Ronarek stood. “I think these negotiations are over.”
“You’re insane!” Noi shouted at the hologram. “Forcing that kind of collapse inside a quantum lock is like setting a fire in a pressure chamber! You’ll intensify the destruction. The damage to subspace will tear apart this system, cause chaos across the whole sector! Billions will die!”
The blurred figure shrugged. “The Borg killed over sixty billion not far from there, just over a year earlier. In the grand sweep of history, a few billion more deaths, a slightly larger volume of devastation, will make little difference.” Though the hologram’s face was featureless, Dulmur was certain he was smiling. “My Augments will be remembered. But the lot of you, I fear, will be no more than a footnote.”
XXI
Timespace
Axis of Time Power Station
c. 1,409 Millennia After Present
Garcia had never regretted the absence of transporters so much. Though it was only about a 1,500-kilometer flight from the Vomnin outpost to the uptime terminus, a journey of mere minutes, it felt like an eternity. Lirahn had a head start on them, in more ways than one, and Garcia had no idea if they would reach her before she activated the Siri device and allowed the supernova’s energies to pour freely into the Axis and beyond.
The Starfleet teams from both Asimov and Capitoline had come with them to provide muscle, and it proved necessary. Lirahn’s enthralled forces met them in the power station’s hangar as soon as their shuttles landed, and a phaser battle was joined. It was Garcia’s first real firefight, and she could barely keep track of what was happening in all the noise and blinding light and confusion. But she stayed close to Ranjea, and soon she realized that the Starfleet team had given them a path to the exit. “Come on!” shouted a lavender-haired Catullan guard whose name Garcia didn’t know. She followed him and Ranjea into the corridors, their tricorders leading them toward the power core. Before they got there, two more guards pinned them down with particle fire. The Catullan stunned one of them, but the other fired a beam that grazed his hip, felling him. Ranjea took that guard down a second later.
Ranjea ran toward the security crewman, but the Catullan waved him off. “I’ll manage! Stop her before we all burn!”
So it was up to the two of them to confront Lirahn and save the Axis. Garcia tried not to think about it. This wasn’t supposed to be a DTI job! They were investigators, not fighters! But the job, she reminded herself, was whatever it needed to be to protect the timeline.
Luckily, they weren’t immolated in supernova fire before they reached Lirahn. But she already had the Siri device, a jury-rigged array of crystals, opti-cable, and what looked like bioneural circuitry packs, hooked into the power core, a massive construct like a vault door with a glowing hemisphere in the center. Ranjea pulled out his phaser, Garcia following. “Lirahn!” the Deltan called. “Step away from the device.”
She turned to them and smiled. “Come now. You don’t want me to do that, do you? Not when I’m so close. You wouldn’t want me to be disappointed.”
Garcia felt her aim wavering. She didn’t want to shoot, didn’t want to stop Lirahn. She strove to remember that was an illusion the Selakar was placing in her mind.
Ranjea managed to hold his focus better. “Lirahn, listen. That device isn’t calibrated to handle the energies you’re tapping into. It could tear open the interfaces. The supernova would be unleashed to destroy all life within the Axis and for parsecs around all its interfaces.”
“Oh, dear boy, I appreciate your concern, but do you really think I’m not aware of that? I’ve calculated how long the process will take. My ship should be fast enough to make it back to my era in time and warp away from the danger zone.”
“And what about everyone else?” Garcia demanded. “They’ll die!”
Lirahn shrugged. “If they’re too slow, that’s their own fault.”
“And what if they try to stop you?” Ranjea asked. “Their ships are closing in. We were here first, but they won’t be far behind. They could slow you down until it’s too late.”
“This is my chance to regain real power,” Lirahn told him. “It’s worth the risk for that.”
Ranjea took a step forward. “For power?” he asked in a gentle voice. “Or to avoid living with the loss of everything you knew, everything you had? Believe me, Lirahn, I understand that pain. Teresa and I, we both understand that sense of loss. We understand the desire to fill it with something.”
