Temporal Logic

Posted on Thu Feb 7th, 2019 @ 4:04pm by Captain Enalia Telvan & Commander Rita Paris & Lieutenant Commander Sonak

Mission: Earthly Visitation
Location: Timeship Flux
Timeline: Who knows anymore...

The launch from the DTI base had been smooth and the flight from Earth to Jupiter had been uneventful, thankfully. Enalia had time to go through all the controls in this small vessel. She had three different shield controls, a single phaser, the deflector was configured to open temporal wormholes... All within a relatively narrow field of view, she was able to see literally everything this amazingly compact ship had to offer, including the single transport control.

It used T-CARS though, rather than LCARS, which was taking some getting used to. So far it seemed intuitive enough, but she needed to think a little differently to navigate it.

An alert popped up and tapping on it, she saw she was coming up on the injection point. Easing off the impulse, she slowed as she came to the indicated coordinates. It was an open area of space, but sensors said it was a temporally weak point.

"Well... Here goes..." Enalia tapped the initiation sequence and started the deflector's beam lancing out, the calculations already having been made to create the temporal wormhole to link this point in space-time to the neutral zone right where Spock's Jellyfish ship would be passing through momentarily... a century prior to now...

Not worry about the semantics of the time travel, she let the computer handle things now, allowing the anomaly to finish forming and flying straight into the center of it.


On the other side, the Timeship Flux emerged unscathed. Enalia checked her status and found she had been irradiated quite a bit, but the system was already injecting her with dovaline to help with that.

Next she checked her sensors. 2387. There was a ship passing nearby. Checking the IFF, she found that it matched that of the Jellyfish.

Opening a hailing frequency to the ship, she took a deep breath and began. "Ambassador Spock, This is Captain Telvan of the Timeship Flux. I must discuss your current mission with you and I have limited time so a mind meld would be the most expedient method. Please rendezvous with me immediately. Also... How do you feel?"

There was a very perceptible moment of silence before was heard a deep but slightly raspy voice over the comm system.

"This is Ambassador Spock. I am on an urgent mission to save the core worlds of the Romulan Star Empire. Time is of the essence and billions of lives are in the balance. Whoever you are... are you here to offer help?"

All the while, the stolen experimental craft was continuing unwaveringly on it's course at maximum warp.

Yeah, she should have known this wouldn't go too well... "Yes, I'm from almost a decade into the future and it is not an exaggeration to say that the fate of this universe and existence itself hangs in the balance upon the precision of your mission as well as the completion of mine. Please... Eight minutes. That's all I ask." Glancing at the countdown until the temporal singularity drew her back in and collapsed, Enalia swallowed hard. She would be cutting this close, either way.

There was another pause before the legendary half-vulcan's voice spoke again.

"Stopping for eight minutes would jeopardize my mission; something I am not willing to do on your word alone despite your dire warning and even... what you asked me. However, ignoring the facts of your presence, of your so-called timeship and of your... request, would be illogical. Therefore, there is only one logical course. Please lower your shields."

A sign of trust? Or beaming while at warp? Either way, Enalia didn't have the time to waste and she trusted both the Ambassador as well as Sonak so she bypassed safeties and lowered her shields. "Shields are down. Radiation from the temporal anomaly is leaking in now so please be quick, Ambassador."

"Acknowledged. I am detecting the chroniton radiation cloud forming around your vessel. Your calculation was correct."

And just as he finished speaking, a blue light within a greenish field struck the Flux and a jolt shook the entire shuttle. Before the captain of the hera could realize what was really happening, the greenish light bathed her followed by the tingling sensation of a transporter beam. A moment later, she was standing on the pad of a personal emergency transporter, facing a bubble-shaped cockpit mostly occupied by a high backed metallic chair. As it turned around, she could immediately recognize it's occupant, the gaunt, pointy-aired figure dressed in a grey Vulcan traveller tunic known throughout the Alpha Quadrant and even well beyond.

"Welcome aboard, Captain Telvan."

He touched a few controls and a computer display showed that her ship was being towed at maximum warp by the stolen scout ship.

