Destiny: The Complete Saga: Gods of Night, Mere Mortals, and Lost Souls

by David Mack

  She paused in the open doorway to the triage center, which was packed almost to capacity. Patients lay on beds arranged in long parallel rows. Most of them were unconscious; a few stared blankly at the overhead. Multiple copies of the ship’s female-personality EMH—Emergency Medical Hologram—moved from bed to bed, assessing the criticality of new patients as they arrived.

  Closer to Crusher, the ship’s senior counselor, a Bajoran man named Dr. Hegol Den, kneeled beside a wounded young medic and conversed in soothing whispers with the shaken Trill woman. Crusher admired Hegol’s gentle bedside manner; for a moment she lamented that he lacked the surgical training to do more for the wounded, but then she noted the generally subdued mood in the triage facility, and she realized that much of it was likely the product of Hegol’s calm attention.

  From the main sickbay compartment, she heard Dr. Tropp’s voice get louder and pitch upward with frustration. She turned back and watched a moment she had witnessed far too many times before: a surgeon fighting a losing battle against injuries so severe that nothing short of a miracle could fix them.

  “Push one-twenty-five triox,” Tropp snapped at his trio of assistants. “Cortical stims to two-eighty-five! Dammit, th’Shelas, that artery’s bleeding again!”

  “V-fib,” said medical technician Zseizaz, through a vocoder that rendered the buzzes and clicks of his insectile Kaferian language into recognizable phonetics.

  “Charge to three hundred,” Tropp said.

  “Belay that,” Crusher cut in. “Your patient has total organ failure, and her EEG flatlined four minutes ago.” She hated to pull rank, but Tropp could be obsessive in times like this, and she couldn’t afford to let him fixate on one lost cause when there were a dozen other lives in need of his help.

  Tropp stared back at her, wild-eyed, and his nurse, his technician, and his intern all watched him. Then his shoulders slumped and his head followed. When he lifted his head again, Crusher saw in his eyes that he knew what he had to do.

  He shut off the surgical arch. “Time of death, 0227.” Zseizaz and th’Shelas removed the surgical arch, and Tropp waved over a pair of medical assistants to remove the body. Then he nodded to Nurse Amavia and said, “Let’s go see who’s next.”

  Crusher watched the assistants transfer the body of the dead Bajoran engineer to an antigrav gurney. With decorum and gentility they stretched a clean blue sheet over the body from head to toe and guided it away from the living patients, into the recesses of sickbay, to the morgue, where it would be placed in stasis pending its final journey home to its next of kin.

  Over in the triage center, Tropp and Amavia zeroed in on a patient and directed Zseizaz and th’Shelas to move the wounded Tellarite officer to a biobed in sickbay.

  The fight goes on, Crusher told herself. Then she impelled herself into motion, and summoned medical technician Ellwood Neil to join her as she crossed the compartment to find a case of her own. “Look for criticals,” she said to the sharp-eyed young man. “I’m in the mood to work miracles tonight.”

  * * *

  “A subspace tunnel to the Gamma Quadrant,” said Captain Picard, sounding intrigued by Captain Dax’s account of how the Aventine had found itself in a position to charge to the Enterprise’s rescue. He reclined his chair from his ready room desk and continued, “That’s a remarkable discovery, Captain.”

  “I’ll tell my science officer you said so.”

  Commander Bowers, who had accompanied Dax on this visit to the Enterprise, added, “It was Mister Helkara’s suggestion to look for the subspace tunnel in the first place.”

  Picard nodded at Bowers and replied, “It sounds like you’re blessed with an excellent crew.”

  “The best in the fleet,” Bowers boasted. Worf, who was standing on Picard’s right behind the desk, shot a fierce, challenging stare at Bowers, who quickly and nervously added, “Present company excluded, of course.”

  Worf signaled his acceptance of Bowers’s capitulation with a muted growl from the back of his throat.

  Captain Picard turned his chair away from Worf, stood, and walked around his desk to face Captain Dax. “I cannot dismiss as coincidence your discovery of a subspace tunnel and the recent entry of Borg ships into Federation space, both within the Azure Nebula,” he said. “My instincts—not to mention common sense—tell me that these events are related.”

