At the Jaws of Fenrir (Story )

antonine3258 · October 2016

At the Jaws of Fenrir:

Chapter 1: The Builder - part 1

by antonine3258

Notes: This is primarily a retelling of 'Ragnarok' the mission -as a capstone to several arcs, I decided to assemble a superteam of my characters for it, so I'm being a bit indulgent. This will probably be five chapters,a ll told

*

1523 AD

It was festival day on Grimak, greatest of the colonies of Fifth Great Expansion of the Gorn. The celebration of the founding wasn’t the largest festival; that honor was reserved for the hatching of the Hegemony, celebrated across all the worlds. The warrior caste had promised a flyby of the newest air-defense units, and Sliss was eager to reach home. Her apartment was in the foreign district; and the usual problem of its distance from the university meant less build up and a better view.

And it was cheap, and the landlord was only genially corrupt. Her neighbor across the hall had gotten some decent imported liquor – clear but with a heavy punch. They would have a good seat on the rooftop as a result. For a non-Gorn, her neighbor wasn’t bad, even if her name was nearly impossible to pronounce with a soft palate, and she had hair.

She shuddered, even on a linguistics grant, she hadn’t had too much exposure to aliens yet. The Hegemony had preferred to keep to themselves, but the need to expand their population had forced them to spend more time around people, though most were mammals. The hair – the bizarre keratin structures – looks like diseased scales, falling in rivulets.

But Sliss’s caste was merchant, and they were more open as a result, seeing the angles. The mammals saw the Gorn as plodding, unemotional, and slow. Her knack for acoustics was better than most, and so she had been selected to learn their languages, and then their secrets.

It would be useful, but it wasn’t a very large grant, so she had to live closer to them than she wanted on a regular basis. Going to school with them was bad enough. She looked at the sky, it was rapidly darkening, the red dwarf sinking below the horizon. She heard something rustle on the streets around her. The city transit network hadn’t been extended all the way to her apartment, and she’d had to walk ten blocks.

The city lights would be on soon, and she feared missing the fly-by. Fortunately, there was always the backup route. An access point to the city’s power distribution network – if one breathed in a little, one could shuffle through it. She’d used it the other way, making the morning train. True, it was dark, but this was a Gorn world. The military caste dare not risk the humiliation of one being injured.

She slipped into the ally, squeezing past the transformer stack, humming to itself. Then it was a short walk down a delivery driveway, and she’d saved herself a block. Unfortunately, in the dim light, she missed the trash bins had been shoved out of the way – someone being hasty, and tripped over them in a clatter in the shadows.

When she finally managed to stand up, cursing and brushing herself off, the light suddenly dropped. She turned, confused. A shadow was blocking the end of the street, far too short to be a Gorn, but she thought she recognized the stance and hair against the silhouette. “Student Revka?” Sliss asked, confused. She hissed, then. The figure was pulling up a hand with the sort of deliberate slowness that screamed ‘weapon’ from a hundred bad dramas.

She couldn’t move in time – inertia fighting against her. But instead of a loud ‘bang’ there was a trill like a camera flash being discharged. A bright flash filled her vision, and she heard a gasp as something small and heavy ran into her, sending her back to the ground. Her vision finally cleared, seeing her neighbor standing over her, hand on her chest, pushing hard enough to make sure she felt it though not truly pinning her.

Her other hand was waving around, something. Her eyes were strained, but they appear to have tumbled behind some blocks of glass or the like. And beyond… there was another figure, grunting, hand held to his chest. Reddish eyes glared, and a rifle was held somewhat listlessly. Student Revka did something with her other hand, she heard a faint hum, and the pressure on her chest ceased.

“Stay here behind the er, wall, Sliss,” Revka said gently, patting her, getting the sibilants all wrong as usual. Her other hand came into view, and was holding some sort of plastic contraption that hummed. The other spat something, and Student Revka winced briefly – apparently she understood it.

“No, none of that,” Revka said sharply as the other creature struggled to raise the rifle. There was a screech, and his movements slowed and stiffened. The small, pink alien smiled with clear satisfaction and put the box away, pulling something else plastic and small. She rolled out from the glass, and manipulated it somehow. Sliss struggled to sit up in shock. It was a ray gun- a beam of light caressed. Fire sparkled and strobed around the other, warding off the light, and Revka rolled back.

Her eyes widened and she tapped something on her chest, a parabola insignia she had described as a religious symbol. “Get down!” she barked, with all the insistence of the ruling caste, and Sliss found herself dropping in surprise – the pronunciation had been perfect. The other managed to get the rifle out, and instead of bullets – or even light, some sort of fog came out. But it hit the glass, and then Sliss realized, it was light, not glass. The fog cleared, and the trash bins scattered from her fall were slumped, corroded.

But she was intact, whatever the barrier was, it held. The shadowy figured snarled, a harsh figure, looking almost melted by Gorn standards. It shimmered with empyrean fires again, and duplicated, creating an even shadier version of itself. They were linked by fire. Student Revka tapped her strange tool again, a sparkle of light bringing an ally, a small halo, glowing orange, floating on no wings. Something burning launched at Revka, but a clean blue shimmer held it off.

She fired again, a cone of orange light – not even fire as the halo added its own otherworldly fury. The shadow vanished, leaving only the lead devil, the fires dying down around it. The figured stepped backward, but slipped against the partially melted garbage, slumping. With a defiant snarl, he pulled a small cylinder from a pocket. Revka started to run, but the devil jammed the cylinder into them, shuddered and gasped, and then went still, with a finality too it.

The wall, the ray gun, the small floating halo suddenly vanished in more clear blue light. “Are you all right?” Revka asked. Sliss gaped at the angel, and, to her late shame, it took time to find her voice.

“I thought you were an engineering student, not an angel!” Sliss said at last, to her later regret. Of all the stupid things.

“One never stops learning!” Revka said brightly. “But, yes – I am an engineer.” She reached down a hand to help Sliss stand. Amazingly, it worked, and Sliss didn’t bring the tiny alien down. Though her ears did detect a slight whirring of gears – a clockwork engineering angel, apparently.

She held her box up again, “Are you hurt at all?” Revka asked, “I’m sorry to knock you down.” She brushed her off lightly, and adjusted her tunic back out of askew.

“Who was that? What are you?” Sliss said. “Why are you here? What about the roof?” Sliss babbled. She looked at the corpse briefly. It didn’t look familiar – later, she mapped it to a slave species towards Galactic core, past the Azure Nebula.

“Um – we should still have the spot, actually,” Revka said weakly. “But I’m sorry he got so close – he was… an operative. He didn’t like the sort of future you represent, and the growing Hegemony.” That made her straighten a little. Angelic recognition. “I came here last week because we heard he was here, but I was hoping to catch him before this. I’m sorry you were nearly hurt.”

“I’m fine,” Sliss assured her savior. Sliss spat on the corpse. “Shadowy scum.” Revka nodded, and then seemed to catch herself.

“He had his reasons,” Revka said. “They’re terrible, but they’re there.” She looked at the fight area. “I’ll get the body taken care of – you shouldn’t have to deal with any of the questions.”

Sliss held her claws up. “I may not be laborer, but I can help with trash.” Revka hesitated, eyes lidded, then nodded. Sliss worked to arrange the cans. It took longer than it should, her hands seemed to be shaking. Revka waved some sort of wand over the body and the area. Then she summoned the disc again, which played light over specific spots. With Sliss’s sensitive eyes, the spots were slightly discolored. Sliss nodded. Demon blood was supposed to be corruptive.

Sliss had more or less gotten the cans back together, and Revka seemed to be finishing her preparations with the corpse when she heard the booms. “Oh, the flyover! I’d be home by now” Sliss said, another subject of later castigation. Still feeling unsteady – that was where she should be, after all, if things were normal.

Revka seemed to be listening to something, and then spoke quietly. Then she looked up and smiled. “You’re right – we should get you back where you should be. It was a pleasure to meet you, Sliss. Your people are courageous and brave, and I’m sorry someone would try to damage that, but glad I got to meet you and see your world.”

Sliss nodded. Revka drew her up to her full insignificant height. “But,” she said with finality, “I’m afraid we probably won’t see each other again. Fuso, execute plan Charlie-Five.” The world dissolved to light, then the scattered pieces seemed to reform back to the rooftop. Her stomach suddenly lurched, and dizzy, she found herself in a prepositioned sunbed.

Overhead, the newest air-fighters of her people went through acrobatics, launching flares and amid fireworks across the whole spectrum. Caught in the spectacle, the other residents of the low-cost housing had missed it. Turning a little as she gasped, she saw another barrel there of the distilled spirits Revka had been handing out. With a shaky note on it, “For a good neighbor and a better future.”

Overhead, the lights shone across the spectrum, the Hegemony bright.

*

Captain Antonine Revka, U.S.S. Fuso, beamed back aboard her ship. Her science officer was waiting with her operations chief. Even for a Reman, he was looking grim, at the bundle that had beamed up beside her. Figuring the exact time origination point of the body would help lock down the Na’kuhl ‘insertion’ technique. And, given the Republic’s torturous recent past, history was not the favorite subject of Subcommander Manas.

“Ambassador S’tass’s ancestor has avoided an untimely death in an alleyway,” she said happily. “Status report up here?”

She stepped down from the transporter room – carefully, it was built to a century-old style, like much of the ship. All bright colors and thick, well-shielded conduits. But beneath the surface, the hexagonal facets had the sparkling high-resolution of a current transporter, the thick power conduits were really modern electro-plasma instead, carrying loads undreamed of to those dead engineers.

Those in fact, those engineers were yet to be born. Manas looked at the dead operative. “Our credentials continue to hold. Intelligence gear has successfully pulled the databases from the planetary surface, and we are monitoring all possible surface transmissions. There will be a great deal of information about the Fifth Expansion to add to the Federation Library.”

“And our other issue?” Antonine asked, moving behind a screen to change back to uniform from civilian wear.

“The temporal and chroniton scanners obviously failed to show any improvement with our additions,” Manas said mournfully. “Distortion was only evident at close range and very near the point of temporal impact. Their incursion method still refuses to be remotely identified.”

“We have successfully offloaded our ‘cargo’,” the operations officer, Lieutenant (probationary, as Donaldson often reminded) Feric said, leaning on the transporter console. The Ferengi had the lobes for logistics. “The replicated fabrics will resist any obvious identification as manufactured through that method; and will decay before appropriate methods are discovered. The hardwoods should, given what happens in the next century, fit pretty well into making the Gorn trade deficit that much worse.”

Antonine popped her head up at that feeling glum. “Those poor people,” she said, and sighed. “And I wasn’t able to even capture him. Going to kill an innocent young woman in a dark alley…”

Manas said, “Still, we detected the deviation enough to be in position. Was there any issues with the target?”

“No, one good thing about a week’s stay – she seemed pretty certain I was on the side of angels.” Antonine laughed, but shook her head at their questioning looks.

“It sounds like everything’s going all right – what was Donaldson talking about an anomaly? I would have stayed longer otherwise.” Antonine said, getting more serious as she finished putting on her uniform. The captain approach to uniform regulations was a blessing – she could use the Sierra model she was used to from her timeline. The Odyssey just felt odd on the shoulders.

The two officers looked at each other uneasily.

Feric offered, “We had a very minor blip in our carrier wave for temporal communications. We sent a query but got back a standard status report to continue mission while in another temporal zone.”

“That transmitter is set in the future,” Antonine said, now also uneasy. “When was the glitch?”

“Fifteen minutes before the attack on Sliss,” Manas said. “Our understanding of temporal theory is the probability of the event at that point should not have caused effects – given the mechanisms of travel used by the Na’kuhl and ourselves.”

“All right, something’s up then. We need to confirm who we’re working for – Donaldson’s attention to detail paid off again,” Antonine said. “Are we cleared for departure yet?”

Feric nodded, “Yes, everything was set – we have all scanner points logged to be able to maintain our hologram, and that little probe you suggested is ready with our warp signature. I’m sorry I didn’t think of it.”

“Well, it’s easy to forget how slow speeds are back now,” Antonine said. “An endurance of two minutes at warp 9.5 goes a lot longer at these blistering modern speeds of Warp 1.3.” She tapped her commbadge. “All hands, this is the captain: prep departure stations.” She tapped it again and turned to the others. “Run final checks we didn’t leave anything behind when I checked out of the apartment – what, wow, all of six standard hours ago? I’ll be on the bridge.”

Yama was lingering outside the transporter room to where Antonine nearly tripped over her. She scooped the ship’s cat up, and, reflexively scratching it. “And detail someone to lock up poor Yama. We really don’t want a repeat of what happened when we arrived.” The other two nodded, and Antonine delegated the cat to Feric before heading into the turbolift.

*

Donaldson had harbor watch, standing to attention as Antonine came in and moving from the center console. A few seconds behind, the other turbolift opened, disgorging auxiliaries to man the ship’s secondary consoles while in full operation. “Orbit stable, captain. Traffic control has given our exit vector. Sensor sources marked. Holoemitter disguise active with no anomalies, impulse baffles holding.”

