Chapter Eighteen

The Enterprise is rocked again by disruptor fire, more alarms beginning to sound as more systems fail. Everyone here knows their jobs well or they would not be there, but the situation is grave and there is tension in the air.

"Warning," the computer sounds again. "Plasma containment failing. Core temperature exceeding recommended safety limits."

"Tell me something I don't know," Geordi mutters, moving quickly from console to console as he assesses the damage. "Maya, can you get remote access back?"

"Negative," she reports. "Internal sensors are gone." She pauses, rapidly hitting buttons, then shakes her head in frustration. "I've lost automated controls, switching to manual."

"Get it sealed off and get out of there!"

"Aye, sir." The words are barely out of her mouth before the ship lurches again, even more violently, and everyone is forced to scramble to regain their footing. The console Maya had been standing at sparks and flickers, and though she quickly returns to her work the damage is slowing her efforts. "Manual override not responding," she calls, unsure if she is even heard over the din. Then, at last, the console reluctantly reacts. Triumphantly, she reaches over to activate the force field that will shelter the area from the release of the superheated plasma.

For the barest instant, she is relieved.

Then there is pain.

She cannot recall the moment when it began, and it seems as though it will never end. It simply is, and she has to bear it.

Am I falling? she wonders. She's already been knocked off her feet more times than she can count. Is Data all right? The bridge often seems very far away at times like these, but then, everything seems particularly far away at this moment.

She is falling, she decides, but impossibly slowly, a centimeter at a time. Curiosity flickers briefly, then is lost in the pain.

Geordi shouts something. She can't make it out, but she instinctively tries to make a report, only then realizing that she isn't sure what to say. What has she been working on? She can't recall, and a stab of panic fills her, though that, too, is soon overwhelmed. Perhaps she should go to Sickbay, however little she likes that idea. So much pain.

"Medical emergency," she hears Geordi say, and wonders what has happened. He sounds worried – perhaps Data is injured. But no, he isn't here, he's far away. Perhaps all this concern is for her after all, and it's true she isn't doing well. She can't seem to catch her breath.

Nyocene gas, she thinks, relieved. That's why she can't breathe. The Jefferies tube she was working in has been accidentally flooded with nyocene gas, and she's breathed it in. They'll get her to Sickbay and she'll be fine. Data will fuss, but that won't be such a bad thing.

Still, even nyocene gas probably shouldn't hurt quite so much. When she tries to say so, she discovers that she can't say anything. But she is in Sickbay now, she realizes, and relaxes a fraction. They must have beamed her there.

Dr. Crusher says something about lying still, and then Maya feels the press of a hypo against her arm. The pain recedes, her breath eases a little, and she sighs. It feels as though she's still falling, bit by tiny bit, but of course she can't be. Time seems as confused as her balance, speeding up and slowing down without reason or warning.

But it's quiet now. Dr. Crusher is still there, it seems, but no one else. Am I dead? She wonders about this for a very long time.

Then Data is there, though she doesn't know when he arrived. "I am here," he says, and she turns to look at him. His hand is on hers, she thinks – pain has been replaced by numbness – but she cannot take hold of his hand no matter how hard she tries to persuade her fingers to move. Instead she whispers his name, then struggles for another breath. "Sorry... I didn't get... out of the way.. f-faster." She would still be alive if she had. But no, she reminds herself, she isn't dead. Not quite yet.

"I love you." Her voice is failing her just when she needs it the most. Has he heard her? Please, let him have heard those few words. Someday he might want them.

"I am here," he says again, and she smiles, or tries to. Her hand at last obeys, gripping his briefly.

She falls a little further.

Then there is nothing.


Soon – or possibly a very long while later – she realizes that time has passed.

It is infinitely slow. Every moment is an hour, a day, but it is still moving. Distantly, she is aware that there is something else, something very close by but still out of her grasp. She cannot quite define it, but there is life there, or at least something that reminds her of the life she fell from. There, time moves as it should, but try as she might, she cannot reach it. She is alone and everything is very far away.

Again and again, she tells herself that this will be over soon, that this strange limbo cannot last. She knows she is dead, she's resigned herself to that, but this is not how she imagined death would be. Sooner or later something will change. It must.

Piece by piece, she forgets what her life has been. She doesn't have strength enough to hold on to her memories. Events slip away from her, faces disappear, names vanish. All she knows is this faded, bare existence. Even the sense that there is anything beyond grows increasingly weaker.

For a time, an hour or a year, she still remembers Data. Then he is gone. Soon even the echo of her memories is gone and she no longer knows that anything is lost.

But she can still recall the pain. She wishes it would come back.

For years, for centuries, she falls.

Then she stops falling and bolts awake.