Atonement Read online

  Captain Chakotay had left the bridge half an hour earlier. During that time Kim had fielded six personnel requests, revised the next day’s duty roster to accommodate four injured crewmen who had just been released from the Galen, scanned the most recent engineering and tactical reports, and was ready to move on to the nineteen new items that had appeared in his queue in the meantime.

  His unruly subconscious chose that moment to revisit a point it had been trying to make for the past three days.

  You should be dead right now.

  Kim was not being maudlin, nor was he depressed. He might be suffering some version of post-traumatic stress, but it was not intense enough for him to seek treatment.

  This certainty stemmed from a split second Kim had experienced on the bridge just before the battle at the Gateway had ended.

  The bridge crew had been jolted in their seats when the main deflector was hit. It was one of those bone-rattling impacts that results in a few seconds of shock before you realize that you are still breathing and must refocus your attention should you wish to stay that way.

  The last three years spent at tactical had given Kim a new internal chronometer. Its tempo was based upon the relationship between damage to the ship, current vulnerability, and the demonstrated strength of hostile weapons. Kim had not been standing at tactical when the Scion fired the shot that took out the deflector dish. But his internal clock had immediately begun to count the fractions of seconds remaining in Kim’s life as soon as he had recovered from the moment of impact. No matter how he had tried to fudge the numbers, his clock would not be swayed.

  We’re going to die, it reported. There was nothing to be done about it. Had he been standing a post on the Scion, he might have taken one inhalation between the shot that disabled the dish and the killing blow. Given the ferocity of the battle at that moment, there wouldn’t even have been time to think. Twenty-five CIF vessels had already been destroyed by the Kinara at that point. Voyager had entered the battle late, but on the wrong side if survival was the goal. Once their shields were down, they were defenseless. Half a second had determined their fate.

  The final shot had never come. Kim had later learned about the Shudka’s call for a cease-fire and Admiral Janeway’s choice to accept the Kinara’s terms of surrender.

  But that shouldn’t have mattered. The presider would have had to make the call before Voyager suffered that blow, and although the CIF’s potential for victory had been negligible at that point, as long as the Federation’s ships could still engage, it remained a possibility. After Voyager had been hit, that changed. But had she waited that long . . .

  No matter how he looked at it, Voyager’s survival simply made no sense to him.

  Kim knew what he had to do in order to quiet this disturbing thought. He needed to spend about eight hours studying every moment of the engagement at the Gateway and running numerous simulations projecting possible outcomes. Had he not been acting first officer, he would already have done this. Because he did not have that time to spend, his mind pestered him without cease, and his only choice was to force this thought down every time it rose unbidden.

  Six new people required immediate responses from Kim in the time he had just wasted deciding that he didn’t have time to wonder why he was still alive. As soon as he had focused his mind firmly on the padd in his hand, a call came from Galen, advising him that Lieutenant Barclay wanted a word.

  Kim didn’t want to distract the rest of the bridge crew, and he assumed Barclay’s request might be related to the Doctor’s current issues, which were not for public consumption. Captain Chakotay was in his quarters, so Kim ordered Lieutenant Devi Patel to take the bridge and retreated to Chakotay’s ready room.

  “Go ahead, Reg,” Kim ordered as soon as the door shut behind him.

  And please make it quick, he thought.

  “I’ve been reviewing Voyager’s power distribution patterns for the last two weeks, and I’ve discovered something I hope you can explain,” Barclay began.

  This was not Barclay’s job, but also not beyond his expertise. Curious, Kim asked, “Why?”

  “There are several corruptions to the Doctor’s program I couldn’t account for until I discovered some odd power surges in the main holographic matrix that date back more than a month.”

  “Did the Doctor cause them? I know he wasn’t happy with sickbay’s data storage capabilities and power regulation. Did he accidentally break something?”

