Perchance To Dream Part 1

Perchance to Dream.

by Howard Weinstein.

Chapter One.

"JEAN-LUC, I DO not like being handcuffed."

Captain Picard sighed. "In what context, Dr. Crusher?" From the pugnacious thrust of her chin, it was quite clear that his chief medical officer had been mightily offended by someone or something. It was equally certain that Beverly Crusher had no intention of leaving Picard's ready room until she'd extracted a satisfactory response to her displeasure.

He folded his hands in priestly patience, knowing he wouldn't have to wait long for her to get to the specifics. Like gathering stormclouds, her eyebrows lowered into a frown. Here it comes- "I don't like twiddling my thumbs while patients suffer-and I will not simply wait for someone else to cure them."

Picard motioned her to the couch across from his desk as he tried to deduce the source of her wrath.

It was only as she sat that the doctor noticed the tiny holographic solar system hovering over the captain's shoulder. At least three dozen objects darted, spun and whirled-planets, moons, random rocks and a squadron of tiny s.p.a.cecraft. "What in heaven's name is that?"

"Hmm?" With a flicker of frustration in his eyes, he glanced at the cosmological chaos floating in the air. "Oh, just some blasted navigational puzzle that's been driving me to distraction for the past week. But I refuse to surrender. Computer, store puzzle for later reference." The hologram winked out of sight and Picard faced Crusher. "Would I be correct in guessing the cause of your indignation to be our orders to pick up those ten injured workers at the Chezrani outpost?"

"You would. By telling the Enterprise to get them and then rush them to a starbase hospital, Starfleet is as good as implying that the Enterprise is just some ambulance and the s.h.i.+p's medical staff are ambulance attendants."

"Doctor, I hardly think-"

"No one has ever been poisoned by processed ridmium particles before," she said, cutting him off. "There's nothing in the medical literature about effective treatment regimens."

"So you're saying these patients will not necessarily get better care at Starbase 96 than they might in your sickbay-?"

Crusher's fists clenched. "No. I'm saying I can do more for them on the Enterprise. The only thing we really know about ridmium is that it attacks the immune system."

"Ahh. And if I recall, research in immunology is one of your specialties."

"You recall correctly, Jean-Luc. And my medical staff is just as capable as any-"

"You are preaching to the choir," said Picard calmly, hoping to deflect her anger. "It's going to take us approximately thirty-six hours to get from the Chezrani system to Starbase 96. I see no reason you shouldn't devote that time to developing an effective treatment."

Beverly did seem placated, a bit of the starch washed from her posture. "That's what I planned to do all along. I just wanted to make sure I had your support."

"You always have that. You know the high regard I have for your professional skills."

"I wish Starfleet shared that opinion," she pouted.

"I seriously doubt they view you as a glorified ambulance attendant."

"Who said anything about 'glorified,' " Crusher said, a flash of resentment in her eyes.

Picard rose and circled the desk, standing over her. "Beverly, they made you Chief of Starfleet Medicine. What greater compliment could they pay you?"

With a sigh, she slumped back against the couch cus.h.i.+on. "I guess you're right, Jean-Luc. Maybe I'm overreacting."

"I don't think this is the only thing on your mind."

The doctor managed a sliver of a smile. "Trespa.s.sing on Counselor Troi's turf?"

Picard smiled back. "Without Betazoid empathic powers, I would not even make the attempt. But we simple stars.h.i.+p captains can also benefit from developing a certain sensitivity to the moods and concerns of crew members."

His oblique invitation to dump her troubles right there on his ready room desk was definitely tempting, but she waved it off with a shake of her head. "Oh, h.e.l.l ... you wouldn't understand, Jean Luc."

"Try me."

Beverly considered the offer, but remained mute. During the silence, Picard pondered the merits of continued persistence. He truly liked and respected Beverly Crusher, but he'd be the last to claim any clear comprehension of her inner workings. She could be mercurial, stiffnecked, skeptical-all matching the personality profile usually a.s.sociated with redheads. But she was also much more than that simple profile. And exceedingly complex. Gaining firsthand knowledge of her personal demons might not be his wisest course.

