CHAPTER TWENTYFIVE
The Enterprise was bustling with activity, emergency crews running about in what might have appeared chaotic from a casual glance, but in reality it was extremely organized chaos. Sickbay was filled to capacity, and shuttle bay four had been turned into a makeshift triage. Anyone with any level of medical experience were being employed, even the EMH. Even people without medical training were being employed.
“Doctor Crusher, we’ve found another life pod. Life signs are faint. We’re beaming them directly to sickbay,” Data’s voice rang out clear over the Doctor badge.
“Clear this space,” Doctor Crusher waved, making sure the rolling equipment and people moved out of the area she was indicating. It was one of those days where her comm. badge needed to be left in the on position. Without even touching her badge, she answered: “Go ahead, Data. We’re ready.”
Janeway and Garcia materialized on the floor, and Doctor Crusher knelt down to take a tricorder scan. They were both unconscious, an obvious wound to Janeway’s head, but the most interesting thing was that their heart and respiration rates were in sync. That’s odd, she thought. She reached down to examine Janeway’s wound, removing the pressure bandage. In doing so, her hand came into contact with Janeway’s forehead, and Crusher fell to the floor, unconscious, her hand never leaving Janeway’s head. Shelby, who was just entering sick bay, called out for assistance and went to Doctor Crusher’s aid. As soon as she touched Crusher, she collapsed, making a chain of unconscious people, which might have been comical in any other situation. Lt. Robin Lefler, who was lending a hand in sickbay, reached for Shelby, and also went down.
“Don’t touch them!” Doctor Selar ordered, coming around at Shelby’s call for help. “No one touch them. I need Counselor Troi up here, now.”
Doctor Selar prepared several hyposprays and handed them to Head Nurse, Alyssa Ogawa.
“Nurse, I’m going to separate Janeway’s hand from Garcia’s hand,” she said. “As soon as that’s done, I want you to give a sedative to those four, starting with Janeway and going down the line.”
“But they’re already unconscious,” the Ogawa pointed out.
“No, they’re not. They’ve been pulled into a mind meld of some sort,” Selar said.
Deanna entered, assessed the situation, and grimaced. “Oh, dear.”
“Counselor,” Selar said. “I may need your help to keep Garcia calm. Whatever happens, don’t let anyone physically come into contact with him.”
Deanna nodded.
Selar knelt down, closed her eyes and took Janeway’s hand out of Tam’s, holding them both for a time. A few moments after the nurse gave Janeway a sedative, Selar put Janeway’s hand down. A moment later, Selar put Tam’s hand down and stood up. “It wasn’t as bad as I imagined it would be,” Selar explained. “It’s merely a healing trance. It is okay to handle the patients now.”
Selar turned to go back to work and then she collapsed.
Tammas opened his eyes. There was a bright light above him and then a shadow that became a face. He focused on the nice smile, and then the long red hair that framed her face, falling towards him. Red tentacles, he thought. An alien. And he didn’t care. She shined a light directly into his eyes. Her lips moved. The blue black of her uniform made a tight fit and his eyes lingered for too long a moment before heading back to her eyes. He swallowed, his mouth dry. He felt like he knew her. He felt flooded with sincere concern and a warm feeling that caused him to wonder if this is what he projected to his Reiki patients. Her lips moved again. Her lips finished moving before he finished processing her words: “How are you feeling?”
“Are you an angel?” Tammas managed.
“No,” Crusher said. Her voice matched her lip movement. The world seemed more in focus.
“Then, this isn’t heaven?” Tammas asked, disappointed.
“You’re on the Enterprise,” Crusher said.
Tammas nodded understanding. “Next best thing,” he said, and then closed his eyes.
Riker caught up to Deanna as she was heading back to sickbay. “Hey,” he said. “I hear another old love of yours has shown back up in your life.” It was meant to be a joke, but there was a hint of sarcasm in his voice.
“He’s an old friend of yours, too,” Deanna said with a smile.
“Yeah, it’s just hard to believe,” Riker said. “It seems so long ago. And to think, he’s turned out to be quite a genius.”