  “I don’t think so,” Barclay replied. “I designed the programming upgrades the Doctor required and installed them myself. They weren’t the issue. On at least nine separate occasions, I’ve discovered large, unintended power transfers, most of which targeted holographic systems. I know they have a discrete power source, but these surges seemed to originate from other systems and were rerouted by the central computer to the holographic mainframe.”

  Kim pondered this in silence for a moment. He was as well versed as Barclay in Voyager’s holomatrix interfaces. He had rebuilt dozens of them by hand during the dark days of the Hirogen’s occupation of his ship. The entire system had been upgraded when Voyager was refitted for her return to the Delta Quadrant, but the basics had remained the same.

  “Could our interactions with the protectors have affected the system?” Kim asked.

  “Possibly, but they seem to be occurring too randomly for one system or interaction to be the sole cause. I’m going to send you my reports. You should review them with Nancy and B’Elanna. It may be nothing, but I’m pretty sure now that one of those surges caused the Doctor’s near cascade failure.”

  “How is he?”

  “Much better,” Barclay assured him. “His program has been restored. There are just a few issues left to resolve.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Kim said. “I’ll take a look at those reports.”

  When, he did not know, but like everything else, it was added to the list that never seemed to get any shorter.

  “Thanks, Harry.”

  “Anytime,” Kim said, signing off.

  You really should be dead right now.

  Kim suddenly wondered if this was simple curiosity about a tactical probability, or a wish.

  TWENTY THOUSAND KILOMETERS

  FROM THE GATEWAY

  When General Mattings had advised Admiral Janeway that he could create a holding facility for the prisoners in neutral territory, she had assumed he was referring to a civilian ship that he could temporarily press into service.

  The possibility that she would find herself facing Lsia while floating in empty space had never crossed her mind.

  The general’s solution had been to program protectors to create static cells for each of the four Seriareen. They were spaced too far apart for any to be visible to the others.

  A separate protector had been created in which Admiral Janeway, Captain Chakotay, and Presider Cin now sat on invisible, yet surprisingly comfortable, indentations within the wave form. General Mattings stood at attention behind them. Their protector had merged with Lsia’s to facilitate this conversation, although a barrier remained between them that Lsia could not breach.

  Lsia stood facing them, still in the form of the tall humanoid woman Janeway had seen aboard the Manticle. Apparently prisoners didn’t get invisible chairs. It was impossible to look down without becoming disoriented. But Janeway had focused her attention on the Seriareen and by doing so, she could keep her stomach calm. Janeway also appreciated the fact that Lsia appeared every bit as disconcerted by her surroundings, or lack thereof, as she was.

  Janeway admired the general’s ingenuity. Nobody enjoyed an advantage here. They were all in the same transparent boat.

  Presider Cin sat to Janeway’s left, Chakotay on her right, his game face in place. Janeway allowed Cin to begin the conversation. “You indicated to Admiral Janeway that you believe your homeworld to be located in Confederacy space,” she said. “We have double-checked our records. There are no worlds now called Seriar, nor do o
ur histories mention your world or your species. Who are the Seriareen?”

  “I am Lsia. Devore Inspector Kashyk is called Emem. Magnate Veelo of the Turei is called Tirrit, and Commandant Dhina of the Vaadwaur is Adaeze,” Lsia replied. “We are almost all that remains of the Seriareen.”

  “Didn’t you say there were eight?” Cin asked of Janeway.

  “One was destroyed, and the other three are still contained a long way away from here. We will retrieve them in due course,” Janeway advised her.

  “Can you tell me exactly where your home was?” Cin demanded.

  “Thousands of years ago, the stars that now surround us lit but a small fraction of our territory.”

  “The canisters that contained your essences were held by a species that called themselves the Neyser. They told us you were their ancestors,” Chakotay said.

  “We were,” Lsia said. “Seriareen space was vast, extending over tens of thousands of light-years and consisting of almost half of what you call the Delta Quadrant, or First Quadrant,” she added, nodding toward the presider. “Before we fell, those that allied themselves against us took the designation Nayseriareen. I believe ‘Neyser’ is a bastardized version of that word.”

