They maintained separate quarters, but they had not spent a single night apart since her return. She liked the way Chakotay held her as they slept, or as she struggled against the terrors that now populated her dreams. Usually the wee hours found them as they were now, comfortably intertwined as Kathryn tried to give form to her fears and he patiently beat them back with gentle words and tender caresses.
“It means the multiverse went out of its way to make sure I wouldn’t be here now,” she replied.
“Well, you sure showed the multiverse, didn’t you?” Chakotay teased.
Kathryn smiled in spite of herself.
“Think of it this way,” he went on. “You alone, among all of us, have a clean slate. No predetermined fate, or destiny, can claim you now. The future is whatever you choose to make of it.”
“Can it really be that simple?” she asked.
“I think so.”
“Really?”
“Maybe your death became what it was because the multiverse didn’t want you here, in which case, I say, the multiverse can go kick rocks. Or maybe your death was its way of throwing up a bright red flag that your godson couldn’t miss so that he would respond exactly as he did. I don’t know anyone, other than you, who could have helped Afsarah hang on to her humanity. Your experience with the Borg was frighteningly similar to what she was going through. And I don’t know anyone else who could have made Q understand why his son’s death . . .”
“Maybe,” Kathryn cut him off.
“Either way, it’s no use trying to second-guess our decisions now. My mother used to say that the gods made the world round so that we could never see too far into our own future.”
“You think if I’d seen my death coming I would have made a different choice?”
“No. You did see it coming. The Q showed up and told you exactly what was coming and you still marched right onto that cube to do your duty.”
“And you climbed into that shuttle,” she said, then added, “Is there something really wrong with us?”
Chakotay laughed lightly. “Not with us, maybe with our choice of professions.” After a moment he asked seriously, “Why are you still hesitating to accept Starfleet Command’s offer?”
Kathryn turned onto her stomach so that she could look into his eyes. “Because before I put us back essentially where we were, you commanding Voyager and me commanding the fleet, I want to make sure I know in my heart it’s the right thing to do.”
Chakotay’s brow furrowed. After a moment he said, “No, that’s not it.”
“I beg your pardon, it most certainly is.”
“No,” he insisted. “You know the only way Command is going to allow us to continue our mission in the Delta Quadrant is if you endorse it by agreeing to lead this fleet. You and I are not the problem. We’re never going to be the problem. For the first time in your life, you’re considering playing it safe. You could send us home in the next few days, and right now, you’re wondering why you shouldn’t.”
“I’m not wondering. You’ve lost five ships in five months, two fleet commanders, and more than eight hundred fifty officers and crewmen. All this at a time when Starfleet needs every single capable individual working night and day to hold the Federation together with both hands. We can’t keep going through ships out here like we used to go through shuttles. Our benomite reserves are back in the Alpha Quadrant with the Achilles, and our slipstream drive is the only thing standing between us and another really long trip home. This isn’t about a failure of nerve. It’s an objective assessment of our current status weighed against the needs of the Federation.”
“That’s one way to look at it,” Chakotay agreed.
“You have another?”
“Our first day back in the Delta Quadrant we rescued B’Elanna and Miral, saving Miral’s life in the process. We then encountered a unique collective species with a most unexpected perspective on the Borg. I’m wondering how many other species in a similar position sustained themselves through thousands of years of the march of the Collective through their space. The answer to that isn’t in the Alpha Quadrant. We reconfirmed our peaceful intentions toward Species 8472, and they’re definitely worth keeping happy and on their side of fluidic space. We helped a collective species come to grips with their true history, but we still don’t know how that story is going to end. We’ve provided New Talax with substantial material aid, enhancing their efforts to maintain a peaceful community. We brought solace to an ancient life-form whose thoughts had become sentient creatures bent on destroying the Borg, and then any complex life-form that approached its territory, teaching them in the process that creation is as worthy a goal as annihilation. We’ve barely scratched the surface of former Borg territory and while saving a small group of survivors from a hostile force also learned that the Caeliar transformation extended beyond the drones of the Collective. And a few days ago, we kept the universe from ending trillions of years before its time.”
“I’m not negating your achievements by looking realistically at the costs associated with them,” Kathryn insisted.
“You’re thinking like an admiral and not like a starship captain.”
“What does that mean?”
