Star Trek (11 page)

“Yeah,” Corsi said. “And that's part of the problem.”

As she headed in the direction of Stevens's quarters, Corsi realized her pace was quickening the farther she walked. She wanted to tell him about the conversation with her father. For the first time in years, she felt reconnected to her family and completely proud of her chosen career in Starfleet, and she could not wait to share her newfound good feelings with
him
.

Tapping the keypad next to the door to Stevens's room, she stepped inside as the hatch slid aside. “Fabian? Are you in here?”

Then she stopped short as she looked into the room's small bathroom and saw Stevens standing at the sink, naked but for a towel around his waist.

“Uh, I'll come back,” she said, turning to head back through the door.

“Hey, it's okay,” Stevens replied as he turned from the sink, rivulets of water in his hair as he wiped his hands with another towel. “Come on in.”

Nodding, she made a concerted effort to avoid looking toward the bathroom as she stepped into the room and took a seat on the unmade bunk. “You guys made pretty quick work of the warp drive. I think Dad
was impressed.”

“Wilson did all the real work,” Stevens admitted as he put away a washcloth and soap. “But play up the S.C.E. angle for your father. Maybe he'll start coming around on his Starfleet issues.”

Corsi smiled at that. “He might be already. While you were working, we talked like we've never talked before. He may be starting to understand why I've stayed in Starfleet all this time.”

“That's great, Dom.” As he moved from the bathroom, it seemed to be Stevens's turn to avoid eye contact as he went through the motions of tidying up the small sleeping quarters. “Maybe you can explain it to me later, if you want.”

Something in the way he said the words caused her brow to crease in puzzlement. “What's that supposed to mean?”

Stevens turned from a storage compartment to meet her gaze. “I'm getting out,” he said. “I've decided to leave Starfleet.”

“What?” Corsi shuddered at the thought, a chill reaching from her belly into her throat with his words, and questions rang in her mind.
Fabian is leaving the ship? For good? Where had this come from?
“When did you decide this?”

“I've been thinking about it the whole trip,” he said, “since before we left the
da Vinci
, really. Seeing you at
home with your family, though, that really set the hook in me. I can do what I do for the S.C.E. in plenty of places and not get myself killed.” He shrugged. “Maybe I'll head back to Rigel, or maybe your dad can hire me on for one of his freighters. It doesn't really matter. I just think it's time for me to move on.”

“The hell it is.”

For the second time that day, Corsi found herself surprised by her tone of voice and the conviction of her words, this time directed toward an unsuspecting and now dumbstruck Fabian Stevens. Once more, Corsi's thoughts turned to her mother, who was convinced that she would have the strength to find the words that would help Stevens when he needed it most.

If only I could feel so confident.

“Don't just look stupid at me,” she said, her voice hardening with each word. “You know you're not leaving. It sounds great, running away when the going gets tough, but that's not how we handle things on the
da Vinci
.”

“So that's how it is,” Stevens said, regarding her with his own look of determination. “You put on your ‘Core-Breach' mask and charge your way through another situation. That may work for you, Dom, but not for me. I left too much behind on Galvan VI.”

The rage Corsi had been holding in check, first with
her father and now with Stevens, erupted to the surface. “
You
did? I lost seven members of my security detail. Seven! Half the crew was killed! Do you know that for over a week I had to keep a highlighted list of the ship's complement next to my bed, so that when I woke up from my nightmares I could check to see who was still alive?”

Stevens's mouth fell open in shock, but he said nothing. Corsi did not give him a chance, either, rising from the bunk and pointing one long finger at him.

“This is not just your burden, Fabian,” she said, her pitch and volume continuing to climb. “We
all
are hurting, and we'll hurt even more when we start seeing all the new people assigned to the ship when we get back, but we have our duty.”

“Duty!” Stevens shouted in response, the word echoing off the walls of the small room. It was his turn to vent anger, and she had never seen him do so with such force. “It wasn't Duff's damn duty to jump out of the ship for that warhead! Now he's gone! It wasn't his job but he took it, and now he's dead!”

In barely a whisper, Corsi spoke. “It was my job.”

Stevens stopped in the midst of drawing breath for his next outburst, her response undercutting him. “What?”

“Fabian, it was
my
damn job!” She gritted her teeth
and turned away from him, not wanting him to see the pain in her face and the tears in her eyes. “I was supposed to disarm the Wildfire device, but I got hurt! I was useless, and a damned engineer did my job! Do you think I don't know that Duffy died because of me?”

