As the alien vessel was gone and had left behind no obvious warp trail or means to pursue it, that left the asteroids and what was left of DK-1116. As soon as Fife had confirmed that Demeter had sustained no serious damage during the fleet’s encounter with the aliens, O’Donnell had ordered him to begin scanning the planet and asteroids for any traces of the Edrehmaia substance, a viscous black liquid that according to Lieutenant Patel and Seven’s reports was unlike anything he or Starfleet had ever encountered.
O’Donnell had been scheduled to meet with Seven and Patel several hours ago. That meeting had been postponed by the tragedy that he firmly believed was not yet really a tragedy. His humanity demanded that he allow those around him time to recover from their shock and pain. His gut told him that this was a colossal waste of time and that every second would be much better spent searching for the truth.
A year ago, he wouldn’t have spared a thought for the feelings of his crew. He would have pushed them mercilessly to get back to their assigned duties. But unexpected loss had become a recurring theme among these men and women, and O’Donnell feared that to push them too hard was to risk breaking them.
They need time, he reminded himself.
Time he feared Galen’s crew, wherever they were now, might not have.
U.S.S. VESTA
Captain Regina Farkas was pissed. From the first moment she had stood on the surface of DK-1116, her gut had told her that something was wrong. She couldn’t put her finger on it. Its strange plants and odd structures could have belonged to any random alien world. Exploring worlds like it was the first and most important part of Starfleet’s mission statement, something she had always embraced without reservation. On paper, the fleet’s extended exploratory mission had seemed to promise a welcome respite from the hazards they had faced more or less constantly since they had arrived in the Delta Quadrant a little over a year earlier.
Even before their sensor scans of life-forms that weren’t alive had begun to register, Farkas had begun to feel deep misgivings about the planet. She had chosen to swallow her instinctive fear and focus on her duties. It hadn’t taken long, however, for her to begin to voice her concerns to the rest of the command staff and lobby for a quick return to the safety of their ships.
When the fleet had first been dispatched to determine whether or not the Borg were really and truly gone, transformed by an extremely powerful alien race known as the Caeliar, they had been nine ships. One had been wantonly destroyed by an immature race of extremophiles who called themselves the Children of the Storm. Farkas still had nightmares about that moment—small “ships” composed of super-hot chemicals that sustained the aliens surrounding the Planck. Farkas had been on an open comm line with its commanding officer, Captain T’Mar, when the ships merged and unleashed their destructive power on the Planck, vaporizing it in seconds.
Horrific as that moment had been, it had only been the prelude to the fleet’s encounter with an accident of evolution, an entire continuum of omega particles destined to one day end the universe. That mission had cost them four more ships and hundreds of lives, many of whom had been hers to protect aboard her first command with the fleet, the Quirinal.
And now, the Galen and her crew had been added to the list of casualties.
Not forty-eight hours ago, Farkas sat on the surface of DK-1116 along with Admiral Janeway, Captain Chakotay, Commander O’Donnell, and Galen’s captain, Commander Clarissa Glenn. Farkas had actually chastised Glenn for suggesting that her instinctive concerns stemmed from some latent version of post-traumatic stress.
Farkas wished she could go back now and extract the dismissiveness from her remarks in response to Glenn. She hadn’t known the commander all that well, but well enough to be certain that the kind and patient woman with the heart of an explorer had deserved better than a quick scan and a killing blow by an unknown alien vessel. Further, odds were pretty good that Glenn had a point about the old demons Farkas was still battling. The seasoned captain hated to admit her weaknesses, but facing them squarely was the only way to make sure they didn’t end up running the show. Glenn had tried to give her that chance and Farkas had snapped.
Not your finest moment, Regina.
On any other day, Farkas would have unloaded these unpleasant thoughts on her oldest and dearest friend, Doctor Sal. As it had been less than twenty-four hours since she had temporarily removed Sal from her post as CMO, she knew better than to attempt to seek comfort there.
Which left one option.
She usually made it a habit to have her thoughts well organized before she presented them to her superior officers, but in this case, she decided to make an exception. The moment Admiral Janeway’s face appeared on the screen of her ready room’s terminal, she withheld nothing.
“What’s your status, Captain Farkas?” Janeway asked crisply. In fairness, the dark circles under the admiral’s eyes and deep worry lines creasing her brow suggested that Janeway felt this new loss as keenly as Farkas did. Unfortunately for them both, Regina had misplaced her ability to empathize.
“My status? I have a little over seven hundred crew members, many of whom started this journey
