Picard was intrigued. He had created an image of his mother in his mind’s eye, but he hadn’t pictured her preparing food.
“Why do you mention her cooking?” he wondered out loud.
“The smell of her,” Santana explained. She closed her eyes. “I don’t recognize it, but it’s some kind of spice. Sharp, pungent . . .”
Abruptly, the second officer realized what she was talking about. “Cinnamon,” he said. “She would use it in her apple tarts.”
Her eyes still closed, Santana inhaled deeply, as if she were in Picard’s mother’s kitchen. “And you liked those tarts, didn’t you? In fact, you used to think about them on your way home from somewhere.”
“School,” he confessed.
She opened her eyes. “Yes. School.”
“Extraordinary,” said Picard.
Santana shook her head. “No. What would be extraordinary is if I could read your mind like a book, finding any memory at all. They say some of our people could do that in the days when the colony was first founded. But we can’t do it anymore.”
Perhaps it was the look on her face, a little sad and a little dreamy, as she contemplated something she considered wondrous. Perhaps he had crossed some invisible threshold of familiarity. Perhaps many things.
Picard couldn’t explain it. He just knew that he was intensely aware of how beautiful Serenity Santana was, and that that awareness was making his heart beat faster.
Then he saw her blush, and he realized that she had read his thoughts again. He felt embarassed and ungainly, like a youngster whose crush on some girl had inadvertently been exposed.
“I’m sorry,” the second officer told her.
Santana looked sympathetic. “Don’t be.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head, “I didn’t mean to—”
She held up a hand for silence. “I’m serious, Commander. There’s no need to feel awkward.” Unexpectedly, her expression turned coquettish. “After all, who knows how embarassing my thoughts might be.”
For a heartbeat, Picard was lost in the dark, sorcerous pools of Santana’s eyes. Then he swallowed and pulled himself back out again.
“An . . . intriguing notion,” he replied.
She seemed on the verge of saying something in response. But instead, she picked up her glass and sipped her drink. By the time she put it down again, the second officer had regained his composure.
“I hate to say it,” the commander began, but—”
“I know,” Santana said, saving him the trouble. “It’s time I was returning to the brig.”
He nodded soberly. “Yes. After all, I have a shift starting on the bridge. But I enjoyed our conversation. Perhaps we—”
“Could have another one some time? Here in the mess hall?” The woman shrugged. “Why not?”
Picard couldn’t help feeling there was more to say. However, he didn’t want to make this any more personal than it had to be. When it came to Serenity Santana, he was simply doing his duty. He was following the orders his captain had laid out for him.
He didn’t dare consider the possibility of falling in love with the woman.
Without another word, the second officer got up and gestured to the doorway. Santana rose as well and preceded him out into the corridor. Then she allowed Pug Joseph to accompany her back to the brig.
Picard watched them go for a moment. Heaving a sigh, he turned and headed for the bridge.
Carter Greyhorse was sitting behind his desk, studying the results of the examinations he had already conducted, when he spied Gerda Asmund through one of his office’s transparent walls.
The last time the doctor had seen the woman, she had been wearing a tight-fitting exercise garment, her lips pulled back from her teeth, her skin tantalizingly moist with perspiration. Now, she was dressed in the cranberry tunic and black trousers of Starfleet, looking like anyone else in the Stargazer’s crew.
No, Greyhorse corrected himself quickly and emphatically . . . not like anyone else. Not at all. Even in her standard-issue uniform, with her spun-gold hair woven into an austere bun, Gerda Asmund was a most attractive woman.
A most exciting woman.
But she was there to see him as a physician, not someone with whom she might share a love interest. He forced himself to remember that. Taking a deep breath, he assumed his most professional demeanor.
Unaware of Greyhorse’s inner turmoil, the blond woman came to a stop at the entrance to his office. “Lieutenant Asmund,” she said in a husky but eminently feminine voice, “reporting as requested.”
The doctor smiled—not an activity at which he had had a lot of practice—and gestured for his patient to take a seat on the other side of his desk. She complied without comment.
