A/N: Yeesh. Long chapter of DOOOOOOOOOOOOOM...
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Chapter 19
Beverly Crusher lay on her bed with her fingers laced behind her head, fear and dread paling her face. Where was Wesley right now?
Picard's explanation had been frightening, and his words afterwards comforting, but none of these were facts. Wesley could be dead right now. Or he cold be lost forever, forced to live his life on another ship, far from those he knew and loved. And Picard was just short of notifying the next of kin of Robin Wallace that she was missing and possibly lost. She wished she could know what Wes was doing right now.
She had seen the look Deanna had given her as she walked off the bridge. That look meant that she could expect Deanna as soon as her watch was over. She didn't know what Deanna thought she could do, nor did she think Deanna knew anything that anyone else didn't. But the presence of a friend would be comforting.
I just now realized how tired I am, Beverly thought and let her eyelids flutter closed. Her room was in near-total darkness already, lit only by the starfield outside her window. She told herself that she wouldn't fall asleep.
I'm not really off duty, after all. Only given... given a momentary break. There are people... people to be... be healed...
Her eyelids slipped closed so slowly she hardly noticed that it had happened. She fell asleep, but her mind wouldn't stop. The conscious part of her mind kept planning and thinking, but the unconscious part was distorting her thoughts in a strange, drunken sort of way.
The stars seemed to enter the room, spreading a starfield across every surface of her bedroom and spilling out the door onto the carpet of the frontroom. In her dream, she stood and faced the door. She could feel a gentle breeze through her loose hair and flowing nightgown as she entered the living room of her house. Sunlight ran in through the open windows at an almost horizontal angle. It was still very early in the morning. She could hear voices from the next room, one was the soft voice of her husband, the other the penetrating giggle of her infant son. The words were nonsense, cooing, babbling.
She peered through the doorway of Wesley's bedroom and saw Jack kneeling at his cribside, his face pressed up against the white wooden bars, making faces at his baby son, who was laughing incessantly. Wesley was up on his knees and had his tiny fists wrapped around two of the bars, watching the little "performance".
She smiled gently and tried not to make any noise that would cause this wonderful conversation to stop. Jack's back was to her, Wesley was facing her in his crib. Jack put his face up to the bars and made enthusiastic nonsense sounds at his 15-month-old son. Wesley leaned away from the bars, still clinging to them with his small fingers, and squealed with delight. Jack laughed. When Jack pulled away from the bars, Wesley would get near them again, an impish dare he knew his father would take. "Try to scare me again," the grin full of baby pearl teeth seemed to say. Then Wesley saw his mother. With the aid of the bars, he jumped to his feet and cried, "Mommy!"
Jack turned around and blushed. He stood up and straightened the belt of his bathrobe, clearing his throat. Then he picked up Wesley. "We were, uh... I was just telling him what was new in the world this morning," he smiled.
It was wonderful to see Jack in civilian clothes. It was wonderful to hear that baby voice. It was wonderful to feel the sun-warmed carpet under her bare feet, to feel the flower-scented breeze against her face, to hear birds and rustling leaves and insects. It was wonderful to be on Earth.
Jack carried Wesley over to Beverly. He could still hold him in one arm, even though he was getting so big. Wes's hair was as dark as his father's, and as thick as his mother's. He rubbed his eyes with his little fists, already worn out from all that laughing, his few emerging teeth still showing through the fading smile.
All the while, she knew it was a dream. She knew this was all long gone, that Jack was long gone, and that Wesley was grown, and quite possibly gone as well. But that didn't wake her. She preferred her dream to the pain, the loss, the fear. Her dream was so real...
Jack handed their baby son to her. He smelled clean, like soap and baby powder, and he was warm and she could feel his weight in her arms and hear his soft breaths as he laid his head on her shoulder and wrapped his little arms around her neck. It was as if she were really holding her baby again. She could see Jack as clear as day. Recently, she hadn't been able to do that. Her image of Jack, her memory of his appearance had been fading slowly for nine years, and she was powerless to stop it. When she looked at a picture of him, she could remember him clearly, even the sound of his voice. But when she thought of him randomly, while working or walking down a corridor or lying in her bed staring at the ceiling, she could not conjure an image of his face like a ghost. But now, in her subconscious, in her dream, he was here again, as clear as a beautiful, warm, bright, sunny day...
God, she hadn't dreamed about Jack in so long...
She looked down at Wesley's big brown eyes, tiny nose and bow mouth. He looked so much like Jack. She looked up to make the comparison...
...but Jack was gone.
She heard a tiny sigh...
...the sigh of a baby who'd just stopped crying.
She looked down at Wesley...
...and he was gone too.
Suddenly the room was dark again. Dark and cold. The golden yellow warmth of the sun was replaced by the freezing blackness and cold silver starlight. Stars were everywhere, all throughout the room, on the walls, the ceiling and floor, floating through the air, threatening to crush her in the vacuum of space. She ran through her house...
...her quarters...
...on the Enterprise in space. In the middle of nowhere. There was a constant rushing sound, a whirring, roaring, blowing, airy sound that grew louder and louder...
...and on top of it all there was a machinery sound... a clicking. No, beeping. No, a twinkling sound...
...and the rushing and rushing sound of silence, of a giant universe that was a vacuum, closing in around her...
...closing her world around her... creeping up on her from all sides... destroying everything she holds close to her... stripping her of everything she attempts to protect and to keep...
...and leaving her all alone... alone...
And then she was lying in her bed, in her quarters on the starship Enterprise, hearing her doorchime repeatedly.
Oh, god, Deanna! I forgot! Beverly jumped out of bed still dressed in her uniform and shoes, and strode to the door of her bedroom, within shouting range of the main door.
"Come in, Deanna, I'll be right out," she called, then ran back into her room to throw some cold water on her face, to try to clear the powerful dream images from her mind and think clearly. She pressed a soft towel to her face and took a deep breath, studying her face in the mirror, dragging herself back to the here and now. Then she started out to the frontroom.
Jack was standing there.
"Oh my god," Beverly stumbled backwards and turned to run into her room.
"Beverly, wait," he called to her, starting after her.
She pounded her fist against the "close" button and the "lock" button simultaneously. The doors swooshed closed and locked. Beverly backed away from the doors until the backs of her knees struck the bed and she half fell, half sat on it. She was fighting down panic.
Jack walked through the doors as if they weren't there at all. Beverly gasped and jumped off the bed, backing around it to the other side of the room.
"Go away!" she bellowed.
Jack's face was sad, "Beverly, please. Please don't be afraid, please calm down. Please."
She managed to calm her breathing, but kept backing away from him. She tapped her communicator. Nothing. Good lord, now she understood what Wesley must have been going through when the creature appeared to him as Lynn Costa. She had no one to send for help and no one would hear her voice if she screamed. She had to defeat this creature alone.
"Beverly, please, I just want to talk to you, I just want to see you, to look at you, please," Jack plead with her, backing her into a corner.
"You're not real!" she yelled right into its face. Beverly Crusher's voice never rose above a certain pitch, it was always low. And when she grew desperate it got even lower. Right about now, she was near a good baritone.
"Bev, please," tears began to form in Jack's eyes. Beverly didn't think she could stand it.
It's not Jack. It's the creature. Concentrate on how to get rid of it. Where's the discrepancy? Where's the flaw in its characterization? How can I get him away from me?
"Beverly, please don't make me leave yet," He had his hands on her arms, trying to hold her still, but she was struggling in slow motion, her eyes locked to his, like someone under water trying to disentangle herself from a squid.
"I... I have something to tell you," Jack said, "Something important, and... and it won't be easy to say. Please. Please sit down."
