Twenty seconds to being within range of the homeworld.
Eighteen seconds, seventeen, and it hung there, large and inviting. Its surface was hot, at least 200 degrees Fahrenheit, and it was about to get hotter. The intensity of the heat would serve the planet-killer well. Would put a fire in its belly.
Fifteen, thirteen seconds, and the planet-killer was closer and closer. Eleven seconds…
Nine…
And out of nowhere, there was the obstruction.
“Eight seconds until collision,” Data said tonelessly.
The planet-killer loomed larger and larger on the screen. Picard sat in his command chair, gaze riveted on the approaching instrument of doom.
When he had ordered an intercept course, everyone on the bridge had seen the madness of it. Picard was interposing his ship, and the lives of everyone aboard, between the Tholian homeworld and the oncoming planet-killer.
The Tholians were no friends of the Federation; indeed, they were more terrorists than anything else. They were notorious troublemakers. They had refused to aid in the allied defense mounted months ago at Wolf 359 against the Borg, and indeed had made it clear that they wouldn’t have shed a tear if Earth and the entire Federation had been absorbed by the power of the Borg. In fact, the flagships of the Tholian fleet had been busy threatening the Enterprise before the planet-killer had blown them out of space.
Nevertheless, when Picard had issued the order that would very likely cost them their lives, it had been followed with utter confidence and discipline. Their lives and their dedication had been pledged to Picard, and they would fulfill that no matter what.
If only it weren’t on behalf of the Tholians, Worf thought sourly.
“Seven,” said Data, “six, five…”
Five seconds, and the planet-killer would either smash right through the Enterprise, or unleash its deadly beam to destroy the planet, and the Enterprise would be right in the way and cut to pieces, or the vast maw of the planet-killer, which was fast approaching them, might simply swallow them whole.
Of all the options under consideration, survival didn’t seem to be among them.
Delcara saw, or sensed, or somehow knew, that the Enterprise blocked their path. The ship had been perfectly placed—there was no way to get at the planet without destroying the starship.
“Picard,” she whispered.
He does this to challenge you, cried the Many. He thinks you won’t destroy him. He thinks he will triumph. Kill him. Obliterate him and take the world. The world is ours. We want the world. We hunger for the world.
“But Picard risks his life to save them. That must say something for them,” said Delcara desperately.
It says he is a fool. It says you give your love to a fool instead of us. We want the planet. It’s ours. Give it to us. Give it. Give it!
The Enterprise hung there, glistening, white, a sacrifice.
Give it! cried the Many.
“Picard!” cried the One.
“Three,” said Data.
The Enterprise did not budge.
The doomsday machine did not slow down.
On the bridge of the Chekov, the crew looked on in horror.
“My God, he’s committing suicide,” said Korsmo.
Shelby shook her head desperately. “He must have something. Some trick. Something.”
“Fire phasers!” shouted Korsmo, but they were out of range. They were going to be too late.
“Two,” said Data.
Picard gripped the arms of his chair firmly. Riker’s back stiffened, his bearded chin jutting out defiantly. Troi was at peace. Worf was disappointed that they weren’t firing, even though it was pointless. Data obliquely wondered if, should he survive the impact when the ship was smashed apart, would he then float in space, inseparable from other debris and ignored, but conscious and aware?
“One,” said Data.
They were looking straight down the mouth of the planet-killer. The flames of hell danced deep within it, damned souls welcoming newcomers. The heat was overwhelming, the heat was everywhere…
The heat was gone.
“Son of a bitch,” whispered Korsmo, staring in disbelief. “He’s got to be the luckiest bastard in the cosmos.”
“The planet-killer has veered off,” Data said as calmly as if announcing a routine mid-course correction.
The engine of destruction was heading away from the Enterprise, faster and faster, as if anxious and desperate to put as much distance between itself and the starship as possible. And its course was taking it straight toward—
“The sun. The planet-killer is on a collision course with the Tholian sun,” Data said.
