He had been away, but he was going home.
Picard could have sent a communication via the ship’s intercom. However, his shift on the bridge was over, and he preferred to deliver the message in person.
It didn’t take long for the door to Serenity’s quarters to slide aside, revealing their sole occupant. “Jean-Luc,” she said.
“My navigator has located your vessel,” he told her. “Barring the unforeseen, we will reach it in a few hours.”
She absorbed the information. Then she said, “Come in.”
As the door slid closed behind him, Serenity looked into his eyes. Hers, as always, were so beautiful it sent a chill through him.
This moment was hardly a surprise—they had both known it would come. But it bore a weight for which Picard wasn’t really prepared, and he suspected that Serenity wasn’t either.
“We’ve been here before,” she said, “haven’t we? Parting ways, saying good-bye?”
“We have,” he agreed. “Except, as I recall, it was in a mountain meadow last time, with Magnia’s sun turning the sky ablaze in the background.”
Serenity looked around her quarters. “I guess you’d have to say this is a little different.”
He nodded. “Decidedly.”
“Last time,” she said, “I asked you if you would miss me. You didn’t quite say you would.”
“Nor did I say I wouldn’t.”
Serenity smiled a little. “Not the decisive response one would expect from the commander of a Federation starship.”
He held his hands out in an appeal for reason. “Even with everything that happened that day, I didn’t know if I could trust you. You had already lied to me, and I had fallen for it. It was difficult to be certain of your motives after that.”
“And this time?” she asked. “Do you feel it’s necessary to question my motives?”
Picard smiled back. “This time you were completely trustworthy. At least, I believe you were. I have yet to see if you pilfered any of the towels.”
That got a laugh out of her. “You know,” she said, taking his hand, “I may have stolen any number of things. A thorough captain would demand a search of my person.”
“Would he?” asked Picard.
“I’m sure of it.” Her eyes danced with reflected light. “And he wouldn’t trust a tricorder scan.”
“Not if he were truly thorough, you mean.”
“He would want to conduct the search himself. For the sake of security, of course.”
“Of course,” he said.
Then the captain kissed her. And that, as it turned out, was just the beginning.
Some time later, Picard heard Ben Zoma calling his name over the intercom system. “Yes?” he said.
“We’ve found the Magnians’ ship.”
The captain was sorry to hear it.
“And,” Ben Zoma added, “the foremost elder is impatient to leave us.”
I am sure he is. “Thank you, Gilaad. Picard out.”
“I have to go,” said Serenity, her head on his shoulder.
Picard brushed her raven hair off her face. “Yes. I know.”
“Perhaps we’ll see each other again before the safety of the galaxy demands it.”
“I hope so,” he said.
But of course, he couldn’t say. After Picard’s competency hearing was over, Admiral Mehdi had spoken to him about the possibility of a long-term mission—one that would take the Stargazer far from the attentions of Admiral McAteer, into the unexplored regions beyond the bounds of the Federation.
It was right up Picard’s alley. But then, wasn’t that what Starfleet was all about? Pushing the envelope? Going where no one had gone before?
“A new chapter for the Stargazer,” Mehdi had called it. And the captain had liked the sound of it—almost as much as he liked the look in Serenity’s dark brown eyes.
“I guess I should get ready,” she said.
“Both of us,” he told her.
Soon, he would be watching her vanish from his life again—perhaps forever. But then, he had thought the same thing when he left Magnia, and here he was holding Serenity in his arms again.
Forever is a very long time, Picard told himself. Anything can happen.
Anything.
Acknowledgments
If writing Star Trek books teaches you anything, it’s that zipping through space is not a one-man job. Wherever you’re headed, whether it’s just around the block to Alpha Centauri or all the way out to the galactic barrier, you’d better surround yourself with good hands. Otherwise, you’re space pizza.
This author has been privileged to have the best crew in the fleet. Margaret Clark, my editor on Maker and a slew of other books, has plied uncharted territory with a steady hand and a salty jape ever since we began working together more than a decade ago. Scott Shannon, my publisher, has kept the warp drive purring, the deflector shields up, and the phaser banks fully charged. And Paula Block of Viacom Licensing, blessed with the skill of a Starfleet surgeon, has extracted any number of troublesome plot points without leaving so much as a hairline scar.
And of course, there’s the guy who started it all—Gene Roddenberry. The Zefram Cochrane of the Star Trek universe, Gene came up with the engine that still propels us through the void, eagerly seeking all those strange new worlds.
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