The Farther Shore

by Christie Golden

  That was, until they started firing. The rock beside her vaporized. Candace—Constance—dove for cover, rolling as she hit the powdery soil, firing as she went.

  “Constance!” a voice cried, and she looked up to see the Captain himself waving frantically at her. “Over here!”

  In this version, Captain Proton was a good-looking blond man with piercing blue eyes. She’d gotten to know that face…and that body…pretty well, as she’d programmed a slow-growing but sweet romance between the good Captain and his noble assistant.

  He’d managed to erect some kind of shield that seemed to be deflecting the alien fire. Candace took a couple of deep breaths, readied herself, and sprinted the short distance. She dove for cover, and Captain Proton’s arms. As they landed hard on the soil, she thought he looked surprised.

  They lay, heart to heart, eyes locked, breathing heavily from exertion. She lowered her head and kissed him. Normally, he liked that, but this time he seemed shocked and struggled away.

  Candace brushed at her long red hair, which had escaped from its braid and was now falling into her face.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Well,” said Captain Proton, reaching casually for her weapon and inspecting it, “don’t take it personally, but I don’t think my wife would approve. Sorry, Constance. Computer, disengage safety protocol.”

  And before Candace could even form the question, Captain Proton lifted her laser weapon, now set on “Render Unconscious,” and fired point blank.

  Tom Paris looked down at the limp form of the admittedly attractive “Constance Goodheart.” He thought of the pressure of her lips on his and shook his head wryly.

  “No,” he said aloud as he tied up the unfortunate guard, making sure the knots were sufficiently tight to keep her bound but not painful and removing her comm badge, “B’Elanna would definitely not approve.”

  • • •

  “I do not approve,” said Miral firmly. She was feasting on her daughter’s kill, licking her fingers. B’Elanna smothered a smile.

  “I didn’t think you would.”

  “Was that the reason you chose the human?”

  “No,” B’Elanna replied. She wasn’t angry. Her mother’s fierce, practically rib-crushing embrace had bled most of the anger from her. “I chose him because I fell in love with him. He is intelligent, and brave, and attractive, and funny.”

  “Bah,” snorted Miral, opening her mouth and exposing sharp teeth as she took another bite. “Humor is too prized among humans. Better to be courageous and have honor.”

  “He does.” B’Elanna wasn’t arguing, she was simply stating a fact. Her coolness did not go unnoticed by Miral, who paused in her chewing.

  “I thought you unchanged, ’Lanna,” she said. “A little while ago. But you have proved me wrong. You do not rise to the bait as once you did.”

  “Don’t give me too much credit,” B’Elanna replied. “I still get very angry much too easily. And,” she admitted, “sometimes for the wrong reasons.”

  “You are young yet,” her mother said. “It has taken me all my life to learn such lessons, and I am not sure I have learned them fully myself.”

  B’Elanna hesitated. She had told Miral all about Tom and her namesake. But there was so much more to tell. She had been gone so long, and so much had happened to her.

  And of course, there was the Barge of the Dead.

  “Mother…Commander Logt told me you had a vision while I was gone.”

  Despite her evident hunger—Miral was thinner and more sinewy than B’Elanna had ever seen her—the older woman stopped eating.

  “It was powerful,” she said, softly. “The more so because of how close to death I was.”

  “What?” B’Elanna cried. “You were sick? They never told me that.”

  Miral chuckled. “Of course not. To tell you of my weakness would steal my honor. I was very sick indeed, my little one. I was halfway between the worlds, at the very least.”

  Slowly, in soft, hushed tones, Miral Torres began to speak of her vision. B’Elanna hung on every word, hardly daring to breathe lest she miss something. So much of B’Elanna’s own memory of her vision had faded, as such things did, but there was enough for her to realize that somehow, despite all logic, she and Miral had shared the same vision.

  When Miral had finished, B’Elanna spoke. She told of finding the ancient bat’leth, of not being able to separate what was real from what wasn’t, and the support her captain and her husband had given her on this potentially deadly trip to make peace with her mother and herself.

