by Ilsa J. Bick
“Accidents,” said Chen-Mai. He smiled hugely, his tongue working between his teeth. “Accidents happen—all the time.”
Chapter 25
The Draavids, twice as large as the Orion Nebula, were supposed to be beautiful: a maelstrom of photo-ionized gases that painted the blackness of space with brilliant violets, hot pinks, peacock greens, parrot yellows, and indigo blues. But their beauty was lost on Garrett. When they’d arrived at the Draavids two days ago, she’d spared the swirling gases and shimmering white globules that were the cluster’s protostars only a cursory glance. She set to putting her crew through their paces, hoping that work would put things right with her ship. But work hadn’t done squat for Garrett, because, damn it, she couldn’t stop thinking about Nigel Holmes.
She couldn’t sleep either, hadn’t seen the inside of her eyelids for any appreciable length of time since Halak had left three days ago. She toyed with the idea of asking Stern for a sleeper but didn’t because Stern would fuss. Garrett’s mother was a physician, so she knew doctors could be over-protective as hell.
Garrett thought about a good stiff shot of bourbon, too. Bourbon didn’t fuss and didn’t talk back unless she drank too much, and it tasted pretty good. But, in the end, she decided on coffee. (Stern would’ve said something about that being self-defeating, but Garrett hadn’t asked.)
Garrett stepped onto the bridge. The crew was an hour into gamma shift, and Glemoor was OOD, not a surprise since Naxerans didn’t need sleep.
“Anything, Mr. Glemoor?”
“Not unless you’re a stellar physicist, Captain. They’re happy as that Earth mollusk, give me a moment ... yes, happy as clams, especially after I shunted power from the mess and laundry to accommodate them.”
“So long as the mess chief has power for breakfast. And I want clean socks. How are our communications?”
Glemoor screwed up his face. “Hash. We can’t even ping the nearest Starfleet subspace beacon. If we had to, we might be able to pierce the interference locally.”
“Not unless someone’s planning on running out with a shuttle.”
“Well, astrocartography might. Personally, I wouldn’t want to be caught out in there. Those jets of ionized molecular gas generated by the protostars, those Herbig-Haro formations? Take you for quite a ride, not to mention radiation, magnetic fields. But we have found a little something.”
“Yes?”
Glemoor moved to the science station. “If you’ll excuse me, Ensign,” said Glemoor to the young man staffing the station who vacated his seat and stood to one side. “We’ve been collating data on infrared and radio emissions.”
Glemoor called up a red-grid schematic of the nebulae cluster on the science station’s viewscreen. “I won’t recapitulate the obvious. As you know, we’re measuring the rate of star formation by studying the conformation of those Herbig-Haros, the lobes of high-velocity, high-energy molecular gas spewed along the axis of a central, accreting disk of the protostar. And we’ve found some unusual bursts of gamma radiation.”
Garrett’s lips turned in an inverted smile. “That’s a problem?”
Glemoor’s frills vibrated. “No, just unusual. Gamma bursts are usually associated with neutron stars, because of the collision of gaseous particles accelerated by the neutron star’s accreting matter. But particles don’t collide in a Herbig-Haro. The gas particles shoot out in narrow jets along the axis of rotation, like strings attached to both the tip and the handle of a ... that child’s toy.”
“Top.”
“Exactly, a top, because a right angle is the path of least resistance against the protostar’s gravitational pull.”
“So, if there are gamma rays, are you saying you’ve found a neutron star that’s a gamma ray emitter?” (Garrett didn’t find this very exciting, or unusual. Gamma-emitter neutron stars weren’t exactly unknown.)
“No, I don’t believe so.”
“Why not?”
“Because some of those protostars are moving very fast. As you can see,” Glemoor used the tip of his right index finger, “we’re holding position on the periphery and these protostars out by us, here and here, they aren’t moving that quickly, just a hundred kilometers a second, or so. But deeper into the nebulae, the protostars begin to speed up, about 700 kilometers a second. By stellar standards, that’s very fast.”
“Would a neutron star cause the protostars to speed up?”
