“You forgive me?” Belinda asked, the surprise reaching all the way into her eyes. “Really?”
Sonya pursed her lips. “I understand. Forgive? I don’t know. That might take me some time.”
“Okay,” Belinda hesitantly replied. Sonya could see the tears still streaming down her sister’s face. “I suppose that’s a good first step, right?”
Gomez felt tears running down her own face. “Yeah. Bee, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hit you with this out of nowhere. I just—let’s just say I just remembered it and needed to get it out in the open as soon as I could, okay?”
Belinda nodded. “When are you coming home again?”
“I don’t know,” Sonya said. “We have to meet up with the Enterprise and pick up Tev, and then finish things up here, and then we’re supposed to go check on the status of the rebuilding on the Kelvas Repair Facility, and from there, I don’t know yet. Next time I’m home, though, I promise, we’ll go to that little tapas place you love in Ibiza. Sound good?”
“You paying?”
“Of course,” Sonya said. “Unless your new job pays you better?”
“I need to get the job first, Ess. Wish me luck?”
“You know I always do. I love you, Bee.”
That brought the first real smile to her sister’s face that Sonya had seen in the entire conversation. “I love you, Ess. See you when you’re home.”
With that, the conversation ended.
Thank you, Pattie. Thank you, Soloman. This was definitely the right thing to do.
Sonya wiped the tears from her eyes, even going so far as to run a cool cloth over her face. Checking her appearance in the mirror over her sink, she decided that only having slightly bloodshot eyes was the best possible outcome of the last few days’ experiences. Running a brush through her hair, she adjusted her uniform jacket and headed toward the mess hall where Paul Cunningham was waiting for her.
THE END
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
This is TERRI OSBORNE’s third trip aboard the da Vinci, following Malefictorum (the landmark fiftieth installment of the S.C.E. series) and Progress (which kicked off the six-part What’s Past miniseries). Terri’s short fiction has appeared in the Star Trek anthologies Deep Space Nine: Prophecy and Change, New Frontier: No Limits, and Voyager: Distant Shores. Forthcoming are That Sleep of Death, the fourth part of the six-eBook Slings and Arrows series, celebrating the twentieth anniversary of Star Trek: The Next Generation; and “Good Queen, Bad Queen, I Queen, You Queen” in the Doctor Who: Short Trips anthology The Quality of Leadership, both due out in the spring of 2008. Terri is also working on several other projects that will take her to Ireland of the past, Mars of the future, and other places both near and far. Find out more on her website at www.terriosborne.com.
Star Trek™: Corps of Engineers: Remembrance of Things Past Book Two Page 9
