Lost Time

by Ilsa J. Bick

  And then time snapped back; the world sped up; and to Gold’s horror, as the Keldon touched off its disruptors, the Li hit.

  “Status.” The skin of Zotat’s face was a deep jade with rage. “Are they—?”

  “Destroyed.” Zotat’s tactical officer was ashen. “The Keldon and its escort, and the Bajoran. The enemy saucer is moving off to flank its mother ship, but they must be damaged, sir. Their shields went down.”

  “Do they have shields now?”

  “Yes, sir. But we have superior weapons and are more maneuverable. Shall we finish them?”

  “No,” said Zotat. His hands twitched with the urge to break something, and then, remembering his orders, he sucked in a deep breath. “They won’t go far. Have you extrapolated a course for the Gettysburg?”

  “Yes, sir—into the densest part of the Belt, a concentration of superheated plasma and tachyon eddies.”

  “How long?”

  “Estimate they will arrive in one minute, twenty-two seconds.”

  “Do they have weapons?”

  “Reading full weapons capabilities.”

  “And yet they haven’t used them.” Zotat’s eyes slitted. “And I think I know why. Helm, close on the Gettysburg. Tactical, you will fire at my command.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the tactical officer. “Disruptors at half power as per Gul Garak’s instructions. You wish for me to disable the engines?”

  Zotat spun on his heel. “Did I order disruptors at half?”

  “Well, no.” The tactical officer looked perplexed. “No, sir, but Gul Garak—”

  “Gul Garak is not here. Gul Garak has not witnessed two of his ships being blown to bits. I am captain here and I will tell you what to do and when to do it. Understood?”

  The bridge was very still. The tactical officer’s eyes rolled left and right and then settled on a spot just above Zotat’s head. “Of course, sir. Perfectly.”

  “I am so glad. Now,” said Zotat. Turning, he pointed a finger that trembled with rage. “Run…him…down.”

  “Can you raise Salek?”

  “Sorry, Captain.” Haznedl shook her head. “With all that debris and radiation, I can’t pierce the interference.”

  “What about the Templar?”

  Haznedl said, “If she got away, sir, I can’t tell. Commander Salek’s off to port, standing by and—”

  “Cardassian warship accelerating, Captain,” McAllan broke in. “Disruptor cannon at full power. They’re opening fire.”

  “Shields at maximum,” Gold said with a snarl. “Target their engines, return fire. Wong, see if you—”

  The battery of disruptor cannon bammed against the hull plating of the drive section. Gold staggered as the ship lurched, and the air filled with a loud, metallic squall. “Wong!”

  “Sorry, sir.” Wong had been thrown from his chair. He clawed his way back. His forehead was crimson, and he raised a shaking hand to swipe blood from his eyes. “I’ve lost port maneuvering thrusters. Trying to compensate now.”

  “Stay on course. McAllan, damage report.”

  “Shields down to seventy percent. Phasers still online and—oh my God.”

  “What?”

  McAllan sagged. “The photon torpedoes, the launch assist generators, they’re offline.”

  Gold fisted open a channel to engineering. “Gomez, I need those torpedoes.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, I can’t. Not without robbing power from the shields.”

  Then that’s it. We’ve run out of options. “Forget the torpedoes. Charge up the deflector.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “But, Captain,” said McAllan, “what’s the good of the deflector if we can’t detonate our torpedoes?”

  “You let me worry about that,” Gold snapped. “Now hold those bastards off with phasers; just hold them off a few more seconds.” The lights dimmed as phasers discharged, and Gold watched the blasts sting the Keldon warship at its nose. He didn’t need McAllan to tell him the phasers had done little damage. Gold crowded in behind Wong. “How much longer?”

  “One minute.” Wong gulped and then Gold got a good look and saw that Wong had clapped a hand to his forehead to try and stanch the blood that leaked through his splayed fingers. “One min…one…” Wong’s eyes rolled up in his head, and then he went limp.

  Gold snagged the unconscious helmsman as he slid left, and lowered him to the deck. “Haznedl,” said Gold, taking up Wong’s position at the helm, “see if you can raise Salek. Tell hi—” He lurched forward as the next disruptor battery scored a hit aft, and his forehead cracked Wong’s console. Gold blacked out for a second and then came to, his vision blurred with a shower of white lights scintillating at the margins. But he could see well enough—and all the feeling drained out of his body like water rushing through a sieve.

