Security - Keith R. A. DeCandido [3]
Well, that didn’t make me feel any better.
As Tev continued toward the hololab, Vinx walked up beside Angelopoulos. “When you gonna learn to keep your yap shut, Andy?”
“At this rate? Five minutes after I’m dead.”
“Which’ll be five minutes from now if you get too close to the boss.” The Iotian shook his head. “C’mon, I’ll buy you a beer. We got three hours, and we ain’t on shift till then. See if we can rustle up some grub, too.”
Angelopoulos nodded. “Sounds good. Hey, Makk—what do you think’s up with Core-Breach?”
“Nothin’s ‘up,’ Andy. Just ’cause she raked you over the coals don’t mean nothin’.”
He waved his hand in front of his face. “No, not that. I deserved to get my aft shields blown off for that one. No, I mean the way she called the new guy Powers’s replacement instead of Caitano’s. What do you think that is?”
Vinx shrugged as they appraoched the turbolift that would take them to the mess hall. “I heard tell that she was buds with Caitano’s old man, so maybe that has somethin’ to do with it. I dunno, I ain’t no head-shrinker. ’Sides, the dame’s tired—after Artemis, we all are. I’m lookin’ forward to a nice easy mission on Coroticus, lemme tell you.”
“Yeah.” They entered the turbolift. “Hey, why’s Tev talking about the hololab being an ‘onerous duty’? Thought those engineers loved it in there, playing with their techie toys and stuff.”
Vinx leaned in close. “Well, between you, me, and the lamppost, I heard tell that Gomez got Tev takin’ some kinda sensitivity trainin’.”
Angelopoulos blinked. “You’re kidding.”
“That’s what I heard, anyhow. Hey, if any mook needs it, it’s him.”
“You said it, brother.” Angelopoulos winced. He liked Vinx, he really did, but there were times where his odd way of talking—common to the natives of Sigma Iotia, who had apparently patterned their entire society after a four-hundred-year-old Earth book about contemporary criminals—rubbed off on him. If I find myself calling Corsi “sweetheart,” I swear, I’m gonna kill him.
Chapter
2
U.S.S. da Vinci
in orbit around Avril Station
TWO DAYS AGO
D avid Gold exited the turbolift. He had been on his way to his quarters to reread the letter from his granddaughter Ruth. Little Rinic David was adjusting to having a baby sister, the baby was doing fine, and they had finally decided to name her Kiri, after Ruth’s husband Rinic’s grandmother.
However, before Gold could even make it to his cabin to peruse the letter yet again, he was summoned back to the bridge by a call from the Musashi, which he hoped was bringing his chief medical officer back to him. He wasn’t sure, as the Musashi had to fly through a massive ion storm in order to get here from Station Kel-Artis, where the Bentman Prize had been awarded. Lense had been one of the finalists for the prestigious medical award. So had Dr. Julian Bashir of Deep Space 9, and they had traveled together in one of DS9’s runabouts. The Musashi, however, had a finalist to pick up in their own chief medical officer, and was then going to Cor Coroli IX. Avril Station was on the way between Kel-Artis and Cor Coroli, so it worked out nicely for everyone.
The replacements for Caitano and Deverick—a young man named Tomozuka Kim and an older woman named Lise Irastorza, respectively—had reported aboard, and the upgrades to Avril were proceeding apace, despite occasional shouting matches between Gomez and Tev.
As he entered the bridge, Gold thought again with sadness about the senseless deaths of Caitano and Deverick. He’d been a captain for a lot of years on a lot of ships, the da Vinci for over six of them, and it never stopped hurting when he lost people under his command.
Gamma shift was on duty: Martina Barre at conn, Alexandre Lambdin at ops, and Winn Mara at tactical.