by Dayton Ward
“Nothing so formal, Ereshtarri,” Hegol replied, keeping his tone level. “May I call you that?” When the Andorian nodded, he added, “Then please call me Den.”
Sh’Anbi nodded, and Hegol could see the lingering doubt in her eyes. “All right,” she said, “so, what can I do for you, Den?”
“You can tell me how you’re feeling tonight,” Hegol replied.
Frowning, the ensign shook her head. “How am I feeling? I don’t understand the question.”
“In the interest of total honesty,” Hegol said, “I’ll tell you that I’m here on behalf of Lieutenant Choudhury, who’s expressed some concerns for your well-being. She seems to think that you’re a bit distracted so far as our current assignment is concerned.”
Now sh’Anbi’s expression turned to worry. “Lieutenant Choudhury said that?”
Lifting a hand in a gentle, calming gesture, Hegol said, “It’s not what you think, Ereshtarri. The lieutenant is merely worried that something’s bothering you, and that you’re keeping it to yourself. This was not motivated by anything punitive on her part, I assure you. Given that we’re going to Andor, it’s reasonable to expect that the Andorian members of our crew, particularly those who lost loved ones during the war, might have reservations and troubled feelings.” He knew from reading her personnel file that sh’Anbi’s family had been living in the former capital city, Laibok, when the Borg struck, and numbered among the millions of Andorians lost on that tragic day. Sh’Anbi herself, stationed aboard the U.S.S. Khwarizimi during the Borg assault, had later requested a transfer after that vessel was assigned to retrieve debris from destroyed Borg ships as part of a larger research effort being conducted by Starfleet Security. According to the information in her file, sh’Anbi had cited personal objections to the project, owing to the grief she still felt after the loss of her family, which was not an uncommon reason behind numerous requests for transfer or resignation from Starfleet in the aftermath of the war. Her request had resulted in her posting to the Enterprise, where, according to Lieutenant Choudhury, she had been nothing less than a model officer with great potential.
Sh’Anbi sat in silence for a moment, her hand playing at tilting her glass from right to left and back again, watching as the liquid it contained sloshed from side to side in a slow, rhythmic motion. When she looked at him again, Hegol saw the pain in her eyes.
“This is the first time I’ve been back,” she said.
Nodding in understanding, Hegol asked, “Since the attack?”
“That’s right.” She shrugged, frowning as she cast her gaze back toward her glass. “There didn’t seem to be any reason to do so before. Everyone I knew—my family, my friends, everyone—was lost when Laibok was destroyed. I was offered leave on several occasions, but I always declined.” Shaking her head, she released a slow, small sigh. “And now we’re going back.”
“And you feel guilty for not returning sooner?” Hegol asked.
Sh’Anbi looked up, her eyes wide. “Yes. Maybe I should have gone home, to attend the memorial services, or something. I thought about going, but every time I changed my mind. What was I going to do there? There was no one waiting for me. I couldn’t even go to salvage anything from my . . .” Hegol said nothing as tears formed in the corners of sh’Anbi’s eyes, which she wiped away. Then, in a stronger voice, she said, “There was nothing there for me, so I decided I might as well focus my efforts where I was needed.”
Leaning forward in his seat so that he could rest his forearms on the table, the counselor said, “What you’re experiencing isn’t unusual, Ereshtarri. You’re harboring what you consider to be guilt because you survived, when so many of the people you love did not. For what it’s worth, I’ve spoken with several people who feel exactly as you do.” It was a common sentiment among the patients Hegol had treated in the year following the invasion, all of them looking for answers to the grief overwhelming them. “Captain Picard and Lieutenant Choudhury are going to need you once we get to Andor. The Enterprise’s security teams will be heavily involved with overseeing protection for the conference. Chances are you’ll be assigned to a detail on the surface. Is that something you feel you’re capable of doing?”
“Of course,” sh’Anbi snapped, and she regarded him with open indignation. Then, as though realizing how harsh her response had sounded, she added, “I’m sorry, Doctor.”
