Death in Winter - Michael Jan Friedman [27]
“Yes, of course,” said the captain, wondering what that had to do with Beverly. “But my understanding is that you managed to overcome it. Unless…”
Joseph waved away the notion. “No, I haven’t fallen off the wagon. But I’d still be a drinker if I hadn’t had help from Doctor Crusher. She’s the one who contacted me after I left the Enterprise and convinced me that I needed treatment.”
Picard didn’t know a thing about it. He said so.
“That’s not all,” said Joseph. “She spoke to some people she knew and got me into a rehab center. She even spent a shore leave there once, playing a miserable game of sharash’di and listening to my old Stargazer stories.”
“Really,” said the captain, feeling vaguely discomfited.
He had believed he knew Beverly better than any man alive. But as it turned out, there was more to his friend the doctor than met the eye-even his.
“So I’ve got even more reason to want to get her out of there,” Joseph explained.
No more than I, Picard reflected. However, that is not the reason we were dispatched.
“Our priority,” he said by way of a reminder, “is the Kevrata. Starfleet did not send us on a rescue mission.”
Joseph chuckled in a decidedly conspiratorial way. “And Queen Isabella didn’t send Columbus to discover the Americas. But he managed to pull it off anyway.”
For the sake of his duty to the Kevrata, the captain frowned. “Columbus found the Americas by mistake.”
“That’s his story,” said Joseph.
Commander Donatra didn’t know whether to curse Tomalak’s arrogance or just laugh.
“Not even the Second Fleet?” she asked.
“Not even that,” confirmed Suran, who was sitting across the wardroom table from her. His gray-haired presence had always been reassuring to Donatra, especially in the days when she first served beneath him. “No Defense Force ship has made a move toward Romulus in days. It seems Tomalak is determined to defend Tal’aura with the forces already gathered about him.”
“That is good news,” said Donatra. “In a numerically even fight, we will certainly prevail.”
Suran shrugged beneath the weight of his severe, linked-metal tunic. “Perhaps.”
Donatra regarded her comrade-no longer her superior these last few years, but her peer-with undisguised wonder. “Our command personnel are a hundred times more vital than Tomalak’s. We have firebrands in our center seats, hungry to take back the Empire by any means necessary. Tomalak has elder statesmen, more adept at charming the wives of the Hundred over expensive wine chalices than giving orders in the heat of battle.”
“True,” said Suran, who wasn’t above playing the role of an elder statesman himself when circumstances called for it. “But I know Tomalak. He is not a risk-taker. If he appears content with the sea-stones dealt him, there is a reason for it.”
Donatra considered the insight. “Is it possible that he would like to bring the First and Second Fleets home-but can’t? Because something else demands their attention?”
“Anything is possible,” said Suran, “but I do not know what that something might be. There is unrest among the rim worlds, no question-but not enough to occupy both the First Fleet and the Second. And at the moment, neither the Federation nor the Klingons seem inclined to threaten our borders.”
It was true. If anything, the Federation appeared eager to build on the alliance they had cobbled together.
“Perhaps some other threat, then,” Donatra suggested. “Something of which we are as yet unaware.”
Suran’s expression told her he didn’t believe that. He was just too considerate to say so.
Donatra decided to change the subject. “In the meantime, I have been in contact with Braeg. He assures me that the people are responding to his rhetoric, both in the capital and the countryside. Every day, he shakes the foundations of Tal’aura’s authority a little more.”
Suran smiled. “You sound like a centurion who beamed aboard my warbird twelve years ago, saying she couldn’t wait to destroy the enemies of the Empire.”
“Was I that eager?” Donatra asked.
“Every bit,” her comrade said. “And do you remember the counsel I gave you at the