The Obvious Anachronism

Posted on Mon Feb 4th, 2019 @ 1:27pm by Commander Rita Paris & Captain Enalia Telvan & Alden Engstrom XIII

Mission: Earthly Visitation
Location: Starfleet Command, San Francisco, Earth
Timeline: 2396, Stardate 73032.95477256643

A very large part of why Rita Paris had wanted to come home to Earth was to see how familiar sights had changed. One of those sights she had known with pride and awe was Starfleet Command. In her day it had been a large edifice, sprawling across over 2 square kilometers, nineteen stories tall at it's peak.

The modern equivalent was... impressive.

The great crested edifice towered 3 kilometers into the sky, in a beautiful curve that emulated the delta of her day, the symbol of Starfleet which she still wore upon her breast. The sheer enormity of it drove home just how much things had changed, but she wanted to see for herself.

Resetting the worker bee to go find the next call for work, the gold-clad commander began to stride purposefully into the no-fly zone around the monument to the organization to which she had dedicated her life.


Martin and Emmett were lounging as usual at the DTI security station when the scanners picked up something odd walking right through the front door. "That's an unusual match. Facial recognition says that's one Rita Paris, deceased in a transporter accident 135.533 years ago. Uniform matches that era as well. Why use the front door, though?"

"Idiot... If you died by transporter, you'd avoid them too, wouldn't you?"

"So... That's a ghost?"

Tapping at their stations for closer readings, they both looked up at each other at the same time. "Quantum resonance. She was a warp ghost."

"We have a live one."


Stepping inside, the doors whooshed open, larger then the doors in the starship that was her home. But as Rita Paris entered the lobby, dozens of transporters lined the walls on either side, in constant use one way or the other, beaming people in and out in a great hall that was like grand central station at the center of the universe. There were races Rita recognized here and there, and plenty of humanoids. But there was an ambling collection of rocks, a multitude of reptilians, a trio of neko Caitans, what looked like a four meter tall giant in a mustard uniform, and she got cut off by a small centaur wearing medical blue.

Starfleet Command had changed.

Looking around, the lost navigator sought an information booth, and was rewarded to see one in the distance, not far from the entrance. Moving to the doors at the center of the wide lobby, Rita took a deep breath and braced herself. That was a lot of transporters in action. But if she walked down the centerline between them she should be fine, and she could figure out where to go.


Studying the readings she was putting of wasn't nearly as interesting as the readings of the transporters nearby. As Martin and Emmett watched, the closest of the transport units seemed to stretch out and take longer, their quantum readings elongating and almost seemingly reaching out toward the woman they were watching. Signals flickered and wavered, and suddenly none of the transporters were running on time- the fastest beam-in was now 5 full seconds, unheard of in this day and age. "This woman... Is she really what she appears to be?"

"I don't know, but we'd better call the Chief..."

"I'll start a plan to detain her."


Anxiety can be quite the cross to bear.

It is somewhat naturally intensified when near the source of said anxiety.

Moreso when said anxiety is based in fact and repeated experience.

In the case of one Rita Paris, her fear of transporters was well-earned, as they tended to behave erratically in her mere presence, a phenomenon which had only grown more intense since her accidental transporter transmission to this reality in a state of pure energy. These days she tried to stay away from them, and just deal with her phobia. Which was usually manageable, but the constant hum of them and the great number of them were still making her intensely uneasy.

Behind her, a Bolian beaming up to Starbase One watched himself disintegrate from matter to energy over the course of a full thirteen seconds. He would be forever skittish about beaming away from Starfleet Command, although he was convinced that what he experienced was physically impossible.

A signal from Starfleet Marine bounced, and the traveler reappeared right where they'd started. The annulation beam of one outgoing transport was randomly shifted, and the party clown headed for Fresno found himself beamed aboard the bridge of the USS Yeager.

All of the hair on Rita Paris' body was standing up, and it wasn't helping her nerves any at all. They're not gonna get you, just stay away from them and you'll be fine, it's fine, you're fine...

