Star Trek: The Next Generation - 117 - Q are Cordially Uninvited... Read online

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  1

  During his years of service in Starfleet, Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Starship Enterprise had visited some of the most picturesque worlds of the Federation. He was one of the few humans to see the magnificent ice caves of Andoria when their stalagmites and stalactites burst into vibrant color at midday as the sun shone through the deepest fissures in the ice above. He’d felt the cool spray of the Janaran Falls on Betazed at the recommendation of his former first officer. And the beauty of Risa was matched only by the exciting adventure—and a little something more—he had found there. But no matter how many planets in however many star systems Captain Jean-Luc Picard had visited, none of the sweeping vistas he’d seen in his time at Starfleet could compare to the stunning beauty of a sunset over his ancestral home in La Barre, France, on Earth.

  The Picard family vineyard was like a visit to centuries past. It may have had all the modern conveniences for cultivation of the vines, but the metal towers and complex watering system always disappeared into the background. All he could see was the land: the rows upon rows of vines with their deep purple grapes and brilliant green leaves that were as varied as snowflakes in design. The fertile ground from which they sprung was soft, with an almost buoyant feel beneath his feet. The scent of the grapes always provided a sensory trip right back to childhood, when he and his brother, Robert, would play hide-and-seek among the vines.

  It was easy to forget the brilliant glow of the ice caves, the dramatic rumble of the falls, and especially the unique appeal of Risa on this day in particular. This had little to do with the view. Today was a celebration—a small celebration, but one immensely important—that hopefully would help wipe away the sadness of the past.

  Picard’s visits home had become especially difficult since the loss of his brother, Robert, and, most tragically, his young nephew, René. He had visited their memorial stones upon arriving in La Barre, but he’d largely avoided the part of the house where the two had been lost in the fire. The structure had been rebuilt and there were no visible scars to be seen in the building, but Picard felt the tragedy in every newly replicated wooden plank and the too perfect paint. But this was not a weekend to dwell on the loss. Today was a time for the quiet celebration he had delayed far longer than was reasonable. It was time to make new memories and look to the future.

  With those lingering memories, Picard tore his gaze from the window in the marriage office of la mairie. From that window he could catch a glimpse of his boyhood home, off in the distance before the landscape disappeared with the rolling hills. Like the Picard vineyard, the town hall of La Barre had stood for centuries. There the business of the small provincial town was conducted, everything from mediating the petty squabbles of landowners to the joyous marriages of its residents. It was the latter that had brought Picard here today.

  String music replaced the sound of the soft breeze blowing through the curtains around the open window: Canon and Gigue for 3 violins and basso continuo. It brought a smile to Picard’s lips when he remembered the time young René suggested they install speakers in the fields under the belief that music would help the vines grow. He’d been so serious about his plan and so adamant in the pitch; even after Robert told him no, René promised that he would do just that once the vineyard became his. Picard allowed that maybe some memories from the past were acceptable for today.

  Robert’s widow, Marie, had chosen the music. Picard hadn’t even wanted that for the simple ceremony, but she’d insisted. Marie sat in the front row of chairs in the small room along with Rose Bonnaire, a friend Picard had not seen for many years.

  Picard smiled at them both from his spot at the front of the room. He wore a simple yet elegant suit that looked as if it came from the same period in which la mairie had been built. This was not the time for dress uniforms. Here in La Barre, he was not a Starfleet officer. He was simply Jean-Luc.

  The mayor of La Barre—and Rose’s husband—Henri Bonnaire, stood with him. In most of France it was unusual for the mayor to conduct the civil ceremonies. But La Barre was not a particularly large town, and Picard had a history with the man. They had been friends in school. Not the best of friends but acquaintances. Their friendship likely would have been lost to time, but for the fact that Henri had been a town leader most of his adult life. It was only natural that he welcome the captain of the Federation flagship on Picard’s all-too-rare trips home. It was something Robert had been quick to point out every time Jean-Luc visited, since it was impossible to ignore that he was a Starfleet officer. But it had kept Jean-Luc and Henri in touch over the decades and made it all the more fitting for him to be there now.

  As the music hit a crescendo, a sight more beautiful than his ancestral home entered the room. Doctor Beverly Crusher, bedecked in a simple beige dress with a bouquet of magenta dahlias, glided down the short aisle past their witnesses, who now stood for the bride’s arrival. This, again, was not part of a traditional civil ceremony, but Marie had insisted on some pomp and circumstance.

  It was not the first time Jean-Luc had watched Beverly walk down an aisle in his general direction. Decades earlier, he’d been in the wedding party of Jack Crusher and Beverly Howard, standing beside Walker Keel, the best man, who had introduced the pair. Jean-Luc’s close friendship with Jack had kept him from admitting his feelings for years after his death. Seeing her now, in that dress with the winsome smile on her face, he hated himself for the wasted years.

  After what seemed like even more years—but was probably only seconds—Beverly joined Jean-Luc at the front of the room. She took Jean-Luc’s hands in hers and looked into his eyes. Suddenly all time was forgotten as the mayor began the brief ceremony.

