STAR TREK THE NEXT GENERATION THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JEAN-LUC PICARD

by David A. Goodman

  “Really? Why?”

  “I felt like I still need to make up for the egg.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. I had no choice but to embrace the absurdity of the situation.

  “All right, Mr. Mazzara,” I said. “What do we do?”

  * * *

  He spent the next two weeks asking me questions about my service aboard the Stargazer, as well as the specific events leading up to the exodus from it. Though I might have been initially reticent about being defended by Anthony Mazzara, those concerns quickly vanished. He had grown up on the Stargazer, and he knew much about the specific challenges of serving on and commanding that ship. There was so much I didn’t have to explain to him; we saved a great deal of time. And I felt I had a sympathetic ear.

  But, as the trial date approached, I became more concerned about Phillipa. Anthony knew her, and said that the staff in the JAG office had never seen her so driven on a case. My worries were confirmed the day before the trial when Mazzara came to my quarters, looking grave.

  “She’s charging you with culpable negligence and dereliction of duty,” he said.

  “On what grounds?”

  “That I don’t know,” he said. “She has the same evidence I have. I don’t think she has a case.”

  The next morning, Anthony met me at the courtroom, and as we headed inside, I saw Phillipa approaching. I asked Anthony to let me talk to her alone.

  “As your counsel, I have to strongly advise against that.”

  “I’ll be all right,” I said.

  “Watch what you say.” Anthony went inside. I intercepted Phillipa before she reached the courtroom.

  “May I have a moment?”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said.

  “Phillipa, why are you doing this?”

  “What I’m doing is my job,” she said. “I don’t know who you told about us…”

  “I haven’t told anyone…”

  “Whether you have or not, I can’t afford to let people think I’d make it easy on an old boyfriend. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” She walked past me into the courtroom, and I realized she still cared about me. But she was going to prove that her feelings wouldn’t get in the way of her work. I thought, as I walked into the courtroom, this made her a lot more dangerous.

  * * *

  After the reading of the charges, Phillipa called her first witness.

  “Please state your name and rank for the record,” Phillipa said.

  “My full name is Tcheri Chevapravatdumrong, Lieutenant Commander,” Cheva said. “I use the last name ‘Cheva’ for short.” I could see that Cheva was nervous on the stand. She was concerned that something she might say would get me in trouble. Phillipa began asking general questions about how long she served with me, and then got into the specifics about the events leading to my order to abandon ship.

  “We’d suffered catastrophic damage. The impulse drive was inoperative, the shield generator destroyed, the life-support system was fused and the fire suppression system was offline, among other things.”

  “That seems like an awful lot of damage,” Phillipa said.

  “They hit us with our shields down.”

  “As operations officer, making sure Stargazer is up to date on its scheduled maintenance is part of your duties?”

  “Yes,” Cheva said.

  “And was it?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Did Stargazer adhere to the Starfleet schedule of maintenance?”

  “No…” Cheva said. The trial board looked surprised by this response, but I knew what she was going to say. “ Stargazer was over sixty years old. Starfleet’s maintenance schedule wasn’t strict enough, so the captain had the chief engineer devise a more rigorous one.”

  “Thank you, Commander,” Phillipa said. “No further questions.” Unlike the board, Phillipa wasn’t surprised by Cheva’s answer. It appeared that this was the answer she expected, even wanted. It was Anthony’s turn to ask questions.

  “Lieutenant Commander Cheva,” Anthony said, “in your opinion, as an officer experienced in space combat, was there any action Captain Picard took that you would characterize as being directly responsible for the disabling of the Stargazer?”

  “Absolutely not, sir,” Cheva said. “In fact, Captain Picard’s actions saved the lives of the surviving crew.”

  “Thank you, Commander,” Anthony said. “No further questions.”

