Gulliver's Fugitives - Keith Sharee [92]
She excused herself and hurried to her cabin to access the ship’s computer.
“Why aren’t they somewhere more comfortable?” asked Picard as he and Riker walked toward Engineering.
“Apparently they’d been awake since Crichton first came aboard the Enterprise, days ago,” Riker replied. “But when everything was over, she still wanted to stand by in case her help was needed. She wouldn’t leave Engineering, and Geordi wouldn’t leave her.”
Technicians were repairing the doors to Engineering as Picard and Riker entered. More technicians were quietly at work on the equipment inside.
Riker showed the captain over to a corner. There, Geordi sat propped against the wall, deep in slumber. His VISOR hid his eyes as always, but the lines of pain and exhaustion on his face were clear. He seemed to have aged years.
Beside him, Ensign Chops Taylor lay curled up on the floor, her head resting on her arm. Her visor was lying next to her, along with the ten burnt sensor pads that once capped her fingers. One of her hands moved and gestured as she dreamt.
Riker had never seen her without her visor. Her face was pure poetry.
“I don’t believe I’ve met that ensign,” Picard whispered.
“Her name is Chops Taylor,” whispered Riker.
Geordi stirred slightly, and his hand came to rest on the ensign’s shoulder, as if he were afraid someone would take her away.
Picard looked at them both for a long moment.
“Thank you for saving my ship,” he said finally, in a voice too soft to wake them.
He turned and left, and Riker followed him out.
Picard took his seat on the bridge, with Riker to his right. Troi’s chair was empty.
Data was at the Ops position. Wesley’s Conn position was occupied by another ensign as Wesley took some much needed rest.
Worf had, of course, scorned rest as a decadent luxury. He stood at the tactical console and surveyed the readouts.
“The Rampartian ships have backed off several thousand kilometers and are holding. Nobody on the surface has answered our hails.”
“Thank you, Worf. No more communications from Starfleet?”
“None, sir.”
“What about the videocasts you’ve intercepted? Anything new?”
“The Dissenters are in captivity and will be executed soon by the CS.”
Picard stared at the deck.
“I suspect this will be a major loss for Rampart,” he said.
He lapsed into silence, despondent over the prospect of another hundred years, or maybe another thousand, of schizophrenic rule on this planet.
The bridge crew waited for the order the captain would normally give next—the order to engage the engines and leave this star system behind.
Picard prepared to speak, but before he got any words out, his communicator came to life with a familiar accented voice.
“Troi to Captain Picard.”
“Picard here.”
“Sir, I think I’ve found the missing piece to the puzzle.”
Chapter Eighteen
RHIANNON LAY ON the hard bed in her CephCom cell staring at the wall.
It was night outside, and the video screen in her room had been dimmed, but she had no desire to sleep on this, her last of all nights.
Crichton had decided that the Dissenters’ bodies themselves would be destroyed. Blanking wasn’t enough. They were the most devilish people in history, Crichton said. She had heard the same thing on the television before it had been dimmed. She had also seen a news report that showed Odysseus fighting with a CS man on a bridge, and then both of them lying dead.
She had cried a long time about that, and for the rest of the Dissenters, and for herself. She had cried until there was nothing left but a hollow feeling.
Rain had started to fall outside. She watched the dripping shadows on the walls. Then there was a larger shadow, as if something was moving around right outside her window.
Some guard probably.
The shadow remained, amorphous, wobbling this way and that. Something about the way it moved told her she should see what it was.
She had to stand on tiptoe on the bed.
A familiar face with large golden falcon-eyes looked back at her through the window.
“Saushulima!”
The haguya was perched on a narrow ledge outside. It couldn