Titan, Book One

by Michael A. Martin

  Ogawa prayed that Noah would be safe enough in their quarters.

  “You need to get to the bridge,” Olivia said, grimacing from the pain.

  Axel clasped his left hand over the top of the one she held his right in. “Aili’s going to do fine up there. If they need me, they’ll call me. But right now, it’s more important for me to be here with you.”

  Onnta set about resetting the delicate transporter device. It hung from a radial arm on a wheel-mounted floor stanchion.

  Ogawa felt a surge of sickening fear in the pit of her stomach a nanosecond before the room rocked once again, more violently this time. Noah!

  After they had all righted themselves the second time, Onnta looked toward Ogawa and Ree. “I can’t work under these conditions. If the ship gets hit again while I’m operating, the transporter might glitch.”

  Ree looked up at the display monitor positioned above the biobed, his double eyelids nictitating. “We may not have a choice, Doctor. We don’t know how long the ship will be in combat, and Olivia’s biosigns are already stressed as it is. We may just have to hope that we don’t experience another jolt like that.”

  Ogawa watched as Onnta considered Ree’s words, then looked back at the biobed display, which showed dangerously high blood pressure, as well as signs of incipient edema and preeclampsia.

  “Okay, we go for it,” he said finally, moving the radial arm back into position, recalibrating it for a second attempt.

  Four tense minutes later, a tiny, twenty-five-week male preemie materialized within the incubator bay, and immediately began crying lustily. As Ogawa clamped the newborn’s umbilical cord—which had materialized severed and cauterized as part of the transport process—Onnta concentrated on beaming out the remainder of the cord, along with the placental tissue that had nurtured the child during its gestation.

  “Is he all right? Can I hold him?” Olivia asked. She had stayed awake through the whole procedure, fighting off the effects of the anesthetics.

  A chime sounded from the wall-mounted comm unit’s speaker. “All decks, brace for impact!” The voice belonged to Captain Riker.

  Ogawa barely had time to secure the incubator before the entire room rocked again. She felt herself crash into the biobed as the lights dimmed, and heard Olivia, Onnta, and Axel scream.

  His chest was so full of pride that he thought he would burst. None of the work he had done on either the Defiant-or Intrepid-class starship design teams during his years at the Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards could even come close to the triumph of experiencing the maiden voyage of the first ship he had designed in toto.

  The field tests for the prototype U.S.S. Luna , the first of its class, had been completed the previous week, and now the newly minted vessel and the eager young personnel who flew her were on their first “real” voyage out of the Sol system. The permanent crew had become a cohesive, well-oiled unit over the last few months of “fit-and-finish” testing, and he couldn’t be happier. He had even begun to date the ship’s hydroponics chief, a winsome—and single—Efrosian woman named Dree, whose long white hair almost reached the floor behind her. She was better for him than the last woman he had been romantically involved with, whose husband had been less than understanding after he had discovered the real nature of their “working relationship.” Unlike Efrosians, humans had rather quaint and curious notions about marital fidelity and sexual propriety.

  So now, as he stood on the bridge at Captain Fujikawa’s request, he felt better than perhaps at any other time in his life. He watched the stars rush toward them on the forward viewscreen. Though he had seen this sight hundreds of times before, it all seemed new because of the current circumstances. He could scarcely wait to make love to Dree while viewing those stars from his luxurious guest quarters.

  Then, the ship had shuddered, interrupting his self-satisfied reverie. In the instant before the computer systems triggered an alarm, he felt it, a sensation almost imperceptible to anyone not intimately familiar with the vessel’s innermost workings. He knew what had happened even before the computer announced it. An explosion in the engine room. But he didn’t know why it had happened. And he could never have predicted what was about to happen next—

  “Dr. Ra-Havreii? Are you all right?”

  The voice was insistent, calling to him from another time, another place, another disaster. Dr. Xin Ra-Havreii forced himself to open his eyes, feeling pain flaring through his shoulder. The acrid air assaulted his delicate sense of smell, carrying with it a perspiration born of fear. He also inhaled the metallic aroma of ozone, and a bouquet of scents that reminded him uncomfortably of barbecued sweetbreads.

