The Farther Shore - Christie Golden [30]
“I know it’s hard for you to understand,” he continued. “You’re a musician. You’ve got your concert schedule to honor, but you’re the one who makes that [87] schedule. When you’re in Starfleet, you don’t get to make the decisions.”
“I do understand,” she said. He would never know just how much. “It’s all right.” She smiled. “You’ve been too much of a distraction anyway. I need to get a lot of practice in if I’m going to be ready for that Vulcan tour next month.”
Even as she said it, she saw him visibly tense, and she knew why. There was a very real chance there wouldn’t be any more humans on the planet by next month.
The entire population of the Earth could be Borg. Would be Borg, if something weren’t done to stop it. One thing she had said to Harry had been the honest-to-God truth—he was a distraction. She had work to do.
When he kissed her good-bye, he was at once more intense than usual and more distant. She stroked his cheek and looked into his eyes lovingly, trying to convey nothing more than girlish sorrow at parting and hoping to hide her worry. Something big was definitely going down, and she wished she knew what it was.
When she materialized in her cabin, she saw a blinking red light. Adrenaline flooded her. She desperately hoped the message was from Fletcher, not Covington.
Instead, the face that appeared on the screen was Harry’s. His brown eyes were large and his handsome face somber.
“Libby, once before I left on a mission on Voyager. I was gone for seven years. I don’t know what’s going to happen, so I—hell, I’m breaking every rule in the book by talking to you, but I just couldn’t walk off and leave [88] you, knowing I might not come back. I wanted to say a proper good-bye, in case ... in case things didn’t work out. I love you, Libby. And when I get back,” he paused and smiled, “you and I are going to have a nice long talk about a few things.”
His image disappeared. Libby blinked back tears. “I love you, too, Harry,” she said into the silence.
Covington went through her day as usual, showing up at her office and conducting the day-to-day business of Covert Ops as if it actually still mattered. And as usual, she stayed late, saying a cheerful goodnight to her staff as they went home. They thought her a hard worker. They thought her pathetic and lonely and married to her job.
She was content to let them think that. She knew why she was staying late.
Around two A.M., after taking a last scan of the entire building to make sure she was alone, Covington took a deep breath. Excitement and anticipation shivered through her. What she was about to do aroused and excited her more than any clumsy male touch.
Here was intimacy. Here was connection and power and fulfillment and passion.
Here was love.
It was late when Libby finally heard from Fletcher. His face was unreadable and his manner uncharacteristically brusque.
“I did as you asked, Libby. The decrypted file is now in your computer. Contact me once you’ve read it.” And without another word, his image disappeared.
[89] Her initial surprise at his rudeness gave way to apprehension. Suddenly Libby didn’t want to read the document she’d breached all kinds of protocol to read. Suddenly she wanted nothing to do with this whole spy business. She wanted to just be what the world thought she was, a concert performer, utterly ignorant of espionage and lies and Borg threats like the rest of the world.
But she was who she was, and knew what she knew, and it was with trembling hands that she pressed the key and the file sprang to her screen.
There was a lot of technical jargon that she vaguely grasped. She could reread all that later, after she’d gotten the gist of the file. As her eyes flickered over the words, her breathing became shallower.
This was horrible. This was beyond imagining.
The question as to why the Borg virus had remained dormant for so long was an easily answerable one, and she wondered why neither she nor Fletcher had figured it out before now. Or maybe it wasn’t that great