STAR TREK - SCE - 25 - Home Fires

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Contents

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

About the Authors

Coming Next Month: Star Trek™: S.C.E. #26

Other eBooks in the Star Trek™:

Starfleet Corps of Engineers series from

Pocket Books:

#1:The Belly of the Beast by Dean Wesley Smith

#2:Fatal Error by Keith R.A. DeCandido

#3:Hard Crash by Christie Golden

#4:Interphase Book 1 by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore

#5:Interphase Book 2 by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore

#6:Cold Fusion by Keith R.A. DeCandido

#7:Invincible Book 1 by David Mack & Keith R.A. DeCandido

#8:Invincible Book 2 by David Mack & Keith R.A. DeCandido

#9:The Riddled Post by Aaron Rosenberg

#10:Gateways Epilogue:Here There Be Monsters by Keith R.A. DeCandido

#11:Ambush by Dave Galanter & Greg Brodeur

#12:Some Assembly Required by Scott Ciencin & Dan Jolley

#13:No Surrender by Jeff Mariotte

#14:Caveat Emptor by Ian Edginton & Mike Collins

#15:Past Life by Robert Greenberger

#16:Oaths by Glenn Hauman

#17:Foundations Book 1 by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore

#18:Foundations Book 2 by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore

#19:Foundations Book 3 by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore

#20:Enigma Ship by J. Steven York & Christina F. York

#21:War Stories Book 1 by Keith R.A. DeCandido

#22:War Stories Book 2 by Keith R.A. DeCandido

#23:Wildfire Book 1 by David Mack

#24:Wildfire Book 2 by David Mack

#25:Home Fires by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore

COMING SOON:

#26:Age of Unreason by Scott Ciencin

#27:Balance of Nature by Heather Jarman

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s

imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or

dead, is entirely coincidental.

AnOriginal Publication of POCKET BOOKS

POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon &

Schuster, Inc.

1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY

10020

STAR TREK is a Registered Trademark of

Paramount Pictures.

This book is published by Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., under exclusive license

from Paramount Pictures.

For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

ISBN: 0-7434-7591-7

POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Visit us on the World Wide Web:

http://www.SimonSays.com/st

http://www.startrek.com

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Allyn Gibson, Jim McCain, and Alex Rosenzweig, members of the group who

so diligently maintain Pocket Books’ OfficialStar Trek Novel Timeline, for their assistance. They helped

us to pin down the best place to set the flashback portion ofHome Fires and provided interesting

historical tidbits for us to reference, thus preventing yet another couple of bumbling writers from

destroying the very fabric ofStar Trek continuity as we know it. Be sure to check out the latest edition of

their Timeline (as of this writing, at least) in the conclusion to theStar Trek: Gateways saga,What Lay

Beyond.

Chapter

Stardate 53904.8, Earth Year 2376

Domenica Corsi hated landings.

How many times had a rough approach or a bad setdown offered reasons for her never to set foot on

the deck of a spacecraft again? Corsi had lost count, though she recalled a few instances with clarity. The

entry into the steel-gray atmosphere of Svoboda II, a buffeted drop through a storm of howling wind and

dangerous coatings of ice, almost ended her first command of a security detail before it even started.

Getting that beat-up two-seater settled on Pemberton’s Point all those years ago had been a chore, too;

a landing she would have aborted had it not been for Dar’s insistence. Then there was the time that her

father allowed her to pilot and land that transport, and a rented transport at that. Her attempts to dazzle

him on touchdown almost cost them the vessel as well as its shipment of Bolian spice nectar, a cargo

precious enough that its spoilage would have ruined the family business.

Despite the animosity she held for those experiences, separately or together, they and many others had

failed to shake her resolve for duty and responsibility to her family, friends, and career. Time after time,

the security officer picked herself up from the deck, brushed off the front of her Starfleet uniform, and

leapt back aboard whatever passage she needed to press onward.

That was the way it had always been, at least until Galvan VI.

Corsi’s memories of that roiling gas giant were more vivid than they had any right to be for her. Visions

of being tossed and bobbled within the planet’s turbulent and electrically charged clouds of liquid-metal

hydrogen should not be putting her so ill at ease. She should not be able to recall most of it. At her ship’s

time of greatest need, a time when nearly two dozen of her friends and crewmates were sacrificing their

lives aboard theU.S.S. da Vinci , the ship’s security chief was down for the count.