  “We’re in complete agreement, Captain,” Dax said, speaking with authority and serenity. Listening to her, Worf thought for a moment that he could hear and see echoes of Jadzia Dax in Ezri—the same confident timbre in her voice, the same poise and grace. Then the shadow of his slain wife faded and he was left with only the present.

  “It’s important we act quickly,” Picard said. “Starfleet’s defenses are faltering, and I can sense that the Borg are on the move. Another assault is imminent, unless we prevent it.”

  Bowers said, “We can have the Aventine ready for action by 0630.” He cast a questioning look at Worf.

  “Most of our systems will be functional by 0630,” Worf said. “But Commander La Forge reports that repairs to the targeting sensors will take roughly twenty hours.”

  Picard nodded. “I see. Until we finish repairs, then, the Aventine will have to lead the investigation.”

  “Our pleasure, Captain,” Dax said. “If I might make a suggestion …?” Picard nodded for her to continue. “I think we should start our search at the coordinates where my ship emerged from the subspace tunnel. If there is another passage with a terminus inside the nebula, I think the best place to look for it is in proximity to one we already know about.”

  “Agreed,” Picard said. “But before we begin the search, I want to reiterate our objective. If there is another subspace tunnel being used by the Borg, our mission is first to obstruct and then to destroy that phenomenon. It’s imperative we deny the Borg access to Federation space, at all costs. Is that clear?”

  “Absolutely, Captain,” said Dax.

  A look of resolution passed over Picard’s face. “Very well. Let’s get to work. We’ll return to the nebula together at 0630.”

  Bowers and Dax nodded their assent and got up from their chairs. As the two visitors walked toward the door, Picard shook Dax’s hand and then Bowers’s. The portal sighed open ahead of them, briefly admitting the gentle humming and chirps of work being performed at numerous duty stations on the bridge. Then the door closed after the departed officers, leaving Worf and Picard alone in the captain’s ready room.

  Captain Picard walked to the replicator nook behind his desk and said to the computer, “Tea, Earl Grey, hot.” His drink took shape inside a tiny, short-lived blizzard of atoms. He picked up the cup and saucer and eased himself into his chair.

  Worf watched the captain take a sip and wince slightly at the sting of it on his lips. He wondered for a moment whether Picard was aware that he hadn’t dismissed Worf. Then he wondered if his commanding officer was even cognizant of the fact that he was still there at all. Finally, Picard looked at Worf and said with droll amusement, “I understand your pride in the Enterprise’s crew, Number One, but do you think it was polite to intimidate Commander Bowers in front of his captain?”

  Worf scowled. “He should choose his words with more care.”

  “Perhaps,” Picard said. “Though I have to wonder … was your display really about what he said? Or did it have something to do with seeing your former colleague precede you as a captain?”

  Worf looked away from the captain. “I do not resent Captain Dax’s promotion,” he said, and it was mostly true. However, he had to admit there was a certain dark irony to the situation.

  During the Dominion War, Worf had decided, during a vital military operation, to save the life of his wife, Jadzia Dax, rather than complete his assignment. The ensuing fallout of that botched mission had resulted in a black mark on his service record, one which Captain Sisko had believed would prevent Worf from ever receiving his own command.

  Years of distinguished servi
ce in Starfleet and the Federation Diplomatic Corps had mostly overcome the stigma of that old reprimand, but there were times when Worf still felt pangs of guilt for all the other lives that had been lost in the war because of his selfish choice. Despite all he had achieved since then, Worf still harbored serious doubts that Starfleet would ever place him in command of a ship of the line.

  And now Ezri Dax—for whose previous host Worf had committed his professional Hegh’bat—was in command of a starship. He didn’t begrudge Ezri her success, but he had to wonder how long the universe intended to mock him for his actions on Soukara.

  “Do you wish me to apologize to Commander Bowers, sir?”

  Picard’s expression brightened. “Definitely not. Everyone knows the Enterprise has the best crew in Starfleet.” He sipped his tea and cracked a wry smile. “Dismissed, Mister Worf.”

