by David Mack
“This is worth joining.” She stepped in front of him and clasped his shoulders. “Emperor Spock once said that one man can summon the future, if he has the courage to do so. You say you’re not a brave man, Luc, but I know you are. For the good of the many, I’m going to beg you: Please be brave now. Trust me.”
Picard couldn’t remember the last time anyone had said “please” to him, or had begged him to follow the better angels of his nature. He didn’t know if it was what she had said or the heartfelt way that she had said it, but it moved him.
“How do we begin?”
“Follow us,” K’Ehleyr said, “and we’ll show you the future.”
12
Invisible Effects
The airlock portal rolled open ahead of Kes, and she stepped over its threshold into a corridor of Terok Nor’s huge Docking Ring. Bajor’s orbit had been crowded with small ships flocking to the Terran Rebellion or fleeing to the planet’s surface, and the station’s interior was just as busy. The curved, dark gray corridor teemed with travelers arriving and departing, all of them toting heavy duffels or packs, or towing bags laden with personal effects, a mad frenzy on the cusp of battle.
No one seemed to spare Kes a second glance as she drifted through the raging currents of running people. She had dyed her hair dark brown and styled it to cover her distinctive Ocampa earlobes, and then, with the aid of some simple cosmetics, she had disguised herself as a Trill by stenciling beige spot patterns from her temples to the back of her jaw, and then down the slope of her neck and under her tunic to her shoulders. Her legs were covered by dark tights, so she had seen no reason to extend the ersatz spots beyond her clavicle.
A few meters from the airlock, traffic bottlenecked at a security checkpoint. Four armed Terran men manned the post: One watched the crowd, two directed people through a sensor arch, and one monitored a control panel. Kes was not armed, but she had no intention of being stopped because her internal anatomy didn’t match her outward appearance. Cautiously, she extended her psionic awareness beyond her telepathic shield of privacy. The mind of the young Terran watching the sensor display was easy to isolate and easier to deceive. Only the merest tickle of suggestion was needed to draw his eyes to hers, and once he met her gaze, she smiled. He smiled back. One of his older comrades waved Kes through the arch, and as she stepped through, she reached into the younger Terran’s thoughts, extracted the image of what he expected to see when a Trill woman passed through the sensor, and then she showed it to him in vivid color.
Moments later she was on the crossover bridge, moving at a quick step toward the station’s Habitat Ring. She attuned her thoughts to Neelix and sensed him somewhere nearby. He was in a hurry, making preparations for war, getting ready to leave the station.
Fear flooded Kes’s thoughts. I have to reach him before he goes! At first she resisted the impulse to run, worried it would draw attention to her, but then she saw that everyone was scrambling toward or away from something. Reaching out with her empathic senses, she nearly drowned in the tidal wave of anxiety flooding through the station. Something terrible is about to happen, she realized, and then she was running, too.
So much emotional noise pressed in on Kes that she could barely focus on finding Neelix. She found the terror deafening, smothering, and paralyzing all at once, and it assailed her on more levels than she could filter out without losing her sense of Neelix’s mind amid the madness. Other people’s emotions bled into hers as she raced past them—a flash to passion, a cold burn of resentment, a sick churn of worry, an empty burst of bravado. The din was painful to bear and impossible to ignore, like a force of nature.
She kept her mind trained on the beacon in the night, the one thing that mattered, as she stumbled through gaggles of rebels and staggered around corners and down passageways that had been gutted to their frames, cannibalized for parts.
Instinct and desperation carried her forward until she reached an unmarked door and slumped against it. The call button was gone, so she thumped the side of her fist against the door, then forced herself to stand straight and take a breath.
The door slid open with a harsh scratch—and then there was Neelix, right in front of her, as dashing and heroic as Kes had remembered, though his face looked leaner and his rust-hued mane now sported a few streaks of gray. Kes had imagined this moment countless times in the five years they had been apart, had rehearsed a seemingly infinite variety of greetings and declarations, but now that she was in the moment, all she could do was smile and try not to cry.
