“Do you feel it?”
“The Continuum feeds on it.”
“It can’t help it. It is chaos. Searching for its own perfect order.”
“And when it finds that perfect order?”
“Yes.”
Omega.
Yes.
Chapter Twenty-four
ACHILLES
Kathryn Janeway rose from the table and crossed to the single port in Eden’s quarters. Her naked eye could not perceive the massive contortions rippling through space and subspace, but the occasional abrupt shift in the ship’s motion assured her of what her eyes could not.
She’d been alive again for only a few hours, but her body was suddenly longing for a good sleep.
You can sleep when you’re dead.
The next time you’re dead.
Probably.
Mentally shaking herself, the admiral struggled to wrap her brain around everything Eden had told her.
The first part of the story—Eden’s life with her uncles and the many years during which she had lived with terrible uncertainty—had been provocative and a little sad. Eden’s reactions to the Mikhal artifact and the Staff of Ren had been intriguing. The Doctor’s review of his analysis of Eden’s genome had taken Kathryn from intrigued to concerned. Their discoveries on the Mikhal Outpost were intellectually thrilling and tragic. Then Eden’s story had veered into the realm of visions and dreams, which Kathryn found herself doubting. The admiral turned her attention to sorting through the puzzle pieces now laid out before her.
The most difficult to place was Eden’s absolute certainty that when, in her dream, she had broken the representation of the anomaly the Anschlasom had discovered, she had also damaged the anomaly that the fleet had been studying, and this caused the ships to be trapped between two realities. Cambridge and the Doctor had valiantly tried to convince Eden that this was impossible. Their concerns seemed to be for her mental health, and given all they had just witnessed, that was understandable. Kathryn’s questions were scientific: What was that damned anomaly? Could it be related to the darkness that was tormenting Q?
Turning back to Eden, who was pacing beside the table, Kathryn asked, “Forget what is possible and what isn’t. What is your best guess as to how you are connected to this anomaly?”
Eden stopped and pulled herself to her full height. “Tallar and Jobin may not have known that they were seeking the Anschlasom, but I believe in my heart that all of those planets we searched when I was a child were failed attempts to find the location where the race that first disturbed Som finally came to rest.”
“So, before you were born or—my apologies—created, they found evidence in or near Federation space of an anomaly similar to the one we have here. That sent them searching for the people who unintentionally created the anomaly?” Kathryn asked warily. Honestly, it was a huge leap to ponder, let alone accept, but then, she didn’t know these men the way Eden did.
“Yes,” Eden agreed. “They entered the anomaly and experienced it as a beautiful garden. From there, they went in search of those who had been there first.”
“Which would suggest that if our ships have now accessed the anomaly, in the same way your uncles once did, there must be a way to free them. Your uncles obviously escaped and somewhere along the way encountered you. If they found a way out, the trapped vessels will too.”
Cambridge interrupted the admiral. “Afsarah, you said that when you saw your uncles in the garden, when they reached for that glowing fruit on the tree, there was intense physical pain. That was your pain, wasn’t it?”
Eden’s brow furrowed as she tried to recapture the memory precisely. “It was. But it couldn’t have been my pain. It must have been theirs. That light Tallar touched was a power, an essence of some kind, and whatever it communicated to him, I felt as extreme pain. If that is where he got his knowledge of the Anschlasom, even a fragment of it, I can assure you it would have been painful. Even I struggled with it in the cavern, learning their truth piece by piece.”
“But the next thing you saw, if I’m following you,” Cambridge went on, “was Tallar’s face. You said he was still trapped there and that his sadness and desperation were what drove you to try and free him.”
“Yes,” Eden acknowledged.
“Well, both can’t be true,” Kathryn decided. “If they entered the anomaly, as you saw, and left, Tallar is not still trapped there. And if he is, they never left, which means they never found you. I’m inclined to accept the possibility that they did enter it once and escaped. I believe the last thing you saw, the image of Tallar you tried to save in a metaphorical fashion, was part of something else, something you have yet to fully understand.”
“You might be right.” Cambridge nodded. “Or you might be erring on the side of hope.”
“I’d rather err on the side of hope, Counselor,” Kathryn replied. “Working from there,” she went on, “how do you fit into this, Captain? If your uncles discovered the anomaly before you were born, and spent the majority of their lives, once they found you, searching for the Anschlasom, it might be that you are actually connected to the Anschlasom. You might have been another piece of the puzzle for them. You seemed to believe that they were using you and your unique abilities to help them in their work. You also said that the Anschlasom’s journey through the anomaly the first time impacted normal space in many places throughout the universe. You could be descended from that ancient race.”
“No, she couldn’t,” the Doctor finally piped up, and all eyes immediately turned to him.
“Why not?” Cambridge asked with a trace of disappointment.
“You saw the images of the Anschlasom in the cavern, Counselor,” the Doctor went on. “They weren’t humanoid, let alone human.”
“Or perfectly human,” Eden added, taking no joy in the description.
“And you’re all missing the most logical correlation of all of these events,” the Doctor said.
“Which is?” Kathryn asked.
