Strange New Worlds 2016

by Various

  The acolyte smiled as he turned to look at Kira. “You’re too late.”

  Abruptly, the Orb ark opened of its own volition, and dark energy ripped out of the obsidian hourglass and into Jonathan Sisko. Flames erupted from the boy’s eyes and mouth and engulfed the acolyte, the cult of the Pah-wraiths, Odo, Bashir, and finally Kasidy Yates-Sisko, just as she realized in horror what her son had become. As a figure emerged unscathed from the flames, the world around Kira Nerys took on a familiar hue of blue, but not before a single word escaped her lips. “Dukat.”

  March 3, 1959

  Doctor Nia Manning smiled as she looked up from the handwritten pages of Deep Space 9: Epilogue. “You’ve been writing your Star Trek stories for a long time, Benny, your refusal to stop is what keeps you committed.” Her patient had come a long way from the shell condemned to solitary confinement for assaulting Doctor Wykoff. “But this is the first time you’ve gone back to a Deep Space 9 story in five years. Why now?”

  Benny Russell thought about the question. He remembered Roy Ritterhouse giving him the drawing of a space station in the Incredible Tales office. When he sat down at his typewriter in front of the blank page, that simple sketch dared him to reach for more than he ever thought possible.

  Now, whenever he looked at a blank page, he didn’t see its clean, white background and crisp blue lines, but darkness—the darkness that devoured his life because he chose his stories over love, the darkness his people endured for being born brown in a white world, and the darkness of space. He no longer saw the points of light that filled so many of his stories with wonder, but the empty spaces between them. Now, he wanted to fill those spaces with his anger, his hatred, and his depression. He wanted to be free—free of this place, free of his sadness, and free of his stories.

  “Deep Space 9 was where this started,” he said. “It’s where it should end.”

  Doctor Manning made some notes in her pad before continuing. She leaned forward, changing to the warm tone of a confidante and friend. “Let’s talk about what brought this change on.”

  Russell looked at the doctor who had become his savior and friend. He had no doubts whom she was talking about, but he found it hard to look at Doctor Manning when he spoke again. “When Cassie told me she was marrying Willie Hawkins, I felt betrayed, abandoned.” He remembered something he’d written a long time ago and hid a frown. “The reality is that she’s moved on, and I’ve existed by escaping into my stories, telling myself nothing else mattered. But it’s not enough to just exist . . . it’s not linear.” A long moment passed as Russell reflected on his own words.

  Manning finally broke the silence. She returned the handwritten pages. “You’ve done something few writers ever accomplish, Benny. The exploits of Sisko, Kirk, Picard, Janeway, and Archer are all compelling, thought-provoking stories in a vast universe.” She calmly crossed her legs before speaking again. “But you’re right. It’s not linear. It’s an obsession. You’ve been writing about the future for six years while spending your life here.” It had taken so long to get him here, but she knew the answer didn’t lie in painting over his words or in preventing him to write. “Those years are gone, Benny. Cassie’s gone. It’s time that you put all your pain and suffering into this last story, end Star Trek, and take your life back.”

  She smiled at him from behind glasses that concealed the warmth of her hazel eyes. It wasn’t the first time Russell wondered if there was more meaning in those eyes than she dare say as she helped him find his way out of the darkness.

  The Defiant listed to its side like a wounded beast. Explosions ripped apart the bridge. Kira’s order was full of pain and grief. “Chief, get us out of here.”

  O’Brien turned, wisps of smoke rising off the charred flesh of his face. “Her pagh is strong. She will serve us well.”

  The captain looked around the bridge. Defiant’s crew was all burned badly, yet smiling at her. Prophets? It didn’t feel like an Orb experience. This felt . . . real.

  “Hello, Nerys.” The voice thundered, yet it was soft, like a caress. It disgusted her. Turning toward the command chair, the image of Odo being engulfed in flames tormented her. Before she even realized it, her phaser was pointed at Dukat.

  The Cardassian seemed amused. “Come now, Nerys, you know such toys are meaningless here.”

