Chapter 4: The Angry Captain
Dawn and Buffy stood behind Beverly as she worked the controls to open the airlock and let Picard, Commander Dawn and Worf in. As they stepped through Dawn and Picard shared a look for a moment and then he turned his attention to Beverly and shared with the doctor a relieved smile as he removed his helmet.
"We stopped them," he said.
Beverly moved forward to help Worf, who fumbled in his efforts to remove his helmet. On tiptoe, she reached up and lifted the helmet in a single, graceful move.
Beneath, Worf's dark face had faded to gray and his eyes had narrowed to slits; the corners of his mouth tugged downward in a manner that made Picard and Commander Dawn instinctively back away.
Dawn noticed it also as she tapped Buffy on the arm and motioned for her sister to take a few steps back.
"Commander." Beverly addressed the paling Klingon. "Are you feeling all—"
Worf held up a large hand. "Hold that thought." He lunged behind the nearest console and began to retch; at the sounds of his gagging, the five shared a look of nauseated pity.
"Strong heart," Picard said. "Weak stomach."
"They're on the move again!"
The comment from a new voice made them whirl about as, a mere meter away; a security officer crawled from a Jefferies tube. The young man's olive face and disheveled coal-black hair glistened with perspiration; wide-eyed and shaken, he told Picard, "The Borg just overran three of our defense checkpoints; they've taken decks five and six. They've adapted to every modulation of our weapons. It's like we're shooting blanks."
"We'll have to start working on a new way to modify our phasers so they're more effective," Picard told him at once.
Dawn understood the problem at once. Picard had told her and Buffy that the Borg had shields and that they could adapt. Hers and Commander Dawn's Millennial powers had so far been the only thing the Borg had yet to adapt to. She had to wonder if the reason for that was because her Millennial power was more biological or even magical, than technological and the Borg being a species that was half man, half machine did not know how to adapt to something that was not technological.
Picard glanced sternly at the young officer. "In the meantime, tell your people to stand their ground. Fight hand to hand, if they have to."
The officer's posture and expression visibly deflated; for an instant, he averted his gaze and seemed to stare sadly beyond Picard at a vision of his own death. Then a sense of duty seized the young man, gathered him, straightened him, caused him to nod smartly at Picard.
"Aye, sir." He turned to go.
"Wait" Worf had emerged from behind the console and now stood, one hand gripping it to steady himself, the other wiping his mouth. "Captain ... our weapons are useless. We must activate the autodestruct sequence and use the escape pods to evacuate the ship."
Picard snapped, "No."
Worf blinked, his fierce eyes fleetingly puzzled.
Beverly, too, seemed surprised at the captain's reaction. "Jean-Luc," she said, "If we destroy the ship, we'll destroy the Borg."
Dawn looked at her counterpart and sighed. She stepped over to Commander Dawn and whispered. "It's bad knowing what's happening and doing nothing to change it for fear of changing your history isn't it?"
"Yes," Commander Dawn replied.
Picard stared hard at his crew, he felt the stirring of emotions long restrained but never mastered: homicidal rage, the blind desire for revenge. "We are going to stay and fight."
Dawn understood why she had been drawn to Picard. She was sure she had to convince him to do what his people were suggesting. To make the hard choice, that he did not want to make.
"Sir," Worf continued, his tone urgent, insistent, "we have lost the Enterprise. We should not sacrifice more—"
"We have not lost the Enterprise," Picard interrupted loudly, "and we are not going to lose the Enterprise. Not to the Borg, and not while I'm in command." He jerked his head to glare at the security officer. "You have your orders."
Commander Dawn, Worf and Crusher watched in silence as the younger man nodded again and walked back to the Jefferies tube.
"Captain ..." Worf's tone grew strident. "I must object to this course of—"
Picard could not keep the pitch of his voice from rising. "Your objection has been noted, Mr. Worf."
On the Klingon's deeply sculpted face, anger warred with friendship; Worf drew a breath and visibly calmed himself.
When he spoke again, he did so quietly, calmly. "With all due respect, sir, I believe you are allowing your ... personal experience with the Borg ... to influence your judgment."
Dawn felt the fury in Picard grow as she watched his officers argue over the course of action.
"I never thought I'd hear myself say this, Worf … but I actually think you're afraid. You want to destroy the ship and run away."
The Klingon grew visibly taller where he stood, and broader, as if the heat of anger had caused him physically to expand. In his dark eyes, fire burned—a sight to evoke fear in any human being.
