Chapter Eighteen

For the first half hour after we left, all was calm. There were no signs of our pursuers, or of anything beyond the warp-distorted illusion of passing stars. I sat on the cold metal floor next to Tex, wondering when I had last had a decent night's sleep. Tex sat for some minutes, bouncing his legs up and down and fidgeting with his hands. Finally, he stood.

"Is there a bathroom on this here ship?" he asked. Shailin turned and grinned at him.

"You were just in it a little while ago," she said. Tex grimaced, but turned to walk to the back of the ship. I could hear him muttering to himself as he left. I smiled. It was nice to know that even in the worst of times, there was usually something that I could find amusing.

I stopped smiling when I considered the "worst of times" part. It occurred to me that I did not know how long it had been since I had left the Ascension. Mental calculation told me it could not have been more than a day or two, but it seemed an eternity. I wondered how Jerry was faring, or if he was faring at all. I could not bring myself to actually complete the dangerous thoughts that were prowling on the edge of my mind.

I thought of Julie, and became nauseous. Why did I keep dreaming about her? I had never really placed a lot of stock in the idea of premonitions. But then, I had never placed much stock in the idea of time-travelling to a fantasy universe and being caught in the middle of an intergalactic war, either.

It was reasonable to assume that I was falling in love with her, as silly as the thought seemed (after all, I hadn't really known her that long). Looking back on past relationships, I knew that I usually fell for a girl fairly easily, but it seemed like a stupid thing to do in the middle of a conflict such as the one we were now involved in.

But then, perhaps that was the reason. Maybe in the thick of battle, all I had to cling to was the fleeting hope of a romantic relationship swiftly arrived at. I couldn't be sure. All I knew was that with each nightmare, with each wakeful thought of her, my stomach was wrenching itself into knots.

I found myself once again fighting panic. Despite the fact that we were moving toward our destination at speeds long deemed impossible in my own time, I could not shake the wish that we would get there faster. Even the knowledge of almost certain doom awaiting us could not deter my desire to stop puttering around in the middle of nowhere. I got up from the floor and walked over to the command chair.

"Admiral," I said, "any idea how long this is going to take?"

"It will take a lot longer if I cannot concentrate on what I am doing." She pointed to the viewscreen. "We are coming within visual range."

I looked up at the screen, and was surprised to find more than the previously barren starfield. In the distance, growing larger as we approached, was what appeared to be an open wormhole. It looked very similar to the Bajoran wormhole, except that it remained open.

"A stable wormhole," Spock confirmed. "Perpetually open. Fascinating."

"But why would it be perpetually open?" I asked Shailin. She shrugged.

"From what I have heard, it began as a supernova in this system millenia ago. The star collapsed in on itself and formed the beginnings of a black hole. But as it began to pull the surrounding planets in, it first caught a nebulous discontinuity. The ensuing gravometric distortions were so powerful that they actually destroyed the black hole, and the force of impact created this wormhole.

"Meanwhile, the residual pull from where the black hole had been was still strong enough to suck in the planets of the system, breaking them to pieces as they were forced into the relatively narrow opening of the wormhole. And because of the nature of the nebula that created the wormhole, the mass of the planetary sections keeps it in a constant state of temporal/spatial flux. In other words, open."

"Fascinating," Spock repeated. "And I presume that this is our destination?"

"You presume correctly," Shailin replied.

"Hot damn!" Tex said, emerging through the archway to the bridge. "What in tarnation is that?"

"Admiral," Picard said, "are you suggesting that we're about to enter a wormhole that is filled with debris?"

"Precisely."

"Doesn't that strike you as being rather dangerous?" he asked. Shailin laughed, and tapped at her eyepatch.

"How do you think I earned this?" she said. "Of course it is dangerous! But it will also put us on the doorstep of Romulus in a matter of hours."

"And how long will it take the Remans to get there, using their own route?" Spock asked.

"Three to four days, if they hurry."

"They will most assuredly hurry," Picard said, seemingly resigning himself to the wormhole.

"That's assuming that they will know where we're going," I said. Picard nodded.

"Good point, Mr. Allen. I think at this juncture we should be prepared for the worst, but you might be right. We will have to see just how good Commander V'Eral's distractions really were."

Everyone fell silent as we approached the gaping mouth of the wormhole. Massive in diameter, the wormhole spiraled with plumes of multicolored energy. We seemed to be the size of a very, very small insect as we flew into it. I could feel the ship shake a little as we crossed the threshold.

