“He’s shown he knows how to take command,” I said, “but it could raise some hackles with others who have seniority in that department.”
“That’s his problem,” Riker said, with a smile. “Seriously, he’ll figure it out. That just leaves the question of who takes over his spot at conn.”
“My preference would be Wesley,” I said. “Too bad he’s going with his mother.”
“You’ve come a long way,” Riker said. I had: I’d come to appreciate the young man, my old friend’s son, who’d taken the role of relief conn officer. He would be leaving the ship to accompany his mother to her new posting, after he finished his school term in a few weeks.
“Bridge to Captain Picard,” Geordi said, over the intercom. “We’re arriving at Starbase 57.”
“Very well, assume standard orbit,” I said, “and inform Dr. Crusher.” I hoped Will hadn’t noticed that my voice cracked when I said this. If he had, he gave no indication.
A few minutes before she was scheduled to depart the ship, I excused myself from the bridge, saying I would return momentarily, and went down to sickbay. I don’t know that I expected to say anything significant to Beverly; I just wanted one last moment alone with her.
When I got to sickbay, her office was empty.
“Can I help you, sir?” It was Nurse Ogawa, a young ensign who’d just joined the staff.
“I was looking for Dr. Crusher.”
“Oh, I’m afraid she left,” Ogawa said. This set off a bit of a panic, but I controlled myself, nodded to Ogawa, and left as quickly as I could without looking rushed. I headed to Transporter Room 1. When the corridor was empty, I increased my pace to almost a run, then returned to a walk if someone appeared. I arrived at the transporter room. Chief O’Brien was alone in the room.
“Has Dr. Crusher beamed down yet?”
“No, sir. Not yet.” I nodded and left the room. I was short of breath, beginning to sweat. This was no good, and I realized in my tizzy that I’d avoided the most obvious solution to the problem.
“Computer,” I said, “locate Dr. Crusher.”
“Dr. Crusher,” the computer said, “is in the captain’s ready room.”
I was such a fool. She was of course coming to request permission to leave the ship. I took a deep breath, and leisurely made my way back to the bridge. As I headed for the ready room, Beverly stepped out.
“Oh, I was waiting for you,” she said.
“Yes,” I said. “My apologies. I was called away.” That was a stupid lie; the entire bridge crew was watching us, and they knew I hadn’t been called anywhere. I quickly led her back into the room.
“So,” I said. “You’re ready to depart.”
“Yes. Thank you again for letting Wesley stay a few more weeks.”
“It is my pleasure. He’s a valued member of the crew.”
We stared at each other, smiling a bit uneasily.
“I want to thank you,” I said. “Your presence here was of enormous help to me.”
“I’m sorry I can’t stay.”
“If you ever want to come back…”
“That might be difficult if you have another chief medical officer.”
“I will make it work,” I said. She reached out and took my hand, then leaned in to kiss me on the cheek.
“Request permission to depart,” she said.
“Granted,” I said. She turned and left. Again, I let a moment pass where I could have told her how I really felt about her. I didn’t want her to leave, but hadn’t the strength to risk stopping her.
Two weeks later, it was time for Wesley to leave, and he came to see me in my ready room.
“Captain Picard, I’ve thought about this a lot,” Wesley said. “I want to remain on the Enterprise.” I looked at the young man. He was on his way to becoming a Starfleet officer, but he was still young, he needed parenting, and I was afraid of assuming those responsibilities. I gave him an indication that I wasn’t sure.
“Captain,” he said, “this is where I want to be. This is where I feel I belong.” I listened in silence, then dismissed him without giving him an answer. He had started me thinking of my own youth, the feeling of disconnection from my family and home. And here we’d given this young man a place that he felt a connection to. I thought of the father he’d been denied. Nothing could make up for that, but perhaps the Enterprise could come close. I decided to let him stay.
It was also a way to guarantee that I would never fully lose contact with Beverly.