“How long until our departure?” Antonine asked, settling into standing at her post. Posts were certainly right. The bridge controls were all scattered on various columns across the structure. No hint of old-school ergonomics here. Or 25th century ergonomics. Or any, it seemed at times.

She wasn’t sure why the ship, originating a century in the future, seemed to pay little to ergonomics, but they weren’t able to access the time travel settings without the original bridge. She’d been forced to set up four-hour watches to avoid physical exhaustion.

“Groundside traffic control has us set for whenever we’re ready within the next hour – departure vector logged to helm,” Donaldson reported. “Mission go well?” He waited a beat, “And did you get my aquavit back?”

“Not sure yet, just a moment. We didn’t get a live capture but I doubt Foch would’ve made a difference,” Antonine said, pulling up their vector. “Main Engineering: Bridge – I need power now to the temporal core,” she ordered.

“Commander Tela here – warp power available,” the Tiburonian said over audio cheerfully. “Unhooking the safeties on temporal core. When are we going? Can I plug in the still? Donaldson’s been hovering over it.” The human officer grimaced and turned away. Antonine hid her smile.

“Tell everyone to keep their distance and I’ll let you know,” Antonine advised. “Computer – contact Temporal Relay; Temporal Defense mission contact under one-time code seven-delta.”

“Working,” responded the computer. “Standby,” it said after several seconds.

“We’re time travelling – why does it always seem we have to wait for this?” Donaldson said, composure recovering.

“There’s about fifteen competing theories I’ve read-“ Antonine began, but stopped. The contact appearing in hologram was not Daniels. Some other human, graying at the temples, someone heavyset.

“Captain Revka – my name is Pavel Chekov. Timeline integration check is three-seven-alpha-four-seven,” the man said, with some accent she couldn’t place. Donaldson stepped to another control column and nodded.

“It seems we’re in the same history, Mister Chekov,” Antonine said. “Transferring automated mission report – would you like a summary?”

“No time,” the man said with no trace of humor. “Daniels has fallen in the line of duty. The Temporal Liberation Front has joined with Mirror Universe forces and nearly overwrote the existence of the Array at New Khitomer. We have a limited window remaining, but it appears all pieces are on the board for Procyon V, and we are seeing massive flux in the timeline. Additional post-Procyon Nexus forces are unavailable.”

That caused some muttering on the bridge. Antonine looked around, silencing the mutters. “Do we proceed to the battle?”

“Negative – your previous experience with the Tox Uhat is more valuable. Proceed to your originating point and then proceed to New Khitomer at the attached time within one hour after arriving, your perspective. You are authorized to recruit one ship. We have no opportunity for using your ship to shuttle and removing too many pieces from history at this point could tip the balance,” Chekov said.

“Is it alright to alert my normal chain of command?” Antonine said.

“Yes, though we are also alerting through other channels,” Chekov said, then looked off screen. “I’m sorry – we just reached Captain Foch for emergency recall. You have your orders captain.” The screen winked out.

“That was fast,” Antonine muttered, and winced. Not the best move for morale. “Lock down temporal core and begin charging capacitors for time travel. Communications, contact traffic control – say we got loading expedited and get us on departure. Lieutenant Feric’s probe is ready so plot for temporal event immediately after going to warp. Senior staff meeting in fifteen minutes. Commander Donaldson-“

“Aye, ma’am,” Donaldson said, standing up stiffly again. “Going to go check Feric’s probe to make sure he didn’t get inventive.”

“Absolutely,” Antonine said. “And I *am* sorry, but I did have to use the last of your aquavit. We did have those recordings from the archive Sliss saw the airshow, so I needed to make sure she had a seat.”

“The last of the Freya batch, and most of our first Fuso batch,” Donaldson said mournfully, “Throw one more alien in the building and bribery gets expensive in isolationist societies.”

“Corruption is the theme of the Fifth Expansion, if memory serves,” Antonine said, a tad mournfully. There would be mass riots at best on the planet below in several decades, as a variety of cascading mistakes brought down this version of the Hegemony.

Donaldson saluted. “A well-lubricated society, if not well-ordered. Having to keep a spirits room on a Starfleet ship? Who would think distilled spirits would be the best weapon in non-lethal temporal warfare” Antonine shrugged, at that. Replicators were wonderful, but weren’t the best at volatile compounds like alcohol, if you liked the people you served it too. And, what had been more important, brewing was brewing – it was much easier to ‘obscure’ the origin than things patterned from a replicator or using, accidentally, too-advanced engineering.

“Fifteen minutes Donaldson, I’m going to check with Tela,” she announced.

*

antonine3258 · October 2016

At the Jaws of Fenrir

Chapter 1, pt 2

*
The conference room was a weird mishmash again. An old-school communication tri-screen in the center of a table, but with a holoprojector mounted on it. Tela was waiting after her call while in the turbolift. Someday, Antonine would figure out how she did it.

                “How’d it go?” Tela said, direct, though only looking abstracted – she was looking over a sensor module from their latest attempt to crack the temporal core blackbox. From the blackened condition, it had gone as well as expected at that point.

                Antonine sat heavily. “I held my own- I don’t know. All the kit worked, and I have had combat before. But he just killed himself right in front. How could someone believe so fiercely in something so… monstrously dangerous?”

                Tela sighed, not looking over. “But that’s not the real issue?” she prompted. “We have fanatics in this timeline too.”

                Antonine stopped, looking at the table. Tela tapped it after a minute. The two had worked together closely during the fitting out of the temporal ships, and Antonine was happy to have a good engineer while she got her head around the other departments on the ship, even if Tela was probably headed back to Utopia Planitia in a year or so.

                “All right,” Antonine said, “It was… really close. No, I’ve never seen someone die that closely. And certainly so… deliberately. A few long-distant firefights, and that was a little slower paced, not sort of throwing stuff down so quickly, and then… just, quiet when it happened.”

                Tela nodded sympathetically. “They prepped us a lot for combat at the Academy, but we knew it was an active thing going in, not just a likely possibility of our risky business.”

                “I’ll talk to the counselor when… whatever is happening, gets over,” Antonine promised. She nodded at the hunk of junk. “Did it get anything?”

                “Sixteen simultaneous predicted end of life failures,” Tela said. “The joke’s on the core, though – I think I caught enough of what it did to enhance local entropy to rig our tactical systems to take advantage of it.”

                “But?” Antonine asked, from short, but rich, experience.

              “Well, the computer core on this thing is a little behind modern – we get any time to a dockyard, I can fix some of the clustering for speed, but if you can authorize freeing up, oh, say, eighty or two hundred cubic meters in the hull, the Romulans have some new quantum relays to coordinate their cloaked ships with the faster processing on those new command ships. Then we could really set some records,” Tela said eagerly.

                Antonine calculated mentally. “I’m assuming in the continued hunt for more energy on target, you don’t want to drop the redundant particle emitters to the shields or the phaser capacitors.” Tela nodded briefly. “That leaves… the holodecks, half the crew quarters, a third of the impulse engines, or most of the life support.” Antonine started punching notes on into the console.

                “True,” Tela allowed. “If the lab space wasn’t so distributed it would be an option as well. I suppose we can trundle along without a dedicated battle computer.”

                “About that,” Antonine asked, casual, “I’m trying to pull that up but I keep hitting a security seal – it seems the Republic still has the specs classified. How did you know enough of its specs to give a size estimate?”

                “Well, Captain, I’d love to tell you, but we have a meeting to prep for,” Tela said sweetly.

*

                The meeting took place on schedule with her departmental chiefs and bridge officers. Manas looked glum. “Despite our attempts to understand the engineering of the temporal technology, we were unable to improve on either the timeline scanners or understand the temporal shift devices the ship uses during the mission,” he reported. “Though the rest of the science sections’ data will be very valuable, once it has been sanitized of originating in another time period.”

                “I didn’t see the Na’kuhl commando transport in, and it doesn’t sound like Sliss did either – she was distracted by the trashbins and then myself,” Antonine reported. “No technological differences from the combat reports we had used for training, though, so it still appears the Na’kuhl got one ‘shift’ through history. Or at least this history.” That caused some nervous chuckles.

                “We didn’t have any issues with chroniton buildup, temporal diffractions, or gravimetric shifts,” Tela reported. “We’ve run level one diagnostics on all systems over the week. Dilithium matrix is stable – none of the previous disruptions associated with long-range time travel for an object of this mass have been reported.”   They had done some personal time travelling for missions, or through Daniels’ intercession, but this was Fuso’s longest trip under its own power, alone.

                “Extend my thanks to the crew, please, and my apologies they aren’t going to get the break we are hoping. Do you feel comfortable we can pull the temporal wake trick?” Antonine asked.

                Manas and Hela shared a glance, and the Reman gestured, letting Hela speak. “We ran several simulations since we had some free computer space and time. Based on our measurements and observed temporal transits by Alliance craft, we can guarantee at least one cruiser sized ship can transit on the same trajectory.” She shrugged, “Maybe several small escorts – that many warp fields, even on standby, have plenty of odd interactions with the technology we do completely understand.”

                “It sounded like this isn’t a mission for subtlety,” Feric observed. “Could we cram a dreadnought in behind us? It sounded like they were hunting for people. I’d love to have the Enterprise backing us up.”

                Donaldson said stiffly, “The Enterprise’s movements aren’t precisely tracked – I’m not sure we have time to track it down.”

                Hela said, “Hypothetically, the mass shouldn’t be an issue, though the feedback as energy cascades into normal space would be hard on its surface systems. Assuming no time to refit, if Captain Shon didn’t mind having someone else be his eyes.” She shrugged

                “Actually, I wasn’t planning to look for Captain Shon,” Antonine said, abstractly, then looked around at everyone in surprise. “Admiral Chekov mentioned the Mirror Universe was an x-factor they were trying to eliminate. The best trained group for that is the Badlands patrol; with a time a factor, the best chance to find someone cleared for time travel and battle capable is refitting at Deep Space Nine, given our short time window.”

                “Admiral Chekov?” Hela asked.

                “I did a quick check on the name against the database; apparently Temporal Defense recruiting is deeper than we through: he served on Kirk’s Enterprise,” Antonine said. “Facial recognition puts the approximate age in the early 24th century, though.” Hela whistled.

                “That’s actually alarming,” Manas said. “If the best candidate still aligned with the peaceful administration of the timeline is from in the past, then the future could be being twisted to something we would all find very grave. Personal freedom is one of the corner stones of all parts of the Alliance – given the power of time travel-”

                “That’s not the future yet,” Antonine vowed. “If New Khitomer is still under our control, then there’s still a chance, but it’s clear they need help.” She stood up, and turned to look.

                “Donaldson, you’re in charge of Feric’s noisemaker. Make sure the flight path’s a match for what we should be, and I want contingency plans if we can’t wait around to go to warp – get a shuttle loaded with the flight plan too and tweak it to match our current signature. Don’t worry about sparing the coils, and rig it to self-destruct after it can reach a point where it can go to work and drop the probe off,” she ordered. The big human grimaced at Feric, and nodded. Feric grinned back.

                “Feric, don’t look so pleased, you’ve got the rougher duty – we’re inserting back at our relative point at the continuum, so I want you to go over all the operations plans Starfleet had for the week to estimate what’s at Deep Space Nine, or in an emergency warp jump. I want experienced captains or flag officers over ships. Someone having a nervous breakdown over how they may accidentally erase their grandchildren,” Antonine said. The Ferengi nodded.

                “Manas, look over the temporal scanners if there’s any obvious deviation before Procyon, and if the situation unlocked any more records of the future. I know we don’t have any information on where we’re headed after Khitomer, and they may not know, but I doubt we’ll have time for a full briefing.” The Reman nodded.

                “Tela, run a check on the tactical systems and make sure we’ve got all the counter-programming for Starfleet ships loaded – get a probe loaded with all out logs for the mission in case we don’t have time, and detail some people to make sure all the crew who wants to have personal logs loaded get some time in the,” Antonine stopped, checking the clock. “Thirty-five minutes we have left.”

                She stopped pacing, and leaned against the table – not very dramatic given her height, but one worked with what one had. “I know none of us wanted to go into another mission immediately afterward, but it sounds like this is the big one. Over the last month and a half, I’ve gotten to know you, and the rest of the crew. I know all of us, no matter what the future brings, will hold to Starfleet’s finest tradition so our children have a galaxy worth growing up in.” Antonine stood back up and straightened her tunic, not letting her shoulders flex. “Dismissed.” Her subordinated nodded back in determination as they stood.

*

antonine3258 · October 2016

At the Jaws of Fenrir

Chapter 1, part 3

*

2711 AD

                Thirty-five minutes later, to their eyes, they made transit. With a flash of light, the soundless protests of the laws of physics torn beyond any rational measure, Fuso slid back into its proper place in the spacetime continuum. Everyone on the bridge left out a breath as one. They’d made some eleven transits through time as a group, and no one liked relying on a blackbox technology.

