Chapter Four
“I get it. Destroy Voyager and protect the timeline,” Commander Masafumi said. “Can you do it already so we can get him to Sickbay?!” He gestured towards Huntington who was lying helpless on the deck.
“Not yet. The moment that I destroy Voyager, the timeline changes. With the Captain still in the future, she could be lost forever. So… we wait until she steps through the door.” He pointed at the Ready Room door.
“No. Don’t wait. Strike now before Starfleet realizes that we’re here and stops us. To Sto Vo Kor with Cardonez. She’s one person. We’re talking about the Galaxy!,” Kagh shouted. “Do it or I’ll do it for you!” He was cut short when a disruptor beam struck him, dead center in the chest.
“He was really starting to annoy me,” said Colonel Dru’sk. “Any objections, Bre’tagh?”
“None, Colonel. He was always too headstrong. Good engineer, though.”
“Yeahhh… Very well. Commander, you have my permission to evacuate Sickbay and transport Doctor Hollem with Huntington and Kandro there. No tricks.”
“None,” Masafumi said. He nodded for Hollem to give the order. As he did, the First Officer walked towards the Tactical console.
“Close enough, Commander,” Colonel Dru’sk said, leveling his disruptor towards him. “Don’t mistake the death of Kagh as compassion on my part.”
“I won’t. When can we expect the Captain back?”
Dru’sk crumpled his brow. “She should have been back already. I can’t give her much longer before I have to act.”
****
“Let me guess. Janeway thought that you would have a better chance of convincing the Captain that I’m insane and everything hunky dory in the future?,” asked Tennyson.
“I wouldn’t insult your intelligence. Things aren’t fine and we both know that. They are getting better though. The Federation is trying to correct the mistakes that it’s made in the last few years.”
“Tough,” said Tennyson. “We’ll do it for them.”
Huntington shook his head sadly like a grandfather reluctantly telling a child off. “Liz, I know that things were never the same after the incident but I can’t believe that you would take such drastic action.”
“Leave that out of this. I got over that a long time ago. This is about what’s right and what’s wrong. We were never supposed to have this technology. Can’t you see how much harm that it’s wrought?”
“Captain, what did you mean by the Federation correcting its mistakes?,” asked Cardonez.
“We’re helping to rebuild Romulus by providing aid to the refugees who are setting up an interim government.”
“Run by Vulcans!,” Tennyson shouted and Cardonez drew back at the venom in her voice. “The Federation has resettled Vulcan survivors on Romulus. The Romulans had little or not choice. They’ll slowly become assimilated by Vulcan culture.”
“I don’t see a problem with that, Liz. The Romulans were Vulcans once upon a time and a majority of them have decided to embrace the Vulcan philosophy. We haven’t forced anything on them.” Cardonez was confused. He sounded calm, rational, and more to the point, logical. Tennyson sounded increasingly deranged. “Think about it, Liz. You’re planning on correcting one act of hubris by a Federation Captain with another. Where does it end? So we have technology that we’re not supposed to have. Let’s deal with that. If we try to change everything that doesn’t go right, then what’s next? Are you going to travel back in time and prevent Kandro from – “
“Shut up!,” yelled Tennyson, her face flushed red with anger now. “I’ve told you that whole thing doesn’t matter!”
“Kandro?,” asked Isabel.
“No. It wasn’t your fault, Captain, and I’m not going to let you change anything. What’s done is done.”
“Liz, you’re not making any sense. You won’t tell me things that I could change. Yet, you expect me to let you change things?”
Tennyson took several deep breaths, calming herself down. “I’m not doing this to save one person, Captain,” she said with a hint of regret in her voice. “I’m doing it to save billions. It’s time for you to go back, Captain. Whether you help us or not, you don’t belong here. Take off the bracelet.”
“I’m afraid that she’ll be here for a long time,” Captain Huntington said, holding up a familiar brown box. “Did you think that you were the only ones with Shak’ran technology? We acquired this because once we knew that you had a T.E.D., we knew that you would try to warn the past. While this unit is operating, I’m afraid that your bracelet won’t work. I’m sorry, Isabel, but we have no choice.”
Cardonez narrowed her eyes. “A lot of people seem to think that they have no choice lately.”
“Captain, three ships are approaching us,” said Tilmoore.
“Surrender, Liz,” said Huntington. “You can still have a good life. All of you.”
