A Time to Die

by John Vornholt

  “I thought I gave it away a million times.”

  “Now that I know,” muttered Riker, “you did.”

  Colleen nearly hit her head on the top of the bunk when Wes appeared inside the Skegge’s tiny cabin. Vale clapped her hands, and Captain Picard jumped to his feet from the pilot’s seat. But Wesley didn’t see either one of them as he knelt at the counselor’s side.

  “Colleen, are you all right?” The young man’s brown eyes glowed with concern.

  “Wesley, I am awfully glad to see you,” said Captain Picard, stepping up behind the Traveler.

  “I’m fine,” said Colleen, gently patting his hand. “Now listen to your captain.”

  Reluctantly, he turned away from her. “What’s going on, Captain? Do you know the Enterprise is out there?”

  “We do now,” whispered Picard. “Right after you left, we were visited by an Androssi salvage vessel, which is still around here somewhere. We made a deal with them for a Romulan cloaking device, which we were just testing. Naturally, we’re trying to be good looters, so we can’t acknowledge that the Enterprise is out there. So you see the difficulty we’re in.”

  “Are these the same Androssi who offered you a cloaking device when you were here before?” asked Wes. “I saw that in the log.”

  “No, because they’re dead,” answered Picard gravely. “But these are definitely their associates.”

  Colleen chuckled hoarsely, then coughed. “They were impressed by the way we tore up the Orions’ den of iniquity…and escaped. They want to be partners.”

  “You don’t sound so good,” said Wes.

  “You should take her back to the Enterprise,” said Picard.

  “Captain, you don’t have any control over me,” countered Cabot feistily. “I’m staying here.”

  Picard shook his head, obviously not going to waste his energy. He gripped Wes’s shoulder and said, “Go back and tell Riker we’re fine. We’ll contact them when the Androssi are gone, and they should keep their distance with no contact until then.”

  “They’ve already pulled back,” replied Wes. “I’ll return when I can.” He knelt awkwardly at Colleen’s side, not used to showing his emotions in front of others. Being a Traveler must make a human a bit repressed, the counselor decided.

  “It’s okay,” she said calmly. “See you soon, Wesley.” They embraced, and he seemed to melt in her fingers until he was gone.

  If the truth were known, she still felt a little woozy, but she didn’t feel badly injured. Then again, she was drugged. That was certainly masking some pain and discomfort. If she were smart, she’d get some sleep, which was probably the thing she needed most; but Counselor Cabot didn’t want to miss any part of this adventure.

  “The Androssi are hailing us by subspace,” reported Vale. “They say it’s safe to come out of cloak.”

  “How did the device affect our ship’s systems?” asked the captain, returning to his seat in the cockpit.

  “Well, everything we do seems to be a major power drain,” answered Vale, frowning at her readouts. “The cloak is no worse than the others, especially if we’re drifting and playing possum. I wouldn’t want to try to cloak while the engines were on.”

  “Very well, bring us out,” ordered Picard.

  “I’ll get it,” said Colleen, rising from her bunk. It had proven difficult to route the cloaking device to the Skegge’s main consoles, so the Androssi had patched it into the mechanical controls at the rear of the cabin. Colleen was only about a meter away, and she tried to ignore her dizziness when she moved across the deck.

  “Rest up,” said Vale, “I’ll get it.”

  “No, I’m not an invalid,” Cabot retorted. “I’ve got to pull my weight if I’m going to stay with you.” She grabbed the central lever and asked, “It just engages forward, right?”

  “Right,” answered Vale. “The starboard winch is disconnected because of it.”

  “Cloaking is off,” announced Cabot as the lights in the cabin seemed to brighten a notch.

  “Confirmed.” Vale looked at her board. “We should also think about replacing the torpedo we fired. We need an EVA for that.”

  “Let’s deal with our Androssi friends first,” said Picard.

  “They’re coming around to dock,” replied Vale just as the Androssi salvage ship shot into view and slipped under their hull. Seconds later came the clank and thud of docking mechanisms taking hold on the cargo hatch.

  “Do we have a story to keep straight?” Colleen asked.

  “You know what we’re looking for,” said Picard grimly. “This cloaking device might be a great advantage.”

