“I refitted the fusion initiators, sir,” he said. “Just finished.”
“That must have taken all night,” I said.
“Yes, well, I thought I should do something about it when you commented on the engine efficiency…”
This was strange; I had no recollection of saying anything about the engine efficiency.
“I think you must be mistaken…” I said.
“When I went down the launch checklist and reported the shuttle’s engine efficiency was 87 percent, you said: ‘Probably not what it should be.’ They should be up over 95 percent now.”
If he’d done it to impress me, he’d succeeded, but I could tell that it wasn’t his motivation. He sincerely just wanted to make a piece of equipment work better. A short time after, La Forge received a posting on the Hood, but I knew this was someone I was going to remember.
* * *
“ U.S.S. Constellation arriving Bay 2,” the announcer said.
I was packing up my office at the starbase, which looked out on the internal bay. As I looked up and saw the ship pulling in, I had a moment of déjà vu. The U.S.S. Constellation was the same class as the Stargazer and looked virtually identical. When I had first seen that old ship of mine, it was pulling into the bay of a starbase; now it felt like I was reliving that moment 25 years later. My temporary assignment was over, and I would be leaving on the Constellation. In command, if only for a little while.
Cliff Kennelly, shipmaster of the Constellation, had just been promoted to vice admiral and would be taking command of Starbase 23. Since Kennelly was taking much of his command crew with him to the starbase, and much of the rest of the crew was being reassigned, someone had to get the Constellation back to the Sol system, where it would be decommissioned and its parts recycled. I was ambivalent about the mission, but Quinn needed me back on Earth, and this was a very efficient way to get me there.
Kennelly reported to my office, and I released the starbase command codes to him. Though I’d read his reports on the condition of his ship, he gave me a quick briefing on its handling. He was an ambitious man, at least ten years my junior. Just a few years earlier I would’ve been jealous of his success, but I had found some peace in the intervening years of not being in command, or I thought I had.
Later, after I’d gathered my belongings, I went to the Constellation. The ship was as old as the Stargazer, and on the inside looked much the same. I walked along the corridors with a little sense of nostalgia, mournful for the friends who’d died, accepting of the loss. My interaction with Deanna Troi years earlier had helped me to fully process that terrible tragedy.
When I got to the bridge, an unusual sight greeted me.
There was only one officer there, an ensign. Who was a Klingon.
“Captain on the bridge,” the Klingon said. The fact that he was announcing it to no one made the situation that much more strange.
“You must be Ensign Worf,” I said. I had read the records of the crew of the Constellation, and had learned a little about this unique officer.
“An honor to meet you, Captain Picard,” he said. Like many of his species, he was large and intimidating, with an almost animal growl under every word out of his mouth. I’d met a few Klingons over the years, but had never found common ground with any of them. This one, however, had an amazing story: he was one of the last survivors of the Romulan attack on Khitomer. He spent much of his childhood on the farming colony on Gault, raised by human foster parents of Russian origin, and was the first Klingon to graduate from Starfleet Academy.
“Glad to be aboard, Ensign,” I said.
“I studied your battle at Maxia when I was a cadet at the academy,” Worf said. “Your victory was worthy of a Klingon warrior.”
I hadn’t heard anyone put the event quite that way. I looked at this young officer. No matter where he was from, I decided it was my responsibility to contribute to his education.
“Did you also study the Duke of Wellington?” I said. Worf looked at me confused.
“Duke of…?”
“I’d like you to tell me why I might not see it as a victory, and use the Duke of Wellington as your guide.”
“Yes, sir,” Worf said. “Now, sir?”
“On your first free shift,” I said. “Now I’d like you to make preparations to get underway.” He turned and recalled the bridge crew to duty. While he did, I took the command chair.
