amado1

Out of Touch, by Jackie Paciello and Toni Lichtenstein Bogolob is a single-story zine featuring Riker, Picard, and Ensign Ro in a hurt/comfort scenario. It's illustrated heavily throughout, with full-size paintings copied in black-and-white, done by Jim Wappel. Really great illustrations imo, with a blend of portraiture and caricature.

So what's the plot?

A) Riker, Picard, Ro, and two red-shirts go planet-side on an innocent archaeological mission. They discover a crystal tower that seems to be made out of diamonds. Glyphs, activated by touch, allow Riker to enter the tower ... but once inside, the team's archaeological probe emits a hum that rises and shatters the crystals. The two red-shirts are crushed, and Riker, who pushes Picard out of harm's way, is trapped beneath a shattered pillar: his spine broken, his legs numb, with a spear of crystal going straight through his chest and another through his shoulder.

B) Data is left in charge of the Enterprise on a diplomatic mission. The crew is NOT thrilled about this, and anti-android prejudice quickly rears its ugly head. Data has been in charge before, for short periods of time, but never while both Riker and Picard were gone, and the crew is worried about how an android will handle negotiations. While balancing this, Deanna is also troubled by inexplicable sensations and dreams she's having -- a spell of faintness on the bridge, emotions that don't make sense (a sense of confinement! anxiety! fear!), and a haunting, faint sound of trombone music.

(I couldn't write that last line without grinning)

OK, to do it better justice, Deanna has a dream that starts with a trombone solo. In her dream, she follows the music to the bridge, where a full band joins in. But when she looks around, she sees all the players: keyboardist, drummer, other horn-players, all there. But the trombone player is nowhere to be seen, even though she can hear him clear as day. Confused, she asks all the crew members one by one if they've seen the trombone player, but they all just stare at her blankly, as if they didn't realize he was missing. Then the sound starts to fade, and other instruments take over the melody, the counterpoint, until she can't hear the trombone player at all.

The real emotional pull of this story is between Riker and Ro. Their contentious relationship is on full display at the start. Picard insists that Ro join them on the away team, despite zero archaeological experience and a sour attitude. Riker isn't pleased with this, but Picard draws comparisons between Ro and Tasha, which softens Riker up enough to agree. On the mission, he struggles to maintain this softness, snapping frequently at Ro and monitoring her more than he does the others -- interpreting every action as sullen and sometimes lazy. Ro, for her part, makes no effort to appear engaged, and openly sneers/rolls her eyes at everything she sees, only half-heartedly scanning the environment with her tricorder (and even then, only when directly ordered to).

When the crystal tower collapses, Riker and Ro come into agreement for the first time. The tunnel entrance is blocked, and there's no way to get out without using their phasers. But their phasers run on the same crystal as the archaeological probe, and produce the same dangerous hum that collapsed the tower in the first place. If they blast their way out, the rest of the tower will fall, and Riker -- who can't be moved -- will certainly be crushed.

But if they stay, what good does it do them? The ceiling is open now, and the planet gets deadly cold (negative 40 degrees at night; it doesn't say Fahrenheit or Celsius lol). They have only the barest medical supplies, since most of their medkit was crushed along with the doctor. Their emergency beacon and medical kit are both at the camp outside, so they can't contact the Enterprise either, unless they bust out. And worse, the remaining pillars are swaying dangerously, sending needle-thin shards of crystal down on them every time they creak to the side. If it gets windy, the tower will collapse anyway, and all three of them will die.

So Ro Laren makes the obvious choice: They must kill Riker. To her surprise (and begrudging respect), Riker agrees, and argues stubbornly with Picard about it. But Picard refuses to give in. He orders Ro to recover an emergency blanket from one of the dead bodies and lift Riker as much as possible, to give him some insulation from the cold crystal floor. When Ro does this, her hand brushes the crystal shard through Riker's chest, and he faints -- no longer able to argue his case, Picard maintains the status quo for another interminable five hours.

When he wakes, he finds himself alone with Ro. Picard has gone searching for a secondary exit. Quietly, Riker instructs Ro to search in the medkit and tell him what medication capsules are unbroken. One is a painkiller; Will is already struggling to get enough oxygen, and this painkiller will make it even harder to breathe. He orders Ro to give him the entire dose and kill him quickly, before Picard gets back, so she and Picard can make it out of here. Ro agrees readily, but when she actually loads the hypospray, she hesitates. Looking into Riker's eyes, she sees him as a person for the first time and can't bear to do it. Riker covers her hand with his, trying to force her, but he's too weak to do any pushing; it's just the weight of his hand on hers. When the cold makes him shiver, his body rattles around the spikes of crystal inside him and he faints again, and Ro is relieved of this dreadful duty.

