Chapter 4
2367 The Runabout
"I know that something isn't quite right," said Wesley, as he lay down on his bunk, once it appeared that he was alone. But he hoped that someone in particular did hear his words. "We didn't go about saving the Captain in the right way…." He turned his head back and forth in the darkness. "Why won't you tell me?" he whispered.
"Because I do not know the right way, Wesley," floated the Traveler's voice. "It is going to be up to you and your friends to make things right. I am sorry. If you determine that you must enter the past again, please contact me then."
Wesley sat up quickly and sat on the edge of his narrow bunk. He looked around in the darkness, but the Traveler was nowhere to be found.
2355 Malkatan Base
"Captain..." Zev gripped his arm tightly as the hypo began to take effect, waking her up. Slowly her dark eyes focused in on his face. "Captain, they told us you were dead."
He clenched his jaw and grabbed her hand in his own. He glanced at General Unh, lying unconscious on the floor. He had wanted to kill the General, but had injected him with a sedative from Beverly's med kit instead. "They lied," he said, turning back to Zev. "But the rest of the crew..."
"The others are dead, Captain," she said, getting to her feet with their help. "Vigo witnessed it," she said, nodding at the still unconscious tactical officer. "The General made him watch as they slaughtered our people. All of them."
"I know. I found them...all together in a room. I'm so sorry, Zev..."
"It doesn't look as though you were spared any suffering yourself Captain," she said looking him over. "It seems they tortured us all, didn't they?" She struggled to her feet with his help. He could see that one of her sensitive antennae had been severed or damaged so much by her captors that it had fallen off.
He tried to keep his anger at their situation under control. "We were all so disoriented for days," she continued, still dazed. "They tortured us and because our minds were so jumbled from the Singularity Net that we couldn't fight back," she said. "We saw things…some people went mad. I thought I saw my wife and children. Vigo saw his dead son. Did you have these visions as well, Captain?"
Visions. He backed away from her slowly. Beverly's arrival had reminded him that there was a world outside to return to. She had given him hope. He didn't quite understand how she had arrived on the base, or how much of what had happened between them had truly been real; but she had told him she was real, and he knew that she had never lied to him. But he also knew that he had to keep this to himself. Zev and Vigo didn't need to know all of the details, and they might think he was crazy, if he told them about Beverly. So he chose not to answer her question for now.
"It's not over yet, Zev. We're going to get out of here. And then the Malkatans will pay for what they have done."
His first officer nodded. "I believe you, sir. But Vigo-they broke down his mind, Captain."
"Nonsense," Picard said with a stubbornness inspired by his fear that Zev might be right. "I'm sure he's fine. He's always been one of my best officers. He'll make it out with us." Vigo had to be alright if they were to escape.
"Sir, I am warning you," continued Zev. "He hates you now. The Malkatans told Vigo you were the reason they killed the rest of the crew. General Unh told Vigo that you refused to give them the weapons' security codes, even when Unh threatened to kill us all."
"No...no, that's not true."
"I told him that sir, but..."
Picard turned to look over at Vigo. The man's olive green skin was now gaunt and pale. He wondered if he had appeared just as sickly to Beverly when she had first seen him. He put the thoughts out of his mind and walked toward Vigo.
Holding his breath, he leaned in and held the hypo to Vigo's throat. His eyelids fluttered open, and after seeming to recognize the Captain the man let out a shriek, and thrust his palm up into Picard's chin, slamming his jaw shut violently and sending him reeling backwards. Vigo scrambled up into a chair and looked at Picard with a mix of fear and rage.
Picard shook his head and staggered back to Vigo. "Vigo—it's me!" He grabbed the man's shoulders almost desperate to get through to him, but Vigo reached up and scratched his face with his fingernails.
"Aaa!" Picard fell backwards onto the floor clutching his bleeding face.
Commander Zev rushed to Vigo. "Vigo, no! It's Captain Picard. He's alive and he didn't betray us. He's come back to us, and we are going to escape together."
