Distant Shores - Marco Palmieri [74]
The quake hummed at the edges of his hearing. “But the tremor,” he began.
Kes silenced him with a look. She placed a hand on the pillar and the inscriptions around her fingers glowed blue-white. “Come with me,” she said.
“Wh-where?”
“Everywhere,” Kes replied, and suddenly Neelix was falling into her eyes, losing himself in the glow. His hand tightened around hers and he surrendered himself to the moment.
The light was passing through him; he was a prism for time, rays of past and present passing through him and splitting apart into their component colors. Neelix saw nows and thens and never-had-beens, might-have, should-have, could-have befores and afters-
- the hot yellow sun on her face, the bruises tightening her young skin, taste of coppery blood on her lips; but hope, exploding inside her as she sees him, his eyes afire with anger and passion. Neelix brandishes the weapon in his hand and bellows at the Kazon warriors to back away, the strange new people in their red-and-black uniforms look on in surprise. She is so tired and yet so elated to see him. Kes knows she is safe now, safe with Neelix, rescued and free-
- in the arching corridor, he is there with his hand pressed to the clear viewport, sad and hopeful all at once. Kes leans into Neelix and they envelop one another in an embrace, two faces turning to watch the stars. Voyager wheels and turns as it departs Suspiria’s Array and they say their goodbyes to the human ship, knowing that neither of them will ever see their Federation friends again; but they have each other, and nearby Tanis waits patiently, ready to open a new chapter in Kes’s life-
- pain lances through him, a rage and sorrow so great it dwarfs anything he has ever known before. Neelix stumbles, his leg gashed and bleeding, no phaser, no communicator, no escape, no future. From out of the dark green steel of the walls, the machine hybrids come, Borg upon Borg reaching for him with chattering fans of silver probes, red laser light licking his face. He cries out but they do not heed his weak organic fears. The drone reaches for his arm and he looks into a face patterned with plastic and iron, those delicate elfin blue eyes turned dead, rendered into a metal horror-
- uncertain, she watches him enter the lab, his face set and troubled. Neelix talks about how things have changed, his eyes drifting to the Nekrit Depot station where it hangs outside the window; his friend Wix is there waiting for him. Kes struggles at the words, they’ve drifted apart, it’s all different now, but they’re still close. He cherishes what they have; there’s more he wants to tell her but he can’t voice it. Suddenly she knows that he is saying goodbye to her. He will leave the ship and take up his old life, never come back-
- he has never been afraid of her before, but he is now. Kes looks at him and he can find so very little of what she used to be. There is some glimmer of the woman of his dreams but it has been worn down by terrible sights, by the pressure of evolving too soon, too fast, her humanity hanging on by the thinnest of threads. Neelix wants to take her and hold her, to soothe the age-hardened face that was once so smooth and so perfect; but she isn’t that woman anymore. With every step she takes toward the warp core, a wake of disruption and fire is at her heels-
- Earth welcomes them as if they were its own, Tom’s father and good old Reg shaking their hands and offering them the friendship of the whole quadrant. They are the first of their kind to venture here; the captain, now she’s an admiral, she promises them a place to live and a bright future for all of them, for Neelix and Kes and both of their children, his darling Linnis and her little brother Tixa. At last they have a home, and it is here among their friends, their real, true family-
He gasped and staggered back a few steps, the sudden shock