CHAPTER EIGHT
In the ready room Picard and Crusher sat discussing what they were going to do next. "Well we certainly can't sit here all day. I suggest we ask the computer where Commander Data is located and then go and get him." Crusher offered; it seemed the only logical solution to her.
"Agreed but we can't just go and apprehend an android, for one thing he may not come willingly, and we can't make a scene. I shouldn't think that you and I put together will be able to overpower him either." Beverly followed Picard with her eyes as he stood up and walked around the room. "I'll ask the computer." Picard cleared his throat. "Computer. What is the location of Commander Data?"
"Commander Data is located in main engineering." Crusher looked at Picard.
"Well at least we've found him." Crusher said, glad of that fact.
"Right then, let's get going." They both exited the ready room and appeared on the bridge. "Counsellor, you still have the bridge." Troi nodded her head once and watched them as they started to head for the turbolift.
"I've sent Commander Data to engineering to get a report. He should be back soon, Captain." Picard nodded his head and thought to himself, "not if I have anything to do with it he won't." Then he said to Troi, "it's alright Counsellor, I'm going to see him now." Picard, Crusher and Detaith got into the turbolift.
Data finished collecting the information for his report from engineering, and headed back into the bay to speak with La Forge. "I trust you have a way to program Reval like I suggested, Mr. La Forge?"
"Yes, sir, I do. Reval is in my office deactivated at the moment, all I need do is adjust a few mechanisms in his sub-neural net and add this chip, then he'll be ready to go as far as I'm concerned."
"Very well. I will give a good report to the captain." Data turned and left engineering to go up to the bridge, while Geordi went to put the chip into Reval's positronic brain.
Reval was fully functional and back out of Geordi's office in no time.
Captain Picard, Dr. Crusher and Lieutenant Detaith entered engineering a few moments later. Picard was still amazed at the shear size of this engineering to that of his own. La Forge spotted them, hurriedly came to attention and saluted them both. Picard went over to speak with La Forge "How is everything going, Mr. La Forge?" Picard asked out of interest and to try and find out what the plan to infiltrate his universe was this time.
"Everything is going fine, Captain. We have over come the problems we had initially, with the help of Dr. Crusher everything has gone much quicker." Geordi looked at the doctor and smiled a crooked smile, to Crusher's discomfort. "Commander Data has a report for you, sir."
"Show me what you have accomplished so far." Picard told La Forge and they headed off into one of the large bays. Picard remembered that the room they were going into was originally the home of the inclusion apparatus. Utter shock hit him when he saw what was in the room now. Crusher gasped in amazement. Twenty-four androids all stood up and saluted the captain in unison as he entered. They all looked exactly the same as one another and now all had on the black jumpsuits.
"All of the androids are fully functioning now, sir. As you can see they are ready for duty." Geordi said and Picard stammered.
"Er... W-well done La Forge. I don't know what I would do without you. Dismissed." Geordi went back to work leaving Picard, Crusher and Detaith in the room.
"What now!" Crusher whispered trying to keep her voice down.
"We need to find Data, he's obviously not one of these so he must be somewhere else on the ship."
"We can't leave this ship without destroying these androids first, it's too much of a threat." Beverly whispered to him. They went back to main engineering utterly perplexed.
Crusher spotted a familiar form out of the corner of her eye; she turned and stared. It was an android in a Starfleet uniform from her universe. "Data," she whispered. Picard turned at what she had just said and they both went over to speak to him.
"Data?" Picard asked questioningly as the android turned to look at him.
"No, sir. My name is Reval." He replied simply.
"Maybe they just changed his name, Captain." Crusher whispered; it was conceivable after all.
"Has your name ever been Data?" Picard asked confused.
"Yes." The android said, remembering that he would have to answer to that name on the other Enterprise.
"Come with us then, we need to speak to you. Immediately." They all went out of engineering and headed back to Picard's quarters.
Back aboard the Galaxy class starship Enterprise Riker ordered Worf to go to sickbay, and take the counterpart Wesley Crusher to some quarters so that he wouldn't be in the way when the real Wesley Crusher woke up. Worf had gone immediately and was back up on the bridge within twenty minutes.
