“Will Marie be here?” Deanna asked.

  “No, no.” He brushed something off his trouser leg and leaned forward to take the cup of tea he’d left on the coffee table when he entered the room. “She’s not even that close to the girl. But I think she thought since Amarante was going to the Academy, and my background…”

  “It’s good for you, you know. To have family other than us.”

  The captain allowed himself a thin smile. “Marie says the same.”

  “Maybe you should take our advice.”

  “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  “Are you?” There it was, that counselor-having-a-session expression. “That gaze out the window was a thousand light-years away.”

  “How long had you been watching me?”

  “I’m an empath. No watching necessary.”

  Picard scoffed. “Damned invasion of privacy is what that is.”

  “Don’t broadcast your misery so, and I won’t pick it up.”

  “I’m not miserable.” He took another sip of tea, but it was unsatifyingly cold.

  “Brooding, then,” she pressed.

  “I’d like to officially challenge my counselor’s interpretation,” he said in mock annoyance.

  “We’re not logging a session, Captain.” Deanna leaned forward across the glass coffee table and touched his hand. “We’ve all lost people. In war, in tragedy, in life.”

  “You’re not telling me anything I don’t know, Deanna. I just…” It had never been easy for Jean-Luc Picard to put his deepest feelings into words, but if there was anyone with whom he was comfortable doing so, it was his ship’s counselor. She’d helped him through some difficult times—ordeals no one should have to live through. He trusted her and her advice, perhaps more than anyone he knew. “You know Robert and I hadn’t talked for some years,” he said finally, “And then we did, of course, from time to time. Now…we can’t. I’m not sure even what I’d say if we could. But I wish we had another chance.”

  She nodded lightly. “You miss him.”

  “Yes,” he said in something only slightly louder than a whisper. “And I didn’t think I would.” Abruptly, he stood, and his voice was as crisp as always. “I’ll be fine.”

  Deanna slowly rose as well. “I hope so. And remember,” she said with a warm smile. “I’ll know when.”

  “I’ll need to scan an ID.” Jeremy Plenda barely looked at the man in front of him. There was no need. No one beamed anywhere on Earth or off without an encoded ID card that would scan the traveler to verify they were whom they claimed to be. Unless it was some Starfleet yahoo who didn’t need normal clearance.

  Plenda didn’t care for his job, but he did it well, if by the numbers. There was a routine he’d fallen into, a physical memory of how to act during his day and what to do with his hands as he keyed in destinations to other transporter hubs and made detailed and boring logs.

  “This’ll be just a second.” Plenda took the man’s card and turned to place it in the datareader. “Please read the screen to your left. If you agree to the terms and conditions of using the QuikPort Transporter Service, Inc. please place your thumb on the pad provided and allow the scanner to pull DNA for our rec—”

  Suddenly feeling a burning sensation on his neck, Plenda turned and saw the man grabbing his arm and lowering him into the console chair.

  “Wha—” His own voice was thick. He’d been drugged. Why? In this little podunk backwater city? A ship is easy to hire, why do this? It’s not even that expensive to go anywhere on the planet.

  The lights seemed to dim, though Plenda imagined they had not. He could still see, though, and now took as best note he could of the man who’d done this. He was tall and thin, gangly even, and moved quickly to lock the doors and then put up an away message that said Plenda was taking a break.

  Plenda tried to croak out a word, but he found himself paralyzed, unable to move, barely able to breathe. He wasn’t panicking, though. And that surprised him most of all. What he was doing was watching, hoping that when all this was over he’d be able to tell the police all that happened and everything he could about the man who assaulted him.

  The man took a large case from in front of the counter. Plenda hadn’t noticed it especially, but it wasn’t unusual for someone to take luggage with them when they traveled.

