But it wasn't the first time he'd wanted to do that. Like all the other times, he bit his lip and went on.

There was another survivor, he reminded himself, forcing his eyes to focus on the monitor again. Somewhere in all this charred ruin, there was a life that could still be preserved. And the man was lying somewhere nearby-not more than a few meters away, he judged from the floorplan.

Then, as if to confirm that the internal sensors knew what they were talking about, there was movement amid the drifts of smoke. A shape, dark and stumbling. A familiar profile, glistening wet with blood in the spark-shot chaos.

"Franklin!" called Scott. His voice was a harsh rasp-but it did the trick. It got the ensign's attention. "Over here, lad!"

The younger man's head turned. His eyes glittered wildly, reflecting the fireworks spewing out of a caved-in console. And he said something, though Scott couldn't quite make it out.

"I cannae hear ye!" he croaked.

Franklin lurched forward until he could grab the older man's shoulder. His head bleeding from a gash in his forehead, he leaned close and said "They're dead, sir. They're all dead."

Scott gripped the hand that held his shoulder and met the ensign's horror-stricken gaze. "I know, lad, I know. But we're still alive. And if we want to stay that way, we've got to make some sense out o' this mess."

Franklin nodded. Taking a deep breath, he regained control of himself. "All right," he said at last, his voice still trembling a bit, but stronger than before. "I'm with you, sir."

"Good lad. Now then ..." Punching up the ship's diagnostic systems, Scott considered the damage. No welcome news here either. The crash had disabled everything except auxiliary life support and communications-and those systems might go down before long as well. Just as bad, the ship's supplies of food and drink had been contaminated by radiation leaking from the now-irreparable impulse engines.

"It doesn't look promising," observed the ensign, "does it?"

Scott shook his head. "No, laddie, it does nae. Even if the auxiliary power batteries keep it livable in here, we've got nothing to eat or drink. We can still call for help, but it may be a long time in coming."

He could see Franklin's Adam's apple crawl the length of his throat. Nor could he blame the man. They were doomed-just as surely as if they'd perished in the collision with the sphere along with the others.

Unless ...

Scott peered through the smoke in the direction of the transporter platform. "On the other hand," he told Franklin, "we may still have a card or two to play before we're done."

"Captain Scott... ?" said the ensign.

"Send a distress signal," the older man instructed. "Code one alpha zero."

Before Franklin could reply, Scott was on his way to the transporter station, feeling his way through the smoke from console to console. With each halting step, he worked out another detail of what had started out as only a kernel of an idea.

"Let's see," he muttered. "I'll need a way to keep the signal from degrading. And a power source..."

A moment later, he found the transporter station. Fortunately, it hadn't suffered so much as a scratch. It was as if someone was looking out for them, seeing to it that they had at least a fighting chance to buck the odds.

After all, neither he nor Franklin should have been in the Ops center when the Dyson Sphere was discovered. They should have been in the pa.s.senger section, Scott perusing The Laws of Physics for the umpteenth time, Franklin doing whatever it was he did when he was off-duty.

But Scott hadn't been able to resist looking at the problem with the warp drive. And when it became apparent that the Jenolen was going to crash, he'd stubbornly decided to stick it out in the Ops center. If he hadn't been first curious and then foolish, he and his young friend would have perished by now-suffocating along with the others when the air rushed out of the pa.s.senger deck.

Luck? Kismet? Blind Fortune? Scott cursed softly. Men make their own luck, his grandfather Clifford had once told him. And his grandfather was right, he mused, as he set to work prying the circuit panel off the back of the transporter station with his good arm.

"I've sent the signal," the ensign announced from the other end of the Ops center. "Maximum range, continuous loop."

"Good man," answered Scott. "Now get yourself over to the transporter controls. I can use some help."

He'd no sooner said that than the panel came free of its berth, exposing the innards of the console. Though the only light he had available was that of a flaming control panel somewhere behind him, Scott popped out the tiny tool on the inside of the panel and set to work on the diagnostic circuitry.

Fortunately, things hadn't changed much. In fact, in some ways, the Jenolen's transporter technology was inferior to that of the Enterprise. But then the Jenolen was only a transport vessel and the Enterprise had been the flagship of the fleet.

"Captain Scott?" said a voice.

