“We are ready,” Captain Chakotay replied.
“Very well. We’ll see you on the other side.”
“That you will, Vesta. Voyager out.”
Chakotay turned to Janeway, offering her a wink and a tight smile. She nodded briskly.
“Mister Paris?”
“Would this be a bad time to mention that this constitutes a highly unadvisable use of our slipstream capabilities?” Paris asked.
“Look at it this way, Tom. You’re about to make history,” Chakotay replied.
“Yeah, that’s never quite as thrilling as it sounds.”
“It’ll be over before you know it.”
“Promises, promises.”
Ahead, Vesta’s nacelles began to burn with the bright orange color unique to slipstream propulsion.
“Here we go,” Paris said.
The ship shuddered gently as a roiling tunnel of churning light formed around them. Billions of kilometers ahead, a star was moving through space. Janeway imagined it, trailing radiant energy as it tore a streak of light through the darkness.
“Preparing to exit slipstream corridor in three, two, one…” Paris intoned.
Janeway had come to take for granted the relative ease with which her fleet’s vessels traveled using the miraculous propulsion system first discovered by Voyager years earlier. As the ship eased out of the churning maelstrom, she wondered idly if Arturis, the alien responsible for bringing quantum-slipstream technology to her people, had found peace and release when the Caeliar had transformed the Borg. She hoped he had. He had come to Voyager seeking revenge and that design had been thwarted. But in the process, he had unlocked a new wave of exploratory capability for which she could not help but be grateful.
A loud cracking sound and the groan of metal resisting impossible forces sounded just before alarm klaxons began to wail. Janeway instinctively held tight to her chair as the inertial dampers strained to maintain normal gravity.
The slipstream corridor was replaced by a normal starfield, but the view was disorienting as Voyager spun wildly. The body of Lieutenant Aubrey hit the deck beside the admiral. Tom Paris, who had likely known something was wrong before the rest of them, held his seat, but just barely.
“Hang on,” he shouted above the din as he struggled to regain control of the helm.
Circuits overloaded, shooting sparks into the air. Janeway felt her stomach lurch and the momentary uncomfortable press of gravity on her chest.
“Paris,” Chakotay barely choked out.
Another sharp jolt rattled the bridge as the spinning mercifully began to slow. Janeway gulped for air as her body attempted to adjust to the rapidly shifting environmental conditions.
“Almost got it,” Paris reported through gritted teeth.
The next twenty seconds seemed to last forever, but through them, Janeway could sense normalcy creeping toward her.
As soon as space had ceased to spin, Chakotay ordered the emergency klaxons silent. “Commander Paris, what’s our status?”
“We are holding position roughly one-quarter of a light-year from our intended egress point,” he replied. “I don’t know what the hell happened, but that didn’t go as planned.”
“That much I figured,” Chakotay said. “Lasren, can you locate the star and determine if its course has changed?”
“I’ve got it on long-range sensors, sir. Calculating.”
Janeway waited breathlessly for the next words to fall from his lips.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he said. “The star’s course remains unchanged.”
“How soon can we go to warp?” Chakotay asked.
“B’Elanna is on her way to main engineering as we speak,” Paris replied. “She’ll need a minute to run diagnostics.”
“Do we know what Vesta’s status is?”
“Captain Farkas is reporting minimal damage. She advises that Vesta was able to exit the slipstream corridor before it dispersed of its own accord.”
“How?” Chakotay and Janeway asked simultaneously.
“Seven to the bridge.”
“Go ahead,” Chakotay ordered.
“I can confirm that the energy field was activated, but until we are within range of the quantum sensors, we won’t know if they detected the anticipated entanglement.”
“Does that mean the star’s course might have been altered?” Chakotay asked. “How do you know that the energy field was activated?”
“Because it targeted our slipstream corridor just prior to our anticipated pass. It prevented us from altering the star’s course.”
“Well, that explains that,” Paris said bitterly.
“Gods damnit,” Chakotay added.
Janeway shared his frustration, but at the same time was forced once again to marvel at the Edrehmaia and their obvious foresight. She could only hope that despite their failure, the activation of the field had at least given them the data they required.
Somehow, though, she doubted it.
DEMETER
Liam O’Donnell returned to consciousness with the assistance of a blinding white light above him. For a fraction of a second he wondered if the Edrehmaia substance had claimed him and he had actually died.
“Can you hear me, sir?” Atlee Fife asked, scuttling that thought.
“Someone shot me,” O’Donnell said as the memory of the final seconds of which he had been aware returned to him.
“Yes, sir. Ensign Gwyn.”
“I want her brought up on charges,” O’Donnell said as he pushed himself up off the biobed and assumed a seated position.
Fife stared at him, his unusually large eyes radiating cold rage. Finally, he said, “No, sir.”
“No what?”
“No, you will not bring charges against Ensign Gwyn for stunning you. I would have done the same in her place.”
“Did I miss a meeting? Are we allowed to just shoot people now?”
“We are when they act in a way that endangers their lives or the lives of their fellow officers,” Fife replied evenly.
“How do you know…?” O’Donnell began.
“I have yet to receive a full report from Ensign Gwyn. She has her hands quite full at the moment. But our sensors were locked onto the shuttle throughout the experiment and clearly indicated the beginnings of a containment breach. My assumption is that you were going to allow it and that Gwyn’s quick action was the only thing that prevented you from doing so.”
O’Donnell swallowed both his anger and the first response that occurred to him. Atlee Fife was a man of considerable personal integrity. It was that quality more than any other that had steeled O’Donnell’s resolve to make their unusual co-captaincy work. This was the first moment since they had left Persephone that he’d experienced the slightest hint of regret over that
