Breakdowns by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Fiction
ISBN: 9781451613476
Publisher: Star Trek
Published: 2003-01-02T08:00:00+00:00

* * *

“He won’t come out of his room. I don’t know what to tell him.”

Gold sat in the dining room of the home in Havana, Cuba belonging to Arlene Rivera and the late da Vinci transporter chief. Rivera, a nurse, had been married to Chief Feliciano for ten years. The “he” she referred to was their son, Carlos.

“He turned seven a few days ago. That’s when he first locked himself in there. Now he only comes out to go to the bathroom. That’s when I’ve been bringing him food. But he won’t talk to me or to anybody.” Rivera had been holding a mug full of coffee for the entire time Gold had been sitting across from her nursing his own cup. She had yet to take a sip from it. A petite woman, she had jet-black hair and a round face that was marred by bloodshot brown eyes. “Diego promised he’d be home for his birthday this time. He missed it last year—because of the war, he couldn’t get away.”

The captain remembered Feliciano talking about having to miss his son’s birthday when they had gone on a mission to salvage an alien ship near a secret Federation outpost. Ironically, that had been the mission on which Commander Salek—Gomez’s predecessor—was killed.

“He promised that he would be home this time.” Tears started to run down her cheeks. “Why didn’t he keep the promise?”

Gold’s voice was a cracked whisper. “He would have. Diego always spoke fondly of you and Carlos. ‘My little Carlitos,’ he always called him.”

A smile struggled to get through the sadness on Rivera’s face. “Carlos hates being called that. I think that’s why Diego did it.” She shook her head, the sadness victorious over the fleeting smile. “Why did he have to die now? He lived through an entire war; why did this have to happen?”

“I can’t answer that. All I can say is that he died saving the lives of his crewmates—and his sacrifice may have saved an entire race. And I also know that that doesn’t mean a damn thing to a seven-year-old boy who won’t come out of his room. But someday, he will understand.”

“Good. Then maybe he can explain it to me.” She closed her eyes. “I’m sorry, Captain, I’m not being fair to you.”

“Nobody expects you to be fair, Ms. Rivera—hell, you’ve got no reason to be. It’s completely unfair—believe me, I know. I had to bury my own son during the war—he was on Betazed when the Dominion took it.”

“Still, it means a lot that you came here. You didn’t have to do that.”

“Diego didn’t have to sacrifice his life the way he did, either. But he chose to. I think the very least I owed him was to let his wife and son know how sorry I am—and how much you meant to him.”

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