Текст книги "Taking Wing "

Автор книги: Andy Mangels

Соавторы: Michael Martin
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Текущая страница: 20 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

Captain William Riker was glad that the most egregious of his chores was finally behind him. After consulting with Admiral Akaar and Ambassador Spock—the latter of whom had just departed for Earth aboard the Der Sonnenaufgang—Riker had made a complete report to Starfleet Command, informing them in detail about his delicate, improvisational Romulan-Reman peace plan. Admiral Ross hadn’t seemed displeased with the outcome of the mission, despite the unorthodox methodology, though Riker knew that all that really mattered in the long run was the Federation Council’s opinion, and that of President Bacco. Akaar assured him that when he returned to Earth after this mission, he would champion Riker’s peace plan with all the influence at his disposal.

But now, Riker had more pleasant matters to attend to before retiring for the evening with his lovely wife. He saw Nurse Ogawa exiting sickbay with her son, but they had moved down a branching corridor before he’d had a chance to speak with them. He entered the medical facilities, glad to see that things had calmed down considerably there. He’d been down here earlier, to speak to Tuvok.

Until Ranul Keru recovered, if ever, Riker knew he was badly in need of at least a temporary tactical officer and security chief. He had offered the combined job to Tuvok, citing both his assignment aboard Voyagerand the advanced tactical training classes the Vulcan had taught for many years at Starfleet Academy. Thankfully, Tuvok had been easier to persuade to take a posting on Titanthan had Vale. Tuvok had agreed to take over the position, at least until Keru recovered.

Riker had just heard from Christine Vale that Dr. Ra-Havreii would also be staying aboard for the foreseeable future, taking over the duties of the late chief engineer Ledrah. Riker intended to contact Ledrah’s family tomorrow, to break the bad news to them himself; later that day, he would conduct a shipboard memorial service.

In the meantime, he sorely needed to hear whatever good news there was aboard this ship.

Riker saw Dr. Ree, and pointed toward the OB/GYN chamber. “Is Olivia awake yet?” he asked.

“Yes, Captain,” Ree said. “She is with the baby now. They’re both doing well.” He retracted his arms for a moment, bringing them in closer to his chest. “Well, small mammals make me hungry. Care to join me in the mess?”

Riker smiled at the doctor’s attempt at humor, remembering the bloody abattoir of a meal he’d recently seen Ree consume in the mess hall. After politely declining the invitation, he said, “Thank you for your excellent work today, Doctor.” He extended his hand.

Ree shook his hand and smiled a predatory smile. “Why, thank you, Captain. And allow me to thank youfor keeping the ship in one piece.”

Disengaging with a nod, Riker turned and proceeded toward the birthing room. Stepping just inside the door, he saw Olivia Bolaji lying in the bed beside the incubator that housed her premature infant. The impossibly tiny-looking child was wrapped in a royal blue blanket, asleep. Axel Bolaji was sitting in the chair nearby, also sleeping, one arm up on the bed next to his wife.

“Hi,” Riker said quietly. “I just wanted to say hello to our newest crewman.”

“Come in, Captain,” Olivia said, smiling the radiant smile that Riker had seen nowhere else except on the faces of new mothers. “He’s beautiful. I can hardly wait to hold him.”

Riker looked down at the sleeping infant, its skin almost purplish brown, and as wrinkled as a raisin. The child wriggled a bit in its sleep, and Riker wondered how much the tiny creature weighed.

“Have you named him yet?”

“Yes,” the now-awake Axel Bolaji said, stretching and yawning. “His name is Totyarguil. In the Aranda language of the Australian Aborigines, it means ‘the eagle star.’ ”

“ ‘Totyarguil,’ ” Riker repeated. “May you bring us all luck, little eagle star.”

The child’s deep blue eyes opened briefly, momentarily reflecting the dim illumination of the room. But Riker saw that the darkness and light at play there in those eyes looked as deep, as infinite, and as mysterious as the universe itself.