  1519

  2

  The future was the past, and the past was the present.

  On Earth, Cortés was leading a Spanish expedition in Mexico and triggering the New World’s first pandemic by introducing it to the influenza virus; Babur was conquering northern India, as a prelude to establishing the Mughal Empire; Magellan had begun his circumnavigation of the globe; and in Europe, Martin Luther was challenging the infallibility of papal decrees.

  Adrift in the cold light and deep silence of interstellar space, however, time began to feel like an abstraction to Captain Erika Hernandez. During the months that she and her landing party from the Columbia NX-02 had spent on the planet Erigol as “compulsory guests” of the reclusive aliens known as the Caeliar, she had accustomed herself to the rhythm of natural days and nights. As much as she had shared her crew’s desire to escape the aliens’ custody and return home to Earth, she had on some level enjoyed being back in a natural environment.

  Now that lush world was gone, annihilated by a supernova along with much of the Caeliar’s civilization—and, as far as Hernandez knew, the Columbia itself.

  Without the rising and setting of the sun, Hernandez had no sense of the passage of days or weeks or months. She slept when she was tired, ate when she was hungry, and filled the indeterminate spans of her waking hours with nostalgic remembrances of a life left behind. Her only indicator of time’s passing was the length of her hair, which had barely reached her shoulders when she’d first come to Erigol; it now fell in dark, thick tangles a few inches below her shoulder blades.

  Three other survivors from the Columbia had escaped the cataclysm of Erigol with her, as passengers inside the fleeing capital city of Axion: Commander Veronica Fletcher, the first officer; Dr. Johanna Metzger, the ship’s chief medical officer; and Ensign Sidra Valerian, the communications officer. None of them had adapted to the formless, unstructured existence of the Caeliar with any more ease than she had.

  Hernandez stood alone in the middle of an empty, granite-tiled plaza, surrounded by the majestic towers and spires of the Caeliar metropolis. Its delicate metal-and-crystal architecture captured the feeble illumination of starlight, which cast the city in fathomless shadows, dull swaths of titanium white, and endless shades of gray.

  The silence of the city pressed against her soul. It was so absolute, so unnatural. Despite the presence of millions of Caeliar denizens, the megalopolis appeared deserted. Its concert shells sat empty; shattered sculptures lay abandoned in the plazas and streets. Even the air was deathly still.

  Footsteps, faint and distant, behind her. Drawing near by slow degrees. She felt no need to turn and look; she already knew that it was one of her officers. Only they ever walked in Axion. The Caeliar, with their bodies of catoms—sophisticated nanomachines—hovered and floated at will, and when the mood struck them, they could coalesce from glowing motes in the air.

  A few minutes later the footfalls were crisp and close. Then they stopped, and in the perfect stillness of the city, Hernandez could hear the gentle tides of breathing behind her.

  “Any idea what they’re up to?” asked Fletcher, her New Zealand accent softened slightly by her years of service in the multinational Earth Starfleet.

  The captain turned and regarded her blond, athletically toned XO with a dour look. “Considering I haven’t even seen a Caeliar in …” She paused, momentarily at a loss for a unit of time she could be certain of. She gave up and continued, “… in God knows how long, I have no clue what they’re doing.”

  “I don’t suppose we could just ask Inyx,” Fletcher said.

  Hernandez shook her head. “I get the feeling he’s not taking my calls right now. Can’t say as I blame him.”

  “No, I guess not.” Fletcher joined Hernandez in staring up at the stars. “It’s not like we can send a fruit basket with a little card that says, ‘So sorry our MACOs went haywire, blew up a city, and killed a million of your people.’”

  “And then some,” Hernandez said. “For all we know, by interrupting the Caeliar’s work, Foyle and his men might have started a chain reaction that wiped out their planet.”

  An interval that felt to Hernandez like a long time and also like no time at all passed between the two of them while they watched the unchanging stars.

  It was Fletcher who broke the silence. “So now what?”

  “We wait,” Hernandez said with placid resignation.

  It didn’t seem to be the answer Fletcher had hoped for. “That’s it? We wait? For what?”

