Star Trek - [TNG] - All Good Things...

by Michael Jan Friedman

  In the meantime, Worf had taken over Chilton's duties from his aft console. "Our shields have collapsed," he remarked soberly. "We are defenseless against them."

  Returning to her captain's chair, Beverly ignored her bruises and fixed her attention on the viewscreen. It showed only one of their pursuers, who had now taken up positions surrounding them.

  She sighed raggedly. It was only a matter of time now. Seeing that their prey had nothing left, the Klingons would apply the death stroke. And, knowing them, they would be quick about it.

  "Captain," said Data, "there's another ship decloaking—bearing two-one-five mark three-one-oh." Beverly turned to look at him, wondering why their adversaries needed reinforcements against a medical vessel.

  The android looked surprised. "Captain... it's the Enterprise!"

  Beverly's heart leapt at the mere mention of their old ship. Returning her attention to the viewscreen, she watched as the Galaxy-class vessel decloaked behind and above the unsuspecting Klingon cruiser.

  Suddenly, the Enterprise let loose with a furious volley of phasers and photon torpedoes. Hammered beyond its capacity to defend itself, the attack cruiser shot apart in a cloud of blue plasma.

  Before anyone on the Pasteur could celebrate, the medical ship pitched again. "Direct hit to the warp core," shouted Geordi. "Heavy damage..."

  Jean-Luc's face went white with dread. "The warp core... we can't let that happen! We have to stabilize it!" he cried—and moved to help Geordi at the console.

  "The Klingon ships are disengaging," Data declared.

  However, the Pasteur was rocked yet again.

  "But not without a few parting shots," the android added.

  "Captain," Geordi bellowed, "I can't stabilize the core. It's going critical!"

  Abruptly, a voice came through over their intercom grid—a voice that Beverly had heard before. "Enterprise to Pasteur. Our sensors show your ship has a warp-core breach in progress."

  "Damned right it does!" she responded.

  "Prepare for emergency beam-out," the voice advised.

  Jean-Luc looked up in wonder. Then he turned to her, his eyes posing the question even before he could say the word.

  "Riker?" he breathed.

  "Riker," Beverly repeated, confirming it for him.

  Jean-Luc seemed perplexed—and no wonder. Just a little while ago, his former exec had refused to help him. And now…

  Before she could take her speculation any further, Beverly found herself standing on the bridge of the Enterprise. Will Riker was sitting in the center seat, as he had in the past when Jean-Luc was absent or off-duty.

  Except now, he looked a bit more comfortable there.

  Of course, that came as no surprise. Will had commanded the Enterprise for several years after Jean-Luc joined the diplomatic corps—and before Riker himself became an admiral.

  Beverly didn't recognize his crew, but she hadn't expected to. Hell, she hadn't expected anything except to be blasted to atoms.

  Looking behind her, she saw that Jean-Luc, Worf, Data, Geordi, and her bridge officers—with the exception of poor Chilton—had materialized on the bridge as well. But what about the rest of her people?

  She was answered by the officer at tactical. "The Pasteur crew is safely aboard, Admiral."

  "Raise shields," responded Riker. "Where are the Klingons?"

  The tactical officer consulted his board. "They're still moving off, sir—half a light-year distant."

  The admiral nodded. "They'll be back," he said confidently.

  But for now, Beverly assured herself, they were safe. Breathing a sigh of relief, she looked around appraisingly.

  Apparently, the Enterprise had seen a few technological updates over the years. The captain's chair was slightly higher than it used to be, and there were other changes in evidence. But it was still basically the same place she had once called home.

  Satisfied that the battle was over, Riker turned to the new arrivals and favored them with a smile. "Well?" he asked, only half-seriously. "Isn't somebody going to say thank you?"

  Worf took a step toward the admiral. His face was racked with barely restrained fury.

  "There is nothing to thank you for." he snarled, his mouth twisting around the words. "If you had not turned the captain down when he came to you for help, none of this would have happened."

  Riker's smile disappeared. "What about you, Worf?. I can't believe you let a defenseless ship cross into hostile territory without an escort."

