Star Trek: Voyager: Endgame

crazy decision had been made.
    Didn't matter—if the captain succeeded in taking the ship back to the Alpha Quadrant, then the admiral wouldn't exist anyway because the future would have been changed. If they didn't succeed, well—there was no future to worry about. So she might as well go.
    Captain Janeway was watching her. “Good luck, Admiral.”
    “You too,” the admiral said, rather quickly. Then she added, “Captain . . . I'm glad I got to know you again.”
    Destiny took over, on autopilot. The captain got up and simply left. There was nothing more to say.
    The admiral was glad of it. Enough talking. She launched the shuttle from the starship's bay with a surge of nostalgia and wondrous ease, and instantly went to warp on a heading for the Borg nebula and the transwarp hub. She would cross a threshold, and she would disappear from the screens on the starship.
    It was time to live or die, or both.



CHAPTER 16

    C HAKOTAY HURRIED INTO THE LAB AND TOOK SOME KIND OF UNEX plainable relief at seeing Seven hard at work. That vision of her had become like an icon for him. If there was a statue of her forming in his mind, it involved her standing at the console, her long limbs tight, her hair glossy, her eyes fixed and determined, her fingers playing the board as if it were an extension of herself.
    The whole ship's company was tense like that. The admiral who had given them a chance at a whole new kind of future was now off board and had disappeared into the transwarp hub's glowing aperture.
    “Any word from the admiral?
    Seven shook her head stiffly. Her tone was formal. “We lost contact as soon as she entered the hub.”
    Sir.
She all but said it.
    He tried again. “Did the Borg give her any trouble?”
    “Her vessel was scanned by several cubes, but none approached her, sir.”
    Oh, there it was, the term of address that set them apart. He tried to strike up a little banter. “Are we keeping things professional today?”
    “Yes, Commander.”
    He smiled, but almost immediately his smile faded. She wasn't looking at him. Not at all.
    “You're not joking, are you?” he asked.
    “No.”
    She moved away from him, to another console. She didn't have to do that.
    He followed her. “Hey . . . what's wrong?”
    “Nothing. I'm just busy.”
    “I think I've gotten to know you a little better than that,” he attempted, but her expression didn't change or soften, or anything.
    “I'd prefer it if you didn't speak to me as though we're on intimate terms.”
    A surge of anger warmed between them. “We
are
on intimate terms,” he protested.
    “Not anymore.”
    Chakotay bristled. “What the hell is going on?”
    She still wouldn't meet his eyes. “I've decided to alter the parameters of our relationship.”
    “You mind telling me why?”
    “We both have dangerous occupations,” she began flimsily, forcing every word. “It's possible one of us could be seriously injured . . . or worse. I believe it's best to avoid emotional attachment.”
    It was that damned admiral. It had to be.
    Chakotay drew a sharp breath. “Maybe you can just flip some Borg switch and shut down your emotions, but I can't.”
    Finally she turned to him. “I suggest you try. It will make things less difficult for you if any harm were to come to me.”
    He digested this almost immediately, because he already had his suspicions. “Why are you suddenly so concerned about that? Is there something I should know?”
    Perhaps she could see in his eyes that he suspected, that he wasn't quite as dull as would be necessary for a person not to notice the changes since the admiral's appearance. They were tampering with the future, and Admiral Janeway had been talking to the crew.
    “The admiral suggests”—she paused as he rolled his eyes with anger and anticipation—“that your feelings for me will cause you pain in the future. I can't allow that to happen.”
    He took hold of her arm as if to anchor them in the present, and in the flexibility of things to come. “Any relationship entails risk, Seven, and nobody can guarantee what's going to happen tomorrow. Not even an admiral from the future.”
    He wanted to launch into an explanation, chase down the simple fact that the future had been incurably altered the moment Admiral Janeway stepped on the ship. Just her very existence told them things they weren't supposed to know. Now everything would be different, like it or not, and that meant nothing was carved in stone anymore. The