                “Confirm location, and start the clock,” Antonine ordered, and the corner of the viewscreen lit up with a countdown towards the time Chekov estimated they had to go to the future.

                Feric looked up from his pillar, “Message traffic still matches Alliance protocols. No alert is being raised on the station, and standard traffic protocol query was met.”

                Manas added with a rumble. “All long-range quasars current signal frequency indicates desired time and space positioning has been achieved.”

                Donaldson said, “Engineering reports temporal core powering down, all readings in the green.”

                “Excellent, transmit all mission logs by normal routing to Temporal Defense. Feric, get me that ship list. Secure from yellow alert – Donaldson – get me Deep Space Nine operations,” Antonine ordered, and then gave something she’d been dreaded. “Use priority sector alert code.”

                She always admired the big officer’s professionalism – his hands darting over the console didn’t even slow down given she had just done one of those few actions that carried an automatic review board.                 “Kurland here,” came back the captain of Deep Space Nine almost instantly, though the background was the replimat. “Captain Revka – when’s the emergency?” Kurland was serious, despite the joke – with the responsibilities of the wormhole, the Commander of DS9 carried more security clearance than some vice admirals. “I think I know what your problem is.”

                “Captain,” Feric said, “Most of Task Force 102 is here, but I don’t see the Trafalgar.” He squinted, peg teeth working, “Lot of Romulans too.” She nodded in acknowledgement – that was her quantum duplicate’s command, though if the Guardian-class cruiser wasn’t here, the Admiral was probably joy-riding on some mission.

                Which was an absolute shame – a temporal mission they’d been able to do some planning on had her and Foch recruiting Revka for securing an artifact with cosmic implications. Having along the version of her from this time had been … comforting. Still, there should be some senior officers available able to swing above their weight.

                “First – Captain, is Ambassador S’tass on board?” she asked.

                Kurland showed no surprise at the name – a good sign. “No, the Empire’s Embassy is currently under the deputy, the Ambassador is still on New Romulus.” The station commander looked worried. “Is that wrong?”

                “No, Captain – that’s one mission down,” she said. “But another came up – I need the sector operational download, and I have a departure of under an hour, maximum, and whatever is the best ship you can spare.”

                “Ooh – I’d say the Defiant,” Kurland said, “But Commander Sarish is on a strike mission against a True Way pirate base with half the ready fleet, and I’m not sure how much I can spare. A Republic strike group showed up yesterday, they’re on tactical alert around the wormhole, and they’re not saying why, exactly. Maybe you can ask them?”

                Antonine checked tactical. There was more Republic ships than normal, scattered around the station, but the posture didn’t look unusual.

                Kurland saw her confusion. “Hang on – ops, this is Kurland – tie the Fuso into our tactical net.”

                The systems gave a brief beep, and then the picture made sense. The Republic had three times as many ships present as they were letting on – sitting cloaked, and, when combined with the seeming indolence of their visible ships, they formed a cone stretching out from the wormhole to the station. Anything emerging would face a tremendous concentration of power.

                “They’re still feeding tactical data, so it’s not an invasion,” Antonine said, stating the obvious as her mind worked. “Our mission didn’t take us anywhere near their space, so I can’t imagine that’s a factor. Did their commanding officer say anything?”

                “No, Admiral seh’Virinat showed up, used our transmitter to the Gamma Quadrant for a while – then got navigation permission and sent her ship through,” Kurland said, sounding exasperated. “As soon as she did, her whole attack group set up for interdiction and just cites operational security when we ask. Whatever it is, Starfleet Command is backing them up on it.”

                “I suspect our missions may actually be identical,” Revka allowed, given the Admiral’s track record for being in the right place at the right time. “What shape is 102 in?”

                Kurland shook his head, “Operational – Admiral Revka is in seclusion in the temple, one reason I’m down here instead of ops.”

                “She let the Trafalgar go?” Antonine asked, surprised.

                “She was going to take it on a terraforming support run, but the request from the temple suddenly came up. She kept her flag on Nagato and it’s actually fully repaired for once,” Kurland offered.

                “That sounds… actually, suspiciously ideal,” Revka said, and glanced in what she thought was the direction of the wormhole. “I’m going to beam down, to see if they let me in to see me, then.” Kurland nodded. “Revka out – we’re sending a full briefing, but with the security chain, it may be a little bit before it hits your desk.” Kurland nodded, and cut the connection.

                “Manas, tactical scan of the Nagato,” Antonine ordered. The big Yamato was in spacedock, of course. Given the nature of the dreadnought as an assault platform – it was either being held back for combat, in combat, or repairing from combat. However, it looked like all the nacelles were attached and the status monitors agreed.

                And, unlike most of Starfleet, its crew had a lot of experience – and the ship’s systems were tweaked to a much higher performance level, with what looked like some sort of exotic reactive shielding. “Feric, anything else seem as useful for throwing into a battle?”

                “Maybe some of the escort squadrons – there’s a Mercury group,” the Ferengi said, “But I checked – the captains are all newly promoted and the power levels are showing class base.” Antonine nodded, a bit disappointed – even she was getting the Fuso pushed up as the crew settled in, though she didn’t quite have an Admiral’s knack for part acquisition.

                “Manas, you have the conn,” she said. “I’m beaming to the station. If I’m not back in time, take us through on the given coordinates.” The Reman nodded, and moved to the center of the bridge as she headed off.

                Once the Captain was safely off the bridge, Feric added. “You think there’s any possibility she’s not coming back with the other of her over anyone else?”

                “That’s not the best to say,” Donaldson chided.

                “The Admiral’s a hero. Having her along saved our butts when we got sent against the Breen,” Feric said. “If I had a self that had three extra years of combat experience I didn’t have to waste a lot of time explaining a crazy mission to save the Federation, I’d go for it.”

                That got some nods. “True – who better to trust than one’s own reflection?” Manas said.

                “That… may not quite be accurate, Commander,” Donaldson said. “I’ve fought the Terran Empire; your reflection is usually the last thing you want to see.”

*

                Antonine materialized directly in front of one of the airlocks linking the promenade with the outer ‘rings’ of DS9. Captain Kurland was at the replimat, gazing at the temple location with some worry – though that could be his normal expression after the last few years commanding the galaxy’s crossroads. The hallways of the promenade were living up to the title, with a dozen familiar species and a hundred she couldn’t name offhand.

                She started to walk over, but found her path suddenly blocked – a Bajoran, in the robes of one of the low-ranking pryars. The Bajoran was carrying a small box and looked frazzled. “Admiral Revka,” he said, with a nervous formality. “I was told to return this to you after your meeting with the Prophets.” He looked her over and then blurted. “Twice in one lifetime – the honor, I can’t – excuse me. May I survey your pagh?”

                “What? Yes?” Antonine said, not sure why the Translator had dropped out. “But I think you have the wrong-“ She stopped as the pryar reached up and grabbed her ear briefly, before his face fell. He could not have looked more destroyed if she had taken her phaser to him, silhouetted against the wall like – she blinked, and forced her hands to unclench.

                Bowing slightly, the pryar mumbled apologies as he moved away. “Are you all right?” Kurland asked, having come up to her.

                “What the hell was that?” Antonine asked, and moved over to the shade of the replimat to avoid being quite a distraction.

                “It’s a Bajoran ritual on the pagh– somewhere between life force and a soul in more general terms, if the UT is carrying that over. Religion always makes the translator temperamental,” Kurland commented. “Have you not seen it before?”

                “No, I was never posted to Deep Space Nine or Bajor itself – we were able to build a lot more outposts along the Cardassian frontier and Boudicca was usually there,” she said, and made sure a chair was behind her to sit. “I’ve been to member world celebrations and lit the temple offerings two years back home before Q; that was surprisingly personal.”

                “I’ve often had new personnel react that way – the Bajoran religion is very tied up to their political system; even given a person’s history, the shape and strength of the pagh is an important and objective guide,” Kurland said. “Unfortunately, the Prophets seem to be interceding – Admiral Revka’s commbadge and Bioscan are not within forty thousand kilometers of the station right now.”

                “Perfect,” Antonine said bitterly, considering other options. If the Celestial Temple wanted her other self out of action, there wasn’t anything they could do in an hour, unprepared. “Did she get exchanged for a gift? What did my counterpart donate, I wonder?” Antonine said. “When you had the Jem’hadar attack I’m pretty sure I was wrestling something like a half-sized Rigelian tiger to recover samples on a survey mission, if I’ve got the time dilations matched.” Kurland glanced at her oddly. She shrugged.

                “Just because it was peaceful didn’t mean stagnant,” she said defensively. She pointed towards the pryar, who was still pacing back and forth nervously, fluttering hands. “The temple seems to be looking for the Admiral as well – do you have that list of alternates then?” She sighed. Having a battle-hardened version of yourself was reassuring.

                “Well – we’ve been cycling through the fleet lately and most ships are on patrol – I think we’ve got six with the security clearances necessary in range, four with up to date psychological profiles – the other two are probably fine, but their last evaluation was before they got bumped to command,” Kurland said. “We’ll have to go to my office to check the crew lists; your people may be survivors of this sort of thing, but it’s hard to tell in advance.”

                Antonine held up her hand, and said, “That’s frankly immaterial – if they have nervous breakdowns later, at least they’ll still exist to have them; we don’t have time to pick the best or even best available. My counterpart was a useful shortcut”

                Kurland swallowed at that, and then looked at the pryar again, who apparently threw up his hands in frustration and went into the temple. “Okay – maybe Captain Tervan will work – he has some experience – if both of you max out your coils, you can probably get to him in time if nothing disrupted his patrol. He’s not the easiest to work with, but he has a good rep from the Iconian War.”

                “All right, though I wish it wasn’t so close – I’ll tell the Fuso to prep for quantum slipstream,” Antonine said. So much for the omniscience of non-linear beings; she could easily imagine what, say, the Cardassian Union without Federation influence would do the wormhole.

                Kurland nodded, and then stopped as a commotion came on the temple steps. The pryar was stumbling backwards, into people who were crossing the promenade, and ignoring all of it, even as he fell. Out from the temple, blinking at the light change, was Admiral Revka; slipping something into a pouch on her uniform belt. Revka saw the two of them and waved briefly. Antonine signaled to her counterpart, whose gaze hardened, but she did another cheery wave and moved to join them, ignoring the pryar.

                Antonine looked at her other self, the native of this timeline, and veteran of wars that had not occurred in her timeline. It was an odd thing to look at one’s self and see what one would look like in a few years. Stress and death, the workload of fleet staffing, and dozens of battles had aged her other self prematurely, a darkly blood-stained timeline Antoine herself had no relation to.   But that history had helped the Federation establish diplomatic ties across the quadrant, encounter new species, and push back the boundaries of possibilities.

                “Is it solipsistic to say that I see two of my favorite people are together?” Revka joked briefly. The two exchanged a quick hug.

                “It’s good to see you, and I wish this was a social call,” Antonine said.

                “Bad?’ Revka asked, quietly.

                “From the way it was described; a possible criticality in a major temporal nexus point,” Antonine said, “Bad enough they’re looking for extra hands from the past.”

                Revka tapped her communicator. “Nagato, move from yellow to Red Alert status, prepare to clear mooring.” After acknowledgement, she asked, “Wouldn’t that make the odds worse? Our crews won’t be there for the timeline,” Revka said. “I know depending on the temporal event the pattern is odd.”

                Antonine nodded agreement, “When you have time travel, the future can precede the past. But it sounds like the Mirror Universe from our time is involved; probably for a share of the loot.”

                Revka patted her pocket, “Okay – then I’m glad I was around even if I wish I didn’t get how the Terrans think– the Romulans around meant I was going to fake moving the flag to keep an eye on whatever had them worried. Not good enough for the Prophets it seems.”

                “What did they say?” Kurland asked, “If they’re worried, it could be important.”

                “Where space burns, you must quench the fire,” Revka said. The two waited expectantly, and she shrugged. “That’s it. I looked into an Orb, got that spoken by Admiral T’Nae, and then was back. Nothing else – subjectively, it took maybe fifteen seconds.”

                “That was exceptionally non-helpful,” Antonine commented.

                “Yes, nice of them to take two hours to make sure I was around, apparently,” Revka said with a snarl. “We don’t have much time – is there a briefing on the other end or are we being dropped into a homeworld assault.”

                “Sounds like forces are being gathered – no idea how many, but more muscle, it seems – and it is bad enough Daniels isn’t going to be there,” Antonine said. She pressed a few buttons and transferred some information. “And so this is going to be a rougher transition than last time; but my engineers think we can take you - I’m sending the probably effects.”

                Revka looked over the results for a few seconds, scrolling down past the science to the summary of the effects, “Doable, especially with other Starfleet ships in the area– Captain Kurland,” and Antonine recognized Revka’s ‘command voice’ – she used it as well. “I’m putting in a formal requisition for all your lateral sensor pallets; standard issue – and anything in spares for ships below ready condition – with luck, we’ll bring back enough you can service so the parts depot isn’t dry.” Kurland nodded.

