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

by David Mack

  Sortollo rolled his eyes at his Orion colleague. “And what we’re saying is, we’ll need to use the Caeliar’s technology to locate the Mance.”

  “And the only way to access that is to get Hernandez to help us,” Keru added.

  Torvig raised one mechanical hand. “Commander Vale? Did you not prohibit us from soliciting aid from Erika Hernandez?”

  “Yes, I did,” Vale replied, shooting a glower at Keru and Sortollo. “I considered her unreliable before the mission, and I haven’t seen anything since then to change my mind.”

  “We’re not saying it’ll happen overnight,” Keru argued. “If we want her help, we’ll have to cultivate a relationship with her, win her over.”

  Dr. Ree signaled his disagreement with a rattling rasp. “You’ll find that difficult with the Caeliar watching us every minute of the day,” the reptilian physician said. “It stands to reason that if they consider us dangerous enough to merit constant surveillance, they must be doubly cautious of her.”

  Troi looked up. Her face was ashen and her voice hoarse. “Doctor Ree is correct. The Caeliar don’t trust her much more than they trust us. Besides, I’ve tried reaching out to her, and she doesn’t seem interested. Unless she comes to us, we shouldn’t think of her as an ally.”

  The security personnel raised their voices in a clamor of protest, which Vale silenced by raising her hands and barking, “Enough!” She waited until the group fell silent. “Does anyone have any ideas about how we might apply what we’ve learned today? Or what we might do next?”

  Keru mumbled, “We can start by building new tricorders.”

  “I’ll take that as a ‘no,’” Vale said. “Let’s call it a night, then. But tomorrow at breakfast, I want to start hearing new ideas. We all know what the challenges are. Let’s start coming up with solutions.” With a nod, she added, “Dismissed.”

  Most of the away team members split up and plodded off toward their respective bedrooms. Tuvok watched as Dr. Ree hovered close behind Troi, shadowing her down the corridor to her quarters. Then the Vulcan tactical officer turned back and observed Commander Vale walking outside, onto the terrace. He made a discreet survey of the others’ positions, and then he joined the first officer on the wide, open-air balcony.

  She noted his approach but did not turn around. “Taking the air, Tuvok?”

  He stood next to her and rested his palms on top of the broad railing. “Commander Troi is in serious physical distress,” he said. “And she is masking her symptoms.”

  “I know,” Vale said.

  “Is her condition serious?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say,” Vale replied. “But Doctor Ree is aware of the situation. Please keep this information private.”

  He nodded once. “Of course. If there’s anything I—”

  “That’ll be all.” She threw a guarded look at him. “Thank you.”

  “I could be of assistance to the doctor,” Tuvok said. “Counselor Troi and I have compatible telepathic gifts. Perhaps I could help her to control her pain until such time as—”

  “I said that’ll be all, Tuvok. Thank you.”

  He stiffened and took half a step back from the railing. “Understood, Commander. Good night.” He turned and went back inside, concerned for Deanna Troi’s safety but bound by the chain of command. It had been a long day for the away team, but by the time Tuvok reached his quarters, he had already decided he would not be sleeping tonight. If necessary, he could forgo sleep for several days or longer. Until he was convinced that Troi was no longer in danger, he would remain awake and monitor her unconscious telepathic emissions for any sign of distress.

  And if Troi’s condition demanded that the chain of command be broken, that was a decision Tuvok could live with.

  * * *

  Hernandez held herself aloft through will alone. Feet together, arms wide apart, head bowed in concentration, she levitated many kilometers above the Quorum hall and immersed her thoughts in the hubbub of the gestalt.

  There were hundreds of voices vying to be heard, expressing themselves in images and feelings as often as in words, and when they did speak in concrete terms, it was in the ancient tongue of the Caeliar. Fortunately for Hernandez, her centuries of scholarship, aided by her catoms, made it easy to understand.

  Much of the argument receded as Ordemo asked, “Why have we not known of these passages until now?”