Her eyes were so blue it almost hurt to look at them. He tried his best not to notice. “Thank you for coming,” he told her. “Do you have any questions about why you’re here?”
She shrugged. “You need to test my extrasensory perception quotient before we penetrate the barrier. It’s straightforward enough.” She frowned. “Though, as you must know, I’ve been tested before.”
Greyhorse tapped his key padd and brought up Gerda’s medical file. It took no time at all to locate the results of her last ESP test, which showed she had no talent in that area whatsoever.
“Let’s see,” he said. “ESPer quotient . . . oh-one-one. Aperception quotient . . . two over twenty-five. As you say, you’ve been tested before.” He looked up from his monitor. “However, things can change, and Starfleet regulations are rather specific in this regard.”
The woman nodded. “Of course. Let’s just do what we have to.”
The doctor pretended to review other parts of her file, though he had come to know them pretty much by heart. “You’re the primary navigator,” he noted, “and have been since the ship left Utopia Planitia some seven months ago.”
“That’s correct,” she said.
“Prior to that,” he observed, “you served on the da Gama, and before that you graduated from the Academy with honors.”
“Correct again,” Gerda told him.
Greyhorse looked up at her. “It also says here that you were raised in a . . . Klingon household?”
“Yes,” the navigator said matter-of-factly, as if such things happened all the time. “As children, my sister Idun and I were the only survivors of a Federation colony disaster. After several days had gone by, Klingons intercepted the colony’s distress signal and rescued us. Apparently, we impressed them with our resourcefulness.”
He grunted thoughtfully, seeing an opportunity to establish some kind of rapport with her. “It must have been quite . . .”
“Yes?” Gerda prodded.
He felt himself wither under her scrutiny. “Nothing,” he said at last. “Nothing at all.”
It was no use, he reflected. He wasn’t good at small talk. Truthfully, he wasn’t good at any kind of talk.
If someone gave him a disease to cure or an injury to heal, he was as sharp as any physician in the Federation. But when it came to being a person, a social creature capable of interacting with other social creatures, he fell significantly short of the mark.
Greyhorse had come to grips with his shortcomings a long time ago. He had gotten to the point where they didn’t bother him. But they bothered him now, he had to admit.
And it was all because of Gerda Asmund.
“Doctor?” she said.
He realized that he had been silent for what must have seemed like a long time. “Yes,” he responded clumsily. “Sorry. I was just thinking of something. Er . . . let’s begin, shall we?”
Gerda nodded. “Indeed.”
“I’ll bring a picture up on my screen,” Greyhorse explained for the fifteenth time that day. “You try to develop an impression of it in your head, using any means that occurs to you. And while you’re at it, the internal sensors in this room will monitor your brainwaves.”
She smiled a weary smile. “I know. As we’ve
established, I have undergone this test before.”
He smiled back as best he could. “So you said.”
And he began the examination.
Picard studied the small, blue-and-green world on the Stargazer’s forward viewscreen from his place beside Captain Ruhalter.
“Establish a synchronous orbit,” said Ruhalter.
“Aye, sir,” replied Idun Asmund from the helm console.
Nalogen IV was an M-Class planet, which meant it was inhabitable by most oxygen-breathing species. Indeed, there was only one sentient form of life on the planet, and it required oxygen to survive. However, it wasn’t an indigenous form of life. It had originated in a solar system one hundred thousand light-years away.
Nearly a century earlier, several ships’ worth of Kelvans had set out from their home in the Andromeda Galaxy to find a new place for their people to live. One of their vessels was damaged as it penetrated the galactic barrier and its crew was forced to abandon ship.
Since Kelvan technology allowed them to change form, they took on the appearance of humans—a populous species in that part of the Milky Way galaxy—and put out a distress call. Ultimately, they hoped to commandeer a starship and use it to return to their homeworld.
