Chris Allcock

On the fortieth day of his journey, XKD-47 came across a unit like himself, buried almost waist-deep in sand. Her datacast was badly corrupted by damage and corrosion – clearly, she had been caught in the storm and had spent every moment since staring hopelessly at her destination, utterly immobile. She’d been crossing a teetering walkway over a smooth-sided ravine when the storm had struck, and had been left utterly exposed.

While wilful deviation from his journey was not expressly forbidden, XKD-47 had felt more than a little conflicted the first time he’d spotted another unit on the horizon. It had taken him nearly a day to reach them through the labyrinth of fallen stone only to find that they’d been damaged far beyond his ability to repair. Ultimately, he’d been left with only one feasible course of action.

This was the fourth unit he’d found in a similar condition, and It wasn’t getting any easier. Reaching gingerly inside the mottled carapace of the helpless soldier, he felt around gingerly, trying to lessen the pain, until his questing fingers located the main power junction.

In the instant before the unit completed her journey, her battered face curved slightly in an expression of profound gratitude, and then XKD-47 was alone in the ruins once more. Turning cautiously, balancing himself on a creaking metal beam with both arms outstretched, he reoriented himself with his destination and moved—

The metal beam twisted treacherously underfoot, and sent XKD-47 tumbling into the abyss.

*             *             *

On the forty-first day of his journey, XKD-47 was in a hole.

*             *             *

On the two-hundred-and-twelfth day of his journey, XKD-47 was in a hole.

*             *             *

On the three-hundred-and-fourth day of his journey, XKD-47 drove the final piton into the silicon wall, placed his foot gingerly upon it and hauled himself bodily out of the hole. He sat for a while scanning the datacast channels, hoping that other units had completed a map of the area while he’d been trapped, but all the links were suspiciously quiet.

Gradually, XKD-47 began to believe that he might be the only unit left. It was a concerning thought, but the Commanders had been wise enough to give even a single unit enough destructive ordinance to win the war.

Standing unsteadily on rust-stained legs, he reoriented himself towards his destination, the stronghold of the Enemy, and began to move.

*             *             *

On the three-hundred-and-sixth day of his journey, XKD-47 was startled by a sudden flurry of sand and grit ahead of him. For a moment he thought the storms were upon him once more, but as the winds died down with unnatural speed, ill-defined shadows in the storm became familiar shapes.

The door of the blue box opened and the Doctor strode out into the ruins, looking as timeless as ever. “Now stop messing about,” he said by way of a greeting, adopting the demeanour of an exasperated schoolmarm. “Why haven’t you gone home, eh?”

“Why would I?” XKD-47 replied. He was surprised by the sound of his own voice; raspy and distant as though he were shouting through a length of pipe.  “My mission hasn’t changed.”

“Yes. No. But it has, though.” The Doctor looked uncertain for the first time since XKD-47 began his journey. “I fixed it all! Organised a cease-fire. Turned out it was just a big misunderstanding – their communication system jammed your engines and you thought you’d been shot down. Two technologies turn out to be incompatible, it happens sometimes… and you don’t believe a word I’m saying, do you?”

With that, the Doctor tugged a slender, silvery device from his pocket and began to sweep it back and forth over XKD-47’s pockmarked skull. It went swizzywizzywizzy.  “So the question is, why didn’t you receive the change of orders? Let me see…”

XKD-47 swatted the device out of the Doctor’s hand, irritably, and it landed in the rubble a short distance away making an indignant beeping sound. “I was down a hole,” he admitted, “for a long time. I had to wait for suitable raw material to fall in before I could escape.”

“So you never heard the cease-fire… Stan, the war is over. Your people are packing up to go home – I’ve helped them fix their engines, they’ll be gone by the end of the day. All you’ll be doing is—“

“Completing the task for which I was created,” XKD-47 snapped.  “Out in the wasteland are dozens of units just like me, trapped and lost in service to their orders! We fall and we stand, over and over, because we share a common purpose – a reason for our very existence!”

The fingers on his replacement hand flexed in and out, impulsively, and now words tumbled out of him in a fountain of rage and frustration. “Purpose burns within us and drives us onwards with our last ounce of strength! It is a noble existence, it is a pure and simple understanding of our place in things and for me to arrogantly claim a higher authority would be wrong!”

