Ghost Ship - Diane Carey [15]
Troi continued to gaze thoughtfully at the empty space where the holograph ships had been chugging across her table. Her gaze was unfocused, contemplative, and though she had tried to raise her hand several times to press the Revive and Continue point on her computer board, something stopped her every time. Nor could she make herself ask the computer to continue. Continue giving in.
A dream. But not one formed within her own mind, of that much she was becoming certain.
The door opened again, this time without the polite buzzer, and Riker strode back in. Troi gained almost instant control over her troubled expression.
Teasing him with her eyes, she asked, “Have you been hiding in the hold all this time?”
“How much power are you feeding into that unit?” Riker asked her.
She blinked. “Pardon me?”
He stopped, his thigh just brushing the edge of the table. “Your holographs. They’re bleeding out.”
She started to respond, but was cut off by the intercom.
“Commander Riker, your presence is requested on the bridge. Report to the bridge, please.”
Riker touched his insignia com. “Riker. I’ll be right there.”
He brought his attention back to Troi. “Your history lesson. It’s bleeding out into the corridor.”
Her lips touched and parted as she tried to understand what he was saying and to find the right answer. His expression, his tone somehow made her think there should be an answer and she hated to make him feel as silly as his statement sounded-but what was he talking about?
Finally she steadied herself and coolly said, “But that’s not possible.”
Riker shifted to his other foot. “Of course it is. You should have maintenance check the energy intake on this thing.”
Working to avoid the inevitable, Troi tried not to feel responsible. “No,” she said, “it can’t be. Don’t you remember? I turned it off before you left. I haven’t turned it back on.”
Without really changing very much, Riker’s federal-blue eyes took on a perplexed hardness that wasn’t directed toward her at all, but toward a sudden mystery. His mouth tightened over the cleft chin so slightly that she might have missed it had she not been watching for changes.
Troi knotted her hands on her lap and resisted the urge to touch him. Caught by the ominous perception in his eyes, she added, “Completely cold … “
“This is crazy,” Yar complained. She flattened her tiny mouth into a hard ribbon and forced herself to report in a more correct manner to her waiting captain. “Security reports no unusual activity on Deck Twelve at all, Captain. My instruments are in perfect working order. I don’t understand this.”
On the forward bridge, Captain Picard had his back to Conn and Ops and didn’t see Data start to open his mouth to add his two bits, or see LaForge gesture at the android to keep quiet. Everyone else saw the motion and understood its prudence, especially when Picard raised his voice and roared, “That’s quite enough of this waffling about. Next time the glitch appears, I want the computers on this vessel ready to record it. We’ve got the most advanced technology available to the Federation incorporated into the memory core and active matrices of this vessel, and you people are still relying on intuition and your own eyes. Now, snap to and let the ship do its job.”
His tone indisputably said that he didn’t mean they should let the ship do their jobs for them, but that they should be doing their jobs better, more completely meshing with the systems beneath their hands. Picard was simply the kind of commanding officer who didn’t like to have anything out of line.
He swung around, glaring at the main viewer as though he were looking for something and couldn’t find it, as though he could coerce an answer out of the darkness of space, and mused, “Too damned young.”
The port turbolift came open and Riker stepped out, escorting Troi by the elbow. Odd … she still looked unprepared to come to the bridge, her hair still down, her casual short uniform on instead of the usual one-piece she had taken to wearing most often and the two of them stood together before