A/N: Posting a few days early as vacation will have me away from the computer for a few days. So an earlier installment. Flip side--longer to wait for Chapter 8. :)
May 31, 2386
Is this a dream?
Aaron's voice, echoing inside her head, as if he were calling to her through a large empty space. She was looking at her surroundings, not understanding why she would be somewhere other than on the station. A dream? he had asked. Was she dreaming? Her brain was sluggish, moving too slowly and impeding her cognition.
Las, she heard him call. It was more than his voice; it was a telepathic message. She knew without even questioning.
A dream, but just as she had been drawn into his dreams while touching him as they slept, she realized with a start, she had pulled him, conscious, into her dream. How strange, she thought. How complete and deep the bond had to be, she thought, still amazed.
Where are we? he asked.
Her eyes felt open, but why couldn't she see where they were? She felt a damp chill and smelled a musty, dank odor burning her nostrils. She also caught a faint whiff of saline, like stagnant ocean water…. Oh…nononono…
She was in the cave, beneath the surface of the planetoid in the Neutral Zone. She felt feverish, achy, and unable to focus her thoughts. Pon farr. Her dismay quickly liquified to panic. Aaron...why was he here? Something was wrong...he wasn't supposed to be here…
What's the matter? What are you so afraid of? he asked urgently.
You have to get out of here! Now!
I don't understand...he said, his voice distorting in her mind, echoing in a time-delayed sensation.
Romulans, she said to him, a heavy chill in her voice. They emerged into the chamber with their weapons leveled at her. She felt Aaron, knew he was standing behind her, but she couldn't see him. No! she screamed, her voice reverberating off the walls.
Oh, God...T'Lassa...She heard his voice, filled with horror, understanding what he was seeing and experiencing. I brought this up, stirred these memories...Oh, God, he moaned, bombarding her with his guilt for doing so.
These memories are always here, he heard her say, steel in her voice.
A maniacal laugh, from the soldier in front. "Starfleet. What a prize," he sniped sarcastically. "Only two of them, and a wrecked shuttle craft. Not worth following into the Neutral Zone."
"Maybe, maybe not," the first one sneered. "This Vulcan bitch is in heat. Have you heard of that? How lucky for us...it only happens once every seven years." Pain burned on her scalp as he grabbed her by her ponytail and pulled.
"Get your hands off of her!"
Aaron heard the scream and then saw the figure rushing at two soldiers with no weapon in his hand. He knocked the one holding her to the ground, wrestling with him until the other shot him. Point blank it would have killed him, but instead from a distance, it grazed his side, burning away his maroon uniform and leaving a bloody hole.
Tim, Aaron thought, knowing it was true, feeling her disgust and worry. He lay unconscious. She tried to say something, instead taking the butt end of a disruptor pistol to her chin. Aaron heard the crunch as it collided with her bone, felt the pain and the blackness encroaching on her vision. She hit the ground hard, her head cracking against a rock, further hazing her consciousness. Fading in and out, she was aware of how mercilessly the two soldiers beat his unconscious form, kicking him, pounding him with fists and weapons.
She was watching him being murdered, she thought in horror. Anger burned and fear welled...she had no power left to suppress anything.
Las, she heard Aaron cry frantically. Wake up! This is a dream.
A dream….a nightmare….a memory…he heard her say gravely.
He screamed from behind her, falling to his knees, though he wasn't even there in actuality. He wanted to close his eyes, but the visions were in his brain, and he couldn't shut them out. He coughed up vomit, retching as the tears poured from his eyes, able to both see and feel what was happening to her. Oh my God….he wailed, commiserating with the sentiment he knew she felt. Death...please...anything...make it stop.
A hard crack against her cheekbone knocked her unconscious. She woke again to more pain, tearing against her lacerated flesh and bruised tissue, at the grinding of her raw skin against the ground. Aaron still wept, forced to watch her suffer, reliving her nightmare for himself.
I never knew which one….was my son's father.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the discarded disruptor. She reached toward it, her finger just grazing the metal. She slid it closer, stretching her finger into the trigger, then turned the tip upward and fired. All she wanted was to stop him, even if it meant she was killing herself in the same shot. As she screamed, her attacker fell dead on top of her.
