Timeless Passages

G. L. Dartt

 

Prologue

​

The bridge of the timeship Relativity was quiet, the soft sounds of the monitoring systems and navigational array a constant assurance that things were fine and progressing smoothly. When the discordant noise of the alarm suddenly sounded, Captain Ducane actually started in his command chair, jolted by a sound the ship hadn't heard in some time. That in fact, Ducane had not heard since taking over as captain. He gulped as he realized what it implied for their immediate future.

Hastily, he rose from his seat and crossed the bridge in several brisk strides, peering anxiously over the shoulder of the temporal officer. "Report," the new captain said, hoping he sounded as confident and authoritative as his own commanding officers had over the years.

"A disruption in the timeline," the officer, a young Bolian, said rather predictably. His blue-skinned hands moved quickly to his touch pad, connecting to the neural command system of the ship. Information transmitted instantly through the contact between his fingertips and the sensitive sensors as he returned commands to the ship's computer with a thought. "The ripple effect is extreme."

A major breech in the time/space continuum. That could only mean a temporal incursion of some sort, a deliberate attempt at interference by person or persons unknown to change what was. Ducane knew all the reasons people had for doing such things. Some were major grabs for power. Others were merely minor attempts to make right what they believed once went wrong. Once the basic technology behind temporal access was developed, there were many who thought they knew how it should have been, rather than how it was, and they came up with a variety of imaginative and innovative ways to make it so. Because of that, the Federation Department of Temporal Investigations ... or FTI ... had been formed in the early 24th century, and had evolved in the 600 years since into what it was at the moment, an entire fleet of timeships dedicated to protecting the galaxy.

Minute disruptions were ignored because so many, both natural and deliberate, occurred. To try to repair every single one would actually cause more damage than did the initial disruption. What was one small thread in the mosaic of time, regardless that it was a bright color in one pattern, or muted in another, or cut off abruptly in still another? Individuals were, after all, rather insignificant when it came to the expanse of the space/time continuum. Relativity existed to repair the other types of incursion, just like the one they were observing at the moment. It was a ripple in the stream of time which didn't merely disrupt a single pebble, or even a few, but instead, sent damaging tsunamis throughout the future, impacting on billions of lives, changing the course of civilizations, and generally creating so much havoc that the flow of time itself was jolted off course.

"Time and Place?" Ducane said somberly, straightening unconsciously as he realized that direct intervention was required.

"Stardate 54973.4, Grid 986," the officer responded. "The Delta Quadrant."

Ducane immediately felt a sense of anxiousness steal over him, a sort of foreboding as he recognized instinctively what might be causing the breech.

"Don't tell me it's her," he mumbled under his breath. "Please don't tell me it's her."

"Captain?"

Ducane inhaled deeply, getting a grip on himself. "Specify."

The Bolian was silent for a few seconds, running probabilities telepathically with the ship's neural interface.

"The Federation starship Voyager," he said finally.

Ducane groaned. "I knew it," he said, holding his head in his hands, feeling a great deal of empathy for his former captain at that moment. "I just knew it."

"Why does it always have to be Janeway?"

The sun was warm on her shoulders as she walked the groomed paths of Starfleet Command Headquarters, crossing the emerald green lawns and passing beneath lush trees which provided temporary relief from the bright glare. On her uniformed chest, four golden pips glinted in the sunshine, the tunic light and designed to either warm or cool the body as required. However, the San Francisco climate was a bit much for it this brilliant summer day, and she suspected she should have gone without the full sweater underneath, utilizing only the collar insert instead.

It had been so much easier when such things as body temperature had been regulated for her.

As she entered the cool halls of the administrative center for Starfleet, she paused before the mural depicting Starfleet history, all the important ships that had made an impact on the Federation and the Alpha Quadrant over the years displayed in a montage of space exploration. In the corner, a small, Intrepid-class vessel winged its way through an unfamiliar quadrant, backlit by a Borg cube that dwarfed and threatened the brave little ship, but could never quite catch it. The visitors to this facility viewed that image, heard the pre-recorded historical insert with it, and considered that to be Voyager's ultimate legacy, the utter destruction of the Borg threat to the Federation.

The Starfleet captain was greatly concerned that the starship Voyager's true legacy had yet to be written.

The turbolift carried her to the floor containing the admiral's office, and she entered without knocking, because after all these years, she could. For a brief instant, the thought of how she once presumed to intrude on a certain ready room at will crossed her mind, and a smile touched her full lips.

"Admiral?" she said, standing just inside the doorway.

Kathryn Janeway was standing at the windows, hands on her hips, staring out the window at the shimmering blue waters of San Francisco harbor. The once compact body had softened and expanded with age, and the glorious auburn hair was now snow white, though equally as striking in its own way.

"Is it true?" she said, her voice grating.

Captain Annika Hansen, formerly Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct to Unimatrix 01, linked her hands behind her back and dipped her head.

"Apparently so," she said. "The Fen Domar are spreading through the Delta Quadrant in a most alarming display of colonization. They won't reach the Alpha Quadrant for several decades at the current rate of expansion, but it's clear that they are the power that has moved in to fill the void left by the Collective, and their methods are somewhat more permanent and devastating than the Borg's were."

"Is this the consequence of my actions?" the admiral asked harshly, her face bleak.

Since making far reaching decisions, and regretting them profoundly in the aftermath, was the captain's most prevalent personality trait, Annika didn't become unduly alarmed. However, it was a trait the younger woman had vowed never to emulate. Captain Hansen wasn't afraid to make a decision, and unlike the woman who no longer commanded a starship, she chose not to regret any of the unfortunate ones. Things didn't always work out the way she had hoped, or even intended, but in the end, Annika stood by her decisions, for better or worse, thankful for the good, doing her best to fix the bad, and simply living with the ones that couldn't be altered.