The creature knew that there was really only one way to get rid of the Enterprise, and that was to convince them that there was no hope of rescuing the Human boy and girl. Not ever. They had to be told their children were dead. Then they would go away and mourn. Even if they ever did learn otherwise of their children, it would be too late to ever find the Neverland again.
Jack forced Beverly with inhuman strength to sit down on her bed, but the gentle expression never left his face. It was eerie. Jack sat next to her on the bed and did not release the vice-grip on her arm. If she was going to try to go somewhere, it would be without her arm. She stared at him.
"Beverly, I have bad news."
She drew up her eyebrows in confusion and worry. "What?"
"It's Wesley. He's... he's gone, Bev," Jack's voice broke.
Beverly stared at him, her eyes growing red as he watched. She was battling with herself, to believe him, not to believe him, to cry, to be strong, to lash out at him, perhaps to get herself killed in the process (but what did that matter now that everyone she loved was gone?), to fight him with every ounce of her strength...
Instead, she whispered, "What do you mean?"
"The children. They... they've killed them. They killed Wesley, and Robin Wallace, too. They killed them, Bev," Jack started crying and leaned towards Beverly to embrace her.
Then, to the creature's surprise, against everything he knew of Human nature, she pulled away, angrily.
"You're lying," Beverly was cold with fury. Her face was stone, her eyes welling but refusing to spill tears.
Jack looked up at her and shook his head slowly. "No... Beverly, I'm not lying."
"You're not even Jack. You're that creature that's working with the children on that monstrous ship to abduct my son. If Wesley is dead, and I have absolutely no reason to believe that he is, then it's your fault. And if that is that case, you'd better start running now."
Suddenly, all Jack's pretense of sadness faded away and he stood, angry and firm. "No, I am not Jack. But your son is dead. And the girl, too. There is nothing left for you to pursue, so stop pursuing my children."
Beverly was shocked. There was the form and figure of Jack, but not his voice, not his personality, not him. So now how could she make him disappear?
"You want me to stop pursuing your children, then we must have ours back. You protect your children, we protect ours. Return them to us."
"You want them back, even dead?"
Beverly swallowed. She still didn't know whether to believe they were dead or not, and tried to decipher signs of dishonesty in his words. "Why did you kidnap them only to kill them?"
"You mean you don't know? They were worth much to us. They were intelligent and powerful beyond anyone of your race. But your adults had destroyed their willingness to be free and to pursue all the uses of their own powers. They were of no use to us as they were, and no use to themselves. They fought us at every turn. So we killed them. It was merciful, really."
"Monster..." Beverly shook her head. She was beginning to believe him.
"Perhaps," one side of his mouth smiled, "but not as monstrous as Humans."
Beverly's eyes filled with horror and disgust. "I want him back. I want my son back."
"See, that's the funny thing about death. You can't ever have him back."
Beverly spoke evenly and slowly, almost hypnotically. "I know about death, I know all about death. I want my son back. I want you to return Wesley and Robin. We will pursue you until you return our children to us."
"We will kill you," the creature shrugged.
Beverly narrowed her eyes and wore a very dangerous expression. "If you have killed my son," she took a breath, "and God help you if you have, nothing will stop me from finding you and taking him back. If I have to steal a shuttlecraft and chase you around the galaxy for the rest of my life, I will get him back."
The creature had to exert extreme control not to back away from the snarling woman leaning closer and closer to him with a murderous expression on her face. Wow. I forgot about how protective mothers can be...
"Oh," the creature sounded as if he'd just gotten the idea. "You want the bodies. For burial. Or... whatever. I understand. Unfortunately, there are no bodies. That would have been very messy. They were executed point blank with disrupters. Actually, it's quite an agonizingly slow and painful death, taken apart molecule by molecule, each integrated organization of atoms in the body erupts. They were vaporized. Disintegrated. Gone. Sorry."
Beverly's hand flew to her mouth. The creature was speaking far too lightly of all this for her to take. She felt like she was in the dream again. She couldn't cry, she couldn't move, she couldn't understand, she couldn't comprehend. Her son was dead, but doesn't a mother know when her child has died? Can't she feel it? She didn't feel the absence of her child, she couldn't sense the end of the life she'd created. Shouldn't she be able to feel that? But, good lord, with disrupters? What was going on? Who was standing in front of her, approaching her, glaring into her eyes with a horrifying absence of conscience, reaching out for her...
How can I get rid of him? How can I save myself? How can I get help? Someone come and help me!
* * *
Deanna leapt out of her seat on the bridge, alarmed.
"Deanna?" Riker whispered to her, "What's wrong?"
"Beverly," she panted, "Beverly needs me. Now." She stared at Will, who sat in the center seat while Picard was off the bridge.
"How do you know that?" as far as Will knew, Deanna could only ever telepathically communicate with two people: her mother and himself. How could she hear a cry for help from Beverly?
"I just have a feeling," she shook her head, as baffled as he was.
"Is she in trouble?" Riker asked, starting to stand to go with her.
"No, no. I don't know. I don't think so. Maybe. I think, I should go to her."
"Deanna, are you all right?" Riker cocked an eyebrow. Troi was making no sense.
"Yes. I just sensed alarm. Or fear. Coming from her." Each new sentence was an afterthought. Deanna was not with Riker on the bridge, her entire mind was focused on Beverly in her quarters, trying to decipher exactly what it was the Chief Medical Officer needed. Riker was merely listening in.
"Do you want a security team?"
"No. I don't think so. Not yet. I'll tell you when I know." Deanna was on the turbolift.
Riker stood in front of the center seat, unable to decide whether to follow her or remain on the bridge. He could conceivably be needed in both places. The turbolift doors closed and his decision had been made for him. He sighed and sank back into the captain's chair.
"Guinan to bridge," a voice came over the commlink.
Riker answered, "This is the bridge. What's the matter, Guinan?"
"I've got that feeling again, Commander."
"I'm on it."
That clinched it. Riker stood again and strode over to the turbolift. "Data, you have the bridge."
"Aye, sir," the android answered, standing from Ops and crossing to the center seat.
* * *
Wes almost jumped out of his skin when he heard the doors open. He sat up on the bed, but didn't stand up. Four young men he'd never seen before entered the room.
"Come with us," one said.
"Where?" Wes asked, making no effort at all to get up off the bed.
The four boys posted themselves around the bed, surrounding him, but did not answer. They seemed to be waiting for Crusher to get up. He didn't.
"I'm not going anywhere until I know where and why."
"You have no choice," the same young man answered. "Come with us now."
"No, it's you who don't have a choice. You can tell me what to do until you're blue in the face, but I'm not doing it until I know why."
"We will physically remove you, if necessary," he answered. Wes sat still. The boy gestured to the other three. Each boy grabbed a limb and lifted.
"Hey, wait! Put me down!"
The four boys dropped him back onto the bed. He rose slowly and straightened the waist of his jersey, granting each boy a long, angry glare, ensuring that there could be no doubt in anyone's mind of his displeasure. "I'll walk," he muttered.
"Good," said the only boy who seemed to possess the power of speech, "follow me."
The boy preceded him out the door, and the other three hustled Wes out behind him. Wes began his routine of memorizing corridors, doorways and their numberings, hatches, bulkheads, computer panels, as much as he could see. A photographic memory is a valuable asset to a prisoner who wishes to escape. Along the way, the corridors began to lose their familiarity. They ceased to look like something the Federation might have produced, and began to look very foreign. They came to a set of doors and stopped in front of them. The doors opened with neither voice nor tactile command. The room appeared to be totally blank. A holosuite with no grids on the surfaces. Inside the room were Kaelha and several others. The center of the room bore a sort of console, but he could not tell from where he stood what it was for. When he approached the console, it appeared to be a cross between a Master Systems Display and a Warp Propulsion Systems Status Display. It appeared that one could monitor every atom of matter and anti-matter in the ship from this table. It also appeared that, from here, one could cause the ship to exceed warp factor 10. Wes knew why he was here.
