The Valiant - Michael Jan Friedman [51]
Ms. Santana? he called out, his voice echoing.
The woman didnt answer. She just lay there.
The security chief sighed. Santana looks like shes in a bad way, he told Pfeffer. Ill need help with her as well.
On its way, sir, the officer assured him.
8
CHAPTER
Captains log, supplemental, second Officer Jean-Luc Picard reporting. Now that I have had a few hours to assess our situation, I find that it is even more troubling than I anticipated. Six brave members of our crew perished in the course of the battle with the Nuyyad. One of them was Captain Ruhalter, for whom I had a great deal of personal respect and affection. Fourteen others are recuperating from serious injuries among them Commander Leach, who has lapsed into a deep coma. The Stargazer did not fare much better. Her ability to travel at faster-than-light velocities has been significantly curtailed, her starboard phaser batteries are nearly useless and her supply of photon torpedoes has been all but depleted. However, its the ships deflector grid that sustained the greatest damage. At this point, it can barely protect us from spaceborne particles. Perhaps needless to say, the vidrion-generating enhance-merits endorsed by Jomar were completely and utterly destroyed in the clash with the Nuyyad. Unless and until we can secure replacement parts for our shield generators, we will remain vulnerable in the extreme. As for Serenity Santana, our mysterious advisor like Commander Leach, she was rendered comatose in the melee. We are thus deprived of an opportunity to determine her role in what appears to have been a carefully calculated trap if she indeed had any role in it at all .
Picard gazed at Serenity Santana. She lay still and pale on the flat surface of the biobed, her raven hair spread around her head, her chest rising and falling mechanically.
The second officer wished the woman were awakeand not just because he hated to see her lying there like that, limp and helpless, when she had once been so charming and vibrant. Not just because she was, quite possibly, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
As Picard had indicated in the log he had filed only a few minutes earlier, there were questions he wished to ask Santana. Mainly, he wanted to know how the Nuyyad had discovered the Stargazer because he didnt believe for a second that the enemy had just stumbled onto them.
Space was a vast place, on this side of the galactic barrier as much as on the other one. The odds of two ships sensing each other even with long-range instruments were so slim as to almost be absurd.
And yet, they had barely penetrated the galactic barrier when the Nuyyad descended on them. If Santana had something to do with that, if she had betrayed them as Leach feared she would
You see, Commander? called a deep voice.
Picard turned and saw Greyhorse coming toward him, his huge frame looking out of place in his lab coat. The doctor had been attending to an injured crewman on the other side of sickbay.
As I indicated, Greyhorse went on, Ms. Santana has retreated into a deep coma. But at least shes stable.
The second officer gazed at the colonist again. Even in her debilitated state, she was a compelling sight.
Will she come out of it? he asked.
Thats difficult to say, Greyhorse told him.
Because her brain is different from ours?
Among other reasons, yes. The doctor pointed to the beds readouts. I want to show you something. Do you see those lines, Commander? The two near the top?
Picard nodded. What about them?
Those are the patients brain waves, Greyhorse explained. He pressed a keypad next to the readout and it changed instantlythe top two lines in particular. And these were her brain waves when she first came aboard. Do you see the difference?
He didbut he didnt know what conclusion he was supposed to draw from the observation. Im sorry. I dont see what
The medical officer held up a large, powerful-looking hand. I didnt expect you to draw any real conclusions. Let me walk you through it.