Imzadi Forever Read online

  POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Interview copyright © 2003 by Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved.

  Star Trek® Imzadi copyright © 1992 by Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved.

  Star Trek® Imzadi II copyright © 1998 by Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved.

  STAR TREK is a Registered Trademark of

  Paramount Pictures.

  This book is published by Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., under exclusive license from Paramount Pictures.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7434-9264-5

  ISBN-10: 0-7434-9264-1

  First Pocket Books trade paperback edition December 2003

  POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  These titles were previously published individually by Pocket Books.

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  Contents

  Introduction

  Also By

  The End

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  The End of the Beginning

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Epilogue

  The Beginning

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  The Middle

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Chapter Forty-three

  The Beginning of the End

  Chapter Forty-four

  The events take place during. . .

  Now

  Then

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Now

  A Look Inside

  Introduction

  I had no idea when I was writing it that Imzadi was going to be the most popular book I ever produced. All I knew was that I’d been given the mandate by then-editor Kevin Ryan to write the story of how William Riker and Deanna Troi first hooked up.

  Frankly, I was just excited about the prospect of writing it. Star Trek has a great mythic, epic feel to it, and being allowed to explore such defining territory was a terrific opportunity. However, I didn’t just want to write a flashback story. I wanted to do something vast, sprawling. So Imzadi covers Riker and Troi’s past, “present,” and possible future—with a tip of the hat to Harlan Ellison, whose original concept for “City on the Edge of Forever” was that Kirk was willing to let the universe unravel in order to save Edith Keeler, and it was the emotionless Spock who made sure she died. I dropped an elderly, embittered Riker into Kirk’s position, Data into Spock’s, and the story practically wrote itself.

  The impact it had and continues to have to this day amazes me. One couple told me that they used Riker’s poem for their wedding vows. A couple of squealing teenaged female Imzadi fans, upon realizing who I was, actually jumped me in a parking lot as if I were a rock star while my horrified eldest daughter looked on.

  Imzadi II was a bit more problematic. If Imzadi was a snapshot of the happily married writer I was at the time I wrote it—producing a novel of depthless romance—Imzadi II came after my marriage went south. It presented the more dour message that things don’t always work out the way you plan. That what gives a story a happy ending is that you choose to conclude it where you do…because any story continued long enough always ends sadly, in tears and loss. On the upside, it also presented the idea that when things don’t work out, it doesn’t necessarily mean the end of one’s ability to love, even though sometimes it may feel like it. The human (or, for that matter, Klingon) capacity for resilience and seeking out new companionship is nigh infinite. It’s reflected both in the lives of the Enterprise crew and in my own moving on to a second—and quite happy, thank you—marriage. If Riker, Worf, and Troi could rebound from romantic setbacks, so could I. And so can you, if you’re reading this and are in the throes of a busted relationship.

  I am pleased and proud that Pocket is putting out this fancy-shmancy edition of these two novels. I doubt there’ll be a third, since the rest of Riker and Troi’s relationship is being chronicled elsewhere.

  I further wish to acknowledge: John Ordover, who oversaw Imzadi II, and Margaret Clark, who is seeing this edition through to fruition; the ever-cooperative Paula Bloch at Paramount; Ron[ald D.] Moore, who took it upon himself to assure me that the similarities between The Next Generation’s then-forthcoming final episode and elements of Imzadi were purely coincidence; and Jonathan Frakes, who did a sensational job reading the audio version of my adaptation of Imzadi.

  And since the first book was dedicated to my first wife, and the second book to my second wife, Kathleen, so let this edition be dedicated to the thousands of fans who have supported the two books and have taken the time to let me know how much the novels meant to them. I write all my books from the heart, but I suppose that when it’s a book about the heart, it’s more obvious. So a shout-out to romantics everywhere or, as Anna sang in The King and I,“Be brave, young lovers, and follow your star.”

  Peter David

  Long Island, New York

  September 2003

  Imzadi

  The events take place during 2366,

  just prior to Commander Riker assuming

  command of the Enterprise during the Borg

  invasion of Sector 001.

  The End

  On
e

  “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  A gentle, eerie howling was in the air, which seemed to be permeated with the haunting and lonely cries of souls that had existed or might never exist or might be in some state of limbo in between.

