Chapter 25

Chapter 25

When Georgia Cooper graduated from the Academy, she dreamed of serving on the Enterprise or one of the other notable ships in the fleet. She dreamed of being at the helm during battles with the Dominion or the Borg, perhaps inventing a maneuver that saved the day and would be named in her honor. She dreamed of doing something exciting, something that mattered.

Then she received her assignment to the Orion under Captain Stewart, an officer with a solid if unimpressive reputation. Worse yet, Ensign Cooper—as the most junior helmsman aboard—worked the graveyard shift on the bridge. She only saw the captain a handful of times, most of them at the turbolift doors when Captain Stewart retired to her quarters at the same time Cooper began her shift. This seemed like an assignment putting her on the fast track to nowhere.

Now, Cooper would give anything for those days back. Working the graveyard shift was better than putting in twenty-hour shifts and then going back to a room she shared with four other officers because hers had been destroyed. A dull assignment was better than running for her life through a smoke-filled corridor with a herd of other terrified people trying to escape from exploding bulkheads and collapsing ceilings.

Becoming the most senior helsman—in fact the only trained helmsman left aboard—was a great honor and privilege. But she couldn’t help stepping onto the bridge without thinking of how she had inherited the position. Anytime she considered this, she had to grip the edges of her station hard to keep from sobbing like a little girl.

At the moment, she gripped the edges of her console more out of nervousness than sadness. No one had heard anything from Captain Lichen or Commander Boutwell in sixteen hours. They should have checked in by now. Adding to the tension were the reports from the surface of some kind of riot going on in the capital. From the transmissions intercepted, a group of demonstrators had taken to the streets, looting and destroying property everywhere they went. There were even unconfirmed reports of rioters storming the prime minister’s residence.

“Anything?” Lieutenant Ramirez asked.

“Nothing, sir. There’s some kind of interference blocking our sensors,” Ensign Merle said, a nervous tremor in his voice.

During their lonely shifts on the bridge, Cooper had come to know Merle very well. He was a year younger than Cooper and like her had received his position by default. Merle grew up on a mining colony near the Klingon border not so different from the Serparnian one they’d visited. His parents and younger sister were three of the first victims during the brief war with the Klingons. From that moment on, Merle drove himself to get into Starfleet and serve on a ship to make sure no one else lost their loved ones in a similar fashion.

The night he told her this was the first time they kissed. Since then, they carried on their covert affair in some of the corridors abandoned after the renegade Serparnian attack. As much as Cooper enjoyed their moments together, she couldn’t help wondering if it was just a reaction to the enormous stress they were under. If they made it out of here alive, what would happen then?

Most likely they would get reassigned to different ships and never see each other again. While she kept telling herself it was only a fling, every time she glanced over at Merle’s station, she felt the urge to take his hand and feel his lips against hers—

“Ensign Cooper, is something wrong?” Lieutenant Ramirez asked. He stood behind her chair, glaring down at her.

“No, sir,” she said.

“If you’re fatigued—”

“I’m fine, sir. Sorry to daydream, sir.”

He nodded, patting the back of her chair in a friendly gesture. Lieutenant Ramirez was twice her age, old enough to be her father. He had served in Starfleet for a brief tour over twenty years ago. At the outbreak of the Dominion War, he rejoined, making him probably the oldest lieutenant in Starfleet. Not that Cooper minded; it was good to have someone with experience around.

The lieutenant paced around the bridge, refusing to sit in the captain’s chair. A rumor going around the ship even before the renegade attack suggested he and Captain Stewart had been involved in a less than professional way. Cooper didn’t subscribe to such base speculation, but the way he refused to sit in Captain Stewart’s former chair gave her pause. At any rate, it didn’t matter right now. They had to find the acting captain and commander.

“Sir, maybe we should send down a security detail to look for Captain Lichen,” Merle said.

“On a planet that big and unfriendly we’d be looking for a needle in a haystack filled with Terellian vipers,” the lieutenant said. “You keep trying to break through that jamming and I’ll keep trying to hail them.”

And that left Cooper to do nothing. She could only stare at her displays to make sure they were in standard orbit. Despite all the excitement on the ship, she hadn’t been involved in any of it. During the attack she’d been off the bridge. Flying the shuttle into the mining colony—

“Sir, maybe if we took one of the shuttles down we could see through the jamming to find the captain.”

Ramirez stroked his chin as he considered this. “That might work. Ensign Merle?”

“It’s possible. The sensors on a shuttlecraft aren’t as sensitive but we might be able to punch through the jamming.”

“Let’s do it, then. You two take one of the shuttlecrafts. I’ll keep an eye on things from up here.”

Cooper leapt from her seat, running towards the turbolift with Merle on her heels. Once the turbolift doors closed, she allowed herself to kiss him on the cheek. Maybe they didn’t have a future, but at least they had a present—and a chance to find Captain Lichen and Commander Boutwell.