  The voice that had awakened him belonged to Ensign Crandall, an eager-to-please young human engineer who talked far too much. But Lieutenant Commander Ledrah liked him, and since it was her engineering team, RaHavreii never said anything untoward to the youthful babbler.

  Ra-Havreii had quickly collected his thoughts, taking stock of his physical being as short-term memories flooded back into the forefront of his mind. “Yes, I’m all right,” he said. He had come down to engineering at the first sign of trouble with the Remans, having viewed the approaching conflict from the VIP quarters Commander Troi had provided for him. As always, the gracious—and quite fetching—Ledrah welcomed his aid and advice, especially once Titan had sustained a direct attack that threatened to compromise not only her shields, but also her structural integrity fields.

  A second attack had prompted Ledrah to dispatch the none-too-bright Rossini twins to the bridge to fix the main viewscreen there. Ra-Havreii suspected that the pair had barely passed their engineering classes at the Academy, and would have thrown them off the crew, along with Crandall, at the first available opportunity, had this been his crew. But, as he kept reminding himself, this was not his team. He felt fortunate that he got any play at all in Starfleet these days, given that the bastards at the Starfleet Skunkworks were less forgiving than a menopausal Betazoid. And he assumed that if he wanted to maintain his welcome aboard Titan for any appreciable length of time, then he’d best keep his intimate past relationship with one particular menopausal Betazoid discreetly concealed from Captain Riker’s wife.

  While Ledrah had worked feverishly at one engineering station, trying to bring the shields and structural integrity fields back up to full power, Ra-Havreii had worked at another console, located near the warp core. Then, the comm units had chimed.

  “All decks, brace for impact!” Captain Riker had shouted.

  Ra-Havreii couldn’t remember what had happened next, until the moment when Crandall had shaken him awake.

  “What happened? How long have I been out?”

  “Something crashed into the ship,” Crandall said. “Most of our systems are down.”

  An atonal voice called from the other side of the room, past the warp core. Ra-Havreii recognized it immediately as that of the partially cybernetic Choblik trainee, Torvig Bu-Kar-Nguv. “We need help over here. Commander Ledrah is hurt!”

  Crandall helped Ra-Havreii to his feet, and the pair of them limped around the room. The other dozen or so engineers converged on the spot as well. By the time Ra-Havreii approached, one of them was already by Ledrah’s side, scanning her with a tricorder.

  The Efrosian shipbuilder didn’t need scans to tell him what his keen olfactory senses already had. Ledrah had been cooked by the explosion of one of the plasma relays. The relay’s suddenly unchecked energies had ripped through her console and literally roasted her where she stood.

  Two Luna-class ships. Two engineering disasters.

  He was suddenly back aboard Luna, where it sometimes seemed his career had both begun and ended.

  “Sir?” Crandall was saying, probably not for the first time. “We really could use your help.”

  This child seems to be in even worse shape than I am, Ra-Havreii thought, suddenly ashamed of his despair and emotional paralysis.

  Then he decided that there was only one thing he could
do to keep himself from taking a dive straight into the warp core.

  He stepped to the bulkhead and tapped a console there. “Captain, this is Dr. Ra-Havreii. Lieutenant Commander Ledrah is dead. Unless you have any objections, I will take over the engineering section for the duration.” Or until I blow it up, just like the Luna.

  Long ago, Ra-Havreii had heard an Earth phrase: “That which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.”

  Right now he wanted to kill whoever had said that.

  “You ought to have stayed clear of the combat zone, Captain. You have my word, Captain, that your ship will not be deliberately attacked. At least not so long as you continue to refrain from firing on our vessels,” Colonel Xiomek said from the main bridge viewscreen, his long fangs bared.

  “I’ve already instructed my officers to cease fire,” Riker said, sparing a glance at Tuvok, who had agreed to take over Keru’s tactical station for the time being. “But you realize that we were only targeting your weapons, not actively seeking to destroy your ships.”

