Ghost Ship - Diane Carey [8]
“Excellent,” Picard responded. “I’m sure-“
The forward turbolift beside the captain’s ready-room door opened, and Deanna Troi flew out onto the bridge, so unlike herself that she drew all eyes. She was a wreck-about as opposite her usual demeanor as she could get without mud-wrestling first. Her hair, usually knotted up in a style so tight it made other people’s muscles ache, was a black mass, spilling over her shoulders and around her pearly cheeks. Her eyes, extra large with their touch of alienness, obsidian as eyes that looked out from a Greco-Roman fresco, were skewed by some terrible calamity. She was breathing hard. Had she run down every corridor?
Riker plowed through the bridge contingent to the space just below her platform. “Deanna … what’s wrong?”
She panted out a few breaths, her pencil-perfect brows drawn inward to make two creases over her nose. “Why … why is there a yellow alert?”
Even now she spoke softly, her words touched with that faintly alien Betazoid accent. She was working hard to compose herself, but something was obviously pressuring her.
Riker moved a step closer, hoping to reassure her. “We’re attempting close orbit around that.” He made a gesture toward the viewscreen, but his mind wasn’t on it any more than hers was. He parted his lips to say something else, but Data was interrupting him.
“We’re firing into its atmosphere to get feedback readings. Even though its core is unignited, the planet is putting out three times the energy it should, mostly in long-wave radiation. We have to be on alert in case of shock waves or gravitational recoil-“
“Data,” Riker snapped, wishing there was an off switch. He silenced the android with a sandpaper look, then turned back to Troi. “I should’ve told the computer to bypass standard procedure and not call you up here. It’s my fault.”
She put out her hand in what began as an appeasing gesture, but as she spoke it turned into the kind of move a woman makes when she wants to steady herself. “No … it isn’t your fault….”
The captain floated in at Riker’s left. “What’s bothering you, Counselor?” he asked, gently but with an edge of impatience.
Her kohled eyes narrowed beneath those drawn brows. “I heard something … in my mind … “
“Can you describe it?” Riker asked. A twinge ran up his spine. Her muted telepathic talents always made him nervous. It wasn’t exactly disbelief, because no one could dispute the existence of Betazoid mental traits, but it was a kind of distrust.
She backed up a step. “I’m sorry … ” She blinked, took a deep breath, and pretended to recover. “Captain, I’m sorry for the interruption. I didn’t mean to disturb your tests. Please excuse me.”
Before either of the men could speak, she made a quick and nervous exit.
Riker stared at the lift doors. “I’ve never seen her act that way,” he murmured.
Data rose and came a few steps toward the ramp. “Is Counselor Troi ill?”
“It’s something else,” Riker decided quietly, more to himself than to Data.
“She behaved abnormally.”
Now he drew his eyes from the lift and struck Data with a look that would have bruised had it been a Ghost Ship blow. “I don’t think you’re anyone to judge,” he barked.
Picard tilted his shoulders as he turned, saying, “Permission to leave the bridge, Number One. Temporarily.”
“Thank you, sir,” Riker said. “I won’t be long.” He had to restrain himself or he would actually have bounded for the lift. He cast one more acid glare at Data before leaving the bridge.
Picard smoothed the moment with a calm extension of the science tests. “Continue phaser bursts at regular intervals.”
Data drew himself away from the stinging, confusing reaction Riker had given him and settled into his usual station at OPS on the forward deck. “Science stations are receiving continual information from the planetary core now, Captain.” He lowered his voice as he had often heard humans do, and to LaForge said, “Commander Riker is annoyed with me.”
LaForge shrugged. He glanced at the android, but saw