Part 7 (1/2)
Chapter Five.
ENSIGN TASHA YAR could not imagine anybody in the universe being happier than she was. She had graduated from Starfleet Academy with honors, and her first training cruise was such a success that the Starbound had been given a genuine, responsible a.s.signment on its way back to Earth: carrying a consignment of dilithium crystals from the cracking station on Tarba to Starfleet's s.h.i.+pyard on Mars. But it was not just the success of her new career that had Yar wondering if the artificial gravity had ceased to function.
After the utter misery of the first fifteen years of her life, she had barely adjusted to the idea of a hopeful future when Federation Immigration threatened to send her back to the h.e.l.l-hole she had escaped from. Historians discovered in records no one on the planet remembered that the turning point on New Paris had come when it seceded in absentia from the Federation it blamed for abandoning the colony. Not knowing about the wars and technological breakdowns going on back on Earth, the government of New Paris seceded in order not to be bound by the very laws whose abandonment led to Earth's worst war and the Post-Atomic Horrors. Ironically, New Paris took longer than its founding planet to sink into degradation ... but the eventual result was similar, and unlike Earth, New Paris never recovered.
But Dare found Starfleet legal counsel to present Yar's case. In the end, though, it was neither the legal counsel's skills nor Dare's eloquent descriptions of the life he had rescued ”the child” from that won her the right to stay on Earth: the most powerful druglord on New Paris, whom the Federation perforce had to recognize as spokesman for his planet, simply didn't want her! ”What's another starving girl-child? You want her, you keep her-in fact, take any of the rest of the strays that want to go with you!”
Only after she was at last secure in her new life could Yar begin to mold herself into something civilized, to achieve her dream of attending Starfleet Academy. The struggle merely to survive was over. Whole new vistas opened to her.
At last, it seemed, fate had turned a kindly face toward the young woman it had previously scorned. When Darryl Adin returned to Starfleet Academy for a refresher course in the latest security techniques, just as her final training placed Yar in the same courses, they had rediscovered one another. The difference in their ages, so important when he was a Starfleet officer and she a terrified adolescent, was insignificant now that Yar was almost twenty-three. Inevitably, they had fallen in love.
Nor could they have chosen a better time for it. In the past, Starfleet marriages were risky endeavors, often doomed in the attempt to balance two careers, forcing choices between refused promotions or long separations. Either way, domestic pressures added to an already stressful lifestyle resulted in an unconscionably high rate of broken marriages.
But now, in recognition of the human need for family, Starfleet was building new Galaxy cla.s.s stars.h.i.+ps, designed for long exploratory voyages upon which whole families would journey together. Darryl Adin and Tasha Yar had put in their application both for permission to marry, and for a.s.signment together to such a s.h.i.+p. Their first request had already been granted: they would be married in the Academy Chapel upon their return to Earth. It was too early for announcements about the second, but Dare had been a.s.sured by friends in Starfleet Command that while the compet.i.tion for other posts was the fiercest they had ever seen, there were few applicants for positions in Security. To people adventurous enough to choose a career in Starfleet Security, a s.h.i.+p safe enough to carry children held little appeal.
So Yar had high hopes that she and Dare would not only be able to serve together, but also raise a family in which their children would have both parents close at hand, all within the extended family of Starfleet ... the only true family she had ever known.
As usual on a training voyage, the Starbound was crewed mostly by newly-graduated Starfleet Cadets with just a few seasoned officers to guide them. Their mission was real enough, carrying supplies to a number of planets along the well-traveled star lanes; it was simply neither dangerous nor crucial. They weathered ion storms, learned to keep to a schedule, and visited worlds where conditions were very different from those on the planets where they had grown up. They learned to man their posts, care for their s.h.i.+p, and work together on away teams, all from day-to-day experience. When the training voyage was over, they would go to their first a.s.signments on s.h.i.+ps or starbases, qualified to work side by side with seasoned Starfleet personnel.
Dare was one of the experienced officers on the Starbound, acting as Security Chief. Some of Yar's female friends had warned her that having her fiance as her superior would never work-but better to learn it now than after they were married. When the dire predictions did not come true, she put the comments down to jealousy. Now the six-month voyage was more than half over, they had secretly loaded the dilithium crystals at Starbase 36, and they headed back toward Earth with their precious cargo and heady sense of accomplishment.
One day Yar was on the firing range, trying to equal Dare's accuracy with a single-shot pistol. A phaser or other continuous-fire weapon was no true test of skill; the user moved it onto target while still firing. Practice only with such weapons led to sloppy shooting and the habit of wasting the weapon's charge-critical if one could not recharge it.