  Over the next two days, Phillipa interviewed other crewmembers. They all confirmed Cheva’s version of events. But Phillipa always continued questioning with some aspect of their work that indicated the difficulty of working on a ship as old as the Stargazer. She’d done her research: she had Black recount my first day taking the Stargazer out, with Scully repairing the helm as we did; Vigo relayed our disastrous encounter with the Cardassian ship; Dr. Ailat spoke of the difficult stress the crew was constantly under because the ship was often on the verge of breaking down. Anthony always cross-examined them, emphasizing the ship’s achievements. Toward the end of the second day, Phillipa called one last witness.

  “Prosecution calls Captain Jean-Luc Picard to the stand.”

  Anthony reacted immediately.

  “Objection, Your Honor,” he said. “Starfleet and Federation law plainly state that Captain Picard is not required to testify as a witness for his own prosecution.”

  “Prosecution concedes this,” Phillipa said. “Captain Picard is free to

  decline.”

  “I need a moment to confer with my client,” Anthony said. He leaned into me and spoke very softly. “You don’t have to do this. If you don’t take the stand I think I can get a dismissal. She hasn’t come close to making a case for culpable negligence or dereliction of duty.”

  “She’s hoping I make the case for her,” I said. Anthony nodded. I looked over at Phillipa, back at her table, giving me a challenging stare. I then scanned the faces of the trial board. The men and women were impassive, difficult to read. I knew that if I didn’t take the stand, there might be some of those captains and admirals who’d assume I had something to hide. Phillipa knew how much my reputation meant to me, and she assumed that it would compel me to put myself in a vulnerable position. And, of course, she was right, I had no choice. I stood up, and walked over to the witness stand. I saw Phillipa smile.

  * * *

  “…we moved into position, and fired everything we had,” I said. Phillipa had made me go through the battle, and my account bore little difference from the other witnesses.

  “Very clever,” Phillipa said. “Please tell the court, were you surprised at the amount of damage your adversary caused the ship?”

  “No,” I said, “the fact that the shields were down, combined with the Stargazer’s age…”

  “So you think that the ship’s age played a role in it being so easily disabled?”

  “I don’t know for certain…”

  “Do you know what the average life of a ship is in Starfleet, Captain?”

  “I do not,” I said.

  She immediately walked over with a PADD in hand. “I would like to offer into evidence Starfleet Exhibit 2, the Starfleet Ship Inventory,” she said. She handed me the PADD. On the screen was a spreadsheet of all the types of ships currently in active duty in Starfleet, along with their ages.

  “Please read me the average ship age of all the ships in the fleet, Captain.” At the bottom of the sheet, the average ship age had been calculated.

  “16.2 years,” I said.

  “And, as has been previously testified, Stargazer was over 60 years old. Is that correct?”

  “Yes,” I said. “63.7 years in fact.”

  “Thank you. Did you ever consider that Stargazer was too old to be in service?”

  “That was not my decision to make,” I said. But I began to understand where Phillipa was headed.

  “Did you ever consider recommending to the Admiralty that they take Stargazer out of service?”

&nb
sp; “No,” I said.

  “Why not? If, as has been testified, the ship’s age caused it to be plagued with difficulties, required a much stricter than average maintenance schedule, caused undue stress on its crew, and made it more vulnerable to catastrophic failure after an attack, wasn’t it your duty to inform Starfleet that the ship was unsafe?”

  I glanced at the faces of the court-martial board. They looked annoyed. One of them, Admiral Dougherty, shook his head slightly in frustration. It appeared that Phillipa’s line of attack was working. I looked back at her waiting for my answer; she knew my weakness. If I’d informed Starfleet that Stargazer was unfit for service, I’d have been potentially giving up my command, with no guarantee of another. And perhaps that pride and ambition had kept me from seeing the danger I was putting the crew in.

  “Court will direct the witness to answer the question,” Phillipa said.

  “It may have been my duty,” I said.

  “No more questions,” she said, and sat down.

  Admiral Milano, the court-martial board chair, turned to Anthony. Anthony, however, wasn’t paying attention; he was furiously typing into another PADD.

  “Defense counsel,” Milano said, a little annoyed. “Any questions for the witness?”

