Chapter 4


Eureka

Caine and Marco leaned over the tactical table showing a glowing outline of their ship the Eureka. Will Riker stood nearby.

Just a little while earlier, a deal had been struck with the Ferengi. Daimon Val had been convinced, albeit reluctantly, to meet Marco's Eureka at a specified area deeper within Orion space, and after being reassured that his map was enough to gain him a share, Val departed the sector.

The Ferengi had seemed satisfied that while Marco claimed the "final piece" required for their journey lay on board the Enterprise in Picard's possession, Marco and Caine wouldn't be able to finish their journey without Val's map, which of course Val had kept on board his own ship. Riker was glad the Ferengi had left; they didn't need a Ferengi Marauder hanging in space next to them when the Enterprise arrived to retrieve him.

Caine and Marco had been talking quietly for some time. But now Marco waved him over to his side. "Will, my friend, we need you over here." Riker grinned, happy to be useful and needed.

"How can I help?" asked Will as he strolled over to join them.

Marco's bright green eyes glittered, as he returned Riker's smile. "We're trying to figure out the perfect area of the ship to place you in...so your friends can find you."

Riker laughed. "Like a game," he said cheerfully.

Marco smiled. "Yes, a game," he agreed.

Caine looked at him, and he was not smiling. "The kind of game where people will die if we don't get what we want. Understood?"

Riker nodded, now used to Caine's heavy handed style. "Of course. But...maybe you could tell me now exactly what it is you're looking for. You know...what it is you think Picard has that you need?"

Marco's smile returned. "You're about to have a child soon with your wife, right?"

Riker nodded.

"Well I have a child...and he was stolen away from me. And now I know where he is. How does that make you feel, Will?"

Riker frowned. "It bothers me. I want to help you get him back."

"Picard has my child on board his ship. And if he can be convinced to help me-"

Riker broke into a smooth smile. "The same way that I was convinced?"

"Yes...just as you were convinced; then Picard will hand over my child to me, and we can all finish this journey together."

"And you know what happens if we can't convince your friend Picard to see things our way," Caine added with a cruel smile. "I'll kill him myself and we will take what we want."

Ignoring Caine's taunts, Riker closed his eyes and tried to remember whether Picard had a child or not. It seemed like it had been so very long since he had seen Picard. He did have a son...Wesley? No, not Wes...there was another kid he had taken in after the Borg invasion. "Seth!" he suddenly blurted out. He laughed. "Marco you've got your work cut out for you. Picard isn't going to hand that kid over to you while he's still breathing. Besides, what does Seth have that you need? He's just a little kid."

"Listen, all you need to know now is that Seth is mine...not Picard's." Marco put a hand on Riker's shoulder and looked into his eyes. "You trust me, don't you, Will? I can see that you do. But I need to know that you're loyal to me."

"Of course I am."

"Then tell us...are there any other ways for us to get Seth on board the Eureka with us?"

Riker rubbed his chin thoughtfully for few moments before he realized something. "Can you hack into the Starfleet computer network?"

"Of course we can," Caine said. "How do you think we figured out you were on Betazed? In fact, we're locked into the network now. But as you know, certain things are still off limits."

Riker leaned on the tactical table. "Let's see..." Could he even remember the Enterprise security codes? Suddenly, an important one came back to him. "Hold on." He typed a few codes into the panel he was leaning on.

"There," he said as a green hologram of a familiar shape now floated over the table. "It's the Enterprise schematic."

Caine whistled. "Now that's a beauty."

"I know," Riker agreed. But somehow the star ship looked almost alien to him. This was his world now.

"If Seth is on board when they arrive, the odds are ten to one that the kid will be hunkered down in Picard's quarters. Where it's safe," Riker added, not realizing the irony of this very statement.

"Of course, they'll have to lower their shields in order to transport over to find me. Just beam out any life signs from this area here," he said enlarging the image with his hand and then pinpointing where the captain's quarters were located. "Picard doesn't know you're after the kid."

Marco laughed and clapped Riker on the back. "I told you Will would come through for us, Caine!"

Caine gave Marco a knowing smile as if to say "we'll see" and then turned to Riker. "What about Picard? Will he try and rescue you personally?"

"Probably," Riker admitted.

"But he won't come alone. Unless he's an idiot, " said Caine.

