by Diane Carey
Self-conscious, Riker nodded and glanced at Dennis.
“I was good at it,” Bush said, his New England accent making his words more garbled. He took a sad moment to palm his rumpled hair as if he knew what he looked like. “Not so good anymore . . . but that’s okay, because . . . well, now he’s got you. Anything you need, you just let me know. It’s a big ship, so just take one thing at a time. You’ll be just wicked in no time. I’ll . . . I’ll see yez later.”
With that Bush wandered off down the corridor, tossed back a weak “Don’t worry,” and disappeared into a lab.
The three watched him go, and nobody spoke until the lab door slid shut. And even a few seconds after that. Riker felt as if his chest were caving in. Now what?
“Don’t feel bad, sir,” Mike Dennis said finally. “It isn’t you. He’s been like that since we got to this century, give or take six months.”
“What happened? What could possibly do that to him?”
“He was about to get married when we ended up lost.”
“Oh . . . still . . .”
Wizz Dayton waved a hand as if to explain with a gesture. “We all just loved Ruby. That’s the girl he was going to marry. She was about to come all the way from the East Coast to Fries-Posnikoff. Captain was going to officiate at the ceremony. Gabe was—aw, he was the happiest man in the whole sector, we figure. I never saw anybody so idiot-happy to be getting married.”
“He’s distraught like that, even after three whole years? I understand, but—”
He stopped when Dennis and Dayton looked at each other uncomfortably. Evidently there was more.
“Not just that, sir,” Dennis confirmed. “Mr. Bush looked into what happened to Ruby. It wasn’t very nice.”
“What did happen?”
They seemed to be afraid he was going to ask, but there was no turning back. Even if they didn’t offer the information, Riker stood there and insisted with his posture that they tell him. As first officer, he had to know.
They seemed to accept that. Dayton took the burden. “Ruby spent years looking for us. Hiring ships, scratching resources together, lobbying admirals, buying search services, getting fleeced, getting older . . . she hired some of the most disreputable characters around.”
“Yes,” Riker said. “I’ve heard that no one of any self-restraint would go into the Typhon Expanse for a good twenty years after that incident. And I don’t blame them—I was there.”
“You sure were,” Dennis commented.
Riker glanced at him, then said, “Go on, Mr. Dayton.”
“She finally used up all her resources except a single ship that she took out by herself. She had word that Gabe was a prisoner of the Klingons, from someone who was willing to trade lies for money, and she was determined to get him back. She headed straight for the Klingon border.”
“The Klingons got her?” Riker guessed.
“Yes. Captured, tried as a spy, convicted and sentenced to Rura Penthe Prison Planet. The Federation tried to get her back, but she had trespassed on restricted territory. The charge was legitimate. The Klingons were about to let her go on a technicality, but then they found out who she was . . . the fiancée of the Bozeman’s first officer.”
“The Bozeman,” Riker echoed, “the ship that wrecked their invasion and sent the High Council into a tailspin.”
“That’s right,” Wizz Dayton said. “After that, they sent Ruby back all right . . . in ten small boxes. The same number of dignitaries who were purged from the High Council.”
With a wince Riker murmured, “Oh, no—”
“All because she was the fiancée of Gabriel Bush,” Dennis added. “And when Gabe checked on what happened to her, there was a nice clear set of pictures in the files. He just sat there for days and stared at the monitor, eaten up by guilt.”
Will Riker winced and canted forward as if he’d been punched. “Oh, my God . . . poor Gabe . . .”
With new sorrow and empathy, he looked down the corridor, empty now, wishing he could catch Gabriel Bush and—do something, anything, for him. Anything.
“I guess you can see, sir, why we protect Mr. Bush,” Wizz Dayton said. “We’d appreciate it if you’d just forget what you saw. We’ve been pretty much keeping him away from officers for a long time now, and Captain Bateson’s been running interference for him, making sure nobody finds out. He’s not really causing any harm, sir. And he does do his jobs, usually. Please don’t say anything, sir.”
“That’s highly inappropriate, Mr. Dayton,” Riker began, but they already knew that. “Don’t let me catch him on duty like that.”
