Myriad Universes - Infinity's Prism Part 14

"We may find opportunities in unexpected places. One thing we learned in the Maquis was patience. When fighting a superior foe, pus.h.i.+ng relentlessly forward is suicide. You have to take your time, wait for your opportunities, strike, and retreat."

"And just sit and watch, hoping the winner of the war is weak enough to take?"

"We don't have to rely on their weakness. We can build our own strength. We've met other species that could be allies-the Nezu, the Mikhal, the Vostigye. Plus species like the Voth and the Nyrians who possess powerful technologies."

She almost chuckled. "And who'd be very unlikely to work with us."

"But they'd have to, once the Borg or Species 8472 came this way. Common enemies have bred unlikely allies before." He smirked. "You're the one proposing an alliance with the Borg. How is this any more radical?"

Janeway gazed out the window for a long time. "I've already told Tom Paris to set course for the nearest Borg vessel. I'm not prepared to rescind that order just yet. But...maybe I do need to consider another alternative."

"That's all I can ask."

Janeway smiled and clasped his shoulder. "We agreed we'd make this decision together. I'm always grateful for your input. It's good to know...I'm not alone."

Kathryn Janeway had a dilemma.

Privately, she was willing to concede that Chakotay had been right-not necessarily about his proposal, but about her undue, sleep-deprived haste in proceeding with her own plan. She was willing to gather more information, perhaps extend some feelers to friendly local powers, before making her final decision.

But she had already given the order to seek out the Borg. True, it was a captain's prerogative to change her orders without explanation. But in a situation like this-with an order like this-she couldn't risk appearing arbitrary or capricious. The crew had to be able to trust in her decision-making process-even when she knew it had been flawed.

So she had ordered Tom to execute that course toward the Borg, but more tentatively than she had planned. They would drop to sublight at some distance and gather intelligence before proceeding. Perhaps they would uncover some information that would give her a reason to order a retreat-or to proceed with her original plan. At worst, perhaps they would have time to hash out a compromise that she and Chakotay could both be happy with.

But mere minutes after they arrived at the scanning coordinates, sheltered behind a large ice dwarf in the Oort cloud of a system with three Borg-occupied planets, the decision was rendered moot. "A quantum singularity has appeared thirty thousand kilometers from the outermost planet," Tuvok reported. The singularities were the termini of the wormholes the Species 8472 aliens used to travel to and from their own universe. "A bios.h.i.+p has emerged and is heading directly toward the planet."

Janeway watched the tactical display on the viewer as three Borg cubes engaged the bios.h.i.+p and were struck by its fire. "The Borg s.h.i.+elds are weakening," Tuvok said.

"Captain," Tom reported. "There are nine more bios.h.i.+ps coming out of the singularity."

The nine extracosmic vessels closed on the planet, taking up a rosette formation, with the largest s.h.i.+p in the center, as the first bios.h.i.+p ran interference. "The outer s.h.i.+ps are transmitting energy to the one in the middle," B'Elanna Torres narrated from the operations console, filling in for Harry. "The power buildup is...off the scale. But it looks a lot like the energy signature of a Xindi planetkiller."

Janeway's head shot around. "A strong-force reversal field?"

"I think so, Captain."

"It is now firing," said Tuvok. Without further comment, he switched the viewer to visual. Even at this range, it was possible to see what happened next.

But Janeway knew what would happen without needing to see it. The gravitational energy that bound a planet together was immense and difficult to overcome; to disintegrate the Earth, for example, by conventional means would require concentrating the Sun's entire energy output onto the planet for a week. But a reversal field could turn a planet's own energy against it. The strong force that bound atomic nuclei together was immensely more powerful than gravitation. Reverse it so that it repelled instead of attracting...

The dark, metallic orb on the viewscreen began to glow, livid orange cracks and volcanic pustules spreading across its surface. Moments later, its molten mantle blew outward, its particles compelled by the spreading reversal field to escape one another at all costs. The Borg s.h.i.+ps fled, motivated by a similar centrifugal imperative, but those too close to the planet were shattered by the expanding cloud of debris.

