Atonement Read online

“I think there’s a great deal our Seriareen friends are missing here,” he replied evenly.

  “Captain?” Mattings asked, clearly disgusted that Chakotay hadn’t met this situation with force sufficient to put an end to Lsia and her people by now.

  Turning back to Lsia, Chakotay said, “Your goal, unless I’ve missed something, is to take the hax to some distant, secluded area of space and, from there, use my ship to begin forcing other species into alliances like the one you formed with the Kinara. The hax will take you anywhere you like at speeds that surpass even our slipstream capabilities, and you will attack or coerce other civilizations as necessary. Over time, you will begin to build a base of power from which you will expand your influence over all sentient species you encounter in this quadrant.”

  “Yes,” Lsia said.

  “Lsia,” Emem said, his tone of warning clear.

  “But the Obihhax has already achieved this goal more simply and elegantly than your proposed course of action ever will,” Chakotay said.

  Lsia turned to face him, clearly puzzled.

  Chakotay continued quickly, “You want power to direct the actions of others. You want them to acknowledge your will and your choices for them as superior to their own sense of self-determination. You will impose your own sense of order, your own code of conduct upon them and, in return, demand obedience, respect, and faith in your abilities to lead them through the challenges all sentient beings face as they move through their lives.”

  “We are the superior life-forms, Captain Chakotay,” Lsia said.

  “Then prove it by following the path the Obihhax has already prepared for you,” Chakotay suggested.

  “The Obihhax has reverted to a dormant state in anticipation of our return,” Lsia insisted. “Once he understands that he is no longer alone, he will aid us in our efforts to expand the reach of our power.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Chakotay mused. “He’s already achieved what you say you desire. I’m not sure why he would give that up now.”

  Mattings snorted. Chakotay met his eyes briefly and received a faint nod of respect from the general.

  “Your Obihhax has become the central focus of reverence of a Confederacy of planets larger than any I have yet encountered in the Delta Quadrant. Species that never heard of the Source before joining the Confederacy have set aside their old forms of religious observation in deference to the faith of the Leodts and Djinari in the omnipotent being that led them through the darkness and brought them to a world where they could build a new way of life, far more peaceful and prosperous than the one they left behind.

  “Their methods were brutal,” Chakotay said with a nod to Mattings, who clearly did not take offense. “I doubt even Mister Emem would be disappointed in their willingness to use whatever means necessary to create the order they believed their Source demanded of them. In its name, they have destroyed planets, billions of life-forms, and artificially created and enslaved countless wave forms. They have relegated their females to second-class citizenship until they have proven their worth through procreation, and stripped of their rights any who failed to live up to their ideal work ethic or maintain material success.

  “I have no idea how many Confederacy citizens have ever had a direct sense of the Source or can claim to have experienced first-hand any connection to it. My operations officer attended a Confederacy religious service and told me that, for most, their faith is hollow, a habit they persist in despite their inability to confirm by any means the reality—let alone the power or intentions—of the Source. They sense nothing when they lift their voices in prayer.

  “But still, they believe. The Source has captured their spirits and imagination. Its purpose fills their souls. The general here is the first Confederacy citizen to ever lay eyes on the hax. He has learned its history from you, and even he still believes it is his god made manifest.

  “And somehow, the Obihhax achieved all this, without firing a single shot. Clearly it has discovered something you have not. Think about that, before you presume to know the mind or will of this living god of yours.”

  Lsia shifted her gaze to Emem. A strange look had come over the face of the man Chakotay could still only think of as “Kashyk.”

  “Our course is set,” Emem said defiantly.

  “If the will of the Obihhax proves to be other than we believe,” Lsia noted, “we will know soon enough.”

  These words had barely left her lips when she vanished from her seat at the conn.

  • • • • •

  One minute, Lsia had been seated at Voyager’s flight controls. The next, she found herself standing in a black room crisscrossed by an orange grid. Admiral Janeway stood before her. Just behind her, Lieutenant Barclay was operating a control panel.

