NO REGRETS

by ardavenport

- - - Part 10

"ETA to Starbase 11 Mr. Data?" Riker asked from his seat at the command section.

"ETA, Forty three minutes," the android responded crisply, glancing at his controls though Riker suspected he didn't really need to look to know the answer. The motion was probably only added to his answer to imitate his human crew mates. Riker thought about notifying the captain, but decided to wait until Dr. Crusher left the ready room.

Riker heard the doors to one of the aft turbolifts open and a moment later he saw Ambassador Alvarez followed by his assistant descending the ramp to the fore bridge. Picard had granted him liberty to the bridge for the duration of their mission, but now that it was completed Riker didn't see that he had any business coming up now.

"You wanted to see me Commander?" Alvarez questioned, stopping directly in front of him.

"What?" Riker asked.

"You wanted to see me?" Alvarez repeated.

Riker looked at Troi but she seemed as surprised as he. "I didn't call you."

Now Alvarez was confused, but it quickly changed to annoyance.

"If you're playing games with me, Riker . . . ."

"I'm not playing games," he denied, standing. "I didn't call you."

"I heard you, Commander. My assistant heard you."

"I don't care . . . ."

"Commander," Data's call broke the confrontation. "We are oritting Starbase 11."

"What?" Riker went to ops to look down at Data's station. "We're not supposed to be there for another forty minutes."

"We are orbiting Starbase 11," Data repeated, surprised as well. He touched a control and the view screen changed to show the globe of the nameless planet that was identified solely by the Starbase it supported.

"Confirmed Commander," Wesley Crusher reported from the helm.

Lt Worf frowned deeply at the sudden unexplained change in the readings from his station. He tapped the comm. "Captain to the bridge." After several seconds of silence he repeated his call with no result.

Riker looked back at the Klingon and then went to the door of the Captain's ready room. The door didn't open. He checked the control panel, but it showed that it was unlocked. He tapped the chime. Nothing happened.

"What the hell is going on around here?"

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"Somebody must know we're in here," Dr. Crusher said from the view port. It was the only source of light in the room so she had gone to stand next to it.

"Everyone on the bridge knows we're in here. The question is what are they doing out there?" he asked, trying to think of what he had in his office that he could use to pry the doors open with, but the only things he could think of were on the bridge. He went to the view port, opposite Crusher. The red of her hear and blue of her uniform top and jacket were partially washed out in the reflected glow of the planet. Her skin looked unnaturally pale, accented by the gloom.

"If there isn't any power in here then there probably isn't any on the rest of the ship," she said. Without any power a spaceship was a death trap, a bubble of air and warmth that would eventually lose both.

"It's too soon to be giving up yet, Doctor," he reassured, guessing her thoughts. "I don't understand it, though," he went on. "Even if the warp and impulse engines totally failed there should at least be emergency lighting."

"Well, if we're stuck here, I couldn't think of another person I'd rather be stuck with," she said, in an attempt at lightheartedness.

Picard couldn't hold back a tiny smile, but he quickly returned to business. The mood of the moment had been shattered when the lights had gone out. "Well, with any luck we won't be here for long. They know we're in here. They'll get us out." Inwardly he had his doubts. He knew perfectly well that Lt. Cmdr. Data could have easily forced the door open once it was discovered to be inoperative. The fact that he hadn't yet meant that something else was keeping the bridge crew busy.

He heard a gasp. He turned back from the door and saw the doctor's face, surprised and strangely altered. Then he realized that it wasn't her face that was changing, it was the light from below. The planet's surface had become watery. It shifted and rippled from a living world to a dead, brown and gray. He'd never seen it before from orbit, but the transformation itself told him what it had to be. He looked at Beverly, long shadows painted on his face from the eerie light below.

"Talos Four."

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. He had calculated exactly how much pressure he would need to exert to force it open while causing the least damage to the mechanism. Yet when he exerted that pressure nothing happened. He gradually increased the pressure and nothing happened. He was now nearing the limits of the tolerances of his own bio mechanical functions and it still remained stubbornly closed. Regretfully, he released his grip and turned apologetically to Commander Riker.

