Last Full Measure - Michael A. Martin [8]
“No, thanks,” he added. “Those are my quarters. Remember, I’m not the interloper here; Chang is. Besides, shuffling the room reassignments around won’t solve the underlying problem: we’re serving aboard a fully-crewed Starfleet vessel designed for a complement of eighty-three—and we have to accommodate a cadre of thirty-six MACOs on top of that.”
“Only until we resolve the Xindi problem, Travis.”
But there was no telling how long that might take. “Let’s just hope we get a few Xindi in our sights before Chang and I get into a shooting war of our own.”
“Shhh! He might come in here any minute.” Hoshi looked surreptitiously around the room. A handful of off-duty personnel—including a pair of fatigue-clad MACOs—sat quietly, absorbed in their meals and conversations.
“Not a chance. We’re ‘hot-cotting’ these days, remember? I’m sure Chang’s off doing combat drills right now, preparing to defend the human race from the Xindi while we lowly Starfleet types handle all the scutwork involved in getting them to their appointed place of battle.”
“You sound almost jealous, Travis. That’s also not like you. Remember, ‘They also serve who only sit and drive.’ ”
Mayweather was surprised at how her comment wounded him, though he could see from her bantering expression that there was no malice whatsoever behind her words. “You sound just like Chang,” he said. “He seems to think I’m some sort of interstellar bus driver.” He realized only belatedly that he had spoken a bit too loudly.
Hoshi held up her hands in a placating gesture. “Easy, Travis. You know that’s not what I meant.”
Mayweather noticed then that two of the Starfleet people present and one of the MACOs was staring at him silently. He tendered an awkward smile, which the other officers returned before turning their attention back to food and talk.
He felt stupid for having blown up at Hoshi. In a much gentler—and quieter—tone, he said, “Look, however good these MACOs may be in close combat, fighting the Xindi is going to take a lot more than just three dozen gung-ho, egotistical ground-pounders.”
“True enough, Travis. But the MACOs are definitely going to give us an edge when the shooting starts. They certainly earned their rep when they went up against those pirates in the Janus Loop. ‘Semper Invictus.’ ”
“ ‘Ever Invincible,’ ” Mayweather said, translating the MACO force’s famous official Latin motto into English. “I heard they’ve picked up a few other choice labels over the past few months as well.”
Hoshi nodded, smiling an ironic smile. “One of them is even in Latin. ‘Semper Invisus’: ‘Ever Hateful.’ ”
Mayweather couldn’t help snickering. “Chang wasn’t very happy last week when he overheard Ensign Marcel using that one. He accused Starfleet of being ‘Semper Invitus.’ ”
“Ouch. ‘Ever Unwilling.’ I had no idea your roommate was such an accomplished linguist.”
“Haven’t you heard? MACOs are great at everything.”
Hoshi made a gentle “tsk” sound. “You sound like you’ve adopted one of the other new Latin mottoes a few of the MACOs have tried to pin on us: ‘Semper Invideo.’ ”
Mayweather favored her with a shrug and a blank stare. “What’s that mean? ‘Ever Movie Night’?”
“No. ‘Ever Envious.’”
Mayweather had to will his back teeth not to grind together at that, but without complete success. “Listen, Hoshi, I don’t doubt the skills of the MACOs for a minute, and I really don’t think I’m jealous of them. I just resent the fact that they don’t seem to appreciate our abilities. Lieutenant Reed has a whole brace of variable-yield antimatter torpedoes with ‘Xindi’ written all over them, and he’ll need me on top of my game running the helm to help get ’em to their targets. Chang’s not giving us nearly enough credit for knowing what the hell we’re doing on this mission. His whole attitude seems to be ‘We’re the fearsome sharks and you’re just lowly squids.’ ”
“That’s not surprising, at least from a linguistic perspective,” Hoshi said.
He frowned, unable to see just where she was heading with this. “What does linguistics have to do with