Wounds, Book 2

by Ilsa J. Bick

“Kahayn? I don’t know. I’d like to think so. She wasn’t evil, just desperate, and I think there was much more to her story than I’ll ever know. She was very sad, a little haunted. I think she struggled to make things right.”

  “In the end, she chose for you. She might still be alive.” If Saad didn’t kill them all, and himself.

  “Perhaps. If she isn’t, someone else will pick up her work. The Kornaks are willing to sacrifice a lot to survive. Loss of soul. Loss of self.”

  “Just like the Borg.” The words were out of her mouth before she knew it. “Do you think—?”

  He shrugged. “Don’t know. This alien device may have slipped us sideways into a parallel timeline. Into the past, the future, or maybe the same moment somewhere else…Who knows? For that matter, maybe we got a good look at a past that’s happened in this timeline on a planet we’ve never known. Before they were the Borg, the Borg were something else. There’s got to be a Borg homeworld somewhere. We just haven’t found it yet.”

  “Or maybe we did.”

  “Maybe.” He was silent. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “Saad.” Saying his name hurt. Her eyes burned. “I hope he died. I don’t want to think of him, hooked up…” She cleared her throat. “I just hope he died.”

  She was surprised when Julian reached out and thumbed away her tears. But she didn’t pull away, and he didn’t either. “It hurts.”

  She nodded then bunched a fist over her heart. Mouthed the words because she couldn’t speak: Right here. Then she released a breath, closed her eyes. This was okay. She cupped his hand with both of hers. Yes, this was all right.

  They stood like that for a long time. Then Julian said, “You know, I wonder who won the Bentman. My God, it seems ages, centuries ago that we were boxing around that. I can’t imagine either of us won—and something extraordinary: I don’t care.”

  She realized suddenly that she didn’t either. “I think the rules say you have to be present to win.”

  “Well, then we bollixed that up. I don’t think the judges’ll countenance alien widgets and time-space anomalies. Can you see us explaining? Uh, yes, well, we got sucked into this anomaly and then our runabout disintegrated and then we thought we were both dead…well, that is, each of us thought the other’d kicked it, only we were mistaken and then…”

  She had to laugh. “God, stop. That’s so sick.”

  “I know; that’s the beauty of it. You know something? I want to save this for next time I need an excuse. Do you know that time-space distortions could be blamed for, oh, scads? Like doing your homework, you go to your professor, all hail-fellow-well-met.” He dropped his voice an octave and frowned. “Sorry, old boy, can’t turn that in. Got sideswiped by a time-space continuum thing, bugger it all. Bloody inconvenience; so sorry, but you understand, don’t you, old chap? There’s a good fellow.”

  They laughed until her sides hurt. She knew the joke wasn’t that funny, but laughter was medicine, too. They finally trailed off; they held hands and looked at each other. It was comfortable. That was all it had to be.

  “Your scar,” she said, suddenly, “are you going to keep it?”

  “What?” Frowning, he fingered the ridge of flesh. “Do you know I forgot it until just now? Like it’s a part of me somehow.”

  She traced his scar with the tip of a forefinger. “I can take that off. I’ve had practice,” and then at his expression, she laughed. “God, no, not with a scalpel.”

  “Well, thank heaven.” He captured her fingers, folded them over his own. “Who could refuse such an offer from a woman…I’m sorry, a colleague? And let me return the favor. You don’t look well, Elizabeth.”

  She shrugged it off. “Just tired.”

  “Mmmm. Mind a more professional, unbiased opinion? Or are you one of those doctors who make horrible patients?”

  “Which do you think?”

  “Mmmm. Right. A positive horror.” He tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow. “Shall we?”

  “Lead on, Macduff.”

  “Ouch. Didn’t Macbeth kill him? Lop off his head or something?”

  “Relax, Julian. I’m just getting rid of your scar. Anyway, it’s Macduff who kills Macbeth. But the witches were still there at the end. So, the evil wasn’t gone. Macduff just couldn’t see it, was all.”

  “Well, then, it seems that things didn’t end for the best after all, did they? At least, not for Macduff.”

  Security Director Blate stood, goggle-eyes whirring as his gaze ticked down the length of scarred metal. The metal was hollowed out and spanned the height of a full-grown man and had a core of honeycombed material he couldn’t fathom. The metal was scorched with soot that was sticky, a little oily. Like Bashir’s suit…He looked back at the soldier. “Is this all?”

