by Star Trek
“It’s worse,” Chakotay replied.
The creatures continued their attacks on Phoebe. Chakotay could barely make out Seven’s lithe form, staying as low to the floor as she could, but failing to find a clear path through the throng. Dozens of Monorhans had surrounded Chakotay’s rucksack and seemed intent on thwarting anyone who might approach.
“We have to get away from these walls,” Chakotay shouted to Neelix.
“Why?” Neelix asked.
The answer came in the form of a deafening crunch as a casing gave way. It had housed a creature more than three meters high with four appendages attached to its exoskeleton, each terminating in sharp pincers. Disoriented, the creature stumbled from its stasis chamber, barely missing Neelix’s head as it fell.
More loud crunches followed, as Chakotay pushed Neelix toward Seven, into the melee.
“Don’t look!” he ordered. “Just run!”
Janeway’s first response was to order B’Elanna to the bridge.
“Bring the impulse engines online and release the docking clamps. Force your way free if you have to. Take shields and structural integrity to maximum, and wait for my order. If you don’t hear from me in eight minutes, get Voyager to safety.”
“But…” B’Elanna started to argue.
“There’s no time for explanations, B’Elanna. I have to get to the Key. If Phoebe was serious about bringing it to me, she’d already be here. If I’m not back with Chakotay’s team by then, we’re not coming back.”
B’Elanna forced a stoic nod and an “Aye, Captain” before calling for Vorik to join her and hurrying from the room.
Assylia was still crouched on the floor, sobbing. The Doctor had moved to her side and was attempting to murmur some words of comfort, which were obviously having no effect whatsoever on the broken woman.
Tuvok stood immobile, watching Assylia with the same curious eyes that had been fixed upon her since her strange request of someone called Naviim.
Moving directly into his line of sight, Janeway said, “Tuvok?”
His eyes blinked rapidly and then took on a more familiar expression.
“Captain,” he replied.
Physical displays of affection had never been part of the unspoken vocabulary of their long relationship, but the bittersweet pain of this moment overwhelmed her and she placed a delicate hand on the area of the glowing creature that rested above his heart as her eyes brimmed with tears.
“You said that you would enter the final stage of transformation willingly,” she said.
“That is correct,” he replied.
“Then it isn’t too late?”
“Too late for what?” he asked.
“The Doctor might still be able to save you,” she said urgently, “If you will allow him to.”
Tuvok met Janeway’s fervent gaze. His eyes, usually filled with cold and dark resolve, were lit with an emotion Janeway was certain she had never seen there. It was a mixture of kindness and regret.
“I would not choose another course, Captain, nor would I have one chosen for me,” he said.
“But, Tuvok…” Janeway implored, the breadth and depth of the loss she was faced with tensing between them.
Doubt and confusion played across Janeway’s face as she tried to push her own heart out of the way and consider this choice only from Tuvok’s point of view.
Finally she offered a weak, semi-serious “I could make it an order.”
“You could,” he replied.
“But though that might change your course of action, it would not change your choice, would it?” she asked.
“It would not,” he replied.
Removing her hand, she looked directly into his eyes and said, “I will miss you. But I would not deny you this. Goodbye…my friend.”
“Goodbye…Kathryn,” he replied. “Live long and prosper.”
Without another word, she turned and rushed from sickbay.
Ensign Clayton was halfway through her third straight duty shift in transporter room three when Janeway entered, slinging a modified phaser rifle over her shoulder. Clayton had followed the away team’s progress from the Betasis into the first ring. But once they had used the alien transporters to move to the second ring, she had lost a stable lock.
She had noted with surprise and relief when Chakotay’s team had activated a set of pattern enhancers within the second ring. She watched, bleary-eyed, for the first moment she might detect their signals within the range of the enhancers, certain that their arrival there might indicate a need for a rapid evacuation, and she had no intention of disappointing them.
Clayton was the first in her family to enter the Academy. The second daughter, one of three children, she had been taken to Bajor by her parents when she and her siblings were just toddlers. Because her parents were Federation citizens not affiliated with Starfleet, the Cardassian authorities had granted them permission to work as teachers within the occupied territories. This was one of many positive faces they tried to put on the Occupation for many years. But Clayton knew intimately the true methods and means of the Cardassians, and their unspoken determination to crush Bajor’s people and civilization. Her sister and brother had died fighting for the resistance not long after their parents had been stripped of their status as “neutral advisors” and thrown into a labor camp. Clayton had been smuggled off on a cargo vessel and, once returned to the safety of the home of her father’s sister on Earth, had immediately transmitted her application to Starfleet Academy. The years on Bajor had left an indelible mark upon her spirit. Human by birth, a Starfleet officer by choice, in her heart she was, and always would be, Bajoran.
Voyager had been her first assignment, and Clayton had done her best by Captain Janeway. She had served for four years in relative obscurity as a nameless, faceless, but nonetheless integral part of Voyager’s survival up to this point.
“Ensign,” Janeway barked as she entered, “do you currently have a lock on Commander Chakotay’s position?”
