Chapter

3

“Y ou understand, Captain, that normally we wouldn’t send in the S.C.E. for this sort of thing, but Starfleet is still stretched a bit thin and you are in the area.”

Captain David Gold kept a pleasant expression plastered to his face as he replied to Admiral Koike. “Of course, Admiral. Besides, we do have a history with Maeglin. And they did ask for us by name.”

“True, true. The Malinche will be there in three days. But, of course, you should go in and do what you can to placate the Maeglin authorities until they arrive.”

“Of course, Admiral.” Gold somehow managed a smile.

“Good. Keep us posted as to your progress, please, Captain. Koike out.”

As soon as Koike’s face disappeared from the screen, the pleasant face and the smile fell, and Gold let out with a curse or six in Yiddish, concluding with, “Damn desk jockeys.”

“Transporter room to bridge,” came the voice of Diego Feliciano over the comm.

“Go ahead, Chief,” Gold said, getting his voice out of what his wife called “grump mode” and back into what he himself thought of as “command mode.”

“Commander Duffy and Mr. Stevens are back on board, sir.”

“Good.” Corsi and her team had beamed up just before Gold’s little chat with the admiral, and Gomez and Blue had already docked the Archimedes. He turned to the ensign at the conn. “Set course for Maeglin, Wong, maximum warp.”

“Yes, sir.”

Turning to the tactical station behind him, Gold said, “Call a meeting in the observation lounge in five minutes, McAllan.”

The lieutenant nodded, and Gold got up to get a quick bowl of soup before the meeting. If they were going back to Maeglin, he needed fortification.

Domenica Corsi was exhausted. She had spent the better part of a day coordinating with the Tellarite police force, which had some unpronounceable name or other, to control the looting that was going on in the capital city, which had an even more unpronounceable name. This was a result of the city’s primary generator going down.

That, in turn, was the result of some kind of gateway opening up on the planet, one of thousands that had opened all over the galaxy, apparently. Corsi didn’t know the details, and didn’t much care. She did her job as da Vinci security chief, and kept the looting to a minimum until Duffy and Fabe fixed the generator.

As she approached the quarters she shared with the ship’s chief medical officer, she cursed at herself. Duffy and Stevens, dammit, not “Fabe.” He’s just another crewmate. Yes, he was nice to me that night when I needed him, and he’s been good enough not to make a fuss about it since, but it’s over now. So stop thinking about him that way.

Cursing Dar for the millionth time, she entered her quarters, and was surprised to see Dr. Elizabeth Lense sitting on her bed reading a padd. “What’re you doing here?” Corsi asked.

Lense smiled a small smile. “I live here.”

“No, I mean Hawkins and Eddy are in sickbay-they got knocked around by some Tellarite kids. Why aren’t you there treating them?”

“I’m letting Emmett handle it,” Lense said, using her preferred nickname for the da Vinci’s Emergency Medical Hologram. “He can use the experience.” Unlike the two previous EMH models, Emmett was on a kind of learning curve (and also was a bit less acerbic), akin to a first-year intern. Starfleet Medical thought this model might be easier to deal with.

Corsi considered arguing the point, then decided she was too tired. She walked over to the replicator. “Computer, double espresso.”

As the drink materialized, Corsi thought back to that wonderful summer on Earth when she was twelve, going to the Café Roma in New York City. That was the first time she’d ever been to Earth-her parents were colonials-and also the first time she’d had espresso. She hadn’t been able to live without the stuff since. The da Vinci replicator had done a particularly good job with it, thanks to some tinkering done by P8 Blue on Corsi’s behalf. Sometimes it’s good to serve on a ship full of tech-heads.

“S.C.E. team, report to the observation lounge.”

Corsi closed her eyes. Damn. Should’ve known there’d be a meeting. We’re being diverted somewhere, that always means a meeting.

Within five minutes, she and Lense had arrived at the observation lounge. Gomez and Duffy were already there, and the others arrived soon enough. Corsi noticed that Duffy and Gomez were staring at each other in a manner that was intended to be subtle, and had the reverse effect of being stunningly obvious to everyone in the room.

Corsi shook her head.

“I take it everything on Tellar went well,” Gold said by way of starting the meeting.

“Yes, sir,” Duffy said. “The Tellarite High Muckitymuck sent his personal thanks to you and the crew for all the work we did repairing the gateway damage.”

Gold frowned. “He’s not actually called that, is he?”

“Uh, no, sir, but I wouldn’t dream of trying to pronounce it.”

Bart Faulwell then let loose with a barrage of syllables. At Duffy’s sharp look, the linguist smiled and said, “What can I say, Commander, we have different dreams.”

Turning to Corsi, Gold said, “We’re not leaving Tellar in the lurch security-wise, are we, Commander?”

“I don’t think so, sir,” Corsi said. “Honestly, the only reason they needed our help was because the generator went down. With that back up, the locals should be able to handle any further problems.”

“Any casualties?” Gold asked Lense.

“Just some bumps and bruises. Emmett’s handling it.”

Gold gave Lense a funny look at that, but said nothing but, “Good. Commander Cho’s people at Starbase 12 found a match for the ship we towed-belongs to a race called the Wadi from the Gamma Quadrant. In fact, they were the first race from Gamma to make contact with Deep Space 9 after the Bajoran wormhole opened.”

“And it fell through a gateway?” Stevens asked.

Gold nodded. “And had the stuffing pounded out of it at some point, by the looks of it.”

Stevens chuckled. “I heard stories about that first contact on DS9. I’m not surprised that they got pounded.” He shook his head. “I wish we’d had a chance to check out the gateways before they went down.”

