A Time to Hate

by Robert Greenberger

  “How’d you find him in a city emptying out?”

  “Used a padd with his picture, asked people as they filed by. Took a while since it was just me, but I got it done.”

  “Did you ask the peace officers for help?”

  “They’re busy with the evacuation. That’s why I need you, son. We have to go get him and bring him to the doctors.”

  This was all making sense to Will, and he was finally feeling like things were falling into place. Something remained nagging in the back of his mind but he wasn’t sure if it was a lingering headache or an unrecognized problem.

  “Rather than explain what was happening, you cold-cocked me, so fill me in,” Will insisted. “And don’t leave anything out.” Will saw to it his voice was officious and all-business, indicating to his father there would be total honesty on this point.

  “A wild rumor got out that the power plant in the center of the city was going super-critical, leaking toxic fumes. We got the blame for it, of course, and people took it upon themselves to leave the path of the gases.” Kyle concentrated on banking the vessel and then it accelerated. Before Will could say anything, Kyle continued. “No, it’s not going super-critical. Like I said, a wild rumor.”

  “How do you propose we actually find this guy?”

  “The people who spotted him last saw him by a bar. They described it to me. We’ll fly by and survey the scene and then make a plan. But I figure time is of the essence.”

  “Hasn’t it been that way since Bison broke containment?”

  Kyle, typically, said nothing.

  Minutes later, the flyer was snaking between tall and wide buildings, Will using his station to do a detailed scan of each exterior. The family that told Kyle about Bison was less than exact in their description of the bar. It was going to be guesswork, Will assumed, and some luck. Most of the buildings had no exterior walkways; few were even connected by any sort of bridge, making it easier to eliminate targets at a glance. For the first three buildings that might match the description, Kyle flew around the structure at varying heights while Will looked. No building resembled any bar Will had ever seen. The two men worked in silence, each performing their tasks and knowing the other would not shirk from saving a life.

  The fourth building had light movement and Will focused the scanner, magnifying the image. Sure enough, it was a bar, with optics blinking in an ever-changing swirl of logos, promising a wide variety of drinks from Omega IV to Andor. Will watched for another few moments and pointed it out to his father.

  “No people around, no other flyers in sight. He’s not going to outrun us. We can land on the roof and come downstairs and grab him.” Kyle was quickly assessing the situation, reaching conclusions as fast as Data would under the same circumstances.

  “And we have no way of calling for any help should he walk out while we land. We’re going to make some noise that’ll alert him,” Will said.

  “I’ll just have to land quietly,” Kyle said with his first genuine smile in the last few hours. And there was the face of his father, the one Will remembered when they were hiking or camping. For a brief moment, Will felt like he was ten again and the world offered him hope.

  Sure enough, Kyle cut back on the engines, dimming their roar as the flyer neared the roof. With minute adjustments, the craft tipped left then right and finally settled into a perfect landing that barely jarred its passengers. Kyle actually winked at Will, much the way he did those long years back, and smiled.

  Will began to smile in return, but his head throbbed and he was reminded that his father recently knocked him cold. He dropped the smile and frowned, which seemed to confuse Kyle. Let it, Will decided.

  They found an access hatch and entered the building. Neither man carried a weapon, Kyle having assured his son that Bison posed no threat. From the surveillance video he saw at the quarantine center, Will had to agree.

  It took less than three minutes for them to make their way down the stairs and to the rear of the bar. They emerged into a large storeroom with case upon case of liquors from around the quadrant stacked haphazardly. As Will admired some of the more exotic labels, Kyle was checking the possible exits, looking for booby traps, weapons, or anything amiss. Will had to admire his father for falling into smart habits that no doubt saved his life time and again.

  Kyle gestured to Will, signaling everything seemed clear. Will nodded in return and they headed for the door that would bring them into the public portion of the establishment.

