Bulkheads exploded around him as he rushed, if one might be able to interpret it as such, down to engineering. Zosni, who was not familiar with moving at such quick paces resorted to more of a waddle, which was fairly appropriate for a man of his considerable age. They could not have chosen a worse time to attack. The ship was in atrocious condition after the Devidian Incident, supplies were running short, they had yet to be able to undo the damage done to the Momentum so that it might assist them, and now the confounded Na'kuhl had to attack. Of course they did. The ship could barely hold together. But of course, as in so many years past, any good Starfleet engineer could pull a ship out of the most perilous situation. But the case right now was not that.
The Rubicon was not in shape for this, and without much luck at the moment. Zosni, with the stimulation of the present panic, worked on his padd to keep the systems operating as best as they could. The door slid open, and he entered engineering, which in the haze of the fires and the smoke, had an ominous glare to it all.
Adrenaline shot through Ovirosch's veins, causing him to grasp in desperate attempts at the stations around him to keep him from collapsing. Pulses of energy shot from the alien ships, striking and beating at his beloved ship. The temporal home for all the Starfleet officers who were now dislocated from their place in time because of this Aberration. Bayeb stood erect from his station, and he dashed to the aid of Parvius, who was burnt and lying on the ground. The Sellolsian worked at the controls for quite some time, focusing in on the several Na'kuhl enemies that were surrounding. Anti-matter beams went off. Chroniton torpedoes. Annulsion beams. Anything to destroy these enemies. And in return, temporal energy fired in the form of a phaser weapon was given to the Rubicon. Systems began to fail. The Na'kuhl had returned to settle the score with the Rubicon.
For a moment, Bayeb alleviated the ship of the bombardment of the temporal energy, allowing many people to stand, and allowing him to focus on doing whatever he could to help the injured security officer.
"Na'kuhl are using temporal energy," he said simultaneously, "theyre known for it."
Indeed, Ovirosch replied, if memory serves, you and I had such a run in with the case back on the Enterprise. Years ago, when they first began experimenting with their right to improve, they sent a burst of anti-temporal energy into an assortment of chemicals, sending them back in time millions of years. Their intention was to introduce these elements to the proto-Nakuhl species that was in existence at the time, and then cause themselves to become more evolved in the present.
Did it work? asked Inas from her conjoined science-operations station.
To an extent. What truly happened was that the anti-time was not adequate in supply to send it entirely back in time, and rather sent the matter scattered throughout the time. The effect disseminated it in several places along the same point in space.
And then the Enterprise arrived at the appropriate time for it to secure against the Nakuhl doing anything further, once they had discovered the secret of it which the Nakuhl went to great care to hide. Unfortunately, it pushed the Nakuhl into the Temporal Cold War, Bayeb supplied.
The temporal energy, being what is to be considered positive in force, has perforated our ships hull and is causing the negatively charged anti-time in our ships systems to go into leakage, Inas said. Its forming a build-up in main engineering.
Zosni scurried to the aid of Thelys, who in the midst of an explosion, was using a fire suppression. The uniform, which was designed to prevent against burning, could not entirely prohibit the fires best effort to singe and ignite the Xindis long hair. The Temporal Core, for the moments meaning, was not yet about to leak. Radiation, on the other hand, was pouring out from the several outlets that produced it, and, considering the El-Aurians much more sensitive and susceptible nerves, was likely to give him Dulmurs.
Zosni, came the voice of his commanding officer across his combadge. You need to make it to the overhang near the overlooking Engineering. Conduits have exploded and are leaking anti-time. So far it has only affected the air molecules it has come into contact with, but if anyone or anything vital comes into contact with it, they very well may be sent through time into the past. We all know that means utter destruction if it comes into contact with the Temporal Core. It can only be sealed directly. All controls leading to it have been destroyed from any other way.
Got it, he said, I believe I have this current issue under control, he said, releasing a blast of suppresant to completely dispose of the fire on Thelys.
Yes, go, said the extraordinary equipped, yet one would think inferior by his simian appearance, Xindi.
The thin-face, trim Lt. York lay debilitated by the blast that had ruptured the conduits. Zosni rushed to his side to try and assist him, placing his tricorder at his side to scan to discover his infirmity.
Im fine, said the officer, after Zosni had taken a second to help him to recover with a medical tricorder, on hand for the emergency.
Zosnis heart was beating now as he looked at the huge mass of glowing yellow energy that streamed gold off the side of the balcony. He focused his attention, all the while he was filled with passionate apprehension. Sparks showered upon him, burning his skin. In a splendorous display of majestic reds and yellows mixed in the fire, the wall directly beside the XO and the subordinate officer erupted. In those moment that premonition gave Zosni to see the danger coming, he rushed ot clasp himself around the smaller, feebler York. A plank of metal and several chunks of debris collapsed on them.
In a necessary one-time use of complete energy, Zosni, fueled by fear and determination, shoved the mess away from them and pushed off, letting York stand and assist him. Near by, the panel was implanted that would service them in shutting down the leakage and rectifying the situation. Upon Kandirs order, York quickly moved over to the working position to try his best at fixing this. Zosni remained standing there, using his tricorder to examine the physics of the anti-temporal energy. He felt it though, also, and the energy mass disrupted his mind. El-Aurians had always been acutely sensitive to transtemporal occurances, so also in this moment, the disruptiveness of the movement of the anti-time caused Zosnis mind to be disheveled. The anti-time moved the considerably insignificant oxygen atoms that entered it to be caught up into the pulse of the negative energy, which caused atoms that were affected by it to be sent back in time. To what time was dependent on the amount of anti-time it absorbed. The movement of the molecules was entirely dependent upon the fact that there was an adequate balance between time and matter.
The conduit became sealed, and the mass stopped growing. Zosni looked behind him to where Lt. York stood. In another moment of horrid peril, Zosni was helpless to save him when the panel exploded sparks across the human and sent him reeling back and off the railing. York fell and crashed against the force field around the Temporal Core. York was gone, and all of Zosnis efforts to save him had been in vain. Such a passionate feeling of grief seized the Commander, perhaps amplified by the disruptive waves of anti-time, in that moment, and he could barely manage to do anything but stand there. All that he had needed to do had failed. The tricorder showed that York had sent the anti-time into another system, so that if the conduit ruptured in another location, it would not affect the same area. But no. The anti-time already in this area was, as the tricorder showed, affecting the balance in the Temporal Core. It had to be neutralized. It had to be neutralized now or all of those struggling survivors on board would die, and their struggles would also be in vain. Zosni thought of all of his regrets, all of the times he had hoped to save someone, yet had failed. He thought to a time two centuries ago, when he had failed ultimately in his life, and that moment he could never let go
The tricorder read one final fact. The mass of the anti-time. He scanned it, meticulously looking over it. He scanned his own mass. Nearly equal. Though the anti-times glowing mass was larger than his own. He had found a solution. Zosni moved back from the shattered edge where the balcony had collapsed beneath the anti-time. He assumed a fair distance, then, with his final, ultimate burst of strength, his supreme submission to the cause, to Starfleet, to Ex Astris, Scientia, he ran with more speed than he thought himself capable. And with those dynamics, and that projection, he lept into the glowing mass of the anti-time. And Kandir Zosni was gone
Can we get a reading on the position of Commander Zosni? We are going to need him on the bridge, Captain Ovirosch said to Inas, whose fingers moved across the surface of the computer, which charted the location of the signal of Zosnis combadge.
The Changeling scanned and tried to identify, with careful haste, where the combadge had gone. Captain, Im not reading Zosni on our internal sensors. Our temporal sensors cant locate where the combadge might have gone either. Captain, hes just gone, she said as extreme confusion passed over her commonly placid, smooth face.
Gone? How can Zosni just be gone? he demanded, internally devastated by these words. His Executive Officer might have been lost in this battle. Who had become his good friend, his dear friend Kandir, might be dead.
Internal sensors last read him at the site of the anti-time pocket just before it vanished. Captain, all signs point that Commander Zosni sacrificed himself in order to seal the pocket.
No no no, he began in disbelief, which shortly evolved into anger. No-no-no! He stood up from the three command chairs and went to the captains station.
Im reading a buildup of energy in our trans- she said quickly, yet not quickly enough. The transporter detonated, and Chief Weih, who stood scanning on duty and operating to analyze the ship, was thrown across the room to smash into the command chairs, where Ovirosch had just been sitting. The Deferi made no sound. Ovirosch dashed in the heat of the moment to try and assist, but then the ceiling imploded with showers of sparks and debris, which came crashing down on the Transporter Chief.
Without only impetus and without hesitation, Bayeb rushed to the wreckage and used his tricorder to examine the wreckage. Hes dead.
In despondency, Ovirosch brought his hand down on the station, barely damaging the already crumbling ship he commanded, which once was to be considered the futures citadel from which they overlooked their dominion, the past. The Rubicons citadel was crumbling.
Zosni awoke to a warm bed, in which he could sense through his emotions, the presence of another being. This did not immediately disturb him, but he allowed himself to be satisfied by the pleasure of a peaceful awakening that was not accompanied by the duty of awakening. But for some reason, his quarters lights did not activate and instantaneously signal that now was his time to awake and begin his functioning aboard the meticulously run timeship. No, but the gradual feeling of warmth grew across his back as he became aware of the presence of sunlight, actual sunlight, on his back. Sometimes he would have it so that the holomatrix would simulate his room and turn it into a virtual paradise for a temporary leisure. But he could always tell the difference between the simulated and the real. And this was very real. His extremely responsive senses could always now what was real in such cases. He could sense the persona, the soul, of the other individual, and he could tell who it was.
He was drowning internally to an outpour of bliss. Simply bliss. Beside him lay the love of his life, and the knowledge of that soothed him. Kandir rested for quite sometime. He laid for so long a time, and he then awoke to find Kelsa still asleep. She laid there in her flowing nightgown. Elated was not a valid summary for the emotions he felt once he had seen her again. Indeed not. He became so overwhelmed, so inundated that he wondered if he could possibly breathe. He turned in his bed to look out the broad, open balcony that overlooked the town, and where the sun was now streaming in. Near the sun was transfixed the two moons of New El-Aurian. But he, with his broad alien memory, knew this morning and remembered it well. How had he gotten here? It was his duty to find out, but he did not care in the slightest. He was here, and he was at peace. He rose after sometime and went to his sealed cabinet and found from it a bottle of Aldebaran whiskey. He prepared a glass of it for himself, and drank it down.
"It's kind of early in the day for alcohol, is it not?" said the voice of Kelsa as she approached from behind. "And why are you up so early in the first place?"
"Oh, I don't know," Zosni said, suddenly thinking of how his conditioning on board the Rubicon still impelled him to rise sooner than was his people's habit back on their world. "You know, the Academy has me already feeling rather... routine, I guess you could say."
"Wow, you really are committed to Starfleet, aren't you?" she said.
"Yes, I am. As I would encourage you to be," he said, without any other option but to smile at her.
"How the devil are we going to get away from these Na'kuhl?" Ovirosch shouted at the officers.
"Sir, I recommend we enter the normal space-time continuum. Perhaps we can find assistance there. However, with our technology disabled, we are not likely to be able to re-engage our flight into the Intertemporal Continuum. So we have several options here," Inas said.
"Maybe we could visit some of my ancestors," said Xaz, "I'm sure the Na'kuhl wouldn't care much for them. And you know... it might be nice to learn about where I came from," said the socially-awkward Voth, trying his best to take the nerve off of what he thought would be imminent death.
"Take us to modern day, 2886," Ovirosch decided.
"Captain, we already have information that the aberrant modern day could be quite dangerous. Are you sure you want to be put in the middle of a civil war between sides of a devastated government with an inoperable timeship," Bayeb asked, referencing temporal scans.
"Maybe the Imperial Federation or whatever its called will be able to wipe out these Na'kuhl for us. I don't know how these Na'kuhl managed to be saved from being altered with the timeline, but I want them destroyed. After that we can find our answers," he said. Bayeb and Inas punched in the information, and the ship prepared to leave, followed by the aggressors of the Na'kuhl.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
"Star Trek: Rubicon" Season 1, Season 2 A new era, a new time, a new crew, a new ship, a new mission...