Janeway almost felt sympathy for them. Borg or not, there had been billions of living beings on that planet-and most of them had been people once. Still, she quashed her reflexive impulse to hail the survivors and offer a.s.sistance, knowing that it would probably draw unwelcome attention.

But there were other ways to draw the outsiders' attention. "Kes to Captain!" came the call from sickbay. "They sense my presence. They know we're here! And they're coming to destroy us!"

"Tom, get us the h.e.l.l out of here! Maximum warp!" The last time a bios.h.i.+p had attacked them, it had not followed them into warp.

This time they were not so lucky. "The first bios.h.i.+p is on a pursuit course," Tuvok reported.

"Just one? That's a relief," said Paris. "I'd hate to have to take on the other nine and that wave-motion gun of theirs." Janeway a.s.sumed the weapon description was another of Tom's obscure twentieth-century cultural allusions.

"The other s.h.i.+ps remain on course for the second planet in the system," Tuvok replied.

Chakotay whirled. "You mean those s.h.i.+ps have enough power to blow up two whole planets? Even three?"

"There is no way to be certain unless we remain to find out, Commander. I, for one, am content to remain ignorant just this once."

Janeway traded a smirk with Chakotay. Though he'd deny it even under torture, Tuvok had a scathing, dry wit and was not above dropping a zinger to break the crew's tension. Janeway reflected on just how fond she was of the man.

Then the first blast from the bios.h.i.+p hit them and everything lurched. "Warp field destabilizing!" Kenneth Dalby called from the engineering station.

B'Elanna Torres, still at ops, barked instructions across the bridge and worked with her fellow ex-Maquis engineer to stave off the field collapse, while Janeway ordered Tuvok to return fire. But both efforts proved futile, the next blast forcing a convulsive return to normal s.p.a.ce. According to Tuvok's report a moment later, even the residual energy not absorbed by the warp field was enough to knock the s.h.i.+elds down by a third.

"Paris, evasive!" Janeway ordered. It was their best chance. Voyager was badly outgunned, but she was built for maneuvering and had a barnstormer at the helm. Tom danced the s.h.i.+p around like he was skywriting in Bajoran, and she could swear he was grinning. But the bios.h.i.+p kept up with him, its quick reaction times making Janeway wonder if the vessel itself was a living animal chasing down its prey. More blasts connected, the energy sufficient to arc over circuit breakers and blow out system after system.

"s.h.i.+elds at eight percent!" Tuvok announced, as though it made a difference. Janeway could see Tom's free hand calling up scan data, his eyes searching for a micronebula, a rogue gas giant, anything in this interstellar void that they could hide in.

But there was nowhere to run. Janeway took her seat and held on tight. "All hands, brace for-"

Impact! The world turned upside down, toppled her onto the hard deck. The roaring and groaning from the bowels of the s.h.i.+p nearly deafened her.

"Critical damage in engineering!" Dalby cried. "My G.o.d, they've severed the starboard nacelle!"

Torres set the viewscreen to show the nacelle as it tore free, blasted from below. The warp plasma within the nacelle ignited, blowing it apart and driving the collector a.s.sembly at its prow forward like a bullet.

Directly for the bridge.

"Evacua-" Janeway began. But then her universe convulsed again, the sound of it driving all thought from her mind. All except the memory of what she saw as the whole starboard side of the bridge crumpled inward, pinning Tuvok between the wall and his console, crus.h.i.+ng him instantly. His eyes met hers for a split second, conveying his apologies for such a gross failure of discipline as dying while on duty.

Then the overpressure shock hit her, the air itself turning against her as the collapsing bridge compressed it inward. It knocked her down, mercifully sparing her the sight of Dalby's fate as the wall of Janeway's ready room collided with his spine. The pressure sent icepicks through her eardrums and into her brain, and her head rang like a gong. She could barely hear the groaning sound from overhead, or Tom Paris's warning cry of "Captain!"

