The Brave and the Bold Book Two - Keith R. A. DeCandido [11]
He snorted in a long-suffering manner. “Doing your usual making friends and influencing people, I see.”
“Was there a point to this call, Aaron, or did you just feel like making up for lost time by cramming twelve years of verbal abuse into five minutes?” She took a sip of her tea. It was too bitter again. She made a mental note to talk to Czierniewski about it.
Cavit looked like he was about to say one thing; then he stopped himself, to Voyskunsky’s annoyance. “I wanted to tell you that Mr. Tuvok is ready to beam over. Have you taken care of everything on your end?”
She’d been hoping to get a proper response out of him, but he was reverting back to professional mode. “I’ve updated all the records—as far as anybody’s concerned, Tuvok’s been serving on the Hood for three months and his family moved to Amniphon three years ago. I even got the authorities on Vulcan to change his wife and kids’ records around so they’re listed as having died on Amniphon last month, though I doubt the Maquis would be able to dig that deep.” She smiled, then decided to take another shot. “I did tell you that I’d take care of it. You doubting my word now?”
“No, I just—” He sighed. “Never mind. What was that crack about in the meeting, anyhow? About my plans ‘tending’to work?”
“They always did in my experience.” She managed to keep her face straight. “When can we expect Tuvok?”
“At 0100 hours. Look, you don’t have to make snide comments in meetings. If you want to—”
Voyskunsky rolled her eyes. This was not what she was hoping for. She wasn’t sure what to expect after twelve years, honestly, but this whining certainly wasn’t it. “Enough of this. Look, Aaron, I wasn’t going to bring a damn thing up. I didn’t say anything in that meeting that was out of line with my duty as first officer of the Hood. Anything you choose to interpret is, frankly, your problem. Now, is there anything else?”
“I—” Cavit sighed. His dark eyes looked almost pleading, but she didn’t want pleading, dammit, she wanted contrition. Or at least an emotional response of some kind that wasn’t snarky. “No, Commander, nothing else. We’ll be getting under way shortly after Mr. Tuvok reports to you.”
“Fine. And good luck.”
“Thank you.” Cavit sounded like he wanted to say something else.
She decided to go for broke. “Look, Aaron, as far as I’m concerned, you’ve got a lot of gall copping an attitude when you were the one who never showed on Pacifica. Now unless there’s anything else, I actually have work to do over here.”
“No, Commander,” he said tightly, “there’s nothing else. Voyager out.”
He cut the connection.
Damn, damn, damn, she thought. Could’ve handled that more smoothly. She started to sip her tea, then thought better of it.
She tapped her combadge as she exited the ready room, leaving the tea behind. “Voyskunsky to engineering. Cut the power transfer to Voyager.” To the young night-shift ensign at conn, she said, “Set course for the Cardassian border. We’ll implement at warp three once Lieutenant Tuvok reports on board.”
“Aye, sir.”
The viewscreen held the image of Voyager, a gray line seeming to connect it to a point just under the screen: the power transfer. Then the line blinked out of existence. All of the Intrepid-class ship’s running lights were going at full bore; the nacelles glowed with their full blue luminescence. From what Honigsberg had said, that was a temporary condition, but at least they should be able to get back to Utopia Planitia and fix whatever was wrong.
“Transporter room to bridge. Lieutenant Tuvok and all his personal effects have arrived safely, Commander.”
Voyskunsky smiled. “Hit it, Ensign.”
The following morning, Captain DeSoto found his first officer in the main shuttlebay along with Lieutenant Tuvok. The former was holding a tricorder, the latter a phaser rifle, and both were standing