by Susan Wright
The Best and the Brightest
( Star Trek: The Next Generation )
Susan Wright
Every year, Starfleet Academy in San Francisco attracts many of the most talented and ambitious young people in the Federation. They come from all over the Alpha Quadrant, from hundreds of worlds and species, to prepare themselves for the challenges of the final frontier. Meet a new generation of cadets: a newly joined Trill just beginning the first of many lives; a Bajoran Vedek who finds himself torn between his vows and an unspoken love; a reckless young man fond of pushing the limits; a feline alien raised among humans; a brilliant but immature young woman with a lot to learn; and a native-born Earth woman with a talent for engineering.Together they will learn about courage, life, teamwork, and themselves. Their future is just beginning -- but one of them will not survive.
The Best and the Brightest
by Susan Wright
Prologue
Summer, 2371
WHEN SHE HEARD THE NEWS, Jayme Miranda was in exocellular biology class, part of an intensive summer course at Starfleet Academy. At first the rumors seemed unlikely, an exaggeration of a severe battle. But even that was frightening enough to send her running to the comm to try to reach her great‑aunt, Marley Miranda, an admiral at Starfleet Headquarters.
As Aunt Marley’s image appeared on the screen, Jayme could have been looking at herself in forty years–all the Mirandas had the same straight, dark hair and strong‑boned face. Jayme knew her family considered her to be the “excitable” one, so she didn’t bother concealing her fear as her aunt confirmed that the EnterpriseD had crashed on Veridian III. Even worse, a fatality had occurred during the battle with a Klingon bird‑of‑prey commanded by the Duras sisters. While they were talking, an official statement was released notifying the United Federation of Planets about the crash of Starfleet’s flagship.
“Who was killed?” Jayme asked her aunt. “Was it . . . Ensign Moll Enor?”
“The name hasn’t been released, pending notification of next of kin.” Before Jayme could insist, her great‑aunt added, “I don’t know, Jayme.”
“How long before you find out?” she asked, feeling frantic inside. “It’s been hours since the crash.”
“As soon as I hear, I’ll call you,” Marley assured her, looking concerned herself.
Jayme managed not to panic as her aunt signed off. Instead, she tried every trick she knew to get hold of Moll via the starship Farragutor one of the other starships assigned to the salvage and rescue of the Enterprisecrew. But over one thousand crewmembers had been on board the Enterprise, and Starfleet was requesting that only family members contact Veridian III.
Later that evening, another cadet poked her head into Jayme’s room, interrupting her efforts. Jayme glanced at the chrono, hardly able to believe that, this time yesterday, Moll and the Enterprisehad been perfectly all right.
“Did you hear?” the cadet asked her.
Jayme was nodding, but the cadet added in a hushed voice, “They’re saying that the crewmember who was killed was someone we know from the Academy.”
Jayme couldn’t even answer, choked with the same foreboding she’d had for weeks, ever since Moll had told her about Jadzia Dax. Dax, an old friend of Moll’s from the Initiate Institute, had been forced to return to the Trill homeworld because of a serious symbiont malady. Jayme had been studying Trill physiology ever since she met Moll, fascinated by the joint humanoid and symbiont species, yet fearful of the many things that could go wrong with the delicate balance.
But this–Moll killed during a battle with Klingons! It was unbelievable. Why, barely four weeks ago they were vacationing in Rahm‑Izad. Jayme kept trembling with suppressed agony and rage, afraid that it would be true, that Moll was . . .
Jayme got on the comm again, determined not to quit until she spoke to someone who could officially confirm that Moll Enor was alive.
Bobbie Ray Jefferson had been on an airboat trip for a few days with friends, cruising down the Canadian River, when he returned to his parents’ environmental bubble‑spread in the Texas panhandle. The bubble‑spread overlooked the vivid blue waters of gorgeous Lake Meredith, reflecting the endless sky overhead. As he tried to find his parents among the crowd, he overheard guests talking about James T. Kirk, killed on Veridian III at the same time the Enterprisehad crashed.