“He was always a genius,” Deanna said.
“Yeah, well, everyone has their faults,” Riker said.
“What does that mean?” Deanna asked, looking at the man as if he had just called a baby, or Data’s cat, “ugly.”
Riker looked a bit uncomfortable.
“Go ahead, say it,” Deanna said.
“I don’t like him. Rumor has it he’s spoiled, difficult to get along with, a loner, arrogant, and, the fact that he’s a celebrity and skates on his celebrity status makes me believe he shouldn’t be in Star Fleet. I mean, you know how hard it is to get along with geniuses,” Riker said.
“Yeah, I do,” Deanna said, a bit miffed. And then, with no suppression of her sarcasm: “Wes was just loads of trouble.”
“Wes is different,” Riker argued, quickening his pace to keep up with her.
“Why?” Deanna asked.
“He wasn’t a celebrity, not like Garcia,” Riker said. “And…
“If I didn’t know any better, I would say you were jealous,” Deanna said.
“I’m not jealous,” Riker said, defensively.
“I hope not, because if anything, he’s a lot like you,” Deanna said. “And I wonder where he gets it from?” She pushed on ahead, leaving Riker puzzled.
What the devil do you mean by that? he wondered.
When Tammas opened his eyes again, the room wasn’t as bright as the previous time. Two faces hovered over him and he recognized them both. They were standing over him like a cook watching a pot of water coming to boil. “Deanna,” he said, dreamily. “Selar” he added with less enthusiasm.
“You need to get up,” Selar insisted.
“No,” he said, closing his eyes. “I’m dreaming. Peanut butter sandwiches.”
“You’re getting up now,” Deanna said, using her “no arguments accepted” voice.
He felt himself being dragged up off the table. “I don’t want to play any more,” Tammas resisted. “No more adventures.”
“Come on, Tam,” Deanna said. “We need you to walk.”
Tammas didn’t have the energy to even struggle, but perhaps he didn’t have to struggle at all. He could just let his weight take him down. One of the two girls prevented him from going to the floor. He heard Deanna say, “Oh, no you don’t.” And then he noticed a strange sensation in his face. He opened his eyes and witnessed Selar slapping him. Deanna was propping him up, preventing him from melting to the floor. “Damn,” he thought. “Selar just hit me.” About the fourth hit, he blocked it, started to close his eyes, but was hit again. He opened his eyes and this time not only did he block, but he blocked, ducked, and twisted Selar’s arm behind her back into a joint lock, put his foot behind her knee and then drove her hard to the floor. Deanna rallied, forcing Tammas to let go of Selar in order to deal with her. She had attempted to put him in a joint lock, but he countered by entangling their arms. A door opening distracted Tammas, and Deanna managed to get the upper hand. She flipped him over her shoulder. The flip was perfect, putting Tam flat on his back. He knew he was falling, as if in slow motion, and he hit the floor perfectly, just as he had been trained, but he decided not to let go of Deanna. Deanna had a choice, let her arm be broken, or fall to the floor as well. She chose to go to the floor. She fell correctly, but it gave Tammas back his momentum. He rolled and came up standing.
“Stop,” Doctor Crusher said, rushing in from her office. “Wait!”
Worf attacked Tammas from behind and suddenly Worf was on his back, looking up as Tammas was about to put his foot in his face. Fortunately Deanna had rolled out of the way or Worf would have landed right on top of her. Worf blocked, pushing up on Tam’s foot with enough force that it threw him up in the air. He flipped, like he meant to, landed squarely on his feet, his arms and hands up and ready. Suddenly he found himself embraced from behind. Data locked his arms around Tammas, putting him in a hold from which he was not able to break free. It was the same hold that Worf had attempted, but had failed. There was going to be no flipping Data like he had Worf, mostly because of Data’s weight, but also because of his stance. Tammas tried sliding out of it, but Data had him good. Worf was on his feet and ready to give another blow before Deanna stepped between them, giving Worf a warning look that said “Cool it.” She turned to Garcia and grabbed his head with both hands.
