Gauntlet - Michael Jan Friedman [40]
Besides, the captain didn’t want to exhaust his vessel’s resources by maintaining too high a rate of velocity for too long. That was why they were cruising at warp eight and no faster.
But he couldn’t wait to reach Beta Barritus.
Chapter Twelve
ADMIRAL MCATEER WATCHED the Pacific sun disappear behind a blood-red frond as he negotiated one of the many cunningly shaded paths in the expansive garden behind Starfleet Academy.
The place had looked quite different when the admiral was a cadet. Stodgy, geometric, cut-and-dried. Each path had been nothing more than a way to get from one building to another.
Then he had left the Academy to serve on ships that crisscrossed the galaxy. His objective, at least in theory, was the study of stars and their attendant planets. But in reality, he had studied the men and women with whom he worked—their strengths, their failings, the reasons they did what they did. After all, his thinking had gone, if he was to become an effective leader he would need to become an expert on the people he would be leading.
And he would become a leader, McAteer had assured himself. Even then, he knew with grim certainty that he would rise through the ranks and guide Starfleet into a new era someday.
Finally, after many long years of dedication and achievement, after entire decades’ worth of care and planning and artful maneuvering, McAteer got what he had always envisioned. He stood on a height from which he could look out and see the end of his fated journey.
He was back on Earth, the planet of his birth. He was a Starfleet admiral, with all the trimmings. And most important, he was in a position to make his ideas about the fleet a reality.
One of the first things he noticed on his return was the Academy garden and how much it had changed. It boasted exotic plants, shrubs, and trees from dozens of alien worlds—vegetation that added life and scale and color to the place, lining each path and hiding long stretches of it from its neighbors.
It was a refreshment, an intrigue, a delight. One could walk for half an hour and not even come close to being bored.
McAteer had heard that the man responsible was someone named Boothby. A landscape architect, he had guessed, a highly trained professional who had touched this expanse with his genius and moved on.
The admiral admired the fellow for what he had accomplished—and fancied himself a like spirit. After all, what he was trying to do with Starfleet was very much what Boothby had done with this garden.
He had uprooted the old and introduced the new. He had pruned away whatever was holding him back and planted that which served his purposes. And if he had been forced to sacrifice some of the trees and hedges that had served here long and faithfully, his ruthlessness had gained him what nostalgia never could.
Soon, McAteer reflected, his garden would be free of useless undergrowth like Admiral Mehdi and unwanted weeds like that upstart Picard. It would only contain what he wanted it to contain, what he had handpicked and placed there personally.
He smiled just thinking about it. Picard had no chance to catch the White Wolf. None. He would look inept, inadequate—and even more so when the pirate was brought to justice.
And he would be brought to justice. The admiral had absolutely no doubt of it.
Noticing a stone bench just off the path, he availed himself of it. As McAteer sat, he found himself charmed by a most unusual scent—a mixture, it seemed to him, of butterscotch and vanilla. He traced it to a generous cascade of pale-blue blossoms that fell from a nearby branch almost to the ground.
He didn’t know the tree’s name. But the blossoms were so fragrant, so eminently pleasing, he longed to smell one close-up. Plucking a single, fat specimen from among its companions, he held it to his nose and inhaled deeply.
Yes, McAteer thought, savoring the scent. Butterscotch