“You’re not coming with us?” Janeway asked.
“I have to stay here and maintain the integrity of the temporal field.”
“You understand that I have to tell the denzit about you and the impact the Krenim have had on this region.”
“Nothing you tell anyone now will likely change the course of history. Should your actions produce significant counter-indications, we know how to deal with those as well.”
“Agent Dayne, we’re not going to allow you to . . .” Janeway began, but trailed off as the image on the viewscreen before Dayne’s chair stabilized. A battle raged around Sormana. Dozens of Rilnar and Zahl vessels were engaged in a massive conflict. Huge chunks of wreckage suggested at least a few ships had already been destroyed.
“Is this what we have to prevent?” Cambridge asked dubiously.
“No,” Dayne replied. “This is nothing. Activate your synch disruptors and prepare for transport.”
Janeway and Cambridge did as they had been instructed.
“Initiating temporal incursion.”
Just before the Truon’s transporter took hold of her, Janeway was certain she had seen the image on the viewscreen freeze.
SORMANA
The first time Admiral Kathryn Janeway visited Sormana, she wondered if the Rilnar’s transporters had malfunctioned. This time, it was reality she no longer trusted.
The admiral and Cambridge materialized in what appeared to be a large cavern bathed in orange light. The stillness, the silence, the sense of motion suspended was incredibly disorienting.
The admiral’s eyes were immediately drawn to the motes of dust before her. The air was thick with them. She kept waiting for them to move, for gravity to do its job. Instead they hung motionless around her.
Looking up, she saw their source. Forty meters above her head, the ceiling of the cavern had begun to collapse. That probably had something to do with the explosion that was frozen in time. Still flames licked rock, transforming it to a liquid state in some places. It was extraordinary to witness without technological assistance a moment the naked eye could never see.
Metal catwalks that ran along the walls ten meters above were in the process of collapsing. Several people hung in midair, one only a few centimeters from the ground, his face a mass of burning flesh. Two others higher up wore suits of fire.
In the far corner, a group of three men and one woman crouched, their hands raised automatically to shield them from the tons of rock that were about to descend upon them. “Chakotay,” Janeway said softly. Tuvok was beside him, along with the denzit and a Zahl male the admiral did not know.
Counselor Cambridge’s attention was already focused on what would have been the area’s most fascinating feature, were it not for everything else there was to see. Four doorways stood on raised platforms above swirling pools of orange liquid. A wave of dizziness flowed over the admiral at the sight of the churning fluid until she realized what she had to be seeing. Rahalla’s chroniton pools. Cambridge was bending low to examine one of them more closely.
“Careful,” she ordered.
“What is this?” Cambridge asked reverently.
“Chroniton particles. It looks like we’ve found the source of the Zahl’s reinforcements.”
“These are some sort of doorways through time?”
“I’d hate to confirm that without a little more data, but my gut says yes.”
Cambridge stood up and stared in wonder. “This is . . . we’ll . . . it’s just . . .”
“Unnerving?” Janeway suggested.
“Fantastic,” Cambridge said. “While I still deplore the Krenim’s tactics, it’s impossible to experience this without being awed by the power of it.”
“Focus, Counselor.”
“Right, sorry.”
“With me.”
On unsteady legs, Janeway led Cambridge toward the corner where Chakotay crouched, suspended in time.
“How did they get here?” Cambridge asked.
“Time to find out.”
They moved to affix the temporal synch disruptors Dayne had given them to each member of the group. As soon as the technology was secured around the arms of an individual, they immediately came to life, continuing the motion they had begun before Dayne’s temporal incursion.
After assuring each of them that they were fine, Janeway gave them a few moments to take in their surroundings.
The denzit was the first to speak. “I’m guessing this isn’t heaven.”
This brought an incongruous chuckle from Chakotay, who seemed to be struck by the same sense of marvel as the counselor.
“No,” Admiral Janeway said.
“Then what is it?” the Zahl officer demanded.
“I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure of making your acquaintance, sir,” the admiral said, stepping toward him. “I’m Admiral Kathryn Janeway, commander of the Federation fleet, engaged in a long-term exploratory mission in the Delta Quadrant.”
The Zahl officer looked at the admiral, then at the denzit, then back at the admiral. “Oh hell, there are two of you?”
This brought a smile to the admiral’s lips. “Is that really so shocking, sir? Am I right in assuming that you have been bringing reinforcements to this planet via those temporal portals over there?”
“Yes, but never duplicates,” he replied.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”
“Servitor Hav Silbrit. I command the Zahl forces at Rahalla.”
“Rahalla?” Cambridge asked, delighted.
“I wish we could have met under different circumstances, Servitor Silbrit.”
“Admiral,” Tuvok said, stepping forward. “Can you explain what it is that we are all experiencing?”
“This is a temporal incursion. Yesterday, I took the Vesta to make contact with the Krenim. I learned a number of things relevant to this moment in time, among them the fact that this planet and a great deal of surrounding space was about to be destroyed. I negotiated an agreement with the Krenim that included the possibility of preventing this disaster and was sent here by them to attempt to do so.”
