by Generations
Soran, he recalled with a chill, who had recently been given permission to return and complete his work.
Time is the fire in which we burn Riker nodded. "The star's going to collapse in a matter of minutes." He turned as a sensor on Worf's console beepeal ominously.
The Klingon looked up at the two senior officers, his eyes wide with concern. "Sir. The implosion has pro- duced a level-twelve shock wave." Picard said nothing, merely digested the news in stunned silence and shared an ominous look with Riker.
"Level twelve?" Troi asked, aghast. "That'll destroy everything in this system." A voice filtered over the intercom. "Transporter room to bridge. I can't locate Commander La Forge or Mr.
Data, sir." Riker set a hand on Worf's console and leaned next to the seated Klingon. "Did they return to the ship?" Worf ran a quick scan of the decks, then shook his head. "No, sir. They are not aboard." Picard stepped beside them. "How long until the shock wave hits the observatory?" "Four minutes, forty seconds," Worf reported.
Picard raised his face and shot Riker a 1ook--a look, nothing more, but the first officer knew his captain well enough to read the order there. He gave a quick nod, then rose and headed toward the turbolift, pausing to call over his shoulder, "Mr. Worf..." Then the two of them were gone. Picard stepped forward to gaze at the horrendous sight on the viewscreen, thinking again of fire and death, and the pale-haired scientist with the desperate eyes.
The smoky haze and smell of fire were gone, courtesy of the observatory's air-filtration system, but the gloom and silence had increasedmor perhaps, Riker decided, it was simply the fact that he knew that, outside the observatory walls, the Amargosa star had collapsed into darkness. He turned to Worf and silently gestured for the Klingon to search the upper level of the main operations room, while he scoured the lower.
Within seconds, Worf returned, shaking his head: No sign. There was only one direction left to go in--a corridor that led to several separate cells. Riker wasted no time making his way down it, then paused at the closed doorways in front of him. One was recessed behind a bulkhead panel that had been slid back--a hidden entrance. Riker turned, nudged Worf, who fol- lowed close behind. "This one." In the instant after the door opened, Riker got a brief impressionrathe stark contrast of light and dark, a spike-straight tuft of silver hair, white skin against a black tunic. In front of a rack of probes, a man sat at a console; the man he had uncovered from the rubble, the one named Tolian Soran. Soran's expression was no
longer dazed, but as intense as the solar flares he watched on his monitor.
Riker opened his mouth, but never got the chance to speak. Soran whirled. Some atavistic instinct propelled Riker backward into the corridor and behind the bulk- head in the split-second before Soran fired the disruptor in his hand; the blast gouged a smoking groove into the metal doorway.
He raised his head and looked over to see Worf crouched against the bulkhead on the other side of the doorway; the Klingon had a better view of the room's interior. "What the hell's he doing?" Riker called softly.
Worf cautiously rose to peer into the room; another disruptor blast, this one going clean out into the corridor and burning a hole in the bulkhead, made him sink swiftly down again. "Lieutenant La Forge is uncon- scious," the Klingon whispered. "I cannot see Com- mander Data." "Enterprise to Commander Riker." Picard's voice filtered clearly over Riker's comm badge. "You have two minutes left." "Soran, did you hear that?" Riker shouted. "There's a level-twelve shock wave coming. We've got to get out of here!" In reply, a disruptor blast angled through the open door, glancing off the doorway and searing the deck at Riker's feet. He pressed closer against the wall and grabbed his phaser--but it was no use; he could not get at the proper angle to get a clean shot at the scientist.
Soran had the advantage. Riker glanced around in frustration, looking for a better hiding place... and suddenly noticed a figure huddled in the corner of the room.
"Data!" he called, sotto voce. "See if you can get to Geordi!" The android looked up, golden eyes wide with terror.
"I... cannot, sir. I believe I am... afraid." Riker stared at him, at a loss, then tensed as, inside the room, a communicator beeped shrilly. At the sound, Soran leaned down to scoop up the unconscious Geordi by the collar. Riker heard the hum of a transporter beam and watched in surprise and frustration as the two dematerialized.
