Taking Wing - Michael A. Martin [71]
She noticed then that Jaza was staring at her curiously. Had he been having any of the same thoughts?
Before the awkwardly silent moment could stretch further, the computer let out a staccato series of beeps. New blocks of text and graphics began scrolling in columns onto Jaza’s monitor.
“Hmm, this is odd,” he said, frowning as he studied the emerging data. “Our long-range scans are picking up some kind of spatial anomaly. It appears to be located inside Romulan space only a few hours away from Romulus itself at high warp.”
“What kind of spatial anomaly?” Vale asked, resisting the urge to immediately tap the combadge on her chest and call the captain to the bridge. It was the kind of move she would have made without hesitation while serving as security chief aboard the Enterprise. But she was in command in Riker’s absence, and he was probably on his way up to check in with the newly arrived alpha shift anyhow.
“Readings are all over the place right now,” Jaza said. “I’m picking up spatial and gravimetric distortions. Also intermittent signatures of duranium, tritanium, and polyduranium.”
Vale tensed. “Hull metals. Ship debris?”
“Possibly.” Jaza shrugged. “There’s too much spatial distortion right now for me to say for certain. I’ll try to boost the sensor net’s resolution further, but I’m not sure how much more I’ll be able to squeeze out of it. It’s too bad the anomaly doesn’t lie directly along our present heading.” He resumed working over his console, intent on his stream of scrolling data. On Jaza’s monitor, a false-color image of the anomaly began to take shape between the columns of numbers. It was an irregularly shaped green-and-orange cloud that reminded her of an angry lobster.
“Keep me apprised,” Vale said. Something about the anomaly’s appearance nudged at the back of her mind, giving her a vague feeling of unease.
Spatial anomalies and starships never seem to be a good mix, she thought, considering the hull metals Jaza had detected. She found she was unable to think of any pleasant, happy ways they might have gotten there.
Leaving Jaza to his work, Vale stepped down from the science station and took a seat in the command chair. Her eyes trained on the wide forward viewscreen, she studied the void that lay between Titan and Romulus, grateful for the sight of its countless—and mercifully nonanomalous—stars.
“I’m certain he didn’t mean anything by it, Will,” Troi said in a hushed tone. She was nearly overwhelmed by his intense feelings of frustration.
“I wish I could believe that, Deanna,” Will said just as quietly, his brows rising like thunderheads as he walked alongside her down the corridor. “But he’s been critiquing my command style since the moment he came aboard.”
Troi put her hand up to his arm, stopping him. “No, Will,” she said once she was satisfied that they were alone in the curved passage. “I’m certain he didn’t mean anything by it. You have to grant that I can read into these things a bit more reliably than you can.”
She could hardly wait for this element of their first mission to be over with. This morning, uninvited, Admiral Akaar—all spit-and-polish, as usual—had joined them for breakfast in the mess hall. His unsolicited criticism of Titan’s off-duty casual clothing policy had rankled Will, leading to their hasty departure after the meal.
Troi lowered her voice. “Look, Will, I’m not wild about his presence here either, and neither is Christine. And I know how he feels about your placing me in your command crew. But until the conclusion of this mission—your mission—you need to ignore his slights and to focus. It’s not worth the frustration to dwell on this.”
Will let out a long breath through his nose, his puffed-up chest and shoulders deflating a bit. His expression softened as well, and he appeared to be about to say something when an odd gurgling noise came from the doorway just ahead of