                “All right – let’s get our navigation and engineering teams talking – it looks like we have a half-hour left to leave, maybe we can smooth the ride a little,” Revka said. She stood, and Antonine followed towards the better beam-out point.

                As they left Kurland’s earshot, Revka said quietly, “I see you put some work into figuring out how to force a Galaxy through.”

                “They’re the largest ships in terms of cross-section,” Antonine said, “And the Nagato’s the biggest gun I could expect to find in the Bajor Sector.” She sighed, “And I’m scared,” she admitted. “You’ve faced these odds, I’d rather have someone there who knew them. After the Academy, there’s no match for our lives. I don’t want to face this alone.”

                Revka patted her shoulder, “Trust me, that just means you’re sensible. Stacking the deck is the best form of luck, even when you aren’t sure which game.”

                “So I take it the Prophets handed you an ace?” Antonine asked.

                “It’s certainly a wild card,” Revka said. “If we can figure out how to play it. I’m happier having a pair.”

end Part 3

antonine3258 · October 2016

At the Jaws of Fenrir

chapter 1, part 4

*

                Antonine stood on her bridge again, and waited for the ship in front of her to light up, thinking again on what her counterpart’s ship represented. The clock was counting down, six minutes to null point.

                Take an interstellar polity, huge, expanding via diplomacy, and the massive conflicts against an equal power generations removed. Give it technological superiority in its few recent wars, and a certain arrogance. Build massive ships, mobile starbases, capable of anchoring the exploration efforts of entire sectors, full of everything to keep a crew happy on a multi-year mission, with massive advancements almost everywhere but weapons. Leave even more space in the future for more plans to expand, just because you can. Name it, in an act of hubris, the Galaxy.

                Then run into an enemy, that didn’t want planets, that didn’t have anger, or fear, or pride driving them – just a hunger for your very superiority and distinctiveness. Lose, badly, fighting – learn how much more there is in dangers, and how far there is to go. Take a look at that extra space – reinforce shield generators, and structural integrity, add more weapon capacitors and nadion generators. Cram even more short-range sensors in for tactical work.

                Rebuild your fleet, but face a different enemy, more relatable but equally dangerous. Have a designer point out you don’t need all those labs and science sensors and range when you’re in a massive fleet. Start some design studies about what to do with that space instead. Win the war, but keep the design studies going. Eventually, reach the point where you can put a starbase weapon on a mobile hull, if you don’t mind ripping out everything you designed the Galaxy for. Sure, the mass made it nearly unmaneuverable; but giant gun. And also, it even slowed down construction, since they took half again as many warp coils; a real pain at that size.

                That’s where it ended in Antonine’s timeline. There were a dozen such design concepts – one, she recalled, was designed to detach its saucer permanently to serve as a colony hub for mass-settlement. Here, though, further wars had led to the plans becoming a reality. The gun was certainly big, and technology improvements made the Yamato version, using some of the technology from advances that led to the Odyssey, made the Nagato more maneuverable, and even shrunk the giant gun enough to fit in carrier construction facilities, for more guns.

                On the other hand, the Odyssey was massively powerful and a strong exploration vessel. And the Odyssey was still years away in her timeline. And there were normal Galaxies too, upgraded as well, in more than just guns. And her own ship, originating in the future, was clearly built in Starfleet’s traditional quad-nacelle, long-range explorer vein.

                But sometimes you needed a giant gun. She, Foch, and Revka had torn apart an entire wing of the Breen invasion forces during a temporal jaunt to Earth (it was classified, and complicated) and that was only a few decades different. The time travelers Starfleet had faced were civilian terrorists and pirates. This was a historic battle; whatever amazing capabilities in the future would be matched. If they were to be meatshields, the Nagato would at least help them sell themselves dearly.

                “Nagato reports warp injector start – bringing up running lights and cutting from shore power,” Manas reported. The ship lit up, running lights touching the registries and the old required red/green to indicate direction if all else failed. The usual grey and blue warp grills, though, were replaced by the high-energy emitters of Iconian-boosted technology. A touch of thruster drifted Nagato clear of the skeletal gantry.

                “Move us into position, Donaldson,” Revka said, pacing between the control pillars. The burly security officer nodded, and she felt through her boots the infinitesimal quiver in the inertial damping as the Sagittarius’s maneuvering thrusters skewed them around before the Nagato. Antonine was too much a product of the 25th century to go for a combined weapons/helm position normally, but Donaldson had the best pilot certifications of anyone on board from his old career in the Federation Marshals, before an encounter with an alien singularity projector cost him fifteen years.

                “We have linked navigation to Nagato’s main bridge; they have unlocked security and slaved their helm controls to ours,” Feric said, working the ops pillar. “Remember Sjerd, they’ve got twice our mass and the flag’s a friend of the captain – don’t ding their paint, dive into any unnecessary black holes.”

                “You really want to go into this now, Probationary Lieutenant?” Donaldson asked, “Maybe you should double check your bandwidth – it’s pretty clear your first checks aren’t up to why a planet would be called Shiva.”

                Antonine and the other bridge officers didn’t bother hiding smiles as Feric made indignant noises. It was an old routine at this point – Feric had been making a dramatic sales presentation of some new technology… and while it had saved Feric, Donaldson (and the investors) the anti-gravity fields the Ferengi had created hadn’t saved them fifteen years from the mysterious singularity generators of the cordoned planet.

                Fortunately, work-release was working well. She’d wanted Feric, but Donaldson had come to make sure the Ferengi wouldn’t kill them all. While he hadn’t qualified for starship duty fifteen years ago, attrition meant Lieutenant Commander Donaldson was now the ship’s second officer.

                “Indulge him, Lieutenant,” Antonine directed, “Run pre-transit diagnostic on the temporal core. Commander Donaldson, let’s get the Nagato clear, and align us on temporal vector – Commander Manas, confirm the clock.”

                “Aye, Captain,” the Reman said, “Five minutes remaining on Temporal Defense’s estimate. Setting course for the 28th century, New Khitomer system. Locking in the core on given coordinates.”

                “Captain – the pre-ignition routine isn’t building power at the rate we’ve seen on previous transits,” Feric said. “No problems showed in the earlier diagnostic with any of the shielding. There’s some odd entropy resonances skewing around too.”

                “Replicate to science’s station, Lieutenant,” Antonine ordered as she walked beside Manas. At the heart of the display, the repeated signal from New Khitomer’s temporal scanner beat – but thready and wide.

                “I’m more familiar with subspace, but that looks more like an interference pattern than power loss,” she commented. Though unless New Khitomer took more damage than she thought, why have so many signals? What could be blipping so badly? On that thought, her eyes narrowed.

                Manas started briefly as he looked up, “Power loss would be my first thought, given the circumstances with the nexus existing before New Khitomer,” the Reman admitted. “But my field is more exotic particles, and we’re seeing a definite drop in them – that could be due to some scattering, but we have little ability to adjust or read the signal beyond the equipment presets.”

                “We need maximum aperture,” Antonine said, “Try something fast – can you set five minutes farther ahead than the rendezvous?” Manas compiled – much of the pattern suddenly dropped away. The Reman turned to stare at his captain.

                “Power gain rate climbing! Chroniton particle now fitting previous patterns,” Feric crowed.

                “Leave your ear cleaner off next time,” Donaldson grumbled.

                Antonine shrugged at the liaison officer, “We have someone from our time running the controls on their side– not Daniels. Every time we travel, it leaves a blip on the timeline – there’s dozens of ships in Temporal Defense; if they’re all hitting the very same spacetime point.”

                “Then all those ships are technically changing time,” Manas rumbled. “A good theory.”

                “One I’m sure they’ll never confirm for us,” Antonine said in a very low voice. She stepped back to center. “Ready vortex for maximum aperture – helm, we updated our vector slightly, make sure the Nagato’s prepped.”

                “Aye,” Donaldson said, and the deck gave another tiny thump.

                Tela’s voice came over the intercom. “Engineering here – warp core stable – bringing systems to full power for transit. All capacitors now in series and charging.”

                “Subspace fields matching,” Feric reported. “Nagato’s warp signature now matches Fuso – they are raising shields.”

                “Start the final countdown,” Antonine said. Before them, the faint Cherenkov glow of the vortex started to build before them. She signaled all hands. “All hands! Brace for temporal transit.”

                “Four minutes until null point, fifteen seconds until transfer,” Manas said.

                “Ten seconds until capacitor dump to core, all systems stable, mark! Nine, eight,” Feric continued the countdown.

                “Nagato going to full impulse. Estimated clearance after transit at fifty meters,” Donaldson said.

                “Three, two – mark!” Feric said. Before them, the vortex opened – into ‘other’, as far as their science could still tell. The eye refused to recognize it. Hopefully, New Khitomer would be there still on the other side.

*

28th century

                “Transit – three, two – mark!” Donaldson said – and there was the brief period between heartbeats that seemed to go forever and take no time at all. She was almost use to it, but the period after transit still got her. She staggered and nearly fell, her inner ear not quite making the trip. Most of the rest were similarly flummoxed.   Even the viewscreen was wracked by static as their sensors recovered.

                “Mass readings indicate probable correct location of New Khitomer megastructure. Astrometrics is trying to confirm. Multiple contacts,” Manas said, refusing a little think like the violation of spacetime to crack his façade. “IFF beacons indicating Temporal Defense ships. Seeing other Federation ships – two with the Republic; a KDF beaconed ship. Trying to confirm classes.”

                “Nagato status?” Antonine croaked.

                “Short-range sensors clearing, bringing on screen,” Manas said. The viewscreen blinked, the sensor artifacts slowly clearing from it. Nagato was behind them, in the grip of eldritch lighting, its shields flickering – but the light from its warp grilles was steady, and the pattern of window lights seemed to be steadying from a frantic Morse.

                “Hail coming in Captain,” Feric said. “Looks like Temporal Command.”

                Antonine took a moment to try and straighten her uniform – it still didn’t pull right, and the headache was starting. “On screen, then. Fuso responding, Admiral.”

                “Ah, not yet, my lady!” came back from the viewscreen. Captain Dean Foch, Antonine’s oft-partner in time travel was standing there, looking more composed than she liked, and he even gave a jaunty wave. Behind him was some blue-lit conference room, like a museum display of Starfleet uniforms brought to life.

                “Admiral Chekov is busy,” Foch said, and leaned away to show the maroon-uniformed figure arguing with what looked like representatives of all three powers. “And between us, he may be for some time, but at least you bothered to finally arrive.”

“Do we have time?” Antonine interrupted. If Foch was complaining about five minutes, they were either way off or he had screwed up.

“Our estimate, in the heart of power here, is we have four hours before time tries to rebalance. Still, at least you finally showed up, and I see you managed to find some real weight to add to the scales. Once everyone is through shouting, we should have time to cut everyone formal orders for this circus.”

“And informal orders?” Antonine asked.

“Get your ships secured from transit and bring yourself and you down as fast as you can,” Foch said much more seriously. “This force was never intended to operate as a fleet and it shows. Maybe we can at least shake everyone into pointing the right direction at the enemy.” Foch looked behind him – the yelling was getting louder. “Foch out.”

                The viewscreen cut, and Antonine started issuing orders. Time it seemed, was in more supply in the future.

Four hours (estimated) until Ragnarok

*

End chapter 1

antonine3258 · November 2016

The most recent version of the story - there's some minor cleanup hard to do with the forum, can be seen here for Chapter 1

At the Jaws of Fenrir:

Chapter 2: The Knight

By antonine3258

A Retelling of the ‘Ragnarok’ mission

*
2411 AD

“Ah, the shining opportunities and outposts of future technology,” Tarsi zh’Shela of Andor said, in the copilot seat. “Think we’ll ever get to see them?” That got some nervous chuckles, but not too much – it was hitting too close to home. The space was too tight as well, but the old Type F shuttles hadn’t been designed to carry eight and a load of cargo as well.

Captain Dean Foch, official Starfleet hero and Federation martyr, hunched over the helm controls and tried not to accidentally jab Tarsi in the elbow. He certainly wasn’t feeling cutting edge, either – the disruptor induction coils they were carrying were a design older than any of their actual birthdates, not what their doctored records said.

They were absolutely huge for something intended for ground even by Foch’s only rough engineering background. But for a third-rate weapons auction, they were just the thing to sell to planets that had just cracked the light barrier and found there were not only people out in the stars, but a lot of them were better than you at killing things.

And it did help to look the part, which was why there literally wasn’t a Starfleet uniform within four light years. Tarsi had found some smoked-glass eyepiece and even some hat from a period drama out of ship stores. Poor 218 had corpselike makeup on a bunch of metal piping glued on. Ex-Borgs were just common enough to be distinctive; and no one tended to look past for any other details. Skarvin had found the traditional silver piping and bright fabric of a Tellarite engaged in mercantile negotiations – and it fit so well Foch strongly suspected it had come out of his engineer’s own closet. T’met had kept it simple – the heavy quilted fabrics often favored by Romulans; and a few not-quite-discretely hidden tokens to indicate ex-Tal Shiar. Foch had tried to work on her expression, but the stoic Vulcan just couldn’t sneer enough.