"I have taken Mr. Crusher to quarters on deck eleven and posted two guards outside of the door." He reported, taking his station again.
"Thank you, Mr. Worf." Riker said and then turned to Troi. "Counsellor, will you go to sickbay before our Wesley wakes up. Dr. Selar sounded quite concerned about him." Troi nodded, got up and left for sickbay. Riker asked for La Forge over the ship's comm system.
"La Forge here."
"Geordi, will you make certain that you can seal the rift at a moments notice."
"Worf just needs to modify the phasers to emit a nucleonic beam, then we'll be able to seal the rift when ever you say, Commander." Geordi replied.
"Thank You, Mr. La Forge. I need you to be ready to jump to warp eight at the last possible moment, Geordi. I want to be able to get out of here as soon as possible if we have to."
"Aye, sir. The warp engines are on line and we're just waiting for the signal from the bridge."
"Okay, Geordi." Riker terminated the channel and turned to Worf. "Worf will you modify the phasers."
"I have just finished, sir." Riker turned in his seat, pleased that the crew was well trained, and looked toward the view screen hoping against all hope that he wouldn't have to seal the rift before the away team was back.
Picard, Crusher and Reval/Data entered Picard's quarters, leaving Detaith outside the door. "Take a seat Data. Dr. Crusher and I will take you back home as soon as we are finished here."
"Captain, I think it would be better to send Rev.... Data back now so he's out of harms way." Crusher said to Picard. Picard thought about it and decided that it was a good idea. He contacted the computer on board the shuttlecraft El Baz and told it to beam Data back there and then on to his Enterprise. Data was gone in a shimmer of light followed by a sub-space message from Picard, telling Commander Riker what was going on.
Beverly and Picard were back where they had started from. "What now?"
Captain Picard sighed. "We need to sabotage the plans of this captain and stop La Forge from making more androids. The question is how are we going to do that?"
"I need time to think..." Dr. Crusher was interrupted by La Forge from engineering.
"Dr. Crusher please report to engineering." Beverly looked at Picard, her face a puzzle. She walked over to the comm panel in Picard's quarters and tapped it.
"Is there a problem?" She asked with a tone that seemed brash to her.
"Yes, one of the androids has malfunctioned."
"Sounds serious." Beverly said, not concerned at all since she was there to sabotage them all anyway.
"It is but don't tell the captain. As far as he's concerned everything is alright." Picard listened intently slightly amused and with a raised eyebrow, he cleared his throat.
"Too late La Forge you've already informed me. When I want a report I will ask for it but in the mean time if anything should go wrong, I expect to be notified immediately. Is that clear?" Picard said in his most authoritative voice, he could almost feel La Forge cringing as he spoke.
"Yes, sir. Perfectly clear." La Forge snapped back quickly.
"I will be down later on to check on you, and next time I suggest you think before you speak. Dr. Crusher will be down in a few minutes." Crusher shook her head not wanting to go but Picard held up a hand silencing her as he shut off the communication. "This may be the only way to stop the production of androids and put the others out of action. I will go up to the bridge and see if there is anything I can do up there, I'll be down to engineering soon." They both left Picard's quarters and went their separate ways.
"Where are we going, sir?" Detaith asked Picard as they walked along the corridor.
"We're going up to the bridge." Picard responded.
"But, sir. Your duty shift finished over an hour ago." Picard stopped and turned to Detaith.
"Do you have a problem with this, Detaith? If so I could remedy it." Picard sounded angry which wasn't hard after the shock he had just had in engineering.
"No, sir. I'm just concerned that's all."
"Well don't be." Picard snapped back as he started to walk again. "Why do you have to ask where we're going all of the time as well?"
"It's just a general wondering on my part, sir. You don't have to tell me if..."
"That's right, I don't, and you can stop asking as well." They took a few more steps before Detaith spoke again; his captain was clearly in a bad mood and even he wasn't safe when that happened.