"Ready for your first try, ensign?" Kaelha smiled.
Wesley shook his head. "No. It's impossible. It's not going to work. And I'm not even going to try to help you. Even if it were possible, I wouldn't help you."
The boy who had brought Wes here stepped up beside Crusher and gripped his arm, holding something a few inches away from Wesley's ribcage, where he could see it. "Know what this is?"
Wesley's eyes widened and he nodded slowly. "It-- It's a disrupter..."
"Good. Don't make me use it."
"B-but, if you kill me, you'll have no way of ever creating a temporal anomaly."
"That is true, ensign," Kaelha answered. "But we'll also have no way if you refuse even to try."
They had a good point there. Wesley stared for a long moment at the console, then slowly stepped towards it and placed his hands flat on the top of the display. He closed his eyes and lowered his head. He absolutely did not want to cooperate. But the only way he could help Robin was if he was alive. So he'd have to try.
The girl who had revealed Wes's mother's identity to Kaelha yesterday, Marn, was in the room with them. She stepped up to the console opposite him and similarly spread her fingers on the panel. Wes opened his eyes and looked up at her. Her gaze bore disconcertingly into his own eyes. Unsettled, he lifted his hands off the display and took a half-step backward, eyes still locked with hers. A young man standing behind Wesley touched his shoulders, and it took no more than that to halt his dazed retreat. But he did not stop back to the panel yet.
Wesley was pervaded with confusion. If someone had prompted him to move back toward the console, or made some move against him, it would have sparked anger in him, and he may very well have gotten himself killed. But no one did. The girl at the console had dark eyes, almost black, and they burned into his own brown eyes. He was trapped in her gaze, and he could not turn away. No one spoke, no one moved.
Wes stepped back up to the console, never taking his eyes off the girl on the other side of it. He began entering calculations. No specific destination, he was just entering configurations that might permit speeds in excess of warp ten. He spread his fingers over the display panel and closed his eyes. He tried to remember exactly what had happened when the Traveler had assisted him in creating a temporal rift.
And he waited.
Without consciously realizing it, Wesley was waiting for certain prompts, certain non-verbal directions. None were forthcoming and nothing was happening.
The girl stared at Wesley and Kaelha looked back and forth between the two of them. No one spoke or moved.
Wesley stood with his eyes closed, his hands on the console, unmoving. Kaelha stepped slowly to the girl's side.
"Marn," she whispered, "what is he doing?"
Marn did not break her intense gaze to Wesley Crusher, but answered, "Nothing. He's waiting."
"Waiting for what?"
Marn stared hard for a moment, the he shook her head. "He doesn't know."
"Can't you do anything?"
"I don't know what he's waiting for any better than he does, what am I supposed to do?" She noticed her captain's angry face. "I can try." Marn closed her eyes and leaned heavily on the console, leaning closer to Crusher.
Wesley inhaled sharply, his eyebrows drawing together, as if concentrating on something. Wes had received the first of his "prompts," and he was beginning the process.
No. It's not working. It's not supposed to be this difficult, Wes thought in the back of his mind. It wasn't this difficult last time. I can't do it.
Wes made a frustrated noise and opened his eyes.
"What happened, ensign?" Kaelha asked coolly.
"I... I don't know. I can't do it. It's much harder this time. It won't work."
"Of course it will, you just have to try harder."
"It's not a matter of trying hard enough," Wes answered. "It's that I don't even know what to try."
"Yes, you do!" Kaelha was growing impatient. "You just need to try harder!"
Wes shook his head and exhaled. She wasn't listening.
Marn turned from Wes for the first time. "I believe that if he were to try harder, he might simply drain himself without accomplishing anything. He doesn't need to do more of what he's already doing, he needs to do something different from or additional to what he's doing. Perhaps, if I could create a channel..."
"Of course," Kaelha calmed again. She gestured to a boy near the door. "Get the girl." He nodded and left the room.
Wes turned a confused expression to Kaelha. "What? Get Robin? Why?"
"She will be your strength, ensign, and Marn can create the bond," the girl with the dark eyes smiled so slightly that it was almost imperceptible. "That's why we kept her. She's a backup for you. If one Human isn't strong enough, perhaps two will be."
Wes took a step back again, and again the boy behind him stopped him gently. "No, I don't want her to be involved in this."
"You also don't want yourself to be involved in this, but you aren't able to control that, either. I suggest you simply help us, for your own benefits, and you'll keep yourselves out of the path of that disrupter."
"If I am able to help you, if we succeed," Wes was afraid to ask this question, "then what? Do you return us?"
"If you succeed, ensign, none of this will ever have happened. You will never have heard of me, and you'll be happily back on your ship. If that is what you want."
"I can't just decide to help you, though. I can't just promise you that I'll succeed. I don't even know what to do."
"Well, ensign, you'd better hope you succeed."
"Fine," Wes was angry. "You want to see what I can do? I'll cooperate with you, if only to show you that you're wrong about me and I can't send you back in time."
Kaelha nodded. "All we ever asked is that you try."
Wesley gaped at her in utter disbelief, as he stood, surrounded by guards, held at disrupter-point, a captive with no means of escape forced to do this for them. And all they did was ask, ha.
The boy who'd been sent to retrieve Robin entered with Dalev and without Robin. Dalev sported a huge bruise on his right cheekbone.
"What happened?" Kaelha was stunned. "Where's the Human girl?"
"Captain," Dalev began, "she... she escaped."
"Escaped? From you?"
"She... is a great expert at battle. I sincerely believe she could have defeated two if there had been so many."
"She defeated you? You?" Kaelha couldn't believe a Human girl had beaten the daylights out of the largest B'Safran male she'd ever seen.
"Yes!" Wes whispered through a grin. He couldn't help it.
"Silence!" the boy with the disrupter bellowed and pressed the weapon between Crusher's eyes.
Wes snapped his mouth shut.
"Find her. Now. I don't care how long or how many of you it takes. She's on a starcruiser, there's only so many places she can go. Now get going." Several boys, including Dalev, left the room in a hurry. Kaelha turned her attention back to the matter at hand. "Marn. You can help the Human, can't you?"
The girl who had been standing across from Wes nodded and turned to face him. "I believe so."
A boy carefully turned Wesley back to the console. Wes closed his eyes and placed his hands back on the display.
"He's been past the first stage," Kaelha said to Marn. It's a step, a small one, but an important one. Now perhaps we can go forward. Establish the link."
Marn stepped toward Wesley and reached her hands towards his face. He flinched and pulled away, but the boy standing behind him held him firmly in place.
"Do not be afraid," Marn's voice was gentle and soothing, "I will not harm you."
Marn touched her fingers to either side of Wes's face. His eyes fluttered closed. When Marn was sure the Human boy would no longer attempt to resist, she closed her eyes as well.
Suddenly, Marn could see a starfield, like the starfield that can be seen when one is traveling at maximum warp. Then it began moving faster. She could hear Wesley's thoughts:
"Warp factor 7 equals 846.354 times the speed of light, forces up to 107 megajules power usage, 900 times the speed of light, warp factor 7.8462, increase to 108 cochrane, approaching warp factor 8..."
Marn felt as if she could see and hear the fabric of space tearing. A sound one might hear if he were unlucky enough to be inside a warp core.
"Reaching warp factor 9.6318, 2,114 times the speed of light, compensating for diffraction factor, narr... narrowing... narrowing percentage... of..."
"He won't make it to the next step alone, captain," Marn whispered. "He could use my strength now."
"Fine."
An expression of strain moved across Marn's face.
