My Star Wars VS Star Trek Fan Fiction.

[Mr.Wizard]

I have been working on this for quite awhile. hope you all enjoy.

WORLDS WITHOUT END REDUX
Act I

CHAPTER I.

In the endless void between the stars the mile-long form of a
starship moved silently, its chalk-white surface in perfect contrast
with the infinite night. The almost casual motion of this ship and
its two escorts was quietly observed. Star Destroyers, a powerful
front-line ship for the Galactic Empire, and a source of terror across
its territory. The recent arms race with the guerrilla movement to
overthrow their leadership had continued to push their weapons
technology further. It is this short time right now when that Empire
would be at its strongest, when they have their most advanced
technologies and an intact chain of command.
"Yes," said a voice with satisfaction, unconcerned with such
physical limitations on sound in a vacuum. "This will do nicely."
When those words were spoken, a change took place that was to
be felt across the universe. In some parts of the galaxy, some
special individuals noticed inexplicable feelings of uncertainty and
dread. For the two remaining masters of the Force, each the polar
opposite of his counterpart, it produced a disturbance unlike any they
had ever experienced in their long lives. And while these two were
wont to agree on anything, both could sense the potential doom that
had come into being.

On the other side of the universe a hopelessly mismatched
battle was about to come to its inevitable conclusion. One was the
Federation Starship Voyager, which has been cut off from its people
for over five years. Its opponent was a gigantic ship belonging to
the Federation's greatest enemy: the Borg. Unlike Voyager, it was
heavily-armed and effectively shielded, and there was no doubt who
would be the victor. But as it happened, this single battle between
two rather insignificant ships was in fact the most important one in
all of history, although neither side knew it.
"Any signs of other vessels in the vicinity," asked Captain
Kathryn Janeway, commander of Voyager.
"Negative, captain," Ens. Kim replied. "No other vessels in
range of our sensors."
The ship rocked under the impact of another Borg weapon.
"Direct hit, Deck 12," reported Lt. Tuvok at Tactical.
Janeway's first officer, Comm. Chakotay, stepped to her side.
In all crises he was her closest advisor. Unfortunately, there was
little to offer under the present circumstances. "Maybe there's
somewhere we can hide," he offered, "at least for a little while. Give
us a chance to patch the ship together."
The ship was struck again, and below in Astrometrics, Seven of
Nine was hastily examining their sensor readings. The fact that she
was a Borg herself was only relevant in that she knew what she was
fighting to escape. If there was any irony in her mind being pitted
against the hive collective that had trained her it was lost on her.
"Anything that can provide some cover?" Janeway asked over the comm.
"Nothing yet, captain," Seven replied, her voice even despite
the anxiousness of the moment. Seven was not one to panic, regardless
of the situation. She was adjusting the long-range sensors in the
vain hope of finding something when her console began to beep for her
attention. She tapped the panel and her brow furrowed in momentary
confusion. "Captain," she said, "Sensors have picked up what appears
to be a wormhole less than five hundred thousand kilometers from
here."
The ship shuddered again, and Seven could feel the explosive
decompression despite the room's seal. They wouldn't last much
longer. "How the hell did we miss that?" Janeway asked. "It's
practically on our doorstep."
"I'm not sure," Seven said, looking at the readings. "But it
is a wormhole." She continued tapping the panel as she analyzed the
readings. "Stable, but I have no idea where it leads." Seven's
stomach twisted as the inertial dampeners failed for a fraction of a
second. She passed the coordinates on to Navigation.
"Away from here, and that's good enough for me," Janeway said.
"Alter course, Mr. Paris."
Voyager turned tightly, and the cube altered direction to
pursue. Not long after, space opened up and swallowed both of them
without a trace.

Standing on the main deck of the Star Destroyer Incaciad,
Admiral Thrawn gazed at the space beyond. His crew was far too busy
ensuring the smooth running of the ship to pay much attention, and
even less time to wonder what he might be looking at, or thinking
about. It was a pointless exercise anyway; few could understand all
that went on behind those alien eyes, and yes he was alien. His
ascent to his current rank did nothing to change that fact in the
minds of the Imperial Navy, although it mattered little to those under
his command. Whatever feelings they might have for non-humans were
suspended for the grand admiral, and newcomers to the ship were
quickly educated in that fact by his crew. It takes extraordinary
effort to overcome a prejudice; but then, there was nothing ordinary
about Thrawn.
As it happened, he was thinking about the future, and how the
galaxy was going to change soon. The Empire was constructing a second
Death Star at Endor, supposedly more powerful than the first. Rather
redundant in Thrawn's estimation; a planet-destroying weapon's only
real benefit was in overwhelming planetary shields, which the first
Death Star was quite capable of doing. Even then, in practical
military terms it wasn't a terribly effective weapon. Perhaps to
eliminate the center of your enemies' leadership or to terrify a
populace into surrender, but what good, in the end, was blowing up a
planet you want to conquer? The Death Star was useful, but the extra
effort was a bit of a waste in Thrawn's estimation.
According to the secret communication, the Death Star's
construction was behind, and Darth Vader and the Emperor would oversee
the final stages of construction in person. Yes, the Emperor was
leaving the impenetrable security of Coruscant to personally observe
the construction of an inoperable and defenseless battlestation.
Seemed rather obvious a trap, but the Rebels had been suffering
several setbacks, and the Emperor's rather obvious trap did have a
particularly attractive piece of bait. He considered who might be
commanding the Imperial forces; probably Piett. Not a bad commander,
but not a very brilliant tactician either.
Thrawn was just considering some attack scenarios, were he in
charge, when he heard one of the crewmen speaking to Captain Jarrol.
"Sir, two ships have appeared on our scope."
Thrawn turned around and looked down towards the young man.
There was almost a sense of casualness about the way he acted. "Out of
hyperspace?"
"No sir," the crewman quickly responded to Thrawn, "they just
appeared out of nowhere."
"Indeed," replied Thrawn, still nonplused. "Let's have a
look," he said as he stepped towards the control station. He didn't
waste time telling the crew to raise the shields; they knew what he
expected of them. He examined the ships for several seconds. They
were clearly alien, and they didn't share any similar designs. The
smaller ship was visibly damaged, but if the larger cube-shaped vessel
was responsible, it showed no interest in making the kill just yet.
"Admiral," Jarrol said, returning from a quick discussion with
his deck officer, "we have an intruder on board. Engineering."
"I assume you're not referring to a rebel spy."
"No," Jarrol said. "According to witnesses it appeared out of
thin air."
"'It?'" Thrawn replied. Jarrol offered him the datapad and
Thrawn looked at the intruder. Mechanical components, but obviously a
living thing. "A cyborg," he said quietly.
"It made no threatening motions," Jarrol continued. "But when
it didn't heed instructions it was shot. They're taking it to the
infirmary to study it."
Thrawn looked up from the datapad to the two ships beyond the
windows. "So," he asked no one in particular, "which one did you come
from?"
"Sir, we're receiving a hail from the cubical vessel," an
officer reported. The sudden voice was chilling, as if a million
voices were speaking as one in some horrible chant. "We are the Borg.
We have analyzed your defensive capabilities and judged them to be
inadequate. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add
your distinctiveness to our own. You will adapt to service us.
Resistance is futile."

On board the battered remains of Voyager, Captain Janeway rose
from her chair. "Hail them again."
Lt. Tuvok sent the message, but... "No response."
"Captain," Harry Kim said anxiously, "the Borg have beamed
over to the alien ship, the center one."
"How many drones?"
"One." Ens. Kim checks his instruments. "They must have beamed
over while their shields were still down."
Janeway turned to her first officer, unable to hide her
confusion. "Why would they not answer our hails? If they were
hostile, why haven't they fired? If they're peaceful, why ignore us?"
"Perhaps their communication technology is incompatible with ours," he
offered.
"We did receive energy readings earlier which may have been a
communication device," Tuvok informed them.
Janeway turned, her hand stroking her chin. Finally she
walked towards the turbolift with a quick gait. "Analyze those
signals, see if you can communicate with them. I'll be in engineering
- we still have a ship to put back together."

Thrawn watched the Cube advance. It was certainly big, but
there was no visible sign of any armored defenses, a rather odd
construction given the appearance of the cyborg below. "Flank them,"
Thrawn ordered, and the Kartinian and Lucinda advanced on the Cube
while the Incaciad moved into position. "Have the fighter crews
standing by," he ordered, "but don't launch until my order."

"Commander," Tuvok said, "the energy signal the Borg sent
earlier was similar in nature to the one we received from the alien
vessels. It might be their method of communication."
"Look at modifying our communications equipment to broadcast
using those signals," Chakotay said. "Whatever their intentions,
we've got to warn them before the Borg try something."
"Looks like we're too late for that," Tom Paris, Voyager's
pilot, said as Chakotay's attention returned to the screen. "It's
heading right for them."
Chakotay took a deep breath. "Let's hope they learn quickly,"
he said quietly.

"Use the Ion Cannons," Thrawn said, his voice with a steel
edge to it. "Perhaps we can take it intact."
Silvery-blue beams launched from the three star destroyers,
washing over the Cube's surface. It was clear that they were striking
the ship itself, but there was no noticeable effect, not even on the
sensors.
"Cease fire," Thrawn said. There was an unusual tone to his
voice, as if he were about to make a chess move right into a trap that
he could feel was there but couldn't quite see. "Turbolasers," he
ordered.
While the message was relayed to the stations Jarrol stepped
over to Thrawn's side. "Shall we launch our missiles as well?" he
asked.
Thrawn didn't answer at first, he just stared at the image of
the cyborg on his datapad. "No," he said finally. "And no fighters.
Just fire our lasers and let's see what happens."

Due to the sheer size of the Borg Cube the star destroyers
turned their ships so the heavy turbolaser batteries on their dorsal
side could all be brought to bear, much like it did during a Base
Delta Zero. That much firepower could normal eradicate all life on a
world in little time, and with the rate the plasma bolts tore through
the tritanium hull of the Cube it seemed that would be the case here
as well.
But for the Borg the purpose of the attack wasn't to fight, it
was to learn about this new species. Their scans had revealed new
types of technology, and what little information their lost drone had
gathered indicated that there was some that could be of use to the
Collective. Because even though they had been cut off from the hive
mind, the Borg never for a moment deviated from their purpose: to
consume technology and cultures that would increase their own
perfection. That it would involve their own destruction wasn't even a
factor.
The Voyager bridge crew watched in amazement as the cube was
slowly torn to pieces by the aliens with few retaliatory shots of
their own. The last time they'd seen anything like this--the only
time actually--was Species 8472. It was clear that Chakotay wasn't
the only one thinking that. "It doesn't look like the Borg have
adapted yet," Harry Kim observed.
"I don't think they'll get the chance," Chakotay said as a
corner ten times Voyager's size broke off from the main mass of the
Cube.
Paris swiveled nervously in his pilot's chair. "I hate to be
the pessimist here," he remarked, his eyes glued to the screen. "But,
I have a feeling they're not going to just ignore us after they're
through with the Borg."
Chakotay had been thinking the same thing. "Any progress,
Tuvok?"
"I believe I have the answer," Tuvok said, "but I am unable to
send the response."
"Was the comm system damaged?" Chakotay asked as he came
around to the tactical panel.
"Negative. But there is a powerful distortion field that's
blocking our ability to communicate."
"Some kind of energy noise," Harry Kim said. "It's playing
havoc with our sensors as well. I think it's coming from those alien
ships."
Any further discussion was halted when the Cube ruptured in a
series of smaller explosions as individual power distribution nodes
failed. Random debris scattered across space, buffeting Voyager with
shrapnel. Mercifully the shields held, but as they watched the three
ships responsible close on their location it was clear that was where
there good fortune ended.

It was fifty thousand lightyears from where the battle just
ended to the Imperial capital of Coruscant, but for a master of the
Force distance was something that happened to other people. The
Emperor hadn't moved since he had summoned Mara Jade hours before. His
meditation was so deep she wondered if he would ever return. It was
clear why she had been called here; with Vader overseeing construction
on the Death Star she was the only one left who could feel that he was
still alive. Even this deep there was no mistaking the powerful
impression he left on the fabric of life, a neutron star on the rubber
sheet that was the Force. Despite herself Mara jumped when he spoke.
"There is a great disturbance in the force."
"Yes master, you have told me." She tried to disguise her
fear. There was something different about him, but she was afraid to
probe it for fear of rebuke or, even worse, actually discovering what
it was.
"No, not that. No mere Jedi can do this. This is
something... alien."
Mara Jade had received little training in the Force, so she
could only wait while her master pondered what he'd felt. He seemed
to reach a decision. "You will remain here with me on Coruscant."
That hadn't been what she'd expected. "But, I was to kill
Skywalker."
"He is no longer a cause for concern," the Emperor said
flatly. "We must prepare for an even greater challenge." He stood up
and reached out for Mara. "Come." Mara climbed the steps and then
knelt before him. "Are you prepared to give up the life you have led
until now? Will you leave that person behind, if it meant limitless
power at my side?"
"Yes, my master," she said. Immediately she felt her mind
stabbed. It was hate, a cold hate, a hate that was born from
isolation in the frozen stars, a hate weaned on pain and nurtured by
abandonment and isolation. It was a hatred so black it consumed the
light, boundless and barren, it allowed no room for pity or mercy or
compassion, but it offered a strength that Mara could never have
imagined.
It had been an instant, and it had been forever, but the
sensation ended and Mara found herself panting on the stairs to the
Emperor's throne. "Rise," he ordered, but with a touch of friendship
to his voice. "It is time to begin your training, my young
apprentice."




CHAPTER II.

On a small, isolated world in a back corner of the galaxy that
the universe seemed to have forgotten, there was a single settlement.
On this world sat a tiny mud hut which happened to be the home of one
of the two most powerful masters of the Force that lived. If any had
somehow found themselves in this particular area of the swampy planet
they would have heard the sound of a heated argument between that
master and a particularly unruly student.
"Unfortunate that I know the truth?!" Luke Skywalker
exclaimed, unable to restrain his frustration. To have spent years
believing that his father had been a champion of good only to learn
that he was the very symbol of darkness wasn't easy, and the fact that
his teachers had deliberately perpetuated that illusion made it all
the more painful. Darth Vader, greatest enemy of all Luke held dear,
was his own father. Considering the weight of that statement, he was
taking it pretty well.
"Not ready for the burden were you," Yoda said wearily,
although Luke wasn't really listening. The master coughed, but
whether it was to get his attention or just succumbing to his age was
unclear. "There is a great evil coming. Stopped it must be. Time
you will have, but squander it you must not. Mind what you have
learned, save you it can." He was interrupted by another coughing
fit. "Hear, and remember: Once you start down the dark path," he
warned with a choke in his voice, "forever will it dominate your
destiny."
Luke could sense his master's lifeforce starting to fade, and
his own concerns were pushed aside. "Master Yoda..." he said
impotently, knowing that very soon he'd be gone, just like Ben... just
like so many people he'd cared about. It was so hard to keep burying
the people he loved, and now, when this horrible truth was placed
before him, the one he most needed to guide him was going to die too.
Master Yoda, sensing his fear, spoke to him, his voice broken
as he struggled for every breath. "There... is... another...
Skywalker." And with that, he vanished.
After taking a few moments to come to terms with his grief,
Luke exited the small hut and walked towards his ship. Artoo, the
most loyal droid ever built, warbled at him with concern. Even he
could tell something was wrong, and there definitely was. This was
his burden now; Ben, Biggs, Uncle Owen, Aunt Beru, and now even Master
Yoda, they were all gone, leaving him to face this impossible task. "I
can't do it, Artoo," he said quietly, more to himself than to his
droid. The emptiness weighed on his soul. "I can't go on alone."
"Yoda will always be with you," a distant voice told him, and
it took Luke a moment to realize he'd actually heard it out loud.
"Obi-Wan," Luke said, feeling a mix of emotions. He was glad
for the company of his long lost friend, but the lie was so fresh in
his mind he couldn't hide his sense of betrayal. "Why didn't you tell
me?"
The shade sat on a log and Luke joined him, listening as the
old man explained what had happened. His father had been the champion
that he had remembered, but the promises of the dark side in the end
had been too much for him. He had fallen... become so afraid of
losing the woman he cared about that he'd become the agent of the evil
the two of them had always fought so hard to stop. That was why Luke
had been hidden away, to save him from the same fate as his mother;
and so had she. "Leia," Luke said, the answer suddenly so clear.
"Leia is my sister."
"Your insight serves you well," Obi-Wan said with approval.
Luke knew what he meant, that this wasn't his burden alone. If
he could train his sister in the ways of the Force, if she too became
a Jedi, there might be a way to accomplish the impossible. "There is
still good in him," Luke told the elder. "Perhaps together-"
"You have time," Obi-Wan said, "but not as much as you might
think. You must prepare yourself for the destiny that awaits you. You
face not only Darth Vader, but the Emperor and the forces of evil. Do
not take Yoda's warning lightly." Luke could sense his teacher's
anxiety. "I'm afraid that in the trials to come you will face enemies
more powerful than you can possibly imagine."
Luke was resolute. "I can save him." There was no doubt in
his mind.
"You must do what you must," Obi-Wan said. "But never forget
what he is. Whatever has happened, destiny is clear. You will face
Darth Vader again."

Traveling across the universe, a single message defied physics
by exceeding the speed of light due to a few scientific
technicalities. Even then, it took centuries to cross the great
emptiness between galaxies. It was a perfect metaphor for the
eventual recipients: unfeeling, ever patient, inevitable. The Borg
are not so much a force of arms as they are a force of nature. And
when they received the message and learned about the existence of a
race with new technology to acquire, their reaction was predictable.
Unfeeling, and ever patient. It would be theirs; it was inevitable.

Captain Janeway and her senior officers stood at attention in
the main shuttlebay as they watched the Imperial ship dock. There was
a palatable excitement in the room as the door opened and the first
member of the Galactic Empire set foot on a Federation starship. Hours
before, they had feared it would be as a conqueror.
"They defeated the Borg," Janeway had said with dismay as
Chakotay filled her in from the bridge.
Her first officer nodded. "They made it look easy. We were
nervous for a little while, but once Tuvok contacted them we were able
to explain the situation. They're called the Galactic Empire."
"I guess that means we're a little farther from home than we
thought," Janeway said.
Chakotay nodded. "Harry estimates we're on the other side of
the known universe. Fortunately the wormhole is still stable, but I'm
not sure heading back yet is such a good idea."
"Agreed," Janeway said. "The last thing we need are more Borg
looking for their missing cube."
"Admiral Thrawn has offered to tow us to an Imperial station
where we can repair the ship."
And that was the man: Admiral Thrawn. The man who had
destroyed a Borg Cube in minutes, and who had brought their ship to
the station for repairs. What they hadn't realized was that the
station was one hundred eighty light-years away, a journey of several
weeks for Voyager. The Incaciad had done it in eleven minutes. As
the captain of a ship trapped thirty-five thousand light-years from
home, that wasn't the kind of thing you failed to notice. With that
ability, Voyager could be home in days, and Janeway was ready to do
anything to get her hands on it, even if she had to resort to stealing
it.
Janeway stepped forward and greeted Admiral Thrawn. His skin
was blue, and his red eyes were rather intimidating, but he wore a
friendly enough expression as she approached. He was polite as she
made introductions and then began a tour of their ship. Eventually,
he seemed to steer the conversation in a different direction.
"I'm rather interested in that ship you were fighting," Thrawn
said as they left astrometrics. "The Borg?"
"The Borg," Janeway said, briefly reflected on her own
experience with them. "Not exactly the friendliest of races from our
side of the wormhole."
"Certainly not very personable," Thrawn agreed. "Are they
your enemies?"
"Only in the sense that we exist," Janeway said as they
entered the turbolift for the lower decks. "The Borg don't see anyone
besides themselves as anything except raw materials."
"Charming," Thrawn said as they exited the lift. A short way
up the corridor Janeway directed him to a door on the right.
"This is our transporter room," Janeway said.
Thrawn looked about it, his brow furrowed. "I'm not quite
sure I understand."
Janeway gestured towards the transporter pad. "This device
allows us to break down matter in one location and reconstitute it in
another." She was starting to feel hopeful; if this was technology
alien to the Empire she could possibly trade it for their own
technology: the hyperdrive.
"You do this with people?" he said, attempting to hide his
distaste.
"It's perfectly safe," Janeway said a bit too quickly.
Thrawn tapped his lips as he looked at the pad and the
controls thoughtfully. "I could see how it could be useful in moving
large amounts of cargo," he said finally.
"I'm so glad to hear you say that," Janeway said with a smile
that would put a Ferengi to shame.

In a different part of the galaxy, near Sullust, Luke wasted
little time in shedding his flight suit and heading down to the
meeting room in Home One. He wasn't certain what was being discussed,
but he knew it would revolve around the Emperor's new Death Star.
Having already gone against one, he was leery about a repeat
performance.
In a group like the Rebel Alliance there's always an attempt
to maintain military command and discipline, but in the end you are
dealing with just bush pilots, pirates, and militia. The noise of the
many arguments was a bit surprising, so Luke quickly slid over to
where Leia Organa and Han Solo, his closest friends, were sitting.
"What's going on?" he asked, noting the scowl on Han's face.
"Just five hundred people with five hundred different ideas
about how we should end the war," Han said cynically.
"The Emperor has changed his plans," Leia said. Her face was
a mask, but he could sense the conflict in her. She seemed uncertain
about what they should do herself. "Originally he was going to
inspect the Death Star, but now he seems content to wait for them to
get on schedule themselves."
Luke understood. "We were hoping to take advantage of it."
"Exactly," Lando Calrissian said, taking a seat next to Luke.
"The old man never leaves Coruscant, it would've been the perfect
opportunity to take him out of the picture for good."
"The Emperor is incidental," General Blissex said emphatically
as the argument toned down slightly. "The Death Star is a weapon of
unimaginable destruction and it must be destroyed."
"Agreed," General Madine said, "But at what cost? We prepared
for this assault knowing we had an opportunity to behead the Empire.
Without the Emperor the Death Star is a less important target."
"We need to do this now," Admiral Ackbar said. "With the
weapons systems non-operational we stand our best chance against it."
"It's too great a risk for too small a prize," Madine replied.
"The plan commits all of our resources. If we attempt and fail the
Alliance is finished, and with it any hope of restoring freedom to the
galaxy."
"If we wait, we only postpone the inevitable," General Blissex
said. "The Empire has already proven this weapon is not for show.
They used it against Alderaan because they sympathized with us. If
that weapon is complete, no one is going to be willing to risk helping
us. We'll lose our support and eventually be wiped out."
"Princess Organa," Mon Mothma said over the din. "You are the
senator from Alderaan. You've seen this weapon used first hand. What
is your opinion of all this?"
"She's not a military officer-" Blissex began, but wilted
under Mon Mothma's stare.
Leia took a deep breath, and Luke could feel that she was even
more conflicted. "The Emperor does nothing on a whim," she said
finally. "He has shown throughout his reign that he carefully plots
out his every choice. His tight rein on the military high command is
proof enough of that." Luke could sense the pain as she thought about
her homeworld. "No one is more aware than I of the threat that weapon
poses, but we can't let fear blind us to reality. The Emperor's
sudden behavior is indicative of something important, more important
than his pet project. Or, even worse, I fear he may have learned our
intentions, and altered his plans accordingly."
"How could he know?" General Reikken asked. "Are you
suggesting a spy amongst us?"
"I'm suggesting that the Emperor might have laid a trap for us
at Endor," Leia said. "And if so we'd be fools to step into it. If
not, if he changed his plans for some other reason, we may have our
priorities out of order."
"What could be more important than a Death Star?" Ackbar
demanded.
"That, admiral," Leia said, "is exactly what I'm afraid of
finding out."
After some time the group finally agreed to hold off on the
attack until the rebel spy network was able to learn more about the
Emperor's plans. There was still an almost funeral-like tension in
the air, regardless of everyone's view of the decision. They had had
their first real glimpse of the end, and it had been just as suddenly
lost. But as Ben had told him, Luke had time ahead of him, and he
planned to put it to good use. After the meeting he took Leia aside.
He didn't want to have to do it now, given her own burden at the
moment, but she had to know. "Leia," he said, finally finding the
courage to say the words, "I need to tell you something... something
rather incredible."

Admiral Thrawn's smile vanished after Janeway was transported
off the bridge of the Incaciad. It seemed like the woman would never
shut up, but after three days of conversations -enough time for the
engineering crews to install the new hyperdrive on Voyager- she had
filled him in on much of what lay on the other side of that wormhole.
Tens of thousands of splintered powers vying for their own little
share of their galaxy. Thrawn had little doubt what the Emperor and
his advisors would have in mind, and given his own proximity to the
anomaly... he suspected he'd have a very interesting opportunity in
that little ship. "Captain," he said, not even turning his head.
"Yes, admiral," Captain Jarrol replied.
"Have our fleet escort Voyager to the wormhole," Thrawn said,
his eyes never leaving the vessel. "Let's make sure she doesn't lose
her way."

"Engineering to the bridge," B'ellana Torres, Voyager's Chief
Engineer, said over the comm. "We're ready down here."
Janeway was literally on the edge of her seat in anticipation.
"Seven?"
"I've established a link between our astronavigational
database and long-range sensors," Seven said as she entered some
commands in astrometrics. "I've fed the data through to the helm."
She finished tapping the panel. "Whenever you're ready, Mr. Paris."
"You heard her, Tom," Janeway said, fidgeting with excitement.
"Set course for the wormhole, maximum..." she stopped short.
"Velocity," she shrugged at Chakotay, who smirked at her.
"I'm sure they'll come up with a name for it soon enough," he
replied.
"Course laid in," Tom Paris said at the helm. "Engaging the
hyperdrive." With a single push of a button, the stars began to
stretch and turn, and the Voyager crew found space suddenly replaced
with a kind of milky-white pattern around them.
Janeway stood up and approached the screen. She had been in
Engineering when the Incaciad had brought them to the Imperial
station, and hadn't witnessed hyperspace before. "It's beautiful,"
she said quietly, the tiniest hint of emotion in her voice.
"Yes it is," Harry said. "It's the way home."
Almost as suddenly the starlines returned, and the normal
ebony of space spread out before them. "Are we there?" Janeway said,
her voice still barely audible.
"Yes, captain," Paris said. "And for the record we made it in
12 minutes, 41 seconds. Just might be a new Starfleet record."
"Let's hope we have an opportunity to challenge that record,"
Janeway said. "Give our thanks to-"
Captain Janeway never finished. Instead space twisted in on
itself before her, and the ominous sight of three Borg Cubes filled
the screen in front of her. "Oh my God," she whispered. "They found
the wormhole." She watched the Cubes pass Voyager and fly towards
their star destroyer escort. "What have we done?"


CHAPTER III.

The Napuli System was, for the most part, a strategically
useless area of space. Little mineral wealth, no known colonies or
life, and a hundred light-years from a settled system, it was as
important in the grand scheme as a blade of grass is to a wheat field.
However, the fact that the first fleet engagement of the Borg War was
taking place here showed that things can change in an instant.
"All TIEs stand by," Thrawn ordered. "But do not launch
unless I give the word." Despite the seriousness of the situation his
voice was calm, but firm. He had learned a great deal about these
Borg, but most of it was second-hand. Still, Thrawn had experience
using little bits of information for his advantage.
"Admiral," Captain Jarrol said anxiously, "We're receiving a
communication. They-"
"I know what they want," Thrawn interrupted, his eyes never
leaving the three vessels. He was very quiet. "All turbolasers on
the center cube," he finally said. "From all vessels."
Jarrol hesitated for a moment, but only a moment. To him, it
was insane to ignore two-thirds of the opposing forces when they could
try to incapacitate all three, but he'd learned more than once to
follow his commander's orders regardless. Immediately their weapons
began tearing into the central cube. He kept his eyes on the sensors,
watching the devastation. The first cube they had encountered had
taken little time to destroy, and this one didn't look different,
until. "Lieutenant," he said with obvious confusion, "is there a
problem with the sensors?"
"Negative, sir," the lieutenant reported from the crewpit.
Jarrol turned away and stepped over. "Then why do the
instruments insist our weapons are doing less damage?" he said with
obvious irritation.
"It's not the instruments," Thrawn said quietly, his eyes
never leaving the tactical display. "It's them."
"What do you mean?" Jarrol asked. "Sir," he quickly added.
Thrawn looked back at the ship and then the display, and when
he spoke, it was as if he were discussion the duty roster. "The Borg,
captain, have adapted."

"Re-route power to the shields," Janeway ordered. "Evasive
maneuvers. Load all torpedo bays."
"Captain," Tuvok said, a calm center on the storm of the
bridge as always, "the Borg appear to be focusing solely on the
Imperials."
"Then give them something else to think about," she replied.
"Torpedoes, full spread."
One after the other the torpedoes exploded from the tubes and
impacted on the Borg ship. When the series completed itself, the
space glowed from the discharged plasma. But..."no effect," Tuvok
said.
"Bring us around," Janeway said, taking her seat. "Attack
along the same vector as the Imperials; we might be able to punch
through."
"Captain," Chakotay said quickly, "Maybe we should leave this
to the Imperials. They were more than a match last time."
"The Borg hadn't adapted yet," Janeway countered. "This time
they will, and the admiral will need every ship he can get." Chakotay
opened his mouth, but Janeway cut him off before he could even start.
"We brought them here. We are obligated to stop them. Tom, bring us
around."
The Intrepid-class starship weaved into the conflagration
between the titans, phasers and torpedoes trying to breach Borg
defenses. After a few minutes the combined efforts blew the cube to
pieces. A few words of encouragement were said, then the group moved
on to the next cube. "Torpedoes, full spread," Janeway ordered as the
tiny Federation ship dodged the Borg's energy weapon and closed in.
"There are only two torpedoes left," Tuvok informed her. "Do
you wish me to fire them?"
"Not yet," Janeway said. In the heat of the moment she'd
forgotten how the previous battle had seriously reduced their limited
supply. "Try to find an opening, then launch it down their throats."

"Sir," Captain Jarrol said as Thrawn continued looking between
the battle and the tactical display, "the Lucinda's shields are
failing. The Borg have been-"
"They're using a shield draining weapon," Thrawn finished.
"Set the jammers to a randomized pattern."
"Yes," Jarrol said as he passed on the order, but his
confusion was obvious.
"If the jamming is regular," Thrawn said, even though his
attention was focused on the battle, "they might find a way to
minimize it and use their transporters. We mustn't let that happen.
Launch all TIEs." He tapped the console as he watched the reports
coming in from the Lucinda. The Borg had ganged up on it in precisely
the same manner as the star destroyers. Shields were failing. "I
want TIEs to target all tractor beam emitters. The Borg can't be
allowed to assimilate any part of the Lucinda; not one member of the
crew, not so much as a wrench. Are my orders clear?" They were;
Thrawn was not one to resort to hyperbole.

"Captain!" Ens. Kim shouted with concern. "I'm reading
hundreds of ships, too many to get a precise count."
"More Borg?" Janeway asked, her heart in her throat.
"No," Kim replied, more restrained, "they're from the Imperial
ships. They appear to be large shuttles."
"They're not evacuating, are they?" Janeway asked Chakotay in
confusion.
"I don't think so, Captain," Tom Paris said as he pointed to
the display. They watched as the ships swarmed around Voyager and
swooped in at the cubes, their weapons tiny pinpoints as they fired at
the massive ships.
"It looks like Thrawn had a little surprise planned," Chakotay
remarked.
"Hopefully this will turn the tide," Janeway remarked as they
joined in the attack with the fighters.
"I don't think so, Captain," Kim said, his disappointment
transparent. "They've begun assimilating one of the star destroyers."

The bridge was a buzz of controlled activity as the task of
running a warship and coordinating a battle continued with the fine
precision Thrawn demanded of his officers. The admiral himself was
silently weighing the factors in his cold mind. The difference
between Thrawn's thinking and a military computer's was that the
computer was not aware of the moral consequences of its decisions. The
difference between Thrawn and most officers was that he didn't allow
that to influence his thinking.
"Give me Captain Tamez," Thrawn said. Activity in the room
quieted slightly; the admiral rarely spoke with the other vessels
directly during combat. "Captain," Thrawn said as the hologram
appeared on the bridge, "can you raise your shields?"
"No sir," Tamez replied, doing his best not to display any
emotion as the Borg tried to carve his ship apart around him.
"Captain, I want you to ram the port cube." He spoke as if it
were a minor course correction.
"Say again?" Tamez replied.
"The Borg are assimilating you," Thrawn said. "They want to
take you and your crew and turn you into brainless slaves. If you
don't destroy them, this will happen."
"We have them outnumbered-"
"You won't last that long," Thrawn said, "and we are short on
time. You can die a slave or die fighting to save the Empire. I
suggest you choose the latter."
Tamez obviously didn't like either choice. "Admiral-"
"Ramming speed," Thrawn said. "Those are your orders."
Tamez took a deep breath through his nose. "Yes, admiral." He
tried to put as much pride into the words as he could, and the
hologram faded. The bridge remained quiet as Thrawn's order seemed to
hang in the air.
Thrawn stepped back to his position in front of the tactical
display. He could explain to them that anything the Borg assimilated
could be used to learn about the Empire and how to destroy it, and
that even obliterating the vessels wouldn't keep that knowledge from
being passed on to the collective. Of course, he was also the
admiral, and he explained to no one but the Emperor. "Unless we wish
to share their fate," he said evenly, "we must focus on the task at
hand."

The bridgecrew of Voyager watched in shock as the star
destroyer and the cube collided in an explosion so energetic they were
flashblinded. An energy wave struck and knocked them off balance.
When Janeway managed to right herself she was able to make out the
shattered remains of the cube; the star destroyer was vaporized.
"Death before assimilation," Chakotay said grimly. "I'm sure
a few Federation captains had similar thoughts."
"Earth," Janeway said quietly. She looked at Chakotay, and
noticed the odd way he looked at her. "Captain Riker was prepared to
do the same thing to save Earth when the Borg first came." She shook
her head. "We have more in common with these Imperials than physical
appearance." She called out orders for battle to finish off the
remains of the final cube, but part of her couldn't stop thinking
about what had happened.

Luke looked on with some concern as Leia held the lightsaber
tightly in her hands. He could sense her fear, which was an important
concern. His family didn't have a good history with the dark side.
"Relax," he told her, "Don't try to force it. Just let it happen." He
activated the remote, which began to move with a series of small,
deliberate motions. Every few seconds a beam would lash out--not
strong, just enough to sting. Leia swung the blade, but missed. This
repeated until Luke could sense her frustration. "I know it seems
hard, but that's just it. It only seems hard because you think it is.
Stretch out with your feelings, and don't worry about whether you
block or not. Just let your instincts guide you."
"Easy to say," Leia said through gritted teeth, "hard to do."
The blade was brought up, almost blocking the latest bolt.
"Like all things, it takes practice and patience." Which was
true, but there was no sense in going too hard on her on her first
day. Luke stretched out with the Force and turned the remote to a
lower setting. He felt a flash of anger.
"I don't need you to go soft on me," Leia told him. "I just
need to get the hang of things."
Luke nodded with a small smile. "How did you know?" he asked.
Leia opened her mouth to speak, and then closed it. "I don't
know. I just... just knew."
"Now you're starting to understand," he said with approval.
"Trust your feelings, don't second guess them."
Leia took a deep breath then held the lightsaber out in front
of her, eyes fixed on the remote. It fired, slow at first, then
faster. The green blade slipped through the air with a quiet hum as
it snatched at each sliver of energy, bouncing it away harmlessly.
Luke switched it off and clapped his hands a few times. "You've taken
the first step," he said with approval. "But there's something you
must always remember. Take these steps only along the proper path."
He paused, realizing that it was only a week ago that he was the
pupil. He wished Master Yoda was there to train her, to give the
guidance that Leia needed to avoid the trap their father had stepped
into and that he nearly succumbed to as well. That was Yoda's last
warning to him, something that, even as he died, he wanted Luke to
remember. He would face his father again; would he face the dark side
again as well? And more importantly, could he find the strength to
refuse it, or would he give in to temptation?
"Are you all right?" Leia asked.
Luke tried to put on a cheerful face. She was definitely
growing in her powers. "I'll be fine," he assured her. "Let's
continue with your exercises."

"Are they gone?" the Emperor asked.
"Yes, your highness," the hologram replied. Mara stopped her
exercise, her instincts telling her that something important was going
on. After a few seconds she recognized the hologram as Thrawn, one of
the more gifted military commanders, but nevertheless an alien.
However good they might be, never trust an alien, or so the Emperor
had taught her; and he was right. Thrawn may command in his navy, but
the Emperor did not for an instant allow that to cloud his judgment of
the creature.
"What do you know about this Federation?" the Emperor asked.
"They are but one of thousands of minor powers located in
their galaxy," Thrawn replied. "Many have little knowledge of the
existence of most of the others. Communication on the galactic scale
is virtually non-existent."
"That can be used to our advantage," the Emperor replied.
"What of the leader you spoke with?"
Thrawn chuckled. "Janeway is extremely naïve. She seems to
take everything at face value. After the Lucinda was destroyed she
gave us all tactical information they had on the Borg, no matter how
obscure. There is a multitude of details we can use to deduce
information about tactical and strategic possibilities against a great
deal of powers in their galaxy. And of course, the information on the
Borg itself will be extremely useful."
"Indeed," the Emperor said. "What is your assessment of these
Borg?"
"They are obviously a threat, you highness," Thrawn replied
simply. "They no doubt want to assimilate us as well, and since it's
impossible to negotiate with them, armed conflict is unavoidable."
"Then you are recommending that we prepare for war," the
Emperor replied.
"Your Excellency, I suggest that we deter them from that
course. A retaliatory strike into their territory as a direct
response to their invasion would demonstrate that further conflicts
with the Empire would not be in their best interests."
Mara could sense the Emperor's mood sour. Was Thrawn
attempting some duplicity? "I thought you said these Borg are
unreasonable."
"Your highness, the Borg cannot be reasoned with, but they
are, in the end, beings of logic."
The Emperor was silent for several minutes, but Thrawn said
nothing, a wise choice as far as Mara was concerned. Her master was
right, this alien couldn't be trusted. However, the Borg were
definitely a threat if they could cause the destruction of a star
destroyer. "I want you to take command of a task force of vessels
from the nearest space station, and cross into this Milky Way galaxy."
"Yes, your excellency," Thrawn replied.
Mara could sense the Emperor's irritation. He had no doubt
been expecting Thrawn to presume he would command the war effort, and
thus humiliate him by denying it. "I want a station built on the
other side of the wormhole to serve as a launch platform for our
efforts and to maintain communication throughout the conflict. See
that it is built quickly and protected from the Borg."
Thrawn nodded and the hologram faded. The Emperor turned
towards Mara, his gaze causing her to wither slightly. The more she
grew in her power, the more she could sense how great the gap was
between them. He noticed her reaction, as he noticed everything, and
a smile drew to his lips at her fear. "Good," he said slowly. "Fear
is the path to strength. Terror, hatred, passion, these are the
things of power. Embrace them, my young apprentice."
"Yes, my master," she replied with a slight bow. She
hesitated, unsure if it was her place to speak with him of such
things. "Master, do you really trust such an important matter in the
hands of the Chiss?"
The Emperor waved the remark away as he returned to his
throne. "He is an able planner and a skilled tactician, but I would
not be so foolish as to trust him with this campaign. Darth Vader's
fleet has the most capable officers in the navy; they will deal with
the Borg."
"But what of the rebels," Mara replied. "If they attack while
the fleet is gone-"
"The rebels will not attack," the Emperor replied. "And if
they were so foolish, the battlestation is shielded, and no army in
existence can equal the one I have placed to guard the generator. No,
my young pupil, the rebels are no threat."
Mara nodded her agreement, but the Emperor could sense her
thoughts. He chuckled. "Yes, you are correct child. One must never
underestimate one's enemy, no matter how nearly vanquished they might
be." It was a lesson her master had impressed on her from day one; a
lesson one of her predecessors had learned from a lightsaber point.
"The rebel support will wither once my battlestation is operational,
lest they suffer the same fate as Alderaan. You need not always
battle to win, young Mara, you can succeed merely by using your
enemy's fears against them."
"I still don't understand."
The Emperor smiled, and Mara could sense he was thinking about
the Federation and its neighbors. "You will child. You will."

[Mr.Wizard]

CHAPTER IV.

Captain Janeway tried not to fidget in front of the admirals,
but it wasn't easy. With the celebrations of Voyager's return ending,
the reality of all that had happened had sunk in. For five years she
had no superior officers to deal with, no one to report to but her own
conscience. Now that she was home, those five years were about to be
placed under a microscope.
"Captain, before we begin," said Admiral Parks, the senior
officer present, "I want you to understand that this is not an
official inquiry or a disciplinary investigation. We just want to
clear up some of the events that took place during your absence."
Janeway nodded. "I understand, admiral." She was glad none of
them were telepaths and could tell what a lie that was.
"Good," Parks turned to a white-haired man at the end of the
row. "Adm. Jellico, I believe you had a topic of particular concern."
Admiral Jellico nodded. "Captain Janeway. You ascribed your
speedy return to a group called the," he turned to his notes, "the
Galactic Empire?"
"Yes," Janeway answered, "we worked out an exchange with a
representative of the Empire wherein they were given transporter
technology and we were given their propulsion device."
Jellico consulted his notes again. "A device called a
'hyperdrive'."
"Yes. They showed interest in our transporters, and we
obviously needed their device a great deal."
"Enough to violate the Prime Directive?" Jellico replied.
The suddenness of the remark caught her off guard. "What do
you mean, sir?" Janeway replied.
"According to your report," Jellico said, "the Empire is not
only on the other side of the universe, but is existing at a time far
earlier than our own."
"Yes," Janeway replied. "We discovered that the wormhole
displaces in space as well as time, at the speed of subspace in fact."
"Very convenient," Jellico said with disinterest, "but it
doesn't explain why you deliberately gave technology to a society that
existed, by your own admission, before our own."
Janeway's voice dropped in pitch. "We didn't know about this
at the time. It wasn't until the Borg showed up that we realized it.
In either case, I stand by my actions."
"Even though they violate Starfleet regulations?" Jellico
asked pointedly.
"Yes," Janeway remained stoic, "I do."
Janeway expected the barrage to continue, but Jellico suddenly
reversed thrusters, catching her off guard. "Would you not in fact
say that your actions were necessary to ensure the safety of your
crew?"
"Yes," she replied, wondering if she'd just stepped into
Jellico's trap.
"Would you describe the Galactic Empire as being hostile?"
Janeway was growing more suspicious, but she firmly believed
that the truth justified her. "In every encounter I had with them,
the Empire showed they were civilized and cooperative."
Admiral Parks spoke up. "Would you be willing to testify to
that before the Federation Council?"
"Yes," she replied, but didn't understand. She said as much.
"It's really quite simple, captain," Jellico said. "We want
you to tell all of this to the Federation Council tomorrow."
"To accomplish what?"
"A lot has happened while you were gone, captain." Parks
hesitated. "The Federation is in trouble. We've been having diplomatic
negotiations with practically every two-bit planet in our part of
space. We need support if we are to survive."
She'd been gone too long, Janeway realized. She'd forgotten
about how much of a hotbed the alpha quadrant can be. It fell into
place in an instant. "Then what you want..."
Jellico finished, "We think the Federation should form an
alliance with the Empire."

Seven of Nine waited outside the briefing room, hands clasped
behind her back in what passed for a relaxed pose, moving only as much
as was required to remain alert. It was for this reason she was aware
of the small group of Starfleet personnel - cadets, she noted from
their insignia - that had gathered to stare at her since she and
Captain Janeway had arrived. Scoptophobia was an irrational fear, as
was paranoia; human foibles that she as a Borg had grown far beyond.
Their whisphered discussions about her were of no concern, no concern
at all.
"Do you require something?" she asked, causing the small crowd
to jump at the suddenness of her remark. Despite herself she hadn't
been able to keep the belligerence out of her voice.
"Um," one of the female cadets said as her classmates
distanced themselves from her slightly, "we were wondering if it was
true... what they said, I mean. That you're a Borg."
"I am an individual now," Seven replied.
"But, you were a Borg," the cadet replied. "You used to be."
Seven resisted the pointless desire to rub her hands together
at the uncomfortable situation. "Yes," she finally replied.
"Does it hurt when you're assimilated?" someone else asked.
"I don't remember," Seven replied.
"I thought Borg never forget anything," the first cadet
replied.
"We do not waste valuable resources on the pointless
recollection of pain."
"Did you ever help assimilate anyone?"
Seven wrung her hands instinctively. "Yes," she replied
quietly.
"Did they show they were in pain? Did they want you to stop?"
"I don't remember," she said sharply.
"Mr. Hicks," a voice came from behind Seven, "are you in
charge of this gathering?" All the cadets drew to attention. Seven
glanced between them and a white-haired man that had just exited the
briefing room.
"No, sir," the female cadet replied.
"You are now," he said. "Since your classmates have nothing
better to do than gawk in a hallway, I think you can find the time to
inventory the cargo containers at Docking Platform #2. I'll inform
the quartermaster that you will personally have it on her desk by 2100
hours."
"Yes sir," she replied, and with a nod from the officer they
rushed off. As they left the man joined with a small group of others
who had just left the briefing room. Seven noted the smile on Captain
Janeway's face, a complete reversal of her previously somber attitude.
"Your debriefing went well?" Seven asked.
"Better than well," Janeway replied as the two started walking
through the corridors of Starfleet Command. "It seems our little
detour through the wormhole may have a much larger consequence than
we'd thought."
"The hyperdrive will bring substantial changes," Seven
remarked. "Further tradings for Imperial technology would be wise."
"Off the record," Janeway remarked, a phrase that Seven still
failed to understand, "it's going to be a lot bigger than that." They
drew to a halt as the cadet returned. "Can we help you?" Janeway
asked politely.
"I'm sorry, sir," she replied nervously, then turned to Seven.
"I just wanted to apologize on behalf of myself and everyone else. We
didn't mean to offend you."
"I do not take offense," Seven replied.
"Well, what we did was rude, and as future Starfleet officers
we should've known better."
Seven looked at Captain Janeway nervously, then back. "You
should be completing the admiral's orders. It would be a mistake to
neglect your duty by talking to me." She continued walking, the girl
looking oddly between her and Janeway before the captain rushed to
catch up.
"Was there a problem?" Janeway asked with concern.
"No," Seven said curtly.
Captain Janeway nodded, clearly not believing it but knowing
better than to bring it up now. "Let's get back to the ship. I think
we've spent enough time on Earth for right now."
Seven took a deep breath. "Agreed," she replied with a hint
of exhaustion.

Lt. Delric Taar tapped his datapad absentmindedly on the table
in front of him as he waited for the fleet-wide briefing to begin.
Whatever was going on made him edgy; the zero hour for the rebel
attack had come and gone, and command refused to breathe a word to the
lower decks of what was going on, even though it was obvious something
was up. The fleet had left the incomplete Death Star undefended days
ago, a dangerous move in his opinion. Of course, there was no love
lost between himself and the Death Star. More than one of his friends
had left the service over Alderaan, their hatred overwhelming their
loyalty for order and peace. Now he'd been forced to blow his former
wingmates away, and all because of a superweapon that was, by its very
nature, a tactically useless tool.
According to the rebellion, Alderaan had been destroyed by
Grand Moff Tarkin just to spite a rebel spy. Of course, it was
probably just propaganda, but down deep Taar had to wonder whether or
not anyone could command such power and be able to show restraint. He
wasn't optimistic, especially with Moff Jerjerrod in command. He'd
seen the moff's reaction to Lord Vader, and putting ultimate power in
the hands of a whiny sycophant was like giving an infant a thermal
detonator to play with.
Before he could continue the thought the holograms of other
squadron leaders appeared throughout the room, the fleet flight
coordinator appearing in the center. Taar got his datapad ready as
the briefing began.
"Squadron leaders," the major began, "meet your new enemy."
The rotating image of a cube-shaped object appeared on each table, a
smaller one of a star destroyer alongside it for scale. "They're
called the Borg, and it is our responsibility to ensure that they pose
no threat to the Empire." Taar took notes as the previous battles
involving the Borg were given, the known points of their defenses, and
the reason for the upcoming mission.
"We are going to cross through the wormhole and into Borg
space," the major continued. "Since they have no concept of diplomacy
we plan to annihilate enough ships and planets to show them that
further attacks on the Empire would be a devastating mistake. Any
questions?"
Taar spoke up. "Sir, Interceptors, as the very name implies,
are meant to deal with fighter craft. They cause minimal damage to
corvettes. What possible use do they have against a ship this size?"
The major exhaled in annoyance. "We've determined that
swarming the cubes with fighters will provide a distraction that will
allow our star destroyers to do their work."
Don't say it, Delric. Don't say it, Delric. "So we're flying
targets. Sir." You shouldn't have said it. The major's look of
scorn agreed with that sentiment.
"I think the major was impressed with your tactical
assessments," Lt. Starrunner, squadron leader for Grey Squadron,
remarked after the briefing was over.
"Kriff him," Taar said with disgust. "These guys get taken
out of the pilot seat and suddenly they forget what it's like to have
inches of plexisteel between you and death."
"This is messed up," Starrunner agreed. "You heard how
accurate those Borg can get. They're asking us to basically die when
we can't fight back. And do you think my bombers have a chance of
staying ahead and outmaneuvering these Borg?"
"Not without cover," Taar said. He sighed, then rapped his
datapad on the hull a couple of times. "Lohl," he said finally,
"let's get our squadrons together for some simulations. Maybe there's
a way we can fight back against the Borg after all."

Jean-luc Picard, captain of the Federation flagship,
Enterprise, sighed with impatience as he waited outside the office of
Adm. Parks. After six weeks of separation from my ship you would
think I'd be used to it, he thought gloomily. He wasn't accustomed to
being out of the loop, at least not when it came to the Enterprise.
That Data, Geordi, and his engineering staff were allowed on board was
all the more infuriating, but at least now he could speak to someone
who could give him information, maybe even access to his ship again.
He got to his feet as that someone arrived.
"Apologies for the delay, Jean-luc," Adm. Parks said, shaking
his hand.
"Not at all," Picard lied. "It seems these days time is
something I have plenty of."
Parks laughed as he led Picard into his office. "Yes, there's
a fine line between R&R and boredom, isn't there."
"Exactly," Picard said, hoping this meant the admiral was
going to let him in on what was happening.
Parks took his seat, offering Picard a chair as he did.
"Jean-luc, I know it's not easy being kept in the dark on what goes on
on your own vessel, but believe me, it's in the name of Federation
security."
"Indeed," Picard said neutrally. It seemed to him that a lot
was being done in the name of Federation security lately, and he
wasn't all that pleased with where that was leading. The declaration
of martial law remained a particular sore spot with him, and a
reminder that their society was not as rock-solid as he'd like to
think.
"We have an opportunity to forever change the balance of power
in this quadrant," Parks continued. "A chance to ensure that the
Romulans, the Cardassians, not even the Dominion will be able to
threaten the Federation again."
"A new weapon?"
"An ally," Parks answered. "Someone with resources and
technology that, along with our own strength, will deter practically
any power that might try to wage war on us."
"And you're afraid someone might form a treaty with these
people first," Picard said.
"Not exactly. No one can reach them in any reasonable amount
of time; they exist on the other side of a wormhole that's over
halfway across the galaxy."
Picard was a bit baffled. "I'm not sure I understand. How
helpful can this power be if it would take decades just to reach
them?"
Parks smiled. "Because right now we're the only ones who can
reach them without taking decades." He explained to Picard about
Voyager's encounter with the Borg, the Empire, and the new hyperdrive.
"And this is what you've been doing with the Enterprise all
this time," Picard concluded at the end. "Installing this
hyperdrive."
"Yes," Parks confirmed. "You can see the need for security.
Even without the possibility of an alliance, the ability to deploy our
forces at hundreds of times the speed of our enemies gives us an
incredible advantage. If that technology were stolen, it could be
damning."
"I understand," Picard added. "But there's something I'm not
clear on. If this treaty with the Empire is so important, why did we
not send Voyager? They have a functioning hyperdrive."
"Yes, but that's about all that's functioning. Voyager's been
flying through Borg space for some time; she wasn't in the best shape
when she returned. And besides that, a mission of this importance
requires a captain with a skill for diplomacy, and I think there's no
one better qualified."
With each passing second the frustrations of the previous
weeks was replaced with anticipation as Picard thought of the
magnitude of this mission. A mission of diplomacy to a civilization
that spanned an entire galaxy was beyond the expectations of even the
most fanciful cadets. "When do we leave?" he asked, now all the more
impatient to get back to his ship and begin this historic trip.
"Three days," Parks replied. "The hyperdrive should be
finished tomorrow, which should give your people enough time to
familiarize themselves with the new equipment and prep for the
mission."
"Will Captain Janeway be giving us a briefing?"
"Better. She's re-assigning a member of her crew to act as
your advisor on both the delta quadrant and the Galactic Empire."
"Who?"
"She hasn't decided yet," Parks answered. "She needs someone
who's not only familiar with their technology, but has expertise in
delta quadrant astrometrics and dealings with the Imperials. Finding
someone who fits that bill won't be easy, and giving them up will
probably be even harder."
"Well," Picard said as he rose to his feet, "I'll certainly
look forward to meeting whoever is up to that challenge."

Seven of Nine walked through the door to the captain's ready
room. As always, Capt. Janeway was seated behind her desk, a PADD in
one hand, a mug of coffee in the other. She was nothing if not
predictable. "You wished to see me, captain," Seven stated.
Janeway continued to look at the PADD. "Yes, Seven, please sit
down."
"Unnecessary, I'm comfortable standing."
Janeway put down the PADD. "Yes, of course you are. I forgot,
the Borg even sleep standing."
"Inaccurate. The Borg regenerate, they do not sleep."
Janeway came around and sat on the edge of her desk. "Yes...."
Janeway continued after a brief pause. "Everything is in order, all
damage to the ship has been repaired, and I've finally got my private
dining room back," she added with a slight smile. "Some of the Maquis
officers have asked to transfer to Starfleet, and permission has been
granted for them to remain at their current posts. I've even persuaded
them to keep the Doctor on line as our chief medical officer, although
that took a little convincing."
"I assume you're not updating the ship's status with the
entire crew in this manner."
"No." Janeway had a look of disappointment. "That leaves us
with our two resident civilians. Mr. Neelix has already departed. That
leaves us with you."
Seven breathed a little heavily, then began to speak. "If you
do not wish me to remain on board I will leave. I understand that
circumstances have changed."
Janeway stepped forward and grabbed Seven's hand. "That's not
what I'm saying. You've been an asset to this ship. There's a chance
that we wouldn't be here if it weren't for you. We don't want you to
leave. But it would be selfish of us to force you to remain on board.
We'd be denying you new experiences, a chance to explore your
humanity." Seven was uncharacteristically silent. "Going from life
on Voyager to life on Earth isn't going to be an easy transition,"
Janeway continued. "I think that's obvious to the both of us."
Seven nodded slowly, not looking at her captain. "Adapting
would be... difficult."
"Perhaps it's time for a small step in the right direction."
Janeway turned and picked up the PADD off her desk. "And I think we
have the perfect opportunity for you to take that step. Tell me, are
you familiar at all with the Enterprise?"



CHAPTER V.

"There is something wrong."
It was the voice you hoped to never hear, especially directed
at yourself. It was, on its own intimidating, with its resonant bass
overlaid on that haunting rhythm. The mechanical breathing chilled,
as if a subtle reminder of universal mortality. Yet even then the
voice did nothing to prepare you for the man; two meters of strength
embodied in flesh and machinery. An imposing body that was completed
by an expressionless mask for a face to leave this man all the more
inhuman. Throughout the Empire his reputation was so legendary, so
terrifying, he literally needed no introduction.
Commander Pakkib knew that reputation as well, and ever since
the Dark Lord of the Sith had arrived on the incomplete Death Star he
had felt fear gnawing at his entrails. The personal inspection had
gripped the entire station with similar despair, given that Darth
Vader's disappointment rarely led to anything but death. At the
moment, he sounded too disappointed for Pakkib's liking.
"What's seems to be the problem, my lord," Pakkib managed to
ask. While he knew of nothing wrong, it was obvious contradicting
Vader could only make things worse.
"A tremor in the Force," Vader declared. No one knew if he
was staring at them behind that mask, but no one made any effort to
draw attention to themselves. Commander Pakkib tried to ignore the
beads of sweat that were forming on his forehead with each inhale and
exhale. "I want a complete check of the computer systems," Vader
finally said. "And I want it done manually. Every last bit is to be
analyzed."
"Understood my Lord," Pakkib replied. He swallowed slightly
and continued. "But I must tell you that it will take several
technicians to complete this assignment. It may start putting us
behind." Better to face Lord Vader's wrath now than live in fear of
its approach.
"Perhaps someone else could impel them to remain on schedule."
"No," Pakkib said, perhaps a bit too quickly. "I was just
keeping your lordship appraised. We will remain on schedule."
"Good," Vader implied, but there was no trace of satisfaction.
"I'll expect your report very soon."
The anticipation was now far worse than whatever punishment
the dark lord might offer. Pakkib turned to three of his technicians.
"You are relieved of your current assignment. Your new task is to
carry out Lord Vader's command - any anomalous files are to be
analyzed in detail. This is your top priority." He turned to the
others present. "The rest of you continue. We will remain on
schedule, whatever the cost," he declared. Several hours later,
one of the technicians hailed him on the comm system, his voice
betraying obvious surprise and concern. "Sir," he said, "we've found
what looks like some kind of droid memory file in the main computer."
"What?" Droid memory files are rarely backed up at all, and
definitely wouldn't be stored in an area where it could potentially
access vital systems. Having it on the main computer of a Death Star
was about as bad as it could possibly get. "Erase the file
immediately," he ordered. The technician acknowledged it, but a
second later there was the sound of blaster fire and screaming. The
autodefenses had killed him and the other two members of his team.
Pakkib realized he was wrong; the worst it could possibly be was a
hostile droid with control of the station. Chaos descended as Pakkib
and his men began trying to isolate the rogue program, but apparently
during all this time, the droid mind had been searching for ways to
get around them. Every time they tried to throw up a programming
wall, the droid found a way to bypass it. Every time they tried to
physically remove its connection, they were attacked by the automated
defenses. As the droid continued to assert more and more control
Pakkib began contemplating the only solution: evacuate the station and
overload the reactor. It would be a disaster, but nothing compared to
a rogue Death Star.
"What's the situation?" Vader demanded, causing Pakkib to
visibly jump. Pakkib quickly filled him in. "The main computer is
located in there?" he asked, pointing at the doorway.
Pakkib nodded. "But the defenses have been activated, which
means the laser gate's armed and the computer's shielded, so we can't
shoot it. We'd have to cut the power at the junction but it's
impossible to reach from outside the room.
Vader walked up to the door to examine it. Beyond, he could
see the dead bodies of the other technicians. The lasergate was the
ultimate deterrent. Anything trying to penetrate would be blasted, and
any attempt to destroy the weapons would cause an explosion strong
enough to kill any would be invader. A perfect barrier - for anyone
who wasn't a master of the dark side. The crew looked on in
astonishment as Vader took three steps back, then ran and dove through
the opening. The weapons fired, but the Dark Lord twisted his body to
avoid most of them. One blast did strike just below his right
shoulder, but the beam dissipated with no effect. Vader rolled once
across the floor and into a fighting stance, his lightsaber ignited.
Automatic security devices began firing, and the blade snapped out and
deflected them. One, two, then the third came and he deflected it
right into the junction, causing the shield around the main computer
to collapse. He sprang, cape billowing behind him, lightsaber
continuing to snatch the blaster bolts out of the air until he landed
and stabbed straight through the casing. After that, there was
silence, save for the sizzling sound of broken electronics.
Pakkib was so shocked at what had just happened that it didn't
really register until the dark lord was standing right in front of
him. His awe gave way slowly to fear; he noticed several technicians
jump when the lightsaber was turned off. "Who was responsible for
checking the programming of that computer?" he demanded.
Pakkib hesitated for a moment, while the various parts of his
brain tried to shake themselves loose to dig through the metaphorical
files. "Lt. Teklif, my lord."
Vader turned and looked over the assembled group; they shrank
back as the blank mask passed over them. "You are aware that this
incident will put us even farther behind schedule?" Vader asked.
Pakkib nodded. "Yes," was all he could say.
Immediately, one of the technician's eyes grew wide and he
began grasping at his throat. Those who were nearby began moving away
slowly as his eyes rolled up into his head and he fell to the floor.
Vader turned back to Pakkib, who closed his eyes. At least it would
be relatively quick, if not particularly pleasant. But instead of the
grip on his throat, Vader began to walk away. "Inform your superior
that you will need a new computer." He paused, then turned back. "And
a new technician."