“I agree,” Blue said, making one of those odd noises she made. “Their power consumption ratios must have been-“

Gold held up a hand, which Corsi was excessively grateful to see. “Speculate on your own time, people. Doping out the gateways is someone else’s problem. Our problem, as usual, is to clean up other people’s messes.”

“The S.C.E., the waste extraction robots of the galaxy,” Duffy said with that idiotic grin of his.

“This particular mess,” Gold continued, “is at a waste extractor we’ve been to before, so to speak. Maeglin.”

Corsi winced. “Not the Androssi again.”

Chuckling, Duffy said, “That’s what Fabe said.”

Corsi winced again.

“We should be so lucky,” Gold said. “No, it’s another gateway problem. Apparenty, a gateway showed up on Maeglin, too-and it had no trouble operating in the duonetic field, either.”

Gomez leaned forward. “Completely unaffected?”

“That’s what they tell us.”

She nodded. “Actually, that fits. The gateways have seemed to have a huge power store on their own. It’s only the ones that got used heavily-like the ones in the Tellarite system-that started draining power from other sources.”

“According to the communiqué from Governor Tak, nobody on Maeglin used the gateway. They couldn’t tell what it was, and they didn’t want to risk it. Besides, the readings they were able to take on the other side were-weird.”

“Weird?” Duffy asked with a smile.

“They’re sending us the telemetry now, but that’s a minor point. After our old pal Nog did that ten-minute shutdown of the gateway-“

Several people gave Duffy amused glances at that. Duffy seemed to slide farther into his seat. Corsi thought he damn well should look abashed-Nog was a good officer, and he deserved better treatment than Duffy gave him back on Empok Nor. Corsi never liked Duffy much, though he comported himself decently enough against the Tholians, but mostly she thought him a sorry excuse for an officer. She expected that kind of behavior from the noncoms, but Duffy was an Academy graduate.

“-suddenly, the gateway was a hotbed of activity. All sorts of things came running out of it.”

“What kinds of things?” Gomez asked.

Gold grinned. “Monsters.”

Corsi pursed her lips. The captain could sometimes be frivolous, though never to a fault, but this was just silly. “Monsters?”

“Well, no, not really, but they sure do fit the profile.” Gold touched a panel on the table in front of him, and an image appeared on the viewscreen. It was a large biped with scaly yellow skin, and a huge tail. That was followed by an image of a flying creature that vaguely resembled an Earth pteranodon, then another image of something that Corsi swore was a dead ringer for a Vulcan sehlat, only-based on the house it was standing next to-about ten times the size.

“My God, they are monsters,” Carol Abramowitz said as the image shifted to a six-legged creature with compound eyes and massive insectoid wings. “Every one of those looks like something out of a childhood nightmare.”

“Speak for yourself,” Blue said haughtily. “All of our childhood nightmares on Nasat involve short, skinny bipeds.”

Gomez turned to Gold. “How many?”

“So far these four are the only ones they have images of, but the reports indicate at least two more roaming around. No sentient fatalities yet, but they have been consuming crops-and animals.”

“That could wreak havoc with the ecosystem,” Lense said. “Introducing a host of new predators into the environment-“

“So we need to, what?” Gomez asked. “Help them round up the creatures?”

“And communicate with them, if possible. It’ll take four hours to get there from here. Gomez, Duffy, Blue, Stevens, I want you to give us ways to get equipment to work as efficiently as possible in that duonetic soup down there. Get Barnak to help out, and anyone else you need. We don’t have much time, and the Maegline have enough problems without half a dozen rabbits stomping through their briar patches. Get to it, people.”

Everyone got up. Most made a beeline for the exits. Corsi finished her espresso and went to the replicator to get another one.

Gold went up to Gomez and Duffy, who were standing extremely close to each other. “I’m guessing you two had a lunch date. Sorry to cut it short.”

“We’ll have other chances,” Gomez said with a smile.

“It’s not that-I just want you to eat more. You need some meat on your bones, Commander. You almost wasted away to nothing on Sarindar.”

Duffy grinned. “I’m trying to fatten her back up, sir.”

Chuckling, Gold said, “Get to work.”

They departed, leaving Gold and Corsi alone in the room.

“All right, Commander, what’s on your mind?”

Corsi blinked. “I’m sorry, sir?”

“You’ve been drilling your baby blues into my head since the meeting started. What’s bugging you?”

Ninety-five percent of the time, Corsi was grateful to have a CO who was perceptive. This particular instant fell into the wrong five percent, however.

To her surprise, words did fall out of her mouth. “I don’t think what those two are doing is appropriate, sir.”

One of Gold’s bushy eyebrows raised. “I beg your pardon?”

“I don’t think it’s appropriate for the two of them to be involved, given their…situation. Regulations-“

“-are sufficiently vague,” Gold interrupted “and generally left to the captain’s discretion.” His voice grew deeper, which Corsi knew was his more serious tone. “This particular captain has no problems with it as long as it doesn’t interfere with the performance of their duty. Both their service record and my observations of them since they’ve been under my command indicate to me that that won’t be an issue. If I’m wrong, I’ll deal with it, but there’s been nothing to suggest it’s an issue yet. Are you questioning my judgment, Commander?”

Corsi knew that there was only one answer to that question. “No, sir. I withdraw the objection, sir.”

“Good.” He broke into a smile. “I do value these little chats, Commander. Anytime you have a grievance, don’t hesitate to bring it to my attention.”

In a much smaller voice, she said, “Yes, sir,” and moved toward the doors.

“Oh, and Commander?”

Corsi stopped, but did not turn around. “Sir?”

“Whenever you’re ready to tell me what’s really bothering you, I’ll be here.”

Definitely the wrong five percent, Corsi thought. “Yes, sir,” she repeated, and left the observation lounge.

Damn you, Dar.