“About ten minutes,” I said. “Sorry.”
“All right,” he said, with a heavy sigh. “I can do some of it on the fly after we go, but before we leave I’m going to have to reconnect the conn and op controls. And I won’t be able to do anything about the engine circuit upgrades, so don’t make me go too fast. Scully out.” It was clear that this was a large inconvenience, but Scully never complained. I was about to read the briefing packet when the door chimed. I opened it to find Guinan.
“Guinan, I’m a little busy…”
“I won’t take too much of your time,” she said. “I just wanted to say goodbye.” This shouldn’t have come as a surprise; she wasn’t a member of the crew, and all she had asked of me was to take her to the starbase. Still, I was very disappointed.
“Are you sure? You are welcome to stay aboard.”
“Thanks, but I don’t really have a job here,” she said. “And there isn’t one I really want.”
“What would you like to do?”
“I don’t know, tend bar?” I smiled at the joke.
“Well,” I said, “in that case, I have something for you.” I pulled out a bottle of Aldebaran whiskey. “For the bar you eventually tend.”
“Where’d you get this?”
“Mazzara gave it to me,” I said. “But it was from a case that I think he stole from Laughton, so it belongs to you anyway.”
“Thanks.”
“Where will you go?”
“Oh, I’ll be here and there. Don’t worry, you and I will run into each other again.” She smiled, and, just like on that first day I met her, it seemed like she was engaging in some private joke. She gave me a hug. “Thanks again for saving my life.”
“You’re welcome,” I said, and she left. I sat back down.
She was probably one of the most unique personalities I’d ever met. Her presence had a strange calming effect on me, and I was sorry that there wasn’t a place for her in my crew. I was sorry we didn’t have a bar on the ship.
I looked back at the briefing packet on my viewscreen to familiarize myself with the mission ahead, as I tapped the button for the intercom.
“Picard to Bridge,” I said, “stand by to leave orbit.”
* * *
“Dock command signaling clear, sir,” Black said.
I was in my chair, but that was about the only thing considerably different from the previous day. A lot of control panels were still open, and a lot of crewmen had their heads inside them. But we had to leave. Jack Crusher was at the conn, Walker at ops, and Engineer Scully was lying on the floor between them, working underneath their stations.
“Set course for system L-374, Mr. Crusher,” I said.
“Uh, sir, I don’t have any helm or navigation control…”
“Just one more second, sir,” Scully said. “Okay, try it now…” Crusher operated his controls.
“Still nothing, sir,” Crusher said. My first moments on the bridge as captain were off to a terrible start.
“Oh, okay, got it now,” Scully said. “You’re good to go…” Crusher tried the controls again.
“Course plotted, sir,” Crusher said.
“Engage,” I said. On the viewscreen, Tagan III fell away, and we leapt to warp. The stars streamed by. And then the inertial dampeners strained, and we all were pulled forward as the ship came to a sudden stop.
“Report!” I said.
“We’re no longer at warp,” Crusher said.
“That much is clear,” I said.
“That was me, that was me,” Scully said. “Sorry, okay, here we go…” The screen changed again as we went back to warp. I held my breath, waiting for another breakdown, but it didn’t come.
“On course for system L-374,” Crusher said. “ETA 47.9 hours.”
“Communications,” I said. “Put the image I sent to you up on the main screen.”
“Aye, sir,” Black said. On the main viewscreen the image of a kilometers-long structure hung in space, a dark tube with an immense mouth on one end, tapering to a point on the other. Its immense size was apparent by how it dwarfed the three starship tugs hanging near it. I got out of my chair and walked near the screen.
“What is that?” Walker said. I was about to answer when someone did it for me.
“That’s the planet-killer, isn’t it?” It was Jack Crusher. I was impressed that he recognized it.
“Yes,” I said. “About eighty years ago that machine entered Federation space and destroyed four solar systems.”
“How?” Walker said. I turned to Crusher.
“Ensign?”
