Flashback - Diane Carey [20]
Her eyes drifted closed, and she was gazing at the darkness behind her eyelids, aware of the angle of lighting in the sickbay that came through as a faint glow.
The glow began to fade, her mind to blur. Thoughts began blending gently, like tidal waters washing in, out.
Tuvok's voice was scarcely above a whisper. The words sifted through the filaments of both their minds.
"Your mind to my mind . . . your thoughts to my thoughts ... I am taking us back . . . back to the boy that I was . . . the boy lying on the precipice . . ."
Was this all there was to it?
Janeway's mind began to clear after just a brief swim. She opened her eyes, wondering what had gone wrong with the meld-
And a hard force struck the ship, rocking it violently to the port and shoving the bow slightly downward.
She flailed for balance and reached out to catch Tuvok in case he was still lost in the trance.
He wasn't there.
Fooom.
Another hard jolt. That was no gas cloud! The ship was under attack!
"Tuvok-"
She spoke the word, but there was little sound. The smell of electrical smoke choked her and made her clamp her lips tight until it faded off, dragged away by the whirring vents in the bridge ceiling.
The bridge?
Yes, a starship's bridge. But not Voyager's. In fact, this wasn't any bridge she recognized in Starfleet. This was compact, powerful, tightly arranged, with a distinct central design.
And it certainly wasn't a Vulcan plateau with a child hanging over the cliffs edge. Where in hell was she?
All around her, consoles crackled and sparked, and people who were clearly Starfleet dashed through screens of smoke and flashing destruction. Space battle.
Old-style uniforms. Sixty or seventy years ago, if she recalled correctly.
What was Tuvok doing?
She flinched as an ensign dodged past her so close that she smelled the electrical burns on his sleeve. He hadn't noticed her, or acknowledged that he had nearly run her down.
Astonishing! She had expected to "see" events like something on a viewscreen, but this was even more real than a holoprogram. She felt the air and the vibrations of the ship. How real was this? Could she actually be injured if she believed she was? Could she be killed in action here, even in her mind, and have her body be affected?
Was she really here? Or still sitting back in sickbay?
She had to be still there, back on Voyager, seventy high-warp years in the wrong direction from the place she saw around her, but she felt here . . .
She raised her hand and rubbed her fingers together. Yup, same old fingers. Wherever she was, her hands and toes were here, too.
Starfleet ship, full-sized exploratory vessel. She glanced around to get a hint of the design style and ship's nomenclature. It was here somewhere. All
ships had their identification name, registry number, and date of launch somewhere on the bridge.
She looked aft, past the engineering station-no, that was communications on this design. Back near the turbolift doors was a dedication plaque.
U.S.S. Excelsior, Starfleet Registry NCC-2000. Commissioned Stardate 8105.5
That was decades ago.
"Damage report!"
At the sound of the deep, rough voice in a tone she recognized intimately, Janeway turned toward the darkest part of the bridge, where a purple-black gusher of smoke piled from the deck housing.
A man stepped forward out of the boiling veil, a lean Asian man with sharp features, pitch-black hair, and an officer's maroon uniform jacket. A captain.
Captain Hikaru Sulu!
PART TWO
"Better to die on our feet than live on our knees."
Brigadier Kerla
Klingon High Command
Star Trek VI The Undiscovered Country
CHAPTER
8
ACTION ROILED ACROSS THE BRIDGE. PEOPLE PLUNGED
back and forth, trying to stabilize the consoles and keep energy and information flowing. Janeway recognized the whole drill.
From one quick glance around, she knew they were under attack by other vessels, but didn't see any subsystems monitor displaying enemy ships. Some monitors were