  For a bar, it was exceedingly quiet. On the other hand, the city was in the process of being evacuated. Still, Will expected some people to fortify themselves with some liquid protection so he expected something, even if it was tinny music from a bad speaker.

  Will took point, accustomed to leading what was essentially an away mission. He placed his left hand flat against the swinging door and tested it. There was no resistance so he took one deep breath and pushed it open, quickly stepping into the bar proper.

  There were identical highly polished, angular bars, each with attached stools. Glasses and mugs littered the tabletops and floor, lights continued to flash around what appeared to be the daily special, a bottle in the shape of a fat and happy Ferengi. A hologram danced at either end of the bar, a scantily clad Dorset woman, her hands moving in a complex pattern.

  But no sound.

  No movement.

  Will’s eyes scanned the room and saw that past the twin bars was an adjacent room with tables, chairs, and a slumped figure. He pointed to the doorway and silently waved his father to follow.

  El Bison El, test subject for the greater good of Delta Sigma IV, was in a drunken stupor, half leaning atop a short round table. Four bottles of something red were stacked by his arms. A loud snore signaled he was asleep and Will let out his breath and grimaced at the sight. He didn’t have to be a trained tactician to understand that this was a man who drank out of guilt, to wash away sorrow for something that was not at all his fault.

  “What do we do with him?” Kyle asked in a whisper.

  “We start by not whispering,” Will replied. “Then we haul him up those stairs to the flyer. On our way out, we can see if they have something to help wake him up, maybe some coffee.”

  “Do you have a destination in mind?”

  “The capital, of course. The chief medic is based there. She can begin a workup and then consult with Dr. Crusher.”

  “Bit of a flight,” Kyle said, mentally making calculations.

  “Well, you saw to it I couldn’t signal the ship.”

  “Point taken,” Kyle admitted. He clapped his hands together. “You want the arms or legs?”

  “I was thinking left and right, should make it easier on the stairs,” Will said. And without waiting for a reply, he bent over and grabbed a limp arm. With a tug, Bison moved like a rag doll, half falling out of his chair and interrupting the pattern of his snoring.

  Together they struggled with Bison, especially as they took to the stairs, which were a little too narrow for them to handle Bison three abreast. Fortunately, he seemed totally oblivious to being manhandled so the men were perhaps rougher than necessary in moving him, but they finally got him to the top of the stairs.

  As the hatch opened to the roof, Will was met with a rush of cold air and he blinked a few times to fight the sting. Once Kyle joined him on the roof, they were able to move more freely and got Bison into the flyer without delay. The two men strapped Bison into the one chair in the rear and then Kyle looked him over. There was stubble around his chin and he looked as if he hadn’t bathed in days. His clothes were torn in spots, mud on one leg and something that may have been blood on the other.

  “I’ll power her up and you can look for that coffee,” Kyle said, reaching for an overhead panel. His right hand was stopped by Will’s own hand wrapping around Kyle’s wrist.

  “And let you fly out by yourself? I’m not a kid anymore. We’ll go down together.”

  With a shrug, Kyle pulled his righ
t arm free and rose from his seat. They left the flyer in silence and quickly returned to the bar. Will flipped on the computer mix-master and checked its menu for non-alcoholic drinks. He didn’t find coffee but did locate raktajino, which served the purpose just fine. Kyle had already turned up a thermos so they filled it to the brim with the Klingon brew. Grabbing three mugs, Kyle turned to leave. Will cleared his throat.

  “What?”

  “We have to pay for this,” Will said. “Otherwise it’s stealing.”

  Kyle fumed for a moment and then turned toward the door once more. “Sorry, son, I don’t carry any native chits. I doubt they’ll notice, and you can always send them something when this is over.”

  Will didn’t like the notion nor did he see much in the way of alternatives. He mentally added it to the list of things his father needed to atone for.

  Kyle took the flyer back into the sky minutes later. The sun had risen higher, the air getting warmer. It looked to be a sunny, cloudless day over the emptying city.

