Destiny: The Complete Saga: Gods of Night, Mere Mortals, and Lost Souls

by David Mack

  Finally, Picard said, “I take it you disagree with my decision, Will.”

  “Frankly, yes,” Riker said.

  Picard pulled back his chair and settled into it. “We can’t take that kind of risk with the Borg,” he said. “This is bigger than the Federation. If we give the Borg a chance to acquire the kind of technology the Caeliar possess, we might condemn the entire galaxy to suffer our fate—and maybe others, as well.”

  “If we don’t stop the Borg now, that’s all pretty much guaranteed,” Riker said. “Besides, you’re talking like the Federation’s already gone. If the Caeliar can help unmake the Borg, we can end this without more bloodshed and save the Federation. Isn’t that what we ought to be aiming for?”

  Hatred hardened Picard’s frown. “I’m not sure the Borg deserve such mercy,” he said.

  “Maybe not,” Riker said. “But what about the individuals trapped inside the Collective? Do they deserve it?”

  Swiveling his chair away from Riker, Picard mumbled, “Perhaps. I don’t know.”

  “Captain Hernandez seems to think they do. And given a choice, I’d rather try to save lives than destroy them.”

  “It’s not so simple a calculus,” Picard said. “How can I commit myself to aiding the enemy when my people are poised on the brink of destruction?” He turned and looked Riker in the eye. “Maybe you can explain that to me.”

  An unspoken accusation seemed to lurk in Picard’s words, and it struck an uneasy chord in Riker. “What’s really bothering you, Jean-Luc?”

  “Aside from Borg invasion fleets marauding through Federation space?”

  Riker replied, “Yes, besides that. You sounded as if you were blaming me for something. More than that, you don’t sound like yourself—not like the man I served with for fifteen years. Where’s that Jean-Luc Picard?”

  “Et tu?” Picard breathed a heavy, defeated sigh. “First Beverly, now you. Who was this other man you all claim to have known? I thought it was me, but I keep hearing otherwise.”

  “The man I know isn’t afraid to risk taking the high road,” Riker said. “He wouldn’t let fear make him choose certain defeat instead of a shot at victory, just because success might mean mercy for an enemy that had hurt him.”

  “Is that what you think this is about? A vendetta? Or some simple phobia? I wonder, then, whether you ever knew me at all.”

  “You keep pushing me away,” Riker said. “Did I do something to offend you? Was it something I said?”

  Picard shook his head. “Of course not.”

  “But there is something that’s bothering you, isn’t there?”

  “It’s not my place to interfere,” Picard said.

  “It’s not interference if your advice is invited.”

  Wound up with tension, Picard turned his chair away from Riker, stood, and paced along the bulkhead opposite the windows. He folded his hands together in front of him as he walked the length of the observation lounge, turned back, and retraced his steps. He stopped in front of the companel. “I don’t really have advice, Will. Just confusion.”

  “About what?”

  “How could you abandon Deanna?” Picard fixed Riker with a forlorn stare. “You left her behind, Will, and your away team.”

  “I did what I had to do,” Riker said, pushing back against the rising tide of his guilt.

  Picard moved in slow steps toward the windows. “Had I been in your place,” he said pensively, “I’m not sure I could have chosen duty over Beverly so easily.”

  “I never said it was easy,” Riker replied. “But I’ve seen you make decisions like that before. With Nella Daren, for one.”

  Holding up one hand, Picard replied, “That was different. For one thing, I wasn’t married to Nella.” He folded his arms. “For another, Nella wasn’t pregnant. Beverly is.”

  A surge of grief and anger clenched Riker’s jaw. All the feelings he had suppressed since Deanna left Titan rushed back in force, crowding his thoughts. He pressed his fist to his mouth as he fought to master his bitter, desperate emotions.

  Picard took note of Riker’s reaction and froze, his face a mask of embarrassment and sympathy. “What have I said, Will?”

