Into the Void by Peter David

Author:Peter David
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gallery Books
Published: 2002-08-04T00:00:00+00:00

BURGOYNE

VIII

BURGOYNE 172 PROWLED Engineering in a manner evocative of a cheetah. The Excalibur had only been out of drydock for a little over twenty-four hours, and Burgoyne had already established a reputation for perfection that kept hish engineering staff on their collective toes. Burgoyne stopped by the antimatter regulators and studied the readouts carefully. “Torelli!” s/he called. “Torelli, get your butt down here and bring the rest of you along for the ride!”

Engineer’s Mate Torelli seemed to materialize almost by magic at Burgoyne’s side.

“Yes, shir”, said Torelli.

“I thought I gave you instructions that would improve the energy flow by five percent, and I asked for them to be implemented immediately”.

“Yes, shir”.

“Did you implement them?”

“Yes, shir”.

“Then may I ask why I’m only seeing an improvement of three percent?”

“I don’t know, shir”.

“Then I suggest you find out”. At that moment, Burgoyne’s comm badge beeped. S/he tapped it and said, “Chief Engineer Burgoyne here”.

“Chief, this is Maxwell down in sickbay. Dr. Selar would like a word with you”.

“Can it wait?”

“It’s been waiting for a while, shir. She was most emphatic”. Maxwell sounded just a touch nervous.

“In other words, we’re definitely in the realm of not taking no for an answer, correct?”

“A fair assessment, shir”.

Burgoyne sighed. S/he’d been expecting this, really. S/he’d had hish head buried down in Engineering, overseeing every aspect of the refit. Burgoyne would have preferred another two weeks to complete the refit to hish satisfaction, but Starfleet had seemed bound and determined to get them out into space. It was Starfleet’s call to make, of course, but Burgoyne couldn’t say that s/he was happy about it.

And now the doctor, whom Burgoyne had barely had a chance to take note of in passing, wanted to see hir about some damned thing or other.

“On my way”, said Burgoyne, who then glanced up at Torelli and said, “Be sure that’s attended to by the time I get back”.

“Yes, shir”.

“By the way … first thing I’d do is make sure that the problem isn’t in the readings rather than in the actual tech. If an object measures a meter long, and the meter stick is wrong, then that doesn’t make the object a meter, now, does it”.

“No, shir”.

“Get on that, then”, said Burgoyne. “And don’t disappoint me. I don’t take well to it. Last person who disappointed me, I ripped their throat out with my teeth”.

“You certainly like to joke, Chief”, Torelli said.

“That’s true, Torelli, I do”, Burgoyne agreed. S/he headed for the door and paused there only long enough to say, “Of course, that doesn’t mean I was joking just now”. And s/he flashed hish sharp canines and walked out.

* * *

Soleta and Zak Kebron stepped out onto the bridge to find that all attention was on navigator Mark McHenry.

He was leaning back in his chair, eyes half-closed. He didn’t seem to be breathing. Lefier was staring at him, as was Shelby. Calhoun was just emerging from his ready room and he looked to see where everyone else’s attention was. He blinked in mild surprise.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.