Titan 5 - Over a Torrent Sea (3 page)

“Conceded.”

“Commander Vale was previously the tactical officer aboard
Enterprise
. She is human, and therefore highly emotional.”

“I concede this as well.”

“Moreover, was not her predecessor in that post a Klingon…?”

Tuvok cocked a brow at her. “Not her immediate predecessor. I do take your point, my wife. However, you know that as a Vulcan, I must be held to a higher standard. Our emotions are too volatile to be unleashed.”

“More volatile than those of a Klingon?”

“Other species are accustomed to utilizing their emotions. My lifetime of training is in their discipline and restraint. That is the way I know how to function.”

“From our encounter with the star-jellies onward, you have been endeavoring to learn how to integrate your…
less restrained emotions into your normal functioning—to at least manage them with logic if you could not cast them off in its favor. You proved able to function effectively for most of a standard year.”

“Until I was forced to cope with an emotion as profound as this,” he said. “My grief at the death of my son. My…regret at not being with him at the end, having so many things to say that will never be said. What if it were you, T’Pel? If we returned to
Titan
, and I lost you…I do not believe I would be able to function. As an officer…or as a man.”

Again she touched her fingers to his, acknowledging his admission. “Husband…this is a concern that all married crewpersons must face. It is one Captain Riker and Commander Troi no doubt consider every day. If they can function in the face of that risk…if individuals such as Commander Keru and Nurse Ogawa can carry on even after losing their life mates…then how can we, as Vulcans, expect any less of ourselves?”

She faced him squarely. “I asked you, my husband, to inform me of the logic underlying your decision. I have not heard logic. I have heard fear. Refusal to undertake a task because of speculation about possible negative results is not logical. Not unless the probability of such negative outcomes can be demonstrated to be unacceptably high. I am not as trained in risk assessment as you; can you demonstrate this to be the case?”

Tuvok’s lips narrowed. “No. I cannot. Clearly my judgment is still impaired.”

“In which case, you would no doubt benefit from further counseling by Commander Troi. She has been of
considerable assistance in helping you to adjust this past year.”
And in helping me adjust
, T’Pel added to herself. Though she was completely committed to her husband, his increased emotionalism did sometimes prove…difficult to live with. Difficult to respect. Counselor Troi was the only person T’Pel had been able to admit this to. “And since Commander Troi will be remaining aboard
Titan
, it follows that it would be in your best interest to remain aboard as well.”

Frayed discipline or not, Tuvok still retained the ability to make quick decisions when needed. After a few more moments’ thought, he nodded. “Very well. We shall report aboard
Titan
by stardate 58250.”

“We have until 58260,” she reminded him.

“Indeed. But as second officer, I have an example to set.”

Her fingers brushed his once more in approval. He was starting to sound like his old self again.

U.S.S. TITAN, STARDATE 58327.6

“I can assure you, Counselor Troi, that there is no need to worry.”

Somehow the reassurance was less convincing coming from the knife-toothed mouth of a predatory sauroid. Deanna Troi knew it was unfair to Doctor Ree to perceive him in that way, but convincing her mercurial hormones was another matter. “Doctor, I collapsed in the middle of a briefing.”

“That is a bit of an overstatement. ‘Swooned’ would be more accurate. Your electrolytes are simply low.”

“And you’re sure it’s nothing wrong with the baby? This pregnancy feels…different somehow.”

“At the risk of sounding insensitive, considering how your last pregnancy went, I would consider that a good sign.” Deanna winced at the reminder of the miscarriage she had suffered last September. Even though the Caeliar had healed her fetus’s damaged genes, it was hard not to fear a repetition.

“In fact,” Ree went on, “your daughter is developing relatively more rapidly than usual. At this rate, I would estimate she will come to term in no more than three months.” Deanna’s eyes widened. That was a month early for a human, two for a Betazoid. “Possibly even less. No doubt her accelerated growth is making increased demands on your metabolism, which is why your electrolytes are so depleted. I will prescribe a more robust diet and plenty of fluids.”

“Why didn’t you mention this before?” she asked with a trace of heat. “Could it be a sign of some problem? An aftereffect of the Caeliar treatment, maybe?”