The picture on the viewscreen immediately changed to accommodate the new direction. And there was the planet-killer, dwindling against the fiery face of the Tholian star. Its vastness was nothing compared to the giant sun that it was charging, looking as helpless against the white inferno as the Tholian ships had looked mere moments ago.
“The gravity of the star is pulling it in,” said Data.
Slowly Picard got to his feet, unable to believe what he was seeing. “Delcara,” he whispered.
In the Ten-Forward lounge, Guinan saw and whispered the same thing.
Smaller and smaller it became, and smaller still, and Picard imagined that he could hear screams in his mind, and one of the voices screaming was his. Tractor beams were useless. Everything was useless. She was going to die for some inexplicable, hideous reason, and there was nothing he could do.
A ship that could swallow planets whole looked pitiful and insignificant against the sun, and then it looked like nothing. It plunged, lemming-like, right into the heart of the star, into a furnace with the power and heat of a hundred million nuclear explosions, and vanished.
A silence fell upon the bridge, an awed and somewhat confused hush. Most of the bridge crew sensed that something more had happened here than they could understand.
Picard slowly sank into his command chair as if the air had been let out of him. Troi looked to him with grief and sympathy, but the captain said nothing. He just stared fixedly at the Tholian star, oblivious of all else.
“We are being hailed by the Chekov,” Worf said, uncharacteristically subdued.
Picard didn’t reply, but simply inclined his head slightly. Worf put it on audio, and Korsmo’s voice came on with a brisk, “Picard? You okay?”
“All hands safe here, Captain,” said Picard. Whatever he was feeling, he was internalizing it completely, but he sounded much older. “And yourselves?”
“We’re all sound here. Damned lucky that monster ignored us.”
“That monster,” said Picard, “committed suicide rather than harm this ship. So do not—”
“Captain!” Worf said suddenly.
Picard and Korsmo spoke in unison. “Yes?”
“Sensors are detecting—”
“Oh my God,” came Korsmo’s voice.
And now Picard and the rest of the bridge crew saw it as well.
The planet-killer ripped free from the far side of the sun, undamaged, unslowed. It picked up speed with every passing second, glowing white hot and then cooling as it pulled away from the star, further and further into space, further and further from its pursuers, and within seconds it had leaped into warp space and was gone.
The two starships, and the remaining Tholian ships, sat there in space, as silent as the void that surrounded them. It was finally Korsmo who broke that silence, as his sarcastic voice sounded on the Enterprise bridge.
“Well, Picard,” he asked, “any other bright ideas?”
GRAND FINALE
Chapter Eighteen
The star had been left far behind, but the anger still remained. The Many were furious.
You tried to hurt us, they cried. You tried to kill us!
“No, my children, my loves,” said Delcara, feeling very tired. “I knew that we would survive. I knew that we are great. I knew that our power and strength would enab
le us to survive even the raging heart of a star, for our heart rages far more.”
You risked us rather than the Picard.
“Yes!” said Delcara, her fury brimming over. “Yes, and I would do so again. We are joined, Picard and I, in ways that I can neither explain nor understand. We shall always be together, although fate decrees that we must be apart. And I would not be the instrument of Picard’s destruction. You must accept that.”
We do not like it.
“You do not have to like it,” she told the Many. “But accept it.”
They were silent for a long moment. Is our vendetta not important to you? Is our love not enough for you? they asked. We love you as he never can. He is mortal. He is meat and he will die and rot. We are forever. We can love you forever. The Picard cannot offer that.
“No,” she said softly. “No, he cannot. Mortal love is so transient. If I have learned nothing else in my long life, I have learned that. I have lost so many. Children, mates. So many.”
Not us, Delcara, said the Many. Not us. Not ever. “Not ever,” she said.
