Star Trek (10 page)

He looked to Mogad once more. “I want it off my ship. Take it all. It will prove that we saw none of whatever it is that you have there. All I ask in return is that you allow us to go on our way.”

The Cardassian stood in silence for several moments, his eyes studying the deck at his feet as if considering the offer. Finally, he looked at Aldo and nodded slowly. “I accept your offer, Corsi. You have my word that no harm will come to your ship once I leave.” He paused, drawing a deep breath before
adding, “I owe you that much, I think.”

“Aldo,” Ross began, “please. You can't do this.”

“I can, and I will,” Aldo replied, venom lacing his words. “That equipment is the reason my brother is dead. If you don't approve, you're free to get out and walk home.”

“What am I supposed to tell Starfleet?” Ross asked.

Turning away from the group, Aldo stalked across the shuttlebay deck toward the exit, ignoring the compassionate faces of his remaining crew. As he walked, he cast a final answer over his shoulder. “I don't give a damn what you tell them.”

Aldo had more urgent things to worry about. How would he explain to Domenica that the organization entrusted to keep the peace with the Federation's enemies, the same group that Giancarlo had idolized and that his young daughter hoped to one day join, had killed her cherished uncle? How would he do so while sparing her the rage and pain that weighed on him? He did not know if such an act was even possible.

He did not know if it would
ever
be possible.

Stardate 53909.2, Earth Year 2376

S
ilence blanketed the cockpit of the
Pharaon
, broken only by the periodic beeps and clicks of control consoles and computer displays. It was a silence born of death and despair, of pain buried for far too long beneath a veneer of anger and detachment. Domenica Corsi found it stifling as she regarded her father through eyes blurred by tears, as he sat across from her in the cramped cockpit.

She watched him take a final drink of his juice, then sigh and begin to fidget with the now-empty bottle. Remembering her own beverage, Corsi looked down at the juice in her hand. Though her throat was
parched, the thought of drinking the juice made her stomach lurch.

Instead, she returned her attention to her father and saw that his expression was one of misery and fatigue after unburdening himself of the secret he had carried all these years. Corsi thought she saw a hint of relief in her father's eyes, however, as if the confession might somehow have begun the process of cleansing the anguish from his soul.

“I've never told anyone what really happened that day,” he said after several moments. “Not even your mother knows. After we got home, I swore the crew to secrecy. I didn't want one of them saying something around you or your mother.”

Nodding, Corsi replied, “Thanks for telling me, Dad. It's good to know the truth, about anything.” She paused before asking her next question, unsure of the reaction she would receive. “You've always said Uncle Gi died in an accident. Why did you lie about it?”

“It was no lie,” Aldo said. “He did die in an accident; a horrible accident caused by Starfleet officers who were incapable of doing their own jobs.”

“Dad,” Corsi said, her tone one of gentle caution, “Starfleet didn't kill Uncle Gi. The Cardassians did.”

It was not the first time her father had endured discussion of this topic, she realized as she watched his features harden. The line of his jaw tightened beneath
the weathered skin of his face and his nostrils flared in the way they always did as his temper rose toward its boiling point. The index finger of his right hand leveled at her, his hand still gripping the empty juice bottle, and his eyes were wide with anger.

“Did you even listen to me? Are you so schooled by your superiors that you believe everything they do is right? Is your loyalty to Starfleet stronger than your family blood?”

Corsi felt her own ire mounting at the words, the same ones her father had used against her before on those rare occasions that they actually had spoken to one another. He knew just which buttons to push to set her off, playing her family loyalty against her sense of duty and service, those aspects of her character that made her just like him.

And just like her uncle, as well.

He's not driving me away. This time, I'm meeting him halfway.

“Dad, I listened,” she began slowly. “I can't defend what Starfleet asked you to do, but it was a different time then. They were all but at war with the Cardassians and they asked for your help, but you knew what you were getting into. It's not as if you were commandeered.”

