It may not be possible, but it seems to be the case. There has been no sign of Riker since the day he vanished. We may need to accept a potential scenario that we have not wanted to…
That he’s already dead. That he killed himself, perhaps, to avoid his certain fate at our hands. Yes, I have considered that. But it doesn’t seem like his way…
But when a man is pushed too hard—
Too hard? How could anything be too hard? After what he’s done to us…
It’s only a suggestion, not a fact. We need to be open to all possibilities.
Agreed. I will entertain that one, but will not accept it as an excuse to stop looking. The search continues. Kyle Riker, or his bones, must be found. And in the meantime…
The boy?
Yes. The son. What of him?
He is easily at hand. At the Academy. He thinks he’s going to Saturn for the summer.
Keep him here. I want him nearby. Just in case. If we can’t find the father, there is a certain poetic irony in targeting the son instead. Or in addition, even better…
Yes, in addition. I like that.
I thought you might…
Part Three
March–June 2357
Chapter 22
Senior year brought Academy cadets more privileges, but also many more responsibilities and a heavier workload than ever before. Will, strangely, found that he thrived under the pressure. Each year had been harder than the one before, but conversely, he had done better each year. The difficulties of his first year had been largely gone by the end of his second, but he was still finding his way then. Third had been a time of emotional upheaval that had sometimes interfered with his performance. This year, though, he had been focused on the work. Attending Starfleet Academy was at the same time a great honor and a very difficult job. By paying more attention to the job part, he found that he was able to maximize his results. The more he put in, the more he took out. His grades reflected that new philosophy.
But with the new rigors and responsibilities sometimes came hard truths. And one of them had just hit home. The famous Vulcan science officer who had served on the Enterprise with James T. Kirk, Ambassador Spock, was coming to Starfleet Academy to give a lecture. His topic was to be “The Philosophy of Diplomacy, or Why Giving In Isn’t Always Giving Up.”
It would be fascinating, Will knew. Most of his friends were going. They would get an invaluable experience out of it. They might even get to meet Spock himself, who was as close to a living legend as existed in the galaxy today. And the information he would impart would be beyond helpful to anyone considering a Starfleet career. For all these reasons, Will wanted very much to attend.
But he couldn’t. Because by the time Ambassador Spock would be in San Francisco in two days, he would be—finally—on Saturn. Two summers in a row, his assignment to Saturn had been scotched at the last minute. This last summer, there had never even been an explanation forthcoming, just a simple change in orders, keeping him on Earth yet again. But now, he would definitely make it to Saturn. A flight exercise run among Saturn’s moons was taking him and an assortment of other cadets away, and they’d be gone for the duration of Ambassador Spock’s visit to Earth. The exercise was an important part of his grade, and couldn’t be missed, even for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity like the Spock lecture.
The whole situation ticked him off. Ultimately, the Spock lecture would be more educational than flying patterns he knew in his sleep. There has to be a way to make it work, he thought. There just has to.
And of course, he realized, there is.
It took him a while to figure out just who would be the most helpful, but finally he came up with Trinidad Khalil. Trinidad, a third-year student, was a terrific pilot, skilled and comfortable at the conn of any ship he encountered. And Will remembered that he had been present when Spock’s visit had been announced, but he had shown little interest.
Will found Trinidad in the dorm and took him out to an off-campus saloon called the Ready Room. After a few minutes of idle chatter, he brought up the issue there, over tall glasses of Aldorian ale. “So it didn’t seem like you had much interest in Ambassador Spock’s lecture this week,” he said bluntly.
Trinidad shrugged. He was a darkly handsome young man, about Will’s size. “I’m not a hero worshipper or anything,” Trinidad said. “I mean, Spock has made some great contributions, you know? But I’ve read about them. I don’t feel like I need to see him talk about them too.”
“I’d sure like to be there,” Will admitted. He kept his voice low, as there were plenty of students and faculty in the place. Despite the implication of its name, the saloon was styled after the lounge on board a Starfleet vessel, not a captain’s ready room. It was decorated with lots of grays and blues, in sleek lines and stylish curves, and was popular with cadets as well as personnel from Starfleet Command.
“Is there some reason that you can’t be?”
“I’m part of that Saturn exercise. We leave tomorrow. I’ll be flying maneuvers the whole time Spock is here.”
Trinidad’s face brightened. “You got picked for that run? Congratulations, Will. That’ll be such a blast.”
“You really love to fly, don’t you?” Will asked him.
“More than anything. I don’t ever want to make captain, that’s for sure. They hardly get to have any of the fun.”
“It’s too bad,” Will said, trying to sound sincere when things were playing right into his hands. “I want to be here, and you want to be there. And yet, our positions are reversed.”
They sat in silence for a few moments while Trinidad processed the idea that Will had planted. “But do they have to be?” he asked.
Will casually took a sip of his ale and arched an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“What if there was a way to trade places? If I could go to Saturn and fly, and you could stay here and see Spock.”
“I don’t know if they’ll just swap out our orders like that, especially this late,” Will hedged.
