String Theory, Book 3: Evolution

by Heather Jarman

  On every side, the soldiers shrank, cowering from the all-present, all-knowing light. Mestof’s men ran screaming from the battlefield as if their lives depended on their escape. Casting aside their weapons, they scattered into the forest. In the distance, the Doctor could see them hurrying away like agitated insects fleeing a disturbed hive. A few of Mestof’s soldiers stood on the field defiantly, arms raised in a mirror image to the general’s. The Doctor’s view of those soldiers shimmered and rippled like a mirage conjured by a great desert heat. They must be the Nacene, he thought. They seem to be fighting back against the orb…. Thought faded.

  The pain became so great that the Doctor lost his ability to withstand it. Beside him, Iga seized, her eyes rolled back into her head; the Doctor was helpless to assist her. It took all his self-control to keep the pain from driving him mad. Hurting in his bones and ligaments, the Doctor crawled to the very edge of the embankment. Death would be kinder. Voyager…Voyager…I have to hold on for Voyager. Must find the Light…His eyes drooped closed, he teetered—

  The light vanished, snuffed out.

  The Doctor fell backward onto the ground. His energy sapped away, and the Doctor wondered if his flaccid muscles would ever contract again. He felt like a marionette whose strings had been cut. Iga had a seizure. Turning his head to the side, he searched wearily, finding her a few paces away.

  Iga’s body slackened; her rapid, but shallow, breathing indicated shock. A dull sheen of clammy perspiration glossed her pale face.

  Undeterred by weakness, the Doctor dragged himself over to Iga’s side, assessed her airway and circulation. “Slow down. You’ll hyperventilate.” He placed a hand on her shoulder to calm the woman. “In and out, in and out.” Soon, her breaths followed the cadence of his words. He unfastened his cloak and covered her with it.

  The worst appeared to be over. Even the battle—that only moments before had seethed with heated fury—seemed to have dissipated into nothingness. Soldiers staggered around the basin, weapons cast aside, field positions abandoned. Mestof’s forces, save the corpses, had vanished.

  For whatever reason, the orb appeared to have had less impact on those wearing the white-lily crest than Mestof’s army, a corollary to the magma that had a preference for Lia’s troops. He could only guess that Lia had extraordinary psionic gifts that allowed her to wield the orb. Given time, the Doctor assumed, cynically, that he’d find scientific basis for the phenomenon. Hah. Science Nacene style. For now, he felt grateful to have escaped with his life and mental faculties operating reasonably well. He had a new appreciation for the day-to-day struggles of organic life-forms.

  Fastening his cloak around Iga’s shoulders, he wrapped his arm around her waist and hefted her to her feet, resting her head on his shoulder. The Doctor discovered a deeply grooved switchback trail that led from the ridge down to the basin. He lost track of the minutes, then number of steps he had to take. Stumbling, he made his way down until he reached the flats. He stepped over bodies, careered back and forth with the coordination of a drunkard, but moved forward, imagining in his mind’s eye where the general stood commanding the orb. A sharp tingling—like blood returning to a numb limb—alerted him to Nacene presence, but he lacked the wherewithal to search out the source. His mission to heal took precedence, though he craned his neck about as he walked, searching for any clue that might lead him to find the Nacene meddlers.

  A murmuring rose around him as he passed through the crowds. He heard his name being whispered. “Ced has returned from death,” they said.

  And then he saw them. There were two of them. A woman and a male. They looked like Ocampa but the Doctor knew better. The sharp tingling coursed through his limbs to the point of discomfort. “Who are they,” he asked a page who pushed a cart beside him.

  “Mestof’s wizards, Adjunct,” came the boy’s answer. “The general and her lieutenant captured them using their magic orb.”

  He smiled. All the Doctor’s pain and misery—and that suffered by Nual and Din—to this point had been worth it. The Light had to be among those prisoners. He had to be. What was it Mr. Paris was fond of saying? Pop-pop-pop: fish in a barrel.