“I might as well have been,” Aldo replied. “As soon as that Ross started talking, he had to have seen the
fire in Gi's eyes. Ross knew he was excited about helping, and he played us for suckers.”

“Uncle Gi was no sucker,” Corsi countered, “and he knew what he was doing just like you did.” She remembered the tales of Giancarlo Corsi's life that her parents had shared with her in the years after his death. His enthusiasm and level-headedness in the face of adversity and even crisis were recalled often at the family dinner table, and accounts of his trust and loyalty were cited among them as unmatched, even by Corsi family standards. Her impression of the man was almost larger than life, she knew, a hero to be admired and even emulated. With all of that, it was no surprise that he would jump at the chance to help Starfleet, the organization he had admired but could not join.

Uncle Gi wanted to shine in Starfleet's eyes. He wanted to make a difference.

“But his death wasn't enough for them,” Aldo said, his face reddening in seething rage. “Oh, no. Starfleet wanted revenge for my giving up their precious sensors and secret data. They destroyed my business. They restricted access to my shipping routes, and that cut me out of contracts for shipments I had been running regularly for years. I had to sell every ship I owned but this one, Domenica. I rebuilt the business from the bottom up, but I didn't have Gi to help me
this time. I worked like hell so you kids wouldn't know the difference.”

Corsi's own jaw clenched in anger at the remarks. “Starfleet did no such damn thing, Dad, and you know it. Ours wasn't the only family shaken up by the war, either. Much of the territory you and other freighters traveled fell under Cardassian rule, and Starfleet had no choice but to restrict travel in certain sectors. They did everything possible to make the quadrant safe for everyone.”

“Not everyone,” he corrected. “Not Gi.”

Sighing, Corsi shook her head. “It's hard to explain, Dad. It's different for Starfleet officers than it is for other people. It was different for Uncle Gi, too, at least if I'm to believe all those stories you told me about him. He understood the risks, but he was on a mission, not just standing by.”

“Your uncle was not a Starfleet officer, Domenica.”

“He was in his heart!”

It exploded from her lips, startling both of them into momentary silence. Aldo recoiled at the force of his daughter's words, and Corsi herself had to pause to consider how she had reacted before continuing. How could she explain with mere words what drove her to put on her uniform each day?

“Dad, it's like what I feel for you and for Mom, and for the family, but different. I feel completely responsible
for the security officers on my detail, for my captain, my ship and its crew, for, well, the Federation and everyone in it. I've been called to serve, Dad. I have duties to perform, and people depend on me. It makes me feel alive to serve them. Uncle Gi felt the same way, and you do too. Who do you think gave that to me?”

Corsi watched as moisture gathered in the corners of her father's eyes. After several moments, he nodded slowly. “I know. I've known for a long time. Your mother has talked of it for years, and I didn't want to admit it, but I see it now.”

“What, Dad?”

“In your eyes,” he said, “and when you talk like that. I see Gi. All that time you two spent together when you were little, all of the games you would play, all of the dreams he shared with you when you were too small to really remember, Dommie. They really are there, inside you. I see it now.”

New tears welled up in Corsi's eyes, and she reached over and placed her hand over her father's. “If that's really true, then maybe Uncle Gi realized just what he was getting into that day. I bet he was willing to give up everything for what Starfleet was trying to accomplish. That was his chance to live his dream.”

“Your mother said the same thing about him once,” Aldo said. “It took me years to accept that I'd lost him
to that dream, just as it's hard to cope with the idea that I might lose my only daughter to that dream, too.”

The words caught Corsi off guard and she found herself unable to respond to them. She had felt confident while explaining why she served in Starfleet, but during those fleeting moments she had forgotten the price for that service, as paid by half of the
da Vinci
's crew.

Now, her father had thrust her backward in time, back to the boiling, deadly clouds of liquid-metal hydrogen that made up Galvan VI. He had plunged her back to the point of the ship's near-destruction, to her own near-fatal electrocution, and the deaths of so many friends and shipmates.

