Breakdowns

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  Benjamin Kogleman, the son of Security Guard Claire Eddy, seemed genuinely confused by Gold’s words. He was fidgeting with a padd, constantly looking down at its display between sentences. “Well, thank you—I guess. I mean—well, if you don’t mind my saying so, sir, why did you come all the way out here?” Kogleman lived in a small tent in the midst of the Gobi Desert, where he worked as an archaeologist.

  Gold smiled. “It wasn’t that hard, Mr. Kogleman. I have access to a transporter.” In fact, it had taken a certain amount of doing—mostly lobbying by Scotty—to give Gold unlimited transporter access during this period for him to visit the Earth-based families of his deceased crew. The initial response was confusion on the part of Starfleet’s bureaucracy, which didn’t see the need for personal visits. As if “need” has anything to do with what’s right.“And I wanted to extend my personal sympathies on the death of your mother.”

  “Again, thanks, but it really wasn’t necessary. Starfleet informed me of Claire’s death. Honestly, we were never all that close. I mean, I’m sorry she’s dead, but—it really wasn’t necessary for you to come all this way. I mean, you’re a Starfleet captain.” He laughed a rather fake-sounding laugh. “You must have better things to do with your time than to schlep out here to the middle of nowhere.”

  “Not when it comes to something like this.” Gold hesitated, no longer sure that he wanted to perform this duty. He still had the option of leaving and letting Starfleet simply courier the damn thing, especially given this indifferent reception.

  Hell, I’ve come this far. Besides, I give in now, those damn bureaucrats win. Holding out a small box, he said, “Your mother was honored with a Starfleet Citation for Conspicuous Gallantry.” He opened the box to reveal a gold pin and purple ribbon. “You’re listed as her next of kin, so you’re the one who gets it.”

  Kogleman blinked. “I am? I mean, she listed me? That’s—odd. I didn’t think—uh, thank you, of course, Captain,” he said quickly, taking the box and closing it. “That’s very considerate of Starfleet. Believe me, I’ll treasure this—uh, this honor. Look, I have to get back to work, unless there’s anything else, some kind of ceremony or something?”

  Gold shook his head. “No, Mr. Kogleman, that’s all. Thank you for your time.”

  “Right, of course. Thank you, Captain.”

  * * *

  The second-to-the-last trip of the dozen or so that Gold had to take on Earth was to Dublin, Ireland, where Susan and Edward Drew currently lived. They had raised their grandson Stephen Drew, one of the best security guards on the ship, since his parents died when he was a boy.

  Their house was located in the midst of a series of paved walkways, with a lovely stained-glass window taking up much of the upper portion of the front door. Gold rang the bell, and was greeted by a woman of medium height and wide build, paper-white hair framing a round, friendly face. This had to be Susan.

  “I’m Captain David Gold,” he said.

  “Of course you are. Please come in, Captain,” Susan said in a musical voice with an accent Gold couldn’t place. He knew that Drew’s family had lived all over Earth—Susan’s work as an engineer took her all over the planet—until they retired to Dublin after Drew joined Starfleet. Gold remembered Drew saying once that his grandparents had always thought it ironic that he was assigned to an S.C.E. ship, given his grandmother’s occupation.

  She led him into a small kitchen that, surprisingly, had an old-fashioned stove next to the replicator (Rachel, of course, had one just like it, but she was a special case) and a lovely wooden table, in the center of which was a tea set.

  At that table sat two men, one quite familiar: Vance Hawkins, one of the few surviving security guards from the da Vinci and, Gold knew, Stephen Drew’s best friend. The tall, dark-skinned man was wearing civilian clothes, and immediately stood up at Gold and Susan’s entrance.

  “Sir!”

  Gold waved his arm. “At ease, Hawkins.”

  A short, skinny man also rose, offering his hand. Like Hawkins, he was bald, though Gold assumed that it was a more natural condition than the fashion choice of the security guard. “Young Vance here was payin’ his respects, Captain. I’m Edward Drew.”

  Returning the handshake, Gold noted that Edward retained an Irish accent. “A pleasure, sir. I’m only sorry I couldn’t meet you both under better circumstances.”

