Taking Wing - Michael A. Martin [17]
The commander looked at the padd. “I don’t understand. Who is Chief Moreno?”
“One of the engineers aboard the Seyetik. We got to know each other quite well during the voyage from Deep Space 7. Quite an amiable fellow, and if I may say, an absolute fiend for Efrosian levithi nuts. He boasted having four containers in one of the ship’s cargo bays. Since the Seyetik has put in to Utopia for upgrades that should extend well beyond Titan’s departure, I expect Chief Moreno may be amenable to cutting a deal whereby he takes possession of your expected shipment in exchange for a good portion of his present supply.”
Impressed, Ogawa exchanged a look with Troi, who winked at her. Ra-Havreii seemed speechless. “Doctor Ree…I don’t know what to say. Thank you.”
“You’re quite welcome, Commander. Now, off you go.”
Ra-Havreii thanked Ogawa one more time, then left sickbay with Troi to pursue whatever was next on each of their no doubt busy itineraries, leaving the main sickbay area empty except for Ogawa and her newly arrived superior officer.
“Now then, Nurse, do you happen to know whether my medical supplies have been brought aboard?” Ree asked in his raspy, sibilant voice.
Ogawa nodded. “The quartermaster received your materials late yesterday. I’ve already arranged to have most of them transferred to sickbay, and they should be here by day’s end. As you requested, a portion of the arboretum has been set aside for your pharmacological plants, but I strongly recommend you supervise any retrofitting yourself.”
“You anticipate problems?”
Ogawa hesitated. “I took the liberty of reviewing the list of plants and the environmental modifications you specified,” she admitted, “and let’s just say I suspect the complexity of your proposed greenhouse and the precision with which it’ll need to be balanced will present the engineers with a few new and potentially unwelcome challenges.”
Ree’s laugh sounded like an overturned rain stick. “Nurse Ogawa, that has to be the most gently worded critique of my complete unreasonableness that I’ve ever heard. I rather think I’m going to like it here.”
Ogawa beamed. “Please, Doctor, call me Alyssa.”
“Very well, Alyssa,” he said, pronouncing the name with a lengthy hiss. “And you may call me Ree. Now, while I await the arrival of my personal effects, I should like to begin scheduling the crew physicals to ensure that the reports will be complete and filed before we launch. I understand we have eighteen civilians on board, is that correct?”
“Soon to be nineteen,” Ogawa said, thinking of Ensign Bolaji, a shuttle pilot now in the middle of her second trimester of pregnancy. “But yes, that’s correct.”
“Then I would like to begin with the civilians. Get a taste of them, as it were.”
Ogawa laughed aloud at Ree’s joke. She was beginning to find his enthusiasm infectious. Nodding, she said, “I have just the person in mind to be your first patient, Doctor.”
Ogawa walked across the sickbay toward her office. The door slid obediently open, revealing two figures seated behind the desk. Her young son Noah was staring down at a padd, his brow crumpled in concentration. Hunched over it with him, his Trill spots only just visible on his thickly bearded face, was Ranul Keru.
“You can do it, all you have to do is think it through,” Ranul said in an encouraging tone. “Just remember to cancel out the terms on both sides of the equation.”
“But it doesn’t make sense,” Noah complained.
“It only seems that way. Take your time.”
Ogawa paused in the doorway for a moment to watch them work. She felt a surge of gratitude for Ranul’s continued presence in Noah’s life. Like Ranul, Ogawa and her son had suffered a terrible loss while serving aboard the Enterprise; over the past two years, that shared grief had drawn the three of them together, almost as a de facto family. Ranul had lost Sean Hawk to the Borg more than six years ago; two years later, Ogawa had lost Andrew Powell, Noah’s father,