Chapter 26

The crew passed the relatively brief physical and psychological tests with ease and most were returned to active duty within a few hours. Picard sat in his quarters shortly after passing his own tests. Technically he had been cleared for duty and yet, Walker was still in command the Enterprise and had been ordered by Admiral Imhoff to resume their course to Vulcan at warp nine. Walker's first officer had for the moment, assumed command of the Horatio, also on course for Vulcan.

According to the latest reports, which Picard read because he didn't have anything better to do, near Vulcan, cooler heads had prevailed so far, and although still on the verge of war, no overtly aggressive moves had been made yet by either side.

Perhaps, thought Picard, the Andorians would see reason once they had proof that Ra'Val had been captured and placed in custody. Perhaps if the Vulcan High Council would allow Ra'Val to be extradited to Andoria for trial the hostilities between would be lessened. How someone this dangerous could be safely tried he wasn't sure. At any rate, there was nothing he could do about it at this time, given his current predicament.

Walker had informed him that Ra'Val was now being attended to by medical personnel and it was clear that his back had been broken. Despite his serious injuries, he did not appear to be at risk of dying, it seemed. With Data's assistance, Dr. Crusher had was now periodically administering an airborne analgesic to kill any pain he may be experiencing. Perhaps more than a known mass murderer deserved.

But increasingly it bothered him to picture Beverly near Ra'Val at all even if he was severely injured and immobilized by an energy field. He put the thoughts out of his mind. Of course, she was just another officer under his command, wasn't she? He couldn't protect her any more than he could anyone else. He reassured himself that his concerns about her were valid and objective, not emotional. He had rarely acted on emotion before so why did he feel differently now? It confused and frustrated him at a time when he needed to have a clear head. And he had discovered years ago that he almost never had a clear head when thinking about Beverly Crusher.

As he sat quietly, he tried not to let recent events disturb him. This situation was not permanent, he told himself. He hadn't lost the Enterprise yet, but over the years he had learned when to fight and when to wait. Now it was time to wait. The door chime startled him. "Come," he called out, and without further invitation, Walker Keel strolled in.

Walker approached and sat down across from him in the living room. "Jean-Luc, how are you?" his friend asked, leaning forward and peering at him more cautiously than was probably necessary.

Picard leaned back and exhaled. "I'm fine, Walker, what brings you here?" He answered evenly.

Walker paused. "I know we both know that your return to command will happen soon enough, but …I have to say, my friend, you seem to be taking this really well, considering the circumstances."

Picard gestured with his hands as though mystified. "Walker, what did you expect? That I was going to cry and stomp my feet until I got my way?"

"Well...maybe no crying..." allowed Walker with a slight smile, trying unsuccessfully to inject humor into the situation.

Picard was not laughing. He clasped his hands together in his lap. "The fact is… I'm not at all surprised that this is happening."

Walker fixed him with a probing look. "What are you talking about Jean-Luc?"

"It's nothing," said Picard looking down at his hands. "Ancient history, " he murmured.

Walker nodded slowly. "It's Imhoff, isn't it? What is he holding over your head?"

Picard stared at Walker as though he suddenly had no idea what his old friend was talking about.

Walker pushed himself to his feet in frustration. "Fine, be that way, Jean-Luc. You never change, you know that? I'm your friend, but most of the time I might as well be a goddamn stranger."

Picard remained still and looked up at his friend. "Walker, you sound ridiculous," he said dismissively.

"Oh I sound ridiculous, do I? I'm being honest with you, Jean-Luc. Maybe your inability to be honest with yourself is the problem, Jean-Luc. You're being dishonest with me about this Imhoff situation, dishonest about your anger about being unfairly stripped of your command, dishonest with Beverly about your feelings for her. Really, Jean-Luc, stop being such a coward—" Walker knew he should regret the dig about Beverly which he had added in just for good measure, but really he didn't regret it. Not even remotely.

