Chapter 21
Geordi was fine and on the bridge with Billy within ten minutes to give his report to the captain. Apparently, the creature was getting vicious and personal. For the moment, no one spoke of the creature. Everyone was concentrated on finding Wesley and Robin, pretty much in silence, relieved to be surrounded by everyone else and temporarily out of danger.
The Enterprise bridge was alive with crew members working overtime to try to rescue their lost fellow officers. Worf was hailing and scanning, scanning and hailing. Geordi was wiring and configuring and planning and scheming. Data was failing with every theory his positronic brain could think up, except the one that the baffling occurrence of almost 4 hours ago, when the Neverland turned around and touched the Enterprise briefly with a tractor beam then resumed its former course, was Wesley's doing. Troi was concentrating and getting a headache. Riker and Picard were pacing oppositely across the bridge, crossing each other in front of the center seat. Beverly was biting her nails and worrying. Ensign Billy Nolan, sitting at Conn in pursuit of a gigantic starcruiser, was praying that Wes was alive so he could come home and take this stressful job back from him.
At about fifteen minute intervals, Picard would walk through his ready room doors, either going in or coming out. Each time he came onto the bridge, he would demand a report from each station, which never changed. "Nothing yet, sir." For a fraction of a second, Picard wished he could just have the answer, no matter what it was, then shook the awful thought from his mind. At least "Nothing yet, sir" meant they could maintain hope. He wasn't sure he could bear hearing "We've lost them, sir."
For almost a full day, Picard had gotten no information on his captured crew members. He feared that next time a link was established to the Neverland, he'd reach through the viewscreen and throttle whomever was on it until they told him what they had done with his junior officers.
It had only been ten minutes since Picard last came out of his ready room, but he felt the need to go back in and find in there something that would solve this whole problem. As soon as he had resolved that on his next pacing past he would keep right on going into his ready room, a call came over the commlink.
"O'Brien to Captain Picard."
"Go ahead, Chief," the captain stopped pacing, hoping desperately that some way had been found to save Wesley Crusher and Robin Wallace.
"Sir, I've had a request to transport Ensigns Wallace and Crusher."
The bridge froze.
Then they all leapt to life at once. "On my way," Picard told Chief O'Brien. "Doctor, you're with me. Number One, you have the bridge."
Beverly's mind was whirling. O'Brien had just said "had a request to transport." He didn't say in what condition. He didn't say if they were alive. He didn't say who made the request. Somewhere in her mind's melodrama, augmented by her panic and fear, she pictured seeing the lifeless forms of her son and his friend lying on the transporter platform.
Of course, if that were the case, he would transport them directly to sickbay, wouldn't he? If he had any control over the situation, he would have done just that. If he even knew the condition of the junior officers. And he would alert medical officers -- Which is exactly what he did, by bringing me.
She didn't remember Transporter Room Three being such an interminably long ride on the turbolift.
* * *
Wes opened his eyes slowly. His head hurt. The lighting was mercifully dim. He slowly lifted his head and glanced around himself. He was sitting upright in a chair. The room was entirely empty.
Except for Kaelha. She was standing in front of him with her arms crossed, looking very angry.
"Wakey, wakey," she said, flatly.
Wes squinted uncomprehendingly at her, still trying to clear his head.
"You've been quite busy, ensign."
"Where's Robin?" Wes croaked. He felt like he was surfacing from beneath murky water, slowly and thickly. He'd never been stunned before, and now that he'd had the experience, he wasn't anxious to repeat it.
"She's still with us."
"Is she all right?"
"She's fine, ensign. I have no reason to harm her as long as you cooperate."
Wes blinked and took a deep breath. Where was he? He swallowed with much effort and looked back at Kaelha. "Can I see her?"
"Of course not."
Wes closed his eyes in a defeatist manner. "I had at least to ask."
"I'm sorry," Kaelha whispered.
Wes opened his eyes, stunned. "What?"
"I'm sorry we had to do it this way. I... I didn't mean to hurt anyone."
Wes cocked an eyebrow, highly confused.
"Ensign," she crouched down in front of him so that she was lower than his eye level, her elbows on her knees. "We need you. Our plans were disrupted because we did not expect to find you aboard the Enterprise. We figured you were at Starfleet Academy."
Wes snorted derisively. "Yeah, I hadn't planned on failing my first and missing my second exam, either."
Kaelha waved him off, "That's neither here nor there. My point is, we had given up. We'd given up as completely as possible, and suddenly you were there."
"You need someone to alter something that happened in the past, something that hurt your crew."
Kaelha exhaled. "Yes."
"But I can't al--"
Kaelha reached up and pressed a finger to his lips, silencing him. Wes was stunned again. So far the only physical contact they'd had was him stopping her from striking him. Now there was a different look in her eyes.
"There is another reason why I need you here, ensign. Besides possibly being able to save my entire ship and crew, being a strong asset to my engineering staff, and being a crackerjack helmsman, you are experienced enough in command to be commander of my ship," she spoke softly and almost too close to him.
Wes was silent. He was weary of fighting a losing battle.
"What's wrong?" Kaelha looked nearly sorrowful. "No biting retort? Have I broken your spirit?" Kaelha lifted Wes's lowered chin, raising his downcast eyes. "Where's the fire, the spark... your dedication to Starfleet, your boy-scout personality? Your passion..." she leaned toward him.
Wes jumped up so fast that he toppled the chair and it skidded across the floor behind him. He backed away. This had really never occurred to him. Kaelha rose and pursued him as he slowly retreated.
"Wh-what are you doing?" Wes couldn't remove the look of utter bewilderment from his face.
"What happened to your spirit, Wes Crusher?" Kaelha seemed to ooze femininity, more than any 16-year-old girl should. "Have I changed your mind about your beloved Federation?"
