Chapter 44

Beverly sat against the wall in Doulos' quarters, and she was filled with despair. Why had she taunted Doulos to the extent that he had rushed from the room declaring he would murder Jean-Luc…again? There really hadn't been any point at all, except that she had wanted to hurt him, just as he had hurt her. Perhaps the Other's influence had touched her somehow. But she didn't need the Other to make her enraged with Doulos. The fact was that she had a plan—she'd just gone too far. She had been trying to convince him to turn on the Other; and for a few moments, she had wondered if he would. That was before she had declared Jean-Luc was alive. Doulos hadn't seemed surprised, but he certainly had flown into a rage at the mere mention of Jean-Luc's name. She got to her feet and began to pace the room. And now what? If there was only some way she could find out whether he was alright.

"Yes…if only," said Q, who now stood at the center of the room.

Crusher rushed over to him. "Q! Is he still alive?" She grasped for his arm, but he stepped away from her disdainfully.

He waved his hand into the air. "See for yourself, Doctor." She gasped as an image of Jean-Luc and Doulos grappling together in a dark stairwell was suddenly before her. She reached out as if to grab Jean-Luc to pull him into the room with her, but the image blinked out as quickly as it had appeared.

She turned in shock to regard Q. "He's still alive," she whispered.

He snapped his fingers and a plate of food appeared in his palm. "Yes. Now your hunger strike can end. Sit down and eat something." She stared at him.

"Help me get out of here," she demanded, ignoring the food.

In a flash he disappeared and then reappeared in the center of the room at the stone table. The plate lay on the table. "I'm not helping you do anything until you come here and eat."

"Since when are you concerned about my welfare, Q?"

He gripped his chest as though she had just stabbed him there. "Oh, how your disregard for everything I've ever done for you pains me, Crusher. If you must know, I have something to tell you, and I want you to actually understand it…not to wonder later on if it was just some hunger-induced hallucination." He held out his hand, indicating he was still waiting for her to sit down.

Reluctantly she sat down, and then ate what he had placed before her as quickly as she could. She had eaten the vegetable stew, and shut her eyes momentarily; thinking that it was quite possibly the best thing she had eaten in twenty years, when she noted that a large piece of crusty bread now lay next to the bowl. Ripping it apart she stuffed it into her mouth hungrily, oblivious to Q's distasteful expression. Once finished she looked up at him and noted with some embarrassment that he was daintily holding out a white napkin. "Thanks," she said, taking it from him and wiping her chin. "Um…how did you know that was my favorite—" Q leaned in with his chin in his hand, waiting expectantly for what she had to say. "Oh..." she said. "Right."

"Feeling better?" he asked patiently.

She nodded. "Yes, thank you. Now about Jean-Luc…."

"Jean-Luc, this and Jean-Luc that," he snapped. "You really think the universe revolves around him don't you?"

Beverly just stared at him.

"Yes, that's what I thought," said Q. "In fact it turns out you're not alone," he said.

"What are you talking about?"

"Do you know where this ship is headed, Crusher?"

"To Orla's planet…or wherever it is that she lives."

"That's correct. And you're going there because the Other is bringing you there."

"Well I don't know the details, but…"

"He's bringing you there; trust me."

"Alright," she allowed.

"And have you ever wondered why Orla is apparently allowing this to happen?"

"I had assumed that it was because she wanted to somehow neutralize him," said Beverly. "Maybe she believes she is luring him there."

"But what if it's not the Other she's luring to her?" suggested Q.

"What?"

Q stood up, ignoring her puzzled expression. "This is what I feared would happen. In fact, I think I really had too much faith in Orla. Perhaps at one point I even viewed her as an equal—well, near equal. But no more."

"Q, according to everything we've seen, Orla has our best interests in mind."

Q leaned forward with his hands on the table. "Think about it, Crusher! Everything she has done has been for Picard. And so it seems that you are not the only one who thinks the universe revolves around Jean-Luc Picard."

"You mean…?"
"I mean that everything she has done to help so far has been with the single-minded aim of keeping your beloved Picard alive. Now don't tell me this hasn't been on your mind, Crusher."

"I—thought she was trying to help us defeat the Other. I've been trying to look past my own foolish jealousy."

