She walked toward the light, only to find that for every step she took forward, the light grew more distant.
“Sarjenka?”
The voice was cold, hard, but still somehow familiar. “Yes? Who are you?”
“Sarjenka?”
She stood for a moment, finding a place in the floor that somehow didn’t have any of the sharp edges to tear into her flesh. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on the sound, allowing her ears to isolate the location.
“Sarjenka?”
When she opened her eyes, she was standing on the bridge of a crippled starship, one she was somehow sure was still the Enterprise. A gaping hole had been ripped into where the viewscreen should have been. At least, where she thought the viewscreen should have been. She couldn’t recall ever being on a ship with such a utilitarian bridge configuration before. This is a ship of war.
A flicker dragged her attention back to the major wound in the ship’s hull. The structural integrity field was holding. But for how long?
On the other side of the field, she saw bodies floating in the vacuum of space. After breathing a prayer to Traiaka to keep their souls safe, she took a step toward the field and looked more closely at the lost, their faces etching into her memory like circuits on an isolinear chip.
But one stood out from the others. As it floated, she caught sight of golden skin, and eyes that looked back at her with life, not the death that surrounded him.
“Data?”
An explosion of light forced Sarjenka to put an arm over her eyes. When it finally ebbed, she saw the interior of the Kwolek. Data knelt beside her, his fingers at the interior of her elbow checking her pulse. When she realized it was him, the image of his body floating in the debris field flashed in her mind. She backed away, tugging her arm from his grasp.
“Sarjenka? Are you all right?”
The light leaking into the shuttle from outside still hurt her eyes, but it was beginning to fade as her pupils adjusted. This must be what happened to Picard. But, what did he see?
She clambered to her feet, looking around for the captain. “Where is he?”
“Who?”
“Captain Picard,” she said. “What did you do with him?”
“Nothing.”
“Then what did you do to me?”
Data at least had the decency to look surprised by the accusation. “Sarjenka, I did nothing. The da Vinci has found a way to communicate through the field. When I came in to inform you, you were unconscious.”
Sarjenka tapped her combadge. “Sarjenka to da Vinci, come in please.”
The connection held more static than her mother’s hair on the driest day, but it was there. “Da Vinci here, Doctor. Report.”
She smiled for the first time in too long. Captain Gold’s voice was possibly the most welcome sound she had heard since coming down to this planet. “Captain, we have multiple casualties here. Can you transport us?”
“We’re working on it…seen Stevens?”
“Stevens is here? How?”
“He and…transported to the…field.”
Sarjenka softly cursed. “Data, do you know of a way to strengthen the signal on our end?”
Before Data could respond, Stevens’s voice sounded from the hatchway. “Won’t work. We’ve got the output at one-hundred fifty percent of maximum on the comms just to get through here.” Patting his own combadge, he said, “We’ve found them, da Vinci. We’re working on getting them clear of the field now.”
Garbled static answered his report.
“We need to find Captain Picard first,” Sarjenka said.
Stevens gave her a look that questioned her grip on reality. Pointing toward the cot where Picard had been ever since they’d brought him to the shuttle, he said, “The captain’s right there, Doc.”
Sarjenka stared in complete disbelief at the sleeping captain. “How?”
“You were incapacitated by the radiation field,” Data said. “You were hallucinating before you woke. Perhaps you thought you did not see the captain?”
She stared at Data, still unable to shake the image of him in the void of space from her mind. “Maybe I didn’t,” she said. “It’s been a rough time.”
Stevens placed a hand on her shoulder. “We’ll get you out of here.”
CHAPTER
13
Once the pain had finally decided to stop trying to pry her brain apart, Carol realized that something was wrong. She stumbled over to the obelisk, only to find Gabriel collapsed on the floor beside it. “Gabe?” Carol reached down and shook him by the shoulder. “Gabriel? Wake up!”
He didn’t move.
