More Than a Lifetime #8: The Edge of Heaven

Chapter 3: The Man and the Plan

When Dani came to, she was in the dark. Total darkness. There wasn't anything to immediately indicate where, or when, she was. No engines hummed or vibrated beneath her. She could be on a ship, but there was no way to know for sure without exploring.

She sat up, then froze. Her entire body ached, particularly her chest. She looked down to investigate, out of pure instinct, before remembering the darkness, which had rendered her eyes temporarily useless. She brought her hand up and ran her fingers over her uniformed torso. When she felt the small, jagged hole in her uniform, the memory of her mission came back to her. She, Will, and Captain Sisko had been cornered in the Suliban facility, and Sisko had ordered her into the temporal chamber. She didn't remember much after that, but from the condition of her uniform and her physical condition, she surmised that she'd been shot with a phaser. Exactly who had shot her was still a mystery and would likely remain one until she was able to ask Will and Sisko what had happened.

Dani sat still for a few moments, willing the pain away. Finally, it subsided enough for her to get to her knees. She began to focus less on the aches throughout her body and more on her mission. She felt for the pouch she'd been wearing before being sent here. Relieved, she found it right where it had been before she'd awakened, and the five samples she'd taken from the lab were still tucked safely inside. It was a relief that she still had them, but she didn't immediately know what her next course of action should be. She knew that she had to get the samples to Starfleet, so the question now was how to do that. The first step to answering that question was figuring out where in the universe she'd ended up.

Lighting would be a good start. She also needed a computer or something that would offer a hint for where she was currently located.

Dani carefully stood, aware that in the darkness, she had no way of knowing how big her surroundings were. She gained a little more confidence when she was able to stand to her full height without any problems.

"Computer – lights," she commanded. Nothing happened in response, but it had been worth a try. She stretched out her arms in front of her and slowly began to walk forward, like a blind person. She didn't have very far to walk. Within a few steps, she reached a flat, smooth, vertically oriented surface. She began walking again, sliding her hands along what she assumed was a wall until she reached something that felt like a control panel. She was wondering how she was going to see the panel to know what she was doing, but then she decided to just take a chance. She started pressing buttons randomly, and the lights in the room suddenly lit up.

Dani looked around the room. It was small, seemingly only a slightly larger than a walk-in closet. Somehow, a set of bunked beds, a sink, and two desks were crammed in there. She heard the nearly silent hum of engines and felt the vibrations beneath her feet and concluded that she must be on a ship.

But what ship? And when?

A garment hanging from the corner of the top bunk caught her attention. It looked like a uniform but not one that she recognized. She took a step closer to get a better look at it.

A gasp escaped her lips as she read the badge on the garment's shoulder.

"Enterprise, NX-01?" she read aloud.

Xxx

After Dani had disappeared from the temporal chamber, Chakotay had been able to beam Sisko and Will to the Rio Grande in time to prevent them from being taken prisoner by the Suliban. Now, the three of them sat in the observation lounge on the Enterprise-E with the rest of the senior staff, Janeway, and Tuvok.

"When we found the lab and the biomatter, we ran into a problem," Will said. "According to our intel, the storage equipment we had was supposed to accommodate all the samples of the disease. Well, that wasn't possible."