Shadow of Heaven

by Christie Golden

  Khala turned her face up to Harry’s, and he could almost hear the sound of her heart breaking. He sure as hell knew his was. This couldn’t be happening. It simply wasn’t fair. He’d finally found a soulmate, someone who understood and loved him with a steadiness that embraced and yet overwhelmed mere passion.

  The Shadow universe. He’d heard it theorized, but it had never been proved. It was one of the more entertaining theories espoused by scientists more often known for dull, boring conjecture. The theory was that there was a Shadow universe entwined with the universe he knew and inhabited. Shadow people, shadow stones, even shadow planets passed through them without ever interacting. They were mixed together, combined so completely that separation was inconceivable.

  “We were mixed, blended thoroughly together,” said Janeway, as if reading Harry’s thoughts. “Our universe and yours, Khala. Mixed supposedly inextricably, like tint added to white paint.”

  “Exactly,” said the Doctor. “Except now, thanks to Lhiau’s disruption and the Shepherds’ attempts to counteract that disruption, both universes are unraveling. Some things from the Shadow universe are appearing here, and some things from here are manifesting in the Shadow universe. Now they’re no longer blending, to use your analogy, Captain, like tint into paint. They are being juxtaposed, like threads of yarn woven into a rug.”

  “‘Things fall apart,’” said Janeway. Harry recognized the quote; it was from Yeats. “‘The center cannot hold.’” She searched Kim’s eyes for a moment, then Khala’s. “Doctor, a word with you.”

  She and the Doctor stepped away a few paces, spoke in soft tones; then Janeway quirked a finger at Harry. Obediently he left Khala and came to her.

  “Captain.”

  Her face was soft with compassion as she spoke. “Harry, I’m so sorry. But Khala’s life depends on her returning to the Shadow universe.”

  “I understand that, Captain.” He understood all too well.

  She hesitated before speaking. “Harry—there seems to be no physical reason why you and Khala shouldn’t continue to …be together until it’s time for her to leave. I realize you wanted something more permanent.”

  Strangely, he felt no embarrassment at the conversation. His pain went too deep for that. “I understand what you’re saying, Captain. And I thank you.”

  She smiled, squeezed his shoulder, and left. The Doctor, too, had discreetly left to work at his desk. Khala sat alone on the biobed, her feet dangling, and Harry was suddenly, swiftly reminded of the first time he’d seen her. It was here, in sickbay, and the Doctor had asked for his assistance in examining Khala since Paris had disappeared.

  Swallowing hard, he went over to her. He knelt in front of her, like a gallant knight of old, and placed his head in her lap. Khala ran gentle fingers through his thick, black hair. He lifted his head and gazed at her.

  “Will you come to my quarters?” he asked, softly.

  She nodded, her eyes bright with tears.

  * * *

  Janeway stepped onto her bridge in a melancholy mood. Poor Harry. Poor Khala. She’d enjoyed watching the romance blossom, but now she felt that she and the Doctor had come along with shears to nip it in the bud. But Khala’s very life was at stake, and by extrapolation, the lives of Tom and Chakotay.

  Until now, recovering her two lost crewmen and returning Khala to her home planet had been a lower priority. First had been to carry out the Shepherds’ quest of gathering up the dark matter. But Janeway wondered now if she was going to be asked to sacrifice three lives to accomplish that laudable goal. If so, then it was three lives too many.

  “Bridge to Engineering. Status report?”

  “And good morning to you too, Captain,” said B’Elanna. Janeway realized that all the good humor she’d arrived on the bridge with this morning had evaporated like morning mist under an unkind sun.

  “Good morning. Status,” she repeated.

  “During the night, we’ve been able to recover still more dark matter. I don’t want to jinx anything, but this is starting to become almost routine.”

  “Sounds like we’re due for a little routine after what we’ve been through. By the way, don’t worry that Khala’s not there. She’ll show up later. If you need her, report to me and I’ll determine priority.”

  “I see.” B’Elanna’s voice was warm with humor. Janeway felt a pang. You’ll see soon enough, B’Elanna.

