Taking Wing Read online

  “I’m less worried about having a quorum at the staff meeting than I am about launching on schedule.”

  “Don’t be such a worrier, Will,” Deanna said. “A few bumps along the way are natural. We still have two weeks. She’ll be ready.”

  “Any new bumps I should know about?”

  “Not really. Just the challenges you’d expect from trying to accommodate a crew this biologically diverse aboard a single starship. I was on deck seven while the construction team was putting the final section of Ensign Lavena’s quarters into place. I must say it’s a little unnerving to see a wall of Pacifican ocean water that extends from floor to ceiling. If we ever have a forcefield problem, her quarters will have to stay sealed, otherwise the rest of that deck will have a huge flood on its hands.”

  Riker smiled. Titan’s distinction as having the most varied multispecies crew in Starfleet history was one in which he took great pride. He was convinced it set the right tone, for the right mission, at just the right time in the Federation’s history. Small wonder, then, that it was also an engineering and environmental nightmare. At least, until all the kinks were finally worked out.

  “You’re right,” Riker said. “I’m not going to worry about it. Besides, it wasn’t all that long ago when we had to deal with ships that could have taken on a lot more water than that.” Our honeymoon on the Opal Sea, he thought. Quite an adventure that was.

  They reached a turbolift and stepped inside. “Transporter room four,” Riker instructed it. The doors closed, and the lift started to move.

  “There’s something I do need to bring up,” Deanna said. “It’s Dr. Ra-Havreii.”

  “What about him?”

  “He’s asked to remain aboard Titan during its shakedown.”

  Riker frowned. “Did he say why?”

  Deanna shook her head. “He wasn’t specific, but I could tell he was troubled about something.”

  “A problem with the ship?”

  “No, I asked him that immediately. He said he has no concerns about how Titan will perform, and his emotions bear that out. This is a personal request.”

  Riker nodded, considering the matter for a moment. “All right. Let him know he’s welcome to remain aboard during the shakedown. No, wait, belay that. I’ll tell him. A personal invitation from the captain is the least of the courtesies I can extend to Titan’s designer. And while he’s with us, see if you can probe a bit deeper about his reasons for staying aboard—without offending him, of course. Maybe after Dr. Ree is settled.”

  “Understood,” Deanna said, and there it was again—that small, restrained smile, the same one she had nearly released when Jaza had informed him of Ree’s imminent arrival.

  The lift halted, depositing them outside the transporter room. Riker stopped. “All right, Deanna, what is it?”

  Her smile finally broke loose entirely, spreading across her face until it became a grin. It was almost as though she was trying to keep herself from laughing. Not a good sign.

  “You never read that file I left you on the Pahkwathanh, did you?” she said.

  The Pahkwa-thanh, Riker thought. Dr. Ree’s species. “I didn’t see the hurry,” he said aloud. “What’s important to me about Dr. Ree are his talents and his record as a Starfleet physician, not where he comes from. I care about who he is, not what he is.”

  “But you’ve never met him,” Deanna said, still smiling enigmatically. “Nor any other Pahkwa-thanh.”

  “Deanna,” Riker said, then lowered his voice upon noticing a passing crewman. “If there’s something about Ree I should know before I meet him, what is it?”

  Deanna straightened his combadge as though preparing him for an admiral’s inspection, her demeanor suddenly innocence itself. “As you said, it’s probably not important. So let’s just go meet him.” Doing a quick about-face, Deanna marched into the transporter room before Riker could stop her. Now more than ever, he questioned the wisdom of captaining a ship whose crew included his wife as a senior officer and adviser. He knew he could trust whatever decisions Deanna might make on his behalf to be in the best interests of both himself and Titan’s crew. But he was also well aware that she wasn’t above having a bit of fun at his expense in the process.

  Riker sighed and followed her inside.

  “Good evening, sir,” said the young lieutenant who was standing behind the transporter console.

  “Good evening, Lieutenant.” Riker searched his mind, but still didn’t remember the young man’s name. “I’m sorry, but what was your name again?”

