by David Mack
* * *
It felt good to hit things.
Atop a low mound of dusty, hard-packed earth, Worf stood with his bat’leth in hand, his off-white exercise clothes torn and soiled with dirt and his own magenta blood. The hacked and partially dismembered corpses of his holographic opponents littered the slope at his bare feet. They represented many species: Nausicaans, Jem’Hadar, Hirogen, Balduk, Chalnoth, Gorn, and half a dozen others Worf either didn’t recognize or knew by sight but not by name. A few had left their mark on him, thanks to his loosening of the holodeck’s mortality failsafes.
A pair of Capellan warriors charged him. They resembled unusually large and well-muscled humans, and were distinguished by their unique garb—dark trousers and brightly colored tunics covered by wraparound sashes of a contrasting hue, all spun from metallic-looking silks—as well as by their topknot hairstyles and their peculiar armament, a three-bladed disk called a kligat. Similar to the Terran boomerang or the Klingon chegh’leth, the kligat was deadly when thrown at medium range, but unlike its alien cousins it didn’t return to the hurler if it missed its target. As Worf pivoted to turn a narrow profile to his attackers, they let the blades fly. The weapons raced toward him, spinning blurs of gleaming steel.
He deflected the first kligat with a sweep of his bat’leth. Then he arched his back, narrowly dodging the second disk-blade, which nicked the front of his chin and drew blood. Its sting was bright and hot, and it fueled his berserker rage as he counterattacked, lunging into the two Capellans’ path. His first swing parried a slash at his head, his second blocked a thrust at his ribs. He pivoted and spun his honor blade—first a feint, then a sweeping blow that severed one Capellan’s leg above the knee. As he fell, his comrade turned and pressed a new assault. Worf kicked the stricken warrior back down the slope and turned to finish off the charging foe.
Worf barely saw the glint of simulated red sunlight off the short sword’s blade as he felt the Capellan’s wild jab graze his cranial ridges. Then he lifted his bat’leth in a fierce upstroke and all but cleaved the hulking humanoid in twain. Simulated blood and viscera spilled over his blade and hands before painting the thirsty ground.
His breaths were short and quick, and his chest heaved with exertion. The primal thrill of hand-to-hand combat had his heart racing. Tactile violence was the greatest narcotic Worf had ever known; no creature comfort or chemically altered state came close to being its equal. Then his visceral thrill was undone by the deadpan feminine voice of the ship’s computer.
“All opponents eliminated. Do you wish to replay the simulation?”
For a moment, he considered it. He’d already set the program’s combatants to use the best tactics available, but there remained ways to amplify its challenge: he could increase the number of simultaneous attackers; he could increase their reaction speeds beyond those known to be their species’ maximums; he could adjust the program to take place in total darkness, forcing him to rely upon his nonvisual senses and his blind-fighting training. Or he could do all three.
“Computer,” he said—then he paused as the holodeck doors opened with a low hum of magnetic locks disengaging and the whine of heavy-duty servomotors parting its emergency-bulkhead-rated hatches. An antiseptic glare of light streamed in from the corridor on the other side and slashed through the dusky gloaming of the pretend killing field. A silhouetted figure strode inside. As the hatches behind him closed and vanished into the holographic horizon, Worf recognized his visitor as Captain Picard.
Picard started up the hillside toward Worf. “I hope you’ll forgive the intrusion, Number One. I tried the comm, but you didn’t answer.”
“I turned it off.” The first officer shouldered his bat’leth and walked down the hill and met his commanding officer. “I did not wish to be disturbed.”
The captain surveyed the intertwined bodies of the ersatz dead. “So I see.” He navigated around Worf, taking one careful step at a time through the carnage. He grimaced. “I take it this is where you’ve spent your off hours in recent months.”
He made his answer as oblique as the captain’s query. “Training keeps a warrior sharp.”
Picard squinted into the dying crimson light of the faux sundown. “It’s not your combat skills I’m concerned about.” He looked at Worf and frowned. “And I think you know that.”
