“No, sir,” Riker said, his voice tight. He was clearly trying to control his emotions. The relationship between his father and him was a complicated one since the death of Will’s mother. Kyle was left to raise the youngster alone. Riker had turned out well, but it was clear Kyle could take little credit for his son’s success.
“Very well,” the captain said. “We can always adjust the assignments once we learn more.”
“I’m not the diplomat you are, sir.”
“You are better than you think you are, Number One. After all, it was your diplomatic skills that got you the Aries offer.”
Picard rose and returned to the bridge, leaving his first officer in the conference room. He could sense the increase in propulsion and knew they were nearing the desired speed. The bridge crew was at work as usual, but there was a slight change in the tenor of their voices, and more intraship communication. It happened every time they began a new mission and this time, it brought an overdue smile to the captain’s face.
Riker strolled through the corridors and barely noticed the various greetings he received. Given the acknowledged speed of gossip, he assumed most of the crew already knew they were on their way to hunt down his father. He wanted to avoid discussing it with his subordinates. Well, with all but one.
He found his way to the ship’s library and sure enough, he sensed Troi before he saw her. While not a full telepath, given her half-human, half-Betazoid heritage, she had empathic abilities and made an excellent counselor. Her abilities also meant that someone as deeply attached to her as Riker was had a subtle connection. Not that they could communicate telepathically like Vulcans or full Betazoids, but he took comfort in the connection. He liked knowing he was not alone.
Troi was seated at her favorite work station and had already called up the reports on Delta Sigma IV. Riker could tell by the way her head turned that despite her concentration, she knew he was in the room. Still, she remained focused on the data before her.
“Anything interesting?” he asked in a soft voice. The ship’s librarian enforced the age-old belief in keeping quiet in libraries, allowing others to concentrate. Riker preferred keeping his voice low rather than risk one of her withering stares.
“I’m just getting started,” Troi admitted. “There’s a lot of information to sift through. I do know this is the first capital crime in nearly a century.” She turned in her seat and looked up at him, and he could sense her concern for him. Part of him wanted it, and another part still didn’t want to deal with the feelings Kyle’s involvement brought up.
“I completely lost track of him,” Riker said, taking the seat beside her. His terminal remained offline, so his fingers drummed along the edge of the station. “I can’t even think of the last time we spoke. Possibly after Thomas showed up.” Several years ago a freak transporter accident had created a duplicate of Riker, who took Riker’s middle name of Thomas to help keep them distinct. He had tried to take Troi for himself, but wound up leaving the starship. He later joined the Maquis and wound up in a Cardassian prison. Will had lost track of Thomas, too.
“He seemed annoyed at Thomas’s arrival,” she said. Riker recalled the conversation in which he had explained the situation to Kyle. Instead of wanting to meet this new member of the family, Kyle had more pressing concerns over the brewing Cardassian conflict. Riker always wondered if Kyle, having recognized his utter failure at raising one son, did not want to disappoint another. Or, Riker mused, he just didn’t care.
“Will you be okay with this assignment?”
“I’m as suited to the assignment as anyone,” he said.
“Better, since you know him best among the crew.”
“No, I don’t,” Riker said, surprised at the anger slipping into his voice. He swallowed and forced his voice lower. “I knew him once, but not anymore. Don’t expect too much from me. Or him.”
“Will, do you want to really get into this here?”
Looking around the library, he realized they were alone and so actually had the option. But did he want to get into a deep discussion and dredge up the feelings of anger and abandonment all over again? The last time he had faced those feelings was when his father was aboard the old Enterprise, thirteen years before. He knew it would all come up eventually, whenever Kyle was found. He decided it could wait.
“No, I guess I don’t.” And he left the worried-looking Troi in the library.
Chapter Three
DATA ENTERED ENGINEERING and walked directly to La Forge, who was standing over the broad tabletop diagram of the starship. The chief engineer appeared intent on studying various power outputs, so Data waited patiently. Finally, La Forge sensed the android’s presence and looked up with a smile.
“Geordi, do you have a moment?”
“Of course, Data, how can I help?”
“The animosity Commander Riker feels toward his father is not something I had time to comprehend before giving up my chip. And now without it, I am afraid this is confusing to me.”
La Forge sighed, in part because he despaired over his friend’s loss, but also because explaining human relationships was never easy for him. He’d gotten a lot more comfortable with the topic since finally reconnecting with Leah Brahms. Still, describing complicated emotions to a digital man was a challenge.
“Near as I can figure it, the two never got along after the commander’s mother died while he was still young. Even when they were both in San Francisco, while the commander was at the Academy, they never kept in contact. I have to admit, it’s a different relationship than the one I had with my parents.”
“You had both your parents,” Data interjected.
“That’s part of it, yes,” the engineer admitted. “But they always believed in me and made sure I had every chance.”
“Commander Riker seems perfectly capable,” Data said, clearly trying to find a correlation between up-bringing and personality.
“True,” Geordi said. “But that has more to do with his own strength of character, something that his father’s absence might have even helped create.”