"From what I've heard, he's not," said Marco, leaning his elbows on the table. "He'll send others, no doubt. But how is he likely to make his move?" Marco looked up at Riker. As usual, he seemed curious but not worried.

Riker shrugged. "Picard is unpredictable as far as tactical moves are concerned. At least he has been since I've known him."

"What about his crew? Anyone we need to worry about?"

Riker tried to remember what each of their personalities were like. It was difficult though. Marco had welcomed him into a new world. "They're all the best at what they do," Will said. "But the good news is he won't be bringing his whole crew with him."

"A security force then?" Marco asked.

Riker froze. Something inside of him jolted at that word. Security. Yar was the new chief of security on board the Enterprise.

Caine's single cold blue eye narrowed. "What's gotten into you?"

"The Security Chief is...a handful," said Will, not sure how else to put it. He took a deep breath in feeling unsettled for the first time in days. "Her name's Yar."

Caine grew very still. "What did you say?" His voice was soft, yet filled with menace.

"Yar. Tasha Yar."

Caine began to laugh very slowly, which was odd, because he didn't laugh much as a rule. "Well let the games begin then."


"Data to Yar."

Yar tapped her communicator, not slowing the pace of her steps. "Yar here, sir."

"Lieutenant, we are approaching the coordinates and will arrive within less than two hours. Have you prepared your security teams?"

"Yes sir." In fact she'd just left the two training teams after a final drill on the holodeck. Ensign Ashley Howell could now break the once impossible arm lock, and within seconds. Yar smiled, satisfied with the progress of her team, under the circumstances.

"Good. There is something else, Lieutenant Yar. The ship we presume is holding Commander Riker has dropped its shields. Although we are not close enough to confirm that he is in fact on board the vessel, we were able to gather enough information from the sensors to prepare a rough schematic of the inside of the ship. I am forwarding this information to your security office momentarily."

It was all Yar could do not to shout out in premature triumph. If they had a map of the ship then they would have that much more of an advantage over Caine and his people. "Understood, sir. I will send you a report within the hour. Yar out."

"Yar to Ensign Chandra."

"Chandra here, sir."

"Meet me in my office in five. We've got more work to do."

"Aye sir."


Beverly was propped up on an elbow, staring at him in the low light of his bedroom. He stared back, trying to memorize the gentle curve of her shoulder, in case all good fortune left him suddenly and she disappeared never to return to him. Sometimes he still feared that might happen.

Presently he realized she had said his name twice, because she now rested her palm on his bare chest and was tapping her fingers lightly, which she sometimes did to gain his attention.

"Jean-Luc...you're not listening to me," she scolded him quietly.

"Hmm? Yes I am," he said.

"You are now, but you weren't a moment ago."

"Oh," he scoffed. "Of course I was!"

She leaned over on her elbow and laughed up at the ceiling. "Oh?" She challenged, looking at him again. "Then what did I say?"

"Something about the angle of the ceiling not being right," he ventured. "You were questioning the judgment of the engineer who constructed this-"

She shook her head. "Jean-Luc...I asked you what her angle was."

"Her...angle?"

"Yar!"

"Oh, her." He paused. "I don't know. Does she have one?"

Beverly rolled onto her back and covered her eyes with a groan. "You tell me. You're the one with extra senses, remember?"

"I have been trying to use those at a minimum...based on one of our recent conversations."

Beverly sighed next to him but said nothing.

"I'm not sure that she has an angle at all," he said eventually, now staring up at the ceiling.

"You sound as if you are starting to trust her." Her tone seemed to contain a challenge, but he was having some difficulty reading it.

He remembered Beverly telling him over the last week how important honesty and communication were to a relationship. And yet it didn't always go so well for him when he was honest and communicative. "I might be," he said carefully, but it came out sounding like a question.

Beverly shut her eyes and recalled Yar's fleeting glances at her when she had arrived outside Jean-Luc's door just a few hours before. It had distantly reminded her of the way Jean-Luc looked at her when Jack had first introduced them years before. She wasn't sure how she felt about that. Eventually she sat up and threw off the covers. "Are you attracted to her?"

He sat up slowly and looked at her. "No. I mean, not really..."

She eyed him. "Which is it? No, or not really?"

He rubbed his eyes. Why was she bringing this up right now? "I-it's hard to explain." He pulled the covers around him suddenly feeling very chilly.