  “Because,” Inyx replied, “until mere weeks ago, they had been dormant. Lying fallow in the ubiquitous realms of subspace, they were all but invisible to our sensors.” He offered the members of the Quorum a visual representation of the tunnels through subspace; it reminded Hernandez of a wheel with uneven spokes, and Erigol’s former position was the hub. One of the spokes shone much more brightly than the others. “This was the first of the passages to be accessed, and it has been the most frequently traveled. In the past few days, all but a few of the remaining passages have been exposed, as they were transited by one or more vessels.”

  Low drones and rumbles of anxiety coursed through the hovering ranks of the Quorum. Above the din, Ordemo replied, “Inyx, the primitive civilizations of the galaxy cannot be trusted to use those passages wisely. If they should destabilize one or more of them, the effects would be catastrophic. Entire star systems could be annihilated.”

  “I am aware of that, Ordemo,” Inyx said. “Now that the passages’ recent usage has enabled us to pinpoint all their locations, I have begun calculations for a series of soliton pulses that will safely collapse them at their point of common intersection, without posing any risk to the galaxy at large.”

  Ordemo sounded assuaged. “Will it take long to effect?”

  “No,” Inyx said. “We’ll begin the process momentarily. It should be complete within a matter of hours.”

  “Very good,” Ordemo said. “Well done, Inyx, thank you.”

  Before Inyx could erase his catom-animation of the passages and their hub, Hernandez followed its data stream back to its source. She found herself gazing through a narrow pinhole in subspace, spying on events nearly half a galaxy away.

  Hundreds of ships moved through her gestalt-vision, vessels of many different designs. Several she recognized as having the familiar configurations of Starfleet spacecraft, with their saucers and nacelles. Klingon ships were equally distinctive, and there were many of them, too. In addition, there were scores of ships whose provenances were unknown to her. All of them seemed to move in concert, unified in purpose, rallied around the clustered apertures of the subspace passages.

  This has something to do with the threat Deanna was telling me about, Hernandez intuited. The passageways, Titan, the threat to Earth. It’s all connected somehow. But how?

  A moment later, one of the passageways spiraled open inside the blue night of the distant nebula. Fear like a fist of cold steel seized her heart. And she had her answer.

  Madre de Dios.

  * * *

  Deanna Troi awoke in a panic, a fugitive from a nightmare of knives and vipers. Gasping for breath and drenched in her own sweat, she lurched to a sitting position in her bed and was restrained by scaly talons locked around her arms.

  “Easy, my dear counselor,” said Ree through his maw of fangs. “Your symptoms are getting worse.”

  She struggled frantically in his grasp. “Let me go!”

  “Counselor, please, you’re in no—”

  Troi spat in his left eye and tried to lift her foot to kick at him. “Take your hands off me!”

  He let go, and she fell backward into bed. “As you wish.”

  Rubbing her abraded wrists, Troi sat up. Then a rush of nausea hit her, and she doubled over. Ree stepped back as Troi vomited a thin stream of watery stomach acid on the floor.

  As a wave of dry heaves convulsed Troi’s abdomen and left her dizzy, the Pahkwa-thanh physician inched toward her. “Counselor, without my tricorder, I can make only an educated guess as to your condition. But it is my belief that you are suffering fro
m an internal hemorrhage.”

  She gulped a deep breath and pulled herself back onto her bed. The room felt as if it were spinning above her.

  “Deanna,” Ree continued, “we need to ask the Caeliar if they have medical facilities that we can use to treat you.”

  Pursing her lips, Troi lolled her head side to side. “No,” she insisted. “Don’t let them touch me.”

  “Counselor, we have no choice,” Ree said, looming over her. “Your condition is deteriorating. It’s time to let me operate.”

  His heartfelt-sounding plaints didn’t fool her. She saw the predatory gleam in his cold, serpentine eyes. “Liar!” she screamed. “Butcher! You want to kill my baby!”

  “Counselor, please, you’re delu—” Her foot struck his snout and shut him up. As he recoiled from the blow, she rolled out of bed and landed hard on the floor. Escape was all that mattered now. Crawling away from him toward the door of her room, she focused on pulling herself with her hands and pushing herself with her feet. Then the doctor’s bony, three-taloned feet landed in front of her. He had leaped past her with ease and blocked her exit. Turning, he confronted her. “Your skin was very warm to the touch, Deanna. I believe you’re running a fever, possibly as a side effect to your body’s rejection of the synthetase inhibitor. And the fever is making you delusional.”