He hit his comm badge and said, with a sense of defeat, "Transporter room. Three to beam up."
A minute earlier on the Enterprise bridge, Picard was drawn away from the sight on the viewscreen--a dark, roiling shock wave, headed straight for the Amargosa Observatoryruby the sound of an alarm on the tactical console. He faced Hayes just as the young ensign was swiveling toward him.
"Sir." Hayes's eyes were wide, his tone urgent. "A Klingon Bird-of-Prey is decloaking off the port bow." "What?" Picard wheeled back toward the screen, to stare at the dying star--just as the Bird-of-Prey wavered into view on the observatory's far side.
"It's an old Class D-twelve, sir," Hayes said.
"Those were retired a decade or so ago," Picard murmured. This particular one looked like it should have stood down two decades earlier; the hull bore a hundred different hastily patched battle scars. To Hayes, he said, "Have they activated their weapons systems?" "No, sir." "Then let's--" Picard began.
"Transporter room to bridge. I have the away team aboard, sir." Wasting no time, Picard turned to the con. "Helm, warp one. Engage.... " The Enterprise sailed away as, on the viewscreen, the observatory dissolved into rapidly dimming flame.
Fueled by nova-bright rage, Soran made his way through dark, claustrophobic corridors, ducking to avoid overhanging cables, recoiling at the grime- smeared bulkheads, the sticky deck. The aging ship groaned and shuddered unceasingly--and stunk of warm, wet animal, making him long for the pristine, silent corridors of the Enterprise.
No matter. None of it mattered, none of it was real--at least, not to him--and the unpleasantness with the Duras sisters would soon be over, and forgotten eternally.
He emerged at last onto the dimly lit bridge, and at the sight of Klingons turning to regard him, his upper lip twitched faintly. They smelled the same as the ship; and though Soran had always believed himself an unpreju- diced man, this particular species tested his limits. He strode past the all-male bridge crew--he was not a small man, but they dwarfed him--and paused before the two women in the command seats, who stared in amazement at the dead star on the screen.
The younger of them, B'Etor, rose to face him, her dark waving hair sweeping down over leather-clad breasts, her hideous features lit up by a leer that revealed protruding, jagged teeth. "You've done it, Soran!" He leaned forward and struck out, full force, catching her squarely in the jaw. She flailed, fell back against the console; immediately, several of the males leapt to their feet, disruptors in their fists.
"Wait!" WEtor waved an arm as she rose unsteadily to one knee; an El Aurian woman, Soran knew, would never have gotten up from that punch. She touched the back of a hand to her mouth, frowned at the violet stain there, then glanced up at Soran.
"I hope for your sake that you are initiating a mating ritual." The edge in her tone was dagger-keen, danger- ous.
Soran stood, utterly unafraid of the disruptors still pointed at him, disgusted by the thought of intimacy with this female, this... primate, clad in metal and skins and drunk with territorial power. Even if he did not completely possess the upper hand, he could not fear these creatures, could not fear death. Annihilation, simple nonexistence, did not frighten him; but life without hope of the nexus, of Leandra and the children, seemed unbearable. To be this close, this close, and be denied it.
"You got careless," he said harshly. "The Romulans came looking for their missing trilithium." WEtor pushed herself to her feet. "Impossible. We left no survivors on their outpost." "They knew it was aboard the observatory," Soran countered. "If the Enterprise hadn't intervened, they would have found it." The older sister stepped over to B'Etor's
side. "But they didn't find it... and now we have a weapon of unlimited power." Her voice was calmer, deeper than her sister's, her manner more reserved--but she could be, Soran knew, just as treacherous.
His lips thinned. "I have the weapon, Lursa. And if you ever want me to give it to you, I advise you to be a little more careful in the future." The last word had scarcely left his lips when B'Etor suddenly sprang toward him and secured his hands with surprising strength. An evil smile played on her lips as she lifted a double-edged Klingon dagger to his throat.
