Star Trek: Voyager: Endgame

could respond to the shocking information or inquire whether this were some distorted error erupted to tease them into misery and disappointment. A ploy, a distraction, a red herring—
    Janeway put her hand out to stop any jumping to conclusions. They watched, held rapt, as a battered shuttle of some unfamiliar design came rocketing through the temporal slash!
    “We're being hailed!” Kim blurted.
    “On screen!” Janeway demanded control with her tone.
    The viewscreen instantly changed to reveal the smoky interior of a cockpit, and at the controls a woman in her late sixties, wearing a Starfleet field jacket.
    Aunt Louise?
    The crew was stunned at what they saw, at the faded echo of their captain as if computer-aged in some crime file, but Janeway had seen trickier tricks and wasn't buying it.
    “Recalibrate your deflectors to emit an anti-tachyon pulse,”
the woman ordered.
“You have to seal that rift!”
    Janeway didn't bother to ask what her Aunt Louise was doing in the Delta Quadrant, driving a shuttle with Federation markings, or when she'd become an admiral. Her wariest instincts popped up to protect her from making assumptions.
    “It's usually considered polite to introduce yourself before you start giving orders.”
    “Captain, a Klingon vessel is coming through,” Tuvok quickly warned.
    “Close the rift!”
the older woman shouted.
    Defiant, Janeway waited for an explanation, using the threat of Klingon incursion through the rift as leverage.
    The admiral was unimpressed.
“In case you didn't notice, I outrank you, Captain. Now do it!”
    A distorted image of a weirdly arranged Klingon ship appeared deep inside the rift.
    With controlled urgency Tuvok quickly reported, “More nadion discharges, Captain.”
    Abruptly, Janeway made a decision. “Recalibrate shields,” she ordered.
    “Deflectors recalibrated,” Tuvok said instantly. He'd been ready.
    “Prepare anti-tachyon emission.”
    “Anti-tachyon emission broadcasting, Captain,” Seven responded. “Converting now, triangulated on the rift, port to starboard.”
    “Ready broadcast system stabilizers and all overload precautions. I'm not ready to burn out at somebody else's say-so.”
    She made a little inflection on the words
somebody else.
    “Ready,” Chakotay said, eagerly taking over that duty.
    “Activate.”
    As the deflector beam blasted steadily from
Voyager'
s dish, Janeway felt her throat close up with tension. Why was there an aged version of herself on that shuttle? She already knew part of the answer. Temporal disruption . . .
    Where was she in the future? Captured by Klingons? In the middle of a war that hadn't happened yet? Had she arrived there tomorrow or thirty years from now?
    Her heart pounded in her chest. She battled for a steady demeanor. Her crew was watching.
    Before them, the rift flashed, burned, and pressed its lips together like some galactic child in defiance after a scolding. No more Klingons. Simple enough.
    Now for the complicated part.
    She faced off with the ghostly admiral in the damaged shuttlecraft. “I did what you asked . . . now tell me what the hell is going on.”
    BORG CUBE TRANSMISSION INTERCEPTED
    FEDERATION SHUTTLECRAFT, TEMPORAL INCONSISTENCY
    DETECT ANTI-TACHYON EMISSION OVERLAPPING TEMPORAL WAVES
    “Let me see them on my screen.”
    The Borg Queen inhaled deeply the coming stimulation. She flexed her shoulders and spread her fingers, felt her ribs and thighs tighten within the skintight insulation suit with its molded pieces pressing her like a million fingertips.
    Their science had tapped into a transmission. The floating viewscreen swept down from above and came to her eye level, showing a vision of a woman with familiar eyes. The woman's hair was silvered, her cheekbones sharp, her lips thin. Her pointed chin was fitted over a gaunt neck, and below that an unfmiliar uniform with Starfleet markings.
    “Identify,” the Queen summoned.
    SUBJECT IDENTIFICATION JANEWAY, KATHRYN ADMIRAL, STARFLEET
    “What is the admiral's current age?”
    AGE: SIXTY-EIGHT POINT FIVE-TWO FEDERATION STANDARD YEARS
    “Audio feed.”
    On the screen, the vision of Admiral Janeway spoke words of great interest, great substance.
    “I've come to bring
Voyager
home.”



CHAPTER 12

    “W ELCOME ABOARD .”
    Kathryn Janeway gazed up from the forgiving cushion of her senior officers as a figure finished materializing on the transporter platform.
    The individual whose identity was so mysteriously