by David Mack
Kadohata raced to orient herself at ops. “We’re caught in a plasma stream, between a binary pair!”
Picard shouted over the wail of the alert klaxon, “Helm! Full impulse! Move us clear!”
Lieutenant Faur answered, “Full impulse! Aye, sir!” The engines whined and groaned as the Enterprise struggled to break free of the stellar inferno. Explosions rocked the ship.
“Hull breaches, Decks Five through Eight and Twenty-one through Twenty-four,” Kadohata called out as the overhead lights stuttered and failed. She cringed and ducked as the starboard auxiliary stations erupted and shot sparks across the bridge. “We’re losing main power.”
“Clearing the stream in six seconds,” Faur reported.
Worf threw a look at Choudhury. “Position of the Aventine?”
“Bearing one-nine-seven mark twelve,” the security chief replied. “Following us out at full impulse.”
The white-hot blaze on the main viewer faded to yellow, then dimmed through shades of orange and red before yielding to the star-flecked blackness of space. As the ship made a slow turn, Picard saw the crimson glow of a red-giant star, from which a blazing river of coronal mass was being torn by its black-hole companion. “We’re clear,” Faur said, “but the conn’s sluggish because of interference from the singularity.”
“Weapons are offline,” Choudhury said. “Overloads in the tactical power grid.”
La Forge’s voice crackled from the overhead comm. “Engineering to bridge.”
“Go ahead,” said Picard.
“Captain, we’ve got a lot of damage down here. I need to take warp power and the main impulse reactor offline, now.”
Worf cut in, “For how long?”
“I don’t know,” La Forge said. “But if we don’t shut them down now, we’ll have a containment failure in sixty seconds.”
“Do what you have to, Mister La Forge,” Picard said. “Make a full report as soon as you can.”
“Aye, Captain. Engineering out.”
Faur swiveled her chair to face aft, toward Picard and Worf. “Position verified, Captain. We’re on the outer rim of the Carina Arm, near the meridian of the Delta and Gamma Quadrants.”
Kadohata turned her chair aft, as well. “No sign of Borg vessels within sensor range,” she said.
“That could change,” Picard said. He suspected she might be mistaken, because he heard the voice of the Collective, and it was getting louder and drawing closer with every moment. “We need to remain alert,” he added, “given our present condition.”
On the main viewer, he saw the scorched and scarred hull of the Aventine, and he wondered whether his own ship looked as distressed. “Commander Kadohata, hail the Aventine.”
“Aye, sir,” Kadohata said. She and Faur turned their chairs forward and resumed work. “I have Captain Dax for you, sir.”
“On-screen,” Picard said.
Dax and Bowers appeared on the main viewer, wreathed in gray smoke and backed by a bulkhead of smoldering, sparking companels. “I think we took a wrong turn somewhere,” Dax said.
“What’s your status, Captain?”
“Shields are fried, main power’s down, and we’ve got some major hull damage,” she said. “A dozen of my crew are seriously injured, but no fatalities.”
Worf handed Picard a padd showing the casualty report from sickbay. Picard blinked, and suddenly his vision was bathed in sickly green light and muddy black shadows.
The conversation between Worf and Ezri was continuing in front of him, but he could barely hear it. It was like trying to eavesdrop from underwater. His ears were filled with the roar of the Collective, and its sinister palette had tainted every facet of his perception, from the taste of tin on his lips to the sharp odor of chemical lubricants in his nose and the clammy sweat on the back of his neck.
Marshaling his senses into revolt was a single word.
Locutus.
He heard it being whispered beneath the raging tide of the Collective, and he knew the speaker’s voice even by intimation. It was her—the Borg Queen. She was aware of his presence, he was certain of it. He concentrated on blocking her out. It took all his willpower to restore the sanctity of his thoughts.
Then Picard snapped back into the conversation with Captain Dax, and he became aware that Worf—and everyone else on the bridge of the Enterprise—was staring at him. Worf regarded Picard with an attentive gaze that made it clear Picard had been asked a question which deserved a response. Rather than ask for the query to be repeated, Picard volleyed the request to his XO in an interrogative tone. “Mister Worf?”
