Titan 5 - Over a Torrent Sea (2 page)

“I understand, Will. Believe me.” The elderly admiral folded his hands, his normal Denobulan cheer subdued by recent events. This was a man who had carried heavy burdens before, including his failed effort to prevent Betazed from falling to the Dominion, without losing his customary aplomb. He had remained an optimist despite everything, spearheading Starfleet’s ambitious
Luna
-class program
as a symbol of the Federation’s commitment to diversity and peaceful exploration. But the devastation the Borg had inflicted over the past month and a half—including the complete obliteration of Deneva, Regulus, and other major worlds and massive destruction across the faces of Vulcan, Andor, and Tellar—would take the rest of his career, if not his life, for the Federation to recover from. “But the decision is made. Do you want President Bacco to back down from her promise?”

“She doesn’t have to, sir,” Riker said. “There are still ten other
Luna
-class ships out there. They can continue the mission without us.”

“The president mentioned
Titan
by name.”

“So this is politics?” Riker stopped pacing and leaned over the desk. “Admiral, you’re going to have to give me a better reason than that. Something I can take to my crew, that will convince them. Otherwise you’re going to be looking at a lot of transfer requests. Maybe including mine.”

Masc examined Riker patiently. He may not have been as cheerful as usual, but he wasn’t prone to anger. “I would have thought you’d be glad to get back to exploring. I remember Admiral Akaar telling me how unhappy you and your crew were when your Gum Nebula survey was postponed for the Romulan diplomatic mission.”

“I don’t have to tell you how different the situation is now, sir. I’m still an explorer. But I’m also a patriot.”

Masc finally smiled. “Will, you and your colleagues have already done the Federation a service we can never repay you enough for. Think of this as your reward.”

“I don’t want a reward, sir. With all due respect. I want—my crew wants—to be useful.”

“And you will be.” Masc rose from his desk and turned to the window, the ruddy glow of the Martian surface reflecting off his bald, textured pate, highlighted by the multi-colored lights of the orbital shipyard complex surrounding them, where
Titan
herself was currently undergoing repairs after its confrontations with the Borg. “We’ve been through so much this past decade,” Masc went on. “After the Dominion War, we thought we’d weathered the worst crisis our civilization would ever face…and then, just a few years later, the Borg come roaring in and make the Dominion seem like the warm-up act. We’re wounded, Will. Not just physically, but in our hearts and souls. The people of the Federation need hope. They need inspiration. The president knew that—it’s why she mentioned your ship in her speech.
Titan
helped save the Federation. It’s the most famous, most admired ship in the
Luna
fleet. That’s why we need you out there at the vanguard. To give the people something they can feel positive about. To show them we’re not giving up who we are.”

He held up a hand before Riker could speak. “And no, that’s not all. There is a more tangible goal you can achieve out there. If the quantum slipstream drive the
Aventine
is testing proves practical, then Starfleet is going to begin questing much farther out into the galaxy, much faster than ever before.”

“Then doesn’t that make us obsolete, sir?”

Masc smirked. “Only until we can retrofit the
Luna
ships with slipstream drive. But that’s probably years from now; the Federation will need to devote its resources to reconstruction for a long time to come, so we can’t make propulsion upgrades a priority. In the meantime, though,
it’s in our best interest to have advance scouts out there, getting at least a basic picture of the terrain, both astrographic and political. Better to send crews like yours out to make initial contacts before we erupt into the wider galaxy at slipstream speeds. Ideally to make new friends, of course…but also to identify and assess potential threats.”

Riker studied the admiral in a new light. Masc may have been renowned for his optimism, but he was too much a veteran not to be a realist. Especially now.

“That’s been part of our mission all along, hasn’t it, Admiral?” Riker said. “Laying the groundwork for future slipstream vessels.”

“Not a formal part,” Masc replied. “You would have been told if it had been, of course. But as the slipstream research proved more promising, it became a larger factor in Starfleet’s considerations.”

