Tooth and Claw - Doranna Durgin [88]
Damn. The Ntignanos had been so close to safety. After days of delay and posturing and rudeness, he’d found the key to dealing with Atann. He’d all but had those charts in his possession.
Data entered the conference room, but—not entirely deaf to the strained nuances of the room—hesitated by the door. “Incoming call from Lieutenant Commander
La Forge, sir,” he said. “I thought you’d want to take it, since this will interest the ReynTa as well. There is news of the away team.”
Good news, or bad? Data was utterly inscrutable when it came to such things—although Picard couldn’t be sure if that was because of his desire to be so, or his inability to be anything else.
Picard glanced at Atann, who’d gone stiff and silent—and, as far as Picard could tell, baffled—since his ReynSa’s final words. But not now—now, he came to unfettered attention. Whatever else was going on, it wasn’t anywhere near as important as the fate of his son. Picard gestured at the screen at the head of the conference table. “By all means, put it on screen.”
La Forge appeared, grinning widely—Data’s complement in that regard. “I’ve got good news for you, Captain. We’ve got them back!”
“Everyone?” demanded Atann, not waiting for an invitation. “My son? My people?”
“Your son,” La Forge confirmed, nodding in a short, decisive gesture. “And—”
“Captain,” Riker said, moving into the comm-screen range.
Alive! “Will,” Picard said, rather more warmly than he’d intended with the Tsorans present. He caught himself, put a more formal face back in place. “Nice to have you back.”
Even more so than La Forge, Riker looked down at the comm screen, which was set for Fandrean use. He also looked like someone had been using him as a kaphoora target—battered and bruised, his uniform torn and covered with blood and a glazed sticky substance, one arm bandaged along its whole length and seeping pinkish ooze … but he had that look on his face. The
cocky, triumphant look that spoke not of the hurts, but of the victory.
And well he should feel that victory, having gotten out of this one alive, and with the difficult ReynTa in one piece. “Commander,” Picard said, “report, if you would.”
“The Rahjah suffered engine failure shortly after entering the preserve,” Riker said. “For the most part, we walked away from the landing, but the shuttle is a complete loss. We spent the night in the jungle,” and here, his shoulder went up a notch, an unspoken commentary about the event, as well as his disinclination to discuss it in detail just now. Picard let it go. “And in the morning Mr. Worf found us. The Collins also malfunctioned, but Geordi’s modified shields made the difference—Worf put us down in a clean landing. We can retrieve the shuttle with the assistance of the rangers, if we can get her running again.”
“And then?” Atann said, insistent and pushing up behind Picard, although Picard doubted that Atann realized his rudeness—at least, not this time.
Riker said, “Then we walked out.”
“What of my son’s kaphoora? What of his men?”
Akarr moved in front of the comm screen, quite comfortably at the correct height to use it. “Our men were honorable and earned much daleura protecting me and each other. But… several of them were lost. Pavar, in the crash. Regen, to a sholjagg before the first night. Takan to a flock of skik. And Gavare, who saved Ketan from a stampede of ictaya and was trampled himself, less than a meter from safety.”
The Tsoran youth had a different quality about him, Picard realized, than when he’d been stalking around the Enterprise stirring up resentments. Still all-Tso-ran—that stiff and aggressive way of looking at the world—he nonetheless seemed to have more thought
behind his words, and even behind the way he framed them.
“Ketan and Rakal are both injured but survive,” Akarr continued. “Commander Riker, too, is injured—it was done in his efforts to save Takan from the skik. He has never hesitated to do what he