Wes continued his retreat until he felt his back against the wall.
Kaelha's hair was, as usual, tied in a complicated knot at the base of her neck. She reached up and pulled out the tie, freeing an overabundance of shining brown waves that tumbled down her back. She looked up at him with crystal blue eyes. "I would hate to be responsible for the death of such an aggressive and passionate soul." She touched the tip of one finger to the middle of his chest and traced a line down the center of his ribcage, "You're the only one who can save us now."
Wes sidestepped from the wall and started towards the center of the room again, righting the chair, placing it between them, trying to wrap his mind around what was happening.
"We need you, Wes. I need you," she purred, gliding toward the chair. She didn't try to move around it, instead she kneeled up on the seat.
"Then why didn't you just ask?" Wes backed away from the chair again toward the opposite wall, thinking in the back of his mind that this was a very small room.
Kaelha looked heavenward in contemplation. "In retrospect, that might have occurred to me. But as I said, we weren't looking for help. We found you by accident."
"If you weren't looking for help, why did you send a distress call asking for the help of the Enterprise?"
Kaelha caught up when Wes came up against the opposite wall. She placed her palms against the wall on either side of him. He cringed away from her. "Kaelha..."
She looked up at him, waiting to hear the rest of his sentence. "Yes?" she whispered, gazing at him from under lowered eyelids.
"I..." Wes caught his breath. "I don't..."
"You mean 'you've never'?" she breathed, close to his ear.
"I've never..." Wes shook his head. "No! I don't want you standing this close to me." He glared at her.
She looked up at him with doe eyes. "I'm sorry. You're really too young to be comfortable with this, aren't you?"
Wes raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"
"I forgot how naive Humans can be, especially at your age."
Now Wes was insulted. "I'm not putting you off because I'm uncomfortable. I'm putting you off because I don't want you near me, did you consider that?"
She raised her eyebrows. "No, I didn't. I just assumed that because you're so young--"
Wes got angrier. "I'm young? What about you? I must be at least two years older than you."
"Not unless you're fifty-six," Kaelha snapped.
Wes did the math quickly. "You're fifty-four years old?"
Kaelha wore a foot-in-mouth expression, but there was little she could do about it now. Perhaps there was still a way she could turn this to her advantage. By telling the truth. She paced slowly away from Crusher.
"When we were children, our planet, B'Safra, came under attack by a race called the Ylaswa. They had a chemical weapon that could be released into the atmosphere, into water sources, into the soil, into every part of our planet necessary to support life. The toxin had no color or scent. We were a people of little technological advancement and no way of defending ourselves from such an attack. Our people did not even believe that there was life anywhere but on our own planet. This toxin... any adult who breathed, drank or ate any element poisoned by the toxin died instantly. Instantly, mercifully. But something went wrong with the Ylaswaen plan. The children... we did not die. For some reason, anyone under the age of eighteen, anyone still growing, survived. We later found out that we would never age at all, not for all eternity."
She turned to face him, "At first, it was as if we were granted immortality. Some were ecstatic. Later we realized that we would spend eternity as children. Our minds and spirits could grow, but constantly trapped in the body of a child. We cannot grow old. We cannot procreate. We cannot die. It's a curse.
"The Ylaswa occupied our planet, every continent, every nation, every remote corner of our world. We had nowhere to go to escape them. Thousands were killed. The complement of my ship is all that remains of my race.
"At sixteen years old, I watched my parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, neighbors and friends, all die. Every one of us on my ship watched them fall down dead, right where they were, in the middle of working, of playing with their children, of gardening or eating, of relaxing or sleeping, or helping their daughters with the dishes... My father turned on the water to wash a pot I had just cooked in. As soon as he touched the water, he touched the toxin. He knocked over two of our kitchen chairs before falling to the floor, already dead. Panic-stricken, I ran outside to find my mother, who was lying dead in her flower garden, her cold fingers tightened around her watering can. I opened my mouth to scream, but instead heard someone else's scream. The air was a cacophony of children trying to arouse their parents. It... it was devastating."
The emotions were long gone, but Kaelha mustered all she could to play on Wesley's own emotions. Her lower lip trembled and she bowed her head. "And my father," she whispered, "was the most special person in the world to me. As I was to him."
After a long pause, Wesley became uncomfortable with the silence. He cleared his throat and added, "I-- I lost my father, too. When I was nine."
She looked up at him with sky blue eyes full of wisdom and experience, full of sadness and yet bearing a steely edge, then threw her arms around him, whimpering into his shoulder.
Wes didn't know what to do with her. Under normal circumstances, he would have comforted anyone who was crying on him, but what do you do when your captor and enemy starts crying on your shoulder?
"For 38 years... I've been sixteen years old. After a while... your-- your dreams die. It's painful at first, but then you become stronger. You learn not to dream at all."
She released him. "Then," she wiped her eyes, "when I saw you on the Enterprise and read about what you could do for us, and I saw how commanding and impassioned and... and driven you were... I thought maybe you could help me remember how to feel that way again. And maybe you could even allow us to travel back, to alter time, to warn--" she stopped. "And Robin-- she has the strength of spirit and mind to help you. And you were so loyal and dedicated to your captain and your fleet. I admired that. I want to feel like that again. Like I have a dream and a brilliant future. Like you do, Wesley Crusher."
Wes stared at her wordlessly. She had striken almost every one of his heart strings, and he was fighting it as best he could.
"And I can make your future even brighter. I'll help you as best I can, because if you stay, you will have saved me, and my 273 crew members."
"No," Wesley stated in no uncertain terms.
Kaelha was startled that her Oscar-worthy performance had little effect on Crusher. "No?"
"No. You can't just abduct people and then expect them to like you. You've lived fifty-four years, you should know that."
