Star Trek The Next Generation The First Duty rewrite

Chapter 4

Beverly and Wesley were in his dorm room and Beverly was taking charge; her maternal instincts have been aroused, and she's looking for a way to protect her son.

"Everything's going to be okay, Wes. There's got to be an explanation for all this." she said.

Wesley said nothing. Beverly was on her feet, moving around the room, full of energy.

"Data and Geordi are already analyzing the flight recorder and the satellite transmission."

"Why?" he asked surprised.

"There must be something wrong with the satellite data, it might have been tampered with."

"Mom, that doesn't make any sense."

"Well there has to be some explanation. I know you're telling the truth, but that satellite data made it look like you were lying."

He suddenly felt a tremendous burden of guilt as she raised to his defense.

"I've spoken with the other parents." she said. "I'm going to go to Admiral Brand and ask that she delay the inquiry for at least-"

He couldn't let her put herself on the line like this so he stopped her.

"Mom. No." he said firmly. "You can't do that."

"I'm not going to let them destroy your career, Wes, you haven't done anything wrong." she said determined.

He looked at her for a long minute, her faith and belief in her son only compounds his sense of guilt.

"Don't try to protect me, Mom. Please just, stay out of it."

She looked at him and suddenly realized he's telling her that he's not completely innocent. The revelation took the wind out of her sails. Her reaction was one of shock and sorrow, not recrimination.

She now knew just how much trouble he's in.

She reached out for him. They held each other and embrace tightly.

On the grounds Boothby was kneeling in his flower bed, holding a clump of weeds and a withered plant as Picard came over to him.

"Look at this, weeds keep popping up in the primrose beds, poor flowers never have a chance to grow." Boothby said to a plant.

"You could use a good herbicide instead of crawling about on your hands and knees pulling weeds." Picard said dry.

"And you could explore space on a holodeck instead of a starship."

Picard smiled a little to himself as Boothby returns to pulling weeds. He takes a beat, then knelt down next to him and adopts a more personal tone.

"Boothby, tell me more about Nova Squadron." he said.

"Not going well is it?"

"No."

Boothby turned back to work with the flowers.

"Remember the parries squares tournament in 'twenty four?"

Picard thought for a second, then smiled at the memory.

"That final game against Minsk."

"It took me three weeks to repair the grounds after the celebration.

"We had a lot to celebrate. Our team wasn't supposed to win." Picard said. "We were proud of them."

"Well the cadets today are just as proud of Nova Squadron. The celebration they held after Nova won the Rigel Cup made 'twenty-four look like a dinner party." Boothby said. "To the other cadets, the members of that team are gods, and that's a hard image to live up to. But Nick Locarno, he watches out for them, he keeps them together." he continued. "Nick is what makes that team special, he's their coach, surrogate father, and best friend all in one, a natural leader." Then he looked at Picard. "The members of that team love him, if he asks them to do something, they do it, even if it means going right over a cliff."

Then he returned to his gardening and Picard was left with something to ponder.

Later Picard and Beverly were on the move, heading toward Enterprise engineering.

"He all but admitted to me that he was lying." Beverly said.

"What exactly did he say?"

"He just asked me not to help him but it was the way he said it, the look on his face. Jean-Luc, I know my son, and he's in trouble."

Picard's look says that he grimly agrees with her.

Then they entered and Geordi and Data were working at the pool table.

"Report." Picard said.

"Nothing conclusive." Geordi said then pointed to a monitor on the pool table. "We do know the collision occurred about four seconds after the satellite images were recorded. But we still don't know how the ships got into the new formation or how the crash occurred."

"We have unsuccessfully tried over fifty different computational models in an effort to simulate the movements of Nova Squadron just prior to the crash." Data said.

"There're just too many variables to take into consideration. Speed, attitude, course." Geordi said.

Picard thought for a moment.

"Did Wesley's flight recorder indicate there was anything, unusual about the ship or the way it was operating?" he asked

Geordi looked at Data and tried to think.

"Well, the starboard power flow was fluctuating." he said.

"However, it was well within operational limits." Data said.

"The fluidic pressure in the landing struts was low, but I don't know what difference that would make." Geordi said thinking.

Data thought for a minute.

"We did find that Wesley had opened his coolant interlock just before beginning the maneuver around Titan." he said.

"Which is a little unusual. The interlock is normally closed unless you're performing a check on the engine coolant levels. But there's no evidence Wesley was running that kind of check." Geordi said.

"Filling the primary coolant tanks requires an open interlock, but that can only be done in a maintenance bay. What other reasons are there to open that valve?" Picard said musing.

"It's the first step in purging the plasma exhaust." Geordi said.

"That procedure would be extremely hazardous while the ship was in flight." Data said objecting.

"Yeah, the engine would probably ignite the plasma." Geordi said.

Suddenly, Picard put it together he suddenly understood it all.

"Ignite the plasma, that's exactly what they were trying to do." he said.

He stared at the screen and his face turned grim as he realized the astonishing implications.