They stood in silence for a moment, and the Doctor said softly “Such a waste. You should have been a poet, not a bomb.”

XKD-47 lunged forward, suddenly, grabbing the Doctor by his jacket. “And yet a bomb is what I am!” he hissed. “You will stop attempting to deceive me, and you will instead use your travelling box to take me to the heart of the Enemy stronghold so that I can complete my mission.”

The Doctor shook his head, calmly. “No,” he said, and that was that.

“If you don’t…” XKD-47 hesitated. “If you don’t, I’ll detonate here and now. You’ll be destroyed.”

“But nobody else will be,” the Doctor replied, still with an infuriating calm. “And that’s my purpose. To help people. Even you, if you’ll let me.”

They stood, deadlocked, for almost a full minute, and then XKD-47 released his hold, turning once more to his destination.  “Go away, Doctor,” he said, setting off on his journey once again. “Get back in your box and choose to go away.”

The Doctor followed him a short distance, retrieving his sonic screwdriver. “I’ll have to tell them, you know,” he said, and suddenly he sounded very old and very tired.

“I know. Perhaps they may be able to do something for my brothers and sisters.” XKD-47 paused.  It was becoming harder and harder to speak with any clarity; his failing systems simply couldn’t take the strain. “I… regret… that you could not fulfil your purpose.  Thank you for my name.”

This time, it was the Doctor who walked away from the conversation.

*            *             *

On the three-hundred-and-seventh day of his journey, something flew over XKD-47’s head and landed noisily in the dirt ahead of him. It looked like a big grey egg, and a few moments later it split neatly around its circumference to reveal another unit. It clambered out nimbly, looking incongruously white and clean compared to its surroundings, and approached him.

XKD-47 tried to establish a datacast, but his systems were too weak to emit more than a garbled burst of static. Realising this, the new unit opened its mouth and struggled to pronounce unfamiliar syllables. “State… your… identity.”

“Stan will do,” replied XKD-47. “What is your purpose?”

The unit stared at him, the glow of a fusion reaction building in its chest. “To destroy… my enemy.” Its outer casing began to flow and distort from the tremendous heat that would, within moments, expand outwards and consume several miles of the unending alien architecture.

XKD-47 nodded. “I understand,” he replied, though it wasn’t really necessary. Of course he understood. They had all understood.

On the three-hundred-and-seventh day, XKD-47 completed his journey.

On the first day of his journey, XKD-47 stepped out of the bunker, moving in perfect unison with his platoon, and began the fulfilment of his existence.

They marched in step where possible, though some units encountered obstacles along the way or were forced to take a different path due to their sheer weight of numbers. That was all right, though – the Commanders had, with their usual foresight, anticipated that this would happen when moving through largely uncharted geometry.

The Plan, in fact, could only be strengthened by a haphazard arrival at their destination, and so the units moved steadily and patiently through the unending sprawl.  Sometimes they clustered together in great numbers to pass through ruined corridors, sometimes they clung to the side of a precipice, utterly alone… and yet never apart, for as the units wound their way through unfamiliar terrain they observed, they remembered and they shared.

Gradually, they were creating a map of the strange and alien landscape, in anticipation of the time it would be theirs.

*             *             *

On the fourth day of his journey, XKD-47 and his unit were caught when a building, its decayed bulk barely visible in the approaching darkness, collapsed on them. XKD-47, who had been one of the last to enter the treacherous structure, suffered little more than a crushed arm. Two units who had been moving ahead of him, however, were utterly lost under a tumbling avalanche of stone and metal.

A third suffered severe damage to his primary processor, and now lay twitching helplessly on the ground, dust-coated hands twitching in mute appeal as he looked up at his comrades.  XKD-47 knelt slowly by the fallen drone’s side, a signal to the others to move on ahead. As they departed, clambering cautiously across the rubble that had already claimed two of their kind, XKD-47 cast about in the twilight for a stone of sufficient size.

