What Lay Beyond by Rick Berman

Author:Rick Berman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 2001-08-29T04:00:00+00:00

STAR TREK

THE NEXT GENERATION®

THE OTHER SIDE

Robert Greenberger

Prologue

Deanna Troi, carefully cupping her mug of hot chocolate, curled her feet underneath her legs and stared at the viewscreen in the captain’s quarters. She disliked the decor and would have preferred to let the Marco Polo’s real captain keep his space, but he was far from his starship and she was in temporary command. She had grown accustomed to making snap decisions and thought she was doing an adequate job, especially when her Sabre-class vessel had been bombarded by enemy fire.

The counselor-turned-commander had grown fond of her adopted crew and thought they performed well, especially since, like her, they had been thrown together with little warning. She missed the ones that had been dispatched for what Will Riker called “extended baby-sitting,” but they were doing their duty. As she was doing her own.

What Deanna truly came to discover about command, though, was that when being the one in charge, you quite often had to wait for the crew to perform their tasks before you could issue your next orders. And the waiting was more dangerous than Romulan disruptor fire.

“Any change, Will?” she asked the image on the viewscreen.

Riker, looking like he had not slept in a day, shook his head. He was speaking from his personal quarters on the Enterprise, just a few hundred kilometers away but seeming like he was in another quadrant.

“Nothing at all,” he replied. “The captain’s been gone for six hours now without a word.”

She sipped at her chocolate, hoping its magical restorative powers would keep her alert for the next shift, which began in less than fifteen minutes. “And Doral?”

“Still sitting in his guest quarters, looking at images of his remaining ships. When power failed on one, we had to help evacuate the crew to other ships nearby. They’re down to forty-eight and it’s getting a little cramped for them.”

“The odds improve, don’t they?”

“Our sixteen against their forty-eight is still three-to-one odds. Wouldn’t expect that to stay the same the way things are going.” Riker seemed to be busying himself onscreen but she couldn’t figure out what it was.

Finally she asked, “What are you doing, Will?”

“Oh, just working on a new recipe,” he admitted with a grin.

“Well,” she said with a warm smile, “practice makes perfect.”

Just talking to him made her feel better and kept the harsh reality of their situation just a little further away. “What’s to become of the Petraw?” she asked, turning back to the immediate problem.

“Their drive to expand their reach means getting them home during their lifetime is impossible,” he replied. “Doral can’t even say for certain if the Petraw Empire even exists anymore. They remain close to the galactic center, way beyond any portion of space any of us have ever explored. Desan told me there’s been no evidence of the Petraw in their Empire.”

“Has the Glory restored power yet?” The Romulan warbird had been seriously injured when they first found the Petraw ships.

Riker shook his head again, an uncertain expression on his face.

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