“He’s right,” Garcia said, following his lead. “It can be overwhelming. You’d do anything to satisfy that craving.”
He threw her a look: Let me do the talking. She nodded, understanding instantly. “But don’t you understand, Lirahn?” Ranjea asked. “If your life is ruled by desire, by the pursuit of what you do not have, then it will only lead to frustration . . . for, no matter how much you have, you will always want more.” As he spoke, moving subtly closer and drawing Lirahn’s attention away from her, Garcia began to creep around behind the Selakar. “Desire is a trap, Lirahn. The path to fulfillment is to let go of desire and craving, to learn to find the joy in what life gives you.”
Lirahn’s smile widened. “But that’s exactly what I’m doing, my dear. I know I can’t have it all. My time in the Axis has shown me that. I can never have an empire that lasts forever. I can never have my name heralded and worshipped down through the ages. I know that, no matter what I do, eventually it will all be forgotten, eroded away over the span of cosmic time. So I’ve learned to accept the limits on what I can have. I don’t care if I rewrite your precious history or not. I don’t care if my rule reshapes the galaxy or even outlasts my own lifetime.” She spread her hands insouciantly. “All I want is to enjoy the rewards of ultimate power over a few paltry billions for the few hundred years I have left. Can’t you allow me that small indulgence?”
“And what about all the billions you’ll kill along the way?”
“What about them? From where we stand—quite literally,” she added with a wry smile, gesturing around them—“they’ve all been dead for ages anyway.”
Garcia felt a surge of anger at the Selakar’s callousness. Perhaps what made her angriest was that she understood it. How was it any different from her own detachment at unearthing relics of civilizations lost in ancient cataclysms, or thrilling at the excavation of a well-preserved corpse? Could she really blame someone from Temarel’s time or Shiiem’s for failing to shed a tear over her own death, or the deaths of sixty-three billion people in the Borg invasion?
She realized that Lirahn was looking over her shoulder now, directly at Garcia, and wearing a less pleasant smile than before. “You poor dear,” she purred. “You’re so right.” What does any of it matter in the cosmic scale, dear? We’re all just relics and fossils waiting to happen. Soon enough, nobody will remember our names, nobody will know or care what we did. None of it will ever make a difference. So what’s the point? Why even try?
She lost track of where Lirahn’s thoughts ended and hers began. I’m already a relic. I should’ve died sixteen years ago, a million years ago. I should’ve died on the Verity. I should’ve let them kill me. Those sixty-three billion people . . . all dead because I believed it made a difference how a few petty decades unfolded. I should’ve taken my punishment for that.
No! she thought, fighting it. We need to learn from pain. Not erase its lessons.
But the other voice within her was implacable. But what if you learn that some pain is too much to endure? Her phaser hand lifted, turned inward, toward her own head.
“No! Teresa!” Ranjea rushed to her, grabbed her arm before she could bring the nozzle to bear, but she resisted, and he didn’t dare risk greater force. “Fight it, Teresa. Don’t let her take you.”
“Ooh,” Lirahn said, leering at their embrace. “That’s unexpected. The little primitive is more than just a plaything to you. You cherish her.” She chuckled. “For all your platitudes, you crave her. And the way her body reacts to you . .
. oh, this will be much more entertaining.”
Lirahn concentrated on Ranjea, and a moment later, his scent became stronger, overpowering, filling Garcia with instant arousal and need. Dropping the phaser, she clutched his body closer, felt his heat, knew he was as aroused as she was. “No . . .” he gasped, trying but failing to keep his hands from roving over her body. “You mustn’t . . . you don’t know what this will do to her . . .”
“To her? Dear Ranjea, what about the things all this deprivation has been doing to you? You shouldn’t have to be alone anymore. And neither should she. Think of how you’ve been hurting her all this time, cheating her out of what she needed most.” Lirahn’s hand stroked his smooth, nude scalp. “But it’s all right now. I give you permission. Share what you both deserve.”
