First contact, p.17
First Contact, page 17
Like sheep, Lily thought, her fury growing. Because Jean-Luc is obsessed with the Borg, they’re all just going to be obedient little soldiers and die. And he’s going to let them.… “We’ll see about that,” she said aloud, and headed off toward the observation lounge, ignoring Crusher’s plea behind her.
“Lily—”
* * *
On the catwalk that led directly to the Phoenix’s cockpit, Will Riker paused a moment to savor a sight: Zefram Cochrane, flat on his back in the pilot’s chair, slightly frowning, attention totally focused on an instrument check. For once, the man’s expression was neither drunken nor hostile nor mocking; for once, Riker decided, he looked like the hero he was… or rather, soon would be.
It had been a very different man they’d revived in the silo’s control room—hysterical, raving, far from lucid. Not nuts, Troi had said then, but clearly suffering from a chemical disorder of the brain that—as Riker had correctly recalled—had resurfaced after the war because of the primitive methods of treatment during that era. Without access to the ship’s medical computers and sickbay, precise diagnosis and treatment were impossible.
However, Troi had volunteered, it might be possible to treat some of the worst symptoms—Cochrane’s drunkeness, for example, and the delusions and anxiety—by using one of the nonsedating calming drugs provided in the standard first-aid kit.
Thus it was done, and within a matter of minutes, Cochrane the drunken and crazed had transformed into Cochrane the sober and rational, albeit slightly embarrassed and irritable.
Of course, the drug had done little to change his bizarre behavior, a fact Riker found oddly endearing. He smiled as Cochrane peered out the cockpit’s open door at the stern-faced security guard, then graced him with a toothy and blatantly false chimpanzee grin.
Riker forced a solemn expression, then moved forward and climbed into the cockpit, grabbing the edge of the pilot’s seat and crouching beside it. “We’ve only got an hour to go, Doc—how’re you feeling?”
Cochrane scowled down at an old-fashioned dial display, then made a notation on an equally twenty-first-century clipboard. “I have a four-alarm hangover—either from the whiskey or your laser beam, or both.” He looked over his shoulder at Riker, eyebrows raised, eyes wide, lips parted in a maniacally cheerful expression. “But I’m ready to make history!”
Riker tried and failed to repress an honest grin. He had opened his mouth to ask the question Tell me, Doctor—in your century, do they have the expression wacky? when a voice filtered over his comm.
“Troi to Commander Riker.” Like everyone else in the silo, Riker included, she was clearly struggling to control her excitement and remain coolly professional, but the thrill of making history surfaced, ever so slightly, in her tone.
“Riker here.”
“We’re ready to open the launch door.”
Riker shot a glance at Cochrane, who shrugged with a very impressive attempt at nonchalance. “Go ahead,” Will replied.
The massive concrete silo door slid open with a rumble that jarred Riker’s teeth; he slid into one of the astronaut’s couches behind Cochrane’s and settled in. Sunlight streamed into the cockpit from the crystal blue Montana sky, in which still hung the pale ghost of a crescent moon.
“Look at that,” Riker marveled to himself, at its virgin surface.
“What?” Again, Cochrane glanced back at him. “You don’t have a moon in the twenty-fourth century?”
“Sure we do,” Riker mused, smiling. “It just looks a lot different.” And, at the scientist’s quizzical look, explained, “Fifty million people live on the moon in my time. You can see Tycho City, New Berlin, even Lake Armstrong on a day like this.”
Cochrane stared up at the moon with a look of wonder. “Hmmm…”
“And you know, Doctor—”
The scientist’s radiant expression dimmed at once. “Please. Don’t tell me it’s all thanks to me. I’ve heard enough about the great Zefram Cochrane.” He pretended to busy himself with the navigational computer and his clipboard, the better to avoid Riker’s steady gaze. “I don’t know who wrote your history books, or where you got your information, but you people have some pretty funny ideas about me.” He flailed a moment for the right words. “You all look at me like I’m some kind of… saint or visionary or something.” Agitated, he began to check controls in a random fashion, permitting Riker to see the distress that had triggered the mania.
