by Peter David
VENDETTA
Introduction and
Technical Notes
For those who actually keep track of my career
and heard about my upcoming projects, no, this
isn't the book with Q. That's in a few
months.
When Rock and a Hard Place came out,
I cautioned readers up front that it was going to be
somewhat more serious--even slightly morbid--in
tone than my previous Trek book, Strike
Zone. Readers seemed to appreciate this. I
feel no such statement of dramatic style is
required with Vendetta. Considering that the Borg
are back in force with this novel, you know this isn't
going to be a laugh riot.
Vendetta, as a work, owes its existence to a
few people. First and foremost, to Pocket Books
editor Kevin Ryan, whose idea this all was.
Kevin is also the only person I know who can
tell you that a manuscript is great, wonderful,
fantastic, the best thing you've ever written, and
then fax you six pages of requested changes.
He should be in Hollywood. He'd fit in great
there.
Then there is the incredibly understanding phalanx of
editors with whom I work, who were willing to cut me
slack on my monthly comic book assignments
so that I could get this novel done. Not that they had
much choice, since I had my remarkably rude
answering machine message-screening my calls.
There is also my family--wife Myra, and
daughters Shana and Guinevere, who have come
to understand that the phrase "Daddy's on deadline"
means that you tiptoe around the house until the
damned thing is done.
Then, of course, there is Next Generation
itself, celebrating a quarter century of the
durability of Gene Roddenberry's dream, which
by introducing the formidable Borg, gave us a
race that makes the Klingons and Romulans
combined look like campfire girls.
And now, something totally alien to my usual
writing--technical notes. I found myself leaning
very heavily on the Star Trek Writer's
Technical Manual, that marvelous document
created by Rick Sternbach and Mike Okuda that
is the official, unvarnished,
accept-no-substitute guide for anyone
trying to write for the TV show. Whereas usually I
give the manual a casual glance in the course
of writing a book, to double-check bridge stations
or something, with Vendetta I kept it to my immediate
right and referred to it constantly.
In Vendetta you will find discussions of the
capabilities of warp drive, phasers and
respective settings, setups of the engine
room, etc., etc. All of this is taken
directly from the Technical Manual, with a
few extrapolations of my own tossed in along the
way. This serves a twofold advantage.
First, it gives Vendetta, I would hope, a
feeling of authenticity. Second, it means that
when fans come complaining to me about my depiction of
warp speed limits and the like, I can just turn them
on Sternbach and Okuda. The Tech Manual
is the final, official word of the Star Trek
office, so if you take issue with anything in
Vendetta, don't gripe to me about it. I just
work here.
Special thanks to an advertiser in Comics
Buyer's Guide whose nom de plume I
borrowed for a character herein.
And lastly, an acknowledgment to Miguel de
Cervantes, who knew squat about warp drive
but everything about what drives the human heart.
P.d.
OVERTURE
Chapter One
Jean-Luc Picard leaned against a wall and
ran his fingers through his mop of thick brown hair.
His feet tapped a vague, disassociated
rhythm, more stream-of-consciousness than anything
else. His mind was wandering in the way that it often
did--analyzing any number of facts,
figures, and other bits of information that were tumbling
through his head while, simultaneously, drawing
together possible connections.
It was called "thinking empirically" by his
teachers. According to his father, it was called "being able
to see the forest for the trees."
"Step back, gentlemen. Give the young man
room."
Picard didn't even glance in the direction
of the slightly taunting voice. "Just thinking,
Korsmo. No need to make such a fuss over
it. Since you do it so rarely, you probably
didn't recognize the process."
Korsmo, to the amusement of other cadets
nearby, staggered back slightly, as if he'd
been stabbed to the heart. "Oh," he moaned,
"Oh! The stinging wit of Jean-Luc Picard.
Shot to the heart. How can I ever recover?"
Picard shook his head. "Don't you ever take
anything seriously, Korsmo?"
Korsmo was tall and lanky, rail-thin. His
eating habits were legendary, but his body burned
up the food so fast that he never gained weight.
His black hair hung just in front of his eyes,
and he would periodically brush it back out
unconsciously. "There's a difference between being
serious and being dead. You should learn it, Picard.
You're the biggest stiff in the Academy.
Legend has it, the only bigger stiff in the
Academy's history was James Kirk."
