Survivors - Jean Lorrah [37]
And she had been as bewildered as he, not least at her incomprehensible sense of rejection.
It was only years later, when they met again as adults, that she understood just how unfounded her accusations had been-and how they had echoed through the years even when they were reunited, preventing him from acknowledging his own feelings until she took the initiative. But then, if there was one quality Tasha Yar had in abundance, it was initiative.
Another was her sense of responsibility. That was why, on that particular evening on the Starbound, although she would have loved to spend the entire ship’s night with Dare, she had left early because tomorrow there was a routine schedule change that placed her on the early watch. As she prepared to leave, she commented, “More inventory tomorrow. Everybody hates inventory, but at least today it was justified.”
“Hmmm?” Dare asked, obviously much more interested in looking at her than in what she was saying.
She told him about the seven defective phasers-and suddenly had his undivided attention. “Seven! Tasha, that’s far too many for coincidence. Somebody’s misusing them.”
“How? Most of them haven’t been used at all.”
“They’re stored wrong, then.”
“No they’re not, Dare. They were stored properly in the charging units.” She blinked. “Could the units be defective? I didn’t think to jump ahead of schedule on the checklist. To be honest, it never occurred to me that there was anything out of line about finding seven defective phasers out of fifty. I mean-finding and repairing them is what the inventory’s for, right?”
“Right-but you could only know from experience that one or two would be unusual enough, only four months out from Earth. That’s why I’m here, Tasha. In two days the inventory report would have been completed and given to me, and I’d have spotted the discrepancy. As it is, I shall check the Weapons Room myself tomorrow.”
The next morning Dare joined Yar and the other two Security trainees taking inventory. By the time they were finished, he was pale and tight-lipped. The barely-suppressed anger turned his face into such a threatening mask that the other two trainees were shaking. But Yar knew his anger was not at them-it was at the as-yet-unknown source of the devastation in the Weapons Room.
Not only were there five more damaged hand phasers, but nearly all of the booster handles they fitted into were completely discharged-useless. Dare ran the diagnostics himself, his voice becoming tighter and more nasal with each new discovery. The baffling thing was, everything operated perfectly now.
“Tasha,” he instructed, “check the duty roster for everyone who has worked in here since the last inventory. Assemble them in the main briefing room at 0900 tomorrow morning. In the meantime, we must recharge as many units as possible. Get Bosinney from Engineering. I want to know what caused these burnouts and power drains! It will do no good to recharge the units if they simply discharge again.”
“Uh, Commander-” Yar said hesitantly.
At her formal use of his title, Dare’s head came up abruptly. “You mean after we report to the Captain?” she asked.
For one moment his anger was turned on her-but Dare had many years of experience at controlling his temper, and almost at once said, “Yes, it could be a breach of Security, Ensign. You take the report to Captain Jarvis. I’ll call Engineering.”
Yar was not surprised that Dare wanted the young trainee, Bosinney, rather than Chief Engineer Nichols; the training voyage assignment was a way of easing a man losing the sharp edge he had once had through the final months he needed to retire on full pension. Bosinney was a mechanical and electronic genius, and no one in Engineering was a part of the command structure, so there was no danger to the ship in this particular Starfleet kindness.
When Yar