Chapter Text
They left Beverly with the wounded – and a team of medics from the Enterprise, all armed with phasers, just in case. Riker and Worf returned to the ruins of the hospital alone.
Worf … tolerated working with Commander Riker. He tolerated it quite well. The Human was too noisy some days, and had an inappropriate sense of how many jokes were permissible in a one-hour time limit. He laughed too much, and had a female’s sensibilities re: touch – always clasping Worf’s forearm or patting him on the shoulder. But he held up well in combat, and had a tenacity and appreciation for Klingon culture that Worf approved of.
Today, Riker was unusually silent. And Worf approved of that, too. They cleared the hospital one square foot at a time. Rubble, they piled along the east wall, close to the reclamator. Bodies, they bundled up as they discovered them, and left the bags in orderly rows to the west. Riker was fastidious about separating trash from organic matter; he moved in a crouch through a disease ward, his face like a mask, a respirator hooked over his nose so he could avoid inhaling anything harmful. Worf listened for a joke; there were none. So he listened for idle chatter; there was none of that, either.
At 1400, the silence broke.
“Let’s break for lunch, Worf,” Riker said, his voice muted behind the respirator. Worf abandoned the other end of the disease ward with a grunt. He joined Riker outside the ruins, where a makeshift sanitation unit was waiting for them, and one by one they disposed of their protective gear and stepped through the decontamination spray.
“We’ll raze the rest of it,” Riker said, settling onto a low stone wall. There were new bags beneath his eyes that hadn’t been there when they beamed down. “Once we confirm there are no more remains, we can use our phasers – easier to start fresh, with a clear space.”
Worf handed Riker a boxed lunch from the replicator, a mix of Klingon and Human food, and Riker set it aside. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, sweat trickling from his hair into his parka collar. Across the street, a mixed group of orphan kids were playing ball, their boots thumping against the rubber.
“You are neglecting your food, Commander,” said Worf around a mouthful of gagh.
Riker didn’t seem to hear. His weary eyes tracked the ball back and forth across the alleyway. Gradually, he slid his lunchbox over to Worf: an open invitation.
One of the boys – the boy from earlier – hopped from foot to foot, the snow chilling his soles. He aimed a clumsy kick at the ball, and it went wide.
“You missed!” another boy jeered.
“It’s not fair,” Kal whined. “I don’t have my boots.”
“What kind of pansy needs boots? It’s not even winter!”
Riker rested his cheek on his chin with a silent sigh. Worf studied the boys’ feet, silently approving of the thick cold-resistant hides that covered them. When Kal missed another goal, he crouched abruptly in the snow and covered his head with his shirt, his face hidden.
“Man, you suck!” one of his teammates said.
“I would’ve bombed us too for playing that bad,” another kid agreed.
Kal growl-screamed from inside his shirt and stamped his bare foot against the snow, but refused to uncover his face. Ashamed, Worf supposed, or crying. He dipped his hand into Riker’s lunchbox and popped a targh giblet into his mouth, crushing it between his teeth. And then he froze, because as soon as Worf stole the giblet, Riker shot to his feet.
“I’m going to…” Riker searched for a reason, his eyes cloudy. “...debrief the captain.”
Worf swallowed the crushed giblet, the rush of blood and gristle salty against his tongue. “Aye, sir,” he managed as Riker stalked away. From a distance, he watched the commander move with grace across the snow: head bowed, shoulders tensed, hands shoved into the pockets of his parka. From behind, although Worf knew him to be Riker, he didn’t look like Riker at all.
It would work. It was an alleyway. Dead-end. Deserted. The entrance, well, it was so heavily stacked with empty crates and broken heating units that it hardly looked like an entrance at all. No one would intrude on him here. Riker paced the length of it, his hands clenched into fists inside his pockets. He eyed a reclamator, its metal sides stained orange, and a tattered harp that hung from its side. A child’s shelter? A hideout? He eased the tarp open with his foot and peeked inside. Snack food, dirty cushions, scratch-chips labeled ‘adults only.’ Definitely a kid’s hideout, but nobody was in it right now, so Riker forced himself to take a breath and turned away.
He thumbed his combadge.
“Picard,” came the captain’s familiar voice, and Riker’s lungs unfroze a little.
“You requested a preliminary report, sir?” he said.
“Indeed I did, Number One. You picked a good time to call. We’ve only just ended the first round of negotiations.” Picard’s voice lowered. “Which were even less fruitful than I had expected.”
The words rolled off Riker without impact. He was mostly focused on his breathing: slow and steady. And on his balance. His right knee was a little wobbly. Couldn’t say why. He kept his eyes focused on the wall, his vision a little blurry, and waited until Picard stopped talking.
“Number One?” Picard prompted.
“Sir.”
A hesitation. Riker needed his whole mind here, in the present, to figure out what that hesitation meant. But he couldn’t force his brain to comply. Numb fingers tightened on the combadge.
“Your report, Number One,” Picard said.
“Sir.” Riker forced his leaden tongue to move. “It appears there’s little to no tension between the Humans and the Tritates – they’re working together to set up shelters for the unhoused and tend to the wounded. But I’ve yet to see any Yannites join the clean-up effort.” He paused, organizing his thoughts. “Worf and I have just about finished work on the old hospital. We plan to raze it within the next hour and set up a capsule med-tent in its place. Temporary, until full construction can begin. In the meantime, Doctor Crusher is hard at work treating the wounded, both Yannite and Tritate, and she reports no violence there.”
