Her prolonged silence seemed to trouble Icheb, who suddenly said, “I’m sorry, Ensign. Did I offend you?”
“No. Not at all. I mean, yes, but it’s okay.”
The confusion on his face was almost funny. He hadn’t been with the fleet long, but now she wondered why she had never sought out his company. She’d made a point of getting to know every eligible male she served with since the day she boarded. But even before this madness had seized her, she’d never thought to give him the time of day.
He’s just so young, she decided, though she was all of four years older than he.
“I don’t know all that much about the bonding process,” she finally admitted. “It’s not something we talk about. So few Kriosians are born metamorphs that really, they’re the only ones trained to deal with this.” After a pause, she added, “I guess if the person I ultimately choose really had a thing for skinny partners, I’d stop eating for them. I mean, I’d eat enough to live. But I wouldn’t want to be anything other than what they wanted me to be.”
“The Doctor will find a way to reverse this condition,” Icheb said gently.
“Why were you here?” she suddenly thought to ask. “I mean, on Voyager? Why did you come to see him? Are you sick?”
Icheb’s face paled as he shook his head. “I am fine.”
“Icheb, you are a terrible liar.”
“It’s a personal matter, Ensign,” he insisted.
“A personal matter?” she demanded. “Are you kidding me? More personal than your entire life being turned upside down by a ticking genetic time bomb you weren’t even aware was inside you? In the last few hours, Icheb, you’ve learned more about my personal life than my mother ever knew. I don’t have a choice right now. I’m an open book to you. Would it kill you to return the favor?”
Icheb appeared stung. She was being too hard on him. He was trying to help her, and he didn’t deserve her temper or her prying.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“No. I’m sorry,” he said. “You are right. And oddly enough, my reason for visiting the Doctor was not entirely different from yours.”
Now she was intrigued.
He went on to explain quickly the broad strokes of his own genetic time bomb. When he had finished, she said, “That’s why you’re not a problem for me. You are physically incapable of bonding in the way my body requires.”
“I realize that this cannot be a permanent solution,” Icheb said, “but I will gladly keep you company until this is resolved if you find it helpful.”
Gwyn felt herself smiling in gratitude. “You’re one of the good guys, Icheb. I know what Phinn sees in you.”
Icheb shook his head. “Even if he does see whatever that is, how likely is it that we will be able to have anything resembling a normal relationship if I am physically incapable of responding to him?”
“Look,” she said simply. “I’m not going to pretend that sex isn’t a great thing or an important part of an intimate relationship. But I’ve had plenty of it, enough to know that while pleasant, it has very little to do with sustaining a relationship. You can easily have sex without a relationship. And there are plenty of relationships that never include sex. There are a million other things that attract us to a person and keep us around, long after the physical desire fades. Those are the things you want to cultivate if you really like him and want something deeper.”
Icheb nodded. “I understand, in theory. But I would be lying if I said I wasn’t looking forward to enjoying a physical relationship with him. Now that it seems possible, even though I guess it isn’t, it’s almost all I can think about.”
Gwyn laughed aloud. “That makes you normal, Icheb. And who knows? If you’re so certain they’re going to be able to help me, what makes you think they won’t be able to help you too?”
Icheb shrugged. “Nothing about my life has ever been normal. But until now, I never wished that it had been different. I thought I had escaped my parents and what they did to me long ago. Now it seems like no matter how far I get away from them, what they intended will always take precedence over what I want.”
“I know what you mean. I had to leave Krios to get away from everyone’s expectations. I never really felt free until I joined Starfleet. I remember worrying that I would miss them so much, all the people I left behind. A few months after I entered the Academy, I had a dream that I was back home with all of my friends and I was panicked. I never wanted to be there again. But that didn’t make sense because it was the only life I’d ever known. I didn’t calm down until I woke up and heard my roommate snoring. It was the most beautiful sound. It meant I was still free. I think all those years I was there, I was holding my breath and it wasn’t until I got out that I realized what it really was to breathe.”
“You don’t miss them at all?” Icheb asked.
Gwyn shook her head. “I miss my leedi, sometimes. Mayla.”
“Leedi?”
“She’s like a member of my family. But we’re not related. She and my mom have always been friends, since before I was born. I’ve known her forever. Her face is one of my first memories. I always felt like she knew me, but not in the same judgmental way my mom did. I could tell her anything.” Tears began to well in Gwyn’s eyes. “I’d give anything for her to be here right now. She’d know what I need to do.”
Gwyn pushed herself off the biobed that was going to be her home for the foreseeable future and began to pace the main medical bay. Clearly sensing her anguish, Icheb remained in the chair beside her bed, giving her what passed for solitude.
There were several private rooms down the main hall that broke off the rear of the bay. Gwyn wandered down, pausing at the door to Nancy Conlon’s room. The lieutenant looked so peaceful. Gwyn knew that was a lie. She understood that some of what she was enduring was the result of her desire to help Conlon, and even though she might have justifiably been angry and blamed Conlon for her current condition, she didn’t. Everything she was suffering paled in comparison to Conlon’s troubles. At least there were ways for Gwyn to survive this. That might not be one of Conlon’s options.