"Wes, please--"
"Don't call me that. Nicknames are for friends to use."
"All right, ensign," Kaelha was all business again, very suddenly. "Then let me put it this way. How much choice do you have?"
Wesley looked her straight in the eyes for a whole fifteen seconds. She did not look away. He closed his eyes and sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose to will away a stress headache. He slowly walked back over to the chair and sank down into it. After a few moments, he said, very softly, "If I promise to stay, will you release Robin? Will you send her back to the Enterprise?"
"You-- you'd do that for her?" Kaelha was stunned. "You truly care about her, don't you, ensign?"
"Yes. But I'm also a Starfleet officer and will sacrifice my own life to save another officer."
"Well, as long as it's business of the honour and not of the heart." Kaelha sighed. "Admirable. Even incredible, but my answer must still be no."
"Why not?" Wes jumped up, furious, and strode toward her. "I'm all you need, and that telepath of yours can help. You don't need us both! Send her back, and I promise I'll stay. I'll stay and I'll help you as best I can."
"No. Marn isn't strong enough. Apparently, the link doesn't function as well as it should between our races. I need another Human, one who is close with you."
"Where's Robin?" Wes's tones were clipped and angry.
"She's safe, ensign."
"I won't cooperate with you. If you keep us from our home, I'll do everything I can to make your unending life miserable."
"Will you." Kaelha was angry now too.
Wes's voice edged up in anger. "If you keep me from Robin, I'll find her anyway. If you keep us from the Enterprise, they will hunt you night and day until you go crazy from running away. If you hurt Robin, I'll disable your entire ship in a matter of seconds."
Kaelha laughed.
Wes's eyes flashed with fury. "If you kill her--"
Kaelha raised her eyebrows, waiting to hear the end of it.
"--I'll kill you myself."
She smiled. "I'm impressed, ensign. I didn't think you would ever even think about murder, let alone threaten me with--"
"Shut up, I'm not finished."
Kaelha's eyes widened, startled and a little frightened by the Human boy's rage.
"And if it's my attention you want, you'll find a bulkhead more entertaining. I'll thwart your every move, resist your every effort to create a temporal anomaly, fight you at every turn. If you appoint me to a position on your ship, you'd be damning it. I'll contradict your every order, step on your every word, disagree with your every decision. I'd use every privilege given to me to destroy you. You'd prefer your ship to be haunted with poltergeist than to have me aboard." He took another imperious step toward her.
"You're hardly what I'd call a captain. You're weak, vindictive, petty, scattered and you lack all sense of focus, dedication and honor. I can't teach an old dog new tricks, and I doubt my honor would rub off on you. I doubt a Klingon could help you with the concept of honor. So, captain, do you still want me on your ship?" Wes hissed sarcastically.
"Quite," Kaelha answered through tight lips. "That was your last chance, ensign. Now you're a prisoner." She smacked her communicator, "Get in here, we're ready."
Ready?, Wes thought. Ready for what?
He looked up in surprise as the doors swooshed open and five armed guards entered dragging Robin along with them. Two officers seized Wesley's arms and wrenched them behind his back. Wes strained against them. Marn was also there, standing quietly in the background.
"Robin!" Wes yelled to her. "Are you all right?"
"Wes!"
"Shut up!" one officer hissed, pressing the business end of a phaser between Wesley's eyes. Wes sucked in his breath and fell silent.
"Say goodbye to your Enterprise. They'll be leaving us now," Kaelha's voice was vicious.
"They would never leave without us," Robin interrupted. She was answered with a sharp jab in the side with the end of a phaser.
"Oh, you're quite right, girl," Kaelha answered her. "But they won't be leaving without you. At least, they won't think they are."
About two feet in front of Wesley, Wesley appeared.
Wes blinked. His counterpart did likewise.
"No!" Wes struggled to free himself, conscious of the two phasers pointed at him and the two more pointed at Robin. The children didn't seem to be overly anxious to shoot him, but he still couldn't get free.
This was the creature, standing in front of him, imitating him. And it was about to return to the Enterprise as him. An idea formed in Wes's head. Find the fault before it can get to the Enterprise. Make it disappear.
"So you think you're me, huh?" Wes tugged his arms, a futile struggle. "What's my position on the bridge?"
"Helmsman. Conn. Navigator. Flight Controller. Whatever they want to call me, I fly the Enterprise," the creature said proudly.
Wesley glared. "You probably don't even know my middle name."
"My middle name is Richard."
"Who said I'm like Mozart?"
"The Traveler told Captain Picard that I'm like Mozart, almost three years ago."
Wes was surprised to hear that the creature knew that answer. He didn't think it was on record anywhere. He had to continue with his drill.
"What nationality is my mother?"
"Mom's Scottish, but she grew up on Aveda III. She hasn't been back there since before I was born."
Wes fumed. This was his life. Things that supposedly could never be taken from him were being borrowed, used, stolen, broken.
"Oh, and I'm very proud of my own patented invention, the portable tractor beam."
Wes gasped. "I invented that!"
"Easy, boy," one of the guards twisted Wes's arm a little to restrain him.
"Fine." Wes calmed a bit. "You know a lot of facts about me and my life, but what do you know about my personality? You'll never be able to convince the entire crew of the Enterprise, quite a few of whom are my close friends, that you're really me."
"I'm insecure. I'm stubborn. I'm determined beyond most Humans' capacity. I'm practically a genius, but not the coolest guy in school. Curious, but I get myself into trouble easily that way. I'm a workaholic. I've got powerful emotions, but they rarely show. I prattle when I get an idea, leaving behind anyone to whom I'm trying to explain it. Mine is a very aggressive personality. I don't often think before I speak or act -- my mind is too busy with a trillion other things. I've got an unattainable sort of crush on Deanna Troi and a somewhat attainable crush on this young lady here," the creature in Wesley's form gestured to Robin. Wesley's cheeks burned in anger and embarrassment.