Still, she was not only a trusted officer. She was also his friend. So much for wisdom, he concluded with a mental shrug. He was not going to let her leave without giving her every chance to unburden herself.

"I know you usually confide in Counselor Troi," he said. "Under the circ.u.mstances, I thought I might suffice for the moment. If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say you're worried about Wesley."

"Good lord-am I that transparent?" Crusher's expression softened into a wondering, gentle laugh. "It's so strange, Jean-Luc. When I took that Starfleet Medical a.s.signment back on Earth, I worried about my son because I didn't know what he was doing or where he was. Then I came back to the Enterprise, and I started worrying about him because I did know what he was doing and where he was. When you're a mother, you just can't win."

"I understand better than you might think," Picard said with a twinkle as he perched on the edge of his desk.

"Hmm. I guess there is a maternal, nurturing component to being a stars.h.i.+p captain." With a shake of her head, she got up and paced the small ready room. "I know Wesley's been on away teams before. I keep telling myself that. But somehow it was different when the Enterprise was right there in planet orbit. This is the first time he's gone down to a planet and we've gone off to do something else."

"So you feel like you've abandoned him on Domarus Four?"

"I guess I do."

"Beverly, it's not like we dropped him naked and helpless," Picard scolded gently. "He's with two other capable Academy candidates, not to mention Data and Troi. And they do have a shuttlecraft."

Despite her best efforts to sidestep her gathering gloom, Beverly's expression darkened and her voice took on a momentary quaver. "I know that. I know that we're going to be rendezvousing with them in an hour or so. I also know that someday, he's going to be off on a s.h.i.+p of his own and I won't be able to keep an eye on him. And I do know that Wesley isn't Jack-" As soon as she'd said it, she was sorry.

The captain felt himself tense at the mention of Beverly's late husband, who'd died years ago under Picard's command. He hoped she wouldn't notice his reaction, but by the way her eyes looked away from his, he sensed her regret at having mentioned Jack's name. Was the source of that regret her natural reluctance to equate the father's fate with the son's future? Or was she sorry because she knew she'd inadvertently reminded Picard of his own feelings of responsibility and regret over Jack's death?

He couldn't be sure. But he was certain of this: no captain ever forgets the death of a comrade. n.o.body knew that better than Beverly Crusher. Through her own grief, she'd seen the sorrow in Picard's eyes the day he brought Jack's body home. And as Enterprise chief medical officer, she'd seen the echoes of that same sorrow every time she'd had to tell him a crew member had died.

When it came to Jack, though, they'd never completely sorted out their tangled feelings. It wasn't any great surprise, then, that throughout Beverly's years serving aboard Picard's stars.h.i.+p, the ghost of Jack Crusher had been along for the voyage. For both of them.

She made a halfhearted attempt to erase the moment of revelation. "I didn't mean ... oh, dammit, yes I did. I tell myself over and over that just because Jack died on a s.p.a.ce mission doesn't mean my son will. But in here ..." She brushed her hand across her heart. "... I can't convince myself of that."

"Beverly, sooner or later you'll have to let Wesley lead his own life."

"I know. And the closer that time comes, the more I want to push it back." She took a breath, not at all certain she wanted to pursue the matter. "Jean-Luc, can I ask you something personal?"

"Yes."

"When did you feel like your mother let you go?"

Picard suppressed a smile, but it lit his eyes. "Never."

Beverly Crusher winced. "Oh, wonderful ..."

Shading his eyes with one hand, Wesley Crusher fended off the setting sun of Domarus Four as he peered toward the flattened crest of the mountain looming over him. She was up there somewhere, but he couldn't spot her. He wondered if she'd ducked back into one of those little caves pocking the flanks of the rugged mesa.

