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Slow Burn (story)
sander233
Member Posts: 3,992 Arc User
This is an attempt for me to "freewrite" a story, working without an outline or any clear ending in mind, just putting down ideas as they come to me with no safety net. Hopefully I can keep a decent stream of consciousness flowing and find a decent story in it.
Thanks for joining me on the ride.
- Sander of Borg -
Cast list: (new characters only)
Dr. Renard / David Kafrouni - Merik Tadros
Byrne - Robert DeNiro
Rivers - Richard Brooks
L'Bel - Anna Torv
The Director - James Woods
MCPO Raastz - Daryl Hannah (voice)
Rin Thuli - Pauley Perrette
Reginald Stamper - Jared Harris
Thanks for joining me on the ride.
- Sander of Borg -
Cast list: (new characters only)
Dr. Renard / David Kafrouni - Merik Tadros
Byrne - Robert DeNiro
Rivers - Richard Brooks
L'Bel - Anna Torv
The Director - James Woods
MCPO Raastz - Daryl Hannah (voice)
Rin Thuli - Pauley Perrette
Reginald Stamper - Jared Harris
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
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Love
Your hate
Your
Faith lost
You
Are now
One
Of us...
Nothin' from nowhere
I'm no one at all
Radiate, recognize
One silent call
As we all form
One dark flame
Incinerate
Nothin' from nowhere
I'm no one at all
Radiate, recognize
One silent call
As we all form
One dark flame
As we all form
One dark flame
As we all
Love
Your hate
Your
Faith lost
You
Are now
One
Of us...
Davey Havoc and Jade Puget of AFI - "Miseria Cantare (The Beginning)"
F R A G M E N T . 1
Sander Family Estate, Port Blakely, WA, Earth - 2411.10.18, 2247 hours
"Hey honey?" Alice Okuda called into the library. "Are you doing anything tomorrow at fourteen hundred?"
"Don't think so..." Marq replied. But we have to be in LA at fifteen hundred for Kafrouni's thing."
"Oh right, almost forgot about that. I hadn't thought about Kafrouni in a while, but I remember reading some of his papers - really out-there stuff..." Alice double-checked her PADD. "How about Thursday at eleven? Do you have a couple of hours free then?"
"Yeah... depends on what I'm signing up for," Marq said.
"I'm trying to schedule your mani-pedi."
"MY WHAT?"
"You need one."
"I do NOT!"
"Yes, honey, you do."
Marq grumbled for a moment. "Very well. If it will please you-"
"It will."
"-You may schedule my pedicure for Thursday."
Ronald Reagan Neurotechnological Research Center, Los Angeles, CA - next day, 1506 hours
"The technology to accomplish this has been extant on Earth for nearly four hundred years, but in all that time, no one before me has dared challenge Human reality. And why not? Are we really so afraid to open our minds? To expand our horizons? I tell you, we have absolutely nothing to fear. But it's alright to be nervous," Dr. Renard Kafrouni, M.D., PhD told his invited colleagues. Professor Kafrouni had rarely made a public appearance since being confined to a support chair by plasma burns he'd sustained a year before. The burns had permamnently destroyed his vocal chords as well, forcing him to communicate through a "beeper." Now, standing among his peers, looking at his plastic-shelled body, he said "Even I am nervous. I am literally beside myself."
That drew one lone laugh. Most of the rest glared at Kafrouni's son David with a mixture of suspicion and veiled contempt. "Truly, Doctor?" One of them, a Wendy Karlsson demanded. "You expect us to believe that you've taken possession of your son's body while retaining full control of your own?"
"Actually, I'm in here too," David Kafrouni, who was a PhD student with several masters degrees to his credit announced with his own voice. "I'm in both of us." Renaud Kafrouni's support chair beeped in affirmation.
"That's the beauty of our neural bridging technology," the Professor explained, as his son's vocal chords remodulated to match his deeper pitch. "There is no need for one personality to be repressed so the other may assert itself. Both may coinhabit the same mind-space."
The group of gathered research scientists and physicians shared skeptical glances. "I'm sure we'd all like to see some empirical evidence..." Dr. Baas started.
"We can offer better. We can offer experience." Renard's support chair led the group over to a table, where the Kafrouni's research assistances had laid out several neural headgear devices like David wore. "The bridge system is meant to be expansive, allowing multiple users to share thoughts and bodies simultaneously."
"Like the Borg," Marq Sander grunted.
"Not at all," David protested. "We retain our individuality. But think of the benefits!"
"The posibilities are most intriguing," Professor Sial admmitted. "As a mechanism for dealing with family tragedies, it is... interesting. The military applications are obvious. As a social engineering tool, it becomes terrifying."
"We're not talking about creating a Human Collective," Dr. Kafrouni insisted. "We are simply offering you the opportunity to bridge with us. I must warn you, the process is quite painful because of my injuries. However, once you disconnect, you won't have even a memory of my pain and no residual trace of foreign personality. So who would like to go first?"
For over a minute, nobody move or spoke.
Marq broke the silence. "You do realize that neural transfer technology of this kind is illegal in the Federation, don't you?" he asked.
"That's why you're the only Starfleet officer we invited," David told him. "We knew you and your fiancee would be more open to the possibilities than most would."
"Hmm." Cmdr. Sander glanced to his lover, Dr. Alice Okuda. She shrugged, and they stepped forward together.
Philadelphia Center - six hours later
It was after midnight, but the program was always awake. Like most thieves and spies, he did his best work after dark. Following a series of tips, he identified a particularly interesting project and learned everything that he could about it. Analysis and projection gave him actionable numbers.
Unfortunately, our universe cares nothing for what I want.
- Stephen Hawking
Los Angeles - five days ago
Selecting the incursion date was the easiest part of planning these operations. As long as all the principals were present, the Project-Intercept was at or near enough to completion, and there was no untargetable colateral in the witness sphere, time really didn't matter.
The innocuously-named Adjustment Unit reported only to The Director - they were Section 31's last option for dealing with unusual problems. The team leader was an unjoined Trill named Byrne - a "people person" who'd actually trained as a counselor before he'd discovered that other people's problems tend to disappear when the people do. Rivers was the equipment specialist - the only member of the unit who actually understood how all of their gear worked, and how to build more of them. The Vulcan medic, whose actual job was to sedate people and wipe their memories, was named L'Bel.
Occasionally, if The Director felt the mission warranted it, he would invite himself along to participate. Byrne didn't mind, and in fact found The Director to be a keen asset - one who knew his fieldcraft and didn't shy from wetwork, which should be expected from the head of Section 31.
At 1906 hours, the four people just sort of appeared in the middle of the seventh-floor symposium hall of the Ronald Reagan Neurotechnologcal Research Center. "The janitor opens that door in twenty-nine seconds," Byrne announced. "Let's get the triggers up!" He and L'Bel rushed to opposite ends of the hall while Rivers and The Director deployed chronometric triggers on the nearer two walls.
Rivers used his neural-HUD to activate and sync the triggers. "Establishing temporal inversion field in three, two, one, now." Matter rippled visibly in spheres extending outward from the chronometric triggers, and then everything became very, very still. Rivers checked his neuro-HUD for confirmation. "Alright, the field is stable, twenty-two-point-six-meter radius."
"That'll do it," The Director declared. "The Kafrouni's lab is ten meters past that wall."
"Not for long." Byrne strode forward and raised his gravity gun - a weapon that would be invented in the mid-26th Century by one Mary Moriarty and outlawed soon after. He fired the device, blasting a respectable two-meter hole out of the wall. No one was totally sure how it worked. Rivers claimed it was a sort of zero-point energy field manipulator, but Byrne suspected it functioned by generating and accelerating standing graviton waves. Either way, it was a tremendously effective tool for knocking holes in things. Each member of the team had one.
They made their way through the portal and into the corridor beyond. Two research interns were standing a short distance away, taking no notice of the shattered duracrete which covered the floor in front of them, or the four strangely-dressed and heavily armed people that came from a hole in the wall, for that matter. But then the pair of interns had been frozen in time by the temporal inversion effect.
The strike team was wearing identical black-piped temporal isolation jumpsuits, meant to allow them to interact with objects in the inversion field without suffering any consequences of massive space-time manipulation. Of course, if you've made a career out of doing things like this, some form of cosmic retribution was inevitable, as Byrne could attest to. It was rare to find a Trill - joined or not - who looked a quarter-century older than he really was. L'Bel's age was indeterminate under her Vulcan face, and Rivers wasn't technically supposed to be born yet, so they didn't count. The Director, though, did notice that his face aged visibly with every temporal incursion mission he participated in. Totally worth it.
The Kafrouni lab was protected by nothing that four gravity guns couldn't bully through. "We have a problem," L'Bel announced, turning her attention to her tricorder after the armored door had been wadded into a little ball and thrown down the corridor. "Four active lifesigns in the labs."
"Yeah, ****, you're right. Time fragment through the back room, point-eighty-eight timerate, four beats." Rivers blinked his HUD clear and sighed. "Shoulda been more careful building the field..."
"This was going too easy anyway," The Director said dismissively, racking his gravity gun and drawing his stasis pistol. "Remember, we must terminate the principals. Anyone else is just colaterall."
"Understood." Byrne unslung his self-targetting rifle. "Let's terminate those beats and then clean up the rest. Rivers? Best approach?"
He checked the neural HUD again. "They're surrounded by sensitive equipment, so we can't use the grav guns. And they must've figured out they're under attack because they're barricading themselves back there with file boxes. Good news is, they're unnarmed."
"I'm not taking your word for that," L'Bel told Rivers, "Not after last time."
"Right," Byrne agreed. "This time, Riv and I will lay down covering fire, and then... gas grenades?" he asked The Director.
"Not gas," The Director shook his head and produced a red conical device. "This little baby should prove much more... thorough."
Byrne nodded appreciatively. "Let's move."
There were only two other people working in the labs - young research assistants, still working on higher education degrees. The Director ordered them marked to be "beamed and blanked." The back room was protected by a reinforced door with biometric and kepad access locks, all of which went down quickly under a storm of phaser fire from the futuristic autorifles.
"Who are you!?" a woman screamed - her vocal pitch reduced by local time dilation. "What do you want from us?" She started throwing things off her desk toward the door.