Chapter Twenty-four

U.S.S. TITAN,STARDATE 57023.3

The meeting with Tal’Aura, Tomalak, Durjik, Donatra, and Xiomek had gone far more smoothly than Riker had expected. But it was the end of yet another extraordinarily long day, and the weary captain could tell that Deanna was as exhausted as he was even before they had finished materializing in transporter room four.

But Deanna also evidently shared his upbeat mood. “I think we’re really beginning to get through to them,” she said, walking arm-in-arm with him along the corridor that led to their quarters. “Tomalak is going to be a tough sell, and Donatra seems to hate him almost as much as she despises Tal’Aura. On the other hand, I’m sensing that Tal’Aura is beginning to trust us. As is Xiomek.”

“Meaning that they trust us more than they trust each other,” Riker said as they reached the door to their quarters. “Which isn’t all that much.”

“True enough. But it’s as good a place to start as any other,” Deanna said, placing her palm on the control pad mounted on the wall. The door obediently opened in response, and they entered.

Deanna dropped wearily onto the couch. “Once the permanent diplomatic team reaches Romulus, I think we’ll start seeing some real progress toward a permanent power-sharing agreement.”

“No doubt,” he said, settling down beside her. “Especially if Akaar turns out to be right about Spock being with the team when it arrives. Tal’Aura might not be thrilled about having a social dissident like Spock involved in the process, but it ought to make the Remans happy.”

“I sense that Tal’Aura is well aware that the last thing she needs right now are unhappy Remans,” she said.

He nodded. It was clear to him that the Remans still had plenty of reason to be unhappy. They needed strong leadership, and Xiomek seemed to excel at supplying just that, at least so far. Riker could only hope that whatever knack had enabled Xiomek to survive the Dominion War—and to survive his own penchant for commanding from the front lines—would keep the Reman colonel, as well as the current improvised peace arrangements, alive. At least long enough for Ambassador Spock and the Federation Diplomatic Corps to help craft a more permanent peace.

“So, when do we get under way?” Deanna asked. He knew that she was as eager as he was to bring Titan’s current diplomatic detour to a conclusion.

“Sometime tomorrow, after the first Reman homesteader ships touch down on Ehrie’fvil. I want to give Christine and Tuvok a chance to evaluate Commander Suran’s plan to provide security at the settlement sites. Andmake sure that Khegh doesn’t get too assertive in enforcing Ehrie’fvil’s status as part of the Reman Protectorate.” He paused, then added, “I’m looking forward to putting all this behind us.”

She leaned backward into him, and fairly purred with contentment when he began rubbing her back. “Me, too. Happy New Year, by the way.”

He paused in his ministrations to her back. With all the frantic activity of the past couple of weeks, he had somehow completely lost track not only of Christmas, but had also failed to note the arrival of a new year and a new decade. The year 2380 had sneaked up on him like a shrouded Jem’Hadar.

“My God. It’s already Elvis Presley’s birthday,” he said. “I must be getting old and distracted.”

She turned toward him. “Not old, Will. Seasoned.”

“Ugh. You know I hate that word.”

“I just mean that the gray in your beard suits you. You’ve earned it. As for ‘distracted,’ let mehandle that.” She looked up at him expectantly.

He bent down to kiss her.

Then his combadge abruptly shattered the moment. “Vale to Captain Riker.”

Though two decades of Starfleet service had conditioned him to the inevitability of such interruptions, he was never happy about it. He sighed, then tapped the badge a little harder than was strictly necessary.

“Go ahead, Christine.”

“It’s Commander Donatra. Her ship has decloaked just astern of us, and she wants to talk to you right away.”

He stood and straightened his uniform jacket. “Pipe her down here, Christine.”

“Aye, sir.”

Riker took a seat behind the desk in the small office nook located just outside the bedroom. He touched a control on the interface console located there, and its small viewscreen lit up, displaying the white-on-blue emblem of the United Federation of Planets.