  As the tall man input coordinates into the console, Plenda tried to see where they might lead. The police would be here soon and he’d want to give them a good statement and a good description. Didn’t he just tell himself that? The world was beginning to slow down. If he could move his head…just a bit…

  With a mental grunt and a push that manifested little actual outward movement, Plenda only managed to spin his entire chair on its swivel, but that was good enough. What he saw made even less sense than the entire predicament. It was to a coordinate no one should ever use—into the middle of space in an area no ships were allowed. If a ship was there, it would have to be Starfleet’s and if this guy was Starfleet, he wouldn’t need a land transporter. What was this all about?

  Rather than setting the timing controls, the mysterious man wrenched an access panel from the main power hub. With cables he pulled from that case of his, he connected ports on the side of his luggage directly into the transporter’s main power grid.

  Lolling his head as best he could to see what happened next, Plenda realized what the man had done when his eyes caught a glimpse of the charging graphs. His attacker had added so much power to the transmission system that he could probably beam himself to Mars. Well, that wasn’t possible, but whyever he needed the extra power, about two seconds after dematerialization it was going to blow the controls, the buffers, and probably the building itself. If he could have moved more than his diaphragm and his eyeballs, Plenda might have panicked by now, but all he really wanted to know was why was he going to die here, in his dead-end job on a day he’d considered calling in sick for no particular reason? What was it all about?

  Stepping onto the number one transport pad, the man pushed a button on a remote in his hand and the dais came to life with a power-stoked hum Plenda had never heard before. Energy washed down over the man as he slowly dematerialized, as if the transmission was struggling to get through the Earth’s crust itself.

  Finally, sparks flashed when the buffers overloaded with current, and somehow Plenda thought he heard his younger sister laugh. For a moment he wondered if this all might have been some strange joke. Then, in a flare of pain, the universe around him turned white hot and engulfed him in a violent wave. After that came darkness, silence, and he was gone.

  The air was fresh, if a bit singed with fire and tainted with smoke, but that was to be expected—he’d had to beam up not just himself, but the atmosphere around him. Once here, if he’d studied the stolen schematics correctly—and he had—it would be easy enough to turn on minimal life support.

  Za’dag got to work quickly. He needed no chronometer to know that he had only minutes before his air would become too polluted for life, and minutes more before his associates were within range of the very deadly weapon he was soon to control.

  He pulled open the access panel to his left, cursing both his height and the low ceiling of the cramped orbital platform. A tight smile thinly pulled itself across his face, however, when he saw that his schematics were, in fact, accurate. A few switches moved, a few isoliniar chips removed, and life support was on. And before anyone could be notified of the change in conditions, he removed the communications chip, then snapped it in two.

  To Za’dag, the coming strike was going to be a thing of beauty, a lesson taught to an arrogant planet and an overbearing Federation. Perhaps this would only bloody the Terrans’ noses, but that was enough for now. And if he had to give his life for such a thing…well, that would be a glorious end.

  After a few more chips were removed and then rearranged, control of the defensive platform was now his. If only, Za’dag thought, it would be possible to turn the power of the satellite back on to the planet. Sadly, it was not. He would have to settle for destroying any approaching Federation starship.

  “Admiral? We’ve lost contact with DP-7.” Lieutenant Hackworth had never seen Starfleet Command lose touch with one of the planetary defense platforms.

  Nor had Rear Admiral Ling, and he marched quickly toward HQ’s main status consoles. “Malfunction?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure, sir.” Hackworth’s nimble hands did a fast dance across her ops station. “Backup systems aren’t responding.”

  “Can you scan it?” Ling turned to his assistant. “Commander, come see this.”

  “I have it on sensors, sir,” Hackworth reported. “It’s intact and reads as having functional power output.”

  Admiral Ling’s assistant joined him at the status console. “Sir?”

  “DP-7 isn’t responding to subspace contact. Is there maintenance on that platform today?”

  The young Vulcan shook his head slightly. “No, sir. You or Admiral Mendez would have had to approve it. Admiral Mendez did not.”

  Ling nodded. “Put a tech detail on it. Have it checked out,” he told Hackworth.

  “Aye, sir,” she said, her brow furrowed with dismay. “Thing is, I should have gotten an alarm on this. I didn’t. I mean, we should get a big alarm when we lose contact with one of the platforms.”