Foch was going the traditional hard-wearing animal-skin analogues of a mercenary who needed something that could look dashing even if one hadn’t seen a shower in a week. Leather jackets and heavy cloth also were flexible enough for phaser combat, while giving some resistance in hand-to-hand. It also just said ‘human’ not necessarily ‘Starfleet’.

And, vaunted, unprecedented impossible Khitomer Alliance aside, this was no place for Starfleet. Not that it was stopping Foch; between the transwarp and temporal technology, this far side of the Romulan/Klingon frontier took as much effort to reach as buying a ticket on the White Star line between Andoria and Earth had in his original time. But one of the House-owned stations supporting KDF listening posts was a terrible place to pull up in a Federation-flagged battlecruiser.

So Roland was six light years away, systems on standby, shedding a blend of chroniton and tachyon particles in case the emission nebula it was near was not enough. Lieutenant Newness, Weapons Officer and Tarsi’s second in that department was managing the store. Foch had no worries there; Aaron was the most calm and focused person he’d ever met behind a gunnery console. Even temporal displacement hadn’t wrecked his calm, versus just about everyone else.

The tiny shuttle Yvon had been rescued by Daniels off the dear old Conestoga-class Pioneer, but was an old enough model to have drifted into civilian use in the current day. Of course, its cutting edge short-range warp pods had been replaced by modern cutting edge engine modules off a Peregrine fighters, but Foch preferred to keep that detail irrelevant.

Hopefully, the mission would allow it. Temporal Defense had picked up something they insisted as referring to as a ‘blip’, apparently – or rather, Temporal Defense’s cautiously allied downtime counterparts. This was a Daniels mission; which meant the objectives being sought often weren’t simply the same as truly corrective action, unfortunately. And Daniels as usual seemed to be ignoring the rest of the hard-won Iconian Alliance, which is why someone

“You could be stuck with our poor friend Captain Revka on some backwater Gorn world hundreds of years ago, hoping not to get your throat ripped out for being a foreigner and trying not to get shot by an assassin that may or may not exist,” Foch said aloud, partially reminding himself. “We should get shot in the front, and of course, weapons are not permitted at the auction itself.” They all laughed at that.

Revka and he had the ‘fortune’, along with their crews, of being the most experienced at dealing with Daniels and his twisted missions. But when the possibility of an attempt to remove the Gorn ambassador to the Klingon Empire from history arose at the same time, they’d split up. Captain Revka, from an alternate version of the current time, was from a time when an alien planet was a week away, and had better first contact and alien societal training. Foch was pretty good at punching Klingons, in his own humble estimation, so they’d split the tasks thusly.

“Oh, 718,” Foch said, “As a reminder – I’m not sure what the Klingons were like in your time or how much contact you had – the Klingon Empire relies on an honor framework for its societal controls and justification for military control; but its leadership has always been pragmatic. Expect security to be open to bribes, especially at a quiet post like this.”

The cybernetically enhanced officer nodded, and scratched his head. The fake Borg prosthetics, despite their best efforts, were apparently still itching.

“Yes, apparently Klingon Intelligence regularly shares their material from these stations to us – there is a host of minor infractions indicating lax oversight or poor leadership. Republic security seems more thorough in this zone, but the Republic’s continued limitations prevent a sufficient large patrol force to prevent all such forces from moving through their space, though it seems Republic colonies are no longer ‘easy pickings’,” the science officer explained.

“Good for them,” Foch said. “But this isn’t a Klingon house planning for the next round of civil war, yes? Some minor power.”

“Yes, the Atodes – achieved warp power three decades ago. They were closer to the Klingon sphere of influence than the Romulans, but the Star Empire’s repeated issues has kept the Klingons focused on their larger neighbor,” 718 reported.

“Just waiting for the Klingons to pick them off,” Tarsi said grimly. That never seemed to change.

“Correct, given Jm’pok’s reputation as a military commander, but the general war exhaustion from the Iconian War, the Federation Diplomatic Corps has the Atodes at an estimated ninety-five percent chance of being the next victim of ‘military demonstrations’ into throwing fealty to the Empire. At least some political factions seem to be feeding weapons technology to destabilize their current social structure to make assimilation easier,” 718 said.

“Never mess with the classics, it seems,” Foch said. “A bunch of minor powers – whatever happens must be far in the future – some future dignitary or descendant, then, so everyone must be worth protecting. Everyone’s got their fancy chroniton webs polarized and on passive?” The crew nodded – Skarvin cursing as he bumped a support overhang for the small transporter. The fanciful gear gave some passive ability to receive messages, worn next to the skin. Testing had mixed results in the past, though.

“All right, Roland should be able to ping us using them as well,” Foch said, “And Yvon’s got a transporter crammed into her now – sorry Skarvin.” The Tellarite growled, high in the throat. “So we’ve got that for backup. Warping out now.” Foch tapped the throttle down with familiar practice, though the sound of the new pods cutting out was still unfamiliar.

Before them through the windshield, and in far more detail on the scanner screen, stood a small Klingon outpost. Its proud green hull metal had worn to a dull green, time claiming from everyone. Originally built to serve as a resupply point for Klingon fleets going into grand adventures into Romulan space; time had brought the universe closer together until it was too close to the border, and too small, to support full KDF fleets on the warpath. The Council had sold it off to one of the smaller Klingon Houses, helping one of the less military Houses fill its defense commitments by maintaining the station.

Now it was just one of dozens of transshipment stations supporting hundreds of listening and observation posts along the legal border demarcation; each of those supporting dozens of unmanned satellites. To the privateers and adventurers who used it, it was just another tired old station, its grander history ignored.

Station DR-3335 knew its business though; the weapon satellites surrounding it, and the heavy turrets on the station itself made it immune to the threat of a true pirate in an upgunned freighter – and the tachyon grid shining on their sensors showed it was protected against the more likely threat; a squadron of raiders from a rival House. Even a heavy cruiser on its own would probably be unable to cripple the station, hence the subtle approach they were here to counter.

Tarsi was checking the sensor hood for more detail, and then gave a low whistle. Pressing a few buttons, she swapped the scanner over to a tactical view of the area. That got a whistle out of everyone but T’met, naturally, though 718’s sounded like data over voice line, in Foch’s opinion.

“Fascinating,” the Vulcan biologist said, keeping calm. “I would never anticipate that a relatively minor technic civilization would have the available assets or easily transportable resources to attract so many ships.” Orbiting uneasily beyond the weapons platforms were at least a dozen full starships and another two dozen freighters – Foch nearly went for a scan to see how many shuttles the station was holding but stopped himself. This was not the place for Starfleet nosiness.

It was a stunning statement of diversity – Foch counted what looked like an old Risan courier busy keeping the station between itself and a pair of battered old Marauders. A few of the many Voth Palisades captured in the Sphere that had seen better days hung around – even Foch could tell their impulse units had been swapped for commercial models, and he was no engineer. A couple sleek destroyers or escorts of uncertain origin were keeping every sensor short of disruptor lock on each other.

“I think it’s a real sign how the mercenary and secondhand weapon markets have been drying up the last few months, no?” Foch said, adjusting the scanner to focus. “See – behind the Nandi Daniels did say would be here for the Atodes – I’d swear that’s a Xindi bugship and they’re closer to Bajor than here.” Sure enough, one of the claw-shaped Insectoid vessels, dread specter of many an Academy simulation, was resting a discrete distance away from the ships crowding the approach orbits.

“I guess people realize the Iconians are gone, finally – glad we missed that one,” Tarsi said. “But I can’t believe the Xindi would wander this far from home.”

Skarvin said argumentatively, “I’m sure that’s one of their heavy combatants. I remember seeing in those briefing tapes that the Xindi sent a rep to the Khitomer Accord resigning. From one planet killer to another, eh?”

“Now there’s a part of history no one wants to repeat. Hopefully this won’t be a heavy combat mission. If the Xindi are being friendly to the Federation, I’d hate to ruin it.” Foch said. “Let’s let them all know we’re here, eh?” He quickly thumbed the comm switch.

“Calling Base DR-3335, this is shuttle Galahad carrying cargo and personnel. Transmitting our credentials on associated frequency,” he said.

The growling voice that came back had seen too many stimulants and not enough sleep; or was ethnically Klingon. “This is Flight Control. Shuttle Galahad map to our navigation control for final approach. You have been slotted in Shuttlebay Three. The, ‘reception’ will be held in an hour.” The voice paused, then gloating, “Cargo handling fees have been increased twenty percent due to heavy traffic.”

Foch paused a second to adjust his throat for the right blend of weariness. “Understood flight control.”

“If he was looking for a fight, that was a pretty poor attempt,” Skarvin, an acknowledged master, noted.

“I think he’d rather shoot down half of what’s flying out here,” Foch observed. “So that was playing nice.”

718 noted, “Passive thermal readings on the subspace and E/M antennae intercoolers indicate a vast amount of short-range tightbeam communication going on between the station and ships. Energy modulation on the long-range indicate a vast amount of traffic going out over the Empire’s deep-space communication net.”

“Poor Klingon,” Tarsi said without sympathy. “All these honorless dogs and having to listen to them talk.”

“Remember everyone – it’s their turf. We’re not here to clean their house. If the Atodes see everything with the Klingons and still decide to provoke them, that’s their problem today,” Foch said with a sigh. “And tomorrow, and probably for years the way the Empire keeps lumbering on. So let’s not confront all their stupidity and just let it glide, eh?” There were noises of agreement as, for demonstration, Foch removed his hands from the controls as the Klingon station took over, the shuttle gliding into the station’s maw.

antonine3258 · November 2016

At the Jaws of Fenrir:

Chapter 2: The Knight Pt 2

By antonine3258

*

Yvon/Galahad glided into the bay, settling with a crunch as the Klingon pilot set it down hard on the skids. “Blasted idiots in any century. No appreciation for equipment, or maintenance. Oh, the tolerances say it can take at 15 meters per second, so 14.9 we will,” Skarvin grumbled.

“And, they’re pressurizing the bay,” Tarsi said drily. Skarvin folded his arms and his jaw shut with an audible click as the atmosphere filled enough to start carrying sound.

“Ca – er, Dean,” Tarsi said, “We’re getting multiple intrusion attempts at our data tapes,” Tarsi said from the second console. “Alternate overlays on our circuits – probably quantum induction through the floor of the bay and the engine diagnostic circuits.”

“Good thing we wiped the core, yes?” Foch said. “Probable from the Klingons?”

Tarsi was one of the best information warfare specialists he knew, certainly one of the best in the Federation. Combine that with the rage of an Andorian pulled from her family, and it gave one a real passion for insight into the Klingon psyche.

“No,” she said, “If the Klingon officials wanted our tapes, they’d just come in with disruptors and breach – we couldn’t escape their tractors. This is deniable, no down side, but possible profits.”

“Daimon Leng, then,” T’met said. “He could easily divert attention to some Klingon faction if he was detected, keep his hands clear, and possibly make even more than his finder’s fee. A well-played scheme with no downside, to Ferengi methodology.”

“Or someone using Ferengi thinking as a cut-out for their own plans,” Skarvin argued. “History’s in the balance somehow here.”

“Regardless, I suppose it would be polite to ignore it unless we can backtrace it for the moment. We’re here to make a sale from our latest scavenging, not try and beat Ferengi Alliance technology,” Foch said. He flipped on the comm switch. “Control, we read pressurization as nearly complete – where is the station factor?”

“A representative will be with you shortly,” came back the curt reply before the channel cut again.

“Q’plah,” Foch said to the dead mike, slightly amused.

*

Somewhat to Foch’s surprise, the factor who greeted them was actually one of the Atodes themselves. Foch’s mental file for the species was piscine but they were apparently primarily arboreal amphibians, from the briefing. Still, bulging eyes without visible lids did sort of always make him think fish. The crew had warily disembarked around the side hatch.

But, the man knew his business, and had one of the Ferengi’s top-of-the-line tricorders (you could tell by the gilding). “Greetings, merchant,” the factor said. “I am Representative Gr’mall. The Atodes Supremacy put out the initial call for equipment; all items submitted for the auction must be registered and will be placed in bond with the Ferengi Alliance.”

Foch reached out for a hearty handshake. Atodes did not do that; but it wasn’t a well-known fact, the handclasp being one of those nigh-universal bipedal gestures. The Representative was willing to cross bounds of his own species decorum, and took it. “Captain Fract,” Foch lied cheerfully. “Got a load of just the sort of material that a wise and discerning customer could use to keep their orbitals safe. Seven of Eight, Tervi, hit the rear hatch.”