Tennyson looked at Cardonez. “There’s only one way to get you home. You know that, right?”
“Yes, I do,” she answered.
Tennyson looked at the main viewscreen. “Goodbye, Adam. One way or another, it ends here.”
With a curt wave of her hand, Tilmoore cut the communications link. On the viewscreen, there were three ships approaching the Redeemer. At the center of the formation was an Intrepid-class that Cardonez assumed was Voyager. Flanking the ship were two ships of an unfamiliar design. They are around the size of a Miranda-class ship, give or take a few meters in size. They had a pair of warp nacelles each that swept upward away from the primary hull.
“They have their shields raised but their armor is offline,” said Tilmoore.
“They shouldn’t be so cocky after the pasting that we gave them at Eminiar Seven,” Tennyson said. “Raise shields. Bring the disruptors and photon torpedoes online.”
“Done,” Tilmoore said at the same time that the Red Alert klaxon went off and the lights on the Bridge dimmed down to a crimson color.
“Liam, get us behind that asteroid.”
On the main viewscreen, Cardonez saw a large rock on the edge of the screen. It slowly filled it as the Redeemer took refuge behind it. The last few hours had been a revelation and she was still reeling from it. On the one hand, she wanted to reach out to this future version of one of her most trusted officers… However, what Huntington had to say made a lot of sense. As a Captain, the importance of not affecting the timeline had been drilled into her. Still, if she was trapped in this future, wouldn’t that be altering history? She felt her head begin to ache.
“The Ortegas is firing,” Tilmoore said.
On the viewer, a single transphasic torpedo fired from the ship on Voyager’s port side.
“Almost there,” Liam said as the asteroid came between them and the torpedo.
Redeemer hadn’t been the intended target though. The asteroid was fifty thousand years old and it was composed mostly of iron ore. The single torpedo splintered it like a dry conker.
“Brace shields!,” shouted Tennyson as the asteroid shattered they found themselves suddenly with a thousand shards of rock bearing down on them. “Hang on!,” she also shouted as the first few rocks hit and Redeemer was tossed backwards by the shockwave.
“Shields down to twenty percent,” Tilmoore cried out while the rain of rocks buffeted Redeemer. “Ten percent!”
“We’re almost through it,” Tennyson said. A moment later, the helm and ops consoles exploded. The officers manning those stations were tossed to the deck at awkward angles and it was obvious that they were dead.
“No!,” Tennyson shouted with tears streaming down her face.
“Shields are down,” said Tilmoore. “Power’s dropping. Our structural integrity field is failing.”
“All for nothing,” said Tennyson. “I know Dru’sk. He’ll wait until you return but you won’t. He’ll be stopped. I knew that I should have gone.”
The storm had passed by now and on the main viewscreen, the three starships were approaching them.
“We’re being hailed,” reported Tilmoore.
Tennyson didn’t respond. She merely rocked, back and forth, in her chair like a small child.
Cardonez stood up and moved to the rear of the Bridge. “Pamela.”
“Captain.”
“Do we have anything left to fight back with?”
“Everything is offline except for impulse power and that won’t do us a lot of good.”
Cardonez looked at the viewscreen before she looked at the shell of Elizabeth Tennyson. “Can you access helm control, Pamela?”
“Sure,” she said, narrowing her eyes. “Have you chosen a side?”
Cardonez smiled. “Maybe I just don’t want to live in the future. Besides, this is a one way trip.”
Tilmoore shrugged. “I’ve known that all along, Captain. It’s nice to serve with you again.”
Cardonez nodded and she explained her plan before she moved back to where Tennyson was sitting. “Liz,” she said.
There was no response.
“Liz,” she repeated but Tennyson was shut off from the world around her. “Okay, then,” she said,” let’s do this. Receive the channel.”
Seconds later, Admiral Janeway appeared on the viewer. “Captain Cardonez, don’t tell me that you’re in command now.”
“It looks like it,” she said. “Look, Admiral, I don’t know who’s right or wrong in all this. I just want to go home.”
“I’m sorry, Isabel. I can’t let you.”
“Don’t use my first name, Admiral. Like I said, we haven’t been introduced.”
“Stow it, Captain. This is no time for petulance. You’re no better than Tennyson.”
Cardonez looked at Tennyson. “I don’t know what changed her but I know that she was a damn fine officer, Admiral. And she wouldn’t change the timeline unless she absolutely had to.”