  * * *

  Khala lay in Kim’s arms. What ought to have been a moment of languid joy was instead transformed into a heavy sorrow. He tried to burn this moment into his memory: the gentle weight of her head on his chest, the fall of her blue hair, the exquisite softness of her skin.

  “What are we going to do?” she said, breaking the silence.

  “What we have to do. We have to find a way to get you home.”

  “But Harry, it’s not home anymore.” Khala shifted her weight and folded her hands across his chest, peering into his eyes from only inches away. “I belong here. With you.”

  “Apparently your cellular structure disagrees with you.”

  “Your doctor is so clever. I’m certain he can find something ….” Her voice trailed off. They gazed at one another, acknowledging the inevitable even as they tried to deny it.

  Khala sighed and sat up. “I can’t stand this. I have to do something.”

  “Khala, you’re not sorry, are you?”

  She looked at him, and a smile spread softly across her face. “Oh, no, Harry. No, I’m glad. But it’s awful, isn’t it, to be together when we know we’re going to have to part?”

  Harry knew exactly what she meant. It was bittersweet, lying in the dim light together when they knew it was not a real beginning but only the beginning of the end. He, too, desperately needed distraction, needed to feel useful. Harry, too, rose, pulled Khala to him, and kissed her.

  “Come on,” he said, cupping her face with his hands. “I think we can both fit in the sonic shower if we try.”

  * * *

  “I am going to give Harry such a hard time,” Torres chuckled as she ran a diagnostic on the warp core.

  “You are exacting revenge upon Ensign Kim for his teasing of you and Ensign Paris, when you began your romantic union,” stated Seven.

  “Precisely.”

  “Revenge is irrelevant.”

  “Seven, you’ve come a long way since you left the collective,” said Torres, glancing over at Seven and grinning, “But you still have a lot to—” She broke off in midsentence. Every morning since this whole crazy thing began, she had started her shift with a routine diagnostic on the status of the warp core and the small universe housed within. Every morning, she had found that the bubble was holding stable.

  Not this morning.

  “What is it?” asked Telek, stepping beside her and looking at the readings.

  “I—don’t know,” B’Elanna managed. “It seems to be fine one minute, then—there. Look at that.”

  Seven did not say anything, nor did she move to join Torres and R’Mor. But Torres knew her well enough to know that she was calling up the same thing on her console.

  The small warp-shell bubble they had created, the mini-universe that was safely holding all the dark matter they had gathered up to this point, fluctuated. Torres thought her heart would stop.

  “The shell is weakening somehow,” said R’Mor.

  “How much dark matter is inside now?” asked Khala. B’Elanna was surprised. She hadn’t even heard the woman enter. Khala was lucky. B’Elanna’s teasing mood had evaporated.

  “Eight point five four grams,” stated Seven.

  “That doesn’t seem like a lot,” said Khala, frowning. “Seven, you had mentioned something about an attempt to create a stable warp-bubble universe aboard the Enterprise. What happened to it?”

  “Dr. Beverly Crusher was inadvertently trapped inside,” said Seven. “When the shell began to dissipate, her universe shrank proportionately. She thought she was aboard her ship. Yet when she r
eported a drastic reduction in the number of crewmen, her captain thought she was mentally damaged in some way. Piece by piece, the ship’s crew and the size of the vessel grew smaller, until Crusher was trapped alone.”

  “This does not bode well,” said Telek.

  “Dr. R’Mor, you have a gift for understatement.” As Torres watched, the shell flickered again. Please don’t collapse. Please don’t collapse.

  She tapped her combadge. “Torres to Janeway. We’ve got a situation.”

  * * *

  Ten minutes later, the senior staff had assembled in the meeting room. Janeway listened intently to Torres’s bad news. “Options?” she asked.

  “Well, we’re going to see if we can’t create another bubble universe and transfer the dark matter into that one. I don’t know. It’s never been done before. And if the dark matter is released all at once on this ship—”

  “I understand,” said Janeway briskly, before her imagination could take the dreadful thought any further. “Is there time to run any scenarios on the holodeck?”

