STAR TREK: The Lost Era - 2355-2357 - Deny Thy Father Read online

  But where do you go from here, Will?

  He didn’t know the answer to that, any more than he knew where in the vast Fish Market they should look for their checkpoint.

  There were, as Dennis had pointed out, hundreds of stalls in the Fish Market. Some offered only one specific type of seafood—Will saw stalls for squid, for shrimp, prawns, lobsters, roe, salmon, and many others—while others offered more variety. It seemed that every craft, or every fisher who went out to sea, had his or her own stall. The wares were displayed on metal trays so cold to the touch that Will had once thought his skin would stick or break off if he dared to finger them, only to find out later that safety regulations required that they be cold enough to keep the fish fresh but not to injure curious humans. Some stalls even had large saltwater tanks where live fish, eels, and octopuses swam and waited to be taken away by some consumer or professional chef. Around each stall, humans and aliens of virtually every description loitered, examining the day’s catch—sniffing, touching, eyeing, comparing a swordfish at one with a tuna at the next.

  “Dennis has a point, Will,” Estresor Fil offered after they’d been walking amongst the stalls for a while. “This place is big, and crowded. Are we sure this is what the clue points to? And is there anything in it that might narrow things down more for us?”

  Will had been trying to figure out that very question, but so far he’d had no luck. “I just don’t know,” he replied honestly. “We could hope we just get lucky and spot it, but other than that ...”

  “I’ve got it!” Felicia interrupted. “It is in the clue, after all. ‘Bringing them home means bringing yourselves home.’ We just need to look at it more precisely than we’ve been doing. This is where everybody in the city comes to bring fish home. But our home, for now at least, is the Academy. And aren’t there a few vendors here from whom the Academy traditionally gets its seafood, for cadet and staff meals?”

  “I think you’re right,” Dennis replied. “The Academy chefs like to work with people they know and trust. They contract with those particular vendors.”

  “Do you happen to remember any of their names?” Estresor Fil asked.

  Felicia and Dennis searched one another’s faces for a moment, as if the answer might be written there. “I guess not,” Dennis finally ventured.

  “Then we’re right back where we were before,” Boon said glumly.

  “Not necessarily,” Will pointed out. “At least we have something to look for. We’ve all seen deliveries come into the Academy. We’ve all seen the chefs. Instead of looking at all the fish, we need to look at the people. If we see anyone who looks familiar then we know we’re getting somewhere.”

  “We hope we’re getting somewhere,” Boon, always the pessimist, countered.

  Will was tired of arguing with Boon, who never had any better ideas to offer but nonetheless didn’t hesitate to criticize others’. Ignoring the Coridanian, he turned to Felicia. “Good job,” he said. “I think you’ve solved it.”

  She returned his smile with one he could feel in his gut. She looked straight into his eyes and they held that for a moment, with Will finally breaking her gaze only so they could renew their search. As they walked, she moved over toward him and let her shoulder bump against his. Once again, Will wished he knew the right thing to say, but as usual it wouldn’t come to him.

  Having rearranged their search parameters, it only took a few minutes to find a familiar face. But it wasn’t one of the faces they were expecting. Instead, Will saw the smoldering, dark eyes and thick crop of black hair of his friend and fellow cadet, Paul Rice. Paul was on a competing squadron, but Will had shouted out his name before he caught himself. It was only then that he noticed the rest of Omega Squadron: Hasimi Thorp, Naghmeh Zand, Ross Donaldson, and Kul Tun Osir, standing behind Paul at the booth. Paul set down the checkpoint canister he’d been holding and smiled at Will.

  “Cadet Riker,” he said. “Just a little behind the pack, as usual.”

  “Damn it,” Boon muttered from behind Will.

  “I guess maybe we are,” Will said. He picked up the canister from where Paul had set it. Inside the stall, he thought he recognized one of the women who occasionally made deliveries to the Academy’s mess hall. “We’re doing the best we can, though.” He started to punch his identification code into the canister’s keypad.

  “So how many more checkpoints do you have to make?” Paul asked him. “We’ve only got two to go.”

