by L. A. Graf
“I should have let him continue hitting that old man?”
“I didn’t say you were wrong—”
“All right, all right—” Sulu, a plastic bag of water depending from either hand, made a wide-armed gesture to hurry his friends toward the open hatch. “I’m sure this is going to be a lovely argument, but can we have it later? I really, really want to get my lizards into something better than these bags so they have at least a small chance of surviving this adventure. It would be nice to report for duty sometime, too. So let’s go, huh?”
Chekov levered the lily pond out of the seat, just as glad to have an excuse not to continue this discussion. He’d already been over this ground a million times while examining the confines of his cell, and he didn’t need further reminding that—as trapped into his actions as he felt—he had no one to blame but himself. He stepped aside, pond balanced against his hip, to let the shuttle’s fourth passenger into the aisle.
“Need any help?” Purviance asked.
Chekov shook his head. Despite his size, Purviance exuded all the symptoms of an office worker terrified of exerting himself. “It’s not that heavy—I’ve got it.”
Purviance nodded with a self-conscious, quicksilver smile, then ducked out the door behind Sulu and Uhura, leaving Chekov to bring up the rear.
Not that entering the hangar bay last did much to improve his reception.
“Mr. Chekov, glad to see you could make it.” Kirk’s tone, while pleasant enough, didn’t lessen the severity of his frown.
Chekov felt embarrassment sting his cheeks like a slap. Bad enough to have to suffer Kirk’s disapproval; having to suffer it in civilian clothes that still stank of a civilian brig only made matters unbearably worse. “Captain, I can explain—”
“I’m sure you can.” Kirk flicked an equally sharp look at Sulu and Uhura. “If you two aren’t too busy, I’m sure your presence would be welcomed on the bridge.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Aye, sir.”
Sulu paused only long enough to drop both plastic bags into the lily pond Chekov held, then hurried off after Uhura and his plant without saying another word. Inside the bags, the lizards bumbled against each other in the newly turbulent water, chirped once in helpless alarm, and promptly vanished.
Chekov knew just how they felt.
“Captain Kirk?” Purviance stepped forward, one hand outstretched uncertainly in a bid for Kirk’s attention. When the captain took his hand to shake it, Purviance beamed with what looked like relief. “Captain, I’m Lieutenant Lindsey Purviance, with Commodore Petersen’s office.”
Kirk nodded, although the faint line between his brows told Chekov the introduction didn’t really hold much meaning for him. “Lieutenant Purviance—”
“Commodore Petersen sent Mr. Purviance to arrange for my release,” Chekov explained. He made a vow not to flinch from Kirk’s scrutiny when the captain turned back to him. “It was supposed to expedite matters, sir. We came here immediately after security let me go.”
“I was late getting there,” Purviance volunteered. “We had a communications mix-up at the office. I ended up with some Andorians down in Customs—” He trailed off into an apologetic shrug even before Kirk waved aside his justification.
“You’re not the one who needs to explain, Mr. Purviance,” Kirk said. He shot a hard-edged glare at Chekov. “When I see your report on this incident, there’d better be one hell of an explanation included.”
Chekov nodded, tightening his grip on the lily pond. “I’ll do my best, sir.”
The captain nodded shortly, but Chekov knew better than to take that as any kind of reprieve. “Mr. Purviance—” Kirk turned briskly to the tall visitor. “I appreciate your help in returning my officer. Please give my thanks to Commodore Petersen, and tell him nothing like this—”
“Oh!” Purviance broke in with eyes wide in surprise. “I’m not going back to the station, sir.” He seemed suddenly awkward again, and caught off-guard. “Commodore Petersen has assigned me as liaison officer to the efficiency team. To sort of acclimate them to appropriate ship behavior, and to keep them out of trouble for you. So I’ll be along for the duration—” He peeked a bit timidly at Kirk. “—if that’s all right with you, sir.”
Kirk’s mouth pressed into a line that might be either annoyance or chagrin. “I wish the commodore had called me,” he admitted. Then with a shrug, “What’s one more passenger? Welcome aboard.”
