A Time to Hate

by Robert Greenberger

  Renks was sitting behind a desk and looking out a window, his back to the door and one foot up against the windowsill. The other three councillors were studying monitors and talking among themselves.

  As Picard approached, his footsteps now muffled by a light violet carpet, Renks began to speak.

  “When does the fun part begin?”

  “I beg your pardon?” Picard was genuinely confused by the question.

  “I grew up watching the Council,” he continued, oblivious to Picard’s presence. The man could have been speaking to anyone. “I wanted to serve since I was of age. Getting elected locally was such a thrill. And my mother was still alive to see it. Then the opportunity to be on the Council came up and I grabbed it. All along, I secretly hoped to be Speaker.”

  “Why?”

  “The Speaker got to travel the world, speaking at important events, opening local government meetings, being out among the people. And everyone applauded, laughed at his jokes. He got the best travel, the best food. It looked…like fun. Even that stiff Chkarad reveled in it. Now look at the poor bastard.”

  “Wasn’t the Speaker the first one called upon to maintain the peace?”

  Renks shook his head, still not turning to look at Picard. “You still don’t get it. We always were peaceful. We considered ourselves above war. Above petty racial issues. Everyone on Delta Sigma IV rejected the ways of our ancestors.”

  Picard once again held his tongue, not wishing to reveal the truth. Not yet. He heard the sense of loss and the disillusionment in the other man’s voice, and he couldn’t be certain if the feelings were genuine or triggered by the stripping away of the liscom’s effects.

  “You calm the people down, and you can enjoy your office,” was all the captain managed to say.

  “Tell me what to do, Picard,” Renks said. “Tell me how to stop the people on four continents.”

  “I have never governed a world. You grew up desiring public service; I grew up looking at the stars.”

  Renks nodded in understanding, still looking out his window.

  Picard hated hiding behind the regulations, especially when he could be doing something. There was often a thin line between aiding a planet and controlling it. Some starship captains had tripped over the line through the years, and Picard was very conscious of that. Especially now, with Starfleet watching his every move.

  He doubted even Admiral Upton understood what a thorough mess the Enterprise had been handed.

  “I have offered you my security team and my engineers and my doctors. But you have to create the plan and lead the people,” Picard continued.

  Renks looked over his shoulder at the captain. “You kept urging Chkarad to act. And when he didn’t, I did. Look what’s happened.”

  Picard wasn’t sure what else to say. Instead, he decided to take the man at his word and go check the monitors. One screen showed the four continents with Starfleet emblems indicating where his people were. They were scattered farther than he liked. Other insignia denoted peace officers and medical personnel. And there were the brown lights showing scenes of violence, which were now in just about every city and town with a population over five.

  Troi wandered over and stood by his elbow as he studied the screen.

  “So many of our people…” she muttered.

  “I’ve lost track of them,” Picard said softly, and cursed himself for letting everything get out of his control. He needed to start asserting himself. First, he wanted some answers. He tapped his combadge and summoned Vale to the Council office. Within moments, his security chief materialized. She looked exhausted. There were dark smudges beneath her large brown eyes, and her usually well-groomed hair was askew. He couldn’t help but notice the bloodstains on her pants and the scratches on her hands. Picard almost envied her being out in the field, making more of a difference. He wanted to will Ambassador Morrow back to health so he could be freed from this thankless chore.

  “Lieutenant, status please, and you can skip the formality.”

  “Aye, sir. We’re rotating everyone twelve on, twelve off, as we discussed. But those twelve on are tough. It’s messy and unpredictable, and we’re severely outnumbered.”

  “Casualties?”

  “We’ve lost two, at least seven injured,” she said softly, real pain in her voice.

  Picard was alarmed that he hadn’t known a second member of his crew had died for these people. Vale explained the situation in Testani. She managed to maintain her poise, but the captain knew she was hiding pain.

  “How bad is it out there? Do we have any hope of stopping them?”

  She paused for several moments before speaking. Picard gave her time to collect her thoughts. He needed honesty, but, more importantly, he needed a rational answer. “Honestly, sir, at best it’s going to be a holding action until the doctor devises a solution.”

  “And if she doesn’t?”

  “Well, I don’t suppose you want the phaser banks to stun these people into submission.”

  “I’m tempted, to tell you the truth, but it would only be a temporary answer.”

  “I thought as much,” Vale agreed. “Sir, can the doctor really find something soon? It seems like an awfully huge task.”

  Picard smiled at her, yet his eyes were hard. “It is. And she’s our best hope. If she fails, I am not at all sure what we would do next. But I do know we have to give her the time she needs. Can your people keep up the holding action?”

  “Of course, sir. I told you the other night: you have the entire complement ready to give their lives if that’s what it takes. I remain proud of them.” There was a look of defiance in her tired eyes, showing she meant every word.

  “When was the last time you ate?” Troi asked in a soft tone.

  Vale gave Picard a grin. “If I know the captain, about the last time he did.”

  “Well, if it’s been that long, you both should return to the ship for something. I doubt much will change while you’re away.”

