Titus would have given a lot to have duty on the bridge, like Moll Enor. Instead, he was crawling through umbilical resupply connect ports, performing a routine check of the joint leakage of the cryogenic oxygen lines in the gaseous atmospheric support systems.
When he had a second, he called Enor from a wall unit. But she was in the guidance and navigation center today, compiling telemetry reports on how the implosion of the Amargosa sun had affected the area.
“Even if I was on the bridge, I wouldn’t be able to tell you anything,” Enor insisted.
“I want to know why some mad scientist would destroy a star?” Titus insisted. “Why did those Klingons show up and beam him away? What have they got to gain from all this? And why did Romulansattack the observation station looking for trilithium? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“It’s not supposed to make sense to us,” Enor patiently reminded him. “We’re supposed to do our jobs and provide the data for the senior officers to answer those questions.”
“But nobody’s asking the big questions. They just want to know how much stress was put on this joint or how much leakage is coming from that conduit. It’s useless!”
“You leave the big questions to the captain,” Enor told him.
Titus grudgingly signed off, still convinced that there were things Enor, a full‑blown ensign, could find out that a cadet on field assignment wouldn’t be told. But some progress must have been made, because a ship‑wide announcement came across the comm that they were departing the disaster area and were en route to the Veridian system.
Titus crawled up another long conduit, figuring that by the end of the day he would be back in the saucer section again, having worked his way up the entire stem of the engineering section. He took another break and accessed routine information on the Veridian system. Veridian IV had a preindustrial humanoid society, population about 230 million. Veridian III was also a class‑M planet, but it was uninhabited. Titus couldn’t see a thing that would prompt Captain Picard to decide to go there.
He could tell by the heightened activity exactly when they entered the Veridian system. He took another break, and this time he was caught leaning over the wall comm, watching as they went into orbit around Veridian III. Ensign Karol made it clear that Titus had better finish checking the conduit before the end of his shift or there would be questions asked. Titus had been considering sneaking off to Ten‑Forward to watch the action–it was one of his favorite places on the ship. Or to the observation ports, if the lounge was too full.
But Titus was glad he heeded Ensign Karol’s advice and finished the conduit. In the docking latch, he could tell from the way the conduits passed through that the huge latch wasn’t properly seated. It was known to happen if the grab plates failed to seat within the passive aperture of the saucer section.
He checked and found the latching system had a failure rate of 1.5 latch pairs per ten separations. The other half of the pair was fine, so the situation did not warrant an emergency alert to the bridge. Titus was almost disappointed.
It was the most exciting thing he had done in four weeks. He carefully checked the quick‑disconnect umbilicals through the docking latch to make sure there was an unbroken flow of gases, liquids, wave‑guide energy, and data channels. Everything was well within normal parameters, so he simply logged the aberration and crossed his fingers that he would be allowed to join the crew tomorrow to help reseat the latch.
He was down on his knees, trying to peer under the edge of the trapizoidal latch to see if he could detect a physical problem. But it was nearly eight meters across, and the distortion from the structural integrity field interfered with his view.
The ship jolted to one side, throwing him headfirst into the side of the latch. He was rubbing his scalp and groaning when red alert sounded.
He was already on the ground, so he wasn’t badly hurt when the next shock ripped through the ship. It left him crumpled against the wall of the Jeffries tube this time. From the number of rapid concussions that followed, he concluded they were being attacked. Romulans or Klingons, he wasn’t sure which. He decided that Captain Picard did know what he was doing if he had managed to track down either one.
A heating conduit ruptured, sending a plume of steam shooting down the center of the Jeffries tube. Titus rode out the battle, hardly able to see his hand in front of his face. He decided it felt much worse than he had been led to believe from simulations. Or maybe the shields had failed, in which case they were in big trouble. From the concussions, it felt like the hull was caving in.
He gritted his teeth against the next impact, counting nine so far, when the tenth never came. When he finally untensed and began to unwrap himself from around the joint of the docking latch, the computer announced, “Warp‑core breach in progress. Evacuate the battle section. All personnel proceed to the saucer section.”
Ensign Karol came bounding up the Jeffries tube. “Stay here to help everyone through! I’ll get to the next access tube. We’ve got–”
“Warp‑core breach in four minutes thirty seconds,” the computer interrupted.
Titus helped funnel people through his tube, urging them to crawl as fast as they could past the blinding rupture in the atmospheric conduit. The computer relentlessly counted down every fifteen seconds.
“Warp‑core breach in two minutes.”
“Enor!” Titus called out as the Trill climbed through the hatch.
“We’re clearing the last ones through,” she told him.
“Why aren’t they using the corridors?” he asked, pulling back to let the other officers go by, protecting their eyes against the steam. “This isn’t safe.”
“We’re leaving the easier routes to the children and civilians–”
The computer interrupted, “Warp‑core breach in one minute thirty seconds.”
“That’s it,” said a lieutenant, the last officer to pass through the hatch.
Titus lingered, knowing that the hatch would self‑seal when the docking latch retracted. But he couldn’t understand why the magnetic interlock hadn’t been activated. He wondered if it had been ruptured in the battle, along with the coolant leak. Or it could be pinched open by the jammed latch.
“Why won’t the magnetic interlock switch on?” he asked, frantic.
The lieutenant glanced back before disappearing down the Jeffries tube. “There’s no systems alert. It will activate.”
He was gone before Titus could report that the docking latch wasn’t properly seated.
“Usually there’s a crew member on the other side to manually assist!” Titus insisted to Enor, the only one left behind with him.
“It’ll open,” Enor told him, but she was frowning as she looked at the lock.
“No, it’s stuck.” Titus jumped through the hatch, grabbing up the gravlock unit on his way in.
* * *
Moll Enor tried to stop Titus, but she didn’t move fast enough. Who would have thought he would go back?
A blue forcefield burst across the hatch. Moll leaped after Titus, running into the field, smashing her fingers against her body. The enormous latch lifted with a bone‑chilling grating. An inch of separation turned into two. Then her eyes met Titus’s, on the other side of the forcefield.
She tried to shove her hand through the field, wanting to somehow physically pull Titus through the widening gap between them. He stood up straighter, still holding his hands out to her as the saucer section pulled away.
Moll Enor hung in space, frantically tapping her comm badge and crying, “Go back, go back! He’s still on the battle bridge. Go back–”
At first it was only a body length of separation, then a room away, then so far she could no longer see him.
The saucer section was still comparatively close when the Battle bridge exploded in the distinctive pattern of a warp‑core breach. The saucer seemed to move too slowly, turning slightly, when the burst of sparks and the blue white shock wave hit them. Moll was flung against the ceiling of the Jeffries tube. She couldn’t see for her tears, dazed by the impact and the last sight of Titus, with the knowledge in his eyes that he was dead.