Strange New Worlds 2016

by Various

  “I was trying to save—” Zysin began.

  “Trying to conceal your failure by murdering the prisoners,” I accused. “You panicked. Self-deception. You might as well be a Vulcan.” I couldn’t stop myself—confrontation, this Romulan game of words, distracted and steadied me. Repeating the words, I hoped, made them true.

  Zysin hung his head low.

  “You are right, if sitting were passive,” Spock began, “but your brother has taught me that sitting is quite active, a violent act, in fact, just like telling a story.”

  I felt accused. My stories used every Reman, while they withered in darkness. I couldn’t breathe. I looked at Zysin. My eyes didn’t bounce away, like the guards, but I didn’t see him as a Reman brother, a former slave—only as the pathetic cartoons from my stories. I had reshaped my own perception of reality to survive. And I felt rudderless, hollowed out.

  The striking collision of metal shook the cell. Dust and dirt rained down. The lights quit and their restraints unclasped; the hum of the magnetic locks grew silent. My chest caved in, and I doubled over, my rifle suddenly sticking in my sweaty grip. Zysin stood, laughing.

  “The prisoners you’ve been charged to guard are about to break out,” he said snidely. “What’s your duty now?”

  My eyes flashed at him, sweat gathering in the space between my ears and eyes. I raised my disruptor, but knew I couldn’t get myself to fire on Spock or the others. I felt paralyzed, faceless, but suddenly too visible. Suspicion, pride, revolution, deception, equality—they collapsed in on themselves within me. Yalu, you seemed to become someone, but I sputtered deeper into ambiguous darkness. The room shook again. Prisoners began shouting. I pressed the disruptor’s emitter beneath my chin, not knowing if I’d do it.

  “Do not harm yourself.”

  I didn’t want to!

  Spock remained still, sitting against the wall.

  “We are not going anywhere.” He fixed his eyes on Zysin. I could see Zysin’s fantastic confusion.

  “Look, I realize to an old radical like yourself that this cell, those cuffs, are some sick reward, but not to me.”

  But Silass spoke up too. “Sit down, Zysin. You don’t want this boy’s blood on your hands.”

  Spock saw me clearly, and in his eyes, I saw myself, quivering, waiting. I lowered the rifle from my jaw, and it made a quiet thud into the dirt.

  “My fellow prisoners, please remain in your cells. Do not attack the men and women who guard you. They, like you and I, are prisoners themselves.”

  Their guard awoke, but she simply remained still, her fingers clutching the trigger of her disruptor.

  “We must preserve the lives of these guards, my friends,” said Spock. “Heroic sitting, one could say.” A thin grin creased his face. And I fell to my knees.

  With what seemed like a secret burden, Spock spoke. “For years, I negotiated the space between the public and the Senate, working to transform the system to allow for Vulcan teaching within Romulan society. While meeting with the underground by night and with senators by day, I ignored the image’s ability to inspire an emotional response, and, therefore, I ignored a knowledge that Vulcans devalue.”

  He shook his head and paused.

  “I am not the great Vulcan, Troth,” he said plainly, forcefully even. “Your brother taught me that change must be modeled. If peace and restraint is the lifestyle, it must be lived, publicly.”

  “Heroic sitting,” I repeated.

  “Indeed. When one consciously sits in a den of lions—to make a human allusion—that is courage, that is active resistance. And that image of your brother, the children and women, beaten by officers of the government—that image inhabits the Empire forever. He harnessed the emotional resonance of that image to spark suspicion and public outcry, something that never occurred to me—something both Romulan and Reman.”

  You were heroic, Yalu.

  The doors swung open and this is where our paths, brother, crossed for the final time. Shinzon had engaged the Federation’s flagship, dying in the process. The underground formed a temporary government along with the few military commanders who had suddenly regretted their alliance with Shinzon. Your voice rang through the prison. You called for everyone to head for the Reman hangar bay, that relief and transport shuttles would be waiting.

