Ghost of a Chance - Mark Garland [0]
By: Mark A. Garland and Charles G. McGraw
CHAPTER 1
Commander Chakotay's spirit guide had visited him many times in his dreams. Unlike the often arbitrary or chaotic dreams of others, the spirit guide brought clarity through visions that helped explain the world outside as well as the world within.
But it was not the guide that came into the mind of the commander tonight, finding him as he slipped deeper into his dreams. It was a ghost...
The entity had no true form, though like a strong, cool wind it made itself known. It drew closer, touching his unconscious fleetingly at first, as if unsure, or unwilling. But this seemed to last only a moment. The ghost began to change, enriched by the encounter somehow, and Chakotay sensed a certain excitement. Suddenly he saw into the ghost's mind.
The images were less alien than the ghost that brought them. A beautiful world full of life, and graced with a vast, thriving wilderness. The world moved, passing his mind's eye too quickly.
When the images settled again, they revealed a huge village nestled among the trees, a place populated by a vibrant primitive culture. He found details difficult to distinguish, but there were many things familiar about these people and their community, and Chakotay could not help but compare them to his own people, of perhaps a thousand years ago.
Their homes were fashioned from the materials they found all around them, as were their clothes, and he saw no signs of suffering or war.
But this vision too lasted only for a short while. New images of death and destruction rushed into the dream. A different place, perhaps, or a different time?
He saw the land split, saw oceans turn to steam and mountains spewing the planet's molten interior upward into the smoke-filled skies. The world seemed bent on destroying itself and all that lived on it in a frenzy of earthquakes and fire. Then the ghost and the images were fading from the dreams, but they were replaced by a clearly understood message, one that echoed through the commander's mind until it brought him shuddering into consciousness. As he sat up, the fateful pleas of the ghost seemed to radiate outward through his skull until they reverberated off the walls of his cabin. It was a desperate cry for help.
***
Chakotay looked directly at Harry Kim in the Ops bay as he entered Voyager's bridge. The hiss of the turbolift doors caused the young ensign to look up from his operations and communications panels. Kim was the youngest, greenest member of the bridge crew. Voyager's mission to the Badlands had been his first assignment, but he had already proven himself under fire.
"Status?" Chakotay asked him.
"We will arrive at the Drenar system in eleven minutes," Kim reported.
Another ensign, who was carrying a PADD containing the updated Ops report, moved away from Kim, then handed the report to the commander.
Chakotay glanced briefly at the data. As he looked around the bridge, his gaze lingered only twice. Tom Paris, the young human lieutenant at the helm, regarded Chakotay with his characteristic, only slightly arrogant smile. Though he came from a family full of admirals, his expression was born of talent and experience, not ego.
Lieutenant Tuvok, the only Vulcan on the bridge, stood in the tactical bay to Chakotay's right, and was at this moment paying strict attention to the screens and displays at his station--something he apparently believed had a higher priority than idle greetings. Which suited the first officer just fine.
Because Voyager was always in unknown, uncharted space, its tactical station was perhaps the most important on the ship.
Chakotay took a deep breath and decided all seemed to be in order, reassuringly so just now. He slowly exhaled, letting the lingering tension flow out of him. The dreams and visions of the night before still flickered in his mind, too real to let go of, yet clearly not real at all, and not worth dwelling on for now.
Only a dream,