Star Trek (2 page)

She deliberately left Stevens's question to hang unanswered as the two started up the footpath leading to the house. As they walked, she felt her free hand move almost of its own will to smooth some of the wrinkles from the front of her knit blouse. Civilian fashions were hardly her strong suit, she admitted, but the weight and weave of the fabric was well suited to the climate for the time and duration of their stay. She would have preferred to travel in her Starfleet uniform and save the civilian clothes for later, but she knew better.

The last thing that Dad wants to see is me in uniform.

Corsi turned to notice Stevens visibly shudder. A crisp breeze cut the dry air, rippling through Stevens's lightweight, short-sleeved shirt and tousling his hair. She could tell he was gritting his teeth, probably to keep them from chattering.

“I told you to dress differently,” she said, allowing herself to have some fun at his expense. “This part of Fahleena III is nothing like the resort cities that get listed in the travel databases.”

“What? Oh, I'm okay,” Stevens said, belying what his body communicated through gooseflesh and quivers. “Hey, we have to dress the part. We're on vacation, after all.”

Once more Corsi shook her head at Stevens's behavior. Since their trip began, the tactical specialist had put out this attitude of leaving the
da Vinci
for a fun getaway, and it was this distinction that had acted as a gulf between them these past days. She could see that it was an act on his part, but one he was determined to carry on despite the anguish and sense of loss Corsi knew he had to be feeling. There had been a few occasions where his façade had slipped, but for the most part Stevens had managed to keep up the appearance of having not a care in the world.

Like now, for instance. There he was, wearing that foolish shirt, acting as if he were heading to summer camp. This was not the time for some sort of pleasure trip, and he of all people should know that.

It was all so wrong.

Our ship is crippled. Our people are hurt. And Duffy
…

This is no vacation. We're running away from a situation
rather than facing it. That's not the way to serve anybody.

As they walked, Corsi felt herself begin to seethe all over again, just as she had when she had learned how Stevens had set them on this unavoidable collision course with her parents. She bristled once more at the idea of him intercepting that subspace call from her mother and answering her questions about Galvan VI once word got out via the Federation News Service of the disastrous mission. Stevens was the one who told her mother about her getting hurt onboard the
U.S.S. Orion
when he should have known it would just cause needless worry. And once that story made it back to her father …

And then to top it all off, the guy introduces himself as my boyfriend. He even uses that stupid word. Boyfriend. That's so like him, and damned if Mom didn't take that tidbit of information and run with it. I can't believe she even invited him to come home with me. I'm not sure I'm ready for how all this is going to turn out.

Stevens had called in his marker, however, just as Corsi had known he would one day.

Upon learning of his conversation with her mother, she had unleashed herself on Stevens, yelling about his having no business talking to her parents about her missions. She spat through a rant about his having
no claim at all to her private affairs, and how he likely had an overinflated perception of their relationship, and that her reaching out and showing him some compassion on the death of his best friend was turning into a big mistake.

Then he brought up that night. The one that seemed like ages ago. The one that helped me remember Dar
…

She remembered his words.
“You said you needed me that night, no questions asked. And I've never asked a one. Not one! Now it's my turn. Captain Gold wants us to take a break and we're taking one. You're going home and I'm going with you. Fair enough?”

It was nothing if not fair, so here they were.

As they stepped onto the house's front porch, Corsi reached toward an illuminated button on the door frame to signal their arrival. As she did, Stevens stayed her hand. “Wait a second, Domenica.” She snapped her hand back, maybe a bit too sharply, and glared at him. He recoiled a bit, as he always did when he steeled himself for one of her outbursts. “Before we go inside, I just wanted to thank you for this. I know this wasn't your idea, but it means a lot to me.” Despite her scowl, he offered a kind smile.

Okay, how is it that his dumb looks can calm me down?

Corsi sighed, releasing the steam that she had let herself build during the walk up here. “Fabian, this
will all work out. We'll be fine.” She had hoped her words would sound more convincing than they did as she rang the doorbell.

