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 shifted 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 Shinzon 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? Unleashing a metagenic superweapon-that's dangerous." The captain glared at La Forge, who continued, "Consider this. We're developing shields 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 starship 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 Shinzon 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 ship."

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?"

"I don't know," she said, stepping out from behind the coffee table to join him in the middle of the room. "There's a lot to do once I get back to Axion. Convincing them to come out of hiding was only the first step. Now that they're here, they might not like what I have to say."

The apprehension in her voice stoked his concern for her. "Is it safe for you to go back?"

"Of course," she said. "They won't hurt me."

"But will they take you prisoner again? If you go back, will they ever let you leave?"

A shadow of melancholy settled upon her. "I don't know," she said. "But to be honest, that's the least of our worries."

"True," Riker said. "Can you even guess at what the Caeliar will say about helping us stop the Borg?"

"No, I can't. I know they won't help the Borg hurt us, but beyond that, it gets complicated. The Caeliar prefer to stay out of other people's business, but now that I've shown them their own link to this mess, they might take responsibility for it. Or they might not. For all I know, they might hear me out and choose to stay neutral."

Riker frowned. "In which case, we're all pretty much dead."

"Pretty much, yeah."

A few meters behind Hernandez, there was a rippling effect in the air, like heat distortion. It blurred the image of the bedroom behind it, and within seconds, it was like looking at something through a deep pool of water. The shimmer took on a metallic quality, like a hovering, vertical puddle of mercury. Then the effect stabilized, and Riker saw himself and Hernandez reflected on its serene, silvery surface.

Hernandez looked over her shoulder as if she were being called by a voice that only she could hear. She sighed and looked back at Riker. "Time for me to go," she said, favoring him with a coy grin. She turned and walked toward the liquid-metal oval that hovered a few centimeters above the deck, and she stopped in front of it and looked back. "Before I leave, I ought to thank you, too," she said. "Fifteen hours ago, you didn't know me, and you had no reason to trust me. But you did. Because of you, I got to be free again, even if just for a moment. Thank you for taking a chance on me."

He smiled with sincere admiration and affection. "You're welcome," he said.

She lingered a moment, and then she turned and stepped forward, pa.s.sing through the quicksilver membrane without so much as a ripple. As soon as she had vanished into it, the liquid portal faded into vapor.

Riker stood and stared at the empty s.p.a.ce in front of him, and he was startled as Commander Hachesa's voice crackled over the comm, "Bridge to Captain Riker."

"Go ahead."

"The deck officer in shuttlebay one reports the Mance is aboard, and all away team personnel are safe and accounted for."

"Acknowledged," Riker said, jogging toward the door to the corridor. "Riker out!" He was through the door, and as soon as he was in the corridor, he broke into a full-out sprint for the turbolift. Enlisted crew-members and junior officers froze in his path ahead of him, caught by surprise. "Make a hole!" he shouted, and everyone reacted by reflex, pressing their backs to the bulkheads as he tore down the middle of the pa.s.sageway.

He knew that it was unseemly for him to be seen running like this, to be so loud and so frantic in front of his crew, but he didn't care. His Imzadi was home, and she was safe-he could feel it.

Decorum be d.a.m.ned, he thought with a joyful grin.

La Forge stood in front of the forward-facing windows in the Enterprise's crew lounge, which Will Riker had named the Happy Bottom Riding Club before he left to take command of t.i.tan. Riker had said he'd chosen the name as an homage to a famous social club for aviators and early Earth astronauts, but La Forge suspected his real intention had been to annoy Worf.

The vodka tonic in La Forge's hand had become diluted as its ice cubes melted, but it hardly mattered, since the beverage had been made with synthehol.

He'd taken only a few sips from it in the half hour since he'd come from the captain's quarters, because his attention had been fixed on the ma.s.sive Caeliar city-ship looming in s.p.a.ce before the Enterprise, the Aventine, and t.i.tan. The alien metropolis was kilometers wide and breathtaking in its elegance. It was packed with slender towers, sloping and curved structures that evoked waves and aquatic themes, and sky bridges that, from a distance, looked like gossamer filaments.

Behind him, the Riding Club was much less busy than usual. Most of the ship's crew was on duty or on a much-needed rest cycle, as repairs overlapped with preparations for the imminent confrontation with the Borg armada. Tensions were high. La Forge knew that he ought to be in main engineering, supervising the dozens of major projects currently under way, but he was confident that Taurik had matters well in hand.

The scent of fresh prune juice and the thump of deliberate footfalls alerted him to Worf's approach, and he looked for the Klingon first officer's reflection in the window. Worf had approached from directly behind La Forge and had revealed himself only with his last few steps. La Forge continued to face forward as Worf settled to a halt on his left.

"I guess you've spoken to the captain," La Forge said.

"I have." Worf sipped his prune juice.

La Forge looked at his drink. "Am I under arrest?"

"No," Worf said. "You are not."

He didn't elaborate, which worried La Forge.

"So what happens next?"

"The captain has rescinded his order."

That caught La Forge off-guard. He turned and looked at Worf. "Rescinded? Because of what I said?"

"Yes," Worf said, staring straight ahead into s.p.a.ce.

"And he sent you down here to tell me that?"

"No. I came of my own accord. To thank you."

Recoiling in mild surprise, La Forge asked, "For what?"

"For saying what I should have said," Worf replied. "I feel as you do. Making such a weapon is a risk, and it would be an insult to Data's sacrifice." He clenched his jaw and huffed angrily. "I did not wish to confront the captain. But I should have." He turned his head and met La Forge's stare. "It takes courage to challenge authority on a matter of principle. What you did-for yourself and Data-was an act of great honor."

La Forge bowed his head and said, "Thank you." He looked up and out at the Caeliar city-ship. "Amazing, isn't it?"

"It is...large," Worf said.

"When I first saw it, I'd thought about asking the captain permission for a visit," La Forge said. "Just to see what makes it tick, y'know? And then I wondered what Data would think of it...and suddenly, I didn't want to go anymore. Not because the city wasn't interesting, but because I knew that every time I saw something new, I'd want to turn and tell Data about it-and then I'd have to remember he's gone."

Worf regarded the Caeliar metropolis with a somber look. "I understand," he said. "I, too, often wish that Data were still alive. Usually in the morning, when Spot wishes to be fed."

La Forge chuckled, recalling Worf's pained expression when he'd learned that Data's last will and testament had named the Klingon as the guardian of his pet. "How's the cat doing?"

"Spot is well-and his claws are sharp," Worf said with a prideful smirk. Then he softened his expression and clasped La Forge's shoulder in a friendly grip. "Data is gone, and it is not wrong for us to mourn him. But we must not cling too tightly to the past. We are still alive, Geordi, and we have each other. Perhaps that will be enough."

Nodding, La Forge said, "It's everything, Worf. Thanks."

Worf dipped his chin and removed his hand from La Forge's shoulder. The silence between them was calm and comfortable, and La Forge felt no need to disturb it. It was enough to stand next to his old friend, watching the stars and waiting to see what the future would bring.