  Huffing out a breath, Ling nodded his agreement. “True. Get me Starbase 1. Let’s have them send out an emergency crew right now.” Ling twisted toward his assistant. “And let’s inform Admiral Gunnell. Discreetly, please. He’s tired of the leaks to the press.”

  “With news on the hour, this is United Press Interstellar’s Afya Jamilia from the UPI NewsCenter in San Francisco. Top stories today include reports from the front lines by unnamed sources close to the Federation Council that suggest shipping routes necessary to resupply Chin’toka are being disrupted by Dominion forces. Two Cardassian warships were reportedly destroyed when the U.S.S. Starstalker defended three cargo carriers bringing Chin’toka much-needed resources and defenses. At the Starfleet Command press briefing this morning, Admiral Brian Gunnell refused to comment on any ongoing mission, so we can only assume that the Starstalker and the ships she escorts have not yet arrived in the Chin’toka system. We are also hearing some unconfirmed reports that the Cardassians aren’t happy with support they’re receiving from their Dominion allies. Former Starfleet Commander Lawson Royse, a veteran of the Federation’s first war with Cardassia, will be the guest on tonight’s Federation at War broadcast to discuss the possible validity of those rumors. Join us on most of these affiliated networks.”

  “We have three Tellarite freighters on the screen, ma’am. Vector is incoming.”

  “Let me see a detail scan.” Commander Kim Bouse leaned in toward her display console as the graphic detailing the incoming cargo ship filled the screen. “Any Tellarite ship knows better than to violate starbase approach perimeters without clearance.” Squinting in some surprise, Bouse shook her head in disbelief. “This is all wrong. I know the captain of the F’sweiv. He wouldn’t be this far off—”

  Choom!

  Her console exploding in sparks, cracked bulkheads spewing debris and crackling power conduits, Commander Bouse found herself thrown to the floor as she lost her balance.

  Three more explosions pounded into Starbase 1, each burst quaking every bulkhead around her.

  “My God,” she croaked out, smoke quickly stinging her lungs. “What the hell—”

  “Emergency lights,” someone ordered and she thought it was her second in command. Temporary lighting flickered on.

  “Contact Command!” Bouse struggled to get to her feet. “We’re under attack!”

  “I can’t get a signal out,” called her communications officer. “Channels are jammed!”

  “Main power is out!”

  “Aux circuits are not responding.”

  “We’re losing lighting again—” Another explosion rattled the deckplates beneath her and she nearly fell again. Her knees ached and all the voices began to meld into a cacophony without meaning.

  “Never mind lights,” she barked. “We need to get a signal out—”

  “Comm is on battery, Commander, but all channels are jammed.”

  “Try non-subspace. We don’t have to talk to Tellar, for godssakes! We have to talk to Command.”

  “Admiral, I think we’re getting a message from Starbase 1, but not as an answer to my hail,” Hackworth said.

  “You think?” Ling’s thin brows rose in surprise. “It’s about forty thousand kilometers above us, Lieutenant.”

  Hackworth shook her head, and as Ling leaned over her console he glanced at her briefly and noticed her worried expression. “This is on a nonstandard channel, sir. I can’t make out more than their code—”

  Choom!

  Ling looked up as the ceiling bore down on top of him. He instinctively bent to cover one of his crew.

  She smelled nice, he thought fleetingly, then dust filled his lungs and heat enveloped him until nothing remained.

  Usually Jim Stoakes had to be working this time of day, but not today. He’d taken the day off, as he did every wedding anniversary, no matter what projects where on his plate at the office. At first he would take his wife Beth to walk along the Golden Gate Bridge, but now they added their only daughter to the tradition, and the three of them would celebrate their family on the bridge, stopping to eat along the way at one of the many cart vendors who fed the passersby and tourists.

  “Ice cream, ice cream,” his daughter squealed with glee. “Pleeeease?”

