Progenitor - Michael Jan Friedman [3]
Much less to know who would become an asset to his crew and who would become a burden. Or who would choose to leave just when she seemed to have found her niche.
“You look positively grim,” said Gilaad Ben Zoma, Picard’s friend and first officer.
“Do I?” the captain asked.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think your shields were down and you’d just fired off your last photon torpedo.”
Under most circumstances, Picard would have smiled at the metaphor. But not under these circumstances.
“I’ll do my best to cheer up,” he said.
Ben Zoma leaned a little closer. “That would be nice. And while you’re at it, you may want to give the order to establish orbit.”
The captain glanced at Idun Asmund, his primary helm officer, and realized that she was waiting patiently for instructions. Feeling his face flush, he said, “Establish orbit, helm.”
“Aye, sir,” came the response.
Picard frowned at his lapse as he watched Idun manipulate her controls and activate the ship’s braking thrusters. Keep your mind on what you’re doing, he told himself.
“You know,” Ben Zoma said in a voice only the captain could hear, “none of this is your fault. It wasn’t even your decision to bring these people aboard.”
“I know that,” the captain replied. “But that doesn’t mean they’re not my responsibility.”
“And as for that other personnel situation—”
Picard stopped Ben Zoma with a gesture. “Let’s contemplate that later, shall we? I can only take so much change in one day.”
“Orbit established,” reported Idun’s twin sister Gerda, who was seated at the bridge’s navigation console.
The captain nodded. “Hail the base.”
“Aye, sir,” said Ulelo, who had minutes earlier taken over for Paxton at the comm panel.
In a matter of moments, the officer in command of Starbase 42 appeared on the viewscreen. He was a broad, squared-off fellow with pronounced crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes and a thatch of thick, gray hair. And though he gave Picard his name readily enough, the captain couldn’t have repeated it if his life depended on it.
Despite what he had told himself, he was still distracted by what was happening to his crew. More to the point, he was still wondering if he could have done anything to prevent it.
There’s one thing you could have done, he reflected. You could have denied the captain of the Crazy Horse his request to speak with one of your officers. But that would have been neither fair nor in keeping with Starfleet protocol.
The commander of the starbase asked if Picard would be beaming down himself. When he indicated that he would not be, the man said something polite and signed off.
As the image of the base was restored to the screen, the captain turned to Ben Zoma. “Shall we?”
The first officer stood aside for him. “After you.”
Reluctantly, Picard got up from his seat and made his way across the bridge to the turbolift.
Chapter Two
AS PICARD AND BEN ZOMA ENTERED Transporter Room Three, one of half a dozen such facilities on the Stargazer, the captain saw that there were two uniformed figures waiting for them beside the hexagon-shaped transporter platform.
One of them was Juanita Valderrama, a middle-aged woman with a kind, round face and dark hair. The other, a man in an ensign’s uniform, was the tall, sturdy-looking Joe Caber.
Picard turned to the morning-shift transporter officer, who was standing off to the side at his black, streamlined console. “Mr. Refsland,” he said, “is the base prepared to receive Lieutenant Valderrama and Ensign Caber?”
“They are, sir,” confirmed Refsland, a husky, blond fellow in his middle twenties.
The captain nodded. “Good.” He indicated the platform with a gesture. “If you please.”
Caber ascended without any further encouragement. Valderrama, on the other hand, hesitated.
“Is something wrong?” Picard asked her.
The lieutenant lifted her chin. “May I speak candidly, sir?”
The muscles worked in Picard’s jaw. Here it comes, he thought. The disclaimer. The “I was wrongly