A moment later, this was replaced by the image of Commander Donatra, who looked even more distressed than she had during the battle in the skies over Ki Baratan. The background behind her was a neutral green; she seemed to be transmitting either from her ready room, or perhaps from her personal quarters.

“Commander Donatra,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

“Is this channel secure on your end?”

Deanna approached, making herself visible to Donatra while he entered a few quick manual commands into the desktop terminal.

“It is now, Commander,” Riker said.

“I’m afraid I need your assistance, Captain,”Donatra began without further preamble. “There’s no one else I can turn to.”

He glanced quickly at Deanna, whose dark eyes were wide with alarm. She was confirming what he had already concluded: Something had gone very, very wrong. Perhaps catastrophically wrong.

“I sense your reticence, Commander,” Deanna said. “I am the only one here besides Captain Riker. If my presence makes you uncomfortable, Commander, I would be hap—”

Donatra interrupted her. “No, Commander Troi. There’s no reason for you to leave. My folly will no doubt soon be common knowledge anyway.”She seemed almost on the verge of tears.

“But you obviously have enough confidence in us to come to us first,” Riker said, once again more than a little grateful for the bond that Captain Picard had created with Donatra during the battle against Shinzon.

She paused, looking away toward something that might have been parsecs distant. She seemed to be gathering her thoughts and emotions around her like tattered garments.

“During the confusion that followed the elimination of Praetor Hiren and the Senate,”she began at length, “Suran and I gained access to a large complement of warbirds. These vessels and their armaments were, shall we say, subsequently unaccounted for.

“Obviously, we needed to keep the existence of these vessels a secret, and their location concealed. I convinced Suran that the best place to hide the fleet was within the gravimetric and subspace flux zone surrounding the Great Bloom.”

“Great Bloom?” Riker asked.

“Forgive me. The Great Bloom is our designation for the spatial anomaly located only a handful ofveraku away from Romulus at high warp. You have no doubt observed the phenomenon yourselves, and have given it another name. It’s centered in the very spot where Shinzon’s vessel exploded after our engagement with him.”

“The spatial rift,” Deanna said quietly.

“Why are you sharing this with us, Commander?” he said aloud.

“Because…”Donatra began, her voice faltering momentarily before she found the strength to continue. “Because the entire fleet has vanished. Every ship. Every officer. Every enlisted crew member. All gone, without leaving so much as a body or any identifiable debris. Suran and I have been searching the region for two fulleisae , but to no avail.”

“You think your ships have fallen into the event horizon of the spatial rift,” said Deanna.

“The Great Bloom’s center is the only place we’ve yet to search directly, because our sensors cannot penetrate it. But it is the likeliest place.”

“And you want us to help you find them,” Riker added.

“Yes.”

Riker understood that yet another fairly monumental decision was now expected of him. He was more than passing familiar with the Romulan aphorism “He who rules the military rules the Empire.” And it seemed fairly obvious that helping the Romulan military faction acquire—or reacquire—large quantities of ships and arms could jeopardize the already delicate balance of power that now existed between the mutually opposed Romulan factions and the Klingon-protected Remans.

But leaving those ships lost,he thought , where they might fall into the hands of gods-only-know-who might be an even worse idea.

“I am taking theValdore into the center of the Great Bloom, Captain. With or without your help. I intend to give my crew the order in a moment.”

Riker had seen enough spatial rifts over the course of his career to understand the extreme danger inherent in flying into one. But ever since Commander Donatra had joined forces with the Enterprisecrew against Shinzon, Riker had regarded her almost as a comrade-in-arms. Her cooperation during the recent Reman attack and the subsequent power-sharing summit had only solidified that working relationship. How could he let her face such a terrible risk alone?

He came to a decision. “Titanwill accompany you to the edge of the rift, Commander.”

“But not over its edge. You disappoint me, Captain. I thought you had more courage.”