He gestured, obligingly, letting the factor go first. The Andorian and non-Borg moved into position. With a quick gasp for the seal releasing, and the slow hum of hydraulics, the rear cargo hatch on Yvon settled to the floor. Foch gave it a bit of a flourish.

Gr’mall didn’t give it much of a glance, keeping his attention on his tricorder. “No explosive compounds, no advanced isolinear chips, no high-density transtators,” the factor observed. “Tubes? Osmium tubes?”

“Partially osmium – picked for its high-temperature and durability,” Foch said smoothly. “You’re not seeing the whole unit – getting this quality of alloy throughout takes specialty equipment, but targeting equipment? Cooling pumps? Gunbarrels? Easy enough.”

“This is a weapon?” Gr’mall said, looking at it. “Some kind of bomb?”

“Oh, no – far, far better,” Foch said – Skarvin had given him the specs. “A planetary defense disruptor primary inductor coils! Sure, they’re bigger than the starship model, but when you have a planet, you don’t have to build so compact – or have it run so hot you have to use dangerously caustic coolants. It’s reliable, easy to maintain, hits out to a light second, and – and your ecosystem will appreciate this – it can be water cooled. The coil design is complicated enough it can set up a light disruptor effect for point defense or a larger charge for anti-ship work.”

“Is their origin available? The Supremacy is not inclined to have the charge of weapon smuggling lodged to it by other powers,” Gr’mall asked.

“No, the colony was put up for general salvage rights,” Foch assured. “No one was around to contest it anymore, but going by the official battle record and the debris in orbit, they took at least two Raiders on their own before they were overwhelmed by ground troops. Just because it’s easier to build doesn’t mean it’s useless, no matter what the Q’onos shipyards try to sell you.”

Gr’mall pulled his tricorder in close, examining them more closely. “And they are undamaged, then, or require some sort of refit?” he said, with a trace of eagerness.

“You’ll need to work with your military to install them, of course, but it’s a similar system to most Dominion War-era rifles,” Foch said, assuming. “Just…” and he dropped his voice. “Much.” And he leaned in, brushing the ends of his neat mustache carelessly. “Much….”

“Yes?” Gr’mall asked, insistent.

“Bigger,” Foch said, quietly and assured. Gr’mall gave a low, burbling whistle.

“We’ll get this moved to safe storage,” Gr’mall assured. He tapped a communicator and started instructions for anti-grav tractors, the voice on the other side low and clicking. Muscle of some kind, Foch presumed.

That finished, Gr’mall turned, a terrifyingly broad smile on his face. “For the honored guests and vendors to the Supremacy, as the principal host of this auction, we have provided refreshments and entertainment on C deck. Bids will be held in custody of Daimon Leng, per previous instructions, and be payable in a variety of currencies. The auction itself will, by necessity of size, be remote, but all information will be available for perusal. We ask that all transactions be included in the auction.”

“Thank you, Representative Gr’mall,” Foch said politely. “We will keep your points in mind.”

*

C Deck was literally every dive bar in a border outpost Foch had seen, in the 23rd or the 25th century. Even the best Klingon approaches to lack of creature comforts didn’t have much effect on a port bar. Apparently, rapid inebriation among spacers was one of those ergonomic problems with a universal solution.

Though since it was a Klingon bar, the lighting was darker and the décor certainly greener than normal on Foch’s side of the line. He paused briefly to peer at the dealers working a pair of tongo tables. Definitely greener decor.

The Orion dealers were imports, it seemed, for the occasion. If the Syndicate was running gambling out of the base, they’d have brought some of their own walking slabs, but Foch didn’t see any of the big Orion males around. Actually, even most of the eye candy, of both sexes, were Klingon, but they were a slim majority in the crowd. It was a galactic mishmash. Ferengi, of course, mainly in a cluster under a set of holograms showing various death-dealers. Atodes were in evidence, talking with as many as groups as possible. Nausicaans were around, of course, guns attracting them like bees to honey.

But those were all to be expected. One group, though not the largest made up for it in surprise and density. “Looks like it was a bugship, eh ‘Tervi’” Skarvin said under his breath. Tarsi merely whistled in response. Crowding the bar was the most Xindi-Insectoid Foch had seen outside of a history book. Even given their spindly bodies, they were packed in tight. They were certainly keeping the one-armed bartender busy pulling a spectrum of liquors off the top shelf.

Foch, and his crew, had to stop and stare at the spectacle. Even with time travel, this was history come to life.

Most of them. T’met had the presence of mind to give a warning. “Captain Fracht, we are attracting attention from the Ferengi contingent. One is coming over, and two Nausicaans just stopped playing tongo.” Foch nodded, briefly, glancing. A portly Ferengi was coming over, and his broad frame was well ornamented.

“Wow, a whole set of Coalition members, down to an extra humon,” said the Ferengi, with some cheerfulness. Well, Leng knew his Romulans if he picked T’met out with a glance. “I’m sure an expert salvager is familiar with the Rules of Acquisition – but let’s give Rule 35 the weight over Rule 34 today, eh? Weapons are here to be sold, not used.”

Foch turned, faked being startled, and held a hand up to be shook, which was taken, but with a firm grasp at the wrist to be rocked. The shorter Ferengi had some experience with Klingon handshakes. “Daimon Leng – Captain Fracht. We’re here to make money, Daimon, I assure you, not dredge up ancient history,” Foch said.

“Excellent, humon,” Leng said brightly. “Please, avail yourself of refreshments – the Supremacy is covering fifty percent of the tab as part of this remarkable business opportunity.”

“Do they know that?” Tarsi asked.

Leng smiled, showing a lot of peg teeth. Definitely an expert on the Klingon side of things. “Of course, Leng Enterprises is fully bonded, and makes it a point to encourage repeat business; clarity is key. We advised them it would help facilitate their auction, especially as it is being held off their world on a more accessible friendly power, with less, ah, fallout at home should there be any incidents.”

“And it allows you to handle transportation of items that may be too delicate given the Atodes experience,” Foch said politely. Leng nodded happily, the smile of a Ferengi who was getting his percentage at each stage in a transaction.

718 said, “It is well your experience is available – I can see the listings and I assume the Xindi are the supplies of lot 48; fifteen tons of keomcite.”

“Very astute shopper! But, yes, I had my people check. It is low-grade, low-grade,” Leng assured. “Very popular in doping emitters these days, I understand, without being so historically destructive. Several other interesting minor artifacts and Xindi technical bits as well. They were willing to put up a hatchery, but the Atodes’ homeworld is apparently too cold for them to thrive.”

“Shame, an auction this size; the Atodes may need the troops for the guns,” Foch said.

“Trainers too,” Leng said absently, “But knowledge is always more expensive than things, and the Atodes are looking for bulk goods, mainly.”

“And guns are easier to resale later than knowledge?” T’met asked. “Or medical supplies which can decay.”

Leng sighed. “A full strategic command encrypted communications suite would see a lot more usefulness against a cloaked raid of course. But the Empire knows this as well. Guns? Those are easy, but a decent command/control – that would make conquest a slog. Not much glory in getting lured into free-fire zones and pre-sighted artillery.”

Foch said, trying to be disappointed, “So I assume expert trainers are….”

“Way out of the Supremacy’s price range, sadly,” Leng said with a sad shrug. “They’ve been decent customers. Losing their pearl beds for more gagh-breeding pits will be a pity on an overloaded market.” From Leng’s glance, T’met and Tarsi, by Foch’s shoulder, were giving some sort of look. He shrugged. “I try not to account for human capital when I have no hand in the market,” Leng said softly, and a bit sadly. Contrary to the Federation’s popular view, Ferengi had consciences – at least ones with well-established businesses.

“Thank you, Daimon, we’ll keep in mind the Empire’s generosity as a host has certain caveats,” Foch promised. “We’ll try to not to sign any employment contracts that may give them some teeth.” Leng smiled with some of his own, and with a Ferengi bow, went to other guests arriving via turbolifts from the other bays.

“Spread out, get some info,” Foch said. “See what everything’s selling – what may be worth buying, especially anything easily transportable or unique.” The others nodded, and started to move out.

*

Half an hour later, Foch and his team hadn’t spotted anything suspicious. Even the drinks weren’t being watered. It seemed a perfectly grey-market auction. The Klingons were getting rid of materiel they couldn’t use quite yet, and an exact idea of what defenses they would face over Atodes. And if they didn’t have it, Leng would sell it to them. As far as Foch had gathered, he was collecting at least a finder’s fee at every stage in the process.

That was perfectly normal Ferengi behavior, though the merchant kings Foch had met on the stations in the slower-warp era with that sort of skill at having their fingers in every pie didn’t have the network to attract this many suppliers for the auction. Either Leng was really on his way up, and this was his coming out party, or he had a backer way up the power structure of either the Republic or the Empire.

But that was immaterial to the mission, but the best Foch had to chew on at the moment. Unless a dramatic appearance of some Klingon warlord to gobble up the Atodes now was in the forecast, Foch couldn’t see anything obvious someone trying to change history would do here, but it was the best he had to go on.

At least his crew was picking up some useful items for regular Starfleet and Federation Intelligence. Time seemed to be sadly normal, but as Leng had noted, knowledge was valuable, could come in small packages, and often be more effective than a shuttle full of guns. In this age of transwarp and cloaking devices, it was after a time of miracles. In the age when a Klingon bar had a passable brandy, surely something could be done.

At the moment, he was near the tongo tables, listening to the insectoids. A group of well-decorated Klingons (and a Gorn – Foch still couldn’t believe they had given up) had appropriated the bar area a few minutes ago, and the Xindi had moved over to watch the auctions and brag about how much better pilots they were than each other. It seemed, given the lifespan, a fighter pilot on their ship was moving to flight ops and there was some good natured posturing going on.

“My sire improved the starburst maneuver within forty-two seconds against the freighter Fortune Maru, I have triumphed by .5 over that-“

“My path as next squadron leader is justified, as I completed the Arcturus Rally course under the eyes of our commander using two percent less thruster fuel than anyone else on the Mchwa-“

And so on. Smiling and nodding along was a good excuse to keep a PADD out and take notes of everything else going on. They spoke so quickly and relied on motion cues the Universal Translator’s audio-overlay couldn’t handle. One had to ‘read’ a conversation with the Insectoids. These Insectoids had been around the block, and understood anyone talking with them was, by nature, distracted by their limited communication apparatus.

Even good brandy hadn’t distracted Foch from an interesting bit of timing. Since the Xindi got pushed from the bar, absolutely no new blocks had been entered into the auction, and the rate of bid entries had started to increase. Perhaps some warlord had arrived, but Foch couldn’t see what was going on.

There were a few baubles, but most items that weren’t being stored in the cargo bays were simple hand weapon examples, power packs carefully removed. The tide of history was going to the removal of another aligned world into a subject of the Klingon Empire, and Foch couldn’t see how it could be stemmed here.

The last lot that had been entered had been a dozen plasma torpedoes, suitable for satellites in the current era. But those would have taken processing; Foch wasn’t sure they were the actual last lot even if there hadn’t been some manipulation. Before he’d taken up life in the future, as a junior ensign, Foch had been part of a task force against a Romulan investiture; the deadly orbs strung out in a chain from low orbit had kept five Starfleet ships at bay until the Exeter had managed to spoof their targeting into each other.

“Republic Intelligence is laying a cover trail; they brought some goods that will excuse a bidding frenzy, and make sure they’re scattered across the sector” Foch heard in his ear, a rich female voice that promised perfect confidence and hinted at possibilities that made his knees quiver. He looked around, but he wasn’t close enough to the tongo table for one of the Orions to have spoken, even if the sentence made sense.

“If I didn’t worry about this ‘Temporal Defense’ cabal I wouldn’t be here, would I?” came the voice again. Foch stood up, walking over towards T’met who was standing under one of the auction screens, making the occasional bid for show and struggling to look haughty and Romulan. At least, those were her orders. Right now she was looking about as worried as a Vulcan could.

Foch slid in close and stabbed a bit at whatever was on screen. “You can’t ponder these too long,” he advised.

“Patience my friend” counselled the voice.

T’met blinked. “Captain, I appear to be suffering from auditory hallucinations,” the Vulcan said quietly.

“I seem to be suffering the same,” Foch said. There was a brief commotion near the entrance. Several Romulans in mixed apparel had shown up, as predicted. “They seem to be accurate ones, though.”

“Yes,” T’met said, and closed her eyes. “I believe I have encountered the voice before, but there is some distortion, though I cannot say where from. It does not seem to have a telepathic component.” The two winced as there seemed a brief squeal, like a data burst.

“Like from a communicator? Something subcutaneous?” Foch asked. Foch felt along his arms, but there were no tears as if he had a dart or the like injected. He tapped along his jaw line and paused. “Or what if we’re picking up someone else’s broadcast?” He traced, surreptitiously as he could manage, along the line of crystals built into his jacket.

“I would talk to Seven of Eight, sir,” T’met said. “Logic would indicate, that a receiver could pick up messages from other transmitters.”