Gina Pace was forever charging headlong over, through and under things and places that most people would approach with caution. Wes couldn't call her reckless. Not exactly, anyway. She just treated risk as something to be prepared for and dealt with, rather than a cause for alarm. As both Gina's friend and fellow Starfleet Academy candidate, Wes found her enthusiasm alternately amusing and exasperating.

Right at this moment, however, he was not amused. The gathering dusk had already tinged the sky with darkening splashes of purple and red, and this field trip was drawing to a close. They still had equipment and samples to stow on the shuttlecraft before they could head for orbit and rendezvous with the Enterprise on the Stars.h.i.+p's return from a supply drop at the Nivlakan colonies two days distant.

The Starfleet chest insignia pinned to his uniform let out an electronic chirp, followed by a voice. "Commander Data to Ensign Crusher."

Wes tapped the communicator to reply. "Crusher here, sir."

"Are you returning to base camp?"

"Uhh-we're on our way, Commander. Crusher out."

Wes cupped his hands and bellowed up to where he'd last seen Gina. "Hey, Pace! Come down now!" He could have called her via communicator, but-what the h.e.l.l-echoes were fun. Even at eighteen, and knowing the physics and acoustics involved, he still found a moment of childlike joy in hearing his own voice rebounding off cooperative rocks.

He squinted skyward again, just as Gina popped out of a cave entrance and clambered like a mountain goat down the steep slope. Loose pebbles skittered down ahead of her, but she never missed a step.

She hopped off a ledge and landed in front of Wesley. "I'm not late, am I? I just wanted to get a few more rock samples. Amazing formations up there! I couldn't leave without getting the best possible selection. If you were the captain and I was your science officer, wouldn't you want to know you could rely on me to do the best, most thorough job possible?"

She finally stopped for a breath, and he looked down at her, trying to maintain a gaze of Picard-like sternness-no easy task, since Gina was small and exceedingly cute, with large dark eyes, and he really wanted to run his fingers through her thick s.h.a.ggy hair. He and Gina hadn't always gotten along. A few years ago, at fourteen, he'd been shy as a fieldmouse, and he thought she was loud and obnoxious. Then, at sixteen, when he felt ready for some tentative flirting, he thought she'd become a lot less childish. Now, at eighteen ...

But this wasn't the time or place. He was her commanding officer on an important field excursion detail and he felt duty-bound to set an example. It took him a second to refocus his attention. What did she just ask me? Oh, yeah ...

"Yes," he managed to say, finding his way back to the loose end of their conversation, "I'd want my science officer to be thorough. But I'd also like to know that I wouldn't have to worry about her getting lost or left behind because she went off on her own. Understood?"

"Understood." She narrowed her eyes, weighing the gravity of the moment. "I don't have to call you 'sir,' do I?"

"n.o.body's keeping score. Let's get back to camp."

They began walking, quickly. Gina barely came up to Wesley's shoulder, and the height disadvantage forced her to jog just to keep up with his long-legged strides. "Where's Kenny?"

"I sent him back while I was looking for you," he said with a reproachful look.

"Oh. Y'know, I can't believe he wouldn't go into those caves with us."

"Some people prefer wide-open s.p.a.ces."

"But Kenny doesn't," she said with a derisive laugh. "He'd rather be on a s.p.a.ce s.h.i.+p than a planet. Sometimes I just don't believe him. He can be so strange."

"He hates when you call him Kenny."

"And why would that be?" asked Gina with a defiant look that revealed her complete lack of patience for what she viewed as Kenny's eccentricities.

"He thinks it makes him sound like a little kid."

She shrugged. "Well, he acts like one sometimes."

"We all do sometimes," he said pointedly.

"So what does he want to be called, Captain Kenny?"

Wes grinned in spite of himself. "Just Ken, I think."

"I'll try to remember that."