Worf said, “I concur with Captain Dax’s recommendation, sir. Modifying the shields would be a prudent step.”
“Very well,” Picard said. “Make it so.”
“Aye, sir,” Worf replied, delegating the job with a look and a nod to Kadohata. To Dax, he added, “These repairs will take time. We should use it to start looking for the frequency to reopen the subspace tunnel.”
“Already on it,” Dax said. “Tell Clipet and Elfiki they’re free to jump in anytime.”
“Understood,” Worf said. “Enterprise out.” The screen switched back to the placid vista of stars.
Picard stood and nodded to Worf. “You have the bridge.”
As he retired to his ready room, Picard was relieved to be able to seek some privacy while Worf managed the business of directing the ship’s repairs. Alone with his thoughts, however, Picard fell to brooding. The Borg Queen’s voice haunted him.
You should not have come looking for me, Locutus, she taunted with cold menace. I’ll be with you soon enough.
He put on his bravest face and whispered with false courage, “I killed you once. I look forward to doing it again.”
Bravado doesn’t suit you, Locutus, she replied. And you know as well as I do that the next time we meet, it won’t be my neck that gets snapped. She pulled her thoughts away from him. Soon, Locutus, soon. Until then … dream of my embrace.
Terrible events were in motion; Picard felt it.
A shadow had gathered. Its hour was at hand.
* * *
“Shields are fried, main power’s down, and we’ve got some major hull damage,” Captain Dax said. “A dozen of my crew are seriously injured, but no fatalities.”
As Worf handed a padd to Captain Picard, he saw the captain blink and take on a blank, anxious stare. In a glance, Worf realized that Captain Picard had become mired in one of the dark fugues inflicted on him by the Borg.
Raising his voice to draw attention to himself, Worf said to Dax, “The Enterprise has sustained similar damage and casualties.” He looked toward ops. “Commander, recommendations?”
Kadohata looked up and said, “We have to focus on repairing our shields—we can’t get back without them.”
Nodding, Dax said, “My science officer suggests we modify our metaphasic shielding protocols, to compensate for the relativistic properties of the plasma jet.”
“Sounds reasonable,” Kadohata said. She looked up at Picard. “With your permission, Captain?”
Worf froze as he waited to see if the captain would react. Kadohata’s query had turned everyone’s eyes to the captain, and if it became apparent that he had been distracted, it might undermine the crew’s already damaged morale.
Picard blinked, and Worf noted a spark of alarmed recognition in the captain’s eyes as he saw that he’d become the center of attention. As if reaching for a lifeline, the captain looked toward him and said, “Mister Worf?”
Instinctively covering the captain’s momentary lapse, Worf replied, “I concur with Captain Dax’s recommendation, sir. Modifying the shields would be a prudent step.”
“Very well,” Picard said. “Make it so.”
Worf divided his focus between the continuing conversation with Captain Dax, directing the Enterprise’s bridge officers, and keeping a discreet watch on Captain Picard’s reactions. As soon as Worf had concluded the conversation with Dax, Captain Pica
rd stood, said, “You have the bridge,” and excused himself to his ready room, leaving Worf in command.
Coordinating damage-control teams was a task Worf normally found tedious. Tonight he felt that a profound urgency was driving the Enterprise crew to speed its repairs for the return journey to the Azure Nebula. He knew the crew was talking about Picard. “If he’s hearing the Borg, they must be close,” he overheard contact specialist Lieutenant T’Ryssa Chen whisper to relief tactical officer Ensign Aneta Šmrhová.
The focus and intensity of the repair efforts felt almost like a battle to Worf, whose chief role was to set priorities for the various departments. The sciences division was devoting its time and resources to unlocking aperture twenty-two beta for the trip home. Engineering had been instructed to restore shields first, warp drive second, and weapons last. The medical group had been directed to send out roving teams of medics and nurses to perform first aid on personnel who were too busy—and too vital—to be sent to sickbay for minor injuries.
