Time's Error

Chapter 4: Space Race

“A Tellarite?” Tendi exclaimed, gawking at the man. “What are you doing on a Federation ship? And in this Jeffries tube?”

“And what’s with that uniform?” Boimler asked. “It looks kind of like a Starfleet one, if…”

“…if Starfleet were run by prudes,” Mariner finished. 

“Wait, are you a time traveler?” Rutherford piped. He glanced at his tricorder and added, “That would explain why you reek of anti-chronotons.”

“Among other things,” Mariner said, wrinkling her nose. “How long have you been in this tube?”

The Tellarite snorted, then sighed. “Four days. My name is Lieutenant Drev. I’m with the Department of Temporal Investigations.”

Mariner replied, “So, like, you’re from a future where fashion has gone downhill?”

Drev snorted again. “I’m not from the future, I’m-” 

“Ooooh, you’re from an alternate timeline!” Tendi interrupted.

“THIS is the alternate timeline!” Drev barked, pointing at the floor. “This is not how history was supposed to go!”

“Wait a second,” Boimler said. “If this is an alternate timeline, why aren’t you…also alternate?”

“When Temporal Investigations became aware that the timeline was about to change,” Drev explained, “the four of us were chronoton-shielded against the temporal shift and sent to this ship to determine why it occurred.”

Rutherford wanted to ask how the Department of Temporal Investigations had detected the impending shift in the first place, but he figured that technology was probably highly classified.

“So you come from a timeline where Tellar joined the Federation?” Tendi asked.

Gruffly, Drev replied, “The proper timeline, yes. My team did not have any details about this timeline before we were dispatched to the Cerritos. Once we had the opportunity to scan your database and we determined that there were no Tellarites in Starfleet—probably because of all the ‘peace’ and ‘love’ and ‘exercise’—we decided that I should stay out of sight and obtain what data I could from your ship’s computer while the others investigated in the open.”

“After you created fake identities for them,” Mariner added.

“It wasn’t difficult. Your ‘Federation’ has laxer computer security protocols than ours. Not having enemies has made you soft.”

“Oh, you think we’re soft?!” Mariner shouted, balling her fists. “Come at me, bro!”

“Hey, hey,” Boimler said, putting both hands on her upper arm. “Let’s keep discussing this like rational people.”

“Speaking of rational people,” Rutherford said, “where’s T’lyn?”

***

“I thought I might find you here,” T’lyn said. “Please raise your hands and turn around slowly.”

The Vulcan man in the blue uniform put his open hands in the air and slowly turned away from the astrometrics lab’s computer station to face T’lyn, who held a phaser in one hand and a tricorder with a purple stripe in the other. The lab was otherwise unoccupied.

“Perhaps you would care to introduce yourself,” T’lyn said.

“I am Lieutenant Commander Sa’dok,” the man replied. “So you are pointing a weapon at a superior officer.”

“You are from a different universe,” T’lyn replied, “and therefore a different Starfleet, so your rank is not relevant here. Nonetheless, I will lower my weapon if you sit down in the console chair behind you.”

“Very well,” Sa’dok replied, taking the seat.

“When your agent hacked our computer systems,” T’lyn said, holstering both the phaser and the tricorder and sitting down in another console chair, “he inadvertently gave us access to his portable data device. I was able to call up a synopsis of your Federation’s history.”

“And I have read of your personal history,” Sa’dok replied. “Are you really planning a celebration for your impending pon farr?”

“Such celebrations are traditional,” T’lyn said simply.

Sa’dok’s black brows lowered. “Pon farr is a shameful condition. Your apparent pride in it is therefore shameful, as well.”

“I see no logic,” T’lyn replied, “in encouraging Vulcans to be ashamed of a critical biological function.”

“Defecation is also a critical biological function,” Sa’dok retorted. “Yet we do not celebrate it.”

“Defecation is a daily occurrence,” T’lyn replied. Glancing at the man’s scowling face, she added, “Although perhaps not in your case. Regardless, the Dulainians have taught the Vulcan people a great deal that has been beneficial to us. This includes the acceptance of our sexuality, which has enhanced both our general health and our quality of life.”

Sa’dok’s scowl deepened. “‘Quality of life’ matters less than preserving the timeline.”

“Why? A comparison of our timelines shows that my version of the Federation has avoided several adverse occurrences that befell yours. Including a deadly war with the Klingons, by extension the destruction of the Klingon homeworld, and an invasion of the Alpha Quadrant by the Borg.”

Sa’dok quirked an eyebrow. “How did you prevent the Borg invasion?”

“When the Borg convert a sentient being into a drone, they suppress not only the being’s free will but also many of its instincts, including sexual instincts. A large group of Vulcan and Betazoid volunteers were recruited to telepathically reawaken these instincts among the drones on a cube that was moving through what was previously known as the Romulan Neutral Zone. The result was…chaotic, but effective.”

“Interesting,” Sa’dok replied. His expression remained impassive, but T’lyn saw the corner of his mouth twitch; she could tell he was tamping down revulsion at the thought of a mass of gray-skinned cyborgs engaging in coitus.