  They all sat down, except for Edward, who asked, “Would you like some tea, Captain?”

  Not normally a tea drinker, Gold nonetheless accepted the offer. Edward retrieved a mug from the cupboard, then sat and poured tea for them both.

  “It’s good of you to come, Captain,” Susan said. “Such a terrible, terrible thing. Vance was telling us what happened.”

  “It must be even worse for you,” Edward added. “To lose so many. You have our sympathies, Captain.”

  “Thank you,” Gold said, surprised.

  “Stevie spoke well of you—of all the people he served with.” Susan smiled. “His letters were full of stories about your adventures.”

  Edward chuckled. “Of course, he had a few choice words for that Commander Corsi of yours.”

  “But he respected her. And you, Captain,” Susan added quickly. “And all the people he worked with. He said it was much better than the usual Starfleet ship because—how did he put it? ‘The officers don’t have poles up their asses.’”

  Gold somehow managed not to sputter his tea.

  “He was even sweet on one of them—one of the engineers, a woman named Norma. He said on any other ship, he wouldn’t have even thought of asking out an officer, but that you, Captain, fostered such a pleasant atmosphere that it seemed perfectly natural.”

  Drew was interested in Weiland? Gold shook his head. Too often the captain was out of the gossip loop.

  Hawkins said, “Yeah, he was finally ready to work up the courage to ask her for a date when we were putting Whiteflower together—then the crisis hit, and he backed off. He figured there’d be time afterward. It’s not like he was in any—” He hesitated. “Excuse me.”

  With that, Hawkins suddenly got up and left the kitchen.

  Also excusing himself, Gold went after him. He found the large security guard standing in the middle of the living room, surrounded by some rather tacky-looking furniture, even tackier-looking statuary and other tchotchkes, and a rather nice painting of a much younger Susan and Edward in a suit and wedding dress.

  “You all right, Hawkins?”

  “I’m fine, sir, it’s just—” Hawkins took a deep breath. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “It never does, son.”

  Hawkins shook his head. “No, not just death—I’m used to seeing people die. Comes with the territory, especially in Starfleet security. No, what I mean is that Drew didn’t make it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Sir, I don’t know if you noticed, but Steve never got hurt. Since we signed on to the da Vinci together back during the war, I’ve been thrown into bulkheads, shot, stabbed, beaten up, cut, got turned into a lunatic by a thousand-year-old computer, and hit repeatedly on the head. It became a running joke, to be honest—I was spending more time in sickbay than Dr. Lense. But Steve, no matter what, came out fine. Never got hurt, not even a scratch. But this time—this time, I come out okay and he dies.” He shook his head again. “It’s just wrong, sir.”

  Putting a hand on Hawkins’s shoulder, Gold said, “You won’t get any argument from me, son.”

  Susan’s voice came from behind them. “Is everything all right?”

  Gold turned to see Susan and Edward standing in the doorway.

  “I’m fine, ma’am,” Hawkins said. “I just needed to—it isn’t—”

  Susan walked over and embraced the—much larger—Hawkins. “It’s all right, Vance. I know how close you two were. I know how much you miss him. We all do.” She broke the embrace. “Now come back into the kitchen before your tea gets cold, and you can tell us some more embarrass
ing stories about Stevie.”

  Hawkins smiled. “I don’t think I’ve got any left—at least, not any that I could tell you.”

  Edward chuckled. “D’you think it’s anythin’ we haven’t heard before?”

  “No, just that Steve made me promise never to share the stories with anyone—least of all the three of you.”

  “If it’s about that practical joke you played on Stevens and Faulwell while we were at Whiteflower, I wouldn’t worry about it.” Gold spoke lightly, though Hawkins’s dark face suddenly went gray.

  “You knew about that?”

  “It’s a small ship, Hawkins.” He grinned. “And the old man wasn’t born yesterday.”

  Susan led them back into the kitchen. “Now this we have to hear.”

  For most of the rest of the afternoon, the four of them sat in the kitchen, drinking tea, and sharing stories.

  * * *

  “You ever plan on coming to bed?”