"I'm sorry, sir. I do not understand it. It should have opened."

"I don't know what's going on, either." Riker shook his head and tapped his com badge. "Engineering, we're going to need somebody up here on the bridge to cut open a door."

"LaForge here. You need what?"

"You heard me Mr. LaForge. We need to cut open a door. Send somebody up immediately."

"Aye, Sir. LaForge out."

he turned back to the main bridge. Data returned to the ops station. Standing next to the command chair, Alvarez waited impatiently, arms folded across his chest. His assistant stood precisely in the center of the circular fore bridge area. Everybody else was at their post, doing their job. Riker would have liked to have blamed this mystery on the diplomats, but he knew that there was no possible way that they could be involved.

"Mr. Worf, has Starbase 11 answered yet?"

"Still no response, Sir, on any channel."

"Commander," Mr. Data brought his attention back to the main view screen. "The planet,..."

The planet's surface blurred and changed to a weathered brown and slate.

"What is that?" Alvarez asked, advancing to where Riker was standing.

"It's where you wanted to be, Mr. Ambassador." Riker and Alvarez and everyone else turned at Poi Nan's statement; Her voice was oddly loud and contained a queer multiplicity of tones that no one had ever heard from her before. She smiled calmly back at them and then, like a wisp of smoke, vanished.

"Commander," Data spoke again. "According to the sensors, positional readings of the surrounding stars," he turned to face them, "we are orbiting Talos IV."

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Decks below the bridge, in the Ten Forward Lounge a being that had not felt surprise many times in her long life stood amazed with her patrons, astonished by the altered world in the view ports.

"No," Guinan told herself. "It can't be . . . . ."

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Riker stared at the planet. A creature, identical to the one that had materialized two days before, appeared in front of the the view screen. The commander straightened; Worf drew his phaser. Without moving it's pale, thin lips the Talosian 'spoke'.

** We have been aware of your mission to contact us for some time and it was believed that a demonstration of our capabilities was needed to reestablish our desire for privacy. And to dispel any concerns for our immediate demise.

This ship has been under our influence since leaving Starbase 11. **

"What happened to my assistant," Alvarez demanded. Riker was a tiny bit surprised that the man had actually expressed concern for another person.

** Your assistant was never aboard this ship. Her presence was merely simulated by us as a token of our ability. She is still on Starbase 11. **

"That's impossible," Riker denied. "We would have been contacted."

** The Enterprise has had no real communication with the starbase since its leaving. Any thought to have been received were produced by us. ** The being nodded its enormous head, huge veins bulging over the cranium.

"Where's Captain Picard; why can't we get to him?" Riker raised an arm toward the closed ready room door.

** Captain Picard is already quite convinced that our need for privacy is sincere. But through the interactions with your fictional assistant, we have observed that you, ** it nodded toward Alvarez, ** do not. This is why it was felt that a second demonstation was needed. **

Alvarez adopted a diplomatic posture. "We only wish,..."

"Second demonstration?" Riker asked himself quietly.

** Talos does not wish or need any contact with the United Federation of Planets nor any other life forms. We will be as we have been.

We wish you to maintain all your restrictions to our system as they are now. **

The Talosian blinked slowly, smiled and nodded again. And then it vanished.

Immediately an irritating whine started up from nowhere and quickly built into a wall of sound that crushed in from everywhere.

"Mr. Worf," Riker called, staggering to his seat.

Worf, having dropped his phaser, focused on the comm station in an attempt to block out the deafening squeal. "It doesn't register on bridge sensors."

Riker fell into his chair. "It isn't real," he yelled back. The bridge sensors would not pick up the paralyzing noise, but a fragile humanoid brain couldn't shut it out. Squinting from the pain, Riker saw Alvarez go to his knees, Ensign Crusher bent forward clutching his ears, even Mr. Data seemed to be frozen in his seat.

- - - End Part 10