Tev, wisely, stayed silent.
Gomez waited for several seconds.
Then for several seconds more.
At last, she broke into a grin. “See? That wasn’t so hard. You should try it more often.”
Unable to resist such obvious prompting, Tev asked, “Try what?”
“Following orders. It’s way past time you got comfortable with something, Tev: There are going to be occasions when other people know more than you. And it won’t necessarily be because they’re smarter than you or cleverer than you, but because they have to. I’m a commander, you’re a lieutenant commander; I’m first officer, you’re second officer. Not only does that mean I outrank you, but it also means that sometimes I’m going to be given information that you’re not allowed to have because of your lower rank and position. That is one of about a thousand reasons why it is critical that you trust my judgment—more than I trust yours, because I’m the boss.”
Snuffling with disgust, Tev said, “You mean that you didn’t tell me about Avril as some sort of test?”
Gomez put her head in her hands. “You really don’t get it, do you? I didn’t tell you because I had no reason to tell you. And because you didn’t trust my judgment, you went behind my back to Commander Ling, and caused Avril Station to fall to pieces. Now they’re purging your program and installing mine, and it should work out all right.” She looked straight at him. “That was the last straw, Tev. That was the last time you disobey my orders or flaunt my authority. I’ve gone easy on you up until now, partly because I prefer a more casual command style, but that obviously isn’t going to work with you. A formal and lengthy reprimand is going into your record, and I can promise you that any hopes you may have had of making commander next promotion go-round are pretty much in the waste extractor.”
Tev could not believe what he was hearing. “A reprimand? I have done nothing to deserve this!”
“You’ve done everything to deserve this, Tev. And the fact that you can’t even see it makes it all the more clear that it’s the right decision.”
“This is outrageous.” Tev shook his head. He was willing to concede a certain amount to the commander’s infatuation, but—
“Tev—we’re not going to steal credit for your work.”
That brought Tev up short. He looked over at Gomez, and saw that the anger had left her face, replaced with a kind of sadness—no, that wasn’t right. The expression he saw was pity.
“That is…ridiculous, Commander. I thought we went over this.”
“Yes, after our mission to Kharzh’ulla, you insisted that you didn’t hate Eevraith for stealing your work twenty years ago, and you didn’t have any regrets about the life you were leading in Starfleet. But I have to wonder if that didn’t engender a certain fear in you—a worry that someone else might do what Eevraith did. A worry that became so strong that you refuse to work well with anyone else.”
How dare she accuse me of that? So livid was Tev, he was unable to say the words aloud. Plus, while her accusations of his fears were wholly baseless, he did have a legitimate fear that she might take disciplinary action against him. It would be out of character—he learned early on that she had no taste for true leadership—but so was her earlier outburst. She had threatened his career enough for one conversation.
Instead, he simply said, “Is that all, Commander?”
“Think about what I said, Tev. Dismissed.”
He turned on his heel and left the room, intending to do no such thing.
Domenica Corsi stared at the ax.
She lay on her bunk, feet flat on the bed, knees bent and pointing to the ceiling. The box the ax was in leaned against her raised thighs. After the last session in the hololab—after the fourth straight time that Tomozuka Kim fought hard and got back up off the metaphorical mat no matter how much harder she made it—she realized that she could no longer stand the sight of the young Izarian, and told everyone to get some sleep.
Luckily, nobody gave her that order, as she would have had to disobey it. She had no interest in sleeping, because she knew exactly what would happen: she’d dream about Dar. Bad enough he still invaded her dreams on the anniversary of that miserable day on Izar. Last time, she’d banished it by seducing Fabian Stevens. That’s not happening again, she vowed. That’s gotten way too messy for my tastes.
She knew she was conveniently ignoring that her relationship with Fabian had been what kept her going these past months, that she really enjoyed his company, and that she desperately wanted to take it to the next level. But Caitano’s death and Kim’s Izarian face served as regular reminders as to why that was a tragically bad idea.
