Double Helix 03_ Red Sector - Diane Carey [53]
Stiles shook like a scarecrow as he clutched at the physical reality of Travis and Jeremy and the Bolts.
“I thought you were all dead!” he gasped, tears flowing freely down his balanced face.
“Dead?’ Jeremy White repeated. “Where’d you get that idea?”
“You showed up in the… I heard you… you said… the anti-aircraft guns-“
“We got clear, Eric,” Travis said. “You gave us the extra seconds we needed to get away.”
“You gotta be kidding,” Matt Girvan protested. “He knows. He’s just making us say it over and over”
Zack Bolt laughed. “And he’ll never let us forget it. Wait and see.”
“What is this?” Jason Bolt reached out and grasped Stiles’ beard and shook it warmly. “Nonregulation Stiles! Since when!”
Dan Moose poked at Stiles’s ribs. “And he’s skinnier than Jeremy?
His eyes blurring as he shuddered under the coil of Travis’s arm, Stiles blinked from one face to the other, then ran the route again. Without a bit of the shame he would’ve once felt, he wiped tears from his cheeks. “Where… where are.. ?’
Typically, Jeremy took over with a clinical explanation. “Well, Beret and Andrea left Starfleet and went back to Holland, but they send their good wishes and demand a crew reunion as soon as you feel up to it. Bill Foster got promoted, and he’s stationed on Alpha Zebra Outpost. Brad Carter’s a civilian now too, and he’s coming in tomorrow. He’s just finishing exam week at college, so he couldn’t be here today”
Only now did Stiles register that Travis, Greg, and Matt were not wearing Starfleet uniforms. Civilians?
Jason held up a stern finger. “But they’re all waiting for a communiqu? on when and where we’re having a crew reunion. Those of us still in the service have been given special dispensation from our current duties just so we can attend. The dope civvies among us, who shall remain rankless, are being offered free transportation and hotel, as if they deserve it.” “Troublemaker,” Travis said with a laugh.
Greg Blake shrugged. “So I’ll re-enlist;’ he tossed off. “Eric’s bound to need a new wing leader. Can’t do without me, Call you?”
“He can’t do without any of us,” Zack said. “Who’d pick him up when he trips?”
Matt laughed. “Who’d stop him from putting his hand in front of a phaser?”
“Who’d he have to shout at when things didn’t happen fast enough?” “You need us, Lightfoot,” Jeremy punctuated.
“Not so fast.” Travis protected Stiles from them and held up his free hand judiciously. “Don’t be a tidal wave. Eric made it through four years in prison on a hostile planet without anybody to help him keep from making a jerk of himself. Maybe he doesn’t need our help for that anymore.”
Stiles laughed with them. The ribbing that would’ve unsettled him once today felt like cool pond water.
Travis gave him a comradely squeeze. “Maybe he doesn’t even want to stay in Starfleet.” “I sure wouldn’t,” Jason commented. The other twin added, “He’s done his duty.” “Twice over” Matt agreed. “They owe him now.”
“What a life,” Travis went on. “Speaking engagements all over the Federation-” “Scholarships,” Dan Moose said. Blake made an exaggerated bow. “Honorary degrees-” “Ceremonial dinners” Matt fed in.
“Starring in training films, have books written about you-hell, write your own book! Any idiot with a pen can do that!” Perraton looked at him admiringly. “You’re gonna get rich and fat, Eric. Wish to the devil it could’ve been me!”
Until this moment Stiles had been lost in a daze, but Travis’s latest sentence snapped him into biting clarity. He straightened his shoulders-a miracle in itself-and slipped abruptly back in command. Escaping from Travis’s cordial embrace, be took hold of his friend’s arm and control over the moment.
“No, you don’t,” he said. “I’m glad it wasn’t you and you’re glad too, and don’t forget it, Travis. I’m so happy I could cry to see all of you, but I’m not the kid you knew”
Theft faces changed, subtly, though even after all this time he could still read them. Perhaps even better than before. Some were arguing with him in their minds. Others were realizing they may have