“I don’t think you’re a saint, Doc,” Will soothed. “But you did have a vision. And now we’re sitting in it.”
Angrily, Cochrane turned from the computer and jerked around to face his copilot. “You know what my vision is? Dollar signs. Money. There’s still an economy out there, you know. There may not be any gold left in Fort Knox, but there’s tons of cash overseas. Do you know how much the Indonesian Space Agency would pay for a faster-than-light rocket?”
Riker gave an honest shake of his head. “I can’t imagine.”
“You’re damn right you can’t. But I can. I didn’t build this ship to usher in a new era for humanity. You think I want to go to the stars? I don’t even like to fly! I take trains! I built this ship so I could retire to some tropical island filled with naked women. That’s Zefram Cochrane. That’s his vision.” He whirled about and began jabbing entries into the primitive computer. “This other guy you keep talking about—this historical figure—I haven’t seen him since the war.”
A long silence passed, one in which Cochrane, his expression troubled and vaguely angry, stared down unhappily at the monitor readout.
Riker bided his time, then at last replied, “Someone once said, ‘Don’t try to be a great man. Just be a man. Let history make its own judgments.’ ”
The scientist’s lip twisted. “Rhetorical nonsense…”
“You said it,” Will countered quietly. “About ten years from now.”
Cochrane looked back at him in surprise, parted his lips to speak… then closed them again.
Riker smiled and tapped the other man’s clipboard. “Fifty-eight minutes, Doc. Better get back to that checklist.”
* * *
At the conference table in the observation lounge, backlit by Earth and the shining stars, Picard began to disassemble a phaser rifle. The task he had set himself was a difficult one, even for a trained engineer, and unfortunately tedious; and while he worked, his people would be fighting the Borg—and dying.
Yet cold fury held him fast, a fury that shrieked there was no choice. He could not surrender again, could not destroy his own ship.…
In the midst of the mental maelstrom, a small and rational voice asked: Are they influencing you?
No. He shook his head at the silent question. He had not heard the collective’s whisper in some time; if anything, they had pushed him away. No, this insistence on remaining to fight was his own, born of a rage he had believed gone for years. But it had merely burrowed deeper and there grown to monstrous size until its eruption with this final encounter.
The door swished suddenly. He glanced up to see Lily storm into the room, posture rigid, arms tensed and held slightly away from the body, fists clenched. And eyes so wide and blazing that the whites now completely encircled the large brown irises.
“You son of a bitch!” She stopped on the other side of the table, pressing hard against its edge; had it not been there, she would certainly have been right in his face.
He could easily have screamed back at her, but through a mighty effort, managed to answer calmly, “Lily, this isn’t really the time—”
Her words were swift, heated. “Look, I don’t know jack about the twenty-fourth century, but I do know that everyone out there thinks that staying here and fighting the Borg is suicide. They’re just too afraid to come in here and say it.”
He felt his own expression harden, and said icily, “The crew is accustomed to following my orders.”
She slapped her palms against the table’s polished surface and leaned forward, thin body straining, expression and tone sarcastic. “They’re probably accustomed to your orders making sense.”
“None of them understand the Borg as I do,” he snapped.
And immediately regretted it; she frowned faintly and drew back a bit in surprise. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
All the bitterness, all the rage welled up in him at that moment, and no doubt revealed itself upon his face; Lily recoiled from it, her eyes wide now with somber awe at the depth of his pain.
“Six years ago,” he said hoarsely, “I was assimilated into the collective—had their cybernetic devices implanted throughout my body. I was linked into the hive mind, every trace of individuality erased. I was one of them.”
He let the words hang between them a time, and watched with satisfaction as all traces of anger melted away from her dark, beautiful face, her body. Let her be filled with sympathy and regret; let her realize her mistake now and ask forgiveness. He alone knew how to deal with the enemy.