Riker answered with an involuntary chuckle. Does she really expect to manipulate me by calling me “chicken”?

“There’s courage and then there’s suicide,” he said. “I’ll do my best to help you recover your ships and crews. But I’m not interested in helping you atone for losing them by throwing yourself off a cliff.”

Her eyes narrowed, but it was obvious she had no desire to alienate him by venting her anger on him. “And what will merely standing on the cliff’s edge accomplish?”

“Titanhas sensors that I’ll wager are a good deal more sensitive than anything aboard the Valdore.Perhaps they can tell us just how dangerous that cliff really is.”

She took this in with a curt nod. “Very well, Captain. TheValdore will depart for the Great Bloom in five of your minutes.”And with that her image vanished, to be replaced by the white-on-blue UFP symbol.

“You’re welcome,” Riker said to the screen before tapping his combadge. “Riker to bridge.”

“Vale here, Captain.”

“Change of plans, Commander. We have to make best speed for the spatial anomaly we observed on our way here. I want us under way in five minutes. Please coordinate our departure with Commander Donatra’s staff aboard the Valdore.They’ll be leading the way.”

“May I ask what this is all about?”

He tapped a string of commands into his console. “I’m sending the recording of my conversation with Donatra up to my ready room. Once you review it, you’ll know as much as Commander Troi and I do.”

“I’m all over it, sir. Vale out.”

He turned to face Deanna. Taking her hands, he said, “Seems to me we won’t be needed on the bridge until Titanreaches the rift.”

“And how long will that take?” she asked.

He performed a rough calculation in his head. “At least a couple of hours.”

With a sultry smile, she pulled him directly toward the bedroom.

The rift’s most striking feature, Riker thought, was its color. Or rather, its colors.Great loops of energetic orange and iridescent green stretched for hundreds of kilometers from the rift’s invisible core, twisting and entwining themselves about the phenomenon that Donatra had called the Great Bloom. On the bridge’s wide central viewer, Riker could see the sea-green hull of Donatra’s warbird limned in the glow.

“Keep us at station, Mr. Bolaji,” Riker said. “Five hundred klicks from the event horizon.”

“Aye, sir,” replied Chief Axel Bolaji, as he entered a string of commands into the conn station. He was helping fill in for Ensign Lavena while she recuperated in the aquatic environment of her quarters; Lavena had become dangerously dehydrated when her suit had ruptured during the battle over Romulus. “Keeping station.”

“I am still detecting tachyon emissions indicative of a nearby cloaked ship,” said Tuvok, who already looked a good deal healthier than he had during the recent Romulan-Reman skirmish.

“It must be one of Khegh’s ships,” Deanna said.

Riker nodded. “The Klingons certainly would have noticed the Valdoreapproaching us, even if they couldn’t eavesdrop on our conversation with Donatra. And our early departure from Romulus must have made them even more curious.”

“The Klingons must be counting on the rift’s energy discharges to help hide their presence from us,” Vale said. “Lucky for us they underestimated our new sensor nets.”

“There’s a terrific quantity of energy here, Captain,” said Jaza. When he had heard that Titanwas going to get right up close to the rift he had until now been forced to admire from afar, he had come straight to the bridge, insistent upon relieving his gamma-shift counterpart at the science console. “And the intense background radiation signature I’m reading confirms the phenomenon’s probable origin: the detonation of the Scimitar’s thalaron device.”

“Can the sensors image anything at the rift’s center?” Vale asked, seated in the chair at Riker’s immediate right. She seemed as eager as Riker was to avoid dwelling on the thalaron weapon that had killed Data.

“Not yet, Commander,” said Cadet Dakal. “I’m going to increase the gain.” Dakal touched his console, entering a command.

Hell unleashed itself at that precise moment. The placid, glowing tendrils of energy that surrounded the rift’s event horizon suddenly crackled with agitation, like the tentacles of some legendary kraken preparing to strike at its prey. Then the viewscreen was awash in blinding light for an instant, just before the bridge was plunged into absolute stygian darkness.

