The Red King - Michael A. Martin [126]
“Exactly.” She was beginning to wonder if he was being deliberately obtuse, until his dark mood argued otherwise. Clearly, there were aspects of this mission she didn’t yet completely understand.
“I just spoke with Dr. Cethente about that,” he said, his words punctuated by a wave of sorrow that seemed almost capable of knocking her off her feet. “We really don’t know for certain that closing the rift stopped the Red King from ‘rebooting’ all the matter and energy in the affected sectors of Neyel space.”
Her jaw dropped. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
He offered her a small, sad smile. “There wasn’t any point in holding a senior officers’ briefing about it. After all, it isn’t as though we can do anything about the outcome, two hundred and ten thousand light-years away from Ground Zero.”
“How soon will we know exactly what happened?” Troi asked.
“Cethente says that even with our most powerful subspace telescopes, it could take decades to find out exactly what that emergent protouniverse did after we entered the rift and sealed it after us. So there’s no way to know if our Red King eventually woke up and annihilated the entire Neyel Hegemony, or if he settled back down for another harmless, billion-year nap.”
She nodded. “So I guess there’s no point in agonizing over it. Right?”
“Try sitting in the big chair for a while, Deanna. From that perspective, it’s usually pretty tough to do anything but agonize. Take the away team on Vanguard, for example. I finally managed to find out that they were all safe only about ninety minutes ago. So what’s a captain to do in the meantime? Agonize.”
She nodded again, caught in another gale-force wind of his sadness and self-recrimination. She almost felt she had to raise her voice to cut through it.
“Then I suggest you focus on your unambiguous successes, Will. For instance: There are over two million people aboard Vanguard right at this moment. You saw to it that they survived, regardless of whatever might or might not have happened to the rest of Neyel space.”
He rose then and took her in his arms. His icy blue eyes were bright with unshed tears. “Thank you, Deanna,” he said before pausing momentarily to recover his composure. Being an empath, she found the gesture endearing.
“Oh, by the way Counselor,” he added. “I never gave you a formal ‘welcome aboard’ after Ree sent you back to Titan.”
They separated then, though not enough to break the embrace. They regarded each other in silence, and she met his tired smile with a wry grin of her own.
“I’m glad you finally noticed that,” she said. “But I know how busy you’ve been.” Everyone had been busy.
“I’m sorry, Imzadi. I expect things to calm down by tonight, at least a little, once Ra-Havreii completes the damage inspections on Vanguard and we get back underway with her toward the Neutral Zone. Then I plan to execute a new plan.”
Her grin widened. “Oh? Do tell.”
“It’s called Operation: Welcome Home, but as far as the rest of the crew is concerned the code name is Operation: Do Not Disturb. You are requested, and required, to participate. Captain’s orders.”
“I’m intrigued. Brief me.”
His smile quickly glissaded from fatigued to playful. “Phase One involves my leaving the keys to the store in Chris’s capable hands. During Phase Two, I’ll go to our quarters and open that bottle of jakarine merlot that I’ve been saving. And Phase Three is actually a lot easier to demonstrate than it is to explain.”
He moved in to kiss her and she turned her face toward his.
She was utterly unsurprised when his door chime sounded. It never, ever fails, she thought as the mood shattered. Ever.
He disengaged from her, his eyes tightly closed as he massaged his temples with both hands. The gesture made him look like a Vulcan attempting to perform a mind-meld on himself. “Come!” he said sharply.
The door whisked open. Frane entered, followed by Tuvok and Akaar, who had to duck slightly to avoid brushing his head against the top of the doorway.
“Have we come at a bad time?” Akaar said.
Will gestured toward the couch that was situated