  The scramble through the prison, into the mines, up through the administrator’s office, the mine shaft, and into the hangar was frantic. Elbows stabbing. Women knocked to the ground. We feared without reason. There was that group consciousness again. We simply ran like rabid dogs for the grounded ships. Spock didn’t, though, and neither did his newest convert, the professor. Zysin disappeared in the crowd. I felt the hot, wet current of bodies carry me toward the transports that lay staggered across the hangar. No grass beneath my feet, just dirt. That’s all a lightless rock gives you, and I was certainly glad to be free of the planet, although just hours before I thought I was free of it.

  But I couldn’t join you or our Vulcan friend. I suddenly felt much older than I was. I felt the hustle of bodies squirming for escape, for any ship to climb onto. I felt my life compressed into that moment of surging, rudderless bodies. They couldn’t think of anything but escape and survival; I was tired of escaping, of mere survival.

  So, I followed the sun’s path and trekked beneath the intense heat on the lighted side of Remus. For a few months, I needed to abandon everything and quietly discover who I was and what I actually believed. An abandoned outpost gave me shelter and the outpost’s ration supply, food. It didn’t matter whether I was Romulan or Reman anymore. But when Spock returned to deliver the news of your death during a protest, I agreed to rejoin our fragile society as it kicked and squirmed into new life. Spock suggested I write this to you—which has been a surprisingly cathartic experience—to root our story in the cyclical discovery between the seen and unseen.

  STAR TREK:

  DEEP SPACE NINE®

  THE FAÇADE OF FATE

  Michael Turner

  THE BURST OF LIGHT brought a wave of heat and searing pain. Benjamin Sisko squeezed his eyes shut and choked on the acrid smoke that filled his nose, mouth, and lungs. The environmental systems labored at clearing the runabout of smoke and pumping fresh oxygen, but the damage was done. Sisko wondered if they would die of suffocation before being vaporized.

  “Life-support systems operating at twenty-two percent!” Worf yelled before another volley of photon torpedoes jarred the hapless ship.

  At the helm, Jadzia Dax struggled furiously. She swore. “Phasers are offline!”

  What good would it do, wondered Sisko, to fight? They were already lost . . .

  Benjamin Sisko opened his eyes. He sat up and regretted it immediately. He knew it was Jadzia’s comforting hand on his shoulder before she said anything.

  “Take it easy, Benjamin.”

  His mouth was dry and he tried to swallow but felt his throat tighten. “How long?” he managed to ask.

  “Worf was the first to wake up, about an hour ago. I came to a little later.”

  Sisko blinked and focused his attention on the Klingon, who stood a meter away with his arms folded across his chest.

  “We are prisoners,” Worf said. “I can find no way out. There are no obvious locking mechanisms.”

  Jadzia Dax sat down beside Sisko on the smooth, cool floor. “No obvious door either, for that matter.”

  “The runabout?” Sisko asked.

  Dax shook her head. Before she could elaborate the air was filled with a throbbing sound as all four walls seemed to shimmer as they became transparent, and then disappeared altogether.

  Sisko shielded his eyes from the sudden brightness and rose to his feet. He was clearheaded now, his senses alert.

  They were surrounded by half a dozen figures, and as his eyes adjusted, Sisko
followed one figure as it came closer. The woman had the familiar nasal ridges of a Bajoran. Her hair was iron gray and swept away from her face. She was square jawed, and her eyes were crystal blue. Rather than the usual elaborate and ornate attire he might expect from a Bajoran, her flowing robe was simple and plain. She smiled at him and nodded to Dax and Worf beside him.

  “Welcome,” she said. Sisko thought her enunciation was overly precise, as if she were trying a new language for the first time.

  “I’m Captain Benjamin Sisko. These are my officers—”

  She held up a hand to stop him. “Yes,” she said. “Benjamin Sisko. Jadzia Dax. Worf, son of Mogh. We know all about each of you.” Her gaze lingered on Sisko. “We are honored by your presence.”