T'Lassa, she heard Aaron's voice again, weary, exhausted, and sickened.
Footfalls echoed. She lifted herself, shifting out from under the dead body, then aimed and fired, killing the second soldier. Aaron felt the burning inside himself as her stomach emptied, followed by painful dry heaving when nothing was left. The only reason she didn't lie back down and let herself die was the thought that Ensign Horatio may still be alive…that she needed to help him.
Stop this torture….wake up, he implored brokenly.
A cool hand against her feverish skin….
She bolted upright, shrieking, finding herself back in her quarters, safe on the station. Sweating, tears wetting her face, she felt warm, strong arms encircling her from behind.
"Ssh….it's all right," he asserted. "It's over." He held her still as her body shook. He bent his head down over her, the tears on his face wetting her hair.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, feeling his anguish still ringing like a bell inside him. "I didn't realize...I could bring you along...like that."
"How frequently do you have that nightmare?" he asked sadly.
"Too often." She clasped his hand, weaving her fingers into his.
The dark, he said in her thoughts. It's this, he said with understanding.
She nodded, not telling him everything. The largest part of the dark, by far, what had triggered this awful flashback…was not her attack, but her newest fear, that of losing him. Her mind had taken her back to the closest she had ever come to death, with him, because she feared his death. She focused on the feeling of his embrace, calmed as he pulled her against his chest and laid her down next to him. It had been years since she'd needed to do so, but she used the technique she had taught Aaron, for when his demons chased him into his sleep. It took hours, but eventually, the light swallowed her pain, and she fell into a calm, dreamless sleep.
XXX
When morning light gently fell across his face, he stirred. Too tired, he thought, his mind slowly clearing as he remembered why he was so exhausted and sleep deprived. That horrific nightmare that had burned its image into his soul.
Her eyes opened, locking with his, the unspoken words lying on the pillow between them. Haunted. Such a strange word, but, she realized, perfectly apt at describing his eyes, as he looked at her, now vividly understanding. She sat up quickly, the knowledge that anything else had hurt him, especially because of her, squeezing her heart painfully. "I'm so sorry," she said defeatedly.
She felt him gather her hair in one hand, pulling it back off her shoulders. "You can't control that. It's not your fault," he whispered.
"I've felt your dreams. I should have known...I should have--"
"Warned me?" he countered. He shook his head. "You did. No amount of...pre knowledge would have made it any easier on me…or you." He sat up, resting his chin on her shoulder. "It's better that I know. As awful as that was." The echo of it brought tears to his eyes. "How did your husband survive that?" he asked in a hoarse whisper.
"I do not know," she attested. "He called it a miracle. Once he explained to me what that was, I began to think he was correct. He had massive internal injuries. He had lost close to half his blood volume." She sighed. "Despite being quite reticent, he was extremely stubborn. He would not give up. Ever."
He was shielding his thoughts, she sensed, not daring to question why. "What would he have thought of me?" Aaron asked.
She turned slightly to face him, and saw his florid cheeks. He was ashamed. She probed at him, gently, until he relented. No words, just the disgust and self-loathing, about how he had plastered himself with alcohol to avoid pain that barely touched what the other man had lived through. She grabbed onto his arms, tightly, seeing him wince in pain. "He would be very grateful that I had someone who loves me. Who was brave enough to save my life…twice." He didn't need their telepathy to sense her admiration of him.
She turned her face away again, and he felt the nagging pain, the difficulty with which she spoke the next words. "In the beginning, I think, he offered what he did, because he...never forgave himself, believing he should have been able to stop them." She shook her head. "You know now, there was nothing he could have done."
He sighed, lowering his eyes in understanding.
"Loving each other...was an accident. Fortunate, but...an accident," she explained.
How could he not have loved you? she heard in her head, then felt inside her chest.
He felt her finger gently tracing the scar on his shoulder, one he had never let her repair, the emotion behind it stronger than any words she could offer. He kissed her, and when he pulled away, she was gratified to see his eyes no longer filled with pain. Then he smiled. "Time for some caffeine."