  Gold looked up from the workstation in the study to see Rachel standing in the doorway. It took him a second to focus on her—he’d been staring at the screen for quite some time, and his eyes weren’t as young as they used to be—and even when they did, Rachel still looked a bit foggy.

  “What time is it?” he asked.

  “Two hours after you said you’d be in bed within half an hour.”

  Gold shook his head. “Sorry. I forgot about the time differential on Betazed, so I’m waiting for it to be a reasonable hour on the part of the planet Deo’s family’s in.”

  “And it can’t wait until tomorrow?”

  Having visited all but one of the families of his Earth-based crew, Gold had spent an entire day contacting those off-world. He’d already spoken to Security Guard Frnats’s cohusbands on Bolarus, Engineer Orthak’s egg-mates on Wadgira, Security Guard Loten Yovre’s brothers and sister on Bajor, Engineer Alex Chhung’s partner and adopted son on Canopus, Security Guard Andrea Lipinski’s parents on Berengaria VII, and Chief Engineer Jil Barnak’s sister on Atrea. Now he was waiting for the right time to contact Lieutenant Elleth Deo’s parents on Betazed.

  “I’m sorry, love, I was just thinking about Nate and Elaine.”

  Rachel came the rest of the way down the stairs. “That’s all you’ve been doing—thinking. I thought the whole point of this time off was to not think for a while.”

  He chuckled bitterly. “That’s like telling someone not to think about a pink elephant. The minute you’re told that, you can’t get pink elephants out of your head.”

  “I’d rather you were thinking about pink elephants. Maybe you could count them to help you sleep. In bed.”

  That’s my wife, he thought, subtle as a sledgehammer when she wants to be.“I know,” he said. She stood behind him and put a hand on his shoulder. He put his hand over it—it was warm and comforting. “But I owe it to them—to all of them—to be there. I think it helped them. For some of them, it helped me, too, to be honest. You’d like the Drews—they have an old stove and make a damn fine cup of tea. Hawkins was there, too, and—”

  “David?”

  “Yes?”

  “Tell me in bed. You’re pushing too hard. Take a rest. You’re no good to anyone if you exhaust yourself in an attempt to be the über-captain.”

  He looked up at those beautiful brown eyes. Over fifty years ago, he learned the hard way never to argue with this woman. Besides, she was right. How often did he come home? How often was he actually around to share his bed with her? I’m so busy trying to do right by my crew I’m forgetting to do the same for the woman I love.

  Gold shut down the workstation and followed his wife to the bedroom.

  Just one more trip to take tomorrow….

  Chapter

  4

  “I need to get out of here.”

  Sonya declared this to her parents and Belinda over breakfast one morning—the first meal she had eaten with them since her arrival.

  “Is the food that bad?” her father asked with a wry smile.

  “No, of course not, but—”

  Her mother, wrinkles softening the same sharp cheekbones she had passed on to her daughters, gazed at her daughter with the family’s hazel eyes. “What is it, mija?”

  “I need to go to Portland. To see Kieran’s mother—and his grave. I know he wanted to be buried next to his father, and—” She hesitated. “I don’t know why, I just need to go.”

  José Esteban put a large hand over his daughter’s small one. His hair, as jet-black as it was when he was a boy, a fact of which he was inordinately proud, fell down over his eyes, which Sonya had always thought made him look like a very dark sheepdog. “Then you need to go.”

  Her mother asked, “You want us to come with you?”

  Sonya started to say no, then thought about it. “Let me ask Ms. Duffy tomorrow when I contact her. I don’t want to drop in unannounced.”

  “Good thing,” her mother said. “I raised you better than that.”

  Belinda smiled. “You did? I must’ve missed that part.”

  “Mostly, yes.” Lupe Gomez fixed her daughter with a look.

  Sonya wondered if she were missing something here. “Is everything okay?”

  “Nothing you need to worry about, mija,” Belinda said with a glower at their mother.

  “Okay.” Sonya looked at her father, who had brushed the hair away from his eyes, so there was no mistaking what the message was behind the look he gave her: Stay out of it. The relationship between Lupe and Belinda was akin to an old roller coaster, and it looked like it was about to hit one of its downward cycles after years of steady upward climbing.

