A Time to Hate

by Robert Greenberger

  He gave a kinder smile than before, saying, “Well, I for one wouldn’t want to get bored.” Picard sat down once again, planting his feet on the carpet. “If we were to introduce this new drug, how long before things calm down?”

  “I’d guess the first effects would be noticeable within hours as the body absorbs and processes the new element. The plants would take longer to take hold in some locations. And we’re still modeling how the liscom and the new plants would interact. It’s a fragile ecosystem we’re monkeying with.”

  “All right, and it will take you some time to synthesize enough to spread among the people. When will the simulations be complete?”

  “Another hour at least.”

  “You’re right, this is too large an issue for us to decide over a cup of tea. I’ll convene everyone in three hours. That should give you time to analyze everything and be prepared to give us the facts.”

  She looked into his eyes. “Will you be open to a debate?”

  “Within reason,” he responded steadily. “I need my senior officers to give me their unvarnished opinion. But trust me, the final decision and responsibility will remain with me.”

  Standing up, she asked, “What if we don’t find Will by then?”

  “We can only wait so long. I have to trust that the commander is alive and dealing with his father. I would like his counsel but we need decisions sooner rather than later. Should this fail, Starfleet will have my head.”

  “Think they’re still going after you?”

  “I honestly haven’t thought about it of late, Beverly. Some members of the admiralty would probably prefer my head on their wall instead of on my shoulders, but probably no more than before the demon ship.”

  “Fine with me, I think it looks just right where it is.”

  “Why, thank you,” he said, his tone losing some of its severity.

  “Three hours,” she said, seriousness creeping back into her voice. Walking out of the ready room, she thought about the consequences of her research and grew concerned all over again.

  Chapter Six

  WAVES BROKE OVER the barrier that kept people from tumbling off the large platform and into the roiling sea. Rain lashed down in torrents, rocking the platform and making it hard to stay upright. Between the surf and the wind, it was difficult to hear anything, so shouts were lost. What Tropp knew was that he had at best fifteen minutes to complete his task or he would lose his patient. He hadn’t lost a patient since the Enterprise arrived in this solar system, and he wasn’t about to lose one now.

  His team had beamed down only minutes earlier, summoned by an automated distress call. From what Data told them as they assembled in the transporter room, the platform was a marine research facility that everyone assumed had been abandoned when the “madness” broke out. Yet, the signal had been received by both the emergency services people on Delta Sigma IV and the Enterprise, so someone had to be there. Scanners indicated there were two bodies, but weak life signs from only one.

  There were no nurses available to beam down with Tropp, so the Denobulan accepted offers of help from a stellar cartographer and a security ensign he had never met before. As soon as the three of them arrived in the small structure that housed the research equipment, the doctor kneeled beside a body slumped over a fallen chair. It belonged to a Bader woman whose skull had been caved in by a heavy object.

  “They had some fight,” the ensign, a young man named La Rock, observed, letting out a low whistle.

  “She’s dead,” Tropp said. “Where’s the other one?”

  “No one else is in here, Doctor,” said the cartographer, a tall woman named Neumark.

  “Ensign, check outside, please,” Tropp said. La Rock’s only reply was an expression that clearly questioned Tropp’s sanity. The doctor and the ensign locked gazes. Finally the nervous young man looked once more over his shoulder at the rain beating against the window.

  “Lieutenant, please see if you can find a recording of what happened,” Tropp said, pleased with himself for finding something for the cartographer to do. As the woman busied herself without comment, he gazed out the window to watch the ensign.

  La Rock, thin and wiry with dark black hair that was now a wet mop on his head, was edging carefully along the exterior of the structure. Tropp watched as he rounded a corner and was lost from sight. The doctor began to relax, thinking the other victim must be outside, so all the ensign had to do was find him and drag him back in. He mentally began listing the first steps required for his research into the other plant life on the planet. If the liscom could affect people this severely, he began to wonder what other toxic substances were part of the ecosystem. While he generally preferred to work alone, he suspected he’d need Moq for the research. Normally people considered Tropp talkative, but compared with the Bolian, he was as mute as a Minaran.

  He was so lost in thought he missed the slam of the metal door and the ensign’s yells. Tropp was about to admonish the young man for not bringing the wounded native back with him, but then the words started to register.

  “…impaled…”

  Tropp uttered a short prayer and then told Neumark to stay where she was. He took a deep breath and stepped out into the driving rain. Almost immediately, his left foot slipped and he fell hard on one knee. He yelped in pain but ignored it as La Rock helped him up and they inched around the corner. There was another Bader woman, this one covered in blood but still alive. Tropp began to wonder how she could be as he shielded his eyes with one hand and studied her condition.

  Somehow she had been skewered to a series of metallic rods that were affixed to the exterior. They might have been atmosphere gauges or antennas. He couldn’t tell because the ends were still inside the struggling woman. Blood trickled from cuts on her face, and her coppery hair had been either cut away or burned. Her eyes were alert, so Tropp assumed she knew what her situation was.

  “Madam, you have to be cut away from the building before I can properly treat you. Do you understand me?”

  She nodded once, too weak to speak.