Reaching the information booth, the frazzled first officer smiled a somewhat manic smile as she came face to face with a stationary gender neutral humanoid hologram with the information sign rotating above their head. "Hello. It’s been a very long time since I’ve seen Starfleet Command. Is there someone who could please give me a tour?"



Martin just facepalmed as Emmett's head slammed into his desk. "Is she really just here for a tour?"

Emmett rolled his head around on his desk a bit before replying. "There's got to be more to her than just being a time tossed tourist..."

"With that much quantum instability, she could shut down all transport operations in Command."

"Or suck it into a temporal vortex."

"I'm scanning... she has tech that's out of place though. There's a commbadge on her that's registered to... classified? Modern tablet in her hand, too, riding the local signal."

"With that much displaced quantum energy built up, she could hide a 30th century displacement bomb in that thing and we'd never know it."

"What would she access with the tour? What possible strategic chronal target of opportunity is in Starfleet command in this moment?"

"Checking the schedule... Nothing really stands out. Admiral Paris is in his office today rather than his Jupiter Station office for a meeting with Lieutenant Commander Tom Paris. Do you think that might be it?"

"It's as good a theory as any. I say we let her have a partial tour... Then redirect the tour guide into one of our interrogation rooms once Agent Engstrom is ready to interrogate her."


Both in Rita's day and the modern day, as part of Starfleet History 202 you were expected to take a rotation as a tour guide, which was mostly just sitting around playing Trivia Pursuit, Starfleet Edition, taking the quizzes and an occasional VIP tour. No one just walked up and asked for a tour. Even families visiting would prebook, as the Federation is a civilized society of information, and that's how that works. Thus when he was forced to walk away from the game board where he was winning no less, to jump the lift to give a tour, the young cadet was less than thrilled. On the ground floor, in that huge sea of sentients transporting everywhere and hauling luggage and figuring out where they were going all across the floor, he spotted the officer at the info stop he'd been directed to report.

A dozen things struck him at once, and that made the young man's head spin quite a bit, as young men often did at the sight of this particular Starfleet siren.

A human woman, she was striking, with an almost cartoonishly proportioned figure, perfectly accented by the anachronistic dress she wore. Tall- while he was average sized, she was quite tall, and he noticed she was wearing heels on boots that were not just comfortable ankle boots, but some knee-high boots that seemed somehow sturdy to his eye. The short haircut was unexpected- on most human females the length of the hair was often a point of pride, yet hers was cut in a short but stylish cut, even as, in animated conversation with the infodesk, she ran her fingers through it, pushing it back into a bit more stylish pompadour that immediately started sliding back down her head.

The woman smiled, and the young man was struck. That gold uniform marked her as a re-enactor or someone with a very unique fashion sense. He recognized the era- Starfleet women's issue command gold 2260-2272. She lacked the tricorder or the phaser, at least as far as he could see, and when she bent to lean in slightly the flash of cleavage drew his eye, then he backtracked- those were pips on the loose black V-neck collar she wore. And the rank on the sleeves matched up to the uniform, two solid wound braids.

This had to be a pop quiz, and he was going to nail this one. Hands behind his back, he strode up slowly.

"Wow, that fast? Who was the architect, or was it designed by committee?"

=^= The architects, engineers and input of 49 worlds were involved in the design phase alone. The interior decor, flow, functionality and harmony of each space has been settled upon after input from every race in the Federation, and agreed upon to a mutual majority. =^=

"Hello, I'm Cadet Vril Tilly. Welcome to Starfleet Command. Are you the person who asked for the tour?" He smiled, a nervous self-conscious smile worn by the neurotic since the dawn of time. When she turned to regard him, those bright blue eyes scanned over him appraisingly, not unlike one of his instructors, in fact, then she met his gaze with her own, and showed him what a smile looked like.

