“Can you project the cities Kyle Riker had visited during these times?”
“Yes, but it will take a little time to correlate.”
“We don’t have a lot of time, but do it,” she instructed.
The man worked at the board and finally, after a tense few minutes, amber lights started to pop up. Several were nowhere near the violence. Murmurs broke out among the councillors. Picard himself was intrigued.
“See, Will was right. His father appears to be seeking out crisis points along the original string of violence,” Crusher said. “Show us only the path from the test facility.”
Another minute or so passed and then blue lights winked on, replacing the amber and purple. It was a straight line heading west.
“I don’t understand,” Councillor Cholan said in a soft voice.
“This contagion has been spreading like a virus, but Kyle Riker has been following a singular path. He’s been following the first victim, Bison.”
“What is the significance of this?”
“The computer models show us how the virus has been spreading around the planet. It’s extremely contagious and moves quickly. But Riker clearly has information we need, and here’s the path he has taken.”
“You think he has a cure?”
She shook her head, her red hair swinging freely. “No, that’s my job,” she said with finality. “I’m going back to the ship.”
“What about the test subjects?” Renks called from the gaggle of people behind her.
“Whatever’s happened has spread beyond them. They may have started it, but they’re not the problem now.” With that, she exchanged a deeply concerned look with Picard and then ordered herself back aboard the Enterprise.
Vale turned to look expectantly at Picard, while the captain stood with his arms folded, deep in thought.
“Is there some way Riker has been evading detection?” she asked.
“He’s a clever man, Lieutenant,” Picard answered. “Could be any number of ways. What would you do?”
Vale thought a moment and then suggested, “He stole one flyer, so clearly he knows how to operate them. He steals one, he might steal more.”
The security chief walked over to an aide, who stood idly by a computer board. “Can you call up peace officer reports of all stolen flyers along the Riker path?”
“I guess so,” she stammered.
“Don’t guess, get started,” she said. Then she looked over to Picard and got an approving nod.
“Are all the ports closed?” Renks asked an aide.
“Yes, Councillor.”
“Any word on the curfew?”
“It’s mostly being observed,” another said from across the stage. “Those ignoring it are being escorted inside buildings by peace officers.”
“And the violence?”
“Still spreading,” the aide at the computer answered.
“Authorize the peace officers to use every means save lethal ones to restore order,” Renks said. “Have them get volunteers to handle fires and other problems that don’t require expertise. Rodak, please coordinate.”
El Rodak El nodded her head and then gestured for two aides to follow her to another computer terminal. Renks nodded in satisfaction and continued giving instructions. Picard watched and approved. Finally someone was rising to a leadership position.
Morrow turned to the captain and quietly said, “Finally.”
Picard smiled tightly.
Gracin left Smith to watch the monitoring station and took the other squad members with him to check out the incident they had been summoned to deal with. As people fled the nearest town, there was a tremendous accident. Several flyers collided because people had abandoned recognized flight routes. Local emergency workers had cleared the dead and extinguished the fire, but one of the flyers had crashed near one end of a dam. With no one else available, the team was dispatched to ensure the dam was safe and that any survivors were rescued.
The smashed flyer was nothing more than corrugated metal with horribly twisted wings that would never again take to the air. Holding his phaser at the ready, Gracin scanned the scene with a tricorder and saw that the vehicle was empty. Satisfied there was no danger, he signaled for Locke to investigate the craft while he and Olivarez checked out the perimeter of the dam. They had known each other at the Academy and had even shared a bunk on numerous occasions. She was a big woman, with a ready smile, dimples, and constantly changing hair color. Today it was something close to fuchsia, and he was amazed Vale let it pass inspection.
“Where are they?” she asked him.
“Nothing on the tricorder.”
Olivarez was a better tracker than he was, so Gracin let her take point, staying close behind her.
“Not a damned thing,” Olivarez said after ten minutes of patrolling. Gracin grunted in response and they continued in the same direction. Locke jogged up to join them. Gracin got a signal on his tricorder, held up two fingers, and motioned for the others to follow. The lieutenant closed the tricorder and pocketed it, adjusting his grip on his phaser at the same time. He could feel himself tense up, ready for anything.
After another minute or two, they finally heard sounds ahead: feet running on the ground. All three acknowledged the sound and fanned out, forming a V shape with Gracin now taking point. Up ahead, he spotted a bright yellow shirt and knew he had found his quarry. In fact, there were two shirts—one white, one yellow—and they were moving quickly but without purpose. Their motions indicated they were unharmed by the crash of the flyer. Neither looked armed.
They grew closer and finally Gracin decided to force the issue. He called out, asking the men to stop. Both were Dorset. They seemed surprised that anyone else was around. Their eyes grew wide when they saw three phasers aimed their way.
Walking toward them, Gracin flashed a brief smile and spoke. “We’re from the Federation. You have nothing to worry about.”
“Then why are you here?” one Dorset asked in a high-pitched voice. His fear was evident.