  "I did what was right," the Klingon insisted. His lips pulled back from his teeth. "Unlike some people," he grated, "I still have a sense of loyalty. Of honor."

  "It wasn't a question of honor," said the admiral. "It was a question of common sense."

  "Or of cowardice," spat Worf.

  Riker's eyes flashed. "Remember who you're talking to, Governor."

  Jean-Luc stepped between them before the confrontation could escalate any further. "We don't have time for this," he insisted. "Will, you have to shut down the warp-core breach on the Pasteur."

  The admiral looked at him. "What?"

  The older man nodded vigorously. "The subspace barrier in this region... it's very thin. If that ship explodes, it could rupture the barrier... flood this whole area with anti-time. Don't you see—this could be the very thing that destroys humanity!" Oh, no, thought Beverly. Not that again.

  Riker looked at Jean-Luc as if he had gone completely mad. Then he turned to Data, to Geordi, and, finally, to Beverly.

  "What the hews he talking about?"

  She shook her head. "Frankly, I'm not sure anymore."

  Jean-Luc grew wild. He grasped the android by the arm.

  "Data, tell them! Tell them!"

  The android met Riker's gaze. "The subspace barrier in this area is quite thin... though not unusually so."

  "You see, you see?" Jean-Luc pointed to the viewscreen, where the Pasteur hung crippled in space, its hull charred by disruptor fire. "If that ship explodes, it could destroy everything!"

  The admiral shot a glance at his tactical officer. "Mr. Gaines, is there any way to repair the warp-core breach on the Pasteur?"

  The man didn't look optimistic. "I don't think so, sir. The plasma injector is already..." Abruptly, something caught his eye. His fingers flew over his controls.

  "Wait a minute, sir. I think it's about to breach.... "

  Beverly focused on the viewscreen. For a moment, there was no change in the Pasteur's status. Then, with shocking finality, the ship vanished in a burst of blue-white energy.

  She felt a pang in her throat. The Pasteur was her first vessel... her first command. It was as if she had just seen a part of herself destroyed.

  But Jean-Luc... his horror was much worse than hers, she observed. For, by his lights, the destruction of the Pasteur might well mean the end of all humanity.

  CHAPTER 20

  Picard stared at the screen in horror. Was this it? Was this the doom Q had foretold—the one he had failed to avoid, despite his advance knowledge of it?

  Riker turned to his tactical officer. "Full scan, Mr. Gaines. Any sign of a subspace rupture?" The man worked for a moment. Picard dreaded what he would hear.

  But when Gaines looked up, he was hardly perturbed.

  "No, sir," he reported. "The subspace barrier is intact." Everyone seemed to relax. Everyone, that is, except Picard himself. He didn't understand it, and he said so.

  But Riker didn't seem to feel compelled to give him an explanation. "All right," said the big man. "Let's get out of here. Engage cloak."

  "Cloak is not functioning," Gaines informed him. "We took a direct hit to the starboard plasma coil.

  Engineering reports seven hours until we can cloak again."

  Riker frowned. "Then we'll do this the old-fashioned way. Lay in a course back to the Federation. Warp 13."

  Picard shook his head. "No. We can't leave!"

  The admiral gazed at him sympathetically. "We have to," he explained. "
This is Klingon territory. We're not supposed to be here."

  Picard felt himself growing desperate. Couldn't they see? This was more important than a silly political boundary. This was about extinction.

  "No," he insisted, taking hold of Riker's tunic. "We have to stay here... to find the cause of the temporal anomaly. I caused it, dammit... though I don't know how..."

  "Captain," the admiral said, pulling Picard's hand away from him, "there could be other attack cruisers on the way. We're getting out of here while we still can."

  Picard was becoming frantic. He knew how hysterical he sounded, but he had to get through to them—to show them how important it was.

  "We can't! We can't! Will, please... everything depends on this! Please listen to me!"

  Too late, he caught sight of the hypospray in Beverly's hand. He started to turn, to fend it off, but he was too slow. He heard a hiss as the doctor released the spray's contents into his bloodstream.