  Focusing her will, Lsia tried to return to the bridge.

  Nothing happened.

  “Oh, Lsia,” Janeway said, shaking her head almost compassionately.

  She tried to speak, but no voice escaped her lips.

  She searched her memories for a more intimidating species and tried to alter her form.

  Her current form held.

  The admiral observed her dispassionately.

  “Despite everything you apparently believed to be true, I wanted to help you. I would have helped you,” Janeway said. “Instead you forced my hand and left me no choice.”

  Lsia struggled to form a response and was suddenly conscious of how unseemly her efforts must appear.

  “Don’t bother,” Janeway suggested. “Control of your program has been transferred to Voyager’s holographic system. We’ve disabled your vocal subroutines. Nothing you can say now will make a difference.”

  A bright gold field snapped into existence around her. It formed a column only a few feet wider than the reach of her arms, had she been able to extend them. At her feet, a new canister, similar to the ones Emem had destroyed, sat open, ready to receive her. She tried to hide the terror in her eyes as she lifted them again to meet Janeway’s.

  “The anti-psionic field is stable,” Lieutenant Barclay confirmed.

  “I know you have questions,” Janeway said quickly. “I’m sorry there isn’t time to answer them. You’re going to return to containment now, and I sincerely hope you use the next several thousand years better than you did the last.”

  Lsia tried to lift her arms to touch the blazing field.

  They betrayed her, remaining motionless at her sides.

  Janeway turned to Barclay. “Lieutenant?”

  “Computer,” Barclay said without stammer or hesitation. “End program.”

  Lsia felt the pull of the darkness. She no longer had eyes to see or a form to sense her surroundings. The only safety she could find was cold and lonely.

  She remembered the sensation. She cried out soundlessly at the injustice of it.

  It turned out that form was not insignificant at all.

  Its absence became the sum total of her reality.

  Again.

  • • • • •

  “Stop that,” Counselor Cambridge ordered.

  The Doctor ceased pacing momentarily.

  “It’s not as if the motion releases any neurochemicals that will ease tension. Can you even feel tension?” Cambridge asked.

  “Reg has been gone too long,” the Doctor said.

  “I know that.”

  “You should go after him,” the Doctor suggested.

  “Bloody hell,” Cambridge said. “I’m not leaving you alone right now.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I was ordered to see to your well-being while you attempt to save our compromised crewman,” Cambridge replied.

  “Coward.”

  “Sometimes,” Cambridge agreed.

  They paused at the sound of hands attempting to force open the door to sickbay. They had sealed it behind Barclay when he departed.

  “Reg?” the Doctor called out, moving closer to the door.

  “Lazio,” a female voice shoute
d through the door. “We have Lieutenant Conlon. She needs medical attention.”

  The Doctor and Cambridge rushed to assist her in manually forcing the doors open from the inside.

  A pair of security officers carried Conlon’s limp form into sickbay. Three others, clearly exhausted by the exertion of carrying her up eleven decks, sat in the hall outside attempting to calm their ragged breathing.

  “Over here,” the Doctor said, directing them to deposit Conlon on the main biobed at the rear of sickbay.

  “What is our status?” Cambridge asked of Lazio.

  “The Seriareen have taken control of the ship. We’re locked out of all systems. Admiral Janeway and Commander Torres are working on it. Lieutenant Decan identified Conlon as Xolani and then neutralized him.”

  The Doctor was studying Conlon’s still form for signs of injury.

  “Vulcan nerve pinch,” Lazio added. “I really have to learn that one of these days.”

  “Your team should remain here,” Cambridge ordered.

  “Aye, sir,” Lazio replied, joining the others in the hall.

  Cambridge then moved to stand opposite the Doctor over Conlon’s body.

  “Will she wake up any time soon?”

  The Doctor retrieved a hypospray and placed it against her neck. It hissed as it released its contents.

