Last Full Measure - Michael A. Martin [13]
Although relationships between MACOs of the same platoon—or even of the same company—were officially frowned upon, Guitierrez and Kemper were hardly the only couple that had formed within the small MACO company serving aboard Enterprise. And they weren’t even really a couple in the traditional sense; she had thought of the relationship as “friendship with benefits,” and felt confident that Kemper felt the same way. Of greater concern was the matter of their respective ranks and their position relative to one another in the MACO chain of command; Kemper was not only senior to her, but was also part of the same squad. But they had always kept their public displays of affection down to a minimum, and no repercussions had come down from Major Hayes. Yet.
And now this. That’s it for me. If I keep the baby—if I even can keep the baby—that takes me right off the career fast track. And getting back onto that track, especially within an elite military organization like the MACOs—and with a blotch on her conduct record, no less—would be next to impossible.
Shit!
She decided that the first order of business was to see Phlox, even though the Denobulan doctor made her shiver whenever he displayed his unnaturally wide grin. She always felt as if he were either going to try to eat her or assault her; it was the same look her childhood cat had evinced whenever it spotted a wayward beetle crawling through the grass.
But Phlox was the ship’s chief medical officer, and would therefore be better able than anyone else aboard Enterprise to tell her if this pregnancy was real, rather than some sort of scanner glitch. Right, she thought. As if three different scanners could come down with the exact same glitch.
More importantly, Phlox would be able to tell her whether or not she was capable of carrying the child to term.
And depending on the answer to that question, she would have some very hard decisions to make. Years ago, she’d made peace with the thought that she’d never experience motherhood, and she hadn’t given the matter much thought since. She also had to face another reality honestly: Kemper was hardly father material, and she simply didn’t feel strongly enough about him to even want him in her life for more than an hour or two at a time. It was a cold realization, but she knew that it was the truth.
On the other hand, the idea of establishing a new family held a certain fascination for her; she was an only child, after all, and both her parents had died during her teens. So she was the last member of her family—the only member of her family—unless she brought this child into the world.
Guitierrez clambered onto the bed and reached for the scanner again, grudgingly glad to see that it was still working despite her tantrum. She tucked her dark hair behind her ear.
Run the scan again, Selma. Maybe it was wrong.
Maybe.
As the door to the command center slid open, Captain Archer was relieved to see everyone already assembled for the briefing. T’Pol, Reed, and O’Neill were conferring over data that scrolled on a wall-
mounted monitor, while a spit-and-polish Major Hayes and a group of five camo-clad MACOs stood at attention nearby.
“Let’s get started,” Archer said perfunctorily as Reed and the others turned to acknowledge him.
Reed cleared his throat, and gestured toward one of the side monitors. “Our informant told us that the Xindi and their associates have been known to frequent the spaceports at Kaletoo. Extreme-long-range scans have shown that the atmosphere of the planet is nonconducive to further scanning, but the informant told us that the spaceports are this region’s main hub of economic activity, of both the respectable and the illicit variety.”
Archer found none of this terribly surprising so far; in the absence of some central governing authority in this region of space, any number of nearby worlds