Chapter 36

In the Void…

"Please…let me go," he pleaded.

"I will not," was the reply. The tall alien seemed to stand in a bottomless void. It had not moved it seemed, for ages, even though he hadn't been there nearly that long.

And the Traveler was also in a void. Poor Wesley Crusher. As long as the Traveler was trapped in this prison, the boy would be left alone to try and figure this all out on his own. Of course, his friends would help him, but the solution had to come from the young human. The Traveler could feel that this was true.

He reached his arm out to appeal again to the immense alien. Its cavernous and toothless mouth opened in as though miming speech, but no sound came out. Instead its words pierced the tortured brain of the Traveler as though they were bursting from the inside of his own mind. "Please," the Traveler pleaded again.

"Your transgressions must be addressed," said the words of the Jailor inside his mind. "If I let you go, who will answer for your crimes?"

"I—I can still correct the timeline."

"You are foolish and arrogant to even try," boomed the Jailor. "There is more than one correct time. You suggest that there is only one because you have no comprehension of what you have done. Your belief that there is only one correct time in which all beings exist is in error. You have not yet learned the lesson which is as old as time. The interconnecting pieces of time have been torn apart and rearranged by the events you set into motion when you loosed the Prison on a part of the universe in which it was never meant to exist."

"That is why I must be freed! I must be allowed to try and return the time continuum to the way it was before the Malkatans obtained the Prison."

"You are a Traveler, not a Shaper. The pieces cannot be put back together…not by you. You will not leave here until you come to understand this. If you do not come to understand, you will die here in this void."

Earth 2367 (Altered timeline)

"Captain Martens to Picard." Although Captain Martens' voice sounded a bit groggy, the recently revived captain of the USS Corsair was now wide awake and no longer alone on her bridge. The process by which Jellico had been freed from the Malkatan beam on the Enterprise had now been repeated on the other eight ships in orbit, each with a catatonic captain on its bridge as the sole present crew member. The plan was to locate the other Starfleet officers and get them out of there, and then launch a final attack on the Malkatans. He hadn't quite allowed himself to consider just how final it might be.

"Picard here."

"All ships are up and running," said Martens. "We're understaffed of course, but we can autopilot all of our ships until we get within transporter range of the holding area for the prisoners. Assuming they're still alive, of course."

"I would urge you to try and keep a positive attitude, Captain," said Picard. "But who am I kidding?"

He heard Martens laughing, and realized it had been some time since he'd heard a sincere laugh. They both sobered quickly, and he knew she was thinking just as he was, whether they would find anyone alive. "Please proceed to the intercept point without the Enterprise," he said. "We'll catch up with you in less than half an hour," he said, shooting a look at Worf over his shoulder.

There was a pause on her end. "You don't intend to leave us in the lurch do you, Captain?"

"Certainly not," he said. Change of plans, he thought to himself. We pick up whoever we can now, because there might not be a later after we attack the Malkatan base in the South Pacific. And that was when he felt the wave force itself through him. He slumped forward on the helm console.

"Son!" vaguely he heard Mary shouting for him to wake up and get it together. The time phase began slowly to pass and he felt like himself again. But as he pushed himself up from the console, for a moment it appeared as though this was the helm console on the Stargazer not the Enterprise. And for a moment he felt utterly consumed by revenge toward someone he had never even heard of. General Unh. That name again. A voice floated in his head, and it sounded exactly like his; and yet he wasn't speaking at all. I intend to kill him. If he is destroyed, things will go back to the way they should be. The correct timeline will be restored. Just crash the ship… do it.

Suddenly he heard and felt a sharp slap on his cheek. "Wake up, son! Snap out of it! This is not the time for you to leave us for never-never land," Mary shouted in his ear. His hand came up protectively to the welt on his face. He looked sideways up at Mary with alarm.

"What the hell was that for?!" he demanded.

Mary put her arm around his shoulders. "Jean-Luc you were phasing out of existence again. What on earth is happening to you, son?"

Suddenly he felt his eyes tear up, and he blinked them away. For the first time in more than a day he allowed himself to think about Beverly. He had willed himself to stop thinking of her, because it was so painful to do so. According to Troi, Beverly had run off into the past on a risky journey. She was attempting to save his past self, to in turn save his life once again. Of course she believed she knew best. Well so did he. And what he knew was that this existence of his was impermanent. He was going to die, no matter what, because he did not belong in this time; not in this way. And he would do what he needed to stop the Malkatans. And after that was done, he would try with all of his might to reunite with the others to find Beverly and to see his new child. And then, but please not before, he would cease to exist.

He took a deep breath and looked up at Mary again. "Nothing. Nothing is happening to me. Please go and have a seat in the command center, Mary."

Mary grumbled something, but turned to leave him alone at the helm as he had requested. He watched as she sat to the left of the captain's chair, which continued to be occupied by Spot the cat. The rest of the bridge was disorganized, but busy. He glanced back at Worf who stood at tactical and they exchanged a nod. If Worf was concerned that Picard might disappear again, he hadn't said anything. Worf, he knew, was now focused on finding his parents and his son.

A few Starfleet officers of various ranks as well as civilian scientists now wandered around the bridge. Some new what they were doing; and some did not. As long as they stayed away from the weapons and the helm, he felt moderately safe. He had been unable to find a suitably trained pilot out of the survivor pool, and consequently continued to pilot the Enterprise himself.

