Lost Time (8 page)

Gomez raised a hand. “Wait a sec, let’s think this through. This whole thing started when they activated that device—111 says that they think the Hebitians left it as a beacon of some sort. Whoever can access it supposedly can use it to find the wormhole. Well, what if they’re right? First, you access micro-black holes; you establish a coherent datastream to a parallel realm, or you find the region of space most vulnerable to gravimetric inversion.”

“In theory,” said Conlon. “Okay. But if we give them the coordinates and then we, I dunno, disconnect Soloman, how do we know we’ve picked the right
side?
”

“You ever hear of Pandora’s box?” asked Gomez. “Well, it’s open.
They
know we’re here.
We
know what they’re looking for. From what it sounds like, they’re running out of time. What incentive do they have to turn the thing off?”

“None.”

“Right. If they don’t stop, things don’t get better here. Seems pretty cut and dried to me.” Gomez looked at them all in turn. “We tell them.”

“Once you tell them, you can’t take it back,” said Conlon.

“I know that.” Gomez looked over at Nog. “Do it.”

“The Denorios Belt?” Kira frowned. “No one goes there. It’s a mess: high-energy plasma, neutrino storms, tachyon bursts. I’ve always assumed a wormhole would have to be in a stable, less kinetically energetic region of space. Best place for that is a black hole.”

“Well, guess again,” said Kane.

“But maybe that’s the point, Captain,” said Gomez. “The Denorios Belt we know about is pretty hot, right? Think about it. The Remans use a quantum singularity for their warp drive. To do that, they fuse material and create energy. In theory, you concentrate enough mass and energy you create the
conditions
for a wormhole by deforming space-time sufficiently to open it. Think of it as breaking down a gated door. The wormhole is there but closed off.”

“You mean, input enough energy to bind all that plasma together, or maybe just a sizable chunk?” Duffy stroked the side of his chin with his thumb. “Well, theoretically, we could do it.”

“How?” asked Gold and Kira at the same time.

“We generate a massive pulse of combined anti-chroniton and tetryon particles, then follow with a spread of photon torpedoes. The release of that much energy ought to be siphoned off by the denser tetryons, resulting in a collapse of matter into a highly compressed, dense mass and concomitant release of SEM gamma rays.”

Kane rolled her eyes. “What the hell did that mean?”

“It means we can do it,” said Gold. “Except there are only a couple problems.” He ticked them off on his fingers. “One, all that plasma, we’ll be lucky we don’t go up with it. Second, we don’t know if this isn’t what the Androssi want us to do.”

“Why would they allow us to steal a device that would tell us the location of a wormhole and not keep it for themselves?” asked Dax. She looked to be spoiling for another fight. “Clearly—”

“Clearly, because they don’t want to get themselves blown to smithereens for no good reason,” said Gold. “Ever think of that? We sure as hell know that the Cardassians aren’t telepathic, and maybe the Androssi aren’t either. So they needed us—specifically, they needed the Bynars—to find it for them.” He looked at Kira. “I told you: Taking this thing was too easy.”

Kira searched his face. “You think they’re waiting to ambush us.”

“They’ll want all the glory. That’s what this is about. They know that if the religious sect delivers the wormhole, the treaty has no chance of being ratified. But if the Cardassians find the wormhole, then the religious sect drops their objections. So how I think it goes down is like this. We find the wormhole; we open it, or we start to—or maybe the Cardassians and Androssi have their own plans for how to open it, I don’t know—and then we get blown into subatomic particles. The Cardassians won’t want anyone slipping away, or getting a transmission out to contradict their story.”

“There’s another problem, Captain,” said Gomez. The color had drained from her face; her skin was white as bone china. “Even if we survive the initial explosion, the shock waves might rip the ship apart.”

“And if we somehow managed to live through
that,
there’s going to be a lot of gamma radiation out there, enough to penetrate shields in a matter of minutes,” said Duffy. “No matter how you cut it, it’s a suicide mission.”

“Some things are worth dying for,” said Dax.

“Yeah,” said Gold, and his eyes slid to Kira in a side-long glance. “There’s a lot of that going around.”

Kira returned the look. “The Denorios Belt is far enough from Bajor and Terok Nor that it would take the Cardassians or the Androssi several minutes to reach us.”

