Death Never Smelled So Sweet - Part II
Posted on Sat Oct 10th, 2026 @ 2:15am by Senior Chief Petty Officer Dex Ravaro & Senior Chief Petty Officer Margaret Houlihan
Edited on on Sun Oct 11th, 2026 @ 8:44am
1,769 words; about a 9 minute read
Mission:
Episode 3 - The One Who Got Away
Location: The Garden of Death and Healing - Deck 5 - USS Artemis
Timeline: MD012 2020 hrs
He moved a little farther into the room, not towards Margaret but towards the centre aisle, giving himself a clearer view of the specimens beyond her work area. He didn’t crowd the restricted section or reach for anything. He simply looked, taking his time.
“If I’ve got access, I’d rather know what I shouldn’t accidentally put my hand on. Seems sensible.”
His tone remained conversational, almost dry. There was nothing clandestine about the way he stood there. Nothing hurried. A Chief of the Boat had every reason to care about hazards in a compartment he had apparently been given permission to enter.
'She’s still trying to get me out. All right. Let her think she’s being careful. I only need a few more minutes.'
Dex’s eyes moved along the back row without settling too obviously on any single plant. Some were innocuous enough to look at. Others carried warning markings on their containers that needed no botanical expertise to understand.
“You said Canak and Molaur are experimenting with these?” he asked, glancing back towards Margaret. “What are they looking at? Medical uses, or just figuring out what half of them actually do?”
He rested one hand lightly against the edge of the central table, comfortable enough to appear as though he had nowhere else he particularly needed to be.
The unease coming from Margaret hadn’t faded.
Dex let his expression stay warm.
'You’re going to ask about me after this. I can feel that much.'
His gaze returned to the plants.
That changed things.
Not visibly. Not yet. He had spent too many years around frightened people, suspicious people and people who had realised something a little too late to let a decision show on his face.
He just kept listening while the music played, studying the garden with the mild curiosity he had walked in wearing.
'I was only here to look around, Margaret. You could’ve left it at that.'
"Like most scientists, they want to find beneficial uses and better remedies." Margaret shrugged. She didn't know Dex very well, but he was a curious one. Then again, that's probably why he became COB. "The captain wants this place to be restricted." She checked another row of plants and marked them on her PADD. "Do you grow anything?"
“Once or twice,” Dex said. “Herbs, mostly. Had a little planter on a freighter years ago. Basil survived. Everything else gave up on me.”
The smile was easy, and he let the conversation stay there for a moment. No rush to steer it back. Margaret had already told him enough about the room to know where the interesting part was.
His attention wandered as he spoke, eventually carrying him a little farther along the central aisle. The rear beds sat apart from the rest, warning markers set amongst the leaves and flowers. Some of the names were familiar to him. Others less so.
Dex made no sign of recognising any of them.
“Some of these don’t exactly look dangerous,” he said, slowing near the edge of the restricted section without crossing into it. His gaze settled on one of the Baronel plants, its brown flowers still short of full bloom.
He tipped his head slightly.
“What’s wrong with that one?”
There was nothing pointed in the question. If anything, he sounded mildly skeptical, as though he had expected the poisonous section to announce itself with thorns and warning colours rather than sit there looking like the rest of the garden.
He glanced along the row again.
“And I’m guessing I shouldn’t touch anything back here unless Canak’s standing over my shoulder?”
A faint smile returned.
“Probably better for everyone if I know which end of the room is trying to kill me.”
He stayed where he was, relaxed, leaving Margaret plenty of room to answer while he took in the layout around her.
For Dex, ignorance had always been one of the easiest things to pretend.
"It's better if you don't come in here at all," Margaret countered. "Or touch anything. This area is restricted. And, now that I'm done, we can both leave. If you have any further questions, you can ask the doctor." He was starting to make her uncomfortable. Not that he said anything amiss, but that he kept moving closer to the back row of plants, as if he already knew what was back there.
Dex held her gaze for a moment, then gave a quiet nod.
“All right.”
There was no apology attached to it and no suggestion that she had dismissed him. He simply collected his PADD from the worktable and turned back towards the centre aisle, apparently finished with the conversation.
The watering Margaret had been checking had left a faint sheen across part of the deck beside the planters. Dex’s boot came down on it as he stepped around the end of the row.