"I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment because it will never come again."- Jean-Luc Picard
The Imperials made quick work of the Na'kuhl, as he had hoped, and then captured their ship because it was a temporal vessel, as he had planned. The Imperials beamed aboard, and were prepared with quickness to interrogate them. But under no circumstances could this travesty of the Federation apprehend temporal technology. Indeed, these people were a living example that progess was delayed by conflict. They had been fighting for so long and had never come to accomplish the period in time of the Temporal Revolution. Without it, the future was fortunate enough that the corrupt thirds the Federation had broken into could not travel to the past to interfere in a Temporal Cold War. Yet, the timeline was altered. It was still a mysterious to the crew how the Factions that should have been erased were still fighting as if from behind this false 2886.
They dragged Ovirosch to an air-tight room where he was placed in a cold, hard chair and where he could see there were straps that were to be attached used to administer an electrical pulse to shock the person in question. Into the room walked a tall man, clad in a dark uniform. He obviously was to be his interrogator. In his hand he outstretched a pulsing rod, which he was practicing swinging back and forth. He seemed very amused with his actions and seemed pleased with having someone to beat. He approached Maxwell in the isolated room and prepared to swing. A blast of a phaser shot out and struck the tormentor, vaporizing him instantly. Another man stepped out, from seemingly nowhere.
"Hello, there. It's a pleasure to meet you, Maxwell," said a rather gravelly voice that came from a face with dark, black hair. "My name is Perry, and it seems like you could use some help."
"Who are you? How did you get in here?" Maxwell asked under the normal routine.
"I am Captain of the USS Bradbury, timeship, currently from Stardate 593375.27," he said, releasing Ovirosch from the chair in which he was caught.
"593375.27. You're from the year 2916?"
"Yes, I am. But of course, the knowledge of that sort of information is perfectly safe to share between two members of the TIC, correct?"
"I should presume so."
"Indeed. That fact is that the Bradbury has been trapped from the normal timeline as well because of this aberration of yours. As a matter of fact, we haven't been able to track what could have caused all of this alteration either," he said, stepping back. He walked over to the edge of the room. Out of his shirt pocket, he extracted a combadge. He pressed the surface, and activated a hologram to be projected. Because of apparent interference from the Imperials, the hologram flashed blue instead of the normal facsimile colors that holograms usually reproduced. "This certainly is an eerie timeline. Last year, actually, I fought in the Interdimensional War. Fighting against the Mirror Universe is nothing in comparison to seeing the Federation be destroyed by imperialism. It's one thing to see a travesty of a reflection and its another to feel it in your own body."
"The Federation is going to fight an Interdimensional War against the Mirror Universe?"
"The Terran Empire, actually. We developed a new sort of timeship that could cross between realities, and could do so carefully. The Terrans actually fell to us in the war, bringing peace between our dimensions for now. But that's not important," said Perry, with his phaser out after discussing a few things Ovirosch couldn't make much of with a Zyrvan officer over the combadge. He aimed the phaser at the door, fired, and caused the door to become disintegrated into debris upon his firing. "Time to go."
"Can't you beam us out, if you have a ship?" Ovirosch asked Perry, who turned around in reply.
"Potentially. But what fun would that be?" Perry smirked, and turned back to the hole in the wall he had created. "You know we time travelers love Latin. Especially Carpe Diem. And you know what else they say," he said, still humoring, very leniently for a time traveler, "you only live as many times as we can save you via transporter."
Guard rushed at the sound of the emergency, directly to us, and were received with blasts to the chest with phasers. Ovirosch set his phaser to the highest setting, and vaporized a guard who stood behind them, ready to fire.
"The truth is that their signal jammers are too strong here. We need to make it to the Rubicon, which should be docked.... ah there we go," he said, spying a turbolift. A blast of a phaser shot just by Maxwell's shoulder, which he ducked in reply to the shower of molten metal that poured out on him. His uniform withstood it, but he still felt panic rush over him. For the last two years, he and his crew had been trapped from going to back to their homes in the original timeline. It had been so long he had almost forgotten what the original timeline was. And during that time, he had witnessed as all the other stranded crews and ships perished around him, and he was absolutely helpless to do anything. The Relativity, the Momentum, these and more. Today he had been watching crewmen he cared about die. Now it might be time that he joined them. He ducked into the turbolift with Perry, and they selected the turbolift option that would grant them transport down to the Rubicon. Once they had reached the lower levels, the door opened, and awaiting them stood many, many sentinels, who stood guarding the entrance to where the Rubicon was docked.
They crowded around the entrance to the turbolift, prepared to fire on the two time travelers if they moved. "Now," one of them announced, "you will either show us how you time travel, or you will be turned to vapor."
"Well," Perry said, the curling of his lip returning in a facetious humor once more, "I have one reply," he said, "eat chronitons, you-" And proceeded to both say several unsavory words and throw a grenade into their midst. The grenade sent a shockwave of destruction through them, and proceeded to travel towards the small elevator, where it would certainly be channeled to kill them. Ovirosch awaited death, but instead felt the tingling of a transporter as it raptured up he and Perry.
Ovirosch stood now instead on a very similar yet very different ship. The color of the brownish hue was no more. Instead, it was tinted with a bluish silver. The viewscreen, which had normally been pointed in one direction towards the front of the room, which decided where all the stations pointed, was widely stretched out to make it clearly visible in a much larger way. Ovirosch stepped off of the transporter. "That transport should have killed me."
"No, Captain. We've advanced a bit in the last thirty years. Temporal transporters don't produce nearly as much chroniton radiation," Perry said, from where he sat at the captain's station, obviously having replaced any need for a captain's chair. Ovirosch looked at the viewscreen, where he saw what appeared to be his own ship's engineering room, and what appeared to be a man jumping into cloud of energy. It was Zosni. From what he figured to be the science console, a Kazon woman said in her growlly tone of voice, "Sir, I believe we have identified the source of the aberration."
"Maxwell, it seems we've found your problem," Perry said, watching the scene of Zosni's jump replay on the screen.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
"Star Trek: Rubicon" Season 1, Season 2 A new era, a new time, a new crew, a new ship, a new mission...
"I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment because it will never come again."- Jean-Luc Picard
"So are you telling me that when he jumped into the anti-temporal energy, it pushed his mentality back in time. And in doing that, the anti-time was canceled out?" Ovirosch was immediately very confused and excited at the same time. This might be the chance they needed to go home.
"Yes, Ovirosch. Now as to what caused all of this," said Perry, motioning out into space at the surrounding decadent shards of the Federation, "it is likely that he has done something significant in the past that might cause the entire Federation to fall. I think it's fitting that the Bradbury figured out about it then. One man's interactions change the entire fate of the world. Sounds like a story I once read."
"We have recorded on the Rubicon some of the things that were told to us through interactions with a man from this timeline named Collingsworth. It's possible that whatever happened, whoever it was that Data said corrupted the Federation, was influenced by this change."
"Contact the Rubicon," ordered Perry. "Let's do a Holomatrix simulation and see what the possibilities are."
The men left the bridge and headed to the lower levels of the Bradbury.
"It's so beautiful here," said Zosni in the cool of the morning. Kelsa and he walked among the trees, dangling with beautiful wind chimes of El-Aurian culture. Each and every movement of the windchime represented the movements of the Six Spirits and how they worked through fate. They walked together in harmony and concord with the breeze of the morning. New El-Aurian was a beautiful planet. From the way it was described by the more elderly of the previously nomadic race, New El-Aurian served the intention of recreating the almost exact feel of the original planet.
"Are you going to speak to that recruiter fellow this afternoon that contacted us," Kelsa asked sweetly, placing her arm around his shoulder.
"Yes, I'm afraid I'll have too..." But something wasn't right, and Zosni knew that. It was precisely at Stardate 362735.26 that Starfleet was supposed to contact him about returning to the Academy. And it was then that he would recieve his first assignment as an ensign on board the USS Remington. And it was then that it would happen... No, something had changed here. If it was changing, what if he were to add to that? What if there was a way that he could save her? He looked down at Kelsa's face, so beautiful, smooth, and like an animated statue, a Galatea. To think, for all the time he had ever had on board the Rubicon, all the time he had had access to the past, all the time he could have reached out and been able to return to what he so dearly longed for. He couldn't let her go again. Not like this. If he did, he would live many centuries into the future again, regretting the sorry mistake he had made prior.
"If he stays in that point in time," Perry said, standing there, yet invisible to the simulation, "given his current psychologcial disposition..." he trailed off. Ovirosch stood directly in front of the suspended hologram of Zosni, walking in the park with his... Ovirosch looked at his file. Searching through floating holograph after another. Kelsa was her name. For a time, she might have joined Starfleet, but she left the Academy. "He is likely to quit the Academy this time and stay with her."
"No," Ovirosch denied. "Zosni is a good, strong man. He will not deny his duty to the Federation for the sake of making his timeline better."
"But he already has."
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
"Star Trek: Rubicon" Season 1, Season 2 A new era, a new time, a new crew, a new ship, a new mission...
"I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment because it will never come again."- Jean-Luc Picard
Zosni, with the convenience of the transporter, had made his way already to his destination. Yet, for some reason, the recruiter had decided that their conference would be best held at Bromley, in England. Here was the headquarters of the Temporal Integrity Commission, and he could not help but wander what could cause an unrelated anomaly in this point in time to lure him here. It was not the original sequence.
Zosni considered it very fortunate that in modern day idealism was something that could be genuinely appreciated, considering the extremely influential man that was born here. In front of the dome shaped building of the TIC was an enormous statue built of marble, situated before a fountain, flowing in such odd and unnatural strands, as generated by the force fields installed in the fountain. It demonstrated the laws attained by modern understandings of physics. The statue, an enormous combination of eagle, lion and woman, was the iconic Wellsian Sphinx. Its wings spread widely over the fountain, casting its shadow across the domed building in the morning sun. He walked closer, seeing a plaque situated on the bronze pillars that held up the Sphinx. "To those who demonstrated impeccable ingenuity in contracting the hopes of progression within the mastery of time." "Pro futurum, praeteritum ad confirma."
Within the domed structure were the august halls lined with the image those who had in past times had demonstrated such courage in protecting the integrity of time. He followed the instruction of the holographic cicerone that indicated the direction in which he was to travel. Through a low formed, arched door Zosni came into the light of the office of the recruiter. The holoplaque floated at his desk, reading his name. Anders Bendt paced at his desk, staring out the window at the bright sunlight.
Now Mr. Zosni. Or should I say Commander Zosni, as is the title of the person that you have become now, he said in a Norwegian accent.
How were you aware? Zosni questioned cynically.
I was contacted by the Rubicon. They recruited me to help with this. When you walked in the building, I ran a few scans of you. It would seem that when you so valiantly tried to sacrifice yourself for the Rubicons sake, your mentality was forced back in time, in equal proportion to the amount of anti-time with which you came into contact. Your self now and past self become aligned. Unconsciously, your mind is recording the information you encounter now with your aware present self, as well as your past mind, which is unaware of the difference in being synchronized. The problem lies in distilling the two. The psychology of it certainly is an interesting factor, he said, stepping back from the desk. If it were not for the subtleties of the psyche, much of the predestination paradox idea would be left unfulfilled. It was your depression that allowed you to give your life, and it was what led you to the past, once more. Zosni noticed as the mans expression changed drastically as he returned to his desk. If you would not mind, I would like you to make your way down to the lab. Perhaps there we may have more scans to see if we cant resolve this issue. After that, you may resume the role you possess in this current life of yours. We mustnt let there be any more aberrations to the timeline.
Zosni left, guided by the displays that lined the walls, directing him towards where the lab was placed within the building. Bendt stood waiting till the hall was completely silent, and he then looked to his holocom. He activated the small, hand-held device. It was a small rectangular shape, easily grasped in the palm of the hand. The shape of a mans face shimmered into form from photonic fields. It was a Plveean man, weathered by hardship, but still incandescent with a fire that drove, and essentially ate at him. You received my message?
