27.

One scan after another yielded nothing but good news.

"It's truly remarkable, Captain," Dr. Ree said to Riker, who stood with him in t.i.tan's sickbay, on the other side of the biobed, holding Troi's hand. Gesturing toward the vital-signs monitor above her head, the reptilian physician continued, "All of Deanna's readings are optimal, across the board. There's no sign of damage in the uterine wall and no abnormalities in the fetus."

Troi reclined on the biobed, her face beaming with joy as she looked at Riker. "She's okay, Will," Troi said. "Our daughter is okay." Tears rolled from her eyes.

Riker, still reeling from the revelation of his wife's recovery, asked Ree, "This is the Caeliar's work?"

"Yes, sir. And I've only told you part of the good news." He called up a new screen of information on the overhead display. "In addition to healing Deanna and her child, the Caeliar saw fit to restore all of her unreleased ova as well. Which means that if the two of you so desire, there's no reason you couldn't have more than one child."

Riker asked, "What about the risk of miscarriage?"

"I'm happy to report that's no longer an issue," Ree said. "Your complications were genetic in nature, and the Caeliar have amended that-quite ably, I might add. They've also rejuvenated much of Deanna's internal physiology."

It was Troi's turn to react with surprise. She sat up quickly as she said, "Rejuvenated?"

"Yes, my dear counselor," Ree said. "Inyx reversed much of the age-related deterioration in your tissues and organs. If one were to judge your age based solely on an internal scan, you would register as a woman of thirty, in the prime of your life."

A giddy smile brightened her face as she looked at Riker and said, "I guess that explains why I feel so amazing."

"Guess so," Riker said, mirroring her happiness. He looked at Ree and asked with intense interest, "How did they do it? Genetic therapy? Nanosurgery?"

Ree c.o.c.ked his head sideways and tasted the air with a flick of his tongue. "I have absolutely no idea," he said. "Deanna's treatment was performed in secret. If I seem impressed by Inyx's amazing results, I'm positively stunned by the fact that he left no discernible trace of how he did it." He switched off the biobed, and the overhead screen went dark. "If you want, I can keep running tests to see if I can uncover his methods, but I doubt I'll find anything."

"Don't bother," Riker said, helping Troi to a sitting position on the edge of the bed. "We've had enough tests."

"I quite agree," Ree said, empathizing with the suffering Riker and Troi had endured over the past several months, from the invasive rigors of fertility therapy to the heartbreak of a miscarriage and the close call of a second failed pregnancy. "My prescription for the two of you is simply this: Go spend some time alone, and a.s.suming the universe doesn't come to a fiery end tomorrow, come back next month for a routine prenatal exam-with an emphasis on routine."

"Thank you, Doctor," Troi said, wrapping her arm around Riker's waist. "For everything-including biting me."

"You're welcome," Ree said.

Riker did a double-take. "He bit you?"

"Let's go," Troi said, cajoling Riker gently as she pulled him out of sickbay. "I'll tell you all about it...in private."

Will Riker's relief was so profound, the burden that had been lifted so ponderous, that he felt breathless, as if he'd gone from the pit of the sea to the peak of a mountaintop.

His Imzadi was home and healed.

Their child was safe.

The future was theirs again, something to look forward to instead of fear. They'd stepped to the precipice, faced the fathomless darkness, and come back whole.

He and Deanna stood in the main room of their quarters on t.i.tan and held each other. The fragrance of her hair, the warmth of her body, and her empathic radiance of well-being combined in his senses to mean one thing: home.

She hugged him with greater vigor and pressed her face to his chest. "You don't need to say it," she said, reacting to his unspoken, still-forming thoughts and confirming for him that their telepathic bond was as strong as it had ever been.

"Yes, I do," he said. "You know I do." He kissed the top of her head. "I'm so sorry I left you. I didn't want to."

"I know," she said, reaching up to stroke his cheek.

"Please forgive me," he said.

Deanna pressed her palms softly on his cheeks and pulled his face to hers. She planted a delicate kiss on his lips and another on the tip of his nose. "I forgive you," she said. "It was a terrible choice. I'm sorry you had to make it."