He was about to forward the latest status reports to Captain Picard in the ready room, when a silent communiqué appeared on the command panel next to his chair. It was a message from Lieutenant Choudhury at tactical, summoning him and Commander Kadohata to the tactical station, where Choudhury huddled with Ensign Šmrhová.
Kadohata looked up from her work at ops and glanced back at Worf, who stood and motioned with a subtle, sideways nod of his head for her to follow him to tactical. She got up and walked aft to join him, Choudhury, and Šmrhová.
Choudhury pointed at the tactical display. “Šmrhová picked up multiple signals on long-range sensors,” she said. “They’re on an intercept course, at warp nine-point-nine-seven.”
Worf anticipated the worst. “Borg?”
Šmrhová replied with a mild Slavic accent, “No, sir. Hirogen.” The pale, dark-haired woman tapped the screen and called up a dense page of data. “Based on the energy signatures, it’s an unusually large hunting pack—ten ships.”
“Pretty far from their home territory,” Kadohata said.
“They could be renegades,” Choudhury said. “Or they might just be more adventurous than other Hirogen.”
Cutting off further speculation, Worf said, “The reason for their presence is not important. What matters is the danger they pose to us and the Aventine.” He asked Choudhury, “What is the hunting pack’s ETA?”
“One hour and fifty-three minutes,” she said.
Nodding, Worf continued, “Then we have just less than that to complete our repairs and make the return jaunt. The Hirogen must not learn about the subspace tunnels.”
Kadohata asked, “Won’t the plasma jet from the binary pair mask our exit?”
Choudhury replied, “Yes, as long as the Hirogen aren’t within weapons range. But if they get that close, their sensors could pierce the interference and detect our frequency for opening the tunnels. Then they’d have a free pass to bring their hunt to Federation space whenever they want.”
“Not today,” Worf said. “Commander Kadohata, tell Mister La Forge that his priorities have changed: shields first, weapons second, warp drive last. Ensign Šmrhová, begin combat drills as soon as we have weapons back online. Lieutenant Choudhury, tell your people to prepare to repel boarders. I’ll notify the captain and alert the Aventine.”
The three female officers acknowledged his orders with curt nods and stepped away to start preparing for battle. He returned to his chair and opened a comm to the ready room. “Captain Picard, please report to the bridge.”
“On my way,” the captain replied. “Picard out.”
Worf had never fought the Hirogen, though he had read of their ferocity, prowess, and strength. As the first officer of the Enterprise, he hoped that his ship and the Aventine escaped before the battle was joined. But as a Klingon warrior, his heart swelled with anticipation.
The Borg were a plague, an infestation to be stamped out from a distance. A Hirogen hunter, on the other hand—that was a foe he had often tested himself against on the holodeck. Even there, they were formidable; in fact, he had yet to defeat one.
There is a first time for everything, he mused darkly.
2168–2381
18
An eerie silence pervaded Axion. It was sunset, and the city had halted its aimless wanderings of the sky. Hernandez felt the change in the air as the shield was raised, quelling the wind. From her favorite vantage point, clinging to a spire high above the towers of the Caeliar’s last metropolis, she saw the city’s denizens turn out en masse into the boulevards and amphitheaters.
Hernandez had never seen them do anything like this before. Opening her mind to the gestalt, she listened for its voice. It, too, was silent. Then she reached out with her senses and found Inyx among a throng gathered in a great plaza. She let go of the spire and floated down, hundreds of meters, guiding herself between the buildings, by what had come to feel like instinct.
Her feet touched the ground, bringing her to a stop at Inyx’s side. He and the thousands of other Caeliar in the plaza gazed skyward, all looking in the same direction. There was something reverential about their united attention, and through the gestalt she felt an overwhelming collective sorrow.
All at once, the spell was broken, and the crowd began to disperse in seemingly random directions. Hernandez took Inyx’s arm to prevent him from leaving. “What just happened?”
