Deny Thy Father

by Jeff Mariotte

  Later still, Kyle walked alone alongside the bayfront, enjoying the cool snap of the wind as it blew off the water. For a change, there were no security officers following him, and he did not miss their presence. He was convinced that his ordeal was finally over, that there would be no more attempts on his life now that Horace Bonner was in custody.

  Instead of worrying about his own safety, though, he thought about Will, so far away, one little person on one little ship in the vastness of the universe. There would be dangers untold in Will’s future, he knew. As he’d told Owen, Will was a Riker, through and through. Of course he had volunteered to blow up the ship. He put duty before his own fears, his own feelings. That’s what Rikers did.

  But when he thought of Will, so far away, acting like a Riker, he did so with a great sense of melancholy. The Rikers had a way about them, that much was undeniable. Kyle Riker looked out across the bay, then up at the sky, where a single star appeared above the horizon. He felt a kinship with that star, alone in the sky. Acting like a Riker had put him here, he knew. Being a Riker had made him alone. He had never really seen it before, had learned this lesson much too late to do him any good, or to save any of the possible futures he might have had, with Kate or with Michelle.

  Or with Will.

  He just hoped his son could learn the lessons he had more easily than he had. He hoped that Will could become a different kind of Riker, could become unlike his old man, who loved him dearly but couldn’t find a way to tell him so.

  And he hoped it would happen for Will before his life was screwed up, for good. Like his old man’s was.

  But as he watched the sky, standing there with the wind picking up, whipping his hair and stinging his skin, another star appeared in the night sky, and then another, and then ten, thousands, millions.

  And Kyle understood then that it wasn’t too late, not even for him. Alone now didn’t have to mean alone forever. If he’d had a glass in his hand, he’d have raised it, but instead he just turned his face to the sky.

  “Another lesson, son,” he said softly. “We Rikers may be stubborn as hell, but eventually we learn from our mistakes. You’ll do fine out there, I know you will.”

  He turned away from the bay and the wind and the stars and started to walk home. “You’ll do fine,” he repeated. And as he did so, he knew, somehow, that he was right.

  About the Author

  Jeff Mariotte is the author of many novels, including several set in the universes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, as well as Charmed, Gen13, Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda, and the original dark suspense novel The Slab. Previous encounters with Star Trek include writing the S.C.E. novella No Surrender and editing Star Trek comics for DC Comics/WildStorm. He’s also written more comic books than he has time to count, including the Stoker award–nominated horror/Western series Desperadoes. With his wife Maryelizabeth Hart and partner Terry Gilman, he owns Mysterious Galaxy, a bookstore specializing in science fiction, fantasy, mystery, and horror. He lives in San Diego, California, with his family and pets, in a home filled with books, music, toys, and other examples of American pop culture. More about him can be gleaned from www.jeffmariotte.com.