First Contact by J.M. Dillard

Author:J.M. Dillard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pocket Books/Star Trek
Published: 2019-12-08T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

Lily drew a deep breath and leapt through the hatch to the next level down where Picard waited. She landed hard on the soles of her feet, knees deeply bent, and stumbled trying to keep her balance. Picard moved to put a steadying hand on her elbow, but she waved him away, then walked alongside as he moved cautiously down the hallway, raygun at the ready.

As anxious as she was about the immediate predicament with the Borg—Picard had explained, briefly and eloquently, that they were indeed as sinister as they appeared—she could not prevent her mind from rapidly working to piece together the precise turn of events that had led her to this moment.

It was true: she had been dying from severe radiation sickness when Picard and his android officer, Data, had found her. Never mind that she had tried to fill the two of them with bullets; the point was that had they not come, she would be dead now.

And because they had come, she was now stuck in this new, equally insane and dangerous scenario.

Despite the current danger it faced, the future Picard described was far, far more wonderful than Lily had ever dared dream. She had expected humanity to slowly die off from disease, or maybe go up in a huge fireball when someone got fed up and decided to detonate the last of the nukes.

But for something amazing and good to happen? Impossible…

Yet here Jean-Luc Picard was, an amazingly sane and compassionate man, and here was his amazing ship, with its rayguns, invisible force fields, and awe-inspiring observation decks. After Zef and his quirky moods, Jean-Luc seemed enormously easy to talk to; less than an hour before, they had been strangers—and she had contemplated killing him—but now she felt completely relaxed in his presence, and he in hers, as if they had always been friends. It was a delight to listen to him speak of his century, for his delight in it was infectious and embarrassingly (to a denizen of the twenty-first century, at least) inspiring.

He paused in their journey to consult a computerized panel on the… bulkhead, not wall, she corrected herself, remembering the nautical term he had used. As he did, Lily indulged her curiosity about an organization he had mentioned.

“How many planets are in this… ‘Federation’?”

“Over one hundred and fifty,” he said, his attention focused on the panel as he swiftly fingered a few controls. “Spread across eight thousand light-years.”

She considered this with a faint smile of amazement. “You must not get home much.”

He glanced over at her, and his expression warmed at once. “Actually, I tend to think of this ship as home. But if it’s Earth you’re talking about, I do try to get back when I can.”

On the recessed monitor screen on the wall, a message flashed in red: ACCESS DENIED. Picard was visibly relieved. “Good. They haven’t broken the encryption codes yet.”

“Who? Those bionic zombies you told me about? The…” She faltered, trying to remember.

“Borg.” He averted his gaze, his expression darkening faintly as he began to move again.

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