“It used an anti-proton beam to destroy planets and ingest the debris from those planets for fuel. It was very difficult to destroy because its hull is solid neutronium.” Once Crusher said that, there were sounds of recognition from the rest of the bridge crew. This object, made out of the ultra-dense matter that exists in the center of a neutron star, was part of academy legends.
“Okay, this is coming back to me,” Walker said. “Kirk stopped it, right?” I nodded. The planet-killer had all but destroyed the starship Constellation, though it had left its impulse engines functional. Kirk himself had driven the wrecked ship inside the deadly machine and beamed off just before blowing up the Constellation’s impulse engines. It was one of the many swashbuckling stories of Starfleet’s most famous captain that had inspired generations of cadets.
“The object was immobilized,” I said. “And for the last eighty years Federation scientists had been studying it in system L-374, trying to unlock the secrets of its construction. Yesterday, Starfleet lost contact with the science team, and now there’s heavy subspace interference in the area.”
“The neutronium itself is the cause of the interference,” Crusher said. “The science team used signal boosters to counter it. They must be malfunctioning.”
“Or destroyed,” Scully said. I’d forgotten about him, still lying on the deck with his head under the conn and ops consoles. But he had hit Starfleet’s concern—that someone had decided to steal the planet-killer. Still, there was no proof of that.
“The Stargazer is the closest ship available,” I said. “We’re going to see what’s going on, so let’s not jump to conclusions. However, Number One, schedule some battle drills.”
“Who’s ‘Number One’?” Walker said. He was serious and I realized I’d unconsciously adopted Mazzara’s penchant for that nickname. It was an interesting lesson to me; you could cherry-pick aspects of someone’s command style even if you disdained them as a whole. I enjoyed that Mazzara had called me “Number One,” a charming relic of the days of sail.
“That’s you,” I said.
It would take two days to reach our destination, so I tried to give Scully as much help to complete the repairs and upgrades as possible without compromising other ship’s functions. However, it would turn out we wouldn’t have the full two days; about ten hours from our destination, sensors picked up the planet-killer, moving at warp speed.
“How is that possible?” I said.
“I don’t know,” Walker said. “I thought Kirk destroyed its engines.”
“It’s on a course away from us,” Crusher said.
“Heading?”
“It’s a precise heading for the planet Romulus.” That gave me pause. The Romulans? The Federation had not heard from them in decades. Had they snuck into Federation space to steal this artifact? It seemed unlikely. But I had a more pressing problem.
“We need to intercept it before it enters the Neutral Zone,1” I said.
“Its speed is warp 5.9,” Crusher said. “To catch it before it reaches the Neutral Zone, we’ll have to go to warp 8.3.” Engineer Scully would not be pleased, but I didn’t see that I had a choice. I couldn’t risk pursuing it into Romulan space, even if they were the ones stealing it.
We changed course, and after a few hours we closed in on the behemoth. When we were in visual range, we were able to determine how it was able to travel at warp: it had
a large girdle built around it, with two warp engines attached.
“That’s Starfleet equipment,” Walker said. “The Federation science team must have had the Corps of Engineers build it so they could move the thing.” I noticed an engineering compartment at the base of the engines.
“Scan for life signs,” I said.
“One human, very faint,” Walker said.
“All right,” I said. “We’ll have to beam aboard and try to ascertain what is going on.”
“If the Romulans are responsible,” Walker said, “it’s possible there’s a cloaked ship nearby that we can’t detect.” The Romulans, the last time Starfleet had seen them, had perfected their ability to “cloak” their ships from Starfleet detection devices. No doubt in the intervening years their technology had continued to improve.
“I’m still not sure why the Romulans would risk this,” I said.
“Even with no power,” Crusher said, “it is a formidable weapon. Send it into a system at warp speed and it might be difficult to stop before it crashes into an adversary’s planet. The destruction from such an impact would be catastrophic.” I wasn’t that impressed with Crusher’s theory, because it neglected the obvious.
“Stealing it and taking it back to their homeworld?” I said. “We would know they had stolen it. What do they gain from such a bold move?” I needed more answers.
