TWELVE HOURS EARLIER
"It looks," said Commander Riker, leaning forward onto his knee with one hand supporting his bearded chin, "like a pretty angry planet."
From the central chair Picard's mouth twitched in an almost-smile. Riker had a point.
The planet hanging heavy beneath them on the view screen was called XR-891, but nicknamed in all Federation charts as Hitchcock: named for the first Starfleet captain to report back about it. The atmosphere was thick, only just within the M class limits, and pink, boiling cloud formations curlicued across its upper levels. The sporadically visible land masses were a startling red, glaring out from under the clouds and then vanishing again as if in an especially bad humour. Occasional flares sparked as debris from one of Hitchcock's recently exploded moons hit the atmosphere and burnt up.
It was certainly spectacular, glowing bright in the light of the double star formation a few lightyears distant: Pentagron Major and Minor, a red giant and a yellow star - and, thought Picard charitably, could be easily described as attractive, like a Fourth of July sparkler. But Deanna Troi, ship's counsellor, was frowning, and Riker had his own brand of instinct which had proven right in the past. Maybe Hitchcock wasn't friendly after all.
"Counsellor," he prompted.
"Confusion," she said, her own frown tight on her delicate features. "And fear."
"But not anger? I lose my bet."
Good old Will, trying to lighten the mood. Picard could almost hear the smile in his first officer's voice. But Troi wasn't to be dissuaded; her dark eyes were fixed intently on the roiling globe of Hitchcock, and she looked haunted.
"Still no reply from the colony base to our hails," said the voice of Worf, sounding, as ever, permanently annoyed. "It is possible that the interference from the moon debris has blocked communications."
No help there, thought Picard, and decided to take refuge in hard facts.
"Mr Data," he said, and the android at Ops turned his pale, inquiring expression upon the captain. "Lifesigns."
Data didn't even have to consult his board. Doubtless he'd performed this scan already: probably as soon as they attained orbit. But he hadn't blurted out with the information unasked, which was an improvement. "Two hundred and forty-seven individuals, sir, located at the original colony co-ordinates, clumped together in a manner suggesting a functioning settlement."
"Isn't that considerably fewer individuals than the original colony records indicated?"
"Yes, sir. Original records state three hundred and twelve individuals. Even allowing for a standard colony growth and decline due to births and deaths, it would be expected that approximately three hundred and six individuals would -"
"Approximately," interjected Picard, half-amused and half-hoping to forestall any further expansion on one of Data's approximations. Data merely nodded.
"I cannot be more specific. Human procreation and mortality rates - "
Picard waved a hand and frowned and Data, who was learning rapidly, stopped and turned back to his console without another word.
"Keep trying them, Mr Worf."
"Aye, sir."
Picard inclined his head toward Riker and murmured, "You were raised on Earth, as I was - did you ever see the appeal of a colony planet, Number One? A brave new world, unsullied, untried? A chance for a fresh start?"
"Perhaps," said Riker judiciously, "but becoming a colonist would be to give up travel for good, and I'm not the barn-raising type. I think you need a good dose of homebody to want to become a new patriarch. Especially on a world like Hitchcock. I read the files. This place is one small step above uninhabitable."
"A life on the edge…" said Picard, and for a moment his eyes gleamed. Riker, who never missed anything in his captain's demeanour, had a strong suspicion that had things been different, Jean-Luc Picard would not only have raised the barn, he'd've done it in a methane hurricane on top of a cliff.
And then made a fire for some tea…
Riker allowed himself a smile and turned back to the screen. Hitchcock spat and boiled below them, daring them. That's why we come out here. To take all the dares the universe throws at us. We may not be building a new civilisation, but we're expanding the entire sphere of human experience.
He waited in an agreeable fug of anticipation, and he did not have to wait for long.
"Number One," said Picard, "take a minimal Away Team and find out whether their barn's collapsed."
"Aye, sir. Worf, with me."
