Star Trek

HERITAGE _____

But She Said, “I Love You…”

A Captain’s Table Short Story By T.L. Shull

This short story is a fan written work and is not intended to infringe upon the

copyrights of Paramount Pictures, CBS Corporation, or Pocket Books. It is provided

free of charge to all fans for your enjoyment. Unauthorized copying or reproduction

is prohibited. “Star Trek” is a registered trademark of Paramount Pictures and CBS

Corporation.

BUT SHE SAID, “I LOVE YOU…” By T.L. Shull

A CAPTAIN’S TABLE SHORT

Story Notes: Riker pays for his drink...plus some. Written

as a response to the “Now pour me another one … this

time with no ice” Challenge at AdAstraFanFic.com

It was the first time he ever felt uncomfortable at

The Captain’s Table.

While he was accustomed to being recognized

every time he strolled into the legendary bar, he had

always received looks of admiration, welcoming smiles

and loud, friendly greetings. Today however his

presence was met with stoic glances, turned heads,

dropped eyes and deafening silence. No one made eye

contact with him as he moved forward towards the large

mahogany bar…no one that was, except for Cap himself.

Cap, the proprietor of the The Captain’s Table

smiled in his usual friendly way and showed his client to

one of the many empty chairs at the grandiose bar.

“Welcome Captain Riker,” he said calmly.

Captain William T. Riker tried to smile in return

but couldn’t even manage movement at the corners of

his mouth. He merely nodded to his old friend and pulled

up a stool at the far corner of the bar.

In his usual telepathic-like way, Cap already had

the bottle of scotch out and was pouring it before the

words, “Scotch on the rocks,” were uttered by Riker’s

deep and mournful voice.

Cap nodded weakly and set the lowball glass in

front of Riker. Riker lifted the glass with care and rolled

the amber liquid over the crystalline chunks and took in

a long, quiet whiff of the pungent liquor. Riker’s eyes

met Cap’s briefly with some surprise. “Single batch?”

“You need the good stuff today my friend,” Cap

replied and pulled up his own stool on his side of the bar,

“…for the story you need to tell is much different than

the ones you normally tell.”

Riker’s nostrils flared. Cap always knew.

Payment for drinks at The Captain’s Table was a

story, stories to be told by the starship captains who were

allowed in to this mysterious bar, accessible from

anywhere in the universe. Today, Will walked into the

bar from its door in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District.

He had just come out of his third and final day of

interrogation. He had been cleared of any charges, as

were the rest of the family, but now…

…now he just needed to be alone, to think…to

think about where he and Deanna went wrong.

“You didn’t do anything wrong Captain,” Cap

said quietly, as if reading Will’s mind. “She twisted your

lessons to suit her own agenda.”

Will turned his exhausted and devastated eyes

away from the golden elixir and to his bartender’s

understanding face. “I’m not sure I’ll ever believe it

Cap,” He said softly. “She was doing so well…”

“Ranked number one, was she not?”

Riker nodded sullenly, sipped his scotch and took

pleasure in the burn down his throat. “Yeah,” he replied

and set the glass down on the bar. “How could she?

How…” Riker drew his hand up to his eyes and pressed

the rising tears back with a wave of anger and

resentment that overtook him and he growled, slamming

his fists down onto the bar with rage.

“Easy, Will,” Cap said softly.

Riker rolled his eyes to the ceiling, then returned

his gaze to the scotch icing in his glass. He lifted the

glass and took another sip then looked straight into

Cap’s face. “She said she loved me Cap. Why? Why

would she say that and then…this? Why would she say

that she loved me and then put us all into this position?”

“You mean you, don’t you?” Cap said sharply.

“Why did she put you in this position?”

Riker took the stab as best he could. While

Deanna was a professional counselor, Cap never pulled

his punches. Cap and Deanna made a good team –

although they had never met one another. “Maybe I do.

How could she do this…to me?”

“Tell your story, Will.”

“I can’t believe I’m telling it again. It seems like

it’s the only story I’ve been telling for the past three days

in that damned interrogation room.”