  Will couldn’t hide the surprise that transformed his face. “Two?” he asked. He felt Felicia nudge him in the ribs, but it was too late. Anyway, he figured it didn’t really matter now. “This is our last,” he admitted. “We’re done.”

  “Done?” Paul echoed. He sounded startled.

  “Well, this is the last day, after all,” Will said.

  “Yeah, but a couple of them took us more than a day,” Paul replied. “You guys must have had easy ones.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Felicia put in. “Maybe we’re just better at this than you are.”

  “Maybe they cheat,” Hasimi Thorp suggested. He was a squat, stocky native of Inferna Prime, with charcoal black skin and blazing orange eyes. He was a head taller than Estresor Fil, but at least double her weight.

  “Will wouldn’t cheat,” Paul answered firmly. “I know him better than that. I don’t know about the others, though.”

  “We didn’t cheat,” Will said. “None of us.”

  “Come on,” Ross chimed in. “How else could you guys be so far ahead of us?”

  The two squadrons were facing one another now, and Fish Market customers stepped aside for them. Boon shouldered his way to the front of Zeta Squadron’s pack. “Maybe you’re just stupid,” he said. “Did you consider that possibility?”

  “Stupid?” Kul Tun Osir came from Quazulu VIII, where intelligence was highly valued,-and he usually placed first, or nearly so, in his classes at the Academy. “I must have misheard you. You wouldn’t have called us stupid, would you?”

  “I think your hearing’s just fine,” Boon shot back.

  “Boon,” Dennis said, urgent warning in his tone. Boon ignored him, though.

  “Anyone who thinks we cheated is blatantly stupid,” Boon continued. “And anyone who’s so far from done on the last day is doubly so.”

  Hasimi Thorp moved on Boon then, faster than anyone could prevent. Will and Paul eyed one another helplessly, both realizing at the same moment that their friendship couldn’t put the brakes on what hot words had inflamed. Hasimi snatched a large frozen fish by the tail off the nearest display table and smacked Boon’s face with it. Boon, stunned by the assault for a moment, gathered his wits and responded, scooping up another fish and throwing it at Hasimi. Naghmeh reacted quickly, grabbing two fish and tossing them both at Boon’s head.

  Chaos broke loose, as every member of both squadrons—except Will and Paul, who fruitlessly tried to bring their friends under control—started pelting one another with cold wet seafood. Felicia was cod-walloped, flounder flew, grouper and herring were hurled. Naghmeh pummeled Dennis with a sea bass, while Estresor Fil chucked fistfuls of king crab legs at her. Will recognized what was happening—stress, pressure, and all the tensions of the week exploding into insane release. He was a little worried about injury—those half-frozen fish could be hard, and already he could see blood flowing where Dennis and Ross had been cut—but he figured all in all they would have some innocent fun that would dissipate their anxieties. He was almost tempted to join in.

  But that was before he saw the uniformed police officers circling them, phasers out—set to stun, Will hoped, considering the nonlethal nature of the combat. “Guys!” he shouted, and then much louder, “Zeta Squadron, attention!”

  That did the trick, for his group at least. They snapped to, well trained enough to respond appropriately to the command. Their sudden surrender alerted Omega Squadron to the presence of the police, as well. Fish were returned to their rightful spots on the disp
lay tables, but the damage was done: seafood parts littered the ground, and the cadets—even Paul and Will, who had stood by without participating—were covered in scales and guts and fishy residue.

  One of the police officers, who seemed to be in charge, separated herself from the pack and stepped forward, holstering her weapon. “What’s going on here?” she demanded, her nose wrinkling involuntarily at the stink.

  “Sir, we’re cadets from Starfleet Academy,” Paul explained quickly. “We’re on a special project, and, well, I guess we got carried away with the competitive spirit. Obviously, we’ll reimburse for any damages.”

  “You will at that,” the police officer agreed. “And if I had my way, you’d serve some time as well. But if you’re all from the Academy, I think I’ll just turn you over to Starfleet Security and let them deal with you. Save me some time and trouble.”