Moments later the door before them slid open to reveal a woman who Corsi admitted to herself was, if not for two decades of time, her mirror image. The woman's face broke into a beaming smile as her eyes darted back and forth in her attempt to absorb instantly as much as she could about each of them.

“Oh, Dommie! I still don't believe it.” The woman stepped forward and embraced Corsi, wrapping arms around her in the kind of hug that hardly differed in its intensity from when she was half her present size and stature. Corsi rested her chin on the woman's shoulder, releasing the gulp of air she had known to take before the hug. As she looked over to Stevens, he quietly formed a word on his lips in exaggerated enough of a fashion that she could read it easily.

“Dommie?”
he whispered, his eyebrows arcing in delight, and Corsi skewered him with a look that she hoped would communicate that his next usage of the nickname would be his last.

“Hi, Mom,” she said as the two released each other. “It's good to be here.”

“Dommie, are you okay? I mean, are you still hurt? Can you walk all right?”

She nodded, not surprised that the questions had
started right away. “I'm great, Mom. It was a spinal cord bruise and neurological shock, and that's all.” She looked over at her travel companion and did not mask disdain from her voice. “You probably got a much more dramatic description, I'll bet.”

The elder Corsi frowned at her daughter. “Oh, hush. He was just as worried as we were, Dommie.” She extended a hand to Stevens. “Welcome to our home, Fabian.”

Stevens smiled at her mother, but in a way that Corsi had not seen before. It was a gentler look for Fabian, she thought. Something … authentic.

“Thanks, Ms. Corsi. I'm glad to be here.” Stevens took the woman's hand in a gentle grasp, then paused, tipping his face up toward the open door and sniffing the air. “Is that …?”

The woman laughed. “Yigrish cream pie. Just as I promised.”

“I don't believe it!” Stevens strode into the house right past the Corsi women, his next words echoing out to the porch. “Only you and my Nana have made that pie for me.”

“Call me Ulrika, please,” the woman said around a laugh. “And let me cut that for you.” Then she followed him into the house, leaving Corsi on the porch alone.

With the luggage.

Corsi sighed and whispered, “Uh, thanks for the assist there,” as she hefted the duffel and the suitcase from the porch and set them inside the door. She then lifted the wooden case and took a moment to look in on its contents. Inside, the antique wooden-handled firefighter's ax rested unscathed. She sighed in relief as her eyes moved over the ax's rubberized handle to its broad, spike-backed head. After nearly four hundred years and uncounted disasters, the ax persevered and stayed in the hands of the Corsi family.

This last brush with disaster was too close
, she thought as she surveyed the centuries-old tool of safety and survival.
You're coming home to stay
.

As Corsi walked inside, she heard the door slide shut behind her. She followed the sound of voices and laughter through a pair of rooms into the kitchen, where she saw a sight all too common to her during her tour of duty on the
da Vinci
: Stevens talking with his mouth full.

“I'm telling you, Ulrika, this is incredible,” he said, wiping a glop of purple cream from his chin. “Dommie, you gotta have a bite of this.” He grinned at her, knowing that the nickname was not his to use, but thankfully kept his lips pressed tight as he swallowed. Still, she admitted, it was good to see him smile and acting happier than he had been in days.

And all because of her mother, whose smile mirrored
Stevens's.

Oh yes, this is just going to be one hell of a week.

“M
om! What are you doing?”

Ulrika Corsi turned with a start from an open dresser drawer, clutching a drab-colored sweater knit from Yridian yak wool. “Just helping you get settled. You can't live out of a duffel bag for a week, after all.”

“I've only been here for an hour, Mom,” Corsi said. “You don't need to cater to me like this.” Stepping farther into the room, she studied the arrangement of furniture and knickknacks that was all too familiar. On the uppermost shelf of a painted wooden bookcase rested the same trio of swim-meet trophies that her mother surely had been dusting for more than a decade. She glanced along a wall to find the same
framed family portrait, a sepia-toned photograph of herself on Galor IV with her brother and parents, that had hung in similar proximity to the bookcase in probably half a dozen houses on half a dozen planets since it was taken. On the dresser near her mother, a large candle burned, wafting the scent of pine needles into the air.