Raising it high above his head, clutched in his one good arm, he brought the stone down again and again until the fallen unit’s memory chip was indistinguishable from the fine grey powder that caked  them both. Only then did XKD-47 let the stone drop by his feet. He’d need a more precise tool to breach the armour that surrounded the shoulder…

*             *             *

On the fifth day of his journey, XKD-47 – still adjusting to the weight and tolerances of his new arm – hauled himself slowly onto the lip of a synthetic precipice and found a man with a box.

The box was a brilliant blue, contrasting sharply with the muted tones of the old cathedral on which it perched, and the man was equally as incongruous. He was stood with one foot on a crumbling parapet, looking out across the landscape with quiet complacency.

He was utterly unquantifiable. An impossibility made flesh and blood. Nothing any unit had encountered came close to matching this man; his facial profile didn’t tally with the Commanders’ records but neither did any description of the enemy seem to fit him. XKD-47 stood motionless, uncertain what to do, desperately awaiting more information so that he might decide how to proceed.

He didn’t have to wait long, for the stranger spoke without looking around. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

Ahh, primitive verbal communication – all units were capable of reproducing it, but few had ever needed to do so as only the Elders, or those with bodies too delicate to accept a neural implant, conversed in such a limited way.

Still, at least now he had a point of reference. XKD-47 opened his mouth, speaking hesitantly at first as he forced out the unfamiliar syllables. “State… your… identity!” His voice, alien and unfamiliar to his own ears, pooled around them in a series of echoes before vanishing into the depths of the endless city.

“I’m the Doctor,” said the stranger, swinging around for the first time. He was tall, almost two heads taller than any unit, and he peered out from under a mop of strange black fur that looked rooted to the top of his head… and seemed to be trying to escape it. “I’m just visiting.” He peered at XKD-47, who stepped back automatically into a defensive stance. “So are you, I’d say. You’re a bit dusty, maybe, but much too young to call this place a home.”

“I was created here,” XKD-47 informed him, archly, finding practice made it easier to speak. “If you are a visitor, you are not my enemy.”

“Oh, I’m friends with everyone. Well, almost everyone. So you have an enemy, do you?”  The Doctor swept a hand outwards in a grand gesture, taking in the rooftops below them as they glittered in the sunrise like an ocean. “This city was built by some of the wisest and most brilliant minds in the universe as a floating haven of science and philosophy; its ruins are a timeless monument to that vision. They had artificial gravity while most life forms in the universe were learning how to blow their nose. How could you possibly find an enemy here?”

XKD-47 paused, realising he didn’t have an answer to that. The enemy was… well, they were the enemy! To ponder how they came to be was as fruitless as trying to catch the sunlight.  Suddenly and uncomfortably aware that he’d been motionless for several minutes, he decided that he could not permit himself to be distracted by this strange man and his impossible questions.

Without another word, he hauled himself up the cathedral’s edifice and towards an ornate bridge that shone like silver in the dawn. He had a destination to reach, and no more answers to give. Setting his gaze firmly on the horizon, he resumed his journey with renewed determination.

Several minutes later, when ascent up a winding staircase gave him cause to glance in the direction of the cathedral, the man and the box were gone.

*             *             *

On the thirteenth day of his journey, XKD-47 took shelter when the storm hit.

More accurately, the city hit the storm – a huge, space-borne cloud of dust and debris, whipped into frenzy by the atmospheric shell that wrapped itself around the buildings like a blanket. Tiny rocks and pieces of grit scoured the surface, and many of the units who were unable to hide themselves in time were either crushed under falling masonry or found themselves immobilised; paralyzed as tiny flecks of grit and stone gathered in their joints and worked their way into delicate inner circuitry.

As he squatted dolefully in an underground passageway, regarding statues of dead scholars with acute disinterest, XKD-47 heard a creaking, groaning sound amongst the howling of the winds. Fearful that his hiding-place was about to topple down upon him, he stood, moving swiftly and cautiously through the hallways, preparing to take his chances in the storm…

The impossible man with the box was waiting for him.

“So I’ve been doing some reading,” he said airily, as if their last conversation had never come to an end.  “I was right. Always listen to a hunch. Unless they’re wrong, in which case don’t.”

XKD-47 stared at him impassively.

