Night of the Living Trekkies by Kevin David Anderson, Sam Stall, Kevin David, Sam Stall Anderson

deliver on that promise, and I ask for your patience and forgiveness as we work to rectify this situation.”
    Janice was answered with more moans.
    And with something else.
    She heard it not with her ears, but with her mind. Not words but rather a powerful urge percolating up from the dark regions of her brain. Something was in there, telling her to do things. Implanting in her a strong, almost primal urge to unlock the doors. To allow the Botany Bay’s poor, shamefully inconvenienced guests to enter.
    She wondered where the suggestion might have come from. Was someone in the mob speaking to her? She looked from one bloody face to the next. All seemed to share the same peculiar type of growth, either on their faces or shoulders or, in one case, right in the middle of the chest. The bulbous masses looked like big, white eyeballs, but with crimson pupils in the middle.
    All of the hundred or so people outside seemed to have them.
    And every one of those eyeballs was staring at her.
    Janice observed a woman dressed in a red Starfleet uniform. Pressed against the glass by the throng, she happened to be the creature closest to her. There was an eyeball sprouting out of her right shoulder. Janice looked at it closely. Very closely.
    She gazed at it for several moments, transfixed.
    The eyeball was trying to make contact with her. It wanted her to do something, but struggled to find the words. Finally, by ransacking what remained of its host’s mind, it made its point.
    We mean you no harm
, it whispered to Janice’s fragile consciousness.
Lower your shields.

Chapter 11
Devil in the Dark

    As the elevator arrived at the third floor, it occurred to Jim that he should unclip the Taser from his belt. Just in case. He switched off the safety and checked to make sure the weapon was loaded—and found that it wasn’t. He’d forgotten to snap in a dart cartridge.
    A moment later the doors slid open. The elevator emitted a
ding
loud enough to alert everyone—and everything—in the general area.
    Out of instinct, he pointed the weapon anyway. Not that he could see much. Someone or something had knocked out the landing lights. He was greeted by a wall of darkness. He activated the Taser’s LED flashlight and played it across the floor. It landed on an enormous bloodstain surrounded by bloody footprints. Someone, probably several someones, had died on that spot. But where were the bodies?
    Things aren’t as bad as they seem
, Jim thought.
They’re worse.
    Holding the elevator door open with his foot, he continued panning the light across the floor. It landed on Dexter’s Glock 17. The hotel security chief’s much-loved sidearm lay abandoned just outside the door to room 301.
    Jim poked his head out of the elevator, wondering if he should press his luck and grab the pistol. All of the hallway lighting sconces were dark, but there was enough light from the glowing emergency exit signs to determine that the hall was currently empty.
    The gun was no more than fifteen feet away. He desperately wanted it.
    Jim sorted through his hotel passkeys until he found the one that overrode the elevator’s computer. He pushed the card into the control panel, then locked the lift in place with its doors open.
    Then he walked over to the Glock and picked it up. It was definitely Dexter’s weapon. And it had been fired. Jim pulled the clip and discovered that only seven of its seventeen rounds remained. The security chief hadn’t gone down without a fight.
    Not that fighting did him any good.
    Jim stood in the darkness, feeling his testicles trying to crawl up inside his body. He hadn’t felt so unnerved since combat. Back then it happened mostly on patrol. Poking around strange houses and claustrophobic neighborhoods, he’d wonder if the next corner he turned would be his last.
    This was very much the same feeling, only worse. At least in Afghanistan he wasn’t alone. Now he faced danger all by himself.
    Which is probably for the best,