  The last thing Riker had wanted was to make this conversation about him. He inhaled sharply and set his still-clenched fist on the tabletop. “Deanna and I …,” he began, before his voice trailed off, swallowed up in his sorrow. He composed himself and continued in a clipped, strained voice. “We—we’ve been trying to start a family. It was hard. Hormone injections. Fertility treatments. Gene therapy.” Finding a dispassionate frame of mind from which to continue was difficult. “We thought we’d done it,” he said. “About half a year ago. But it … Deanna … we had a miscarriage.”

  “Mon dieu,” Picard whispered, and he seemed to deflate as he let go of a deep breath. He looked stricken by the news as he settled back into his chair. “I’m so sorry, Will.”

  “It’s been a wedge, forcing us apart,” Riker confessed. “After she recovered, we tried again. We thought this time it would all be okay, but it wasn’t. The new embryo was deformed, and it’ll miscarry, too—it’s only a matter of time. But Deanna won’t terminate the pregnancy, even though this one could kill her. And I think it’s my fault.”

  “How is any of that your fault?” asked Picard.

  “I was supposed to be the voice of reason,” Riker said. “After the first miscarriage, I should have said enough and put an end to the whole thing. But the empathic bond between me and Deanna makes it hard to say no to her. I don’t even remember anymore which one of us wanted a family. All I know is that I’m supposed to protect her.” He slammed his fist on the table. “And when she needed me most, I left her behind! Alone, on the other side of the goddamn galaxy!” He finally unclenched his hand, but only so he could use it to cover his closed eyes.

  Sotto voce, Picard asked, “Have you tried talking with anyone about this?”

  “Yeah,” Riker said. “I talked to Chris. What a mistake.”

  “Not an easy subject for a captain to discuss with a member of his crew,” Picard said, acknowledging Riker’s dilemma. “Not even with a trusted first officer.”

  Lowering his hand, Riker opened his eyes and nodded at Picard. “Exactly,” he said. “Until now, I didn’t really get how vital it is to keep some things from my crew—how valuable personal privacy is.”

  “I understand,” Picard said. “Believe me.”

  “So, now you know what’s eating me alive,” Riker said. “Are you ready to tell me what’s bothering you?”

  Picard grimaced and drummed his fingertips on the table for a few seconds. “Our problems are similar but not the same,” he said. “What they have in common … is fatherhood.” He turned himself a few degrees closer to facing Riker and spoke in a measured hush. “For a long time, I told myself that I didn’t want a family, that I didn’t need one. Certainly, there were fleeting moments, days when I’d wonder, ‘What if …?’ But I never took them seriously. Not until Robert and René died.”

  Riker recalled the day when Picard had received the news that his brother and nephew had perished in a fire on Earth. He saw in his friend’s eyes that the pain of that tragedy still lingered in Picard’s psyche, an open emotional wound.

  “I even told myself I didn’t need love,” Picard continued. “Part of me actually believed it. Then I met Anij …” Mentioning the Bak’u woman’s name brought a wistful, fleeting smile to Picard’s face. “She showed me what I had given up and how much I really needed it. But I was still afraid. I should have just reached out to Beverly right then and made up for lost time, but I hesitated—and I almost lost her. That’s what it took for me to see what she really meant to me.” Powerful emotions threatened to crack Picard’s stoic façade, and Riker grasped how traumatic this discussion had to be for him. Picard’s eyes gleamed with the threat of tears. “So I let her into my life. And it’s been a wonder and a joy, Will. I curse myself daily for not having invited her in soone
r. But when she suggested we have a child together, I panicked. The idea terrified me.”

  With gentle curiosity, Riker asked, “Why?”

  “I concocted so many arbitrary reasons that you’d laugh if I told you half of them,” Picard said. “But the truth is, I was afraid it would be like tempting fate.” A haunted expression settled on him like a mask. “After all these years and excuses, for me to start a family … it seemed like a portent of doom. And no sooner did Beverly and I conceive our son than the Borg began their invasion.” He shook his head and permitted himself a bitter chuckle. “I feel like Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, after he shot the albatross. I indulged myself with one selfish act, and in the process, I’ve condemned countless others to suffer and die for my mistake.”

  Shaking his head in denial, Riker replied, “You can’t be serious. You don’t really believe the Borg invaded because you and Beverly conceived a child?”