“I therefore must conclude,” T’lyn said, “that regardless of the cause, the alteration of history has resulted in the greatest good for the greatest number. I can think of nothing more logical than to preserve this timeline, rather than endeavoring to restore the other.”

“Your logic, however sound, is based on faulty precepts,” Sa’dok retorted. “But I have no more time to debate the matter with you. I have identified the point of origin of the temporal anomaly that produced the timeline shift, which my team will now correct.”

He tapped his comm badge and said, “McMasters, initiate interception protocol.”

T’lyn leaped to her feet and snatched her phaser from its holster, but Sa’dok was already vanishing in a column of transporter energy. T’lyn smacked her comm badge.

“Boimler et alia,” she said. “One of our intruders has transported away.”

“Yeah, more than one,” Boimler replied. “The Tellarite we found in Jeffries Tube Seven just beamed away somewhere, too.”

Looking at his padd, Rutherford said, “Probably to the shuttle that’s leaving the bay—the Yosemite II. That cute Lieutenant JG must’ve used the shuttle’s transporter to beam them all aboard.”

“If they took a shuttle,” Tendi said, “then they’ve got to be heading for the surface. They must’ve found out that you can’t transport through the Dulainian atmosphere.”

“Before he left,” T’lyn said, “the intruder I questioned, Lieutenant Commander Sa’dok, said he had identified the point of origin of the temporal anomaly that created this timeline. I believe his team is attempting to undo the anomaly’s effect. We must prevent this if we are to preserve the current timeline.”

“I’m on board with that,” Rutherford replied.

“Me too,” Tendi added. “Honestly, their timeline kinda sucks.”

“Then we need to grab a shuttle and get after them,” Mariner said.

Boimler was about to say that they should alert the bridge crew rather than trying to chase down the time agents themselves. But even as he had the idea, he ruled it out. There was no time to explain what was happening, and no guarantee that the bridge crew would take action in response.

“T’lyn,” he said, “meet us in the shuttle bay.” Then he turned to the others. “Come on, you guys, I know a shortcut.”

The shortcut involved a lot of climbing up the ladders that connected the Jeffries tubes between decks. But the physically fit Lower Deckers had no trouble with this and soon climbed out a hatch and into the shuttle bay, where T’lyn was already prepping the Death Valley for departure. They ran up the ramp into the rear of the shuttle.

“Guys,” Tendi said, looking nervously at her tricorder, “I’m picking up another anti-chronoton signature. And it’s coming this way!”

“Did one of the temporal guys stay behind?” Boimler asked, working even faster to prep the shuttle for takeoff.

The door from the corridor outside the bay slid open, and a familiar curly-haired human in a blue uniform came rushing in. 

“Levy?” Mariner exclaimed.

“I know where they’re going,” Levy panted as he ran onto the shuttle. “I know where the temporal anomaly is.”

“How?” Tendi asked.

Levy sucked in a lungful of air and replied, “Because I caused it.”

“What?!” Mariner shouted.

“What do you mean, you caused it?” Boimler demanded. 

“I just got sick of it all, you know?” Levy replied. “The government conspiracies, all of Starfleet’s secret sections and divisions and bureaus, always doing terrible things in the name of the Federation and its Earth-based government.”

Mariner dashed forward and sat down in the pilot’s seat. Levy seemed to be spouting his usual brand of paranoid nonsense, but on this particular occasion, Mariner had to think that he was on to something.

“Earth-based government?” Tendi asked as she took a seat in the back and set the shuttle’s inertial dampeners to maximum. “Wait, are you from the same timeline as those guys?”

“Yes, and that version of the Federation is a nightmare of lies and coverups,” Levy replied. “I’d read up on Dulainian history, and while their culture wasn’t perfect, they had a lot fewer wars than Earth, or even Vulcan. So when the Cerritos was on a mission to Dulaine and I noticed traces of chronoton radiation emanating from their sentient volcano, I thought, ‘What if the Dulainians had invented warp drive before humans did?’”

Rutherford, who had taken a seat next to Tendi, quirked his scar-split eyebrow and asked, “So you went back in time and gave them warp technology?”

“Aw, dude, you can’t do that!” Boimler said as he got into the copilot’s seat. “That’s Temporal Prime Directive 101!”

“Right, because it would cause the bootstrap paradox,” Tendi said, “where somehow warp drive exists without anyone actually inventing it.” She looked quizzically upward and mused, “Although the Enterprise 1701 crew did that with transparent aluminum, and I guess that worked out okay.”

“I didn’t go back in time,” Levy said. “And I didn’t have to give the Dulainians the technology. According to Federation data on Dulainian history, almost four centuries ago, a woman named Mistra had been experimenting with matter/antimatter technology and got very close to discovering it.”

“Dude,” Mariner replied, “we all know who Mistra is. And she did discover warp drive.”

“In this timeline, yeah,” Levy replied, just as T’lyn closed the shuttle hatch behind them. “But in my timeline, the Dulainian religious establishment called her experiments unholy and forced her to stop them. They had interpreted some lines in their scripture to mean that normal space is the only space, so the idea of subspace was heresy.”

