Miracle Workers (SCE Books 5-8) - Keith R. A. DeCandido_. [et al.] [32]
Gold nodded in agreement. Revealing the secret of the web generator and its use on the Traelus II colony to the Klingons would have to be handled with utmost delicacy if any good were to come from it. While the Federation could not continue to allow negative feelings to dominate their relations with the Tholians, they could ill afford to lose the valuable alliance they had cultivated with the Klingon Empire after decades of tension and mistrust. He hoped that Worf, the Federation ambassador to Qo’noS could pull it off.
“Perhaps something positive can come from all of this,” Gold mused. “If the Federation can get the Tholians and Klingons past a very dark chapter in their history, and if we gain new allies in the bargain, then the sacrifice made by the Defiant’s crew won’t have been for nothing.” Not many people could claim that their actions would have such far-reaching ramifications more than a century after their deaths, after all. Gold mentally saluted Captain Thomas Blair and the men and women who had served under him.
The whistle of the da Vinci’s intraship communications system and the voice of Domenica Corsi interrupted their conversation.
“Bridge to Captain Gold. Sir, the Defiant is approaching SpaceDock.”
“Thank you, Commander,” Gold replied as he rose from behind his desk. He indicated the door to Scott. “Well, Captain, shall we play witness to one more bit of history?”
With her main power plants restored to partial operation, the Defiant no longer resembled a ship of the dead. Instead, the majority of her portholes were brilliantly illuminated, and her running lights shone brightly against the scarred and pitted surface of her tritanium hull. Her warp nacelles remained inactive, though, the Bussard ramscoops still dark rather than the vibrant crimson they had once pulsed. Except for that detail, the Defiant looked as though she might be an active ship of the line.
Space traffic controllers throughout the solar system had found themselves burdened with the demands of tracking thousands of Starfleet and civilian spacecraft converging on Earth, their crews all clamoring to see the return of the legendary starship. A swarm of smaller vessels shadowed the course being followed by the Defiant, many carrying journalists from worlds spanning the Federation and all working diligently for impressive visual images of the ship to transmit to their home planets.
Sitting in the command chair on the bridge of the Defiant, Sonya Gomez could not shake completely the temptation to be overwhelmed by what she was seeing. At first the crowd of vessels bearing curious spectators and well-wishers had unnerved her, but that had quickly faded. Now she allowed herself to give in to the enormity of the moment. After all, how often did something like this happen?
With partial power restored throughout the ship, the da Vinci’s crew had spent the past several days carefully transferring the bodies of Defiant personnel into portable stasis containers, where they would remain until Starfleet forensic teams completed the arduous task of identifying each crewmember. Automatic atmosphere scrubbers had removed the worst of the dust and pulverized remains of the Defiant’s crew, though Gomez doubted she would ever forget the dank smell that had greeted her the first time she had removed her suit helmet.
She had suggested that Captain Gold guide the Defiant into SpaceDock, but he had declined the honor, deferring it to her instead.
It was your team that got her out of that hellhole, he had said. It’s only fitting that you finish the job you started.
Gomez was grateful he had made the offer. With its brightly lit consoles and assortment of background noises, she could easily lose herself in the ambiance of the bridge and believe that she was serving on a ship of the line in the 23rd century.
“It really is something else, isn’t it?” Duffy said from where he sat at the communications console.