As boarding first officer, what should he do? What would he do in their place? Wouldn’t he protect Troi or La Forge just the same way? Hadn’t he and Picard and everyone else protected Worf during all his struggles between his Klingon heritage and his Starfleet loyalties? Those hadn’t exactly been sane times. And the glasswork feelings of Data during his halting search for humanness?
Thinking of those, he couldn’t muster up the second half of his sentence.
“But you can see,” Dennis said, “why he just couldn’t be the first officer for this voyage. We don’t know when he ever will be again. He’s taken the course and upgraded his technical skills to some extent, enough to pass muster—”
“Whenever we could sober him up,” Dayton offered.
“And he passed reaccreditation,” Mike Dennis went on.
“Has the ship’s surgeon seen him?” Riker asked.
“Oh, sure,” Dayton said. “Cured him eight times, enough for him to take exams and get recertified. But there’s just no curing his broken heart.”
Riker drew a breath and sighed. “Well, I’ve heard of conspiracies before, but this—”
If only there were some way to bring this up casually, talk to Bush, help him . . . but if his own crewmates hadn’t been able to help, and a Starfleet surgeon hadn’t been able to help, then no one could help. Real help, Riker knew, lay untouchable, ninety years in the past, with a soulsick girl and a sorrowful destiny. Some things just can never be fixed.
As the two men led him in silence to his new quarters, he combed his mind for just how to handle this. As first officer, it fell upon him to handle problems of the crew—usually not quite this personal, but certainly if those problems affected the ship. And this would.
On the other hand, his responsibility was much more to the crew than other senior officers. Bush was still a senior officer, and thus was more the captain’s concern than that of another senior officer, other than the ship’s surgeon, who evidently had already weighed in on the subject and decided that being custodial was enough. It might be technically appropriate for Riker to take some action, but not in the realm of polite consideration that officers gave each other.
Bateson should’ve handled Bush’s desperate mental agony years ago. He hadn’t. Apparently he had communicated to his crew that it was all right to shield Bush and deceive Starfleet about the functionality of a commissioned, stationed officer aboard a ship of the line.
By the time Riker was introduced to his quarters, and then was escorted to the bridge of the starship, he was solidly grumpy about the way Morgan Bateson ran his command.
Good way to start off, right?
The turbolift doors parted before him, and Lieutenant Dennis led him onto the sweeping, beautiful bridge of the new Enterprise. It was a more intimate place than the previous Enterprise, each brace, chair, and support designed to mimic the streamlined, forward-leaning outer configuration of the ship’s hull, making each station look as if it were about to leap off a cliff and fly. The lines were all recognizable, the ceiling lower than the other ship. The lower ceiling provided more of that intimacy he suddenly felt.
The colors were muted, rather like being inside a giant computer chip. Brushed-satin structural members of military gray supported hundreds of diagnostic readouts and sensor displays. Six support pylons arched in a semicircle like the ribs of a melon, and each had a lighting p
anel running along its inboard side. Floor lights glowed upon a carpet of astral blue.
No station was more than four steps from the next station, which meant no one would feel alone or separated here, and they could all see one another’s panels with a glance.
Otherwise, most things were basic Starfleet design, captain’s chair at the center, helm before that, and the main screen directly forward of everything. The functional design had been mimicked in most spacefaring cultures. Klingon bridges, Romulans, Orions, merchants—almost everybody had the same basic design. It just worked.
Dennis immediately went to a station, leaving Riker to stand in the turbolift vestibule and look about in privacy. There were some people here, a few officers, Captain Bateson standing just over there on the port side, going over something on a padd with an engineer, and Deanna Troi was on the forward starboard upper deck, picking off some detail or other on a console.Nobody noticed him.
Nobody except a science officer who now tried to get past him and decided better of that.
“Sir, Lieutenant John Wolfe, Stellar Sciences,” the young man introduced himself. “You must be Mr. Riker. Welcome aboard, sir. Permission to show you around the bridge.”
“Granted,” Riker said. “Just do it from here.”
