Another thought of the shuttle brought with it those of its fate, and of Deanna’s as well. They’d survived a lot together, enough for him to cling to the hope that they might yet come through this, but then he’d never been so completely severed from contact with her before. There had never been that yawning emptiness inside him that was shaped like her.

  “Sir,” said Tuvok. “Are you well?”

  “Fine,” said Riker, resuming his poker face. He doubted he fooled Tuvok’s telepathic sensibilities, but he didn’t have the luxury of showing the junior officers how deeply her loss affected him. He told Tuvok to take who he needed and get the shields up ASAP.

  “Yes, Captain,” said the Vulcan, and turned to go.

   “Incoming vessel,”said Kesi’s voice over the comm. “Captain and tactical officer to the bridge.”

  The alien ship had survived after all. The sensors still had a hard time keeping a fix on it, but now that it was close enough, they could use the midrange viewers to get a look.

  No one present was happy with the sight. Whether intentionally by its makers or simply as a result of an unfortunate esthetic, the vessel resembled, at least to Riker, some sort of bizarre mixture of a predator insect and the head of a trident.

  They had registered the thing discharging a massive amount of energy when it had first appeared, and everyone had assumed it to be a weapon. They couldn’t be sure, with the sensors malfunctioning, but the power of the device, whatever it was, dwarfed their own phasers.

  This in itself wouldn’t necessarily have given Riker much pause-he’d smacked down enemies possessed of superior weaponry before. But those had mostly been in stand-up fights where he or his allies had been in possession of the full range of offensive and defensive accessories.

  Now, with Titanwobbling in the marsh of bizarre energies, made even worse by the recent eruption, with her shields failing and her weapons mostly offline or untrustworthy, he knew this would be anything but a stand-up fight.

  “That seems unfair,” said Bohn, watching the alien ship glide easily and ominously toward them through the soup. “How are they getting away with that?”

  “I am endeavoring to ascertain the answer to that exact question,” said Tuvok.

  “Are those warp nacelles?” said Riker.

  “Something similar, sir,” said Tuvok. “Scanning is difficult with so much distortion, but it seems they are somehow compensating for local conditions with some sort of external field buffers.”

  “Can we do the same?” said Riker.

  “I think not,” said Tuvok, pensive. “Though there is a large margin of error, current scans indicate the approaching vessel to be out of phase with normal space.”

  Under normal circumstances this news would have soured Riker’s mood. Years before he had been indirectly associated with a former C.O.’s ambition to create a cloak that could make a ship into a virtual ghost, able to pass through matter and energy without damage. Such a vessel would be the perfect weapon, capable of horrible destruction and at the same time totally immune to counterattack.

  The results of Starfleet’s abortive work had been both disastrous and tragic, leaving several officers dead and those in charge of the project with years’ worth of guilt over their actions.

  All the Alpha Quadrant’s major powers had since tried to make the cloak work. Thus far none had succeeded, for which Riker was always grateful. He’d had a bellyful of war over the last decade, and the conflict ensuing from the successful development of the phased cloak was something he didn’t want to entertain.

  There was one upshot that, in spite of everything, brought a very slight smile to Captain Riker’s face.

  “Mr. Tuvok,” he said. “Arm the first volley of quantum torpedoes and have them ready to fire on my order.” Plasma weapons and energy beams might not be effective here, but Riker had yet to see any energetic system, phased or unphased, that a few well-placed torpedoes couldn’t disrupt.

  Maybe this fight, if it came to that, might be more stand-up than he had supposed. He hoped it would surprise the hell out of the aliens as well, should that be their intention.

  He was about to tell Tuvok to hail them and get this ball rolling when Titansuddenly ceased its pitch and roll, resuming the normal, relatively upright position that her crew enjoyed. The shields were back up.

  Riker couldn’t hear it, but he was sure there was some version of cheering rippling through the decks below. Good news always travels fast.

  “Shields at eighty-three percent and holding,” said the Vulcan without any display of triumph.

  “Well done, Mr. Tuvok,” said Riker. “If you can get Titansome of our new friends’ maneuverability or the warp core back into the green zone, I may have to promote you.”

  “Unnecessary, sir,” said Tuvok, bending to whatever new set of problems had flashed across his screens. “I have Mr. Jaza’s sensor pod team working on the problem now.”

  That made sense. Jaza’s people had the most direct experience with the strange phenomena present in this region. They would have the best chance at turning the new data into something they could use.

  “Good,” said Riker, never taking his eyes off the new ship. It had taken a position almost directly in front of Titanand now hung there, perhaps waiting for some indication from Riker of his ship’s intentions.

   Well, thought the captain, taking in the sight. That’s not provocative.

  He told Tuvok to hail the aliens. “This is Captain William T. Riker of the Federation Starship Titan,” he said when the Vulcan looked up. “We have entered your space peacefully, seeking some missing comrades of ours and-”

   And you killed my wife, he wanted to say. He was suddenly so angry at the thought of her death in this useless situation that he almost wished the aliens would fire on them and give him an excuse to vent.

  His words were cut short by a burst of static as Titan’s universal translator, fighting both the effects of the distortion outside the ship and the vagaries of the alien language, attempted to do its job.

   “You dare to call yourselves peaceful!”said a low, grating voice that was full of clicks and humming. “You dare to approach Erykon’s Eye!”

  “There’s much here that we don’t understand,” said Riker. “Our mission here is only to-”

  Again his words were cut short by a burst of angry static as the UT tried and failed to translate the alien’s angry words. It wasn’t really necessary. Everyone present got the gist.

  “ Orisha is gone, [possible meaning: soulless] creatures!” said the alien captain, enraged to the point of incoherence. “It has been destroyed by the[possible meaning: wrath/judgment] of the Eye! You awakened the[possible meaning: Holy] Eye! You invited Erykon’s[possible meaning: destruction/anger] !”

  “We meant no insult to you or your people,” said Riker, silently motioning for Tuvok to provide him with a visual component to the signal. “We are only-”

   “You will be punished,”said the alien voice. “I am A’churak’zen, first among Erykon’s children, and it is my joy to purge you from creation!”

  Communication was abruptly severed before Tuvok could provide a visual, but Riker didn’t need one now. The alien captain had confirmed her connection to Orisha, and he had a basic idea of what to expect. He pictured a small army of four-armed insectoids, each seething with fury over the death of their world and holding Titanand her crew to blame.

  Oddly enough, he knew precisely how they felt.

  “They are charging some weapon, Captain,” said Tuvok. “The readings are different from the ones we took earlier.”