  Several soldiers bearing a stretcher wove around smoking piles of battle refuse. Believing that they were running a patient to a field hospital, he tried to follow them, hoping they would lead him to help for Iga. The young woman needed medical attention; he would move on and accomplish his mission for Vivia once she was taken care of. Realizing that the stretcher bearing soldiers approached him, he stopped.

  The Doctor began. “Iga here needs—”

  “Sir, the general,” a soldier in blood-spattered clothing said.

  A small, crumpled body buried beneath blankets stirred. One of the soldiers running beside the stretcher pushed away the dusty covering to reveal the profile of ashen-faced General Lia, her face partially covered by red-gold hair matted with filth. “Ced, you’ve come back to me.”

  “I’m here, General, to serve you.” The Doctor attempted to maneuver so he could approach Lia without dropping Iga, but found it difficult.

  “May I, sir?” The soldier who had announced the general stood beside Iga, offering to care for her so the Doctor could talk with Lia. The young Ocampan male slid his arm around Iga’s waist and began walking her toward a tent in the trees that, from the activity surrounding it, the Doctor surmised was the medical area. He observed the pair until he felt comfortable that Iga was being handled appropriately.

  Lia grasped Ced’s arm with her quivering hand. “I’ve missed you, friend.” In spite of her weakened state, her grip was firm.

  A tall, broad-shouldered, helmeted soldier standing beside her gently pushed her hand back down to her side. “Easy, meshanna. You must save your energy to recover.” He turned to the Doctor, his soot-covered features indiscernible in the helmet’s shadows. “She will not relent until she has seen you, but she needs to have treatment.”

  The sharp tingling had magnified. The prisoners must be moving, he thought. I need to find the Light before he is removed from his place.

  “Ced?” The soldier spoke again.

  Startled, the Doctor said, “Of course, I will speak with her.” He crouched down beside his liege, though he reluctantly turned away from the helmeted solider. Something in his voice, the melodious timbre, sounded so familiar. He stole an upward glance.

  The soldier’s hazel eyes flashed. Though the helmet covered most of his face, the Doctor could see from the line of his cheekbones, the fullness of his lips, that this was a handsome individual.

  “Did we capture Mestof’s wizards?” Lia asked, reaching for the hazel-eyed soldier.

  He entangled his fingers with Lia’s. “For the moment, they are contained. I will deal with them when I know you are safe.”

  Contained. Something about how the soldier said that word…Shivering involuntarily, the Doctor looked away from the soldier and focused on the general. Odd, he thought. I don’t believe I’ve experienced such a sensation before. Though déjà vu wasn’t part of his matrix, the Doctor felt a disquieting familiarity with his circumstances. How could he know a place he had never been, feel a connection to a person who he’d never met?

  As unusual as his experience had been so far, the Doctor was ill prepared for his first, close-up view of the woman bundled on the stretcher. Momentarily struck, he must have hesitated—not out of alarm, but from surprise. The Doctor smiled, struck by her elfin features, smudged with weapons grease and dirt. Hardly the warrior striking terror into the hearts of her enemies that he’d watched from afar. The Doctor permitted her to touch his face. Her cool, fragile fingers fluttered over his face and lips. So taken by her resemblance to Kes was he that he couldn’t stop staring at her. The longer he studied her, though, the more he noticed the differences: Lia’s sinewy arms and chiseled bone structure, her crooked lower teeth and a small hook-shaped scar beside her nose.

  “We will fight another day, Ced,” Lia said softly, and with a shuddering br
eath, drifted back into semiconsciousness.

  The hazel-eyed soldier, the one who had used the endearment, reached for the Doctor, touched his sleeve. “You have returned. All is as it should be.”

  For a brief flash, the Doctor felt as if he had returned to Vivia’s imprisonment; every cell in his body oscillated with violence that forced him to his knees.

  “The adjunct! Help him!” an unfamiliar voice cried out.

  The Doctor wanted to answer, say he was fine—but he wasn’t. The sharp tingling reached a pitch in his shaking hands. White light filled his vision. Just as he believed he could endure no more, the pain receded. Exhausted, the Doctor collapsed face-first onto the ground. He clung to the one truth his misery had revealed to him.