“No, ma’am,” she replied. “His last known location was section fifty-seven epsilon of the second ring, where he activated a set of pattern enhancers, but I haven’t had a clear signal for the past eleven minutes.”
“Show me that section of the array,” Janeway requested, stepping shoulder-to-shoulder with Clayton to examine the display. As she pondered the schematic, Janeway said softly, “Where was he headed?”
“There is a large storage bay only a few hundred meters from the pattern enhancers, Captain,” Clayton offered. “I believe that was his intended destination.”
“What’s in that storage bay?” Janeway asked.
Overlaying a sensor display on the schematic, Clayton answered, “There are muted biosignatures and…oh, my…”
“What is it?”
“The multiphasic activity in that room is off the charts.”
“What does that mean, Ensign?”
“We’ve been tracking the life-forms Commander Chakotay discovered, and from the looks of it, almost all of them are now located in the storage bay where the away team was headed.”
“Can you transport me directly there?” Janeway asked.
“Maybe.”
Janeway raised an eyebrow. Clayton knew full well that when the captain posed a question she was accustomed to receiving either a definitive answer or a lot more information.
“Explain.”
“The mineral compound that blocks our transporters has an unusual crystalline formation. It refracts the beam, thereby destabilizing it. But there are sections of the array that do not contain the compound, less than ten percent. If we use the pattern enhancers the away team set up and direct the beam from there through the unaffected sections, I think I can get you in the room.”
“You think?”
“I’ve run a few simulations…in the event the away team couldn’t make it back to the enhancers. I’d just have to reverse the settings,” Clayton replied. “Of course you might want Lieutenant Torres to check my ca
lculations.”
“There isn’t time,” Janeway said, stepping up to the transporter pad. “Do it.”
Clayton took a deep breath and reset the transport parameters. When it was done she said, “Ready, Captain?”
“Energize, Ensign…Clayton, isn’t it?” Janeway asked.
“Yes, Captain,” she replied. “Ensign Grace Clayton.”
“Good work, Grace,” Janeway replied with a tight smile. “Now energize.”
Chapter 16
In Janeway’s abrupt exit she had missed the wave of emotions that washed over Tuvok’s face following her departure. Tuvok’s gaze had shifted to Assylia, still wailing and rocking back and forth inconsolably.
Her pain was a magnet, tearing at the powerful and new emotions that he had discovered in his communion with the transformed Monorhans. His thoughts turned back to the fire…the certainty and peace that now lay within his grasp. Their cool firm simplicity bathed him in peace, bringing him one step closer to the acceptance that would mean his death and release.
But something else, equally powerful, stayed him. He had intentionally severed his link with the Monorhans, those who were waiting so anxiously for him to join their vast and brilliant harmony. He had opened himself to them only once in the last several hours, at Assylia’s request. And though he had sensed Naviim’s presence, and allowed Naviim to move through him for a moment to address his rih, Tuvok was now alone, standing on the precipice of complete abandon and wondering why, now that he had come so far, he was hesitating.
Other than to deactivate the holomatrix, the Doctor was helpless to ease Assylia’s suffering. She was beyond his ministration, or any that could be offered by anyone else.
Except for Tuvok.
He had never before felt compassion.
He understood it. He had seen it in action many times, particularly in his interactions with Janeway and her crew. He knew its value and the absurd lengths to which it often led humans.
But he was completely unprepared for the selflessness of the emotion.
His first contact with the transformed Monorhans had been a tangle of confusion. But once his mind had been opened to them…or by them…he had allowed the struggle to cease and given way to the torrential rain of emotion that had always been buried within him.
This was part of the allure of the new life that was being offered to him. Pure logic was only part of the experience. Logic balanced with emotion…the end of the struggle…was the elusive prize he so desperately sought.
But now that he was no longer able to submerge his feelings beneath a solid layer of logic, he found, much to his surprise, that the choice that lay before him was not as simple as he had believed up to this point.
He could accept that his friends and family…those who loved him…would feel pain when his body died. It was a testament to their devotion to him that they would willingly suffer this pain so that he might take the final step in this journey he had chosen. And it was appropriate that they honor his choice.
But Assylia’s suffering moved him in a way he had never experienced. Even with all of the promise that lay before him, he was not certain he would be able to find complete peace in it, if it meant he had failed to relieve the pain of another whose tortured existence demanded that any being who was sentient of it respond with compassion.
The realization hit him.
He would always regret this choice.
But not as much as the alternative.
His arms were bound to his side, constricted by the presence of the life-form awaiting the final transfer of his consciousness. He gently requested release, and the creature rearranged itself so that he could place his hands on Assylia’s face.
Kneeling before her, he said quietly, “My mind to your mind…”
The meld was initiated. He was all too aware that the enhanced mental abilities he was currently enjoying, the same abilities that had allowed him to call to Vorik and find the strength to deliver the Monorhans’ message to Assylia, would be lost to him forever if what he was about to attempt succeeded. But the part of him that knew compassion did not care.
Once his mind was firmly linked to the consciousness that was embedded within Assylia’s holomatrix, he opened the door that linked him to the minds of Assylia’s people. For a moment, both were bathed in a sea of conflict and terror.