* * *
“Q set a series of events into motion,” Guinan said, “bringing contact with the Borg much sooner than it should have come.” We were playing three-dimensional chess in Ten-Forward, the bar that Riker had converted from forward station one. It was a wild success. In a short time, it had become second nature for the crew to gather in this room to relax, socialize, or even work. I was spending time with Guinan after a traumatic encounter with Q, who had introduced us to what would become the Federation’s most dangerous adversary. The Borg.
“You’re just raw material to them,” Guinan said. The Borg are a cybernetic species that assimilated other cultures. They literally scooped cities off of worlds, taking their inhabitants. They would then alter them with cybernetic implants. The minds of the species they assimilate become one with the Borg collective consciousness. This one mind allowed them to work together with deadly efficiency. Guinan spoke from experience: her people, the El-Aurians, were victims of such an assimilation. “Since they are aware of your existence…”
She let her sentence hang unfinished; it was clear what she was implying. “They will be coming,” I said.
“You can bet on it,” Guinan said.
“Maybe Q did the right thing for the wrong reason,” I said. Q had used his immense power to transport my ship 7000 light-years away in an instant, where we encountered a Borg cube, one of their giant ships. We were no match for them and were only able to escape when I begged Q to save us.
“How so?” Guinan said.
“Well, perhaps what we most needed was a kick in our complacency, to prepare us for what lies ahead.” I made my last move on our chessboard, and Guinan saw that I’d beaten her. She smiled, but then it faded as someone else came into the room. I turned to see Mr. Worf, carrying a PADD.
“Here is the list of the missing, sir,” Worf said. When the Borg had attacked, they had sliced out a section of the ship. Eighteen people had been in that section and were now missing, presumed dead. I looked at the names on the list, many of which I recognized. Logan, Torres, Whalen, Solis, T’su… young people at the start of their careers. Gone.
A terrible cost for this encounter. I had been too cavalier to refer to this as a “kick” in our complacency.
“Excuse me, Guinan,” I said. “I have to go write to their families.”
* * *
“Dr. Pulaski,” I said, “I’m afraid I don’t think this is working out.” Katherine Pulaski had been chief medical officer for about a year when I decided I’d had enough. She was exceedingly competent in her job,5 but she had taken to openly disagreeing with me one too many times, even at certain points insulting me. The news I was giving her didn’t seem to be much of a surprise.
“I was going to ask for a transfer,” she said. “Because, with all due respect, from the minute I came on board, it was clear to me you didn’t want me to succeed in this job.”
“I’m not sure that’s quite fair,” I said, though in a way I knew she was right. “What actions can you point to that support that?”
“I’m afraid I can’t point to a single incident,” Pulaski said. “It’s just a feeling that I had from you that I was unwelcome.”
“I’m sorry you felt that way,” I said. I couldn’t argue with her impressions. I’d kept my distance from Pulaski, and recently had begun silently compiling a list of minor offenses in my mind to justify my dissatisfaction. It was an incident a week before where something happened on the bridge that led me to make up m
y mind and let her go.
Data sang a song.
I had been sitting on the bridge, flanked by Deanna and Riker. Wesley was at the conn, Data at ops. Worf behind me.
“I spoke to Beverly,” Deanna said. I was focused on the keypad on the arm of my chair, pretending to review a duty roster Riker had given me to approve.
“How is she?” Riker said.
“She’s well,” Deanna said. “Though I think she misses us.”
“She definitely does,” Wesley said. “I can tell.”
“It would appear,” Data said, “that she made an incorrect decision accepting that post.”
“Sometimes, Data,” Deanna said, “you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.”
“They paved paradise and put up a parking lot,” Data said.
“What does that mean?” Worf said.
“It is from an old Earth song,” Data said. “I assumed that is what Counselor Troi was referencing, since ‘You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone’ is the lyric that precedes it.” Everyone laughed.
“I wasn’t, Data,” Troi said. “It was just a coincidence.”
“Sing it for us, Data,” Riker said. Data looked to me, and I pretended to be taking note of the situation for the first time, and nodded. As Data began to sing the unusual but sweet song, I fantasized about the future. It led me to contact Beverley directly. I spoke to her via subspace a few hours later.