The ax stared back at her. It had been a family heirloom for three hundred and seventy-five years, and was remarkably well preserved, though the wood of the handle was cracked in spots. She’d taken the ax with her to Starfleet Academy, and it had survived through dozens of missions, from the other-dimensional trip the U.S.S. Soval took when she was assigned there as an ensign to that living ship that almost literally ate the U.S.S. Roosevelt to the Galvan VI disaster here on the da Vinci. It had even provided a useful mental nudzh in solving Caitano’s murder.
But it provided no answers now. It was just an old tool in an old box.
The door chime rang. Corsi ignored it, not having any great desire for company. Her combadge was on the nightstand, placed there after she tossed her sweaty uniform into the recycler. She had showered and then put on the flannel robe her mother had gotten her when she graduated the Academy and which was still in fairly decent shape.
Again, the door chime rang, this time accompanied by a voice. “Dom, it’s Fabian. I know you’re in there. And I know you’re alone, since we haven’t found Lense yet.”
Fabian. Perfect. She sighed. She couldn’t really use the excuse that she wasn’t properly dressed, considering that Stevens had seen her in much less on more than one occasion.
“Come,” she muttered just loud enough for the computer to hear and allow the door to slide open.
Stevens entered, a look of concern on his pleasant features. His dark hair was mussed, like it usually was after he’d been working all day, as he tended to run his hand through it. That meant he had been up all night, since alpha shift was just starting.
“I hear you’ve been riding the newbie pretty hard.”
Hawkins has a big mouth, Corsi thought. Her deputy chief and Stevens had become close since their shared trauma on Teneb, so it had to be him. Either that or Hawkins talked to Abramowitz and she talked to Stevens. Hell, it could be anyone—Fabe’s always making friends with people. Regardless, it was completely inappropriate. “Are you part of security now?” she asked in a tight voice.
“Of course not, but—”
“Then keep the hell out of security affairs, Mr. Stevens.”
Rolling his eyes, Stevens said, “Oh, come on, Dom, this isn’t a chat between officer and enlisted, this is you and me in your quarters. Forget the ranks for a second—what’s wrong?”
Placing the ax on the deck, Corsi swung her legs around and sat up, facing Stevens. “Nothing’s wrong. Tell Hawkins or Abramowitz or whichever other gossipmonger told you to come talk to me to stay the hell out of my business.”
“Nobody told me to come talk to you, Dom, I came on my own.”
Corsi regarded him angrily.
He relented. “Yeah, okay, Hawk and I had a talk, but that was it. Besides, he’s worried about you, and he figured I had a better chance of finding out what was wrong than he did.”
“Well, he’s wrong. Get out of here.” She stood up and pointed at the door.
Stevens shook his head. “You know, you really should start wearing a sign around your neck.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“So I know which Domenica Corsi I’m talking to. It’s hard to keep track.”
Corsi moved closer, looking Stevens right in the eye. “I am two steps away from ordering you out of my quarters, Mr. Stevens, now—”
“ ‘I just worry that she’s going to completely close herself off.’ ”
Blinking, Corsi stared dumfoundedly at Stevens. He was obviously quoting something. “What the—?”
“You know who said that? You—right after you broke several regulations trying to set Commander Gomez up with Captain Omthon.”
Turning around, Corsi went back to the bed. She needed to sit down. “Yeah, well, that was stupid.”
“No, Dom, it wasn’t.” Stevens sat down on the bed next to her. She wanted more than anything to reprimand him, to remind him that she kicked him out of here, but one look at that goddamned earnest expression on his face, and she couldn’t do it. “You’ve been prickly ever since Ken and Ted died, and it’s gone into overdrive since we got back from Coroticus. Did something happen down there that I missed? Or is it because of Kim and where he’s from?”
That brought Corsi up short again. “What?”