"Nadia Kafrouni," Rivers shared the identity that came up on his HUD.
The Director checked the profile on the PADD strapped to his wrist. Renard Kafrouni's wife, David's mother. "Third principal."
"Check." Byrne took aim from his side of the door, picked out the flustered woman through the volleys of nickacks and shot her twice in the head. "Clear right."
"Clear left."
"Going in..." The Director walked in to the middle of the room, placed his red cone on top of a tall isolinear server rack, and walked out, ignoring someone shouting and something beeping at him. He anticipated an attack from... there. David sprang at him from behind a workstation, wielding a Maronite dagger. The Director fired the secondary beam setting on his pistol, knocking David out of phase with the time fragment and into the temporal inversion field, where he immediately froze.
"Get back!" he ordered the team at the door. "Stay out of line-of-sight!" The Director suddenly sprinted, jumped, and flattened himself to the wall on the other
side of Rivers. There was a blinding purple flash, and then all again was still and silent. Byrne led the team back into the room. The bodies of David Kafrouni and his mother Nadia had been reduced to tidy piles of ash, as had the professor - still in his support chair - and the unidentified fourth "beat."
"Okay, people, we've got a lot of cleanup to do, and our realtime window closes in six minutes," Byrne reminded the team.
L'Bel said nothing - she just knelt next to David Kafrouni's flash-cremated remains with a vacutainer and watched the plastic canister fill with dust.
"Tag everything for transport," The Director ordered, "I mean everything."
"Who were these people?" Rivers wondered as he picked up a neural bridge headpiece. "What were they working on?"
"These people were a threat to the security of the Federation," The Director declared. "As always, that's all you need to know about them. As for the technology, well, I'm not sure what it's for, at this point."
They finished their work quickly. "Byrne to Paradox - energize," the team leader ordered. The tagged material and people vanished in the quantum transporter field.
"We're backstepping in sixty-seconds!" Rivers warned.
"Everyone back to the insertion point," Byrne commanded, leading the way.
They made it back to the symposium hall moments before local spacetime started to reverse what they had done and the hole they'd blasted through the ferro-crete wall patched itself.
"Real-time is resynchronized. Triggers," Rivers called out. "Sixteen seconds!"
Byrne made sure everyone had removed a chronometric trigger from the walls, then he tapped his combadge again. "Paradox, four to transport."
They winked out of reality a few seconds before the robo-janitor entered the room and started sweeping the floor.
Port Blakely, WA - four days later (10.18.2411; 2247 hours)
"Hey honey?" Alice Okuda's voice wafted into the library. "Are you doing anything tomorrow at fourteen hundred?"
"Don't think so..." Marq replied. He put down his scotch and picked up his PADD. Wasn't there something in LA I'd been invited to? No, guess not. Good. I hate LA. "What am I signing up for?"
"I'm trying to schedule your mani-pedi."
"MY WHAT?" he roared.
"You need one."
Marq Sander checked his fingernails. "I do NOT!"
"Yes, honey, you do."
Make the woman happy. Make the woman happy. "Very well. If it will please you-"
"It will."
"-You may schedule my pedicure for tomorrow." He picked up his tumbler and felt a sudden and eerie sense of deja vu...
to be continued...
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
"he's as dangerous as a ferret with a chainsaw."
*Subscribes to Thread*
I be walkin' God like a dog
My narrative fearless
Word War returns to burn like Baldwin home from Paris
Like steel from a furnace, I was born landless
The is the native son
Born of Zapata's guns
Stroll through the shanties and the cities remains
Same bodies buried hungry but with different last names
The vultures robbin' everything, leave nothin' but chains
Pick a point on the globe, yes the picture's the same
There's a bank, there's a church, a myth and a hearse
A mall and a loan, a child dead at birth
There's a widow pig parrot, a rebel to tame
A white-hooded judge, a syringe and a vein
(And the riot be the rhyme of the unheard)
Whadja say? Whadja say? Whadja say? What?
Whadja say? Whadja say? Whadja say? What?
...We're calm like a bomb
(Ignite, ignite, ignite, ignite, ignite, ignite, ignite)
We're calm like a bomb
(Ignite, ignite, ignite, ignite, ignite, ignite, ignite)
This ain't subliminal
Feel the critical mass approach horizon
The pulse of the condemned sound off America's demise
The anti-myth rhythm rock shocker, yes I spit fire
Hope lies in the smolderin' rubble of empires
Yes, back through the shanties and the cities remains
Same bodies buried hungry with different last names
The vultures robbin' everyone, leave nothin' but chains
Pick a point here at home, yes the picture's the same
There's a field full of slaves, some corn and some debt
There's a ditch full of bodies, the check for the rent
There's a tap, the phone, the silence of stone
The numb black screen that be feelin' like home
(And the riot be the rhyme of the unheard...)
There's a mass without roofs
There's a prison to fill
There's a country's soul that reads post no bills
There's a strike and a line of cops outside of the mill
'Cause there's a right to obey
And there's the right to kill
Zack De La Rocha and Tom Morello of Rage Against The Machine - "Calm Like A Bomb"
F R A G M E N T . 2
Iscandar, Betazed - 2411.10.19, 1408 hours
Admiral Jesu LaRoca and his brother Rusty had had the book thrown at them - figuratively - a few times before in their respective careers. But this was a first. As they were transported through the normally quiet river-spanning city on this most tranquil of worlds in a Federation Diplomatic Corps airbus, they were being pelted by shoes, candles, gongs, various fruits and vegetables, and many, many books.
"As you can see, our civil disturbance problem has not been exaggerated." Jacquel Kwoi, First Minister to the Third House heaved a sigh of aggravation. "And the riots have escalated to involve burglary and arson elsewhere in the city, and in other major cities as well."
"We've seen worse," the Admiral remarked, his thoughts drifting back to Moab.
"The thing is, we don't have any kind of civic police force to quell the disturbance. And deploying Starfleet Security so far has only exacerbated the problem. The public feelings are... focused against Starfleet. Anger, fear and suspicion."
"Because we... saved them from an Undine superweapon?" Rusty tried to comprehend the situation.
"The populace didn't learn of the threat until it was upon them. They feel deceived."
"Starfleet Command and the Federation Council didn't believe the threat was credible," Jesu explained. "That's why there was no warning."
"I understand that, and I am immensely grateful for the effort that you made to defend our world, but..." Jacquel sighed again, feeling overwhelmed by the unpleasant emotions surrounding her. "Public opinion is what it is."
"Your people can't read my thoughts or feelings, right?" Rusty asked.
Minister Kwoi shook her head. "No. You are like a stone to me."
"Good." Rusty glowered out the windows of the bus at the rioting crowds. We bled for you people. Pakray died for you and this is how you thank us. I hate you all.
- Mark Twain
Starbase One, Office of the Chief of Starfleet Operations - Stardate 88801.91 (same time)
Fleet Admiral Jorel Quinn looked over the latest situation reports from Betazed with a barely restrained glee. He found it fascinating the way the Federation News Network was able to spin a series of increasingly unrelated - and lately, uninteresting events into the complete breakdown of a society.
After the Undine planet-killer had appeared in the sky above Betazed - only to be destroyed at the last moment by Admiral LaRoca's task force - the FNN then jumped on the fact that the invasion threat had been ignored as incredible by Starfleet Command and the Federation Council. While that touched off a round of finger-pointing between Starfleet and the Daystrom Institute, the already-touchy Betazoids started holding demonstrations in front of the Federation Embassy in Rixx. Before long, Admiral LaRoca himself was interviewed, and he revealed that the intelligence he'd acted on came from the Klingons six weeks before the rift from fluidic space appeared. Around the same time, a report came out covering the thousands of lives lost in the panicked, final-hour evacuation of Betazed.
Overnight, public opinion and sentiment on Betazed toward the Federation in general and Starfleet in particular turned from sour to downright hostile. Demonstrations and protests became mobs and riots. SCE repair teams at Starbase B-22 found themselves without their local contractors. Starships in orbit were told in no unclear terms that shore leave was cancelled.
Quinn had siezed on the crisis, doing everything he could to exacerbate the problem without making himself appear to be incompetent. Deploying Starfleet Security personnel in the hot zones, in keeping with Federation public safety policy. Denying personal leave requests from Betazoid officers, on grounds that Starfleet could not afford the sort of force reduction resultant from every Betazoid in the service returning home en-masse. And burying the memo from Starfleet Tactical Systems that their research had confirmed the Klingon Intelligence predictions of the Undine invasion.
Having done what he could to perpetuate the crisis, he sat back and watched it evolve on HV. Scene after scene of looting, burning, good old-fashioned rioting of the sort that just didn't happen anymore in the Federation core worlds. Quinn could almost taste the delicious panic, amplified and magnified by the Betazoids empathy... Then FNN announced it was about to show a live press conference from Iscandar, the largest city on Betazed's southern continent, where Admiral LaRoca was about to make a public address.
LaRoca. The name filled Quinn with such a rage that he almost lost his form. Vice Admiral Jesus LaRoca had foiled more of his Masters' plans than any other entity in this dimension. He had earned his own names. LaRoca the Ghoststalker. LaRoca the Untouchable. LaRoca the Sword of Slaughter. The Masters wanted him turned. Quinn wanted him to die.
As the Human concealed his usual expression of smug arrogance and appealed to the people of Betazed for peace and reason, Quinn plotted. He knew the ConOps task force had retreated for repairs after the battle, leaving LaRoca alone in his runabout with a token security force. In Quinn's estimation, he would likely never get a better chance to arrange an unfortunate encounter for the hologenic, charismatic and frequently heroic Admiral.
"By giving in to panic and fear, you're playing right into the Undine's hands," Jesu LaRoca reminded the people of Betazed.
Quinn glared at the holoviewer and selected his assets. He couldn't send Undine. They'd be detected immediately. And he couldn't send Starfleet. But he had many other tools he could use.
Iscandar
The public holocast of Jesu's address had no apparent effect on the mindset of the populace, a fact Rusty was quick to point out.
"Give it time," his brother told him. "Wait for the panic to wear off."
"Local media will repeat that broadcast periodically for the next seventy-two hours," Minister Kwoi declared, "or until the Admiral can come up with something better."