His footing went.
The movement was sudden and ugly. His leg slipped out from beneath him and his shoulder struck the edge of the nearest planter hard enough to knock the breath from him. The PADD hit the deck and slid away as Dex caught himself badly with one hand, momentum carrying him down onto one knee beside the rear beds.
For several seconds he stayed there.
His head remained lowered, one palm flat against the deck while the other closed around his wrist. When he finally drew a proper breath it came slowly, through his nose, his face tightened against whatever had just gone through the joint.
He tried to rise.
The arm gave beneath him almost immediately and Dex stopped, settling his weight back onto his knee rather than risking another fall. There was no attempt to laugh it off now. No easy remark to make the moment smaller.
“Hold on.”
His voice was quieter than before.
He flexed his fingers once, watching them, then turned the wrist carefully and stopped halfway through the movement.
A few inches beyond his shoulder, the restricted beds began.
Dex never looked at them.
"Don't try to get up," Margaret cautioned, hurrying around the center table. "Let me help you to sickbay. It's probably just a sprain, but you shouldn't take any chances."
Dex looked up as Margaret reached him and let her take his arm.
“Thanks.”
His weight settled against her just enough to make the injury believable. The ankle had never hurt. Neither had the wrist. Every grimace, every aborted attempt to stand, every second spent on one knee had existed for this moment and nothing more.
He rose slowly beside her.
For a heartbeat, they were close enough that Margaret could see his face properly.
The change was small.
That was what made it worse.
The discomfort disappeared first. Then the genial warmth she had been speaking to since he entered the garden. What remained underneath was quieter than anger and far colder. Dex straightened to his full height without the slightest weakness in the leg she had just been helping him protect.
His hand closed around her arm.
Not frantically. Not hard enough to turn the moment into a struggle before he was ready.
Just enough.
He looked directly into her eyes.
Whatever she had been expecting to find there, there was nothing apologetic in his expression now. No embarrassment at being caught somewhere he should not have been. No concern about Canak, Molaur or the Captain. Only the calm attention of a man who had spent centuries learning exactly how long it took people to understand that something had gone terribly wrong.
Dex held her gaze for that fraction longer.
He liked that moment.
Not the pain. Not even the death.
Recognition.
The instant when all the little things a person had noticed finally arranged themselves into the correct shape.
His voice dropped almost to a murmur.
“You were right, Margaret.”
Then he moved.
There was no clumsy collapse this time. Dex controlled the turn completely, letting their joined momentum carry towards the rear bed while keeping himself clear of it. Margaret struck the planter amongst the immature Baronel, brown flowers and young stems crushed beneath the impact as the bed shuddered against its mounting.
Dex released her immediately.
He stepped back.
The room went still again around him.
He watched.
There was no rush in him now. There rarely was. Panic belonged to amateurs and victims. Dex simply observed Margaret with the same patient concentration he had given hundreds of people before her, reading what he could from her face as the first confusion gave way to the understanding that he was not going to help.
His expression did not change.
This was the part nobody ever saw.
The Chief of the Boat was gone. The dependable senior enlisted man, the tea, the advice, the easy laugh in a corridor. None of that existed here because none of it had ever truly existed at all.
There was only Dex.
For a few seconds he let Margaret see him.
Really see him.
'There. Now you know.'
It was enough.
He looked once across the room when it was finished. Not admiring his work. Checking it.
The garden remained exactly what it had been before he entered: a restricted research compartment filled with plants capable of healing and killing in equal measure. Margaret Houlihan had been working here alone. One of the hazardous beds had been disturbed. Everything else would tell whatever story people needed it to tell.
Nothing pointed towards a visitor who officially had never crossed the threshold.
Dex retrieved his PADD.
He paused beside Margaret only once more before leaving.
His gaze moved from her to the damaged Baronel and back again.
“The Captain was right,” he said quietly. “This place really should be restricted.”
Then Dex walked out.
By the time the doors closed behind him, Senior Chief Petty Officer Ravaro was already back in place.
A Joint Post By
Senior Chief Petty Officer Dex Ravaro
Chief of the Boat, USS Artemis
Starfleet Criminal Investigations Unit
Senior Chief Petty Officer Margaret Houlihan
Head Nurse, USS Artemis
Starfleet Criminal Investigations Unit
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