“I was not yet sure. The gestation rates of humanoid hybrids are often unpredictable, especially in cases where genetic therapy is performed to enable the hybridization. It is possible that the Caeliar treatment had some effect, but it could simply be the vagaries of a mixed human-Betazoid biology.” He laid a scaly hand on her shoulder. “Rest assured, there is no risk to you or the baby. Indeed, the Caeliar restored you to the peak health of a woman two-thirds your age. You should be able to handle an accelerated pregnancy with relative ease—with the proper diet and hydration,” he stressed.

Once she left sickbay, now fortified with a sports beverage and a vitamin shot and carrying a padd containing the doctor’s new dietary recommendations, Deanna felt embarrassed at her anxiety. Now that her emotions were settling, she was able to recognize how irrational it had been. She knew she and her baby were in extraordinary health—“obnoxiously good health,” as Christine Vale teasingly described her post-Caeliar condition—and that the doctor would not keep the truth from her if anything were wrong with her pregnancy. (She had had more than ample proof of that back in February, when it had seemed they would lose this baby as well.)

In truth, she understood, the anxiety she felt was not entirely hers. Just before the briefing, she had been counseling Tuvok. His profound sense of loss resonated strongly with Deanna’s own grief at the loss of her and Will’s first unborn child, still a knife in her soul after nearly seven months. That pain had been so overwhelming that when Ree had informed her that the daughter she carried now was doomed as well, she had been unwilling to terminate the pregnancy even though the alternative was her near-certain death. She had simply been unable to face the prospect of losing another child. Even after the Caeliar had saved her daughter, even with the joy she and Will had felt as this robust new life grew inside her, the memory of that anguish still lingered within her. When she counseled Tuvok, when his own parallel grief fed into her, it tended to amplify her own anxieties.

Sometimes she wondered if she should ask Haaj or Huilan to take over Tuvok’s counseling; perhaps she was too close to the matter to be objective. But as an empath,
she couldn’t accept that being able to identify with a patient’s traumas was intrinsically a bad thing. As long as she kept a check on her own judgment and continued to receive regular counseling from Haaj, she believed she could manage. And ultimately it was Tuvok’s choice. She had raised the matter with him before, and he had insisted on keeping her as his therapist. The two of them had a good, established rapport, a bond forged during their encounter with the Pa’haquel last year, and it would be difficult for him to open up to another counselor.

Lost in thought, Deanna almost collided with another woman who was rounding the corner at some speed. “Oh! Excuse me, Counselor. I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

“It’s all right,” she said automatically. It was one of the new enlisted security guards, Ellec Krotine—a lean Boslic with bright cherry-red hair. Deanna had seen much the same color on Christine Vale a while back, but she believed Krotine came by it naturally.

“I guess I’m distracted by where
we’re
going,” Krotine added. “Just another two days, and we’re into the unknown. I can’t wait.” The golden-skinned young woman’s angular brow ridges gave her an elegantly hawkish look—and indeed the trifurcated indentation in her forehead resembled the track of a bird of prey—but she was quiet, even-tempered, and inquisitive, even her expression of excitement sounding casual and laid-back. Despite her security background, her time aboard the
U.S.S. da Vinci
—one of the Starfleet Corps of Engineers’ top “troubleshooter” vessels—had awakened in her a fascination with discovering the unknown and solving scientific and technical problems. Though she
wasn’t formally trained in those fields, she had told Deanna in her initial interview that she enjoyed participating in them vicariously and picking up what knowledge she could in the process.

“Anyway, I have to go,” Krotine said. “Commander Pazlar is giving a presentation on the sectors ahead. I love stellar cartography on this ship. Isn’t the microgravity great?”

Deanna made a noncommittal noise; she vomited quite enough these days in normal gravity. But she smiled and told Krotine to enjoy herself, and basked in the wave of confident good cheer that came with the Boslic’s gentle grin.

