Ghost Ship - Diane Carey [83]
“Just don’t make any fast moves for an hour or so,” she told him as the two interns helped him find his balance.
“I’m afraid all we may have left,” he said, “are fast moves.” As he experimented with his newfound legs, his gaze fell on Troi as she watched expectantly a few paces away, her expression taut and hopeful now, wanting to know what he had experienced, what he had decided, yet frightened of asking. Or perhaps she was sensitive enough to know she didn’t have to ask; he would tell her when he was ready. Yes, that was it. He saw that now as he looked at her large exotic eyes.
He reached for her hand and firmly said, “Counselor, would you like to escort me to the bridge? This situation has gone far enough.”
“Riker to Data. Riker to Data. I know you’re out there. Talk to me. Don’t make me boost my gain. I’m picking you up faintly on tight sensors, but if you make me expand the sensor cone, that thing’ll home in on it and we’ll both be finished. Do you copy?”
It was the fourth time he’d made that threat, and the fourth time he’d failed. He was bluffing; he didn’t have Data’s shuttlecraft on his readouts at all. But if Data thought he did … well, that was the game. He was halfway to the solar system, traveling at half sublight. On his aft monitor, Enterprise hung against black space, regally composed amid these devilish odds, her opalescent hulls and nacelles seeming quite open to attack right now. Even from here he saw how low her energies were running. Her impulse and warp sections normally glowed brightly and were now simply brushed with pale color. The string of lights that shone from her rectangular windows were dim slits now, and there were fewer of them than he cared to see. This was a disturbing picture of the starship for Riker, this muted version of a ship otherwise unafraid to show her power. Today she dared not, at least not yet. Not until they could fight what they were up against.
“Come on, Data, come on, put me out of my misery,” he grumbled, adjusting the array of sensory equipment on his helm board, This research dinghy was sensor-heavy, virtually all sensors from bow to stern, including most of its outer skin. It was shaped like a boat, its underbelly designed to skim atmospheres, its two lateral sensory pods designed to pick up readings of astonishing detail, right down to wind shifts, storm patterns, and even microorganisms. Ordinarily it would never be used for anything other than research, but today it was the best bet for finding Data. It was smaller and slightly faster than a shuttlecraft, and its pincer-fine sensors could put out a finer beam and draw in cleaner information on less power than any other vessel at his disposal, including cutting through Data’s makeshift cloaking device. First rule of tactics: get a better horse.
Of course, he was ignoring the obvious-that he could be heading in completely the wrong direction and Data could be a million miles the other way. But if any part of Data was human enough to run on instinct alone, that instinct said to head toward a star system, where life originated, where it belonged. Where the thing might be.
And so the swirling gas giant was once again Riker’s companion in space, the gas giant, the asteroid belt with its obliterated portion, now just so much chips and dust after the starship’s antimatter dump. Funny-in the Enterprise this distance didn’t seem so big. Without the mass of the starship around him, Riker felt the whole perspective acutely, and even if it took the same amount of time, his search exaggerated the distance he was covering. His dinghy seemed small against the black panorama-seemed, hell, it was small.
“Data, come in, please,” he attempted again, tightening his communications beam and managing to lengthen it a few more miles. That would take a wider sweep-everything was compromise. Working the controls so delicately he could barely perceive the change on the displays, he licked his lips and murmured, “Come on, Data, don’t make me live with this.”
“This is Commander Data. Mr. Riker, please turn back, sir.”
Riker