Star Trek: The Next Generation: Collateral Damage by David Mack

Author:David Mack
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gallery
Published: 2019-10-07T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

There were many kinds of invitations that Commander Sam Lavelle enjoyed: dinners with cocktails, birthday celebrations, and promotion parties, to name just a few. Being called to the office of his division’s commander, however, was not a summons he ever relished.

He had double-timed his pace from his office through the corridor to the nearest lift, and then out of the lift on level three, all the way to the office suite of Admiral Marta Batanides, the chief of Starfleet Intelligence. At the entrance he waited while the computer subjected him to a biometric scan. After his identity and appointment both were confirmed, the doors opened, and he entered the admiral’s waiting room. A Vulcan woman wearing a lieutenant commander’s uniform looked up at Lavelle. “The admiral will see you in a moment, sir. Please have a seat.”

Great. Because nothing takes the dread out of meeting with your boss like being made to wait without an explanation.

Lavelle did his best to put on a relaxed front. He sat, kept his posture straight, did his best not to fidget. But beneath his uniform he was sweating bullets. The minutes passed slowly, each one more agonizing than the last. He spent them trying to imagine a scenario in which this hasty summons could lead to good news. He failed.

Anxiety had turned his guts to hot mud by the time the Vulcan woman said, “The admiral will see you now, Commander.”

He stood and smoothed the front of his uniform tunic. “Thank you.” Doing his best impersonation of a dignified officer who wasn’t petrified, he walked past the aide, to the office beyond. The door slid open ahead of him. He walked in and put on a polite smile.

“Wipe that smile off your face,” Batanides said before Lavelle took his third step inside. “I didn’t call you in here for witty banter.” She pointed at one of her guest chairs. “Sit.”

He sat facing the admiral. The human woman cut an imposing figure, in spite of being in late middle age. She had a lean, athletic physique and chiseled features. Her hair was bright like platinum, her eyes pale blue, and her voice as sharp as a Klingon’s war blade. Her attention was on the padd in her hand—and then it was on him.

“Do you know why I called you in here, Lavelle?”

“No, Admiral.”

With dramatic flourishes, she flung data from her padd to the large wall-mounted companel behind her desk. One by one, detailed files appeared from left to right: the Husnock OPC. A report about the botched bait and switch against the Orions at Kamhawy Freehold. The theft of the PMAR from Stonekettle Station—and the facility’s subsequent meltdown. The long-distance scrambling of the Enterprise’s main science lab.

And, last but larger than life, a mug shot of Thadiun Okona.

Batanides skewered Lavelle with a look. “Okona’s your asset, yes?”

He nodded. “One of them.”

A sweep of the admiral’s arm wiped away all of the other data points, and then a single motion replaced them with the Enterprise’s report of a Nausicaan attack on a freight convoy, using the OPC.

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