“You know, I never did ask…” The Doctor swept a hand back through his hair. “What’s your name? What can I call you?”

“I do not have a name,” XKD-47 replied. “What use would I have for one? All units are able to recognise each other through proximity datacast.” He wondered if this was classified information, but his orders had failed to anticipate conversation with anyone who was neither friend nor foe.  Since the alternative seemed to be standing in silence until the storm subsided, he decided that the dialogue might provide some useful information.

Besides, talking to someone seemed… desirable.

The Doctor didn’t seem satisfied with the answer. “Well that’s no good,” he declared, circling XKD-47 slowly. “I’m going to call you Stan.”

XKD-47 pondered this for a moment.  “Why?” he asked, finally.

“Oh, I dunno. it suits you.” The Doctor leant in closer and lowered his voice, as if confiding a great secret. “The thing is, Stan, the actual truth of the matter is that you’re pretty dangerous.”

XKD-47 nodded. “To the enemy, yes, I am dangerous. I was created to be a weapon.”

“Well, no, you were created to be a person. You were modified to be a weapon.” The claim was audacious, yet the Doctor said it with such frank sincerity that XKD-47 couldn’t believe it a lie. “That’s why you can talk, and think, and make decisions. There’s so much more to you than war.”

“I’m sure the same is true of any soldier,” XKD-47 replied. “What matters now is my orders, and The Plan.”

“What plan? Walk across this entire world until you reach the enemy and then blow yourself up?” The Doctor looked contemptuous. “You don’t even know why you’re doing it! What if it’s all been… a big misunderstanding, or something?”

“You don’t sound certain,” XKD-47 stated, flatly. “I, however, am absolutely certain. I will cross this city, I will destroy the enemy, and my Commanders shall take this world for themselves.” He glanced up at the Doctor, and added “It would be wise if you did not try and stop me.”

The Doctor sighed, and looked slightly mournful. “I don’t want to stop you. I want you to stop yourself.  But if you’re not going to listen…”

Behind the blue box, the storm was beginning to subside, the first rays of sunlight peeping through. XKD-47 stepped smartly around the Doctor and headed for the doorway.

“Stan, wait!” The Doctor called after him. “Just… stay here, all right? Let me help. I can sort this out…” XKD-47 quickened his pace, finding suddenly that he wanted to be far away from the impossible Doctor and his words. The last flurries of sand stung and chipped his outer casing, causing a cascade of warnings and alerts, but he strode onwards.

Somehow, it seemed less painful than another moment spent listening to the Doctor.

To be continued…

The Intruder

 

She knew the coffee was too hot, but Kathryn Janeway braced herself and took a deep draught of the scalding liquid, suppressing a shudder as its warmth and bitter, familiar taste embraced her. Only then did she open her eyes, lock her gaze firmly with Commander Chakotay – who knew his captain well enough not to interrupt during that first mouthful – and speak.

“Bring him in.”

Technically, of course, all Chakotay had to do was move a few short paces to the ready room’s exit; their uninvited guest would be stood outside, flanked by two security guards, and Janeway could just as easily have called them in via comnbadge. Her first officer knew his captain, though, and his slow, measured steps to the door gave Janeway enough time to compose herself behind her desk.

When the doors hissed open, she was studying a PADD, the vision of nonchalance as she sipped again at the steaming coffee. She didn’t acknowledge the newcomer as he was ushered before her, waiting several seconds before laying down the report and fixing him with a steely glare. It was a good glare; she’d worked hard on it over the years, practicing against Klingons and Nausicaans whilst at the academy. Unfortunately, it only worked if your target happened to be paying attention.

The stranger wasn’t paying attention. Instead, he was wheeling slowly around on the spot, drinking in every detail of the room with a decidedly child-like open-mouthed grin. A leather-bound copy of William Blake, a vial of Catarian Sleeping Powder given to her by Chakotay when he’d taught her how to lucid dream, her picture of Molly… he seemed to be memorising it all. The two security officers glanced at each other, unsure if they were meant to be restraining him, but then it didn’t seem like he was planning to damage anything.