It was easy to pick out his mother, the only Rex among a group of humans seated near the fireplace. Her fine, golden brown fur was covered with a hooded cloak, and she towered head and shoulders above her friends as she gracefully held court.
“Darling,” his mother called, gesturing him closer. This bubble was having a gentle snowstorm, but for once she didn’t seem bothered by the way his dirty shorts and tank top clashed with the decor. “You know people on that starship, don’t you?”
“Sure,” he agreed, knowing his mother loved having ac direct connection to things. “Three members of my first Quad‑”
“That must be a record!” she exclaimed, looking at the others as she made her point. Her long fingernails were painted bronze, complementing the dark fur around her face. “ Threemembers.”
“Sure, Moll Enor, Nev Reoh, and Hammon Titus.”
One of the guests, a young Kostolain who had been trying to catch his eye, asked, “Aren’t you worried about your friends?”
“On the Enterprise?”Bobbie Ray countered, laughing at the idea. “What’s to worry about?”
“But it crashed,” she insisted, smiling now that she had his attention.
“It’s still the Enterprise,”he reminded her. “It’s built like a brick . . .” His mother’s disapproving eyes made him think better of finishing the sentence. “Look, Mom,” he continued, more decorously. “The only thing that’ll happen is that Titus, my old roommate, will bore everyone sick with his stories. I would have been on the Enterprise, too, if I had gotten that field assignment–”
“I’m glad you didn’t,” his mother assured him, shuddering.
“They’ll probably build another Enterprise,”Bobbie Ray told the Kostolain. “It’ll be in commission by the time I graduate.”
“I’m sure you’ll serve on it someday,” his mother blithely contradicted herself, completely missing the interplay going on between him and the Kostolain. “You always distinguish yourself, darling.”
Bobbie Ray grinned to himself as he left the group, swiping some meat puffs on his way out. He and his mother might as well speak two different languages, but he couldn’t get upset, knowing that he would never have gotten into Starfleet Academy without his parents’ connections in high places. Even though his family had accepted the local customs and he had been born on Earth–in Texas, in fact–he still needed a high‑ranking Starfleet officer to vouch for him, since the scattered Rex population had never joined the Federation.
Bobbie Ray knew he could have stayed and charmed the Kostolain a while longer, but in spite of his assurances, he wanted to find out exactly what had happened to the Enterprise.s He knew it was dangerous sometimes being in Starfleet, but that was the trade‑off you made for living life more intensely. He had already seen it and experienced it for himself during his field assignments. The people in Starfleet were getting more from every moment than anyone else in the galaxy, and he was glad to be part of that.
Starsa found out about the Enterprisewhile she and some fellow cadets were backpacking through the six inhabited planets of the Rigel system. They all heard the news shortly after disembarking from their transport, standing in the Stargazer Lobby of Starbase 34 with their gear piled haphazardly around them.
/> Starsa, like the others, quickly accessed the communiquйs waiting for them at the starbase. Jayme hadn’t sent a message, which was strange. Usually Starsa got all her inside information from Jayme, who would surely know the identity of the crewmember who had died on board the Enterprise.
Starsa couldn’t stop thinking about Nev Reoh’s last message (they arrived like clockwork every month, ever since he had graduated a year ago). He had mentioned he might transfer to a post at Starfleet Academy at the beginning of the school year. Starsa couldn’t understand why the Bajoran wanted to leave the best ship in Starfleet, and she hadn’t answered him. Now that she thought about it, she hadn’t answered the past few communiques. Reoh was much better at sustaining their friendship than she was.
Without waiting to find out where her companions would be staying on Starbase 34, she ran to find a comm so she could send Reoh a message. Every nice thing the older cadet had ever done for her flooded back–helping with her science assignments, taking care of her when she had acclimation sickness, and explaining why Riker and his girlfriend got upset when she wandered into his room to watch them. She had thought they were just wrestling–how was she to know any different?
