“Bridge, what is the nature of the emergency?” Ree asked, speaking into a wall-mounted companel.
“Just being careful, Doctor,”answered Lieutenant Commander Jaza. “We’re pretty close to some ship-to-ship combat between the Romulans and the Remans, and we don’t want to be drawn into it.”
Ree’s double eyelids blinked several times in rapid succession. “Is Titanin danger, Commander?”
“I really can’t talk now, Doctor. I’ll try to get back to you. Bridge out.”
Onnta sighed heavily. “Let’s hope we won’tbe engaging in any battle either. Whatever beef the Remans have with the Romulans, it isn’t our fight.”
Ogawa nodded. Ever since Andrew had died fighting the Dominion War, she’d had little stomach for armed conflict, and an increasing contempt for those who were too quick to resort to it. She excused herself for a moment to call Noah, to make certain he stayed put in their quarters.
Back to the matter at hand, Alyssa,she silently chided herself. There’s a new life about to be born. Try to focus on that.
“If you’re available, Dr. Onnta, it’s critical that we deliver Olivia Bolaji’s child as soon as possible,” Ogawa said, gesturing toward the OB/GYN room.
“Yes, of course,” Onnta said, doffing his bloody surgical gown. “Mr. Denken is sleeping soundly. Have you prepped the equipment?”
“Of course, sir,” Ogawa said, nodding. She liked the gold-skinned Balosneean doctor well enough, despite his often absentminded air—and the fact that he often spoke to her as if she were a second-year med student. It only bothered her slightly now, but if his attitude didn’t improve soon, she’d find the time to share with him exactly how much field experience she’d had after nearly a decade of service aboard two starships named Enterprise.
“I’d like to come along to observe,” Dr. Ree said, his tail switching to one side behind him. He scratched at his chin absently with one of his long, multijointed fingers. “I have been treating Mrs. Bolaji regularly, but found no warning signs of this premature labor.”
As the trio strode toward the OB/GYN room, Onnta let out a sigh which Ogawa took to be one of relief, though it could as easily have been born of frustration. “Busy day. I’m glad every shift isn’t like this,” he said.
Both Ogawa and Ree nodded. In less than an hour, they’d treated not only Bolaji and Denken, but also the various nicks and scrapes that other members of the away team had suffered. And then there was the large, unconscious Reman, whose injuries had apparently been less severe than Ogawa had originally feared. Remans, it seemed, were made out of pretty stern stuff.
“How is our Reman guest?” Ogawa asked.
“Resting comfortably,” Ree said. “He’s a tough one, if a bit of a bleeder. Given the number of scars on his body, it seems he’s endured several lifetimes worth of battles and close calls. At the rate he’s healing, I expect he’ll be mobile again within days.”
The three of them re-gowned themselves, then Onnta switched off the OB/GYN room’s bio-isolation field. They entered the room, and Ogawa was pleased to see that nothing had gotten worse, though Olivia was still clearly in both distress and discomfort. However, it seemed that the combination of morphenolog and asinolyathin was finally easing Olivia Bolaji’s pain.
Onnta set about his job efficiently, and Ogawa took mental notes as they worked together. She suspected that Ree was doing so as well; after all, transporter surgery was one of Onnta’s specialties, and they both could learn a great deal from him. Ogawa rolled the incubator bay closer to the bed as Onnta discussed the procedure with the Bolajis. Here, with a conscious, lucid patient and her husband, Onnta’s bedside manner was impeccable, if ever-so-slightly condescending.
“Do you have any further ques—” Onnta said just before being thrown to one side, along with anything that wasn’t bolted to the deck.
“Something just hit the ship,” Axel said, righting himself even as the deck leveled out.
“Sickbay to bridge,” Ree said into the nearest companel. Of the three medical personnel in the room, he had remained the most stable when the deck had shifted. Ogawa noticed that he was using his tail almost as a tertiary leg, and that Ree’s dewclaws had dug deeply into the carpet.
“Now’s not a good time, Doctor,”Jaza said. “We’re taking fire. Try to lash down the breakables. Bridge out.”
Ogawa prayed that Noah would be safe enough in their quarters.
“You need to get to the bridge,” Olivia said, grimacing from the pain.
Axel clasped his left hand over the top of the one she held his right in. “Aili’s going to do fine up there. If they need me, they’ll call me. But right now, it’s more important for me to be here with you.”
Onnta set about resetting the delicate transporter device. It hung from a radial arm on a wheel-mounted floor stanchion.
Ogawa felt a surge of sickening fear in the pit of her stomach a nanosecond before the room rocked once again, more violently this time. Noah!
After they had all righted themselves the second time, Onnta looked toward Ogawa and Ree. “I can’t work under these conditions. If the ship gets hit again while I’m operating, the transporter might glitch.”
Ree looked up at the display monitor positioned above the biobed, his double eyelids nictitating. “We may not have a choice, Doctor. We don’t know how long the ship will be in combat, and Olivia’s biosigns are already stressed as it is. We may just have to hope that we don’t experience another jolt like that.”
Ogawa watched as Onnta considered Ree’s words, then looked back at the biobed display, which showed dangerously high blood pressure, as well as signs of incipient edema and preeclampsia.
“Okay, we go for it,” he said finally, moving the radial arm back into position, recalibrating it for a second attempt.
Four tense minutes later, a tiny, twenty-five-week male preemie materialized within the incubator bay, and immediately began crying lustily. As Ogawa clamped the newborn’s umbilical cord—which had materialized severed and cauterized as part of the transport process—Onnta concentrated on beaming out the remainder of the cord, along with the placental tissue that had nurtured the child during its gestation.
“Is he all right? Can I hold him?” Olivia asked. She had stayed awake through the whole procedure, fighting off the effects of the anesthetics.
A chime sounded from the wall-mounted comm unit’s speaker. “All decks, brace for impact!”The voice belonged to Captain Riker.
Ogawa barely had time to secure the incubator before the entire room rocked again. She felt herself crash into the biobed as the lights dimmed, and heard Olivia, Onnta, and Axel scream.
His chest was so full of pride that he thought he would burst. None of the work he had done on either theDefiant- orIntrepid- class starship design teams during his years at the Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards could even come close to the triumph of experiencing the maiden voyage of the first ship he had designed in toto.
The field tests for the prototypeU.S.S. Luna , the first of its class, had been completed the previous week, and now the newly minted vessel and the eager young personnel who flew her were on their first “real” voyage out of the Sol system. The permanent crew had become a cohesive, well-oiled unit over the last few months of “fit-and-finish” testing, and he couldn’t be happier. He had even begun to date the ship’s hydroponics chief, a winsome—and single—Efrosian woman named Dree, whose long white hair almost reached the floor behind her. She was better for him than the last woman he had been romantically involved with, whose husband had been less than understanding after he had discovered the real nature of their “working relationship.” Unlike Efrosians, humans had rather quaint and curious notions about marital fidelity and sexual propriety.