Chapter
4
“I need to get out of here.”
Sonya declared this to her parents and Belinda over breakfast one morning—the first meal she had eaten with them since her arrival.
“Is the food that bad?” her father asked with a wry smile.
“No, of course not, but—”
Her mother, wrinkles softening the same sharp cheekbones she had passed on to her daughters, gazed at her daughter with the family’s hazel eyes. “What is it, mija?”
“I need to go to Portland. To see Kieran’s mother—and his grave. I know he wanted to be buried next to his father, and—” She hesitated. “I don’t know why, I just need to go.”
José Esteban put a large hand over his daughter’s small one. His hair, as jet-black as it was when he was a boy, a fact of which he was inordinately proud, fell down over his eyes, which Sonya had always thought made him look like a very dark sheepdog. “Then you need to go.”
Her mother asked, “You want us to come with you?”
Sonya started to say no, then thought about it. “Let me ask Ms. Duffy tomorrow when I contact her. I don’t want to drop in unannounced.”
“Good thing,” her mother said. “I raised you better than that.”
Belinda smiled. “You did? I must’ve missed that part.”
“Mostly, yes.” Lupe Gomez fixed her daughter with a look.
Sonya wondered if she were missing something here. “Is everything okay?”
“Nothing you need to worry about, mija,” Belinda said with a glower at their mother.
“Okay.” Sonya looked at her father, who had brushed the hair away from his eyes, so there was no mistaking what the message was behind the look he gave her: Stay out of it. The relationship between Lupe and Belinda was akin to an old roller coaster, and it looked like it was about to hit one of its downward cycles after years of steady upward climbing.
“It’s not like there aren’t other openings for soccer coaches,” Belinda added, thus providing the reason for the latest difficulty. Bee’s gone and screwed up another career.
Her mother raised an eyebrow in an almost Vulcanlike manner. “Really? Even ones who’ve been fired three times for violating school policy?”
“It’s a dumb policy.”
Lupe stood up. “Just once, would it be too much to ask, just once, for you to stick to something? To make a decision and actually abide by it for more than five minutes, like your sister?”
Sonya flinched.
“Lupe, please,” her father said in the long-suffering tone that Sonya recognized from previous Belinda-mami fights, “don’t drag Sonya into this.”
“Why not, it’s her favorite trump card to play,” Belinda said, also standing up. “Sonya’s the perfect daughter who does everything right. Except she doesn’t always.”
Shooting a look at Belinda, Sonya said, “Bee, what’re you—?”
“Maybe if she’d actually told that guy yes when he proposed, he wouldn’t have accepted a suicide mission.”
Her voice barely a whisper, Sonya said, “That’s not how it happened.”
“That’s how it looks to me, Ess. You didn’t say yes, so he didn’t have anything to live for. How’s that for little Commander Perfect, huh? So don’t go telling me that I’m the failure in this house.”
With that, Belinda stormed out of the kitchen.
Sonya felt like she had been punched in the stomach. My God, it is my fault.
“I’m sorry, mija,” Lupe said. “You shouldn’t have had to listen to that garbage.”
Garbage, right. Then she thought for a moment. Of course it’s garbage. Kieran was crazy sometimes, but he wasn’t stupid. He only went because Gold ordered him.
“It’s okay, mami. But—I think maybe I should go to Portland alone.”
Her mother sat back down. “Don’t let your sister—”
“It has nothing to do with her,” Sonya lied. In fact, the knowledge that her mother had used Sonya’s success as a weapon in her on-again, off-again war with Belinda was a major influence in her new-found desire to go alone. “I just need to do this myself.”
José gave her a look, his hair once again falling in front of his eyes. Kieran’s hair used to do that all the time, too, she thought sadly. “You’re sure?” he asked.
She nodded. “I’m sure.”
* * *
Gomez supposed she could have requisitioned a transporter to get her from Vieques to Portland, but she found that she preferred taking a shuttle service. Flying over the North American continent gave her a little bit of time alone to think.
What am I going to do now?
She couldn’t go back to the da Vinci. Leaving aside the bad memories, there was simply no way she could serve under David Gold again. Being on the same ship with him would just be a constant reminder of Kieran’s death. She knew that Starfleet had cleared him of any wrongdoing, and for the other twenty-two of her crewmates, she agreed with the tribunal’s decision. Gold didn’t do a thing wrong—
—until the very end when he condemned the man she loved to die, knowing full well what that would mean, and concealing the information from her. That was something she simply could not forgive, even if Starfleet found they could.
At present, the other three Saber-class ships assigned to the S.C.E. had first officers/S.C.E. commanders, so a lateral move was out of the question. But there were plenty of ships out there, and one of them, she knew, had to have need of a chief engineer. She would miss the challenges of the S.C.E., not to mention the remaining da Vinci crew, but there was certainly a part of her that missed the thrill of running an engine room. It might be nice to get back to that. She made a mental note to compose a transfer request when she got back home.