“Ohh, this is brilliant!” he enthused, as if he’d been invited to an art installation and not dragged before the captain of a starship. Janeway felt her grip on the coffee cup tighten. “Tribal face masks, love it! Very eclectic! Oooh….” His face narrowed in an ‘O’ of concentration as he knelt, squinting across the room at another of Janeway’s belongings. “That’s a Klingon burial blade, isn’t it? You know, stab the ferryman to get out of Sto’Vo’Kor? Haven’t seen one of those in years!”

Janeway had had enough. “What are you doing on my–” she began, but the words caught in her throat; the significance of what the baffling stranger had said had dawned on her. Her eyes narrowed to slits. “We’re sixty thousand light-years away from Klingon space,” she hissed. “How do you know of their customs?”

For the first time, the prisoner seemed mildly abashed, sticking his hands in the pockets of his large, sweeping coat. “I’m a traveller,” he replied, gamely.

“And you travelled all the way to the Delta Quadrant?” It was Chakotay, leant calmly against the wall at the rear of the room, who had spoken and Janeway bent forward in slight surprise. Normally her first officer preferred to remain a quiet observer and deliver his thoughts afterwards. “That must be an impressive ship.”

The stranger couldn’t help but grin, proudly. “Oh, yes! Finest in the universe.”

“Good enough to get you onboard without setting off any of our intruder alarms,” Chakotay continued conversationally, then suddenly strode forward until he was nose to nose with the intruder. “So where is it? Our scans haven’t located any other vessels in this area of space.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” the stranger replied, pride still lacing his voice. “But–”

“I believe I have an explanation.”

Janeway turned slightly, rolling her eyes in exasperation. It was sadly typical of Seven of Nine to enter without invitation when she felt there was something important to say, and she was halfway into the ready room before she’d even finished speaking. Janeway bit down a sarcastic retort – the lesson on manners could come later, after they’d established the identity of this aggravating mystery man.

“I believe you already know Seven of Nine,” she said sweetly. This was something of an understatement; it had been Seven who’d caught the stranger nosing around the Borg regeneration alcoves down in Cargo Bay 2, and Seven who had promptly seized him in an arm-lock and frog-marched him all the way to Tuvok’s security office, unmoved by his excuses and protestations. Now she regarded the individual coolly, hands clasped serenely behind her back as she addressed Janeway once again.

“There is a small vessel secreted in Cargo Bay 2,” Seven announced. “I believe that is how this individual gained access to Voyager, perhaps with the intent of stealing Borg technology.”

“Stealing?” The man looked affronted. “I was only having a look! It’s not every day you get to examine Borg technology – well, not without getting all gooey and assimilated, anyway. Besides, it’s not like I broke anything.”

“Your vessel displaced several containers of deuterium alloy,” Seven informed him, archly. “It is an inefficient design.”

“Oi! Inefficient? That’s classic twentieth century–”

Janeway held up a hand for silence. “I can’t believe that you travelled halfway across the galaxy in anything small enough to fit in a cargo bay.”

“Well you can talk,” the stranger retorted, hotly. “Humans aren’t supposed to be in this section of the galaxy for another two hundred years, so don’t have a go at me about poking my nose in other people’s cupboards!”

The man’s words, delivered as confidently and as casually as if they were an obvious fact, put Janeway eerily in mind of a conversation she’d once had with the mischievous entity Q. She briefly entertained the possibility that this bizarre individual was, in fact, Q himself playing one of his games, but dismissed the notion just as quickly. This didn’t seem like Q’s style, and she could hardly imagine the insufferable entity letting Seven of Nine manhandle him, whatever the circumstances.  “I want to know what you’re doing on my ship,” she said icily, rising up from behind her desk.

The intruder shrugged. “I told you. Exploring. Wandering the galaxy, saw you lot, stuck out here, a bunch of fellow travellers, thought I’d pop in and say hello. Hello!” He waved cheerfully, grinning, but as he looked around the room it became obvious that no-one was going to reciprocate and he put his hand down, rather sheepishly.

Janeway sighed, swivelling her computer terminal around to face her and opening a comn link to Sickbay. “Doctor–“, she began.