  Picard looked at her and saw the same determination that made her mother, Lwaxana, one of the most powerful forces of nature found in the galaxy. Getting some food and getting away from the sense of despair radiating from Renks might be the best action for the moment. It solved nothing, though, and that rankled.

  The captain was about to speak when Troi cut him off. “I’ll be fine, sir. You can be bring me a salad. Thank you for asking.” And that sealed it. He had no choice.

  Was it only yesterday, Riker mused, he was telling Picard how nice it was to actually see the planet rather than just a series of rooms? Now, he was tired of the world, tired of the fighting, tired of the seemingly end-less strife. Unchecked, things would get worse long before a large enough body of the people could rein in their emotions long enough to restore order.

  They had kept at a low altitude since they were over land, and were now descending near a city. The buildings were boxy and fairly uniform in construction, like so much else on this world. Will was beginning to think one architectural firm had designed the entire world, and to his way of thinking, botched the assignment. Such thoughts, he knew Troi would say, were good; they meant he was observing. Troi was with Picard, and he wished it were otherwise. She would provide insights he could only guess at. They had worked so well together for so many years that he could no longer imagine working apart from her. Their complementary skills and temperaments made them an effective combination of officers that any starship captain would want. What was it Picard said when he first learned Troi was to be ship’s counselor? “I consider it important that my key officers know each other’s abilities.” Well, Deanna and Will made quite a duo after all these years.

  And he missed her. Missed her more than he imagined possible, and the depth of that feeling was no surprise to him. That too came from their years together. Happy as he was that the romance was back in their lives, he suspected it was time to make some decisions about their future. Both their future as a couple and, honestly, the future of his ca
reer. This time, he wasn’t about to let career aspirations cloud his judgment.

  Now, though, was not the time for those decisions. This mission required unusual amounts of concentration, and despite his fatigue, he needed to stay sharp and keep his father in line.

  “Why here?” he asked. “Have you tracked Bison?”

  Ignoring his son, Kyle said, “The communications channels indicate a portion of the city is being evacuated. There has to be a reason, and we can help.”

  “So that’s it,” Will said, some anger unwillingly creeping into his voice—again. “We just fly around and around this world, stopping off to fight the good fight? What does that accomplish?”

  “It keeps them alive until a cure is found!” Kyle said loudly.

  “I thought your goal was to find Bison and study him,” Will snapped.

  “It is, but I’ll be damned if we let people suffer when we can help!” his father retorted.

  “Don’t you think we’d be more effective working with Picard?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “He’s Starfleet,” Kyle continued, “a by-the-book man who will slap me in irons the minute I’m in sight. How can I fix things, how can I find Bison, if I’m in orbit?”

  “Then you don’t know him at all,” Will said. “He’d hear you out before putting you in the brig. And I’d pick up the hunt.”

  Kyle shook his head. “And I’d still be out of the picture, my experience wasted.”

  “Your experience? What does that have to do with finding Bison? You’re a tactician.”

  “Son, I’ve saved countless lives over the last twenty-four hours. What have you done? You’ve hunted me down. Well congratulations, you’ve found me. Has that saved anyone?”

  Will fumed, trying to avoid getting caught up in age-old arguments, the same ones that had never been resolved in his youth. He didn’t want to try and finish them now—it wasn’t the time.

  “Why are you here?”

  His father’s question was blunt and direct. Will considered several ways to answer it.

  “Delta Sigma IV is a powderkeg,” he replied.

  “No, that’s why Starfleet sent you here. You. Here. Right now.”

  “Because I was assigned to find you.”

  “No, that’s why Picard sent you here. But you’re in this flyer with me. Why?”

  Riker felt the anger bubble up, and he was shouting before he knew it. “Because you’re my father, dammit! If I was anything first, I was a dutiful son. And I’m back to playing that role again.”

  “And you hate it.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Duty is supposed to go both ways,” Will said, some pain unexpectedly creeping into his voice. “I was the good son. Making good grades in school, the right circle of friends, taking care of the house. Visiting her grave. But you never reciprocated.”

  The silence hung heavily over the two men. Neither looked at the other; instead they watched the city’s white lights twinkle as they circled the outskirts.

  “How were the doctors on Earth to know about this result? Nothing in the simulations or tests indicated the gas was at work on the brain. Removed from their natural environment, maybe it would have worn off,” Kyle finally said, clearly not wanting the argument to escalate.

  “Answer me,” Will said through clenched teeth.

  “No,” Kyle said. “You’re too tired and angry. You want to get into it, want to hear why I left Earth? Why I don’t go and tend her grave? Fine. When this is done and we’re on the ship. I’ll buy you a drink and we can hash it out man to man. But not here and not now. We have a man below that’s spreading this thing, and sooner or later, he’s going to go past the point of no return.”

  “Meaning?” The anger remained in his voice, but Will was forcing himself to agree with his father and stick to the mission. Any discussion of abandonment could wait.

  “Without a cure, too much of the planet will be infected, with no hope of maintaining order, let alone vital services. Your ship is huge, but even you don’t have the manpower to settle every fight, fix every optical net, and protect the weak. I’ve been giving this thought and will bet that you get to the fifty-eight to sixty-two percent infected rate and this planet’s ready for permanent quarantine.”

