Miracle Workers (SCE Books 5-8) - Keith R. A. DeCandido_. [et al.] [79]
Gazing askance at him, I said, “I thought we finished Entorr’s stash.”
“We did. You think Entorr’s the only person who smuggled in brandy?”
“My mistake.”
He handed me one mug, then raised his. “To mates. We cannot live with them, but we really cannot live without them, either.”
I raised my mug as well, and decided not to tell Razka that he had just quoted a very old human cliché.
Personal log, Commander Sonya Gomez, planet Sarindar, Stardate 53283.0
Another good day. The antimatter pods are online and working well, the tubing is almost finished, the dish is finished, the delivery system will be on-line in two more days—a week ahead of schedule—we seem to have finally gotten the bugs out of all the sensor palettes, and the mining mechanics are almost finished as well.
Best of all, I was distracted no less than four times by a spectrum burst. I’m very proud of my sense of wonder, and grateful for its return.
Right now I’m relaxing in my tent with a bowl of halfway decent vixpril and a mug of Saurian brandy, having just read the latest letter from Kieran. Apparently those rumors about DS9 were mostly true—a Jem’Hadar ship did attack the station, and now the entire Alpha Quadrant’s at yellow alert. It wasn’t the Defiant that was destroyed, it was the Aldebaran. The da Vinci’s still on its latest assignment—some three-hundred-year-old ship that they found in the event horizon of a black hole. Kieran joked that they’re going to try to tow it out with wires, as if that could possibly work. They’re also ready to drop that at a moment’s notice in case this really is a prelude to another war.
I hope that it isn’t. I don’t think I could deal with another war so soon after the last one. I still have nightmares about that time the Sentinel was trapped behind enemy lines. I know I got a commendation for that, and everyone talks about how heroic I was for getting the warp drive back on-line and then recalibrating our shields and warp signature so the Breen thought we were Cardassian—but the fact of the matter is, I was scared to death and running on pure adrenaline and instinct.
Then again, Geordi gave me a commendation for helping get the shields back up when the Borg attacked way back when. I still haven’t the foggiest idea what he was thinking. I was the greenest of green ensigns, staring off into space at the drop of a hat because eighteen people died.
Not that I should be blasé about death, of course. God, listen to me. I think I’ve been drinking synthehol too long—my system isn’t used to the real stuff.
That does it. No more of this damn brandy.
I still haven’t written a response to Kieran since the last letter. He’s probably going to start worrying. But I just don’t know what to say to him.
At least he isn’t pushing in these letters. That’s typical, really. He never pulled his goofy aw-shucks act or his c’mon-go-out-with-me-again routine while on duty, and he wouldn’t do it on an open channel, either.
What really gets me is that Razka asked me if he was my mate, and I almost said yes.
And yet, I haven’t really thought about him all that much since I got here. Part of that is just the grind of the project, and part of it is probably just my predilection for avoiding anything unpleasant in my personal life.
That’s our Sonnie Gomez. She can field-strip a warp core, can fool a Breen into thinking an Akira class starship is a Cardassian freighter, can get a subspace accelerator built with substandard equipment and cranky workers, can defeat the mighty monster shii—but can’t get her love life straightened out to save her life. The last time things were in danger of getting really serious with Kieran, I was promoted and transferred off the Enterprise. I wonder if I could’ve fought to stay on the ship—I mean, there had to be something an antimatter specialist at the full lieutenant level could do on the Enterprise. On the other hand, I could hardly pass up that project on the Oberth. On the third hand . . .
On the third hand, I’m definitely giving