"I noticed that the android didn't appear when you came out of your quarters, sir. Would you like me to place a guard on him to make sure he doesn't try anything?"
"He is on special assignment. A guard will not be necessary."
"Aye, sir." Detaith said and chose not to speak anymore.
They got to the bridge and crew personnel saluted, which was a gesture that Picard was rapidly becoming tired of. He saluted back and went down to the command area. Two people were sitting there, one was Troi- in his chair, and the other was an android in the chair to the left of Troi. Troi and the android rose and saluted. The counsellor moved away from the center seat so that Picard could take it, which he did rather quickly. Picard's legs felt like they had turned to jelly.
How many more androids would he come across? This was becoming a bit ridiculous, and what if the android that was sent back wasn't Data? The one next to him could be instead. He looked over to his left at the android. No, this definitely was not Data. There were too many differences, firstly this android looked sinister and totally untrustworthy. The eye colour and general appearance had all changed and when this android spoke he sounded angry and challenging. This was definitely not Data- or so Picard thought.
The android turned to Picard when he noticed that he was staring at him. "Is there something I can help you with, sir?" Picard remembered that La Forge had said that Data had a report for him. DATA had the report! Now he was starting to panic and that wouldn't do as the counsellor was sitting right next to him. "Sir?" The android asked again. People started to look at the captain including the counsellor.
"Do you have a report for me, Commander?" Picard asked trying to get his mind back on track as quickly as possible.
"Yes, sir." Data went into a very long and detailed report of everything that was going on in engineering. He did not however shed any light on who he was or who the android Picard had beamed off the ship was.
"Very well, Commander. A thorough report, thank you. You do not need to go into as much detail though the next time." Picard looked at Troi and noticed she was smiling, he smiled back uneasily.
Dr. Crusher entered engineering and La Forge saluted her- the doctor was a commander and a higher rank than La Forge. "Well?" She asked trying to sound impatient at having to come all the way down to engineering just for him.
"I need a hand with one of the androids over here. He just stood up, got a strange look on his face and then collapsed onto the floor. I think that one of the links in his net burned out, it shouldn't take long."
"Then why didn't you just do it yourself? I've got other things to be getting on with." She told him in an impatient manner.
"I just thought you might want to get out of sickbay, you're always saying how you hate to be stuck there all day." Crusher thought of how much she longed to be there at that moment. "Was the captain very angry with me?" Geordi asked as they walked over to the android.
"Yes he was. He started talking about the agony booth and how you'd been getting away with far too much these days. I'd watch your back for a while if I were you." Crusher sounded deadly serious but she was having fun with him- she didn't like this La Forge much.
"Thanks for telling me. How has he been with you? Has he tried anything yet?"
"No, it has to come sometime though." She had no idea what he was going on about but decided to go along with whatever he said anyway.
They put the android on one of the diagnostic beds in engineering and started working on him. Of course Dr. Crusher had more experience than La Forge did but Data was puzzling, and this being an exact replica was no better. It took them a while to find out the cause of the android's problem but once they found it, it was easy to fix. La Forge had found a faulty component that had been used in the cerebral cortex of the positronic brain. He replaced it and soon the android was back on his feet again.
"You know, these androids should have self correcting mechanisms built into them." Crusher said to La Forge.
"Should they? How do you know?" Geordi looked accusingly at Crusher.
"Er... I read a paper a while back by a friend that was doing some research with artificial life forms."
Crusher looked around trying to find a way to sabotage the androids. She couldn't think of anything she could do. There were too many crew personnel and she couldn't risk being caught. Beverly left engineering and headed of up to the bridge to speak with Picard.
Wesley Crusher stirred in sickbay. He turned over noticing a blurred figure looking down at him; it took a few moments before he figured out who it was. "Counsellor Troi? What are you doing here?" He asked groggily.
"I'm here to see if you are alright. After your walk around sickbay earlier and coming face to face with yourself, I thought you may want to talk about it." She said in a kind, comforting voice.
"Who was that anyway? That's probably a stupid question."