"I'd better help you get to work on a new speech, then," Rusty told his brother.
"You won't be staying in a hotel, will you?" Kwoi wondered.
"Naw. Too dangerous," Rusty judged. "We left the Zambezi in orbit. We'll beam up to her until you've arranged our meeting with the Council of the Houses."
"A prudent course of action."
"I'm pretty sure nobody would break into our hotel room in the middle of the night," Jesu remarked, "But I defer to Rusty when it comes to my safety."
"Yeah, we learned that lesson the hard way," Rusty said softly.
The airbus whisked them away from the rioting crowds downtown and deposited them at a government transporter pad. "Rusty to Zambezi," the Deinon security chief spoke into his combadge "Two to beam up."
- Mike Toreno, U.S. government agent, ca. 1992
S.S. Predator Bay, outer Sol System
"How confident are you with this analysis, Templar?"
"Ninety-nine-point-nine-seven-percent, Director," the AI answered. "This is of course based on Atticus' original assertion that Quinn is an Undine infiltrator. His recent activity reinforces that assumption, and predicates my theory that he is moving against Admiral LaRoca."
The Director sighed. "Have you informed Delta?"
"Not yet. I thought you should be the first to know."
"Good. Don't tell him. I'll have K.C. sit down with him and explain the situation in detail. The last thing I need is for Delta to go loose cannon on us again."
"That means K.C. will need to be briefed in detail as well," Templar mused. "Would you like for me to handle that?"
"If you would, please." Since the Looking Glass debacle, The Director had made a conscious effort to keep his senior people more-or-less on the same page, at least where major issues like the Quinn dilemma were concerned.
Having an enemy agent as the Chief of Starfleet Operations wasn't quite as intolerable of a situation as it sounded. Since the Undine threat was being held out of public knowledge, arresting and revealing the traitor wasn't an option. But Quinn was careful to avoid giving himself away by issuing stupid orders and sending fleets into obvious traps, so he wasn't really causing all that much damage.
But observing him and his orders was revealing much about the Undine strategy. For one thing, they were apparently obsessed with the Tholians. Quinn had the entirety of Starfleet operating under general orders to engage any Tholian ship on sight, and he'd built a task force that rivaled Omega to push them off a Y-class world in the Nukara System. Besides all this, Quinn was being used to channel counterintelligence to the enemy, and The Director, for one, believed he could someday even be turned.
Delta, on the other hand, wanted Quinn dead for his own reasons. He had proposed dozens of different ways he could kill Quinn and get away with it, without revealing the infiltrator. The Director had to keep his best operative on a tight leash around Quinn. Delta's increasing reliance on Templar helped with that.
"What do you want me to do about LaRoca?"
"Send his security chief a warning, along with the profiles of your assassins. Make it look like it came from SI. And..." The Director ran his hand through his thinning hair, "send the Adjustment Unit to Betazed, just in case."
Zambezi - 0147 hours
Rusty cradled Georgia's head to his sternum as she slowly came down from her climax, sobbing tears of ecstasy. He pressed his nostrils into her hair and inhaled deeply. She was saturated with the scent of pleasure. It had taken months of experimentation and practice before he could stimulate her in this way, but now, making love to Georgia came as naturally to him as hunting, and was every bit as gratifying.
"Gawd, Rusty," she whispered. "Yo'ah fantastic!"
Rusty made no reply as he wriggled out and pulled her up to bring their faces to each other. He let her kiss him, and in response he nuzzled her with his snout. He gently dragged his claws along her smooth skin, tickled her feet with his tail, and Georgia Nguyen shivered and sighed with total contentment.
The comm unit on the desk toned that there was incoming message. "Aw, dammit," Rusty grumbled, as he snaked his head around to glare at the glowing panel.
"Cancha let it go, Rusty?" Ens. Nguyen begged, trying to hold him down with both arms and both legs. "It's probably not important."
"Messages coming in this late are always important," Rusty countered as he extricated himself from his lover's grasp. He crossed the stateroom and turned the chair around to sit down at the desk. Out of deference to Rusty and Georgia's relationship, Jesu had insisted on giving them the master cabin, which offered a little more wiggle room than the other four bunk spaces.
Rusty read the inbound text-only message with a glance. Then he read it again, this time scanning every word for a possible mistake. But there was no mistake. "Chingame," he muttered.
"What's wrong?" Georgia wondered. She knew Rusty only swore in Spanish when he was upset.
"It's... something important." Rusty looked back at her and gave her his smile. "It's not an immediate concern, though. Get some sleep now. You need it. I'll brief you in the morning." He copied the message and the attached files to his PADD, stood up, and stepped toward the door.
"Yo'ah comin' back t' bed, right?"
"Of course. I just have to check out some things." Rusty returned to her side, pulled the blankets up over her shoulders, and caressed her forehead and cheek with the back of his fingers. "But try to be asleep when I get back. I love watching you sleep."
She caught his fingers in her mouth and sucked on them for a moment. "Mmmkay," she mumbled.
Rusty pulled on a house coat made of Denali ghost bear fur and stepped out into the main deck area. He was surprised to find his brother still up, and playing poker with Master Chief Raastz. "Jesu. What're ya doin' up so late?"
"Couldn't sleep. Made coffee. Got bored. Talked to the Master Chief. Found out she thought she was good at poker."
Raastz sniffed once in Rusty's direction, made a disappointed frown which she covered with a respectful nod of acknowledgment before turning her attention back to the Admiral. "I don't understand how you know when I'm bluffing."
"You have a tell," Jesu told her. "Nobody's caught you before because most people can't read a Gorn like I can. Practice your poker face in front of a mirror." He turned up the fifth card on the table between them. "Jack of diamonds. There goes the flush draw. Dealer bets five hundred." He pushed a thick stack of chips into the pot in the middle of the table.
Raastz's eyes narrowed. "Now you're bluffing."
Jesu said nothing, he just sat there with the same confident smirk he always seemed to have.
Raastz looked over her cards and those on the table, and eyed her own dwindling chip stack. "I fold," she announced, turning over her clubs. She'd paired the board but she'd been holding out for the flush. Jesu shrugged and mucked his cards. "What did you have?" she wondered.
"It would have cost you five hundred to find out," the Admiral told her, as he scraped the pot toward his chip stack. He looked up at Rusty. "You want in, bro?"
"No, thanks. But we need to talk."
"Oh? Que pasa?"
Rusty placed his PADD on the table in front of his brother. The device displayed two criminal profiles side-by-side. "The Bolian is Rin Thuli. She makes bombs. The Human's Reginald Stamper, last known alias Bruce Roberts. He's from New Sydney. He leaves bombs in places where they achieve maximum effect for his clients. They're terrorists-for-hire."
"Let me guess, they're on their way to Betazed to stir the pot," Jesu surmised.
"They're coming to Betazed," Rusty acknowledged, "but with a very specific goal, according to SI." The Deinon took a deep breath and told his brother "They're going to try to kill you."
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
Second, Iscandar is really a city on Betazed? Is that your joke or did someone else start it?
Nouveau riche LTS member
But yeah, she makes Rusty happy.
Check the Ten Forward Fanfics link in my sig. Everything by knightraider, patrickngo, and me (and "The Accused" by ambassadormolari) is part of this universe.
I will at some point set up a timeline thread with links to stories and LCs.
This particular story starts about two weeks after episode 12 of Visiting with the Dead
I didn't even get the Star Blazers reference until just now. I just looked up Betazed on Memory Beta and checked the list of cities for a name I liked.
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
[Edit too add]
On that subject, this is a concept drawing for one of my next tattoos
I updated fragment 1 a little; look for fragment three in a day or two here.
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
Sweet child in time
You'll see the line
The line that's drawn between
The good and the bad
See the blind man
He's shooting at the world
Bullets flying
Oh, taking toll
If you've been bad
Lord, I bet you have
And you've not been hit
You've not been hit by flying lead
You'd better close your eyes
You better bow your head
Oh
Wait for the ricochet...
Sweet child in time
You'll see the line
The line that's drawn between
The good of and the bad
See the blind man, yeah
He's shooting at the world
The bullets flying
Oh, they're taking toll
If you've been bad
Lord I bet you have
And you've not been hit by flying lead
Not been hit by flying lead
You'd better close your eyes
You better bow your head
Wait for the ricochet...
Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord and Ian Paice of Deep Purple - "Child In Time"
F R A G M E N T . 3
USS Paradox, Betazed system - Stardate [null/invalid field?]
"This is the first Principal," Grandfather told the Adjustment Unit, indicating the holoimage of the smiling, bearded, brown-skinned Human man. "Jesus Lorenzo San Gregorio LaRoca, Vice Admiral, Starfleet Security and target of an assassination in three days' time. He dies in eighty-seven-point-six-eight percent of quantum realities I have accessed."
"I take it that's an undesirable outcome?" Rivers asked.
"Correct," the timeship's AI replied. "He is an extremely valuable asset in many of the Federation's ongoing warfronts, particularly in efforts to end the threat of the Return of the Masters. In fact, should he survive the assassination, in over fifty-one percent of quantum realities, it is he who will-"
"No spoilers please," Byrne waved him off. "Just stick to the parameters."
"Very well," Grandfather continued. "The second Principal: LaRoca Rusty Alpha the First, Commander, Starfleet Security, Admiral LaRoca's adopted brother and personal bodyguard. L'bel, of course, is already familiar with this subject."
"I was his CMO for two and a half years on the Crichton, before I started to work with people with psychiatric disorders." She glanced at Rivers and Byrne. "Commander LaRoca was a challenging patient."
"Yes, I imagine he is," Grandfather said dryly as the subjects' biographic data, psychological profiles and medical histories were displayed and copies were linked to the team's PADDs. "You should be familiarizing yourselves with the Principals and the two untargettables travelling with them: Georgia Su Nguyen, Ensign, Starfleet Command, and Raastzhrraa, Master Chief Petty Officer, Starfleet Security. The relationships between the four of them will complicate an already unpredictable situation."
"Unpredictable?" Byrne repeated.
"The timeline is in flux. Aftershocks are rippling through spacetime following the recent subspace incursion. I don't know what's happening."
The team looked at each other. "You can see the future of many quantum realities, but not the present?" Byrne asked.
