Star Trek: The Next Generation: Starfleet Academy #8: Starfall

by Brad

  “Candidate Picard?” the young man said from his desk. “You may go in now.”

  “Thank you.”

  Counselor Trevalion was standing at his window, looking down at the same pond. “They are rather like starships,” he said. “Each one self-contained and completely at home in its element.”

  Jean-Luc could not stop himself from thinking, So he’s a full telepath.

  Trevalion smiled at him. “I am,” he said. “However, I cannot communicate directly to you mind-to-mind. I’m not quite that good. And you probably are more at ease speaking to me rather than just thinking through a conversation, so we’ll keep things vocal for your comfort.”

  “Thank you,” Jean-Luc said.

  Trevalion tilted his head. “You are troubled.”

  Jean-Luc fought to keep all of his problems out of his mind: the blowup with his father, his worries about his future. It was useless. Like most people, Jean-Luc could not easily control his thoughts. If someone told him his life depended on his not thinking of a pink-striped zebra playing a tuba, he would have been a dead duck.

  “I shall not pry into your personal affairs,” Trevalion said. He smiled. “I’m afraid you will have to accept my word for that, but it is true. Please sit down, Mr. Picard.”

  Jean-Luc slipped into a comfortable seat beside Trevalion’s desk, but he sat right on the edge. “I don’t understand why I’ve been called here,” he said.

  Trevalion turned away from the window and stood against it, his hands behind his back. “Mmm. Tell me, Mr. Picard, what alternative plans did you have in mind?”

  Jean-Luc blinked. “Alternative plans? What do you mean?"

  “Well, after failing this test period. Surely you realized there was a possibility that you would not go to Starfleet Academy. After all, you already failed once.”

  Within him Jean-Luc’s heart plummeted. So that was it. Something had gone wrong, and he had failed again. “I don’t understand,” he said, keeping his voice low.

  “It’s a simple question, really.” Trevalion sounded concerned and friendly, but somehow distant, too, as if he were friendly only on a professional level. “Most of the other candidates have alternative plans. Many will become apprentices to the merchant services. Some will attend college or university here on Earth or within the system. One has received a provisional acceptance to the Vulcan Academy, a rare honor, indeed. But I find in your file no alternative plans at all. What will you do instead of going to Starfleet Academy?”

  Jean-Luc looked at the floor. “I don’t know.”

  “Well,” Trevalion said, still in that cool, friendly voice, “perhaps I could suggest a few things to consider. You have your planet-side flying license. It wouldn’t take much to upgrade you to a class two pilot’s license that would be good for intersystem flying. Copernicus University on Luna has an excellent program for training independent pilots and technicians.”

  “No,” Jean-Luc croaked. After a strained moment he added, “Thank you.”

  Silence hung heavy in the room. After a few moments Counselor Trevalion said softly, “I must point out, Mr. Picard, that your scores have been consistently very high. You have come in first or second in virtually every test. It would be a mistake for you to throw away your abilities by not attending college. If you want something more exotic, I might recommend the provincial institutions of Centauri System, or perhaps Barnard’s System Omniversity—”

  “Thank you, no,” Jean-Luc said with more conviction. He stood. “May I go now?”

  “No,” Counselor Trevalion said. “You may not. You are in a highly disturbed emotional state. It is my job to help you deal with that. In my opinion, you can come to terms with your anger and disappointment only by making plans for the future.”

  Jean-Luc’s heart thudded heavily in his chest. He felt light-headed, angry at himself and the world. When he spoke, though, he tried hard to force all these feelings back, to keep his voice level and even. “Thank you, Counselor Trevalion. My plans are already made.”

  “And what are they?”

  With a bitter smile Jean-Luc said, “I am going to Starfleet Academy.”