Four months had bled away since the slaying of Jasminder Choudhury. The late security chief had been Worf’s on-again, off-again, on-again lover for most of the past three years, since the last Borg invasion. They had grown close commiserating over the loss of kin and had recently found a new stability and quiet bliss in their romantic companionship. Then, during an away mission, a single defiant order by Worf had sparked a cold-blooded reprisal by a Breen commando leader who murdered Choudhury without warning or hesitation. Within an hour of Choudhury’s killing, Worf had taken the Breen commander’s life—but he’d found no solace or satisfaction in it. The act had felt empty. Now he felt hollow. Still, he went through the motions.
“I have kept my appointments with Counselor Hegol, as ordered.”
“Yes, I know. Just as I know you’re more than smart enough to tell him what you think he wants to hear. But have you used those sessions to say what you really need to say?”
Worf had no ready reply. Despite his best attempts to confound Counselor Hegol with his taciturn Klingon defiance, their talk-therapy sessions had plagued Worf with nagging questions. The most troubling thought haunting Worf’s moments of solitude was the irrational fear that he was a jinxed man. In his adult life, he had been in love with only three women—K’Ehleyr, Jadzia Dax, and Jasminder Choudhury—and all three had fallen victim to murder. Duras had taken K’Ehleyr from him; Dukat had slain Jadzia; and the Spetzkar commander Thot Kren had vaporized Jasminder in a naked attempt to terrorize the captive away team into doing his bidding.
Perhaps I should consider a vow of celibacy. Disquieted by the turn of his own thoughts, he cast a dark look at Picard. “What I discuss with the counselor is private.”
“Of course. I didn’t mean to pry. I asked only out of concern, as a friend.”
Had any other commanding officer expressed such a sentiment to Worf, he would have called it suspect. But Captain Picard was not like any other officer Worf had ever known. Eighteen years earlier, when Worf confronted the Klingon High Council to defend his family’s honor and face discommendation, Picard had stood with Worf as his Cha’DIch, or second. They even shared an indirect psychic link, by virtue of both having mind-melded with Ambassador Spock on different occasions. If there was one human being alive who could truly be said to understand Worf, he would have to admit it was Jean-Luc Picard.
“I will be fine, Captain. If that is why you came to see me—”
“Not at all.” The change in subject led Picard to an uncomfortable pause. “I’m here because I received a message from Admiral Nechayev that concerns you.”
Every worst-case scenario Worf could imagine crowded his mind and flooded his veins with an adrenaline surge. “Did something happen to my parents? Is my son all right?”
The captain raised both hands to deflect Worf’s tide of anxiety. “Nothing of the sort, Number One. Quite the opposite, in fact. Admiral Nechayev wanted me to hear it first, and for me to be the one to tell you.” A sly smile. “Your name is being added to the list for promotion to the rank of captain, and assignment to the next available starship command.”
Worf was so unaccustomed to hearing good news that he blinked as if struck. “I . . . do not understand. I am being promoted?”
“Not necessarily right away,” Picard said. “Your name is being added to the list. It still needs to be approved by Starfleet Command, and then by the C-in-C. After that, the list goes to the Federation Council, and then to the president’s desk for final approval. But as the saying goes, Number One, ‘Wheels are in motion.’ It’s likely only a matter of time.”
The sudden turn of good fortune stunned Worf far more thorou
ghly than any hits he’d suffered by his holographic opponents in his “calisthenics” program. He was unable to look his captain in the eye. “I had thought this day would never come.”
“You’ve earned it, Worf.” He smiled. “Perhaps we should have a drink at the Riding Club, to celebrate.”
Jubilation was the furthest notion from Worf’s thoughts. During the Dominion War, he had scuttled a vital mission to save his wife, Jadzia. At the time, Captain Benjamin Sisko, then Worf’s commanding officer on Deep Space 9, had said that Worf’s dereliction of duty in wartime would bar him from ever attaining his own command. For most of the last decade, Worf had believed him, even when others had assured him Sisko was mistaken. That was before you were an ambassador, his friends had told him. Before you helped stop Shinzon. Before you became Picard’s first officer. But no amount of success or glory had seemed enough to atone for his moment of weakness in battle, his choice of love over country.
