And it hadto function flawlessly at warp, or else the more than two million souls now aboard Vanguard—as well as the entire rescue fleet—would almost certainly end up the way the planet Oghen had.
Riker settled heavily into his command chair, suddenly hyperaware of the lateness of the hour. The responsibility that had landed on his shoulders had attained an almost crushing weight. He was glad that Deanna was due back aboard Titanbefore the convoy was to go to warp; though he expected he’d have precious little time to discuss his fears and misgivings with her immediately, they would certainly have time to thoroughly catch up with one another during the two-day voyage back to the rift, during which time he could finally unburden himself.
He wasn’t certain at the moment which aspect of Deanna Troi he needed more: counselor, wife, lover, or senior adviser. He only knew that he needed her at his side.
Chapter Eighteen
IMPERIAL WARBIRD VALDORE,STARDATE 57039.2
“Commander Suran?”
The voice seemed to be speaking from a great distance, as though Suran had fallen into a deep cavern while those left above searched for him in vain.
The darkness in the cavern lessened, even as Suran’s sense of confusion increased. He could see now that he wasn’t in a cavern after all; he was in a room, a place that looked familiar.
“You might not want to try to speak, Commander,” said the possessor of the voice. “The drugs are only now beginning to wear off.”
Suran focused on the voice’s source: the bruised and swollen face of a young man dressed in a light orange infirmary gown. His arm was in a sling, which bore rank pins that revealed him to be an enlisted uhlan, a noncommissioned officer.
Suran struggled to sit up. Where was he? All at once he recognized the serene blue walls of the Valdore’s infirmary. The place was as quiet as the lowest underworld reaches of Erebus. “How…how did I get here?”
“Perhaps you were attacked,” said the young enlisted man, who paused to cast a worried glance over his shoulder, even though the infirmary appeared to be empty. “I believe that Dr. Venora has been deliberately keeping you unconscious.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I’m trained as a corpsman, Commander. I’ve been recuperating here ever since the Valdoregot pulled into the Great Bloom. So I’ve had little to do but watch the medical staff minister to you. Before they got busy elsewhere with the rescue operations, that is.”
Rescue?Suran swallowed, and found his throat to be as dry as the mines of Remus. “How long have I been unconscious, Uhlan?”
“Nearly four eisae,Commander.”
It was a stunning blow. In essence, he’d been tossed almost four days into the future. And during that time, some sort of rescue had become necessary, an operation that had evidently greatly depleted the infirmary staff. Why can’t I remember anything?
Something occurred to him then: amnemonic drugs, of the sort used as anesthetics during major surgeries. During his long decades of military service he had witnessed enough medical procedures to know that, say, a heart patient might be conscious during a delicate open-thoracic procedure, and yet remember absolutely nothing afterward because of such compounds.
But why would Venora do that to him? And why during a time of evident emergency?
Donatra.With a pain-wracked grunt, Suran completed the laborious process of sitting up. A momentary bout of light-headedness seized him, along with a wave of nausea. He closed his eyes for several moments, allowing both unpleasant sensations to break over him and then recede like the tides of the Apnex Sea. Slowly, he allowed his eyes to open again and began taking in the entire room.
He noticed then that he, like the uhlan, was clad only in a loose-fitting patient’s smock. He also confirmed that the infirmary was indeed empty except for himself and the junior crew member.
There was no way to know how long that situation might last.
“Uhlan, I want you to tell me everything that’s happened since I was brought here.”
“Yes, Commander. Though I’m sure I haven’t been told everything.”
“Just share whatever you know.” Suran swung his legs over the edge of the bed, cautiously tested his weight against the deck, and then rose. “And help me find my uniform.”
Alone in her ready room, Donatra leaned back in the chair, her booted feet up on her dark sherawood desk. Now that she had finally taken a few long-postponed moments to rest and gather her thoughts, she began to notice just how much pain her battle-scarred body had been suppressing over the past several eisae.Her side, festooned with old wounds that she charged to the account of the fraudulent praetor Tal’Aura, felt as though it had been plunged straight into a live volcano.
But at least the worst of this mission is finally over,she told herself, silently kneading her prominently ridged brow with the long fingers of both hands. Soon the fleet will be at warp. Two days from now, my ships will be safely back in Romulan space, along with their crews.
Of course, the passage home would not be without its costs, she reflected. But she was determined that no more of her vessels would share the fate of the Imperial warbird S’harien,which had already succumbed to the same forces that had erased the planet Oghen from existence.
“Commander Donatra!”The abrasive voice that issued from her desk’s comm unit was half an octave higher than Donatra had ever heard it before. Nevertheless, she recognized it immediately. Her reverie blown apart like a dust cloud in a solar wind, she swung her feet onto the deck, leaned forward, and slapped a button on the comm.
“Go ahead, Venora.”
“I’ve just beamed back aboard theValdore from the alien asteroid-habitat, Commander.”
Donatra knew that the transferal of hundreds of thousands of individuals from the planet’s surface to the asteroid’s vast interior space had strained the logistical and medical resources of the Valdore, Titan,and the entire fleet very nearly to the breaking point. She hadn’t wanted to spare her chief medical officer during the intensive, lengthy evacuation mission, but had finally relented at Venora’s vehement insistence.
“It’s good to have you back with us,” Donatra said. Whatever relaxation she had expected to experience abruptly fled. “What’s wrong, Doctor?”
“Suran isgone , Donatra,”Venora said, her voice colored a rare shade of panic.
“Did he regain consciousness somehow?” Donatra said, realizing at once just how stupid her question sounded; she had merely been thinking out loud.
“That may be a safe assumption, Commander, considering that he isn’t in my infirmary any longer.”
“All right, Doctor. I’ll see what I can find out. In the meantime, watch your back, Venora. Suran must have henchmen among the crew acting directly on his behalf. Donatra out.”
If only I could have placed guards around him,Donatra thought, closing the channel. Or simply confined him in a holding cell.
But she knew that such measures would have been overly provocative, as well as destructive to the already strained morale of the Valdore’s crew. She could not have afforded to undermine her personal authority—or risk enhancing Suran’s—by making it appear that she felt in any way threatened by him. Especially now that Suran had confirmed that she did indeed have excellent reasons to perceive him as dangerous. He had, after all, just demonstrated that someone aboard the Valdorewas willing and able to intercede on his behalf, most likely by working to interrupt or counteract the drugs Dr. Venora had relied upon to keep Suran out of action during the current crisis.