Shall we go faster, Delcara? We can go much faster, you know. Faster than even the ships of the Picard could follow. Our upward speed has not been measured. If you wish us to—
“Our present speed is satisfactory,” she said. “We have all the time in the universe, my children. Let us savor the revenge and conserve our resources.”
You do not wish to hurry, accused the Many, their voices becoming shrill once more, because you do not wish to leave the Picard behind.
“Perhaps,” she sighed. “That may well be. If so, it is my desire, and you will honor it, my loved ones. You will honor it.”
We will always do as you wish, Delcara, said the Many. But there was something in their voice that Delcara found disturbing. Something very unpleasant. An ugliness, an unquenchable thirst for revenge that even she felt was disquieting. And perhaps the most disquieting thing about it was that she saw the thirst, more and more clearly, in herself.
Deanna Troi sat across from Reannon Bonaventure in the latter’s stark and functional quarters. She held the woman’s hand in her own and stared deeply into her eyes, looking beyond those eyes, deep into the mind.
“Reannon?” she said softly. “I am beginning to get a sense of you. You are hiding, like a frightened child, afraid to come out. Your soul is a terrified and vulnerable thing, virtually destroyed by the Borg. But you can rebuild it. With love and understanding, you can rebuild. It will take time, but you have that in abundance. It will take support, but you will have that in as great quantities. Come out to me. Reach out to my soul, Reannon. You see it there, calling to you.”
Nothing.
There were footsteps just outside, and Geordi La Forge entered. He paused in the threshold and said, “Sorry, Counselor, I didn’t know you were…I can come back later.”
“No, it’s all right, Geordi,” she said, gesturing for him to enter. “Your presence can only be of benefit.”
He sat down within arm’s reach and shook his head. “Still can’t believe that thing survived cutting right through a star. The radiation, the heat—it’s just incredible.”
“What’s more incredible is that we’re still in pursuit and trying to convince ourselves we can stop it,” said Troi.
He looked up at her. “That sounds surprisingly fatalistic for you, Counselor.”
“There’s a fine line between fatalism and realism, Geordi.”
“Hey, who would have thought that the Tholians would have let us depart from their space without any sort of further challenge? They still can’t believe that the captain risked everything to save their homeworld.” He leaned forward towards Reannon. “Any progress?”
“There was that moment in the engineering room,” said Troi, settling back and trying her best not to look discouraged. “That was a definite breakthrough. But now there’s nothing. It’s as if she’s hiding.”
“I can’t say I blame her entirely,” said Geordi.
“Nor can I. Obviously, she does not wish to face the reality of her memories of the Borg. So she has blocked out everything, rather than deal with it.”
Geordi reached forward, took her hand and brought it up to his face. “This got a reaction out of her before,” said Geordi. “She seemed interested in my VISOR. Maybe she will be again.”
He brought her ice-cold hand up in front of his face, took the tips of her fingers, and ran them across his VISOR. When they reached the end he rubbed them back in the other direction, and all the time he kept saying, “Reannon? Reannon? I know you’re in there. I know I can help you. Reannon?”
Slowly, ever so slowly, her gaze shifted to Geordi and actually seemed to focus on him for a moment.
“Geordi, she’s reacting,” said Deanna in a hushed voice, as if afraid that speaking out loud would somehow break the spell.
Reannon’s fingers closed on the VISOR, and she yanked with all her strength. The VISOR flew off Geordi’s face and the world immediately became blackness around him.
Reannon held the VISOR tightly, and again she started to make sounds, muttering incoherences. Out of a reflexive sense of panic to the darkness that had enveloped him, Geordi La Forge lunged forward, trying to get to the VISOR. He missed completely and fell heavily to the floor.
The ruckus immediately prompted the security guard outside to enter, phaser drawn. “Lieutenant!” he shouted, seeing Geordi on the floor, grasping about desperately.
“No!” cried out Deanna, leaping to her feet and raising her hands as if to ward off a phaser blast. “No, don’t! It’s all right. It’s going to be all right!”