  “I would not suggest it,” said Telek R’Mor, surprising her. “When we ran scenarios earlier, when we were trying to unlock the key to the Shepherds’ technology, they proved to be almost useless to us. In each scenario, we failed somehow. Yet when we actually attempted a transfer, it was successful. We are dealing with things so far beyond what your holodeck and your science can comprehend, Captain, that there seems little point. And we do not have a great deal of time. The warp shell is destabilizing far too quickly for comfort.”

  “I understand. One more thing.” She glanced quickly at Harry. “We have learned something new about our visitor, Khala. The Doctor has determined that her molecular structure is so different from ours because she comes from another universe.”

  Her crew was too well trained to gasp, but everyone was startled.

  “We suspect that Commander Chakotay and Ensign Paris are now presently in Khala’s universe, as she is in ours. All three of them need to return to their proper universes or else they won’t survive. Similar to what happened with the two Romulans, cells in Khala’s body are disappearing, in all likelihood destabilizing in this universe and reappearing in her own. The Doctor is working on preparing something for Khala to retard the progress of the disintegration. Dismissed.”

  Her senior staff was unusually quiet as they left to take up their various positions. Janeway sank into her chair and announced to anyone who would listen, “You know, just once I’d like to be really, thoroughly, and completely bored. No lives at stake, no shore leave for excitement, just good old-fashioned boredom.”

  “We do appear to have more than our share of events,” acknowledged Tuvok.

  “And we’ve got one right now,” said Kim. “There’s a wormhole opening at coordinates seven zero three mark eight. It’s huge, Captain.”

  “On screen,” snapped Janeway, fully alert. There it was, another giant wormhole. Telek R’Mor, who had not yet left, moved to a console without Janeway having to utter a word.

  “It’s one of mine,” he said, referring to the technology the Shepherds had given him back in the Alpha quadrant to increase the efficacy of his wormholes.

  “Red alert. Shields up,” ordered Janeway. If a wormhole with Shepherd technology was opening right in front of them, it could mean one of two things: a Romulan attack, or the appearance of Tialin and her benevolent Shepherds. Janeway didn’t dare hope for the latter.

  “Ships are coming through,” said Kim.

  “Four warbirds—” Tuvok broke off and looked over at R’Mor. “Four warbirds and Dr. R’Mor’s vessel, the Talvath.”

  Even as he spoke, the ships emerged from the wormhole, which closed without a trace behind them. They were not cloaked, not this time, and loomed before Voyager in all their proud, lambent green glory.

  “We’re being hailed,” Kim said.

  “Put them on, Ensign,” said Janeway, puzzled as to why the warbirds were so flaunting their presence. The last time they’d appeared, they had been cloaked and refused to even talk to Voyager.

  The face of a Romulan female, who would have been beautiful had she not been so thin and haggard-looking, filled the viewscreen. Janeway recognized that face, and so did Telek R’Mor, who stood stiffly at his post.

  “Captain Janeway,” said the woman. “My name is Jekri Kaleh.”

  CHAPTER

  12

  JEKRI WAS FEELING ALMOST—ALMOST—ROMULAN AGAIN. Dr. T’Lar had given her supplements that had made her feel stronger almost immediately, and the friend/foe had also healed all of Jekri’s many festering injuries. Still, it had taken a shower and an enormous helping of viinnerine before Jekri felt even a shadow of her old self.

  Idran was an old and trusted friend, back in the days when Jekri had believed herself to have old and trusted friends. Like Verrak, Idran had come through for her, for what she was fighting for, and Jekri was more grateful than she ever would have imagined.

  She ate hungrily in Idran’s quarters while Verrak and Idran told her the plan. Things were worse than she had feared. Without Jekri Kaleh watching him, Lhiau had been free to move unencumbered, and move he had.

  “We will likely be striking within the next forty-eight to seventy-two hours,” Idran told her solemnly. “The fleet is beginning to gather. We must hasten if we are to rendezvous with the Tektral and appear in our appointed position on time.”