"Admiral," the captain said, and Piett walked over to the comm
station. There were still a few patrols that hadn't reported in yet;
perhaps this was the lead they'd been looking for. Combing through
this galaxy was almost as bad as some areas of the Outer Rim; finding
the worlds of these Borg that had bloodied Thrawn's nose was proving
difficult.
The communications officer spoke up. "Sir, Scoutships are
reporting in from Sector 17. They've found a planet, technology seems
similar to the one our sensors detected."
"More than likely it's our Borg boogeymen," the captain said.
Piett nodded. "And if not, they could probably point us in
the right direction. Alert all commands, converge on those
coordinates." And with that order, the fleet of star destroyers
slipped into hyperspace.

Picard had been waiting in his ready room when she arrived.
He'd been looking over the mission details, and he had to admit that
he was practically as giddy as a fresh graduate taking his first
assignment. The idea of opening diplomatic relations with a
civilization as vast, ancient, and advanced as the Galactic Empire
went beyond even the pipedreams of young cadets. Sure, he wasn't
going to be actually engaged in negotiations -the delegates on board
would handle that- but he'd be the one to get the foot in the door.
When the door chimed he gave his standard "Come!" without even pausing
in thought. But the sight of her was like dropping several tons of
lumber on his mental railroad tracks.
She was dressed in a blue full body suit rather than a
uniform, along with a pair of high-heeled boots. The fact that it
emphasized her highly-attractive figure, however, didn't really
matter. For Picard, it was her face, her hand, the tell-tale signs of
the one and only civilization that used that particular type of
technology. She is, or was, Borg. "Annika Hansen?" he asked in a
voice that said he couldn't imagine the answer to that question being
"Yes."
The woman had been examining the room, more like analyzing
given the way her eyes seemed to dwell on things. "I suppose that was
the name you were provided," she said. "As you are the commanding
officer of this vessel, you may choose to address me by that
designation, though I should warn you that simply using it will not
make me become that person."
Picard was now kicking himself for spending too much time
looking over the mission details and not taking the time to check the
new crewman's file beyond her name... and it seemed that even that
data had been flawed. "What would you prefer?"
"I am Seven of Nine Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero One.
But you may call me Seven of Nine."
Picard nodded to himself. The commander of this mission is
the only Starfleet officer to escape assimilation, and he's going to
meet with the Empire immediately after the Borg destroyed one of their
ships, so naturally Janeway would choose to send a Borg as his
advisor. No wonder they didn't want Voyager handling the diplomacy.
"You are a Borg, yes?" he asked, just to be certain.
"I am no longer a member of the collective, I am an
individual," Seven informed him.
"Yes, I can see that," Picard said in a neutral tone. "Then
you must know about me."
"Our thoughts were one for a time, Captain Picard," Seven
said. "But the irrelevant details of your life are not known to me.
Am I too assume that this won't be a hindrance to my assignment?"
"I would never allow my personal feelings to interfere in my
duty." Picard stopped. Why did he say that? That implied there were
some personal feelings involved! "You are familiar with the Empire?"
"Yes, captain," Seven said. "I was involved in most of our
direct meetings and have first-hand experience with their technology.
I have also been briefed on the experiences of others."
"Good, we'll need you to avoid any missteps. I don't think I
have to tell you how important this meeting will be for us. The
Empire could be a powerful friend, or a lethal enemy."
"Agreed," Seven said. "I will ensure that you are adequately
advised in all circumstances."
Picard nodded slowly. "Your quarters have already been
assigned. Do you have any special needs we should be aware of?"
"Yes," Seven said. "I assume I will be provided standard
quarters. The bed can be removed; I do not require sleep. I will,
however, require a power conduit be adapted to interface with my
systems."
"You need an alcove, is that what you're saying?"
"Yes, captain." She noticed the tone in his voice. "Is that
a problem captain?"
"So long as you don't go assimilating our ship, no," he said,
then mentally kicked himself for the remark. That's twice she's
gotten under your skin, Jean-luc, he thought. And it's not her doing
it, it's you! "Inform Commander Riker, he'll make the arrangements.
If there's nothing else..."
"No, sir."
"Dismissed." Seven nodded and left. Picard dropped the PADD
on the desk. How was he going to open diplomatic relations with
another galaxy if he couldn't get along with his own crewmen?

The Executor and the rest of its fleet exited hyperspace; five
Borg cubes waited for them. They weren't the first they'd
encountered, but it was the first time that the Borg would be on the
receiving end, and the first time Piett had a speech of his own.
"Transmission coming in, sir," the communication officer said. Piett
nodded and it came over the speaker, thousands speaking a single
chant.
"We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your
ships. We will add your..."
"That's enough," Piett said, and the transmission was cut off.
"Ready our reply." He waited until the officer nodded. "This is
Admiral Piett of the Galactic Empire. You have violated our space and
repeatedly attacked our ships without provocation. This will not be
tolerated." He turned to the captain. "Alert all commands, engage
and destroy."
As the fleet closed in on the Borg world, the cubes rushed to
engage them. As before, despite their adaptations, the turbolaser
blasts tore massive holes in their ships. Still, the Collective
seemed to press on despite the obvious damage, like an animal that had
become so rabid it wouldn't stop attacking even if it was being killed
by the defender. However, the Borg weren't animals, they were logical
and unemotional, so they ignored the damage and instead concentrated
their attacks on a single star destroyer. Despite the heavy damage
they managed to batter the ship's shields down. They bombarded the
ship with bluish-green bombs, which seemed to act as a kind of ion
blast. The star destroyer's weapons were becoming less and less
effective as the seconds passed.
But outnumbered and outgunned, the cubes couldn't stand up to
the rest of the fleet. The last of the cubes was reduced to
fragments. "Report," Piett ordered.
"All ships are reporting no damage, sir," the captain said.
"Except the Tyrant. Captain Lennox reports that the damage to many of
their systems is serious; they'll need to return to the station to
make repairs."
Piett nodded. "Send them to Base One. Once the ship's
functional, I want it back here with the fleet." The captain nodded
and passed the message along. As the Tyrant limped off, the rest of
the fleet closed in on the planet. "We'll show these Borg whose
resistance is futile." The Imperial fleet bombarded the planet; the
Borg offered no resistance. Within minutes every square meter of the
crust had been reduced to smoking craters.

Picard exited his ready room. "I assume we're ready, Number
One?" he asked.
"Ready as we'll ever be, sir," Riker said. "Mr. LaForge says
all systems are go."
"Helm, take us out of Spacedock; let's see what this engine
can do." He took his seat; Riker was on his right as usual, while
Seven had been provided the one normally allotted to Counselor Troi
for the purpose of the mission. He watched as the doorway opened to
allow the massive Sovereign-class ship to exit. "The anticipation is
unnerving," he confessed to Riker.
"I feel a bit like Zephram Cochrane," Riker admitted. "Brand
new propulsion system, first contact."
"Except we're not first, Will," Picard reminded him. "We're
just making this trip. Everyone knows Armstrong and Aldrin were
first, who remembers the second?"
"Peter Conrad and Alan Bean, sir," Data said.
Picard turned to him. "Thank you, Mr. Data," he said.
Data nodded. "In ten seconds we will be far enough outside
the Earth's gravity well to engage the hyperdrive, captain."
"And we'll see if it's everything we've been told it'd be."
"The technology is effective," Seven informed him.
"I'm sure it is," Picard replied. "On my mark, helm...
engage." And with that the stars began to lengthen and twist into
starlines, and suddenly, they were gone.



CHAPTER VI.

Even after six days, Picard still couldn't get over the eerie
feeling he had whenever he looked out the window of the Enterprise.
Instead of the familiar streak of stars, there was an unnatural flow
of...something. He didn't know how to describe it; hyperspace is what
Seven of Nine called it. Whatever it was, it felt wrong. Still, that
was the price that came from crossing the galaxy at such fantastic
speeds, and if a journey of decades can be reduced to days, Picard
conceded hyperspace could look as ugly as it liked.
Lt. Commander Data's voice brought him back to the present.
"We'll be approaching the wormhole in fifteen seconds, captain."
Picard acknowledged, and waited, then on Data's order helm shut down
the hyperdrive, and hyperspace turned to starlines, then collapsed
back into the familiar view of real space, fifty thousand light-years
now behind them.... and one very massive object in front of them.
"All stop." Picard ordered. "What is that?"
"It appears to be some kind of space station sir," Data
informed him. "Although I am not familiar with any of its design
patterns."
Seven of Nine turned to the captain. "It's similar in size and
appearance to the Imperial station where Voyager was repaired. It's
likely the Empire constructed it to guard the passage to the wormhole
from future Borg attacks."
"Captain," Data continued, "I'm also detecting a vessel, 1.6
kilometers in length."
Riker turned to Picard. "Big ship."
"It is an Imperator-class Star Destroyer," Seven of Nine
informed him. "We encountered three such ships when we first made
contact."
"Star...Destroyer?" Picard asked hoping that wasn't meant to
be taken literally.
"Merely its designation captain. Its weapons output is
insufficient to destroy a solar body."
Picard acknowledged and turned to Lt. Thomas McClure. "Use the
modifications to the deflector you were given. Open a channel."
McClure gave Picard a nod. "This is Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the
USS Enterprise. I'm here on behalf of the United Federation of
Planets. Is this the Galactic Empire?"
Finally, there was a response. "This is Commander Crovix.
State your business Enterprise."
"Not exactly friendly," Riker commented.
"But understandable under the circumstances, Number One,"
Picard replied. "Open the channel again." McClure did so. "We are
here to open negotiations with the Empire. We wish to use the
wormhole to travel to meet with your leaders."
"Stand by Enterprise," was their only response.
"Captain," Lt. Travis spoke, "a ship -possibly a shuttle- has
left the station and is heading for the wormhole."
"No doubt to check with their superiors on the other side,"
Picard noted.
Data turned to Picard. "Captain, sensors indicate familiar
energy signatures coming from the Star Destroyer. The energy
signatures are consistent with those left behind by Borg weaponry."
Picard turned to Seven of Nine. "Could this have been one of
the vessels that battled the Borg when Voyager was here?"
"Possibly," Seven admitted. With that, she got up and strode
towards the viewer. "Focus on the ship and magnify by a factor of 27,"
she ordered.
Data looked to Picard, who nodded. A close up view of the
plate revealed a very faint pattern on the ships hull.
"This is not the same ship," Seven stated. "The markings on
the hull are not the same."
"It seems that the Empire has had more run-ins with the Borg,"
Picard said. "Data, any similar signs of damage to the station?"
"No, sir. It would seem that this was not a defensive
battle."
"Which leads us to only one conclusion," Picard said. "This
station isn't the front line of defense, it's their fallback point.
They've come to fight the Borg."
"Who seeks out the Borg?" Riker asked. "It's bad enough when
they come to you, why go looking for them?"
"That certainly is a good question, Number One. One I hope to
find an answer to."
Before the discussion could continue a communication came in
from the station. "Permission has been granted to enter the wormhole.
Once you pass through, you are to rendezvous with the Star Destroyer
Incaciad."
"That is the command vessel of Admiral Thrawn," Seven informed
the captain, taking her seat.
"Janeway's savior," Picard said. "Acknowledge the
transmission. Set course for the wormhole half impulse. Engage."
And with that, the Enterprise proceeded to the wormhole, and
disappeared from the galaxy.

"Attention! Borg ships approaching. Prep all TIEs for
immeditate launch."
Delric Taar blocked out the redundant commands echoing
throughout the hangar and headed for his ship. The launch crews had
been on constant alert, and Taar knew his interceptor would already be
set for launch as soon as he reached it. He checked the rest of his
squadron before sealing the hatch, then fired the twin ion engines and
roared out into space, his squadron close behind. They slipped into
formation, Taar taking the point while his wingman slipped into his
eight. As they swept around, he counted no less than seven Borg
cubes. Numbers were still on the Empire's side, but the Borg had a
knack for bringing something new to the party; apparently Piett had
decided it was time to do the same.
"Grey leader this is Ebony leader," Taar said. It was time to
put theory into practice, and hope they didn't kill themselves during
the experiment. "We're going to cross the tee on cube three port."
"Acknowledged," was the response from Lt. Starrunner. As the
TIEs approached the cube, their ranks broke, shifting to a four-point
diamond pattern. Ebony 1 took the point of the lead formation,
leading the way towards the right-hand side of the Cube. At a
kilometer out the fomations broke away from one another, looking for
targets of opportunity. The ships began taking random dips and slides
as they approached, trying to reach that age-old balance of being
evasive while staying on target. "Prime target located," Grey 3 said
as the coordinates were sent to his targeting computer. The small
formation made a slight course change and continued - Ebony 1 still in
the lead with Grey 3 at the rear of the formation. It was a risky
situation; the Interceptors were only flying at a fraction of their
top speed at the moment to allow him to keep in formation. But it was
the best plan he had for the moment.
The cube loomed through the transparisteel window at the front
of his TIE. This is nuts, he thought to himself. You don't go after
blockade runners with Interceptors, nevermind something like this! "I
have a visual on the target," Taar said aloud. It seemed to be a
weapons array of some kind. They raced towards it, then on cue, the
two TIEs on his eight and four moved accelerated forward, guns
blazing. Their laser cannons splashed across the surface of the
array, but there was little to show for it. The Borg fired back,
narrowly missing Ebony 2. It had been random luck that he'd survived,
but turning back wasn't an option, so they continued to fire at the
array for all the good it seemed to do.
"Break formation!" Taar ordered, and the three ships split off
from one another. Grey 3, now with a clear shot at the weakened
structure, launched three concussion missiles before pulling away. The
missiles slammed into their target, vaporizing it.
"Ebony 2 and 3, form up," Taar ordered. "Grey 3 strafing run,
we'll cover." The others acknowledged as he swung away from the cube
for the moment. Beyond it he saw the Avenger and Devastator advancing
on the Borg's right flank. Turbolasers and Borg energy beams
crisscrossed space, putting their puny fighter attacks to shame. Did
I say this was nuts? he thought. I mean this is pointless! It's not
like the Empire isn't going to win this fight regardless of the
fighters, why did Piett tip their hand?! But it didn't fall to grunts
like him to make those calls, so instead he executed a tight spin to
join in on this suicide run.
The diamond formation quickly formed up and raced over the
surface of the cube at a mere fifteen meters. The three Interceptors
tried providing cover fire for the Grey 3, who was pelting the surface
with proton bombs. Half-way across the cube he pushed them to full
throttle, leaving the bomber behind but hopefully providing more of a
distraction by firing at targets of opportunity. But one problem with
the Borg was they just didn't take to distractions, and a green
torpedo rose up from the surface and hit the bomber, sending the two
pods spiral away and crashing into the surface of the cube. "Pull
up!" Taar ordered, but this time an energy beam came up and caught
Ebony 2, disintegrating it. Adrenal flooding his veins, Taar put the
ship into a Korvel Spiral as he raced away, torpedoes filling the air
around him. Finally he pulled clear and formed up with Ebony 3.
"Ebony Leader to Grey Leader, we've lost our bomber." The command was
acknowledged, but apparently things hadn't been going well for
Starrunner's boys. As Taar brought the ship around he saw that the
Borg were laying into the Avenger and Devastator, much like they had
against the Tyrant. Taar's stomach tightened at the sight. The Borg
didn't care how much damage they suffered so long as they continued to
wear the Empire down. They could lose ten ships for every one they
destroyed, and it wouldn't matter. How do you fight someone like
that?
"Grey Leader to Ebony Leader, head to point 03." Taar pulled
him and his wingmate around to return to their cube, joining up with
another set of TIEs to provide cover for the next bombing run. The
new formation -five Interceptors and two bombers- once again skimmed
the surface, weapons lashing out at the cube. Again, as if out of no
where, weapons fire struck at the tiny ships, vaporizing two TIEs
instantly. To avoid being struck by the weapons and debris, Taar
pulled a split-S, pulling away from the cube momentarily before his
spin brought him back thirty meters behind his bombers, who continued
their strafing of the cube despite the attack. Taar planned to
increase speed and overshoot the bombers to provide further cover when
he passed over one of the craters formed by a proton bomb. Taar
frowned at the information his targeting sensors were telling him.
"Ebony 3 do you see what I see?" he called over the comm.
"Yes sir," ES-13-3 replied. "What do you want to do?"
Ebony 1 pulled into a tight loop and began heading for the
crater. "Put some plasma up their collective port," he told him as he
opened fire on the crater. The weapons' fire managed to destroy the
unshielded bottom of the crater, opening up a passage into the heart
of the cube. Throttling back, the two TIEs dove into the entrance to
the Borg ship, firing at their unshielded surfaces. The cubes may
have had the power to adapt to their laser cannons, but the raw power
was too much for the helpless drones inside.
After about seven hundred meters the two TIEs blasted their
way into a large opening inside the cube. In the center of this space
was a large, hour-glass shaped structure with several openings along
its sides. Taar looked at his instruments. "What do you think Ebony
3?"
"Looks like a target to me, sir," ES-13-3 called back to him
over the comm.
Taar smiled inside his pressure suit. "Agreed. Fire at will."
The two Interceptors continued their approach, their weapons blowing
away huge chunks out of the shape. Manueverability was difficult, even
at low speeds in this confined area. Finally, their weapons sheared
through the construct and Taar watched the huge structure collapse in
on itself. Immediately, explosions began occurring throughout the
cube. The two TIEs turned to continue their volley, when a nearby
explosion knocked Ebony 3 off course and into the wall, exploding on
contact. Figuring he'd done enough damage in here, Taar headed for
the opening to go back to the surface. The series of explosions were
getting worse, and he started pushing the ship faster and faster. This
proved to be a near fatal mistake as the passage suddenly narrowed
ahead. Quickly he twisted his ship on its side and dove into the
opening, his lower port solar panel scraping the edge of the passage.
It seems that even during that short battle, the Borg had managed to
repair some of their ship. Alarms were sounding and in desperation he
pushed the ship to full throttle and hoped like hell he'd get out
before the TIE or the cube blew.
Finally he rocketed out of the cube and launched back out into
space. Looking back, he saw explosions consuming various parts of the
cubes, and TIEs pulling away from its surface. A stardestroyer, the
Stalker actually, was finishing it off with a full barrage of
turbolaser fire. Moments after he had escaped, the cube exploded. A
single piece of debris, just a meter or so long, struck his TIE,
completely searing the struts that held it to the starboard solar
panels. The ship had been on its last legs before, now it was
completely out of control. The Interceptor wouldn't respond to his
controls and an energy surge was arcing through some of the panels.
Systems were failing, and in an act of desperation he tried to shut
down the engines. As he touched the panel, a surge of energy passed
through his pressurized suit and into his arm, flooding his body with
pain as he seized up. His eyes glazed over, and the universe, dark as
it was, became black.

War has been described as long periods of boredom interrupted
by short periods of excitement. At the moment, Picard felt that peace
didn't seem that different. After all the time he'd spent waiting for
his ship, and then all the time prepping for this meeting, the
ambassadors had taken over, and he was left twiddling his thumbs at an
Imperial station. It was the dawn of a new age, perhaps the most
exciting time for humanity since the discovery that we weren't alone
in the universe. At the moment, Picard felt like he was stuck in a
hole with his sensors off-line.
Picard had been lamenting the situation with Riker when the
door chimed. It was Seven; it seemed to always be Seven. She wasn't
a Borg, not really, but nevertheless, he had trouble letting his guard
down around her, despite how much advice she'd provided throughout the
mission. Maybe I've become set in my ways, he wondered. I can't
stand hyperspace, I can't stand my advisor, maybe this new age isn't
for old men like me. "Yes?" he asked, trying to sound neutral and
failing.
"Admiral Thrawn has asked me to deliver a proposition to you,"
Seven informed the captain in the matter-of-fact way she had. "He
suggests that, to help bridge the gap between our civilizations, we
have an exchange of cultural history."
"What exactly does he mean by that?" Riker asked. Riker had
been spending the time scanning comm channels, and the longer they
were delayed, the more he became suspicious of the Empire. Perhaps he
wasn't ready for this new age either, Picard thought.
Seven looked at the PADD. "'Poetry, art, important historical
events, literature' were the specific examples he gave."
Picard nodded; this was exactly what he needed. "Extend the
admiral our thanks, and begin assembling a historical/cultural
database to give to the Imperials."
"Are you sure that's wise, sir?" Riker asked. "We really
shouldn't be exchanging any information with them while the
negotiations take place."
Picard smiled slightly. "I'm not giving them the access codes
for Starfleet Command, Will. An exchange of culture would be a healthy
way to start this meeting, not to mention give us a chance to get to
know the Empire a little better."
"Honestly, sir, I think I'm getting to know them quite well."
"Will, there's healthy skepticism, and there's paranoia. I'm
sure there's nothing to fear in letting Admiral Thrawn examine our
works of art."

On board the Redemption. Mon Mothma stepped up to the central
platform. The high-ranking members of the Alliance were present; they
knew only that something urgent had come in, and rumors were it wasn't
good. From her grave tone, it seemed that would prove to be true.
"We've all been wondering what is going on lately, why the Emperor has
diverted ships and changed his personal agenda so much over the past
two months. We now have an answer." A hologram of a section of the
galaxy appeared, focusing in on one particular area until the whole
sector was revealed. "Located near the Napuli System is a wormhole to
another galaxy. The wormhole was discovered when ships from the other
side invaded our galaxy."
A small murmur of discussion began. Mon Mothma had to speak
up in order to be heard. "One is an antagonistic race called the Borg,
who attacked and destroyed one of the Star Destroyers in that area."
"I take it that's not the good news we'd like to think it is,"
Lando said.
"No. The data our spies have gathered shows that they will
attack anyone without provocation. They're extremely dangerous to
everyone, regardless of what side they're on."
"Dangerous enough that we should be worried?" Leia asked. "Is
there a chance that they'd destroy the Empire and threaten all of us?"
"It's not likely," Mon Mothma said.
"Will we help the Empire, if the situation comes down to it?"
Leia asked.
Mon Mothma hesitated. "Let's hope we won't have to make that
choice."
"Well, regardless of whose side they're on, at least it's
something to keep the Empire busy," Han pointed out.
"Yes," Mon Mothma replied, "and it's doing just that. The
Empire has sent a fleet in to deal with the Borg threat, and greater
security has been set up in that area of the galaxy."
"You said 'one,'" Wedge said. "I take it the Borg weren't
alone.
"No," Mon Mothma said. "The Empire has had some dealings with
another group from the other side of the wormhole. They have already
given information and technology to the Empire, and our spies indicate
they are planning on opening diplomatic relations with the Empire."
Leia finally spoke up. "What exactly is the position of this
group?" she asked. "What do they want in return for their aide?"
"From what our sources have gathered, an alliance," Mon Mothma
answered. The members of the Alliance looked at one another. The
Empire alone was bad enough. If they had new allies, allies with new
technology, then it was grim news for the struggling rebellion. "It
seems that we have a new enemy," she said, "and it's called the
Federation."



CHAPTER VII.

Taar opened his eyes slowly. There was a white blur in front
of him, slowly solidifying as the seconds ticked by until shapes
emerged. Finally, his vision seemed to clear up and he checked at his
arm. Yes, it was still there. Good. As advanced as cybernetics was,
he'd heard about more than one pilot who just couldn't handle a craft
the same again. There's something about the feel of a ship that can't
be duplicated by a piece of technology.
Taar gave the room the once over. The medlab didn't look like
the one on the Stalker; was he on the Executor? Before he could think
more about it the door opened; it was an aide rather than a medical
droid. This likely meant things were about to get worse. "Good
morning," the aide said as amicably as possible. "Glad to see that
you've returned to consciousness; we've got some matters to clear up.
It won't take but a moment." He pulled out datapad. "First, your suit
was completely overloaded, so we don't even have a name for you."
Taar winced slightly as he started to sit up. "Lt. Delric
Taar, ES-13-1 stationed on board the star destroyer Stalker."
The aide nodded slightly, "A squadron commander... good for
you."
Whatever, Taar thought. Save your condescension for someone
else. "What's the status of Ebony Squadron? How many survivors?"
"I'm asking the questions," the aide said sharply. "You can
check their status later, lieutenant." He paused briefly and then
continued. "I assume you were forced to abandon your craft?"
"Yes, there was-" Taar paused. So much had happened so fast.
"The cube exploded, the debris hit my craft. I was lucky to get out
alive."
"Mm," the aid responded with the expected degree of sympathy.
"Yes, well, everything seems to be in order," the aide concluded. It
was, after all, just a TIE; the Empire lost a few every day. If Taar
had lost a shuttle it would have involved an accident investigation,
but this drew little more than a glance. "The med-droid says you'll
be fit for duty the day after tomorrow. You'll have your orders then."
Then he turned and strode out.
With effort, Taar pulled himself up, silently cursing all
bureaucrats everywhere. "I'm asking the questions," he thought, and
it comes down to name and why his ship went kabloowie. Tiny men in
the grand scheme who push around bits in a datapad; just let me fly my
ship and lead my men and I'll do whatever you want. He searched
around until he found his code cylinder and plugged into the network.
With a slight note of surprise, he saw that he was on Base One, not
the Executor. They must have evacuated some of the wounded to save
space. He went on to check what information there was about the latest
battle with the Borg. It didn't paint a pretty picture. It had been
a victory, of course, but they'd lost the Devastator. This was a big
setback, even though it wasn't readily apparent. Not only had that
left the Imperial forces weaker, it also meant the Borg could win
battles due to sheer attrition. The Emperor's plan wasn't working;
the Borg weren't backing off, they were testing the Empire's limits.
They were planning something... he just hoped the admiral was capable
enough to see that and call in some reinforcements.
Taar's stomach tightened into a knot as he looked at the
fighter results. Only three of the pilots from Ebony squadron
survived, himself included. Starrunner and his boys had been
completely wiped out as well. At least they hadn't died for nothing;
the stats showed that weapons fire from the cubes Ebony and Grey
squadrons had attacked dropped by 38%. It was good from a tactical
standpoint, but losing so many of his men made it a bitter pill to
swallow.
Taar disconnected from the network and tried to sleep. He was
exhausted, but sleep didn't come easy. His mind was filled with
images of Borg drones being cut down by his laser cannons and of that
cube exploding from the inside out. He wanted to do that again... he
wanted to fly in there and blow the living crap out of them, like
pouring gasoline down an anthill and lighting a match. He forced
himself to put his thoughts aside and rest. Only if he properly
recovered would he get the chance to relive that vision.

The Emperor opened his eyes and watched Mara Jade continuing
her exercises. At the moment she was trying to move multiple objects
with her mind. Her frustration with her failure was obvious. "Good,"
he said, causing her to jerk slightly at his sudden comment. "Anger
is a source of power. Reach in and harness it, feel the hate flowing
through you, empowering you!" Mara nodded and went at it again with
renewed vigor. Soon objects were swirling around the throne room like
a whirlwind. They dropped when the Emperor's haunting chuckle reached
her ears. "Good, very good. You're learning well, my young
apprentice." He paused as the door opened and Darth Vader appeared.
Vader's walk slowed as he approached the throne, noting Mara's
presence. There was an undercurrent of mutual hate. "Leave us," the
Emperor told the girl, and she nodded and walked out. Vader stepped
before the Emperor and kneeled, rising only when he was told to.
"I sense something is troubling you, my friend," the Emperor
said.
"Yes, master." Vader paused. "'And there shall forever be no
more than two, one the master, and one his student, lest the way of
the Sith be lost forever.'" Vader said, quoting the words of Darth
Bane that had ensured the survival of the Sith for millennia. "Have
we given up on old ways?"
"Yes, we have," the Emperor said matter-of-factly. "No longer
do we lurk in the shadows, fearing the Jedi. I felt the disturbance
when that little green imp died; and with him dies the ways of the
Jedi. We are the only ones now who have the power of the Force, and
it is time we used it to the fullest."
"And so you train this one?" Vader asked. "She is nothing
more than a convenient spy-"
"I will decide who I will train," the Emperor said sharply. "I
train her as I will the young Skywalker. That was, after all, your
suggestion, Lord Vader." The Emperor gave a moment to reflect on that
fact. "I have foreseen her, Vader, leading our forces against our
enemies, with your son at her side."
"So he will join us."
"Oh yes. The details are difficult to see, but he will
embrace the power of the dark side."
"Forgive my doubt, my master," Vader said with a nod of
respect.
The Emperor nodded in return. "What is the status of the
Death Star?"
"It will be finished within the next ninety days, my master."
"I see it's not on schedule."
"No, the men have been suitably disciplined."
The Emperor's throne rotated slightly. "It is of no
consequence. It will serve its purpose when needed. I have summoned
you for an entirely different reason." Vader waited patiently, his
mechanical breathing the only sound filling the chamber. "I have
nearly completed negotiations with diplomats from the Federation, a
puny civilization in the galaxy beyond the wormhole. You will travel
with the diplomatic corps that returns to their homeworld."
"Why should we be concerned with this insignificant group?"
Vader asked.
"Because, the Federation is our foothold, Lord Vader. Through
them, we will seize control of their entire galaxy."

The Lambda-class shuttle slipped into hyperspace as Lt. Taar
moved into the cockpit of the small craft. He was the only passenger
on board the tiny shuttle, just him and a hold full of technical
equipment sent out to rendezvous with the fleet on the front line.
Taar wondered what was happening out there. The last engagement had
been the one he'd been in, just under a week ago. The Borg had
actually bloodied the Empire's nose that time, it should have only
strengthened their resolve... if Borg could have resolve, that is.
Instead they'd pulled back, left their worlds undefended. No, they
were up to something, and he didn't think he was going to like it when
he found it.
"So, why are you being sent off to Borg central?" the pilot
asked in an off the cuff way.
Taar looked him over for a moment before replying. "I'm
rendezvousing with my star destroyer. I was sent back to Base One to
get stitched up after the last engagement."
"Ah, let me guess, TIE pilot, right?"
"That's right," Taar said with disinterest.
The man gave a low whistle. "You know, they got two
categories for TIE fighter pilots: rookies, and frozen meat."
"Right," was Taar's only reply as he tried to ignore the
pilot. He didn't seem to take the hint.
"Happiest day of my life was when I was assigned to
transports," the pilot said with a grin. "The Imperial meat grinder
is not the place for me, no thank you

[Mr.Wizard]

CHAPTER VIII.

The door opened for Picard, revealing the darkness of Thrawn's
office. He wondered if there'd been a mistake, but then he saw a
single source of light within. Slowly he stepped through the door and
heard the hiss as it closed behind him. As he approached he noticed
the light was coming from a hologram, a rather familiar hologram.
"Pardon my rudeness, captain," Thrawn said eventually, his eyes still
on the hologram. "I was just pondering this strange painting."
Picard walked up to Thrawn's side and looked as well. The
grand admiral was seated only a few meters away from the hologram of-
"The Mona Lisa," Picard said, "perhaps the most famous work of art in
Earth's history."
"Yes," Thrawn said as he leaned forward in his chair, "a
painting so simple and yet so - indefinable in its beauty. I have
been studying this great mystery for the past hour."
Picard smiled. "Scholars have spent their entire careers
studying this painting, trying to glean some insight. What does it
represent? How does it move us? What..."
"Yes, fascinating," Thrawn interrupted, "I was wondering why
she has no eyebrows."
Picard looked at Thrawn quizzically, and then back at the
painting. "Er, eyebrows, admiral?"
"She has no eyebrows," Thrawn said with a gesture of slight
confusion. "Why would the painting of Earth's most famous woman have
no eyebrows?" Picard was stricken rather dumb by the question. Thrawn
swiveled in his chair to face him. "My apologies, I do sometimes get
engrossed in these things." He looked Picard over for a moment.
"Capt. Jean-luc Picard, of the USS Enterprise, representative of the
United Federation of Planets, good to finally meet you face-to-face."
Picard responded in kind. Thrawn paused for a moment. "What does it
mean to 'strike the colors'?"
Picard was starting to wonder if Thrawn was some kind of
eccentric. The Incaciad had contacted them, requesting Picard to come
over in person right away, and it seemed all he wanted to talk about
were colors and eyebrows. "I'm afraid I don't know what you mean,
admiral."
Thrawn smiled slightly, a somewhat chilling effect. "I was
reading about the USS Enterprise actually. No, not your ship, but its
namesake. Apparently in one of the ancient wars on your homeworld, a
ship called the USS Enterprise battled an enemy vessel, the HMS Boxer
during what was called the War of 1812."
Picard nodded as realization set in; he was naturally familiar
with the many namesakes of his ship. "Yes, in 1813 the two ships
engaged in battle off the eastern coast of what was then called the
United States. Two wooden vessels, their weapons limited to primitive
projectile launchers and their power provided by the wind."
"Yes," Thrawn nodded. "And during that battle, the commander
of the vessel, what was his name, oh yes, William Burrows, was killed.
And his last instruction to the crew was 'The colors must never be
struck.'" He looked at Picard. "So, again I ask, what does it mean
to 'strike the colors'?"
"In those days," Picard said, "a ship would fly flags on its
mast to show its allegiance. These flags were called 'colors.' To
strike the colors meant to raise the flag. That, at the time, was the
international sign for surrender."
"I see," Thrawn said. "So his final order was to never
surrender?"
"Yes," Picard answered, "the battle was too important. Burrows
knew that a defeat there would be a stepping stone for a total
invasion of the United States, and his country would be no more. For
him, that would have been the end of the world."
Thrawn nodded. "Yes, or course, sometimes sacrifices must be
made, to keep our worlds from ending." He seemed to ponder this.
"I've just received word from Coruscant," he said, shifting the
topical winds in a way that would no doubt impress William Burrows.
"The negotiations are nearing completion. One of the conditions is an
exchange of technology schematics." He reached over and pulled a
datapad out of a small case by his chair. "These will provide you
with information about the basics of many of our technologies."
Picard reached out and took it, wondering just what was
waiting for them in the electronic archive of the device. The
hyperdrive alone ensured that the galaxy would never be the same
again, how else would it change once these secrets were revealed?
"I'll have a similar collection of information prepared immediately,"
Picard told Thrawn.
Thrawn leaned forward towards Picard. "I'd like something in
particular, if you would be willing," he remarked. He looked at
Picard's face and smiled slightly, "Nothing remarkable. It is my
understanding that you and those who live in your part of the galaxy
use a different communications technology from ours. I'd be very
interested in seeing how it works."
Picard considered. "Subspace communication technology; that
won't be a problem. I'll make sure it's included in the report."
Thrawn nodded his head slightly. "Thank you captain."
With that, Picard turned to leave, just as the door opened, he
heard Thrawn call to him, "Captain." Picard turned back to the
admiral. "I look forward to working with you and the Federation. I
predict great things will come from this."
"As do I, admiral," Picard replied, and turned and left.
Moments later he was transported back to the Enterprise, his
excitement almost palpable. "Commander," he called as he entered the
bridge, "prepare a report for Admiral Thrawn on general Federation
technology. Have Mr. LaForge assist you. Make sure to include
detailed information on subspace communication technology."
"Sir?" Riker asked with some concern.
"There's been a breakthrough in the negotiations. We're
sharing basic information with our new ally. They have already given
us their technological report as a show of good faith."
Riker seemed momentarily hesitant, but he'd made his concerns
known repeatedly; doing so now, on the bridge, wouldn't be
appropriate. He nodded and set to work. "Data, Seven," Picard said,
"I want you two to go over this information. Memorize it, try to
understand as much as you can. I want daily reports on what you've
learned. This is your top priority."
"Understood, captain," Data said taking the datapad. He
nodded to Seven and the two walked off the bridge. Picard turned and
looked at the star destroyer on the viewscreen. "What strange new
world that has such people in it," he quoted.

Taar slowly opened his eyes and saw hyperspace swirling in
front of him. Quickly he leaned forward and hit the controls to bring
him back into real space. He glanced at the display; five hundred
light-years, in the wrong direction no less. It'd take the better
part of a day to make it back to Base One. But he was alive, and for
the moment, safe from the Borg. That's what counted. He punched in
the coordinates and returned to hyperspace, this time going the right
way. He wished he could send out a warning to them, but it was too
dangerous to give away his position. Besides, Base One had to have
heard about what had happened, and even that idiot aide would be smart
enough to call in some reinforcements.
With the ship on autopilot, Taar got up and tried to assess
the damage. Anything that wasn't nailed down had been sucked out
during the decompression, including the pilot. Taar really didn't
feel sorry for him, and it was certainly no great loss to the Empire.
Thankfully the equipment lockers had remained sealed, and he managed
to find some emergency rations. The low quality of field rations is a
universal constant, but Taar gorged himself on them as if it were
roast nerf with drippings. Finally, his physical needs tended to, he
began looking at the condition of the ship itself. Some damage had
been done to the ramp obviously, but it was still holding itself
together. If worse came to worse, he could always use a plasma torch
to cut through the viewplate in order to get out. The engines,
however, had been put under an even heavier strain during his escape.
The stress had caused some damage to the hyperdrive motivator, a
pretty serious problem considering he was flying through Borg space.
If he should be forced back into real space and run into even a single
cube, he'd have no hope. The weapons of this shuttle just aren't
strong enough to do any real damage, he thought. If they show up....
If they showed up, he'd follow Admiral Piett's example. Hopefully it
wouldn't come to that. In the meantime, he had a pretty long journey
ahead, so he settled back for some rest. It would be nice to be
unconscious voluntarily for a change, he thought as he stretched out
on the bunk and closed his eyes. Again, visions of dying Borg filled
his mind, and the twinges of a smile could be seen on his face.

The planet of Cordis hung against the backdrop of space, its
green surface flecked with streaks of brown, tapering to a pale blue
at its poles. Its reflected brightness, in contrast to the dotted
blackness of space, revealed a beauty that was both subtle and simple.
An ancient Caamasi poet once said that worlds are the jewels of space,
that even the most foul planet gained an elegance and sense of peace
that, for better or worse, it was a sanctuary. Unfortunately, peace,
beauty and sanctuary have no meaning to those who now approached the
calm world of Cordis. "Approaching planet in Grid 1092 of Unimatrix
02 prime, settlement of species 11035. Estimated population:
approximately 97,000,000. Scanning..." The four cubes hung over the
world. "Current population: 218,641. Commencing assimilation."
Grand Admiral Thrawn, having observed the effectiveness of the
Borg first hand, had recommended the Cordisi evacuate the world before
Piett had even arrived. Of course, there were always the brave,
foolish, stubborn, or just unlucky. They were there to hear the
message that broadcast on every frequency across the planet. "We are
the Borg. You will be assimilated. Your culture will adapt to
service us. Resistance is futile."
The Cordisi were a short species with a hardened exoskeleton
covered with thick hairs, and a long history of combat. Many of those
that stayed behind were members of combat orders that had passed down
their knowledge for ten thousand generations, and considered it an
unacceptable sin not to fight to defend their world to the bitter end.
They prepared traps and set up choke points, made contingency plans
for breaches. It was unfortunate, then, that the Borg didn't fight
that way, because perhaps then they might have had even a small
chance.
A beam lanced out from the cube in orbit over the city of
Ch'suvic and began ripping it apart. The Cordisi weren't sure how to
react when the pieces were scooped up and pulled into space. Someone
had found the controls to an old planetary ion cannon and blasted at
the cube. After a few shots, a green torpedo descended and struck the
facility, wiping out the complex while causing minimal damage to the
surrounding area. That was the most efficient.
The Cordisi drawn into the cubes were quickly disoriented and
captured. Some still attempted to resist even on board the cube, but
the approaching Borg overwhelmed them by sheer force of numbers. Just
hours after their arrival, the planet of Cordis had been stripped of
all technology and its entire sentient population. They were now one
with the Borg. The cubes departed, moving on towards the next target
for assimilation.

"Captain, the Incaciad is hailing us," said Lt. Travis.
"Onscreen," Picard ordered. Immediately the image of Admiral
Thrawn appeared, a thin smile on his face.
"Captain Picard," Thrawn said in a formal tone, "it is my
great pleasure to inform you that the negotiations have been a
success. As of thirty minutes ago, the Galactic Empire and the
Federation officially became military allies."
"That's good news admiral," Picard replied, trying to contain
his own excitement. The moment was finally here, he thought. Military
alliance, sure, but that was just getting the foot in the door. A
grand future for the Federation was beginning at this very moment, and
he and his crew had been an instrumental part of it. "How will we be
proceeding?"
"Some of the diplomatic party you brought will remain behind
on Imperial Center as the Federation ambassadors," Thrawn explained.
"The rest will be rendezvousing with us in five days. Also, the
ambassadors to the Federation from the Empire will be arriving with
them. Once they've all arrived, my ships will escort you to the
wormhole, and from there you can take them back to Earth."
"Very good," Picard replied, "Then, if there's nothing else,
admiral?"
"We'll contact you, should it be necessary," was Thrawn's only
reply. The screen then went blank.
Riker turned to his captain, "Well, it seems our mission has
been a success." Riker's tone was completely devoid of any irony;
either he'd come around or decided to keep his opinions on the Empire
to himself from now on.
"Indeed, Number One," Picard responded in good humor.
"Commander, I think this particular mission I have in mind will
require your expert talents."
"What do you mean sir?"
"I think that this is a cause for a celebration, don't you?"
Riker grinned, "Of course, sir. I'll use all my Starfleet
training, sir."
"Oh I hope not," Picard replied, "I was hoping for something
interesting for a change."

A small alarm went off on the control panel for the shuttle,
signaling that Taar was finally almost there, and safe. As the
countdown completed the ship slipped from hyperspace into real space
just twenty thousand kilometers from the station...or rather, where
the station was.
Taar's mouth fell open in disbelief. It was the Borg; they
must have learned where Base One was from the assimilated soldiers,
and now the station was next. He pounded the console; I should have
warned them, he chided himself. One man wasn't worth the risk!
Finally, reason overcame guilt. Okay, he hadn't warned Base
One in time, but this was obviously just a Borg stepping stone. He
had to get through the wormhole and warn the Empire before the Borg
swarmed over their galaxy. He pushed the battered engines to the
limit; it didn't matter if his ship died on the other side of the
wormhole, so long as he could get a message through.
Taar's stomach sank as he saw three of the cubes alter course
to intercept him. They were too fast; he'd never make it to the
wormhole... at least, not using the sublight engines. A microjump for
a ship like this, especially after all they'd been put through, was
stupid, but the sight of those Borg cubes enter tractor range made up
his mind. His hands flew over the controls and he yanked back on the
lever; just as the Borg cube's beam reached for his ship it shot
forward and disappeared.
Unfortunately, the damaged motivator wasn't up to the task,
and the ship flew at lightspeed right into the wormhole. The swirling
tunnel of hyperspace turned from a milky white to a smear of purple,
and then a violent red. It was the most unpleasant sensation of
Taar's sad little life, his body feeling forces acting on it evolution
had never had in mind. The "sky" outside churned and heaved like a
living organ trying to expel the tiny shuttle back to where it
belongs. There was the squeal of machinery going beyond design
limits, and the hyperdrive collapsed in on itself, dropping ship and
pilot back into real space. The ordeal made him want to curl up into
a fetal position and throw up for a while, but regardless of how he
felt he still had to give that warning, so he looked at the read-outs.
The sublight engines weren't functioning, the stabilizers weren't
operational and, oh, the remnants of the hyperdrive were actually on
fire, Taar thought in a detached sort of way. As the sound of the
sprays coming on filled the ship, Taar tried to figure out where he
was. No sign of Borg, he thought with some relief, which probably
meant he'd made it through the wormhole. He added this maneuver to
the list of things to never, ever, do again, and started checking over
the rest of the ship.
Most of the panels were off-line, including, he noted with
frustration, the communications array. Fortunately, he still had the
shuttle's emergency homing beacon, assuming he was even in the right
galaxy for the Empire to pick him up. But, like so many other things
on this trip, it was his only option. He didn't have the kind of
training to fix this, and even if he did, he doubted he even had the
right tools, what with everything being sucked out of the shuttle. He
activated the homing beacon, sat back, and waited. Just to be safe,
he gripped the small holdout blaster he'd found in an equipment
locker. "Hopefully it wouldn't come to that," he thought again, but
then thought, "only if my luck changes."

Talon Karrde was shaken awake by Roolith. "What is it?" he
groaned. He'd been up the previous thirty-six hours and was really
hoping to grab some kind of sleep before they hit the main trade
route. You had to be careful even out here on the rim; the Empire was
a lot swifter with their "justice" then they tended to be in the core.
"I think you'll want to hear this, Karrde," Roolith said,
flipping the comm switch. The voice was deafening.
"We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ship.
You will be assimilated; resistance is futile."
"What the hell was that?" Karrde demanded. He activated the
panel nearby, and two cube-shaped ships appeared; the scale made his
jaw drop. "What do you say we get out of here," he said, hopping out
of his cabin.
"I think the crew will back you up on that, Talon," Roolith
said, following him. Karrde paused as he saw the ships through the
viewscreen, and he wondered if his luck had finally run out.



CHAPTER IX.

Two days after the alliance had become official, Picard and
Seven were escorted aboard the Incaciad to meet with Admiral Thrawn in
person. No one had said why, but there was a grim atmosphere that was
impossible to ignore. The armored personnel, whom Picard had learned
were called "stormtroopers" -bringing up some rather nasty images from
his studies of the twentieth century- led him to the conference room
where Thrawn and several other high-ranking officers were waiting.
Thrawn motioned Picard and Seven to take a seat.
"I'm afraid we have some rather unpleasant business to
discuss," Thrawn began. "As you may or may not have known, the Empire
has been at war with the Borg for over a month now."
"Yes," Picard said, his voice even, "we noticed Borg weapon
signatures on one of your ships when we first arrived. We'd been
waiting to hear what exactly was going on."
Thrawn sighed and continued. "We sent a fleet of ships in to
deal with the Borg, to cause them some damage and show them we weren't
to be trifled with. Unfortunately, according to Lt. Taar," he nodded
in the direction of the scruffy looking gentlemen across the table
from Picard, "it seems we underestimated them. The Borg have defeated
our forces and assimilated our people."
Picard leaned forward in his chair, his mouth open in shock.
The Borg with Imperial technology, he thought. That was the worst
possible scenario he could imagine. "How did this happen?" Lt. Taar
went over what he had seen of the climactic battle between the Borg
and the Imperial fleet, of its annihilation, his near capture, and his
witnessing the destruction of Base One.
"Admiral Piett made a fatal error," Thrawn said. "He moved
the entire fleet in to bombard the planet, when the task could have
been completed by a single star destroyer. That led to their being
trapped."
Picard looked to Seven, his confusion evident. "The
hyperdrive can't be activated near a large gravitational field," she
explained. "I would surmise that the fleet was unable to activate the
drive and escape, and was then assimilated."
"Correct," Thrawn said. "And immediately they knew all that
we do, that's why they took over Base One."
"Yes, it seems your little war has backfired," Picard
commented despite himself. However much he wanted this alliance,
mixing things up with the Borg was always the last thing he wanted to
do.
"Our little war," Thrawn replied, "remember, we're allies
now."
"Yes, we will assist in whatever way we can," Picard added
diplomatically.
"Good, that's why I asked you to come to this meeting. We
need to know some things about the Borg."
Picard nodded slowly. "You mean our first hand experience as
Borg."
"Yes," Thrawn said. "We have tactical data. What we need is
someone with your unique experience. You two were both assimilated by
the Collective. You should be able to give me some insight into their
ways of thinking."
Picard let out an exasperated sigh. "I don't really know..."
"What do you wish to know?" Seven asked.
"The Borg have had access to much of our military technology,"
Thrawn said. "I've no doubt they've learned to use our hyperdrive for
certain, which means that their speed and range will be greater than
what it has been in the past. What I want to know is, will they come
through the wormhole, or continue to conquer in their own galaxy?"
Seven considered for a moment. "Did the members of your
personnel who were assimilated know of our involvement with you?"
Thrawn looked over at the man identified as Lt. Taar. "I
didn't know," Taar said. "But I can't speak for the senior officers."
"In either event," Picard said, "the personnel on the space
station, Base One, knew of our arrival. If the Borg assimilated them,
they'd know of our involvement."
Seven considered it all for a short time. "There is a small
possibility the Borg may attempt to assimilate the Federation since
the Borg know they possess similar technology." Seven paused for a
few seconds. "However, the most likely course of action would be to
come through the wormhole. They would perceive the Empire as an
immediate threat and attempt assimilation and/or extermination."
Quite the diplomat, Picard thought. "We'll have to warn
Starfleet," he said.
Thrawn shook his head while he thought. "Unwise captain. If
the Borg were planning on invading our galaxy they'd mass a fleet of
cubes on the other side, you'd never get through to reach them, and
your communications would take years to get to Earth."
"I understand the risks," Picard said. "But it's my duty to
warn the Federation of any threat, especially one from the Borg."
"I can't risk losing your ship, captain," Thrawn said. "You
and your people have been at this longer than we have-"
"Yes, which is why I've no interest in seeing us lose now,"
Picard said sharply. "All thanks to a war you started."
Thrawn leaned forward towards Picard. "We have lost ten star
destroyers, a space station, hundreds of thousands of lives, and our
greatest ship against an enemy that you introduced us to. If not for
the Federation, there would have been no war."
Picard paused. "My apologies, admiral. You're right, of
course. What do you propose?"
Thrawn signaled several of his aides, who got up and began
walking out. "I've had thirty Imperial Dreadnaughts on standby in
case of such an event. They'll be arriving here in twelve hours. I've
already evacuated Napuli, Cordis, Trelam, and issued warnings to all
systems within five hundred light-years. We'll be expecting
reinforcements from throughout the galaxy should a total invasion
begin. I'm also planning on speaking with the Emperor directly on
this."
"Are you planning to blockade the wormhole?"
"No," Thrawn said. "That would be a waste of resources in a
fruitless effort. The Borg will overrun us, assimilate the system
anyway, and then proceed to attack the rest of the galaxy, and that's
assuming they haven't already passed through the wormhole. No
captain, our best course of action is to remain here and await
reinforcements to ensure our victory. Now, if you'll excuse me,
captain, I have to speak with the Emperor."
Picard and Seven were escorted back to the shuttle. The
Incaciad had their shields up all the time now; now it was obvious
that it was in case the Borg returned. Seven took the controls,
Picard lounged back in thought. "What chance does the Federation
have?" he asked quietly.
"None, captain," Seven said. "The Borg's first failure was in
failing to consider that you may infiltrate non-critical systems yet
cause a critical failure. The second was assuming that since that was
the sole cause of their initial failure, that simply sending a cube
and avoiding such infiltration was all that was required. If the Borg
come again, it will be in superior numbers, captain, and even if the
Federation does succeed, the hyperdrive will allow the next wave to
come before you can recover from the first. If the Borg choose to
assimilate the Federation, warning or no, they cannot be stopped."
Picard tried to ignore the tightness in his chest, but it
wasn't easy. "How could they have done this so quickly?" he mused.
"It took Starfleet weeks to determine how to set up the hyperdrive,
and that was with one already integrated into our ships."
"They are Borg," Seven said, as if it said all. Sadly, it
did.
"How would you feel if Earth was assimilated?" Picard asked.
Seven looked over at him with that penetrating gaze of hers.
"I assume that question is intended to determine where my loyalties
lie."
"It would make me feel better to know you have a personal
stake in it," Picard said. Seven opened her mouth to reply, then
turned away. "I assume you don't."
"I- I had spent over two years with Voyager," Seven said
finally, still not looking at him. "Were the Borg to invade, they
would no doubt be part of those forced to defend Earth. It would
be... unpleasant to learn that any of them had been assimilated."
"So you do care, at least about them."
"I would not wish to see harm come to them," Seven said. "If
I may, captain, I find this conversation uncomfortable, and wish to
terminate it."
"Very well," Picard said, putting the information aside for
later consideration. He was wondering if there was more to his
advisor than her appearance suggested.

A large gathering had formed in the recreation area on board
Home One. Occasionally, a whispered comment was made, followed by
several noises for quiet. The rebels looked carefully at both sides,
trying to guess who would make the wrong move, and who would take
advantage of the other's momentary weakness.
Han slowly looked back from his hand to the man across the
table. Lando's face betrayed nothing, and the smuggler slowly removed
a card from his hand and placed it beneath the deck, replacing it with
one from the top. Now it was Lando's turn to consider his options.
Finally, he reached forward and drew a card off the top of the deck.
Leia, slowly slid through the crowd to get a good look at the
two men; gamblers, scoundrels, heroes. She shifted over by Wedge, who
had been forced out of the match by a bomb out. Han looked over at
Lando and gave a slight nod, and they both took two card from their
hands and placed them face up on the table. Curious, Leia whispered
to Wedge "What are they doing?" Very quietly, he replied,
"Mandolarian variant. No shifting, and you have to slowly reveal and
commit your hand." Looking back, she saw things were getting even
more interesting. Lando had laid the mistress of coins and the one of
staves, a rather gutsy move, committing him to a rather low card later
on. Han, however, surprised all with a two of staves and the idiot.
All he needed was the three of any suit for the idiot's array, the
highest possible sabacc hand. Acknowledging each other's hands, they
dropped more credits into the pots.
You could actually hear the sound of the cards sliding off the
deck as the game continued. Han continued to replace cards in his
hand, waiting for that game clinching three, while Lando steadily
continued, soon dropping a four of coins. Both men drew one more
card, and Lando announced that he was finished. Triumphantly, he
placed his final card: the five of sabers. A few gasps of surprise
were heard as they counted them up: a perfect sabacc. Lando had this
hand clinched, unless Han held a three.
Slowly Han reached out and placed his card on the bottom of
the deck. His fingers stopped just as he reached for the top card.
"I'll give you one chance to back out right now," he said to Lando.
Lando remained stone-faced, and Han shrugged to the crowd and
confidently flipped the top card onto the table. The crowd stared in
utter surprise. Han smiled and looked down at the card and then at
Lando, and then quickly back at the cards again. The queen of air and
darkness, giving Han a score of zero, which not only cost him the
match, but meant he had to double the value of the pot. Leia tried
not to laugh as Han looked back between his cards and Lando and his
cards again. As the crowd dispersed Han picked up the deck. "Are
there any threes in here," he mumbled, shuffling through the pile
while Lando laughed.
"Nice try," Lando said, looking through the pot, "That's quite
a sum you owe. Maybe I should just take your ship."
"Sure, no problem," Han said as he continued his quest for a
three, "would you like me to throw in my Wookiee too?" A growl from
nearby answered him. "Take it easy, Chewie, I'm only kidding."
Disgusted, he tossed the deck back on the table. "This isn't over
yet."
"Of course not," Lando said, "I don't have my money."
"Not to interrupt this display of respectability and
selflessness," Leia said, "but you're both needed at an important
meeting." Leia hadn't oversold it; Mon Mothma, Admiral Ackbar,
General Madine, and General Riekken were all on hand, and no one else.
This must have been something pretty big.
"I'm afraid that things in the Napuli System have gotten out
of hand," Mon Mothma said in a rather worried tone. "It seems the
aliens called the Borg have invaded our galaxy."
"We're sure about this?" Han asked.
General Madine spoke up. "One of my agents spoke with a Talon
Karrde; he encountered the Borg on his way back from a smuggling run
to Trelam II. The sensor data he provided confirms that it is the
Borg."
"Oh... great," Han said darkly.
"I want you all to appreciate the significance of this," Mon
Mothma said. "Not only did they overwhelm Lord Vader's hand-picked
fleet of star destroyers and the Executor, they destroyed an Imperial
battlestation that guards the wormhole. They are a grave threat."
"According to our sources," General Madine said, "the Empire
is massing a fleet of starships to attempt to destroy the Borg in one
stroke. They won't be in place for at least a week."
"Have we made our decision?" Lando asked. "Are we joining
forces with the Empire to fight the Borg?"
"Not at this time," Mon Mothma answered. "Though if they seem
to be overwhelming the Imperial fleet we may be forced into that
position. We cannot allow our worlds to be overrun by these
invaders."
Admiral Ackbar spoke up at this point. "There is, however, an
opportunity here that we could take advantage of. With the
battlestation out of the way there are no Imperial forces to stop us
from using the wormhole to go to the other galaxy."
"Well, yeah," Han said, "and with good reason. These Borg are
probably all over the system."
"Yes, but they're not concerned with guarding the wormhole,"
Mon Mothma said. "They more than likely are expecting an attack by
the Imperial fleet, not an attempt to sneak past them and into the
other galaxy. With surprise on our side and a little planning, we
should be able to get through the wormhole safely."
"Why would we want to go there?" Han asked. "What's so
important on the other side?"
General Madine hesitated, but spoke up. "We don't know.
That's why we need people to go there, to find out what the Empire is
involved in. There's got to be more to this galaxy than the
Federation and the Borg. We could find new allies, or at least those
who can tell us more about our new enemies."
General Riekken finally began speaking. "I've been asked to
organize the effort to establish a small base in the other galaxy.
Work's already begun on that, but what we'll also need in large
amounts are courage and," he floundered slightly, "your unique
talents."
Lando and Han looked at one another and back at the general.
"Look," Han said, "I'm willing to put my neck on the line, but I want
to know it's for a good reason."
"You volunteered for the Endor shield mission," Mon Mothma
pointed out. "That was a far greater risk than this."
Leia looked with some surprise at Han, but he pretended not to
notice. "Yeah, a risk, but a risk that could've ended this war in one
fell swoop. I don't mind risking my life for that, but risking it by
running past cyborgs and heading for the unknown just for the sake of
reconnaissance, that seems a little unnecessary."
"General Solo, if you don't want to go..." Mon Mothma began.
"I'm not saying that," Han insisted, "I'm just saying if we're
going to do this, we better do it right and we better be doing it for
a good reason. We'll be splitting up our forces, we'll be risking our
people, our resources..."
"We've considered this, Solo," Ackbar said, "and we've decided
it's worth the effort."
"Fine," Lando said, "so who's all going?"
"You and General Solo will be responsible for information
gathering," Riekken said. "Her highness," he nodded, indicating Leia,
"will be responsible for diplomacy, should it be necessary. Commander
Antilles will be responsible for fighter co-ordination, and Colonel
Derlin will be responsible for base security. I'll be in command of
the overall mission."
"Fine, when do we leave?" Han asked.
"Five days. That should give us plenty of time to get
everything assembled, and still beat the Imperials to the wormhole."
"The Empire's a piece of cake," Lando said. "It's the Borg
we've got to worry about."

The Emperor looked with some distaste at Thrawn as he appeared
in the hologram. He would have been such a great leader if he weren't
so....alien. "What is it, admiral?"
"It seems Piett and his fleet have failed, my lord," Thrawn
said. "He failed to follow instructions, and now he and all our
Imperial forces in the Milky Way have been either destroyed or
assimilated."
The Emperor felt his anger swelling, both at the situation,
and Thrawn's indirect implication that the Emperor's decision was
responsible. "How could this have happened?" Thrawn began to
explain, but the Emperor stopped him. "Nevermind! What have you done
to resolve this?"
"For the moment, I've activated our reserve forces," Thrawn
said. "But I don't believe it will be enough. Without greater
support, we may not succed..." Thrawn looked away for a few seconds.
"Apologies, your highness, it seems the Borg have arrived. They're on
a direct course for-"
Suddenly Thrawn's image vanished, and in its place stood a
large cybernetic being. The Emperor looked at it with disgust at
first, then recognized the face beneath the implants. Captain
Lennox?! The Emperor knew he was part of Vader's fleet; rather
independent thinker but an effective leader. "I speak for the Borg,"
the hologram said. "We have come to bring you perfection. Your
biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own.
Your culture will..."
The captain's neck began to twitch and convulse and he stopped
speaking. His neck began to visibly contract and finally, the man who
once was Captain Lennox fell out of range of the holotransmitter, the
sound of cracking trachea indicating death. The Emperor released his
grip as the image of Admiral Thrawn returned.
"What are your orders, my lord?"
Hatred burned through the Emperor at the gall of these aliens
to invade his domain. "Your orders, admiral," his voice just above a
whisper, "are to wipe the Borg from the face of the galaxy!"



CHAPTER X.