His lips engulfed hers, and it was like no kiss they’d ever shared. This time it was a Deltan kiss, the opening of a connection that went far beyond the physical. She felt his arousal, his pleasure, and he felt hers, and it fed back through them both, amplifying every touch, every motion. Having fabric between their bodies became intolerable, agonizing to two halves striving to become a whole. Their hands moved swiftly, surely, to divest one another of the lifeless encumbrance. They moved as one, feeling each other’s every response, every need. In moments the clothing was gone, and all that remained was flesh exploring flesh. Her sense of self had migrated beyond her head, inhabiting her lips, her hands, her breasts, her loins, every part of herself. She could feel it starting to move beyond even that, spreading to encompass both their bodies at once. While she retained some lingering sense of separateness, her touch eagerly explored every inch of the body that would soon join her in oneness, delighting in its smoothness, its firmness, fascinated by the intimate discovery of the ways in which Deltan anatomy was just different enough from human to be compelling while still oh so compatible.
And at the same time, she felt him, his feelings, his hopes, his connection to the things he valued. Such a fear of isolation, making her loneliness seem trivial in comparison. And such a deep attachment to her, a depth of affection he had longed to express. Now it could finally be his. They would be one forevermore, and he would never be alone again. And she would never be herself again. She would be lost forever in the joy of their unity, all her guilt and doubt forgotten. Lirahn was right; it was a better way to go.
Lirahn! she thought, and she became more aware of herself for a moment. There was something important they needed to do, something Lirahn was doing . . . but then he touched her just where she needed to be touched the most, just the way that would give her the most ecstasy, and she was lost in sensation again.
Until she heard Lirahn’s laughter. “Oh, this is much better! Very athletic, both of you. I didn’t think the girl had it in her. Ohh, if I had time, I’d join you. Well, maybe I’ll take you with me.”
If I had time . . .
Time . . .
Garcia opened her eyes. Or at least, her free-floating consciousness, centered somewhere between her fourth and sixth chakras, became aware that her eyes had opened. She instructed her head to turn toward Lirahn. The chocolate-
brown Selakar woman with her green-gold scalp and dark green jumpsuit was working on the strange blue-and-silver-and-black device connected below the large white hemisphere, which was getting brighter, oh so blindingly bright, intensifying every color in the room. They were all so pretty to look at. So dazzling and colorful and satisfying.
Except for those two piles of gray cloth lying crumpled near her head. Those were so dull. So ordinary. There was no joy in them, only . . .
Duty.
Dedication.
Responsibility.
Time.
“DTI,” she gasped. “Ranjea . . . we’re DTI. We have . . . a job to do.”
Later. She couldn’t tell whether he spoke it or thought it. We’re so close now. Almost united.
She wanted that so badly. But the light was still getting brighter. And she’d gotten used to being isolated—with a lot of help from her best friend. “We are united. We’re partners. We . . .” She searched her feelings, her memories of their months together. So much love, so much understanding . . . but not through flesh and passion. Through kind mentoring and guidance . . . through sharing the load, no matter how terrifying or tedious the responsibility . . . through the obligation they both felt to make amends to time itself for their failures. A burden that was lightened because they bore it together.
“Riroa,” she told him. “Think of Riroa. You loved her. She lives on in you.” And in turn, she thought of the billions whose loss she had to live with, whose sacrifice she struggled to give meaning through her work.
The passion they shared was still strong, their connection all but total. Yet now responsibility and duty echoed through that connection as well as love. Each of their returning resolves reinforced the other’s just as their passion had before. They didn’t break the bond so much as redirect it.
What followed was still physical, still intensely stimulating. They used their bodies as they had been trained, lunging at Lirahn. Taken by surprise, no doubt unused to defending herself physically, the statuesque Selakar nonetheless had the size and reach to hold her own at first, knocking them back and drawing a weapon. The light behind her still brightened, the room growing hotter by the second. “Idiots! Let me go or we’re all doomed!”