  Because their impulse engines were gone.

  “They’re dead in the water,” said Robin Rusconi. She staffed the helm where Wong usually sat and now she looked back at the command chair. “That last disruptor salvo took out the impulse engines. They haven’t got torpedoes either.”

  “We have to do something,” said Kira, who stood to Salek’s left. She was still having trouble catching her breath and her eyebrows and eyelashes were singed off, but she’d bullied her way out of sickbay after Salek had beamed her crew aboard. “They’re still too far away. If they discharge the deflector now, the concentration of particles won’t be enough to open the wormhole without the torpedoes.”

  “I am aware of the situation and the logistics involved,” said Salek, and his reply was so maddeningly calm, Kira wanted to scratch out his eyes. “Lieutenant Shabalala, can you raise the captain?”

  “Negative, sir.”

  “But we can’t just stand here.” This from Duffy, his voice full of anguish. He stood off Kira’s left shoulder. “Can’t we draw that Keldon’s fire?”

  “We must maintain this distance, Commander. Else all this will have been for naught.” Salek’s black gaze dropped to Kira, and she felt the sting of tears prick her eyelids. “And you know that I will do what must be done, when the time is right.”

  “Message coming in, sir,” Shabalala said, and then he gasped. “It’s the captain, it’s…” His voice trailed off.

  “Lieutenant?”

  “Automatic distress, sir.” Shabalala’s forehead wrinkled in a deep frown. “He’s activated the automatic distress beacon.”

  “Very well.” Salek nodded. “Transporter room. Chief Feliciano, stand ready. Helm, plot a reverse course to take us out of the belt, full impulse.”

  “Reverse course?” Rusconi gaped. “But that’s a distress signal, sir, the captain—”

  “No, Ensign,” said Salek. “It is only a signal. Carry out my orders.”

  A second passed, then another. Then Rusconi said, “Sir, the captain’s lowered his shields and…Sir, they’re activating warp engines.”

  “Lower shields,” Salek said. “Mr. Feliciano, activate transporters. Helm, hard about, go to full impulse.”

  “Sir!” McAllan’s eyes bulged. “The shields! Captain, what are you doing?”

  Gomez, on speaker: “No, Captain, you can’t!”

  “But I can,” said Gold, and he was amazed at how calm he was, now that the moment was upon him. He heard the high-pitched whine, looked toward tactical, saw McAllan’s face break apart in the transporter beam. Knew without looking that the same thing was happening to Wong, to Gomez, to Haznedl, to the remainder of his skeleton crew left aboard.

  “Because it’s my choice,” said Gold to an empty ship. “And I’ve chosen for you.”

  “No,” someone said. Duffy didn’t know who, didn’t care because his gaze was riveted to the main viewscreen: to the Keldon warship still so intent on its prize that its captain likely wouldn’t realize what was happening until it was far too late as, indeed, it already was—and to the fiery, brilliant whorls of plasma and gas so dense they obscured the stars that were, even now, dimming as the Gettysburg
’s saucer sped away, in the opposite direction, running for and toward its life.

  Then he felt someone at his elbow and knew who it was before he turned because she brought with her the scent he associated with love and all that was best in his life. He pressed Gomez to his side, unable to speak or tear his eyes away.

  “Oh, God,” she said, her voice watery. “Oh, God.”

  As if from a dream, Duffy heard Shabalala’s voice, far away. “Commander Salek, sickbay reports the Bynars—they’re not aboard. They didn’t report when the saucer—they didn’t get off, they’re—” He broke off.

  No one spoke. There was nothing more to say.

  As much as he didn’t want to look, Duffy made the choice to look because he knew this was a moment he must remember for the rest of his life.

  Because memory is life, and I choose life.

  The Belt truly was beautiful in all its lethal, glorious power. But what took his breath away was not the sight of the Keldon warship caught like a helpless, thrashing fly in the web of the Gettysburg’s expanding warp bubble, or the luminous deflector beam spearing through space into a whirlpool of colors brighter than the heart of a molten sun.

