Chapter 14

Six Months Ago...

"Federation Detention Facility 2HX, this is Federation Security Outpost Alpha 2, please respond."

"Federation Detention Facility 2HX, you are due for your morning check-in. Please respond."

The security officer turned from his post. "Anybody seen the station master recently?"

"Nope."

"Well...we've got dead silence from Facility 2HX. No response at all and the problem isn't on our end. 2HX is the highest security prison we've got. This shouldn't be happening."

The supervisor on duty walked toward the communications panel and punched in an emergency test code. If the facility had been compromised, its computer should still have responded with an automatic distress signal. "You're right. Nothing. Deploying a long-range sensor...I'd like to know if there's been any activity in this area before we send out a runabout to check things out."

"Sensor sweep deployed."

"Get me a visual."

The officer looked up at the supervisor who was staring at the readout screen in silent disbelief. "It's gone...and not just the prison. The entire sector has disappeared."

Paris, April 2369 (present-day)

Jack moved so quickly that Guinan nearly fell over trying to catch his arm. Talbot, who had continued his brisk walk away from them, turned just before Jack tackled him to the floor of the hallway.

"You smug piece of shit, what did you just say? What did you say?" He punched Talbot in the face twice, before Talbot pushed him off and drew a small phaser pointing it at Jack's chest.

"Walk away before I arrest you for assault," Talbot said, slowly getting up from his crouching position. "You really want to hear it again, Crusher? Picard is dead."

"No," Jack said through gritted teeth. "I don't believe you."

Guinan put her hand on Jack's shoulder. He felt just a small amount of pressure but found himself unable to move forward.

Jack turned his head to look at Beverly and found that she was walking away in the other direction.

"Beverly!" Jack called after her. "Wait!"

Not looking back, Beverly picked up her pace and then broke into a run down the corridor.

Jack strained under Guinan's inexplicably soft but immovable grasp. " Let me go! "

Guinan squeezed his shoulder. "No, Jack. I think you had better let her go," she said softly. "The time will come when you're both ready to discuss this. But that time isn't now." When she glanced back over her shoulder, she found that Talbot was gone.

USS Hood

"Entering the debris field," announced Commander Augustine from the command center.

Captain William T. Riker stood behind the helm, with his hand resting on the back of the officer's chair. It was a habit he had which he imagined irritated some of his officers, and so he usually tried to avoid doing it. But today he was entirely focused on a very specific goal.

"Slow to a crawl," he ordered in an almost conversational tone.

"Aye, sir. Slowing to two meters per second."

Riker turned around to address the back of the bridge. "Run a sensor sweep again."

"Sensors are picking up a number of alloys of alien origin, as well as fuel residue, sir," said Lieutenant Commander McKnight from ops. "

Riker took a deep breath. "Check for human DNA."

There was a pause.

"Confirmed, Captain," said McKnight with a professional, but subdued tone. She glanced up. "Bone fragments, Captain."

"Beam them up in a containment field and transmit to sickbay so we can get an ID, if possible."

First Officer Alisha Augustine walked to meet Riker as he waved her aside.

Augustine was small-framed, and had a quiet presence, but possessed a sharp tactical mind and a will as strong as anyone he knew. She was young but already had an impressive service record behind her. "The evidence is consistent with an explosion in this area, Captain. And based on the coordinates, that DNA is likely to check out as belonging to Daniel Rey."

Riker nodded. Marco. Marco had been in contact with Doctor Selar just minutes before his assumed death. Marco had announced that he believed his attacker was Caine. At first, this had seemed impossible since Caine was known to be detained in a maximum-security prison for the past several years. Although the focus for any Federation run prison was rehabilitation, Riker and everyone else he knew doubted that someone like Caine could ever be rehabilitated. So he was in prison indefinitely-or so everyone had assumed. What was now coming to light among a very small group of people, is that Caine's whereabouts were currently unknown, and so were the whereabouts of every other hardened criminal in that facility, because the prison had vanished.

Had Marco not made such a claim in the last minutes of his life, perhaps the circumstances of a missing prison would not have come to light. But surely someone had known it was missing.

The USS Hood, a casualty of the brief but devastating war against the Borg in 2365, had now been rebuilt and Riker had the honor of commanding it once again. One thing he was certain of; he wasn't going to lose it this time. He tried to take his mind off of recent events on Earth, and his missing friend, Jean-Luc. His current mission was to investigate Marco's disappearance and determine not only how the man had died, but to discover whatever object Marco had intentionally left behind for Starfleet to find.

"Sir!" McKnight signaled now from tactical, where she was monitoring the scan results. "We've got something. It's a very small object, less than 19 millimeters...but it is distinct from the other debris material."

"Can you analyze its contents?"

"It appears to be some kind of storage device, Captain. Not of Starfleet origin, that is for sure. I see nothing that would suggest it is a weapon."

"Marco told Selar he was beaming something to roughly these coordinates," Riker said under his breath. "Bring it aboard. I don't want anyone touching it until we've had security examine it."

"Aye, sir."

Engineering to Captain Riker.

"Riker here, go ahead."

Sir, we've got a strange situation down here in Engineering.

Riker's eyes narrowed with irritation. "Could you be more specific," he barked.

A man just crawled out of Jeffries tube 3. He appears to be a stowaway.

"A stowaway?"

He says he knows you, sir.

"Well, who the hell is he?"

He says his name is Q.

When Beverly arrived at the hotel room she shared with Seth, he was sitting in front of a holo news service, merely staring at the quickly changing imagery. They were images she was certain she did not want to see. She didn't want to slow down, didn't want to stop. She had checked her messages in the taxi and confirmed that she had in fact been chosen as CMO of the USS Excelsior. Jack's ship. For the moment, she didn't care that she would be serving with Jack again. She really didn't care about anything except for getting Seth and leaving.

Seth turned when she walked into the living room, and he rose to his feet with such an expression of immense sorrow. But it actually steeled her resolve. He's not dead. He left us, and he is somewhere out there in the universe, enjoying the life that he wanted.

She began to quickly pack her bag. "Where's Marca?"

"She's sleeping on the floor of the bathroom. Can't you hear her snoring?"

"Wake her up, please. We're leaving," said Beverly, not looking up from her frenzied packing.

"You got the CMO position?"

"Mm-hm."

"Oh...that's great." Seth crossed his arms and walked toward his adoptive mother, who seemed to be doing everything she could to not look at him directly. He felt tears come into his eyes. "Beverly? You saw the news reports too, didn't you?"

Beverly tossed him his coat. "Someone...someone told me. None of it is true, Seth. None of it."

Seth shook his head. "I know you don't want to believe it...I don't either." He began tossing his rumpled clothes into the bag she had given him. "We don't have to talk about it right now if you don't want to."

"Don't forget your toothbrush," she said absently, before hoisting the bag over her shoulder. "Marca...Marca, come here, girl," she called. After a few moments, the oversized dog stretched her way out of the bathroom with a yawn, and walked toward Beverly, immediately lounging against her legs. Beverly reached down to give her a pat.

She watched as Seth continued to pick up errant socks, some underwear and a holo game, shoving everything into his bag. She tried not to think about how many times this kid had been moved around the galaxy. And now she was doing it again.

She suddenly grabbed his hand. "Seth... I'm sorry that I'm not the same person that I was. I know that I'm not. But I do love you."

Seth hugged her tightly. "I know. I love you too."

"Are you sure you want to come with me?"

He smiled. "Yeah."