“So as you can imagine,” he said, driving the point home, “I have a somewhat… unique perspective on the Borg, and I know how to fight them.” He paused a moment, giving her time to make that apology; when none was immediately forthcoming, he added, “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”
And he reached for the phaser rifle, popped open another panel, and began tinkering with the circuits. He did not look at her, but he sensed her steady gaze upon him nonetheless.
“I am such an idiot,” Lily said at last.
He glanced up to see her smiling ruefully; here was the apology, he decided, and readied a cool reply. To his surprise, she sat down across from him with a slight shake of her head, and her smile broadened until he thought she would laugh.
“It’s so simple,” she said, again shaking her head, and when he looked askance at her, explained: “Revenge. This is about revenge. The Borg hurt you and now you’re going to hurt them back.”
His cheeks stung as if slapped, but he covered his hurt with a cold, superior smile. “In my century, we don’t succumb to… revenge. We have a more evolved sensibility.”
“Bullshit.” She leaned closer to him. “I saw the look on your face when you shot those Borg on the holodeck. You were almost enjoying it.”
Bristling, Picard set down the rifle but did not ease his grip on it. “How dare you—”
“Come on, Captain, admit it. You’re not the first person to get a thrill out of murdering someone. I see it all the time.”
“Get out,” he said, voice tight. He hadn’t been thrilled at all—he had merely felt justified.
Her gaze bore right through him. “Or what? You’ll kill me? Like you killed Ensign Lynch?”
Her words at last touched his fury and ignited it; his voice rose. “There was no way to save him—”
“You didn’t even try. Where was that ‘evolved sensibility’ then?”
He could not answer her; in his mind, he saw the instant he had fired the gun at the two Borg. He hadn’t even noticed it was Lynch until after he’d begun firing—had he? And it wasn’t pleasure, wasn’t a thrill. There was nothing pleasurable in it; it was more the satisfaction a doctor might have in curing a deadly disease.…
Satisfaction? No, no, that couldn’t be right.…
Lily leaned in harder, closer. “You’re as possessed now as you were when the Borg possessed you.”
“I don’t have time for this,” Picard said stonily, his grip on the rifle tightening.
“Oh, hey, sorry.” Her voice rose sarcastically. “Didn’t mean to interrupt your little quest. Captain Ahab has to go hunt his whale.”
He jerked his head as if she’d slapped him. “What?”
“Don’t you have books in the twenty-fourth century?”
“This is not about revenge!” he shouted.
“Liar!”
“This is about saving the future of humanity!”
“Then blow up this ship!” she cried.
“No!” The full depth of his rage emerged at last from its burrow, struck him, poisoned him. He lifted the rifle in his hand and hurled it across the room; it smashed against the glass case of Enterprise mementos, scattering ships and medals everywhere, but he did not care. He was justified. “I will not give up the Enterprise,” he shrieked. “We’ve made too many compromises already, too many retreats! They invade our space and we fall back—they assimilate entire worlds and we fall back! Not again!” His voice grew shrill, began to break. “The line must be drawn here—this far and no further! I will make them pay for what they’ve done!”
The last he said with such force, such volume, such purely maniacal hate that he let go a gasping breath and drew back, startled into silence.
“You broke your ships,” Lily said softly.
Picard glanced up. Her anger, too, had suddenly vanished, replaced now by somber, genuine compassion. She had been right, had come here to show him the insanity of his own consuming hatred—something that she, who had lost so much in the war and had so much reason to hate, must have known well.
He followed her gaze down to the deck, where Enterprise replicas and souvenirs lay scattered; then he turned and moved to the window, to stare out at the Earth and stars.
Had Lily been standing in his path when he hurled the rifle, it might have struck her instead. Might have hurt her, all because of his craving for revenge.
Just as he was now destroying his crew.
“See you around, Ahab,” she said gently behind him; he heard her footsteps headed for the door.
Lily had known. Had known from the very beginning, when she first called him by that name in the minutes after their first encounter. Had it shown, even then, in his eyes?
