Taking Wing - Michael A. Martin [22]
It’s good to see that the repairs to the captain’s yacht went so well. Riker smiled, thinking back to the honeymoon he and Deanna had begun on Pelagia less than a month ago. As a wedding gift, Captain Picard had lent them the Calypso II for that excursion, a voyage that had subjected the craft to more than a few bumps and bruises. Though Picard hadn’t made any mention of the damage afterward, Riker would have been able to sense the captain’s displeasure even without the help of Deanna’s Betazoid empathy.
A message from the saucer’s aft hangar deck interrupted his reverie, and he swiftly acknowledged and brought the Armstrong into line for final approach and landing. Less than three minutes later, after setting the shuttlecraft down and securing it within the familiar cavernous hangar, Riker strode across the busy deck toward the inner pressure doors, noting the presence of perhaps a dozen engineers who were going about various shuttlecraft-maintenance–related tasks. Each of them paused and adopted attentive postures as he passed, and he told them all to remain at ease. Though almost all of them looked quite young, they struck him as an efficient, disciplined group of officers. But that wasn’t the first thing he noticed about them.
I’ve never met a single one of them before, he thought, pausing near the hangar’s inner doors. Certainly, the calamitous events on Dokaalan, Delta Sigma IV, and Tezwa had claimed the lives of large numbers of Enterprise security personnel; but a large proportion of engineers, medics, and others had died during those harrowing missions as well, and the presence of so many new faces here served as a stark reminder of that painful fact. It also brought to mind the more recent battle against mad Shinzon, whose failed attempt to annihilate Earth with a forbidden thalaron weapon had claimed the lives of dozens more of Riker’s former shipmates.
Including Data, Riker thought.
“May I help you, Captain?” said a familiar voice behind him.
Riker turned and saw the grinning visage of Geordi La Forge. Behind him stood Lieutenant Commander Worf, a sly half smile slightly contorting his characteristic dour expression as he towered over the Enterprise’s chief engineer.
Riker returned the grin and grasped Geordi’s extended hand. The handshake immediately became an unabashedly sentimental bear hug. Releasing La Forge, Riker took a half step backward and regarded them both.
“Did I look lost?” Riker said in answer to Geordi’s question as he released the engineer.
“Not lost, sir,” Worf said. “But you do appear…nostalgic.” The Klingon officer relaxed his posture, apparently satisfied that Riker wasn’t going to try to hug him as well.
Riker beamed at Worf. “Commander, one of my final acts as this ship’s executive officer was to recommend you as Counselor Troi’s replacement. Your sensitivity shows me that my judgment was sound.” He considered commenting on the stray cat hairs he saw clinging to Worf’s metallic baldric, but held his tongue; he knew that Data’s cat Spot was now sharing Worf’s quarters, an arrangement that was surely a significant imposition on the loyal yet solitary Klingon.
Worf’s passing look of confusion gave way almost immediately to one of comprehension. Riker recalled that when he had first come aboard the Enterprise-D fifteen years ago, human jokes had left Worf utterly at sea. Though he would never be the life of the party, the utterly humorless warrior