Anyway, the interplay of emotion/tension between Riker, Ro, and Picard is brilliant. Ro's conflicted feelings, and her confusion about it, are delicious: she respects Riker ONLY because he volunteered to die ... so why is she unable to kill him? She agrees that he NEEDS to die, so she should feel glad when he gives up and slips into a deep sleep. But instead, she feels dread and worry, and even confesses to Picard, who furiously wakes Riker up and jerks him from the brink of death with threat of court-martial. It's especially fun to note the difference in action over time. At first, whenever the pillars sway and a rain of crystal shards come down, Picard is the one who covers Riker's body with his own and shields him from further harm -- while Ro watches, lip curled, losing respect for Picard steadily because of this foolishness. But by page 58, it's Ro who hurls herself over Riker, and gets stabbed through the thigh as a result.

Choice quote from Picard's POV:

"He felt a helplessness beyond anything he'd ever experienced before. Riker had saved his life, not just this time, but on countless others. Yet all he could do was watch the last vestiges of life ebb from his friend's broken body.

"Friend. It was not a word Picard bandied about lightly. But, yes, he admitted, Will Riker was his friend. Not in the way Jack Crusher had been, not a confidant, perhaps, but a friend you could rely on, one who would move Heaven and earth for you if need be.

"Will Riker had been his rock, his constant in a universe where consistency was a tenuous thread often stretched to its very limits. Strong-willed, self-assured, confident to the point of braggadocio, full of joi de vivre. Will may not have been the Captain of the Enterprise, but he had set her tone, kept her running with easy-going clockwork efficiency. Without him, there would be an emptiness, a gaping maw through which Picard feared all the energy and positive driving force of the Enterprise would be sucked away like some vast, emotional black hole."

Some notes about writing quality and typesetting:

Although the writing is mostly solid, the Deanna/Guinan/Data portions are very weak. Not enough time is devoted to the interesting plot device of Data's ethical dilemma when he's forced to choose between saving the away team or saving a nearby planet whose environmental shields are about to collapse (he chooses the away team within two pages). Deanna comes across as helpless and weepy. Guinan's dialogue is gentle, but just a bit off: not so much on a sentence-by-sentence basis, but in the way she leads Deanna to conclusions. Guinan in canon is more ... she gently agrees with the WRONG conclusion, and by doing so, innocently steers you into the right conclusion, by forcing you to argue against her. If you're convinced the sky is green, Guinan will pleasantly agree with you, and she'll belabor the point until you're tearing your hair out because OBVIOUSLY the sky is BLUE.

In addition there's a few amusing descriptors throughout -- awkward epithets like "the bald captain" or "the visored black man". Typos are mostly nonexistent, but when they're present, they're truly confusing: The last sentence of a paragraph, cut in half and pasted at the start of the paragraph! Like this:

Deanna couldn't find them. "I'm not sure," she said. "The sense I get from Commander Riker is weaker and weaker. I think he may be dying." A chill silence fell over the bridge. Now they knew the truth. The entire away team would die if

....and then there's a line break and it goes on to the next scene and you realize "Deanna couldn't find them" was in the wrong damn spot.

The sci-fi too is slightly flawed, but in a way I struggle to define. The initial mystery and set-up of the crystal tower feels as if it's missing something. Like a partially-drawn square. Three perfect sides, and one side totally missing. When the away team uses their probe, and then their phasers, it feels like a very stupid mistake, and this impression isn't shaken when Geordi reveals the secrets of the tower later on. If the Enterprise, which isn't even on the planet, knows the molecular makeup of the tower, why didn't Riker, Picard, Ro? Why did they not scan the tower and say, "Hey, this thing's molecules are made out of the same elements as our phasers! That means it's basically a giant weapon! And since it's shaped like a triangle, and hollow inside, that means any phaser fired inside it would magnify and shatter the whole thing!"

The detailed explanation of the crystal's structure is well-researched, well-reasoned, very scientific, but not fiction-y enough to inspire the imagination. All of this is something I struggle with too, mightily, re: sci-fi, so I can identify it but don't know how to fix it :(

Illustrations:

Inside cover: the good ol' Enterprise, opposite a dedication which thanks Patrick Stewart "for being bald".

