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  Looking to Elfiki, La Forge said, “Lieutenant, you’ve got a visitor.”

  The science officer, who had been sitting quietly with her eyes closed looked around before seeing who La Forge meant, and a smile graced her features. Then, just as quickly as it had come, that smile faded as her expression turned to one of puzzlement.

  “Wait. Sir, how did you know he was here to see me?”

  La Forge stifled a laugh. “What, you think only the junior officers hear the scuttlebutt?” He was rewarded by a reddening of Elfiki’s cheeks.

  After she waved him over, Weinrib nodded a greeting to La Forge. “Commander,” he said, before directing his attention to Elfiki. “I wanted to see how you were doing.”

  Holding up her left arm, she replied, “Pretty much good as new. Doesn’t even hurt.” She glanced at Harstad. “The doctor’s just getting set to release me.”

  “You can go,” said Harstad, making a shooing motion. “If you have any lingering pain tomorrow, come see me.”

  “How come she gets to go, and you’re holding me prisoner here?” asked La Forge, earning him a look of mock scorn from Harstad.

  “Because she does what she’s told and doesn’t cause a fuss about being let out of here until her doctor authorizes it.”

  Elfiki grinned. “Sorry, Commander.”

  “Figures.” La Forge watched as she pushed herself from the bed and made a show of flexing the fingers of her left hand.

  “Feels fine, Doctor. Thanks.”

  Harstad replied, “Try not to break it again, at least not for a couple of days.”

  “I’ll do my best.” Elfiki offered an informal salute to La Forge. “If you don’t get released by dinner time, sir, I’ll arrange for a prison break.”

  Once she and Weinrib had left, La Forge returned his head to his pillow. “I remember being that young once.”

  “I wish I’d met you back then,” said Harstad.

  “You still can.” He gestured in the general direction of where he believed the Enterprise-D—or, an ­Enterprise-D, at any rate—still drifted in orbit on the opposite side of the planet. “I wonder if he’s hip deep in repairs over there, or if their doctors are keeping him cooped up in sickbay.”

  Harstad chuckled. “I said I’d get you out of here.” She pulled her left hand from the pocket of her lab coat, and La Forge saw that she had been carrying a tricorder there. Flipping open the compact device, she pulled a small scanner from a recessed port and activated it as she held it over his right foot.

  “Sorry for being a pain,” he said after a moment. He looked once more around the room. “It’s just that with everything that’s going on right now, I’m feeling pretty useless.”

  “Fair enough,” replied Harstad. “I know I’d be feeling the same way.”

  “But would you be badgering your doctor to let you out of here so you could go back to work?”

  “Probably. You know how doctors can be such tyrants.”

  Like nearly everyone else aboard the ship, he had learned about the appearance of an Enterprise-D that was all but identical to the ship on which he had once served. According to what Doctor Crusher had conveyed while conducting her last pass through sickbay, the other ship had apparently come from a previous time period as well as a different dimension. It was a lot to process, and of course everyone had questions about this alternate version of a starship with which many members of this crew were familiar. For one thing, there was natural speculation as to the whereabouts of that reality’s Jean-Luc Picard. For La Forge, encountering a younger version of himself would be odd, and seeing Yar would without doubt feel awkward, as would seeing Data the way he often remembered his android friend. However, the keen absence of the man who for more than two decades had personified the legacy of starships named Enterprise was a question that demanded a response.

  But will we like the answer?

  U.S.S. Enterprise-D

  “Will?”

  Startled, Riker turned from the port toward the voice, and saw Deanna standing just inside his ready room door. How long had she been there? How many times had she called his name before he even realized she had entered the room?

  “Sorry,” he said, indicating for her to have a seat before his desk. “I was just . . . lost in thought, I guess.”

  “There seems to be a lot of that going around.” She eased into one of the low-rise chairs situated in front of his narrow desk, her gaze never leaving his face as she moved. “It’s natural to feel uncomfortable in a situation like this.”

  Riker dropped into his own chair. “Is there a lot of precedent for this sort of thing? Meeting people you’re supposed to know and yet seem as distant and unfamiliar to you as a total stranger? Not through any fault of their own, obviously, but because they’re from another dimension.”

  “Captain Picard isn’t a stranger.” She leaned back in her chair, resting her hands in her lap. “He knows who you are. He recognized us as much as you recognized him.”

  Sighing, Riker reached up to rub his forehead. “It was just so surreal, seeing him standing there, just as he’s supposed to. Hell, that should be him standing on the bridge of this ship, and while we’re talking about where people should be, where am I in that dimension? Where are you? Who else is missing? Are they dead? Are we dead?” He paused, shaking his head. “I’m no expert on parallel dimensions, beyond that one module they covered in the temporal theory class at the Academy. I remember the professor talking about a first meeting between two versions of the same person, each from different dimensions.”

