by Various
"Fine, I hope. I'd like to believe that the Nenlar and the ludka are truly about to launch a new era of peace," 'They all seemed like decent people. Let's think positively."
She nodded. "Bridge to engineering. Status?"
"Everything's back to normal, Captain. Once the gateways had stopped draining our power, it's as if it had never happened. We're ready to head back into No Man's Land."
Janeway sighed. Their troubles were far from over. They were back where they had started, back to navigating, alone, a treacherous part of space in which - "Astrometrics to bridge." Seven's voice broke Janeway's dark musings.
"Go ahead, Seven. What's the next challenge? Asteroid belt? Black hole?"
"That's why I'm contacting you," said Seven, and there was puzzlement - and irritation at that puzzlement - in her voice. "There are no more challenges."
Janeway sat upright. "Explain."
"The route which we charted several days ago is now completely clear. It is normal space ahead for as far as our sensors can determine. We could proceed safely at warp eight, according to my calculations."
"I don't understand," said Janeway. "I saw what you showed us. Four asteroid belts, as I recall. Singularities, red giants, gravity waves ..."
"Captain," and now there was irritation in that smooth voice, "I know precisely what you saw, because I charted it. I was not incorrect. My readings were completely accurate. However, I repeat: None of the obstacles we had anticipated traversing is present. Nothing."
"Some stellar phenomena are mobile," said Chakotay, his voice hesitant in the shocked silence that followed Seven's report.
"Not red giants. Not singularities," said Janeway. And then she understood.
Q.
She wouldn't let him send them home, but he obviously had wanted to find some way of thanking her for returning his child's adored pet. So, if he could not finish this strange odyssey for them, he had at least cleared their path. It would certainly be a safer voyage now, and a shorter one. Silently, she thanked him.
And in her head, she heard an answering: You're most welcome, Kathy.
"Captain?" Chakotay was looking at her, concerned.
She smiled then, an easy, relaxed, heartfelt smile such as she had not indulged in since they had learned about No Man's Land.
"I say, let's not look a gift horse in the mouth," said Janeway. "Mr. Paris, plot us a new course with Seven's updated data. Straight as the crow flies. Let's shave a little time off this journey, shall we?"
Paris, too, looked at her with a confused expression in his blue eyes. Then he shrugged, grinned, and said, "Looks like we got a break for once," then turned back to the conn.
"Something happened," stated Chakotay. He leaned in toward her. "Didn't it?"
Grinning, she, too, leaned in to whisper conspiratorially, "Yes. Something did."
Then, taking a playful enjoyment in Chakotay's confusion, she reclined in her chair. She was going to enjoy the next several days, which promised to be uneventful.
Q? she thought.
Yes, Kathy?
You really ought to put a collar on that animal.
***
The Alpha stood in front of the viewscreen, his eyes on the peculiar fiery ball that Captain Janeway had told them would guide them home. Thus far, he had no reason to question her or the orb itself, which had told them things that had convinced him that it was to be trusted. Shortly after they had parted company with the human captain, they and their vessel had undergone a strange shimmering sensation, during which light-years had been traversed. According to their databanks, they were well on course for home and should arrive within a few hours.
It had been a bizarre encounter, with its share of difficult moments. Yet, as always, the Hirogen had emerged with honor and victory. They had kept their word to the prey, and while he had no problem acknowledging the role Janeway and her vessel had played in showing the Hirogen innocence, the outcome had never been in any real doubt as far as the Alpha was concerned.
Who in their right minds would have believed for a moment that the noble and proud Hirogen, master hunters, would stoop to slaughtering prey that collapsed and died of fright? The very concept was ludicrous. And even if the prey had decided otherwise, more of them would have died than Hirogen, if had come down to it.
Fortunately, it had not. The Alpha loved his life as much as any living creature, and while it would have been no shame to lose it in pursuit of prey, there was nothing to be gained in throwing it away either.
His gaze flickered from the stars to the piece of equipment Janeway had given him. He had let her think that she had convinced him of the rightness of this path, the path of nonkilling killing. It was simply easier, and the more she believed that she had tamed the Hirogen, the less carefully she would look at them when they left. So he had accepted the holographic technology she offered, had nodded at her smile of pleasure. And then he had had it beamed aboard and placed down without a second thought.
He would not use it to create substitute prey. No one in his crew could use it for that pathetic purpose. They would examine it, and might find other uses for it. He mused for a moment, realizing that this would be a superior way to set up an ambush for living prey. Perhaps Janeway had indeed given them something to add to the thrill of the hunt, though not in the least the way she had expected.
The Alpha turned completely around and gazed at the prize, the prize that had been snatched from space in that brief moment when all eyes had been on the rainbow-hued gateways, and none on a tiny escaping vessel.
Sinimar Arkathi hung from chains fastened about his wrists and ankles. He had put up quite a fight when they had beamed him aboard, attacking two fully armed Hirogen and fleeing through the ship for an astonishing twenty minutes before the Alpha himself had corralled him and defeated him with his bare hands. He was greatly pleased.