“All right, go chat with the Romulans and see if they are up to something, just on principle. I’ll check with the others,” Foch directed. “See if you can find a source; there weren’t many orbital defense satellites left lying around and inactive after the Iconian War.” T’met nodded, briefly.

“Oh, I’m sure Temporal Defense is here,” the voice said casually. Foch sighed, briefly, covered by the noise of the party.

antonine3258 · November 2016

At the Jaws of Fenrir:

Chapter 2: The Knight Pt 3

By antonine3258

*

718 was on the other side of the bar – from his position, he could see everything. And given his memory capacity, they could reconstruct from lip reading and ambient sound almost everything going on in the room. Foch was lucky to have him – for away missions, invaluable, as a science officer, incredible. As a conversationalist: minimal.

“I was able to hear several elements of what you did, Captain,” 718 confirmed. “However without an exact recording of what you and T’met heard, I do not believe a simple recounting would be sufficient to triangulate. We must be very close to the origin point of the transmission to detect it.”

“Really?” Foch asked dubiously. 718 had survived the death of his ship in an alternate reality the same way the Conestoga’s survivors had; the wildest of flukes courtesy of a temporal agent. He was also a being out of time, and while he was a brilliant analyst of data, his judgements on what data technology could gather had to be taken with a grain of salt still.

“Yes,” 718 said firmly. “The likelihood of a beam intersecting our moment in spacetime without it having to propagate out of the timestream to normal space is infinitesimal. One end of the conversation must be taking place nearby; we are probably hearing the transmission signal as we are only getting one half. I would give ninety-three percent chance it is on the station”

“All right, I assume with all these sticky fingers and ne’er do wells around, you haven’t managed to access their security system, with everything on alert?” Foch said. 718 nodded. “Okay, how’s your wireless into their environmental and fire suppression alerts?” Foch presented a PADD, anticipatory.

“Excellent, captain,” 718 said quietly. “Status repeaters indicate eighty percent of inhabitable space is in common use, sixty percent in current use. A test sweep on infrared on the fire suppression, cross-referenced gave a set of heat sources in the common range for sentient life. I do not believe I have eliminated all targs; their mass is sufficiently high for false positives on such a passive scan.”

Foch nodded, and was surprised when 718 volunteered. “Besides the obvious security precautions for the large number of visitors – there appears to be a false connection stream set by an induction-based intrusion package in one or both of the tongo platforms.” Foch turned to look – the gambling wheels were definitely keeping spinning as the room had filled up. Tarsi and Skarvin were in the crowd there.

“Leng really does have all the angles covered,” Foch murmured with some appreciation. He studied the inhabited spaces briefly, flipping through the levels on the simple 2d display. “There,” he said. At 718’s questioning look, Foch explained, “The same level as shuttlebays and transporter rooms, yes, and a level below the command center. Easy access, but can be secured if necessary – good for a visiting functionary, when tomorrow’s enemy is today’s friend, here in the Empire.”

“That is four levels above us,” 718 observed, “There are security stations on two of them and this room is monitored.” Foch looked at his officer disapprovingly. “It was merely an observation of the difficulties, not a judgement of our capabilities.”

“This many people, security is waiting for the obvious,” Foch said, “Did Tarsi ever tell you what we pulled on Gamma Vega?” 718 nodded. “Then you know what to expect,” Foch said, as he left to talk to Tarsi and Skarvin.

*

True enough, the two were in the middle of the gambling section. From the azure flush to Tarsi’s face, she was definitely going for the adrenaline high, and was cheerfully slinging latinum back and forth across the table. Skarvin looked much more terse and drawn, but the chip pile, by Foch’s estimation, in front of him would have a Rigelian trader ready to offer up his whole family. Their old poker one-two routine seemed to work well for tongo. He did have to wonder where they’d had time to pick up the game.

Foch slid in behind them. “Freshen your drinks?” he asked.

“Oh, I’m going to be back on a hot streak any second, Captain,” Tarsi assured him, watching the wheel spin.

“Permission to sell our Andorian, Captain?” Skarvin said dourly. “Get my retirement fund back, or at least an impulse engine.” He turned and winked slowly.

“Aw Captain,” Tarsi said with a fake whine.

“No, the slave market in the Empire’s really dried up,” Foch said with some regret. “Besides, she’s got our uses? Remember Gamma Vega?”

“Only when it’s cold,” Skarvin said, and his eyes glanced towards the wall. Following, Foch saw an access panel set flush, nearly invisible. With the extra light from the tongo tables, it was more in shadow than a paranoid Klingon would perhaps like.

Tarsi stood up as the tongo board came to a stop, and pouted as apparently it was a poor combination. She grabbed a drink as she stood and casually slung chips at one of the Gorn also at the table. Trying to set her drink down, she slipped, pulling on the sleeve of a Klingon technician at the table – the sleeve snagged on something underneath and tore, revealing some combination of metal and plastics.

“A scrambler?” Skarvin said, angry but without surprise. “You lowborn filth?” He picked his glass up and threw it at the technician, as Foch slid quietly away from the two. He paused briefly at the panel, and looked back. As expected, his officers were giving better than they got, and it looked like things were headed downhill quickly as T’met entered and began disabling opponents with Vulcan efficiency. That apparently struck the station crew as unfair and they entered in full.

It was an access shaft, discrete but intended for personnel to reach conduits, not so security could get an end-run, and it took only a little coaxing to find the releases. He scooted into the access path and closed the panel behind him. The thought of conduits made him pause, and he looked around. Engineering wasn’t his forte, but he could work a valve. An EPS was an EPS tap, and he’d seen the power cables on the tongo tables.

He found the power regulator and turned it up as far as the lines would bear. A little extra distraction never hurt, and a power surge through those tongo tables would, from what 718 said, alert whatever security wasn’t already headed to the meeting hall. A blast of signal noise right into the station’s main computer should stir anyone who was still at their monitor stations when an opportunity to knock heads presented itself.

*

The distraction had worked, or the fight had taken on a life of its own. From the fire alarm he heard echoing when he’d dropped to the second level, Foch guessed the latter. He’d had to cut a few alarms on the way down; which would have alerted if anyone still cared, and he was pretty sure he’d tripped at least one monitor when slipping a deck. There were limits one could do against modern technology when you couldn’t bring powered equipment.

He’d made it, however. If his Klingon was still good, he was on the right deck and above the compartment in question. He did have a knife ready and was working with an unpowered multi-tool on a dogged-down access panel. No one had accosted him or shot at him yet, so it seemed things were working, though he regretted not having the opportunity to pick up a gun.

There were too forms of non-detection; one where you were as quiet as possible, and anything could give you away – or create so much chaos that they couldn’t identify you. Something was going on, but it would be impossible to focus on one thing.

His communicator net crackled in his ear again. “This should be simple for you – activity’s picked up here, as anticipated. As I’ve said before, no need to have everything mapped, simply put enough factors together and let nature take it. What do they teach uptime?” said the same voice as before. Foch did have to acknowledge chaos went both ways.

Regardless of how it was being hid, this was clearly some form of time travel. He was dead once before, and his crew also had the command codes that would send alerts up and down the whole Alliance, regardless of the loyalty of the station’s commander.

“Yes – but let us be straight, is White Widow a go?” asked the voice again.

That does not sound good, Foch thought to himself. And resigning himself, he stopped trying to be subtle on the last lock and wrenched upward on the thin paneling. The metal screeched and bent, but moved sufficiently. There was a startled noise. Underneath was the thinner metal lining of the actual habitat module; inserted within the station’s framework. This he simply kicked and then rolled out of the way; his paranoia rewarded with the flashing sizzle of the dire red of an antiproton bolt, sawing through the air.

Well, that proved whoever was down there had connections. Lacking anything stronger, Foch tossed the multitool down to the floor with a clatter. He waited a beat and followed through, landing into a crouch on the floor below. Expecting the grenade Foch wished he had, the inhabitant had ducked behind a heavy metal slab of a bed.

The room was lit a dusky red, and the air heavy. It was the usual utilitarian of KDF quarters, except for an odd crystal and glass stand, something like a vase opened at both ends. A wispy hologram hung in the air above it; there was possibly a figure in it, but Foch could make out no features. He had no time anyway – as what was clear on the display were the silhouettes of what looked like the proper timeships of the 29th century.

He leapt onto the bed, a front kick meeting the rising metal cube of a gun as the woman there rose out of her own crouch. Definitely high-ranking by the insignia on the baldric, but Foch had no time to run a biometric scan, and if there was some attack on the timeline’s future peacekeepers, he could not be gentle or wait. He drew the knife at his belt.

Klingons’ anatomy was one of the reasons for their overbuilt melee weaponry, but if one was careful, there were still a few places one could hit and temporarily cripple. Foch found his mark and plunged the knife. Simple weapon though it was, the blade edge had been honed enough that the heavy leathers weren’t much opposition.

Somehow, the woman reached up, lashing with a palm strike to his chest that sent him stumbling backwards. He coughed, his vision suddenly, swimming, but he could see the flash of green when the woman arose – Orion, not Klingon. And he’d gotten into pheromone range. Foch coughed, falling backwards, stumbling off the edge of the bed.

“Going for the secondary nerve cluster?” the melodious voice said. “For an assassin you are well-skilled, but I think you were looking for someone else.” There was a grunt, and Foch could see the flash of silver, smeared with green – she had withdrawn the knife.

Gasping, Foch struggled back to his knees, bringing his guard back up, and slapped the panic button on the passive net he was wearing. If it worked as intended, Roland would be approaching in several minutes. “I don’t know who I was looking for, but I think I’m at the right time.”

The hologram spoke, “Incorrect – I can see his signature; this is one of Daniel’s tools, General.”

“Daniel’s really?” the Orion said. She was applying pressure to her side. “Actually, I know this one – he’s a pawn, not a tool – isn’t that right Captain Foch?” Her voice was full of surprise, though Foch had no idea, with his head swimming, how much to believe of an Orion Matron’s voice.

With a feeling of tremendous pressure being lifted, Foch’s vision started to clear. The Orion’s pheromone control was excellent, and to his own surprise, he saw, drawn into something of a pout of surprise, the face of a Dahar Master he had worked with before. D’ellian of M’ara was a hero, and –

“You’re no traitor or fool, to risk time,” Foch finished out loud, struggling to stand. The Orion had fought with him and Captain Revka in an alternate universe, a raid to save a strange, bright, version of his own time from the Sphere Builders, and gather valuable information on their operations. As a Klingon not of Klingon, she had been recommended by their counterparts in Klingon Temporal Intelligence for effort in fighting the Sphere Builder’s proxies, a faction of that universe’s Empire.

“Neither are you,” D’ellian replied, “Which makes me wonder why you are here, unless Daniels is breathing down your neck. He never struck me as one to allow someone else to substitute their judgement.”

“I hoped our transmission secure, General,” the figure said. “But Daniel’s position and resources are nebulous, even forward from our point in the timeline.”

“Your transmission was detected,” Foch said. “But we didn’t know what it was. I never expected… this of you, General. An invasion?” He finally stood up, and dusted on his tunic.

The figure in the holoemitter laughed at that. Now that Foch could see clearly, it wasn’t the holoemitter, the figure’s features were obscure. As best Foch could eliminate ‘Tholian’ from possible species.

“Oh, Captain – our contact is sending back something far more powerful than a fleet,” D’ellian said. “These are our ships – the Alliance. Not everyone, even within the Temporal Defense organizations, are willing to risk the assurances and meddling of a potential future.” She turned to the figure. “You understand, of course.”

Foch shuddered at that. He’d seen fleets of Tholians massacred, garden worlds devastated, brave fellow officers sent to their deaths, with simply an assurance that this was ‘already’ part of history. A history determined by its future. “This is technical assistance? Designs for ships to alter the past?”

D’ellian looked at him, and Foch had a brief feeling of a mouse being toyed with by a cat. Then her vision cleared. “I could say ‘yes’, but I will be accurate – these are ships designed by coordinated teams across the Alliance, not just toys we are not expected to understand from the future, merely appreciate. And not just for Starfleet either – advance to production the laboratory theories we see on those ships, and with the spaceframes we know work from before the Na’kuhl mess started.”

“Fair point,” Foch said, who drove a ship that fit that description; the Roland was filled with black boxes, and strange, but useful devices. They were kept so busy, there was no chance to really examine them, or even drill them to their full potential.

“The various governments may join under a true political solidarity without emphasis from the future,” the figure said. “This is one area I agree with Captain Walker’s timeline of events. Daniels, despite his claims of defending the timeline, is more than willing to weight the Federation militarily and scientifically above what it could claim through natural progression. These ships are, natural progression. I feel a more… balanced polity is worth evolving”

Foch moved to a neutral stance. “This sounds reasonable,” he said. “Though I am in dangerously close proximity to an Orion female. But if so true, what is the power from the future?”

