What's Past_ The Future Begins (Book 2) - Michael Schuster [13]
He reached up to his chest, removed his communicator badge, and put it on the transporter console with a thump.
“Where to, sir?”
“Laddie, don’t call me ‘sir’ anymore. I resigned.”
Ensign Dramar nodded absently as he ran through the shuttlecraft Irenic’s preflight checklist. “Sorry. But where do you want me to take you?”
Scotty shrugged. “Earth, I suppose.” At the very least he would now need to clear his belongings out of his Starfleet-issued apartment in San Francisco.
The ensign nodded and as he continued doing the checklist with one hand, began plotting the course with the other. “What are you going to do now that you’re retired?”
“I don’t know, lad. This’ll be my second time, but I didn’t really know then, either.” The retirement colony on Norpin V was definitely out. The last thing he needed was to be with a bunch of old-timers all reminiscing over bygone days. He had enough history of his own to wallow in. “I’d return to wanderin’, if I could.”
Unfortunately, when he had reenlisted with Starfleet, Scotty had donated his old shuttlecraft, the Romaine, to the Starfleet Museum as a form of recompense for stealing a starship from them. Brennad Odymo, the museum head, would surely never part with it now, since the former shuttlecraft Goddard was the only sizable intact remain of the wrecked Enterprise-D.
“I didn’t particularly like wandering much, really.” Though there had been some interesting encounters on the way—renewing his friendship with Morgan, rescuing the Narisian refugees, tangling with Koloth one last time, rescuing Spock from Romulan captivity—most of the time he had just felt aimless. Much like he did now, much like he had since transferring to the Sovereign.
But the engine room was no longer a home to him. Starfleet was no longer a home for him.
Right now, aimless wandering is all I have.
Interlude
Stardate 53509.5
May 2376, Old Earth Time
Geordi La Forge set down his glass, his first drink still unfinished. “Well, that’s Nechayev for you,” he said. “The things I’ve heard about her, from the captain and elsewhere…”
“Oh, I know that now, laddie,” said Scotty. He reached for his bottle, but evidently reconsidered yet another glass of Scotch, as he withdrew his hand only partway there. “If only I’d known earlier.”
“So you resigned?” La Forge asked. “I thought I’d heard you went on inactive duty.”
“I wanted to resign,” Scotty said, “and I certainly filed my resignation. But Command—specifically Admiral Ross—wouldn’t take it, and he managed to talk me into goin’ on ‘inactive duty.’ I was maintained in an ‘advisory capacity’ to the S.C.E. or some similar nonsense, and Commander Leland T. Lynch took over as temporary head until a suitable replacement could be found.”
La Forge nodded. He knew Lynch, and had never been impressed by the man’s engineering prowess, but from what he heard, he made a capable administrator.
Scotty stood up. “I don’t know about you, lad, but I fancy goin’ somewhere else than this office, as nice as it is.” He nodded at La Forge’s glass. “I suspect you would like to do the same, so you can have a drink more to your taste.”
Geordi smiled. “That would be nice. I haven’t been to Worlds in a while.”
“Laddie, I don’t think I’ve been there since I retired the first time, and I’d certainly like to see how the place has been doing in the past eighty-odd years.” La Forge stood and followed Scotty out of his office, back into Deg’s.
“I’m goin’ to be takin’ the afternoon off, Deg lad,” said Scotty. “Anythin’ I need to hear before I leave?”
“Admiral Koike would like to send the da Vinci to Maeglin to deal with a situation there once they’ve completed their mission to Tellar Prime,” replied the Blood.
“Gateways related?” asked Geordi.
Deg nodded. “There are few other types of crises these past few days.”
“Those Petraw fearties are about to give me an ever-lastin’ headache, I’m tellin’ you! Thank goodness for your Captain Picard,” said Scotty. “Otherwise we would be facing even worse. Tell Koike he’s free to send the da Vinci wherever he wishes,” he said to Deg.