  “No,” the Doctor replied. “But I can’t do anything else for her until sickbay is once again operative.”

  • • • • •

  Commander Torres monitored the holodeck controls, her hands poised over her console. Her heart skipped a few beats when Barclay successfully transferred Lsia to the holodeck. It paused altogether when he ordered her program shut down and resumed its rhythm when the computer indicated that the program was no longer running.

  One down.

  Turning her attention back to her panel, Torres watched for any sign that Lsia’s absence would trigger modifications to the control sequence that was currently running.

  Seconds passed.

  Nothing changed. Lsia’s last commands to navigation were locked in, and no further orders would be accepted that were not entered by a Seriareen.

  “Damn, damn, damn,” Torres said.

  Quinn and his team had returned with her program. The isolinear chip was at her fingertips, and the interface port on her console was already open and ready to receive it.

  “Time to intercept the Source?” Torres asked.

  “Seven minutes, fifteen seconds,” Neol replied, still monitoring the bridge’s feed.

  “Damn it,” Torres said again.

  The only thing that might make this situation worse was corrupting the ship’s central files. They weren’t under her control, but they were functioning properly. If Voyager lost shields, propulsion, or any of a dozen other critical systems right now because of her access key, they would not survive.

  Of course, without Lsia present to make any last-minute adjustments to their course or speed, they might not survive anyway. It did not appear as if any of her companions had taken control of the conn in her absence.

  Torres thought back over her program’s parameters. It had been designed with this exact eventuality in mind, minus the massive alien life-form the ship was approaching and the toxic radiation it was generating.

  It should work.

  In the past, she would not have hesitated. But in the last few months, hesitation had become her default position. She trusted nothing: not her body, her mind, or her instincts. Plans carefully made and well-executed had left her alone and frightened. As losses and failures piled up around her, the confidence with which she had once carried herself had become another casualty. The visceral need to protect her daughter and her unborn son was primal but it only heightened the fear that stayed her hand over the isolinear chip.

  Suddenly, Tom’s voice drifted into her mind. “You take it for granted, B’Elanna, how good you are.”

  Did she?

  “It’s going to be okay.”

  Was it?

  “I wouldn’t want to be aligned with the forces of darkness and destruction, because their track record against us stinks.”

  Torres smiled.

  She might not believe in herself, but nothing the universe had yet devised could shake Tom’s faith in her. That had been true in darker moments than this.

  “Six minutes, thirty-seconds,” Neol advised.

  If Tom were here now, there was no doubt whatsoever in her mind what choice he would have her make.

  Torres inserted the chip into the interface.

  • • • • •

  “What have you done with Lsia?” Emem barked as soon as she dematerialized. He punctuated the gesture by again raising his phaser. This time it was pointed at Chakotay.

  The captain sensed the immediate change on the bridge. All of his officers were probably feeling the same surge of adrenaline at Lsia’s unexpected departure. You didn’t have to be an empath to feel the tables turning.

  “Ensign Gwyn,” Chakotay said, ignoring the phaser momentarily. Turning his head slightly, he noted with satisfaction that she had already slid back into her chair and was attempting to resume her duties as flight controller.

  “She locked in our current course. I still can’t override it,” Gwyn reported.

  “Keep trying,” Chakotay ordered.

  “Captain!” Emem shouted.

  Chakotay noted that Tirrit and Adaeze had also stepped away from their stations and were aiming their phasers at him.

  “In answer to your question, Mister Emem,” Chakotay replied, “I have no idea what happened to Lsia. You ordered Lieutenant Decan not to speak the moment he arrived.”

  Emem’s face was clenched with rage, and the hand holding his phaser had begun to tremble. Chakotay remembered the real Kashyk taking disappointment much better.

  Emem’s aim shifted to Decan. “I am afraid I cannot satisfy your curiosity either,” Decan said with typical Vulcan reserve. “Anything I would report at this time would be pure conjecture.”