“Assuming they aren’t waiting for us. Assuming there aren’t patrols.”

“Okay, then,” Kira said. “We wouldn’t have much time. One of us would have to discharge the pulse while the other fends off whoever comes after us. But it can be done.”

“Care to lay odds on that?”

“No.”

“Me neither.” Gold planted his fists on his hips. He sighed. “Man, oh, man, this just keeps getting better and better.”

“In truth, we’d need another ship to have a real shot at this,” said Kira. “But there’s no one close enough.”

“Well,” said Gold. “That’s not entirely accurate.”

“Will they do it?” asked Conlon.

“I don’t know,” said Nog.

“They have the information they wanted. They’ll have to decide how to use it, but that’s not our fight. My guess, though, is they’re committed now,” said Gomez. She palmed a small hypospray in her right hand, knelt, pressed the tip to Soloman’s suit along his forearm, thumbed the hypospray to life and then settled back on her haunches to wait. “And so are we.”

They’d forgotten all about the Bynar, and so it was a shock when 111 raised her voice in a keening wail.

It was Gold who reacted first. Kneeling beside the Bynar, he covered her tiny hands with one of his. The sight of her tears touched his heart with pain and an ancient grief that was somehow always fresh, like a wound that never healed. “111?” he asked, gently.

“He is gone, Captain,” she said. Then she turned, buried her face in Gold’s chest and wept like a small child. “He is gone.”

Gold didn’t have to look for 110’s life-signs on the biobed monitors because he knew, instinctively, which “he” she meant. “Is he dead?”

“No, but he is…one again. They have chosen for him. But how will he live, Captain?” 111 said. “How
can
he?”

Gold swallowed against the lump in his throat, and then he motioned for Kane to deactivate the ancient device. They had what they needed—and he knew what he, and only he, must do.

They have chosen for
him.

“Because he will,” Gold said. “He’ll just have to.”

T
ugging on the tails of his lavishly embroidered tunic, Gul Garak activated his holomirror and twisted this way and that, admiring the view. The cut of the tunic was exquisite; the fabric shot through with latinum thread and encrusted with living gemstones: a little-known treasure found in ancient Hebitian tombs. As he watched, the gemstones splayed delicate, lacy fingers, bleeding color along the fabric the way a spider spins a web.

“I’m happy,” Garak said, and he was exceedingly pleased when the gemstones responded and colored to amber. Then he imagined his Bajoran comfort woman slowly unfastening her sheer, gauzy tunic at its right shoulder and the look of the tunic slithering over the points of her breasts to the swell of her hips…and watched as the gemstones shaded to a deep blood-red so vibrant it seemed to pulsate.

So that is the color of arousal. Very nice. But I wonder what shade they will turn when that treaty is signed?
He glanced at a chronometer.
Well, only a few hours left until I find out.

His intercom clamored for his attention. “Yes, Lieutenant?”

“Zotat has reported in, Gul Garak.”

“And?”

“There are two vessels headed for the Denorios Belt—and, sir, one is the
Gettysburg.”

“Very well. Tell Zotat to contact me the moment that he either determines the coordinates of the wormhole, or the wormhole has opened and been secured.” Then Garak thought of something. “And, Lieutenant, relay this: Zotat may do as he wishes with the other vessel. It is of no consequence. But tell him that I want the
Gettysburg.
” Garak looked into his mirror, and his reflection gave him a dark and malevolent grin. “Yes, tell Zotat: I want Gold.”

Clicking off, Garak then stepped back to admire his reflection—and the color of victory.

“There it is,” said Wong. If he was anxious, his voice didn’t betray it. “Six thousand meters dead ahead. The Denorios Belt, sir.”

“Slow to one-quarter impulse. McAllan, Cardassians?”

“None detected, sir.”

“What about Androssi?” Privately, Gold didn’t believe that Garak would let the Androssi in on the kill. The Cardassians would want all the credit. The Androssi were simply their go-tos.

McAllan took another second to double-check, then said, “Negative. It would seem the belt is unguarded, Captain.”

“Like Kira said, it’s a lot of space. But they’re going to come running in a hurry.” Gold balanced on the balls of his feet, too keyed up to sit in his command chair. “Salek, what’s your status up there?”