  “If not more than a little surprised by your sudden and unexpected appearance,” said another identically clad member of the group as he stepped forward. A Cardassian. Sisko did his best to hide his surprise. “Nonetheless, welcome.”

  “Where are we?” Sisko asked.

  There was a brief hesitation before the woman answered, “Far from home. But we are going to help you return.”

  “Where is our ship?” Worf asked abruptly.

  The Cardassian answered, “We have it in stasis. The ship was in the process of rapidly expanding beyond safe parameters. We decided to remove you to ensure your safety.”

  Dax said, “ ‘Rapidly expanding beyond safe parameters’ is an interesting way to describe an explosion.”

  Sisko regarded her.

  “We suffered a warp core breach,” Dax explained. “I was trying to eject the core but there was too much damage to the main console.” She eyed the woman. “How is it possible you were able to contain the explosion and transport us off our vessel? We should be dead.”

  The Bajoran and Cardassian exchanged glances. “You obviously have many questions,” she said. “We will do our best to address them.” She looked uncertainly at her colleague.

  The Cardassian smiled widely. “There is no need for secrets. We can tell them everything. Why not? But let us do it as civilized hosts. Come. You must be as hungry for food as you are knowledge.”

  They were taken to a large sunlit room and offered fresh fruit and drink. The woman had introduced herself as P’Tash. The man’s name was Valel. P’Tash explained that they were in the Citadel, in the capital of the planet and the seat of all government. The walk from wherever they were being held to the reception room had not been revealing. The corridors were well lit, clean, but barren. The table and chairs in the reception room were simple and made of an unidentified polymer. The other members of the welcoming committee, as Sisko thought of them, were more interesting. Two more were Bajoran, another was a Bolian, and the last was Klingon.

  Dax was as perplexed as Sisko. “We’re far from home, aren’t we?” Dax asked wryly as they sat down across from their hosts.

  P’Tash nodded, a faint smile on her lips. “You could say that.”

  “And yet,” Valel interjected, “you’re right at home. In a sense.”

  Sisko left his plate of fruit and cheese untouched. “I appreciate the rescue, but I’m not overly fond of mysteries. Where are we and what happened to us?”

  Nodding, P’Tash drew herself up. “We’ve done our best to analyze the circumstances which brought you”—she made a small gesture with her hands—“here. Your ship was locked in combat of some kind. You were losing, badly.”

  Worf allowed a small growl to crawl from the back of his throat but said nothing.

  “We were ambushed by a Jem’Hadar battle cruiser,” Dax said. “We didn’t stand a chance.”

  A momentary look of confusion clouded P’Tash’s face before she continued. “Your rapid acceleration from the conflict, coupled with the enormous burst of photonic energy, opened a breach in the space-time continuum.”

  Sisko turned to Dax for her thoughts. “Old man?”

  Dax looked at Sisko. “That’s possible in theory. A one-in-a-billion chance, maybe. It’s not something we’d be likely to replicate.”

  Turning back to P’Tash, Sisko said, “You mentioned the space-time continuum. Please”—only Dax caught a hint of weariness in his voice—“tell me we haven’t time traveled.”

  “Captain,” Valel said, perhaps sensing Sisko’s apprehension, “please be assured that we did nothing to bring you here. We merely averted a catastrophe when your ship suddenly appeared in orbit on the verge of complete obliteration.”

  “And where is here?”

  “You are on Bajor, Captain Sisko.”

  “Bajor?” Sisko looked from Dax to Worf, as if to confirm what he’d heard. “I know Bajor very well. This doesn’t look like anything I’ve seen before.”

  “It is Bajor,” P’Tash said. “But not when you knew it. You have moved forward in time almost twelve hundred years.”

  There was a long moment of silence, broken when Dax said, “I know what you’re thinking, Benjamin. When we get back, we’re going to have a lot of explaining to do to the Department of Temporal Investigations.”

  “Right now a visit from Dulmur and Lucsly is the least of my concerns,” said Sisko. “Getting home is.”

