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As soon as she saw me, the commander ran toward me and leapt into my arms. Before she did, I noticed that her uniform was torn in dozens of places and looked (and smelled) like it hadn’t been laundered in weeks, she had two nasty cuts on her face, and she was clutching her right side as she ran.

Then she kissed me.

I would say that the commander is alive and well and doing just fine.

Personal log, Commander Sonya Gomez, U.S.S. da Vinci, Stardate 53291.5

I had been quite convinced that Razka and I were going to get completely plastered long before anyone rescued us. But I didn’t care. I was so giddy from actually defeating the shii and knowing that I was going to live, that the fact that we would probably starve to death if someone didn’t show up soon wasn’t something either of us wanted to think about.

Then I saw the Archimedes come swooping down out of the atmosphere. It was the most glorious sight I’d ever seen. (Razka said it was the second-most glorious, as he gave first prize to the ACB wiping out the shii. Sadly, I didn’t get to see that, as I was under the hatch at the time.)

Part of it was the brandy, part of it was euphoria—and part of it was sheer stupidity, given my torso wound—but a big part of why I ran into Kieran’s arms was simply because I didn’t want to ever let go of him.

I learned a lot on this mission, and found out a lot of things about myself that I didn’t like. Primary among them was that life is too damn short to let the good things get away.

What Kieran and I had on the Enterprise was a good thing. There are probably dozens of good reasons why we shouldn’t start up our relationship again, but right now, I can’t think of a single one of them.

Now we’re back on the da Vinci. I’ve been in touch with Senator Moyya, and he actually apologized to me. Apparently he wasn’t showing the recordings I sent along to the rest of the senate because he believed they were fakes. One of his fellow senators insisted that he look at the full communiqués from Sarindar, and suddenly the senate thought that maybe their initial reaction was a bit on the harsh side.

Unfortunately, by the time the senate had realized their mistake, all communication with Sarindar had been lost, thanks to worse interference than usual from the quasar/pulsar combination. That’s also why the da Vinci’s com signal was so patchy. They had, in fact, dropped their mission to Trivas like a hot potato and come to rescue me.

The current plan is to assign new workers to the camp, with Razka now in charge, at my recommendation. He will follow the work schedule I laid out, and—without the two shii to terrorize the workers—the SA should finally be finished. The senate has also promised that Starfleet will be allowed to aid the team that studies and harvests the chimerium—and, best of all, they’re willing to talk about allowing Starfleet safe passage through to Sector 969. Which means that the mission Captain Scott gave me back on Earth has actually been fulfilled.

This should be good news. I just wish it hadn’t come at the expense of so many lives.

I was seriously tempted not to have Dr. Lense get rid of the two scars I got. Razka said that they made me look like a Nalori who’d gotten his coming-of-age scars, and, in a sense, he was right. But I decided to get rid of them anyhow. Keeping scars is an affectation, suffered mostly by people with more mental difficulties than I’m willing to put on display. I did it after Captain Gold debriefed me and I had talked to Senator Moyya.

Now I’m in my quarters, having been instructed by both Dr. Lense and Captain Gold to relax. But I can’t sleep. I keep thinking about Zilder and Kejahna and J’Roh, and the score of others who died under my command.

I guess the only way I can make their deaths have any meaning to me at all is to live.

And I intend to do just that.

“Gomez to Duffy. Please report to my quarters.”

End log entry.

Star Trek®: Starfleet Corps of Engineers

MINIPEDIA

by Keith R.A. DeCandido

This “minipedia