Reoh was the only one who understood she was simply curious, that she wasn’t deliberately trying to be annoying. There were so many strange customs she didn’t understand her first year, and without Reoh’s hesitant suggestions–which she had usually laughed at, but basically tried to follow–she would have gotten in twice as much trouble.
The comm told her it would take five days for her message to reach the rescue ships, so it was routed to Earth to await the return of the Enterprisecrew‑members.
Starsa checked her passage back to Earth, departing early the next morning. It would take nearly a week to return, but with some creative juggling, she still might make it before the rescue ships returned to Starfleet Headquarters.
Chapter One
First Year, 2368‑69
JAYME TOOK THE STAIR‑LIFT two steps at a time, but the antique monorail let out a melodious chime, announcing the closing of the doors. Using the guardrail as support, she propelled herself onto the platform as the monorail began to silently slide away from the Academy station.
It was nearly midnight, so there were no people on the platform and few were inside the monorail. Jayme ran alongside the train, nearing the edge of the platform, unable to stop and give up. She could see Elma sitting inside, her head held high and her back stiff, unable to relax and lean back even in the empty passenger compartment. Jayme could also see her own tricorder in Elma’s hand.
She scrabbled to get hold of the monorail, but its smooth, modular design gave her no purchase. As it began to pick up speed, Jayme lunged desperately at the rear of the last car. One of her booted feet got purchase on the small brake box protruding right over the rail.
Her fingers strained to hang on to the groove of the rear window, and she realized she had made a very bad mistake. She was wearing the new waffle‑cut style shoes instead of her regulation Starfleet‑issue boots. As the monorail pulled out of the Academy station, heading into San Francisco and parts unknown, along with Elma and the tricorder, Jayme’s foot slid off the brake box.
Jayme hit the rail with a solid ooff!and tried to grab on. The double rail was about a meter wide, and her arms could barely get around it. As her legs went over, she had nothing to grab hold of. She hung for a second by one elbow, and almost stuck her hand into the tempting grooves on the side of the rail. Anyone else would have, but Jayme’s trained engineering reflexes made her jerk away from the highly charged conduit.
She had just enough time to congratulate herself on her own wisdom before she fell.
It flashed through her mind during the twelve‑meter drop that it was her own fault if she got killed. Then she hit something solid, but not solid, sending a tingling energy shock wave through her body as her stomach seemed to keep on falling. She let herself go limp, knowing better than to resist a forcefield.
All she could see beneath her were the orange, gaping mouths of Ibernian tulips, freshly planted and protected from dimwits like her by a force field bubble. She slid off the side of the bubble, headfirst into the grass.
Rubbing her head, Jayme groaned at the rips in her cadet uniform. One sleeve was hanging by a few threads, looking exactly the way the pulled muscle in her shoulder felt. Next to her, the blue residue of ionization crackled over the flowers before the forcefield became invisible again.
At least it was the dead of night, so there wasn’t a crowd gathering around. Jayme knew she should feel lucky at her narrow escape–the cobblestone pathway was two paces away–but she was upset about Elma getting away. Where was Elma taking her tricorder? She knew her roommate had taken it before, but the temporary memory of the tricorder was always erased after Elma used it. So Jayme had been watching her carefully for several weeks to catch her in the act.
She pulled a small device from the roomy trouser pocket of her cadet uniform. With a few keystrokes, she activated the homing beacon she had recently planted inside the tricorder, and a map appeared on the tiny holoscreen. A green blip appeared, moving slowly across the grid as the centuries‑old monorail system carried Elma east of the Presidio, into San Francisco. Jayme glanced around, looking for the Golden Gate Bridge to orient herself. The graceful span of the bridge was visible from almost everywhere on the Academy grounds.
“That was pretty impressive,” a voice said right behind her.
The homing map flew into the air as Jayme startled. If it wasn’t for the forcefield, she would have crushed the tulips a second time.