Wesley, who had felt as though he was fainting, experienced a similar sensation to having a wave of cool water wash over him. He inhaled.
"Narrowing percentage of scattering, keeping peak transitional threshold low...
"THEORY: any object traveling at warp 10 will occupy all points in the universe simultaneously.
"THEORY: any object traveling faster than warp 10 may disrupt the space/time continuum.
"Accelerating to warp factor 10, alternate velocity at Planck time rate, 1.3 x 10-43 second, between warp factor 10 and warp factor 9.9999999996 and triangulate on the coordinates of the focal point..."
Marn was extremely confused and extremely impressed all at the same time. Confused because she didn't understand a word of what the Human boy was thinking, and impressed because he obviously understood every word of what he was thinking.
"THEORY: Quantum, photon particles, can be affected with anti-matter similarly to how matter is affected."
Marn was beginning to feel strained.
"That's it. That's the whole formula. But... the Traveler always said, there's something beyond the numbers, look beyond the theories, concentrate... concentrate..."
Marn felt a sharp headache come on very suddenly. Her face contorted in pain and she ducked her head, trying to lessen the sensation. She could hear Wesley's breath becoming quicker, more labored.
"Concentrate... look into the... into the fabric of... look..."
Wesley opened his eyes and staggered. The boy behind him reached out a steadying hand until Wes could plant his feet solidly under himself and regain his balance. "What happened?" he asked.
"I was about to ask you that," Kaelha answered, nothing but concern on her face. "Did you get close?"
"Yeah, but I couldn't take the final step. All I could do was the math. I can't do whatever comes next. I don't even know what comes next."
Wesley strained his memory for the Traveler's voice from years ago, "You know the formulas, Wesley, let it go. Let go of the guilt, let go of the fear. Release it."
"Try again," Kaelha ordered.
"What?" Wes's voice edged up a notch. "Maybe you didn't realize because..." Wes pointed to Marn, "that girl didn't put you inside my head, but that was hard! I can't do it again!"
"Do it again," Kaelha insisted. "One more try, ensign, you were so close." Wes was extremely conscious of the danger to himself, both if he cooperated and if he did not: his fatigue, and the disrupter. He could not find and rescue Robin if they disrupted him to death.
Wes placed his hands back on the panel and heaved a sigh. He checked the coordinates. They were only a very few parsecs from where they had been when he entered the room. All those formulas he was doing in his head, they hadn't affected the speed of the ship at all. Perhaps you must complete the process before it begins to move the ship. Perhaps it wasn't possible at all.
~It is only impossible when your determination, your need to help, is not there.~
Wes closed his eyes. Somewhere in the back of his mind, the thought occurred to him that it wasn't working because he didn't want it to work.
"Warp factor 7 equals 846.354 times the speed of light, forces up to 107 megajules p-- power usage..."
The boy standing behind Wesley again placed a steadying hand on his shoulders.
"Power usage. Increasing to 900 times the speed of light, warp factor 7.8462, increase to 108 cochrane, approa-- approaching... warp factor ten... no, factor 8, factor... 10 to the eighth power is... megajules in a cochrane... warp... factor..."
Wesley opened his eyes and realized he had been caught under the arms by the boy standing beside him. Wes removed himself from his support and slumped to a kneeling position on the floor, his left hand on the floor for support, his right hand against his forehead. He was short of breath.
Marn spoke softly to Kaelha, "If you make him try again, we will have to put him in sickbay and he will be of no use to us at all."
Wes now knew how the Traveler felt the first time they had met. Overworked.
"Please, let me go," he asked weakly.
Kaelha sighed. "We're through for now. Take him back to his quarters."
Wesley was lifted from the ground and assisted out of the room.
* * *
Jack... Jack... What's happening to me...?
The creature stepped towards her, immobilizing her with telepathic energy, confusing her. Then, when she was powerless, he could kill her quickly and efficiently. A simple snap of the neck and she would be finished. Perhaps that would be enough to scare off the Humans. And if it wasn't, he'd kill off high-ranking officers, one at a time, until the only one left was the captain. Then he would have the captain begging for mercy before all his ensigns that so admired him! This was almost fun.
The creature wrapped its hands around her throat carefully, then slowly began to tighten its fingers. Beverly's hands were futilely clamped around its wrists. She could not bring herself to fight it off with any strength. She told herself to kick, but her legs would not move. Her jaw had been clenched, but now it fell open, trembling. Her eyebrows drew upwards and she stared up at her husband, her eyes asking why... why was he doing this to her...
No, it's not my husband... this is not Jack... Jack... I... I can't breathe...
Deanna burst through the doors and the creature turned in surprise, releasing Beverly. Beverly slid down the wall to the floor, choking. The creature started towards Deanna.
She smacked her comm badge, "Troi to Riker!" Nothing happened. Of course, by now everyone knew the commlinks didn't work when the creature was present, but no one would give up on at least trying it.
A glass sculpture the size of a softball hurtled through the air straight at the creature's head. The creature dodged the airborne artwork and it smashed against the wall behind it. Deanna glanced over at Beverly, who had just slung the sculpture at the creature. By the time Deanna turned back to face the creature, it was upon her. It grabbed her by both wrists and turned to fling her against the far wall. It didn't get a chance.
The creature was yanked backward by the shoulders. It let go of Troi in surprise. Riker was standing behind it.
"Get the hell off my ship," he said and hauled his right fist backward. The most powerful punch Troi had ever seen Will Riker throw landed dead in the center of the creature's face with a sickening crunch. The creature disappeared.
Riker staggered a little with the sudden lack of resistance against his right fist, then stared at his hand in confusion. "Didn't think it would be that easy," he blinked.
"You did it," Deanna was staring at Riker in disbelief.
"I think what I just did was teach it to take a punch. That won't get rid of it next time."
"How did you know to come...?"
"Guinan. She got that Q feeling. I thought I should check it out."
Beverly walked slowly to the table and sank into her chair.
"Are you all right?" Deanna whispered.
Beverly nodded. But she wasn't all right. Wesley was dead.
"What happened?" Riker asked.
Deanna brought a glass of water from the replicator and set it on the table in front of Beverly. She stared at it.
"Wesley's dead," she said.
"What?" Riker's eyes narrowed.
Deanna blinked. "He's...?"
Beverly nodded and whispered, "Robin, too. The creature... said there wasn't any use for them after all. They were shot... point blank... with disrupters."
Deanna put her fingers to her mouth to cover a gasp. She slipped into the seat next to Beverly, trying not to think about how it must feel to be shot with a disrupter.
"I don't buy it," Riker crossed his arms. "Kidnap two of our officers just to kill them off? It makes no sense."
Deanna followed the commander's thinking. After a moment's consideration, she nodded. "The creature may have been lying, just to make the Enterprise give up the search. I sense that you don't really believe they're gone." She shrugged, "Neither do I."
"I didn't believe it, at first," Beverly was forcing each word out separately, trying to keep her voice from breaking up, "but he spoke about it... so... coldly... as if he really hated them... and was really capable... of..."
Deanna shook her head and covered Beverly's hands with her own. "We can't assume they're dead. It seems that's exactly what the creature wants us to do. We can't abandon a search after only half a day. And we cannot just allow a ship to go along its way after having kidnapped and allegedly murdered two of our officers. How long do you think it will be before they realize that if we think our officers are dead, we will open fire on their ship, not leave them alone?"
Riker stayed back from the table, standing with his arms crossed over his chest and his feet planted wide. "I have a feeling that if we keep after them, they'll call their own bluff."
Beverly had been staring at the water glass unwaveringly, afraid to even move her eyes. Beverly Crusher, tower of Scottish strength, did her best not to cry anymore. But right now she didn't know what to think. Things were happening far too quickly. She would listen to her friend's comforting words and keep up the search. And if Wesley was dead...