But then Paris was kneeling over her, pulling her up by the shoulders and shoving her back into Chakotay's arms-back out of the path of the ceiling support beams that had been about to collapse upon her-that he had instinctively sought to s.h.i.+eld her from with his body, and that now smashed him to the deck.

"Tom!" cried Torres, rus.h.i.+ng out from behind ops.

"Man your station, Lieutenant!" Janeway cried. She knew B'Elanna and Tom had been growing closer, even though they hesitated to admit it to themselves. But she needed Torres to focus on preventing the imminent warp core breach that the computer was now alerting them to. "Bridge to sickbay. Medical emergency," she called, but got no response that she could hear over the ringing in her ears. As she knelt by Tom and gauged the extent of his injuries, she doubted it could do much good at this point anyway. She simply clasped Tom's hand as his pulse slowed to a stop, hoping that he could feel it. "Thank you," she whispered just before he went.

"I can't prevent the breach," Torres said, her voice rough. "We've got no warp drive anyway. I'm ejecting the core."

"Try to...to aim it at the bios.h.i.+p," Janeway said. At least it could be a gesture of defiance.

"No thruster control," Torres told her. "Ejecting's about all we can do."

Chakotay had moved over to the science station to scan the area. "The bios.h.i.+p is leaving," he reported. "Long-range scans show...more Borg cubes converging on the system. It must be going back...to engage them."

Janeway looked around the wreck of the bridge-command center for a wreck of a s.h.i.+p, adrift without warp drive, light-years from any star system besides the one the enemy had just obliterated. "Or maybe they consider their mission accomplished," she said bitterly. "Voyager is dead."

2.

"You must turn these...these Voyager people away."

Kyric Rosh tried not to roll his large round eyes at Vitye Megon's imperious statement. He also resisted reminding the orange-furred female that as Subspeaker of the Legislature, she was not in a position to deliver imperatives to the Overminister of the Vostigye Union. Rosh knew she would simply remind him of the large anti-refugee bloc that backed her Preservationist party and might, if he were not careful, throw out his Progressive coalition in the next election.

Instead, he asked her, "Where would they go? You've seen the interviews." He pushed forward the datasheet containing the transcripts recorded after a border patrol vessel had rescued the wrecked vessel's crew, not long before their power and life support would have given out. "They come from the other end of the galaxy. They have no support base and few allies here. And their vessel is probably past salvaging."

"That is exactly my point," Megon told him. "We have reports of these Voyagers from neighboring governments. They have made many enemies: the Etanians, the Nyrians, the Swarm, even the Voth! And now, it seems, this new enemy from another dimension, one even more powerful than the Borg! We must turn them away before they bring these enemies down upon us."

Rosh was finding the urge to make some kind of face at Megon too strong to resist, so he padded over to look out the window. He stroked his tortoisesh.e.l.l fur with the grooming pads on his fingertips in order to give the illusion that he was studying his reflection. Instead, he took in the view that always soothed him: the interior of Kosnelye, the large spherical habitat that served as the Vostigye capital. Vast swaths of blue-green parks and forests, lightly interspersed with s.p.a.cious residential areas, spread before him and up the interior curve of the sphere. Aircars cut across chords of the interior, minimizing the need for ugly roads to break the idyllic scene. Away from the equator, broad terraces rose like gigantic steps, each offering gentler rotational gravity than the ones below. Filtered sunlight shone through the clear dome at the sunward pole, while a ring-shaped star window surrounded the microgravity s.p.a.ceport facility at the dark pole. Through the windows, Rosh could see the smaller agricultural and industrial stations that supported Kosnelye, and beyond them, the cerulean curve of the Birthworld, ringed by the lights of hundreds of other habitat spheres.

