Star Trek - TNG - Vendetta

by Peter David

  your mind that held a sense of the dramatic," she

  said. "A breezy night, in your dreamlike

  haze, became a virtual hurricane."

  "You touched me." His fingers brushed against his

  forehead, as if a mark were visible. "You kissed

  me. It felt like ice."

  "That," she said darkly, "was an unfortunate

  indulgence on my part. I have since learned what

  happened to you. A kiss from me brushes your

  forehead. And a death sentence from the Borg--a life

  of living as they do, or what passes for living--that

  living death sentence brushes against you. Had I

  followed my heart's dictates ..."

  "I'd be a Borg to this day? Or dead? What

  utter nonsense," he said sharply.

  "Picard is right," said Guinan. "Sister, the

  years of isolation, the pain, the loss--they've

  taken their toll on you. You're not speaking as one

  who has thought out what she's saying."

  Delcara passed through the desk and crossed the

  room. "And you, Guinan, refuse to see the

  obvious. That is a mistake that I have ceased

  making. Once I realized the truth of

  it--once I realized the fate that had been

  inflicted upon me--only then was I capable of

  taking steps so that my fate would be in my hands

  once more. And it is. Look at it," and she

  gestured out the window and toward her vessel.

  "Look at the fruits of my labor."

  It hung out there, carrying with it an almost

  obscene beauty in the amount of destruction that it was

  capable of causing. There was a somewhat hypnotic

  effect about it, and it was with effort that Picard tore

  his gaze from it. "You found it--?"

  "Because of you," she said. "It took me years

  to acquire a vessel capable of piercing the energy

  barrier around the galaxy. I traced the path of the

  doomsday machine, and took its point of entrance

  into our galaxy to be an indicator of its

  origin. I hoped, prayed, that I would find

  something there to use against the soulless ones. What I

  found exceeded all possible expectation."

  "What is it?" asked Guinan, in spite of

  herself.

  Delcara paused a long moment, as if trying

  to determine the best way to phrase it. "What would

  you say, dear Picard," she asked finally, "are

  the limits of human imagination?"

  "None," said Picard firmly. "The human

  imagination has brought us to the stars and will someday

  carry us beyond."

  "Imagine then," she said, "a ship powered

  by imagination, fueled by will. A ship driven by an

  overwhelming, undying need for vengeance."

  "I would think," said Guinan dryly, "that

  considering much of what you've said, such a ship and

  yourself would be well matched."

  "True," said Delcara. "And so we are.

  Within that great vessel you see hanging there in

  space are the hearts, minds, and souls of the

  greatest of a once-great race. A race that once

  strode across the galaxy the way that you would step

  across a brook. A race that believed in peace--

  in the spreading of life--with every fiber of its

  collective being. A race that was in tune

  completely with itself and with the galaxy. And when they were

  confronted by the soulless ones--by the Borg--they

  tried to reason with them, to understand the Borg.

  To love the Borg, as they loved all life.

  They did not comprehend that the Borg are the

  incarnation of anti-life, and their compassion was the end

  of them. By the time they tried to fight, it was far too

  late, but they fought nevertheless. And as they

  fought, there were some who created the great war machines.

  As you surmised, the doomsday machine was one such

  device. A model, really, for the more

  magnificent and deadly one that was to follow.

  "But the Borg were even more destructive than was

  imagined possible. The prototype was completed,

  but the final model was not. The planet-eater had

  been launched on a trial run, when its

  creators suddenly sensed that their efforts had taken

  too long. They felt, deep within them, the final

  death screams of their fellows thousands of

  light-years away, and they knew that they were now the

  last of their race. The knowledge settled on them like a

  shroud and encompassed them. And they were no more."

  "They died?" whispered Picard, amazed in

  spite of himself. "The rest of their race was wiped

  out by the Borg, and they simply--ceased to exist?"

  "They did not die in the way that you understand," she

  said. "They simply languished, becoming more and more

  shadows, beings of no substance at all. Time lost

  meaning to them. They knew, in a distant and

  oblique manner, that the prototype was continuing

  on its course, and what had been intended as a

  test run was now the final statement that they would

  make. The soulless prototype was achingly slow,

  but eventually--centuries, mos t likely--it would

  cross the galaxy and reach Borg space. There,

  they felt, the Borg would be destroyed. But their

  hearts were not in the notion any longer, for they had

  always been givers of life, not death. Their

  mightiest weapon was left uncompleted, sitting

  outside the galaxy, in its great dock.

  "They died all together, all at once, like a

  great rush of air, or the death rattle from

  hundreds of throats. And yet ... and yet

  ..."