"Your vessel is now locked within the extended warp bubble of this one with a tractor beam sent through the annular confinement of it. So were you beamed in as well. We are en route to the Romulan Star System, ETA twelve standard minutes, present speed."

He stood up, rather taller than most people would expect, his hands crossed behind his back.

"Now, I will ask you two things: why it is that you deem it vital for the sake of the universe to stop me from saving billions of lives and prevent a cosmic catastrophe; and how do you know of my mother."

His dark gaze bore into hers.

"You have seven point four minutes left."

Glancing to the consoles behind him worriedly, she confirmed this. She actually now had that minus however long it took for her ship to get back to the injection point and she suspected he knew that. "Now that time is even more of the essence... without my aid, you will not be able to save those of Romulus... The subsequent splintering of time due to the use of the red matter with Nero's interference will threaten to tear apart all of existence."

"Please..." Stepping off of the transporter pad, Enalia realized just how great the height difference was and looked up to the great Ambassador. "I am only the messenger. Meld with me as your chosen one did and accept the message I bear. It is the logical thing to do."

Something in her voice, in her face, in her eyes, convinced him as much as all the extraordinary pieces of evidence that had been thrown at him since the appearance of this mysterious Captain Telvan, claiming to come from the future aboard a ship that was definitively not of this time. After decades of service iin Starfleet under the most legendary captains of all, Pike and Kirk, after meeting and mind-melding with no less famous captain Picard, Spock had a lifetime of experience with the extrordinary, the unusual... and especially about the complexities of time travel and it's consequences. And so, he hesitated no more.

His fingers went to the head of the Trill Starfleet officer and, in a matter of seconds, his mind was as one with hers; and with her symbiont; and both with that of another Vulcan he had never met and thought had died a century ago... and then... with himself; an echo of his own katra... of his future... somewhere else... that should never have been...

He cut off the meld almost as abruptly as it had started. His face, creased with two centuries of life and wonder, suffering and wisdom, became thoughtful for almost a minute before his black pupils met again those of the woman.

Then he spoke out loud while still looking at her.

"Computer; drop us out of warp."

While the meld with Sonak was one she had handled reasonably well, the one she had just done with Ambassador Spock himself was much more powerful and while she herself was strong of mind, she still felt a bit weak in the knees after how fast he had gone through her minds. Taking a deep breath to center herself, she looked up into his eyes and waited for his logic to process what he had just learned.

She didn't have to wait for long.

"Since your people in the future found out the real cause of the Hobus catastrophe and corrected it, my mission is irrelevant. That it causes the birth of a reality-damaging parallel universe is enough to invalidate it. I return you to your ship and will return this one to its rightful owners, giving myself up to the authorities for it's theft."

"Not exactly the outcome hoped for, but close enough. Thank you." Enalia Bowed her head appreciatively.

He lifted his hand and parted his fingers.

"Live long and prosper, Captain Enalia Telvan."

The spotted Captain returned the Vulcan salute. "Peace and long life, Ambassador."

Then his fingers went to his transporter console. At that very same instant, a powerful jolt and flash of green light shook them almost beyond the capability of the inertial dampeners to compensate. Then, a blue light bathed them in it's glow.

Beyond the canopy of the jellyfish loomed a colossal green mass of metal and lights shaped like the beak of a bird. It had appeared out of nowhere and shot a disruptor bolt across their bow. And now, a voice boomed from the comm speakers.

"Federation vessels! This is the Shavok! You are in violation of the Treaty of the Neutral Zone! In the name of the Romulan Star Empire, you are under arrest on the charge of espionage and incitation to war! Any resistance will call for your immediate obliteration!"

"Of course..." Enalia tapped her comm badge. "Timeship Flux, one to transport back." In a brief shimmer, she was back inside the tiny cockpit of the experimental timeship. Glancing at the timer for the temporal anomaly, she only had four minutes to get back to it before it collapsed and she would be stuck here. She didn't have the weaponry or the time to deal with Romulans and now she was captured in a pair of tractor beams...

