Prologue - You Go Back, Jim; Do It Again...

VERIDIAN III, 2371

"Did we do it? Did we make a difference?"

Data shook his head.

"No, Captain Kirk, sir. You fainted not long after delivering Captain Picard's body."

As Jim got up, he frowned.

"You mean you people don't have the technology to revive him?"

Data hung his head, heavy with new emotions.

"No, sir. Even if we did--The Enterprise is destroyed."

Kirk turned and gasped. The wrecksite was a heartbreaker, to be sure Even if it wasn't his Enterprise.

"She wasn't the first, Commander. She will not be the last to bear that great name."

"Of that, sir, I have no doubt."

"Mister-----"

"Data, Captain."

"Data--what species are you?"

"I am an android, sir. I was created by a Doctor Noonian Soong. I posses a positronic brain. I have been declared legally sentient. I also now have emotions---with which I now feel our loss most keenly. Was Captain Picard in pain for long, sir?"

"No----it was quick, thankfully. I'm sorry, Commander. It---should have been me."

"Illogical, sir. It should not--and it was not. Speculating otherwise is a waste of valuable time."

Kirk allowed himself a nostalgic smile at the familiarly-tinged words.

"Data--I think that you and I will get along just fine."

"Thank you, Captain. May I call you Jim?"

"Nahhh."

Data walked off a little dejectedly. Kirk stopped him.

"Hey, I was just kidding."

Data smiled, and tilted his head.

"As was I, si---Jim."

As Data walked off to help with salvage, Kirk took notice of Worf. Worf, of course, was very interested in meeting a figure so prominent on both sides of The Imperial Border.

"Captain Kirk, I am Worf. It is a pleasure, sir. To meet a true warrior made flesh is an honor that shall help temper the sad memories of this horrible day. How did he die, sir?"

"Saving my sorry ass from a meaningless limbo, Mister Worf. He died while securing the remote to deactivate Soran's cloak. I was then able to activate the locking clamps. By the time I got to Jean-Luc...he was barely there. But he was a Captain to the last. Saved this world's system and all of us."

Worf nodded.

"Then he died well. Sir, does my face offend you? You keep staring at me."

"No, Worf. Just an old racist at work. You know how bigots always say, 'Species X all look alike'? Well, you look like my lawyer from the Gorkon Trial. Sorry."

"Why, sir? He was my grandfather, after all."

"Oh....then I'm not a racist...just old."

"Er...yes, sir."

Next, Jim saw the Betazoid Counselor, Deanna Troi. When he realized just how good she looked, he also realized he had been without women or a change of clothes for 80 years---and he really needed a change of
clothes.

"Counselor, how is Doctor Crusher doing? I'd like to go and see her--offer my condolences."

Deanna desperately wanted to avoid telling Captain Kirk that Beverly blamed him for Captain Picard's death. So she changed the subject.

"Not a good idea, right now, sir. Is there anyone you wish to contact, while we await The Essex?"

"As a matter of fact, Commander Troi....can you help me shift my thoughts outward...like a telepathic transmitter?"

Deanna smiled her first smile of the day, knowing full well why he would ask such a thing.

"Just follow my lead, sir. Its a simple exercise."

After she showed him the technique, Deanna helped gauge his emotional clarity as he went. When he was ready, Jim projected a single word into the void.

T'hy'la!"

On Romulus, a man shaken and distraught over the decimation of his movement by the Tal'Shiar suddenly shook with unmistakable joy.

"He....is alive!"

Namik looked at him.

"Who is alive, Ambassador Spock?"

Spock nodded.

"HE is."

Namik nodded confusedly.

"Uh...okay."

Chapter One - Kith And Kin Beyond Ken

Finally, The USS Essex arrived at Veridian III. As Kirk expected, the officer in charge of his welcome was an Admiral. But he clearly wasn't expecting just who that Admiral was.

"Live Long And Prosper, Captain Kirk."

"Saavik?"

"Actually, Captain--I use my husband's name. I brought him with me. He is--anxious to see you."

"Er--bring him out, then."

Kirk gasped when he saw the older man, who looked to be in his 90's, but was closing on 120. He was a dead ringer for Sam, right down to the moustache.

"Hi, Uncle Jim. Been a while, pal. You owe me 78 birthday presents, you bum!"

"Try collecting a single one---Peter."

"Unc, I need a hug--and then a DNA sample."

"You, young man, are gonna get the stuffings squeezed out of you. But why the DNA?"

Saavik answered.

"Uncle, Peter is the Federation's top exobiologist. He is here to determine if you are who you say you are. No offense."

Jim accepted this as inevitable.

"Its okay---niece. I haven't been feeling myself lately, anyway. But first--let me show you two youngsters off to the crew of this latest Enterprise."

Peter looked at his wife.

"Saavik, he never changes."

"May it always be so, Husband. The universe sorely lacks consistency."

Jim was taken aback when he introduced Peter and Saavik to the crew of the late, great Enterprise-D.

"You all know each other?"

Riker grinned.

"Your nephew was the toughest instructor at the Academy in my day, Captain. Peter here was known as 'Kobayashi' Kirk. Command track cadets HAD to pass his exobiology course to graduate. No easy answers allowed."

Peter nodded.

"This bunch all got A's of course. In my opinion, this universe contains too many lifeforms that see us wandering bipeds as breeding material---as in Tarchanea Four. Nature has its ways, but if we use our brains, we can gently tell them to reproduce elsewhere."

Jim felt more than a little pride at his remaining kin. He knew that Peter's exobiology studies had their roots in his obsession to find the origins of the neural parasites that attacked Denev 3, killing Jim's brother Sam and his wife Aurelan. The loss of his parents plus many years of pain management therapy cut deeply into his social life. The Denevan parasites left many of their victims permanently crippled by pain. But he and Saavik had met and found each other while he was gone, which helped tremendously.

"A firm hand, eh, nephew? Say, how did you and Saavik meet?"

A bit of the younger, more unsure Saavik crept into the Admiral's face.

"At a social gathering, Captain."

"Yeah, Unc. We--met at--an event."

Jim sensed evasion, and so pressed forward.

"What kind of event? A reunion of Enterprise alumni?"

"Of sorts, sir. It was--a large gathering."

"We--just bumped into one another. Jessa Preston--Scotty's niece- and I had just had an argument about you."

Jim looked puzzled.

"Jessa Preston? The only way I can see that accusation-happy little witch coming to any reunion is to gloat over my----"

Kirk realized the answer.

"You met at my funeral, didn't you?"

Saavik gave up.

"Yes and no, sir. With help, I dragged Ms. Preston off of Peter. We two then imbibed half the hard liquor in all of California. Our exploits afterword reached legendary proportions."

Jim gently laughed.

"A drunken, disorderly Vulcan?"

Peter jumped to his wife's defense.

"Nobody handled your departure with too much grace, Jim. Up and down the line, we all felt it. Kor even offered me membership in his clan."

Saavik spoke up again.

"Uncle-In-Law---I believe you mentioned squeezing the stuffings out of us."

Kirk seized them both in a powerful bear-hug. To be so near a man important to both David, Peter, and herself made Saavik relax the usual Vulcan restriction on direct physical contact. As for Peter, he had a job to do.

"Unc---DNA sample?"

"Sigh. Yesss, Doctor Kirk!"

While he was conducting the multi-level tests to verify the time-lost Captain's identity, Peter saw Jim holding back a question.

"Yes. I know. I've known since I was five."

Jim nodded, attempting to broach the delicate subject gently.

"So what do you say, Pete?"

Starting the last of the tests, Doctor Kirk looked at the man who would always be a giant in his eyes.

"I had a father, name of Sam. I have an Uncle, name of Jim. After a century, I'd kind of like to keep it that way, if you don't mind. I felt sore enough about not ever meeting David just thinking of him as my cousin. As a half-brother, it nearly kills me."

Kirk stared over at his nephew, and seemed to hide a look of confusion. But this was gone quickly.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to open old wounds. What do the tests say?"

Peter Kirk smiled.

"That I had better buy you a tie this June 20th."

Jim shot off a piece of sarcasm.

"A lousy, stinking tie?"

Admiral Saavik mingled with the crew of the Enterprise-D as she waited for the Kirks to emerge.

"Counselor Troi, how is your crew bearing up regarding the loss of Captain Picard?"

Deanna shook her head.

"Hard to say, Admiral. Worf has grown distant from me. Beverly blames Captain Kirk. I myself have yet to fully acknowledge his loss. That, and some personal issues have me on edge and at less than peak efficiency as a Counselor."

Saavik nodded.

"You refer of course to your attraction to Captain Kirk."

Troi's eyes went wide.

"Am I that obvious?"

"Not now. But at the Academy, I was your Fleet History instructor--remember? You would often watch me at lunch as I met my husband. Since you made no effort to meet him or approach me, I assumed your attraction was to Captain Kirk--as it was for many cadets. Yours, though, ran a trifle deeper."

"Oh. Er--Admiral, am I blushing?"

"Yes, very much so. You are, as Peter puts it, 'beet-red'."

A little embarrassed, Deanna withdrew to her quarters, not even noticing Geordi and Data in deep conversation.

"Geordi, I will miss the Captain as I will miss no one else in my life. Is this how you feel about your mother?"

"A lot like it, Data. I feel like I've lost my father, to boot, now. He's really gone, though, isn't he? You know, I would've bet real latinum that Jean-Luc Picard could survive anything!"

"Jim says it is a common feeling among Captains, Geordi."

"Waiiitt...Captain Kirk lets you call him Jim?"

"Indeed. Did he not tell you this?"

Before Geordi could respond, Riker walked over.

"Have either of you seen Jim?"

Well, LaForge reasoned, of course an XO would call him Jim. Now Worf joined in.

"Indeed. Jim promised to speak to me about the Organian incident."

Obviously, Geordi thought, this was an olive branch extended to a Klingon warrior. Deanna shook her finger as though in remembrance.

"Jim and Doctor Kirk are still performing the verification tests."

Now, Geordi realized his problem. When Wes and Reg left the Enterprise---he became the geek.

Now the Kirks emerged. Peter beamed at his 'younger' uncle.

"People, after about a kajillion tests---I give you the one, the only---James Tiberius Kirk!"

Starfleet picked the right person in Peter for these tests, Riker thought. Only blood-kin with an interest in exposing a possible phony would be thorough enough to check every last detail. There was light applause.

"Thank You, Thank You. But all I want is Earth and an apartment. After offering some prayers at the grave of a great man named Jean-Luc Picard, whom I....."

A pretty voice with more than a little liquor in it chose then to speak up.

"Whom you Murdered, 'Jim'!"

Geordi mumbled to himself as Doctor Crusher continued ranting.

"Even the woman who hates his guts gets to call him Jim!"

Kirk braced himself, having already figured that Beverly's absence didn't bode well for him.

"Do you have something to say to me, Doctor Crusher?"

"Yesh, I dew! Yew came back---an he dint! He had a ship---an yew wantd it! Awful cornvenient, wouldjna say?"

Jim could feel the hate and grief roll off of her--not to mention the booze.

"Doctor, lets discuss this when you're not drunk."

"DRUNK!!!? I'n mot tho sink as you drunk I am, Peteeeeyyy!!"

"I'm Jim."

She threw her arms up

"Alright, call yourself Jim, then. Shee ifin I care! Cause I Do!"

Deanna put her head in her hands.

"This isn't happening."

Kirk held out his hands to her.

"Beverly--in Jean-Luc's memory--let's put this behind us. He was a good man, and a great Captain. I'd like us to honor his memory quietly---and soberly, if it can be helped."

Crying, Crusher ran into his arms, and there was applause as they embraced. The applause stopped, however, when Beverly kicked Jim in the crotch.

"HAH! I gacha where it counts, Ladiesh man!"

Jim----was in pain.

"That tears it!"

On instinct alone, Kirk gave Beverly a small blow to the stomach--not enough to hurt her, but enough to make his displeasure known. This would have been about it--except that Kirk had forgotten what punching someone in the stomach when they're that drunk can do. Beverly gasped for air---then released.

"Bleccchhhhhh!!!!!"

Kirk looked himself over.

"I need a change of clothes. The Doctor--needs help."

As his uncle left, Doctor Kirk helped Beverly up, only to be stopped by Admiral Saavik.

"Husband---I will put the pretty, unconscious redhead into her bed after undressing her."

"Wife, don't you trust me?"

"Absolutely, bondmate. But you resemble your uncle, and I fear she may castrate you if she wakes."

So Peter let Saavik handle this one.

Showered off inside his guest quarters, Jim found someone reclined on his bed. It was none other than Guinan.

"Do I--know you from somewhere?"

Guinan smiled.

"I was among the El-Aurian refugees that the Enterprise-B rescued--as was Soran. Soran is responsible for Jean-Luc's death, despite what poor Bev may say. You saved my life, that long-ago day, Captain. I am grateful. More, I wish to celebrate Captain Picard's life--with an act of passion. Are you interested?"

Jim looked over at her, taking in the mysterious, powerful woman on many levels.

"Lose The Hat."

She lost the Hat.

The next day, Guinan was all smiles, and Deanna asked her why.

"Guinan, what joy have you tapped into? You look fantastic!"

Guinan never stopped grinning, and spoke in almost a giggling voice.

"I--worked out my grief over Jean-Luc. About seventeen times. I had a lot of grief to work out. I'm just gonna sit down, now."

Later, Deanna passed Captain Kirk--who was also smiling.

"Captain--I'll try and speak to Beverly, after she's released from the Brig."

"Good with me, Mister Troi! 'So don't forget, folks-that what you get folks--for makin Whoopi!'"

Deanna walked away, swearing under her breath.

"I'm going to kill her!"

On the holodeck, Worf and Riker butted batleths.

"How are you holding up, Worf?"

"As well as can be expected, Commander. A Klingon is taught to expect this sort of loss---but there truly is NO preparation. Starfleet, The Federation, and The Galaxy have all lost a great man."

Riker parried, then pressed forward.

"Have I lost a great man? If I'm to be Captain of The New Enterprise, will I have Worf Rozehnko at my side?"

In 3 simple movements, Worf had Riker pinned and beaten.

"Of course, sir. After all, one so sorely lacking in warrior skills needs one such as I around, for matters of security."

The doors opened, and Doctor Kirk emerged through them.

"Mind if I join in?"

Worf chuckled at the older man's request.

"Do you know how to use a bathleth, Doctor?"

"Sure. The wife and I practice with them all the time."

Riker whispered to Worf.

"Be gentle."

"Of course, Commander."

Again, 3 simple movements were all that were needed. A dazed Worf looked up, having never seen Peter coming.

"You didn't go easy on me, did you?"

"No, Doctor. How---did you do that?"

"Welll...If I beat her, then my wife....."

He whispered the rest to Worf, whose eyes went very wide.

"Indeed, Doctor. THAT is what I call incentive."

Doctor Kirk bowed to them both, and left.

"Worf, what the hell did he tell you?"

"Let us just say, Commander, that what he told me disproves the 'Once Every Seven Years' theory, once and for all!"

Riker shook his head.

"No, lets not just say that--Tell Me!"

"Later, sir. I must go speak with Deanna."

A frustrated Riker seethed with rage as Worf left.

Chapter Two - Bang The Drumhead Loudly

Finally, the Essex dropped out of warp as it approached Earth's Solar System. Jim looked out at lovingly familiar star patterns.

"Nephew, we are going home, and I want a steak and shrimp dinner to beat the farm when we get there."

Riker walked over, having heard this.

"Captain, there is a Seafood place owned by Captain Sisko's father in New Orleans. I've heard its quite good. You up for it?"

"That all depends, Will."

"Depends on what, Jim?"

"On who is Captain Sisko?"

"Oh. Long story."

"Hmmp. I'll ask Data, later on."

"Then it would be a really long story, sir."

"Will--Pete--I don't care. We're back to Earth, and nothing is going to stop us from getting home, this time."

Then, an announcement blared over the ship's intercom.

"Attention, Captain Kirk--please you and Commander Riker and Counselor Troi report to the Bridge. Macleod out."

As the three left, Geordi looked at Data.

"Data, didn't he just say that nothing could stop us from getting home?"

Data nodded.

"Tasha always said that such statements caused bad luck. Score one for Tasha, I suppose."

Geordi mumbled to himself again.

"Bet he would have let Tasha call him Jim."

Data walked off after hearing this.

"Geordi is such a geek."

On the Bridge, Captain Walter Macleod greeted the three guests.

"Oh, hey guys. We got problems. That rhymes with witch, Norah Satie, is outside with a troupe of Inquisitioners. Says Jim here is up on old charges. Lady almost makes me nostalgic for Colonel Flagg."

Jim nodded at his fellow Iowan.

"Don't worry, Radar. Let me speak with her. I figured something like this might come up, in some fashion."

Walter shook his head.

"That's an uh-uh, Jim. Its you surrender or she opens fire. Me and my people are noways anxious to fire on another Federation ship, even in self-defense."

Kirk turned to Riker.

"Who is this Norah Satie?"

Will got a stern look on his face.

"Walter called it, sir. Rhymes with witch. She once took an investigation aboard the Enterprise and turned it into a genuine witch hunt. There were some ruined lives, afterwords. I'm surprised she's still an Admiral, let alone in Starfleet."

Deanna concurred.

"A very dangerous person, Captain. Quite amoral in her pursuit of what she sees as the truth. Agree to surrender on Earth, if you must. But not here, and not to her."

"I appreciate that, Counselor. But her willingness to open fire makes me believe that she won't accept that. I'll surrender, but aboard this ship. I'll transfer over with Admiral Saavik, who I presume outranks her. Is that alright, Walter?"

The 440-year old former company clerk nodded.

"Yeah, Jim. If she don't accept that, than somethin' screwy is goin on. I watched Henry Blake go off to his death like that, and once is just about enough."

The terms of Kirk's surrender were barely acceptable to the arrogant Satie. She beamed aboard alone, oddly enough, and looked contemptuously out at the people there to 'greet' her. She smiled at Kirk, though.

"Captain---you have no idea how long I've waited to meet you."

Sickeningly, her top half exploded, and a giant slug roared out, and towards Jim. Riker drew his phaser and roared out orders.

"Data! Its the same type of creature as nearly took over Starfleet Command, six years ago. Full power! We're not losing another Captain."

But the thing shifted size, and kept on going for Kirk's mouth. Just as it seemed to have him, Doctor Kirk seized it and shoved it into his own mouth. Jim was shocked.

"Peter?!I don't want you to sacrifice-"

"Nobody's sacrificing anything, Unc. Bleccchhh!!!"

Expunging the thing from his system, Peter was caught by his wife. He grinned at the slug, now blackened and dead.

"Sorry, creep! But this old man's nervous system had prior occupants!"

Data nodded, while keeping his phaser aimed at the creature.

"Doctor Kirk, like all Denevan Parasite survivors, has an immunity to any sort of neural override. Ingenious, if disgusting, Doctor."

Peter grinned.

"I'm a Kirk, Commander! Even over 100, we eat danger for breakfast--then spit it out again."

Saavik added her own two cents.

"Then they use mouthwash--lots of it."

As Doctor Erin Hunnicutt looked over Kirk's nephew, Riker stared in horror at the dead creature.

"I thought we got them all. And we still don't know where they came from."

Geordi and Worf returned from the ship that the late Satie, hunter and victim of conspiracy, had used.

"Just as before, all the possessed are free, with the destruction of the 'queen'. An old foe, come to strike at us in our weakness. They have no honor."

"Yeah, and just like before, my Visor isn't telling us anything about their genesis."

Kirk's jaw dropped, and he looked at the dead thing with new eyes.

"People....I know exactly where they come from. And its all my fault. Captain Macleod--could you set course for the place where the first Enterprise fell?"

Oddly, no objections were raised as the Essex did just that.

Chapter Three - From Perdition's Heart, I Stab At Thee

Mutara Nebula Region, 2371

There was no planet in front of the Essex. Kirk had been there when that absent world died, 86 years back. He had regained his best friend at the cost of his son, his ship, and very nearly his career. The Klingons were almost willing to risk war over what that world represented. Compared to this return trip, carrying poor Jean-Luc's body on Veridian III had been a joyful celebration of a great man's life.

"Captain, we should not be here. Your emotions are in a state of turmoil that cannot be healthy, so soon after your return."

"Deanna--I wasn't in cryo. And we have to be here-as long as its ok with Captain Macleod. Walter?"

"Jim, I had seven teachers in my 400 years. The Colonels, Hawkeye, Connor, Duncan, Methos---and you. Til I get orders otherwise, we go where you say. But--just where is it we're goin'?"

Kirk turned to Data, manning the sensors.

"Data, have you found what you're looking for?"

"Indeed -- Jim. This is the spot where the conspirators' transmission ended up, six years ago. Yet it is only a relay. The signals' true origin is..."

Kirk finished for the Android.

"Ceti Alpha Five. Where a seed I planted bore poisonous fruit that cost me everything. This time it truly ends, 'Old Friend'."

Riker wondered at Kirk's mental stability, but kept that concern to himself for now. Instead, he asked LaForge a nagging question.

"Geordi, we scoured a good portion of the quadrant looking for the source of those slug-parasites' signal. Now, we just waltz up to it?"

"Well, Commander, the best I can tell you is this. The only way we were ever gonna find this place is by sheer luck or with someone who has stellar intuition. In Captain Kirk, we have both."

"Granted. But wasn't Ceti Alpha Five checked as a probable origin point for those creatures?"

"Yes, sir. But in my opinion, those searches were--well, a bit cursory. Either Starfleet just wanted to forget the whole ugly incident, orrrrr......."

Riker nodded.

"Or. I don't always like Or, Geordi. Too many damned ifs in Or."

As the Essex left the site of what briefly was The Genesis Planet, Kirk approached Worf.

"It occurs to me, Worf, that this place isn't a stellar spot in Klingon history, either."

"No, sir. But not for your actions. You see, Kruge could have taken Genesis quietly and quickly. A great victory for the Empire. Instead, he sought only his own personal glory. A warrior with a mission must learn also when NOT to dare. Kahless warned against the blinding light of personal glory that also sets fire to your home while you are basking in it. Neither Kruge nor Maltz dwell in The Grim Mountain. A joke later went that Kruge encountered you in Hell, and went to taunt you."

Kirk shrugged.

"So what's the punchline?"

Worf grinned.

"You were not in Hell five minutes before Spock came to get you back."

Despite everything, Jim laughed at the joke. He thought correctly that he would soon need a good laugh.

They arrived in orbit around Ceti Alpha Five. The two Captains, Macleod and Kirk beamed down with Riker, Data, and Troi. Deanna shook with fear upon materialization.

"This--this whole world is one vast ball of hate, Captains. Hate, Jim--directed towards you."

Walter Macleod, once Walter O'Reilly, was a full telepath.

"She's got that one right, Jim. This place only possesses the one mind. This is really not good. Oh, boy."

Riker turned to Kirk.

"You know who's behind all this, don't you sir?"

"A guess, Will. One I'm sorry is correct."

Kirk breathed in, and prepared himself.

"Show yourself, you cosmic piece of trash. Its me you want---Its always been me, hasn't it? Me--and Hawkeye Pierce. He isn't here--but I am---you coward!"

As Kirk thought it might, the ground began to shake. A cave appeared on the blasted surface. And from that cave issued forth the unspeakable.

"You call me a coward, Kirk? Well, here I am--though considerably changed from our last encounter. Don't worry about Pierce--he will be dealt with, in time. The Genesis Wave had long-reaching effects, you see. It transformed the Ceti eels into the creatures you see now."

From the gigantic slug-head issued forth hundreds of its 'children'. In an instant, all the landing party except Kirk and Data were roughly infested.

"Captain Macleod will be my ticket to kill his old friend Pierce--the only other man ever to defeat me, Kirk. But those defeats were merely setbacks. Now, Khan Noonien Singh possesses the power to rule galaxies! The Genesis Wave, you see, also transmitted my consciousness into these creatures. Soon, all that live--shall be me, at their core. As I extend my crushing coils all through this planet's core. Behold, I am Jormugandr, the World Serpent, come to kill Mighty Thor. Are You Thor, Kirk?"

Kirk opened his mouth, but then decided to let the obvious joke go.

"We've come prepared for you, Khan! Data, hand me the superweapon."

Data shook his head, and pointed.

"Sir, it is in that valise, where I dropped it--over 10 meters away."

Laughing as Kirk ran for it, the Khan-creature darted out and ate the valise.

"Oh, my old friend. What was in that toy that made you think you stood a chance against me?"

Kirk smiled.

"A souvenir from Veridian III. Its called trilithium. Mister Data--tell our host what trilithium does, if you would be so kind."

"Of course, sir. It slows down the fusion process in stars---and blows up giant slugs with delusions of grandeur. You goofed, Khan."

Free now, Walter called his wife, Erin, a magic-user aboard the ship as well as its CMO.

"Honey, zap us up then zap the ship way the heck outta here! Do that witch-thing."

Alone as the final reaction began inside his extensive coils, Khan had a pithy, sublime final thought.

"Oh.....Shit."

Chapter Four - Hailing Frequencies Re-opened

The Essex ported' to just outside Earth's solar system in the blink of an eye. Doctor Erin Hunnicutt was exhausted from the jump, not being a full witch like her mother Peg or Aunt Samantha. She would have to go on medical leave. But Erin never minded spending time with her husband. The two of them made Jim feel more than nostalgic.

Finally, the crew from the D beamed down to Starfleet HQ. Before having a scheduled dinner at Peter and Saavik's house, he dressed casually and decided to take a look around outside. This proved to be a mistake. He opened the door to his room.

"Captain Kirk! Glorin, Universal News! How does it feel to be back?"

"Captain Kirk? Edot, GNN. Is it true you saved the Galaxy again on your way home?"

"Sir, how do you respond to the anti-Kirk backlash of shortly after your death?"

"Captain, how many of the 300 people that claim to be your children really are?"

"Picard's last words....."

"Doctor Crusher's accusations....."

"Was your nephew a Mary Sue figure?"

"Does anybody really know what time it is?"

Kirk fled, but the jackals were in hot pursuit.

"Right Of The Public...."

"Right Of The Press....."

"Right Of Attila The Hun....."

"Night Of The Dawn Of The Dead..."

As Kirk ran, 'A Hard Day's Night' played over the speaker system.

"Oh, sure. Rub it in."

Kirk lost them, but they were dogged. He looked for anyplace to hide. A street transport pulled up, with Admiralty markings. A voice came from inside.

"Come with me if you want to live."

Kirk heard the reporters shouting, 'There He Is', and so got in. The hooded woman said to the driver:

"Punch It."

Once they were well underway, the woman removed her hood. Jim could only smile at the century-plus grace.

"Sorry, Captain. We thought we got all the reporters away. Guess I'm slipping, huh?"

Kirk surprised the woman by kissing her right on the lips.

"You--slipping? I don't think so---Uhura."

They had never really been a couple, despite all the talk of the past century. 'Put the Red Skirt At Half-Mast, The Cap'n is coming aboard' was one of the milder jokes about the two dear friends. For now, though, they saw the sites of 24th Century Earth together, and enjoyed each other's company immensely.

For Admiral Nyota Uhura, it was a last fling of sorts with a mentor/crush. For Captain James Kirk, it was a link to the past via a still-fetching woman he could always rely upon. All was well and good, as long as you discounted the fact that Uhura had an ulterior motive.

She was in charge of personnel re-recruitment. It was her task to bring ex-Starfleet back into the fold. Her target was her friend and former Captain. Most did not notice this. Doctor Peter Kirk, now 119 years old, was one who did. At dinner with his wife Admiral Saavik, he made his concerns plain to Uhura.

"Nyota, Uncle Jim deserves to enjoy retirement. Starfleet has no place for a man like him, now. Hell, it barely did before the B."

Saavik nodded in agreement.

"His battles are done. We have him back. I, for one, have no desire to lose him again. He was as much a mentor to me as Spock has been."

Peter laid down an ultimatum.

"Admiral, either you tell him what you're really after, or I will."

Nyota smiled, and Peter felt 13 years old again, sitting by the Enterprise swimming pool. A swift kick from his loving bondmate brought him back. A swift kick from her loving bondmate reminded Saavik not to kick. Nyota got up and spoke as she left.

"I would like to remind you two of a couple of hard facts--since Wolf 359, this Fleet is starved for first rate talent. Also----"

There was a hint of menace in her voice.

"I know who you two REALLY are."

Hours later, Uhura had arranged for Kirk, Riker, Troi, and Data to be on a shuttlepod. Doctor Kirk did not attempt to warn his uncle of what was to come.

"Nyota, why is it this shuttle pod has no windows in back?"

"Jim--that's for me to know, and you to find out."

Once its passengers had disembarked at their destination, Admiral Uhura bade the pod-pilot go.

"Admiral, is this ship a Sovereign Class?"

"That it is, Mister Data."

"Admiral, are you hiding a surprise from us?"

"Mmm. Could be, Counselor. Could Be."

"Looks a little like a Constitution-Class."

"Yes, Commander Riker, that was in the planner's heads somewhat."

Jim Kirk plainly liked what he saw, and so walked right into Uhura's trap.

"A beautiful ship, Nyota. Does she have a name?"

The trap sprang shut. Without knowing it, James T. Kirk had resumed his First Best Destiny.

"People----Welcome To The Enterprise."

Chapter Five - The Destiny Sidestep

USS ENTERPRISE-E, LATE 2371, EARTH SPACEDOCK

There was a seat that every officer in the Fleet coveted, whether they said it or not. From the cadet applicant under review to the second most senior retired Admiral, all wished to say that they had sat in that seat at least once. For the record, the very most senior retired Admiral said that seat was for puffed-up fools with overblown egos. Except for those who had earned it-- especially one, a stubborn archangel whose wings he never grew tired of sewing back on--and who he never stopped cursing for flying back home to heaven, when he was called.

It was a seat of power and prestige, but it held no political power. The person occupying the seat could be and was ordered around often by people of markedly lesser talent--such is life. Rather, it was those people -- eight bright stars, and one ill-timed comet -- that gave the seat its power.

The first saw the ship born, and nurtured her as he went. The second, for all his talent, came to wish the cup he had been given would pass from his lips.

After a time, there were others. One earned, through fate and poor judgement, the nickame of 'Tuesday', before he took his own life. The next was the 'little brother' of a great family crew, and his beloved 'sister' was his XO, and later his succesor, when illness took him. When there were those who sought to disparage their family, these two made their voices heard. The next held sway over the last 5 years of one ship, and the first five of the next. But to hear him tell it, he was not the hero--of this particular story, his surname aside. After him came a lady who literally saved the world as most knew it from a nightmare of endless war. But then, that was what the person in that seat did.