So did Kathryn, Annika supposed. She just preferred to agonize over them at length at times, almost finding a kind of twisted pleasure and comfort in her self castigation. No one, not the Starfleet Board of Inquiry, nor the people who got past the public relations image to the true story beneath, nor those family of those who didn't make it back, could possibly be as harsh on Janeway as she was capable of being on herself. In the end, like everything, it was irrelevant. The only thing that mattered lay in the present.

"You put the decision to a vote," Annika reminded her, thinking of that moment in Voyager's conference room all those years ago. "We all chose to try to destroy the transwarp hub rather than take the opportunity to return to the Federation. When you and the Admiral came up with an alternative plan where we could do both, we all agreed to that as well."

Janeway glanced at her, the classic features haunted. "We didn't really consider the consequences, did we?" she said in a hushed tone. "We let our own selfish concerns rule our decision. I knew it was wrong at the time,. but God help me, I wasn't strong enough to hold my position. I let my older self sway me, make me believe that it was possible to have my cake and eat it, too. Or did I convince her? I'm not even sure anymore."

Captain Hansen exhaled slowly, growing bored with this futile self recrimination on the admiral's part. "You did what you thought best for your ship and the crew," she said with forced patience. "We all did."

"Now the entire Delta Quadrant has to suffer the consequences," Janeway said. "Eventually, so will we."

"Yes," Annika agreed. Again, she didn't like it, but it wasn't as if they could change it. What was done was done. She tilted her head. "They will undoubtedly be giving me a new vessel."

Janeway's face altered, the shot striking home painfully though in all honesty, Annika had not intended it that way. She had only wanted to bring the conversation back to the here and now, not dwell on what had happened twenty-six years earlier. Yet the fact remained that Janeway's triumphant return with her ship and crew to the Federation hadn't been the fairy tale ending most believed. Certainly, it had left Starfleet Command with a bit of a political hot potato. On one hand, the crew of Voyager were heroes, particularly their captain, for not only surviving seven years in the Delta Quadrant ... as lovingly detailed in the tell-all book by the Doctor which had gone a long way in swaying the public over to their side ... but for demolishing the Borg Collective once and for all.

Yet, by the same token, there had been decisions made by Janeway over that time ... difficult decisions, decisions that perhaps no starship commander should ever be forced to make ... which had consequences, many of which her compatriots in Starfleet Command couldn't ignore. The very idea of utilizing a pathogen to commit what was essentially genocide on the Borg was condemned by the more idealistic of Janeway's fellow commanding officers, including Jean Luc Picard, captain of Starfleet's flagship at the time. Meanwhile, utilizing futuristic technology to return home absolutely horrified the members of Federation Department of Temporal Investigations, and Starfleet Intelligence had wasted little time in seizing everything that even faintly resembled Borg technology. By the time both departments had finished stripping the ship of anything they deemed classified, the only thing Voyager was good for was to be turned into a museum. Currently, it rested near the bay, clearly visible from the admiral's window, gleaming white in the surrounding emerald of parkland. Annika wondered if that was deliberate on someone's part, for Janeway always to be able to see what she had ... and what she had lost ... or if it were merely coincidence. Perhaps it was even the admiral who had arranged for her office to be on that side of the building, to remind her of her past. It would certainly be just like her.

However, it was the very nasty civil suit brought against Janeway by Crewman Lessing, late of the Equinox, which had been the final straw. Accused of criminal acts, not the least of which was torture, Janeway's trial had lasted weeks. Ultimately, she was exonerated by the jury, but certain details had come out that did the captain little good in the eyes of her superiors. In the end, Starfleet did the only thing they could do with such a controversial officer. They promoted her and gave her an administrative position. On the surface, it was a reward for all her determination and dedication to her crew. In reality, they had gutted her, moved her out of the way and kept her out of any sensitive areas. While Janeway had first accepted it, wearied by her years of authority in the Delta Quadrant and ready for a rest, it hadn't taken long before she realized what type of punishment Starfleet had truly placed upon her.

She was never the same, Annika thought. The fire, the vibrancy, that will of steel, were dampened and tarnished, placed in confinement with no opportunity to unleash them. Over the past two decades, the passion continued to disappear until the starship captain who would stand toe to toe with a Borg queen and spit in her eyes was gone, and all that was left was an administrator who did her job efficiently, but had surrendered to her personal, private demons. Just as she had so briefly in the Void. Little remained of the woman Seven of Nine first encountered after stepping out of a Borg alcove thirty years earlier. She most certainly did not evolve into the passionate and arrogant individual who had risked everything in order to alter the past.

Annika missed that former captain with a deep and heartfelt passion.

"I just meant that the Federation is not taking this lightly," she said gently. "Preparations are already being made."

"I'm sure they are," Janeway responded, looking away from her. There was a pause, pregnant with implications. "Was I such a fool, Annika?" she asked in a small voice.

"Not at all," Annika said reasonably. "You had a mission. You carried it out."

She watched the movement of the older woman's throat, seeing the ripple along her neck as she swallowed convulsively.

"I traded the admiral's future for this one," she said. She turned and looked back at the captain, the blue in her eyes dull and pale. "Is it really better? You're alive. Chakotay didn't spend a lifetime of regrets and emptiness."

He certainly didn't, Annika thought wryly of the man she hadn't seen sociably in decades.