Both which suddenly released the Flux as one disconnected and a probe suddenly shot out of the Jellyfish and between them, dragging the Romulan one with it until it struck the emitter and blocked it's aperture completely.

"I suggest you warp out immediately, Captain," came the voice of Spock over the comm. "I will deal with the Romulans."

His next transmission explained immediately how.

"Romulan vessel; this is Ambassador Spock. Scan my ship; you will detect an anomalous form of plasma of cosmic intensity. This red matter, if released here out of it's magnetic confinement, will create a super black hole that will not only swallow us all in it's infinite gravitational field, but all the stars within a whole sector... including the nearest Romulus and Remus star system. my shields are down. You are one disruptor shot away from a major stellar catastrophe."

And as he spoke, he maneuvered his advanced spacecraft between them and the ship from the future, giving them no angle to change targets.

Well, this was one for the history books... Enalia hit the engines and headed back to the temporal injection point, barely making it in time to let it suck her back into it before it collapsed.


On the other side, in the shadow of Jupiter, circa 2396... The timeship emerged exactly nine minutes after it had gone in. Power was flickering and Enalia had taken a near lethal dose of chroniton radiation since her shields were now down. She was covered in radiation burns and was barely conscious as she activated the beacon, which flickered a few times and went dark, just like every other console on the ship. Even emergency power had been drained on that return trip. It seemed they had some more tweaking to do.

Enalia chuckled softly as she tapped her comm badge and got half a drawn out chirrup as it too died.

Then she looked out her window and saw a nice friendly Miranda class coming to scoop her up. The SS Relativity. The last thing she remembered as she passed out was the shimmer of a transporter beaming her into a sickbay.



"We have her secured and taken care of, Lieutenant; she was exactly where she was supposed to be."

Sonak did not look at the transporter chief but at the wall monitor showing the now empty and powered out Flux being taken safely into a cargo hold by tractor beam.

"Obviously. That is how her ship's nav computer had been programmed; a program I triple-checked myself," he states with his usual deadpan tone. "And I also implanted a post hypnotic suggestion in her mind and that of her symbiont so that, even impaired, she would reflexively input the proper coordinates manually in case the computer failed."

"I see you left nothing to chance to get your captain back," the young man observed out loud.

"Chance is the name one gives to one's failure to account for all the variables. Now if you will excuse me, I will see to the welfare of my commanding officer."

As he exited the transporter room, he tapped his combadge.

"Sonak to Commander Paris; I am on my way to meet you in sickbay."

Tense moments had passed locked in a chronally locked vault, then freedom, but the news that the captain had not come through unscathed. DTI and Professor Langstrom had been insistent that they wanted to take readings from beaming Rita, so since the USS Relativity was ready to pick them up and ferry them to the extraction point out by Jupiter, Rita had agreed to try it. After all, if they had fixed the timeline in theory it would no longer be actively trying to eat her.

Beaming up as a solo act, it still felt unpleasant, it still made her skin crawl, it still made her want to scream bloody murder and not do it, but it no longer felt physically painful to transport. It still took too darn long to her perception and she was still aware the entire time, but it didn't feel like something hungry was consuming her in the process. Reassembled into matter on the transporter pad of the relativity, she patted herself down to reassure herself all of her parts had made it through intact.

It had really been a busy day for the girl who'd only wanted a tour of Starfleet Command.

Making her way to Deck 6, where she knew Sickbay would be located, Rita found an odd comfort in the familiar hallways and deck layout of the Miranda class. The classic Constitution saucer section was familiar and reassuring to her, even as she entered Sickbay and sought out her logical mate, who would be at the bedside of the Captain.

"How is she? Is she going to be alright? What happened?" In a personal crisis, Rita's usual calm demeanor evaporated somewhat, because this was an eventuality she hadn't been prepared to face.

One of the nurses came out with a grim expression. "We're doing the best we can, but it'll be rough for her for a while. Her Trill body is recovering perfectly well, but... The symbiont... It's not recovering as quickly as we'd like so we've contacted the Symbiosis Commission for advice. If she can pull through the next half hour though, she should be in the clear."

