S01 E02: USS Intrigue: Make Mess of Time

 

S01 E02: USS Intrigue: Make Mess of Time

First Officer’s Log. Stardate 45133.5. Commander Nyri Elatrai reporting. We have been assigned to study the Feran star system. Long-range sensors have picked up neutrino emissions on the uninhabited planet Feran Delta. The emissions appear to be warp signatures left by spacefaring ships. We are on a course to the planet to investigate. Our assignment is to determine the source of the neutrino emissions, and if we find inhabited ships, we are to make peaceful contact and provide assistance if needed.

 

            Commander Nyri Elatrai was in charge of the away team to the planet Feran Delta. The other two members of the away team were science officer Ensign J’Datek (a Klingon male) and engineering officer Ensign Tijia Indam (a Cardassian female). They both had field commissions based on previous military experience with their home worlds. Commander Elatrai had seen their records and knew that in their one year of Starfleet service, both had proven their allegiance to the Federation, and she knew that she could trust them implicitly. They both joined Starfleet after the Dominion War to show their good will and eagerness to seal newfound alliances.

            When the away team beamed down to Feran Delta, they immediately saw a few dozen crashed space ships. Scans made from the ship had shown no life signs on the planet. Ensign J’Datek ran similar scans from the planet’s surface and also found no life signs. All the ships had been there for at least six months, some for several years. The ships were from assorted races: Vulcan, Andorian, others non-Federation, and others unidentified.

            Elatrai told them to split up and find out as much as they could about the ships. Elatrai herself walked over to what appeared to be a Starfleet ship. There was a large opening in the hull that looked like it had been blown away when the ship crashed. Her tricorder picked up faint tachyon emissions coming from all around the ship. She walked slowly through the opening and entered the ship.  

            She found the bridge was deserted. There was no sign of a struggle or a disaster that may have injured or harmed the crew. She touched the consoles in an attempt to pull up any logs she could find. The consoles did not react to her touch. There was no power. She did see a plaque on the wall that identified the ship as the USS Orton Fells. She was not familiar with that ship. She decided she needed to find the main engineering section. As she headed for a crawlspace—turbolifts were not working--a floating mechanical object suddenly appeared in front of her. It was spherical-shaped, about ten centimeters in diameter. It was a probe. Her tricorder picked up more tachyon emissions from the probe. It was of alien origin. It appeared to have recorded data that could be useful to her investigation. Her scan did not show the probe to be a danger, so she tapped her communicator badge and ordered the USS Intrigue to beam up the probe so they could study it and download its data.

She contacted the other members of the away team and confirmed that they found other ships to be uninhabited. Now that the situation had been deemed safe, Elatrai ordered more scientists and engineers to beam down to help study all the crashed ships.

Later, back on the Intrigue, Captain Sekoba called a meeting. Chief science officer Gailard Hughes had examined the probe. He had found a data chip, but had not been able to retrieve the data. The probe had a tachyon signature that indicated it had come from fifty years in the future. It had been built by an unknown alien race. But even more interesting, he had found a holo message hidden inside. He played the message. Everyone watched the holo vid and listened intently.

 

            “This is Captain Saudin of USS Orton Fells of United Federation of Planets. My ship was exploring Cetus Beta Pulsar when we were sucked into a spatial thing. Crew was mysteriously removed from ship and teleported to a planet. We found out that we were in Puppis Hydra III region at far end of Beta Quadrant. Planet is M-class. Other beings on planet of various species brought here in same manner as us. Enough food to last us all. However, we are looking to tell any passing ships of our presence. Probe containing this message was found on this planet. We believe it was left behind by race that is gone. This message is call for help.”

 

            “We tried to look it up and found no current record of a USS Orton Fells in Starfleet,” said Hughes. “However, it is the name of one of the crashed ships we found on Feran Delta; the same ship where Elatrai found the probe. This probe is from fifty years in the future. The ship it was found on is from ten years in the future, so it must be a ship that hasn’t been built yet, that will disappear in ten years from now.” Captain Sekoba said, “Captain Saudin is currently in command of the USS Eureka. I do not know him, but his Starfleet record is stellar.”