Carol placed a hand against the obelisk, using it to steady herself as she stood. With her head throbbing against the inside of her skull, she tried to read the glyphs on the inside of the unit, looking at the spheres, and where they sat. “These are in the wrong place,” she said, pulling the top sphere out and swapping it with the bottom sphere.
A mechanical whine the likes of which Carol had never heard before seared through the chamber, the walls shaking as though they were going to collapse. “We need to get out of here.”
Carol began shaking everyone she could reach, but nobody responded. The whine grew in intensity, threatening to shatter her eardrums with its piercing shrillness, but she continued trying.
Finally, the whine began to subside, as did the pain in her skull.
Slowly, everyone on the floor began to rouse.
“What the hell happened?” Corsi asked.
That sentiment was echoed by everyone as they came around. Gabriel finally stood, and stared at the spheres in the oblisk. “They were in backward?” he asked.
Carol gently nodded.
“How did I screw that up?”
She put a hand on his arm. “You weren’t exactly yourself, Gabe.”
“Da Vinci to away team, please respond.”
“Oh, that’s the best sound I’ve heard in too long,” Gomez said as she too pulled herself to her feet. Tapping her combadge, she said, “Da Vinci, this is Gomez. Can you get a lock on us?”
“I count seven life signs at your location, Commander,” Susan Haznedl’s voice sounded over the comm line. “Can you confirm?”
“Confirmed. Requesting immediate beamout.”
Carol took a deep breath, forcing herself to relax. As she watched Gabriel and Inana hold each other for dear life, she realized that Gabriel had what he wanted. And in Vance Hawkins, Carol had what she wanted. Their lives had gone in two completely disparate directions. She wasn’t going to be happy sitting in an archaeological dig with nothing else to do all day but catalog artifacts and clean up tiny bits of pottery. That wasn’t who she was.
But it was, apparently, what Inana had become.
As Gomez, Cunningham, Corsi, and Faulwell disappeared in the transporter’s beam, Carol turned to her old friends. “Guys, I’m sorry.”
“For what?” Inana asked.
Carol gave a soft chuckle, and said, “For everything I didn’t say. I didn’t exactly come down here with the best thoughts in mind. And for that, I apologize.”
“Times change,” Inana said. “And so do we.”
Carol nodded. She started to reach to hug Inana and Gabriel, but stopped when she felt the transporter begin bringing her home.
When Jean-Luc Picard awoke, Sarjenka quickly stepped to check his readings on the biobed’s scanner. “You’re doing well, Captain. Just rest.”
“Sarjenka?” he asked, sounding quite surprised. “That really was you?”
“Yes,” she said. “It really is. You’re on the da Vinci, and we have you stabilized. The radiation field did some neural damage thanks to your prolonged exposure, but I have begun treatment with a peridaxon base, followed by a neurocortical treatment that has an excellent track record to date. There is a small structural defect in your parietal lobe, however. I assume you are already aware of this, Captain?”
Picard nodded. “I’ve been warned of the possible
outcomes, yes.”
“I’m sorry I can’t repair the damage, Captain. In a few years, maybe, but—”
“It’s all right,” he said. “I came to terms with the possibilities long ago.”
Sarjenka pursed her lips. “All right.”
“Is there anything you want to ask me, Lieutenant?”
“I’m sorry, sir?”
Picard put his palm flat on the bed. “I ordered your memory erased.”
“I know,” she said. “And I understand why.”
The sickbay doors slid aside, and Data walked in. He looked at Sarjenka, then at Picard, and took on a rather awkward expression. “Am I interrupting something?”
“No, Data,” Sarjenka said. “As a matter of fact, your timing couldn’t be better. We were just discussing what happened when I was a child.”
“Again?” Data asked. “I thought we discussed this.”
“We did,” Sarjenka said. “But the captain wasn’t exactly lucid at the time.”
Data smiled, and she couldn’t help but wish he wouldn’t. The time wasn’t right for brevity, but she couldn’t expect the android to know that. “I will return to the bridge to monitor communications with the Enterprise, sir.”
“Of course, Data,” Picard replied.
