Last Full Measure - Michael A. Martin [76]
Setting aside his own mounting fear, Chang said, “Hold it steady, people! We just need a new plan.”
Chang only wished he actually had one.
Enterprise NX-01
The wedding was quite probably the largest catered affair Trip had ever seen.
His great-grandniece was finally to be married. One of the granddaughters of his beloved sister, Lizzie, was all grown up and starting a life of her own, amid hundreds of family members and friends. The guest list spanned at least four generations.
The warm scent of hay and peach blossoms filled the air under the azure canopy of a fair May afternoon. Well-wishers arrayed themselves in happy, semi-orderly ranks on either side of the wedding party. The bride, escorted by her father down a verdant green lawn in the shadow of a centuries-old church, was radiant.
Then the bride vanished abruptly in a blaze of light that scorched the air, tingeing it with the harsh metallic odor of ozone. The ranks of wedding guests reacted, tumbling quickly from exultation and joy into chaos and panic. One by one, the guests, from elderly ladies to toddlers, flared into short-lived nimbi of brilliance and vanished as well, disappearing by the dozens until Trip stood essentially alone.
“Lizzie!” Trip shouted, moving as quickly as he could through the rapidly diminishing crowd, desperately seeking his closest living relative. He ignored the pain in his tired old bones as he made haste toward the small white gazebo where he had last seen her.
And there she was, turning toward him, speaking to him, though he couldn’t hear anything over the escalating tumult that surrounded him. Nor did he seem to be making much headway in getting to her; she seemed to remain perpetually ten meters or so out of his reach, as though he were trying to swim toward her through gelatin.
“Lizzie! Elizabeth!”
Lizzie was still looking toward him, but was no longer trying to speak. An immensely sad expression now clouded her lined, elderly face. When had she gotten so old? When had he? Trip couldn’t remember.
Then he suddenly understood why he couldn’t remember.
Lizzie never got this old, Trip thought, still unable to reach his baby sister. She never got anywhere near this age.
She waved at him one final time, looking both rueful and resigned. Then she vanished in a blaze of scorching, blinding light.
Along with generations of others who either died at the hands of the Xindi or were never born in the first place because of the aliens’ cowardly sneak attack all those decades ago.
A moment later, the horrible light engulfed Trip as well, and he screamed.
“Welcome back to the world of the living, Commander Tucker,” the voice said. Though he couldn’t see anything just yet, Trip could sense the underlying benign smile that propelled that voice.
“Phlox,” Trip rasped as his eyes at last opened and began to focus. “What the hell happened to me, Doc?”
“You’ve been unconscious for about a day and a half, Commander,” said the Denobulan chief medical officer, who then turned and nodded toward another nearby sickbay bed, on which Hoshi Sato lay; beyond her lay several others. Though Hoshi looked pale and tired, the young woman seemed uninjured and fully conscious, and most of the other patients seemed to have begun stirring as well. “You, Ensign Sato, and twelve other crew members have been in a coma-like state ever since the sudden spatial anomaly swept through E deck. Thankfully, everyone who was affected already seems to be reverting to normal.”
E deck, Trip thought. The mess hall. It occurred to Trip then that the last thing he remembered was being in the mess, sitting at one of the dining tables across from T’Pol. Then the dreams had come, visions even more disturbing than the ones that still visited him routinely during his normal sleep shifts, in spite of T’Pol’s nearly daily Vulcan neuropressure treatments.
“I think I’d better talk to the captain and get myself up to date.”
Phlox’s only response was an uncomfortable-looking smile as he handed Trip a