Indeed, as she moved through the corridors and extended her senses, she felt Krotine’s eager anticipation reflected in most of the minds around her.
Titan
was finally about to cross into uncharted territory once more—the Canis Major region this time, out beyond Adhara and Muliphen, between the Gum Nebula and the Orion Reach. Right now they were just within the fringes of the Kavrot Sector, a territory charted by the Klingons’ Chancellor-class fleet four or five years back—and naturally Pazlar’s cartography teams were taking extensive scans, for the Klingons had been more interested in prospective conquests than pure science. But even so, it was still charted territory. In the wake of the Borg invasion, the Klingon-Federation alliance was stronger than ever, so much so that a Starfleet vessel could travel through space claimed by the Empire without being challenged and gain access to the Klingons’ cartographic data without going through a lot of noise about imperial secrets.

To be sure, these were interesting times for the Federation and its neighbors. The Borg onslaught had shattered their political, economic, and social stability, and the consequences were just starting to be felt. Deanna regretted leaving that behind; not only could her skills as a diplomat prove useful in coping with those crises, but it would be fascinating from a sociological perspective to experience how the civilizations of known space adjusted to their new reality. Would they fragment still further, or come together as never before?

But in her heart of hearts, she was an explorer, and so was Will Riker. And she shared this vessel with three hundred and fifty other explorers, all ready to quest into the unknown. True, it would not be easy for many of them to shake off the baggage of the recent past. Most of them had suffered some loss in the invasion, or simply been wounded in their souls by the profound destruction and death. That would linger with them for a long time to come. But
Titan
’s crew was ready to face ahead once again.

No matter how much they’d lost…there was always something new to be found.

U.S.S. TITAN, STARDATE 58497.1

“W
e call it Droplet.”

Melora Pazlar tried to rein in her enthusiasm about the small blue-white dot that was displayed behind her on the holographic viewer in
Titan
’s main briefing room, the best view the sensors could get so far of the fourth planet of UFC 86783. The rest of the command crew didn’t yet know what was so exceptional about this planet, so she didn’t want to go overboard. Of course, she was here to convince them that this world, out of all the current candidates, should be the vessel’s next destination. But it wasn’t in her nature to broadcast her emotions too openly, even among people she knew as well as this crew. As a fragile, low-gravity Elaysian living in a high-grav environment, she didn’t like to feel vulnerable.

Deanna Troi leaned forward, no doubt sensing the excitement Melora held in check. She couldn’t lean forward too easily, since she was huge now, looking as though she could give birth any day. She had long since eschewed a
standard uniform for loose maternity dresses in the blue and green shades of her department. It suited her, Melora thought. She found it odd the way humans talked about pregnant women having a “glow” about them, but Troi did seem to have a certain radiance these days. “A water world?” the counselor asked.

“More than that,” Melora responded. “A classic Léger-type ocean planet, class O, subclass L1. About three times the mass of Earth, nearly half of it water ice. Slightly lower than Terrestrial gravity due to the low density.”

“So what makes it interesting?” asked Ranul Keru. “We’ve charted plenty of those.” The large, bearded Trill had been a stellar cartographer once, but his priorities had shifted since his move to security. At the moment, he was preoccupied with this morning’s update from Starfleet about the developing situation with the newly emerged Typhon Pact. As if the crew hadn’t felt guilty enough about flying off into the unknown while the rest of the Federation dealt with the aftermath of the Borg invasion, the existence of this new rival power had been revealed mere days after
Titan
had crossed into uncharted space. Eight weeks later, it was still unclear what the rise of the Pact meant for the Federation’s future, and there was nothing the crew could do but watch and wait.

“Yes, but they’re usually not inhabited.”

Keru blinked. “And this one is?”

“Undoubtedly. We thought the oh-two levels might be from water vapor dissociation, but there’s a strong ozone line in its spectrum too, meaning the oxygen has to be biogenic. Plus there’s a substantial chlorophyll signature. It’s hard to get more detailed readings at this distance, due to
the sensor interference.” As she’d mentioned at the start of the briefing, UFC 86783 had an unusually dense disk of asteroidal debris for a system of its age, one rich in exotic minerals and radioisotopes that interfered with scans. “But we’ve managed to cut through the interference enough to get dynoscanner readings suggesting abundant higher-order life.”