But Rosh's eyes were drawn to the low-grav terraces, where many of the offworld refugee populations settled, jockeying for territory with the wealthy elites who appreciated the effects of diminished gravity upon their appearance and health (allegedly, although Rosh did not see the health benefits of allowing fat, lazy elites to get by with less exertion). "We've taken in many who flee from the Etanians, the Tarkan, the Porcion, even the Borg. It has not brought down retaliation."

"None of them offended the whole lot of them at once."

"You exaggerate, Vitye. Voyager offended them merely one at a time. And I don't believe they've met the Porcion."

"Which is lucky for the Porcion, from what I've heard. These are a dangerous people, willing to roll over any who get in the way of their mad quest for a home many octades away. You know they are suspected in the destruction of one of our own science stations!"

Rosh sighed. "Only in the propaganda of the most rabid Preservationists. The a.n.a.lysis confirmed that the station was destroyed by a subs.p.a.ce eddy. Voyager merely informed us of the incident."

"And did not bother to remain nearby for the follow-up investigation. They are arrogant, self-absorbed, unwilling to accommodate disagreement. They will be a disruption to our way of life." She held out a datasheet of her own. "Even now, lying in hospital, their captain makes demands. She wants resources and facilities to repair her derelict s.h.i.+p. She asks us to fight these new enemies they have made. She hasn't even agreed to pay for their treatment, and she wishes to dictate our foreign policy!"

"You know the state covers refugees' emergency medical needs."

"Only if we fail to override your veto, Overminister."

"You don't have the votes."

Megon's muzzle pulled back into a smile. "Throw away more precious Vostigye resources on such disreputable outsiders, and we will."

Rosh turned back to her. That kind of xenophobic drivel warranted an overt glare. "You underestimate the decency of the Vostigye people, Vitye. Not to mention the vigor of our economy. We can afford to show charity to the helpless, outsiders or no."

"You speak of decency, as though taking in refugees by the planetload were a moral act. Refugees who waste resources and despoil the land. Who do not understand the Scripture's words, 'Be thou not overly fruitful, nor multiply beyond what the land can nourish.'"

Rosh sighed. "Words written in the time of the Catastrophe, when our ancestors first migrated out here and had to live in small, limited habitats. We are long past that now," he said, gesturing to the window. "The Vostigye spheres combined have more room than sixty-four planets."

"That s.p.a.ce is carefully allocated. It all serves a purpose."

"Allocated to give the richest of us the largest swaths of land so they may show off how rich they are to have such large swaths of land. They can survive with a little less."

"The people will not accept many more reductions to our standard of living in support of these refugees. Already they threaten our social order, show contempt for our laws and our values."

Rosh sat back behind his desk. "As I recall, Vitye, your people were among the last to leave the Birthworld. For generations, the Gorenye were scorned as criminals and savages, bringers of disease, threats to the Vostigye way of life."

Megon straightened and puffed the crest of stiff red hairs that ran down the middle of her head. "And we rose above that debased state to become true Vostigye, a heritage in which we take justifiable pride. And it is because of that heritage that we can appreciate the true meaning of Vostigye principles and the need to preserve them."

"Don't these refugees deserve the same chance to integrate into our community?"

"They are not Vostigye."

Rosh chuckled. "Your ancestors would've been horrified to hear you call yourself that instead of Gorenye. They believed the genetic divide between your ethnic group and mine was insurmountable. For that matter, so did the people who persecuted them."

Megon shook her head. "My const.i.tuents will not be distracted by history lessons, Overminister. They have had enough of these outsider intrusions. Your speeches about tolerance and decency do not sway them, and you know it. Give in to this Janeway and you lose your mandate." She gave him a smile that came off more as a sneer. "You should appreciate my generosity in even giving you this warning. Many Preservationists would love to see you cut off your own head this way. But I do not wish to see our standard of living suffer more erosion merely to get you out of office. That will come in its own time."