Cap didn’t move a muscle; he only stared at the

Captain with a patient expression.

Riker sipped his scotch and inhaled, drew his free

hand down his sharply-trimmed snow-white beard and

then exhaled softly. “Fine.”

__________

I got the call from the Academy five days ago

and pulled myself from the bridge of the Titan to take

the call in the ready room. Administrator J’Nil had Beth

with him in his office and I knew something was wrong.

“Captain,” the Grazerite said in a leading way, “I’m

afraid that I have some troubling news for you.”

My heart started to pound in my chest. Had one

of the girls been injured? Cassidy wasn’t on the screen,

only Beth. Had she been hurt in training…or worse –

dear God, had she been killed? The thoughts were

running through my head so quickly, I couldn’t even

respond to J’Nil’s greeting. My emotions must have shot

off the charts because Deanna bounded into the ready

room with an expression of worry plastered over her face

and I knew she could feel my rising terror.

“What is it Will? What happened?” she asked as

she moved towards my desk. “Is it one of the children?”

I turned back towards to the comm screen on my

desk and looked into the dark, black eyes of my oldest

child, Elizabeth. She looked more confused than

anything. “Beth? What happened?” I was finally able to

verbalize a few words.

“Cassidy left Dad. She quit.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “What do you mean she

quit?”

“Captain,” J’Nil interrupted, “Cassidy came to

my office first thing this morning and resigned from the

Academy.”

I’m sure it took Deanna just as much time to

process the sentence as it did for me. “Resigned?” I said,

utterly confused. “What? Why?”

“Dad…” Beth growled back in obvious anger.

She had more time to process her sister’s departure and it

was obvious she was infuriated by it. “Cassidy quit and

then left. She packed a small bag and I think she left

with some guy she’s been dating.”

Stupefied.

I was stupefied. There’s no other way to describe

it. My youngest daughter, ranked number one in her

class had just resigned from the Academy to run away

with some guy? What the hell?

We turned the ship around and made a bee-line

towards Earth. It took two days to get there. We must

have talked to Beth and Cassidy’s roommate and friends

a hundred times before the Titan reached Earth and no

one knew where she was. Worse yet, no one had ever

laid eyes on this new boyfriend of hers.

Beth had said that Cassidy had talked about him

for a couple of months and she seemed to be with him

more and more, but Beth herself was rarely around due

to her Red Squad duties. Seems as though no one really

watched over Cassidy…including me.

I didn’t even know my little girl was dating, let

alone spending every waking moment with the guy. Hell,

I hadn’t spoken to Cass in over a month. I didn’t even

know his name until Beth told me when we reached

Earth. We met her in the Administrator’s office.

Every time I lay eyes on Beth, she reminds me

more and more of Deanna. She’s just taller than her

mother. The thick, wavy brown hair and those black

Betazoid eyes, all packaged in the grey and red uniform

of the Red Squad. She always makes me so proud.

Beth told us that Cassidy had met someone the

night of the Ambassador’s ball last January. Since Beth

was so wrapped up in her Red Squad duties, she rarely

saw her sister except for the night before she resigned.

Beth described her sister as being moody and sad at first,

but as the night went on the two had a great time

together. Beth had no clue her sister had anything

planned but Beth did say that Cassidy started off her

conversation by talking about destiny.

Apparently Cassidy told Beth that she thought

her destiny had changed.

If only I had understood how much.

I still don’t believe it.

No one, it seems, had ever met this so-called man

that Cassidy was dating. No one had ever laid eyes on

him. Cassidy simply left campus when she could and

would tell her roommate that she was going out with

him. This had gone on for weeks. While Cassidy had

told her sister his name was Ronan Stewart, no one had

any record of such a man living in or around San

Francisco. I even pulled out my favors to Starfleet

Intelligence to see if they could help.

Nothing.

That’s when I began to really worry. Had

Cassidy been kidnapped? Was she being held against her

will? Did some group force her to resign to hide

something?