  The hazel-eyed soldier was Nacene.

  The Monorhans never saw the Nacene coming. Phoebe made certain of that. She used every technique she’d learned over thousands of years to mask their presence. Even in their weakened state, the Exiles—especially when their wills joined together—had tremendous power. Phoebe wanted to avoid exposure lest their purpose be compromised. She would not tolerate such a development. Already, too much had been lost for the barely sentient creatures that populated this planet to thwart what was the Exiles’ right.

  Granted, by cosmic standards the Monorhans were crude, poorly evolved creatures, but that didn’t make them stupid. After all, it was Nacene essence, left behind after the Last Battle that had allowed the miserable planet to give rise to life. Nacene influence, however minuscule, on Monorhan DNA had endowed them with unusual capacities—such as their psionic abilities—that made them sensitive to their sires’ presence. Practically speaking, could the Monorhans do anything to stop the Exiles from accomplishing their stated purpose? Probably not. Dealing with them might, however, require the Exiles to deplete their energy reserves. Phoebe would not arrive at this critical apex and risk being unprepared.

  Small group by small group, Phoebe’s ragtag collection of Nacene outcasts assembled on the northernmost section of an uninhabitable continent just as the remains of tepid daylight were overpowered by gray gloom. The slimy, brackish marsh waters could sustain only algae and single-celled animal life: they would be undisturbed here. Shallow waters polluted with rotting biomatter emitted offensive hydrogen sulfide gas that Phoebe found distasteful. With so many lovely places to visit in the galaxy, it seemed a shame that they had to end their travels in such a nasty place.

  Phoebe flitted about, watching and studying the behavior of each Exile as they alit on the stagnant marshlands. She would need to choose soon. By her calculations, only a hundred or so remained in transit. They would expect to begin as soon as they arrived, unaware that there was one outstanding issue that needed to be resolved before they created the Key. She’d hidden the complete truth from them, knowing that their apprehension—their fear—would cripple their will to follow through on the plan. Because she had superior strength and control, she had successfully withheld one critical piece of information from the others: the Key would be useless without spores to enable their transformation back into pure Nacene energy. Phoebe knew how to create the spores; that wasn’t the issue. Compelling the others to go along with the creation was the issue.

  At last, the final cluster of her fellow Exiles arrived. They looked at her expectantly. Phoebe closed her eyes, basking in the abundance of strength that was hers for the taking. She savored the power, knowing that the Exiles’ dependence on her to show them the way back to Exosia would allow her to challenge Vivia and those like her. Upon her triumphant return, she would offer hope to those who had lost lifetimes to serving the strings. She would be celebrated as a liberator and Exosia would be her domain. More than any experience she’d had since leaving so long ago, the possibilities open to her thrilled her. And it was so close, so tantalizingly close that she could barely restrain her eagerness.

  She surveyed their faces, searching for the one. The time has come. Our return has been foretold and now we will seize our destiny. Floating above the ground, she drew upon her still-formidable transformative powers to increase her size, to imbue herself with a terrible beauty that she knew would instill fear and awe within them. At last, her eyes alighted on the most vulnerable among them: a diminutive Enaran female whom Phoebe recognized as a former companion she believed lost in the destruction of Gremadia. Together, they had traveled galaxies from one end of the universe to the other. Sad that she must be sacrificed. Knowing her as I do will be to my advantage, for I can exploit that if necessary, if she needs persuading, Phoebe thought.

  Come forward, in front of all of us, Phoebe ordered her oldest friend.

  Sadness softened the Enaran’s face, but she complied with Phoebe’s request.

  For the good of all, you must offer yourself.

  The Enaran lifted her chin, staring at Phoebe defiantly. No.

  Effortlessly, Phoebe hurtled an energy wave at her oldest friend, watching with satisfaction as the creature recoiled from the blow, then collapsed onto the ground, writhing with pain.

  The circle of Exiles hummed nervously.

  Within moments, the Enaran had righted herself and stepped out of the circle to stand before Phoebe. You will have to do better than that.