“Scully to Bridge,” Scully said on the intercom. I knew what this was about.
“Yes, Engineer,” I said, anticipating his demand, “I know we’ve got to slow down…”
“And soon,” he said, “or we’re all going to be a big pile of scrap metal.”
“I understand, Picard out.” I checked our distance from the Neutral Zone; we had maybe twenty minutes. I turned to Walker. “We need to regain control of that ship. Mr. Crusher, you’re with me.” It was a difficult thing, after acquiring a ship of my own, to then leave it in someone else’s hands. But I felt like I had to solve this problem myself.
“You have the bridge, Number One,” I said.
With Security Chief Cheva and Dr. Ailat, Mr. Crusher and I beamed into the engineering compartment. It was clean and efficient, a series of control panels surrounding a warp reactor. Dr. Ailat took out her tricorder.
“The life sign is over here,” Ailat said. Cheva and Ailat led the way and we found a human in a Starfleet engineer’s uniform. He was unconscious, lying in a pool of his own blood.
“He’s been stabbed repeatedly,” Ailat said. She immediately got to work, using her three hands to treat and close the wounds.
“Stabbed?” I said. “With what?” Cheva had her phaser out. Crusher meanwhile was checking the control panels. Ailat’s hands glided from her patient to her medical bag and back; she spoke to me without looking up.
“Difficult to determine at this stage,” Ailat said. “I will have to do more study at a later time.” I went over to Crusher.
“Sir, the controls are locked out,” he said. “I can’t shut down the engines or adjust the course or speed.”
“Stargazer to Picard,” came Walker’s voice over my communicator.
“Go ahead,” I said.
“Engineer Scully apologizes, but he reports we have about ten seconds before he has to take us out of warp, or the engines will overload.” This was not very convenient. If the Stargazer dropped out of warp, the planet-killer would leave it behind, and it would be almost impossible for it to catch up. I quickly went through my options, and decided I had to stay on board.
“Beam back the rest of the away team and Dr. Ailat’s patient.”
“Request permission to stay on board,” Cheva and Crusher said in unison.
“Denied,” I said.
“Sir, I think I can stop this thing,” Crusher said. He had a very earnest look, and since the only idea I had was firing my phaser into the warp core and possibly blowing myself up, I decided he was worth the gamble.
“All right,” I said. “Stargazer, beam back Cheva, Ailat, and her patient.” After a moment, the three of them disappeared.
“Picard to Stargazer, do you have them?” There was no answer. I assumed, hoped, they had made it before my ship had to drop out of warp. In any event, Crusher and I were by ourselves.
“Enlighten me, Ensign. What is your plan?”
“I’ve done some calculations,” he said, “and I think the reason this thing is going warp 5.9 is that the structural integrity of the girdle pushing such a large mass won’t handle a higher speed.”
“You said we couldn’t adjust the course or speed.”
“Not with these controls, but we could use our phasers to open up the plasma injectors to increase our speed. I estimate at warp 6.2 the girdle will crack and we’ll drop out of warp drive.” What he was proposing was very dangerous.
“Did you do all these calculations in your head?”
“Yes,” he said. Now I was starting to be impressed.
After a brief conversation about our procedure, we took our phasers, and each went into a Jefferies tube leading to each of the two engines. I found the plasma injectors, and programmed my phaser to fire automatically for one nanosecond on an extremely tight beam. I had to fire several pinprick shots to put extra holes in the injector so that more plasma could flow out of it, but if my phaser stayed on a millisecond too long, the beam would hit the plasma and ignite it, and I’d be consumed in a radioactive fire. I took careful aim, and fired the shots. The phaser went on and off automatically; there were now three almost microscopic openings in the injector. More plasma started to flow out of it, and after a brief moment the Jefferies tube began to vibrate. I climbed out and rejoined Crusher in the engineering compartment, who was already at the controls.