Purviance flushed darkly. Chekov couldn’t tell if that meant he was embarrassed or pleased. “Thank you, sir.”
“In the meantime, we all have work to do.” Kirk rapped his knuckles against the outside edge of the lily pond, and Chekov nearly jumped at the loudness of that hollow sound. “See if you can’t find someplace to stow that souvenir ashtray, then put Mr. Purviance together with the auditors. I’ll talk to you about this other matter after the ship is under way.”
Chekov was perfectly willing to let the other matter simply drop, but knew enough to nod. “Yes, sir.”
“Carry on.”
Once Kirk had turned away, Chekov forced himself to relax his shoulders, and thanked God there’d been a visitor here to discourage one of Kirk’s more searing lectures. As if able to read the Russian’s thoughts, Purviance released a pent-up sigh big enough for both of them. “Is he always that intimidating?”
Chekov glanced up at him, smiling wryly. “That wasn’t intimidating. That was incredibly well-mannered and reserved.”
“Wow.”
Chekov nodded the liaison officer toward the exit, more than ready to find somewhere to dispose of the pond. “Wait until you see him with the auditors.”
* * *
Sulu heard the muffled whisper of turbolift doors opening outside his cabin, and groaned, grabbing for his uniform jacket. When you knew Kirk was waiting for you on the bridge, even the brief interval between turbolifts could seem like an intolerable delay. He stamped into his boots and dove through his cabin door, yelling, “Hold the lift!”
“Don’t worry, I’ve got it.” Unlike Sulu, Uhura had managed to get completely dressed, but her hair spilled down her neck in spiky disarray. She held the lift controls with an elbow until he got in, then let the doors slide closed.
“Bridge,” she said through a mouthful of hairpins, and the turbolift from Deck Six sang upward. Sulu struggled into his uniform jacket and did up the fastenings, then watched the communications officer bundle her hair into a neat bun and clip it into place. It amazed him that anyone could perform such a complicated operation without the aid of a mirror.
He ran a hand through his own ruffled hair and smiled wryly. “Is it just me, or does being late for duty make you feel like a cadet again, too?”
“Now that you mention it, yes.” Uhura checked her earrings to be sure they were straight, then threw him a suspicious look. “Why do these things always seem to happen when I go on shore leave with you and Chekov?”
Sulu tried to smooth his face into its blandest expression of innocence. “I was just about to ask you the same thing.”
“Right.” The turbolift doors whisked open on the bridge before Uhura could say more. Sulu stepped onto the busily humming deck, feeling Captain Kirk’s glance rake across him as he took his seat at the helm. He winced, and suddenly found himself wishing he were assigned to a nice inconspicuous bridge station, like communications.
“Prepare for departure from Sigma One, Mr. Sulu,” Kirk said mildly, then swung his chair around to watch the status reports scrolling across the engineering station’s screens.
“Aye, sir.” Sulu let out a trickling breath of relief while he tapped his security clearance into the helm computer and began running a standard systems check. The captain must have decided to place the blame for their delay squarely on the Sigma One liaison officer. Either that, or on Chekov.
Around him, the Enterprise’s other bridge officers were running similar checks on their stations, sharing updates in quiet voices as they geare
d up the massive starship for flight. Sulu finished running through the helm checklist, then brought up Sigma One’s outboard schematic. The main docking lane glowed fiery white across the screen between the rippling gold of station gantries and the blue dots of docked ships. One of the blue dots was moving down the docking lane, already halfway out to open space.
Sulu glanced over at the dark-haired woman who shared the flight console with him. “Who’s running the lane ahead of us?”
Lieutenant Bhutto glanced at the schematic. “An Orion police cruiser—I think traffic control called it the Mecufi.” She pointed up at the viewscreen with its wide-angle overview of Sigma One’s ecliptic docks. The gantry lights at the far side of the port flickered as a slim shadow floated across them. “There it goes now.”
“Captain Kirk.” Uhura pitched her voice to cut through the murmur of preparation. “Sigma One station control has cleared us for departure.”
“Very good.” Kirk swung his console back toward the main viewscreen. “Take her out, Mr. Sulu.”