“Maybe they don’t need to. We don’t look a lot alike, Will, but we’re about the same build. And no one on Saturn knows you, right?”
“Not that I know of,” Will replied.
“So if I borrowed your identity for a while…”
“The people going to Saturn to fly with me know me,” Will pointed out. He hadn’t been able to get over this hurdle, though he hoped maybe Trinidad could come up with something.
“But they’re friends of yours, right?” Trinidad offered. He seemed even more excited by the prospect than Will was. “So maybe they could be encouraged to go along with the gag.”
“It’s possible, I guess,” Will relented.
Trinidad raised his glass and held it out toward Will’s. “Come on,” he said. “A toast. To getting what we want.”
Will lifted his glass and clinked it against Trinidad’s, watching the amber liquid catch the light as it sloshed around. “To getting what we want.” He liked the sound of those words.
He wondered what it actually felt like.
After leaving Trinidad at the Ready Room—fortified, he knew, by his success at persuading his friend to take a dangerous chance as well as by several glasses of strong Aldorian ale, Will decided that he wasn’t ready to stop getting what he wanted. His trip back to campus was kind of a blur, but he eventually found himself standing outside Felicia Mendoza’s door. He raised a hand to rap against it, but the door suddenly moved a little farther away than it had been. Looking down, he realized that the whole floor was moving—turning in a slow circle and pulsing up and down at the same time. He thought at first that it was an earthquake, but realized a moment later that it was far more likely the full effects of the ale kicking in. His stomach was making similar motions.
He had come this far, though, so he steadied himself and knocked at the door. It was only after he had done so that he considered the possibility that Estresor Fil might be here, and the embarrassment that might ensue.
But Felicia was alone when she came to the door, in blue cotton pajamas. “That’s not regulation uniform,” Will observed.
“Nor do regulations require me to be in uniform at oh-two-hundred,” Felicia shot back. “Will Riker, are you drunk?”
“There is a very distinct possibility that I am, yes.”
“Get out of here.”
“But, Felicia…”
“Will, I would be perfectly happy to have you visit my room at virtually any other time. Although waking hours are, of course, preferred. But not when you’re too drunk to think straight. Much less stand up straight.”
What she was saying probably made sense. But Will couldn’t really concentrate on it because the floor was moving faster now, dipping and rising like a thrill ride, and she swam in and out of focus, and his stomach…. “Felicia, I…” he got out, and then he pitched forward and the world went dark.
When he opened his eyes again, he thought the movement would kill him.
“I see you’re up,” Felicia’s voice screamed at him.
“Shhh!” he insisted with a giggle that pierced his brain. “You’ll wake Felicia.”
“Are you still drunk, Will?”
He realized several things at once. He was on the floor of Felicia’s room, which he determined because he could see Felicia standing across the room looking at him, and he recognized the art on her walls. Someone—presumably she—had put a blanket over him while he slept. His brain was on fire, his mouth tasted as if a Klingon had been herding targs in it, and he had hopelessly humiliated himself. But he was no longer drunk.
“No,” he managed. “Because if I was, then I wouldn’t be in pain. Feeling no pain, that’s what they say, right?”
“Sometimes they do,” she agreed. “But you’re feeling it now, aren’t you?”
He tried to push himself to a sitting position. It didn’t work very well. He reached out and steadied himself against her bed and did it again, and this time he was able to sit up, as long as he leaned against the bed. His head throbbed blindingly and his stomach churned. “Yes,” he admitted. “I’m feeling it.”
“You do know where you are?”
“I’m in your room. I came here…to talk to you.”
“You didn’t seem interested in talking. Snoring, maybe.”
“I’m sorry, Felicia,” he said. “I hope I didn’t keep you up.”
“After you woke me up in the first place, you mean.”
“Sorry about that too,” he said. The words were coming a little easier, but some water would make it easier still. She had already figured that out, it seemed, and she brought him a glass.
“You’re dehydrated,” she said. “You need to drink this. Slowly and carefully.”
He took a sip and felt his stomach lurch. He waited for it to settle, then took another sip. “I really messed everything up,” he said. “I am so sorry.”
“You’re a Starfleet Academy cadet,” Felicia said with a shrug. “It’s practically a graduating requirement.”
“You hardly ever mess up.”
“I am unique in my brilliance and self-possession,” she said, laughing.
“That’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about.” Will drank some more water and felt a little stronger.
“If you came to compliment my good qualities, I’m sorry you were unconscious the whole time,” Felicia replied. “But now I have to get to class—as do you, although I doubt you’ll make it. So we’ll have to reschedule my praise.”
“But…no, Felicia.” He forced himself to his feet, made it for a second and then fell back to the edge of her bed. Progress, though. “You know what? I’ve put this off too long. I know I’ve blown it, probably ruined whatever chance I might ever have had. But I still have to say it. So stick around, please. For a little while.”
“Will, this class is important to me.”
“But you’re important to me!” There, he thought. It’s out.