  “No, of course not,” Picard said, his tone sharp with frustration. “It’s not about logic, or reason, or causality. It’s about creating new life and then being afraid you’ll have to watch it die.” He lifted his hands and covered his face for several seconds while he slowed and deepened his breathing. Then he lowered his hands and said, “It took me so long to let something real into my life, and now all I can think about is the Borg taking it away. Even if we stop this invasion, what then? What of the next one, Will? Must my family, must my son, live in the shadow of this menace every day of his life?” The anger left Picard’s voice; in its place was nothing but quiet desperation. “When will it end?”

  “It will end when we end it.” Riker leaned forward and stared at Picard until his old friend looked back at him. “I’ve seen what the Caeliar can do, Jean-Luc, and I think Hernandez is right. If anyone can stand up to the Borg, they can. I also agree with Dax. If we can end this war and save the people assimilated by the Collective, we have a duty as Starfleet officers to try.”

  Picard frowned. “And if Dax and Hernandez are wrong, we’ll unleash the greatest horror the galaxy has ever seen.”

  “So, we hasten the inevitable,” Riker said, fed up with Picard’s impenetrable pessimism. “The Borg are less than two hours from Earth. Could our plan backfire? Yes, but we can’t let that paralyze us. It’s time for a leap of faith.”

  The older man shook his head dismissively and said, “You’re talking about hope.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “We’ll need more than hope to fight the Borg.”

  “True,” Riker said. “But without it, we might as well just give up.” He got up and walked to the door, which hissed open ahead of him. Standing in the doorway, he looked back at Picard. “We can fight for hope, or we can give in to despair. The choice is yours, Jean-Luc. Let me know what you decide.”

  23

  Deanna Troi felt as light as air and more fully alive than she had in months. She stood on the center of the silver disk, behind Inyx, who guided it through the breathtaking vertical spaces between Axion’s grandiose platinum towers. A firm breeze whipped her hair behind her. Tossing her head back and basking in the soothing warmth of New Erigol’s artificial sun, it was all she could do to contain herself and not laugh out loud.

  The disk neared the tower where the away team had been housed. As she and Inyx began their gentle descent toward the penthouse’s open terrace, she saw someone approaching from the main room. A familiar psionic presence brushed against her mind, and she knew with her empathic senses before she saw with her eyes that it was Tuvok. He looked up and saw her, and then he called back inside the suite to summon the others.

  By the time she and Inyx touched down on the terrace, the entire away team had gathered to meet her. Vale, Keru, and Tuvok were at the front of the group, and Ree was close behind them. Dennisar and Sortollo flanked the doctor, and Torvig, as usual, lingered at the rear of the group, curious but also cautious.

  “Hello, everyone,” Troi said with a beaming smile.

  Keru stepped forward and bear-hugged her. “To hell with protocol,” he said. “I’m so glad you’re all right.”

  It was as if he’d opened a floodgate. Within moments, Troi found herself in the center of a group embrace with the broad-shouldered Trill, Vale, and the two security guards. Torvig kept his distance, however, and Tuvok remained aloof, as usual.

  Ree sidled over to Inyx. “What is her current condition?”

  “She is in perfect health, Doctor,” Inyx said.

  The Pahkwa-thanh physician replied, “I’d be grateful if you could show me her internal scans and serum profile.”

  Inyx looked at Troi, who was extricating herself from her friends’ arms. She nodded to the Caeliar. “It’s okay.”

  “Very well,” Inyx said. He gestured with an outstretched arm toward the far end of the terrace. “Doctor, if you’ll join me over here, I’ll brief you in full.” The scientist and the surgeon stepped away to confer.

  “How long was I gone?” Troi asked.

  Vale shrugged. “About thirteen hours.”

  Tuvok added, “And twenty-one minutes.”

  “Nice to know I was missed,” Troi said. “What have you been doing since I left?”

  “Keru and Torvig went sightseeing,” Vale said. “The good doctor’s been working on his tan, Dennisar and Sortollo played about three hundred games of checkers, and I’ve been catching up on my reading.”

  “Anything good?”

  “Believe it or not, a former ‘guest’ of the Caeliar wrote a bunch of new Captain Proton novels,” Vale said. She chortled softly. “I feel like I found a latinum mine.”