  “Radowski. Lieutenant Bowan Radowski,” the dark-complected technician said. “And no apology is necessary, sir. We all know who we’re serving under, but I’m sure it’s difficult learning so many new crew members’ names.”

  Riker tried not to smile. He wasn’t certain if the transporter chief belatedly realized that he had just insulted his captain’s intelligence, but Riker knew no offense was meant. Kind of reminds me of something I might have done in my younger days, he thought.

  A beep sounded from the console, and Radowski quickly ran his fingers over the controls. “Dr. Ree is standing by, ready to beam over.”

  “Energize, Mr. Radowski,” Riker said.

  On the transporter pad, the familiar luminal effect grew and coalesced into a solid being. As it materialized, Riker finally understood why Deanna had been so amused by his casual ignorance of Dr. Ree’s species.

  He had known from the head shot in Ree’s personnel file that the doctor was quasireptilian. But he saw now that the little 2-D image, taken head-on, had been misleading. At his full height, Ree must have been over two meters tall, and was built like a running dinosaur. Ree’s scaly, vivid yellow hide was accented by jagged stripes of black and red, and partially covered by an oddly configured Starfleet medical uniform designed to fit his unusual frame. A thick tail snaked behind two powerful legs, which had clearly evolved to chase down prey, and whose feet ended in talons and rear dewclaws. Ree’s upper limbs more closely resembled humanoid arms, though it was hard to gauge their length because he kept them bent at the elbows, folding them close to his upper chest. His iguanalike head held a mouth full of sharp, finger-length teeth that glistened wetly.

  Ree stepped off the transporter pad and approached Riker, staring at the captain with large, vertical-pupiled eyes that made him feel like a field mouse caught in the basilisk stare of a barn owl. “I am Dr. Shenti Yisec Eres Ree. Permission to come aboard?” the Pahkwa-thanh said. His diction was nearly flawless, though Riker saw that a forked tongue, as well as twin frontal pairs of upper and lower fangs—barely visible amid the rest of his formidable-looking dentition—were the likely source of the overly sibilant esses in his speech. Riker also noticed that the doctor was emitting a strange odor, something vaguely akin to burnt toast.

  Not wanting to appear put off in the least by the doctor’s appearance, Riker stepped forward and extended his right hand in greeting. “Permission granted. I’m Captain William T. Riker. Welcome aboard Titan, Doctor.”

  Ree extended one of his own hands and grasped Riker’s with surprising gentleness. “A pleasure to meet you, Captain. I’m eager to get to know you better.”

  As Ree made contact, Riker almost flinched reflexively. Ree’s manus was cold, with long, nimble digits that wrapped almost entirely around Riker’s hand. The hard claws tipping the Pahkwa-thanh’s fingers were, thankfully, filed down, but the overall experience of shaking Ree’s hand raised the hair on the back of Riker’s neck.

  I’ll get you for this, he projected toward Deanna, carefully schooling his features into poker-tournament mode and focusing his attention on Titan’s chief medical officer.

  To his surprise, Deanna acknowledged having “heard” him. That seldom happened, except when they were in close proximity, or in times of exceptional emotional stress. The instinctive unease he had experienced at his first sight of Ree—perhaps an atavistic human fear-reaction—certainly qualified, Riker thought.

  W
hat’s important is who he is, not what he is, Deanna quoted.

  All right, lesson learned, he shot back. Clearly, despite his high-minded ideals and enlightened self-image, Riker could still be caught off guard by the unexpected, and by what he didn’t yet understand. He realized now that Deanna had set him up in order to give him a wake-up call about the challenges that Titan’s crew—including her captain—would have to face in learning to live and work together. Riker resolved to read Deanna’s files on the Pahkwa-thanh as soon as possible—as well as those of any other species represented among his crew about which he had a less than thorough familiarity.

  Mastering his revulsion by sheer force of will, Riker withdrew his hand and gestured with it toward his wife. “This is Titan’s diplomatic officer and ship’s counselor, Commander Deanna Troi.”