"Perhaps we are tired of waiting," she hissed. Soran did not quiver, did not so much as flinch as the cool metal pressed into the tender skin of his neck, slid over his Adam's apple.
"Without my research," he said coolly, "the trilithium is worthless--as are your plans to reconquer the Klingon Empire." B'Etor's lip curled with disappointment; Lursa reached out and patiently pushed the dagger's blade away from the scientist's throat.
Soran repressed a smile of triumph. "Set course for the Veridian system," he ordered the two women. "Max- imum warp." B'Etor said nothing, only narrowed her eyes with resentment; the implacable Lursa turned toward the helm, and issued a guttural command.
Soran had turned, thinking to head for his cramped, uncomfortable quarters, when a guard entered, dragging the unconscious Starfleet officer kidnapped from the observatory. The guard nodded at the human's sagging body. "What shall I do with this?" "Bring him with me," Soran said. "I need some answers from Mr. La Forge."
At that moment, Will Riker was thinking of Geordi La Forge as he headed with Worf for sickbay. Clearly, Soran had committed the kidnapping with some purpose in mind--otherwise, he would have beamed away alone.
But why? And why beam aboard a Klingon ship? The captain had informed him about the rattletrap of a Bird-of-Prey during the debriefing. For that matter, why destroy a star? The more Riker considered all the pieces to the Amargosa puzzle, the less sense they made.
Worf interrupted his reverie. "I have spoken to the Klingon High Council, sir. They identified the Bird-of- Prey as belonging to the Duras sisters." Riker drew back, then shook his head with amaze- ment. "Lursa and B'Etor? This doesn't make any sense.
A renowned stellar physicist somehow uses a trilithium probe to destroy a star... kidnaps Geordi... and es- capes with a pair of Klingon renegades. Why? What the hell's going on?" Worf emitted a silent sigh. "I do not know, sir." They rounded a corner and entered sickbay, where Crusher was just closing a panel at the back of Data's skull. The android was sitting on a biobed, scanning himself with a tricorder.
Riker caught Bevefiy's gaze. "How is he?" She swept an errant strand of auburn hair from her face, which wore a serious--but fortunately, Riker knew from past experience, not grim--expression. "It looks like a power surge fused the emotional chip into his neural net." Worf studied the android somberly. "Will that be a danger to him?" She shook her head. "I don't think so; the chip still seems to be working." She sighed with dissatisfaction and folded her arms in front of her chest; a faint crease deepened in the pale skin between her eyebrows. "I'd
feel better ifI could take a closer look, but I can't remove it without completely dismantling his cerebral conduit." Riker directed a smile at Data. "So. Looks like you're stuck with emotions for a while. How do you feel?" Data glanced up from his tricorder, his brow fur- rowed, his golden eyes narrow with worry. "! am quite... preoccupied with concern about Geordi." "We all are, Data," Riker said softly. "But we're going to get him back." "I hope so, sir." The android's tone and expression remained anxious.
"Will..." Beverly took Riker aside and led him over to a wall monitor. "I checked into Dr. Soran's back- ground." She pressed a control; a holo of Soran ap- peared, along with biographical data. "He's an E1 Aurian, over three hundred years old. He lost his entire family when the Borg destroyed his world. Soran es- caped with a handful of other refugees aboard a ship called the Lakul. The ship was destroyed by some kind of energy ribbon, but Soran and forty-six others were rescued by the Enterprise-B." Riker leaned forward with interest to study Soran's face. When had the holo been taken? One hundred, two hundred years before? Soran looked almost exactly the same. He wore a slight, self-conscious smile--but the intensity Riker had seen on the face behind the disruptor was still there, too. He gazed back at Beverly as her words settled into his consciousness. "That was the mission where James Kirk was killed." She gave a single nod, then pressed a control on the monitor. "I checked the passenger manifest of the Lakul.