  “I’ll bet,” Troi said. She looked up as Inyx and Ree returned to the group. “Everything all right, Doctor?”

  Ree tasted the air with a flick of his tongue and said, “To my amazement, everything appears to be perfect.”

  Vale discreetly rested her hand on Troi’s shoulder and gave it a congratulatory squeeze. “Finally, some good news.”

  Inyx made a rattling rasp of a sound and commanded the team’s attention. “I apologize in advance for ruining your jubilant mood,” he said, “but now that Deanna’s medical crisis is resolved, I think it might be time to share news of a less celebratory nature.”

  Keru asked, “About what?”

  “About your home, the Federation,” Inyx said. He conjured an oval surface of liquid metal that immediately came alive with sharp, clear images of distant worlds being assaulted by Borg cubes. “It appears that an enemy is waging a successful attack on your nation. Many of your worlds have been destroyed, including some known as Regulus, Lorillia, and Deneva.”

  At the mention of Deneva, Troi felt a pang of psionic alarm from Tuvok. It was acute enough to pierce the veil of the group’s shared anxiety as they watched the images of destruction unfold on the hovering screen before them. The scene shifted to a starship graveyard in a blue-gas nebula. Hundreds of smashed, blackened vessels tumbled erratically on the screen.

  “I thought you should know,” Inyx continued, “that this information was what compelled your captain to take his ship home and leave you in our custody. In the past, the Quorum has restricted our guests’ access to this kind of information. However, I found that Erika placed a great deal of importance on staying informed about events affecting her home, and I thought you might share her interest in such matters.”

  Vale stepped forward and interposed herself between the away team and the oval screen. “All right, that’s enough. Everyone, fall out, find something else to do. Commander Troi and I will brief you all later.” The others looked at her and were reluctant to leave. “That’s an order. Dismissed.”

  Torvig turned and gamboled off at a quick step, while Dennisar and Sortollo glowered and slunk away from the terrace. Ree, Keru, and Tuvok made grudging exits, leaving Vale and Troi alone with Inyx. Vale sighed and said to him, “It’s not that I don’t appreciate the gesture, but that kind of news can be bad for morale. It would be better if the counselor and I could discuss it with y
ou and ascertain what the facts are before we decide what to share with the rest of the team.”

  “As you wish,” Inyx said. “I didn’t mean to upset you.” He looked at the images flashing across the screen. “I should have realized how distressing this would be.”

  Troi noted a melancholy undertone in his voice. “Are you also concerned by this news?”

  “Yes, a great deal,” he said.

  Touching Inyx’s arm in what she hoped would be construed as a gesture of compassion, Troi said, “You’re worried about Captain Hernandez.”

  “I am. That far from Axion, Erika’s vulnerable.” Inyx’s voice resonated with sadness. “She could be harmed … or killed.” He looked away from the screen, at Troi and Vale. “It would be such a waste. Erika is the most vital, vibrant being I’ve met in dozens of millennia.”

  A knowing look passed between Vale and Troi, and the first officer sounded surprised as she asked, “Inyx, are you in love with Captain Hernandez?”

  The looming alien bowed at the waist and half turned away, as if to conceal his ever-dour visage. “I don’t know if our species experience love the same way,” he said. “All I can say is that for me, she made eternity worth contemplating.”

  Vale threw a wry look at Troi and said, “That’s about as good a definition of love as I’ve ever heard. Counselor?”

  “Yes,” Troi said. “I’d have to agree.”

  * * *

  Nanietta Bacco’s office was dark except for the pale light of a waning gibbous moon and the amber glow of Paris at midnight.

  Bacco stood at the far western end of the spacious, crescent-shaped room and leaned her shoulder into the nook between the wall and the floor-to-ceiling window.

  The cityscape looked serene, partly because the night sky was unusually empty of air traffic. Most of the people who had some other place to go were there already.

  The last report from Secretary of Transportation Iliop had indicated that nearly six hundred million people had fled Earth in the past six days. Some of the planet’s smaller cities reportedly had taken on the airs of ghost towns. Paris was no exception, and neither were London, New York, Tokyo, and Mumbai.