“He’s from Izar. Hawk isn’t the only one concerned—Rennan noticed that you went a little crazy when the new guy said he was from Izar. So I did a little digging, and you’ve been there, when you were deputy security chief on the Roosevelt. Solved a big homicide and everything. Kim was the son of one of the peace officers you worked with. What’s-her-name from the Enterprise, Vale, she was there, too.” He shook his head. “You know, I remember when Vale and Commander La Forge came on board to help us out with the Beast, Vale said you were the reason why she joined Starfleet. La Forge said he asked you what that was about, but you wouldn’t tell him.” He put one of his hands on Corsi’s. “What happened on Izar, Dom?”
Corsi wanted to tell him to get his hands off hers. She wanted to tell him to get the hell out of her quarters and mind his own damn business. She wanted to tell him to stay out of her life.
But then she remembered the conversation from which Stevens had quoted. It was right before they went to the Lokra system, and she had said something else then: “Life is too short to waste it.”
So instead, she told him about Izar.
Chapter
7
U.S.S. Roosevelt
in orbit of Izar
TEN YEARS AGO
L ieutenant (j.g.) Domenica Corsi shivered as she entered the security office. The Roosevelt’s security chief, Lieutenant Heinrich Waldheim, always kept the office at arctic temperatures. He said it was to keep people sharp, but Corsi was convinced he just did it to annoy everyone.
When Waldheim summoned her, she had been doing her bridge rotation at tactical, keeping an eye on both the planet below them and the massive telescope nearby. Izar’s orbit took it in proximity to the Heyer Array, the largest telescope in this sector, for the next two months. The Roosevelt was providing some maintenance on the array, which meant shore leave for those members of the Roosevelt’s complement not involved in the Heyer mission.
That shore leave was especially welcome to Corsi. She’d been waiting for this mission for months.
Waldheim was sitting in the security office behind the big desk covered in padds, his massive frame barely fitting into the standard-issue Starfleet chair. His thick arms were folded over his equally thick chest. Corsi had been serving under Waldheim since she graduated the Academy, first as a grunt on the Soval where he was deputy chief, then here, taking her along to be his deputy chief when he was promoted to chief of the Roosevelt. As a result, she knew what his arms being folded meant: he was about to give her a duty she wouldn’t want, but for which he—and she—had no choice.
If this means I don’t see Dar, Heinrich, I promise, I’ll take that outsized head of yours right off with the family ax. Don’t think I won’t. It had been hell maintaining her long-distance romance with Academy-mate Dar Ableen—everyone told them they were insane to try to keep it going after graduation, that Academy relationships had a shelf life of about six seconds after you got your commission—but they’d done it, through her two shipboard assignments and his three planetary or starbase ones. But this was also their first chance to be together since that trip to Pemberton’s Point over a year earlier, and she was not going to let anyone blow it.
The other person in the office probably had something to do with what was going on. A pale, petite woman with long auburn hair, she wore the drab blue one-piece uniform with the flag of Izar emblazoned over the heart that indicated an Izarian peace officer. Charged with maintaining law and order on this human colony-turned-Federation-member world, the flag had a rendering of the red-green planet with fireworks behind it over a white background.
“Lieutenant Domenica Corsi, this is Officer Christine Vale.”
The younger woman offered her hand, and Corsi took it, noticing the stylized D on the cuffs of her uniform. “You’re a detective?”
Vale nodded. “Yes, ma’am. We’ve had a couple of homicides.”
That caught Corsi off guard. Homicides were rare beasts in the Federation, much less multiple ones on the same world—though she had a vague recollection of Dar mentioning something about some murders on Berengaria when he was assigned there. “Really?”
Breaking the handshake, Vale said, “Really. Two women have been killed by a phaser set on burn, one a week ago, the second last night. I think it might be connected to some other cases in the Federation. However, for something that crosses jurisdictions like this, procedure is for the nearest Starfleet ship to coordinate.”
“Okay.” Corsi was familiar with the regulation, but anyone in security could handle this.
Waldheim spoke up then. “You will serve as liaison between Officer Vale and Starfleet for the duration of the investigation, Lieutenant, starting first thing in the morning.”