"That was a Wesley Crusher from a parallel universe. He was found on the space probe badly injured. Commander Riker brought him back here to see if your mother could do anything, rather than leaving him to die. You weren't supposed to see him but after your fall on the holodeck, you had to come to sickbay. Who did you think it was anyway?" She asked smiling at him.
"I thought I was dead and having one of those out of body experiences." Wesley said looking a bit embarrassed.
"Well that explains why you went into hysterics." She chuckled slightly.
"How was he injured, Counsellor?"
"That's not really important, Wes. You just need to forget about him and think about getting better yourself."
"It's important to me, please, Counsellor. How was he injured?" Wesley pleaded.
"Wesley." Troi could sense that it was important to him so she sighed and told him. "He was hit with a level five phaser blast, someone tried to murder him and didn't succeed."
"I want to see him." Wesley stated firmly.
"That's not possible, Wes."
"Why not? It's something I need to do. I want to find out about him, get to know him maybe help him somehow," he pleaded.
"Maybe when you're a lot stronger but you have been through a great deal. You shouldn't push yourself, concentrate on getting better. You're lucky that your mother isn't here, I'm sure she would have something to say about all of this." She smiled again.
"Yeah, I'd probably be in a much worse condition now if she were here. She probably won't let me live it down when she does find out. She told me not to use the holodeck program when I got it; 'it's too dangerous' is what she told me. I wouldn't listen though." Wesley paused, "I guess I've learned my lesson now."
"I should hope so, Wes. What was the program anyway?" Troi asked, curious as to how he had been injured so badly since the holodeck programs should all have safety mechanisms built in as standard.
"It was about Alaska..." Wesley began explaining but as soon as he said Alaska Troi knew what he was talking about.
"Oh, the one where you have to climb up mountains and battle monsters?"
"Yeah, how do you know?"
"Commander Riker got it a few years ago. The first time he used it he broke his arm. Never used it again after that." They both smiled at each other and Troi left sickbay. She promised that she would come back and see him later though. Wesley watched her go then turned over and went back to sleep.
A/N: Please leave a review. Thanks
In the ready room Picard and Crusher sat discussing what they were going to do next. "Well we certainly can't sit here all day. I suggest we ask the computer where Commander Data is located and then go and get him." Crusher offered; it seemed the only logical solution to her.
"Agreed but we can't just go and apprehend an android, for one thing he may not come willingly, and we can't make a scene. I shouldn't think that you and I put together will be able to overpower him either." Beverly followed Picard with her eyes as he stood up and walked around the room. "I'll ask the computer." Picard cleared his throat. "Computer. What is the location of Commander Data?"
"Commander Data is located in main engineering." Crusher looked at Picard.
"Well at least we've found him." Crusher said, glad of that fact.
"Right then, let's get going." They both exited the ready room and appeared on the bridge. "Counsellor, you still have the bridge." Troi nodded her head once and watched them as they started to head for the turbolift.
"I've sent Commander Data to engineering to get a report. He should be back soon, Captain." Picard nodded his head and thought to himself, "not if I have anything to do with it he won't." Then he said to Troi, "it's alright Counsellor, I'm going to see him now." Picard, Crusher and Detaith got into the turbolift.
Data finished collecting the information for his report from engineering, and headed back into the bay to speak with La Forge. "I trust you have a way to program Reval like I suggested, Mr. La Forge?"
"Yes, sir, I do. Reval is in my office deactivated at the moment, all I need do is adjust a few mechanisms in his sub-neural net and add this chip, then he'll be ready to go as far as I'm concerned."
"Very well. I will give a good report to the captain." Data turned and left engineering to go up to the bridge, while Geordi went to put the chip into Reval's positronic brain.
Reval was fully functional and back out of Geordi's office in no time.
Captain Picard, Dr. Crusher and Lieutenant Detaith entered engineering a few moments later. Picard was still amazed at the shear size of this engineering to that of his own. La Forge spotted them, hurriedly came to attention and saluted them both. Picard went over to speak with La Forge "How is everything going, Mr. La Forge?" Picard asked out of interest and to try and find out what the plan to infiltrate his universe was this time.
