Q & A - Keith R. A. DeCandido [20]
“—the Jem’Hadar just stood there, with his tube leaking white all over the cave floor. He tried to put it back, and it squirted right in his eye!”
Several of the officers laughed at that.
“The poor fool was blinded, so I had the time to unholster my phaser—barely. The Jem’Hadar was killed a moment later, but as he fell, the white squirted right onto my uniform.” He shook his head. “The replicator was down, and relief was not due for a week. And all we had to eat were combat rations, which are the product of the devil himself.”
“Definitely,” one guard commented.
“Hey, I like combat rations!”
“I’d sooner eat wheat paste!”
Leybenzon chuckled. “I have eaten wheat paste, my young friend, and I can assure you, combat rations are worse.”
That was an entree La Forge couldn’t resist. “I gotta ask, Lieutenant—when did you have cause to eat wheat paste?”
Immediately, the chair shot out from under him and Leybenzon stood up straight. His voice, which had been a bit higher pitched during his entire time in the Riding Club, was now back in the deeper range that he used on duty. “May I help you, Commander?”
Holding up his hands, La Forge said, “At ease, Lieutenant. We’re all off duty here. I couldn’t help overhearing, and I was wondering when you ate wheat paste.”
With his optical implants, La Forge was able to see Leybenzon’s pulse quicken, though whether it was due to anger, confusion, or just the drink, La Forge couldn’t be sure.
Then Stolovitzky, Leybenzon’s deputy, said, “I wouldn’t mind hearing that one myself.”
After a moment, Leybenzon shook his head and chuckled. “Very well, it seems only fair. And I make it a practice to rarely refuse the request of a superior officer.”
La Forge cocked an eyebrow. “Rarely?”
Holding up one finger, Leybenzon said, “One story at a time, Commander.” He kicked the chair that Kapsis was sitting in and said, “Make room for our chief engineer.”
Kapsis blinked several times, as if coming out of a daze. “Hm? Oh, yes, sir.” He quickly got up.
Leaning over and whispering almost conpiratorially, Leybenzon said, “It is sad when the lower ranks cannot handle even false vodka. Speaking of which!” He leaned over at the table, grabbed the bottle of syntheholic vodka and a glass, and poured some. “You must drink if you are to hear the story.”
La Forge accepted the drink, then sat. “Can’t argue with that.” He took a sip, and suddenly he felt like a warp core breach went off in his head. “Whoa.”
Everyone laughed at La Forge’s reaction, and he joined in with them a moment later, once the effect wore off. The chief engineer had not been much of a vodka aficionado, and the taste of this made him wonder what kind of punch the real thing packed. He was still recovering from the last time he’d seen Montgomery Scott and the old engineer forced him to drink Scotch….
His voice getting progressively higher, Leybenzon started his tale. “Now then—the wheat paste. It all began when the Andromeda was assigned to Minos Korva during the war. The Cardassians…”
Leaning back in his chair, La Forge listened to the story, which was followed by another. Then several of the security personnel told stories of their own, and La Forge even regaled them with a recent mission to a planet called Tezwa, which involved La Forge and a team of engineers and security personnel climbing a mountain.
What impressed him most, though, was Leybenzon. However much of a jackass he was on duty, off duty he was a raconteur, and, more to the point, he inspired loyalty in his people. La Forge had been supervising a large staff for a decade and a half now, and he knew when people responded to leadership. He would have never used Leybenzon’s methods, but that didn’t make them bad ones.
Geordi also realized that Leybenzon hadn’t lied. He had said he needed to get the security staff into shape. This was part of how he was doing it.
6
I. K. S. Gorkon
Klingon Empire
One day