}LS{
"Whatever failed before, it seems to be working just fine now," Tom said, leaning back in his chair at the helm of the coaxial drive ship, NX354. After seeing Admiral Janeway off in the morning as a family before Miral had gone to school, Tom and B'Elanna had reexamined the sensor logs from Hochai's flight, repaired the hull damage, and had been cleared to attempt another test run this morning.
B'Elanna didn't answer him, as she bent her head far over the controls to read the data. He watched her hands flutter over the panel.
"Any issues that you can see?" he asked specifically.
"None. Whatever happened before, it was probably a fluke. We've been out here for three hours. I think it's safe to say we can begin deeper space tests at the end of the week," she muttered.
"Affirmative," he agreed, then his hands flew over his controls, and she felt the ship begin to idle.
"Why are you stopping here?" she asked.
"Do you hear that?" he asked.
"What?" she asked bewildered, obviously not hearing anything.
"Exactly. Quiet." He winked at her. "We're alone. Ahhh…" he breathed. "These times are getting fewer and farther between."
She chuckled softly. "Wait til the baby's here. I'll be alone with you again in maybe…18 years," she kidded. Although ever so slightly, he sensed the truth there, the brief pang of sadness. With life's changes, always, there was just enough excitement to balance out the sadness, just enough gained to balance out what was lost.
"We've got another hour," he said provocatively.
"This isn't the Delta Flyer, I'm not on my honeymoon, and I'm so pregnant I can't see my feet. What are you proposing?" She smiled gently, her dark eyes glowing in the low light.
"Something that'll make your back feel better," he said, and flipped a switch on the panel in front of him.
"Gravity plating is off-line," the computer announced as B'Elanna felt her body start to lift out of her chair.
Soon she was floating, and she felt Tom grab her arm and pull her close, as he sailed through the shuttle like he was swimming. He kissed her softly.
"I'm afraid I'm going to get space sick," she said uneasily.
"Keep your eyes on me, like the horizon," he said. She knew what he meant, but something about the phrase, the entire scope of it, swept through her like a wave. She had always done that, when she was uncertain. She felt an incredible rush of tenderness for her husband, her children's father. Her vision briefly blurred as tears collected inside her eyelids.
Tom saw them, not understanding. "Are you ok?" he asked.
"Never better," she said softly, trying with great effort to keep her voice from trembling. "Just don't let me go, and I'll be fine." Did he understand all that she had meant, in just those two sentences? The smile on his face told her the answer was yes. She felt him wrap his arms around her back and pull her against him.
"Never," he answered firmly with a crooked smile on his face. Then he kissed her again.
}LS{
They were on the way back to the station when Aaron hailed. "Starbase 47 to Commander Paris."
"Paris here. What is it, Aaron?" he spoke calmly into the comm.
"Are you reading any subspace disturbances at your location?" His voice was clipped and professional. He was concerned about something, Tom thought.
"Smooth sailing out here. What's up?" Tom asked.
"I've never seen readings like I'm getting, Sir. I almost thought it was a sensor ghost, but it keeps reappearing," Aaron explained.
"It's not another piece of our neutronium moon, is it?" Tom asked, suddenly worried, reminded of the initial issues that had occurred when the debris had been discovered.
"No, sir. When I can get a reading, it's….larger. Much larger. Thousands of miles across," he said it slowly, as if he had difficulty believing what he was saying.
B'Elanna turned to him then, her eyes enormous with what he only could describe as fear. Something he had almost never seen in her in all the years he had known her. It turned his blood to ice. "How far away from the station?"
"Right now, it's four light years away. But whatever it is, it's moving on an approach vector, at sublight speeds. I estimate it'll be on top of us in two hours," Aaron told him calmly, though Tom sensed the unease in his tone.
Tom's face blanched, and B'Elanna saw his hands shaking as he toggled the communication switch. "Put the station on Red Alert. Call Admiral Paris to Ops. Try and get as much detailed information as you can with the sensors. We'll be there as soon as we can. Paris out."
"It's detectable on long range scans now," B'Elanna said tightly, her hands blurred over the panel as she moved. "It's emitting gravitons, order of magnitude…off the scale."