  There soon came a knock on the hatch. Showing that she was no invalid, Colleen jumped to her feet and pulled it open. A slender Androssi male with short-cropped auburn hair on top, long ponytail in back, and a full red beard rose slowly from the hold and took Cabot’s proffered hand.

  The visitor’s yellowish eyes glimmered in his pale sepia face, and he gave them a ferret smile. “As promised, the Starfleet vessel did not detect you with your cloak engaged.”

  “Indeed, Overseer Jacer,” allowed Picard. “However, you haven’t told us what you want for it.”

  “True,” said the Androssi scavenger. He glanced at their food slot and asked, “Could I trouble you for a drink of ale?”

  Acting more spry than she felt, Colleen again leapt up. “I’ll get it. Won’t you take my seat, Overseer?”

  Cabot wasn’t even sure the food slot could produce any ale until she requested it, and was rewarded with a frosty mug of amber liquid.

  Jacer took the beverage. “I was preparing to get a drink at the Orions’ headquarters…when you blew it up. That’s when we grew impressed with the abilities of your crew, Captain Jean.”

  Picard shrugged with humility. “That was more improvisation than planning.”

  “It showed efficiency under stress.” The Androssi took a long sip of his drink and wiped his beard with the back of his slender forearm, while his audience waited for him to go on.

  “As you must know,” continued Overseer Jacer, “there are few humans in Rashanar who do not work for the Federation. We need you to impersonate Starfleet officers in a negotiation. To explain further, I must speak of a salvager named Fristan.”

  The elegant Androssi took another sip and went on. “Fristan was engaged in the dangerous but lucrative endeavor of salvaging antimatter.”

  “From the wrecks or wild antimatter?” asked Picard.

  “Both,” answered Jacer. “He was virtually the only one who was able to harvest the wild antimatter here, although several others have died trying. Fristan ran afoul of the Pakleds, and they are holding him here in Rashanar until he repays his debts.”

  Picard exchanged a glance with Cabot, then smiled. “Why do you need fake Federation officers?”

  Jacer shrugged. “Because we cannot appear to be the ones paying his ransom. The Pakleds have dealt with the Federation before. They would prefer to ransom Fristan to some neutral power like it, not a competitor. The latinum will come from us.”

  “And we show up in this old tug?” asked Vale.

  “No,” he replied. “We have a Starfleet shuttlecraft. We had a Starfleet yacht at one time, but lost it. You arrive, pay the ransom, take the prisoner, and leave. We have already been communicating with them by subspace to arrange the deal. You will help to facilitate it. If you succeed, the cloaking device is yours.”

  “What species is this Fristan?” asked Colleen.

  “Androssi,” replied their guest. “I’m not sorry to say that, because he is a genius. He knows many things about Rashanar—” His voice trailed off, and a look of concern graced his hairy face for a moment. “I must be going.” Overseer Jacer chugged his drink and rose to his feet.

  “Does he know about the demon flyer, the shapeshifter?” asked Cabot.

  The Androssi whirled to face her. He looked startled, although he recovered quickly. “You’ve heard those tales, I see.�
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  Cabot smiled and sat back on her bunk at the rear of the cabin. “We know it’s got something to do with the antimatter.”

  Overseer Jacer’s red eyebrows merged together, and he looked menacing for a moment. “That is not your concern. You’ve been well paid for this small acting job—in advance. Fristan and his knowledge will belong to us. We’ll be back here in twenty-nine hours, and I advise you to stay out of sight until then. The Orions are not pleased with you.”

  He descended into the hatch, and they heard the docking clamps releasing a few seconds later. All three of the crew members of the Skegge watched the cobbled-together Androssi ship as it slipped away into twinkling golden clouds floating in the abject darkness of Rashanar.

  “It could be a trap,” said Vale. “We’re just going to walk into another den of thieves?”

  “They did pay us in advance,” said Cabot, suddenly feeling very tired. She lay back on her bunk and added, “This Fristan sounds like a good person to know, plus we’ve got Wesley to protect us.”

  Picard frowned. “Yes, however, I’m worried about depending too much on him. You know, Counselor, this is not how a Traveler is supposed to conduct himself.”