Maybe I should be dead, too.

“As strange as it sounds, though,” Aldo said, “I think I understand better now. I'm not saying I'm comfortable with it, but this is good for me, and for both of us.” Looking up from the deck, his eyes locked with hers once more. “And I want you to know, Dommie, that I'm proud of you. If you do have anything of your uncle in you, then you probably feel like you've failed your friends and your captain, but you didn't. You showed them how to fight until you couldn't fight anymore, and then you showed them how to get up and fight again. That's what Corsis do.”

Corsi smiled, letting the pride she had sought from her father for so many years, wash over her. “Dad, you know I'll be in danger again. Maybe not as bad as on Galvan VI, but it's sure to happen,” she said. “You can't keep worrying about me.”

“Oh, I'll worry, but not as much as I might,” Aldo replied, “because you'll have the ax with you.”

It took a moment for that to register, and when it did Corsi caught herself gasping in shock. “I … Dad, I don't understand.”

“When I think back to that day,” her father said, “I wonder if things might have been different had the ax been aboard. But it belongs with you now, Domenica. You earned the right to carry it, and you honor the family when you do.”

The tears came freely now, as Corsi absorbed her father's words. For centuries, the ax had been a cherished family memento, its history rife with both triumph and tragedy. Passed down through the generations, it had grown to be more than a simple heirloom, taking on the role of good luck talisman and even, perhaps, that of guardian angel. Her father had begrudgingly entrusted it to her once, his concern for the upholding of family custom that the ax travel with a member sworn to the service of others winning out over his disdain for his daughter's commitment to Starfleet.

Now, however, he was giving it to her with his blessing and the assurance that she too had done her part to sustain her family's tradition.

Rising from her seat to go to her father, Corsi realized he had met her halfway when she felt his muscled arms wrap around her. She sank into the comforting embrace, a welcome act after so many years. Though they were a long way from closing the rift that had separated them for so long, she knew that the healing had begun, even in a small way, today.

As they stood there, the deck shuddered beneath their feet and Corsi heard a humming from somewhere below them that she recognized as the
Pharaon
's main warp drive coming back online.

“I guess Wilson and Stevens are finished,” she said, wiping new tears from her eyes.

Pulling away from their embrace, albeit reluctantly, Aldo sighed in relief at the soothing drone of the ship's engines. “Wonderful! I think we're back on the road.” They heard footsteps bouncing along the metal deck plates of the corridor outside the cockpit and turned to see Stevens appear in the hatch opening, a smile on his face.

“We're good to go,” he said. “Wilson's checking a few readings but I think the replacement articulation frame will hold just fine. We found a couple of pieces in storage that did the trick. I only had to dig into the …”

He paused, the realization of what had just been said now evident on his face. Looking to Aldo, he stammered through the remainder of the sentence. “Uh … dig, into the storage hold and look for spare parts. Wilson did all the work, Mr. Corsi. I didn't touch a thing without his being right next to me.”

Waving the explanation away, Aldo smiled. “Domenica spoke well of your abilities, Mr. Stevens. Forgive me for doubting them. I trust all went well?”

Stevens smiled and gave a thumbs-up. “Yes, sir. Now if you would excuse me, I'd like to wash up and get something to eat. Can I get anything for you two?”

Aldo shook his head. “I need to get us under way and contact the Thelkans to let them know we'll be a bit late.”

“I'll catch up in a bit, Fabian.” Corsi watched Stevens nod and return down the corridor. Behind her, Aldo had retaken his seat and started tapping commands into the control console. She waited in silence for the several minutes it took him to contact the Thelkan shipmaster and to make his preparations to get the
Pharaon
under way again before saying anything. “Dad?”

“Yes, Dommie?”

“This trip … this talk … meant a lot to me,” she said. “I hope it's not our last.”

Aldo smiled. “It won't be. Now go catch up to your
friend. He's a good man, Dommie, from what I can tell. It's plain that he likes you a lot.”