Part 23 (1/2)
Without a miracle.
And isn't it a remarkable coincidence that I happen to know just where to find the number one card-carrying miracle worker in all of Starfleet?
”Captain Scott, I owe you an apology.”
Scotty looked up from the drink that had been sitting before him for several minutes, his hands clasped around the gla.s.s as if it needed to be held down in order to keep it from leaping, unbidden, to his lips. Guinan stood across the Ten-Forward bar from him. Somehow it didn't surprise him that she had gotten there without his noticing.
”Aye, perhaps you do, la.s.sie. If you had not been at that Glasgow bar...” He shrugged, lowering his eyes and renewing his grip on the drink.
”If I hadn't delayed you those few minutes,” she continued for him, speaking softly, ”you wouldn't have met that young ensign and you wouldn't have- ”
”His name was Matt Franklin,” he said, his eyes still on the drink, a touch of anger in his voice. ”And if I hadn't met him, I would not have been on the Jenolen and I would have lived out my life in my own time. I would not have been on this Enterprise, I would not have found that Klingon s.h.i.+p, and I could not have come back here and caused all this with my b.l.o.o.d.y meddling!”
He broke off, his stomach knotting even more tightly as the urge to down the drink in a single swallow, then grab the bottle and drain it in stinging gulps grew more powerful.
”Tell me something I do not know!” he grated, the anger boiling up.
”Very well,” she said, her already soft voice becoming even quieter, almost a whisper, as she leaned closer over the bar. ”In this timeline that you created by saving your friend Kirk, my world survived. The Borg bypa.s.sed it. You could say that, by delaying you those few minutes, I traded my world for yours-and for the entire Federation.”
”But you couldn't have known- ” he began, then stopped as he remembered what he had told Kirk about this seemingly ageless woman. Strange things happen when she's around.
”You did know?”
Guinan hesitated, steeling herself. The ”feelings” had, over the centuries, demanded many things of her. They had driven her to warn friends and enemies alike of known and unknown dangers. They had forced her to keep secrets from friends while blurting them out to strangers. At their behest, she had ordered and cajoled and pleaded and tricked. She had even withheld information and used words to obscure the truth rather than reveal it.
But she had never been required to lie.
Until now.
”I did know,” she said. ”I don't know how I knew, but I did. I knew my world would be saved. What I didn't know was the price for its survival.”
And she waited, knowing that what Captain Scott would do in the next few hours was crucial, not just for a few dozen worlds in and around the Alliance but for billions. In those hours, he had to decide whether he would continue his slide into the depths of guilt and self flagellation that had started on the bridge of the Enterprise-B or pull himself together and become again what he had once been.
For it was only then that he could fulfill the destiny she had glimpsed on the Guardian's world, the destiny that was the reason they were both here, the reason she had, all unknowingly, shepherded him to this time and this place, all to insure that he would, somewhere and someday, do or say or inspire something that would tip the balance of the universe for all time. The effect of that action, whatever it turned out to be-or perhaps the effect just of his presence-might not be seen for a dozen years or a dozen generations, but it would come, directly or indirectly.
He would make his indelible mark.
If he somehow pulled himself together in the next few hours.
And she, by uttering that meager handful of words, by shouldering part of the burden of guilt he had until then borne alone, had done her small part in nudging him toward recovery, even rebirth.
Or so her ”feelings” told her.
What they did not tell her was how he-or any of them, no matter what decision he made-could survive the next few hours, let alone elude the Borg and deliver Kirk to the Nexus.
A mixture of relief and anger swept over Scotty as the meaning of the woman's words sank in: relief that he had not been solely responsible for this Borg h.e.l.l, anger that she had tricked him.
”And now that you do know the price?”
”The original timeline must be restored.”
”Aye,” he said, his voice filled with sarcasm, ”is that all? I don't suppose you'd have any idea how that wee task might be accomplished?”
”It's simple, Scotty,” a familiar voice said from just behind him. ”You have to put me back where you should have left me-in the Vortex.”
Scotty spun around on the bar stool. ”Don't be daft, Captain, I couldn't- ”
”You have to,” Kirk said flatly. ”Or somebody has to. The decision is in. Your friend here just talked to the Guardian, don't ask me how, and it says getting me back into the Vortex is the only way.” He looked questioningly at Guinan. ”Right?”
She nodded but remained silent.
”And you trust her word?”
Kirk's eyebrows shot up quizzically. ”Is there some reason I shouldn't?”
For a moment Scotty was ready to blurt out what Guinan had just told him, but he held his tongue. Even if her delaying him in that bar had been a deliberate act, he was the one who had made the final and indefensible decision to slingshot back and disrupt time. She had merely given him the opportunity.
Scotty shook his head, his stomach churning at the thought of actually doing what Kirk had just told him was necessary to remedy his ”mistake.”
Kirk looked from one to the other. ”All right, then. It's agreed?”
”Aye, Captain, but- ”
”But me no buts, Scotty. If we don't do something in the next few hours, we're all going to be either dead or, if we're really unlucky, a bunch of Borg zombies. And tossing me into the Vortex is the only idea on the table. Unless you have something else in mind.”
Scotty shook his head desolately.
”Besides,” Kirk went on, giving Guinan a momentary glance, not quite a wink, ”now that I've had a little time to think about it, I'm not all that sure that a dive into the Vortex is necessarily fatal. If all the timeline needed to snap back was for me to be dead, there are a lot easier ways of accomplis.h.i.+ng that than by running a Borg gauntlet. As an old friend of ours likes to say, Scotty, 'It's only logical.' And Guinan tells me the Guardian specifically vetoed the idea of simply having me killed. Just like her own 'feelings' did.”
A twinge of hope tugged at the knot in Scotty's stomach. It was logical.
But it was also hopeless. ”Even if you're right, it can't be done. The Borg- ”
”The Borg are an obstacle, I admit. But you've overcome obstacles before and saved my hide more times than I like to remember. One time too many, in fact, so now you have to un save me.”
”But how- ”
”I don't know,” Kirk said with a laugh. ”You're the miracle worker. And this superdeluxe version of the Enterprise you have to work with is practically a miracle in itself.”
”Aye, and that's the b.l.o.o.d.y problem! I don't even know how this Enterprise works. I told you what a mess I made of things when they first brought me on board. If you don't believe me, just ask Commander La Forge.”
”So when did not knowing how something works stop you before? You think I've forgotten how you jury-rigged the Bounty? You hadn't had so much as a basic Klingon Technology 101 course, and still you practically rebuilt that bucket of bolts and made it do things the Klingons never even dreamed of-like hauling a pair of whales back from the twentieth century!”
”But- ”
”I told you, Scotty, but me no buts. Look, maybe you'll fail, but so what? You've failed before, not often, but you have. The one thing you've never done, old friend, is give up without even trying! And you're not going to start now! There's a lot more than just Earth at stake, so get yourself down to engineering and plant yourself in front of a terminal or rip some control panels apart or do whatever it is you engineers do when you want to find out how things work or you're looking for inspiration. You've got all of six hours to find a way for Picard to get us past the Borg, or through them, or whatever!”