“Tammas Garcia!” Deanna yelled, in a no nonsense voice.
Tammas focused on her. “Deanna?” he asked. He looked back to see who was holding him. He ceased his struggles. “Data?”
“If you are feeling yourself again, I will release you,” Data said.
Tammas saw Doctor Crusher treating Selar. “Selar? What happened to you?” he asked, innocently.
Tammas was surprised to find himself included in a briefing, but there he was in the conference room. Across from him sat Worf, who was glaring at him with an open scowl. Deanna sat on his right, and Doctor Crusher was on his left. Also in attendance was Riker, Tuvok, Shelby, LaForge, Picard, and Janeway. He was glad Deanna was sitting next to him, because he felt extremely out of place with this grouping of people.
LaForge stood next to a viewer, pointing out information. “As you can see, the debris field actually starts here, and spreads out over two astronomic units. This is where the Texas fell out of warp, and this is where the warp core finally breeched. According to the Texas’ logs, they did manage to hit the alien ship with two photon torpedoes. However, we can find no evidence of any debris from that ship.”
“Did we recover the remains of everyone from the Texas?” Shelby asked. “Can we determine if anyone was taken hostage?”
“There are people unaccounted for, but whether they were taken hostage, or simply incinerated by the blast… There’s no way to be certain,” LaForge said.
“Thank you, Geordi,” Picard said. “What else do we know about this alien ship?”
“It does match the one that had been visually seen in orbit of Romulus ten hours before the Texas encounter,” Data said. “And we know that that ship was responsible for temporarily immobilizing the Forester. It was also the same ship, or type of ship, that blasted its way into the Vulcan system and destroyed two Starfleet ships.”
“If it has the power to immobilize a ship without destroying it, why would it go out of its way to destroy the Texas?” Tammas asked.
Worf returned his glare to Garcia and Riker shifted in his seat.
“Good question,” Picard said. “Speculations?”
“Somebody on the Texas knew something that they didn’t want known?” LaForge offered. “Or it was an accident.”
“It was no accident,” Worf growled.
Tammas tried to figure out why Worf was so focused on him. He hadn’t intentionally hurt the Klingon.
“I have to agree,” Shelby said. “After all, there was no sign of a warp core breech until the very moment we dropped out of warp. That’s significant.”
“Are you suggesting that the Chance was the target and not the Texas?” Data asked.
“And the Texas was just the instrument to get to you?” Riker asked. “That’s a bit paranoid, don’t you think? With their technology, they could have easily just rendezvoused with you and destroyed you if that were the case.”
Shelby sighed. “I suppose. Unless in doing so that would actually draw attention to them-selves and that’s what they’re trying to avoid. These aliens have been rather illusive, don’t you agree? We have a string of mass kidnappings that goes back as far as the Vulcan encounter.”
Tammas accessed his internal implant to pull up a list of all those who had been kidnapped, just before Picard turned to Data and said, “Data, pull up a list of all the people that have been kidnapped that fits this profile of kidnappings, starting with the Vulcan Encounter. Try and find a pattern.”
“Accessing,” Data said, his head tilting as he performed the same task that Tam was, only Data had the ability to analyze the data he was retrieving much faster. “Interesting. All the abductees were female.”
“And,” Tammas added. “They were all telepathic.”
Everyone turned their attention to Tammas. “How do you know this?” Riker asked.
“I have a neural implant and I was just looking over the information,” Tammas said. “There were two kidnappings before the Vulcan encounter. Betazed actually had a similar incident to Vulcan, only, less space traffic was influenced, and so it didn’t get the media attention that the Vulcan and Romulan encounter has. And, there was one on Andoria. O’Brien may be able to give you more details on that, for he and Captain Maxwell investigated the incident.”
“Indeed,” Data said. “With the exception of the two bigger raids, most of the kidnappings have been small scale events, very low key. All in all, there are six hundred profiles of female telepaths that have disappeared over the last twenty years.”