  “Do you, Jean-Luc Picard, wish to marry Beverly Crusher?” he asked in the native tongue of the country, rendered into Federation Standard by the universal translators.

  “Oui,” Picard replied.

  “And do you, Beverly Crusher, wish to marry Jean-Luc Picard?”

  She inclined her head to the side and flashed Picard a smile. “Oui,” she replied.

  “It is time to exchange alliances,” the mayor said, as he lifted the rings from the table behind them and presented them to the couple.

  Picard accepted his ring for Crusher, then took her hand. Wordlessly, he slipped the ring onto her finger as if it was always meant to be there. Without prompt, Crusher, in turn, did the same. They had decided to forgo vows of their own at Crusher’s suggestion. They expressed their love to each other a thousand different ways every single day in both words and deeds. It seemed beside the point to rely on flowery ceremonial language in what was little more than a legal procedure.

  Henri turned his attention to the witnesses, posing a quick question, before introducing the couple. The ceremony was officially over. It was brief. Concise. Exactly as the couple had wanted. But Henri looked to Picard and suggested there was one more task to which to tend. Picard could not disagree.

  Marie and Rose raised their hands in polite applause as the couple shared their first official kiss as husband and wife. The clapping intensified as two more sets of hands joined in. Whistles and hoots quickly followed. And one celebratory howl that came from deep
in the gut shattered the peace of the room, pulling Picard out of the fond memory he’d been reliving.

  “Computer,” a voice said as the howl died down. “Freeze program.”

  Jean-Luc and Beverly were suddenly immobilized, locked in their kiss.

  “I don’t know,” Geordi La Forge began as he stepped beneath the archway beside the frozen couple. “It was a nice ceremony and all—no frills, like you wanted—but . . . you call that a kiss? I expected a little more passion, Captain.”

  “Passion was definitely lacking,” Commander Worf agreed. “There was not even one bone broken.”

  “I was thinking something more like dipping her in his arms and making her toes curl, but broken bones would have been interesting too,” La Forge said.

  “And not a single bat’leth,” Worf added. “You were in a town surrounded by vineyards. At least you could have had a pitchfork.”

  “A pitchfork, Worf?” La Forge asked. “You haven’t been to many vineyards in this century, have you?”

  Worf broke into what amounted to a smile for him. “True. Klingon bloodwine is cultivated on the field of battle.”

  A more animated version of Captain Jean-Luc Picard stepped up beside his frozen counterpart. This one was dressed in his Starfleet uniform and looked considerably more guarded than his formally dressed holographic doppelganger. “Number one, I would never expect any human wedding could even compare to the excitement of a Klingon ceremony.”

  “Agreed,” Doctor Crusher said. She too was dressed in her uniform, as they had all come off their shift before meeting on the holodeck. “We’re just a boring old married couple.”

  “I did not call either of you old,” Worf said.

  “So you are saying that we’re boring,” Picard countered with a smile in his wife’s direction, revealing a playful twinkle in his eye.

  “Yes,” Worf replied.

  “Now you understand why we never shared the program with you,” Crusher said. “We were afraid that our ceremony would never compare to the bacchanal of your wedding to Jadzia.” She turned to Picard, mirroring that twinkle in his eye. “You were right. We should have just saved this for Wesley’s eyes only. Obviously, we were right not to invite them in the first place. They would not have enjoyed our simple, quiet civil ceremony at all.”

  “I am sorry if I have offended you,” Worf said, chagrined. “And I do wish you a happy anniversary.”

  La Forge smiled. “They’re messing with you, Worf.”

  Picard wore an overly enthused expression of shock on his face. “Why, Mister La Forge, I have no idea what you are talking about.”

  “I caught those little smiles between the two of you,” the chief engineer said. “My ocular implants registered the mild spike in your blood pressure and the slight increase in your heart rates. You’re keeping something from us. Something about this ceremony isn’t true.”

  “This was not your wedding ceremony?” Worf asked, a deeper scowl on his face than usual.

  “No, this is our official wedding ceremony,” Crusher said with another smile directed toward her husband.

  “There!” La Forge pointed to her face. “That slight blush. What is it you’re not telling us?”

  Again, Crusher looked to her husband. The captain smiled broadly and took a deep breath. “Mister La Forge, what we showed you was, indeed, our wedding. The only wedding that we consider to be truly official. But, yes, we have held something back. It might not have been our only wedding ceremony that weekend.”

  The Enterprise officers shared a look, but unlike the married couple’s glances, this one spoke of confusion and interest. Both leaned in dramatically, waiting for the true story. . . .

  2

  2380

  “You really didn’t have to walk me to my room,” Crusher said as they lingered in the doorway. “I think Marie wanted to sit up with you a bit longer to reminisce.”

  “I suspected as much,” Picard admitted. “To be honest, it’s all been a bit more overwhelming than I’d expected. Being here, at the vineyard, I was hoping to have some time to myself. Tomorrow will be a busy day.”