But the partners still felt one another’s bodies even though they were separated, and they still moved as one. When she feinted, he moved in to disarm. When he overbalanced the foe, she struck low to bring her down. When she pinned Lirahn’s legs, he struck with precision at her neck and chest, generating just enough overpressure within her circulatory system to render her unconscious.
Still acting as one, Ranjea dashed to the Siri device while Garcia retrieved her phaser and stunned Lirahn to keep her neutralized. Vikei had given them instructions, so it wasn’t long before the light began to dim again.
It was still quite hot, though, and Garcia realized she was sweating profusely. Then she realized that she was becoming aware of inhabiting her body again. Her parietal lobe, with its associated sense of the self as a distinct entity, was kicking back in. She no longer felt Ranjea’s body as a part of her. Though when she looked at him, her heart still raced and she couldn’t look away.
“Ah,” Ranjea said, a bit awkwardly. “Her influence seems to be wearing off.” She could see him bringing his arousal under control, feel the diminution of his overpowering scent. Still, she was grinning like an idiot at the sight of him, the memory of him.
Holding her gaze, he strode over to his suit and tossed hers over. “Aw, do you have to get dressed?” she asked. “It’s awfully hot in here.”
“I think it’s a good idea,” he replied, glancing toward the entryway. Garcia looked over to see that the remaining conscious members of the Starfleet team had finally arrived. All of them male.
“A-huh!” she got out, snatching her suit and hastening to dress. Ranjea cleared his throat and drew the men’s attention.
“It’s secure now,” he told them. “The crisis is passed.”
“Good job,” said the lieutenant in charge as his men moved to take Lirahn into custody.
“My partner deserves the credit,” Ranjea said, smiling at her with great warmth. “Her strength and sense of duty saved the entire Axis, and far more.”
She blushed under his praise . . . and looked over his now-clothed body with deep regret. I never thought I’d feel so disappointed to save a universe.
XXII
Crunch Time A D-Day
Third Moon of Rakon IV
Eleventh Hour
Conditions were growing worse inside the quantum-locked lunar facility. The quantum stabilizer fields that protected the time agents, physicists, and Enterprise officers were weakening, and it was a tossup whether they would break down before reality itself did. Outside the fields, the battles were intensifying as the Romulan Augments did everything they could t
o worsen the fighting. By now, all the factions had duplicates from different time frames or quantum branches overlapping with each other, so even if some could be persuaded to stand down, there were still others from subjectively earlier times, unaware of the agreements that had been made. It was easy for the Augments to stir them up into attacking one another, using their various temporal devices to try to jump back or forward and outmaneuver each other, to lock each other in temporal stasis, or the like. All of it was making the spacetime metric within the facility ever more unstable, ever closer to collapse.
Worse, a band of Starfleet TIC shock troops from Ducane’s timeship, enhanced with cybernetic implants of some sort, had apparently been sent to back Ducane up at some point, in some other time branch. They were engaged in battle with virtually everyone, trying to trap them all in temporal stasis bubbles or just shoot them. When the time agents and Enterprise team tried to approach them and warn them of the problem, they came under fire and had to retreat to cover. “Why are they firing at us?” Worf demanded. “Can they not tell we are Starfleet?”
“You’re not their Starfleet,” Ducane said. “Our stabilizer field gives off a temporal signature. They’re reacting to us as a threat.”
“Typical,” Noi snarled. “Shoot first and try to stitch history together afterwards.”
“Can you two play nice for once?” Dulmur demanded. “Ducane, talk to them!”
“I’m not going back out there! Didn’t you see? They were with one of me, one of the duplicates that branched off here. As long as they have one of me, the others are an acceptable loss.”
Dulmur shook his head, disturbed to see what Starfleet would degenerate into by the twenty-ninth century. He took heart that reforms had evidently set in by Jena Noi’s time—or in her timeline. He still wasn’t clear on whether she and Ducane came from the same future. Given what Noi had said earlier about the Gordian knot of the Cold War, maybe they weren’t clear on that either.
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