Chapter Text

PROLOGUE

IN THE 23RD CENTURY…

KHITOMER, STARDATE 9529.1

Today was a day of great contrasts, mused the Klingon as he slowly cleaned the bloodstains from his fingers. War and peace, honor and cowardice. A grand crevasse separating duty from virtue. There were some on the High Council who saw him defend an enemy of the Empire and cried out for discommendation, but that Human just proved himself more honorable than the most decorated warriors of Qo'noS. Peace was a radical notion, one worth dying for. Worth killing for. And this Klingon was nothing if not a radical.

What is a warrior to do when friend and foe are no longer clear? General Chang was So'chIm, godfather to his firstborn, and now his frozen remains glint in the sky as a constellation. Surely Chang believed he had earned his place in Sto-vo-kor, charging into eternal battle beside Kahless himself. But is death in battle enough? Should not the cause be righteous? The subterfuge and deceit with which he orchestrated Gorkon's death was a shame upon his house. An honorable man would have killed the chancellor face to face. No, the Klingon thought as he exited the washroom. Chang's soul will not escape the dishonor he brought to the Empire. He ferries the river of blood.

The Klingon strode across the conference hall, past dignitaries and politicians, soldiers and spies. There were yet questions about which Humans he could trust, and which Klingons he should fear. But clarity set in. There was one man, if such a spineless petaQ be called a man, whose evil purpose was clear. Had Chang and Cartwright entered this pact alone, perhaps there was a chance still for glory and honor in the fight. But to ally with such an honorless green-blooded creature, whose every word was a lie, whose loyalties were to none else…

The chamber was guarded by two men: a Klingon warrior, and a Starfleet security grunt. The Klingon guard brought his fist to his chest upon the approach. “Colonel Worf! The Romulan is secure.”

“Good,” said Worf. “I would speak with him.”

“Hold on, pal,” said the Human, with an unearned tone of confidence and disdain, his hand held out. “Nanclus is the Romulan Ambassador to Earth. We get first crack at him.”

Worf sneered at the Human, who but for this conference would already be choking on his own blood. “Your President draws breath while the coin in my pouch bears the face of a murdered man.” He placed his chest into the outstretched hand, and pushed forward until he was nose to nose with the guard. “The Romulan will live to answer your questions, I swear this on my child, but you will step aside. Now.”

The Starfleet grunt held frame for a moment, before breaking eye contact to glance over at the Klingon guard, and reached for the door controls. “Hold to your word. Don't get me in trouble.” The door slid open, revealing a thin, balding elfin man bound to a chair. Worf stepped across the threshold, and the door shut behind him.

“You're taller than you looked on the broadcast,” Nanclus said with a smirk, eying Worf up and down. “You should carry yourself better.”

“I do not take advice on posture from invertebrates.”

“No, of course. Lumbar support is only for the effete who know what a shower is.”

Worf unsheathed his d'k tahg, the crossblades snapping into position on each side of the central dagger blade. “Choose your words carefully, Ambassador. Tell me what plans Romulus had on this war.”

Nanclus looked at the dagger unimpressed, and tilted his head in a dismissive gesture. “The first thing I ever learned was how to keep a secret. There were knives in that lesson, too.” He grinned as his tongue pushed against the inside of his cheek. “And teeth.” He bit down.

Worf's eyes widened. “bIHnuch!” he shouted, and reached into Nanclus's mouth, but it was too late. The Romulan's eyes had already rolled back and his saliva began to foam as his body convulsed before going limp. Worf pulled his hand back holding the false tooth: a shattered neurotoxin capsule, and a small transmitter with a blinking green light.

“GUARDS!” Worf shouted, and pounded on the door.

It whooshed open, and the Starfleet officer stood in front of Worf, phaser in hand. “What did you DO?!” he shouted, seeing the body of the Romulan limp in the chair, foam dripping from his open mouth.

Worf held up the tooth. “I did nothing. He took the coward's way.” Worf handed the tooth to the Klingon warrior and began walking toward the building's exit with purpose. “Bring this to my ship. We must learn what it is signaling.”

“Second star to the right,” Captain James T. Kirk said, with a sentimental yet mischievous smile. “And straight on till morning.” Wordlessly, Commander Pavel Chekov set a course, and the crew of the USS Enterprise marveled at the sun setting across the horizon of Khitomer.

It was insubordination, a direct contravention of orders: return to Earth for decommissioning. But what was Starfleet going to do? Court martial a retiring crew of heroes who had just prevented all-out war between the Federation and the Klingon Empire? The CINC wouldn't even give Kirk a slap on the wrist. One last joyride was the minimum thanks the flagship had earned.

The familiar thrum of the impulse drive and the assorted computer beeps of the bridge filled the silence, only to be cut through by a chirp from Commander Nyota Uhura's console. She instinctively brought her hand to her earpiece. “Captain,” she said, “I'm picking up encoded subspace transmissions. Heavily blueshifted, from the direction of Romulan space. It sounds like multiple ships.”

“Mr. Chekov, belay that course heading and go to yellow alert,” Kirk said, and swiveled his chair toward the science station, where a Vulcan sat peering down a scope. “A late addition to the conference?”

Captain Spock looked up from the scope and furrowed his brow. “We did arrest Ambassador Nanclus. A replacement envoy is not out of the question, though I was not made aware that one would be en route.” He looked back into the scope. “I am not able to isolate specific ships, which would suggest a cloaked approach.”

“Romulan ships travel cloaked as a matter of course,” Chekov offered.

