Ship of the Line - Diane Carey [78]
“That won’t be necessary, sir,” Riker assured. “May I respectfully recommend that shields not be reduced in power during the war games?”
“You may,” Bateson said. “Scotty, please explain it to Mr. Riker.”
Blinking out of his fascination with this flak, Scott said, “Shields have to be reduced in correlation with the reduction in phaser power, or else the sensors couldn’t measure hull impact and record damage potential accurately.”
“Thank you. Satisfied?”
Unfortunately … “Yes, sir.”
“Very well. Now that we’re finished dancing, let me explain the scenario of the war games. Everyone pay attention. The Nora Nicholas is a Starfleet fighter-class ship already dispatched to the Typhon Expanse, where as we damned well know there are plenty of places to hide. The mock confrontation is for us to hunt down and engage a border raider that has been disrupting shipping, participating in smuggling operations, and brokering contraband and counterfeit credits.”
“Counterfeit credits?” Riker interrupted. “We don’t have that problem anymore. Media of exchange can’t be counterfeited anymore.”
“You’re deluding yourself.” Bateson flatly said. “People are more creative than that. Have you ever worked anywhere other than Starfleet?”
“No, sir, I went directly—”
“Well, I have. Outside of Starfleet, there’s a universe bubbling with commerce, legal and illegal. You’re living in the insulated world of knowing where your next meal is coming from, Commander.”
“And you’re living in the past,” Riker challenged. He paused, then squared his shoulders and loftily raised his chin. “We don’t concern ourselves with such things in our century. We aren’t interested in personal enrichment. In this century, we strive to better ourselves.”
Now Bateson was the one to pause. He leaned on the arm of his chair, surveyed Riker for a long, long time, and raised one eyebrow. All the men from the Bozeman now looked at Riker in the same way Bateson did. All the people from the EnterpriseD held very still.
“Really …” the captain droned. “And just who is it you think you’re ‘better’ than?”
Under the insulted gazes of the Bozeman’s brave crew, men who had stood down impossible odds with a ship one-tenth this size, William Riker’s shoulders sank a little and his chin came down. There was no good answer for that question. Not here, with Bateson’s crew silently surveying a man who had just declared himself superior without defining that.
In Troi’s eyes and Geordi’s, he could see he had made a mistake. Only Data failed to indict him for some transgression, mostly because he couldn’t really figure out what was going on.
Morgan Bateson gave Riker no quarter. Didn’t let him off. Didn’t stop glaring at him. He wanted an answer.
Riker had never had to actually answer that before. He glanced around, broiling under the gazes of the Bozeman crew, who had indeed paid their dues every bit as much as he ever had.
With his expression he offered a truce. “I’m sorry,” he appeased. “That did sound arrogant.”
“Yes, it did.” Bateson still didn’t let him off the hook. “You people these days, you think you’re better than everybody. You look down your noses at the conflicts of the past as if we had wars because we thought they were fun. I’ve got news for you. It’s no fun. Someday you’re going to have to fight unthinkable odds too, and on that day you’ll remember me. You’ll find out that there comes a time when you have to stand up and hit somebody. And before you start looking at me like that again, remember that I didn’t build this floating fortress by myself.”
“That doesn’t mean we have to bait potential enemies by staging war maneuvers in their front yards,” Riker said.
Evidently Bateson had had this argument before. He was so relaxed he’d have stuck his hands in his pockets if he’d had any. Instead he just gripped the command chair and leaned on it. “But it does mean that we have to be