Distant Shores - Marco Palmieri [167]
She turned away. Chakotay took the hint and dropped it. He flew. She didn’t say anything. He took sensor readings. They ran into a tad more turbulence, a few nav glitches. The trip seemed ten times longer than it was.
It wasn’t until well after he’d docked their shuttle at an underwater transfer tube into the Falnari capital that Chakotay said, right before he cracked the hatch, “Forever is a long time.”
She didn’t even look at him. “That’s what they say.”
Nine hours earlier…
Marla felt… numb. Her thoughts moved herky-jerky, as if her brain had tumbled off a cliff.
Not possible… it can’t be….
“Computer,” she rasped-and paused, running her tongue over suddenly parched lips. She was shaking. Her voice was husky, as if she hadn’t spoken in years. “Replay. Time index twenty-two-fifty-seven.”
The image on her viewscreen winked, and then the boy-my God, look at him; where have the years gone-began in midsentence: “… months ago. Once the smoker blew, Mom says it was over so fast, he didn’t know what was going on.” His voice quavered, and he looked away, cleared his throat, faced forward again. “Weird, being back with Mom. At first, I practically never saw her, and now I live with her, it doesn’t feel right, no water or anything… I’m not complaining, Aunt Marla. I mean, I don’t know what you look like either and…” His lower lip quivered. “That didn’t come out right. It’s just that… everyone’s trying so hard to help, it hurts.”
“I know,” she whispered, though the computer didn’t understand and the message continued on even though she’d stopped listening.
Karl was dead. Eighteen months. Dead. And eighteen months ago, Rudy was still alive and… Her mind shied away. She didn’t want to think about that either.
So here was Aidan. She studied him. The eyes were his mother’s-big, brown, luminous. But Aidan was lean like his father: the face a little long, the mouth a bit wide, and a full head of hair fine and yellow as corn silk. There were deep lines incised along either side of his nose, and his lips were drawn with worry and pain-and he was so young; his father gone, his mother a stranger, and now his aunt, coming back from the dead on board a different ship…
Her combadge shrilled. She jumped, killed Aidan’s message, swallowed against the lump in her throat. “Gilmore.”
“Crewman Gilmore.” Marla had to think to place the voice. Tuvok: The captain and Chakotay had left the ship four hours ago. “Report to the briefing room, please.”
“Of course, sir.” Wondering if maybe this was the other shoe dropping, the one she’d been waiting for ever since that disastrous conversation with Chakotay. Or maybe something needed fixing, pronto. She didn’t mind, really. She smeared away the wet on each cheek with her fingers. Need time to think, just keep busy…. “Right away. Shall I bring my standard repair kit, or will more specialized…?”
“Negative, Crewman.” A pause. “I believe that you will be sufficient.”
“Off course?” Torres was saying as Marla stepped into briefing room. Torres sat, hands protectively crossed over her swollen belly, opposite the viewscreen. Torres looked both uncomfortable and royally pissed off. The look she threw Marla’s way made Marla’s stomach buck. But then Paris, who sat to his wife’s right, gave her a nod and at the head of the briefing room table, Tuvok motioned to a seat to his left and next to Seven. As Marla slid into her chair, Torres returned her attention to Tuvok. “What made the sub go off course?”
“The Falnari did not speculate,” said Tuvok. “All we know for certain is that the Falnari lost contact with the submersible two hours ago.”
“And before?”
“Everything was proceeding as planned. Commander Chakotay had tied in our modified sensor relays into the Falnari’s scanners. At last report, the sensors were operating within acceptable parameters, and they had commenced a wide sweep. We were doing the same. In theory, our combined efforts should have opened a sensor window. They