As an old Earth euphemism goes, 'a smile that lights up a room' is one that had survived, in no small part because it remained true in some cases. Of which this was one- the alluring antiquity beamed a warm smile his way and extended her hand.

"It's nice to meet you, Cadet Tilly. I''m Commander Rita Paris, and it's been a very long time since I've been here. Might you be willing to show me the highlights of the tourist experience?"

The frankness and warmth the woman put off was somehow surprising to the cadet, who stared for a few seconds before blinking rapidly. Then he recovered himself and offered an answer. "Y-yes sir. Commander. The highlights... of course."

The cadet half-turned and gestured, and the curvaceous commander fell in step with him easily as they set off through the great lobby. "We can take a transporter to level," he began before he realized she had him by the arm and was steering him away from the bank of transporters to which he had been headed.

"No, we can get there on a turbolift," the amazonian anachronism argued as she guided him down the centerline. A particularly lengthy beam-in sequence caught his eye, as that never happened, but the insistent executive was urging him along.

"Come along, Cadet, the exercise will do us both some good..."


Back in the DTI security office, Martin tapped into the ship sized quantum scanners under the building and recalibrated them once more. "If she stays in the lobby much longer, we're going to start losing resolution on those transporters."

Emmett pointed at one of the monitors. "She has a tour guide now and is heading towards the central turbolift shafts. Looking up the Cadet's name now. Cadet... Vril Tilly. First year at the Academy."

"Well... With these readings, we can't transport her into custody... Everything around her would get sucked into null space."

"We'll have to do it the old fashioned way then. On foot."

"Do we even know what kind of route the tour takes without transporters though?"

Looking between each other, they just stared blankly. They literally had no idea what to do at this point other than to wait for their senior agent to arrive.



Holding the PaDD the senior officer had been kind enough to loan him, Cadet Tilly was learning to navigate without a transporter. "We'll start the tour with the Admiral's chambers and the Federation assembly of worlds, on floor 33."

As the lift doors slid open, they stepped inside the spacious turbolifts which had polished metal reflective doors on the inside. A few other travelers joined them, and as the doors slid shut, two of them eyed one another's reflections curiously Rita Paris noticed a 50's-ish human male officer who looked an awful lot like her father did when he was young. Same almost not quite blonde hair that was starting to go to grey now, same blue eyes... a lieutenant commander. It was a silly thought, so she let it go. Just seeing ghosts in your old age, Rita.

As the lift halted and the tour guide escorted her off the lift, the lieutenant commander left behind shook his head. The woman seemed a little old to be playing dress-up at Starfleet Command. And the uniform hadn't even been accurate with those modern pips on the collar- hell, they didn't even go there anymore with the new uniforms. Sighing and shaking his head, the young officer continued his trip upward to meet with his father the admiral to discuss his daughter's appointment to the Academy, never knowing just how odd the encounter in the elevator with an alternate reality analogy of one of his ancestors had been.



Meanwhile, the DTI boys had finally started coming up with a plan when, "Wait- did she just take a turbolift ride with Tom Paris? Was there any contact, any contamination... oh phloog, the paperwork on this is going to go on forever..." Whigh was when Alden Engstrom the 13th finally walked in.

"WHAT! Are you. Two. Dis-apoint-ments. Doing..." Pausing dramatically, he held one hand up for silence as he looked over the sensors and monitors. "Hmmm... This is a problem... Have the two of them. Redirec-ted. To the rooftop lounge. That is under. Construction... When they next take the... Turbo-lift."

The man's long drawn out speech patterns really made following his orders a complex affair, but Martin and Emmett did their best to follow along and moved to comply as soon as they hoped he was done. He wasn't.

"There I will... Meet with this... Rita... Paris... ... Perhaps... We shall see why she is... Here..." With that, he turned and quickly left the office and headed to the nearest transporter to wait for Rita's arrival at the roof.


