Q & A - Keith R. A. DeCandido [15]
Looking back, Shelby was embarrassed at the way she’d behaved toward Riker. True, the two of them didn’t exactly see eye to eye—she, a brash lieutenant commander so full of herself that she could not understand why everyone just didn’t do it her way. Marriage to another being equally head-strong sometimes left her wondering if a little more looking before leaping might be a good idea. She’d consider it for all of two or three seconds and then leap into the fray, regs be damned. Strange, she would have never thought Picard would do the same thing. But here it was in front of her. Jean-Luc Picard had disobeyed a direct order. The Enterprise had faced the Borg. But these were not the creatures she had studied. These Borg were closer to the monsters that had lived under her bed as a child. These Borg killed on sight. The thought filled Admiral Shelby with a dread she could not name.
“Ops to Admiral Shelby.”
She tapped her combadge. “Go ahead.”
“Admiral, this is Ensign Galeckas. Something’s happened to the Inwood.”
Shelby blinked. The Inwood was the runabout that had just departed Bravo with crew replacements for Shelby’s former command, the Trident. “Define ‘something.’”
“I can’t, Admiral. According to what we can see out the ports, there’s some kind of weird rift in space between us and the Inwood’s heading.”
“Ensign, Bravo Station has state-of-the-art sensors that can detect the individual grains of sand on a planet six light-years away. Would you mind explaining why you had to look out a port?”
“I’m sorry, Admiral, but—well, those state-of the-art sensors aren’t picking up a damn thing. The only reason we know the rift is there is because we can see it.”
“How can something be in the visible spectrum and not be detected by sensors?”
“We’ve, uh, been asking ourselves that, sir.”
Sighing, Shelby got up from her desk. “I’ll be right up.”
If nothing else, Shelby figured this was preferable to driving herself crazy wondering how and why the Borg changed….
5
Enterprise
En route to Gorsach IX
Two days before the end of the universe
LA FORGE HAD GONE DOWN TO THE CREW LOUNGE with Worf, Crusher, and Kadohata straight from the mission briefing. The chief engineer had spent the first half of the day talking with Worf about what would be required for the base camp on Gorsach IX, and the second half of the day processing those requirements with Taurik, his deputy chief engineer. He had skipped lunch in between those two lengthy conversations and so could use a good meal.
Being turned down by T’Lana and Leybenzon had been a disappointment. La Forge had spent most of the time since they’d set out for Gorsach tweaking the fixes made in drydock after their encounter with the Borg and also breaking in some new engineers. Tonight was really Geordi’s first chance to relax and have an in-depth chat with the newest members of the Enterprise senior staff before the Gorsach mission kicked into high gear.
“All right, I recall that Ten-Forward on the D was called that because it was on deck ten in the forward section. Why is this called the Riding Club?” asked Kadohata.
“The full name,” Crusher said, “is the Happy Bottom Riding Club. Will was the one who came up with the name.”
Worf got a sour look on his face. La Forge recalled that Worf had refused to use “that name.”
Crusher explained, “The original was run by a woman named Pancho Barnes in California on Earth about four or five hundred years ago. It was near a base for test pilots of ancient fixed-wing aircraft, in a remote desert area with a ranch, rodeo field, dance hall, and a restaurant. Barnes offered a free steak dinner to anyone who flew