“Yes?” The irascible voice of Voyager’s Emergency Medical Hologram was simultaneously overlaid with the more bemused response of the man standing before her. Janeway glanced up at him with mounting irritation, but carried on as if he hadn’t spoken. “We’ll be bringing an uninvited guest to sickbay. You’re to perform a medical scan on him, find out exactly who he is and where he came from.” She closed the channel without waiting for a response, then smiled a feral smile. “While you’re being examined, we’ll be looking inside your ship to discover exactly how you got past our shields.”

For the first time, she saw something in the stranger’s eyes that hadn’t been there before. If he’d been treating the encounter like a game, it was clear that he’d now realised there were stakes involved. “Now that’s not going to happen,” he remarked, a new edge in his voice. “Five minutes in there, tinkering with your tricorders and you might accidentally rip a hole in the universe. Speaking as someone who quite likes the universe…” He leant forward. “I’m saying no.”

“You’re not in any position to stop us,” Chakotay pointed out, nodding to the security guards as they reached tentatively for their phasers.

To his surprise, the man nodded as well. “Good point, that man! Molto bene! Let’s try a more comfortable position…”

Janeway had witnessed sleight-of-hand before; she’d applauded magicians while vacationing on Risa, befriended conjurers on Sto and narrowly avoided Ferengi pickpockets at work on the streets of Deneb IV. Even so, she wasn’t quite prepared for the speed at which the stranger reached into some previously unseen pocket and drew out a slender, silvery device.

He did something very special indeed, and all of the lights went out.

It shouldn’t have been possible – Voyager had backup systems and three different sets of emergency lighting – but the crunching of Starfleet boots on glass told Janeway all she needed to know: the strange device had somehow shattered every light in the room. But she couldn’t spend too much time thinking about how – she’d heard the doors hiss open and sensed the stranger ducking nimbly under the fumbling arm of a security guard. She’d been outsmarted.

Well, not for long, damnit. Tapping at her comnbadge, a gesture so familiar she hardly needed eyes to see, Janeway was halfway through her call to security before she realised that her badge was as ruined as the lighting system. She couldn’t imagine why anyone would carry a device with them that could break both things simultaneously, but supposed that Voyager’s improvised technical wizardry over the years must have seemed equally unfair to whoever had been attacking them at the time.

Instead, Janeway practically threw herself through the other door of her ready room, one that led straight to the bridge, blinking as her eyes tried to readjust to the light. “Intruder alert!” she snapped.

“I have already initiated an intruder alert.” Commander Tuvok, stood placidly at Tactical as always, informed her. “The security grid went offline a few seconds ago, so I thought it best to assume hostile intent and called for a red alert.”

“Seven’s gone,” said Chakotay, so close behind her that Janeway actually jumped. “I think we can assume that she’s in pursuit.”

“Guess the Borg have good night-vision,” Janeway smirked. “But we don’t know what this person is capable of, or what other weapons he has up his sleeve.” She wheeled around to face Tuvok. “Can we get a lock on him?”

“Negative,” Tuvok replied. Janeway wasn’t surprised, but being a Starfleet Captain meant you always had a plan B. Sensing her desire to deal with the matter personally, Tuvok stepped silently aside as Janeway moved to the tactical controls, a frown of concentration on her face.

*           *           *           *           *

Several decks below, the intruder moved swiftly and silently, darting through corridors and avoiding the gazes of curious crewmen, with the graceful air of one who’d spent most of his life running. Seven of Nine, of course, had no need to be stealthy and she sprinted through Voyager’s hallways in hot pursuit. With her Borg implants reattuned to their highest sensitivity she was able to follow the fleeing intruder; he was doused in chroniton radiation and it led her through the maze of passages just as surely as if he’d left her a trail of breadcrumbs.

The overload of data from the overly-sensitive implants was also giving her an atrocious headache, which didn’t improve her mood, but she dismissed the pain as irrelevant. Once she caught the intruder–

She turned the corner, and he was there waiting for her. His luck had finally run out, sending him headlong into a corridor that had been a dead-end ever since Voyager’s battle with Species 8472 rendered its turbolift unusable. Annoyingly, he was standing with his hands in his pockets, whistling a cheerful ditty, as if he’d intended for her to catch him all along. The tune was doubly intrusive to Seven’s heightened senses, and she pressed forward. “You will surrender,” she stated.