  “Where? How many?” Jekri asked, reaching for a glass of fresh, cold water and gulping it down eagerly. She had thought nothing of water a few weeks ago. Now, she marveled at how refreshing, how precious a fluid it was. She would never take water for granted again.

  Idran rose and activated a viewscreen. “Here, here, and here,” he said, indicating three key positions along the Neutral Zone. “We have a total of over four thousand vessels.”

  Jekri almost choked. It was the largest fleet she had ever heard of being assembled.

  “The Federation has colonies in these five systems,” continued Idran. “We will be in a position to explode from the Neutral Zone and destroy those colonies in moments. This would put an end to any spy missions that might be encamped there.”

  “Lhiau has commandeered the Talvath and its wormhole technology as well,” said Verrak.

  “I am not surprised,” said Jekri, knowing with a sick knot in her belly where this was leading.

  “Once the battle is under way, we will allow a few hours for the Federation to respond to the crisis at the colonies,” said Verrak. “At that point, we will open several dozen wormholes, one right after the other. Their targets will be—”

  “Earth, of course,” said Jekri. “Vulcan, Bolaris IX, Starbases 12 and probably 74 and 212, at the very least. You frighten me, gentlemen, with this news of war. It seems that we would win.”

  “But the dark matter is not wholesome, Jekri,” said Verrak, leaning in earnestly. “Lhiau has done everything to cast suspicion on Telek R’Mor, but I have called in a few favors and had some testing done in secret. We do not know much, but we know this: the dark matter is dangerous. And by arming so many vessels, and using so many wormholes, Lhiau is causing us to create more and more of it.”

  Jekri’s hunger was sated, for the moment. She knew she should eat more, build up her strength, but her mind was working on the problems and she did not want to eat. Pushing the viinnerine aside, she thought back to the disastrous battle with Voyager.

  “Thirteen warbirds against one Federation starship,” she said, voicing her thoughts aloud as they occurred to her for the benefit of her comrades. “Even with Voyager’s advantage of twenty years of advanced technology, we ought to have won that battle.”

  “But the ships seemed to help destroy themselves,” said Idran. “We saw.”

  Impulsively, Jekri reached out a hand to the heavy-set, gravelly-voiced commander. “Glad I am that you were not on one of those ships, Idran.”

  “As am I,” the old warrior admitted, “though at the time I thought i
t an insult.”

  “May we all have such insults,” said Jekri, and for the first time in she couldn’t remember how long, she chuckled. Then she sobered. “But I have every reason to believe that that disaster could happen again.”

  “Except that instead of thirteen warbirds, we would be speaking of thousands,” said Verrak.

  “Which is why your plan is the only one,” said Idran. “Jekri, when I wear my formal regalia, my chest is crowded with medals. I have been dubbed a hero of the Empire. I never thought there would come a day when I would disobey orders, especially direct orders to go to war.”

  “Only a veruul would fight a war such as this one,” said Jekri, “and such is what Lhiau must think us. Verrak, you have been free to listen. What have you learned? Is the Empress his?”

  Verrak looked uncomfortable. Jekri had deliberately left unsaid the reason that he had been free to listen—because he had pretended to betray her. Knowing what she knew now, she approved of his decision and held no grudge. It was the wisest, indeed, the only logical, avenue he could have pursued. But clearly, Verrak was still wrestling with guilt.

  “It is the worst scandal that has been seen in decades,” said Verrak with obvious reluctance. “She makes no attempts at disguising her infatuation with that fvai.”

  “A little charity, my friend,” said Jekri. “The Empress’s mind is not her own. I doubt she breathes without Lhiau’s express instructions.”

  “But why did he not attempt to infiltrate your mind, or mine?” asked Verrak.

  “We were lesser targets, and he did attack me mentally.” She smiled slyly. “Did you really have me followed?”

  Verrak blushed. “Have you followed? No. Follow you myself? Yes.”

  “More ammunition with which to frame me?”

  “It was out of concern!” cried Verrak. “I thought you might be walking into a trap, I—”