Ghost Ship - Diane Carey [11]
Troi hit the button almost angrily. Those weren’t right. They weren’t right. A new image came almost instantly, a big black, white, and red ship, very elegant and slim this time, obviously meant to carry people. People-that was right. She looked at the display band. Luxury liner Queen Elizabeth II, Cunard Line, Earth.
No … no … Troi’s mulberry-tinted lips lost their perfect shape. No. Her finger moved again.
H.M.S. Dreadnought, battleship, Great Britain, Earth, 1906.
She leaned forward now as she recognized some element-the color, the demeanor of this ship … closer. She tapped the button again, this time saying, “This type of vessel.”
“This is a naval defense/offense vessel which would be used during and after World War One,” the computer courteously told her.
“Continue.”
The holograph winked, and she was gazing at another ship of the same kind, but from a different angle as it crashed through the little round patch of sea. Its slate-gray bow rose and fell in the sea. The computer image turned as though Troi were circling it in an aircraft, to give her a complete look at it from all angles. It had a crude kind of grace about it, certainly a strength, but it had no lights at all, no colors like the starship’s sparkling yellow and white lights, its glowing reds, its vibrant electrical blues.
Aegis cruiser, built by SYSCON for the U.S. Navy, Earth, 1988.
The door buzzed again.
“Oh-yes; come in.”
She let the old-style ship pierce its way through the tiny sea in front of her as she looked up to see Will Riker stride in. As soon as the door opened, his eyes were already locked with hers. How long had he been waiting out there? She faintly remembered now that the buzzer had sounded once before.
“I was worried about you,” he said. He settled into the other chair and leaned one elbow on the desk just short of the holograph. The bulky cruiser splashed toward him, and yet stayed right where it was. “I didn’t know you were a history buff.” He nodded at the Aegis. “That’s nice.”
Troi tilted her dark head. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
So that was the end of the easy transition, Riker realized. Something in her tone told him her statement was more significant than it pretended to be.
“What happened?” he asked, no longer protecting her from her own behavior on the bridge.
She gave him an uncharacteristic shrug with one shoulder and shook her head, a self-conscious smile tugging at her lips. “Did you see what I did? I’m so embarrassed. I’ve never mistaken a dream for reality before. I must really have looked funny. Did anyone laugh?”
“Laugh?” Riker said saucily. “You should’ve seen them. Captain Picard had to be wheeled off the bridge, Worf was-“
“Oh, you!” She swatted his nearest knee and chuckled at herself again.
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Riker told her, lounging his big frame back in the chair. “Everybody does something like that sooner or later. The more stoic you are, the worse the goof-up seems.”
“Am I stoic?” she asked, the smile broadening again.
“I don’t know, Counselor,” he said. “I don’t remember the last time I looked at you and only saw the professional. I’ve got more flowery things to remember about you.”
Troi pursed her lips, leaned forward, ignoring the holograph of the ship as it continued its nonvoyage, and propped her chin on one hand. “Tell me, Bill. Make me feel better.”
“No fair. Figure it out for yourself. You of all people could do it.”
Settling back, she said, “That’s not very comforting for a person who just dashed onto the bridge in a frenzy.”
Will Riker’s bright eyes flashed before her impishly. “You want comfort? How’s this? I was assigned as second officer on a destroyer right after my promotion to lieutenant commander-about a thousand years ago, if memory serves. I got my assignment at Starbase Eighteen, and keyed the coordinates to the new ship into the transporter, stepped