“You’re wasting time, Captain. The Ortegas is preparing to beam your survivors aboard. I suggest that you don’t resist.”
“Hey, I’m just a hologram at the end of the day. I’m probably indestructible when it comes down to it.” She smiled. “See you in the past, Admiral. Do it!”
Tilmoore engaged the impulse drive. The Redeemer sped forward at full impulse speed in moments. Its structural integrity groaned under the pressure but the ship held together for just long enough.
“Three seconds to impact!,” shouted Tilmoore.
On the viewscreen, Cardonez saw the Ortegas trying to veer away but it was too late. The leading edge of the Redeemer’s saucer section crashed through the pylons to the other ship’s warp nacelles while its deflector dish smashed into the Bridge module.
As the Bridge disintegrated around her, Isabel Cardonez heard Pamela Tilmorre and Liz Tennyson scream. As fire engulfed her, she reached down and grasped the bracelet, opening the clasp…
****
Cardonez jolted awake and looked around her. There was no ruined Bridge, just the familiar comforts of her Ready Room. She patted her body and saw that it was all there. She had made it. Now all she had to do was make a decision.
****
As the door to the Ready Room slid open, Dru’sk was momentarily distracted. Commander Masafumi didn’t hesitate. He launched himself at the Klingon and tackled him around the waist, wrestling him to the ground. He had surprise on his side but with even years of wrestling practice on the holodeck, they weren’t enough to give him an edge against a well-trained Klingon warrior. In seconds, Colonel Dru’sk had pushed the First Officer off of him and he rose to his feet.
Bre’tagh hesitated, unsure about whether to aid the Colonel or move to intercept Captain Cardonez when she stepped out of her Ready Room. seeing Dru’sk throw off Masafumi, he grunted and decided to intercept her. He forgot one thing, however. Knowing that any attempt at trying to take down the Klingon was pointless, Kehen decided to merely try to distract him and hopefully give the Captain a chance. Leaping onto his back, she gripped her arms around his neck and pulled as tight as she could. Unfortunately for the Yulani, he was a lot stronger than he looked. Even for a Klingon.
Cardonez nearly laughed. The image of Kehen hanging onto the Klingon’s back for dear life while he spun around was comical. Or it would have been under different circumstances. She started towards Kehen to help out when a single disruptor blast struck the deck ahead of her. Kehen jumped down from Bre’tagh’s back and the Captain stopped dead.
Behind the Tactical console, Colonel Dru’sk stood with his weapon pointed directly at Cardonez. “You almost… almost stopped… me,” he said, fighting for each breath,” but it’s over. It’s time to save the future from itself.” He gestured with his disruptor towards Voyager.
“Dru’sk! Don’t!,” Cardonez shouted and for a moment, he paused. “Don’t do it. We’ll find another way.”
“There is no other way, Captain. You’ve seen it for yourself. Voyager can’t be allowed to exist.” He began punching commands into the Tactical console.
“This makes you no different than Janeway,” Cardonez told him. “You know that, don’t you?”
Colonel Dru’sk laughed. “Yes, I suppose you’re right. It doesn’t matter though. Now it’s finally over.” He reached down to fire a spread of quantum torpedoes.
His finger never pressed the activator icon on the console display. A single blast of green energy struck him, knocking him off his feet. He fell down, tumbling to the deck before he could return fire. Bre’tagh turned around and froze when he saw Crewman Dru’sk standing off to one side with Kagh’s disruptor in his hand with apparent shock on his face. Dru’sk made no move to defend himself when Bre’tagh aimed his weapon at him.
Cardonez brought her clenched fists down with all of the force that she could muster onto Bre’tagh’s back like she was swinging an imaginary ax. The young Klingon crumbled to the deck, dazed. She grabbed his pistol from where he had dropped it.
“I think it’s my Bridge again,” she said. “Are you okay, Commander?”
Yashiro had managed to get up to his feet with a disruptor in his hand, although there was no one left to fight. “I feel like I’ve been wrestling a grizzly bear but I hope there are no permanent injuries.”
Cardonez smiled. “You can get up anytime that you want, Zia,” she said, looking down at Kehen. She was sprawled out on the deck like she had fallen over while ice skating.
Kehen smiled back at her. “If it’s all the same to you, Captain, I think that I’ll stay down here. It’s surprisingly comfortable.”