"Everything is going fine, Captain. We have over come the problems we had initially, with the help of Dr. Crusher everything has gone much quicker." Geordi looked at the doctor and smiled a crooked smile, to Crusher's discomfort. "Commander Data has a report for you, sir."
"Show me what you have accomplished so far." Picard told La Forge and they headed off into one of the large bays. Picard remembered that the room they were going into was originally the home of the inclusion apparatus. Utter shock hit him when he saw what was in the room now. Crusher gasped in amazement. Twenty-four androids all stood up and saluted the captain in unison as he entered. They all looked exactly the same as one another and now all had on the black jumpsuits.
"All of the androids are fully functioning now, sir. As you can see they are ready for duty." Geordi said and Picard stammered.
"Er... W-well done La Forge. I don't know what I would do without you. Dismissed." Geordi went back to work leaving Picard, Crusher and Detaith in the room.
"What now!" Crusher whispered trying to keep her voice down.
"We need to find Data, he's obviously not one of these so he must be somewhere else on the ship."
"We can't leave this ship without destroying these androids first, it's too much of a threat." Beverly whispered to him. They went back to main engineering utterly perplexed.
Crusher spotted a familiar form out of the corner of her eye; she turned and stared. It was an android in a Starfleet uniform from her universe. "Data," she whispered. Picard turned at what she had just said and they both went over to speak to him.
"Data?" Picard asked questioningly as the android turned to look at him.
"No, sir. My name is Reval." He replied simply.
"Maybe they just changed his name, Captain." Crusher whispered; it was conceivable after all.
"Has your name ever been Data?" Picard asked confused.
"Yes." The android said, remembering that he would have to answer to that name on the other Enterprise.
"Come with us then, we need to speak to you. Immediately." They all went out of engineering and headed back to Picard's quarters.
Back aboard the Galaxy class starship Enterprise Riker ordered Worf to go to sickbay, and take the counterpart Wesley Crusher to some quarters so that he wouldn't be in the way when the real Wesley Crusher woke up. Worf had gone immediately and was back up on the bridge within twenty minutes.
"I have taken Mr. Crusher to quarters on deck eleven and posted two guards outside of the door." He reported, taking his station again.
"Thank you, Mr. Worf." Riker said and then turned to Troi. "Counsellor, will you go to sickbay before our Wesley wakes up. Dr. Selar sounded quite concerned about him." Troi nodded, got up and left for sickbay. Riker asked for La Forge over the ship's comm system.
"La Forge here."
"Geordi, will you make certain that you can seal the rift at a moments notice."
"Worf just needs to modify the phasers to emit a nucleonic beam, then we'll be able to seal the rift when ever you say, Commander." Geordi replied.
"Thank You, Mr. La Forge. I need you to be ready to jump to warp eight at the last possible moment, Geordi. I want to be able to get out of here as soon as possible if we have to."
"Aye, sir. The warp engines are on line and we're just waiting for the signal from the bridge."
"Okay, Geordi." Riker terminated the channel and turned to Worf. "Worf will you modify the phasers."
"I have just finished, sir." Riker turned in his seat, pleased that the crew was well trained, and looked toward the view screen hoping against all hope that he wouldn't have to seal the rift before the away team was back.
Picard, Crusher and Reval/Data entered Picard's quarters, leaving Detaith outside the door. "Take a seat Data. Dr. Crusher and I will take you back home as soon as we are finished here."
"Captain, I think it would be better to send Rev.... Data back now so he's out of harms way." Crusher said to Picard. Picard thought about it and decided that it was a good idea. He contacted the computer on board the shuttlecraft El Baz and told it to beam Data back there and then on to his Enterprise. Data was gone in a shimmer of light followed by a sub-space message from Picard, telling Commander Riker what was going on.
Beverly and Picard were back where they had started from. "What now?"
Captain Picard sighed. "We need to sabotage the plans of this captain and stop La Forge from making more androids. The question is how are we going to do that?"
"I need time to think..." Dr. Crusher was interrupted by La Forge from engineering.