"I wish you'd stop using such imprecise terms," the AI said with a sigh. "But yes, locally, my vision is blurred."
"Okay, we'll have to do this the hard way - observe, and revert," Byrne told the team. "Where are they now?"
"Ship's sensors show them in orbit, aboard a Yellowstone-class runabout."
"Access their logs and itineraries and see if you can construct a timeline," Byrne instructed.
"I am." A moment later the AI announced "Partial timeline constructed. I am arraying it in the manner in which you are accustomed to viewing time."
"Okay..." Rivers examined the timeline on the holoviewer, and analyzed it further with his own neural link to the Paradox's quantum computer. "Looks like the principals spent the day yesterday planetside, mostly in the Iscandar city center. Admiral LaRoca gave a holovised address, then they returned to their runabout. Today he plans to beam down to Rixx, the capital city, to meet with planetary leaders and public safety officials. He has appointments there covering the next several days."
"I'll transport you to the capital," Grandfather announced. "I recommend wearing civilian apparel over your temporal suits. For political reasons it would be best if you pretended to be there for reasons that have nothing to do with the Federation in general or Starfleet in particular."
Byrne nodded. "We'll use the standard disaster relief cover. And the Opposition?"
"I am monitoring for them as well. However, they are known criminals and are quite adept at eluding capture. They will be difficult to acquire before they make their move."
"Right. Okay, people, let's get packed."
Col. Rodin: But if we decided to employ a professional...
The Jackal: You have to employ a professional. Your organization is so riddled with informers that nothing you decide is a secret for long. No, the job would have to be done by an outsider. The only question would be by whom, and for how much.
- The Day of the Jackal (1973)
Zambezi, Betazed orbit - 2411.10.23, 0806 hours local time
"So, that's the basic plan for today, but of course we're at the mercy of the bureaucrats." Jesu LaRoca scraped his last forkful of (replicated) huevos y chorizo into his mouth, and washed it down with a gulp of orange juice. "If all goes well, we should have a news conference at primetime with me and select members of the council."
"What about them people tryin' t' kill ya, suh?" Georgia Nguyen wondered.
"That's what I have you guys for," the Admiral said with a shrug, and he leaned back and sipped his cup of (fresh-brewed) espresso. "People have been trying to kill me on and off for most of my life. I'm not too worried about them. I'm more concerned with whoever sent them."
"What did Intelligence say?" Rusty asked his brother.
"Chakotay doesn't know any more than we do. He couldn't even tell me who sent you that file. It just popped on their computers as an analyzed threat and they're trying to run down a source. I love Chakotay, but I swear, I don't think his people can find their asses with both hands and a medical tricorder-"
"So all we know is what that file says," Rusty summed up.
"Si, eso'es todo."
"Well, we shared the profiles with Betazoid Ministry of Customs and Immigration," Raastz grumbled. "The Ministry of Peace Keeping should be keeping eye out too. That's a lot of layers they'd have to get through to threaten you, sir."
"I know," Jesu said. "It's another reason why I'm not worried. But these are professionals were dealing with here - the sort of people you hire when you can't trust one of your own. I'm worried about who I might have pissed off or scared enough to that make kind of move."
Homn Memorial Spaceport, Rixx
"Business or pleasure?"
"I'm sorry?" the Bolian woman blinked in confusion.
"What is the purpose of your visit to Betazed?" the customs official clarified.
"Oh. A little of both, actually."
"Hmm. Well, you've picked an unfortunate time for a working vacation, Ms. Yaht."
"Actually, the time is perfect for me," the Bolian visitor said. "I am a recording artist, you see. I record samples of the sounds of humanoid voices and use them to create tonal art."
"Ah, my sister is an electronic musician as well-"
"Music," the Bolian traveling as Onu Yaht muttered scoffingly. "Music is such outdated media. It's been explored and analyzed and recycled to death, then exhumed from its grave to be reused again. There is no art left in music, no passion, no statement to be made. But voices are always making a statement. I am on a journey to explore the voice of chaos."
"Oh. Well that, um... sounds interesting." The official looked over the scans of her luggage. "And this is your equipment?"
"Obviously," she said with a roll of her eyes. "Recording, processing and playback equipment, all very sophisticated and high-quality."
"I'm sure." The customs inspector wanted to take a closer look at some of the gear, but he couldn't wait to be rid of the obnoxious artist. She radiated contemptuous emotions, and it was giving him a headache. He cleared her entry and said "Welcome to Betazed, Ms. Yaht."
"Thank you." Rin Thuli collected her bags and walked out of the arrivals terminal, hailed a pedicab and asked the cycler to take her to the Hotel Cyndriel. She linked her PADD to her communicator and saw the message from Reg.
- George Bernard Shaw
Rixx - Capitol Square, 1822 local time
"A press conference?" Byrne frowned as he pretended to examine fire damage to the outer wall of a historic library. "Can we get access?" he asked through his subdermal communicator.
"Not without media passes," Rivers answered. "Next time, one of us should be a reporter."
"I'm still hoping there won't need to be a next time. How close can we plant a QUID?" the Trill wanted to know.
"The media hall's in the front of the building, but the Peace Keepers have the entire area cordoned off," Rivers answered. "Starfleet officers are being triple-escorted around the premises, but members of the press can walk right in. Does that seem right to you?"
"Biometric scans haven't turned up anything resembling our Opposition," L'Bel reported. "Five Bolian females arrived in the area today but none of them are within a kilometer of here."
"What about Humans?" Byrne wondered.
"Several dozen, all with clearances. I can't ID a suspect."
"We need to get closer," Byrne insisted. "We need to see what's happening inside that room. Any ideas?"
"I could forge clearances from the Interior Minister," Rivers announced. "We could call it a 'physical security assessment.'"
"They still won't let us in the media room," L'Bel pointed out.
"Probably not," Byrne agreed. "Try anyway. At least get us in range for the QUIDs."
Reginald Stamper flashed his phony media pass and entered the room. He'd chosen his cover well. Holovision reporters were being stacked up in the back, but print journalists got front row seats. Betazoids had great respect for writers.
He projected an emotional false front of easygoing curiosity. Betazoids weren't too difficult to fool as long as you didn't paint a telepathic bullseye on yourself with negative feelings. In any case, it was easy for Stamper to hide his true feelings - he didn't have any.
The conference was predictable. Pleas from the Women of the Council for a return to normalcy, patronizing assurances from Admiral LaRoca, a report on the damage the riots were causing from Minister of Peace, and more remarks from the regal ladies of the high holy houses.
Betazoids were such a sheltered people - really, the entire concept of counter-terrorism (or terrorism itself, for that matter) was utterly foreign to them. He waited until the reporters were asked to submit their questions. He stood up and joined the queue to the dais, placed his PADD on the table right in front of Admiral LaRoca, smiled and returned to his seat.
"How many times can someone say 'unity' in a single sentence?" Rusty wondered.
Raastz just shrugged. They were watching from the wings, out of holocamera view of the central dais. They were doing their best not to look terrifying. Georgia, being more hologenic, stood at marine parade rest just behind the Admiral's shoulder.
Raastz's tricorder flashed and beeped.
"What is it?" Rusty wondered.
"Stray quantum interference; there seems to be some pattern to it..."
"It's not important. Keep scanning for explosives," the Deinon ordered.
"Okay, I've planted a QUID in the security panel in the outer lobby," L'Bel reported. "That's as close as I can get."
"I see it." Rivers used his quantum interference device to extend the range of 'vision' of his neural HUD. He stared into the media room, and waited for the device to measure the position of every particle in the locus. "Okay, I'm in. I don't see any radiation surges-"
"He's not an idiot," Byrne reminded him. "He won't use a device that can be detected by a simple tricorder. The Opposition's MO is to use simple improvised explosives. Compounds of harmless chemicals, overloaded powercells, things of that sort."
"Right." There were a lot of powercells in the room. Keeping track of all of them was impossible, even for him. But then PADDs started collecting at the front of the room... "Uh-oh."
"What do you mean, 'uh-oh'?"
"I know how he's gonna do it. He's gonna blow a PADD right in the Admiral's face!"
"Find a way to warn him, and ID the perp!"
Rivers found LaRoca's security people monitoring a tricorder. He sent them a quantum entanglement string that would display Red Alert if they bothered to analyze it at all. He watched the PADDs pile up on the table. There was no way to tell which one had been rigged to blow until...
"Oh, sh*t. We lose this round, guys."
"Oh, sh*t." Raastz dropped her tricorder and bounded across the dais, accelerating her massive bulk to her surprising top speed in only three steps.
Rusty was right on her heels. "GRAB HIM!!" He yelled to Georgia.
Jesu looked up from the PADD he'd just picked up as he noticed the commotion. "Wha-?"
Georgia grabbed him by the shoulders and yanked him out his chair, away from the table.
Raastz lunged forward with a clawed hand to swat the PADD away from him.
Time slowed to a crawl outside of Rusty's mind as he watched it all happen.
The standard powercell within a PADDpro Nexus 20 has the energetic equivalent of a class III photon grenade. This wasn't a standard powercell. Nor was the PADD's case made of standard materials. Though it appeared to all scans to be a simple synthetic polymer, it was actually a resin-bonded emulsified explosive, with a blast yield equal to about six and a half kilos of TNT.
Raastz caught the full force of the blast in her head, neck, chest, and right arm. It was powerful enough to crush her ribcage even through her recoil-compensating body armor and layers of thick hide, fat and muscle. But since her brain was simultaneously liquefied by the shockwave, this was a purely academic observation.
Georgia Nguyen and Jesu LaRoca were blown several meters distant from each other, and their left arms were thrown several meters further still. Forensic examiners would later determine that Georgia survived the blast itself - it was the impact with the duracrete wall behind her that killed her.
The front half of Jesu's body was simply compressed to pulp.
All of this was of course before all three bodies were burned to a crisp.
Two Women of the Council were also killed in the blast, along with three aides, and the others all suffered serious injuries. The Minister of Peace suffered only first-degree burns and a broken arm.
Rusty was protected by the huge body of the Gorn security officer in front of him. She absorbed the blast, knocked him down and covered him from the fireball.
As his head hit the floor and the 268kg body of Master Chief Raastz landed on him, he knew his brother was dead. He let the horror of that knowledge carry him into blackness...
to be continued...
