Part 5 (1/2)
t.i.tus s.h.i.+fted. ”Excuse me, Admiral?”
”Yes, Cadet?”
”I checked before we went down, but there are no rules against entering the access tunnels.”
Brand raised one brow. ”No, but there are rules against doing something that can get yourself killed. You do admit you nearly got yourselves killed?”
He swallowed. ”Yes, sir.”
Brand turned to Moll Enor and Nev Reoh. ”And you do admit that taking a sonic cutter down there was dangerous? The maintenance workers have to sh.o.r.e up that region. You could have destabilized the entire fault zone.”
”Yes, sir!” they both answered immediately.
Brand considered them seriously for a few moments. ”I won't ask what possessed you to venture into the caverns in the first place, however it was a smart move to have a backup team ready.” t.i.tus couldn't look at the smirk on Starsa's face. ”But I warn you that another Quad reprimand will require that you re-do this academic year-the same cla.s.s, same Quad next year.”
”Oh, no!” Starsa exclaimed, then quickly put her hand over her mouth.
”Oh, yes,” Brand a.s.sured her. ”In Starfleet, we either win together or fail as a group. Here at the Academy, when a group regularly fails together, then we find that it serves in the long run to give them additional time to work things out.” She actually smiled. ”It saves wear and tear on your fellow officers later on down the line.”
All of the cadets looked a little queasy at the prospect of repeating their hard work. For the first-year cadets had the hardest time. Rarely were field a.s.signments given to unproven freshmen. They would be stuck at the Academy, stuck in their Quad, for another year. While everyone else they knew would venture into the galaxy, serving temporary duty on stars.h.i.+ps and starbases from here to the borders of the Romulan, Klingon, and Carda.s.sian territories.
The others glanced at t.i.tus more than they had in the beginning. He suddenly knew how Jayme must have felt the last time they stood in Brand's office-like all the silent blame for their punishment was being heaped on her head.
”We'll do better,” t.i.tus a.s.sured Admiral Brand, taking it on himself to speak for all of them.
She fixed her all-seeing gaze on him. ”Make sure that you do.”
Chapter Three.
”BE SURE TO TELL ME what it's really like,” Moll Enor insisted to Bobbie Ray. ”Describe exactly what happens into a tricorder and send me a copy.”
Bobbie Ray rolled away, pulling a pillow over his face. ”Come on, you've seen the holos like everyone else.”
”That's not the same as being there.” Moll Enor crossed her arms, realizing it was impossible to make the spoiled Rex understand what a unique opportunity he had. By next month, Bobbie Ray and his parents would be visiting the Bajoran sector, where a stable wormhole had recently been discovered. Moll was absolutely certain that the view from the newly designated Starbase, DS9-watching the wormhole open to another part of the galaxy, millions of light-years crossed in an instant-would be vastly different than merely looking at a holo-image.
”You're so lucky your parents are taking you,” Jayme told him enviously. ”The Endeavor will be leaving the Carda.s.sian border and probably won't get anywhere close to the Bajoran sector this summer. But my aunt is hoping we do get into Klingon territory while I'm visiting.”
”I wanted to go with friends,” Bobbie Ray said from under the protective shadow of the pillow. ”But Mother keeps talking about 'losing me' and how we have to spend more time together.”
”I'll take your place,” Nev Reoh offered. But his tentative joke had too much yearning in it to amuse anyone.
Moll bit her lip, ducking her head. It was Reoh who should go to Bajor now that the Carda.s.sian occupation had ended-not Bobbie Ray but Reoh, the former Vedek who had never set foot on his own homeworld. From his tone, she could tell he hadn't been able to arrange pa.s.sage during the upcoming summer break. Yet he had been all smiles lately, too pleased with the liberation of his people from the Carda.s.sian occupation to talk about his own thwarted desire. Moll liked him even better for that.
t.i.tus stood up, his hands on his hips. ”Are we here to finish our Quad project or gossip about our summer vacations?”
”We've only got to test it again and we're through,” Moll Enor reminded him.
”Then we're through for the year!” Starsa exclaimed, clapping her hands. ”No more cla.s.ses for two months!”
”Then let's do it,” Jayme agreed, rocking forward on her knees to examine their proton chain-maker one last time. ”Where's the sample?”
Even Bobbie Ray rolled over and watched their preparations. A limen stalk was placed in the receptacle where the target laser fell on a crosshair.