However, their takeover attempt was thwarted by Captain James Kirk—the same near-legendary Starfleet officer who had dealt with the menace of Gary Mitchell a few years earlier. Once the threat to his vessel was defused, Kirk arranged for the Kelvans to settle on a world in Federation space.
That world was Nalogen IV.
“Hail the colony,” said Captain Ruhalter from his captain’s chair.
“Aye, sir,” responded Paxton.
The comm officer’s fingers flew over his communications panel. A few moments later, he looked up again.
“I’ve got the colony administrator,” Paxton reported. “His name is Najak. But he says he’d like to restrict communications to audio only.”
Ruhalter frowned as he considered the viewscreen. “Very well, Lieutenant. Tell him I’ll comply with his request.”
Picard had to admit that he was disappointed, if only to himself. He had hoped to get a glimpse of Kelvan civilization. Now it looked as if he wouldn’t get the chance.
Abruptly, a deep and commanding voice filled the bridge. “This is Administrator Najak,” it said.
Ruhalter looked up at the intercom grid. “Captain Ruhalter here. It’s a pleasure to speak with you, Administrator.”
“The pleasure is mine,” said Najak. “And thank you for respecting my privacy, Captain. Over the years, we have come to appreciate how monstrous we seem to other Federation species. This fact has occasionally led to . . . let us call them ‘misunderstandings.’ ”
“It’s no problem at all,” Ruhalter replied. “We don’t want to intrude on you any more than we have to.”
“Jomar will be ready in a matter of minutes,” Najak advised. “If you give us the coordinates of your transporter room, our technicians will be pleased to effect his transport.”
“Acknowledged,” said the captain. He turned to Paxton. “Send them whatever they need, Lieutenant.”
“I’ll do that, sir,” Paxton responded.
Ruhalter returned his attention to the Kelvan. “With luck, I’ll have good news when I bring Jomar back to you.”
“With luck,” the administrator echoed. “Najak out.”
The captain glanced at Leach, who was standing beside Simenon at the engineering console. “You’ve got the conn, Number One. Commander Picard, you’re with me.”
With that, he got up and made his way aft to the turbolift. As the second officer followed him, he saw the expression on Leach’s face. If looks could have killed, Picard would have been torn atom from atom.
Ruhalter couldn’t have failed to notice his exec’s displeasure. However, he didn’t comment on it as he and Picard entered the lift and watched the sliding doors close behind them.
Instead, he said, “I was really looking forward to beaming down and seeing that Kelvan colony.”
Picard nodded. “So was I, sir.”
“I guess we shouldn’t complain. We’ll no doubt be seeing plenty on the other side of the galactic barrier.”
“No doubt,” the second officer agreed.
Just then, the turbolift doors opened again. The captain exited ahead of Picard and led the way to the transporter room, where a woman named Vandermeer was working the control console.
“Anything yet?” Ruhalter asked her.
“No, sir,” said the transporter operator, consulting her monitor. “Wait . . . I’m getting a message from the surface.”
“The colony administrator’s office?” asked the captain.
“Yes. They say they’re ready to beam someone up.”
Ruhalter nodded. “Contact the bridge and tell Mr. Leach I want the shields dropped. Then let the Kelvans know we’re ready. But as soon as our visitor arrives, I want the shields back up again.”
“Aye, sir,” said Vandermeer, carrying out her orders.
Picard too felt uneasy when the Stargazer’s deflectors were lowered. After all, it left the ship vulnerable to all manner of mishaps. Unfortunately, they couldn’t effect a transport with the shields in place.
“He’s on his way,” Vandermeer announced.
Picard turned to the raised, oval platform in the back of the room. A shaft of light appeared there, then slowly resolved itself into a humanoid form. A moment later, the light died, leaving a tall, fair-skinned man with unruly red hair and haunting, pale-blue eyes.
“You must be Jomar,” Ruhalter observed. He smiled a craggy smile. “Welcome to the Federation Starship Stargazer. I’m Captain Ruhalter . . . and this is Commander Picard, my second officer.”
The Kelvan stared at Ruhalter for a full second before he an swered. “Thank you, Captain.” He turned to Picard. “Commander.”
