Architects of Infinity

by Kirsten Beyer

  “You don’t know that,” Kim said, his voice rising. “You have no idea what the future might hold and neither do I. It’s one thing to live every day as if it might be your last. It’s another to decide it will be, to just give up.”

  “I’m not giving up. I’m trying to deal with reality.”

  Kim stared at her, the pale skin, the wide brown eyes and the dark circles beneath them. There was so much fear in them.

  “To hell with reality,” he said as he rose from his chair and moved to the data panel at the doorway. “I want you to see something,” he said, calling up Doctor Sharak’s program. Seconds later, the room vanished and Harry found himself standing with only Nancy and the baby in a sea of stars. He heard Conlon inhale sharply.

  “Give it a second. You’ll get used to it,” he said.

  “What is this?”

  “A new perspective,” he said. “I had no idea until a few days ago that several areas of this medical bay are simply holodecks. Doctor Sharak created this for the baby. He thought she would find it soothing.”

  “Space without an EV suit. Why did I never think to do this before?” she asked.

  “Because it’s impossible.”

  “It’s absurd.”

  “You want me to turn it off?”

  Conlon considered for a moment. “Never,” she finally replied.

  Kim stepped closer to her. “For weeks, I haven’t been able to breathe. Every time I think about the future my mind just locks up.”

  “I know the feeling.”

  “It’s fear.”

  “Fear is a rational response right now.”

  “It’s also useless. We’ve both been so busy trying to accept the unacceptable we forgot that together, we can do anything. That ends here and now.”

  “Harry.”

  “Hear me out. I don’t care anymore how we got here. I only care about where we go from this point forward.”

  Kim took both her hands in his and continued. “As far as I’m concerned, you and I are in this together, for better or worse, in sickness and health, forsaking all others until we are parted by death.”

  “And if that last part comes sooner rather than later?”

  Kim sighed deeply. “I don’t care.”

  Conlon took both his hands and used them to pull herself up. She lifted her face to his and kissed him tenderly.

  “Neither do I,” she said.

  In that moment beneath the naked stars, something that had until then seemed impossible, suddenly felt possible.

  VOYAGER

  Admiral Janeway sat beside Captain Chakotay on the low sofa under the long port in what had once been her ready room. She wasn’t certain anymore how long they had gone without rest. But the events of the last several hours left her pondering far too many things to consider sleep an option now. Beside her, Chakotay had just finished reading her first communique from Agent Gariff Lucsly.

  “He can’t be serious,” Chakotay said as he handed the padd back to her.

  “Have you ever met him?”

  “No.”

  “He is, quite possibly, the most serious individual I have ever met.”

  “He wants us to begin preparations to return to Krenim space and open diplomatic negotiations.”

  “Yes, he does.”

  “We’re in the middle of a discovery that might very well change everything Starfleet thinks it knows about the laws of the universe.”

  “He won’t care.”

  “Never mind the fact that you promised Agent Dayne that we would stay out of Krenim affairs for the foreseeable future.”

  Janeway sighed. “Lucsly’s not wrong that our current détente is likely unsustainable. We are once again a variable in their equations, and there is no way to be certain that they will ignore that. The best way forward with the Krenim is to make them our friends rather than allow them to go on believing us to be their enemies.”

  “If he thinks it’s going to be that easy, tell him to get his ass out here and handle that contact himself,” Chakotay said.

  Janeway tossed him a sidelong glance. “Don’t even think it,” she said.

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “For now? Nothing.”

  “Aren’t you required to follow his directives regarding the Krenim going forward?”

  “Am I?” she asked.

  Chakotay smiled.

  “I recall promising to take them under advisement. Before I can possibly undertake a mission of such import, I’m going to have to give the matter serious thought. It would be unwise to rush in unprepared.”

  “Obviously.”

  “And I’m afraid our work here has only just begun.”

  “Agreed.”

  “By the way, what are you going to do with Ensign Gwyn?”

  “I thought I might give Cambridge a chance to make a recommendation before I did anything.”

  “You should talk to her and Lieutenant Patel.”

  Chakotay scratched the back of his head. “Patel has always been one of my most capable and steady officers. I still can’t believe she did what she did.”

  “Chakotay, you and I have been setting examples for the entire crew far too long now for that to be the case. I’ve never been a parent, but ‘Do as I say, not as I do’ has never struck me as a particularly good form of discipline.”

  “You think they were both just doing what we would have done in their situation?”

  Janeway nodded. “You have a better explanation?”

  Chakotay shrugged. “Not tonight. But what kind of commanding officers does that make us?”

  “Apparently, terribly predictable ones.”

  “Do you think Lucsly is aware of that?”

  “Oh, trust me. He knows.”

