Survivors - Jean Lorrah [18]
Only at her enthusiastic hug did his arms come around her. “I just arrived this morning. When I found out you were in test, I pulled rank to find out how you were doing, and got drafted to participate.” He drew her to her feet, saying, “You’re all grown up! I’m so proud of you, Tasha.”
To have her mentor, the man who had changed her whole life, proud of her warmed Yar’s heart-and yet, “I still couldn’t win against you, even when I was armed and you weren’t.”
“That wasn’t what the test was about, Tasha,” said T’Pelak. “It was programmed into the scenario that the Orion would attack when you were in an indefensible position.”
“You fought splendidly,” said Dare. “But then, you always did. This test, though, was about what you did after you finally won.”
“Won?” Yar asked. “I didn’t win-I escaped by sheer luck. That was a really stupid scenario, come to think of it. One coincidence after another.”
Dr. Forbus laughed. “Cadet Yar, we had to stack everything we could think of against you to strand you in that situation.”
“And then,” said T’Pelak, raising one eyebrow in the closest expression Vulcans had to a wry smile, “my esteemed colleagues found that they had … ‘written themselves into a corner’ is, I believe, the human term. They had made it virtually impossible for you to escape.”
“And when the Counselor pointed that out,” said Dare, “I suggested that a scenario with a few screws loose might be resolved with a … loose screw?”
Yar greeted his grin with the appropriate groan. Oh, it was so wonderful to see him again, this strong, tough man with the outrageous sense of humor. It was as if they had never parted … and yet as if she were seeing him for the first time.
It was seven years since she had last seen Darryl Adin, and over that time she could count the communications she had had from him on the fingers of one hand. But … he had not forgotten her, it seemed.
She could certainly never forget him! After he had rescued her from New Paris-for Yar always thought of him as her rescuer, discounting the rest of the away team-he had taken responsibility for civilizing her on the trip to Earth.
It was her good fortune that the Cochrane had been ready to return from its mission, for that meant she spent nearly two months aboard instead of being dropped off at the nearest starbase. In that time she had learned that Darryl Adin not only had no designs on her body, but was greatly interested in her mind.
At first she had distrusted everything and everyone aboard the starship, but living clean, with a full belly, a soft bed, and a whole crew to encourage her to learn and discover, she had slowly developed chinks in her emotional armor … especially where Darryl Adin was concerned.
From fear and distrust, she shifted to hero-worship. If Dare wanted her to learn to read more than a dozen words, and to write, she determined to do so. If he wanted her to use strange implements to feed herself, she would master them. And if he wanted her to spend many hours telling the story of her life into a tricorder, and then discuss it with the ship’s Counselor, she would do it despite the pain her memories so often invoked.
In return, he took her into every area of the ship that was not restricted, explained its workings, taught her to swim, and, at her insistence, gave her lessons in the hand-to-hand combat he assured her she would not need as a civilized citizen of the Federation.
But the Federation was too big and diverse a concept to mean much to a fifteen-year-old girl with little knowledge of galactic history. Starfleet was what captured Tasha Yar’s imagination-and by the end of their journey to Earth she had found her life’s direction. Never before had she known people to work together without the basic motivation of sheer survival. And never before had she dreamed that loyalty could be built upon something more than mutual need, or greed.
By the time they reached Earth, Yar knew that her future lay in Starfleet-and her dream was one day to be the Chief of Security of a starship … exactly like Darryl Adin.
Dare had listened to