“And suppose this isn't a 'matter of course'?” interjected Doctor Leonard 'Bones' McCoy, leaning over the bridge railing.

“Uhura, hail Excelsior and put it on main viewer,” Kirk said. “Captain Sulu, are you aware of another Romulan delegation scheduled to arrive?”

Captain Hikaru Sulu of the USS Excelsior appeared on the viewscreen. “Unlikely, Captain Kirk. They were only to have minimal presence as an observer. I assume we're reading the same Romulan fleet you are.” Sulu turned to Commander Janice Rand, his communications officer. “I believe Rand has almost decoded one of the signals.”

“Yes sir, I have it now,” responded Rand, holding her earpiece tight. Her head shot up, and she quickly spun around in her chair. “Captain! It's the Tal Shiar!”

Kirk felt his blood run cold. After a pause, he steadied his voice and said, calmly, “Shields up. Red alert. Chekov, bring us about. Uhura, alert Starfleet.”

“I'd better get to the engine room,” Captain Montgomery ‘Scotty’ Scott said, shaking his head, walking briskly into the turbolift.

Uhura touched her earpiece. “I can’t get through to Earth, subspace frequencies are being jammed. We’re on radio only.”

“Someone wanna fill me in on what the hell a Tal Shiar is?” Bones said, gripping the railing.

“The Tal Shiar is the clandestine operations and intelligence agency of the Romulan Star Empire,” responded Spock.

“You're telling me that from a race of backstabbing spies, we're about to meet the professionals?” Bones threw up his hands in exasperation. “We're still banged up from the last fight, what are we gonna do, flush last week's ale out a torpedo tube?”

Kirk rose from his chair and approached the viewscreen. “Hopefully, it won't come to that. Sulu, I hope you're in better shape than we are.”

“No major system damage, no hull breaches,” Sulu responded.

“Captain,” Uhura interrupted, “a Klingon ship is lifting off from the conference, and we're receiving a signal.”

“Onscreen,” Kirk said, and Sulu's face on the viewscreen was replaced by Worf's, sitting on the bridge of his Bird-of-Prey. “Colonel Worf, good to see you,” Kirk said.

“We have detected the Romulan fleet. Ambassador Nanclus used a transmitter in a false tooth to summon them. These ships are not here for peace.” Worf rose from his chair, and held a fist to his chest. “Your actions have restored honor to the Klingon Empire. Fighting by your side would be a glory worthy of Sto-vo-kor.”

“The honor is mine,” said Kirk, “but I pray there's no need for the glory. A show of united strength might be enough to scare them off.”

Spock suddenly looked up from his scope. “Jim. They're here. Cloaked, but here.”

“Viewscreen to tactical, but keep a line to Sulu open,” Kirk said. “Uhura, open broadcast. Romulan fleet, this is Captain James T. Kirk of the Federation starship Enterprise. Power down your cloaking devices and state your business.”

Silence hung in the air as Kirk awaited any response. Then, in unison, four Romulan warbirds uncloaked, and immediately began firing barrages at the surface. The Excelsior jumped into action, descending toward the atmosphere, its phasers slicing through the projectiles. “We'll shoot down these torpedoes, you handle the ships,” Sulu said through the comm.

“Heghlu'meH QaQ jajvam!” Worf belted, as his Bird-of-Prey cloaked for tactical positioning. Today was a good day to die.

“Chekov, target the torpedo launchers on the nearest ship,” Kirk said. “Fire at will.”

The Enterprise launched a salvo of torpedoes, breaking through the Romulan shields and taking out its torpedoes. The warbird turned about to face the Enterprise, and fired a disruptor beam that hit her dead-on. The ship shook violently, and Kirk was thrown from his chair, his head barely missing the edge of a step. He looked around at the bridge and saw the rest of his crew picking themselves up, with McCoy already springing to work checking cuts and bruises.

“Cap'n!” shouted Scotty over the intercom. “I'm putting everything I've got in the shields but we're only at 30% capacity! Another hit like that and we'll be defenseless!”

On cue, Worf's ship decloaked behind the warbird and shot two torpedoes into its engines. The warbird's lights blinked out and it started listing, dead in the water. Another warbird broke off to pursue Worf's ship, and the remaining two changed the focus of their fire toward the vessel keeping their torpedoes from hitting the surface: Excelsior.

Torpedoes and disruptors slammed against Excelsior's shields. The ship reeled from the impact, and Sulu gripped tightly to his chair. “Engineering to bridge!” rang the Excelsior's intercom. “Captain, our engines took a direct hit! Cascade failure in progress, I can't shut it down! Warp core breach imminent!”

Sulu shot up from his chair. “Enterprise, we're going down!”

Kirk pressed the intercom on his armrest. “Scotty, drop our rear shields and beam over the Excelsior crew!”

Sulu looked around as his bridge crew began dematerializing, and saw the helm chair empty. He got an idea. “Enterprise, save me for last and hold on my signal.” He jumped into action at the station he built his career on. Stabilizing his ship's spin, he pointed the bow directly at a warbird, and engaged impulse to full. “Enterprise, NOW!” he said, and vanished from the bridge a second before Excelsior rammed straight into its target, annihilating both ships in a dazzling display of fire and light. Debris pelted another warbird, weakening its shields.

Kirk looked at the scattered debris of Sulu's ship with horror on his face. “Scotty, please tell me we got everyone.”

“Aye sir, all hands accounted for, rear shields restored.”

Bones walked toward the turbolift. “I'd better see to the injured.” The doors slid open, and Captain Sulu stepped through.