“No one is experimenting on anyone,” Gracin said tiredly. “Are you hurt?”
“What’s it to you?”
“If you’re hurt, we have a medical kit.”
“Well, we’re fine, so go away.”
“The dam area is restricted. We’ll escort you back to the operations center where we can arrange a ride for you.”
“Right to your labs!”
“No, to your homes. Or wherever else you’d like to go,” Gracin said, now trying to control his frustration.
“We’ll not follow you to our deaths!” the second Dorset shrieked. He hefted a rock and threw it in Gracin’s direction.
As he bent to avoid the clumsy throw, Olivarez and Locke fired their weapons at the two men. They slumped forward, face down on the ground, stunned.
“Swell, now we have to haul them back to ops as is,” Gracin grumbled.
An ensign arrived on the bridge and brought La Forge a padd but hesitated to hand it over. The engineering station on the port side of the bridge was covered with padds, and La Forge was using one hand to read a padd and one hand to stem the tide of falling padds. The ensign stood, indecisive, not wanting to interrupt her commanding officer.
At the tactical station, Jim Peart looked over and sighed. The deputy security chief was busily tracking the different teams on the planet, watching a bright blue signal pop from group to group. He took three quick steps to his left and grabbed the ensign by her right arm. “Come on, Ensign, he’s only going to lose his place if you interrupt him,” Peart said. Together, they grabbed the padds and began reorganizing them into neater stacks, no more than three high. Peart pointed to where each stack should go, muttering about rookies under his breath.
Finally done reading the manifest, La Forge looked up as if just noticing the others working beside him. He shrugged and tried to help but Peart slapped his right hand. “Oh no you don’t,” he admonished. “That’s what you have ensigns for, to keep things
organized. Okay, Ensign, finish up and see what else the commander needs. I’ll give you a tip: initiative gets you noticed, smart initiative gets you promoted.”
The ensign’s face flushed and she didn’t know what to say.
“You’re welcome,” Peart said, returning to his station.
Data, who had been watching, finally inquired how La Forge was doing with the supply inventories and requests.
“If I were a parts salesman, I could buy a moon,” La Forge noted. “Every ship’s needs are so different, so no two ships have the same inventory. Everyone needs something, some needs are even critical.”
“Can we be of service?”
“I think so, but the trick will be getting parts from one ship to another. Looks like we’ll have to put Dex under a long-term retainer until things straighten themselves out, and who knows how long that will take.”
“It is a solution that has proven it can work, at least for the short term. In the meantime, we can begin making recommendations to the quartermaster’s office.”
La Forge continue to mull over the possibilities and began to like the notion of a dedicated courier. Why search for someone new each time parts needed to be moved? The trick would then be to organize the routes to maximize the single ship’s time. In turn, they could continue to upgrade and modify the Ferengi vessel or find other items to trade. He’d certainly be willing to give it a try.
“Well,” he finally said, “it’s an original approach.”
“Quite true,” Data said, returning his gaze to the control panel before him.
La Forge put down the padd and was ready to pick up another when he finally noticed the ensign standing before him. Her presence surprised him and his expression must have shown that. The ensign frowned.
“Have I done something wrong, sir?”
“No, not at all, Ensign,” La Forge said, racking his brain to recall her name. She had transferred aboard only recently. But if he could recall the location of every ODN conduit, he could remember one name.
“Listen…Conners…can you take all these padds down to the conference room next to engineering? I’ll finish my work there next shift,” he said, sounding more confident by the word.
“Absolutely, sir,” she said, and started gathering the padds.
“The Riker line extends back hundreds of years and we’ve always been soldiers,” Riker explained to Seer as they flew away from Tregor. The trip north was made difficult by strong headwinds that forced the native to adjust his flight path.
“When my world was made up of competing countries, one of the largest was called the United States of America, forged by a people who declared themselves independent and fought to prove it. In every major conflict, a Riker served, so over the generations, there’s been an expectation that we’d continue the tradition. And when humans made it into space, Rikers were there. After a race known as the Xindi made a preemptive attack on Earth, a Riker helped lead the defensive forces while Enterprise went off to confront the attacker.”
“So, Rikers have been a part of Starfleet, too,” Seer said.
“Yep,” Will replied, leaning back in the passenger chair. “The family’s thinned out with time, and I’m the only one serving.” He didn’t think Thomas’s brief stint worthy of mention.
“Do you have children to carry on?”
An innocent question but one that Riker was never comfortable with. While he was far more at ease with children than Picard ever was, Riker never imagined himself a father. Part of that was the drive and ambition that got him through the Academy and launched a career. Another part—the largest part if he was to be honest with himself—was the fear of being as bad a parent as his own father. In fact, when Riker had looked back over the family history, more than one male Riker had proven a failure at child rearing. Yet, there were women to love those men, women willing to make lives and families with them and let the family line continue. Years ago, during his romance with Troi on Betazed, he fleetingly imagined having children with her, and the thought didn’t horrify him. He later had other relationships, others he loved, and never once had he imagined children with them. Only with Deanna.