  “No.” The soldier shook his head with the audible click and whirr of a gyro. “There’s wreckage strewn over a wide area. Mostly pieces like this, and one big chunk. Some sort of control mechanism.”

  “Very well, I want a team out there. Bring it all back, and I want it secreted here, in this wing. You are dismissed.”

  Well, well. Blate walked a corridor of the research wing. The slap of his boots cracked like pistol shots. He entered a room that was the only one occupied for the moment—but only for the moment. All is not lost, and more gained than I supposed. Pity about Janel, though. I underestimated Kahayn’s resourcefulness.

  The room was very noisy: the tick-tick-ticking of IV pumps; the atonal blip of cardiac monitors; and the whoosh and sigh of ventilators. The nurse on duty, a major, stepped smartly to attention and reported that all three patients were doing well.

  He ran his fingers along each patient’s scalp. Saad’s scar was old and firm. But Kahayn’s and Arin’s were new, the sutures not yet removed, and Arin’s new left arm was a wonder: jointed with a thick pincer instead of a hand. None of them dreamed; they were too heavily sedated for that. But he wondered if, when Saad awoke, they would share dreams, too. He knew for sure, though: the man Saad would cease to exist because Blate would break him.

  So we’re not done for yet. In fact, we’ve just begun. His lips curled into a smile. Because no door ever closed that another didn’t open.

  “Oh, my God,” said Lense. She sat on a biobed in her own sickbay, absolutely stunned. “Julian, that can’t be right.”

  “But it is,” said Bashir. The overhead light turned the smooth skin of his forehead a warm bronze. “I can run it again but,” he put a hand to her neck, “there’s no mistake, Elizabeth.”

  “But…” She hooked her hand onto Julian’s arm and just hung on. “I don’t know what to do,” she said.

  “Well, you could give happiness a whirl. Maybe this is good.”

  “Or maybe it’s bad.”

  “Possibly.”

  “I don’t know what to do,” she said again.

  “Elizabeth,” said Bashir, and he touched his forehead to hers with easy intimacy. “Don’t do anything, my dear.”

  “Do nothing?”

  “Do nothing. You have time. Give it thought. But above all,” he pulled back until their eyes locked, “be…happy. Because this is rare, and very precious. It’s like something out of the ashes. Maybe you won’t want it in the end. But maybe you will, because it’s a gift of things past and a possible future. It’s a gift.”

  “You think?” And then she said it, out loud, to make it real and because she thought that, maybe, this was a gift she should keep.

  “I’m going to have a baby, Julian,” she said. “I’m going to have a child.”

  About the Author

  ILSA J. BICK is a writer as well as a recovering child and forensic psychiatrist. She is the author of prizewinning stories, such as “A Ribbon for Rosie” in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds II, “Shadows, in the Dark” in Strange New Worlds IV, and “The Quality of Wetness” in Writers of the Future Vol. XVI. She’s written for BattleCorps.com, SCIFICTION, Challenging Destiny, Talebones, Beyond the Last Star, and Star Tr
ek: New Frontier: No Limits, among many others. Her first published novel, Star Trek The Lost Era: Well of Souls cracked the 2003 Barnes and Noble Bestseller List. Forthcoming is “Bottomless” in the Star Trek: Voyager anniversary anthology Distant Shores. Her first MechWarrior Dark Age novel, Daughter of the Dragon, was published by Roc in June 2005. Avatar, a murder-mystery novel set in the MechWarrior Dark Age universe, is tentatively scheduled for December 2005. When she isn’t writing—like, yah, when is that?—she lives in (mostly frigid) Wisconsin with her husband, two children, three cats, and other assorted vermin. Sometimes, she even cooks for them.

  The Star Trek: S.C.E. Timeline

  Compiled by Keith R.A. DeCandido

  This is a rough guide to the timeline of the S.C.E. series of eBooks. It includes all the eBooks published to date (#1: The Belly of the Beast through to #56: Wounds Book 2), as well as any other stories the crew of the da Vinci might have appeared in, plus a hint or two from future eBooks (though nothing spoilery, we promise). Other episodes, movies, novels, and short stories have been included where appropriate, generally to provide a frame of reference.