  Ree bowed slightly, though he did not offer his hand. “A pleasure.” He looked at Deanna more directly. “I look forward to discussing empathic theory with you, Counselor. Some of us Pahkwa-thanh possess empathic sensitivities similar to those of Betazoids. While I have no measurable degree of this talent, I still like to think that it is my empathy that makes me such a good surgeon.” He paused, then added, “It certainly isn’t my humility.” A dry laugh followed, sounding not unlike maracas being shaken.

  Deanna beamed at him. “May I escort you to sickbay, Doctor?”

  “That would be delightful,” Ree said, somehow hissing and clicking simultaneously as he spoke. Riker thought of drawers full of steak knives when Ree’s top and bottom teeth came into contact. “Since that is where I’ll be spending half of each ship’s day, I hope that I will bond with it immediately.”

  Deanna led the way out of the transporter room, with Ree walking directly behind her, his head dipping to avoid hitting the doorframe, his claws clacking loudly across the deck as he moved. Out of Ree’s line of sight, Riker started rubbing his right hand—which he imagined felt strangely clammy after Dr. Ree’s handshake—when he “heard” Deanna in his thoughts again: Just deal with it, Will.

  As he stepped into the corridor, a voice once again issued from his combadge. “Bridge to Captain Riker.”

  Watching Deanna and Ree disappear around a curve in the corridor, the captain tapped his combadge. “Go ahead.”

  “Sir, we’ve just been hailed by the runabout Irrawaddy, on approach from Earth. She’s requesting priority clearance to land in the main shuttlebay. Admirals Ross and Akaar are on board.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Jaza. I’ll be right there,” Riker said as he headed for the turbolift, his poker face suddenly inadequate to the task of suppressing the frown that was creeping across his features.

  A surprise visit from two of the most influential admirals in the fleet. This can’t be good news.

  CHAPTER THREE

  * * *

  U.S.S. TITAN

  It had been four years since Lieutenant Melora Pazlar had left her brief assignment aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise-E and until two months ago she hadn’t been back aboard a Federation starship. Her chief reason for staying so long in her native world’s microgravity environment was personal. But now she realized that she’d had another legitimate rationale for having steered clear of Starfleet vessels for so long: physical discomfort. Even in the specially designed uniform she wore, adapting to the “normal” shipboard gravity could be a chore.

  The uniform’s exoframe servomotors let out a low, almost inaudible whine as Pazlar’s willowy form progressed down the corridor. She moved forward deliberately, her garlanic wood walking stick assisting the exoframe’s step-by-step redistribution of her weight. She saw a Vulcan and a Bolian approaching her, and politely nodded and smiled to them as they neared. She hoped she was concealing the constant pain and pressure Titan’s “standard” gravity settings caused her.

  “Good afternoon, Lieutenant Pazlar,” the young Bolian woman said as she came to a stop alongside her Vulcan companion. Her smile displayed a wide mouth full of bright teeth.

  “Good afternoon, Ensign Waen,” Pazlar said. Her mind raced, but she couldn’t remember the name of the middle-aged Vulcan male, even though she had met him several days earlier. She noted that he seemed disinterested in her, so intent was he on the padd he carried. “I hope your day is going well,” Pazlar said, at a loss to think of any other chitchat.

  “Very well, thanks,” Waen said. “We’re on our way to the arboretum to see how Savalek’s new Kylo orchid is faring.” She gestured toward the Vulcan as she spoke the name, then back down in the direction from which they had just come. “I suppose you’re off to see what they’ve done to your quarters?”

  Pazlar nodded. “I have to confess I’m a bit anxious about that.”

  Waen leaned in closer, bringing her hand up to her mouth in a conspiratorial gesture. Pazlar doubted that she needed to bother whispering, since Savalek seemed absolutely absorbed by whatever was on his padd. “I heard some fairly loud swearing coming from the open doorway as we passed. I think it was that Ferengi geologist.”

  The Ferengi? What is she talking about? Why would—what’s her name, anyway?—why would Bralik be in my quarters? Pazlar shifted her cumbersome weight, wincing slightly as her body settled into a new position. “Well, I’d best get down to see what all the swearing is about.”

  “We’ll see you soon,” Waen said, her tone jolly.