God help them.
Chapter 19
Beverly Crusher lay on her bed with her fingers laced behind her head, fear and dread paling her face. Where was Wesley right now?
Picard's explanation had been frightening, and his words afterwards comforting, but none of these were facts. Wesley could be dead right now. Or he cold be lost forever, forced to live his life on another ship, far from those he knew and loved. And Picard was just short of notifying the next of kin of Robin Wallace that she was missing and possibly lost. She wished she could know what Wes was doing right now.
She had seen the look Deanna had given her as she walked off the bridge. That look meant that she could expect Deanna as soon as her watch was over. She didn't know what Deanna thought she could do, nor did she think Deanna knew anything that anyone else didn't. But the presence of a friend would be comforting.
I just now realized how tired I am, Beverly thought and let her eyelids flutter closed. Her room was in near-total darkness already, lit only by the starfield outside her window. She told herself that she wouldn't fall asleep.
I'm not really off duty, after all. Only given... given a momentary break. There are people... people to be... be healed...
Her eyelids slipped closed so slowly she hardly noticed that it had happened. She fell asleep, but her mind wouldn't stop. The conscious part of her mind kept planning and thinking, but the unconscious part was distorting her thoughts in a strange, drunken sort of way.
The stars seemed to enter the room, spreading a starfield across every surface of her bedroom and spilling out the door onto the carpet of the frontroom. In her dream, she stood and faced the door. She could feel a gentle breeze through her loose hair and flowing nightgown as she entered the living room of her house. Sunlight ran in through the open windows at an almost horizontal angle. It was still very early in the morning. She could hear voices from the next room, one was the soft voice of her husband, the other the penetrating giggle of her infant son. The words were nonsense, cooing, babbling.
She peered through the doorway of Wesley's bedroom and saw Jack kneeling at his cribside, his face pressed up against the white wooden bars, making faces at his baby son, who was laughing incessantly. Wesley was up on his knees and had his tiny fists wrapped around two of the bars, watching the little "performance".
She smiled gently and tried not to make any noise that would cause this wonderful conversation to stop. Jack's back was to her, Wesley was facing her in his crib. Jack put his face up to the bars and made enthusiastic nonsense sounds at his 15-month-old son. Wesley leaned away from the bars, still clinging to them with his small fingers, and squealed with delight. Jack laughed. When Jack pulled away from the bars, Wesley would get near them again, an impish dare he knew his father would take. "Try to scare me again," the grin full of baby pearl teeth seemed to say. Then Wesley saw his mother. With the aid of the bars, he jumped to his feet and cried, "Mommy!"
Jack turned around and blushed. He stood up and straightened the belt of his bathrobe, clearing his throat. Then he picked up Wesley. "We were, uh... I was just telling him what was new in the world this morning," he smiled.
It was wonderful to see Jack in civilian clothes. It was wonderful to hear that baby voice. It was wonderful to feel the sun-warmed carpet under her bare feet, to feel the flower-scented breeze against her face, to hear birds and rustling leaves and insects. It was wonderful to be on Earth.
Jack carried Wesley over to Beverly. He could still hold him in one arm, even though he was getting so big. Wes's hair was as dark as his father's, and as thick as his mother's. He rubbed his eyes with his little fists, already worn out from all that laughing, his few emerging teeth still showing through the fading smile.
All the while, she knew it was a dream. She knew this was all long gone, that Jack was long gone, and that Wesley was grown, and quite possibly gone as well. But that didn't wake her. She preferred her dream to the pain, the loss, the fear. Her dream was so real...
Jack handed their baby son to her. He smelled clean, like soap and baby powder, and he was warm and she could feel his weight in her arms and hear his soft breaths as he laid his head on her shoulder and wrapped his little arms around her neck. It was as if she were really holding her baby again. She could see Jack as clear as day. Recently, she hadn't been able to do that. Her image of Jack, her memory of his appearance had been fading slowly for nine years, and she was powerless to stop it. When she looked at a picture of him, she could remember him clearly, even the sound of his voice. But when she thought of him randomly, while working or walking down a corridor or lying in her bed staring at the ceiling, she could not conjure an image of his face like a ghost. But now, in her subconscious, in her dream, he was here again, as clear as a beautiful, warm, bright, sunny day...
God, she hadn't dreamed about Jack in so long...
She looked down at Wesley's big brown eyes, tiny nose and bow mouth. He looked so much like Jack. She looked up to make the comparison...
...but Jack was gone.
She heard a tiny sigh...
...the sigh of a baby who'd just stopped crying.
She looked down at Wesley...
...and he was gone too.
Suddenly the room was dark again. Dark and cold. The golden yellow warmth of the sun was replaced by the freezing blackness and cold silver starlight. Stars were everywhere, all throughout the room, on the walls, the ceiling and floor, floating through the air, threatening to crush her in the vacuum of space. She ran through her house...
...her quarters...
...on the Enterprise in space. In the middle of nowhere. There was a constant rushing sound, a whirring, roaring, blowing, airy sound that grew louder and louder...
...and on top of it all there was a machinery sound... a clicking. No, beeping. No, a twinkling sound...
...and the rushing and rushing sound of silence, of a giant universe that was a vacuum, closing in around her...
...closing her world around her... creeping up on her from all sides... destroying everything she holds close to her... stripping her of everything she attempts to protect and to keep...
...and leaving her all alone... alone...
And then she was lying in her bed, in her quarters on the starship Enterprise, hearing her doorchime repeatedly.
Oh, god, Deanna! I forgot! Beverly jumped out of bed still dressed in her uniform and shoes, and strode to the door of her bedroom, within shouting range of the main door.
"Come in, Deanna, I'll be right out," she called, then ran back into her room to throw some cold water on her face, to try to clear the powerful dream images from her mind and think clearly. She pressed a soft towel to her face and took a deep breath, studying her face in the mirror, dragging herself back to the here and now. Then she started out to the frontroom.
Jack was standing there.
"Oh my god," Beverly stumbled backwards and turned to run into her room.
"Beverly, wait," he called to her, starting after her.
She pounded her fist against the "close" button and the "lock" button simultaneously. The doors swooshed closed and locked. Beverly backed away from the doors until the backs of her knees struck the bed and she half fell, half sat on it. She was fighting down panic.
Jack walked through the doors as if they weren't there at all. Beverly gasped and jumped off the bed, backing around it to the other side of the room.
"Go away!" she bellowed.
Jack's face was sad, "Beverly, please. Please don't be afraid, please calm down. Please."
She managed to calm her breathing, but kept backing away from him. She tapped her communicator. Nothing. Good lord, now she understood what Wesley must have been going through when the creature appeared to him as Lynn Costa. She had no one to send for help and no one would hear her voice if she screamed. She had to defeat this creature alone.
"Beverly, please, I just want to talk to you, I just want to see you, to look at you, please," Jack plead with her, backing her into a corner.
"You're not real!" she yelled right into its face. Beverly Crusher's voice never rose above a certain pitch, it was always low. And when she grew desperate it got even lower. Right about now, she was near a good baritone.
"Bev, please," tears began to form in Jack's eyes. Beverly didn't think she could stand it.
It's not Jack. It's the creature. Concentrate on how to get rid of it. Where's the discrepancy? Where's the flaw in its characterization? How can I get him away from me?
"Beverly, please don't make me leave yet," He had his hands on her arms, trying to hold her still, but she was struggling in slow motion, her eyes locked to his, like someone under water trying to disentangle herself from a squid.
"I... I have something to tell you," Jack said, "Something important, and... and it won't be easy to say. Please. Please sit down."