  “Truly, it matters not,” Xiomek said in supercilious tones. “Were you not allied with the Klingons, and were you not holding Ambassador Spock hostage, your ship would have been destroyed for attacking us after you allowed your ship to wander too close to our battle against the Romulan oppressors. You should consider yourself fortunate.”

  Riker didn’t rise to the bait. He could feel Deanna, Vale, Akaar, and Spock all watching him to see what he was going to do next. The situation was precarious, and no scenario he could think of, either from his Academy training or from his two decades serving aboard Starfleet vessels, showed him an easy way out. There didn’t seem to be any practical way to separate the Romulans and the Remans before a lot more blood was spilled, and the promise of peace was lost, perhaps forever.

  Come on, Will, he thought. Outside the box. He was uncomfortably aware that Xiomek was still waiting for a response, though he had probably been silent only for a second or two. Finally, he reconsidered a far-fetched idea he had briefly considered earlier, only to allow his own reticence to quash it.

  “Colonel Xiomek, I have a proposal to make to you and the Reman people. What if the Federation were to offer you official protectorate status until such time as full-scale power-sharing talks with Romulus can begin? That way, you could—”

  Xiomek snorted, interrupting him. “You can barely protect your own crew. How do you propose to protect us ? Humans, it would seem, are too soft and weak to properly protect anything. And need I enumerate to you how many of my people’s current woes were caused by a human? Shinzon had many grand plans, but the benefits they brought to the Reman people were fleeting at best.”

  Riker was about to respond, but Xiomek held up his hand. “Captain, I have more important matters to deal with right now than you and your offers that give us nothing. You have the safety of your ship. Be grateful, stay back, and let us forge our destiny without your interference.” Then the screen went blank.

  Riker let out his breath, his shoulders sagging as though deflating. He wanted to let out a string of Klingon curses fit to melt the deckplates, but he somehow held his tongue. Facing Akaar and his own bridge crew right now was bad enough without displaying any further weakness. The last thing he wanted to do now was look as ridiculous as Khegh.

  And then it hit him. Khegh.

  He whirled around, doing his best to suppress a sly smile. “Christine, you have the bridge. Ambassador Spock, would you please accompany me to my ready room? I believe I’m going to need some expert diplomatic assistance.”

  He moved toward the door to his ready room, catching Deanna’s eyes for only an instant.

  Don’t worry, Imzadi , he thought. I think I’ve finally got this thing figured out.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  U.S.S. TITAN

  The fighting had stopped, at least for the moment.

  Troi sensed both incredulity and admiration radiating from the otherwise inscrutable Tuvok. If he doesn’t report to sickbay soon, he’s liable to fall down. But the skies over Romulus still teemed with hostile, Reman-crewed warships, and Tuvok’s assistance during their attack had proved indispensable. The outbreak of hostilities had kept the intelligence operative too busy to submit to a thorough examination in sickbay, though he had found the time to exchange his torn and bloodied Romulan traveling cassock for a standard-issue Starfleet duty uniform.

  Tuvok, who was working at Lieutenant Commander Keru’s tactical station, looked toward the center of the bridge, where Troi and Vale sat. “Whatever Captain Riker did, it appears to be working,” Tuvok said. “Although more than half of their vessels remain fully operational—and able to continue fighting—the Remans are withdrawing.”

  “Confirmed,” Jaza said, his eyes trained on the science station’s scanners. “The Reman attack fleet has begun falling back toward Remus.”

  The ready-room door swished open. Troi turned and watched as Will strode briskly back onto the bridge, followed a moment later by Ambassador Spock, who moved across the bridge with supple grace.

  The turbolift doors slid open, and Troi saw Akaar step onto the bridge after a brief absence that the admiral hadn’t seen fit to explain to anyone. Perhaps he had needed some privacy in order to consult his local covert intelligence resources; she assumed he was looking in on the twilight power struggle that doubtless continued on the ground, even as the battle in the skies over Romulus reached a tentative conclusion, or at least a stalemate.

  The tension that suffused the admiral’s body reminded her of her own current uncharacteristic emotional state. She had been angry and frustrated—and frankly still was—at having been excluded from whatever ad hoc plan Will had apparently just hatched to convince the Remans to break off their aerial assault on Romulus.