Mariner was focused on flying the shuttle out of the bay and chasing the Yosemite II but still listening to the conversation. “People have got to get over the whole ‘heresy’ thing,” she said. “It just screws up one civilization after another.”

“Exactly!” Levy exclaimed. “Even Starfleet, which claims not to embrace any particular religion, acts like there’s One True Timeline. To them, the timeline we’re in now is basically heresy.

“Anyway, I hacked the Cerritos’s deflector dish and used it to send a controlled chronoton burst at the volcano. The burst disrupted the volcano’s sentience retroactively, for a few weeks or so around the time Mistra made her discovery. Dulaine’s religious leaders at the time went into such a panic over the volcano suddenly not speaking to them that they completely forgot about Mistra, and she launched an automated space probe that made it to warp one. And the rest is history—I mean, it is now.”

“But how do you remember all this?” Tendi asked. “When the timeline changed, your own past should have changed, too.”

“I was worried that Starfleet would send its Temporal Gestapo to reverse what I did—which I was right about, obviously—so I shielded myself with anti-chronoton particles just like the DTI agents did.”

There was a sudden jolt as the shuttlecraft ahead of them fired its phasers back at the Death Valley. Mariner was very glad that she had raised the shields half a minute earlier when they followed the speeding Yosemite II into Dulaine’s highly ionized atmosphere.

“They’re SHOOTING at us?!” Tendi exclaimed even as Mariner dodged a second phaser blast, and then a third. “They’re supposed to be Starfleet! Why would they do that?”

“There is a certain logic to it,” T’lyn said. “If they can undo Lieutenant Levy’s changes to the timeline, then any actions they take in this timeline will also be undone, including any actions that would cause our deaths. Thus, killing us would not be murder.”

“Looks like they’ve ceased fire now, though,” Mariner said, ending her evasive maneuvers and heading straight after the other shuttle. “Not sure why.”

“If they’re from a timeline where Dulaine’s not part of the Federation,” Boimler said, “then they’ve probably never been to Dulaine before. They wouldn’t know how to recalibrate their targeting sensors to compensate for the ionic interference, so now that we’re deeper inside the atmosphere, they can’t lock phasers on us.”

“I doubt it’ll take them long to figure out the calibration, though,” Tendi replied nervously.

Levy said, “If I can get down to the surface before they do, I can aim an active-sensor beam from this tricorder-” he held up one that had a purple stripe “-at the center of the volcano. That should induce it to emit a chronoton burst strong enough to disrupt the agents’ anti-chronoton shielding.”

“But they’re way ahead of us,” Tendi said. “And we can’t transport through the atmosphere until we’re a lot closer to the surface.”

“Maybe we can!” Rutherford declared, leaping up from his chair.

Tapping rapidly on a set of controls on the wall, Rutherford said, “If I can beam my transporter enhancer here from Main Engineering, I can use it to get at least one of us down to the planet.”

T’lyn quirked a black eyebrow. “We are already more than fifty kilometers inside Dulaine’s thermosphere. Successfully transporting an object from the Cerritos to the shuttle is likely impossible.”

“It’ll be possible,” Rutherford said, still punching controls, “if I can activate the enhancer remotely before I transport it.”

“And make it enhance its own transport!” Tendi exclaimed. “Rutherford, you’re a genius!”

“Only if it works,” Rutherford replied absently as he worked the controls.

He pressed one last button, and the shuttle’s transporter made its bubbling chime as the beam appeared on the floor. The tubular transporter enhancer began to form inside the beam, but the transporter was clearly struggling to overcome the thermospheric interference.

“C’mon, baby, c’mon,” Rutherford muttered, tapping controls to make minute adjustments to the transporter field. Then the object solidified, and the beam vanished.

“Yes!” Rutherford exclaimed. He snatched up the cylindrical device and held it in his arms like a baby as he said, “You enhanced so good for Daddy, oh yes you did!”

“Great,” Levy said. “Now give me that thing and beam me down to the top of the volcano.”

For a moment, Rutherford seemed hesitant to hand over his beloved enhancer. But then he gave it to Levy.

“Good luck,” Rutherford said.

“Luck doesn’t exist,” Levy replied. “Now beam me down already.”

Rutherford went to the transporter controls. They were already set to sync with the enhancer, so he simply had to select the destination and energize. Levy vanished in the transporter beam.

“Aw, crap,” said Boimler, who was gazing at the sensor readout on his console. “They’re charging their forward phasers. And now they’ve locked onto the top of the volcano!” 

He opened a comm channel to the other shuttle. “Guys, don’t do this! Levy just went down there, and he’s from your timeline. If you kill him, resetting history won’t bring him back!”

“We are aware of this,” Sa’dok replied gravely. “But restoring the proper timeline takes priority over an individual life. The sacrifice is regrettable but necessary.”

“Of course you think that,” Levy retorted over comms. “You’re the government!”

“Lieutenant McMasters,” Sa’dok said, his tone perfectly even, “fire phasers.”