“All nonessential personnel have moved from the outer hull, Captain. Escape pods are prepped. Shuttlecraft
Templar
is standing by. We are ready to proceed at your command.”

“Good. Haznedl, raise the
Li.
”

“On audio, sir.”

“Kira, this is Gold. You ready?”

Her voice was steady and betrayed nothing.

“Ready as we’re ever going to be. This is one risky plan, David.”

“I could say something apropos like risk is our business.”

“Please, don’t. What about my chief engineer?”

“We’ll get him back to you.”

“Then, as they say on Earth, bring it on.”

“You’re going to wish you hadn’t said that.” Gold gave a short nod then tapped his combadge. “Engineering, Gomez. How are you and Duffy doing?”

“We’re just about there, Captain. We’ve had to reroute power from the backup phaser generators through the deflector grid. I’ve tied in an emergency relay from the shields just in case.”

“Our shields? You’re telling me that it might come down to a choice between that deflector, and shields?”

“No choice, sir. We’re talking one big pulse.
”

“How much time to charge the deflector?”

“Once we’re in position, about sixty seconds.”

“A lot can happen in sixty seconds.”

“Best we can do, Captain. We’ve got another problem, though. Our last run-in damaged our torpedo launchers. I had to reroute the launch assist generators, but it’s jury-rigged. It won’t hold up for long.”

“They may not have to. Do what you can. Haznedl, signal the
Li.
Feliciano, when Duffy’s ready, beam him back aboard the
Li.
” Gold pulled in a breath. “All right, people, this is it.”

“Almost there,” said Duffy. His hair was mussed; he was covered in grime and there were crescents of dirt under his nails; and he was sweating so much his tunic was glued to his back. They’d been working at breakneck speed and barely had time to exchange two paragraphs that didn’t contain the words
containment field, magnetic oscillation,
and
anti-chronitonic stream.

Duffy thought back to the moments after Kane had deactivated that…whatever it was. Hebitian, Cardassian, Bajoran, or something else altogether: He didn’t know, and wondered if now they ever would. 110 had awakened, finally; 111 had calmed, but there was a haunted look in her eyes: as if she’d been privy to a vision of a world Duffy couldn’t begin to imagine.

Yet what he
hadn’t
imagined was the look on Captain Kira’s face after she and Salek and Jadzia Dax had emerged from Gold’s ready room. Why the Trill had been included, Duffy hadn’t a clue, but there was a preternatural glitter to her eyes that Duffy didn’t like. Nor did he know what had transpired, but whatever it was had clearly left Kira shaken and her lips so thinned they cut a horizontal gash above her chin. True to form, Salek was a cipher. But when Gold finally emerged, he had the thunderous look of a black, brooding storm.

Yeah, and I can guess why: because we’re all going to get ourselves killed chasing after some Trill’s hallucinations.

Duffy hadn’t spent much time around Dax, not enough to really understand everything about this religion she was so hot about. There had been rumors, of course; Kira’s ship was a standard Bajoran assault vessel, with a crew complement that was barely a tenth of the
Gettysburg.
Word traveled fast. Duffy was one of four officers on loan from Starfleet. His shipmates were Bajorans, not all religious but none with any love for the Cardassians. Duffy listened to their gripes in the mess; his roommate was an agnostic, but even
he
saw no utility to allying themselves to a power that would, in effect, shackle them with latinum chains. They saw the Federation as more benevolent in its way.

So we leave them to manage their wealth and affairs as they see fit, but one hand washes the other. We get rid of the Cardassians and give them their gods, and the Federation gets resources it needs to push the Cardassians back.

Yet for all the unknowns, it was Dax who scared him the most. She was so…
intense,
so certain that hers was the correct path and there could be no other. Perhaps part was this Orb thing; Duffy guessed if he’d been in touch with something calling itself the Almighty, maybe he’d be a bit intense himself.

Looking down, he said, suddenly, “Do you believe in fate?”

“What?” Sprawled at his feet, Sonya Gomez was cantilevered on her side, a spanner in one hand, a warp calibration meter in the other. Her hair had frizzed from perspiration and there was a smear of something suspiciously like Heplart grease on her right cheek. She had never looked more beautiful. “What do you mean?”

“Do you believe in fate?”

“Why are you asking?”