Fresh tears threatened, so Gwyn moved on. A few doors down, a warmly lit bio-chamber sat in an otherwise darkened room. Something small floated inside the chamber.
“Icheb?” she called. Moments later he was by her side.
“Are you all right?”
“I am. What’s that?” she asked, pointing to the chamber.
Icheb shook his head. “I don’t know.”
Gwyn entered the room and checked the chamber’s display.
“That’s a child,” she said, in awe. “That’s Lieutenant Kim and Lieutenant Conlon’s baby. But what is it doing here?”
Icheb had remained in the doorway. “I’m not sure, but I don’t think we should be in here.”
Suddenly the urgency of Sal’s requests for her aid made more sense. There had always been more to this than Conlon’s life. She had been pregnant. They might have been trying to save more than her life with Gwyn’s cells.
Gwyn lifted her hand and placed it on the chamber. The being floating inside was so tiny, so fragile. An instinct Gwyn had never before known she possessed rose within her. She wanted to protect this tiny creature. She wanted it to live and thrive. She didn’t know it. She couldn’t. The same empathic senses that drew her so powerfully to the individuals that were potential mates also connected her to this tiny living being. But there was a difference. She didn’t need to be anything other than what she was for this child. It had no needs or desires of her other than protection and devotion. For a moment no longer than a breath, she was fascinated, standing on the edge of a cliff. It would be the easiest thing in the world to step off and fall.
“Gwyn,” Icheb said more forcefully, pulling her from her reverie.
She turned to him, as if seeing him for the first time.
“I need to talk to my mother.”
15
* * *
VESTA
&nb
sp; The large conference room, built to hold most of the command staffs for the entire fleet, was full. Captain Chakotay entered and immediately searched the room for Admiral Janeway.
The conference tables were surrounded by officers, although none of them sat. Each featured small holographic displays, and each table was configured to study one of the many problems the fleet was currently facing.
At the far end of the room, Seven, Glenn, and Elkins were staring at a hologram of the planet upon which Chakotay had placed so many hopes not that long ago. A good old-fashioned mystery. A chance to be explorers again. It had all sounded so promising at the time. And maybe a little over a day of that kind of tranquility was enough. Whether it was or wasn’t no longer mattered. It was going to have to be.
Even from this distance, Chakotay could see that the veins of ore that composed so much of DK-1116 were highlighted on the model. No doubt these three had been tasked with determining exactly what would happen when the new veins that had begun to grow roughly fifteen hours earlier completed that process. Most of the hypotheses being floated thus far included the destruction of the planet and the fleet.
Another station, where Lieutenants Kim and Bryce stood, displayed a section of the outer, spherical asteroid field surrounding the binaries and traced the patterns of the strange new energy waves originating from one of the larger rocks out there directed toward the planet. In the last few hours they, too, had increased in strength but also seemed to be growing more focused on one of the planet’s polar regions at regular rotations governed by the motion of both the asteroids and the planet.
A third group, which included Commander O’Donnell and Lieutenants Velth and Benoit, was analyzing the sensor feeds of the alien substance that had first attacked Ensign Gwyn and later the shuttlecraft Van Cise. Chakotay hadn’t had a chance to review that footage in detail yet, but even at this distance, it was no mystery to him why Kim had ordered it destroyed.
Commander Torres stood at the largest table with Admiral Janeway and Commander Fife. Their display featured a close view of the landing site where Lieutenants Patel and Lasren and Ensigns Jepel and Vincent had been lost, side by side with one of the planet’s exposed, desolate plains. The team’s comm feed had been patched to Vesta shortly after it had been recovered. It was unsurprising to Chakotay that this was Kathryn’s focus—making sure all of her people made it off this planet alive.
Chakotay took a brief moment to realize that what he had hoped most to gain from this mission, true synthesis among the members of the fleet’s different vessels, was happening before his eyes. It didn’t matter that they were no longer on the surface of DK-1116. They were all working together as one.
As Chakotay took this in, Captain Farkas entered the room and made a beeline toward Admiral Janeway. Pulled from his thoughts, he quickly followed.
“All of the away teams, except the one, have been retrieved, Admiral,” Farkas said with palpable relief.
“Excellent,” Janeway said, then turned her attention to Chakotay. “Do we have an estimate?”
Chakotay nodded. “Commander Paris has done the calculations and assuming whatever happens out there falls within the range of our current models, if Vesta, Galen, and Demeter depart the system at full impulse and activate their slipstream drives once they are beyond the outer asteroid field, they will most likely survive any cataclysmic blast.”
“What happens to the numbers if they fail to make it through the outer field in time?”
“Their odds of survival fall to the high sixty percent range.”
“What about Voyager?” Farkas asked.
“Assuming Voyager departs now, she’ll reach the outer asteroid field easily at maximum warp. But we can’t do that, can we?”
“Voyager can’t depart for at least two more hours,” Janeway replied.
“Why not?” Farkas asked.
“B’Elanna?” the admiral said, bringing her fleet chief into the circle.
“We think we can use the same open line Patel used to reestablish communications to embed a transporter beam and bring her team to the surface.”