Commander Elatrai had also heard of the Vulcan Captain Saudin. But she was skeptical about the holo message. “Did his speech seem a little uneven for a Vulcan? It was not the typical style of Federation Standard language you normally hear from a Vulcan. And I swear he almost seemed to be emotional during part of that vid.”

Sekoba said, “I noticed that as well. His mannerisms and speech patterns were not that of a typical Vulcan. That is no reason, however, to disregard the message. I want the science team to further examine the holo vid for authenticity.”

            Hughes said, “Assuming the vid is real, we now have knowledge of the future. If we act on it, we could alter the future. And Starfleet regulations state that we cannot interfere with historical events. But there are no regulations about preventing the future from happening.”

            Elatrai interjected, “We COULD warn Captain Saudin about this. It may save his entire crew. But then again, who knows? Preventing this could set other events in motion, affect many more lives, and perhaps cause many unknown deaths. Playing with time can be very tricky. And besides, he said there are others stranded on the planet. We don’t know enough about their situation to know if we could prevent those others from being stranded.”

            Captain Sekoba said, “We should not try to prevent it from happening. However, this message was clearly a distress call. Captain Saudin needs our help. Even though the message comes from the future, logically--according to Starfleet regulations--we must try to help. Until we verify the message’s authenticity, we will work on the assumption that it is real. Lt. Hughes, Saudin mentioned an anomaly and a location. Please work with Lt. Orga in stellar sciences to study what we know of the Cetus Beta Pulsar and its surrounding area. See if there is a spatial anomaly or any probability of a spatial anomaly forming in the area.”

Then Sekoba said to Elatrai, “You said the ships on Feran Delta were all from different time periods?” Elatrai nodded, “Yes. But they were all from the future.”

            “Then this anomaly,” continued the Vulcan captain, “could exist now or any time in the future. And it is somehow sending ships to the past, to Feran Delta, and it is sending the ships’ crews to an area near Puppis Hydra III. How long will it take us to get to the Puppis region at maximum warp?”

            Elatrai, a former conn officer, made a few entries into her data padd. “Seven days,” she said.

The captain said, “We will set a course for the Puppis region to rescue all the stranded crews.”

            “But sir,” Commander Elatrai said, “we know the ships were sent to the past, but we don’t know that about the crews. What if the crew is in the future?”

            “That is a possibility. However, it is logical that we must attempt a rescue. In the seven days it will take us to get there, we will research all the data the away teams collected to learn what we can about this strange temporal phenomenon. We may be able to use it, replicate it, or reverse it in order to achieve our goal.”

            “Yes sir,” Commander Nyri Elatrai replied. As the first officer, she knew the captain was right. She also knew it was her duty to point out any possibilities, as she had done.

/------------------------/

            Elatrai looked at her personal padd. A news report just popped up about a new colony being formed on Regis 8. Old news, she thought. There was another report about a break through in positronics. “Reading the newsfeeds sir?” Elatrai looked up from her padd at Ensign J’Datek. “Yeah. Nothing real exciting today,” the Commander said.

            J’Datek said, “The new outpost at Sheivalot is up and running. That’s something.” The Sheivalot outpost was set up to handle diplomatic relations with the ten races in that region. None of the species were at war or anything, but they were not excited about working together. The Federation had considered it and thought that mutual cooperation between the neighboring systems could bring greater prosperity to all. And who was the rest of the galaxy to question the wisdom of the United Federation of Planets?

            Commander Elatrai set down her padd and looked around the meeting table. J’Datek and Hughes from sciences were on one side of the table, Orga from stellar sciences and Indam from engineering on the other. She called on the Kellerun first. “Lt. Orga, report.” Orga was the head of stellar cartography, or stellar sciences, as it was sometimes called. The pointy-eared Kellerun hit a button on the controls and activated a holographic picture of the Cetus Beta Pulsar. “The pulsar,” he said, “is a class 5 pulsar. It emits a 700 Hertz pulsation frequency alongside a radial acceleration. Its magnetic field increases by seven percent every eleven point seven earth standard years. It reduces back to its normal field strength after forty-seven point nine hours. There are no other celestial bodies within a seventy-light-year radius.”

            “What is the cause of the magnetic field increase?” asked Elatrai.

            “Unknown. It could be a subspace neutrino wave within the pulsar. That’s been known to affect magnetic fields,” Orga said.