"I am alive," she said evenly. "Tuvok was cured. The Federation was never again threatened by the Borg, yet we still have the advanced technology which fighting them created ... technology which may prove useful against Species 8472. As for better? Who can truly say, Admiral? This is our present, and I suspect you would not be nearly as agitated as you are, were this not the anniversary of our homecoming."

Janeway exhaled, her head going back, her hair catching the sunlight and looking golden instead of white. Annika missed the fiery auburn tresses. When they finally faded, so had Janeway in some odd manner.

"The reunion party is tomorrow night," the admiral repeated softly. "It will be good to see everyone again."

"Yes," Annika said.

"Thank you for coming over in person to tell me the news," Janeway added. "I suppose you're headed back to your ship?"

Annika lifted a brow. "The Enterprise will remain in orbit for several days," she allowed. "I have briefings with Starfleet Command, but I intend to make time to attend the party."

Janeway nodded. "Can I treat you to lunch before you go?" she asked. It was casually asked, but for a brief second, the husky trill was back, sending a shiver down Annika's spine. "The commissary still serves a passable pasta salad."

"I have a ground shuttle coming," the captain said, her face unchanging despite the sudden twinge in the general vicinity of her heart. One could never go back, she thought fiercely, conscious, as always, of what might have been.

If not for Janeway's choices.

They were friends, of course, with Annika being one of the very few that the admiral still had after two decades of self-imposed isolation, and friends they would undoubtedly always remain. Yet sometimes, it was all Annika could do to remain in the older woman's presence. Today was particularly difficult, not only for the memories it had aroused, but for the missed opportunities it pointed out.

"Next time," Janeway said, her voice lifeless once more.

"I promise," Annika said.

Janeway glanced at her, and suddenly, it was that look, the same one Annika had seen countless times, the one that promised everything, and as the younger woman had come to realize over time, offered absolutely nothing.

"Good day, Admiral," Annika said hastily, before she had to absorb it much longer. She dipped her head and left the office.

If there was a stinging at the back of her eyes, she ignored it. If there was one thing that the starship captain had learned in her time in the Alpha Quadrant, it was that tears solved nothing.

And that most wounds healed with time.

"Do we have contact yet?" Ducane demanded, pacing uneasily about the bridge. It had turned out to be a very complicated breech, and it was decided that someone was going to have to go in and actually deal one-on-one with the problem. The trouble was, they didn't have any agents who were in a good position to intervene, so that meant they would have to recruit someone from the corrupted timeline and send him in to stop Admiral Janeway.

Or her.

Ducane knew whom he wanted to have on this mission. He had worked with her before, and certainly she had been more than efficient in her effort, including giving her life, in her attempt to stop Braxton from destroying Voyager. Unfortunately, they couldn't access the Seven of Nine they initially wanted because of the disruption, and it took some time to trace the new and altered timestream to find a suitable incarnation. It wasn't until twenty-six years into the timeline's future that they were finally able to take her in such a way that no further damage was done, preventing a temporal tear that would prevent them from being able to fix anything.

"Lt. Ducane," were the woman's first words when she materialized on the transporter platform, flanked by the two temporal officers who had retrieved her. She had been quite beautiful when he last encountered her. Well into the fullness of lush maturity, she was simply magnificent. The body was still curvaceous, the blonde hair, streaked with grey, piled on her head to reveal that elegant neck, the brilliant blue eyes sharp and intimidating. The facial implants were gone, but the narrow features, though lined, were still as attractive. His appreciation was purely aesthetic, however. The Seven of Nine in his history had only truly loved one person with her whole heart and soul. Anything else that might have occurred was a pale shadow, a weak substitution for the Starfleet captain.

"Captain now," he said, raising his arm to display the insignia. "Like you, I'm a little older and hopefully, a little wiser than our last encounter."

Seven of Nine, now Captain Annika Hansen, stepped gracefully off the dais and regarded the temporal commander as she would a particularly uninteresting scientific specimen.

"Why am I here?" she demanded.

"I think you can probably figure that out," he said. "I doubt you're unaware of the damage an altered timeline can do, particularly since you're existing within one."

Hansen lifted her chin, her face growing thoughtful. "You intend to send me back to stop Admiral Janeway from sending Voyager home early," she said. She tilted her head. "Isn't that merely a matter of salvaging your own timeline so that Voyager can return when you remember?"

"Were it only that," he said regretfully. "Believe me, Seven if it were just been a matter of Voyager returning home at a different time, it's possible it wouldn't have attracted our notice, or required our intervention. However, a lot more occurred as a result of the admiral's tampering, affecting billions of individuals and countless civilizations."

"The Borg," she guessed.

"The Borg," he confirmed. "Destroying the transwarp hub, dealing a fatal blow to the Collective, bringing back technology that shouldn't exist for another thirty years, that's only the catalyst. The Federation Department of Temporal Investigations tried to put a clamp on the latter, but it's impossible to suppress completely the knowledge gained. By the time the repercussions have exhausted themselves, there's no more Federation." He paused. "I realize that does mean we're trying to salvage our civilization, but more importantly, we're trying to limit the impact of temporal interference, and allow events to develop as naturally as possible. That's the whole point of the Temporal Prime Directive."

He gestured at her to follow him, leading her into the next room where the various timelines were spread over the large viewscreen. It was easy to identify the damaged areas. It was spreading even as they watched. Commander Hansen's eyes narrowed as she gazed at it, a shadow of dismay shading them. It was obvious that while she had guessed the reasons for her abduction from the lawns of Starfleet Command Headquarters as she passed behind a pavilion, she had no idea of the true scope of the crisis.