  “No questions,” Anthony said without looking up from the work he was doing. I could see this surprised Phillipa.

  “Defendant may step down,” Milano said. I went and rejoined Anthony at the table. “Does the prosecution wish to call any more witnesses?”

  “No, sir,” Phillipa said. “Prosecution rests.”

  “If defense has no objection,” Milano said, “the court suggests we adjourn till tomorrow, and defense can begin its case.”

  “Actually, Your Honor,” Anthony said, looking up from his PADD, “defense moves all the charges and specifications in this matter be dismissed. The prosecution has failed to make her case for culpable negligence or dereliction of duty.”

  “Objection, Your Honor,” Phillipa said. “I have shown that Captain Picard ignored the condition of his craft and unnecessarily put his crew’s life at risk.”

  “In fact, Your Honor,” Anthony said, “she has not. Captain Picard did not ignore the condition of his craft. He worked to make sure that it was in proper working order. And, for twenty years, he succeeded, until it was brutally and mercilessly attacked. The prosecution, having never served as part of a crew, does not understand if a vessel is space-worthy; the requirements of the service necessitate the captain ‘make do,’ which Captain Picard did. Historical precedent is on the side of the defense.”

  “What historical precedent?” Phillipa said.

  “I just did a record search,” he said, holding up his PADD. “No captain in the history of Starfleet has ever suggested to the admiralty they decommission their own ship. I submit this as Defense Exhibit 1.” Anthony brought the PADD over to Milano, and then he stood in front of the board.

  “Captain Picard never hid the condition of his ship from the admiralty. His maintenance and repair reports were quite thorough in their description of the Stargazer’s deficiencies. He did his job. It was up to the admiralty to decide whether the ship should be decommissioned, not its captain.”

  “The board will consider defense’s motion,” Milano said. “Court stands adjourned until tomorrow.”

  Phillipa, annoyed, left the courtroom. I turned to Anthony.

  “I’m not sure this will work,” I said. “She made a very convincing case.”

  “Not to them,” Anthony said, referring to the board as it filed out of the room. “Did you see their faces?”

  “Yes,” I said, “they looked angry.”

  “At her, not you. Almost all those officers have been in command of a ship, and I bet they’ve all had to live with substandard equipment at one time or another. None of them would want to have been held to the standard Louvois is trying to hold you to.”

  I considered Anthony’s point. The fact was Phillipa’s argument had landed with me. But I appreciated this man’s passion in my defense.

  “How about some dinner?” he said.

  “Sure,” I said. “I’m in the mood for eggs.”

  Anthony looked at me and laughed.

  * * *

  “Congratulations, Jean-Luc,” Quinn said. I was back in his office three days later. Two days before, the trial board had ruled in favor of Anthony’s motion and dismissed the charges, clearing me of any wrongdoing. I had tried to talk to Phillipa, but as soon as the court was adjourned, she was gone. It turns out my exoneration had ramifications for her as well.

  “You’ll be happy to know your prosecutor resigned,” Quinn said.

  “What? Why?”

  “Judge Advocate General thought her prosecution was unnecessarily aggressive from the start, but against his advice she went full steam ahead anyway. The fact that the trial board ruled against her only confirmed her superior’s opinion, so she drew a reprimand. I heard she quit on the spot.”

  That was unfortunate. I was never sure what was behind Phillipa’s uncompromising prosecution of my court martial. The romantic egotist in me wanted to believe that it was an attempt at retribution for a broken heart, but I think it was simply that she liked to win. I was sorry to hear that it had ended her career.

  “So, now that you’re a free man,” Quinn said, “what are your plans?”

  “Well,” I said, “I’m hoping for a new command.”

  “I’m going to be straight with you, my friend,” Quinn said. “That’s not going to be possible for a while.”

  “Why not?”

  “Phillipa did land a few punches, mostly on the admiralty. She made us look bad by implying we left Stargazer in service too long. A complete re-evaluation of the fleet is underway. We’re going to be pulling a lot of ships off the line and getting new ones going. I need to put you on a desk for a while.”