“Aye, sir.” Sulu took a deep breath, submerging himself in the meticulous routine of piloting a starship out into space. He brought the impulse engines to one-quarter power to avoid blasting Sigma One’s delicate gantries. The dim starlit bulk of the space station dominated the interstellar night, aglow with glistening spiderwebs of red and green approach lights. The Enterprise slowly nosed away from its dock, steady as a gliding swan under Sulu’s hands. “We should be clear of the station in approximately five and one-half minutes, sir.”
“Very good. Mr. Bhutto, lay in a course to sector nine-eighteen mark three along the Andorian border. And look sharp to keep us inside Federation space.” The bright intensity with which Kirk scanned the space ahead of them belied his wry tone. “After all, they tell me we’re here to stop a war, not to start one.”
Chapter Four
CHEKOV STOPPED by the mirror in his quarters only long enough to verify that the seams on his burgundy duty jacket lined up, then ducked out the door while still finger-combing his hair into order.
It hadn’t been easy finding room for Sulu’s lily pond in the helmsman’s cabin. Chekov had finally given up and moved a half-dozen potted plants to the floor beneath Sulu’s worktable so he could balance the pond on the end, retrieving the Halkan lily from the bathroom counter so it could sit in its new home until its owner returned. It looked remarkably dejected, drooped all over the marble-epoxy bottom for lack of water’s buoyancy, but Chekov didn’t dare fill the thing until Sulu had put it where he’d want it for good. Chekov knew perfectly well who would be recruited to help empty and move the monstrosity when that time came.
The plastic bags of lizards, then, he’d taken back to his own cabin. He didn’t know for sure that being left in the plastic would hurt them, but watching them bump their little noses against the transparent sides of their confinement reminded him too much of spending time in Sigma’s tiny brig. Chekov’s office was less than twenty meters from his quarters, so he could at least look in on them after dumping them into a sink filled with lukewarm water; if he left them in Sulu’s cabin all alone, he was afraid the water would get too cold, and they’d die. At least this way, if they died, they would die from good intentions, not from suffocating in a plastic bag, or freezing in his best friend’s quarters. Chekov left them chirping quietly in his darkened bathroom, splashing about with a sponge and a clean soap dish to keep them company. At least they sounded happy.
The same thing couldn’t be said for the security division.
Voices from the squad room carried clearly into the main corridor despite continual reminders to the guards to either close the section door or keep their voices down. Chekov caught a fragment of sentence in Ensign Lemieux’s fur-soft accent, her voice sounding louder and more strident than usual. The precise tones that answered her told Chekov why. Sighing, he passed his office door and headed for the squad room, already suspecting he’d regret not just locking himself in his office and pretending he hadn’t heard.
“This isn’t optional, I’m afraid,” the other voice was insisting. “I have my orders.”
Efficiency Auditor Aaron Kelly stood just inside the squad room door, his back to Chekov and his clipboard held at his waist in both hands. Just over his shoulder, Chekov could see Barrasso and Jagr busying themselves with weapons maintenance while Lemieux and Sweeney held the trim black man at bay. “I have my orders, as well,” Lemieux said.
“I see.” Kelly ran one hand down the front of his dark civilian suit. “Then can you tell me when Lieutenant Chekov will return, so I can speak with him?”
“I’m here.” Chekov planted his hands on his hips while Kelly turned, feeling suitably impervious to the auditor’s wiles now that he had showered and was back in ship’s uniform. “Mr. Kelly, can’t this wait until morning?”
“Lieutenant Chekov.” Kelly glanced nervously behind him when Jagr and Barrasso hurried to their feet upon Chekov’s arrival. The lieutenant waved them to continue with what they were doing, not taking his attention off Kelly. “Your people told me you were on shore leave.”
“I was.” Stepping past Lemieux and Sweeney, he keyed into the table-mounted station behind them. “Any developments while I was gone?” He hoped Kelly would give up if they looked too busy with other things.
“Nothing on board, sir,” Sweeney reported, dragging a handful of blond hair away from his eyes. “But station security did report a brawl with Orions stationside.”