Before she could reach the door, he recited, still staring out at the starlit darkness: “ ‘He piled upon the whale’s white hump the sum of all the rage and hate felt by his whole race.… If his chest had been a cannon, he would’ve shot his heart upon it.’ ”
With an ironic smile, he turned to see her gazing at him in puzzlement. “What?”
“Moby Dick,” he replied.
She gave him a small, embarrassed grin. “Actually, I never read it.”
“Ahab spent years hunting the white whale that crippled him,” Picard explained. “A quest for vengeance. And in the end, the whale destroyed him—and his ship.”
“I guess that Ahab didn’t know when to quit.”
For a long moment, he looked into her eyes… and found there trust.
Then he drew a breath of pure resolve and walked out onto the bridge. Immediately, Crusher and the others turned to him, their faces anxious, somber, concerned.
“Prepare to evacuate the Enterprise,” he said.
FOURTEEN
Picard sat in the captain’s chair, on a bridge that had never before seemed so quiet, so still, despite the presence of others.
The order had been given. He spoke, knowing that at that very instant, most of the surviving crew members were now hurrying to escape pods “Computer. This is Captain Jean-Luc Picard. Begin autodestruct sequence. Authorization Picard one-one-zero-alpha.”
Nearby, a junior officer worked swiftly at a control panel, typing in a response to the request ENTER DESTINATION COORDINATES. Immediately, a map of Earth appeared on the screen, which zoomed in on a mere pin dot of land in the South Pacific.
COORDINATES ACCEPTED, LANDING TARGET: GRAVETT ISLAND. AREA: TEN SQUARE KILOMETERS. POPULATION: ZERO.
Crusher, her face drawn and tense as she sat at the captain’s right, continued the litany. “Computer, this is Commander Beverly Crusher. Confirm autodestruct sequence. Authorization: Crusher two-two-beta.”
To the left, Worf, his voice as subdued as Picard had ever heard it: “This is Lieutenant Commander Worf. Confirm autodestruct sequence. Authorization: Worf three-three-gamma.”
Instantly, the computer responded. “Command authorizations accepted. Awaiting final code to begin countdown.”
“This is Captain Picard: destruct sequence one-A. Fifteen minutes. Silent countdown.” He drew a breath, then felt his throat constrict painfully as he gave the final word: “Enable.”
“Self-destruct in fourteen minutes, fifty-five seconds,” the computer intoned matter-of-factly. “There will be no further audio warnings.”
The three of them—Picard, Worf, Crusher—exchanged a solemn look. Picard rose and took a long, final look at his bridge.
“So much for the Enterprise-E,” Crusher said, wistful.
Picard put a hand on his chair and gave a distracted nod, gazing out at the viewscreen image of the blue, slowly rotating Earth. “I barely knew her.”
“Think they’ll build an F?” she asked; he turned. The question was based on an unshakable optimism—that the Borg would indeed be defeated by this action, that they would never find a way to send reinforcements; that the future would indeed come to pass and would continue on without them. That thought—as perhaps she had known it would—eased his grief at this fresh loss.
Picard smiled at her with his eyes alone. “I have a feeling they’ll keep building them until they run out of letters.”
She nodded, then joined the calm group of bridge personnel, each awaiting a turn to crawl into the Jefferies tube hatch that led to the escape pods. Worf was among them, next in line and already crouching down, ready to climb through the hatch.
“Mr. Worf?” Picard called softly.
The Klingon straightened, waved the next person to take his place, then faced his captain. If he still harbored any resentment at Picard’s attack upon his personal honor, his alert, open expression gave no sign.
Picard met his gaze directly. “I regret some of the things I said to you earlier.”
“Some?” Worf cocked a brow in surprise, but one corner of his lips quirked upward, dimpling one cheek in a very un-Klingon-like display of humor.
Picard returned the smile and extended his hand; Worf immediately took it. “In case there’s any doubt,” the captain said, “you’re the bravest man I’ve ever met.” He paused to glance back at the image of Earth. “See you on Gravett Island.”