“Very good,” Picard said. Riker’s eyes slid closed, his heart hammering in his chest. “Your schedule is your own judgment, Commander. I trust you to see to the local needs as you see fit.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Riker. Dispassionate. Clipped.
“Is there anything I can do?” Picard asked.
“No, sir. I’ve got it handled.” Professional. Calm.
“Very well. Picard out.”
The comm ended with a click, and eyes still closed, Riker jerked forward a step. His foot struck something – empty cans – kicked them hard against the wall, but he didn’t open his eyes. He found the cool stone of the nearest building and rested his forehead against it. His breath came in sharp bursts through his teeth, each one with an audible sound he couldn’t help, somewhere between a groan and a whine.
His stomach narrowed. His chest squeezed. He scraped his knuckles against the wall, his hands forming loose fists, and wished he could sink into it – into the cold surface – into stone. Unfeeling, immovable. No more lungs to pump for breath and no more heart clawing its way out of his chest. No more–
Riker bent at the waist with a sharp gasp and vomited on his boots. His stomach cramped, the lining folded, the half-digested food inside flipped; a chemical burn invaded his nasal passage and seared him to the roots. He opened teary eyes and stared uncomprehendingly at the blurry mess on his shoes. Dully, when his stomach calmed, he shoved his boots into the nearest snow drift and scraped the vomit away. Stomach still uneasy. Unacceptable. He leaned over, one hand clenched on the side of the rusty reclamator, the other’s fingers pushing deep into his throat, until his gut was empty and the snow was splattered with bile, and he felt a little better, like he might not overheat or fall to his knees when he walked away.
Good. Acceptable. Best he could ask for.
He had work to do.
“Councilor Medgard,” said Picard wearily, “perhaps some concessions could be made–”
“Not for terrorists,” said Medgard.
“You may categorize the Yannite adults however you wish,” said Picard, “but the children surely cannot be labeled as terrorists. If you truly believed that, your security team would have cleared the courtyard hours ago.”
Outside, as if to prove his point, a mixed group of children screamed in delight. They were playing a chase game, boots thumping on the snow-cleared pathway. One child had climbed to the top of a light-fountain and clung there, twitching his feet out of the other children’s grasp.
“As far as I am aware,” said Medgard with great dignity, “ those children have not been charged with any crimes. The terrorists in Holding Cell Three have . That is precisely why I call them terrorists, Captain Picard; I do not choose my words frivolously.”
“What did they do?” asked Troi.
Medgard drew himself up. “They initiated a strobe attack,” he said.
Silence. Picard gauged the reactions of the other councilors to see whether he should be impressed. Most of them looked embarrassed.
“Forgive me,” he said, “but I’m unfamiliar with the term. A strobe attack…?”
“Flashing lights,” Medgard explained. “Yannite eyes are particularly sensitive to them. We don’t get much sunlight here, you see, and the less-evolved are apt to faint if–”
“But the children in Holding Cell Three are Yannite, are they not?” said Picard. “Did they attack their own people?”
“They attacked us,” said Medgard shortly.
“To no effect?”
What a headache. At Councilor Medgard’s side, a Tritate with a bristling mustache rushed to assure Picard, “We will release the children immediately.”
Medgard snapped his teeth. “We will do no such thing!”
“One of the children is the Yannite chieftain’s nephew,” volunteered Councilor Pom.
“Is that true?” asked Troi, at the same time Picard said,
“They’re not called chieftains , Mr. Pom, they are called senators –”
And at the same time, past the courtyard, a shrill voice broke through the crisp cold air:
“HE IS DEAD! HE IS DEAD! AND IT’S MY FAULT!”
Picard sat up straight, all weariness forgotten. The one good thing he could say for Medgard was that he leapt to his feet as quick as any Starfleet officer would. He blocked the door for his fellow councilors and motioned for them to go around back. “Could be a lure,” he said, and the councilors looked to Picard.
“Best to go a different route,” Picard agreed, ushering them sideways. He peered out the window, but didn’t see anything, anyway. He nodded to Troi, each of them flanking the councilors, and breathed a silent thanks that for once they were dealing with ‘civilians’ who had more wartime experience than most Starfleet officers. They rounded the corner with their weapons drawn and set to stun.
And found themselves face-to-face with a crying child.
“It’s not your fault,” said a Human woman, about sixty, exasperated.
“It is!” the boy insisted. He didn’t notice the entourage of high-ranking civilians who had found him, but his companion did, and she shot them an apologetic look as she tried to quiet the boy.
“It’s just puke, Kal,” she said with strained patience. “No one is dead.”
“But it’s a LOT of puke!” Kal wailed. “And it’s in my alley!”
Picard turned back to the councilors, his eyebrows raised, and gestured to the meeting room with a smile. “Shall we?”
Some of them looked downright disappointed that there was nothing to shoot. They holstered their weapons – well, half of them did – and shuffled back inside. Alone together, just for a moment, Picard and Troi watched the Human woman and her young charge.
“Her name is Ruth,” Troi murmured. There were stress lines near her eyes that hadn’t been there before, and when she touched Picard’s forearm, he already knew what she was going to ask.
“Go,” he said.
She found him where the hospital used to be. The rubble was gone; the bodies too, and Riker’s hair was mussed from hard work and drying sweat. He was bent down when she first saw him, helping a squad of petty officers erect the new capsule medtent. But the petty officers waved him back, eager to look competent in front of a commander, and Riker stepped away. He wrapped his arms tight around his stomach as he watched them. Cheeks hollow, face pale, he still looked queasy.
Alright? Troi sent him.
He must have heard her, but he didn’t answer. He just turned away so she couldn’t see his face.