"You can't imitate me just by knowing a few secrets," he hissed. "And my mother will certainly never buy it."
"You'd be amazed," the creature said in Wesley's voice, then his form and voice shifted, "what people are willing to believe when they are grief- stricken, Orange."
Wes's knees gave out. The security guards had to support him. "...J- Jaan?" Wes managed.
The creature in Jaan's form laughed. "Oh, it was rich! You should have seen him, blubbering on about how much he missed me and how he was so glad I was alive and my life was fulfilled."
Hot tears burned in Wesley's eyes but they did not fall.
"He was ravaged with guilt and grief, so willing to believe that I was his friend, back from the dead. Imagine! Letting your best friend die, then deluding yourself into believing he was alive again! You were so close to saving me, Orange, you just didn't try hard enough. You were too scattered and desperate. You could have saved my life long before I ever got into trouble. But you just couldn't. You were all around the answer. How truly frustrating."
Wes shook his head vehemently.
"You failed me. You gave up."
"No I didn't," Wes's voice was small.
"In essence, Orange, you were the one who killed me," the creature taunted. Wesley dropped his head, crushed.
"I had such a promising life, and you just couldn't--"
"Stop it!" the voice was Kaelha's. She was glaring at the creature. "That's enough. You're torturing him."
Wes studied the floor. The creature melted back into the form of Wesley, only this time, it bore in its arms a motionless form that looked just like Robin. The real Robin gasped.
"This is the plan, Humans," the creature addressed both Wesley and Robin. "You see, poor Robin hasn't survived." Robin renewed her struggle. Wes was horrified into inaction. The creature stepped nearer to Wesley. "And I only have to imitate you long enough for us to escape. Then, you can die, or I can just tell them the whole truth and disappear. By the time the Humans know what happened, we'll be so long gone they'll never find us."
Wes glared at Kaelha, but she avoided his gaze. He wanted the look in his eyes to remind her that he would carry out his threat of making her existence hell for as long as he could draw breath. But he couldn't get her attention.
"All right, show's over," Kaelha said to the creature. "Go."
The creature in the form of Wesley and Robin disappeared.
Marn moved over to Kaelha and spoke softly to her. "I don't think either Human is any mental condition to attempt time travel at the moment. Perhaps in the morning?"
Kaelha nodded once, then spoke to the guards, "Take them back to their accommodations. Separately."
"No!" Robin shouted.
"Wait!" Wes tried to stop them from dragging Robin away from him again. "Where are you taking her? You can't keep us separated anymore! There's no reason to."
"Take her back to the brig," Kaelha said to the guards.
Wes stomped on the foot of one of the guards and elbowed him in the face. He had him disarmed in a second. Wes grabbed the phaser and brought it around to aim it at his other captor. Before he could, one of the guards holding Robin called to Wesley.
"Hold it right there unless you want one less Human aboard," the guard was holding a phaser set to kill against Robin's head, his other arm wrapped around her neck. Robin's eyes were closed tightly, both hands pulling down on the arm around her neck, knees bent, back arched. Obviously the guard's grip was tight.
Wes lowered his phaser. He slowly and subtly switched on the safety with his thumb and let the phaser fall to the floor. He noticed that one of the guards that had been holding Robin lay unconscious on the floor, blood dripping from his nose.
Wes watched as the guard turned the phaser down to stun and pressed it against Robin's head again.
"No!" Wes screamed and dove towards her. Quickly, the guard Wes had disarmed picked up the phaser set to kill and fired it right at Wesley's back. It didn't go off. The officer cursed as he fumbled with the safety switch.
The guard holding Robin at phaser point whipped his phaser around and fired the stun setting at Wes. The beam lanced out and struck him in the chest. His head snapped back in pain and he fell to the ground. Kaelha sank to her knees beside him to make sure he was only unconscious.
"Wesley!!!" Robin screamed and pulled against the arm around her neck. She flipped the guard over her shoulder and he crashed to the floor. She started toward Wes when another phaser beam struck her and she landed near him on the floor, motionless.
Kaelha pointed her finger as if it were a deadly weapon at the officer who's just finished fixing his phaser, the one on which Wes had set the safety, the one that had just taken down Robin, and bellowed, "What setting is your phaser on, lieutenant?"
"Stun, sir!" the lieutenant answered, frightened.
"Lucky you," Kaelha seethed. "If either of these Humans die, the killer's life will be the cost."
"Yes, sir!" the lieutenant answered.
"Why must you keep stunning them?" she addressed her guards from her kneeling spot next to Wesley. Her hand was under his head, as if she were in some way helping him.
"It was the only way to keep them from escaping, sir," one boy answered.
"Five armed and trained security officers can't restrain one boy and one girl in a locked room without rendering them unconscious?" then Kaelha's gaze fell upon the guard Robin had knocked out, just now stirring, and she amended her question. "Four security officers."
"With all the respect due you, sir, the girl is expertly trained in security, and the boy is somewhat trained. And they have the advantage of desperation on their side."
"Inexcusable," Kaelha shook her head. "They are not to be stunned anymore. They're here because we need them, not simply as hostages. Am I perfectly understood?"
"Yes, sir," all four standing officers answered at once.
One guard leaned over and whispered to his fellow officer, "I don't understand why we are abandoning our plan all of a sudden. If we want to get back on track, we should kill them now. That would get the Enterprise's attention."
"There is a difference between casualties of war and execution. Would you go to your death with the mark of a murder on your soul, lieutenant?" Kaelha's voice was sharp.
"N-no, sir."
"Then leave it that our plan has changed. We are no longer picking a fight with the Enterprise. Now while there's hope in these Humans. Am I understood?"
"Yes, sir."
