Survivors - Jean Lorrah [34]
But now, in recognition of the human need for family, Starfleet was building new Galaxy class starships, designed for long exploratory voyages upon which whole families would journey together. Darryl Adin and Tasha Yar had put in their application both for permission to marry, and for assignment together to such a ship. Their first request had already been granted: they would be married in the Academy Chapel upon their return to Earth. It was too early for announcements about the second, but Dare had been assured by friends in Starfleet Command that while the competition for other posts was the fiercest they had ever seen, there were few applicants for positions in Security. To people adventurous enough to choose a career in Starfleet Security, a ship safe enough to carry children held little appeal.
So Yar had high hopes that she and Dare would not only be able to serve together, but also raise a family in which their children would have both parents close at hand, all within the extended family of Starfleet … the only true family she had ever known.
As usual on a training voyage, the Starbound was crewed mostly by newly-graduated Starfleet Cadets with just a few seasoned officers to guide them. Their mission was real enough, carrying supplies to a number of planets along the well-traveled star lanes; it was simply neither dangerous nor crucial. They weathered ion storms, learned to keep to a schedule, and visited worlds where conditions were very different from those on the planets where they had grown up. They learned to man their posts, care for their ship, and work together on away teams, all from day-to-day experience. When the training voyage was over, they would go to their first assignments on ships or starbases, qualified to work side by side with seasoned Starfleet personnel.
Dare was one of the experienced officers on the Starbound, acting as Security Chief. Some of Yar’s female friends had warned her that having her fiance as her superior would never work-but better to learn it now than after they were married. When the dire predictions did not come true, she put the comments down to jealousy. Now the six-month voyage was more than half over, they had secretly loaded the dilithium crystals at Starbase 36, and they headed back toward Earth with their precious cargo and heady sense of accomplishment.
One day Yar was on the firing range, trying to equal Dare’s accuracy with a single-shot pistol. A phaser or other continuous-fire weapon was no true test of skill; the user moved it onto target while still firing. Practice only with such weapons led to sloppy shooting and the habit of wasting the weapon’s charge-critical if one could not recharge it.
So Security personnel practiced with guns that shot brief bursts of light, at light-sensitive targets. Yar was the best in her class … but Dare’s accuracy was legendary. He had been Starfleet champion for the past nine years, and no one yet came close to displacing him.
The light gun made a slight zapping sound, and the target beeped various notes, depending on where one hit it. Yar’s shots made a monotonous repeated “boink” as she placed them consistently within the ten-centimeter-diameter center circle at a distance of thirty meters.
At that distance she could not see the target well enough to discern the pattern of white light made by her strikes, except that it seemed a little too large-again. She stepped back and looked up at the monitor over her head. Indeed, her shots were scattered over the center circle. Dare had been known to put fifteen shots dead center, one on top of the other, so that it appeared he had struck only once.
Yar took a deep breath, stretched her fingers, and tried again. Six shots pinged the same note, but the seventh rang a deeper tone. “Damn,” Yar muttered. She was getting worse.
“Tension, love.”
She closed her eyes, clenched her hands and jaw, and through gritted teeth said, “Go away, Dare. You know I hate it when you sneak up on me.”
“Why was I able to?” he countered.
“Because this is not survival practice on the holodeck. This