Lost Era 06_ Catalyst of Sorrows - Margaret Wander Bonanno [48]
The captain poured coffee as she spoke. Uhura, remembering the coffee plantations near her grandparents’ house, recognized the aroma of real brewed arabica roasted to perfection, and it set her radar tingling. Was the coffee just a coincidence, or had someone learned enough of her background to have supplied it to make a point?
“All that aside,” the captain said, setting a steaming mug in front of her, “we’re impressed with your handling of the Listening Post and… is something funny, Commander?”
“It is now,” Uhura said, suppressing a bubble of laughter, “it wasn’t then. It was one of the most embarrassing moments of my recent career.” She grew suddenly serious. “And I doubt very much that that’s the real reason you brought me here. What I’d really like to know is how the hell-begging the captain’s pardon-you were able to listen to that conversation?”
“And we were wondering-‘we’ meaning my superiors and I-” the captain continued as if Uhura hadn’t spoken, “now that your ship’s about to be decommissioned out from under you-again- whether you really would be content chairing seminars at the Academy for the rest of your life, or if you’d like to join us. How’s the coffee?”
Uhura had been holding the mug between both hands, but hadn’t tasted the contents. The mundane question superseded a dozen others, and helped her focus.
“It’s probably delicious,” she said, pushing the mug slightly away from her. “And you expected me to say that, because it’s brewed exactly the way I like it, which you know because you’ve investigated everything that’s known about me, probably right down to my DNA, and you didn’t do that in the time it took us to get here from Rura Penthe. Are you special ops, SI, or from some other branch of intelligence that we don’t talk about?”
“There is no other branch,” the captain said evenly. “Yes, I am with Starfleet Intelligence.”
“And you know my likes and dislikes, my entire personal and professional history, probably my IQ, my shoe size, and the fact that I love real coffee,” Uhura said, also evenly, but there was fire in her eyes. “And you somehow managed to monitor transmissions made while we were deep inside Klingon space and on silent running. And much as the rest disturbs me, it’s that last part that really bothers me, because I thought I could detect any bug Starfleet could produce.”
“Who said it was Starfleet issue?” the captain asked ingenuously. Uhura had nothing to say to that. “Intrigued? Want to know more? Want to think about joining us?
“This latest escapade shows what we’ve known about you for a long time, Nyota, which is that you can think on your feet, always essential in an undercover operation,” she went on. “But I won’t pretend your feeble attempt to master the complexities of Klingon grammar at a moment’s notice was what decided us. As a matter of fact, we’ve had our eye on you for quite some time. It’s just that the opportunity to recruit you presented itself here and now because you and I were both in the same place at the same time, and I’ve decided to act upon that.
“Before you say anything, think about it. Who better than a comm officer to simultaneously work in intelligence? You’re in situ anyway, monitoring every whisper and string of code incoming and outgoing on a vessel anywhere in two quadrants. Who better to keep her ears on for things outside the parameters of the job?” The captain sipped her own coffee. “Mm, this is good. I wish you’d try it. We can trade mugs, if you think yours is drugged.”
“And end up ingesting something Rhaandarites are immune to but Terrans aren’t?” Uhura snapped back, not sure whether she was finally starting to fray after the events of the day, or was just annoyed at the cavalier way in which she’d been virtually kidnapped in order to be given this recruitment speech, or whether it was something else entirely.
Because the truth was, the offer