Then, after too long a rest, the ship returned, and its Captain was The Great Man, for there was no other way to describe him. He could not have been more like his predecessors, and he could not possibly have been more different. Brilliant and stubborn. Dismissive yet open. Accessible--but never really able to be touched. Not too proud to beg--but never ceasing his pondering of the imponderables, no matter who told him to do so. Diplomacy's best friend and its harshest, most coherent critic. Those he loved best were like the air in his lungs, and yet he often stood half a galaxy apart from them. For seven good years The Great Man remade that seat, and gave it new glory. There could never be another Arthur, but there could be Charlemagne.

Then, when those seven good years were done--Charlemagne fell in battle and was no more. A man like Faust, and Simon Magus, sought dominion over the unknowable, and cared not for the souls he took to do so. So Charlemagne fell, making a difference as he always had. The Great Man was gone.

But in his passing was Arthur restored, to walk the world of men once more. But of course he wasn't Arthur, and his fallen comrade had not been Charlemagne. The Great Man's name was Jean-Luc Picard.

With him had fallen his ship, and so as before, a new one with the same name had been built. It was called The USS Enterprise, NCC-1701-Epsilon. Now, the 'Knights' of 'Charlemagne' looked over the new ship--in the company of 'Arthur', who for fun, he told himself, sat merrily in the seat that was both Throne and Siege Perilous.

In other words, Captain James T. Kirk sat once again in The Captain's Chair--aboard The Enterprise. The ship was a Sovereign Class, and Riker, Data, and Troi all stared at her in awe, wondering if this would be their new home.

Elderly but striking, Admiral Uhura stared at her returned hero, and hoped that he, too, would be making this ship his new home. Old age had not made her a hag, but it had made her very, very blunt. So she forced matters, while Jim reveled in the new seat. Nyta placed an hand on each chair-arm in front of him, and all were stunned as she spoke.

"Captain--Starfleet and The Federation need you. We'd like you to take this seat and once again be Captain Of The Enterprise. Jim--will you do it?"

After an awkward silence, all were again stunned, this time by Kirk's answer.

"Nyta, you're my friend, and I love you. But the answer is no. Those days are done."

For ten minutes, not a sound was heard.

Chapter Six - How We Face Life

Worf was helping the reluctant Rozhenkos resettle the reluctant Alexander. Their new home was 5 miles from the Chernobyl De-Rad Plant, still in operation after 250 years, so he could not attend the private peek at The Enterprise-E. No transporters would operate within 25 miles of that scarred area.

Geordi LaForge had just cut his always-right father off by pointing out that perhaps he and his sister had given up too soon on Captain LaForge, just as Geordi did not let go when he should have. The long-term military family needed this release, so Geordi also had to beg off viewing The E.

On Space Station Deep Space Nine, The O'Brien family prepared a Runabout for Earth, with the fully bound Ro Laren in tow. Ro had turned herself in, despite being the second-most wanted Maquis in creation. The first was hiding somewhere in the Badlands, while a wily Captain, a former screw-up, and destiny all pursued him.

The four alumnus set course for Earth to watch the burial of The Great Man. The loss of his ship and the creation of a new one barely registered on their list of priorities. This was understandable.

The famous, or infamous, young man that Picard had raised up was nowhere to be found. He was learning all the tricks of Creation from a learned Traveler. When he emerged in about a year, his rage upon learning the tragic news would set him upon the infinite paths of reality.

There was one more member of Jean-Luc Picard's crew not on The E. But her reasons were far less legitimate than the others. She had flatly refused to go anywhere with the man she held responsible for Picard's death--or his murder, as she liked to call it.

"What do you mean, The JAG refuses to pursue the case? I thought Phillipa Louvois and I were of one mind on this matter. She called it damned suspicious."

To her surprise, Kate Pulaski-Riker found that she liked her predeccesor and successor a great deal. But while Beverly Crusher could be charming and witty, right then was not one of those times.

"Bev---Phill said that because she was still in shock over Jean-Luc's passing. Just like you still are. But now that she's had a chance to review the case, both she and I see no grounds, no cause, no evidence -- nothing. In short, we have all of us at The JAG and MO Supervisory Committee determined in a very thorough manner that James Kirk bears no responsibility of any kind in the death of Jean-Luc Picard. Case closed."

When Beverly was silent, Kate pressed.

"You know, coming back from seeming death is a Kirk specialty. Could it possibly be that you resent that he did it, but your man couldn't? If so, that's understandable. Bev, we all...."

Crusher cut off Kate's Troi impression.

"I heard a rumor that Nick Locarno has been readmitted to The Academy. Any truth to that?"

Kate nodded.

"I opposed that decision. The young man is technically brilliant, but he lacks the ability to foresee real consequences. I feel that we'll someday see a repeat of Nova Squadron on a grander scale. But mine is only a reccomendation, after all."

Bev was barely hearing her.

"So--what you're saying is that Jean-Luc's possible murderer can't be touched, but that the young fascist who at the very least helped my son disgrace himself gets back in like nothing happened? Kate, your system stinks."

With that, Crusher got up and left, but was blocked at the door by five-year old Donna Riker, Kate and Kyle's daughter. She looked up at the red-head.

"Mommy--is this the crazy witch that you hoped would get a life? She doesn't breathe fire, and I don't see any Captain Kirk voodoo dolls."

Things entered a predictable pattern from that point on.

------------------------------------------------

USS ENTERPRISE-E

Admiral Uhura was not fond of the word No. Not from anyone, not even her former Captain. But that was exactly what James Kirk had told her. Even though she had thought that there was no way he could refuse Command of a third Enterprise.

"How can you tell me no? As Spock said it a hundred times, this is your first best destiny. Jim, this ship is your soul."

He shook his head.

"Was. That is, it was my soul. Nyta, I made a promise to a little boy 100 years ago. That when my time as Captain was done, he and I would spend time together. Now that boy is a grandfather, but he and his wife still need me. Have you seen how many kids they have?"

She pointed at him.

"Don't--don't hide behind Peter."

"Fine. I'll hide behind Saavik. Come to think of it, she has a better behind anyway. I'm going forward, Nyta. Not back. I've searched the final frontier through and through. Now I wanna be Uncle Jim---times 37---or is that 49?"

Data answered unwittingly.

"51, Captain. Your grand-niece Thadmara Jones had twins, early this week."

Kirk turned.

"Thadmara had twins? I guess its 51, then."

Uhura saw her easy catch quickly slipping away, so she tried to regroup.

"You are not Uncle Jim--you are Captain Kirk! I can't imagine a more simple, straightforward statement than that."

Jim shrugged.

"Oh? Then how about 'No, I Won't Do It, I'm Not Interested'?"

He pointed at Riker.

"There, Admiral. There is The Captain Of The Enterprise. Will, congratulations. She looks like a fine ship."

Will smiled, and muttered under his breath.

"Oh, good. Involve me in your argument."

Uhura made a last stab.

"Can you honestly tell me, Captain, that you can sit in that chair--THAT chair--and feel nothing, no attachment at all?"

A realization dawned on the returned hero.

"Ohh---so that's what this little junket is for. Hand me the warm, cuddly puppy, and then see whether or not I can bear to be without it. Well, Nyta--no go. I'm putting your plan to sleep. It was a runt, anyway."

"Captain Kirk, if I may---"

Kirk anticipated Data, even only having known him a few weeks.

"No, Data---there are no real puppies involved here."

The android nodded.

"It is just as well. I am, after all, a cat person."

Deanna asked a question.

"Where is Spot?"

"I chose to leave her with the younger set of Professor Kirk's children, who seemed to like Spot a great deal."

Riker put his hand to his head.

"Data--do you have any idea what a group of 4-7 year olds will do to a cat?"

Data pondered.

"Obviously, I do not."

Kirk got out of the chair, the Command matter settled in his mind.

"Deanna--you and I have a counseling session."

Troi walked with Jim.

"I've been making wonderful progress, haven't I, Jim?"

He nodded.

"Yes--but you still need to open up more. Like about your mother...."

"Let's not go there. You wouldn't like my mother......"

The lift closed, and Data realized his error with where he left his pet cat.

"I shall talk to you later, Commander Riker. Excuse me, Admiral. But I fear I must undertake the search for Spot."

After he left, Uhura stopped Riker.

"Commander--Will--I have news for you about the next Captain of this ship."

Will nodded.

"Why do I have a feeling---its not going to be me?"

Chapter Seven - Decisions

STARFLEET ACADEMY

Cadet Ran Hajar sat alone in his quarters. He hadn't had a roommate since Crusher left. Wes had found the guts to tell his family that Starfleet wasn't for him. Ran never could. A Special Agent Hajar had been with Mulder when Khan Singh was taken and arrested. Heroism wasn't merely his family's tradition--it was his destiny.

That at least was the theory. For Ran it had not worked out that way. The disgrace of Nova Squadron had only been the beginning of his fall.

After his family had made their dissapointment massively clear, he returned to begin his extra year. Leela avoided them both, using a vision of The Prophets as an excuse. Crusher displayed a Picardian restraint at the endless taunts and insults and pranks that people who had never even known Joshua Albert felt it was their duty to play.

Then they were both gone. The young Bajoran joined eternity, the result of a stupid mission that she was vastly underqualified for. The Enterprise-D crew had been very good in most missions, brilliant in others, and in a handful, they had been like gods. But when it came to Intelligence operations, the sharp, straightforward crew was always caught unprepared. At times it seemed that the Romulans and Cardassians liked to pick on this group of legends. Why Nechayev, et al, continued to tap a crew so notably deficient in this one area was a source of confusion to many.

Crusher left, and apparently did so on much better terms than anyone expected. He spent a month creating a holo-file detailing his short but eventful career, and even helped talk some frustrated cadets out of joining the Maquis. He was so close to graduation, Professor Peter Kirk arranged that, should he choose to rejoin, it would be fairly easy for Wes to do so. Word was, Kirk had long envied the young man who got to live the dream he couldn't in the 23rd Century. Even better, the pranksters and slam-artists almost all apologized, admitting some envy on their parts--and expressing some relief that even the mighty could fall.

Then Ran was alone. The jokes stopped. The insults went away. Nova Squadron was starting to be forgotten. Now some looked to a cadet named Watters and his Red Squadron to be the next ones.

The isolation drove Ran insane. He got into fistfights that got whole quadmesters deducted from his credits. But the worst was yet to come.

When Nick Locarno had been readmitted, he went to greet him. His proffered hand was not grasped by his former cadet leader. Hajar just stood there dumbly, til Locarno spoke exactly two words.

"Go away."

Ran later learned from an aide to Nick's uncle, Admiral Owen Paris, that this was a pattern in Locarno's life. People who were no longer useful to him--were regarded as useless to him. One story went that Nick's cousin--a man so much his double they could've been twins, begged him to attend his sentencing hearing after a series of screw-ups that rivalled those of Nova Squadron. Citing career concerns, Locarno was absent, and so the younger Paris set about crafting a legendary vengeance. But Ran merely felt even more alone. The man who had told him everything would be alright had meant it. He just hadn't meant it for anyone else but him. Rumor had the soon-to-be graduate mentoring his younger counterpart, Cadet Watters.

But Ran had used his anger well, just this once. He walked away from potential brawls. He kept his grades up. He again began to show that he was a true Hajar, and the rest of creation be damned if they thought otherwise.

Then had come that afternoon. For no reason he could discern, yet another full year was taken away from him. He was almost out the door. Graduated. No explanation was given but 'concerns'.

He had gotten stupid. Running back to his quarters, he'd tied some sheets together, spread them over his clothes-rod, and set up a chair. No more disgrace, he thought. The End.

Happily, he got smart just in time. Staring at the chair, he almost laughed. So what? Stay at the Academy--leave the Academy. His family he would deal with. But to end his own life over a decision that he knew to be unjust? He wasn't that crazy.

Ran Hajar spent the rest of the afternoon in meditation, deep and wonderful. Repeat another year? Great. He knew the whole gauntlet, by now. He would breeze through it all and eat pizza in the games parlor with all his extra time. Even Professor Kirk's dreaded xenobiology final held no terror for him. The older man had mellowed in class since the return of his beloved uncle, the great James T.

And when Ran was at his very calmest, a message appeared on his board. Scanning the message, his eyes went wide. Wide in abject terror. His most paranoid fear was a full-blooded reality, and reality bit the big one hard.

"You manipulative mother....I'll show you!! I'll show you all!!!"

The rope of sheets was resecured. The noose went around his neck.

Cadet Ran Hajar kicked the chair away and was not found for 24 hours.

The cause of death was ruled an obvious suicide. On his board--there was no message found. But he had not imagined it.

------------------------------

USS ENTERPRISE-E

Uhura nodded. Will Riker's instincts and intuition were dead on target.

"I'm sorry, Commander. But for one very simple reason, you will not be made Captain of this new Enterprise."

Will disguised his bitterness, but only well enough not to show Admiral Uhura any disrespect.

"Its my refusals of Command, isn't it? They told me that one day I'd say No once too often. Guess that dreadful day came round at last."

The centetrianarian Admiral shook her head.

"Nope. You couldn't be more off track. You can have your pick of any ship--except Enterprise."

She saw Riker's eyes and the massive confusion that they did not hide.

"Then why--Maam?"

"Will--Starfleet has been throwing around that 'career decision' crap since Bob April was greener than Pavel was. It rarely matters. Do you honestly believe that even those isolated Yahoos would pass on talent, especially after Wolf 359? But by that same token--other things do matter a great deal."

He guessed correctly.

"Pegasus. The cloaking device. Well, at least that makes sense."

Uhura tried to be gentle to a young man who reminded her of someone very dear to her heart, despite his jackass's stubbornness.

"Understand--they would like to put you here--but some fear it would be seen as a reward for violating The Treaty Of Algeron. Now, I can offer you any number of ships--even a refitted Galaxy-class. Or--I can get you your old job again."

Will didn't even consider it.

"No. Thank You, Admiral. But if I was to be XO in that right-hand chair--it would only be if a certain legend returned from the dead."

For an agonizing moment, Will saw a smiling Picard get up from the Captain's Chair, and straighten his uniform. He winced to realize that he would never see that stirring sight again.

"Commander? A legend HAS returned from the dead."

And Uhura's words stirred another image. Kirk, in the new grey-tinged uniform, pointing to the stars that were still as yet unexplored. He suddenly realized that this fantasy--could easily become reality.

"But Admiral. Jim said no. He said it several times."

She smiled, and Will briefly saw a century fall off her form.

"His lips said no. But his heart is going to make him say yes. I know him, though. He needs help to see the truth. Perhaps--our help?"

Will smiled.

"Admiral--you have a plan."

As Riker walked off The Bridge to begin implementing said plan, he almost didn't notice Uhura taking in the sight of him. After the doors closed, she began to leave as well. She gave this assesment of her young ally.

"Cute behind--but he'd never last the night."

----------------------------------------

SEACOUVER, EARTH

Troi and Kirk sat down for drinks. The barkeep nodded.

"Welcome to Dawson's, a hospitable Seacouver-area tradition for almost 400 years. I'm the proprietor, Duncan O'Reilly. Amanda over there will be your server. Can I get you some appetizers?"

Jim nodded.

"I'll have the Kurgan King Crab Cakes."

Deanna pointed.

"I have got to try the Ramirez Raviolis."

"I'll have them out in a jiffy. Oh--no split checks. In the end of the evening, there can be only one."

The ponytailed man walked off. Jim stared at all the swords on the wall, as did Deanna.

"Captain, was that man.....?"

Jim nodded.

"Could he have been....?"

They both shook their heads.

"Naaahhh!!!"

The ancient jukebox then blared an equally ancient song.

"Here We Are; Born To Be Kings; We're The Princes Of The Universe;"

Worf walked in, with Alexander by his side. He took in all the swords.

"By Kahless...I LIKE this place! Connor! Get me The Four Horsemen Sampler Plate--extra Caspian sauce! Or is that too much trouble?"

The other proprietor responded.

"Trouble? I Don't Think So."

Worf sat down with his fellow officers.

"Captain. Deanna, come with me. There is a sword shop around the corner. They serrate them--right in front of you!"

"Oh, joy."

The couple left. Alexander nodded.

"They should be a while. Captain, sir--what is it like, coming back from the dead?"

Jim shrugged.

"I wasn't really gone, Alex. I mean, people just don't come back from the dead."

Almost every person in the tavern turned and looked at Jim. He gulped.

"Present company excepted, of course."

A redhead of Jim's acquaintance walked in. A few weeks prior--they had actually ended up in bed together. It could have been that her professed hate was truly inverted love. Or it could have been that they had both been drunker than skunks.

"I'm here for you."

At Beverly's words, almost every patron and waiter whipped out yet more swords. Jim held up a hand.

"I think she means me, fellas."

Alexander shook off the odd scene, and read the menu as the swords were put away.

"Methos Meatballs--made with aged garlic."

Beverly Crusher spoke.

"I'll be brief, Kirk. My investigation will continue. I still firmly believe that you killed Jean-Luc. But the histrionics end. I'll expect the same of you."

Jim nodded, grateful for even a partial truce with the Doctor.

"Its a deal. Want to sit down with us?"

Her face held back a sneer.

"No--I Don't Think So."

The one called Connor watch her leave.

"Hey--she's pretty good!"

As Worf and Deanna reentered, Troi felt the pure ice at the center of Beverly's soul. She wondered how her friend had come to this. The answer would shock her. It would shock them all.

Outside, Crusher hit her combadge.

"Is she secured?"

A nasally voice answered back.

"Yes, Blessed Founder. May your godhood guide we lesser---"

The Changeling ended the communication, and the cloaked ship departed.

"I don't like Solids---but I freaking DESPISE Vortas!"

Beverly Crusher went home, while Beverly Crusher was transported to a Dominion Prison Camp.

--------------------------------------------

Inside the tavern, after a hearty meal of Highland Hamburgers, Fitzcairn Fries, and Ryan's Ribs, Jim recieved a call. It was his nephew.

"Peter? Is anything wrong?"

The older man looked tearful.

"Uncle Jim--I need you to do something for me. Its important."

Kirk shook his head.

"For pity's sake--just tell Nyta the answer is still no!"

Professor Kirk held up a hand.

"No--I'm not in on that with her. Jim, we need someone impartial to head up an investigation."

"What kind of investigation?"

"Everyone--Cadet Ran Hajar committed suicide yesterday. But while it definitely was suicide by hanging, someone tampered with his quarters before he was officially found. This could lead to a huge scandal. Jim?"

Kirk put down his food. The others followed suit.

"I'll do it, son. Take care til I get back."

Jim pointed at Deanna.

"We have one week til Jean-Luc's funeral. I want you and Data with me on this, if you can and if you will."

Worf nodded.

"She will do it, of course."

Since that in fact would have been her answer, Troi kept silent about the presumption--for the present.

"Data is good at this sort of thing. He'll do it, if you ask him. Jim, Cadet Hajar--was troubled, to say the least."

Kirk got up.

"Apparently, those troubles devoured his will to live. It never gets any easier. The young die--and I keep on. O'Reilly--how much do we owe you?"

The man called Duncan moved his hand in a dismissive gesture.

"I heard your troubles. Its all on the house. Around here--young life is considered very, very precious."

Chapter Eight - Ashes To Ashes

Data watched impassively as Kirk looked over Ran Hajar's quarters. He knew the human was looking for something missing. The nature of which The Captain himself would only know if and when he found it. It frightened the android that he understood the wherefores of humanity without first understanding the whys. It also frightened him that he was frightened. The emotion chip was grading him on lessons he had never been given.

"A young person, Mister Data, is so damned full of promise, that even when he or she flushes away 75% of that promise, they still have untold treasures to offer the world. Hajar and Wesley Crusher and that poor young Bajoran screwed up royally. But to feel it so keenly that you take your own life? Perhaps I've lived too many lives to comprehend why you would even consider such a thing."

Data shook his head.

"I fear that I have no answer of any validity, Captain. Too much of my own life has been dedicated to advancing myself to truly consider an abrupt halt for reasons other than tactical ones."

Jim found it in himself to half-smile.

"Actually, Data--I think that non-answer makes for a pretty good answer. Ran Hajar was young. A couple of negated academic years couldn't change that. Was there some outward goal he felt pressured toward?"

Data considered what he knew of the Academy.

"Only the 31 Mark, as they call it, Captain."

Jim thought of the spies he had been forced into dark dealings with, a century before. He wondered if they had since gone overt.

"What 31 Mark?"

"The Mark that you yourself set, sir. The need that many cadets feel that tells them they must have their first command by age 31, or be of less worth."

Kirk was certain that the android meant what he said as a compliment, but the words still struck hard. The thought that his career had become one more thing that young people drove themselves crazy with was not a comforting one.

"Data, I'm on the verge of a headache as big as the one that caused Deanna to take a few hours off. Let's sit down, and talk."

"I would be glad to, sir. What shall we talk about?"

Jim wanted to get his thinking as far away from a wasted young life as possible. So he went all the way to Romulus itself.

"Commander? Tell me about...Spock.

Data could offer little, but he knew that Kirk would want every detail he could muster about the encounter between himself and Picard and Ambassador Spock on Romulus.

"We had just learned of Ambassador Sarek's death. Because of the meld they had shared, Captain Picard felt it most deeply. Disguised as Romulans, and traveling aboard a cloaked Klingon ship, we began a mission that was badly compromised from the very beginning. The culmination of a Romulan plot that may have started at Camp Khitomer itself, mere moments after you, sir, prevented the assassination of President Yddenek. Perhaps unsurprisingly , Sela was set over this plan."

Kirk queried the android.

"Sela? Remember, Commander--you're talking to a walking time anomaly, here."

Data nodded.

"Then Sela is a most appropriate subject matter, sir. Her very existence was caused by a temporal anomaly that, as such things are measured, makes the continued lives of yourself and Captain Scott seem almost regular. To offer up even a condensed version of her origins would not allow us sufficient time for talk or investigation. Suffice it to say that she planned to have the image of Spock help her to take Vulcan for The Romulans, and that we stopped her. As to the Ambassador himself, I first remember that he chided Captain Picard for referring to his efforts at Vulcanoid Reunification as 'Cowboy Diplomacy'."

Kirk smiled, to think of the fierce, proud, argumentative man he met so briefly engaging in verbal combat with his powerfully logical brother-and-beyond.

"Yippee-kai-yay, Motherfu...."

Data cut Jim off, a reaction perhaps brought on by the evolving emotion chip.

"Captain--is such language appropriate?"

Kirk shrugged.

"We are talking about Spock."

Data realized anew the powerful connection that the two legends still shared, and always would.

"I comprehend your meaning. In any event, Spock resented our presence, and Captain Picard was unrelenting in his notion that he should return with us. The betrayal by Pardek brought matters to a head. Both men found respect for each other, and some common ground. Spock melded with The Captain, and through him, with Sarek. It ended happily, although I knew Captain Picard would never be comfortable with leaving someone of that stature behind."

Much of this Kirk had gleaned from records of the incident. He wanted more than that, so he pressed the android.

"Did you and he talk at all? I mean, the similarities between you two are just astounding."

Data thought back.

"They were discussed, sir. But as humans put it, our talk consisted chiefly of--envying the verdantcy of another individual's well-kept front yard lawn. Did I get that phrase right, sir? The emotion chip often makes me feel as though I were relearning everything I already know."

Kirk understood everything.

"The phrase, Mister Data, is that the grass always seems greener on the other side of the fence. We want the thing we think we cannot have, and so build it up in our minds to a level we secretly know it will never achieve. As to relearning--join the club. Living in this new century is going to take everything I've got. But as Lennon said, 'In Love, Again--It'll Be Just Like Starting Over."

Data was now puzzled.

"An odd thing for a Bolshevik revolutionary to say, Captain."

"This Lennon, Data--was a different sort of revolutionary. For example, after his wild times were done--he chose his family, as I have. I owe Peter, for never losing faith that his uncle would come back. I owe Saavik, who made my David's last days damned good ones. I owe those kids to be the kind of grandfather that Sam would have wanted to be, had he lived. Errr--do I owe you a new cat?"

"Not as yet, sir. Spot is recovering from the assault of your young nieces and nephews. Most of her hair has grown back, the prosthetic tail is responding well, and the microwave radiation burns have almost vanished. However, she may feel betrayed that I left her with so many young children. She will not let me touch her--or even near her. In fact, she now hisses if I enter the vetrenarian's office. Hmmph. Perhaps you do owe me a new cat, now that I think upon it."

Before Jim could comment about a cat owner that would leave his pet with a large group of 4 to 7 year olds, a recovered Deanna Troi entered Hajar's former quarters.

"Feeling better, Counselor?"

"Yes, Captain. Very much so. I wasn't ready at first, for the veritable panoply of emotions that Ran Hajar felt, during his time here. But I am ready now. I believe I can describe it. Its imprinted on every atom of this area."

Actually, she was almost certain that she still wasn't ready. She would have told Picard, her mentor, friend, and patient that she needed more time. But then, she had never sported a childhood crush on The Great Man. James Kirk was another story, and she felt like a child again in front of him. The child knew that if she were ever to be viewed by her crush as an adult, she would have to work twice as hard as anyone else. So she pushed herself, despite knowing that she was a bit foolish to do so.

Deanna appeared tense, and Data well understood why this might be. The last suicide investigation she had undertaken, back aboard The Enterprise-D, had nearly caused her to take her own life, so strong were the psychic impressions of the deceased.

But somehow, the confidence that she felt James Kirk had in her made it all right. Lately, he was all she could think of, and that somewhat disturbed her. What of her loyalty to Worf? For that matter, what of her loyalty to Captain Picard? She had yet to really mourn him, and she needed no other Counselor to say that meant trouble.

"I'll start by the door. Cadet Hajar felt everything intensely, and what I'm sensing now tells me to start here."

She knew she was being redundant and obvious, but Kirk's presence had her out of sorts. The tension wasn't merely sexual, because Betazoids knew how to shut that urge down as well as they knew how to ratchet it up--not that they did the former all that often. The tension came from not knowing what she wanted from her childhood crush. Deanna would learn to live with the tension, but its resolution was over a year away.

"Joy. He feels that being accepted to The Academy validates his existence. A familiar set of emotions--its Wesley. Ran is overjoyed to meet a hero of the Battle Of Sector 001."

Deanna had giggled at the same jokes everyone else had, made at Wes's expense, once he was gone. Geordi, of course, had some corkers. But now the thought of those eager young eyes darting between his work and her backside, when he was certain she wasn't looking, made her regret every last guffaw. It was all gone. The Ship. The Kid. The Captain. It was as though Charlemagne had perished with Hrouland, at Roncevelles. Wes was still alive, but that sweet boy was done. A man walked where he had, and that man had dominion over time itself.

"Sorry--there's quite a bit here, as you might imagine. Putting accurate words to even a portion of it is a greater task than I had expected."

The Captain was not worried.

"You're doing fine, Deanna."

Again, she felt the confidence he had in her, and felt more trust in her own abilities. The crush aside, theirs was an odd friendship of not much more than a month's duration. She remembered well the day in the second week when she fell asleep while listening to him, exhausted by guiding her former shipmates through shock and grief. Kirk's suggestion, that she take the couch while he listened to her, had been a life-saver. Deanna told him things that could not have been more intimate if she'd described lovemaking itself. When she'd gone on a long tirade about Worf and Will's hemming and hawing, relationship-wise, he surprised her with a telling quip.

"Just be glad men don't get pregnant in our two species. From the sound of things, they'd keep the kid back from you based on some made-up criteria."

The analogy was poor, but the underlying theme quite apt. Her skin had been compared to porcelain, but she was not made of it. Deanna Troi wanted her man to be with her, not merely around her. She didn't think that Jim Kirk would be that man, despite his decisiveness. But she had the oddest desire to have him around when the hesitation stopped, just so she could tell him the good news. She had not felt this confused since Wyatt Miller came on board, seven years before. The solution in this case would be just as unexpected--and just as predestined.

"Nova Squadron is forming. Locarno's words are like a golden song in their heads. Joshua Albert in particular feels it. They all think he'll be the next one--the next great Captain. But he looks at them like chess pieces--valued chess pieces-- though still just pawns. He is not cold--just utterly and unrepentantly narcissitic. He has every leadership quality in extremis except the ability to see past himself."

Jim felt a chill, for every good Captain knew that what lay past himself--was his crew. He felt very sorry for this young man, no matter how far he advanced in Starfleet after his recent readmission to The Academy. Because with that flaw unchecked, another Kolvoord Starburst lay somewhere in his future.

"Their emotions have become as one. Like a bundle of sticks, bound together for strength. Camaraderie in its best moments. Fascism in its worst."

Data now resolved to find a way to at least temporarily negate the fused emotion chip's effects. His eidetic memory saw a leering, savage thing cutting Geordi LaForge to pieces. That thing had been Data himself, caught up in Lore's manipulation and talk of solidarity.

"The Starburst episode is like the sundering of Heaven itself. Its all gone so wrong!"

She was starting to cry. Deanna had told Jim how wide open she'd be leaving herself. Picking up emotional imprints was possible and in some respects even easy to do. But Troi had to shut off her inner emotional controls, and allow every last feeling held in that room to inundate her. If she had been in a physical state as open and raw as her current mental one, it would have been considered obscene even by art-lover Lxwana Troi.

"I have no friends here, anymore. My dear sweet, lovely....he couldn't even say her name, anymore...killed by Cardassians? Was she the only Bajoran they could have used? Wes is gone. He stood up to all the abuse. He gave it back. He even got Lefler to call off her prankster buddies. But now--no one sees me at all. I'm invisible. Even my folks only call to express their disappointment."

Data had been posessed several times during his Enterprise career. But even before the chip, it was always harder watching it happen to a dear friend. Now it was close to unbearable.

"They keep taking quarters and semesters away from me. Why? I've kept up my grades. Stopped getting into fights. I've started back to making it all right. Why do they want to keep me here? So I can watch Nick strut around like nothing ever happened? What happened to his taking responsibility crap? Or to his words about the bond between members of Nova Squadron? I didn't break ranks--Crusher did! Why won't my cadet leader even glance in my direction? Oh, my God--they've taken away another year. They're sadistic. They know I'll stay. They know I won't leave. But I have to. This thing--this mess--I have to end it. My life is done. Tradition, Nick. Tradition, Academy Elders. Tradition, Mom, Dad. I'm gonna tie some sheets together and hang myself."

Both human and android were now beyond concerned for Deanna. Kirk quietly whispered into his commbadge.

"Doctor Pulaski? That help you offered to give?"

"Pulaski here. Captain, I'll be right there. Do not approach her, while she's in this state. Pulaski out."

Now, Troi looked at the ceiling and laughed.