  Kira gripped the phaser as if it was the last remnant of her sanity, the only way for her to hold back the tears. “What is this?”

  “This?” Dukat rose from the center seat, tendrils of flame emanating from his eyes. “This is the final chapter. This is an inevitability, and I have been chosen as its”—Dukat paused, smiling as he stood a lover’s distance from Kira—“Emissary.”

  The woman who had spent a lifetime resisting stood her ground, refusing to show weakness before this devil, who had already taken so much from her and Bajor. “The Prophets will stop you.”

  The flames from his eyes seemed to intensify as he stood there watching her, casting an unnatural illumination upon the ridges that adorned his face and neck, their heat emanating utter evil. Dukat laughed as he walked toward the false Defiant’s viewscreen.

  The bridge crew Pah-wraiths stood aside with a reverence that shocked Kira. The plasma storms filled the electronic display, and, at its center, Deep Space 9 sat untouched.

  The former gul smiled while watching the plasma storms surrounding Deep Space 9 on the display. “Nerys, what are the three keys to enlightenment?”

  “You can’t possibly know.” It nauseated Kira to hear Bajoran scripture come from this butcher of millions; he knew nothing of charity, humility, and faith.

  Dukat stared, transfixed by the streams of plasma as they danced wildly around the lone space station. “On the contrary, my communion with the Pah-wraiths has enlightened me.” He raised his hand in front of the viewer, gesturing as if he were following a concerto. As he did so, the strands of energy followed his tempo. Suddenly, Dukat closed his hand into a fist, and plasma streams tore into Deep Space 9, shattering the space station as if it were a fragile toy.

  The once prefect of Bajor smiled. “It’s a vision that I’m going to share with the universe.” Suddenly Dukat was behind her, whispering into her ear. “However, the fate of Bajor is in your hands, as it was always meant to be.”

  “Captain?” Nog resisted the urge to wave his hand in front of his superior officer’s face.

  Dax decided to use a tricorder instead. “Kira, can you hear us?”

  Startled by the close proximity of the tricorder, Kira stepped back. She surveyed her surroundings and realized that she was on the real Defiant. “Report.”

  O’Brien, without looking away from the busy engineering station, said, “Ablative armor is gone, life-support on decks three and four has failed. Emergency force fields are holding.” Finally, the chief turned around to make sure his point was made. “She’s holding together, but not by much. sir.”

  Having lobes like his, Nog had learned to listen to everything everyone said, especially when they were quiet. “Sir, our scans showed some kind of massive explosion, and then the platforms stopped firing as soon as we beamed you aboard. What happened down there?”

  Ezri could feel Jadzia’s bravado pushing to the surface as she feigned a smile. “It seems like the Prophets were charitable today.”

  Garak stood to the side, watching everyone. “That remains to be seen,” he said. Much like a Cardassian trial, he feared he’d known the outcome of this endeavor from the moment Captain Kira had contacted him two days ago. The fact that any of the away team had made it back from the asteroid death trap was sheer luck—or something more sinister. “Might I inquire as to the status of the constable, the doctor, and the Siskos?”

  Kira sat in the command chair, pushing away the images of the all-consuming flames that threatened to turn her heart to ashes. She could feel Dukat’s whispers pr
eying upon her soul. “We’ve got to get back to DS9.”

  March 4, 1959

  Doctor Wykoff handed the report back to his colleague, not bothering to conceal the skepticism in his voice. “I don’t believe it.”

  Doctor Manning smiled as she walked down the hallway beside the Queens Borough Mental Institution’s new chief of staff. His premature gray revealed what he’d gone through for the position. “Nevertheless, Benny is completing his last Sisko story.”

  Doctor Wykoff stopped just short of entering the recreation room; it was a common tactic among the staff to allow them to see without being seen. Searching the occupied room, he spotted a lone figure sitting by the window, writing in the midmorning sun. “He still has very little voluntary interaction with anyone. It concerns me he’s become so introverted since he’s been here.”

