The Last Stand - Brad Ferguson [73]
“Just try and get one these days,” Nozz said. “Restrictions on everything. Fill this out. Wait here. You wind up not doing anything except what you did yesterwatch and the watch before that. Never mind that you can’t afford to do anything anyway, what with half your accrued credit balance being grabbed off every year for the military preparedness budget. Preparedness for what? Boogie men from the void?” He sighed, disgusted. “It’s insane.”
Wiggin nodded. “My grandfather says it was a lot different in his day, before the last planetfall.”
“Mine says the same thing,” Sharra said. “Things were a lot looser in the old days.” She looked at Riker. “Do you remember the last planetfall, Dex?”
Riker guessed that he and Presider Hek might be taken for the same age. “Not really,” he said. “I was very young then. I think I might remember a little about it.”
“Weather,” Bitt breathed. “I think I’d like to experience weather. I’ve read all about it. I wonder what it’s really like.”
“Maybe soon, shipmate,” Nozz said. “This system we’ve entered is a promising one, or so I hear. We might find a planet we can run around on for a few years while we stock up.”
Riker thought about it and decided to take the plunge. “What would you say if I told you there is such a planet here?” he asked.
Bitt looked at him blankly. “Excuse me, Dex?”
“There’s such a planet here in this system. In fact, there are two of them.”
The five Krann stared at Riker. “You’re serious,” Bitt said with something like wonder.
“I am.”
“How do you—oh. I forgot. You’re a supervisor. You’d know, if anyone would.”
“Remember now,” Riker warned them all. “You mustn’t tell anybody.”
Bitt shook his head emphatically. “There’s not a chance we’re going to tell anyone else, Dex—but this alone was worth the price of all those drinks.”
“I don’t believe it,” Sharra said breathlessly. “Two planets! Maybe we’ll finally settle down here.”
“Dream on, Shar,” Nozz said discouragingly. “We’ll stay a while and then move on, just as usual. Look at your history tapes.”
Sharra looked toward some distant point. “I wish we could stay anyway,” she said. “I think I’d like to live by the water—an ocean, it’s called. More water than you can imagine, so much so that things live in it.”
“The old folks hate it when you talk about settling down,” Nozz pointed out.
“Cycle ‘em,” Sharra grunted.
Troi spoke up. “Do you think you could live at peace in the same system with the Lethanta?”
The five Krann looked at her. “Excuse me?” Bitt asked.
The counselor tried again. “I said, do you think—?”
“Oh, we heard you all right, Pralla,” Bitt said for them all. He looked puzzled. “But who in hull are the Lethanta?”
“Do you mean to say—” Troi began.
Just then every light in the bistro began blinking in a one-two-three rhythm. Riker stood quickly and, looking over the heads of the crowd and through the front window of the establishment, saw that all the big overhead lights in the concourse outside were blinking in exactly the same manner. People were milling about, confused. “What the hell—hull—is this?” he wondered out loud.
The Krann at the table seemed mystified. “Oh, hull,” Bitt said softly. “One-two-three. It’s one of the old-fashioned alert signals. We all had to learn them before becoming apprentices. Remember?”
“An alert signal?” Wiggin asked. “Are you sure? Maybe it’s just a power interrupt.”
“I’m sure,” Bitt replied. “One-two-three means ‘combat imminent.’”
“It’s a drill of some sort,” Nozz said. “It must be.”
“No,” Bitt said. “They wouldn’t do something like that on Posting Day. This is no drill.” He suddenly looked horrified. “Does this mean we’re actually about to fight somebody?”
Chapter Thirteen
THE OLD WOMAN clutched the small book to her chest as she sat on the floor of the dimly lit shelter, her back to a crate marked CIVIL DEFENSE. The stained, ragged cloth cover of the book she was holding flapped to and fro as the woman rocked back and forth while mumbling something unintelligible, her eyes tightly closed. Data had long since analyzed