  Throughout this brief exchange, Chakotay had noted Kim moving incrementally closer to Emem to gain a better tactical position, but slowly enough not to attract his attention. Waters and Patel were assuming similar positions behind Tirrit and Adaeze. Mattings stood with his arms crossed, his eyes shifting between the three armed aliens.

  “If I had to guess,” Chakotay said, “I would assume that Admiral Janeway, Commander Torres, and Lieutenant Conlon have had more success than Lsia anticipated in countering her efforts.”

  “Lieutenant Conlon was compromised by the other Seriareen, sir,” Decan advised.

  “What?” Lieutenant Kim shouted from behind Emem.

  Emem turned immediately at both the sound and the fury of Kim’s voice.

  Kim did not stop to think. He simply coldcocked Emem and sent him over the tactical station and rolling to the deck in front of the command chairs.

  With dexterity Chakotay would not have guessed the general possessed, Mattings moved briskly to aid Kim, retrieving the phaser Emem had dropped as he fell and issuing a swift kick to his midsection to keep him down. Kim moved swiftly to leap atop Emem and began pounding him furiously with his fists.

  “Lieutenant Kim, stand down!” Chakotay ordered.

  The sound of phaser fire erupted behind him.

  Turning, Chakotay saw that both Tirrit and Adaeze had hit the deck with massive phaser wounds to their chests.

  Relieved and confused, Chakotay moved behind Kim and lifted him off Emem. “I told you to stand down, Lieutenant,” he shouted, more to reach Kim than to chastise him.

  Emem had curled into a blood- and sweat-slicked ball on the deck, but was still breathing.

  “What happened to them?” Chakotay asked of the room at large.

  Patel was the first to report. “They fired upon each other.” She was already kneeling over Adaeze, checking him for a pulse. “He’s dead, sir.”

  “So is this one,” Waters advised from ops.

/>   “Harry?” Chakotay said softly to Kim.

  He turned to lift his face to his captain. The devastation he was struggling to contain was winning the war. He had apparently skipped from shock at Decan’s report straight into anger and despair.

  “She . . .” Kim struggled to say, then returned his ravaged gaze to Emem, who had the good sense to stay down.

  “I know,” Chakotay said softly. “But this isn’t going to help. The Doctor will—”

  With another guttural growl of rage, Kim kicked Emem again.

  “Lieutenant Kim, you are relieved,” Chakotay said.

  At this, Kim deflated and stumbled into his chair beside Chakotay’s, burying his face in his hands.

  “Decan?” Chakotay asked next. He was not surprised to see the Vulcan standing calmly beside him, his eyes closed. Clearly he had already anticipated Chakotay’s primary concern.

  Decan’s eyes flew open. “They are gone.”

  “You’re sure?” Chakotay asked in disbelief. His luck had never been that good.

  “I sensed both of them leave their hosts and depart the ship.”

  “Where did they go?”

  “Captain,” Gwyn said suddenly.

  Chakotay looked back to the main viewscreen. The motion of the hax had begun to slow perceptibly. Its massive jaws began to widen and its tail slipped free. It still retained a circular shape, but the circle was now broken.

  “Please,” Emem coughed.

  Chakotay looked down to see him struggling to lift his head. His face was lit with an emotion the captain had never seen from either Emem or Kashyk: reverence.

  Emem looked to Chakotay, pleading. “Release me.”

  “You know I can’t do that,” Chakotay said.

  Emem shuddered as another deep, wet cough sent blood and phlegm flying from his lips.

  “Perhaps . . . Mister Kim . . . would like to finish . . . what he started?” Emem suggested. “Xolani chose well . . .”

  Chakotay felt Kim tense beside him. As he moved to place a restraining hand on Kim’s shoulder, General Mattings lifted the phaser he had retrieved during the fight, aimed it directly at Emem, and fired.

  The weapon did not disintegrate Emem, but left a huge black hole in his midsection.

  And a smile on his face.