“Hey, Sonya, wait up!”

Sonya paused to let Kieran catch up with her in the deck ten corridor. She was heading to the turbolift, and thence to engineering. Both were on beta shift now—they’d been assigned there for the past few weeks, ever since their encounter with the Shelliak—which started in a few minutes. She’d been grabbing a bite to eat in Ten-Forward and reading a fascinating article in the latest JAWM about soliton waves. “What’s up, Kieran?”

“You’ve been holding out on me, Ensign.”

Frowning, Sonya said, “I don’t know what you mean.” Then she added with a smile, “Lieutenant.”

He grinned back at her. “I mean you never told me Belinda Gomez was your sister.”

“It’s not like it’s a secret or anything.” Sonya tried not to sound defensive. The fact of the matter was, she had kept it a secret. She had enough of dealing with being in the shadow of Her Sister the Soccer Star for most of her teen years, through to her time at the Academy. “You never asked.”

“Oh, okay. I’ll remember that from now on when I meet people. ‘Say, you don’t happen to have any famous siblings or other relatives?’ I mean, c’mon, Sonya, it’s not like most people would keep that a secret. She’s a great player.”

“I know, I just—” She sighed. “I spent a lot of time being in her shadow, that’s all. You know she saved my life when we were kids? I fell into the Gulf of Mexico when we were out on a rowboat, and she dived in and kept me from drowning.” Sonya shook her head. “That was just the start. After that, it was always, ‘why can’t you be like your sister?’”

“You should invite her on the ship, then. You’ll eclipse her in a nanosecond.”

Sonya gave Kieran a dubious look. “C’mon. I’m just an engineer.”

“‘Just’ an engineer? Kiddo, you’ve been Geordi’s golden girl for months. Besides, who else would have the chutzpah to spill hot chocolate on a god?”

At that, Sonya couldn’t help but laugh. Just recently, the natives of Mintaka III had mistaken the captain for a deity. It had taken a certain amount of work—and a near-fatal injury to Picard—to convince the Mintakans that the Enterprise captain was not divine.

“It’s not that big a deal,” she said as they approached the turbolift. “She’s just my sister.”

“Hah. There’s no such thing as ‘just’ a sister. I’ve got one, too, y’know—Amy. Devoted her life to making mine a living hell. Why do you think I signed up for Starfleet? Gets me far away from her and her practical jokes.”

They stood and waited for a turbolift. “Since when do you have a problem with practical jokes?” Sonya in particular was recalling an incident involving Ensigns McKnight and Prixis that required a molecular debonder to be applied in sickbay to their hair. The joke around the ship was that it was that incident in particular that led to Dr. Pulaski transferring off the Enterprise.

“I have no problem with my practical jokes. It’s hers that are the issue. There was this one time—”

The doors opened to reveal La Forge. Right around the time Pulaski left—to be replaced by the woman she replaced, Beverly Crusher, Wesley’s mother—La Forge had been promoted to lieutenant commander. According to what both Kieran and Denny had heard, La Forge had had several of his personnel requests denied because the people he wanted were full lieutenants, and Starfleet wasn’t comfortable with a chief engineer not being the senior-ranked person in the engine room. La Forge expressed his frustration to Riker, Riker expressed it to Picard, and the captain gave La Forge a field promotion to lieutenant commander after only a year as a full lieutenant.

“Duffy, just the man I want to see. You need to come with me to the transporter.”

“What’s happening?” Sonya asked.

“The away team got into a scrape—a bomb went off.”

Sonya’s stomach fell. “Is everyone okay?” She knew that Worf was leading the team, which also included one civilian scientist who was on loan to Starfleet, and two archeaologists, Marla Aster and Leo Antonidas.

La Forge shook his head. “Lieutenant Aster didn’t make it.”

Kieran’s eyes went wide. “Oh my God.”

“Commander Riker wants us to go down there, figure out what happened. Ensign Gomez, report to engineering—you’re in charge till I get back.”

That surprised Sonya. She guessed that all the junior-grade lieutenants on beta shift were going on the team. “Yes, sir.”

“Duffy?” They proceeded to the forward turbolift that would take them to the transporter.

Sonya shivered as she stepped onto the lift. She didn’t really know Marla Aster that well, but she did know that she was a single mother, and had a son on board the ship. What’ll happen to him?

Beta shift had been tense and unpleasant. It was one thing when people died in battle, as they did against the Borg, but stupid accidents like this didn’t sit right with anyone. Sonya found herself reminded of the conversation she’d had with Kieran about Captain Schönhertz and space being mean and/or indifferent.

After the shift ended, she went to Ten-Forward, and found Kieran nursing an ale. She asked Guinan for a tequila, and then went over to Kieran’s table. “That’s not hot chocolate, is it?”

Seemingly despite himself, Kieran laughed. “No, it’s ale.”

“Mind if I join you?”

“Never.” Kieran said the word rather emphatically.

Sonya took a seat. Guinan brought the tequila over. She held it up and gave the toast that they had told her at the Academy was traditional when comrades were lost in battle. “Absent friends.”

“Yeah.”

They both drank.

“You knew her, didn’t you?” Sonya asked.

Kieran nodded. “We met right after she came on board about eighteen months ago. She was having some kind of problem with the replicator in her cabin—wouldn’t give her kid his favorite drink, which was this vile fruit concoction. So I fixed it, and we got to talking—even went on a date or two. Nothing really materialized, though. I don’t think she was entirely over her husband, y’know?”

Sonya nodded, though she, in fact, didn’t know. She’d never lost anyone closer to her than three grandparents she barely knew.

“Still, she was a great lady. And Jeremy’s a really good kid. God, I don’t know what’s gonna happen to him.”

“What was she like?”

Kieran spent the next half hour or so telling Sonya various and sundry facts about Lieutenant Marla Aster, from her proclivity for pink clothing while off duty to her ability to talk for several hours at a time on the subject of the amazing discoveries on Jureosa to her courtship with her husband when they were both studying at Endurance University on Mars.

The recollections were interrupted by La Forge’s voice on the intercom. “Lieutenant Duffy, Ensign Gomez, report to main engineering.”

They exchanged quick glances, gulped down the rest of their drinks, and headed out. “Wonder what’s up,” Kieran said. “And hey, Sonya—thanks.”

As they approached the turbolift, Sonya smiled up at him. “No problem, Kieran. You were there for me when I was moping in Ten-Forward after the Borg. Seemed only fair to return the favor.”

“Yeah.”