The Sky's the Limit - Marco Palmieri [142]
“Number One…What information do we have on a Romulan government official by the name of Koval?”
“Stand by…Koval…Seems that he was just promoted to vice chairman of the Tal Shiar, the position formerly held by Senator Vreenak.”
“Arrange a meeting with the admiral once we’re both back aboard. I have some information he may find useful.”
“Aye, Captain.”
“Picard out.”
A smile and a nod toward the young girl at the window sealed his unspoken covenant with her. Picard released the tendril, then turned and walked on.
Four Lights
Keith R.A. DeCandido
Historian’s note:
This tale is set between events of the feature films Star Trek: Insurrection and Star Trek Nemesis, several weeks prior to the seventh-season Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode
“Field of Fire.”
KEITH R.A. DECANDIDO
“Four Lights” is one of three contributions Keith R.A. DeCandido is making to the celebration of the twentieth anniversary of Star Trek: The Next Generation. The other two are the novel Q&A, which the author describes as the ultimate Q story, one of the novels that carries the Enterprise-E’s story forward after the feature film Star Trek Nemesis; and the eBook Enterprises of Great Pitch and Moment, the final installment of the six-eBook miniseries Slings and Arrows, which chronicles the first year of the Enterprise-E’s existence leading up to the film Star Trek: First Contact, due in spring 2008. Through the end of 2007, Keith has written thirteen novels, one no-vella, six short stories, ten eBooks, and one comic book miniseries in the Star Trek universe, with much more on the way, starting with the Klingon Empire novel A Burning House in early 2008. He’s also written in the worlds of the TV shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Doctor Who, Supernatural, Xena, Young Hercules, Farscape, and Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda, the games World of Warcraft, Resident Evil, Command and Conquer, and StarCraft, and his own universe, seen in the 2004 novel Dragon Precinct and several short stories. Keith is also the editor in charge of the monthly Star Trek eBook line and has edited dozens of anthologies, among them Star Trek: Tales of the Dominion War, Star Trek: Tales from the Captain’s Table, and the forthcoming Doctor Who: Short Trips: The Quality of Leadership. Find out less at Keith’s Web site at www.DeCandido.net, read his inane ramblings at kradical.livejournal.com, or just e-mail him your raspberries directly at keith@decandido.net.
I WATCHED THE GRISSOM DIE.
I never used to anthropomorphize starships that way. I used to find the human tendency to give vessels a personality to be suspect, and possibly dangerous. I’ve lost two commands—the Stargazer at Maxia Zeta and the EnterpriseD at Veridian III—and I weathered those ships’ losses primarily because I viewed them solely as objects.
Since the commencement of the Dominion War over a year ago, however, I’d seen so many ships destroyed, seen so many proud Starfleet vessels reduced to debris or less. You would think that multiple exposure to such would have inured me, made me view them even more as things than living creatures, but I found that I felt the loss of the ships more keenly than ever before.
Perhaps it was by way of avoiding feeling the loss of sentient life. The Grissom’s crew complement was one thousand two hundred and fifty. Easier to lament the loss of a single ship than over a thousand lives.
And perhaps that feeling was due to helplessness. The Grissom was one of ten allied ships at Ricktor Prime—six Starfleet ships, including my own Enterprise-E, and four Klingon Defense Force vessels—against four Jem’Hadar attack ships and two Cardassian Galor-class cruisers. Numerically, the odds would be in our favor, but the Jem’Hadar did not require numbers to have an advantage. Both sides lost one ship each at the start of the battle: one of the Galors and the U.S.S. Winchester destroyed each other.
We were likewise unable to save the Grissom, which now hung dead