Broken Bow - Diane Carey [25]
“On my way,” he said. “Hoshi.”
She snatched up her translator padd and joined him eagerly as he headed for the lift. Once the doors had closed and the lift rushed downward into the body of the ship, Hoshi scowled, “I don’t like her.”
“Why not?” Archer asked.
“Mostly because she doesn’t like me.”
“Good judgment. You—not her. Besides, I don’t think anybody likes her much. Of course, she doesn’t care whether she’s liked. She won’t be here that long.”
“She wouldn’t care anyway.”
“You need to relax, Hoshi. This ship is on the cusp of exploration. If you want to speak to aliens and learn new languages, this is the place to be. You’ll like it after a while.”
“I’ve just never felt anything like that before. There were vibrations that didn’t feel right.”
“I don’t have a doubt of it,” Archer offered passively. “The ship’s bound to have plenty of instabilities. It’ll be our job to track them down, one by one. That’s why they call it a ‘shakedown.’ But you have to do some shaking to get the optimal results.”
She sighed and looked like a lost puppy. “Why do all the interesting things have to happen so far from solid ground?”
Archer smiled. Her statement had an ancient ring of truth about it and set his mind to imaginings.
He took her arm gently and squeezed it. “Now, just take things a little slower. Take cues from the people around you instead of the machinery you don’t understand.”
She looked up at him. “What do you mean by that? What about the people?”
“Most of us have been on ships a lot more than you have. One of the oldest secrets of success on board is to do what the old-timers do. If we sleep, you sleep. If we take a shower, you go take a shower. Eat when we eat. And when things seem scary, take cues from those who’ve been through scary things before. Stand back and stand by.”
“Stand back and stand by,” she repeated, tasting the precious advice.
“Right,” he said. “In time, you’ll be the one the rookies are watching for cues. No matter what the legends say, nobody’s born to this.”
Though she still appeared doubtful, she did step out of the lift with more confidence. In fact, she led the way to sickbay. Archer took that as a step up.
Even before the door opened to the medical area they could hear the loud growling of the Klingon, like some kind of werewolf on the prowl.
The alien was even more imposing in person than he was just listening in the corridor. Sitting up now, he was absolutely huge. If he stood he would top seven feet. Even sitting he was eye to eye with Archer. Wisely, the doctor had tied him down.
Klaang barked and snapped furiously. “Pung ghap HoS!”
Archer flinched at the rage of a strong warrior only inches from him, and was suddenly glad of the security guard, very nearly six-foot-five himself, armed with a plasma rifle and eyeing the delirious Klingon with a hungry glower.
Hoshi was picking and poking at her translator padd, frowning at the information on the tiny screen.
“What’s wrong?” Archer asked.
“The translator’s not locking onto his dialect. The syntax won’t align.”
Major faux pas—unaligned syntax.
“DujDaj Hegh!”
“Tell him we’re taking him home,” Archer said simply.
Hoshi struggled over the words, but she hesitated. The language seemed, to Archer’s ear, to be little more than coughs and hacks.
After a moment, she tried. “Ingan ... Hoch ... juH.”
“Tujpa’qul Dun?”
She frowned. “He wants to know who we are.” She didn’t add the obvious trailer “I think,” even though it was implicit in her tone.
Archer nodded, an equally simple gesture.
Hoshi turned to the Klingon. “Qu’ghewmey Enterprise. PuqloD.”
“Nentay lupHom!”
Hoshi repeated one of the words for her own benefit, then concluded, “Ship. He’s asking for his ship back.”
Or maybe he was asking to take possession of this one? Archer was reluctant to give him any kind of answer, because neither one would make the Klingon any happier.
“Say it was destroyed.”
“SonchIy.”
Klaang erupted in a raving protest and roared, “Vengen Sto’vo’kor Dos!”
Puzzling over this, Hoshi