“Den,” Hegol said, smiling.
Nodding as a small grin formed on her lips, the ensign replied, “Den. I’m sorry, Den. Yes, I’m capable of handling this assignment. I suppose I’ve simply been letting myself think too much about going home.”
“There’s nothing wrong with what you’re feeling,” Hegol said. “It’s only natural. What’s wrong is if you let those feelings paralyze you, or make you start to second-guess decisions you’ve made or—more importantly—decisions or actions you might undertake. One way to prevent that from happening is to talk to someone when you think such feelings are becoming too much to deal with. You don’t have to do it alone, Ereshtarri.”
After a moment, during which she focused her attention once more on her glass, sh’Anbi said, “This is the first time I’ve spoken with a counselor. Since the war, that is. You’re not what I expected.”
“I should take that as a compliment?” Hegol asked, reaching for his own drink.
Sh’Anbi laughed. “Yes, that’s a compliment. By the way, my friends call me Tarri.”
“Okay, then, Tarri.” Satisfied that his young charge seemed at ease—for the moment, at least—Hegol said, “Now, do you mind if I eat dinner?” He gestured toward a table near the center of the room where several officers were playing poker. “I don’t want my stomach grumbling when I get in on the card game.”
Sh’Anbi shook her head. “Be my guest.” She nodded toward the game in progress. “So, you like to play?”
Offering an expression of mock innocence, Hegol shrugged. “Yes, but I’m not very good.”
“Ah,” the ensign replied with a wistful smile, reaching up to scratch her chin before making a show of examining her fingernails. “What a coincidence. Neither am I.”
“Commander La Forge?”
Sitting alone at a table near the window ports at the front of the main crew lounge, his attention all but buried within his padd’s rapid-fire scroll of information, it took La Forge a moment to realize that he had heard someone calling his name for the second time. Looking up from the padd, he saw Tamala Harstad, the newest member of Dr. Crusher’s medical team, standing behind the unoccupied chair across from him and greeting him with a smile.
“I’m sorry, Lieutenant,” he said, starting to rise from his seat. “Can I help you?” Even as he spoke, he searched his memory, trying to remember if he had ever seen Harstad in the lounge before this evening, and coming up with nothing.
But she’s here now. That, of course, begged a series of new questions for which La Forge had no answers. Not for the first time he was struck by just how attractive the doctor was, her fair skin and thin features seemingly all but overwhelmed by the dark, straight lines of her Starfleet uniform. Her black hair was cut in a short, feminine style that left her neck exposed, reminding La Forge of his late friend and former Enterprise-D security chief, Natasha Yar. Indeed, Harstad’s high cheekbones and piercing eyes also were reminiscent of Tasha’s.
Nodding toward his padd, Harstad asked, “I’m not disturbing you, am I?”
“No, not at all,” the chief engineer replied, gesturing toward his glass, which still held most of his beverage. “I just came off duty and decided to have a drink while I figured out what I wanted for dinner. I also needed to catch up on some of the technical journals I keep meaning to read.” He indicated the chair on the opposite side of the table. “Would you like to sit down?” As he spoke, he hoped his words did not sound as uneasy to her as they did to his own ears.
“Thank you,” Harstad said. As they both took seats, the lounge’s bartender, Jordan, came to the table and took
her drink order—a vodka martini. Once Jordan departed, Harstad smiled again, leaning closer so that she could be heard over the sounds of music and other conversations filling the lounge. “Is it always like this in here?”
La Forge shook his head. “Only for the first few hours after each duty shift. I only get up here once every couple of days myself.”
“I’ve heard you like to tinker around down in engineering,” Harstad said.
“There’s always something to do,” La Forge replied. “The days are never boring, that’s for sure. What about you? From what I’ve heard, you don’t have anything against hard work. Is it true you did a year of residency at a hospital on Vulcan?”
Nodding, Harstad said, “All true.”
“Is it common for human doctors to do something like that?” La Forge asked. “I mean, that early in their careers? I’d think residency would be hard enough without adding that kind of pressure to the mix.”
