What's Past_ Many Splendors (Book 6) - Keith R.A. DeCandido [9]
“Hey, Ess, it’s me. Just wanted to check in with you on your big old starship. I got your last letter, and I’m not sure what scares me more. First you say that your captain was duplicated and that three of your crewmates were trapped in a re-creation of a bad novel. Then you talk about those inspectors from the starbase checking over your work. The part that scares me is that you didn’t think the first part was a big deal, but you wouldn’t stop complaining about the second part. You’re weird, Ess, you know that?
“Anyhow, all’s well on the home front. Looks like we’re going to the Federation Cup again this year. We’ve just got one more game to go, but I’m pretty sure we’ll be able to nail it down. We just have to beat the Stars tomorrow night, but their goalie’s a pushover.
“I had dinner with Mami and Papi last night—they’re doing well. Papi says you don’t write enough, but that just means you only write once a day. Anyhow, I gotta go. Talk to you later, Ess!”
Sonya shook her head. Belinda’s soccer team was going to the Federation Cup. Again. The last time they played the Stars, Belinda scored all three goals in a 3–0 victory.
And she got to see their parents more often, being on Earth.
All thoughts of acceding to Lian’s requests left her mind. She couldn’t afford to take the time for letters to journals or gossiping in Ten-Forward or going on a date—not when she had her sister the famous soccer player to live up to.
When Sonya arrived in engineering for her shift, Clancy was waiting for her. “I’ve got some news, Sonya. When we’re done in Selcundi Drema, there’ll be some changes.”
Sonya didn’t like the sound of that at all.
“Don’t worry,” Clancy said quickly, “they’re good changes. There’ll be some crew rotation, is all. Ensign Gibson’s transferring off, and I’m taking over beta shift at conn.”
Sonya’s eyes widened. “You’re getting bridge duty? Ella, that’s great!”
Clancy smiled. She’d been bucking for bridge duty since before Sonya came on board. “And you’re getting bumped up, too. La Forge wants you on alpha.”
Her stomach dropping, Sonya said, “Alpha shift?”
“It’s a great opportunity,” Clancy said, as if Sonya didn’t know that.
“Oh, definitely. Absolutely. This’ll be great.” Sonya let out a breath as Clancy smiled at her and headed over to another part of engineering.
This is going to be a disaster, Sonya thought, crestfallen. Working right under La Forge’s nose? I’ll never be able to live up to that standard.
“Excuse me, are you Ensign Clancy?”
Sonya looked up from the console to see the wunderkind himself. “No, I’m Ensign Gomez.”
“Oh, sorry—Wesley Crusher.” The young man offered his hand, and Sonya took it. He had a firm grip. “I’m heading up the team looking into the—”
“—geologic instability, I know,” Sonya said with a smile. “What do you guys need this time?”
“An icospectrogram. The problem is, stellar cartography’s using the starboard sensor array for their mapping, and if they stop what they’re doing to give us the sensor nodes we need, they’ll have to start over.”
Sonya chuckled. It sounded like the young man had been rehearsing that speech before coming in here. “Can you use the port array?”
“The problem is I need five—”
“—contiguous arrays to make it work, so I need to reassign nodes four, seven, and eight in order to give you guys enough to work with, right?”
The kid grinned. She couldn’t help but grin back—the kid’s enthusiasm was infectious. “That’s right. Thanks a lot, Ensign, I really appreciate it.”
“It’s not a problem, and call me Sonya.” She felt ridiculous being called “Ensign” by this kid for some reason. “Give me a few minutes to finish up what I’m doing here, and then I’m all yours.”
As Sonya completed the diagnostic she was in the midst of, she couldn’t help but ask, “Why are you running an icogram, anyhow? You think there’s dilithium on these planets?”
“There might be, yeah. Ensign Davies found indications of tracher deposits.”
Sonya nodded. “And where there’s tracher,