  “Just wonderful,” Boon muttered, but Estresor Fil silenced him by stomping down on his instep.

  “You shut up, Boon,” she hissed. “You got us into this.”

  The police officers herded both squadrons to a waiting transport vehicle. Just before leaving the Fish Market stall, Will set down the canister he had held onto throughout the whole fish fight, and pocketed the slip of paper that had issued from it. He had already memorized its brief message: “Congratulations, Zeta Squadron, on the successful completion of your mission.”

  Superintendent Vyrek perused her ten charges with the keen eye of an experienced appraiser. They all stood shoulder to shoulder, at attention, in her office, feeling her gaze bore into them as she paced a slow, even circle around them. She hadn’t spoken yet. The longer she dragged out the time before she did speak, Will knew, the worse it would be. And she would speak eventually, there was no question of that.

  Admiral Paris, who waited in a corner of the large office, just might have a few words to say as well.

  Finally, the Vulcan superintendent broke her silence. “I am surprised at you,” she said. “Some more than others, but nonetheless, as squadrons overall, yours are among the last two I would have expected to engage in ... would ‘hijinks’ be the appropriate term? ... like these. Mr. Boon, Zeta Squadron is under your command, is it not?”

  “Yes, sir, normally that is, sir,” Boon answered. “But sometimes on group projects we elect a leader just for that project, so everyone gets a chance, sir. On this one, Cadet Haynes was in charge.”

  “Dennis Haynes?” Superintendent Vyrek asked with surprise. “You have never been involved with anything like this in your time with us. Or at your previous school, if you don’t count—which I won’t—that one incident when you were eleven.”

  Does she know everything about us? Will wondered. He’d heard rumors that she had a virtually eidetic memory—that she read through each cadet’s file once a year, and remembered everything she saw. He had always discounted the rumors, though. Until just now.

  “No, sir, I haven’t,” Dennis replied. “And I’m sorry that this happ—”

  She cut him off mid-word. “Did I ask for a response, Mr. Haynes?”

  He hesitated, as if unsure if she had this time either. “No, sir,” he finally said.

  “That is correct. I am merely expressing my shock and dismay at this outrageous behavior, not asking you to explain—or worse, make some feeble and doomed attempt to excuse—it.”

  Dennis remained silent, but his cheeks went crimson. Superintendent Vyrek continued her journey around the group, looking each cadet up and down, sometimes moving closer to peer at a fish-inflicted bruise or scrape.

  “Is there anything remotely logical about battling with seafood, Admiral Paris, to your knowledge?”

  Admiral Paris looked surprised to be spoken to, and Will had the impression that he wasn’t much more comfortable in the superintendent’s presence than the cadets were. “I confess that I don’t see the logic in it, Admiral Vyrek,” he replied.

  “Nor do I,” the Vulcan said. “And yet, it happened. These cadets—second-year cadets, not raw freshmen—engaged in it. Creating a disturbance, damaging property, wasting food—that police officer said she was tempted to charge them with incitement to riot. How does one explain such behavior?”

  Will swallowed hard. “May I speak, sir?” he asked.

  “Cadet Riker. If you can enlighten me, I would be delighted to have you speak. You, I am sorry to say, I am not terribly surprised to hear were involved in such an unfortunate affair, given your history of altercations with fellow students.”

  Those “altercations” she mentioned had been a series of fights Will had found himself having shortly after his father had abandoned him. He’d had a chip on his shoulder and a short fuse, and it had been a bad combination. But that had been well before he’d even applied to the Academy, and the fact that the superintendent knew about it gave even more credence to the eidetic memory theory. Not to mention confirming the “permanence” of permanent records.

  “I don’t think our behavior can be excused, sir,” he said. “But it can be explained, to a certain extent. We were all under a significant amount of stress, with the end of our project looming, and the various personality conflicts that arise whenever a group of people is banded together closely for a number of days. We made a mistake, let our emotions get the better of us, and cut loose. We shouldn’t have done it. Had we thought it through we never would have done it. But we weren’t thinking, we were only reacting.”