Yes, Bendt said, with a sneer of villainy, this neurocommunicator from what time did you manage to get this?
Most advanced isnt it? They wont be used until far later in the 30th century, during the part of the Temporal Cold War involving the Krenim Imperium. One of my agents managed to appropriate them. They are a great help to our cause, especially since these have the modifications to communicate through time itself!
I assume you still want me to carry out the deed?
Yes, said Naln in a sinister tone. You must make sure that Zosnis love dies.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
"Star Trek: Rubicon" Season 1, Season 2 A new era, a new time, a new crew, a new ship, a new mission...
"I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment because it will never come again."- Jean-Luc Picard
The Rubicon had returned safely from the threat of the corrupt reality that had come into existence, sadly, because of the interactions of Kandir Zosni in the timeline. His actions had been attempted to be remedied by Ovirosch once he had ordered for contact to be made with the contemporarily existent authorities in the Department of Temporal Investigations. It was detected then. An anomaly had appeared. Bayeb scanned and reported for the captain what he found.
“It seems to be an energy signature. A transporter signature, actually. It should seem what I am detecting is an incomplete transport. It left the individual in the signal in stasis, and it is, shockingly quite stable.”
“What type of transporter does it seem to be? Does it originate from a certain faction?”
“All the configurations show the technological device used for the transport was… Plveean.” Bayeb looked in concern to Ovirosch.
“Parvius, man the transporter. Use a field. Beam aboard this individual.” The room’s atmosphere was dense, because they all knew. It hang heavy on all the crewman’s breath. Naln was back. With so many crewmen dead, it was the last confirmation these crewmen needed to see that the Sponsor was the one behind the entire incident that had lead to this. Inas and Bayeb shared a glance. The master manipulator was the one responsible for Zosni’s incident in time.
Indubitably, Naln had, before their eyes, come into composure, and stood their with a psychotic glare that twisted his mouth into a smile of sinister subterfuge. “It is so nice to see you all for this final confrontation of ours.”
“Final… is anything final with you?” Ovirosch seemed to spit his words with animosity at Naln.
“Of course not. Well…” he stopped to think. “I suppose you could execute me, but then, your timeline would be rewritten entirely. And the TIC couldn’t suffer that! Without the Mirror Universe, your reality would be so incredibly different. Of course, I have to live a while longer to make sure that it comes into existence. Again, you have to face a truly No-Win scenario!”
“How do you know so much about the Federation?”
“What’s there to know? You know, they say God is omniscient. But,” he laughed wickedly, “what don’t you know when you’ve created everything there is to know!”
Dr. Hyphol had arrived on the bridge and, taking a scan of the obviously ill Plveean, looked distraught at the sight.
“His body has become flooded with chroniton radiation. His condition is quite severe.”
“You know,” Naln said, ignoring the statement, “human philosophers have asked the question, ‘can good exist without evil?’ Well, it is my pleasure to tell you I have an answer. The answer is no. It’s all a matter of perspective creating an objective reality. And the unreality of neutrality falls away. So, very simply put, I had to create evil for the sake of good.”
“What the devil are you talking about?” Ovirosch demanded. “
“You’re going to have to let me out first,” he demanded.
“How do I know you won’t-“
Naln cut the captain off. “I already know what you’ll say. You’re worried about me harming ship. Ovirosch, Ovirosch, Ovirosch… I pull all the strings. If I wanted you dead, you would be. It is as simple as that.” He motioned to Hyphol. “It is both an execration and the greatest of benefits. The Federation has had ships with crewmen before that might have had similar experiences. They became flooded with temporal energies and began shifting, mentally, back and forth through time. This has happened to me. Yet I have the ability to control it. All at once, in every moment, I am past, present, and future. Therefore I am the only variable… the only independent variable. Always changing. Therefore… the whole world is mine to take. By world, of course, I mean the universe as a single community.”
“What is the plan? To establish a Plveean interstellar government?” Ovirosch asked.
“How short-sighted! Always so short-sighted! Always looking directly ahead and never with the ability to see all around you. But I guess that’s why humans have always been considered the leaders of the galaxy. And that’s why I chose the human Starfleet to lead the crusade. A pilgrimage to the stars is not done the sake of the pilgrim but for the sake of the stars.”
”What do you mean you chose?” the captain questioned.
“You know all about this ‘hot-spot’ of the Temporal Cold War, don’t you? You learned all about it in the academy. Think. The Suliban are evil,” he flicked his tongue like a serpentine aggressor.
“What are you talking about?” Bayeb demanded.
“’The Loss of a single pawn does not mean the entire loss of a game,’” Naln said. “Take me to the brig.”
The Captain ordered it, and the security officers escorted him. Maxwell motioned for Bayeb to come to his side. “The look in his eye, Bayeb. He knew that I was going to order him to the brig.”
“It is possible he is telling the truth. He may be the single unity among the material world of all temporal experience. If so, he could be an unspeakable danger,” Bayeb decided.
“All officers,” he ordered. “To the conference room.”
He stooped over, looking on the battered shape of the grandfather clock that had been destroyed in battle. It had been authentic, not replicated. “The events we live make us who we are.” Now it just seemed like an obvious statement. But what about these people that did not live through to be made? What was the end to all these means of being made? Ovirosch was then convinced that what he had conceived as truth was that being made was singularly important. Perhaps it had greater meaning in the next life.
Parvius was the first to arrive so promptly. He looked almost ill with distress. “Are you okay?”
He asked.
“No, not really. I have no idea how we’re ever going to get out of this,” he said.
“It’s just life. It’s an easy deal to get out of, but so worthless to get out of. Someday we’re going to leave to the eternal plain anyway.” He tapped on the desk.
“But I wish the Elements would help me! It’s no use. I can’t do anything. I can’t defend the ship. I’m miserable.” Parvius was somber, even for a Romulan.
“Obviously not. Everyone is here with a purpose. If you won’t take my word for it, there’s a psychopath in the brig willing to confirm it for you,” he laughed, and thought he saw the tips of the Romulan’s mouth curl upward.
“But even my name,” Parvius said.
”What about it?”
“When the Romulans left Vulcan, the Polluxians, or the Roman Olotheans, the gods from Terran mythology, aliens and explorers in space, visited Vulcan and introduced their Latin language to the Romulan people especially. The Latin language and the Romulan’s Vulcan language became creolized. Hence the reason Romulus received its name in the first place. My name comes from the Latin for ‘small.’ It’s as if at my birth my level of courage was decided.”
“But you are courageous!”
“No, I’m a fair actor.”
“You know, sometimes it’s a matter of compromise. Sometimes we have to act to accomplish what needs doing. If you can do that, then you’ve got everything accomplished already.”
He sat quietly for a moment, and then looked up. “Thank you, Captain.”
”You’re welcome, Parvius. Time and again things are named with premature thinking are discovered as misnomers. I’m sure you are one more example of this.”
It was then that the other officers arrived. “I know we have lost many today.” He looked at his officers. “We are going to carry on. There will shortly come a time when we can toast to absent friends. What are our thoughts?”
“I believe he is telling the truth concerning his temporal prescience, regarding new scans I have taken,” Bayeb announced.
Xaz spoke, “I do not believe he poses a threat.”
”What could his plan be?”
“I sense,” Parvius said, “from conversation that he is on a mission of message.”
“If needed,” Aolia volunteered, “I may use my contact telepathy to learn exactly what it is he plans.”
“That’s ok. He seems fairly forthcoming so far with what he plans. But if it comes to it, I may take you up on that.” Ovirosch looked concerned.
“You may be glad to know that the repairs have been effective. The Rubicon will soon be in good… good enough shape,” Thelys added.
Inas began, “If possible, I should like to accompany you in Naln’s interrogation. I want to know what it is that he is hiding. And I may offer some service in extracting his knowledge.”
“Fine,” Ovirosch consent.
In fact, the entire group of officers accompanied the captain to the brig to inspect the prisoner. There, Naln stood silently. Frilly garments wrinkled, face discolored with grime, the prestigious adversary was sporting a different look. He was held behind the broad force field, and Parvius soon altered it to make soundwaves able to permeate it.
“Have you come to ask the truth?” Naln asked.
“Yes, as a matter of fact we have.”
“And if I don’t assist?” he smirked.
Inas entered through the forcefield, morphing herself in such a way that she also might permeate even this. She stretched out her hand, converting it into a liquidous state and encircling Naln’s mouth. “It won’t kill you,” she said, “but it will put you into a static condition of preservation, which will be induced when I begin to simulate drowning.”
“Which feels like?” he retorted.
She transformed into a bubble of amber-colored semi-liquid, enveloping the dictator. He did not struggle too greatly, but just stood there.
“That’s enough,” Ovirosch said, and Inas backed away.
Naln recovered quickly, and then slyly said, sarcastically, “covered entirely by a beautiful woman that can shift into a state of change. What an excitation!”
Bayeb almost looked jealous. Naln saw this. Ovirosch looked Naln in the eye. “What is the truth?”
“I shall start from the beginning. Why I, Ziverok Naln, started the Temporal Cold War. The truth is that I was born illegitimately to a vagrant man and a seamstress.”
“That is a lie,” Bayeb objected, “he was born to nobility.”
“As I was going to say, my impetuous friend, this… this was something different. I was born on Plvee, yet… a very different Plvee. In a different life, in a life without my impact, the entire galaxy was very different. You see, what could be considered the original timeline… the Iconians conquered the entire galaxy.” He had a look of agony in his eye.
“The Iconians!” Ovirosch almost shouted. They had been the Federations fiercest foe, and it had been by some miracle, the miracle of unity in the galaxy, that the Alliance had won the war.
“The Iconians themselves were able to manipulate time because of their semi-corporeal bodies. Therefore they posed a threat to every thing I tried. But I am getting ahead of myself. As you know, the Iconians believed themselves to be the elite, correct rulers of the galaxy and that they believe there was to be one culture, the Whole. When the Iconians conquered the galaxy, trillions perished, but they did not destroy races entirely. No, they preserved the race and vanquished the culture. They made us their underlings.”
“So did you alter the timeline of the Iconian Wars and ensure that the Federation one,” Ovirosch asked.
“Yes, but that was not the initial defense. I was gifted, they told me. Even then, the backwash of the effects of chronitons on me caused me to know things ahead of time. It caused me to see. It caused me to learn. I discovered how to travel through time! But, more importantly, how to communicate through time via hologram. Many times I tried to encourage my people to rebel, but rather they would rather be lead by the Iconians then die trying at freedom. Their empire expanded across the universe. The Milky Way, Andromeda, Triangulum, et cetera, et cetera. They ruled it all.”
”What about humanity? Did they let them live?”
“They did. When they invaded in 2245, they suppressed what was left on Earth after the war, and made them compatible followers.”
”2245? What are you talking about? We did know they even were still in existence till at least 2409!?”
“Humanity never became a part of the Federation. It didn’t even exist.”
“Why?”
“Because Enterprise never met the Suliban till much later. They never met them and were never tempered. Because of this, the Elachi, which contacted them in 2151, destroyed them. In a silent strike, the Elachi destroyed all Starfleet operations and humanity did not make it to the stars. But then when the timeline was altered, another risk evolved. There was a time when the Suliban saved Enterprise. Because of the change, they managed to make it farther, but still were facing a new risk. I had to save them.”
“You did?”
”Yes… yes… I want to see the look on your face and savor it now when I tell you. I created the Federation. I built it from the foundation!” he threw his arms in the air. “I built it! Me! The villain of this story! Don’t you see! I made myself the villain!”
“Why?”
“Altruism. When I created my Temporal Communicator, I created an anchor. No matter what change I made, the change would affect me, not mentally, but physically. But the fundamental events in my past, my birth, my actions, my formations, were all synchronized into the new world. All was integrated into a new life. Why? Because my people had been destroyed. I was abused as an illegimate child and everything that was good in my people was destroyed. They lived in poverty and impecunity.”