“And how, exactly, do you plan to do that?” Silbrit demanded. “If the Krenim have stopped the normal flow of time, the moment this incursion ends and time’s passage resumes, we’re all dead. Are you certain the Krenim intended for you to survive this mercy mission?”
“I think so,” the admiral replied. “I possess information they believe to be critical. I have withheld it from them, pending the outcome of our discussions.”
“What happens when the conversation is over?” Chakotay asked.
“One step at a time,” the admiral said. Turning to Silbrit she asked, “Does your position within the Zahl forces on Sormana give you the ability to enter into peace negotiations with the Rilnar’s supreme commander?”
“It does.”
“Wonderful.”
“This isn’t a negotiation,” the denzit interjected. “He’ll say anything right now to save himself and his men, but he’ll never abide by it if we all somehow miraculously survive this.”
“Not to split hairs, Denzit, but unless I misunderstood your man up there, you’re no longer in charge of the Rilnar.”
“Surely a minor point at such a moment,” Cambridge said. “Obviously a thousand hours of mind-numbing diplomatic meetings will have to follow this day’s events. The only thing we must acquire is both of your commitments to counsel everyone on your side to end this futile war. Unless of course either of you look at this”—he opened his arms as if to embrace the room—“and call it victory. Whatever led you to this moment, surely you can agree that the loss of every life on the planet and the thousands more on the ships above you who have been manning the blockade cannot be considered an acceptable outcome.”
“How exactly did we get to this point?” Janeway asked.
In bits and pieces, each of them told their tale. Tuvok explained the away team’s discoveries. The denzit admitted to placing tra
cking devices on the team, following them to the island, and instigating the aerial attack. Chakotay described his efforts and the denzit’s assistance in saving his away team. Silbrit confirmed his willingness to attempt to negotiate some sort of cease-fire, given his knowledge of the stored chroniton torpedoes and the scale of destruction that would occur should the denzit’s attack succeed.
“You’re saying you ordered the Rilnar attack to end before you came down here?” Cambridge asked of the denzit, glancing up at the still firestorm above.
“One of my subordinate officers staged a little coup,” the denzit replied. “He questions my loyalties.”
“Okay,” Janeway said, satisfied. “Obviously this is the chain of events we were sent to disrupt. The question is how can we possibly intercede now?”
“This looks pretty final to me, Admiral,” Cambridge noted.
“But we wouldn’t have arrived at this precise moment unless it was critical,” Janeway argued.
“Batibeh,” Cambridge said softly.
“What?” Silbrit asked.
“Just like Captain Farkas said. It would happen again because it inevitably does. Someone goes too far.”
“Counselor, I don’t see—” Chakotay began.
“If we had come at any earlier moment, would either of you have believed that you would end up here?” Cambridge asked of the denzit and Silbrit. “Of course not. You’ve all been fighting this war for so long, you’ve lost sight of the fact that this was the most probable outcome of your conflict. You wouldn’t even admit to yourselves that you had driven one another into corners so small that mutual annihilation was the only endgame. You lied to yourselves, believing you could end this war on terms acceptable to your side. But you can’t. Nothing short of a moment like this would have ever forced you to confront your lunacy.”
“While I might have phrased that a little more delicately, your point is well taken,” Janeway said. “If I told you I knew your future, if I told you this would happen, you wouldn’t have believed me. Now you don’t have to. You see it for yourselves.”
“Fine, but that doesn’t change anything between us,” Silbrit said.
“Doesn’t it?” Tuvok asked. “Do you remain unconvinced of the futility of this course of action?”
“No, but this is just me. How do we convince anyone else that this will happen, unless it does?”
Cambridge looked to the temporal transporters. “Do these things work both ways?”
“How do you mean?”
“Can you venture into alternate timelines as well as bringing others here?”
“Yes.”
“Do you really want us to move further along into this timeline?” the denzit asked. “Do you have any idea how this temporal incursion really works? I don’t want to step through one of those things and find myself floating in the debris of a planet that was just destroyed.”
“That might not be necessary,” Silbrit said, moving to the control panels that rested opposite the platforms along the far wall. Cambridge accompanied him while Tuvok, the denzit, and Chakotay closed ranks around the admiral.
“What did you promise the Krenim in return for this?” Chakotay asked.
“A little information. Nothing I’m unwilling to share.”
“Why would the Krenim even help you?” the denzit demanded. “I’ve heard of them, but as far as I know they keep to themselves.”
Janeway turned to face her. “When you were being tortured, the voice you heard on those logs, my voice, was describing a year-long conflict between Voyager and the Krenim.”
“No, it wasn’t. It was the Zahl.”
“The logs you heard were altered by the Krenim to make you think that. They wanted you to believe it was the Zahl who captured you and tortured you. They programmed you to hate the Zahl so that they could bring you into this conflict on the side of the Rilnar and leave you on Sormana to die. The Krenim are responsible for everything you have suffered. They possess powerful temporal technology, as you can see, and it is my belief that they have used it more than once to create the status quo in which you find yourselves. They use these temporal incursions to revise history in their best interest. Voyager’s original encounter with them left them much weaker than they had been. They’ve set about restoring their losses and seem reasonably content with their current lot, but you and I are what they call chaotic variables.”
