He held up a hand before Riker could speak. “And no, that’s not all. There is a more tangible goal you can achieve out there. If the quantum slipstream drive the Aventineis testing proves practical, then Starfleet is going to begin questing much farther out into the galaxy, much faster than ever before.”
“Then doesn’t that make us obsolete, sir?”
Masc smirked. “Only until we can retrofit the Lunaships with slipstream drive. But that’s probably years from now; the Federation will need to devote its resources to reconstruction for a long time to come, so we can’t make propulsion upgrades a priority. In the meantime, though, it’s in our best interest to have advance scouts out there, getting at least a basic picture of the terrain, both astrographic and political. Better to send crews like yours out to make initial contacts before we erupt into the wider galaxy at slipstream speeds. Ideally to make new friends, of course…but also to identify and assess potential threats.”
Riker studied the admiral in a new light. Masc may have been renowned for his optimism, but he was too much a veteran not to be a realist. Especially now.
“That’s been part of our mission all along, hasn’t it, Admiral?” Riker said. “Laying the groundwork for future slipstream vessels.”
“Not a formal part,” Masc replied. “You would have been told if it had been, of course. But as the slipstream research proved more promising, it became a larger factor in Starfleet’s considerations.”
Riker nodded to himself. It explained a lot. When Titanhad entered the space bounded by the Gum Nebula, a region vaster than the Federation and all its neighbors put together, it had been with the expectation of spending years there. Indeed, it would take a hundred ships centuries to make a thorough survey of such a region, and Starfleet had assigned only two—first Titanand Ganymede, but after the latter ship had taken damage and needed to return temporarily to port, Charonhad been reassigned to cover its survey zone, an assignment that had unfortunately led to its destruction at Orisha two months later.
And yet, with only Titanremaining to survey the nebula interior, Starfleet had soon ordered the vessel to head out beyond it and probe past the inner edge of the Orion Arm. The rationale had been that the star charts and databases that Titanand Charonhad obtained from regional civilizations such as the Pa’haquel, the Vomnin Confederacy, and the Gam-Pu Star Command had provided Starfleet with sufficient information on the nebula’s interior. Riker hadn’t quite understood Starfleet’s haste. Even a well-populated, well-explored region could still turn up surprises; space was so vast that even now there were star systems less than a hundred light-years from Earth that Starfleet had never sent a crewed vessel to explore. Starships racing outward to get the big picture were bound to skip over a great many discoveries. True, Riker had once declared that Titanwould always go forward, but he hadn’t meant it to be in such a rush.
“To be frank, Admiral, I’m not sure I’m happy about being just the advance scouts for the real explorers.”
“Nobody’s saying that, Will. Yes, you’ve been…encouraged to quest outward as far as possible, but you haven’t been prevented from doing real science. It’s just that your goal is to seek out the most significant discoveries, to hit the high points. Every mission has to prioritize.”
“With all due respect, Admiral, our last mission before the Borg invasion was charting an extremely dull, empty sector of the interarm expanse.”
Masc quirked a smile. “Which is where you stumbled upon the key to solving the entire Borg crisis. You never know what you’ll find until you get there, Will. Sometimes you lose the gamble, but sometimes it pays off hugely.”
Riker conceded the point. To be honest, now that he thought back on the discoveries Titanhad made over the past year, he was beginning to feel renewed excitement about returning to an exploratory mission. “So where will we go next, sir? Back to the interarm expanse? All the way to the Carina Arm, perhaps?”
Masc chuckled. “Ohh, I think we can strike a better balance between distance and thoroughness. If anything, it’s probably best to keep you relativelyclose to home, so there’s not as much delay in getting your mission reports to an eager public. But far enough out to be interesting, anyway. I can’t tell you more just yet; we’re still working out how best to redistribute the Lunafleet. Your sudden return home has left yet another gap in our coverage. We’ll let you know when we have your new course.
“For now, though, you and your crew are entitled to a long vacation. Besides, Titanstill needs plenty of repairs. Not to mention a new set of upgrades. If she’s to be the flagship of the fleet, she needs the newest and the best we have to offer. And, uh, she needs to be made as durable as possible, since you’re going to be far from any repair bases. Goodness knows, we built all the Lunas to be as resilient as we could, but after Charon, we don’t want to take any chances.”
“My crew and I appreciate it, sir.”
Masc quirked a brow. “I’m sure you and Commander Troi want your daughter to be as safe as possible.”
Riker fidgeted. “Of course, sir, I wouldn’t let my concerns as a father interfere with my duties…”
Masc waved him off. “Don’t worry about it, Captain. Honestly, right now I can’t help but feel that a child would be safer out there on the frontier than here in the Federation. We tend to present a large target, and a stationary one.”
After a somber moment, Riker asked, “And what if, while we’re out there, sir, we stumble across the next Borg or Dominion?”
The admiral smiled, but it was cheerless. “Try not to tell them where we live.”
VULCAN, STARDATE 58239.3
She found him in the desert just beyond the city borders. It had become his habit, in the weeks since they had returned home for their extended leave, to come out here to meditate—if meditation was indeed what he did. T’Pel knew that Tuvok had found it difficult to reach a meditative state in recent times. The cumulative traumas of his years in Starfleet had undermined his control, and T’Pel understood that he came out here not merely to seek an outer calm and quiet he could attempt to emulate, but to avoid the embarrassment of exposing his lack of control to their neighbors.