Vigo's breathing slowly calmed down and he looked from Zev to Picard and back again.
"Vigo," Zev said more softly. "We have a chance to leave now. The Malkatans are disabled, but only for a few hours more. Where is the Ferengi shuttle you said you saw when they took you to another part of the base?"
"It—it was in a hangar bay. I think I can find it again," he stammered still looking at Picard suspiciously. Picard wiped his bloody face with his sleeve, but said nothing.
"Good," said Zev. "Captain, once we get to the Stargazer, how do you know we'll be able to free ourselves? The Singularity net is very powerful."
"I have—I found this," he said, holding up the neutralizer Beverly had given him. "It will neutralize the hold the graviton field has on the ship, and we can get out of here."
Vigo's eyes narrowed. "How did you find that? What did you do to all of these Malkatans? Where did he get a med kit? I don't trust him," he shouted at Zev.
Picard suddenly slammed his hand down on a nearby table. "Enough of this! Do you want to interrogate me, or do you want to survive? If you want to live, Vigo then you had better start trusting me," he shouted. "Now come on," he urged both of them, gathering up the tools Beverly had given him. "Let's go."
2367 The USS Aldrin several days after the attack on Earth
In the space of the several days since he had spoken with Deanna Troi, things had changed drastically for Riker and the rest of Starfleet's ship captains. Repairs to the Aldrin were almost complete following a surprise attack on the ship while at New Brazil. Now, the Aldrin was one of ten starships to be recalled to Earth to serve in a defensive capacity against the Malkatan invasion, while the remaining ships continued patrolling the rest of the Federation.
Starfleet had been caught unaware, or at least had not been adequately prepared; and consequently it had suffered massive casualties both on Earth and throughout Federation territory. Starfleet Command was non-existent, and the chain of command scrambled to reorganize itself. Communication between Earth and the starships was erratic at best. There were still admirals off Earth posted in star bases, and a few on diplomatic starships, but widespread communications problems left the Fleet largely in disarray.
The Malkatans, as the crew of the Aldrin had learned first-hand, seemed to have technology which allowed them to be in more than one place at once. Following their initial attacks on Federation colonies, the Malkatans had been luring ships to various locations and ambushing them by using a devastating graviton weapon. The Aldrin had been no exception, as they had been attacked without provocation while investigating the massacre on the New Brazil colony.
When he had last spoken to Deanna, Beverly hadn't yet traveled into the past, the Earth hadn't yet been invaded, and he hadn't yet been under orders to return to Earth. So Riker had to re-think his plans to rendezvous with the runabout to obtain the neutralizer technology from Data and Geordi. Was it still the right thing to do? Eventually, he resolved that yes, it was; which meant that he had to disobey the order to return to Earth.
And so he had called a meeting right there on the bridge. A few minutes into it, he began to regret that he hadn't worked on a few of them individually first. They stared at him with collectively shocked and confused expressions.
Commander Obi was the first to speak. "Captain you have to admit that what you're saying sounds…."
"Crazy?" Riker who had been pacing the middle of the Aldrin's bridge, stopped and glanced back at his First Officer, who stood very still in the command center.
"Sir," said Patrick Obi, putting out his hands anxiously. "I wouldn't go that far…but, well Captain Jean-Luc Picard is a legend to all of us. But he's been dead for years. For you to say that you knew him, and served under him, well, sir it's hard to believe."
Riker looked at the man squarely. "But it's the truth," said Riker. "He hasn't been dead for years. And I do know him. In the real timeline—the one we're all supposed to be living in-I knew him better than I know my own father, until he disappeared just a few weeks ago. And now we know that there is no coincidence that his disappearance happened just days before the first Malkatan attacks."
Doctor Mayer leaned on one of the science stations. Her facial expression and tone were questioning. "Let's say we believe you—that the default time period is one in which Captain Picard exists in the present day. I still do not see the link between Captain Picard's disappearance and the Malkatans," said Doctor Mayer.