  “Good grace,” Pazlar said, remembering the Bolian term for a friendly farewell. As she made her way down the corridor, she heard Waen whispering to the Vulcan behind her. She turned her head slightly, and caught Savalek staring back at her with a strange look on his face. The Bolian woman, caught whispering, waved to Pazlar with slender blue fingers.

  What were they whispering about? And what was that look in Savalek’s eyes? Melora was used to such whispers; as the first Elaysian to join Starfleet, she had initially been confined to a gravity-negating mobile chair, and had later worn an exoframe even more cumbersome than the current model. Early in her career, she had often felt—fairly or unfairly—as though “high-g species” regarded her as a cripple. Despite the subtly contoured brow ridges that marked her as a member of a nonhuman species, it had always seemed that many of her fellow Starfleet Academy cadets had had a difficult time fathoming the essentially gravity-free environment from which she had come. Granted, the existence of a place such as Gemworld—whose null-gravity humanoid habitat had been maintained since antiquity by automated machinery—seemed at first glance to defy every known law of planetary science. Still, Pazlar was always frustrated when others apparently failed to understand that she was no more out of place in one g than, say, an oxygen-breathing Terran would be in Pacifica’s undersea city of hi’Leyi’a.

  Early on during her time among humans, all the whispers and “special” treatment had made her extremely defensive. By the time she had been assigned briefly to head stellar cartography aboard space station Deep Space 9 some nine years ago, she had developed a decidedly antagonistic attitude. The station’s doctor, Julian Bashir, had offered her a neuromuscular adaptation therapy which could have acclimated her motor cortex to standard gravity—permanently. But she had decided against the therapy, having learned by the end of her short stint on DS9 that her attitude, not her physiology, had needed adjustment.

  She had spent the next several years honing her skills, acquiring new ones, and then being tested on numerous short-term “specialty” assignments, ranging from stultifyingly mundane mapmaking junkets to some truly harrowing missions in which she had piloted shuttles. During the Dominion War, she had helped save 192 of her shipmates, and had been decorated for valor afterward. Immediately following the war, she had accepted an assignment aboard the Enterprise to conduct a low-gravity science study on Primus IV.

  But fate had made other plans for Pazlar. After she had been contacted by the Lipul, one of her homeworld’s six sentient races, she convinced Captain Jean-Luc Picard to divert the Enterprise to the artificial planet known as Gemworld. Although Pazlar and the starship’s crew had
succeeded in preventing Gemworld’s destruction, she had been forced to take the life of another Elaysian during the mission. In the aftermath, Picard had granted her extended leave from Starfleet to face her homeworld’s Exalted Ones, and to atone for her crime. She had spent a seeming eternity drifting in cloistered meditation, fasting and contemplating her deeds on that mission—actions that weighed heavily upon her even now, and probably always would.

  Although even the Exalted Ones had finally declared the death of the renegade engineer Tangre Bertoran justifiable and unavoidable, Pazlar had continued her atonement rituals for many months—intervals known as “shadow marks” among the Elaysians, whose world lacked a natural satellite from which to construct a lunar calendar—before making her decision to reconnect with Starfleet. She had been on assignment with the science vessel Aegrippos when Captain Riker had invited her to join the crew of Titan.

  Pazlar thought her initial meeting with Riker last week had gone quite well. He was fresh from what had apparently been an unusual honeymoon on Pelagia, and had seemed eager to accede to Pazlar’s requests.

  “If I take this job, the stellar cartography lab is going to be micro-g most of the time,” she had said firmly. “Not to put too fine a point on it, sir, but I’ve adapted to everyone else’s need for gravity for a long time now. I think it’s time that my colleagues began to adapt to some of my more. . . free-floating needs.”

  “Agreed,” Riker had said, smiling. “There’s something else, Lieutenant.”

  “Sir?”

  “We’ve got a pretty radical structural idea for your quarters,” he had said with another disarming grin. “I’ve had the engineering teams working on cabin retrofits for several members of the crew who have special environmental requirements. I think you’ll like what they’ve come up with for you.”