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I don’t, either, B’Elanna/Seven thought. But I’m not afraid.

I’m not letting you be afraid, Seven/B’Elanna thought. Fear diminishes efficiency.

Agreed, B’Elanna/Seven thought. But fear can also motivate.

An interesting idea. We should discuss it more later.

I agree. B’Elanna/Seven pressed the restart sequence again. After we get the engines started.

“Torpedo contact in five, four, three, two…”

The countdown did not reach “one.” The Blue Eye did not, as anticipated, temporarily cease to seethe and bloom. Black patches did not appear as atomic processes were momentarily halted. Nothing happened precisely as planned.

The Blue Eye burst like a balloon.

“Captain,” Tom Paris called. “We still have a lock on the frequency and there is a gap forming.” Tom watched the tenuous scarlet matter fly past on the main monitor. He decided it looked like red cotton candy or sunset clouds or sea spray or, more apt, a mixture of all three since he was beginning to see that different layers had various textures.

“The Eye is blowing off its fusionable materials, Captain,” Chakotay called from the science station. “We’ve accelerated some kind of end-phase process.”

“This shouldn’t be happening,” Janeway said. “The star didn’t have enough mass!”

“It’s collapsing,” Chakotay said, and Janeway was certain she heard his voice crack. “It’s going to form a singularity.”

The word and the deed always seemed like one in Janeway’s memory. Voyager had been pacing herself, moving at a steady, controlled rate at her master’s command, but when Chakotay spoke his dread pronouncement, the captain gave her order and the ship, true-hearted, ever faithful, obeyed. “Helm,” Captain Janeway said. “Go!”

Stars! There were stars on the main viewscreen, but they were limned in blue as if they were being pulled away from Voyager at speeds beyond imagination. The sensors were unable to process the visual data and return meaningful images. What do you see when you look into the eye of eternity? Chakotay wondered, but then chastised himself for permitting errant thoughts.

The ship had plunged ahead, inertial compensators briefly unable to accommodate their speed, and Chakotay had been pushed back into his seat. Unaccountable energies pulled on Voyager: warp engines pushing them forward, the steep incline into the deepest of gravity wells pulling on them from behind. Chakotay knew which must win if they were inside the event horizon. Worse, he knew that the moment, drawn out like a thread through a spinning wheel, might last a literal eternity and none of them would ever know the difference.

“Engineering!” Kathryn called.

“Carey here, Captain. What’s going on?”

“Don’t ask questions, Joe! If you’ve got anything that you’ve been holding in reserve, give it to us!”

“There’s some nonstandard rerouting that Lieutenant Torres did that I think might give us…”

“Do it!”

“I haven’t really had time to study…”

“Do it!”

Carey crossed his fingers and said a silent prayer. Chief, he thought, I hope you knew what you were doing.

In the torpedo launch room, Harry Kim sagged against the control board as he felt the conflicting energies release their hold on him. Resting his head on the cool plasteel, he thought, What did I get wrong? What? Lifting his head, Harry said, “I’m sorry, Tuvok. I thought I had it right. The calculations…” Tuvok was not standing by the console where he had been a moment before. The ship lurched to port and a limp weight rolled against Harry’s legs. Kim looked down. “Tuvok?”

Chakotay sagged back into his seat and rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. “We got them,” he said, then exhaled sharply.

Kathryn lifted her right hand and punched the air. “Yes!” she shouted, and the bridge rang with cheers and applause. Tom Paris half-rose and bowed as much as was possible without taking his hands off the navigational controls or his eyes off the main viewscreen.

The shuttle had been less than two hundred meters from the ground when Voyager zoomed past Monorha. Their warp field had collapsed as soon as they had emerged into Monorhan space,