Her hands clutched at her chest, staring at the intruder, her heart beating faster than it had from the fall. “Who are you?”
A woman stepped forward, letting the light of the monorail tower fall on her smooth, dark skin. For a moment, from the strange shape of her head, Jayme thought it was an alien she’d never seen before–and she had seen more than most. Then she realized the woman was wearing an odd, bulbous hat made of some kind of plushy maroon material.
“I’m Guinan. And who are you?”
“Cadet Jayme Miranda,” she replied, straightening her uniform. She ignored the hanging rags of her black sleeve as she tried to regain her dignity. “You’re not Starfleet, are you?”
“Not exactly. I’m the bartender on the Enterprise.”
“The bartender?” Jayme repeated incredulously.
Guinan stooped and picked up the homing map, considering it. “You know, on Earth, electronic eavesdropping is illegal.”
“It’s my own tricorder,” Jayme quickly defended herself. “My roommate took it.”
One smooth brow lifted, slightly incredulous. “Your roommate stole your tricorder? Is that why you almost killed yourself?”
Jayme wasn’t about to mention the extra gadgets it had taken months to jury‑rig into that tricorder. “It’s more than that. Elma’s a member of my Quad, she’s my roommate. We’re responsible for each other.”
Guinan’s eyes narrowed slightly, as if considering the well‑known Starfleet policy that made a unit out of the eight cadets living on each floor of the dormitory towers. The Quads were often a cadet’s first taste of what it took to be a team. If a cadet got in bad enough trouble, the members of their Quad were questioned and if negligence was found, then they were disciplined as well.
Overhead, a monorail chimed as it pulled into the tower station. Voices emerged from the cars and a few cadets descended the stair‑lift on the other side of the station, disappearing toward the Quads. The hum of the white monorail as it smoothly passed by overhead wasn’t loud, but Guinan watched it with interest as if she had never seen anything like it before.
Jayme decided to take the offensive. “What are you doing here? I thought the Enterprisewas in the Signat system for those trade negotiations.”
“They are. I’m here to see a friend.”
“Here at the Academy?” Jayme asked doubtfully, eyeing the bar
tender’s outlandish costume again. If she had a few hours and a bonding tool, she might be able to make something interesting out of Guinan’s tunic and that hat–but right now all you could see was the round oval of her face.
Guinan’s pleasant expression never changed. “You may know him. His name is Wesley Crusher.”
Jayme stopped herself from letting out a laugh of disbelief. Wesley Crusher?Who didn’tknow Crusher and the rest of the Nova Squadron, who had tried and failed to perform a Kolvoord Starburst?
“Yeah, he’s in the class ahead of me,” Jayme said diplomatically, leaving out the fact that the members of Nova Squadron were repeating a year.
“You don’t sound very sympathetic,” Guinan told her.
Stung, Jayme protested, “There’s only so much you can sympathize, especially when people do stupid things. Besides, we’re allgetting punished because of Joshua Albert’s death. The Academy has clamped down on everyone, like we can’t be trusted because a few cadets made a mistake.”
Guinan shrugged slightly, undisturbed by Jayme’s outburst. “People make mistakes. It could have happened to anyone. It could happen to you.”
“Excuse me, I know he’s a friend of yours, but I wouldn’t do anything like that.”
Guinan smiled, glancing up at the gleaming monorail overhead. “You wouldn’t?”
Jayme shifted, trying to ignore the bed of Ibernian tulips that seemed to be mocking her with their vibrant orange mouths. “That’s different. I’m trying to help my roommate. I can’t just turn her into Academy security.”
“Have you tried talking to her?” Guinan asked.
“Of course! I try all the time, but she’s . . . she’s an odd person. Elma grew up on Holt, in the habitat domes.”
Guinan nodded as if she knew Holt well. “You would value your privacy, too, if you lived with that many people under one roof.”
“So you understand my problem!” Jayme exclaimed in relief. “She won’t confide in me, and I’m afraid she’s gotten into something over her head.”