"I can't believe I almost did that. My life? I was going to let them win, by talking my own life? Idiot! I'm going to protest this--hell, I'm going to protest everything they've done to me except for the Kolvoord case. That I had coming. The rest--no. Not any more. Dad and Mom are going to back off or watch me join cousin Radu on Tellar--and I know they don't want that. And good ole' Nick Locarno can just go and stay in New Zealand with his Maquis lookalike cousin. Ran Hajar may get slammed--but I'm not taking it quietly any more. End of that."

A smile firmly on her face, Deanna proceeded to mock-send the challenge to the Academy Board. Jim, Data, and the arriving Kate Pulaski-Riker were all quite confused by what they saw. It did not seem to be a buildup to suicide.

"There. Eat that, you publicity-fearing...."

The smile faded, as she/he read the response. The response that, in a sealed room, had been deleted without intruder, virus, or other outside mechanism.

"No! This explains everything--but I don't want it to explain everything. This is so wrong. This is so vile. How could they do this to me--to anyone? Why didn't they just take away two years, or expel me? Why this---torture?"

Now, the hearts of the three observers were in their throats. The Kirk of 100 years ago might have asked Deanna what the message said, despite it all. The more mature man could not even contemplate it. He could only watch as she ascended an imaginary chair, and placed unseen sheets around her throat.

"Screw you all!"

Kicking a chair that only she could see away, Deanna began to scream.

"NO!! I'VE CHANGED MY MIND!! I'VE CHANGED MY MIND!! GOD, PLEASE! I'VE CHANGED MY MIAAAGGGHHA.."

She began to clutch at her throat before collapsing in a broken heap.

"Pulaski to Infirmary! We need two beamed there, stat! Resuccitation equipment--all of it!"

Kirk ran to the infirmary, only a minute behind the beaming pair. Data stared at the ceiling, and used his imagination in ways he had never thought to before. Yet his next words were not about the investigation. Rather, they were from the heart some still doubted he truly had.

"Deanna--please do not die."

Deanna Troi slowly but surely emerged from the pained emotions belonging to the late Cadet Ran Hajar, who had taken his own life in despair over his meteoric rise and fall at Starfleet Academy.

"Where--what happened?"

The voice was that of a familiar little girl.

"You blew it!"

Donna Riker was shooed off by her mother, Kate Pulaski.

"Honey--go play with your big brother Will."

"No! I wanna stand here and gloat over the misery of his ex-girlfriend."

Kate picked her up, and handed the mouthy poppet to her much older half-brother. She smiled at him.

"Hey, Will! Wanna play Pareesi Squares?"

Despite the 30-odd years between their births, brother and sister always got along just fine.

"Not until you're seven, kiddo. Deanna--can I tell Worf that you're alright?"

The awakening Betazoid nodded.

"Yes, Will. Thanks for being here for me."

He lightly touched her hand.

"Always."

Donna stuck out her tongue at Deanna as she left.

"What did I do to deserve that?"

Pulaski shrugged.

"Now that she's a big girl, she's realized that she can't marry Kyle. So now she wants to marry Will, and views you as possible competition."

Despite the pain of another that echoed inside her head, Troi smiled.

"How will you handle the ceremony?"

Kate smiled, as well.

"Oh. I thought we'd keep it in the family."

"Now that's an interesting remark."

Troi looked around.

"Where's Data? And Captain Kirk?"

Kate injected Deanna with a vitamin regimen.

"Data is currently attempting to coax that deleted message out of Ran Hajar's computer. He's not having much luck. Whoever deleted it, they kept hitting the button--even slamming it at one point. No prints, nor energy or organic residue. The perfect intrusion. There's not even a heat impression of another being."

Deanna nodded.

"And Jim?"

Pulaski pointed to the ground next to Deanna's bio-bed. There, sleeping like a time-lost baby, was the returned legend.

"McCoy's logs always said he did things like this. He took the lives and well-being of every crewmember personally. I guess he still does. He absolutely refused to leave your side, even when I told him you were out of the woods."

A groggy Kirk responded to these words, and got up.

"Its never been my style. Besides, a certain gentleman rescued me from a meaningless limbo. That creates a debt. Towards that Captain. And towards his Crew."

Deanna was both heartened and disappointed by Jim's words. The caring in his face was evident. But equally evident was the near-total lack of any romantic intentions toward her. Again, she wasn't sure of what she wanted from Kirk. But knowing that he might want it too would help her to figure it all out.

"Captain--one thing I did pull away from poor Ran's memories. That deleted letter is vital. It alone drove him to finally end his life. I couldn't see it though. A red haze took over, as I viewed it. I'm sorry I failed you."

Kirk shook his head.

"I'm sorry for placing you in so vulnerable a spot. Kate here informs me that what you attempted was quite dangerous. Next time, Counselor--no information is that important, with the obvious exceptions. Agreed?"

Wondering why she felt like a child who had just been told not to jump off the roof, Troi closed her eyes.

"Agreed, sir."

When Troi was ready, they both left to join Data, who was analyzing the problem of the deleted message with the help of Geordi LaForge.

The android decided to use his new emotions to his advantage.

"Geordi, I am going to attempt a spiritual solution to our retrieval dilemma. Will you tell me if you find it wanting?"

With his new smaller VISOR, a stopgap between his old one and his eye implants, La Forge looked a bit odd. But Geordi certainly considered Data's request to be far odder than anything he could wear.

"Sure...Data, did you just say that you want to use a spiritual solution? To a computer problem?"

"Yes. Chiefly, I wish to make use of the Hindu take on the universal concept of Reincarnation."

The Engineer shook his head.

"This one I've got to hear."

Data sat down.

"When a piece of information is placed into a computer's memory, it is in effect, born. When that information is deleted, it dies. But the energy that made up that information still exists, albeit in altered form. Eventually, it enjoys rebirth and a new life, once again as information. The cycle repeats, endlessly."

Geordi shrugged.

"That's a good analogy, Data. But its also a fairly basic one. I could apply literally any number of belief systems to the life-cycle of a computer's information."

Data did not disagree.

"That is correct, Geordi. But I believe that this particular belief serves us best in our search. For it is said that believers in Reincarnation may be regressed back through past lives, by attempting to remember before their current birth. I will not speculate as to the validity of these beliefs, when applied to sentient beings. However, if applied to the life-cycle of information, I believe such a regression may enable us to fully recover the deleted message without the standard degradation. Further, I believe we have already executed a like maneuver aboard The Enterprise, some years ago."

La Forge snapped his fingers.

"Of course! The other Captain Picard. The one who came back through time to warn us, in that transposed shuttle. We had to learn how to read the messages off that damned thing. I still consider it a miracle we ever did. So if we transpose this computer--which is in much better shape than the alternate shuttle's--we should be able to get through the repeated delete commands and find what we're looking for. But at a pace slow enough to be safe--it'll take weeks to perform the command in question."

Data nodded.

"Then I suggest we get started now."

And as the two old friends did just that, a pointless confrontation was taking place in Admiral Uhura's office.

"Jim--you need the Enterprise, and it needs you. End of story!"

Kirk hated disagreeing with one he held so dear, but Upenda Nyota Uhura just wouldn't take no for an answer.

"Admiral, I've told you before, I don't want Center Seat on The Enterprise-E. I am what some folks call an antique. This century has challenges that I can choose to undertake without the benefit of a 200-meter long starship beneath my feet."

She folded her arms.

"You and you alone are the natural Captain Of The Enterprise. Just accept that, would you?"

He folded his arms.

"No. And You Can't Make Me! NYah!"

"Oh, I can make you. Captain Kirk, I hereby order you to assume command over the sixth ship to be named Enterprise. I will ignore and resist any attempts to resign your commision. Check, Jim."

"Sorry--I don't take checks. Computer-- please define my rank."

"Kirk, James T. Rank: Admiral, voted posthumously on January 1, 2295."

"Is that rank still valid, now that I am legally alive?"

"Confirmed."

Uhura looked crestfallen, and Jim reveled in this fact. But she would not give up easily.

"You are not leaving this office until you do what I know you want to, Jim!"

Riker, who was present, tried to break this argument up.

"Look, sirs. Perhaps if we let this go for another day...."

Jim grabbed Will by the sleeve.

"Here, Nyta. Here's your Captain. Take him!"

Kirk shoved Riker over to Uhura.

"I don't want him!"

She shoved Riker back over.

"You gotta have him!"

Kirk shoved Will back over, but Riker caught himself.

"This is bringing back some powerful childhood memories. Good day, sirs."

With their buffer gone, Uhura got in Kirk's face.

"You WILL take The Enterprise!"

Kirk stood firm.

"I WON'T take Enterprise!"

"Yes, You Will."

"No, I Won't."

"Will."

"Won't."

"Will."

"Won't."

"WILL!!"

"Will."

"Won't."

"Will."

"Won't."

Jim screamed out.

"Willllll!!!!!!"

Uhura pointed at the door.

"Get out of here, Jim. I say, you're not taking the Enterprise, and that's final."

"Fine, Nyta. Be that way."

Five minutes later, a now-alone Admiral looked up from her work.

"How did he do that?"

With the backward-retrieval program set up, Geordi received a call from an old acquaintance.

"Leah? So you are coming to the funeral?"

Doctor Brahms nodded.

"Picard was a great man. He sailed the ship I helped build to glory. I owe him an appearance. But Geordi, I need something else from you. With my divorce final, my ex is raiding my staff. Would you be interested in joining me on Utopia Planitia, after my sabbatical is done? Its a chance to work at the starting gate--and with me."

Geordi nodded appreciatively.

"I'd really have to give this some thought, Leah. You know, Captain Kirk himself may be commanding The E. That's quite an opportunity, right there."

Brahms seemed to understand.

"Just consider it, Geordi. Promise?"

"I...promise."

After the link was cut, Geordi bounded out the doors of his guest quarters. His arms rocked in serene triumph. His voice became high and nasal.

"I'm wearing her down, baby! I'm wearing her down!"

Just emerged from a session discussing her emotional impressions of Ran Hajar were Commander Troi and Captain Kirk. They observed La Forge. Deanna shook her head.

"Geordi--can be such a geek."

Kirk nodded.

"Yes."

Worf came around the corner, to keep his dinner date with Deanna.

"Did I miss anything while I was away?"

--------------------------------------------------

Two days later, Kate Pulaski-Riker gathered her friends, old and new, for the confirmation of familiar but nonetheless very grim news. She pointed to a youngish woman, pretty with very sad eyes. She had good reason to be sad. The past few months had seen the losses of her son, husband, and brother-in-law.

"This dear woman is Marie Picard. She performed the absolute last task for us, that being the positive identification of a body by next of kin. Because of who Jean-Luc was, we had to perform hundreds of tests to confirm that this man really was him. I'm sad to report that he is, or was, Captain Jean-Luc Picard. I now legally confirm both his ID beyond any fraud--as I also confirm his sad and untimely death. The services will be held the day after tomorrow. I'll ask that all enmities be put aside, and not merely between Beverly and Captain Kirk. The O'Briens are bringing with them Ro Laren, who turned herself in to be here. Some may hold a grudge for her actions. Please then remember what she has facing her, all so she could say a proper goodbye. God's peace be with us--because we will need it------"

She choked back tears.

"---As we lay to his eternal rest Captain Jean-Luc Picard."

Chapter Nine - Dust To Dust

BRIGHT HILLSIDE MEMORIAL CEMETERY, LATE FEBRUARY, 2372

If they never agreed on anything else, Emperor Kahless and Chancellor Gowron agreed on the greatness of the man who on more than one occasion helped maintain the peace within the Klingon Empire. The Arbiter was gone, though, and a jointly raised bat'let was followed through with a great and savage cry of mourning. When that was done, Gowron looked about with those wild eyes.

"Peace is an elusive and a fragile thing. Picard understood that. See that all of you do. Do not dishonor his memory by squandering what he built."

As the Klingon leaders departed, Kahless stopped and looked at James Kirk.

"You were the last to see him. I must know."

Kirk hoped he understood what the Emperor wanted.

"He died...well."

Kahless nodded.

"I returned from oblivion, as well. Will you lead your people?"

Kirk tried to end the awkwardly timed conversation gracefully.

"Today, I am not a leader. Today, Your Highness, I honor another leader, a man to whom I am eternally indebted."

The one legend smiled at the other.

"You do know the art, Kirk."

A young man who bore an odd resemblance to David Marcus now rose to speak, however briefly.

"I am called T'Jon. I used to be a drug addict--like all my people were. When we begged Captain Picard to help us, he refused, knowing that our pain and suffering would lead us to freedom from our darker natures and our now-revealed enemies on Brekka. We thought we had a disease. We did. It just wasn't the one we thought. Captain Picard had the strength to let us find our own way back. I'm told many officers would have done otherwise. Then I say, Look To Picard. Let the light of his reason show you the way."

The young man also looked at Kirk, before he left. He almost seemed to sneer, and to Kirk this was chillingly familiar. The face was too close to David's.

"You better have been worth it."

Kirk hoped the same thing.

A man who looked utterly out of place in proper funeral attire now said his piece.

"Some might say that a man like me had no place ever meeting a man like Picard, let alone speaking in his memory. But I know that he would never say that. Greater than the Captain. Greater than the warrior. Greater than the diplomat. He was at his core an explorer. As am I. He was never so high and mighty that he forgot that bond. I am a scoundrel. But so was he, if you read between the lines. What other man would make those arrogant Sheliak choke on their own legalities? My name is Okona, and today I stand to honor a fellow explorer. And a fellow rogue." Again, Kirk was a center of attention. Okona nodded.

"May I stand by your side, sir?"

"As one scoundrel to another, Mister Okona--I'd be honored."

A slightly more cynical rogue now spoke.

"My name is Jason Vigo, and I am not the son of Jean-Luc Picard. Seems I was the victim of someone else's scam, for once. But for that time he thought he was my father, Picard gave a damn about me. He still did, when we found out the truth. Folks, if you don't like my attitude--and you won't--then be more like him. Then the need for people like me will just vanish."

As he left, Vigo was stopped by Marie Picard, who pushed a picture of Rene' into his hands. Vigo walked away, lest his tears be seen.

Vash, another rogue acquaintance of the most proper man alive, said nothing at the casket. She actually crossed herself. Finally, she stepped away and began to speak.

"You reminded me of my better self, Jean-Luc. I shouldn't forgive you for that, but I do. I know for a fact that when you first saw Kirk in The Nexus, you probably wanted his tunic, so you could analyze the rank-emblems of his era. I know this, because that's who you are--who you were. Maid Marian must now fend for herself, Robin---and she has not the slightest idea just how she's going to pull that off. Oh, I'll get by--and I'll even thrive. But I won't do well, Jean-Luc. I'll be rich, and I'll be tough--but I'll never do well again."

All who knew Vash knew her toughness was no mere facade. But in this one instance, no one at all doubted her tears.

James Kirk now understood why the funeral was scheduled to run an amazing eleven hours. So far, he couldn't even see Picard's crew up to speak. The length and breadth of people Jean-Luc had touched was startling.

"When a man is no longer there, he leaves an awfully big hole."

He thought again of Uhura's offer, that he should command the new Enterprise. He then looked down and saw one of his grand-nieces, dressed in her best for the sad event. He vowed anew to make a difference in his family's life.

And the speakers kept coming, in a line that seemed to have no limit, all to say, each in their own way, that today they were burying a great man.

A redheaded woman who in many ways was truly neither spoke with confidence that no one could hear her, transfixed as they were on Picard's casket. Her recorder was hidden beneath her malleable flesh. Though to all eyes and many sensors she looked just like Beverly Crusher, she most certainly was not. Such was the art of the shapeshifter.

"Why Do The Birds Go On Singing? Why Does The Sea Rush To Shore? Don't They Know Its The End Of The World? It Ended When You Left My Heart."

"That is a 400-year old poem of obscure origin, here on Terra. Beverly Crusher had it on her wall, in her apartment, as a plaque. I can't for the life of me begin to understand why. But then, this whole solid obsession with physical death floors me. Granted, no being wishes this to occur. But it does. The only shocking death among our kind is betrayal. Betrayal like Odo's, which shattered a covenant between every drop of the Great Link. But even that separate drop rejoined the ocean, when it passed. Why do solids, and most of all humans, resist understanding this?"

With her narrative mistaken for mere grief-induced mumbling by those few that heard it, the Beverly-Changeling continued.

"Granted, Picard led an extraordinary life. His thinking was far less typical of solids than first glance might suggest. But in the end, he passed. In that, he was not extraordinary. So do these fools press on with their own limited time? No. They waste almost half-a-day making pompous speeches about accomplishments all are well aware of. As I speak, a man from a subculture called 'Native American' is lustily thanking Picard for honoring his people's insipid wish to live under their enemies' control. I'm told these Cardassians' fancy themselves as planners and schemers. That could be useful. They--could be useful."

Realizing that 'she' was drifting, the shapeshifter got back on track.

"Now Picard's own sister-in-law is rising to speak. When I relink eventually, I'll transmit how this bizarre system of relationships works. This woman is truly a mystery. In the past year, she has buried her son, her husband, and now her husband's brother."

At times, the Founders could exceed the Vorta in sheer cluelessness.

"One would think that she would be bored with these events by now."

------------------------------------------------

Marie Picard would be the last of the civilian speakers.

"I dearly loved Robert-Louis Picard. But I was not his other half. I was so much else to him, and he to me, that I could bear this disappointment easily. My curiousity did not die so well, though. It lingered on. If I was not my husband's other half, then who was?"

The woman who was neither bored nor destroyed by tragedy paused briefly, then spoke again.

"I knew the situation was bad when my Robbie turned on the Vid Viewer. Oh, how he hated even owning that thing. But on it went, and with it an Andorian man saying how badly the battle at Wolf 359 had gone. There was fear in my husband's eyes. Great fear. As you might imagine, no son of Maurice-Roland Picard would ever want to live his life as a machine. But that had already happened to one of them. It seemed likely to befall all of us."

"But then new news came around. Jean-Luc had been recovered, and became the very key to repulsing the Borg. Without missing a beat, my dear stubborn man turns off the vid, puts it away, and says: 'Idiots. Of course Jean beat them. What did they expect?'. A week later, I met a man, broken in spirit. But from the start to his rebirth in our vineyards, I knew that at long last I had found my husband's missing half. It existed in the younger brother that he by turns admired and despised. But between the two feuding freres was always love--and the hope that, distance aside, they would always be together."

She sniffed, just a little.

"And so they always shall."

As if a torch was being passed to him, whether he liked it or not, James Kirk found himself facing Marie Picard. But she was smiling, a great relief to the target of a certain Doctor's ire.

"Captain Kirk--I first learned of you from my petit couer, Rene'. Three months after Jean-Luc's visit, he came bounding up, all excited. He said, 'Mother! Did you know that there have been other Captains Of The Enterprise? Some of them were almost as famous as Uncle!' He then had to know everything about you. He still had his bias--but that Christmas, a model of your ship joined that of Jean-Luc's. And when Captain Scott came to visit--well, Robert had never had a wine-taster who shared his disgust with synthehol--and Rene' simply bulleted him with questions. If I must lose the last of The Picards, then I consider you an almost-fair exchange."

Kirk took Marie's hand, and gently closed it in both of his. He closed his eyes.

"I grieve with you."

Marie of course, did not leave. Kirk had agreed to speak just before any of Picard's regular Bridge Crew. For now, the first Starfleet officer spoke. Although in her case, former Starfleet Officer was more appropriate. At a nod from The O'Brien family and Kirk himself, the nervous Maquis prisoner moved to speak.

"My name is Ro Laren, and by the standards of many here, I am what is called a dirty, rotten traitor. Well, I'm here, so I suggest you deal with it. Because whatever I might deserve, the man we honor here today deserves a dignified ceremony. And for the record--I never wanted to betray Captain Picard. I feel there are people who have wanted him brought low. But they are unimportant- -except for those five pips most of them wear."

Every Admiral there started, but Ro actually stared directly at Admiral Nechayev. When this stopped, she resumed.

"Jean-Luc Picard saw something in me that perhaps just wasn't there. But he tried his damnedest to deal with me. I guess all those idiotic assignments from Starfleet Intelligence gave him reason to believe he could deal with a fool like me. After all, I shouted just leave me alone, and all the five-pips shouted just blindly follow our sometimes-illegal orders."

Nechayev could bear no more.

"Watch your mouth, traitor!"

Ro smiled.

"I betrayed my oath, Starfleet and my Captain. Not among my crimes is sending him on a mission of dubious worth and questionable intelligence so he could be tortured by that pig Gul Madred. I am a confused little girl masquerading as an adult. What's your excuse?"

Hustled out by security to be taken to Auckland, Ro nodded at her friends. They didn't nod back--unlike her, they still had careers to consider. But no one thought too highly of the Madred incident, and the bungling behind it. So she left a happy prisoner. Or at least as happy as anyone could be that day.

A young woman whose swagger suggested Ro Laren's polar opposite now came forward. She had learned humility under Jean-Luc Picard and Will Riker. But some lessons take better than others.

"My name is Elizabeth Shelby, and I plan to honor Jean-Luc Picard both with my words today--and as his probable successor as Captain Of The Enterprise. I feel it is my burden to carry on the tradition started by people like the man with us today, Captain James Kirk, whose company I will soon enter."

A stunned Kirk quickly shot a look to Uhura, who shook her head, equally shocked at Shelby's literal self-promotion. Unable to keep silent, Jim spoke up and interrupted Shelby.

"The Command Skills I learned from Captain Picard will not be wasted, and his legacy will know a worthy successor...."

"Mister Shelby, Stand Down!"

"....and his tenacity in helping us prevail over the Borg Cube made my lonely task of building such new classes as The Defiant somehow easier to bear...."

Kirk spoke again, this time more forcefully.

"Commander Shelby, I still hold the technical rank of Admiral, and I order you to immediately stand down!"

The man Shelby viewed as the god of ambitious mavericks was ordering her to stop talking. She failed to fully and truly comprehend this.

"No, sir. I will not stand down. I am speaking at the funeral of a man I greatly respected. I will stand down when I am done."

"You're done now, Shelby. This isn't a review board--though you may soon be facing one."

She continued her incomprehension.

"But the rumor mill has me at the top of the list--since you turned the ship down, that is."

For a bare moment of fury, Kirk wondered if the suicidal Ran Hajar had been pushing himself to become like this natural self-aggrandizer. If so, then not only did it explain his death, but it made Jim wonder why the suicide rate at The Academy wasn't higher.

"Time and Place, Mister Shelby. Now stand down."

"That's correct, Captain. My time, and my place---not yours. Now please let me speak. You're embarassing yourself."

In a voice less his own and more the one of the man laid to rest that day, Kirk drew the line.

"Mister Worf--place Commander Shelby under arrest."

"With pleasure, Captain."

And as she vanished in a transporter beam, Shelby realized that the fine line she had always walked between ego and the ability to prove that she was worth that ego had been fatally crossed. She was a good officer, and she would be so again. But this day would not ever be forgotten.

Miles O'Brien looked at Jim.

"I'm next, Captain."

Kirk nodded, a bit flustered from the confrontation.

"Thank God, Mister O'Brien."

Admiral Uhura kept her face a blank, but inside, she was furious with herself. She would now have to intercede on Shelby's behalf, at any review she faced. When Will Riker had said that Shelby was not shy about self-promotion, she had thought to use the rumor mill to have the very ambitious officer tweak Jim Kirk's nose, perhaps awakening his need to be Captain again.

Instead, perhaps excited, nervous, and grieving, Shelby nearly committed career suicide. Riker was too straight a shooter for this to be a button-pushing prank on his part. Nyta Uhura, aged 132, painfully realized it was all on her. She barely registered Miles O'Brien's heartfelt words.

"I will try to be brief. First, let me say that everything I now am and everything I now have I owe to Captain Jean-Luc Picard. Not completely. Not exclusively. But when I realize that I grew aboard his ship, met and married my wife aboard his ship, and even saw my child born aboard his ship, the true debt involved begins to stagger me. When I moved on, no one was happier for me than he was. Its as I said to him, when discussing the legendary foibles of Hawkeye Pierce. The Great Man Stumbles---and The Great Man Falls. But nothing and no one can change the fact that he always remained The Great Man--and he always will."

Keiko O'Brien gave a silent tribute. Her lips briefly kissed the cold cheek of the deceased, while tears flowed. Molly tried, but found she could not do as her mother did. The little girl looked at Kirk, whom she had met when her parents' Runabout had landed.

"Sorry, sir."

Kirk's grand-niece looked a trifle jealous when he cupped Molly's cheek.

"I think you did just fine."

Kennedia Kirk looked at Molly.

"That's my Uncle!"

"Yes. You're very lucky."

Feeling a bit less possesive, the younger Kirk invited Molly to sit next to her, as her Great-Uncle rose to speak. But he wouldn't speak, just then.

"Excuse me--no offense to our resurrected Captain--but I believe I knew Picard far far better than he. In fact, I can guarantee it. If no one objects, I'd like to speak first." Jim saw looks of abject anxiety take over the faces of Picard's crew--especially Worf. That, combined with the barely restrained arrogance of the voice, led Jim Kirk to a conclusion, based on his 24th Century briefings.

"Q, I presume."

Kirk well knew that warnings issued to a being as powerful as Q were pointless and often provocative. So he stepped aside. But his guard was raised, nevertheless. And he did not go silently.

"Q, there are many other speakers. I'll ask that you keep your comments brief. Not because I say so--but out of respect for Picard."

Q, as always wearing an Admiral's uniform, nodded.

"Captain, I think you'll find--that I'm not a bad little boy any more . Request noted."

As he walked past, Kirk mumbled to himself. "Bad little boy? No--it couldn't be."

Then again, he silently reasoned, why couldn't it be? But this he let go, as he saw a potentially fatal situation build. Worf, never happy when the entity was about, stepped in his path.

"Oh, Worf. I really don't have time for this. Now, be a good little Doberman and get out of my way before I---"

Q's threat went unspoken, as the single most startling event in the history of the two antagonists unfolded. No one gasped harder than Deanna Troi--as the proud Klingon warrior dropped to his knees in front of the cosmic trickster. His words were just as stunning.

"Q--I now swallow all my pride of place, as I beg a favor of you. If need be, I will even sink to my hands, as well, and avert my gaze. I will sink to almost any level of degradation you proscribe, if you merely fulfill my one, simple wish."

Q now scanned for other members of the Continuum, fearing the prankster had become the pranked. But Worf was very much for real. Not fearful but careful of the unknown, he spoke to Worf.

"Tell me your wish--but get up first. You look ridiculous."

Worf regained his footing, but did not adopt a sneer, as most expected. His look was almost penitent.

"My wish is a simple one, for those of your power. But it was well worth my dignity. Q, I ask merely that you restore Captain Picard to life. Will you grant me this boon?"

Again, gasps were heard. They were heard one more time when Q gave his answer.

"No. That's beyond my power."

Worf roared back to his proud, defiant self.

"You Lie! I have seen you restore the dead. I have seen you send us halfway across the galaxy, with only a gesture. Surely the great Q can stoop to restore that human he was so fascinated with."

Q was surprisingly calm. It was as though meeting his own personal limits had sobered the arrogant gadfly.

"In short--I tried already. The presence of the Nexus plays havoc with the Q's energies. Plus, some fool I couldn't focus enough to see opened a doorway to a funnel universe. Something unspeakable lives there--and in that time-frame, it had just wiped my people away. Don't you see? I couldn't risk being noticed by HIM."

Riker of course heard this exchange. He turned to Guinan, and whispered.

"Guinan, what's a Funnel Universe? And what could wipe away all the Q in any universe?"

The El-Aurian felt Q's fear, but could draw no comfort from it. Not on that day.

"Commander, a funnel reality draws in evil and bad possibilities from all others. Evil is drawn there, and hopefully crushed. The pattern is usually that of reverse geometry. Put another way, imagine if a petty pick pocket rose to become the bloodiest dictator of all time, all because his first arresting officer was never born. That is the nature of the concentrated evil in a funnel. Whatever form it took there, it scared our friend Q-less."

Perhaps Worf, too, sensed the true fear in Q's voice, for he now chose to step aside. Deanna asked him a question as he returned to his seat.

"Do you regret what you did? Especially since you did not achieve your desired result?"

Worf shook his head.

"Kahless once begged every demon of Grethor while flat on the ground, in order to get his brother released by Fek'lhr. Certain goals are worth every shred of outer dignity. I will have no regrets, save that I was not successful in restoring our Captain to us."

Troi took his hand.

"From time to time, you just up and remind me of why it is I love you."

Worf pulled his hand away.

"Deanna--there is a time and a place. Shelby failed to observe this. We may not. Funerals--are most solemn, even if the passage is certainly one made into the light that lies after."

What Worf did not tell Deanna at this time was that he was not haunted by the vision of dead Picard that was quite real. Rather, he was haunted by the potential vision of her own dead body, as laid out in the future that Q had puzzled the Captain with, on their last meeting. Keh'lyr dead. Deanna potentially so. Were all the women in his life doomed to an early death? It was an unworthy thought, but one that Worf could not quite shake.

Q began without further interruption.

"Every truly great hero needs that one truly great foe. That one who defines him, by being his polar opposite. The one who vexes him badly, because he can never truly defeat or get rid of him. Yet, this enemy has an odd sense of honor that the hero finds that he can rely on, despite the obvious flaws that are his foe's trademark." The audience was receptive to his words, and so Q continued.

"On occasion, the hero finds that he must turn to his foe for help, and even beg it of him. But that does not reduce the hero. No, rather it reinforces his heroic nature, for it shows that he is willing to put other concerns ahead of his own ego. In this case, the villain is not to be destroyed or expunged, but celebrated. For this constant antagonist lends meaning to the hero's existence, by way of the endless challenges he poses. Ultimately, the hero even learns something from his foe, that he would otherwise have missed seeing. That thing he learns is his own worth."

"Yes, the foe is fond of using high-sounding phrases, and pumps himself up to no end. Yes, the foe talks about his accomplishments, and those of his people, til ad nauseum itself is but a polite euphemism. Yes, the foe all too firmly believes in their own invincibility. Yes, the foe bristles whenever he is taught a much-needed lesson. Still, by and large, he is a worthy creature, and capable of surprising the hero with little acts of magnanimity. "

"Then, the scene shifts. The battle is done, and hero and villain will never see each other again. The one finds that he is greatly lessened without the other. Though they knew that the dance must end one day, it would always feel like it ended too soon. No more will the hero try feverishly to stay one step ahead of his bedeveling foe. No more will the hero be mocked by the blatant disrespect the foe wore like shining armor. It is done, It is done, It is done. Every truly great hero needs a truly great villain. Let there be no doubt in anyone's mind that for me, that villain was Captain Jean-Luc Picard. Who is left that can really appreciate my heroic gestures towards mankind? I fear the answer is no one at all. Au Revoir, Jean-Luc. Bete Noire NonPareil."