"I would consider it an honor," said Picard
archly, "to be placed in such august company."
The corridor outside the classroom was
becoming more crowded as the rest of the cadets began
to show up, one by one, for the lecture. They watched
with amusement the cautious and long-accustomed
sparring between Picard and Korsmo. It had been
going on since practically the first day of the first
year. The two men weren't exactly friends, but they
weren't exactly enemies. Instead they saw things
in each other, instinctively, that they
simultaneously disliked and envied. After three
years the give and take of their routine had an
almost comfortable familiarity.
"Your concern is heartwarming, Korsmo,"
Picard continued. "Some of--"
His voice trailed off as he saw something at
the far end of the hallway.
There was a woman there. She seemed almost
insubstantial, fading into the shadows at the
corridor end. Picard noticed immediately that she
was not wearing a Starfleet uniform, but, instead, some
sort of almost diaphanous gown.
Though Picard had never seen her before, there was
something about her, something that made her seem as if
she were there, but not--as if his mind were telling him that
he was seeing nothing at all.
Korsmo
was saying something and Picard wasn't
paying the least bit of attention. Korsmo
realized it and tapped Picard on the shoulder.
"You got a problem, Picard?"
Picard's gaze strayed to Korsmo for a
moment, refocussed, and then he said, "Who's that
woman?"
"What woman?" asked Korsmo.
He turned and pointed to the end of the corridor,
and there was no one there.
Picard's mouth moved for a moment, and for the first time
that Korsmo could recall, Jean-Luc Picard
actually seemed flustered. "She was there," he
said. "She was right there."
The other cadets were looking where Picard was
pointing and turning back to him with confusion. "One of
you must have seen her," said Picard urgently.
Korsmo was trying to keep the amusement out of his
voice, but not all that hard. "This another
example of the famed Picard humor ... no,
wait. I just remembered. We've never seen an
example of the famed Picard humor, so who could
tell?"
"Dammit, Korsmo, this is serious. There's
some woman walking around here, and she's not
authorized and--"
Korsmo, a head taller than Picard,
took him firmly by the shoulders. But his words were
addressed to the others. "Gentlemen ... our
fellow cadet states that security has been
breached. His claim must be followed up. Spread
out, gentlemen and ladies. Let's see if we
can turn up Picard's mystery woman."
There were brisk nods, the youthful banter
quickly being set aside, as a potential problem
presented itself. Picard felt a brief flash of
gratitude to Korsmo, but realized within short
order that Korsmo's main interest was trying to show
him up.
In this, it appeared, Korsmo succeeded. The
cadets deployed themselves with admirable
efficiency, and had the entire floor covered in
less than a minute. But there was no sign
anywhere of the alleged intruder.
Picard was shaking his head in utter befuddlement.
He paced furiously in place--just a small
area, forward three steps and back three steps.
When Korsmo approached, he didn't have to say
anything. It was clear from the taller cadet's
attitude that no one had been found, and that left
Picard looking like something of a fool.
"She was there," said Picard stubbornly. The
others were gathering around now, but again Picard said
firmly, "I saw her. I'm not imagining it."
"I checked with the front security area," said
Korsmo. "No non-Starfleet personnel were
granted access to the premises today, not even for a
casual visit."
"I don't think Jean-Luc is claiming she
was supposed to be here," offered up Cadet Leah
Sapp. Picard flashed a quick smile at her.
Leah was always the first to step in on Picard's
side when there was any kind of dispute. He knew
damned well that she had a bit of an infatuation
with him, but he didn't take it seriously. He
took nothing seriously except his studies.
Gods, maybe he was the biggest stiff in the
Academy at that.
"No, I'm not," Picard agreed. "All
I'm saying is that perhaps we should--"
There was a loud, throat-clearing harrumph,
and the cadets turned towards the source.
Professor Talbot was standing in the doorway
of the classroom, his arms folded, his dark face
displaying great clouds of annoyance.
"I am not," he rumbled, "in the habit of
waiting for classes to come to me in their own sweet
time."
"We were trying to help Cadet Picard find
a woman," Korsmo said helpfully.
Picard rubbed his forehead in a faint, pained
expression.
"Indeed," said Talbot thinly. "Cadet
Picard, kindly maintain your sex life
on your own time, not mine."
"I ... yes, sir," said Picard,
swallowing the response he really wished to mak e.