  Her voice trailed off a moment, as if she

  were lost in thought, and then she continued, "... and yet

  they could not completely die. They were too

  wondrous a race, more so than they would have

  imagined. Just as you, dear Picard, and your people, are

  capable of greatness beyond that which you expect--so were they.

  Their collective consciousness refused to die.

  Their bodies and minds may have given up the ghost,

  but their essence--their essence would not go quietly.

  Their essence roiled and seethed with the cosmic

  injustice of it all, and it occupied the remarkable

  weapon that had been created with the skill of their hands

  and the strength of their intellects. You would say that

  they haunted it. They occupied the great

  ship that had remained behind, and there they stayed."

  "You offer stories laced with fantasy and

  fable," said Picard. "Metaphysical, instead

  of physical, science. Technology was discovered

  decades ago on Camus II amidst the

  ruins of a long-dead civilization."

  "Was it, indeed?" said Delcara with an air

  of barely held patience. "And perhaps the Borg were

  responsible for that race's assassination?"

  "Or perhaps that race was a colony or offshoot

  of the race that developed your planet-destroyer,"

  said Picard. "The technology on Camus

  II was capable of mind transference. Also, the

  denizens of Arret were able to store their consciousness

  in mi
nd-encasing globes. Isn't it far more

  likely that some rational, scientific explanation

  exists to explain whatever was done to--"

  "Why do you persist in this!" Her voice was

  filled with fury, her eyes snapping and wrathful.

  "I speak to you true, of glories of spirit and

  desire beyond human ken, and you wish to drag it

  down into mundanities! I tell you the ship was

  haunted by homeless spirits, lost and alone ..."

  "Until you came," Guinan said.

  "Until I came," agreed Delcara. Her

  ire seemed to have passed as quickly as it appeared.

  "They cried out to me and I heard them, once I

  was close enough. I was drawn to the magnificence

  of their creation. They loved me, welcomed me,

  saw me as their salvation and ally, their rescuer,

  their goddess. The ship needed someone to complete the

  work. I did so. And then it needed a physical

  host to guide it, and that I did willingly.

  Throughout the years of loneliness they faced before I

  came, they dwelled on their miserable state and, more

  and more, contemplated revenge on the soulless ones.

  I became the vessel of that revenge."

  "Is it what they wanted," said Guinan, "or

  what you wanted?"

  Delcara went to Guinan and for the first time actually

  looked her straight in the eye. Guinan stood with

  her hands invisible, tucked deep into the

  respective sleeves of her garment. She

  seemed--to Picard--to be in a vaguely

  defensive posture.

  "Every so often, bond sister," said Delcara,

  "there is a union that is the perfect meshing of

  desires. Such was mine and my vessel. We are

  as one. My ship protects my physical

  body, keeping it safe from all harm.

  It protects and gives a channel to my

  desire for revenge against the cursed Borg. And

  I, in turn, provide the drive to supplement

  the dream of the vessel. The souls of the damned

  inhabit that ship, my beloved Guinan. My

  sweet Picard. The damned reside there. And

  I am their guardian angel."

  "The guardian angel of the damned," said

  Picard icily, "was Satan."

  "Why, sweet Picard ... how

  Judeo-Christian of you."

  "This isn't a joke, Delcara!" said

  Guinan impatiently. "We trusted each other.

  We told each other secrets that we swore

  to keep forever. I thought you cured of your hopeless

  hatred for the Borg."

  "Cured? No, Guinan. Never cured," and as

  she spoke, it almost seemed as if the lights were

  dimming. "Am I supposed to simply live with the

  knowledge that the Borg are out there and can continue to do as they

  please, where they please? Am I to accept the

  misery they have caused me and millions of others?

  Perhaps for a time I was able to tolerate that knowledge. Perhaps

  I was able to hurl it away, to try and

  reconstruct a life and pretend that it was a

  life worth living. But I was disenchanted with that

  notion, Guinan. I was shown the folly and

  futility," and with each word her voice became

  louder, angrier. "Hopeless hatred, Guinan?

  No. No, not hopeless. That," she said, pointing

  out the window with quivering finger, "that gives me

  hope. That gives me strength. That gives me

  might."

  "And might makes right?" said Picard.

  She looked at him with dark amusement. "Of

  course might makes right."

  "But the Borg were mightier once. Did that

  make what they did right?" he demanded.

  With a raised eyebrow she replied, "The

  Borg were mightier. Not anymore."

  And with that pronouncement she turned, walked through

  the bulkhead, and vanished into space.

  Guinan leaned forward, hands on Picard's

  desk and she looked as though she were fighting

  to compose herself. He put hands on her shoulders

  to steady her, and she said, waving him off, "It's

  all right. I'll be fine."