"We've got it sealed. You're clear to depart."
"Thank you," Han said, trying to keep the sarcasm out of his
voice. They'd spent the better part of an hour waiting to depart
while a mechanic tried to disconnect the Falcon from the freighter,
some kind of ruptured sealant hose. Han resisted the urge to punch it
and eased easily out of the main fleet to rendezvous with the "orphan
fleet" as it had been nicknamed. Leia took a seat in one of the nav
computer chairs while they closed in. Han had to admit that he was
rather impressed. The Alliance had committed a full eight squadrons
of fighters, a dozen Corvettes, nineteen transports, eight freighters,
and even two Star Cruisers to this mission. He saw X-wings, A-wings,
B-wings, even a squadron of the older Y-wings, all prepared for the
journey where there be dragons, Borg-shaped dragons, anyway.
"Riekken's not using any half-measures, huh?" Han remarked to Leia.
A Trilon Aggressor slipped over to the Falcon's port. "Here I
thought you were having second thoughts," Lando chided him over the
comm.
Han scowled at the comm. "There was a little mechanical
trouble, not a big deal."
Lando's laugh could be heard over the comm. "Han, did you
crash into a mirror warehouse? Your luck is downright abysmal."
Han ignored him and made some course corrections. He turned
as he felt Leia tap his shoulder. She was holding up a small pair of
dice on a string. "I found these in a maintenance locker," she said
as she handed them to Han. "I guess one of the engineers took them
down when he was repairing something on Yavin and forgot to put them
back."
Han looked at them for a moment and then gave Leia a lopsided
grin. He turned and fastened them to their old place above the
cockpit viewport, then keyed the comm. "I have a feeling my luck is
about to get a whole lot better," he said looking towards Leia, who
smiled at him.
"I hope so," Lando replied, "cause you still owe me three
hundred credits." There was silence for a few moments. "Be careful,
these Borg sound pretty nasty."
"Hey," Han said, trying to raise the mood, "it's me." And on
General Riekken's signal, the fleet slipped off into hyperspace.

Picard finished looking over the communication from the
Imperials as the turbolift pulled to a halt. The words took his
breath away. He realized he was still standing there and stepped out.
"What's the status of our defenses, Number One?" he asked, trying to
keep his mind focused in a productive direction.
Riker broke off his conversation with Lt. Travis. "We've
programmed a random series of modulations into the shields which
should be somewhat resistant to the Borg. All torpedo bays have been
prepped for a full confrontation, we've run a level three diagnostic
on all weapons systems. Mr. LaForge has made some modifications which
will increase warp core output by eleven percent, but we'll have to
double our maintenance checks and need to power down in a few days to
do some stress repairs, but every watt will help." Picard nodded.
"Lt. Travis and I were also discussing the possibility of using the
shuttlecrafts to fly close to the cube and transport explosives onto
key parts of the Borg cube."
"There are no key parts," Picard said, "no weak spots to
exploit." He sighed slightly. "People call the Borg a hive, but they
are more like a hydra, cut off one head, and there's another waiting
for you." He stood in silence for a moment. "Perhaps resistance
really is futile," he said under his breath.
Riker stood quietly for some time. Finally he spoke.
"Captain, I'd like to discuss something in your ready room."
As the door closed Picard spoke to Riker. "So, tell me what
is so important?"
"Permission to speak freely, sir?"
"If this is about the Empire, Will, this is a bad ti-"
"It's not about the Empire, sir, it's about you." Riker
hesitated. "Captain, you've just so much admitted that we can't
defeat the Borg. Right now, on that bridge."
Picard slowly eased into his chair. "Your point?" he asked
coolly.
Riker stood in stunned silence. "All I know is that the
Captain Picard I trained under never shared his doubts with the crew,"
Riker said, leaning forward on the table. "The Captain Picard I know
would never consider that his crew would fail."
"I'm not saying this crew will fail," Picard said much louder
than necessary. He quickly shifted his view away from Riker. "But
what is the point, Will? Even if we do defeat them, what then? They
will come again, and again, and again, and eventually they will wear
us down and we will lose." He sighed. "I'm sorry. The report from
the Empire indicates the Borg have eighty-seven cubes here. I think
of that, and then I reflect on my conversation with Seven, about how
with hyperdrive the Borg are now living on our doorstep... it's opened
my eyes to just how dangerous the situation is. We've been living on
borrowed time, Will, and we went about our business as if we would
always outsmart the Borg, always know just what to do. We've been
lucky, twice, and yet we act as if our victory is assured."
"We have prepared ourselves, Jean-luc, as best as we possibly
can," Riker said.
"Did we?"
"And be true to what we are?" Will asked. "Absolutely, sir.
If we'd let panic influence our judgment, we'd have stopped being the
Federation and started being the Dominion."
Picard nodded. "That's why you have a problem with our
mission... with the Empire."
Riker paused. "It's not just that," he said. "These
transmissions we've received, word of the rebellion, I'm not sure
we're on the right side here, sir."
Picard folded his hands and leaned towards him. "I've heard
some of those transmissions. I'll admit that some are disturbing.
There's this one here," Picard pulled out a PADD, "yes, a report of
warships bombarding a defenseless settlement to try and placate the
entire region. The order came all the way from the top."
"As I said, sir, there's reason for concern."
"Oh, wait," Picard said, "I'm mistaken. This is a broadcast
made by the Maquis three years ago about the Federation." He flicked
his eyes up at Will. "Did we, in fact, bombard defenseless Maquis
settlements?"
"Sir, I just-"
"I understand, Will," Picard said, "and I do take this very
seriously. But I think we have to look at the situation objectively.
So far all our involvements with the Empire have shown that they are
reasonable beings. They've made no gestures of hostility towards us,
and we both know that with their speed and firepower they could
overwhelm the Federation almost as quickly as the Borg can."
"Why bother, when they can acquire the Federation without
firing a shot?" Riker held up his hands in a placating gesture. "I
know I wasn't the biggest fan of the Empire before, but these
transmissions concern me. First it was the Republic, now it's the
Empire. That doesn't strike me as being an improvement."
"Come on, Will," Picard said. "You know that between the
British Empire and the People's Republic of China, it was the empire
that was the more free and tolerant civilization. They're just words,
Will."
"And the rebellion?" Riker asked.
"The rebellion," Picard said sharply, "is by definition not
our problem. The prime directive is crystal clear on that. We cannot
involve ourselves in the internal affairs of the Empire, and that
includes their rebel forces. Now I promise you that when this is
settled we'll look hard at the situation, but right now we have the
deadliest Borg fleet ever assembled within spitting distance of us,
and I'd rather focus our energies on our enemy rather than our ally,
thank you. That will be all."
Riker's frustration was obvious, but he nodded and showed
himself out. Picard turned back to his report, then shook his head
again. Eighty-seven... if every power in the alpha quadrant united,
could they stop even a tenth of that number? Love them or hate them,
Will, he thought, we need the Empire in the frightening place the
galaxy had become.

Delric Taar had spent most of his time since his rescue being
debriefed, but thankfully he'd finally had a chance to clean up and
get some real sleep. It had done wonders for his constitution, and
he'd needed it. The grand admiral wanted Taar to fully update the
squadron commanders on the fighter tactics employed against the Borg,
and where they did and didn't work, and that had required a lot of
thought and energy, but his brush with death, and his thought of all
the dead or assimilated pilots, gave him more than adrenaline ever
could hope to accomplish.
Taar entered Thrawn's office; it was dark, and for a moment he
was worried he was disturbing something. Thrawn turned away from the
glow of a hologram and looked at him. "Yes, lieutenant?"
With proper military steps, Taar marched into the room and
held out the datapad. "The captain ordered me to present the fighter
reports to you personally, sir," he said. Thrawn reached out and took
the datapad; Taar stood at parade rest while he looked through it.
Thrawn's alien features looked even odder in the low light provided by
the hologram, but Taar had heard enough from the other officers to
know not to let that affect his thinking. Thrawn was top of the line,
or he wouldn't be here.
"Are we ready to launch an attack?" Thrawn asked, not looking
up from the datapad.
Taar hesitated. "The commanders have been briefed, but they
haven't had enough time to run battle simulations with their men, and
many of the tactics are still only theoretical."
Thrawn continued reading the datapad, apparently not
listening. "It's the area of space where we'll be launching our
attack in two days," he remarked. How had he known Taar was looking
it over out of the corner of his eye when he wasn't even looking?
"I've been positioning our fleet for an attack on the Borg there."
Thrawn smiled. "How does it look?"
Taar was silent for several moments. "Are you asking me my
opinion, sir?"
"Do you not understand what a question is, lieutenant?" Thrawn
replied.
Delric, you idiot! he thought. You say "it looks very good,
sir," and nod when told to. But he had the horrible habit of thinking
and not keeping his mouth shut when confronted with a bad idea. Well,
you're in this deep, stupid, might as well speak your mind. The worst
Thrawn could do was put you on the front line in the next battle.
"Well sir," he began, "it seems from this model that the attack is
rather two-dimensional in nature, when it would be more effective if
we made a sizeable attack along vectors here and here," he pointed at
various parts of the hologram. "Also, the Dreadnaughts are in a
position to take heavier damage than if they were intermixed with the
star destroyers here. Of course, that's just my opinion sir."
Thrawn chuckled quietly. "Yes, and your opinion is quite
correct, too... except for the part about the fleet coming from here,"
he paused, "clearly this would be the better approach vector
considering the motion of the fleet."
Taar hesitated; well, in for a penny, in for a pound.
"Actually, sir, wouldn't we run a greater risk of hitting our own
ships with friendly fire?"
Thrawn clapped his hands slightly. "Well done. You've
demonstrated a rather keen grasp of ...."
The comm buzzed and a voice sounded. "Admiral, Captain Picard
wishes to speak to you, he claims it's urgent."
Thrawn sighed. "Very well." The image of the space battle
flattened into a two dimensional image of the Enterprise bridge and
Captain Picard.
"Admiral Thrawn," Picard said, "our long range sensors have
detected a group of ships entering the Napuli System. We've
identified some Nebulon Frigates, but the rest are unfamiliar to us."
Taar looked at Thrawn with some surprise. "The rebels..." he
muttered.
Thrawn ignored him. "I'm aware of the ships, captain. You do
realize that we have sensors of our own."
"Of course," Picard replied, "but I was concerned that they
may need some assistance. That is the heart of Borg space in this
galaxy..."
Thrawn shook his head. "It's too soon. Everyone has been
warned to stay away; if the Borg catch them, then that's the price the
pay for underestimating them."
"I understand, admiral," Picard said, but he obviously wasn't
very happy about it. "Enterprise out."
Thrawn sighed again as the image disappeared. "One thing
you'll learn dealing with the Federation," he commented to Taar, "is
that they want to solve every problem in the universe, and they want
to do it right now. They're a society of idealistic children." Taar
said nothing; he'd had pretty much no experience with the Federation
and frankly could care less. The Borg were the only thing on his mind
lately. "I need someone with experience to have the pilots trained
and ready to fight the Borg in two days. Are you up to the task?"
Taar brought himself to full attention. "Absolutely. They'll
be ready, sir."
Thrawn replaced the hologram with an image of some type of
statue. "Very good, major. I suggest you get started immediately."
Taar saluted and walked out. A promotion and a chance for
vengeance on the Borg. This was his lucky day.

This is not my lucky day, thought Han.
The fleet had dropped out of hyperspace right on course, a
short distance from the wormhole. Unfortunately, so was a Borg cube.
"All fighters," came the orders from the Liberty, Riekken's flagship,
"provide cover for the transports." The rest was cut off by Leia and
Threepio as Han put the Falcon into a series of crazy maneuvers while
Borg weapons tried to catch them.
"We are the Borg. You will be assimilated. Resistance is
futile."
"Confident bunch, aren't they," Han grunted putting the ship
through several evasive maneuvers.
"We're doomed!" Threepio moaned from the other navigator
chair.
"Don't start!" Han warned. He yanked the Falcon into another
tight turn as a nearby X-Wing was caught in a tractor beam, slowly
pulled towards the cube.
"We've just got to keep them distracted for another minute,"
Leia said.
"Yeah, well, a lot can happen to us in a minute," Han said
with a nervous edge in his voice as he turned some knobs above him.
The Falcon's lasers fired, but they stopped short of the cube. "Or
very very little," he said, jerking away as a Borg weapon struck a
nearby B-Wing. The Liberty was also running cover now, firing its
heavy guns at the cube, but it couldn't stay for long. It could beat
one cube without breaking a sweat, but every minute wasted trying to
engage it was another that allowed some of his friends to get closer.
Chewie suddenly growled something at Han. "What? Where?" Han asked
frantically. Chewie pointed and the Falcon came around, and Leia saw
the Trillon Agressor caught in the Borg tractor beam.

Luke, Lando's in trouble. Luke didn't hear it, but he heard
her words in his mind.
I'm on my way. "Hang on, Artoo," he sound out loud as pushed
the X-Wing to full throttle. He closed in, but Han was already there,
and two quick concussion missiles vaporized the tractor emitter. Luke
adjusted his course slightly and fired a few shots on the surface for
all the good it did. But the closer he got, the nagging sensation he
had was growing worse and worse, and he realized that what he'd
thought was worry was actually the sensation of the Borg. They felt
completely wrong. Each was unique, and yet each thought and acted as
one. It was like the optical illusion that could be a young woman or
an old hag depending on how you looked at it, and it was making his
head hurt.
The cube shook under a particularly devastating attack from
the star cruiser, and for a moment the many thoughts pulled together.
With so many thinking the same thing, it would have been impossible
for Luke not to pick up on it. "This is Commander Skywalker," Luke
said. "All available fighters, form up on me, Attack Pattern Delta."
The ships pulled away and formed a line behind Luke like a string of
pearls. Luke led the way around in a wide arc. "Arm your proton
torpedoes," he ordered. Got that, Leia?

Yeah, I got it. "Han, there's a weak spot in their defenses,"
Leia said. "Follow Luke in and fire your missiles."
Han's hands were flying over the controls. "How can you
possibly know that?" he asked. He saw Leia shift uncomfortably in her
seat. "Forget I said anything," he said, altering course. "I hope
you've got a good feeling about this." Luke's X-wing swooped in
first, firing his torpedoes and pulling up so the one behind him could
do the same. One pair wasn't enough to penetrate, but the endless
barrage opened the path for the ones near the back -including the
Falcon's missiles- to get through. They slammed into the opening in
the cube, and instantly explosions ripped through various parts of the
ship. Han looked stunned for a second as pulled up, then grinned.
"See, I told you," he said to Chewie, "no problems." Chewie barked a
reply. "So, who's the lucky one now, hey Lando?"
"Me," Lando replied, "lucky that you showed up. Thanks."
Han brought the Falcon around and headed towards the wormhole
with the rest of the fleet. "Let's hope we don't have to try this
again real soon, okay?" And with that, the orphan fleet left the
galaxy behind.


[End Act 1]

[mdmost]

Seriously?

[Mr.Wizard]

WORLDS WITHOUT END REDUX
Act II

CHAPTER XI

"Well, admiral," Picard said under his breath as his eyes
slowly scanned the fleet. "I see you take the Borg seriously." He
stood on the observation deck of the Enterprise, and as he lost count
he realized why Thrawn had put the Enterprise at the rear of the fleet
for the coming operations. It looked like he'd just have to take the
reports word for it: Two hundred warships, and this was only one of
five fleets Thrawn had assembled to engage the Borg. No, not engage,
annihilate. This fleet was here to remove all trace of the Borg from
this galaxy, and as Picard looked over the hordes of Imperators,
Interdictors, Victorys, and Dreadnaughts, he was much more confident
in their ability to pull that off. The worrying of the past few days
-of the Borg descending on Earth and consuming it- faded. With the
Empire standing with them, Picard had little doubt that the Federation
could hold back the Borg indefinitely. The nightmare would remain
just that, the ethereal constructs of the paranoid.
But we still have a part to play in this, Picard thought. We
can't be children, expecting the Empire to protect us from everything.
That would open the door to a whole new host of problems. Picard
turned away from the view and entered the turbolift, emerging onto the
bridge. He paused, but this time by design. He saw his crew, and
knew that they were prepared to fight with all their convictions, and
he was proud of them. They didn't have mile-long ships with massive
guns, but they were prepared to stand their ground with whatever they
did have, even though most had faced the Borg at least twice.
Commander Riker left the captain's chair and took his own seat as
Picard came down. Seven was still on the bridge in Troi's place.
Hopefully she'd speak up if she saw a weakness in the Borg's defenses.
Picard paused as the thought fully percolated in his mind, and he felt
some embarrassment at it. Of course she would, he thought. She's
proven that she's on the Federation's side in this, and she's
demonstrated how valuable an asset she is. Her initial reports on
Imperial technology had been almost as insightful as Data's, but much
easier to understand. Despite the implants, despite her mannerisms,
she was human, and he was getting a little frustrated with himself
that he was still distrustful of her.
"The admiral seems to have quite a party planned," Riker
remarked.
"Just wait until the guest of honor arrives," Picard replied.
He switched on the ship's intercom from his chair. "All hands, this
is the captain. As you know, we are about to once again come face to
face with the Borg. Three times the Enterprise has faced them, and
every time we have resisted them. I am certain, that with this ship
and your dedication, that this time will be no different. While we
have not been assigned a primary position in this battle, we are still
nevertheless going to be called upon to ensure that they are stopped,
and that they are driven back. I know that your actions today will do
just that, and give credit to the name 'Enterprise.'" He keyed it
off. "That confident enough for you, Number One?" he asked under his
breath.
"That certainly sounded like Jean-luc Picard to me, sir,"
Riker said with a smile.
"Captain," Lt. Travis said, "Admiral Thrawn has given the
order to advance."
"Helm, you have the coordinates," Picard said. "Engage." And
the armada vanished into hyperspace.

"Ships approaching Grid 812 of Unimatrix 01 prime. Diverting
ships to intercept...."
"Ships approaching Grid 1006 of Unimatrix 02 prime. Diverting
ships to..."
"Ships approaching Grid 127 of Unimatrix 01 prime. Diverting
shi..."
"Ships approaching Grid 573 of Unimatrix 02 pri..."
"Ships approaching Grid 403 of Unimatrix 01 prime. Diverting
ships to intercept. Engage and assimilate."

The Enterprise dropped out of hyperspace along with the rest
of the fleet. "Red alert," Riker ordered, and the lights shifted
accordingly.
"The Borg?" Picard asked Data.
"I am detecting thirty-two cubes in this area, captain," Data
reported.
"On screen," Picard said. The picture shifted, and there they
were, as many as he saw in his nightmares. But this time, they were
the ones who were on the defensive, as the Imperial fleet moved in to
intercept. The Borg, as always, ignored the danger, and rushed to
engage. "Hold position here," Picard ordered.
"Load all torpedo bays," Riker said. "Stand by weapons."
"Shuttle crews, stand by for launch on the captain's order,"
Seven instructed. Riker had shown Picard the results of several
simulations on the idea of using shuttles to beam explosives onto
cubes. They had shown some success with it, so Picard had them make
the preparations, although if the Borg were still around enough to
need it against this armada it was doubtful it'd make a difference.
"Fleets 2 through 5 have reported, sir," Lt. Travis
interjected, "They've engaged the Borg."
Picard nodded, and watched as the final engagement began.

Major Taar stood at his post at fighter tactical on board the
Incaciad. "All fighters, stand by for launch," he ordered, carefully
examining the positions of the fleet and the Borg cubes on his
display. He tapped his lips a couple times, then hit the comm.
"Squadron commanders, you are to engage cubes eighteen through twenty.
Primary target remains tractor beams, secondary target, beam weapon
emplacements. Sensors, torpedo emplacements, are targets of
opportunity." It was impossible not to smile as he looked at how
overwhelmed the Borg were. "Launch all fighters."

Anticipation was high on the bridge of the Incaciad as the
Borg closed in to optimal range. Thrawn stood silent, still, watching
and noting everything they did. In the background, a junior officer
was counting down the seconds until optimal range would be met. At
six seconds, he spoke. "Captain, instruct the Derilux and Phalanx to
activate on my command," he ordered.
No one knew the details, but everyone knew that Thrawn had
been up to something secretive on the two Interdictors. Hopefully it
was something special, because the Borg entered optimal weapon range.
"Now captain," Thrawn said with the casualness of a man who
could bombard paradise with neither a smile nor a tear, but the calm
voice of necessity.

Despite the overwhelming advantage, there was a gnawing fear
in Picard's guts as he saw the Borg fleet grow larger and larger on
the viewscreen. When the cry came, he literally jumped.
It had come from Seven. She'd fallen out of her chair and was
screaming in pain. "Turn it off!" she wailed.
Picard was about to speak when Travis spoke up. "Sir, all
sensors are down! We've got nothing across the board!"
"Mr. Data?" Picard said as he turned to his second officer.
"Electromagnetic sensors appear to still be functioning," Data
said. "I'm re-routing to tactical."
"Medical emergency," Riker started to say over the comm, but
the sudden feedback was almost deafening.
"What the devil is going on?" Picard demanded, but then he
looked at Seven, and it all clicked into place.
"Security, bring Seven of Nine to Sickbay," Riker ordered.
"Belay that," Picard said, still watching her where she lay.
"Take her to the brig."
"Captain!" Seven wailed. "Please!"
"Have Dr. Crusher meet her there, but keep an eye on her,"
Picard said.
"Sir-" Riker began.
"Commander, monitor the status of the battle," Picard said as
two security officers picked Seven up and began carrying her towards
the turbolifts. "I have a feeling the Borg have pulled a rather
crafty turn on us."
"Captain, if-"
"You have the bridge, Number One," Picard said, heading for
the other turbolift. "Mr. Data, see if you can find a way around this
communicator problem. I'll be in the brig, looking for answers."

The fleet slowly closed in on the Borg cubes like a pack of
patient sharks. The cubes moved sluggishly through space, weapons
fire lancing out at the Imperial ships. The star destroyers closed in
and began broadsides, battering the cubes with their turbolasers.
Meanwhile, the fighters flew past the perimeter of the battle and
began engaging the cubes near the center of the Borg fleet. The swarm
of tiny starships began strafing the surface of the cube, while the
ship fired wildly at the small craft. The shots were hopelessly off
target, and one even struck a nearby cube, causing more damage than
the fighters. Taar watched from his station, monitoring the battle.
He did nothing to hide his amusement of this turn of events. "We are
the Empire," he said in barely audible tones. "To resist us is
futile."

Dr. Crusher stopped short as she entered the brig and heard
the screams. "Captain, what's going on?" she demanded as she stormed
over to where two security guards tried to restrain Seven, but with
her Borg enhanced strength it was more like hanging on for dear life.
"Why isn't she in Sickbay?"
"Something's going on with the Borg and I want to know what it
is," Picard said over the din. He turned back to Seven. "Now what
are they doing?" he demanded.
"Please, captain!" she pleaded, clawing at the side of her
face. "Make it stop!"
"Tell me what's going on," he said firmly.
"I don't know!" she wailed. "Please, I don't know..." her
voice descended into sobbing. She thrashed, shaking one of the guards
loose, and Picard put his hand to his phaser. Dr. Crusher pulled out
a hypospray and tried approaching, but he grabbed her arm.
"Captain, she's in pain!" she protested.
"Why?" he demanded. "What are the Borg doing out there?"
Crusher pulled her arm free. "Let me stop her from tearing
her face off and maybe we can find out." She put the hypospray to
Seven's neck, and the ex-Borg collapsed, unconscious. She turned and
glared at Picard. "What's the matter with you?" she demanded, all
thought of rank cast aside.
"Our ship's been sabotaged," Picard said. "And the moment it
began she started acting like this. What I want to know is if the
Borg are using her to try and stop us."
"All right," Crusher said. This was the middle of a fight
with the Borg, who were always ones to pull rabbits out of hats. "I
can try to find that out, but you have to give this some time,
captain."
"Time? For all we know the Imperials are suffering the same
effects! We don't have the luxury of time!"
"Well, captain, would you like the real answer, or should I
make one up, because I can't give you the real one unless you give me
that time!" She pulled out her medical tricorder and began scanning.
"The problem is centered in her frontal lobe, the left hemisphere of
her brain... It's one of her Borg implants," she admitted. "Her
subspace transponder."
"So they are using her," Picard said darkly.
"That's not-" Before she could continue there was a small
beeping sound and one of the displays lit up, revealing Data.
"Captain, due to the interference, I am using the internal..."
"What do you want," Picard interrupted. There was no time for
Data to state the obvious.
"I believe I have found the cause of the problems on board the
ship, captain," Data replied.
"As do I," Picard muttered, looking at Seven's unconscious
form.
"I have analyzed the sensor logs. There was a massive power
surge from two of the Imperial starships just before the problems
began. The Interdictors, sir."
"Your point, Mr. Data."
"Sir, Interdictors produce massive gravitational shadows, that
is what they are designed for. But there are no gravitational
anomalies at this time."
Picard stopped for a moment. "How do you know? The sensors
are off-line."
"I have modified the deflector dish to scan for any evidence
of gravitational anomalies," Data replied. "There are none, sir."
"Fascinating, now what is the point, Mr. Data?"
"Sir," Data continued, eternally patient, "I have noticed the
Borg cubes are not fighting in an efficient manner. Their propulsion
is slow, their weapons often off target, their shields ineffective."
He paused. "I believe the Interdictors have been modified, sir. They
are no longer creating gravitational interference, they are creating
subspace interference; interference on a scale like nothing we have
ever seen."
"So you're saying the Empire's the one doing this to us?"
Picard said incredulously.
"Not intentionally, sir. This is a weapon against the Borg;
we are simply collateral damage, as it were."
Picard was about to reply, but he thought it through. The
gravity projectors generated as much power as a small fleet... and
Thrawn had specifically asked for subspace technology. Yes, it would
be an excellent weapon to use against the Borg, who communicate using
subspace. Oh, it wouldn't be perfect, but it would be a severe
hindrance. Naturally, the side effect would be to overload every
subspace receiver in the area, including-
A sickening sensation crept into his stomach. Including the
one in the skull of Seven of Nine.
Picard held his hand up over his eyes, rubbing his temples.
"Thank you, Mr. Data. Well done." He finally looked back up at
Seven's unconscious form. After everything she'd done, in the end, he
wouldn't let himself trust her. He'd let his own hatred for the Borg
blind him, made him turn on a loyal member of his crew.
"Security," he said, "take her to Sickbay. Doctor, please do
whatever you have to to ease her suffering. I'll be on the bridge."

Thrawn watched as the fleet closed in around the final two
cubes; after the massive damage already inflicted, and his subspace
interdictors, their resistance was negligible. "What are our losses?"
he asked as one of the cubes already began to explode.
"Minimal, sir," Captain Jarrol said, and there was no
mistaking the satisfaction in his tone.
Thrawn nodded and turned to one of his aides. "Order all
fighters back to their ships, and have the fleet prepare to move on to
our next target." Turning back to Jarrol, he asked, "What is the
status of the other fleets?"
"Fleets 2 and 5 have defeated the Borg and are continuing to
the next system," Jarrol reported. "Fleet 4 is still fighting, and
Fleet 3 had to stop to destroy a Borg held planet. They will be
moving on in twenty-seven minutes."
Thrawn nodded and watched the last cube explode. "Alert all
commands," he said, "go to hyperspace."

"Ships approaching Grid 1 of Unimatrix 01 prime. Diverting
all ships to that location. Engage and assimilate."

To a machine, all things can be reduced to numbers.
Forty-three cubes were waiting in the Napuli System when three of the
Imperial fleets arrived, consisting of six hundred thirty-seven
warships and over three thousand fighters. With numbers like that,
the battle lasted less than twenty minutes.
But the survivors weren't machines; they were humans -well,
humanoids- and the victory put a smile on many faces, including that
of Major Taar. It seemed the only one who wasn't smiling was Admiral
Thrawn, who observed the battle almost in the same manner as a
machine, except that he was capable of anticipating the human element
within. "Report," he said.
Jarrol spoke, stifling a yawn. It had been a long engagement.
"All Borg ships destroyed, two Borg planets have been secured, and
bombardment is proceeding; no signs of resistance."
"And the Milky Way?"
"Our scout ships are reporting no sign of the Borg on their
side of the wormhole," Jarrol said.
"Good, we seem to have cleaned up Piett's mess rather nicely,"
Thrawn said, walking off the bridge. He entered the holotheater; the
Emperor soon appeared. He filled him in on the results of the battle.
"Very good, admiral," the Emperor said. "The Borg threat has
been eliminated then?"
"No, your highness," Thrawn said. "We have merely expunged
them from our space. Based on this campaign, I don't believe the Borg
will ever stop. They don't care if they die, they will keep coming
after us and our worlds until one of us is destroyed.... unless..."
"Unless what, admiral?" the Emperor said wearily.
"Unless we destroy the wormhole, your highness," Thrawn said.
"That would ensure the Borg will never return."
"No," the Emperor said sternly. "I will not be denied by some
collection of cybernetic lemmings! Do whatever is necessary to ensure
they do not return, admiral, even if it means exterminating them...
but I will not close the wormhole. There's too much to be gained in
the Milky Way."



CHAPTER XII

Captain Picard waited in his ready room, fooling himself into
thinking he was reading the latest report on the diplomatic front. The
truth was that his mind was too occupied with his own problems to
focus. He'd always known he wasn't perfect, but it was the sort of
"not perfect" that lended itself towards false modesty, rather than
the "not perfect" of "sometimes I'm going to make an inexcusable
mistake, because I'm only human."
"Only human..." He'd boasted of being human before Q, about
how far they'd come. He'd quoted Shakespeare: "in action how like an
angel! in apprehension, how like a god!," he'd said without a trace of
irony. Looking back, his hubris was astonishing. And what had
happened the next time Q arrived? An introduction to a species called
the Borg, and look at what had come of that. Picard had learned the
bitter truth that no matter how much Shakespeare he'd like to throw at
things, they were neither gods nor angels, just mere mortals; that had
been an unpleasant lesson. And then the Borg came again, and that
lesson was far worse. "Evolved," was how he'd always liked to
describe modern humanity; Earth was a paradise. Well, it turned out
to be a fool's paradise, didn't it. Oh, they had patted themselves on
the back for how civilized they were, and then the Dominion came, and
martial law was declared on Earth. The Founders threatened, and the
enlightened humans designed biological weapons to commit genocide.
When push came to shove, when danger threatened, humans did what they
had done in those barbaric, nonsensical days that Picard and the other
Starfleet officers had always arrogantly chuckled about.
But Q brought the Borg... and however much he might seem like
an annoying imp, Picard knew that Q wasn't stupid. It wasn't the
brash action he made it out to be, it was a calculated move to strip
away Picard's delusions that he himself was above that sort of thing.
When the Borg launched their second attack, he'd seen that revenge is
not something you can evolve beyond. When Seven lay on the floor of
his bridge, screaming in agony and begging Picard to help her, he
learned that prejudice and paranoia don't go away because it's given
lip-service. "Commies under the bed," he'd joked in years past about
the backwards twentieth century world, but Starfleet officers looked
with suspicion on one another when the Founders arrived... and Picard
had looked at the weeping girl and knew in his bones she was just a
Borg agent. He wasn't laughing now... no, the only one laughing was
Q, no doubt spouting those words of Shakespeare with all the irony
they were intended to carry. And he had every right to laugh.
The door chimed, and Picard set the PADD down on his desk.
Well, he thought, time to get this over with. "Come," he said.
The door opened and Seven walked in. She took her usual place
in her usual pose. There wasn't the slightest flicker on her face, no
sign in any of her body language that she resented him for what he'd
done. "You wish to see me, captain?" Again, nothing in her voice...
it twisted the knife far worse than anything else she could possibly
say. He was the captain, she was a member of his crew, and that was a
two-way street. She was expected to follow his orders without
question, even into death itself, to trust his judgment always. In
the same way, he needed to demonstrate that that simply wasn't because
of a couple pips on his collar. But he'd failed her. Oh, he'd made
mistakes in the past, and his people had died from it, but this was
different. This time was nothing short than his own failings as a
captain and as a human being, and that made it a bitter pill.
Picard folded his hands and leaned his forehead against them.
"Seven of Nine," he said. "I'm glad to see you've recovered so
quickly," he added, looking up. "To say I owe you an apology would be
a gross understatement."
"You had no way of knowing that it was not a Borg deception,"
Seven said. "Your actions were understandable in light of the gravity
of the situation."
"No, they were not," Picard said. "They were paranoid and
irrational, and I want you to know that I am deeply sorry for what I
said and did... and failed to do."
Seven seemed somewhat uncomfortable. "I... accept your
apology, captain."
"I want you to understand, Seven, that this is no reflection
on you. Your service to both the Enterprise and the Federation has
been exemplary. Please, don't think that this was anyone's failing
but my own. You are a model officer."
"I will take that as a complement, captain, though it would be
difficult to consider myself a model officer since I'm not an actual
member of Starfleet."
Picard paused in mid-reply. "Yes, of course," he said, then
he smiled a little. "But you are very good at giving the impression
that you are."
"I assure you, captain, that it was never my intent-"
"I mean that as a compliment," Picard said. "Despite your
lack of formal training, you do handle the job very well. I've seen
how effectively you give and receive orders, follow through on
protocols."
"Captain Janeway employed rather harsh discipline when I did
not," Seven said. "I assumed that was the norm for Starfleet."
"Well whatever the reason, you would make an excellent
officer... one I would be proud to have as a member of my crew, if
that would interest you."
For perhaps the first time he'd ever seen, Seven seemed at a
loss. She seemed focused on a spot on the floor, but Picard let her
take her time. "The opportunity to receive a commission is
desirable," Seven said eventually. "But I am not accustomed to
working with others."
"You work well with Commander Data," Picard said. "Is it
because he's a machine?"
"No, it's because he's intelligent," Seven said.
Picard had been caught off guard, and a laugh managed to slip
out. "I'm sorry," he said, covering his mouth. "Yes, I suppose
there's that. What you're saying in your round about way is that
starting at the bottom and working your way up isn't suited to you."
"I realize that that would be an affront to other officers who
have worked in the system," Seven said. "But I am not... suited, to
use your term, to serving in the capacity that I have observed from
such positions. If that is the only way, then I'm afraid I must
decline."
"Normally it is," Picard said. "However, given the
circumstances, and your repeatedly exceptional performance, I think we
can work something out. Perhaps chief science officer would be to
your liking?"
"That is a very attractive offer, captain," Seven said, and
her nervousness showed in her voice. "I'd imagine the Enterprise
would remain on the forefront of exploration once our mission is
complete."
"There'd be many things for someone with an insatiable
curiosity to see," Picard said with a smile. "But it's not simply a
matter of handing you a rank badge and shaking your hand. There may
be tests and tasks-"
"I am willing to do whatever is necessary, captain," Seven
said resolutely.
"Good," Picard said, getting up. "And remember: if it's not
to your liking, you can resign whenever you like, or if something else
comes along, take a transfer."
"Why would I do that?"
"Well, new opportunities," Picard said. "Perhaps a post at
the Academy, or a position at the Daystrom Institute... or just
settling down, getting married-"
"Is enduring your humor one of the tests, captain?" Seven
asked.
"Not the romantic type, Seven?" Picard said with a smirk.
"No, captain. I have observed this human social convention
and find it only impairs efficiency."
"Well," Picard said, "that's certainly your prerogative,
Seven, but I'd like to give you two pieces of advice. One is that
you'll find that most of the best things in life impair efficiency,
and the other," and he couldn't help but grin, "is that when it comes
to that particular 'human social convention,' it usually doesn't arise
from conscious choices."
"My subconscious is also not the romantic type," Seven said.
"Noted," Picard said, leading the way out onto the bridge.
"Any word from the Empire, Number One?"
"The Incaciad just contacted us, we can beam over to the
Conquest as soon as we'd like."
"Good, Data, Will, Seven, you're with me; Lieutenant Travis,
you have the bridge."

Hokey religions and ancient weapons may have been something
for Luke and Leia, but for Han, the real world had enough of its own
challenges. He'd admit that he was just as likely to rely on his
instincts as those two, but at least he knew that his were based on
years of experience. When you're breaking into a place, and the
security's just a little too easy, you get a bad feeling. When you're
meeting a customer and you don't see enough space for all the cargo,
you get a bad feeling. But one of the really nasty ones is when all
conversation stops and people turn and look at you. Even the greenest
scoundrel knew not only was it a bad sign, but that you'd likely be
black and smoking before much longer.
Han played the situation as cool as he could. "I'm just
looking for a little information, that's all," he said. He didn't
glance in Lando's direction, it'd tip them off that he wasn't alone.
He was just going to have to trust him to jump in if he had to... and
trust wasn't easy to have when things started turning ugly. But there
were some things you had to do in situations like this, and while it
may have been a long time since they had to work together, habits that
kept you alive stuck with you.
"Why would anyone want to learn about the Federation?" the
Kazon demanded.
"I have an associate looking at doing some business with
them," Han replied, in just the right tone to hopefully maintain
interest without increasing the tension.
The Kazon snorted and looked at his comrades, who seemed to
reflect his bemused contempt. "Then your 'associate' must enjoy being
swindled. The Federation is cowardly and devious."
"It sounds like you've had dealings with them," Han said
knowingly. "Good... my associate would certainly like to know more
about them before he starts negotiations."
"All knowledge comes at a price, human," the Kazon said
darkly.
Han nodded with a knowing smirk. "How does two hundred liters
sound?"
The bad feeling was not only back, but it was jumping up and
down and waving flags. Kriff, he thought as he watched their stunned
reaction, too high, way too high. Let's hope I didn't botch this.
"You are willing to give up that much water just to learn
about the Federation?" the Kazon said skeptically. "Your 'associate'
is obviously not going to stay in business very long if you squander
his goods in this manner."
"Yeah, well, that's his problem," Han said.
The Kazon leaned menacingly across the table at him. "And it
will be your problem if you try to flee without payment, human." Han
did move a muscle. "I have only encountered one of their vessels,"
the Kazon continued. "But it was enough to show me how little they
can be trusted. Their leader -Janeway-" he spat the name, "lives by
deceit, and she spread chaos all throughout the Kazon Ogla. We
haven't seen or heard from them in years and good riddance." Several
others muttered their agreement. "I do hope they've met a terrible
end."
"Where are the rest of them?" Han asked.
"You still want to have dealings with them, human?" the Kazon
asked incredulously. "What could they have that would interest your
'associate' so greatly?"
"That would cost you three hundred liters," Han said with a
smirk.
The Kazon made a slight growl. "They were brought here by the
Caretaker from somewhere else, I don't know where."
"Where is this Caretaker?"
"Dead," the Kazon replied as he took a drink. "Killed by
Janeway. Then she blew up the array he created to protect the Ocampa;
I guess she didn't care for them either." He slammed his empty mug
down. "Now, about that water, human..."
After the trade was finished Han and Lando took off for the
newly built Rebel base. It wasn't great, but given what they had to
work with, and the amount of time involved, Han had been impressed.
Unfortunately, the mission didn't seem to be off to a great start.
"What do you think of that?" he asked Lando.
"He likes wa-ter, hu-man," Lando said in a grunting imitation
of the Kazon, and Han cracked up. "It sounded to me like he was
telling the truth, or at least his version of it. These Kazon have
got no love for the Federation."
"So, no new info, but at least we know one more person who
doesn't like them," Han said. "And that name again, Janeway... how
many times has it come up now?"
Lando leaned back in the co-pilot seat and whistled. "This
makes the... fourth time, if you want to count the Hirogen."
Han winced at the mention of the name. "I though we'd agreed
not to discuss them ever again."
"Still a little sore?" Lando chided him
"I don't want to talk about it," Han said, which only brought
more laughs from Lando.
"Well, don't talk to me, talk to Chewie. Last I saw he's
still got that souvenir of his."
"I've tried, he thinks it's funny, can you believe that?" He
looked over and saw Lando's smirk. "Yeah, thanks," he added, pulling
back on the hyperdrive controls, "you're a true friend."

Seven stood at attention for appearance sake as the
Lambda-class shuttle settled into the star destroyer's hangar. In
addition to the Enterprise's senior officers that were on hand, a
number of Imperial troops and officers were standing at attention.
Thrawn stood in the center, waiting patiently as the ramp lowered.
Seven kept looking over at him; he was very good at minimizing his
body language, but years of dealing with the eccentricities of
Voyager's crew had taught her how to catch the details. He wasn't
happy about what was going on, despite the thin smile he had for the
arrivals.
There were several, but Seven's eyes immediately fell on the
one she had no doubt everyone was focused on. The man was nearly two
meters tall, clad completely in black, complete with a frightening
mask and helmet. As he walked, she noted a steady rhythm that must
have been an artificial breathing apparatus. Given the devices on his
chest, it was clear that he was, well, just like her: a cyborg.
Thrawn stepped up and the two exchanged a few words. The
details were too quiet even for Seven to hear, but the tone of his
voice made her slightly nervous. Thrawn brought him over and began
introducing him. "Lord Darth Vader," he said.
"Seven of Nine," she answered when it was her turn. She had
no rank to give like the others, so she added, "Civilian advisor." He
said nothing to her directly, and his blank mask seemed to be staring
right through her, as if looking for her deepest fear. He turned away
to speak to Thrawn. As he did, his cloak billowed slightly, revealing
a cylindrical object hanging from his belt. She hadn't seen it
before, but she noted for later to check the database they'd received
to find out what it was. It may have been because he was here for
this mission, or it could be because he was cybernetic. If the
latter, it could be of use to her. So far Seven's only experience
with such equipment -that was worth talking about, anyway- was from
the Borg. She was anxious to learn what the Empire might have to
offer.
Seven turned back as one of the Federation diplomats came up
the line, leading an oddly dressed man. "Ambassador Talva," he said
by way of introduction. "He'll be the official go between with the
Federation."
"What will Lord Vader's capacity be, then?" Picard asked.
"He will handle the Imperials in the place of the Emperor, for
now," the diplomat explained.
"Until we can devise a way to communicate through the
wormhole," Talva added. "And a holo-network is installed for
long-range communication."
"That sounds a rather involved project," Picard said.
"It will be worth it in the long run. I'm sure we'll have
much to discuss that we'd rather not require weeks to get answers to."
Seven turned her attention back to Vader and Thrawn. She was
almost certain their conversation was much more interesting.

"The Borg pose no immediate threat?" Vader asked.
"No, my lord," Thrawn said. "We've secured the other side of
the wormhole and work has begun on rebuilding the station. Our
campaign to exterminate them will begin soon."
"The Emperor will be most displeased if they destroy the
Federation before they can be put to his use."
"I imagine he would be," Thrawn said. "We will provide enough
pressure to keep them busy, but this isn't a simple matter. It will
take years."
"That is not my concern," Vader said darkly. "Only ensuring
the protection of this Federation. Don't fail me admiral... I have
seen too much of it of late to remain patient."
"Of course, my lord," Thrawn said.



CHAPTER XIII

High above the orange-red surface of Mars hung Utopia
Planetia, the Federation's most advanced starship construction
facility, and with the introduction of the hyperdrive, now possibly
the most advanced in the galaxy. After the Enterprise's successful
launch, Admiral Jellico had been placed in command of the facility. A
couple of months ago it would have been an insult to put an officer of
his rank and experience in such a position, but today, he took it as
an honor, because it was in the long-term likely to be one of the most
important posts in the Federation.
"We sow for tomorrow, not for today," the old Vulcan proverb
said, and Jellico applied that to his new job. Things move slowly,
but that was simply because change often demanded it. They had twenty
new ships being constructed to optimize the use of the hyperdrive, and
so far five starships -besides the Enterprise and Voyager, of course-
had been successfully refitted to accommodate it, but each craft was
proving a learning experience of its own. Some of the older warp
cores couldn't provide enough power without risking structural
failures, so they'd need even further upgrades to be worthwhile, or
just have to be retired from service altogether. He was projecting
two to four years to successfully upgrade the entire fleet, but when
that was done the balance of power would undeniably shift in the
Federation's favor.
An alert sounded, and Jellico instinctively got to his feet.
He rushed out of his office towards the central control area; he'd
been worried about an attack. The hyperdrive was strictly
need-to-know, but with each ship launched that number grew
substantially, and sooner or later somebody else was going to find
out, and take steps. "What's happening?" he asked.
"Long-range sensors are picking up something coming towards
the Terran system, sir," the lieutenant said.
"'Something?'"
"It's moving too fast to get a positive identification, sir,
or even any details. Could be a ship, could be a fleet."
Jellico looked at the readouts. It was too fast to be warp
and too big to be the Enterprise, so that meant it was three
possibilities. One was simply someone they hadn't met who just
happened to pick now to stop by. Two was the Borg; if they'd caught
the Enterprise or managed to snag an Imperial ship, they could have
assimilated hyperdrive technology. Third was the Imperials
themselves, with some star destroyers from the looks of things.
Jellico had been the biggest proponent of an alliance, but he'd also
secretly been worried that the Empire would use Voyager as a gauge of
Federation strength and may try to annex it. All three were rather
unpleasant options. "Warn Earth," he said, just in case. "Every ship
we've got, get it out there. Hopefully I'm just overreacting."
"Sir, Spacedock reports they have eight ships launched and are
ready as well. Starfleet Command has ordered not to fire unless
ordered to."
Jellico nodded. Let's hope no one goes off half-cocked here,
he thought.
The ships dropped out of hyperspace; they weren't Borg, at
least. "Magnify," Jellico ordered, and looked closely at them. Yes,
without a doubt, those were the Imperial ships Janeway had met.
Jellico fidgeted with his left hand as he looked it over, wondering
what was going to happen next. Then a slight bit of relief came over
him, and he pointed. "The Enterprise," he said.
"Should we stand down?"
"No, not yet," Jellico said. Picard was a bit soft, but he
wasn't a traitor. Still, it was remotely possibly he or a member of
his crew could have led the Empire here under duress. "Hail the
Enterprise," he ordered.
Seconds later, Captain Picard appeared on the viewer. "Is
there a problem, admiral?"
"Just wanted to make sure everything was all clear, Jean-luc,"
Jellico said. "You and your friends caught us by surprise." He
waited a moment. "They are your friends, right?"
"Yours and mine, admiral," Picard said.
"That's good to hear, at least," Jellico said. "Why exactly
did they bring four warships with them?"
"It's a long way to the wormhole, admiral," Picard said.
"They're just a small escort to ensure the safety of the diplomatic
corps while they're on Earth; it was all part of the negotiations."
"Sir," the lieutenant interrupted, "Starfleet command is
ordering all ships to stand down."
Jellico nodded slowly, eyes still on the viewscreen. "Stand
down, lieutenant," he said. "Good work, Jean-luc, Utopia out." He
cut the transmission. "Lieutenant, I'll be in my office," he said.
He'd wanted this, but... the sight of warships over Earth made
him very uncomfortable. It was a reasonable position, all in all,
but, old instincts told him to be cautious. He sat at his desk,
activated the viewer, and watched the fleet slip into orbit, shaking
his head ever so slightly.

The Lambda-class shuttle and her fighter escort exited the
Conquest's docking bay, but Picard and the diplomatic corps had
already beamed down to the platform. Admiral Parks had been waiting,
and he gave Picard a grin from ear to ear. "You had us worried, and I
don't just mean this dramatic entrance," he said, pumping Picard's
hand. "We'd worried something happened to you out there."
"You should know by now never to give up on the Enterprise,"
Picard said, smiling in return. It faded as he saw the man over his
shoulder.
"Welcome back, captain," the Federation president said.
"Thank you, sir," Picard said, but it didn't have much
enthusiasm in it. How he'd managed to stay in office after the
martial law incident was simply stunning.
"It's you who should be thanked. This looks to be the start
of a wonderful new friendship."
"Just doing my duty, sir," Picard said neutrally, and the
president went off to talk with someone else. "Admiral, while I have
your ear, there's something I'd like to discuss. You recall the
advisor Janeway provided?"
"Was there a problem?"
"On the contrary, she exceeded all expectations," Picard said.
"She's still a civilian, but I think she'd make an outstanding
officer."
"Then have her join the Academy and we'll see what happens,"
Parks said.
"I'd rather keep her with my crew," Picard said. "She's doing
some valuable work, more valuable than writing papers on ethics and
the historical significance of the Battle of Waterloo."
"There's protocols in place, Jean-luc."
"I'm asking this as a personal favor," Picard said.
Parks sighed a little. Picard didn't need to remind him that
he had some favors to call in. "Have her file sent to me, I'll look
it over, see what we can arrange."
"Thank you," Picard said, and they both turned as the shuttle
settled onto the ramp.
The ramp lowered, and the head of the diplomatic corps stepped
forward to make introductions. First was Lord Vader, still as
chilling as he was back on the Conquest. The president was first, of
course, then some of the representatives of member worlds in the
Federation. Vader wasn't exactly disrespectful, but with that
expressionless mask and his silence -save the off-putting breathing-
it seemed that everyone was barely worthy of his notice. Of course,
he wasn't the ambassador, so diplomacy wasn't expected of him, but it
did seem to add an air of tension to the event.
Then he reached K'Jorl, the ambassador from the Klingon
Empire. "I would speak to you about relations between your empire and
mine," the Klingon said in what passed for diplomacy on Q'onos.
"My staff will handle this," Vader said, and turned away as if
K'Jorl were nothing.
K'Jorl grabbed Vader's arm. "I'm speaking to you," he said.
There was only a small amount of menace in his voice. Picard had to
catch himself before he let his exasperation show. First the Borg,
then the Klingons, perhaps for an encore the Dominion could show up
and fire on a star destroyer. But apparently there was an encore
already planned... K'Jorl visibly swallowed, and his mild annoyance
was giving way to confusion. He coughed, then gasped, the grasped his
throat. Vader just stared at him, not speaking, not moving, just
watching as the Klingon stumbled about, choking on nothing. finally
Vader turned away, and K'Jorl let out a gasp and hunched over on the
ground, panting for air.
"And you are?" Vader demanded of the next in line. The little
man quickly babbled his name, and Vader continued through the
introductions faster than any Picard had ever seen.
"Jean-luc," Parks said under his breath, "what the devil did
you bring back with you."
Picard shook his head, having trouble believing what he'd just
seen too. "Hopefully not the devil."

Han settled the Falcon into the docking bay at the Rebel base,
powered down, and headed down the ramp with Lando. To his surprise,
in that short time frame, a small crowd had gathered there to wait for
him, including General Riekken himself. "Any word on the Kazon?" he
asked.
Han and Lando joined the group and together they proceeded
towards the command center. "We made contact, and they are definitely
interested in water."
"Extremely interested," Lando said for emphasis.
"They hate the Federation," Han continued. "Janeway in
particular."
"Her again," Luke said without a sign of surprise.
"Yeah, she's got quite a reputation," Lando said. Nearly
every species they'd found so far that knew of the Federation
mentioned this Janeway by name. Only one had anything positive to
say. While this reconnaissance was still in the very early stages,
everything so far sounded consistent with a power that would ally
themselves with the Empire.
"Tell me about the Kazon," Riekken asked.
"They're structured like a militarized merchant marine, with
different factions vying for different territories to either engage in
trade or just to raid or extort goods."
"What would be their position if we fought the Federation?"
Riekken asked.
"Standing on their feet, cheering," Han said. "But I doubt
they'd join in the fight unless we paid them, and I don't think it's
worth it. For their size, their ships are way underpowered."
"How underpowered?"
"We saw some ships bigger than a starcruiser with the
firepower of maybe a dozen X-wings," Lando said.
"Alright, so that leaves the Kazon out," Riekken commented, as
they entered the command center. Riekken stepped aside briefly to get
an update from the comm chief, then returned. "No other ships in the
area, looks like you weren't followed this time."
"And no sign of Han's friends?" Lando asked with a grin only a
backstabber could wear. Han gave him a dirty look and Lando covered
his mouth to contain his snickering.
"There's been no sign of the Hirogen since their attack,"
Riekken said, ignoring their antics. "Derlin's tightened security,
and Antilles is stepping up patrols, just to be safe."
"That's not going to drain our resources, is it?" Lando asked.
Riekken shook his head. "I made sure we had ample resources
for this. Supplies won't be a problem for a long time." He paused to
take a datapad proffered by a passing officer. "We lost track of the
Imperial ships heading for Federation territory," he said. "They were
on a heading roughly thirty degrees off the galactic meridian."
"That fits in with what little intel we have," Han said.
"'Across the galaxy' was what they kept saying."
"Given how divided and separated this galaxy is, I'm surprised
your information is even that good," Riekken said. "This is going to
make finding them much harder."
"It's something," Han said. "We take your lead, and maybe a
long range trip will give us some more info."
Riekken thought about it, then shook his head in mild
disbelief. "You do know it'd be quite a risk. You could wind up
right in the middle of Borg space without backup."
"I've faced the Empire without backup, the Borg are no
problem."
"It's still very dangerous."
"Sometimes you've just got to go for the Idiot's Array and
hope like hell you pull what you need," Han said.
Riekken nodded a little, then shook Han's hand. "Good luck,
Solo."
"Thank you, general," Han said, then turned to Luke while
Riekken got on with his report. "Where's Leia?"
Luke hesitated, then spoke. "She's training right now. She'll
be done in three hours or so."
"Oh," Han said, "not a problem." His tone made it clear that
it was.
"I know it's been a while-"
"Five days," Han said, turning and walking out of the command
center, Luke and Lando close behind.
"This is really important," Luke said. "She really needs to
concentrate."
"Yeah, don't we all," Han shot back. He almost ran into
Chewbacca, who was heading towards the Falcon to give it the once
over. "See what I mean... Hey!" Chewie stopped and turned back. "I
thought I told you to get rid of that thing!" Chewie tapped the
Hirogen helmet he was wearing as if he hadn't realized it was there.
"Yes, furball, that!" Chewie growled something then started laughing;
Lando chuckled. "Yeah, well I'm sure you'd have made a great throw
rug," Han shot back. He turned and stormed off, but Chewie barked
something after him, causing Lando to laugh so hard he had to grab
Luke for support.
Luke left Lando and Chewie to their jokes and chased after
him. "Han-"
"I don't want to hear it."
"She loves you," Luke said. He grabbed Han's shoulder and
turned him around. "It's not just words," he added. "I can feel it
coming from her whenever she thinks about you. She's not putting you
second."
"Every moment she's studying," Han fumed. "The last time she
and I had any time together was flying here."
"Then take her with you next time," Luke said. Han scoffed.
"She's going to be a little involved over these next few days, but
when she does you both can go on this mission together. You'll have
plenty of time then."
"Yeah, it'll be real romantic," Han said, turning and heading
off again. Luke watched him, shaking his head a little. You don't
know how lucky you are, he thought.

The Emperor was in meditation when he felt the mental touch of
his servant. He was across the universe in another time, but with the
Force even those barriers were insignificant. "Yes, Lord Vader," he
intoned.
"As you predicted, master," Vader said, "the Klingons sought
out an alliance with us."
"Are the negotiations complete?"
"Yes, my master. The Klingons are anxious to acquire our
technology. They are brazen and stupid."
"As expected. Talva is to remain on Earth, send one of the
others to the Klingons."
"Yes master."
"Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen it. Soon, they
will all be... mine."



CHAPTER XIV

Admiral Jellico couldn't help but smile as he watched the
docking clamps release. The Charlemagne and the Talman drifted out of
Utopia Planetia, two more ships returned to the fleet with their new
hyperdrives. Ambassador Talva had suggested that some Imperial
engineers assist in their refit efforts, and since then the time spent
in dry-dock had dropped from six weeks to a mere two. Jellico
appreciated that. It was the star destroyer floating nearby that he
didn't appreciate.
Jellico knew the Cardassians very well, and had been involved
in many aspects of planning the Dominion War campaign. Many times
he'd looked at reports and concluded that defeat was inevitable, and
were it not for a set of fortunate events and the under-the-table work
of Section 31, those would be Jem'hadar warships over Earth. When
Jellico had read Janeway's report, he knew that she had waken a
sleeping giant. He hadn't slept a wink that night, flipping back and
forth on the issue. Should they send someone out to blow up the
wormhole? He'd reached that decision more than once. But hyperdrive
was here, and the galaxy was a much smaller place, and he'd realized
that there was the possibility they were going to stumble over another
sleeping giant at some point, one they couldn't so easily escape. In
the end, the alliance was the safer option, but the sight of Imperial
warships instead of Dominion ones didn't set his mind at ease.
"Admiral," the lieutenant at comm said, "the Garret is hailing
us."
Jellico tapped the communication panel. "This is Jellico."
"Utopia Planetia," the Imperial reported, "we're tracking a
series of gravitation anomalies moving throughout the system. Are you
aware of what could be causing it?"
Jellico turned to Commander Wellis, who oversaw Utopia
Planetia. "Any idea what he's talking about?"
"We're not detecting anything, sir," Wellis said with a shake
of his head.
"Garret, we're not seeing anything," Jellico said.
"Utopia, be advised we are still reading over thirty anomalies
converging."
"Sensor ghosts," Wellis said.
"Sir," the comm officer asked, "Imperials use different
sensors then us... could these be cloaked ships?"
"The gravitational effects of a starship are too small to be
detected," Wellis replied. "Besides, there's no way the Romulans
could get past the sensor net and no reason for the Klingons to come
here cloaked."
Jellico took a deep breath through his nose. "I'm not taking
any chances. Raise shields, weapons at the ready, and get the word
out to the fleet."
"Sir, they can't be-"
"Don't tell me 'can't,' commander," Jellico said, "just..." He
trailed off and watched as Romulan and Cardassian ships appeared out
of nowhere. "Send a message to Starfleet command. It appears the
Federation is being invaded."

Moff Jerjerrod was in the command center of the Death Star
when Colonel Dyer arrived. Dyer had been the commander of the ground
forces for the Endor shield generator, and had proven capable during
the construction of the Death Star. "Report, colonel," he said.
Dyer presented Jerjerrod with a datapad. "All personnel and
equipment evacuated from the Endor moon, sir."
"Any problems I should be aware of?"
"No, sir," Dyer said. "The locals were only too happy to see
us leave."
"Good." Jerjerrod gave the datapad the once over. "Now," he
said as he continued scanning it, "you said you had something to
discuss with me?"
"Yes, sir," Dyer said. "I'm not sure if you were informed
sir, but we had a bit of a problem with the indigenous tribes. They
attacked the outpost on two separate occasions. We repelled them, of
course," he added, "but they did cause some damage, killed a few of
our men."
"Your point, colonel?"
"Now that the Death Star is complete, it will prove necessary
to test it, yes?"
"On an uninhabited world, colonel."
"I don't think anyone's going to notice, sir," Dyer said, with
just the slightest smirk. "After all, if the Endor moon was
well-known, we wouldn't have built the Death Star here. And it would
do a great deal for moral."
Jerjerrod smiled a little. It was a tempting target, and he
had heard the reports... the furry little natives were rather
difficult to deal with. He turned to the gunners. "I want a firing
solution on the Endor moon."
"Thank you, sir," Dyer said. Together they watched as space
turned beyond the window, until the moon filled it.
The concave formation in the northern hemisphere of the
station began to glow at key points, eventually lancing out small
green beams, or at least, small in comparison to the one that came
next, firing from the very center of the cavity. It picked up energy
from them and lanced forward as a ray of destructive energy, striking
through the planet and into the very heart of the ancient world like
the bolt of judgment thrown by a wrathful deity. In the blink of an
eye, the world exploded, debris filling a hundred thousand kilometers
in all directions. The Death Star sat unmoved as lumps of the planet
bounced harmlessly off its shields, uncaring about the lives that were
lost, unmoved by the devastation of such a weapon.
"A satisfactory test," Moff Jerjerrod said, "although I'd like
you to recheck the alignment of tube 2a, I think we had a significant
power loss in that area." No one else seemed to care either. The
Death Star turned and vanished into hyperspace, leaving an expanding
debris field in its wake.

Mon Mothma turned the recording off. "What are they planning
now?" she asked General Madine.
"According to our sources," Madine said, "the Death Star will
be heading to the Napuli System."
"The wormhole," Mon Mothma said.
Madine nodded. "It's believed they'll be assisting Grand
Admiral Thrawn in the Borg campaign, but I'm convinced this is just a
shakedown, ma'am. They're working the bugs out of the system before
the Emperor puts it to use against either us, or the other
civilizations beyond the wormhole."
"I see," she said. "What are our options?"
Madine thought and sighed a little. "I really don't see any,
ma'am."
"You're having second thoughts."
"About the rebellion?"
"About not destroying it when we had the chance," Mon Mothma
said.
"I wish we could have," he said. "But I don't deal in the way
things could have been, ma'am, just in as they are. The Death Star is
a threat we knew we'd have to face; now that threat is here. We'll
have to approach it with what is, not what could have beens."
"Of course, general." Mon Mothma looked at the hologram of
the debris field. "But I hope that 'is' can be done soon, or I fear
what will be."

