by Various
Suddenly the ground below them began to rumble, and for a moment they both thought that the gateway was about to explode. But then they realized what it was: an army in pursuit. They looked behind themselves to see a horde of angry warriors coming after them, shouting Calhoun's name, shouting fury that he was expressing such disdain for their paradise that he was actually daring to try and leave it.
And the gateway... the gateway was fading. Whether they'd come through an hour or an age ago, it was impossible to tell, but whatever it was, it was running out. The gateway was about to cycle shut, and they'd be trapped in Kaz'hera forever.
"Run!" shouted Calhoun, and they tried, but within moments they were overrun, and even though they fought back, they were cut to pieces, and the ground ran red with their blood.
***
Suddenly the ground below them began to rumble, and for a moment they both thought that the gateway was about to explode. But then they realized what it was: an army in pursuit. They looked behind themselves to see a horde of angry warriors coming after them, shouting Calhoun's name, shouting fury that he was expressing such disdain for their paradise that he was actually daring to try and leave it.
And the gateway... the gateway was fading. Whether they'd come through an hour or an age ago, it was impossible to tell, but whatever it was, it was running out. The gateway was about to cycle shut, and they'd be trapped in Kaz'hera forever.
"Run!" shouted Calhoun, and they tried, but within moments they were overrun, and Calhoun tried to fight a delaying action while Shelby ran, but they were cut to pieces, and the ground ran red with their blood.
Suddenly the ground below them began to rumble, and for a moment they both thought that the gateway was about to explode. But then they realized what it was: an army in pursuit. They looked behind themselves to see a horde of angry warriors coming after them, shouting Calhoun's name, shouting fury that he was expressing such disdain for their paradise that he was actually daring to try and leave it.
And the gateway... the gateway was fading. Whether they'd come through an hour or an age ago, it was impossible to tell, but whatever it was, it was running out. The gateway was about to cycle shut, and they'd be trapped in Kaz'hera forever.
"Run!" shouted Calhoun, and they tried, but within moments they were overrun, and although Calhoun marveled at Shelby's display of sword prowess, they were cut to pieces, and the ground ran red with their blood.
Suddenly the ground below them began to rumble, and for a moment they both thought that the gateway was about to explode. But then they realized what it was: an army in pursuit. They looked behind themselves to see a horde of angry warriors coming after them, shouting Calhoun's name, shouting fury that he was expressing such disdain for their paradise that he was actually daring to try and leave it.
And the gateway... the gateway was fading. Whether they'd come through an hour or an age ago, it was impossible to tell, but whatever it was, it was running out. The gateway was about to cycle shut, and they'd be trapped in Kaz'hera forever.
"Run!" shouted Calhoun, and they tried, but within moments they were surrounded, and that was when a roar like a shattering planet filled the air, and there was a clang of swords, and Calhoun could actually hear bodies being sliced apart.
Unstoppable, Gr'zy cut a path to Calhoun and Shelby, and the others fell back, confused and angry and regrouping, their hesitation lasting only moments. But it was moments enough for a ragged Calhoun to look up at the dark face of his father and say, "I thought you said I wasn't a son of yours."
Gr'zy grumbled, "Yes, well... I realized that sometimes you're more your mother's son. And I loved her dearly. But she was no warrior.
I miss her terribly... as much as I'll miss you. Go." "Father, I - !" "Go, damn you!" he shouted, and shoved Calhoun as hard as he could. Shelby caught him and they ran, and it was an incredible thing to see. The warriors tried to get past Gr'zy, tried to pursue his son, and it should have been impossible to hold them back, as impossible as a single sand bag keeping back the ocean tide. But Gr'zy was everywhere, as was his sword, and no man passed as Calhoun and Shelby sprinted the remaining distance. Calhoun gripped Shelby's hand as tightly as he could, and together they leaped through the gateway. And the last thing he heard his father cry out was, "This has been a good day!"
And the sun set on Kaz'hera.
Just as before, the transition was instantaneous, except this time it was far more brutal. One moment they were bathed in warmth, and the next the wind and ice were hammering them with the force of a thousand nails.
Calhoun went down, Shelby tumbling on top of him. Almost instantly he was losing feeling in his face, in his hands and feet, and even taking a single breath was agony for him. He clutched Shelby to him, and when he looked at her his heart sank in dismay. While in Kaz'hera, she had healed. But here, back in this marvelous "real world" to which she'd been so anxious to return, she was as banged up and bruised as before they'd gone through the gateway.
There was no place to run to, no place for them to take shelter.
Calhoun thought it was a miracle that their hearts hadn't simply stopped from the shock of going from one extreme to another, but then he thought better of it. After all, what kind of miracle was it when all it did was spare them a quick death in exchange for a slower and more agonizing one?
