Star Trek: Voyager: Endgame

nearest aperture?”
    “Approximately thirty seconds ahead—but it leads back to the Delta Quadrant!”
    Chakotay turned to the captain. It was the easy way out, the quick way to save themselves.
    Janeway endured his gaze. Save the ship? Or keep taking the only chance they had for a quick way home?
    No—no more safety-first!
    “Mr. Paris, prepare to adjust your heading!”
    “The helm's sluggish—”
    “Draw whatever power you need. Compromise life-support if you have to. We can't breathe if we're all dead anyway!”
    “Yes, ma'am!”
    The ship veered hard over, bending to port and several degrees down.
    “Seven, give us a course!” Janeway called. “The nearest aperture to the Alpha Quadrant!”
    “We'll have to loop full about again, Captain,” she reported instantly. “Six-six mark six.”
    “You're kidding . . .”
    “Six-six mark six!”
    “Mr. Paris, you have your numbers. Effect change of course! Tuvok, keep firing the torpedoes down to the last salvo! Let's drag down as much of the Borg idea of life while we have the chance.”
    “Captain, what about the admiral?” Chakotay asked, calling above the whine and splatter of electrical breakouts around the bridge. “Aren't you going to tell me?” He moved a little closer, holding himself near her in spite of the shaking. “She's not theoretical, you know . . . she's a living person here.”
    “A person who made her own choice about when and where to give up her life. She's fulfilling her own dream,” Janeway said thoughtfully. “You're not going to suggest I don't know what she's thinking, are you?”
    “No.” Chakotay wiped the sweat off his face. “Not at all, Kathryn. I think we both know her pretty well. I just don't like leaving her,” he added, cupping her hand with his, “even though I'm bringing her with me.”
    Janeway stole a moment from the violence and battle to meet his eyes and touch his hand. “Don't worry, old friend. If we get through, the admiral and I have a rendezvous with a whole new destiny. We all will.”
    Chakotay, usually unflappable and wry in his dealings even with the ghastly or unpredicted, endured a little shudder of childlike anticipation that Janeway felt all the way down his arm and into her hand. Were they really going home? Was this really it after seven years of wandering? Or would one great salvo from the Borg cut them off at the last kilometer?
    No. Captain Janeway willed the universe to go her way this time, this one final time!
    “Captain, a Borg sphere is bearing down on our stern,” Tuvok warned quickly.
    The sphere immediately opened up on the ship, chewing away at the armor around the nacelles and engineering hull and the aft end of the saucer section.
    Tuvok frowned. “Armor is eroding steadily!”
    “Increase speed,” Janeway ordered.
    “Captain!”
    Janeway looked up at Tom Paris's warning cry at the main screen. Before them the corridor between quadrants was collapsing in on itself!



CHAPTER 18

    Pathfinder Research Lab
    Stardate 54989.1
    R EG B ARCLAY WAS ALL RIGHT WHILE HE WAS BY HIMSELF . H E could concentrate on the wild readings pulsing through the equipment and the numbers, waves, and sensory data pouring like water through the arrays. Borg information.
    The whole base was at red alert. Ten admirals were on their way. Within minutes of his report, the doors opened and dozens of Starfleet personnel scrambled to the lab areas that had previously been pretty much Barclay's lonely domain. He now had more help than anybody would ever want.
    When Admiral Paris arrived with Admirals Barrenson, Eddu, Sylvanus, and two others whom Barclay didn't know, he suddenly found himself at the hub of the next great thing to happen in Federation history.
    Or the end of the Federation once and for all. Nobody was forgetting that part, were they?
    “Mr. Barclay, what is it you think you've got here?” Admiral Paris asked quickly. “Tell me in your own words.”
    “A transwarp aperture,” Barclay stammered. “It's less than a light-year from Earth!”
    “How many Borg vessels?”
    “We can't get a clear reading. But the graviton emissions are off the scale!”
    “I want every ship in range to converge on those coordinates.”
    The other admirals broke immediately to summon whichever ships of their own fleets were within range of communications.
    Admiral Sylvanus came back within thirty seconds and said, “We've got eighteen ships forming into position. Nine more on the way.”
    And