Ship of the Line - Diane Carey [28]
Chapter 7
Morgan Bateson dreaded every step back to the starship’s transporter room, every step from his ship’s transporter room to the bridge. A thousand lies raced through his mind. Could he control his expression? A million words available—which would he choose? Were there good ones? Better ones? Neutral ones?
No, there was no neutral. No good, no better.
A chill throttled up his spine as he clumped onto his bridge. There it was, the same as it had been ninety years ago. There they all were … Gabe, Wizz, Ed, the new guys who certainly would be lost now, for they hadn’t even had the chance to be at home here. Now they would be at home nowhere. How could their captain help them? Did anyone ever expect a captain to be at some time entirely powerless?
All their eyes were on him. They had questions. They thought he had answers.
He did.
“Boys …” His voice was scarcely a croak.
His cold hands motioned them to gather around. For a few rough seconds he said nothing, but coiled an arm around Gabe Bush and lay the other hand on the next man’s shoulder, who happened to be Mike Dennis.
Then he looked at Bush, and felt his own cheeks grow ruddy and his eyes crimp. His throat tightened—better speak before it closed right up.
“Gabe,” he began, “gonna miss the wedding.”
Part Two: The Near Unknown
Service in a flagship might be a way to quicker promotion, but there were many crumpled petals in the bed of roses.
Hornblower and the Atropos
Chapter 8
Three years later, the year 2371
Between commands. That queasy insecurity. No ship. No home port, no mission.
Commander Will Riker found the feeling unbanishable. Shoreleave was good when a docked ship lay waiting to go out again, but where there was no ship …
There is no ship.
As he hurried along the Promenade at Starbase 12, Riker was anxious to meet Captain Picard. Lately the captain seemed calm and unflappable as always, but for some reason, fearing some impending decision, Riker didn’t like to leave Picard alone for too long at a time, alone to think. A captain with a ship had preoccupations. A captain without one …
The EnterpriseD had been Jean-Luc Picard’s crowning accolade. Now the ship was wrecked beyond all but salvage, destroyed in the line of duty, crashed to a planet’s surface to save the lives of her crew.
At first, the crew had felt victorious at simply having survived. Then relieved, and now deeply disturbed, living in the uneasy vacuum between assignments and trying to deal with the sad weight of having failed to bring their ship home. Unlike the grieving process of losing a loved one, which generally got better with time, losing the ship seemed to be getting worse with time.
Many of the crew had slipped away, been offered new assignments on other ships or at outposts. Some had taken chances for research assignments, others for exploratory posts. Some had decided to make those life choices that came at times like these, and left Starfleet, gone off to start families or pursue other interests. Some were still waiting, stalling.
As he nodded to someone he knew, Riker hoped that officer wouldn’t come over or try to converse. Couldn’t remember the guy’s name anyway, didn’t feel like being social. He wanted to get to the captain. This was going to be one of those days.
No—this was going to be its own kind of day, and he’d probably never forget this one. Damn, his hands were so cold—
His boots thudded softly on the deck carpet as he angled into the officer’s corridor and forced himself to keep from breaking into a jog. This corridor didn’t look all that different from the corridors on the ship, and his chest tightened, for in only minutes he hoped to be walking the captain back down this hall. Of course, the captain came and went regularly from here, but somehow doing that alone and doing it with someone who was having the same thoughts—
The captain had to walk down here from his quarters to get to the command officers’ lounge. Riker told himself that over and over, but somehow it didn’t help.
Ah—the door. He’d almost raced right past