Starfleet was losing patience with me and my

search for my daughter. I was summarily ordered back to

our duties on the Titan that night to head for the Neutral

Zone once more.

I needed to be by myself for awhile and Deanna

knew it. She returned to the ship and Beth had returned

to her studies. Bill, my boy…he was still too far away on

a training dig in the Gamma Quadrant. The news of his

sister’s absence hadn’t even reached him yet.

I decided to go for one last long walk along the

Embarcadero before returning to the Titan and resuming

our search from the ship.

The fog was especially thick that evening and it

seemed to seep into every joint in my body. Every time I

took a step I ached with pain.

How does an 18 yr old girl just disappear in

today’s age? Who took her? Did she go on her own?

Why would she leave and not contact me? Where did she

go? Was she alive?

Was she alive?

It was always the question that we dared not

speak to each other although I know we were all asking

it internally.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw a figure in a

dark coat move from the walk along one of the wider

piers down by the Ferry Building at the end of Market

Street.

I would have known that profile anywhere.

My heart almost exploded with joy and I ran after

the figure.

To my surprise she was waiting for me.

My soul filled and I reached out my hands to

place them on her shoulders. I soaked in the pure beauty

of her.

Cassidy’s an extraordinarily striking young

woman, although she’s not very tall. She has long, thin

and straight ink-black hair and the most perfect skin I

think I’ve ever seen. But it’s her eyes that are the first

thing anyone notices about her. They’re bluer than my

own – icy, almost blue-white eyes. I’ve heard people

describe them as piercing. Some have even said they’re

almost frightening; to me they’ve always been her most

beautiful feature.

Well, that’s not true. It’s her smile…when

Cassidy smiles, I always melt a little.

“Cass,” I said, “where have you been, are you all

right? Are you hurt?”

“I’m okay Dad,” She said calmly, almost too

calmly for my liking. “For the first time in my life I

think I’m actually really good.”

Cassidy hadn’t had an easy life on Titan, I knew

that. Her disease had always made her feel a little

separated from her mother and the rest of the family. Her

lack of telepathic abilities was hard enough on her, but it

was the lack of telepathic registry that was the real

problem. Cassidy couldn’t be sensed by her mother or

her siblings.

Fine - I’ll be honest, Cassidy hated living on

Titan. She despised Deanna. Neither of us knew what it

was that had set Cassidy off the year before she entered

the Academy, I only know that it was the year of hell on

board that ship. No one in our family was happy.

Cassidy stopped talking to Dee altogether. Beth and Bill

had gotten into a fight over God-knows-what and they're

still not speaking to each other. Dee and I have sought so

much counseling and we still don’t know what we did

wrong as parents. I just never knew what we had done

would produce…

I’ll get back to where I was.

They say you don’t have favorites as a parent.

It’s true. I love all my children equally. I’m having a

really hard time liking them right now but I do love

them. Go figure. Who knew it was possible for your

children to simultaneously infuriate you and thrill you at

the same time.

But Cassidy is just a little different.

You see...I see a lot of Jean-Luc in Beth. Beth

has a hell-bent-for-leather determination and focus I

know I never had.

Bill? Oh, he is Deanna through and through. He’s

so wise, so thoughtful and so insightful…qualities that I

love in Dee.

But Cass? She was…

She is me.

She’s stubborn, reactionary, fiery, passionate.

While she may not have Beth’s depth of focus, she’s

brilliant. I don’t want to come off sounding egotistical

here, but I’m no slouch in the brain department and

Cassidy had the potential to outshine me and the rest of

the family.

While I never doubt I will one day see Beth as a

CO of a starship and I know Bill will end up being one

of the best and brightest archaeologists the galaxy has

ever seen…I’ve never imagined Cassidy in anything less

than Admiralty bars. I always saw her as exceeding

every expectation I had ever had about her.

Maybe that’s my problem. Maybe I was the one

who pushed her too far…maybe I did make the same

mistakes my father had made. Maybe I was the one who

pushed her away.