Glemoor looked dubious. “It would have to be very large, Captain, and that’s not possible because, beyond a certain mass, a neutron star can’t hold up under its own weight. It collapses. For something to exert that much gravitational deformation of time-space and be a neutron star, well ... it would have to be pretty strange.”
“What do you want to do?” (Garrett knew what was required but wanted to give Glemoor the choice. Hadn’t her little voice chided her for not loosening up on the reins?)
“Well, one step by one step, Captain. I would like to launch a probe.”
Garrett thought Glemoor meant first of all, and not one step at a time, but she didn’t call the slip to his attention. “Do it. Let’s see what you come up with. Nice work.”
Glemoor inclined his head at the compliment and preened his frills. After a brief tour of the rest of the bridge stations—all quiet on the Western Front there—Garrett ducked into her ready room for that cup of coffee.
After the familiar blips and sounds of the bridge, the place was quiet as a tomb. She saw a good three inches of coffee still left in her pot from that morning and, after a second’s hesitation, she poured a mug; added cream and two sugars; ordered her replicator to heat only, thanks; and brooded over the machine as it complied (wondering why she was being so polite to a damn machine). Then she slid into the seat behind her desk, called up reports she didn’t feel like reading, and, in two seconds flat, was thinking about the very man she was trying very hard to forget: Nigel Holmes.
Garrett sipped her coffee and made a face. Despite the white and sweetener, her coffee tasted sour and burned. Old. Sighing, Garrett worried a stray bit of coffee grounds between her teeth. She felt old. Weighed down. She knew why. She’d been blindsided. Again.
First Nigel. Garrett picked the ground off her tongue and flicked it from her fingers. And now Halak. Garrett stared into her mug as if divining tea leaves. No answers there, not about Halak, or Nigel. She ran her thumb over the surface of her mug. The mug was black ceramic with tiny yellow and white stars: a gift from Jase for her birthday three years ago. She felt the narrow ridges of raised glaze etched around each star. She liked to hold the mug, cupping it in both hands, the way she used to cup Jase’s tiny face when he’d been a baby.
Hard to hang on to the people you care about. Like hanging onto dreams when you first wake up. The dreams are so vivid you think you can’t possibly forget. But you open your eyes and they evaporate, like mist from a pond under a hot sun, and the people you love are just gone.
Nigel. Those damn smugglers. Klingons, to boot. Garrett hadn’t even known there were Klingon smugglers; she would’ve thought smuggling a dishonorable profession, but there were, apparently, just as many bad apples amongst Klingons as there were among humans. Her only solace was the knowledge that the Klingon High Council dealt with their own as harshly as they did outsiders. No exile to Rura Penthe for the smugglers. They’d drawn death instead, and Garrett hoped their executions had been very painful and very bloody, for a very long time.
Good old-fashioned revenge. Garrett swirled her coffee. Not an emotion fit for a starship captain, but she didn’t care. Twice in her life now, she’d wanted revenge and gotten it. Nigel’s death was one of those times. (The other had happened a long time ago, on Earth, when she was eighteen and her sister Sarah was nine, but she didn’t like to think about it.)
Stern told her to give it up, this guilt she had about Nigel. The problem was no matter how many times she went over the scenario, she came to the same conclusion: Nigel should be alive. He wasn’t, and that was
because she hadn’t trusted her own instincts. No, that wasn’t right. Garrett’s eyebrows met in a V. She’d gone by the damn book. If she hadn’t, Nigel would be alive.
First rule: A ship in distress took priority over all other considerations. Everything else came second. Hell, everything else was third.
Reminding herself that Nigel had volunteered didn’t ease the pain. So when the Klingons opened fire on the very transport ship they’d been trying to pirate, she had a choice. Rescue the transport crew, or rescue Nigel.
First rule. First duty: A ship in distress had priority. So the transport crew was alive because Garrett had gone by the book, and Nigel wasn’t—for the same reason.
The atonal buzz at her door made her jump. Garrett checked the time: 0315. Who ... ? “Come.”