“You didn’t join Starfleet to maintain the status quo. You joined to explore. The problem with focusing on the whole board is that it forces you to draw lines that don’t truly exist. You want us on the front lines of the rebuilding effort. I’m saying the universe we inhabit got bigger over the last ten years. We’re the front line now, Kathryn. It’s not about the Alpha Quadrant anymore. It’s about the galaxy. We can do more good for the Federation out here than we ever could at home by simply acknowledging that we are part of something much bigger than the planets that form our union. We don’t get to pretend anymore that the Alpha and Beta Quadrants are the only areas that matter or that can strike at us whenever they please. We must move beyond our desire to live long and safe lives, even in the face of all we’ve lost, because our mission, our duty, to continually push the boundaries of our knowledge is what makes Starfleet worth serving and the Federation worth sustaining. This,” he said, taking both her hands in his and squeezing them gently, “is who we are. This is what we do. This is what makes my death, your death, and the deaths of so many we loved worth bearing.”
Kathryn lowered her gaze to their tangled hands and tenderly brushed her lips against his fingers. After a few quiet moments she said, “You’ve resigned from Starfleet not once but twice, and now you’re defending its deepest ideals?”
“I see what it is, and what it can be. I’m ready to spend the rest of my life, and to lose it if necessary, making sure it rises to the new challenges now before it. For most of our lives together, we struggled with one impossible task: to get home. What I know now that I didn’t know then is that we are home.”
“I love you,” Kathryn said simply.
“I like hearing you say that.” Chakotay smiled.
“Good,” Kathryn replied, resettling herself beside him, “because if we do this, we do it together.”
“Get some sleep,” he urged her as he pulled himself up and swung his legs over the side of the bed.
“Where are you going?” she demanded.
“I need to finish a letter.”
“Now? To whom?”
“My sister,” he replied. “I just realized what I needed to tell her.”
“I’m so glad I could be of assistance,” Kathryn grumbled.
“Sleep,” he ordered her.
“Aye, sir,” she replied, then warned, “And if you’re not back in this bed in fifteen minutes . . .”
“You’ll what?”
“You want to start out your first day under a really cranky new admiral of the fleet?”
“No, ma’am,” he assured her.
Certain that the serenity descending on her could exist only where she had made peace with her choice, Kathryn Janeway closed her eyes, and slept.
Acknowledgments
H
eather Jarman bears more responsibility than usual this time around, and not just because of her work with many of the characters that appear here or are referenced from her contribution to the Star Trek: Voyager—String Theory trilogy. Bringing this story into shape without her patient suggestions would never have happened. Finding the strength to persevere throughout one of the most arduous creative endeavors I have ever attempted is also a testament to the bravery with which she confronts every aspect of her life.
Mark Rademaker was, once again, invaluable and has my sincere gratitude. In addition, Christopher Bennett was his typical generous self with all manner of time travel tech and his creation of the Eridian vault.
I remain grateful as well to have been asked once again to take Voyager’s characters a little further on their journey by the good folks at Pocket Books.
The confidence to even attempt this one came largely from my favorite editor of all time, Marco Palmieri. Equally significant was the patient commiseration of my fellow writers, Dayton Ward, Kevin Dilmore, David Mack, and David R. George III, and the former editor of Star Trek Magazine, Paul Simpson.
My family and friends continue their support from afar. I’ve seen too little of all of them this year, and that’s not their fault. Maura and Lynne remain my anchors as I seem to move daily through ever-shifting water.
My husband, David, lost me for six months to nights of constant writing. His sacrifices have not gone unnoticed, nor have the love and devotion he continues to lavish upon me. My daughter, Anorah, fills my days with the light that makes the long nights of work bearable.
I cannot help but fear that some will see this story as a failure of nerve, and others, most unwisely, as a vindication of the narrow constraints they would see put upon all Trek literature. Neither is true. This story, as much as those we have told up to this point, required telling. My greatest comfort lies in the fact that ultimately, I was the one chosen to tell it.
About the Author
Kirsten Beyer, in addition to Star Trek: Voyager: The Eternal Tide, is the author of its immediate predecessors, Star Trek: Voyager: Full Circle, Star Trek: Voyager: Unworthy, and Star Trek: Voyager: Children of the Storm; the last Buffy book ever, One Thing or Your Mother; Star Trek: Voyager: String Theory—Fusion; the Alias APO novel Once Lost; and she contributed the short story “Isabo’s Shirt” to the Distant Shores anthology, as well as the short story “Widow’s Weeds” to Space Grunts.
Kirsten appeared in Los Angeles productions of Johnson over Jordan, This Old Planet, and Harold Pinter’s The Hothouse, which the L.A. Times called “unmissable.” She also appeared in the Geffen Playhouse’s world premiere of Quills and has been seen on General Hospital and Passions, among others.
Kirsten has undergraduate degrees in English literature and theater arts, and a master of fine arts from UCLA. She is currently working on her first original novel.
She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, David, and their daughter, Anorah.
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ISBN 978-1-4516-6818-6
ISBN 978-1-4516-7324-1 (ebook)
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Star Trek: Voyager - 041 - The Eternal Tide Page 41
