Security - Keith R. A. DeCandido [11]
Gamma shift was almost at a close, and soon Captain Gold would be arriving to relieve Tev of command of the bridge. The captain and Gomez had, he noticed, taken to walking to the bridge together in the mornings. According to Bartholomew Faulwell, it was a habit they’d developed early on in the commander’s tenure as first officer, but one that took some time to redevelop after Tev’s predecessor’s death. Tev thought that was an odd reason for discontinuing a practice that gave the two top-ranking officers on the ship an opportunity to compare notes and discuss command strategies. However, he said nothing, since he apparently could not communicate with Commander Gomez in any way that would not result in an awkward confrontation.
Awkward primarily from her perspective, of course. The woman was obviously smitten with Tev—not that he could blame her, given his expertise in her chosen field, she would naturally be drawn to like, just as she was to Tev’s predecessor—but could not properly express her passion. Tev sympathized with the poor woman, but it sometimes got in the way of the work. Witness the tiresome arguments at Avril Station. If the commander would have just admitted that Tev’s diagnostic program was more efficient than hers, he would have been spared the distasteful task of going directly to the station administrator.
The worst were those absurd sensitivity lectures he had to endure in the hololab. The program was apparently designed by Vulcans who were supposedly trying to educate people in how to deal with the more emotional species. Tev failed to see how this advice could possibly have been of use to a Tellarite.
Still, he endured them. As Bartholomew had so succinctly put it, it got the commander off his back.
At 0800 hours, the start of alpha shift, the turbolift doors parted to reveal Lieutenants Wong and Shabalala and Ensign Haznedl. They relieved Ensigns Barre, Winn, and Lambdin, respectively. At 0809, the captain and Commander Gomez entered. Tev had long since come to grudgingly accept that engineers who weren’t him had no concept of punctuality, and so did not let his irritation at the fact that his relief was nine minutes late show in his face.
Gomez looked right at him upon entering the bridge. “Tev! Just the Tellarite I want to see.” The commander’s voice sounded a bit tighter than usual. Tev wondered if she was feeling ill. “We need to have a conversation. With your permission, Captain, we’ll be in observation.”
Gold said, “Sure.”
Tev, however, was not particularly in the mood for one of the commander’s flirtations. “I am now off-shift, Commander, could it possibly—”
“You seem to have a certain difficulty with following direct orders, Lieutenant Commander, so let me spell it out for you. Go to the observation lounge or go to the brig.” She smiled. “Your choice.”
If she is going to hide her lust behind rank, then so be it. Snuffling with minor irritation, Tev exited the bridge and entered observation, Gomez right on his heels.
Bartholomew was in the lounge, working on a padd, with several other padds laid out in front of him. Tev didn’t recognize the writing that was scanned into one of the padds, but he assumed it was some arcane tongue that the linguist was working with.
At their entrance, he stood. “Oh, sorry, Commanders. I just needed to spread out a bit for my article.”
Gomez peered at the table. “That’s the Syclarian language, isn’t it?”
Nodding, Bartholomew said, “The Sato Linguistics Institute asked me to do an article for their journal.”
Tev snuffled. “Would they not ask a Syclarian to write one?”
“They did, and got a big no for their troubles. So, since I translated a Syclarian scientist’s journal a while back, they tapped me. Been working on it in what I laughingly refer to as my spare time.”
With a smile that was much more friendly than the one she had given Tev on the bridge, Gomez asked, “Bart, can we have the room, please?”
Something changed in Bartholomew’s face, but Tev wasn’t sure what it was. “Uh, yeah, sure. I could use some coffee anyhow, so I’ll do this