The Admiral's chambers had been impressive, and the Assembly of Worlds she had expected to be an austere chamber, not an interactive holographic representation of every system in the Federation in an accurate model complete with zoom in capability and detailed and easily accessible information on each world. She could have spent days there, but there was more, and she still wanted to see it. "Is there a museum? I'd really like to see that!" she asked of her tour guide.

Skimming through the complex directory, Cadet Tilly learned something new. Thus far the re-enactopr or whomever she was seemed to be happy and impressed to see whatever he showed her, and her enthusiasm was becoming contagious to him. "There is a Starfleet Museum, it's on two of the lower floors, 18 and 19. Shall we go there next?"

"I would love to. Maybe I'll see a few familiar faces," she quipped as they marched toward the turbolift.

"Ma'am, not to be disrespectful, but may I ask a few questions?" the cadet finally ventured, his curiosity finally having gained the courage to overwhelm his anxiety.

"Ask away, Cadet," the cheerful commander countered as the approached the turbolift.

"What's with... are you... is this a quiz?" the confused cadet managed to stammer out.

"I'm not a quiz, Cadet. My name is Rita Paris. I was born in 2233, a month before Jim Kirk. I graduated Starfleet Academy in 2255, went missing in action in 2260 in a transporter accident. I was recently reassembled into matter in the modern day, and reinstated in Starfleet." Stepping into the turbolift, she turned to regard the curious cadet. "So, since I missed a lot of time in between, I thought I would come and see what became of Starfleet Command in the far-flung future."

It was the truth, although an edited version of events. Rita's existence was likely classified, as was the starship upon which she served. But the cover story that had been hammered into place was one she could stick to, since none of it was a lie.

To Cadet Tilly, it made his brain lock up.

Which was when Paris called for Deck 18 and her brows furrowed. As she again called for floor 18, then she frowned and pursed her lips, shaking the stunned student out of his reverie.

"Ah, what's wrong, ma'am? Did I say something wrong, because I do that a lot and I didn't mean to be insensitive it's just that I'm, I'm bad at communicating..."

"No, it's not you," she cut him off. "We're not going down, we're going up. And we're going a long ways up. What's on the upper decks of the building?" she asked as he turned to the PaDD in his hands and realized she was right... even though he couldn't identify whether they were going up or down, the ride did seem to be taking an awful long time. He was still looking for the directory when the lift doors opened.

Fresh air and sunshine greeted them as the lift opened into the foyer which connected to a rooftop lounge that seemed to be under construction. Even with the land-based inertial dampeners out here, the wind from the height of the building and the elevation was quite strong. Stepping out to the open door of the small transparent aluminum foyer, Paris held a hand back to her young tour guide.

"Stay behind me, Cadet." As friendly, jovial and easygoing as she'd been, it surprised Vril when the woman spoke in a voice of command, because he obeyed her without thinking. "I don't think we were brought here as an accident..."

"Indeed... You were not..." Came the voice of one Alden Engstrom the 13th from not far away. Dressed in modern business attire, the man had a rather haughty appearance to him but was otherwise non-threatening as he motioned to one of the tables. "Please sit. Commander Rita Paris. My name is. Alden... Engstrom... I'm with the De-part-ment of... Temporal... In-vest-iga-tions... And I would Like... To have a word. With you."

"Cadet," Paris turned on the anxious young man who had been swept up into this with her. "You are my tour guide, and you have not been dismissed from your assignment. Until I dismiss you, you must do what?"

The surprised student balked a bit, but then he knew the answer. "Until I have been lawfully dismissed by another officer I remain on duty."

"Correct, Cadet," the instructive executive encouraged. "Now, if you stay nearby you will potentially subject to classified information which, as Starfleet personnel, you are forbidden to divulge to anyone lacking clearance. And this is pretty high clearance stuff. But I'll be honest, I could use a witness too. My captain taught me to never meet with the DTI alone. What do you say, Cadet?"