We left orbit a few hours later. About half the crew had disembarked at Starbase 23 for other assignments. The ship’s maximum speed was warp 6, but I kept it at warp 4—Kennelly had warned me it wasn’t up to specs. For the entire trip back, there were only four of us on the bridge: Ensign Worf at the ops station, Ensign Tania Lotia at the helm, and doing double duty of engineering and communications was Lieutenant Lexi Turner.
It was going very smoothly. We were only a few days from Sol and it felt as if it would be a very dull trip. During my one shift off, I spent the time alone in my quarters. Off of Worf ’s remark that he’d studied “The Battle of Maxia” at the academy, I decided to investigate what exactly it was that was being taught. I found in the database the academy text “Strategies and Tactics of Starship Combat” and was startled to discover something called the “Picard Maneuver.” My last-ditch tactic on the Stargazer of jumping to warp against my unknown enemy had made it into a text.
I watched a computer simulation of the event linked to the text: the ships moved in a dance that looked choreographed. It was horrifying to me. The text had taken out all the desperation and risk. This wasn’t a game—people had died. I turned off the screen.
I began writing a formal complaint to the academy commandant. This seemed like a terrible way to teach students. Halfway through, I took a pause. Yes, my experience had been fraught and difficult, but because of what I’d had to go through, perhaps some future captain in a similar position might benefit from my experience. I deleted my letter. My reverie was interrupted by the door chime.
“Come,” I said.
The door opened revealing Worf.
“May I come in, sir?”
“Certainly, Ensign.” I offered him a chair, which he declined.
“I’ve completed my assignment,” Worf said, handing me a PADD. “I have studied the career of Arthur Wellesley, the First Duke of Wellington. Perhaps one of Earth’s greatest warriors.”
“Is that why I had you study him?”
Worf took a long pause.
“No,” Worf said, “I believe it was because of a quote he was well known for. In an ancient correspondence he was reflecting on the loss of comrades, and wrote: ‘Nothing except a battle lost can be half as melancholy as a battle won.’ You take no joy in your victory; it is only slightly less sad for you than defeat. You do not celebrate your victory at Maxia for this reason.”
“Yes,” I said. This young officer had passed the test with flying colors. “Do you agree with me and the Duke of Wellington on this?”
“The honor is to serve,” Worf said. “If they died well, in service, there is no reason for… melancholy.”
“And yet you understood what I wanted you to glean from it.”
“If you’ll forgive me, sir,” Worf said, “I have lived with humans my whole life. I understand their proclivities.” This was an interesting man; straddling two worlds and doing it quite well.
My little seminar on war was interrupted by a call from the bridge.
“Receiving a distress call from the Federation colony on Carnellia IV, ” Turner said. “Several of the colonists have accidentally crossed into an old minefield. There are severe injuries. The U.S.S. Roosevelt has also responded.”
“Set course, maximum warp,” I said. “Inform the Roosevelt we will stand by to assist.” Worf and I left for the bridge in a hurry. Without a full crew compliment or dedicated medical staff, I wasn’t sure we would be that much help, but, as Worf said, the honor was to serve.
When we arrived at Carnellia IV, the Roosevelt was already in orb
it. The colony was very new; about one hundred people had settled on the planet after it was charted. Soon after they arrived, the colonists found evidence the original inhabitants of the planet had died out long ago. I beamed down with Worf and every crewmember who had any sort of medical training.
A field hospital had been set up near the minefield; it was a nightmare of injured people, some missing limbs. The Roosevelt’s doctors were already hard at work treating the victims. I instructed our medics to lend a hand, while Worf and I headed to the scene of the accident.
We followed the sound of a man howling in pain, and found the ship’s captain at the edge of the minefield. There was evidence that several mines had exploded—blood and body parts were scattered around. It was horrific, but that wasn’t what I was focused on.
In the middle of the carnage, a Starfleet ensign was looking intently at the ground as she slowly but steadily walked through it. A few feet in front of her, the source of the unnerving screams was a middle-aged man, his left leg blown off at the knee.
I approached the captain, who didn’t take her eyes off her officer.
“Captain Cheva,” I said. She turned and glanced at me.