Riker nodded to himself. It explained a lot. When
Titan
had entered the space bounded by the Gum Nebula, a region vaster than the Federation and all its neighbors put together, it had been with the expectation of spending years there. Indeed, it would take a hundred ships centuries to make a thorough survey of such a region, and Starfleet had assigned only two—first
Titan
and
Ganymede
, but after the latter ship had taken damage and needed to return temporarily to port,
Charon
had been reassigned to cover its survey zone, an assignment that had unfortunately led to its destruction at Orisha two months later.

And yet, with only
Titan
remaining to survey the nebula interior, Starfleet had soon ordered the vessel to head out beyond it and probe past the inner edge of the Orion
Arm. The rationale had been that the star charts and databases that
Titan
and
Charon
had obtained from regional civilizations such as the Pa’haquel, the Vomnin Confederacy, and the Gam-Pu Star Command had provided Starfleet with sufficient information on the nebula’s interior. Riker hadn’t quite understood Starfleet’s haste. Even a well-populated, well-explored region could still turn up surprises; space was so vast that even now there were star systems less than a hundred light-years from Earth that Starfleet had never sent a crewed vessel to explore. Starships racing outward to get the big picture were bound to skip over a great many discoveries. True, Riker had once declared that
Titan
would always go forward, but he hadn’t meant it to be in such a rush.

“To be frank, Admiral, I’m not sure I’m happy about being just the advance scouts for the real explorers.”

“Nobody’s saying that, Will. Yes, you’ve been…encouraged to quest outward as far as possible, but you haven’t been prevented from doing real science. It’s just that your goal is to seek out the most significant discoveries, to hit the high points. Every mission has to prioritize.”

“With all due respect, Admiral, our last mission before the Borg invasion was charting an extremely dull, empty sector of the interarm expanse.”

Masc quirked a smile. “Which is where you stumbled upon the key to solving the entire Borg crisis. You never know what you’ll find until you get there, Will. Sometimes you lose the gamble, but sometimes it pays off hugely.”

Riker conceded the point. To be honest, now that he thought back on the discoveries
Titan
had made over the
past year, he was beginning to feel renewed excitement about returning to an exploratory mission. “So where will we go next, sir? Back to the interarm expanse? All the way to the Carina Arm, perhaps?”

Masc chuckled. “Ohh, I think we can strike a better balance between distance and thoroughness. If anything, it’s probably best to keep you
relatively
close to home, so there’s not as much delay in getting your mission reports to an eager public. But far enough out to be interesting, anyway. I can’t tell you more just yet; we’re still working out how best to redistribute the
Luna
fleet. Your sudden return home has left yet another gap in our coverage. We’ll let you know when we have your new course.

“For now, though, you and your crew are entitled to a long vacation. Besides,
Titan
still needs plenty of repairs. Not to mention a new set of upgrades. If she’s to be the flagship of the fleet, she needs the newest and the best we have to offer. And, uh, she needs to be made as durable as possible, since you’re going to be far from any repair bases. Goodness knows, we built all the
Luna
s to be as resilient as we could, but after
Charon
, we don’t want to take any chances.”

“My crew and I appreciate it, sir.”

Masc quirked a brow. “I’m sure you and Commander Troi want your daughter to be as safe as possible.”

Riker fidgeted. “Of course, sir, I wouldn’t let my concerns as a father interfere with my duties…”

Masc waved him off. “Don’t worry about it, Captain. Honestly, right now I can’t help but feel that a child would be safer out there on the frontier than here in the Federation. We tend to present a large target, and a stationary one.”

After a somber moment, Riker asked, “And what if, while we’re out there, sir, we stumble across the next Borg or Dominion?”

The admiral smiled, but it was cheerless. “Try not to tell them where we live.”

VULCAN, STARDATE 58239.3

She found him in the desert just beyond the city borders. It had become his habit, in the weeks since they had returned home for their extended leave, to come out here to meditate—if meditation was indeed what he did. T’Pel knew that Tuvok had found it difficult to reach a meditative state in recent times. The cumulative traumas of his years in Starfleet had undermined his control, and T’Pel understood that he came out here not merely to seek an outer calm and quiet he could attempt to emulate, but to avoid the embarrassment of exposing his lack of control to their neighbors.

