Chapter Six
Author's Note: Yeah, I know, it's been like seven years. Hope people still want to read the end of this story.
Starship Enterprise
"Fire."
A full spread of photon torpedoes sent a Star Destroyer reeling, its port side shattered. The Enterprise shuddered as turbolasers raked its entire length. Before venturing to this universe, the Enterprise and Defiant had been thoroughly refitted: their shields, torpedoes and phasers were orders of magnitude more powerful than normal. Now Picard realized his original ship would have been snuffed like a candle in a hurricane by the firepower being wielded in this battle. The civilization that had built the Death Star had been developing space technology for centuries if not millennia.
Now it was clear that even with its refits, the Enterprise was only marginally better than one of the Empire's ships of the line. Its contribution to this battle would not be enough to turn the tide. Even as the Enterprise maneuvered to put the damaged Star Destroyer between it and the incoming fire, the Death Star fired its planet destroyer again, and a Rebel battleship was consumed in flames. On a side screen off the main viewer, the Defiant burned, ignored by both sides.
"Shields down to forty percent," Worf said curtly.
"Evasive maneuvers," Picard ordered. It felt too much like running away, but if the ship did not buy some time to rebuild its shields, it would not survive much longer. He could go into warp and leave the entire battle behind. But that would be running away, and he would not do that.
Was he buying time for his fellow agents – his friends – to carry out the plan, or just sacrificing himself and his command for no good purpose?
Death Star
From his hiding place inside a service corridor, Commander Data extruded a communication cable from his hand and plugged into the Death Star's communication network. The Empire was centuries ahead of the Federation in many ways, but it seemed that information technology wasn't one of them. His positronic brain sidestepped the Death Star's sidewalls with little trouble. Unfortunately, as he peered into the gigantic vessel's network, he discovered most vital systems – weapons, energy systems, life support - could not be reached this way; their command units were hardwired and not networked, which made them less efficient but impossible to hack, not without actually reaching those systems physically, and they were too well-guarded for that.
Still, as Commander Riker would say, there were many ways to skin a cat.
Data started looking at secondary systems. Most of those were networked together; they had to be, or managing such a large vessel would become an impossible task. If he could cause enough of those systems to malfunction, the cumulative damage could prove devastating. With a satisfied expression, Data composed a program that would rampage through the vessel's network.
"Hello, tin man," someone said behind him.
Data turned and found himself face to face with a grinning man in denim. He had never seen him before, but some of his fellow agents had.
"Randall Flagg."
"Roden Fell, right here and now," the grinning man replied. "But yes, 'tis me, happy to greet thee."
Data considered the situation. Roden Fell seemed to be alone. Data's program was already loose in the ship's systems, so all he needed to do was subdue or even distract Fell for a few minutes.
"You've been up to no good, haven't you, tin man?" Roden said, strolling casually towards Data. "I'm glad it was you I ran into. The Jedi clowns are just... simple, I guess. Light side, dark side, they have no depth, no nuance. You, now... Do androids dream of electric sheep? Do they have souls?"
Data reached for his phaser, but Roden Fell leaped and closed in, grappling the android before he could draw. Data was far stronger than any human being, but as soon as the grinning man touched him, he froze like a statue.
"Yesss," Fell hissed. "There is something in that positronic noggin. It's kinda like a soul, but not quite."
"What... are you doing to me?" Data said. His sensors were flickering wildly.
"You sort of have a soul, but it's got some interesting bugs," Fell said. "I think I can reprogram you, good buddy. I think I'm going to make a little copy of my soul, and then I'm going to upload it right up into your brain. You'll be like my twin brother, and then you're going to fix whatever mischief you were up to back there. Whaddaysay, Pinnochio? Wanna be my brother?"
Data tried to scream, but his body has no longer his to command.
Forest Moon of Endor
"They have an army down there," Leia whispered angrily from her hiding position. The commando group, minus two Rebel soldiers the Ewoks had killed, had finally reached the shield generator, and found it very well defended by at least a company of Imperial Walkers and maybe a battalion of Storm Troopers.
"That's just swell," Indiana Jones muttered. "Maybe we could sweet-talk the cannibal baby bears into switching sides."
"Why don't we concentrate on a plan that might actually work?" Han Solo said grumpily.
Quinn Mallory ignored the byplay. Ever since his little personal sliding power had manifested itself, he'd been seeing things. Little flashes of light out of the corner of his eyes, and occasionally, more substantial hallucinations. Except they weren't hallucinations but glimpses into other worlds. For a second, Quinn found himself looking at the scene below, with hordes of Ewoks charging the Imperial troopers, fighting on the side of the Rebellion. Hard to believe, but in another world, it had happened.
I'm Sliding even now, he thought to himself.
Worse than the hallucinations, sharp headaches had followed each "jump," barely noticeable at first, but the last one had left him with a brutal migraine that was just beginning to subside.
"A frontal assault is out of the question," Doc Savage was saying when Quinn started paying attention again. "We only have small arms and the demo charges."
"I'll do it," Quinn said.
"Works for me," Han Solo replied. "Use the Force, or whatever it is you're doing."
"I'd like to know what exactly it is you are doing," Doc Savage told Quinn.
"I think all my exposures to the Sliding process had an effect on me," Quinn replied tentatively. "It looks like I can do mini-Slides if I concentrate enough. Only I'm traveling in the same universe instead of different universes. Or maybe I'm jumping briefly to another universe and then jumping back to a different location in this one. I'm not sure."
"Quinn, is this ability safe?" Wade asked. "I can sense you are in pain, and it's getting worse."