  “Good work, son,” Kyle said as the city receded.

  Ignoring the compliment, Will poured some of the Klingon drink into a mug. He started to pour a second cup but realized his father couldn’t take his hands out of the control sleeves. Shrugging, he capped the thermos and said, his voice cold, “Chalk up another success for Kyle Riker. You’re still looking to balance the books, aren’t you? What do we do when the flyer needs more power? Steal another? You’ll just keep justifying to yourself that stealing in this case is the appropriate action. But guess what, Dad, you can’t stop this.”

  Kyle looked straight ahead, jaw muscles tightening, clearly biting back a response. Will thought it interesting his father didn’t want to renew the argument. Changing tactics, he said, “By the way, thanks for hitting me. Can you explain that one?”

  Seconds passed and Will watched as Kyle adjusted their course, heading southeast now. The jaw muscles stopped marching across his face and he was going to wait the man out.

  “If you called Picard, we wouldn’t have found Bison.”

  “Bull. You want to stay out here, free. I want to know why. I think I deserve an answer.”

  Kyle remained silent, staring ahead and flying.

  Will continued: “And without contact with the Enterprise, we have no way of knowing what else is happening. For all you know, there’s a cure or civil war has broken out. So, where do you want to go if not the capital?”

  “Old Iron Boots knew all about that war,” his father said randomly.

  His father was talking about Thaddeus Riker, a colonel for the northern forces during the American Civil War. Still, it wasn’t like his father to bring up something that odd.

  “He marched with Sherman, knew exactly where to go and what to do. Followed his orders and survived. We have to do the same. Save the people, repair the damage I caused. And we’re going to do this together.”

  “This has grown beyond any one man’s ability to solve.”

  “No, son, have you forgotten one of Starfleet’s most important lessons: one man can make a difference.”

  “But that man, in this case, may not be you.”

  “I’m the man who fixes things,” Kyle said defensively. Will heard the strain creep into his voice with increasing regularity. “The doctors got it wrong, did something to exacerbate the problem. I should have foreseen being ignored and done something differently when they were returned to the planet. Since I didn’t…I…we…have to keep things in check.”

  “And you don’t know how to fix this one, do you?”

  There was a long silence. Neither looked at the other.

  “No.” Kyle’s voice was rock hard.

  Will struggled to modulate his tone, swallowing the bitterness he felt. In a softer tone he said, “Then let’s go back to the capital. Let’s work with Beverly and the doctors. Let’s solve this together.”

  Over the years Will had heard his father angry, happy, determined and all the usual emotions one would expect of a father. But right now he heard something for the first time.

  Guilt.

  He was taken aback by the intensity of the feeling and desperately wished Troi was beside him to help understand the situation better. This was something she was more accustomed to dealing with, something he didn’t necessarily feel anywhere near as qualified to handle.

  Will grew worried about his father, hearing the mental stress in his voice and the message contained in the words. What had he missed, what signals did Will not see in his father’s behavior the hours they’d spent together for this to seem so revelatory?

  “You can’t solve this alone, and we can’t make that much of a difference by ourselves. This is a time for a team effort. If I know the captain, he has the doctor working on finding a cure and Lieutenant Vale coordinating emergency security efforts. We can join them and make our difference there.”

  Kyle flew them in silence and Will began debating his chances at taking control of the ship, returning the favor and knocking out his own father. He’d been watching first Seer and now Kyle use the flyer and he was fairly certain he could master it without effort. But the conditions were cramped and given the strain his father placed on himself, there was no knowing how he’d react to being attacked.

  Rather than risk crashing, Will decided he would next act when they were on land. Instead, he concentrated on getting through to his father, trying to make him see the reality of the situation.

  “You said the chief of staff had you look into this. Where was the tactical advantage in a peaceful planet?”