The Mars defense perimeter went into action, but there was
little they could hope to accomplish; they just weren't equipped to
stop such a large invasion force as the one seen here. The Garret
moved on a course to intercept, but even the star destroyer couldn't
hold off over thirty cap ships. "What's the word from Starfleet
Command?" Jellico asked as he watched the engagement.
"They've launched all ships," the lieutenant said, and the
Imperials have helped form a defensive perimeter of Earth-"
"It's not Earth they're after," Jellico said. "It's Mars...
they want the hyperdrive."
"The Romualans and Cardassians aren't going to risk war for an
engine," Wellis said.
"Yes they would," Jellico said. Because I would, he added in
his own mind. If two sides are militarily even but one has the speed
advantage, Jellico knew who was going to win at least nine times out
of ten. The hyperdrive was strategically invaluable, it put cloaks to
shame. In the minds of those two powers, war was going to happen
sooner or later, so they might as well risk it now, when they could
possibly do something to help even the odds. That meant Jellico had
to do everything he could to stop them. "Any docked ships are to be
evacuated immediately," he said.
"Sir?"
"If it looks like they're going to get any of our ships, we
blow them up," Jellico said. He saw the looks on their faces. "You
have a problem with that?" He could see they did. They were
Starfleet engineers by training... they had the kinds of minds that
were perfect for understanding how to put together finely-tuned flying
machines, and zero understanding of the humanoids who flew them.
"Those are my orders."
Wellis was downcast but nodded. "Aye sir," he said.
Jellico watched the battle, helpless, knowing that the only
ships he could possibly destroy were his own. His stomach sunk as a
Romulan ship blasted the nacelle off one of the Galaxy-class ships,
and it veered off course, crashing into the Garret. Always ones to
seize an opportunities, the Romulans and Cardassians pounded the star
destroyer as it tried to recover from the collision.
"Captain Tans," came a disturbing voice over the comm. Tans
was the commanding officer of the Garret.
"Yes, my lord," Tans said.
"You are to stand your ground," Lord Vader ordered.
The Garret was suffering visible hull breaches under the
assault. "As you command, my lord," Tans replied grimly. It was to
buy time, Jellico knew. The fleet from Earth was on its way, but the
invaders could get in and out before then, unless the Garret stood in
the way. Vader understood the significance of the hyperdrive
advantage, and was prepared to sacrifice tens of thousands of his own
men to maintain it. Jellico didn't know whether to be relieved or
frightened. When the Garret exploded, he fell towards the latter, but
it only lasted a moment. Three star destroyers and two Federation
ships, including the Enterprise, emerged from their micro-jump and
engaged the dozen or so invaders left. The invaders tried to get
through to the prize, with war effectively declared there could be no
turning back without it. It was a fatal mistake; the
Imperial-Federation fleet didn't destroy so much as slaughter them,
and Jellico felt no sympathy. "Lieutenant," he said, "send my thanks
to Lord Vader for their aid and sacrifice." He watched as a flaming
Warbird fell towards the Mars surface, and wondered how the quadrant
would change in the days to come.

A small fire crackled and snapped in the darkness. Metal
quietly clicked against metal. There was the sound of breathing, not
heavy, but audible. Luke looked past the flames at his sister as she
worked, face almost contorted with concentration as she continued
assembling the pieces. He watched, he listened, he sensed, but he
said nothing. This was her test, and it would have to be completed
alone.
Then there was nothing but the fire. "It's finished," Leia
said quietly.
Luke nodded. "Then show me."
Leia looked at it as if it might jump out of her hands. "I'm
afraid it won't work."
"Do I even need to answer that?"
"No," Leia said with a sigh. "Do, or do not. There is no
try." She raised her hand and flipped the switch, and a blue beam lit
the darkness. She lowered her hand slowly, and the blade hummed as it
passed through air. She switched if off and looked up at Luke; he was
nodding with approval.
"Your training is complete," he said, his throat dry. "I
confer on you the rank of Jedi Knight."
Instead of being a joyous thing, the statement seemed to hang
over them like a foul cloud. "Luke, I'm not ready," Leia said.
"Yes you are."
"What, with a few months?" she said incredulously. "You're
insane."
"You learn things very quickly," Luke said. "You have a
natural tendency towards peace. I-" He floundered. "No jokes,
please, but obviously I used to feel attracted towards you, but since
we've learned the truth, I've come to realize that that attraction is
for the peace that just radiates out of you. It makes you a natural
Jedi... it's why your abilities manifested themselves even without
training."
"Luke, there's so much more I need to learn," she pleaded.
"That's called 'life,' Leia. With experience you'll grow
stronger in the Force."
"But I feel like it's not complete," Leia said.
"I know, I felt the same way. In the old days we'd have a
Jedi Master to guide us further along the path, but there are no more
masters, so we've got to just follow what we've learned. 'Already you
have that which you need,'" he qu

[tropheus]

?? did you expect me to read that??

[Real_Texas]

Dude, sorry but there is no way I am reading all that.

[Mr.Wizard]

CHAPTER XVI

Colonel Kira slowly crawled over another section of debris,
trying to get some readings on her tricorder. Unfortunately, it gave
her the same response as it had for the past several hours. No
lifeforms, nothing. Halva was dead.
Suddenly the tricorder sprung to life, and Kira looked
hopefully over the pile of rubble, then spotted the Starfleet uniform.
He climbed up the hill as she put away her tricorder. "Anything?"
Chakotay asked.
"No more luck here than orbit," Kira reported, looking at the
devastation. "They were totally wiped out.
Chakotay shook his head in disbelief as he looked as well. "I
can't believe even the Cardassian would resort to this."
"You weren't here for some of the Maquis highlights," Kira
replied. "There were a few things you wouldn't think any civilized
race would resort to."
"The Maquis or the Cardassians?" Chakotay asked.
Kira smiled, but it was a weary one. "Depends on the day."
Her smile faded away as she continued her visual inspection.
"Commander, you're a Starfleet officer, you've had combat and command
experience." She stepped further up the debris and looked across the
desolate landscape. "You tell me: why attack and destroy an
insignificant farming colony? It doesn't make any sense."
"If wars were required to make sense, our pasts would all be a
lot less ugly. But you're right. This will probably cause a
declaration of war, or at least some severe actions towards the
Cardassians. The local colonies may begin arming themselves again,
just like before the Dominion came, and for what? To destroy a
farming planet?"
"Could this be the Romulans," Kira asked. Things had heated
up very quickly once the Klingons got ahold of hyperdrives. Like
Admiral Jellico, they recognized the devastating speed advantage;
unlike him, they were excited at the chance of using it against their
old adversaries. The Empire had joined in against the Romulans as
well; for the moment, the Federation was staying out of it. "Maybe
they're hoping this will force the Cardassians to get involved on
their side."
Chakotay shook his head. "They were Cardassian ships. We
picked up their warp core signature when we arrived but weren't able
to track them. And the energy patterns are consistent with Cardassian
weapons. Logical or not, they did do this."
Kira sighed heavily as she continued looking at the remains.
"Then it looks like we're going to have a chance to watch hell descend
out here all over again."

"Get ready to jump to lightspeed the first chance we get,"
Leia said as she walked into the cockpit of the Falcon.
Han turned to her with surprise. "What about the
co-ordinates?"
"She was lying," Leia said quickly. Her Jedi mind trick
hadn't worked, but whether it was due to the Founder's resistance or
her own weakness was something she'd probably never know. "Just be
ready for an attack."
Seconds later, alarms began sounding around the cockpit.
Chewie growled something at Han. "Oh... great."
"Ships coming in," Luke said.
"Yeah, six of 'em," Han said quickly, trying to speed things
up.
Jem'hadar fighters swept towards the freighter and opened
fire. Han put the ship through all kinds of twists and turns, trying
to maneuver away to buy some time. With the limited data in this
galaxy the nav computer always took longer than normal, so he wasn't
sure how long he'd have to keep this up. Jem'hadar weapons slammed
against the shields, and Han tried maneuvers that threatened to
overload the stabilizers. Another explosion rocked the ship. "Rear
deflector shield is gone," Luke said looking at the instruments.
More alarms sounded. "Now what?" Han muttered, trying to look
at a dozen readouts at once and keep the ship from getting atomized.
"It's another ship," Luke said.
"Perfect," Han said through his teeth, jerking the ship around
again and cursing the nav computer.
"It's not Dominion," Leia said. "Look."
A small cap ship slipped past the Falcon and fired at the
Dominion. They turned and swarmed it, but it was a hopelessly one
sided battle. The last ship vaporized in a very short time.
"Thanks for the help," Han said, but just as the nav computer
gave him the coordinates a jolt tossed them around the cockpit.
"Tractor beam!" Han scowled, then hit the control panel for good
measure.
"Alien vessel," the comm said, "this is the Federation
Starship Overlord. Prepare to be boarded."
Chewie let out a low growl and Han ran his fingers through his
hair. "Well," he said, "the good news is we can stop looking for
'em."

Captain Picard had to give bad news often enough, but this was
the kind he could never get used to giving. "As of 0800 hours today,
a state of war exists between the Federation and the Cardassians."
The reaction was to be expected. "Well, why not," Riker said
sarcastically. "It's been fun the last two times, hasn't it?"
"The Council had no choice," Deanna Troi said. "The people of
the Federation are upset about what's happened."
"Innocent people dying," Riker said. "And of course, innocent
people don't die in wars."
"The people don't feel safe. They need to know that Starfleet
will protect them."
"Starfleet has protected them," Riker said sharply, "but even
with a hyperdrive we can't be everywhere."
"After rejecting the Empire's offer, the Council needed to do
something to make the people feel safe."
"Starfleet is perfectly capable of patrolling its own
borders!"
"I am sure the citizens of Halva would disagree," Seven said.
It had dropped a road block into the conversation. As they say, it's
not what you say, but how you say it, and how said Seven it was
straight and to the point. No malice, no judgment, simple
matter-of-factness... it was worse than any possible scolding, and
Riker shot her a look with daggers in it. Unfortunately, he had
nothing to come back with. Halva was in Federation space, not the
demilitarized zone; its destruction was Starfleet's failure.
"The Romulans and the Cardassians have formed an alliance for
mutual defense," Picard said, filling the tense silence. "That leaves
us in a rather dangerous position. We need ships to help prevent any
further invasion, especially along the Neutral Zone. The Federation
has asked for help from the Empire."
"How convenient," Riker commented.
"Is there a problem, commander?"
"Just observing, sir, how the Empire gets to deploy their
ships in Federation space thanks to this incident."
"You're not seriously suggesting the Empire attacked Halva?"
Dr. Crusher asked.
"Who benefited from that attack? The Cardassians? No, no one
did. It was pointless slaughter. And yet, the Empire gets to do
exactly what they wanted to do before, move their ships into our
territory."
"I don't know, commander," LaForge replied. "I mean, the
Empire may be a little different than what we're used to, but I can't
see them resorting to mass murder."
"You haven't been listening to the broadcasts from Imperial
space," Riker said. "This would fit in with things the rebels have
said about them."
"Commander," Picard said, "we both looked through those
transmissions, and we found a lot of accusations, but very little
proof."
"Respectfully, sir, I think this fits in with everything they
said. I see no reason to destroy a strategically insignificant
farming colony that until two days ago none of us had ever heard of.
There is no military reason for them to do that. None. The only
reason would be to get the Federation to support bringing in more
Imperial ships."
"Not necessarily, commander," Data said. "We have seen on
several occasions the Cardassians making moves that seemed
unreasonable at them time, but later proved to be part of a much
larger plan."
"Are you saying the Cardassians are coordinating some massive
military effort based on this instance," Riker asked with obvious
disbelief. "I find that pretty hard to swallow."
"I am not saying it is a certainty, commander," Data replied.
"I am merely pointing it out because you are continuing to hold to
your theory. You have based your belief on a false assumption; that
the attack on the Halva colony has an obvious immediate tactical
reason. I am merely pointing out that Cardassian behavior in the past
does not always fit that view." Riker was about to reply, but Data
pressed on. "What is more, the energy signatures found on Halva are
consistent with the energy signatures of Cardassian weapons. And
Cardassian warp signatures were found in that region. This attack had
to be made by a Cardassian ship."
"And who says Cardassians were piloting it?" Riker replied.
"If you are suggesting the Empire staged the attack, I am
afraid that is not possible. The Empire would need to take the ship
relatively undamaged to use it in this manner. Their only weapon to
do so is the ion cannon, which is ineffective. Their other weapons
would have rendered the ship inoperable due to the level of damage."
"Regardless," Picard said, "we are at war. Your feelings
about the Empire are well known, commander, but we have to accept the
situation as it is. Now, if you find credible evidence that supports
this position, Will, I'll take it to Starfleet myself, I promise you.
I don't like the idea of being deceived into aiding a monster, but our
hands are tied until then."
"Yes, sir," Riker said, looking straight down and picking at
the desk's surface."
"The Empire is our military ally," Picard continued. "They
have the ships necessary to help defend the Federation. Like it or
not, we'll be working with them from now on." He picked up a PADD.
"Our orders are to proceed to the Neutral Zone to rendezvous with a
fleet of ten Imperial star destroyers to help coordinate a defense
against any Romulan incursions. We'll need to be at our sharpest.
Dismissed."
As everyone got up to leave, Picard asked Data to remain. When
they were alone, he spoke. "Data," he said carefully, "I don't want
to provoke further distrust, so I'd like your opinion on something. I
ask that you not discuss it with anyone else."
"Of course, sir."
"Is there a chance that the Empire could have done this?"
"There is always a chance for most things, sir. However, if
your question is whether this is a reasonable chance, I would have to
say no. I have discussed the matter at length with Lt. of Nine, and
we believe that with the power of their weaponry against a Cardassian
ship, and factoring in their ability to acquire such a ship, staff it,
and deploy it, all without being traced back to the Empire, is very
low. It is more likely this is simply a Cardassian plan, one whose
motives are as yet unclear."
"Thank you, Data," Picard said. "Let's hope you're right. If
Will is, well," he shifted uncomfortably, "let's hope you're right,"
he repeated, unwillingly to even take the thought to its logical
conclusion, too fearful to see what it would be. "There's another
matter I'd like us to discuss. I intend to promote Lt. of Nine to
Chief Science Officer."
Data, naturally, reflected no emotion. "She is fully
qualified for such a position, captain," he said. "I believe she will
perform those duties quite well. May I inquire why I am being removed
as Science Officer?"
"Because you're standing still, Mr. Data," Picard said,
sitting on the edge of the table and crossing his arms. "The new
hyperdrive, the alliance, all this has made me realize how static
things have been here, and how much potential is being squandered.
You've been an invaluable asset to me over the years, Data... I think
deep down I didn't want to lose that. But I believe it's time for you
to do the job I know you're capable of. I think it's time for you to
take command."
"Thank you, captain," Data said. "But based on prior
experience, I am uncertain of how well others would follow if I led."
"That's all part of leading, Mr. Data. I've already spoken to
Will; starting tomorrow, you'll be working with him on handling
command tasks outside the normal scope of your duties. He'll still be
first officer, but I'm sure that in a short time you'll pick up all
the nuances. We'll send our reports to Starfleet on your performance
and I have every confidence that you'll be promoted to first officer.
It may not be on one of the best ships, but I think it's a step
forward."
"I appreciate your efforts captain, as well as your interest
in my personal development. I will endeavor to live up to your
expectations."
"This is what you want, isn't it?" Picard asked.
"Yes sir," Data said. "Though I will miss the friends I have
found on the Enterprise, it is true that my development has reached a
boundary I cannot pass without change."
"Well, Mr. Data, I believe change is something all of us are
just going to have to get used to."

Captain Praji entered Vader's meditation chamber and waited
grimly. He'd been the Dark Lord's aide back on the Devastator years
ago; with the loss of Vader's personal fleet his ship had been chosen
to serve as the command vessel for the time being. It spoke of
Vader's faith in his abilities, which was a double-edged sword. He
didn't brook disappointment well. "You are familiar with the new
Inferno-class vessels?" Vader asked, getting straight to the point.
"Yes, my lord," Praji said. The Inferno -first of the new
line- wasn't as large as the Executor, but would serve an intermediate
capacity. It was important in the wake of the Borg mess to have the
Empire show its strength, much as the Executor had done after the loss
of the first Death Star.
"The Inferno will be coming here; you will take command of it,
Admiral Praji."
"Thank you, my lord," Praji said.
"I want the ship prepared for engagement very soon, admiral,"
Vader said, unmoved by thanks. "The Cardassians will be pushed hard;
I expect you to be ready when they push back."
"Yes, my lord."
"What is the news of the Tal Shiar and Obsidian Order?"
Praji wet his lips. "We have eliminated many key members of
those organizations. However, a few have managed to elude us. I was
just preparing to increase our efforts-"
"No," Vader said. "Our attention must remain on the larger
issues. Call in our usual contacts."
"You mean- bounty hunters, my lord?"
"Yes, admiral. These alpha quadrant types are unprepared for
their harsh methods. See to it immediately."
"Yes, my lord," Praji said, then quickly bowed and left.

The Federation starship grew larger and larger through the
viewport of the Falcon. They watched helplessly as the freighter was
pulled into a large hangar located at the back of the ship. It was a
rather strange looking vessel; the front part was flat and round like
a table, connected to the rest of the ship by some kind of thin,
neck-like shaft. At the bottom, the shaft widened to about three
quarters the diameter of the top part, then stretched back just
slightly larger than the diameter. Branching off at about forty-five
degree angles were two more shafts on both sides of the ship, which in
turn were connected to long cylindrical objects. The whole thing
looked like someone had strapped the Falcon onto the head of a duck.
There was a metallic screech and a tearing sound as the Falcon
was pulled into the hangar. Han pounded the control panel. "The
rectenna!" he said between curses. "I hate the Federation already!"
"Hopefully we'll be able to worry about that later," Luke
replied, looking around at the interior of the new ship. He saw
several men approaching... men with weapons.
Han activated the landing system as the ship stopped moving,
then turned to Leia. "Well, your highness, I've found the
Federation."
"Nice," she replied dryly. The soldiers moved in closer,
while more personnel entered the hangar.
"Her," Luke said, pointing at the tallish woman in the middle
of the group, "She's their leader."
"There's something wrong about this," Leia commented.
Han turned to look at her. "You think?" he said
sarcastically.
"No," Leia replied, trying to focus, "there's no malevolence.
Just, nervousness, worry..."
"She's right," Luke added, "They're worried about us."
"Good, maybe they'll let us go," Han remarked.
"Whatever's going on, this is not the Federation I was briefed
on," Leia remarked, getting up and heading out of the cockpit.
"Where are you going," Han demanded, chasing after her.
Leia continued to walk through the passage. "To introduce
ourselves." Han grabbed her arm and pulled her back.
"Are you out of your mind?!" Han asked. "There's at least
forty soldiers down there!"
"Yes," Leia replied, "and I better convince them not to start
shooting at us." She pulled her arm out of his grip and continued.
"Look, I'm not abou...."
"No time to discuss this in a committee," she said, opening
the door to the ramp. "Try not to do anything that'll get me killed."
Carefully she walked down the ramp, doing her best to keep her hands
in plain view. She watched while dozens of weapons followed her every
move, feeling their terrifying stare. Using the Force to give her
strength, she continued down and walked off, staring at the central
group where the leader was. She walked to within ten meters and then
stopped.
"Greetings," Leia said, hoping they understood. They looked
human, but that didn't mean anything, not in this galaxy anyway.
"Greetings," the woman replied. "Capt. Victoria Price of the
Overlord."
"Senator Leia Organa of the Alliance," she replied in kind.
They stared across the hangar at one another, Leia probing with the
Force. She sensed only concern, and curiosity. "We come in the name
of peace on behalf of the Alliance."
"We welcome peace," Price replied. She turned to one of her
companions nearby and began talking. Leia noted that he looked
perfectly human, except for his ears, which were elongated with
pointed tips. They turned back, the alien stepping towards her.
"I sense that you are telepathic," the alien said stepping
closer. "I ask that you join me in a mind-meld. It will hopefully
answer as many questions for you as it will for us."
Leia probed the alien and detected no attempt at deception.
His impression on the Force was very strange, like a hurricane locked
in a bottle. He possessed powerful emotions, yet refused to let them
surface. "I consent," she replied. The alien walked up and touched
her on the side of her head. Images began flooding her mind -
thoughts, ideas, experiences that were not her own. Her entire
perspective twisted and shifted, and she found it difficult to
concentrate on any one thing. Suddenly, the alien pulled away, and it
all became clear. Everything they had wondered about in this galaxy
made sense, including the Federation.
The alien, his name was Kilvek she realized, turned back to
Capt. Price. "Captain," he said quickly, "we have a great deal to
discuss regarding the Empire. It seems things are even worse than we
thought."




CHAPTER XVII

"The Federation Council recognizes the ambassador from the
Galactic Empire."
A hush descended as Amb. Talva stepped up to the platform, his
normally smiling face masked behind a look of anguish and
disappointment. He had grown quite popular among many of the
representatives during the past couple of months, his winning
personality combined with an empathy and wisdom that made him a
natural leader in political circles. Taking a sip of water, he looked
up and began to speak.
"Esteemed members of the Federation Council, Mr. President,
loyal citizens of the Federation. I am here to report on behalf of
Lord Vader that the Emperor has seen fit to deploy an additional one
hundred starships to the Alpha Quadrant to ensure adequate defense.
Every attempted incursion into Federation space has been deterred with
minimal damage to both the Federation and ourselves. The forces of
evil have been held back, and the combined might of the Klingons, the
Federation, and the Empire ensure that your homes - our homes - will
be protected from these enemies of freedom."
A round of applause filled the room but Talva held up his hand
for it to stop. "We have ensured the stability of the Federation, and
I feel the same sense of relief you do. However, it is too little,
too late, for the citizens of Halva. We made a decision, a decision
that seemed right at the time, a decision that was rooted in the
universal hope of peace. Unfortunately, the Cardassians were not as
interested in peace as we are. And while I can and certainly due
admonish them for the pointless slaughter of ten thousand three
hundred sixty-one innocent men, women and children, I cannot justly
place those deaths solely on their shoulders. We possessed the means
and we had the opportunity to defend that world, and the Empire did
nothing. And willful inaction that allows injustice is just as guilty
as the man who commits it," he said, his voice growing louder.
"However much I would like to excuse it, those people died because we
have failed to carry out our responsibility in the wake of Cardassia's
attack on the heart of the Federation... their blood is on our hands.
"At the end of the earlier Cardassian War a demilitarized zone
was established in the hopes of ensuring peace. And for a time it
did. But it should seem obvious to all of us that peace is a concept
the Cardassians do not understand. And while they ignore the points
of this treaty by engaging in invasions into Federation space, former
Federation citizens are forced to languish under the iron-fisted rule
of these moralless beings. As we look at what transpires, we cannot
help but reflect on the fate of Halva... once again, we have the
power, the question is whether we have the will?" There were a few
murmured comments, but Talva pressed on. "We can examine the legal
issues over this affair and argue points of policy, endlessly debate
these actions. But while the Empire believes in the absolute
importance of the law, it recognizes that there is an even higher law;
that we must answer to our consciences. And my conscience tells me
that if we are saving lives how can that be wrong?!" he asked,
pounding the podium. "We stood by and watched Halva burn and did
nothing to intervene. Should we stand here and choose to turn a blind
eye again?!"
Talva took a sip of water and continued. "We have weighed the
issues carefully, and as of this moment, the Empire declares that the
area known as the demilitarized zone is now under Imperial protection.
Any attempts by the Cardassians or the Romulans to harm those worlds
and their people will be met with swift and irresistible justice." He
paused. "We cannot bring back the people of Halva, but we can learn
from that mistake. And we have. And the Empire will stand together
with the Federation and the Klingons," he said, his voice swelling,
"and we will tell the Cardassians 'Not one more world! Not one more
life! Not one more innocent soul will be lost to the forces of
evil!'"
Col. Kira paused the recording, and looked up at the members
of her senior staff, a grim look on her face. "I want all hands ready
for action," she said. "This war just moved to our backyard."

The Federation officers sat across the table from Leia, Han,
and Luke in the Overlord's meeting room. Chewie had stayed behind
with Artoo to repair the damage done by the Jem'hadar. At the head of
the table sat Capt. Price, a look of unease on her face. "I must
admit, I find this all a bit hard to take in," she said. "We don't
trust the Empire, but to believe they would resort to what you say..."
"They are telling us the truth," Lt. Comm. Kilvek said, "At
least, the truth as they believe it."
"I was briefed on your Rebellion," Commander Testh, Price's
first officer, said. "We were told that the Rebels were a group of
terrorists. How you had destroyed an Imperial space station with
millions of people on board?"
Leia, Han, and Luke looked at each other, wondering how to
explain this one. "It's true," Luke said, "because I was the one who
destroyed it."
The remark was received with the expected surprise, but Kilvek
quickly spoke. "The Empire, as always, has proven that a half-truth
is more effective than a lie." He pointed to Leia, "Tell them why it
was destroyed."
Leia wet her lips, calling back the memories of events she'd
been trying to forget over the past few years. "The space station was
called the 'Death Star.' It was designed for one purpose, to rule
through fear. It possessed enough firepower to punch through any
shield and completely destroy a planet. Completely." She closed her
eyes.
"The Empire tested the weapon on her home planet," Han said
softly, putting a comforting arm around her. "It was literally blown
to pieces in a fraction of a second."
"Impossible," said Tesh, "no station, no matter how large,
could generate that much power."
"I saw what was left of the planet," Han replied sharply.
"Asteroids, nothing else."
"That's why we had to destroy it," Luke said. "They were
getting ready to fire on the moon where our base was located, it was a
clear-cut case of self-defense."
Victoria Price rocked back and forth in her chair, thinking.
Finally she asked Kilvek, "You believe they're telling the truth?"
The Vulcan nodded. "Absolutely, captain."
Price nodded. "Then I suppose that's good enough for me. So,
what happens now?"
"Now that we've established you're not siding with the
Empire's evil," Leia said, "but have just been deceived, we'd like it
if we could have the opportunity to speak with your leaders."
"That could be a problem," Price said, a slight hesitation in
her voice. "We're not on the best of terms with Starfleet Command."
Leia gave her a puzzled look. "We don't exactly... work for the
Federation anymore."
"But, you said this is the Federation Starship Overlord," said
Luke.
"We've... well, I suppose there's no easy way to say it,"
admitted Capt. Price. "We stole it."

"The Breen?" Picard asked.
"Undeclared at this time, sir," Riker replied.
"What about the Yelnip?"
"They've decided to side with us."
"Thallonians?"
Riker hesitated. "Not too pleased with the Klingons, they'll
probably side with the Romulans."
"Anyway we can change that," Picard asked.
"Break away from the Klingons," Riker replied, rubbing his
eyes. "Sorry, sir. I didn't-"
"Quite alright," Picard replied. His report to Starfleet
command on the status of the independent worlds wasn't looking very
good. Many were anti-Empire or anti-Klingon, and the
Romulan-Cardassian side was starting to gain some support. Just a
year ago he was complaining about too many diplomatic missions;
apparently there hadn't been enough. "What's the current strategic
situation?"
Riker picked up a PADD. "No attempts to cross the Neutral
Zone, the conflicts are mostly along the Klingon-Romulan border. The
Cardassian forces have twice attempted to retake the demilitirized
zone from the Empire - both failed."
"I don't understand, no further incursions along the
Cardassian border," Picard mused aloud. "That was where it all
started."
Riker was silent for a while. "You know my opinion on the
matter, sir."
Picard rubbed his eyes and stifled a yawn. "We've been over
this before, Will, the Empire couldn't have done it. Only the
Cardassians could've launched that attack."
"Except, as you've admitted, there seems to be no reason for
them to have attacked. In fact, we've increased patrols along the
Cardassian borders substantially. It's actually made things worse for
them."
"Yes....." Picard disappeared into thought. Nothing was
making sense any more. The Federation was now at the center of what
was shaping into the largest war in known history. The fate of the
entire quadrant was being decided right now, and while it looked all
but certain the Federation would be on the winning side, the details
made him uneasy. There was a possibility he hadn't shared aloud, one
he dare not. He knew facts he couldn't share with his crew about what
had gone on during the Dominion War, had seen what desperation did to
mankind. Perhaps it was neither the Cardassians nor the Empire...
perhaps it was the Federation itself. Five years ago he would have
chewed out anyone who even uttered such a thing, but after the evils
he'd witnessed, he really couldn't deny it was at least possible. "How
are our two new promotions coming along?" he asked, hoping to shift to
a more pleasant subject.
Riker seemed to search for the best way to broach the subject.
"I won't lie to you, captain," he said finally. "Many of the
department heads resent promoting Lt. of Nine to Data's old position.
I don't want to name names, but some... some feel you're doing this
because of personal feelings for her."
"You mean romantic feelings," Picard said. "Will-"
"I'm only passing it along, sir," Riker said, then smiled a
little. "I think we both realize that Seven isn't the dating type."
"What's your opinion of her promotion, Will?"
Riker thought a moment. "She's the best qualified for the
job, sir" he said flatly. "But she does tend to rub people the wrong
way."
"Is it worth it?"
"Yes," Riker said unequivocally. "But if something could be
done-"
"I'm working on it, Will," Picard said. "She's very deep in
her shell, and I think it will take some time to coax her out, but I'm
doing what I can."
"Yes sir. And for what it's worth, I think what you're doing
for her and Data is very decent of you. Data, incidentally, is doing
fantastic. Frankly, I'm worried about my job," he said with a smile.
"Would you take him as a first officer?"
"Absolutely." Riker paused. "Do you have plans for me too,
captain?"
"You and I have had this discussion," Picard said. "I'm not
pushing you out the door, but I would encourage you to consider
stepping through it. But it's your career, Will; I'll not tell you
how to handle it."
"Thank you, sir."
Picard tossed the PADD on the desk. "Let's call it a night,
Will. The war will be waiting for us in the morning."

"You have to understand our situation," said Capt. Price, with
the slightest hint of guilt in her voice. "The Federation has stood
for a very long time for peace, justice, and freedom. All of us," she
indicated the officers present, "joined Starfleet because we believed
in the ideals of the Federation."
"I get the feeling there's a 'but' coming," Han said.
"We learned the hard way that the Federation ideals were just
that. In times of peace, one can enjoy high ideals, but when conflict
and danger comes, that's when we show our true colors. In the case of
the Federation, that danger was the Dominion."
"You've already seen a small sample of what the Federation has
had to deal with for the past several years," Commander Tesh pointed
out. "The Dominion is dangerous. Their leaders uncompromising, their
soldiers zealots. We were unprepared for the severity of their
attack."
"We became desperate," Price said. "Everything we had built,
all our high-minded philosophies took a back seat in the face of basic
self-preservation. Martial law was declared on Earth, and the rumors,
while unproven, held enough evidence to paint a very dark picture. In
short, we learned the Federation was no longer what it claimed to be.
A hundred small atrocities throughout our space made us realize that
we could no longer in good conscience continue our role in all of
this."
"So you stole the Overlord."
Price nodded. "The Overlord is one of the most advanced ships
in the fleet, and it was one of the first ships equipped with the new
hyperdrive, it was a perfect choice for what we wanted to do."
"And what exactly is that," Luke asked.
"We're returning to the ideals of the Federation," Price said.
"Starfleet was founded to seek out new life, not subjugate it. And
yet, our leaders are more concerned with logistics and planning than
with exploration and contact. That's why we left them behind, and
that's why we sought you out."
"You knew we were looking to make contact."
Price nodded. "We heard that a new group was looking for
information about the Federation. We'd rather you spoke to us than
with Jellico or one of the other warmongers in the Federation."
This complicated matters. There was a lot to consider, Leia
knew, but their mission still hadn't changed. "We should at least try
talking to the Federation. Perhaps they will listen..."
"They won't," Tesh interrupted. "The Empire is their savior
now. Too many politicians and admirals have put their reputation on
the line. They don't want to hear what you're going to tell them."
"We've got to find a way to make them listen then," Leia
replied. "The number of lives lost-."
"Lives already have been lost," Kelvik said. "The Romulans
have been fighting the Imperials and Klingons, and when we last spoke
the Federation and Cardassians looked to join in soon."
"Then we need to stop the growth of the Empire's control now,"
Leia said. "The Romulans, they're the ones fighting the Empire?"
"Yes," Tesh said, "but what does that matter?"
"Perhaps we could join forces with them to at least slow this
conflict down, give us a chance to get to the Federation and the
Klingons and tell them the truth."
Comm. Tesh laughed. "You can't be serious. The Romulans
would never trust outsiders. Besides, they're the Federation's enemy,
we can't help them."
"The enemy of my enemy is my friend," Leia said. "If we don't
do something the Empire will take control of all these worlds, and the
Federation, the Klingons, and the Romulans will be no more."
"I'm afraid she's right, captain," Kelvik interjected. "We
need to put aside our personal allegiances and look at the common
good. The Federation is merely a puppet of the Empire, if we remove
the Empire we restore the Federation."
"The Romulans will never ally with us," Tesh said.
"They're losing," Capt. Price said. "They're losing and they
know it. But they're also very stubborn. We need to find a way to
bridge the gap. And I have an idea." She picked up a PADD and tapped
on a few keys, then put it down. "An important member of the
military, Admiral Riklin, was captured by the Klingons and taken to a
prison camp on the planet Ho'rras. Assuming he's not dead yet, he
could convince the military leadership of at least considering an
alliance with your rebellion." She paused. "All we have to do is
find a way to get him off that planet."
"Captain," Tesh replied, "we don't have the resources to mount
that kind of a rescue mission! Besides, even if we succeed, think of
the ramifications! This could cause the Klingons to declare war on
the Federation, causing even more bloodshed."
"Perhaps," she replied, thinking. "But it seems that we have
too few options at this point. It's either attempt the rescue or do
nothing, and I'm not really interested in watching the Alpha Quadrant
go up in flames from the safety of this ship." She turned to Leia,
"What do you say?"
Leia spoke without hesitation. "You get us there, we'll get
him out. I guarantee it."
"And how do you propose to do that?" Tesh demanded.
Leia smiled. "Trust me."



CHAPTER XVIII

There was an open space between the concealment and the mesh
fence that surrounded the Klingon prison. Moving as quickly as
possible, a small group of Federation soldiers began cutting through
it. Luke looked beyond at the prison itself: two stories, at least a
thousand square meters. Automated gunnery towers were set up to fire
at any unauthorized entrances or exits, and inside were barracks for
the soldiers set to guard those identified as war criminals by the
Klingon Empire. They didn't know how many were inside; the dampening
field that prevented transport also made sensor sweeps almost
impossible.
The team at the fence returned to their position, just as they
had for the simulation, ready to charge headlong for the door that was
directly ahead of them. The Federation troops held their weapons at
the ready, their nervousness revealed to Luke through the Force. Luke
took the front of the line, Leia just behind him; both held their
lightsabers at the ready, though unlit. He nodded to Capt. Price, and
she signaled the Federation trooper. The trooper held the remote and
mouthed the count; on two Luke broke for the fence. The edges
exploded and fell in as he reached it, and the alarms sounded. Blue
and green lightsabers lit the darkness as the Jedi broke across the
yard, closely followed by the Federation troops.
The weapons on the tower activated. Luke stood fast on the
left flank, catching and reflecting the weapon's beam away from his
unit, trying to protect them as they rushed through. He felt Leia's
intense concentration as she did the same on the right. The fear of
the troopers was now replaced by determination as they rushed towards
the main building, the ones in front opening fire with phaser pulses
on the door, hoping to blow it in before they arrived, or kill anyone
who may try to come out. The Overlord's crew may not like war, Luke
thought, but they certainly weren't pacifists. Luke's blade snapped
out twice more to block more incoming weapons fire, then he fell in
behind his unit. He watched helplessly as one trooper was struck by
the tower and knocked off his feet, too far away for Luke to protect
him. The door exploded beyond under the constant barrage and the
troopers began charging in. Leia quickly followed the last one in
while Luke covered her, then dove in himself.
The entrance room echoed with weapons fire, but the two Jedi
didn't stop. Leia reached the control panel and stabbed it, causing
the door to open. She and Luke rushed in, leaving the Federation
troopers to hold off the Klingons while they searched for the computer
core. The next room, however, wasn't it. Eight Klingons were
strapping on armor; to their credit, three instantly had out their
disruptors and opened fire. However, neither Luke nor Leia were
caught off guard either; their blades deflected the first of the
blasts aside, then Luke took some more aggressive swings, reflecting
the shots right back at them and taking them down.
The weapons fire -at least, in this room- ended as the
Klingons examined the Jedi. Luke could sense their curiosity. The
one remaining Klingon with a disruptor put it back in its sheath and
pulled out a bat'leth, spinning it slowly with one hand. The others
were doing the same. "I have never met anyone brave enough to face a
Klingon in hand to hand combat," the first one said with a toothy
grin. He began stepping forward changing his grip on the weapon.
"Songs will be sung of this day." He charged Luke, his blade making
sweeping motions in a complex pattern of attack. But Luke had the
Force, and a lightsaber... he rolled low and to the left, slipping
past the flash of the blade, then swung up with his lightsaber as the
Klingon tried to swing back at him. The lightsaber passed through the
blade, then through its wielder; the Klingon dropped dead to the
floor.
Leia took a step forward, her blade raised and held menacingly
before her. Luke was quick to return to a fighting stance. Hopefully
after that he could convince them a fight was pointless. He put as
much authority in his voice as possible and said, "Don't make us have
to kill you, too."
The Klingons, instead of being cowed, were amused. "Then
perhaps today is a good day to die!" one cried, and together the
remaining Klingons charged, weapons swinging. Leia sidestepped one,
bringing her elbow up to knock him off-balance while she literally
disarmed her attacker. Luke jumped over a low slice, swinging down
with his blade to bisect the warrior's head. He hit the floor and
leapt like it was a trampoline, somersaulting over the two remaining
Klingons. He hit the floor and spun, catching one startled warrior
off guard as he turned to bring his weapon to bear. Again, the
bat'leths couldn't stop a lightsaber, and Luke sliced him in half.
Luke stepped over the remains of the Klingon, trying to press his
advantage. He made an overhead swing, but the Klingon slipped to the
right; an almost fatal mistake for Luke as the guard attempted a quick
counter-attack. Luke slipped out of the way and attempted a second
swing on the Klingon. Despite twice witnessing the futility, the
Klingon instinctively tried to block Luke's strike with his weapon;
the lightsaber continued right through the blade and into the Klingon,
finishing him off.
Luke whirled around to check on Leia, but she had already
dispatched the last armed Klingon. At the moment she was trying to
restrain the one-armed Klingon who seemed determined to fight on with
his remaining hand. It was almost pitiful, and Luke grabbed the
weapon out of his hand - a mistake, because he'd completely let his
guard down. The Klingon gave him a backhand so quick it almost
knocked Luke off his feet.
"I will not be your prisoner!" the Klingon roared as he tried
to press his advantage. Unfortunately, he should have quit while he
was ahead. Luke sidestepped each blow, finally, tripping him up and
pinning him to the floor.
"You all right?" Leia asked.
"I'm more embarrassed than hurt," Luke said.
"I will not be-"
"We don't want you as a prisoner!" Luke shouted at him,
feeling frustrated at the situation. He forced himself to calm down.
"We just want to get our people and leave."
"The murderous, dishonorable Romulans will never leave this
place alive!"
Luke concentrated and began speaking, very slowly, to the
Klingon. "I just want you to show me the computer core. You will
show me the computer core."
Hesitantly, the Klingon spoke. "I will take you to the
computer core."
Luke got off the Klingon and helped him up. The guard led
them through one of the other corridors up to a large, heavy door; it
was also protected by a force field. With some convincing by Luke,
the Klingon keyed in a code on the wall and the shield dropped. Luke
sliced through the door and entered; Leia took a seat. "Captain,
we've found the computer, but I can't read it." While she spoke Luke
tried to persuade the Klingon to operate the computer, but to no avail
- his hatred of Romulans was too great for Luke to overcome.
"I'm on my way," Price called. Soon she arrived and began
tapping controls, checking over the instructions and touching pads at
various prompts. Finally she spoke. "Cell 32, level 1," she
declared. "I'm deactivating the dampening field." Seconds later the
alarm sounded, followed by an angry Klingon voice. Price tapped her
communicator. "Overlord, I'm transmitting the co-ordinates now. Beam
him out, then get us out of here." Klingons began charging into the
room, and Luke and Leia provided cover for Price until the three were
beamed up. In the transporter room she hit her comm badge. "Riklin's
secure?"
"Aye, captain," said Tesh. "We're heading into hyperspace."
Price wiped the sweat from her brow. "Let's hope he was worth
it."

Julian Bashir and Ezri Dax shared a laugh as well as a drink
as they watched the evening's entertainment, which was Quark running
around like a chicken with its head cut off. At the moment he was
berating one of the waiters for some microscopic flaw. "Quark,
relax," Ezri said.
"I am relaxed," Quark said, straightening his shirt.
"Perfectly relaxed."
"Quark," Bashir said, "stop it. He may be the Grand Nagus,
but he's still your brother."
"Exactly," Quark said irritably, "he's my brother. Family's
always the first to take advantage of you-"
"Rom wouldn't do that," Ezri said.
"No? No? You don't know anything about Ferengi."
"Rom's a decent guy, Quark," Bashir said.
"Why is he coming then, hm?" Quark demanded.
"To see how you're doing, maybe?"
"Ha! Like I said, nothing about Ferengi." Quark stepped
behind the bar. "He's assessing the place... going to see if maybe he
should take it back, turn a tidy little profit."
"As much fun as this is," Bashir said, "we do have a holosuite
scheduled for this evening."
"It's ready, it's ready," Quark said as if he were waving away
an irritating bug. "They're just finishing the clean-up... had an
error with the bio... thing."
"Bio-reclamation?" Bashir asked.
"They're cleaning it up," Quark said.
"Thanks, but no thanks," Bashir said. "I'm not about to risk
Ezri and I being turned into random energy fields."
"It wasn't that kind of error," Quark snapped. "The system
just didn't trigger, that's all."
"Just the same, you'll pardon me if I wait until Col. Kira had
a diagnostic done."
"No refunds," Quark said quickly.
"I'm taking a rain check," Bashir said, and left before Quark
could speak up. He was bumped into by a Trandoshan who was coming in,
but Bashir decided not to comment.
"Listen," Quark said to the waiter, "when I say to recalibrate
the replicator I don't mean to rub it with a damp towel! Get to it!"
The Trandoshan knocked on the bar to get Quark's attention. "I'll be
with you in a minute, Mr.-" A clawed hand grabbed a lobe and pulled
him around to look the alien in the face.
"Bossk," the Trandoshan said. The universal translator was
having trouble, the speech sounded more hissed than it should. "I'm
looking for someone."
"Holosuites are being readied for that perfect companion,"
Quark said, mindful of the grip on his ear.
"I am looking for someone on this station, Ferengi," Bossk
said. He let go for the moment, but it seemed to be just so Quark
could see the claws up close. "I was told you could find them."
"I see," Quark said, nervousness in his voice. "Look, I'm
really busy right now, do you think maybe you could come back-"
Quark was lifted half a meter off the ground as the Trandoshan
grabbed his shirtfront in one clawed hand, and for a brief moment he
thought the reptilian was going to try and eat him. Instead Bossk
spoke with a menace the universal translator had no trouble conveying.
"Where is Elim Garak?" he demanded.
"Cardassia!" Quark shouted. "He hasn't been on the station in
months!"
"Where on Cardassia?" Bossk demanded.
"I don't know." Bossk hissed at him, a very unfriendly sound.
"I told you he left, I haven't seen or heard of him since!"
Quark was pulled inches from Bossk's face. "You had better
not be lying, Ferengi." Then he tossed Quark backwards, demolishing a
pile of bottles. He was knocked out by the blow, but soon the room
started coming back into focus-
"Uh- hi, Quark," Rom said cheerfully. "How's business?"
Quark lay amongst the broken bottles. "Fine, Rom... just
fine."

As the countdown completed, the starlines appeared and normal
space returned for the crew of the Overlord. Immediately alarms began
sounding. "Captain," the officer at tactical called, "I'm detecting
over eighty ships out there, ranging from slightly larger than a
shuttle to over... 1500 meters."
"Hopefully this is the alliance and not an ambush," Price
said, her own nervousness buried beneath her hardened facade.
"Assuming the two aren't mutually exclusive," Tesh replied
from the first officer's chair.
"Incoming communication, audio only," tactical reported.
"Let's hear it," Price ordered.
"Overlord this is Solo," as the voice of the pilot came
through the comm systems, "Hold your position while I inform command
of your presence."
"Are you sure this is the right thing, captain," Tesh asked,
his voice low. "It's not too late to turn back."
Price shook her head slowly. "We're committed now. We've
become involved. For better or for worse."
"We can still..."
"Still turn a blind eye?" Price replied gloomily, "Because
that's what we've been doing. We cannot continue to ignore the
conflict that is consuming this quadrant. If we can help, even in the
smallest way, we are obligated to help."
Tesh finally backed down, although he obviously didn't want
to. "Very well, captain. But I want to go on record as saying that
this is a mistake."
"Incoming communication, captain"
"Noted," she said to Test, then nodded to the tactical
officer.
"You're cleared for approach, Overlord," was the message over
the communication system.
"Lay in a course and proceed," Price commanded. The Overlord
slipped into formation with the rest of the fleet. Price knew, knew
in her very bones, that this was the right thing. She just hoped it
was also the smart thing.

"Run it again," Picard ordered.
Data tapped several panels and the image again showed on the
screen. They watched in silence as the people charged into the Klingon
compound, their weapons blasting away at the fortifications. There
was no mistaking the Starfleet stealth uniforms they wore, or the comm
badges they each had. Analysis of the weapons' effects clearly showed
that their weapons were type II and type III phasers. If this wasn't
a Federation attack, someone had gone to great lengths to make it look
like one.
And that was the problem. The Klingons were up in arms over
this, claiming the Federation had betrayed them to the Romulans. The
Empire was decidedly mute on the subject, but things weren't looking
too good for the Federation. Worf, as ambassador to the Klingon
Empire, managed to get a copy of the security recordings from the
attack, hoping they could ascertain the identity of the invaders. If
not, this already ugly war could get even worse.
"That device," Picard commented, "the one used to reflect the
disruptors. What is that?"
"Unknown sir," Data replied. "Its ability to actually reflect
the beam is puzzling. It obviously has some kind of energy
properties, but I am not aware of any technology capable of such a
compact projection method, or display those particular properties."
"I don't think any of us have seen anything like these devices
before," Picard replied.
"I have," Seven spoke.
Picard looked at her with some surprise. "The Borg?" he asked
with some hesitation.
"No," she responded. "Lord Darth Vader had such a device when
we met."
Picard looked at Seven with surprise. She had been with Vader
for only a few seconds several months ago, and yet she could recall
with certainty an unknown piece of technology he carried. The thought
boggled his mind, but he had learned over the previous months to trust
Seven's memory. "He didn't say what it was, did he?" he asked,
although he knew it was highly unlikely.
"No," she replied, "but I'm certain they are the same type of
device. They are almost identical in shape, mass, and design. I was
unable to find any reference to it in either the cultural or
technology files we were given."
"Which leads us, uncomfortably, to reconsider Commander
Riker's allegations," Picard concluded. "Only the Empire would have
access to such devices."
"Not exactly, sir," Data replied. "This technology came from
their galaxy. It's possible that anyone from their galaxy could have
used it, not just the Empire."
Picard sat up suddenly, his mind racing. All of a sudden, it
all fell into place. "The rebels," he whispered. "That's it... it's
the only answer that makes any sense. The rebels could have used
Cardassian ships to start a war between the Federation and the
Cardassians by destroying Halva. This begins draining our resources
and forcing the Empire to deploy more ships here. They then
impersonate the Federation and launch an attack on the Klingon war
camp to cause a division between us and the Klingons. The Empire is
then trapped in the middle of a complex war, further diverting their
attention."
"Interesting," Data replied, "but it is merely speculation,
sir."
"Yes, I know," Picard replied, "but it's the only theory that
makes any sense. It explains the Cardassian's pointless attack, the
non-existent Federation invasion, and who these mysterious individuals
were. The Rebellion has a history of acts of sheer brutality, so it
explains the Halva massacre. Besides which, the attackers clearly had
to be from the Empire's galaxy, so it's either the Empire or the
rebels, and we've seen no evidence that it's the Empire."
"But we have seen no direct evidence it is the rebels either,"
Seven pointed out.
"Perhaps," Picard replied, "but they're the only ones who have
benefited from this attack. And one thing I've learned from my Dixon
Hill days, those who have the means, motive, and opportunity are
usually the guilty party."
"If this is true Captain," Data replied, "how should we
proceed?"
Picard sighed. "We're powerless for now. I'll inform
Starfleet Command and hopefully they can tell the Empire what we've
learned. I hope they can restore peaceful relations between the
Federation and the Klingons. Mr. Data, I know Will has given you a
lot to do, but when you find some time I want you to go over the
Imperial data again. No offense, lieutenant, but a second glance with
this new information may turn up something that you missed."
"No offense taken, sir," Seven said.
"Good. Seven, I want you to analyze the battle again, in
detail. Specifically, those two combatants."
"You believe there is a connection between them and Lord
Vader," Seven said.
"The way they moved is superhuman, Seven. And what Vader did
was impossible. That all three possess these devices makes me
inclined to think there's a link."
"I will endeavor to find it, sir," Seven said. Picard nodded
and showed himself out, leaving Seven alone. She played the footage
in full again, paying close attention. After it was done, she started
at the beginning, paying particular attention to the one with the
green weapon. It was amazing to watch him; his movements were quick
and precise, flawless. It appealed to her Borg nature... maximum
possible efficiency. Not a single wasted swing or step or movement.
She watched him again, committing all his movements to memory... and
then despite that she still found herself starting again when it was
all over, though she would have been forced to admit she had no idea
why she felt so compelled.



CHAPTER XIX

Col. Kira rushed out of her office and into Ops. "Report!"
she shouted over the alert.
"Incoming ships," Lt. Blake called to her. "Cardassian,
twenty-three ships. They're on an intercept course."
"How much time?" Kira asked quickly.
"Three minutes."
"What?" she asked incredulously. "This is the first we've
sighted them?!"
Blake hesitated. "There was probably some interference due
to..."
"Please, spare me the Starfleet lecture," she replied, heading
for the lift. "Get the station ready for attack, and appraise Bajor
and Starbase 1172 of the attack." She stepped into the lift as she
tapped her communicator. "Nog, I want the Defiant prepped and ready
for launch immediately."

"Aye, sir," Nog said. He turned to his father, holding up his
hands in a placating gesture. "Look, I have to deal with this, we'll
discuss things after I get back." Rom had been trying to track down
the Trandoshan that roughed up Quark, but he seemed to have slipped
off the station.
"But I have some new information-" Rom said as Bashir and Ezri
came up.
"Lieutenant," Bashir said, "don't keep the colonel waiting."
"Sir," Nog said, and jogged off.
"Listen," Rom said, "this is important!" He turned to Bashir
and Ezri. "This alien is a bounty hunter! He-"
"Rom," Bashir said, "we really don't have time for this right
now."
"Look, I am the Grand Nagus, and I will not simply be
ignored," Rom said. It wasn't threatening, it was more the voice of
desperation.
"Julian," Ezri said, "go ahead. Rom, tell me everything and
I'll see what I can do."
"I'll see you when I get back," Bashir said as he took off
after Nog.
"Listen," Rom said to Ezri, "the bounty hunter was hired by
the Empire!"
"What makes you say that?" Ezri asked.
"Profits!" Rom said. "You think money is being passed around
and the Ferengi won't know about it?"
"You have a point," Ezri said. "But we are at war with
Cardassia, Rom."
"But what he did-"
"Look, even if the Empire set up the bounty, they aren't
responsible for what happened to Quark." Rom started to protest. "I
know he's your brother, and you feel like you owe him, but you know
that Quark deals in shady areas at times... and this is what happens."
"Don't dismiss this, just because he's a Ferengi," Rom said.
"You know I'd never do that," Ezri said. "Now, we better get
to a shelter, all right?" Rom nodded finally, but was clearly not
happy, and the two headed off for Deep Space Nine's emergency
shelters.

The Defiant pulled away from its dock just as the Cardassian
ships came out of warp. As the ship turned about and began moving to
intercept, Kira felt her breath freeze in her chest. There were
twenty-three ships alright, but not the standard Galors she'd been
expecting. These were the Keldon-class ships, much larger and more
powerful. She turned to the officer monitoring communications. "Any
help on the way?"
"We've got the Chelnys, the Latinia, and the Vorral
approaching from Bajor," she called. "They'll be here in two
minutes."
Kira ground her teeth. Four against twenty-three. This
didn't look good. "Well we'll have to buy them some time. Open a
channel to the Cardassians." The officer nodded to her. "This is
Colonel Kira. Why have you invaded our space?"
The image of a Cardassian appeared on the viewer. "This is
Gul Nulek. You will stand down your weapons and prepare to be
boarded."
"Standard Cardassian hail," Bashir quietly commented.
"And time for the standard Bajoran reply," Kira said. "Prepare
to fire on my mark." They watched as the ships moved closer and
closer, ignoring any orders to turn back. Finally, with no options
left, Kira gave the command. "Fire."
The Defiant fired a series of phaser pulses at the nearest
Keldon, battering its shields. The remaining ships of the fleet
continued on, fourteen heading for Bajor while the rest went towards
the station. The tiny ship performed some evasive maneuvers as the
Keldon's tried vainly to connect, then fired again. "Their shields
are at 42%," Nog called.
"Continue firing," Kira ordered. The Defiant rocked with an
impact, but they fought on.
"Their shields are at 34%."
Kira gritted her teeth. "Three quantum torpedoes." She could
sense the other officers on the bridge didn't like that order; even
though there was a war, technically Bajor wasn't involved. If Kira
deliberately gave the order to destroy the Cardassian ship, they'd be
in it up to their necks. "We've got two dozen ships to worry about,"
Kira said, "this is no time to play with the kid gloves. Lock on and
fire."
Three shimmering silver-white dots shot out of the ship,
traveling in eerie silence towards the Cardassian ship. The
explosions shook the vessel about as it experienced stresses it was
never designed to endure. "Their shields are gone," Nog reported.
"There's fluctuations in their power grid, multiple hull breaches-."
"Phasers," Kira ordered.
Nog only hesitated a second. "Aye, sir," he said. The
Defiant swung around at the Cardassian ship, it's pulse phasers
ripping through its hull. Within seconds, the explosions began
appearing throughout the ship. As the Defiant raced away, the ship
exploded in a brilliant shower of light and metal.
"Lay in a pursuit course," Kira ordered. She could see eight
Keldons surrounding Deep Space 9, the rest of the fleet already far in
the distance. "The other vessels should hopefully buy us some time.
Fire on the nearest ship as soon as we're in range: Six quantums in a
three quarter spread pattern." The tension on the bridge seemed to
thicken; many of these officers were new to the Defiant, some hadn't
seen any action at all in the Dominion War. They were used to
Starfleet's usually soft methods; heavy-handed tactics didn't go over
well. Well, Kira thought, it's time they learned what war is, in all
its ugly details. They were one ship against a small fleet, they
couldn't afford to pull their punches.
"Approaching optimal weapons r

[Sii]

what the flying fuck?

[Mr.Wizard]

thats enough for now... ill wait for the reviews

[64coldasfire]

What. The. Fuck.

[Saint Austin]

http://mydogshavefleas.com/fleasblog/wp-content/gallery/misc-pics/cookiebunny.jpg

[HenryGandorf]

about to start reading. i'll get back to you two weeks from never.

[po elvis]

i will just read the replies.

[Tejano]

"Approaching optimal weapons r

FUCK!!!

HOW COULD YOU LEAVE US HANGING LIKE THAT!

DAMMIT!

[tropheus]

?? did you expect me to read that??

there's more?? :eek2:

[Lonestarman]

I've done the joke "BANNED." I've never meant it. But WTF, dude? I had read shit about you but I thought it was mostly HFs hatred. If you don't step your shit the fuck up about 12.7 notches, and I mean quick as shit, you need some Taps treatment. All of that happened before I was here and I never voted but damn, man. You seem like a suck that really fucking sucks.

What an abortion of a thread. Who knows if it was even funny. This is the worst thread I have ever seen on Shaggy since I've been here. What a total fucking bork. Damn.

[Beamwalker]

I've done the joke "BANNED." I've never meant it. But WTF, dude? I had read shit about you but I thought it was mostly HFs hatred. If you don't step your shit the fuck up about 12.7 notches, and I mean quick as shit, you need some Taps treatment. All of that happened before I was here and I never voted but damn, man. You seem like a suck that really fucking sucks.

What an abortion of a thread. Who knows if it was even funny. This is the worst thread I have ever seen on Shaggy since I've been here. What a total fucking bork. Damn.

I agree with everything in this post.

Before I even opened this thread I knew it contained epic amounts of fail. When I actually started scrolling down all that shit, I just don't even have the words for how confused I am with what would possess someone to do that. I've never used a fucking smiley before, but I'm pretty sure if there is a Raptorjesus, this is happening right now- :lamo:

I mean really??

EDIT: Fuck me running man, I actually read some of that. Its serious. The whole goddamn thing is serious. Thats worse than goatseing, lemonpartying, tubgirling and 2girls 1cuping a thread combined. That is the worst thing I've ever seen on the internet. Ever.

[Mr.Wizard]

humm i guess i will not post the rest then if you all feel that way.

[Beamwalker]

Honestly, with the same grim determination and perseverance I mustered while watching 2girls1cup all the way to the pukey end, I hope you do post the rest of it. I really do.

In fact, why doesn't Grendel help edit and use his superior intellect, writing skills and vast literary background to bring this thread out to its full potential.

[The Tower]

my head hurts.

[tropheus]

humm i guess i will not post the rest then if you all feel that way.

look man, its the wrong place and the wrong form. take it to close friends, join a writers critique group, try to network in a way that will lead you to literary agents, etc. but for the love of god, don't share your shit with these degenerates. come on man.

[The Tower]

there will be a quiz from chapter I to chapter XVI tomorrow.

[kangsta]

I think my eyes would bleed if i read all that on a computer screen

[Gehrig]

This is why we need to bump up the "thread starting post count" to around 100.

[Mr.Wizard]

there will be a quiz from chapter I to chapter XVI tomorrow.

lol that is only only the first one and acts of the first of 6 parts and each part has 3 acts.

[LonghornSean]

I'm sure that took a lot of time and effort, but damn, a little too long for me. Good luck with this thread.

[Beamwalker]

Great author, earned it on Chapter XIV.

[BigOrange]

can we please ban this jackass?

[Lonestarman]

This is why we need to bump up the "thread starting post count" to around 100.

True dat. Wizard, if this was an actual original piece that you wrote I might to would read it. Somewhere in that range. I like the hell out of teh Star Wars. But man that was a fucking tome. Ease in to the site, hoss. Less words=more. If it was some quoted bullcrap, I stand by my original post.

[The Dude]

i would never be interested in reading anything like that.ever.

damn yall are harsh. if you want serious responses then i sure as shit wouldnt post anything here.

[Eastwood22]

I've done the joke "BANNED." I've never meant it. But WTF, dude? I had read shit about you but I thought it was mostly HFs hatred. If you don't step your shit the fuck up about 12.7 notches, and I mean quick as shit, you need some Taps treatment. All of that happened before I was here and I never voted but damn, man. You seem like a suck that really fucking sucks.

What an abortion of a thread. Who knows if it was even funny. This is the worst thread I have ever seen on Shaggy since I've been here. What a total fucking bork. Damn.

I agree with everything in this post.

Before I even opened this thread I knew it contained epic amounts of fail. When I actually started scrolling down all that shit, I just don't even have the words for how confused I am with what would possess someone to do that. I've never used a fucking smiley before, but I'm pretty sure if there is a Raptorjesus, this is happening right now- :lamo:

I mean really??

EDIT: Fuck me running man, I actually read some of that. Its serious. The whole goddamn thing is serious. Thats worse than goatseing, lemonpartying, tubgirling and 2girls 1cuping a thread combined. That is the worst thing I've ever seen on the internet. Ever.

You forgot meatspinning...

[staley]

I will never ever come back to this thread. What a waste of fucking time.

[lowery21]

Not to be a cock, but didn't Star Wars take place "A Long Time Ago...?"

[Red Five]

Is there a lez scene with Leia and Troi? If you say yes, then I'll read it.

[Texas Dan]

Just a bunch of Spam.

Bannination!!