"Wade, is anything we're doing safe?"
"Okay, you've got a point."
"All right, then. Give me all the demo charges."
There were twelve of them left. The Ewok attack had destroyed all the rest, luckily without actually causing them to detonate. Three or four charges would bring down the station, but Quinn would have to dispose of at least some of the forces guarding it. And he had some ideas on just how to do that.
"I'm going in, guys, if everything works out, you won't have to do anything." He turned to Wade and kissed her. "I love you."
"I love you too," Wade said, but he had already vanished in a flash of light.
Death Star
The two Jedi had no trouble reaching the Emperor's inner sanctum. It was clear Palpatine was expecting them.
So were Darth Vader and Sith Luke.
"We meet again," Darth Vader said.
"We meet at last," Qui-Gon replied. His counterpart in this world had failed like no other Jedi had ever failed. He had trained Obi -Wan Kenobi, who in turn had trained the two Sith before him, father and son, the seeds to the Republic's demise. He felt a need to redeem himself for things he had not done.
"And when we're done with you, we will deal with your master," Qui-Gon continued, looking at the Emperor. "You have much to answer for, Palpatine."
"You are nothing, Qui-Gon," Palpatine sneered. "A ghost from another world, a shadow from the past. You and your vaunted knights were my puppets, and I made you dance to my tune. Now you will merely provide me with a few moments' entertainment as your last deed in this world." He turned to Vader and Luke. "Kill them."
The two Sith raised their light sabers. Obi-Wan felt a disconcerting mixture of terror and pain, for their fighting stance was as familiar as his own.
"Deal with your teacher," Vader told Luke. "I have killed him once already."
"That will be my pleasure," Luke said, his painted face beaming with sadistic mirth. Obi-Wan felt the Dark Side of the force radiating from the young Sith, fueled by rage and hatred.
"Qui-Gon," Darth Vader said as he advanced. "In another life, you were kind to me. I will repay your kindness with a swift and painless death." He moved, lashing out with the speed of a striking serpent.
Qui-Gon met the energy blade with his own, and the battle was joined.
Starship Enterprise
"The Defiant has launched its life rafts," Riker announced. "I think it is going to..."
Picard saw the proud ship vanish in a blast of matter-antimatter annihilation. Few of the life rafts made it out of the lethal blast radius. An instant later, another Rebel starship was destroyed by the Death Star. The Imperial fleet had suffered severe losses as well; in at least two cases, Star Destroyers had been struck by the Death Star's massive beam, since the Rebels had flown into close combat in the hope the Death Star would be deterred from firing into its own vessels. Apparently the Emperor did not care about destroying his own ships.
Not that it mattered. The Rebels would be picked off one by one. If they tried to flee at this point, they would only provide the Death Star with more targets before the ragged survivors could escape into hyperspace.
"Captain."
Picard snapped from his temporary fugue. Riker was looking at him intently, and Picard could see the despair behind the professional expression.
"What are your orders, Captain?"
"Set a course to the Death Star. We will launch the remaining enhanced torpedoes." Their first salvo had consumed five of them. Only three remained. "Prepare all phasers and torpedoes. We will do a Time on Target volley." Time on Target meant timing the torpedoes and beams so they all struck at the exact same time. The chances of that volley working where the previous one had were essentially nil, but it was their best, their only, shot.
"Aye aye, Captain." Did Picard see reproach in Riker's eyes? No, it was resignation.
Death Star
So this is what death is like, Data thought.
He could no longer perceive the physical world. Instead, his consciousness had retreated into his memory sectors. From there, he could see his personal programming, and his memories, being erased, terabyte by terabyte. His emotion chip had been one of the first things to be wiped clean, so he could no longer feel terror as he contemplated oblivion.
"So is that all you are going to do? Watch yourself die?"
Data found himself on the Enterprise. He was in someone's personal quarters, sitting on a bed. Sitting next to him was a woman with blond short hair.
"Tasha."
Tasha Yar smiled at him. She looked exactly as she did in the hologram he always carried with him.
"Here I am, Data. My dear Data."
"You are a memory fragment," Data said logically.
"Am I? Did I ever call you dear?"
"No, you did not."
"I should have. I should have done many things. I think I would have, if I hadn't died."
"I believe so as well," Data replied. Strange. The emotion chip was gone, but there was something behind his normal cold reasoning affecting him.
"I'm glad you do. I always felt something for you. But I'm disappointed in you, Data. Giving up without a fight."
"I am no longer in control of any of my processing and functional systems," Data replied with a tinge of defensiveness that surprised him. "Fighting is no longer an option."
"How logical. Maybe I should have given up when I was a child, let the rape gangs have me."
"The situations are not comparable. You had volition. I seem to have lost it."
"Then why don't you go looking for it?"
"My persona has been overwritten. Currently only seventeen percent of my memories and original programming remain. They will be completely wiped out in sixty-three seconds."
"Will you please try? For me? How many calculations can you make in sixty seconds?"
"Fifty-one seconds left. Several million in that time." He paused. "I will try."
"Thank you." Tasha stood up and hugged Data briefly. "I have one question before I go."
"Go ahead."
"The hologram of me you carry. Why do you have it? You don't need an image of me. Every memory you had of me is perfectly imprinted in you."
"I wanted to have something of yours to hold, every once in a while."
Tasha kissed him. "I will see you again, one day."
Data found himself a disembodied form surrounded by his rapidly diminishing memories.
He started devising a fighting strategy.
Forty-one seconds left.