With that, Q vanished, leaving everyone aghast that the hero he had been referring to--was himself. Well, almost everyone. Guinan just shook her head.

"That's for anyone who actually thought that he might have changed."

And yet, she knew Q well enough to know that the tricky speech was the closest the entity would come to confessing his grief over Picard's loss. Guinan decided to take it all for what it was worth, just this once.

Another Captain Of The Enterprise then rose to speak. If Picard had an equal, or a even a superior, it was the man he took out of the Nexus. With him, The Great Man had made one last bit of difference.

"I speak for a true friend that I will now never have."

With that introduction, Kirk set the tone for his brief remarks.

"I wish to God I had known Jean-Luc Picard. From what little I know, he seemed to be an amazing man. We would have argued. 100 years between missions will tend to foster different viewpoints. But for the majority of what a very admiring and admirable young man named Data has told me, I am struck by how he came up with solutions that would have eluded me. I'm built a certain way. I've never apologized for that, and I have no intention of starting now. But I cannot help but notice how often I would have went in, guns blazing. I never thought of myself as being trigger-happy, until I saw how many times Picard had won without firing a shot. Now, on occasion, I feel that a well-placed shot might have aided him. But he was built a certain way, and I'm pretty sure that he never apologized for that. But whether we would have argued or agreed--I would have liked to have known him, and I again regret that this will never be. Or will it?"

The last man to see Picard alive looked around him, at six people in particular.

"For I do know Jean-Luc Picard. I've come to know him rather well, and I don't mean through anecdotes, stories, logs, and records of battle. Nor even through direct recollection and first-hand accounts. No, not even through the fact that my adoptive great-nephew Telemachus told me to my face that he admires Picard as Captain more than myself."

The young half-Vulcan half-Klingon felt his face go lime-green, and he gulped.

"For you see, I would know Captain Picard without ever having heard his name or a single mention of him. I have seen him every single day for the last two or three months."

Perhaps some thought that Kirk was now claiming necromancy. But as he then continued, all such confusion vanished.

"He is here, with us today. I see him in the amazing self-restraint of Will Riker, as he led his surrogate family through the aftermath of the battle with Soran. I see him in Geordi LaForge's sheer brilliant inventiveness, that enabled us to destroy the parasite-conspiracy once and for all, without a major starship battle. I see him in Worf, fully Klingon and fully Starfleet, without a hint of contradiction in this amazing dichotomy. I see in the angry face of a woman who chooses not to speak with me his rage against casual injustice."

Will breathed a sigh of relief. Kirk may not have cared much for diplomacy or speechmaking, but he had bypassed Beverly with startling adeptness, having neither addressed nor dismissed her. The two Captains had shared a love of the language, and the ability to make full and lively use of it.

"Data is an explorer, and I need not guess why he is one. His journey through the mystery of himself mirrored that of his Captain, who was aided in turn by a strong young woman for whom the word 'Empath' is a beginning, not an ending, description. Both were challenged by this great man to be more. To be better. And I know without direct knowledge or quotes that he was proud of you two--of all of you. For he had some small amount of self-pride, and you each carry part of his aspect within you. That said, this interloper is going to sit back down."

The last speaker before the Bridge Crew, Guinan rose at last.

"I suppose a lot of you are wondering if I will finally tell the story of how Picard and I met. Of the favor he did for me, back when, or of why I was asked to take over Ten-Forward. Well---keep wondering. Because the man we bury today robs me, by way of his death, of my center and my coherence. There are no words. So I will not attempt any. Forgive me. But among a race of listeners, silence speaks better than idle chatter. I will now spend a year in a private silence. It is my way. Forgive me --if I should seem cold. But there's a good piece of me going into that ground today. And I need to sit down."

All comforted the barkeep as she went, and soon after began the words of those who knew Picard--best of all.

The Command Crew Of The Enterprise-D had chosen to draw straws, to see who would speak in what order when their turns came. In a true family, rank meant absolutely nothing. So it was that Worf, son of Mogh, now rose.

Alexander sat with Telemachus Kirk.

"Machus--I heard that you beat my father using a lirpa, when he challenged you."

The half-Vulcan half-Klingon nodded.

"I was fortunate. He underestimated me, and my weapon. Likely that will never happen again."

"I guess. What's it like? I mean, your two heritages are so different."

"Not so, Alex. Klingons control their emotions to better unleash them, at a time of their choosing. Vulcans control their emotions in all things, at all times. In addition, my father placed a telepathic block on my fear of my own violence."

Alexander shook his head.

"You mean your mother did. Admiral Saavik is a Vulcan. Professor Kirk is human."

Telemachus almost corrected the young boy, but then stopped himself.

"Of course. You are correct. My father is human. It must have been Sra Saavik, then. Odd that I should think otherwise."

But Telemachus was lying. For he did recall his adoptive father doing just as he said.

More, he remembered a violent tantrum he had thrown, after a bad day at school. He had hit the older man with a baseball bat. But Professor Kirk had barely flinched. More, the bat was in his mother's hands before he could blink. Even though she hadn't grabbed or touched it. The two people who had taken him in when no one else would--were somehow impostors.

"I must speak with Uncle Jim."

But he would not speak with him that day.

Now Worf began.

"My Captain Is Dead. All of the praise, all of the stories, all of the honors and glories cannot change that fact. I will never hear his true voice again. I will never again see him match wits with a multitude of foes, all wondering why they had lost to this thin human. No more will I ride as attendant to a legend. I will not engage him in pointless debate over his regular away team presence. He will not surprise me with his understanding of Klingon culture. He will not then shock me by showing how little of that culture he himself embraced. And I truly doubt that anyone will ever intimidate me as he could with merely an arched look. I shall not take note any longer of the lines he would cross, and of the lines he never would. He died well--but that offers me little comfort, now. For he is still dead. The hole in my life his departure creates will leave a scar that I shall wear with honor all my days. I swear that one day I shall laugh again. But I know also that I will never be young again."

Worf then withdrew a d'takh, and placed it next to Picard's body, in the coffin.

"Ch'dch---hev'la Grethor; Tav'la Taevleh Taeivieala----Sto-vo-Kahr!"

The expressive face of the warrior then grew blank. His words had drained him as no battle ever could. This time, he accepted Deanna's proferred hand without resistance.

Data rose.

"I must consider it odd that, for all the times that Captain Picard asked me to be brief in my remarks, it is only on this occasion that I will truly be able to obey his wishes. Instead of memories or expressions, I will choose instead to read from the First Covenant Bible's Book Of Ecclesiasteses. I know this passage to have been a great personal favorite of the Captain's. Perhaps it will help us all understand his loss, as it helped him when the news of his brother and nephew's loss first took hold, during our last mission."

The android read exactly the words that everyone knew he would. But every person listened intently to the light paraphrasing of the ancient wisdom, as though it were newly minted.

"To Everything, There Is A Season; And To All Things There Is A Purpose Under Heaven. There Is A Time To Be Born, And There Is A Time To Die. There Is A Time To Show Love, And There Is A Time To Show Hate. There Is A Time To Build Things Up, And There Is A Time To Break Things Down. There Is A Time When It Is Right And Meet To Embrace, And There Is A Time When You Should Not Embrace. There Is A Time For Casting Away Stones, And There Is A Time For Gathering Stones Together. There Is A Time Of War; And There Is A Time Of Peace."

Data looked at his Captain's body.

"May that time, which you so richly deserve, begin for you now, sir."

In that moment, Data determined to take Geordi's advice, and he began to cut power to the emotion chip. It was one of his wiser moves.

LaForge walked up.

"I spent the last seven years being dazzled by Captain Jean-Luc Picard. There was never a moment when he didn't amaze me. I couldn't contemplate not honoring one of his requests. Not just his orders. But anything he asked of me. I was overjoyed to do it, and almost annoyed when Wes, Miles, or Reg would help me. I didn't care who got the credit. I just wanted to do what Captain Picard wanted all by myself. Because if Jean-Luc Picard approved of my work, then that meant by definition that I had done something damned impressive. You don't stand near such a fundamental force of good and righteousness without feeling that you yourself are a better person, merely for having known him. So when he asked me for the impossible, when he asked me to find a loophole in the laws of physics, I may have grumbled. But I was deliriously happy. He would never have asked me to do it--if he didn't know I could. Life on a starship without him is something I may no longer have in me."

Geordi then stood next to the coffin. He removed his interim visor.

"When he was with us, this is something I would never have done to Captain Picard. Touching wasn't his style. But I need a record for myself."

Gingerly, tenderly, Geordi touched Picard's face, taking in every detail with his fingers. When he was finished, he again donned his visor.

"That's an old custom. But I had to confirm for myself that his face felt every bit as regal as it had always looked, and as he always sounded. And of course it did. Captain, I hope your spirit wasn't embarrassed by that. But if it was, I still won't apologize for wanting to touch true greatness one last time."

In the midst of this outpouring of grief and love was Kirk. As Will Riker got up to speak, the recovered legend had never felt more out of place. Yet at the same time, he also felt an odd stabilization, as though he was rapidly approaching exactly the point he was supposed to be at.

Will Riker would rather have been anywhere else, doing anything else, being with anyone else. Perhaps even several someone elses.

But he was in a cemetery, preparing to make a speech, and he was alone next to the body of his Captain.

Jean-Luc Picard was dead. Kate Pulaski had spent weeks after Veridian confirming both his identity and his death. Tests were literally invented to check over every last shred of hope that James Kirk had not returned from the battle with Soran as the lone survivor. Those tests were now done, and it was now time for the man Picard called Number One to say a few words that would by definition never be truly adequate. How in the hell do you sum up the life of The Captain Of The Enterprise?

Will hoped he had found the right tack. Unlike Geordi and Ro's happily premature funeral, he would not play festive music on his horn. But he would act contrary to the grief and grim feelings that pervaded this day. In so doing, he hoped in some small way to make this an event that his Captain would not have winced at.

"I thought I'd borrow a page from our new friend Jim and change the rules a bit. And I think maybe I can get away with it, because I feel that I've earned the right not to have to say what Jean-Luc meant to me. Please--I only ask that you take no offense. My affection for this great man is a fact of record. And I do feel that today, we bury the best that this century had to offer. But another perspective must be heard. For just as I once played Devil's Advocate for Data's sentience, so I choose to do now for the sterling legend of Captain Jean-Luc Picard. Let no fact be hidden. Let only the truth be known. That is the first duty of a Starfleet Officer--and of a dear friend."

Riker found his center. He would need it.

"He was nervous around children, often times visibly nervous. He did not tell me for a full two years that my concerns about his presence on away teams would never be considered. Up until that point, I had believed it open for debate. He promoted a brilliant young man to the Bridge far too early, and seemed then to second-guess his own choice in this matter--which the young man often took as a job performance assessment. He was often too willing to put Federation interests behind those of species we contacted. He was too much a diplomat, almost never prepared to fire, and forever conceding every last point until some invisible line was crossed. Even then, he felt compelled to apologize for us being us. Whoever they were, he rarely if ever asked for apology--unless he himself were put to inconvenience."

Will was developing a sneer. To give balance to this day, he was dredging up every negative feeling he had ever held about his Captain. It was painful to do so necessary an action for one all regarded so highly. A creature of duty, he did not flinch from moving forward.

"He never seemed to understand that his love of archaeology, while infectious, was hardly universally shared. As time went by, he overrelied on Data's vast memory, instead of demanding that we ourselves get with the program. I swear there were times when he thought Geordi was Aladdin and the engines a lamp he could merely rub forever. And though Lxwana Troi is the mother of a dear friend, I feel he suffered her intrusions far too gladly, whatever his public words."

Deanna winked at her once--and future?-- Imzadi. Most of this he had come up with on the fly, after nailing down the basic framework of his speech. But that one remark he had wisely cleared with Troi first. She was shocked to realize that she had real doubts about whether Worf would have done so.

"There were times I felt like the village idiot. As though whatever I would say, he was set to do the exact opposite. I am floored by the fact that it took him almost seven years to sit down with us for a lousy game of poker. He was the first person to demand an explanation for your untoward behavior, and the last person to explain when he himself crossed certain lines. I still don't know why, when he was briefly reduced to childhood, he didn't fully and immediately comprehend why he couldn't command a ship like that. His pride of place was explosive--and heaven help those who interfered with that. May I finally add that The Great Captain Jean-Luc Picard was a man overly fond of the sound of his own voice. Preferably at high decibel levels."

Will breathed in, freed of some toxic feelings he knew to be unfair but that he had held nevertheless.

"And if any of you think that a single thing I've said diminishes my Captain in any way, shape, or form---then you are here merely out of respect. For you did not know Jean-Luc Picard. You didn't know him at all. I--have to sit down."

Shaken to his core but feeling that he had performed a sacred if hellish duty, Will's hand was taken by Captain Kirk.

"Will, I pray to God that someone had the courage to do what you just did at my funeral."

Riker heard some gasps, and even some angry whispers in the crowd. But he was satisfied, knowing that those who counted most understood.

As Deanna rose to speak, Professor Peter Kirk whispered to Beverly Crusher. On her other side was Admiral Saavik Kirk, his wife. The Changeling wondered how this could be, since she had deliberately sat away from any of Crusher's old friends. The older man smiled as he spoke in low tones.

"Listen up, you amorphous slime. You are masquerading as a woman I held when she was newborn, and whose own childbirth I was privileged to attend. Because of you and your Dominion, she is currently suffering under the thumb of a twisted little Vorta. Now, I'll get straight to the point. You've taken her place. So you go out there and grieve your heart out. No too-distraught for words garbage. Emote. Really sell it."

The shapeshifter tried to regain her ground.

"Even assuming you were correct about me, what makes you think I'll do anything you say?"

Admiral Saavik raised an eyebrow.

"Attention, All Mourners. Did you know that Beverly Crusher is currently in the Gamma Quadrant? Do it, or we will gladly and joyfully expose you. Your act is sorely lacking in this area."

She gulped, a human reaction that she didn't even realize she had given.

"Are you Changelings, like myself? Or are you members of The Q?"

Professor Kirk shook his head.

"Dominion. Borg. Q. Why would we want to be anything as pathetically weak as that, when we've faced far, far worse?"

The shapeshifter feared losing her shape, then and there.

"What are you two?"

"Me and the wife? Just a couple of retired superheroes."

"I and the husband? Allies to good--a nightmare to you."

"Mer-Mercy. I don't understand Solid emotions. Not one bit."

The Vulcan woman who now looked positively demonic brushed her fingers against 'Beverly's' forehead.

"You do now. I have just impressed upon you the accumulated grief of our dear Beverly, these past two months. I hold her very, very dear. So do you pay for what you've done. Now go up and grieve, after Deanna Troi. If you do not, I will force you to change into Troi, strip naked, and give you to my 15-year old son, who has an immense crush on her. He won't harm you--but you will find the experience awkward."

Suddenly, she was alone again, and the two she had spoken to sat half the crowd away, like they had never left.

"That's odd---I don't have daydrea----"

The grief hit her in waves. Her detachment was gone.

It would only get worse for the impostor who was put paid to by two people-who were themselves not what they seemed.

Deanna topped Will with her opening words.

"I have absolutely nothing to say on the subject of my dear friend and Captain, Jean-Luc Picard. In part this is because I can tell you nothing of what we discussed, as Counselor and patient. And so many of our conversations bled over from the personal to the professional to the clinical that I'd have no idea of what to censor and what to keep. In that case I must elect to err on the side of confidentiality."

There were no tears. Her face was not red. Her voice had emotion, but no passion. But rather than being absent passion, it more seemed that she was just past it, or just before it. In any event it was discomfiting. She was in pain, but that pain was a fixed lump, not a poison to be purged. She would not be rid of it that day, despite the appropriate venue and time she was presented with.

"The other reason that I can say nothing about Jean-Luc Picard is that I currently feel nothing for Jean-Luc Picard. Inside, I am quite numb. My friends needed me, after Veridian. But I have not been able to talk of this. Not with them. Not with my dear new friend, also a Captain Of The Enterprise. My mother is carrying on Sarek's work with the Legarans, so I cannot now talk with her. Right now, there is nothing left of me. Because I feel that I must be a monster who cannot mourn a man I loved so well, and who was my hero, as well as yes---a father figure. But I apologize to you all. For I have no words. No gestures. No quotes. I can't even tear my shirt, for Betazoid funerals don't involve garments that can be torn in grief--it would be meaningless to me."

"I don't blame Jim for this. I'm not a warrior, nor am I impossibly well read. I was not always awed by Captain Picard, nor am I contrarian enough to list his flaws. I was there for all the times his greatness touched most of you. To me those adventures are just entries in a log. Right now, I cannot envision what my Captain looked like alive, nor can I remember what his voice sounded like. In short, I am in rotten shape. The best I can do is to feebly quote the stage play, 'Merry Christmas, George Bailey', a favorite of my father Ian."

"One man's life touches so many others. When he's no longer there, he leaves an awfully big hole."

"Right now, that hole in me is so wide that I can't even hope to see it. The Captain's absence leaves a void--and I am in that void."

True beauty resumed her seat, and for all she hadn't said, there wasn't a dry eye in the immediate area.

Shaking, the shapeshifter that had replaced Beverly Crusher got up to speak. Suddenly, 'Solid' grief seemed duranium solid.

--------------------------------------------

Back at spacedock, a bomb went off, destroying The Runabout that had taken The O'Brien family and Ro Laren to Earth. No one was killed. The bomb's planter would soon be known, though.

-------------------------------

The Changeling swore a silent, bloody revenge against Kirk's family for forcing her to speak. Worse, it really did feel like Beverly Crusher's alien emotions had been shoehorned into her being. It was a violation by the imperfect upon the perfect. The Dominion would not forget the transgressions against one of their own. She opened a sheet with some hastily-made speaking notes. To her shock, it contained a response--to one of her thoughts.

"And we shall not forget your transgressions --- Adm. Saavik Kirk."

And when she looked again, her notes were back. Shaken thoroughly, she began to babble, Beverly's emotions overwhelming her now.

"Is this what it feels like, to lose a loved one? To have foolishly thought the dance would last forever, only to have that idiocy tossed back, like acid in your face? To presuppose that constant survival somehow translates into true immortality? To take a leisurely stroll through a beautiful park, only to find that its being razed on all sides as you go on, unnoticing? To assume that the--Link-- is eternal, and can never be destroyed? I feel so alone now. I know where my friends and my family are, but I cannot reach them. That thing I had used to define so much of my existence is not here, and I may never get back to it. What kind of cruel, unthinking fate places someone completely unprepared in an alien universe, facing what she never even dreamed she would have to face, with home and the warmth of union a dream that is not merely over--but erased? Is this loss? To suddenly be so horrified at your own grief, that you fear it will consume all light, and all life? I know loss--and I am lost. And I Think That I Will Never Be The Same Again."

As she left the podium, The Changeling felt Beverly's emotions leave her. She ran off, and no one stopped her. Once inside her home, she gelatinized almost as the door locked. Briefly reforming before rest, she looked at her own featureless face, and nodded, almost gulping.

"I will contact my people. I will withdraw. I will not let those--those creatures--target The Dominion. I will--I will---"

Her eyes grew glassy, and she changed back into Beverly. A suggestion planted earlier now took hold.

"Forget."

"Agent's Log: By studying Solid Bipedal grieving patterns, I was able to make a good show of it at Picard's funeral. Odd. I almost felt like I was Beverly Crusher, for a time. I even managed to fool Kirk's family, who have known her since birth. Two Starfleet professionals--who are just two old solids, and nothing more. Noth--. Nothing---more. Anyhow, I plan to return to Picard's grave tonight, for the sake of appearances."

As far as the shapeshifter was concerned, the day had gone according to plan. It had. It just wasn't her plan.

At the cemetery, The High Clerk for all of Starfleet, a retired Commodore that no one knew personally, had the last word. His was a job of light and dark special occasions.

"So let it be known, that on this day, a decision was made, and it has been noted fully and made true in all legal venues. Picard, Jean-Luc. Posthumously raised up to The Rank Of Admiral, by unanimous vote of all his superiors, all his peers, and all who served under him. This rank is a real rank, and is only lessened by being awarded too lately. So it is said, and so it is known."

The uniform on Picard's body received a fifth pip. At long last, the casket was closed and lowered into the open grave. A journey had ended where most journeys do. But the path had been brightly lit, and contained not one dull moment.

Will Riker saw his fantasy.

"Number One--please next time do check your caskets for imposters."

Deanna Troi saw hers.

"Get some rest, Counselor. Its over. And we'll soon have a new Enterprise to set up shop in."

Worf cursed himself for the indulgence.

"I'll risk my life, Mister Worf, and say that those were real tears I saw. But I expect that will be our secret."

The warrior's neck stiffened.

"I must move on."

Geordi, master of the holodeck fantasy, now wished he had less imagination. He saw Picard quipping, a light smile on his regal face at the D's wrecksite.

"Mister LaForge---I find the current state of the warp engines to be somewhat wanting." "I'll get right on it, Sir."

Geordi couldn't tell if he had spoken out loud, just then. He also didn't care.

For Deanna it was worst of all.

She saw him, head covered by the saddle he was carrying---and not saying a word. Picard then donned a skullish-looking mask, and placed the saddle on a white horse.

"Please don't leave."

Up over the hill, he was joined by three other riders, and was gone. She reached out for Worf's hand, but found Will's instead. Though the moment itself was born of grief, Deanna yet felt she was missing something this mistake signified.

In Jim Kirk's mind, he and Picard emerged from The Nexus, still on horseback, handily thrashing both Soran's remote and his precious custom phaser. The missile struck the Klingon ship above.

"Jean-Luc? Am I Pestilence Or War?"

"Either one, Jim. But I am Death on a horse. I think I'll be damned good at it. Picard to Enterprise. Number One--course setting Sector 001. Tell them--to have ready the mother of all Homecomings."

When the grave was sealed over with dirt, all departed. But Starfleet Security approached Kirk.

"Captain Kirk, sir? Were you the last person to handle the manacles placed on Prisoner Ro Laren?"

Jim nodded.

"I was."

"Then, sir, its my sad duty to place you under arrest."

Kirk and the other mourners were shocked even further to see that the small MP transport had two other prisoners. Data shook his head.

"Keiko? Miles?"

With arrangements made for Molly to stay with Professor Kirk's family, the odd trio was taken off to be questioned along with Ro Laren. With Keiko in stunned silence, both Miles and Jim echoed a sentiment about unjust accusations and arrest.

"I hate when this happens."

At first too flabbergasted to say anything, Riker finally spoke up to the first MP.

"And just what the hell is the charge?"

The MP glared.

"Terrorism."

-------------------------------

The shapeshifter had made a show of where it was headed. Appearances had to be kept up. Beverly Crusher would have gone to Picard's grave, and so she had no choice but to do the same.

"A few people have seen me going here, and a few people have seen me arrive. A few people have seen me here, so now I go back---"

Her self-monologue ended abruptly, as she heard a transporter displacement. Quickly, she changed into an owl, and alighted on a nearby tree.

"Starfleet Security? Or merely the night attendant?"

But the slow-moving beings were neither. Their modulated voices were quite sadly,? unmistakable.

"Begin retrieval. Sentient sonic repulsors to maximum.'

The shapeshifter closed over her ears. The sounds, meant to drive away anything biological, were subtle, but painful. One would walk away without knowing or caring why.

"They've raised up Picard's coffin. Taking the body out."

The bipedal cybstrosities then implanted a chip in Picard's neck. To her shock, the eyes opened, and the arms moved.

"Decomposition: Minimal. Brain damage: Negligible. Wounds: Correctable. Initiating Decoy Holo-Matrix."

Inside Picard's coffin, a solid hologram was placed, good enough to fool anything except dead-on inspection of the holo-body. The Borg scanned the area.

"Detecting presence of Species 1138 - Codex: Shapeshifter, Sub-Codex: Changeling, native of Non-Borg Grid 737. Query: Move To Terminate?"

"Negative. Species 1138 is harmless, unless in the presence of Species 1139 and Species 1140, Codexes Vorta and Jem Hadar. Minus such an equation, Species 1138 is easily detected--and irrelevant."

So great was the shapeshifter's rage at this casual labeling, it was felt all the way back in the Great Link itself. A species cried out as one.

"This insult will not be forgotten."

? In a single motion, The Borg replaced the coffin, and transported out with the active but inert body of Jean-Luc Picard. The shapeshifter resumed her most useful form, that of Beverly Crusher.

"Information, useful to me, and unknown by The Federation. The Borg consider us irrelevant? Watch and wait. Because your Collective is just another grouping of static, unchanging Solids who are vastly limited and inherently inferior."

And in these words, the seeds of a future war were sown.

-------------------------------------------

At Starfleet Security, a furious Admiral Nechayev was supervising the interrogation of Ro Laren, Miles and Keiko O'Brien--and Captain James T. Kirk.

"Captain Kirk---someone, at some point, changed out Prisoner Ro Laren's regular manacles for those laden with a bomb. We believe this bomb to have been planted by her Maquis allies, with or without her knowledge. Their intent was to detonate the bomb at Picard's funeral, gutting half of Starfleet's best and brightest. Had that runabout not raised shields as the explosion began, we would have lost far more than one hangar."

Kirk was a ladies' man, and found something to like about every woman he met. He wondered why Admiral Nechayev was the exception to this rule. She continued.

"Now, Captain--you were the last one to handle those manacles. Could it be you were tipped to what they were? Could you know people among the Maquis? Could you in fact be one of those people who finds the hard-won Cardassian DMZ Treaty unacceptable?"

Kirk shrugged.

"That depends."

Her response dripped over with contempt.

"On what does it depend, Captain? Either you are for the treaty, or you are not."

"No, Admiral. I still need information to answer that question."

"What---ahem--information do you need, Captain? On what does your answer depend?"

Kirk got up, and looked an Admiral in the eye. He had forgotten how much fun that was.

"It depends on your answer to this question."

She was becoming infuriated, and infuriating.

"WHAT question, CAPtain? What? Why did I negotiate the Cardassian DMZ treaty? How dare I negotiate the Cardassian DMZ treaty?!"

Kirk asked his question.

"What is The Cardassian DMZ Treaty?"

Not having a career to worry about, Ro Laren burst out laughing at Nechayev's ignorance of Kirk's temporal state.

Nechayev glared at Ro.

"You are pushing your luck so far, you little..."

Ro shrugged, chuckling.

"I'm going to prison for treason, Admiral. Try and make that worse for me. Now, Captain Kirk was in the blessed Nexus, when the Maquis formed. The only connection he has with us is that we wish Starfleet had been run by people more like him and his crew, and less like you and Jellistone."

"Jellico."

"Whatever. Now, my protests of innocence aren't going to be heard. Well, that's just fine. I know I'm innocent of the bombing--and by The Prophets, that's all I need to know. But to vilify Miles O'Brien? Keiko? Not to mention the greatest Captain in this Fleet's history? At long last, Admiral, have you no shame?"

Nechayev, for convenience sake, was dismissing what Ro Laren said before she said it.

"You, Maquis, are not fooling anyone!"

"You're not fooling anyone either, Admiral. But I can end this. Give me a confession to sign. I want my friends out of this. Especially Captain Kirk, who saved everyone at that funeral by trusting me enough to remove those manacles."

"Don't try and turn an act of contempt for Starfleet justice into yet another Kirk legend, traitor. I believe he may have removed those manacles because he was tipped off by The Maquis who are natural allies of a revivified space cowboy!"

O'Brien had heard enough.

"Admiral, why are I and my wife here?"

"Sit down, Mister O'Brien. We've had our eye on you both for some time."

Now, Keiko broke her silence.

"On what grounds? And don't you dare order me to do anything. I am NOT Starfleet."

"Well, Mrs. O'Brien, here are the facts."

Kirk quipped.

"The truth revised while you wait--in solitary."

The Admiral ignored him.

"Your husband served under Captain Maxwell of The Rutledge, during The Cardassian War. Captain Maxwell's precipitous actions nearly founded The Maquis. You serve on a Bajoran space station where anti-Cardassian feelings flow like water."

Kirk wondered where this person had emerged from.

"Then what does water flow like?"

Nechayev almost did not ignore him.

"You, Mister O'Brien, were almost framed by a Cardassian sting operation, and have had numerous negative run-ins with the Cardassian regime. Your wife almost had to raise your daughter alone."

Keiko was giving up on any sense coming out of this nightmare.

"So--we're being accused of service to Starfleet, not liking The Cardassians, and being friendly with their prime victims, who we happen to live near? Wow--we're done for. Or are you insane?"

"HOW DARE YOU?"

"No, Admiral. How dare you? We and our daughter were in that crowd. So were some of our very dearest and closest friends. Not to mention the body of a Great Man. We would not bomb anyone, ever. And especially not then."

The increasingly shrill Admiral dug in her heels.

"The Maquis are fanatics. Their hatred of Starfleet blinds them. Maybe they told you it was only a small bomb, but you got scared. You left it behind."

Kirk spoke up, but this time he did not quip.

"Admiral--who fastened the manacle device onto Ro Laren, at Deep Space Nine? I would think that this individual should be questioned as well."

Almost thrown by Kirk's sudden seriousness, Nechayev nodded.

"Well, Captain, it just so happens I've arranged a conference call with the head of Starfleet Security on DS9. A good man. A man I appointed myself. Far more trustworthy than that Changeling Sisko insisted on keeping. So this is only a formality. Never let it be said we weren't fair, though."

Kirk let that one slide.

"This is Admiral Nechayev to Deep Space Nine. Commander Eddington, are you there?"

"Admiral, this is Captain Sisko. We're still searching for Eddington, so we'll keep you advised. But we'll get him. No, he won't get away with this."

Nechayev seemed rightfully confused.

"Why, Captain---whatever do you mean, you'll 'get' him? You make it sound like you're hunting down a wanted criminal."

Now Sisko was confused.

"Admiral--I sent you a full report earlier this morning. When you requested that Eddington speak with you about the bombing, he activated some emergency transporter program, stole a Runabout, and high-tailed it to The Badlands. Admiral, your man was a highly placed Maquis agent! I have to continue the search. Sisko out."

Nechayev just sat there, flabbergasted. Her jaw was ten meters open, and her eyes looked fit to bulge out of their skull.

Kirk stood up, and clapped his hands lightly.

"Well, I suppose we're free to go."

Ro shook her head.

"I'm not. It was a pleasure meeting you, Captain Kirk."

"You showed loyalty by being here, Miss Laren. No matter what it cost you."

"He was The Captain. How could I do any less?"

Keiko looked over at the still-stunned Admiral.

"Poor thing needs something to snap her out of it. Computer--Tea--Earl Grey, Warm."

Miles was puzzled.