Neelix flinched at the first sight of Kes, and his eyes widened. A wave of fear rolled through his thoughts, and she heard him ask himself whether she was a ghost. Alarm turned to confusion, then to cautious hope. “Kes?”
“Hello, Neelix.” She threw her arms around him and held him as tightly as she could. He stood there like a statue, as if he were paralyzed, for several seconds before returning her embrace. Kes opened her mind to drink in Neelix’s thoughts and was dismayed to find them awash in fearful doubts. Leaning back to look into his eyes, she saw through his happy charade. “Neelix, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.”
She pressed her palms to his cheeks. “I can feel your emotions, Neelix. You’re scared. You don’t believe it’s me. Why not?”
He reached up and gently guided her hands away from his face. “Well, it’s… it’s not that I’m not happy to see you, I am, I’m thrilled to see you… but… the Vulcan man, Tuvok, told me you’d transformed into pure energy. That you’d left this plane of existence.” He hung his head. “I thought you were gone forever.”
“He lied to you, Neelix. They all did. They lied to me, too.” She cast nervous looks toward each end of the corridor. “Can I come in, please?”
“Of course.” As polite as ever, the Talaxian man stepped back and aside, then ushered Kes into his quarters with a low sweep of one arm. “Come in.” She hurried inside and he shut the door behind her. He clasped his hands and rubbed his palms together, a nervous habit. “So, you didn’t turn to pure energy?”
An amused smile and a shake of her head. “No.”
“Then where have you been?”
“Tuvok’s people have a hidden sanctuary. I lived there and learned from Tuvok’s wife how to control my powers.”
Suspicion tainted Neelix’s tone. “That’s where you’ve been for five years?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Well, pardon me if this sounds indelicate, but… shouldn’t you be…?”
“Old?”
He looked embarrassed. “Yes. You told me your species only lives about nine years, and if memory serves… you recently turned eight.”
She put on a disarmingly sweet smile and stepped toward him. His mind radiated alarm, but she projected waves of calm into his psyche, along with her telepathic voice. Tuvok’s people wield amazing technologies, Neelix. Bio-temporal accelerators, advanced genetic therapies, nanotech medicines. They changed me, made me young again. I can live as long as I want. She caressed his neck and pressed her forehead to his. Even as long as you.
She heard his unspoken question: How do I know it’s really you?
She projected into his mind one of her most cherished memories: the first time she met him. Letting it unfold inside the theater of his imagination, she let him experience that event from her point of view.
I was younger, then, not yet three years old. I had found a secret passage out of the underground oasis of the Ocampa, a gap in the protective force field generated by the Caretaker to keep us safe from intruders. But as badly as I had wanted to escape that place, there were others who had wanted just as desperately to find a way in: the Kazon-Ogla.
A band of them had set up camp near the entrance to the caverns, and they had captured me almost as soon as I had set foot upon the surface. They found my pale skin and golden hair repulsive, which was only fair, since I thought they were the ugliest brutes I’d ever seen. They beat me, tortured me. Broke my bones. Fed me
slop and made me live amid my own putrid filth, like an animal. They promised me a lifetime of suffering that would end only when I showed them how to enter the Ocampa city, so they could plunder its resources for themselves.
All I knew was agony and loneliness, Neelix. During the day I wilted from the heat. At night, the cold left me shaking until it pierced me to my bones.
First Maje Jabin wanted me only for the knowledge I refused to share. His underling Raltik thought the best way to make me talk was to rape me. But none of them compared with Kabor, my torturer. He showed me what pain is. He taught me to despair. To give up hope. To pray for death.
But then, from the darkness, there was light.
I knew you were different the moment I saw you. When you saw what the Kazon-Ogla had done to me, you were overcome with pity. I felt your heart break, the tears you forced yourself not to shed, the rage you felt at their cruelty.
Your memories came so clearly to me. Your homeworld of Talax scoured of life by the Haakonians’ metreon cascade weapon, the loss of your entire family, all your friends, your entire civilization. You were alone, grieving, in the dark.