There are moments in life where one can choose a more daring course, and perhaps define some part of onesself. It requires intelligence to recognize the opportunity, wisdom to determine when the time is right, and courage to stay the course. Cadet Vril Tilly lacked all of those qualities.

"I'm, um, I'm gonna go back downstairs, if that's okay. I've got a lot of homework and I'm missing quantum field analysis right now, so, uh, you have a nice conversation, and I'll, um... yeah, bye." The cadet guiltily waved at her as he turned back to the turbolift.

"It's okay Cadet- I understand," the ancient astronaut patted him on the shoulder, and clasped it briefly. "You are dismissed. Good luck with finals this year. Per aspera ad astra, aye?"

Encouraged by the familiar legend and the ritual, Cadet Tilly replied, "Aye, sir."

Turning from the cadet, Paris raised an eyebrow and closed the distance at a casual slow prowl, studying the host who had invited her by override to this conversation. As she entered the partially completed lounge, it amused her they seemed to be going with the mod plastic chairs and tables of her era in a nostalgic twist cafe on the roof. Easing herself into the offered seat, she smoothed out her skirt as she did so in a practiced motion to remain somehow conservative in the minidress uniform that was too short for her anyway, at least in the back.

Crossing her legs at the knee, Paris settled into her seat, folding her hands in her lap and looking to all the world like the demure sidekick from the 2260's. "Mister Engstrom. Agent Engstrom? Alden? Al? Hello, I'm Rita Paris. I imagine there's a file on me, and I suspect it's classified. I'll answer what questions I can without violating security clearances, so let's have that word you wanted, shall we?"

Sitting down as well, the man pulled out a paper notebook and pen, opening it to a blank page, ignoring the attempts at his name. "Thank you. I'll get right to the point, Mizz Paris. Why. Are you here." Though it was phrased as a question, his tone made it more of a statement. His peculiar speech patterns also added an interesting dynamic to it as well.

"Why are any of us here has been a universal question that has plagued mankind since the dawn of self-awareness. It is theorized that every living creature experiences at least some degree of that, although many of the insectoid castes dispute that rather successfully."

"In this particular instance," Paris redirected her rambling narrative, "I will assume you don't mean this date in time, but this locale? It's Starfleet Command. I'm on Earth, and I haven't seen Starfleet Command in 130 years or so, why wouldn't I come look? It's so much... bigger. Everything is. I've been Starfleet my entire life. I saw then rebuild Starfleet Command back in 2255, at the launch of the five year missions. But it was nothing compared to this."

Alden sat there and listened. The woman was evasive... But he didn't see any signs she was lying. That was good at least. "Very well. What about your current... Assignment..."

"Ah ah ah," she wagged her finger at him. "My assignment is classified, and we both know that, because I'm classified, my assignment is more classified than I am and all of that is a need to know basis, Mister Engstrom. Which leads me to the question, why do you need to know?"

The eternally slightly miffed Engstrom the inumerable was slightly more miffed as he answered. "It is my... Job... To know... Mizz Paris. Also, my clearance is tem-porally... High... Please... If you will... Answer the ques-tion."

"I'm supposed to accept your say-so that your clearance is second only to the Almighty? Uh uh, pal. Papa Paris only raised one dumb kid and he's not here. You'll have to do better than a 'trust me' and a high-handed answer, because that is not a conversation I'm having with my higher ups, thank you very much." With that, Paris sat back and waited as she realized she had no idea how to recognize what high clearance would look like these days. But she had a better card up her sleeve, and these were still the opening gambits of this chess game.

"In-deeed..." Pulling out a hand scanner, Engstrom passed it near Rita and it gave a quick chirrup. "USS Hera..." The look on his face slowly fell to one of almost dread as he put the device away and looked back up at the woman. "Captain... Enalia Tel-van... She has al-most as many temporal... Incursions... As Kirk..."

