“Anyway, I have to go,” Krotine said. “Commander Pazlar is giving a presentation on the sectors ahead. I love stellar cartography on this ship. Isn’t the microgravity great?”
Deanna made a noncommittal noise; she vomited quite enough these days in normal gravity. But she smiled and told Krotine to enjoy herself, and basked in the wave of confident good cheer that came with the Boslic’s gentle grin.
Indeed, as she moved through the corridors and extended her senses, she felt Krotine’s eager anticipation reflected in most of the minds around her. Titanwas finally about to cross into uncharted territory once more—the Canis Major region this time, out beyond Adhara and Muliphen, between the Gum Nebula and the Orion Reach. Right now they were just within the fringes of the Kavrot Sector, a territory charted by the Klingons’ Chancellor-class fleet four or five years back—and naturally Pazlar’s cartography teams were taking extensive scans, for the Klingons had been more interested in prospective conquests than pure science. But even so, it was still charted territory. In the wake of the Borg invasion, the Klingon-Federation alliance was stronger than ever, so much so that a Starfleet vessel could travel through space claimed by the Empire without being challenged and gain access to the Klingons’ cartographic data without going through a lot of noise about imperial secrets.
To be sure, these were interesting times for the Federation and its neighbors. The Borg onslaught had shattered their political, economic, and social stability, and the consequences were just starting to be felt. Deanna regretted leaving that behind; not only could her skills as a diplomat prove useful in coping with those crises, but it would be fascinating from a sociological perspective to experience how the civilizations of known space adjusted to their new reality. Would they fragment still further, or come together as never before?
But in her heart of hearts, she was an explorer, and so was Will Riker. And she shared this vessel with three hundred and fifty other explorers, all ready to quest into the unknown. True, it would not be easy for many of them to shake off the baggage of the recent past. Most of them had suffered some loss in the invasion, or simply been wounded in their souls by the profound destruction and death. That would linger with them for a long time to come. But Titan’s crew was ready to face ahead once again.
No matter how much they’d lost…there was always something new to be found.
CHAPTER O
NE
U.S.S. TITAN, STARDATE 58497.1
“We call it Droplet.”
Melora Pazlar tried to rein in her enthusiasm about the small blue-white dot that was displayed behind her on the holographic viewer in Titan’s main briefing room, the best view the sensors could get so far of the fourth planet of UFC 86783. The rest of the command crew didn’t yet know what was so exceptional about this planet, so she didn’t want to go overboard. Of course, she was here to convince them that this world, out of all the current candidates, should be the vessel’s next destination. But it wasn’t in her nature to broadcast her emotions too openly, even among people she knew as well as this crew. As a fragile, low-gravity Elaysian living in a high-grav environment, she didn’t like to feel vulnerable.
Deanna Troi leaned forward, no doubt sensing the excitement Melora held in check. She couldn’t lean forward too easily, since she was huge now, looking as though she could give birth any day. She had long since eschewed a standard uniform for loose maternity dresses in the blue and green shades of her department. It suited her, Melora thought. She found it odd the way humans talked about pregnant women having a “glow” about them, but Troi did seem to have a certain radiance these days. “A water world?” the counselor asked.
“More than that,” Melora responded. “A classic Léger-type ocean planet, class O, subclass L1. About three times the mass of Earth, nearly half of it water ice. Slightly lower than Terrestrial gravity due to the low density.”
“So what makes it interesting?” asked Ranul Keru. “We’ve charted plenty of those.” The large, bearded Trill had been a stellar cartographer once, but his priorities had shifted since his move to security. At the moment, he was preoccupied with this morning’s update from Starfleet about the developing situation with the newly emerged Typhon Pact. As if the crew hadn’t felt guilty enough about flying off into the unknown while the rest of the Federation dealt with the aftermath of the Borg invasion, the existence of this new rival power had been revealed mere days after Titanhad crossed into uncharted space. Eight weeks later, it was still unclear what the rise of the Pact meant for the Federation’s future, and there was nothing the crew could do but watch and wait.
“Yes, but they’re usually not inhabited.”
Keru blinked. “And this one is?”
“Undoubtedly. We thought the oh-two levels might be from water vapor dissociation, but there’s a strong ozone line in its spectrum too, meaning the oxygen has to be biogenic. Plus there’s a substantial chlorophyll signature. It’s hard to get more detailed readings at this distance, due to the sensor interference.” As she’d mentioned at the start of the briefing, UFC 86783 had an unusually dense disk of asteroidal debris for a system of its age, one rich in exotic minerals and radioisotopes that interfered with scans. “But we’ve managed to cut through the interference enough to get dynoscanner readings suggesting abundant higher-order life.”
“On an L1? You’re certain?” Melora answered Keru’s question with a nod, smiling. He definitely wasn’t dwelling on the Typhon Pact anymore.