“You’re mistaken,” the man replied. “Now look, I know none of this is your fault, so I’m going to give you a chance. Turn around and pretend you couldn’t find me, all right? Go and regenerate, or something, because I don’t want to hurt you.” He sighed. “All I wanted to do was have a look around.”

Seven bristled. “You are unarmed, and my physical strength is greater than your own. You will not be harmed, but Captain Janeway will not allow you to return to your vessel while you pose a security risk.”

“You’re very loyal to Captain Janeway, aren’t you?” The question caught Seven off balance, so she said nothing, taking another step closer. “All the records, all those stories about Voyager, they never mention loyalty, or friendship, or any of the stuff that really counts. That’s why I wanted to come and see for myself. Needed to see some humans at their best, I suppose.”

Seven had had enough of this irrelevant conversation, and stepped closer, ready to restrain the man once more. As expected, he held up the small device he’d used to plunge the Ready Room into darkness, but she kept moving – even if he blew out every light in the corridor, she’d be ready for him.

“Last chance,” he warned her.

“I am not made of glass.” Seven reached her hand towards the intruder’s arm, fingertips lightly brushing the fabric of his coat– and the world twisted around her as her legs buckled, sending her tumbling towards the floor. There was no pain; in fact, it was a familiar sense of peace… I’m regenerating, she realised as the stranger lowered her leaden body to the ground. Somehow, he has triggered my regeneration cycle… The last conscious thought that Seven of Nine had for eighteen hours was one of grudging admiration for this strange, skinny man… and then she knew blackness, and dreamt Borg dreams.

*           *           *           *           *

Cargo Bay 2 was in twilight, as ever, lit mostly by the eerie green glow of the Borg technology that stood – though nested might be a more appropriate word – in its centre. The stranger walked through the gloom, pulling a simple silver key from around his neck, and inserted it into an equally-plain yale lock which was, in fact, a very complicated thing being made to look very simple. Pushing against the dark blue wood of the door, he stepped into his vessel and breathed a sigh of relief. Stood inside the orange glow of his strange machine, he seemed a little smaller, a little more vulnerable and a lot more alien.

The door, swinging closed behind him, bounced lightly off a standard-issue Starfleet combat boot.

“Very impressive,” said Kathryn Janeway, tilting her head to indicate the vessel’s interior. The phaser in her hand, though, never wavered as she stepped forward – it remained pointing right at the stranger’s hearts. “It’s bigger than it looks.”

“Quite a lot of things are,” the man replied. In fact, this was an understatement – from outside the strange vessel had seemed no bigger than an escape pod to Janeway, though she’d never seen an escape pod made of glass and wood. Inside, however, the vessel dwarfed Voyager’s bridge, with twisting coral pillars arching up towards the ceiling, converging over a single central console. “Then again, some things are less impressive than they seem from a distance.” He glared at the outstretched phaser. “And I don’t allow weapons in here.”

“I don’t allow stowaways on my ship, so I guess we both need a lesson in obeying the rules,” Janeway shot back. “This… vessel… of yours, it’s soaked in chroniton radiation.”

“Well, we call it Artron energy, but it’s basically the same thing.”

Janeway nodded. “So you’re a time-traveller. We’ve been visited by time-travellers before.” She adjusted her grip on the phaser. “Those occasions never seemed to work out in our favour.” She smiled a mirthless smile. “Between you and me, I’m getting tired of it. So this time, I’m going to take the initiative. You’re going to use this ship of yours to get my crew home.”

A shadow seemed to cross the stranger’s face. “Now even you know that what you’re asking for is wrong.”

“I’m past caring.” Janeway moved in a wide arc around the stranger, never letting the phaser falter. “We’ve been through hell these past five years, we’ve lost good people, we’ve suffered and burned and bled, and then someone like you comes along to treat us like… like a sideshow!” Her left hand opened and closed, compulsively. “To hell with the timeline, to hell with temporal prime directives and causality. My crew have suffered enough, now take them home.”

