Q & A - Keith R. A. DeCandido [26]
She waited the four seconds, and then he said, “I love you, too. Go! Seek out new life and stuff.”
After ending the transmission, she sprinted toward the doors. Just as they parted, she remembered she needed her tricorder, ran back inside, couldn’t remember where she’d put it, recalled finally that it was on the desk in the other room, grabbed it, dashed out of her quarters toward the turbolift, almost knocking over some poor ensign on the way. Miranda had already loaded the tricorder with all the information she’d need for the survey, including everything she’d had for the meeting the previous night.
The doors opened on her approach, thank all the gods and fates in the known universe. As Kadohata ran in, she said, “Transporter Room—” She panicked again, suddenly not remembering which room it was. Then it came to her. “Three!” Bloody hell, woman, get your brain together. You’re the second officer now.
The lift moved at what seemed to Miranda to be a snail’s pace. She tapped her combadge and said, “Computer, please download current reading from Gorsach IV and V.”
“Affirmative, downloaded.”
Miranda nodded. “Bravo.” She checked her tricorder, scrolling through the data, pushing to the front anything she thought she could use on the surface. “Time?”
“The time is zero-six fifty-nine hours.”
When the lift finally arrived, Miranda dashed through the doors, barely giving them time to part, and jogged to the transporter room.
Of course, Worf and Leybenzon were already there. Leybenzon looked somewhat cheesed off, what Miranda now assumed was his natural state. She was right on time.
Worf said, “Let us proceed.” He stepped up onto the transporter platform. Leybenzon handed Miranda her phaser weapon, which she holstered. Both she and Leybenzon joined Worf on the platform.
To Ensign Luptowski, who was standing behind the controls, Worf ordered, “Energize.”
The transporter room grew indistinct, fading into a silvery shimmer, then immediately coalescing into a large expanse of brownish-red rock, broken by numerous trees and bushes. The rock curved upward about fifty meters ahead of them. Turning around as she materialized, Kadohata saw that the rock curved upward at the same distance all around—they were at the canyon’s epicenter.
The commander blinked in surprise. The canyon had scanned as circular on long-range, but she hadn’t realized it was such a perfect circle. Pulling out her tricorder, she opened it and had it link with the sensor data the Enterprise had acquired since coming into orbit. Jill Rosado had done a full sensor sweep, starting with the away team’s position and continuing outward. She’d gotten basic readings on the entire planet before the beaming down.
Leybenzon also had his tricorder out in one hand and his phaser in another. Typical, Miranda thought. The security chief said, “I’m reading no structures of any kind, and no energy emissions, except for the planet’s magnetic field.” Nodding, Leybenzon put away the tricorder. “No life signs, either, sir. We’re alone down here.” Despite this, Miranda noted that he kept the phaser out.
Leybenzon’s tactical scan matched what the ship had picked up and what Miranda was reading now. She couldn’t really blame Leybenzon for verifying, but Miranda still found his attitude a little too gung-ho.
However, she had more pressing concerns. What she had thought to be an anomaly, or an artifact of the less specific nature of long-range sensors, had turned out to be something a bit more serious. “Commander?” she said to Worf.
“Report,” the first officer ordered.
“Something very…very odd, sir.” Kadohata scanned the canyon once more. “This canyon is perfectly circular. The diameter is a hundred-seven-point-eight meters all ‘round. The upcurve of the rocks is exactly fifty-three-point-nine meters from the center of our beamdown point in every direction. On top of that, there are three cave entrances, all spaced precisely forty-two-point-six meters apart.”
“Unusual,” Worf observed.
“It’s not just that. From the long-range, I noticed that the planet seemed to