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Mutiny on the Pegasus.
He was sitting at the Helm Station, terrified out of his wits of making a stupid mistake while he wondered why he was a midshipman on board a starship like the Pegasus, frightened of touching the wrong button which was the last thing any member of the crew needed or even wanted with the Experiment…
Admiral, then Captain Pressman, announced they were going to run a new sequence of tests on the engines in conjunction with the Experiment…
Something was wrong. According to the status reports, there was an explosion in Main Engineering, although what had caused it, no one knew. What made it worse was Pressman didn't seem to really care about the loss of life, he could tell that now…
The chief engineer, most of the bridge crew and the first officer argued with Pressman he was endangering the ship, but young and inexperienced as he was with the last few years of the Academy listening to the lectures of duty and honour, he picked up a phaser just as the mutiny was sparked, and started shooting at the very people who had been mentoring, teasing and reassuring him since he boarded Pegasus. He remembered vividly the looks of horror, stunned betrayal of what he was doing, but acceptance of his choices. Little did he realise in the heat of the moment of the mutiny while he was fighting with his adrenaline rushed through his body, he would look back on these memories with shame and disgust in himself and what Pressman was doing…
The running firefight to the escape pod was a nightmare, it put him in mind of all the haunted house stories he'd heard growing up with monsters rushing after them. But this was real life, and all the monsters were people whom he had known for the last few weeks. Pressman had tried to rally some support from the crew, but only a few had answered him; the mutineers had the majority of the crew's support…
He was just about to get into the pod when everything changed. Suddenly he was as he was for real, and he was pointing the phaser straight into Pressman's chest.
"You are under arrest for the breach in the Treaty of Algeron," Will Riker spat at Pressman.
Will woke up with a jolt, shaking in his own sweat, and he propped himself up on his elbows for a moment so he could think about the nightmare he'd just had. He'd had this kind of dream in the past, several times in fact; he had been haunted by the mutiny on the Pegasus for years, but at the time he had merely assumed it to be shock Starfleet officers would commit mutiny.
Mutiny on a Federation starship.
It was…. So unbelievable, and it was no wonder the Judge Advocate General brought in to preside over the inquiry over the whole disaster had been stunned and they had become truly suspicious and had dug down into the murky depths of the whole mess. Riker knew if the Judge Advocate even got the merest hint of a whisper about the Experiment, all hell would break loose.
He remembered the Judge Advocates' final decision of a more in-depth investigation… only it never happened. Riker was unsurprised; during his time on the Pegasus where he had overheard more than one conversation about how wrong the mission was, how the Experiment was going to end in a disaster either because the Romulans would discover what was going on with the interphasic cloak or somehow the majority of Starfleet Command would discover the Experiment's existence.
Somehow Riker wasn't sure if that would have happened; during his time on the Pegasus, he had heard rumours a group in Starfleet Security was behind the Experiment and the recruitment of Pressman into conducting the tests on the Pegasus, but Riker wasn't entirely sure how to go about separating the facts from the fiction of those rumours.
But it would make more than enough sense, really; the Judge Advocate General had requested for a more in-depth investigation when they were certain about how the survivors - including Will himself - were not providing all of the details, but nothing had come from it, lending credence to the rumours.
Riker sighed, and he jumped out of his bed and he headed for the replicator. "Mint tea, hot," he whispered to the computer.
He smiled as the smell of the tea reached his nostrils and he took the cup out of the replicator slot and he sipped from the rim, smacking his lips in appreciation at the taste before he went to sit down in the lounge area of his quarters. Will knew he should be heading back for bed, he had a busy day ahead of him and he had turned in early just to wake up bright and early, so why was he dreaming about the Pegasus tonight when he hadn't dreamt about it for so long?
A part of him was tempted to call Deanna so he could figure out the answer, but Will decided against it. While he trusted Deanna implicitly, Will knew he couldn't tell her anything about the Pegasus without going into too much depth about the Experiment. He knew if he told her, or heavens forbid Captain Picard, Riker knew Starfleet would discover what had happened and that would be it. Riker knew he should come forward, go to Picard, admit to him what had happened so long ago.
But he couldn't.
Riker had been a dedicated Starfleet officer for a decade. He had worked with dozens of captains who would never have followed the kind of order Pressman had followed, which had led to the Pegasus's destruction, but he could have told them about that black mark nobody knew about in his records. He could have performed the duty of every Starfleet officer, to the truth, but he couldn't. Not only was he under orders, but Pressman had hinted if he revealed even a small amount of the reality of what had happened on the Pegasus, that would be it for him.
Intimidated, Riker had followed those orders and in return Pressman, now an admiral had sponsored him and he had gained so much experience and had come to enjoy his time in Starfleet.
And yet… A part of Riker cursed himself for being such a bloody fucking coward, but he still could not believe he had put duty towards a man who knowingly violated the Treaty of Algeron that the Federation had signed in good faith to keep the peace with Romulus.
Sometimes Will wondered what his former shipmates on the Pegasus who had sided with Pressman were doing, but he hadn't contacted any of them for years. It seemed to be an unspoken rule amongst the survivors to stay away from each other, and it was more than followed by the letter by Riker because he genuinely did not want to think about it.
Riker grimaced as he thought about the dream, remembering vividly the strange shift of how he had jumped into the escape pod and saw the Pegasus destroyed, only to find himself as he was right now, jamming the phaser into Pressman's chest. It wasn't the first time that had happened, and he knew if he had to relive the whole mess, he knew he would be on the side of the mutineers. His career be damned. He would be fighting against Pressman and the bastards in Starfleet behind the whole thing.
It was because of Pressman and whoever was backing him in Starfleet the damn Experiment had resulted in the senseless loss of so many people during that strange explosion in engineering - he still didn't know how that happened; too many things could have been responsible and at the time his engineering acumen had been limited.
It was because of Pressman and the group backing him the truth never came to light, and unless something changed Will could not see it happen.
Will frowned as he remembered the subtle threat he had received from Pressman himself just as he was promoted and transferred to never talk about the Pegasus and what was being tested on her, but it was the content of the threat which bothered Will since he had hinted the people whom he was working with had the power to do things that were unthinkable in the Federation.
The only consolation Will had was the Pegasus had been destroyed, taking the cloak and all evidence with it. And it was Will's hope the Experiment was never repeated, ever again. But how did he know it wasn't?