"That is what I have been trying to explain…" said Riker. "Now I don't have all of the details, but the Malkatans are here now primarily because the Ferengi introduced our technology to the Malkatans along with a powerful alien graviton trap in 2355. If the Ferengi hadn't messed with time, we wouldn't be in this situation now."
"The same year Captain Picard disappeared," said Lieutenant Commander Meeta.
Riker nodded. "Yes, but he didn't disappear. Daimon Bok wanted revenge for the death of his son, which in the correct timeline was the result of his son attacking the Stargazer in 2355, and the Stargazer prevailing in battle. Bok blamed Captain Picard, and a few years ago he tried to ruin the Captain over it. This is just another more elaborate attempt to not only humiliate the Captain, but to erase him both from the present, and from recent recorded history."
"As you know Admiral Richardson has ordered us to return to Earth to provide defense against the Malkatan attacks," said Riker. "But we're not going. At least not yet."
The Bridge was silent. "We need something that Commander Data has—something the Ferengi gave him which could turn the tide in this war."
"What is it?" asked Lieutenant Kashirin. "A weapon?"
Riker shook his head. "It has the potential technology to dampen the effect of the graviton weapons the Malkatans are using against us."
"Like the one that pulled us almost clear through that planet," said Obi. "If we have access to this technology, I agree, it could make the difference."
"But we would be disobeying orders," said Kashirin.
"It's my order to disobey," said Riker. "I'm happy to take the blame. But I need your cooperation, and your trust."
Just then Doctor Mayer strolled over to stand next to him, gaining the crew's attention. "I have another theory," she declared.
"Giving Captain Riker the benefit of the doubt that he has not lost his mind—and he believes what he is saying—you all have to admit that he is the only one of us who has experienced what he keeps calling the 'correct' timeline. But what if in the correct timeline, Captain Picard is dead, and is supposed to be dead? Who are you to say whether this is the correct time? When this is all the rest of us have ever known?" she said staring Riker down.
"I am asking my crew to trust me," he said tightly. "If you don't, I can live with that," he said.
"But what about you?" she asked the crew, spanning the bridge with her cool gaze. "Do you want to take the chance that if you help your captain, you might disappear? What if I never existed in what Riker refers to as the correct timeline?"
Riker turned his back to Dr. Mayer. "I will admit that Doctor Mayer makes a persuasive argument. But I'm only asking you to help me to fight the Malkatans in this time period —whatever the hell time we happen to be living in right now —I know we all want to protect it. Now who is with me?" Riker looked around at his crew. No one moved for what seemed like an eternity to Riker. Doctor Mayer smiled beside him.
Commander Obi stepped forward finally. "I am sir."
"I am as well," Meeta said, raising her hand.
"Count me in too, sir," said Kashirin from tactical.
Doctor Mayer stepped away from Riker with controlled anger, and then swiftly exited the bridge.
The Planet Ferenginar
"Kad, you useless spawn of a gree-worm, how dare you show your ugly face to me? Why are you calling me?" Bok's contorted, angry face sneered from the view screen.
"Brom has betrayed you, Daimon," said Kad smoothly.
"So have you," Bok shouted at his former subordinate. "And I am guessing that he paid you just as handsomely as I did, when I contracted with you to ensure that Jean-Luc Picard died in the hands of the Malkatans. But you failed at that, just as you fail at everything."
"Blame me all you want, Bok, but you were sloppy. You believed that because Picard disappeared from our time that he would die on Malkata at some point in the past. And you may have been right. But something has else happened. There has been a new intervention—facilitated by your son, Brom. Picard has escaped!"
Bok stood up and threw a series of objects at the wall, wishing that Kad was there in person to take the hits directly. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Because I am willing to give you the information you need to travel back in time to kill him yourself. It is the only way to make certain that your vengeance has succeeded."
"Name your price," Bok demanded.
"All you have to do is disown Brom and transfer all of his property to me," said Kad.
"How can I be certain that you are not tricking me?"
Kad smiled. "Picard's woman knows all about it. Why don't you question her? She and her crew are at Maxia. And then I strongly recommend that you kill her as well."