Seems it was posted awhile ago on this site:

Alt: Star Trek vs Star Wars (http://www.nntpregister.net/alt/startrek/vs/starwars/)



What a coincidence, I just finished part XX.





WWEr Part XX

Picard watched as the Gilgamesh came out of hyperspace, the
fourth ship to join this small fleet destined for Bajor. All of the
ships in this group, as well as the Imperial starship Inferno due to
arrive any time now, were equipped with this new means of propulsion.
They had already installed them on twenty percent of the fleet, and
with the influx of some new Imperial equipment it looked like the
fleet may be finished in as early as eight months. This would be
excellent news if it weren't for the fact that the entire quadrant had
turned into a powder keg. They stood on the eve of a new era of
exploration, and they were still dealing with the petty bickering of
the past century.
Only now it wasn't so petty. Things were, in fact, about as
bad as they could get. The Federation, Klingons and Empire fighting a
war against the Cardassians and Romulans, with millions already dead
on both sides of the conflict. This could finally be it, Picard
thought, the end of the centuries-long "cold war" that had dominated
their existence. Would they be the survivors or would it be the
Cardassians and Romulans who prevailed. From the looks of things, the
latter seemed unlikely; Cardassian efforts to break Imperial control
of the demilitarized zone were abysmal failures, and the Empire and
Klingon fleets continued to overrun one Romulan system after another.
While it was comforting to be on the winning side, Picard found it
difficult to justify this clearly one-sided conflict, particularly
with new evidence that this war may have been precipitated by the
Rebellion. Still, he had to admit, the unprovoked attack on Utopia
Planetia didn't help matters. In the end, Picard decided, he was just
plain sick of war, and wished that, just for once, the galaxy would
see things his way.
"Sir," Lt. Travis called, "ship coming out of hyperspace." He
stood speechless at his post.
"Is it the Inferno," Picard finally asked.
"I hope so," Travis muttered. Regaining his composure, he
began to report. "The vessel appears to be of Imperial design,
approximately 13,000 meters long."
"What?!" Picard asked in shock. Even Borg cubes weren't that
big! Some space stations weren't that big!
"They're hailing us," Travis replied.
Picard nodded to him, and the message began.
"This is Admiral Praji," the voice spoke plainly. "Just so we
understand one another, I am in command of this mission; I expect you
all to follow my orders."
Picard looked dumb-founded at Riker. "Rather to the point,"
Riker commented a little darkly.
"Admiral, this is Capt. Picard. With all due respect, this is


a Federation matter. We appreciate the assist-"
"Captain," the Admiral interrupted, a note of annoyance in his
voice, "I am the senior officer in this fleet. The Inferno is the
ship of greatest tactical importance in this fleet. Do I have to
quote Starfleet regulations to you, or will you accept my authority?"
Data turned to Picard. "He is correct sir. Under Starfleet
regulation..."
"Thank you Data," Picard replied bitterly. He knew the
regulation, but it had always been intended for interactions among
Federation ships, not mixed fleets.
"Sir," Travis said, "we've received a communication from


Starfleet confirming the change of command. We're to defer to the
admiral, sir."
Picard looked at Riker, but his first officer simply dropped
into his chair without comment. "Very well, Admiral," Picard said.
"What are your orders?"
"You've been given the hyperspace coordinates. Prepare to go
to hyperspace on my mark."
"I'm sure glad he was around to tell us that," Riker said
under his breath.
"Yellow alert," Picard said, ignoring the remark. When the
order came the small fleet vanished into hyperspace.

There were a large number of armed guards waiting when the
Millennium Falcon touched down, and Leia could sense they were willing
to use them. She could also sense Han's nervousness as he powered the
ship down; she'd have to go with Admiral Riklin alone. Han caught her
hand as she got up to leave the cockpit. "Listen," he said in a very
serious tone, "be careful. You..." His voice just trailed off; she
could tell that for the first time he didn't know what to say.
"I'll be fine," she promised. She squeezed Han's hand, then
left the cockpit; Riklin was waiting. "After you, admiral," she said,
straightening her Jedi robes. She followed him down, her lightsaber
at her belt as an in case, although she knew if she had to go for it
she'd likely be dead anyway.
A Romulan officer came up and took Riklin a short distance


away. An ability of the Jedi is to enhance one's senses, so she did
so; perhaps it was spying, but under the circumstances, the more she
knew, the safer they'd all be. Still these Romulans were good; she
was actually having trouble hearing them over the sound of the blood
traveling through her head, they were that quiet.
"Are you sure this is wise, admiral?" the officer asked.
Leia could sense Riklin's uncertainty. "No, but it's our best
hope for winning this war."
"So you intend to vouch for her before the Senate?"
"Someone must," Riklin said, none to happy about it, "and so
it seems to fall to me. Besides, failure couldn't be worse than what
the Klingons had planned for me."
The officer nodded and left. Riklin came back while Leia
returned her senses to normal. "I'll take you to speak with the
Senate soon," he said. "I hope you can convince them."
"As do I," Leia said, and she followed Riklin out of the
docking area into the city.

In hyperspace, Admiral Praji held a meeting among the
commanders via the "holonet," which was being held in each ship's
respective holodeck. Praji was different to be sure; unlike Thrawn,
who had an air of experience and culture, Praji was a bit stiff. He
also seemed rather uncomfortable with Velt, the Bolean commander
present.
"Current intelligence tells us the Cardassians have
approximately twenty starships in the area. We're not sure exactly,
but we believe they may have taken civilian hostages on board their
vessels, no doubt in an effort to deter us from engaging their ships."
"I find it hard to believe even the Cardassians would resort
to the use of humanoid shields," Capt. Wallace of the Gilgamesh
commented.
"Our mutual experiences with the Cardassians shows that
nothing is beneath them," Praji replied. "And with the Inferno's ion
cannons ineffective we're going to have to take it easy on them at
first. I want your transport officers ready to beam out any hostages
the moment their shields are down. It will take some complicated
coordination, since you don't want to be flying with your shields down
any longer than necessary. For this reason, the Inferno will take the
point as well as the brunt of the attack."
"Twenty against you?" Velt asked incredulously. "Do you
really expect to prevail against such odd?"
Praji glared at him. "The Inferno can handle anything the
Cardassians have. Don't worry about us, just be prepared to defend
your positions and grab the hostages."
As they walked out Riker turned to Picard. "Did you see the
way he looked at Velt? Like he was something he scraped of his boot."
"Probably just Imperial pride," Picard remarked. "The Inferno
is an impressive ship, and it wouldn't surprise me if it lives up to
Praji's claims."
"I understand that," Riker replied, "but have you noticed
something about the Imperials? Every one of them we've met has been
human."
"You forgot Thrawn," Picard said.
"Yes," Riker admitted, "but besides him there hasn't been a
single non-human in the Imperial forces."
"Yes, just a grand admiral," Picard replied with a smile.
"My point, sir, is that it's rather odd. It's my job to call
attention to anomalies, sir."
"Fair enough," Picard said. "And I'll never fault you for
doing your job, Will, and I'll consider your observations. Right now,
however, we have a battle to win, and if the admiral is correct, it
won't be easy to win without killing our own people. Let's focus on
that for the moment, shall we?"
"Of course, sir," Riker said, but it was clear he still had
some doubts.

The Emperor felt Vader's presence in the Force from deep in
his meditation. "What is it, my friend?"
"A small rebel force has invaded the Milky Way and has
attacked the Klingons."
"As expected," was his only reply.


Vader paused, unsure of how to broach this topic. "My son is
with them." Darth Vader had thought he'd recognized the boy from the
recordings of the invasion. His personal inspection of the Klingon
prison confirmed it; he could sense that Luke had been there recently.
"Naturally," the Emperor replied. "The Rebels are nearing
extinction, and he will fight all the harder. His passion in the end
will prove his undoing."
"There is something more," Vader said, not dwelling on the
fact that the same could have been said of him long ago. "There was a
second Jedi with him, a girl."
The silence lasted a great while. "Are you certain?" the
Emperor asked, his voice now possessing a slight edge to it.
"Whoever she was was trained in the Jedi arts," Vader
confirmed.
The Emperor thought this over for some time. "It is of no


importance," he finally said. "The young Skywalker will embrace the
Dark side regardless of this element; I have already foreseen it. Soon
the rebellion will be wiped out and the conquest of the alpha quadrant
will be complete. Continue your task, my friend. The Federation and
Klingons will soon fall under our total control, and the Cardassians
and the Romulans will fall." A wicked grin crossed his lips. "It is
their destiny."

The fleet dropped out of hyperspace. "Load all torpedo bays,
stand by weapons," Riker ordered as Picard changed from yellow to red
alert.
They watched as the Inferno drove ahead of the rest of the
fleet, slicing through space like some massive shark. As it
approached, pinpoints of light began flying from the ship, fleas by
comparison to the massive vessel. The Cardassians moved to engage the
ship while the Federation vessels remained far from the fray, waiting
for the critical moment when their shields fell. The Inferno began
firing, its weapons filling space with turbolaser bolts.
"Transporter room," Picard called over the comm, "Do you have
any Bajoran life signs?"
"Negative, sir", the transporter chief replied, "but there's a
lot of interference."
"Keep scanning," Picard ordered.
The Inferno took a sixty degree rotation on its z axis,
bringing more of its heavy weapons to bear. Cardassian vessels began
surrounding it, blasting at the massive ship, yet with little visible
effect. Even the massive Keldons looked like shuttles next to the
Inferno. Picard had to admit that Praji's confidence was
well-founded.
"Transporter room," Riker called after another minute, "any


locks yet?"
"Negative, sir. Still nothing."
"Perhaps there aren't any," Troi commented. "Maybe the
information is wrong."
Picard hesitated. "I'm not sure we should assume that. I'd
rather err on the side of caution."
"If there are no hostages," Seven commented, "the Imperials
could employ their heavy weapons and we could engage the enemy as
well. This would increase total firepower by 268.3%"
"268.5%," Data commented.
Seven paused. "...yes..." she muttered.
"Get a room you two," Riker said, trying vainly to lighten the
grim mood. Seven and Data looked at one another with a moment of
shared confusion, then got back to their tasks.
Picard shifted in his chair as he mulled it over. "Contact
the other vessels, see if they've had better luck than we have."
"Our chief engineer has found a way to cut through the
interference," Capt. Wallace reported minutes later. There's just
Cardassians on board those vessels."
"Understood," Picard replied, turning to his first officer.
"Should we assume it was all a mistake?" Riker said nothing, but
finally nodded his head. "I want continued scans," Picard said, "if
there is the slightest indication of Bajorans on board I want to know
it."
"Sir," Lt. Travis reported, "another ship, Galor-class, has
entered the area."
"Inform the Inferno that we've detected no hostages and are
moving to engage," Picard ordered. "Ahead full impulse, stand by
weapons." The sleek Sovereign lunged forward, followed closely by the
remaining Starfleet vessels as they approached the heart of the
battle.
Suddenly a mass of weapons fire burst from the Inferno and
ripped into three nearby Cardassian vessels. In less than two seconds
their shields were gone; a few more blasts and the ships were
expanding clouds of plasma.
"It seems the admiral wasn't just boasting," Riker replied, a
mixture of awe and horror in his voice.
"Certainly not," Picard agreed. He watched as the other
Keldons changed positions and attempted a concentrated attack on one
side. The Inferno's shields were straining to hold against it. The
Inferno fired back, hard and deadly, turning more Cardassian ships
into debris. By the time the Federation vessels had reached the
battle the Keldons were beginning their retreat.
"Admiral Praji is ordering a pursuit," Lt. Travis reported.
Picard hesitated. The Cardassians understood what they were
up against; further attacks would only be a slaughter, but then, any
ship that escaped today would be one they'd have to fight tomorrow. He
didn't like it, but it wasn't his choice in any case. "Lay in a
pursuit course," he ordered grudgingly. "Target their weapons," he
ordered Lt. Travis, "see if you can disable rather than destroy them."

Ezri Dax, Jake Sisko, Grand Nagus Rom and his wife Leeta sat
in restraints in Ops. While the ship captains hadn't resorted to
humanoid shields, the commander of the station felt it couldn't hurt
to discourage shots to his part of the station. "Have your teams
standing by," he ordered his subordinate. "If the Empire wants this
station, they're going to pay for it with blood."
"Why die needlessly?" Ezri asked.
"Silence!" the commander said, because it was expected for him
to shout something like that.
"You can't win, and you won't even put a dent in their
forces," Ezri continued. "You can end this without losing your or
your troops' lives." The commander turned to berate her but was
interrupted.
"Sir," one of the officers said, "torpedoes incoming!"
The commander turned back to the display. "They wouldn't
dare," he said with a voice like a knife.
"Sir, it's... it's one of ours."
They watched the glowing images grow. Shields were already at
maximum; hopefully they could stand up to the punishment. Leeta
looked over with worry at Rom. "We'll be fine," he said, trying to
sound brave, but the fact it was Rom meant it was absolutely
unconvincing. But he was trying, he was really trying to be strong
for her. They all turned and watched the torpedoes as they reached
the shields.... and didn't stop. There was only a second for them to
react before the first collided with Ops.

There was a sudden flash of such intensity the bridge crew
instinctively covered their faces. "What was that?" Riker demanded.
Lt. Travis could barely speak the words. "Deep Space 9 is
gone, sir."
Picard turned and looked at him, unable to believe what had
happened. "How?"
"The Galor, sir, it..."
"No Galor packs that much firepower!" Riker interrupted,
fuming in impotent rage.
"According to our sensors," Lt. Travis continued, "the Galor
fired eight torpedoes at the station, destroying it."
"Perhaps the vessel was modified to increase its efficiency,"
Seven speculated.
"Then why were they such easy pickings for the Inferno?" Riker
demanded. "Where's the Galor now?"
"Gone sir," Travis replied. "It went to warp just after it
destroyed the station."
"Pursuit course?" Riker asked the captain.
"Negative," Picard said after a moment's thought, "we still
have several Keldon's to drive out of the system; we don't want to
leave Bajor under-protected."
"Sir," Lt. Travis spoke suddenly, "Admiral Praji is ordering
us to scan the debris for any sign of survivors."
Picard shifted uncomfortably. This entire affair was rather
strange. Why should they scan the debris? Obviously there could be
no survivors of the station exploding and any emergency pods would be
sending out a beacon they would have detected. Besides which, why
send the most powerful Federation ship available to scan the field?
"Helm," he said with a sigh, "set a course for the remains of Deep
Space 9. Scan the debris, sensors at maximum."
While the Enterprise altered course the remains of the fleet
continued their pursuit of the Cardassians. The Bozeman, its
oversized pulse cannon flaring, pounded away on the shields of one of
the Keldon's until they collapsed. A group of TIE fighters were on it
in seconds, bombarding it with proton torpedoes. The explosions
across the ships suddenly flared, and the ship exploded so quickly
three TIEs were consumed by the debris field. The Inferno continued
to lead the chase, its heavy weapons pounding any Keldon unfortunate
enough to stray too close. By the time the Cardassian escaped the
system their fleet was reduced to just three vessels. A definite
victory for the Empire. And the Federation, of course.
"Still no signs of any survivors, captain," Data reported.
"Continue," Picard said, trying to keep the frustration out of
his voice. "Lt. of Nine, see if you can implement the changes from
the Gilgamesh to enhance our scans."
"Yes, captain," Seven said.
"Sir," Lt. Travis reported, "Adm. Praji is hailing us."
The admiral's voice came over the comm system. "The
Cardassians have fled the system. Bajor is safe once again."
"Pity we can't say the same for DS9," Riker replied darkly.
"Yes," Praji replied, his voice devoid of emotion, "a tragic
loss. Rest assured, the Cardassians will pay for this slaughter."
The comm fell silent, echoing the quiet that filled the


bridge. The only sound was Picard drumming his fingers on the arm of
his chair. "Lt. Of Nine," he said finally. "I want you to analyze
the battle again in detail. I'm sick of being in the dark on this.
There's an answer to this insanity, and we're going to find it."

Chuck
"You can't keep him locked up like an animal!"
"No, we're keeping him locked up because he's a big freak."

[Snow Dog]

I have been working on this for quite awhile. hope you all enjoy.


Asshole.

[hitbyatrain]

Jesus H. Christ.

I am at a loss for words.

[Snow Dog]

http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q96/darudev/PM.jpg

[UTinBigD]

at least all the google ads at the bottom are now star trek related.

Agree with others in that this board is the wrong place for that. I have not looked but surely there are entire sites dedicated to this. I skimmed though a lot of it and must say that you seemed at least all the google ads at the bottom are now star trek related.

Agree with others in that this board is the wrong place for that. I have not looked but surely there are entire sites dedicated to this. I skimmed though a lot of it and must say that you seemed to write something on every single character ever conceived. I like me some ST Next Generation, but not so much the other ST tv shows..

Anyway, you obviously spent some time on this, and the central plot line is not bad for what you are trying to do (combine two big franchises), but if you are seeking validation or serious feedback, might be good to post this elsewhere.

[hitbyatrain]

Mr. Wizard, are you a a checker at the Wal-Mart in Round Rock? I ask because there's one dude that works there that talks about Star Wars vs. Star Trek every time I go through his line. Once he went through his entire scenario for me, about who would ally with who and how the great wars would go down. Invariably, I'm like , "uh, cool man, I don't really know anything about that stuff, but cool. don't forget to scan my eggs."

[wide-e-wide]

Dude seriously...mix in some pussy and a case of beer every now and then.
Jesus,Mary and Joseph what in the fuck is this Mickey Mouse bullshit?

[Viper]

lame troll.

[ERhine]

This is horrible, this thread.

[ajax]

The title of this thread is "Star Wars vs Star Trek fan fiction." You all clicked on the thread and got....Star Wars vs Star Trek fan fiction. Y'all have no one but yourselves to blame.

[TyphoonSe7en]

[j. peterman] well this sure looks like a lot of words. [j. peterman]

[tx 3 putt]

Some fairly lame Sci Fi, should have mixed in some Stargate, pick up your game.

[The Dude]

we need a new board called "Board of Fail" or something along those lines, and we need to move this thread there pronto

[rtchorn]

The title of this thread is "Star Wars vs Star Trek fan fiction." You all clicked on the thread and got....Star Wars vs Star Trek fan fiction. Y'all have no one but yourselves to blame.
Actually, clicked on this thread expecting I would see a post from Mr. Wizard from HF. I am severely disappointed.

[The Dude]

damn rt are you posting that everywhere mrwizard has posted

[Beamwalker]

Wait, so did this guy write this stuff or not? What was Texas Dan talking about?

[suttree]

you made Picard into a bumbling fool of a bitch, man!!

[Jive Turkey]

that ain't the real HF Mr. Wizard.

he'd be on this thread saying that both Star Wars and Star Trek suck ass.

[Texas Dan]

No, he didn't write it.

He pulled it off usenet.

The same place where I found the next chapter.

[Mr.Wizard]

No, he didn't write it.

He pulled it off usenet.

The same place where I found the next chapter.


umm no. Just like i told the lawyer dude in chat who was worried about someone stealing my work, I have had it up online for a couple of years now (im reediting some now though).

Just thought i would post it on here to see if anyone else likes it. On the numerous SW vs ST websites and fanfic sites people seem to like it.

there is a bunch more, i just posted a bit to see if people were into it. Even though it seems that part of the posts were cut off. Thanks for reading the part you did though Dan. Tell me do you like it?

[Mr.Wizard]

you made Picard into a bumbling fool of a bitch, man!!

in what way?

[Mr.Wizard]

Not to be a cock, but didn't Star Wars take place "A Long Time Ago...?"


if you read the story you will see i take that into account.

[Snow Dog]

Not to be a cock, but didn't Star Wars take place "A Long Time Ago...?"


if you read the story you will see i take that into account.

It's not so much a story as it is a steaming pile of feces.

[ajax]

On the numerous SW vs ST websites

Wait, what? Numerous websites? Is this some kind of cultural phenomenon that's been going on, but I've been oblivious of, like Dance Dance Revolution?

[suttree]

Picard is supposed to be a bad-ass. He is the master of all situations. Nobody gets over on Picard.

In the story he is falling all over himself to ingratiate the admiral, and otherwise is about 4 steps behind everything else. The story emasculates him and is not consistent with his depiction in the series.

[Lonestarman]

we need a new board called "Board of Fail" or something along those lines, and we need to move this thread there pronto

This needed to be repeated.

[tx 3 putt]

Picard is supposed to be a bad-ass. He is the master of all situations. Nobody gets over on Picard.

In the story he is falling all over himself to ingratiate the admiral, and otherwise is about 4 steps behind everything else. The story emasculates him and is not consistent with his depiction in the series.



HOW MANY LIGHTS ???????????

[Tejano]

HOW MANY LIGHTS ???????????

THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS!

[Beamwalker]

we need a new board called "Board of Fail" or something along those lines, and we need to move this thread there pronto

This needed to be repeated.

[CaptainEd]

Oh jesus fucking christ. I am going to go ahead and assume this is the same Mr. Wizard from hornfans. If so, I just saw roughly 16 chapters of why you are such a cynical, pessimistic prick and why you always feel the need to talk shit about anyone who would dare go out and have a good time at any semi-popular drinking establishment in Austin.
You have GOT to be fist fucking me with this post. There is no way.

And I truly do say all that while laughing.

[rtchorn]

damn rt are you posting that everywhere mrwizard has posted
Fuck... I posted on two threads. And yes I dislike the real Mr Wizard that much. Anybody that talks shit about the Hoffbrau AND Dirty's should die.

[The Dude]

i think i just read them back to back, apparently he is your nemesis, carry on

[Mr.Wizard]

damn rt are you posting that everywhere mrwizard has posted
Fuck... I posted on two threads. And yes I dislike the real Mr Wizard that much. Anybody that talks shit about the Hoffbrau AND Dirty's should die.


http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p203/Zelinko/Motivational%20Pictures/Revenge.png

[Mr.Wizard]

On the numerous SW vs ST websites

Wait, what? Numerous websites? Is this some kind of cultural phenomenon that's been going on, but I've been oblivious of, like Dance Dance Revolution?


heck ya. There have even been scientific papers written on the subject. (i have tried my hand at it before believe it or not)

[Henador Titzoff]

here are a few of my thoughts on this subject...

A Long Time Ago In A Galaxy Far Far Away Where No Man Has Gone Before...
For a long time I used to go to bed early. Sometimes, when I had put out
my candle, my eyes would close so quickly that I had not even time to say
"I'm going to sleep." And half an hour later the thought that it was time
to go to sleep would awaken me; I would try to put away the book which, I
imagined, was still in my hands, and to blow out the light; I had been
thinking all the time, while I was asleep, of what I had just been
reading, but my thoughts had run into a channel of their own, until I
myself seemed actually to have become the subject of my book: a church, a
quartet, the rivalry between Francois I and Charles V. This impression
would persist for some moments after I was awake; it did not disturb my
mind, but it lay like scales upon my eyes and prevented them from
registering the fact that the candle was no longer burning. Then it would
begin to seem unintelligible, as the thoughts of a former existence must
be to a reincarnate spirit; the subject of my book would separate itself
from me, leaving me free to choose whether I would form part of it or no;
and at the same time my sight would return and I would be astonished to
find myself in a state of darkness, pleasant and restful enough for the
eyes, and even more, perhaps, for my mind, to which it appeared
incomprehensible, without a cause, a matter dark indeed.

I would ask myself what o'clock it could be; I could hear the whistling of
trains, which, now nearer and now farther off, punctuating the distance
like the note of a bird in a forest, shewed me in perspective the deserted
countryside through which a traveller would be hurrying towards the
nearest station: the path that he followed being fixed for ever in his
memory by the general excitement due to being in a strange place, to doing
unusual things, to the last words of conversation, to farewells exchanged
beneath an unfamiliar lamp which echoed still in his ears amid the silence
of the night; and to the delightful prospect of being once again at home.

I would lay my cheeks gently against the comfortable cheeks of my pillow,
as plump and blooming as the cheeks of babyhood. Or I would strike a match
to look at my watch. Nearly midnight. The hour when an invalid, who has
been obliged to start on a journey and to sleep in a strange hotel,
awakens in a moment of illness and sees with glad relief a streak of
daylight shewing under his bedroom door. Oh, joy of joys! it is morning.
The servants will be about in a minute: he can ring, and some one will
come to look after him. The thought of being made comfortable gives him
strength to endure his pain. He is certain he heard footsteps: they come
nearer, and then die away. The ray of light beneath his door is
extinguished. It is midnight; some one has turned out the gas; the last
servant has gone to bed, and he must lie all night in agony with no one to
bring him any help.

I would fall asleep, and often I would be awake again for short snatches
only, just long enough to hear the regular creaking of the wainscot, or to
open my eyes to settle the shifting kaleidoscope of the darkness, to
savour, in an instantaneous flash of perception, the sleep which lay heavy
upon the furniture, the room, the whole surroundings of which I formed but
an insignificant part and whose unconsciousness I should very soon return
to share. Or, perhaps, while I was asleep I had returned without the least
effort to an earlier stage in my life, now for ever outgrown; and had come
under the thrall of one of my childish terrors, such as that old terror of
my great-uncle's pulling my curls, which was effectually dispelled on the
day--the dawn of a new era to me--on which they were finally cropped from
my head. I had forgotten that event during my sleep; I remembered it again
immediately I had succeeded in making myself wake up to escape my
great-uncle's fingers; still, as a measure of precaution, I would bury the
whole of my head in the pillow before returning to the world of dreams.

Sometimes, too, just as Eve was created from a rib of Adam, so a woman
would come into existence while I was sleeping, conceived from some strain
in the position of my limbs. Formed by the appetite that I was on the
point of gratifying, she it was, I imagined, who offered me that
gratification. My body, conscious that its own warmth was permeating hers,
would strive to become one with her, and I would awake. The rest of
humanity seemed very remote in comparison with this woman whose company I
had left but a moment ago: my cheek was still warm with her kiss, my body
bent beneath the weight of hers. If, as would sometimes happen, she had
the appearance of some woman whom I had known in waking hours, I would
abandon myself altogether to the sole quest of her, like people who set
out on a journey to see with their own eyes some city that they have
always longed to visit, and imagine that they can taste in reality what
has charmed their fancy. And then, gradually, the memory of her would
dissolve and vanish, until I had forgotten the maiden of my dream.

When a man is asleep, he has in a circle round him the chain of the hours,
the sequence of the years, the order of the heavenly host. Instinctively,
when he awakes, he looks to these, and in an instant reads off his own
position on the earth's surface and the amount of time that has elapsed
during his slumbers; but this ordered procession is apt to grow confused,
and to break its ranks. Suppose that, towards morning, after a night of
insomnia, sleep descends upon him while he is reading, in quite a
different position from that in which he normally goes to sleep, he has
only to lift his arm to arrest the sun and turn it back in its course,
and, at the moment of waking, he will have no idea of the time, but will
conclude that he has just gone to bed. Or suppose that he gets drowsy in
some even more abnormal position; sitting in an armchair, say, after
dinner: then the world will fall topsy-turvy from its orbit, the magic
chair will carry him at full speed through time and space, and when he
opens his eyes again he will imagine that he went to sleep months earlier
and in some far distant country. But for me it was enough if, in my own
bed, my sleep was so heavy as completely to relax my consciousness; for
then I lost all sense of the place in which I had gone to sleep, and when
I awoke at midnight, not knowing where I was, I could not be sure at first
who I was; I had only the most rudimentary sense of existence, such as may
lurk and flicker in the depths of an animal's consciousness; I was more
destitute of human qualities than the cave-dweller; but then the memory,
not yet of the place in which I was, but of various other places where I
had lived, and might now very possibly be, would come like a rope let down
from heaven to draw me up out of the abyss of not-being, from which I
could never have escaped by myself: in a flash I would traverse and
surmount centuries of civilisation, and out of a half-visualised
succession of oil-lamps, followed by shirts with turned-down collars,
would put together by degrees the component parts of my ego.

Perhaps the immobility of the things that surround us is forced upon them
by our conviction that they are themselves, and not anything else, and by
the immobility of our conceptions of them. For it always happened that
when I awoke like this, and my mind struggled in an unsuccessful attempt
to discover where I was, everything would be moving round me through the
darkness: things, places, years. My body, still too heavy with sleep to
move, would make an effort to construe the form which its tiredness took
as an orientation of its various members, so as to induce from that where
the wall lay and the furniture stood, to piece together and to give a name
to the house in which it must be living. Its memory, the composite memory
of its ribs, knees, and shoulder-blades offered it a whole series of rooms
in which it had at one time or another slept; while the unseen walls kept
changing, adapting themselves to the shape of each successive room that it
remembered, whirling madly through the darkness. And even before my brain,
lingering in consideration of when things had happened and of what they
had looked like, had collected sufficient impressions to enable it to
identify the room, it, my body, would recall from each room in succession
what the bed was like, where the doors were, how daylight came in at the
windows, whether there was a passage outside, what I had had in my mind
when I went to sleep, and had found there when I awoke. The stiffened side
underneath my body would, for instance, in trying to fix its position,
imagine itself to be lying, face to the wall, in a big bed with a canopy;
and at once I would say to myself, "Why, I must have gone to sleep after
all, and Mamma never came to say good night!" for I was in the country
with my grandfather, who died years ago; and my body, the side upon which
I was lying, loyally preserving from the past an impression which my mind
should never have forgotten, brought back before my eyes the glimmering
flame of the night-light in its bowl of Bohemian glass, shaped like an urn
and hung by chains from the ceiling, and the chimney-piece of Siena marble
in my bedroom at Combray, in my great-aunt's house, in those far distant
days which, at the moment of waking, seemed present without being clearly
denned, but would become plainer in a little while when I was properly
awake.

Then would come up the memory of a fresh position; the wall slid away in
another direction; I was in my room in Mme. de Saint-Loup's house in the
country; good heavens, it must be ten o'clock, they will have finished
dinner! I must have overslept myself, in the little nap which I always
take when I come in from my walk with Mme. de Saint-Loup, before dressing
for the evening. For many years have now elapsed since the Combray days,
when, coming in from the longest and latest walks, I would still be in
time to see the reflection of the sunset glowing in the panes of my
bedroom window. It is a very different kind of existence at Tansonville
now with Mme. de Saint-Loup, and a different kind of pleasure that I now
derive from taking walks only in the evenings, from visiting by moonlight
the roads on which I used to play, as a child, in the sunshine; while the
bedroom, in which I shall presently fall asleep instead of dressing for
dinner, from afar off I can see it, as we return from our walk, with its
lamp shining through the window, a solitary beacon in the night.

These shifting and confused gusts of memory never lasted for more than a
few seconds; it often happened that, in my spell of uncertainty as to
where I was, I did not distinguish the successive theories of which that
uncertainty was composed any more than, when we watch a horse running, we
isolate the successive positions of its body as they appear upon a
bioscope. But I had seen first one and then another of the rooms in which
I had slept during my life, and in the end I would revisit them all in the
long course of my waking dream: rooms in winter, where on going to bed I
would at once bury my head in a nest, built up out of the most diverse
materials, the corner of my pillow, the top of my blankets, a piece of a
shawl, the edge of my bed, and a copy of an evening paper, all of which
things I would contrive, with the infinite patience of birds building
their nests, to cement into one whole; rooms where, in a keen frost, I
would feel the satisfaction of being shut in from the outer world (like
the sea-swallow which builds at the end of a dark tunnel and is kept warm
by the surrounding earth), and where, the fire keeping in all night, I
would sleep wrapped up, as it were, in a great cloak of snug and savoury
air, shot with the glow of the logs which would break out again in flame:
in a sort of alcove without walls, a cave of warmth dug out of the heart
of the room itself, a zone of heat whose boundaries were constantly
shifting and altering in temperature as gusts of air ran across them to
strike freshly upon my face, from the corners of the room, or from parts
near the window or far from the fireplace which had therefore remained
cold--or rooms in summer, where I would delight to feel myself a part of
the warm evening, where the moonlight striking upon the half-opened
shutters would throw down to the foot of my bed its enchanted ladder;
where I would fall asleep, as it might be in the open air, like a titmouse
which the breeze keeps poised in the focus of a sunbeam--or sometimes the
Louis XVI room, so cheerful that I could never feel really unhappy, even
on my first night in it: that room where the slender columns which lightly
supported its ceiling would part, ever so gracefully, to indicate where
the bed was and to keep it separate; sometimes again that little room with
the high ceiling, hollowed in the form of a pyramid out of two separate
storeys, and partly walled with mahogany, in which from the first moment
my mind was drugged by the unfamiliar scent of flowering grasses,
convinced of the hostility of the violet curtains and of the insolent
indifference of a clock that chattered on at the top of its voice as
though I were not there; while a strange and pitiless mirror with square
feet, which stood across one corner of the room, cleared for itself a site
I had not looked to find tenanted in the quiet surroundings of my normal
field of vision: that room in which my mind, forcing itself for hours on
end to leave its moorings, to elongate itself upwards so as to take on the
exact shape of the room, and to reach to the summit of that monstrous
funnel, had passed so many anxious nights while my body lay stretched out
in bed, my eyes staring upwards, my ears straining, my nostrils sniffing
uneasily, and my heart beating; until custom had changed the colour of the
curtains, made the clock keep quiet, brought an expression of pity to the
cruel, slanting face of the glass, disguised or even completely dispelled
the scent of flowering grasses, and distinctly reduced the apparent
loftiness of the ceiling. Custom! that skilful but unhurrying manager who
begins by torturing the mind for weeks on end with her provisional
arrangements; whom the mind, for all that, is fortunate in discovering,
for without the help of custom it would never contrive, by its own
efforts, to make any room seem habitable.

Certainly I was now well awake; my body had turned about for the last time
and the good angel of certainty had made all the surrounding objects stand
still, had set me down under my bedclothes, in my bedroom, and had fixed,
approximately in their right places in the uncertain light, my chest of
drawers, my writing-table, my fireplace, the window overlooking the
street, and both the doors. But it was no good my knowing that I was not
in any of those houses of which, in the stupid moment of waking, if I had
not caught sight exactly, I could still believe in their possible
presence; for memory was now set in motion; as a rule I did not attempt to
go to sleep again at once, but used to spend the greater part of the night
recalling our life in the old days at Combray with my great-aunt, at
Balbec, Paris, Doncieres, Venice, and the rest; remembering again all the
places and people that I had known, what I had actually seen of them, and
what others had told me.

At Combray, as every afternoon ended, long before the time when I should
have to go up to bed, and to lie there, unsleeping, far from my mother and
grandmother, my bedroom became the fixed point on which my melancholy and
anxious thoughts were centred. Some one had had the happy idea of giving
me, to distract me on evenings when I seemed abnormally wretched, a magic
lantern, which used to be set on top of my lamp while we waited for
dinner-time to come: in the manner of the master-builders and
glass-painters of gothic days it substituted for the opaqueness of my
walls an impalpable iridescence, supernatural phenomena of many colours,
in which legends were depicted, as on a shifting and transitory window.
But my sorrows were only increased, because this change of lighting
destroyed, as nothing else could have done, the customary impression I had
formed of my room, thanks to which the room itself, but for the torture of
having to go to bed in it, had become quite endurable. For now I no longer
recognised it, and I became uneasy, as though I were in a room in some
hotel or furnished lodging, in a place where I had just arrived, by train,
for the first time.

Riding at a jerky trot, Golo, his mind filled with an infamous design,
issued from the little three-cornered forest which dyed dark-green the
slope of a convenient hill, and advanced by leaps and bounds towards the
castle of poor Genevieve de Brabant. This castle was cut off short by a
curved line which was in fact the circumference of one of the transparent
ovals in the slides which were pushed into position through a slot in the
lantern. It was only the wing of a castle, and in front of it stretched a
moor on which Genevieve stood, lost in contemplation, wearing a blue
girdle. The castle and the moor were yellow, but I could tell their colour
without waiting to see them, for before the slides made their appearance
the old-gold sonorous name of Brabant had given me an unmistakable clue.
Golo stopped for a moment and listened sadly to the little speech read
aloud by my great-aunt, which he seemed perfectly to understand, for he
modified his attitude with a docility not devoid of a degree of majesty,
so as to conform to the indications given in the text; then he rode away
at the same jerky trot. And nothing could arrest his slow progress. If the
lantern were moved I could still distinguish Golo's horse advancing across
the window-curtains, swelling out with their curves and diving into their
folds. The body of Golo himself, being of the same supernatural substance
as his steed's, overcame all material obstacles--everything that seemed to
bar his way--by taking each as it might be a skeleton and embodying it in
himself: the door-handle, for instance, over which, adapting itself at
once, would float invincibly his red cloak or his pale face, never losing
its nobility or its melancholy, never shewing any sign of trouble at such
a transubstantiation.

And, indeed, I found plenty of charm in these bright projections, which
seemed to have come straight out of a Merovingian past, and to shed around
me the reflections of such ancient history. But I cannot express the
discomfort I felt at such an intrusion of mystery and beauty into a room
which I had succeeded in filling with my own personality until I thought
no more of the room than of myself. The anaesthetic effect of custom being
destroyed, I would begin to think and to feel very melancholy things. The
door-handle of my room, which was different to me from all the other
doorhandles in the world, inasmuch as it seemed to open of its own accord
and without my having to turn it, so unconscious had its manipulation
become; lo and behold, it was now an astral body for Golo. And as soon as
the dinner-bell rang I would run down to the dining-room, where the big
hanging lamp, ignorant of Golo and Bluebeard but well acquainted with my
family and the dish of stewed beef, shed the same light as on every other
evening; and I would fall into the arms of my mother, whom the misfortunes
of Genevieve de Brabant had made all the dearer to me, just as the crimes
of Golo had driven me to a more than ordinarily scrupulous examination of
my own conscience.

But after dinner, alas, I was soon obliged to leave Mamma, who stayed
talking with the others, in the garden if it was fine, or in the little
parlour where everyone took shelter when it was wet. Everyone except my
grandmother, who held that "It is a pity to shut oneself indoors in the
country," and used to carry on endless discussions with my father on the
very wettest days, because he would send me up to my room with a book
instead of letting me stay out of doors. "That is not the way to make him
strong and active," she would say sadly, "especially this little man, who
needs all the strength and character that he can get." My father would
shrug his shoulders and study the barometer, for he took an interest in
meteorology, while my mother, keeping very quiet so as not to disturb him,
looked at him with tender respect, but not too hard, not wishing to
penetrate the mysteries of his superior mind. But my grandmother, in all
weathers, even when the rain was coming down in torrents and Francoise had
rushed indoors with the precious wicker armchairs, so that they should not
get soaked--you would see my grandmother pacing the deserted garden,
lashed by the storm, pushing back her grey hair in disorder so that her
brows might be more free to imbibe the life-giving draughts of wind and
rain. She would say, "At last one can breathe!" and would run up and down
the soaking paths--too straight and symmetrical for her liking, owing to
the want of any feeling for nature in the new gardener, whom my father had
been asking all morning if the weather were going to improve--with her
keen, jerky little step regulated by the various effects wrought upon her
soul by the intoxication of the storm, the force of hygiene, the stupidity
of my education and of symmetry in gardens, rather than by any anxiety
(for that was quite unknown to her) to save her plum-coloured skirt from
the spots of mud under which it would gradually disappear to a depth which
always provided her maid with a fresh problem and filled her with fresh
despair.

When these walks of my grandmother's took place after dinner there was one
thing which never failed to bring her back to the house: that was if (at
one of those points when the revolutions of her course brought her,
moth-like, in sight of the lamp in the little parlour where the liqueurs
were set out on the card-table) my great-aunt called out to her:
"Bathilde! Come in and stop your husband from drinking brandy!" For,
simply to tease her (she had brought so foreign a type of mind into my
father's family that everyone made a joke of it), my great-aunt used to
make my grandfather, who was forbidden liqueurs, take just a few drops. My
poor grandmother would come in and beg and implore her husband not to
taste the brandy; and he would become annoyed and swallow his few drops
all the same, and she would go out again sad and discouraged, but still
smiling, for she was so humble and so sweet that her gentleness towards
others, and her continual subordination of herself and of her own
troubles, appeared on her face blended in a smile which, unlike those seen
on the majority of human faces, had no trace in it of irony, save for
herself, while for all of us kisses seemed to spring from her eyes, which
could not look upon those she loved without yearning to bestow upon them
passionate caresses. The torments inflicted on her by my great-aunt, the
sight of my grandmother's vain entreaties, of her in her weakness
conquered before she began, but still making the futile endeavour to wean
my grandfather from his liqueur-glass--all these were things of the sort
to which, in later years, one can grow so well accustomed as to smile at
them, to take the tormentor's side with a. happy determination which
deludes one into the belief that it is not, really, tormenting; but in
those days they filled me with such horror that I longed to strike my
great-aunt. And yet, as soon as I heard her "Bathilde! Come in and stop
your husband from drinking brandy!" in my cowardice I became at once a
man, and did what all we grown men do when face to face with suffering and
injustice; I preferred not to see them; I ran up to the top of the house
to cry by myself in a little room beside the schoolroom and beneath the
roof, which smelt of orris-root, and was scented also by a wild
currant-bush which had climbed up between the stones of the outer wall and
thrust a flowering branch in through the half-opened window. Intended for
a more special and a baser use, this room, from which, in the daytime, I
could see as far as the keep of Roussainville-le-Pin, was for a long time
my place of refuge, doubtless because it was the only room whose door I
was allowed to lock, whenever my occupation was such as required an
inviolable solitude; reading or dreaming, secret tears or paroxysms of
desire. Alas! I little knew that my own lack of will-power, my delicate
health, and the consequent uncertainty as to my future weighed far more
heavily on my grandmother's mind than any little breach of the rules by
her husband, during those endless perambulations, afternoon and evening,
in which we used to see passing up and down, obliquely raised towards the
heavens, her handsome face with its brown and wrinkled cheeks, which with
age had acquired almost the purple hue of tilled fields in autumn,
covered, if she were walking abroad, by a half-lifted veil, while upon
them either the cold or some sad reflection invariably left the drying
traces of an involuntary tear.

My sole consolation when I went upstairs for the night was that Mamma
would come in and kiss me after I was in bed. But this good night lasted
for so short a time: she went down again so soon that the moment in which
I heard her climb the stairs, and then caught the sound of her garden
dress of blue muslin, from which hung little tassels of plaited straw,
rustling along the double-doored corridor, was for me a moment of the
keenest sorrow. So much did I love that good night that I reached the
stage of hoping that it would come as late as possible, so as to prolong
the time of respite during which Mamma would not yet have appeared.
Sometimes when, after kissing me, she opened the door to go, I longed to
call her back, to say to her "Kiss me just once again," but I knew that
then she would at once look displeased, for the concession which she made
to my wretchedness and agitation in coming up to me with this kiss of
peace always annoyed my father, who thought such ceremonies absurd, and
she would have liked to try to induce me to outgrow the need, the custom
of having her there at all, which was a very different thing from letting
the custom grow up of my asking her for an additional kiss when she was
already crossing the threshold. And to see her look displeased destroyed
all the sense of tranquillity she had brought me a moment before, when she
bent her loving face down over my bed, and held it out to me like a Host,
for an act of Communion in which my lips might drink deeply the sense of
her real presence, and with it the power to sleep. But those evenings on
which Mamma stayed so short a time in my room were sweet indeed compared
to those on which we had guests to dinner, and therefore she did not come
at all. Our 'guests' were practically limited to M. Swann, who, apart from
a few passing strangers, was almost the only person who ever came to the
house at Combray, sometimes to a neighbourly dinner (but less frequently
since his unfortunate marriage, as my family did not care to receive his
wife) and sometimes after dinner, uninvited. On those evenings when, as we
sat in front of the house beneath the big chestnut-tree and round the iron
table, we heard, from the far end of the garden, not the large and noisy
rattle which heralded and deafened as he approached with its ferruginous,
interminable, frozen sound any member of the household who had put it out
of action by coming in 'without ringing,' but the double peal--timid,
oval, gilded--of the visitors' bell, everyone would at once exclaim "A
visitor! Who in the world can it be?" but they knew quite well that it
could only be M. Swann. My great-aunt, speaking in a loud voice, to set an
example, in a tone which she endeavoured to make sound natural, would tell
the others not to whisper so; that nothing could be more unpleasant for a
stranger coming in, who would be led to think that people were saying
things about him which he was not meant to hear; and then my grandmother
would be sent out as a scout, always happy to find an excuse for an
additional turn in the garden, which she would utilise to remove
surreptitiously, as she passed, the stakes of a rose-tree or two, so as to
make the roses look a little more natural, as a mother might run her hand
through her boy's hair, after the barber had smoothed it down, to make it
stick out properly round his head.

And there we would all stay, hanging on the words which would fall from my
grandmother's lips when she brought us back her report of the enemy, as
though there had been some uncertainty among a vast number of possible
invaders, and then, soon after, my grandfather would say: "I can hear
Swann's voice." And, indeed, one could tell him only by his voice, for it
was difficult to make out his face with its arched nose and green eyes,
under a high forehead fringed with fair, almost red hair, dressed in the
Bressant style, because in the garden we used as little light as possible,
so as not to attract mosquitoes: and I would slip away as though not going
for anything in particular, to tell them to bring out the syrups; for my
grandmother made a great point, thinking it 'nicer/ of their not being
allowed to seem anything out of the ordinary, which we kept for visitors
only. Although a far younger man, M. Swann was very much attached to my
grandfather, who had been an intimate friend, in his time, of Swann's
father, an excellent but an eccentric man in whom the least little thing
would, it seemed, often check the flow of his spirits and divert the
current of his thoughts. Several times in the course of a year I would
hear my grandfather tell at table the story, which never varied, of the
behaviour of M. Swann the elder upon the death of his wife, by whose
bedside he had watched day and night. My grandfather, who had not seen him
for a long time, hastened to join him at the Swanns' family property on
the outskirts of Combray, and managed to entice him for a moment, weeping
profusely, out of the death-chamber, so that he should not be present when
the body was laid in its coffin. They took a turn or two in the park,
where there was a little sunshine. Suddenly M. Swann seized my grandfather
by the arm and cried, "Oh, my dear old friend, how fortunate we are to be
walking here together on such a charming day! Don't you see how pretty
they are, all these trees--my hawthorns, and my new pond, on which you
have never congratulated me? You look as glum as a night-cap. Don't you
feel this little breeze? Ah! whatever you may say, it's good to be alive
all the same, my dear Amedee!" And then, abruptly, the memory of his dead
wife returned to him, and probably thinking it too complicated to inquire
into how, at such a time, he could have allowed himself to be carried away
by an impulse of happiness, he confined himself to a gesture which he
habitually employed whenever any perplexing question came into his mind:
that is, he passed his hand across his forehead, dried his eyes, and wiped
his glasses. And he could never be consoled for the loss of his wife, but
used to say to my grandfather, during the two years for which he survived
her, "It's a funny thing, now; I very often think of my poor wife, but I
cannot think of her very much at any one time." "Often, but a little at a
time, like poor old Swann," became one of my grandfather's favourite
phrases, which he would apply to all kinds of things. And I should have
assumed that this father of Swann's had been a monster if my grandfather,
whom I regarded as a better judge than myself, and whose word was my law
and often led me in the long run to pardon offences which I should have
been inclined to condemn, had not gone on to exclaim, "But, after all, he
had a heart of gold."

[Henador Titzoff]

For many years, albeit--and especially before his marriage--M. Swann the
younger came often to see them at Combray, my great-aunt and grandparents
never suspected that he had entirely ceased to live in the kind of society
which his family had frequented, or that, under the sort of incognito
which the name of Swann gave him among us, they were harbouring--with the
complete innocence of a family of honest innkeepers who have in their
midst some distinguished highwayman and never know it--one of the smartest
members of the Jockey Club, a particular friend of the Comte de Paris and
of the Prince of Wales, and one of the men most sought after in the
aristocratic world of the Faubourg Saint-Germain.

Our utter ignorance of the brilliant part which Swann was playing in the
world of fashion was, of course, due in part to his own reserve and
discretion, but also to the fact that middle-class people in those days
took what was almost a Hindu view of society, which they held to consist
of sharply defined castes, so that everyone at his birth found himself
called to that station in life which his parents already occupied, and
nothing, except the chance of a brilliant career or of a 'good' marriage,
could extract you from that station or admit you to a superior caste. M.
Swann, the father, had been a stockbroker; and so 'young Swann' found
himself immured for life in a caste where one's fortune, as in a list of
taxpayers, varied between such and such limits of income. We knew the
people with whom his father had associated, and so we knew his own
associates, the people with whom he was 'in a position to mix.' If he knew
other people besides, those were youthful acquaintances on whom the old
friends of the family, like my relatives, shut their eyes all the more
good-naturedly that Swann himself, after he was left an orphan, still came
most faithfully to see us; but we would have been ready to wager that the
people outside our acquaintance whom Swann knew were of the sort to whom
he would not have dared to raise his hat, had he met them while he was
walking with ourselves. Had there been such a thing as a determination to
apply to Swann a social coefficient peculiar to himself, as distinct from
all the other sons of other stockbrokers in his father's position, his
coefficient would have been rather lower than theirs, because, leading a
very simple life, and having always had a craze for 'antiques' and
pictures, he now lived and piled up his collections in an old house which
my grandmother longed to visit, but which stood on the Quai d'Orleans, a
neighbourhood in which my great-aunt thought it most degrading to be
quartered. "Are you really a connoisseur, now?" she would say to him; "I
ask for your own sake, as you are likely to have 'fakes' palmed off on you
by the dealers," for she did not, in fact, endow him with any critical
faculty, and had no great opinion of the intelligence of a man who, in
conversation, would avoid serious topics and shewed a very dull
preciseness, not only when he gave us kitchen recipes, going into the most
minute details, but even when my grandmother's sisters were talking to him
about art. When challenged by them to give an opinion, or to express his
admiration for some picture, he would remain almost impolitely silent, and
would then make amends by furnishing (if he could) some fact or other
about the gallery in which the picture was hung, or the date at which it
had been painted. But as a rule he would content himself with trying to
amuse us by telling us the story of his latest adventure--and he would
have a fresh story for us on every occasion--with some one whom we
ourselves knew, such as the Combray chemist, or our cook, or our coachman.
These stories certainly used to make my great-aunt laugh, but she could
never tell whether that was on account of the absurd parts which Swann
invariably made himself play in the adventures, or of the wit that he
shewed in telling us of them. "It is easy to see that you are a regular
'character,' M. Swann!"

As she was the only member of our family who could be described as a
trifle 'common,' she would always take care to remark to strangers, when
Swann was mentioned, that he could easily, if he had wished to, have lived
in the Boulevard Haussmann or the Avenue de l'Opera, and that he was the
son of old M. Swann who must have left four or five million francs, but
that it was a fad of his. A fad which, moreover, she thought was bound to
amuse other people so much that in Paris, when M. Swann called on New
Year's Day bringing her a little packet of _marrons glaces_, she never
failed, if there were strangers in the room, to say to him: "Well, M.
Swann, and do you still live next door to the Bonded Vaults, so as to be
sure of not missing your train when you go to Lyons?" and she would peep
out of the corner of her eye, over her glasses, at the other visitors.

But if anyone had suggested to my aunt that this Swann, who, in his
capacity as the son of old M. Swann, was 'fully qualified' to be received
by any of the 'upper middle class,' the most respected barristers and
solicitors of Paris (though he was perhaps a trifle inclined to let this
hereditary privilege go into abeyance), had another almost secret
existence of a wholly different kind: that when he left our house in
Paris, saying that he must go home to bed, he would no sooner have turned
the corner than he would stop, retrace his steps, and be off to some
drawing-room on whose like no stockbroker or associate of stockbrokers had
ever set eyes--that would have seemed to my aunt as extraordinary as, to a
woman of wider reading, the thought of being herself on terms of intimacy
with Aristaeus, of knowing that he would, when he had finished his
conversation with her, plunge deep into the realms of Thetis, into an
empire veiled from mortal eyes, in which Virgil depicts him as being
received with open arms; or--to be content with an image more likely to
have occurred to her, for she had seen it painted on the plates we used
for biscuits at Combray--as the thought of having had to dinner Ali Baba,
who, as soon as he found himself alone and unobserved, would make his way
into the cave, resplendent with its unsuspected treasures.

One day when he had come to see us after dinner in Paris, and had begged
pardon for being in evening clothes, Francoise, when he had gone, told us
that she had got it from his coachman that he had been dining "with a
princess." "A pretty sort of princess," drawled my aunt; "I know them,"
and she shrugged her shoulders without raising her eyes from her knitting,
serenely ironical.

Altogether, my aunt used to treat him with scant ceremony. Since she was
of the opinion that he ought to feel flattered by our invitations, she
thought it only right and proper that he should never come to see us in
summer without a basket of peaches or raspberries from his garden, and
that from each of his visits to Italy he should bring back some
photographs of old masters for me.

It seemed quite natural, therefore, to send to him whenever we wanted a
recipe for some special sauce or for a pineapple salad for one of our big
dinner-parties, to which he himself would not be invited, not seeming of
sufficient importance to be served up to new friends who might be in our
house for the first time. If the conversation turned upon the Princes of
the House of France, "Gentlemen, you and I will never know, will we, and
don't want to, do we?" my great-aunt would say tartly to Swann, who had,
perhaps, a letter from Twickenham in his pocket; she would make him play
accompaniments and turn over music on evenings when my grandmother's
sister sang; manipulating this creature, so rare and refined at other
times and in other places, with the rough simplicity of a child who will
play with some curio from the cabinet no more carefully than if it were a
penny toy. Certainly the Swann who was a familiar figure in all the clubs
of those days differed hugely from, the Swann created in my great-aunt's
mind when, of an evening, in our little garden at Combray, after the two
shy peals had sounded from the gate, she would vitalise, by injecting into
it everything she had ever heard about the Swann family, the vague and
unrecognisable shape which began to appear, with my grandmother in its
wake, against a background of shadows, and could at last be identified by
the sound of its voice. But then, even in the most insignificant details
of our daily life, none of us can be said to constitute a material whole,
which is identical for everyone, and need only be turned up like a page in
an account-book or the record of a will; our social personality is created
by the thoughts of other people. Even the simple act which we describe as
"seeing some one we know" is, to some extent, an intellectual process. We
pack the physical outline of the creature we see with all the ideas we
have already formed about him, and in the complete picture of him which we
compose in our minds those ideas have certainly the principal place. In
the end they come to fill out so completely the curve of his cheeks, to
follow so exactly the line of his nose, they blend so harmoniously in the
sound of his voice that these seem to be no more than a transparent
envelope, so that each time we see the face or hear the voice it is our
own ideas of him which we recognise and to which we listen. And so, no
doubt, from the Swann they had built up for their own purposes my family
had left out, in their ignorance, a whole crowd of the details of his
daily life in the world of fashion, details by means of which other
people, when they met him, saw all the Graces enthroned in his face and
stopping at the line of his arched nose as at a natural frontier; but they
contrived also to put into a face from which its distinction had been
evicted, a face vacant and roomy as an untenanted house, to plant in the
depths of its unvalued eyes a lingering sense, uncertain but not
unpleasing, half-memory and half-oblivion, of idle hours spent together
after our weekly dinners, round the card-table or in the garden, during
our companionable country life. Our friend's bodily frame had been so well
lined with this sense, and with various earlier memories of his family,
that their own special Swann had become to my people a complete and living
creature; so that even now I have the feeling of leaving some one I know
for another quite different person when, going back in memory, I pass from
the Swann whom I knew later and more intimately to this early Swann--this
early Swann in whom I can distinguish the charming mistakes of my
childhood, and who, incidentally, is less like his successor than he is
like the other people I knew at that time, as though one's life were a
series of galleries in which all the portraits of any one period had a
marked family likeness, the same (so to speak) tonality--this early Swann
abounding in leisure, fragrant with the scent of the great chestnut-tree,
of baskets of raspberries and of a sprig of tarragon.

And yet one day, when my grandmother had gone to ask some favour of a lady
whom she had known at the Sacre Coeur (and with whom, because of our caste
theory, she had not cared to keep up any degree of intimacy in spite of
several common interests), the Marquise de Villeparisis, of the famous
house of Bouillon, this lady had said to her:

"I think you know M. Swann very well; he is a great friend of my nephews,
the des Laumes."

My grandmother had returned from the call full of praise for the house,
which overlooked some gardens, and in which Mme. de Villeparisis had
advised her to rent a flat; and also for a repairing tailor and his
daughter, who kept a little shop in the courtyard, into which she had gone
to ask them to put a stitch in her skirt, which she had torn on the
staircase. My grandmother had found these people perfectly charming: the
girl, she said, was a jewel, and the tailor a most distinguished man, the
finest she had ever seen. For in her eyes distinction was a thing wholly
independent of social position. She was in ecstasies over some answer the
tailor had made, saying to Mamma:

"Sevigne would not have said it better!" and, by way of contrast, of a
nephew of Mme. de Villeparisis whom she had met at the house:

"My dear, he is so common!"

Now, the effect of that remark about Swann had been, not to raise him in
my great-aunt's estimation, but to lower Mme. de Villeparisis. It appeared
that the deference which, on my grandmother's authority, we owed to Mme.
de Villeparisis imposed on her the reciprocal obligation to do nothing
that would render her less worthy of our regard, and that she had failed
in her duty in becoming aware of Swann's existence and in allowing members
of her family to associate with him. "How should she know Swann? A lady
who, you always made out, was related to Marshal MacMahon!" This view of
Swann's social atmosphere which prevailed in my family seemed to be
confirmed later on by his marriage with a woman of the worst class, you
might almost say a 'fast' woman, whom, to do him justice, he never
attempted to introduce to us, for he continued to come to us alone, though
he came more and more seldom; but from whom they thought they could
establish, on the assumption that he had found her there, the circle,
unknown to them, in which he ordinarily moved.

But on one occasion my grandfather read in a newspaper that M. Swann was
one of the most faithful attendants at the Sunday luncheons given by the
Duc de X----, whose father and uncle had been among our most prominent
statesmen in the reign of Louis Philippe. Now my grandfather was curious
to learn all the little details which might help him to take a mental
share in the private lives of men like Mole, the Due Pasquier, or the Duc
de Broglie. He was delighted to find that Swann associated with people who
had known them. My great-aunt, however, interpreted this piece of news in
a sense discreditable to Swann; for anyone who chose his associates
outside the caste in which he had been born and bred, outside his 'proper
station,' was condemned to utter degradation in her eyes. It seemed to her
that such a one abdicated all claim to enjoy the fruits of those friendly
relations with people of good position which prudent parents cultivate and
store up for their children's benefit, for my great-aunt had actually
ceased to 'see' the son of a lawyer we had known because he had married a
'Highness' and had thereby stepped down--in her eyes--from the respectable
position of a lawyer's son to that of those adventurers, upstart footmen
or stable-boys mostly, to whom we read that queens have sometimes shewn
their favours. She objected, therefore, to my grandfather's plan of
questioning Swann, when next he came to dine with us, about these people
whose friendship with him we had discovered. On the other hand, my
grandmother's two sisters, elderly spinsters who shared her nobility of
character but lacked her intelligence, declared that they could not
conceive what pleasure their brother-in-law could find in talking about
such trifles. They were ladies of lofty ambition, who for that reason were
incapable of taking the least interest in what might be called the
'pinchbeck' things of life, even when they had an historic value, or,
generally speaking, in anything that was not directly associated with some
object aesthetically precious. So complete was their negation of interest
in anything which seemed directly or indirectly a part of our everyday
life that their sense of hearing--which had gradually come to understand
its own futility when the tone of the conversation, at the dinner-table,
became frivolous or merely mundane, without the two old ladies' being able
to guide it back to the topic dear to themselves--would leave its
receptive channels unemployed, so effectively that they were actually
becoming atrophied. So that if my grandfather wished to attract the
attention of the two sisters, he would have to make use of some such alarm
signals as mad-doctors adopt in dealing with their distracted patients; as
by beating several times on a glass with the blade of a knife, fixing them
at the same time with a sharp word and a compelling glance, violent
methods which the said doctors are apt to bring with them into their
everyday life among the sane, either from force of professional habit or
because they think the whole world a trifle mad.

Their interest grew, however, when, the day before Swann was to dine with
us, and when he had made them a special present of a case of Asti, my
great-aunt, who had in her hand a copy of the _Figaro_ in which to the
name of a picture then on view in a Corot exhibition were added the words,
"from the collection of M. Charles Swann," asked: "Did you see that Swann
is 'mentioned' in the _Figaro_?"

"But I have always told you," said my grandmother, "that he had plenty of
taste."

