Security

  A few minutes later, the deceptively innocent-looking face of Christine Vale appeared. She had cut her hair and changed its color since that day on Izar—it was currently brown and in a pixie cut, as opposed to the long auburn it was then—but she still looked very much like the detective Corsi had naïvely assumed to be incompetent ten years ago.

  “Commander Corsi!” Vale seemed stunned. “Is something wrong?”

  “No, Lieutenant, nothing’s wrong at all, I just—” She hesitated. “I just wanted to tell you something, Christine, something I should’ve told you a long time ago. You should be proud of what you’ve accomplished. I know I am—proud, that is, to be in the service with you.”

  Now Vale looked even more stunned. “Uh, thanks, Co—ah, Domenica. Thank you very much. I—I can’t begin to tell you—” She took a breath. “I owe it all to you, you know.”

  “Like hell. You don’t owe anything to me, Christine—you were the one who figured out that it was Dar. It took you less than a day to see something that I managed to miss for eight years. All I did—” Her voice caught. Until yesterday, she hadn’t talked, hadn’t thought, about this, and it still was like rubbing an open wound. “All I did was shoot him. Anybody could’ve done that.”

  “That’s good of you to say, Domenica, but—I don’t think I could’ve done what you did.”

  “Sure you could’ve—because you’re good security. We deal with the unexpected and keep people safe. And that doesn’t come from outside.” She smiled. “I just hope that Picard and the rest of those guys know what they have there.”

  Returning the smile, Vale said, “Well, if they ever forget, I’ll be sure to send them to you.”

  “You do that. Take care of yourself, Christine—and take care of your ship.”

  “You do the same, Domenica. And thanks.”

  Corsi closed the connection, then got up and headed to the door, thence to the security office. True, she wasn’t on duty, but like Lauoc said, that was just a technicality. She had a ship to protect.

  About the Author

  KEITH R.A. DeCANDIDO is the co-developer of the S.C.E. series, and has also written or co-written eight previous eBooks in the series. His other Star Trek fiction includes almost a dozen novels (most recently Articles of the Federation, a look at the politics of the Federation, Enemy Territory, the third book in the I.K.S. Gorkon series, and A Time for War, a Time for Peace, a USA Today best-seller), novellas (Ferenginar: Satisfaction Is Not Guaranteed in Worlds of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Volume 3 and Horn and Ivory in Gateways: What Lay Beyond), short stories (most recently “loDnI’pu’ vavpu’ je” in Tales from the Captain’s Table and the forthcoming “Letting Go” in the tenth-anniversary Star Trek: Voyager anthology Distant Shores), and comic books (the Perchance to Dream miniseries). Keith has also written novels, novelizations, short stories, and nonfiction in the universes of Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Farscape, Resident Evil, Marvel Comics, Xena, Magic: the Gathering, and much more. His original novel, Dragon Precinct, a high-fantasy police procedural, was published in 2004. His upcoming work includes the novelization of the film Serenity, a Spider-Man novel entitled Down These Mean Streets (both in September 2005), and a Warcraft novel (coming in early 2006). Keith lives in New York City with his girlfriend and the world’s two goofiest cats. Find out more exaggerations about Keith at his Web site at DeCandido.net, or just send him obnoxious e-mails at keith@decandido.net.

  Coming Next Month:

  Star Trek™: S.C.E. #55

  WOUNDS Book 1

  by Ilsa J. Bick

  While traveling to a medical conference, the Runabout Missouri encounters a strange anomaly that sends the ship crashing to the surface of an unknown planet, its two passengers—Dr. Elizabeth Lense of the U.S.S. da Vinci and Dr. Julian Bashir of Deep Space 9™—separated.

  Each physician thinks the other dead, and each winds up trapped with the factions of a decades-old conflict between those who want to replace dying limbs with cybernetics, and those who want to remain pure. Trapped with no hope of rescue, both Lense and Bashir must find their way on a primitive world—or die.

  COMING IN AUGUST 2005 FROM POCKET BOOKS!