You were just like me.
I knew your heart in the span of a moment, and I knew that I loved you.
That night you came to me, found me while the Kazon were asleep. You brought me real food and clean water. You did your best to clean my wounds. And you promised that one day you would take me away from there, to someplace where the Kazon could never touch me again.
You kept your word, Neelix. You came back for me. Now I’ve come back for you, so that we can be together, and no one will ever separate us again.
Tears of joy rolled from Neelix’s eyes. “It’s you! It’s really you!” He hugged her, without a trace of hesitation. “Oh, how I’ve missed you, my sweet one! Not a day’s gone by that I haven’t thought of you. I won’t lie—I’ve tried a few times to take comfort in the arms of women I’ve met here. But none of them ever meant to me what you do. None of them could ever take your place.”
She kissed him and ran her fingers through his crestlike mane of hair. “You don’t have to explain yourself, Neelix. You thought I was gone. I understand.”
“But you’re here now!” He bubbled over with excitement. “This is fantastic! With your help, the rebellion can have a real chance!”
Kes recoiled half a step in confusion. “I’m sorry. What?”
“I remember how powerful you are,” Neelix said. He grabbed her shoulders. “And if Mister Vulcan’s wife taught you how to control your powers, I can only imagine how much stronger you’ve become. With you on our side, we’ll show the Alliance we mean business.”
She lifted her hands and aggressively waved off his suggestion. “Neelix, no! That’s not why I came back! I’m just here for you. I came back to find you so that we can leave together, get away from all these people, and start a new life.”
Her declaration left him taken aback. “Kes, I can’t leave—not now. We’re on the verge of the biggest battle we’ve ever fought, and I’m a ship captain. These people are counting on me, Kes. They need me.”
“Not like I need you! You were mine before you were theirs!”
“And I’m still yours, Kes. But I made promises. Pledged oaths. I’m fighting to help billions of people gain their freedom. To help make a better civilization.” He offered her his hand. “And I want you to be a part of it. Join us.”
She looked at his open palm, extended with virtue and innocence. He was still the same man she had always known: true and brave, faithful and generous. Even half a decade living amid peoples torn by war, corruption, and villainy had been unable to taint him or quell his spirit. Hesitantly, she stepped forward and clasped his hand. He smiled.
She frowned. “I’m sorry, Neelix.”
Then she reached into his mind and found its deepest core of consciousness, the kernel of self that all beings try to hide and protect from suggestion, the part that most sentient creatures delude themselves into believing is private and inviolable… and with the slightest twist of thought turned it to her will.
“It’s time to leave here, Neelix.”
His gaze was empty, his voice flat, his smile weak and contrived, and the words that issued from his mouth were the ones that Kes wanted him to say. “Yes, my sweet one. Lead the way.”
Taking her misguided but beloved Talaxian in tow, she guided him out the door and down the corridor, committed to rescuing him in spite of himself. He walked beside her as if in a daze, a puppet on invisible strings.
It’s for his own good, Kes consoled herself. He’ll thank me when we’re safe.
They walked quickly but did not look out of place amid the frantic knots of people coursing in both directions over the bridge to the Docking Ring. Every few seconds brought another urgent announcement over the station’s PA system, but Kes tuned them out, keeping her focus on controlling Neelix and shielding her own mind. All we need to do is get back to my ship, she reminded herself. Once we’re away from here, we’ll be free. No one will ever find us again.
She gripped Neelix’s elbow and guided him through a right turn into the main passageway of the Docking Ring. Less than fifteen meters ahead stood the same security checkpoint she’d transited earlier, the last hurdle to her escape. I already have a window into the young Terran’s mind. This will be easy. She led Neelix into the line of people waiting to depart the station.