Clasping her hands in his own, he felt the sincerity of her forgiveness and the intensity of her elation. Lost in a giddy haze, he asked, "Are you hungry?"

"Not at all," she said, shaking her head and smiling.

"Neither am I," he said, and they laughed for a moment. It was goofy laughter, like an unmotivated overflow of joy.

In a blink, Deanna's mood turned bittersweet, and tears welled in her eyes. "Thank you," she said.

"For...?"

"For supporting me when we argued with Dr. Ree a few days ago. I know you disagreed with my decision, for all the right reasons, but in sickbay, you always took my side. You trusted me."

"I believed in you," he said, looking with wonder at the amazing woman who had deigned to spend her life with him. "And, as always, my faith in you has been richly rewarded."

She relaxed back into his arms, and he was glad to support her weight. It had been months since they'd felt this close, this in tune with each other, and he found it deeply gratifying to feel wanted-and needed-again.

"After everything," Deanna said, "I still can't believe it's finally happening for us. A family, Will. Children. We can even have more than one if we want."

"If I didn't know it was thanks to science, I'd call it a miracle," he replied with a grin.

Deanna reacted with a sigh and a look of concerned dismay. "Now all we have to fear is the Borg," she said. Riker tried to think of some way to defuse her anxiety, but he was at a loss, because he knew she was right. She continued, "We're so close, Will. So close to living the life we've always wanted, and now we're hours away from the biggest confrontation with the Borg we've ever seen. We've fought so hard for this child, for us, for a second chance. I can't stand the thought of seeing it taken away." She implored him as much with her gaze as with her words, "Please tell me we have a plan, Will. Please."

"I know Captain Hernandez does," he said. "And Jean-Luc might be cooking up one of his own. So, yes, there is a plan."

"Okay, so they have plans," she said. "What about us? What are we going to do?"

Riker shrugged, glib humor his defense of last resort. "The same thing we always do," he said. "The impossible."

Ranul Keru found Torvig-with guidance from t.i.tan's main computer-in a remote, hard-to-reach forward compartment located just above the main deflector dish. The young Choblik engineer stood on a narrow catwalk and gazed through a broad sliver of a view-port. He turned his ovine head in Keru's direction as the tall, brawny Trill approached him. Light from the surrounding machinery glinted off Torvig's metallic eyes and cybernetic enhancements. For once, the normally loquacious young ensign remained silent and resumed staring out into s.p.a.ce.

The security chief stepped carefully across the grid-grated catwalk, mindful of its low guardrails and the precipitous drop into the workings of the deflector dish. Shuffling along for the last few steps, he sidled up to Torvig and asked, "Hiding?"

"I desired an isolated place in which to think."

"Your quarters aren't private?"

"I've not yet earned enough seniority to receive private accommodations," Torvig said. "Since my return, Ensign Worvan has asked me one hundred thirty-four questions about what I observed during our incarceration in Axion. He's been most persistent in his efforts."

Keru tilted his head and smirked. "Gallamites are like that." He looked out the narrow gap to see the majestic lines and ma.s.s of Axion, shining against the sprawl of the cosmos. "Is something bothering you, Vig? You seem...out of sorts."

"I'm unaware of any direct irritation to my person."

"No, I mean, are you experiencing anxiety about something?"

Torvig shifted his weight back and forth, from one foot to the other, and his mechanical hands clenched the railing in front of him. "Is it true that the Borg armada has reversed course and is on its way here?"

"Yes," Keru said.

"Then my answer is yes. I'm feeling anxiety."

"It could be worse," Keru said, heaving a disappointed sigh. "While we were in Axion, a lot of people from here and the Enterprise and the Aventine boarded a Borg scout ship and fought in close-quarters combat. We lost Rriarr, Hutchinson, Tane, Doron, and about half a dozen other really good people. And sh'Aqabaa might live through surgery, or she might not." It was a bitter sting for Keru that he had been denied the chance to fight the Borg face-to-face. Even after so many years, he would have found such violence deeply cathartic for his beloved's death at their hands. Now, facing much less forgiving odds, he doubted he would have such an opportunity again.

