Synthesis - James Swallow [12]
“You’re saying whatever did this just… vanished?” Dakal licked dry lips.
“I am merely presenting the information available at this time.”
Vale frowned. “All right. First things first. We get our ship back on an even keel before we start worrying about someone else’s. I want situation reports from all department heads in ten minutes.” She turned toward Lavena. “And Lieutenant, you work with Melora and Zurin. See if you can’t find us a way to make sure we don’t run aground again.” Vale’s lips curled. “Honestly, it’s embarrassing.”
• • •
“She’s fine,” said Ogawa, snapping shut the medical tricorder and pulling a big smile for Tasha. “A little shook up, but then aren’t we all?”
“Thank you, Alyssa.” Deanna gave her a nod, and the nurse moved off. On some innate level, she had known that her daughter was fine, despite her anguished cries when the holodeck went off-line just as they’d started their swim; but it helped to hear someone else say it.
Deanna pulled her robe tighter and used the big, baggy sleeves to cradle her daughter. She tried not to shiver; under the robe, she was wearing her still-wet bathing suit, and damp footprints across the sickbay deck attested to her full-tilt run from the holodeck to Titan’s medical center. Nearby, Doctors Ree and Onnta moved swiftly about the sickbay, checking for concussions or other less immediate injuries. Mercifully, nobody had been badly hurt, but that didn’t keep the crew’s anxiety level from peaking.
Deanna could feel the wave of tension rising and falling at the edges of her empathic senses. Titan’s crew were steadfast and well trained, but this sudden out-of-nowhere shock had shaken them all. She sighed and narrowed her focus to the small child in her arms, giving her a wan smile. Everything is fine, little one, she said inwardly, doing her best to project calm and warmth. It wasn’t yet clear how much of her mother’s gifts for empathy Natasha Troi had inherited, but Deanna did her best to soothe her. It seemed to work, as the baby’s fretful expression softened into something more relaxed.
I wonder if that will work on Will. Deanna saw her husband across the sickbay, behind the curve of clear glass that was the wall of Ree’s office. His expression was set hard, his eyes narrowed, as he spoke with Christine Vale. Like Troi, Will was still dressed for a vacation, but his posture was all command, stiff and severe. She walked over, catching the tail end of the executive officer’s report.
“—so whatever hit the wrecked ship is long gone,” Vale was saying. “All sensors are back up, and we’re reading nothing.”
“Could it be a cloaked vessel?” Will’s arms were folded across his chest.
“If there is a hidden ship out there, then it’s using better tech than we’ve ever seen.” Vale leaned forward to reach for something, and her hand seemed to disappear; then she drew it back with a padd in her grip, and Deanna realized why she wasn’t sensing any emotion from the other woman. Vale wasn’t actually in the office with her husband, more likely up in the captain’s ready room, using the shipwide holocomm system to deliver her report virtually. “Tuvok’s running every profile we have, including data from that Reman ghost ship the Enterprise-E encountered. So far, there’s just dead vacuum out there.” On the padd’s screen, Deanna saw a readout showing wreckage scattered ahead of Titan’s bow.
Will glanced at his wife and daughter, and for a moment his expression softened—but only for a moment. Deanna and Tasha were okay, but Will’s responsibilities also included more than three hundred other lives that made up Titan’s crew complement. “We’re certain that it was another ship that did this? It couldn’t have been an accident or natural phenomenon? Maybe the same thing that threw us out of warp?”
“They were shooting at something,” Vale noted. “And whatever it was, it didn’t like it. If not a vessel, then…” She trailed off, frowning.
Will glanced back at his wife. “Deanna, can you sense anything? Anyone… alive?”
She paused and closed her eyes, let her