"Honey--isn't that Tea supposed to be hot?" Keiko smiled, and poured the tea on Admiral Nechayev's head. She then placed the cup on for good measure.

"Nope. Warm was good."

The guards came for Ro, and the others left, to rejoin the funeral dinner in honor of the fallen Jean-Luc Picard.

Nechayev just sat there.

"But--but he took me to see Les Miserables!"

-----------------------------------------------

At the dinner, Will Riker began a pre-arranged toast.

"I propose that all assembled give three cheers to the memory of Jean-Luc Picard, The Finest Captain Ever To Serve In Starfleet!"

Kirk rose.

"And I second that proposal."

When those three cheers were done, Will began to perform 'My Blue Heaven', backed up by Jim's fellow Iowan, Captain Walter Macleod of The Essex, on drums.

From dust we come, and to dust shall we return. In between then, certain of us step out from the pack and boldly go where no one has gone before.

Such a man was honored, all that long day. The grief was hard, and the memories all good. The journey continued, as journeys do. Even when the seekers' best companion has left.

Chapter Ten - Life In The New Age

Riker stared at Shelby incredulously.

"Liz, why? To say that you are better than that is to be senselessly redundant. So why did you pull such a boneheaded maneuver?"

Shelby looked up. She was now confined to her apartment, but a mere week ago she had still been held in the central brig, for conduct unbecoming an officer.

"Will-I don't know why. I got wind of some reliable information that said I was going to be The Enterprise-E's new Captain, and it flew straight to my head. I believe in myself. I make no apologies for that. But, there, at Captain Picard's own funeral, I fell into pure ego. By the time I realized Kirk was serious about me standing down, I was already being quick-transported out. Thank God he cut me off. If not, I might not even have a wreck of a career."

Riker was now more understanding of his sometimes-rival, but still could not shake his internal fury. She had shamelessly self-promoted herself while eulogizing Captain Picard. That was hard to forgive, and impossible to forget. Yet, Riker still had his suspicions about a hand in Shelby's back, a hand she might not have been aware of. So he played a hunch.

"I'll testify on your behalf. But Liz, tell me, where did you get this information? No names--just positions."

Part of her wanted to say that she didn't need Will Riker, or anyone. But that was neither the truth nor how she felt. In Shelby's mind, her foolish speech kept replaying, over and over. She needed both friends and testimony, right then and there.

"I have a contact, whose name I don't know, in Admiral Uhura's office. They must be very highly placed. I keep an ear open there, because, you know, she's in Re-Recruitment. If someone big decides to come out of retirement, then that's a real opportunity. And who could be bigger than her old friend, Captain Kirk?"

Will shook his head.

"Jim's not interested in The E. He's said as much. He wants to be with his family, here on Earth."

Shelby riled a bit, that Riker referred to the Captain as Jim. It meant he had an inside track, and she hated that.

"The betting pool has him changing his mind before long, Riker. C'mon! James Kirk refusing command of The Enterprise? That would be like Professor Kirk not giving his xenobio final. Or Captain Picard refusing to accept the sword Excalibur. Kaidith, the Vulcans call it. Some things just are."

"Where is this leading, Commander?"

She staked her claim, despite her weak position. Some things just are.

"When he does relent--and he will--I think that you should finally accept Command of your own ship. There are able officers, and yes, I include myself, who would give their left ventricle to stand in Spock's place. He'll need someone as least as brash as I was, before Wolf, or as you were before Farpoint, to shake him into the new world he faces. To let his innate brilliance shine through without letting his antediluvian attitudes bring him low."

"After that speech, do you think he'd want you?"

"Yes, I do. I can make a mea culpa as well as anyone. Besides, you allowed me as XO, when we believed Picard was lost. If you could bridge our differences, then surely he can."

Riker had to fight off laughter. Not at Shelby's expense, but in sheer awe of her never-say-wrong attitude.

"Truth is, Shelby, I think you'll make an excellent XO to whoever becomes The E's Captain. If you want, you can even be mine, aboard whatever they give me."

"No offense, Will. But I'm aiming higher. He's going to forge a new legend, and I want in. Just promise me you'll refuse him when he relents. Let me have my turn at being a constellation."

"You make it sound like The Second Coming."

"No. The Second Coming is the end. This will be a whole new beginning. Maybe for all of Starfleet."

He left her, then, thrown as always by her utter clarity of purpose coupled with her relative dimness about achieving her goals. But for all that, her words hit home. If Kirk asked him to be First Officer, would he do it? With Picard, the answer would have been a no-brainer. But Jean-Luc was gone---and he had never really called him Jean-Luc. Close, but no cigars together. Kirk would certainly be less reserved. But was that a good thing? Was it what he wanted, when his own ship awaited him? Word was, the tri-nacelled wonder his alternate future self rode in Picard's vision quest was actually in the works. Was having another autograph worth giving up that, while blocking another officer's rise?

Hoping to find his own clarity of purpose, Will looked for his beloved friends. Sighting Worf, he was glad he relented in his blessing of his and Deanna's romance. No sense, he thought, in holding on to someone not his any longer while alienating a good friend.

"Worf---how would you feel about steak, shrimp, and gagh? I know this place..."

The Klingon cut him off.

"Commander, I will be happy to eat with you. But a far graver matter has brought me to speak with you at this time."

Riker nodded.

"Shoot."

Worf appeared hesitant, which was not his natural state. Not by a longshot.

"I---have come to a decision. In order to protect her life and well-being, I wish you to take Deanna away from me. Will you do it?"

Will stared straight ahead, hoping he had misheard his friend. Unbelieving, he tried to talk past what had just been said.

"Now, the gagh is always moving, but its actually the garlic cheddar rolls that make this place the talk of The West Coast."

Geordi looked onscreen at the well-known, jovial Celtic Chief Engineer. He made his best pitch.

"C'mon! Come back to The Enterprise! It'll be fun. The people you've known. The people you'll get to know. Data---is probably buying a new cat. You are needed here. Otherwise, you'll just be puttering around the galaxy, doing nothing."

Miles O'Brien did not care much for the pitch.

"Geordi--I have a life, here, at Deep Space Nine."

LaForge shook his head.

"No you don't!"

"Miles?"

"Miles?"

Geordi then snapped his fingers.

"I know just the fiery former cadet to take this job off my hands."

Geordi did an info-search.

"Yes. Yes, I'm searching for....she quit the Academy? But she had such...Is she in the private sector? The....Maquis. Well, that would pretty---pretty much rule out her coming back.....Has she been captured or anything? Lost in the Badlands...mmmhmm. Any chance of my joining a search party? No. No. I'm sorry, Mark. I really hope your fiancée' returns safely. If she should find her anytime soon, could you give me a call? I might have a job....yes, and a pardon for her."

Geordi kept trying, and Geordi kept failing. Because that's who Geordi was. The kept trying part.

"Heyyyyyy....Commander Argyle! Yeah! Boy, was I upset when Captain Picard threw your primadonna butt off of The Enterprise, because of your lousy condescending attitude, you human piece of ragweed excuse for a Starship's Chief Engin....hello?"

"Oh, God! Send me a sign!"

A voice came in answer from the corridor outside.

"Och, How can ye call yuirselves tavern keepers, when ye have no good and proper Scotch from Scotland? I dinnae want yuir wee-wee tasting Andorian substitute Fruit Juice! It may say Scotch... but if its not Scottish, its...Geordi La Forge?"

Geordi immediately fetched some real Scottish Scotch for the visiting Captain Scott from Scotland. He sang as he went.

"Morning Has Broken...."

The door chimed, and Captain Kirk walked in. Neither friend had been told yet about the other's survival.

"Geordi, I need....Scotty?"

"Och! Tis Jim Kirk himself, come down from Heaven ta take me up! I LOVE YEW!!"

The overwrought Engineer collapsed in his Captain's arms. Jim looked around.

"Geordi---what is Scotty doing here? This doesn't make any sense. People don't just come back from the....I mean, people don't just show up, 80 years later, looking the same....can I go out and come back in?"

-------------------------------

The redhead who was not a redhead, and who in fact had not a natural hair on her body, secured the room she was staying in at Starfleet Headquarters. White noise, false transmits, and a multi-locking door were all part of the routine for the quite paranoid shapeshifter. Only when all was secure and ten minutes had passed without incident did she revert to her true humanoid form. Only five minutes after that did she begin to speak.

"My time here has reinforced what we have known about the Solids. They live on air, waiting to be brought low when their presumptions are upset even slightly. They fight wars with enemies based upon what it would cost to win, not the conflict's actual outcome. They are obsessed with reproduction---sometimes in positions and combinations that would seem not to lead to that end. Sometimes both ends."

"Did I say that or think that? No matter. But we should never think of these humans and the species they dominate culturally as quiet targets. When the war comes, it will not be enough to send out waves of JemHadar. Nor will it be enough to infiltrate and replace key individuals. We could replace all their leaders, and have Hyper-Vorta stationed with access to their every thought. For they would fight on, these humans. It is their way."

"If you find the right moment, you can break a Klingon. Just be very damned sure it is that right moment. The Romulan way, that of planning, hemming and hawing will all but ensure their defeat. For our plans were drawn up after our people repulsed The Old One--nearly one billion years ago. We turned that demon back, and the Solids had forgotten or dismissed our efforts within a generation. Each of those three faces was bleeding, when The Beast retreated in defeat. By human standards, we were the angels who won the Battle Of Armageddon. Those angels were then cast into hell, and that can never be forgotten. Happily, Earth has served a use in this regard. Apparently, humans' 20th Century flirtation with vile atomic energy produced a counteragent to The Old One. I would suggest breeding cells from this being with future JemHadar creches. Blue Fire-Breath would eliminate the need for weaponry, after all."

"Yet again, the humans contained and defeated this other creature. This is their strength. Yet all of them still dance on air, and the slashing of their presumptions will destroy them. They would make excellent slaves. All of them--but one."

"The Klingons once predicated war based on this man's continued existence. One rumor has it they made peace only when he appeared dead. War had lost its appeal without 'The Enemy For Whom We Pray'. Romulans, if our spies are to be believed, kept two sets of plans for any situation. One if this man was absent, and one if he was involved. Even the most complex of their fairly deep schemes had its twin based on that sole fact. Until the day he personally ended the Orion traffic in Starfleet Cadets by decapitating their leader in ritual combat, The Orion Pirates had a price so large on him, no bounty hunter could believe it, and they all of them dismissed it as a mere legend."

"I have studied Captain James Kirk. He does not fight as others do. He is--as we are. I know that may frighten some among us to hear. But his brains are not Solid. His soul is not Solid. His eyes are not Solid. For most, one phaser bolt constitutes a portion of their battle strategy. But his battle plans barely take weaponry into account. From the way it all flows together, you'd think he expected to slash his enemies to death with pieces of his own shattered hull. But there's the problem again: He's done just that. And far, far more. He--could have taken The Old One. Not driven him away, as we did. James Kirk could have destroyed him. Which means that we must destroy him. That goes without saying. But his mere presence has started a chain of events that necessitate the total destruction of all three Alphan powers, down to the last man, woman and child. Because of what he has unleashed. Because we cannot fight one who's thinking is fluid, and infectious."

"Who knows what labyrnithe plans his mind is forging, even as we speak?"

-------------------------------------------------

Scotty had been too overwhelmed and too drunk for Jim to deal with, so he took one of his new friends to engage in one of his favorite activities.

"Whaddya think, huh? No holo-emitters, no safeties---just you and me against the whole of The Colorado River! C'mon! Paddle like you mean it! Show some ball--errrr, show some gumption!"

She was paddling, and she did mean it, and she was very grateful that all she had was gumption. The seat was tight enough as it stood.

"Captain---how high will the next drop take us?"

"Remember what you told me, about the descent to Veridian Three, as the saucer fell?"

Deanna Troi looked down, and echoed a sentiment stated as the mighty ship fell from the heavens.

"oh......shit."

They seemed to arc so high, Troi swore they could touch the orbital drydock. Kirk turned, grinned wildly at her, and nodded as they finally began their descent.

"And how does this make you feel?"

She had done wild things with Worf and Will. But they had always peppered her with safety questions. Jim just pointed at the raft and said two words.

"Get in."

She was having the time of her life.

Later, as he ascended a hilltop, she spoke into her personal log.

"From the moment he told me about how he grew to hate holding other people's hands throughout his career, and I agreed about how tiresome it was, I knew. My childhood crush was not misguided. He's real. He's alive. And at least for one night, that little girl will meet King Arthur, and be his Guenevere. And that's all I want, is one night. I can tell he's warming to the prospect. I will finally be able to say what every child would like to say: Now I am old enough, and my first crush will be with me. I've had many partners. But I've had so few lovers. One night is all I ask."

Upon the hill, another log was recorded.

"From the instant we talked abut burdens, I saw it. The desire in her to move past people's expectations. And I want to help her do that. She's what I've been missing. I've trained many an officer. But I've had so few I felt close enough to--to want to be like a father to them. I can tell that she feels exactly the same way. Peter and Saavik have done it for those they adopted. I want to be the money-lender, the advice-giver, the bossy jerk she tells off and defies. I want a lifetime of helping that young woman grow into her absolute fullest potential. I want--I want what Carol decided in a snit I couldn't have. That's petty. But its how I feel. Deanna doesn't need me. But I have a feeling she might be able to make some kind of use of me."

Same world, different galaxies.

-------------------------------------------

Worf coughed.

"Ahem. Commander Riker, I have yet to hear your response to my proposal."

Actually, if Worf had proposed, Will couldn't imagine himself being more flabbergasted.

"You want---me--to take Deanna away from you? How in the hell do you expect me to respond to that?"

Worf raised his head.

"With honesty, openness and complete candor."

Will breathed in.

"Alright---ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR TINY LITTLE KLINGON MIND?!!!"

Worf frowned.

"Commander---you dare give me that sort of response? Come, now! Don't sugar coat it---give it to me straight. I can handle it."

"You're nuts."

"Huh. Still you hold back. That could be taken as a sign of disrespect. Now, give forth your opinion."

"It is the worst idea in the long, sad history of bad ideas."

Worf turned and left.

"Commander--call me when you wish to stop protecting my feelings. I am a Klingon warrior!"

Will sat down after he was gone. He looked about, and snapped his fingers. He smiled.

"Computer---End Program."

Nothing happened. Will frowned.

"Well, there goes the practical joke theory."

------------------------------------

Scotty weakly opened his eyes.

"Geordi--how am ah doin?"

LaForge took a reading.

"Good news, Scotty--you're down to a 60% Blood Alcohol level."

"Och. Me poor head. Do ye ken how drunk I really was?"

Geordi smiled.

"I--have a fair idea."

Scotty shook his head.

"No, lad. I was so verra drunk last night, I had the most amazing dream. In it, Jim Kirk was alive as ye and me."

"But Scotty--he is alive. He's always been alive."

"Och, what a beauty of a sentiment. Aye-- such men never truly die, so long as we hold them in our hearts."

"Get some sleep, Captain."

"Just one more question for ye, Geordi-Lad-Forge. How is that wife of yuirs doin? That Keiko is a comely lass, ya know?"

Geordi needed a replacement, and persuading Scotty would be a bear. So he continued to humor him.

"Oh--Scotty. She left me for a guy named Miles."

"The Fiend and Cad! I'll roger him roundly, so swearsssssszzzzzzzz....."

Keeping watch over the sleeping Senior Officer, Geordi thought of what to do.

"This is the 24th Century. A universe of undreamed-of entertainment is at our fingertips."

So he flipped on a screen, and darted to the edges of known reality. The haggard military officer on-screen questioned his aide-de-camp.

*Radar--what exactly am I signing?*

COUNSELOR'S PERSONAL LOG

"When I found him, he was crying his eyes out. I hate seeing men cry. And the stronger they are, the more it throws me off. It shouldn't. But it does. Like the day Will found out Tom was in a Cardassian Prison. Or when poor dear Jean-Luc first got away from Gul Madred. But there he was--James Kirk, crying his eyes out."

____________________________

"Deanna--100 years ago, there was an ice cream stand here. I brought my nephew to it when we stayed. All the victories and honors I've been given meant nothing compared to that little boy's smile. I know its silly. It was just a small ice cream stand. But it symbolized this park. It was part of it. It made us feel like part of it. Why am I like this? Why, dammit?"

_______________________________

"I could easily have told him that almost any unexpected reminder of how much time has passed would put him off his center like this. Friends and family aging? Acceptable. Klingon Alliance? He was there when it began. But physical structures have a huge impact on the way we see things. Starfleet HQ was still there. It changed, but it had done so before. This place--this stand which was probably going out of business when he and Professor Kirk ate here, symbolizes that the world has surely moved on."

_______________________________

"Sometimes---I can see her. In orbit. I don't care about her shape, or her class-designation. She's the Enterprise. Sure, I want her back. But she doesn't need me anymore than Peter does. She's had six Captains since I left. They all made a difference. I did my time. I got what I wanted. The future does not belong to the past. Beverly Crusher is right. It should've been me. I failed to save the true Captain Of The Enterprise. I live--and good people die around me. Why would I want to go back to that? Why..."

_________________________________

"I could tell. He wants the Enterprise. But he needs a compelling reason to take her. He absolutely refuses to sate his ego until he finds something that Jim Kirk can offer that no one else can. He needs that ship, and he needs to be unique in his own eyes. The problem is, a man I care a great deal for may yet become Captain of the new Enterprise. If I help Jim find that answer--am I hurting Will? Am I hurting all of us, by keeping the situation static? Or is the Enterprise more than the first best destiny of one single man?"

______________________________

"I owe my family a lot. But though I love Pete, Viki, and all those kids, they aren't my little ones anymore. I almost feel like you people are my family. If Data only understood how unique he really is, I mean beyond the rudiments. Promise me you'll all keep in touch?"

____________________________

"I shouldn't be his counselor anymore. I always hated being a teenager, and that is how he makes me feel. Like a teenager with a crush. But Captain Picard would want me to help him. I just hope I don't make a fool of myself."

__________________________

"Look at me. I'm making a fool of myself. Counselor--lets leave the Colorado River and Ice Cream stands and head back to the coast."

As if on cue, their transport landed. The pilot was very familiar. Deanna smiled.

"Boothby?"

But a smiling Jim knew the gardener by another name.

"Martin O'Hara? You old Martian! You're STILL at The Academy?"

Deanna shook her head.

"Boothby...you never said you came from the Martian Colonies."

"I didn't. I'm from Mars. Long story, Dizzy Dee. Jim-they couldn't kill you with an anti-matter bomb--though maybe I should try!"

They laughed, and boarded the transport. Deanna smiled.

"Please don't let him start in on why they called me Dizzy Dee."

"So Martin...your nephew ever deal with his blood pressure problem?"

------------------------------------------------

Data said a tender goodbye to one he loved very, very well.

"You watched me grow, and mature, and finally gain emotions. But my next assignment may not allow me to have you about. For myself, I need to know that you are safe."

With an effort that felt enormous, Data gave the healed Spot to Jeremy Aster.

"I promise I'll give him a good home, Data. But why didn't Alex or Marri take her?"

Data continued to stroke his pet.

"Helena Rozhenko is allergic. As for Ms. Flores, she is busy writing a fictionalized account of her life aboard the Enterprise. An effort she referred to as a 'Hey, You'. Thank you. And Jeremy? Please keep Spot away from small children. She is currently suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder."

"How bad are we talking?"

"The children of Professor and Admiral Kirk."

Jeremy's eyes went wide.

"You let THOSE brats near Spot? Data, the Professor's almost super-human, and HE can't keep those kids in line."

"I have become aware of that. My apologies, Spot. I will miss you."

Back at his quarters, Data chose to play a musical selection.

"My tears are falling, cause you've taken her away; And though it really hurts me so; There's something that I've got to sayy..; Take Good Care Of My...Baby..Be Just As Kind As You Can Beeee...."

It was an angry Will Riker that silently quick-marched it to Admiral Uhura's offices. He was determined to withdraw from an ill-considered agreement.

How it all ate at him, now. The weeks of dropping subtle hints at Jim Kirk. Of doing holo-sims with him. The man was no backward thinker. His solution to The Locutus scenario not only recovered Picard, but got the Borg Cube intact for study--a feat that no one had ever accomplished in that sim. The talks of this and that Command situation. Will thought he had Jim cold at one point, when he managed to unseat the body-stealing Doctor Lester and then stopped the crew mutiny over Omicron Ceti 3 dead in its tracks. But far from smashing his elder's ego, Will saw that Kirk seemed to delight in someone so handily surpassing him.

There was a real friendship brewing between himself, Data, Deanna, and the former CO. This made Will feel a little guilty. Could he call himself loyal if he found a mentor so soon after losing Picard? The Great Man had despised mushy honorifics, so Will had taken to saying that Picard was like a big brother to him, and even then only rarely. But being around Kirk made Will understand his own place in Starfleet history better. He now knew what part of the 'family' he had come from. Jean-Luc, Will realized, had not wanted a man whose advice he would ignore, as it sometimes seemed. But in his quest for justice and peace, Captain Picard had wanted a balance for his scales. Will was that balance.

But in time, that balance took on new dimensions. There had been something of Riker in Picard, towards the end. Will knew that the inverse must also be true. So why did Jim Kirk feel like the missing part of that equation, as well? Like experience was an inadequate answer. Not to mention cheap and pat.

To find that answer, Will would need to have an honest, unburdened friendship with Jim. Not one meant to trick him into Command. Certainly not one that claimed the careers of good officers like Shelby.

"Commander--we must speak, you and I."

Disturbed that his solid pace had been so easily matched, and not wishing to talk with this person at that time, Riker shook his head.

"Can this wait, Mister Worf?"

"No. I will speak as we walk. Am I to understand that you are refusing my offer to give up Deanna in your favor?"

"That's right. You want to break it off with Deanna Troi--you do it to her face. Like a warrior."

"As you failed to, you mean?"

Riker let up the pace not one bit.

"That's right. As I failed to. You can't duck behind my mistakes for cover, Worf. Any more than you can use the alternate future as an excuse. Deanna might die. So might any of us. No course is set. Ask Jim. Ask Admirals Kang, Kor, and Koloth, all three of who could have died, had Dax not seen them back to DS9."

Worf shook his head.

"Having never met Ambassador Dax, I could not speak well enough for his heroism, during the Albino Matter."

Riker rolled his eyes.

"Its HER heroism, not his. Curzon was replaced by.....never mind. You wouldn't have any interest in that one. Point being, we don't know the future. We can't hope to try."

"We know this much. She dies, and your future self blames me. That blame may well have a basis in fact. With all due respect, Commander, when Wyatt Miller came aboard, you lost your nerve, and her company. Do not repeat the mistakes of seven years ago. Good Day!"

As Worf left him, and he rounded the corner towards Uhura's office, the Klingon's words hit home. He hadn't thought about that incident, almost since it happened. Lxwana Troi's first whirlwind visit to The Enterprise-D. The sudden knowledge that, at least on paper, Deanna would be lost to him. The knowledge that perhaps it was more than paper. The odd puzzle he had never figured out, and would now have to mention to Deanna, for his sanity's sake. The comfortable retreat into their non-relationship, after Wyatt left with the Plague-Ship. Two relative seconds of hating Worf's guts while being relieved that he no longer faced the challenge of being Imzadi.

"God help me, I am a coward. But I won't let you be one, old friend. You and she have what we didn't-whatever that was."

Now truly confused, Will walked straight into Uhura's main office area.

Before Uhura could react, Riker almost spat out his words.

"Admiral, you lathered Shelby up, and now her career may not recover. Convincing Jim to take Command Of The Enterprise-E is one thing. But playing with people's lives is where I draw the line. Two good Bajoran women--one of them a very close friend--were lost in one way or another because an Admiral insisted they could survive untenable situations. What is it about that extra pip? Does it make all of you think that none of us matter? Our agreement is done. Jim Kirk is now a very able and loving babysitter to his younger family members--and he looks happy."

Uhura stood up, almost without support.

"One, I could have you arrested for any number of things, Commander, from unannounced entry to massive insubordination! Two, I never meant for the Shelby matter to get out of hand. Three--do you want command of a Starship or not?"

Riker turned, and shook his head.

"One--you know I'm right. Two--you have too much class to act like you have been. Facts, Admiral. My Captain Is Dead. Yours won't be returning to that Chair. That's where we may see him, but its apparently not where he sees himself. Good Day, Admiral!"

When he had left, she nodded.

"I know you're right, Will. But I was taught that you do what you must. So I'm calling in the troops."

The message she sent out was simple.

"HE'S REALLY BACK. HE NEEDS US."

-------------------------------------------------

ONE MONTH LATER......

Behind Jim Kirk were Data, Troi, Riker, LaForge, and Worf.

"Data--did you spread the word?"

"Indeed I did, Captain. Whoever attempted to gain access to Ran Hajar's Journal Entries will now believe their deletion effort was successful."

LaForge was grim.

"Of course, this means we have a full blown conspiracy on our hands."

Kirk nodded.

"Sorry to say, Geordi, but to my mind, we always did. This kid's death stank from the get-go. Are we all ready?"

Troi grimaced.

"Consider yourself lucky we're all friends, Jim. I hate these functions."

On her arm, though uncomfortable being there, was Worf.

"Sir--why did you ask us along? Who will be attending this...party?"

Riker had foregone a date, owing to how queasy Worf's offer had made him around Deanna.

"Its for protection, isn't it, Jim? Just who has Uhura lined up?"

"Legends, Will. That's the word she used. Well......"

He turned and looked at all of them.

"I'm going to show those legends in their own minds some real Legends. Maybe I can even get Nyta to back off after this."

Geordi puzzled over something.

"I wish Scotty had stuck around. I had barely convinced him you were alive when he took off for parts unknown."

When they all walked in the reception area, the lights were dimmed. Kirk looked around.

"Nyta---are we early?"

A crotchety voice came out of the darkness.

"Early?! Early, he says?! Dammit, Jim--you're 78 years late fer yer own danged funeral!"

A calmer voice now.

"Really, old friend. I was quite perturbed to learn that you were back--and yet had not called. Did you perhaps misplace my Commcode?"

A third one.

"Heading and Course, Sir?"

Scotty then flipped on the lights. A giant banner read 'Welcome Back', and then there they all were--almost. Admiral McCoy, now bound to a hoverchair. Admiral Sulu, standing firm and ready. Scotty and Uhura were beaming. But in truth, Kirk's vision was locked on one target, whom he had called 'Brother'.

"Jim."

Kirk surged forward, and abandoned all pretense of control or detachment. He bear-hugged someone who it was technically inappropriate to do so to. The Vulcan Ambassador didn't seem to mind, though. The Captain's positive emotions nearly overwhelmed Troi, who cried with him.

"SPOCK!!!!!!"

"Jim....I had received word that you were dead."

He continued to hug and hold him, never wanting to let go ever again.

"I think that maybe I was....til just now."

But then, McCoy's voice cried out.

"Where's that redhead? I need some huggin, m'self!!"

Riker looked about, awkwardly.

"I think I'm in the wrong circle."

Chapter Eleven - All The Difference

Two great men held one another for dear life, and if their embrace went on for several weeks, no one would bat an eye. For theirs was a truly sacred friendship. It had defied death on so many occasions and in so very many ways, each single instance was a universally told story.

But after a half an hour, it did end. The man who was supposed to be so tough was still crying. The man said to have little use for cluttered emotions drank in every second of a moment his logical mind told him would never come again.

For after 78 years, Captain Kirk was reunited with Ambassador Spock, and it was as though these two men, so like brothers, had been reborn together in that moment. And if that rebirth were to literally happen to boot, again no one at all would bat an eye. It would just be yet another story of Kirk and Spock.

The born leader looked into eyes so deep, he knew that, if questioned long enough, their owner would be able to yield up every last secret of creation. But only when it was perfectly logical to do so.

The one true Vulcan had to fight off outright laughter. He thought of his unwilling hosts, The Romulans. Of the Federation's oft-shaky allies, The Klingons. He also thought of the new player, The Dominion. His laughter came from the now-certain thoughts aroused by the mere sight of the man in front of him.

"They could all be taken. With a shuttlecraft."

He had not entertained such thoughts in over three quarters of a century, and it felt like as welcome an indulgence as he had ever allowed himself.

"Jim."

"Spock."

No two names on any occasion ever bespoke more levels of joy, both obvious and hidden. They two were together again, and anything in the universe was possible, from the sublime to the ridiculous. No mystery was safe, no attacker would triumph, and no dragon would go unslain. Even though of late, there were deeper mysteries, more clever attackers, and dragons on the whole were nowhere to be seen. It didn't matter. For they would crack, break, and slay them, one and all, even if their reunion were to end then and there.

The nine people surrounding them were each legends unto themselves. Even the highest-ranking officer would wince to know they were in the same room with any one of them. To be with all eleven would shatter and rip wide the core cynicism of even the deepest of Scrooges.

Close to ridding himself of a VISOR for all time, the former Engineer of the Enterprise-D sadly realized that Captain Picard had no one whom he would embrace in that manner he saw before him. He had no regrets about his service with Picard. In fact, he felt exactly the opposite about the tender scene. He hadn't realized until that point how very professional an officer his late Captain had been, nor had he realized how much of an impression that had made on him. Geordi LaForge liked Jim Kirk. But he would never be his role model.

Sitting in a hoverchair he cursed regularly for its necessity, the very, very nearly sequicentenarian former Chief Medical Officer of The Enterprise-A and before was transfixed by what he saw just a little less than the others. Of course the two had gone for each other, upon first sight. With the love they shared, it was easy for some to mistake it for a mere physical one. Whether that had ever really once happened, he simply didn't know, and he had surely and deliberately avoided conducting tests that would have told him, for fear of their being stolen. He had decided it was none of his business, and if it was none of his business, then it was damned sure no one else's. But whatever those absent tests would have told him, it didn't matter. Because the only thing that ever bothered Leonard McCoy about the love shared by Kirk and Spock was that, brotherly or otherwise---he himself often seemed to end up the odd man out.

The man who was perhaps seeking to replace Spock knew that such a thing was of course completely impossible. Despite what Shelby had said, no one could be Spock's replacement. Spock was Spock, and that should have been that. Except that it now resounded as a challenge to the man who never refused one. Yes, he had turned down Uhura's offer. But now, with the burden of that secret deal lifted, he saw it all. Refusing a penny-ante Captaincy for a much greater prize: that of being the anointed heir to three incredible beings, Picard, Kirk, and Spock. Yet at the same time, seeing Spock in person now made William Riker as nervous as he felt around his former lover of late. The man who was not frightened by possibilities was now paralyzed by them.

