Myriad Universes 02_ Echoes and Refractions - Keith R. A. DeCandido [104]
Within moments, he was back on his ship, and he headed straight for sickbay. The scene was somewhat less chaotic than it had been the last time Picard was here, which was right after the battle at Khitomer had ended, and the few Romulan warbirds still intact had retreated into warp.
Now the patients were lying quietly in their beds instead of screaming in pain, and the doctors and nurses were moving calmly about.
Ro Laren lay in one of the central beds, a cortical monitor on her forehead just above her nose ridges. At least the burns on her arms and face had healed.
Doctor Beverly Crusher entered. “Captain!”
“Doctor. How is Lieutenant Ro?”
“Still in a coma, as you can see. We’ve done everything we can for her-it’s up to her to wake up again. It could be in five minutes; it could be never.”
Picard nodded sadly. A fire had broken out on the bridge, and Ro had saved the life of one of the bridge science officers, but was hit with burning plasma from a ruptured conduit. By that time, the battle had been won, due in part to Ro’s skills at tactical.
Then he looked around at the rest of sickbay. So many wounded…
“What-” he started, but it came out as a croak. He cleared his throat and started again. “What were the final casualty figures, Beverly?”
Beverly stared at him for a moment with troubled eyes. War was always worst for doctors.
“We lost seventy-two people. Another hundred and two were injured.”
Picard felt a heavy weight on his chest, and suddenly wished he had another glass of Haden’s wine.
The truly sad part was that those casualty figures were comparatively light. But then, there had been moments in the Khitomer engagement when Picard truly thought that the Enterprise would be destroyed.
Putting a gentle hand on Crusher’s shoulder, Picard said, “Keep me advised of Lieutenant Ro’s condition.”
“Of course,” she said with a nod.
With that, he departed sickbay. He had to send condolences to the next of kin of the seventy-two people who died. It was a duty that often took more time than the captain of a Sovereign-class starship had.
But it was not a duty he would ever shirk. The families of all those who died under his command would be informed by him personally. They deserved that much, at least. Before his promotion, and after the battle at Archanis that claimed more than two hundred members of his crew, Riker had gently suggested that Picard simply record a generic condolence, but Picard refused. He would not allow the war to make him expedient when it came to death notices.
And so he went to his ready room. At least this time he had three days.
10
U.S.S. Voyager Dorvan System United Federation of Planets
Captain Kathryn Janeway was in the midst of reading the latest missive from her husband when the doorchime to her ready room sounded. “Come in,” she said with a smile on her face.
Lieutenant Commander Aaron Cavit entered, holding a padd. “Here are the updated duty rosters.” He approached Janeway, who sat on a couch beneath the window in the spacious ready room. Through that window, she could see that the stars were no longer distorted by the warp effect, but had settled again into points in the darkness of space.
Reaching up to take the padd and setting aside the letter, she said, “Thanks, Aaron.” She took only a cursory look at the roster; Cavit had proved himself over the past two years to be a magnificent first officer. She couldn’t imagine running this ship without him. “I see we’ve arrived.”
Cavit nodded as he sat down next to her on the couch. “The Intrepid and Bellerophon are right behind us. And Harry’s picked up two Cardassian ships in orbit of Dorvan V. We’re too far to get an ID on the ships yet.” He indicated the padd Janeway had put on the cushion next to her. “Letter from Mark?”
Smiling, Janeway said, “Yes.”
“Did he get the promotion?”
“Mhm. He’s now the head of the hybridization project. And they