  “We’re going to need a few days to perform repairs and scan the new landscape of this system. And we’re not going to let that star fall off our long-range sensors in the process. Now that it’s free, do you think there’s a chance those who did it might come looking for it?”

  “A girl can dream,” Janeway said with a mischievous twinkle in her eye.

  “Captain to the bridge.”

  Chakotay rose abruptly. “On my way.”

  Janeway followed him out as he started toward his chair. Both paused as they took in the image on the main viewscreen.

  “What the hell is that?” Chakotay asked.

  Hanging before them was a large black sphere only visible by the reflected light of the system’s single star.

  “Unknown, sir,” Aubrey reported. “Sensors didn’t pick it up incoming. We started reading some sort of displacement field, and then it was just suddenly there.”

  “Does it match anything in our databases?” Janeway asked.

  “Actually, it does,” Waters reported from ops.

  “What?”

  “It shares several key characteristics with that thing Lieutenant Kim destroyed yesterday. The thing that attacked Gwyn and ate our shuttle,” Waters said. “Only it is considerably more stable than its predecessor.”

  “Yellow alert,” Chakotay said as he took his seat and Janeway settled herself in the one to his left.

  “Hail them,” Chakotay ordered.

  After a few moments Waters reported, “No response, sir.”

  Chakotay looked to Janeway.

  “Open a channel,” the admiral ordered. “This is Admiral Kathryn Janeway of the United Federation of Planets. Please identify yourselves.”

  “You think it’s the Edrehmaia?”

  “I think it could be.”

  • • •

  The next thing either of them knew, they were picking themselves up off the deck. The bridge was bathed in darkness, illuminated faintly by weak crimson lights. The other officers on duty were doing the same.

  “Report,” Chakotay ordered.

  Waters was the first to do so. “The alien vessel is gone, sir.”

  “Damage report?”

  “None, sir.”

  �
�Did they attack us?”

  “We have sensor logs for the last eleven minutes,” Waters said.

  “We’ve been out for eleven minutes?”

  “I think so, sir.”

  “Play the sensor log onscreen,” Janeway requested.

  Together Chakotay and Janeway watched as the strange black object altered its shape into a long rectangular configuration. Immediately following that, brightly colored lights all across the visible spectrum began to flash from it.

  “What are those?” Chakotay asked.

  “I don’t know, sir,” Waters said.

  As this continued, the other fleet vessels could be seen moving in to surround the object.

  Chakotay almost ordered them off before he remembered that everything he was seeing had already happened.

  The lights dimmed and went out. Several seconds passed, and then a single white beam shot forth from the object in the direction of the Galen. Its shields held for less than fifteen seconds before a massive explosion ripped through her.

  Chakotay felt his gorge rise as Janeway placed a hand on his arm to steady herself. He couldn’t believe what he had just seen. He didn’t want to.

  “Waters, scan for the Galen.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  As she did so, several chirps sounded from her station. Vesta and Demeter were reporting in.

  “I’m sorry, Captain,” Waters finally said, her voice shaking. “She’s gone. The Galen has been destroyed.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Once upon a time, a girl who loved to tell stories saw a TV show on which a bunch of humans and a particularly fascinating alien with pointed ears flew around space in a gorgeous white ship discovering all sorts of weird and scary and thrilling things. Her older brother, Matt, was the person who made her watch that show, and later her younger brother, Paul, would fall in love with it too. Her parents, Fred and Patricia, made sure as she grew up that she always had access to all the things she needed to keep telling stories: books, dolls, games, puzzles, more books, and an education at a school where her seventh-grade teacher helped her write her very first novel. (Don’t ask. It was terrible.)

  By the time that girl was a young woman, she had decided that the last thing in the world she wanted to do was write her stories down. And then she saw another TV show on which an incredibly capable and interesting woman led a crew of humans and more aliens on a harrowing mission to get home after being flung to the far side of the galaxy. This show made her realize that writing her stories down was an interesting challenge, and that writing stories for this show was something she really, really wanted to do.

  By then she had married David, who—and this is critical—absolutely believed that she could do any damn thing she set her mind to. So she started writing her stories down. At first, they were not very good. But the more she wrote, the better they got. She found another woman who loved this universe as much as she did, and they started trying to create stories together. Her name was Heather Jarman, and shortly thereafter, Heather was invited to start writing books about that universe because she is awesome.

  Then the young woman got a little impatient. How exactly was she supposed to become a member of the very small club of people who get to tell these stories professionally? So she wrote to Jeri Taylor, the executive producer of the show with the cool female captain, and asked that question. (Actually, she advised Ms. Taylor in no uncertain terms that she was supposed to be working for her.) Because Ms. Taylor is a mensch, she invited the young woman in to pitch her stories.

