The Red King - Michael A. Martin [115]
“On screen, Cadet.”
A moment later, Riker’s Romulan counterpart regarded him from the center of the viewscreen. “Captain Riker. My apologies for not calling you in time to offer my regards to Captain Tchev.”
Though her face was impassive, something smoldered behind her dark eyes. At that moment he had never wanted Deanna at his side more badly. Donatra was listening in on my conversation with Tchev, he thought. And she doesn’t mind letting me know about it.
He forced those dark thoughts aside; it was time to get down to business. “Titan is ready to move out. We’ll take the Dugh in tow, since your fleet is already doing so much of the work of moving the Vanguard habitat.”
Donatra slowly shook her head. “I am concerned that Titan may stretch her resources too thin by towing the Dugh , Captain.”
“It’s nothing my chief engineer can’t handle.”
“But the lives of my crews depend on your enhanced sensing equipment keeping us clear of spatial disruptions. As well as the lives of the millions aboard that asteroid colony.”
Riker couldn’t find fault with Donatra’s logic. With so many dozens of powerful Romulan tractor beams drawing Vanguard and the Dugh toward the spatial rift, the absence of Titan’s tractors wouldn’t make much difference; the energy necessary to run them would indeed be better applied to warning the convoy of the potentially lethal spatial distortions and zero-point discharges that kept popping up from moment to moment.
“All right, Commander,” Riker said. “I have no objection to your fleet towing the Dugh. Captain Tchev might not agree, though.”
“He would appear to have few viable alternatives, Captain. Unless he is more eager than I think he is to fly straight into whatever afterworld his people believe in. At any rate, my fleet will be ready to enter the Great Bloom”—she turned away momentarily, apparently to consult with a subordinate—“in five of your minutes. Valdore out.”
Donatra abruptly vanished. In her place on the viewscreen appeared the Red King’s long energy tendrils, brilliant against the stygian blackness of Magellanic space. They seemed to beckon Titan forward, toward the phenomenon’s dark central maw.
Or perhaps they were trying to warn her to stay away.
VANGUARD
“We’re all going to die here, Frane,” Nozomi said, her lovely, gray face shadowed and haunted in the habitat’s dim interior illumination. With over two million people now dependent upon Holy Vangar for their survival—a far greater number than had ever before ridden aboard the Sacred Vessel—all resources were at a premium, including energy for the lights.
At that precise moment, Holy Vangar shuddered and rocked like a gigantic bell struck by an equally colossal clapper. The lights dimmed even further, and Frane could feel the intense vibrations rising into his legs and hips through his bare feet, which were splayed on the cold stone floor. He reached out and grabbed Nozomi, preventing her from falling as his tail reached out to anchor his body against one of the ancient public gallery’s many metal railings. Shouts and cries spread through the crowd like a chill stormwind blowing through stalks of grain.
Somewhere, lost inside that increasingly agitated multitude, were Lofi, g’Ishea, and Fasaryl, the three non-Neyel members of Frane’s Seekers After Penance prayersect. Hours after the chaotic mass motions of the crowd had separated Frane and Nozomi from their spiritual brethren, Frane could only hope that they were still all right.
Watching the milling throng of confused and bedraggled refugees—Frane supposed there were thousands of Neyel of all ages present in this gallery alone, mixed with what might have been dozens or perhaps even hundreds of Oghen aboriginals—Frane was hard-pressed to tell Nozomi that she was wrong. If these people succumb to panic, he thought, then we’ll all be just as doomed as if Vangar had collided with a neutron star.
Frane took both of Nozomi’s hands between his own. He spoke soothingly to her, as though by calming Nozomi he might also comfort