  “Whatever comes,” Hernandez replied. “We can’t escape, Veronica. We don’t have a ship, and even if we hitched a ride and somehow escaped the Caeliar, where would we go? Earth? We don’t even know where we are, never mind which way to travel. And if, by some miracle, we actually got there, then what? It’s the sixteenth century.”

  “Maybe we could catch a few Shakespeare plays.”

  “Sure, if you want to wait about seventy years.”

  Fletcher made exaggerated swivel-turns to her left and right, looked up at the deserted walkways and promenades, and then turned back and said to Hernandez, “I’ve got time.”

  The captain sighed. “We both do.”

  Another silence stretched out between them. At one point Fletcher started to shuffle her feet, creating a dry scraping sound that became too much for Hernandez to ignore. She glared at her XO, who put on a sheepish expression and stilled her fidgeting, restoring the city to eerie soundlessness.

  After a time—how long, exactly, Hernandez couldn’t say—a figure appeared on a distant walkway between two lofty towers. It moved at a languid pace, slowly crossing the yawning distance between its origin and the two women on the plaza.

  When it was still more than a hundred meters away, it became clear to Hernandez that the figure was a Caeliar. She couldn’t help but note the enormous, bulbous skull behind its long, distorted face. Its gangly arms swung awkwardly as the alien plodded on bony legs and broad, three-toed feet. There was a pronounced heaving of exertion in the ribbed air sacs that linked respiratory tubules on either side of its head to the anatomy inside its fragile-looking chest.

  From the unique mottling of purple and green on his leathery gray hide, she recognized Inyx, the chief scientist of the Caeliar and her team’s principal contact. Just a few months earlier, she had not been able to distinguish the majority of his people from one another, but now she was able to recognize the individual subtleties in the shapes of their ocular ridges and mandibular joints.

  Inyx halted a few meters in front of Hernandez and Fletcher. “The Quorum wishes to speak to you, Erika.”

  “About what?”

  “Many things,” he said.

  Fletcher scrutinized the alien, starting at his feet and ending at his drawn, always-frowning face. “Nice to see you walking on solid ground with us little people for a change.”

  “We’re still weak from the wound to the gestalt,” he said. “Our power is being conserved to repair the city while we seek out a new world on which to continue our Great Work.”

  Hernandez lifted one eyebrow in suspicion. “With all the power you folks h
ad to spare on Erigol, I find it hard to believe you’re this desperate now.”

  “We could marshal more,” Inyx said. “However, it is imperative that we maintain a minimal energy profile, so as not to draw attention to ourselves. We must be extremely careful not to disrupt the course of this timeline now that we are here.”

  Hernandez was bursting with questions. “But why—”

  He cut her off with a raised hand. “There will be time for your inquiries later. Now I must escort you to the Quorum.”

  She nodded toward her first officer. “Commander Fletcher is coming with me.”

  “As you wish,” Inyx said. “Please follow me.” He turned his back on the women and began his trudging return journey.

  Hernandez fell into step behind him and motioned with a tilt of her head for Fletcher to follow her. “Come on.”

  Fletcher caught up to Hernandez in a few steps. “Why’d you have to drag me into this?”

  “I’m sorry,” Hernandez said with deadpan sarcasm, “did you have something else to do today?”

  Narrowing her eyes in mock frustration, Fletcher replied, “Fine. But if they’ve changed their minds about executing us, I get to say ‘I told you so.’”

  Hernandez shrugged. “That’s fair.”

  * * *

  The walk through the city was long and slow.

  Before its expulsion into the void, Axion had been filled with conveyances subtle and fleet. Moving sidewalks had hurtled pedestrians along the boulevards; floating disks of razor-thin, mirror-perfect silver had ferried groups large and small from one end of the city to another in minutes, and even between cities, back when there had been other cities to visit. Vertical shafts had once spiraled open on command and shuttled passengers, safe inside invisible shells, from the city’s highest vantages to its deepest recesses.

  Now there were ramps and stairs, and bridges too narrow for Hernandez’s liking. And everything seemed so far away.