What's Past_ Many Splendors (Book 6) - Keith R.A. DeCandido [34]
Of course, that was before we started dating.
Taking the transfer would mean breaking up with Kieran. Or at least separating from him.
No, breaking up. She could barely keep up with duty and a relationship with somebody she served with. Subspace relationships were never, in Sonya’s experience, successful. The only ones she’d seen work were people who were already married or otherwise committed before the separation, and she and Kieran weren’t anywhere near that level yet.
I have to tell him, she thought, and only then realized that she had already mentally packed her bags for the Oberth.
CHAPTER
10
Captain’s log, stardate 45156.1. Our mission to Mudor V has been completed, and since our next assignment will not begin for several days, we’re enjoying a welcome respite from our duties.
You’ve got to tell him.
Sonya had been saying this to herself for days, ever since she and Kieran both got their formal promotions to full-grade lieutenant at the beginning of the Mudor V mission. They were now holding station for a few days, and Geordi had given both his new full lieutenants “a few days off before I drop your new duties on you.” At present they were in civilian clothes, headed for the arboretum. Keiko was nine months pregnant with her and Chief O’Brien’s child, and several officers had volunteered to do some occasional gardening duty to take a load off the botanist.
The vagueness of Geordi’s phrasing regarding new duties had been at Sonya’s request. She wanted to be the one to break the news to Kieran that she was transferring to the Oberth.
“So I’m assuming we’re gonna have to weed the famtils again,” Kieran said cheerfully.
“Probably,” Sonya muttered.
“Sonnie, is something wrong?”
“Hm? Oh, nothing.”
Kieran stood up straight and said in stentorian tones, “The sound you have just heard is a lie.” Back to his normal voice: “C’mon, what’s bothering you?”
Before Sonya could even come up with an evasive answer—all the while admonishing herself for not giving him the straight answer he deserved—the ship started shaking. Lights flickered on and off, and the ship continued to buck and weave. “What the hell—?” Kieran said before he was knocked to the floor. Sonya was gripping the door frame of one of the labs they were passing en route to the arboretum.
Finally, the shaking stopped, though the red alert siren was still blaring, and emergency lights were all that illuminated the corridor.
Kieran looked up at Sonya from his prone position on the deck. “I ask again, what the hell?”
“Dunno,” Sonya said. “We must have hit something very hard.” She tapped her combadge. It was the start of beta shift, and Geordi had left a skeleton crew in engineering, with Lieutenant Aleakala in charge of the five people on shift. “Gomez to engineering. Chao-Anh, what’s—”
“I can’t talk, Sonya. Come on, everyone, get out now!” Behind Chao-Anh, Sonya could hear the four-note chime that meant a bulkhead was dropping. There must have been a core breach or a hull breach.
“All decks, brace for impact!” That was Lieutenant Monroe, who was in charge of the bridge during this light shift.
Kieran had gotten to his feet. “What, another one?”
The words had barely escaped his mouth when the ship rocked again, sending them both to the deck. Sonya’s ears were then assaulted by an explosion, as the door to one of the labs down the hall exploded. She recalled that Lieutenant T’Proll was supervising an experiment with quaratum. Several containers of the stuff were in the cargo bay right now, more than they needed for their current allotment of thrusters, for T’Proll’s project.
Sonya had a bad feeling that it was the quaratum that exploded, and the only way for that to happen was if there were lethal radiation levels in the lab, which, thanks to the blown door, would be in the corridor in a minute.
As one, Sonya and Kieran moved to drop the emergency