Star Trek by Andy Mangels & Andy Mangels & J. Noah Kym

Author:Andy Mangels & Andy Mangels & J. Noah Kym
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pocket Books/Star Trek

Stardate 53785.4

The runabout Rio Grande, now on course for Deep Space 9, had left Trill more than fifty hours ago.

Fifty extremely quiet hours ago, Bashir thought, seated in one of the cockpit chairs—though not in the one closest to Ezri.

He wasn’t sure how to go about breaking the seemingly interminable silences that stretched between their shared meals, their uncomfortable, largely separate sleeping intervals, and their brief flurries of report writing, duty-related conversation, and innocuous, superficial personal chitchat. Busy now at the pilot’s console, Ezri no longer seemed to want or need to discuss her homeworld’s symbiosis moratorium or its aftermath. In fact, she seemed utterly disinterested in talking about anything.

He, on the other hand, could scarcely contain himself. There were still aspects of this messy business he had questions about. For instance, were the parasites really gone for good? Or were there more out there, somehwere beyond Federation space, waiting for the right opportunity to try again?

But now didn’t seem an appropriate time to discuss such things. Bashir remained silent, though he thought the quiet tension that had built up in the cabin over the past hour could have repelled a quantum torpedo attack.

Idled by the uncomfortable stillness in the runabout’s cockpit, his mind again wandered back to the heavy-handed manner in which Ezri had conducted the mission on Trill. Though subsequent circumstances had largely vindicated her actions, he still felt a lingering resentment about it, as livid and painful as a bone bruise.

Since she seemed unlikely to bring up this subject—or any subject—he decided it was up to him to do it.

“Ezri, we have to talk.”

She continued staring straight ahead at the ever-shifting star field for several seconds before noticing that he’d spoken. “Hmmm?”

“Ezri, I want to talk to you about the mission.”

She turned her pilot’s chair so that she faced him. “You’re right. I suppose we could append a few more details to the initial reports we sent to Kira.” She started to rise from her chair.

He laid a hand on her arm, gently preventing her from getting to her feet. “DS9 is less than half a day away. I wanted to talk to you before we get back and end up getting swept into yet another crisis.”

She nodded. “You want to talk about the mission?” As reticent as she still obviously was about rehashing her world’s history with him, Bashir thought she was hoping she wouldn’t have to discuss anything else.

“Only peripherally. It’s really about, ah, the way you handled certain aspects of the mission.”

She leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms in front of her in a classic display of defensiveness. Her dazzling blue eyes narrowed. “Trill was attacked by a clandestine global terror network, Julian. Under the circumstances, it seems to me that the mission was as successful as anybody could have hoped.”

“I can’t argue with that, at least in retrospect.” Feeling she was beginning to tie him in knots, he decided he’d better simply come out with his point. “But I think you may have been a bit .

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