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It had not been a good day. He stared down at the half written note next to the half drunk bottle of whiskey thinking only of his mistakes.
Will had been leading an away mission to Adonis III; one that had been pitched by Jean-Luc as being straightforward and quick- uncomplicated.
Get in, share airs and graces with the ambassadors, make sure they weren’t going to photon torpedo each other into oblivion anytime soon, and leave.
This clearly had not turned out to be the case.
The moment Starfleet feet had touched the ground, the away team had come under fire. As it had happened, Starfleet’s ‘detailed’ intel had left out the complete collapse of society on Adonis III. The government had splintered, falling into different factions, and devolving into an all out civil war. Simply, the Enterprise and her away team had been too late.
Riker did everything he was trained to. He ordered Worf and the two junior security officers, Ensign Garret and Ensign Reiner to hit the deck and find cover, but neither Ensign made it to the ground alive. Will cursed and ran to a path nestled between two walls, pressing his back against one, breathing harshly as he looked around for his Klingon companion; his only thought being ‘I hope to God he made it’.
Shortly, Riker spotted him. Worf appeared unharmed, admittedly rattled, or rather as rattled as a Klingon could look, but uninjured. Will breathed a sigh of relief, hideously glad it hadn’t been three losses rather than two, but placed the emotions aside to finally assess the area.
They had beamed down in what appeared to be the middle of a no-man’s land; in front of him there was an uncountable number of hostiles, all barred up and firing from a crudely constructed barricade- the same applying for the opposing side, to the point that Riker was surprised they weren’t just shooting at a mirror.
He then reached for his comm badge to contact the Enterprise, feeling for the cool piece of metal on his uniform, only to find that it was not at its usual place on his chest. ‘Shit,’ he thought. He frantically searched the ground, desperate to find where it could have dropped. Then his eyes landed on it, glinting in the light, almost mocking him as it had landed in the middle of the phaser bolt exchange, between the bodies of his fellow officers. He swiftly concluded that there was absolutely no way he was getting to it.
It was then he felt a brief wave of despair wash over him. It had occurred to him that perhaps fuck all could be done, that they should be left to phaser burn their political neighbours to high hell. That’s what they did to his crew members after all, but as soon as he felt it he shoved it down. No, he had been given a mission. He couldn’t in good conscience leave this planet without trying, so cease fire it was.
In conclusion, the cease fire was unsuccessful. Although he and Worf had effectively brought a halt to the firing, it proved only temporary. As Starfleet, they were identified as an unwelcome third party to the conflict, earning Worf a phaser bolt to the knee and Riker one to his left side. Breathing hard through clenched teeth, he had fallen conveniently next to his comm badge so, through the searing agony, he reached for the communicator and fought out, “Riker to Enterprise, two for emergency beam out.“
They rematerialised back in Transporter room two, both officers feeling nauseous from the pain and blood loss. It had transpired that Riker‘s wound had not entirely cauterised, leaving his hands, and the transporter pad, slick with his blood. His attempts at stopping the river of blood gushing from his side were being swiftly dashed, he was weakening worryingly quickly.
The first face he saw was the Captain‘s, but any words Picard had said faded into the violent ringing filling his ears. He tried to mutter a heartbroken and regretful apology for his failure, but unconsciousness took him fast, the world fading into a comfortable black nothingness.
Of course Beverly patched both himself and Worf up. Worf was using a temporary knee brace for a few days, very much against his will, and Riker, although still woozy from blood loss and pain, had been mostly healed; only a fragile but healing scab remained from his wound, covered by a dermal regenerative patch. He was discharged from Sickbay on the condition to take it easy; terms to which he had agreed to, but swiftly ignored. He went straight to his quarters, showered, put on a fresh uniform and grabbed his PADD. Then pulling out a bottle of old fashioned Earth whiskey, he ignored the glasses lined up on a near by shelf and walked to his table. He sat down and began typing.
It was 5 hours later that he had come to reminisce on how truly shit his day had been.
He was half a bottle down, sleep deprived and staring at the half typed commiseration letter to the wife of Ensign Reiner. He was thinking purely of how many times he had fucked up.
He could have done this differently, he could have done that differently, but really the only thing that was sticking in his mind was that people had died. People with families. People with lives.
With that, he put the PADD down; he was still drunkenly staring at it on the table, the blinking cursor taunting him. He emotionlessly stood up, stumbling ungracefully to his bed. He collapsed on it, face down; closing his eyes to the thought, ‘not every story has a happy ending.’