  “It’s not a psychosis, it’s a choice.” Doctor Manning watched Russell as he wrote. Even in the confines of this place it was clear to her the former author was in his element. She wondered what stories he would’ve written if he were at home or with his friends at the Incredible Tales magazine. “Besides, with his history, I can’t say I blame him.”

  Wykoff stopped watching Russell and turned to Doctor Manning. After the solitary confinement, he had wanted to ship Russell off to prison for assaulting him. But it was Doctor Manning that came in and convinced him that the path to Benny Russell’s sanity wasn’t to cast him out, but to see this through.

  For some time, he suspected that there must be some sort of impropriety going on between doctor and patient. But if there was, he and his staff hadn’t been able to discover it. “You’re very protective of him, aren’t you, Doctor Manning?”

  Manning thought about the implication of the question and decided the only way to answer it was honestly. “I’ve been treating Benny almost since I arrived here. I’ve come to understand him. With what he’s been through, the scope of his stories, he’s very special.”

  Wykoff realized his colleague answered the duplicitous question and yet didn’t. He couldn’t blame her. Regardless of that, he’d come to see what she’d said was true. Putting him in prison certainly wouldn’t have cured Russell of his inability to live life instead of obsessively writing stories, no matter how positive they may be.

  Now they were on the cusp of making this man whole again. “I can’t argue that. All right, Doctor, your request is approved.”

  Benjamin Sisko stumbled as he moved through the debris. The ship was unsteady, dying. There wasn’t much time. He had to find them. Again.

  Just beyond the transparent aluminum port, he watched the wormhole spiral open in a cascade of color and light. A moment later, flames erupted from the wormhole, enveloping space as far as he could see.

  What the hell was going on? It didn’t matter. He had to find them.

  “Jennifer?!” he called out, desperate. He could barely hear himself over the red alert klaxon and the ship’s internal explosions.

  Please God, let them be here.

  There was so much smoke, but in the shadows, his eyes caught the shape of a form that could only be one thing. “Jake!”

  “Warning! Damage to warp core.” The computer taunted him, reminding him that inevitability was approaching. “Containment failure in three minutes.”

  Sisko removed the debris. The boy wasn’t Jake, but this was his son. Somehow he knew it, knew the boy’s name. Jonathan.

  What was happening? What were the Prophets trying to tell him? It didn’t matter—there wasn’t much time.

  “I’m gonna get your mom. You’re gonna be okay.” Panic of the past gripped Sisko as he reached for the girder pinning the woman to the floor. “Jennifer.” Please, not again. No, not Jennifer, but his wife, Kasidy, entombed in mangled duranium. “Okay, Jonathan, we’ll get your mom out, and we’ll get out of here.”

  The father and husband wrapped his hands around the girder and pulled with all his love, just as before. Why were the Prophets doing this? Where was Sarah?

  A familiar voice called out to him from the darkness. “Benjamin.”

  Was it the Prophets? Was this real? Had the Borg attacked again and the Prophets sent him to save his family?

  “Help me!” he screamed.

  The figure walked around the debris and crouched down beside Kasidy. “She’s dead, Benjamin. I burned her in the love of the Pah-wraiths, and Jonathan belongs to me now—there’s nothing you can do.”

  Sisko fell back, recognizing the man with whom he had descended into hell. Stunned, he looked around the destroyed room. “What is this? What are you doing here?”

  The Cardassian smiled as he read the concern on the human’s face. “Don’t you recognize your Celestial Temple? I assure you, Captain, the Prophets will not come to your aid this time. It’s just the two of us, as it was always meant to be.”

  The ship rocked as the past continued to play out. Determination overrode fear as Benjamin Sisko turned his attention to Dukat, refusing to allow the image of Kasidy’s body to overwhelm him.

  “I don’t know how you got out.” Sisko stepped up to Dukat, unwavering as he got into the Cardassian’s face. “But you’re going back.”