Picard leaped to his feet and for a brief instant, Walker thought Jean-Luc was actually going to hit him. Instead, he spoke with simmering anger. "Get the hell out of here," he said.

After Walker left, he went into his room and lay down, dimming the lights. His goal was to clear his mind and get some rest. But his thoughts kept returning to what Walker had said: "…stop being such a coward…." Damn Walker Keel; he always seemed to provoke him in the most irritating ways to think about things he did not want to think about. Picard knew his friend had his best interests in mind, but this knowledge did nothing to make him feel better. And this was because even before Walker had pointed it out, he had been thinking the same thing about himself. Finally, from sheer exhaustion, the kind he experienced only when arguing with himself, he fell asleep, but it was not to be restful.

After Vigo reluctantly left with the others in the final escape pod, Picard had stood in the middle of the bridge of the Stargazer and all around him, the heat from the Engineering fire was becoming unbearable. He watched the pod appear on the viewscreen suddenly as it was ejected from the ship carrying the last of his bridge crew to safety. Anyone left on this ship is dead, he thought morbidly. He knew it was a possibility that he would soon join them if he did not act fast. He began to cough from the exertion of trying to breathe through the billowing smoke. All he had to do was head for an escape pod and then watch his ship explode from a safe distance. But something made him do something else. He didn't know why he made the decision then to do what he did. And every decision he made afterward had consequences which followed him year after year. He couldn't lose the ship. Not now that he had lost almost everything else.

A sense of urgency spurred him forward. Running to a storage locker just off the bridge, he grabbed a spacesuit and helmet; the kind rarely used for emergency repairs to the outer hull. He pulled it over his body and fitted the helmet on. Locking it into place, the seal hissed, and the pressure inside the suit caused it to hug closer to his body. His breath immediately fogged up the glass on his helmet and he could see on the controls that the temperature outside his suit was 130 degrees Fahrenheit and rising. He poked at some controls on the forearm of his suit, turning on the internal fan. A cooling sensation ran over his limbs and extremities, and for a second he felt the need to relieve his bladder. Thankfully the sensation passed. He checked the air meter for the suit and it blinked at 10 minutes. Ten minutes seemed quite unfair, but it would have to be more than enough time, he told himself.

Knowing the turbo lifts were non-operational, he ran to a utility ladder and slid down the next level. He repeated this act of running to a utility ladder on each level and sliding down to the level below as fast as possible. This seemed an endless and thankless game. Finally, when his boots landed on the engineering level, he noted that six minutes had passed already. Only four minutes left. Hurry up, he told himself.

That was when he heard the voice in his headset. "Captain Picard, please come in." It was the voice of Zev, his first officer. She had boarded an escape pod with other crew members more than 30 minutes ago. It seemed so long ago. He tried to blink the sweat out of his eyes. His breath was rapid, nearly out of control as he searched for a hatch, trying not to become so frantic that he failed to think properly. "Captain Picard, do you read me?" Zev's worried voice sounded again through the communicator in his helmet.

He clumsily tripped over something soft and landed on the deck. Through the smoke, he saw that what he had tripped over had been a person. It was the assistant chief engineer, Marcus; just a young man at the time of death, and his eyes stared vacantly at Picard. He saw no accusation in those eyes, but they would forever haunt him. His gaze fell several feet away, and he now saw that there were many more shapes lying still on the deck. All dead.

As he pushed himself to his feet but he began to hyperventilate and could see little through the smoke and flames that roared through engineering. The fire was nearing the warp core now. "Captain Picard, we are being hailed by Starfleet command," said Zev's voice again. "All escape pods are clear from the ship now sir. We should be safe if the Stargazer is destroyed, but you must leave now." He shook his head silently in disagreement. Two minutes of air was left in his suit.

His breath came quickly now, and he struggled to gulp in slower breaths to calm himself and conserve oxygen. He saw the hatch and ran toward it. "Captain Picard! This is Admiral Imhoff. We are prepared to take on all survivors at Starbase 413. Transports and medical teams are headed your way. You are ordered to leave your ship, now."