“Doctor,” he nodded, and stood aside as McCoy entered the lift. “Permission to come aboard, Captain Kirk.”

“Permission granted, Captain Sulu,” Kirk said. “We got everyone out.”

“Thank God,” Sulu said, and nodded toward the helm. “Need an extra set of hands?”

“You steer, I shoot,” said Chekov, glad to lighten his load.

“Gentlemen, we're flying a glass cannon,” Kirk said. “Weapons are functional, but the shields might not take another hit. I'm open to suggestions.”

“The disabled ship,” Spock offered. “I recommend using it as cover.”

Sulu moved the Enterprise sideways behind the ship while Chekov lobbed torpedoes at the warbird with weakened shields, missing twice and striking once. The Romulan craft recovered from the hit, and began firing, not at the Enterprise, but at its disabled sister.

“That ship still has life support,” Chekov exclaimed. “They'll kill their own!”

“Curious,” Spock said, furrowing his brow in thought, before a realization dawned on him. He engaged in a vulgar Human display of emotion by raising not one, but both eyebrows. “Sulu, back us off. I believe they are attempting to—”

Before he could finish, the dead ship buckled and collapsed inward, its debris spiraling rapidly and vanishing into an event horizon. Every Romulan vessel was powered by an artificial black hole, maintained by an anti-gravity containment field. This field had its own independent power source to prevent any such collapse, even in the event of hull breaches or catastrophic system failures, but if one knew precisely where to shoot…

The Enterprise lurched forward, caught in the gravity well. “Captain, I'm at full reverse impulse, and we're still going in!” shouted Sulu. The event horizon grew larger in the viewscreen, warping and twisting the battlefield around its lightless form.

“Mr. Scott, emergency warp power, whatever you can give me!” Kirk shouted as the field of view itself was devoured by the singularity. “Sulu, maximum warp, any heading! Just get us out of this!”

The bulkheads creaked as the gravitic stresses overwhelmed the structural integrity field. The Enterprise's engine hum raised in pitch, and in a blink, it went to lightspeed. So close to the event horizon, the ship whipped around almost a full orbit before slingshotting away, disappearing into the stars. The artificial black hole, having nothing else to feed it and no field to stabilize it, sputtered and vanished.

Sparks flew and flames licked the walls of Colonel Worf's bridge. A beam had fallen and impaled his gunner. Engines dead, life support failing, they were finished. And the dishonor of it all: the Romulan ship broke off, with not even the decency to deliver the killing blow.

“Where is the Enterprise?!” Worf bellowed.

His lieutenant, Ch'gar, looked up from his station. “It went to warp!”

Betrayal fell over Worf's face. “Kirk fled?!” He slumped into his chair. The man he had staked his honor on, who earned him sideways glances and sneers in his own house, who he thought was the best hope for peace… How could Worf have been so wrong? So blind? To believe the legends of an enemy? To side against his childhood friend? These radical notions had led him astray, and now, choking on the smoke filling the ship, he wondered whether it was Chang bound for Gre’thor, or himself.

On the viewscreen, the two remaining warbirds continued their barrage of the surface, turning it to ash. They had left Worf alive to watch his life's ambitions come to ruin. A low, guttural roar built in his throat, before reaching a volume that shook the bulkheads. He limped across the bridge, shoved the smouldering corpse of his communications officer out of her chair, and opened a secure broadcast. If nothing else, let his legacy be a warning.

A child’s face appeared on the station monitor. “Father?” the boy said, concern on his face.

“Mogh,” said Worf. “I regret that this is the last time we will speak. That I will not be there for your first targ hunt. That I will not witness your Rite of Ascension. That I will not see you take a mate and father your own children. My ship has fallen in battle, and it is only a matter of moments for me.” A screen sparked on the other side of the bridge as if to accentuate his point.

Mogh, little beyond a toddler, began to cry. “Father, what happened?”

“Save your tears,” Worf said. “You are to be the head of my house, and death in battle is a noble goal.” He began to cough as the smoke thickened. “Listen well, my son. I staked my reputation on the honor of an enemy who has betrayed us all. Peace was the dream of a fool. James Kirk is a coward and a traitor. The Federation—Humans—can never be trusted.”

“I don’t understand,” sobbed Mogh.

“One day,” Worf said, choking through the smoke, “you will.”

With that, a bulkhead gave way and ruptured, and little Mogh watched the screen in horror as his father was blown out to the inky black.

CHAPTER ONE

IN THE 24TH CENTURY…

DENORIOS BELT, BAJORAN SYSTEM

Captain Jean-Luc Picard grabbed his cup of Earl Grey from the replicator and sat down at his desk. Outside the viewport of his ready room, one could just barely make out a few spires beyond the downward slope of the saucer. He instinctively tugged down at the hem of his shirt, took a sip of the tea, and tapped his console. “Captain's log, stardate 48632.4. The Enterprise has made berth at Deep Space Nine, where we will be carrying out upgrades to the subspace relay which allows communication through the wormhole to the other end of the galaxy.”

He tapped the console again, and started scratching at his neck. Admiral Jellico visited last month, and with nothing else to be a busybody over, he annoyingly insisted the Enterprise—as flagship of the Federation—change over to the new uniform variant at once. Picard had still not gotten used to the turtleneck undershirt, which granted his neck little breathing room.

The door chimed. “Enter,” he replied, and Commander Will Riker walked in carrying a PADD.  

“Just need you to sign off on the finalized leave schedule,” Riker said, straddling a chair and passing the PADD across the desk.