  No. What captured Duffy and held him tight was the Gettysburg, hurtling toward destiny and pulling a rainbow behind: an arrow flying true for a fiery heart.

  Time nearly stopped. As it should, the dilation effect of the warp bubble combining with all that gas, debris, and plasma. One part of Gold’s objective mind knew that he had, at most, thirty seconds before the autodestruct blew the Gettysburg apart. But it was enough, and so he watched as the deflector poured its energy, its life into the belt….

  And the light at its center: white as bone and as pure as revelation.

  Gold heard the lift doors sigh and before he could register what that meant 111’s voice came from his left: “We are here.”

  “Oh, no,” said Gold. He’d prepared himself for this moment, knowing it might come, believing that his life alone was forfeit because he had chosen for Kira and her people, and for his crew. But now…“What are you doing?” Then he saw what wasn’t there. “Where’s your combadge? Why?”

  “Captain,” said 111. She laid her hand on his, and her fingers were cool. “We are telepaths—”

  “—or had you forgotten?” 110, to his right. “It is better—”

  “—that one not die alone,” said 111. “We are here.”

  “And so is she; she is—”

  “—here,” said 111, and she pressed her hand to his heart. “Where she has always been.”

  “Because where there is memory—”

  “—there is life,” said 111.

  The pain and joy in his heart were so intense it was as if he’d been touched by an angel. “Rachel,” said Gold—and now he turned his face to the light. “Rachel…”

  There was a flare of white light. A starburst of color.

  But, most of all, there was light.

  Chapter

  11

  “How do you feel?”

  “Badly,” said Soloman. They sat in Gold’s ready room; the da Vinci had appeared as soon as Gomez powered down the deflectors—and their counterparts had deactivated their device. What they had encountered was, in Gold’s words, “a whole other story.” Soloman had been checked out by Dr. Tarses on DS9 and pronounced fit. “I chose very poorly.”

  “Yes, you did. And in the end, Commander Gomez chose for you.”

  “Yes. And because of her and Nog, DS9 and Bajor are safe.”

  “No, they didn’t do it on their own. Nog and Gomez gave them information. Then they had a choice: trust us and shut down the device, or go it on their own even knowing they’d destroy us. They chose life for us, and for you. Let’s hope they chose the same for themselves.” Gold eyed him closely. “You have something else you want to say?”

  “Yes.” Soloman felt an uncharacteristic rush of heat up his neck and into his face. He forced himself not to look away. “I lied. I have never lied, and for that I am truly sorry. You would be within your rights to transfer me off your vessel, or insist upon my return to Bynaus.”

  “Yes, I would.” Gold frowned. “Don’t think I haven’t considered it. But you’re far more valuable to me, and yourself, if you stay. On one condition, however: You go to counseling either on a starbase, say for a few months, or perhaps with me, or Dr. Lense, since you seem comfortable with her. We’ll have to ask her if she feels the same when she comes back. Anyway—” Gold’s face softened. “—we have time.”

  “Yes,” said Soloman. “There is that.”

  Kira saw Sonya Gomez well before Gomez spotted her. Gomez was standing in profile, looking out at the stars and the wormhole winking into view with its myriad rainbow colors. Then Kira noticed that Gomez had chosen to watch from just outside the chapel where they’d kept the Orb of Prophecy and Change before that Orb had been returned to take its rightful place on Bajor with all the others. Some irony there, probably. Kira had read Gomez’s report and talked with Captain Gold. So she knew about Kieran Duffy: a hard thing to have someone about whom you cared so much be close enough to touch—and lose him again.

  Like seeing that mirror universe version of Bareil after my Bareil died in my arms. Like Odo…I know what this is like.

  “Captain,” said Gomez, reflexively coming to attention, then relaxing as Kira waved her down. “I was just watching the wormhole before we ship out. We need to get back to Earth, return Caitano’s and Deverick’s bodies to their families. I just wanted a moment, and this—this a good place.”

  “Yes, it is,” said Kira. “Sometimes I take it for granted. Then I think back to the time all the Orbs went dark and it went away, and then I remember to be thankful.” She hesitated, then said, “I read your report. I talked to Captain Gold.”