Something told him that any response would not do him
one shred of good and, quite likely, a fairly large
dollop of harm.
The students filed into Professor
Talbot's course on Starfleet history. The
classroom was meticulously
climate-controlled, and yet it always felt stuffy
to Picard. As he took his seat, he pondered the
probability that the perceived stuffiness was pretty
much in his head. Somehow, talking about great
adventures and sweeping voyages of great
Starfleet officers was stifling when it was discussed
in a classroom. Picard didn't want to sit
around and review the adventures of others. He
wanted others to be studying .his adventures.
Intellectually, he knew the impossibility
of the latter without a solid grounding in the former.
If he could not learn how to imitate the
successes and avoid the failures of his
predecessors, then what sort of Starship
captain (for such was his goal) would he be?
A dead one, most likely.
He was snapped immediately back to attention
by Talbot's brisk statement of, "Picard ...
you have, of course, been reviewing the topic of the
life and career of Commodore Matthew Decker,
have you not?"
Picard was immediately on his feet, his shoulders
squared, his gaze levelled and confident. "Yes,
sir," he said with certainty.
"Would you care to tell us of the commodore's final
mission?"
"Yes, sir." There might have been times when
Picard grated on the nerves of other students with
his singlemindedness and utter devotion to making a name
for himself in the fleet. These things preyed on him and
sometimes made him wonder--there, in the darkness of his
quarters at night, when there was no one around
except he himself and his uncertainties--whether he
would ever be able to sufficiently command the respect of
others that was so necessary to become a starship captain.
Such self-doubt, however, never existed when it
came to pure academics. On facts and
history and raw information, he was always on top of
his game.
"Commodore Decker's ship, the Constellation,
had encountered a planet-destroying
machine," Picard continued. "It came from
outside the galaxy and, using planetary mass as
fuel, was progressing through the heart of our
galaxy as part of a perpetual program of
destruction."
"Go on," said Talbot, arms folded.
"His ship was incapacitated, and he beamed his
crew down to a planet which was subsequently
destroyed by the planet-eater. With the aid of the
Enterprise, NCC-1701, the so-called
doomsday machine was incapacitated, but not before
Commodore Decker sacrificed his life in
combat against it."
"What were the details of that combat?" asked
Talbot.
&n
bsp; Picard frowned. "Enterprise logs merely
state that Decker died heroically. Details were
not recorded."
"Speculation."
Picard ran through the various possible scenarios
in his mind, any and all that made sense. Finally
he said, "It was the destruction of the Constellation
within the bowels of the planet-killer that caused its
deactivation. That much is recorded. I would
surmise that Commodore Decker, choosing to go
down with his ship, piloted the Constellation himself
into the machine. Enterprise transporters might
well have suffered damage in the course of the
battle with the planet-killer, and were unable
to transport him back in time."
"A very reasonable surmise, cadet," said
Talbot. He slowly circled his podium.
"Since, as you so accurately noted, the
details are not recorded, we can never know for
sure. Can we?"
"No, sir," said Picard, and started to sit
down.
He froze in a slightly ridiculous,
half-seated position, because Talbot was glowering
at him in an expectant manner that seemed
to indicate he wasn't quite finished with the cadet.
Unsure of what to do, Picard stood fully
once more, waiting patiently for instruction from his
professor.
"Do you think Decker felt guilty,
Picard?"
Picard raised a questioning eyebrow. Somehow the
thought of guilt or concern or any other human
feeling never seemed to enter into the study of
history. One studied facts,
figures, distant events, and strategies--not
people.
"I'd never given it any thought, sir."
"Think, now," invited Talbot. "We've
all the time in the world." Talbot gestured
expansively and then leaned back in a carefully
cultivated casual manner.
Picard didn't let his gaze wander. The last
thing he wanted to do was glance at bemused fellow
classmates. "You are referring to guilt over the
deaths of his crew."
Talbot merely nodded, waiting for Picard
to continue.
"The commodore made the correct decision,"
said Picard. "Given the same circumstances, it
would be perfectly in order for him to do it again.
Therefore, he had nothing over which to feel guilty."
"Even though his people died."
"Yes, sir."
"Even though he could doubtlessly hear their
cries of anguish as the planet that was supposed
to be their haven was cut to pieces beneath their feet."