Cardonez walked over to where Dru’sk was standing, a disruptor still in his head, gazing still at his future self. Two young Ensigns were standing behind him. They had been cowering on the deck during the gunfire. “Are you two okay?,” she asked and they nodded in reply. She gently reached out and took the disruptor from Dru’sk’s hand. As she did it, it was like a spell had been lifted and the young Klingon finally noticed that she was there.
“Captain,” he said.
“It’s okay, Crewman. It’s over.”
“Not… quite,” came a labored voice.
Isabel turned around in time to see Colonel Dru’sk. His chest and face were blackened from the disruptor blast. There was blood dripping down from his mouth. He was standing, slumped over the Tactical console, slapping his palm down on the firing control with his last breath. Masafumi moved fast but he wasn’t fast enough and the Testudo fired a full spread of quantum torpedoes before the Commander hauled Dru’sk from the console and shut down the weapons systems.
Voyager was unmanned and most of its critical systems were offline. It was certain that its shields were down as well. The five quantum torpedoes struck the whole ship, engulfing it in an explosion that tore the proud vessel apart. As the explosion subsided and the fragments of Voyager spun outwards on the main viewscreen.
Captain Cardonez walked over to her command chair and flopped down into it. There was an expression on her face that was half shock and half exhaustion on her face.
“Well, this isn’t going to look good on anybody’s record.”
Epilogue
Captain’s Log, Stardate 54996.5;
After an in-depth investigation, Testudo had been cleared to depart from Pluto orbit. The Department of Temporal Investigations asked a lot of questions of myself and my crew. Though, to be honest, most of the crew never actually realized that we had been hijacked. The lead investigator, Agent Skinner, gave me a mild reprimand for actually agreeing to let Dru’sk send me into the future but on any other counts, it exonerated myself and my crew.
“So when can I expect my Bridge crew back?,” asked Captain Cardonez.
Sickbay was quiet and there were only two biobeds that were occupied.
Adam Huntington sat up on one side. “As soon as Doctor Hollem says that I’m fit to return to duty, I’ll be back. Sickbay must be the most boring place to be aboard this ship.”
“I heard that,” Hollem Azahn said from across the room.
“Good. You were meant to.”
“How about you, Valian?,” Isabel asked of the only other patient. “Are you feeling okay?”
Kandro shrugged. “I don’t know, Captain. This whole thing has caught me by surprise. I keep expecting the blackout to end, you know. Every time that I got to sleep, I expect to feel something when I wake up but I don’t.”
Cardonez walked over to his bedside. “I heard that you refused to see Lieutenant Dayle?”
“Yeah, that’s right. Don’t get me wrong, Captain. I’m not refusing help. I would rather just speak with another Betazoid. That’s all. Does that make sense?”
She rested a hand on his shoulder. “Sure, Valian. It makes a lot of sense. So what do you want to do?”
“Well, I’ve got about eight weeks of shore leave coming to me. I thought I might take a trip home. My family has already contacted some of the foremost counselors on Betazed for me. Is that okay?”
Cardonez looked down, struggling to keep a smile on her face. The cocky young man that she had known since their days on the Galaxy was missing and a serious, shy person was now in his place. She hoped that she would get the real Valian back again one day.
“I think it’s a very good idea. Just don’t take any more than eight weeks or we’ll fly to Betazed and drag you back.”
That made him smile. It was small and it only flickered into existence for a second but it was there.
“I see that visiting hours are still going on,” Liz Tennyson said, coming through the door. “I thought I would come and keep your patients’ company, Doctor.”
“Be my guest,” said Hollem.
“So, Captain,” said Huntington,” I know that Temporal Investigations will have told you to keep quiet. Just between us, did you see any familiar faces at all?”
Isabel thought for a second. In truth, they hadn’t forbidden her from talking. With Voyager and its technology destroyed, it was obvious that much of what she had seen would never happen. She looked at Kandro, then Huntington, and finally at Liz Tennyson who had a huge smile on her face.
“No,” she said. “Nobody that I knew at all.”
****
Two hours had passed by and Isabel Cardonez was sitting in her Ready Room. The radiant blues and greens of Earth were visible from her window. Hey Jude was playing softly in the background and she was reading a novel.
Or she tried.
She couldn’t get into it and it lay face down on the desktop now. The meeting with Starfleet was scheduled for tomorrow but tonight, she was beaming down to her dad’s new home in the Andes. She had missed the wedding but apparently her new stepmother’s apple pie was something that was worth waiting for. Those crewmembers that called Earth their home had been given leave to visit their loved ones and Huntington’s wife had beamed aboard to visit him.
