Part 27 (1/2)
Vale nodded and flashed an abashed smile. ”I'm glad to hear you say that. I have to admit, I was worried there for a while.”
”Don't worry about it,” Troi said. ”It's all in the past.” Then she narrowed her eyes and added in a joking caricature of a threat, ”But if you ever make a pa.s.s at him again, I will have to kill you. Nothing personal.”
Answering Troi's stare with a knowing smirk, Vale felt an almost sisterly bond with her. ”Understood,” she said.
Geordi La Forge stopped at the door to Captain Picard's quarters. He looked at the padd in his hand. He'd been driven by a righteous indignation to come this far, but standing on the precipice of action, he considered turning back, surrendering in silence, and chalking it up to the cruel compromises of war.
Not this time. He pressed the visitor signal by the door.
A moment later, he heard Picard's voice call out from behind the door, ”Come.”
The portal sighed open, and La Forge stepped inside the captain's quarters. Everything was clean and well ordered, as usual. Picard stood in front of a set of shelves. He was holding his Ressikan flute; its burnished metal surfaces caught the light as it s.h.i.+fted slightly in his grasp. The captain looked up from the instrument in his hands and seemed pleasantly surprised to see La Forge. ”Geordi,” he said. ”What can I do for you?”
La Forge took a few steps farther inside, and the door hushed closed behind him. ”We need to talk,” he said.
”Of course,” Picard said, setting down the flute inside its protective felt-and-foam-lined box. He gestured toward the sofa and some chairs. ”Please, come in, sit down.”
Picard took a step toward the sofa before La Forge stopped him by saying in a firm tone, ”I'd rather stand, sir.”
Sensing the grave nature of La Forge's visit, Picard put on a wary mien. ”Is something wrong, Mister La Forge?”
”Yes, sir,” La Forge said. He held up the padd in his hand. ”These orders you sent me a few minutes ago.”
The captain hardened his countenance. ”What of them?”
”You ordered me to turn the main deflector into a thalaron radiation projector, like the one s.h.i.+nzon had on the Scimitar.”
”I know what I told you to do, Commander.”
Frustration made La Forge clench his jaw and his fist as he fought to find words for his outrage. ”How could you give me an order like that? How can you possibly expect me to obey it?”
Picard slammed the lid of the flute box shut with an earsplitting crack. ”I am not in the custom of explaining my orders, Mister La Forge! And I expect you to obey them because you're a Starfleet officer.”
La Forge shook his head. ”Sorry, Captain. Not good enough. Not for this.” He tossed the padd at Picard's feet. ”I won't insult you by pretending I have any standing to question your order. I'll just say it to your face: I refuse to obey it.”
With quiet menace, Picard replied, ”You're treading on dangerous ground here, Mister La Forge.”
”You want to talk about dangerous? Unleas.h.i.+ng a metagenic superweapon-that's dangerous.” The captain glared at La Forge, who continued, ”Consider this. We're developing s.h.i.+elds against thalaron radiation, and it's a good bet the Borg can, too. And the moment they do, this weapon becomes useless.”
”But not until then,” Picard snapped. ”And when their armada surrounds us, we'll be able to eradicate them.”
The thought of such a tactic horrified La Forge. ”You're talking about ma.s.s murder.”
Picard bellowed, ”I'm talking about survival, Geordi! You can't negotiate with the Borg. You can't bargain with them, or seek a truce, or a cease-fire. There's no other way.”
”I refuse to believe that,” La Forge said. ”After all we've done and all we've seen, if I've learned anything, it's that there are always alternatives to killing.” He felt the captain's silent resistance and knew that he would never get him to concede the point, so he moved on. ”Say you're right, and we wipe out the Borg with a thalaron weapon. What then? You know you can't put that genie back in the bottle. Once the Klingons and the Romulans find out about it, we'll be back at war.”
Walking past La Forge on his way to the replicator, Picard replied, ”That's a problem for the diplomats and the politicians.”
”I'd say the politicians are the problem. Access to a weapon like that would give them ideas. Power corrupts, and a thalaron weapon that can fry a planet is a lot of power.”