“So, whoever this is, they’ve been with us a long time,” Riker said. “Why females and why telepaths?”
“A week after the Vulcan incident, the mates of those kidnapped mysteriously died,” Doctor Crusher said. “I remember reading that somewhere.”
“Their telepathic bonds linking them to their spouses were severed,” Tuvok said. “This sort of shared death is not unheard of, and indicative of an extremely close relationship between the betrothed, however, because of the rarity of such an event, it seems unlikely that all of the spouses of those kidnapped would die in this manner without some precipitating event.”
“In other words,” Tammas said. “The deaths were forced. This only happened with the Vulcan counterparts. None of the relations to the abductees on Betazed suffered any unnatural ill effects and they still all maintain that their loved ones are alive.”
Tammas shuddered, wondering what would happen to him if Selar died. Would he die? Would Selar die if he died? Had enough time pass between their initial bonding that either would be okay? Maybe time wasn’t a factor, since the bond had been sufficiently strong that they had been drawn together on his twenty first birthday. He had known Jovet for nearly twenty years and he had wanted to follow her into death. And he would have, too, had Janeway not been there to hold him back. They had needed each other at that particular moment and both would have died had it not been for the other. Janeway had held him back from crossing over into that abyss, he thought. Why did she care? He felt her looking at him. He avoided her eyes. Deanna touched his hand to reassure him. He felt like everyone was staring at him. He flushed.
“This really doesn’t help us with who they are or why they’re doing what they are doing,” Riker said.
“Did the Texas have any female telepaths?” Picard asked.
“Yes,” Data said. “Two. Their bodies have not been recovered.”
“Then it’s safe to conclude that they’ve been abducted. Other than Garcia, and of course, Tuvok, no one on my crew had any known telepathic abilities,” Janeway said.
A voice came over the intercom. “Sorry to interrupt you, Captain. But you have a priority one call from Star Fleet Command. An Admiral McCoy requesting to speak with you.”
Tammas suddenly wanted very much to talk with McCoy, but he knew now wasn’t the time. There was obvious business at hand, and no time for chit chat. With the Romulans stirred up as they were, Starfleet was no doubt in “Crisis Control” mode in an effort to avoid a war between the two species.
“Alright, that’s it for now. Anything comes up, I want to know about it,” Picard said. “Dismissed.”
“Tam,” Deanna said. “Will you come with me?”
When they got to Deanna’s office, she handed him a PADD, and went to her chair to sit down. “Put your therapist hat on for a moment, and tell me what you make of this profile.”
Tammas sat down on the couch, browsed over the profile, set the profile down on the coffee table, and thought about it. “So, your case load is pretty low, uh?”
“Are you employing a misdirection technique on me?” Counselor Troi asked.
“No,” Tammas said. “It’s more like distraction. I’m still processing the information, letting it go through the filters or the creative parts of my brain. You know how when you got a name on the tip of your tongue, but you can’t remember it for the life of you, but after you stop thinking about it, the answer just comes to you. That’s usually how I process stuff like this. Some things take longer than others, of course, like days, or even weeks. Sometimes the answer comes in a dream, or I find the answers in my fiction while I’m editing it.”
“Really? So you’re still keeping that dream journal of yours?” Troi asked.
“Oh yeah,” Tammas agreed. “Some of my best fiction has come from that. Of course, I seem to be having less randomly creative dreams ever since I started lucid dreaming. Did you know that offers a bigger rush than the holosuite?”
“Yeah,” Troi said. “And it is more empowering than a holosuite. Speaking of which, back to the profile you just read.”
“I would prefer to meet the person before making any evaluations, but, off the cuff, I’d say the person has some esteem issues. Obviously incredibly intelligent, a creative spirit, but for some reason he is overwhelmed with social inadequacies. Probably has some irrational fears, like perhaps of spiders, or the transporter, and I suspect he has some issues with an addiction, most likely the holodeck, since it’s mentioned in the profile that he spends most of his free time there,” Tammas said. “Your recommended treatment?” Troi asked.
