More to the point, until that day on Betazed five years ago, he’d never seen her look old. Sick, yes. Comatose, once. Tired, many times. But never old.

  Now she at least was more hale and hearty than she had been shortly after the war. Her dress was gaudy and well pressed, she was wearing one of her more subdued wigs, and of all the lines on her face, the deepest were the smile lines around her mouth. That bright smile had always been the second thing people noticed about Lwaxana.

  “Little One, it’s so good to see you! And you too, William, especially in light of the wonderful news you sent me! Congratulations to you both!”

  The first thing people noticed, of course, was the voice, a remarkable instrument that could penetrate duranium—all the more impressive for a member of a telepathic species that generally used vocal communication only with offworlders and prepubescent children.

  “It’s good to see you too, Mother,” Troi said.

  “Very good,” Riker added, and he even mostly meant it. “And thank you. How’re things going on Betazed?”

  “Quite well, I’m happy to say. The new housing development on the Emrin River was finally finished last week, and there’s a lovely plaque dedicating it to the people who died during the occupation. Most of the structures have been rebuilt, and the ecological damage is being—well, repaired anyway. I don’t think it can ever really be fixed, but we’re doing our best.”

  “That’s wonderful to hear, Mother,” Troi said with a warm smile. Riker slipped his hand into hers. Betazed had been through so much during the war, it was good to hear that its recovery was proceeding well. “How is Barin?”

  Lwaxana rolled her eyes. “Oh, he’s quite a handful. He’s growing so fast, the clothes replicator can’t keep up with him—and frankly, neither can I. The new valet—”

  “Mother,” Troi cut in, “you haven’t fired another valet, have you?”

  “Now, Little One, stop playing personnel manager. I should think you had enough of that on that ship of yours without doing it in my house, too.”

  Troi closed her eyes. Riker squeezed her hand. Based on this latest news, Lwaxana had now gone through nine valets since the war. And that’s just the ones we found out about. Looks like Mr. Homn isn’t as easy to replace as we’d thought.

  “In any case, I am so thrilled to see that my precious girl is finally getting married. And to think, it only took me fifteen years to find the right man for you after that disaster with the Wyatt boy.”

  Riker shuddered. His bride-to-be had once been betrothed to a human named Kevin Wyatt thanks to some arcane Betazoid ritual that Lwaxana, in a fit of lunacy, decided to impose on her daughter. That marriage had been avoided, a fact for which Riker was happy then, and downright grateful now.

  “As I recall, Mother,” Troi said with an impish grin, “you didn’t find Will, I did.”

  “Yes, of course, Little One, whatever you say. The point is, you two are finally doing what you should’ve done twenty years ago, and I couldn’t possibly be happier. And you getting your own ship, too, William—that’s marvelous!”

  “Thank you,” Riker said. “The Titan’s a very good ship, it—”

  “That’s fine, dear, I’m sure it’s wonderful, but what I really need to know is when Jean-Luc can get you two to Betazed.”

  Riker blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Well, naturally, you two will get married on Betazed. It won’t take any time at all for me to set up the ceremony and put the guest list together. Of course, I’ll have to bring the new valet up to speed, but—”

  Angrily, Troi asked, “Mother didn’t you read our message?”

  “Of course, I did, Little One, how else would I have known about you two getting married and William getting to command the Giant ?”

  “It’s the Titan,” Troi said in a tight voice, “and if you know that, you should also know that we just want to have a simple ceremony on Earth.”

  “Well, you’re certainly welcome to do that, too, if you want, Little One, but I don’t much see the point when you’re going to have an extravaganza on Betazed. After all, you are the Granddaughter of the Fifth House and Heir to the Sacred Chalice of Rixx.”

  Riker tried and probably failed to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. “And Heir to the Holy Rings of Betazed, don’t forget that.”

  “No, dear,” Lwaxana said in a patronizing tone, “I’m the Heir to the Holy Rings of Betazed. If Deanna was the Heir, I’d be the Holder, like I am of the Sacred Chalice. Really, if you’re going to marry into the family you’re going to need to know these things.”