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
A shame for them--in this iteration, anyway, that Alyosha couldn't have been there. Depending on what tech the time travelers were using, he might well have sensed their presence or even seen them.
But I am sure there's another solution...
BTW, there is actually precedent to the Bolian's cover in getting those voice recordings for music...Steve Reich in particular has done that sort of work IRL, in fact. Different Trains, the Daniel Variations, WTC 9/11, and the final movement of City Life are all examples of Reich taking what you could call the "voices of chaos" and interpolating them into music.
You really have to watch the video to pick out exactly what's being said, but the second movement of Different Trains really shows it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSPW9lTN6oQ
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-)
Proudly F2P. Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
I'm not familiar Steve Reich's work, but I am aware that such artists exist. It seems really pretentious to me, which is of course what I was aiming for with Thuli's cover.
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
I swore to forever
And I'm sure it will happen again
Another bend, another break
Ceaseless habits under falling skies
I don't know where to go from here
I've become limitless
That's how the story goes for me
Not that they'll understand
I am an apparition
And that's all I ever wanted
That's how the story goes for me
Between pages and handwriting
(With seven plagues
And some roots
And a throne)
I'm back at where I started
Didn't think it'd be like this
Didn't think it'd be like this
Or maybe I knew all along
I didn't see this through
Didn't see this through
So maybe it's where I belong
Just you and me and you
Just you and me and you
Didn't think it'd be like this
Didn't think it'd be like this
Or maybe I knew all
Along
(Bring it)
The darkness sets in
Another bend
Another break
Ceaseless habits under falling skies
(Break)
You, me, and you
You, me, and you
It won't be long for me
(For me)
Or it might be forever
This hopeless destiny
(For me)
A tragic, lost endeavor
I'm back at where I started
Didn't think it'd be like this
Didn't think it'd be like this
Or maybe I knew all along
I didn't see this through
Didn't see this through
So maybe it's where I belong
Just you and me and you
(And you)
Just you and me and you
Mike Hranica of The Devil Wears Prada - "Transgress"
F R A G M E N T . 4
Rusty wakes up, breathing hard. The terror fades as he takes in the comfort of his familiar surroundings. A concert poster for his favorite dub-metal band on the wall. His school PADD on his desk, with his unfinished fifth-grade calculus homework still on the screen. His thirteen-year-old brother, asleep in the other bed. He isn't dead. Not yet, anyway...
Rusty kicks himself free of his tangled sheets and approaches his brother's side. Jesu lay on his stomach, his head tilted to the side, facing him. It's warm tonight. Jesu has his sheets bunched up around his waist. Beads of sweat have collected on his bare back; his bronze skin glistens in the moonlight. He's snoring softly as he sleeps peacefully. Rusty hates to wake him, but he can't sleep now unless he's sure...
"Hey, Zoo," he whispers.
Jesu's eyes open. "What's up, bro?"
"I had a nightmare."
Jesu moves over, making room in his bed for his brother to lie beside him. "Tell me about it."
Rusty curls up next to his adopted sibling. "We were grown up. You were in a fancy Starfleet uniform. There was an explosion. I tried to save you, but I was too late..." He gulps. "You were killed."
Jesu reaches out and cradles Rusty's head to his chest. He rubs his fingers into pressure points behind the Deinon's skull. "I'm still here, bro."
Rusty gives a contended sigh, relaxes and snuggles up alongside his brother. Jesu's here with me. Everything will be okay, he thinks.
"I'll always be here," Jesu says. "Remember that when you wake up."
Wake up?
Rusty awoke to a cold, dark place - a place he knew all too well. "What am I doing here?" he demanded of the darkness, only half-expecting a response.
"You seem to be lost, child." The air seemed to get thicker as the Old Deinon stepped forward out of the murk. "This is not your path."
"I know I shouldn't be here," Rusty muttered. "I survived the blast..." he looked up. "Jesu's really dead, isn't he?"
"Yes, he is," the Old Deinon told him softly. "You lost him when you lost your way."
Rusty sank to the floor, as the Old Deinon's words pierced his heart like toe claws. "I let my brother die." He wanted to cry, but the tears wouldn't come. It was as if every nerve and fiber of his being was dying with Jesu. "I was s'posed to be his protector, and I failed."
"Your brother was taken from you," the Old Deinon said, cryptically. "You did not fail him."
"I was sloppy. Lazy," Rusty muttered. "He died because I didn't do my job. I let someone walk right up to him and put a bomb in his hand." He sighed. "Maybe this is where I belong after all."
"You made a mistake. You stepped off the path. But you can go back, and save him."
"HOW?" Rusty angrily demanded. "He got blown up. How can I save him now?"
"Return to where you stepped off the path, and you will find your way."
"How do I do that?"
"Just take the next step," the Old Deinon told him. "Wake up."
Rusty became aware of his body. He felt pain, and he knew he was really awake this time. His skin itched where it had burned by the blast. His bones and muscles felt sore where Raastz had landed on him. His right hand felt like it was broken. He tried to get up, straining against his bonds and- Uh-oh.
He was restrained by metal clamps around his ankles, wrists, shoulders and hips. But the table he was strapped to, and the restraints, were designed for a humanoid. His neck and tail were still free. Rusty looked around the room. It looked like an advanced medical laboratory. He only recognized half the equipment.
There was a guard. He looked Human, or Betazoid, but he didn't... smell right. He was sitting on a chair, reading something on a PADD.
Need to find Jesu, Rusty thought. Need to escape!
He looked over the restraints again, and flexed his fingers. His right hand was definitely broken, but maybe he could pull it out... He craned his neck forward and as far he could until his chin was just below his right elbow. He worked up a mouthful of saliva and drooled on his arm, letting it run down to his wrist. He folded his hand and tried to squeeze it through. The restraint was still too tight. Rusty couldn't get his hand through without dislocating his thumb and breaking his minor metacarpals at the wrist.
F*ck it. Rusty crushed his hand as tight as he could and yanked it through the clamp. It hurt. A lot. But his arm was free.
Working with his mouth and his ruined right hand, Rusty was able to get out of the shoulder restraints, then he could lean forward enough to free his other wrist, and start working on his hips...
"Hey!" the guard finally looked up and noticed his escape attempt. He pressed something, and an alarm sounded. An older-looking Trill man ran in, and he in the Human both approached Rusty with curved phaser pistols drawn.
"Just take it easy," the Trill said in a pleading tone.
Rusty's head swiveled quickly back and forth between them, and he took deep, rapid breaths, feigning panic as he let the adrenaline charge up in his system. The prey is dangerous. They have me cornered, trapped. But I am still the Hunter...
He waited until they were close, on either side of him. He waited, watching them, until they started to relax, and lower their guard...
At that's when he attacked.
The move was sudden, and so fast even the holocam recording couldn't show anything more than a blur. Rusty arched his back, popping off the hip restraint. With the same movement, he lashed out with his muscular tail, catching the Trill in his pudgy midsection and batting him into the wall.
The Human fired his weapon.
The pistol was set to stun a humanoid, but to Rusty it only numbed him enough that he didn't feel the immense pain as he wrenched his left leg free of the bonds. He planted his broken foot on the Human's chest and picked him up, stabbing through the man's heart with his 15-cm toe claw.
The dying man clutched feebly at the foot as he was raised off the floor; blood dribbled from his mouth as he looked down at the snarling Deinon.
As Rusty watched the man die, a feeling of euphoria mixed with his primal rage. He flung the body across the room, leveling the Trill who was just getting back to his feet. Rusty pried open the last clamp securing his other leg and rolled off the table into an attack crouch, ready to lunge and finish the Trill with a-
"Rusty, STOP!"
Rusty whipped his head around toward the source of the voice. Long before his mind registered the words, he had assessed the new variable. Vulcanoid female, mid-eighties? unarmed, but holding a device - curved, smooth surfaces like the pistols the men carried, but it didn't look like a weapon. Vulcans suppressed their emotions, but they couldn't suppress all of their physiological responses. She smelled frightened, terrified even. She smelled... familiar?
Rusty pulled himself back as the recognition sank in. "L'Bel?"
"It's me. Come down, Rusty. Nobody wants to hurt you." The Vulcan looked at the men lying in a heap on the other side of the room. "Entirely predictable. I wish you'd listened to me, Byrne."
"Yeah, you were right," the Trill said, rolling the dead Human off of himself. "Sorry about that, Commander. I thought it would be safest if we had you restrained."
L'Bel examined her device. "You've exacerbated the damage to your right hand, and broken your left ankle and foot. Lie down and let me treat you."
The dead man coughed, and blood flowed back into his mouth and his wounds, which then sealed up. "What happened?" he asked.
"You shot him, and he killed you," Byrne, the Trill explained. "L'Bel was right - he did not respond well to capture."
"What the hell is going on?" Rusty demanded. "That guy - I watched you die."
"It happens," the man said with a shrug. "My name's Rivers. Sorry for shooting you, but no harm done, right?"
"Lie down, Rusty," L'Bel ordered. "We'll explain everything."
Two hours later
They'd treated Rusty's injuries using something called temporal reversion therapy. They gave him some clothes, brought him out to the crew lounge, fed him a cheeseburger and a chocolate shake, and along the way they gave him a crash course in a 29th century understanding of temporal mechanics.
Rusty scratched his chest. Under the t-shirt he was wearing, there was no trace of the nasty burn that had been there before. His bones were healed as if they'd never been broken, because, according to these people, they weren't.
"So, you manipulate time itself to change events, heal injuries... even bring people back from the dead?" he asked.
"Only Rivers, unfortunately," Byrne told him. "And only within five minutes. But we can use the same principle to go back further in time and stop someone from being killed."
"Like your brother," Rivers spoke up.
"Go back to where I stepped off the path," Rusty whispered.
"That's why we brought you to our ship," L'Bel said. "Everybody reacts a little differently to being pulled out of spacetime. Captain Picard once almost went insane when he crossed into another timeframe. The effect on most humanoids is similar. We weren't sure what the effect would be on you, which is why we had to restrain you until you'd regained consciousness. Although, again, we could have handled that better."
Rusty nodded in acknowledgement. "So this ship is a timeship. And you're going to take it back to before the attack happened?"