Picard reached for the PADD and took another sip of tea as he glanced over it. “Yes, yes, this will be fine,” he said absentmindedly, before pausing on a name. “Worf’s requested the entire mission off?” he said with a modicum of surprise. “A promising start to his promotion.”

Riker opened his mouth in his trademark smile. “Firing phasers is optional when deploying beacons,” he joked, “but you’ll be happy to know the Lieutenant Commander will be working the whole time. He’s presenting at a security seminar in Jalanda City. A lot of Bajoran brass will be in attendance.”

The corner of Picard’s mouth curled upward ever so slightly at the thought of Worf giving a lecture. “Yes, well, that’s fine then.” He scrolled down the roster further, saw the last name on the list, and lowered the PADD to his desk while making stern eye contact with his first officer. “You know I don’t like this subterfuge, Will.”

“Captain, when was the last time you took leave? It’s not like the ship’s going anywhere. I can handle things.”

Picard sighed and touched his hand to his temple. “I appreciate the concern, Number One, and on another mission I would take the offer, but…” He clicked his tongue. “Commander Sisko lost his wife at Wolf Three-Five-Nine. I don’t want my presence to remind him of that fact.”

Riker’s smile slowly faded. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.” He reached across for the PADD and deleted Picard’s name before passing it back over. “Permission to speak freely, sir?”

“Always.”

“A lot of officers lost friends and loved ones at Wolf Three-Five-Nine. You can’t hide from all of them.”

“I am not hiding, Will.” Picard sighed. “But Sisko has made his feelings known to me, and as his superior officer, I would be placing him in an uncomfortable position were I to set foot on his command.” He finished off his tea. “He does good work here. He’s established a connection with the people of Bajor beyond my expectations. He doesn’t need me strolling in, ordering his turtlenecks tightened.”

Riker scratched at his neck. “Yeah, I’m not a fan of these either.”

Picard pressed his thumb to the PADD, and handed it back to the commander. “Schedule approved. And take a little time for yourself, too. Dismissed.”

Riker stood up and stuck the PADD under his arm. “There’s a dabo table with my name on it, sir,” he said with an impish grin, and walked out to the bridge.

The Promenade of Deep Space 9 bustled with activity. A little Andorian girl tugged at her mother’s leg, pointing at the jumja kiosk. A sharply dressed Caitian walked out of Garak’s Clothiers, admiring his new jacket. A couple Bajoran engineers were installing a new directory console. And Lieutenant Commanders Data and Geordi LaForge were having lunch at the replimat with Chief of Operations Miles O’Brien.

“I really appreciate the assistance on this one,” said Miles, stirring his bowl of chili. “Always helps to get a fresh set of eyes.”

“Happy to be here, Chief,” said Geordi, sipping his coffee and tapping a PADD. “Gotta say, those Cardassian scientists did impressive work on this relay, but I do spot a few issues. This is the simplest one to solve.” He tapped a few times on the screen and showed it to Miles. “If we place a relay node every one hundred ninety thousand kilometers aligned with the silithium filament, it should inversely match the harmonic interference of the subspace carrier wave and phase cancel it out, leaving us with a clean signal.”

Miles looked over the PADD and nodded. “It’s a good thing the Enterprise is here. We’ll need forty-seven nodes. The Defiant doesn’t have the cargo capacity to deploy that in a timely fashion.”

“That still leaves the issue of verteron interference to be addressed,” Data said. “On two separate occasions, transmissions received through the wormhole carried multiversal crosstalk. Scientifically intriguing, but disruptive from an operational standpoint.”

“You’re telling me,” said O’Brien. “We’ve already had an encounter with a mirror universe, the last thing we need is a ship accidentally receiving orders from one.”

Geordi briefly lifted his VISOR to rub his eyes. “Do you have the logs on those instances? We might be able to develop an algorithmic filter and patch it through the main relay.”

O’Brien shuffled through his stack of PADDs and picked one out of the pile. “Lieutenant Dax already gamed that one out. We’d need more data points to get the algorithm started, and we can’t extrapolate incidence frequency from just two events, so it’s not worth considering yet.”

Geordi finished off his coffee and stood up. “I’ll need to brush up on verteron theoretical papers, see if there’s something there. In the meantime, I’ll assign teams to prep those nodes. Good to see you again, Miles.”

“A pleasure, sir,” Miles called after him, then turned to Data. “You know it’s a shame Keiko’s on Bajor right now, she’d love to see you.”

Data nodded. “Indeed, it would be agreeable. Perhaps there will be time if we complete the project ahead of schedule.” He paused, thinking his android thoughts, holding his mouth open in that practiced way, and tilted his head. “You said the word ‘shame.’ Are you displeased that Keiko is no longer living on the station?”

O’Brien’s expression took on a bit of fluster. “Oh, well, no, that’s not what I meant. It’s just the timing of it all.”

“I see,” Data said, nodding. “So you are happy to be living apart.”

O’Brien chuckled. “I didn’t say that, either, sir.”

Data paused. “So you are neither happy nor sad that Keiko and Molly are living off the station?”

O’Brien looked up at the mezzanine to deal with the mild exasperation. “It’s not as simple as all that. When the school closed, Keiko was miserable. And if you’re a good husband, when your wife’s not happy, you’re not happy. It wasn’t fair for me to expect her to give up her career and be a housewife just because I love my job. She’s doing much better putting her talents to use. But, uh… yeah, it’s been lonely. We still call all the time, but that’s not the same. And Molly’s in her formative years.”

Data nodded. “I see. I believe you are describing ambivalence.”

O’Brien gestured to Data and nodded. “There you go. I’m happy she’s happy. And I’m sad I don’t see her as much.”