“Why did you create the Federation?”
“For my people. After I leave my thrown, a flood of democracy will wash over my people. Time after time, reality after reality. Time and again I altered the timeline for the benefit of my people. But each time, my people were oppressed. Whether by the Iconians, or the Iunctine, or even the Dominion. I even transformed the inert government of the Suliban into a criminal organization for their sake. I made evil for good’s sake. And so, I made the Federation that someday its reach would spread democracy to every corner of the galaxy, including my people. The Federation is my people’s salvation. Utopia. My imperfect technology gave me the gift of prescience and allowed me to eventually create a timeline where I was a king. I will never reap the benefit of my actions. But my people will. I did it for them.” He laughed hysterically. “Don’t you see it? Your entire dogma on time travel states so long as you are a part of the Commission is this: to preserve the timeline in which we exist. The one most beneficial. The one that is ‘right.’ All this time I’ve been trying to say. We are on the same team. The same side of the war. Soon I will make the final step in my plan. That is when I create the Federation’s own antithesis to strengthen it and make it whole with integrity. The Terran Empire. An alternate reality discordant with our own. I wanted to save the world, so I created something that could destroy any evil. Aspiration. Ingenuity. They can destroy the Iconians. They can destroy anything. By the end of the 31st century every region of the galaxy will exist within the Federation. And then we will have peace… “
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
"Star Trek: Rubicon" Season 1, Season 2 A new era, a new time, a new crew, a new ship, a new mission...
"I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment because it will never come again."- Jean-Luc Picard
Zosni was in the communion that was the love believed by the El-Aurians. But now trouble had stirred his spirit as his beloved was in anger. For so long a consistency, she had been so patient with his Starfleet aspiration and ire was not a commonality among the El-Aurians, as they were serene in nature. Since the time he had returned to this period in time, Zosni had continued living out the life that had already been in place, maintaining the constants that had been ordained as necessary. He had re-experienced the events that brought him to an even closer level of commitment to the woman he loved. El-Aurians could also be a people of passion, too. As was now exhibited in the person of Kelsa. What they valued more than passionate hate, though, was the passion in love. But it was at that moment that Zosni risked losing her once again. He had seen her leave him not only in heart but also in flesh. They had come together in the “upper-union,” or the pehlony, in the El-Aurian translation term. He turned from her, looking at the statues in the house, the tributes to the Six Spirits. He said a hasty tribute to the Six Spirits, that they might guide his life to good fortune. He asked God, Kahnde, to watch over his efforts. He wanted to ascend the Staircase of Union with her, make their love the summit of what was intended in the El-Aurian marriage. He loved her beyond what she knew, but, how could he give up Starfleet? It was now that he needed to join. It was the beginning of the most intense phase of the war. The war had begun with the Plveeans years ago. Now it was worse than ever. They needed another officer, so he had applied in the hopes of assistance. With this threat of separation, Kelsa felt her relationship was threatened. He needed a place, something to be useful in. No, his place was right here, at her side.
“I will not join Starfleet,” he said, “not if you’re not in support.”
“I want you to do what you must! You should join Starfleet. It is your time. You are still so young. You must do what you will. I have to do what I will!” she said, her beautiful lips moving elegantly, even in conflict.
“But… I love you.”
“I love you, too. But there is more required in marriage. If we are to be married, we should be, as the Words of the Kahnde say, ‘be of one entity.’ We should be together.”
“What made you change your mind?”
“I need you. I don’t know. But if this is your fate, I cannot be the one to change that. I’m sorry, Kandir, but there is nothing we can do about our destinies.”
“What if I told you I could resist destiny? What if I told you I had a way to change it?”
“You belong in Starfleet. Your work with the Department is crucial. And I feel like there must be something other for my fate.”
“No…”
“I have to, Zosni. I must.”
“But…”
“There’s nothing we can do.”
She left, with those five words as her only valediction. He needed her. So badly. He looked down at the PADD lying on the table. A message had opened up. Kelsa’s visage had appeared, tears filling her eyes. It had been prior saved to his database, awaiting the time for it to open.
“You forget, Kandir. We are so close that when we touch, when we are intimate, our telepathy is active. Kandir, I know. I know everything. But I can’t betray destiny. Time is what we El-Aurians adhere to. If I defect from that, then what am I? In ancient times, our people condemned the Krenim for their manipulations of time. I can’t do the same.”
“No!” he cried. He threw the PADD across the room. It fell facedown and did not break. A hologram appeared from the PADD, continuing the message.
“I know, Kandir, I know. But we can’t do something that would bring a child on this earth that would jeopardize the Federation. I love it too much. I love it enough to die.”
“But you don’t love me enough to live!?” he fell to the ground, covering his eyes as they were stinging with tears.
“I know I won’t live long enough to give you a better good-bye then what I did. But be satisfied. I am always with you, in a way that is deeper than matter. You know that. We don’t get to choose. That is a part of our great Mystery. You must let me go, despite the risk of the shuttle’s crash. It’s fate. I must try to return to my home city.” She spoke softly.
“What about what we could have been?”
“What we could have been might have destroyed the Federation. That is something I can’t risk. That I cannot allow.” She seemed to know his response before he spoke them.
“You know me so well.”
“And that is why we will never be apart. Neither in life, nor death…”the hologram faded away. He stood alone for a long time, musing and contemplating these things.
Naln stood as the captain glared at him in bewilderment. “You now must prevent Zosni’s alteration. The aberration he would cause would destroy everything. Take this,” he extracted a strand-like technology which projected data in holographic form. “It is the perfected form of the de-integration process, needed to separate Zosni from his past self. It includes the exact coordinates you must go to. From there, you must separate him there.”
“Why not stop it from the beginning? What are you trying to pull?” Ovirosch accused.
“Nothing. It is only that Zosni must be given that time. It’s a matter of healing. A matter of self-discovery. You can’t deny him that.”
Bayeb looked to the captain. “Who would you like to retrieve him?”
“I will go.” Ovirosch downloaded the data. “You have the command.”
The officers’ attention were then directed to Bayeb.
“Thelys,” Bayeb said, “ready the transporters.”
“Yes, sir.”
“No…” he whimpered. “Not this…”
He looked at the flamboyance of the El-Aurian design. Zosni had learned from the El-Aurian scriptures about how the soul was tempered by fire. He felt this effect now more than ever. Ovirosch materialized afar in the room.
“Come on, Kandir, it’s time to go home.”
“This is home,” he pleaded.
“No, the Rubicon is home now.”
“How can it be home? Everything in the world is here.”
“No, Kandir, it isn’t. There is nothing here but a warped and mangled bit of remnants from what you desperately try to piece together. You can’t live here any more. You can’t live like this,” Ovirosch motioned to the emptiness.
“No. I can’t.” The two began to dematerialize, leaving the past form of Zosni there on the ground in distress. He only remembered that she was gone.
As the world had shimmered away, Zosni did not want to let go. It was then that the world seemed to morph for him as the sparks and dashes of white focused. Rather than arriving on the Rubicon, they found themselves on a civilian El-Aurian shuttle. Ovirosch studied his surroundings in a distressed look. He touched his combadge, only to find his contact was disrupted. It seemed by Zosni’s will alone, the two Starfleet officers had been transported where he would have rather gone. Rows of seats were surrounding them, and Zosni looked earnestly for the one who he would wish to find. Kelsa sat towards the front of the vessel. Zosni walked towards her, back in his 2886 Starfleet uniform and once more experiencing the physical appearance of a man of his species over two-hundred.
Before he could reach her, a man plowed into him, causing him to stumble. Eyes from the crowd looked in dismay. This man, Kandir knew, was not an El-Aurian. No. It was a human. The human Anders Bendt. He held a concealed package in his arms, one from which Zosni sensed temporal properties and danger.
The man drew a phaser, and to Zosni’s surprise, fired, barely missing him. But he hit the window, destroying not only that, but also the wall of the structure in an enormous flurry of material burning. Ovirosch rushed to his friend, seizing his arm before the depressurizing vessel released him to fall to his death. El-Aurians were swallowed consistently by the TRIBBLE, one by one exhibiting fear and disgust. Ovirosch locked his arm around a seat, while it felt the very hairs on his head were wrenched out by the folic and dragged with all pressure out the hole. Saliva also was being forced in its very nature also from his gums. His gut was tangled in such a contorted way he was repulsed.
Kelsa, Zosni saw, was fastened securely in her seat. Bendt, using magnetic boots, perhaps, stood safely where he had first planted his feet. He revealed the weapon. It was a chroniton bomb, crafted from what looked like Starfleet supplies. He fired the phaser once more, this time blowing the door to the pilot room. He tossed the bomb in, and they were helpless to keep it from happening. The front of the vessel, from which the pilots unsuccessfully tried to flee, was destroyed, the majority of its material vaporized entirely.
Because the cabin was depleted of pressure, though it was now hurtling to the planet, Zosni steadied himself and stood. He walked to Kelsa. They could not hardly speak, but looked lovingly in tacit. Anders Bendt drew his phaser again, aiming it at Zosni. He did not get a chance to fire. Ovirosch charged him, sending him hurtling out of the shuttle through the hole that once was the cockpit of the shuttle.
A transporter lock focused on Ovirosch, causing him to quickly disappear. Though it had activated on Zosni, it was not successful. It was not working. But he was not concerned. He smiled endearingly as the shuttle collided and combusted against the forest ground.
Ovirosch was back. Bayeb had transported him back to the ship, which was considerably in better shape than it had prior been. “You’ll be happy to know, Captain, the timeline has been restored. The Federation is back.”
“Zosni is gone.”
Bayeb looked at the floor for a moment, then he looked up at the captain. Inas entered the room, escorting the familiar El-Aurian first officer, smiling in delight.
“We got him first. But before that, we thought we could give him a chance to die so that he might live.”
Ovirosch approached Zosni for the embrace of a hug and consolation. The Rubicon returned to normal space… this time for a more permanent stay. The University of Copernicus’s best men had assembled, to re-assemble this ship. Zosni met the counselor Aolia in her room. He required deeper consolation. Reaching out, at her encouragement, Kandir grasped the Zaakrean’s hand, feeling as she also felt all of his emotions. He felt them all leave him as they quietly knew precisely now the other was responding. She felt the deep, passionate anguish that had now been resolved and drained from the XO.
The young lady, Zosni noticed, had such beautiful eyes. He felt relieved by her company.
“Perhaps now I can live. I can be reborn now that I have been dead.”
“Two hundred years is a long time to be so fixated. But the best is yet to come, I am certain,” she smiled at him with a peculiar interest. “You have eight-hundred more a head of you.”
Bayeb and Inas together walked into the mess hall as Ovirosch observed with great care what had developed among his officers. He returned to his office. The entire ship and its crew seemed to have been baptized in these battles during the aberrant timeline and now was made anew. The Nihydron admiral, Admiral Eed’Cyhn, contacted Ovirosch as head of Starfleet Command. His skin was a rich lavender color, and his forehead was covered by a bright star-like skeletal formation. Similar formations were scattered from on the center of his chin to both of his cheeks, though they had fewer spire branching from the epicenters. He spoke with a rich accent that was only acquirable if one knew the language of the Nihydron thoroughly. The Nihydron Commonwealth joined the Federation in the early 29th century and were one fundamental movement to bring peace to the turbulent Delta Quadrant, where tensions were once more on the rise. But that was no matter now. It was almost 2887. It was easy to say the Federation was safe by its technological prowess.
“I am issuing you new officers since you have shown your excellent ability. The Rubicon is set for its best days ahead,” said the man with the baritone voice and the choppy vocal speak.
“And Naln?” Ovirosch asked.
“Naln will be placed, at present, into temporal stasis on Facility 4028. He will, naturally, be placed on trial for his actions. All the while, we’ll need to consider his Braxton Rights. Can’t try him for crimes not yet committed. It does get confusing. It’s inevitable that he will be released. We can’t violate the temporal destiny of our enemies, even, if it could cause so much damage.”