  “I attended those same lectures,” said Deanna. “He said that it wasn’t like time travel, with the inherent risk of accidentally altering the course of history by interacting with yourself from a point in your own past. This sort of thinking didn’t apply when it came to parallel dimensions, because it’s reasonable to assume that events will play out in much different fashion than the reality with which we’re familiar.”

  “But isn’t there at least some of that risk here?” asked Riker. “Now?” He waved a hand toward the port. “In addition to a different dimension, we’re from another time. What if we go over to the other Enterprise—the more advanced Enterprise—and have a look around? How does going back to our dimension with the information we learn from the other Enterprise not impact on our timeline?”

  Troi shifted in her seat. “Who’s to say that our history doesn’t depend on the acquisition of knowledge that can only come from a vessel of another dimension and time period?”

  “Now you’re starting to sound like that temporal theory professor.” Riker frowned. “What was his name?”

  “Bennett.”

  “Right. That’s him.” He remembered an intelligent and thoughtful man who never seemed to tire of discussing or otherwise exploring even the finest detail with respect to a theory or question posed by a student. While attending such classes as a Starfleet Academy cadet, he recalled more than one occasion when the class schedule was scuttled because Professor Bennett became so enamored with a particular discussion point dealing with theories about time travel or the ramifications of such reckless cavorting. Often he would extrapolate or expand on the initial thought in ways the cadet offering the original question had never imagined. Rather than being bored by such diversions, Riker usually found himself caught up in the whole process and the professor’s unbridled enthusiasm for the subject.

  He would enjoy seeing what we’ve gotten ourselves into.

  “I know you’re worried about somehow corrupting our timeline,” said Deanna, “but there’s something more. I’m sensing your self-doubt.”

  Pushing back from the desk, Riker sank into his chair. “Since the moment Admiral Hanson put me in command of this ship, I’ve been driven by a single thought: being worthy of the man I replaced.” He nodded in the direction of the ship’s bow. “And now, he’s here. A versio
n of him, at any rate, and as silly as this sounds, I feel like for the first time since I took command, I’m finally being judged by the only person qualified to do that.”

  “And you don’t think you measure up.”

  Riker was aware that Troi offered that thought as a statement, rather than a question. He forced a smile. “Measure up to Jean-Luc Picard? Is that even possible?”

  “Perhaps.” Troi shrugged. “Perhaps not, but Captain Picard didn’t bring you on as his first officer to turn you into a clone of him, Will. He knew from the beginning what kind of captain you could be, so long as you were given the opportunity to develop your own approach. The two of you did—and do—have very different command styles, but he never saw that as an obstacle.” She smiled. “He knew from the moment he first met you that you were a natural leader, not afraid to make the hard choices and with the integrity to stand by those decisions. His job was to prepare you for the day you took your own command, with the skills, experience, and wisdom that all go into making a good starship captain. The rest was up to you.”

  Now his grin was genuine. “Are you counseling me, Counselor?”

  “Yes.” Her voice and body language had taken on that relaxed yet professional air Riker knew she exhibited when talking with her patients. “I can understand a healthy measure of self-reflection, particularly in a situation as unusual as the one we’re dealing with, but you can’t let it control you. If you continue to follow such feelings, sooner or later it will have an impact. It will affect your decisions and even your confidence in your own ability to make those choices.”

  “I know, and I promise that’s not what this is. I’m just . . .” Riker shook his head. “Seeing him brought back a lot of memories, is all. I actually feel jealous of this dimension, because it still has its Captain Picard.” He rapped the desktop with his knuckles. “I’ll be fine. Really.”

  Troi studied him for an extra moment, and he was sure she was trying to read his feelings, before she replied, “I know you will. We all will, particularly once this is over.”

  “Bridge to Captain Riker,” said Data over the intraship.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Sir, we have detected a transmission from the Romulan warship. It is apparently attempting to send a signal to any Romulan ships or bases that might be able to provide assistance.”

  Instead of replying, Riker chose to return to the bridge. As he exited his ready room, Data rose from the command chair and walked toward him.

  “Are they serious?” asked Riker.

  His first officer replied, “The signal is on a low-power frequency, perhaps as an attempt to circumvent our ability to scan for such communications. So far as our long-range sensors can determine, there are no other Romulan vessels or installations in the immediate vicinity.”

  “No, but that doesn’t mean somebody won’t get lucky and pick up the signal. We’re not that far from Romulan territory, remember.” He recalled Data’s preliminary report about the Odyssean Pass, which in their time and reality had not yet been explored. It was close enough to the Romulan border that the possibility of a visit by a curious warbird or two could not be ruled out.

  “Can we jam their transmissions?” asked Deanna.

  Data nodded. “Yes, Counselor, though we will not be able to do so without the Romulans knowing we are responsible.”

  “Do it,” ordered Riker. “We’ll take our chances.” Even in its compromised state, he believed the Enterprise could still hold its own against an enemy vessel as outdated as the nearby Romulan ship. “And let’s notify . . . Captain Picard. He’s obviously more familiar with the current state of Romulan affairs in this dimension.”