  “It’s not like there aren’t other openings for soccer coaches,” Belinda added, thus providing the reason for the latest difficulty. Bee’s gone and screwed up another career.

  Her mother raised an eyebrow in an almost Vulcanlike manner. “Really? Even ones who’ve been fired three times for violating school policy?”

  “It’s a dumb policy.”

  Lupe stood up. “Just once, would it be too much to ask, just once, for you to stick to something? To make a decision and actually abide by it for more than five minutes, like your sister?”

  Sonya flinched.

  “Lupe, please,” her father said in the long-suffering tone that Sonya recognized from previous Belinda-mami fights, “don’t drag Sonya into this.”

  “Why not, it’s her favorite trump card to play,” Belinda said, also standing up. “Sonya’s the perfect daughter who does everything right. Except she doesn’t always.”

  Shooting a look at Belinda, Sonya said, “Bee, what’re you—?”

  “Maybe if she’d actually told that guy yes when he proposed, he wouldn’t have accepted a suicide mission.”

  Her voice barely a whisper, Sonya said, “That’s not how it happened.”

  “That’s how it looks to me, Ess. You didn’t say yes, so he didn’t have anything to live for. How’s that for little Commander Perfect, huh? So don’t go telling me that I’m the failure in this house.”

  With that, Belinda stormed out of the kitchen.

  Sonya felt like she had been punched in the stomach. My God, it is my fault.

  “I’m sorry, mija,” Lupe said. “You shouldn’t have had to listen to that garbage.”

  Garbage, right. Then she thought for a moment. Of course it’s garbage. Kieran was crazy sometimes, but he wasn’t stupid. He only went because Gold ordered him.

  “It’s okay, mami. But—I think maybe I should go to Portland alone.”

  Her mother sat back down. “Don’t let your sister—”

  “It has nothing to do with her,” Sonya lied. In fact, the knowledge that her mother had used Sonya’s success as a weapon in her on-again, off-again war with Belinda was a major influence in her new-found desire to go alone. “I just need to do this myself.”

  José gave her a look, his hair once again falling in front of his eyes. Kieran’s hair used to do that all the time, too, she thought sadly. �
��You’re sure?” he asked.

  She nodded. “I’m sure.”

  * * *

  Gomez supposed she could have requisitioned a transporter to get her from Vieques to Portland, but she found that she preferred taking a shuttle service. Flying over the North American continent gave her a little bit of time alone to think.

  What am I going to do now?

  She couldn’t go back to the da Vinci. Leaving aside the bad memories, there was simply no way she could serve under David Gold again. Being on the same ship with him would just be a constant reminder of Kieran’s death. She knew that Starfleet had cleared him of any wrongdoing, and for the other twenty-two of her crewmates, she agreed with the tribunal’s decision. Gold didn’t do a thing wrong—

  —until the very end when he condemned the man she loved to die, knowing full well what that would mean, and concealing the information from her. That was something she simply could not forgive, even if Starfleet found they could.

  At present, the other three Saber-class ships assigned to the S.C.E. had first officers/S.C.E. commanders, so a lateral move was out of the question. But there were plenty of ships out there, and one of them, she knew, had to have need of a chief engineer. She would miss the challenges of the S.C.E., not to mention the remaining da Vinci crew, but there was certainly a part of her that missed the thrill of running an engine room. It might be nice to get back to that. She made a mental note to compose a transfer request when she got back home.

  The shuttle flew over the Rocky Mountains. For some reason, she was suddenly reminded of Kieran’s love for flying around in gravity boots—a predilection that had been put to good use on Maeglin only a few months ago when they were trying to round up some strange creatures that had come to the planet through an interdimensional gateway. I remember thinking I was going to kill him for being so reckless. Funny, how silly turns of phrase like that sound when the person actually dies.

  It wasn’t long before the shuttle arrived in Portland. Gomez went the rest of the way on foot.

  She had expected the house to be bigger, for some reason. Kieran was always describing it as this huge place. Probably remembering it from a kid’s-eye perspective, she thought.