“What a delightful surprise,” she said. We chatted for a while about her job, and how things were on the ship. I then mentioned my troubles with Dr. Pulaski, and that I thought she would be leaving soon.
“So there will be an opening for a new Chief Medical Officer,” I said. “I was hoping to get someone with the appropriate experience...” Beverley smiled. She saw right through me.
“I can’t keep secrets from Deanna,” she said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. “Counselor Troi is not telepathic. In any event, are you aware of any potential candidates?”
“Candidly, Jean-Luc,” she said, “I thought being on the Enterprise was too difficult, but I’m finding that being away is worse. I miss everyone too much.”
“Then come home,” I said. “The feeling is mutual.” A short while later, Pulaski left, and Beverley returned.
* * *
“We’ve been ordered to Vulcan,” I said. “We’re going to take Ambassador Sarek to meet the Legarans to negotiate the treaty.” I was on the bridge, and had just received the orders. Everyone reacted as I expected. Sarek was a legend, and he had been attempting to negotiate a treaty with the Legarans, an advanced and enigmatic species, for a long time. They’d been discovered by a starship many years ago.6 The Legarans were a species that lived in liquid; they looked like large blue lobsters, and had a very advanced technology and culture. They also had no interest in joining the Federation. Sarek had taken them on as a personal project, and spent the last 93 years attempting to get them to the negotiating table. If this treaty negotiation were successful, it would go down in history as the crowning achievement of his career. And we were going to be a part of it.
I felt that third year on the Enterprise was in some ways the true beginning of my captaincy. I was comfortable, I had the crew that I wanted, and we began playing an unprecedented role in galactic affairs. And this, for me, was a personal triumph—a chance to talk with the man I’d been unable to speak to out of nervousness all those years ago, and get his insight into all the history he had made. It would happen, though not how I expected.
* * *
“I will not be spoken to in this manner!” It was a few days after Sarek had come aboard, and he was shouting at me. A Vulcan was shouting at me.
“Do I hear anger in your voice?” I said. I was baiting him, trying to get him to admit to the truth of the situation. I’d learned of a conspiracy among his aides to hide the fact that Sarek was suffering from a degenerative disease called Bendii syndrome. It made him unable to control his emotions, and through his own telepathic ability he was spreading his emotional outbursts into the minds of people throughout the ship.
“It would be illogical for a Vulcan to show anger! It would be illogical! Illogical! Illogical! Illogical!” He had completely lost control of himself. It was sad to have to force him into this, but I had no choice.
I left him in his quarters to try to regain his composure and went to my ready room. The only option I had was to contact the Legarans and cancel the conference. If the Legarans were to come on the ship with Sarek in this condition, the negotiations would be a disaster. All Sarek’s work over the past nine decades would be thrown away. As I faced this unsolvable dilemma, his wife came to see me.
“I must speak with you, Captain,” Perrin said. Sarek’s wife was human, the second human that he’d married. I found it interesting that a Vulcan, whose entire philosophy was based on controlling his emotions, had chosen for companionship women who culturally were taught to express theirs. She pleaded with me to let the conference continue to save her husband’s reputation and legacy.
“The mission can be saved,” Perrin said.
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“If you mind-meld with him,” Perrin said, “he will be able to regain control of his emotions.”
“I don’t see how that would work,” I said. “I don’t know that I have the mental discipline to control his emotions.” Vulcan emotions were known to be even more raw and disturbing than those of a human, another testimony to their culture’s success in restraining them.
“You won’t need to control them,” Perrin said. “You will be a receptacle for his feelings, physically separated from him, allowing him to conduct the negotiations.” I looked at Perrin. She had no doubt that I would accede to this request. How did she know? We’d only met a few days ago, and yet somehow she knew that this offer, as dangerous as it was, would be irresistible to me. She smiled knowingly.
My answer: “I can’t turn this down.”
