War Stories (Book 1 of 2) by Keith R. A. Decandido

Author:Keith R. A. Decandido [Decandido, Keith R. A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Amazon: B000FC0WHO
Publisher: Pocket Books/Star Trek
Published: 2012-07-13T17:35:08+00:00

§ § §

Three weeks later, Bart Faulwell and his team were no closer to a solution than they were when they started.

The meeting on Bart’s first day hadn’t taken too terribly long. Everyone introduced or reintroduced themselves to their newest boss. Novac and Throckmorton were truly a pair, finishing each other’s sentences and talking over each other. T’Lura said very little, but her few comments were incisive. This was in direct contrast to Phrebington, who had several dozen ideas, only some of them worthwhile. And then there was Janice Kerasus, a frail old human woman who looked like she would keel over at any second.

Bart was sitting in his quarters, going over the latest samples Starfleet Intelligence had provided, these from the few Klingon ships that had survived the attack on Avinall VII. They’d been working for days on end with no progress. Bart hadn’t realized that running this team would mostly consist of playing den mother to a bunch of opinionated specialists. Bart had always enjoyed the research for its own sake and for the intellectual rewards you generally got at the end. This group, though, was more interested in justifying their own preexisting theories. Phrebington mostly expounded on his own ideas about everything, whether or not they related to reality; Kerasus spent most of her time poking holes in Phrebington’s theories (not a difficult task, as Bart had encountered Swiss cheese with fewer holes than the Gnalish’s ideas about cryptography, but Kerasus applied herself to that particular task with special glee), and Novac and Throckmorton were in their own world and had to be repeatedly reminded that there were four other people involved. T’Lura was the only one who had been easy to work with, as she shared with Bart the love of research for its own sake— though, naturally, she didn’t express it as overtly as Bart did.

“Mark to Faulwell.”

Only when he almost fell out of his chair, startled, did Bart even realize that he had fallen asleep at his desk. Bart had always preferred to work at his own pace and simply catch naps where he could, but Commander DuVall insisted on a more rigid schedule, and the rest of the team was already locked into it, so Bart was stuck with it as well. It was playing merry hell with his admittedly eccentric circadian rhythm.

“Faulwell here. What can I do for you, Hey You?”

“Bart, no offense, but that joke stopped being funny the first eight hundred times.”

The next words came out of Bart’s mouth unplanned. “Tell you what— meet me for dinner tonight and I’ll stop.”

“All right, then, it’s a date.”

Bart blinked. Then he blinked again. My God, he said yes. He was already in shock at himself for asking in the first place— which he chalked up to exhaustion lowering his resistance— but Mark actually said yes.

“Bart, you there?”

“Uh, yeah. What say we meet at that Trill restaurant at, ah”— he checked the chronometer on his desk —”1930?”

“Will do.”

“Great.”

“That’s not why I called.”

“No, you

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