"Dr. Crusher please report to engineering." Beverly looked at Picard, her face a puzzle. She walked over to the comm panel in Picard's quarters and tapped it.
"Is there a problem?" She asked with a tone that seemed brash to her.
"Yes, one of the androids has malfunctioned."
"Sounds serious." Beverly said, not concerned at all since she was there to sabotage them all anyway.
"It is but don't tell the captain. As far as he's concerned everything is alright." Picard listened intently slightly amused and with a raised eyebrow, he cleared his throat.
"Too late La Forge you've already informed me. When I want a report I will ask for it but in the mean time if anything should go wrong, I expect to be notified immediately. Is that clear?" Picard said in his most authoritative voice, he could almost feel La Forge cringing as he spoke.
"Yes, sir. Perfectly clear." La Forge snapped back quickly.
"I will be down later on to check on you, and next time I suggest you think before you speak. Dr. Crusher will be down in a few minutes." Crusher shook her head not wanting to go but Picard held up a hand silencing her as he shut off the communication. "This may be the only way to stop the production of androids and put the others out of action. I will go up to the bridge and see if there is anything I can do up there, I'll be down to engineering soon." They both left Picard's quarters and went their separate ways.
"Where are we going, sir?" Detaith asked Picard as they walked along the corridor.
"We're going up to the bridge." Picard responded.
"But, sir. Your duty shift finished over an hour ago." Picard stopped and turned to Detaith.
"Do you have a problem with this, Detaith? If so I could remedy it." Picard sounded angry which wasn't hard after the shock he had just had in engineering.
"No, sir. I'm just concerned that's all."
"Well don't be." Picard snapped back as he started to walk again. "Why do you have to ask where we're going all of the time as well?"
"It's just a general wondering on my part, sir. You don't have to tell me if..."
"That's right, I don't, and you can stop asking as well." They took a few more steps before Detaith spoke again; his captain was clearly in a bad mood and even he wasn't safe when that happened.
"I noticed that the android didn't appear when you came out of your quarters, sir. Would you like me to place a guard on him to make sure he doesn't try anything?"
"He is on special assignment. A guard will not be necessary."
"Aye, sir." Detaith said and chose not to speak anymore.
They got to the bridge and crew personnel saluted, which was a gesture that Picard was rapidly becoming tired of. He saluted back and went down to the command area. Two people were sitting there, one was Troi- in his chair, and the other was an android in the chair to the left of Troi. Troi and the android rose and saluted. The counsellor moved away from the center seat so that Picard could take it, which he did rather quickly. Picard's legs felt like they had turned to jelly.
How many more androids would he come across? This was becoming a bit ridiculous, and what if the android that was sent back wasn't Data? The one next to him could be instead. He looked over to his left at the android. No, this definitely was not Data. There were too many differences, firstly this android looked sinister and totally untrustworthy. The eye colour and general appearance had all changed and when this android spoke he sounded angry and challenging. This was definitely not Data- or so Picard thought.
The android turned to Picard when he noticed that he was staring at him. "Is there something I can help you with, sir?" Picard remembered that La Forge had said that Data had a report for him. DATA had the report! Now he was starting to panic and that wouldn't do as the counsellor was sitting right next to him. "Sir?" The android asked again. People started to look at the captain including the counsellor.
"Do you have a report for me, Commander?" Picard asked trying to get his mind back on track as quickly as possible.
"Yes, sir." Data went into a very long and detailed report of everything that was going on in engineering. He did not however shed any light on who he was or who the android Picard had beamed off the ship was.
"Very well, Commander. A thorough report, thank you. You do not need to go into as much detail though the next time." Picard looked at Troi and noticed she was smiling, he smiled back uneasily.
Dr. Crusher entered engineering and La Forge saluted her- the doctor was a commander and a higher rank than La Forge. "Well?" She asked trying to sound impatient at having to come all the way down to engineering just for him.
"I need a hand with one of the androids over here. He just stood up, got a strange look on his face and then collapsed onto the floor. I think that one of the links in his net burned out, it shouldn't take long."