He looked at Torvig and realized the squat, short ensign was quaking. "Calm down, Vig," he said. "Officers don't shiver."

"I apologize, Ranul," Torvig said. "I'm having trouble remaining objective about our circ.u.mstances. Until now, I'd considered the Borg as a phenomenon, or as an abstraction of accessories and behavioral subroutines for a holodeck program. Now that I'm about to face them, I realize that I'm not ready."

Keru squatted next to Torvig and patted the Choblik's armored back. "You'll be fine, Vig. Nothing to be scared of."

"At the risk of sounding insubordinate, I disagree," Torvig said. "Do you recall my tests of the crew? The ones I used to verify a link between my crewmates' anxious behaviors toward me and their feelings about the Borg?"

Rolling his eyes, Keru said, "How could I forget?"

"I now have a greater understanding of one part of that equation," Torvig said. "Now I'm afraid of the Borg, too. It was a mistake for me to compare their cybernetics with those of the Choblik. The Great Builders' technology was a boon to my people-it gave us individuality and sentience. The Borg's technology takes away those things. It debases its members." He let go of the railing and lifted his bionic hands in front of his face, flexing them open and shut. "I imagine my mechanical elements betraying me, and it frightens me. That's what it would be to become one of the Borg." Looking plaintively at Keru, he added, "Don't let them do that to me, Ranul."

Keru reached out and clutched Torvig's bionic hand, thumb to thumb, flesh to metal, and he looked his friend in the eye. "I won't let it happen, Vig. To either of us. You have my word."

Most of the beds in the Aventine's sickbay were still full when Captain Dax walked in, and Dr. Ta.r.s.es and his medical staff looked wrung out by a day of gruesome surgeries. She caught his eye with a wave and waited while he walked over to her.

"Thanks for coming," he said.

Up close to Ta.r.s.es, Dax saw that the young doctor's hair was matted with sweat, and his eyes were red from exhaustion. She nodded and said, "Where is she?"

Ta.r.s.es took a few steps and motioned with a tilt of his head for Dax to follow him. She walked with him past one row of biobeds, and then past a triage center, into a recovery ward. All of the beds in this compartment were occupied as well. Near the far end of the ward was the person Dax had come to talk to. She reached out to Ta.r.s.es and tugged his sleeve. "I'll take it from here," she said, and he acknowledged the dismissal with a polite nod and let her continue past him.

Dax approached the problem patient without hesitation and placed herself at the foot of the bed. "What's this I hear about you not wanting to return to duty?"

Lonnoc Kedair stirred from her torpid, dead-eyed languor to meet Dax's accusing stare. "It's not about what I want," the Takaran woman said. "It's about what I deserve."

"If I could, I'd give you a month's liberty," Dax said. "I read Simon's report. You got mangled pretty bad on that Borg ship. Unfortunately, we have about four thousand more of them on their way here, and I need my security chief back at her post." She frowned as Kedair turned her head and averted her eyes. "In case I wasn't clear, I'm talking about you."

"You were clear," Kedair said. "I wasn't. I'm not saying I deserve time off. I'm saying I deserve to be in the brig."

Just what I didn't need, Dax brooded behind a blank expression. Something to make my day a little more interesting. "Care to elaborate, Lieutenant?"

Kedair seemed unable to look Dax in the eye. The security chief shut her eyes, ma.s.saged her green, scaly forehead, and combed her fingers through her wiry black hair. "On the Borg ship," she began, and then she paused. After a grim sigh, she continued, "I made a mistake, Captain."

"Stay here. I'll convene a firing squad," Dax quipped.

"Curious choice of words," Kedair said. "Because that's basically what I did." Looking up, she added, "I caused at least three friendly-fire deaths during the attack, sir. Maybe more."

Dax stepped to the side of Kedair's bed and moved closer to her, so that they could speak more discreetly. "What happened, Lonnoc? Specifically, I mean."