  He pulled out his medical tricorder, waved the hand scanner over her entire form, and then focused on the rods. There were four in all. Three had punctured organs, and the fourth was just below a lung. The woman would need major surgery once she was free, surgery he could easily do back aboard the Enterprise.

  “Doctor, what can we do?”

  “Be quiet, Ensign,” he said sharply. He needed to focus and didn’t want any distractions. Bad enough having to deal with a frightened kid, but the deck kept moving in reaction to the buffeting from the waves. While he would have preferred a stable environment, he mentally shrugged, knowing one cannot always have what one wants.

  Finished with his examination, he reached one damp hand to the rods to see how they were connected to the building. They were almost certainly welded to the structure in order to withstand the worst the sea had to offer. Cutting her loose was not going to be easy. Instead of a cartographer, he wished he had a spare engineer with the proper tools, but he determined there was no time to seek out additional help.

  “Listen carefully, Ensign La Rock,” Tropp began, then raised his voice, shouting to be heard above the roar. “She needs to be cut free. The only tool we have for that is your phaser. You will need to melt each of these rods until she is loose. Then we can beam up and I can operate. Your phaser must be set on a narrow beam and at a high intensity. She doesn’t have much time.”

  The ensign grabbed his phaser and began making modifications, swaying with the ever-shifting deck. “Doctor, won’t we burn her in the process?”

  “Well, the good news is that the rain will help cut down on the heat you generate. I can only hope the instruments inside the rods are not good conductors. Please begin.”

  Tropp looked at the woman, saw the understanding and fear that clouded her face. He patted her left arm and then was banged against the building.

  La Rock hesitated, rechecking his setting, and then moved ar
ound, looking for the best possible angle. Tropp grew impatient, but realized he needed the ensign to be comfortable in performing his task. Finally, La Rock took aim and depressed the trigger. A thin amber beam lanced through the rain. Tropp could hear the sizzle as water was instantly turned to steam. He watched as the base of the first rod grew red. The steam grew thicker, obscuring some of the target. After nearly thirty seconds, the rod was cut free and Tropp saw the woman’s right side sag a bit. She let out a cry of pain, the first real sound she had made since they found her.

  “Very good,” Tropp said encouragingly. He blinked away rain that fell freely into his eyes. “Now the second one, please.”

  La Rock nodded and took aim once more. The beam went to work and Tropp paused to study his tricorder. The woman’s breathing had grown shallower, her entire body in shock. He estimated they had ten minutes, maybe eleven before her vital functions shut down entirely. At nearly half a minute per rod, that was two minutes to free her, plenty of time left to beam up and get to work.

  “Tropp to sickbay.”

  “Sickbay. Please state the nature of the medical emergency.” The voice belonged to the Emergency Medical Hologram, which told Tropp that things had gotten busier. If Crusher was letting the hologram answer hails from the planet, she and her staff must have their hands full.

  “I need to perform surgery on a Bader female, approximately thirty years old. She’s been impaled in four places and we’re cutting her free. I need a bed ready and as much A-3 blood as we can spare.”

  “ETA?”

  “Five minutes tops,” Tropp replied. “I’ll need at least one nurse.”

  “In a pinch I have the requisite programming to act as a nurse.”

  “We’ll talk later. Tropp out.” Rather than chat with the hologram, Tropp needed to hold on to a railing with both hands as a wave crashed right over them. La Rock fell flat on his front, still gripping the phaser, but the water made the woman, now half free, thrash about, and her moans told him things were getting worse.

  The ensign hesitated at the sounds of her anguish.

  “She needs to be freed now!” Tropp yelled.

  La Rock nodded and got to his knees, took aim, and fired once more. Before the woman was freed, Tropp heard a sound and saw the cartographer on the deck. She had quickly sized up the situation and had brought some cable. Without a word, she inched forward and tied a loop around the doctor’s leg. She then connected the patient to the doctor, ducking low enough to avoid the phaser beam. He watched her wince as a molten piece of the rod struck her damp shoulder. He had to admire her for both her courage and her good thinking.

  “One more time and we can get out of here,” Tropp shouted encouragingly.

  “Aye, sir,” La Rock called back, pausing long enough to be added to the human chain. As soon as the doctor had firmly wrapped the cable around his waist, La Rock rose on one knee and took aim.

  “Did you find anything?” Tropp shouted to Neumark.

  “No logs of any kind. I can only begin to guess what happened here.”

  “It really doesn’t matter at this point,” he replied.

  Another wave crashed over them, but no one stirred. La Rock fired his phaser and Tropp willed the heat to work faster. His tricorder indicated that the woman’s kidneys had failed, so he mentally rearranged the order of surgery. Then he shoved the device into his pocket, ready to catch the limp, now unconscious woman.

  She was falling, her weight finishing the job of breaking the melting rod free. Neumark reached out and grabbed her. Holding the woman in her arms, she nodded to Tropp, who ordered emergency transport direct to sickbay. The woman wasn’t out of danger yet.

  Will’s head throbbed and he seethed with the knowledge that his father deliberately hurt him. When he regained consciousness, he fought back the urge to vomit and recognized he was still strapped within the stolen flyer. His father had gotten out and was doing something nearby. Freeing himself, he quickly checked the communications system and wasn’t at all surprised to find it disabled, key components missing. A check for weaponry also turned up nothing immediately useful.

