“But you obviously have enough confidence in us to come to us first,” Riker said, once again more than a little grateful for the bond that Captain Picard had created with Donatra during the battle against Shinzon.
She paused, looking away toward something that might have been parsecs distant. She seemed to be gathering her thoughts and emotions around her like tattered garments.
“During the confusion that followed the elimination of Praetor Hiren and the Senate,”she began at length, “Suran and I gained access to a large complement of warbirds. These vessels and their armaments were, shall we say, subsequently unaccounted for.
“Obviously, we needed to keep the existence of these vessels a secret, and their location concealed. I convinced Suran that the best place to hide the fleet was within the gravimetric and subspace flux zone surrounding the Great Bloom.”
“Great Bloom?” Riker asked.
“Forgive me. The Great Bloom is our designation for the spatial anomaly located only a handful ofveraku away from Romulus at high warp. You have no doubt observed the phenomenon yourselves, and have given it another name. It’s centered in the very spot where Shinzon’s vessel exploded after our engagement with him.”
“The spatial rift,” Deanna said quietly.
“Why are you sharing this with us, Commander?” he said aloud.
“Because…”Donatra began, her voice faltering momentarily before she found the strength to continue. “Because the entire fleet has vanished. Every ship. Every officer. Every enlisted crew member. All gone, without leaving so much as a body or any identifiable debris. Suran and I have been searching the region for two fulleisae , but to no avail.”
“You think your ships have fallen into the event horizon of the spatial rift,” said Deanna.
“The Great Bloom’s center is the only place we’ve yet to search directly, because our sensors cannot penetrate it. But it is the likeliest place.”
“And you want us to help you find them,” Riker added.
“Yes.”
Riker understood that yet another fairly monumental decision was now expected of him. He was more than passing familiar with the Romulan aphorism “He who rules the military rules the Empire.” And it seemed fairly obvious that helping the Romulan military faction acquire—or reacquire—large quantities of ships and arms could jeopardize the already delicate balance of power that now existed between the mutually opposed Romulan factions and the Klingon-protected Remans.
But leaving those ships lost,he thought , where they might fall into the hands of gods-only-know-who might be an even worse idea.
“I am taking theValdore into the center of the Great Bloom, Captain. With or without your help. I intend to give my crew the order in a moment.”
Riker had seen enough spatial rifts over the course of his career to understand the extreme danger inherent in flying into one. But ever since Commander Donatra had joined forces with the Enterprisecrew against Shinzon, Riker had regarded her almost as a comrade-in-arms. Her cooperation during the recent Reman attack and the subsequent power-sharing summit had only solidified that working relationship. How could he let her face such a terrible risk alone?
He came to a decision. “Titanwill accompany you to the edge of the rift, Commander.”
“But not over its edge. You disappoint me, Captain. I thought you had more courage.”
Riker answered with an involuntary chuckle. Does she really expect to manipulate me by calling me “chicken”?
“There’s courage and then there’s suicide,” he said. “I’ll do my best to help you recover your ships and crews. But I’m not interested in helping you atone for losing them by throwing yourself off a cliff.”
Her eyes narrowed, but it was obvious she had no desire to alienate him by venting her anger on him. “And what will merely standing on the cliff’s edge accomplish?”
“Titanhas sensors that I’ll wager are a good deal more sensitive than anything aboard the Valdore.Perhaps they can tell us just how dangerous that cliff really is.”
She took this in with a curt nod. “Very well, Captain. TheValdore will depart for the Great Bloom in five of your minutes.”And with that her image vanished, to be replaced by the white-on-blue UFP symbol.
“You’re welcome,” Riker said to the screen before tapping his combadge. “Riker to bridge.”
“Vale here, Captain.”
“Change of plans, Commander. We have to make best speed for the spatial anomaly we observed on our way here. I want us under way in five minutes. Please coordinate our departure with Commander Donatra’s staff aboard the Valdore.They’ll be leading the way.”
“May I ask what this is all about?”
He tapped a string of commands into his console. “I’m sending the recording of my conversation with Donatra up to my ready room. Once you review it, you’ll know as much as Commander Troi and I do.”
“I’m all over it, sir. Vale out.”
He turned to face Deanna. Taking her hands, he said, “Seems to me we won’t be needed on the bridge until Titanreaches the rift.”
“And how long will that take?” she asked.
He performed a rough calculation in his head. “At least a couple of hours.”
With a sultry smile, she pulled him directly toward the bedroom.
The rift’s most striking feature, Riker thought, was its color. Or rather, its colors.Great loops of energetic orange and iridescent green stretched for hundreds of kilometers from the rift’s invisible core, twisting and entwining themselves about the phenomenon that Donatra had called the Great Bloom. On the bridge’s wide central viewer, Riker could see the sea-green hull of Donatra’s warbird limned in the glow.
“Keep us at station, Mr. Bolaji,” Riker said. “Five hundred klicks from the event horizon.”
“Aye, sir,” replied Chief Axel Bolaji, as he entered a string of commands into the conn station. He was helping fill in for Ensign Lavena while she recuperated in the aquatic environment of her quarters; Lavena had become dangerously dehydrated when her suit had ruptured during the battle over Romulus. “Keeping station.”
“I am still detecting tachyon emissions indicative of a nearby cloaked ship,” said Tuvok, who already looked a good deal healthier than he had during the recent Romulan-Reman skirmish.
“It must be one of Khegh’s ships,” Deanna said.
Riker nodded. “The Klingons certainly would have noticed the Valdoreapproaching us, even if they couldn’t eavesdrop on our conversation with Donatra. And our early departure from Romulus must have made them even more curious.”
“The Klingons must be counting on the rift’s energy discharges to help hide their presence from us,” Vale said. “Lucky for us they underestimated our new sensor nets.”
“There’s a terrific quantity of energy here, Captain,” said Jaza. When he had heard that Titanwas going to get right up close to the rift he had until now been forced to admire from afar, he had come straight to the bridge, insistent upon relieving his gamma-shift counterpart at the science console. “And the intense background radiation signature I’m reading confirms the phenomenon’s probable origin: the detonation of the Scimitar’s thalaron device.”