But now Arkathi was quiet, except for the occasional moan. The Gamma Hirogen stood stiffly at attention, awaiting his Alpha's orders. The Alpha strode up to the prisoner, grabbed the ugly head in one big hand, and turned Arkathi's face to his.
"You were worthy prey," he stated. "You contrived a scheme that was nothing short of brilliant to ensure that the Hirogen would be blamed instead of you. With a single plot, you exonerated yourself, and diverted suspicion to an enemy you knew was a true threat. If you had picked a species other than the gutless Kuluuk, you might have gotten away with your scheme. But even the foolish prey know of the mighty Hirogen, know that we would never stoop to such pathetic prey. The relic of a Kuluuk would be nothing to us."
At first, Arkathi's eyes seemed dead, empty, without focus. The Alpha tasted disappointment. He had hoped that this prey would delight him to the very end. But as the Alpha spoke, Arkathi came back to life. Understanding stirred in those eyes, and then, most satisfactorily, fear.
He nodded in approval, and continued. "You erred, and that was your downfall. You underestimated us. I dare say that you are not underestimating us at the moment."
Arkathi shook his head wildly. "Please," he began, "you may have the rest of the crew. But let me go."
The Alpha stared, then broke into loud laughter. "And amusing, too. Ah, Arkathi. It has been a glorious hunt. And the sweet irony is that what we will do with you would be considered a justice by the other prey. What a tale we will have to tell when we encounter other Hirogen. And you will be the evidence that the tale is true."
He glanced over at the waiting, eager Beta, and nodded.
Arkathi began to scream.
******
NEW FRONTIER
DEATH AFTER LIFE
Peter David
Mackenzie Calhoun, captain of the Excalibur, was so cold that it took his body long minutes to realize that he was once again in warmth.
It didn't happen immediately, or all at once. Instead it occurred in stages. First his fingers and toes, frozen nearly to frostbite stage, began to flex. Then his lungs, which had been so chilled that Calhoun had practically
forgotten what it was like to breathe without a thousand needles jabbing in his chest, began to expand to their normal size. There was pain at first when they did, but that started to subside. He gave out a series of violent coughs that racked his body, and it was only then that his brain processed the information that the rest of his body was providing him.
He was so dazed, so confounded, that he had to make the effort to reorder events in his mind so that he could recall how he'd come to this pass.
The cold... the cold was so overwhelming that, for what seemed an endless period of time, he couldn't think of anything beyond that.
There had been cold, and blistering winds that would have flayed the skin from his body if he'd been out there much longer. Cold, and bodies... two bodies...
Yes. The Iconians. A male, and a female, both named Smyt. Both dead. Lying there, faceup in the snow, mere feet away from the great gateway. And words... words etched in the snow by the male, just before he died, carved in the snow with a hand so frozen and useless that it was not much more than an iced club of meat. The words had been: Giant Lied. What the hell did that mean? What giant? What had he lied about? Why had the male Iconian felt so strongly about this that he had used his final moments of life to report this transgression?
The Iconians... grozit, they had... they had caused trouble... so much trouble, for two races... for himself... for Shelby...
Shelby...
Calhoun lay there, flat on his back, arms and legs splayed, trying to put together the pieces of his body and the pieces of his life, the ground hard and gritty beneath him, the heat of an unknown sun pounding down upon him, his extremities starting to tingle with the resurgence of blood circulating to them. And that was when he remembered Shelby.
Elizabeth Paula Shelby, captain of the good ship Trident, who had been swept away along with him to the frozen world that had - for a time, at least - promised to be their final resting place. She had been there... with another man. Yes, yes, it was starting to come back to him. A man named Ebozay, leader of a people called... called...
what? The...
"Markanians." The word was barely a whisper between cracked and bleeding lips, and the voice was hardly recognizable as his own.
Indeed, he almost thought it was someone else for a moment before he realized with vague dismay that, yes, it was he who had spoken.
Yes, that was right. Ebozay of the Markanians. He had wound up on the wasted, frozen world along with Shelby. Then they had fallen into a crevasse, and Shelby survived, but Ebozay didn't. Simple as that.
"Shelby" was the next word Calhoun managed to get out, obviously one that was nearer and dearer to his heart than "Markanians" had been.
He said it again, a bit louder this time, and had no idea whether anyone was going to respond. It was at that point that he realized he was blind.
No... no, not blind. But his eyes were closed, and absurd as it sounded, he didn't have the strength to open them. He was trembling, his body seizing up, and he coughed once more. Shelby... Shelby had been unconscious in his arms. He had cradled her, like a groom delicately transporting his bride over the threshold on their wedding night, but there had been nothing remotely romantic about it. She had been unconscious, freezing in his arms, injured from her fall and the frostbite, and he had held her as if he could will his own body heat into her in order to save her.