"It's the experimental device Janeway used to travel back in time," he said grimly. "Not only has she created a new timeline ... your timeline ... where the Federation will be overrun in a hundred years, but the incursion created disruptions along the continuum itself, with the damage spilling over into others, disrupting the stream for centuries in both directions. It's possible that all of Humanity itself could be wiped out."

"You are correct," Annika said, falling back on Borg analytical assessment. "This must be stopped." She turned to face him, her keen blue eyes studying him intently. "Will this be a subtle incursion?"

"I don't think we can afford that," he admitted. "Not at this point. You must go back and stop Admiral Janeway any way you can."

"I rather hope to use logic and persuasion," she said dryly, at his intensity.

Handing her a communicator, a device that protected her from tachyon radiation, and another odd device, a computer interlink of some sort, he did not alter his serious expression. "The interface will mark the futuristic technology that Voyager has incorporated into it's systems," he explained. "Connect it with the ship's main computer, and it will target anything not from that time, allowing us to transport it out of there without damaging the ship."

He exhaled and handed her another device, a weapon of some kind.

"If all else fails, use this," he said grimly.

She lifted an eyebrow. "It is that desperate?" she asked.

"It is," he said seriously. "We only have a small window of opportunity to drop you in there." He glanced back at the viewscreen, frowning. "You're not our last and only hope, Seven, but you may be our only option at a peaceable solution."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning I don't want to have to take Relativity back to the 24th century and destroy Voyager before Admiral Janeway ever shows up, but I'll do it if it brings the timestream back online."

She hesitated, then glanced down at the weapon. "Doing this will mean I will die in three years rather than return with Voyager," she said. "Everything I've done as a Starfleet officer, as a starship captain, will never have happened." It was not an objection, or even an attempt to solicit sympathy, but rather an observation, an assessment of the risk involved.

"Perhaps," he said. "It did matter, Seven, but sometimes, an individual doesn't mean as much in the larger picture. It's when billions are involved that we have to step in, regardless of the cost."

"I understand," she said. She smiled faintly. "It's very Borg."

He liked the fact that she wasn't wasting time with involved explanations and arguments. She absorbed the facts, accepted the necessity, and acknowledged the stakes. Professional and neat. His admiration for her, which was already considerable, went up a notch, and he determined that depending on her fixing the timeline, as well as how strongly she repaired it, he would make an effort to recruit her full time to his ship. After all, just because she died centuries before he was born didn't mean she couldn't be a valuable addition to his crew.

He didn't tell her that, however. It was better she go with the consequences of the moment. That's all the temporal fleet really dealt with after all. The consequences of temporal tampering.

She stared at the devices in her hands for a few more minutes, then lifted her eyes to meet Ducane's squarely. "I am ready," she said.

He dipped his head. "This way," he instructed.

She materialized on Voyager's bridge, much to the surprise of those junior officers who were covering the stations for the senior officers who were ensconced in the conference room with the captain and the admiral. At this particular moment in history, Annika knew the alpha crew would be discussing the new plan, which would see the elder Janeway confronting the Borg queen while Voyager entered the hub, launched transphasic torpedoes, and made the daring trip home. This wasn't at all like her last attempt to repair a damaged timeline. There was no need for subterfuge, no requirement for her to play a role in order to infiltrate the ship. There was no secret why she was here, and little time to correct it before it would be too late. Such was the damage which was rippling out from this eddy.

Two officers reached for their phasers, while the third went for the comm system to announce an intruder alert, before they realized who it was they were looking at. There was a frozen moment of amazement, jaws dropping, complete astonishment crossing their faces. She offered them a quelling glance, one of command authority, then strode purposely toward the conference room, not announcing herself as she entered.

"The admiral will take her shuttle near the queen's cube..." Janeway trailed off, staring at the newcomer.

Annika faltered a bit, finding the sight of the captain standing at the head of the conference table a bit more powerful than she had anticipated, feeling it reverberate to the very depths of her soul. Fortunately, she recovered before her lapse was noticed, and she turned her gaze to Admiral Janeway who appeared equally stunned. She was exactly as Annika remembered her, with the same fire in her eyes, though physically, she was very much as her own admiral looked, with the fuller form and snowy hair.

The stunned silence stretched on, and Annika glanced around at the other faces, Chakotay and Tuvok, Harry and Tom, B'Elanna, the Doctor ... and her younger self looking at her with wide, frightened eyes. For a wild second, Annika thought about opening up with a joke, something to the effect of "you must be wondering why I called you all here..."

From the corner of her eye, she saw the admiral twitch, and she reacted without thinking, drawing her weapon smoothly and aiming it at the Admiral who had barely started to bring her phaser up into position.

"I was always faster than you," Annika said, a half smile curling her lips. "I am Borg, after all."

"You're here to stop this," Admiral Janeway said flatly, though her eyes were sparking angrily as she held her phaser steadily on the Borg captain. "I can't let you do that."

On the other side of the table, Tuvok rose and had drawn his own phaser, but he seemed uncertain as to who exactly he should aim it at.

"Did you really think a temporal disruption of such magnitude would not draw the attention of those who discourage this sort of thing?" Annika asked coolly.

The captain, glancing back and forth between the two older versions of herself and her crewmember, frowned mightily. "Put down your weapons," she said in the sort of tone that made it clear who exactly was in command here. Annika hesitated, then smiled as she heard it and looked at the captain as she lowered her futuristic phaser. Janeway lifted a brow. "Who are you?" she demanded, then hesitated, appearing briefly disconcerted before adding, "I mean, I know who you are. When are you?"

Annika appreciated the distinction. The grammar in dealing with temporal incursions could be so difficult at times.