Moll moved closer to watch Jayme and Starsa, their resident engineers, work over the chain-maker. Moll's contribution had been the data on proton structure and characteristics. One of her specialties was astrophysics, and she had suggested using protons, the chief const.i.tuent of primary cosmic rays. t.i.tus and Jayme had wanted to use an antiproton chain, figuring it would be more dramatic, but the others voted down the idea because of the large containment field that would be necessary to hold the chain-maker and its fuel.
”Kind of simple, if you ask me,” Jayme grumbled, not for the first time.
”It's brilliant!” Starsa contradicted, laughing. ”It's a variation on an old idea. Instead of a molecular beam, we're narrowing the focus to protons. That means it can be used for ultrafine incisions.”
t.i.tus held up another limen stalk, jabbing it at his neck as if the errant vegetable was attacking him. ”The dreaded limen stalk! That'll teach 'em!”
Everyone laughed, but Nev Reoh tentatively said, ”If we can indicate that genes can be cut in living tissue without damage, that would be a genuine contribution.”
t.i.tus patted him on the back. ”Sure, you just keep thinking that. All I want to do is ace our Quad project and report to the moonbase for shuttle-supply duty.”
The cadets went back to talking about their plans for summer vacation as Jayme ran through the preliminary sequence, heating the gas and mixing the vapors. Even T'Rees confided that he planned to go back home to Vulcan before beginning his last year at the Academy.
No one had asked Moll what she was doing, and naturally, she volunteered nothing. It was a little-known fact of Trill physiology that some needed to return to the pool periodically after being joined with a symbiont. The first two years of a host's joined life was usually spent in or near the Inst.i.tute, adjusting to the memories and new sensations. Since Moll was a first host, she didn't have the memories-except of the pool and some sort of common mental bond that all the symbionts shared before joining. But she did have the strange sensations, feeling different than she used to be, yet not anything in particular.
Maybe she didn't need to go back to the pool, but in a very real way, it was the most familiar thing she had left. More familiar than her parents and her family, left so long ago and not by her choosing.
Suddenly Moll Enor realized Jayme was looking right at her, that strange fascination in her eyes. She was pointing to the lever that would release the proton beam. ”Do you want to open it?” It was your idea to use protons.”
The others nodded, mostly not caring one way or the other. Moll stiffly went over to the chain-maker, shying away from the questioning smile in Jayme's eyes, wondering as always why the younger woman always seemed to be watching her. Not for the first time, Moll thought that maybe she should confess she wasn't as interesting as Jayme obviously thought. That contrary to the popular stories about Trill, there was no one inside her body except for her. No extra lives, no superior wisdom, no exciting stories to tell. But now it would only be another few days and their Quad would scatter to the four corners of the galaxy, to return to Starfleet next year to a new Quad and new roommates.
”It's been a memorable year,” Moll Enor told them all as she flipped the lever.
Since she was closest, she was the first to see the fine trail of smoke that rose at the contact of the beam with the limen stalk. She was turning in question to Jayme when the beam exploded.
Jayme hit the floor next to the bed, flung there by the percussion wave. Moll Enor landed next to her, but she didn't open her eyes. At first, all Jayme could see was the smoke and destruction in the room. Starsa's gasps sounded painful, and t.i.tus was swearing in Antaranan, a pungent language for a frontier colony.
”Moll,” Jayme called softly, coughing, then tried again. Before she could get really worried, Moll opened her eyes and blinked up in confusion. ”Are you okay?”
”I b.u.mped my head, I think,” she said, sitting up and avoiding Jayme's supporting hand.
Vaguely disappointed, Jayme went to help the others. Starsa's arm and back had been burned right through the uniform. Echoing down the hall, from somewhere in her room, her medical monitor began to beep.
Jayme ran for her biogenerator in the drawer next to her bed. T'Rees had more experience with Starsa's various injuries, so Jayme gave him the generator and went to t.i.tus, who was still sitting on the floor, looking dazed.
”What happened?” he asked.
”I don't know.” She knelt down to examine the long cut on his cheek caused by some of the flying wreckage. ”Protons are one of the most stable subatomic particles you can work with. Maybe the velocity selector was creating two discrete beams and they got crossed somehow.”
Starsa was pale beneath T'Rees's arm. ”That would have blown up the Quad.”
Bobbie Ray was sitting bolt upright, staring at the blackened wall and the melted table where the chain-maker had once sat. ”It did blow up the Quad!”