“Sharing thoughts with one of the greatest men in history? I would think not.”
* * *
Sarek was in my quarters, facing me. He placed his hands on my face, and I could feel him in my mind… and then his mind was my mind. I became vaguely aware that he’d physically left the room, but we were still joined in our minds. Beverly sat close by as the emotions, the memories, flooded in.
“Bedlam!” I said. I could hear myself screaming, but it didn’t feel like me. “I am so old! There is nothing left but dry bones and dead friends…” The memories took me over…
“I’m Amanda Grayson,” Amanda said to me. She was a teacher, taking human children on a tour of the Vulcan embassy on Earth. I had come out into the hallway, and saw the warm smile and bright eyes, and had let this attraction sweep the logic aside and push me toward her to introduce myself…
My baby son, newly born, crying… I showed outward disapproval for the infant’s unrestrained emotion, as inside I felt joy, an overpowering emotional need to protect this innocent, vulnerable creature from a harsh, unforgiving world…
Visions of the aftermath of an explosion. Fire and rubble everywhere while the panicked voice of Amanda implored me to save her...
“I will attend Starfleet Academy…” Spock said to me. He was a teenager, and chose a different path than the one I took. An insult! Was he saying the life I led wasn’t good enough for him? I couldn’t show him how much it hurt me, I couldn’t show him that, even though he was the child, how much I wanted his approval…
“Sarek…” Amanda said, withered, frail, in our bed, her human lifespan so much shorter than mine. I took her hand, and for the first time, showed her emotion. I said the words…
“I love you,” I said. But her eyes were closed. She was gone. Had she heard me? Did she know?
“It’s an honor to meet you, Ambassador,” Perrin said. She was so young, her expression of interest sparkled at me, and I felt that same attraction, but also guilt. Horri
ble guilt. Amanda had been dead for decades, yet she was the one person I had told that I loved. The feelings I had for Perrin were a betrayal of that love, but yet I pursued those feelings…
Sarek’s memories, they consumed me. I fell into Beverly’s arms, weeping uncontrollably.
Soon it was over. Sarek had been successful. The Federation had a treaty with the Legarans. Sarek left, and through our connection, I understood the weaknesses of the great men of history, the ambitions, the loves, the loneliness. I could relate to Sarek; I was, in fact, trying to be him, to make a difference in the world in which I lived, spreading culture and law in the hopes of being remembered as a force for good. As emotionally wrenching as the experience was, I’d succeeded. It gave me confidence; I was a living instrument of civilization.
As I was often reminded when I described my lofty ambitions, I was also a fool.
* * *
“Resistance is futile,” I said. I was on the Borg cube, communicating with forty Federation starships. They had gathered in the system Wolf 359 to stop our advance to Earth. The Borg’s plan was to assimilate the entire Federation, starting with humanity’s homeworld and moving out from there. When I said “resistance is futile,” I was speaking as both Locutus and Picard. From Locutus it was a statement of fact: the Borg collective mind did not accept the possibility that any resistance would succeed.
From Picard, “resistance is futile” was a howl of despair. I had been trying so hard to break through, to regain control of myself, but I was pushed aside.
I looked out at the forty ships; the companion beside me spoke.
“They are going to resist,” the Queen said.
“Yes,” I said. Though she spoke out loud, she also spoke through the collective; all the billions of voices were in my head. The Queen’s was the loudest.
We hadn’t known the Borg had a queen. She oversaw the organization of the collective, supervised the assimilation of countless species. She was in fact the creator of the Borg; thousands of years old, in her previous life she was a cyberneticist. She created nanoprobes that could enter cells and cure diseases. The nanoprobes also worked in conjunction with cybernetic implants, allowing direct mind-to-mind connection with computers on their world. The nanoprobes evolved, and became a kind of virus that at first infected other members of her species, and then other species they came into contact with. As the collective grew, there was soon a hunger for more species, and they became the Borg.
STAR TREK THE NEXT GENERATION THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JEAN-LUC PICARD Page 28