  Crusher ran a finger along the edge of his lapel. They’d celebrated the eve of their wedding in town with Marie at a restaurant that advertised itself as “casual gourmet” and had dressed accordingly. “Are you sure you want to spend the evening alone?” she asked. “My room is large enough for two. And I promise not to reminisce. We can create new memories.”

  There had always been a flirtatious element to their relationship. Years of friendship carried playful banter that was just touching on something more. But since Picard had finally admitted his feelings to her, Crusher had become positively amorous at times. It was a welcome change.

  Picard took her hand in his. “A tempting offer, but you were the one that suggested we spend our last night as single people apart.”

  “Yes, that was one of my less thought out plans,” Crusher replied.

  “No, I like it,” Picard said. “It will build up the anticipation for our wedding night. Besides, I’d like to exorcise some of the ghosts from the vineyard before you and I make our commitment to each other.”

  Crusher’s flirtation took a more serious tone. “Are you sure you want to do that alone? I’m here, if you want to talk.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Picard said. “It would be best to get to bed. I’ll only be down the hall, should one of us need the other.”

  Crusher got that flirtatious gleam in her eye again. “Jean-Luc, don’t be surprised if you hear me call out for you in the middle of the night. Big old houses like this can be scary at times.”

  “I’ll be right there to protect you,” Picard said. “Although, quite frankly, I’ve never known you to be unable to protect yourself.”

  “Still, leave your door open a crack just in case,” Crusher said. She brushed a quick kiss against his lips before stepping into her room. The door, he was glad to see, remained open with a gap.

  He softly wished her good night as he turned to head down the hall. Picard’s childhood bedroom had been destroyed in the fire. Marie had done an exceptional job of re-creating the house as it had stood for centuries, but it could never be the same. He’d only barely been able to spend time in the bedroom on a previous visit.

  Prior to their arrival, Picard had arranged with Marie that he and his fiancée would stay in the guest residence. He’d cited their impending marriage and their need for privacy as the reason, but Marie knew the truth. She dealt with those same memories every day. It was worse for her, because she could not simply escape to the guest house. The new head of the Picard vineyard had to keep up appearances.

  The guest residence was the perfect spot for Picard to hide from the parts of the past he did not wish to visit. It was untouched by the fire and remained exactly as it had been when Picard was a child. He hadn’t spent too much time in the residence growing up, so it had fewer ghosts.

  His room, however, was filled by a giant cake coated with garish pink frosting.

  Picard stood in the doorway for a moment, taking in the monstrosity. He looked back down to Crusher’s door to see if she was watching. The joke did not fit her brand of humor, but it was the first possible explanation that came to mind. But she was not peeking at her door waiting for a reaction, as far as he could tell. He quickly stepped in, pulling the door shut behind until he figured out what was going on.

  The cake came up to his chest, with three layers that looked to be crudely constructed of wood. If he remembered his old Earth traditions, this was the kind of cake that a woman usually popped out of. The kind of thing that soon-to-be-married men had to suffer through when they had their bachelor parties.

  But Picard had told no one about his wedding plans for the weekend. He and Crusher were simply on forty-eight-hour leave while the Enterprise was in drydock. No reason for anyone to suspect what they had planned. And even Will Riker, who had been known to play a trick or two on his former captain, would never arrange for s
uch a crass display. None of Picard’s friends would do such a thing, and Marie certainly would not have helped them pull it off.

  Which left only . . .

  “Q!”

  It was folly for Picard to have thought he could have such an important milestone pass in his life without interference from his resident imp. He really should have expected something and braced himself for whatever was about to occur.

  “Q! Reveal yourself!”

  A muffled thumping sound came from inside the cake. Picard knew better than to try to open it. He pulled an emergency medical kit from the closet. Marie had one in every room, another residual effect of the fire. He removed the tricorder and scanned the cake.

  Sure enough, there was a person inside. Human. Female. All life signs reading normal. That didn’t mean that there wasn’t trouble, but at least Picard had an idea of what to expect.

  He put down the tricorder and examined the cake. There was a small latch on the top layer, keeping whoever she was trapped inside. That seemed counterintuitive to the idea that the female was supposed to jump out and surprise the bachelor. It also meant it was likely that whoever was in there was being held against her will.

  Picard slid the latch open and lifted the lid as the banging got louder and the voice was no longer muffled.

  “Get me—” Inside the cake, curled up into an uncomfortable ball, Vash looked up at him. “Oh. Hello, Jean-Luc.”

  “Vash,” Picard said with a nod. “You don’t seem surprised to see me.”

  “Oh, I’m very surprised to see you,” she said from her small prison. “Just quite not as surprised as I was to suddenly disappear from the ruins on Iremis II and turn up here in a . . . what am I in, anyway?” Her head twisted around to examine the wooden cylinder around her.

  “A giant cake,” Picard said.

  “Naturally.” She held her hands up toward him. “A little help, please?”