Although Corsi had never set foot in this room, there was no mistaking this place as
her
room.

“I just want you to feel at home, Dommie,” Ulrika said as she folded the sweater in her hands. “Allow a mother that simple pleasure at least.”

“But some of those things are, well, mine.”

Ulrika laughed. “I assumed that all of these things were yours or else you wouldn't be carrying them.”

Corsi huffed as she moved toward her duffel bag, which sat on the floor next to the bed. “You know what I meant. There are some things in there that I'd like to put away myself.”

“You mean like that?” Ulrika nodded to the edge of the dresser and Corsi followed the gesture with her gaze to see her phaser resting next to a satin-covered jewelry box.

“Yes, like that.” With a speed that even Corsi did not anticipate, her hand darted to the dresser and snatched up her sidearm. She slipped the phaser into the pocket of her slacks, where it bulged noticeably.
“I'm sorry about bringing it into the house. I know the township rules about weapons, but I just don't feel comfortable without it anymore.”

The elder woman said nothing in response as she shook out the sweater in her hands, refolding the garment into a more compact bundle. Corsi saw her mother force a smile, a sure signal that a change in topic was coming. “I'm surprised to see this old thing in your bag. Didn't Roberto give you this for your birthday one year?”

Corsi found it was her turn to smile. “Yeah, he did. And I told him that it looked like the yak had thrown up on it.”

Ulrika laughed softly as she placed the sweater in an open drawer. “You always have such a lovely way with words for your brother. That's your father talking in you, you know.”

I know.

Corsi silently watched her mother reach into the open duffel bag and pull out a few more pieces of clothing, putting each in a drawer. Then she saw the elder woman pause as she drew out a Starfleet uniform tunic. “Mom? Maybe that ought to stay in the bag.”

Ulrika looked up and met her daughter's eyes in the mirror above the dresser. As she studied the reflection of her mother's face, Corsi enjoyed the reminder that
the woman before her seemed scarcely to have aged in comparison to the mental images she had carried during her years away from home. It was somehow comforting to believe that her mother seemed as unaffected by time as the objects within the room.

“You probably won't need it anyway,” Ulrika said as she turned, grabbing the duffel bag from the dresser's varnished top and passing it to Corsi. “You're on leave for a while yet, right?”

“A few weeks,” Corsi said. “But some of that will be travel time back to the
da Vinci
. It's not as if Starfleet runs a shuttle service to come pick us up.”

“Stay as long as you like, Dommie,” Ulrika said as she stepped around her daughter and moved to the bed. She smoothed out a spot on the bedspread and sat down, her light frame not making much of an impression on the mattress. “I left the other thing inside the bag. It looked like a picture frame?”

Corsi felt her throat tighten a bit at that as she nodded in reply.

“I didn't look at it.”

“You never were one to drop a subtle hint, were you, Mom?” She saw Ulrika smile, and then Corsi knew that she had been roped into a show-and-tell session with the same signature deftness that her mother wielded with each member of the family. The Corsis as a rule never were ones to open up with conversation
around the family dinner table, so typically it fell to Ulrika to pepper their talk with loaded questions or open-ended statements that no one dared avoid.

Mom could teach the Cardassians a thing or two about interrogation techniques,
Corsi thought as she fished in her bag and brought out a flat black-framed photograph about twice the size of a data padd. “This is for Fabian. He doesn't know I have it.”

She passed the photograph to Ulrika and smiled a bit as she saw her mother analyze it with her trademark scrutiny. “That's your Fabian on the right, isn't it?”

“He's not
my
Fabian, Mother. He's not my anything.”

Ulrika looked up with a smirk as Corsi sat down on the bed beside her. Indicating the picture with the fingers of her right hand, she said, “That's the bridge of the
Defiant
, an old Starfleet ship we rescued … well, it seems like ages ago, now. Captain Gold is sitting in the command chair, there, and …” Her hand froze as it moved from the image of her captain to the next figure in the photograph. “And that's Commander Duffy on the left.”