Chapter Ten
"This is a hell of a ship you've got, Will. I mean, Captain."
"Will's fine, for the moment," grinned Captain Drake, inviting his guests to sit, pouring them each a glass of fine Scotch whisky. Miranda and Lance took the only chairs in his small cabin and gratefully took the drinks. Susan was off with Alex and Sarn, rushing excitedly around the starship that the adults had just finished touring.
Riker picked up on the captain's words and asked, "What do you mean 'for the moment'?"
Drake sipped his whisky. "You're in a bit of a situation. We escaped that group of Orions, but there might be others. If you leave this ship, we can't protect you. And we can't bring those responsible for this whole sordid ordeal to justice."
"You mean the people behind the…what was it? BIDP?"
Drake nodded, while Miranda shook her head. "You won't find them, Captain. They're a covert group. They'll have gone so deeply underground you'll never pick up their trail."
"My crew is capable of just about anything. You've seen that for yourself. And that's what I wanted to talk to you both about. Doctor Pauli, you're a therapist?"
"That's right, sir."
"I think the crew could do with having a counsellor aboard. Space is a big and lonely place; it's hard to keep morale on long voyages. Nerves get frayed, tempers fizzle away. And we've got a lot of first voyagers aboard, people who have never been out of their home systems before. As a front line starship, we're often called to go deeper into the unknown than anyone's gone before. People get homesick. And there are things out there that affect the mind. We've all heard about the Ascendance, I'm sure. Having someone aboard ship who knows how to deal with such disturbances, and who the crew can talk to if they have something they need to get off their chests, could be a great benefit."
"Yes, sir," said Miranda, seeing what Drake was doing. "I think it could."
"Then it's settled. We'll have to work out some of the details, of course. No starship has ever had a counsellor before – normally that's the chef's second job. We'll have to work out which department to assign you to, and we'll have to find you an office, but Commander Tholiar is ruthlessly efficient; she'll sort it all out."
"Thank you, Captain. But…Susan. Children aren't permitted aboard a starship."
"Normally that's perfectly true. But since Susan probably knows this ship better than I do by now, and can perform any of the functions of any of my crewmen, I think I can make an exception. I'll have to falsify her age on the ship's roster, and when we have an admiralty visitor or an inspection it would be best if she wasn't seen, but again, those are things we can work out."
"Thank you."
He turned to Riker and took another sip. "You lost your ship. By now, the Cartel will have laid claim to it and probably sold it on. Not a lot of people would sacrifice that much for a friend. The sort of people who would are the kind I want in my crew."
"I'm flattered, Will," said Lance, and he meant it, "but I'm not Starfleet, and I'm not a therapist or anything. I'm just a good pilot."
"That's what I was hoping for. Alex is always telling me that my 'Starfleet flyboys' couldn't pilot a ship if their lives depended on it. I don't think she would object to having you in her department. And I don't think you'd object much, either. Alex hasn't quite got around to reading the rule book yet, and I tend to give her a lot of leeway to do things her own way, as you've seen."
"Yeah," laughed Lance. "Yeah. I think I could work with her."
"It's not a demand, of course. You're both free to decline. If you do, I'll take you wherever you want to go."
They looked at each other, to check what the other was thinking. They smiled, and Lance spoke for them both when he said, "We want to stay here, on Endeavour."
Captain Drake was delighted. He shook them each by the hand, heartily. "In that case, I welcome you both aboard the Starship Endeavour as members of her crew. And Mr Riker? Now you do have to call me captain."
He nodded. "Aye, Captain."