“Yes, sir.” Wolfe turned and started pointing to stations. “Tactical, Mission Ops, Defense, Science One, Science Two, Ops Manager, Guidance and Navigation, Environmental, Main Engineering Primary Status Display, Warp Propulsion, Impulse Propulsion, Flight Control, FTB Receiving, Systems Diagnostics, Battle Bridge Co-Station, Main Computer Core Memory, Docking Control—”
“Thank you, good enough. Pretty much standard, give or take a few.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Thank you, Mr. Wolfe. Carry on.”
“Aye, sir.”
Riker paused for a few moments to appreciate the sheer newness of the bridge, the fresh smell of factory-new carpet, the glossy control panel tripolymers, the efficient and yet aesthetic arrangement of terminals and monitor screens with their pretty displays, and the brushed-metal struts gracefully holding everything in place.
And the sounds . . . he’d forgotten how comforting the soft bleeps and hums and whirrs could be. They were the voice of the ship, its great heart surging, its ventilation system softly breathing like a sleeping woman.
On the wide forward screen was a lovely view of open space, the brilliantly cluttered Fries-Posnikoff Sector, a field of space full of nebulas, elephant trunks, remnants of cosmic activity, comets, clusters, sparkling clouds, binaries—the place had become popular as a college course because so many celestial characteristics could be experienced here, in a relatively compact stellar field.
Taking a few breaths himself, to calm down, Riker stepped downdeck and strode on the plush carpet to where Deanna Troi picked at the environmental control panel.
“Deanna,” he uttered quietly.
“Oh!” She spun to him and said, “I’m so glad you’re here! I didn’t think you made it before we got under way!”
Halfway through the sentence she pulled her voice down to a whisper. Her large eyes widened and she peeked over Riker’s shoulder—which took tiptoes and a little hop—at Bateson.
“Wouldn’t miss it for all the saxophones in New Orleans,” he said. “What’re you doing on the bridge? I thought you were assigned to medical.”
“I am. I’m adjusting temp control in some of the lower decks. It’s been a little haywire. We can’t find the problem.”
“New ship,” Riker said. “Have you seen Mr. Bush?”
“This morning? No, I haven’t. He might be down in—”
“No . . . I mean, have you seen him?” He rolled his eyes and shrugged in a meaningful way.
“Oh,” she uttered and nodded heavily. “Yes, I’ve seen him. I think he saw two or three of me as well.”
“What do you make of all that?”
She kept working on the panel, so no one would notice their lowered voices. “I think he’s sunken into severe depression, that’s what, as if it’s not obvious. He’s completely inconsolable. Diagnosis doesn’t take a professional.”
“But he certainly needs professional help.”
“He does, but the captain won’t let me practice as a counselor.” She worked to keep her voice down through her anger. Her eyes flared in frustration. “And to tell you the truth, Will, I don’t think there’s much I could do for Mr. Bush. His despondency needs more intense treatment than I can administer on board ship while he’s trying to do other work. Besides, I’m not sure I’d prescribe much more than he’s getting right now—simple hard work.”
“But it’s not helping,” Riker complained.
“No, it’s not. And he’s been cured of the alcoholism several times. We can do that in ten minutes. He’s not simply physically dependent. He’s just . . . grief-stricken.”
She raised one shoulder in a hopeless gesture, and glanced across the bridge to where Captain Bateson still had his back to them.
“It’s his fault,” she whispered emphatically. “He keeps protecting Bush. He thinks that only shipmates can help a shipmate. When I disagree, he just brings up our loyalty to Captain Picard and to each other, and what can I say? What do you really expect me to say?”
“Nothing, I guess.”
“As first officer, can’t you do something?”
“That’d be patently inappropriate,” Riker told her, cutting that one off before it got started. “The senior officers are the concern of the captain. I can’t possibly circumvent Captain Bateson’s preferred method of handling his staff.”
“Well, I don’t prefer his method.”
“Neither do I.”
“It’s not the way Captain Picard would behave.”
“No, it’s not.” Riker glared a few needles at the middle of Bateson’s back, then changed mode and gripped Troi’s arm warmly. “At least we can be together, you and me, Data, Geordi . . .”