Geordi was fine and on the bridge with Billy within ten minutes to give his report to the captain. Apparently, the creature was getting vicious and personal. For the moment, no one spoke of the creature. Everyone was concentrated on finding Wesley and Robin, pretty much in silence, relieved to be surrounded by everyone else and temporarily out of danger.
The Enterprise bridge was alive with crew members working overtime to try to rescue their lost fellow officers. Worf was hailing and scanning, scanning and hailing. Geordi was wiring and configuring and planning and scheming. Data was failing with every theory his positronic brain could think up, except the one that the baffling occurrence of almost 4 hours ago, when the Neverland turned around and touched the Enterprise briefly with a tractor beam then resumed its former course, was Wesley's doing. Troi was concentrating and getting a headache. Riker and Picard were pacing oppositely across the bridge, crossing each other in front of the center seat. Beverly was biting her nails and worrying. Ensign Billy Nolan, sitting at Conn in pursuit of a gigantic starcruiser, was praying that Wes was alive so he could come home and take this stressful job back from him.
At about fifteen minute intervals, Picard would walk through his ready room doors, either going in or coming out. Each time he came onto the bridge, he would demand a report from each station, which never changed. "Nothing yet, sir." For a fraction of a second, Picard wished he could just have the answer, no matter what it was, then shook the awful thought from his mind. At least "Nothing yet, sir" meant they could maintain hope. He wasn't sure he could bear hearing "We've lost them, sir."
For almost a full day, Picard had gotten no information on his captured crew members. He feared that next time a link was established to the Neverland, he'd reach through the viewscreen and throttle whomever was on it until they told him what they had done with his junior officers.
It had only been ten minutes since Picard last came out of his ready room, but he felt the need to go back in and find in there something that would solve this whole problem. As soon as he had resolved that on his next pacing past he would keep right on going into his ready room, a call came over the commlink.
"O'Brien to Captain Picard."
"Go ahead, Chief," the captain stopped pacing, hoping desperately that some way had been found to save Wesley Crusher and Robin Wallace.
"Sir, I've had a request to transport Ensigns Wallace and Crusher."
The bridge froze.
Then they all leapt to life at once. "On my way," Picard told Chief O'Brien. "Doctor, you're with me. Number One, you have the bridge."
Beverly's mind was whirling. O'Brien had just said "had a request to transport." He didn't say in what condition. He didn't say if they were alive. He didn't say who made the request. Somewhere in her mind's melodrama, augmented by her panic and fear, she pictured seeing the lifeless forms of her son and his friend lying on the transporter platform.
Of course, if that were the case, he would transport them directly to sickbay, wouldn't he? If he had any control over the situation, he would have done just that. If he even knew the condition of the junior officers. And he would alert medical officers -- Which is exactly what he did, by bringing me.
She didn't remember Transporter Room Three being such an interminably long ride on the turbolift.
* * *
Wes opened his eyes slowly. His head hurt. The lighting was mercifully dim. He slowly lifted his head and glanced around himself. He was sitting upright in a chair. The room was entirely empty.
Except for Kaelha. She was standing in front of him with her arms crossed, looking very angry.
"Wakey, wakey," she said, flatly.
Wes squinted uncomprehendingly at her, still trying to clear his head.
"You've been quite busy, ensign."
"Where's Robin?" Wes croaked. He felt like he was surfacing from beneath murky water, slowly and thickly. He'd never been stunned before, and now that he'd had the experience, he wasn't anxious to repeat it.
"She's still with us."
"Is she all right?"
"She's fine, ensign. I have no reason to harm her as long as you cooperate."
Wes blinked and took a deep breath. Where was he? He swallowed with much effort and looked back at Kaelha. "Can I see her?"
"Of course not."
Wes closed his eyes in a defeatist manner. "I had at least to ask."
"I'm sorry," Kaelha whispered.
Wes opened his eyes, stunned. "What?"
"I'm sorry we had to do it this way. I... I didn't mean to hurt anyone."
Wes cocked an eyebrow, highly confused.
"Ensign," she crouched down in front of him so that she was lower than his eye level, her elbows on her knees. "We need you. Our plans were disrupted because we did not expect to find you aboard the Enterprise. We figured you were at Starfleet Academy."
Wes snorted derisively. "Yeah, I hadn't planned on failing my first and missing my second exam, either."
Kaelha waved him off, "That's neither here nor there. My point is, we had given up. We'd given up as completely as possible, and suddenly you were there."
"You need someone to alter something that happened in the past, something that hurt your crew."
Kaelha exhaled. "Yes."
"But I can't al--"
Kaelha reached up and pressed a finger to his lips, silencing him. Wes was stunned again. So far the only physical contact they'd had was him stopping her from striking him. Now there was a different look in her eyes.
"There is another reason why I need you here, ensign. Besides possibly being able to save my entire ship and crew, being a strong asset to my engineering staff, and being a crackerjack helmsman, you are experienced enough in command to be commander of my ship," she spoke softly and almost too close to him.
Wes was silent. He was weary of fighting a losing battle.
"What's wrong?" Kaelha looked nearly sorrowful. "No biting retort? Have I broken your spirit?" Kaelha lifted Wes's lowered chin, raising his downcast eyes. "Where's the fire, the spark... your dedication to Starfleet, your boy-scout personality? Your passion..." she leaned toward him.
Wes jumped up so fast that he toppled the chair and it skidded across the floor behind him. He backed away. This had really never occurred to him. Kaelha rose and pursued him as he slowly retreated.
"Wh-what are you doing?" Wes couldn't remove the look of utter bewilderment from his face.
"What happened to your spirit, Wes Crusher?" Kaelha seemed to ooze femininity, more than any 16-year-old girl should. "Have I changed your mind about your beloved Federation?"