He jumped at the nearness of it, then realized it was only Franklin. "Dinnae sneak up on me that way, lad. There's enough here to make me jumpy without you spookin' me into the bargain!"

The ensign looked contrite. "Sorry, sir." He held up what looked like a long piece of velour. A somehow familiar-looking piece of velour. "Judging from the way you're holding your arm, I thought you might be more comfortable in this."

Abruptly, Scott understood. "A sling," he said out loud. Not a bad idea, either. If his arm was hurt half as badly as it felt, it would be good to keep it immobile. "Where did ye get it?" he asked.

Franklin held up his right forearm, showing the older man a ragged sleeve that now ended at the elbow. "I figured you needed it more than I did," he said, draping the strip of material around Scott's neck and tying the ends together underneath his injured limb.

Scott tested it. Not bad, not bad at all. He could move around now a good deal more easily. He looked at the ensign, intending to express his thanks.

But before he could get a word out, Franklin tilted his head toward the open transporter unit. "You said you needed help, sir?"

"Aye," Scott acknowledged. There would be time enough for thanks later. "Here's what I'd like ye to do. Y'see these circuits? They enable the transporter's diagnostic function." He used the tool to point to a spot where they nearly converged, then handed the tool to Franklin. "Take this and meld the circuits ."

The ensign's soot-blackened forehead furrowed right down the middle. "But won't that lock the pattern buffer into a diagnostic cycle?"

Scott smiled approvingly. "Aye, lad. It'll keep the signal cycling in a perpetual diagnostic mode."

Franklin looked at him. "But why?"

"Ye'll see," the older man told him, "as soon as I've made a few adjustments of my own." And with that, Scott got to his feet.

The smoke was starting to clear a bit-a good sign that life support was working as well as the monitors said. But with any luck, Scott thought, they wouldn't have to worry about that too much longer.

Concentrating on the control panel, he called up a diagram of its link to the auxiliary power batteries. Unfortunately, it wouldn't supply enough juice for what he had in mind.

Frowning, Scott brought up a second diagram-that of the emitter array. As he'd hoped, it was as intact as the rest of the transporter a.s.sembly.

One more diagram-a cross section of the phase inducers. He nodded, satisfied. No damage there either. So far so good.

Now came the iffy part, the part he wasn't entirely confident about. After all, the phase inducers weren't meant to work with the emitter array. That's not what their designers had in mind.

Of course, their designers had never been in a wrecked transport with starvation and slow death looking them in the eye. Holding his breath, Scott asked the computer to cross-connect the inducers to the array.

If it worked, they'd have a regenerating power source-one that could keep the transporter running until help arrived. If it didn't, they'd be back to square one.

It worked.

"d.a.m.n," Scott breathed, consumed by a wave of relief.

"Everything all right up there?" asked Franklin.

"Everything's fine," said the older man. "Just fine, laddie. And down there?"

"Almost done," the ensign told him. "There." Rolling back onto his haunches, Franklin popped the tool into the back of the panel and then put the panel back where it belonged.

As if neatness counted. Scott couldn't help but chuckle, even under these most macabre of circ.u.mstances.

The ensign stood. "Now what, sir?"

The older man pointed to the transporter platform. "Now we go for a long ride, laddie. Though if our luck continues to hold, maybe it will nae be too long."

Franklin didn't get it. "Where are we going?" he asked. "If our sensors can't penetrate the sphere, there's no way we can beam inside. And even if we could, we don't know what it's like in there. It could be ..." His voice trailed off as realization dawned. "Wait a minute. With the pattern buffer locked into a diagnostic cycle, we can't go anywhere. Our atoms will just keep ... flowing through it. Over and over and over again."

Scott nodded. "That's exactly right. Over and over again-until someone answers our distress call and brings us out of it."

The ensign shook his head in admiration. "How did you ever think of that?"

"Laddie," said Scott, "it's my job to think of that. Or at least it used to be." He indicated the platform again. "Shall we?"

Franklin hesitated. "What... what if it doesn't work?"

Scott shrugged. "Then we'll be nae worse off than if we'd sat around waiting for it. And maybe better, depending on how ye look at it."

That seemed to make sense to the younger man. Anyway, he didn't ask any more questions. He just made his way to the transporter platform and took his place on one of the two positions there.