The glint in her eyes made Wesley doubt her sincerity. As they approached the woods fringing the gra.s.sy plain which had been the object of most of their geology survey, Wes decided Domarus had been an interesting place for this field work. His satisfied judgment rested partly on the fact that it hadn't been just an academic exercise. Their performances would of course be evaluated by Data and Troi, and added to their Academy entrance application files. But the information they'd gathered would also enlarge the scanty file on a world which had been visited just once before, eighty years earlier.

The science vessel U.S.S. Jonathan Levy, one of the most active exploration s.h.i.+ps of its time, had done that original survey, but hadn't had the time to log more than a cursory orbital scan, including the geological and biological basics and the conclusion that Domarus Four hosted no sentient life forms, just lots of plants and smaller animals. Wes and his team hadn't found anything to contradict those reports, but it was fun just the same to do some adult work with minimal supervision.

Though he couldn't be certain, Wes had a feeling more and more these days that his time aboard the Enterprise was drawing to a close. Was it only three years ago that he'd failed the Starfleet Academy entrance exam? It seemed like a lot longer. As a scared fifteen-year-old, he'd been devastated by a failure. He believed he'd let down his mother, the captain, his friends, the entire s.h.i.+p-until Captain Picard had found him moping in the observation lounge and stunned him with a startling confession: "If it helps you to know this," Picard had said to him, "I failed my first time ... and you may not tell anyone!"

Picard had also told him that a person's successes and failures could only be measured from within, not by anyone else but himself. Not an easy lesson to learn, but Wesley Crusher thought lately that he was finally beginning to understand it.

For reasons Wesley never quite understood, Picard had designated him an acting ensign, giving him access to experiences no Starfleet cadet could possibly have sitting in an earthbound cla.s.sroom. Then, through a combination of natural talents and several tons of hard work, he'd achieved a field commission, earning his red ensign's uniform. He was a real stars.h.i.+p officer.

After all that, he found it hard to imagine not being a member of the Enterprise crew. Would entering Starfleet Academy feel like a step backward? Maybe. But if he ever wanted to be even half the captain that Picard was, he knew he needed what the Academy had to offer, the theoretical foundation that would give perspective to practical experiences like this away-team mission.

Hiking over a gra.s.sy knoll, Wes and Gina entered a forest of towering, slender trees with golden leaves. En route, they found Ken Kolker hunched over like a stocky forest gnome, clipping and collecting some last-minute flora samples. All his cla.s.smates knew Ken as the most perpetually serious seventeen-year-old aboard the Enterprise, his moods often as dark as his close-cropped hair. As Wes gestured toward the clearing where the shuttle and their supervising officers waited, Ken fell into step.

But Gina stopped short. "Dammit."

Wes stopped, too, his hands on his hips and his mouth pinched into an expression of long-suffering impatience. "What did you forget to do now?"

"That stupid seismic testing rig-I forgot to shut it down," she said, already backing away. "I'll go back for it-I'll run-I'll-"

"I did it," said Ken, halting her in mid-stride.

Gina blinked at him. "You did what-?"

"On my way back here, I ran down the mission checklist on my tricorder and I noticed the rig wasn't checked off. So I figured I might as well-"

"Oh, you and your stupid checklists," Gina said with a roll of her eyes.

"Checklists are important," Ken huffed.

"There's more to life than checklists, Kenny," she said, emphasizing the dimunitive she now knew he disliked. "Do you ever do anything without consulting one of your stupid checklists first?"

"Gina," Wesley said sharply, "his checklist kept you from getting into trouble."

"Oh, Wes-that's not why he retrieved the seismic rig. He probably did it just to make me look bad."

Out of the corner of his eye, Wes saw how the accusation stung the shorter teen. No one who knew Ken would characterize him as the life of any party, and there was a germ of truth in Gina's opinion of his lack of spontaneity. But this jab was more than unfair. It was mean. "Gina, that's not-"

"Forget it, Wesley," Kenny said, gathering the remnants of his tattered dignity. With no intention of defending himself further, he turned and trudged toward the base camp.