“It was a challenge,” Harstad replied, “but I enjoyed myself, for the most part. My roommate at Starfleet Academy was a Vulcan, and she also was going to medical school after we graduated. She convinced me it would be a rewarding experience working on Vulcan, and she was right. I admit I thought it would be all logic and that famous Vulcan stoicism all the time, but there’s just so much to see and do there. I may even decide to move there when I retire.”
“We had a Vulcan doctor for a while,” La Forge said. Then, remembering, he added, “I mean, back on the Enterprise-D. Dr. Selar was her name.”
“The name’s familiar,” Harstad replied, “but I can’t say I’ve ever met her.”
La Forge set his drink back down on the table. “She was CMO on the Excalibur for several years.” He paused, realizing that nearly two years had passed since he had read the official Starfleet report listing Selar as having died while on assignment in Sector 221-G. Clearing his throat, he returned his attention to Harstad as he reached for his glass. “So, Dr. Crusher tells me you’re doing research into the newest generation of ocular implants, and that you might want to talk to me.”
Her smile fading and her expression turning to one of mild confusion, Harstad asked, “I beg your pardon?”
“I guess because I’ve had both a VISOR and implants,” La Forge said, “I might make a good candidate for an upgrade.”
Harstad’s frown deepened. “It’s true I’ve been doing some research into the field, and that I’m writing a dissertation on it, but I didn’t mention anything to Dr. Crusher with respect to talking to you about it.”
Well, La Forge thought, fighting to school his own facial features, this just got awkward. Taking another sip of his drink to stall for time, he finally said, “Oh?”
Harstad said, “She did tell me that you were wanting to talk to me about questions you had pertaining to your own implants.”
What is she talking about? “I’m sorry,” La Forge said, “but I . . .”
“No, no,” the doctor replied. “I’m the one who should be sorry. It’s just that I have a cousin who was injured in a shuttle crash and lost sight in both eyes. He was given ocular replacements, and I became interested in the subject while checking up on him. It’s a fascinating field of study, and the potential for continued advancement is limitless. Of course, I don’t need to tell you any of this.”
The conversation paused as Jordan returned, this time bearing a tray atop which sat Harstad’s martini. Setting the glass on the table in front of her, the bartender smiled and offered a small bow before turning and heading off toward another table. In the time it took for all of that to happen, La Forge realized what was going on here between him and Harstad.
“I—” he said, stopping to consider his next words. “That is, I think there’s been some kind of misunderstanding here.” As he spoke, he was unable to suppress a small, nervous smile.
To his relief, Harstad returned the smile. “I think
Dr. Crusher might be up to something.”
Not sure of his footing, La Forge decided that honesty had to be the best approach. “Well, for what it’s worth, and in the interests of full disclosure, I did ask her about you when you came aboard. I just didn’t expect her to do anything like this.”
“Like what?” the doctor asked. “You mean, set us up?”
Several seconds passed with both of them looking at each other, before they both laughed. La Forge liked the sound of her laugh.
“Look,” he said after another moment spent composing himself, “I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not very good at this kind of thing, and I understand how the abruptness of all this might make you feel, and that’s the last thing I’d want.”
Taking a sip of her own drink, Harstad nodded in approval at the martini before returning her attention to him. “Well, I’m not very good at this sort of thing, either, but so far we both seem to be doing okay. I guess this is also the part where I admit I asked Dr. Crusher about you, too.”
“Really?” The question was out before he could stop it, and La Forge loathed the way it sounded as he spoke it aloud. Do I really sound that pathetic?
If Harstad thought that, she was kind enough not to mention it. Instead, she said, “Guilty as charged. Anyway, we’re here now, and you said you were thinking about getting some dinner. If you don’t have any other plans, neither do I. Want some company?”
The evening, La Forge decided, was most definitely looking up.
11
Picard awoke.