“That sounds about right,” Chakotay noted.
“They meant to capture me when they took you. They wanted to study me, to understand why I’d beaten them and to make sure that I could never do it again.”
“The Zahl have chroniton torpedoes, Admiral,” the denzit argued. “We just saw them.”
“The Zahl didn’t know you existed until you entered this war on the Rilnar’s side,” Janeway assured her.
“But Dayne,” she began, struggling to make sense of this revelation, “he couldn’t have known. They were using him too?”
Janeway felt an immense heat, part anger, part pain on the denzit’s behalf, begin to burn in her chest. “Dayne . . .” she began.
“Admiral,” Cambridge shouted, “over here.”
Janeway moved swiftly toward the control panels. Tuvok took her arm to hold her back as the denzit and Chakotay went ahead.
“What about Dayne?” he asked.
“He’s Krenim,” Janeway whispered.
Tuvok’s startled response was small, but clear to the admiral. He immediately composed himself, then hurried with the admiral to join the rest of the group. Several screens embedded in the wall were lit and scrolling through scenes of battles.
“Why is this technology working when everything else here is frozen?” the denzit asked. “Is this some sort of illusion?”
“These monitors are tied to the chroniton pools beneath the temporal transporters. In their natural state, chronitons exist in temporal flux. They aren’t subject to whatever is causing this incursion,” Silbrit explained.
“What are we looking at?” Chakotay asked.
“These displays,” Silbrit said, pointing to a set of screens, “are our standard recruitment lines. If you think that our lives are bad here, you should see how these people live. They line up to join us whenever my officers cross over. They know the war is still going on in our timeline and that if they don’t die in battle they will likely suffer debilitating symptoms of quantum misalignment, but they don’t care. We have food and water and roofs over our heads. They’re barely eking out an existence. These are several slightly different versions of Sormana’s future, from fifty to a hundred years from now.”
“You never recruit from your past?” Tuvok asked.
“Too dangerous,” Silbrit replied.
“How refreshingly wise of you,” the denzit noted.
“This is what you need to see,” Silbrit said, pointing to a single screen where nothing but large chunks of debris could be seen floating in space. “These portals are fixed on the other side. This one comes out near Batibeh. As you can see, even the ruins are no longer there. I’ve studied more timelines than I care to remember using this technology. I’ve never seen this one before. I never looked at our timeline because it is normally in constant flux, but not anymore. This is our quantum signature. That’s how this moment is going to end.”
“Will this record still exist if we are able to change the course of this moment somehow?” the admiral asked.
“It should,” Silbrit said with a shrug. “This is happening right now. Any new timeline created by our actions subsequent to your arrival will branch off from this one.”
“Assuming we find a way to survive, could you show this to your superior officers and to the planet’s political leaders?” Chakotay asked.
“If you people get us out of here in one piece, and the technology survives, that would be my first priority.”
“The Rilnar would have to see it too,” the denzit said.
“Can you convince them to look?”
“I can tr
y,” the denzit said.
“Will that be enough?” Chakotay asked. “Self-preservation doesn’t seem to be the priority around here one would think it should be.”
“They’d have to believe that peace is also possible. They’d have to know that there is a better alternative and that the Zahl would honor any agreement they made,” the denzit said.
“There’s no record of anything like that here,” Silbrit said.
“There might be,” Cambridge interjected.
Silbrit shook his head. “The only timelines I’ve ever seen through these portals that don’t show constant warfare are the handful where Sormana is unoccupied, where sentient life never arose here for one reason or another.”
“Set new parameters for the Batibeh portal,” Cambridge said. “Show us all of the unoccupied timelines.”
Silbrit adjusted the controls before him and began the search. A number of scenes appeared on the display screens, most showing landscapes untouched by people. A few small creatures skittered among tall green and brown stalks. Larger animals could be seen roaming freely. It was almost painful to see these pristine vistas and to wonder what the rest of space surrounding Sormana might look like in these alternate realities.
“Go back,” Cambridge said suddenly.
“What?”
“There. Timeline 024.51899.012. Show me that again.”
Silbrit did as Cambridge had requested. It was a scene similar to the others; a field of green grass spilled over a low hill, but at its edge stood a configuration of rocks that on close inspection could not have been naturally occurring.
“What is that?” Silbrit asked.
“The stone table,” Cambridge said. “Do you think we have time for a little recon mission, Admiral?”
“I do.”
“What do you expect to find there?” Silbrit asked.
“Peace.”
VESTA
Captain Farkas had assumed she would see something like the image now before her on the main viewscreen if her plan worked. That didn’t make it any easier for her eyes to accept.
Bryce, Icheb, and her flight controller, Lieutenant Hoch, had perfectly executed her instructions. The moment Vesta arrived a billion kilometers from Sormana and the slipstream corridor began to disperse, the temporal shields had been activated. Against long odds they had done it without turning Vesta into dust in the process.
Star Trek: Voyager: A Pocket Full of Lies Page 31
