"Ensign."
If I was surprised to receive a late-night visit from the extremely attractive Spaniard who was in charge of Tactical and Security during the Gamma Shift, I could be reasonably certain it didn't show, either in my face or my voice.
Gomez stood at parade rest in the corridor, her voice all but devoid of emotion. "I apologise for disturbing you at such a late hour, Mayor. I wonder if you could spare the time for a word."
"Certainly. Come on in."
I didn't miss the instinctive flicker of her gaze around the room. It was spotlessly clean and neat; I can't bear an untidy working environment. The only sign of my occupation was the PADD currently resting on my desk top where I'd been transferring data for analysis during the next training session.
"Please, take a seat."
"Thank you. I will stand, if you please." Her voice was armored, and I looked at her narrowly. Relations between me and her lately-deceased boss had not exactly been cordial, and I suspected that she'd inherited Reed's hostility as surely as though the Brit had left it to her in his will.
I'd rather hoped that might not be the case, but if it was I'd just have to deal with it and so would she. I was now the ranking officer of the Security Department, and though I had every intention of respecting the way their previous Head had run his team, that didn't mean I had to slavishly follow it. Whatever his other faults, however, Reed had instilled proper military discipline in his staff. That should stand them in good stead for adapting to the new regime, though there would undoubtedly be a difficult period of adjustment while they were brought up to the fitness levels the MACOs were expected to maintain.
"How may I help you, Ensign?" I asked formally, matching her manner.
She did not reply for a moment. Her eyes bored into mine like lasers, but I've faced particle weapons at closer quarters in my time and I endured their inquisition without flinching.
"You were there when Lieutenant Reed died," she said at last. "I would be grateful if you would tell me what happened. I think the capitán is not ready to speak of it yet."
It wasn't an altogether unexpected request, and as one of Reed's seconds I thought she was entitled to know. I gave a brief account of exactly what had happened in the mine, including the way Commander Tucker had risked his own life in the effort to retrieve his junior officer.
She listened silently, attentive to every word. When I had finished, "So you did not see his body."
"Ensign, it was buried under tons of rock," I said quite gently. "I saw the scans. There was so much on top of him the scanner couldn't even show us where he was."
A long pause. "So," she said at last. "You did not see his body, and the scanner did not show it."
"We saw him fall." I held on to my patience; she had a right to ask questions, and it was hardly surprising that she should want to hang on to the illusion that her boss might somehow have survived. "Believe me, the captain didn't want to admit the truth. But there wasn't any alternative."
A gleam of what was unmistakably scorn entered her eyes – I couldn't help but notice how beautiful they were, though right now they were anything but friendly. "And of course you were sorry."
I breathed out slowly, but hard. There was only so much leeway I was prepared to extend, and she was pushing it – right to the edge. "Lieutenant Reed and I may have sometimes differed in our opinions, Ensign, but I know his intention was exactly the same as mine – to safeguard the ship and carry out the mission. His experience out here is something I don't have, and I have no problem admitting that. So if for no other reason, for that one alone, I was sorry. And I know that he left behind some good friends on board ship, and that many of the crew will feel his loss very deeply."
A lift of her chin defied my honestly proffered sympathy. "You are right, Mayor: he was a good man, and he will be mourned for long and long, if he is dead. And if he is dead, then you need not be concerned; those who he left behind him will wish to do him honour in your eyes. You will not find us wanting because our Patrón is gone."
"I'm certain of that, Ensign Gomez."
"I thank you for your time, Mayor." She turned towards the door, but as she reached it she stopped and looked back, her lovely face hard. "I have only one more question for you, Mayor Hayes, and I wish you to think long and carefully before you give me an answer – if you decide you have one to give. Did you try hard enough to find Lieutenant Reed?"
=/\=
'Did you try hard enough to find Lieutenant Reed?'
The question was impertinent – if not downright insolent – and only the realization of how deeply affected the normally extremely disciplined ensign must be beneath that hard surface had enabled me to let it pass. It was also absurd, and I dismissed it almost as soon as it was asked. However much of an insecure ass Reed had been, he was an intrinsic part of the hierarchy of Enterprise, an experienced officer who ran a tight ship as he saw it – even if his views didn't coincide with my own, a scrupulous examination of his methods had found surprisingly little with which to find fault. There had been one or two tiny shortfalls against my extremely exacting standards, and a few additional drills would have brought the security team and senior officers closer to the MACOs' combat capabilities, but on the whole Reed had done an excellent job. He sure wasn't a pleasure to work with, but he was an exceptionally valuable asset to the ship, and for that reason alone it would have been crazy to have left him down on the planet if there had been any hope he was still alive and there was still a possibility of rescue.
My conscience was completely clear on that score. Whether I'd liked the guy or not, I'd genuinely believed there was no hope. I still believed it now. My own scanner had confirmed the verdict of the Fleeter's; there was no bio-sign. By the time we left, so much rock had crumbled into the hole that it was all but filled to the brim, and only a few pools remained of that weird mist that Tucker had seen. Reed was gone, buried under tons of rubble, and with the whole place now highly unstable and likely to be visited by another anomaly at any time, there had been no point whatsoever in delaying the mission, wasting valuable time and resources, and putting more lives at risk by trying to find his body.
Subsequent scans using the ship's powerful onboard equipment had confirmed the fact that the mine had collapsed completely from the point where the tragedy had occurred, making a return visit as hopeless as it would be dangerous.
I'd said as much to the captain at the time, ignoring Commander Tucker's openly hostile reaction. I could understand the chief engineer's resentment; it was common knowledge around the ship that the two men were close buddies as well as long-serving fellow officers, and Tucker must be at least aware of the friction in the Security department. Nevertheless that emotional connection undermined the impartiality of his judgment, as his frankly reckless behavior at the cliff edge demonstrated. If losing the head of Tactical wasn't bad enough, the head of Engineering had damn near followed him, and for all that Reed was a fine security officer, Tucker was quite simply the finest warp engineer of his generation. It was the (in my private opinion) reckless endangerment of the whole senior command structure of Enterprise for very small hope of reward that had prompted me to request permission to accompany them down to the mine, regardless of the fact that Reed would regard this as implying that his own protection was insufficient and would – yet again – take offense at it.
My reasoning had been backed up by T'Pol, whose Vulcan logic saw the sense in it even if Reed's eyes had indeed glittered with the anticipated outrage at the slur on his competence. Nonetheless, on the journey back to Enterprise the air in the shuttlepod had been heavy with grief (in between Tucker's outbursts), and I sensed that in her own way she shared it; which was kind of a surprise, but I'd already come to the conclusion that she wasn't exactly your average Vulcan.
Reed was gone. Dead and buried. Like him or not, that was the end of it.
And yet, when I rose next morning, the question was still murmuring in my ears, Gomez's distinctive accent strong with doubt, if not outright accusation:
'Did you try hard enough to find Lieutenant Reed?'
