Security - Keith R. A. DeCandido [25]
Dar gave Vale the melting smile that he had perfected on Domenica by their third year at the Academy. “Be happy to, Officer.” He unholstered the phaser, held it out to Vale—
—then grabbed her wrist with the other hand and yanked Vale toward him in a modified sok-pal grab from the Vulcan V’Shan martial art, at which Dar was at the level of ahn-was, which was as high as any human had achieved. Before Corsi had had a chance to register what had happened, he had Vale in a rol-shaya grip. Corsi had been in Dar’s rol-shaya before—the officer wasn’t moving until Dar let her.
“You know the grip, Domenica,” Dar said. “I make one slight muscle movement with my right forearm, and her neck snaps like a twig. Pity, really.” He smiled again, but this wasn’t the melting smile, it was one she’d never seen on his face before. “I’d rather the third kill was like the first two. The rush is so much better that way.”
Corsi shook her head. “So it was you.”
“Of course it was me! How could you even doubt it? Now put your phaser down, Domenica. Let me go with the officer here, so I can kill her properly, like the other two.”
Glancing down, Corsi saw that she had, in fact, drawn her phaser as soon as Dar grabbed Vale. The action hadn’t been conscious, but drilled into her after all her years of security training.
The next action she took was completely conscious. Pausing only for a second to aim, she blew Dar Ableen’s head off.
Chapter
11
U.S.S. da Vinci
in search operations between Stations Kel-Artis and Deep Space 9
NOW
F abian Stevens stared at Domenica Corsi in shock. “My God, Dom, you—” He shook his head, barely able to parse what she’d just told him. “What happened next?”
She shrugged. “It was over. Izar went back to normal. Vale and I both got commendations. I tried to point out that she was the one who did all the leg-work, but she insisted that I was the one who saved the day. She told me—” Domenica hesitated. “She told me that she could never have done what I did—just shoot him like that, especially given our…our relationship.” Chuckling bitterly, she added, “She applied to Starfleet Academy the next week. Said she’d always wanted to, but didn’t want to let her family down. But after seeing me in action, she knew that it was the right thing to do. I told her then that she was nuts.”
“Yeah,” Fabian said dryly, “I can see how you’d think that. I mean, she’s just security chief on the Enterprise, after all—not like that’s a major assignment or anything…”
Harshly, Domenica said, “I didn’t mean that she would be bad security, Fabe, I meant that she was nuts to use me as an example. All I did was shoot the man I loved.”
His thoughts still whirling, Fabian asked, “Why did he do it? How—”
“I don’t have answers to any of that.” Domenica’s voice was a rough whisper now. “He was dead as soon as I shot him. I didn’t have a choice—he’d already killed eleven people, and Vale would’ve been number twelve if I didn’t do something. I couldn’t afford to hesitate, or try to talk him down. This was someone who’d gotten away with eleven murders, I couldn’t—” Her voice broke. She was staring down at the deck. Fabian’s hand was still on hers.
Fabian had known Domenica since he signed on to the da Vinci during the Dominion War. In those two years, he’d never heard her voice break—not even when they went to visit her family at Fahleena III, when they both fell apart in front of each other.
Then he did some mental calculations recalling the dates on the reports he’d looked up before coming here. “I just realized something. The night you came to me, right before we helped Nog drive the Androssi off Empok Nor—” The first time we made love, he didn’t say aloud. “—that was the anniversary, wasn’t it?”
Domenica nodded.
He cupped her chin with his hand and guided