“Tallar and Jobin found and entered the anomaly, escaped, then found Captain Eden at some later point—or created her at some later point, for all we know, as a tool to aid them in their search. After they left her on Earth, they went back to the anomaly, where Tallar became trapped.”
The admiral sighed, realizing in frustration that this could also make sense.
Turning to Eden, the Doctor said, “The pain you felt could have been theirs alone. Your sense of connection to the Anschlasom might simply be transference of the deep love you feel for your uncles.”
“So, you believe she is not connected in any way to the people who left the artifacts?” Cambridge asked, aghast.
“Only through Tallar and Jobin”—the Doctor shrugged—“or through some sort of programming written into her DNA.”
Cambridge looked at Eden. “They needed a different kind of human to help them find this race, so they made one and encoded a drive to find them into her DNA?”
At this, Eden raised her hands. “Tallar was a brilliant geneticist, but he could never have created me.
“And they didn’t use me,” she went on. “They loved me. They cherished me. My contributions to their efforts were minimal at best. If they had been capable of anything as deviant and horrifying as creating a human from whole cloth to serve their needs, they would never have abandoned me until their search was complete, would they?”
“No,” Kathryn agreed. She didn’t doubt that humans were capable of sinking to the depths the Doctor had suggested. History was littered with many who had done worse. But this description did not track with Eden’s memories of her uncles.
A chime at the door preceded a call from Commander Drafar.
“Fleet Commander?”
“Yes,” Eden said.
“May I come in?”
Eden paused, looking directly at Kathryn, who was certain they were sharing the same thought: He knows.
“Enter,” Eden said decisively, and moments later, he did so.
“Fleet Commander,” Drafar began as he stopped just inside her quarters. Kathryn could have sworn she glimpsed a few security officers behind him when the door had hissed shut. Turning to face Kathryn, he went on, “We seem to have an intruder aboard whom you have chosen to harbor, rather than alerting me to her presence.”
“As is my prerogative,” Eden replied.
“Certainly,” the commander said, without agreeing. Kathryn could understand his frustration, but this was one of those situations when rank had privileges. “Had you not been displaying behavior which, to my mind, bordered on unstable previous to this, I would have been content to allow the matter to drop.”
“Unstable?” Cambridge asked incredulously.
“After boarding this ship, you required it to take you to a location of no tactical significance to our current mission, you refused to advise me of your reasons, and you then proceeded to leave this vessel without following the standard protocol of telling anyone where you were going or when you intended to return. Shortly after you returned, you requested that the sickbay be cleared. Almost immediately thereafter, another human was somehow transported into the sickbay without activating any of our internal alarms or setting off an intruder alert. For the last several hours, that individual has been in continuous contact with you. You failed to advise me. Only our most recent standard internal sensor sweep revealed the presence of this intruder.”
“We’re not plotting a mutiny, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Cambridge quipped.
“Forgive me, Counselor, but my understanding of the events surrounding the departure of Admiral Batiste from this fleet, and Fleet Commander Eden’s previous relationship to him, as well as the extraordinary series of events I have just related, make it impossible for me to exclude any conceivable explanation for Captain Eden’s actions.”
“I’m sorry, Tillum,” Eden said honestly. “But the simple fact of the matter is that there isn’t anything in the rule books to cover this.”
He seemed surprised by her words, but remained hesitant to give her the benefit of the doubt.
“Commander Tillum Drafar, meet Vice Admiral Kathryn Janeway,” Eden said.
With her most deferential smile, Kathryn stepped forward at this and offered Drafar her hand. He did not immediately accept it.
“The recently deceased Admiral Kathryn Janeway?” he asked.
“Yes.” Kathryn nodded. “It’s a pleasure, Commander,” she said, wondering how far professional courtesy was going to get her with this one.
Drafar turned to the Doctor. “Assuming your ethical subroutines have not been tampered with in any way, which is also not outside the realm of possibility, have you confirmed this, Doctor?”
“I have,” he sighed, “and will gladly forward my report to you for further study.”
“Please do so at once,” Drafar replied.
“As to the rest, Commander,” Eden continued, “although my actions may seem inexplicable, that is not your concern. If a time should come when I feel it is appropriate or necessary to provide you with further details, I will do so. Until then, Admiral Janeway’s presence here is classified. Please advise any of your crew members who have seen your internal sensor scans of this.” As if that should settle it, Eden continued, “What is our current status?”
Kathryn smiled faintly. Despite the magnitude of the issues before her, Eden remained calm and in control. It shouldn’t have been surprising, but was definitely reassuring and obviously had the intended effect on Drafar.
“We have reached sensor range of the trapped ships and ascertained that over seven hundred remain alive in the visible areas of the vessels. My people are currently working on rescue scenarios.”
Eden looked as if someone had just punched her in the stomach. “That’s less than half of the total crew complement of those four ships,” she said softly.
“The greatest losses were sustained by Esquiline, Hawking, and Curie, which appeared to have entered the anomaly in a head-on orientation. Quirinal’s losses are significantly less, as they apparently had turned to run before they were pulled in. Their nacelles and rear shuttle and cargo areas are lost, but the areas of heaviest crew concentration remain intact.”