Some of the survivors the Enterprise had rescued from Earth had already transferred over to the Corsair and the other seven ships, including the USS Sentinel, which was now Captained by Jellico, as the ship's assigned captain had been injured and was unfit for command. Jellico, however, was still unhappy that Picard had his ship.

Picard turned back to the helm. He had already plotted the course, and now initiated the correct sequence. The ship began to pull away from the rest of the convoy.

"Captain Jellico to Picard," came the immediate and predictable objection.

"Picard here."

"The Enterprise has deviated from our agreed upon course, Picard."

"You are an extremely perceptive officer, Captain Jellico," Picard replied. "It's really no wonder you moved up through the ranks so quickly."

"Picard, I don't trust you," came Jellico's humorless reply.

"And I don't care," Picard said, as the European continent quickly became visible on the view screen. "I said I would rendezvous with you as soon as I can."

"You have the modified weapon, Picard. You'd better not let us—" Annoyed, Picard slapped his communications link, cutting the channel.

"Now," he said with quiet resolve. "Let's go find our people."

Riker was speechless, which in itself would have been more notable, had Beverly not been so distracted with her own issues. "I'm alright," she reassured him, as he grabbed her forearm protectively. They stepped carefully over Bok and Kad who were untangling themselves from a pile on the floor.

"What is this?" Kad and Bok both exclaimed, when they saw the puddle on the floor.

"Life," Riker said sharply turning to look down at them. "And just be glad you've escaped with your own lives. You're both lucky that Zev is loyal to Captain Picard, and that he decided to let you live. I could tell Zev isn't so much the forgiving type."

"What now," Bok demanded, getting to his feet.

"We're going back to the Aldrin. If you want to help us try and stop Mayer, you can beam over with us and continue planning. Or you're on your own. Either way, she needs medical care immediately." He tapped his communicator. "This is Captain Riker. Two to beam directly to sickbay."

"Can you hear me, Beverly?"

Beverly blinked and looked up into the face of the Aldrin's CMO. She was lying down on a bio bed in sickbay. She nodded. "Yes. What's going on? We were on Bok's ship and then the beam over…."

"Your body was in shock, Beverly," said the doctor. "We've got you under sedation now. Traveling through time has placed undue physical stress on your body, not to mention the emotional distress I am sure you have undergone recently."

Beverly felt a tear roll down her cheek. "What about the baby?" She tried to sit up.

The doctor put a gentle hand on her shoulder. "The baby is fine, but we need to start the birthing process right away."

"I—I can't feel the lower half of my body."

The CMO smiled down at her. "Relax, you don't need to do any of the work for once. This is going to be a surgical visit today, Doctor."

Panic filled her heart and mind. "Where are my friends? Where's Troi?"

"I'm right here, Beverly," Deanna said, sliding her chair forward. "You're going to be just fine and I'm going to stay with you."

She felt the air grow heavy. "Can't happen yet," she murmured, feeling the effects of the sedative. "Where's Jean-Luc? He was going to meet us out here. Did he get the saucer section? Did he escape Earth…." Her eyelids shut, and she willed them open again.

Troi hesitated. "Beverly, you know Captain Picard would be here if he could."

Beverly shook her head back and forth drowsily. "No, you're not telling me everything, Troi…don't lie…don't lie to me."

She felt Deanna squeeze her hand tightly. Suddenly the counselor's grip grew tighter and she felt a rapid flutter in her chest. "What's wrong?" she heard Troi say to the doctor. "What's happening?" her friend repeated.

The shouts around her were disjointed in her brain, but she knew everything was going wrong. "Patient's heart-rate is elevated. She's destabilizing!"

2367 Malkatan Controlled South Pacific—Earth

"It's happening again, isn't it?" Major Razul stared at his commanding officer with open curiosity—and not a shred of concern.

General Unh turned at the command station where he was standing, to glare at his subordinate. Major Razul had always wanted his job. Unh knew if he continued to phase like this, he would be too weak a target for Razul to resist attempting a coup. But if such an opportunity were to present itself, General Unh might have some additional tricks up his sleeve.

Razul walked closer. "The prisoners continue to revolt, General. Perhaps the time has come to destroy them."

"How many of the Starfleet officers do we have in our custody at this time, Razul?"

"Somewhere around six thousand obtained from the orbiting ships. And several hundred thousand throughout our temporary bases on each continent, General. But without the ships they are too weak and disorganized. They are hardly worth guarding," Razul added.

General Unh grunted and stared out a view port into the vast ocean. There were no such things on Malkata, the old home world. This alien world fascinated him. And now it was his to explore and subjugate to the Malkatan will.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw that Razul was standing next to him. And then another wave entered his body taking him briefly away from this time and place. He shook himself out of it.

"What does it mean?" Razul asked slowly. "What does it mean that you phase away from us and then back again, General?"

Unh eyed him. "It means Razul, that somewhere, in some other time…someone is trying to kill me," he said slowly. Picard. Breaking into a cruel smile he clenched his sharp fingernails into the palm of his hand until it bled blue. Then he broke into a rolling laugh. "But not if I kill him first…."