The shuttle flew over the Rocky Mountains. For some reason, she was suddenly reminded of Kieran’s love for flying around in gravity boots—a predilection that had been put to good use on Maeglin only a few months ago when they were trying to round up some strange creatures that had come to the planet through an interdimensional gateway. I remember thinking I was going to kill him for being so reckless. Funny, how silly turns of phrase like that sound when the person actually dies.
It wasn’t long before the shuttle arrived in Portland. Gomez went the rest of the way on foot.
She had expected the house to be bigger, for some reason. Kieran was always describing it as this huge place. Probably remembering it from a kid’s-eye perspective, she thought.
The woman who answered the door was, unlike the house, bigger than Gomez had been expecting. She had only seen Christa Duffy on a viewscreen, with nothing to really give her scale, so she hadn’t been expecting someone so dauntingly tall. Of course, Kieran wasn’t exactly short, either, and he had to get it from somewhere.
“Sonya! It’s good to finally meet you!” She immediately drew Gomez into a hug that was, in its own way, as all-encompassing as one of Belinda’s. “You’re as beautiful as Kieran said.”
Tears welled up in Gomez’s eyes. “So are you.” Christa had the same kind brown eyes, the same warm smile, and the same mousy brown hair as her son, though the latter was flecked with gray (“Less than you’d expect,” Kieran had said once, “but more than she’d like”).
After breaking the embrace, but still clutching to Gomez’s arms, Christa said, “I’m so glad you came.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner, but I needed—”
Letting go of her arm with one hand that she held up in admonishment, Christa said, “I understand. Besides, plenty of people have been here. Kieran’s sister Amy has been by so much she might as well move back in. Some of your crewmates have been by, and some of your old friends from the Enterprise, including that nice Mr. O’Brien and his family.”
Gomez smiled. Why does it not surprise me that the chief stopped by?
“And I got a very nice letter from Fabian Stevens before he went off on a trip somewhere.”
That made Gomez flinch. She hadn’t even thought about Fabian. He must be hurting in his own way as much as I am. To her shame, she realized that she not only didn’t know where he had gone for his trip, she didn’t even realize he had gone on one in the first place. In fact, she didn’t have the first clue as to where any of her surviving shipmates were. Vaguely she recalled P8 Blue saying something after the service about bringing her larvae home, but aside from that…
“And of course, Captain Gold is here now.”
Were Christa not still holding her arm, Gomez might have stumbled. That bastard is here?How dare he show his face in this house?
“He brought the Federation Medal of Honor they gave Kieran, and—Oh, but where are my manners? Come in, please. Let me show you the house.”
Christa tried to lead her in, but Gomez started to move backward. “Maybe it’s best if I—”
Then the captain himself appeared behind Christa in the doorway. “Gomez. Good to see you. I was starting to get worried.”
Just standing there, like nothing happened.“I don’t have anything to say to you,” she said coldly.
Gold flinched, as if he’d been slapped. Good, Gomez thought.
Christa looked back and forth between the two of them. “Am I missing something?”
“If you are, Ms. Duffy, so’m I. Gomez, what’s the—”
As they had with Belinda in the attic, the words suddenly came pouring out of Gomez’s mouth. “It’s all your fault! You killed him, you son of a bitch, and then you have the gall to show your face here!”
“Gomez—”
“You murdered him! He wanted to marry me, and you killed him, and you wouldn’t even tell me!”
“Marry you?”
Gomez had no idea whether it was Gold or Christa who had made the exclamation, nor did she care. “I will not stay here with you, so either get the hell out of this house, or I’m leaving.”
“I’ll decide who stays in my house, Sonya, if you don’t mind,” Christa said with a steely tone.
Realizing she’d overstepped herself, Gomez quickly said, “I’m sorry, Christa. I didn’t mean—”
“To tell a woman who just lost her son how to run her own house? To insult a guest of that house?”
“You don’t understand—”
“My son is dead, Sonya. It wasn’t enough that I had to bury my husband, now I’ve buried my son. You don’t know what that’s like, nor how much you need family and friends who understand at a time like this.”
I know now, Gomez thought, but wisely did not say aloud. “You weren’t there, Christa, you don’t know what he did.”
“He didn’t do anything Kieran didn’t ask to do,” Christa said.
That brought Gomez up short. “What?”
In as gentle a voice as Gomez had ever heard Gold use, the captain said, “Duffy volunteered to disarm the device. And he knew full well what that meant.”
“No. You’re lying. He wouldn’t have done that. He asked me to marry him.”
“As God is my witness, I had no idea. He didn’t tell me that.”
Gomez turned and ran into the yard, screaming, “You’re lying!”
She ran around to the back of the house, all the way to the big oak that was the centerpiece of the large lawn, collapsing onto the well-manicured grass and leaning against the massive tree. At waist-height, she could see some bark scarring—a remnant of a German shepherd named Alexander, the so-called “Houdini dog” of Kieran’s youth. They could, of course, have repaired the bark, but Kieran had asked to leave it there as a memento of Alexander’s many escapes from his tether to that tree.
To her lack of surprise, Gold had followed her. He was dressed, she noted, in civilian clothes that only served to add to the grandfatherly mien he usually carried. All the better to fool you with, she thought.