“It’s working,” he said. “Our speed’s increased to warp 6.1… 6.2…” We heard the creaking and groaning of straining metal. Crusher checked his board. “Structural integrity at forty-three percent… twenty-eight…”
“Hang on…”
There was a loud crack that reverberated through the room. The room went dark and we were thrown forward over the console to the deck. I hit my head on something, and in my mind I saw myself on the floor of my family’s basement all those years before…
* * *
“Captain… Captain…” My vision cleared and I was looking up at Ailat. Emergency lighting was on, and her orange skin was bathed in red, making a color I couldn’t quite recognize.
“Crusher?” I said.
“I’m fine, sir,” he said. I looked to see he was standing with Cheva and Walker.
“You did it, sir,” Walker said. “The planet-killer dropped out of warp just short of the Neutral Zone.”
“Crusher’s idea,” I said, and pulled myself up. I looked hard at Walker.
“You all right, sir?”
“Yes, I’m just wondering who the hell is in command of my ship?”
Later, back on the Stargazer, the crewman we rescued, an engineer by the name of Lounsbery, had recovered. Walker and I interviewed him in sickbay, but unfortunately he had little information to offer.
“I didn’t see whoever it was,” Lounsbery said from his sickbed. “I was alone on the graveyard shift. I’d received word from our base that our long-range communication array had been sabotaged. Then someone stabbed me and the next thing I knew I was here.” I told him to get some rest then went to talk to Ailat in her small office attached to the exam room.
“Any more indication of what the weapon was?”
“It was an efficient blade designed to cause a great deal of damage,” Ailat said.
“Could it be a d’k tahg?” I said.
“The wounds are consistent with such a weapon,” Ailat said.
“A Klingon weapon?” Walker seemed dubious. “They stole the planet-killer for the Romulans? Why would they bother?”
“They weren’t stealing it,” I said. “They were doing what Ensign Crusher proposed it might be used for, sending it at high warp on a collision course to Romulus.�
� I could see that Walker was putting it together.
“And making it look like we did it,” he said.
“Even if the Romulans had been able to stop it,” I said, “they would’ve responded with an attack on the Federation.”
“And even though we stopped it,” Walker said, “we don’t have any evidence that the Klingons are responsible.”
“Lounsbery’s stab wounds. Hardly conclusive.” I would make a report to Starfleet, but there was little to be done. The Federation had been engaged in peace talks with the Klingons for sixty years. The alliance was never a solid one, always on the verge of falling into conflict. And it was becoming clear that the Klingons weren’t really interested in peace. It appeared that they were looking to ignite a deadly Galactic war. They would even resort to subterfuge to gain an early advantage—putting the Federation in conflict with the Romulans would do that quite nicely.
“At least one good thing that came out of this,” Walker said.
“What’s that?”
“You gotta like that Crusher kid,” he said.
He was right, I did.
* * *
Out of the blocks on that first mission, I learned some very important lessons. 1) Lean on your officers. If I hadn’t had Crusher with me, I’m not sure I would have come up with a solution that left me alive. And 2) Don’t lie to your admiral about the condition of your ship. I was fortunate that our next assignment was a general star-mapping mission of an unexplored region so we had breathing room for Scully to finish a good portion of the upgrades and repairs. I settled into a routine and soon found myself exploring what kind of commanding officer I wanted to be.
There are many different types of captains. Some find it most effective to govern their ships with a god-like detachment. But given my age and relative inexperience, I found myself approaching my role less a master and more a servant. The needs of the crew were foremost on my mind, and the best way to learn about those needs was through conversation. I enjoyed walking my ship from stem to stern for at least an hour, if not longer, every day. During these walking tours I’d talk to fifty or so crewmembers, giving me an up-to-date snapshot of what was occurring below decks. Unfortunately, my daily walkabouts led to an increasing pile of administrative work left undone, which I eventually left in the hands of my first officer. Walker complained sarcastically, though I rationalized he was getting his own education on the requirements of being a captain.
STAR TREK THE NEXT GENERATION THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JEAN-LUC PICARD Page 13
