Star Trek(5)
March 16, 2164
Starfleet Headquarters, San Francisco
Danica Erickson gazed out the window of the Starfleet commissary and sighed. “Do you ever miss it?”
Jonathan Archer followed her gaze, taking in their elevated view of the San Francisco coastline and Marina Boulevard. “Miss what?”
She turned her strong-featured, dark-complexioned face back to his. “Being able to go for a walk on the Promenade or have lunch at Fisherman’s Wharf without needing a security detail to keep the reporters at bay. Just being Jon and Dani instead of the great admiral and the ‘daughter of the transporter’.”
Archer nursed his iced tea for a moment. “I guess I’m used to it. This is my life now, and I can still make the best of it, even if it’s not the life we had when we were young.”
Her big dark eyes widened in mock outrage. “Hunh! Younger, please!” They shared a chuckle, but her mirth faded swiftly. “At least you have something real to accomplish. Me, I don’t have any answers for them. I’m not the transporter genius my father was. But that never stops them from asking me how long it’ll be before it’s safe to use transporters again. I feel I can’t even go out in public anymore.”
Archer nodded, understanding her refusal to have anything to do with transporter research after all the losses her family had suffered as a result of her late father’s work developing the technology. She’d only stayed with Emory Erickson as long as she had in order to care for him after the transporter accident that had crippled him.
But then Dani caught herself. “Oh, I’m sorry, Jon. I realize my petty problems don’t compare to what transporters did to you . . .”
He gently waved off his childhood friend’s concern. “It’s okay. It’s barely even a problem anymore. Phlox’s latest treatments have pretty much halted the nerve damage and repaired most of it. I’ll never be quite back to top fighting form, but then, I probably wouldn’t be anyway now that I’m not . . . younger . . . anymore,” he finished, echoing her emphasis.
“Well, that’s good to know, at least.” She shook her head. “I’m almost glad Dad passed on before he found out about this. The thought that his invention was hurting people because of something he missed—”
Archer reached out and rested his hand atop hers. “Hey. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. The assembly errors are cumulative, gradual. Nobody could’ve known until transporters were in heavy use for years.”
“He still would’ve blamed himself. You know that. You know how obsessive he could be about—” She broke off, remembering how her father’s desperate experiment to retrieve her lost brother from transporter limbo had led to the accidental death of one of Archer’s crew and Erickson’s own incarceration for the final years of his life. Danica herself had not been held accountable for her involvement, partly due to Archer’s advocacy; but it had scuttled her ambitions for joining Starfleet, forcing her to settle for a civilian engineering career.
He squeezed her hand more firmly for a moment. “It’s okay. We caught it in time, you know. Nobody’s died from it. And I’m sure we’ll crack the problem sooner or later. For now, we just have to get places the old-fashioned way—in skimmers and shuttlepods.”
She chuckled. “Just like our primitive forebears.”
“That’s right.” He was glad to see her bright smile again. “Oh, speaking of travel,” Archer went on, hoping to distract her further from her regrets, “I’m going to be heading out on Endeavour next week.”
“Oh! Back in space again, good for you! Where to this time?”
“The Beta Rigel system. Since we helped them with the Vertian crisis last year, the Rigelian Trade Commission has been more receptive to the possibility of joining the Federation, and President Vanderbilt wants me to help convince them.”
“The Trade Commission?” Danica asked. “How is it their decision?”
“They’re the de facto government of the Rigel worlds—at least, the allied ones. The individual planets and colonies have their own local governments, but it’s the Trade Commission that’s managed commerce and communication among the inhabited worlds of the system since it was founded six hundred years ago. So it’s evolved into the administrative body that holds the alliance together.”
“Sort of like the way the British East India Company ran the British Empire’s colonies.”
“Something like that, but more egalitarian and not for profit. Almost like the Federation in some ways, just on a more local scale. That’s part of why the president thinks they’re a good prospect for membership.”