“Of course. He may be very important as an asset of information in the future. I trust that the modifications being made to the Rubicon will be of great use?”
“Certainly, for the two years, chronologically speaking, since you were lost from us, we’ve made some pretty interesting advancements. The captain’s piloting desk, the rearranged officers’ stations, et cetera, et cetera. It is quite beneficial. Oh, and the Relativity crewmen will be reassigned, some of them to your ship. I believe the TIC will do their best to revive the Relativity. Starfleet Medical will also be taking in Alerix to ensure his care. They wish to revive him. He may tell us some fascinating things. I look forward to reading your professional logs on the aberrant timeline.”
“Thank you, Admiral.”
“Eed’Cyhn out.”
Naln had been the most fundamental, most historical mystery of the Federation’s existence. But there were many more threads waiting to be analyzed. This was an incredible place of research. Ovirosch was anxious to learn more. They were set up from an incredible destiny.
End of “Paradox”
End of Season 2 of Star Trek: Rubicon
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
"Star Trek: Rubicon" Season 1, Season 2 A new era, a new time, a new crew, a new ship, a new mission...
"I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment because it will never come again."- Jean-Luc Picard
Comments
"Paradox"
Written by CJ Sidus
Minka Kelly as Kelsa
Bulkheads exploded around him as he rushed, if one might be able to interpret it as such, down to engineering. Zosni, who was not familiar with moving at such quick paces resorted to more of a waddle, which was fairly appropriate for a man of his considerable age. They could not have chosen a worse time to attack. The ship was in atrocious condition after the Devidian Incident, supplies were running short, they had yet to be able to undo the damage done to the Momentum so that it might assist them, and now the confounded Na'kuhl had to attack. Of course they did. The ship could barely hold together. But of course, as in so many years past, any good Starfleet engineer could pull a ship out of the most perilous situation. But the case right now was not that.
The Rubicon was not in shape for this, and without much luck at the moment. Zosni, with the stimulation of the present panic, worked on his padd to keep the systems operating as best as they could. The door slid open, and he entered engineering, which in the haze of the fires and the smoke, had an ominous glare to it all.
Adrenaline shot through Ovirosch's veins, causing him to grasp in desperate attempts at the stations around him to keep him from collapsing. Pulses of energy shot from the alien ships, striking and beating at his beloved ship. The temporal home for all the Starfleet officers who were now dislocated from their place in time because of this Aberration. Bayeb stood erect from his station, and he dashed to the aid of Parvius, who was burnt and lying on the ground. The Sellolsian worked at the controls for quite some time, focusing in on the several Na'kuhl enemies that were surrounding. Anti-matter beams went off. Chroniton torpedoes. Annulsion beams. Anything to destroy these enemies. And in return, temporal energy fired in the form of a phaser weapon was given to the Rubicon. Systems began to fail. The Na'kuhl had returned to settle the score with the Rubicon.
For a moment, Bayeb alleviated the ship of the bombardment of the temporal energy, allowing many people to stand, and allowing him to focus on doing whatever he could to help the injured security officer.
"Na'kuhl are using temporal energy," he said simultaneously, "theyre known for it."
Indeed, Ovirosch replied, if memory serves, you and I had such a run in with the case back on the Enterprise. Years ago, when they first began experimenting with their right to improve, they sent a burst of anti-temporal energy into an assortment of chemicals, sending them back in time millions of years. Their intention was to introduce these elements to the proto-Nakuhl species that was in existence at the time, and then cause themselves to become more evolved in the present.
Did it work? asked Inas from her conjoined science-operations station.
To an extent. What truly happened was that the anti-time was not adequate in supply to send it entirely back in time, and rather sent the matter scattered throughout the time. The effect disseminated it in several places along the same point in space.
And then the Enterprise arrived at the appropriate time for it to secure against the Nakuhl doing anything further, once they had discovered the secret of it which the Nakuhl went to great care to hide. Unfortunately, it pushed the Nakuhl into the Temporal Cold War, Bayeb supplied.
The temporal energy, being what is to be considered positive in force, has perforated our ships hull and is causing the negatively charged anti-time in our ships systems to go into leakage, Inas said. Its forming a build-up in main engineering.
Zosni scurried to the aid of Thelys, who in the midst of an explosion, was using a fire suppression. The uniform, which was designed to prevent against burning, could not entirely prohibit the fires best effort to singe and ignite the Xindis long hair. The Temporal Core, for the moments meaning, was not yet about to leak. Radiation, on the other hand, was pouring out from the several outlets that produced it, and, considering the El-Aurians much more sensitive and susceptible nerves, was likely to give him Dulmurs.
Zosni, came the voice of his commanding officer across his combadge. You need to make it to the overhang near the overlooking Engineering. Conduits have exploded and are leaking anti-time. So far it has only affected the air molecules it has come into contact with, but if anyone or anything vital comes into contact with it, they very well may be sent through time into the past. We all know that means utter destruction if it comes into contact with the Temporal Core. It can only be sealed directly. All controls leading to it have been destroyed from any other way.
Got it, he said, I believe I have this current issue under control, he said, releasing a blast of suppresant to completely dispose of the fire on Thelys.
Yes, go, said the extraordinary equipped, yet one would think inferior by his simian appearance, Xindi.
The thin-face, trim Lt. York lay debilitated by the blast that had ruptured the conduits. Zosni rushed to his side to try and assist him, placing his tricorder at his side to scan to discover his infirmity.
Im fine, said the officer, after Zosni had taken a second to help him to recover with a medical tricorder, on hand for the emergency.
Zosnis heart was beating now as he looked at the huge mass of glowing yellow energy that streamed gold off the side of the balcony. He focused his attention, all the while he was filled with passionate apprehension. Sparks showered upon him, burning his skin. In a splendorous display of majestic reds and yellows mixed in the fire, the wall directly beside the XO and the subordinate officer erupted. In those moment that premonition gave Zosni to see the danger coming, he rushed ot clasp himself around the smaller, feebler York. A plank of metal and several chunks of debris collapsed on them.
In a necessary one-time use of complete energy, Zosni, fueled by fear and determination, shoved the mess away from them and pushed off, letting York stand and assist him. Near by, the panel was implanted that would service them in shutting down the leakage and rectifying the situation. Upon Kandirs order, York quickly moved over to the working position to try his best at fixing this. Zosni remained standing there, using his tricorder to examine the physics of the anti-temporal energy. He felt it though, also, and the energy mass disrupted his mind. El-Aurians had always been acutely sensitive to transtemporal occurances, so also in this moment, the disruptiveness of the movement of the anti-time caused Zosnis mind to be disheveled. The anti-time moved the considerably insignificant oxygen atoms that entered it to be caught up into the pulse of the negative energy, which caused atoms that were affected by it to be sent back in time. To what time was dependent on the amount of anti-time it absorbed. The movement of the molecules was entirely dependent upon the fact that there was an adequate balance between time and matter.
The conduit became sealed, and the mass stopped growing. Zosni looked behind him to where Lt. York stood. In another moment of horrid peril, Zosni was helpless to save him when the panel exploded sparks across the human and sent him reeling back and off the railing. York fell and crashed against the force field around the Temporal Core. York was gone, and all of Zosnis efforts to save him had been in vain. Such a passionate feeling of grief seized the Commander, perhaps amplified by the disruptive waves of anti-time, in that moment, and he could barely manage to do anything but stand there. All that he had needed to do had failed. The tricorder showed that York had sent the anti-time into another system, so that if the conduit ruptured in another location, it would not affect the same area. But no. The anti-time already in this area was, as the tricorder showed, affecting the balance in the Temporal Core. It had to be neutralized. It had to be neutralized now or all of those struggling survivors on board would die, and their struggles would also be in vain. Zosni thought of all of his regrets, all of the times he had hoped to save someone, yet had failed. He thought to a time two centuries ago, when he had failed ultimately in his life, and that moment he could never let go
The tricorder read one final fact. The mass of the anti-time. He scanned it, meticulously looking over it. He scanned his own mass. Nearly equal. Though the anti-times glowing mass was larger than his own. He had found a solution. Zosni moved back from the shattered edge where the balcony had collapsed beneath the anti-time. He assumed a fair distance, then, with his final, ultimate burst of strength, his supreme submission to the cause, to Starfleet, to Ex Astris, Scientia, he ran with more speed than he thought himself capable. And with those dynamics, and that projection, he lept into the glowing mass of the anti-time. And Kandir Zosni was gone
Can we get a reading on the position of Commander Zosni? We are going to need him on the bridge, Captain Ovirosch said to Inas, whose fingers moved across the surface of the computer, which charted the location of the signal of Zosnis combadge.
The Changeling scanned and tried to identify, with careful haste, where the combadge had gone. Captain, Im not reading Zosni on our internal sensors. Our temporal sensors cant locate where the combadge might have gone either. Captain, hes just gone, she said as extreme confusion passed over her commonly placid, smooth face.
Gone? How can Zosni just be gone? he demanded, internally devastated by these words. His Executive Officer might have been lost in this battle. Who had become his good friend, his dear friend Kandir, might be dead.
Internal sensors last read him at the site of the anti-time pocket just before it vanished. Captain, all signs point that Commander Zosni sacrificed himself in order to seal the pocket.
No no no, he began in disbelief, which shortly evolved into anger. No-no-no! He stood up from the three command chairs and went to the captains station.
Im reading a buildup of energy in our trans- she said quickly, yet not quickly enough. The transporter detonated, and Chief Weih, who stood scanning on duty and operating to analyze the ship, was thrown across the room to smash into the command chairs, where Ovirosch had just been sitting. The Deferi made no sound. Ovirosch dashed in the heat of the moment to try and assist, but then the ceiling imploded with showers of sparks and debris, which came crashing down on the Transporter Chief.
Without only impetus and without hesitation, Bayeb rushed to the wreckage and used his tricorder to examine the wreckage. Hes dead.
In despondency, Ovirosch brought his hand down on the station, barely damaging the already crumbling ship he commanded, which once was to be considered the futures citadel from which they overlooked their dominion, the past. The Rubicons citadel was crumbling.
Zosni awoke to a warm bed, in which he could sense through his emotions, the presence of another being. This did not immediately disturb him, but he allowed himself to be satisfied by the pleasure of a peaceful awakening that was not accompanied by the duty of awakening. But for some reason, his quarters lights did not activate and instantaneously signal that now was his time to awake and begin his functioning aboard the meticulously run timeship. No, but the gradual feeling of warmth grew across his back as he became aware of the presence of sunlight, actual sunlight, on his back. Sometimes he would have it so that the holomatrix would simulate his room and turn it into a virtual paradise for a temporary leisure. But he could always tell the difference between the simulated and the real. And this was very real. His extremely responsive senses could always now what was real in such cases. He could sense the persona, the soul, of the other individual, and he could tell who it was.
He was drowning internally to an outpour of bliss. Simply bliss. Beside him lay the love of his life, and the knowledge of that soothed him. Kandir rested for quite sometime. He laid for so long a time, and he then awoke to find Kelsa still asleep. She laid there in her flowing nightgown. Elated was not a valid summary for the emotions he felt once he had seen her again. Indeed not. He became so overwhelmed, so inundated that he wondered if he could possibly breathe. He turned in his bed to look out the broad, open balcony that overlooked the town, and where the sun was now streaming in. Near the sun was transfixed the two moons of New El-Aurian. But he, with his broad alien memory, knew this morning and remembered it well. How had he gotten here? It was his duty to find out, but he did not care in the slightest. He was here, and he was at peace. He rose after sometime and went to his sealed cabinet and found from it a bottle of Aldebaran whiskey. He prepared a glass of it for himself, and drank it down.
"It's kind of early in the day for alcohol, is it not?" said the voice of Kelsa as she approached from behind. "And why are you up so early in the first place?"
"Oh, I don't know," Zosni said, suddenly thinking of how his conditioning on board the Rubicon still impelled him to rise sooner than was his people's habit back on their world. "You know, the Academy has me already feeling rather... routine, I guess you could say."
