Ghost Ship - Diane Carey [45]
Even if he had spoken, the words would have been battered aside as Picard jammed his way in front of Riker. “Counselor Troi, damn it, you were ordered to remain with the saucer section. Explain yourself.”
She had been completely ready for this, it seemed, for she remained the quintessence of poise. “Sir, I’m needed here. If there’s any chance of communication with those beings, I am the only person who can provide it. I’d like to volunteer to remain here.”
“Yes,” Picard rasped. “And I notice you waited until the lifts were shut down rather than volunteering while we were still topside.” He pointed at her and ferociously said, “I’ll discuss this with you later. Providing there is a later for us.”
Troi let her shoulders settle, and breathed, “Yes, sir.” Her legs ached with the tension and now the relief of knowing she would stay and bear this out.
Perhaps she could evade the captain, but not Riker. Her gaze caught his, and he had that look on his face, that look with all the levels going back through it, back and back to the core of his being, and she could see all the levels as though looking into an infinity mirror.
“Mr. Riker, we don’t have all day.”
“No, sir, I know that. Mr. LaForge, Mr. Data. Effect saucer separation-now.”
Every breath held. Every spine stiffened. A subtle hum of power came up from beneath them, up from the caverns of Enterprise’s gigantic power factory to the interlocking mechanisms in her neck. With a dissonant grind, the ship pulled herself apart. No level of mechanical perfection would ever diminish the power of that dividing moment, no matter how faint, no matter how insulated. They either heard it or thought they heard it-a husky clunk-chunk as couplings released, grippers let go like great claws, their pads sucking back from the ship’s yoke with a rubbery reluctance, pins and bolts, lashes and hasps came loose from their harnesses, and all the little pins, which had moments ago held the intricate circuitry that ran the ship, retracted. As though severed by the ax of a great woodsman, the ship became two. The saucer section, with all its families, was suddenly cut adrift.
On the battle bridge, Picard and his command crew watched the stardrive section back slowly away. They seldom got this view of their starship-or even part of her. The saucer section was a wide plate with tapered edges, her frosty whiteness everywhere reflecting the rings of light from rectangular windows and energy-release points. Lights everywhere, like a glittering foil Christmas tree. A kind of pain cut through Captain Picard. He watched as the saucer’s impulse engines suddenly came to life and glowed a bright silvery blue. Starship captains were supposed to be decisive. Yet their decisions were like raw surgery to him. Why must there be such things in the universe? Why must there be snakes in the water?
Riker watched the saucer section drift away, mesmerized. Hmm. Wasn’t so bad. Let’s hope everything else goes that well. When he could pull his attention away from the sheer beauty of the saucer, he looked at the captain.
If he’d ever seen Jean-Luc Picard vacillate, now was that time. The captain looked as though he might suddenly call that disk back into place, gather all his charges beneath his robe. For several seconds Riker expected to have to give that order, even figured out what words he would use to keep the captain from looking too foolish.
But Picard said nothing. In silence he bore out the courage of his conviction.
“All secure,” LaForge reported. “Free to maneuver, sir.”
“Acknowledged,” Picard murmured. The taste of commitment. “Maintain status. Send a low-band communique to Mr. Argyle. Tell him to maneuver behind that small asteroid belt on the other side of the gas giant. It may mask their escape.”
“Aye, sir,” Worf said. “Dispatching.”
They watched in silence as the saucer section’s impulse drive flared for those few moments, then faded back, providing the huge disk with just