The nurse then paused and glanced back into the treatment area that Captain Telvan was currently in, several arches moving over and around the woman and firing healing beams into her and scanning away. "She's somewhat conscious now, if you'd like to speak with her."

Nodding to Sonak, Rita in turn nodded at the nurse and followed her to the bedside.

"You know, it takes real talent to get radiation road rash from a trip through time, Captain. You have a very unique career, ma'am," Rita kept it light, because what she could see through the plastishield artificial skin grafts they were placing, it looked... painful and vaguely horrific. "But you made it back! As promised..."

The spotted captain was numbed up pretty well as attested to by her weak smile at Rita's approach. "Hey... Of course I did. I don't think most of my uniform did though. And both comm badges... I think they were in my skin? But they're fixing me up... My spots itch."

"Everything makes your spots itch," Rita teased gently. "I'd have you transferred to the Hera but I strongly suspect the DTI are going to want to inspect you thoroughly and make sure you aren't going to come unstuck in time or something. Which is apparently a sane thing to do, I'm told." Rita rolled her eyes for effect, hoping to cheer up the regenerating Trill. "How's Telvan?"

Enalia furrowed her brow a bit in consternation. "Our memories feel... Separate? But together? It's odd. Like we're distant but getting closer."

"Such distancing from oneself is not totally unknown to Vulcans," Sonak said as he joined them. "There is an antique ritual called Kal Tor Pan; the Refusion, which allows even a completely displaced mind to integrate a corporeal shell. It is somewhat similar to the way a Vulcan's katra is placed into a receptacle for keeping. I am not familiar with Trill symbiotic process, but since we already successfully mind-melded once, there is a definite probability that the ritual would work if need be."

He stood at attention before continuing.

"In any event, it is agreeable to see you again, Captain. You have risked much on the Commander's behalf, she who is my wife, and mine. I am in your debt."

And then he bowed formally.

"Yeah, what he said," Paris added hastily, realizing she'd forgotten her manners in the moment. "Thanks for not letting me blow up and take reality with me, ma'am."

"Like I said before... Nothing you wouldn't do for me." Closing her eyes, Enalia smiled softly. "When I get out of here... We're having a party... My place... Stripper costumes..."

One of the doctors came in at that point and paused the arch near her midsection to apply a vaseline looking substance to it and glop a healthy portion into her symbiont pouch. "Don't mind me Captain. Symbiosis Commission says this should help you feel right as spring water. Trill saying, so I hope that's good."

"Oh, that does feel good." Enalia immediately seemed to perk up and within seconds was almost coherent, if tired. "I'm feeling whole again already, thank you."

"I get the feeling this is one of those things they give you a medal for, but they can't say why they gave you the medal so they can't actually admit to having given you the medal, so it's kind of like the medal doesn't exist except as a private joke between you and Starfleet Intelligence. And sure, we will dress up like strippers and come to a party at your place."

"A slightly more tangible hero's reward than that hypothetical medal, I'd say..."

"You have earned all the praise one deserves for such an accomplishment, Captain. But you will excuse me if my duties will not allow me to participate in this... celebration," Sonak said with a very, very straight face.

"Spoilsport. You're in charge of the Hera then. I think I'll wear one of those mirror universe uniforms I saw at the costume store..." Grinning lewdly, Enalia closed her eyes to imagine it.

"Acknowledged," replied the stoic Vulcan.

Any other junior officer like him might have understandably felt trepidation at the prospect of being entrusted so soon with command of the Hera; even a Vulcan would have felt the burden as a difficult responsibility at this point of his career. But Sonak had forty years of Starfleet experience, including the last years as a starship captain himself on the Constitution class capital ship of his time, the USS Exeter. The seriousness of the responsibility here and now was just as great, but as his wife would colloquially put it, this was not his first rodeo.

And to him, it was way easier and fulfilling than parading in clownish disguises for no constructive purposes. That his captain understood this added another notch on the already high level of respect he was giving his commanding officer.

"I've got a Mirror look that'll knock your socks off. We'll go have ourselves a great time, play 'Game of Starships'. As soon as you get on your feet, Captain.