  The first person the young woman ever pitched her stories to was a young man named Bryan Fuller. Because Bryan was kind and thoughtful and very encouraging, the young woman kept at it.

  Years went by. The show with the female captain ended, and the woman was no closer to reaching her goal of writing professional stories for that universe she loved so much. But she went ahead and kept writing other things. Shortly thereafter, Heather Jarman introduced her to Marco Palmieri, and Marco invited her to write her very first professional short story and novel.

  Once Marco made her that offer, she decided she needed to find an agent to represent her for that deal, and she found Maura Teitelbaum. They’ve been best friends ever since because Maura has a keen eye for talent. (Not really. I mean, she does, but they are best friends because Maura always believed in her ability to do anything she wanted and opened doors that needed opening to make that happen.)

  At the same event where she met Marco for the first time, a total stranger who was also writing books in that universe, named Kevin Dilmore, crossed a crowded room to shake her hand and introduce himself, because Kevin is one of the kindest and best people who’s ever lived. Kevin introduced her to his writing partner, Dayton Ward, and the woman’s belief that the coolest people in the world shared her love of this universe was cemented.

  The first couple of books led to more, which is how she started working with Margaret Clark. The woman would eventually dedicate the book you’ve just read to Margaret, on account of Margaret also being a mensch and saving her literary ass more times than the woman could ever count.

  The woman also met Ed Schlesinger, who very kindly offered to keep publishing her stories as long as she agreed to keep writing them.

  More years. More books. More new friends. David Mack came along, and although she immediately respected his writing ability, she also hated him a little at first because he was so very talented. That happens sometimes. She got over it. Then she met Christopher Bennett, who knows everything there is to know about science, so more jealousy to overcome. Then she met Una McCormack and James Swallow and Dave Galanter and Keith DeCandido and Bill Leisner and Michael A. Martin and Bob Greenberger and Michael Jan Friedman and Aaron Rosenberg and Scott Pearson and John Van Citters and finally, finally, finally, David R. George and his amazing wife, Karen. By that time she was too used to being awed by the talent of these nice people to be envious, so she just skipped that part and went straight to the being-great-friends-and-colleagues part, which is a much better way to live.

  And somewhere in the middle of all that, Anorah was born. Anorah is by far the best thing this woman has ever had a hand in creating and is the reason the woman has anything at all to say about anything. Being a mom focuses the mind and breaks open the heart, and all the words just come pouring out after that. Trust me.

  Then the woman met Heather Kadin. When Heather learned that the woman had written all these books about this amazing universe and because Heather was also interested in telling stories in the same universe—and was, in fact, about to create a new TV show about that universe—she invited the woman to meet her good friends Aaron Baiers and Bryan Fuller (of course, the woman already knew Bryan because life is so very strange sometimes it almost seems like someone is planning this shit). And Bryan agreed that the woman should, in fact, not only get to keep telling stories about their old friends on Voyager, she should also get to tell stories about their new friends on something called Discovery.

  Which was a TV show.

  Which was the woman’s dream way back in the beginning when she decided she wanted to write her stories down.

  Which was also the moment that the woman realized that Full Circle was not just the title of one of the most challenging stories she had ever told, but also, apparently, the title of her life.

  And then she met Gretchen and Aaron and Alex and Jesse and Aron and Nick and Joe and Kemp and Loretta and Tyler and Chris and Brandon and Melissa and Anthony and Akiva and Craig and Ted and Boey and Erika and Lisa and Jordan and got to work with them all day every day telling Star Trek stories.

  Which sounds like the end of the story but, as it turns out, is really just the middle, and the end is nowhere in sight.

  Dreams come true, my dear readers. They really do. It may take years and it will require you to give the best you have to offer every time you touch them, but they will rise to meet you when and where you least expect to find them.

  If I had writte
n this story, a very wise editor like Margaret would probably have told me that while the characters were certainly compelling and the action had plenty of complications, that last bit was just too neat. No one would believe it.

  Which is why I’m so glad I’m getting to live this story instead of just telling it.

  To each and every person mentioned above and especially the readers who’ve waited so patiently for me to finish this book while my life was exploding all around me, as well as the countless loves of my life whom I’ve had to leave out so that this acknowledgments section would not be longer than the novel itself, I can only say: Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Without you, I would not be me.

  Watch the trailer for Star Trek: Discovery and stream episodes of Star Trek: Discovery, exclusively on CBS All Access.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gF9VRa89I3Y&list=PLufIO1FTWFz-gZM3t-MmW5J7p2U6yYoQU&index=14

  Star Trek: Discovery: Desperate Hours

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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  Also, for the record, Kirsten Beyer still has no complaints.

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