Admiral John Harriman stepped from the starboard turbolift onto the Enterprise bridge. As much as he loved his wife, as much as he appreciated her professionalism and valued her considerable abilities, he still preferred a busy, fully occupied bridge to one crewed by just the two of them. As he moved toward the command chair among a number of people with whom he had once served—Xintal Linojj, Tenger, Borona Fenn, Ramesh Kanchumurthi—he realized that he felt comfortable. He didn’t experience a sense of homecoming, despite having commanded Enterprise for nearly two decades—he had moved on in his life, and believed himself better for it—but he did feel that he belonged.
Some of his self-assurance, Harriman knew, stemmed from all that he had helped to accomplish over the past couple of days. Once Enterprise had traveled through the portal, he had ordered the ship hard to port, then brought it about to wait for any Tzenkethi vessels to follow. None did, nor did any probes arrive to perform recon. That likely meant that the admiral’s plan to destroy the portal by crashing Cassiopeia into it had succeeded. If the timing worked as he’d intended, then Gedlin Siv Vel-B and the rest of the Tzenkethi squadron witnessed the explosion an instant after Enterprise had passed through the alien device, concluding that both Starfleet vessels had been destroyed.
What the Tzenkethi believed mattered only in terms of political fallout. If they thought that the Enterprise crew had somehow escaped the area by employing some new technology, which they had then intentionally eradicated by crashing Cassiopeia into it, then they likely would take issue with the Federation. But if Gedlin believed that nobody from either Starfleet vessel had survived their encounter with his squadron, the Coalition would probably never address what had taken place—not when doing so would necessarily point to the deaths of hundreds of Federation citizens.
Harriman paced toward the command chair, where Linojj stood up to greet him. He still hadn’t grown accustomed to seeing her with only one arm, but according to Doctor Morell, she and her staff had almost completed crafting her biosynthetic replacement. “Good morning, Admiral,” Linojj said. “I trust you slept well.”
“Not as well as I’d expected,” Harriman admitted. “Maybe because the last couple of days have been so intense.”
Linojj nodded. “I know what you mean, sir.” After it had become clear that the Tzenkethi would not or could not pursue Enterprise through the portal, Linojj had left a probe in space at that location. It would function as a gatekeeper that would monitor the area, notifying the crew if a ship or probe appeared anywhere in the vicinity. Efforts then began in earnest to recover all of the Starfleet personnel down on the planet.
“Has there been any additional word on Captain Sulu?” Harriman asked. Demora had been the first person transported up to the ship. The Enterprise captain had been taken directly to sickbay and straight into the surgical suite. Doctor Chapel, already familiar with Demora’s physical condition, performed the surgery, an involved set of procedures that lasted several hours. Enterprise’s chief medical officer characterized the operation as a success, but also noted it as only the first of several the captain would require. Chapel and Morell considered Captain Sulu’s prognosis good. They also expected Ensign Young, who had been treated for his injuries as well, to make a complete recovery. The entire medical staff had also begun to examine all five hundred sixty-five surviving members of the Excelsior crew, a process that would take days to finish.
“I actually visited Captain Sulu this morning before my shift,” Linojj said, making no effort to hold back the smile that blossomed on her face. “She’s looking better.”
“Is she awake?” Harriman asked. “I thought they were going to keep her sedated for another day or two.” The admiral had yet to visit sickbay, believing it wiser to allow the doctors and nurses to perform their duties without the distraction of his presence.
“They actually brought her out of it for a little while not long after surgery,” Linojj said. “But yes, Doctor Morell wants to leave her unconscious for a little while longer as she starts healing. I only got to see the captain, not to talk with her, but it’s good just to see her back aboard the ship.”
“I’m sure it is,” Harriman said. “So now that we’ve retrieved everybody from the planet, are you prepared to try to get back to the Federation?” Once they had escaped the clutches of the Tzenkethi, Harriman had ceded command of the ship back to Linojj, although, as the highest-ranking officer aboard Enterprise, he could have remained in charge for the duration of their journey. Similarly, because of their positions as starship and starbase captains, he could have assigned the center seat to either Hikaru Sulu or Amina. He’d spoken with both of them, and they’d agreed with him that, after everything the Enterprise crew had endured, including having to deal with the potential loss of their captain, it would benefit morale to leave Linojj in the big chair on the bridge.
“I think we’re all ready to get back home, sir,” Linojj said. Harriman had briefed the commander, as well as Hikaru and Amina, on what Demora had viewed as a means of returning back to their place and time: the effect of a single star that apparently existed across many universes and somehow provided a gateway between them. Both the existence of the strange star and its location remained classified by Starfleet Intelligence, its general area designated on all Federation charts as an extreme hazard, and therefore off-limits, but because the admiral intended to utilize it as a means of returning them all back to their own space and time, he had needed to inform them of what lay ahead. Once she had passed through the portal, Demora Sulu must have checked the appropriate spatial coordinates and found the star. In the time since the Enterprise crew had escaped the Tzenkethi, Harriman had also confirmed its existence.
“Once we’re on our way, somebody’s going to need to address the crew,” the admiral said. “Since there are no guarantees that this plan will actually work, they deserve to know what we’re attempting.” He and Demora had never discovered a means of controlling the transition from one universe to another. It had been—at least from their perspective—random, though based on their own experiences, they knew that it was at least possible for them to get back to their universe.
“I agree,” Linojj said. “I can speak to the crew, but since you know more about this than I do, I think it should come from you.”
“So do I,” Harriman said. “I’ll plan a shipwide statement for later today.”
“Thank you, Admiral.”
“All right,” Harriman said. “Let’s give this a try.” Harriman moved to the navigation console, where he relieved Lieutenant Aldani, much to her surprise. As she withdrew to a secondary station on the outer ring of the bridge, the admiral sat down and worked the console. He located the star that he and Demora had named Odyssey, then plotted a course to it. Finally, because of the classified nature of the information, Harriman encrypted the course. He then recalled Aldani to the navigation console and relieved Ensign Syndergaard.
It’s been a lot of years since I’ve done this, he thought as he sat down at the helm. Probably back to my days on the Hunley. He remembered his time serving under the late Captain Linneus fondly.
At the helm console, Harriman used his biometric information to call up and decrypt the course he’d just laid in. He locked it into the helm, then encoded it once more. When the admiral engaged the sublight drive at full impulse, the ship thundered to life around him. Amazingly, he recognized the sound of Enterprise, the rhythms and notes of its operation distinct.
Harriman followed Enterprise’s progress on his console as the great starship broke planetary orbit. When the vessel had reached a safe distance, he brought the ship to warp, settling it at factor eight. He didn’t know where the journey would ultimately end up taking the thirteen hundred men and women aboard Enterprise, but they had started on their way.