Requiem - Michael Jan Friedman [24]
The first officer nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“I’ll expect your full report on Captain Picard’s disappearance in fifteen minutes. Kowalski out.”
The admiral’s face was replaced by the Federation symbol, which Riker shut off a moment later. As soon as the report was finished, he would have to call Geordi and Data to apprise them of the new developments. They were no longer just looking for a needle in a haystack, they were doing it with the barn burning down around them.
Chapter Three
A BUZZ filled Picard’s ears. He felt himself moving, and he soon recognized his motion as the familiar sensation of flying. Not the indiscernible hum of spaceflight, but the rocking progress of atmospheric flight. Suddenly he felt his craft buck, twist, and then resume its irregular but more or less steady course.
A moment later, the captain was able to open his eyes. Outside the small cockpit was a strangely familiar haze of white. Picard knew he was inside heavy cloud cover. A sputter that broke the monotony of the buzz drew his attention forward—and he saw the craft’s propeller rattle and come to a halting stop.
What followed happened quickly. As the captain felt the craft’s sudden descent, he grabbed the joystick and rolled the vessel until it was upside down. Popping open the canopy, he felt a rush of wind on his face. As he removed his restraints, Picard pushed outward and let gravity take him. Free of the ship, he felt himself falling.
He reached out with his failing memory. There was something he still needed to do, something to pull … a cord. He clutched his stomach and found it, then yanked with all of his strength… .
A moment later, the captain felt the first stirrings of consciousness, as the dream left him and began to slowly fade. Odd, he thought. He hadn’t had that dream since he was a cadet, though when he was very young it had haunted him. In the dream, he was a World War II fighter pilot from a story he had read—and he was bailing out of his Royal Air Force aircraft over the English Channel.
The dream always ended them. But in the story, the pilot woke up in a British hospital. After a short time, the pilot realized that the hospital was a fake, as were the nurses and doctors he had met. The pilot put together the clues, the minor discrepancies, and realized that the hospital and staff were a ruse perpetrated by the Germans to induce him to give up military secrets.
As a boy, Picard had had the dream a number of times—usually when he was confronted with any unfamiliar situation, such as a new school. In those days, he had assumed the dream was a reminder from his subconscious not to take new situations at face value—good advice that had been borne out by his experience in Starfleet. But the dream always left him uneasy, as if some of the surprises he faced might not be pleasant.
As the fog lifted slowly over his brain, the dream faded even more from his consciousness. But the feeling remained: something was wrong.
Memory flooded back—the alien station, losing Ensign Varley, the airlock.
Forcing his eyes open, the captain tried to scan the room, but his vision was blurred. Even so, he could tell that he was not on the Enterprise. The ceilings were too low, and the walls were made of welded plates. And the sounds … they were not the sounds of his ship.
The first step, he knew, was to take better stock of his surroundings. Concentrating, he tried to pull himself into a sitting position. When his body responded sluggishly, he leaned back and threw himself forward, trying to use momentum to force himself up.
The pain was remarkable. It was centered in his head and his right shoulder, but seemed to radiate through most of his body. Picard immediately lay back down and waited for it to pass. After what seemed like a few minutes but was probably only a few seconds, the pain retreated to a point in his forehead and another point in his right shoulder.
Taking careful stock of himself, he determined that aside from his head and