  “I was so afraid that you had died, and that this was the only way I could get to say good-bye,” B’Elanna finished, knowing her voice was thick. “And then when I came back and Father told me you’d died on the Challenge, I thought it was true.”

  Gently, Miral laid a hand on her daughter’s knee. “If it were true, that I had died while you were gone, I would have gone straight to Sto-Vo-Kor. Your courage in the vision lifted my dishonor—if, indeed, there was any real dishonor to be lifted. Perhaps that, too, was only in my mind.”

  She turned and cupped B’Elanna’s face in two hands. “Child…you are your own person, but I need to know: Are you Klingon?”

  B’Elanna opened her mouth to answer, but there were no words. Was she Klingon? Was she human? Was she a harmonious blending of the strengths of two great peoples, or was she a mongrel, a mistake? She thought of how intensely she wanted to “spare” little Miral her Klingon traits—her heritage. It had been Tom’s love of that part of her, too, that had helped her see that she would have been making an enormous mistake.

  She had sensed that this Challenge was scouring her, searing her, stripping away all that did not serve her innermost self. But what did that leave?

  Who did that leave?

  “I—I don’t know yet, Mother. I just don’t know.”

  She thought she saw disappointment in Miral’s face, but her mother managed a smile. “There is time yet for you to know. Having a child of your own will force you to look at yourself in ways you cannot imagine. Believe me, I know. Let us rest. We have a long journey ahead of us.”

  Now B’Elanna was confused. “But I assumed you wanted me to undertake the Challenge properly—to spend at least six months fending for myself in the wilderness.”

  “I did,” Miral replied. “But I did not know you had a mate and a child. A baby, no less.”

  “But my honor—”

  “There is great honor in tending to the needs of a child one has brought into the world,” Miral replied. “In fact, there is no greater honor. Why do you think I strove so to bring you to your heritage?”

  B’Elanna blinked, startled. “I thought it was because you wanted me to be like you—to love all things Klingon.”

  “You thought I did it for myself?”

  “Well—yes, I did. Didn’t you?”

  Miral considered the question. “I love my bloodline,” she admitted. “I am so proud to be Klingon. We are a great and noble people, and if our ways are different from those of others, then so be it. But I believed that you needed to understand both sides of your heritage. That was my duty to you. My task, as it were. Had I not done what I could to show you the glory of what you are—not half of you, but all of you—I would have been remiss as a mother. Did I ever insult your father or his people?”

  “No, you didn’t. And you could have, easily. Especially when he left us.”

  “To do so would be to make you feel bad about being part human. I wanted you to feel proud of your human blood. I wanted you to be proud of your Klingon blood as well. I wanted you,” she said, stroking B’Elanna’s mud-caked hair, “to be proud of yourself. If I failed to ascend to Sto-Vo-Kor it would not have been because I didn’t make you Klingon. It would have been because I didn’t help you find your own pride.”

  B’Elanna stared at her mother’s face, so familiar and so strange after all this time. Could she have been that wrong about Miral’s motivation?<
br />
  And if so, what else had she been wrong about?

  Chapter 15

  KAZ KNEW that he was no slouch intellectually, but standing next to Data and the Doctor, watching them process information nearly at light-speed, left him feeling a bit inferior. An android and a hologram were beating him at his own game. Quickly, he shook that thought away. Everyone had strengths and weaknesses. Even Trills, and androids, and holograms. One was wise to know and respect one’s own weaknesses and strengths. They needed his expertise, too, and when he was able to offer it, he felt inordinately pleased.

  They had determined a great deal about the virus in the hour they’d had alone in sickbay. It was operated by nanoprobes that entered the body through touch or inhalation. The method of delivery should surprise nobody, Kaz thought, considering who they were dealing with. It would remain dormant until given an order to be activated.

  So far so good, but this was where it all fell rather nastily apart.