  “That sounds correct,” Superintendent Vyrek said. “Especially the fact that you were not thinking, any of you.”

  “Yes, sir,” Will agreed.

  “Interestingly, my understanding from the officer is that you were not taking part, Mr. Riker. Nor was Mr. Rice. Is this true?”

  Will wanted to glance at Paul but he forced his head to remain still, eyes front. “Yes, sir. We were not fighting. However, we were apparently not doing enough to restrain our fellow cadets, either.”

  “Should you have done more? Was that your duty?”

  “Sir, if the fight had been with deadly weapons instead of fish, then it would certainly have been an abrogation of duty to let our fellow cadets become involved. I think that the principle is the same, regardless of the weaponry.”

  “I have to agree with you, Mr. Riker. You and Cadet Rice are every bit as responsible as those who were flinging fish. You will all jointly work to reimburse the fishmongers whose stand you destroyed. There will, of course, be notations on your permanent records. And your summer plans will be altered—none of you will be going off-world this summer, so I hope you were not looking forward too strongly to any long trips. Admiral Paris?”

  Will felt his heart sinking as the admiral stepped forward to face his students. “I won’t apply any further punishment to what the superintendent has outlined,” he said. “However, as Omega Squadron didn’t finish the assignment, the five of you will be repeating my survival class next year. Zeta Squadron, you completed your assignment—narrowly—before the altercation started, so your grades will stand. Congratulations to you.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Boon said on behalf of the squadron.

  “Have any of you anything to add?” Superintendent Vyrek asked. When the cadets remained silent, she fixed them with her sternest glare and said, “Dismissed.”

  They began to file from the office, but Will, last in the line, felt Admiral Paris’s firm grasp on his arm. “Will,” he said. “I’d like a moment.”

  “Of course, sir,” Will replied. The others glanced back at him, but kept going out the door. Will couldn’t blame them—he felt the compulsion to flee as well, but knew that he had to see what Paris wanted. When they were gone and Superintendent Vyrek had taken her seat, the admiral fixed Will with a somber gaze.

  “I understand that you and your father aren’t close, Will,” he said. “But I’m a little worried about him. He’s been the apparent target of a couple of recent attacks. After the last one, he vanished from our infirmary and hasn’t been seen since. He hasn’t shown u
p at his office, and whenever we’ve checked his apartment he hasn’t been there either. Have you heard anything from him?”

  “No, sir,” Will answered. “Before we left on the project, a couple of security officers came to my room looking for him. I told them the same thing.”

  “Before you left?” Admiral Paris echoed.

  “That’s right, sir. Early that morning.”

  “Interesting,” the older man said. “And you don’t have any idea where he might have gone?”

  “As you said, sir, we don’t talk much.”

  “Yes, that’s right. Well, then,” Admiral Paris said, “we’ll keep looking for him. Try not to worry though, Will. He’s a tough one, your dad. He’s survived more than a few close calls in his time, and wherever he is, I’m sure he can take care of himself.”

  “Yes, sir,” Will said.

  “That’s all. You’re dismissed.”

  The door had barely closed behind Will when he heard Admiral Paris burst into gales of laughter. It sounded as if the superintendent, notwithstanding her reticent nature, was joining in. “Fish, Owen!” he heard the Vulcan say through the door. “Have you ever heard of such a thing? Fish!”

  Chapter 13

  As they walked away from the superintendent’s office, out of the climate-controlled air and into the always-brisk San Francisco twilight, Boon grumbled and Estresor Fil expressed no emotion whatsoever and Dennis Haynes smiled, as if he’d expected the punishment to be far worse. Will, though ... Felicia tried to put a word to the look on his face, before he’d been stopped at the door by Admiral Paris. He had looked bereft, as if a bomb had snatched away his family and friends in a single instant. She had never seen him so grim. Generally speaking, she liked his face—liked it a lot, in fact. He had sparkling, intelligent blue eyes, and a mouth that was serious but could turn funny, even goofy, in a flash, perfect cheekbones, and the cleft in his chin exuded masculinity, to her.