            Elatrai called on Hughes next. Lieutenant Gailard Hughes, head of the science department, said, “There were thirty-one ships on Feran Delta. All abandoned and nonfunctioning. All the ships were from the future; anywhere from six months to forty years in the future, and they had been on the planet for six months up to five years. There were varying types of propulsion systems, all of which are in nonworking order. The ships were built by different polities. Some of them known to us, and some unknown. None of our crew were able to retrieve any records or logs from the ships, except for the probe you found.”

Elatrai nodded. “And what did you find about the probe?” Elatrai said to the junior engineer Ensign Indam.

            Indam said, “The probe had once been used to collect data. Captain Saudin, or one of his crew, repurposed it to send the message, and all the data the probe may have collected was erased.  There were traces of tachyons, nitrogen, gamma rays, and Vulcan and alien DNA on the probe. We don’t know who originally built the probe. Its inner workings were fairly simple, but not like anything we’ve ever seen.”

            “Were you able to ascertain anything unusual about the holo message itself?” Elatrai prodded.

            “There is no way to tell if it’s the real Captain Saudin. The image wasn’t clear enough,” said Indam. “Based on our data, he will go through an anomaly and be stranded on a planet in ten years from now. He will have been on the planet for another forty years, and then he will send that holo message. It did appear to be him, aged as a Vulcan would by about fifty years, presumably what he would look like if he had lived on a planet for that long without the relative luxuries of a starship. We cannot explain the unusual speech patterns and facial expressions.”

            “What about theories on the temporal anomaly that displaced the ships and crews?” Elatrai asked of everyone at the table. They all looked at each other. Lt. Hughes spoke up. “The pulsar does have an unusual magnetic field that hasn’t been researched in-depth. And if there is a subspace neutrino wave inside the pulsar, the frequency and magnitude of the wave could have gravitational effects on the pulsar that could interfere with space and time. But more research would be needed to know for sure.”

            Elatrai said, “We have notified Starfleet Command of our situation. They have sent the USS Aristotle to the pulsar for further analysis. They were told to look for anything that could cause temporal or spatial anomalies. For now, continue your research and report back here in two days. Dismissed. Oh, and Hughes--” Lt. Hughes turned to the commander just as he was about to leave. Elatrai said, “I’m assigning Cadet Camsol to work with you on this. Please get him up to date and let him help any way he can.”

            Hughes hesitated, and then said, “Aye, sir.”

Lt. Hughes was not pleased. Cadet Camsol was a fine cadet, as long as he didn’t have to work with him. What could a cadet do that I can’t do myself, Hughes thought as he walked back to his science lab. Cadet Camsol was from a race called the Teeselians. First contact was made with them only two years ago. They had discovered warp drive, but it was still so new to them that they didn’t really know what to do with it. They had not yet decided whether or not they wanted to join the Federation. Camsol had been sponsored by Captain Jafal Lundquist of the USS Starfall, the same ship that made first contact with the Teeselians. The Teeselians had not yet gained the respect of some Federation member races. The Teeselians were considered intellectual lightweights, like the Pakleds. Most of them had an IQ that was lower than the average human. Camsol was supposedly one of the brightest of his race, though. Hughes knew that Commander Elatrai had taken a liking to Camsol. That was obviously, thought Hughes, due to the fact that Camsol wanted to be a pilot, and Elatrai was one of the best pilots in the fleet. But being a cadet, Camsol had to be shifted around to different departments, so this time Hughes was the unlucky soul that got him.

            When Hughes got to his science lab, Cadet Camsol was already there. Ensign J’Datek offered the cadet an empty station. The Klingon and the Teeselian had already become fast friends. Lt. Hughes did the polite thing and introduced himself to Camsol and then said, “Please compile a report on the findings on the ships. J’Datek will see to anything you need.” And then Hughes went to his office at the other side of the lab. He couldn’t be bothered with these lower-level peons. He had work to do.