"Well...perhaps it's time that you revisit your jealousy, Crusher. Because very soon, it may be all that you have."

"Is that it?" Pritchard stood mesmerized, staring at the only bright spot in the now dark hills. About twenty feet above the ground a black shining object spun around and around, suspended above the earth. It was small, just larger than the size of a human hand, and a pale yellow circle of light shone around it.

"Yes." Guinan felt a very genuine sensation of relief, and reminded herself not to grow too elated at the sight of her goal. What was it doing in plain view? Someone must have stumbled upon it on accident. And yet it was still here. Whoever had found it had not been able to take it, and she knew why. It must have sensed her presence.

They walked a bit closer and then Pritchard stopped just ahead of her kneeling down next to a shadowy object in the darkness. When he carefully raised the lid of the object, she saw it was a container of some kind. "Shine that thing in my direction," he said, nodding at the star map in her hand. She did so, and the inside of the wooden box was illuminated to reveal several bundles of narrow brown tubes. "Uh oh," Pritchard whispered, looking up at her with concern.

"What?"

"I think someone is planning on blowing that thing out of the sky. This is dynamite."

"This box is full of explosives? It doesn't matter; it won't have any effect on the object," Guinan said.

"This dynamite is old," Pritchard said, getting to his feet. "…which makes it real volatile. The nitroglycerin is leaking, which means we are going to tiptoe around it real carefully."

As they neared the suspended shard, the sound of clumsy footsteps came pattering up the hill. "Pritchard!" shouted Bill Loomey. He leveled a revolver in Pritchard's direction.

"Run!" Pritchard shouted to Guinan, and she did run, directly toward the shard.

"Stop her, before she gets to it!"

Guinan ran faster as bullets hit the ground around her. She skidded to a stop just underneath the shard. It was too high for her to reach. That must have been why Loomey had brought the dynamite. He was going to try and blow it literally out of the sky. Determination filled her, and she reached into her cloak. With a steady hand she pulled out the other two shards. Immediately the suspended shard dropped lower. She stuck her hand up and the shard dropped easily into her hand, joining its companions. Years of stress and worry left her, and she laughed from the sweet relief of it all.

"Quite proud of yourself, aren't you?"

She turned to find Q standing there beside her. Even though the shard was now in her possession and the eerie glow had disappeared from it, there was now a strange glow around Q lighting his face, making him appear more threatening than normal. That was when she heard the explosions behind them.

A few moments earlier…

Pritchard dove behind a rock, and came up shooting. He waited for the flurry of shots to begin to rain down on him, sending fragments of the boulder all over him. There were too many of them.

"You can't hide for long, Pritchard," Loomey called out teasingly, and the shooting halted for a few moments. "I got all the time in the world. Once I kill you, I'm going to shoot down your friend over there."

Pritchard clicked out the barrel chamber of his revolver and reloaded the bullets one at a time. He said nothing, and leaned back against the rock. Counting silently in his head.

"You hear me, John? You're dead already. And so is your black friend. You always had the worst judgment when it came to choosin' partners. First Francisco, and now her…both dead because of you…might as well just come out and fight me head on, John."

"…two, three…." Pritchard pushed himself away from the rock and ran laterally as fast as he could firing into Loomey and his goons. He saw two men fall, but a shot from Loomey's gun hit him in the right knee and sent him spinning into the dirt. Lying on his back, he reached his hand out desperately, trying to reach his gun. Loomey walked up and stood above him, pressing his boot onto Pritchard's hand, preventing him from gripping the gun.

Loomey crouched down and leaned into Pritchard's face. He nodded down at the man's knee. "Bet that hurts real bad, don't it?" Pritchard didn't say anything, and was still struggling to get hold of the gun. Loomey stood up again and kicked the gun away from Pritchard's reach and laughed. "I know what hurts worse 'n that, John. Remember when we first met? You got drunk and showed me that old bullet hole in your gut you got during the War." He cocked the hammer on his revolver. "Well…you never should have done that, John."

Loomey aimed and fired a single bullet directly into Pritchard's abdomen. Pritchard cried out once and then let out a shuddering breath. "Loomey…you son of a bitch. Stay away from her—"

"See ya, old friend," Loomey said, spitting into the dirt and walking away.