Reannon had turned away, moving quickly but in a very tight circle. And she was trying to shove the VISOR onto her face. She got it on once but it slid off, and she grabbed at it while muttering incoherent, incomprehensible shrieks.
“What’s happening!” called out Geordi. Troi was helping the engineer to his feet, and again the engineer said, “What’s happening? What’s going on? What’s she doing?”
Reannon hesitated for a moment, looking around in confusion, and then, gripping the VISOR with one hand, she started clawing at her eyes with the other. Fortunately, it was the prosthetic hand that was holding the VISOR, because if she’d used that hand to attack her face, she might possibly have done serious damage to herself.
Troi reached forward and grabbed Reannon’s wrist, all the time hushing her and whispering to her to calm down, that everything was going to be all right, that she was among friends. And finally the fit seemed to pass, and Reannon slipped back into the sullen, coma-like attitude that she had had before.
Without a word Troi handed the VISOR back to Geordi, who quickly replaced it on his face. As what passed for the world snapped into view once more, he sighed in relief. “Not damaged,” he said. “That’s a relief. What happened, Counselor?”
“I believe,” said Deanna slowly, “that she was attempting to rip out her own eyes and replace them with a mechanical implement.”
He hung his head. “Trying to re-create herself as a Borg. My God. That’s what she was trying to do, isn’t it.”
“That is my guess,” said Deanna. “And yet, she is of two minds. On the one hand, she tries to recapture her transformation into a Borg. On the other hand,” and Deanna ran her fingers maternally through Reannon’s hair, “she is repulsed by it and tries to deny what happened to her. She is a very tortured individual.”
“But I was sure I was getting through to her,” said Geordi fiercely. “I was so certain.”
Troi looked at him curiously. “This is so important to you, Geordi. More so than I would have suspected. Beyond any of the explanations you gave before. Why? What is it about her that seems to have touched you so?”
He sat there, trying to find a way to put it into words, and ultimately was unable to. “I feel close to her, that’s all. I admire the type of woman she is. Or was. The adventurer. Someone who is totally independent, willing to take on anything. I admi
re her and I respect her and—”
“Do you love her?”
La Forge looked slightly taken aback. “I…don’t think so. I love the opportunity to help her, and I think about…” His voice trailed off a moment and then, softly, he admitted, “I think about her all the time.” Then he drew himself up, squaring his shoulders, and said, “It’s a challenge, that’s all. A project. The same as any other challenging project. I want to help her to feel better. That’s all.”
“If you say so, Geordi,” said Troi neutrally. He glanced at her face and wondered if she was smiling or not.
At that moment both Troi’s and La Forge’s communicators beeped. La Forge tapped his, as Troi did hers. Picard’s voice came over both of them as he said, “I’m calling an immediate conference of all senior officers.”
“What’s happened, Captain?” Troi could instantly sense the controlled distress the captain was feeling.
“Reports from outlying starbases along the frontier,” said Picard. “The Borg are on their way.” He paused. “In force.”
Picard signed off, and Geordi and Troi looked at each other. “They’re obviously determined to destroy the planet-killer,” said Geordi, “before it gets to Borg space.”
“And in a battle between Delcara and the Borg…whose side would we take?” asked Troi.
Geordi chewed his lower lip and finally admitted, “That’s going to be the big question, isn’t it. The big, and maybe final, question.”
Guinan walked slowly down the corridor, not even noticing the crewmembers who walked past her. That was extremely unusual for her, since on those rare occasions when she was noticed moving through the hallways of the Enterprise, she always had a kind word or a polite nod for anyone who passed her. Now, though, she was clearly preoccupied.
She stopped in front of a holodeck door and paused, as if considering her options. The ship was still on yellow alert, so no crew members were busy living out some sort of amusing fantasy through the Enterprise holo-technology. Guinan composed herself and walked in.