In the near darkness of his and Beverly’s shared quarters, he opened his eyes and took stock of the curved ceiling above his head. Something had roused him from sleep. Then René whined again and Picard sighed in understanding. He glanced to his left and saw Beverly lying on her side, her back to him, unmoving beneath the light comforter and silk sheet. She had not stirred, itself an unusual phenomenon. Normally, she was the first to awaken in response to any sounds uttered by their son in the middle of the night. It was a testament to how hard she must have been working these past few days for her to not already be out of the bed and heading across the family suite to the crib where their son slept.
Duty calls.
Moving so as not to disturb his wife’s slumber, Picard folded aside the bedclothes and rose from the bed, padding barefoot across the carpet. He did not bother with anything more than the soft glow of the indirect lights mounted beneath the row of slanted windows to his left. The illumination was sufficient for him to navigate his quarters without running into furniture or any errant toy René might have left as a booby trap for his unwitting parents.
Even before he reached the crib, Picard saw the boy’s small head peering over the side, tiny hands gripping the railing as René regarded his father with wide, puffy eyes. Drawing closer, Picard could tell that his son had been crying, though he had managed to avoid employing the ear-splitting, teeth-rattling wail that on more than one occasion had shattered the silence in the middle of the night. Such instances were infrequent these days, far removed from the nightly ritual they all had endured during the first weeks after his birth. Instead, René was looking up at him, his breathing coming in short, rapid gasps that Picard recognized as the prelude to full-blown crying.
“What’s the matter?” Picard asked, his voice low and soothing as he reached for René and took him into his arms. The boy immediately found purchase atop Picard’s chest, his head nuzzling into the spot beneath the captain’s chin as his small arms reached as far as they could around his father’s shoulders. With his left forearm supporting the baby beneath his bottom, Picard turned from the crib and made his way toward the windows. “Did you have a bad dream?”
René’s response was to press himself even closer against Picard’s chest, uttering a quiet, indecipherable gurgle, though Picard heard the boy’s breathing already slowing and becoming more regular. His small body, tense at first, had begun to relax, almost going limp.
“That’s a good boy,” Picard whispered into his son’s ear. “Back to sleep.”
&n
bsp; Standing at the window, he took in the view of the warp effect surrounding the Enterprise as the ship made its way through subspace toward Andor. He had darkened the windows prior to retiring, subduing the light cast by the streaking stars, but that did not diminish their brilliance, at least to him. After all the years he had spent in space, the stars still called to him as they had when he was a boy, looking up at them from that tree in the Picard family vineyard.
“You don’t know what you’re missing,” he said, reaching up with his right hand to stroke René’s hair. His son had drifted to sleep, his arms having fallen to his sides and his breathing now soft and slow. Not quite ready to return the child to his crib, Picard instead turned from the windows and made his way to the small room that had been configured as an office, set off to the side of the main area that dominated the family quarters. There, he glanced at the chronometer set into the base of his desktop workstation, noting that at least on this occasion, René had waited until less than an hour remained before Picard himself needed to awaken for the coming duty day.
“Well,” he whispered, exiting the office on his way back to the crib, “that was certainly considerate of you.” With slow, gentle movements, he was able to return René to his bed without rousing him, and the boy promptly rolled over and commenced a light snoring as Picard covered him with a blanket. Whatever had troubled the child earlier, there appeared to be no remnant of it to disturb his sleep any further.
I wish I could be so fortunate, Picard mused, smiling as he shook his head. Now resigned to the reality that he was awake for the day, he saw no reason to waste this quiet time before the computer called on Beverly in something less than an hour. After all, there would be no shortage of status reports and other briefing papers waiting for him, despite the best efforts of Commander Worf and his own yeoman to insulate him from the worst of the lot.
A quick check of his message log showed incoming communiqués from the Office of the Federation President, though the attached message header indicated that the request was not of a high priority. Picard read it anyway, nodding in approval at the personal message President Bacco had dispatched to him offering her thanks for his taking on this assignment. Such gestures rarely moved him, but given that the president was not at all obligated to thank him for carrying out her lawful orders, he found the note to be uncommonly heartfelt.