"Switching to manual control," Shailin said, more to herself than anyone else it seemed.

"Wouldn't it be better to let the ship's computer plot the course?" Picard said nervously.

"Too much distortion inside the wormhole to get accurate sensor readings," Shailin replied. "It is much safer to feel my way through. Trust me, I have done this many times."

Her words did not seem to comfort Picard, and I found that they didn't comfort me much either. I personally didn't want to come out of the other end of the wormhole in need of an eyepatch. But I had to admit that she seemed very confident of what she was doing.

Ahead of us stretched what looked like an endless cloudy tunnel of roiling light. We seemed to be moving more slowly as we entered the corridor. Dead ahead, we could see the remains of a planet floating inside the swirling vortex of the wormhole. The largest piece was massive – so huge that part of it disappeared from our view over its horizon. It filled most of the viewscreen as we maneuvered toward it, and from our angle the flashing haze cast an eerie sunrise across the mutilated planetoid.

Smaller chunks of the one-time planet hung perfectly balanced along our path. Several of them were slowly spinning, doubtless still acting upon the influence of some previous flight through the nearly frictionless environment. There was almost a sad peace about this place, as if the strife and hardships plaguing the galaxy of today had no business here. As we silently glided over thousands of kilometers of frozen landscape, I wondered at the name of the wormhole; somehow 'bone cruncher' didn't seem fitting.

My silent question was answered as we reached the planet's terminator. Scattered across the available space of the wormhole, stretching as far as the eye could see, was a veritable minefield of asteroids. I sucked in a surprised breath, as did several others on the bridge.

"Fascinating," Spock said.

"You're not actually going to take us into that, are you?" Weston asked incredulously. Shailin grinned.

"We could always go back and see if the Prefect will give us an escort to Romulus."

"Please, proceed," Picard said. If his feathers were ruffled, he showed no signs of it now. In fact, the only sign of discomfort that he bore at all seemed to come from standing next to the captain's chair instead of sitting in it. At least, that was my perception.

"Everyone hold on to something," he said to the rest of us. "I have a feeling that this is going to be a rather bumpy ride."

"Remind me to thank you for your confidence, Captain, once we are safely on Romulus."

"Sarcasm noted, Admiral. My apologies."

"At least you remembered my title this time," she said smugly. Picard smiled.

"Anyway," she continued, "we only have to survive about an hour of this, and then we will be through the other side."

"An hour?" I said. "Through a wormhole? Why will it take so long?"

"Not every wormhole works the same way," she said. "Besides, navigating this particular one requires some…skill."

"Why don't you just blast 'em out of the way?" Tex asked.

"Because," Shailin said, beginning to sound exasperated, "disruptor fire is not advisable in here. If we hit something and did not completely destroy it, it could spin off into the wall of the wormhole and cause some very serious problems for us."

"Besides," Picard said with an air of solemnity, "we must walk softly, for we walk among the dead."

"You must walk softly because I need to concentrate!" Shailin snapped.

"Sorry," Picard said. We all fell silent as she began piloting the ship manually through the asteroid field. We could feel the inertial pull as the ship rolled and banked, weaving its way through the planetary graveyard.

I stared bleakly ahead. It seemed as if I could hear Morricone's A Sillhouette Of Doom, or Mozart's Dies Irae in my head as we flew. True to her word, Shailin's piloting skills were proving to be second to none, despite an abundance of close calls. After about twenty minutes of rocking back and forth among the asteroids, I discovered that my hands were hurting. I looked down and realized it was because they were clenched so tightly. I unclenched them, and wiped the sweat from my palms on my pants. I looked over at Weston. Her faced seemed a little green.

"Seasick, Weston?" I asked, trying to sound lighthearted. She immediately straightened her posture, casting me a pitiable look of defiance.

"Not at all sir. I'm just…not very acquainted with this particular kind of space travel," she said.

I tried not to smile at her. The last thing I needed was for her to think that I was patronizing her. I decided to try a little Picardism on her. "Suck it up, Lieutenant Commander. We've got a ways to go."

Amazingly, this seemed to illicit the exact response that I had wanted. She nodded respectfully – respectfully! – in my direction, and took a deep breath.

"Aye, Captain," she said. Her sudden change of demeanor brought back to my mind fantasies of being the best damned captain Starfleet had ever seen. Of standing on the bridge of that ship, giving orders to a crew so loyal that they would follow me into hell…

My reverie was broken suddenly as one of the asteroids collided with the ship.

"Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitttttt!" I heard Tex's voice with an odd detachment as he flew over my head toward an instrument panel. In the thousands of years that passed as I watched him go by, I had time to notice the change in the pitch of the voice, his facial expression evolving from surprise to horror as he realized where he was headed. Mozart's Dies Irae turned into a largo movement of a string quartet, long ago presumed forgotten but somehow stored in the recesses of my mind.

The moment his body crunched into the instrument panel in a shower of sparks, time snapped back into place.

"Report!" Picard said as he hauled himself up from the floor. Shailin glared at him, and he seemed to remember himself. "It seems that one of the fragments hit us," he corrected himself.

"No," she said grimly. "That was disruptor fire. Assume tactical stations!"

It took a beat for us to realize what she meant. Then we all quickly assumed posts at the three stations available to us. As soon as I got to the station nearest me, I realized that I was not going to be any help. I could read a Starfleet LCARS screen and know exactly what was going on any day, but the Romulan panel meant nothing to me.

"Two ships, closing in at twelve thousand kilometers," Weston said from across the room.

"Divert all available energy to the aft shields," Shailin said.

I decided that since there was nothing I could do tactically, I would divert my attention to Tex, who was at this point crumpled in a heap on the floor, unconscious. I shook him by the shoulder, and he seemed to come around.

"Cap'n, you ever seen a Texas girl?" he asked with a grin.

"No, I don't know that I have," I said. "Are you all right?"

"Umph," he groaned. "Prettiest damn things you'll ever see," he said slowly, then lost consciousness again.

The ship shook with another blast of disruptor fire.

"Admiral," Spock said calmly, "how long until we reach the end of the wormhole?" Shailin glanced at the screen on her armrest.

"Fifteen minutes at best."

"Very well," Spock said. "I suggest that you continue to monitor our position, and leave the tactical calculations to the rest of us."

Shailin clearly did not like this plan, but after a moment she nodded, and once again focused her attention ahead.

"Shields down to seventy-three percent!" Picard said, manning a nearby station.

"Main power weakening," Spock said. "Preparing for emergency switch to auxilliary power."

Ahead, the viewscreen split into two images; one of the asteroids ahead and one of the two Romulan ships that pursued us. A burst of green energy lanced from the forward ship, missing us by what seemed like inches. Ahead of us, one of the chunks of planet exploded in a miasma of colors, bits of it splaying outward in a deadly fireworks show. Some of the chunks of rock flew right into the wall of the wormhole.

There was an instant response, as if the rock had made the wormhole angry. Fierce-looking ripples shot out from the rock's entry point, and suddenly the whole side of the wormhole's wall thrust itself up in a gigantic plume of energy.

"Hold on!" Shailin shouted. She rolled the ship hard to port – so hard that I thought the inertial dampers were going to give out, and we were going to die very suddenly. But we shot past the plume, banking immediately back to avoid a collision with another asteroid once we got to the other side of it. On the aft viewer, only one of the Romulan ships got as lucky as we had. The other shook briefly as the energy wave overtook it, then promptly exploded.

Ahead, the far mouth of the wormhole became visible. The screen shook again from disruptor fire.

"Main power gone," Spock said. "Auxilliary power is up. Shields at twelve percent." Another blast. "Four percent…shields are down."

I looked at the Romulan ship on the screen, and noticed something even more terrifying behind it."

"Admiral!" I shouted, still holding Tex's inert torso up, "look at…"

"I see it!" she snapped. Behind us and the other ship, it was apparent that the wormhole was collapsing. "Divert all power to the engines!" Shailin shouted.

"But won't that leave us vulnerable to…" Weston began. But it was too late. Spock had already done what the Admiral said, and the ship suddenly shot forward with a renewed burst of speed. The last asteroid passed us, and we shot out of the end of the wormhole, just in time to see the Romulan ship exit it behind us.

As it came out, however, something seemed very wrong. First, it stopped moving forward, as if it had been on a rubber band and suddenly reached the end. Then, slowly, the ship began to distort at its aft section. It elongated back toward the mouth of the wormhole, which by this point was spiraling darkly in tighter and tighter circles. Within a few seconds, the ship was nothing more than a very small green line, and was sucked into the cascading demise of the wormhole. With a gigantic explosion that rocked our ship wildly, the wormhole and the Romulans in it were no more.

For a few moments, nobody did anything but catch their breath. Finally, Shailin turned and grinned at us.

"Set course mark four-zero-zero-point-two for Romulus," she said, rising. "I believe I've earned a drink."