Being career officers in Starfleet presented complications, especially in these darker days when civilian families no longer lived among Starfleet crew aboard the larger starships. The Federation had been buffeted and needed to adjust and that put a priority on duty and protection at the expense of a more enlightened view of exploration.
Yet, with each passing year, and the first signs of gray in his beard—which he hadn’t noticed until he allowed it to grow back recently—the notion that the family tradition was being threatened by time had begun to preoccupy his thoughts. He refused to just have children to extend the line, but his romance with Troi opened up those possibilities all over again.
Seer asked a simple question but presented him with both simple and complicated answers.
“No, not yet,” he finally said, refusing to meet Seer’s eyes.
The pilot must have sensed that this was an uncomfortable topic and changed the subject. “Since we live much shorter lifespans than you humans, we have many many more ancestors to recall and trace. My family is one of the unfortunate ones, only looking back twenty-three generations.”
“What do you mean?”
“An internal conflict on Bader caused untold devastation across one continent, including the destruction of my family’s Memorial. One way we measure status is the ability to trace the familial line, so twenty-three generations is a fairly short span compared with the more prosperous families. Some can go back hundreds of generations. They’re the ones who opposed colonization. They didn’t want new families starting up, beginning their own dynasties that might one day compete with them.”
“And what happened? How did you manage to get free of the planet?”
“Those most highly placed in society were so few, they couldn’t stop the masses, most of whom wanted to see what the heavens were hiding. We, too, consider ourselves explorers. Delta Sigma IV is hopefully only one of many colony worlds to come for my people.”
Riker listened and nodded, fascinated at hearing another race’s hopes and dreams. There wasn’t a lot of the belligerent pride that the Bader were known for in his tone, but something more enlightened. This planet had certainly been an excellent experience for the Bader, so he continued to wonder exactly what the problem was.
The two rode along in companiable silence for several minutes until Seer began adjusting controls and Riker felt the ship begin to descend.
“Problem?”
“Port stabilizer is acting up and it needs tending. Since I have to land anyway, we’ll refuel. Sorry, but this will delay us a little.”
Riker smiled. “Not to worry, stretching my legs will be good. Where will we land?”
“Right below is a town with the facilities I need. Shouldn’t take us more than an hour if the problem is what I think it is.”
“So, you’re a mechanic, too?”
“My father was. Taught me on earlier models so I have a good ear for identifying problems. The systems are too complex today for me to fix on my own.” Seer fell silent, clearly thinking back to those earlier times.
“Is your father still around?”
“No, he joined the creators about four years ago. A good solid thirty-seven years and he went with no regrets,” Seer said, the affection obvious in his voice.
Happy thoughts of his father were as alien to Riker as living to a hundred was to Seer.
The flyer wobbled a bit as gravity exerted its hold, but the landing went smoothly enough. People in coveralls came over to the ship and Seer explained the problem. It turned out that another ship was almost done and they could fit in the protocol officer’s flyer ahead of the others. Riker appreciated the respect his companion’s title finally earned them. Several of the workers were studying Riker closely, a natural reaction given his human appearance. He ignored the looks and did as promised, stretched his legs
by walking around the flyer and checking out the flying field. It was a square space, lined with hangars to store or repair flyers, most of which were larger or newer than the one Seer used. Launch pads dotted the space in the middle and seven other vessels sat, either just having landed or preparing to launch.
He also used the opportunity to report in to Data, learning that nothing new was happening aboard the Enterprise. Picard was working with the new Council Speaker, and Riker was saddened to hear how the violence touched Chkarad’s family. Out of Seer’s earshot, he inquired about the protocol officer’s family and was relieved to hear all were safe. He was also pleased to hear Vale had made it planetside and was personally directing her forces. She was a good, solid officer and he liked her approach, casual on the outside but steel on the inside.
And it was her detective skills that turned up a second pattern for Kyle Riker: the stolen flyers. Their locations matched the western spread of these mysterious interruptions to the violence. Will Riker had additional justification for his decision to head in this direction.
“Tell me more about where we’re going,” Riker suggested to Seer as he rejoined his new friend.
“From what you described, if your father has truly retreated north to environs similar to your home, there are several large islands near the ice caps that would fit the description. We’ll fly up there and check them. Most are uninhabited this time of year so any bio-sign will be cause for suspicion.”
“Good fishing up that way?”
“I suppose. I really don’t know much about it.”
Riker laughed, clapping his hands together. “We’ll have to fix that. You can’t imagine the feeling of tranquility you get just standing there, the sun on your back, your line in the water, and it’s just you and nature. Great thoughts happen or big fish get caught. Either way, it’s a terrific way to relax.”
“Sounds a little boring to me,” Seer said. “No offense, Will.”
“None taken, because you haven’t tried it for yourself yet,” Riker replied with a grin. “When this is all over, if time permits, we’ll get you outfitted and spend a morning.”
A Time to Love Page 17