"Jean-Luc ..." Beverly warned, but he waved her into silence, beyond fear, beyond reason, beyond all but the blindness of rage and revenge. He held Worf's furious gaze and fed it with his own.
"If you were any other man," the Klingon growled softly, slowly, "I would kill you where you stand."
"Get off my bridge," Picard said.
The sound of footsteps brought him back, and he watched, unyielding, as the Klingon turned and moved for the open Jefferies tube hatch, then crawled inside.
Buffy had watched the exchange, too, very little used to stun her. But Picard's rage and Worf's reply had done just that. She then looked at Dawn who nodded and then she understood, this was why Dawn was here. This was what her sister had to do.
Picard scanned the faces of his remaining crew, then silently turned and headed into another chamber that opened onto the bridge.
When the door had closed behind him, Beverly turned to Dawn and Buffy. "Let's go." She said her tone was one of quiet professionalism.
"No," Dawn said. "I know what I am here for. Why this has all happened," she turned and followed Picard off the bridge.
"What does she mean, no?" Beverly asked Buffy. "And what does she mean by knowing why she is here."
Commander Dawn sighed. "My past self felt Jean-Luc was the reason she was on the Enterprise. To reason with the Captain. She will succeed. We should begin evacuation procedures."
"Dawn," Buffy said. "Aren't you risking changing your own history by saying that?"
"No, because that is what happens, Buffy," Commander Dawn said. "I remember my exchange with Jean-Luc. Compared his desire for revenge with the novel, Moby Dick."
"Saw that he was Ahab," Beverly said with a nod.
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At the conference table in the observation lounge, backlit by Earth and the shining stars, Picard began to disassemble a phaser rifle. The task he had set himself was a difficult one, even for a trained engineer, and unfortunately tedious.
Yet cold fury held him fast, a fury that shrieked there was no choice. He could not surrender again, could not destroy his own ship.
The door swished suddenly. He glanced up to see Dawn walk calmly into the room. "Jean-Luc," she said as she stopped on the other side of the table
"Lily, this isn't really the time—" he replied just as calmly as she had.
"Look," Dawn said. "I don't know anything about your time. But I do know that everyone out there thinks that staying here and fighting the Borg is suicide, including my future counterpart. And seeing how Buffy, my counterpart and I are the only ones to get measured results against them …"
Picard felt his own expression harden, and said icily, "The crew is accustomed to following my orders. As are you. Or you will be, anyways, when you become her."
Dawn sat down next to Picard and nodded. "That is true," she said. "Tell me why is it you want revenge on them?"
Picard debated it, but in the end whether she learned the truth now or in a couple hundred years didn't really matter in the end. "Six years ago," he said hoarsely, "I was assimilated into the collective—had their cybernetic devices implanted throughout my body. I was linked into the hive mind, every trace of individuality erased. I was one of them."
"That gives you a unique perspective," Dawn said in understanding. "Tell me why is it you don't want to abandon this ship?"
"We've made too many compromises already, too many retreats! They invade our space and we fall back—they assimilate entire worlds and we fall back! Not again!" His voice grew shrill, began to break. "The line must be drawn here—this far and no further! I will make them pay for what they've done!"
The last he said with such force, such volume, such purely maniacal hate that he let go a gasping breath and drew back, startled into silence.
Dawn smiled. "Hello, Captain Ahab!"
"What?" Picard asked.
"You've read Moby Dick?" she asked and he nodded. "I am going to quote you a passage. He piled upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the rage and hate felt by his whole race ... If his chest had been a cannon, he would've shot his heart upon it."
Picard nodded in understanding "Ahab spent years hunting the white whale that crippled him. A quest for vengeance. And in the end, the whale destroyed him—and his ship."
"That's right," Dawn said. "And now you understand what is happening here. You are Ahab, and the Borg are the whale."
For a long moment, Picard looked into her eyes ... and saw in them the same trust he had with Commander Dawn. He looked toward the door. "You knew," he said.
"She knew, yes," Dawn said. "She can't change her history for fear of erasing everything she's known."
"She walks a fine line," Picard said. "You walk a fine line. In the time you served under my command you have become a good friend. Thank you."
Then he drew a breath of pure resolve and walked out onto the bridge. Immediately, Commander Dawn, Crusher, Buffy and Worf turned to him, their faces anxious, somber, concerned.
"Prepare to evacuate the Enterprise," he said.