/------------------------/

            A few hours later, Commander Nyri Elatrai was looking over the data concerning the stranded ships. She had already looked at the data twice and found nothing of note. Third time’s the charm, she thought. And her next thought was there I go with another earth euphemism. After having gone through Starfleet Academy and risen through the ranks of Starfleet, she had heard so many earth euphemisms that it made her head spin. She was a Betazoid. She had never left her home planet until she joined the academy. No one had thought she would ever leave home. After all, she was a Daughter of the Fourth House, Keeper of the Crown Jewels of Reeliyox, and Guardian of the Transcendent Fountain of Life. That’s practically royalty on Betazed. She had been born into a privileged family. Why would she ever leave that to enter a societal structure where you had to WORK in order to move up through the ranks? Because, she had told herself, she had something to offer the galaxy. She could fly a ship better than anybody she knew. She was a born leader. She had a knack for navigating and learning about ships on the fly. And she was good with people--and not just because she was Betazoid and could read minds. Most non-telepathic species considered it rude for their minds to be read by telepaths, so Nyri had learned to curb that particular gift. She could still sense strong emotions and occasionally touched minds with other telepaths—because it was both her nature and theirs—but living among humans had taught her to read body language and facial expressions. Plus, she knew how to engage people in a way that put them at ease.

            When Cadet Camsol had first come aboard, he was nervous, like a child on the first day of school. Nyri had read his file and knew of his interest in helm operations. She knew she could talk to him about her past days at the helm of a starship and her joy of being a pilot. She had put him at ease very quickly.

            Now she was perusing Camsol’s report from the science lab. Hughes had assigned Camsol to search the data on the ships. Camsol had studied the engine design of all the ships. He didn’t understand them all, but he was still able to put together a viable report. The Cadet had noted the different types of propulsion systems on the ships. He also had written theories on the maximum warp speed of each ship based on their relative size, shape, and engine design. He had also noted their impulse drives. Wait a minute, she thought as she read about the impulse drive on each ship. All the ships have an impulse drive that was powered by an independent source. They could accelerate at impulse more quickly than other ships because they didn’t have to get power directly from the ship. Every one of the ships had this. She quicky called Lt. Hughes.

            The commander explained her findings to Hughes. She asked if he knew anything about how an independent power source for impulse drive could make it easier for a ship to get pulled in by a pulsar or a temporal anomaly. Hughes thought about it for a second. “While traveling at impulse,” he said, “without a warp field, a ship could get caught in a pulsar’s wake. But with the extra acceleration the ship would have a lower harmonic frequency. By having an independent power source, it might, just might, cause a temporal field. So the ships could have all been caught in a temporal field in the vicinity of the pulsar.”

            The commander met Hughes and Camsol in the lab to run some simulations. Their findings confirmed, for the most part, what Hughes had told Elatrai. It was very possible that the ships had been caught in a temporal displacement field because of their impulse drives and their proximity to the pulsar.

/------------------------/

            The USS Intrigue arrived at Puppis Hydra III. It was a region of space they knew very little about. The region had yet to be explored by Starfleet or any known spacefaring races. They scanned for any planets in the area. There was nothing on initial scans. They traveled deeper into the region. They knew it was a longshot. Captain Saudin’s message had been from fifty years into the future. If they found the right planet, how would they know, since Saudin and his crew wouldn’t even be there yet. But they kept searching. The science team also threw in some ideas on how to time travel, just in case the captain wanted to use that option. It wasn’t a very good option. They did not have a way to control exactly when and where in time they would go. Furthermore, even if they did have a way, Saudin’s message was not specific enough for them to know what their exact destination should be.

The sensors detected a rip in subspace. The captain ordered the ship to get closer to the subspace rip. Commander Elatrai asked, “Could we send a probe through the rip? Our missing crews could be on the other side.” The captain said, “Does the rip appear to be stable?”

V’Sek, a Vulcan at the Ops station, answered her. “The energy coming from the rip appears to be constant. All indications are that it is stable.”

“Prepare a probe,” said Sekoba.

A few minutes later, the probe was launched. It was only a few seconds when they got a transmission back from the probe. There was a planet on the other side of the subspace rip. A planet that had about one hundred sentient beings. The probe was not equipped to report what species of sentient beings it detected.

“What does the probe indicate concerning its location in time?” asked Elatrai.

V’Sek looked at the readings and said, “The probe accessed several Starfleet data buoys and determined that it is fifty years in the future.”

“Looks like we have found our planet with the missing people,” said Elatrai.