Chekov hid his blush by not looking up from the screen. “Yes, I know.” System announcements were unremarkable: a larger-than-normal number of personnel calling in sick, a prompt to access loaded data on the Enterprise’s new assignment, a handful of Starfleet bulletins. The last were usually more administrative than useful. He flicked past another two screens to the sectional prompts.
“Lieutenant,” Kelly finally ventured, “I appreciate that your people are only trying to do their jobs, but—”
Chekov frowned at the list on the screen, then turned the monitor toward Kelly and tapped it with his hand. “What’s this?”
Kelly came forward a few steps to toss the screen a cursory glance. “Oh. That’s what I was just discussing with Ensign Lemieux.”
“Mr. Kelly is concerned with the efficiency of our duty schedules, sir.”
“Oh?” Chekov raised his eyebrows. As though he needed this kind of silliness after everything else that had happened today. “I wasn’t aware of any complaints. Barrasso? Jagr? Sweeney?”
“No, sir.”
“None, sir.”
“Of course not, sir.”
Chekov turned a shrug on Kelly, and the auditor responded by grinning sheepishly. “People don’t always know what’s best for them, Lieutenant. That’s why regulations exist.” Kelly flipped his clipboard up into one hand and called up something on its screen. “According to your records,” he read, “you have three officers who have worked nothing but night shift for the past six months. That’s expressly against regulations, which state that no officer can be made to work third shift for more than four weeks out of every twelve.”
Chekov turned the terminal back to him. “If you’re talking about Tocchet, Robinson, and Trottier, no one’s forcing them to do anything. Each of those officers has requested they be kept on night duty. They prefer those hours.”
“Crew members’ preferences don’t have any bearing on regulations.” Kelly’s relaxed politeness was almost harder to bear, Chekov decided, than Taylor’s frantic rages. “You have to understand—”
“I don’t have to do anything, Mr. Kelly.” He started scanning the downloads. “When it comes to something as trivial as duty schedules, I view your regulations as a list of very good suggestions from which to base my decisions. My crew’s satisfaction with their scheduling comes first.” His eyes caught on a familiar name amidst a dispatch, and his attention suddenly focused tight on the screen.
“Lieutenant Chekov,” Kelly stated in a stiff, almost ho
rrified voice, “this is a matter of efficiency. Nothing about it is trivial.”
The words, amber scrambles crawling across the black background, refused to bind themselves to a structure. Ignoring Kelly, Chekov scrolled to the top of the dispatch in search of some kind of meaning.
“… as a result of a breach in the Kongo’s containment field on stardate 8747.6. Among the one hundred seven listed dead are Assistant Engineer Christopher Dailey, First Officer David Stein, and Science Officer Robert Cecil, who assisted in an effort to save forty-seven engineering crewmen immediately following the breach. Posthumous medals of honor will be awarded at a ceremony …”
The words continued their steady march toward nowhere, dissolving into nonsense again. Chekov watched them without seeing, his memory having flown ten years away—to Starfleet Academy, and the wet-gray San Francisco winters spent in classroom simulators and training rooms. To a squadron bunker shared with forty other cadets, including a brilliant American boy named Robert Cecil.
“We’re going to be heroes,” Robert had told him once. Robert, with his ash-blond hair, pale eyes, and quirky North American habits—Robert, who somehow always seemed to irritate Chekov as often as he amused him. Chekov trailed his fingers down the screen as if he could make the awful words more real by touch. They stayed just as distant, and just as hard to believe.
Robert was a scientist. For him, being a hero meant proving some new theory, or opening investigations on some new and different world. Chekov’s job description was the one that included dying, and even that could be avoided if he were lucky enough, and careful. It wasn’t supposed to have worked out this way.
“It isn’t fair… .”
“It’s more fair than what you have right now,” Kelly countered. Chekov jerked a look up at him, momentarily fractured from the conversation at hand. “More efficient, too.”
“Efficient?”
“Efficient,” Kelly echoed. “The schedules.”
The schedules. Who in hell cared about the schedules? Chekov ran a hand through his hair and switched off the terminal screen. “Mr. Kelly, if you don’t get out of my department, I’ll have you arrested for entering a restricted zone without authorization.”