Star Trek_ Generations - J M. Dillard [76]
A blur of black and white, Soran paused in his climbing.
Picard pushed hard with his feet and slid forward through the sand, knowing that it would be too late, preparing himself for the inevitable. Atop the scaffolding, Soran wheeled, then pulled an object from his hip.
A disruptor, Picard knew. He drew a breath, squeezed his eyes shut, and lay still …
Soran raised his disruptor and squinted at the cloud of dust and smoke rising from the collapsed rock archway where Picard had wriggled beneath the forcefield. The scientist jumped down a level, weapon ready, his mind full of fury; there was no time to deal with distractions! He should have killed the human outright, when he first came, to save himself the annoyance now.
But no, you had to be softhearted. And why? Youll soon have the blood of two hundred thirty million on your head … Whats one more?
A breeze stirred, dispersing the haze to reveal a scorched hole gouged in the earth where the captain had lain.
But no Picard.
Frustrated, Soran peered around at the shifting wisps of smoke. No sign of the captain …
But the sky above his head glimmered, with a sudden, distantly familiar splendor that made Soran catch his breath and look up.
A snake of brilliant rainbow light thrashed across the sky, so bedazzling with its promise, its beauty, that his wide eyes filled at once with tears.
No time. There was no time to search for Picard, no time to do anything save scramble up the scaffolding and prepare himself for escape from this temporal hell.
Soran climbed, eyes blinded by the ribbons blazing glory, by tears. His heart, once heavy at the thought of the deaths of Veridian IVs inhabitants, of Picard, of those aboard the Enterprise, now seemed light, absolved of any wrong by the coming wonder of what he was about to embrace. Leandra …
What was the Terran parable? A jewel, a pearl of great price. Worth anything, everything to possess. Surely he, above all others, understood the tale. The nexus was worth any number of lives; who could put a price on eternal paradise? He smiled thinly as he pulled himself up onto the next highest peak, and stepped quickly onto the narrow metal scaffolding that bridged two plateaus.
Soon; soon he would be with Leandra, and as he pulled out his pocket watchthe only tangible remnant he had of her in this hellish universehe stared into its blank, crystalline face and instead saw hers.
Halfway across the scaffolding, he glanced up, startled not into his dead wifes face, but that of a stranger.
A stranger, but somehow vaguely familiar, making Soran think he had seen his holo somewhere before. A human, hair chestnut shot with silver, wearing a Starfleet uniform Soran had not seen in almost a century …
Just who the hell are you? Soran whispered, but he knew the answer even before a voice replied behind him:
Hes James T. Kirk. Dont you read history?
He whirled to find Picard standing behind himthen turned back again to gape at the grinning impossibility in front of him.
Yes, this was Kirk all right: the captain who had died when the Enterprise-B was trapped by the energy ribbon. Supposedly diedbut clearly, Kirk must have been transported into the nexus instead. But what was he doing here, now …?
Soran knew he had a choice. He could try to pull out the disruptor and kill one of them, permitting the other to tackle him. Or he could flee and kill them one at a time.
He grabbed the metal rungs with both hands and propelled himself upward, onto the rocks. As he scrambled away, Picard said below him:
Ive got to get to the launcher; the ribbon will be here in a minute.
Ill take care of Soran, Kirks voice said.
The conversation between the two prompted a jolting thought: Picard had somehow been to the nexus, solicited help, knowing that he could not both reprogram the launcher and distract Soran. But how could Picard have gone to the nexus, unless …
Unless