“There is a high probability that you are correct,” said Sekoba. “However—”

“Captain,” said V’Sek again. “The probe is picking up a ship approaching the planet. It’s…It’s the Aristotle.”

After a pause, Sekoba said, “The Aristotle that is supposedly scanning the Cetus Beta Pulsar in our time, or is it the Aristotle that is native to the planet’s time in the future?”

“The probe can’t determine that, sir,” said the ops officer. “But it does not appear to be in distress.”

Sekoba briefly pondered the situation and said, “Does it appear that we can enter the subspace rip, retrieve the Aristotle and the people on the planet, and safely return?”

“All indications would say ‘yes’, but there’s no way to be sure,” answered V’Sek.

Sekoba turned in her chair and asked for the science officer’s opinion. Hughes said, “I say we pull the probe back first to make sure it can safely return. Then if we do go through, we need to increase shield strength by thirty percent to account for any subspace fluctuations.” The captain ordered it so.

/------------------------/

The USS Intrigue safely went through the subspace rip. They found that they were also fifty years in the future. The Intrigue was a Nebula class ship with an Astrometrics and Navigation pod. The pod was especially equipped for navigation through space and time and accurate pinpointing of spatial locations. So they knew exactly where they were in the future and in relation to their previous location in space and time.

They hailed the USS Aristotle. The captain of the Aristotle appeared on the viewscreen. He said they had been scanning the pulsar when they were pulled into the subspace rip and into the future. After some discussion between the two bridge crews, it was determined that the reason the Aristotle was pulled in with the crew still on the ship—and not the crew and ship being swept separately to different planets—was because the Aristotle did not have an independently powered impulse drive.

“But there must have been other ships that traveled near the pulsar that didn’t have independent impulse drives that didn’t get displaced. Or else, Starfleet would have gotten many reports from that area,” said Lt. Hughes.

Lt. V’Sek said, “Right before we came through the rip, our probe picked up druryon radiation coming from the rip. That and the fact that this part of space is somehow tied to the pulsar could explain the presence of the Aristotle here.”

As Sekoba ordered a scan of the planet, V’Sek picked up something else.

“Captain,” said Lt. V’Sek, “the subspace rip is starting to close. It started destabilizing when we came through it.”

“How long do we have before it closes?” asked Sekoba.

“Two standard hours.”

That didn’t leave much time.

The USS Aristotle started the process of rescuing the people from the planet. The USS Intrigue assisted. After one point eight standard hours, the entire sentient population on the planet were in the cargo bays of the two Starfleet ships.

Commander Elatrai was in the transporter room when the last party beamed up. There were six people, all of them human except for one. It was Cadet Camsol. No. Elatrai looked at his rank pips. It was COMMANDER Camsol. He was looking much older and more mature. Camsol immediately ran off the transporter pad and up to Elatrai and the transporter chief.

“Please,” he said. “Captain Saudin is still down there. He refuses to beam up.”

“Why?” asked Elatrai.

“He said his job was to save us. And now that we are safe, his job is finished. I couldn’t talk him out of staying down there.” Elatrai knew her captain would not leave even one single person down on that planet. She tried to get a transporter lock on Saudin and beam him up. She was unable to get a lock. She knew how stubborn Vulcans were. She thought he must have found some way to block the transporter. She took it upon herself to beam down to the planet and speak to him.

Before she beamed down, she whispered to the transporter chief to beam Commander Camsol to private quarters and ask him to stay there until they could talk with him. She didn’t want to take a chance on Cadet Camsol knowing his future self was here.

When she beamed down, she saw Saudin…but it wasn’t really Saudin. Elatrai could still recognize his face, but his skin had changed to a rusty red color. “What’s going on here?” She asked, shocked.

He also looked shocked. He had not expected to see her. He had started reverting back to his natural form. “Go!” he said. “Get them to safety!”

“Not until you explain yourself. Who are you?”

He felt there wasn’t really time to talk, but he knew she wouldn’t leave until she got an explanation. So he said, “Family died when I was experimenting with dironium and accidentally caused an explosion that killed them. Then I found way to travel back through time. Keep accident from happening. Save family.” The alien looked sad as he tried to explain. “Set up time travel by using chronodilation. When I started setting up, or rather WILL start setting up ten years from now, I set up chronodilation confinement beam in Cetus Beta Pulsar, and one on Feran Delta, and one here on this planet. It would take three of them working together, at correct locations in space and time, to have desired time travel affect. My ship was calibrated exactly to the chronodilation. My ship should have been only ship that could cross the confinement beam. Not know what went wrong. Must have been wrong frequency. Other ships in area of pulsar went through. Ships that have certain power drives. Connection of confinement beams to other places caused ships and crews to be taken to other places.