The captain seemed to ignore La Forge's remark as he stood in front of the replicator and said, ”Tea, Earl Grey, hot.” His drink appeared from a singsong flurry of particles, and he picked it up and took a sip. He carried the cup to a table and set it down. ”Your concerns and objections are noted for the log, Mister La Forge, but we don't have time to debate this. I need that weapon operational immediately.”
”Maybe I didn't make myself clear, Captain. I didn't come up here just to register a complaint so I could work with a clean conscience. When I say I won't do it, I mean it.”
Incensed, Picard shot back, ”The Federation is a democracy, Mister La Forge, but this stars.h.i.+p is not. I gave you a direct order, and I'll repeat it for the last time: Turn the main deflector into a thalaron projector before the Borg arrive.”
”No,” La Forge said. ”Repeat it as many times as you want, it won't make any difference. I will not resurrect that...that abomination. I won't be party to whatever atrocities it winds up being used for.” He stepped closer to the captain and gestured emphatically as he continued, ”When s.h.i.+nzon had one, you were ready to die to stop it. Data gave his life to destroy it. For me to rebuild it now would be an insult to his memory and a betrayal of his sacrifice. I can't do that. I won't.
”You want to put me in the brig? Fine. I'll walk down there and turn myself in. But I absolutely will not follow that order. It's immoral. It's illegal-and since no illegal order is valid, it's my duty to refuse to obey it. And yes, I know that you'll just get someone else to do it, someone who won't put up a fuss, who won't question orders, who'll just get it done.
”But it won't be me.”
La Forge didn't wait for the captain's response. He turned and walked out, and he kept walking, down the corridor and into the turbolift, which he directed to main engineering. Reflecting on his outburst toward the captain, he half expected to find armed security personnel waiting there to take him into custody.
a.s.suming we live till tomorrow, I may have just ended my career, he realized. He was surprised to find the thought didn't scare him as much as he had thought it would. If that's how it has to go, he decided, so be it.
Then his bravado faded, and he felt an overpowering desire to hide someplace dark and have a drink...or two...or six.
”Computer, halt turbolift,” he said. ”New destination: the Riding Club, on the double.”
Riker was about to walk into Erika Hernandez's guest quarters unannounced, until he remembered his earlier faux pas and stopped at the private comm panel. He pressed the visitor signal and waited until Hernandez responded from inside, ”Come in.”
The door shushed open, and he walked in to find Hernandez sitting on the floor behind her living area's coffee table, whose top was covered from edge to edge with nearly a dozen plates of food and several beverages both hot and cold.
He grinned at the sight of her one-woman feast. ”I'm glad to see someone likes the food on this s.h.i.+p.”
She returned his jovial look and said, ”It took a while, but I found a few things your replicator actually makes well. Since the Caeliar won't make any of these in Axion, I figured I'd better enjoy them while I can.” She speared a hearty chunk of light-colored meat dressed with rich brown gravy. ”Care for a bite of the milk-braised pork loin? The sauce is fantastic.”
”No, thanks,” he said, watching her devour the forkful and then swoon with gustatory ecstasy. ”I'm saving my appet.i.te for dinner with Deanna.” Lifting his chin toward her expansive repast, he added, ”Do you want to take some of that to go?”
She swallowed and said, ”I guess that means your away team is on its way back?”
Riker nodded. ”Commander Hachesa just confirmed the Mance is on its final approach.”
”Then I'd better get ready to go,” Hernandez said. She grabbed a gla.s.s with a wide, shallow body atop a narrow stem and downed half its pale chartreuse contents in a long draught. She smacked her lips and let out a satisfied gasp. ”It's not quite right with synthehol, but it's still the best margarita I've had in eight hundred years.” She set down the gla.s.s and stood up.
”Before you go, I want to thank you,” Riker said. ”I don't know what you told the Caeliar or what you promised them, but however you did it, thank you for helping free my people.”
She looked embarra.s.sed by his grat.i.tude. ”It was the least I could do,” she said. ”It's what I wished someone could have done for my crew.” Turning her gaze toward the floor, she added, ”But what's done is done, I guess.”
He empathized with her sense of loss and her guilt, and his gut impulse was to change the topic. ”Will you be coming back?”