“When are you supposed to be on duty?” Marc asked him as they watched the parade of humanity pass by.
“Not until tomorrow morning,” Will said. “I was to report to the ship today, but my first shift is tomorrow.”
“That’ll give you some time to get acclimated,” Marc said.
“That’s what I was thinking too. When do we push off?” He had boarded the ship at Starbase 10, after shuttling there from San Francisco the day before.
“Push off?” Marc echoed. “We’ve been under way for the last hour.” He swiveled and led Will back to the observation lounge, but this time he opened the door and they went inside. Will peered through the large windows and saw the starscape drifting past them.
“Indeed we are under way,” he observed. “Smooth.”
“Nothing’s second-rate on the Pegasus,” Marc told him. “Tomorrow morning it’ll be your turn to fly smooth. Think you can do it, Babyface?”
Will swallowed once. He wouldn’t have been assigned the job if Starfleet hadn’t had faith in his abilities. Unless,he thought, Superintendent Vyrek just wants me far away from her.
“I can do it.”
Marc Boylen nodded. “That’s good. You keep thinking that way.” He drew back one of the chairs and sat down at the long, shiny table. “Have a seat, Ensign.”
Will did as he was told. Marc looked serious again. Will had only known the man for a short time, but he knew these serious moments were rare and should be taken, well, seriously. He waited.
“You’re going to be on this ship for a long time, Ensign Babyface,” Marc said. “Years. You ready for that? That’s the hardest part of the job, for some.”
Will had given a great deal of thought to this aspect of the job. What was he leaving behind on Earth, though? He had no family, except a father who had abandoned not only him but also, apparently, his career and everyone who had depended on him. He had no girlfriend, and the few friends he had left that he felt close to were all scattered on their own postings. Of the class that had graduated with him, there were only two other cadets he knew who had wound up on the Pegasuswith him, and neither were especially good friends.
“I’m ready,” he said finally.
“You won’t miss Earth?”
“Sometimes, I guess. Not a lot.”
“Where’d you live, before the Academy? I’m from Vermont. Stowe. Not much skiing around here, except on the holodeck.”
“Valdez, Alaska,” Will said. “So I guess we’re both used to plenty of snow.”
“You ski?”
“Cross-country,” Will said. “Downhill’s okay but it’s not really my thing.”
“We’ll have to go out sometime,” Marc said. “What else are you going to miss? Got a lover?”
Felicia’s face flashed through Will’s mind but he forced the image away. Ancient history. “No, not now.”
“Family?”
“No.”
Marc scrutinized him. “You have a life at all, outside the Academy?”
“I guess not much of one,” Will admitted. “I’m kind of career-oriented, I guess.”
“You’ll do fine, then, on this ship. Just remember, there will be times when you’ll get homesick, no matter what kind of home you left behind. There’ll be times when you miss having terra firma under your feet. If it gets bad, you can talk to the ship’s counselor, or you can talk to me.”
“What will you do about it?” Will challenged.
“Laugh in your face,” Marc said. “Won’t do much for you, but it’ll make me feel a whole lot better.”
“I appreciate that, Marc,” Will said, chuckling. “It’s nice to know you’re looking out for me.”
“I’m a tactical officer,” Marc reminded him. “I look out for everyone. I’m only looking out for you because you’re such a rookie, and because I don’t want you to run us into anything when you’ve got the helm.”
“I’ll try not to,” Will promised.
Marc pushed back his chair and stood up, and Will did the same. “Think you can find your way back to your quarters?” Marc asked him.
Will looked around, orienting himself. “I think so.”
“Good. You know where the mess hall is, or you can eat replicator food in your quarters. I was you, I’d go to the mess hall so you can meet some more folks and start learning names. Show up on time for duty tomorrow—if there’s one thing Captain Pressman hates, it’s lateness. Watch out for Shinnareth Bestor. She’s the operations officer. Good at her job, but with a foul temper, especially in the mornings. She’s become addicted to coffee, I think.”
Will tried to absorb all this. “Any other advice?”
“Don’t run into anything. Don’t break the ship. You’ll be fine.” He turned and started to leave, but then stopped after a few steps and looked back over his shoulder. “And when you start having to shave every day, be sure you do. The captain also hates unkempt officers on his bridge.”
Then Marc was gone, and Will was, for the first time, really alone on his new ship. His new home. It was big and strange and he knew virtually no one, and first thing in the morning strangers would be depending on his ability to do his job.
But if there was one thing Will was confident about, it was that. He knew he could do the job.
Chapter 31
“I’ve known you a long time, Owen,” Kyle said. “You’ve always been straight with me. That’s why I’ve come to you now. No matter what’s going on, I can’t believe you’re involved.”
Owen Paris looked at Kyle, his mouth still agape, eyes wide, and shook his head slowly. “You can’t believe?” he replied. “I can’t believe you’re standing there. It’s been two years, hasn’t it?”
“A little more,” Kyle admitted. “I’m sorry I didn’t say anything before, Owen. I didn’t know who to trust. I was scared. Not in my right mind, I guess.”
Owen turned his gaze toward the top of his desk. “I thought you were dead, Kyle. I think after a while, we all did.”
“Not an entirely inappropriate conclusion, considering someone was trying awfully hard to kill me.”
“So it seemed,” Owen said. “And then you vanished. What else were we to think? We tried to find you—Starfleet Security was knocking on doors and interviewing people all over the place. But you were simply gone. Where were you? Where have you been all this time?”
“That’s not important now, Owen. It was a bad place, and I lost someone I cared about there. Tell you the truth, I’m still grieving for her. But I’m back now, and I want to get to the bottom of this thing once and for all. I don’t want to be looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life, wondering who the next killer is. And I’d like for the rest of my life to last more than just a few days.”
“We all would,” Owen assured him. “I know Starfleet investigated the attempts on your life, the ones we knew about, anyway, for a while. But they didn’t turn anything up, and then you were gone, so I think the investigation petered out after a while. No body, no evidence, no witnesses. It’s still an open file, I’m sure, but with nothing to go on, they had to give up the hunt at some point.”
Kyle had contacted Owen’s office shortly after landing in San Francisco. He’d been nervous about approaching Starfleet Command, and after trying to think of a safe way to approach, had finally sent a message to Owen asking him to meet at the wharf. Kyle had arrived a little early, and the ten minutes or so he’d had to wait for Owen to show up had been anxious ones—hoping Owen, and he alone, had received the message and would comply. Now they stood on the wharf in gathering fog, looking out at the choppy gray water. “So if they’d like to get busy again, they’re welcome to. As for evidence, I don’t have any more than I did then. But now that I’ve returned, if the attempts start up again there’ll be plenty, I imagine.”