Oh God.

I asked too much from her.

It was my fault.

I’ve turned her away…

__________

Riker buried his head in his hands and massaged

the anger in deeper. Cap leaned forward towards his

friend. “What happened at the dock Will? What did she

have to say for herself?”

Riker dropped his hands to either side of his

drink and lifted it to his lips, emptying the contents into

his mouth and down his throat. He then swirled the ice in

the glass and let the memory of the confrontation seep

back in.

__________

She looked so sad. I had never seen her look that

way before. She looked like she was being ripped in two,

right down the center. It wasn’t that she was crying or

even frowning…

…it was those eyes.

Not one tear filled them. They only softened at

their edges.

“If you hated the Academy so much Hop, why

didn’t you just say so? You don’t have to be afraid if you

don’t want to enter Starfleet, you know that. Come home

now and we’ll talk…”

“I’m not going with you,” she said sharply. “I’m

never going back to Titan.”

Confusion took root and anger seeped in, I

couldn’t control myself anymore. “What’s he done to

you?”

“Who?” she said with a slight smirk on her face.

It was that insipid little smirk that she used

whenever she wanted to get a dig in on Deanna and it

pissed me off even more. “You’re giving it all up for a

guy?” I hurled back at her, “I thought you had more

brains than that Cass. So are you moving in with him?”

Cass didn’t smile and she lost her smirk. Once

more that look of bottomless sadness entered back into

her crystal-blue eyes and I dropped my hands from her

shoulders, utterly confused by her reaction.

“No,” she said so softly I barely heard her. “I

have found my place Daddy.” My gut felt kicked in. She

hadn’t called me “Daddy” since she was nine years old,

when she thought it made her sound too babyish.

“What do you mean you’ve found your place?” I

asked. “Your place is at home, with us.”

Cassidy actually snarled. “I told you I’m never

going to back to that hell in a can. I can’t go back and

live with her.”

I tried never to get in between Cass’ and Dee’s

arguments because Dr. Huilan stated they weren’t mine

to fight, but sometimes Cass could draw the ire out of me

faster than anything and I flared at her. “No matter what

you think in that messed up self-pitying little head of

yours Cassidy, your mother loves you.”

Cassidy turned and started to walk away. “I only

wanted to say goodbye. I guess it was a mistake.”

“Goodbye?” I moved into the fog behind her.

“Where are you going Cass?”

“To finally make a difference Dad. To finally do

what’s right.”

She could have been speaking in tongues for all I

knew, she wasn’t making a bit of sense. “Leaving the

Academy? Shacking up with someone who is drawing

you away from your dreams? What’s right about that

Cass?”

That’s when she turned on me. Her eyes were

blazing with sadness and fury. “This is why I have to go!

You’re so dense about everything Dad! You’ve tried and

you’ve tried to make what you think is peace between

Romulus and Remus and not once have you ever tried to

see things through someone else’s eyes! You’ve always

done exactly what the Federation has asked of you and

not once have you ever questioned about whether or not

it was the right thing to do for Remus!”

I stammered, “What? What is this about? Remus?

How is this about Remus?”

“It always has been old friend.” The voice was

low, male and guttural. The adrenaline shot through me

as another very tall and dark figure moved toward me in

the fog.

Cassidy backed away from me to allow for the

towering figure to approach and emerge. I couldn’t

comprehend what I was seeing. As the space between us

cleared I could see the Reman features of a once good

friend and trusted confidant. Reman Senator Pomalek...I

should say Commander Pomalek of the Thraiin

Militia…looked down upon me with a strange and

victorious grin.

“Good evening William,” he said calmly.

I reacted by reaching for my communicator when

I heard a slight high-pitched whir from my side. “Don’t

Dad,” Cassidy said quietly and I noticed she was holding

a Thraiin disrupter in her steady hand. “I will shoot.”

I lowered my hand, more out of disbelief and

shock than anything. “Pomalek?”

“Your daughter didn’t want to leave without

saying goodbye. Such a human trademark I’m afraid.