Troi glanced around. “We all tried so hard to get assigned here, Will . . . we assumed Captain Picard would—”
“That’s enough,” he said, cutting her off.
Her eyes crinkled sadly. “You’re right.”
Reluctantly, Riker gazed again at the captain. “Guess I’d better report in.”
“I suppose.”
“I’ll talk to you later.”
“Alright.”
She seemed sorry to let him go over there, but Riker broke away from her and crossed the fresh carpet to where the captain was picking at the controls and comparing them to a padd. Riker lagged back until the junior engineer finished his report and Bateson nodded and handed the padd back to the nearly teenaged young man.
Even then, Riker did not announce himself, knowing there was a point of no return. He’d passed it already, but still . . .
“Oh—Will!” Bateson turned and his animated face beamed. “Welcome aboard. I appreciate your deciding to accept my request. It’s not an official long-term stationing. I’m sure you haven’t had time to make up your mind about anything permanent yet. You don’t mind if I call you ‘Will’—”
“No, sir.”
“Good. Excuse me.” Bateson tapped his combadge, one of the little innovations that had come along during those ninety years he skipped. “Bridge to Main Engineering. Captain Scott, Engineer La Forge, Commander Data, join us up here, please. Bridge to IM Pulse Engineering. Engineer Perry, Engineer Hamilton, please join us on the bridge. And tell Gabe to get his carcass topside pronto. Captain out.”
Without waiting for acknowledgments, the captain took Riker’s arm and strolled with him around the upper deck, talking as they walked. “I know what you’re thinking. How could Morgan Bateson, a man ninety years behind the technical times, possibly be effective as master of the most up-to-date ship in the fleet? Right?”
“Uh . . . well, sir, to be honest—”
“I always want you to be honest. I’m counting on that. I won’t learn anything from polite deceptions.
”
“All right, sir, if you say so.”
“I do. And you know as well as I do that I don’t need to be technically expert at every detail of this ship. Nobody really can be, you know that. A captain is much more than that. That’s why we have ship’s department heads. The captain decides what needs to happen, the department heads make it happen. Finding myself ninety years behind the tech times, I need extra help on the bridge. I have officers who take command when I’m off watch, of course, but they’re in the same boat I am. Oh—that would be a good joke if I’d timed it right, but I didn’t.”
“No, sir.”
“My original crew and I know the lay of space like the backs of our hands. Spatial bodies don’t alter that much in ninety years. On the cosmic timescale, we hardly missed anything. What I need is an on-call spacemaster. Essentially a pilot. You’ve been recommended for your own command and turned it down. Now, I know you were holding out for command of the Enterprise, and I suppose you rather hate my guts right now. In spite of that, I’m going to gamble on your decent sense of duty and ask you to serve for a few months, to usher me and my men through the shakedown period. What do you say, Will? Are you too bitter to do what’s good for Starfleet?”
Riker paused, managed to disengage his elbow from Bateson’s grip, and turned to the captain.
Annoyed, he said, “I believe I’ve already answered that question with my presence here, sir.”
Bateson nodded his conciliation. “All right, noted, of course. You’ve got me there. I just had that speech all worked out and I didn’t want to waste it.”
“Understood, sir,” Riker dismissed. “And it was a first-rate speech too.”
“Thank you, I thought so . . . did you know where that phrase comes from?”
“Sorry?”
“ ‘First-rate.‘ It’s from the Royal Navy. They used to rate their ships, first, second, third . . . ironically, third-rate didn’t refer to lesser quality. It referred to the construction, arming, and duty of a type of vessel.”
“I didn’t know that, sir.”
“Oh, yes. Lots of our modern slang comes from the sea. ‘Down the hatch,’ ‘lower the boom,’ ‘keel over,’ ‘devil,to pay,’ ‘toe the line,’ ‘taken aback,’ ‘show your true colors’ . . . what else? ‘Son of a gun,’ ‘the con,’ ‘lay off,’ ‘cut and run,’ ‘above board,’ ‘sickbay’—”