Tuvok’s difficulty with meditation troubled T’Pel, for it impeded his process of coping with grief. T’Pel’s grief at the loss of their youngest son, Elieth—who had died at Deneva with his wife Ione, staying behind to help others evacuate before the Borg laid waste to the once-bustling Federation colony—was as deep as Tuvok’s own, if not deeper, given the greater time she had spent with her son over the course of his life. There was no shame in that; Vulcan philosophy acknowledged grief as a valid response to loss. “I grieve with thee” was an ancient formula which Surak himself had refused to renounce. While Surak had
cautioned against succumbing to the debilitating emotional effects of grief, and most especially against the tendency to transform grief into a desire for vengeance and violence, he had nonetheless taught that even the most logical, dispassionate civilization must cherish life and the ties of family and community, and must acknowledge and reflect upon the great cost incurred when a life, particularly that of a kinsman, was lost. Otherwise, he had written, that dispassion would become callous self-absorption, nullifying the bonds that enabled individuals to function as part of a greater whole.

But T’Pel was able to manage and process her grief through meditation. It was true that, deep within, she experienced a great sense of emptiness and a profound pain. It was still difficult to process the reality that she would never see her son again, never hear him speak or share the preparation of a meal with him or argue with him over his career choices. But she was learning to accept these things as new facets of her being, integrating them into her psyche in a way that minimized impairment of her function and stability.

Tuvok, however, was having a much harder time. As he heard her footfall and turned, she noted the inflammation around his eyes. Although the desert air had swept away the proof, she knew he had been weeping. Wordlessly, she extended her paired fingers to him, and he returned the touch. Distantly, she felt the turmoil that raged within him. She braced herself, allowed it to buffet her, remaining strong and serene as an anchor for him. She accepted the gratitude and love he projected as stoically as the rest.

“My husband,” she said. “Starfleet has sent a revised estimate of
Titan
’s launch date. We are to report by stardate 58260.0…or issue a transfer request by 58245.0.”

Tuvok nodded. A number of
Titan
’s personnel had already requested transfers, wishing to participate in reconstruction efforts, like Chwolkk, Okafor, and Roakn, or to return home to their families, like Bohn, Ichi, and Worvan. Although T’Pel suspected that a few had perhaps left because they had found
Titan
’s exceptionally diverse crew too difficult to adjust to. Both Fo Hachesa and Kenneth Norellis had exhibited difficulty in broadening their minds to accept other cultural viewpoints, whereas the herbivorous Lonam-Arja had never been comfortable serving alongside obligate carnivores. In T’Pel’s judgment, their departure from
Titan
’s crew would not be a grave loss.

“It is now 58239.3,” she reminded him. “That leaves us little time to decide.”

“Us?” Tuvok countered, his voice rough. “I know you wish to remain aboard
Titan
.”

“Indeed. I have a responsibility as caregiver for Noah Powell and Totyarguil Bolaji. And once Commander Troi gives birth to her child, I am certain I could be of assistance in her upbringing as well.” Tending to
Titan
’s small complement of children had enabled T’Pel to make renewed use of the skills she had not needed since their youngest child had left home. It brought her satisfaction to be useful once again. “But in my absence, another caregiver could be found. And the Borg invasion left many orphans; my skills as a caregiver could be employed here as well.” Inwardly, she contemplated the question of whether adopting a war
orphan, or perhaps more than one, might give Tuvok new purpose to help him through his grief.

“The key issue for both of us, therefore, is whether you believe you are ready to return to duty as
Titan
’s tactical officer.”

“Then that is a problem. For I do not believe I am.”

T’Pel nodded in acknowledgment, if not acceptance. “Please explain the logical basis for that conclusion.”

“I am not convinced I have sufficient emotional stability to perform in that capacity.”

“That logic eludes me. Was not your predecessor in the post Commander Keru? He is an emotional individual, from what I have seen. And he experienced the loss of a life partner some years prior to taking the post.”