Caretaker - L. A. Graf [4]
Tuvok consulted his readings once more. "Unknown." As Chakotay squeezed in behind him, Torres as close on his heels as she could be without actually touching him, the Vulcan pointed to something incomprehensible among his readouts. "Now there appears to be a massive displacement wave moving toward us."
Chakotay shot a look out the viewscreen, seeing nothing but plasma turmoil, then turned in frustration to the swarm of scientific figures and the blur of formless white steadily obscuring them as it flowed onto the screen. "Another storm?"
Tuvok shook his head. "It is not a plasma phenomenon. The computer is unable to identify it."
"Put it onscreen."
The plasma storm swirling and raging beyond the forward viewscreen rippled and bled, peeling away from itself as the image projected there shifted to a new angle off the rear of the little craft. Chakotay felt his throat tighten at the thick wall of coruscating destruction that chewed its way through the storm behind them.
"At current speeds," Tuvok reported placidly, "it is going to intercept us in less than thirty seconds."
And eat us alive. Chakotay swung away from the weapons console to throw himself at the helm. "Anything left in those impulse generators, B'Elanna?" he called back to Torres as he slipped into the seat.
She already struggled with her damaged equipment, growling profanities at whatever her console told her. "We'll find out."
"It is still exceeding our speed," Tuvok interjected.
Chakotay didn't bother acknowledging. "Maximum power."
"You've got it," Torres replied.
But even as the craft lurched forward, he could feel the wave roiling toward them--like the stinging kiss of too-near fire, or the brush of an owl's wing as it dove toward someone's death in the night. Not like this, he prayed. After everything we've been through, everything we've dreamed, please don't let us lose our lives like this!
"The wave is continuing to accelerate." A rhythmic pinging underscored the Vulcan's deep voice as he counted off the seconds. "It will intercept us in eight seconds... five..."
Chakotay locked his feet around the chair's base again, his hands frozen on the panel, but unable to command any more speed from the ruined craft.
Not like this!
Sirens first, then screams, then the groan of tortured metal. He clenched his teeth, wished he could close his ears, damning the Federation for their ill-thought treaty, damning the Cardassians for chasing them in here, damning whatever explosion of nature now chased them, slammed them, clawed them, ripped them open like a rotten fish until the ship streamed its viscera a molecule wide into forever, into nowhere, into nothingNot like this not like this not like--!
Chapter 1
"Captain Kathryn Janeway, this is Auckland Control. You are now cleared for landing at Federation Penal Settlement, Landing Pad Three."
Blinking her attention back to the present, Janeway reached for the comm toggle with no conscious decision to do so, directed by instinct and habit when fatigue wouldn't allow her much else to go on. "Janeway to Auckland Control, roger. Landing approach at one-three-one-mark-seven."
"Roger, Janeway," the bright New Zealand voice on the other end of the channel replied. "Enjoy your stay."
She set about the business of guiding her slim shuttle past the island's rugged mountains without dignifying the Kiwi's sarcasm with a reply.
The sheer greenness of New Zealand's North Island reached up through the clean ocean air to hug Janeway's heart with warmth.
As temperate and mild a place as San Francisco was, it was still penciled on the coastline in shades of minty gray. Fog and rock and juniper, not mountains, trees and snow like the wild panorama galloping below her. It seemed a shame to waste such beauty on felons. No matter how hard she tried to tell herself that even criminals were humans, deserving of certain dignities and rights, she couldn't quite divest herself of the belief that incarceration for serious