A vague memory tickled at the back of his mind. "Please tell me it's not a graviton ellipse," he mentioned, his voice flat as he examined the readings B'Elanna was studying as well.
"I don't think so," she answered. "There's too much distortion. These readings don't look anything like what we saw in the Delta Quadrant." It had been a rare spatial anomaly they had found back then, the exact phenomenon that had swallowed John Kelly and the Ares IV in 2032.
"Then what is it?" he asked, knowing only half of his meaning was rhetorical. If anyone could figure it out, he knew it was his wife.
Her eyes were wide with fear as she continued to peruse the data. "It's like a bubble, coming out of subspace, but it's warping the space around it. I've never seen anything like it. And it's moving…"
He felt the same fear even as it radiated off her. Whatever it was, it was headed straight for the station. There was very little mobility when it came to a space station, only limited thrusters that served the primary function of simply adding stability during ion and plasma storms. An anomaly moving at near light speed, thousands of miles across, would hit them head on. The station shields were no match for something like that.
They were sitting ducks.
}LS{
"Report!" Tom yelled as he entered Ops, sweat glistening on his forehead from his exertion of running all the way from the shuttle bay.
He was approached by Aaron and his father, both with stern masks on their faces. Admiral Paris spoke. "We've begun evacuating civilians, but there aren't enough ships. We're prioritizing families with children. The closest Starship is Endeavor. She's 36 hours away at maximum warp. We also issued a distress call, on all frequencies. There are at least 25 transports and cargo ships within range." Tom absorbed his father's words slowly, his mind starting the churn over the information as it registered.
Tom just shook his head, his mouth compressed to a grim line. "We don't have enough time….or ships…to evacuate all 1400 people on this station," he said, knowing they all knew what he was stating already. They needed another option to deal with the crisis.
Aaron spoke up, his voice tight. "Whatever this thing is, it has wave harmonics. Sensors are picking up the pattern. I can modify the shields, potentially creating some destructive interference. If we can disrupt the graviton wave, it could definitely decrease the magnitude of damage it can do during a direct hit."
"Get to it, and send all the data to engineering. How much time before it's in range?" Tom asked again.
"One hour 40 minutes," Aaron said.
"Get down there and help B'Elanna," he called. Aaron nodded, and left at a brisk pace, following B'Elanna, as she had already started moving the second Tom gave the order.
Tom turned briefly and tapped his combadge. "Paris to Counselor Hawkins."
"Go ahead, Commander," Joanna Hawkins answered.
"Please take Miral, yourself, and your daughter, and as many as you can corral of the children who aren't potential evacuees, and bring them to the Infirmary. It's the safest place on the station," Tom ordered.
"Aye, sir," she said. He could sense her uncertainty, her desire for more answers, that he had no time to give her now.
"Dad, you should go too," Tom said, looking up at his father.
"Not a chance. I do outrank you, son," Owen said crisply.
"Dad, you're semi-retired…and they need help down there. Please, I know what I'm doing," he said firmly.
Owen looked at his son's face, seeing the strength and confidence that radiated from him. This was the man he knew his son could be, the man Kathryn Janeway had believed in enough to give the opportunity to grow. His chest swelled with pride.
"Dad, please!" Tom yelled again.
"I'm on my way," he said softly. He turned back only briefly, smiled. "If I haven't told you in a while, I'm proud of you, son."
"I know, Dad." He swallowed hard, anything else he wanted to say dying in his throat as his father walked away. That was enough, he thought. At least, the only thing that mattered.
}LS{
As the time ticked closer to the deadline, the station's resources were utilized to evacuate as many civilians as possible. All of the ships they had detected within range had arrived and then departed, full to overflowing with passengers. In the end, a little over 600 people had been transported to safety. The only children remaining on the station were the offspring of station personnel; they were sheltering in the Infirmary with the station's counselor, along with any remaining civilians.
Aaron and B'Elanna had also successfully reinforced the station's shields to disrupt the graviton wave, which was the gravest concern for causing structural damage to the station. The closer the bubble, what they were calling the unknown phenomenon, moved on sensors, the easier the trajectory could be calculated. The entire bubble was over 4500 kilometers in rough diameter, and the closest the perimeter was due to approach the station was about 500 kilometers. The wake of the graviton wave, however, was a calculated direct hit on them.