Then he looked down at Shelby, who was gazing up at him, unable to move, barely able to speak, and he understood. It was a miracle because it was giving them a few last moments together, and any time that they were together was miraculous.
As the wind screamed above them, trying to drown out anything they might have said to one another, Calhoun leaned in close to her, put his lips right up against her ears. "Till death do us part," whispered Calhoun. She nodded mutely, and then they kissed passionately, holding each other close, icing over, the gateway silent behind them...
And then there was a roar near them, and in his near-death delirium, Calhoun wondered whether Valkyries were descending from Valhalla.
They were, after all, freezing to death, and that was certainly evocative of the icy climes that the Norsemen hailed from...
He managed to barely roll over just then, and saw with distant astonishment that a long-range shuttlecraft was approaching.
What do Valkyries need with a shuttlecraft? Calhoun wondered, right before he passed out.
When Shelby opened her eyes, she saw Calhoun smiling down at her, felt the distinctly unglacial warmth around her, and for just a moment she thought, You bastard... you brought us back through the gateway... we're back in your idea of paradise... here we go again...
And then a familiar voice, brisk with efficiency, said, "Step aside, please, Captain." Calhoun did so, and then Dr. Selar was standing over her, guiding a medical tricorder along her and nodding approvingly.
"Full circulation has been restored. However, I would advise that you not - "
Shelby immediately sat up. An instant later the world spun around her and she flopped back. The only thing that prevented her from cracking her head badly was Calhoun's arm catching her as she fell.
" - sit up too quickly," the Vulcan doctor finished acidly.
It was at that point that Shelby realized they were in a shuttlecraft.
She looked up at Calhoun in confusion, her face a question.
Easily reading her mind, Calhoun took her hand and said, "Back on Sinqay, our respective science officers managed to re-create the energy field that hauled us through to the ice world. Once they did that, they sent a shuttlecraft through after us." "But... but how will we... get back from here? Back through the energy field?" "No." It was Dr. Selar who spoke up. "We tried. But the field is rather unique in that it appears to be only one way." "Then... how - ?" "No need to worry," Calhoun assured her. "McHenry's helming the shuttlecraft. He has us pegged as three days out of Thallonian space."
That was immediately enough to assuage Shelby's worries. Mark McHenry may have struck her as one of the odder crewmen
on the Excalibur, but if there was one thing that was certain, it was that his ability to know where he was anywhere in the galaxy was unerring, even uncanny.
If he said it was going to take them three days to get back home from wherever the ice world had been, then that was quite simply that.
"You were very fortunate," said Selar.
"You mean that you showed up when you did?" asked Calhoun.
"That too. But I was referring to the fact that I am your doctor." And with that, she headed toward the front of the craft, leaving Shelby and Calhoun alone in the rear section.
She squeezed his hand tightly. "Any regrets?" whispered Shelby.
He smiled and said, "I'll tell you after I'm dead."
And for a moment, just a brief moment... she thought that she saw pain and a longing for something he now knew he could never have, or never be happy with. But then, just like that, it was gone once more.
******
STAR TREK THE NEXT GENERATION
THE OTHER SIDE
Robert Greenberger
Prologue
Deanna Troi, carefully cupping her mug of hot chocolate, curled her feet underneath her legs and stared at the viewscreen in the captain's quarters. She disliked the decor and would have preferred to let the Marco Polo's real captain keep his space, but he was far from his starship and she was in temporary command. She had grown accustomed to making snap decisions and thought she was doing an adequate job, especially when her Sabre-class vessel had been bombarded by enemy fire.
The counselor-turned-commander had grown fond of her adopted crew and thought they performed well, especially since, like her, they had been thrown together with little warning. She missed the ones that had been dispatched for what Will Riker called "extended babysitting," but they were doing their duty. As she was doing her own.
What Deanna truly came to discover about command, though, was that when being the one in charge, you quite often had to wait for the crew to perform their tasks before you could issue your next orders. And the waiting was more dangerous than Romulan disrupter fire.
"Any change, Will?" she asked the image on the viewscreen.
Riker, looking like he had not slept in a day, shook his head. He was speaking from his personal quarters on the Enterprise, just a few hundred kilometers away but seeming like he was in another quadrant.
"Nothing at all," he replied. "The captain's been gone for six hours now without a word."
She sipped at her chocolate, hoping its magical restorative powers would keep her alert for the next shift, which began in less than fifteen minutes. "And Doral?"
"Still sitting in his guest quarters, looking at images of his remaining ships. When power failed on one, we had to help evacuate the crew to other ships nearby. They're down to forty-eight and it's getting a little cramped for them."
"The odds improve, don't they?" "Our sixteen against their forty-eight is still three-to-one odds. Wouldn't expect that to stay the same the way things are going." Riker seemed to be busying himself onscreen but she couldn't figure out what it was.