“I’m curious.”

“Well,” she said, turning back to her work, “I think that some things are fated to happen no matter what you do about it. Sun going nova, that kind of thing. There are certain fundamentals to the universe I can’t change because, you know, the universe doesn’t care. It’ll kill you a thousand ways to Sunday, you give it half a chance.”

“Well, we are cheery.”

“You asked. Given what we’re about to do, it’s kind of appropriate, don’t you think?”

“Yeah. Goes almost without saying. But I meant people—do you think that our lives are scripted somehow so that no matter what, you can’t change your destiny?”

She sat up now. Her dark eyes searched his face. “111 really got you spooked.”

“Yeah. It’s weird. Knowing there are an infinite number of Kieran Duffys just as there are a million Sonya Gomezes. But I can’t imagine loving anyone
but
you, right here, right at this moment, in this reality.”

“Then that’s what you’ll have to hang on to.”

“But if I knew what was going to happen, would whatever I did be worth the cost? Is this?” He gestured with a hand to include the warp core, engineering, the ship. “Is a religion I don’t practice, people I really don’t know…are any of these things worth dying for?”

Gomez carefully put her spanner in a nearby tool kit and squared her warp recalibration meter alongside. Then she pushed to her feet, brushed grit from her hands and slipped her arms around his waist. “I don’t think we can judge the value of an individual mission. We have no idea what will happen to Bajor or the Federation if we succeed. But we do know that the Federation’s not getting any stronger, and the Cardassians are. I don’t know about you, but I care about my freedom, and real freedom means you choose. I choose the Federation, and the rest will have to work itself out. I remember when I was a kid. I read Milton: not all that ruling in hell part but the idea behind it. About the freedom to choose. If you really read it carefully, Satan had a choice, and he chose to rule rather than serve. Everyone always assumes that meant he made the
wrong
choice. But he didn’t. He made the best choice for him. The one thing Milton never confused was choice and happiness. So just because you have freedom of choice doesn’t mean that you’re fated to live happily ever after.”

“So how do we know this is the right choice?”

“We don’t. It’s just the best one for now.”

“Yeah, but—” Duffy was interrupted by a hail. “Duffy, here.”

“Feliciano, Commander. You’re needed aboard the
Li.”

“Just a sec.” Suddenly, he was filled with an overwhelming flood of panic that made his mouth go dry. There were so many things he wanted to say; he was full to bursting of things he’d never said and thought that, probably, were way too many to start now. “Okay, look, Sonnie—you got to watch that antimatter mix when you initiate the magnetic field to channel the tetryon particles.”

She quirked an eyebrow at his sudden shift. “I’ll watch it.”

“And the anti-chronitons, you got to remember that the field’s got to oscillate to contain—”

She put her fingers to his mouth. “I’m on it, Kieran. It’ll be okay.”

“God.” Duffy took her hand in both of his and pressed it to his lips in a kiss. He thumbed grease from her face then cupped her cheek. “What I really mean is—why do I keep having this feeling that I’m never going to see you again?”

Gomez tried a smile, but it came out crooked. “Because you’re a cockeyed optimist?”

“Yeah,” said Duffy. He gave a breathy laugh and squeezed her in a bear hug. Amazingly, her hair still felt like silk against his face and he breathed her in, stamping her scent and the feel of her body, warm and alive, into his brain. “I’m scared for you.”

He felt her nod against his chest. “I’m scared for us both,” she said, her voice muffled. Then she looked up, and her dark eyes glistened. “But I love you, Kieran Duffy, and I…” She took his face and gave him a ferocious kiss that left him breathless. “And you want to know about fate? Well, this is
ours:
Yes.”

“Yes. Yes…what?” Then, as he understood: “
Yes?
Did you say…?”

“Yes,” she said, with a smile that broke his heart. Then she patted his combadge and stepped out of the circle of his arms. “Feliciano, beam Commander Duffy back to the
Li.
”

She saw Duffy reach for his pocket. “Wait, I have to gi—” Duffy began, but then there was a swirl of light; Duffy’s form broke apart; and he was gone.

“Save it for the next time I see you,” whispered Sonya Gomez. The tears she’d held back rolled down her cheeks. She didn’t bother brushing them away. “Because, yes, I will see you, my love. Yes.”