Jomar’s tone was flat and utterly devoid of enthusiasm. And his expression—or rather, his lack of one—would have been the envy of many a logical Vulcan.
“If you’ll follow us,” said the captain, “we’ll show you to your quarters. I think you’ll find them—”
“I have a great deal of work to do,” the Kelvan declared, unceremoniously interrupting Ruhalter’s invitation. “I would prefer to familiarize myself with your ship’s tactical systems and subsystems before I give any thought to sleeping accommodations.”
The captain appeared unoffended. “Of course,” he told Jomar. “We can start in engineering, if you like.”
“That would be satisfactory,” said the Kelvan.
Ruhalter tapped the Starfleet insignia on his chest. “Captain to bridge. Break orbit, Mr. Leach. We’ve got our passenger.”
“Acknowledged, sir,” said Leach.
The captain turned to Jomar. “Next stop, engineering.”
The Kelvan didn’t respond. He just waited for Ruhalter and Picard to lead the way, then fell in behind them.
Charming, thought the second officer. But then, they hadn’t enlisted Jomar’s assistance because of his advanced social skills. If all went well, he would be their secret weapon against the Nuyyad.
Chapter 5
Picard sat in his usual place at the black oval table in the Stargazer’s lounge and watched Captain Ruhalter bring the meeting to order.
Unlike the last meeting the second officer had attended there, this one didn’t call for the presence of the entire senior staff. The topic was a largely technical one, so all of the officers present—with the exceptions of Ruhalter, Commander Leach, and Picard himself—were from the weapons and engineering sections.
And then, of course, there was the Kelvan. He was sitting beside the captain with his bright red hair in disarray, a deadpan expression on his face that betrayed his lack of humanity.
“I called this meeting,” said Ruhalter, “so you could all meet Jomar here and hear his plans for the Stargazer’s tactical systems.” He turned to the Kelvan. “Go ahead.”
Jomar inclined his head. “Thank you, Captain.” He scanned the other faces at the table without a hint of emotion. “As you may have heard,” he went on abruptly, “the Nuyyad are a formidable enemy, with a long list of conquests to their credit.”
“So we’ve been given to understand,” said Ruhalter.
“However,” the Kelvan went on, “the Nuyyad’s vessels are no faster or more maneuverable than this one. Their shields are no stronger than the Stargazer’s shields. In fact, they may be a little weaker. Where the Nuyyad far outstrip Federation technology is in a single area . . .”
“Firepower?” Simenon suggested.
“Firepower,” Jomar confirmed ominously. “More specifically, a quartet of vidrion particle cannons, any one of which could pierce your shields with a single high-intensity barrage.”
It wasn’t good news. For a moment, they pondered it from one end of the table to the other.
Then Picard spoke up. “Vidrion particles? I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of them.”
“That is because they have not been discovered on this side of the barrier,” the Kelvan explained. “My people have known of them for centuries, though we always considered them too unstable to be harnessed as directed energy. The Nuyyad have apparently solved that problem.”
Ruhalter leaned forward. “You’ve got our attention, Jomar. How can we defend ourselves against these vidrion cannons?”
“By fighting fire with fire,” said the Kelvan, “as the human expression articulates. We have discovered that lacing a standard, graviton-based deflector shield with a certain percentage of vidrion particles renders it all but impermeable to the Nuyyad’s beams.”
“And that,” observed Ruhalter, “will give us a chance to launch an offensive of our own.”
Jomar regarded the captain with his strange, pale-blue eyes. As in the transporter room, he seemed to stare. “Yes,” the Kelvan said finally, “that is the intention.”
Suddenly, Picard realized something. Jomar wasn’t stating after all. It was just that his eyes weren’t blinking.
But then, when the second officer thought about it, that made sense. The Kelvan had only assumed this form for the sake of convenience. His “eyes” were ornaments, lacking function, created to make the humanoids on the Stargazer feel more comfortable in his presence.
THE VALIANT Page 9