"I was looking out across that big empty s.p.a.ce in the middle of the ship," Kedair said, her eyes turned away while she searched her memory for details. "I thought I saw an ambush closing in on one of our teams. It was so dark, and everybody was wearing black, and with TR-116s in their hands, at a distance, they looked like Borg with arm attachments." Dax nodded for her to go on. "With the dampeners, we didn't have any comms, so I fired a warning shot at the team that was-that I thought was being ambushed. I signaled them to turn and intercept." Kedair closed her eyes, and her jaw tensed.

Wary of pushing too hard, Dax asked, "What happened next?"

"The first team took cover and waited for their targets to close to optimal firing distance. Then they-they lit 'em up." She shook her head. "A few seconds later, the squad leader called cease-fire, and they popped off a few gel flares. That was when I saw what had happened." She bowed her head into her hands for a few seconds, then she straightened and added, "Lieutenant sh'Aqabaa's still in critical condition. The rest of her squad from t.i.tan is dead."

The rest of Kedair's actions on the Borg scout ship after the boarding op were starting to make sense to Dax. "Is that why you volunteered to stay behind when the Borg Queen attacked? To try and make up for your mistake?"

"I did that because it was my duty, and because it was the right tactical choice," Kedair said defensively. "Please don't psychoa.n.a.lyze me, Captain. I can always go see Counselor Hyatt if I'm in the mood for that."

"I think Susan might echo my diagnosis," Dax said. "But you're right, it's not my job to give you therapy. It's my job to give you some perspective and put you back at your post."

"You ought to put me out an airlock," Kedair grumped.

Sharpening her tone, Dax said, "That's enough, Lieutenant. Listen to what I'm telling you. You did not pull the trigger on Lieutenant sh'Aqabaa and her team. It's not your fault."

"How can you say that? I flagged my own people as a target. I gave the order to fire. How can it possibly not be my fault?"

"It's called the 'fog of war,'" Dax said. "You go into sensory overload. Everything happens so fast, you can't process it. Mistakes happen." She sighed as she confronted painful memories from her years on the Destiny and on Deep s.p.a.ce 9. "I saw it a lot during the Dominion War. It had nothing to do with how well trained someone was or the quality of their character. In combat, you have no time to think. Information gets scrambled. You're surrounded by chaos, and you try to do the best you can-but no one's perfect."

Kedair's eyes narrowed. "Sounds like an excuse," she said. "And not a very good one, either. I don't want to make excuses, Captain. I should have verified the target before I told my people to fire."

"I've read a lot of reports from squad leaders who were on that ship," Dax said. "I doubt you really had the time to check every target. No one did. Under the circ.u.mstances, I'd say your actions were entirely reasonable."

Angrier, Kedair replied, "I was sloppy. I lost track of where my people were. It was my job to know."

Vexed by Kedair's toxic brew of self-pity and self-loathing, Dax leaned forward and took hold of the security chief's collar. "I'm trying to be patient, Lonnoc, but you're not making this easy. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. This is war. It gets b.l.o.o.d.y. People die. Deal with it." With a shove, she released Kedair and continued, "The team on the other level could have fired gel flares first, just to see who they were shooting, but they didn't. That was their call, not yours.

"Add up the facts. You had no communications, in the dark, in hostile territory, while under attack, and you made an honest mistake. You want to blame yourself? Go ahead. Wail and gnash your teeth and cry yourself to sleep at night-I don't give a d.a.m.n. There was no criminal negligence here and no criminal intent-in other words, absolutely no basis for a court-martial.

"So I'm giving you a direct order, Lieutenant: Get your a.s.s out of that bed, and report to your post on the bridge. We're less than ten hours from facing off with a quarter-billion Borg drones in more than four thousand cubes, and I don't plan on letting you gold-brick your way through it. Understood?"

Kedair stared at Dax in shock, her eyes wide, her jaw slack, her back pressed as deeply into her pillows as she had been able to retreat in the face of Dax's harangue. The Takaran woman blinked, composed herself, and sat up. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up, facing Dax.