The Sky's the Limit - Marco Palmieri [186]
If Halloway had taken command of the Enterprise, he wouldn’t ever have been too far from his family. The Halloways had just bought a house on Earth’s moon when he’d written the letter—and during the Enterprise’s seven years in space, Jean-Luc could immediately recall at least four times she had ended up returning to Earth!
And if Halloway had taken command of the Enterprise, he wouldn’t have died at Wolf 359, as evidenced by that other time-line Q had shown him. With no Jean-Luc Picard to assume command in his stead, Halloway would have been forced to continue in command and so wouldn’t have died on the Melbourne. Jean-Luc wondered if that Halloway had experienced what he had in his time as commander of the Enterprise. Had he been assimilated by the Borg and forced to lead the destruction of his own people? Had he been rescued by the best crew—the best friends—a man had ever had? Jean-Luc would never know.
But he would have lived.
Yet now, in this reality, in this world, Thomas Halloway was dead, and Jean-Luc Picard would never be able to meet the man, much to his regret; it now appeared that he had made a mistake in his early dismissal of the man. He would’ve liked to talk to his family—Starfleet records showed that his wife and children were all still alive, still residing within transporter distance on Earth’s moon. But experience had taught him how those who had lost family at Wolf 359 tended to react to the man who had once been Locutus of Borg.
Halloway hadn’t been a coward of any sort—just a man who had done what he believed was right, despite the pressures that had been acting upon him. Jean-Luc had come to that realization too late, unfortunately. But perhaps there was something he could still take away from his strange not-quite-a-relationship with the other man.
Halloway had done what needed to be done up until the day he died, and so could Jean-Luc. Perhaps he had messed up at the Bassen Rift, perhaps the battle with Shinzon had taken too large a toll, perhaps he had frozen in place. But that was no reason to stay stopped, to give up now. It would be a grave disrespect to the memories of Data and all the others who had passed away over the years to do that. Halloway had kept on going no matter what, and so should he.
His eyes flicked over the closing paragraphs of the letter one last time.
My brief perusal of your file tells me that you have yet to form a family of your own—an unfortunate decision, if you pardon me for saying so. I don’t claim to know the reasons why you chose to stay alone; indeed, I don’t even know if it was your choice at all. Nevertheless, what I want to say is that a man alone is in bad company, as the saying goes. My favorite writer once wrote that “the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.” It applies not only to animals but also to everybody else. Only in the company of others do we have the chance to fully realize our potential.
Maybe you know these things, maybe you do not. I hope I’m not coming across as patronizing. But as the time for the launch of the Enterprise, with me as her captain, grew closer and closer, I came to realize them for myself. We must all do what it is we are called to do, regardless of what outside factors may be pushing us in other directions. For me, this is engineering—designing and constructing the craft that take us into the void. For you, this is apparently the command of over a thousand men and women, the discovery of new life, the exploration of deep space.
Do not waver on your true path. Follow it, no matter what doubts may plague you. But try not to walk that path alone.
Jean-Luc had had occasion to regret over the years that he had never formed a family. But perhaps he had forged one—Data, Will, Deanna, Beverly, Geordi, Worf. If there was anything he had learned in the past harrowing year aboard the Enterprise, from the first problems