"Wow, you really are committed to Starfleet, aren't you?" she said.
"Yes, I am. As I would encourage you to be," he said, without any other option but to smile at her.
"How the devil are we going to get away from these Na'kuhl?" Ovirosch shouted at the officers.
"Sir, I recommend we enter the normal space-time continuum. Perhaps we can find assistance there. However, with our technology disabled, we are not likely to be able to re-engage our flight into the Intertemporal Continuum. So we have several options here," Inas said.
"Maybe we could visit some of my ancestors," said Xaz, "I'm sure the Na'kuhl wouldn't care much for them. And you know... it might be nice to learn about where I came from," said the socially-awkward Voth, trying his best to take the nerve off of what he thought would be imminent death.
"Take us to modern day, 2886," Ovirosch decided.
"Captain, we already have information that the aberrant modern day could be quite dangerous. Are you sure you want to be put in the middle of a civil war between sides of a devastated government with an inoperable timeship," Bayeb asked, referencing temporal scans.
"Maybe the Imperial Federation or whatever its called will be able to wipe out these Na'kuhl for us. I don't know how these Na'kuhl managed to be saved from being altered with the timeline, but I want them destroyed. After that we can find our answers," he said. Bayeb and Inas punched in the information, and the ship prepared to leave, followed by the aggressors of the Na'kuhl.
"Star Trek: Rubicon" Season 1, Season 2 A new era, a new time, a new crew, a new ship, a new mission...
"I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment because it will never come again."- Jean-Luc Picard
The Imperials made quick work of the Na'kuhl, as he had hoped, and then captured their ship because it was a temporal vessel, as he had planned. The Imperials beamed aboard, and were prepared with quickness to interrogate them. But under no circumstances could this travesty of the Federation apprehend temporal technology. Indeed, these people were a living example that progess was delayed by conflict. They had been fighting for so long and had never come to accomplish the period in time of the Temporal Revolution. Without it, the future was fortunate enough that the corrupt thirds the Federation had broken into could not travel to the past to interfere in a Temporal Cold War. Yet, the timeline was altered. It was still a mysterious to the crew how the Factions that should have been erased were still fighting as if from behind this false 2886.
They dragged Ovirosch to an air-tight room where he was placed in a cold, hard chair and where he could see there were straps that were to be attached used to administer an electrical pulse to shock the person in question. Into the room walked a tall man, clad in a dark uniform. He obviously was to be his interrogator. In his hand he outstretched a pulsing rod, which he was practicing swinging back and forth. He seemed very amused with his actions and seemed pleased with having someone to beat. He approached Maxwell in the isolated room and prepared to swing. A blast of a phaser shot out and struck the tormentor, vaporizing him instantly. Another man stepped out, from seemingly nowhere.
"Hello, there. It's a pleasure to meet you, Maxwell," said a rather gravelly voice that came from a face with dark, black hair. "My name is Perry, and it seems like you could use some help."
"Who are you? How did you get in here?" Maxwell asked under the normal routine.
"I am Captain of the USS Bradbury, timeship, currently from Stardate 593375.27," he said, releasing Ovirosch from the chair in which he was caught.
"593375.27. You're from the year 2916?"
"Yes, I am. But of course, the knowledge of that sort of information is perfectly safe to share between two members of the TIC, correct?"
"I should presume so."
"Indeed. That fact is that the Bradbury has been trapped from the normal timeline as well because of this aberration of yours. As a matter of fact, we haven't been able to track what could have caused all of this alteration either," he said, stepping back. He walked over to the edge of the room. Out of his shirt pocket, he extracted a combadge. He pressed the surface, and activated a hologram to be projected. Because of apparent interference from the Imperials, the hologram flashed blue instead of the normal facsimile colors that holograms usually reproduced. "This certainly is an eerie timeline. Last year, actually, I fought in the Interdimensional War. Fighting against the Mirror Universe is nothing in comparison to seeing the Federation be destroyed by imperialism. It's one thing to see a travesty of a reflection and its another to feel it in your own body."
"The Federation is going to fight an Interdimensional War against the Mirror Universe?"
"The Terran Empire, actually. We developed a new sort of timeship that could cross between realities, and could do so carefully. The Terrans actually fell to us in the war, bringing peace between our dimensions for now. But that's not important," said Perry, with his phaser out after discussing a few things Ovirosch couldn't make much of with a Zyrvan officer over the combadge. He aimed the phaser at the door, fired, and caused the door to become disintegrated into debris upon his firing. "Time to go."
"Can't you beam us out, if you have a ship?" Ovirosch asked Perry, who turned around in reply.
"Potentially. But what fun would that be?" Perry smirked, and turned back to the hole in the wall he had created. "You know we time travelers love Latin. Especially Carpe Diem. And you know what else they say," he said, still humoring, very leniently for a time traveler, "you only live as many times as we can save you via transporter."
Guard rushed at the sound of the emergency, directly to us, and were received with blasts to the chest with phasers. Ovirosch set his phaser to the highest setting, and vaporized a guard who stood behind them, ready to fire.
"The truth is that their signal jammers are too strong here. We need to make it to the Rubicon, which should be docked.... ah there we go," he said, spying a turbolift. A blast of a phaser shot just by Maxwell's shoulder, which he ducked in reply to the shower of molten metal that poured out on him. His uniform withstood it, but he still felt panic rush over him. For the last two years, he and his crew had been trapped from going to back to their homes in the original timeline. It had been so long he had almost forgotten what the original timeline was. And during that time, he had witnessed as all the other stranded crews and ships perished around him, and he was absolutely helpless to do anything. The Relativity, the Momentum, these and more. Today he had been watching crewmen he cared about die. Now it might be time that he joined them. He ducked into the turbolift with Perry, and they selected the turbolift option that would grant them transport down to the Rubicon. Once they had reached the lower levels, the door opened, and awaiting them stood many, many sentinels, who stood guarding the entrance to where the Rubicon was docked.
They crowded around the entrance to the turbolift, prepared to fire on the two time travelers if they moved. "Now," one of them announced, "you will either show us how you time travel, or you will be turned to vapor."
"Well," Perry said, the curling of his lip returning in a facetious humor once more, "I have one reply," he said, "eat chronitons, you-" And proceeded to both say several unsavory words and throw a grenade into their midst. The grenade sent a shockwave of destruction through them, and proceeded to travel towards the small elevator, where it would certainly be channeled to kill them. Ovirosch awaited death, but instead felt the tingling of a transporter as it raptured up he and Perry.
Ovirosch stood now instead on a very similar yet very different ship. The color of the brownish hue was no more. Instead, it was tinted with a bluish silver. The viewscreen, which had normally been pointed in one direction towards the front of the room, which decided where all the stations pointed, was widely stretched out to make it clearly visible in a much larger way. Ovirosch stepped off of the transporter. "That transport should have killed me."
"No, Captain. We've advanced a bit in the last thirty years. Temporal transporters don't produce nearly as much chroniton radiation," Perry said, from where he sat at the captain's station, obviously having replaced any need for a captain's chair. Ovirosch looked at the viewscreen, where he saw what appeared to be his own ship's engineering room, and what appeared to be a man jumping into cloud of energy. It was Zosni. From what he figured to be the science console, a Kazon woman said in her growlly tone of voice, "Sir, I believe we have identified the source of the aberration."
"Maxwell, it seems we've found your problem," Perry said, watching the scene of Zosni's jump replay on the screen.
"Star Trek: Rubicon" Season 1, Season 2 A new era, a new time, a new crew, a new ship, a new mission...
"I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment because it will never come again."- Jean-Luc Picard
"Yes, Ovirosch. Now as to what caused all of this," said Perry, motioning out into space at the surrounding decadent shards of the Federation, "it is likely that he has done something significant in the past that might cause the entire Federation to fall. I think it's fitting that the Bradbury figured out about it then. One man's interactions change the entire fate of the world. Sounds like a story I once read."
"We have recorded on the Rubicon some of the things that were told to us through interactions with a man from this timeline named Collingsworth. It's possible that whatever happened, whoever it was that Data said corrupted the Federation, was influenced by this change."
"Contact the Rubicon," ordered Perry. "Let's do a Holomatrix simulation and see what the possibilities are."
The men left the bridge and headed to the lower levels of the Bradbury.
"It's so beautiful here," said Zosni in the cool of the morning. Kelsa and he walked among the trees, dangling with beautiful wind chimes of El-Aurian culture. Each and every movement of the windchime represented the movements of the Six Spirits and how they worked through fate. They walked together in harmony and concord with the breeze of the morning. New El-Aurian was a beautiful planet. From the way it was described by the more elderly of the previously nomadic race, New El-Aurian served the intention of recreating the almost exact feel of the original planet.
"Are you going to speak to that recruiter fellow this afternoon that contacted us," Kelsa asked sweetly, placing her arm around his shoulder.
"Yes, I'm afraid I'll have too..." But something wasn't right, and Zosni knew that. It was precisely at Stardate 362735.26 that Starfleet was supposed to contact him about returning to the Academy. And it was then that he would recieve his first assignment as an ensign on board the USS Remington. And it was then that it would happen... No, something had changed here. If it was changing, what if he were to add to that? What if there was a way that he could save her? He looked down at Kelsa's face, so beautiful, smooth, and like an animated statue, a Galatea. To think, for all the time he had ever had on board the Rubicon, all the time he had had access to the past, all the time he could have reached out and been able to return to what he so dearly longed for. He couldn't let her go again. Not like this. If he did, he would live many centuries into the future again, regretting the sorry mistake he had made prior.
"If he stays in that point in time," Perry said, standing there, yet invisible to the simulation, "given his current psychologcial disposition..." he trailed off. Ovirosch stood directly in front of the suspended hologram of Zosni, walking in the park with his... Ovirosch looked at his file. Searching through floating holograph after another. Kelsa was her name. For a time, she might have joined Starfleet, but she left the Academy. "He is likely to quit the Academy this time and stay with her."
"No," Ovirosch denied. "Zosni is a good, strong man. He will not deny his duty to the Federation for the sake of making his timeline better."
"But he already has."
"Star Trek: Rubicon" Season 1, Season 2 A new era, a new time, a new crew, a new ship, a new mission...
"I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment because it will never come again."- Jean-Luc Picard
Zosni considered it very fortunate that in modern day idealism was something that could be genuinely appreciated, considering the extremely influential man that was born here. In front of the dome shaped building of the TIC was an enormous statue built of marble, situated before a fountain, flowing in such odd and unnatural strands, as generated by the force fields installed in the fountain. It demonstrated the laws attained by modern understandings of physics. The statue, an enormous combination of eagle, lion and woman, was the iconic Wellsian Sphinx. Its wings spread widely over the fountain, casting its shadow across the domed building in the morning sun. He walked closer, seeing a plaque situated on the bronze pillars that held up the Sphinx. "To those who demonstrated impeccable ingenuity in contracting the hopes of progression within the mastery of time." "Pro futurum, praeteritum ad confirma."
Within the domed structure were the august halls lined with the image those who had in past times had demonstrated such courage in protecting the integrity of time. He followed the instruction of the holographic cicerone that indicated the direction in which he was to travel. Through a low formed, arched door Zosni came into the light of the office of the recruiter. The holoplaque floated at his desk, reading his name. Anders Bendt paced at his desk, staring out the window at the bright sunlight.
Now Mr. Zosni. Or should I say Commander Zosni, as is the title of the person that you have become now, he said in a Norwegian accent.
How were you aware? Zosni questioned cynically.
I was contacted by the Rubicon. They recruited me to help with this. When you walked in the building, I ran a few scans of you. It would seem that when you so valiantly tried to sacrifice yourself for the Rubicons sake, your mentality was forced back in time, in equal proportion to the amount of anti-time with which you came into contact. Your self now and past self become aligned. Unconsciously, your mind is recording the information you encounter now with your aware present self, as well as your past mind, which is unaware of the difference in being synchronized. The problem lies in distilling the two. The psychology of it certainly is an interesting factor, he said, stepping back from the desk. If it were not for the subtleties of the psyche, much of the predestination paradox idea would be left unfulfilled. It was your depression that allowed you to give your life, and it was what led you to the past, once more. Zosni noticed as the mans expression changed drastically as he returned to his desk. If you would not mind, I would like you to make your way down to the lab. Perhaps there we may have more scans to see if we cant resolve this issue. After that, you may resume the role you possess in this current life of yours. We mustnt let there be any more aberrations to the timeline.
