“I guess it’s my turn, then,” he said at last. “To walk away.”

“Looks like it,” Felicia agreed. “Since it’s my room and all.”

Nothing left to say, Will rose and went to the door. He caught a final glimpse of Felicia, the most beautiful, loving woman he had ever known, sitting curled up on her couch, knees pulled against her chest, arms wrapped around her legs, and he walked out.

And she didn’t say anything to stop him.

Chapter 28

Even at the time, those last months, weeks, and days of Starfleet Academy ran together in a kind of watercolor blur for Will Riker. By the time a couple of years had passed, he was almost completely unable to remember the precise sequence of events that had transpired. As he was living it, he couldn’t see any rhyme or pattern, just work and more work.

He got up in the morning, forcing himself out of bed even though he didn’t feel like he’d had nearly enough sleep. Usually, he hadn’t. But when he rolled from his bed, the first thing he did was to check the computer, to make sure that any notes he’d made the night before—he had, in recent weeks, developed a habit of waking up at various times during the night with fresh ideas and inspirations—were, in fact, comprehensible. Then he quickly scanned the material he’d studied before going to bed. After a rushed breakfast, he dashed off to his first class. A series of classes interspersed with brief study breaks followed. In late afternoon, after his last class, he went to the gym for a hurried workout, then showered and had dinner. After dinner it was up to his room for more studying until he either dozed off at the computer or could no longer retain what he was working on. That was when he finally allowed himself to go to bed, only to begin the whole process again in a few hours.

But somehow, he got through it, and his grades, when he saw them, were the highest he had ever received. Around campus there was mixed relief and concern at grade time, as those who had done well hurried to call friends and family and share the news, and those who had not agonized over their missteps and the possible cost to their future careers. Will didn’t have any family to contact, though, if you didn’t count his father who, he was pretty sure, was still missing someplace. And he hadn’t seen much of his friends lately—some, like Dennis and Felicia, wanted nothing to do with him, and the rest had been more or less abandoned in the mad rush toward finals and graduation.

Now that it was over, Will could exhale and start working on mending some of those fences, he figured. But his relief turned out to be a little premature. With graduation looming, that meant, he had every reason to believe, posting to a starship, and there was work to be done in preparation for that. He spent what seemed like hours filling out the documentation necessary for a Starfleet assignment, and he had to pack his personal items, some of which he simply gave away, or recycled, on the theory that a starship berth wouldn’t give him a whole lot of personal space. And then, before he knew it, graduation day was upon him.

“I’m no Federation president or galactic celebrity,” their graduation speaker began, his plain, folksy voice amplified to fill the cavernous space of the Academy’s vast auditorium. “I’m just a country doctor who has become sort of important, if at all, simply because I’ve managed to outlive all of my enemies.” Admiral Leonard H. McCoy looked out across the ocean of cadets, and Will could see the blue of his eyes even from his seat midway back. His tuft of hair was as white as the dress uniform he wore. “And some of my friends, too, I’m sorry to say. And I guess that’s what I’m here to talk to you all about today.

“You’ve finished your time at the Academy, which is a hell of an accomplishment, and you’ve every right to be proud of yourselves. But don’t sprain your arms pattin’ yourselves on the back, because what you’ve really done is just the first step in a long process. From here, you become Starfleet officers. Like a lot of Starfleet officers before you, including my best friend in the world, James Tiberius Kirk, some of you will be asked to give your lives in the service of Starfleet. Nobody wants to make that sacrifice—nobody wants to ask you to make it, either—but when they do, when the time comes, if it does, I hope you’ll do it in the spirit of the great Starfleet officers who went before you.

“Your chosen career is one in which violence sometimes plays a part. As a doctor and I hope some kind of humanitarian—though if you ever call me that to my face I’ll knock you on your keister—I abhor violence. I detest it, and I have always tried, and will always try to find a way to avoid it, like a barn mouse tryin’ to keep away from the farmhouse cat. But I also recognize that there are times when it’s necessary, and when it has been, then I’ve tried to face it head-on. I hope you’ll do the same.”

Will listened to McCoy, enjoying the old doctor’s thoroughly informal presentation. The graduates were seated alphabetically in the front section of the auditorium, with family, friends, and observers filling out the rest of the room, and Will sat between Paul Rice and an Andorian named Ritthar. On Paul’s other side was a guy he knew only in passing named Vince Reggiani. Will could see the back of Felicia’s head, a couple of rows in front of him, but she never seemed to turn around. Will’s achievement had been better than he’d dared hope for—he had finished eighth in his class, and that knowledge filled him with satisfaction and a little bit of anxiety, as if he had raised his own bar and would now have to continue to perform at that level. He thought he could do it, but if it meant pushing himself as he’d been doing for the last months of Academy work, he would either burn out fast or simply fall apart trying.

“I started out saying I was just a country doctor,” McCoy was saying. “And that’s true. But unlike some others, I’m a country doctor who has seen incredible sights. I’ve seen sunrise on Jupiter and sunset on New France. I’ve danced with a woman who was born on Rigel VI, and I’ve listened to an orchestra made up entirely of non-humanoid, energy-based life-forms whose instruments were part of their own anatomy. I’ve set foot on close to a hundred planets, and been nearly killed, kidnapped, or knocked in the head on almost half of those. For all the trouble I’ve seen, all the war and strife and danger, I wouldn’t trade my life for anyone else’s, anywhere, country doctor or no. I trust, when you’ve reached the end of the career that you’re just beginning today, you’ll be able to say the same thing, and mean it.

“Keep that in mind as you take your next step, as you become Starfleet officers, and as you grow into the men and women that you will be. The best thing to say at the end of your life is that you don’t regret a thing. Tomorrow, that new life will start, for each of you—you woke up this morning students, and you will wake up tomorrow officers. It’s a big change, don’t kid yourself into thinking it’s not. And I only have one more thing to say about that.” McCoy threw his hands into the air. “Congratulations, graduates of 2357! You’ve earned yourselves a party!”

This was met by a wild chorus of applause and cheers from the assembled graduates, and Admiral McCoy left the stage amidst the tumult. As was traditional, after that, each graduate was called to the stage by name to receive a diploma, and when the last one was handed out the graduates burst into a new round of cheering, before dispersing to find friends and family members with whom to celebrate their accomplishment.

Will was momentarily lost in the noise and chaos. He had no one to seek out, and his friends had all vanished toward the back of the big room. But as he turned in a slow circle, he saw Dennis Haynes, face flushed, walking nearby.