I was unconscious, comatose, useless to the people who depended on me, she thought as her right hand

clenched the armrest of her seat. I didn’t go through the hell they did, not really. So why is this even an

issue? Damn, for as many times as I’ve done this and walked, you’d think…

“Whoa!”

The shuttle pitched as it altered course, and Corsi felt her stomach lurch and the blood drain from her

face. She pinched her eyes shut, trying to turn away mental flashes of white-hot lightning against boiling

gas. Relaxing and letting her eyelids open, she turned to look out the port window with the hope that its

view might calm her a bit. As expected, her destination lay below, and she studied the rooflines and

landscaping of the well-maintained residence that appealed to her as oddly familiar even though she had

never set foot within it.

Corsi felt the touch of a hand on her left forearm, followed by a voice. “You okay?”

“Don’t hover over me,” she snapped, not even turning from the window. The pressure on her arm

disappeared and she missed it immediately, more so than she would have dared admit just a few days

ago. Turning to face Fabian Stevens, the shuttle’s only other occupant, she saw him offer a slight smile

that seemed to work better at calming her stomach than did her view of the ground. “Sorry.” She

managed a weak smile of her own in return but knew it had to appear forced, especially to someone with

whom she had shared so much.

Including, well, my bed.

“Corsi, you’re as white as a ghost,” Stevens said with concern in his voice. “Are you sure you’re all

right?”

“Fine,” she replied as she returned her gaze out the window. Corsi chided herself for appearing

vulnerable in front of a shipmate, particularly the one most likely to crack wise about it in front of others

back on theda Vinci .

Well, she admitted to herself,maybe that’s not giving Fabian enough credit. Things have changed

between us. They’re changing every day .

In a soft tone, Stevens’s voice broke through her ruminations. “We’re almost there. Nothing to worry

about.”

She would have preferred to beam down from the transport ship, but that had not been an option. Many

of the settlements on Fahleena III, including the one where her parents had chosen to make their home,

possessed rules permitting only minimized use of many forms of technology found on just about any other

Federation world. Among the restrictions the settlers chose to live with was on the use of transporters,

limiting their employment to emergencies. Otherwise, more traditional forms of land, sea, and air travel

were the norm.

Probably just as well, Corsi thought.It’s not like I’m in a rush to get down there .

The house and the patch of land surrounding it were growing in the viewport as the shuttle continued its

descent. She could not help the smirk as she caught her first look at the property. Its greenish hue,

adobe-like finish, and Vulcanesque architectural lines came as no surprise to her; such aspects only fit

into the pattern she had seen throughout her life.

She heard the hydraulic whine of the shuttle’s landing pads lock into place for touchdown, then felt

herself settle into her upholstered seat as the craft softly landed several meters from the entrance to the

property.

“Ta-daa! See? Safe and sound,” Stevens said as he rose from his seat and reached for the keypad on

the bulkhead that controlled the shuttle’s hatch. “Ready?”

She said nothing as she got up and grabbed the carrying strap of her Starfleet-issue duffel bag, slinging it

over her shoulder. She passed Stevens a hard-shelled travel case, then retrieved from under her seat a

rectangular wooden case with a clear top. Tucking the case under her arm, the two stepped from the

shuttle. Corsi keyed a command into a panel on the shuttle’s exterior and stepped back as the hatch

closed. Once they were clear of the craft, she lingered to watch as it rose from the ground and

disappeared into the sky.

“Welcome home, Commander.”

Corsi cast a look at Stevens. “Yeah, well, this is the first time I’ve been here. I’m not sure how homey it

all feels just yet.”

“I don’t care how it feels so much as how it smells. Do you suppose your mom baked that Yigrish

cream pie she promised?”

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 theda 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 theU.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 theda 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.

Chapter

“Mom! 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 asher 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 theda 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.

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ContentsAcknowledgmentsChapter1Chapter2Chapter3Chapter4Chapter5Chapter6Chapter7Chapter8Chapter9Chapter10AbouttheAuthorsComingNextMonth:StarTrek™:S.C.E.#26OthereBooksintheStarTrek™:StarfleetCorpsofEngineersseriesfromPocketBooks:#1:TheBellyoftheBeastbyDeanWesleySmith#2:FatalErrorbyKeithR.A.DeCandido#3...

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