"I'm the Seven of Nine from the timeline you and the admiral are about to create," she said. "While the admiral confronts the queen, sacrificing her own life, you will take your ship through the transwarp hub, launch torpedoes which will strike a fatal blow to the structure, and return with Voyager to Earth. As the admiral has stated, I'm here to stop you from doing that."

Janeway blinked. "Why?" she asked, more annoyed than outraged. It was obvious that she was no more willing to take Annika at face value than she had been the admiral.

"You mean, besides the fact that you're knowingly altering the timeline and using technology you shouldn't have to do so?" Annika countered, eyeing her narrowly. "There's the fact that the pathogen the admiral wants to use on the queen will destroy the Borg."

"That's a bad thing?" the admiral snapped.

Annika lifted a brow. "Is getting your ship home a few years early really worth committing genocide?" she replied, making both Janeways flinch.

"That pathogen will kill the queen and bring temporary chaos to the order of the Collective long enough to destroy the hub," the admiral objected. "But—"

"Moral objections aside, because obviously they've all been thrown out in this little escapade," Annika interrupted coldly, "The pathogen doesn't just disrupt the queen and the cubes near her, it spreads throughout the Collective like a plague. It actually destroys the Borg before their time. A void will be created with their passing, and since nature abhors a vacuum, something else moves in to take its place."

"What?" Chakotay asked, his eyes dark as he regarded the captain.

"That's irrelevant," Annika said, not looking at him. "Suffice to say, it's worse. It's always worse. That's why it's such a bad idea to tamper with the natural progression of things. At present ... my present ... it is believed that the Federation will be overrun in less than a century. The Delta Quadrant is already lost. Trillions of lives and countless civilizations have been not assimilated, but wiped out as if they had never existed."

There was a sort of collective exhalation from the others in the room, one of dismay and uncertainty, but perhaps there was a little relief there as well. Obviously, though they had tried to hide it, many of the other officers had been harboring their own doubts about attempting this mission, though they had been willing to follow where their captain led.

Annika glanced at the captain. "You can't do this," she told Janeway in a gentler tone. "The futuristic adaptations must be removed from your vessel as soon as possible. I realize that not all will be retrievable. You can never entirely place the genie back into the bottle once it's been freed, but the key components that the admiral brought back with her can be transported away. Then, I will take her into custody and return with her to the timeship, Relativity." She tilted her head. "You do remember Relativity, don't you?"

"Captain Braxton?" Janeway said with distaste.

"Actually, it's Captain Ducane," Annika explained, then paused. "Time changes everything."

"You're not honestly considering this?" the admiral said, staring at her younger self in horror. "We have the perfect opportunity to destroy the Borg and get this vessel home."

Janeway looked torn. "If doing so only makes the future worse..."

"She could be making that up to convince you not to tamper," the Admiral snapped, shooting a look at the commander. "I would."

She would, too, Annika thought with a wry sense of amusement.

"I am not deceiving you," she said evenly.

"You're condemning this ship to sixteen more years out here," the admiral said, turning to face Captain Hansen.

"Perhaps," Annika allowed diffidently. "If that's how it must be."

"Who are you to decide that?"

"Who are you to decide it shouldn't be?"

"You'll die in three years," the admiral blurted, and obviously, that was news to most of the others in the room with the exception of Seven and the captain. Chakotay frowned, and Seven looked very uncomfortable that it had been revealed.

"That's also a possibility," Annika said, absolutely furious as she leaned across the table, bracing her hands on the surface, shoving her face into that of the admiral who, challenged, leaned toward her with equal aggression. "But how and if I lose my life is not nearly as important as how I lived it! How dare you presume to decide that fate for me. How dare you use my life or death as an excuse to violate every ideal you've ever taught me. What arrogant, selfish..."

"Selfish? What about the people who love you? Who will love you?" the admiral shouted. The two women were barely inches apart now, literally shaking in their passionate stances as the others looked on in mingled awe, disconcertion and astonishment. "What about Chakotay? He's lost after you die."

"Yes, I bought into that foolishness the first time you handed me that line," Annika said furiously. It was as if they were the only two people in the room, these grande dames going toe to toe, neither giving an inch. It rivaled their best moments in the fiery beginning of their relationship. Sarcasm crept heavily into her voice. "The grand romance that ended prematurely, leaving me dead and him devastated for the rest of his life. I was too naive at the time to understand what a simplistic notion that had to be. Tell me, admiral, what was the state of the marriage at the time of my death?"

The admiral faltered. "There were problems," she began uncertainly, then straightened. "That's why Chakotay never forgave himself. You wouldn't have gone on that away mission if it hadn't been for the fight you two had. He never had the chance to make things right with you. The guilt was tremendous."

"Too bad for Chakotay!" Annika snapped. "Obviously, once we returned to the Alpha Quadrant in the timeline you create, it will never become a problem because the brief relationship we did have was hardly as perfect as you would prefer it to be. In either case, you have to realize that your attempt to disrupt the timeline for such a reason ... for any reason ... on the off chance that it might make things better, is ultimately futile!"

"What of Tuvok?" the admiral argued fiercely. "His condition..."

"Will eventually kill him if he doesn't return quickly enough, I know," Annika said coldly. "Undoubtedly, my counterpart will mourn that, just as I mourned his death at the hands of a Romulan agent during one of his security missions eight years after he did return and was cured of the disease. The point is, there are no perfect endings, Kathryn. Life just isn't like that!"

"Enough!"

Startled, both Annika and the admiral glanced at the captain who was regarding them both with annoyance.

"We're hearing far too much about what might happen," the captain said gratingly. "The rest of us, however, have to deal with the present. In my ready room. NOW!" She glanced at Tom. "Mr. Paris, plot a course away from the nebula and increase speed to warp eight. I want to be far away from here before the Borg notice our newest arrival."