The creature knew that there was really only one way to get rid of the Enterprise, and that was to convince them that there was no hope of rescuing the Human boy and girl. Not ever. They had to be told their children were dead. Then they would go away and mourn. Even if they ever did learn otherwise of their children, it would be too late to ever find the Neverland again.
Jack forced Beverly with inhuman strength to sit down on her bed, but the gentle expression never left his face. It was eerie. Jack sat next to her on the bed and did not release the vice-grip on her arm. If she was going to try to go somewhere, it would be without her arm. She stared at him.
"Beverly, I have bad news."
She drew up her eyebrows in confusion and worry. "What?"
"It's Wesley. He's... he's gone, Bev," Jack's voice broke.
Beverly stared at him, her eyes growing red as he watched. She was battling with herself, to believe him, not to believe him, to cry, to be strong, to lash out at him, perhaps to get herself killed in the process (but what did that matter now that everyone she loved was gone?), to fight him with every ounce of her strength...
Instead, she whispered, "What do you mean?"
"The children. They... they've killed them. They killed Wesley, and Robin Wallace, too. They killed them, Bev," Jack started crying and leaned towards Beverly to embrace her.
Then, to the creature's surprise, against everything he knew of Human nature, she pulled away, angrily.
"You're lying," Beverly was cold with fury. Her face was stone, her eyes welling but refusing to spill tears.
Jack looked up at her and shook his head slowly. "No... Beverly, I'm not lying."
"You're not even Jack. You're that creature that's working with the children on that monstrous ship to abduct my son. If Wesley is dead, and I have absolutely no reason to believe that he is, then it's your fault. And if that is that case, you'd better start running now."
Suddenly, all Jack's pretense of sadness faded away and he stood, angry and firm. "No, I am not Jack. But your son is dead. And the girl, too. There is nothing left for you to pursue, so stop pursuing my children."
Beverly was shocked. There was the form and figure of Jack, but not his voice, not his personality, not him. So now how could she make him disappear?
"You want me to stop pursuing your children, then we must have ours back. You protect your children, we protect ours. Return them to us."
"You want them back, even dead?"
Beverly swallowed. She still didn't know whether to believe they were dead or not, and tried to decipher signs of dishonesty in his words. "Why did you kidnap them only to kill them?"
"You mean you don't know? They were worth much to us. They were intelligent and powerful beyond anyone of your race. But your adults had destroyed their willingness to be free and to pursue all the uses of their own powers. They were of no use to us as they were, and no use to themselves. They fought us at every turn. So we killed them. It was merciful, really."
"Monster..." Beverly shook her head. She was beginning to believe him.
"Perhaps," one side of his mouth smiled, "but not as monstrous as Humans."
Beverly's eyes filled with horror and disgust. "I want him back. I want my son back."
"See, that's the funny thing about death. You can't ever have him back."
Beverly spoke evenly and slowly, almost hypnotically. "I know about death, I know all about death. I want my son back. I want you to return Wesley and Robin. We will pursue you until you return our children to us."
"We will kill you," the creature shrugged.
Beverly narrowed her eyes and wore a very dangerous expression. "If you have killed my son," she took a breath, "and God help you if you have, nothing will stop me from finding you and taking him back. If I have to steal a shuttlecraft and chase you around the galaxy for the rest of my life, I will get him back."
The creature had to exert extreme control not to back away from the snarling woman leaning closer and closer to him with a murderous expression on her face. Wow. I forgot about how protective mothers can be...
"Oh," the creature sounded as if he'd just gotten the idea. "You want the bodies. For burial. Or... whatever. I understand. Unfortunately, there are no bodies. That would have been very messy. They were executed point blank with disrupters. Actually, it's quite an agonizingly slow and painful death, taken apart molecule by molecule, each integrated organization of atoms in the body erupts. They were vaporized. Disintegrated. Gone. Sorry."
Beverly's hand flew to her mouth. The creature was speaking far too lightly of all this for her to take. She felt like she was in the dream again. She couldn't cry, she couldn't move, she couldn't understand, she couldn't comprehend. Her son was dead, but doesn't a mother know when her child has died? Can't she feel it? She didn't feel the absence of her child, she couldn't sense the end of the life she'd created. Shouldn't she be able to feel that? But, good lord, with disrupters? What was going on? Who was standing in front of her, approaching her, glaring into her eyes with a horrifying absence of conscience, reaching out for her...
How can I get rid of him? How can I save myself? How can I get help? Someone come and help me!
* * *
Deanna leapt out of her seat on the bridge, alarmed.
"Deanna?" Riker whispered to her, "What's wrong?"
"Beverly," she panted, "Beverly needs me. Now." She stared at Will, who sat in the center seat while Picard was off the bridge.
"How do you know that?" as far as Will knew, Deanna could only ever telepathically communicate with two people: her mother and himself. How could she hear a cry for help from Beverly?
"I just have a feeling," she shook her head, as baffled as he was.
"Is she in trouble?" Riker asked, starting to stand to go with her.
"No, no. I don't know. I don't think so. Maybe. I think, I should go to her."
"Deanna, are you all right?" Riker cocked an eyebrow. Troi was making no sense.
"Yes. I just sensed alarm. Or fear. Coming from her." Each new sentence was an afterthought. Deanna was not with Riker on the bridge, her entire mind was focused on Beverly in her quarters, trying to decipher exactly what it was the Chief Medical Officer needed. Riker was merely listening in.
"Do you want a security team?"
"No. I don't think so. Not yet. I'll tell you when I know." Deanna was on the turbolift.
Riker stood in front of the center seat, unable to decide whether to follow her or remain on the bridge. He could conceivably be needed in both places. The turbolift doors closed and his decision had been made for him. He sighed and sank back into the captain's chair.
"Guinan to bridge," a voice came over the commlink.
Riker answered, "This is the bridge. What's the matter, Guinan?"
"I've got that feeling again, Commander."
"I'm on it."
That clinched it. Riker stood again and strode over to the turbolift. "Data, you have the bridge."
"Aye, sir," the android answered, standing from Ops and crossing to the center seat.
* * *
Wes almost jumped out of his skin when he heard the doors open. He sat up on the bed, but didn't stand up. Four young men he'd never seen before entered the room.
"Come with us," one said.
"Where?" Wes asked, making no effort at all to get up off the bed.
The four boys posted themselves around the bed, surrounding him, but did not answer. They seemed to be waiting for Crusher to get up. He didn't.
"I'm not going anywhere until I know where and why."
"You have no choice," the same young man answered. "Come with us now."
"No, it's you who don't have a choice. You can tell me what to do until you're blue in the face, but I'm not doing it until I know why."
"We will physically remove you, if necessary," he answered. Wes sat still. The boy gestured to the other three. Each boy grabbed a limb and lifted.
"Hey, wait! Put me down!"
The four boys dropped him back onto the bed. He rose slowly and straightened the waist of his jersey, granting each boy a long, angry glare, ensuring that there could be no doubt in anyone's mind of his displeasure. "I'll walk," he muttered.
"Good," said the only boy who seemed to possess the power of speech, "follow me."
The boy preceded him out the door, and the other three hustled Wes out behind him. Wes began his routine of memorizing corridors, doorways and their numberings, hatches, bulkheads, computer panels, as much as he could see. A photographic memory is a valuable asset to a prisoner who wishes to escape. Along the way, the corridors began to lose their familiarity. They ceased to look like something the Federation might have produced, and began to look very foreign. They came to a set of doors and stopped in front of them. The doors opened with neither voice nor tactile command. The room appeared to be totally blank. A holosuite with no grids on the surfaces. Inside the room were Kaelha and several others. The center of the room bore a sort of console, but he could not tell from where he stood what it was for. When he approached the console, it appeared to be a cross between a Master Systems Display and a Warp Propulsion Systems Status Display. It appeared that one could monitor every atom of matter and anti-matter in the ship from this table. It also appeared that, from here, one could cause the ship to exceed warp factor 10. Wes knew why he was here.