  In the distance was the city. Its name was unknown and would forever remain so. The air was dark and filled with a sense that a storm might break at any moment. It was that way all the time. The storm never did break. It just threatened to do so. The very withholding of the actual event implied that, should that storm ever arrive, it might very well bring with it enough power to wash away all vestiges of that remarkable intangible called reality.

  None of that mattered to the man who was the leader. The man in the greenish yellow shirt, whose mind was elsewhere and elsewhen. Behind him stood his friends, his crew. They waited patiently. For a moment it appeared that he was wondering just how long they would be capable of waiting. What were the limits of their patience? The limits of their confidence in the man who was their captain?

  But it was clear that he was not going to test those limits. A man who had been driven to go out and explore new places, discover new frontiers…this man had finally found a place filled with potentially endless vistas of exploration. Anywhere, anywhen. And his response was not to embrace it. No, all he wanted to do was leave it behind, to get as far away from it as possible.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here.” The words hung there a moment, startling in their vehemence, in the longing and resignation and overall sense of Oh, God, I can’t stand it anymore, get me away from here, away to a place where I don’t have to think or feel, to a place where I can just be numb.

  The crew took several small steps closer to each other. To a degree it was out of reflex, to make sure that they would be well within range of the transporter effect. But there was something else as well this time. It was an unspoken desire to try to lend support by dint of the fact that they were there for him. There was nothing they could say or do. Indeed, they didn’t even fully understand what was going through the captain’s mind.

  They did not yet know the sacrifices their commanding officer had made. Did not know that, in the best tradition of romance, he had found a part of his soul existing in a woman and had been drawn to her. And then had lost that part of his soul, which he hadn’t fully realized he was missing in the first place. Lost it beneath the screeching of tires, under a truck’s wheels…

  Not just the wheel of a truck. A wheel of history, an unrelenting, unyielding cog that had ground up his love and his soul and spit them both out, bloodied and battered…and broken.

  Yes, that was the difference that the crew sensed this time in their captain. Many a time had he been battered…but as the old saying went, “Battered but un-bowed.” This time, though…he was bowed.

  They got the hell out of there.

  And Commodore Data watched them go.

  She was simply called Mary Mac. Her last name actually began with a sound approximating “Mac,” but the rest was a major tongue twister. As a result, the other scientists addressed her as “Mary Mac.”

  Mary Mac was extremely peculiar. For one thing, she was an Orion. This in itself was not particularly unusual. She was, however, fully clothed. This was unusual, as the vast majority of Orion women existed purely to be the sex toys of men in general and Orion men in particular. They were known as vicious and deadly fighters and radiated sex the way suns radiated heat…and indeed, some thought, a bit more intensely.

  Mary Mac’s skin was green, as was standard for an Orion woman. In every other aspect, however, she was markedly different from the rest of her kind. She wore loose-fitting clothes…deliberately loose so as to do nothing that could potentially emphasize the formidable curves of her body. Because she liked her arms unencumbered, her tunic was short sleeved, although an off-the-shoulder cape was draped stylishly around her. She had long, jet-black hair, but rather than hanging saucily around her shoulders, it was delicately and elaborately braided…certainly not an ugly hairstyle, but hardly one that would inflame the senses.

  Most incredibly…she wore glasses. They had a slight tint and huge frames.

  Nobody wore glasses. They were considered to be phenomenally out-of-date as well as unattractive.

  Which is why she wore them.

  Mary Mac regretted, every so often, that she felt a need to “dress down,” as it were, so that she could operate within society. She was, however, used to it. There were precious few prejudices that one had to deal with in the day-to-day operations of the United Federation of Planets, but one of the few remaining was that all Orion women were nothing but animalistic sex kittens. It was an understandable notion because that description did indeed fit virtually all Orion women, including most of the ones whom Mary Mac had ever met.

  It did not, however, fit her, and if she had to go to extremes to get her point across, well…then so be it. Her “look” had gotten her quite far. It had, in fact, been something of a plus. People would be interested and amused by her as she would discuss some involved or arcane bit of scientific lore…interested because usually they’d never heard an Orion woman put together a sentence of more than five or so words, and amused because they’d smugly be waiting for her to revert to type any moment. She never did, of course. She’d trained too long and too hard to allow that to happen. As a result she was always a bit of a surprise, and throughout the galaxy, people loved to be surprised.