  Fighting the instantaneous effects, he lurched forward…

  ... and nearly bumped into a crewman as he came around a bend in the corridor.

  The man, an engineering officer, apologized as he stepped to the side. "Sorry, sir."

  "That's quite all right," Picard assured him. Judging by the man's uniform—and his own—he was back in the present. Without another word, he proceeded along the corridor.

  But where was he going? Slowing down, he thought for a moment.

  Sickbay. Of course. Beverly had asked him to come down there. She'd said that she wanted to speak with him.

  Speeding up his pace, he negotiated another bend and saw the sickbay doors up ahead on his right. Narrowing the gap, he wondered what the doctor wanted to see him about.

  Was it Geordi? Had something changed with regard to his condition?

  The doors parted as he came near. Making his way through them, he saw that Beverly wasn't at the engineer's bed at all.

  She was at another one—tending to Alissa Ogawa. The nurse was lying down, wearing a patient's gown. And—unless the captain's eyes were going bad—she no longer appeared to be pregnant.

  Picard watched as Ogawa's husband went to her side.

  He took her hand, tried to comfort her—but the nurse was too distraught. She didn't want to be comforted.

  Obviously, there was something wrong here. Something very wrong.

  Slowly, not wishing to be any more obtrusive than necessary in the face of Ogawa's suffering, the captain moved to Beverly's side. She noticed him standing there right away.

  He asked, "You wanted to see me, Doctor?"

  "Yes," she replied. And then, to Ogawa: "I'll be right back, Alissa."

  The nurse acknowledged her with a nod. Satisfied that Ogawa would be all right for the moment, Beverly took the captain aside and spoke to him in hushed tones.

  "What is it?" he breathed. "What's wrong?"

  "Alissa lost the baby," she told him, a shiver in her voice showing how much she shared in her assistant's sorrow.

  Picard scowled. "What happened?" he asked.

  The doctor looked at him. "I think it's the same thing that happened to Geordi. Somehow, the temporal energy from the anomaly caused the fetal tissue to revert to an earlier stage of development. It was as if the unborn child began to grow younger... and younger still…until finally, the DNA itself began to break down." The captain tilted his head to indicate the nurse.

  "How is she?" Beverly shrugged. "Physically, she's fine—at least, for now. But if this temporal reversion continues, I don't think any of us are going to be fine for much longer." A pause. "I scanned most of the crew. The temporal energy is beginning to affect everyone, Jean-Luc." He didn't like the direction in which this conversation was headed. "How?" he inquired.

  The doctor sighed. "Our cellular structures are changing. Instead of dividing, our cells are coming together... reverting to earlier cellular structures. In some cases, this has caused old injuries to be healed... but that's only the tip of the iceberg. Eventually, this could kill us all, as it did Nurse Ogawa's baby."

  It was a horrible prospect. Picard's lips pressed together as he contemplated it.

  "How widespread is the effect?" he wondered. "Is it localized to this area, or could it affect other areas of space?"

  Beverly shook her head. "I don't know."

  The captain couldn't take any chances. "Send a report to Starbase Twenty-Three," he said. "They're the nearest outpost. Have them begin checking their personnel for these effects."

  "Will do," she assured him. As he watched, she moved across sickbay to put the order into effect.

  Picard took another look at Ogawa. Could this be the catastrophe Q had warned him of? Was humanity going to devolve into the single-celled creatures that had been its primeval forebears?

  He set his teeth. Not if he could help it.

  Looking up, he said, "Mr. Data."

  The android's reply over the intercom system was crisp and immediate. "Aye, sir?"

  "Meet me in the observation lounge," the captain told him.

  "On my way," said Data.

  A few minutes later, Picard found himself studying a padd in the ship's observation lounge as Data looked on. It contained an outline of the android's initial findings regarding the spatial anomaly.

  Finished, the captain looked up and eyed Data across the polished expanse of the 1ounge's table. "Fascinating," he commented.

  "Indeed," said the android.

  "And how long until we've completed the tachyon scan?" Picard inquired.

  Data hardly found it necessary to think about it. "Approximately one hour, forty-five minutes, sir."