Zosni left, guided by the displays that lined the walls, directing him towards where the lab was placed within the building. Bendt stood waiting till the hall was completely silent, and he then looked to his holocom. He activated the small, hand-held device. It was a small rectangular shape, easily grasped in the palm of the hand. The shape of a mans face shimmered into form from photonic fields. It was a Plveean man, weathered by hardship, but still incandescent with a fire that drove, and essentially ate at him. You received my message?
Yes, Bendt said, with a sneer of villainy, this neurocommunicator from what time did you manage to get this?
Most advanced isnt it? They wont be used until far later in the 30th century, during the part of the Temporal Cold War involving the Krenim Imperium. One of my agents managed to appropriate them. They are a great help to our cause, especially since these have the modifications to communicate through time itself!
I assume you still want me to carry out the deed?
Yes, said Naln in a sinister tone. You must make sure that Zosnis love dies.
"Star Trek: Rubicon" Season 1, Season 2 A new era, a new time, a new crew, a new ship, a new mission...
"I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment because it will never come again."- Jean-Luc Picard
“It seems to be an energy signature. A transporter signature, actually. It should seem what I am detecting is an incomplete transport. It left the individual in the signal in stasis, and it is, shockingly quite stable.”
“What type of transporter does it seem to be? Does it originate from a certain faction?”
“All the configurations show the technological device used for the transport was… Plveean.” Bayeb looked in concern to Ovirosch.
“Parvius, man the transporter. Use a field. Beam aboard this individual.” The room’s atmosphere was dense, because they all knew. It hang heavy on all the crewman’s breath. Naln was back. With so many crewmen dead, it was the last confirmation these crewmen needed to see that the Sponsor was the one behind the entire incident that had lead to this. Inas and Bayeb shared a glance. The master manipulator was the one responsible for Zosni’s incident in time.
Indubitably, Naln had, before their eyes, come into composure, and stood their with a psychotic glare that twisted his mouth into a smile of sinister subterfuge. “It is so nice to see you all for this final confrontation of ours.”
“Final… is anything final with you?” Ovirosch seemed to spit his words with animosity at Naln.
“Of course not. Well…” he stopped to think. “I suppose you could execute me, but then, your timeline would be rewritten entirely. And the TIC couldn’t suffer that! Without the Mirror Universe, your reality would be so incredibly different. Of course, I have to live a while longer to make sure that it comes into existence. Again, you have to face a truly No-Win scenario!”
“How do you know so much about the Federation?”
“What’s there to know? You know, they say God is omniscient. But,” he laughed wickedly, “what don’t you know when you’ve created everything there is to know!”
Dr. Hyphol had arrived on the bridge and, taking a scan of the obviously ill Plveean, looked distraught at the sight.
“His body has become flooded with chroniton radiation. His condition is quite severe.”
“You know,” Naln said, ignoring the statement, “human philosophers have asked the question, ‘can good exist without evil?’ Well, it is my pleasure to tell you I have an answer. The answer is no. It’s all a matter of perspective creating an objective reality. And the unreality of neutrality falls away. So, very simply put, I had to create evil for the sake of good.”
“What the devil are you talking about?” Ovirosch demanded. “
“You’re going to have to let me out first,” he demanded.
“How do I know you won’t-“
Naln cut the captain off. “I already know what you’ll say. You’re worried about me harming ship. Ovirosch, Ovirosch, Ovirosch… I pull all the strings. If I wanted you dead, you would be. It is as simple as that.” He motioned to Hyphol. “It is both an execration and the greatest of benefits. The Federation has had ships with crewmen before that might have had similar experiences. They became flooded with temporal energies and began shifting, mentally, back and forth through time. This has happened to me. Yet I have the ability to control it. All at once, in every moment, I am past, present, and future. Therefore I am the only variable… the only independent variable. Always changing. Therefore… the whole world is mine to take. By world, of course, I mean the universe as a single community.”
“What is the plan? To establish a Plveean interstellar government?” Ovirosch asked.
“How short-sighted! Always so short-sighted! Always looking directly ahead and never with the ability to see all around you. But I guess that’s why humans have always been considered the leaders of the galaxy. And that’s why I chose the human Starfleet to lead the crusade. A pilgrimage to the stars is not done the sake of the pilgrim but for the sake of the stars.”
”What do you mean you chose?” the captain questioned.
“You know all about this ‘hot-spot’ of the Temporal Cold War, don’t you? You learned all about it in the academy. Think. The Suliban are evil,” he flicked his tongue like a serpentine aggressor.
“What are you talking about?” Bayeb demanded.
“’The Loss of a single pawn does not mean the entire loss of a game,’” Naln said. “Take me to the brig.”
The Captain ordered it, and the security officers escorted him. Maxwell motioned for Bayeb to come to his side. “The look in his eye, Bayeb. He knew that I was going to order him to the brig.”
“It is possible he is telling the truth. He may be the single unity among the material world of all temporal experience. If so, he could be an unspeakable danger,” Bayeb decided.
“All officers,” he ordered. “To the conference room.”
He stooped over, looking on the battered shape of the grandfather clock that had been destroyed in battle. It had been authentic, not replicated. “The events we live make us who we are.” Now it just seemed like an obvious statement. But what about these people that did not live through to be made? What was the end to all these means of being made? Ovirosch was then convinced that what he had conceived as truth was that being made was singularly important. Perhaps it had greater meaning in the next life.
Parvius was the first to arrive so promptly. He looked almost ill with distress. “Are you okay?”
He asked.
“No, not really. I have no idea how we’re ever going to get out of this,” he said.
“It’s just life. It’s an easy deal to get out of, but so worthless to get out of. Someday we’re going to leave to the eternal plain anyway.” He tapped on the desk.
“But I wish the Elements would help me! It’s no use. I can’t do anything. I can’t defend the ship. I’m miserable.” Parvius was somber, even for a Romulan.
“Obviously not. Everyone is here with a purpose. If you won’t take my word for it, there’s a psychopath in the brig willing to confirm it for you,” he laughed, and thought he saw the tips of the Romulan’s mouth curl upward.
“But even my name,” Parvius said.
”What about it?”
“When the Romulans left Vulcan, the Polluxians, or the Roman Olotheans, the gods from Terran mythology, aliens and explorers in space, visited Vulcan and introduced their Latin language to the Romulan people especially. The Latin language and the Romulan’s Vulcan language became creolized. Hence the reason Romulus received its name in the first place. My name comes from the Latin for ‘small.’ It’s as if at my birth my level of courage was decided.”
“But you are courageous!”
“No, I’m a fair actor.”
“You know, sometimes it’s a matter of compromise. Sometimes we have to act to accomplish what needs doing. If you can do that, then you’ve got everything accomplished already.”
He sat quietly for a moment, and then looked up. “Thank you, Captain.”
”You’re welcome, Parvius. Time and again things are named with premature thinking are discovered as misnomers. I’m sure you are one more example of this.”
It was then that the other officers arrived. “I know we have lost many today.” He looked at his officers. “We are going to carry on. There will shortly come a time when we can toast to absent friends. What are our thoughts?”
“I believe he is telling the truth concerning his temporal prescience, regarding new scans I have taken,” Bayeb announced.
Xaz spoke, “I do not believe he poses a threat.”
”What could his plan be?”
“I sense,” Parvius said, “from conversation that he is on a mission of message.”
“If needed,” Aolia volunteered, “I may use my contact telepathy to learn exactly what it is he plans.”
“That’s ok. He seems fairly forthcoming so far with what he plans. But if it comes to it, I may take you up on that.” Ovirosch looked concerned.
“You may be glad to know that the repairs have been effective. The Rubicon will soon be in good… good enough shape,” Thelys added.
Inas began, “If possible, I should like to accompany you in Naln’s interrogation. I want to know what it is that he is hiding. And I may offer some service in extracting his knowledge.”
“Fine,” Ovirosch consent.
In fact, the entire group of officers accompanied the captain to the brig to inspect the prisoner. There, Naln stood silently. Frilly garments wrinkled, face discolored with grime, the prestigious adversary was sporting a different look. He was held behind the broad force field, and Parvius soon altered it to make soundwaves able to permeate it.
“Have you come to ask the truth?” Naln asked.
“Yes, as a matter of fact we have.”
“And if I don’t assist?” he smirked.
Inas entered through the forcefield, morphing herself in such a way that she also might permeate even this. She stretched out her hand, converting it into a liquidous state and encircling Naln’s mouth. “It won’t kill you,” she said, “but it will put you into a static condition of preservation, which will be induced when I begin to simulate drowning.”
“Which feels like?” he retorted.
She transformed into a bubble of amber-colored semi-liquid, enveloping the dictator. He did not struggle too greatly, but just stood there.
“That’s enough,” Ovirosch said, and Inas backed away.
Naln recovered quickly, and then slyly said, sarcastically, “covered entirely by a beautiful woman that can shift into a state of change. What an excitation!”
Bayeb almost looked jealous. Naln saw this. Ovirosch looked Naln in the eye. “What is the truth?”
“I shall start from the beginning. Why I, Ziverok Naln, started the Temporal Cold War. The truth is that I was born illegitimately to a vagrant man and a seamstress.”
“That is a lie,” Bayeb objected, “he was born to nobility.”
“As I was going to say, my impetuous friend, this… this was something different. I was born on Plvee, yet… a very different Plvee. In a different life, in a life without my impact, the entire galaxy was very different. You see, what could be considered the original timeline… the Iconians conquered the entire galaxy.” He had a look of agony in his eye.
“The Iconians!” Ovirosch almost shouted. They had been the Federations fiercest foe, and it had been by some miracle, the miracle of unity in the galaxy, that the Alliance had won the war.
“The Iconians themselves were able to manipulate time because of their semi-corporeal bodies. Therefore they posed a threat to every thing I tried. But I am getting ahead of myself. As you know, the Iconians believed themselves to be the elite, correct rulers of the galaxy and that they believe there was to be one culture, the Whole. When the Iconians conquered the galaxy, trillions perished, but they did not destroy races entirely. No, they preserved the race and vanquished the culture. They made us their underlings.”
“So did you alter the timeline of the Iconian Wars and ensure that the Federation one,” Ovirosch asked.
“Yes, but that was not the initial defense. I was gifted, they told me. Even then, the backwash of the effects of chronitons on me caused me to know things ahead of time. It caused me to see. It caused me to learn. I discovered how to travel through time! But, more importantly, how to communicate through time via hologram. Many times I tried to encourage my people to rebel, but rather they would rather be lead by the Iconians then die trying at freedom. Their empire expanded across the universe. The Milky Way, Andromeda, Triangulum, et cetera, et cetera. They ruled it all.”
”What about humanity? Did they let them live?”
“They did. When they invaded in 2245, they suppressed what was left on Earth after the war, and made them compatible followers.”
”2245? What are you talking about? We did know they even were still in existence till at least 2409!?”
“Humanity never became a part of the Federation. It didn’t even exist.”
“Why?”
“Because Enterprise never met the Suliban till much later. They never met them and were never tempered. Because of this, the Elachi, which contacted them in 2151, destroyed them. In a silent strike, the Elachi destroyed all Starfleet operations and humanity did not make it to the stars. But then when the timeline was altered, another risk evolved. There was a time when the Suliban saved Enterprise. Because of the change, they managed to make it farther, but still were facing a new risk. I had to save them.”
“You did?”
”Yes… yes… I want to see the look on your face and savor it now when I tell you. I created the Federation. I built it from the foundation!” he threw his arms in the air. “I built it! Me! The villain of this story! Don’t you see! I made myself the villain!”
“Why?”