Pritchard closed his eyes, and tried to concentrate on something other than the blinding pain.

"Hey boss!" It was Lenny, calling out to Loomey. "Someone's been messin' with the TNT."

Pritchard stretched his neck and saw Loomey and his goons running over to the box of dynamite. Spitting blood into the dirt he dragged himself over to his gun and picked it up, before falling back into the dirt onto his back. His vision was becoming blurry. He gripped the revolver in his left hand and tried to steady it, but it wobbled. He couldn't get up, he knew. Letting his arm fall back down he gritted his teeth and focused, trying to calm his mind as much as possible. Smiling, at that last moment he saw the outline of the wooden box very clearly. He pulled the trigger and then dropped the gun covering his head as the explosions ignited the darkness. His body was pelted with splinters of rock and other objects. But it didn't matter, because when he opened his eyes, he could see that Loomey and his gang were no more.

Guinan watched as Bill Loomey and his men were blown apart from the force of the explosion Pritchard had set off. Now the only thing stopping her was Q…and herself. Suddenly a horrible feeling of self-doubt clouded her mind. What if Q was right? What if Orla was not the right one to receive the pieces of the Other?

"Save him and I'll give you the shards!" She blurted out.

"All of them?"

"Yes! Just save his life, Q."

Q looked back at Pritchard. "I can't," he said.

"What do you mean you can't? I thought you could do whatever you wanted to?"

"Well, I couldn't find the shard as you so cleverly pointed out on the train, and I can't take them from you by force, now can I?"

"I think you conveniently choose what you can and can't do, Q. That's what I think. Now save Pritchard, and I'll give you the shard. And don't tell me again that you can't."

"No. I can't… because he's meant to die."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean he's meant to die here in this place, and in exactly this manner. And there is nothing that you or I can do about it. It's his fate."

Guinan took another look at her friend, slowing bleeding to death just meters away on the ground. She returned her gaze to Q, looking up at him stonily. "Then I guess it's my fate to leave now…and it's your fate not to have these," she said holding the shards up clutched in her fist. With her other hand she reached beneath her cloak and activated her father's device. She felt the familiar sickening sensation as though she were being pulled apart in many directions at once, a rushing sound blew over her ears and then she was gone.

John Pritchard knew he was dying. His breath came in quick clouds disappearing into the night. He hadn't seen his wife…he had hoped all along that the object Guinan was seeking would show her to him, just one last time, whether she was real or not. But she hadn't come. The dull throbbing pressure in his right knee indicated that even if he wanted to he wouldn't have been able to walk.

His lower left abdomen burned, and he knew he'd been shot in the same exact place he'd been struck during the War. Except this time, something vital had been hit. He struggled to lift his head. "Some damn coincidence…damn luck has run…out," he choked out, and dropped his head back onto the rocky ground. He coughed and the hot taste of iron bubbled up in his mouth. There was a flash of light and he struggled onto his side, sending a rush of pain through his body. The pressure of having been lying on his back released and he nearly passed out as blood now flowed freely from the exit wound on his back.

Willing himself back into consciousness Pritchard strained to see what was happening in back of him. Guinan was talking to the man from the bar—to Mr. Q. She now held the glowing object and several others in her grasp. Good, he thought, relieved that she had reached her goal. In an odd moment of ridiculous clarity he wondered how she had carried all of those objects for hundreds of miles without him knowing, and with no visible pockets.

She shifted her gaze to look at him, and he raised his right hand weakly to wave at her. She nodded and in the next instant disappeared as a rainbow tinted wave of energy replaced her. Q was gone as well, leaving Pritchard to roll again onto his back. He felt his body growing cold and the clouds of respiration escaping his lips were weaker, almost non-existent. He could no longer feel the lower half of his body, and as the cold crept up through his abdomen he was glad for the loss of sensation.

The night sky was suddenly the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Could it be that in the future people would travel through the stars? He hoped that when that happened they would be people as good and sensible as Guinan. Tears escaped his eyes and rolled down his cheeks. His vision fading, he knew it must have been a hallucination when a vertical pocket of light ripped open in front of him and a hand extended outward….