Commander Masafumi had invited her to visit Tokyo with him but she had declined. She needed to be alone so she could contemplate her journey into the future. She understood now why so many Captains said that they hated time travel. It offered up more questions than answers. Most of those questions that she would never get an answer to.
What had happened to Liz in the future? What happened to Huntington?
She liked to think that most of her crew had the same outlook on life and the Federation. The idea that two of her most trusted officers, two of her friends, could ever end up as polar opposites disturbed her.
When her door chimes rang, she almost welcomed the intrusion. “Computer, end playback,” she ordered and when the music stopped, she called out,” Come.”
Captain Kathryn Janeway walked into her Ready Room. “Captain, it’s nice to see you outside of an interview room,” she said. The smile on her face was trying to be sincere but she wasn’t quite managing it.
“Captain Janeway! I thought you would be at the reception in Paris.”
“Oh, I’m on my way there in a moment. I just wanted a few words.”
“Be my guest,” she said, gesturing towards a seat. Janeway walked over to sit down.
“Agent Skinner wouldn’t give me any information on what you saw fourteen years from now.”
“No, and I won’t either, Captain.”
Janeway held up a hand. “That’s quite all right, Captain. I was just thinking. You incapacitated Dru’sk and his men but you didn’t disable your ship’s weapons systems, allowing him the opportunity to destroy my ship.”
“Am I being accused of something?”
“I was just wondering if whatever you saw in the future was enough to make you… How can I put this politely?”
“Try bluntly. That usually works for me.”
“Well, I wonder if you turned a blind eye.”
“Not for a second,” said Cardonez. “The future wasn’t pretty but I know my duty. Not disabling the weapons system was a mistake but it was an honest one, Captain.”
Janeway looked around the room. “It’s kind of sparse here, don’t you think?,” she asked and Cardonez heard a slight note of arrogance in her voice.
“Funnily enough, you’re the second person in the last few days to say that.”
Janeway picked up the box on Isabel’s desk and opened it. She examined the medal inside.
“The Pacifica Cross,” Cardonez said. “My former crew and I were awarded it during the war.”
Janeway put the box down. “Rumor has it that Voyager’s crew is getting the Christopher Pike medal.”
“Rumor also has it that you’re getting Admiral’s stars.”
Janeway said nothing.
“If Dru’sk hadn’t succeeded,” Cardonez said,” Starfleet would have covered it up. They would have snuck the transphasic torpedoes off of Voyager and kept them under wraps until they were needed.”
At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. I helped install them. So did Seven, Lieutenant Torres and her entire Engineering team. We know the basics. Colonel Dru’sk might have temporarily weakened the Federation but we’ll bounce back.”
“I know. I spoke with Agent Skinner about the same thing. HE said that it would take an estimated three or four years to reinvent the technology. It’s not quite how the original timeline went but it’s closer than it was. I think Dru’sk did enough.”
“You haven’t been a captain for long, have you?” Cardonez shook her head. “You’ll learn that sometimes you have to be prepared to bend the rules for the greater good.”
Cardonez shook her head. “There are some regulations that you don’t break, Captain. I hope that I never have another brush with time travel. I’m not sure that I have the stomach for it.” She stared Janeway straight in the eyes.
“Well, I should be going, Captain,” Janeway said, standing. “See you around the Galaxy.”
Once she had left, Cardonez sat back in her chair. Sometimes, the hardest thing for a Captain, for any Starfleet officer to do was nothing. There might not be a Romulan war now. Janeway’s Tactical Officer would survive. As for her First Officer, what was she to do? Warn Janeway never to let him near a boat? She knew the regulations and followed them to the letter.
She said nothing.
She stood up from her chair. Dru’sk was right, she thought to herself. It is kind of empty in here. She walked over to the replicator. “Computer, do you have any information pertaining to a Federation starship named Redeemer, registry NCC-4077?”
“Affirmative. USS Redeemer, Excelsior-class, commissioned on Stardate – “
“Thank you, Computer. Replicate me a scale model of the USS Redeemer.”
“Please state scale,” said the computer and she did. A moment later, a small model of the Excelsior-class starship resting on a wooden plinth appeared. She took it and placed it on one of the stands that were dotted around the Ready Room. sitting back down, she smiled.
“Much better.”
The End.