“I appreciate that, Will,” she said, apparently not quite getting what he’d meant. “And I like you too. But I don’t want to miss this class.”
“Felicia,” Will said, hanging his head and gripping it with both hands as if to keep its halves together. His outburst had been truly excruciating. “Just…wait. Bear with me a little, okay? We’ve known each other for a long time.”
“Yes, we have.” She sat down on a chair facing him and waited. “So what did you want to talk about?”
“This made a lot more sense last night,” he began. “Or at least I thought it did. But…well, us. I wanted to talk about us.”
“There’s an us?”
“I always wanted there to be,” Will said. “I guess after last night, I can see that there never will be. But as long as I’ve known you I’ve wanted to be with you.”
“And of course I was supposed to know this by the fact that you never once mentioned it.”
“Yes,” Will said. Then, “No. I mean…you couldn’t have, I guess. I kept hoping you would just figure it out. And I wanted to tell you, several times. But things kept getting in the way.”
“What kinds of things?” she asked him. She seemed a little dismayed by this whole conversation, and he couldn’t blame her a bit.
“Different…things. Like when we were on our survival project, I wanted to say something. But we ended up being arrested and sent to Superintendent Vyrek’s office, and by the time I got out, you were already gone.”
“I waited for you to come out,” Felicia corrected him. “But it took so long, and the others were leaving. And then when you did come out, you went the other direction. You didn’t even try to catch up to us.”
“I thought if you wanted me around, you’d wait,” he said. “I guess maybe I was wrong.”
“Maybe,” she echoed, nodding her head.
“And then, on the moon. After that dinner, remember? I wanted to take you out under the stars and tell you then. But you went out with Estresor Fil instead. And after that, it seemed like you two were doing so well together, I didn’t want to get in the way.”
“Estresor Fil is sweet and kind and was gutsy enough to say what she felt,” Felicia told him. “Which you’re a couple of years late with. We’ve had some good times, she and I. We enjoy each other’s company. We like to be together. But what we have isn’t a romance, and it won’t ever be.”
“I thought…”
“I know what you thought, Will. Or I think I do. I also think you’re emotionally stunted. You don’t know what you want, and once you figure that out you don’t know how to pursue it.”
“I thought we were here to talk about your qualities, not mine,” he said with a weak grin.
“There’s a time for everything, Will,” she shot back. “You’re making me miss my class, I get to tell you how I feel. Fair’s fair.”
“Okay,” Will relented. “Go ahead. Let me have it. I deserve it, I know.”
She took to her feet again, as if this would be easier standing up, and started pacing before him. “Will, you’re a nice guy. You’re smart, you’re funny, you’re frequently very sweet. You’re easy to look at. I like you a lot. But you’re so dense sometimes I can’t stand it.”
Will knew he was opening himself up, but he had to ask. “Dense?”
Felicia laughed so hard she actually snorted. Will would have enjoyed it if the sound didn’t make his head hurt so much. When she had composed herself, she wiped a tear away with the back of her hand and stood in front of him. “Look at me, Will. Am I unattractive?”
“Not at all,” he answered truthfully. “You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever known.”
“Do I have any kind of objectionable odor? Any unsanitary or unsightly habits you know of?”
“Besides the snorting thing when you laugh?” he teased. “Of course not.”
“So it’s safe to assume that if I had wanted a boyfriend or a girlfriend during my time here at the Academy, I could probably have had one.”
“I suppose.”
“Especially since I’m not too emotionally naïve to go out and look for one, if that’s what I wanted.”
“You could put it that way,” Will admitted.
“And yet I don’t,” she pointed out.
“No, you don’t seem to. Not if Estresor Fil doesn’t count.”
“She doesn’t count.”
“Then I guess the answer is that you don’t. What was the question again?”
She lowered herself to her knees, now, in front of Will, and put her hands on his knees, looking right into his eyes. “The question, Will Riker, is just how long did you expect me to wait around for you?”
“For me?”
“Did I say ‘dense’?” Felicia asked, smacking his knees with her palms. “I meant impenetrable! The planet’s crust isn’t as thick as you, Riker!”
“Wait,” he said, slowly catching up. “You were waiting for me?”
Felicia covered her face with her hands. “Just don’t ask me why!”
“But that means…you…”
She pushed herself up on his knees again, bringing her face level with his. “I’m crazy about you, Will. I always have been. But you kept walling yourself off, closing yourself away from me. You hid from me for, what was it, six months? I would have said something but I knew you weren’t ready. I had to wait until you could make up your own mind, or you’d spend the rest of your life wondering if I’d pushed you into something. I wonder if there’s a Starfleet medal for extreme patience in the face of idiocy.”
A sudden vision of Trinidad clinking glasses with him at the bar flashed into Will’s mind. “Oh, no,” he said. “Speaking of pushing people into things…oh, no.”
“What is it, Will?”
He held he face between his palms. “I’ve got to find Trinidad Khalil,” he said urgently. “And then I’ve got to go to Saturn.”
“Today? You’re leaving today?”
Deny Thy Father Page 21