“Again, having not met the person, I can’t say for sure whether medication might be needed to offset a neural imbalance, however, I would certainly recommend therapy with a behavioralist,” Tammas said.
“Or me?” Troi asked.
“Or course,” Tammas said. “And some sort of social integration therapy to help him become more comfortable in a social setting. Perhaps some performance art with a patient cast and audience.”
“Does Barclay’s profile remind you of anyone you know?” Troi asked.
Tammas mused for a moment and then shook his head. “No.”
Troi only looked harder at him, as if trying to communicate something. His neutral expression fell to a frown, and then a micro expression of anger flashed across his face before going back to neutral. His posture became more rigid and his arms crossed.
“I am not insecure, nor do I have any social inhibitions, or limitations that might suggest shyness,” Tammas said, resolutely. “And though I spend a good portion of my free time in a holosuite, I do have relationships outside of that technology.”
“Any long term romantic relationships?” Troi asked.
“Oh, don’t even go there,” Tammas said, but then couldn’t resist. “I have sex.”
Troi didn’t say anything. The pause, and her look, was sufficient to provoke further comments from Tam.
“I have sex frequently enough to be considered promiscuous even by Betazed’s standards,” Tammas said, as if bragging. You made me this way, he wanted to accuse her. “I just had an encounter the other day.” Tammas paused, his whole demeanor changing from threatened to concern. “Did Jaxa make it?”
“Yes, she did,” Troi said, noting his sudden shift in emotion. He always did have more affection than he knew how to channel. “Back to the issue at hand. How do multiple romantic interludes qualify you as having established a long term relationship?”
“Are you saying my choices are unhealthy?” Tammas asked.
“I would like you to answer that one,” Troi said.
“Why don’t you just slap an ism on whatever it is you’re accusing me of so I can either fix it or dismiss it,” Tammas asked.
“It’s not about labeling you or your issues,” Troi said. “It’s about examining yourself, your motivations, and understanding why you make the choices you do.”
“I understand the choices I make,” Tammas said. “I’m well educated.”
“I’m not calling you stupid by any means,” Troi said.
“Besides, the guy who said the unexamined life is not worth living needs to be educated to the pleasures of ignorance is bliss,” Tammas said.
“You wish you were ignorant?” Troi asked.
“I think people who know less tend to be happier people,” Tammas said.
“A generalization that I don’t agree with, but go on,” Troi said.
“I really don’t see the need to argue definitions with you. So, I haven’t had any long term relationships. My whole life has been an exercise in keeping people out of here,” Tammas said, touching his head, and then his heart. “And you’re surprised being close to people isn’t my forte? You helped make me this way, Deanna. You may not have put me on this path, but you certainly didn’t encourage deviation…”
“Tam, there’s a difference between being socially dependant on others and socially interdependent,” Deanna explained. “You may have difficulty making the distinction of where and when that line should be drawn. Part of that seems to be coming from your inability to take risks when it comes to relationships. You’re pushing people away.”
“I am not,” Tammas said.
“You’re pushing me away,” Deanna said. “I can feel it. You’re shields are up, you’re body is so tense it’s ready to snap…”
“What’s the point of this?” Tammas asked. “Why am I in here? You know, I’m not the only survivor from the Chance. There are more people with greater needs than I have. Why don’t you harass them?”
“So, you think I’m harassing you?” Deanna said.
“Oh god, you’re questions are so irritating,” Tammas said. “I never did like it when you answered a question with a question.”
“Fine, you’re here because you and I have a relationship. A friendship that stretches over time, and yet, you’ve closed yourself off to me,” Troi said. She noted something in his face. “Are you accessing your neural implant?”
“Why do you ask?” Tammas asked.
“Because I’ve noticed when you’re checking your email, your eyes go up and to the left. You can’t even give me your full attention? There was a time when you couldn’t take your eyes off me,” Troi said.
“Yeah,” Tammas remembered, singing the tune, “I only have eyes for you.” He snapped himself out of the trance. “Oh, how I wish we could go back there, too. Stay there. It was simpler then.”