Then he defied the Breen’s order to surrender—and Jasminder died for it. Now the admiralty wanted to reward him with a fourth pip on his collar and a starship of his own to command—but all he could think was that his redemption had been bought with the life of the woman he’d loved, as if he’d offered her up as some sort of ritual blood sacrifice.
That wasn’t something he could live with. “Captain, can I ask you to respond to Admiral Nechayev on my behalf?”
“Of course, Number One. What message should I relay?”
“Please tell her that, with all due respect . . . I refuse.”
“Are you sure that’s wise, Mister Worf? Starfleet doesn’t offer command assignments lightly. Refusing one now might make them reluctant to consider you for promotion ever again.”
“That is a risk I am willing to take. As long as you remain in command of this ship, I have no desire to serve elsewhere. Or under the command of another officer.”
Picard looked Worf in the eye. “You honor me, Mister Worf. But I should warn you—if you’re waiting for me to give up command before you accept one of your own, it could be a very long time before you make captain.”
Worf sighed. “I am in no hurry.”
4
Low voices filled the vast, sacred hall with a susurrus of muted anxiety. Wesley’s footsteps on the narrow granite footbridge were inaudible beneath his fellow Travelers’ white noise of nervous expectation. Thousands of them, the eldest and most venerated, had answered his urgent summons, filling the ancient chamber’s tiered banks of seats above and all around him.
Located near the arctic pole of Tau Alpha C, the Travelers’ hallowed sanctuary had served for millennia as the intergalactic fellowship’s redoubt in the Milky Way. Its main hall was an enormous, hollow hemisphere that looked to Wesley as if it had been hewn from the core of a mountain formed from solid diamond. Broad panels of perfectly transparent crystal curved upward between broad but tapering arched ribs of translucent mineral. Overhead, the top of the domed ceiling was absolutely clear, offering a breathtaking view of a night sky twisting with the prismatic ribbons of the planet’s dramatic winter auroras.
Directly below the dome’s apex, surrounded by the circular tiers of seats, was a wide pool of pristine water in a concave mirrored basin that reflected the majesty of the sky above. Four narrow walkways of polished white granite led from the broad border of floor that ringed the pool to a small round platform in its center—the petitioner’s dais. Wesley climbed its few short steps and took his place at the chamber’s locus. “Thank you for hearing me.” His voice resounded majestically, amplified by the hall’s masterfully engineered acoustics.
At once the murmuring of hushed voices fell away, filling the ceremonial amphitheater with a deep silence. One of the most experienced of the Travelers—a silver-haired humanoid woman with solid-gray eyes and dark bronze skin—replied for the assembled throng. “Why have you gathered us, young brother?”
Wesley bowed his head to her. “Sister Tarsairys. My most recent journey led me to the center of this galaxy—where I found a threat unlike any I’ve ever seen before. A vast machine the size of a planet, bristling with energies beyond measure, is opening artificial wormholes and casting entire star systems into the supermassive singularity informally known as Abbadon.”
The cold undercurrent that swept through the yawning space was unmistakable: his account of the Machine had unleashed a wave of terror and dread. Next among the elders to speak was a vaguely arthropodal creature that walked on four limbs, manipulated tools and controls with talon-like digits on the ends of two more, and gesticulated with a pair of prodigious tentacles. “You saw the Machine yourself? Here?”
“Yes, Brother Almirax. My ship’s passive sensors took detailed readings.” He took a tiny holographic projection rod from the pocket of his jacket and used it to conjure a gigantic spectral image of the Machine over his head. Other Travelers’ audible gasps attended its appearance—then frantic whispers began circuiting the chamber. It was not the reaction Wesley had expected. He’d thought his news would be met with a degree of alarm or concern, but a tide of panic seemed to be rising among his fellow Travelers. Desperate to reassert control over the rare convocation and marshal its formidable experience and knowledge against the Machine, he raised his arms and his voice. “Please! Stay calm! We have to discuss a plan of action.”
His appeal was met by the incredulous three-eyed stare of a gruff male Hasturian named Carlon. “A plan? To accomplish what?”