  Please be aware that the creation of a monthly eBook series that coordinates with a variety of TV shows, movies, and other prose fiction is very much a work-in-progress, and there may be occasions where there are inconsistencies between a story’s placement in the timeline below and chronological cues in the stories themselves. In each case where that happened, it was out of a preference for going with what worked for the story over what would maintain a strict, perfect chronology. The management apologizes for any confusion that may engender among our readers, and also allows as how this chronology may be superseded in the future.

  Above all, the purpose of this timeline is to provide a rough guide to how S.C.E. fits in with the overall Star Trek tapestry. Emphasis on “rough.”

  Citations: Television episodes are listed in “quotation marks,” with abbreviation indicating series (TOS=Star Trek, TAS=Star Trek [the animated series], TNG=The Next Generation, DS9=Deep Space Nine). Novels and eBooks are listed in italics, with non-S.C.E. titles given an abbreviation indicating series (VGD=Vanguard, NF=New Frontier); S.C.E. installments are given their number. Short stories are listed in “quotation marks,” with the book the story appeared in provided in italics.

  2265

  An engineering team is sent to repair an observation post along the border of the Romulan Neutral Zone. The team includes Lt. Commander Montgomery Scott, soon to become chief engineer of the U.S.S. Enterprise, and a Starfleet Corps of Engineers team led by Lt. Commander Mahmud al-Khaled on the U.S.S. Lovell, Captain Daniel Okagawa commanding. [#17: Foundations Book 1 by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore]

  The Lovell is sent to the newly constructed Starbase 47, a.k.a. Vanguard, to solve several technical problems that have cropped up in the base’s hasty construction. [#64: Distant Early Warning by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore, VGD Book 2: Summon the Thunder by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore]

  2267

  The Enterprise, under the command of Captain James T. Kirk, dismantles the Landru computer that has been controlling Beta III. Starfleet then sends in the Lovell, as well as a team of sociologists, to help the planet get out from under Landru’s influence. Scott stays behind as well, and helps when Landru is accidentally reactivated. [“Return of the Archons” (TOS), #18: Foundations Book 2 by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore]

  2268

  The U.S.S. Defiant is lost in an interspatial rift near the Tholian border. They were being chased by a Tholian ship that was trying to keep the Defiant from providing evidence that the Tholian Assembly attacked a Klingon colony. The Enterprise is sent to find them, and is almost lost in the rift as well. The Defiant disappears. [“The Tholian Web” (TOS), #4-5: Interphase Books 1-2 by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore]

  The Enterprise and the I.K.S. Klothos are trapped in the “Delta Triangle,” and encounter the community of aliens who have also been trapped, and accepted their imprisonment. After Captains Kirk and Kor effect an escape, Starfleet sends the Lovell to attempt to learn more of the region. [“The Time Trap” (TAS), #44: Where Time Stands Still by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore]

  2279

  Commanders Scott and al-Khaled are part of a team testing a Kelvan drive system on the U.S.S. Chandley. [#19: Foundations Book 3 by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore]

  2294

  Captain Scott, distraught over the apparent death of Kirk, decides to retire to the Norpin colonies. He meets Ensign Matt Franklin in a pub in Scotland, and accepts the young man’s invitation to hitch a ride on his new assignment, the U.S.S. Jenolen. En route, the Jenolen encounters a Dyson Sphere and crashes into it, killing all hands save Scott and Franklin. They are able to store themselves as repeating patterns in the transporter while awaiting rescue. [Star Trek Generations, Engines of Destiny by Gene DeWeese, “Relics” (TNG)]

  2321

  The Starfleet Academy track team, which includes Cadet David Gold, competes against Columbia University’s team, which includes a student named Rachel Gilman. Columbia wins, and Gold and Gilman start dating. [#28: Breakdowns by Keith R.A. DeCandido]

  2322

  Gold and Gilman get married. [#28: Breakdowns by Keith R.A. DeCandido]

  2323

  First-year Cadet Jean-Luc Picard wins the Academy marathon, stunning the upperclass students, among them Gold. [“The Best of Both Worlds Part 2” (TNG), #1: The Belly of the Beast by Dean Wesley Smith]

  Gold graduates from Starfleet Academy. Along with classmate Augustus Bradford, he is assigned to the U.S.S. Gettysburg under the command of Captain Mark Jameson. Bradford idolizes Jameson. [#13: No Surrender by Jeff Mariotte]

