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Except he wasn’t. His head lolled at an alarming angle, and his sightless eyes stared at nothing. She didn’t need the tricorder to tell her he was dead, but she ran it over him anyway.

“Commander,” said Taurik from the front of the runabout. “Lieutenant Commander Data is injured. It’s possible that a power surge disrupted his systems. His station is severely damaged as well.”

Deanna took a last look at Doctor Aaron and passed her hand over his eyes to close them. With a slight limp, she pulled a blanket from a storage cabinet and laid it over the scientist, then went back up front, where Taurik was examining Data. Deanna shuddered. In spite of their unusual yellow color, the android’s sightless eyes looked just like Doctor Aaron’s.

Deanna pushed Data’s shoulders forward and felt along his back.

“Commander?” said Taurik.

“He has an off switch. I’m going to try to restart him,” Deanna said. “I expect you to keep that information confidential.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Deanna’s fingers found the switch and depressed it. She counted to five and pushed it again.

Nothing.

She turned Data off again. “Ensign, use the tricorder and tell me if you detect any energy readings when I flip the switch again. Ready…now.”

Taurik studied the tricorder. “There was a definite surge in energy levels, Commander. I believe that his brain is still generating a positronic field. It’s possible that the damage is keeping his brain from communicating with the rest of his body.”

“Almost like a stroke,” Deanna mused. “I wonder if he can hear us.”

For a long moment, Deanna’s mind went blank as she took in the scene around her, surreal in the emergency lighting: Data, eyes blank and scorch marks on his chest and face; the blanketed figure at the back of the cabin. Then she looked at Taurik, who was shaken but calm as he waited for her orders.

It was the expectation in Taurik’s eyes that restarted her brain. “Ensign, we need to assess the damage as quickly as possible,” she said in a brisk tone. “Check structural integrity to make sure we’re not venting atmosphere, then look at communications, weapons, and propulsion. I’ll look at sensors to see if I can figure out whether that was an accident or an attack. Either way, we need to know if the worst is over.”

“What about Commander Data?” asked Taurik.

“As long as he hasn’t experienced a cascade failure, almost any other damage can be repaired,” she said, hoping she was right. “If we can contact the Enterprise, they can meet us at the outpost, or come to us here if we can’t take off. Lieutenant Commander La Forge is best equipped to repair Data.”

As Deanna went back to the cockpit’s aft stations, she felt Taurik’s unease recede into resolve as he began to work. His emotions, as quickly masked as they were, reminded her of the confusion she thought she sensed during the crash. Was that Taurik, before he’d gotten his feelings under control? Or Doctor Aaron before he’d died?

Or had she completely imagined it?

In any case, she didn’t sense anything now. She turned to the console Aaron had been using and rerouted the sensor controls to that station. She was relieved to find the sensors still functioning, if a bit unevenly. She set the array for a broad sweep, instructing the computer to search for weapon and engine signatures in particular.

Nothing unusual: there were no residual traces to indicate weapons activity and no warp or impulse trails anywhere nearby. Not an attack, then. But there had also been no warning of an imminent system failure, so an actual engine explosion seemed equally improbable.

“Ensign,” she said, remembering something she’d read the evening before, “Beta is full of volatiles—that’s one of the main reasons the outpost is interested in mining it. Could something have triggered an explosive outgassing event?”

Taurik considered the question. “It’s possible, Commander. However, Doctor Aaron had not indicated that Beta is prone to outgassing, and it is not approaching a heat