  When Counselor Trevalion gave his sympathetic smile and a little shake of his head, Jean-Luc continued, “Oh, I may not be going to fall term. And it may take me a year or five years to get there, but I am going to Starfleet Academy. In the meantime, I’ll do whatever it takes to earn my way there. I’ll study, I’ll work, I’ll train myself. There are six testing cycles every year. Fine. Before I leave today, I’ll sign up for the next testing cycle in the fall. And if I fail then, I’ll sign up for the next one, and the one after that, until finally I pass.”

  “Is it failure that is so difficult for you to accept?” Trevalion asked.

  “Yes. I was not raised to be a failure.” Jean-Luc tugged his tunic self-consciously. “My father and mother taught me to persevere. And I suppose I inherited a certain amount of stubbornness, too.”

  “Will you be able to deal with yet another failure?” asked Trevalion. “I sense that you are very close to despair now.”

  He was right, but even so, Jean-Luc almost laughed.

  “I’ll deal with anything that happens,” he promised the counselor. “Good, bad, or indifferent. I will want copies of my test records, by the way.”

  “Surely, but why?”

  “Because I can learn from my failures,” Jean-Luc said. “I may not succeed next time, either, but I will not fail in the same way. I can promise you that.”

  The counselor appeared to think this over. “Very well,” he said at last. “I wish you would make alternative plans, but if you’re set on this course of action, I cannot prevent you. I will have the records transmitted to you. Where do you live?”

  Jean-Luc swallowed. “There is some question about that,” he said. “I’ll be in touch.”

  “What makes you think you will be able to overcome this”—Trevalion paused, as if groping for the right word—“this natural tendency toward failure?”

  After taking a deep breath, Jean-Luc said, “I have a friend named Louis. He loves the sea. He’s also terrified of it because he can’t swim. But because his dream is larger than his fear, he begins studying on Medlab-One this autumn. Then there’s my brother, Robert. He’s afraid that my father cares more for me than for him—yet Robert was brave enough to wish me luck in my tests. If they can overcome their fears, then so can I.”

  “You are calmer now.”

  Jean-Luc blinked. Trevalion was right. He was calmer. The anger and resentment had faded away, replaced by a hot determination that, come what may, he would eventually be a Starfleet cadet. “I will be fine,” he said. “May I go now?"

  “In a moment.” Trevalion picked up his data padd, made an entry on it, and then smiled at Jean-Luc. “Congratulations on passing the psych test,” he said.

  For a moment the counselor’s words didn’t register with Jean-Luc. Then he said, incredulously, “All this was a test?”

  “The most difficult one, perhaps. I am sorry for the very real pain I caused you, Mr. Picard. You see, the psychology test forces a candidate to deal with whatever he or she dreads the most. In your case, that is failure. It is your one most deep-seated fear, the one part of yourself that you have the most difficulty confronting. You have taken your disappointment and anger and have directed them toward a new goal. It would have been easy for you to give in to despair, but you did not. Therefore, you have passed the psychology test.”

  Jean-Luc had a strange and empty sensation. “I don’t know how to feel now,” he said. “What does this mean?”

  “You will know in about a week,” Trevalion said.

  “You have done exceptionally well, but twelve others have done about the same. It will require further evaluation before the final decision is made. However, if you are not selected this time—”

  “I will be back,” Jean-Luc said, knowing it was true.

  CHAPTER

  10

  The vineya
rd no-longer seemed like home. Yvette had told Jean-Luc to come back, that Maurice was already sorry for his harsh words, but father and son hardly spoke anymore. When Maurice and Robert went to the vineyard each morning to work, Jean-Luc remained behind. He ran for scores of kilometers, just to work off his nervous energy. He read, tinkered with model starships, lifted weights. Nothing helped, not even a few sessions on the holophone with Louis, who had taken a nasty fall from his cycle and had shattered his left knee badly.

  “It can be mended,” Louis had said from his hospital bed, “but I’ll be lame for two or three weeks.” He sighed. “At least I have the lovely Bloom sisters as nurses. They are both most charmingly concerned about my poor leg.”

  “I think you did it on purpose,” Jean-Luc teased. “You couldn’t get them to fall in love with you for your personality, so now you’re trying to win their sympathy.”

