespectfully, she didn’t even sound out of breath as she kept pace with Yuulik, ascending the ladder from below.

“Even if this wasn’t all your fault,” Flavia pointedly asked, “Would you gamble your life that you’re a better sharpshooter than me?”

“Yes, yes, you win,” Yuulik sighed as patronisingly as she could muster.  For inspiration, Yuulik channelled the way T’Kaal often explained the most simplistic tenets of logic to security boy.  

Without looking down, Yuulik said, “You’re a better murderer than me.  Applause.  That must secure you all the research funding in the Romulan Free State. I’m still not giving you a phaser.”

Flavia huffed.  “Say it out loud then.  You want it to get me.  Is that it, dear?”  

Yuulik thought she heard Flavia slip, but she couldn’t afford to look down.  She couldn’t risk the vertigo.

Flavia had grunted, and then, with a musical lilt, she asked, “Would you leave me to die?”

The sound of the tricorder clipped to Yuulik’s thigh shifted.  A gentle humming became an intrusive trill.  Swiftly, Yuulik waved a hand above her head, and the overhead hatch parted.  She pulled herself up to the next deck, finding a horizontal tube stretched out before her.  Yuulik crawled across to the narrow grated path, but she didn’t move very far.  She sat herself down deliberately.  Yuulik raised her chest, and squared her shoulders, taking up space in the Jeffries tube.  Yuulik slapped her palms down on her thighs and she waited.

Following Yuulik up the vertical shaft, Flavia shifted into the narrow space between Yuulik and the side of the tube.  Flavia’s dark eyes widened at Yuulik, while she sneered a wordless question at her.

Softly, Flavia finished her earlier question with the word “Again.“

Leaning into Flavia, Yuulik let out a breath through her nose.  Without blinking, Yuulik stared at Flavia, bobbing her head from side to side.

“That’s a good point, yes,”  Yuulik spoke in a brittle timbre, her intentions as transparent and sharp-edged as her words.  “I did leave you to die, so why aren’t you dead?”

To her credit, Flavia didn’t flinch.  She stared back at her impassively.  The only reaction Yuulik saw was the corners of Flavia’s lips pinched tight.

“You stabbed me, you called me a traitor, and now you want me to confess?” Flavia asked incredulously.  She swayed closer to Yuulik.  “Heh.  What is this supposed to be?  Foreplay?“

“What?” Yuulik coughed.  She shook her head and narrowed her eyes on Flavia.  Far more plainly, Yuulik said, “I thought you were a Changeling.  But I was wrong.  How did you survive?  The Kholara Observatory was swarmed by time-lost Jem’Hadar fighters.  The runabout sensors couldn’t lock onto you.  I really did think you were dead.”

Yuulik didn’t see it happen until she was already knocked prone.  Somehow maintaining her footing on the ladder, Flavia raised her palms combatively and shoved Yuulik down.  Yuulik didn’t understand what happened until she was already rolling onto her back, onto her side.  She felt Flavia’s hands on her again, shoving her aside, as Flavia crawled past her, deeper into the tube.

Flavia barked, “Commander, I will be dead if we don’t go murder that thing.  Keep your feeble questions to yourself and get moving!  We’re losing its trail!”

Scrambling onto her hands and knees, Yuulik couldn’t argue with Flavia’s urgency.  But Flavia’s everything else?  She could still argue.

“We don’t have to kill her,” Yuulik insisted while she scampered forward, following Flavia.  The trilling from Yuulik’s tricorder came faster yet.  “We only have to stop her.  That talk is exactly why you don’t get a phaser.”

“More shortsighted Federations laws.  You fear one phaser in the hands of a scientist, but you spurn the oldest precepts of the universe.  Classic.”  With a quiet intensity, Flavia promised Yuulik, “I know what I have to do.”

Pausing her progress for only a moment, Yuulik patted her hip to check the tracker on her tricorder.  But she was still disoriented by the tumble, and she put her hand on the wrong hip.  Yuulik’s palm landed on her phaser holster, and it folded softly under her examination.  It was empty.  Her phaser was gone.