Strange New Worlds 2016 (28 page)

For some time, he suspected that there must be some sort of impropriety going on between
doctor and patient. But if there was, he and his staff hadn’t been able to discover
it. “You’re very protective of him, aren’t you, Doctor Manning?”

Manning thought about the implication of the question and decided the only way to
answer it was honestly. “I’ve been treating Benny almost since I arrived here. I’ve
come to understand him. With what he’s been through, the scope of his stories, he’s
very special.”

Wykoff realized his colleague answered the duplicitous question and yet didn’t. He
couldn’t blame her. Regardless of that, he’d come to see what she’d said was true.
Putting him in prison certainly wouldn’t have cured Russell of his inability to live
life instead of obsessively writing stories, no matter how positive they may be.

Now they were on the cusp of making this man whole again. “I can’t argue that. All
right, Doctor, your request is approved.”

Benjamin Sisko stumbled as he moved through the debris. The ship was unsteady, dying.
There wasn’t much time. He had to find them. Again.

Just beyond the transparent aluminum port, he watched the wormhole spiral open in
a cascade of color and light. A moment later, flames erupted from the wormhole, enveloping
space as far as he could see.

What the hell was going on?
It didn’t matter. He had to find them.

“Jennifer?!” he called out, desperate. He could barely hear himself over the red alert
klaxon and the ship’s internal explosions.

Please God, let them be here
.

There was so much smoke, but in the shadows, his eyes caught the shape of a form that
could only be one thing. “Jake!”

“Warning! Damage to warp core.”
The computer taunted him, reminding him that inevitability was approaching.
“Containment failure in three minutes.”

Sisko removed the debris. The boy wasn’t Jake, but this was his son. Somehow he knew
it, knew the boy’s name.
Jonathan.

What was happening? What were the Prophets trying to tell him?
It didn’t matter—there wasn’t much time.

“I’m gonna get your mom. You’re gonna be okay.” Panic of the past gripped Sisko as
he reached for the girder pinning the woman to the floor. “Jennifer.”
Please, not again.
No, not Jennifer, but his wife,
Kasidy
, entombed in mangled duranium. “Okay, Jonathan, we’ll get your mom out, and we’ll
get out of here.”

The father and husband wrapped his hands around the girder and pulled with all his
love, just as before.
Why were the Prophets doing this? Where was Sarah?

A familiar voice called out to him from the darkness. “Benjamin.”

Was it the Prophets? Was this real? Had the Borg attacked again and the Prophets sent
him to save his family?

“Help me!” he screamed.

The figure walked around the debris and crouched down beside Kasidy. “She’s dead,
Benjamin. I burned her in the love of the Pah-wraiths, and Jonathan belongs to me
now—there’s nothing you can do.”

Sisko fell back, recognizing the man with whom he had descended into hell. Stunned,
he looked around the destroyed room. “What is this? What are you doing here?”

The Cardassian smiled as he read the concern on the human’s face. “Don’t you recognize
your Celestial Temple? I assure you, Captain, the Prophets will not come to your aid
this time. It’s just the two of us, as it was always meant to be.”

The ship rocked as the past continued to play out. Determination overrode fear as
Benjamin Sisko turned his attention to Dukat, refusing to allow the image of Kasidy’s
body to overwhelm him.

“I don’t know how you got out.” Sisko stepped up to Dukat, unwavering as he got into
the Cardassian’s face. “But you’re going back.”

The remark was audacious. It angered Dukat, even now that he’d attained godhood—Sisko
still felt like his equal. He was going to have to change that. “The Sisko is aggressive,
adversarial. Is that any way to treat me . . . Father?”

Somehow Sisko knew it was true. As he reached for Dukat, knowing he had to find a
way to undo what Dukat had done to his family, to the Prophets, to the universe. Instead,
he found himself standing back at the burned door to his quarters, with Dukat next
to him. “The Sisko is corporeal, linear. He still doesn’t understand what he is.”

Dukat chuckled. “The Sisko has come to the beginning of his end . . . there will be
no more tasks.”

For a moment Dukat’s appearance faded to reveal the visage of a young man in agony.
He was the same height as Benjamin, and as soon as Sisko looked into his eyes he knew
who it was. “Jonathan.”

Almost immediately the shell of Dukat resurfaced and the Cardassian smiled. “For so
long, the Pah-wraiths wanted to reclaim their place in the Celestial Temple, until
I convinced them how fitting it would be to leave the false gods and you here. Suffering
and imprisoned for all eternity while we set the universe aflame. Good-bye . . . Emissary.”