 “Landed my ship on this planet to fix chronodilation. Something went wrong. The ship’s power energy field overloaded, and that caused my time crystal to crack. It caused subspace rip around this planet. While I was trying to fix rip, more and more beings brought here through subspace. I couldn’t stop it. Rupture kept drawing in more people. I was hiding from all people that were brought here while I was trying to find a way to fix rip and send them home. Then Captain Saudin found me. He offered to help me. But then he came onto my ship right when a stray magnetic pulse caused ship’s subspace shield to rupture. Saudin was caught in the pulse and died. It was an accident. Another accident death caused by me. I used holo generator to make my face look like his and tried to lead his people as he had done. Only ninety-eight people left. Many had died in decades while stuck here. I was able to keep my ship hidden from them. I found way to send recorded holo message to Saudin’s ship.”

Elatrai took it all in. At least this alien was benevolent. She said, “You are very noble for having sent the holo message and for guiding these people. Now let US save YOU. Come with us.”

“You don’t understand. This planet can sustain me while I finish my work. I can bring my family back.”

Elatrai felt sorry for him. She could feel his raw emotions and his determination. “Don’t you see,” she said. “It wasn’t your fault your family died. It was an accident. Come with us. You can make a new start. I’m from a great civilization that can find you a new home. You can make new friends. Even start a new family.”

The alien was grief stricken. He refused. Elatrai knew she didn’t have much time before the subspace rip closed. She had been trained in diplomacy and persuasion, as that was her ship’s mission profile. But right now she didn’t have time. But she couldn’t let him stay here and keep trying to travel through time. If he succeeded, it could wreck havoc on the time-space continuum. Who knows how many people he could have already harmed or simply wiped from existence? She had no choice for what she was about to do. She pulled her phaser out and pointed it at him. “Come with me,” she said. “I won’t hurt you. But I must get you to safety.” He turned and started to run away. She fired the phaser. It was on stun. He fell to the ground, unconscious. She didn’t know his alien physiology, but she hoped she hadn’t hurt him. She searched his pockets and found a mechanical device. It was the energy blocker that he had used to block the transporter. She threw it aside and then signaled the Intrigue to beam the two of them up.

/------------------------/

            Back on the bridge, Lt. V’Sek said, “Captain we must leave immediately. The subspace rip will close in ten seconds.”

            Captain Sekoba gave the order to the helmsman to go through the rip at warp two. Then, in a tunnel of light, the ship left the area. The Aristotle was right behind them. In another sixty seconds, the helmsman reported that they and the Aristotle had gone through the subspace rip. The captain ordered a full stop.

            “Mr. V’Sek,” the captain said, “What is our location?”

            V’Sek looked at his instruments. He said, “We are still in the Puppis Hydra region. We are no longer in the future. We are back in our own time.”

            The captain asked for a casualty report. There were no casualties. Then she called engineering and asked for a status report. The engines were fine. No damage. The captain congratulated the helmsman on a job well done. Commander Elatrai gave an approving wink at the helmsman.

/------------------------/

            The alien, who had identified himself as Hichod, woke up from his phaser stun in sickbay. He looked up and saw Commander Elatrai. She told him she had had to stun him to save him. He understood, though he was disappointed. But he expressed gratitude to her for saving all the other people. She asked him if he knew how to send the people to their own time, since they were from the future. And some of them—though she didn’t tell Hichod-- had current dopplegangers right here on the ship. Hichod said the people should be able to go back through the pulsar on a ship that should be calibrated at just the right frequency to match the chronodilation. He said he could give them all the settings. Sending them back to their proper time in the future would not be a problem. Because the people are connected temporally to their time and their ships, once the people were sent to their proper time in the future, their ships would also go back to their proper future places. Elatrai was thankful for that information.

