Enigma - Michael Jan Friedman [7]
“So,” the first officer opened as he sat down in the chair McAteer had occupied, “what did our friend the admiral have to say that couldn’t have been said at a much greater distance and a good deal more succinctly?”
Picard told him.
Ben Zoma usually made light of the captain’s concerns. He didn’t make light of this one. “The bastard.”
“I shouldn’t have been surprised,” said Picard. “He has never made a secret of his disdain for me.”
Ben Zoma frowned. “You just didn’t know when he would pull the rug out. It was something we always figured would happen someday—just not today.”
Picard shook his head, no doubt wondering how he had come to this pass. “Perhaps my father was right when he advised me to remain on Earth and run the family vineyard. I understand that last year’s vintage, the thirty-two, was the best we ever produced.”
The first officer, too, had a father who had opposed his choice to serve in Starfleet. If anyone understood the captain’s situation, it was he.
“Don’t worry,” he said, searching for something comforting to say. “You’ll get through this.”
“And if I lose the Stargazer?” the captain asked, introducing an unwelcome dose of reality. “If McAteer pries me away from her?”
Ben Zoma felt his friend’s pain, and wished it were his instead. “That’s beyond your control at this point.”
Picard sat back in his seat, looking defeated already. “I was hoping you would assure me to the contrary, Gilaad.”
Ben Zoma smiled, but there wasn’t any mirth in it. “Believe me, I wish I could.”
Lieutenant Obal pushed around the green and orange food on his plate, only vaguely aware of the buzz of conversation around him. In the few months he had served on the Stargazer, he had spent some eminently enjoyable moments in the mess hall.
This wasn’t one of them.
“It’s disappointing,” Obal’s companion said unexpectedly.
Roused from his melancholy, the security officer looked across the table at Kastiigan, the ship’s science officer. A Kandilkari, Kastiigan had a long and striated face, with distinctive purple jowls hanging loosely from his jaw.
“What is?” Obal asked.
“Several weeks have passed since I arrived on this vessel,” said Kastiigan, “and in that time, various officers have been exposed to considerable danger. But I have not been one of them.”
Obal looked at him, more than a little surprised. “You wish to be placed in danger?”
The science officer nodded. “Very much so. I am a senior officer on this starship. I should be assuming as much of the risk as any other senior officer.”
The Binderian tilted his head. “That is…an unusual way of looking at it.”
Kastiigan didn’t appear to have heard him. He seemed too intent on his own thoughts. “I have made it clear to Captain Picard that I would like to be placed in jeopardy, but for some reason he seems unwilling to do so.”
“Perhaps he values your services too much to contemplate losing you,” Obal suggested.
The Kandilkari shook his head. “If that’s so, he has given me no indication of it.”
“Also,” the security officer observed, “science officers aren’t often exposed to perilous conditions. At least, not as often as other personnel.”
It was true. Science officers weren’t sent on the ship’s most dangerous missions because their skill sets weren’t often needed. When science officers were injured or killed on away assignments, it was because their vessel had encountered something unexpected—and ultimately harmful.
“Then perhaps I made a mistake when I became a science officer,” Kastiigan concluded. He didn’t sound very happy.
Of course, Obal wasn’t very happy these days either. But it had nothing to do with how often the captain had placed him in the line of fire.
Ensign Nikolas had been his best friend on the ship. Now that Nikolas had resigned from the fleet and left the Stargazer, life would never again be the same for Obal.
Paris and some of the other crewmen had already made attempts to fill the breach, and Obal greatly appreciated their kindness. But none of them was Nikolas.