  “Sorry,” he muttered.

  Troi blew out a breath. “Mother, do you really have time for this?”

  “I’ll make time, Little One. I’ve been waiting for this moment since you were a baby! Now that the happiest day of my life has finally arrived, do you really think I’m just going to let you get married on some cold mountain on Earth?”

  “That ‘cold mountain’ happens to be Will’s home.”

  Riker could see this was getting out of hand, so he stepped in. “Deanna, maybe we should just—”

  “Are you just going to let her belittle your home like that?”

  “I’m not belittling anything, Deanna.”

  “Yes, you are, Mother, like you always belittle anything that you don’t micromanage.”

  Oh God, Riker thought. The last place in the universe I want to be is between these two if they start getting into it.

  And getting into it they were. “How can you say that? After all I’ve done for you, after I gave you a home, raised you by myself, let you pursue your career…”

  “Intruded on my life at every opportunity, tried to force me to marry someone I’d never met, constantly matchmaking and making a fool of yourself in the name of making me happy…”

  Lwaxana went on as if her daughter hadn’t interrupted. “And now—now you have the nerve to keep me from doing one last thing for you, something I’ve wanted for so long?”

  “We’re not keeping you from anything, Mother. We want you to be there with us when we get married.” She let go of Riker’s hand and leaned forward into the small screen. “This is the happiest day of our lives too, Mother—can’t you just be there for us and let us do it our way?”

  “You can’t even have a proper Betazoid wedding on Earth—especially not in Alaska. It’ll be freezing!”

  “Mother, that’s enough!” Troi snapped.

  Riker stared in horror at the expression on his fiancée’s face. She looked furious, her black eyes blazing.

  “Little One, this is what I’ve wanted for you for so long, and I don’t see why—”

  Speaking in a low, menacing tone that gave Riker a cold feeling in his gut, Troi said, “No, Mother, you don’t see. You never did.”

  And with that, Troi cut off the communication, got up, and ran into the bedroom.

  Riker blinked for several seconds, dumbfounded. Troi and her mother had argued before, certainly, but never like this. And Troi’s anger was wholly out of proportion to what had just happened.

  He followed her into the bedroom, and in a gentle voice, prompted, “Imzadi?”

  Troi was lying facedown on their bed, her face half-buried in the pillow, muffling her voice. “Not now, Will, please, I want to be alone.”

  “Tough,” he said, taking a seat on the edge of the bed. “We’re in this together now, remember? Besides, after a blowup like that, you don’t get to be alone without explaining yourself.”

  “It’s nothing,” Troi said, punctuating her words with a sniff. Then she rolled over, and Riker saw tears running down her cheek. “It’s just the usual with my mother.”

  “No, Deanna, it isn’t. And I’m not leaving this bed until you tell me what it is. We’ve been through too much for you to start holding back from me now.”

  She sat up. “I just want us to be happy, Will. Why can’t she see that?”

  “And why can’t you see that I’ll be just as happy with a major production on Betazed as I would be in Alaska? Hell, we can go to Risa, to Qo’noS, to the Founders’ homeworld, for all I care, as long as we’re married at the end of it. After everything that’s happened, all that matters is that you and I are together.”

  Troi nodded, even as more tears rolled down her cheek. “I know—I feel the same. It’s just—”

  Riker held Troi’s hand in his. It felt oddly cool to the touch. “Deanna, I spent fifteen years trying and failing to figure out how to make my father happy. In the end, I never did figure it out, and he died without my knowing whether or not he was happy with me.” He smiled ruefully. “Or if I was happy with him. But you still have your mother. So let’s make her happy and have the wedding on Betazed.”

  Moments passed before Riker got the reaction he was hoping for: a smile from Troi. “We will. We’ll call Mother back in the morning—give her some time to calm down first. If we try now, she won’t answer just out of spite.”