  This was far from what I wanted to hear, and I also knew he was leaving out the most important fact: I had lost a ship. There were some ways Starfleet was still quite traditional, and, no matter the circumstance, losing a ship was not something that was going to be rewarded. Which also meant I wouldn’t be seeing a promotion anytime soon.

  “All right,” I said. “What did you have in mind?”

  “If you come work for me,” he said, “I promise to get you back on a bridge, and it’ll be the right ship, I assure you.”

  “It would be my honor to serve with you, Admiral,” I said. He shook my hand and had a yeoman show me to an office. It was much like the one I’d had when I was Hanson’s chief of staff, but unlike that job, I would see little of this room.

  Though Quinn had described this as a “desk job,” he and the admiralty had an agenda that required I be dispatched to starbases and shipyards to deal with a variety of issues regarding construction, upgrades and personnel. But before I left, I made sure to see to a couple of important loose ends.

  I used my influence with Quinn to try to find the crewmen and women of the Stargazer prominent positions throughout the fleet. Cheva, after twenty years serving with me, deserved her own command, and Quinn approved her posting to command of the U.S.S. Roosevelt. Ironically, it was much easier to get her a ship than to get one for myself. Black also deserved his own vessel, and with some prodding Quinn was able to get him posted as captain of the science vessel Bonestell. Dr. Ailat took a leave of absence from Starfleet, but I secured her promise to return if I ever had a command again. I found positions for many others as well, and felt good that, despite my difficulties, my crew wouldn’t be tarred with the same brush as me.

  Soon after, Quinn briefed me on my specific agenda. Our department was working with Starfleet Tactical to move ships and personnel so that there would be a strike force ready at a moment’s notice near Sector 003. Quinn couldn’t fully brief me on why; that would have to wait until I arrived at Starbase 3, the last stop on my journey. I accepted the secrecy without question. Nothing I knew about the major civilizations in tha
t sector—Tellar, the Vega Colony and Denobula Triaxa—made me think that any of them would provide a threat.

  The first leg of my trip was a short one: the Utopia Planitia shipyards in orbit of Mars. I requisitioned a shuttle and flew there myself. The trip took less than an hour, but it was still pleasant being back at the helm of a ship. When I entered orbit of Mars, I took a leisurely tour of the web-like dry docks arranged above the red planet. A diverse assortment of ships were in various stages of completion. I had a specific ship to visit and headed for its coordinates. The vessel was the first of a new class of starship Starfleet was developing and was still under construction. I was there to prod the captain and chief engineer along, in the hopes that the ship might be of use in the upcoming mission. But as I approached, I knew this was an impossibility: much of the saucer section of the ship was still just a skeleton. Still, I’d been sent by Quinn to try to move things along, so that’s what I would do. I received permission to berth the shuttle at the dry dock’s center of operations and disembarked.

  The center of operations was a buzz of activity, monitoring all the teams of crewmen in spaceships working on the hull through the large windows of the operations center. Two people greeted me: a gray-haired captain and a young woman.

  “Welcome aboard, Captain Picard,” the captain said. “I’m Tom Halloway, this is Chief Engineer Sarah MacDougal.” Halloway was in command of the ship under construction. “Can we show you around?”

  “That would be splendid,” I said.

  “He doesn’t want a tour, Tom,” MacDougal said. “He wants to know why we’re so far behind.”

  I have to say that despite her rather rude manner, I appreciated her cutting to the point.

  “Well, Admiral Quinn did want me to get an update on your current schedule,” I said.

  “It’s the damned holodecks,” MacDougal said. “It’s impossible to get one of them working properly, let alone seven.”

  “Holodecks?” I said. “What’s a holodeck?”

  “Oh crap, are you cleared for this?” MacDougal said.

  “My god, Sarah, what have you done?” Halloway said, in mock dismay. He clearly enjoyed teasing her.