“We observed the moment of the Cataclysm,” he said.
It took her a moment to grasp his meaning. “The destruction of Erigol?” she asked.
“Yes,” Inyx said. “It just happened, moments ago.”
After drifting like a ghost through centuries, fearful of causing the slightest disruption to the timeline, Hernandez was surprised to find herself feeling so rooted in the present moment. It was December 23, 2168. Erigol had just exploded. Her ship had just been destroyed. And her earlier self had just been flung six hundred fifty years into the past. Now she and Axion had come full circle, back to the present, and once again were forging ahead through time’s uncharted waters. It was the end of history and the beginning of the future.
She let go of Inyx’s arm. “What happens now?”
“The Great Work goes on,” he said. “As it always has.”
He began rising from the ground, en route to one of his arcane tasks, whose details he rarely shared with Hernandez. Not content to let him escape from her so easily, she willed herself into the air alongside him, the catoms in her body and the air drawing power from Axion’s quantum field to free her from the hold of mere gravity. “If we’re past the Cataclysm, then we no longer pose a danger to the timeline, do we?”
“No,” Inyx said. “All is as it was.”
“Then there’s no harm in letting me see what happened to Earth during the years I was out of contact.”
Inyx’s reply sounded both cautious and dubious. “Are you certain you want to know?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” she asked, as they drifted toward the great dome that shielded the Apparatus.
He replied, “What is the boon of wisdom when it brings no solace to the wise, Erika?” He looked at her, and perhaps noting her confused expression, added, “If your people have suffered, you’ll feel guilty that you didn’t share their misfortunes. If they’ve thrived, you’ll feel cheated out of your portion of their happiness. Would it not be better to make a clean break from the past and embrace the future you’ve chosen?”
She halted herself in midair and let him continue alone. Watching him grow smaller against the massive bulk of the dark crystal dome, she kept her bitter rumination to herself.
I didn’t choose my future. It chose me.
* * *
It was like sensing heat or a chill—Hernandez knew the airborne catoms in her vicinity were dormant. There were no Caeliar minds lurking unseen in the shadows. Though she lacked their ability to transmit herself from one cluster of molecules to another, or pass unseen like a breath on the wind, she moved through the n
ight as if it was natural to her.
The portal to Inyx’s laboratory wasn’t secured. None of the few doors in Axion ever were, it seemed. She coaxed it open with an impetus of thought, and it spiraled apart as she stepped through into the darkened research space.
Ahead of her was the metallic slab on which Valerian had died and Hernandez herself had been Changed. Droops of metallic cabling reached from corner to corner around the tall, narrow room. Beneath the skylight, hovering, was the principal machine of the lab, the one into which all the others fed power and particles and data. All the occult instruments of Inyx’s private labors were dark and cold.
Hernandez closed the entrance behind her, then concentrated on awakening the lab, one component at a time. She needed no instruction to know which machine was which; the catoms that infused her body gave her a link to all these devices. If she wanted to know what one was, she merely thought of the question, and the object provided its own answer.
I know they’ve spied on Earth before, she reasoned. They knew about us—they even spoke English when we got here. And they’ve probably been watching thousands of other worlds, too. I just have to figure out how they do it.
She thought about looking far away, across space, for tiny details, and her mind took the measure of the various implements available to her. It was as if the objective in her mind was an unfinished puzzle. All she needed was the missing pieces.
One by one, they revealed themselves.
A soliton projector. A triquantum stabilizer.
A chroniton generator. A subspace transceiver.
A subspace signal amplifier.
She told the machines what she wanted, and they obeyed.
Hernandez shaped them, granted them energy from Axion itself, and focused them with her mind. Then she was surrounded by fleeting, holographic images and a flood of data. Had she still been merely organic, it would have been far too much to witness, never mind comprehend. But she felt the catoms in her brain accelerating her synaptic responses, to help her mind keep pace with the whirlwind of information she’d tapped.