The door shushed, and Tyvan stepped through. Garrett’s surprise swiftly gave way to concern. She and the psychiatrist hadn’t spoken since Halak’s inquiry, though Stern said she’d given her colleague a tongue-lashing: “He didn’t know anything about my autopsy findings, and you shook him up pretty good, and I said buster, you want to be in the loop, come to staff meetings and stop acting like you’re on one side of a portal and we’re on another, and when the captain says jump, you say how high, ma’am, that’s what I said.”
“Doctor? Is there something wrong?”
Tyvan crossed to stand before her desk. He carried a padd. “No, Captain. I just thought you might want my fitness report on Bat-Levi.”
“Fitness report? On Bat-Levi? At this hour?”
“Well, you’re up, I’m up,” Tyvan said, proffering the padd. “Actually, I think you’ll find that her performance has been exemplary, even with all the stress.”
Replacing her mug on her desk, Garrett took the padd and quickly thumbed opened Tyvan’s report. “I’ve had no complaints.”
“You took a risk, asking for her.”
“Before her accident, her record was good. She had a career in front of her. Very bright woman. I wanted to give her an opportunity. As for her physical limitations, well ...” Garrett shrugged. “People make interesting choices.”
“Yes, they do. All the time.”
“But.” Garrett tossed the padd onto her desk. The padd clattered and ticked against glass. She gathered up her mug, sipped bad coffee, swallowed. “You didn’t come to discuss the obvious, though between you and me, I wish she’d get those servos fixed.”
“Have you told her?”
“I hinted.”
“Maybe a direct approach.”
“Like an order?”
“I had a strong suggestion in mind.” Tyvan’s lips moved in a faint smile. “I’ve found that people tend to respond better to suggestions.”
Sounds like you got a boot in the rear from Jo, you ask me. “Okay, I’ll strongly suggest it. So, now that’s settled,” Garrett said, as she pushed away from her desk and crossed to the small round glass table with silvered chrome legs that squatted by her observation window. Dropping into a scallop-backed, cushioned armchair covered in mauve fabric, she waved Tyvan to a chair opposite. “There’s something else on your mind, Doctor. That wasn’t a question, by the way.”
“But not quite an order.”
Garrett’s lips curled into a half-moon. “Take it as a strong suggestion.”
Tyvan sank into cushions, settling his long frame, and Garrett noticed that even though he was a very thin man and his eyes were a soft cinnamon-brown and very mild, there was nothing insubstantial or weak about the El-Aurian. Bet he’s made of strong stuff, and he’d have to be to survive what happened to the Enterprise-B and come right back aboard her successor.
Tyvan lifted his chin, sniffed. “What is that you’re drinking? It smells burned.”
“Day-old coffee. Want some?”
“No, thanks, I’m not that masochistic. At least it smells better than Klingon coffee.”
“Never developed a taste for that stuff.” Garrett didn’t bother adding that she had no reason to love Klingons, or anything Klingonese. “What’s on your mind?”
“Well, to be frank, Captain ... May I speak freely?”
“Go.”
“Well ... you.”
Garrett’s eyebrows headed for her hairline. “Me?”
“And the crew. It’s all in there,” Tyvan hooked a thumb at the padd lying on Garrett’s desk. “Second report after the one on Bat-Levi. Unofficial, of course.”
Garrett unfolded from her slouch and, reaching forward, put her mug on the table. The ceramic clicked against glass. “What’s up?”
“Actually, it’s what’s down that worries me: morale.” Tyvan leaned forward and let his clasped hands hang over the points of his knees. “Morale isn’t good right now. I believe the term you used with Dr. Stern was ... in the toilet.”
“I may have said something like that.”
“I disagree with your assessment. I don’t think what the crew’s feeling right now has anything to do with depression. True, Batra’s funeral was very hard, for some more than others.”
Garrett wondered about Castillo but held her tongue. It wasn’t her place to ask Tyvan if the young ensign had seen him, and Tyvan probably wouldn’t say unless he had concerns about Castillo’s job performance.
Tyvan said, “But the crew’s horrified about Halak, and not necessarily because they think he’s done anything. With a few exceptions, they simply don’t believe Starfleet Intelligence. They ... we know that our mission to the Draavids is just to get us out of the way. We know you can’t refuse, but that doesn’t stop us from being angry.”