  “And we will help you with that,” P’Tash said, somewhat anxiously, Sisko thought.

  “Frankly,” began Valel, “we don’t want you here either. I mean no offense.”

  “None taken,” said Worf.

  Dax, one eyebrow raised, asked, “You have the technology to send us back in time?”

  Valel nodded. “Just as we have the technology to put your ship in stasis and stop it from . . . exploding . . . so can we formulate your return. We must repair your ship first. It will take some time.”

  P’Tash put a hand on Valel’s arm. “There isn’t much time.”

  “No pun intended,” said Dax.

  Sisko was not amused. “You’re eager to have us gone. We’re eager to return home. What can we do to help?”

  “Valel could use Jadzia Dax’s assistance in repairing your ship,” said P’Tash. “There is remarkable damage to the hull, engine, and life-support systems.”

  Sisko stood and the others followed. “Then let’s get to it.”

  Dax stood alone with Valel in his laboratory. It was remarkably sparse, thought Dax, like so much of what they had seen. She said, “I imagine your technology is beyond our comprehension, just as ours would be to someone a thousand years behind us.”

  Valel took a moment to reflect on this and let a smile play across his lips. “I suppose what we can do would appear to be like magic to you.” The air shimmered in front of him and a solid, three-dimensional image of the runabout appeared before them. Dax had not seen him press a button or otherwise engage any device to make the hologram appear. “Your vessel. Remarkably beautiful, I must say. Amazing how you were able to soar through the cosmos in such a vehicle.”

  “Indeed,” Dax said, as she inspected the damage to the U.S.S. Rio Grande. One of the nacelles was shattered and an enormous scar stretched from aft to stern. The little ship had never stood a chance. Things would have been different had they been in the Defiant. “Studying the damage, it looks as if she may never soar again.”

  Valel looked stunned. “She? Your vessels have assigned gender?”

  Dax shrugged. “An old tradition.” Dax walked around the image. “The exterior looks pretty rough. I was at the helm.” The memory of the brief but violent battle with the Jem’Hadar came rushing back to her. She could smell the tang of smoke, taste blood in her mouth. Her hand reached for her lip, expecting to feel a scar. There was none. “We were injured.”

  “We repaired you.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And now we must repair your ship. However, we must find a way to repair it in such a way that when you return you will not be able to detect any
future technology. In fact, we must make the repairs appear as if it was never damaged in the first place.”

  “That makes sense. And then return us to a point in space-time far away from the Jem’Hadar.”

  “Of course.”

  Dax focused on Valel. “What about us? Our knowledge of the future?”

  “Ah, yes. That, of course, will have to be cleansed.”

  “Cleansed?”

  Valel hesitated. “You understand, of course, that returning to your own time with knowledge of the future could have dire consequences.”

  “I’m familiar with the concept of temporal pollution.”

  “Then you understand.”

  Reluctantly, Dax nodded. “I do.”

  Valel came closer, closing the gap between them. “Do not worry. We are adept at removing specific segments of memory. No harm will come to you or your friends.”

  “Really,” Dax said, before returning her attention to the hologram.

  Worf watched Dax leave with the Cardassian. Captain Sisko was engaged in conversation with P’Tash, and the two walked toward a veranda. Worf turned to the Klingon, who seemed in a hurry to get as far from the reception hall as possible. “I am Worf.”

  The youthful Klingon seemed to cower before Worf. His shoulders slumped and he avoided eye contact. It was an unusual posture for a young male Klingon. “I know,” he said softly.

  Worf was confused. “Are you a prisoner here?”

  “What? Why would you say that?”

  Worf struggled with an explanation. He did not mean to offend one of their hosts, and yet . . . “Your clothes. They are not Klingon. I can see from how you carry yourself that you are not accustomed to combat. Your hands are soft. You appear meek. I reason that you have been a prisoner here for some time.” He then added, as if to cover for any perceived rudeness, “For many years, perhaps.”