  Scuttling backward on her palms, she rasped, “Get away from me! Monster!”

  “Counselor, I don’t have time to argue with your mental infirmities. Your life is in jeopardy, and you’re not acting rationally. If I have to, I’ll relieve you of duty.”

  The door swung open behind him and rebounded off the wall. He turned and was confronted by Sortollo, Dennisar, and Keru.

  “We heard shouting,” Keru said.

  Troi pointed at Ree. “He attacked me!”

  “I did no such thing,” Ree said to Keru. “Counselor Troi is feverish, and I believe she’s suffering an internal hemorrhage.”

  “He wants to give me to the Caeliar!”

  Ree spun and hissed at her. “I need their help so I can operate on you.”

  Cowering in a corner beside her bed, Troi kept an accusing finger leveled at Ree. “Keep him away from me.”

  Dennisar and Sortollo stepped into the room between Ree and Troi. Keru reached forward and took hold of Ree’s shoulder. “Okay, Doc, let’s all just take a step back and—”

  “There’s no time for this!” Ree growled. “Her pulse is thready, her blood pressure is dropping—”

  Dennisar and Sortollo began herding Ree backward, toward the exit. Behind the doctor, Keru said in a cajoling manner, “Just step out for a few minutes, Doc, let her calm down.”

  “She could be bleeding out! I need to operate!”

  “No!” Troi called out. “No surgery!”

  Dennisar shrugged at Ree. “You heard her. No surgery.”

  The therapodian physician stopped retreating, lowered his head, and fixed his jeweled-iris glare upon Troi. “Fine.”

  He burst forward, trampling over Sortollo and Dennisar. Keru lumbered after the lunging Pahkwa-thanh, but the Trill seemed to be moving in slow motion and lagging meters behind. Troi, paralyzed with terror, could only cringe and stare in mute horror as Ree descended upon her, his long jaw of razor-sharp teeth wide open.

  Vale, Tuvok, and Torvig appeared in the corridor outside the doorway and looked on with shock and dismay as Ree pinned Troi to the floor—and sank his fangs into her chest.

  19

  Captain Picard stepped out of his ready room and onto the bridge of the Enterprise. The electric crackling of high-energy tools mixed with the low buzz of comm chatter and muted conversation. His bridge was crowded with engineers, junior officers, and his senior command officers, all of whom were working with great focus and alacrity to finish the ship’s repairs.

  Kadohata interrupted her report to Worf, who was seated in the command chair, and nodded to Picard. Worf stood and handed Picard a padd. “Captain, calculations for opening aperture twenty-two beta are almost complete. However, shields are at less than fifty percent, and engineering is having difficulty adjusting the emitters for the new metaphasic frequencies.”

  “Not ready to enter the plasma jet, then,” Picard said. He noted a silent exchange of anxious glances between Worf and Kadohata. “How much longer, Number One?”

  “At least thirty minutes,” Worf replied.

  The note of regret in Worf’s voice compelled Picard to ask, “And what is the ETA of the Hirogen hunting pack?”

  Worf looked at Kadohata, who folded her hands behind her back to affect a nonchalant pose. “Twenty minutes,” she said.

  “This is not the fight we came for,” Picard said. He stepped past Kadohata and raised his voice to snare Choudhury’s attention. “Hail the Aventine, Lieutenant.”

  The security chief tapped commands into her console and then looked up to respond, “Ready, sir.”

  “On-screen,” Picard said.

  The main viewer switched from an image of stars to the face of Captain Dax. “You don’t look like you’re breaking good news, Captain,” she said.

  “I’m not,” he replied. “The Enterprise won’t be ready to reenter the plasma stream before the Hirogen arrive.”

  A worry line formed a single, wavy crease across Dax’s brow. “The metaphasic recalibration, right?”

  Picard nodded. “Has your crew finished the modifications? Can you extend your shields around the Enterprise?”

  Dax shook her head. “We’d have to be at full power to make it to the aperture and survive the jaunt back. Right now, we’re at fifty-three percent.”