  "In all the time I've known you, Guinan,

  I've never seen you quite as discomfited as you were just

  now."

  She eased down into a chair and looked up at

  him with curiosity, even a touch of admiration.

  "Discomfited. Oh, yes. I've seen a good

  friend--a dear friend--reject rational explanations in

  favor of--how would you put it--?"

  "Metaphysical claptrap," offered

  Picard.

  She nodded slowly. "Yes. Her fixation on

  that alone would be enough to discomfit me. The fact that

  she's backed up by a weapon powerful enough to lay

  waste to a galaxy makes it doubly

  intimidating. You, on the other hand," she said,

  "faced with the woman of your dreams--you were utterly

  in command. You never fail to surprise me,

  Captain."

  He stared out the window of his ready room at the

  powerful ship that was mere kilometers away.

  "Occasionally," he admitted, "I even

  surprise myself."

  Delcara merged back into the oneness of the ship and

  felt the cool oneness of the many welcoming her.

  "Hello, my children," she said. "I trust you

  did not miss me overmuch."

  We missed you completely, they sang within

  her. We love you, Delcara. We need you,

  Delcara. Never leave us.

  "I cannot promise never, my children," she told

  them.

  And she felt something even as she said this, a

  sort of ... resentment. A bright, slivering

  shard, white-hot next to the coolness that was the

  normal state of the oneness. She found it disturbing

  and unsettling. "What is wrong?"

  You love someone else. They sounded

  petulant, their song hitting a discordant

  note.

  "How I feel for others does not matter,"

  she said. "Whatever other feelings I may have had

  pale in comparison for how I feel about you and about

  our mission. I have given myself over to you,

  willingly and gladly. You question that now?"

  You listened to the things they said. You thought of

  going back to them. And to him.

  She was quiet for a long moment.

  "I thought of it," she admitted, for there was no

  point in denying it. "It could not be helped."

  If you love us ... if you value our

  mission of vengeance ...

  "You are not alive, except in your

  determination not to let the great injustice of the soulless

  ones go unpunished. I share that determination. But

  I have a living mind, a mind that is accompanied

  by flesh and blood. And those ... inconveniences,

  if you will ... prompt me to consider other

  avenues. To dwell, for a few flittering moments,

  on the might-have-been's, and the never-will-be's. I

  cannot help that. When I see Picard again, and I

  relive those comparative few moments we had together

  ..."

  You loved the Picard?

  "I love no one anymore," she said. "I

  dare not. But there is much in him that reminds me of
>
  loves past. I see some of my life mates

  within him. They had much of his spirit, his determination.

  There is a blazing glory of life in him that

  draws me to him, like moth to flame. But I will not

  allow the curse that pursues to destroy him. I

  cannot help how I feel, my children. But I can

  help what I do."

  We want no one else to have you. You must be

  ours. You are needed for the great mission of vengeance,

  and in performing that mission, you have our devotion. But

  we must have yours. For if we are the will, you are the

  way.

  "I know," she said. "And I will be as one with you.

  That is what we both wish."

  And that is how it shall be. For eternity, and

  beyond. And do not, the voices added darkly, do not

  think of leaving us. It upsets us. It threatens the

  vendetta, and the vendetta is all.

  "I would not upset you, my children, for all the world.

  You know that."

  We know. But we wish to hear it again ... and

  remind you. You are ours, and we are yours.

  Forever.

  Guinan had long since departed, at

  Picard's request. But the captain had remained

  in the ready room, lost in thought. So lost, in

  fact, that at first he did not hear the buzz at this

  door. This led to a more urgent summoning, and finally

  he did look up and call out briskly,

  "Come."

  The door hissed open and Deanna Troi was

  standing there. "Captain--?"

  Through the open door he caught a glimpse of

  Riker and Worf at their stations,

  surreptitiously looking in the direction of the

  ready room. When they realized that the

  captain had noticed them, they quickly snapped their

  heads around and gazed at the front viewscreen

  intently, as if embarrassed that they'd been

  "caught in the act."

  "Yes, Cou nselor," he said, and gestured for

  her to enter. The doors closed, blocking the

  bridge from view. Inwardly, Picard smiled,

  calling up an image of Riker and Worf leaning

  against the door with drinking glasses against their ears.

  She took a seat opposite him and said, "I

  sensed you were disturbed, Captain."

  "I can't say I'm surprised,

  Counselor," he said, forcing a smile. "The

  appearance of this ... woman was something of a shock

  to me."

  "What sort of shock? A pleasant one?

  Unpleasant?"

  "A shock," he said simply. "I don't

  know if I've really digested all the

  ramifications just yet."