  “It might be worthwhile at that,” responded Louis with a cheerful grin. “All’s fair in love and cycling!”

  Days passed. Before long it would be August. Starfleet Academy’s fall term traditionally began the last week of August.

  Jean-Luc moped. One morning his mother found him huddled at the top of the stair, reading a genuine, old-fashioned book. “You’ll ruin your eyes,” she said in mock horror.

  “I always used to read here when I was little,” Jean-Luc said. “It’s so quiet and cool here on the stairway. I remember looking at a picture book of the planets here, and then later reading The Three Musketeers in this same spot. And now—” he broke off and shrugged.

  Yvette sat beside him. “And now it doesn’t seem the same.”

  “No.” Jean-Luc smiled. “Are you part Betazoid? You can read my mind.”

  “I’m better than a Betazoid. I’m your mother,” Yvette said. She sighed. “Robert has canceled his trip.”

  Jean-Luc nodded. “Yes, I know. He hasn’t said anything, but the way he looks at me makes me feel terrible.” He put his book down on his knee, open to his place. “Mother, I’ve been thinking. If I don’t make it into the Academy this term, I’m applying to colleges on the western coast of North America. I may as well be close to the Academy for my next testing period.”

  “Very well,” she said.

  “I don’t feel right, just staying here at home and not doing anything.”

  Yvette waited.

  Finally Jean-Luc took a deep breath and admitted, “Al1 right. I know that Father and Robert will grow closer without me around. Father still thinks he can talk me into being a winegrower. He’s wrong, but he still thinks about it.”

  “Are you part Betazoid?”

  With a rueful grin Jean-Luc said, “I’m better than a Betazoid. I’m his son.” After another moment he added, “Perhaps we will both be happier if we’re apart. Is that possible?”

  Yvette put her arm around him. “Of course it is. You two are like reflections in a mirror. Except that each of you sees in his reflection what he does not like about himself. Haven’t you ever wondered if your father ever regretted spending his life here in the vineyard?”

  “Does he?” asked Jean-Luc in surprise.

  “Well—not always. But from time to time he wonders what his life would have been like if he had not listened to his father. He had ideas of traveling, too, when he was your age. He gave them up. Now it pains him to see you have the same feelings. I think he is a little envious of you, that you will do things he never did, see things he never saw. But stronger than that envy are his love for you and his pride in you.”

  Jean-Luc murmured. “A mirror. Yes, in it I can see what I do not want to become: a man so in love with the past that he cannot live in the present or look to the future. Perhaps it will be better, after all, when I move away.”

  “But you will come back,” Yvette said. “And then your father will boast about you and will make much of you, and no matter what you have accomplished in the meantime, you will tell him how much you miss life here, the simple life in LaBarre.”

  “Will I?” he asked.

  “Depend on it,” Yvette said. “You are his son.”

  The call came two days later. Yvette’s urgent voice summoned Jean-Luc to the holophone in the office. Beside his father’s cluttered desk, Jean-Luc looked into the face of Commander Luttrell. “Are you packed, Mr. Picard?” she asked with a smile.

  “I can pack,” Jean-Luc said. It was suddenly hard to breathe.

  “Then I advise you to do so. You have been accepted for the autumn term at Starfleet Academy. Orientation period will begin three weeks from today. I will transmit your orders immediately following this call. Congratulations, Cadet Picard.”

  Cadet Picard.

  It had a nice ring to it.

  It was a cool morning in August, one of those unusually chilly mornings that told you summer was ending and fall was on its way in. Jean-Luc stood at the LaBarre landing platform, his suitcases in his hands. Starfleet Academy would issue his uniforms. He was bringing only a few things from home.

  He had said his goodbyes at Chateau Picard. He and Maurice had shaken hands before his father had impulsively pulled him close and hugged him. “Well,” he said gruffly, “if you’re intent on this foolishness, then show them how well a Picard can do. See that they don’t forget you!”

