• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Damn you, Dar, why did you have to do this to me? Why did you have to—

She cut the thought off, refusing to dwell on it. The anniversary had come and gone. What was done was done.

Nog was hunched over the Rio Grande’s controls, listening to his recording of Sinnravian drad, when the hail from the Sugihara came in. Finally, he thought. Captain Demitrijian was the only one of the nine ship captains who hadn’t gotten back to him. The other eight had all agreed to go along with it—some enthusiastically, some with the greatest reluctance, but they all did agree in the end. Except for Captain Janna Demitrijian.

He put the captain’s round face on the screen, then remembered to turn the music off.

“Lieutenant,” she said, “I’ve been thinking about your proposal. I’ve also gone over it with my chief engineer. For what it’s worth, she thinks you’re categorically insane and has said that if we go through with this, she refuses to accept any responsibility for it.”

Nog sighed. Well, I’ve been lucky up until now. Besides, with the da Vinci, we’ll be fine.

“Well, thank you for taking the time to come here, Captain.”

Demitrijian frowned. “I haven’t said we won’t do it, Lieutenant. Last time I checked, I was in command of the Sugihara, not Lieutenant Barbanti, nor you.”

Feeling his lobes shrivel, Nog said, “I’m sorry, sir, I—”

“What I want to know is, what’s in this for me if I do go along?”

His lobes perked back up. Now the captain was speaking his language. “As I said in my original communication, you’ll have shore leave for your crew on Bajor, which is one of the loveliest planets in the quadrant—plus whatever maintenance your ship needs from my engineering staff.”

“Both of which I can get from Starbase 96 which, if nothing else, has a working power source. I’ll need more than that.”

Nog spoke slowly. “I’m not sure what else I can offer—” He let the sentence hang—usually if you paused there, the customer would finish the sentence for you.

“When you established the commlink,” Demitrijian said, “you had some kind of music on. It sounded like Blee Luu’s Endless Dream.”

“Yes! Yes, it was! I can make a recording for you.”

“No, thank you, I can’t stand that stuff. But my son is dating a Sinnravian, and she loves Luu. However, they’ve been living on the Canopus Planet, and she hasn’t been able to get her hands on Luu’s newest recording—I forget what it’s called.”

“It’s yours,” Nog said.

“An original, not a copy,” Demitrijian added. “Sinnravians are fussy about that sort of thing. Something about their inner ears.”

Shaking his head at the relative ignorance of such stunted-eared folk as humans, Nog said, “You’ll have an original recording by the time we reach DS9.”

“In that case, Lieutenant, the Sugihara is at your disposal.”

“Excellent! Thank you, Captain! Rio Grande out.”

Nog cut the connection.

Now where am I supposed to get an original of Blee Luu’s latest recording?

The runabout was currently docked at Empok Nor. P8 Blue was due back at any moment with a full structural report, after which point the Nasat would come on board, download the information to the runabout computer, and then beam back to the da Vinci while Nog took up position at the head of the convoy that would tow Empok Nor back.

Nog started Endless Dream up again as he went over the data. The computer models were all encouraging, and the S.C.E. were all sure that it would work. Of course, the report he’d gotten from DS9 was that everyone except Commander Vaughn thought he was insane, but nobody actually objected, either—probably because they’d seen the computer models also, and besides, nobody had a better idea.

The doors to the runabout opened, and P8 Blue came in—

—and immediately let out a screech that nearly punctured Nog’s delicate eardrums.

“Lieutenant,” Blue said as Nog gripped his oversize ears with his undersize hands, “if you do not shut that music off, Deep Space 9 will need to find a new chief operations officer, as the present one will be larvae food!”

“Computer, terminate music,” Nog said quickly.

“First Abramowitz, now you,” Blue