So Security personnel practiced with guns that shot brief bursts of light, at light-sensitive targets. Yar was the best in her cla.s.s ... but Dare's accuracy was legendary. He had been Starfleet champion for the past nine years, and no one yet came close to displacing him.
The light gun made a slight zapping sound, and the target beeped various notes, depending on where one hit it. Yar's shots made a monotonous repeated ”boink” as she placed them consistently within the ten-centimeter-diameter center circle at a distance of thirty meters.
At that distance she could not see the target well enough to discern the pattern of white light made by her strikes, except that it seemed a little too large-again. She stepped back and looked up at the monitor over her head. Indeed, her shots were scattered over the center circle. Dare had been known to put fifteen shots dead center, one on top of the other, so that it appeared he had struck only once.
Yar took a deep breath, stretched her fingers, and tried again. Six shots pinged the same note, but the seventh rang a deeper tone. ”d.a.m.n,” Yar muttered. She was getting worse.
”Tension, love.”
She closed her eyes, clenched her hands and jaw, and through gritted teeth said, ”Go away, Dare. You know I hate it when you sneak up on me.”
”Why was I able to?” he countered.
”Because this is not survival practice on the holodeck. This is target practice, and I'm trying to concentrate. There have to be some places where a person doesn't have to worry about being attacked.”
”How about my quarters, after your next watch?”
”It's a date. Now go away and let me work.”
”Is it work, Tasha?” He came up behind her, strong square hands on her shoulders, kneading her tension away. ”Yes-you're working too hard. Relax. The gun is an extension of your hand. Point it like a finger. Target practice is just a game-”
”Just a game? That from the man who moped for three days because the s.h.i.+p's computer beat him at chess?”
”Someone on the last crew programmed it to cheat,” he a.s.serted staunchly. ”Sestok had to reprogram it. And don't change the subject. You don't need this kind of accuracy to take out an enemy-you're just honing your skills here.”
”Mm-hmm. You don't want me good enough to beat you.” She said it lightly, but there were times Yar resented Dare's compet.i.tive nature, especially when it came head to head with her own. She could not make him understand the difference between them: Dare played to win. Yar worked to survive.
But her fiance understood her desires, if not her motivations. His hands were still on her shoulders. Now he turned her to face him. ”Tasha,” he said, ”I want you to be as good as I am.”
”Not better?”
His smile was self-mocking. ”Better than perfect?”
She chuckled. ”n.o.body's perfect.”
”No, not at everything. But there are some things-Tasha, why do you think I push you so hard? I want you to be happy, and to you that means perfecting your skills as a Security officer.”
”Not entirely. Having you....” She let the sentence trail off.
His smile was sweet and open this time, and then he kissed her. She melted contentedly into his arms.
When they broke apart, he murmured, ”Relaxed now? Feeling good?”
”Mmmm.”
”Try the target again.”
”Dare!” She stiffened in outrage.
”Go on,” he urged. ”That's an order, Ensign.”
”d.a.m.n you,” she muttered under her breath-not loud enough for her superior officer to hear, even though it was Dare-turned, and put fifteen rounds smack into the center of the target.
Dare was looking up at the monitor when she turned back to him. He grinned. ”Personal best.”
She looked up. Sure enough, every shot was cl.u.s.tered within a five-centimeter radius. When she looked at Dare, so smug and self-satisfied, fury at him and delight at her performance combined to prevent her from speaking.
”Now,” said Dare, ”tell me you didn't pretend it was me you were shooting at.”
Yar gasped. ”Of course I didn't!” Then she added, ”Not that you wouldn't deserve it if I had.”
”That's my clever girl,” Dare approved. ”Use your feelings-don't let them use you. See you after watch.”
And he left her there, half indignant, half aroused, half delighted, half confused ... and with never a thought to how many halves that added up to since she had enough emotions stirring for at least two people anyway.
Later, when they were both off duty and relaxing in Dare's quarters, she asked him, ”Do you use the same technique you used on me today with all the trainees?”
He laughed. ”I don't think it would work very well with Henderson, do you?”
Jack Henderson was a good head taller than Dare and built like an ore carrier. What he lacked in agility he made up for in sheer weight and muscle power. When he had a chance to set himself, not one of the security personnel aboard the Starbound could knock him over, including Darryl Adin.
”All your female trainees, then?”
”I've been nerve-pinched in the line of duty, Tasha; I don't care to casually invite it,” he replied.