  How was the order given? Could an infected person spread the virus before the virus was activated? Why weren’t adults with strong, functional immune systems affected yet? Would they be, and if so, when? How was the virus contracted?

  “I am fond of mysteries,” Data confessed at one point, “yet I would be glad to have this one solved quickly.”

  “I’m sure you speak for a lot of people, Commander,” the Doctor said. His acerbic tone of voice seemed odd, coming from the new hologram’s milder throat. “I suggest that we’ve spent enough time researching how the virus is transmitted. I have a theory on how we can stop it. Dr. Kaz, you said earlier that you had downloaded information from Voyager.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And you said you had begun experimenting with nanoprobes?”

  “Yes. Your work with the cellular construction of Species 8472 pointed the direction.”

  “Really?” The Doctor preened slightly.

  “Unfortunately, we couldn’t come up with a modified nanoprobe that would destroy the original ones.”

  “Hmmm,” said the Doctor. “Perhaps that’s not the correct route. One thing we need to do right now is start replicating as many Borg nanoprobes as possible. I’m not sure how we’re going to use them, but I do know they will be instrumental in solving this particular mystery.”

  He glanced over at the chronometer. “It’s almost rendezvous time. Who should go?”

  “I should,” said Kaz. “You don’t really need me.”

  “On the contrary, Doctor,” said Data, “we need your expertise a great deal. You are more familiar with this virus than either of us. Besides, if a doctor were to be found wandering the corridors when he was supposed to be working on curing a virus, it could arouse suspicion. I shall go.” He turned to the Doctor. “If you modify your image programming to imitate my physical appearance, you can continue working here even if someone enters.”

  “But then if that someone also ran into you in the corridor, they’d know something was wrong,” Kaz said. “I have to tell you, no offense, Doctor, but this whole hologram version of musical chairs is starting to become confusing.”

  “No offense taken,” said the Doctor. “I’m having trouble keeping it all straight myself.”

  “The simplest solution is often the most effective,” said Data. “Perhaps the Doctor should continue to deactivate if anyone approaches. I can always tell the truth, which is that Admiral Janeway requested my presence.”

  “Good luck,” Kaz said. “Take Taylor’s phaser. We’ve got hyposprays if we need them.”

  Data accepted the phaser, nodded to them, and strode out the door.

  • • •

  They met up in Cargo Bay Two, as Janeway had ordered.

  “Status report,” she asked. “First, has anyone run into any guards yet?”

  “I have Constance Goodheart tied up in the holodeck,” Paris said.

  “What?” exclaimed Chakotay.

  “One of the guards is playing Constance Goodheart in my Captain Proton scenario,” Paris explained, clearly trying not to smile but failing. “The computer had my physical parameters for Proton as reference, and she kept them intact. It was easy to substitute myself for Proton and turn her stun weapon on her. The scenario’s still running. There’s a chance someone will go in after her, but they’d have to battle the Moolian Fleet to do it.”

  “Couldn’t they turn the program off?” Kaz was slightly in awe of Lieutenant Commander Paris’s imagination.

  “I designed the program,” Paris said, “and they never bothered to transfer the codes. I can’t lock the doors, but I’ve reprogrammed the computer with a code word. They can’t shut the program down unless I authorize it.”

  “Very good work, Mr. Paris,” Janeway said, admiringly. “I see that Tuvok has disabled a guard as well.” Kaz looked over to see the prone, trussed up, and gagged figure of a fair-haired young man. He looked quite upset. Kaz couldn’t blame him.

  “How are you three faring in sickbay?” Janeway continued.

  “We had a surprise visit from a guard, but we disabled her. The Doctor did, actually. I can see why you’re all so fond of him. She’s presently unconscious in a cadaver drawer, but a hologram of her is standing around smiling, just in case anyone comes to check.”

  Janeway was smiling openly now. “Chakotay and I took one down in the corridor. He’s stashed in a Jefferies tube and should be unconscious for quite some time. We should put their comm badges in their quarters, in case Watson tries to locate them.”