"You would, of course," retorted my great-aunt, "say anything just to seem
different from _us_." For, knowing that my grandmother never agreed with
her, and not being quite confident that it was her own opinion which the
rest of us invariably endorsed, she wished to extort from us a wholesale
condemnation of my grandmother's views, against which she hoped to force
us into solidarity with her own.

But we sat silent. My grandmother's sisters having expressed a desire to
mention to Swann this reference to him in the _Figaro_, my great-aunt
dissuaded them. Whenever she saw in others an advantage, however trivial,
which she herself lacked, she would persuade herself that it was no
advantage at all, but a drawback, and would pity so as not to have to envy
them.

"I don't think that would please him at all; I know very well, I should
hate to see my name printed like that, as large as life, in the paper, and
I shouldn't feel at all flattered if anyone spoke to me about it."

She did not, however, put any very great pressure upon my grandmother's
sisters, for they, in their horror of vulgarity, had brought to such a
fine art the concealment of a personal allusion in a wealth of ingenious
circumlocution, that it would often pass unnoticed even by the person to
whom it was addressed. As for my mother, her only thought was of managing
to induce my father to consent to speak to Swann, not of his wife, but of
his daughter, whom he worshipped, and for whose sake it was understood
that he had ultimately made his unfortunate marriage.

"You need only say a word; just ask him how she is. It must be so very
hard for him."

My father, however, was annoyed: "No, no; you have the most absurd ideas.
It would be utterly ridiculous."

But the only one of us in whom the prospect of Swann's arrival gave rise
to an unhappy foreboding was myself. And that was because on the evenings
when there were visitors, or just M. Swann in the house, Mamma did not
come up to my room. I did not, at that time, have dinner with the family:
I came out to the garden after dinner, and at nine I said good night and
went to bed. But on these evenings I used to dine earlier than the others,
and to come in afterwards and sit at table until eight o'clock, when it
was understood that I must go upstairs; that frail and precious kiss which
Mamma used always to leave upon my lips when I was in bed and just going
to sleep I had to take with me from the dining-room to my own, and to keep
inviolate all the time that it took me to undress, without letting its
sweet charm be broken, without letting its volatile essence diffuse itself
and evaporate; and just on those very evenings when I must needs take most
pains to receive it with due formality, I had to snatch it, to seize it
instantly and in public, without even having the time or being properly
free to apply to what I was doing the punctiliousness which madmen use who
compel themselves to exclude all other thoughts from their minds while
they are shutting a door, so that when the sickness of uncertainty sweeps
over them again they can triumphantly face and overcome it with the
recollection of the precise moment in which the door was shut.

We were all in the garden when the double peal of the gate-bell sounded
shyly. Everyone knew that it must be Swann, and yet they looked at one
another inquiringly and sent my grandmother scouting.

"See that you thank him intelligibly for the wine," my grandfather warned
his two sisters-in-law; "you know how good it is, and it is a huge case."

"Now, don't start whispering!" said my great-aunt. "How would you like to
come into a house and find everyone muttering to themselves?"

"Ah! There's M. Swann," cried my father. "Let's ask him if he thinks it
will be fine to-morrow."

My mother fancied that a word from her would wipe out all the
unpleasantness which my family had contrived to make Swann feel since his
marriage. She found an opportunity to draw him aside for a moment. But I
followed her: I could not bring myself to let her go out of reach of me
while I felt that in a few minutes I should have to leave her in the
dining-room and go up to my bed without the consoling thought, as on
ordinary evenings, that she would come up, later, to kiss me.

"Now, M. Swann," she said, "do tell me about your daughter; I am sure she
shews a taste already for nice things, like her papa."

"Come along and sit down here with us all on the verandah," said my
grandfather, coming up to him. My mother had to abandon the quest, but
managed to extract from the restriction itself a further refinement of
thought, as great poets do when the tyranny of rhyme forces them into the
discovery of their finest lines.

"We can talk about her again when we are by ourselves," she said, or
rather whispered to Swann. "It is only a mother who can understand. I am
sure that hers would agree with me."

And so we all sat down round the iron table. I should have liked not to
think of the hours of anguish which I should have to spend, that
evening, alone in my room, without the possibility of going to sleep: I
tried to convince myself that they were of no importance, really, since
I should have forgotten them next morning, and to fix my mind on
thoughts of the future which would carry me, as on a bridge, across the
terrifying abyss that yawned at my feet. But my mind, strained by this
foreboding, distended like the look which I shot at my mother, would not
allow any other impression to enter. Thoughts did, indeed, enter it, but
only on the condition that they left behind them every element of
beauty, or even of quaintness, by which I might have been distracted or
beguiled. As a surgical patient, by means of a local anaesthetic, can
look on with a clear consciousness while an operation is being performed
upon him and yet feel nothing, I could repeat to myself some favourite
lines, or watch my grandfather attempting to talk to Swann about the Duc
d'Audriffet-Pasquier, without being able to kindle any emotion from one
or amusement from the other. Hardly had my grandfather begun to question
Swann about that orator when one of my grandmother's sisters, in whose
ears the question echoed like a solemn but untimely silence which her
natural politeness bade her interrupt, addressed the other with:

"Just fancy, Flora, I met a young Swedish governess to-day who told me
some most interesting things about the co-operative movement in
Scandinavia. We really must have her to dine here one evening."

"To be sure!" said her sister Flora, "but I haven't wasted my time either.
I met such a clever old gentleman at M. Vinteuil's who knows Maubant quite
well, and Maubant has told him every little thing about how he gets up his
parts. It is the most interesting thing I ever heard. He is a neighbour of
M. Vinteuil's, and I never knew; and he is so nice besides."

"M. Vinteuil is not the only one who has nice neighbours," cried my aunt
Celine in a voice which seemed loud because she was so timid, and seemed
forced because she had been planning the little speech for so long;
darting, as she spoke, what she called a 'significant glance' at Swann.
And my aunt Flora, who realised that this veiled utterance was Celine's
way of thanking Swann intelligibly for the Asti, looked at him with a
blend of congratulation and irony, either just, because she wished to
underline her sister's little epigram, or because she envied Swann his
having inspired it, or merely because she imagined that he was
embarrassed, and could not help having a little fun at his expense.

"I think it would be worth while," Flora went on, "to have this old
gentleman to dinner. When you get him upon Maubant or Mme. Materna he will
talk for hours on end."

"That must be delightful," sighed my grandfather, in whose mind nature had
unfortunately forgotten to include any capacity whatsoever for becoming
passionately interested in the co-operative movement among the ladies of
Sweden or in the methods employed by Maubant to get up his parts, just as
it had forgotten to endow my grandmother's two sisters with a grain of
that precious salt which one has oneself to 'add to taste' in order to
extract any savour from a narrative of the private life of Mole or of the
Comte de Paris.

"I say!" exclaimed Swann to my grandfather, "what I was going to tell you
has more to do than you might think with what you were asking me just now,
for in some respects there has been very little change. I came across a
passage in Saint-Simon this morning which would have amused you. It is in
the volume which covers his mission to Spain; not one of the best, little
more in fact than a journal, but at least it is a journal wonderfully well
written, which fairly distinguishes it from the devastating journalism
that we feel bound to read in these days, morning, noon and night."

"I do not agree with you: there are some days when I find reading the
papers very pleasant indeed!" my aunt Flora broke in, to show Swann that
she had read the note about his Corot in the _Figaro_.

"Yes," aunt Celine went one better. "When they write about things or
people in whom we are interested."

"I don't deny it," answered Swann in some bewilderment. "The fault I
find with our journalism is that it forces us to take an interest in some
fresh triviality or other every day, whereas only three or four books in a
lifetime give us anything that is of real importance. Suppose that, every
morning, when we tore the wrapper off our paper with fevered hands, a
transmutation were to take place, and we were to find inside it--oh! I
don't know; shall we say Pascal's _Pensees_?" He articulated the title with
an ironic emphasis so as not to appear pedantic. "And then, in the gilt and
tooled volumes which we open once in ten years," he went on, shewing that
contempt for the things of this world which some men of the world like to
affect, "we should read that the Queen of the Hellenes had arrived at
Cannes, or that the Princesse de Leon had given a fancy dress ball. In
that way we should arrive at the right proportion between 'information'
and 'publicity.'" But at once regretting that he had allowed himself to
speak, even in jest, of serious matters, he added ironically: "We are
having a most entertaining conversation; I cannot think why we climb to
these lofty summits," and then, turning to my grandfather: "Well,
Saint-Simon tells how Maulevrier had had the audacity to offer his hand to
his sons. You remember how he says of Maulevrier, 'Never did I find in
that coarse bottle anything but ill-humour, boorishness, and folly.'"

"Coarse or not, I know bottles in which there is something very
different!" said Flora briskly, feeling bound to thank Swann as well as
her sister, since the present of Asti had been addressed to them both.
Celine began to laugh.

Swann was puzzled, but went on: "'I cannot say whether it was his
ignorance or a trap,' writes Saint-Simon; 'he wished to give his hand to
my children. I noticed it in time to prevent him.'"

My grandfather was already in ecstasies over "ignorance or a trap," but
Miss Celine--the name of Saint-Simon, a 'man of letters,' having arrested
the complete paralysis of her sense of hearing--had grown angry.

"What! You admire that, do you? Well, it is clever enough! But what is the
point of it? Does he mean that one man isn't as good as another? What
difference can it make whether he is a duke or a groom so long as he is
intelligent and good? He had a fine way of bringing up his children, your
Saint-Simon, if he didn't teach them to shake hands with all honest men.
Really and truly, it's abominable. And you dare to quote it!"

And my grandfather, utterly depressed, realising how futile it would be
for him, against this opposition, to attempt to get Swann to tell him the
stories which would have amused him, murmured to my mother: "Just tell me
again that line of yours which always comforts me so much on these
occasions. Oh, yes:

What virtues, Lord, Thou makest us abhor!

Good, that is, very good."

I never took my eyes off my mother. I knew that when they were at table I
should not be permitted to stay there for the whole of dinner-time, and
that Mamma, for fear of annoying my father, would not allow me to give her
in public the series of kisses that she would have had in my room. And so
I promised myself that in the dining-room, as they began to eat and drink
and as I felt the hour approach, I would put beforehand into this kiss,
which was bound to be so brief and stealthy in execution, everything that
my own efforts could put into it: would look out very carefully first the
exact spot on her cheek where I would imprint it, and would so prepare my
thoughts that I might be able, thanks to these mental preliminaries, to
consecrate the whole of the minute Mamma would allow me to the sensation
of her cheek against my lips, as a painter who can have his subject for
short sittings only prepares his palette, and from what he remembers and
from rough notes does in advance everything which he possibly can do in
the sitter's absence. But to-night, before the dinner-bell had sounded, my
grandfather said with unconscious cruelty: "The little man looks tired;
he'd better go up to bed. Besides, we are dining late to-night."

And my father, who was less scrupulous than my grandmother or mother in
observing the letter of a treaty, went on: "Yes, run along; to bed with
you."

I would have kissed Mamma then and there, but at that moment the
dinner-bell rang.

"No, no, leave your mother alone. You've said good night quite enough.
These exhibitions are absurd. Go on upstairs."

And so I must set forth without viaticum; must climb each step of the
staircase 'against my heart,' as the saying is, climbing in opposition to
my heart's desire, which was to return to my mother, since she had not, by
her kiss, given my heart leave to accompany me forth. That hateful
staircase, up which I always passed with such dismay, gave out a smell of
varnish which had to some extent absorbed, made definite and fixed the
special quality of sorrow that I felt each evening, and made it perhaps
even more cruel to my sensibility because, when it assumed this olfactory
guise, my intellect was powerless to resist it. When we have gone to sleep
with a maddening toothache and are conscious of it only as a little girl
whom we attempt, time after time, to pull out of the water, or as a line
of Moliere which we repeat incessantly to ourselves, it is a great relief
to wake up, so that our intelligence can disentangle the idea of toothache
from any artificial semblance of heroism or rhythmic cadence. It was the
precise converse of this relief which I felt when my anguish at having to
go up to my room invaded my consciousness in a manner infinitely more
rapid, instantaneous almost, a manner at once insidious and brutal as I
breathed in--a far more poisonous thing than any moral penetration--the
peculiar smell of the varnish upon that staircase.

Once in my room I had to stop every loophole, to close the shutters, to
dig my own grave as I turned down the bed-clothes, to wrap myself in the
shroud of my nightshirt. But before burying myself in the iron bed which
had been placed there because, on summer nights, I was too hot among the
rep curtains of the four-poster, I was stirred to revolt, and attempted
the desperate stratagem of a condemned prisoner. I wrote to my mother
begging her to come upstairs for an important reason which I could not put
in writing. My fear was that Francoise, my aunt's cook who used to be put
in charge of me when I was at Combray, might refuse to take my note. I had
a suspicion that, in her eyes, to carry a message to my mother when there
was a stranger in the room would appear flatly inconceivable, just as it
would be for the door-keeper of a theatre to hand a letter to an actor
upon the stage. For things which might or might not be done she possessed
a code at once imperious, abundant, subtle, and uncompromising on points
themselves imperceptible or irrelevant, which gave it a resemblance to
those ancient laws which combine such cruel ordinances as the massacre of
infants at the breast with prohibitions, of exaggerated refinement,
against "seething the kid in his mother's milk," or "eating of the sinew
which is upon the hollow of the thigh." This code, if one could judge it
by the sudden obstinacy which she would put into her refusal to carry out
certain of our instructions, seemed to have foreseen such social
complications and refinements of fashion as nothing in Francoise's
surroundings or in her career as a servant in a village household could
have put into her head; and we were obliged to assume that there was
latent in her some past existence in the ancient history of France, noble
and little understood, just as there is in those manufacturing towns where
old mansions still testify to their former courtly days, and chemical
workers toil among delicately sculptured scenes of the Miracle of
Theophilus or the Quatre Fils Aymon.

In this particular instance, the article of her code which made it highly
improbable that--barring an outbreak of fire--Francoise would go down and
disturb Mamma when M. Swann was there for so unimportant a person as
myself was one embodying the respect she shewed not only for the family
(as for the dead, for the clergy, or for royalty), but also for the
stranger within our gates; a respect which I should perhaps have found
touching in a book, but which never failed to irritate me on her lips,
because of the solemn and gentle tones in which she would utter it, and
which irritated me more than usual this evening when the sacred character
in which she invested the dinner-party might have the effect of making her
decline to disturb its ceremonial. But to give myself one chance of
success I lied without hesitation, telling her that it was not in the
least myself who had wanted to write to Mamma, but Mamma who, on saying
good night to me, had begged me not to forget to send her an answer about
something she had asked me to find, and that she would certainly be very
angry if this note were not taken to her. I think that Francoise
disbelieved me, for, like those primitive men whose senses were so much
keener than our own, she could immediately detect, by signs imperceptible
by the rest of us, the truth or falsehood of anything that we might wish
to conceal from her. She studied the envelope for five minutes as though
an examination of the paper itself and the look of my handwriting could
enlighten her as to the nature of the contents, or tell her to which
article of her code she ought to refer the matter. Then she went out with
an air of resignation which seemed to imply: "What a dreadful thing for
parents to have a child like this!"

A moment later she returned to say that they were still at the ice stage
and that it was impossible for the butler to deliver the note at once, in
front of everybody; but that when the finger-bowls were put round he would
find a way of slipping it into Mamma's hand. At once my anxiety subsided;
it was now no longer (as it had been a moment ago) until to-morrow that I
had lost my mother, for my little line was going--to annoy her, no doubt,
and doubly so because this contrivance would make me ridiculous in Swann's
eyes--but was going all the same to admit me, invisibly and by stealth,
into the same room as herself, was going to whisper from me into her ear;
for that forbidden and unfriendly dining-room, where but a moment ago the
ice itself--with burned nuts in it--and the finger-bowls seemed to me to
be concealing pleasures that were mischievous and of a mortal sadness
because Mamma was tasting of them and I was far away, had opened its doors
to me and, like a ripe fruit which bursts through its skin, was going to
pour out into my intoxicated heart the gushing sweetness of Mamma's
attention while she was reading what I had written. Now I was no longer
separated from her; the barriers were down; an exquisite thread was
binding us. Besides, that was not all, for surely Mamma would come.

As for the agony through which I had just passed, I imagined that Swann
would have laughed heartily at it if he had read my letter and had guessed
its purpose; whereas, on the contrary, as I was to learn in due course, a
similar anguish had been the bane of his life for many years, and no one
perhaps could have understood my feelings at that moment so well as
himself; to him, that anguish which lies in knowing that the creature one
adores is in some place of enjoyment where oneself is not and cannot
follow--to him that anguish came through Love, to which it is in a sense
predestined, by which it must be equipped and adapted; but when, as had
befallen me, such an anguish possesses one's soul before Love has yet
entered into one's life, then it must drift, awaiting Love's coming, vague
and free, without precise attachment, at the disposal of one sentiment
to-day, of another to-morrow, of filial piety or affection for a comrade.
And the joy with which I first bound myself apprentice, when Francoise
returned to tell me that my letter would be delivered; Swann, too, had
known well that false joy which a friend can give us, or some relative of
the woman we love, when on his arrival at the house or theatre where she
is to be found, for some ball or party or 'first-night' at which he is to
meet her, he sees us wandering outside, desperately awaiting some
opportunity of communicating with her. He recognises us, greets us
familiarly, and asks what we are doing there. And when we invent a story
of having some urgent message to give to his relative or friend, he
assures us that nothing could be more simple, takes us in at the door, and
promises to send her down to us in five minutes. How much we love him--as
at that moment I loved Francoise--the good-natured intermediary who by a
single word has made supportable, human, almost propitious the
inconceivable, infernal scene of gaiety in the thick of which we had been
imagining swarms of enemies, perverse and seductive, beguiling away from
us, even making laugh at us, the woman whom we love. If we are to judge of
them by him, this relative who has accosted us and who is himself an
initiate in those cruel mysteries, then the other guests cannot be so very
demoniacal. Those inaccessible and torturing hours into which she had gone
to taste of unknown pleasures--behold, a breach in the wall, and we are
through it. Behold, one of the moments whose series will go to make up
their sum, a moment as genuine as the rest, if not actually more important
to ourself because our mistress is more intensely a part of it; we picture
it to ourselves, we possess it, we intervene upon it, almost we have
created it: namely, the moment in which he goes to tell her that we are
waiting there below. And very probably the other moments of the party will
not be essentially different, will contain nothing else so exquisite or so
well able to make us suffer, since this kind friend has assured us that
"Of course, she will be delighted to come down! It will be far more
amusing for her to talk to you than to be bored up there." Alas! Swann had
learned by experience that the good intentions of a third party are
powerless to control a woman who is annoyed to find herself pursued even
into a ball-room by a man whom she does not love. Too often, the kind
friend comes down again alone.

My mother did not appear, but with no attempt to safeguard my self-respect
(which depended upon her keeping up the fiction that she had asked me to
let her know the result of my search for something or other) made
Francoise tell me, in so many words "There is no answer"--words I have so
often, since then, heard the hall-porters in 'mansions' and the flunkeys
in gambling-clubs and the like, repeat to some poor girl, who replies in
bewilderment: "What! he's said nothing? It's not possible. You did give
him my letter, didn't you? Very well, I shall wait a little longer." And
just as she invariably protests that she does not need the extra gas which
the porter offers to light for her, and sits on there, hearing nothing
further, except an occasional remark on the weather which the porter
exchanges with a messenger whom he will send off suddenly, when he notices
the time, to put some customer's wine on the ice; so, having declined
Francoise's offer to make me some tea or to stay beside me, I let her go
off again to the servants' hall, and lay down and shut my eyes, and tried
not to hear the voices of my family who were drinking their coffee in the
garden.

But after a few seconds I realised that, by writing that line to Mamma, by
approaching--at the risk of making her angry--so near to her that I felt I
could reach out and grasp the moment in which I should see her again, I
had cut myself off from the possibility of going to sleep until I actually
had seen her, and my heart began to beat more and more painfully as I
increased my agitation by ordering myself to keep calm and to acquiesce in
my ill-fortune. Then, suddenly, my anxiety subsided, a feeling of intense
happiness coursed through me, as when a strong medicine begins to take
effect and one's pain vanishes: I had formed a resolution to abandon all
attempts to go to sleep without seeing Mamma, and had decided to kiss her
at all costs, even with the certainty of being in disgrace with her for
long afterwards, when she herself came up to bed. The tranquillity which
followed my anguish made me extremely alert, no less than my sense of
expectation, my thirst for and my fear of danger.

Noiselessly I opened the window and sat down on the foot of my bed; hardly
daring to move in case they should hear me from below. Things outside
seemed also fixed in mute expectation, so as not to disturb the moonlight
which, duplicating each of them and throwing it back by the extension,
forwards, of a shadow denser and more concrete than its substance, had
made the whole landscape seem at once thinner and longer, like a map
which, after being folded up, is spread out upon the ground. What had to
move--a leaf of the chestnut-tree, for instance--moved. But its minute
shuddering, complete, finished to the least detail and with utmost
delicacy of gesture, made no discord with the rest of the scene, and yet
was not merged in it, remaining clearly outlined. Exposed upon this
surface of silence, which absorbed nothing from them, the most distant
sounds, those which must have come from gardens at the far end of the
town, could be distinguished with such exact 'finish' that the impression
they gave of coming from a distance seemed due only to their 'pianissimo'
execution, like those movements on muted strings so well performed by the
orchestra of the Conservatoire that, although one does not lose a single
note, one thinks all the same that they are being played somewhere
outside, a long way from the concert hall, so that all the old
subscribers, and my grandmother's sisters too, when Swann had given them
his seats, used to strain their ears as if they had caught the distant
approach of an army on the march, which had not yet rounded the corner of
the Rue de Trevise.

I was well aware that I had placed myself in a position than which none
could be counted upon to involve me in graver consequences at my parents'
hands; consequences far graver, indeed, than a stranger would have
imagined, and such as (he would have thought) could follow only some
really shameful fault. But in the system of education which they had given
me faults were not classified in the same order as in that of other
children, and I had been taught to place at the head of the list
(doubtless because there was no other class of faults from which I needed
to be more carefully protected) those in which I can now distinguish the
common feature that one succumbs to them by yielding to a nervous impulse.
But such words as these last had never been uttered in my hearing; no one
had yet accounted for my temptations in a way which might have led me to
believe that there was some excuse for my giving in to them, or that I was
actually incapable of holding out against them. Yet I could easily
recognise this class of transgressions by the anguish of mind which
preceded, as well as by the rigour of the punishment which followed them;
and I knew that what I had just done was in the same category as certain
other sins for which I had been severely chastised, though infinitely more
serious than they. When I went out to meet my mother as she herself came
up to bed, and when she saw that I had remained up so as to say good night
to her again in the passage, I should not be allowed to stay in the house
a day longer, I should be packed off to school next morning; so much was
certain. Very good: had I been obliged, the next moment, to hurl myself
out of the window, I should still have preferred such a fate. For what I
wanted now was Mamma, and to say good night to her. I had gone too far
along the road which led to the realisation of this desire to be able to
retrace my steps.

[Henador Titzoff]

I could hear my parents' footsteps as they went with Swann; and, when the
rattle of the gate assured me that he had really gone, I crept to the
window. Mamma was asking my father if he had thought the lobster good, and
whether M. Swann had had some of the coffee-and-pistachio ice. "I thought
it rather so-so," she was saying; "next time we shall have to try another
flavour."

"I can't tell you," said my great-aunt, "what a change I find in Swann.
He is quite antiquated!" She had grown so accustomed to seeing Swann
always in the same stage of adolescence that it was a shock to her to find
him suddenly less young than the age she still attributed to him. And the
others too were beginning to remark in Swann that abnormal, excessive,
scandalous senescence, meet only in a celibate, in one of that class for
whom it seems that the great day which knows no morrow must be longer than
for other men, since for such a one it is void of promise, and from its
dawn the moments steadily accumulate without any subsequent partition
among his offspring.

"I fancy he has a lot of trouble with that wretched wife of his, who
'lives' with a certain Monsieur de Charlus, as all Combray knows. It's the
talk of the town."

My mother observed that, in spite of this, he had looked much less unhappy
of late. "And he doesn't nearly so often do that trick of his, so like his
father, of wiping his eyes and passing his hand across his forehead. I
think myself that in his heart of hearts he doesn't love his wife any
more."

"Why, of course he doesn't," answered my grandfather. "He wrote me a
letter about it, ages ago, to which I took care to pay no attention, but
it left no doubt as to his feelings, let alone his love for his wife.
Hullo! you two; you never thanked him for the Asti!" he went on, turning
to his sisters-in-law.

"What! we never thanked him? I think, between you and me, that I put it to
him quite neatly," replied my aunt Flora.

"Yes, you managed it very well; I admired you for it," said my aunt
Celine.

"But you did it very prettily, too."

"Yes; I liked my expression about 'nice neighbours.'"

"What! Do you call that thanking him?" shouted my grandfather. "I heard
that all right, but devil take me if I guessed it was meant for Swann.
You may be quite sure he never noticed it."

"Come, come; Swann is not a fool. I am positive he appreciated the
compliment. You didn't expect me to tell him the number of bottles, or to
guess what he paid for them."

My father and mother were left alone and sat down for a moment; then my
father said: "Well, shall we go up to bed?"

"As you wish, dear, though I don't feel in the least like sleeping. I
don't know why; it can't be the coffee-ice--it wasn't strong enough to
keep me awake like this. But I see a light in the servants' hall: poor
Francoise has been sitting up for me, so I will get her to unhook me while
you go and undress."

My mother opened the latticed door which led from the hall to the
staircase. Presently I heard her coming upstairs to close her window. I
went quietly into the passage; my heart was beating so violently that I
could hardly move, but at least it was throbbing no longer with anxiety,
but with terror and with joy. I saw in the well of the stair a light
coming upwards, from Mamma's candle. Then I saw Mamma herself: I threw
myself upon her. For an instant she looked at me in astonishment, not
realising what could have happened. Then her face assumed an expression of
anger. She said not a single word to me; and, for that matter, I used to
go for days on end without being spoken to, for far less offences than
this. A single word from Mamma would have been an admission that further
intercourse with me was within the bounds of possibility, and that might
perhaps have appeared to me more terrible still, as indicating that, with
such a punishment as was in store for me, mere silence, and even anger,
were relatively puerile.

A word from her then would have implied the false calm in which one
converses with a servant to whom one has just decided to give notice; the
kiss one bestows on a son who is being packed off to enlist, which would
have been denied him if it had merely been a matter of being angry with
him for a few days. But she heard my father coming from the dressing-room,
where he had gone to take off his clothes, and, to avoid the 'scene' which
he would make if he saw me, she said, in a voice half-stifled by her
anger: "Run away at once. Don't let your father see you standing there
like a crazy jane!"

But I begged her again to "Come and say good night to me!" terrified as I
saw the light from my father's candle already creeping up the wall, but
also making use of his approach as a means of blackmail, in the hope that
my mother, not wishing him to find me there, as find me he must if she
continued to hold out, would give in to me, and say: "Go back to your
room. I will come."

Too late: my father was upon us. Instinctively I murmured, though no one
heard me, "I am done for!"

I was not, however. My father used constantly to refuse to let me do
things which were quite clearly allowed by the more liberal charters
granted me by my mother and grandmother, because he paid no heed to
'Principles,' and because in his sight there were no such things as
'Rights of Man.' For some quite irrelevant reason, or for no reason at
all, he would at the last moment prevent me from taking some particular
walk, one so regular and so consecrated to my use that to deprive me of it
was a clear breach of faith; or again, as he had done this evening, long
before the appointed hour he would snap out: "Run along up to bed now; no
excuses!" But then again, simply because he was devoid of principles (in
my grandmother's sense), so he could not, properly speaking, be called
inexorable. He looked at me for a moment with an air of annoyance and
surprise, and then when Mamma had told him, not without some
embarrassment, what had happened, said to her: "Go along with him, then;
you said just now that you didn't feel like sleep, so stay in his room for
a little. I don't need anything."

"But dear," my mother answered timidly, "whether or not I feel like sleep
is not the point; we must not make the child accustomed..."

"There's no question of making him accustomed," said my father, with a
shrug of the shoulders; "you can see quite well that the child is unhappy.
After all, we aren't gaolers. You'll end by making him ill, and a lot of
good that will do. There are two beds in his room; tell Francoise to make
up the big one for you, and stay beside him for the rest of the night. I'm
off to bed, anyhow; I'm not nervous like you. Good night."

It was impossible for me to thank my father; what he called my
sentimentality would have exasperated him. I stood there, not daring to
move; he was still confronting us, an immense figure in his white
nightshirt, crowned with the pink and violet scarf of Indian cashmere in
which, since he had begun to suffer from neuralgia, he used to tie up his
head, standing like Abraham in the engraving after Benozzo Gozzoli which
M. Swann had given me, telling Sarah that she must tear herself away from
Isaac. Many years have passed since that night. The wall of the staircase,
up which I had watched the light of his candle gradually climb, was long
ago demolished. And in myself, too, many things have perished which, I
imagined, would last for ever, and new structures have arisen, giving
birth to new sorrows and new joys which in those days I could not have
foreseen, just as now the old are difficult of comprehension. It is a long
time, too, since my father has been able to tell Mamma to "Go with the
child." Never again will such hours be possible for me. But of late I have
been increasingly able to catch, if I listen attentively, the sound of the
sobs which I had the strength to control in my father's presence, and
which broke out only when I found myself alone with Mamma. Actually, their
echo has never ceased: it is only because life is now growing more and
more quiet round about me that I hear them afresh, like those convent
bells which are so effectively drowned during the day by the noises of the
streets that one would suppose them to have been stopped for ever, until
they sound out again through the silent evening air.

Mamma spent that night in my room: when I had just committed a sin so
deadly that I was waiting to be banished from the household, my parents
gave me a far greater concession than I should ever have won as the reward
of a good action. Even at the moment when it manifested itself in this
crowning mercy, my father's conduct towards me was still somewhat
arbitrary, and regardless of my deserts, as was characteristic of him and
due to the fact that his actions were generally dictated by chance
expediencies rather than based on any formal plan. And perhaps even what I
called his strictness, when he sent me off to bed, deserved that title
less, really, than my mother's or grandmother's attitude, for his nature,
which in some respects differed more than theirs from my own, had probably
prevented him from guessing, until then, how wretched I was every evening,
a thing which my mother and grandmother knew well; but they loved me
enough to be unwilling to spare me that suffering, which they hoped to
teach me to overcome, so as to reduce my nervous sensibility and to
strengthen my will. As for my father, whose affection for me was of
another kind, I doubt if he would have shewn so much courage, for as soon
as he had grasped the fact that I was unhappy he had said to my mother:
"Go and comfort him." Mamma stayed all night in my room, and it seemed
that she did not wish to mar by recrimination those hours, so different
from anything that I had had a right to expect; for when Francoise (who
guessed that something extraordinary must have happened when she saw Mamma
sitting by my side, holding my hand and letting me cry unchecked) said to
her: "But, Madame, what is little Master crying for?" she replied: "Why,
Francoise, he doesn't know himself: it is his nerves. Make up the big bed
for me quickly and then go off to your own." And thus for the first time
my unhappiness was regarded no longer as a fault for which I must be
punished, but as an involuntary evil which had been officially recognised
a nervous condition for which I was in no way responsible: I had the
consolation that I need no longer mingle apprehensive scruples with the
bitterness of my tears; I could weep henceforward without sin. I felt no
small degree of pride, either, in Franchise's presence at this return to
humane conditions which, not an hour after Mamma had refused to come up to
my room and had sent the snubbing message that I was to go to sleep,
raised me to the dignity of a grown-up person, brought me of a sudden to a
sort of puberty of sorrow, to emancipation from tears. I ought then to
have been happy; I was not. It struck me that my mother had just made a
first concession which must have been painful to her, that it was a first
step down from the ideal she had formed for me, and that for the first
time she, with all her courage, had to confess herself beaten. It struck
me that if I had just scored a victory it was over her; that I had
succeeded, as sickness or sorrow or age might have succeeded, in relaxing
her will, in altering her judgment; that this evening opened a new era,
must remain a black date in the calendar. And if I had dared now, I
should have said to Mamma: "No, I don't want you; you mustn't sleep here."
But I was conscious of the practical wisdom, of what would be called
nowadays the realism with which she tempered the ardent idealism of my
grandmother's nature, and I knew that now the mischief was done she would
prefer to let me enjoy the soothing pleasure of her company, and not to
disturb my father again. Certainly my mother's beautiful features seemed
to shine again with youth that evening, as she sat gently holding my hands
and trying to check my tears; but, just for that reason, it seemed to me
that this should not have happened; her anger would have been less
difficult to endure than this new kindness which my childhood had not
known; I felt that I had with an impious and secret finger traced a first
wrinkle upon her soul and made the first white hair shew upon her head.
This thought redoubled my sobs, and then I saw that Mamma, who had never
allowed herself to go to any length of tenderness with me, was suddenly
overcome by my tears and had to struggle to keep back her own. Then, as
she saw that I had noticed this, she said to me, with a smile: "Why, my
little buttercup, my little canary-boy, he's going to make Mamma as silly
as himself if this goes on. Look, since you can't sleep, and Mamma can't
either, we mustn't go on in this stupid way; we must do something; I'll
get one of your books." But I had none there. "Would you like me to get
out the books now that your grandmother is going to give you for your
birthday? Just think it over first, and don't be disappointed if there is
nothing new for you then."

I was only too delighted, and Mamma went to find a parcel of books in
which I could not distinguish, through the paper in which it was wrapped,
any more than its squareness and size, but which, even at this first
glimpse, brief and obscure as it was, bade fair to eclipse already the
paint-box of last New Year's Day and the silkworms of the year before. It
contained _La Mare au Diable_, _Francois le Champi_, _La Petite Fadette_,
and _Les Maitres Sonneurs_. My grandmother, as I learned afterwards, had
at first chosen Mussel's poems, a volume of Rousseau, and _Indiana_; for
while she considered light reading as unwholesome as sweets and cakes, she
did not reflect that the strong breath of genius must have upon the very
soul of a child an influence at once more dangerous and less quickening
than those of fresh air and country breezes upon his body. But when my
father had seemed almost to regard her as insane on learning the names of
the books she proposed to give me, she had journeyed back by herself to
Jouy-le-Vicomte to the bookseller's, so that there should be no fear of my
not having my present in time (it was a burning hot day, and she had come
home so unwell that the doctor had warned my mother not to allow her again
to tire herself in that way), and had there fallen back upon the four
pastoral novels of George Sand.

"My dear," she had said to Mamma, "I could not allow myself to give the
child anything that was not well written."

The truth was that she could never make up her mind to purchase anything
from which no intellectual profit was to be derived, and, above all, that
profit which good things bestowed on us by teaching us to seek our
pleasures elsewhere than in the barren satisfaction of worldly wealth.
Even when she had to make some one a present of the kind called 'useful,'
when she had to give an armchair or some table-silver or a walking-stick,
she would choose 'antiques,' as though their long desuetude had effaced
from them any semblance of utility and fitted them rather to instruct us
in the lives of the men of other days than to serve the common
requirements of our own. She would have liked me to have in my room
photographs of ancient buildings or of beautiful places. But at the moment
of buying them, and for all that the subject of the picture had an
aesthetic value of its own, she would find that vulgarity and utility had
too prominent a part in them, through the mechanical nature of their
reproduction by photography. She attempted by a subterfuge, if not to
eliminate altogether their commercial banality, at least to minimise it,
to substitute for the bulk of it what was art still, to introduce, as it
might be, several 'thicknesses' of art; instead of photographs of Chartres
Cathedral, of the Fountains of Saint-Cloud, or of Vesuvius she would
inquire of Swann whether some great painter had not made pictures of them,
and preferred to give me photographs of 'Chartres Cathedral' after Corot,
of the 'Fountains of Saint-Cloud' after Hubert Robert, and of 'Vesuvius'
after Turner, which were a stage higher in the scale of art. But although
the photographer had been prevented from reproducing directly the
masterpieces or the beauties of nature, and had there been replaced by a
great artist, he resumed his odious position when it came to reproducing
the artist's interpretation. Accordingly, having to reckon again with
vulgarity, my grandmother would endeavour to postpone the moment of
contact still further. She would ask Swann if the picture had not been
engraved, preferring, when possible, old engravings with some interest of
association apart from themselves, such, for example, as shew us a
masterpiece in a state in which we can no longer see it to-day, as
Morghen's print of the 'Cenacolo' of Leonardo before it was spoiled by
restoration. It must be admitted that the results of this method of
interpreting the art of making presents were not always happy. The idea
which I formed of Venice, from a drawing by Titian which is supposed to
have the lagoon in the background, was certainly far less accurate than
what I have since derived from ordinary photographs. We could no longer
keep count in the family (when my great-aunt tried to frame an indictment
of my grandmother) of all the armchairs she had presented to married
couples, young and old, which on a first attempt to sit down upon them had
at once collapsed beneath the weight of their recipient. But my
grandmother would have thought it sordid to concern herself too closely
with the solidity of any piece of furniture in which could still be
discerned a flourish, a smile, a brave conceit of the past. And even what
in such pieces supplied a material need, since it did so in a manner to
which we are no longer accustomed, was as charming to her as one of those
old forms of speech in which we can still see traces of a metaphor whose
fine point has been worn away by the rough usage of our modern tongue. In
precisely the same way the pastoral novels of George Sand, which she was
giving me for my birthday, were regular lumber-rooms of antique furniture,
full of expressions that have fallen out of use and returned as imagery,
such as one finds now only in country dialects. And my grandmother had
bought them in preference to other books, just as she would have preferred
to take a house that had a gothic dovecot, or some other such piece of
antiquity as would have a pleasant effect on the mind, filling it with a
nostalgic longing for impossible journeys through the realms of time.

Mamma sat down by my bed; she had chosen _Francois le Champi_, whose
reddish cover and incomprehensible title gave it a distinct personality in
my eyes and a mysterious attraction. I had not then read any real novels.
I had heard it said that George Sand was a typical novelist. That prepared
me in advance to imagine that _Francois le Champi_ contained something
inexpressibly delicious. The course of the narrative, where it tended to
arouse curiosity or melt to pity, certain modes of expression which
disturb or sadden the reader, and which, with a little experience, he may
recognise as 'common form' in novels, seemed to me then distinctive--for
to me a new book was not one of a number of similar objects, but was like
an individual man, unmatched, and with no cause of existence beyond
himself--an intoxicating whiff of the peculiar essence of _Francois le
Champi_. Beneath the everyday incidents, the commonplace thoughts and
hackneyed words, I could hear, or overhear, an intonation, a rhythmic
utterance fine and strange. The 'action' began: to me it seemed all the
more obscure because in those days, when I read to myself, I used often,
while I turned the pages, to dream of something quite different. And to
the gaps which this habit made in my knowledge of the story more were
added by the fact that when it was Mamma who was reading to me aloud she
left all the love-scenes out. And so all the odd changes which take place
in the relations between the miller's wife and the boy, changes which only
the birth and growth of love can explain, seemed to me plunged and steeped
in a mystery, the key to which (as I could readily believe) lay in that
strange and pleasant-sounding name of _Champi_, which draped the boy who
bore it, I knew not why, in its own bright colour, purpurate and charming.
If my mother was not a faithful reader, she was, none the less, admirable
when reading a work in which she found the note of true feeling by the
respectful simplicity of her interpretation and by the sound of her sweet
and gentle voice. It was the same in her daily life, when it was not works
of art but men and women whom she was moved to pity or admire: it was
touching to observe with what deference she would banish from her voice,
her gestures, from her whole conversation, now the note of joy which might
have distressed some mother who had long ago lost a child, now the
recollection of an event or anniversary which might have reminded some old
gentleman of the burden of his years, now the household topic which might
have bored some young man of letters. And so, when she read aloud the
prose of George Sand, prose which is everywhere redolent of that
generosity and moral distinction which Mamma had learned from my
grandmother to place above all other qualities in life, and which I was
not to teach her until much later to refrain from placing, in the same
way, above all other qualities in literature; taking pains to banish from
her voice any weakness or affectation which might have blocked its channel
for that powerful stream of language, she supplied all the natural
tenderness, all the lavish sweetness which they demanded to phrases which
seemed to have been composed for her voice, and which were all, so to
speak, within her compass. She came to them with the tone that they
required, with the cordial accent which existed before they were, which
dictated them, but which is not to be found in the words themselves, and
by these means she smoothed away, as she read on, any harshness there
might be or discordance in the tenses of verbs, endowing the imperfect and
the preterite with all the sweetness which there is in generosity, all the
melancholy which there is in love; guided the sentence that was drawing to
an end towards that which was waiting to begin, now hastening, now
slackening the pace of the syllables so as to bring them, despite their
difference of quantity, into a uniform rhythm, and breathed into this
quite ordinary prose a kind of life, continuous and full of feeling.

My agony was soothed; I let myself be borne upon the current of this
gentle night on which I had my mother by my side. I knew that such a night
could not be repeated; that the strongest desire I had in the world,
namely, to keep my mother in my room through the sad hours of darkness,
ran too much counter to general requirements and to the wishes of others
for such a concession as had been granted me this evening to be anything
but a rare and casual exception. To-morrow night I should again be the
victim of anguish and Mamma would not stay by my side. But when these
storms of anguish grew calm I could no longer realise their existence;
besides, tomorrow evening was still a long way off; I reminded myself that
I should still have time to think about things, albeit that remission of
time could bring me no access of power, albeit the coming event was in no
way dependent upon the exercise of my will, and seemed not quite
inevitable only because it was still separated from me by this short
interval.



* * *



And so it was that, for a long time afterwards, when I lay awake at night
and revived old memories of Combray, I saw no more of it than this sort of
luminous panel, sharply defined against a vague and shadowy background,
like the panels which a Bengal fire or some electric sign will illuminate
and dissect from the front of a building the other parts of which remain
plunged in darkness: broad enough at its base, the little parlour, the
dining-room, the alluring shadows of the path along which would come M.
Swann, the unconscious author of my sufferings, the hall through which I
would journey to the first step of that staircase, so hard to climb, which
constituted, all by itself, the tapering 'elevation' of an irregular
pyramid; and, at the summit, my bedroom, with the little passage through
whose glazed door Mamma would enter; in a word, seen always at the same
evening hour, isolated from all its possible surroundings, detached and
solitary against its shadowy background, the bare minimum of scenery
necessary (like the setting one sees printed at the head of an old play,
for its performance in the provinces) to the drama of my undressing, as
though all Combray had consisted of but two floors joined by a slender
staircase, and as though there had been no time there but seven o'clock at
night. I must own that I could have assured any questioner that Combray
did include other scenes and did exist at other hours than these. But
since the facts which I should then have recalled would have been prompted
only by an exercise of the will, by my intellectual memory, and since the
pictures which that kind of memory shews us of the past preserve nothing
of the past itself, I should never have had any wish to ponder over this
residue of Combray. To me it was in reality all dead.

Permanently dead? Very possibly.

There is a large element of hazard in these matters, and a second hazard,
that of our own death, often prevents us from awaiting for any length of
time the favours of the first.

I feel that there is much to be said for the Celtic belief that the souls
of those whom we have lost are held captive in some inferior being, in an
animal, in a plant, in some inanimate object, and so effectively lost to
us until the day (which to many never comes) when we happen to pass by the
tree or to obtain possession of the object which forms their prison. Then
they start and tremble, they call us by our name, and as soon as we have
recognised their voice the spell is broken. We have delivered them: they
have overcome death and return to share our life.

And so it is with our own past. It is a labour in vain to attempt to
recapture it: all the efforts of our intellect must prove futile. The past
is hidden somewhere outside the realm, beyond the reach of intellect, in
some material object (in the sensation which that material object will
give us) which we do not suspect. And as for that object, it depends on
chance whether we come upon it or not before we ourselves must die.

Many years had elapsed during which nothing of Combray, save what was
comprised in the theatre and the drama of my going to bed there, had any
existence for me, when one day in winter, as I came home, my mother,
seeing that I was cold, offered me some tea, a thing I did not ordinarily
take. I declined at first, and then, for no particular reason, changed my
mind. She sent out for one of those short, plump little cakes called
'petites madeleines,' which look as though they had been moulded in the
fluted scallop of a pilgrim's shell. And soon, mechanically, weary after a
dull day with the prospect of a depressing morrow, I raised to my lips a
spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner
had the warm liquid, and the crumbs with it, touched my palate than a
shudder ran through my whole body, and I stopped, intent upon the
extraordinary changes that were taking place. An exquisite pleasure had
invaded my senses, but individual, detached, with no suggestion of its
origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me,
its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory--this new sensation having
had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence;
or rather this essence was not in me, it was myself. I had ceased now to
feel mediocre, accidental, mortal. Whence could it have come to me, this
all-powerful joy? I was conscious that it was connected with the taste of
tea and cake, but that it infinitely transcended those savours, could not,
indeed, be of the same nature as theirs. Whence did it come? What did it
signify? How could I seize upon and define it?

I drink a second mouthful, in which I find nothing more than in the first,
a third, which gives me rather less than the second. It is time to stop;
the potion is losing its magic. It is plain that the object of my quest,
the truth, lies not in the cup but in myself. The tea has called up in me,
but does not itself understand, and can only repeat indefinitely with a
gradual loss of strength, the same testimony; which I, too, cannot
interpret, though I hope at least to be able to call upon the tea for it
again and to find it there presently, intact and at my disposal, for my
final enlightenment. I put down my cup and examine my own mind. It is for
it to discover the truth. But how? What an abyss of uncertainty whenever
the mind feels that some part of it has strayed beyond its own borders;
when it, the seeker, is at once the dark region through which it must go
seeking, where all its equipment will avail it nothing. Seek? More than
that: create. It is face to face with something which does not so far
exist, to which it alone can give reality and substance, which it alone
can bring into the light of day.

And I begin again to ask myself what it could have been, this
unremembered state which brought with it no logical proof of its
existence, but only the sense that it was a happy, that it was a real
state in whose presence other states of consciousness melted and vanished.
I decide to attempt to make it reappear. I retrace my thoughts to the
moment at which I drank the first spoonful of tea. I find again the same
state, illumined by no fresh light. I compel my mind to make one further
effort, to follow and recapture once again the fleeting sensation. And
that nothing may interrupt it in its course I shut out every obstacle,
every extraneous idea, I stop my ears and inhibit all attention to the
sounds which come from the next room. And then, feeling that my mind is
growing fatigued without having any success to report, I compel it for a
change to enjoy that distraction which I have just denied it, to think of
other things, to rest and refresh itself before the supreme attempt. And
then for the second time I clear an empty space in front of it. I place in
position before my mind's eye the still recent taste of that first
mouthful, and I feel something start within me, something that leaves its
resting-place and attempts to rise, something that has been embedded like
an anchor at a great depth; I do not know yet what it is, but I can feel
it mounting slowly; I can measure the resistance, I can hear the echo of
great spaces traversed.

Undoubtedly what is thus palpitating in the depths of my being must be the
image, the visual memory which, being linked to that taste, has tried to
follow it into my conscious mind. But its struggles are too far off, too
much confused; scarcely can I perceive the colourless reflection in which
are blended the uncapturable whirling medley of radiant hues, and I cannot
distinguish its form, cannot invite it, as the one possible interpreter,
to translate to me the evidence of its contemporary, its inseparable
paramour, the taste of cake soaked in tea; cannot ask it to inform me what
special circumstance is in question, of what period in my past life.

Will it ultimately reach the clear surface of my consciousness, this
memory, this old, dead moment which the magnetism of an identical moment
has travelled so far to importune, to disturb, to raise up out of the very
depths of my being? I cannot tell. Now that I feel nothing, it has
stopped, has perhaps gone down again into its darkness, from which who can
say whether it will ever rise? Ten times over I must essay the task, must
lean down over the abyss. And each time the natural laziness which deters
us from every difficult enterprise, every work of importance, has urged me
to leave the thing alone, to drink my tea and to think merely of the
worries of to-day and of my hopes for to-morrow, which let themselves be
pondered over without effort or distress of mind.

And suddenly the memory returns. The taste was that of the little crumb of
madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I
did not go out before church-time), when I went to say good day to her in
her bedroom, my aunt Leonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own
cup of real or of lime-flower tea. The sight of the little madeleine had
recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it; perhaps because I had so
often seen such things in the interval, without tasting them, on the trays
in pastry-cooks' windows, that their image had dissociated itself from
those Combray days to take its place among others more recent; perhaps
because of those memories, so long abandoned and put out of mind, nothing
now survived, everything was scattered; the forms of things, including
that of the little scallop-shell of pastry, so richly sensual under its
severe, religious folds, were either obliterated or had been so long
dormant as to have lost the power of expansion which would have allowed
them to resume their place in my consciousness. But when from a
long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the
things are broken and scattered, still, alone, more fragile, but with more
vitality, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, the smell
and taste of things remain poised a long time, like souls, ready to remind
us, waiting and hoping for their moment, amid the ruins of all the rest;
and bear unfaltering, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their
essence, the vast structure of recollection.

And once I had recognized the taste of the crumb of madeleine soaked in
her decoction of lime-flowers which my aunt used to give me (although I
did not yet know and must long postpone the discovery of why this memory
made me so happy) immediately the old grey house upon the street, where
her room was, rose up like the scenery of a theatre to attach itself to
the little pavilion, opening on to the garden, which had been built out
behind it for my parents (the isolated panel which until that moment had
been all that I could see); and with the house the town, from morning to
night and in all weathers, the Square where I was sent before luncheon,
the streets along which I used to run errands, the country roads we took
when it was fine. And just as the Japanese amuse themselves by filling a
porcelain bowl with water and steeping in it little crumbs of paper which
until then are without character or form, but, the moment they become wet,
stretch themselves and bend, take on colour and distinctive shape, become
flowers or houses or people, permanent and recognisable, so in that moment
all the flowers in our garden and in M. Swann's park, and the water-lilies
on the Vivonne and the good folk of the village and their little dwellings
and the parish church and the whole of Combray and of its surroundings,
taking their proper shapes and growing solid, sprang into being, town and
gardens alike, from my cup of tea.




COMBRAY


Combray at a distance, from a twenty-mile radius, as we used to see it
from the railway when we arrived there every year in Holy Week, was no
more than a church epitomising the town, representing it, speaking of it
and for it to the horizon, and as one drew near, gathering close about its
long, dark cloak, sheltering from the wind, on the open plain, as a
shepherd gathers his sheep, the woolly grey backs of its flocking houses,
which a fragment of its mediaeval ramparts enclosed, here and there, in an
outline as scrupulously circular as that of a little town in a primitive
painting. To live in, Combray was a trifle depressing, like its streets,
whose houses, built of the blackened stone of the country, fronted with
outside steps, capped with gables which projected long shadows downwards,
were so dark that one had, as soon as the sun began to go down, to draw
back the curtains in the sitting-room windows; streets with the solemn
names of Saints, not a few of whom figured in the history of the early
lords of Combray, such as the Rue Saint-Hilaire, the Rue Saint-Jacques, in
which my aunt's house stood, the Rue Sainte-Hildegarde, which ran past her
railings, and the Rue du Saint-Esprit, on to which the little garden gate
opened; and these Combray streets exist in so remote a quarter of my
memory, painted in colours so different from those in which the world is
decked for me to-day, that in fact one and all of them, and the church
which towered above them in the Square, seem to me now more unsubstantial
than the projections of my magic-lantern; while at times I feel that to be
able to cross the Rue Saint-Hilaire again, to engage a room in the Rue de
l'Oiseau, in the old hostelry of the Oiseau Flesche, from whose windows in
the pavement used to rise a smell of cooking which rises still in my mind,
now and then, in the same warm gusts of comfort, would be to secure a
contact with the unseen world more marvellously supernatural than it would
be to make Golo's acquaintance and to chat with Genevieve de Brabant.

My grandfather's cousin--by courtesy my great-aunt--with whom we used to
stay, was the mother of that aunt Leonie who, since her husband's (my
uncle Octave's) death, had gradually declined to leave, first Combray,
then her house in Combray, then her bedroom, and finally her bed; and who
now never 'came down,' but lay perpetually in an indefinite condition of
grief, physical exhaustion, illness, obsessions, and religious
observances. Her own room looked out over the Rue Saint-Jacques, which
ran a long way further to end in the Grand-Pre (as distinct from the
Petit-Pre, a green space in the centre of the town where three streets
met) and which, monotonous and grey, with the three high steps of stone
before almost every one of its doors, seemed like a deep furrow cut by
some sculptor of gothic images in the very block of stone out of which he
had fashioned a Calvary or a Crib. My aunt's life was now practically
confined to two adjoining rooms, in one of which she would rest in the
afternoon while they, aired the other. They were rooms of that country
order which (just as in certain climes whole tracts of air or ocean are
illuminated or scented by myriads of protozoa which we cannot see)
fascinate our sense of smell with the countless odours springing from
their own special virtues, wisdom, habits, a whole secret system of life,
invisible, superabundant and profoundly moral, which their atmosphere
holds in solution; smells natural enough indeed, and coloured by
circumstances as are those of the neighbouring countryside, but already
humanised, domesticated, confined, an exquisite, skilful, limpid jelly,
blending all the fruits of the season which have left the orchard for the
store-room, smells changing with the year, but plenishing, domestic
smells, which compensate for the sharpness of hoar frost with the sweet
savour of warm bread, smells lazy and punctual as a village clock, roving
smells, pious smells; rejoicing in a peace which brings only an increase
of anxiety, and in a prosiness which serves as a deep source of poetry to
the stranger who passes through their midst without having lived amongst
them. The air of those rooms was saturated with the fine bouquet of a
silence so nourishing, so succulent that I could not enter them without a
sort of greedy enjoyment, particularly on those first mornings, chilly
still, of the Easter holidays, when I could taste it more fully, because I
had just arrived then at Combray: before I went in to wish my aunt good
day I would be kept waiting a little time in the outer room, where the
sun, a wintry sun still, had crept in to warm itself before the fire,
lighted already between its two brick sides and plastering all the room
and everything in it with a smell of soot, making the room like one of
those great open hearths which one finds in the country, or one of the
canopied mantelpieces in old castles under which one sits hoping that in
the world outside it is raining or snowing, hoping almost for a
catastrophic deluge to add the romance of shelter and security to the
comfort of a snug retreat; I would turn to and fro between the prayer-desk
and the stamped velvet armchairs, each one always draped in its crocheted
antimacassar, while the fire, baking like a pie the appetising smells with
which the air of the room, was thickly clotted, which the dewy and sunny
freshness of the morning had already 'raised' and started to 'set,' puffed
them and glazed them and fluted them and swelled them into an invisible
though not impalpable country cake, an immense puff-pastry, in which,
barely waiting to savour the crustier, more delicate, more respectable,
but also drier smells of the cupboard, the chest-of-drawers, and the
patterned wall-paper I always returned with an unconfessed gluttony to
bury myself in the nondescript, resinous, dull, indigestible, and fruity
smell of the flowered quilt.

In the next room I could hear my aunt talking quietly to herself. She
never spoke save in low tones, because she believed that there was
something broken in her head and floating loose there, which she might
displace by talking too loud; but she never remained for long, even when
alone, without saying something, because she believed that it was good for
her throat, and that by keeping the blood there in circulation it would
make less frequent the chokings and other pains to which she was liable;
besides, in the life of complete inertia which she led she attached to the
least of her sensations an extraordinary importance, endowed them with a
Protean ubiquity which made it difficult for her to keep them secret, and,
failing a confidant to whom she might communicate them, she used to
promulgate them to herself in an unceasing monologue which was her sole
form of activity. Unfortunately, having formed the habit of thinking
aloud, she did not always take care to see that there was no one in the
adjoining room, and I would often hear her saying to herself: "I must not
forget that I never slept a wink"--for "never sleeping a wink" was her
great claim to distinction, and one admitted and respected in our
household vocabulary; in the morning Francoise would not 'call' her, but
would simply 'come to' her; during the day, when my aunt wished to take a
nap, we used to say just that she wished to 'be quiet' or to 'rest'; and
when in conversation she so far forgot herself as to say "what made me
wake up," or "I dreamed that," she would flush and at once correct
herself.

After waiting a minute, I would go in and kiss her; Francoise would be
making her tea; or, if my aunt were feeling 'upset,' she would ask instead
for her 'tisane,' and it would be my duty to shake out of the chemist's
little package on to a plate the amount of lime-blossom required for
infusion in boiling water. The drying of the stems had twisted them into a
fantastic trellis, in whose intervals the pale flowers opened, as though a
painter had arranged them there, grouping them in the most decorative
poses. The leaves, which had lost or altered their own appearance, assumed
those instead of the most incongruous things imaginable, as though the
transparent wings of flies or the blank sides of labels or the petals of
roses had been collected and pounded, or interwoven as birds weave the
material for their nests. A thousand trifling little details--the charming
prodigality of the chemist--details which would have been eliminated from
an artificial preparation, gave me, like a book in which one is astonished
to read the name of a person whom one knows, the pleasure of finding that
these were indeed real lime-blossoms, like those I had seen, when coming
from the train, in the Avenue de la Gare, altered, but only because they
were not imitations but the very same blossoms, which had grown old. And
as each new character is merely a metamorphosis from something older, in
these little grey balls I recognised green buds plucked before their time;
but beyond all else the rosy, moony, tender glow which lit up the blossoms
among the frail forest of stems from which they hung like little golden
roses--marking, as the radiance upon an old wall still marks the place of
a vanished fresco, the difference between those parts of the tree which
had and those which had not been 'in bloom'--shewed me that these were
petals which, before their flowering-time, the chemist's package had
embalmed on warm evenings of spring. That rosy candlelight was still their
colour, but half-extinguished and deadened in the diminished life which
was now theirs, and which may be called the twilight of a flower.
Presently my aunt was able to dip in the boiling infusion, in which she
would relish the savour of dead or faded blossom, a little madeleine, of
which she would hold out a piece to me when it was sufficiently soft.

At one side of her bed stood a big yellow chest-of-drawers of lemon-wood,
and a table which served at once as pharmacy and as high altar, on which,
beneath a statue of Our Lady and a bottle of Vichy-Celestins, might be
found her service-books and her medical prescriptions, everything that she
needed for the performance, in bed, of her duties to soul and body, to
keep the proper times for pepsin and for vespers. On the other side her
bed was bounded by the window: she had the street beneath her eyes, and
would read in it from morning to night to divert the tedium of her life,
like a Persian prince, the daily but immemorial chronicles of Combray,
which she would discuss in detail afterwards with Francoise.

I would not have been five minutes with my aunt before she would send me
away in case I made her tired. She would hold out for me to kiss her sad
brow, pale and lifeless, on which at this early hour she would not yet
have arranged the false hair and through which the bones shone like the
points of a crown of thorns--or the beads of a rosary, and she would say to
me: "Now, my poor child, you must go away; go and get ready for mass; and
if you see Francoise downstairs, tell her not to stay too long amusing
herself with you; she must come up soon to see if I want anything."

Francoise, who had been for many years in my aunt's service and did not at
that time suspect that she would one day be transferred entirely to ours,
was a little inclined to desert my aunt during the months which we spent
in her house. There had been in my infancy, before we first went to
Combray, and when my aunt Leonie used still to spend the winter in Paris
with her mother, a time when I knew Francoise so little that on New Year's
Day, before going into my great-aunt's house, my mother put a five-franc
piece in my hand and said: "Now, be careful. Don't make any mistake. Wait
until you hear me say 'Good morning, Francoise,' and I touch your arm
before you give it to her." No sooner had we arrived in my aunt's dark
hall than we saw in the gloom, beneath the frills of a snowy cap as stiff
and fragile as if it had been made of spun sugar, the concentric waves of
a smile of anticipatory gratitude. It was Francoise, motionless and erect,
framed in the small doorway of the corridor like the statue of a saint in
its niche. When we had grown more accustomed to this religious darkness we
could discern in her features a disinterested love of all humanity,
blended with a tender respect for the 'upper classes' which raised to the
most honourable quarter of her heart the hope of receiving her due reward.
Mamma pinched my arm sharply and said in a loud voice: "Good morning,
Francoise." At this signal my fingers parted and I let fall the coin,
which found a receptacle in a confused but outstretched hand. But since we
had begun to go to Combray there was no one I knew better than Francoise.
We were her favourites, and in the first years at least, while she shewed
the same consideration for us as for my aunt, she enjoyed us with a keener
relish, because we had, in addition to our dignity as part of 'the family'
(for she had for those invisible bonds by which community of blood unites
the members of a family as much respect as any Greek tragedian), the fresh
charm of not being her customary employers. And so with what joy would
she welcome us, with what sorrow complain that the weather was still so
bad for us, on the day of our arrival, just before Easter, when there was
often an icy wind; while Mamma inquired after her daughter and her
nephews, and if her grandson was good-looking, and what they were going to
make of him, and whether he took after his granny.