"Correct," Byrne declared. "And using your knowledge of the event, combined with what we observed, we will hopefully prevent Stamper from killing Admiral LaRoca and four untargettables and three collateral subjects."
Rusty gave him a puzzled look. "And who?"
"Ensign Nguyen, Master Chief Raastzhrraa, and several members of the Betazoid delegation," L'Bel explained.
"Oh. Oh, God, Georgia..." It hadn't even registered with Rusty that there had been other casualties in the blast. The shock of losing his brother had been so great, he'd forgotten his girlfriend until now.
I can save her. I can save him. I can save them all. "What are we waiting for?" Rusty asked. "Let's do this!"
"It's not quite that simple," Rivers told him. "We need to pick an insertion point, we need to figure out our mission plan, we need to pick our disguises, and then there's the issue of what to do with you. The other you."
"Huh?"
"We can't have two Rustys in the same room at the same time," Byrne explained. "Well, there's no technical reason why, it's just very complicated to try to explain to everybody that one of you is from the future."
"So what we'll do is beam you out and beam you down in your place, while we've established a temporal inversion field," Rivers went on.
Rusty stared. "I understand your words individually, but taken together it's pure nonsense."
Byrne took over again. "We'll beam down first and set up a field that temporarily freezes local spacetime, so that nobody will see when we beam the other you out and beam you in. Get it?"
"Okay..."
"But that opens the issue of what to do with the other you," L'Bel explicated. "We can keep him on the Paradox in suspended animation until you've completed the mission, but there can only be one of you in that timeline."
"The problem is this," the ship's AI spoke up, materializing his avatar. "We pulled you out of 'your' quantum reality, and now we're going to pull another you out of 'his' quantum reality, and putting you in his place. But when this is over, your reality won't be 'yours' anymore, because reality for you would be the one in which you'd just saved your brother. And the other you couldn't return to his home reality, because it had been altered. It would no longer be 'his,' because in his reality, he would have seen Admiral LaRoca and the others die just as you did in your home reality."
Trying to follow that gave Rusty a headache, but he was able to figure out the crux of the conundrum. "Well, couldn't you just drop him into my old reality?"
"No, because at the time we're pulling him from his reality, you're still in your reality, because the event hasn't happened yet."
Rusty's headache got worse. "Now I know why you call this ship the Paradox."
"This is always an issue we run into when we recruit local assistance," Byrne mentioned. "Usually we wind up terminating the duplicates."
"You mean you'd kill the other me?" Rusty clarified.
"It does simplify things," Rivers told him. "Especially if we end up having to do this again."
"Let's leave this alone for now," L'Bel suggested, sensing Rusty's uneasiness. "We'll put the other Rusty in stasis, and we'll deal with him when the time comes."
"Good idea," Byrne agreed. "L'Bel, why don't you take Rusty and get him suited up, while Rivers and I started going over the reversion plan with Grandfather."
"Right. This way, Rusty." L'Bel led him out of the crew lounge and down a corridor to a room marked Logistics "We'll get you fitted for a temporal isolation jumpsuit, and then we'll replicate you a new uniform to wear over that."
"I can't wait to get down there," Rusty said, flexing his fingers. "I just want to get down there, and see my brother again, and-"
"All in good time, Rusty," she told him gently. "All in good time."
- Carl Sagan
Professor Farnsworth: You mustn't interfere with the past! Don't do anything that affects anything, unless it turns out you were supposed to do it, in which case, for the love of God, don't not do it!
- Futurama, "Roswell That Ends Well"
Rixx, Betazed - 2411.10.23, 0902 hours local time(?)
Rusty materialized on a transporter pad. He smelled his brother before he noticed anything else. He turned around and there he was, standing there, wearing his dress whites and a slightly bored but official expression. "JESU!!"
"He can't hear you, Rusty," L'Bel reminded him. "His timeframe is frozen, remember?"
"Right, yeah." Rusty looked around the pad. Georgia Nguyen stood next to him, likewise frozen like a statue. Raastz towered behind her. Beyond the pad, in the reception area, there were various Betazoid dignitaries, all arrayed just as they were... This morning? Yesterday? How long was I out? How long have I been awake?
"Rusty? Are you listening?" Byrne was talking at him.
"Sorry, what?"
"Your subdermal communicator is set to keep an open channel, so we'll be able to hear everything going on around you. And you're wired with a QUID, so Rivers can see what's going on around you."
"Right. Got that," Rusty said. L'Bel gone over that on the Paradox, including a mostly comprehensible explanation of how the quantum interference device worked with Rivers' neural HUD.
"Okay, now remember, you just need to act normal, and try to follow your steps from last time as closely as you can. Don't do anything to tip off the bomber or pull your brother out before the bomber makes his move. The only way to save your brother is to catch Reg Stamper."
"Understood."
"We'll try to set up a temporal inversion field in the Press Room," Byrne went on. "That should make it easy for us to catch him. And if the worst should happen, well, just remember we can always reset and try again."
"I'll try to keep that in mind," Rusty said, with a glance back at Jesu.
"Realtime window closes in sixty seconds," Rivers warned the rest of the team. "We'd better get back into positions."
"Right." Byrne followed the Human off the pad.
"Good luck, Rusty," L'Bel said, before heading off in another direction.
"Oh, Rusty, one more thing," Byrne called over the subdermal comm channel. "If the bomb goes off again, it is imperative that you do not get killed in the blast."
"Right."
"If we've got the field established, we can backstep and rewind to before the blast went off, but your suit will keep you from getting put back together," Byrne explained. "We still have the other Rusty as backup, but he doesn't have your experience. You're our best shot at stopping this, so don't get killed."
"Don't get killed. Got it." Rusty squared his shoulders and straightened his back, and stood at ease in front of his brother and slightly to the side, in the same place as when he'd beamed down last time.
"Ten seconds," Rivers called.
Ill protect you this time, Zoo, I swear it. No matter what.
"Five, four, three..."
You and me, big brother. Together, forever.
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
Svetz had to come up with a way to replace the car without causing any paradox - and quickly, because the air was swiftly becoming too pure for any of them to breathe. (Four hundred years hence, mankind had become so thoroughly adapted to smog that they couldn't breathe properly in air with as little CO2 in it as, say, ours.) The explanation, when he came up with his plan, was worthy of vaudeville.
Compared to that, Rusty's trip was simple.
I tried to keep it simple. Time travel is complicated enough, but dragging infinite quantum realities into things is enough to give anyone a headache.
Lucky for Rusty, he's only dealing with two (so far.) Grandfather keeps track of all of them.
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
The timeship crew was extremely forgiving of Rusty's killing of their crew member. Is it because they are able to reset that, too? Which raises a very interesting question, when one has control over the timeline: what becomes of mortality and by what criteria they decide when people should and should not die. And whether or not they have tried to make themselves near immortal in this way.
And temporal language is fun, and made even more fun by the relentlessly linear nature of English.
While I stayed away from showing too much of it, the language of native-raised Devidians is adapted for time travel and distinguishes between personal continuity and external continuity, and location is inherently assumed to have a temporal coordinate (what I was translating as "where-and-when" was probably much more concise in the original).
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-)
Proudly F2P. Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
As for the universe getting tired of being reset all the time... Remember the scene at the end of TNG: "Parallels" when all those Enterprises popped into the same universe and threatened to collapse reality? It'd be something like that.
I think the rest of the Adjustment Unit is just used to seeing Rivers get respawned. And Byrne doesn't like him much. And it was their own fault. But Byrne is lucky Rusty didn't try to kill him too.
Rivers is actually a 26th-century cybernetically augmented Human. I'm keeping his backstory a mystery deliberately right now, but suffice it to say that while his enhancements make him a criminal in any century, he's got plenty of motivation to save the Federation in the early 25th century.
It's a scary question. The Unit really can't control their own mortality (except for Rivers, within limits) but they can "adjust" the mortality of others. And since they take their orders from the Director of Section 31, yeah it's a pretty scary proposal.
I addressed with Grandfather by having him speak in present tense as much as possible. I would try to describe the timescape as he sees it but five-dimensional visualizations hurt my brain.
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
I think I'm drowning
Asphyxiated
I wanna break this spell
That you've created
You're something beautiful
A contradiction
I wanna play the game
I want the friction
You
Will be
The death
Of me
Yeah, you
Will be
The death
Of me
Bury it
I won't let you
Bury it
I won't let you
Smother it
I won't let you
Murder it
And our time is running out
Our time is running out
You can't push it underground
You can't stop it screaming out
I wanted freedom
Bound and restricted
I tried to give you up
But I'm addicted
Now that you know I'm trapped
Sense of elation
You never dream of
Breaking this fixation
You
Will squeeze
The life
Out of me
Bury it
I won't let you
Bury it
I won't let you
Smother it
I won't let you
Murder it
And our time is running out
Our time is running out
You can't push it underground
You can't stop it screaming out
How did it come to this?
...Yeah, you
Will suck
The life
Out of me
Bury it
I won't let you
Bury it
I won't let you
Smother it
I won't let you
Murder it
And our time is running out
Our time is running out
You can't push it underground
You can't stop it screaming out
How did it come to this...
Matthew Bellamy of Muse - "Time Is Running Out"
F R A G M E N T . 5
Rixx - Palace of the Five Thrones
"I just don't think it's fair that Bajor - which has been a Federation Member for less than twenty years - has a transwarp hub and we don't." The Minister of Transportation and Trade was not letting this go.
Admiral LaRoca glued his smile in place as he explained the relative strategic value of Deep Space Nine and the Bajor wormhole. "Not to say that Betazed is not a significant and valuable world, but the transwarp network must reach commercial and strategic priorities first."
"And does that include this so-called Romulan Republic?"
"I think the Federation should make a priority of its own citizens before sharing this technology with people who have a history of aggression," said the Foreign Minister, sitting next to his sister-in-law, the Transport Minister.
Rusty struggled to remain focused. The argument was going exactly as it had the first time, and was just as boring. Betazoid arguments, like just about everything else on this world, were quiet affairs. He yearned for a Tellarite to walk in and liven things up. He felt bad for his brother - he actually had to talk with these people, and keep his sarcasm in check.
"You're all talking to the wrong guy," Jesu finally said. "I'm not the one who's in charge of this sort of thing."