  “We can’t risk letting the Hirogen detect the frequency for controlling the apertures,” Picard said. “If we can’t make the return in the next fifteen minutes, we’ll have no choice but to stand and fight.”

  “Agreed,” Dax said. “I suggest we spend the time we have left restoring our tactical systems and preparing coordinated attack-and-defense protocols.”

  Resigned to the coming battle, Picard consented with a grim nod. “Make it so. Good luck to you and your crew, Captain.”

  “And to yours, sir. Aventine out.”

  The channel closed, and the main viewer reverted to a backdrop of stars overlaid by a tactical display of information about the approaching Hirogen hunting pack. “Mister Worf,” said Picard, “ready the ship for battle.”

  “Aye, sir.” Worf turned toward Choudhury. “Hirogen use energy dampeners during boarding operations, to render phasers and internal security systems inoperable. Issue projectile rifles and bladed weapons to all security teams.” To Kadohata he added, “Tell Mister La Forge to prioritize tactical repairs.”

  As the Red Alert klaxon wailed throughout the ship, Picard returned to his command chair, sat down, and steeled himself for the impending fray. A new degree of intensity drove the crew’s efforts now, and it was almost enough to push all thought of the Borg from his thoughts.

  Then Worf was at his side. “Permission to leave the bridge for five minutes, sir.”

  “Now? For what reason, Mister Worf?”

  The Klingon averted his eyes from Picard’s and frowned before he replied, “To retrieve my bat’leth, sir.” Then he met Picard’s gaze and added with stern surety, “As a precaution.”

  For once, Picard saw the logic of Worf’s thinking.

  “Permission granted.”

  * * *

  Captain Chakotay had been itching for a fight for a long time. It had been several months since Kathryn Janeway had been taken by the Borg, and not a night had passed that he hadn’t dreamt of vengeance. Payback. Blood for blood.

  In the aftermath of the Borg’s most recent, devastating sorties into Federation space, he’d persuaded Admiral Montgomery to petition Admiral Nechayev to reassign Voyager to combat duty on the homefront. When the call had gone out for a fleet to assemble in the Azure Nebula, to support the Enterprise in a daring counteroffensive against the Borg, he’d made certain that Voyager w
as the first ship assigned to the battle group.

  We’ve faced the Borg more than anyone. Chakotay stared out his ready room window. It should be us leading the scouting runs. He clenched his fists and set his jaw. Patience. Soon, we’ll all get to fight. Until then, we hold the line.

  It was precisely because of Chakotay’s personal experience against the Borg, and Voyager’s reputation in Starfleet, that Captain Picard had placed them in command of the allied expeditionary force while the Enterprise and the Aventine were off to who knew where on a recon run. Watching the silhouettes of hundreds of starships massing for a battle royal, Chakotay felt his pulse quicken. A red hour was close at hand.

  A door signal interrupted his ruminations. “Come in.” He turned as the portal sighed open to admit his first officer, Lieutenant Commander Tom Paris. “Tom,” Chakotay said. “How’re you holding up?”

  “I’m fine, sir,” Paris replied, with the demeanor of a razor’s edge. It had been four days since he had received a posthumous message from his father, Admiral Owen Paris, who had been killed during the Borg’s attack on Starbase 234.

  Had such news come at any other time, Chakotay would have suggested his XO take bereavement leave, but a declaration by the Federation Council three days earlier meant that the UFP was now in a state of open war against the Borg. Starfleet no longer had the luxury of time for its sorrows.

  Paris continued, “Captain T’Vala says the Athens is ready to open aperture twenty-three alpha, and the captain of the Mendeleev estimates his crew will open twenty-four alpha in less than an hour.”

  Chakotay nodded. “What about apertures twenty-five through twenty-seven? Any progress there?”

  “Some,” Paris said. “The warbird Tiamatra and the I.K.S. veScharg’a are working on twenty-five and twenty-seven. We’ve been trying to help the Gorn cruiser Lotan break the lock on aperture twenty-six, but it’s not responding at all.”

  Suspicion and concern hardened Chakotay’s already stern expression. “Prioritize that,” he said. “What about the Enterprise and the Aventine?”

  “Three hours overdue,” Paris said.