Later, when no one else was in the room, Mamma, who knew that Francoise
was still mourning for her parents, who had been dead for years, would
speak of them kindly, asking her endless little questions about them and
their lives.

She had guessed that Francoise was not over-fond of her son-in-law, and
that he spoiled the pleasure she found in visiting her daughter, as the
two could not talk so freely when he was there. And so one day, when
Francoise was going to their house, some miles from Combray, Mamma said to
her, with a smile: "Tell me, Francoise, if Julien has had to go away, and
you have Marguerite to yourself all day, you will be very sorry, but will
make the best of it, won't you?"

And Francoise answered, laughing: "Madame knows everything; Madame is
worse than the X-rays" (she pronounced 'x' with an affectation of
difficulty and with a smile in deprecation of her, an unlettered woman's,
daring to employ a scientific term) "they brought here for Mme. Octave,
which see what is in your heart"--and she went off, disturbed that anyone
should be caring about her, perhaps anxious that we should not see her in
tears: Mamma was the first person who had given her the pleasure of
feeling that her peasant existence, with its simple joys and sorrows,
might offer some interest, might be a source of grief or pleasure to some
one other than herself.

My aunt resigned herself to doing without Francoise to some extent during
our visits, knowing how much my mother appreciated the services of so
active and intelligent a maid, one who looked as smart at five o'clock in
the morning in her kitchen, under a cap whose stiff and dazzling frills
seemed to be made of porcelain, as when dressed for churchgoing; who did
everything in the right way, who toiled like a horse, whether she was well
or ill, but without noise, without the appearance of doing anything; the
only one of my aunt's maids who when Mamma asked for hot water or black
coffee would bring them actually boiling; she was one of those servants
who in a household seem least satisfactory, at first, to a stranger,
doubtless because they take no pains to make a conquest of him and shew
him no special attention, knowing very well that they have no real need of
him, that he will cease to be invited to the house sooner than they will
be dismissed from it; who, on the other hand, cling with most fidelity to
those masters and mistresses who have tested and proved their real
capacity, and do not look for that superficial responsiveness, that
slavish affability, which may impress a stranger favourably, but often
conceals an utter barrenness of spirit in which no amount of training can
produce the least trace of individuality.

When Francoise, having seen that my parents had everything they required,
first went upstairs again to give my aunt her pepsin and to find out from
her what she would take for luncheon, very few mornings pased but she was
called upon to give an opinion, or to furnish an explanation, in regard to
some important event.

"Just fancy, Francoise, Mme. Goupil went by more than a quarter of an hour
late to fetch her sister: if she loses any more time on the way I should
not be at all surprised if she got in after the Elevation."

"Well, there'd be nothing wonderful in that," would be the answer. Or:

"Francoise, if you had come in five minutes ago, you would have seen Mme.
Imbert go past with some asparagus twice the size of what mother Callot
has: do try to find out from her cook where she got them. You know you've
been putting asparagus in all your sauces this spring; you might be able
to get some like these for our visitors."

"I shouldn't be surprised if they came from the Cure's," Francoise would
say, and:

"I'm sure you wouldn't, my poor Francoise," my aunt would reply, raising
her shoulders. "From the Cure's, indeed! You know quite well that he can
never grow anything but wretched little twigs of asparagus, not asparagus
at all. I tell you these ones were as thick as my arm. Not your arm, of
course, but my-poor arm, which has grown so much thinner again this year."
Or:

"Francoise, didn't you hear that bell just now! It split my head."

"No, Mme. Octave."

"Ah, poor girl, your skull must be very thick; you may thank God for that.
It was Maguelone come to fetch Dr. Piperaud. He came out with her at once
and they went off along the Rue de l'Oiseau. There must be some child
ill."

"Oh dear, dear; the poor little creature!" would come with a sigh from
Francoise, who could not hear of any calamity befalling a person unknown
to her, even in some distant part of the world, without beginning to
lament. Or:

"Francoise, for whom did they toll the passing-bell just now? Oh dear, of
course, it would be for Mme. Rousseau. And to think that I had forgotten
that she passed away the other night. Indeed, it is time the Lord called
me home too; I don't know what has become of my head since I lost my poor
Octave. But I am wasting your time, my good girl."

"Indeed no, Mme. Octave, my time is not so precious; whoever made our time
didn't sell it to us. I am just going to see that my fire hasn't gone
out."

In this way Francoise and my aunt made a critical valuation between them,
in the course of these morning sessions, of the earliest happenings of the
day. But sometimes these happenings assumed so mysterious or so alarming
an air that my aunt felt she could not wait until it was time for
Francoise to come upstairs, and then a formidable and quadruple peal would
resound through the house.

"But, Mme. Octave, it is not time for your pepsin," Francoise would begin.
"Are you feeling faint?"

"No, thank you, Francoise," my aunt would reply, "that is to say, yes; for
you know well that there is very seldom a time when I don't feel faint;
one day I shall pass away like Mme. Rousseau, before I know where I am;
but that is not why I rang. Would you believe that I have just seen, as
plainly as I see you, Mme. Goupil with a little girl I didn't know at all.
Run and get a pennyworth of salt from Camus. It's not often that Theodore
can't tell you who a person is."

"But that must be M. Pupin's daughter," Francoise would say, preferring to
stick to an immediate explanation, since she had been perhaps twice
already into Camus's shop that morning.

"M. Pupin's daughter! Oh, that's a likely story, my poor Francoise. Do
you think I should not have recognised M. Pupin's daughter!"

"But I don't mean the big one, Mme. Octave; I mean the little girl, he one
who goes to school at Jouy. I seem to have seen her once already his
morning."

"Oh, if that's what it is!" my aunt would say, "she must have come over
for the holidays. Yes, that is it. No need to ask, she will have come over
for the holidays. But then we shall soon see Mme. Sazerat come along and
ring her sister's door-bell, for her luncheon. That will be it! I saw the
boy from Galopin's go by with a tart. You will see that the tart was for
Mme. Goupil."

"Once Mme. Goupil has anyone in the house, Mme. Octave, you won't be long
in seeing all her folk going in to their luncheon there, for it's not so
early as it was," would be the answer, for Francoise, who was anxious to
retire downstairs to look after our own meal, was not sorry to leave my
aunt with the prospect of such a distraction.

"Oh! not before midday!" my aunt would reply in a tone of resignation,
darting an uneasy glance at the clock, but stealthily, so as not to let it
be seen that she, who had renounced all earthly joys, yet found a keen
satisfaction in learning that Mme. Goupil was expecting company to
luncheon, though, alas, she must wait a little more than an hour still
before enjoying the spectacle. "And it will come in the middle of my
luncheon!" she would murmur to herself. Her luncheon was such a
distraction in itself that she did not like any other to come at the same
time. "At least, you will not forget to give me my creamed eggs on one of
the flat plates?" These were the only plates which had pictures on them
and my aunt used to amuse herself at every meal by reading the description
on whichever might have been sent up to her. She would put on her
spectacles and spell out: "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves," "Aladdin, or
the Wonderful Lamp," and smile, and say "Very good indeed."

"I may as well go across to Camus..." Francoise would hazard, seeing that
my aunt had no longer any intention of sending her there.

"No, no; it's not worth while now; it's certain to be the Pupin girl. My
poor Francoise, I am sorry to have made you come upstairs for nothing."

But it was not for nothing, as my aunt well knew, that she had rung for
Francoise, since at Combray a person whom one 'didn't know at all' was as
incredible a being as any mythological deity, and it was apt to be
forgotten that after each occasion on which there had appeared in the Rue
du Saint-Esprit or in the Square one of these bewildering phenomena,
careful and exhaustive researches had invariably reduced the fabulous
monster to the proportions of a person whom one 'did know,' either
personally or in the abstract, in his or her civil status as being more or
less closely related to some family in Combray. It would turn out to be
Mme. Sauton's son discharged from the army, or the Abbe Perdreau's niece
come home from her convent, or the Cure's brother, a tax-collector at
Chateaudun, who had just retired on a pension or had come over to Combray
for the holidays. On first noticing them you have been impressed by the
thought that there might be in Combray people whom you 'didn't know at
all,' simply because, you had failed to recognise or identify them at
once. And yet long beforehand Mme. Sauton and the Cure had given warning
that they expected their 'strangers.' In the evening, when I came in and
went upstairs to tell my aunt the incidents of our walk, if I was rash
enough to say to her that we had passed, near the Pont-Vieux, a man whom
my grandfather didn't know:

"A man grandfather didn't know at all!" she would exclaim. "That's a
likely story." None the less, she would be a little disturbed by the news,
she would wish to have the details correctly, and so my grandfather would
be summoned. "Who can it have been that you passed near the Pont-Vieux,
uncle? A man you didn't know at all?"

"Why, of course I did," my grandfather would answer; "it was Prosper, Mme.
Bouilleboeuf's gardener's brother."

"Ah, well!" my aunt would say, calm again but slightly flushed still; "and
the boy told me that you had passed a man you didn't know at all!" After
which I would be warned to be more careful of what I said, and not to
upset my aunt so by thoughtless remarks. Everyone was so well known in
Combray, animals as well as people, that if my aunt had happened to see a
dog go by which she 'didn't know at all' she would think about it
incessantly, devoting to the solution of the incomprehensible problem all
her inductive talent and her leisure hours.

"That will be Mme. Sazerat's dog," Francoise would suggest, without any
real conviction, but in the hope of peace, and so that my aunt should not
'split her head.'

"As if I didn't know Mme. Sazerat's dog!"--for my aunt's critical mind
would not so easily admit any fresh fact.

"Ah, but that will be the new dog M. Galopin has brought her from
Lisieux."

"Oh, if that's what it is!"

"It seems, it's a most engaging animal," Francoise would go on, having got
the story from Theodore, "as clever as a Christian, always in a good
temper, always friendly, always everything that's nice. It's not often you
see an animal so well-behaved at that age. Mme. Octave, it's high time I
left you; I can't afford to stay here amusing myself; look, it's nearly
ten o'clock and my fire not lighted yet, and I've still to dress the
asparagus."

"What, Francoise, more asparagus! It's a regular disease of asparagus you
have got this year: you will make our Parisians sick of it."

"No, no, Madame Octave, they like it well enough. They'll be coming back
from church soon as hungry as hunters, and they won't eat it out of the
back of their spoons, you'll see."

"Church! why, they must be there now; you'd better not lose any time. Go
and look after your luncheon."

While my aunt gossiped on in this way with Francoise I would have
accompanied my parents to mass. How I loved it: how clearly I can see it
still, our church at Combray! The old porch by which we went in, black,
and full of holes as a cullender, was worn out of shape and deeply
furrowed at the sides (as also was the holy water stoup to which it led
us) just as if the gentle grazing touch of the cloaks of peasant-women
going into the church, and of their fingers dipping into the water, had
managed by agelong repetition to acquire a destructive force, to impress
itself on the stone, to carve ruts in it like those made by cart-wheels
upon stone gate-posts against which they are driven every day. Its
memorial stones, beneath which the noble dust of the Abbots of Combray,
who were buried there, furnished the choir with a sort of spiritual
pavement, were themselves no longer hard and lifeless matter, for time had
softened and sweetened them, and had made them melt like honey and flow
beyond their proper margins, either surging out in a milky, frothing wave,
washing from its place a florid gothic capital, drowning the white violets
of the marble floor; or else reabsorbed into their limits, contracting
still further a crabbed Latin inscription, bringing a fresh touch of
fantasy into the arrangement of its curtailed characters, closing together
two letters of some word of which the rest were disproportionately
scattered. Its windows were never so brilliant as on days when the sun
scarcely shone, so that if it was dull outside you might be certain of
fine weather in church. One of them was filled from top to bottom by a
solitary figure, like the king on a playing-card, who lived up there
beneath his canopy of stone, between earth and heaven; and in the blue
light of its slanting shadow, on weekdays sometimes, at noon, when there
was no service (at one of those rare moments when the airy, empty church,
more human somehow and more luxurious with the sun shewing off all its
rich furnishings, seemed to have almost a habitable air, like the
hall--all sculptured stone and painted glass--of some mediaeval mansion),
you might see Mme. Sazerat kneel for an instant, laying down on the chair
beside her own a neatly corded parcel of little cakes which she had just
bought at the baker's and was taking home for her luncheon. In another, a
mountain of rosy snow, at whose foot a battle was being fought, seemed to
have frozen the window also, which it swelled and distorted with its
cloudy sleet, like a pane to which snowflakes

[Henador Titzoff]

Luke, I am your father!

"No, no; it is impossible," said my uncle, shrugging his shoulders. "He is
kept busy at home all day; he has plenty of work to do. He brings back all
the prizes from his school," he added in a lower tone, so that I should
not hear this falsehood and interrupt with a contradiction. "You can't
tell; he may turn out a little Victor Hugo, a kind of Vaulabelle, don't
you know."

"Oh, I love artistic people," replied the lady in pink; "there is no one
like them for understanding women. Them, and really nice men like
yourself. But please forgive my ignorance. Who, what is Vaulabelle? Is it
those gilt books in the little glass case in your drawing-room? You know
you promised to lend them to me; I will take great care of them."

My uncle, who hated lending people books, said nothing, and ushered me out
into the hall. Madly in love with the lady in pink, I covered my old
uncle's tobacco-stained cheeks with passionate kisses, and while he,
awkwardly enough, gave me to understand (without actually saying) that he
would rather I did not tell my parents about this visit, I assured him,
with tears in my eyes, that his kindness had made so strong an impression
upon me that some day I would most certainly find a way of expressing my
gratitude. So strong an impression had it made upon me that two hours
later, after a string of mysterious utterances which did not strike me as
giving my parents a sufficiently clear idea of the new importance with
which I had been invested, I found it simpler to let them have a full
account, omitting no detail, of the visit I had paid that afternoon. In
doing this I had no thought of causing my uncle any unpleasantness. How
could I have thought such a thing, since I did not wish it? And I could
not suppose that my parents would see any harm in a visit in which I
myself saw none. Every day of our lives does not some friend or other ask
us to make his apologies, without fail, to some woman to whom he has been
prevented from writing; and do not we forget to do so, feeling that this
woman cannot attach much importance to a silence which has none for
ourselves? I imagined, like everyone else, that the brains of other people
were lifeless and submissive receptacles with no power of specific
reaction to any stimulus which might be applied to them; and I had not the
least doubt that when I deposited in the minds of my parents the news of
the acquaintance I had made at my uncle's I should at the same time
transmit to them the kindly judgment I myself had based on the
introduction. Unfortunately my parents had recourse to principles entirely
different from those which I suggested they should adopt when they came to
form their estimate of my uncle's conduct. My father and grandfather had
'words' with him of a violent order; as I learned indirectly. A few days
later, passing my uncle in the street as he drove by in an open carriage,
I felt at once all the grief, the gratitude, the remorse which I should
have liked to convey to him. Beside the immensity of these emotions I
considered that merely to raise my hat to him would be incongruous and
petty, and might make him think that I regarded myself as bound to shew
him no more than the commonest form of courtesy. I decided to abstain from
so inadequate a gesture, and turned my head away. My uncle thought that,
in doing so I was obeying my parents' orders; he never forgave them; and
though he did not die until many years later, not one of us ever set eyes
on him again.

And so I no longer used to go into the little sitting-room (now kept shut)
of my uncle Adolphe; instead, after hanging about on the outskirts of the
back-kitchen until Francoise appeared on its threshold and announced: "I
am going to let the kitchen-maid serve the coffee and take up the hot
water; it is time I went off to Mme. Octave," I would then decide to go
indoors, and would go straight upstairs to my room to read. The
kitchen-maid was an abstract personality, a permanent institution to which
an invariable set of attributes assured a sort of fixity and continuity
and identity throughout the long series of transitory human shapes in
which that personality was incarnate; for we never found the same girl
there two years running. In the year in which we ate such quantities of
asparagus, the kitchen-maid whose duty it was to dress them was a poor
sickly creature, some way 'gone' in pregnancy when we arrived at Combray
for Easter, and it was indeed surprising that Francoise allowed her to run
so many errands in the town and to do so much work in the house, for she
was beginning to find a difficulty in bearing before her the mysterious
casket, fuller and larger every day, whose splendid outline could be
detected through the folds of her ample smocks. These last recalled the
cloaks in which Giotto shrouds some of the allegorical figures in his
paintings, of which M. Swann had given me photographs. He it was who
pointed out the resemblance, and when he inquired after the kitchen-maid
he would say: "Well, how goes it with Giotto's Charity?" And indeed the
poor girl, whose pregnancy had swelled and stoutened every part of her,
even to her face, and the vertical, squared outlines of her cheeks, did
distinctly suggest those virgins, so strong and mannish as to seem matrons
rather, in whom the Virtues are personified in the Arena Chapel. And I can
see now that those Virtues and Vices of Padua resembled her in another
respect as well. For just as the figure of this girl had been enlarged by
the additional symbol which she carried in her body, without appearing to
understand what it meant, without any rendering in her facial expression
of all its beauty and spiritual significance, but carried as if it were an
ordinary and rather heavy burden, so it is without any apparent suspicion
of what she is about that the powerfully built housewife who is portrayed
in the Arena beneath the label 'Caritas,' and a reproduction of whose
portrait hung upon the wall of my schoolroom at Combray, incarnates that
virtue, for it seems impossible, that any thought of charity can ever have
found expression in her vulgar and energetic face. By a fine stroke of the
painter's invention she is tumbling all the treasures of the earth at her
feet, but exactly as if she were treading grapes in a wine-press to
extract their juice, or, still more, as if she had climbed on a heap of
sacks to raise herself higher; and she is holding out her flaming heart to
God, or shall we say 'handing' it to Him, exactly as a cook might hand up
a corkscrew through the skylight of her underground kitchen to some one
who had called down to ask her for it from the ground-level above. The
'Invidia,' again, should have had some look on her face of envy. But in
this fresco, too, the symbol occupies so large a place and is represented
with such realism; the serpent hissing between the lips of Envy is so
huge, and so completely fills her wide-opened mouth that the muscles of
her face are strained and contorted, like a child's who is filling a
balloon with his breath, and that Envy, and we ourselves for that matter,
when we look at her, since all her attention and ours are concentrated on
the action of her lips, have no time, almost, to spare for envious
thoughts.

Despite all the admiration that M. Swann might profess for these figures
of Giotto, it was a long time before I could find any pleasure in seeing
in our schoolroom (where the copies he had brought me were hung) that
Charity devoid of charity, that Envy who looked like nothing so much as a
plate in some medical book, illustrating the compression of the glottis or
uvula by a tumour in the tongue, or by the introduction of the operator's
instrument, a Justice whose greyish and meanly regular features were the
very same as those which adorned the faces of certain good and pious and
slightly withered ladies of Combray whom I used to see at mass, many of
whom had long been enrolled in the reserve forces of Injustice. But in
later years I understood that the arresting strangeness, the special
beauty of these frescoes lay in the great part played in each of them by
its symbols, while the fact that these were depicted, not as symbols (for
the thought symbolised was nowhere expressed), but as real things,
actually felt or materially handled, added something more precise and more
literal to their meaning, something more concrete and more striking to the
lesson they imparted. And even in the case of the poor kitchen-maid, was
not our attention incessantly drawn to her belly by the load which filled
it; and in the same way, again, are not the thoughts of men and women in
the agony of death often turned towards the practical, painful, obscure,
internal, intestinal aspect, towards that 'seamy side' of death which is,
as it happens, the side that death actually presents to them and forces
them to feel, a side which far more closely resembles a crushing burden, a
difficulty in breathing, a destroying thirst, than the abstract idea to
which we are accustomed to give the name of Death?

There must have been a strong element of reality in those Virtues and
Vices of Padua, since they appeared to me to be as much alive as the
pregnant servant-girl, while she herself appeared scarcely less
allegorical than they. And, quite possibly, this lack (or seeming lack) of
participation by a person's soul in the significant marks of its own
special virtue has, apart from its aesthetic meaning, a reality which, if
not strictly psychological, may at least be called physiognomical. Later
on, when, in the course of my life, I have had occasion to meet with, in
convents for instance, literally saintly examples of practical charity,
they have generally had the brisk, decided, undisturbed, and slightly
brutal air of a busy surgeon, the face in which one can discern no
commiseration, no tenderness at the sight of suffering humanity, and no
fear of hurting it, the face devoid of gentleness or sympathy, the sublime
face of true goodness.

Then while the kitchen-maid--who, all unawares, made the superior
qualities of Francoise shine with added lustre, just as Error, by force of
contrast, enhances the triumph of Truth--took in coffee which (according
to Mamma) was nothing more than hot water, and then carried up to our
rooms hot water which was barely tepid, I would be lying stretched out on
my bed, a book in my hand, in my room which trembled with the effort to
defend its frail, transparent coolness against the afternoon sun, behind
its almost closed shutters through which, however, a reflection of the
sunlight had contrived to slip in on its golden wings, remaining
motionless, between glass and woodwork, in a corner, like a butterfly
poised upon a flower. It was hardly light enough for me to read, and my
feeling of the day's brightness and splendour was derived solely from the
blows struck down below, in the Rue de la Cure, by Camus (whom Francoise
had assured that my aunt was not 'resting' and that he might therefore
make a noise), upon some old packing-cases from which nothing would really
be sent flying but the dust, though the din of them, in the resonant
atmosphere that accompanies hot weather, seemed to scatter broadcast a
rain of blood-red stars; and from the flies who performed for my benefit,
in their small concert, as it might be the chamber music of summer;
evoking heat and light quite differently from an air of human music which,
if you happen to have heard it during a fine summer, will always bring
that summer back to your mind, the flies' music is bound to the season by
a closer, a more vital tie--born of sunny days, and not to be reborn but
with them, containing something of their essential nature, it not merely
calls up their image in our memory, but gives us a guarantee that they do
really exist, that they are close around us, immediately accessible.

This dim freshness of my room was to the broad daylight of the street what
the shadow is to the sunbeam, that is to say, equally luminous, and
presented to my imagination the entire panorama of summer, which my
senses, if I had been out walking, could have tasted and enjoyed in
fragments only; and so was quite in harmony with my state of repose, which
(thanks to the adventures related in my books, which had just excited it)
bore, like a hand reposing motionless in a stream of running water, the
shock and animation of a torrent of activity and life.

But my grandmother, even if the weather, after growing too hot, had
broken, and a storm, or just a shower, had burst over us, would come up
and beg me to go outside. And as I did not wish to leave off my book, I
would go on with it in the garden, under the chestnut-tree, in a little
sentry-box of canvas and matting, in the farthest recesses of which I used
to sit and feel that I was hidden from the eyes of anyone who might be
coming to call upon the family.

And then my thoughts, did not they form a similar sort of hiding-hole, in
the depths of which I felt that I could bury myself and remain invisible
even when I was looking at what went on outside? When I saw any external
object, my consciousness that I was seeing it would remain between me and
it, enclosing it in a slender, incorporeal outline which prevented me from
ever coming directly in contact with the material form; for it would
volatilise itself in some way before I could touch it, just as an
incandescent body which is moved towards something wet never actually
touches moisture, since it is always preceded, itself, by a zone of
evaporation. Upon the sort of screen, patterned with different states and
impressions, which my consciousness would quietly unfold while I was
reading, and which ranged from the most deeply hidden aspirations of my
heart to the wholly external view of the horizon spread out before my eyes
at the foot of the garden, what was from the first the most permanent and
the most intimate part of me, the lever whose incessant movements
controlled all the rest, was my belief in the philosophic richness and
beauty of the book I was reading, and my desire to appropriate these to
myself, whatever the book might be. For even if I had purchased it at
Combray, having seen it outside Borange's, whose grocery lay too far from
our house for Francoise to be able to deal there, as she did with Camus,
but who enjoyed better custom as a stationer and bookseller; even if I had
seen it, tied with string to keep it in its place in the mosaic of monthly
parts and pamphlets which adorned either side of his doorway, a doorway
more mysterious, more teeming with suggestion than that of a cathedral, I
should have noticed and bought it there simply because I had recognised it
as a book which had been well spoken of, in my hearing, by the
school-master or the school-friend who, at that particular time, seemed to
me to be entrusted with the secret of Truth and Beauty, things half-felt
by me, half-incomprehensible, the full understanding of which was the
vague but permanent object of my thoughts.

Next to this central belief, which, while I was reading, would be
constantly a motion from my inner self to the outer world, towards the
discovery of Truth, came the emotions aroused in me by the action in which
I would be taking part, for these afternoons were crammed with more
dramatic and sensational events than occur, often, in a whole lifetime.
These were the events which took place in the book I was reading. It is
true that the people concerned in them were not what Francoise would have
called 'real people.' But none of the feelings which the joys or
misfortunes of a 'real' person awaken in us can be awakened except through
a mental picture of those joys or misfortunes; and the ingenuity of the
first novelist lay in his understanding that, as the picture was the one
essential element in the complicated structure of our emotions, so that
simplification of it which consisted in the suppression, pure and simple,
of 'real' people would be a decided improvement. A 'real' person,
profoundly as we may sympathise with him, is in a great measure
perceptible only through our senses, that is to say, he remains opaque,
offers a dead weight which our sensibilities have not the strength to
lift. If some misfortune comes to him, it is only in one small section of
the complete idea we have of him that we are capable of feeling any
emotion; indeed it is only in one small section of the complete idea he
has of himself that he is capable of feeling any emotion either. The
novelist's happy discovery was to think of substituting for those opaque
sections, impenetrable by the human spirit, their equivalent in immaterial
sections, things, that is, which the spirit can assimilate to itself.
After which it matters not that the actions, the feelings of this new
order of creatures appear to us in the guise of truth, since we have made
them our own, since it is in ourselves that they are happening, that they
are holding in thrall, while we turn over, feverishly, the pages of the
book, our quickened breath and staring eyes. And once the novelist has
brought us to that state, in which, as in all purely mental states, every
emotion is multiplied ten-fold, into which his book comes to disturb us as
might a dream, but a dream more lucid, and of a more lasting impression
than those which come to us in sleep; why, then, for the space of an hour
he sets free within us all the joys and sorrows in the world, a few of
which, only, we should have to spend years of our actual life in getting
to know, and the keenest, the most intense of which would never have been
revealed to us because the slow course of their development stops our
perception of them. It is the same in life; the heart changes, and that is
our worst misfortune; but we learn of it only from reading or by
imagination; for in reality its alteration, like that of certain natural
phenomena, is so gradual that, even if we are able to distinguish,
successively, each of its different states, we are still spared the actual
sensation of change.

Next to, but distinctly less intimate a part of myself than this human
element, would come the view, more or less projected before my eyes, of
the country in which the action of the story was taking place, which made
a far stronger impression on my mind than the other, the actual landscape
which would meet my eyes when I raised them from my book. In this way, for
two consecutive summers I used to sit in the heat of our Combray garden,
sick with a longing inspired by the book I was then reading for a land of
mountains and rivers, where I could see an endless vista of sawmills,
where beneath the limpid currents fragments of wood lay mouldering in beds
of watercress; and nearby, rambling and clustering along low walls, purple
flowers and red. And since there was always lurking in my mind the dream
of a woman who would enrich me with her love, that dream in those two
summers used to be quickened with the freshness and coolness of running
water; and whoever she might be, the woman whose image I called to mind,
purple flowers and red would at once spring up on either side of her like
complementary colours.

This was not only because an image of which we dream remains for ever
distinguished, is adorned and enriched by the association of colours not
its own which may happen to surround it in our mental picture; for the
scenes in the books I read were to me not merely scenery more vividly
portrayed by my imagination than any which Combray could spread before my
eyes but otherwise of the same kind. Because of the selection that the
author had made of them, because of the spirit of faith in which my mind
would exceed and anticipate his printed word, as it might be interpreting
a revelation, these scenes used to give me the impression--one which I
hardly ever derived from any place in which I might happen to be, and
never from our garden, that undistinguished product of the strictly
conventional fantasy of the gardener whom my grandmother so despised--of
their being actually part of Nature herself, and worthy to be studied and
explored.

Had my parents allowed me, when I read a book, to pay a visit to the
country it described, I should have felt that I was making an enormous
advance towards the ultimate conquest of truth. For even if we have the
sensation of being always enveloped in, surrounded by our own soul, still
it does not seem a fixed and immovable prison; rather do we seem to be
borne away with it, and perpetually struggling to pass beyond it, to break
out into the world, with a perpetual discouragement as we hear endlessly,
all around us, that unvarying sound which is no echo from without, but the
resonance of a vibration from within. We try to discover in things,
endeared to us on that account, the spiritual glamour which we ourselves
have cast upon them; we are disillusioned, and learn that they are in
themselves barren and devoid of the charm which they owed, in our minds,
to the association of certain ideas; sometimes we mobilise all our
spiritual forces in a glittering array so as to influence and subjugate
other human beings who, as we very well know, are situated outside
ourselves, where we can never reach them. And so, if I always imagined the
woman I loved as in a setting of whatever places I most longed, at the
time, to visit; if in my secret longings it was she who attracted me to
them, who opened to me the gate of an unknown world, that was not by the
mere hazard of a simple association of thoughts; no, it was because my
dreams of travel and of love were only moments--which I isolate
artificially to-day as though I were cutting sections, at different
heights, in a jet of water, rainbow-flashing but seemingly without flow or
motion--were only drops in a single, undeviating, irresistible outrush of
all the forces of my life.

And then, as I continue to trace the outward course of these impressions
from their close-packed intimate source in my consciousness, and before I
come to the horizon of reality which envelops them, I discover pleasures
of another kind, those of being comfortably seated, of tasting the good
scent on the air, of not being disturbed by any visitor; and, when an hour
chimed from the steeple of Saint-Hilaire, of watching what was already
spent of the afternoon fall drop by drop until I heard the last stroke
which enabled me to add up the total sum, after which the silence that
followed seemed to herald the beginning, in the blue sky above me, of that
long part of the day still allowed me for reading, until the good dinner
which Francoise was even now preparing should come to strengthen and
refresh me after the strenuous pursuit of its hero through the pages of my
book. And, as each hour struck, it would seem to me that a few seconds
only had passed since the hour before; the latest would inscribe itself,
close to its predecessor, on the sky's surface, and I would be unable to
believe that sixty minutes could be squeezed into the tiny arc of blue
which was comprised between their two golden figures. Sometimes it would
even happen that this precocious hour would sound two strokes more than
the last; there must then have been an hour which I had not heard strike;
something which had taken place had not taken place for me; the
fascination of my book, a magic as potent as the deepest slumber, had
stopped my enchanted ears and had obliterated the sound of that golden
bell from the azure surface of the enveloping silence. Sweet Sunday
afternoons beneath the chestnut-tree in our Combray garden, from which I
was careful to eliminate every commonplace incident of my actual life,
replacing them by a career of strange adventures and ambitions in a land
watered by living streams, you still recall those adventures and ambitions
to my mind when I think of you, and you embody and preserve them by virtue
of having little by little drawn round and enclosed them (while I went on
with my book and the heat of the day declined) in the gradual
crystallisation, slowly altering in form and dappled with a pattern of
chestnut-leaves, of your silent, sonorous, fragrant, limpid hours.

Sometimes I would be torn from my book, in the middle of the afternoon, by
the gardener's daughter, who came running like a mad thing, overturning an
orange-tree in its tub, cutting a finger, breaking a tooth, and screaming
out "They're coming, they're coming!" so that Francoise and I should run
too and not miss anything of the show. That was on days when the cavalry
stationed in Combray went out for some military exercise, going as a rule
by the Rue Sainte-Hildegarde. While our servants, sitting in a row on
their chairs outside the garden railings, stared at the people of Combray
taking their Sunday walks and were stared at in return, the gardener's
daughter, through the gap which there was between two houses far away in
the Avenue de la Gare, would have spied the glitter of helmets. The
servants then hurried in with their chairs, for when the troopers filed
through the Rue Sainte-Hildegarde they filled it from side to side, and
their jostling horses scraped against the walls of the houses, covering
and drowning the pavements like banks which present too narrow a channel
to a river in flood.

"Poor children," Francoise would exclaim, in tears almost before she had
reached the railings; "poor boys, to be mown down like grass in a meadow.
It's just shocking to think of," she would go on, laying a hand over her
heart, where presumably she had felt the shock.

"A fine sight, isn't it, Mme. Francoise, all these young fellows not
caring two straws for their lives?" the gardener would ask, just to 'draw'
her. And he would not have spoken in vain.

"Not caring for their lives, is it? Why, what in the world is there that
we should care for if it's not our lives, the only gift the Lord never
offers us a second time? Oh dear, oh dear; you're right all the same; it's
quite true, they don't care! I can remember them in '70; in those wretched
wars they've no fear of death left in them; they're nothing more nor less
than madmen; and then they aren't worth the price of a rope to hang them
with; they're not men any more, they're lions." For by her way of
thinking, to compare a man with a lion, which she used to pronounce
'lie-on,' was not at all complimentary to the man.

The Rue Sainte-Hildegarde turned too sharply for us to be able to see
people approaching at any distance, and it was only through the gap
between those two houses in the Avenue de la Gare that we could still make
out fresh helmets racing along towards us, and flashing in the sunlight.
The gardener wanted to know whether there were still many to come, and he
was thirsty besides, with the sun beating down upon his head. So then,
suddenly, his daughter would leap out, as though from a beleaguered city,
would make a sortie, turn the street corner, and, having risked her life a
hundred times over, reappear and bring us, with a jug of liquorice-water,
the news that there were still at least a thousand of them, pouring along
without a break from the direction of Thiberzy and Meseglise. Francoise
and the gardener, having 'made up' their difference, would discuss the
line to be followed in case of war.

"Don't you see, Francoise," he would say. "Revolution would be better,
because then no one would need to join in unless he liked."

"Oh, yes, I can see that, certainly; it's more straightforward."

The gardener believed that, as soon as war was declared, they would stop
all the railways.

"Yes, to be sure; so that we sha'n't get away," said Francoise.

And the gardener would assent, with "Ay, they're the cunning ones," for he
would not allow that war was anything but a kind of trick which the state
attempted to play on the people, or that there was a man in the world who
would not run away from it if he had the chance to do so.

But Francoise would hasten back to my aunt, and I would return to my book,
and the servants would take their places again outside the gate to watch
the dust settle on the pavement, and the excitement caused by the passage
of the soldiers subside. Long after order had been restored, an abnormal
tide of humanity would continue to darken the streets of Corn-bray. And
in front of every house, even of those where it was not, as a rule,
'done,' the servants, and sometimes even the masters would sit and stare,
festooning their doorsteps with a dark, irregular fringe, like the border
of shells and sea-weed which a stronger tide than usual leaves on the
beach, as though trimming it with embroidered crape, when the sea itself
has retreated.

Except on such days as these, however, I would as a rule be left to read
in peace. But the interruption which a visit from Swann once made, and the
commentary which he then supplied to the course of my reading, which had
brought me to the work of an author quite new to me, called Bergotte, had
this definite result that for a long time afterwards it was not against a
wall gay with spikes of purple blossom, but on a wholly different
background, the porch of a gothic cathedral, that I would see outlined the
figure of one of the women of whom I dreamed.

I had heard Bergotte spoken of, for the first time, by a friend older than
myself, for whom I had a strong admiration, a precious youth of the name
of Bloch. Hearing me confess my love of the _Nuit d'Octobre_, he had burst
out in a bray of laughter, like a bugle-call, and told me, by way of
warning: "You must conquer your vile taste for A. de Musset, Esquire. He
is a bad egg, one of the very worst, a pretty detestable specimen. I am
bound to admit, natheless," he added graciously, "that he, and even the
man Racine, did, each of them, once in his life, compose a line which is
not only fairly rhythmical, but has also what is in my eyes the supreme
merit of meaning absolutely nothing. One is

_La blanche Oloossone et la blanche Camire_,

and the other

_La fille de Minos et de Pasiphae_."

They were submitted to my judgment, as evidence for the defence of the two
runagates, in an article by my very dear master Father Lecomte, who is
found pleasing in the sight of the immortal gods. By which token, here is
a book which I have not the time, just now, to read, a book recommended,
it would seem, by that colossal fellow. He regards, or so they tell me,
its author, one Bergotte, Esquire, as a subtle scribe, more subtle,
indeed, than any beast of the field; and, albeit he exhibits on occasion a
critical pacifism, a tenderness in suffering fools, for which it is
impossible to account, and hard to make allowance, still his word has
weight with me as it were the Delphic Oracle. Read you then this lyrical
prose, and, if the Titanic master-builder of rhythm who composed
_Bhagavat_ and the _Levrier de Magnus_ speaks not falsely, then, by
Apollo, you may taste, even you, my master, the ambrosial joys of
Olympus." It was in an ostensible vein of sarcasm that he had asked me to
call him, and that he himself called me, "my master." But, as a matter of
fact, we each derived a certain amount of satisfaction from the mannerism,
being still at the age in which one believes that one gives a thing real
existence by giving it a name.

Unfortunately I was not able to set at rest, by further talks with Bloch,
in which I might have insisted upon an explanation, the doubts he had
engendered in me when he told me that fine lines of poetry (from which I,
if you please, expected nothing less than the revelation of truth itself)
were all the finer if they meant absolutely nothing. For, as it happened,
Bloch was not invited to the house again. At first, he had been well
received there. It is true that my grandfather made out that, whenever I
formed a strong attachment to any one of my friends and brought him home
with me, that friend was invariably a Jew; to which he would not have
objected on principle--indeed his own friend Swann was of Jewish
extraction--had he not found that the Jews whom I chose as friends were
not usually of the best type. And so I was hardly ever able to bring a new
friend home without my grandfather's humming the "O, God of our fathers"
from _La Juive_, or else "Israel, break thy chain," singing the tune
alone, of course, to an "um-ti-tum-ti-tum, tra-la"; but I used to be
afraid of my friend's recognising the sound, and so being able to
reconstruct the words.

Before seeing them, merely on hearing their names, about which, as often
as not, there was nothing particularly Hebraic, he would divine not only
the Jewish origin of such of my friends as might indeed be of the chosen
people, but even some dark secret which was hidden in their family.

"And what do they call your friend who is coming this evening?"

"Dumont, grandpapa."

"Dumont! Oh, I'm frightened of Dumont."

And he would sing:

Archers, be on your guard!
Watch without rest, without sound,

and then, after a few adroit questions on points of detail, he would call
out "On guard! on guard," or, if it were the victim himself who had
already arrived, and had been obliged, unconsciously, by my grandfather's
subtle examination, to admit his origin, then my grandfather, to shew us
that he had no longer any doubts, would merely look at us, humming almost
inaudibly the air of

What! do you hither guide the feet
Of this timid Israelite?

or of

Sweet vale of Hebron, dear paternal fields,

or, perhaps, of

Yes, I am of the chosen race.

These little eccentricities on my grandfather's part implied no ill-will
whatsoever towards my friends. But Bloch had displeased my family for
other reasons. He had begun by annoying my father, who, seeing him come in
with wet clothes, had asked him with keen interest:

"Why, M. Bloch, is there a change in the weather; has it been raining? I
can't understand it; the barometer has been 'set fair.'"

Which drew from Bloch nothing more instructive than "Sir, I am absolutely
incapable of telling you whether it has rained. I live so resolutely apart
from physical contingencies that my senses no longer trouble to inform me
of them."

"My poor boy," said my father after Bloch had gone, "your friend is out of
his mind. Why, he couldn't even tell me what the weather was like. As if
there could be anything more interesting! He is an imbecile."

Next, Bloch had displeased my grandmother because, after luncheon, when
she complained of not feeling very well, he had stifled a sob and wiped
the tears from his eyes.

"You cannot imagine that he is sincere," she observed to me. "Why he
doesn't know me. Unless he's mad, of course."

And finally he had upset the whole household when he arrived an hour and a
half late for luncheon and covered with mud from head to foot, and made
not the least apology, saying merely: "I never allow myself to be
influenced in the smallest degree either by atmospheric disturbances or by
the arbitrary divisions of what is known as Time. I would willingly
reintroduce to society the opium pipe of China or the Malayan kriss, but I
am wholly and entirely without instruction in those infinitely more
pernicious (besides being quite bleakly bourgeois) implements, the
umbrella and the watch."

In spite of all this he would still have been received at Combray. He was,
of course, hardly the friend my parents would have chosen for me; they
had, in the end, decided that the tears which he had shed on hearing of my
grandmother's illness were genuine enough; but they knew, either
instinctively or from their own experience, that our early impulsive
emotions have but little influence over our later actions and the conduct
of our lives; and that regard for moral obligations, loyalty to our
friends, patience in finishing our work, obedience to a rule of life, have
a surer foundation in habits solidly formed and blindly followed than in
these momentary transports, ardent but sterile. They would have preferred
to Bloch, as companions for myself, boys who would have given me no more
than it is proper, by all the laws of middle-class morality, for boys to
give one another, who would not unexpectedly send me a basket of fruit
because they happened, that morning, to have thought of me with affection,
but who, since they were incapable of inclining in my favour, by any
single impulse of their imagination and emotions, the exact balance of the
duties and claims of friendship, were as incapable of loading the scales
to my prejudice. Even the injuries we do them will not easily divert from
the path of their duty towards us those conventional natures of which my
great-aunt furnished a type: who, after quarrelling for years with a
niece, to whom she never spoke again, yet made no change in the will in
which she had left that niece the whole of her fortune, because she was
her next-of-kin, and it was the 'proper thing' to do.

But I was fond of Bloch; my parents wished me to be happy; and the
insoluble problems which I set myself on such texts as the 'absolutely
meaningless' beauty of _La fille de Minos et de Pasiphae_ tired me more
and made me more unwell than I should have been after further talks with
him, unwholesome as those talks might seem to my mother's mind. And he
would still have been received at Combray but for one thing. That same
night, after dinner, having informed me (a piece of news which had a great
influence on my later life, making it happier at one time and then more
unhappy) that no woman ever thought of anything but love, and that there
was not one of them whose resistance a man could not overcome, he had gone
on to assure me that he had heard it said on unimpeachable authority that
my great-aunt herself had led a 'gay' life in her younger days, and had
been notoriously 'kept.' I could not refrain from passing on so important
a piece of information to my parents; the next time Bloch called he was
not admitted, and afterwards, when I met him in the street, he greeted me
with extreme coldness.

But in the matter of Bergotte he had spoken truly.

For the first few days, like a tune which will be running in one's head
and maddening one soon enough, but of which one has not for the moment
'got hold,' the things I was to love so passionately in Bergotte's style
had not yet caught my eye. I could not, it is true, lay down the novel of
his which I was reading, but I fancied that I was interested in the story
alone, as in the first dawn of love, when we go every day to meet a woman
at some party or entertainment by the charm of which we imagine it is that
we are attracted. Then I observed the rare, almost archaic phrases which
he liked to employ at certain points, where a hidden flow of harmony, a
prelude contained and concealed in the work itself would animate and
elevate his style; and it was at such points as these, too, that he would
begin to speak of the "vain dream of life," of the "inexhaustible torrent
of fair forms," of the "sterile, splendid torture of understanding and
loving," of the "moving effigies which ennoble for all time the charming
and venerable fronts of our cathedrals"; that he would express a whole
system of philosophy, new to me, by the use of marvellous imagery, to the
inspiration of which I would naturally have ascribed that sound of harping
which began to chime and echo in my ears, an accompaniment to which that
imagery added something ethereal and sublime. One of these passages of
Bergotte, the third or fourth which I had detached from the rest, filled
me with a joy to which the meagre joy I had tasted in the first passage
bore no comparison, a joy which I felt myself to have experienced in some
innermost chamber of my soul, deep, undivided, vast, from which all
obstructions and partitions seemed to have been swept away. For what
had happened was that, while I recognised in this passage the same taste
for uncommon phrases, the same bursts of music, the same idealist
philosophy which had been present in the earlier passages without my
having taken them into account as the source of my pleasure, I now no
longer had the impression of being confronted by a particular passage in
one of Bergotte's works, which traced a purely bi-dimensional figure in
outline upon the surface of my mind, but rather of the 'ideal passage' of
Bergotte, common to every one of his books, and to which all the earlier,
similar passages, now becoming merged in it, had added a kind of density
and volume, by which my own understanding seemed to be enlarged.

I was by no means Bergotte's sole admirer; he was the favourite writer
also of a friend of my mother's, a highly literary lady; while Dr. du,
Boulbon had kept all his patients waiting until he finished Bergotte's
latest volume; and it was from his consulting room, and from a house in a
park near Combray that some of the first seeds were scattered of that
taste for Bergotte, a rare-growth in those days, but now so universally
acclimatised that one finds it flowering everywhere throughout Europe and
America, and even in the tiniest villages, rare still in its refinement,
but in that alone. What my mother's friend, and, it would seem, what Dr.
du Boulbon liked above all in the writings of Bergotte was just what I
liked, the same flow of melody, the same old-fashioned phrases, and
certain others, quite simple and familiar, but so placed by him, in such
prominence, as to hint at a particular quality of taste on his part; and
also, in the sad parts of his books, a sort of roughness, a tone that was
almost harsh. And he himself, no doubt, realised that these were his
principal attractions. For in his later books, if he had hit upon some
great truth, or upon the name of an historic cathedral, he would break off
his narrative, and in an invocation, an apostrophe, a lengthy prayer,
would give a free outlet to that effluence which, in the earlier volumes,
remained buried beneath the form of his prose, discernible only in a
rippling of its surface, and perhaps even more delightful, more harmonious
when it was thus veiled from the eye, when the reader could give no
precise indication of where the murmur of the current began, or of where
it died away. These passages in which he delighted were our favourites
also. For my own part I knew all of them by heart. I felt even
disappointed when he resumed the thread of his narrative. Whenever he
spoke of something whose beauty had until then remained hidden from me, of
pine-forests or of hailstorms, of _Notre-Dame de Paris_, of _Athalie_, or
of _Phedre_, by some piece of imagery he would make their beauty explode
and drench me with its essence. And so, dimly realising that the universe
contained innumerable elements which my feeble senses would be powerless
to discern, did he not bring them within my reach, I wished that I might
have his opinion, some metaphor of his, upon everything in the world, and
especially upon such things as I might have an opportunity, some day, of
seeing for myself; and among such things, more particularly still upon
some of the historic buildings of France, upon certain views of the sea,
because the emphasis with which, in his books, he referred to these shewed
that he regarded them as rich in significance and beauty. But, alas, upon
almost everything in the world his opinion was unknown to me. I had no
doubt that it would differ entirely from my own, since his came down from
an unknown sphere towards which I was striving to raise myself; convinced
that my thoughts would have seemed pure foolishness to that perfected
spirit, I had so completely obliterated them all that, if I happened to
find in one of his books something which had already occurred to my own
mind, my heart would swell with gratitude and pride as though some deity
had, in his infinite bounty, restored it to me, had pronounced it to be
beautiful and right. It happened now and then that a page of Bergotte
would express precisely those ideas which I used often at night, when I
was unable to sleep, to write to my grandmother and mother, and so
concisely and well that his page had the appearance of a collection of
mottoes for me to set at the head of my letters. And so too, in later
years, when I began to compose a book of my own, and the quality of some
of my sentences seemed so inadequate that I could not make up my mind to
go on with the undertaking, I would find the equivalent of my sentences in
Bergotte's. But it was only then, when I read them in his pages, that I
could enjoy them; when it was I myself who composed them, in my anxiety
that they should exactly reproduce what I seemed to have detected in my
mind, and in my fear of their not turning out 'true to life,' I had no
time to ask myself whether what I was writing would be pleasant to read!
But indeed there was no kind of language, no kind of ideas which I really
liked, except these. My feverish and unsatisfactory attempts were
themselves a token of my love, a love which brought me no pleasure, but
was, for all that, intense and deep. And so, when I came suddenly upon
similar phrases in the writings of another, that is to say stripped of
their familiar accompaniment of scruples and repressions and
self-tormentings, I was free to indulge to the full my own appetite for
such things, just as a cook who, once in a while, has no dinner to prepare
for other people, can then find time to gormandise himself. And so, when I
had found, one day, in a book by Bergotte, some joke about an old family
servant, to which his solemn and magnificent style added a great deal of
irony, but which was in principle what I had often said to my grandmother
about Francoise, and when, another time, I had discovered that he thought
not unworthy of reflection in one of those mirrors of absolute Truth which
were his writings, a remark similar to one which I had had occasion to
make on our friend M. Legrandin (and, moreover, my remarks on Francoise
and M. Legrandin were among those which I would most resolutely have
sacrificed for Bergotte's sake, in the belief that he would find them
quite without interest); then it was suddenly revealed to me that my own
humble existence and the Realms of Truth were less widely separated than I
had supposed, that at certain points they were actually in contact; and in
my new-found confidence and joy I wept upon his printed page, as in the
arms of a long-lost father.

From his books I had formed an impression of Bergotte as a frail and
disappointed old man, who had lost his children, and had never found any
consolation. And so I would read, or rather sing his sentences in my
brain, with rather more _dolce_, rather more _lento_ than he himself had,
perhaps, intended, and his simplest phrase would strike my ears with
something peculiarly gentle and loving in its intonation. More than
anything else in the world I cherished his philosophy, and had pledged
myself to it in lifelong devotion. It made me impatient to reach the age
when I should be eligible to attend the class at school called
'Philosophy.' I did not wish to learn or do anything else there, but
simply to exist and be guided entirely by the mind of Bergotte, and, if I
had been told then that the metaphysicians whom I was actually to follow
there resembled him in nothing, I should have been struck down by the
despair a young lover feels who has sworn lifelong fidelity, when a friend
speaks to him of the other mistresses he will have in time to come.

One Sunday, while I was reading in the garden, I was interrupted by Swann,
who had come to call upon my parents.

"What are you reading? May I look? Why, it's Bergotte! Who has been
telling you about him?"

I replied that Bloch was responsible.

"Oh, yes, that boy I saw here once, who looks so like the Bellini portrait
of Mahomet II. It's an astonishing likeness; he has the same arched
eyebrows and hooked nose and prominent cheekbones. When his beard comes
he'll be Mahomet himself. Anyhow he has good taste, for Bergotte is a
charming creature." And seeing how much I seemed to admire Bergotte,
Swann, who never spoke at all about the people he knew, made an exception
in my favour and said: "I know him well; if you would like him to write a
few words on the title-page of your book I could ask him for you."

I dared not accept such an offer, but bombarded Swann with questions about
his friend. "Can you tell me, please, who is his favourite actor?"

"Actor? No, I can't say. But I do know this: there's not a man on the
stage whom he thinks equal to Berma; he puts her above everyone. Have you
seen her?"

"No, sir, my parents do not allow me to go to the theatre."

"That is a pity. You should insist. Berma in _Phedre_, in the _Cid_; well,
she's only an actress, if you like, but you know that I don't believe very
much in the 'hierarchy' of the arts." As he spoke I noticed, what had
often struck me before in his conversations with my grandmother's sisters,
that whenever he spoke of serious matters, whenever he used an expression
which seemed to imply a definite opinion upon some important subject, he
would take care to isolate, to sterilise it by using a special intonation,
mechanical and ironic, as though he had put the phrase or word between
inverted commas, and was anxious to disclaim any personal responsibility
for it; as who should say "the 'hierarchy,' don't you know, as silly
people call it." But then, if it was so absurd, why did he say the
'hierarchy'? A moment later he went on: "Her acting will give you as noble
an inspiration as any masterpiece of art in the world, as--oh, I don't
know--" and he began to laugh, "shall we say the Queens of Chartres?"
Until then I had supposed that his horror of having to give a serious
opinion was something Parisian and refined, in contrast to the provincial
dogmatism of my grandmother's sisters; and I had imagined also that it was
characteristic of the mental attitude towards life of the circle in which
Swann moved, where, by a natural reaction from the 'lyrical' enthusiasms
of earlier generations, an excessive importance was given to small and
precise facts, formerly regarded as vulgar, and anything in the nature of
'phrase-making' was banned. But now I found myself slightly shocked by
this attitude which Swann invariably adopted when face to face with
generalities. He appeared unwilling to risk even having an opinion, and to
be at his ease only when he could furnish, with meticulous accuracy, some
precise but unimportant detail. But in so doing he did not take into
account that even here he was giving an opinion, holding a brief (as they
say) for something, that the accuracy of his details had an importance of
its own. I thought again of the dinner that night, when I had been so
unhappy because Mamma would not be coming up to my room, and when he had
dismissed the balls given by the Princesse de Leon as being of no
importance. And yet it was to just that sort of amusement that he was
devoting his life. For what other kind of existence did he reserve the
duties of saying in all seriousness what he thought about things, of
formulating judgments which he would not put between inverted commas; and
when would he cease to give himself up to occupations of which at the
same, time he made out that they were absurd? I noticed, too, in the
manner in which Swann spoke to me of Bergotte, something which, to do him
justice, was not peculiar to himself, but was shared by all that writer's
admirers at that time, at least by my mother's friend and by Dr. du
Boulbon. Like Swann, they would say of Bergotte: "He has a charming mind,
so individual, he has a way of his own of saying things, which is a little
far-fetched, but so pleasant. You never need to look for his name on the
title-page, you can tell his work at once." But none of them had yet gone
so far as to say "He is a great writer, he has great talent." They did not
even credit him with talent at all. They did not speak, because they were
not aware of it. We are very slow in recognising in the peculiar
physiognomy of a new writer the type which is labelled 'great talent' in
our museum of general ideas. Simply because that physiognomy is new and
strange, we can find in it no resemblance to what we are accustomed to
call talent. We say rather originality, charm, delicacy, strength; and
then one day we add up the sum of these, and find that it amounts simply
to talent.

"Are there any books in which Bergotte has written about Berma?" I asked
M. Swann.

"I think he has, in that little essay on Racine, but it must be out of
print. Still, there has perhaps been a second impression. I will find out.
Anyhow, I can ask Bergotte himself all that you want to know next time he
comes to dine with us. He never misses a week, from one year's end to
another. He is my daughter's greatest friend. They go about together, and
look at old towns and cathedrals and castles."

As I was still completely ignorant of the different grades in the social
hierarchy, the fact that my father found it impossible for us to see
anything of Swann's wife and daughter had, for a long time, had the
contrary effect of making me imagine them as separated from us by an
enormous gulf, which greatly enhanced their dignity and importance in my
eyes. I was sorry that my mother did not dye her hair and redden her lips,
as I had heard our neighbour, Mme. Sazerat, say that Mme. Swann did, to
gratify not her husband but M. de Charlus; and I felt that, to her, we
must be an object of scorn, which distressed me particularly on account of
the daughter, such a pretty little girl, as I had heard, and one of whom I
used often to dream, always imagining her with the same features and
appearance, which I bestowed upon her quite arbitrarily, but with a
charming effect. But from this afternoon, when I had learned that Mile.
Swann was a creature living in such rare and fortunate circumstances,
bathed, as in her natural element, in such a sea of privilege that, if she
should ask her parents whether anyone were coming to dinner, she would be
answered in those two syllables, radiant with celestial light, would hear
the name of that golden guest who was to her no more than an old friend of
her family, Bergotte; that for her the intimate conversation at table,
corresponding to what my great-aunt's conversation was for me, would be
the words of Bergotte upon all those subjects which he had not been able
to take up in his writings, and on which I would fain have heard him utter
oracles; and that, above all, when she went to visit other towns, he would
be walking by her side, unrecognised and glorious, like the gods who came
down, of old, from heaven to dwell among mortal men: then I realised both
the rare worth of a creature such as Mile. Swann, and, at the same time,
how coarse and ignorant I should appear to her; and I felt so keenly how
pleasant and yet how impossible it would be for me to become her friend
that I was filled at once with longing and with despair. And usually, from
this time forth, when I thought of her, I would see her standing before
the porch of a cathedral, explaining to me what each of the statues meant,
and, with a smile which was my highest commendation, presenting me, as her
friend, to Bergotte. And invariably the charm of all the fancies which
the thought of cathedrals used to inspire in me, the charm of the hills
and valleys of the He de France and of the plains of Normandy, would
radiate brightness and beauty over the picture I had formed in my mind of
Mile. Swann; nothing more remained but to know and to love her. Once we
believe that a fellow-creature has a share in some unknown existence to
which that creature's love for ourselves can win us admission, that is, of
all the preliminary conditions which Love exacts, the one to which he
attaches most importance, the one which makes him generous or indifferent
as to the rest. Even those women who pretend that they judge a man by his
exterior only, see in that exterior an emanation from some special way of
life. And that is why they fall in love with a soldier or a fireman, whose
uniform makes them less particular about his face; they kiss and believe
that beneath the crushing breastplate there beats a heart different from
the rest, more gallant, more adventurous, more tender; and so it is that a
young king or a crown prince may travel in foreign countries and make the
most gratifying conquests, and yet lack entirely that regular and classic
profile which would be indispensable, I dare say, in an outside-broker.

While I was reading in the garden, a thing my great-aunt would never have
understood my doing save on a Sunday, that being the day on which it was
unlawful to indulge in any serious occupation, and on which she herself
would lay aside her sewing (on a week-day she would have said, "How you
can go on amusing yourself with a book; it isn't Sunday, you know!"
putting into the word 'amusing' an implication of childishness and waste
of time), my aunt Leonie would be gossiping with Francoise until it was
time for Eulalie to arrive. She would tell her that she had just seen Mme.
Goupil go by "without an umbrella, in the silk dress she had made for her
the other day at Chateaudun. If she has far to go before vespers, she may
get it properly soaked."

"Very likely" (which meant also "very likely not") was the answer, for
Francoise did not wish definitely to exclude the possibility of a happier
alternative.

"There, now," went on my aunt, beating her brow, "that reminds me that I
never heard if she got to church this morning before the Elevation. I
must remember to ask Eulalie... Francoise, just look at that black cloud
behind the steeple, and how poor the light is on the slates, you may be
certain it will rain before the day is out. It couldn't possibly keep on
like this, it's been too hot. And the sooner the better, for until the
storm breaks my Vichy water won't 'go down,'" she concluded, since, in her
mind, the desire to accelerate the digestion of her Vichy water was of
infinitely greater importance than her fear of seeing Mme. Goupil's new
dress ruined.

"Very likely."

"And you know that when it rains in the Square there's none too much
shelter." Suddenly my aunt turned pale. "What, three o'clock!" she
exclaimed. "But vespers will have begun already, and I've forgotten my
pepsin! Now I know why that Vichy water has been lying on my stomach."
And falling precipitately upon a prayer-book bound in purple velvet, with
gilt clasps, out of which in her haste she let fall a shower of the little
pictures, each in a lace fringe of yellowish paper, which she used to mark
the places of the greater feasts of the church, my aunt, while she
swallowed her drops, began at full speed to mutter the words of the sacred
text, its meaning being slightly clouded in her brain by the uncertainty
whether the pepsin, when taken so long after the Vichy, would still be
able to overtake it and to 'send it down.' "Three o'clock! It's
unbelievable how time flies."

A little tap at the window, as though some missile had struck it, followed
by a plentiful, falling sound, as light, though, as if a shower of sand
were being sprinkled from a window overhead; then the fall spread, took on
an order, a rhythm, became liquid, loud, drumming, musical, innumerable,
universal. It was the rain.

"There, Francoise, what did I tell you? How it's coming down! But I think
I heard the bell at the garden gate: go along and see who can be outside
in this weather."

Francoise went and returned. "It's Mme. Amedee" (my grandmother). "She
said she was going for a walk. It's raining hard, all the same."

"I'm not at all surprised," said my aunt, looking up towards the sky.
"I've always said that she was not in the least like other people. Well,
I'm glad it's she and not myself who's outside in all this."

"Mme. Amedee is always the exact opposite of the rest," said Francoise,
not unkindly, refraining until she should be alone with the other servants
from stating her belief that my grandmother was 'a bit off her head.'

"There's Benediction over! Eulalie will never come now," sighed my aunt.
"It will be the weather that's frightened her away."

"But it's not five o'clock yet, Mme. Octave, it's only half-past four."

"Only half-past four! And here am I, obliged to draw back the small
curtains, just to get a tiny streak of daylight. At half-past four! Only a
week before the Rogation-days. Ah, my poor Francoise, the dear Lord must
be sorely vexed with us. The world is going too far in these days. As my
poor Octave used to say, we have forgotten God too often, and He is taking
vengeance upon us."