  2324

  Gold and Gilman move into a house in the Riverdale section of the Bronx in New York City, a house they would remain in for at least the next fifty-two years. [#28: Breakdowns by Keith R.A. DeCandido]

  2339

  Seven-year-old Kieran Duffy announces to his father that he intends to travel to the stars. [#24: Wildfire Book 2 by David Mack]

  2341

  Duffy is given a dog named Alexander by his father, but the dog is too willful to be contained by a single backyard, and the Duffy family give Alexander to an apple orchard. [#24: Wildfire Book 2 by David Mack]

  2348

  Duffy is given a pair of gravity boots for his sixteenth birthday by his uncle Jim, and he spends most of the next six months using them. [#10: Here There Be Monsters by Keith R.A. DeCandido, #24: Wildfire Book 2 by David Mack]

  2351

  Cadet Duffy’s father dies. [#24: Wildfire Book 2 by David Mack]

  2355

  Aldo Corsi’s cargo transport is commandeered by Starfleet Intelligence for a mission near the Cardassian border. The mission goes very badly, resulting in the death of Aldo’s brother Giancarlo. [#25: Home Fires by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore]

  2357

  Dr. Bartholomew Faulwell enlists in Starfleet, where he is assigned to the U.S.S. Pisces as a linguist during their long-term exploration mission. [#21: War Stories Book 1 by Keith R.A. DeCandido]

  2364

  Jameson, now an admiral, reveals shortly before his death that he broke the Prime Directive during a mission to Mordan IV forty years earlier. The knowledge that his hero did this is devastating to Bradford, who resigns his commission and ends his friendship with Gold. [“Too Short a Season” (TNG), #13: No Surrender by Jeff Mariotte]

  2365

  Sonya Gomez graduates Starfleet Academy and is assigned to the U.S.S. Enterprise-D as an ensign in engineering under Lieutenant Geordi La Forge. Her first meeting with Captain Picard has her spilling hot chocolate all over him, an incident that prompts Gomez never to touch the beverage again. [“Q Who” (TNG)]

  Gomez aids in the rescue of La Forge from Pakleds. [“Samaritan Snare” (TNG)]

  Lieutenant (j.g.) Domenica Corsi, the deputy chief of security on the U.S.S. Roosevelt, and her long-time lover, Lieutenant (j.g.) Dar Ableen, a supply officer, travel together to Pembe
rton’s Point while on shore leave. [#25: Home Fires by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore, #54: Security by Keith R.A. DeCandido]

  The Enterprise surreptitiously saves the world of Drema IV from tectonic instability that threatens to destroy it, knowledge of which was gained from Lt. Commander Data engaging in unauthorized conversations with a young Dreman girl named Sarjenka. Dr. Katherine Pulaski, under Picard’s orders, alters Sarjenka’s memories so she has no recollection of the events. [“Pen Pals” (TNG)]

  During a mission to the colony of Mariposa, Gomez is among the engineering personnel whose cells are harvested for possible cloning; the samples are subsequently destroyed. [“Up the Long Ladder” (TNG), #57: Out of the Cocoon by William Leisner]

  2366

  After months of flirting, Lieutenant (j.g.) Gomez invites Lieutenant (j.g.) Duffy on a date at the arboretum. [#24: Wildfire Book 2 by David Mack]

  The Roosevelt is assigned to aid the Izar Peace Officers in solving a multiple homicide that matches homicides on three other worlds. Corsi and Officer Christine Vale soon determine that Ableen is the guilty party, and Corsi shoots him in order to save Vale from being his next victim. The incident prompts Vale to apply to Starfleet Academy. [#1: The Belly of the Beast by Dean Wesley Smith, #6: Cold Fusion by Keith R.A. DeCandido, #54: Security by Keith R.A. DeCandido]

  On Ferenginar, a Ferengi named Lant appears from the future to make his fortune by speculating on market trends he already knows. An S.C.E. team from the U.S.S. da Vinci follows him back and forces him to lose all his wealth. [#32: Buying Time by Robert Greenberger]

  Duffy is part of an engineering team on the Enterprise led by Lt. Commander La Forge that deals with invidium contamination of various systems. [“Hollow Pursuits” (TNG)]