Gauntlet - Michael Jan Friedman [13]
Chapter Five
ENSIGN ANDREAS NIKOLAS PRESSED the padd in the bulkhead next to his quarters, watched the duranium doors slide apart, and went inside to examine his home away from home.
Nikolas had served on other starships of this class, so he had a pretty good idea of what awaited him. He wasn’t disappointed. Two beds, a couple of computer terminals, two chairs, two tiny closets, one bathroom door.
And one roommate.
In this case, the last item was of the tall, broad-shouldered, and clean-cut variety. He was in the latter stages of making his bed when Nikolas walked in on him.
The guy straightened, smiled, and held out his hand. “Guess we’re going to be roommates,” he said, his blue eyes twinkling beneath dark, close-cropped hair.
“Guess so,” Nikolas returned. He shook the fellow’s hand. “Andreas Nikolas—but my friends call me Nik. And you?”
“Joe Caber.” The grin behind the words was as white and perfect as they came.
Caber, Caber . . . It sounded familiar. “Where have I heard that name before?” Nikolas wondered.
The other man looked a little uncomfortable. “My father’s Neil Caber. You know, the admiral?”
Nikolas snapped his fingers. “I knew I’d heard it somewhere.” He considered Caber in the light of this new information. “So you’re on a fast track.”
His roommate shrugged. He looked a little embarrassed. “I sure as heck hope so. I’d like to be a captain someday.”
You and every crewman from here to the Neutral Zone, Nikolas thought. “And how’re you doing so far?”
Caber didn’t seem eager to talk about himself. Still, he answered Nikolas’s question. “From what I can tell, just fine. I was second in my graduating class at the Academy. And my stint on the Mediterranean couldn’t have worked out any better.”
Obviously, Caber was a shoo-in. He’d be sitting in a center seat by his thirty-fifth birthday.
Nikolas turned his attention to his unmade bed, so the other man wouldn’t see the look of bitterness on his face. “They thought I’d be captain material too, once upon a time.”
Caber smiled, but it was the kind of smile that tried to mask pity. “And you’re not anymore?”
“I got in some trouble,” Nikolas told him. Of course, that was a bit of an understatement.
“Everyone gets in trouble sometime,” Caber said.
“I got in trouble a lot,” Nikolas expanded. “At the Academy they said I was reckless and headstrong. And I had a . . .” He dredged up the words they had used in his personnel file. “. . . a penchant for unbridled honesty, which was their polite way of saying I couldn’t keep my damned mouth shut.”
“That’s not necessarily a bad thing,” the other man allowed.
Nikolas chuckled. “Tell the folks at the Academy. They decided I’d be lucky not to get my butt kicked off the first ship whose captain was dumb enough to take me.”
“Prove them wrong,” Caber advised. No doubt, that’s what he would have done.
The problem, Nikolas reflected, was that the Academy people were right. He was everything they said he was—stubborn, impulsive, ill-equipped to work within a command structure.
He wished he could be more of a Caber type. He wished he could be confident and cooperative, following a clear-cut path to a captain’s chair.
But that wasn’t the hand he had been dealt. He was who he was. And if he couldn’t be a starship captain, he would be whatever fate had in store for him.
“Hey,” Nikolas said, “you hungry?”
His roommate smiled that perfect smile. “I’m always hungry.”
“Then what do you say we head down to the mess hall and see what’s on the menu?”
“I say let’s go,” Caber told him.
“I’m already there,” Nikolas said. Leaving his bed unmade, he led the way to the mess hall.
* * *
Dikembe Ulelo walked along the corridor next to his superior, Communications Chief Martin Paxton.
Paxton, a man with curly brown hair, was giving Ulelo a tour of the Stargazer. “You’ll like it here,” he said. “Captain Picard’s as sharp as they come. And he treats his people well.”
“That’s good to hear,