Iam alone,he thought. As far as he knew, there were only two other people on this entire planet, and he had walked away from them. A modern-day Michael Collins,he romanticized. Four centuries ago, as humanity had first set foot on another world, Michael Collins had become the loneliest human being in history. He and two other astronauts, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, had journeyed from the Earth to the moon in a two-vehicle tandem spacecraft, one of which had then descended to the lunar surface. Collins had remained in the orbiter, and when it had circled around the far side of the moon, he had been cut off from all communication. By himself aboard Columbia,he had been farther from Earth than any single human had ever been, and totally unable to contact anybody, anywhere. The sense of isolation, Vaughn had always thought, must have been profound.

“‘Here men from the planet Earth,’” he quoted aloud, “‘first set foot upon the moon.’” His words fled into the night, the sound of his voice small and insignificant in the vast, unseen emptiness about him. Vaughn recalled his first trip to the Sea of Tranquillity, and to the preserved remnants of man’s first steps out into the cosmos—the base of Eagle,the landing craft; the camera that had transmitted images of the event back to the people of Earth; the flag of the old nation-state that had sent the astronauts. Vaughn’s life had already changed by that time—he had been pulled away from his childhood dreams of exploration and into the world of special ops—but he had still been overcome by a sense of awe during that visit to the landing site.

Now he remembered the last sentence on the plaque that those early space travelers had left behind: “We came in peace for all mankind.”For Vaughn, those words epitomized the spirit of discovery. They reflected his aspirations to explore the universe with amity for all, to gather and share whatever wondrous new knowledge he could. This mission to travel the Gamma Quadrant had been intended to serve those purposes, but it had instead transformed into a rescue mission, at least for now. We came in desperation to save mankind,he thought. To save the Vahni.

As Vaughn strode through the darkness, he felt the ground begin to ascend beneath him. For the last couple of hours, the gentle swells of grass-covered hills had risen and fallen in his path, reducing his pace, and worse, causing him to exert himself more. His legs and feet still felt good—the grass actually cushioned his footsteps somewhat—but a dull ache had developed at the top of his right leg, near his hip. The pain was mild, but what had at first been an occasional twinge now occurred with every step.

Vaughn stopped, tucked the beacon beneath his left arm, and pulled out his tricorder. He scanned along his right side and saw that he had strained his hip flexor. Nothing could be done about it, though, since he had left the medical supplies back with Prynn and ch’Thane. He would simply have to live with the pain.

Vaughn swung around and performed a sensor sweep back along his path. He searched for the downed shuttle and the life signs of Prynn and ch’Thane. He found nothing and tried again. As he had drawn closer to the source of the pulse, interference from the energy there had increasingly affected both sensors and communications. On his third attempt, he picked up the shuttle, and shortly after that, human and Andorian biological signatures. Vaughn had traveled more than fifty kilometers from there, he saw.

That seems right,Vaughn thought, considering how long he had been walking, and that he had been able to maintain a steady pace, at least until encountering the hills. He had rested for ten minutes every two hours, unfurling the bedroll and lying atop it in order to rest his body as completely as possible in that short interval. He had also eaten the contents of two of the rations packets, and sipped periodically at the containers of water. As the day had departed, the temperature had fallen, down into single digits, which at least had the benefit of lessening his need for water. Fortunately, cool as it had become, his old coat and his almost constant movement had kept him warm.

Fifty kilometers,Vaughn thought. That meant that the facility surrounding the place from which the pulse emanated could be anywhere from just beyond the next hill to two hundred more kilometers away. He turned back in the direction of his destination and scanned ahead. Energy again interfered with his readings, but then they cleared and revealed something just a few kilometers away. Sensors revealed buildings, machinery, thoroughfares—and no energy readings. What lay ahead was not the source of the pulse, but a city. A deadcity; as with all those they had flown over in the shuttle, this one showed no indications of extant life.

Vaughn took the beacon in his hand again and began forward. As he climbed the hill in his path, he checked the time on the tricorder and saw that it had been fifty-seven minutes since he had last spoken with Prynn. During his march across the planet, he had contacted her once an hour, allowing them to update each other on their progress; while Vaughn had tried to reach the source of the pulse, Prynn had begun her attempts to configure a working transporter from the wreckage of Chaffee.

Vaughn thumbed off the signal that would sound on the hour, then closed the tricorder and returned it to a coat pocket. He reached up and slapped at his combadge, the electronic tones of its activation sounding hollow and slight in the open air. “Vaughn to Tenmei,” he said. Seconds passed with no response. “Vaughn to Tenmei,” he said again. He waited longer this time, and was about to speak again when he finally heard Prynn’s voice.

“This… Tenmei… can… me?”Bursts of static split her words apart. “Repeat… Tenmei… hear me?”

Vaughn stopped in his tracks and turned back in the direction of the crashed shuttle. “I can hear you, but just barely,” he said, raising his voice. “I’m obviously too far from you now, too close to the pulse site. Are you all right?”

“… fine… Shar’s vitals are improv…”came Prynn’s response, again punctuated by the white noise of the energy’s interference. “… some success… porter… ther day…”Vaughn waited to hear more, not wanting to miss anything she said by talking while she might still be transmitting. When he heard nothing more, he went on himself.

“I’ve covered more than fifty kilometers so far,” he said. “I don’t know how far I am from the pulse, but there’s a city a short distance up ahead. I’ll probably walk for another hour or so now, then stop and sleep for about six hours before continuing.” In truth, Vaughn would have preferred to keep going until he collapsed, but he knew he would be more likely to reach the site of the pulse in time if he did not completely exhaust himself. He waited once more for a response, but none came. He tapped his combadge again. “Vaughn to Tenmei,” he said. “Vaughn to Tenmei.”

Nothing.

Vaughn turned and continued on his way. When he reached the top of the hill, he tried one final time to reach Prynn. But past the chirp of his combadge and the sound of his voice, he heard nothing but the insubstantial background whine of the clouds.

Somehow, it felt as though he had lost his daughter again.

40

Kira stood in her bedroom and slipped into the jacket of her dress uniform. She fastened it closed, then tugged at its hem, straightening it and trying to get it to sit comfortably on her body. She glanced briefly in the mirror, but she did not see her reflection; all she could see, all she could think about, were the locusts.