The Romulan War_ Beneath the Raptor's Wing (Book 1) - Michael A. Martin [25]
“Captain!” The sharp exclamation came from the forward portside communications station, where Ensign Sidra Valerian was feverishly working at her console. Hernandez rose from her seat and approached Valerian, and Fletcher followed at her side.
“What is it, Ensign?” Hernandez said. “Please tell me you have some good news for me for a change.”
A broad grin of triumph split the redheaded comm officer’s face as she answered in tones that evoked the scent of the Scottish highlands. “The subspace transceiver array’s finally back online, Captain.”
The comm officer’s grin went metastatic, cloning itself on the exec’s face. “I guess even we can’t roll snake eyes every time.”
Just four days earlier, Karl Graylock had described the charred remnants of the comm system as so much irreparable junk, commenting that a four-and-a-third-light-year-long spool of twine stretched tightly between two aluminum cans would have given Columbia a far better chance of raising Starfleet Command.
Hernandez took a couple of deep breaths, centering herself. Transports of joy weren’t any more appropriate on the bridge than was a display of despair. After all, the fickleness of luck was an integral part of life in the space service.
“Ensign, get me Admiral Gardner, and pipe the call into my ready room,” she said, then strode quickly toward the bridge’s starboard side. Before the damned thing frazzes out on us again, she appended silently as she opened the access hatch that led to her private office.
SIX
Sunday, July 27, 2155
Gamma Hydra sector, near Tezel-Oroko
THE LIGHT OF A PAIR of blazing red stars appeared very suddenly before him, searing his eyes like twin branding irons.
Several heartbeats later, Tucker became aware not only that he had eyes, but also that he was keeping them shut tightly against the remorseless illumination. And those facts, in turn, made him aware of the fact that he was aware.
Which probably means I’m still alive, he thought as his rebooting brain doggedly tried to follow the chain of logic that was emerging like the steps of some arcane geometric proof.
After several more indeterminately long moments passed, Trip discovered that he could open his eyes without squinting. Almost simultaneously, he found that the blazing binary star system that had forced them shut had fused into a single orb that next transformed itself into a lone, circular light fixture mounted on the ceiling almost directly over his head.
He found himself lying flat on his back in an austere stainless steel–lined room, while two dour-faced Vulcan women watched him intently. A third figure, apparently an armed male security guard, stood at rigid semiattention a few meters behind them.
Recollections of an interrupted meeting rushed back to him as he recognized one of the two women.
“Captain T’Vran,” Trip said as he struggled to get into a sitting position, stopping about halfway there by leaning on one arm. “Did I miss anything important?”
“You lost consciousness,” the captain said.
Trip pushed himself the rest of the way up, surprised to discover that he felt neither dizzy nor feverish, though his brain was still working a bit more sluggishly than he would have liked.
“That much I was able to figure out for myself,” he said. “How long was I out?”
“Nearly five full days have elapsed since you succumbed to your injuries and had to be brought to the Kiri-kin-tha’s infirmary,” T’Vran said. Nodding toward the somewhat gray-haired woman who stood beside her, she added, “You have been under the care of Doctor Sivath during your... indisposition.”
“Infirmary,” Trip said, turning his head to the left and the right to take in the half-dozen or so other diagnostic beds arranged around the room. All of them were unoccupied except for the one on the opposite side of the chamber.
His old “friend” Ch’uivh—who also sometimes went by the Vulcan name