“Altruism. When I created my Temporal Communicator, I created an anchor. No matter what change I made, the change would affect me, not mentally, but physically. But the fundamental events in my past, my birth, my actions, my formations, were all synchronized into the new world. All was integrated into a new life. Why? Because my people had been destroyed. I was abused as an illegimate child and everything that was good in my people was destroyed. They lived in poverty and impecunity.”
“Why did you create the Federation?”
“For my people. After I leave my thrown, a flood of democracy will wash over my people. Time after time, reality after reality. Time and again I altered the timeline for the benefit of my people. But each time, my people were oppressed. Whether by the Iconians, or the Iunctine, or even the Dominion. I even transformed the inert government of the Suliban into a criminal organization for their sake. I made evil for good’s sake. And so, I made the Federation that someday its reach would spread democracy to every corner of the galaxy, including my people. The Federation is my people’s salvation. Utopia. My imperfect technology gave me the gift of prescience and allowed me to eventually create a timeline where I was a king. I will never reap the benefit of my actions. But my people will. I did it for them.” He laughed hysterically. “Don’t you see it? Your entire dogma on time travel states so long as you are a part of the Commission is this: to preserve the timeline in which we exist. The one most beneficial. The one that is ‘right.’ All this time I’ve been trying to say. We are on the same team. The same side of the war. Soon I will make the final step in my plan. That is when I create the Federation’s own antithesis to strengthen it and make it whole with integrity. The Terran Empire. An alternate reality discordant with our own. I wanted to save the world, so I created something that could destroy any evil. Aspiration. Ingenuity. They can destroy the Iconians. They can destroy anything. By the end of the 31st century every region of the galaxy will exist within the Federation. And then we will have peace… “
"Star Trek: Rubicon" Season 1, Season 2 A new era, a new time, a new crew, a new ship, a new mission...
"I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment because it will never come again."- Jean-Luc Picard
“I will not join Starfleet,” he said, “not if you’re not in support.”
“I want you to do what you must! You should join Starfleet. It is your time. You are still so young. You must do what you will. I have to do what I will!” she said, her beautiful lips moving elegantly, even in conflict.
“But… I love you.”
“I love you, too. But there is more required in marriage. If we are to be married, we should be, as the Words of the Kahnde say, ‘be of one entity.’ We should be together.”
“What made you change your mind?”
“I need you. I don’t know. But if this is your fate, I cannot be the one to change that. I’m sorry, Kandir, but there is nothing we can do about our destinies.”
“What if I told you I could resist destiny? What if I told you I had a way to change it?”
“You belong in Starfleet. Your work with the Department is crucial. And I feel like there must be something other for my fate.”
“No…”
“I have to, Zosni. I must.”
“But…”
“There’s nothing we can do.”
She left, with those five words as her only valediction. He needed her. So badly. He looked down at the PADD lying on the table. A message had opened up. Kelsa’s visage had appeared, tears filling her eyes. It had been prior saved to his database, awaiting the time for it to open.
“You forget, Kandir. We are so close that when we touch, when we are intimate, our telepathy is active. Kandir, I know. I know everything. But I can’t betray destiny. Time is what we El-Aurians adhere to. If I defect from that, then what am I? In ancient times, our people condemned the Krenim for their manipulations of time. I can’t do the same.”
“No!” he cried. He threw the PADD across the room. It fell facedown and did not break. A hologram appeared from the PADD, continuing the message.
“I know, Kandir, I know. But we can’t do something that would bring a child on this earth that would jeopardize the Federation. I love it too much. I love it enough to die.”
“But you don’t love me enough to live!?” he fell to the ground, covering his eyes as they were stinging with tears.
“I know I won’t live long enough to give you a better good-bye then what I did. But be satisfied. I am always with you, in a way that is deeper than matter. You know that. We don’t get to choose. That is a part of our great Mystery. You must let me go, despite the risk of the shuttle’s crash. It’s fate. I must try to return to my home city.” She spoke softly.
“What about what we could have been?”
“What we could have been might have destroyed the Federation. That is something I can’t risk. That I cannot allow.” She seemed to know his response before he spoke them.
“You know me so well.”
“And that is why we will never be apart. Neither in life, nor death…”the hologram faded away. He stood alone for a long time, musing and contemplating these things.
Naln stood as the captain glared at him in bewilderment. “You now must prevent Zosni’s alteration. The aberration he would cause would destroy everything. Take this,” he extracted a strand-like technology which projected data in holographic form. “It is the perfected form of the de-integration process, needed to separate Zosni from his past self. It includes the exact coordinates you must go to. From there, you must separate him there.”
“Why not stop it from the beginning? What are you trying to pull?” Ovirosch accused.
“Nothing. It is only that Zosni must be given that time. It’s a matter of healing. A matter of self-discovery. You can’t deny him that.”
Bayeb looked to the captain. “Who would you like to retrieve him?”
“I will go.” Ovirosch downloaded the data. “You have the command.”
The officers’ attention were then directed to Bayeb.
“Thelys,” Bayeb said, “ready the transporters.”
“Yes, sir.”
“No…” he whimpered. “Not this…”
He looked at the flamboyance of the El-Aurian design. Zosni had learned from the El-Aurian scriptures about how the soul was tempered by fire. He felt this effect now more than ever. Ovirosch materialized afar in the room.
“Come on, Kandir, it’s time to go home.”
“This is home,” he pleaded.
“No, the Rubicon is home now.”
“How can it be home? Everything in the world is here.”
“No, Kandir, it isn’t. There is nothing here but a warped and mangled bit of remnants from what you desperately try to piece together. You can’t live here any more. You can’t live like this,” Ovirosch motioned to the emptiness.
“No. I can’t.” The two began to dematerialize, leaving the past form of Zosni there on the ground in distress. He only remembered that she was gone.
As the world had shimmered away, Zosni did not want to let go. It was then that the world seemed to morph for him as the sparks and dashes of white focused. Rather than arriving on the Rubicon, they found themselves on a civilian El-Aurian shuttle. Ovirosch studied his surroundings in a distressed look. He touched his combadge, only to find his contact was disrupted. It seemed by Zosni’s will alone, the two Starfleet officers had been transported where he would have rather gone. Rows of seats were surrounding them, and Zosni looked earnestly for the one who he would wish to find. Kelsa sat towards the front of the vessel. Zosni walked towards her, back in his 2886 Starfleet uniform and once more experiencing the physical appearance of a man of his species over two-hundred.
Before he could reach her, a man plowed into him, causing him to stumble. Eyes from the crowd looked in dismay. This man, Kandir knew, was not an El-Aurian. No. It was a human. The human Anders Bendt. He held a concealed package in his arms, one from which Zosni sensed temporal properties and danger.
The man drew a phaser, and to Zosni’s surprise, fired, barely missing him. But he hit the window, destroying not only that, but also the wall of the structure in an enormous flurry of material burning. Ovirosch rushed to his friend, seizing his arm before the depressurizing vessel released him to fall to his death. El-Aurians were swallowed consistently by the TRIBBLE, one by one exhibiting fear and disgust. Ovirosch locked his arm around a seat, while it felt the very hairs on his head were wrenched out by the folic and dragged with all pressure out the hole. Saliva also was being forced in its very nature also from his gums. His gut was tangled in such a contorted way he was repulsed.
Kelsa, Zosni saw, was fastened securely in her seat. Bendt, using magnetic boots, perhaps, stood safely where he had first planted his feet. He revealed the weapon. It was a chroniton bomb, crafted from what looked like Starfleet supplies. He fired the phaser once more, this time blowing the door to the pilot room. He tossed the bomb in, and they were helpless to keep it from happening. The front of the vessel, from which the pilots unsuccessfully tried to flee, was destroyed, the majority of its material vaporized entirely.
Because the cabin was depleted of pressure, though it was now hurtling to the planet, Zosni steadied himself and stood. He walked to Kelsa. They could not hardly speak, but looked lovingly in tacit. Anders Bendt drew his phaser again, aiming it at Zosni. He did not get a chance to fire. Ovirosch charged him, sending him hurtling out of the shuttle through the hole that once was the cockpit of the shuttle.
A transporter lock focused on Ovirosch, causing him to quickly disappear. Though it had activated on Zosni, it was not successful. It was not working. But he was not concerned. He smiled endearingly as the shuttle collided and combusted against the forest ground.
Ovirosch was back. Bayeb had transported him back to the ship, which was considerably in better shape than it had prior been. “You’ll be happy to know, Captain, the timeline has been restored. The Federation is back.”
“Zosni is gone.”
Bayeb looked at the floor for a moment, then he looked up at the captain. Inas entered the room, escorting the familiar El-Aurian first officer, smiling in delight.
“We got him first. But before that, we thought we could give him a chance to die so that he might live.”
Ovirosch approached Zosni for the embrace of a hug and consolation. The Rubicon returned to normal space… this time for a more permanent stay. The University of Copernicus’s best men had assembled, to re-assemble this ship. Zosni met the counselor Aolia in her room. He required deeper consolation. Reaching out, at her encouragement, Kandir grasped the Zaakrean’s hand, feeling as she also felt all of his emotions. He felt them all leave him as they quietly knew precisely now the other was responding. She felt the deep, passionate anguish that had now been resolved and drained from the XO.
The young lady, Zosni noticed, had such beautiful eyes. He felt relieved by her company.
“Perhaps now I can live. I can be reborn now that I have been dead.”
“Two hundred years is a long time to be so fixated. But the best is yet to come, I am certain,” she smiled at him with a peculiar interest. “You have eight-hundred more a head of you.”
Bayeb and Inas together walked into the mess hall as Ovirosch observed with great care what had developed among his officers. He returned to his office. The entire ship and its crew seemed to have been baptized in these battles during the aberrant timeline and now was made anew. The Nihydron admiral, Admiral Eed’Cyhn, contacted Ovirosch as head of Starfleet Command. His skin was a rich lavender color, and his forehead was covered by a bright star-like skeletal formation. Similar formations were scattered from on the center of his chin to both of his cheeks, though they had fewer spire branching from the epicenters. He spoke with a rich accent that was only acquirable if one knew the language of the Nihydron thoroughly. The Nihydron Commonwealth joined the Federation in the early 29th century and were one fundamental movement to bring peace to the turbulent Delta Quadrant, where tensions were once more on the rise. But that was no matter now. It was almost 2887. It was easy to say the Federation was safe by its technological prowess.
“I am issuing you new officers since you have shown your excellent ability. The Rubicon is set for its best days ahead,” said the man with the baritone voice and the choppy vocal speak.
“And Naln?” Ovirosch asked.
“Naln will be placed, at present, into temporal stasis on Facility 4028. He will, naturally, be placed on trial for his actions. All the while, we’ll need to consider his Braxton Rights. Can’t try him for crimes not yet committed. It does get confusing. It’s inevitable that he will be released. We can’t violate the temporal destiny of our enemies, even, if it could cause so much damage.”
“Of course. He may be very important as an asset of information in the future. I trust that the modifications being made to the Rubicon will be of great use?”
“Certainly, for the two years, chronologically speaking, since you were lost from us, we’ve made some pretty interesting advancements. The captain’s piloting desk, the rearranged officers’ stations, et cetera, et cetera. It is quite beneficial. Oh, and the Relativity crewmen will be reassigned, some of them to your ship. I believe the TIC will do their best to revive the Relativity. Starfleet Medical will also be taking in Alerix to ensure his care. They wish to revive him. He may tell us some fascinating things. I look forward to reading your professional logs on the aberrant timeline.”
“Thank you, Admiral.”
“Eed’Cyhn out.”
Naln had been the most fundamental, most historical mystery of the Federation’s existence. But there were many more threads waiting to be analyzed. This was an incredible place of research. Ovirosch was anxious to learn more. They were set up from an incredible destiny.
End of “Paradox”
End of Season 2 of Star Trek: Rubicon
"Star Trek: Rubicon" Season 1, Season 2 A new era, a new time, a new crew, a new ship, a new mission...
"I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment because it will never come again."- Jean-Luc Picard