Distant Shores - Marco Palmieri [178]
She could start over.
In a horrifying moment of clarity, Janeway knew. The past, present, and future aligned so she could see them all with perfect understanding.
“No,” she said, firmly, to Admiral Paris. “I’ll go to the Badlands and look for Tuvok because that is what I’m meant to do.” She pushed back from the com panel and tilted her face to the ceiling, calling to whatever malevolent creature had put her back in this place. “You’re wrong you know, this isn’t the moment where I want to be forever! Send. Me. BACK!”
A stab of pain cleaved her body; Janeway grabbed for the edge of the desk, struggling to maintain consciousness as her vision convulsed and a grating buzz filled her mind. Unable to remain standing, she collapsed to her knees, then the floor….
Inhale…
Superimposed against the smoking consoles and machinery of the Borg cube, the alien stood before his matrix of churning red and yellow flame.
“I could have given you what you longed for,” he said.
Glancing up at the viewscreen, Janeway watched Voyager elude the cube’s attack. She calculated how long she’d have before the Borg uni-complex would be incinerated and waited a long moment before saying, “I already have it.”
He raised a mocking eyebrow, shook his head, and said “Foolish, foolish creature.” Then, turning his back to her, he vanished into the swirling vortex, which slowly dissipated, diminishing to nothing before her eyes.
Good riddance, she thought weakly. Out of the corner of her eye she watched Voyager soar into the Borg cube’s interior as a protection from the explosions. She knew that Voyager had survived and, more important, had made it home.
A wheeze escaped her throat and she coughed. Her body was giving up. At least her demise felt a little less like a whimper and a little more like a triumph, though no one was around to witness it.
She sensed the impending explosion only milliseconds before it happened. Time to go. Smiling weakly, she relaxed, drifted toward brisk October twilight, burnished copper around the edges and smelling like moldering leaves and smoke. And then the voices… She drifted as she listened, the voices becoming louder as she drew closer. Ah… now, that’s more like what death should be like-or the afterlife for that matter, she thought as the memory of autumn apples filled her mouth. The place she’d always longed for unfolded before her dying eyes, and at last she allowed herself to let go, to become part of it.
“We’re being hailed,” Harry Kim said in a trembling voice.
“On screen,” Captain Janeway ordered, hoping her tone didn’t betray her own nervousness. She had no idea what or who she might be inviting onto her bridge; she almost feared to hope. Holding her breath, she waited.
Admiral Owen Paris and Reg Barclay, standing side by side, appeared before her.
Swamped by disparate feelings bombarding her simultaneously, she swallowed hard, uncertain which emotion would first push through, and attempted to compose herself. “Sorry to surprise you,” Janeway said, in an attempt to lighten the mood. “Next time, we’ll call ahead.” She watched as Admiral Paris risked a look at his son, seated at Voyager’s helm; the younger man looked away. There will be time, she thought.
Admiral Paris addressed Janeway. “Welcome back.”
“It’s good to be here,” Janeway said, incapable of offering more than understatement. No one, save those who had lived, fought, served, and died beside her these last years, could understand just how precious this moment was.
His eyes full of questions, Admiral Paris asked, “How did you- ?”
Not now. “It’ll all be in my report, sir.”
She observed the admiral glance at his son, who studiously avoided his father’s probing gaze, before her dearest mentor returned his attentions to her. “I look forward to it,” the admiral said. The signal chirped off. Before the bridge was an uninhibited view of the Alpha Quadrant starscape.