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By Root 476 0

from the far trees just after the ship had vanished. They stood yelling and waving at the clouds in anger. Janeway had no idea why they were not aboard. And at first she had no idea why the ghosts would be upset by the Televek's departure from a field littered with dead Drenarians. Surely they knew what the Televek had been after, just as the villagers did. She tried to communicate this to them but she had no means. She could only gaze up at the shrinking hole in the clouds, made by the cruiser, at the sky beyond.

Then she remembered Voyager; the ghosts seemed to want this image in her mind. They pushed it aside momentarily to show her what could not have been a memory of her own: an external view of the ascending cruiser achieving orbit. Then she saw Voyager again, following a moon, orbiting Drenar Four. Alone. The images did not change for several seconds, until the second Televek cruiser appeared yet again, moving up into a high orbit above the planet, seeking an intercept course with Voyager.

The ghosts pressed suddenly inward, closer to Janeway's mind.

Sorrow, she thought--that was the only word she could use to describe what she felt from them now. They were terribly... sorry.

Sorry they were so weak; sorry they could not help the Drenarians; sorry they were helpless to do anything to help Voyager--to help by doing something specific, Janeway sensed, though she received no clue as to what that was.

"That is why I've come," she said out loud, not certain whether she had actually spoken. But she thought she heard the sound of her voice echoing around her as the last word left her lips, heard it with her ears.

The visions faded from her mind, and she was once more standing in the mammoth cavern. She looked at Chakotay and found a darkened, worried expression on his face. He steadied himself, looking dizzy for an instant, then better.

"You saw it too?" she asked.

"Yes. We don't have any time to waste."

Janeway nodded, and they crossed the distance to the edge of the plateau.

"This would be an unfortunate time for one of those big quakes to occur," Chakotay said, as they stood only inches from the drop.

Janeway nodded, remembering her earlier fall. When she leaned forward and peered over the edge, she could see the dark lava dome below, but not clearly. "The detonation should occur just above the surface in order to produce the maximum effect. I want the biggest hole I can get."

"Agreed," Chakotay said, leaning forward next to her. "I wouldn't want to have to do this twice."

"Any guess as to the distance?"

Chakotay frowned. "I'd say it's about six hundred meters."

"That's where I'd put it, too."

"I'll set the floaters at minimum negative buoyancy. Drenar Four's gravity is about ninety-seven percent earth normal, so that should allow the container to drop at about two meters per second.

Janeway ran the numbers in her head. "We'll set the timer at four and a half minutes. Ready?"

Chakotay nodded. Both of them went to work. As Chakotay finished with the second floater, Janeway activated the timer.

They stood up and held their breath, then they both pushed. The container drifted free of the plateau and slowly began to descend.

Janeway tapped her comm badge. "Transporter room, this is the captain.

Beam us up."

There was no response.

CHAPTER 15

Daket had opted to wait until the energy levels of the planetary defense system dropped again, a decision that would cost him additional moments. But weighed against the possibility of an attack, he felt he'd made the only sane decision; the ferocity of the planet's ghostly defenders was legendary. It wasn't worth the risk.

He would never know, of course, if his trepidation had been justified, but as he watched the sensor images of the Federation ship grow, watched the planet display itself fully on the main viewscreen, visual proof that his cruiser had safely achieved a low orbit, he thought the evidence was clearly on his side.

An uneventful ascent, Daket