  “Fair enough,” Riker said, giving her a smile of his own.

  The sound of William Riker’s breathing was a comfort to Deanna Troi. The rhythmic inhaling and exhaling provided a certain steadiness to the external world that was woefully absent from her internal self. They’d lain beside each other, just being in each other’s arms, for almost an hour before Riker finally dozed off.

  Sleep, however, didn’t come quite so easily to Troi.

  She hadn’t told the entire truth to Riker. Blowing up at her mother had precisely nothing to do with the wedding or Mother.

  Minza.

  Every time she closed her eyes, Troi saw the placid face of the Tezwan general. Part of the deposed prime minister’s resistance movement, the group that had abducted Riker, Minza had been captured by Enterprise security and brought to the ship, where Troi tried everything she could within Federation law to interrogate him.

  No, to break him. To make him suffer. He knew where Will was being held, and he wouldn’t tell me, and I wanted so much to just take that smarmy expression off his face, I wanted to rip his feathers out one by one…

  Again the anger started to build, just as it had with Mother, just as it had with Minza. She remembered him leaning back, his arms folded behind his head, giving her that pitying expression, even as she tried—and failed—to break him by assaulting him with temperature changes, bright lights, and a cacophonous combination of both Klingon and human opera, combined with Data’s near-monotone recitation of The Mikado. All he did was laugh at her, saying, “If this is your worst…I pity you.”

  She wanted so much to wipe that pity off his face.

  Rising slowly from the bed, being careful not to disturb her fiancé’s slumber, she padded into the next room. Regulating her breathing, which was speeding up at an alarming rate, she tried to tamp down the anger, quench the inferno that was building inside her.

  How long will I have to do this?

  She sat at the same desk where just a few hours ago she’d yelled at her mother for no good reason and contacted the bridge.

  “Wriede here.”

  “Falon, it’s Deanna. Tell me—” She hesitated, then decided to vague things up a bit. “Are the Amargosa, Republic, and Musashi still in real-time communication range?”

  “Let me check, Counselor.” A pause. “The Republic isn’t, but the other two are. Why?”

  “Nothing you need to worry about,” she said quickly. The last thing she wanted was to let the entire gamma-shift bridge crew know precisely what she was doing. “Thank you.”

  “No problem, Counselor.”

  She then put a private call through to Counselor Marlyn Del Cid on the Amargosa.

  Moments later, a bleary-eyed Del Cid appeared on the viewer in front of her. Her long hair was uncombed and unkempt, and she was wearing only a nightshirt emblazoned with a large version of the Starfleet delta—she’d obviously been woken out of a sound sleep. “Del Cid here.” Then she realized who it was. “Deanna? What’s wrong?”

  Troi hesitated. “I—I snapped at my mother tonight.”

  “Well, that’s certainly a good reason to wake me out of a sound sleep,” Del Cid said with a wry smile. “After all, that sort of thing never happens between mothers and daughters.”

  “It’s not that—I just—” She sighed. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have woken you for this.”

  Waving her hand in front of her face as if she was swatting an insect, Del Cid said, “No, no, I should be the one apologizing. I just don’t do well first thing after I wake up. I take it you don’t normally snap at you mother?”

  She actually smiled at that, which was a relief, as Troi hadn’t credited herself with that capability at present. “Actually, I do all the time, but not over something like this—and I never get this angry with her.”

  “Back to the anger, then?”

  “Yes.”

  “Something to consider, Deanna. Those Federation laws that you were dancing on the edge of with Minza—the ones that kept you from torturing him, or even visiting any kind of cruel and unusual punishment on him?”

  Troi frowned. “What about them?”

  “The thought occurred to me that it’s a natural instinct to want to inflict pain and suffering on someone who has done you wrong, or who was withholding critical information from you. If it wasn’t, we wouldn’t need those laws you had to abide by, would we? You said you felt poisoned, and maybe you were—but the point isn’t that you wanted to beat Minza until he bled, the point is that you didn’t.”