  “I’ve got no complaints,” she murmured, closing her eyes. “Good night.”

  Colleen woke up with Beverly Crusher staring down at her. The young woman was startled, but the doctor put a comforting hand on her shoulder and gave her a welcoming smile. “Just lie quietly,” she cautioned. “My son brought you to the Enterprise while you were asleep. It was a good thing, too, because you had some fluid on the brain.”

  “But I—” Colleen looked around and saw that she was clearly in sickbay. It was too late to protest, because it had already happened—so she lay back and tried to relax.

  Crusher chatted pleasantly as she took a reading on Colleen with her tricorder. “You know, you would think that someone couldn’t crush your skull with the butt of a disruptor pistol, but you’d be wrong. Especially when it’s an Orion swinging it.”

  “How long do I have to be here?” asked the counselor, keeping her eyes closed.

  “At least twenty-four hours, plus light duty for a few days after that,” answered the doctor solemnly.

  “But the Skegge has a job we’ve agreed to do,” Colleen protested, “and I need to help.”

  “They’re discussing that now,” said Crusher soothingly. “Remember, the same power you have over Jean-Luc, I have over you. If you want to go back to the Skegge any time soon, I suggest you be a good patient.”

  “Right, Doctor. So Wesley disobeyed my orders?”

  Crusher laughed and folded up her tricorder. “He has disobeyed my orders too, more than a few times. But he’s a good boy. I wouldn’t want to see him get hurt.”

  “Do you think I’ll hurt him?” asked Cabot in astonishment.

  “I really don’t know what you’ll do to him,” replied the concerned mother with a sigh. “But you’re certainly in a position to bring him great joy or misery.”

  “The same power I have over him, he has over me,” replied the counselor, paraphrasing the doctor’s words. “However, I don’t know what to do about him staying a Traveler.”

  Beverly shook her head and rose to her feet. “He doesn’t think he can keep both lives. Really, you should start worrying more about yourself, Colleen. Go back to sleep. I’ll tell Wes and the others that you’ve been stabilized.”

  Cabot gave a hoarse chuckle. “Funny, I don’t feel stabilized.”

  Wesley Crusher trod lightly through sickbay, well aware of his mother’s eyes upon him as he passed her in the triage. Nevertheless, the doctor made no effort to intercept him as he made his way to Colleen’s bed in the private nooks at the rear. He didn’t want to disturb her either, and he wondered what he would do if she were asleep. But Colleen must have been partly psychic, because she said “Hello, Wes!” even before he spotted her.

  When he finally saw her, she was sitting up, practicing more card tricks. Even in her loose-fitting gown, she could make them appear out of thin air, although the third time she tried the sleight of hand, she dropped a card into her lap.

  “Oh, rats,” she pouted. “I never drop them like that. By the way, you abducted me against my will.”

  “My mom’s a doctor, remember. I know she doesn’t like to see other medical people about a problem. You’re not invincible, you know.”

  Wes sat beside her on the bed. She pulled him closer for a kiss. He was gentle with her, although she wasn’t nearly so gentle with him; he had to pull away and straighten his collar.

  “My mom’s just out there,” he whispered, pointing a thumb over his shoulder.

  She gave him a husky laugh. “There’s something appealing about that. Oh, Wes, let’s find this thing and deal with it…then get on with our lives, whatever they are.”

  “Or will be,” he answered, cupping her hand. “Captain Picard made a good case for going ahead with this favor for the Androssi as long as I’m available to help you. They want to question this Fristan character, although I’m afraid it may be a trap.”

  “The cloaking device doesn’t hurt,” said Colleen. “So when am I going back to the Skegge?”

  “When my mother says so. You still have twenty-five hours before you meet the Androssi, so there’s time to heal. Did they say at all where the Pakleds are holding this master salvager, Fristan?”

  “No, but you want to scout ahead.”

  “I would. The sooner, the better.” Reluctantly he rose to his feet, and she immediately grabbed his arm.

  “Can’t you stay a little while longer?” she pleaded.

  “Not right now. I don’t know how much longer I have to be a Traveler. As soon as I return to the ship, I’ll come right here.”