  The captain nodded. "Good. Once that's done, I want you to analyze the information and find a way to shut the anomaly down. But I don't want to do anything that will exacerbate the problem."

  "I could prepare a risk analysis on whatever solution I devise," the android suggested.

  "Good idea," Picard confirmed.

  "Thank you, sir," replied Data. And without any further ado, he made his exit, intent on the task ahead of him.

  The captain watched him go, then picked up the padd and walked over to the observation portal. He was just starting to feel that they might have a fighting chance against the anomaly…

  ... when someone cried out in a strident voice, "Seven! A winner?' Turning, the captain was shocked to see that the observation-lounge table was gone. In its place was an old-fashioned craps table, straight out of some archaic Earth casino—a table covered with green felt and host to several small piles of plastic chips.

  A pair of dice sat on the end closest to Picard. One showed a set of three dots, the other a set of four. The total? Seven.

  Looking up, he saw that Q was standing at the opposite end of the table, dressed as a twentieth-century croupier. Tossing some chips to the human, the entity used his croupier's stick to rake in the dice.

  "Place your bets," he called out, "place your bets. New shooter, new shooter comin' up."

  The captain glared at him. "What do you want this time, Q?"

  Q shrugged. "I'm just here as an observer, Jean-Luc. I want to see what kind of bet you're going to make on this anomaly."

  Picard stiffened. What was this about? "I'm not betting anything," he declared.

  "Oh, yes you are," Q argued. "And the stakes on this table are pretty high. The highest, in fact."

  With his stick, he indicated a small sign on the table. It read: TABLE MINIMUM—HUMANITY OR THE RACE OF YOUR CHOICE. The captain was not amused in the least.

  "You sure you want Data to shut down that temporal anomaly?" Q pressed. He picked up the dice and rolled them around in his hand.

  Picard looked at him. "Are you suggesting that by shutting the anomaly down, I will cause the destruction of mankind?"

  Q shook his head. "I'm not suggesting anything, my friend. I just run the table." Picking up some chips, he began to place a bet. "Let's see... you've bet on the temporal anomaly at four to one. Shall we see what comes up
?"

  As Q threw the dice…

  ... the captain found himself on a craggy ledge.

  Looking down, he saw that he was perched high above a vast, chaotic soup—a miasma of steaming lava and bubbling gases. It was hot here, so oppressively hot that he already found himself perspiring, and the air was full of fine, black flecks.

  "Welcome home," said Q, who was standing beside him, still dressed in his croupier's outfit.

  "Home?" echoed Picard, wiping the sweat from his forehead. He honestly didn't know what his companion was talking about.

  "Don't you recognize your old stomping grounds?" asked Q. "This is Earth—France, in fact. About... oh ... three and a half billion years ago, give or take an eon or so." He wrinkled his nose. "Smells awful, doesn't it... all that sulfur and volcanic ash... I really must speak to the maid."

  The captain turned to him, his eyes stinging from the debris in the atmosphere. "Is there a point to all this, or are we just on another of your merry travelogues?"

  The entity looked at him. "Travelogues? You wound me, Jean-Luc. All I'm doing is trying to further your miserable education."

  "Indeed," Picard commented. "And exactly what am I to learn in this place? How to asphyxiate myself?" Q smiled knowingly and pointed to the sky. "Look!" he exclaimed. "Pretty impressive, wouldn't you say?" As Picard followed the gesture, his mouth went even drier. All he could see, from horizon to horizon, filling the heavens with its ominous brilliance, was the spatial anomaly that they'd located in the Devron system.

  But here, it was even bigger.

  "The anomaly is here?" wondered the captain. "At Earth...?"

  "At this point in history," Q explained, "the anomaly is everywhere. It has filled this entire quadrant of your galaxy."

  Picard's eyes were watering from the ashes in the air.

  He dabbed at them, to no avail.

  "The further back in time I go... the larger the anomaly." He tried to make sense of that. "But--"

  Abruptly, Q took off along the length of the ledge, as if he'd caught a glimpse of something he couldn't resist.