  That might just qualify as the most bizarre statement I’ve said today. Then again, the day’s not over yet.

  Standing behind the captain’s chair at her tactical station, Lieutenant Yar asked, “What happens if they’re able to make contact with Romulans in this dimension?”

  Riker considered that notion, particularly within the context of the peculiar situation in which he and his crew, along with Captain Picard and the Enterprise-E and even the Romulans, found themselves.

  “Then the party around this planet is going to get a whole lot more interesting.”

  19

  ChR Bloodied Talon

  Her engine room was enveloped in chaos.

  Around the high-ceilinged chamber that was the heart of her vessel, Sarith saw numerous sections of metal plating pulled from the deck and the bulkheads. Access panels had been set aside and hands, feet, and heads protruded from exposed crawlways and other cavities. Tools, diagnostic equipment, and even ration packets were strewn about the space, everything testifying to the work taking place here.

  Though her first instinct was to ask who had destroyed this most crucial area of her ship, Sarith held her tongue. As a Romulan military officer, disorder and untidiness were anathema to her. During her tenure as a cadet at the training academy, even a single article of clothing or other personal item out of place was a disciplinary infraction that brought harsh penalties. Such unruly behavior was quashed from every cadet early enough in the training cycle that by the time candidates graduated and earned their commission, the very idea of conducting oneself in such a slovenly fashion was unfathomable.

  Such things were of little concern to Sarith now. This was neither the time nor the place to complain about the disheveled condition of the room or its occupants. A return to proper decorum and order would come soon enough, after the repair tasks were completed, every access panel or deck plate was returned to its proper place, and every tool was cleaned and stored.

  “I know how this must look, Commander,” said an older, raspy voice, and Sarith turned to see her engineer, Jacius, climbing down a short ladder. Looking up, she saw that he and two subordinates had been working on the catwalk that encircled the room. Intense flickering light from yet another open access panel told her that one of Jacius’s junior engineers was hard at work welding or cutting something.

  As unkempt as the room around him, Jacius stepped from the ladder to stand before Sarith. His face and hair were coated with grime and perspiration, and his utilitarian coverall uniform had a torn pocket and a ripped sleeve. Sarith even noted that the ragged material along his left forearm was stained dark green.

  “You are injured,” she said.

  Looking down at his arm, Jacius replied, “It is not serious, Commander. Certainly not enough to keep me from my duties.”

  She should have anticipated such a response. While Jacius might be an embarrassment as a military officer, his technical skill and experience made him an engineer without equal. When she had taken command of the Talon, one of her first acts was to replace the officers in key positions with people she trusted or knew from prior assignments. The lone exception to that action was Jacius, who had been aboard the ship as its engineer through its last two commanders as part of a career dating back decades. It was Ineti who had recommended his retention, assuring Sarith that his talents were irreplaceable, and so far the older Romulan had served the ship well.

  Until this mission, the demands placed upon Jacius and his staff had been routine, even mundane, and Sarith wondered if the current challenges might be proving too much for the wizened engineer.

  “What is the status of our repairs?”

  Jacius waved to indicate the room around them. “Proceeding as expected, Commander. Though the damage was widespread, it was not critical. Most of the problems stem from overloaded circuits or burned-out relays. If they cannot be replaced, we can reroute power distribution to compensate. There is only minor structural and hull damage, and my crews report those tasks are also nearing completion. I predict all repairs will be finished by the end of the current duty shift, but critical systems are available to you now.”

  “Most impressive,” replied Sarith, “particularly given the short amount of time
. So, weapons and defenses?” She flinched at the sound of a metal plate falling onto the deck behind her, and saw Jacius direct a scathing glare to the subordinate who had dropped it.

  “Weapons, defenses,” he said. Then, as though studying her expression, he added, “You are planning something, Commander?”

  “For the moment, I am considering my options.”

  Given the proximity of the two Starfleet vessels near the planet, the ability to fight had been the first priority. According to sensor scans, the Talon and her two escorts had fared far better during the dimensional shift than either of her adversaries. This was fortunate, as according to those same scans, both Starfleet ships were larger and much more advanced than anything Sarith had ever seen, matching nothing on file in the Talon’s memory banks. How was that even possible? Had the abilities of Romulan spies deteriorated to such a degree that entire fleets of advanced starships could be constructed and deployed without the Empire having the first clue?

  That seemed unlikely, Sarith decided. Another explanation was that her ships had somehow been pulled along with the planet during its last dimensional shift. There also existed the possibility that the Starfleet ships had been brought here. At the moment, she had no way to ascertain who was out of place. Were her adversaries cut off from potential reinforcements, or was she? In an attempt to determine the answers to such questions—after she and Ineti had made their best guess about the Talon’s current position—Sarith had ordered an encrypted message transmitted to the nearest Romulan outpost. According to her computer’s star charts and if the sensor readings were accurate, help might be several days away. Until then, she and her crew were on their own.