The helmsman dipped his head and rose from his chair, heading out of the conference room. The rest all hesitated, then realizing the show was over for the moment, began to vacate the room through one door as Janeway headed for the other. Annika was aware of Seven glancing over her shoulder at her, confusion and apprehension coloring her gaze before she was out of sight.

Janeway's strides were brisk as she crossed the bridge, the admiral and Borg captain in tow as if guilty children on their way to be punished. "I really hate time travel," she said through clenched teeth as they entered the room, the door sliding shut behind them.

"Then why are you willingly participating in a temporal incursion?" Annika asked sharply. "Just how fluid are your ideals, Kathryn?"

Startled, perhaps, at the sharpness of the other captain's tone, perhaps at the use of her first name, the young Janeway turned to her. "I suppose you think you now have a right to talk to me that way," she said, eyeing the four pips on Annika's chest.

"I, too, command a starship," Annika said, moving within her personal space. "I know the responsibilities. I know the burdens. I also know how one can be tempted to lay it down and walk away from it, no matter what the cost. However, this is neither the time nor the place. It's wrong. You knew it in the beginning. You know it now."

"Please don't tell me you learned that tripe from me," the admiral burst out.

Annika looked at her. "Of course not," she said icily. "I learned it from her, before she had the chance to become as cynical and bitter as you. However, I think I would still prefer you in all your misguided irrationality to whom the captain will eventually become in my timeline. She's still going to have the guilt, Admiral, but it will be far deeper than yours. It defeats her. It's one thing to lose people under one's command, including people one cares for. It's quite another, however, to be responsible for the extermination of entire civilizations." She looked back at the other Janeway. "Some lines must not be crossed, Kathryn. Not just for the sake of the many it will impact, but for yourself."

"Think of your crew," the Admiral said.

"Think of your duty as a Starfleet officer," Annika snapped.

Janeway exhaled, looking frazzled as she walked away from both older woman, reaching out to the replicator. "Coffee, black," she said in a harsh tone. She took a long swallow, peering into the dark depths, drawing out the silence, the pause pregnant in its implications as the other two waited, aware that she was about to make a decision. The struggle was evident on her face, the muscle jumping in her jaw, the way her mouth moved, as if she were tasting something unpleasant.

"16 more years, huh," she said finally, with forced lighteness.

The admiral closed her eyes, and Annika lifted her chin. "Just being here, we have altered what might have occurred," the Borg offered awkwardly, a sort of consolation prize. "Who can say how long it shall take now, knowing what you do."

"What about the hub?" Janeway asked, glancing at the Borg captain.

"Without the Admiral to kill the queen and disrupt the central plexus, you must abort your mission," Annika said sharply, in her best command tones, afraid that Janeway might just try it in any event. "Even if you were allowed to maintain the advanced technology ... which I assure you, Captain Ducane will not authorize ... the shielding on the interspatial manifolds remain too powerful for the transphasic torpedoes." She paused, searching for words, then added brutally, "If you wish to kill yourself and your crew in a blaze of glory, Captain Janeway, you might as well just order Voyager into the nearest star. It will be quicker, less painful, and accomplish just as much. Your crew deserves better. Starfleet expects better of you." She exhaled slowly. "I know you expect better of yourself."

Janeway blinked and looked at her. "I did teach you well, didn't I?" she said wistfully, the corner of her mouth curling up crookedly.

"Perhaps too well," Annika said, thinking of her life. After all, she too, was alone and it wasn't entirely due to her responsibilities as a starship captain.

The Admiral slumped into a nearby chair, defeated, clearly able to see where this was going. "I should have known," she said ruefully, regarding Captain Hansen with reluctant respect. "You always could convince me to do things even when I couldn't convince myself."

Annika knew that. That was why she was the one chosen to undertake this mission. It didn't really give her any pleasure, however.

Janeway looked at them both, her eyes bleak, but her face determined. "We'll all have to work quickly to remove the advanced technology," she said. "Let's do it."

"Captain?"

Annika looked up, somehow unsurprised to see Chakotay standing next to her, an uncertain look in his face, but clearly needing to speak with her. She stifled her smile. He had always been so self-assured and confident with her, but then, he had possessed a great deal more life experience than she had. Captain Hansen, however, was a lot closer to his current age, a contemporary, rather than the young woman pursuing an infatuation she had believed to be love.

"Yes, Commander?"

"Can I assist?" It was an excuse to join her and perhaps talk, she realized, but she decided she wasn't that adverse to it.

She dipped her head. "Please," she invited. She was aware of her younger self glancing across at them from where she stood near Harry as they all worked in engineering. B'Elanna, of course, was in sickbay where she was beginning her labor. Annika thought about B'Elanna's daughter, a young woman she had come to know very well over time ... and wouldn't both parents be outraged to know how well during a very unusual weekend in Hawaii, Annika thought dryly ... humbled at the thought of the new life that insisted on being brought into the universe, despite all the time/space continuum turmoil surrounding it.

"What you said about ... well, you and my ... future counterpart," Chakotay asked in a low tone he worked on the console beside her. "Are you implying that any relationship between me and ... your present counterpart ... is futile?"

Annika glanced at him. "Didn't you ever wonder why someone who had never experienced truly intimate emotions before would pursue you so relentlessly?" she asked in an ironic tone.

He looked offended. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Annika resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "Ah yes, I had forgotten that ego of yours," she said dryly, noting the flush that came to his face at her tone. "It's been awhile since I've had to deal with it. Maybe the question should be, why were you so willing to indulge yourself with someone who was basically still in the formation stages of her development. Surely you realize that Seven is basing all her current actions regarding her romantic pursuit of you on 'research' done in the holodeck, rather as a teenager would do."

