Distant Shores - Marco Palmieri [175]
Exhale…
Facedown on the deck plating, Janeway pushed herself off the rubble-covered floor and looked around at what was left of her bridge, helpless to stop the exploding consoles popping and crackling. The acrid smoke stench from burning equipment saturated the air; flames erupted from the computer banks as the warning klaxons sounded. Looking down at herself, she discovered that she was stripped down to her uniform pants and regulation gray tank, her bare arms greasy with scorch and sweat. Each laborious breath barely inflated her lungs, her constricted tissues burning from the effort.
Voyager quaked, reeling from round after round of weapons fire. She glanced at one of the few functioning monitors and saw a starship she didn’t immediately recognize. The small icon in the corner identified the vessel as Krenim. Krenim?
Considering the damage to her ship, whoever commanded that ship clearly had it in for Voyager. A gut instinct told Janeway that she needed to do whatever was necessary to stop that Krenim vessel.
She crawled across the deck toward the captain’s seat. The tremors magnified with each new weapons volley; she struggled to maintain her balance. As soon as she’d pulled herself up onto her chair, another explosion threw her forward. She clung to her armrests, refusing to relinquish her seat of command. Her gaze drawn forward, she discovered that the front half of her bridge hull had been ripped away. A forcefield barely held back the vacuum of space. She had no weapons. Her shield strength amounted to nil.
At a distance, she saw the Krenim vessel.
I’m going to take him down.
Her combadge chirped.
“All our ships have been disabled, Captain. Do you have weapons?”
Tuvok. “Negative,” Janeway said. “Torpedo launchers are down. I’m setting a collision course.” She then ordered Tuvok and the other ships in the fleet to take their temporal shields offline. Maybe we can undo this mess, she thought. Maybe we can start again.
Voyager hurtled toward the Krenim vessel, closer, ever closer with each passing second.
“Time’s… up,” Janeway snarled, bracing for impact.
She felt curiously calm, resolved to accept her inevitable death. A captain should go down with her ship. A chorus of Seska whispers chattered in her mind. Yes, Kathryn. Seek your rest…. Let go.
The Krenim vessel grew larger-and larger still.
Wait a minute-this war with the Krenim isn’t part of my past. I’ve never been here, in this place before. So what am I doing here? Frantically, she searched her recent memories and dreams, scrambling to put the pieces together, seeking to understand what had been happening. Something about her present circumstances felt oddly familiar, and yet she knew that what she experienced right now, in this moment, wasn’t a memory, though it felt all too real. Why was she here? Seek commonalities, Kathryn, between all the unusual experiences you’ve had. Look for the common denominators. The Borg assimilation. Tuvok’s attack. The Nechani ritual to save Kes. This hallucination with the Krenim… and Seska, the dead Cardassian spy who had been haunting her. Over and over again, I’ve relived these life-and-death scenarios. I’ve escaped death in the direst circumstances, and in every instance Seska has been there, taunting, coercing, leading me toward death.
Then she knew the cause of her madness.
Voyager’s nose brushed the hull of the Krenim vessel.
“This isn’t real! I’m not dying! Whoever you are, whatever you are, send me back to the present!” Janeway’s consciousness disconnected, her awareness of her body diminished. She fought for one last breath.
Inhale…
The scene shimmered and rippled like the surface of water. Janeway realized she’d slumped onto the floor of the Borg Queen’s lair. She mustered the strength to raise her eyes one last time-one last time as Kathryn Janeway, not some mindless drone, she amended mentally. The Queen had disintegrated into a heap of twitching cybernetic limbs. At