  He did find some water and took several swallows, which felt wonderful. There was also a first-aid kit and he found some tablets to help with the pain. When he thought of a souvenir from the planet a day—or was it two?—ago, he never imagined it would be a lump on his head, a gift from his father.

  It was chilly, but nowhere near as cold as the place where he had found Kyle. Pleased he at least had the clothes for the environment, Riker decided it was time to hunt down his father one more time. He recalled Kyle said this city had a problem, but he struggled to remember the nature of it. Finally it came to him: there was an evacuation going on, and Kyle decided they needed to help.

  Stepping out of the flyer, Will saw that the sun was just rising. They had landed in a clearing, not far from where a large number of flyers had been parked earlier. Now the field was empty, and he could hear sirens and broadcast announcements in the distance. People were leaving the city on foot or on the local version of a motorized bicycle. They moved without panic, so he assumed there was no immediate threat. Most carried cases, and some carried children on their backs. He had seen this sort of evacuation before, when people had little time to prepare and grabbed whatever they could. Old and young huddled around the sturdiest, so the line was actually a series of clusters.

  Finally, he spotted his father’s gray hair. Kyle was on the opposite side of the evacuees, and he seemed to be directing the traffic.

  Will allowed the painkiller he had taken to do its job as he watched his father. He also studied the people, a mix of Bader and Dorset, of course, but what was remarkable was the lack of fighting and yelling. Had they been spared the disease? Or did something happen in the city that was bad enough to convince them to put aside their differences and escape together? Will turned his attention back to his father, watching him at work. As ever, Kyle seemed in command of the situation, taking time to make comforting comments to the occasional passerby. He even pulled a family out of line and rearranged their belongings, making them easier to carry.

  After all this time, Will wasn’t sure what to make of his father. Kyle Riker always seemed to know what to do, what he wanted, and how to get it. His accomplishments were never in question, his manner was above reproach. Even when he was implicated in the Tholian attack on the space station, he had enough supporters within Starfleet Command to buy him time to prove his innocence. So, Will asked himself for the thousandth time, why couldn’t he communicate effectively with his son? And of course, there was never an answer that satisfied the first officer.

  He longed to talk to Troi, and receive not only competent guidance, but emotional comfort. It had taken him a long time to understand women and be comfortable around them, and as a result he knew he had let promising relationships slip by him, starting with Felicia at the Academy. His time with Deanna, starting when he was an inexperienced lieutenant on Betazed, had been wonderful but, even so, distanced. He had placed duty over love at the time and had come to regret it. Still, five years later when he found himself working alongside her on the Enterprise-D, he wasn’t sure of himself around her. Awkwardness had finally given way to a deep, abiding friendship, and despite their mutually exclusive romantic entanglements, there was always something in the air between them. Will was certain he had lost her forever when Worf entered the picture, but he hadn’t begrudged his friends their happiness. He had had his chance and let it pass by. It was Worf who ended the relationship, transferring to Deep Space 9 and, like the younger Riker, put duty before romance. If there was anyone who was always putting duty first, it was his Klingon friend.

  Now, here they were, finally reunited after twelve years. And it felt right. Will was thrilled the effects of the Son’a planet helped reignite the romance once and for all, but that was over three years ago. They were happy, but at this stage in his life, Will was asking himself if there should be more. At forty-two, Riker
figured that he would have been married by now if it was going to happen at all. He and Troi were as close to being a real married couple as possible. But, as he said to her before leaving the ship three days ago, he disliked unfinished business.

  The Delta Sigma IV problem was the immediate unfinished business that gnawed at him, and he hated being out of touch with Picard and the ship and therefore out of the flow of knowledge. For all he knew, Crusher was administering a vaccine and the problem would be over by lunchtime. Not bloody likely, he knew, but still, he craved contact with Troi. And the captain.

  During his musing, Will had lost track of his father. He narrowed his eyes and scanned the crowd, hoping to spot his all-too-human form amid the tall and thin Dorset and stocky Bader. A sound caught his attention, and he whirled about to spot his father standing by the entrance to the flyer. He was breathing hard, but damn, he was still good enough to avoid detection.

  “We’ve got to fly, Willy,” Kyle said, a look of determination on his face.

  “Where?”

  “Follow me,” he said and clambered aboard. Refusing to be left behind, Will followed. Within seconds the hatch was sealed shut and the engines hummed to life.

  “How much longer do we do this?” Will asked.

  Without taking time for the usual preflight check, they were lifting into the air. His father was a machine, taking control of the vessel and giving it his total concentration. It was a look Will had seen many, many times before. His father had a goal and was going to accomplish it successfully, damn what lay ahead.

  “This pointless running around, flitting from problem to problem. You can’t solve them all, I told you that. You told me this was getting too big even for the Enterprise.”

  “But I also said I was going to find El Bison El,” Kyle reminded him, sounding more confident than he had before.

  “Where?” Will repeated, more forcefully this time.

  “Into the city, about half a kilometer up,” Kyle replied.