  “How could you possibly have held territory that vast?” Janeway asked. “We’ve seen a fair bit of the Delta Quadrant in our travels and this is the first we have heard of your civilization.”

  “You have already discovered the means by which we conquered and ruled,” Lsia replied. “You call them subspace corridors or streams. Many have claimed them in our absence. What time has forgotten is that we created them.”

  “How?” Chakotay asked as Presider Cin blanched at this revelation. The people of the Confederacy believed in an all-powerful entity they called the “Source,” and one tenet of their faith was that this Source had carved the subspace tunnels that allowed them to escape the Borg and build their civilization around the First World.

  “Technology,” Lsia replied. “The tools we used to carve the corridors were the first target of the Nayseriareen. To defeat us, they had to eliminate our ability to travel vast distances in periods of time no starship could match.

  “Once, the corridors were open to all that offered allegiance to us. Our enemies shattered our alliances by destabilizing as many corridors as they could find, ultimately capturing and destroying our technology.”

  “But they couldn’t kill you?” Chakotay asked.

  “The Seriareen possessed many forms of advanced technology as well as unique telepathic abilities. Our natural life spans were very long compared to yours and most of the species we encountered. Continuity of leadership added stability to the territories we ruled. We came to believe that this stability could only be enhanced by extending our lives even further. After exhausting all medical means to sustain our bodies indefinitely, we accepted that eventually all physical beings would die. But our essence did not have to. We developed the ability to transfer our consciousness at the moment of our death to other beings.”

  “Did those beings resist?” Chakotay asked.

  Lsia shook her head. “You assume it was something to be feared. For those who would receive an ancient consciousness, it was something to be celebrated. Consciousness transfer was seen as a means to share in immortality. Contests of strength and intelligence were held to select those best suited for transfer. The lucky few who were chosen were envied by their peers.”

  “Why few?” Janeway asked.

  “Sustaining one’s consciousness in a new form is difficult and a skill many attempted, but only the strongest mastered. Millions trained themselves to undergo transfer, but a very small percentage survived the process. If it could be successfully accomplished once, it became easier. But still, by the end, only a few thousand existed that had lived more than one lifetime. We were the undisputed leaders of the Seriareen. We were exalted.”

  “You make it sound like you were gods,” Chakotay said.

  “To many, we appeared as such,” Lsia agreed. “In addition to hunting us to extinction, the Nayseriareen developed means to inhibit telepathic essence transfer,” Lsia went on. “They were able to destroy whatever form we inhabited while simultaneously preventing us from moving immediately to a new form.”

  “I don’t suppose you’d care to tell us how they did that?” Mattings asked.

  Lsia smiled wanly. “To be honest, I never knew. By the time I realized it was even possible, it was too late to ask.”

  “How many did the Nayseriareen capture?” Chakotay asked.

  “I don’t know,” Lsia replied. “When I escaped and took your hologram as my new form, I was shocked and deeply saddened to learn that only seven others remained with the Neyser. The ancient ones who hid The Eight believed we were the last. I have no idea what may have happened to the others.”

  Janeway exchanged a worried glance with Chakotay before saying, “So you have come back to try and reclaim some of the space that was once yours?”

  “No,” Lsia replied. “So many years later, any claim we might make would be dismissed out of hand, and rightly so. We were unable to hold what was once ours. It was taken from us by superior forces and, ultimately, lost to them as new powers rose to take their place.”

  “You sound surprisingly resigned to your fate,” the presider noted.

  “Thousands of years of contemplation of your life in a very small, dark place does wonders for one’s perspective,” Lsia said wryly.

  “If that is so, why have you joined forces with species that have a history of unprovoked attacks on the Confederacy’s Gateway?” Mattings demanded.