  Gomez nodded. She returned her gaze to the wormhole and the stars beyond. “Weird to think about that other universe. Somewhere, out there, people I’ve cared about are alive.” Gomez looked at her. “Do you ever wish you could go back? Do things over?”

  “You mean, do I wish I’d never let the genie out of the box, never released the Ohalu book, never joined the Resistance?” Never fallen in love with a man I may never see again? “No. I think it’s normal to wish you could redo the past. But then it wouldn’t be my past. I’m afraid I don’t have enough imagination to consider choices I’d never have made in the first place.” Kira paused, then said, “What about you? Do you have regrets?”

  Gomez turned, and Kira would remember the look on her face—full of remorse and pain and regret—for a very long while to come.

  “All the time,” said Gomez. “All the time.”

  It was time. A clear sky and bright sun splashing gouts of warmth. A good day. One of his finest hours.

  Gul Elim Garak stood on a podium, watching as members of the Bajor Assembly and those of his own government finished with the reading of the treaty. (These officials included Legate Rugal, a ruthless politician not above assassinating a Bajoran or two to clear his way. Garak was quite fond of the man, and they both shared a passion for rokassa juice—calmed the nerves.) The Assembly members were dressed in finely colored robes, each color reflecting their caste, and Garak could not help but notice that while the religious caste’s members were few their robes were so bright they looked to be of spun gold. He let his eyes roam over the upturned faces of the crowds gathered for the signing, and his satisfaction was reflected in the clear aquamarine of his tunic’s living gemstones.

  And yet—Garak nibbled on the inside of his right cheek—only one tiny fly in the proverbial ointment. He cast a quick glance at the sky. No wormhole, and no Zotat, either. Well, maybe the legends were wrong about the wormhole being visible from Bajor. But, for there to be no word from Zotat…

  Garak’s thoughts were interrupted by the Bajoran High Magistrate as he stood, scroll in one hand, a rose-red lavanian crystal pen in the other. “In the tradition of our people,” the Magistrate began, “I call upon any
and all who believe that this treaty should not be enacted to speak and bring proof why—”

  “I will speak.” This from the back of the crowd: a woman’s voice, proud and strong. “And I bring proof.”

  The High Magistrate was struck dumb as was the remainder of the Assembly. The Cardassians shot quick, questioning glances; Legate Rugal looked murderous. Startled, Garak tried to see who the woman was but could not. Yet she was coming; that much was clear because the sea of Bajorans parted, and then Garak saw a Trill he didn’t recognize. She carried a glittering casket in her arms, and as if drawn by a magnet, the religious fell in behind so that as she approached, she pulled a vein of the purest gold in her wake. She ascended the dais, and when she cast her gaze about the ministers and magistrates and legates, they looked away. But when her eyes met his, Garak had a premonition that, for him, there were dark days ahead.

  She turned aside and addressed the crowd. “Bajorans, I bring you hope. I bring you back your Prophets, and I bring you proof.”

  And then she opened the casket, and the crowd cried out because what blazed forth was so white, so strong, so perfect it hurt Garak’s eyes. Gasping, he turned aside and then he saw that his tunic had gone as completely and utterly black as a starless night.

  Because now…there was light.

  About the Author

  ILSA J. BICK is a child, adolescent, and forensic psychiatrist, and a latecomer to fiction. Still, she’s done okay. Her other Star Trek work includes “A Ribbon for Rosie” in Strange New Worlds II, “Shadows, in the Dark” in Strange New Worlds IV, “Alice, on the Edge of Night” in New Frontier: No Limits, and the Lost Era novel Well of Souls, focusing on Captain Rachel Garrett and the U.S.S. Enterprise-C. Her short fiction has also been published in Writers of the Future Volume XVI, SCIFICTION on SciFi.com, Challenging Destiny, Talebones, and Beyond the Last Star, and also in the Classic BattleTech universe. Her MechWarrior: Dark Age novel, Daughter of the Dragon is forthcoming from Roc in June 2005. She will be returning to the S.C.E. in a few months with the two-parter Wounds, which will follow the exploits of Drs. Lense and Bashir following Lost Time. She lives in Wisconsin with her husband, two children, three cats, and other assorted vermin.