"Ready for your first try, ensign?" Kaelha smiled.
Wesley shook his head. "No. It's impossible. It's not going to work. And I'm not even going to try to help you. Even if it were possible, I wouldn't help you."
The boy who had brought Wes here stepped up beside Crusher and gripped his arm, holding something a few inches away from Wesley's ribcage, where he could see it. "Know what this is?"
Wesley's eyes widened and he nodded slowly. "It-- It's a disrupter..."
"Good. Don't make me use it."
"B-but, if you kill me, you'll have no way of ever creating a temporal anomaly."
"That is true, ensign," Kaelha answered. "But we'll also have no way if you refuse even to try."
They had a good point there. Wesley stared for a long moment at the console, then slowly stepped towards it and placed his hands flat on the top of the display. He closed his eyes and lowered his head. He absolutely did not want to cooperate. But the only way he could help Robin was if he was alive. So he'd have to try.
The girl who had revealed Wes's mother's identity to Kaelha yesterday, Marn, was in the room with them. She stepped up to the console opposite him and similarly spread her fingers on the panel. Wes opened his eyes and looked up at her. Her gaze bore disconcertingly into his own eyes. Unsettled, he lifted his hands off the display and took a half-step backward, eyes still locked with hers. A young man standing behind Wesley touched his shoulders, and it took no more than that to halt his dazed retreat. But he did not stop back to the panel yet.
Wesley was pervaded with confusion. If someone had prompted him to move back toward the console, or made some move against him, it would have sparked anger in him, and he may very well have gotten himself killed. But no one did. The girl at the console had dark eyes, almost black, and they burned into his own brown eyes. He was trapped in her gaze, and he could not turn away. No one spoke, no one moved.
Wes stepped back up to the console, never taking his eyes off the girl on the other side of it. He began entering calculations. No specific destination, he was just entering configurations that might permit speeds in excess of warp ten. He spread his fingers over the display panel and closed his eyes. He tried to remember exactly what had happened when the Traveler had assisted him in creating a temporal rift.
And he waited.
Without consciously realizing it, Wesley was waiting for certain prompts, certain non-verbal directions. None were forthcoming and nothing was happening.
The girl stared at Wesley and Kaelha looked back and forth between the two of them. No one spoke or moved.
Wesley stood with his eyes closed, his hands on the console, unmoving. Kaelha stepped slowly to the girl's side.
"Marn," she whispered, "what is he doing?"
Marn did not break her intense gaze to Wesley Crusher, but answered, "Nothing. He's waiting."
"Waiting for what?"
Marn stared hard for a moment, the he shook her head. "He doesn't know."
"Can't you do anything?"
"I don't know what he's waiting for any better than he does, what am I supposed to do?" She noticed her captain's angry face. "I can try." Marn closed her eyes and leaned heavily on the console, leaning closer to Crusher.
Wesley inhaled sharply, his eyebrows drawing together, as if concentrating on something. Wes had received the first of his "prompts," and he was beginning the process.
No. It's not working. It's not supposed to be this difficult, Wes thought in the back of his mind. It wasn't this difficult last time. I can't do it.
Wes made a frustrated noise and opened his eyes.
"What happened, ensign?" Kaelha asked coolly.
"I... I don't know. I can't do it. It's much harder this time. It won't work."
"Of course it will, you just have to try harder."
"It's not a matter of trying hard enough," Wes answered. "It's that I don't even know what to try."
"Yes, you do!" Kaelha was growing impatient. "You just need to try harder!"
Wes shook his head and exhaled. She wasn't listening.
Marn turned from Wes for the first time. "I believe that if he were to try harder, he might simply drain himself without accomplishing anything. He doesn't need to do more of what he's already doing, he needs to do something different from or additional to what he's doing. Perhaps, if I could create a channel..."
"Of course," Kaelha calmed again. She gestured to a boy near the door. "Get the girl." He nodded and left the room.
Wes turned a confused expression to Kaelha. "What? Get Robin? Why?"
"She will be your strength, ensign, and Marn can create the bond," the girl with the dark eyes smiled so slightly that it was almost imperceptible. "That's why we kept her. She's a backup for you. If one Human isn't strong enough, perhaps two will be."
Wes took a step back again, and again the boy behind him stopped him gently. "No, I don't want her to be involved in this."
"You also don't want yourself to be involved in this, but you aren't able to control that, either. I suggest you simply help us, for your own benefits, and you'll keep yourselves out of the path of that disrupter."
"If I am able to help you, if we succeed," Wes was afraid to ask this question, "then what? Do you return us?"
"If you succeed, ensign, none of this will ever have happened. You will never have heard of me, and you'll be happily back on your ship. If that is what you want."
"I can't just decide to help you, though. I can't just promise you that I'll succeed. I don't even know what to do."
"Well, ensign, you'd better hope you succeed."
"Fine," Wes was angry. "You want to see what I can do? I'll cooperate with you, if only to show you that you're wrong about me and I can't send you back in time."
Kaelha nodded. "All we ever asked is that you try."
Wesley gaped at her in utter disbelief, as he stood, surrounded by guards, held at disrupter-point, a captive with no means of escape forced to do this for them. And all they did was ask, ha.
The boy who'd been sent to retrieve Robin entered with Dalev and without Robin. Dalev sported a huge bruise on his right cheekbone.
"What happened?" Kaelha was stunned. "Where's the Human girl?"
"Captain," Dalev began, "she... she escaped."
"Escaped? From you?"
"She... is a great expert at battle. I sincerely believe she could have defeated two if there had been so many."
"She defeated you? You?" Kaelha couldn't believe a Human girl had beaten the daylights out of the largest B'Safran male she'd ever seen.
"Yes!" Wes whispered through a grin. He couldn't help it.
"Silence!" the boy with the disrupter bellowed and pressed the weapon between Crusher's eyes.
Wes snapped his mouth shut.
"Find her. Now. I don't care how long or how many of you it takes. She's on a starcruiser, there's only so many places she can go. Now get going." Several boys, including Dalev, left the room in a hurry. Kaelha turned her attention back to the matter at hand. "Marn. You can help the Human, can't you?"
The girl who had been standing across from Wes nodded and turned to face him. "I believe so."
A boy carefully turned Wesley back to the console. Wes closed his eyes and placed his hands back on the display.
"He's been past the first stage," Kaelha said to Marn. It's a step, a small one, but an important one. Now perhaps we can go forward. Establish the link."
Marn stepped toward Wesley and reached her hands towards his face. He flinched and pulled away, but the boy standing behind him held him firmly in place.
"Do not be afraid," Marn's voice was gentle and soothing, "I will not harm you."
Marn touched her fingers to either side of Wes's face. His eyes fluttered closed. When Marn was sure the Human boy would no longer attempt to resist, she closed her eyes as well.
Suddenly, Marn could see a starfield, like the starfield that can be seen when one is traveling at maximum warp. Then it began moving faster. She could hear Wesley's thoughts:
"Warp factor 7 equals 846.354 times the speed of light, forces up to 107 megajules power usage, 900 times the speed of light, warp factor 7.8462, increase to 108 cochrane, approaching warp factor 8..."
Marn felt as if she could see and hear the fabric of space tearing. A sound one might hear if he were unlucky enough to be inside a warp core.
"Reaching warp factor 9.6318, 2,114 times the speed of light, compensating for diffraction factor, narr... narrowing... narrowing percentage... of..."
"He won't make it to the next step alone, captain," Marn whispered. "He could use my strength now."
"Fine."
An expression of strain moved across Marn's face.
Wesley, who had felt as though he was fainting, experienced a similar sensation to having a wave of cool water wash over him. He inhaled.
