Twilight

Pry

Pry

“Pry

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Did I wake you?”

“No…well, yes, actually,” he said. “I’ve been lying here falling in and out of sleep, thinking and dreaming.” Shar’s voice, though low, sounded fairly strong. Pry

She reached over to where she had set the beacon down. “I’m going to turn the light out,” she warned Shar.

“Would you leave it on?” he asked. “For a few minutes?”

“Oh,” she said, surprised at the request. “Sure.” She pulled a blanket over her body.

“Did you have any success with the transporter?” Shar asked.

“Yes,” she said. “I actually got it working, but because of the interference from the energy, the range is limited.” She told him the distances to which she had successfully been able to beam objects. “I’ve started to reconfigure the environmental suits as pattern enhancers in order to address that,” she continued. “It should help, but I’m not sure how much.”

“You’re trying to use the environmental suits as pattern enhancers?” Shar asked. “I didn’t know you could do that.”

“It’s not a common practice outside of flight testing,” she explained. “I also have another idea. I’ll need your help with it, though.”

“What do you want me to do?” Shar said.

“The primary power cell for the shuttle’s internal systems was destroyed,” she said. “The backup’s intact, but it’s not working, either. Fortunately, the secondary backup is working, and that’s what I’m currently using to power the transporter.”

“All right,” Shar said.

“If we can get the primary backup cell to function,” she went on, “then I think I might be able to construct another working transporter out of what’s left of the primary, its backups, and the environmental suits.”

“If one transporter won’t help us,” Shar asked, “then what good will a second one be?”

“We can beam ourselves and the second transporter and power cell,” she explained, “and then use the second system to beam the first one to our new location. Then we can keep doing that, sort of skipping across the planet until we reach the far side, where there are breaks in the cloud cover.”

Shar seemed to think about that for a moment—Pry

“I think so too,” she said. “But the problem is that primary backup cell. I can fix it, but it’s going to take me a while to finish modifying the suits and piecing together a second transporter. I won’t have time.”

“I can do that,” Shar said. “If you tell me how to reconfigure the environmental suits, I can help with that too.”

“Good,” she said. “We’ll start on it first thing in the morning.”

Shar said nothing more, and the silence of this empty world pushed in on them. After a few minutes, Pry

“I wonder how Commander Vaughn is doing,” he said.

“I don’t know,” Pry

“Whatever happened between you and your father,” Shar said, “I’m sorry. I know what it’s like to be at odds with a parent.”

Pry

“It’s all right. I’m sorry that I said anything.”

“No,” Pry

“You’re right,” Shar said. “I don’t know.” He said nothing else, neither inviting her to say more, nor stopping her from doing so. Pry

“My mother was a Starfleet officer,” she said. “She and my father worked together a lot before I was born, but then Mom decided that she’d had enough of a soldier’s life.” Pry

When Pry

“My mother ended up on a mission with my father again,” she said. “He ordered her away team to…” Pry

“Was it the wrong decision?” Shar asked.

The question astounded Pry

“I mean…are you angry with your father because you were almost killed when the Jarada attacked us at Torona IV?” Shar asked.

“No, of course not,” Pry

“On his order,” Shar said, “we didn’t defend ourselves.”

“Because if we had, it would have put a hundred thousand Europani in danger. The Jarada would have attacked the convoy.”

“That’s right,” Shar said. “So maybe there was also a good reason for the order he gave your mother’s away team.”

No,Pry