Guess who else was on board?" Riker shrugged--then did a double take as the doctor pressed another control, and a new image appeared on the screen: the smiling face of Guinan.
"Soran?" Guinan looked up with surprise. "That's a name I haven't heard in a long time." Picard sat beside her in her quarters, which made him feel he was no longer on the Enterprise, but some mysterious, long-dead world. The bulkheads were swathed in intricately patterned gold fabric, the deck covered in tile; in a far comer, an archway led to a small shrine where candles burned before a stone carving of an enigmatic goddess.
Guinan herself sat, arms clasping knees to her chest, against a stack of pillows on an indigo settee. The distant candlelight played across her broad, dark features.
"Do you remember him?" Picard asked. Soran's cryp- tic utterance made sense to him now; Soran had known about Robert and Ren6, just as Guinan herself could knowwif she wished. But Picard had forced himself to control his grief, to focus on the emergency at hand now; he could not help feeling personally responsible for the destruction of the Amargosa star. If he had simply refused Soran's request to return to the observatory-- "The outcome would still be the same, Jean-Luc," Guinan said softly. "He would have returned, with or without your permission." Picard glanced up, mildly startled at the interruption, then returned her small, knowing smile and repeated, "Do you remember him?" "Oh, yes.... "The smile faded at once. She rose and began to move about, as if trying to escape memories.
"Guinan," he said, after a moment had passed in silence. "It's important that you tell me what you know.
We think Soran's developed a weaponma terrible weap- on. It might give him enough power tom" "Soran doesn't care about power or weapons," she interrupted, her back still toward him. "All he cares about is getting back to the nexus." "What's the nexus?" She moved across the room to a credenza and distract- edly fingered a small sculpture there. Picard could not see her face, but he could read in her shoulders the tension, the unwillingness, there. He heard her draw in a low, decisive breath.
"The energy ribbon that destroyed the Lakul isn't just some random phenomenon traveling through space." She spoke with sudden rapidity, as though afraid if she didn't get the words out swiftly, they might never come.
"It's a doorway. It leads to another placerathe nexus. It doesn't exist in our universe... and it doesn't play by the same rules, either." She straightened. "It's a place I've tried very hard to forget." "What happened to you?" Picard probed gently.
She turned to him, her expression radiant at the memory. "It was like being inside... joy. As if joy were a real thing that I could wrap around myself. I've never been so content." Her tone was hushed with awe.
He studied her in silence a moment, digesting the euphoria on her face, remembering the desperation on Soran's. "But then you were beamed away.... " Her features darkened with sudden anger. "I was pulled away. I didn't want to leave. None of us did. All I could think about was getting back. I didn't care what I had to do.... "
She moved to an observation window and looked out at darkness and stars. "Eventually, I learned to live with it. But it changed me." "Your sixth sense," Picard murmured, and when she did not contradict him, continued, "And what about Soran?" "Soran may still be obsessed with getting back. And if he is, he'll do anything to find that doorway again." "But why destroy a star?" he asked, then fell silent. He rose. "Thank you, Guinan." As he moved to leave, she turned, her tone suddenly urgent. "Let someone else do it, Jean-Luc." He paused to stare back at her
.
"There aren't words strong enough to make you see, to make you understand. It's beyond any drug, any im- plant; it envelops people in the most potent narcotic there is: love and belonging." She paused, her dark eyes full of warning. "Don't get near the ribbon. If you go into that nexus, you're not going to care about Soran or the Enterprise or me. All you're going to care about is how it feels to be there. And you're never going to come back."
Geordi La Forge woke with a queasy headache and the distinct realization that he was aboard neither the observatory nor the Enterprise. He stirred, and realized that he was sitting in an uncomfortable chair aboard a vessel of some sort--the floor beneath his feet vi- brated, and he could hear the groan of aging engines.
The air was warm, stale, none too sweet; he could feel it on the bare skin of his chest. Someone had removed his tunic.
And his VISOR, leaving him blind. He leaned forward and groped in the darkness.