Next to him, a true warrior accepted with some few thoughts of irony the fact that the older officers in that room had all cut their teeth fighting his people. Even if it was all they had done, they would have been revered on both sides for their prowess. But they had done far more than merely engage in combat. No, they were explorers, as some part of him still needed to be. But more than an explorer, he needed to be a finder. He mused that if Picard had lived, he would not feel this way. But like the Vulcan who clutched Kirk so hard and so long, he too had never truly found a home. Not in Russia. Not on The Enterprise. Not in The Empire. Having searched all of space without even realizing he was doing so, Worf Rozhenko wondered if his true home lay somehow at the edges of the final frontier. It was not the first time he had wondered so. It would not be the last time, nor even remotely the most decisive.

She could feel him growing distant, and even afraid, though she would certainly never call him that to his face. Yet Worf was the least of her worries, of late. She still wanted a relationship with him, but was less willing to struggle for it, in the face of seeming indifference on his part. Will as always, kept maintaining the orbital distance he had assumed after the Wyatt Miller incident. Worf she needed a sign from, to restart matters between them. Will, she needed sworn, notarized documents from. Whether she looked older or not was irrelevant. She felt older, and her patience with men who moved as boys was growing deucedly thin. But then, that was true in all matters of her life. The only fresh element was Jim, who spoke to her as a friend who truly appreciated the fact that she was there for him. The others did, too, but largely expected it of her. Deanna Troi, Ship's Only Mother Counselor Confessor, was a title she perhaps wanted to retire. She recalled an old line about a girl for whom it was time she was 'jumping down from the shelf'. Whatever its derivation, it seemed good advice to the weary Counselor. Then there was her schoolgirl crush on the reborn Captain--but for now, she pushed out those thoughts, as life with two sort-of Imzadis was turbulent enough.

Watching with delight as her plan seemed to fall together, the elderly Admiral in charge of personnel recruitment felt an almost complete sense of joy. With all of them together again, Jim Kirk would wake up at last and take the conn that was his first best destiny. Having the crew he was likely to work with present as well was merely icing on the cake. Yet the puzzle had several pieces missing, and some of these were vital.

She herself was dying, from low-grade radiation that meant nothing to anyone but a long-term console officer, and she was really the only one of those in any era. Also, Jim had managed to surprise her before, and until she had his agreement finalized, she couldn't truly relax. Further, she had committed several gross errors in judgement, in her attempts to restore the world she had known, as a young woman. The world that made sense. The world that prized a lasting peace over a shiny, good-looking one. The world where giants were not feared, and where the feeble and the small-minded were bureaucrats, not order-givers. Nyta Uhura was often asked if she had been cold in that oft-mocked miniskirt she once wore. Her response had always been that the world she inhabited had been very warm, and in fact had posessed its own private sun. Before she died, Uhura swore to herself that she would see that sunrise one last time.

The man beside her was a wild card in all this. He seemed to view the overlong embrace with equal parts acceptance, disdain, happiness and impatience. The descriptive term inscrutable may have once been used as an ethnic slur against Terrans of Asian descent, but it fully suited this man. His life was a dichotomy. He had been offered a ceremonial seat at the helm of the ill-fated Enterprise-B's launch, but went off on a very public tirade about how such a task was well beneath one who had made the Captaincy of Excelsior. Yet it was this same man who had made damned sure the media coverage did not blame the 'deceased' James Kirk for the B, as some in Starfleet Command had tried to do. But it was also he himself who, upon achieving Excelsior, had fed that media with juicy tidbits about 'the burdens of those who live too near the shadow of alleged greatness'. They were words he would regret, but never take back. Mainly because he didn't understand the power of words the way his mentor had. Hikaru Sulu was a fierce, steadfast ally whose actions had saved the careers of two later Enterprise Captains. But Uhura wondered what anyone else who had to deal with Sulu also did. Was he an ally, in this particular circumstance?

For the first time in three lonely years, Montgomery Scott felt complete. Both the people he had loved best and the people who had rebirthed him in this new time stood together. Geordi LaForge would soon make him a flatly stunning offer. But for now, a man once shunned by his native family reveled in having two of them, and that was enough, in thought, word, and deed.

As for Data, he sat down, and he observed that a torrent of emotions was just around the corner. For now, this was enough. He now saw the generations begin to mingle, as Will Riker extended a hand to Hikaru Sulu.

"Admiral Sulu, sir---its both a pleasure and an honor to finally meet you."

Sulu did not extend his hand in return. Instead, he merely looked at Riker's proferred one, and then looked up.

"Commander, why did you fail to recalibrate the shield frequency over Veridian? I mean, it had to be obvious to even a complete fool that the Klingon ship had your number!"

In the silence that followed, Data did indeed hear a distant pin drop. Spock would have, as well, but found events too compelling to notice.

Riker stood, very much a man lost for speech, after Sulu's broadside. So the Admiral kept right on going.

"I asked you a question, Mister. When the Klingon renegades had the D's shield frequency, why in Hell didn't you recalibrate them?"

The others went to answer for him, but Will raised his hand to silence them as he regained his own voice.

"Admiral---my statements of record on that battle are available. At no time were court-martial proceedings considered against me or any member of my crew as I'm certain you well know."

Ignoring decorum, Riker sauntered up to the stone-faced Sulu. He spoke right in his face.

"I did my damndest to keep that ship intact and its crew alive. Our injuries were numerous. Our fatalities--measure only one. The Enterprise herself."

If Sulu seemed on the verge of going in any number of directions, his choice of direction became clear soon enough, with a few simple words.

"Sometimes, Will---our damndest is all we can do."

Waves of relief filled the room as Hikaru Sulu smiled and offered a hand to the much younger officer. When Will realized it was his mettle being tested, not his fitness, he too breathed in. Riker nodded as they shook.

"If you'd been a Klingon, I'dve known how to react from the beginning."

Sulu shook his head.

"In my day, a noisome bureaucrat held far more menace than Kang or his bunch. Klingons could only kill us--Fleet' could cancel Leave."

Worf allowed himself a smile at this comment, which had a surprisingly similar corollary among Klingons of the present day. Also, his father had often said things much like that, as well. Suddenly thoughts of the Rozhenkos made him aware of one who was missing, beyond the fallen Picard and bitter Doctor Crusher.

"Where is Captain Chekov? As a Russian, I was looking forward to meeting him. Many Terran breakthroughs began in Rus, you know. Like Ivan Cocharanoff's first Warp flight."

Kirk let that part go, feeling perhaps immune to it. But the question lingered.

"Where is Pavel? Is he still with us? He was the youngest of us."

Uhura fielded this one.

"Jim, in 2015, after 20 years of commanding The B, Pavel took ill. Now, there was a treatment...."

Doctor McCoy seemingly sprang to life with this statement.

"Yeah, right! If Y'all refer to a lifetime of frozen hell as a treatment!"

Kirk knew.

"Cryo-Lockdown? Was the disease that bad?"

"It weren't the disease, Jim. It was the damned cure."

"What the Doctor is saying, Jim--in his inimitable manner--is that Pavel was offered a choice between early retirement and the disease's slow but steady debilitation of his faculties, or a curative that was itself dangerous. Its toxins will kill the disease, but must be administered over time to ensure exactly the precise dose. 'Cryo-Lockdown' as it is called, was the only way to ensure the cure killed only the disease, and not the host."

Kirk looked dejected, until Scotty threw in his two cents.

"Aye---but he's to be released soon. Perhaps this very year!"

Finding a bottle of Vodka on the table, Worf grabbed a big glass, poured, and passed it around.

"To my fellow Russian, Captain Pavel Chekov! I was favored by birth, and twice favored by adoption! If I were to be banished forever from Q'onos, then I will still have The Siberian Spring--and that will be almost enough!"

The acclaim was unanimous, but the choice of drink was not.

"To Captain Chekov!!!"

For Deanna Troi, the evening had just become more difficult. The vodka smelled strong, and even the possibility of dealing with a drunken Klingon upset her. For reasons she couldn't define, Will's decision to remain on his toes-and sober- around the wily Admiral Sulu made her feel a bit stronger inside. But as it turned out, it wasn't Will who had cause to worry. Sulu now walked up to his former Captain.

"Jim, what's this horseshit I hear about you refusing a new Enterprise? Did you leave your brain in The Nexus?"

And for a second time, Hikaru Sulu had silenced the room.

In a corner, getting himself more ice water, Admiral McCoy looked up from his hoverchair, and saw a certain android, nervously looking him over.

"Penny for yer thoughts, Mister Data?"

The android nodded.

"Admiral--I Failed To Take Care Of Her."

Now, McCoy had read that Data had crafted a daughter, but that same report said he had fought like a tiger to save her.

"Commanda--Ah'm pert near 150, soon. Yew are gon have to be a mite mo' specific, understand?"

"The Enterprise, sir. We failed to take care of her, as you instructed, those seven years ago."

And then Leonard McCoy knew that Data really did have emotions. Few things really hit a man like the loss of hearth and home.

"Data--we all do not get the pleasure of sayin' how long our loved ones stick around this veil of toil and sin. Whoever does say it, they have nevva once consulted me, and I don't reckon they're likely to ask yo nevermind, neither. Think of the D the way you think of your little girl---Lal? The amount of time they had with us don't mean nothin at all. It was the life they lived while they were around. By that standard--The Enterprise-D was well cared for by you youngsters. So don't go whinin and fussin and tell me that you didn't take care of her. Cause no Lady does for a man what she did for you lessin' he's just plain wuth it. To say otherwise assaults and taints her memory and her good name. You got me?"

The android smiled. He seemed a bit misty.

"Thank You, Admiral."

"Well, you're welcome. Now, Scotty tells me that you have yoself fair to middlin barkeepin' skills, Mistah Android. Mix me up a Mint Julep that'll make feel 75 again! That is a direct order."

While Data set after this new task, Sulu again queried his former Captain.

"Jim---are you going to take The E out, or not? Answer the question!"

Kirk looked at Sulu, and then at Uhura. He made for the door.

"Nice try, Nyta. Now why don't you both go straight to Hell?"

Uhura quickly grew indignant.

"Now you just hold on, Jim Kirk. I did set up this party as part of an effort to change your mind. I think that's pretty obvious."

Kirk glared at both her and Sulu.

"Incredibly obvious."

"Alright. But Jim--I didn't tell anyone to speak up, while here. In fact----"

She turned and looked at Sulu.

"---at least one of us I specifically asked not to say anything, considering he has the overall tact of a photon torpedo!"

Sulu stood his ground, quite unapologetic and silent. So Uhura turned back to Kirk.

"I knew that I had laid it on too thick. Involving Will. Involving Shelby. So much else you don't know about. So I brought in the troops, such as they are, to remind you of where I think you belong. But I swore that I would not violate the sanctity of this particular spot. Could I pull some cheap trick, mere moments after you saw Spock for the first time in 80 years? What would that get me?"

Kirk nodded at her, then looked around.

"So long as everyone here will respect my wishes not to discuss it--at all--I will, as of this moment, officially begin to fully consider taking command of The USS Enterprise, NCC-1701-Epsilon, Sovereign Class. But Nyta? First, I need an answer to a question that's been nagging at me since Jean-Luc's funeral."

Glowing in her partial victory, Uhura smiled and nodded.

"Ask away--Captain."

"Alright. How the blazes did you even get Starfleet's current power structure to consider me for the job? If Nechayev is any kind of indication, I seem to be some kind of--ancient destroyer--to the current Admiralty. Some monster flying out of the dim and distant past to wreck their corrupt little universe."

Data whispered to Spock.

"He is quite profound."

Spock agreed.

"He has that talent."

Uhura had Kirk's answer.

"There was a decidedly anti-Kirk backlash after you disappeared. But as to viewing you as some sort of risen monster, well that old story finally reached its conclusion."

McCoy chimed in.

"Some of us didn't think we'd live to see the last chapter of that twisted epic."

Kirk looked about.

"The backlash went on that long?"

Sulu shrugged.

"The main investigation was enough of a pain. But over time, they kept coming up with new sidebars. It seemed like they wanted to document every second of your life since your Dad entered the Academy. But for all those huge files, the sum result was the same---it was determined that Jim Kirk saved the day. End Of Story."

Jim smiled, and this made Deanna smile without realizing it. But Uhura took mental note of it.

"That still doesn't explain why, even if they don't hate me, people so inclined against maverick behavior want a man who, sometimes wrongly, was said to be a big maverick."

"Admiral Uhura, may I explain?"

"Go right ahead, Commander Riker."

"Jim--back when I was still part of her effort, The Admiral confided to me that when she first asked you to take The E---she had no legal authority to do so. She then asked me how we might go about getting that authority. I knew what the core Admirals were like, so I suggested we bypass them--and go to those more powerful---their PR staffs. Talking up a storm, we convinced them that Starfleet needed a PR boost that only your return could give it. We talked about The Odyssey's destruction by The Dominion, and varied other disasters."

Will smiled, despite his distaste for how wrong the effort later went.

"By the time we were done, the PR staffers were convinced that putting you on The E would erase all the bad luck Starfleet had suffered since the launch of The B."

Jim almost laughed, feeling surrounded by almost a dozen very sharp people.

"Remind me never to get on your bad sides. Okay. Lets all break up and chat. I mean, this sort of grouping doesn't happen everyday. I wanna talk--with each and every one of you---my two families."

Uhura handed out PADDS.

"This is our schedule. After breakfast and chat, we all talk to some lucky cadets, and then--no pressure---we will take another look at the newest Starship Enterprise."

Jim ducked out while the two great crews began to talk amongst themselves, and punched up a medical locker number. Seeking it out, he entered the room and said a few words to a frozen legend.

"I'm very proud of you--Captain Chekov."

The chat between the two crews was in some respects, determined by respective rank. This was almost inevitable, as like life experience will out.

Spock's question to Riker was typically blunt and logical.

"Are you prepared to be his brother?"

"Ambassador?"

Imposing in his robes of office, Spock repeated his question to the confused XO.

"Are you prepared to be his brother?"

"Whose brother?"

"Why, Jim's of course. He needs far more than a mere First Officer. More than merely a best friend. He needs a brother. Are you prepared to fill that role?"

Riker bit the inside of his cheek, a bit disturbed that a Vulcan, of all people, would ask so horribly intimate a question. It hit him then. Uhura had tapped him to change Kirk's stubborn mind about a new Command. Sulu had pushed him into a corner, to gauge his reaction to being pushed. Spock was now completing the triangle, and his question was, needless to say, the most telling.

"You all think that he's going to accept. That Jim will take on The E."

Spock did not raise his trademark eyebrow. He didn't need to.

"To my mind, he already has accepted."

"By coming to this party, you mean."

"No, Commander. By his coming back to life. For so long as Jim Kirk is alive, so is his first best destiny. Kaidith. Some things merely are, without further analysis, commentary, or conjecture. Kaidith, Kaidith, Kaidith. Such is the bond between Captain Kirk and a ship called Enterprise."

If Spock seemed almost joyful saying this, his mien quickly turned arch once again.

"You have still not answered my original question. Will you be his brother?"

Riker tried to respond to the demanding query.

"One could say that I've been a brother of the kind you describe for seven good years, Ambassador."

Spock shook his head.

"Illogical. I mind-melded with Jean-Luc Picard. I say with conviction that even his own brother found such brotherhood elusive. He cared for you all, but not as family. You were his greatest friends, and he well enjoyed having a First Officer capable of replacing him without notice. But you were not his brother."

Will felt very much like he had been impaled, by those words, and not merely for their harshness. They had a sad tinge of truth. The Great Man had been a solitary figure, and certainly a private one. Friendship with him had been easy. But getting past that line of relations was nearly impossible. At times, Riker even wondered if Deanna wasn't so much a counselor for Picard's emotions as a therapist who relieved the body of an unwanted toxin. For Jean-Luc, that toxin would have been feeling too much, getting too close. It wasn't so much a failing as a large part of who he was at his core.

"I might like to be Jim Kirk's First Officer. But I am not prepared to be his brother. You are his brother. Professor Kirk's father was his brother. If in time I become that way to him, I welcome it. But I can't say I'm ready to be his brother. I'm sorry."

Again, Spock maintained his maddening serenity.

"Sorry, Commander? Whyever for? In fact, I was not ready to be Jim's brother. Sam Kirk confided to me in private correspondence that he from Jim's birth also felt unprepared. In fact---for the role we have just discussed, there is no preparation. None at all. It speaks well of you that you were prepared to admit this."

Riker groaned silently. Another damned test. Did this older crew ever stop giving them?

"I'll take care of him, sir. And I'll fight for that position within my position. But was all that really necessary, just to gauge my willingness to assess my own capabilities fairly?"

Spock tilted his head.

"It was. Are you familiar with the Vulcan philosopher, Suclint Of OstWald?"

Riker nodded in understanding. The gruff-throated Vulcan had always been one of his favorites. Will then quoted him, verbatim.

"Logically, A Man Has Got To Know His Limitations."

Troi toasted with Uhura.

"To those who are underestimated and overworked."

Uhura went next.

"To the eternal death of skirts that are too short."

Troi.

"To the leers they think we never see."

Uhura.

"To the appreciative looks that are actually more honest leers."

Troi.

"To their infantile obsession with the big three."

Uhura.

"To our infantile obsession with the big 3-- and the two in back, when they're worth it. Which isn't often."

Troi was feeling a mite tipsy, and so winced at her and Uhura's math.

"Ya know---Nyoto---"

"Nyota."

"Wadever. One time, we made men wear those skirts on board. But they didn't last too long."

"Lemme guess---the guys alllll objected!"

Troi shook her head, feeling light as a feather.

"Nope! We made them wear pants! I mean, most of those guys had ugggllyy legs. It was making us all sick."

Uhura giggled.

"Not our guys! You get Jim and the bunch in bathing suits, back when, you could bounce a quarter like a bullet round those calves."

"But wadda bout Captain Scott?"

"Well--how do you think we got the quarter to start bouncing? Oh, but I love him. Scotty knows how to make a woman forget her troubles."

Troi was curious.

"Hows he dew it?"

Uhura whispered.

"Scotch. He once got me sooooo blasted, I did a nude fan dance in the middle of a mission!"

Troi winced.

"Thash terrible!"

"Aw, No! I was free and breezy. Sides, Scotty knows where all the good stuff ta drink is. Ish always a good buzz. By the by the by the by the way---how is sex wid a Klingon?"

Troi looked down, then laughed.

"Wen we shtart having some again, I'll be sure and file a rapport!"

"Yew mean a report."

"That too! Weeeehehhhheeee!!!"

Troi grinned.

"How is sex wit Captain Kirok--err, Capitan Koik---er, El Cap, errr, Captaib Dunsel---. Ah, screw it! How is Jimmy-Boy In The Sack?"

Uhura looked half her 130 years.

"The----best. No explanation. Just the best. Ya haveta go there. So? How was ole' baldie?"

"Never had im. Always had to be his counshelor."

"So why dincha ask some bo-dy who did have him?"

Troi thought about that.

"Weeeelll, I coulda ask Beverleeeee before she went cuckoo, but I feared she might actually tell meeeeee!!!"

They both began laughing maniacally, and fell over to sleep it off.

Data observed all this.

"Geordi, I find their behavior most incomprehensible."

"Data---they're just having a good time."

"I understand that. But still I cannot make sense of one thing."

"And that is.....?"

Data checked their drinks, and the replicators they were taken from.

"Geordi---none of the things they were drinking were in any way alcoholic."

Scotty caught up with Geordi in record time. The two engineers, once so antsy around each other, now exchanged stories and anecdotes with the abandon of two former Academy-mates at final retirement.

"So ye stood up to yuir kin? Aye, ye did the right thing. People as ignore their woes are worse off than people as wallow in them. Because eventually, the only way through such grief when its been put off for so long is to drown, at least briefly. My poor sweet Jess was testimony to that."

Geordi sifted through previous talks with Scotty, but couldn't recall that name.

"Who was Jess? Your wife---ex-wife?"

"Nae, lad. She was my own niece. At least, she was my niece when she died, and when she was born. For a fair bit of time inbetween those two events, though, we were naught to each other. Aye, less than naught."

Geordi made a slight connection.

"Didn't you have a nephew who died during Khan Singh's ambush?"

"That was my nephew Peter Preston. Jessa was his older sister, then a Lt. Cmdr. in the Fleet. Enraged she was, when her little heart was cut down like that. She took ta blaming me and Jim. Convinced my sister that I had failed or betrayed the family. I was turned away. I no longer had a family."

Geordi again felt the unknown fate of his mother, Captain LaForge, and the USS Hera, ever more deeply. Yet, through all the arguments with his sister and father, there was never any talk of walking away from one another.

"Was she involved in the--well--infamous investigations that followed the Genesis incident?"

Scotty almost snorted.

"She was the sole driving force behind them! Every time one of our crew's enemies in the Fleet needed a ticket to skewer us, there was my former flesh and blood. Finally, it came that she crossed all lines of decorum, and attacked young Peter Kirk at Jim's very thankfully wrongheaded funeral. I arrested her myself, and said flatly that I would sue her for harassment and have her committed as mentally feeble if she did not relent. I added that if we were now strangers, that she should begin to act like it. When my sister called in protest, I took the call, and then hung up as she watched. I loved my nephew--but I could bear no more! Norpin Retirement Colony had a clause to keep those you wished to avoid from seeing you. That--was how I ended up on The Jenolen."

Geordi waited a full minute, and then took over.

"I've been part of more families than I can count. Each time the status quo changes, I always feel like its never going to be right ever again. Then, boom--new family. But it never stops hurting. The friends I lost on Tarchanea Four to that native mutagen---"

That memory still had power over him, so LaForge stopped. Nodding to Scotty, he then finished up.

"So did you and she reconcile before she died?"

Scotty wiped away a tear.

"It seems my poor Hannah--that's Jess's mother--eventually demanded that her daughter tell her an unbiased version of her son's death. When this was done, my sister, she owned me her kin again. But Jess was thrown out from her heart. Oh, Geordi. We Highlanders have many, many good and even superior ways of goin about the business of living. But the shunning of family is like an old Cobalt Bomb, messy and rarely applied with any thought or discretion. When its use is done, the land is ruined for uncounted ages. An ancient shunning story has a branch of the family from Glenfinnan banishing two good men, all for the reason that they did not die from grievous wounds, as the Clan thought they should."

Geordi nodded.

"Seems to me that family can be enough of a rough-and-tumble, down-and-dirty business without the encoded mechanism to say who's family and who isn't."

Scotty looked at the younger man.

"Marla McGivers betrayed us to Khan. But Jim allowed her to divest herself of rank. He would not see her off, but nor did he make a spectacle of her leaving. It hurt. But to him, every crewmember, loyal or no, was family. Perhaps all the family he's lost created that need. I cannae say. Do we all have so many friends and family that we can afford to push them away, all so we may avoid facing grief? If not for my return from The Jenolen, my Jess would have died an old broken hag, full of bile and regret. I forgave her--how could I not, when she was once a baby in my arms? I never had children, so she and her brother became mine. Losing them both to Khan's ambush---it was all a bit much, Geordi."

LaForge felt a bit slimy, to make use of this moment. But it was too wide open an opportunity to merely let it pass away in the name of a propriety that Scotty himself likely saw no need for. They were friends. Geordi would now test that friendship's upper limits.

"I have a chance to be with a woman I care a great deal about. Perhaps to even have children with her, one day. In any event, whatever the outcome, I now have that chance that I was so very sure would never come my way. But it means leaving The Enterprise, and those people I call my family. God help me, but losing Captain Picard makes the choice much easier. If I can find a suitable replacement, I'm going for it."

Scotty nodded, wondering where this was leading.

"Aye. Such chances come all too rarely. That is, when they come at all. Geordi, ye must go with her. Even if ye find no one ye are satisfied with to take yuir place. I loved my old bairns. But they were just engines. Had I such a chance as you seem to, I would have taken it."

Geordi moved in.

"But then, what if you lost that chance? I mean, what if, then, you found out those bairns were again in need of a good engineer? Could you step back in? After ten years? After twenty?"

Scotty sat up straight.

"If The Enterprise needed me, and I had no other ties to bind me up, I'd be with her again just as soon as I could tear through the latest manuals, no matter how much time had passed. Geordi, ye cannae let such hypotheticals keep ye from that lady as may be yuir one true!"

LaForge felt the man's words. He scanned his every physical parameter for signs of surety. He knew, then.

"What if---that scenario wasn't a hypothetical? And what if--we weren't talking about me---but about you? Scotty, the letter doesn't mean a damned thing. The Enterprise needs the very best. And if you try and talk to me about relics---then you better go fetch Worf--and maybe Q, for good measure. Because to call you a has-been is to insult a damned good friend of mine. Now, I'll be with her through the launch, and then a little more. But I'll need you to be on call. Ready to get back to business, Mister Miracle Worker?"

Scotty found that he was lost for words. His dream since forced retirement, 80 years before, was now coming true. More, it was a true challenge before him. Not merely maintaining engines he knew, but actually mastering fundamentally new ones. His heart almost flew away. He stared at his stomach, the source of much self-deprecation and humor by others as well, and resolved that it should go. He could audit some Academy classes to bring himself up to speed. He felt the noiseless rumble of the bairns beneath his feet. If James T. Kirk had to think about it, Montgomery Scott most certainly did not. Both his and Geordi LaForge's worlds changed and lightened with his utterance of a single word, spoken through a throat choking on 200 proof cosmic joy.

"Aye."

Two men waited together on the outside stoop. Each in their own times, they quite roughly defined the rugged individual. The beloved outcasts who were a part of the makeshift families that were sometimes far too close for comfort.

"A penny for your thoughts, Commander Worf?"

The Klingon turned and saw the thin but hardly frail Hikaru Sulu.

"My apologies, Admiral. I did not mean to ignore your presence."

"That's alright. After all, I don't have as much presence as I used to. So---you won't be staying with your old crew, when The Enterprise-E takes off?"

Worf nearly stood up, but when Sulu sat down beside him, he just shook his head.

"I'm afraid that I do not understand what you mean by that, sir."

Sulu shrugged.

"You look just like I did the day I first requested my own command. Your face is a mixture of 'God, I love these people', and 'God, I can't wait to get away from them'. That's a potent combo, Mister."

Worf, as always, chose not to directly answer these private questions.

"I do hold them all in the highest affection. It is not their fault I wish to move on. It is me. It is always me."

Oddly, if Sulu seemed anxious to test Will Riker, he seemed anxious to calm Worf Rozhenko.

"Same here. They never understand. We don't want the most intimate details of their lives. We care for them, but mostly we just want to know if they're breathing and reasonably happy. All the rest is best settled privately, where it usually is anyway."

Worf felt odd. So few humans--or Klingons--truly understood. So he went on.

"What they call 'dread sameness' we call order and stability. They--they all speak as though routine and predictability were monsters to be slain. If things are good-- why then change them? If efficiency is achieved--why alter it, to alleviate someone's boredom? When things are boring, your enemy is far away and you and yours are alive and well. Conflict will find you, as it always finds the warrior. Why seek it out? And why do it by way of chit-chat and advice they then ignore?"

Sulu chimed in again, happy at having gauged Worf correctly.

"We pursue our hobbies. We sometimes choose to eat apart. We ask for quiet. They all get concerned, and think something is wrong. But other people exhaust us--we need a time apart from them."

"Yes. And do not speak to them of privacy. But more than that--I feel as the shark. That if I am not always moving, I will drown. Moving on is not a way to protect us from them--it is they who need protection from our melancholy moods."

Sulu pointed back inside.

"But for now, this is a party. So we are forced to socialize, like it or not."

Worf got up with him, feeling more refreshed in spirit than he had in a good while.

"On their behalf---sacrifices must be made, after all."

The eager young ensign, so determined to please his hero captain at any cost, was still to be found in the frozen features of 65-year old Pavel Chekov. Jim hoped he would be there as the sleeper awoke.

"Pavel. You did it. You kept up the tradition. Our tradition. I always knew I could count on you, even all those years ago. Spock never wanted command. Hikaru wanted it too badly. Nyota felt stuck in her role, and so she was for awhile. Scotty-- well, they forced him into retirement, same as me, only he was ready to actually do it. But you---Captain Of The Enterprise? Pavel, I couldn't have been prouder had my successor been David himself. And that is the God's honest truth."

Hoverchairs make no noise. But Leonard McCoy did, as he entered the chamber.

"I figured you'd get yo' sorry behind ovah here, Jim Kirk. Bet you think this is your fault, too."

Kirk found a chair, and sat with one of his oldest and dearest friends.

"Bones---you look horrible."

McCoy smiled.

"Finally---a man with balls enough to go and say it to my ugly face! Yessir, Jim--I look horrible. Its all my daughter's fault, ya know."

"Joanna's? How?"

The smile faded.

"Cause she went gainst' my wishes. My sworn wishes, which she had agreed to. The last time ah nearly went terminal--she just up and tole those kiddie doctors to keep me goin', by any and all means. That was five years ago. Had to go to court, to have her and all my kin removed as next of. Jim--when th' Reaper comes bounding round for me the next time---I'm goin'. I love life--but damned if I ain't seen it all, and then seen it all again--and in some cases, a third time. Hell, the only thing as worries me is that Dominion. They say they wanna be left all alone? Bullshit! People as wanna be left alone don' go and blow starships up, like they done ta the Odyssey. Plus I do not like shapeshifters -- reminds me of that maniac, Captain Garth, and that Maartia floozy--if she was a floozy---or a she, for that matter."

Jim nodded.

"I would tend to agree. But what would you have me do about it?"

McCoy angrily turned his chair around.

"Nyta's got patience to play this waitin' game with you, Jim. I don't. So either can the balloon juice or don't waste an old man's time!"

But Kirk quickly grabbed him, and took him in an embrace.

"I'm glad your daughter defied you. And I will miss you when you are gone, you crotchedty old bag of prejudiced wind. But Bones---don't I have the right to make up my mind?"

"Aw, hell. Sure ya do. But Jim--I know yoah mind. There's a ship named Enterprise needs a Captain. Jus' promise me, when you hear that bell, the one that says you are needed, you won't ignore it?"

"If I hear it, I won't be able to ignore it. God--its good to see you. Why didn't you contact me, as soon as you heard I was alive?"

McCoy shrugged.

"Jim, we all have had so many thieves, crazy men and charlatans claiming to be you come back from the dead, most of us just turned to the sports scores when we heard, til Nyta set us straight. Now I got a question fo' you!"

Kirk nodded.

"Fire away."

"I will. Now, dag if you wasn't back one solitary week when word gets round that you nailed Beverly Crusher. Now, I wanna know bout her hair coloring---her true hair, that is---how wild she gets, and whether you turned her on her stomach and took a ride."

Kirk actually blushed, in part because the drunken liasion had not been his finest moment. McCoy chuckled to actually see his old friend embarassed.

