Ghost Ship - Diane Carey [12]
“Oh, Bill! Oh, no … “
“And the ship I’d landed on wasn’t a destroyer, either. It was the U.S.S. Yorktown-an Excelsior-class starship, heading out on a two-year mission. Her captain made Picard seem like Francis of Assisi. They’d already been delayed four days by diplomatic entanglements, and here’s Second Officer Riker having to report to the real second officer.”
Her hand was clapped over her mouth by now, and she parted her fingers enough to burble, “What did they do?”
He spread his hands. “What could they do? They turned the whole ship around, this huge ship, and they came all the way back through space to rendezvous with the destroyer I was supposed to be on. So there was the destroyer, having to meet a starship just to pick up its second officer, who was supposed to have reported in ten hours before.”
“Oh, dear … “
“So quit complaining.”
“Is that a true story? You’re not making it up to make me feel better?”
“Make it up? Deanna, nobody sane could make up anything that punishing. It’s like a practical joke somebody plays on a bridegroom on his wedding night, except I did it to myself.” Shaking his head musingly, he added, “I could never quite look at a transporter platform the same way again. I always wonder if I’m going to end up beaming into somebody’s shower by mistake. And the worst was yet to come. Two years later, I really was assigned as Yorktown’s second officer and I had to report to that captain again!”
She giggled, bringing an unlikely girlishness to her demeanor. “Did he remember?”
“Remember? First thing he asked was if I’d been hiding in the hold all this time.”
Their laughter entwined and filled the dim room, chasing away the discomfort.
As Riker watched her custodially, he noticed she had picked up on his feelings and was actually doing the blushing for him. At first he was tempted to draw back within himself, but he knew it didn’t matter. With Deanna, holding back showed up like a beacon. There was no point. He wished he could be this relaxed with the other members of the crew.
They sat together, grinning at each other, warm in their mutual memories and the privacy of a relationship and a past they had allowed no one else on board to see. It was like starting fresh, with a whole new life, with their attraction to each other getting a second chance, because no one else knew. No one else on the entire ship knew.
Breaking his gaze at her gentle face, Riker looked at the unlikely holograph beside him and asked, “You had a nightmare?”
Her expression made his smile fall away. He forced himself not to say more, to give her a chance to answer in her own time, while he indulged in the presence of her troubled onyx eyes.
“A nightmare,” she murmured. “But in this nightmare I could feel the emotions of the strangers in it. It was nothing I recognize … sharp images of things I know nothing about. Names I’ve never heard.”
Riker perked up. “What names?”
She drew the memory up and forced herself to speak. “There was Vasska, Arkady, Gork … Gorsha … I don’t know those sounds. And I don’t understand why I would hear names. I can’t do that. I can only read some emotions. I’ve never been able to draw complete communication.”
He inched a little closer. “But you’re Betazoid. What’s so surprising if you can-“
“I can’t. I never could,” she insisted, wondering if she could make him comprehend. “You don’t understand what it means to communicate with a silent mind. You don’t know the trouble, the discomfort of dealing with races that can’t shield their thoughts. It’s as if a sighted person suddenly enters a world of chaotic lights and colors, or a hearing person suddenly comes into a place that was nothing but uncontrolled noises. The light would be blinding, the din maddening … I’ve worked hard to separate my own thoughts from those of others, Bill, and I’ve done well at it. You can