"Waaaahhhhlll, to be fair, if you add up all of us together we might outstrip old Jim. But to be fair, a few of those times were accidents and some were authorized missions exploring the timestream on Starfleet's orders, so was it an incursion so much? And not like they had any choice but to chase after poor crazed Leonard after he accidentally destroyed the Federation and Starfleet." This Rita knew from her own timeline because she'd read the reports, but she'd always been a name-dropping navigator.

"So you've asked a question you didn't need me to answer," the girl anachronism observed. "What's next, try to trip me up temporally through trivia? You're after something here, Agent Engstrom, but you're being evasive about it. Subtle isn't really my watchword, you know- and if you know who you are then you ought to know."

The DTI Agent was starting to look tired at this point, but he pressed on. "Your chronal displacement... Does not match... Your recorded disappearance. Neither... Does your quantum res-on-ance. Our scanners indicate a severe... And disastrous... Buildup of chrono-temporal quantum ener-gies... Inside you." Leaning in a bit closer, he grew a bit more serious. "Mizz Paris... You are a building... Reality... Bomb... According to the kilo-meter wide... Scanner... Be-neath us..."

"So I ask again. WHY are you here..." This time Engstrom stared into the lovely eyes of the time tossed tourist without blinking, waiting for more of an answer.

"I'm a transdimensional transporter accident- solar flares, ion storm and damaged transporter with a genius at the controls," Rita answered bluntly. "Shunted me through to this reality where I was encountered by my assignment and recruited back into Starfleet Intelligence. I'm here because I wanted to see my home planet in this time and place, because I miss it and I have always been a proud earthling. What part of why am I here have I not explained to your satisfaction, Al?"

Engstrom took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Transdimensional as well as transtemporal? He was definitely going to need a vacation soon, but he never seemed to have the time for it. "Very well... However... You have no Federation ID registered... On top of that... We'll need to... Re-solve... Your quantum energy... Crisis... Before allowing you to... Continue your... ... Tour..."

"Mmmm. I'll be more than happy to let you resolve that, as soon as you have the authorization of my commanding officer. Because that's who has authority over me in this instance." Paris tapped her breast, uncertain if the call would go through. "This is Commander Paris calling the USS Hera, patch me through to Captain Telvan, please."

After a quick confirmation chirrup and a brief wait, the call did in fact go through. "Captain Telvan here. Is something wrong, Commander?"

"Ma'am, I'm on the rooftop of Starfleet Command with one Alden Engstrom who professes to be from the DTI, who feels that I've a disastrous buildup of chrono-temporal quantum energies brewing inside me. So I felt you should have some say in this, given the nature of our mission." On the other hand, he says I'm a reality bomb. Who knows, he may be right. Rita thought to herself. She'd been on edge since walking into the building, and there was a sort of thrumming just at the edge of her perception, like a speaker on low feedback.

You could almost hear Enalia's stifled sigh as she replied. "Agent Aaaaalden... Eeeeengstroooommmm.... Which one is it? The fifteenth? Eighteenth? Twelveth?"

"Thir-teenth..." the agent offered in a flat tone, clearly annoyed at the old rivalry.

A chuckle came over the comm line. "That's him alright." She then paused a moment, considering the situation. "The DTI does have scanners that we don't have. You're also in an area where there's a lot more transporter activity than you're used to. As infuriatingly annoying as that man is... He is trustworthy..."

"Mizz Paris also does not have valid Federation ID..." added Engstrom.

"The files were sent in months ago to Admiral Faraday at Intel Command. I'll have words with him and see why it hasn't been fully processed yet." Enalia wasn't too happy about that as attested to the tone in her voice. "As for the buildup... What do you plan to do?"

"If I may?" Another figure stepped from behind a construction panel. "I'm Agent Martin. One of the DTI's quantum scientists. We've dealt with this sort of thing once before, using the Midas array. We believe we can successfully replicate the process without anyone dying this time."