"Try."

"Alright...well, she is physically attractive." He said it easily, to prompt her to agree with him over such an obvious fact.

Beverly merely smiled mysteriously at him before pulling her legs up to her chest. She looked away from him and rested her chin on her knees. "And?"

"But," he emphasized. "She is very much like me," he said slowly. "Too much like me in many ways. It's quite unsettling."

I know it is. She turned her head slightly to look at him again. "It's unsettling to be attracted to some other version of yourself, or unsettling that you can't be attracted to her like you were before?"

He threw up his hands. "Well, now you are just trying to confuse me."

Beverly rested her forehead on her knees, and her body began to shake. He placed a hand on her back, which felt very warm. Was she crying? Suddenly she let out a small snort. "Hey!" He poked her in the ribs with his finger, causing her to laugh openly now. "You were setting me up," he protested.

She continued laughing and grabbed her bathrobe nearby, and slid to the edge of the bed, throwing it on. she looked back at him. "I might have been," she admitted with a smile. But something in her was relieved to be free of the subject of Natasha Yar, at least for the moment.

He reached out to grab her hand, but she stood up and wrapped the robe around herself. She laughed again. "I see you giving me the eye again, Jean-Luc. But you've got to get dressed. Now you really have to go to the bridge. And I need to go check on Seth's condition before returning to sick bay."

Jean-Luc sighed and grumbled to himself, getting out of bed and grabbing his own bathrobe. He had just tightened the belt when Seth appeared in the doorway of his bedroom.


"What's wrong?" he asked, somewhat alarmed by Seth's appearance. It wasn't just that the boy was recovering from illness and surgery; he looked worried.

Seth looked from Beverly to Jean-Luc. "We have to go back."

Jean-Luc walked forward. "Go back? Go back where?"

Beverly knelt down beside the boy and took his hand.

"He keeps saying that." She looked up as Wesley had arrived and was leaning in the doorway watching them.

"We have to leave Orion space," Seth confirmed.

"Why?" Picard asked.

"The person in my neck...the virus, I mean."

Beverly shook her head in confusion. "I don't understand... is it communicating with you somehow?"

Seth shook his head. "No. But I can tell what it's thinking."

Picard crossed his arms over his chest. "And what does it want?"

"To...get to its destination. The others are looking for it."

"Others? What others?" Wesley asked. He realized then that he and his father were standing in the exact same posture, and he dropped his arms to his sides.

Seth shrugged. "I'm not sure...its relatives, maybe? I don't know. I can't understand everything it's thinking."

"Well...what you're hearing sounds fairly consistent with what Mrs. Troi reported, Seth," said Beverly.

"What if this thing hurts Seth?" Wesley asked. "I don't understand why we can't just remove it."

"Wes, we've tried," said Beverly gently. "Through Lwaxana it essentially threatened us, remember?" She didn't want to alarm Seth, who had been unconscious in sick bay. But it seemed he was now all too aware of the creature's intentions.

"What do you think will happen if it reaches its destination?" Picard asked Seth.

"I'm not sure," said Seth. "But I think it wants to kill. It needs to kill to survive."


Yar pointed at the three dimensional diagram. "There are main access points here and here. I want you to beam your team into this area here. Have one of your technicians attempt to disable their propulsion systems. The distortion here caused by the core may disguise the beam in at least buying you a few minutes."

Isaac Chandra nodded at his superior. "What about your team, Chief?"

"I'll take my team in first," said Yar, staring intently at the map. "I'll make enough of a distraction that they may not expect your team beaming in. Let them think we're careless, Isaac," she said. "Their ignorance will be our advantage."

"Good plan. What about Riker?"

"Just as we've been training for. Assuming he's been hidden we'll use his transporter signature programmed into our tricorders and match it with the real Riker, locating him that way. If he's out in the open we'll negotiate...but in my experience in this line of work negotiations aren't usually successful." She handed a small chip to Chandra. "Transmit this report to Commander Data immediately."


Yar wasn't sure why she walked down toward Counselor T'Sara's office that afternoon. She paused at a juncture and watched as the counselor continued an intense conversation with Chief Engineer LaForge. She observed a mixture of annoyance and curiosity, recalling that LaForge had asked for a security detail in engineering a few hours ago. Some kind of personnel issue with a disgruntled engineer. She'd let Isaac Chandra handle the matter, and then had been so involved in planning Riker's rescue that she had neglected to follow up with him and ask the outcome.