Corsi threw away any restraint she had left and slumped back on Stevens's bunk. The sobs racked her body with the sorrow, frustration, and anger that she had held within her since the moment she had learned of Duffy's death.

Sitting down beside her, Stevens put an arm around her shoulders. “Dom. Duff did what he did for all of us. He saved the ship, and he would have done it a hundred times over if he could have. It's not your fault.”

Meeting his eyes with tears running down her cheeks. Corsi asked, “If I can remember that and keep going, do you think that maybe you can, too?”

Stevens said nothing for a moment as Corsi tried to regain her composure, offering her one end of the towel slung over his shoulder. She dabbed at her eyes and blew her nose, drawing a disgusted look from Stevens before he handed her the rest of the towel.

“Keep it.”

She could not help the laugh that escaped her lips, and she had to wipe her eyes again as more tears
flowed forth. “Damn you,” she whispered, a small smile forming on her face.

Drawing a deep breath, Stevens said, “You know, back during the Dominion War, when Duff and I hadn't known each other very long, he dragged me out of a Breen firefight and saved my life. He said we were phaser-proof, and even bragged about it at this bar where we … well, that's not important. What is important is that for some silly reason, I believed him. There were times I thought we were invincible, Dom.” He shook his head. “I don't think I can go back to the
da Vinci
knowing that Duff won't be there.”

Corsi paused, then offered her hand to Stevens. As he took it she said, “I'll be there, Fabian, just like you were there for me when I needed you. No questions asked, you can lean on me as much as you need to.” Squeezing his hand, she added, “We'll get through this together.”

“I could use a friend, you know,” he said after a moment, “especially one who knows her way around a good bar brawl.”

“What, you planning on talking to some more Tellarites, Fabe?”

He chuckled at that as he excused himself to the bathroom to finish getting cleaned up. There was a hint of the old Fabian Stevens in the smile he wore as the door closed behind him, one she was grateful to
see. The door closed behind him, leaving her alone in the room with only her thoughts for company.

In just a few hours two men, whose importance to her she was only just now beginning to realize, had taken a few steps toward healing and understanding, both with her help. Corsi steeled herself for the journey ahead, both with Fabian Stevens and with her father, keeping mindful of her duties as a daughter, a friend, and a Starfleet officer. She was ready for anything.

After all, she was a Corsi, and that's what Corsis did.

DAYTON WARD
has been a
Star Trek
fan since conception (his, not the show's). After serving for eleven years in the U.S. Marine Corps, he discovered the private sector and the piles of cash to be made there as a software engineer. His start in professional writing came as a result of placing stories in each of the first three
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
anthologies. He is the author of the
Star Trek
novel
In the Name of Honor
, as well as having cowritten several other
Star Trek: S.C.E.
adventures with Kevin Dilmore (the two-part
Interphase
and the three-part
Foundations
). Along with other
Star Trek
projects, Dayton's first original science fiction novel,
The Last World War
, is set for publication in September 2003. Though he currently lives in Kansas City with his wife, Michi, he is a Florida native and still maintains a torrid long-distance romance with his beloved Tampa Bay Buccaneers. You can contact Dayton and learn more about his writing at
www.daytonward.com
.

KEVIN DILMORE
remains very thankful to the person who, at age nine, tipped him off to the fact that
Star Trek
was a live-action television show before it was a Saturday morning cartoon. A graduate of the University of Kansas, he works as news editor and “cops and courts” reporter for a twice-weekly newspaper in Paola, Kansas, where he lives with his daughter, Colleen. Kevin also covers “nonfiction” aspects of the
Star Trek
universe as a contributing writer for
Star Trek Communicator
magazine. He is looking forward to his future writing projects with Dayton Ward, which include additional tales in the
Star Trek: S.C.E.
line. Kevin still harbors his adolescent desire to see his name shared with a doomed redshirted ensign in an Original Series novel.

COMING NEXT MONTH: Star Trek™: S.C.E. #26

AGE OF UNREASON

by Scott Ciencin

In the wake of the catastrophic events of
Wildfire
, Carol Abramowitz, Bart Faulwell, and Soloman are sent on a special mission to a world where the culture is driven by complexities of emotion. The S.C.E.'s task is to introduce new technology to the world, while still fulfilling the society's needs for honest, naked emotion by participating in a very particular ritual—one that has already been botched once by an old rival of Abramowitz's

Abramowitz must confront her own emotional difficulties, and confront her rival, even as saboteurs threaten the project's very existence….

COMING IN MARCH FROM POCKET BOOKS!