Star Trek The Next Generation The First Duty rewrite

Chapter 3

Picard was in the Main engineering talking with Geordi and Data near the pool table.

"Captain, the Academy has one of the best reconstructive analysis labs in Starfleet. I'm not sure we'll have much to contribute to the investigation." Geordi said dubious.

"That may well be the case. However," Picard started then went softer. "Wesley is one of our own."

"Understood, sir. We'll get right on it."

Good. I've spoken with Admiral Brand and she has agreed to allow us access to all of the physical evidence and testimony. Thank you, gentlemen."

Then Picard left and Data moved to a computer terminal.

"Computer, initiate a link between this station and the Starfleet Academy Database." he said to the computer.

The Academy logo came up on the screen and he began working the terminal. Geordi moved to stand next to him.

Wesley, Nick, Jean, and Sito were gathered in Wesley's dorm room, in the middle of a heated discussion.

"You shouldn't have said it, Nick. Josh wasn't responsible for what happened." Sito said.

"I had to do something." he started.

"You said we wouldn't have to lie to them. We all agreed not to lie to them!" Wesley said interrupting.

"I didn't lie. Everything I said was true."

"The accident was not Josh's fault."

Nick's tone became more personal. He's rallying his troops during a crisis, trying to make them all pull together.

He's part priest, part politician- an earnest, believable young man with the capacity to sway people to his cause. There's nothing consciously manipulative in Nick; he's one of the best and the brightest. His only flaw is ambition- without that, he might have been one of the best the Academy has ever seen.

"Look, he was my friend, too. I worked to get him on this team. But the truth is, he panicked." he said gently.

"We don't know that-"

"Of course we do, none of us has wanted to say it out loud, but we've all had the same thought. Haven't we?"

He looked at Jean and Sito, they didn't deny it.

Jean finally nodded.

"He must have pulled away too soon. I think he got scared."

"Sito?"

Sito looked away then nods reluctantly. Nick turned back to Wesley who was still upset about this and turned away from the others. Nick tried to gently bring him back into the fold.

"Wes, I know you want to protect his memory, we all do. But we have to look out for ourselves now." he said patient. "What do you want us to do, walk in and tell them everything that happened?" he continued sarcastically.

They were silent then Sito filled in the gap.

"We might as well turn in our uniforms and start packing our bags."

"Are we ready for that?" Nick asked everyone.

None of them, even Wesley, was ready to leave the Academy. Sito and Jean were now firmly with Nick although Wesley was still struggling. Nick picked up a PADD.

"We'll take this one step at a time." Then he handed PADD to Wesley. "This is the preliminary report on your flight recorder. It was so badly damaged in the crash, the lab was only able to retrieve a third of the total telemetry on the recorder, and all of it is from before the collision. There is no problem here."