Data paused. “But does she not share in this ambivalence? Is she not sad as well?”

“Of course she is. Nothing’s perfect, we’re just making it work as best as we can.”

Data furrowed his brow. “So you are happy she is happy, but she is sad. Would that not conflict?”

O’Brien smiled. “We’re not ones and zeroes, sir.”

Geordi stepped off the turbolift on the upper pylon to find a bald, bearded Bajoran in religious robes staring at him. Geordi smiled and nodded and began walking past, when the Bajoran reached out a hand and gently held Geordi’s arm. “Wait a moment, friend,” he said. “You have the sight.”

Geordi hesitated for a minute, swallowed his annoyance, and turned to face the monk. “You mean this?” he said, pointing to his VISOR. “It’s the sight, all right.”

“Forgive my intrusion,” the man said, looking at Geordi as if in rapture. “You are working on the communications relay?”

Geordi nodded, and extended a hand. “That’s right. Geordi LaForge.”

The Bajoran shook Geordi’s hand. “My name is Yarka, of the Vedek Assembly, and I have been in deep study of Bajoran prophecies. Trekor’s Third just came to pass, about the relay in fact, and a concordance connected it with Zocal’s Second.”

Geordi smirked and exhaled through his nose. “I’m afraid I spend more time reading technical manuals these days.”

“Yes, and you must continue,” Yarka said, with urgency. “The prophecy states that a studious man of unnatural sight will peer through the boundaries of reality itself, and a great calamity will be undone.” He placed his hand back on Geordi’s arm. “Whatever it is you are looking into, keep at it. Bajor’s fate depends on it.”

“That’s enough,” a gruff voice stated from behind Geordi. “Let the man go.”

Yarka pulled his hand back and held it up. “My message is received.”

Geordi turned around to see a man with a too-smooth face in a Bajoran security uniform. “Oh, it’s all right, Odo, he didn’t hurt anything,” Geordi said.

The officer harumphed. “That’s former Vedek Yarka. Defrocked. He stumbled into a prophetic interpretation and has spent weeks on this station trying to repeat that success. I’ve had four separate complaints about the man. If he starts asking for latinum, let one of my officers know.” Odo looked back at Yarka. “Let’s move along, now.”

Yarka bowed his head in deference. “Constable.”

Geordi continued down the corridor toward the airlock. “That settles it,” he said with amusement as he reboarded the Enterprise. “Prophecy demands I study verterons.”

“See you next week, Reg,” said Counselor Deanna Troi with a smile, patting Reginald Barclay on the back in a not-so-subtle attempt to remind him that the session was already 30 minutes over.

Barclay smiled awkwardly and headed for the door. “I’ll, uh, I look forward to it. Thank you, Deanna.”

Her office door opened and closed, and with the client gone, she sat down and dramatically faceplanted on her desk. Without lifting her head up, she mumbled, “Computer. Chocolate.”

The nasal tone of the ship’s computer responded. “Specify.”

“Just… all of it, please and thank you.”

The replicator on the wall whirred, producing a sinful display of chocolate pieces, fudge brownies, and a sundae. Thursdays were Barclay’s regular session, and Deanna had wisely scheduled those at the end of her shift to give her time to decompress. She would never tell him that’s why, of course. As his therapist, it would be counterproductive to make him feel he’s a burden, and it was incumbent on Deanna herself to recontextualize those feelings. Reg was a good guy, he was just not well-socialized, and it was on the rest of the crew to accept him for being different.

The Pavlovian conditioning of chocolate at the conclusion of each session helped.

She had just stuck a spoonful of fudge sundae in her mouth when her door chimed. Swallowing quickly, she responded, “Come in.”

The door slid open, and Data walked in. “Greetings, Counselor.” He noticed the cornucopia of cacao and paused. “Is this a good time?”

She smiled and gestured to a chair with her spoon. “I always have time for you, Data.”

Data nodded and took a seat. “Counselor, I believe I have reached an impasse in my understanding of Human emotion.”

“You’ve had those before, and we’ve always found a way through. What is it this time?”

“I was discussing ambivalence with Chief O’Brien. He and Keiko are living apart and the emotional dynamics at play are quite complicated.”

Deanna nodded. “I’m surprised this hasn’t come up for you before. Not every ship is the Enterprise. Lots of people in Starfleet live apart from their spouses.”

“The compartmentalization of certain emotions seems particularly fraught, arbitrary, and contradictory. I have run five hundred twenty thousand, four hundred ninety-six different algorithmic models of this particular relationship dynamic, and I have come to an inescapable conclusion.”

Deanna put her elbows on the desk, folded her hands together, and rested her chin on them. “And that is?”

“That I cannot understand it because my programming is inadequate for the task.”

Deanna cocked her head to one side. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

Data furrowed his brow. “I am not a telepath, so I cannot confirm your thoughts.”

Deanna rolled her eyes and smiled. “Oh, out with it, Data!”

“Very well,” he nodded and stood up. “I believe that it is time for me to install the emotion chip.”

Deanna smiled, and tapped her combadge. “Troi to LaForge. I have a patient in need of your talents.”

“I hope I am not disrupting your verteron research,” Data said. He was sitting down in the science lab, with a panel removed from his head exposing blinking lights on a metal endoskeleton. A cable ran from the exposed endoskeleton to a monitoring console. Geordi stood over him with a hyperspanner, and Deanna was standing by as emotional support.