  Troi looked back at Vale, who was already rising from the command chair Will had left in her care less than half an hour earlier. I can understand Will ordering Christine to stay out here on the bridge while he and Spock did gods-only-know-what in the ready room. Somebody has to tend the rudder. But I’m the diplomatic officer. I should have been in on whatever plan they’ve come up with.

  She tried to set aside her own wounded pride, though without complete success. Whatever deal Will and the ambassador had just negotiated behind closed doors, it was clear to Troi that neither of them wanted anyone else to share responsibility in the event their improvised plan were to result in catastrophe.

  Troi recalled something Data had observed about her husband many years earlier: During battle, William Riker tended to rely on conventional strategies and tactics less than a quarter of the time. Perhaps this is just another one of those inspired occasions, she thought.

  “Well?” Akaar said as Will and Spock came to a stop before him.

  “I believe we were successful, Admiral,” Spock said. “At least so far.”

  “The Remans are no longer shooting at us,” Akaar allowed. “Or overtly menacing Romulus. Those are satisfactory results, I should think.”

  Will spread his hands. “But only temporary ones, unless we take the next step, and quickly. Now the Romulans have to stand down as well, or else there really will be hell to pay. And if that happens, we won’t have a prayer of stopping it again.”

  “The Remans have moved against Romulus, using the Empire’s own ships,” Akaar said. “The Romulans will expect to strike back decisively. And immediately.”

  “Indeed,” Spock said, his jaw set in a grim line. “Though the Remans did very little real damage to Romulus, this incursion has no doubt dealt a serious blow to Romulan pride.”

  Troi knew that the Remans could have laid waste to much of Ki Baratan before the planet’s disorganized defenses finally mobilized themselves. She also knew that it was foolish to expect the Remans’ restraint to inspire any gratitude from the Romulans.

  But that restraint did give her reason to hope that Colonel Xiomek might be amenable to making an honorable peace with his Romulan neighbors.

  Will
offered Akaar an ironic half-smile. “And we thought it was going to be hard to persuade the Romulan factions to work together again.”

  “Few things are quite so persuasive as a phaser pointed at one’s head, Captain,” Akaar observed dryly.

  “Sensors are picking up another pair of warbirds approaching Romulus, Captain,” Tuvok reported. “They’re dropping out of warp now, on an intercept heading toward the retreating Reman fleet. I have identified one of the warbirds as Commander Donatra’s vessel, the Valdore.”

  Will took several steps toward Tuvok’s station. “Hail her, Mr. Tuvok. She and Suran weren’t privy to the, ah, deal that Ambassador Spock and I just struck with our Reman friends. We can’t afford to let her undo it.”

  A few moments later, Donatra’s face appeared in the wide viewscreen’s center. Troi hadn’t seen her look so careworn since immediately after the battle against Shinzon. Troi sensed a profound feeling of loss. Had someone close to Donatra died during the Reman attack?

  “Captain Riker. I’m glad to see your vessel hasn’t been too badly damaged during this…unpleasantness.”

  Troi quietly shook her head at Donatra’s gift for under-statement. “Unpleasantness” hardly did justice to an armed battle involving dozens of starships. And maybe at least that many casualties, she thought.

  “We’re fine, thank you,” Will said to Donatra. “But that’s not my main concern at the moment. I need you to break off your pursuit of the Reman fleet.”

  Donatra regarded him as though he had just grown a second head. “Excuse me?”

  “Please listen to me, Commander. Captain Picard and I trusted you during the Shinzon affair. Now I’m asking you to return the favor.”

  “We’re being hailed,” Tuvok reported.

  “By whom?” asked Vale.

  Tuvok turned toward Vale, and both of his eyebrows went aloft simultaneously. “Praetor Tal’Aura.”

  Troi could sense Will’s self-confidence rising, outpacing the background of apprehension he was still emanating. She couldn’t help but be reminded of the many poker games during which he’d tried, without complete success, to conceal the fact that he was holding a very, very good hand.