Taking Wing - Michael A. Martin [73]
It happened before we even knew each other, she thought. And he must not have given Lavena a second thought after he and I met during his assignment to Betazed.
But that didn’t mean she found his charming emotional roil any less enjoyable.
Riker hoped that his flushed face wouldn’t be noticeable as the turbolift doors opened and he stepped onto the bridge. Despite his request, he knew Deanna wouldn’t let his decades-old liaison with Lavena stay buried completely. Her job revolved around talking, and she would certainly want to talk with him further about this. On top of that, she seemed to love to tease him, and often wouldn’t let go of embarrassing facts for years, if ever. At least he could count on her professionalism and public discretion as his diplomatic officer and chief counselor, not to mention as his spouse.
Fortunately, he already knew from experience that she wasn’t unduly bothered by his bygone romantic entanglements. One couldn’t easily keep such old episodes hidden from her Betazoid empathy anyway, and he was grateful that she had the good sense not to be scandalized by them. She had, after all, been raised by the unabashedly free-spirited Lwaxana Troi; Deanna therefore demonstrated very few sexual inhibitions.
At least that had been so until recently, he reflected glumly. Ever since the psychic assault that Shinzon, through his viceroy, had committed against Deanna while she and Riker had been making love nearly two months ago, she had become far more sensitive and introspective than usual in the bedroom. Even their honeymoon had been haunted by the specter of Shinzon’s violation, and Riker sensed that she still had some healing left to do even now.
As Vale stepped toward him and handed him a padd, Riker re-focused his thoughts on the business of running Titan. Taking his place in the command chair, he scanned the reports on the padd and listened as his exec told him about Donatra’s cargo information request and a number of other matters that would demand his attention during his final duty shift prior to Titan’s arrival at Romulus.
“Captain, Commander, I have some additional readings from the anomaly we’ve been observing,” Jaza said, calling over to Riker and Vale from the main science station.
“Put it on the screen, please, Lieutenant,” Riker said.
The forward viewscreen’s default image of warp field–distorted stars was replaced by a long-range view of another, more static, starfield. The image was of lower-than-usual resolution, but glowing, crackling, gracefully tapered and braided ribbons of energy were clearly visible despite the somewhat grainy quality of the picture. Text and numbers scrolled at the bottom of the screen, fed directly to the viewer from the Bajoran science officer’s console.
“It’s producing some truly powerful spatial and sub-spatial distortions, as well as a great deal of gravimetric shear at its event horizon, Captain,” Jaza said.
“Does it pose any danger to the convoy?” Riker asked, though he knew Vale would have advised him were there any real cause for concern.
“Negative, sir. Our current heading won’t take us close enough to it to cause us any problems. But thanks to some pretty exotic chemistry in the debris cloud surrounding the anomaly, it’ll probably give us some fairly spectacular fireworks displays.”
Riker nodded. The shifting bands of colors and lightning-like discharges reminded him of the thunderstorms and auroral displays he used to see in the skies over Valdez, Alaska, during his childhood.
“What sort of ‘exotic chemistry’ have you found, Mr. Jaza?” Riker asked.
“Heavy transuranic elements and alloys that probably couldn’t have occurred here naturally. Duranium, polyferranide, polyduranium.”
“Materials used in building starship hulls and engine components,” Vale said.
“Exactly,” said Jaza. “And I’ve also detected traces of cobalt, molybdenum, tripolymers, highly ionized cortenide, and something that strongly resembles polyalloy.”
Riker recognized several of the chemical compounds Jaza had listed.