“I’m not lying, Sonya,” he said.
She looked up at his blue eyes, which were, maddeningly, filled with sorrow and compassion. He had never called her by her first name before that she could remember.
“Even if he did volunteer, how could you—”
“Let him? It was his job, Gomez. Yes, you two were a couple—and more than that, apparently, if he actually popped the question—but that had nothing to do with my decision, or his volunteering. I took a helluva gamble even letting you two have that relationship. But I assumed that you were professionals and understood the risks of what might happen. If you did, then what the hell are you complaining to me for? And if you didn’t, then I question whether you belong in Starfleet.”
Gomez wanted to object, to ask how he dared to question her commitment to Starfleet—but she found she could not. He’s right, she finally admitted to herself.
“He didn’t tell you he proposed?”
Gold shook his head. “He came to me with his farkochte plan to stop Wildfire after you gave me your farkochte plan for getting the engines restarted. You came up precisely once in the conversation. You know what he said? ‘Don’t tell Sonya.’”
Tears now streaked from Gomez’s eyes. “Why didn’t he—”
“He said you had enough on your mind. Which, considering you were about to run the world’s fastest warp-core installation and startup, was not an irrelevant concern.”
“It still doesn’t make sense,” she muttered. “Why did he—”
Unbidden, Belinda’s words came back to her: “I don’t think you ever met a decision you didn’t like—and didn’t stick with.” More words from the previous day: “You didn’t say yes, so he didn’t have anything to live for.”
And something Geordi La Forge said on the Enterprise over a decade ago: “You’re awfully young to be so driven.”
“Oh, God.”
Frowning, Gold asked, “What is it?”
“He thought I refused.” Gomez felt like a black hole had opened in her stomach. Her breaths came shallowly. “It’s my fault. I didn’t give him an answer right away, and he assumed that meant no.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“No, sir, it isn’t.” Gomez clambered to an upright position. “I’ve always been—well, decisive. When I decided to go into Starfleet, I didn’t rest until I qualified for the entrance exams. At the Academy, I was determined to be on the Enterprise, so I made sure I was the best. When I met Kieran, I was the one who made the first move, and when I got the promotion and the transfer to the Oberth, I was the one who broke it off. For that matter, us getting together again after Sarindar was my decision.” She looked away. After spending the last several weeks hating this man for something that was, in fact, her own fault, she found herself unable to look him in the eye. “When Kieran proposed, I couldn’t give him an answer. I was indecisive. He must’ve interpreted it as a negative answer, and—and he volunteered to die instead.”
“Gomez, that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”
She looked up sharply at Gold, who was regarding her with an expression that reminded her frighteningly of the one her father used to have when she and Belinda got themselves into trouble as kids.
“Yes, Duffy volunteered for the suicide mission, but he was the only one who could perform it. He had started the deactivation sequence of the Wildfire device back on the Orion; if anybody else went, they’d have had to start from scratch. It’s pretty damned unlikely that anyone else would have made it. Hell, the only other people who knew the codes were me and Corsi, and neither of us were in any shape to do so.”
Involuntarily, Gomez looked down at Gold’s left hand. The doctors on the Mjolnir, the ship that rescued the da Vinci after they escaped Galvan VI’s atmosphere, had given him a perfect biosynthetic hand that looked just like the old one, but at the time of the mission, Gold had been literally crippled. As for Corsi, she had still been partially paralyzed.
“Besides, if Duffy hadn’t done it, he still would be dead. And so would the rest of us. The engines didn’t come online until after the point of Wildfire’s detonation. You, me, Duffy, Stevens, Corsi, Blue, Ina, Wong, Lense, and the rest of us would be bits of protomatter making up whatever it is Galvan VI would get turned into by that damned thing—and so would the Ovanim.”
Gold put his artificial left hand on Gomez’s shoulder, and reduced his tone to a near whisper. “Sonya, Kieran didn’t do what he did because he wanted to die. He did what he did because he wanted you—and everyone else on the ship, and the Ovanim—to live.”
Now Gomez did look David Gold in the eyes. What she saw was a man in tremendous pain for the losses he suffered. She knew that he blamed himself as much as she blamed herself—maybe more so. But he also knew what a fool’s game that ultimately was.
“It’s easy to assign blame,” he said. “It’s hard to go on living. It’s been my impression that Commander Sonya Gomez is the best there is at doing what everyone thinks is hard and making it look easy.”
Do I want to do that? Do I want to go back to the da Vinci without Kieran—and with constant reminders of his death around me? It would be easier to just go home and write up that transfer request. No one would think ill of me.
In her mind, she heard Belinda’s voice: “Make a damn decision, already, Ess!”
“I’ll have to go on living, then,” she said.
“Good. Now let’s go back inside. There’s an old woman in there who had to bury her son. Having done that myself all too recently, I know this isn’t a good time for her to be alone.”
Gomez saluted. “Yes, sir, Captain.”
He smiled, apparently understanding what she meant by the anachronistic gesture.
“Apology accepted, Gomez. Let’s go.”