Requiem - Michael Jan Friedman [0]
Stardate: 16175.4
Earth Calendar Date: 2345
(Twenty-five Years Ago)
THE LIFT DOORS OPENED and Captain Picard entered the bridge. Crusher, he noted, was already at his post.
“Good morning, Captain,” Crusher offered cheerfully.
“Good morning, Jack,” Picard replied, watching as the lieutenant commander on watch quickly vacated the center seat.
Picard took his place in the captain’s chair. Vigo was next on the bridge, placing his tall, blue-skinned form at the weapons console. Picard’s exec, Gilaad Ben Zoma, came a moment later, and the others quickly followed.
Crusher had already prepared the morning report, and his handsome human features were typically animated.
“Very little activity, sir,” he said evenly. “A minor course correction at 0600 to avoid an asteroid—location noted and logged. We’ve compensated and will arrive on time at Alpha Pensura.”
“Excellent,” Picard replied. “Run a level-one diagnostic on sensors. We’ll need them at peak—”
“Captain,” his communications officer interrupted. “A priority message from a ship in Beta Quadrant. No identity codes, just the priority channel.”
“Answer hail,” Picard said. “Put them on the screen.” Picard stood and turned his attention to the forward viewer. “This is Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the U.S.S. Stargazer. How may we be of assistance?”
Picard had never spoken directly to a Gorn, so he started ever so slightly when the alien face appeared on the screen. As the Gorn considered him, Picard had only a moment to take in the reptilian features: the coarse green skin, the multifaceted, almost insectoid eyes, and the prominent teeth.
“Captain,” the Gorn said—the computer rendering the voice against a background of hisses and the sounds of guttural breathing. “We wish to speak with you in person. Bring your ship to the coordinates we are transmitting now.”
Picard kept his tone and expression even. “Of course, we welcome—”
But the image of the Gorn snapped off the screen.
Jack Crusher was the first to speak. “Captain, what was that?”
Picard turned to face his science officer. “I suspect it was a beginning, Mr. Crusher … a beginning.”
Picard watched intently as the tape neared its end. The starship commander—the tape’s protagonist—was obviously exhausted, and favoring his left leg. The captain instantly recognized the signs—and knew the commander was near the end of his endurance.
The story never lost its appeal for Jean-Luc, and for perhaps the hundredth time in his adult life, he watched as the moment of inspiration hit the starship commander. Watched as the nearly beaten man collected his materials: simple chemicals, stones, and a bamboo tube. Watched as the commander faced his enemy, aimed his crude homemade cannon, and then prepared to take his impossible chance.
As enthralled as ever, Picard looked on as the commander lit the fuse … and then nothing. The tape ended where it always did, a split second before the fight was won or lost, a split second before the death or survival of the starship commander and his crew would be decided forever.
The architects of that long-ago conflict, the mysterious and powerful Metrons, had pitted the two commanders against each other and set the stakes. They had chosen that moment to end their transmission. Starfleet had subsequently sealed the records of the incident, and the commander’s solution had remained a mystery.
Picard, of course, had faced the identical situation more than once. Captain James T. Kirk’s encounter with the captain of the Gorn ship on a stark and desolate world had become legend … and simulations of that encounter were a common test of cadets at Starfleet Academy.
By Picard’s recollection, he’d been “killed” six times by the Gorn. The first time, he had been caught by surprise and died after a brief hand-to-hand battle with the immensely strong reptilian humanoid. On another occasion, he’d tried Kirk’s trick with the cannon, earning himself painful burns on his hands and four weeks with an eye patch.
In Picard’s last four encounters with the Gorn, he’d died trying to negotiate with the