It hadn't worked. Naturally it hadn't worked; it was a ridiculous notion.
And yet that was all he could think of to do, as exposed and relatively naked to the elements as they were, with the snow and wind pounding at them as if angry that they had the temerity not to roll over and die instantly upon being faced with their predicament.
Calhoun had spat out curse after curse, cried out against the unfairness of their circumstances, had simply refused to believe that it was going to end there, on some nameless ice world who-knew-where.
Certainly after everything they'd been through, that couldn't be anything approaching an equitable finale for their lives.
"It's... not fair," Calhoun grunted.
And a voice from nearby, rough and hard and disinterested in hearing any sort of griping of any sort, said, "Life isn't fair. Deal with it."
It had been so long since he had heard that voice that, at first, he didn't recognize it, except in the way that one does when one thinks, Damn, that voice is familiar, I should really know it. And then it came to him, roared toward him with the ferocity of a star exploding in fiery nova.
"Father... ?" he whispered, and that was it, the shock was too much, because Mackenzie Calhoun realized that he was dead, that was all, just dead, because his murdered father was speaking to him, and he'd never really made it through the planet of ice at all. It had all been some sort of cruel joke, and at that moment, he and Elizabeth were lying on the planet's surface becoming crusted over with sleet and snow. And at that dismal image, that final miserable end that had been inflicted upon them... the mighty, fighting heart of Mackenzie Calhoun gave out. It wasn't for himself so much; Calhoun had no fear of death. In many respects, he couldn't quite believe that he'd lived as long as he had. No, the despair that broke him was the thought that he had let down Shelby. That he had carried his wife in his arms, whispered to her frozen ear that he would make things better, that he would save them somehow, and he'd failed. He'd let her down.
Even as he was half sitting up, the physical and mental stress all caught up with him at once, and Calhoun fell back without ever having opened his eyes. He struck his head hard on the barren and crusty ground beneath him, but never felt it.
And so died Mackenzie Calhoun, without ever having a chance to see the sun set.
Mackenzie Calhoun, captain of the Excalibur, was so cold that it took his body long minutes to realize that he was once again in warmth.
It didn't happen immediately, or all at once. Instead it occurred in stages. First his fingers and toes, frozen nearly to frostbite stage, began to flex. Then his lungs, which had been so chilled that Calhoun had practically forgotten what it was like to breathe without a thousand needles jabbing in his chest, began to expand to their normal size. There was pain at first when they did, but that began to subside. He gave out a series of violent coughs that racked his body, and it was only then that his brain processed the information that the rest of his body was providing him.
He was so dazed, so confounded, that he had to make the effort to reorder events in his mind so that he could recall how he'd come to this pass.
The cold... the cold was so overwhelming that, for what seemed an endless period of time, he couldn't think of anything beyond that.
There had been cold, and blistering winds that would have flayed the skin from his body if he'd been out there much longer. Cold, and bodies... two bodies...
Calhoun lay there, flat on his back, arms and legs splayed, trying to put together the pieces of his body and the pieces of his life, the ground hard and gritty beneath him, the heat of an unknown sun pounding down upon him, his extremities starting to tingle with the resurgence of blood circulating to them. And that was when he remembered Shelby.
"Eppy... " he whispered, his concern for her pushing away anything else that could possibly be going through his mind. "Eppy," he said, revolted by how weak and whispery his voice sounded.
It was at that point that he realized he was blind.
No... no, not blind. But his eyes were closed, and absurd as it sounded, he didn't have the strength to open them. He was trembling, his body seizing up, and he coughed once more. For a moment he wanted to surrender to despair, to dwell upon how unfair all of this was. But then he thought, Unfair? Unfair? And who ever claimed life was fair in the first place? Certainly not Calhoun. Certainly not his father, the man from whom he'd learned so much. The man who had died, broken in body but not in spirit by soldiers representing an oppressive race whom young Calhoun had eventually driven off his world. If he were here right now, Calhoun realized, he'd be telling his son to stop lying about and dw
elling upon his unfair lot in life. He was still alive, after all, and that was all that was important. Now get up.
The voice of his own, which so echoed that of his father, chided him yet again, and said even more sternly, Get up! Your wife needs you. On your feet, damn you, if you be a man...
Why was he thinking about his father? It had been years since he had dwelt on him... so long, in fact, that he would have thought he'd forgotten the very sound of the man's voice. But for some reason, there it was, clear as anything in his head, as if he'd heard it just yesterday.
Oddest feeling of deja vu... no... more than that... as if he'd already experienced all of it during some sort of... of odd dream...
The air of his surroundings was warm in his chest as he drew in great lungfuls of it. It was the breath of life; he'd never been so fundamentally grateful for the simple act of breathing. Slowly he sat up, his back stiff, the circulation only now hesitantly returning to his feet, his arms. He let out a low groan, felt the dampness of his clothes sticking to him as the ice and snow that had coated them melted. It was a most uncomfortable sensation.