  Phoebe smiled. Her friend wasn’t easily cowed. She had counted on this. I won’t—she opened up her arms, indicating the thousand Exiles standing in a circle—because they will. They know what is required to return to Exosia. They will not allow you to deny them what is their due. Phoebe called out to those in the circle, showing them her vision of what the future she had planned for them, allowing them to see what was possible if they could open the gateway. Phoebe lulled the Exiles away from their confusion, seduced them with promises, and she found their weak wills bending beneath her vision. She must be sacrificed to complete the transformation.

  The circle around Phoebe tightened as the Exiles closed ranks. She saw in their expression the conviction required to do this horrible deed. The Enaran, too, must have sensed the inevitable, because she expended (regretfully) all her remaining energy with urgent, though futile, pleas.

  You will not fully be lost. You will live on forever as part of each of us—in Exosia. Phoebe smiled. When the first attack on the Enaran began, she left the circle to float in midair, watching the sickly Monorha sun set behind the horizon. Alas, her last experience in this dimension would be unpleasant—a dismal location with such nasty business required for their departure. She heard the garbled screams beneath her, followed by the sizzle and pop of the Enaran’s matter being compressed. The combined will of a thousand Nacene would not be denied.

  From the elements of the air, Phoebe wove a sac to hold the spores. The delicate filaments caught the light. The screams faded. In a moment the task would be complete. It would have been so much easier if she’d been able to retain her Nacene form, Phoebe realized. She sighed. Too bad. More work for the rest of us.

  An unexpected jolt startled her: an unwanted presence stirred not far from here. She had been so consumed with creating the spores that she’d almost forgotten about the nosy creatures who had forced this fate upon them. Your turn will come, Voyager. She had taken no pleasure in having to destroy her friend to form the spores. Difficult times called for sacrifice, however painful.

  Dealing with Janeway’s crew, however—she would have no regrets there.

  The gnashing beneath her had ceased. Phoebe swooped down into the circle and began gathering the spores.

  Chapter 6

  Seven waited outside main engineering for Chakotay to emerge. At the commander’s request, she had prepared a perfunctory briefing for the away team destined for the Monorhan ship: an engineer yet to be selected; Tuvok; Crewman Estella Luiz, a medic; and Neelix. The selection of the last individual had puzzled Seven; after all, beyond preparing nutritive supplements for the crew, she wasn’t entirely sure what function Neelix performed. He assisted Samantha Wildman in caring for her child, Naomi Wildman. And he talked a great deal.


  Seven suspected that the Monorhans wouldn’t be in much of a talking mood.

  When Seven had expressed her reservations, Chakotay had informed her that her concerns were noted but that the assignment stood and dismissed her. The commander would have liked to believe that he had hidden from her what might best be referred to as a bemused smirk when their discussion terminated. Seven, however, had noticed the smirk and had felt irritation. She noticed most things. She chose not to comment on them because her fellow crew members behaved more naturally when they believed her to be oblivious of their whispers, their pointing, and, in this case, their amusement at her expense.

  Seven did not believe her role was to inject humor into social situations. That was Lieutenant Paris’s job. She sighed. Whatever was taking Chakotay so long in engineering was keeping her away from her own work. And for what—a relatively useless report.

  She had tried to establish communication with the vessel, but had received only a recorded message. What she knew about the ship’s problems came only from sensor readings; on-site inspection would be required. Her briefing, in summary, said, “The ship is broken and Monorhans will die if we don’t fix it.”

  The engineering doors opened. Chakotay, in deep conversation with B’Elanna, emerged.

  Seven blinked her surprise. Commander Chakotay had apparently selected B’Elanna to go on the away mission. “Commander, Lieutenant—would you like me to discuss my report on the way to the shuttlebay?”

  Chakotay nodded. “The other team members will meet us there. B’Elanna can fill them in in-flight.”

  “From what we can tell, their propulsion system is nonfunctional,” Seven began as they started walking toward the turbolift. “If possible, Lieutenant Torres should undertake repairs that will allow them to start back to Monorha.”