Something was wrong.
Protect them.
The Key has been recovered.
Danger.
It is the Time of Knowing.
It must be stopped.
Blessed be the All-Knowing Light.
Resist.
Surging through the sea of these vast conflicting fragments of thought, Tuvok saw the chamber where the Nacene known as “Phoebe” was slaughtering the Monorhans.
His despair was overwhelming. But from Assylia he received an infusion of righteous rage.
She knew what he knew.
These were her people, and they were once again under attack. But this time, there was something she could do to help them.
Tuvok?
He heard her words clearly in his mind.
The choice is yours, he answered her.
This responsibility is mine. I must help them, she replied.
Then do so.
Tuvok was again seated in front of the fire, grasping the hand of his mirror image. Assylia sat beside him, and as he made his wishes clear to the creature that had shared every aspect of his being since the transformation had begun, the image of the face across the fire began to shimmer.
For a brief moment, Tuvok knew sadness. The features of the face distorted and were replaced by a mirror image of Assylia. Though Tuvok did not remember releasing the hand of his counterpart, he saw now that the entity firmly grasped the hand of Assylia.
Then, the fire was gone. He was alone again in the darkness of his mind. But the anticipated and familiar loneliness did not ache within him as it had so recently. An icy wave washed it away as the pain, regret, and compassion buried themselves deep in the recesses of his mind where they belonged.
The Doctor watched in amazement as the glowing creature that had engulfed Tuvok began to writhe and wriggle, moving down Tuvok’s arms and beginning to envelop the holographic body of Assylia.
She did not seem to resist the transfer. In the space of a few short moments, the creature completely disentangled itself from Tuvok and covered every visible portion of Assylia.
Force of habit called the Doctor to scan both of them with his tricorder, but it wasn’t necessary to understand what was happening. Tuvok had said that the final choice to accept the creature was his and his alone. Clearly he had made the choice to allow the creature, now fully formed, to merge with Assylia’s consciousness rather than his own.
The transfer was complete.
Tuvok fell unconscious to the deck as the creature formed itself into a tight cocoon around Assylia. A few moments later, the Doctor watched in awe as an organism of unspeakable beauty burst forth from the cocoon, unfolding its massive wings and beginning to beat the air with them to hold a stationary position above Tuvok’s supine form.
Two delicate arms emerged from the creature’s torso. Long tapered fingers reached for Tuvok’s face and gently caressed him. Then, in a brilliant flash of blinding white light, the creature was gone.
The Doctor knelt over Tuvok and activated his tricorder. The readings were impossible, but confirmed when Tuvok opened his eyes and started to sit up.
“Gently, Lieutenant,” the Doctor said in his most soothing voice. “It appears you are going to be fine.”
The first thing Janeway was conscious of as she materialized in the center of the chamber where Chakotay, Seven, Neelix, and the Monorhans were battling for their lives was a complete inability to breathe. There was simply no space around her which was not occupied by billowing rapidly beating wings. After a few seconds of tumbling through this disoriented jumble, she threw herself facedown on the floor of the chamber.
Th
rough the confusion she heard the unmistakable hiss of weapons fire.
That would be the away team, she thought, and the fact that at least one of them was still alive and wielding a weapon steeled her resolve. With one arm raised above her head to shield it from the relentless onslaught of frenetic activity, she started to crawl toward the only opening she could make out within the swirling mass. Within a few meters, her hand struck something solid. Raising her eyes, she saw a standard-issue rucksack, and within it the rough edges of the ceremonial box in which the Key to Gremadia had been presented to her.
Frantically, she opened the pack and pulled the box free. With a loud click and hiss, she released the ceremonial lock and cracked the box open.
Blinding rays of pink light—accompanied, perhaps only in Janeway’s imagination, by a screeching wail—poured from the box.
I guess they’re glad I’m back, Janeway thought, relatively undisturbed by the fact that she was now accustomed to thinking of the Key as many living things.
The frenetic efforts of the creatures that surrounded her increased exponentially when the Key was revealed. The box was pulled from her fingertips and lifted from the ground, then abruptly clattered back to the floor as the creature who had grasped it was pulled from the melee by an unseen force.
This time, Janeway managed to rise almost to her hands and knees, and in one quick motion threw her body over the box, clutching it to her chest and folding herself around it in a fetal position.
The creatures ceased trying to grab the box and instead turned their efforts on her. Sharp fingers plucked at her from all sides as she struggled by feel to pull the box open and release the Key.
Finally, her palm found its smooth warm surface and she was able to shift herself into a position to pull it free.
The moment her entire hand was positioned securely on it, she had the strange sensation that it was stuck there. She wouldn’t have risked testing the theory by letting go, but she definitely didn’t like the feeling.
Like a piece of metal drawn to a powerful magnet, Janeway’s other hand was pulled without aid of her will to the sphere. Squinting her eyes automatically to shield them from the powerful light emanating from the Key, she rose, or was pulled by its force, to a standing position. She folded her arms over the Key in a protective gesture, pulling it into her abdomen, and for the first time since her arrival was able to take a full breath, and then see exactly what kind of disaster she had transported into.