  The death sentence hung in the air. Will was impressed by his father’s reasoning and couldn’t argue with the conclusion.

  “It’s in their blood, their genes. This wasn’t going to vanish even in a year.” Will was content to play the game and avoid ripping old wounds any wider.

  “The doctors said they knew what to do,” Kyle said again. “They were wrong. And now I have to fix it.”

  “Why you? You’re not a doctor.”

  “Because that’s what I do,” Kyle said with an edge to his voice. “Every time Starfleet gets into trouble, I’m called in to strategize and get them out of it.”

  “And how do you propose to strategize two races out of their very nature? Quarantine them like you mentioned?”

  Kyle fumed, but had no answer.

  “You can’t fix it with quarantine,” Will said with equal bluntness. “They’ll just kill each other. You can’t fix it, but you certainly helped create the mess. You helped it along, you nurtured it, and then you were here to unleash it on an unprepared people.”

  “I didn’t declare them fit,” Kyle said, his voice suddenly weak. The sudden change in tone startled his son.

  “No, but you suspected something was up and let those five come back home, didn’t you?”

  Kyle blinked once. “Yes.”

  There was silence, and Will hoped his father was finally going to listen to reason. He agreed that his father had indeed saved lives, but he felt the tug of duty, the need to be with Picard and Troi. Will truly believed that only through a united effort, could a solution be found and implemented.

  His father continued to bank the craft, coming in lower toward what was clearly a port for vehicles. There were green lights marking spaces and indicating directions, and his father proved to be a fast study.

  As they were lowering themselves into position for a vertical landing, Kyle’s right hand pulled out from the controls and smashed into his son’s throat. The same hand then grabbed a hank of hair and used it to yank Will’s head into the dashboard. Stunned, Will fought back weakly, constrained by the chair’s safety belts. His head was pounded a second time against the dash and his vision started to go black. Just as he lost consciousness, Will felt his father’s hand now work its way inside his coat. Then there was nothing.

  Kyle removed his son’s combadge, dropped it to the floor, and destroyed it with his boot heel. Looking over at his son, slumped against the side of the vehicle, Kyle felt nothing. The emptiness gnawed at him, but he ignored it. He expertly landed the craft and then shut down the engines. He would sit and wait a few minutes for his son to wake up and then, with no one to call for help, father and son would go out and continue to make things right.

  Fire rained down from the rooftop to the street below, splattering for several meters and igniting nearby buildings. Some people screamed and fled, but others stood and watched, transfixed by the conflagration. Dozens more hurled obscenities at the Starfleet personnel who were fighting the blaze.

  “This just got worse,” Van Zandt said to no one in particular.

  The team he led had been on the ground for two hours, working to evacuate the hospital, which had become the center of a protest rally. As far as he knew, no one had explained why the hospital should draw protesters. What the veteran officer did know was that there were Bader and Dorset inside the building and they were not receiving much help. He had summoned medical help from the Enterprise to identify the most serious cases and get them out first. He was pleased Dr. Tropp, who liked to talk as much as Van Zandt, kept it short and sweet.

  Van Zandt had escorted the last of the critical care patients out minutes before the first firebomb struck the building. That told him one thing: someone ha
d been watching and recognized it was now a safe time to demonstrate their displeasure. Although Van Zandt had wanted to show the attackers his personal displeasure—with his phaser—he’d directed his team to continue evacuating. Fortunately, several of the hospital staff remained to help, concerned that the Starfleet personnel would be unfamiliar with the medical equipment still hooked up to many patients.

  Rasmussen and McEwing were coordinating with the local fire teams, which had arrived minutes after the first of several bombs went off. Van Zandt was thankful the fire teams had arrived, since that was one less problem to worry about. Liryn and Tyrell were checking nearby rooftops to track the bomb throwers.

  “What a mess,” Van Zandt said out loud. Shaking his head, he walked around the building, shooing gawkers away from the perimeter, ignoring the heckling of the protesters. Fortunately, the local peace officers had set up an effective barricade that was keeping the troublemakers out of the way. But more were arriving to either watch or shout, none to help. And he knew that soon a critical mass would be achieved, and then his team would be vulnerable.

  He had to help put out the fires. And quickly.

  A sound made Van Zandt look up and he jumped back, an epithet escaping from his lips as a piece of the roof came tumbling down. It fell heavily, cracking the concrete walkway where he had stood a moment earlier.

  Enough was enough. He turned around, brandishing his phaser, and shouted, “The next person I catch doing anything—anything!—to slow us down, I will shoot!”

  The bystanders were undeterred, and the protesters were now chanting about Federation aggression.

  So much for being a diplomat, he thought with a shrug. Back to business, he decided, and checked in with his people.

  “I think they’re done firebombing,” Tyrell reported, her voice sounding strained. “We found the launch equipment, but no more bombs and no people.”

  “Got it. Break the equipment and get back down.” Van Zandt looked around and saw a fire chief shouting orders. He jogged over to the woman’s position and asked for an update.