  Which is why Mary Mac had worked her way up through the ranks and eventually landed the assignment of project administrator on Forever World.

  The planet did not have an official name. Somehow it had seemed presumptuous for any mere mortal to give it one…somewhat like painting a mustache on the face of God. It had simply been nicknamed Forever World, and that was what had stuck.

  She passed her associate coordinator, Harry, who didn’t seem to notice her. A muscular and dark-hued terran, Harry’s attention was fully on a set of equations or some other bit of scientific data on a palm-sized computer padd. “Hi, Harry,” she said to him as he walked past. He waved distractedly and continued on his way. He had probably already forgotten that he’d been addressed at all, much less by Mary Mac.

  Mary Mac made her way across the compound, nodding or conversing briefly with other scientists on the project. One of the odder aspects of conversation on the Forever World was that one tended to speak in a hushed voice. There was no particular reason for it. It certainly wasn’t mandated by law or tradition. But somehow, particularly when one was standing outside and the eerie howling filled one’s ears and one’s soul, the speaking voice tended to drop to a soft tone that could best be described as “subdued”…and perhaps even a bit fearful. Mary had once commented that it always seemed as if the cosmos was hanging on your every word here. It was an assessment that had been generally agreed with.

  The gravel crunched under Mary Mac’s boots as she got to the other side of the compound and headed toward the reason for the perpetual presence of a half dozen or so scientists on the Forever World.

  Just ahead of her was the only other constant noise that existed aside from the mournful sigh of the wind, and that was a steady, constant hum of a force field. She stepped over a rise, and as always, there it was.

  As always was not a term used lightly, or incorrectly. As near as anyone could tell, the Guardian of Forever had always been there, and would most likely always be there.

  The force field that had been erected around it was ostensibly to protect the unique archaeological discovery from any potential ravagers. But in point of fact, it was there for a subtly different reason. Namely, to protect life (as it was known) from itself.

  Erected just outside the force field was a free-standing platform about two meters tall. An array of readouts charted the energy fluxes that surged around the Guardian of Forever within the force field. There were, in addition, two small lights, one brightly glowing red, the other pulsing a very soft green.

&nb
sp; To the right of the platform was a large screen. It offered, in essence, a taped delay. When a request for a period was made on the Guardian, it ran so quickly that the best anyone could hope to perceive was fleeting images. But the screen would then capture those images and play specifically requested moments in a more accessible fashion.

  At this particular moment, the Guardian had finished yet another run-through of a particular era. It was now silent, displaying nothing, waiting with its infinite patience for the next request from an audience.

  Standing outside the field, staring at the Guardian, was an android. Playing out on the screen, having been recorded moments before for replay, was a scene very familiar to Mary Mac.

  She stopped and simply took in for a moment the irony of the situation. On one level, what she was seeing was one machine watching another. But neither of them were simple machines. Both of them had sentience, which raised them from the level of machine to the status of…something else. Something unclassifiable.

  The very thought of something that could not easily be labeled or pigeonholed was anathema to Mary Mac, and yet at the same time the existence of such things was a pleasant reminder that no one could ever fully know every wrinkle that the universe had to offer…and that, therefore, a scientist’s work would never, ever, be finished.

  Her first inclination had been to think of the android, despite the rank of commodore, as an “it.” Just as she had thought of the Guardian as an “it” before coming to the Forever World. However, shortly after she’d met Commodore Data, she’d found herself forced to revise her opinion and mentally elevate the commodore to a “he.” As for the Guardian, she was still trying to get that sorted out. The best she could come up with at the moment was a “whatever.” Or perhaps, more accurately, a “whenever.”

  Data stood there, his back to Mary Mac, hands draped just below the base of his spine. The stark black and green lines of his uniform, with the silver trim on the arms and trouser cuffs, seemed to shimmer in the perpetual twilight of the horizon. His attention shifted momentarily from the Guardian to the scene being replayed on the screen.