Pain like a needle of fire shot through Kes’s skull, from temple to temple. Her vision turned white and then purple, vertigo swept her legs out from under her, and as she struck the floor she was overcome by the urge to vomit. Sour bile preceded a rush of emesis that left her coughing and gagging. When the vile episode ended, she lay weak and spent—and noticed only then that she had gone telepathically blind. She could no longer sense the minds around hers, which meant she had lost her hold on Neelix. Struggling to focus her eyes, she looked up.
Neelix stood over her, looking down with an expression that was equal parts horror, fury, and pity. The throng gathered at the checkpoint backed away, forming a wide ring around Kes, and armed Terran sentries pushed through the crowd.
Someone else stepped through the wall of onlookers first, from the other direction, and kneeled over Kes with a concerned look on his face and a peculiar small device in his hand. It was Tuvok. “Do not try to move, Kes. The sickness will pass in a moment.” As the Terran guards approached, Tuvok said to them, “The situation is under control. Please contact Colonel Ishikawa.” The two Terrans nodded. One stepped away to do the Vulcan’s bidding, and the other corralled the gawking bystanders back into motion, hurrying them away from Tuvok and Kes.
Fighting not to weep, Kes grabbed Tuvok’s shirt. “Why?”
“You put yourself and others at great risk by coming here. For your own safety and the greater good, I had to stop you from abducting Mister Neelix.”
She looked to Neelix for support, or for forgiveness, or perhaps for just a glimmer of understanding, but he backed away from her, clearly stung by her betrayal. He melted back into the crowd, slipped through the checkpoint, and was gone. Kes looked back at Tuvok, her anger rising. “What did you do to me?”
He lowered his voice. “Let it suffice to say that before we helped you hone your powers, we took precautions to prevent them from being turned against us.”
“Is it permanent?”
“That will depend on you.” He helped her to her feet. “When you persuade me that you can be trusted to use your abilities wisely, we will discuss the deactivation of your neural damper.” With his hand on her back, he gently nudged her into motion away from the checkpoint. “For now, however, we need to get you somewhere safe.”
Apocalyptic thunderclaps split the air as the station rocked and shuddered, hurling Kes and Tuvok against a wall. Then the echoes of impact gave way to the angry bleat of alarms, followed by a voice declaring over the PA system, “Red Alert! All hands to battle stations!”
Kes glared at Tuvo
k. “You were saying?”
“The plan changes, but the goal remains the same.” He reversed direction and pulled her back toward the checkpoint, quickening his pace from a trot to a run. “We must get off this station immediately, or else we are both going to die.”
13
Alamo
No matter how many times Eddington and the other ship commanders had urged O’Brien to direct attacks from a safe remove, he had ignored them and ordered his crew to put the Defiant at the head of every formation. You can’t lead from the rear, Sisko had always told him, and it was a lesson O’Brien had taken to heart.
Facing the collective might of the Cardassian military’s Ninth Order, however, O’Brien wondered whether this might have been a good time for a change in tactics. Until that moment, the Terran Rebellion had limited itself to small-scale strikes, hit-and-run attacks, and guerrilla warfare. Now he and his people were about to try to hold the line against a full invasion force. Every shred of combat experience he possessed was telling him to retreat; the Alliance could mount dozens of efforts such as this, but the rebellion would likely survive only one. His conscience, however, knew that if he gave the order to retreat now, the people of Bajor would be the ones to pay for his cowardice.
I won’t condemn billions to die just to save my own skin, he vowed. Leaning forward in his command chair, he put a confident edge in his voice and started snapping orders at his crew. “Bowers, take us in, full impulse, and meet the Cardassians’ lead ship head-on. Ezri, target all weapons on that ship. Leeta, have Kearsarge and Independence guard our flanks.” He thumbed open a channel to the engine room. “Muñiz! You’re out of time! Do I have full power or not?”
“You’ve got it, sir. Just don’t ask me how.”
“Didn’t plan to. Good work, Quiqué.” He closed the channel.
Leeta looked up from the operations console. “Firing range in five seconds!” The buxom Bajoran first officer swiveled her chair to look across the cramped, dimly lit bridge at her wife, Ezri Tigan. “Lock torpedoes and phasers!”