  “Ever hear the phrase ‘If you could bottle the air, you’d make a fortune’?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “It’s archaic, I suppose,” Kyle said, his voice sounding distant. “Once we figured out the people we drugged, the question was could the drug be used elsewhere.”

  “The Federation wanted to use it—for what?”

  “Think about it, Willy. We were fighting the Dominion, and losing. We had to examine any and every option for fighting. Imagine being able to reduce the aggression in the Jem’Hadar.”

  And there it was. The Federation was ready to use drug warfare, as unethical as it sounded now; it probably sounded a whole lot less objectionable during those desperate days.

  “But your studies…?”

  “Abandoned when they surrendered. We never figured out if the natural gases here could be synthesized. A dead end. Or so I thought until this disaster.”

  “Dad, can you see the futility in doing this alone? We won the war because of joint efforts. No mavericks, no Garths to do it single-handedly. Those days, I think, are gone. We’ve become too complex, too large a galaxy. Now, tell me, where are we going?”

  “Back to the capital, I guess,” Kyle said. There had been no course change, and Will studied the displays to gain some idea of their heading. He was surprised to realize his father had them aimed at the capital the whole time.

  “All I ask is that I save one world,” Kyle replied. “Is that so much?”

  Will looked at the man, broken but determined, ready to risk everything to fix the unfixable. “No, Dad, not so much.”

  And the ship flew on.

  It felt good to get off the bridge. That was the first thing on Kell Perim’s mind as she worked with a detail to sort out a problem at a marketplace on Osedah. After watching the world spin on the main viewscreen for two straight shifts, she was bored. A part of her wondered if she was the fastest officer to volunteer when Captain Picard’s announcement was made. Certainly, she was the first one to receive Commander Data’s permission.

  “I can understand your desire to do something proactive,” he had told her. “I have frequently seen conn officers chafe in their seats during such missions. Do be careful.”

  She thought his final warning was sweet. Although he had turned over his emotion chip to Starfleet Command some months back, he was still caring and even compassionate. Commander La Forge had told her about what Data
was like in the days before she signed on board, when his positronic matrix had not yet developed enough to properly handle the complex sensory input the chip would provide.

  She hurried to transporter room two. While she enjoyed flying the starship and thought herself more than competent at the job, she envied those who frequently went on away missions. She imagined what it must be like to accompany Commander Riker or Data to the surface of a planet, either to explore or to handle a problem. Either would have been fine with her. Being the patient officer that she was, Perim had decided a few weeks earlier, after the Enterprise had completed its mission with the Dokaalan, that she would ask for some away duty during her next performance evaluation. After all those years as alpha shift helm officer, Perim thought she at least deserved consideration.

  Nafir stood behind the controls as Jim Peart, security’s second-in-command, issued instructions. Perim had worked alongside Peart. She considered him a handsome fellow and had more than once considered inviting him for a drink. He spotted her coming in and gave her a friendly smile.

  “Kell, I’m placing you with Gracin’s team. We have a marketplace that needs taming,” he said, handing her a phaser. She hefted the device, trying to remember the last time she had used one. It was probably during the mandatory weapons proficiency evaluations six months earlier. Her test results were in the average range, which, considering she had rarely touched the weapon since the war, was good enough. She holstered it and looked at her comrades. Gracin was stocky, with short curly hair and a dimpled smile.

  “Bring you back anything?” she asked Peart.

  “No souvenirs on this trip,” he said, all serious.

  “You’re taking all the fun out of my first away team mission,” she said, and gave him an exaggerated pout.

  “Come back alive and we can talk about…souvenirs,” Peart said.

  Gracin spoke up, cutting off her next comment. “We just know there’s a problem, but nothing specific. It could be a shoplifter, or the entire place could be one free-for-all. Phasers remain holstered until we get the gist of the problem. We’re spread thin, so if there’s trouble, we’re likely to be on our own. Perim, Goodnough, you follow my lead. Davila, you bring up the rear. Everyone, stay close.”