Captain Picard reminds Commander Riker of Tasha Yar's slow journey, letting go of her trauma and anger. He draws comparisons between Tasha and Ro. This is my favorite illustration: I love the almost cartoony, exaggerated proportions of their bodies. A perfect caricature.

A sullen Ro questions her inclusion in the away team. Riker tells her to shut up and enjoy the fresh air. Red-shirts watch.

Data and Deanna question Picard, who insists on joining the away team. Deanna questions whether Picard's excitement over archaeology has clouded his judgment.

Love this scene! Just as they figure out a way inside the tower, Riker teases Picard by saying, "Well, it's about lunchtime. We'd better get back to camp."

A very nice portrait of Troi that I don't believe has any context at all

Minus one red-shirt (not dead yet, just standing guard) the team explores the inside of the crystal tower.

With his musical sensibility, Riker is the first to notice a strange hum reverberating throughout the tower.

Riker protects his captain and is crushed in the process.

Deanna, Beverly, and Guinan eavesdrop on a pair of prejudiced officers who aren't happy to have Data as their new captain. At the same time, Deanna senses guilt, pain, fear, and a sense of confinement, and assumes the feeling is coming from someone aboard the Enterprise. But who?

Ensign Ro attempts to blast her way out of the collapsed tower. But her phaser emits a hum just like the archaeological probe, and the walls begin to shake. At Picard's order, she desists.

Deanna dreams of a ghostly trombone player. She convinces herself this dream is not about Will, but a quick talk with Data (who gamely suggests that one of the Enterprise's OTHER trombone players is in life-threatening danger) convinces her otherwise.

Guinan gives Deanna a pep talk. This is the scene where I stopped reading to write down my grievances about How to Write Guinan.

Data makes the decision to turn the Enterprise around and rescue the away team.

Riker convinces Ro to kill him (it doesn't take much convincing) and orders her to make Picard's safety her priority. But Ro can't bring herself to pull the trigger.

Sensing that Riker has given up, Picard slaps him back into consciousness. This was another cute scene: Picard shouts like mad hell at Riker, threatening court-martial and playing the role of a tantruming admiral. When Riker wakes up, he says, "I had this strange sense that you were yelling. Something about a court-martial?" and Picard amicably says, "Oh, dear, must have been an hallucination."

The minister of a nearby planet demands the Enterprise continue its course to help them instead of returning for the away team. As the minister puts it, the Enterprise has to make a choice between millions of people ... or five away team members. This fun conundrum is lamely solved when Deanna declares, "He's exaggerating. He's just mad that we're going to be late."

Exhausted, cold, hungry, and consumed by anxiety for the unconscious Commander Riker, Picard and Ro tell each other stories -- how Picard met Guinan; what really happened with Ro's terrorist cell. These details are wisely left to the reader's imagination.

Geordi analyzes data about the crystal tower and figures out a likely reason for its collapse.

A dying Will Riker is briefly lucid, and tries to communicate to Picard that he didn't give up, but death is going to take him anyway. He's unable to speak and dies immediately after.

Worf, Deanna, Selar, and an anonymous fourth dude beam down to the planet to check the camp.

The away team discovers the collapsed tower. Deanna can sense that Picard, Ro, and Riker are close, but there's no way to break through the crystal walls. While Worf roars and cuts his hands open trying to break through, Deanna senses that Riker is gone. O'Brien manages a lock on the three trapped away team members and beams Riker's corpse directly to sickbay.

Dr. Crusher examines Riker's corpse and is aghast at the level of damage: enormous holes in his shoulder and chest, a mangled and bloodless right arm, a grotesquely swollen abdomen from internal bleeding, crushed legs and broken spine, various internal injuries...

But unlike Tasha Yar, the production team actually likes Riker, so he's revived! When he regains consciousness, he has a tender reunion with Troi, and then hoarsely calls Ro over. He holds her hand and thanks her. Only Ro and Riker know that he's thanking her for refusing to kill him.

The crew holds a surprise party for Data, showing him that despite the two prejudiced officers from earlier, most of the crew loves him and has his back. He's pleased and asks Worf, "What are you drinking?"

"Prune juice," Worf says.

"Guinan, a round of prune juice for everybody!" Data says.