“It’s no trouble at all, Data,” he responded, running the spanner over the expansion slot in Data’s neck. “Sometimes it’s good to come up for fresh air, give your mind a break, come back with new ideas. And there is no way I’d miss this.” He picked up the emotion chip, and carefully placed it in the slot. “To fully initialize, we’ll need to power cycle you. You’ll be out for about ten seconds, and when you come back online, it should start integrating into your neural net.” Geordi walked around to face him. “You ready?”

Data nodded. “You may proceed.” The edge of his mouth curled up in a smile, a practiced gesture that context had taught him was an appropriate reaction to a meaningful moment.

Geordi reached around Data’s torso to press the hidden off switch. Data’s face dropped to a blank expression and his head slumped forward. Geordi tapped on a workstation screen next to the offline android, and with an audible chirp, Data’s head twitched, and he lifted up.

Troi smiled. “How do you feel?”

Data paused, and tilted his head. “The chip is currently integrating and creating new pathways. I do not ‘feel’ any different yet. Do you sense anything, Counselor?”

She shook her head. “I’ve sensed emotions from this chip before, but I don’t feel you yet.”

Geordi looked at the screen. “It’s gonna take time to build out the connections. Last time it was integrated into Lore, and he only transmitted emotions to Data. This will likely be a different process.”

“Crusher to LaForge,” the chief medical officer’s voice chimed over the intercom. “Geordi, when you have a free moment, I’ve got something that could help your verteron problem.”

Geordi tapped his badge. “I’ll swing by sickbay in a bit, Doc.” He looked down at Data, unplugged the cable from the android’s head, and replaced the panel. “All systems are functioning normally, and you should be free to return to duty immediately.”

Data nodded, and stood up. “Then I should report to the bridge.” He quickly left the lab and Deanna watched the doors hiss shut behind him with a grin on her face.

“What’s that smile about?” Geordi asked.

It grew wider. “He’s excited.”

The hypospray hissed as Dr. Beverly Crusher injected it into the neck of the Bolian ensign sitting on her biobed. “That should block the discomfort for now, but remember even a Bolian can get indigestion now and then, so be a little more cautious which restaurants you visit on the station.”

“I just don’t get it,” he said, shaking his head. “It was plo’meek soup!”

Beverly raised her eyebrows. “I didn’t know Deep Space Nine had a Vulcan restaurant.”

“Vulcan?” the Bolian asked, confused. “I thought it was a Ferengi dish. It was on Quark’s menu.”

“Ah,” she said, patting him on the shoulder. “Then I would avoid eating anything culturally appropriative at a casino.”

The sickbay doors opened and Geordi LaForge walked through. Beverly looked over her patient’s shoulder to see him. “Perfect timing, Geordi. I just finished here. I’ll talk to you in my office.” She looked back at the Bolian. “You’re all set.”

She stepped into her office, where Geordi had already sat down. “Y’know, Doc, I was a little surprised to hear you reach out about this.”

Beverly took her seat. “Verteron radiation has measurable physiological effects. There’s a couple papers in the Starfleet Medical Journal I brushed up on when I saw we were going to Deep Space Nine.”

“I thought it was harmless,” Geordi said. “It’s non-ionizing. Ships come and go through the wormhole all the time without effect.”

“As the saying goes, the dosage makes the poison. You’re not going to get DNA mutations or cancer from it, but prolonged exposure does cause the body to collect and retain the particles.” She slid a PADD across to Geordi. “This is a proposed treatment for acute verteron accumulation. It’s still awaiting clinical trials, but it showed promising results on irradiated organic and inorganic samples.”

Geordi picked up the PADD and skimmed it, before slapping the desk and breaking out into a smile. “It’s effectively a baryon sweep tuned exclusively to verteron frequencies! This is perfect! I gotta get this to the node team right away.” He stood up and began walking out of the office, before turning around. “Doc, you’re a lifesaver.”

Beverly returned the smile. “Next time the warp core comes down with a fever, just give me a call.”

The senior staff was assembled in the observation lounge. The upper docking pylons could be seen outside the massive windows, and the wormhole flashed open in a clouded vortex as a cargo ship passed through. Geordi stood at one end of the table, next to the large display screen. A map of the wormhole passageway was on the display.

“So in order to stabilize the signal, we’ll be depositing roughly five relay nodes every million kilometers through the passage along the subspace filament. Each node has been outfitted with a shield that filters out verteron radiation.”

Dr. Crusher chimed in. “Since the crew will be spending a prolonged amount of time within the wormhole, I recommend we add that shield to the Enterprise herself as a precaution.”

Riker, sitting next to Crusher, looked to Geordi. “How long would those modifications take?”

“We can run that on our existing emitters. I could have it ready in no time.”

Picard nodded. “Make it so. Commander LaForge, are we ready to deploy?”

“Just give the word.”

“A third of the ship is still on the station,” Riker reminded Picard.

“We’ll undock in one hour,” the captain replied. “Recall anyone mission critical, but let the rest of the crew enjoy their leave. We’ll be close by. Is there any other business before I dismiss you?”

Data nodded and stood up. “Yes, Captain, though it is more of a personal nature. I have installed my emotion chip.”

Cheers and applause filled the room. Data looked around at the affirmation, and the sensation felt… good. He smiled involuntarily.

Picard stood up, walked over to him, and shook his hand. “Congratulations. Mr. Data. This is a monumental step in your journey.”

Data smiled sheepishly. “Thank you, Captain. While I am still discovering and exploring these feelings, I do believe I am fully capable of carrying out my duties. However, I ask that if I exhibit behavior that could pose a risk to normal operations, you will not hesitate to put me on leave.”