"C'mon, Jim! What's the point of livin' to be a dirty ole' man, if you can't ask such vile questions of those you love best? My 13-year old great-great-great grandaughter and I piss her father off by talkin' bout your past exploits--you avoid her til she's of age, though--ya hear?"

Kirk rolled his friend out, chuckling mildly.

"Bones---don't ever change."

"Not much chance of that now, Jim."

Neither man was around, a minute later, when the cryo-tose Captain Chekov vanished in a transport beam--then just as suddenly reappeared. Or was this merely an individual who looked like Chekov?

In fact, his name was Alfred Bester, but that is a story for another day.

Professor Kirk acquiesced, leaving ten very nervous children in the company of one Soongian Android.

"I will say first that I am most upset with the way you treated Spot. I will next ask you for an explanation of your actions."

Since Andia Kirk was the oldest of those assembled, she continued to speak for them.

"We just wanted to play with her. But when we went to pick her up, she started running. We all laughed and went to catch her. We thought it was all just a game. Daddy can be such a jerk! Not like Uncle Jim."

Data shook his head.

"If by that you mean to say that your great-uncle likes your actions any better than your father, you are mistaken. He, too, has expressed his disappointment in you. Also, may I point out---that this upset would not ever have occurred had you let Spot alone when I suspect you all knew this was what she wanted."

"But she's just a dumb cat."

Data felt his emotion chip surge, just then.

"You must not say such things! Spot was my friend, whom you hurt! That you think of her or any living thing as an object or toy with which to be amused is proof to me that your apologies are quite insincere! You do not feel any remorse, either for Spot's injuries or how this affected my relationship with one who watched me grow and change over many years. My friend does not like me anymore, and it is all your fault!"

The children were crying, and it was only then that Data caught himself. He kneeled down to their height.

"I am sorry that I yelled. But obviously, my thoughts and now emotions on this subject are quite strong. I have seen many bad things that remind me of what you did--without meaning to--to Spot."

Arrance Kirk, the usually quiet half-Ktarian half-Bolian, asked the question.

"What kinds of bad things?"

Data looked pained, but spoke nonetheless.

"In order to tempt Commander Riker, the being called Q hurt my friends. One of them was even stuck through his heart by a spear. He lived--but it was a terrible thing to see. Later, my dear friend Tasha Yar--was--killed, by an entity who wished to prove his power."

"Sounds like a bully."

"Indeed. Not too long afterword, a well-meaning man named Maddox wished to disassemble me, to find out how I worked. When I created a child of my own, I found that my own legally established sentience was now conveniently put aside for the sake of Starfleet's wishes. My own brother used me as a pawn in a scheme. This resulted in my using my friend Geordi in a cruel and savage manner. There are other instances, of course. Of late, since the installation of my emotion chip, I have felt these things and others--and I am quite unprepared. I had thought Spot would be with me as I coped. Now, that will not be the case."

No longer crying but just flat-out stunned, the children stared up at Data, unable to speak. The message had been driven home, with all necessary force. As they left, they tearfully sought their father out, begging forgiveness he now gave. Professor Kirk nodded at Data.

"Thank You, Commander. This helps more than you know. Andia and the others-- well, lets just say on some worlds hybrids aren't treated as people. A lot of them were used as slaves---or worse, before we got to them. I was very afraid what they did to Spot might indicate darker things to come. A repeat on that poor Cat of what was done to them."

Data felt his emotions level out, even though he had not accessed the chip.

"Professor---I feel somehow that I, too, was helped."

---------------------------------------------

As the two generations regrouped, all went to the Academy Ampitheatre, where some lucky cadets would speak with these palpable myths. Jim Kirk took the first question.

"Yes, I believe you had your hand up."

The nasal-sounding Cadet nodded.

"Captain, your personal log indicates that, prior to beaming down to Berius Four on Mission 57 of your first five-year mission, you took some treasured belongings out of your safe."

Jim couldn't recall it, but chose not to gainsay the eager young man.

"I believe that's correct."

"Well, sir---my question is---What was the combination?"

There they were, all in one place, two generations lost for speech.

Deanna could discern nothing useful.

Spock saw no logical way out.

Data found the exchange neither fascinating nor insightful.

Scotty felt even more helpless than he had the day the original Enterprise had to be sacrificed over Genesis. The antagonists this time were even more implacable.

Riker tried to be Will, and when Will found no solution, he tried his damndest to be Jean-Luc. But even in vivid memory, The Great Man merely shook his head, opting for a patience all knew was wearing very thin very fast.

"Tough it out, Number One. Tough it out."

Uhura had served as Captain Of The B, and she had been Chekov's First Officer on that same ship. Both had found their last miracle together when Peter and Saavik Kirk had been recovered after a 5-year absence. The recovery of anyone named Kirk, at that dark time of war, had been rightly hailed as a miracle.

But in a move similar to Riker's, Nyta yielded no better results.

"Bozhe Moi, Nyota! These willains are like Treebles--and they do not soothe."

Geordi saw the tension levels in those surrounding them. This siege was either going to end ugly or after a wait so long in duration, Data's torture of LaForge at Lore's prompting might seem almost bearable.

Sulu tried to imagine he was in a situation faced by one of his ancestors during Earth's idiotic flirtation with nuclear devices.

"This is Moonlight SY-3. Shin-Gojira is on the ground below us. Heisei-Radon is close behind us. Baran is on our right flank, and Kumakiras is hitting us with a web spun from the ground. It has been joined by a Chibi-Mosura, and our left flank is now covered by a Haha Mosura, fully grown. Above us is Bahtsura and a Desuotoroia, second stage. Leaping just ahead of us, nearly reaching our position, is a hyper-agile Gaijin-Gojira. Point of view---"

Back in reality, Sulu looked out at the sea of supposedly friendly faces. He sighed.

"....Point of view? We Are Screwed."

Worf despised fights where the opponent posessed all true advantage. Most combat advantages, he would concede without thought or caution, for such was how a true warrior proved themselves. But only a fool or Kahless himself willingly marched into Grethor, where every atom was made from unliving demon-flesh, and the arena itself was rigged beyond measure.

"T'nts A'wkl En'n Cheok."

Which is Klingonese for, 'We Are Screwed.'

McCoy sat in his hover-chair, an old man under bright lights, facing a dream and a nightmare scenario at the same time. On the one hand, he was back with Spock and Jim, and on the right side of the grave, to boot. On the other hand, he was trapped in the kind of public event that he placed somewhere below an unguided, year-long vacation on the scenic ice prison planet of Rura Penthe.

To pass the unbearable time, he instead imagined himself in a deep and long interaction with his notably absent young, somewhat bitter counterpart, Beverly Crusher. Together, they spoke well of Captains who wouldn't listen, people they couldn't save, and of bureaucracies who had to be told truths in small, safe doses.

"Ohhhhh, Lenny! There's just something about a mature man in a chair. Let me smother you with kisses all your remaining days. Let me give you----let me give you everything!"

Admiral Leonard H. McCoy was also, it should be noted, an unapologetic supreme dirty old man who once boasted that if a truly portable cloaking device existed, the female cadets had all best shower with multiple shields on high. When informed that showers were long gone co-ed, he merely replied that his vision was not so bad he couldn't tell the difference.

On point was the man who bound them all together. How had he come back and reassumed command over the one crew, despite the passage of eight decades? How had he become so quickly a part of the newer crew, despite their loyalty to the fallen Great Man? These questions were as unanswerable as any basic question about James Kirk. Because he always simply did. He just did.

Now, though, the assembled legends of Enterprise faced down a group more adaptive than The Borg, more persistent than the Romulans, and more annoying in general than the Pakleds.

The Pakleds were those 'we are strong and we are smart' guys who kidnapped Geordi and....oh, yeah. Narrative.

In theory, this group should have been those most cowed by the sheer amount of history behind this combination of officers. But in practice, the questioners operated with a kind of invulnerability, as well. For no seasoned officer, their legends aside, wanted to be seen as dismissing or treating with contempt those who were Starfleet's future.

So with little deference, much gross impropriety, and even more enthusiasm, the assembled group of freshman 'plebe' Starfleet Academy Cadets continued their ceaseless questioning of Captain James T. Kirk and company. The Nexus was now looking very good by comparison.

"Commander Riker?"

"Yes?"

"Are you in telepathic contact with Tom Riker?"

"Uhh...no."

"Why not?"

"Commander Data?"

"Yes?"

"Are you planning on building any more children?"

"I shall....keep that under advisement."

"Commander Worf?"

"Yes?"

"When you killed Duras, did you use a K'thlh movement or a K'hthl movement?"

"I....I...killed him. Yes."

"Commander Troi?"

"Yes?"

"Did the Ferengi who kidnapped you and your Mom see absolutely everything when he stripped you down?"

"Why...don't you ask my mother?"

"Why? Her official net-sites are loaded with free nudies. She gives it away."

"Yes, I suppose she does. Mother!"

"Commander LaForge?"

"Yes?"

"Do you have any pictures of when you punched Ensign Crusher?"

"Cadet Locarno...stand down."

"Admiral Uhura?"

"Yes?"

"When your crew stole The Enterprise to retrieve Captain Spock's essence, weren't you all really reclaiming what was really and rightfully yours? After the passage of a certain amount of time, doesn't a ship become more crew property than that of Starfleet?"

"That's.....an....interesting point of view, Cadet Watters."

"Admiral Sulu?"

"Yes?"

"You sponsored the Maquis's Number One Man, Chakotay, during his days at The Academy, correct?"

"Yes, that is correct. Its a decision I don't regret. He's a good man who made a choice I don't agree with, based on his conscience. I even recently flew with Scotty here, to the Badlands to offer him and his crew a pardon. I believed in him then, and I believe in him now."

"I see. Given recent events, do you find you have cause to regret that decision?"

"Admiral Sulu?"

There was an icy glare and a prolonged silence.

"Admiral McCoy?"

"Oh, God In Heaven, Why Me?"

"Yes, sir. Now, you summarily deceived the entire planet Vulcan, made a mockery of its Pon Farr traditions, and failed to recognize the sheer level of misogyny inherent in that culture and especially that ceremony which drove T'Pring to her extreme actions. You allowed Captain Kirk here to play out a warrior fantasy while playing with Ambassador Spock's then-unstable emotional control."

"Son--what's yer question?"

"Question?"

"Captain Scott?"

"Aye?"

"Can I call you Scotty?"

"No, Nae--Never."

"I see. Well, Scotty--how, in Mission 117, did you restart the engines cold, when, earlier in that same mission, you stated that starting the engines cold would be their finish?"

"That all depends, Lass."

"On what?"

"On what happened in Mission 117?"

"C'mon! You know---the one with the possessing alien."

Scotty's eyes darted about.

"Och! THAT---possessing alien. Well, lassie---you know those engines!"

"No, I ob-vi-ously don't."

"Aye. Tis' clear ye ken wee aspects of conduct, as well."

"What was that?"

"Eh--I rerouted the power conduits----in Deck 100."

"But the old Enterprise didn't have 100 decks."

"Well, we were addin' on, all the time, doncha know."

"Ambassador Spock?"

"If I Must."

"Yes sir, you do. Now, about the falling-out you and Captain Kirk had, after the first five-year mission...."

"That is a popular misconception. Jim knew I was withdrawing to Gol, and it was scheduled. My decision to pursue the very harsh rigors of Kolinahr, while surprising to him, was in fact revealed in the regular correspondence we kept up throughout the time, even as much as six months before the emergence of V'gr N'sa...."

"It must have been difficult, severing all ties with friends and family, potentially forever."

"No. That is only required as one is achieving Kolinahr. Once it is achieved and verified by the revered masters, one is assumed strong enough to live without fear of casual emotional clouding. My relationships would have evolved and changed, to be certain. But the very strongest of those would certainly have survived in some fashion. It is much like when a fledgling bird first leaves...."

"Did your marriage to Doctor Chapel survive this ultimate withdrawal? Not to mention your well-documented sexual relationship with...."

Spock cut him off.

"Please instead ask me what it was like to be dead. That at least occurred."

"As opposed to what?"

For all this, the man taking the bulk of the inanity was the man who always took it. He could take it all. It was where he was taking it that got to him.

"Captain Kirk, why did you believe Kang would cooperate in Mission 66?"

"Captain Kirk, why did you have your self, who is so recognizable, altered to look Romulan in Mission 59?"

"Captain Kirk, why did the mere introduction of civilian women have your male crew behaving like panting puppies in Mission 4?"

"Captain Kirk, did you get off playing fascist archetypes like gangsters, Nazis, and Ancient Romans in Missions 9, 43, and 52?"

"Captain Kirk, why did you tell that you found Khan in Mission 24, but lie about meeting Doctor Korby and Zefram Cochrane in Missions 10 and 31?"

"Captain Kirk, did you use that control device used on the brain-deprived Spock in Mission 61 on any of your lovers?"

"Captain Kirk, I've read into every aspect of Mission 7, which you nicknamed 'The Naked Time'. And I have to tell you, with all the chaos aboard that ship at that time, not so much as one person got nak....."

Unable to morally dissuade the Cadets from their intrusive questioning, Kirk saw his pleading crews and tried to change the subject.

"You know, I don't think that so many of you should concentrate so much on that original five-year mission."

A hand went up. Jim sighed.

"Yes?"

"Are you saying, then, that we should concentrate on your missions after V'gr?"

This was the last straw. Invasion of privacy he was sadly used to. But the sheer block-headedness of this particular bunch had finally been too much.

"No! No--that's not what I'm saying at all! People, even in my prime, there were dozens of ships with crews that lived and breathed and died, all while doing their duty and getting no attention. There is a whole universe out there, waiting to be experienced. Holographic Simulations and mind-bending analysis of creaking, dusty texts can't begin to show it all to you. You are the ones who are going to go out there and build the legends and stories. Forget about me--even forget about these great people I have been privileged to serve with. Think of what awaits you out there. Because that's the only thing that's real. That's the only thing that counts."

The Cadet stood with arms folded.

"Are you going to answer me or not? Because we're trying to decide whether to focus our Sim Club pre- or post-V'gr."

Kirk saw each of his friends, from Worf to Spock, give him the signal to let loose. Each in their own way, they wanted this ended by any and all means. So Kirk thought of Kruge over Genesis, and threw down the gauntlet. He stared directly at this most belligerent ringleader of the disassembled mass of insubordinates.

"Get A Life."

With that, a hue and a cry went up among the Cadets. How dare these most senior and seasoned of all heroes treat these tender cadets with anything but the greatest deference possible. A voice or two sounded in unison.

"Don't let them leave!"

"Ask them about intergenerational romance!"

Deanna sat and shook her head.

"This is not good. This is sooo not good."

But then, a hero arose, to shatter the figurative teeth that threatened those he held dear. The Cadets lost their boldness, at this most feared of all beings.

He was Peter Kirk.

He was---The Head Of Exobiology For Starfleet Academy And Like Graduate And Post-Graduate Programs.

"Somebody stop him from entering!"

"No one can stop him!"

Worf nodded.

"Your kinsman possesses an immense power, Captain."

Jim nodded.

"The power--of the failing grade."

For, it was said truly that no Cadet, even the seniors who ran the top echelon in Cadet Hall, could hope to make this man back down. For without passing Advanced Exobiology--one didn't pass the Academy.

"Cadets--You Will Show My Family The Kind Of Respect You Show Me!"

When they kept roaring, Admiral Saavik shouted out--in a very Vulcan manner.

"Cadets--You Will Show Our Family The Kind Of Respect You Show Us---When We Threaten To Keep You After Class Until August."

The roar died down. Professor Kirk smiled. It reminded the crew of the D of Gowron's smile.

"Pop Quiz--Verbal--Individual--And Not One Of You Leaves--Until Everyone Comes Up With A Correct Answer!"

Riker shook his head.

"My God--he's like a---well, something."

McCoy muttered under his breath.

"Damn shame neither one is the gen-u-ine article."

Professor Kirk looked at the now-silent ringleader.

"Subject: Early Colonization within UFP core worlds. Kamehameha."

As his grateful friends and family withdrew at last, Professor Kirk watched the punk sweat.

"Kamehameha, sir?"

"Yes, Cadet. Kamehameha---was the last monarch of Earth's Hawaiian Islands. What else could it possibly mean?"

Hardly anyone saw Admiral Saavik raise an eyebrow at this comment.

No one at all saw a shape-shifter ooze quickly out of the auditorium, reforming into its regular disguise as Beverly Crusher. She spoke into her recorder.

"My mission of disruption went well. Kirk and his bunch are wired and upset. Every time civility crept into the questioning, I helped push it out again. A flawless operation."

But then, twenty cadets who had withdrawn before the end-game saw her, and moved in.

"Look!"

"Its one of them!"

"Get her!"

With no room to change out of sight, the shapeshifter was as isolated as the real Beverly was, in a distant Dominion prison camp.

"What do all of you want with me?"

They one and all pulled out PADD's.

"When you were mind-linked with Captain Picard in Mission........"

After an hour, she just ran away screaming.

"Boy, and I thought her son was high strung!"

After the fiasco was done with, the group withdrew and talked among themselves before being taken to once again the view the Sovereign-Class USS Enterprise-E.

Kirk turned to his oldest and dearest friend.

"You know, there's something that would make me take Command Of The E in a heartbeat."

Spock pretended to not understand.

"What would that something be, Jim?"

Kirk said it outright.

"You--as my First Officer. Spock, I don't believe my own hype. Without you--I'm nothing."

Spock shrugged.

"I do not believe that. I have never believed that. Jim, in our time, together, we were great. But when did you last Command a starship?"

"Eighty years ago. You know that."

Spock again shook his head.

"No. That is when I last commanded a Starship. You last commanded a starship - two years ago. You are the man I knew and cared for well, freshly removed from doing that he was born for. I have been an Ambassador almost since the day you were declared lost. I am not without resources. But barring galactic disaster, Romulus is where I must be. It is where I will make a difference."

Jim seemed a bit taken aback by this.

"Suppose I decide to do this and you're not there? What is Kirk&Spock without Spock?"

Spock gave the obvious answer.

"Kirk---and Riker?"

Jim sat down.

"The man is a fine officer. Perhaps the finest I could find in this current Starfleet. But look at Will, Spock. He looks like he could be a descendant of one of those children I supposedly left on every planet. His look, his style--even his name. Add to that, he certainly has earned his own command, and regardless of what this new Starfleet thinks, that Command should be Enterprise. I mean, to penalize an action taken by a raw ensign acting under direct orders of his Captain seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face."

Spock had his final say on the matter.

"I am not the one you want, Jim. I'm not the one you need. Not now--nor ever again. But I leave you with these words -- actions like those taken by Riker's CO aboard The Pegasus are fast becoming the norm in this Starfleet. The late Norah Satie's permanent, mobile investigation is still highly regarded by some as a wise means of keeping the Fleet 'in line.' The Cardassian DMZ Treaty is driving a wedge within Starfleet's rank-and-file. Despite its admitted flaws, Starfleet suspects anyone who criticizes it of being a Maquis. I know of three Captains of high caliber who defected only after they were intrusively and back-bitingly accused of Maquis leanings. Moreover, men and women of talent are viewed with suspicion, and mistrust. People like Picard. People like Benjamin Sisko. One Captain, whose name I cannot recall, was recently sent to hunt the Maquis' Leader who was Sulu's protégé. I have reliable word that she was sent to the Badlands as a test of her loyalty. A few ill words were placed against her quite anonymously."

Kirk's head began to swim.

"You are talking conspiracy, Mister Spock."

"No, I am talking bureaucracy, Captain Kirk. Hardly a secret lot plotting in deep basements and undertaking arcane rituals, the current top echelon of Starfleet Command is satisfied that the means that brought us to this point in history will be the means to keep us there. Their thinking is backward, lazy--and perhaps even reactionary, in terms of the way the Fleet is run. The United Earth Probe Agency and Space Fleet Central ran the Solar System and then Alpha Centauri and just beyond. Direct control by Command was easier, then. It was possible. Now--they wish to have that kind of control again. It is no conspiracy. It is quite open."

"Spock, why are you telling me this?"

Spock said nothing more, and Jim knew that this was meant to force him to think. The wheels began to turn immediately, but not in the direction Kirk had thought he wanted.

Now, Scotty and Sulu talked.

"So what ye think, Hikaru?"

"Scotty--I love you. You're my friend, and finding out you were still alive gave me another decade or three, and that's no joke. But if you're going aboard a starship, then you have to be at fighting trim. My friend--you're just not there. Get there--or don't saddle LaForge with a replacement who'll have to be put off the ship under a medical discharge. There are treatments in this century. Use them."

Finally, McCoy talked to Uhura. His look was arch and grim.

"Nyta, you will be prettier than ever I was twelve months after you are dead. With that said---don't do this. Yew are way better than any shenanigans. Let Jim decide in his own time."

She gulped a bit.

"Len--what are you talking about?"

"Yew are planning something. You allus look jest like yew did when we faked out Harry Mudd's androids. Now, whatever notion you got in yo' pretty head--jest drop it. It ain't hardly gonna do no one at all no good--nohow. Yew keep yoself back from Jim's mind, hear? Tryin' to force him gets noone nowhere, and he'll just use it as an excuse to hide from his own choice."

She bit her lip as he hovered away.

Riker and Worf had another discussion, despite not wanting to.

"I can't believe that you're still asking me this. You're worse than Admiral Uhura."

Worf stood firm.

"Commanding The Enterprise is Captain Kirk's destiny. Deanna Troi--is yours. Our relationship was a mistake. I am trying to do the merely honorable thing."

Riker had had enough.

"Worf--you've brought what's about to happen down upon yourself. You've left me with no choice."

"Commander--surely you do not mean--"

Will began by putting his hands on top of his shoulders, and squatting.

"Commander, do not----"

Riker did.

"Boc-Boc-Boc-Boc-Boc-Boc-Boca-Boc!"

Worf grew infuriated.

"You have shown no courage in your relationship with her--sooooo...."

Worf got down and repeated Riker's motions. Angrily, they bocked louder and louder at one another, until suddenly Deanna Troi rounded the corner, and stared at the two of them.

"Have you two been seeing a role-playing therapist behind my back?!"

She left in a huff, and suddenly there wasn't anybody there but them chickens.

Data and LaForge spoke on a far graver subject.

"What do you mean, the message is ready already? Data, it was supposed to be weeks in the deciphering."

"Geordi--please do not be angry with me. But given the attempts made to erase it, the message recieved by Ran Hajar just prior to his suicide came to be in need of two types of protection. One, in case the saboteurs believed themselves to have been successful, and one in case they knew they were not. Captain Kirk directed me to lie, even to him, about when the decoding was all through."

"I'm not angry, Data. It was a good second level precaution. And Captain Kirk is right--this thing has stunk of conspiracy from the beginning. But we can't leave the party now. That'd surely raise their suspicions."

Data now seemed apprehensive.

"Geordi, there was yet a third level precaution. One I undertook without anyone's knowledge. The computer has not processed the message. Instead, I downloaded certain obscure memory files and put them in storage. I then processed the suspicious message with my own circuits. Therefore, I have the answer--in me. We have only to download this to a capable secured terminal."

LaForge was both annoyed again and astounded by his old friend's new initiative. Perhaps being around Kirk could bring out things in Data that Picard, for all his strength and patience, could never hope to.

"Alright, Data--but not now. After we visit the E."

"Agreed."

Admiral Uhura signaled.

"Everyone--we're cleared to beam up. Straight to The Bridge."

The eleven seasoned adventurers all vanished, and found themselves in a place that looked like a new home to some, and a past home to others.

"Now, this tour should go faster for those of us who were here last time...."

The Comm Console beeped with an incoming message. Uhura smiled.

"I'll get it. Old habits die hard. Onscreen, Captain?"

Jim was feeling a sense of peace, despite his protestations.

"Why not?"

The image came onscreen. The Officer was familiar to both Commanders Riker and Data.

"Commander Maddox? Has our scheduled talk been moved up?"

To Riker, the man seemed just as flighty as the day he tried to have Data declared the property of Starfleet.

"Oh? Data, I'm sorry. Well, not sorry. You see, our talk has been--well, its been cancelled. You're being sent to my offices, here on Earth, starting immediately. Yes."

Data now felt unease, yet another new emotion.

"For what purpose, Commander?"

Maddox stared at him with an odd kind of awe.

"He's really just so marvelous an achievement. Doctor Soong did such-such excellent, excellent work. Data, the purpose is what is has always been. Your body is to be thoroughly analyzed. This time, I can guarantee that your total downloaded memories will be secure. We wouldn't want to lose you."

Riker now spoke up.

"Commander Maddox, we were both there when Data was declared a sentient being under Federation Law. Besides, you have Lore."

Kirk looked at Maddox's face, and reasoned that perhaps this man was both utterly brilliant and utterly clueless as he spoke again.

"That--is a defective--Soongian android, Commander. Surely you don't want us to have to settle, now do you? Besides, all those legal niceties have been set aside, by Data himself."

Data shook his head.

"I fail to see how I have participated in my own downgrading, as regards my status as a sentient being, Commander."

Deanna thought it odd that the transmission somehow blocked her from feeling Maddox's emotions. She glanced at Kirk, and mouthed such. He waited, as Maddox spoke yet again.

"Well, Data, I have a court order here that successfully argues that sentient beings don't require the installation of extra chips to evolve emotionally."

Geordi became incensed.

"That's a load of....Commander, we'll just obtain a court order of our own, and we'll actually do you the courtesy of informing you that we're filing!"

"Be that as it may, people, Data is here and now officially mine, and I intend to quickly render any further court orders moot. Report ASAP, Data. Maddox out."

Data actually sat down.

"I....am....angered by this development."

Worf shook his head.

"It shall not stand!"

McCoy joined in.

"Damn straight it won't! Mistah Data, you are not bein filleted on any table!"

Kirk had a look on his face. The Look.

"Scotty, Geordi. Get the engines ready. Will--try and get us out of spacedock. Spock--you and Data get this rustbucket under our control--and do it fast. Deanna, you figure out how to keep us from being boarded. I know you can do it. Admiral Uhura--do your worst on the Comm Console. Just like Omicron Ceti 3--only no mutiny. Admiral Sulu--can you suggest anything?"

"Yeah, Jim--give me the seat next to Data. I missed out on the B to my own daughter--I'm not missing this."

McCoy nodded.

"Jim--you doin' what I think you're doin'?"

Data puzzled.

"Yes, Captain. What precisely are we doing?"

Kirk put his hand on Data's arm.

"What I do best when one of my friends is in mortal danger, Commander. I'm stealing The Enterprise!"

Spock nodded.

"The others have experience. This, however, will be my first time."

Data realized what everyone was giving up for him, and felt a non-thermal warmth inside.

"For me as well--sirs."

Even McCoy, bound to a chair though he was, managed to run interference with Spacedock's commanders, as the theft was underway.

"Now, y'all listen. What do yew think is goin on up hahr, son? This is jes an ole test drill. Y'all still have those nowadays, doncha?"

In short, the crews of three Enterprises were stealing a fourth.

Scotty and LaForge worked on engines just a little bit beyond them both.

"Dilithium Batteries To Power, Scotty."

"Impulse Turbines To Speed, Geordi."

Deanna Troi joined with Worf and Riker to seal the ship from sudden boardings. Sadly, the Enterprise-D had been seized enough times for them to know how to do this very well.

"Admiral Sulu--this is Troi. We are activating the brigs and allowing the shields to remodulate right over them."

"Sulu to Troi. Good work, people. Its what we in the terraforming business used to call a deliberate ozone hole. If we can't stop them from coming in--we control where they do."

Data and Spock had the ships' codes broken in record time. No one expected any less of those two.

"Ambassador, everyone will sacrifice their careers for me. That makes me uneasy."

"Commander---they are human. It is who they are. It is what they do."

"Then--to ask them to be or do otherwise would not be logical?"

"As always, Mister Data--you catch on quickly."

Kirk, in command as always, called out to Admiral Uhura, blocking all attempts at incoming transmission--and making it look like an accident. A century worth of experience made her adept at clogging channels, as well.

"Nyta---anything from Maddox?"

She seemed nervous, now, something the arriving Troi only needed to confirm, not call.

"No---he must be satisfied that Data is on his way."

Kirk began to rely upon an intuition he truly hoped was wrong.

"There's something odd here, people. Bones, what about the spacedock?"

"We are cleahr as fine crystal, Jim."

"Spock--Data? Any trouble with those command codes?"

"None, sir."

"Indeed, Jim. We are quite ready to go."

"And the ship? We're secure against boarding?"

Worf answered for the others.

"Totally secure, Captain. We shall not be taken."

Jim got up from his chair. He looked around.

"All stop. Shields down. Admiral Uhura-- tell Commander Maddox I'll disassemble Data myself."

Uhura saw the ice in his eyes. The harshness in his other features told the rest of the story. She sighed, and said three words Kirk had prayed she would not.

"Computer---End Program."

The Bridge of The Enterprise-E disappeared, to be replaced by the blank walls of a holodeck. Jim looked around.

"Cute. Very cute."

Uhura now felt one-tenth her rank and ten times her years.

"Please--let me explain."

He shook his head.

"Nothing to explain. Tricks, particularly filthy ones, need no explanation. Who else was in on it?"

Everyone had warned her. Let him make his own decision. She hadn't listened.

"Jim, please remember that the first thing you did when you felt Data--whom you didn't know six months ago--was in danger was take command. Its what you did on The B. Its what you always do."

Kirk turned away.

"Open these damned doors."

Her eyes were beginning to tear.

"Not until you listen to reason!"

Jim hit his commbadge.

"Kirk to anyone."

"Spock here. Jim, where are you? Who is with you? We were scattered after hearing Maddox's message."

"I'm on the holodeck. I'm with----"

One last, heart-rending look.

"I'm with no one at all."

As he beamed out, looking at her not at all, Uhura remembered Beverly telling her how her son Wes was very glad that so-called 'ambush simulations' only happened to cadets. As an officer, young Crusher said---that sort of thing could really piss him off. It spoke of someone who needed to learn a lesson by trickery. It spoke not of edification, but of contempt.

She began to cry openly, fearing she had destroyed a great friendship that at times had been something more.

On the true Bridge, Jim would say nothing of what happened. His internal rage threw off both Spock and Troi.

"Not today, folks---can we go?" Data shook his head.

"Captain--you and I and Geordi must speak. We have determined this to be a secure location, despite the odd malfunction that produced that false message from Commander Maddox."

Good, Jim thought. Let the poor man believe that the whole thing was an accident, and not a vicious joke by a betraying friend.

"Data--Geordi--can't it wait?"

LaForge shook his head.

"No, sir. It really can't. At all."

Riker pointed.

"That's the Ready Room, if you need privacy."

Kirk didn't care about anything when he entered with his young friends. That would change.

