Enigma - Michael Jan Friedman [13]
That was the first observation Bender made. The second, which came just a moment or two later, was that Joseph was headed precisely in her direction.
When he finally stopped in front of her, he didn’t smile or greet her. He just said, “Lieutenant.” And his tone was every bit as grim as his expression.
Joseph was acting downright ominous. And judging by the stares he was attracting from Bender’s friends, she wasn’t the only one who thought so.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
Joseph didn’t answer her question. All he told her was “I need you to come with me.”
“What’s going on?” Vandermeer asked.
The security chief didn’t make any further reply. He just stood there, waiting for Bender to accompany him.
“Yes, sir,” she said a little uncertainly.
Getting up from the table, she exchanged looks of surprise with her companions. Then she did as Joseph had asked and followed him out of the mess hall.
Andreas Nikolas, formerly of the Stargazer, peered into the dense, twisted nest of finger-thick conduits glinting in the eerie beam of his palmlight.
“Obviously,” he said, “this isn’t the first time this power relay has been repaired.”
His pal Eddie Locklear chuckled, his freckled face and unruly red hair thrown into sharp relief. It was Locklear who had gotten Nikolas a job on the cargo hauler Iktoj’ni, where he could put some of his Starfleet experience to work.
“I’ve personally dug into it at least a half-dozen times,” Locklear told him, “and I only shipped out on this bucket a couple of years ago.”
“Comforting,” said Nikolas.
“Shut up and pass the hyperspanner,” his friend told him.
Nikolas rummaged through the leathery bag of tools with his free hand. Finally, he came up with the one Locklear had asked for—a metallic, Y-shaped device designed to seal off old conduits and open new ones.
“Here you go,” he said.
As Locklear took the device, he cast a grin at his friend. “I’ll bet you never saw anything like these on those big, shiny Federation starships.”
“Not once,” Nikolas conceded.
He watched Locklear turn the hyperspanner on, a yellow-white energy field appearing between the tool’s upper projections. Somehow, even that managed to look sickly and second-rate.
“This shouldn’t take long,” said Locklear.
“Meaning what?” asked Nikolas. “Twenty minutes?”
His friend didn’t say. He just laughed, leaving the answer to Nikolas’s imagination.
Clearly, the Iktoj’ni didn’t have the state-of-the-art equipment found on the Stargazer. And judging by the tangled mess of conduit cables in the power relay, she didn’t have the expertise one found on the Stargazer either.
Still, Nikolas was certain that he had made the right choice in putting Starfleet behind him. He saw that more clearly with every passing day.
On the Iktoj’ni, he didn’t have to worry about seeing Gerda or Idun in the mess hall or some corridor. He wasn’t constantly reminded of what he had lost when Gerda Idun vanished.
Of course, he missed his friends from time to time, his buddy Obal in particular. The Binderian had really grown on him in the short time they had served together.
But Nikolas didn’t regret moving on. Not in the least.
Or so he told himself.
Bender had never seen the inside of Captain Picard’s ready room. She had only heard about it.
It was a good deal smaller than she had imagined, a good deal closer and more confining. Or maybe it was just her discomfort in being there that made it seem that way.
Technically, she wasn’t alone. Pug Joseph was keeping her company as she stood there. But for all the talking he was doing, she might as well have been alone for real.
“You’ve got to tell me something,” she said at last.
The security chief looked sympathetic, but he didn’t make an attempt to satisfy her curiosity. All he said was “The captain will be here soon.”
Bender frowned. For the life of her, she couldn’t figure out what was going on.
Suddenly, she saw the door slide open, yielding to a familiar figure—that of the captain. As Picard entered the room, he looked every bit as grim as Joseph did. Not a good