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By Root 212 0

I was taught,” O’Brien countered. “You don’t run down the man in the center seat. Not even when you’re talking to a friend. Not even when you’re talking to yourself.” He paused, remembering his old ship and its commanding otficer. “That’s the way it was on the Phoenix, under Captain Maxwell. And that’s the way it’ll be here—at least for me.” Sutcliffe smiled. “Blind obedience? Really?” O’Brien shrugged off the criticism. “Not blind,” he said. “Just obedience. You may disagree with a man’s orders, or his judgment. But when you start thinking you can replace it with your own, you run into trouble.” He grunted. “Starfleet Command isn’t in the habit of putting berserkers or ne’er-do-wells in charge of Galaxy-class vessels. If Captain Picard called a red alert, he had a reason for it.”

“Uh-huh,” Sutcliffe replied. “Even if you can’t for the life of you imagine what it might have been.” O’Brien frowned. “Even then. Of course—” Abruptly, he felt his shoulder bump hard into something. Or more accurately, someone. In this case, it was an Oriental woman with her arms full of transparent flower caseswwhich went tumbling to the deck as he and she collided.

“Oh, blast,” he said, kneeling beside her to help her pick them up again. But she didn’t seem to be in any hurry to do that.

“The b’lednaya…” she groaned, her dark eyes wide with pain.

“Don’t worry,” O’Brien told her. He smiled, trying to put the situation in perspective for her. “I’ll give you a hand.”

The woman looked up at him. “Don’t bother,” she said. “B’lednaya are very fragile. As you can see,” she said, picking up a case to use as an example, “their stems have been broken.”

Indeed, their stems were broken. And though the delicate, violet-and~yellow flowers hadn’t been affected yet, it was only a matter of time before they’d begin to shrivel.

He felt badly about that. But he still had to get to the bridge to help with its outfitting, and he was due there in just a couple of minutes. Nor did he want to be tardy, considering the importance of his assignment.

Starfleet captains might understand a lot of things, but lateness wasn’t one of them. He knew that from sad experience.

“Listen,” he told the woman—who, he couldn’t help but notice, was quite attractivem”I’m sorry, really I am. But I’ve got to make my shift. Are you sure I can’t help you in some way?”

She couldn’t have given him an icier stare if she’d been an ammonia-breather. “That’s all right,” she assured him. “I think you’ve helped enough… don’t you?”

Well, thought O’Brien. If that’s the way it was to be…

Straightening, he resumed his progress toward the turbolift. Sutcliffe, who was still beside him, clapped him on the shoulder.

“That’s all right,” he commented. “She wasn’t your type anyway, Miles. Too delicate.”

O’Brien glanced back over his shoulder at the woman. As she gathered up the cases full of ruined flowers, he felt a pang he’d never felt before. Guilt, probably. Or was it something else?

“You’re probably right,” he told Sutcliffe. But he still glanced back at her a couple more times before he reached his destination.

Tasha Yar didn’t feel particularly comfortable in the Ten-Forward lounge. However, it had been one of the first areas in the ship to be completely furnished, and that made it perfect for the various meetings she had to conduct with the ship’s personnel.

After all, she was one of the ranking otficers on board. When the rest of the senior staff arrived, her responsibil-ities would be confined to security per se—but for now, it fell to her to coordinate everything from shuttledeck operations to outfitting sickbay.

At this particular moment, as she nursed her too-rich Dagavarian maltmilk, she was waiting to conduct a meeting with the latest shipment of shuttle pilots. She reeled off their names from memory: Collins, Mayhew, and Prieto. All highly rated, though none higher than her.

Tasha couldn’t help but notice that everyone else in the lounge was seated in twos and threes. She was the only one sitting alone. But then, she was used to that. Coming from the kind of place she’d come