“If that’s what you want, Data,” she said.
When the door closed behind the android, Picard turned back to her. “You understand why? This can’t be an easy thing to learn.”
Sarjenka looked him directly in the eyes. “I’d be lying if I said it was. But I also know that the Prime Directive still applied to my planet when you were there. You couldn’t risk any damage that I might have done if I’d talked about the Enterprise to my people.”
“You do understand,” he said. “I’m truly sorry. I did what I had to do.”
“I know,” she said. “You saved my world. And now that we know, we will always be grateful.”
“You had more than a bit of a hand in that, you know.”
Sarjenka took a deep breath and slowly released it. “I know. And if sacrificing the memory of it was the price that had to be paid, then so be it. All that matters is that my people are safe. We’ve taken our rightful place in the universe. And that should be the goal of a civilization, shouldn’t it?”
“And Starfleet should be glad to have you in their fold,” Picard said. Closing his eyes, he leaned back against the pillow and fell asleep.
Sonya Gomez sat in the observation lounge, staring at the padd. On it was a personal message that she’d transferred to it shortly after Shabalala had sent it to her quarters.
Paul Cunningham invited her to dinner.
Her first instinct was to say no. Her attempts at dating since Kieran’s death weren’t spectacular failures, exactly, but they wouldn’t go down as any great shakes. She and Wayne Omthon seemed doomed never to connect properly, and while both Tobias Shelt and Brilson Lodine were nice enough, they didn’t set her heart on fire, either.
But she and Paul had also been through hell together—and he seemed a nice enough person. He was right there with her in condemning what Collins did, which she certainly saw as a plus.
Of course, that wasn’t the really hard decision. She was just focusing on this one to avoid the other one.
The doors whisked open and Pattie Blue scuttled in, Soloman following. “We’re getting ready to beam down to start work on the weather satellite, Commander,” Pattie said.
Sonya looked up at them. “Good. We’ll be heading off to rendezvous with the Enterprise and also pick up Tev after you beam down. I’m sure he’ll be devastated when he finds out we got through this mission without him.”
Soloman stared at her with a concerned expression. “Is something wrong, Commander?”
If I’m this transparent to the Bynar and the Nasat, I’m definitely wearing my emotions on my sleeve. “Nothing I can’t deal with. I’m trying to decide whether or not to—” She shook her head. “Whether or not to call my sister. It’s just so hard with family, you know?”
As soon as she said it, she realized it was a foolish thing to say. By not rebonding after 111 died, Soloman became an outcast from his people, and Pattie was also something of an oddity among Nasats, more comfortable in space than on her own home-world.
But neither took offense. Pattie made a pleasant tinkling noise and said, “I think that both of us would probably have an easier time of things if people were willing to talk to us instead of just judging us and ignoring us.”
“Agreed,” Soloman said. “When we were on Venus, the Bynars there did not see me, they saw a singleton. They never spoke to me.”
“And the other Nasats just saw me as a Quiet who didn’t know her place.” Pattie’s antennae curled inward. “I believe, Commander, that if you talk to your sister about whatever it is that’s bothering you, it would be better than if you didn’t.”
Sonya nodded. “You’re probably right. Thanks.”
Soloman favored her with a rare smile. “That’s what friends are for, Commander.”
“Good luck down there. I think they’ll appreciate cutting down on the rainfall.” As they turned to leave, Sonya called out, “Oh, and watch out for the bats!”
Domenica Corsi followed Fabian into her quarters. No sooner had the door closed and locked behind her than she leaned back against it. Every muscle in her back ached. Her arms felt as though they were going to fall off, but there was only one image that filled Corsi’s brain. It had been there ever since Sarjenka had brought Picard up to the ship to treat him. Corsi had tried her best to ignore it, to tuck it back into that distant, safe place where the bad memories lived.
“Dom?” Fabian’s voice cut through the haze of memory. “Dom, are you okay?”
She gave him the only answer she could. “I don’t know.”