"But you can take our case to the right people," the Foreign Minister countered. He had a first cousin who worked staff at Starfleet HQ, and knew LaRoca's reputation as a man who people in power listened to.
"I'll see what I can do," Jesu said, noncommittally. "Once the security situation has been squared away, I'm sure the Corps of Engineers and Transport Command will be happy to discuss extending the transwarp network this way." The Admiral checked his watch. "Now I'm afraid I need to excuse myself - I need to prepare for a press conference with the Sovereign Council and the Minister of Peace..."
"Admiral, I have other concerns I wish to have addressed-" the Trade Minister started.
"The Admiral has a busy schedule today," Rusty told her (again.) "If there are other issues you think we can help with, you may submit them in writing to the office of the Diplomatic Liaison to Starfleet Security."
Georgia opened the door, and the Gorn Master Chief walked in, ending further protest.
"Thank you for sharing your concerns," Admiral LaRoca told the ministers as he stood up. "I will make sure they are looked into."
Once they were out in the hallway alone, Rusty observed "You didn't promise them anything." He had noticed that before, but he didn't say anything then.
"You know I don't make promises unless I know I'm gonna keep 'em," his brother replied. "Something's gone crooked at Headquarters. I think people back there were trying to set up Betazed to burn."
"Undine infiltratuhs?" Georgia asked.
The Admiral shrugged. "Maybe. But until we can smoke 'em out, they'll block any move to help Betazed."
"You still want to help these people?" Rusty asked bitterly. "You've seen their idea of gratitude."
"I don't do it for their gratitude," Jesu said. "I don't care if they deserve it or not. I help them because they're people who need my help. But I don't do it for them."
Rusty waited for his brother to say just why he'd want to help the Betazoids, but he didn't continue. Raastz had led the group into the "green room" behind the media hall. Jesu was careful to control his thoughts when the Betazoids were near.
F*cking empaths, Rusty thought, knowing he was immune to their telepathy.
A functionary for the Ministry of Information entered from the main press room. "Admiral, you're on in fifteen. The Sovereign Council has instructed the Ministry of Information to prepare a list of topics they feel should not be open for discussion." She held out a PADD.
Rusty snatched it away and passed it to Raastz to scan with her tricorder.
"What sort of topics?" Jesu wondered, making a point of keeping his focus on the ministry official and not on his security people.
"Um... I'm not exactly sure... It's all on the PADD, including your recommended response if those topics are brought up through questions."
"I thought y'all prided yo'selves on openness," Georgia remarked. "This seems sorta..."
"Deceptive," Jesu finished, accepting the PADD from Raastz.
"It's not deception; we are only asking you to... refrain from discussing certain... controversial issues."
"Speaking of controversial issues," Rusty spoke up, "what about the security measures I recommended?"
"We feel our security scanners and the presence of Peace Keepers will dissuade any attackers," the functionary said.
"Your scanners aren't good enough," Rusty insisted. "The assassins we're looking for deal with improvised explosives of the sort your scanners can't catch. You can't tell a standard PADD from one with an overcharged powercell and a casing made of emulsified plastic explosive."
"Watch it Rusty," Byrne warned. "Don't tip your hand."
Rusty ignored the temporal operative. "I want your Peace Keepers to examine every piece of technology brought into the press room, with a tricorder set to run a level-one molecular scan."
"Rusty, stop! We need to catch the TRIBBLE, remember?"
"I'm sorry, sir," the functionary told him. "But that would simply be too disruptive."
"Not as disruptive as it would be if my brother gets blown up!"
"Rusty, chill," Jesu said, laying a hand on the Deinon's shoulder. "The people here know what they're doing."
"No, they don't!" Rusty almost yelled. "The way they run things, any f*cker with a fake ID can walk in there and put a bomb in your hand. And I'm not gonna let 'em-"
"Stand DOWN, Commander," L'Bel's voice came over the subdermal comm. "Letting the situation play out gives us the best chance to save your brother."
Rusty swallowed. "The situation is too risky," he said, to everyone listening.
"Do the reporters have to place their PADDs on the dais?" Raastz asked. "Can't they just send their questions to one of our devices?"
"It is the way we do things," the aide insisted. "A direct question, requiring a direct answer, with no opportunity for anyone to tamper with or corrupt the media's inquiry."
"Hunh," Georgia snorted, seeing right through the hypocrisy of it all.
The ministry official pivoted to face her. "The appearance of openness is very important to my people."
"Couldn't you just have the reporters write their questions on a piece of paper, or something?" Raastz pressed. "I imagine that's how things worked before you had PADDs, am I right?"
The functionary considered. "Perhaps... we'd have to stall the conference for arrangements to be made, but it is doable..."
"Rusty, we need Stamper to trigger the device or we can't catch him," Byrne told him. "We're in position, and so's he. Let the scenario play out."
Rusty sighed. "Nevermind. We'll scan the PADDs ourselves."
Master Chief Raastz gave him an odd look, but said nothing.
"Very well... Ill send the makeup girl in." The official looked to Ens. Nguyen. "Um, you may accompany the Admiral on the dais, but you two..." she gestured to Rusty and Raastz.
"We might scare your viewers, so we'd better stay out of shot," Rusty said for her. "We're used to it."
"Thank you for... understanding." And the functionary made a hasty exit.
"What the hell was that all about?" the Admiral asked is little brother.
Rusty shook his head. "Nothing. I hope."
(If you cannot fail, you cannot succeed.)
- Klingon proverb
If you don't have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?
- John Wooden, UCLA basketball coach
Press Room
"I think the important thing to remember is that the safety of your citizens is still the primary concern of the Federation and Starfleet," Admiral LaRoca declared. "This attack on your world was without precedent, and many of the Federation's top scientists didn't believe it could ever really happen. Their probability studies told them that the risk of setting off a mass panic was too high to justify a warning about an attack that they thought would never occur. Fortunately, my task force was here when the probabilities didn't pan out."
Jesu LaRoca leaned forward in his seat and looked straight at the HV cameras. "The Federation regrets its error in judgment in not providing forewarning of this potential catastrophe. However, we are all grateful that the loss of innocent life was minimized. Speaking for myself, I sincerely hope that people of Betazed will put aside their terror and anguish over what could have happened, and join me in my relief that such a great tragedy was averted."
Lady Sabine of the Third House said "I concur with the Admiral. Though we may not always agree with the conclusions of those on Earth, we do know they are looking out for our interests and stand ready to defend us. Let us put an end to this divisive behavior. Let us unite as one, and stand together unified with our brothers and sisters in the United Federation of Planets, and preserve this unity we hold so dear..."
Rusty remembered cracking a joke about Lady Sabine's overuse of the word "Unity." He didn't do that this time. He kept his eyes on the crowd of press and let Raastz focus on her tricorder.
Lady Sabine finally wrapped up her speech, and clasped her hands together, indicating that she was finished speaking.
The Escritoire bowed to her and then turned to face the reporters. "The dais is now open to accept your questions. Please lock your PADDs in read-only and bring them forward."
"There's too damn many of them," Raastz grumbled as the reporters filed toward the front of the room. "Sh*t - somebody's got a powercell running hot but I can't isolate it!"
"Keep trying," Rusty whispered. He scanned the faces of the male humanoids, searching for the one he'd seen in the Starfleet Intelligence profile. It was a long-shot, he knew. With the plethora of alien races represented by the major news networks, all a Human had do to disguise himself was to glue a bit of rubber to his forehead and- "There he is!"
"Who?"
"Where?"
Rusty answered Byrne first, then Raastz. "My two-o'clock, twelfth guy in line. He looks like Reg Stamper. Narrow your scans on his PADD," he instructed Raastz and Rivers.
"It's the bomb," Rivers said.
"Overcharged powercell, and... broken eggs, according to my molecular scans, the whole case is made of some sort of polymerized explosive!" Raastz looked at her Commander. "How'd you call that one, sir?"
"Lucky guess," Rusty hissed, watching Stamper file closer to the table.
"Whats our play?"
"I'm moving in for the takedown," Byrne announced. The gray-haired Trill was disguised as a Betazoid Peace Keeper - he approached from behind Stamper and flicked out a stun baton.
"I've got an open comm line to a special Peace Keeper force," Rusty told Raastz. "One of them is moving in now."
"When did you set that up?"
Stamper was six steps from the dais, and Byrne was one step away from his right side when the terrorist suddenly flinched. Byrne lunged forward with his stunstick, but Stamper spun away, and delivered a reverse elbow to the side of Byrne's head and a powerful karate chop to the wrist holding the baton. Stamper kept his rotational momentum and threw the PADD he was carrying like a frisbee, aimed right at Admiral LaRoca's head.
Jesu ducked, but Georgia caught the PADD with both hands. She started to say "Nice throw" as Rusty screamed "GET RID OF IT!!" and Raastz bounded forward and Stamper touched a button on his watch...
Time froze, and rewound itself, but not before Rusty watched his brother die again.
He was lost in that moment for what seemed like an eternity before he slowly became aware of L'Bel talking at him.
"blah-blah-Jesu-blah-blah-blah-Rusty, Jesu is fine, you see?"
Rusty pulled himself back into awareness of his surroundings. Jesu was still sitting there, wearing a smile that looked genuine to anyone else. Georgia stood behind him, with her hands clasped behind her back and a patient expression on her face. Raastz was tucked into the alcove on the edge of the stage, frowning as she poked her tricorder. Stamper was
"Second row, right side, third from the aisle," Rivers said over the comm channel. "How are you doing, boss?"
"I think the f*cker broke my damn wrist," Byrne moaned from the middle of the room. He was clutching his right arm in obvious pain. "L'Bel..."
"I'm here. Let me take a look..."
Rusty approached his brother, reached out to him, and-
"Don't touch him!" Rivers warned. "You're out of temporal alignment with him, remember?"
Rusty held his hand a few millimeters from the side of Jesu's face. He remembered from the briefing that something bad would happen if he touched anyone who was 'frozen' in the temporal inversion field. He pulled his hand back and stared at his brother. He has no idea what's about to happen - that in a few minutes he's gonna die... NO! That's NOT gonna happen!
He turned around and approached Stamper, seated with the reporters, looking innocent and a little smug. "Let me get rid of him."