"Narrowing percentage of scattering, keeping peak transitional threshold low...
"THEORY: any object traveling at warp 10 will occupy all points in the universe simultaneously.
"THEORY: any object traveling faster than warp 10 may disrupt the space/time continuum.
"Accelerating to warp factor 10, alternate velocity at Planck time rate, 1.3 x 10-43 second, between warp factor 10 and warp factor 9.9999999996 and triangulate on the coordinates of the focal point..."
Marn was extremely confused and extremely impressed all at the same time. Confused because she didn't understand a word of what the Human boy was thinking, and impressed because he obviously understood every word of what he was thinking.
"THEORY: Quantum, photon particles, can be affected with anti-matter similarly to how matter is affected."
Marn was beginning to feel strained.
"That's it. That's the whole formula. But... the Traveler always said, there's something beyond the numbers, look beyond the theories, concentrate... concentrate..."
Marn felt a sharp headache come on very suddenly. Her face contorted in pain and she ducked her head, trying to lessen the sensation. She could hear Wesley's breath becoming quicker, more labored.
"Concentrate... look into the... into the fabric of... look..."
Wesley opened his eyes and staggered. The boy behind him reached out a steadying hand until Wes could plant his feet solidly under himself and regain his balance. "What happened?" he asked.
"I was about to ask you that," Kaelha answered, nothing but concern on her face. "Did you get close?"
"Yeah, but I couldn't take the final step. All I could do was the math. I can't do whatever comes next. I don't even know what comes next."
Wesley strained his memory for the Traveler's voice from years ago, "You know the formulas, Wesley, let it go. Let go of the guilt, let go of the fear. Release it."
"Try again," Kaelha ordered.
"What?" Wes's voice edged up a notch. "Maybe you didn't realize because..." Wes pointed to Marn, "that girl didn't put you inside my head, but that was hard! I can't do it again!"
"Do it again," Kaelha insisted. "One more try, ensign, you were so close." Wes was extremely conscious of the danger to himself, both if he cooperated and if he did not: his fatigue, and the disrupter. He could not find and rescue Robin if they disrupted him to death.
Wes placed his hands back on the panel and heaved a sigh. He checked the coordinates. They were only a very few parsecs from where they had been when he entered the room. All those formulas he was doing in his head, they hadn't affected the speed of the ship at all. Perhaps you must complete the process before it begins to move the ship. Perhaps it wasn't possible at all.
~It is only impossible when your determination, your need to help, is not there.~
Wes closed his eyes. Somewhere in the back of his mind, the thought occurred to him that it wasn't working because he didn't want it to work.
"Warp factor 7 equals 846.354 times the speed of light, forces up to 107 megajules p-- power usage..."
The boy standing behind Wesley again placed a steadying hand on his shoulders.
"Power usage. Increasing to 900 times the speed of light, warp factor 7.8462, increase to 108 cochrane, approa-- approaching... warp factor ten... no, factor 8, factor... 10 to the eighth power is... megajules in a cochrane... warp... factor..."
Wesley opened his eyes and realized he had been caught under the arms by the boy standing beside him. Wes removed himself from his support and slumped to a kneeling position on the floor, his left hand on the floor for support, his right hand against his forehead. He was short of breath.
Marn spoke softly to Kaelha, "If you make him try again, we will have to put him in sickbay and he will be of no use to us at all."
Wes now knew how the Traveler felt the first time they had met. Overworked.
"Please, let me go," he asked weakly.
Kaelha sighed. "We're through for now. Take him back to his quarters."
Wesley was lifted from the ground and assisted out of the room.
* * *
Jack... Jack... What's happening to me...?
The creature stepped towards her, immobilizing her with telepathic energy, confusing her. Then, when she was powerless, he could kill her quickly and efficiently. A simple snap of the neck and she would be finished. Perhaps that would be enough to scare off the Humans. And if it wasn't, he'd kill off high-ranking officers, one at a time, until the only one left was the captain. Then he would have the captain begging for mercy before all his ensigns that so admired him! This was almost fun.
The creature wrapped its hands around her throat carefully, then slowly began to tighten its fingers. Beverly's hands were futilely clamped around its wrists. She could not bring herself to fight it off with any strength. She told herself to kick, but her legs would not move. Her jaw had been clenched, but now it fell open, trembling. Her eyebrows drew upwards and she stared up at her husband, her eyes asking why... why was he doing this to her...
No, it's not my husband... this is not Jack... Jack... I... I can't breathe...
Deanna burst through the doors and the creature turned in surprise, releasing Beverly. Beverly slid down the wall to the floor, choking. The creature started towards Deanna.
She smacked her comm badge, "Troi to Riker!" Nothing happened. Of course, by now everyone knew the commlinks didn't work when the creature was present, but no one would give up on at least trying it.
A glass sculpture the size of a softball hurtled through the air straight at the creature's head. The creature dodged the airborne artwork and it smashed against the wall behind it. Deanna glanced over at Beverly, who had just slung the sculpture at the creature. By the time Deanna turned back to face the creature, it was upon her. It grabbed her by both wrists and turned to fling her against the far wall. It didn't get a chance.
The creature was yanked backward by the shoulders. It let go of Troi in surprise. Riker was standing behind it.
"Get the hell off my ship," he said and hauled his right fist backward. The most powerful punch Troi had ever seen Will Riker throw landed dead in the center of the creature's face with a sickening crunch. The creature disappeared.
Riker staggered a little with the sudden lack of resistance against his right fist, then stared at his hand in confusion. "Didn't think it would be that easy," he blinked.
"You did it," Deanna was staring at Riker in disbelief.
"I think what I just did was teach it to take a punch. That won't get rid of it next time."
"How did you know to come...?"
"Guinan. She got that Q feeling. I thought I should check it out."
Beverly walked slowly to the table and sank into her chair.
"Are you all right?" Deanna whispered.
Beverly nodded. But she wasn't all right. Wesley was dead.
"What happened?" Riker asked.
Deanna brought a glass of water from the replicator and set it on the table in front of Beverly. She stared at it.
"Wesley's dead," she said.
"What?" Riker's eyes narrowed.
Deanna blinked. "He's...?"
Beverly nodded and whispered, "Robin, too. The creature... said there wasn't any use for them after all. They were shot... point blank... with disrupters."
Deanna put her fingers to her mouth to cover a gasp. She slipped into the seat next to Beverly, trying not to think about how it must feel to be shot with a disrupter.
"I don't buy it," Riker crossed his arms. "Kidnap two of our officers just to kill them off? It makes no sense."
Deanna followed the commander's thinking. After a moment's consideration, she nodded. "The creature may have been lying, just to make the Enterprise give up the search. I sense that you don't really believe they're gone." She shrugged, "Neither do I."
"I didn't believe it, at first," Beverly was forcing each word out separately, trying to keep her voice from breaking up, "but he spoke about it... so... coldly... as if he really hated them... and was really capable... of..."
Deanna shook her head and covered Beverly's hands with her own. "We can't assume they're dead. It seems that's exactly what the creature wants us to do. We can't abandon a search after only half a day. And we cannot just allow a ship to go along its way after having kidnapped and allegedly murdered two of our officers. How long do you think it will be before they realize that if we think our officers are dead, we will open fire on their ship, not leave them alone?"
Riker stayed back from the table, standing with his arms crossed over his chest and his feet planted wide. "I have a feeling that if we keep after them, they'll call their own bluff."
Beverly had been staring at the water glass unwaveringly, afraid to even move her eyes. Beverly Crusher, tower of Scottish strength, did her best not to cry anymore. But right now she didn't know what to think. Things were happening far too quickly. She would listen to her friend's comforting words and keep up the search. And if Wesley was dead...
God help them.