A sound from the console drew the engineer’s attention.
“This isn’t good,” Geordi said. “Not at all.”
In a different section of engineering, Anh Hoang worked at her station, monitoring the plasma injection system. The eighteen valved injectors required constant maintenance and adjustment. As Troi approached, the counselor studied the woman. She was petite, barely over five feet, with jet black hair that was fashioned into a tight ponytail down her back, ending between her shoulder blades. There was a slight frown on her round face above her black eyes and her lips were pursed in concentration. If anything was out of place, it was the short, ragged fingernails. She’d been biting them, a common enough habit for those suffering from stress.
“Taurik, you’ve got everything purring. You’re the Maintenance Maestro,” called Crain, the older crewman who had put in for transfer.
Taurik stiffly ignored the compliment, but another engineer called out, “Okay, if he’s the Maintenance Maestro, who’s the King of Swing?”
“Benny Goodman,” Anh said to herself as someone else called out the same answer.
Crain, rising to the challenge, then asked, “And who’s the Sultan of Swat?”
“George Herman Ruth,” Anh said softly, while another engineer called out, “Babe Ruth!”
Troi’s brow knit in concern, seeing that Anh could hold her own with her peers but was choosing not to participate.
“And who obliterated his final remaining baseball record?”
“Buck Bokai,” Hoang and Taurik both said, although the others heard only the Vulcan’s steady tone.
“Why, Lieutenant, I had no idea you liked baseball,” Crain said, sidling over.
“A former classmate of mine is serving with Captain Solok aboard the T’Kumbra. He is apparently fascinated by the game.”
Troi moved away from the sports chatter and continued to observe in silence, enough
of a distance away so as not to disturb the younger woman’s concentration. She observed often enough during duty shifts that the crew paid little attention to her presence. As the minutes passed, Troi concluded that Anh’s on-duty performance was fine, possibly even exceptional. But she did note that Anh barely spoke to a fellow crewman other than to provide information. No casual conversation, not even any of the typical byplay common to all ships. That was cause for concern.
Finally, Troi approached Anh and stood at her right side. The engineer looked up in surprise and then greeted the counselor.
“Hello, Anh, how is everything?”
“Fine, thank you,” she replied in a soft voice. “May I help you?”
“Are you enjoying your time aboard the Enterprise?”
The question seemed to surprise Anh, who blinked a few times and then nodded in the affirmative.
“Making friends?”
“Some, I guess,” came the tepid rely. “Is there something I can do for you, Counselor? Surely you didn’t come all the way down here just to ask about my social life.”
“In fact, I did. It’s part of my job to make sure all of the crew is functioning well both on and off duty. The two are not mutually exclusive, you know.”
“So you’re telling me I have to make an appointment with you?”
“I don’t want to toss orders around,” Troi said gently. “But I do think you could benefit from spending some time talking with me, and I’d like to set up a time for us to have a good, long conversation.”
“Are you trying to be my friend because you think I don’t have any?” Anh was sounding more defensive than Troi expected, but she couldn’t sense any hostility, just trepidation.
“I’m doing my job, which I think will help you do yours. Can you stop by my office around fourteen hundred? We’ll have time before we reach the planet.”
“If you insist,” Anh said with a tone of resignation.
“I don’t insist, but I do encourage you to keep the appointment, and we’ll see how it goes from there.” Troi gave Anh her warmest smile and left the woman alone at her post. On her way out of the section, she noticed that La Forge seemed unusually agitated but decided to let him work on the problem rather than interfere at the moment. One engineer at a time, she mused.
Dr. Crusher sat at her desk in sickbay, studying Starfleet Medical’s report on Delta Sigma IV. It was grim reading, describing a virtual death sentence for the local people. She sat back, fingers drumming along the desktop, and let her thoughts wander, hoping her subconscious could take over for her poor, overworked, barely functioning conscious mind.
Bet Wesley never gets so punchy he can’t think straight, she mused with a mixture of irritation and wistful pride. Her son had returned from the mysterious Traveler’s dimension and proved instrumental in helping with the demon ship. Despite her practically begging him to stay with her, Wesley chose instead to continue living with the Travelers. He seemed so certain of his decision; the look in his eyes told her everything. On her better days she thought of Wes as determined; on her less charitable days she considered him mulish. Just like Jack had been. And for that matter, just like Jean-Luc still was. What was it with her and stubborn men?
The Travelers as a species fascinated her, and she genuinely liked the one she had met, posing as an engineer’s aide. When he revealed himself and Wesley eventually left with him, she was a little frightened but figured she would be that way regardless of where her son went—his first post-Academy posting or another dimension. It took her a while to get past the emptiness that surrounded her off-hours with Wesley gone. She didn’t date much, instead throwing herself into shipboard theater productions, and worked hard at staying on top of all the new medical advances.