For a timeless interval, Riker thought he had ceased to exist. The ship’s gravity seemed to have failed along with the lights, and he felt as though he were plunging in freefall through an infinite void.

His command chair grew comfortably solid beneath him, and the sensation of weightless disorientation gradually passed as the dim red emergency lighting kicked in. Alarm klaxons blared. Mercifully, Vale ordered them silenced.

“Ship’s status?” he shouted, then turned to see that everyone was still at their stations, though all present were wide-eyed with surprise. Once again the automatic restraints had activated, and everyone was struggling out of them, Riker himself included. The main viewscreen was working, but displayed only a hash of random static.

After a beat, everyone working on the bridge sounded off. Then, over the intercom, each department head reported in.

“We’ll have power restored in a few minutes, Captain,”Dr. Ra-Havreii reported from the engine room. “I only wish I knew what just happened to us.”

“That makes all of us, Commander,” Riker told Titan’s new, if provisional, chief engineer. “We’ll let you know once we figure it out ourselves.” He turned toward the science console, beside which stood both Jaza and Dakal, the latter of whom appeared to be utterly guilt-stricken. “Any ideas about that, Mr. Jaza?”

The bridge doors slid open before Jaza could answer. Riker turned in time to see Admiral Akaar step out onto the upper level.

Intent on his scanners and monitors, Jaza said, “My best guess is that the rift’s energies somehow interacted with our scanning beams.”

The static that dominated the main viewscreen settled down to the prosaic image of black space, punctuated by countless stars. Riker didn’t recognize any of the constellations. But then, he didn’t expect to, so deep inside Romulan space.

“Meaning what?” Riker asked.

Jaza looked up, his expression mild. “We’ve been drawn over the edge of the rift’s event horizon, Captain.”

“Then—where isthe rift?” Riker asked, gesturing toward the main screen, which stubbornly continued to display nothing but stars and trackless empty space.

Tuvok rose from his tactical station, an almost haunted look on his face. “It appears that the question isn’t where the rifthas gone, Captain. It is where wehave gone.”

Riker was liking this situation less and less. “Meaning?”

“Meaning I have begun running comparisons of the stars in this volume of space with our stellar cartography database. Titanseems to have abruptly shifted position.”

“Shifted,” Riker said, cold fingers of dread clutching at his guts. “Shifted how far?”

“My preliminary estimate is a distance of about two hundred and ten thousand light-years.”

Riker tried to get his mind around that. “That would take us well outside the Milky Way galaxy.” Pointing toward the star-dappled viewscreen, he added, “That hardly looks like intergalactic space.”

Jaza, who had apparently been attempting to check out Tuvok’s findings, straightened up from the console he had been hunched over. “That’s because we seem to be inside one of the Milky Way’s small, irregular satellite galaxies. I’ll want to consult with Lieutenant Pazlar to make sure, but I think we’ve landed smack inside the Small Magellanic Cloud.”

Riker noticed then that Tuvok and Akaar had both turned visibly pale.

“Neyel territory,” Akaar said quietly.

Tuvok nodded. “So it would seem.”

“You two have been here before,” Riker said. He wasn’t asking a question.

“Yes,” Akaar said. “On Excelsior.Over eighty years ago. The Neyel made this place their home centuries ago, long before the Federation came to be.”

“These…Neyel,” said Vale. “Is that what the locals call themselves?”

“Yes,” Tuvok said, impassive but still pale with obvious surprise.

“Humanoid?” Deanna wanted to know.

“More than that, Commander,” Akaar said. “The Neyel are human.”

Riker felt his jaw drop involuntarily, his gaze turning back to the viewscreen. Humans? Out here?

And as Titansailed on through the alien galaxy, her captain wondered what else awaited them among those unfamiliar stars.