“To stop the Machine!” No one was listening to him any longer. All the elders were rising from their seats and leaving in droves. Some who lacked the patience to battle the flood-crush of bodies heading for the exits shifted themselves away through space-time to parts unknown. Their exodus was as swift as it was chaotic; the Convocation’s rapid descent into hysteria baffled Wesley. He called out the names of anyone he recognized, but no one answered him. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he noted someone crossing the footbridge to his left, moving toward him. He turned and saw his old friend, the first Traveler he’d ever met, whose name defied pronunciation by human vocal mechanics but whom Wesley had nicknamed Kynum during one of their exploratory jaunts along the periphery of this universe.
Kynum walked with his hands folded in front of him and his index fingers steepled. His receding hairline, gently curving brow ridges, and beatific smile comforted Wesley through their simple familiarity. Though years had passed since Kynum had ceased acting as Wesley’s teacher in the Travelers’ ways, Wesley still revered the Tau Alpha C native as his philosophical mentor.
He turned to meet his friend. “Kynum, what the hell’s going on?”
“You’ve found something far more terrible than you could have known.” He looked up at the ghostly sphere hovering above their heads. “Over the last billion years, the Machine has devastated countless galaxies across the universe.”
“Hang on.” Wesley grappled with his temper. “You know what it is?”
The pale, lanky Traveler nodded. “We’ve seen it before.”
Anger got the best of Wesley. “Then why didn’t you stop it?”
“We’ve tried.” Kynum’s frown of grim resignation said more than words ever could have. “And we failed. Thousands of times.” He forestalled Wesley’s interrogative replies with a raised hand. “We’ve tried to reason with it. Bargain with it. We’ve even tried to fight it. But the Machine never listens, and it never stops.” Sorrow darkened his countenance as he looked up at the slowly rotating image. “If it’s come to this galaxy, then we need to leave, quickly—while we still can.” He sighed. “I’d hoped we’d have more time.”
“More time for what?” Wesley grabbed Kynum’s shoulders. “And what do you mean it’s time for us to leave? Tell me the Travelers aren’t abandoning the galaxy!”
“There’s nothing more we can do, Wesley. If we’d had more time, perhaps we could have prepared the cultures of this galaxy for what’s about to happen. But it’s too late. Unless we want to become trapped here and share
its fate, we will have to continue our work elsewhere.” He extended one arm away from Wesley, back down the footbridge he’d crossed to the dais. “Come with me. We should say our farewells to the Milky Way before we move on.”
“I’m not going with you,” Wesley said with a proud lift of his bearded chin. “I watched this thing toss a populated planet into a black hole. I won’t just stand aside and do nothing while it destroys the galaxy.”
Kynum shook his head, as if he pitied Wesley for his fighting spirit. “If you do this, you’ll have to do it alone. The rest of us know the Machine’s history. It can’t be stopped.”
“There’s always a way,” Wesley protested.
“Sometimes there isn’t.” Kynum mustered a bittersweet smile. “But I wish you luck.” He turned and walked away. In midstride, a ripple of light enveloped him, and space-time dimpled around him as if he were pushing through an invisible membrane. Then he blinked out of sight and the fabric of reality rebounded into static equilibrium, as if he had never been there at all.
With a tap on the projector pen, Wesley deactivated the hologram of the Machine and turned in a slow circle. The sacred hall of the Travelers was empty but for him.
Last man standing, he noted glumly. Let’s hope that’s not an omen of things to come.
* * *
Time moved like molasses. A churning sea pitched and rolled in slow motion at Wesley’s back, its algae-covered swells tearing themselves into lacy foam as the tide surged through recent (if one can call something more than a thousand years old recent) fissures in the continental barrier that for eons had parted the sea from the great desert basin below. The nameless world’s majestic rings of silver and gold—the brilliant remnant of a long-shattered moon—arced dramatically above the pale green horizon, reflecting the light of distant twin suns.
Under his bare feet, a rocky promontory provided him a vertiginous view, straight down into the misty violence of the highest waterfall he had ever seen. Cascades of seawater plunged more than thirty-one kilometers after pouring over the continental barrier. Most of the torrent turned to vapor before it struck bottom, blanketing the growing inland sea with thick white clouds. Its roar, which Wesley had expected to find deafening, had been muted by distance into an endless breath, a steady whisper telling the tale of a world engaged in slow transformation.