PRESENT
And there had been nothing, nothing, nothing, Riker's mind parroted at him as he stood in Sickbay, just as predicted, waiting for the results of a variety of tests. Nothing out of the ordinary. Or he would never have allowed Picard to go down there after him.
It nagged at him that he might be deceiving himself on that front. Picard had been able to bypass his first officer on a number of occasions in order to lead an Away Team himself.
"Three dead," said a voice at his elbow. Beverley Crusher looked weary and lost, laying down a knitter on a tray and not meeting his eyes. "Three stable, including Mr Data, if Mr Data can be described as stable."
"Mr Data can be described as not getting any worse as long as I'm here," said La Forge, without turning away from his work on the medical couch. "You can count on that, Doctor."
I feel like I fell down the rabbit hole and came out in the wrong world entirely. "What the hell happened, Beverley?"
"If I had answers for you, I'd've told you them. Did I mention that one of the dead was Ensign Hutchens and we only got half of him?"
Riker resisted a quasi-hysterical impulse to ask which half.
"He was torn apart, Will."
Riker gave that horrible information as brief a consideration as he could before forcing himself to concentrate on the living.
"The captain?"
"Doing well. Tough old bird," said Crusher, resurrecting her humour where Jean-Luc was concerned. "He had a broken arm and a whole lot of bruising to the ribs. Limited internal damage. My best guess is that he was hit with something pretty large and heavy. But he got off lighter than Lieutenant Redford. She's got a nasty concussion and a lot of cuts all over her torso, hands and lower arms. Something attacked them down there and it wasn't discriminating."
"Something strong enough to take down Data."
That alone is a nasty concept, Riker thought, turning now to the couch where Geordi was fussing like a mother hen. Data lay stretched out on his back, looking deceptively composed. His facial damage was still unsealed, but looked less horrific now it wasn't bathed in gore. Someone had also taken the time to clean the blood from his hands. His right hand lay open and pale at his side; but his left still gripped the metal pipe. Riker's focus of attention must have been obvious, because Geordi, glancing up, said:
"We can't make him let go, Commander. Not without breaking his fingers."
"I assume you've tested the blood on that thing."
"The doc took several blood samples from that, and from Data's clothes and skin. Easy to know none of it's his. We're guessing most of it's gonna be Ensign Hutchens'." Geordi, consummate professional and concerned friend that he was, never stopped working as he talked. With an efficient series of metallic clicks, the previously disengaged interlocks that held Data's knee re-engaged and clamped onto the struts from the calf. "Gotcha," said Geordi, softly. "If you were human, Data, you'd be getting one sucker of a case of pins and needles right about now."
"If he was human he'd be dead. What did this to him?"
"The damage to his face is mostly superficial." Geordi caught Riker's look and shrugged. "I know it looks bad. The synthoskin came off, sure, and the surface sensors were scraped off, but we've got a ton of replacements for those. The eye itself will be a little more tricky, but what's really got me worried is the power flow. Power from his main source isn't circulating properly. He should have woken up by now."
Riker felt that odd, dislocated down-the-rabbit-hole sensation wash over him again. Data, beaten into unconsciousness. Hutchens, ripped in two. Half the Away Team dead.
"Can anyone tell me when I can talk to someone who survived this, whatever the hell "this" was?" he demanded, more harshly than he'd intended.
"You can start with me."
Riker turned, and met the sight of Jean-Luc Picard staring back at him.
Picard's voice sounded as if it had been filtered through gravel. Propped up in the midst of a sea of attendants, the readouts above his head bleeping in alarm every time he moved, Jean-Luc Picard's face was ashen and his eyes sunk deep in their sockets. His gaze roved about the room, taking in the casualties and the empty couches all at once. He finally fixed his gaze on Riker once again and demanded:
"Tell me."
"Three," said Riker, softly. "Hutchens. Ailforth. M'Reva."
There was a short grace moment as Picard blinked, long and slow, and exhaled.
"But it wasn't real," he murmured, eyes closing once more, "none of it was real…"