  “When I was first freed, I set about attempting to discover how much of the Seriareen’s past glory remained intact,” Lsia admitted. “I soon realized that only a fraction of the subspace corridors had survived. No species I encountered even remembered our names. I first sought out the Turei and Vaadwaur, given the descriptions of those encounters from Voyager’s logs. They were not the most reasonable of species. I was forced to take extreme measures in order to learn how much of our subspace network remained intact and the identity of those controlling it.

  “I first learned of the Kinara from the Turei. I decided that before I attempted to join forces with the Kinara, who have actually extended their explorations almost to the network’s known limits, I would have to strengthen my negotiating position. The Kinara respect strength and numbers. The Confederacy was winning their conflict with the Kinara through attrition, so I brought Rigger Meeml forces he couldn’t refuse to gain his trust.”

  “Did Rigger Meeml speak the truth when he indicated that the Kinara only wished to explore the Confederacy’s corridors and to access resources beyond their territory?” Cin asked.

  “He did.”

  “And did you share his goals?” Janeway asked.

  “Yes, and no,” Lsia admitted. “The only way to confirm the limits of the subspace network was to access the Confederacy’s streams. But I have no interest in anything that lies beyond Confederacy space. Based upon the Kinara’s astrometrics charts, it is very likely that Seriar is within the space now claimed by the Confederacy. As I have been unable to discover anything of my people’s fate since my incarceration, I hope to find the answers I seek there.”

  “And then do what?” Janeway asked.

  “I do not believe we could resume residence there,” Lsia admitted. “Fighting throughout my planet’s system was fierce and terribly destructive. Many of the weapons used rent savage holes in the fabric of space and subspace. Even thousands of years later, I doubt time has repaired all that was damaged.

  “You might think me sentimental,” Lsia continued, “but before I can look for a new road down which to guide those of us who remain, I must know how the old road ended.”

  Janeway looked to Chakotay and Cin, both of whom seemed to share the same healthy skepticism.

  “If all you wanted was information, you might have simply asked,” Mattings noted.

  “Forgiv
e me, General, but it is my understanding from the Kinara that your Confederacy refused to even discuss the desires of races you deemed inferior until we amassed a force capable of defeating you on the field of battle.”

  “In the past that might have been true,” Cin allowed. “But I have committed myself and my people to a new, more open path.”

  “Still, many questions remain unanswered,” Janeway noted.

  “Such as?” Lsia asked.

  “One member species of the Federation shares something in common with the Seriareen,” Janeway began. “The Trill are a joined species, a humanoid host and a symbiotic life-form that merges with that host to create a new individual. The host retains a certain amount of autonomy, but the symbiont brings the memories of each past host to the joining. The continuity you spoke of is assured in this way. It is an unusual arrangement, but our long association with the Trill has given us a certain appreciation for the fact that a species could develop a desire and reverence for the process of transferring actual consciousness from one generation to the next, and that those receiving the transfers would accept the loss of complete individuality in exchange for what they consider an enhanced existence.

  “Based upon what I have seen, however,” Janeway continued, “your hosts remain conscious of your presence within them and seem incapable of offering resistance.”

  “Once a transfer is complete, the memories, consciousness, the very essence of the host, is displaced by ours. Some vestige of it remains, but it cannot resume control of its body while we inhabit it, and we remain trapped within it until its death.”

  “While we were aboard the Manticle, you spoke a single word that allowed Inspector Kashyk to temporarily subsume Emem,” Janeway said. “Another word from you put an end to that struggle.”

  “During the ritual of transfer, which I performed for Emem, Tirrit, and Adaeze, ancient words of power are invoked as triggers to alert the transferring essence in the unlikely event a new host becomes unstable. Those words are unique to each transfer and temporarily halt the integration. What I did—to stop Emem from murdering you, Admiral—was to briefly loosen his hold upon the host. Emem was forced to struggle for control with an unwilling host, distracting him from his previous intention. But even had I not reversed that command, Kashyk would never have survived Emem’s release. There is simply not enough of him left, and what little remains has probably been driven mad by his new reality. Emem would have sought refuge in another body—probably yours—and Kashyk’s body would have died.”