  “Like she doesn’t get it every time?” Jim asked his wife. “You’d think there was a question.” He held up three fingers to the ice cream vendor and mouthed the word “chocolate.”

  The older man with the apron pulled ice cream bars from his cooler one at a time, handing the first one to the delighted little girl, probably because to make her wait might cause her head to explode right there and then.

  Jim took his daughter’s hand, and the three of them continued up the bridge. It was a bright day, warm, and the ice cream was already beginning to melt. “Better hurry,” his wife told him, “or it will be running down onto your sleeve.”

  “You’re talking to me about eating fast? I usually can’t get you to finish half your meal in the time it takes me to finish my plate.”

  The girl giggled. “Mama eats bird food.”

  Jim noticed his wife’s quizzical look. “Where did you hear that, honey?”

  “Gramma. She says you eat like a bird.”

  A slight smirk pulled Jim’s lips tight. “My mother loves you very much.”

  Beth sneered, more teasing than serious. “She’ll love me more when I’m just like her.”

  “Thanks, dear,” Jim said, laughing as he moved to give her a very chocolaty kiss. “That’s a notion that will have me in therapy for a few years.”

  His wife returned the kiss, saying it was sweeter than usual.

  “Happy anniversary,” she whispered.

  “You, too.”

  They had a silent moment, then their daughter asked, “Daddy, why is this bridge so big?”

  “Well, honey, before it was a museum, people used to drive automobiles across it all the time. It needed to be large enough to handle all the traffic for the city. Now anyone with a land vehicle uses the tunnel.” He leaned down, finishing the last of his ice cream and mockingly trying to take a bite of hers. “So we can walk it, and enjoy the sun, and eat ice cream and pretzels and fill your tummy with all these bad things!”

  She giggled, and Beth laughed, and then the bridge shook more than it should have and his face contorted from grin to abject horror as an explosion pushed out from the center of the bridge.

  Cables snapped and swung wildly and the bridge cracked and crumbled just meters from his daughter. Jim Stoakes grabbed her with one hand, his wife with another, and began a dead run for the shoreline. Whatever was happening—an unheard of uncontrolled earthquake—or…whatever, he couldn’t imagine. Hundreds of people began running in panic. He heard cries, yells, one of them might have been his daughter as he scooped her into his arms, her small stride unable to keep up with his and his wife’s. “Don’t let go,” he yelled to his family. “Stay with me!”

  When the plasma bolt hit them straight on, his last thought was for them.

  “Congratulations, Ensign,” Deanna said. “Were you nervous?”

  Amarante couldn’t keep from grinning, and Picard also found himself smiling, more because that may very well be a question to which Deanna already had an answer.

  “I wasn’t as nervous as I thought I would be. So much work went into this—more than I imagined.”

  “And more is to come,” Picard said, but as serious as he was trying to be, he couldn’t help being infected by Amarante’s enthusiasm. Most of their communications had been either audio or text, but that was their preferences, and Picard was amused that she was just as fervent in person as she was in her letters.

  “Do you have orders yet?” Deanna asked her.

  “No.” Amarante pulled her brown hair out of the more regulation bun she’d worn and shook her head both to free her hair and indicate her response. “But I’m hoping for starship duty. I’ve studied tactical, engineering, and navigation.”

  “She’s very eager.” Deanna beamed a bright grin.

  “I see that,” Picard replied dryly.

  While Amarante hadn’t come right out and asked her uncle to pull any strings for her, and likely would never have been so impolite as to do so, she was making her wishes well known. Only youth thought such thinly veiled overtures were subtle.

  He could get her posted to a starship. Not only would it be easy, but considering her record at the Academy it would be appropriate. But should he? If anything, he was more inclined to get her a safe posting. That wasn’t fair to her, and he hadn’t yet taken any such action, but it was on his mind. Youth likes risk, and in his youth Picard craved it probably more than even Ensign Amarante Lebel. But could he take an action that would send her off to war? That sad dilemma was why Neela Darren eventually had to leave the Enterprise. Deciding life and death was difficult enough without adding a familial relationship into the equation.