Wes continued his retreat until he felt his back against the wall.
Kaelha's hair was, as usual, tied in a complicated knot at the base of her neck. She reached up and pulled out the tie, freeing an overabundance of shining brown waves that tumbled down her back. She looked up at him with crystal blue eyes. "I would hate to be responsible for the death of such an aggressive and passionate soul." She touched the tip of one finger to the middle of his chest and traced a line down the center of his ribcage, "You're the only one who can save us now."
Wes sidestepped from the wall and started towards the center of the room again, righting the chair, placing it between them, trying to wrap his mind around what was happening.
"We need you, Wes. I need you," she purred, gliding toward the chair. She didn't try to move around it, instead she kneeled up on the seat.
"Then why didn't you just ask?" Wes backed away from the chair again toward the opposite wall, thinking in the back of his mind that this was a very small room.
Kaelha looked heavenward in contemplation. "In retrospect, that might have occurred to me. But as I said, we weren't looking for help. We found you by accident."
"If you weren't looking for help, why did you send a distress call asking for the help of the Enterprise?"
Kaelha caught up when Wes came up against the opposite wall. She placed her palms against the wall on either side of him. He cringed away from her. "Kaelha..."
She looked up at him, waiting to hear the rest of his sentence. "Yes?" she whispered, gazing at him from under lowered eyelids.
"I..." Wes caught his breath. "I don't..."
"You mean 'you've never'?" she breathed, close to his ear.
"I've never..." Wes shook his head. "No! I don't want you standing this close to me." He glared at her.
She looked up at him with doe eyes. "I'm sorry. You're really too young to be comfortable with this, aren't you?"
Wes raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"
"I forgot how naive Humans can be, especially at your age."
Now Wes was insulted. "I'm not putting you off because I'm uncomfortable. I'm putting you off because I don't want you near me, did you consider that?"
She raised her eyebrows. "No, I didn't. I just assumed that because you're so young--"
Wes got angrier. "I'm young? What about you? I must be at least two years older than you."
"Not unless you're fifty-six," Kaelha snapped.
Wes did the math quickly. "You're fifty-four years old?"
Kaelha wore a foot-in-mouth expression, but there was little she could do about it now. Perhaps there was still a way she could turn this to her advantage. By telling the truth. She paced slowly away from Crusher.
"When we were children, our planet, B'Safra, came under attack by a race called the Ylaswa. They had a chemical weapon that could be released into the atmosphere, into water sources, into the soil, into every part of our planet necessary to support life. The toxin had no color or scent. We were a people of little technological advancement and no way of defending ourselves from such an attack. Our people did not even believe that there was life anywhere but on our own planet. This toxin... any adult who breathed, drank or ate any element poisoned by the toxin died instantly. Instantly, mercifully. But something went wrong with the Ylaswaen plan. The children... we did not die. For some reason, anyone under the age of eighteen, anyone still growing, survived. We later found out that we would never age at all, not for all eternity."
She turned to face him, "At first, it was as if we were granted immortality. Some were ecstatic. Later we realized that we would spend eternity as children. Our minds and spirits could grow, but constantly trapped in the body of a child. We cannot grow old. We cannot procreate. We cannot die. It's a curse.
"The Ylaswa occupied our planet, every continent, every nation, every remote corner of our world. We had nowhere to go to escape them. Thousands were killed. The complement of my ship is all that remains of my race.
"At sixteen years old, I watched my parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, neighbors and friends, all die. Every one of us on my ship watched them fall down dead, right where they were, in the middle of working, of playing with their children, of gardening or eating, of relaxing or sleeping, or helping their daughters with the dishes... My father turned on the water to wash a pot I had just cooked in. As soon as he touched the water, he touched the toxin. He knocked over two of our kitchen chairs before falling to the floor, already dead. Panic-stricken, I ran outside to find my mother, who was lying dead in her flower garden, her cold fingers tightened around her watering can. I opened my mouth to scream, but instead heard someone else's scream. The air was a cacophony of children trying to arouse their parents. It... it was devastating."
The emotions were long gone, but Kaelha mustered all she could to play on Wesley's own emotions. Her lower lip trembled and she bowed her head. "And my father," she whispered, "was the most special person in the world to me. As I was to him."
After a long pause, Wesley became uncomfortable with the silence. He cleared his throat and added, "I-- I lost my father, too. When I was nine."
She looked up at him with sky blue eyes full of wisdom and experience, full of sadness and yet bearing a steely edge, then threw her arms around him, whimpering into his shoulder.
Wes didn't know what to do with her. Under normal circumstances, he would have comforted anyone who was crying on him, but what do you do when your captor and enemy starts crying on your shoulder?
"For 38 years... I've been sixteen years old. After a while... your-- your dreams die. It's painful at first, but then you become stronger. You learn not to dream at all."
She released him. "Then," she wiped her eyes, "when I saw you on the Enterprise and read about what you could do for us, and I saw how commanding and impassioned and... and driven you were... I thought maybe you could help me remember how to feel that way again. And maybe you could even allow us to travel back, to alter time, to warn--" she stopped. "And Robin-- she has the strength of spirit and mind to help you. And you were so loyal and dedicated to your captain and your fleet. I admired that. I want to feel like that again. Like I have a dream and a brilliant future. Like you do, Wesley Crusher."
Wes stared at her wordlessly. She had striken almost every one of his heart strings, and he was fighting it as best he could.
"And I can make your future even brighter. I'll help you as best I can, because if you stay, you will have saved me, and my 273 crew members."
"No," Wesley stated in no uncertain terms.
Kaelha was startled that her Oscar-worthy performance had little effect on Crusher. "No?"
"No. You can't just abduct people and then expect them to like you. You've lived fifty-four years, you should know that."
"Wes, please--"
"Don't call me that. Nicknames are for friends to use."