Corsi opened her mouth to complain, then stopped. She didn’t want to air her dirty laundry in front of a stranger.
“Thank you very much, Lieutenant Corsi,” Vale said. “I’m looking forward to working with you.” Turning to Waldheim, she said, “If you’ll excuse me, sir, I need to get back to the surface. I’m expecting the full lab report on last night’s victim.”
Waldheim unfolded his arms and nodded his head. “Of course, Officer Vale. Please, if you could forward that report to us, it would help us to get started.”
“Sure.” Vale gave Corsi a quick nod and then left.
As soon as the doors closed behind her, Waldheim held up one of his large hands. “I know what you’re going to say, Domenica, and I’m sorry, I didn’t set out to ruin your leave, but—”
“It’s okay.” Corsi had thought about it and her anger had already burned to ashes. “I take it the Izarian authorities are in a tizzy?”
“You bet—and can you blame them? Every time I think we’ve finally achieved paradise, something like this bites us on the ass. It’s like an asymptotic curve—keeps getting closer, but never quite makes it.” He shook his head. “Starfleet Command’s in as big a tizzy, believe me. Captain Van Olden got a fifteen-minute lecture from Admiral Toddman.”
“Right, so obviously this liaison work can’t be handled by anyone less than the deputy chief of security.” She smiled wryly. “So why isn’t it being handled by anyone greater than the deputy chief of security?”
Corsi was, she knew, the only person on the ship besides Captain Van Olden and Commander Znirka-Tul who could get away with snarking Waldheim like that, as proven by his chuckle in response. “Because, Lieutenant, if I handled it, I’d have to put you in charge of the security detail on the Heyer away team in my place. That team is transporting over in forty-five minutes. By giving you liaison duty, it means you don’t have to start until 0830 tomorrow morning—which gives you the entire evening to do whatever your little heart desires.”
Realization dawned on Corsi. It obviously showed on her face, because Waldheim folded his hands on the table in front of him, which he always did when he was about to impart good news. “So as of now, you’re off duty. I’ve already ordered DiGennaro to take the rest of your shift at tactical. Go on, shoo! Have fun with Lieutenant Ableen.”
Backing
toward the door—which parted, letting in the blessedly warmer air from the corridor—Corsi said, “Heinrich, thank you. You are a prince. I take back most of the things I’ve said about you.”
He grinned. “Do I get to pick which ones?”
Chuckling, she double-timed it to her quarters, and immediately put a personal call through to the supply office on the Starfleet base outside of Garthtown.
A few minutes later, the beautiful face of Lieutenant Dar Ableen appeared on the small viewer on the desk in her quarters. Dar had sea-blue eyes that matched Corsi’s own, perfect cheekbones, and a hook nose that on anyone else would have looked awful, but worked with his face for some reason. He had no chin to speak of, but he covered that by wearing a Vandyke beard that was as dark as his semi-curly hair. They had first met in a martial arts class; he joked that it was there that he fell for her—over and over again. In fact, he had always had a superb grasp of the martial arts of many different worlds, so much so that many of his instructors—and Corsi, for that matter— encouraged him to focus on security. But Dar had preferred a career in supply, citing it as “less stressful.”
On those occasions when she saw him, she was always drawn first to his eyes. She could just get lost in them.
“Hey, you.”
“Hey. Well, I’ve got good news and bad news….”
Chapter
8
Peace Officer Headquarters
Pibroch City, Izar
TEN YEARS AGO
O fficer Christine Vale stared at her reflection and decided she hated her hair.
Oh, this is good. You’re facing the first double homicide in the planet’s history, you’re about to spend the day with the most intimidating woman you’ve ever met, the bosses, the government, and Starfleet Command are all going to be taking up residence in your posterior, and you’re thinking about your hair ? Get with it, Christine!
The voice in her head sounded distressingly like her mother, especially since Mom hated when frivolity got in the way of the work.
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