“Captain Picard,” she said, “I wish we were meeting under better circumstances.” Her focus was on her officer, a young woman who was no more than 25. I watched as she slowly picked up her foot, and gently placed it forward. Another step.
“Can’t we just beam the man up?” Worf said.
“We don’t know anything about these mines,” Cheva said. “The energy from the transporter, or even a scanner, might set them off.”
“Your ensign is very brave,” I said.
Cheva nodded. “Natasha Yar,” she said.
“How is she determining where to walk?” I said.
“She’s making judgments based on her own experience planting mines,” Cheva said. “Inexact to be sure. Tasha’s from the Turkana colony.” That was a violent, unforgiving place, and if this woman had survived it and made it through the academy she was special indeed.
We watched as Tasha took another careful step. She was now inches from the injured man, whose howling was unnerving us all. Tasha carefully knelt down, and injected the man with a hypo. He fell into unconsciousness. She then lifted him up over her shoulder and slowly stood up. Blood from his wounds soaked her uniform as she slowly retraced each of her steps out of the minefield.
“Warrior,” said Worf, quietly. I couldn’t have agreed more.
* * *
It quickly became clear that Constellation’s presence on Carnellia was superfluous. Cheva and her crew of the Roosevelt were quite able to take care of the injured, as well as determining how to deactivate the minefield. So with Cheva’s permission, I left. It was quite a thing to see my former officer now in command, and I felt in some sense the torch had been passed. It was the next generation’s turn to take over.
I returned the Constellation to Utopia Planitia, and on my way, I reflected on the terrible effect of war: the close brush with Denobula, the carnage on Carnellia IV. I’d had my fill of it. It wasn’t enough to just be a Starfleet officer, one had to commit oneself to peace. I decided as I ended what I thought would be my last command that I had new purpose.
We reached Utopia Planitia, and the crew disembarked without fanfare. I turned all the necessary paperwork over to the yard commander, then requisitioned a shuttle to take me to Earth. But before I got very far away from Mars, I received a call from Tom Halloway, who asked me to come meet him back on Utopia Planitia. I turned the shuttle around, and headed to the dry dock where the Enterprise was still being built, now almost complete.
As I closed in on the all but complete ship, I took it in. It cut a grand profile, the largest Starfleet vessel in history. I docked, and Halloway met me in the operations center.
“A beauty, isn’t she?” he said. We were looking again at the Enterprise, this time through the bay windows of the operations center. “They’ve designated her the Federation flagship.” This was quite an honor; in the absence of an admiral, the flagship’s captain would have implicit seniority over other captains and ships in the fleet.
“You’ve done an amazing job,” I said. “Almost ready to launch?”
“Yeah, taking her on a three-week shakedown cruise on Monday,” Halloway said. “Then after that, to Earth where she’ll be someone else’s problem.”
“You’re not going to stay her captain?”
“I’m a ‘first captain,’ ” Halloway said. He was making reference to the old naval tradition of the United States Navy where the first captain of a ship was only responsible for building it; it was the second captain who took her out.
“Well, someone is very lucky then,” I said.
“That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about,” someone said. I turned to see that Admiral Quinn had just walked in.
“Admiral,” I said. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to hear who you thought should be captain of our new ship,” Quinn said. “Halloway, can I borrow your office?”
Quinn and I went to a small office off the operations center.
“So,” Quinn said. “Who do you recommend?”
“Well, Andrea Brand…”
“She’s only a couple of years away from being promoted to Admiral,” Quinn said. “I want someone who is going to stay a while.”
“There’s Jellico, DeSoto, Bill Ross…” Quinn dismissed all of them with a wave of his hand. I was finding this little game, whatever it was, quite annoying.
“We had someone else in mind,” Quinn said.
“Who?”
“You,” Quinn said. “Unless you just want to stay in your current job.”