Myself? I just couldn’t resist being here when you

realized that it would be our cause she would be leaving

you for.”

“What?” I gasped and looked to Cassidy. Her

eyes were still filled with that same stoic sadness.

“Hop?”

“I told you. I found my place now. Remus needs

me. The Thraiin need me to help them maintain Reman

independence. The Federation has interfered for long

enough.”

“Interfered?!” I barked. “We’ve done nothing but

broker peace between Romulus and Remus!”

“Is that what you call it now? Peace?” Pomalek

growled. “You’ve manipulated Federation principles into

every last sentence spewed by the Reman government

since you forced the Klingon Empire into our territory!

What about your Prime Directive? I thought non-

interference meant non-interference, not interfere with

someone else’s government if it doesn’t suit your style.”

I was furious. “What have you done to her? Have

you brain-washed her to believe your Thraiin lies now?”

Cassidy shook her head. “No. Think about it

Dad. Think long and hard. When have I ever approved of

how the UFP treats Remus?”

And like a wave it washed over me.

She never had. She always questioned the UFP’s

tactics. She always grilled me when I got back on the

ship after another treaty session or negotiation with them

and the Romulans. She always seemed to take Remus’

side of any argument. She never vocalized disapproval,

but she always questioned our motives.

“You’re defecting…”

“Yes.”

I couldn’t control my shock or my anger or my

incomprehension any more. “You’re leaving me?”

Her voice actually cracked. “Yes.”

“You’re leaving me and you’re defecting to the

Thraiin.”

“Yes.”

“Why come here to tell me this? Why?” I tried to

hold in my fear, my rage … and my tears.

“Because Captain, as you can plainly see…the

Thraiin want to make this particular defection galaxy-

shattering news. The great Captain Riker, the man who

has done nothing more during his long career but try to

manipulate Romulan and Reman unification can’t even

convince his own brilliant daughter that it’s the right

thing to do. That Captain Riker’s own pride and joy

would rather take up the Thraiin honor blade and die

with them fighting for their independence than live under

the UFP lies anymore…”

“They’re not lies!” I tore back at him. “The

Thraiin are nothing more than a band of terrorists who

are afraid of real peace! They live only for bloodthirsty

revenge against Romulus and those Remans who support

peace!”

Pomalek bared his fangs and I lunged for him

when I heard my daughter bark from the side. “Don’t!”

She threatened with the disrupter once more. “We have

to go now.”

Pomalek bared his fangs again. “You are correct

Commander.” He turned and smiled at her. “She will

make a fine protégé William. You should be proud.”

I turned to look into the eyes of my youngest…

…my baby…

Something burned through me and I will never

know what it was. I felt every joint ache, every muscle

heat through and every internal organ cramp. It felt like

the fog had surrounded me, encompassed me and then

pressed directly into me. The burning gave way to the

deep-seeded cold and I began to shiver from it.

“Don’t,” I begged her.

She moved to stand in front of Pomalek who

moved his hands onto her shoulders like I had done

when I first laid eyes upon her. She didn’t respond

verbally. I shot a hateful glare at Pomalek who returned

his snarl with that victoriously pompous grin of his, I

then returned my gaze to my daughter’s beautiful face.

Pomalek struck a comm pin of some type and

before the shimmering white light transported my little

girl away I saw the words “I love you” form on her lips.

“CASSIDY!!!”

__________

Riker pushed his glass forward and Cap stood

and took it from him. Not knowing what to say to the

long-time customer of his bar.

Riker rubbed his eyes tiredly and glanced around

the room. People were staring at him. Every captain in

the establishment had listened to his tale and none of

them had anything to say. Most shook their heads in

feigned pity and Riker felt a bolt of anger rise from the

pit of his stomach.

“That’s right. Here sits Captain William T. Riker

– father of the most famous Thraiin defector in UFP

history.” He flicked his hand at Cap. “Thanks for

listening. Now, pour me another one…this time with no

ice.”