Authors' Note: Many thanks to my co-writer, Loyaulte Me Lie, for her wonderful work on this story and all her efforts to keep me motivated. It's been a long time in coming, but here is the end of the tale. We would strongly recommend reading the previous installments first: "A World for Dreams" and "Dreamers of the Day." There are other little side stories, too, that you can explore, but those two are essential to understanding the events of this story. We eagerly look forward to comments and reviews, so please, indulge us.

Disclaimer: Star Trek: Enterprise is property of Paramount. This story is written for fun and not for profit. No copyright infringement is intended.

'To die, to sleep – To sleep, perchance to dream –
ay, there's the rub. For in this sleep of death
What dreams may come…'

William Shakespeare

The Prologue

Colonel Austin Burnell

"Take several companies to make the assault, but proceed with extreme caution. I'd imagine the place is extremely well-protected and more than likely booby-trapped."

The MACO nods respectfully. "And if we encounter resistance, sir?"

I place my PADD on the desk, frowning. "Minimum casualties, but it must be taken. I'm informed there is a great deal of valuable technology inside it, so issue an order to do as little damage as possible. It may prove useful in the future."

He salutes, about-turns and marches out. I'm left to contemplate my empty office and the prospect of the monumental changes that have been set in motion.

Reed has escaped. Of course he has; I let him. And even now I have no idea why, and that pisses me off more than the stupidity of allowing a man who'll now be my deadliest enemy to run when I could have so easily killed him.

Well. Perhaps not quite 'easily'. Even now, he would have made me pay for my victory. But a victory it would have been, the first stepping-stone on my route to power; and I didn't take it.

He's a traitor. The greatest of the Pack, and the worst for abandoning it. I can't understand it – I can't forgive it – and the depth of my admiration and love for him is the only possible measure of my despair and disgust that he betrayed all of us.

Killing him might not have been easy, but it would have been simple. It would have wiped out that stain on the Pack, would have enabled me to eventually forget that he'd forgotten the greatest of all the Pack laws: that Power passes to the victor. Instead, he offered me that … that proposal, that insult, of surrendering so that a Human could escape.

What kind of a victory would that have been? Even if no one else ever knew the truth, I would know it. I would be diminished, robbed of my triumph. The blood in my mouth would have tasted bitterer than gall.

The trouble is, some of me actually understands why he did it. Even though I was never included in that magic circle of Commodore Tucker's intimates, I wasn't immune to his magnetism. I don't know anyone who was. I'd imagine it must have taken quite a while for Reed to succumb to it, given their very public detestation of each other before the explosion in Sickbay that put the General into Tucker's control for a while, but clearly he did. Unless it was all an act all along, but even now I genuinely doubt it. There was a change during that period, and I suppose if Reed's injuries had been as bad as they seem to have been, he would have been in a state of considerable vulnerability. That was when Tucker made his move. I may not admire his achievement, but I can sure admire his cleverness – and his audacity.

How close, how very, very close, both of them came to succeeding.

I rise and walk restlessly around the room. There are too many memories, too many conflicts. I need a quiet mind. I have to be completely focussed if I'm to snatch a final victory.

Tucker, that engineering genius, that talent that only emerges once in a generation, if then. And combined with his engineering skills, he had people skills too. He actually succeeded in suborning the Head of the Pack, a guy who'd previously have gutted him without even blinking if given half an excuse.

Well. I suppose if I look hard enough and deep enough, there's a bit of jealousy. However hard I worked, I was never admitted into that magic circle of his intimates, the ones let into the secret of the humanitarian programme. I suppose that given it was I who finally ferreted out its existence, maybe he had a point in not trusting me, but that doesn't mean – however illogical it may be – that it didn't sting. Perhaps if I'd known about it, I could have actually protected it from discovery. At least I could have revealed how discovery could happen, because if I was patient enough to comb the figures, someone else could be. Someone with talent, like Jignesh. I'm not sure the discrepancies could have been hidden completely, but with care and a bit of application, they could have been made to look less … obvious, once you were looking in the right place.

If Tucker trusted Reed enough to let him into the secret, why didn't he trust me? I suppose the General would have been acute enough to recognise that this kind of explosive intel would have been a weapon I might easily use to gain power, but that wouldn't be Pack. Neither of them trusted me with it, and if I'm honest, that hurts a little. The cold logic behind the way the operation actually contributed to the Empire's stability (even slightly) wasn't something I could have ignored.

Still. It's all history now. It's a shame that a bloke who tried to do so much good will have to suffer for it, but he broke the law and gave Erika Hernandez the opportunity to take him down, with the help of that little bitch Chastain. I could either oblige Hernandez and die with him, or use the opportunity to advance myself. It's a pity all that talent will go to waste, but he knew the risks. In the meantime, though, he might find some consolation in the fact that I have plans for Erika Hernandez among all the others, and none of them are beneficial.

Of course, it helps my plans that Lieutenant Cole has agreed to testify against Tucker. Without her claiming to be a spy working under my orders, I would have had to explain and excuse my reasons for withholding all the evidence I had uncovered until the moment it was most beneficial to me, and while that wouldn't have been a difficult thing to do, it would have weakened my position and made the next steps in my plan more difficult.

Revealing what I knew to her had been a gamble, but not a very big one. I'd reviewed her file, particularly the psychological assessment, and calculated correctly that, as loyal as she was to Tucker, she was more loyal to his mission. So, it wasn't exactly a stroke of luck that she accepted my offer, more like a fortunate probability that came to pass.

And I have to admit, I think I'm going to enjoy working with her. I've worked with a number of very brave and professional women whom I've respected very much, but Cole has more raw nerve than just about anyone I've ever met, male or female. Caught like a fly in a spider's web, she still had the nerve to place conditions on her cooperation, and when I thought to refuse, she had the unmitigated gall to threaten to expose my machinations as if I wouldn't be able to silence her before anybody heard the truth. While it's true I wasn't best pleased by the challenge, I must admit that even in that moment I was just a little bit delighted to think I'd have someone so brave and clever working for me.

Ultimately, if Tucker believed in his mission as much as he claims to, he was right to trust Cole as much as he did. Even though she will appear to have betrayed him, she'll do everything she can to ensure that his mission continues. I find her practicality and sense of purpose most admirable. For the same reason, I have the feeling that she could become one of my most trusted advisors.

Why didn't Reed trust me? I thought I'd earned better from him than that…

I don't have time for useless introspection. Those plans won't execute themselves. But before I leave, I throw one last glance through the window. Beyond the dazzling curve of Jupiter's storm-lashed surface, I can see the distant tiny orb of Earth.

He's fled there, most likely. A shuttlepod doesn't have the capacity for interstellar travel. And there, at a guess, he will stay in hiding until I run him down and do what I should have done earlier.

And though this time I will do it, no matter what, at the same time I realise that even now, I will destroy a part of me in doing so. A great part of what defines a member of the Pack is loneliness. There are so few of us, and we interact so rarely; and whatever I feel for the General now – the ex-General, I should say, but the correction rings as falsely as an ill-cast bell – I can't deny the love I felt for him. The love I still do feel, and will do even as I step over his twitching body to take his place.

Pack pursues Power.