Hichod said he knew something about Starfleet regulations from eavesdropping on the people. He knew they frowned on time travel and learning about possible timelines becaues the knowledge could affect actions in the present. He assured the commander that his method would also erase the memories of the crews of Intrigue and the Aristotle. And the other people would have no memory of being stranded.

So that was fine with Elatrai, but what of Hichod? She hoped there was a way to ease his suffering, but also knew he couldn’t keep trying to change the past. Then he assured her that he was finished with trying to alter the past. Now that he was off the planet and had time to reflect in sickbay, he had had a change of heart. He had traveled back through time and tried to undo his mistake, but it had always resulted in another unknown element causing his family to die. He had been trying for years, relatively speaking, with the same terrible results. He had given up. His grief was so strong that Elatrai felt it terribly, and she could feel a small tear creeping down her cheek. He touched her cheek to wipe her tear. Then he said, “Because you touched my interlock device,”-–she knew he was speaking of the device she had found on him and removed so he could be beamed up—“your memory will not be affected when they are returned to their own time. So please remember me. Remember my grief and my mistakes. Remember that I have told you about my wife. How beautiful she was. How she used to rub oil on my head when I was tired. How she played with the children and made them happy. Remember I told you my daughter was the best in her class at school and loved her pet carhbuen. And my son loved writing stories and could sing songs until he fell asleep at night. Remember. Because memories are all I have left.” Elatrai said she would. He said that when the others are sent to their own time, this timeline would be erased. He would be returned to the time when he first started his time travels, but with his current memory intact. He promised he would do no more time travel. And then she had to leave him quickly so he would not see the flood of emotions she would not be able to contain.

/------------------------/

Before sending everyone back to their futures, the commander had time to speak with Saudin’s first officer, Commander Camsol. She asked him about Captain Saudin.

“He was very steady through this whole ordeal,” Camsol said. “Although…”

“What is it?” Elatrai asked. “He was a new captain. For our ship anyway. He had taken command of the Orton Fells after our previous captain died from a rebel attack on an away mission. Then we became stranded on that planet. For forty years, he was our leader. He took good care of us. The last few days that we were stranded, he changed. He seemed to mellow a little. He became less formal. He seemed a little more…emotional. I mean, he wasn’t happy or sad, but had had more expressions in his face and voice. He no longer had that monotone speech that Vulcans are so famous for. I did kind of suspect he was a different person. I was about ready to confront him when you showed up. Now I know it wasn’t really him. It was Hichod. I really admired Captain Saudin for all he did for us. But the alien, Hichod,” Camsol said, “I would like to thank him for taking over like he did and trying to help us.” Elatrai put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. Camsol already knew he would not be allowed to see Hichod. They were going to try to send Camsol to his own time. They were told his memory of the here and now would be erased. But time travel, as far as Starfleet had learned, was never certain. Captain Sekoba didn’t want any of these people to be exposed to any more than they had to.

“It feels really weird seeing you again, Nyri,” he told her. The commander looked at him. It was weird for her too, seeing a future version of her current protege. “It is for me too. But it is good to know you are going to become a commander.”

“You always told me I had a great future ahead of me. Now, I can tell you the same,” he smiled at her. “What do you mean?” she said. “Uhh. You know I really can’t tell you. Starfleet regulations and all,” Camsol said with a sheepish grin. She smiled back. Then she said, “I know I shouldn’t spend too much time talking to you about the future.”

“Yes. Time travel is a pain, to be sure.” Then Elatrai left him in confinement with the others to avoid any more contamination by knowledge of the future. They would all be returned to their own time very soon.

/------------------------/

Nyri went to her quarters. It was over. Time had been restored. The Intrigue was back at Stardate 45133.2. But now there orders were to go to the Dunerth system to negotiate a new peace treaty. And she was the only one who remembered going to Feran Delta. She knew she wouldn’t be able to speak of Commander Camsol in her log. But she honestly felt good about knowing he would be successful in Starfleet. Not many had had confidence in him or any from his race. He had proven it could be done using determination and the gifts you were born with.

Then she thought about Hichod. She knew that he still existed somewhere in time and space. His past had been dreadful and who knew what kind of future he had. She trusted that he would be able to find peace. No one should have to experience what he went through with his family. The experience taught her that you should always appreciate the love you have now. For you never know when it will be gone forever.