Aaron had informed them, once modifications were complete, that at its current speed and vector, it would take approximately 35 minutes to clear the station, with an additional 15 to 20 minutes of additional time where the wave could still affect them. The station needed to ride it out, just as they would in an ion storm, which was fairly common. The only difference now, he had told Tom, was the magnitude of force.
It made Tom feel better, and worse at the same time. The moment they started feeling the effects of the bubble as it neared, it became infinitely worse.
XXX
"Structural integrity down to 35%!" Ensign Palmetto called from the engineering station, urgent but composed. The wake of the graviton wave had significantly disrupted the orbit of the station about the lifeless planetoid around which it spun. Systems had failed in multiple sections. And there were still nine minutes before it completely passed and cleared the area.
"Divert power from life support. We just need to hold together a bit longer," Tom said softly.
Tom walked to the engineering console, anything to keep moving. The hardest part of being in command, he had come to understand, was the lack of actual things to do, to occupy his hands. Giving orders took a lot of brain power and mental processing, but it wasn't piloting a starship, or realigning warp coils, or even scrubbing plasma manifolds. His idle hands weren't distracting him from the feeling of impending doom.
He opened his mouth to inquire about status, when he felt the deck rumble under his feet, for what felt like the thousandth time in just a short stretch of time. This time, the room darkened and emergency lighting came on, tinting the pallor in the room to red. An alarm klaxon blared. "Warning," the computer called. "Main reactor seals have been compromised. Reactor failure is imminent. Containment failure in five minutes."
The reactor had just been subjected to B'Elanna's rigorous maintenance and system overhaul, he remembered. In the same split second, he remembered the instructions from the doctor, about her delegating the task to her assistant chief. Cho was an excellent engineer, but, because she had been testing the coaxial drive ship with him, B'Elanna had yet to sign off on the work that had been done. No one, ever, was as thorough as B'Elanna. Had Cho missed something? he worried.
Great, he thought sourly. Just what we needed. "B'Elanna, what's going on down there?" he called over the comm, leaving his ruminating thoughts in his head for the time being.
"The turbulence destabilized the containment field inside the reactor! We're trying to compensate!" She was yelling. In the background, when she was quiet, he heard more yelling, orders, and shouting. Almost an afterthought, and as if she could have been reading Tom's mind, she added, "There were a few maintenance issues Cho found in the overhaul this morning that he flagged for me to double check. I didn't have time to investigate."
"Can you stabilize it?" She didn't answer. "B'Elanna?" he asked urgently.
Aaron answered for her. "The power output is insufficient to reinforce the field in any significant way!" He yelled something incoherent to someone in the background. "It's been diverted to the shields," he added as he spoke back into the comm. The shields were the only thing keeping the station from shaking apart.
Tom felt his blood turn to ice water. "Can you eject the reactor?" he asked.
"We could, but it won't safely clear the station before it explodes. The ejection mechanism is partially damaged, one of the issues Cho found this morning. With that limited capability, the proximity of the detonation will blow the east side of the station off," she said tightly.
Panic roiled inside him, and he stamped it down like a flash fire. There were still 800 people on the station, and most of the civilians were gathered in and around the Infirmary. It was the most isolated part of the station, and would have been the safest place to ride out the subspace distortion. Not, however, if the east side of the station was blasted off.
"Paris to Paris," he said, not missing the irony as he spoke.
"Go ahead, Tom," his father said.
"Dad, I need you to organize all available hands to help move as many people as you can to the west side of the station, as quickly as you can. The reactor's destabilized. If we have to eject it--"
"Understood, Commander," he said quickly.
"Containment failure in four minutes," the computer announced again.
"Four minutes, Admiral," Tom shouted crisply. He didn't wait for his father's response.
"Everyone out of Ops!" he called. "We're evacuating to Auxiliary Control." It was a safer location, farther away from the reactor's ejection trajectory. He ushered everyone out, made sure the area was clear, and ran after them. He only hoped he would be back, or worse, that there would be something to come back to.
