What's Past_ Many Splendors (Book 6) - Keith R.A. DeCandido [33]
The shift went uneventfully—a welcome respite after the tumult of their disastrous mission to the Melona IV colony and subsequent pursuit of the crystalline entity responsible for the planet’s destruction—and Sonya went back to her cabin, asking the computer for messages. She barely registered the usual litany of journals, personal messages from Mami and Papi, and various duty-related queries, but was shocked to hear the computer conclude the list with: “A communiqué from Captain Schönhertz of the U.S.S. Oberth.”
Sonya blinked. I didn’t know the captain got the Oberth. Her old professor had always sworn she’d never take starship duty again, and Sonya wondered what had changed her mind.
“Computer, play comm from Captain Schönhertz.”
The round face and thick, curly blond hair of Katrine Schönhertz appeared on the small comm screen on her desk. “Hello, Sonya. I hope this message finds you well. I’ve been hearing good things about the work you’ve been doing on Enterprise. You’re probably wondering why I’m calling from a ship, since I said I’d never take starship duty again if my life depended on it. Well, my life doesn’t depend on it, but I got an offer I really couldn’t refuse. It’s a one-year project that will be studying some new ways of dealing with antimatter. We’ve got one slot left on the team, and I brought up your name. I’ve appended the missions specs to this message. This position is for a full-grade lieutenant who knows her way around an antimatter injector, so you fit the bill nicely—or, rather, you will shortly.” Schönhertz’s eyes suddenly went wide, and she said, “Okay, I wasn’t supposed to tell you about your impending promotion, but your CO’ll probably be giving you the good news in a day or two.”
She barely listened to the rest of the message. I’m getting promoted! She was thrilled to see that her hard work had paid off and that she’d be advancing—
—to another position on the Enterprise that wasn’t likely to be qualitatively different from the one she had now.
Worse, even the vessel’s missions had become mundane. No, that’s not fair—nothing that happens on this ship can possibly qualify as mundane. But her complaint to Geordi that she wanted to be there when the Enterprise came across what was out there was now three years old, and after two Borg attacks, getting involved in a Klingon civil war, playing host to everyone from primitive colonists to Vulcan diplomats to transcendent aliens to Acamarian thugs to Counselor Troi’s insane mother, encounters with Shelliak, Romulans, Ansata terrorists, Gomtuu, Tallarians, two-dimensional creatures, and more spatial anomalies than she could shake a stick at, not to mention regular visits from Q, Sonya began to grow weary of it. Too many of those missions had body counts attached to them.
Besides, she had her career to think of. Where could she go from here? Geordi wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, and that pretty much cut off her only real avenue of advancement. If she was going to be a chief engineer, which was something she truly wanted, it wasn’t going to happen here unless something happened to Geordi, and that didn’t bear thinking about.
And then there’s Kieran. With a shock she realized that she hadn’t even thought about him until now, which was horribly unfair, as Kieran had become very important to her. Indeed, he was pretty much the only thing tying her to the Enterprise right now.
That’s not enough. It was a thought that left her sad. But she had worked too hard to become the best Starfleet officer she could. For three years, that meant learning the ropes on the flagship. Now, though, the best thing she could do for her career was move on.
Schönhertz had said there was only one position, so Kieran couldn’t come with her. Besides which, Kieran had already made it clear on numerous occasions that he had very little ambition within Starfleet, which