Now realizing that T'Sara had been somehow involved in the personnel issue and didn't think to consult her about security measures irritated Yar. Even more irritating was the growing feeling of irrational jealousy she began to experience, watching the two officers discuss something she knew was just a routine matter.

Almost as if on cue, T'Sara glanced up and met her gaze. A single raise of the woman's eyebrow was her only acknowledgment that Yar had interrupted her conversation. Feeling the slow burn of humiliation grow inside her, she cursed herself for standing there like an idiot. Geordi didn't notice her, so Tasha turned on her heel and went in the other direction turning the corner into a new corridor.

The sole occupants of the hallway were the two Klingon asylees who had recently beamed over from the bird of prey. She'd met them on the initial beam over, and had been greeted by silent and hostile stares-nothing particularly odd for Klingons. But what had been strange was the look of alarmed recognition they had both given her.

She couldn't help but recall the expression of familiar distrust on Beverly Crusher's face at the introductory staff meeting. Similarly these Klingons seemed to know her. And yet, they were unfamiliar to her. Of course the Klingons appeared to know Data, and Captain Picard as well. She reminded herself to do a proper investigation once Riker was safely back on board the Enterprise. For now she had bigger worries than a couple of refugee Klingons.

She strode by the Klingon couple without a word. Klingons hated to be ignored. The male, Worf was his name-merely glared at her. But his wife Krala growled at Yar. "Chotwl."

Yar spun around and walked back to face the towering couple.

"Did you just call me a murderer?"

"You speak Klingon," Krala growled, sounding disappointed. Worf put a restraining hand on her arm. They had been briefed by Data and Picard and understood not to engage with Yar as though they knew her. Apparently his mate had already forgotten these instructions.

Worf's bushy eyebrows knitted together. "Forgive Krala. She trusts no one."

"That doesn't change the fact that you are on my ship...and you just insulted me," said Yar.

Worf bared his teeth. "Your ship? I was informed that Captain Picard commanded this vessel."

Yar rose to her full height which was still far shorter than either Klingon. "And I am his chief of security. So if I decide you pose a threat to this crew, your little political asylum safety zone will be over just like that."

Worf glowered at her as she resumed her walk past them down the corridor.

"As chief of security no doubt you are preparing your teams to retrieve Commander Riker," Worf called after her. She stopped but didn't turn around. "Krala and I offer our assistance. We will kill to protect Captain Picard...and those loyal to him." When Yar turned to face Worf and Krala again, she saw they were already headed in the opposite direction.


"Mother I need you to try your best not to meddle in the affairs of my friends," Deanna nearly shouted. "Will 's life is at stake, and the best you can do is worry about Captain Picard and his alien powers. It's none of your business, can't you understand that?"

"What I understand, Deanna, is that you should be resting, not persecuting the only mother you have."

"Mother!" Deanna staggered to the side all of a sudden. Lwaxana rushed forward to steady her.

Deanna put a hand under her abdomen and looked up at her mother. "Uh oh."

Lwaxana wrung her hands up at the ceiling. "Computer! Oh where is that blasted computer when you need it? Always offering directions when you don't need them or ordering the wrong breakfast-"

"Ambassador Troi. Do you have a request?" Interrupted the ship's computer.

"Yes! Yes of course I do. BEAM us to sick bay. Immediately!"


Once the Klingons had rounded the bend and were out of sight, Yar relaxed somewhat. Seeing T'Sara and now these two Klingons had unsettled her. Absently she reached under her shirt and pulled out the chain, gripping the key in her fist. She dropped her head down, trying to relax her tense muscles.

The attack came out of nowhere. The assailant struck from behind, stabbing her in her lower right side. She twisted and pummeled the attacker in the face with the back of her elbow. He staggered back and pulled the knife with him. The pain of the weapon exiting her side caused her to black out for just a few seconds. She staggered briefly in a circle before she sunk to her knees, holding her bloody hand to her back, and tried to watch the man race away down the hall. Breathing through the excruciating pain she leaned against the wall, gasping. She wouldn't pursue him. Not for now. Instead she had to get to her quarters. She had to take care of this herself.