Corsi felt one tear roll down her cheek. She’d fought against the memory so long on Icaria Prime that she wasn’t sure how to answer him. Would he believe any of what had happened to them down there? She had no clue. If they had a counselor on the ship, she might have turned away and headed for that person instead. Memory after memory began flooding back into her mind, and she didn’t want anything to do with any of it. Not that day. Not that week. Not that month.
The day she had found her grandfather, collapsed on the floor in a barely conscious heap, and a five-year-old Domenica Corsi yelling for help that wouldn’t come in time.
“Domenica,” he’d said, the remnants of his northern Italian accent wrapping around her name, “I love you. Your father’s a stubborn ass, but he loves you. “
I love you too, Nonno. I love you too.
CHAPTER
14
“You sure about this, mija?”
“Yes,” Sonya told her mother’s image on the viewscreen, leaning back in her favorite chair. “I need to talk to Belinda. She’s not answering at home. Where is she?”
Guadalupe Gomez’s eyes shot to her left. “Sonya, Belinda—”
“Where is she, Mamí?”
“She’s in Barcelona at your uncle’s house, mija. Why?”
“I need to talk to her, Mamí. About that day on the boat when we were kids.”
Her mother’s brow furrowed. “She saved your life. What’s left to talk about?”
“Mamí, I just need to talk to her.” Sonya tried her best to keep her patience, but it could be difficult with her mother sometimes. “I don’t have a lot of time. I’m keeping a friend waiting. Please, where in Barcelona?”
And that was when Sonya realized she’d made a mistake. “A friend?” her mother asked, a wide smile quickly appearing on her face. “A new man, mija? I always wished you would have married that Starfleet officer of yours.”
Sonya winced, and was somewhat relieved that the mention of Kieran didn’t hurt quite as much as it used to. She was, however, considerably grateful that she hadn’t told her mother of Kieran’s proposal—though, ironically, she had told Belinda, a decision she was now regretting. “Mamí, l
et it go, please. I will talk to you later.”
Before her mother could get another word in, Sonya cut the connection. She took a deep breath, calming herself down before she rang her uncle’s house. When her sister’s face appeared on the viewscreen, Sonya wasn’t sure whether to smile or cry.
“Ess, are you okay?” Belinda said, her voice filled with what sounded like genuine concern. “What’s wrong?”
Sonya licked her lips, still trying to figure out how to broach the subject. “Bee, do you remember that day on the boat when we were kids?”
Belinda’s brow furrowed, and Sonya couldn’t help but note how much her sister was starting to resemble their mother. “What about it, Ess?”
You can do this, Sonya. You can do it. Just ask the question. That’s all. Just ask the question.
Sonya closed her eyes, bowed her head slightly and said, “Why did you push me in the water? You knew I couldn’t swim.”
Belinda’s eyes widened like a deer’s. “How did you—?”
“I remember it, Bee. I remember you pushing me and then making fun of me.”
Belinda looked away from the screen, and Sonya thought she saw a tear run down her sister’s cheek. “Sonya, I was young. You have no idea what it’s like growing up in your shadow. Mamí always wanted me to be more like you. You were so driven, so determined. I knew there was no way I would ever be seen for anything I did on my own. I knew I’d always be compared to you.”
“You were in my shadow? God, Bee—all my life I’ve been Belinda Gomez’s little sister. I was driven ’cause I had to keep up with my sister the soccer star.”
“To other people, maybe. But to Mamí?” She shook her head.
Sonya lifted a hand toward the viewscreen, already regretting she even contacted her sister. “Bee, I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to hurt you with this. I—” Sonya swallowed hard. “I’m sorry. Forget I said anything.”
“No,” Belinda quickly said. “I need to face up to what I did. I was jealous and mean and I was horrible. I never wanted to hurt you.”
“I know,” Sonya replied. “I’m sorry, Bee. I’m sorry for everything. I never realized.”
Star Trek™: Corps of Engineers: Remembrance of Things Past Book Two Page 8