It was on the tip of Garrett’s tongue to protest that, no, every assignment was important, but she didn’t. The crew—Tyvan—was right.
“Plus, the crew’s beginning to second-guess themselves, rehash things from the past, wonder whether or not they made the right decisions, whether their commanding officers know what they’re doing.” Tyvan gave a sheepish grin. “Me, too.”
Tyvan said it all innocuously enough, but it was as if he’d read her mind. Don’t be ridiculous. He’s a psychiatrist. He’s a Listener, not a Betazoid. Garrett said, “What do you suggest?”
“To be honest? Sometimes it helps to think of us like a bunch of kids.”
“Doctor, some of them are kids.”
“Okay. So if a kid falls, what happens?”
“He cries?”
“Wrong. Most of the time, if it’s not serious and there’s not a lot of blood, he looks to the parent first. The parent’s reaction tells him how he ought to react. If the parent gets upset, so does the child. He’ll cry. But if the parent stays calm ...”
“The kid stays calm,” Garrett finished, impatient now. She had a son, for crying out loud; she didn’t need a tutorial in Parenting 101. “Are you suggesting that I’m not sending them ... you the right message?”
“Depends on the message you want to send, doesn’t it? Let me put it this way, Captain. If you weren’t having second thoughts about your own abilities, or rehashing the past, you wouldn’t be human. Now I know part of a captain’s job is to dissect what she perceives to be her mistakes. Otherwise, you can’t avoid them in the future.”
“This is something peculiar only to captains? I suppose you don’t rehash?”
“After you chewed me out and spat out the remainder faster than a photon torpedo?” Tyvan laughed. “I’d better.”
Garrett couldn’t help but grin. “I didn’t mean that. I meant, in your work.”
“Oh, that.” Tyvan made a dismissive gesture. “All the time. Except you can’t keep looking to the past when you’ve got to deal with the present. My patients aren’t static, you know. They change from day to day, session to session. But I’ve learned over time that the important stuff keeps coming back up, and so I try not to worry too much about what I think I’ve done wrong. I figure there’s almost always a second chance, a third. I’m not suggesting that a doctor, or a captain, should ignore the past. But staying in the past, brooding over past errors, wil
l just get the doctor—and his patient—into a rut.”
“Or a captain,” said Garrett. For some inexplicable reason, she glanced at her mug of old coffee. “You think I’m in a rut?”
“Are you? We’re both up at an ungodly hour. We’re not sleeping.”
“What’s your excuse?”
Tyvan shrugged. “I wonder if I misread Halak all along. I brood over mistakes I make with patients, things like that. And you, you’re wandering the ship, haunting the bridge. Drinking old coffee.”
“I’m just minding my ship. Putting my house in order.”
“Oh, that sounds like something Lieutenant Glemoor would love to store away in his stash of Earth idioms. You know, now that you mention a house ... Freud said that whenever a house appears in a patient’s dream, the house represents the dreamer. So when we say that we’re putting our house in order, we’re talking about us.”
Garrett gave Tyvan a faint smile. “And my ship is me?”
“Why not? So, are you concerned about putting yourself in order? Not wanting to make mistakes again?”
Garrett thought of Nigel, and the choice she’d been forced to make. “You referring to something in particular?”
“Yes.” Tyvan’s brown eyes were steady but compassionate. “And you may believe I’m overstepping my bounds.”
“Then don’t,” said Garrett, a nervous flutter in her throat, though she kept her anxiety out of her face ... she hoped.
“But it’s my job,” said Tyvan, gently. “Captain, your sorrow for Nigel Holmes isn’t a secret.”
Damn that Jo. “No?” she said, forcing lightness into her tone she didn’t feel.
“No, and I won’t insult you by pretending I don’t know. But you’ve lost one first officer, and you may very well lose another, and you have lost a great many other,” he paused—for emphasis, it seemed to Garrett, “other things, all in the past year or two.”
A marriage. My son. The man I loved, and may still. “And?” said Garrett. Her chest was tight, and she had to work to breathe.
“Captain, are you quite sure that you’re not obsessing about a dead man and everything you think you did wrong in order to avoid thinking about the guilt and responsibility and sorrow you feel for all these other deaths?”