  The remark was audacious. It angered Dukat, even now that he’d attained godhood—Sisko still felt like his equal. He was going to have to change that. “The Sisko is aggressive, adversarial. Is that any way to treat me . . . Father?”

  Somehow Sisko knew it was true. As he reached for Dukat, knowing he had to find a way to undo what Dukat had done to his family, to the Prophets, to the universe. Instead, he found himself standing back at the burned door to his quarters, with Dukat next to him. “The Sisko is corporeal, linear. He still doesn’t understand what he is.”

  Dukat chuckled. “The Sisko has come to the beginning of his end . . . there will be no more tasks.”

  For a moment Dukat’s appearance faded to reveal the visage of a young man in agony. He was the same height as Benjamin, and as soon as Sisko looked into his eyes he knew who it was. “Jonathan.”

  Almost immediately the shell of Dukat resurfaced and the Cardassian smiled. “For so long, the Pah-wraiths wanted to reclaim their place in the Celestial Temple, until I convinced them how fitting it would be to leave the false gods and you here. Suffering and imprisoned for all eternity while we set the universe aflame. Good-bye . . . Emissary.”

  Benjamin Sisko screamed as the past began to replay and he watched himself once again stumble through the debris looking for his wife and son. It had taken him years to let go of this place, but now—and perhaps for all eternity—this is where Benjamin Sisko would exist.

  March 24, 1959

  Russell leaned hard on the cane that supported him, but it gave him no comfort. “I want to thank you again for this, Doctor Manning.”

  The trees and cast-iron fences around the Queens Borough Mental Institution weren’t much to look at, but it didn’t matter. He was outside for the first time in years. Across the street, cars moved up and down the avenue, people walked by, and in the distance he could hear a dog barking. The air was sharp and crisp. It was spring, and New York was coming alive.

  Benny Russell felt the same way. “I owe you so much.” Doctor Manning tilted her head away from him, but he glimpsed a smile.

  Manning stopped in front of an oak; its new leaves were beginning to blossom. “I’m pleased Doctor Wykoff approved this. I know you’ve endured a lot.” She thought about the beatings Russell suffered for being outspoken and black, the cane that was a constant reminder of his injuries. It was no wonder he had a breakdown, no surprise that he retreated into his stories. To make matters worse, the isolation he’d endured here was a mistake. The savages here had always given Benny Russell the stick and never considered the carrot.

  “But all that’s over now.” The doctor put a reassuring hand on Russell’s ar
m. “From now on, you’ll be able to take walks outside every week.” Manning looked up into his eyes. “You’re not alone—we’re going to get you out of here.”

  Russell took a long look at the world beyond the gates of the mental institution that had been his prison for six years. Life was beckoning to him. All he had to do was turn his back on the universe he created.

  Kira Nerys studied the man that filled the iris of the main viewscreen.

  He was being stalked by exhaustion, and the countenance that always projected strength now seemed diminished under the horrors of the last six days. She understood how he felt.

  “I’m glad you could make it,” she said.

  Captain Jean-Luc Picard feigned the semblance of a smile as he rose from his command chair.

  “What’s your status, Captain?”

  “It’s bad, Captain. We’re over capacity by two thousand people.” Kira Nerys could barely hear Picard over the cacophony of voices. The space station’s operations center had become a glorified Tower of Babel. Every major power in two quadrants had someone at a communications station desperately trying to manage the influx of people and ships in and around the refugee center formerly called Deep Space 9. “More than half a million ships are filling the five light-years between Bajor, DS9, and Cardassia, and more are coming in every hour. This is the only area of space, anywhere, not affected by the plasma storms.”

  The scientists had no explanation for why the space around Bajor and Cardassia had become the untouched eye of the plasma storm that was spreading throughout the Alpha Quadrant. Kira could think of only one reason: charity.

  “Messages to the Gamma and Delta Quadrants continue to go unanswered,” she said.

  The plasma storms were flowing through the Celestial Temple into the Gamma Quadrant unchallenged by the Prophets. People were rioting in the streets of Bajor. They believed that their gods had forsaken them.