"Then why didn't you just do it yourself? I've got other things to be getting on with." She told him in an impatient manner.
"I just thought you might want to get out of sickbay, you're always saying how you hate to be stuck there all day." Crusher thought of how much she longed to be there at that moment. "Was the captain very angry with me?" Geordi asked as they walked over to the android.
"Yes he was. He started talking about the agony booth and how you'd been getting away with far too much these days. I'd watch your back for a while if I were you." Crusher sounded deadly serious but she was having fun with him- she didn't like this La Forge much.
"Thanks for telling me. How has he been with you? Has he tried anything yet?"
"No, it has to come sometime though." She had no idea what he was going on about but decided to go along with whatever he said anyway.
They put the android on one of the diagnostic beds in engineering and started working on him. Of course Dr. Crusher had more experience than La Forge did but Data was puzzling, and this being an exact replica was no better. It took them a while to find out the cause of the android's problem but once they found it, it was easy to fix. La Forge had found a faulty component that had been used in the cerebral cortex of the positronic brain. He replaced it and soon the android was back on his feet again.
"You know, these androids should have self correcting mechanisms built into them." Crusher said to La Forge.
"Should they? How do you know?" Geordi looked accusingly at Crusher.
"Er... I read a paper a while back by a friend that was doing some research with artificial life forms."
Crusher looked around trying to find a way to sabotage the androids. She couldn't think of anything she could do. There were too many crew personnel and she couldn't risk being caught. Beverly left engineering and headed of up to the bridge to speak with Picard.
Wesley Crusher stirred in sickbay. He turned over noticing a blurred figure looking down at him; it took a few moments before he figured out who it was. "Counsellor Troi? What are you doing here?" He asked groggily.
"I'm here to see if you are alright. After your walk around sickbay earlier and coming face to face with yourself, I thought you may want to talk about it." She said in a kind, comforting voice.
"Who was that anyway? That's probably a stupid question."
"That was a Wesley Crusher from a parallel universe. He was found on the space probe badly injured. Commander Riker brought him back here to see if your mother could do anything, rather than leaving him to die. You weren't supposed to see him but after your fall on the holodeck, you had to come to sickbay. Who did you think it was anyway?" She asked smiling at him.
"I thought I was dead and having one of those out of body experiences." Wesley said looking a bit embarrassed.
"Well that explains why you went into hysterics." She chuckled slightly.
"How was he injured, Counsellor?"
"That's not really important, Wes. You just need to forget about him and think about getting better yourself."
"It's important to me, please, Counsellor. How was he injured?" Wesley pleaded.
"Wesley." Troi could sense that it was important to him so she sighed and told him. "He was hit with a level five phaser blast, someone tried to murder him and didn't succeed."
"I want to see him." Wesley stated firmly.
"That's not possible, Wes."
"Why not? It's something I need to do. I want to find out about him, get to know him maybe help him somehow," he pleaded.
"Maybe when you're a lot stronger but you have been through a great deal. You shouldn't push yourself, concentrate on getting better. You're lucky that your mother isn't here, I'm sure she would have something to say about all of this." She smiled again.
"Yeah, I'd probably be in a much worse condition now if she were here. She probably won't let me live it down when she does find out. She told me not to use the holodeck program when I got it; 'it's too dangerous' is what she told me. I wouldn't listen though." Wesley paused, "I guess I've learned my lesson now."
"I should hope so, Wes. What was the program anyway?" Troi asked, curious as to how he had been injured so badly since the holodeck programs should all have safety mechanisms built in as standard.
"It was about Alaska..." Wesley began explaining but as soon as he said Alaska Troi knew what he was talking about.
"Oh, the one where you have to climb up mountains and battle monsters?"
"Yeah, how do you know?"
"Commander Riker got it a few years ago. The first time he used it he broke his arm. Never used it again after that." They both smiled at each other and Troi left sickbay. She promised that she would come back and see him later though. Wesley watched her go then turned over and went back to sleep.
A/N: Please leave a review. Thanks