She hadn’t minded staying aboard the Enterprise because it had become her home and the senior crew her surrogate family. But they had begun to move on. First, O’Brien and his wife Keiko left for Deep Space 9, and they were soon followed by Worf, now an ambassador. Data had gone on extended missions on behalf of Starfleet, but without the Enterprise’s support. She imagined it would only be a matter of time before Riker finally got his own ship—he had had temporary command of enough other vessels to prove he could handle the responsibility.
Crusher thought about having her own command. She enjoyed taking gamma shift command as part of the rotation and was intrigued when Picard said a potential future had her commanding a medical ship. And then she flashed on all the times the captain dealt with reports, problems, politics, and distractions that kept him from leading the ship. “Does anyone remember when we used to be explorers?” he asked only a few years earlier. She remembered, thinking back to the earlier days of his command.
And of him.
Everyone else expected a romance to blossom between them, and there were times she expected it as well. But they were warm, deep friends, with shared experiences spanning decades. Clearly, Picard was not going to marry and settle down, nor was he going to be comfortable married to a fellow officer. Not that he was cold to romance; Anij was proof enough of that. Crusher herself didn’t shun romance when it presented itself, but it was clear it never would ignite between her and Picard.
Too much history, what with him being Jack Crusher’s commanding officer and friend, being there when he died and having to be the one to tell her Jack was gone.
No, she was going to go forward and find her way. The question was, though, would she take the offer that Yerbi Fandau had made to her a few months back to take over Starfleet Medical when he retired?
Shaking her head to clear it, she returned her attention to the report. The counteragent positively altered the subjects’ metabolism, returning their genetics to that of their native species prior to colonization. What went wrong?
She put out a call to Fandau. Given the distance, it would be a little while before a proper connection could be made. Meantime, she figured she could study the exact chemical composition of the before and after blood work.
“This is not good,” La Forge kept repeating to himself.
Data stood patiently at his friend’s side. La Forge didn’t seem to notice as he stared at the communiqué displayed on his screen.
“Our supply request has been rejected,” he grumbled.
“Do you mean we are being denied our replacement parts? That seems to run counter to Starfleet protocols.”
“No, it’s nothing like that,” La Forge said in exasperation. “They’d send them if there were any in the region. We’re a little off the beaten track, and restocking all the starbases is still an ongoing process.”
“Has this not happened before?”
“Twice before, just in the last month.” He slapped an open palm against a bulkhead in frustration.
“Then it would be safe to assume that Starfleet is having difficulty manufacturing or procuring the equipment required.”
“Exactly. I’ve been nursing a balky manifold and I just replaced one RCS quad and we need at least one spare quad to be safe and none of the starbases anywhere near here or Delta Sigma IV have any to spare.”
“Do you anticipate needing to replace more than one?”
“Nope. And don’t tell me to get used to it. I have no intention of letting this situation continue.”
Data opened his mouth, ready to rebut, but then reconsidered. After a few seconds he added, “It seems that you could let this continue to trouble you or find a creative solution to the problem. If you treat this as an engineering problem, a solution may present itself.”
La Forge was quiet for a few moments and then nodded slowly to himself. “You just may have something there, Data.”
Anh was only a few minutes late, arriving at Troi’s office just after 1400. She remained in uniform despite her off-duty status, a fact not lost on the counselor.
“Please, sit,” Troi offered, gesturing toward one of the comfortable, plush chairs angled to face her own chair. She kept the lighting just below full intensity, achieving a sof
ter feel to the surroundings. The engineer refused a beverage while Troi nursed a cup of tea.
“How bad will the mission be?”
Interesting, Troi thought. Anh mentioned the danger first and was radiating concern.
“I’m not sure,” Troi admitted, holding her cup. “The population is slowly dying.”
Anh sat back, hands gripping the arms of her chair. She was anything but comfortable.
“From what I gather, the ship won’t be endangered,” Troi added.
“That’s something,” Anh admitted. “As you can imagine, I just don’t like the idea of anyone losing their life needlessly.”
“You’re not alone in that feeling. In fact, I’m sure we all feel that way. So, tell me, what do you like best about serving on the Enterprise?”
“I guess I like working with Commander La Forge. He’s a bright guy, and certainly cares for the engines. And he’s not all spit-and-polish.”
Troi nodded and waited patiently.
“I like my work with warp propulsion,” she said with some pride. The emotion suited the woman, Troi noted. “There’s an art in creating the right warp bubble and then maintaining it when all the universe wants to do is pop it.” Anh fell silent, thinking for more to say.
“What about the Enterprise itself?”
“It’s a fine ship,” Hoang responded without hesitation. “I like that we’re on a newer model so we can continue to shake it down and make improvements. We move through space so effortlessly, you sometimes forget how complicated it gets making that possible.”
“And the recent missions?”
“They’ve been okay, I guess. I wish there was more we could have done for the Dokaalan.”
“Are you at all concerned about the rumors regarding the captain?”
“Not really. I haven’t met the captain, but everything I’ve seen since I signed on has been positive. Commander La Forge thinks the stars of him. I try not to believe the scuttlebutt—never have been much for gossip.”
A Time to Love Page 3