Chakotay looked uncomfortable. "I understand that," he said. "However, she has to start somewhere. I'd like to believe I would treat her better than most men would for her first ... uh, romantic involvement."

Annika hesitated, then nodded. "You did, Chakotay," she admitted, her voice gentling as she allowed that much. "No matter what else happened, you're a good man. However, few people are still with the object of their first romance."

"It doesn't have to be that way," he argued. "Apparently we get married?"

"In the admiral's timeline, and let's not forget what she also said about the state of the marriage after only a couple of years," Annika said. She thought about it. "I guess with the isolation of being here for sixteen more years, we were somehow limited in our choices, and we made decisions based on that. Certainly, we didn't choose such a path when we returned to Earth. There, our options were greatly expanded and you wasted no time taking advantage of that." She sighed. "Not that it did you any good," she added.

Chakotay frowned, a little mystified by what she was saying. "It can't be like that," he said uncertainly.

"It was exactly like that," she responded. "You're using her to feel young and attractive again, Chakotay. That's fair, I was using you, too, to learn what I needed to become more Human." She inhaled at the look on his face. "That doesn't mean I didn't honestly care for you, Chakotay. I did. I believe you honestly cared for me. It wasn't enough, however, and it's never going to be enough. You loved someone else. Far more than you ever loved me."

"How can you say that?" Chakotay demanded, anger darkening his eyes.

"Easily," Annika said flatly. "I was there. I know what happened. What I really was to you..." She hesitated before finishing, softening what she had been about to say. "Was no less than what you were to me. You deserved better than that. Frankly, so did I."

"So you're telling me not to bother," he said bleakly. "For us not to even try."

"I'm saying that the same thing that probably damaged your marriage in the Admiral's timeline before Seven's death ... that ultimately destroyed our relationship in my own ... probably exists right now for you and Seven, at this very moment," Annika said patiently. "You're both just refusing to acknowledge it. However, knowing what you know now, Chakotay, anything is possible. The future is not set in stone. Perhaps, if you both work at it, and get past that very large stumbling block, then you and Seven can have a relationship that succeeds. But it requires honesty with yourselves and each other, along with the acknowledgment of whom you'd really rather be with. Then, you can take it from there. If not, you're only doomed to repeat what's gone before, and it's only a matter of how long you're going to make each other miserable before it ends. I moved on in my timeline. My counterpart in the admiral's timeline didn't have that opportunity. Either way, the truth remains."

She fixed her icy blue gaze on him.

"Who do you really love, Chakotay?" she asked brutally. "Who do you think she really loves? Why are you both pursuing something as a substitute for what you really want? Just because you believe you can't have it, doesn't mean you should settle for something less. You have to try for what truly matters."

He looked shaken. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Annika assessed him coolly. "Yes, you do," she said. "No matter how much you and my younger self want to deny it. The trouble is, neither you nor Seven will be able to deny it forever, and when it comes out, and how it comes out, will destroy any relationship you have."

"Why?" he demanded.

She stood up to carry the component she had removed over to the replicator for disposal. "Because," she said over her shoulder. "On some twisted level, it won't be a romance anymore, it'll become a rivalry. Unfortunately, the object of that will be just as stubborn in the Alpha Quadrant as she is here in the Delta."

"So what happens now?" Janeway asked, as she stood with the travelers in her ready room, waiting for Relativity to transport the Borg and the admiral out of the timeline. "I mean, how will things change for you?"

"From what I understand, with the timeline back to within 94% of initial continuity, the admiral will be returned almost at the same moment as she left," Annika said.

"I had Klingons on my tail," the admiral said grimly. She didn't seem to mind entirely. Perhaps she was envisioning an 'honorable death'.

"The reparation is not perfect," Annika reminded her. "Hopefully, you will find yourself back on Earth. Initially, there'll be two sets of memories, but what is will inexorably replace what was, and that will be what you ultimately remember." She paused. "Do not attempt to alter the timeline again, Admiral. The FTI will be seizing the Klingon device that brought you here. It's far too dangerous to use, particularly in the experimental stage." The admiral stared angrily at her for a moment, eyes sparking, then looked away, unable to maintain the defiance.

Janeway peered anxiously at the blonde. "What about you?" she asked.

Annika inhaled slowly, knowing what she was being asked, but unable to answer. She shrugged. "Who knows, Captain. Perhaps I won't die three years from now."

"But what if you ... she ... does?" Janeway insisted, and there was a harshness to her tone.

"Captain, avoid the Ekrunda Expanse at all costs," the admiral said urgently, then she relaxed, blinking. "If all else fails, don't let her marry Chakotay."

"It must be Seven's decision," Annika said sternly, glancing at the admiral in mingled disgust and amusement at her last ditch effort to change history. Honestly, Janeway really was the most incorrigible being she had ever met.

In any timeline.

"Certainly, things have changed because of what we did here. 6% is quite a large margin in which to operate for individuals. Nothing is certain for you, Captain, and everything is still possible."

"That still doesn't answer my question," Janeway said, her gaze steady on Annika.

Hansen sobered. "If I am dead in the repaired timeline, there will be no place to return me," she finally admitted. "Perhaps Captain Ducane can use an astrometrics officer." She abruptly took a step closer to Janeway, looking down from her greater height, feeling that she might never get another chance to say this and taking her opportunity now. She wouldn't regret saying it either.