Picard smiled. “Mr. Data, if I can handle Worf asking to fire on half the ships we pass, I think we can deal with some emotional hiccups.”

Data laughed, an outburst that surprised even himself. “He DOES do that at a rate of statistical significance!” He looked around the room, still grinning. “Exaggeration as humor! Jocular deprecation as a method of breaking social tension! I understand it now!”

Picard patted Data on the shoulder. “We disembark at 1300 hours. Meeting adjourned.”

The staff shuffled out, with Riker hanging behind. Picard looked at him, smiled, sighed, and shook his head. “We have an android on the bridge going through puberty, Will.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it, sir,” Riker responded. “We let Wesley fly the ship, after all.”

“Enterprise to Deep Space Nine. Requesting clearance to disembark,” Picard stated, sitting in his chair at the center of the bridge.

“Request granted, Enterprise,” the voice of Major Kira replied. “Skies are clear. Safe travels.”

“Release docking clamps,” Riker ordered, seated at Picard’s right hand. “Port thrusters to thirty percent until moorings are cleared, then ahead one quarter impulse.”

The station pulled away from sight on the viewscreen, and the wormhole aperture opened ahead.

“Engage verteron shield, Mr. Worf,” Picard said, turning his head to see a tall redheaded Human man at the station. “Apologies, Mr. Burke,” he corrected himself, remembering Worf was on leave.

“Aye sir,” Burke responded. “Shield engaged and holding.”

“Bridge to Cargo Bay Two. Mr. LaForge, stand by deployment teams.”

“Nodes are prepped and ready for deployment, Captain,” Geordi responded over the intercom.

“Helm, take us in.”

The wormhole vortex grew larger in the viewscreen. The ship passed beyond the aperture, and the wormhole closed behind it.

JALANDA CITY, BAJOR

The dome of the Jalanda Forum rose overhead, supported by a series of pillars. Newly reconstructed after the end of the Occupation, the inside of the dome was coated with panels designed for perfect acoustic amplification and direction, so that even the most timid speaker’s voice could carry to the back seats. The forum was in the round, a central stage for the Klingon speaker with rows of filled seats encircling and rising around it.

Worf held aloft his bat’leth, slowly doing kata and pivoting around to ensure the crowd got equal face time. “One may question why, in a time of particle weapons, many still choose close-quarters combat.” He thrust one end of the bat’leth forward. “It is true that all else being equal, a phaser wins against a knife, but all else is seldom equal.” He turned around and slowly swung the bat’leth toward the ground. “Many religious and cultural practices involve the carrying of blades, from the Sikh kirpan to the Tamarian dagger, which can make enforcing weaponry bans more complicated.” Worf sheathed the bat’leth on his back.

“In addition, while any basic security grid can detect the power cell of a disruptor, it requires more invasive scans to detect edged weaponry, and spectral imaging cannot differentiate a shipment of mek’leths from a crate of cookware.” To accentuate his point, he pulled out a mek’leth from underneath his bat’leth. “For such reasons, I ensure that all my security officers receive regular training in martial arts as well as routine marksmanship practice.”

A bright flash in the sky pierced through the forum between gaps in the pillars. The crowd gasped and Worf turned to see the source of the light. On the horizon, a rippling wall of energy moved faster than thought, tearing through the countryside, consuming all in its wake. On instinct, Worf raised his mek’leth as if to fight the inevitable, only for the mek’leth, and the Klingon holding it, and the crowd surrounding him, and the building they were inside, to vanish without a trace.

In its place, the ruins of the old forum lay still, a forgotten landmark of a lost civilization. The light of the sun was nowhere to be seen. The sky was thick and impenetrable with stormclouds. Lightning strikes, frequent between the clouds, provided the only illumination across a barren and lifeless horizon.

Geordi stood behind the door controls at Cargo Bay 2, looking past dozens of identical 2-meter-wide relay nodes. A crewman operated an anti-grav unit, loading one of the nodes on the deployment sled. Through the open bay door, the interior of the wormhole swirled and undulated, verteron eddies surrounding the passageway between the quadrants.

“Node twenty-one loaded!” said the crewman, projecting his voice to Geordi’s console. He backed away from the sled and stood next to Lieutenant Barclay, who had the next node propped up on a lift. “All clear!”

“Node twenty-one, copy,” replied Geordi, tapping away on the console. “Deploying in three, two, one.”

The sled launched forward along a rail, sending the node flying through the atmospheric seal of the bay door, which shimmered and let out a high-pitched hum. Geordi watched as the node shrank in the distance, passing between the ship’s nacelles. Before he could resume work on the console, a bright flash filled the wormhole, and a rippling wave overtook the ship, causing the bulkheads to shudder. Geordi gripped the console for balance. A crewman stumbled and fell over, and Barclay gave him a hand to get back up.

“What the hell?” Geordi exclaimed.

As if to answer his question, Picard’s voice chirped over the intercom. “Bridge to Cargo Bay Two. Status report.”

Geordi looked around. Nothing had been damaged, other than perhaps that crewman’s bruised tailbone. He tapped the console to check on the deployed nodes. “That burst knocked a few nodes out of alignment, but their thrusters have already compensated. Captain, I was staring right at it when it hit. It looked to my VISOR like it was a massive verteron subspace wave emanating from the Alpha Quadrant aperture.”

“And you are certain that our equipment was undamaged?” the captain’s voice responded.

“Positive. I’ve got green lights on all twenty-one deployed nodes.”

“Then I fear the worst. Deep Space Nine is not responding to our hails.”