  “Be careful,” she murmured, her delicate brow creased with worry. “And bring back proof.”

  “Proof,” he replied thoughtfully. “Yes. Good-bye, Colleen.” He kissed her again, but made it a mere peck.

  On his way out of sickbay, Wesley stopped to talk to his mother. “Do you have a standard tricorder I could borrow?” he asked.

  She pointed to a utility cabinet. “Right in there. White and blue are medical tricorders.”

  “Thanks, Mom.” He crossed to the cabinet and grabbed a tricorder, which seemed more compact and colorful than he remembered. He checked the portable scanner/recorder and made sure it was functional.

  “Where are you going?”

  He decided not to say he was going to search for demon ships and Pakled scavengers. “I’m going back to the Skegge,” he answered, glancing over his shoulder. “Take good care of her, Mom.”

  The doctor looked down at her work. “She means a lot to you, huh?”

  “Yeah. Believe me, I didn’t expect this to happen.”

  “You never know when love will bloom,” replied Beverly with a knowing smile. “Just when you think you’ve got the universe all figured out, it pulls the rug out from under you.”

  “If you see Captain Riker, tell him I’ll be back,” said the Traveler a moment before he disappeared from sickbay and the Starship Enterprise.

  Moving through space and dimension as if they were open doors, he arrived at the blasted hulk of the Hickock and made sure that the Skegge was safe under its saucer, or as safe as any ship could be in Rashanar. He didn’t disturb Picard and Vale, because he sensed that both were using this lull to catch up on their sleep. The irony of Starfleet officers pretending to be looters who were asked to pretend to be Starfleet officers was not lost on him. Still, he hoped this was a wise decision to cooperate with the Androssi and their ransom scheme.

  Moving past his comrades on the Skegge, the Traveler searched aimlessly through the vast graveyard, avoiding the brilliant bolts of wild energy and the more unstable wrecks. In his mind, he envisioned the Pakled scavengers he had seen at the Orions’ hideout, hoping that maybe some of them were involved with the prisoner named Fristan. In due course, he came close to the center of
the boneyard, where the strange gravity sink kept all the rubble swirling. The orbits of the blasted hulks tightened around the unseen power, turning the area into an eerie merry-go-round of careening derelicts. In the center, a vortex of wreckage had formed around the gravity dump; this shimmering pinwheel looked inviting and beautiful, but Wesley knew to keep far away from it.

  La Forge had offered the theory that the anomaly was a remnant of the artificial gravity systems blasted to bits during the war. The released gravitons had attracted a mass before they could disperse. Now, like so many things in Rashanar, the sink had taken on a life of its own. It was the glue that kept the entire graveyard somewhat together. Unfortunately, the gravity dump also imposed a finite life span on the Rashanar remains, all of which would eventually join the spectacular maelstrom in the center of the boneyard.

  As he soared through the void, the Traveler thought of the dead Pakled lying on the deck in the Orions’ hideout. He had watched Picard and Vale drag the alien body down the corridor. That gruesome image conducted him to a sleek cruiser hidden under the tail of a battered Cardassian warship. He looked at this vessel—not a salvager but a warship—and he knew he had found the prison of the Androssi named Fristan.

  Down in the bowels of the cruiser, the Traveler found a gathering of scurvy-looking Pakleds in a cramped torpedo room. Two dead Pakleds had been crammed into an empty photon torpedo casing. Wes realized with a start that one of them was the unlucky customer of the Orions, the one blown out the airlock. The other he didn’t recognize, but it was a somber group of Pakleds who were gathered to see their comrades into the afterlife.

  Amid guttural chanting, two of them loaded the corpse-laden torpedo into the tube. The eldest of the mourners contacted the bridge. As the scavengers sobbed and screamed words of revenge against unnamed enemies, the Traveler decided that he had better try to find Fristan while most of the crew was occupied. Materializing inside a dingy corridor that didn’t seem wide enough to accommodate Pakleds, he hurried along, trying to avoid meeting anybody. Wes pushed on each door he passed until he found one that tingled with the energy of a forcefield, then passed through it as if they were rays of sunlight.