Eden nodded somberly, saying, “Thank you, Commander.”
“We must find a way to get them off those ships,” he replied. “It appears that the ships are moving further into their respective fissures. Hawking’s case is the most urgent. Communication, to date, is not possible through the numerous forms of interference being generated, though we are also working to rectify that. Our scans show that all remaining personnel seem to be located in the areas of their ships that are farthest from the boundaries separating normal space from the anomaly. It seems likely that their commanders know what is happening and are doing what they can to see to the safety of their remaining crew members.”
“What about transporters?” Kathryn asked automatically.
Eden turned to her sharply, and Kathryn shrugged it off.
“Transporters are functional, but not optimal,” Drafar reported. “Apart from the interference, which could easily disrupt any beam-out, there is the matter of where to safely house more than six hundred additional people on a ship currently manned at capacity. Our resources are vast, but not infinite.”
“That won’t be a problem,” Kathryn corrected him.
Eden beat Drafar to the punch by asking, “How so?”
“Several years ago, Voyager traveled through an area of space controlled by an extremely inhospitable species known as the Devore,” Kathryn began.
Eden’s eyes widened and a smile creased her lips.
“The telepathic refugees?” Eden asked.
Kathryn nodded, pleased that Eden’s knowledge of her ship’s previous exploits appeared to be at her fingertips.
“But can our transporter buffers hold that number of people safely, let alone run the necessary continuous reintegration protocols?” Eden asked.
“I don’t know,” Kathryn replied honestly. “I’ve been away for a while and haven’t seen this ship’s specs.”
“Commander, alert your technicians to prioritize optimizing your transporters to receive all of the survivors,” Eden ordered. “Your second priority is the comm system. We need to alert the crews, in advance, of our rescue efforts, but even if we can’t, we will proceed.”
Drafar’s mind was clearly racing with possibilities, and to his credit, he understood Eden’s idea without further explanation. “You intend to transport the officers directly into the buffers and leave them there?”
“Correct.” Eden nodded. “And we need to get as many as we can with every single transport.”
At this, Drafar smiled. “I believe a number of modifications Fleet Chief Torres just made to our industrial transporters will aid us toward that end. If you will excuse me, I will begin the necessary preparations.”
QUIRINAL
Regina Farkas felt relief as she came to main engineering and saw several of her crew scurrying about just outside the open doors. They were running cable to numerous control interfaces that were in the process of being activated outside of their normal housings within engineering.
“Just do the best you can,” Lieutenant Bryce’s assured voice rang out over the din of the hurried activities as he peeked his head out the door to check the status of his engineers.
“Lieutenant,” Farkas called crisply. The engineer looked her way with bright eyes and an impish flicker of a smile.
“Good to see you, Captain. I figured you’d be down here when you didn’t hear from us. We’ve been doing what we can to restore communications with the bridge, but it’s proving to be quite a challenge.” He gestured to the melee around him. “The interference from the barrier is scrambling everything. I’m trying to salvage what we can for as long as we can.”
“Excellent work,” Farkas replied. “How far into engineering does the barrier reach?”
“Not far, yet,” Bry
ce replied, “but it’s creeping forward with every passing hour. By my calculations we have less than twenty hours before it hits the core and we lose engineering . . .”
“. . . and the ship,” Farkas noted.
“Probably,” Bryce agreed.
“Is there any way to halt its progress?” Farkas asked.
“None that I’ve found so far,” Bryce replied. “We’re still working on it. Since we don’t know what triggered the anomaly’s fracture in the first place, my number one priority is that I don’t do anything to increase its rate of destabilization.”
“Do you know what it is and when we can began to study it?”
“No,” Bryce admitted. “But it is a hell of a thing to behold.”
Farkas shivered involuntarily at this. “Let’s take a look then.”
“Captain?” Denisov said sharply.
“Don’t worry, Gregor,” Farkas attempted to calm the security officer. “I’m not going to get too close. I just want to see it.”
“Is it safe for the captain to approach?” Denisov demanded of Bryce.
“My people have been working within ten meters of it, and they seem no worse for wear,” Bryce replied.
“Did you lose anyone in the impact?” the captain asked.
Bryce nodded, and the boyish charm drained from his face. “Costa, Miller, and Fredericks,” he replied. “They were stationed at the aft control panels. It all happened so fast, they probably didn’t know which way to run.”
“Then engines are still intact?”
“For now.” Bryce nodded. “But without the nacelles, which were almost completely lost, they’re not much use to us.”
“Understood,” Farkas said and, turning to Denisov, added, “You’re welcome to join us.”
“Where you go, I go, Captain,” Denisov replied.
“Bryce,” Farkas said, gesturing for him to lead the way.
As they entered main engineering, the din of the hallway gave way to silence. Only a few engineers remained inside, working quickly and quietly. From time to time, one of those remaining at their stations would throw a furtive glance over one shoulder, as if expecting to be attacked from behind. As Farkas got her first look at the barrier, she understood their discomfort.
Star Trek: Voyager - 041 - The Eternal Tide Page 24