"Gentlemen, to say that I am in no mood doesn't even begin to describe it."

Geordi shrugged.

"I got that impression, sir. But trust me... this is big. We now know everything there is to know about Cadet Ran Hajar's suicide except who tried to originally erase the message."

Kirk now was engaged.

"You've reclaimed the note? The one that set him off?"

Data, having processed the information himself, continued.

"Yes, sir. Its contents are most disturbing. They are as follows...."

Even given Jean-Luc Picard's fabled intolerance with Data's drawn-out method of explaining, The Great Man would have let his android officer do exactly what Kirk did, just then. That was to give him a full hour and a half to explain every last detail. The subject was simply too shocking. Jim sat down, as soon as he was done.

"We won't know who we can trust. Maybe not even my own family, based on their points of view. My God, Commanders. Do you both realize that this could close The Academy? Next to this, even pedophilia would look almost bearable."

Geordi nodded.

"If what we've found is true, sir--then this Academy doesn't deserve to remain open. But if we pursue this in any way, there's going to be those that wish to stop us from finding out whatever the truth is."

Data picked up.

"To that end, we have decided to fabricate a state of hostilities between the senior members of The Enterprise-D's Bridge Crew. That should keep some attention diverted away from our efforts."

Kirk stood now, and shook his head.

"No, they'll never believe you. No, we need a genuine distraction. We need to give them that thing they fear the most. More than exposure. Gentlemen, we need -- Me."

The android and the engineer both puzzled over this statement. As the three emerged from The Ready Room, Kirk looked at Uhura, putting his deep anger aside for the sake of a wronged young man named Ran Hajar.

"Nyta-You Win."

Her eyes were still red and puffy. She shook her head.

"Jim--what---?"

"I said--you win."

He breathed in, and managed a smile that fooled no one, not even his very newest friends. He then did what James Kirk did best. He surprised everyone.

"Tell Starfleet Command that I intend to make myself ready to assume Command over this ship. I, James T. Kirk, have decided that I should once again be---The Captain Of The USS Enterprise."

And The Crowd, as is said, went wild.

Chapter Twelve - It Brings On Many Changes.....

Captain Kirk stood up, and prepared to speak. Surrounding him were Data and LaForge. The reporters had shown up without much prompting. Behind them were Riker, Troi, and Worf.

"I have completed my preliminary investigation into the suicide of Cadet Ran Hajar, and found that it was in fact a suicide. Yet there was still foul play at work. I have evidence that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that this young man was driven to his death by sinister forces that sought to bring about his destruction. He was played with like a toy, and that toy has now broken."

One reporter asked the obvious.

"Who were these forces, Captain?"

Jim paused. These words were painful.

"Starfleet Command itself. Cadet Hajar was the subject of a blind experiment. Blind in what he was told---blind to the damage it did. I will have more for you later. As I continue to draft multiple resolutions for the convenings of courts-martial, I must choose my words carefully."

Geordi nodded at Kirk. His vision saw Admiral Nechayev and a few others of like rank begin to stir. It was as they expected, and they had prepared to stop them from initiating immediate damage control. Data monitored all networking done by the aides of these individuals. Riker stepped forward to deliver the news that would keep the possible conspirators in their seats.

"I would like to announce to you at this time that I will be remaining as The First Officer of The Enterprise. I have served under one legend--now I choose to serve under another. Ladies and Gentlemen, I joyfully give you the new Captain Of The Enterprise--James Tiberius Kirk!"

The movement stopped among those top-ranked officers. To some, this was surely a nightmare come true. Troi now stepped forward, her serenity quite annoying to those she now sensed annoyance from.

"My sessions and scans and analysis of Jim have told me what we all have known. This man is Captain Kirk. No one else. And he is ready to command again."

As befit a Klingon warrior, Worf delivered the last, best blow in this first salvo.

"Captain, by order of Emperor Kahless, you are appointed as an Ambassador from The Klingon Empire. You have all the rights and responsibilities of a diplomat. The one who crosses you--crosses all Klingons."

With two hot stories in tow, the reporters left. Kirk felt victorious for the moment.

Until he returned to the home of his nephew, Academy Senior Instructor Peter Kirk. His wife awaited her husband's uncle.

"Saavik--where's Peter? I thought he'd want to offer commentary on how I did out there. *I* think we did pretty well. They won't get away with what they did to that cadet."

Admiral Saavik looked down.

"Uncle, they already have. Peter has been removed from his position at The Academy."

The returned legend always felt each battle in his gut. But these people had involved his family.

"They just made it personal."

Jim looked around at the assembled heroes.

"First of all, I want it known that I do not believe that Nechayev and her bunch are directly responsible for the events that led to Ran Hajar's suicide. The sovereign is not corrupt."

Spock asked the obvious question.

"Jim--then why did she and those publicly associated with her become so visibly nervous upon your announcement?"

Kirk looked at his oldest friend.

"Because, Spock, the sovereign is not corrupt, but it has been negligent. Perhaps even criminally negligent. They allowed what was done to Ran Hajar to happen, when they could easily have stopped it at anytime. I still don't have the last of the whys and wherefores. But we now know the hows and the whats and the whens. Before this is over, we will have it all--on the record. It goes without saying that we'll need the help of everyone here to fully unearth this travesty."

In his hoverchair, Admiral McCoy liked what he was hearing no better than anyone else.

"Jim--now jes' how deep and wicked does this ole' scheme run, anyhoo? Yer tellin me Alynna Necahyev ain't corrupt, but negligent could mean anything at all!"

Kirk nodded.

"You're right, Bones. To my mind, she is not evil. But in my talks with Peter and Saavik, I've learned that an early loss of a ship and crew under her command rattled her badly. The Romulans intercepted them attempting to aid the Enterprise-C. She had also been trained by Rachel Garrett."

Spock spoke again.

"Her help in negotiating the subsequent Klingon Alliance was invaluable. But I was forced to act against her, when she gave up certain concessions."

Worf knew this well.

"The Empire was puzzled by these sudden concessions, and tensed somewhat as a result. Before Ambassador Spock acted as he described, Admiral Nechayev's actions caused some in The Empire to think that the Federation's resolve had weakened. A dangerous position to be in for all sides."

Admiral Sulu was anxious to see the point of all this.

"So the sovereign is not corrupt. But what exactly is the sovereign guilty of?"

Troi looked down.

"When I channeled Cadet Hajar's latent emotions from his quarters, I sensed sudden and overwhelming rage, just prior to his hanging himself. Usually, the feelings are of depression and despair. But he wanted his death to punish those he felt wronged him. The one word that I was able to discern from it all--was 'used'. It was as though he'd been raped harshly and repeatedly---but until that very last moment, he hadn't known anything at all about it."

Riker nodded.

"And now we know that he hadn't known. Captain Kirk--how many levels of blind was this so-called experiment that you've described?"

LaForge answered at a nod from Kirk.

"More levels than anyone this side of Q has ever seen, Commander. It wasn't so much a conspiracy as a wholly misguided effort on the part of one or two individuals and a slowly dawning realization on the part of the others. Nobody was out to get Ran Hajar."

Kirk continued.

"But nobody was out to help him either, once they knew. This secret was meant to be kept quiet by means of cashiering Mister Hajar. He decided not to play along. He chose to do it in the worst possible way."

In an era where the Communications Officer had ceased to exist, Admiral Uhura knew tricks that no gigatronic computer could ever conceive of. In her hands was a device that would broadcast the findings in ways varied and unblockable. But for now she added her two cents.

"Boothby made mention to me of how trees and flowers should be pruned. I asked him if that was his philosophy of life. He said it was--for plants. For people, it was an attitude that was at best reprehensible. I should have realized he was trying to tell me something."

Spock shook his head.

"Captain April often told me of similar incidents, regarding Mister Boothby. I am told he was hired by Commodore Archer himself, when the Academy was founded."

Kirk now turned to Data.

"Are you sure you want to do this?"

The android nodded.

"I am, sir. This incident has frightening resonance for me--and I am not used to being frightened. I must go through this --in order that I may get over this."

Data's words were chilling and blood simple.

"The message that we have at last retrieved read as follows:

'Cadet Hajar, we hereby inform you of your assistance in Operation: Resistance. Your unique circumstances allowed us, using tactics garnered from The Federation's enemies, to test the breaking point of a human mind. The comportment of many towards you and the several semesters you were held back after your initial punishment were all part of this vital and necessary effort to guard our service personnel against the concentrated efforts of those who have made it their business to shatter their wills while in captivity. While your service garners our gratitude, we find at this time that you are not fit Starfleet material. Moreover, our quite extensive psychological profile tells us that this circumstance is unlikely to ever change. We have already arrived at a fair and thorough compensation package, contingent upon your silence. Please report immediately to my office to be informed of these terms, which are non-negotiable. While this experiment was not our original intention, I think you will agree it was for the greater good of our way of life.

Alynna Nechayev, Chief Of Operations, Starfleet Command'......"

Data openly frowned.

"...That concludes my briefing."

LaForge and Kirk, utterly familiar with the report, were still frowning as well. Deanna and Spock felt the utter disgust that boiled up in the room, and much of it was their own. McCoy grabbed for his respirator, thinking only one phrase, that being 'first do no harm'. Sulu thought back upon his daughter's rough ride at The Academy, and now wondered hard. Uhura thought of young Leslie Thompson, 100 years dead, killed merely because someone wanted to show how powerful they were. Worf's opinion was stated through bared Klingon teeth, all the more frightening for their atypical straightness. For the first time in his life, William Riker wondered why the hell he was even in Starfleet.

Only Scotty gave voice to the betrayal.

"They played that poor lad like a yo-yo!"

Riker decided he was Starfleet--but that this effort should not go unpunished.

"And for that--they're going down."

Telemachus Kirk stood by his father as Professor Kirk read the digi-banner's dread message.

"Due To The Many Cadet Withdrawals Caused By The Current Controversy, The United Starfleet Academy For The Arts, Sciences and Officer Training Has Temporarily Closed. Reopening Date Uncertain."

Professor Kirk muttered to himself.

"Oh, Sweet Lord---Not again."

Which badly confused Telemachus, who naturally knew of no incident that even remotely paralleled this one.

"Father--are you well?"

The older, wearier man nodded.

"Telly---go home. I have to speak to an uppity former Cadet. A Russian with no accent and a policy of scorched ground."

"No, Father! My place is by your side, especially now."

The Vulcan-Klingon hybrid swore he felt the Earth shake as his father yelled at him.

"Kwo'unlu Qweput!"

Which was Klingonese for 'You Will Obey'. Telemachus nodded, and withdrew. He turned to ask something.

"What should I tell Mother of your whereabouts----Father?"

But Professor Kirk was already gone.

Inside Admiral Nechayev's offices, she dressed down an aid as she entered her personal chamber.

"No--and I mean--no responses to their little media blitz. Its we who hold the cards here. One major move for their hundred. Any other course lowers us to their level of caterwauling."

The Admiral closed the door, and sealed it with her personal code.

"There. That should do it."

A voice came from behind her.

"Mmm. No need for intruders, after all."

Alynna Nechayev turned and saw Professor Kirk, seated at her desk.

"Peter. Now, just how did you get in here? This place has multiple and varied anti-transport protocols."

The old man slammed down his walking stick on her desk. He was in deadly earnest.

"Cut the crap, Aly. The Cadet withdrawals weren't that deep, and most of those were only temporary. How odd that I should be on the verge of regaining my position when this news comes through."

She tried to act as if nothing untoward were occurring.

"That's right. The whole of Starfleet Command is one big anti-Kirk conspiracy. How ever did you figure it out?"

He smiled.

"You don't do those kind of conspiracies, Aly. You play everything too close to actually conspire--to breathe together-- with a lot of other people. Now, answer me--why the Academy?"

She shrugged.

"Ask your Uncle. He and his crews are proclaiming me and my peers to be some kind of pedophiles, apparently."

The old man shook his head.

"He didn't mention you by name, Aly. The only thing he accuses you of is acting too slowly to stop this. Oh--and do not ever crack wise about pedophilia in my or my wife's presence. That's first and final, Cadet."

Nechayev sat down, and threw up her arms.

"I guess just about everyone is a Cadet to you, eh Admiral Kirk?"

"Professor. I resigned my Commission some time ago."

She shrugged.

"So you're not responsible for what's gone on here? Well, I am. As Chief Of Operations, its all on me, and on my staff. We can't do our jobs, thanks to the parade your relations are calling. Its hard enough juggling frontier assignments and The Academy's needs during normal times. These are not normal times--and something has to give."

Professor Kirk chose not to respond to her directly.

"I propose a face-to-face between you and Jim. Right now, even the battle lines are vague. Lets see if we can settle this."

Admiral Nechayev agreed.

"Tell him to bring his terms. Mine are simple."

He let that one slide on by.

"He doesn't want your head, Aly. Just the truth. He already knows you weren't responsible for Ran Hajar. But he would like to know who was."

"Provided this can be solved internally, I'm prepared to offer up every last detail."

She turned away, and then back towards him.

"But honestly, Peter. At 110, haven't you even considered simply retir---"

He was already gone. After a second, she held up her finger and smiled.

"Computer--origin of recent transport beam?"

"No transport beam may operate in this office or its environs. None was detected."

Nechayev spent the next three hours tearing apart her office, looking for anything to explain a virtual back door that she knew was not there.

At the Rozhenko household, Worf asked his father Sergey a question.

"Father--what class of ship did you serve on?"

The big bear of a man seemed confused.

"Worf! You know full well that I served aboard one of the old Excelsior class wessels!"

Helena Rozhenko chuckled, and Worf smiled. Alexander was grinning from ear to ear.

"All right now, you fiends. Vwhat is going on? Come now, out with it!"

Worf nodded.

"One of our dinner guests has a--passing familiarity--with the Excelsior class. You may wish to chat him up, as you say."

Sergey harumphed.

"Ha--let us see vwhat this supposed expert of yours has on the ball. I'll moiderize the bum, as the American mobsters once put it."

Then, they beamed in, and Sergey saw. The old man gasped for air at the sighting of these five. One, unable to leave American Georgia after being grounded by his daughter, was working the vidnews circuit, blasting a Russian who didn't act like it.

"Kyptin Hikaru Sulu! Oh, sir! To meet you is a great, great honor..."

Sulu smiled.

"Thank you, Mister Rozhenko, I...."

But Sergey wasn't finished.

"......I mean, to meet the former roommate of Pavel Andreivich Chekov is a highlight of my life! So vwhen is he getting out of cryo? Oh, I feel so giddy, you'd think I was Cochranov on his first warp flight!"

Admiral Uhura whispered to Captain Kirk.

"Well, at least we know it wasn't just Pavel, now."

But Jim was silent, and Uhura remembered suddenly that she had perhaps thrown away their friendship with an unworthy, ham-handed deception. It was even likely that his acceptance of the Enterprise-E's center seat was merely to distract Admiral Nechayev, who seemed to find that prospect unsettling. The Hajar suicide inquiry was on the verge of consuming them all.

Sergey saw his other guests, and nodded smilingly.

"Ahh, you were all such noteworthy figures in Kyptin Chekov's career, its almost as good as meeting him. Kyptin Sulu--may I ask you a question about the Excelsior-Prime?"

Hikaru acquiesced.

"Ask away."

Sergey raised a finger.

"Vwhy on Earth didn't you make Pavel Chekov your First Officer?"

Uhura tried to answer.

"Sergey? Pavel was having a rough time of it, then. After The Reliant's loss, he thought perhaps that he was a jinx. So he was in no shape to be an XO."

Rozhenko nodded.

"Is that so? Vwell, I suppose his best girl would know that, after all. Your romance vwas a thing of legend."

Angered or no, Kirk threw in on behalf of a flustered Uhura.

"Legend would be the word for it."

Sergey pointed at Spock.

"And you, Ambassador---you vwere in a unique position to know him. After all, he carried your very essence in him after The Genesis---"

Scotty's face was red, and he spoke loudly, cutting Sergey off.

"All right, that's just above enough! I loved Pavel, so I took it from him. But this is the least endearing quality you Russians have. Ye did nae invent everything. Scotch tastes better than Vodka, Pierogies taste better than latkes, Plomeek soup tastes better than Borscht, Balboa beat Drago, The United States stood until Earth united--a good fourty years more than the USSR--and the man's *BLOODY* *blessed* name was Zefram Cochrane, it was *NOT* Zangief Ivanovich Cochranov!"

Sergey shook his head.

"Mister Scott--you need to relax. You should take a vacation. I have a vwonderful book of poetry I could loan you. It is by the famed Russian poet Robert Burnaskev. "Ode To A Tiny Mouse' is a personal favorite of mine."

Scotty just kind of glazed over and sat down.

"Och, I am surely in purgatory."

Now, the next generation--wellll, actually, the generation about five removed from the one we just discussed--beamed in. Helena grabbed Deanna's hands.

"Vwhen are you and Worf getting married? Alexander has written so often and told us that you two were going to elope any day now. So vhwere are my grandson's siblings?"

Deanna looked at Jim for strength. Worf glared at a sheepish Alexander. Riker chuckled. Helena challenged them all.

"The former boyfriend shouldn't even be here. My son is far too generous. Vwhy do you permit him to pine and try to vwin her back, Worf? What are you, crazy or something? And Kyptin Kirk, you are old enough to be my grandfather--how dare you leer at my future daughter-in-law? Deanna--he's an old lech, just like the legends say. Not that that's always a bad thing."

Another beam-in occurred. This one was Professor Kirk.

"Uncle Jim--I've arranged a face-to-face between you and Alynna Nechayev. In Brooklyn, New York. We have 18 hours to be ready. She'll give you the truth--but she is canny. I'll doubt she'll willingly let you use it as you want."

Kirk felt relief inside. The Rozhenkos, while wonderful people, were coming on more than a bit strong.

"Good work, Peter. Everyone--I need you. Lets move out."

But Sergey shook his head.

"Professor Kirk! How dare you step into my home and disrupt...."

The older man turned.

"Cadet Rozhenko---Stand Down!"

Both Worf and Sergey sat without thinking, and responded as one.

"Aye, Sir!"

Scotty was lightly sobbing, being held up by a supportive Geordi.

"Its all right, Scotty. They threw me off with 'Fordovski, inventor of The Model T' once. It was frightening."

Jim pointed at Worf, who got back up. As the visitors beamed away, Helena wandered outside, a little depressed.

"Grandfather--will she be all right?"

"Da, Aleksandr. She will. Its just that for as long as I can remember, your poor grandmother's dinner parties always encounter some manner of disaster. Then she gets defiant, and goes into her spunky phase."

Sergey shook his head.

"I hate spunk."

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK

The Italian Restaurant was a pure antique, maintained as such since the days when the deals made there were crafted by brutal men carving up territory and political power.

Kirk walked in, not wearing the antique red uniform he had disappeared in, but the grey and red uniform of a current Starfleet Captain. He was now firmly a part of this new time and place, and he wanted Nechayev to know immediately that he was not going away.

Admiral Nechayev was already seated, along with a man whose descent indicated the Indian subcontinent.

"Captain Kirk--I'm pleased that we could all get together like this. A chance to get the bad blood out over this affair?"

Kirk seated himself.

"Carol Marcus and I had an affair. This was a suicide by a young man who was played with for purposes I'm still unclear on by forces within our own government."

Nechayev never seemed to lose her calm. That would change.

"By the way, have I introduced Seth Hajar--Cadet Hajar's father?"

Peter had been right, Jim mused. She indeed had a sucker-punch lying in wait. But Kirk's guard was always up.

"Mister Hajar--you have my deepest condolences."

The very fact that Hajar was sitting with Nechayev told Kirk something was up. So his next words were not as great a shock as they might have been.

"If you want to give me and my family peace, Kirk--then stop tearing Starfleet apart with your investigation. My son, despite his weakness and disgrace, was given a chance to serve. Let that at least be his legacy."

Jim felt sad, but did what he had to do to clear the table of non-negotiators.

"Mister Hajar, your son wasn't given any chance. They took that from him, whoever they happen to be. As for his supposed weakness and disgrace--how dare you? You had a son. A son who fought like hell to live up to expectations I am now forced to wonder if he or anyone else ever could have lived up to. He was played with, and you are now saying that somehow this was acceptable? You're a bully, Mister Hajar. I've never cared for bullies."

Kirk turned and looked at Nechayev.

"Nor do I care for obvious delaying tactics. Try this again, and I'll go for a full-court press, Admiral."

Her perfect calm somewhat shattered, Nechayev turned toward Seth Hajar.

"That will be all, Mister Hajar. I'll get back to you."

"Admiral, you're not going to allow this relic to...."

"Mister Hajar--I'll get back to you."

He turned and began to leave.

"I--I did love my son, you know."

Jim's response was quick and cold.

"Then don't treat his suicide as a service to the greater good."

A devastated man used to quick deference had been dismissed without any further thought. The talks began.

"Captain, what are your terms?"

"Admiral--what is the truth?"

She shrugged.

"I think I better get your word on certain things first."

Kirk looked at a datapadd, the brainchild of two generations of heroes. All had played a hand in shaping it. Even Uhura, who he could no longer figure.

"Very well. The Academy and my nephew's position in it. That's immediate. Full prosecution of those who directly planned this. As for those of you involved in the cover-up--I'll let your spin doctors and aides help you to do the Bay Bridge Two-Step. However you want to paint it, I won't gainsay you. Further, you and yours will take no position on my becoming Captain Of The Enterprise-E. You don't have to sing my praises. Just get out of my way. I'll even resign my position within The Admiralty--and take Beverly Crusher as my CMO. Good publicity after all the bad."

She seemed to mull over his words.

"What about your people?"

Kirk nodded.

"If I ask them to hold their tongues, they will."

"Will your nephew accept a date certain for retirement?"

"How is he a part of this?"

"He holds the Academy back. Refuses to allow competent cadets to pass, unless they first pass his exobiology course, which is so wide-ranging, Exobiology is just a label. He--he prepares those kids for life, Captain."

Jim waited, to see if she was kidding.

She wasn't kidding.

"No. He's in line to head The Academy, when the unserving Regents you've installed drop off. You have a problem with him--you take it up with him. Those are my terms--now, the truth. Why did all this occur?"

She broke a piece of bread, which she offered up, and he did not take.

"During Wolf 359, one of our ships, The Roosevelt, was assimilated by The Borg. In minutes. We had thought that Picard's process had been a long, hard one. But they took our people over in a heartbeat."

When Jim kept silent, she continued.

"We then looked back at The Cardassian Conflict. Their Obsidian Order had methods that caused our people to break, sometimes with only the suggestion of torture. They nearly broke Picard. The Tal Shiar broke your Commander La Forge. The D's history was an endless parade of posessions and takeovers through means other than military. And it had a good record. In the midst of all this, we in Command decided that we needed to find a way to counter all this. We called in our top five experts--our very finest long-term strategists. They told us we needed controlled experiments in will-breaking. We sent them packing."

"Good for you."

Nechayev accepted the limited compliment. But she was beginning to shake, just slightly.

"Yes, well---that wasn't the end of it. These people act largely without supervision. Its needed to let their creative and their theoretical juices flow. Unbeknownst to us at that time, they were shopping for a target, so to begin this experiment they now saw as so vitally neccesary. They--tend to be a trifle on the obsessive side."

"But they're good people, right?"

"Not--so you could immediately tell. They've been described by some as amoral. Its not a wholly inaccurate label. They ultimately chose a Cadet, because Cadets live at the bottom of Starfleet's ranking structure. They chose Ran Hajar because it was predicted that he would have the hardest time recovering after the Kolvoord Starburst fiasco."

Kirk was literally too disgusted to be angry.

"The target no one would notice or miss, is that it?"

"Well, that was their thinking. They were actually quite clever about it, in their own way. He became quite marginal, after his disciplining. But they kept him about, watching his movements, urging others through various means to basically make him feel unwelcome--more unwelcome."

The next question was telling.

"When did you become aware of the experiment?"

"When Cadet Crusher left, he showed us credible evidence of organized efforts against him--for practical jokes. These had been led from afar by a former lover of his named Robin Lefler. It concerned us that any Cadet could be so targeted. What if an enemy were to target a cadet for extortion, while gofering for members of the senior staff? Looking down that avenue, we found out about the efforts directed at Cadet Hajar--and who was directing them."

Kirk asked the nail-biter.

"That was a while ago. Why wasn't it stopped then and there?"

Her calm was now almost shattered entirely.

"At first, our obsessive friends said that to suddenly stop the experiment would be more dangerous than to simply let it run its course. It wasn't until a few weeks before the suicide that I realized three of my colleagues, now resigned, had kept the whole thing going, because in fact it had produced results that we could use in the way we needed in the field. I chose to end it when I did to keep a lid on this disaster."

"Admiral, I'm willing to allow for this or that stance being a PR tactic. I've used arrogance to get by, myself, when it was called for. But that letter you sent to Cadet Hajar dripped contempt towards a young man in a fragile state. He had been held back without cause, harassed and laughed at for an unholy reason. How did you think he was going to react?"

She nodded.

"By---running into my offices, screaming. I though that that was the best way to get him to me, quickly. I never dreamed he'd...the results of that research have been destroyed, of course."

Jim shrugged.

"Of course. But I don't need that to have these people arrested, right?"

"No. I have it all here. On what they did, I mean. Captain, we were only trying to protect Starfleet. Even the planners were trying to do that, in their own way. You've been clever in the way you went about this investigation. Forcing things here to this point. Both your crews are clever. But I have clever people, too. So stick to your agreement."

Kirk got up.

"We are smart. All of us are all so very, very damned smart. There are smart people on both sides of this conflict."

He walked to the door.

"Yet Ran Hajar is still dead." A woman who did have a conscience and a heart was left alone to deal with them both.

In a deep underground pocket of Starfleet HQ, five people who never saw much sunlight--or other people--saw their door burst open. Spock walked in, followed by Data, Worf, and then finally Kirk. Spock seemed a bit less in control than normal. What looked like a leader made a demand.

"Who the hell are you people, and why are you here?"

Spock grabbed the man's pointed finger, and held it.

"We are the good guys."

Data.

"We are here to place you under arrest."

Worf.

"We invite you to resist arrest."

Kirk.

"Game---Over."

The next day, Starfleet Academy began what would be a decades-long healing process. A healing process of another sort began with a knock on the door to the home of Admiral Uhura.

"Jim?"

"Nyta--let's talk."

Admiral Uhura was understandably nervous at seeing her old friend, so soon after the dirty trick she'd pulled.

"Jim--please don't cut into me any more. What I did--how I conducted myself, it was all wrong."

Kirk retained his ability to surprise her, as much in the present as in the 23rd Century.

"Nyta, you did the right thing. I never thought I'd say this, but Starfleet needs me. The only thing you failed to do was make me aware of just how much things have changed."

The statement verged on the egoistic and the fascistic. Uhura knew that neither of those terms truly had a place in the lexicon of Jim Kirk's personality.

"I've heard you say that you need Enterprise, or Spock, or us. I've even heard you say that of a few select ladies. But I've never heard you say that Starfleet needs you. I don't disagree--but what precisely do you mean by it?"

He looked down.

"Well, I'm *not* talking about Wolf 359. If our Starfleet had faced The Borg back one hundred years ago, it would have been as far behind as this one was, and just as likely, it would have been struck straight through to Earth. I'm not talking about the level of interference from the Admiralty. If Nogura, Komack, and especially Cartwright had the kind of turnaround time current Comm systems have, they'd have been in our faces so very often, we would have changed our registration number and moved away."

Uhura of course chuckled at hearing this perspective on her old job from her old friend.

"I guess they would have. Is it the instances of corruption, then? Norah Satie? The Pegasus? Nechayev's sending Picard into Cardassian territory without real forethought? Or that idiot who believed The Cardassians about Bajoran terrorists?"

Kirk shook his head.

"No. After all, our era included a CIC willing to use a female admiral to keep me in line, a closet anti-Vulcan racist, an out and out war monger, and someone so hungry for a vid-op, he set poor Harriman up as much as me. No. The stupidity changes shape, but its still stupidity. No era is immune. We all have brilliant folk we look to, and fools we suffer, and good people who walk away from their ideals when the going gets rough--people like Admiral Nechayev."

Uhura seemed surprised by this, and Kirk saw that in her face.

"Well, she didn't get there by accident, or on her back. Nowadays, The Chief Of Operations seems to wield the kind of authority the CIC used to. No one gets that by being a complete waste. She has a mania for order. Literally, a mania. And it is that which creates the need for myself, or someone like me, who can, in time--replace her and the people associated with her. They need to go."

Nyta felt shock yet again, at Jim's words.

"I can't believe you'd ever lead a coup."

"If it were called for, I would. But its not called for here. No, my plan for the next five years is to use my experience, my skills and the damned fine crew Jean-Luc left me and stumble in those places every Enterprise has always managed to stumble into. In time, someone will say they need me for a desk job."

Now, the most shocking words of all.

"And this time, I will accept. Play the political games, and eventually take the CIC position, which is currently just a figurehead job."

She asked.

"For what purpose?"

He answered.

"To then lead us out of this phony paradise and back into the real world. There will be peace, but never again will we place above true peace the mere appearance of peace. Never again will we sacrifice a cadet or anyone else to a vicious game and experiment, without their full knowledge. No more Ran Hajars. Nechayev should have offered to resign. Because what happened was an abomination."

Uhura remembered one unanswered question.

"Did Alynna Nechayev have anyone erase the damning message?"

He shook his head.

"No. Ran Hajar himself did that. Geordi told me that the message erase control had been kicked repeatedly. As though by someone in spasmic pain. His boot jerked out as he attempted to undo his noose. Another mistake, made by a grieving young man who was just as tired of games as I am."

Jim looked at Nyta, and she nodded.

"The games were a mistake. But Jim--I honestly thought that they were necessary. You're too stubborn to approach directly--sometimes. When I was young, you were a source of light to me. I wanted to recapture the light."

Captain James T. Kirk, Commander of The USS Enterprise, NCC-1701-E, smiled. His words echoed a more recent, space-lost CO.

"In this life, we go forward--we don't go back."

Now, her mission accomplished, Admiral Upenda Nyota Uhura smiled at the man who made her feel invincible, 100 years before.

"I knew that--I just needed a reminder."

Later, at a gravesite, eleven legends laid flowers at the grave of a young man they never met, and never would, and who was likely to have been unfit to serve on their ships--except as a reminder.

In Alynna Nechayev's offices, a surprising deal was struck.

"I never thought that I'd have a spy among his new crew. You'll let me know if anything--actionable--comes up?"

The shapeshifter impersonating Beverly Crusher smiled.

"Believe me, I'll know if he slips up. At times, I can be so unobtrusive--you'd think I was a piece of furniture."