Finally she asked, "What are you doing, Will?" "Oh, just working on a new recipe," he admitted with a grin.
"Well," she said with a warm smile, "practice makes perfect."
Just talking to him made her feel better and kept the harsh reality of their situation just a little further away. "What's to become of the Petraw?" she asked, turning back to the immediate problem.
"Their drive to expand their reach means getting them home during their lifetime is impossible," he replied. "Doral can't even say for certain if the Petraw Empire even exists anymore. They remain close to the galactic center, way beyond any portion of space any of us have ever explored. Desan told me there's been no evidence of the Petraw in their Empire."
"Has the Glory restored power yet?" The Romulan warbird had been seriously injured when they first found the Petraw ships.
Riker shook his head again, an uncertain expression on his face. "She won't admit to it, but Data thinks he pierced their shielding enough to determine the quantum-singularity drive has been ruptured beyond repair. I've got him working on emergency evacuation plans since I doubt they would all fit on the Jarok."
"Captain Brisbayne tells me much the same about Mercury. He's taking it very hard, losing his first command," Troi added. "I think he hoped to retire without ever losing a ship or getting in a serious firefight."
"Given the Borg and the Dominion War, he's a rarity among Starfleet captains," Riker said. "Geordi's dispatched his alpha team to help with repairs so we've got hope."
Troi sipped in a silence for a moment, wondering what progress was being made by their own captain, who stepped through the Iconian gateway found aboard Doral's lead Petraw vessel. Six hours with no knowing what he found on the other side. His orders had been strict: no one was to follow him through.
Chapter 1
Picard emerged from the gateway into a forest that sang with birdcalls and swarmed with large insects. A short distance from his position, he saw the building first glimpsed from the engineering deck of the lead Petraw vessel. It was a gleaming domed building and now before him, he saw red and orange filigree at the dome's a base and watched it snake up toward the top. The oval dome itself was a cobalt blue, shining wetly in what he presumed to be the late-afternoon sun.
Sweat had already begun to trickle down his neck and he realized how warm it was, too warm to be pleasant and humid enough to indicate it had recently rained. Picard considered himself fortunate he missed the shower as he opened his tricorder. With some alarm, the captain found the instrument dead. His right hand reached for his phaser and saw that it, too, registered no power. This was not the first time he had I arrived to find technology dampened, but he had hoped to be better prepared for what was to come.
With greater caution, Picard began walking around the dome, looking for sentries or even an accessway. There was little doubt he needed to get inside and speak with the people - the ones he hoped were the one true Iconian people. No one had seen them in over two hundred millennia and no pictures of them were found on any of the worlds that had direct links to the Iconian culture. It was one of the more intriguing mysteries about them.
His boots beat down wild flowers, thick ropy grass strands, and even fallen twigs. The rain helped moisten everything so it kept his movements quiet. To his practiced eye, Picard noted that everything outside the domed structure was left to its natural state. The air seemed pure so the dome gave off no harmful emissions. It also made no sound; there was not even a hint of a power current.
After twenty minutes, Picard estimated he had managed his way around a third of the dome. Nothing had changed although the sun had dried out more of the surroundings and wild animal calls could be heard. He guessed they had come out from their hiding spots. The captain wished it would be cooler since the sun was that much lower, but it was not to be.
"Captain Picard?"
He whirled about, instinctively reaching for the useless weapon, surprised someone managed to get this close to him. The captain looked up, for the figure measured at least seven and a half feet tall. She was a willowy figure, not much in the way of musculature, but it was a decidedly female form. Bipedal, she seemed to be not that different from the many humanoid variations he had encountered over his journeys. She wore a dark maroon dress that reached the tops of her covered feet, and the material was embroidered with filigree similar to the dome. There was a jeweled headpiece atop her long, red hair, which extended far down her back. He could not guess her age but the smooth face implied youth. She also had a scarlet tattoo of some design, from cheekbone to jawbone, on the right side only.
"I am Jean-Luc Picard," he finally replied.
"Welcome to our world," she said. Her voice was soft and gentle although it also sounded slightly distracted. She remained still as Picard studied her without trying to seem rude about it "Do you know why I have come?"
"Of course, we have been studying your activit
y." She didn't seem interested in saying more and also seemed content with remaining in place, hands clasped before her.
"Can you help me?"
Sunlight caught her dark eyes and made them twinkle a bit, which added merriment to the emotionless expression. Without answering, she turned and raised her left arm, revealing a plate of metal covering the forearm. It must have sent a signal, since a panel set within the base of the structure opened, one he would never have found given its engineering. The space within was well lit but the captain could not discern what was inside. The woman turned and began walking with a steady gait and he presumed he was to follow. Once Picard began moving, he noted that she made less sound than he did and that he could see her small footprints faintly amid the flora and fauna.