  “How many phasers were we able to obtain?” asked Tuvok.

  “Three,” replied Janeway. “I don’t think Tom’s Constance was carrying a real weapon in the holodeck.”

  “No, more’s the pity,” said Tom.

  Janeway’s expression sobered slightly. “I haven’t heard anything from Harry, so I’ll try to contact him when we’re done here. Dr. Kaz, Data—what have you learned about the virus?”

  They brought everyone up to speed, and Kaz desperately wished that he had better news. At least the Doctor seemed to think they had a direction now. Janeway was silent for a while, then at last she spoke.

  “I’ve been thinking hard about this, gentlemen. We’ve eliminated half the guards, but there are still four left. One of them is Watson, whom I think suspects us, and another is on the bridge. I also don’t think we’re going to be able to let Seven and Icheb regenerate as long as Dr. Kaz would like them to. We need their unique knowledge and expertise.

  “Montgomery won’t be fooled forever, either. And once he figures out that we’ve duped him, things are going to start happening very fast.”

  Kaz did not protest. Even the little bit of time that Seven and Icheb had been allowed to regenerate would help them, and he knew as well as Janeway did that they didn’t have the luxury of time on any front of this strange battle they were waging.

  “What do you want us to do?” asked Chakotay, quietly.

  “We’ll awaken Seven and Icheb and send them back to sickbay with Kaz and Data. The rest of you will come with me. This was our ship, once. We’re going to take it back.”

  • • •

  Brenna Covington lay on the bed, her skullcap removed and her brain exposed, calm and yet excited at the same time. She had the utmost trust in the EMH Mark One. He had not failed her yet, which was more than could be said for many humans. It had taken time, and she had lost patience more than once with him, Grady, and Blake. But they always had come through for her in the end.

  She had grown weary of being a partial queen. It was good, to have the superior strength and access to the hive mind. It was even better to be able to link with them, as she could when she regenerated, to feel their need and love of her. But that was as a taste of honey on the tongue, sweet but serving only to awaken further cravings. She wanted more. She wanted it all.

  Covington wanted information to flow through her body like her blood did. She wanted to penetrate all the drone minds, all the time, thoroughly and completely, with no
separation. She wanted to experience the thoughts of healthy adults, not just the malleable brains of children and the sometimes dry and barren minds of the elderly. Intellectually, she knew what she would become when she was at last complete, and she thirsted for it like a man in the desert thirsted for cold, sweet water.

  Had she been the true queen, the process would have taken place within moments, if not seconds. The Royal Protocol program would have selected her, imbued her with knowledge that came as quickly and effortlessly as breathing. It would have replaced weak human organs with metal, and she would have become queen almost instantaneously. The Borg needed their queen, could not function without her.

  But what she, Blake, and the EMH were doing was new, experimental. Had never been done before. They were creating a queen from scratch, as it were, with a recipe that had only recently been understood.

  Odd, that she would use a cooking metaphor. She seemed to smell food being prepared…cookies, she thought; baking slowly in an oven.

  “I smell cookies baking,” she told the EMH. He stood behind her, busily working on her brain. She was used to it, accustomed now even to the sight of her skullcap, bony and bloody, sitting in a dish behind a sterile field.

  “I’m stimulating that part of your brain,” the EMH replied. “That’s only natural. I hope it’s a pleasant association.”

  “It is,” she said, her mind going back to the time before the owner of the Hand invaded her life, when she and her mother baked chocolate chip cookies every Saturday morning. She had not smelled cookies baking since then. Odd, how the mind worked, what it chose to remember.

  Once the transformation from human to Borg queen was completed, she would have no need for the laborious task of chewing, swallowing, and digesting nutrients. Her taste buds would all but disappear from disuse. Anything her body needed, it would acquire through the more efficient means of direct absorption.

  Faintly she heard the EMH’s voice, as if coming from far away. “…have to put you fully under, Your Majesty.”