"However, if I do not die prematurely in this timeline, do not waste the opportunity," Annika said soberly, staring into the blue-grey eyes, feeling heartache and a soul deep weariness permeate her soul. "I don't know what your feelings were all those years ago, and for whom you might have felt them. I'm not even certain you possess the feelings I believe you do, but keeping your heart so isolated, spending your life alone without someone to love and care for you, is not wise, Captain Janeway. As you can see, it causes you to make imprudent decisions, formulate judgment calls that are flawed in their inherent content. Of all the lessons I learned from you, loving and being loved is the essence of humanity."

Janeway was mesmerized, eyes trapped fully by the intent gaze of the Borg captain.

"Chakotay now knows what he knows," Annika continued, encouraged by the way the captain was listening.  "Seven now knows what she knows. Finally, you know what you know. If you, Kathryn Janeway, choose to live your life alone, whether here or in the Alpha Quadrant, then that is your choice as an individual, not the fault of your rank or your situation. Just remember, you can't always save others, Kathryn, but you can always save yourself."

She didn't know if her words made a difference to the captain. She wouldn't until she returned to the future and saw what resulted, assuming she even recognized the distinction. It was entirely possible that if she did live, she wouldn't remember any of this from her current perspective, only from the perspective of her younger self. As for Admiral Janeway, who was staring at her, shame and a decades old regret in her eyes, Annika could only imagine what awaited her. Perhaps, in that 6% difference remaining in the current timeline which Captain Janeway was now facing, all the crew of Voyager would find the happiness they deserved.

Including their captain.

​

Epilogue

​

Annika Hansen slowly opened her eyes. The last thing she remembered was stepping onto the transporter dais of the timeship, directed there by Captain Ducane who smiled at her in farewell before she was transported. He hadn't given her any details, but she knew if he was sending her away, that she was still alive in the reconstructed timeline. What that meant to her life, how her past had been altered, remained to be seen. She did know that she had been returned to the exact moment she had left, only where she was supposed to be within the new reality rather than where she had been, crossing the grounds of Starfleet Headquarters. It was very confusing, and as she lay there, the memories of her mission, the excursion to the past and the initial timeline before that, grew foggy, as if they were fading from her neural synapses. The harder she tried to remember, the more they slipped away. Despite that, however, the memories of the new timeline, of the life she had actually led once the temporal stream had been repaired, did not yet seem to be in focus.

She sat up uncertainly, looking around. The bedroom was unfamiliar, even as it felt like someplace she had been many times before. She supposed such juxtaposition of what was and what might have been would remain for awhile, until her mind had sorted things out in their proper pattern. Taking it one moment at a time, she determined she was in a large double bed, the blankets tangled around her, wearing nothing but a thin necklace that surrounded her neck. She reached up and touched it, fingering the pendant curiously. It had been a gift, of that, she was certain. Who had given it to her, however, danced tantalizingly beyond her reach.

She inhaled slowly, establishing that she was alone, yet there were indications that someone else had been there only moments before, the pillow beside her containing a dip in the center, a certain warmth still lingering on the sheets. Since the last thing Annika could remember was that she was between intimate relationships, the last few rather transitory because of her duties as a starship captain, she couldn't even begin to guess who's bed she was sharing.

Carefully, she rose from the tangle of linens and retrieved a robe that was tossed casually over a nearby lounger. She pulled it on, not even thinking about it, or how comfortable it felt, the fit perfect. She inhaled slowly, listening for some noise to indicate she wasn't alone in the dwelling that she recognized as a house of some sort. In San Francisco, she thought, though she wasn't sure why she was so certain of that. From beyond the bedroom door, there came the soft sound of another being within the structure, not unfamiliar necessarily, but rather, somewhat comforting, as if a part of her recognized those sounds as belonging there. Still feeling confused and fragile, she exited the bedroom, discovering it entered onto a loft that overlooked a living area. Leaning over the railing, she spotted another person within what was clearly a kitchen. All Annika could see clearly through the opening of the breakfast nook, were bared legs peeking beneath the hem of a fluffy robe, the structure of walls obscuring anything further.

However, Annika could tell from the smoothness and trim of the calf muscles, that the legs belonged to a female.

Suddenly, unable to bear not knowing, she descended the stairs to the main floor in a rush and pushed through the half doors which swung both ways, entering the kitchen. Hungrily her eyes took in the compact form standing in front of the replicator, and the scent that reached her nostrils was the pungent fragrance of coffee. Without thinking, she reached out and put hands on the person's shoulders, urging her around.

"Annika?"  The eyes, a soft blue-grey, were confused, but clearing as she regarded the taller woman. "I was standing here suddenly ... it was so strange and familiar at the same time. I'm trying to figure out ... what I did, and what I didn't do ... who I really am now."

Annika stared at the beloved features, knowing every line and plane intimately, her mind beginning to put the pieces together as a whole, fragments of memory fitting itself into how she had lived until this point. Of things that had happened differently, but did happen, pushing out what she had once considered her existence and replacing it with what her life had really been over the last two and a half decades.

What their life had been together.

The admiral swallowed. "You didn't die," she whispered, almost as if she didn't dare believe it, reaching up to touch Annika's cheek fleetingly with her fingertips.

"You took a chance," Seven said in an equally hushed tone, and she wasn't referring to the wormhole which had brought Voyager home only six months after the temporal incursion. She smiled brightly, even as she felt tears sting her eyes.

"It's real, isn't it?" Janeway asked quietly.

"Oh, yes, my love, it's very real," Seven said fervently, finding it difficult not to cry as she wrapped her arms around the older woman ... her friend, her lover, her partner ... burying her face into the snowy hair. "We're exactly where and when we should be, Kathryn."

"Finally."

​

The End