“How long can that possibly take?” Chakotay asked.
“We can’t do it from orbit,” Torres said. “We have to send a shuttle down with at least two officers, a pilot, and a transporter specialist. Honestly, I’d like to fill that role,” she added.
“Why?” Chakotay asked.
“We have to land on the surface at the precise location where that hard line terminates, excavate it, and establish a transporter link there. In addition to some specialized soil displacement devices Commander Fife has provided us, we’ll need pattern enhancers, a portable force-field generator and transporter, and an atmospheric processor. There’s no active biodome in that area, so we’ll be working in EV suits, and when we transport them up, we’ll have to bring them to the surface one at a time into the area protected by the force field and filled with atmosphere. It’s the only way we’re going to be able to get them. I won’t risk bringing up their gear, given that I’ll be manually adjusting their patterns every step of the way. I don’t want to add any unnecessary complications to the buffering sequence. As soon as they materialize, we will need to relay their signals immediately to Voyager’s transporter room to get them safely back on the ship. The force field protecting them from the exposed surface will have to be dropped the moment the transport beam is activated. The timing will be tricky. It will take a few minutes to reset the system for each of them, but once we have them, the pilot and I can transport back to Voyager directly from the surface.”
“And then we run?” Janeway asked.
“Yes, Admiral,” Torres replied.
“Let’s get started,” Chakotay said. “Have you selected a pilot?”
“I was hoping to use Gwyn,” Torres said. “I think Tom should take Voyager’s helm.”
“Gwyn is not going to be able to help us this time,” Chakotay said. “She’s still recovering from her previous injuries.”
Torres shook her head. “Damn it.”
“B’Elanna, this fleet is filled with capable pilots,” Janeway chided her.
“The build-up of energy on the surface is increasing every second we stand here talking,” Torres said. “I don’t think it will be a problem on site, but there is a chance that as it increases, it will interfere with our transports from the surface. We might all end up needing to pile back into the shuttle to escape. I don’t want a capable pilot. I want the best,” Torres said.
“That’s Tom,” Chakotay said.
Torres nodded. “I wish I didn’t agree with you about that.”
“If things get tough, I can take Voyager’s helm,” Chakotay added, “but if you’d rather both of you weren’t on the away team, I’ll take the shuttle controls.”
Torres shook her head. “No. We’ve got this.”
“How long do you need to prepare before you launch?” Janeway asked.
“An hour,” Torres replied.
“As quickly as possible, please,” Janeway ordered.
“Understood,” Torres said, and hurried out of the room.
Lifting her voice, the admiral said, “Attention, everyone.”
Within seconds the ambient bustle fell to silence.
“We have officially overstayed our welcome in this system. Commanders Glenn and O’Donnell, return to your ships and prepare to set course out of the system. Commander Paris will forward each of you your flight plans and rendezvous coordinates. Captain Farkas, as soon as Voyager’s officers are transported back, you will set course out of the system as well. Train all of your available sensors on the planet. Whatever happens here, assuming we survive, we’ll want to get the best possible images of the spectacle. Voyager will follow you as soon as we have retrieved our last away team.”
“You’re staying behind, Admiral?” Farkas asked dubiously.
A tight smile flashed over Janeway’s face. “We’re going to make it, Captain. All of us.”
Chakota
y wasn’t sure that Farkas understood, but he did. There were fifty moving parts to Torres’s plan and at some point it was highly likely that someone was going to have to decide who made it off the surface and who didn’t. Chakotay would do it if he had to, but Kathryn wasn’t going to let him. She was going to take full responsibility for any deaths this day brought, even if that included Tom and B’Elanna.
“Okay,” Farkas said. “We’ll see you on the other side.”
“Go,” Janeway ordered.
• • •
Captain Farkas left the conference room quickly, already formulating the dozens of orders that still needed giving before they could set course.
“Farkas to Doctor Sal,” she said, tapping her combadge.
To her surprise, the computer responded for her.
“Doctor Sal is not on board.”
“Where the hell is she?”
“Doctor Sal transported to the Galen sixteen minutes ago.”
Shaking her head, Farkas called to Roach.
“Malcolm?”
“Go ahead, Captain.”
“We’ve got a number of passengers who will be on their way back to Voyager in the next few minutes. Contact Commander Paris and confirm our course and prepare to break orbit as soon as we’re cleared.
“Yes, Captain.”
“Oh, and Malcolm. Contact Doctor Sal on the Galen and tell her to get her ass back here immediately. I want her on board when we depart.”
“Understood.”
GALEN
Ensign Aytar Gwyn slapped the side of the comm panel before her to improve the quality of the sound of Devi Patel’s voice. It kept breaking into static with periodic harsh buzzing noises. She had no idea why Patel wanted to speak to her now. The timing couldn’t have been worse. But when the call had come through, the Doctor had brought her to one of the medical bay’s private rooms and then returned to his lab, where he was conferring with Doctor Sal and Counselor Cambridge. Icheb waited just outside the room, her only tether to sanity. But the obvious stress in Devi’s voice served to focus Gwyn even better than the presence of Icheb.
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