A studious man of unnatural sight will peer through the boundaries of reality itself. The warning of the Bajoran man echoed through Geordi’s mind.

“Keep me apprised, Captain,” he said. “LaForge out.” He turned to the node team. “Reg, take over here. Reset the sled and get the next node loaded, then wait for word from the bridge.”

“Yes, sir,” Barclay responded. “Uh, w-where are you going?”

Geordi turned to exit the cargo bay. “To confirm a hunch.”

The mouth of the wormhole opened, the Enterprise-D returning to the Bajoran system. Picard stood solemnly in the center of the bridge, his jaw clenched, his teeth exposed in a grimace, his hands balled at his sides. On the viewscreen before him, where he expected to see the concentric rings and curved spires of the space station, there was nothing but stars.

A third of his crew had been on DS9.

“Scan for debris,” he said, in sotto voce.

Data tapped at his console. He felt a tension in his chest, and in a picosecond ran a diagnostic of the servo controllers in his mechanical lungs. No malfunction there, yet the agitation remained. Perhaps it was a misalignment in the bioplast sheeting around his upper torso? No, every attachment point was in place within acceptable tolerances for standard flex. Were his sensory inputs themselves malfunctioning? It may be time for a full systems diagnostic—

Deanna’s hand rested on Data’s shoulder, and she lowered her mouth to his ear. “It’s anxiety,” she whispered, and gave his shoulder a soft squeeze.

Data slowly turned his head to make eye contact, his mouth open. “Thank you, Counselor,” he said softly, and returned to the scan. “I am detecting no traces of tritanium, duranium, or uridium.” He tapped a few more buttons. “Space dust at normal levels.” He tapped once more. “No residual warp signatures.”

“How can that be?” Riker asked, from his chair. “Ships come and go all the time. The Defiant is a mainstay.”

“I am expanding search parameters,” Data said, and his console chirped. “I have located Deep Space Nine. It is in orbit around Bajor.” Data paused for a moment, the tension spreading from his chest down his arms. “I am reading no life signs.”

Deanna sank in her seat. Riker glanced over and noticed her thousand-yard stare.

Picard drew his hand down his face and gestured it, cupped, away from his chin. “Could they have beamed to the planet?”

“There are no life signs,” Deanna said in a hollow tone.

Data scrunched his eyes in his best approximation of what his facial expression database catalogued as a ‘wince.’ “I am afraid I must confirm the counselor’s conclusion,” Data said. “I am reading no life anywhere in this system.”

Picard lowered his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Could this have been us? Did we cause this wave?”

The turbolift doors hissed open, and Geordi strode through, PADD under arm. “Negative, Captain. In fact, if it weren’t for Doctor Crusher’s suggestion, we wouldn’t even be here.” He handed Picard the PADD. “It’s too much to summarize. We need to convene a staff briefing now.”

Picard glanced down at the PADD, and read aloud the title of the document displayed. “The Oz Protocol?” He looked back at Geordi. “Let me guess. We’re not in Kansas anymore.”

“Worse,” Geordi replied. “Kansas doesn’t exist anymore.”

AZURE NEBULA, BETA QUADRANT

The deep blues of the nebula stretched across the void of space, silent and still, its clouds holding diffuse memories of comets and ships passing. A Constitution-class starship burst through, punching a new hole in the cloud before slowing as its warp engine shut down. It drifted through the gas, listing slightly, smoke billowing from the port nacelle.

Picking himself up off the floor, Captain James T. Kirk sat in his chair and blinked as his blurred vision slowly came into focus. A beam had fallen from the ceiling and a plasma conduit was sparking, but fortunately nobody was struck and the bridge crew were resuming their stations. He pressed a button on his armrest. “Scotty, that was too far.”

Scotty’s voice chimed in. “Couldn’t be helped, Cap’n. That fused our dilithium regulator. We won’t be making lightspeed anytime soon.”

“That was a blind jump. Where’d we end up?”

“The Azure Nebula,” Sulu responded from the helm. “Excelsior was just here.”

“We should be clear of the signal jamming,” Kirk said. “Uhura, alert Starfleet of the situation immediately.”

“External comms are down,” Uhura responded from underneath her console as she hastily rerouted conduits and swapped isolinear chips. “It’s gonna take a while.”

The turbolift doors slid open but stuck halfway, and Dr. McCoy had to force them open wider before he could fit through. “It’s as bad in here as the rest of the ship,” he muttered, before noting the bruise on his captain and friend’s forehead. He pulled out his medical tricorder. “Jim, hold still, you might have a concussion.”

Kirk waved him off. “In a minute, Bones, we’ve got bigger problems.”

Spock grimly looked up from his scope. “Jim, your sense of urgency is logical, but futile. I have Khitomer on long-range sensors.” He pressed a button, and the viewscreen changed from deep blue clouds to a charred planet.

“Bozhe moi,” exclaimed Chekov. “They obliterated the surface!”

Kirk sank into his chair, and McCoy took that opportunity to begin scanning his forehead. “How could they do it that rapidly?”

“They did not,” Spock responded matter-of-factly. “We engaged warp drive in close proximity to a gravity well.”

“You’re saying we did a time warp?” Kirk responded, his eyebrows raised. “When the hell are we? How much time has passed?”

“I will have to extrapolate based on the relative motion of stellar positions in this sector.”

“Dammit, Spock, just give me the number,” Kirk snapped. A lifetime of service, friendship, and experience with the Vulcan were enough to know that those calculations were complete before the question was asked.

Spock paused with a Human sense of dramatic timing.

“Seventy-eight years.”