War Stories (Book 1) - Keith R.A. DeCandido [11]
He leaned forward, hitting Bart with what might have been a penetrating glare on a face that wasn’t so—there was no other word for it—chubby. “That’s where you come in, Mr. Faulwell. Now, more than ever, we have to rely on knowing where the Dominion is going to attack. Unfortunately, they’ve upgraded their code, and we can’t figure it out. Your job is to crack it.”
Bart nodded. “Of course, sir.”
“Don’t give me that, ‘of course, sir,’ crapola, mister. Look, I know your type.”
“Type?”
“Yeah, you noncommissioned academic types. I read your file. You enlisted seventeen years ago to go on one of those long-term exploratory missions. Probably figured you’d meet lots of nice little alien life-forms that you could make friends with.”
In fact, the seven-year mission of the U.S.S. Pisces was meant to do exactly that, and they made several first contacts, at least one of which was on its way to Federation membership. Bart had joined Starfleet specifically for that mission, serving as the ship’s linguist, but he found he enjoyed the challenges Starfleet had to offer, and reenlisted when his term was up.
“Well, this is the other side of the coin, Mr. Faulwell. This is the real deal. The Federation’s counting on you to come through, are we clear?”
Unable to resist, Bart said, “So clear I can see right through you, sir.”
“Excellent,” DuVall said with conviction. “That’s what I want to hear. You’ll be heading up a team of crypto specialists. I understand you’ve worked with some of them before. Your liaison to me will be Lt. Commander Anthony Mark. In fact, he should be here.” He stabbed angrily at a control on his desk. “DuVall to Mark.”
“Mark here.”
“Why the hell aren’t you in my office, mister?”
A pause. Then, slowly: “I’ve received no orders to report to your office, sir.”
“Well, you do now. Get your posterior over here, Commander, and I mean now. Our crypto spook is here.”
Spook? Bart thought, but didn’t pursue it. He just hoped Mark arrived soon.
When he did, about a minute later, Bart tried to keep his jaw from falling open.
Since he was a teenager, Bart had always had a physical ideal in his head for the perfect mate. In the forty years since, he had yet to find anyone even close to that ideal—which, he supposed, accounted for his appalling lack of success with any kind of long-term relationship in those years.
The person who walked into Commander DuVall’s office fit most of the criteria of the ideal he had created in his head at the age of fifteen: tall, but not too tall; curly blond hair, but not too curly; hazel eyes; long fingers. The only thing missing was a beard, but looking at Lt. Commander Mark’s face, Bart saw that a beard wouldn’t work right on that face. (As opposed to Bart’s own. He had no appreciable chin, which his slightly scraggly brown beard nicely covered up.)
If he likes swimming and Van Der Weir’s historicals, I’m going to start believing in fate….
“About time,” DuVall said, though Bart couldn’t imagine, on a station this size, that Mark could possibly have arrived any sooner. “This is Faulwell—he’s the new head of the crypto project.”
“So you indicated, sir,” Mark said in a deep voice. “I’ll escort him to his quarters and call a meeting of the staff for 1900 hours.”
“Can’t be at 1900. I have a meeting with Admiral Koike at 1900, and he’ll want a progress report. Make it 1700.”
“Sir, it’s 1705 now.”
DuVall blinked. “It is?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Dammit, where the hell did the day go?”
“And sir,” Mark added, “Novac and Throckmorton won’t be back from Starbase 375 with the updated files until 1830.”
Bart frowned, wondering why files had to be brought by hand. Then he realized that it was probably for security reasons. Subspace communication wasn’t always safe. If it was, Bart mused with a small smile, I’d be out of a job.
He also, as DuVall had indicated, knew at least one of those names, assuming it was Roxana Novac to whom Mark referred. Until the war, she