  Leaning back in her chair, Troi let out a long breath that she hadn’t even realized she was holding. “You may be right.”

  Del Cid’s bleary eyes twinkled a bit. “Well, don’t be too sure—it could just be the exhaustion talking. What does Will have to say?”

  Looking away from the viewer, Troi said, “I haven’t talked to him about it.”

  Up until now, Del Cid had barely been able to keep her eyes open; at Troi’s words, though, they widened considerably. “Why not?”

  “I haven’t—I didn’t want to burden him with this.”

  “That’s a particularly feeble excuse, Deanna.”

  Defensively, Troi said, “He’s been through a lot, and—”

  “So’ve you. You two are in this together now, remember? That’s what marriage is supposed to be all about.”

  Troi closed her eyes for a moment, wincing inwardly at Del Cid’s repetition of Riker’s words from earlier. Then she opened them. “You’re right.”

  “So instead of waking me out of a sound sleep, go wake him out of his. It’ll be a lot easier for you to get past this if you’ve got him on your side. This is too deep in you to not share with him. If you don’t, it’ll come exploding out at the worst possible time—and you know that.”

  Again, Troi said, “You’re right.” She let out another breath. “Thank you, Marlyn.”

  “My pleasure. Really, Deanna, ignore my bitching and moaning—any time you need to talk, get in touch. I know how hard it is for us counselors to take our own advice, so I’m more than happy to give you the occasional kick in the rear.”

  Troi chuckled. “I’ll be sure to remember that. Now go get some sleep.”

  “Gladly.” Del Cid sounded thrilled at that very notion, and Troi felt a pang of regret.

  I should never have called her—I should’ve gone straight to Will, she thought as she terminated the connection.

  Getting up from the chair, she padded back into the bedroom. Reaching out with the mental link that the two of them had shared ever since their initial affair on Betazed all those years ago, Troi nudged Riker awake.

  He rolled over, and looked at her with tired eyes. “Deanna? What is it?”

  Sitting down next to him on the bed, putting a hand on his shoulder, she said, “Will—we need to talk.”

  Chapter 3

  Earth

  AS KANT JOREL WALKED DOWN the hallway toward the holocom, he riffled through the padds in his hand. “You sure we don’t have a statement from Ross?”

  His new assistant, an Andorian whose name he simply could not remember, said, “Permit me to use my telepathic powers to ascertain if the answer to that question has changed in the seventy-five seconds since last you asked it.”

  Kant, a middle-aged Bajoran man who had served as the Federation Council’s liaison to the press for the past two and a half years, and gone through seven assistants in that time, grunted. “Being sarcastic won’t get you very far in this job.”

  “Based on the sheer number of predecessors I’ve had, I’d say that nothing gets anyone very far in this job.”

  “Yeah, but that’s only because I’m impossible to work with.”

  “That is what I heard.”

  Kant looked down at the padd on top of the bunch in his hand, which contained the official statement from the council that he was about to read to the members of the press. “The statement’s been vetted by everyone who’s supposed to vet it?”

  The Andorian’s antennae twitched. “I assume so.”

  Kant stopped walking and stared his assistant right in his blue-skinned face. At that moment, he remembered that he was called Zhres. “You’re assuming, Zhres. That’s bad. Assuming is what gets people killed.”

  “Councillor Ra’ch’s aide told me that it was ready to be given to the press. Hence my assumption.”

  “Fine.” He started walking again.

  “Oh, by the way,” Zhres said, “there’s a new reporter in the room—a woman from the Free Vulcan Gazette named Annalisa Armitage.”

  Kant let out a long breath and prayed to the Prophets for guidance. “I was really hoping those lunatics had gone away.”

  “I take it the Free Vulcan Gazette is not a reputable journal?”

  “Not remotely. For starters, not a single Vulcan is on its staff, and I would be stunned if there were any in its subscriber list.”

  “That’s odd. I took a brief look at their latest issue, and they seem to advocate a very pro-Vulcan stance.”