A Star Trek: The Next Generation: Time #1: A Time to Be Born by John Vornholt

Author:John Vornholt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gallery Books
Published: 2004-02-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

“T HAT’S THE VIP GANGPLANK from the Calypso,” said Will Riker, surveying a batch of salvage parts spread out before him in transporter room three. Hovering over the table were two visitors to the Enterprise, Captain Leeden and her first officer, a hulking Antosian named Oierso. All of them peered and poked at a mess of space junk that had just been transported from the Juno and spread out on the table.

“There’s nothing to identify it absolutely as being from the Calypso,” responded Captain Leeden.

“There aren’t a lot of shuttlecraft that have VIP gangplanks,” said Riker with a boyish grin. He was using his most potent charms on the captain of the Juno, but she was impervious to them so far.

“Very few Starfleet shuttlecraft do, but others might,” she pointed out. She reached for a singed nozzle with a melted O-ring around it. “What about this?”

Before Riker could answer, Oierso cut in, “Captain, we’ve checked that out, and it’s a nozzle head from a gas combiner. It could be from the Calypso, or just about any Starfleet vessel. That’s the same for all this debris, but there were biological components in the wreckage—Androssi DNA, an unknown number of dead.”

“There, you see,” said Riker. “It had to have been the Calypso, although that doesn’t explain what happened. We may never know—right now, we’d settle for finding Commander Data.”

“Well, I’m not settling for that,” replied Captain Leeden. “We still don’t know if this is the ship that fired on the Juno, or whether it is indeed the Calypso. All of the Androssi ships are combined from something else, so it’s hard to prove anything. Without proof, we’re operating on wishful thinking.”

“Commander Riker,” said his counterpart from the Juno, “what have you learned from the shuttlecraft you recovered? And your patient?”

Riker stood to meet the Antosian’s height. “That patient is our chief engineer, and we hope to hear something about him before you go. As for the shuttlecraft Hudson, it met with some severe electromagnetic shock and had all logs and sensor records wiped. It was as dead as those hulks out there ravaged in the war.”

Captain Leeden’s stiff command style softened a bit, and Riker thought he saw a glint of hopelessness in her dark eyes. She said, “Commander, you once asked me how ships were destroyed in the boneyard, and you thought it odd that I couldn’t tell you for certain in some cases. Now do you realize that I’ve been telling you and Captain Picard the truth the whole time? There are anomalies out there that have never been seen before or will be again.”

“Of course,” he answered. “I’m not sure our current policy is meeting the needs of the Rashanar Battle Site.”

Captain Leeden threw back her head and laughed. “Apparently, you didn’t read the reports I’ve been writing, going back months. My scientific curiosity passed away a long time ago. Now we’re just hanging on to our basic mission as stated by Starfleet . . . to recover bodies before the scavengers can get them.

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