"Whoah whoah whoah hold it right there, mister," Paris rose from her seat to be better prepared for action. "If you think you're doing some mad science to me without appropriate representation, you've got another thing coming. I'd like to request the chief science officer's assistance, Captain Telvan, if I may ma'am?" Paris responded with a half-smile. If people were going to do crazy science with her quantum signature, it wasn't happening without Sonak on the scene. After all, he was the leading expert in her specific case, and no one had her best interests at heart more than her spouse the brilliant scientist, Sonak of Vulcan.

"I agree. I'll assign him and Yeoman Dedjoy to the team. Also, nothing happens without your consent." Enalia's reply was full of fire at the mention of the Midas array. She knew enough about the more secretive side of that thing's history. Sure, it had some successes with contacting Voyager and scanning the Delta quadrant. But it also had some massive failures that were as classified as the USS Hera's mission.

Engstrom had no choice but to concede at this point. "Very well... You'll have your way... For now..."

"You'll thank me later. I'm doing you a favor, really. So do they beam in her and accompany us or will they be beaming to coordinates and we'll meet them there? It's your armageddon we're forestalling, I'm just the herald." Paris was in a remarkably good mood despite being told that there were dire things wrong with the electrochemical current generated within her physical form which apparently resonated with the universe of which she was not a native in a negative way. It was beyond her ability to grasp at this point, so she just took it as another crisis and began to act accordingly.

Engstrom replied immediately. "Please have them report to our office, in Ohio... Suitable facilities are there... We will be en route... Shortly..."

"All right Agent Engstrom the Infinite..."Enalia replied, eliciting an eyeroll from the man. "We'll meet you there. Don't be late."

"Well, scenic Ohio, lucky me. So what exactly is in Ohio-" Paris had turned to head for the turbolift when she ran into the very excited Cadet Tilly.

"Ithoughtaboutwhatyousaidand and and I stayed because I knew it was the right thing to do even if it might be classified and hoo, wow, I mean, wow, so, reality bomb huh? That's, that's pretty yeah, real exciting," the panicked cadet, who had tried to run but instead, as the participants in the conversation ignored him, stayed to witness what came to pass, and was as advertised now privy to all sorts of classified information he was reasonably positive he would never be allowed to tell another living soul.

The time-tossed tourist took him by the shoulders and nodded proudly. "Well done, Cadet. When duty called you did not shy from it, even though you were scared and in over your head. You keep to that, you'll make a great officer someday. And before you ask, no, you can't come along for this part. Your tour has ended. But if reality as we know it doesn't end, you can assume we figured it out. Melior esse, cadet!"

As the Department of Temporal Investigations special agent nudged them all to the turbolift, Rita whispered back to Alden Engstrom, "Please don't flashy-thing away his memories. He'll not breathe word, Mr, Tilly, because he is a fine and able officer in training. Isn't that right, Cadet Tilly?"

Up until that point it hadn't dawned on him that anyone might try to wipe his memories of the encounter, which started a whole new line of anxiety within him. But outwardly, with a little nodding from Paris to encourage him, he replied.

"Ah, yes, yes ma'am. I am, ah, I am sworn to secrecy by the Starfleet Secrecy Act of 21... 88, which indicates that any Starfleet officer who is exposed to confidential material must consider themselves bound by the clearance of the material. Which would in turn apply to any officer trainee who has agreed to be bound by the Starfleet Code of Military Justice such as myself, Commander."

"Excellent. Then he'll remember this experience, and it will make him a better officer," Paris declared.

"Very well... Cadet Vril Tilly... Is it? I will... Re-member that name..." Engstrom slipped a silver device back into his jacket pocket with one last glare to the cadet as the turbolift door closed.

Which would turn out to be true. Sworn to secrecy but fascinated by the mysteries, Admiral Vril Tilly would go on to become the founder of the Temporal Integrity Commission, which would become the branch of Starfleet charged with overseeing the safety of time itself. Always he would remember the advice given to him by one Commander Rita Paris, whom he had met as a first year cadet at the Academy, who had challenged him with two simple words in Latin:

Be better.

 

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