This took me by surprise for a lot of reasons. In that moment, I realized how much I had been protecting myself from disappointment. I’d wanted a captain’s chair again, but had rationalized that that part of my career was over because I didn’t think it was possible.
“You’ve done excellent work the last few years,” Quinn said. “Your mission to Denobula alone was enough to rehabilitate you in the eyes of the Admiralty. I could’ve put you on a ship before this, but it felt like the Enterprise was the right one, so I held you back. I hope that’s all right.” He’d made me captain of the Federation flagship, the highest honor a captain could achieve.
“Thank you, Admiral.”
“Don’t let anyone ever say I don’t keep my promises,” Quinn said.
1 EDITOR’S NOTE: The Starfleet Judge Advocate General’s Corps (JAG) is the branch concerned with Starfleet law and justice. The building was named after Bormenus, an Andorian, who, before serving as president of the Federation in the 23rd century, was one of the first Starfleet Judge Advocate Generals.
CHAPTER NINE
“CAPTAIN’S LOG: STARDATE 41153.7. Our destination is the planet Deneb IV, beyond which lies the great unexplored mass of the Galaxy. My orders are to examine Farpoint, a starbase built there by the inhabitants of Deneb IV. Meanwhile, I’m becoming better acquainted with my new command, this Galaxy-class U.S.S. Enterprise. I’m still somewhat in awe of its size and complexity…”
I was in my new quarters, grand, plush, and comfortable, staring at the stars distorted by warp speed. I’d put a lot of thought into what I was going to say in that first log entry. I was recording a moment for posterity, and my words were carefully crafted to disguise the mass of chaotic feelings that threatened to overwhelm me. I had a new ship, a new crew, a new life. And I was surrounded by strangers, there were children all over my ship, and I was on my way to see the one woman in my life I’d ever truly loved.
Several weeks previous, while Halloway was still “shaking down” the Enterprise, I was in my rooms at Starfleet Headquarters going over personnel choices. There were over a thousand crewmen tasked to this ship, almost a complete city in space, and I wouldn’t choose them all; I picked department heads and they in turn staffed their sections, though I could certainly make strong “s
uggestions” if there was a junior officer I liked. Because the Enterprise was the Federation flagship, Quinn had made it clear that I had my choice of any officer I wanted. Though this was a boon for me, it had a downside as I would be taking talented people away from captains I knew, many of whom were my friends.
I had spent hours reviewing the service records of all the candidates I was considering for first officer. It was becoming impossible to tell them apart. They were all very much the same: accomplished young men and women from countless species, all with glowing letters of recommendation and spotless records. It was telling that the one that caught my eye was the one whose record had a “spot.”
William Thomas Riker, first officer for my friend Robert DeSoto on the Hood. He’d disobeyed a direct order from his captain and refused to let DeSoto beam down to Altair III, because Riker deemed it unsafe. He risked a general court-martial to, in his mind, protect the captain and the ship. I decided to look into this one.
“Bonjour, mon ami,” DeSoto said, from the monitor in my quarters; I’d contacted him via subspace. “You going to steal my first officer?”
“It is a possibility,” I said. “I’m assuming your letter of recommendation was honest?”
“Not entirely,” DeSoto said. “He’s got a sense of humor; I left that out because some captains don’t like that.”
“Good to know,” I said. “Was he joking when he wouldn’t let you beam down to Altair III?”
DeSoto smiled. He knew what I was getting at.
“Anybody who’s had this job, Jean-Luc,” he said, “knows you’re alone in a thousand decisions, and a bad one can cost lives. Do I need to tell you that you need people who will stand up to you when they think you’re making a bad call?”
“No, you don’t,” I said. This was the heart of it. I knew how hard it must have been for this young officer to stand up to his captain, because I had been in that position myself. I had disobeyed Mazzara’s order to abandon ship, risked my own court-martial because I thought the captain was wrong. It was a lonely, scary moment, and an important one.
STAR TREK THE NEXT GENERATION THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JEAN-LUC PICARD Page 25