"It's not that simple," Byrne said, as he adjusted the sleeve of his borrowed uniform over the splint that L'Bel had just placed. "We need to remove him in a minimally disruptive way. You can't just kill him while he's frozen. People would notice that."
"Can we rewind further, stop him before he comes in?"
"Unfortunately, no," Rivers said. "The tech has limits. We can't backstep to before we established the field, or even all the way back to that point. We're at just over minus-eight minutes off real-time now, with ninety-six percent timestream cohesion. The further we backstep, or the longer we keep frozen here, the more cohesion we lose. That means it's harder to re-sync with real-time. While time is standing still in here, it goes on outside the field. And we are, rather ironically and quitter literally, running out of time."
"We can't risk a direct move on him again," Byrne pointed out. "Not unless we take him completely by surprise. He's a lot quicker than I anticipated. Maybe too fast for me to handle."
"I'll take him, then," Rusty decided. "I'll move behind him, and hit him with a phaser on stun-seven." He glared at Byrne. "Or would that be too disruptive?"
"It's not my party were crashing," Byrne said with a shrug. "But there's a risk he could turn on you, or trigger the device and kill you both, and you're one of my Principals. I can't let you die."
"You have the other Rusty on your ship," Rusty pointed out. "If anything happens to me, just wake him up and beam him down." He looked back at Jesu, and flinched as his mind relived his death... "In fact, I think you should do that anyway."
"What are you saying, Rusty?" L'Bel asked. She recognized something in his tone.
"I'm saying when this is over, however it winds up, I want to be terminated," Rusty said evenly. "I've watched my brother die twice now. I will never be able to forget that, you understand? That will haunt me for the rest of my life. The other Rusty... you pulled him out before any of this happened. He has no idea what's coming. He's... I wish I could be him. I don't want to have to live with the things I've seen."
L'Bel nodded solemnly. "I understand."
"I don't, but were wasting time," Rivers cut in. "Boss, do we go with the Commander's plan or not?"
"I suppose we do," Byrne said. "If that's what he wants... the other Rusty would just go into the replicators anyway."
"We'll have to do another time-jump with the ship to make the switch, but that's doable. Right now, I've got about a minute to get you guys into your positions."
"Right." Byrne walked toward his place near the back of the room. "Good luck, Commander."
One minute later / ten minutes ago...
"How many times can someone say 'unity' in the same sentence?" Rusty hissed, prompting a quiet chuckle from the massive Gorn next to him. He had three and a half minutes before Lady Sabine stopped talking.
He looked toward the back of the room, found Stamper, and kept his eyes moving until he was looking at Byrne. "I see him," he whispered.
"Where?"
"Dont look at him. Second row, right side of the aisle, three seats in. It's our man Reg Stamper. I'd bet my life on it."
"Scanning... you're right!" she hissed a curse under her breath. "Non-standard powercell in his PADD... molecular scan shows the casing isn't standard either... broken eggs, it's resin-bonded carbodine! How the hell did you call that one, sir?"
"Lucky guess. Can you find the trigger frequency and jam it?"
"I'll try. What kind of play you wanna make?"
"He'll want to put that PADD right in my brother's hands... Need to get him right as he stands up with the reporters and take 'im out. Wait here. Get ready to trigger a dampening field around him in case I miss my shot."
"Alright. Better hurry, I think the lady's wrapping it up."
Rusty nodded, and slipped off the side of the stage, making his way along the wall. A few reporters gave him startled looks. When he reached the back of the room he drew his phaser pistol - grateful he'd beamed down with that rather than the more lethal anti-proton weapons he usually carried - and set it to maximum stun.
"Sir, what are you-" one of the Peace Keepers started to ask.
"Taking out a terrorist," Rusty hissed. "Cut the cameras - this could get messy."
Lady Sabine finally ran out of things to say, and the escritoire invited the reporters forward. Rusty made his move.
He sprinted down the aisle with three bounding steps, aimed his weapon, and shot Reg Stamper in the back as he stood up. The energy-dampening armor Stamper wore under his clothes absorbed the shot, but he still fell to his knees. He looked up at the dais and raised his PADD...
No you don't! "Get BACK!" Rusty yelled at the frightened people all around. "He's got a BOMB!!"
Reporters screamed and scrambled away, many of them pouring into the aisle and boxing Rusty in. He saw Georgia grab his brother by the shoulders and pull him out of his chair, then reach for her disruptor pistol as Reg Stamper stood up...
Rusty shoved a fat Bajoran woman out of his path and he pounced, driving one of his toe claws through Stamper's back and spearing the other through the hand holding the PADD. He stepped off to stuff the PADD under Stamper's torso as the bomber reached for his watch. He smothered Stamper's body with his own and hissed "I won't let you-" as everything went white.
Jesu blinked, momentarily stunned by the concussive force of the explosion. The fire suppression system kicked in, bathing the media room with pentafluoroethane and argonite gas. The dampening field Raastz projected with her tricorder contained the blast within a three-meter-radius sphere, limiting what would have been a horrific casualty count to just two.
"RUSTY!" Jesu broke away from Georgia and ran forward into the fog. "Jesus Christ, RUSTY!!" He reached the small crater that had been gouged in the floor. There wasn't much left of the terrorist, and his brother's body was mess of broken bones and charred skin - still intact, but unmoving. "Oh, God, NO!!"
A gray-haired Peace Keeper stepped up to hold him back. "Medical teams are here, sir, they'll take care of him."
A Vulcan reporter and a dark-skinned Human wearing a relief agency uniform appeared and crouched over Rusty. "Emergency transport," the Vulcan said.
"Where are they taking him?" Jesu demanded as his brother disappeared with them in a transporter beam. He spun to face the Peace Keeper, but he had disappeared as well. "What the fu-"
Sixty-eight seconds ago...
Jesu blinked, momentarily stunned by the concussive force of the explosion. The fire suppression system kicked in, bathing the media room with pentafluoroethane and argonite gas. The dampening field Raastz projected with her tricorder contained the blast within a three-meter-radius sphere, limiting what would have been a horrific casualty count to just two.
"RUSTY!" Jesu broke away from Georgia and ran forward into the fog. "Jesus Christ, RUSTY!!" He reached the small crater that had been gouged in the floor. There wasn't much left of the terrorist, but his brother's body was at least in one piece - apparently blown clear of the main force of the blast. The injured Deinon stirred and moaned as Jesu knelt by his side. "Rusty, thank God! I thought I lost you there, bro!"
"Unnghh..." Rusty groaned. "Wha happ'n..."
A dark-skinned Human and a gray-haired Trill wearing the Interstellar Red Cross badge on their jumpsuits were suddenly hovering over the brothers. The Trill examined Rusty with a tricorder. "He's suffered a concussive brain injury, second and third degree burns over his arms, head, neck and torso, massive internal bleeding and numerous fractures to his skull, collarbone, forearms and ribs. He'll need to get to a hospital," he pronounced. The Human administered a painkiller hypo and waved a vascular regenerator over Rusty's chest.
"Oh, Rusty!" Georgia almost-wailed at the news. "You're hurt bad!"
"V'had worse..." Rusty blinked and looked up at his brother. "Zoo, what happened to me?"
"You tackled the bomber, and saved a lot of lives, bro," Jesu told him. "Including Georgia's and mine. Don't you remember?"
Rusty tried to shake his head, decided it hurt too much, and instead whispered "No. Last thing I remember... We were on the Zambezi, about to beam down."
"You have suffered a serious injury to your medial temporal lobe and hippocampus," the Trill declared. "Loss of short-term memory is not surprising."
"Paramedics have arrived," a Peace Keeper announced. "They'll take him straight in to surgery."
"Thank you. Excuse me..." The Trill got up and examined Stamper's remains. "We'll need a bag for this one, Rivers."
"Evidence..." Rusty mumbled.
"What's that?"
"He's saying the body and whatever bomb fragments we can recover are evidence of the assassination attempt," Raastz answered. The Gorn folded her arms and said very politely "I must ask you please do not disturb the scene."
Right, of course. The Trill got up and wandered off with the Human trailing.
The Betazoid paramedics hoisted Rusty on a stretcher, and anxious onlookers started to applaud when they saw he was still alive.
"Zoo, once I'm better, you'll have to tell me what I did," Rusty muttered.
"We will," Jesu said.
"You were amazing," Georgia declared.
- Michio Kaku
USS Paradox, Betazed polar orbit
"So, both principals and all untargetables are secure, we have one hostile confirmed terminated and Grandfather was able to backtrace his movements to identify the second. Shall we take her into custody as well?"
The Director considered. "Yeah," he decided, as his holocomm avatar shifted uneasily. "I don't want LaRoca finding out who was behind this. Not yet. He's a good investigator. If you leave a trail for him to follow, he'll follow it to the end."
"Do we bring her in or terminate?" Byrne asked, flexing his repaired wrist.
"Terminate. Wait until she leaves the planet, then intercept."
"Understood." Byrne nodded to Rivers, who immediately began working with Grandfather on projections to intercept the Bolian bomb-maker Rin Thuli. "What about the Principals?" the Trill wondered. "Do you anticipate Subject Zero making another attempt?"
"It's possible, but unlikely," the Director figured. "It's hard to catch him in space, impossible when he's on his ship, and very dangerous on Earth. At least, right now..." The Director waved his hands dismissively. "I'll monitor the situation, but I don't think we need to worry about LaRoca for a while. I have a new assignment for you now, which could alter the outcomes enough to make the enemy shift their focus."
Byrne nodded. "I'm listening. How shall we change history now?"
(this time...)
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
Time Travel still makes my brain hurt, but I really like how this went.
Looking forward to how the rest of our stories go.
Good happy ending. Leaves me excited for the next stage of A Property Line Dispute and Faces.
Considering writing a Mastersverse-referencing story for the LC, but not sure if a clinically-detailed depiction of Three killing a man by flicking her finger into his head desktop-football-style will be well-received.
Sander--as far as YOUR story, very complex and took multiple readings to make sure I was keeping up with what was going on, but in the end I really liked it, and as MDK pointed out, you leave some very interesting questions about exactly what role these time travelers are playing in the whole thing, who they answer to, and even whose side they are on, anyway. There's something very ambiguous to me about the very end...
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