Benjamin Sisko screamed as the past began to replay and he watched himself once again
stumble through the debris looking for his wife and son. It had taken him years to
let go of this place, but now—and perhaps for all eternity—this is where Benjamin
Sisko would exist.

March 24, 1959

Russell leaned hard on the cane that supported him, but it gave him no comfort. “I
want to thank you again for this, Doctor Manning.”

The trees and cast-iron fences around the Queens Borough Mental Institution weren’t
much to look at, but it didn’t matter. He was outside for the first time in years.
Across the street, cars moved up and down the avenue, people walked by, and in the
distance he could hear a dog barking. The air was sharp and crisp. It was spring,
and New York was coming alive.

Benny Russell felt the same way. “I owe you so much.” Doctor Manning tilted her head
away from him, but he glimpsed a smile.

Manning stopped in front of an oak; its new leaves were beginning to blossom. “I’m
pleased Doctor Wykoff approved this. I know you’ve endured a lot.” She thought about
the beatings Russell suffered for being outspoken and black, the cane that was a constant
reminder of his injuries. It was no wonder he had a breakdown, no surprise that he
retreated into his stories. To make matters worse, the isolation he’d endured here
was a mistake. The savages here had always given Benny Russell the stick and never
considered the carrot.

“But all that’s over now.” The doctor put a reassuring hand on Russell’s arm. “From
now on, you’ll be able to take walks outside every week.” Manning looked up into his
eyes. “You’re not alone—we’re going to get you out of here.”

Russell took a long look at the world beyond the gates of the mental institution that
had been his prison for six years. Life was beckoning to him. All he had to do was
turn his back on the universe he created.

Kira Nerys studied the man that filled the iris of the main viewscreen.

He was being stalked by exhaustion, and the countenance that always projected strength
now seemed diminished under the horrors of the last six days. She understood how he
felt.

“I’m glad you could make it,” she said.

Captain Jean-Luc Picard feigned the semblance of a smile as he rose from his command
chair.

“What’s your status, Captain?”

“It’s bad, Captain. We’re over capacity by two thousand people.” Kira Nerys could
barely hear Picard over the cacophony of voices. The space station’s operations center
had become a glorified Tower of Babel. Every major power in two quadrants had someone
at a communications station desperately trying to manage the influx of people and
ships in and around the refugee center formerly called Deep Space 9. “More than half
a million ships are filling the five light-years between Bajor, DS9, and Cardassia,
and more are coming in every hour. This is the only area of space, anywhere, not affected
by the plasma storms.”

The scientists had no explanation for why the space around Bajor and Cardassia had
become the untouched eye of the plasma storm that was spreading throughout the Alpha
Quadrant. Kira could think of only one reason: charity.

“Messages to the Gamma and Delta Quadrants continue to go unanswered,” she said.

The plasma storms were flowing through the Celestial Temple into the Gamma Quadrant
unchallenged by the Prophets. People were rioting in the streets of Bajor. They believed
that their gods had forsaken them.

Kira was starting to believe they were right. The Federation used its technology and
weapons to heal the scars of the Occupation and defend Bajor. She prayed Federation
technology would end this nightmare. But she’d read the reports; only the most powerful
ships could maintain a warp field for a short time inside the storms, but they were
also the most vulnerable. The Department of Temporal Investigations had released the
Voyager
’s armor specifications and Starfleet had begun refitting, but even the few ships
with the shields were at risk. Communication was haphazard, and trade and exploration
had stopped. The Federation was unraveling. “Will this work?”

The starship captain’s eyes reflected what the entire Alpha Quadrant already knew.

“It has to,”
he said.
“Picard out.”

The
Enterprise
’s viewscreen switched to the sickening view of the plasma storms. It had been weeks
since anyone had seen stars. As he watched the blue-white lights rush toward the wall
of flame, Picard prayed they would extinguish the tribulation that had fallen upon
them all.

“Report,” Picard ordered.

“All Starfleet, Klingon, and Romulan ships report successful synchronization. One
thousand, three hundred and four trilithium torpedoes have been launched into the
plasma storm. Detonation in twelve seconds.” Worf, working double duty as first officer
and tactical specialist, had spent many hours patrolling the plasma storms of the
Badlands—he’d even been lost in them—but this was different. Planets were in flames,
and the very stars themselves had been engulfed in plasma. This was evil.