Distant Shores - Marco Palmieri [53]
“Ouch.” Mark winced.
“Yeah. Honestly, I didn’t even know about this little shindig until the Hood docked for repairs, and I heard about it at Quark’s. Gres was kind enough to let me come along.”
“Are you enjoying yourself?”
Dina paused to eat the vegetable before finally answering. “Not really. Honestly, I don’t know what Aaron was doing for all the years between when we broke up and when I saw him last year. The whole point of getting together was to catch up.”
“I’m afraid I didn’t really know him. I mean, Kath told me about him-said he was a good, solid officer who’d make a fine XO-but that was pretty much it.”
“Yeah, that sounds like Aaron.”
A short pale man in a Starfleet uniform and a tall dark woman in civilian clothes approached the table. The man, who seemed to be about thirty, was speaking. “- weird thing is the tetryon emissions they detected.”
The tall woman let out a breath. “Davey…” Mark recognized her tone, as it was the same one Mark himself used with Kath whenever words like “tetryon” or strange abbreviations like “ODN” or “EPS” entered the conversation. To be fair, she also used it on him whenever he went off on a botany rant.
“Sorry, I- ” Davey looked up at Mark and Dina. “Oh, uh hi. Davey Honigsberg.”
“Mark Johnson.” He indicated Dina. “This is Dina Voyskunsky. We’re with the captain and first officer.”
The woman smiled, though Mark noted that the smile didn’t quite reach her brown eyes. “Abhaya Parekh. We’re both with engineers. Davey’s father is Alexander Honigsberg, the chief engineer, and my husband is Joe Carey, Alex’s assistant.”
Davey was picking through the meats while he spoke. “I was just telling Abhaya that there’s a really good chance that they’re okay. You see, there wasn’t any debris-they didn’t find any at all-and, while it’s true that sometimes the plasma storms are bad enough that they won’t leave any debris, I’ve been studying the patterns in the Badlands, and there weren’t any storms in that area big enough to do that kind of damage to a ship Voyager’s size on the day they disappeared. Besides, there’s the tetryon emissions.”
Mark smiled. “I’m afraid I’m in the same boat as Abhaya-I don’t know what that means.”
Dina said, “It means that something was in the Badlands that shouldn’t have been. Tetryons aren’t found naturally there.”
Abhaya gave Davey-now stuffing several bits of reddish blue meat into his mouth-a mildly reproving look. “Now see, Davey, if you’d just said that in the first place, I probably would’ve understood quite a bit more of what you were saying.” She looked at Mark and Dina. “Davey’s like his father-and my Joe. They talk in jargon constantly. Drove me crazy whenever Davey or Alex visited.”
Mark covered his urge to laugh out loud by eating more of the kava fruit. Alexander Honigsberg had been a thorn in Kath’s side for most of the shakedown cruise. Apparently he didn’t like to give detailed reports, saying that the captain should just trust him. Mark had laughed when Kath told him that, prompting Kath to give him one of her penetrating stares. But soon she laughed, too, knowing, as he did, that she didn’t take that sort of thing from subordinates.
However, Mark figured it wouldn’t be politic to mention that to the engineer’s son. Instead, he said, “So you’re in Starfleet also, I see.”
“Yeah-just enlisted, though. I’m with the S.C.E. My term’s up in a month, and I doubt I’m gonna re-up.”
Abhaya turned to look at Davey in surprise. “You’re not reenlisting? This is the first you’ve told me-why not?”
“Because I don’t think Starfleet’s doing enough. Dad’s out there, and we need to find him. Starfleet’s just given up, if you ask me.”
“Starfleet doesn’t give up on people,” Dina said in a tight voice. “If Voyager’s out there, Starfleet will find them.