“It was never simpler for you,” Deanna pointed out.
Tammas tried to smile, nodding. “I would love to start this game over, knowing what I know now. Anyway, you were right about me checking my mail. The Enterprise just received a mail package from Star Fleet, and I had a priority mail jump to the head of my mail cue. It’s from Sarek. I’d like to open it, if you don’t mind. It’s a small file size, so I suspect it will be a quick read.”
“Go ahead,” Troi said, her voice sounding patient, but her mannerisms suggesting the opposite. She crossed her arms.
The email was straight to the point. Sparky had died. Old age. In his sleep. Tears began to run down Tam’s face. He began to openly sob. He pushed himself off of the couch and slid to the floor. He kicked the coffee table back, knocking things over. The candle went out. Then he drew his knees up, hugged them, and just fell over, resting his head on the floor, crying. Troi went and sat down on the floor beside him. She rubbed the back of his neck.
“I’m still with you,” she said. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
“Sparky died,” Tammas said. “I’m crying over a Vulcan sehlat, the equivalent of a dog.”
“It’s okay to cry over a beloved pet,” Troi said.
“Is it?” Tammas asked. “I didn’t cry when I lost Persis from my life. I didn’t cry when Torres quit the Academy and walked out of my life. I didn’t cry all those times McCoy and Spock abandoned me. I didn’t cry when they killed my parents. I didn’t cry over any of the deaths from the Chance. How inhuman is that? One of the crew was my sister. Her parents adopted me back when I was five. I was with them two years. I didn’t cry over her. She died comforting someone who was trapped and afraid. She stayed behind to comfort a person as good as dead, no doubt to make up for how badly she believed she treated me when I came into her home, and I didn’t cry for her. I was the adopted one, and I should have died, not her. What am I supposed to tell my adopted parents? Oh, hell, what I am supposed to tell McCoy? Yeah, she died, and I didn’t cry about that, not me, the monster. I cried because a stupid, over grown, lazy sehlat died of old age, without me present to comfort him because I had to run off to join Star Fleet and dumped him off on my second foster parents. And I still love you, and I know its wrong, and you still treat me like a friend. Oh, god, this sucks.”
“I love you, too. It’s not wrong,” Troi said. “And you may not have cried because of your sister at that time, but you have certainly cried for her now, and its okay. Sparky was just the trigger you needed to let your guard down long enough so that you could be vulnerable with me. This is healthy.”
“How can anything that hurts so badly be healthy?” Tammas demanded. “How can appearing weak in front of you be healthy? And why does my chest have to hurt so. The emotion of a breaking heart is just an analogy, right?”
“No. It’s not just an analogy, or a metaphor. It is what it is, because that’s how most humans experience heart ache,” Troi said. “Another reason your heart no doubt feels so heavy is because you’re haven’t let yourself become completely vulnerable with anyone, or allowed yourself to cry. You have a lot of filter action going on, and you’re trying to suppress anything that leaks through, forgetting that more than three quarters of you is human. Suppression isn’t always the healthiest choice. I also highly suspect that you’re drawing subconsciously on psychic bonds to help sustain yourself. If I concentrate real hard, I can almost hear you calling for my help. Tam? You don’t have to covertly draw on support. I’m here for you. Hell, most of the people on this ship are here for you. Even Riker. You’re not alone. All you need to do is use your voice.”
He leaned against her and sobbed. “Oh, Deanna. I’m so broken I can’t see ever being whole.”
“You’re not broken,” Deanna said. “This is normal.”
“Do you realize, had I not been on the Bridge, but in the communications department as I had wanted to be, I would be dead,” Tammas said. “That whole section was destroyed right off the bat. I’m only alive due to chance.”
“I don’t believe in chance,” Deanna said. “I believe in dedication, working smart, and choices.”
“And what does that say about the people that didn’t make it?” Tammas demanded. “Were they less dedicated? Were they not smart workers? How do you explain it?”
“Shhh,” Deanna said. “We’ll talk philosophies some other day. Now is a time for mourning.”