"All right, ensign," Kaelha was all business again, very suddenly. "Then let me put it this way. How much choice do you have?"
Wesley looked her straight in the eyes for a whole fifteen seconds. She did not look away. He closed his eyes and sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose to will away a stress headache. He slowly walked back over to the chair and sank down into it. After a few moments, he said, very softly, "If I promise to stay, will you release Robin? Will you send her back to the Enterprise?"
"You-- you'd do that for her?" Kaelha was stunned. "You truly care about her, don't you, ensign?"
"Yes. But I'm also a Starfleet officer and will sacrifice my own life to save another officer."
"Well, as long as it's business of the honour and not of the heart." Kaelha sighed. "Admirable. Even incredible, but my answer must still be no."
"Why not?" Wes jumped up, furious, and strode toward her. "I'm all you need, and that telepath of yours can help. You don't need us both! Send her back, and I promise I'll stay. I'll stay and I'll help you as best I can."
"No. Marn isn't strong enough. Apparently, the link doesn't function as well as it should between our races. I need another Human, one who is close with you."
"Where's Robin?" Wes's tones were clipped and angry.
"She's safe, ensign."
"I won't cooperate with you. If you keep us from our home, I'll do everything I can to make your unending life miserable."
"Will you." Kaelha was angry now too.
Wes's voice edged up in anger. "If you keep me from Robin, I'll find her anyway. If you keep us from the Enterprise, they will hunt you night and day until you go crazy from running away. If you hurt Robin, I'll disable your entire ship in a matter of seconds."
Kaelha laughed.
Wes's eyes flashed with fury. "If you kill her--"
Kaelha raised her eyebrows, waiting to hear the end of it.
"--I'll kill you myself."
She smiled. "I'm impressed, ensign. I didn't think you would ever even think about murder, let alone threaten me with--"
"Shut up, I'm not finished."
Kaelha's eyes widened, startled and a little frightened by the Human boy's rage.
"And if it's my attention you want, you'll find a bulkhead more entertaining. I'll thwart your every move, resist your every effort to create a temporal anomaly, fight you at every turn. If you appoint me to a position on your ship, you'd be damning it. I'll contradict your every order, step on your every word, disagree with your every decision. I'd use every privilege given to me to destroy you. You'd prefer your ship to be haunted with poltergeist than to have me aboard." He took another imperious step toward her.
"You're hardly what I'd call a captain. You're weak, vindictive, petty, scattered and you lack all sense of focus, dedication and honor. I can't teach an old dog new tricks, and I doubt my honor would rub off on you. I doubt a Klingon could help you with the concept of honor. So, captain, do you still want me on your ship?" Wes hissed sarcastically.
"Quite," Kaelha answered through tight lips. "That was your last chance, ensign. Now you're a prisoner." She smacked her communicator, "Get in here, we're ready."
Ready?, Wes thought. Ready for what?
He looked up in surprise as the doors swooshed open and five armed guards entered dragging Robin along with them. Two officers seized Wesley's arms and wrenched them behind his back. Wes strained against them. Marn was also there, standing quietly in the background.
"Robin!" Wes yelled to her. "Are you all right?"
"Wes!"
"Shut up!" one officer hissed, pressing the business end of a phaser between Wesley's eyes. Wes sucked in his breath and fell silent.
"Say goodbye to your Enterprise. They'll be leaving us now," Kaelha's voice was vicious.
"They would never leave without us," Robin interrupted. She was answered with a sharp jab in the side with the end of a phaser.
"Oh, you're quite right, girl," Kaelha answered her. "But they won't be leaving without you. At least, they won't think they are."
About two feet in front of Wesley, Wesley appeared.
Wes blinked. His counterpart did likewise.
"No!" Wes struggled to free himself, conscious of the two phasers pointed at him and the two more pointed at Robin. The children didn't seem to be overly anxious to shoot him, but he still couldn't get free.
This was the creature, standing in front of him, imitating him. And it was about to return to the Enterprise as him. An idea formed in Wes's head. Find the fault before it can get to the Enterprise. Make it disappear.
"So you think you're me, huh?" Wes tugged his arms, a futile struggle. "What's my position on the bridge?"
"Helmsman. Conn. Navigator. Flight Controller. Whatever they want to call me, I fly the Enterprise," the creature said proudly.
Wesley glared. "You probably don't even know my middle name."
"My middle name is Richard."
"Who said I'm like Mozart?"
"The Traveler told Captain Picard that I'm like Mozart, almost three years ago."
Wes was surprised to hear that the creature knew that answer. He didn't think it was on record anywhere. He had to continue with his drill.
"What nationality is my mother?"
"Mom's Scottish, but she grew up on Aveda III. She hasn't been back there since before I was born."
Wes fumed. This was his life. Things that supposedly could never be taken from him were being borrowed, used, stolen, broken.
"Oh, and I'm very proud of my own patented invention, the portable tractor beam."
Wes gasped. "I invented that!"
"Easy, boy," one of the guards twisted Wes's arm a little to restrain him.
"Fine." Wes calmed a bit. "You know a lot of facts about me and my life, but what do you know about my personality? You'll never be able to convince the entire crew of the Enterprise, quite a few of whom are my close friends, that you're really me."
"I'm insecure. I'm stubborn. I'm determined beyond most Humans' capacity. I'm practically a genius, but not the coolest guy in school. Curious, but I get myself into trouble easily that way. I'm a workaholic. I've got powerful emotions, but they rarely show. I prattle when I get an idea, leaving behind anyone to whom I'm trying to explain it. Mine is a very aggressive personality. I don't often think before I speak or act -- my mind is too busy with a trillion other things. I've got an unattainable sort of crush on Deanna Troi and a somewhat attainable crush on this young lady here," the creature in Wesley's form gestured to Robin. Wesley's cheeks burned in anger and embarrassment.