  “I’ll try,” Jean-Luc had promised. He turned to Robert and held out the Saint Christopher’s medal. “Here,” he said. “And thanks for lending it to me.”

  “It was a gift,” Robert said with a grin. “You keep it, genius. You may still need a little luck now and then.”

  And Yvette had said almost nothing at all. She had simply embraced him and had whispered, “I love you, son.”

  He shivered. He had come out early, far too early, but he was too excited to stay in the skyport. The trouble was there was nothing to do out here, either, except to scan the clear morning sky for any sign of—

  “There he is!” shouted a familiar voice.

  Jean-Luc turned in surprise. Hurrying toward him was Louis, limping gamely along, with Kim Bloom at his right elbow and Misty Bloom at his left, both partly supporting him. “Sneak off, would you?” boomed Louis. “I should yank your hair out for that!”

  “Not my hair!” yelped Jean-Luc in mock alarm.

  “Easy,” warned Misty as Louis lunged at Jean-Luc to deliver a playful punch.

  “He’s not a very good patient,” Kim told Jean-Luc.

  “If he were a kangaroo, I’d sedate him.”

  “Well,” Louis said, “so this is it.”

  “Yes,” agreed Jean-Luc. “I want to thank you. You were an inspiration to me.”

  “Hear that, girls?” Louis roared, throwing an arm around both their shoulders. “And you thought I was so useless!”

  Which one will he settle on? Jean-Luc wondered. Both Bloom girls were gazing at Louis with obvious fondness. Oh, well, he thought. I may have my troubles at the Academy, but Louis is letting himself in for some real problems! Aloud, he said, “Seriously, you’re my best friend. You take care on the bottom of that ocean.”

  “And you out there in space,” Louis returned. More quietly, he said, “Don’t worry, Jean-Luc. I know your father. Maurice may be a gruff old bear, but by the time you come home for the holidays, he’ll be bragging about you to anyone within hearing distance.”

  “It’s nice of you to say so,” Jean-Luc answered. Inside, though, he wasn’t so sure. Only time could tell.

  “Look!” Misty Bloom shouted. “Here it comes!”

  Jean-Luc looked up into the sky. There, so far above them that it was merely a hurtling silvery speck, was the descending shuttle. In moments it would set down, Jean-Luc would board it, and he would step into the joys and the sorrows, the failures and the successes, of his future.

  It frightened him a little. For all its worries, his past had been comfortable, known, reliable. But the future—well, the future was vast and unknown, and it stretched ahead for long, long years.

  Jean-Luc straightened his shoulders
and smiled in anticipation. Whatever that future might hold, he would live it among the stars.

  About the Author

  BRAD AND BARBARA STRICKLAND are a husband-and-wife writing team from Oakwood, Georgia. Brad has written or co-written eighteen novels and more than sixty short stories, including two Star Trek: Deep Space Nine novels for young readers, The Star Ghost and Stowaways. Barbara makes her writing debut as co-author of the two Starfleet Academy novels Starfall and Nova Command. Together they are writing three novels for the Nickelodeon Are You Afraid of the Dark? series, also available from Minstrel Books.

  Both Stricklands are teachers. Brad is an Associate Professor of English at Gainesville College, and Barbara teaches second grade at Myers Elementary School. They have a son, Jonathan, a daughter, Amy, and numerous pets. In addition to writing, Brad likes travel, sailing, and photography, and Barbara is a great Star Trek fan and enjoys crafts. She won first prize for children’s costumes at the World Science Fiction Convention in Atlanta, GA. Both husband and wife know how to bathe a ferret.

  About the Illustrator

  TODD CAMERON HAMILTON is a self-taught artist who has resided all his life in Chicago, Illinois. He has been a professional illustrator for the past ten years, specializing in fantasy, science fiction, and horror. Todd is the current president of the Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists. His original works grace many private and corporate collections. He has co-authored two novels and several short stories. When not drawing, painting, or writing, his interests include metalsmithing, puppetry, and teaching.