Maker - Michael Jan Friedman [76]
A captain, after all, was ultimately an island, the poet John Donne notwithstanding. And Picard preferred to face his last hours as commanding officer of the Stargazer on his own.
He wasn’t going down with his ship, like the captains of old. As it happened, he was going down without it. But either way, it was time he came to grips with his prospects.
McAteer wouldn’t have called for a hearing if he didn’t think he could obtain the verdict he wanted. And with Admiral Caber sitting on the jury, Picard’s fate was sealed.
When he returned to the ship afterward, it wouldn’t be to give orders. It would be to clean out his quarters so his successor could move in. Someone more to McAteer’s liking, presumably.
So this would be his only time to measure his brief but eventful time in the center seat. To understand its place in his life. And of course, to say good-bye, at least in his mind.
It was a good crew Picard had commanded, a courageous crew that had done well under the most adverse of circumstances. He expected that they would do great things, together and individually, and that he would be proud of them in times to come.
As for the Stargazer…there was a reason ships had always been referred to as females. He would miss her as much as he missed any flesh-and-blood comrade, from the engines that had carried him so faithfully through the void to the proud plaque on her bridge—the one that said “To bring light into the darkness.”
Perhaps, the captain thought, we brought a little light, if not quite as much as I intended.
In any case, the Stargazer would go on. And so would her crew. Ships and crews always did.
But what about me?
It wasn’t a question Picard would have asked of anyone else—not even those closest to him, for fear of sounding self-indulgent. But here, in the privacy of his solitude, he could ask it.
For as long as he could remember, he had dreamed of captaining a starship. That had been his life. Of course, he hadn’t expected to have a command handed to him at the age of twenty-eight, but he had hoped he would receive one eventually.
And now that command would be taken away. What was a man supposed to do when his dreams were stripped from him? The captain didn’t know. But when his tribunal ruled against him, he would be compelled to find out.
Just then, he heard his door chime, announcing a caller. Not Serenity or Ben Zoma, certainly. Then who?
“Come,” he said.
When the doors slid open, they revealed Pug Joseph. The security chief seemed to hesitate for a moment before entering the room, as if he didn’t feel quite comfortable being there.
“Lieutenant,” said Picard, wondering what was wrong. “What can I do for you?”
The lieutenant shrugged. “Actually,” he said, “there’s something I’d like to do for you, sir.”
“Oh?” said the captain. He sat back in his chair. “And what might that be?”
Joseph opened his hand and held it out to Picard, showing him a glass sphere about the size of a man’s fingernail. The light seemed to melt in its amber depths.
Picard looked at his visitor. “A marble?”
The security officer blushed. “Yes, sir. You see, it was my lucky charm when I was little, and it got me through some tough scrapes. So I brought it with me into space, and I carry it sometimes. I mean, on away missions and such.”
The captain smiled. “Are you…offering it to me?”
Joseph nodded. “I figure you’re going to need some kind of luck when we get back to Earth. In that…” He shrugged.
“Hearing,” Picard suggested.
“Yes. That hearing. I know it’s kind of stupid, but—”
Picard stopped him with a raised hand. “No,” he said, touched by the gesture. “It is not stupid at all.”
He took the marble and rolled it between his fingers, examining the buttery swirls of color trapped within it. It didn’t seem possible that it would stop Admiral McAteer.
But then, he reminded himself, it hadn’t seemed possible that anyone would stop Brakmaktin either.
Picard looked to the lieutenant again. “Who knows? Perhaps it will do for me what it has done for you.” And he slipped it into an inner pocket