"You can't imitate me just by knowing a few secrets," he hissed. "And my mother will certainly never buy it."
"You'd be amazed," the creature said in Wesley's voice, then his form and voice shifted, "what people are willing to believe when they are grief- stricken, Orange."
Wes's knees gave out. The security guards had to support him. "...J- Jaan?" Wes managed.
The creature in Jaan's form laughed. "Oh, it was rich! You should have seen him, blubbering on about how much he missed me and how he was so glad I was alive and my life was fulfilled."
Hot tears burned in Wesley's eyes but they did not fall.
"He was ravaged with guilt and grief, so willing to believe that I was his friend, back from the dead. Imagine! Letting your best friend die, then deluding yourself into believing he was alive again! You were so close to saving me, Orange, you just didn't try hard enough. You were too scattered and desperate. You could have saved my life long before I ever got into trouble. But you just couldn't. You were all around the answer. How truly frustrating."
Wes shook his head vehemently.
"You failed me. You gave up."
"No I didn't," Wes's voice was small.
"In essence, Orange, you were the one who killed me," the creature taunted. Wesley dropped his head, crushed.
"I had such a promising life, and you just couldn't--"
"Stop it!" the voice was Kaelha's. She was glaring at the creature. "That's enough. You're torturing him."
Wes studied the floor. The creature melted back into the form of Wesley, only this time, it bore in its arms a motionless form that looked just like Robin. The real Robin gasped.
"This is the plan, Humans," the creature addressed both Wesley and Robin. "You see, poor Robin hasn't survived." Robin renewed her struggle. Wes was horrified into inaction. The creature stepped nearer to Wesley. "And I only have to imitate you long enough for us to escape. Then, you can die, or I can just tell them the whole truth and disappear. By the time the Humans know what happened, we'll be so long gone they'll never find us."
Wes glared at Kaelha, but she avoided his gaze. He wanted the look in his eyes to remind her that he would carry out his threat of making her existence hell for as long as he could draw breath. But he couldn't get her attention.
"All right, show's over," Kaelha said to the creature. "Go."
The creature in the form of Wesley and Robin disappeared.
Marn moved over to Kaelha and spoke softly to her. "I don't think either Human is any mental condition to attempt time travel at the moment. Perhaps in the morning?"
Kaelha nodded once, then spoke to the guards, "Take them back to their accommodations. Separately."
"No!" Robin shouted.
"Wait!" Wes tried to stop them from dragging Robin away from him again. "Where are you taking her? You can't keep us separated anymore! There's no reason to."
"Take her back to the brig," Kaelha said to the guards.
Wes stomped on the foot of one of the guards and elbowed him in the face. He had him disarmed in a second. Wes grabbed the phaser and brought it around to aim it at his other captor. Before he could, one of the guards holding Robin called to Wesley.
"Hold it right there unless you want one less Human aboard," the guard was holding a phaser set to kill against Robin's head, his other arm wrapped around her neck. Robin's eyes were closed tightly, both hands pulling down on the arm around her neck, knees bent, back arched. Obviously the guard's grip was tight.
Wes lowered his phaser. He slowly and subtly switched on the safety with his thumb and let the phaser fall to the floor. He noticed that one of the guards that had been holding Robin lay unconscious on the floor, blood dripping from his nose.
Wes watched as the guard turned the phaser down to stun and pressed it against Robin's head again.
"No!" Wes screamed and dove towards her. Quickly, the guard Wes had disarmed picked up the phaser set to kill and fired it right at Wesley's back. It didn't go off. The officer cursed as he fumbled with the safety switch.
The guard holding Robin at phaser point whipped his phaser around and fired the stun setting at Wes. The beam lanced out and struck him in the chest. His head snapped back in pain and he fell to the ground. Kaelha sank to her knees beside him to make sure he was only unconscious.
"Wesley!!!" Robin screamed and pulled against the arm around her neck. She flipped the guard over her shoulder and he crashed to the floor. She started toward Wes when another phaser beam struck her and she landed near him on the floor, motionless.
Kaelha pointed her finger as if it were a deadly weapon at the officer who's just finished fixing his phaser, the one on which Wes had set the safety, the one that had just taken down Robin, and bellowed, "What setting is your phaser on, lieutenant?"
"Stun, sir!" the lieutenant answered, frightened.
"Lucky you," Kaelha seethed. "If either of these Humans die, the killer's life will be the cost."
"Yes, sir!" the lieutenant answered.
"Why must you keep stunning them?" she addressed her guards from her kneeling spot next to Wesley. Her hand was under his head, as if she were in some way helping him.
"It was the only way to keep them from escaping, sir," one boy answered.
"Five armed and trained security officers can't restrain one boy and one girl in a locked room without rendering them unconscious?" then Kaelha's gaze fell upon the guard Robin had knocked out, just now stirring, and she amended her question. "Four security officers."
"With all the respect due you, sir, the girl is expertly trained in security, and the boy is somewhat trained. And they have the advantage of desperation on their side."
"Inexcusable," Kaelha shook her head. "They are not to be stunned anymore. They're here because we need them, not simply as hostages. Am I perfectly understood?"
"Yes, sir," all four standing officers answered at once.
One guard leaned over and whispered to his fellow officer, "I don't understand why we are abandoning our plan all of a sudden. If we want to get back on track, we should kill them now. That would get the Enterprise's attention."
"There is a difference between casualties of war and execution. Would you go to your death with the mark of a murder on your soul, lieutenant?" Kaelha's voice was sharp.
"N-no, sir."
"Then leave it that our plan has changed. We are no longer picking a fight with the Enterprise. Now while there's hope in these Humans. Am I understood?"
"Yes, sir."