The Red King - Michael A. Martin [121]
He tossed a curt frown her way and concentrated on the emotional-mental link they shared. Let’s hope you didn’t get here just in time for the end, Imzadi .
Don’t mind me, then, Will, she thought back to him. Get to work. And let’s try to stay positive, shall we?
She was right. Settling backward into his command chair, Riker stroked his beard, dismissed his doubts, and tried to project an aura of calm deliberation to everyone on the bridge.
“Anything yet, Mr. Jaza?”
“Negative, sir.” Jaza’s utterance was freighted with an uncharacteristic burden of despair. Riker considered all the times he had nearly lost Deanna forever, and wondered whether the science officer was having similar ruminations about Christine, who had remained on Vanguard. He was aware that the Bajoran had experienced a great deal of loss already, thanks to the decades-long Cardassian occupation of his homeworld. And he had noticed the way that Jaza sometimes studied Vale when he thought no one was looking.
“There’s a great deal of interference inside the phenomenon,” Jaza said. “Continuing scans, active and passive modes.”
Several more eternities passed. Finally, Lavena interrupted one of them. “Forty-five seconds until contact.”
Riker once again found himself gripping the arms of his command chair nearly hard enough to disrupt his circulation. In front of him, the boundaries of the Red King had reached those of the viewscreen. The background stars were no longer visible.
“Thirty seconds,” Lavena said quietly.
“Will?” Deanna said, patient yet clearly concerned.
“Captain?” Akaar said, his tone sharp. “I cannot permit you to commit Titan to an act of w’lash’nogot.”
Riker tore his gaze away from the Red King. Though he wasn’t certain he understood the reference the admiral had made, he gathered that Akaar thought he was contemplating suicide. Doesn’t he know me better than that by now?
In a tone as sharp as Akaar’s, he said, “We’re not going anywhere until we absolutely have to, Admiral.”
Riker glanced to starboard toward the main science station, where Jaza was frowning in apparent perplexity.
“What is it, Mr. Jaza?”
“The Sleeper is…changing, sir.”
Riker rose and approached the railing that separated the lower bridge from the circle of duty stations that surrounded it. “Changing how?”
“It’s thinning out, Captain. Disintegrating. And I think I’m finally picking up the subspace blast wave from the detonations of all those Romulan warp cores, though it’s already become highly attenuated.”
“I’m picking up a large-scale gravimetric flux along the phenomenon’s event horizon,” Eviku reported.
“Meaning?” Riker asked.
“Meaning the spatial rift itself is starting to collapse as the energy cloud continues to spread out and dissipate,” Jaza said. “The protouniverse itself appears to be retreating into de Sitter space.”
“It’s withdrawing back to wherever it came from,” Deanna said, tilting her head as though trying to listen to faint, faraway voices.
Fear clutched at Riker’s heart in earnest then, though it wasn’t for himself or even for his ship. The door out there is slamming shut on the Red King’s heels—and the convoy is still on the wrong side of it. There really won’t be another chance to locate them if we can’t do it now .
“Fifteen seconds, sir,” Lavena said, sounding more than a little apprehensive.
Riker glanced at Akaar, who continued to glare down at him from the upper bridge. Before the admiral could say what was obviously on his mind, Riker touched his combadge as he crossed back to his command chair.
“Commander Ra-Havreii, stand by to warp out of here at my signal.” Riker took his seat, staring resolutely forward as the Red King entered what appeared to be its death throes. He reached to his left and squeezed Deanna’s hand.
Good-bye, Chris. Ranul. Tuvok. Damn!
“Ready, Captain,” the Efrosian engineer said.
“Ten seconds,” Lavena said.
“Captain!”
Jaza’s unexpected cry braced Riker, like an adrenaline injection delivered directly to the heart. Still seated, he faced his senior science officer. “Jaza?”
The Bajoran’s words