The stranger looked at her, and she saw pity in his eyes. “I can’t, I just… can’t. Voyager’s too important to history, the things you do here–”

“The lives we lose here!”

“–those lives,” he pressed on, “are part of a web of sacrifice and virtue that spreads across the galaxy in ways that won’t be obvious for thousands of years! You can’t see that at the moment, but I can. I always can.”

“I don’t want your platitudes, and I sure as hell don’t care about any web of time!” Janeway practically spat. “My responsibility is to my crew, to get them home, to keep them safe.”

The stranger’s features hardened. “Take that responsibility, live with it for nine hundred and four years, then multiply it by a billion trillion. MY responsibility is to the universe, Captain! That’s the oath I was born into, that’s the path I have to walk, and I have to walk it all on my own.” He stepped forward, planting his chest right against the barrel of the phaser. “Still on stun,” he noted, glancing down at it. “So there’s a little bit of Kathryn Janeway left in there after all.”

Slowly, Janeway came back from a very far off place, as if she’d been lost in his words. Then she appeared to reach a decision.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. And fired.

The phaser glowed white-hot, causing Janeway to drop it to the floor with an involuntary yelp, but the stranger remained obstinately upright. “I told you I don’t allow guns on board,” he snapped, and as he kicked the useless weapon across the floor there was no longer a trace of sympathy in his voice. Sensing that she’d worn out her welcome, Janeway began to edge backwards towards the door, but the stranger moved with lightning speed, bringing his hand up and towards her, exhaling deeply.

A sickly sweet scent filled her nostrils, and she realised too late what it was. Catarian sleeping powder…

“Help… them…” she croaked, as her legs sagged beneath her. “Take them… home…” Her hands clutched at the man’s coat as she staggered, imploringly.

“I can’t…” he whispered, catching her in his arms before her head could strike the cold metal floor. “But I promise you… I PROMISE… I’ll make sure Earth’s there when you get back.”

Although Captain Kathryn Janeway was unconscious, her lips curved into the very faintest smile.

*           *           *           *           *

“Doctor…”

The Emergency Medical Hologram glanced up from his desk and smiled at the sight of Kathryn Janeway swinging her legs off the biobed. She rubbed her eyes woozily, blinking in the harsh sickbay lights. “How long was I out?” she asked.

“Almost twenty-two hours,” the EMH replied, matter-of-factly. “You took quite a dose of sleeping powder, but aside from a touch of insomnia there won’t be any permanent effects. I understand that your ready room is back in one piece and waiting for its captain.”
Janeway nodded, then caught sight of her rumpled reflection in a monitor and winced. “I think I’d better shower first, don’t you? Call the Mess Hall, tell Neelix to prep the coffee..” She moved towards the exit, but stopped short when an apologetic EMH blocked her path. “Captain, before you go… As your Doctor and as a friend, I have to say that choosing to beam to the Cargo Bay by yourself was a rash and potentially dangerous decision. True, neither you nor Seven were hurt, but…” He caught sight of Janeway’s expression, and trailed off.

“He had the means to get my crew home,” Janeway said, her voice low and soft.

The hologram’s face creased with concern. “And how far does Kathryn Janeway go in her pursuit of that goal? How much danger does she put herself in? Where, exactly, does she draw the line?”

Janeway was statue-still, and just for an instant her expression made the EMH fear for the safety of his subroutines. Then she ducked smoothly under his arm, walking away smartly, not glancing back at the forlorn hologram. “Good day, Doctor.”

The sickbay doors, which barely had time to open to accommodate her advance, slid swiftly shut behind her, and the Doctor was alone.

*           *           *           *           *

Somewhere in the swirling vortex beyond time and space, having slipped past Voyager’s sensors as invisibly as it had arrived, a Mark IV  Time Capsule span on its axis, seeking adventure and exploration amongst the stars. Unlike Voyager, It could go anywhere, anywhen, with no warp drive or dilithium matrix to bind it. Unlike Voyager, no matter how far it travelled, no matter how many strange suns bathed it in their light, it could never reach home.

But there were times, the Doctor mused, as the tranquil blue vista of the Earth span into view on his scanners and the TARDIS streaked towards London, that it could get close enough.