Brave lad, Scott thought. Reminds me of myself when I was a wee bit younger. No ... make that a lot younger.

In any case, time was a-wastin'. Working the controls one last time, Scott set the mechanism for a thirty-second delay and activated it. Then he took the dozen or so steps necessary to ascend the platform.

As he took his place, Scott surveyed the carnage all around them ... the charred bulkheads, the still-sparking control panels, the burning bodies of the two poor souls who hadn't made it the way they had. If he and Franklin could come through that, they could come through anything.

Franklin turned to him. "See you on the other side," he said, managing a smile.

"Aye, lad," said Scott. "On the other side."

Chapter One.

USS Enterprise 1701-D Seventy-five years later AT THE SOUND of his door chimes, Captain Jean-Luc Picard looked up from his monitor, where he'd been reviewing a monograph on accretion bridges in binary star pairs. Touching the appropriate panel on his control padd, he stored the file.

"Come," said Picard, triggering the entry mechanism.

As the door slid aside, it revealed the visitor the captain had been expecting. He gestured to the seat opposite him.

"Won't you have a seat, Mr. Kane?"

Ensign d.a.m.n Kane was a tall, athletic-looking young man with reddish hair, piercing eyes and a ready smile. At least, that was how he'd appeared to Picard in the past. Right now, the ensign looked all too serious, almost sullen.

"Thank you, sir," said Kane, pulling out the chair and seating himself.

The captain leaned back. "How is your father, Ensign?"

Kane smiled, but the expression didn't seem to come very easily to him. "He's fine, sir. I heard from him just the other day via subs.p.a.ce packet. He's been riding, golfing, hiking ... you name it. He says he should have quit Starfleet a long time ago."

Picard chuckled. "Indeed. The Ferris Kane I knew couldn't have been pried loose from his captain's chair with a crowbar. But then, people change, don't they? I suppose the day will come when I'll prefer the good life to Starfleet as well."

Privately, he couldn't imagine such a day-not even in his wildest dreams. But it wouldn't have been polite to tell young Kane that, after his father had opted for a carefree civilian life back on Earth.

"So," said the captain, "what prompted this meeting? You made it sound as if it were rather urgent."

The ensign bit his lip. For a second or two, he seemed to hesitate. Then, suddenly, he got to his feet.

"I'm sorry, sir. I shouldn't be wasting your time with this sort of thing. Just forget I ever came to see you ... please." And with that, he turned to walk out.

"Ensign Kane?" said Picard, his voice ringing out a little louder than he'd intended. But after all, his curiosity had been piqued. He wasn't about to let this mystery go on any longer.

Kane stopped in his tracks and looked back at the captain. "Sir?"

"Sit," Picard commanded.

Again, the ensign hesitated.

"That's an order, Mr. Kane."

Looking just a bit like a cornered animal, he sat. But it was a while before he raised his eyes to return the captain's gaze.

"Now then," said Picard, "you came to see me for a reason. Mind you, I will not force that reason out of you. It's ultimately your choice as to whether or not you'd like to talk about it. But I would like to hear it."

The ensign sighed. "All right, sir." His temples worked. "It has to do with Commander Riker."

Will? That was a surprise. "What about Commander Riker?" the captain prodded.

Kane cleared his throat. "I believe ... he has something against me, sir. He seems to be harboring a certain ... I don't know. Resentment."

That didn't sound like Will Riker, thought Picard. "And how has this resentment manifested itself?" he asked.

The younger man sighed. "Sir, I graduated from the Academy at the top of my cla.s.s. That wasn't because I was the brightest or most talented cadet there. It was because I wanted it more than anyone else."

"I am well aware of your accomplishments at the Academy," the captain interjected, hoping to keep the conversation on a lighter note.

"Please, sir ... let me finish. When I was a.s.signed to the Hornet, I didn't rest on my laurels. I worked hard-harder than any other ensign aboard. Captain Peterson will attest to that."

Again, something of which Picard had full knowledge. But he didn't wish to interrupt a second time.

"When I was transferred to the Enterprise, it was like a dream come true. My father had always spoken very highly of you, sir. And also of your ship. I told myself that all my hard work had paid off. But I also knew that the hardest work was still ahead."

A pause. "But?" said the captain.