Progenitor - Michael Jan Friedman [2]
The engineer frowned. “It’s not an excuse, sir. I’d just like to try to put this... exercise . . . in perspective.”
Simenon shrugged. “By all means.”
“First off, sir, we did conduct periodic checks of the core—even more frequently than Starfleet directives recommend. And while it’s true we gave the computer a chance to respond to the situation, we had every reason to believe it would do so—since our boards told us it was running fine.”
The engineering chief harrumphed. “And your slowness in dumping the warp core once you realized the computer wouldn’t do it?”
“It just didn’t feel right,” Dubinski explained. “After all, complete, irreparable and rapid failure is virtually unheard of without apparent cause—enemy fire, a collision with another ship, something—and we couldn’t identify anything that might have triggered a breach of the containment vessel.”
It was a good answer. Simenon had to admit that, if only to himself. In fact, it bothered him that he hadn’t considered it.
Just as he hadn’t considered that every control console in engineering would show the computer was online—something the chief should have taken into account if he were to make the test a fair assessment of his people’s preparedness.
It wasn’t like him to gloss over important details. But then, it wasn’t like him to conduct unannounced drills in the first place. He had always judged the efficiency of his section by virtue of daily observations, not contrived exercises.
So what had come over him? A sudden lack of confidence in his security measures? Or something else—something unrelated to the continued welfare of the Stargazer?
Something that had been bothering him more and more over the last several days, keeping him awake at nights and insinuating itself into his thoughts during his waking hours.
Inwardly, Simenon cursed and crossed the room to a sleek, black control console, where he made a show of inspecting what was on its various screens. It gave him time to think—to gain that sense of perspective of which Dubinski had spoken.
Maybe he hadn’t been fair to his engineers, he thought. Maybe—gods help him—an apology was in order, as hideously distasteful as the concept seemed to him.
Then Urajel, the Andorian on his staff, breathed something to the woman next to her. Obviously, she hadn’t intended for Simenon to hear it. But he heard it, all right.
He heard it all too well.
Turning from the console and glowering at the Andorian with slitted yellow eyes, he said, “What was that, Ms. Urajel?”
The engineer’s face suffused with blood, giving it a dark blue tinge beneath her fringe of silver-white hair. No doubt, she was tempted to deny she had said anything. But she couldn’t do that.
Urajel steeled herself. “I said I wonder what crawled up your hindquarters, sir.”
Another time, Simenon might have let the remark slide, insubordinate as it was. But not this time.
This time, his anger surged. “You’ll run safety drills for the balance of this shift,” he rasped, not just to Urajel but to all of her colleagues as well. “And for the next shift, and the one after that and the one after that, until I’m confident that what I saw today won’t happen again.”
Simenon knew he wasn’t being fair to them. He knew he was abusing his power as engineering chief. But even knowing these things, he couldn’t help it.
Before he said something he would really regret, he whirled and made his way to his office.
Picard considered Starbase 42 as it loomed ever larger on his bridge’s main viewscreen.
Like many of the interstellar bases Starfleet had built in the last twenty years, 42 was comprised of a long cylinder, a protruding ring in the vicinity of its midsection and an even more prominent ring near what was generally recognized as its top.
Both rings were liberally dotted with brightly lit observation ports. At this distance, the captain imagined he could see uniformed figures framed in the ports, peering out at him in curiosity even as he was peering in at them.
Where had all those figures come from? Where were they going? There