Picard punched in a command code and then manually released the emergency bolts on the hatch, and watched as orange lights blinked on and off. "Stand clear… stand clear," the computer droned repeatedly. He ran back to the utility ladder he had slid down and wrapped his arms and legs around it.

"Picard you fool, what are you doing?" shouted Imhoff. "Get off the ship!"

He watched with light-headed fascination as the emergency hatch blew out into space, and everything that was not bolted down, or gripping a utility ladder slid toward the hatch at great speed. His legs floated up in sudden weightlessness. Most importantly, the fire was immediately extinguished, as the air rushed out into the void of space.

He sat up in bed, wheezing desperately. Slowly, realizing where he was, his chest stopped burning. That was where this recurring dream always ended. Of course, he had reached a small escape pod, had gotten free of the ship and joined the rest of his crew. The ship had drifted away, battered and decidedly broken, but because he had managed to extinguish the fire, the core had been saved, and ultimately so had the Stargazer.

He'd been questioned about it for months even before the formal court-martial inquiry into the Stargazer's loss. Why didn't he leave with the others? Why didn't he answer when called on his communicator? The only answer he'd been able to come up with when questioned by Admiral Imhoff that first day on Starbase 413, was that "the communicator must have malfunctioned, sir". Yes, he had lied and had never admitted it to anyone, not even Walker. He could have acknowledged the order from Imhoff sooner, but he chose not to. The truth was that for reasons he might never understand he had been ready to die on the Stargazer that day.

An insistent chirp sounded through his quarters. "Riker to Captain Picard…"

"Go ahead, Number One," he said, pulling on clean black pants and a shirt.

"I know you're not officially on duty yet sir, but I just wanted to let you know that we've reached Vulcan," said Riker. "And sir, there is something very odd happening in cargo bay 4 sir," he added.

Picard walked swiftly into the cargo bay where Ra'Val was being kept inside the floating energy field. "What is going on?" he demanded when he reached Doctor Crusher. Two armed security officers stood stoically on either side of her. Crusher didn't immediately seem to hear Picard, and she was staring at someone standing next to the energy field. He followed her eyes, and then rushed forward. It was T'Pel. She, in turn, was staring into the globe of energy that was keeping Ra'Val and she was still dressed in her hospital clothing.

"She hasn't spoken a word, Jean-Luc," said Crusher. "She just suddenly got up from the bed and walked here. Naturally, I followed her."

Picard resisted the urge to tell her to be more careful, but he reasoned to himself, after all, she had brought security personnel with her, what other precautions could she have taken? He moved and consciously placed himself in front of Beverly. "T'Pel, what are you doing?" he demanded, careful not to yell and startle her. T'Pel did not turn around but merely pointed at Ra'Val. Picard felt his stomach drop. Ra'Val still appeared to be unconscious, but his robes were now gone and he was curled in a sort of fetal position, facing away from them. No bruises appeared on his back, and most bizarrely, his spine was glowing iridescently under his skin.

Data walked up behind him, tricorder whirring in his hand.

"What on earth…" Picard muttered, still staring.

"If I had to guess, sir," said Crusher, "I would say he is re-generating, even re-growing his spine."

"Is the field holding?" he asked Data.

The android looked up from reading the tricorder. "Yes, sir," he said. "The field strength remains at one hundred percent."

"Good," said Picard. "Make sure we continue to monitor the field strength—" he turned as quick footsteps echoed behind him.

"Captain Picard, perhaps I did not make it clear enough to you that you no longer have authority to give orders on board this ship." Admiral Imhoff halted in front of him, looking typically severe. Next to him stood an unfamiliar looking male officer, dressed in security gold, and holding a large datapad. "You are ordered to report to quarters until further notice. I am taking command now," Imhoff finished with a thin smile.