Rosh hid his expression again, for it would be one of defeat. He knew he had to tread gingerly where the Voyagers were concerned. Still, it was the Vostigye way to help those in need, and he would not throw that aside simply because one current political bloc had forgotten it. "I will extend hospitality to Captain Janeway and her crew," he told Megon, "under the same terms as our policy extends it to any refugees. They may live and work among us, but they must give back to the community just as any Vostigye does. They may attempt to repair their s.h.i.+p, but they must pay for the facilities and resources just as any Vostigye would."

Megon appeared somewhat mollified. "And what form would this payment take?"

"They have considerable experience in research, engineering, and stars.h.i.+p operations. They may share that expertise by taking jobs in those fields."

"By taking jobs away from skilled Vostigye."

"There is always room for more skilled personnel in the s.p.a.ce service. There's a great deal of the galaxy left to explore."

Megon's expression grew calculating. "There is more they can offer us in payment. Some of their technologies are...somewhat more sophisticated than our current state of the art."

Rosh nodded, sharing her interest for once. The newcomers were a bit backward in genetics and cybernetics, but possessed faster and more powerful warp drives, reliable teleportation, extraordinarily lifelike photonic-field simulations, and advanced matter replication that put Vostigye synthesis technology to shame. "That is true. However, their captain is proving...resistant on that point. Her people have a directive about sharing technology, it seems."

"Hypocritical," Megon said. "They need our technology to survive. If they can't understand the virtue of a fair exchange, how can they possibly live among us in a way that preserves the balance of our environment, our community?"

"They will be made aware of the terms for our a.s.sistance," Rosh a.s.sured her. "We will see if they can adapt. If not..." He sighed. "Then I suppose you will get your wish." To see them cast out to die in the cold of s.p.a.ce.

Megon smiled in triumph. "Thank you, Overminister. You have chosen wisely."

Politically, yes, he thought as she strode from the room. But at what cost to my principles?

"I won't do it," Janeway insisted. "There has to be another way."

"What way?" Chakotay asked from the couch-if you could call it a couch. Janeway wasn't quite sure how to describe the furnis.h.i.+ngs in these temporary accommodations the local government had provided. The Vostigye had an unusual build, their torsos angled forward and their knees bent, not unlike that mustachioed fellow in the Marx Brothers films that Tom Paris enjoyed-had enjoyed. It was easier on the joints and back in their high native gravity. Luckily, Voyager's crew was being housed in a lower-gravity level of the habitat.

"If we refuse the Vostigye's terms," Chakotay went on, "where do we go? Who else in this region would be as generous to us? The Nezu? The Mikhal? They don't have the resources. And how would we reach them without Voyager?"

"You call this generous?" Janeway countered. "Requiring us to serve in their fleet? Demanding our technology in exchange for their help?"

"They aren't a replicator-based economy, Kathryn. They still rely on money and trade-they can't just give resources away. All they're asking is that we earn our keep. And from some of the rhetoric I've heard from the opposition party, the Overminister is going out on a limb offering even that much. I say we take it and be grateful."

"I'm not willing to take that step, Chakotay. Voyager may be crippled, but she's not dead. I was wrong to say that. As far as I'm concerned, we're still a Starfleet crew, and that means we live by Starfleet principles. I won't give up the Prime Directive just for our convenience. We've lost too much already-we have to hold on to the rest."

She gazed out the window, unmoved by the marvel of engineering that was the Vostigye habitat. All she could see, even three weeks after the fact, was the roster of the dead. Tuvok. Tom Paris. Kenneth Dalby. Lyssa Campbell. Chief Clemens. Joe Carey, Vorik, nearly half the engineering department. Jenny Delaney, whose loss had devastated her twin sister, Megan. Mortimer Harren, whom she'd barely even spoken to in three years and now never would again.

"I'm not convinced this is a Prime Directive situation," Chakotay said. "These aren't the Kazon trying to steal our replicators. The Vostigye have just developed differently than we did. They were forced off their planet early by a geological cataclysm, concentrated on building artificial habitats instead of warp drive. They're behind us in some ways, but they could teach us plenty about environmental engineering and robotics."

"Anything we give them could still affect the balance of power in this region."