A bright flush animated my aunt's cheeks; it was Eulalie. As ill luck
would have it, scarcely had she been admitted to the presence when
Francoise reappeared and, with a smile which was meant to indicate her
full participation in the pleasure which, she had no doubt, her tidings
would give my aunt, articulating each syllable so as to shew that, in
spite of her having to translate them into indirect speech, she was
repeating, as a good servant should, the very words which the new visitor
had condescended to use, said: "His reverence the Cure would be delighted,
enchanted, if Mme. Octave is not resting just now, and could see him. His
reverence does not wish to disturb Mme. Octave. His reverence is
downstairs; I told him to go into the parlour."

Had the truth been known, the Cure's visits gave my aunt no such ecstatic
pleasure as Francoise supposed, and the air of jubilation with which she
felt bound to illuminate her face whenever she had to announce his
arrival, did not altogether correspond to what was felt by her invalid.
The Cure (an excellent man, with whom I am sorry now that I did not
converse more often, for, even if he cared nothing for the arts, he knew a
great many etymologies), being in the habit of shewing distinguished
visitors over his church (he had even planned to compile a history of the
Parish of Com-bray), used to weary her with his endless explanations,
which, incidentally, never varied in the least degree. But when his visit
synchronized exactly with Eulalie's it became frankly distasteful to my
aunt. She would have preferred to make the most of Eulalie, and not to
have had the whole of her circle about her at one time. But she dared not
send the Cure away, and had to content herself with making a sign to
Eulalie not to leave when he did, so that she might have her to herself
for a little after he had gone.

"What is this I have been hearing, Father, that a painter has set up his
easel in your church, and is copying one of the windows? Old as I am, I
can safely say that I have never even heard of such a thing in all my
life! What is the world coming to next, I wonder! And the ugliest thing
in the whole church, too."

"I will not go so far as to say that it is quite the ugliest, for,
although there are certain things in Saint-Hilaire which are well worth a
visit, there are others that are very old now, in my poor basilica, the
only one in all the diocese that has never even been restored. The Lord
knows, our porch is dirty and out of date; still, it is of a majestic
character; take, for instance, the Esther tapestries, though personally I
would not give a brass farthing for the pair of them, but experts put them
next after the ones at Sens. I can quite see, too, that apart from certain
details which are--well, a trifle realistic, they shew features which
testify to a genuine power of observation. But don't talk to me about the
windows. Is it common sense, I ask you, to leave up windows which shut out
all the daylight, and even confuse the eyes by throwing patches of colour,
to which I should be hard put to it to give a name, on a floor in which
there are not two slabs on the same level? And yet they refuse to renew
the floor for

[Henador Titzoff]

the Traveler who introduced himself to Wesley saying "Wesley, I have an enormous
schwannstucker and I believe you CAN take the length, come with me!" Wesley
of course accepted and they were off although it was Saturday, by beginning an hour
earlier, and by depriving her of giant vats of cheese and goat sandwiches and
the services of Francoise, passed more slowly than other days for my aunt,
yet, the moment it was past, and a new week begun, she would look forward
with impatience to its return, as something that embodied all the novelty
and distraction which her frail and disordered body was still able to
endure. This was not to say, however, that she did not long, at times, for
some even greater variation, that she did not pass through those abnormal
hours in which one thirsts for something different from what one has, when
those people who, through lack of energy or imagination, are unable to
generate any motive power in themselves, cry out, as the clock strikes or
the postman knocks, in their eagerness for news (even if it be bad news),
for some emotion (even that of grief); when the heartstrings, which
prosperity has silenced, like a harp laid by, yearn to be plucked and
sounded again by some hand, even a brutal hand, even if it shall break
them; when the will, which has with such difficulty brought itself to
subdue its impulse, to renounce its right to abandon itself to its own
uncontrolled desires, and consequent sufferings, would fain cast its
guiding reins into the hands of circumstances, coercive and, it may be,
cruel. Of course, since my aunt's strength, which was completely drained
by the slightest exertion, returned but drop by drop into the pool of her
repose, the reservoir was very slow in filling, and months would go by
before she reached that surplus which other people use up in their daily
activities, but which she had no idea--and could never decide how to
employ. And I have no doubt that then--just as a desire to have her
potatoes served with bechamel sauce, for a change, would be formed,
ultimately, from the pleasure she found in the daily reappearance of those
mashed potatoes of which she was never 'tired'--she would extract from the
accumulation of those monotonous days (on which she so much depended) a
keen expectation of some domestic cataclysm, instantaneous in its
happening, but violent enough to compel her to put into effect, once for
all, one of those changes which she knew would be beneficial to her
health, but to which she could never make up her mind without some such
stimulus. She was genuinely fond of us; she would have enjoyed the long
luxury of weeping for our untimely decease; coming at a moment when she
felt 'well' and was not in a perspiration, the news that the house was
being destroyed by a fire, in which all the rest of us had already
perished, a fire which, in a little while, would not leave one stone
standing upon another, but from which she herself would still have plenty
of time to escape without undue haste, provided that she rose at once from
her bed, must often have haunted her dreams, as a prospect which combined
with the two minor advantages of letting her taste the full savour of her
affection for us in long years of mourning, and of causing universal
stupefaction in the village when she should sally forth to conduct our
obsequies, crushed but courageous, moribund but erect, the paramount and
priceless boon of forcing her at the right moment, with no time to be
lost, no room for weakening hesitations, to go off and spend the summer at
her charming farm of Mirougrain, where there was a waterfall. Inasmuch as
nothing of this sort had ever occurred, though indeed she must often have
pondered the success of such a manoeuvre as she lay alone absorbed in her
interminable games of patience (and though it must have plunged her in
despair from the first moment of its realisation, from the first of those
little unforeseen facts, the first word of calamitous news, whose accents
can never afterwards be expunged from the memory, everything that bears
upon it the imprint of actual, physical death, so terribly different from
the logical abstraction of its possibility) she would fall back from time
to time, to add an interest to her life, upon imagining other, minor
catastrophes, which she would follow up with passion. She would beguile
herself with a sudden suspicion that Francoise had been robbing her, that
she had set a trap to make certain, and had caught her betrayer
red-handed; and being in the habit, when she made up a game of cards by
herself, of playing her own and her adversary's hands at once, she would
first stammer out Francoise's awkward apologies, and then reply to them
with such a fiery indignation that any of us who happened to intrude upon
her at one of these moments would find her bathed in perspiration, her
eyes blazing, her false hair pushed awry and exposing the baldness of her
brows. Francoise must often, from the next room, have heard these mordant
sarcasms levelled at herself, the mere framing of which in words would not
have relieved my aunt's feelings sufficiently, had they been allowed to
remain in a purely immaterial form, without the degree of substance and
reality which she added to them by murmuring them half-aloud. Sometimes,
however, even these counterpane dramas would not satisfy my aunt; she must
see her work staged. And so, on a Sunday, with all the doors mysteriously
closed, she would confide in Eulalie her doubts of Francoise's integrity
and her determination to be rid of her, and on another day she would
confide in Francoise her suspicions of the disloyalty of Eulalie, to whom
the front-door would very soon be closed for good. A few days more, and,
disgusted with her latest confidant, she would again be 'as thick as
thieves' with the traitor, while, before the next performance, the two
would once more have changed their parts. But the suspicions which Eulalie
might occasionally breed in her were no more than a fire of straw, which
must soon subside for lack of fuel, since Eulalie was not living with her
in the house. It was a very different matter when the suspect was
Francoise, of whose presence under the same roof as herself my aunt was
perpetually conscious, while for fear of catching cold, were she to leave
her bed, she would never dare go downstairs to the kitchen to see for
herself whether there was, indeed, any foundation for her suspicions. And
so on by degrees, until her mind had no other occupation than to attempt,
at every hour of the day, to discover what was being done, what was being
concealed from her by Francoise. She would detect the most furtive
movement of Francoise's features, something contradictory in what she was
saying, some desire which she appeared to be screening. And she would
shew her that she was unmasked, by, a single word, which made Francoise
turn pale, and which my aunt seemed to find a cruel satisfaction in
driving into her unhappy servant's heart. And the very next Sunday a
disclosure by Eulalie--like one of those discoveries which suddenly open
up an unsuspected field for exploration to some new science which has
hitherto followed only the beaten paths--proved to my aunt that her own
worst suspicions fell a long way short of the appalling truth. "But
Francoise ought to know that," said Eulalie, "now that you have given her
a carriage."

"Now that I have given her a carriage!" gasped my aunt.

"Oh, but I didn't know; I only thought so; I saw her go by yesterday in
her open coach, as proud as Artaban, on her way to Roussainville market. I
supposed that it must be Mme. Octave who had given it to her."

So on by degrees, until Francoise and my aunt, the quarry and the hunter,
could never cease from trying to forestall each other's devices. My
mother was afraid lest Francoise should develop a genuine hatred of my
aunt, who was doing everything in her power to annoy her. However that
might be, Francoise had come, more and more, to pay an infinitely
scrupulous attention to my aunt's least word and gesture. When she had to
ask her for anything she would hesitate, first, for a long time, making up
her mind how best to begin. And when she had uttered her request, she
would watch my aunt covertly, trying to guess from the expression on her
face what she thought of it, and how she would reply. And in this
way--whereas an artist who had been reading memoirs of the seventeenth
century, and wished to bring himself nearer to the great Louis, would
consider that he was making progress in that direction when he constructed
a pedigree that traced his own descent from some historic family, or when
he engaged in correspondence with one of the reigning Sovereigns of
Europe, and so would shut his eyes to the mistake he was making in seeking
to establish a similarity by an exact and therefore lifeless copy of mere
outward forms--a middle-aged lady in a small country town, by doing no
more than yield whole-hearted obedience to her own irresistible
eccentricities, and to a spirit of mischief engendered by the utter
idleness of her existence, could see, without ever having given a thought
to Louis XIV, the most trivial occupations of her daily life, her morning
toilet, her luncheon, her afternoon nap, assume, by virtue of their
despotic singularity, something of the interest that was to be found in
what Saint-Simon used to call the 'machinery' of life at Versailles; and
was able, too, to persuade herself that her silence, a shade of good
humour or of arrogance on her features, would provide Francoise with
matter for a mental commentary as tense with passion and terror, as did
the silence, the good humour or the arrogance of the King when a courtier,
or even his greatest nobles, had presented a petition to him, at the
turning of an avenue, at Versailles.

One Sunday, when my aunt had received simultaneous visits from the Cure
and from Eulalie, and had been left alone, afterwards, to rest, the whole
family went upstairs to bid her good night, and Mamma ventured to condole
with her on the unlucky coincidence that always brought both visitors to
her door at the same time.

"I hear that things went wrong again to-day, Leonie," she said kindly,
"you have had all your friends here at once."

And my great-aunt interrupted with: "Too many good things..."
for, since her daughter's illness, she felt herself in duty bound to
revive her as far as possible by always drawing her attention to the
brighter side of things. But my father had begun to speak.

"I should like to take advantage," he said, "of the whole family's being
here together, to tell you a story, so as not to have to begin all over
again to each of you separately. I am afraid we are in M. Legrandin's bad
books; he would hardly say 'How d'ye do' to me this morning."

I did not wait to hear the end of my father's story, for I had been with
him myself after mass when we had passed M. Legrandin; instead, I went
downstairs to the kitchen to ask for the bill of fare for our dinner,
which was of fresh interest to me daily, like the news in a paper, and
excited me as might the programme of a coming festivity.

As M. Legrandin had passed close by us on our way from church, walking by
the side of a lady, the owner of a country house in the neighbourhood,
whom we knew only by sight, my father had saluted him in a manner at once
friendly and reserved, without stopping in his walk; M. Legrandin had
barely acknowledged the courtesy, and then with an air of surprise, as
though he had not recognised us, and with that distant look characteristic
of people who do not wish to be agreeable, and who from the suddenly
receding depths of their eyes seem to have caught sight of you at the far
end of an interminably straight road, and at so great a distance that they
content themselves with directing towards you an almost imperceptible
movement of the head, in proportion to your doll-like dimensions.

Now, the lady who was walking with Legrandin was a model of virtue, known
and highly respected; there could be no question of his being out for
amorous adventure, and annoyed at being detected; and my father asked
himself how he could possibly have displeased our friend.

"I should be all the more sorry to feel that he was angry with us," he
said, "because among all those people in their Sunday clothes there is
something about him, with his little cut-away coat and his soft neckties,
so little 'dressed-up,' so genuinely simple; an air of innocence, almost,
which is really attractive."

But the vote of the family council was unanimous, that my father had
imagined the whole thing, or that Legrandin, at the moment in question,
had been preoccupied in thinking about something else. Anyhow, my father's
fears were dissipated no later than the following evening. As we returned
from a long walk we saw, near the Pont-Vieux, Legrandin himself, who, on
account of the holidays, was spending a few days more in Combray. He came
up to us with outstretched hand: "Do you know, master book-lover," he
asked me, "this line of Paul Desjardins?

Now are the woods all black, but still the sky is blue.

Is not that a fine rendering of a moment like this? Perhaps you have never
read Paul Desjardins. Read him, my boy, read him; in these days he is
converted, they tell me, into a preaching friar, but he used to have the
most charming water-colour touch--

Now are the woods all black, but still the sky is blue.

May you always see a blue sky overhead, my young friend; and then, even
when the time comes, which is coming now for me, when the woods are all
black, when night is fast falling, you will be able to console yourself,
as I am doing, by looking up to the sky." He took a cigarette from his
pocket and stood for a long time, his eyes fixed on the horizon. "Goodbye,
friends!" he suddenly exclaimed, and left us.

At the hour when I usually went downstairs to find out what there was for
dinner, its preparation would already have begun, and Francoise, a colonel
with all the forces of nature for her subalterns, as in the fairy-tales
where giants hire themselves out as scullions, would be stirring the
coals, putting the potatoes to steam, and, at the right moment, finishing
over the fire those culinary masterpieces which had been first got ready
in some of the great array of vessels, triumphs of the potter's craft,
which ranged from tubs and boilers and cauldrons and fish kettles down to
jars for game, moulds for pastry, and tiny pannikins for cream, and
included an entire collection of pots and pans of every shape and size. I
would stop by the table, where the kitchen-maid had shelled them, to
inspect the platoons of peas, drawn up in ranks and numbered, like little
green marbles, ready for a game; but what fascinated me would be the
asparagus, tinged with ultramarine and rosy pink which ran from their
heads, finely stippled in mauve and azure, through a series of
imperceptible changes to their white feet, still stained a little by the
soil of their garden-bed: a rainbow-loveliness that was not of this world.
I felt that these celestial hues indicated the presence of exquisite
creatures who had been pleased to assume vegetable form, who, through the
disguise which covered their firm and edible flesh, allowed me to discern
in this radiance of earliest dawn, these hinted rainbows, these blue
evening shades, that precious quality which I should recognise again when,
all night long after a dinner at which I had partaken of them, they played
(lyrical and coarse in their jesting as the fairies in Shakespeare's
_Dream_) at transforming my humble chamber into a bower of aromatic
perfume.

Poor Giotto's Charity, as Swann had named her, charged by Francoise with
the task of preparing them for the table, would have them lying beside her
in a basket; sitting with a mournful air, as though all the sorrows of the
world were heaped upon her; and the light crowns of azure which capped the
asparagus shoots above their pink jackets would be finely and separately
outlined, star by star, as in Giotto's fresco are the flowers banded about
the brows, or patterning the basket of his Virtue at Padua. And,
meanwhile, Francoise would be turning on the spit one of those chickens,
such as she alone knew how to roast, chickens which had wafted far abroad
from Combray the sweet savour of her merits, and which, while she was
serving them to us at table, would make the quality of kindness
predominate for the moment in my private conception of her character; the
aroma of that cooked flesh, which she knew how to make so unctuous and so
tender, seeming to me no more than the proper perfume of one of her many
virtues.

But the day on which, while my father took counsel with his family upon
our strange meeting with Legrandin, I went down to the kitchen, was one of
those days when Giotto's Charity, still very weak and ill after her recent
confinement, had been unable to rise from her bed; Francoise, being
without assistance, had fallen into arrears. When I went in, I saw her in
the back-kitchen which opened on to the courtyard, in process of killing a
chicken; by its desperate and quite natural resistance, which Francoise,
beside herself with rage as she attempted to slit its throat beneath the
ear, accompanied with shrill cries of "Filthy creature! Filthy creature!"
it made the saintly kindness and unction of our servant rather less
prominent than it would do, next day at dinner, when it made its
appearance in a skin gold-embroidered like a chasuble, and its precious
juice was poured out drop by drop as from a pyx. When it was dead
Francoise mopped up its streaming blood, in which, however, she did not
let her rancour drown, for she gave vent to another burst of rage, and,
gazing down at the carcass of her enemy, uttered a final "Filthy
creature!"

I crept out of the kitchen and upstairs, trembling all over; I could have
prayed, then, for the instant dismissal of Francoise. But who would have
baked me such hot rolls, boiled me such fragrant coffee, and even--roasted
me such chickens? And, as it happened, everyone else had already had to
make the same cowardly reckoning. For my aunt Leonie knew (though I was
still in ignorance of this) that Francoise, who, for her own daughter or
for her nephews, would have given her life without a murmur, shewed a
singular implacability in her dealings with the rest of the world. In
spite of which my aunt still retained her, for, while conscious of her
cruelty, she could appreciate her services. I began gradually to realise
that Francoise's kindness, her compunction, the sum total of her virtues
concealed many of these back-kitchen tragedies, just as history reveals to
us that the reigns of the kings and queens who are portrayed as kneeling
with clasped hands in the windows of churches, were stained by oppression
and bloodshed. I had taken note of the fact that, apart from her own
kinsfolk, the sufferings of humanity inspired in her a pity which
increased in direct ratio to the distance separating the sufferers from
herself. The tears which flowed from her in torrents when she read of the
misfortunes of persons unknown to her, in a newspaper, were quickly
stemmed once she had been able to form a more accurate mental picture of
the victims. One night, shortly after her confinement, the kitchen-maid
was seized with the most appalling pains; Mamma heard her groans, and rose
and awakened Francoise, who, quite unmoved, declared that all the outcry
was mere malingering, that the girl wanted to 'play the mistress' in the
house. The doctor, who had been afraid of some such attack, had left a
marker in a medical dictionary which we had, at the page on which the
symptoms were described, and had told us to turn up this passage, where we
would find the measures of 'first aid' to be adopted. My mother sent
Francoise to fetch the book, warning her not to let the marker drop out.
An hour elapsed, and Francoise had not returned; my mother, supposing that
she had gone back to bed, grew vexed, and told me to go myself to the
bookcase and fetch the volume. I did so, and there found Francoise who, in
her curiosity to know what the marker indicated, had begun to read the
clinical account of these after-pains, and was violently sobbing, now that
it was a question of a type of illness with which she was not familiar. At
each painful symptom mentioned by the writer she would exclaim: "Oh, oh,
Holy Virgin, is it possible that God wishes any wretched human creature to
suffer so? Oh, the poor girl!"

But when I had called her, and she had returned to the bedside of Giotto's
Charity, her tears at once ceased to flow; she could find no stimulus for
that pleasant sensation of tenderness and pity which she very well knew,
having been moved to it often enough by the perusal of newspapers; nor any
other pleasure of the same kind in her sense of weariness and irritation
at being pulled out of bed in the middle of the night for the
kitchen-maid; so that at the sight of those very sufferings, the printed
account of which had moved her to tears, she had nothing to offer but
ill-tempered mutterings, mingled with bitter sarcasm, saying, when she
thought that we had gone out of earshot: "Well, she need never have done
what she must have done to bring all this about! She found that pleasant
enough, I dare say! She had better not put on any airs now. All the same,
he must have been a god-forsaken young man to go after _that_. Dear, dear,
it's just as they used to say in my poor mother's country:

Snaps and snails and puppy-dogs' tails,
And dirty sluts in plenty,
Smell sweeter than roses in young men's noses
When the heart is one-and-twenty."

Although, when her grandson had a slight cold in his head, she would Bet
off at night, even if she were ill also, instead of going to bed, to see
whether he had everything that he wanted, covering ten miles on foot
before daybreak so as to be in time to begin her work, this same love for
her own people, and her desire to establish the future greatness of her
house on a solid foundation reacted, in her policy with regard to the
other servants, in one unvarying maxim, which was never to let any of them
set foot in my aunt's room; indeed she shewed a sort of pride in not
allowing anyone else to come near my aunt, preferring, when she herself
was ill, to get out of bed and to administer the Vichy water in person,
rather than to concede to the kitchen-maid the right of entry into her
mistress's presence. There is a species of hymenoptera, observed by
Fabre, the burrowing wasp, which in order to provide a supply of fresh
meat for her offspring after her own decease, calls in the science of
anatomy to amplify the resources of her instinctive cruelty, and, having
made a collection of weevils and spiders, proceeds with marvellous
knowledge and skill to pierce the nerve-centre on which their power of
locomotion (but none of their other vital functions) depends, so that the
paralysed insect, beside which her egg is laid, will furnish the larva,
when it is hatched, with a tamed and inoffensive quarry, incapable either
of flight or of resistance, but perfectly fresh for the larder: in the
same way Francoise had adopted, to minister to her permanent and
unfaltering resolution to render the house uninhabitable to any other
servant, a series of crafty and pitiless stratagems. Many years later we
discovered that, if we had been fed on asparagus day after day throughout
that whole season, it was because the smell of the plants gave the poor
kitchen-maid, who had to prepare them, such violent attacks of asthma that
she was finally obliged to leave my aunt's service.

Alas! we had definitely to alter our opinion of M. Legrandin. On one-of
the Sundays following our meeting with him on the Pont-Vieux, after which
my father had been forced to confess himself mistaken, as mass drew to an
end, and, with the sunshine and the noise of the outer world, something
else invaded the church, an atmosphere so far from sacred that Mme.
Goupil, Mme. Percepied (all those, in fact, who a moment ago, when I
arrived a little late, had been sitting motionless, their eyes fixed on
their prayer-books; who, I might even have thought, had not seen me come
in, had not their feet moved slightly to push away the little
kneeling-desk which was preventing me from getting to my chair) began in
loud voices to discuss with us all manner of utterly mundane topics, as
though we were already outside in the Square, we saw, standing on the
sun-baked steps of the porch, dominating the many-coloured tumult of the
market, Legrandin himself, whom the husband of the lady we had seen with
him, on the previous occasion, was just going to introduce to the wife of
another large landed proprietor of the district. Legrandin's face shewed
an extraordinary zeal and animation; he made a profound bow, with a
subsidiary backward movement which brought his spine sharply up into a
position behind its starting-point, a gesture in which he must have been
trained by the husband of his sister, Mme. de Cambremer. This rapid
recovery caused a sort of tense muscular wave to ripple over Legrandin's
hips, which I had not supposed to be so fleshy; I cannot say why, but this
undulation of pure matter, this wholly carnal fluency, with not the least
hint in it of spiritual significance, this wave lashed to a fury by the
wind of an assiduity, an obsequiousness of the basest sort, awoke my mind
suddenly to the possibility of a Legrandin altogether different from the
one whom we knew. The lady gave him some message for her coachman, and
while he was stepping down to her carriage the impression of joy, timid
and devout, which the introduction had stamped there, still lingered on
his face. Carried away in a sort of dream, he smiled, then he began to
hurry back towards the lady; he was walking faster than usual, and his
shoulders swayed backwards and forwards, right and left, in the most
absurd fashion; altogether he looked, so utterly had he abandoned himself
to it, ignoring all other considerations, as though he were the lifeless
and wire-pulled puppet of his own happiness. Meanwhile we were coming out
through the porch; we were passing close beside him; he was too well bred
to turn his head away; but he fixed his eyes, which had suddenly changed
to those of a seer, lost in the profundity of his vision, on so distant a
point of the horizon that he could not see us, and so had not to
acknowledge our presence. His face emerged, still with an air of
innocence, from his straight and pliant coat, which looked as though
conscious of having been led astray, in spite of itself, and plunged into
surroundings of a detested splendour. And a spotted necktie, stirred by
the breezes of the Square, continued to float in front of Legrandin, like
the standard of his proud isolation, of his noble independence. Just as we
reached the house my mother discovered that we had forgotten the
'Saint-Honore,' and asked my father to go back with me and tell them to
send it up at once. Near the church we met Legrandin, coming towards us
with the same lady, whom he was escorting to her carriage. He brushed past
us, and did not interrupt what he was saying to her, but gave us, out of
the corner of his blue eye, a little sign, which began and ended, so to
speak, inside his eyelids, and as it did not involve the least movement of
his facial muscles, managed to pass quite unperceived by the lady; but,
striving to compensate by the intensity of his feelings for the somewhat
restricted field in which they had to find expression, he made that blue
chink, which was set apart for us, sparkle with all the animation of
cordiality, which went far beyond mere playfulness, and almost touched the
border-line of roguery; he subtilised the refinements of good-fellowship
into a wink of connivance, a hint, a hidden meaning, a secret
understanding, all the mysteries of complicity in a plot, and finally
exalted his assurances of friendship to the level of protestations of
affection, even of a declaration of love, lighting up for us, and for us
alone, with a secret and languid flame invisible by the great lady upon
his other side, an enamoured pupil in a countenance of ice.

Only the day before he had asked my parents to send me to dine with him on
this same Sunday evening. "Come and bear your aged friend company," he had
said to me. "Like the nosegay which a traveller sends us from some land to
which we shall never go again, come and let me breathe from the far
country of your adolescence the scent of those flowers of spring among
which I also used to wander, many years ago. Come with the primrose, with
the canon's beard, with the gold-cup; come with the stone-crop, whereof
are posies made, pledges of love, in the Balzacian flora, come with that
flower of the Resurrection morning, the Easter daisy, come with the
snowballs of the guelder-rose, which begin to embalm with their fragrance
the alleys of your great-aunt's garden ere the last snows of Lent are
melted from its soil. Come with the glorious silken raiment of the lily,
apparel fit for Solomon, and with the many-coloured enamel of the pansies,
but come, above all, with the spring breeze, still cooled by the last
frosts of wirier, wafting apart, for the two butterflies' sake, that have
waited outside all morning, the closed portals of the first Jerusalem
rose."

The question was raised at home whether, all things considered, I ought
still to be sent to dine with M. Legrandin. But my grandmother refused to
believe that he could have been impolite.

"You admit yourself that he appears at church there, quite simply dressed,
and all that; he hardly looks like a man of fashion." She added that; in
any event, even if, at the worst, he had been intentionally rude, it was
far better for us to pretend that we had noticed nothing. And indeed my
father himself, though more annoyed than any of us by the attitude which
Legrandin had adopted, may still have held in reserve a final uncertainty
as to its true meaning. It was like every attitude or action which reveals
a man's deep and hidden character; they bear no relation to what he has
previously said, and we cannot confirm our suspicions by the culprit's
evidence, for he will admit nothing; we are reduced to the evidence of our
own senses, and we ask ourselves, in the face of this detached and
incoherent fragment of recollection, whether indeed our senses have not
been the victims of a hallucination; with the result that such attitudes,
and these alone are of importance in indicating character, are the most
apt to leave us in perplexity.

[Jive Turkey]

I know Shaggy doesn't have a long history, but this is easily the worst thread ever on this website.

[Beamwalker]

This thread is painful

[The Dude]

im gonna go ahead and quote myself here




we need a new board called "Board of Fail" or something along those lines, and we need to move this thread there pronto

This needed to be repeated.

[Gehrig]

im gonna go ahead and quote myself here




we need a new board called "Board of Fail" or something along those lines, and we need to move this thread there pronto

This needed to be repeated.

T.H.U.N.D.E.R.D.O.M.E.

[PGW]

This is the first time I've even clicked on this post but goddamn. :eek2:

[The Tower]

we need a new board called "Board of Fail" or something along those lines, and we need to move this thread there pronto

This needed to be repeated.

x 2

[creasy]

Ha-ha, Henador.

But seriously... don't post the whole thing. :eek2:

[Lonestarman]

I know Shaggy doesn't have a long history, but this is easily the worst thread ever on this website.

Jive, this thing is making a strong case for worst thread in the history of the internets.

[hitbyatrain]

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51TN3QNKG2L.jpg

[tropheus]

No, he didn't write it.

He pulled it off usenet.

The same place where I found the next chapter.


umm no. Just like i told the lawyer dude in chat who was worried about someone stealing my work, I have had it up online for a couple of years now (im reediting some now though).

Just thought i would post it on here to see if anyone else likes it. On the numerous SW vs ST websites and fanfic sites people seem to like it.


first, my name is tropheus, with a lower case "t". thanks.

second, you have made my point, the one I made in the chat room. your authorship is already in doubt. congrats.

[The Dude]

change tropheus title from asshat to "the lawyer dude"

[NCAAFBALLROX]

I cannot believe the utter suckitude & total fail that is this thread.

Even if I were to try, there is not a single image I could find & swipe from PhotoBucket that could adequately represent the colossal fail within.

So that you'll understand it in your adopted native tongue, I'll quote some dude in black who had a breathing problem: "The fail is strong in this one."

[Snow Dog]

http://img244.imageshack.us/img244/5199/banhammercaticanhasbanhkl1.jpg

[tropheus]

change tropheus title from asshat to "the lawyer dude"

did it myself for now.

that is just funny, my "lawyer" advice went screaming over his head.

[PigBellmont]

I give this thread two un-snaps down not in a circle.

[Mr.Wizard]

What the fuck Henador Titzoff, why did you ruin my post with your crap. somepeople actually are enjoying reading this. you do not need to ruin it for them just because you are a close minded fuck.

[Mr. Peabody]

This thread has nerd written all over it.

[KC-97HORN]

OK, the fact that I am geek enough to admit that I actually have a clear fucking clue up to chapter 7 is what terrifies the shit out of me. I literally was having multiple flashbacks of the Star Wars side of the universe from the original Thrawn trilogy though the new Jedi order.

But I agree that you may have gone a little overboard in blasting the board with 16 full length chapters all at once.

I have been drinking tonight so I have to stop the reading else have my brains fall out of my head, but I will give a review providing it turns out you actually wrote all this and its not a direct copy from the intrawebs.

as a geek my initial grade is C+ B-.

[bighornfan32]

This is the worst. Wizard go DIAF.

[The Dude]

is there a firefox extension called Widardblock?

[NCAAFBALLROX]

This thread has nerd written all over it.

Coming from Mr. Peabody, that's rough stuff (real tuff).

[Dixie Normous]

http://www.stickergiant.com/Merchant2/imgs/450/him2087_450.jpeg

[Henador Titzoff]

What the fuck Henador Titzoff, why did you ruin my post with your crap. somepeople actually are enjoying reading this. you do not need to ruin it for them just because you are a close minded fuck.

if you're calling the author of 'A la recherche du temps perdu' a crap writer then I shall have to ask you to step outside! why it's the single most bestest piece of litreatuer of all time!! and youreee a looney!

[Murfdogg21]

Hall of Shame?

[Beamwalker]

Mr. Wizboard.

[PigBellmont]

that shit that wizz and titzoff wrote really needs more jabba the hutt in it.

[MissingInAction]

I guess I have to give up my Bacheloser title.

[MissingInAction]

http://bp0.blogger.com/_-gIVhqPNy4I/RiEGtNA5k6I/AAAAAAAAAH4/6Md_Ykc3nlM/s320/trekkies.jpg

Mr Wizard and friend/partner.

[goofybevo]

I was just going to post in Bellmont that this site is seriously lacking in Proust. Objection retracted.

[Henador Titzoff]

I was just going to post in Bellmont that this site is seriously lacking in Proust. Objection retracted.



Proust? who the fuck is Proust?

I wrote every line of that startrekwars story that I posted.

[Luke Duke]

Would anyone be upset if I made the original post my sig?

[tleath]

Try to fit it in 125x125 and make it your avatar....

[Mr.Wizard]

ok i think i will give it a day and post some more. seeing how some people do like to read it.

[PigBellmont]

ok i think i will give it a day and post some more. seeing how some people do like to read it.


oh goody :bounce: :bounce2: :bounce: :bounce2:

and I hope that mr titzoff will continue his also. :pop:

[MissingInAction]

ok i think i will give it a day and post some more. seeing how some people do like to read it.

Yeagh they don't.

[Snacks]

holy shit... i just clicked this after the Jesus Loves Me thread...

Apparently, Jesus does love me... this is the best thread of fail ever. i can't even read the story...

why don't you just create a blog somewhere and post it there, Mr. Wizard?

[Rissin]

:whiteflag: tl;dr was created for this thread

[Taargus]

i understand this is a joke, but i must chime in regardless. fan fiction is fucking terrible. write something original. also i read the first paragraph for shits. the quality of writing here is also offensive, but what else would i expect from someone who can't even create his own settings and characters?

so we have a horrendously executed incarnation of a piece of shit genre posted in the wrong place.

just to review, that = fail.

[PiGuy]

i understand this is a joke, but i must chime in regardless. fan fiction is fucking terrible. write something original. also i read the first paragraph for shits. the quality of writing here is also offensive, but what else would i expect from someone who can't even create his own settings and characters?

so we have a horrendously executed incarnation of a piece of shit genre posted in the wrong place.

just to review, that = fail.

thanks for the summary of the 15 month old thread

[Troy McClure]

I will not lie, I am coked up and partially drunk. Thus allowing me to read every fucking word of this thread. Honestly, I don't know what to say. Im confused, my head hurts and I can't feel my left nostril. I regret missing this thread on the first run. God help us all.

[Taargus]

thanks for the summary of the 15 month old thread

Thanks for failing to correlate my registration date with the fact that it wasn't me, but rather the guy above me who necro-bumped it.

[big baby babylon]

LOL at Proust.

[texanbychoice]

This thread sucks.

Bernard

[William Cannon]

humm i guess i will not post the rest then if you all feel that way.the way you troll on the other site, I'd be ok if you didn't post here at all.

[Red Five]

I will not lie, I am coked up and partially drunk.
I think we just found our new slogan!

[KC-97HORN]

oh my fucking god I thought this thread had died a horrid fucking death.

who the fuck brings this up from last fucking year?????

[MrPhlegm]

i understand this is a joke,


no, the op was deadly serious. no joke.

[MrPhlegm]

This thread sucks.

Bernard


thank you captain obvious bernard



east bernard

[Beamwalker]

I almost spat coffee all over my computer this morning when I saw that this was back up. First I was worried that Mr. Wizard was back. Then once that panic passed, it was normal internet fury over someone bringing back such a shitty thread. If there was ever a thread for Douche Bag Central, this is it.

[next2naus]

so I'm the only one who read all that expecting a climatic fuck scene with seven of Nine and Vader? I feel ripped off.

[HornsOverIthaca]

http://webspace.utexas.edu/ljs57/picardavatar1.jpg
That says it all.

This thread is about as great as someone running an angle grinder on a chalk board.

[RoostaMan]

ttt








:twisted:

[blacklab]

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_sf3fwlE_pF0/SiayXGdmQVI/AAAAAAAACEI/iuIw5b_hD1c/s800/5vn6lj.gif

[WhoooTex]

The great thing is, it just goes on and on! Just when you think, "My penis is now a bloody stump and I couldn't POSSIBLY masturbate for the 14th time today!", something comes along that makes you say "PANTS DOWN! MAKE IT HAPPEN!" and off you go.

[elguapo]

ttt








:twisted:
why

[MrPhlegm]

why

it has to do with getting into nsaa

[elguapo]

it has to do with getting into nsaa
That reminds me, how do I get access to the VIP board?

[WhoooTex]

That reminds me, how do I get access to the VIP board?

Write some really excellent Star Wars vs Star Trek crossover fan fic! That's all they talk about on VIP!

[MrPhlegm]

Write some really excellent Star Wars vs Star Trek crossover fan fic! That's all they talk about on VIP!


well, that and proust

[Hombre_de_Leche]

I just watched this classic Triumph clip before seeing this thread. Perfect:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x115u4_triumph-the-insult-comic-dog-star-w_fun

Here's the ending:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQj_bwMf7DM

[MrPhlegm]

this belongs here


I can fix that for you...click here (http://kids.niehs.nih.gov/lyrics/smworld.htm)

[Basil Your Face]

It's actually very good if you take the time to read it.

[Saint Austin]

haha what??

[Sii]

It's actually very good if you take the time to read it.

you actually read all that? no way....

[MrPhlegm]

The Great

Chapter 1

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.

“Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”

He didn’t say any more, but we’ve always been unusually communicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that. In consequence, I’m inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores. The abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when it appears in a normal person, and so it came about that in college I was unjustly accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men. Most of the confidences were unsought—frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation, or a hostile levity when I realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon; for the intimate revelations of young men, or at least the terms in which they express them, are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions. Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth.

And, after boasting this way of my tolerance, I come to the admission that it has a limit. Conduct may be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes, but after a certain point I don’t care what it’s founded on. When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart. Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction—Gatsby, who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn. If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away. This responsiveness had nothing to do with that flabby impressionability which is dignified under the name of the “creative temperament.”—it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again. No—Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.

My family have been prominent, well-to-do people in this Middle Western city for three generations. The Carraways are something of a clan, and we have a tradition that we’re descended from the Dukes of Buccleuch, but the actual founder of my line was my grandfather’s brother, who came here in fifty-one, sent a substitute to the Civil War, and started the wholesale hardware business that my father carries on to-day.

I never saw this great-uncle, but I’m supposed to look like him—with special reference to the rather hard-boiled painting that hangs in father’s office I graduated from New Haven in 1915, just a quarter of a century after my father, and a little later I participated in that delayed Teutonic migration known as the Great War. I enjoyed the counter-raid so thoroughly that I came back restless. Instead of being the warm centre of the world, the Middle West now seemed like the ragged edge of the universe—so I decided to go East and learn the bond business. Everybody I knew was in the bond business, so I supposed it could support one more single man. All my aunts and uncles talked it over as if they were choosing a prep school for me, and finally said, “Why—ye—es,” with very grave, hesitant faces. Father agreed to finance me for a year, and after various delays I came East, permanently, I thought, in the spring of twenty-two.

The practical thing was to find rooms in the city, but it was a warm season, and I had just left a country of wide lawns and friendly trees, so when a young man at the office suggested that we take a house together in a commuting town, it sounded like a great idea. He found the house, a weather-beaten cardboard bungalow at eighty a month, but at the last minute the firm ordered him to Washington, and I went out to the country alone. I had a dog—at least I had him for a few days until he ran away—and an old Dodge and a Finnish woman, who made my bed and cooked breakfast and muttered Finnish wisdom to herself over the electric stove.

It was lonely for a day or so until one morning some man, more recently arrived than I, stopped me on the road.

“How do you get to West Egg village?” he asked helplessly.

I told him. And as I walked on I was lonely no longer. I was a guide, a pathfinder, an original settler. He had casually conferred on me the freedom of the neighborhood.

And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.

There was so much to read, for one thing, and so much fine health to be pulled down out of the young breath-giving air. I bought a dozen volumes on banking and credit and investment securities, and they stood on my shelf in red and gold like new money from the mint, promising to unfold the shining secrets that only Midas and Morgan and Maecenas knew. And I had the high intention of reading many other books besides. I was rather literary in college—one year I wrote a series of very solemn and obvious editorials for the “Yale News.”—and now I was going to bring back all such things into my life and become again that most limited of all specialists, the “well-rounded man.” This isn’t just an epigram—life is much more successfully looked at from a single window, after all.

It was a matter of chance that I should have rented a house in one of the strangest communities in North America. It was on that slender riotous island which extends itself due east of New York—and where there are, among other natural curiosities, two unusual formations of land. Twenty miles from the city a pair of enormous eggs, identical in contour and separated only by a courtesy bay, jut out into the most domesticated body of salt water in the Western hemisphere, the great wet barnyard of Long Island Sound. they are not perfect ovals—like the egg in the Columbus story, they are both crushed flat at the contact end—but their physical resemblance must be a source of perpetual confusion to the gulls that fly overhead. to the wingless a more arresting phenomenon is their dissimilarity in every particular except shape and size.

I lived at West Egg, the—well, the less fashionable of the two, though this is a most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them. my house was at the very tip of the egg, only fifty yards from the Sound, and squeezed between two huge places that rented for twelve or fifteen thousand a season. the one on my right was a colossal affair by any standard—it was a factual imitation of some Hotel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool, and more than forty acres of lawn and garden. it was Gatsby’s mansion. Or, rather, as I didn’t know Mr. Gatsby, it was a mansion inhabited by a gentleman of that name. My own house was an eyesore, but it was a small eyesore, and it had been overlooked, so I had a view of the water, a partial view of my neighbor’s lawn, and the consoling proximity of millionaires—all for eighty dollars a month.

Across the courtesy bay the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water, and the history of the summer really begins on the evening I drove over there to have dinner with the Tom Buchanans. Daisy was my second cousin once removed, and I’d known Tom in college. And just after the war I spent two days with them in Chicago.

Her husband, among various physical accomplishments, had been one of the most powerful ends that ever played football at New Haven—a national figure in a way, one of those men who reach such an acute limited excellence at twenty-one that everything afterward savors of anti-climax. His family were enormously wealthy—even in college his freedom with money was a matter for reproach—but now he’d left Chicago and come East in a fashion that rather took your breath away: for instance, he’d brought down a string of polo ponies from Lake Forest. it was hard to realize that a man in my own generation was wealthy enough to do that.

Why they came East I don’t know. They had spent a year in France for no particular reason, and then drifted here and there unrestfully wherever people played polo and were rich together. This was a permanent move, said Daisy over the telephone, but I didn’t believe it—I had no sight into Daisy’s heart, but I felt that Tom would drift on forever seeking, a little wistfully, for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable football game.

And so it happened that on a warm windy evening I drove over to East Egg to see two old friends whom I scarcely knew at all. Their house was even more elaborate than I expected, a cheerful red-and-white Georgian Colonial mansion, overlooking the bay. The lawn started at the beach and ran toward the front door for a quarter of a mile, jumping over sun-dials and brick walks and burning gardens—finally when it reached the house drifting up the side in bright vines as though from the momentum of its run. The front was broken by a line of French windows, glowing now with reflected gold and wide open to the warm windy afternoon, and Tom Buchanan in riding clothes was standing with his legs apart on the front porch.

He had changed since his New Haven years. Now he was a sturdy straw-haired man of thirty with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner. Two shining arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward. Not even the effeminate swank of his riding clothes could hide the enormous power of that body—he seemed to fill those glistening boots until he strained the top lacing, and you could see a great pack of muscle shifting when his shoulder moved under his thin coat. It was a body capable of enormous leverage—a cruel body.

His speaking voice, a gruff husky tenor, added to the impression of fractiousness he conveyed. There was a touch of paternal contempt in it, even toward people he liked—and there were men at New Haven who had hated his guts.

“Now, don’t think my opinion on these matters is final,” he seemed to say, “just because I’m stronger and more of a man than you are.” We were in the same senior society, and while we were never intimate I always had the impression that he approved of me and wanted me to like him with some harsh, defiant wistfulness of his own.

We talked for a few minutes on the sunny porch.

“I’ve got a nice place here,” he said, his eyes flashing about restlessly.

Turning me around by one arm, he moved a broad flat hand along the front vista, including in its sweep a sunken Italian garden, a half acre of deep, pungent roses, and a snub-nosed motor-boat that bumped the tide offshore.

“It belonged to Demaine, the oil man.” He turned me around again, politely and abruptly. “We’ll go inside.”

We walked through a high hallway into a bright rosy-colored space, fragilely bound into the house by French windows at either end. The windows were ajar and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside that seemed to grow a little way into the house. A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up toward the frosted wedding-cake of the ceiling, and then rippled over the wine-colored rug, making a shadow on it as wind does on the sea.

The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both in white, and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house. I must have stood for a few moments listening to the whip and snap of the curtains and the groan of a picture on the wall. Then there was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught wind died out about the room, and the curtains and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor.

The younger of the two was a stranger to me. She was extended full length at her end of the divan, completely motionless, and with her chin raised a little, as if she were balancing something on it which was quite likely to fall. If she saw me out of the corner of her eyes she gave no hint of it—indeed, I was almost surprised into murmuring an apology for having disturbed her by coming in.

The other girl, Daisy, made an attempt to rise—she leaned slightly forward with a conscientious expression—then she laughed, an absurd, charming little laugh, and I laughed too and came forward into the room.

“I’m p-paralyzed with happiness.” She laughed again, as if she said something very witty, and held my hand for a moment, looking up into my face, promising that there was no one in the world she so much wanted to see. That was a way she had. She hinted in a murmur that the surname of the balancing girl was Baker. (I’ve heard it said that Daisy’s murmur was only to make people lean toward her; an irrelevant criticism that made it no less charming.)

At any rate, Miss Baker’s lips fluttered, she nodded at me almost imperceptibly, and then quickly tipped her head back again—the object she was balancing had obviously tottered a little and given her something of a fright. Again a sort of apology arose to my lips. Almost any exhibition of complete self-sufficiency draws a stunned tribute from me.

I looked back at my cousin, who began to ask me questions in her low, thrilling voice. It was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down, as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again. Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth, but there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget: a singing compulsion, a whispered “Listen,” a promise that she had done gay, exciting things just a while since and that there were gay, exciting things hovering in the next hour.

I told her how I had stopped off in Chicago for a day on my way East, and how a dozen people had sent their love through me.

“Do they miss me?” she cried ecstatically.

“The whole town is desolate. All the cars have the left rear wheel painted black as a mourning wreath, and there’s a persistent wail all night along the north shore.”

“How gorgeous! Let’s go back, Tom. To-morrow!” Then she added irrelevantly: “You ought to see the baby.”

“I’d like to.”

“She’s asleep. She’s three years old. Haven’t you ever seen her?”

“Never.”

“Well, you ought to see her. She’s——”

Tom Buchanan, who had been hovering restlessly about the room, stopped and rested his hand on my shoulder.

“What you doing, Nick?”

“I’m a bond man.”

“Who with?”

I told him.

“Never heard of them,” he remarked decisively.

This annoyed me.

“You will,” I answered shortly. “You will if you stay in the East.”

“Oh, I’ll stay in the East, don’t you worry,” he said, glancing at Daisy and then back at me, as if he were alert for something more. “I’d be a God damned fool to live anywhere else.”

At this point Miss Baker said: “Absolutely!” with such suddenness that I started—it was the first word she uttered since I came into the room. Evidently it surprised her as much as it did me, for she yawned and with a series of rapid, deft movements stood up into the room.

“I’m stiff,” she complained, “I’ve been lying on that sofa for as long as I can remember.”

“Don’t look at me,” Daisy retorted, “I’ve been trying to get you to New York all afternoon.”

“No, thanks,” said Miss Baker to the four cocktails just in from the pantry, “I’m absolutely in training.”

Her host looked at her incredulously.

“You are!” He took down his drink as if it were a drop in the bottom of a glass. “How you ever get anything done is beyond me.”

I looked at Miss Baker, wondering what it was she “got done.” I enjoyed looking at her. She was a slender, small-breasted girl, with an erect carriage, which she accentuated by throwing her body backward at the shoulders like a young cadet. Her gray sun-strained eyes looked back at me with polite reciprocal curiosity out of a wan, charming, discontented face. It occurred to me now that I had seen her, or a picture of her, somewhere before.

“You live in West Egg,” she remarked contemptuously. “I know somebody there.”

“I don’t know a single——”

“You must know Gatsby.”

“Gatsby?” demanded Daisy. “What Gatsby?”

Before I could reply that he was my neighbor dinner was announced; wedging his tense arm imperatively under mine, Tom Buchanan compelled me from the room as though he were moving a checker to another square.

Slenderly, languidly, their hands set lightly on their hips, the two young women preceded us out onto a rosy-colored porch, open toward the sunset, where four candles flickered on the table in the diminished wind.

“Why CANDLES?” objected Daisy, frowning. She snapped them out with her fingers. “In two weeks it’ll be the longest day in the year.” She looked at us all radiantly. “Do you always watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it? I always watch for the longest day in the year and then miss it.”

“We ought to plan something,” yawned Miss Baker, sitting down at the table as if she were getting into bed.

“All right,” said Daisy. “What’ll we plan?” She turned to me helplessly: “What do people plan?”

Before I could answer her eyes fastened with an awed expression on her little finger.

“Look!” she complained; “I hurt it.”

We all looked—the knuckle was black and blue.

“You did it, Tom,” she said accusingly. “I know you didn’t mean to, but you DID do it. That’s what I get for marrying a brute of a man, a great, big, hulking physical specimen of a——”

“I hate that word hulking,” objected Tom crossly, “even in kidding.”

“Hulking,” insisted Daisy.

Sometimes she and Miss Baker talked at once, unobtrusively and with a bantering inconsequence that was never quite chatter, that was as cool as their white dresses and their impersonal eyes in the absence of all desire. They were here, and they accepted Tom and me, making only a polite pleasant effort to entertain or to be entertained. They knew that presently dinner would be over and a little later the evening too would be over and casually put away. It was sharply different from the West, where an evening was hurried from phase to phase toward its close, in a continually disappointed anticipation or else in sheer nervous dread of the moment itself.

“You make me feel uncivilized, Daisy,” I confessed on my second glass of corky but rather impressive claret. “Can’t you talk about crops or something?”

I meant nothing in particular by this remark, but it was taken up in an unexpected way.

“Civilization’s going to pieces,” broke out Tom violently. “I’ve gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things. Have you read ‘The Rise of the Colored Empires’ by this man Goddard?”

“Why, no,” I answered, rather surprised by his tone.

“Well, it’s a fine book, and everybody ought to read it. The idea is if we don’t look out the white race will be—will be utterly submerged. It’s all scientific stuff; it’s been proved.”

“Tom’s getting very profound,” said Daisy, with an expression of unthoughtful sadness. “He reads deep books with long words in them. What was that word we——”

“Well, these books are all scientific,” insisted Tom, glancing at her impatiently. “This fellow has worked out the whole thing. It’s up to us, who are the dominant race, to watch out or these other races will have control of things.”

“We’ve got to beat them down,” whispered Daisy, winking ferociously toward the fervent sun.

“You ought to live in California—” began Miss Baker, but Tom interrupted her by shifting heavily in his chair.

“This idea is that we’re Nordics. I am, and you are, and you are, and——” After an infinitesimal hesitation he included Daisy with a slight nod, and she winked at me again. “—And we’ve produced all the things that go to make civilization—oh, science and art, and all that. Do you see?”

There was something pathetic in his concentration, as if his complacency, more acute than of old, was not enough to him any more. When, almost immediately, the telephone rang inside and the butler left the porch Daisy seized upon the momentary interruption and leaned toward me.

“I’ll tell you a family secret,” she whispered enthusiastically. “It’s about the butler’s nose. Do you want to hear about the butler’s nose?”

“That’s why I came over to-night.”

“Well, he wasn’t always a butler; he used to be the silver polisher for some people in New York that had a silver service for two hundred people. He had to polish it from morning till night, until finally it began to affect his nose——”

“Things went from bad to worse,” suggested Miss Baker.

“Yes. Things went from bad to worse, until finally he had to give up his position.”

For a moment the last sunshine fell with romantic affection upon her glowing face; her voice compelled me forward breathlessly as I listened—then the glow faded, each light deserting her with lingering regret, like children leaving a pleasant street at dusk.

The butler came back and murmured something close to Tom’s ear, whereupon Tom frowned, pushed back his chair, and without a word went inside. As if his absence quickened something within her, Daisy leaned forward again, her voice glowing and singing.

“I love to see you at my table, Nick. You remind me of a—of a rose, an absolute rose. Doesn’t he?” She turned to Miss Baker for confirmation: “An absolute rose?”

This was untrue. I am not even faintly like a rose. She was only extemporizing, but a stirring warmth flowed from her, as if her heart was trying to come out to you concealed in one of those breathless, thrilling words. Then suddenly she threw her napkin on the table and excused herself and went into the house.

Miss Baker and I exchanged a short glance consciously devoid of meaning. I was about to speak when she sat up alertly and said “Sh!” in a warning voice. A subdued impassioned murmur was audible in the room beyond, and Miss Baker leaned forward unashamed, trying to hear. The murmur trembled on the verge of coherence, sank down, mounted excitedly, and then ceased altogether.

“This Mr. Gatsby you spoke of is my neighbor——” I said.

“Don’t talk. I want to hear what happens.”

“Is something happening?” I inquired innocently.

“You mean to say you don’t know?” said Miss Baker, honestly surprised. “I thought everybody knew.”

“I don’t.”

“Why——” she said hesitantly, “Tom’s got some woman in New York.”

“Got some woman?” I repeated blankly.

Miss Baker nodded.

“She might have the decency not to telephone him at dinner time. Don’t you think?”

Almost before I had grasped her meaning there was the flutter of a dress and the crunch of leather boots, and Tom and Daisy were back at the table.

“It couldn’t be helped!” cried Daisy with tense gaiety.

She sat down, glanced searchingly at Miss Baker and then at me, and continued: “I looked outdoors for a minute, and it’s very romantic outdoors. There’s a bird on the lawn that I think must be a nightingale come over on the Cunard or White Star Line. He’s singing away——” Her voice sang: “It’s romantic, isn’t it, Tom?”

“Very romantic,” he said, and then miserably to me: “If it’s light enough after dinner, I want to take you down to the stables.”

The telephone rang inside, startlingly, and as Daisy shook her head decisively at Tom the subject of the stables, in fact all subjects, vanished into air. Among the broken fragments of the last five minutes at table I remember the candles being lit again, pointlessly, and I was conscious of wanting to look squarely at every one, and yet to avoid all eyes. I couldn’t guess what Daisy and Tom were thinking, but I doubt if even Miss Baker, who seemed to have mastered a certain hardy scepticism, was able utterly to put this fifth guest’s shrill metallic urgency out of mind. To a certain temperament the situation might have seemed intriguing—my own instinct was to telephone immediately for the police.

The horses, needless to say, were not mentioned again. Tom and Miss Baker, with several feet of twilight between them, strolled back into the library, as if to a vigil beside a perfectly tangible body, while, trying to look pleasantly interested and a little deaf, I followed Daisy around a chain of connecting verandas to the porch in front. In its deep gloom we sat down side by side on a wicker settee.

Daisy took her face in her hands as if feeling its lovely shape, and her eyes moved gradually out into the velvet dusk. I saw that turbulent emotions possessed her, so I asked what I thought would be some sedative questions about her little girl.

“We don’t know each other very well, Nick,” she said suddenly. “Even if we are cousins. You didn’t come to my wedding.”

“I wasn’t back from the war.”

“That’s true.” She hesitated. “Well, I’ve had a very bad time, Nick, and I’m pretty cynical about everything.”

Evidently she had reason to be. I waited but she didn’t say any more, and after a moment I returned rather feebly to the subject of her daughter.

“I suppose she talks, and—eats, and everything.”

“Oh, yes.” She looked at me absently. “Listen, Nick; let me tell you what I said when she was born. Would you like to hear?”

“Very much.”

“It’ll show you how I’ve gotten to feel about—things. Well, she was less than an hour old and Tom was God knows where. I woke up out of the ether with an utterly abandoned feeling, and asked the nurse right away if it was a boy or a girl. She told me it was a girl, and so I turned my head away and wept. ‘all right,’ I said, ‘I’m glad it’s a girl. And I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”

“You see I think everything’s terrible anyhow,” she went on in a convinced way. “Everybody thinks so—the most advanced people. And I KNOW. I’ve been everywhere and seen everything and done everything.” Her eyes flashed around her in a defiant way, rather like Tom’s, and she laughed with thrilling scorn. “Sophisticated—God, I’m sophisticated!”

The instant her voice broke off, ceasing to compel my attention, my belief, I felt the basic insincerity of what she had said. It made me uneasy, as though the whole evening had been a trick of some sort to exact a contributory emotion from me. I waited, and sure enough, in a moment she looked at me with an absolute smirk on her lovely face, as if she had asserted her membership in a rather distinguished secret society to which she and Tom belonged.

Inside, the crimson room bloomed with light.

Tom and Miss Baker sat at either end of the long couch and she read aloud to him from the SATURDAY EVENING POST.—the words, murmurous and uninflected, running together in a soothing tune. The lamp-light, bright on his boots and dull on the autumn-leaf yellow of her hair, glinted along the paper as she turned a page with a flutter of slender muscles in her arms.

When we came in she held us silent for a moment with a lifted hand.

“To be continued,” she said, tossing the magazine on the table, “in our very next issue.”

Her body asserted itself with a restless movement of her knee, and she stood up.

“Ten o’clock,” she remarked, apparently finding the time on the ceiling. “Time for this good girl to go to bed.”

“Jordan’s going to play in the tournament to-morrow,” explained Daisy, “over at Westchester.”

“Oh—you’re Jordan BAKER.”

I knew now why her face was familiar—its pleasing contemptuous expression had looked out at me from many rotogravure pictures of the sporting life at Asheville and Hot Springs and Palm Beach. I had heard some story of her too, a critical, unpleasant story, but what it was I had forgotten long ago.

“Good night,” she said softly. “Wake me at eight, won’t you.”

“If you’ll get up.”

“I will. Good night, Mr. Carraway. See you anon.”

“Of course you will,” confirmed Daisy. “In fact I think I’ll arrange a marriage. Come over often, Nick, and I’ll sort of—oh—fling you together. You know—lock you up accidentally in linen closets and push you out to sea in a boat, and all that sort of thing——”

“Good night,” called Miss Baker from the stairs. “I haven’t heard a word.”

“She’s a nice girl,” said Tom after a moment. “They oughtn’t to let her run around the country this way.”

“Who oughtn’t to?” inquired Daisy coldly.

“Her family.”

“Her family is one aunt about a thousand years old. Besides, Nick’s going to look after her, aren’t you, Nick? She’s going to spend lots of week-ends out here this summer. I think the home influence will be very good for her.”

Daisy and Tom looked at each other for a moment in silence.

“Is she from New York?” I asked quickly.

“From Louisville. Our white girlhood was passed together there. Our beautiful white——”

“Did you give Nick a little heart to heart talk on the veranda?” demanded Tom suddenly.

“Did I?” She looked at me.

“I can’t seem to remember, but I think we talked about the Nordic race. Yes, I’m sure we did. It sort of crept up on us and first thing you know——”

“Don’t believe everything you hear, Nick,” he advised me.

I said lightly that I had heard nothing at all, and a few minutes later I got up to go home. They came to the door with me and stood side by side in a cheerful square of light. As I started my motor Daisy peremptorily called: “Wait!”

“I forgot to ask you something, and it’s important. We heard you were engaged to a girl out West.”

“That’s right,” corroborated Tom kindly. “We heard that you were engaged.”

“It’s libel. I’m too poor.”

“But we heard it,” insisted Daisy, surprising me by opening up again in a flower-like way. “We heard it from three people, so it must be true.”

Of course I knew what they were referring to, but I wasn’t even vaguely engaged. The fact that gossip had published the banns was one of the reasons I had come East. You can’t stop going with an old friend on account of rumors, and on the other hand I had no intention of being rumored into marriage.

Their interest rather touched me and made them less remotely rich—nevertheless, I was confused and a little disgusted as I drove away. It seemed to me that the thing for Daisy to do was to rush out of the house, child in arms—but apparently there were no such intentions in her head. As for Tom, the fact that he “had some woman in New York.” was really less surprising than that he had been depressed by a book. Something was making him nibble at the edge of stale ideas as if his sturdy physical egotism no longer nourished his peremptory heart.

Already it was deep summer on roadhouse roofs and in front of wayside garages, where new red gas-pumps sat out in pools of light, and when I reached my estate at West Egg I ran the car under its shed and sat for a while on an abandoned grass roller in the yard. The wind had blown off, leaving a loud, bright night, with wings beating in the trees and a persistent organ sound as the full bellows of the earth blew the frogs full of life. The silhouette of a moving cat wavered across the moonlight, and turning my head to watch it, I saw that I was not alone—fifty feet away a figure had emerged from the shadow of my neighbor’s mansion and was standing with his hands in his pockets regarding the silver pepper of the stars. Something in his leisurely movements and the secure position of his feet upon the lawn suggested that it was Mr. Gatsby himself, come out to determine what share was his of our local heavens.

I decided to call to him. Miss Baker had mentioned him at dinner, and that would do for an introduction. But I didn’t call to him, for he gave a sudden intimation that he was content to be alone—he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and, far as I was from him, I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward—and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock. When I looked once more for Gatsby he had vanished, and I was alone again in the unquiet darkness.

[crackamacgowski]

That books is worse than the fan fiction in the OP.

[MrPhlegm]

http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs40/f/2009/041/c/e/Enterprise_meet_Star_Destroyer_by_Kwindu.jpg