“Yes or no,” General D’ellian said. “An evaluation by one of the many other shifting factions of the future, to simply confirm we can integrate the machinery onto their hulls. We are the ones transmitting technical data. They are analyzing if it is possible.”

antonine3258 · November 2016

At the Jaws of Fenrir:

Chapter 2: The Knight Pt 4

By antonine3258

*
The figure vanished briefly, then appeared again – static apparently starting to fill the hologram. “General, something is interfering with the contact, so I will believe. Our analysis shows the design is possible in your time.You would need a facility the size of a world to handle the construction given the limitations of your fabricator technology with the components needed. I do not think the military shipyards of our time could produce such a design easily.” The screen started to fuzz, “Your governments were not clear on all the plans, but… I believe this is the last ‘time’ we will speak, you having granted my fondest wish.” The hologram dissolved to static, though it seemed it was not going to standby.

“Ah, my strange friend,” the Orion said softly. “The Empire, the Republic, even the Federation have a shipyard the size of a planet; several planets even. I am surprised it is not a factor in your time.”

“The Sphere,” Foch said, not a question. “That is a unified entity of several departments, not something you could do in secret.”

“Yes, an Alliance-controlled facility, open to our governments and potentially others – bringing parity to these strange time manipulations. Yes, we use the Wells as a base, but these have been drifting into the Nebula for years, it seems,” D’ellian replied. She thought a moment, concerned, “Why the Sphere wouldn’t be in action in the future.”

The hologram flickered, then steady, a figure reappearing, but this was a figure with definition. Aaron Newness, Foch’s human Weapons Officer, in Tarsi’s department. And he spoke, Foch could hear it overlaid in the ear, courtesy of the chroniton web. “Captain, wasn’t expecting to see you – we got your distress message, and I think we broke into the beam.” D’ellian nodded here, the nod of a professional to another. “Um, are you okay sir?” the lieutenant asked, taking in the Orion.

“This is business,” Foch said. “Is Roland ready? I think the signal has been defined, but seems to have been an interdepartmental issue. A tragic widow in the wrong time but right place.”

Aaron looked blank at that. “Yes sir,” he said, “We got a call before we reached yours – we weren’t sure how to handle it; let me patch it through since we have two-way communication. We’re getting some weird stuff out of the temporal circuitry, I think we need 718 here, sir.”

Foch nodded and his ship’s fourth officer vanished, being replaced by a greying Human familiar to Foch in a maroon uniform; one of the time periods he had skipped over in Starfleet. “Roland, Hello again, this is Admiral Chekov. Timeline integration check is three-seven-alpha-four-six. The situation with the Temporal Liberation Front has turned catastrophic since we last met, and the Envoy – Noye – has achieved significant victories. The Terran Empire of your current time is supplying troops.”

Chekov took a deep breath, and continued. “Daniels has fallen, your investigatory mission is cancelled. Follow attached coordinates to the Array at New Khitomer. We have very little time to organize, perhaps half an hour. If there is anyone nearby trustworthy, we can authorize the removal of one additional ship. The Procyon V nexus is in grave danger of collapse.”

The view switched back to the lieutenant. “We put in the coordinates but we’re seeing an odd power drain in the temporal core” Newness said, worried. “We need you back.”

“Will comply, Roland,” Foch said. The signal winked out. “My crew heard that as well, I hope,” Foch said. “Send the data for those ships; it cannot hurt at this point.” Foch held the gun D’ellian dropped on her clearly. “But only the yes or no, please.”

“Ah, not so easily breaking down,” D’ellian said with approval. “I will not demean you by assuring you this is correct or the right thing in the end. Or even if it will change things in the battle.”

“It is proactive. I have seen several worlds that have fallen into indolence, and I do not wish that on any civilization. If that is what the future expects, it may need to change. Time will tell,” Foch said. “For Procyon V, it cannot hurt. Last I met Admiral Chekov was at the Enterprise, and he sounded much more confident about it. I am Starfleet; I must have faith in the Federation I am in, not the assurances of the future.” Foch blinked, “Actually, why can’t we hear the fire alarm?”

“The wha? Oh – security seal on the quarters, when serving as an illicit contact for shadowy future entities, it seemed a wise precaution,” D’ellian said. “It is done, no takebacks,” she said, serious. “This may hurt you with your sponsors.”

“I am still Starfleet,” Foch said, and he felt a weight from his shoulders at that, and he held the blocky gun out for D’ellian to take back. “Whatever happens, I work to defend the Federation with my judgement. But, my lady General, we have little time. Would you do the honor of accompanying me?”

“Procyon V?” D’ellian said. “I have a Xindi ship right now; their people know of it, and told me. I would be ripped limb from limb if there was a chance they would miss it.” She spoke and there was no exaggeration in her voice.

She tapped a button, and suddenly there was a sound of alarms in the quarters. The security seal was off. “General to Mchwa, prepare for immediate transport of crew and passengers – get us cleared for departure.”

“Ah, General,” came a series of clicks. With a roll of her eyes, D’ellian transferred the translation to a screen. “We are getting all sorts of strange reports – there seems to be a fire, some sort of power surge wiped half the sector station’s navigation database, and there seems to be a small band of Federation pirates that are manning a barricade at the alcohol dispensary, holding off the security staff. The station insists they do not need help but we stand ready.”

Foch shrugged. “You have met my crew, they are very capable,” he reminded her when she briefly tabbed the communicator off. Her composure twitched but did not sort.

“Yes, if you end up getting court-martialed for this, the House of M’ara could use talent,” D’ellian said, then tabbed on the communicator. “Get me K’Gan,” she directed.

“General,” came a heavy Klingon voice. “We were obtaining much honor against a band of Federation pirates who wished to seize our bar, but a data pulse damaged the station. We retreated to study it when the security alert went off per your orders but the commander is blocking our efforts – Leng is safely off station.”

“Ready a full report to transmit to Intelligence – return to the Mchwa and standby in the armory,” D’ellian said. She switched the channel back over. “Bridge? Ready for transport of myself and several others – I will send the detail momentarily.”

An affirmation came and she turned. “I think your group’s brave defense is at an end – give me their bio information and we can arrange a transport.”

“Yes, I will go and settle things there if you can get me clearance,” Foch said. “Shame to lose the Yvon.”

“The what?” D’ellian asked.

“Oh, a class F shuttle. I suppose its value is sentimental-“ Foch said, as he started typing in information in D’ellian’s console. Not the coordinates for Roland yet – not until his crew was safely together.

“The Mchwa is a light carrier. I’m sure the commander would be happy to decompress some bays at this point; we will pick it up as we swing by,” D’ellian said.

*

D’ellian was as good as her word, the claw-like Xindi ship snagged a tractor beam out and picked the Yvon out from amid a shower of debris and disruptor coils that had been unpacked. It was in the escort carrier’s shuttle bay before Foch and his crew beamed aboard, leaving several Romulans smelling more of alcohol than they would prefer, and thoroughly humiliated Klingons. If the stakes hadn’t suddenly risen to a galaxy, Foch would consider it a good shore leave and a great mission.

Certainly from an Intelligence standpoint, it had been useful. Enough casual talk, when combined, could sink fleets. And perhaps with a little more knowledge and a face on it, the Federation could get someone out to help the Atodes maintain their role as a Klingon puppet state, instead of an Imperial tribute planet.

Though Foch suspected Intelligence would be more interested in this next phase of the mission. The ship was Xindi-Insectoid, through and through, but at the center of its bridge stood an Orion. The General was talking to a broad Gorn, also in KDF leathers – with several Imperial Klingons around the bridge’s secondary stations.

Seen in a more KDF context, Foch recognized the non-bugs on the bridge both from the bar and their mission to the alternate universe (he said so easily): the General’s long-term crew and staff. Foch had his own crew at the back of the bridge, standing somewhat uneasy and unsure where to go.

That had been a KDF battlecruiser. Foch wondered how the Orion had ended up with a band of Insectoid privateers. Though how an Orion had reached a point where the Empire trusted her above all others with secret technical plans was probably an even better story.

The bridge itself was not KDF. The steam vents and duct work to supply the lowland Insectoid’s favorite atmospheric mix hissed away. The controls resembled icosahedrons, lights against dark matter. It was vaguely honeycombish to Foch’s human mind, but the Ferengi, he had learned, used similar control surfaces. The bridge was otherwise common; indirect lighting – a raised back command section leading down to a broad viewscreen; secondary panels and readouts along the walls.

There was one thing missing: chairs. The Xindi-Insectoid leg structure explained that, at least. Foch had yet to hear a satisfactory explanation why the future had given them up on multi-species craft. He glanced at the tactical display while waiting, and suppressed a low whistle. If handled by anything with a pulse, this one ship could shred an entire standard convoy escort. If its fighters were similarly hot-rodded, Foch doubted it would take more than shield damage.

D’ellian finished speaking and gave a tight smile. “Yes, the readings are accurate – though we had to use some rather active coolant mixtures to pack everything in. I find preparedness is nine-tenths of victory,” she said, apparently reading his thoughts. “Even if I didn’t have other reasons, helping in this battle is a fine payment for reminding me that chance is the other tenth,” she said, somewhat rueful. Foch suspected he’d come the closest to getting the drop on her in years.

“It was a team effort,” Foch said. “Do we have clearance from the station?” D’ellian waved dismissively at that. Foch pulled out an isolinear chip from a pocket and slid it over. “Navigation coordinates and the timing algorithm for the frequency we need to get into contact. Should be about five light years spinward.”

D’ellian handed the chip to the Gorn, who had practically materialized at her side, but did not wait for him to read it on a separated system. “Helm, get us pointed in the right direction, standby alert,” she ordered. “Move us out of the station control zone and ready for warp.”

A Xindi strode to the forward control column and began to manipulate it. “Bringing us to bearing,” it clicked, as the low expectant hum of a ship bringing itself to power built up. “Engine room bringing systems out of parking orbit; ninety percent power immediately available.”

“Good,” D’ellian said. “Thraak, do we have coordinates?”

The Gorn was punching in digits on another console section as he read them off from the chip. “Yes, Dahar Master,” he hissed. “Sending to helm. Contact algorithm ready.”

D’ellian nodded, and Foch stepped forward slightly. “Captain Foch to Roland, please respond. Ready ship for temporal transit. We are bringing a passenger,” he said.

The screen came back instantly. Newness still looked worried. “Captain Foch, we are holding position – ship is at alert status. Sir, we’re still experiencing strange power losses from the temporal core, and we’ve never tried a multi-transit without Daniels. Warp power appears normal, we seem to be losing efficiency.”

“The training wheels come off eventually,” Foch said. “And you’re a fine shiphandler. If you’re losing power, I’d rather not wait to arrange a beam-over.” He felt the lurch of the ship entering warp, and continued. “The Dahar Master will be assisting us, you should see us on your screens shortly.”

718 had gone over to Thraak at the side panel. Two of the Xindi had joined in a low conversation as the ship rippled through subspace on their quick jaunt. Several different views flashed by on the console, and a certain amount of arm-waving was going on. Thraak came over, followed by Foch’s officer, and gave a fist on chest salute. On D’ellian’s incremental nod, he reported.

“Dahar Master, the Starfleet officer and I have consulted with this vessel’s sensor staff,” Thraak said. “We detect no signs of any progression in subspace that would indicate a deepening problem. Local space appears stable to twelve hours ago.”

“This ship’s long-range sensor capacity is significant,” 718 acknowledged.

“Could the problem, then, be occurring on the other end,” Foch said, mouth dry. “Some sort of battle damage or attack?”

“Possible,” Thraak said. “Impossible to determine without a better understanding of temporal vortices. A science, from our perspective, still in its infancy.”

“I’ve studied some of Starfleet’s previous instances of time travel,” Foch said. “Given we know the coordinates, can we do something to ‘reduce’ the required effort, like a large gravity well or the dilation effect of high-warp travel? We have done some transitions at moderate warp speed, it did seem to cause some differences, yes?”

718 nodded in agreement. “An area where we are capable of such high speeds would be ‘smoothed’ of likely potential distortions, as well as the obvious distortion effect on space of warp travel.”

“The full effect could affect our transit point, or increase the side effects with time travel,” Thraak said. “I do not consider this a travel method completely under our control.”

“It is something Starfleet is still studying,” Foch acknowledged. “But we have used the temporal core’s vortex ability safely several times. My main concern is keeping the vortex stable if it’s at low power for both ships to transit.”

“I do not believe synchronizing our warp fields to a single unit could hurt our chances,” Thraak said. “Assuming the coils can take it; this is a delicate maneuver between ships of the same class.”

“We are under time pressure, but not combat,” D’ellian said. “When we drop out of warp, bring us into position behind the Roland.”

“Skarvin,” Foch ordered, “Head down to their engineering room, and give them our current specs as best you can.”

“Sure, get a bilateral warp drive to map out to a three part radial, while trying to run my engine room over a viewscreen,” Skarvin grumbled. Foch watched him go.

“He’ll do his best,’ Foch assured D’ellian.

“I’m sure,” the Orion replied politely. The ship’s timbre shifted as they dropped down to normal space, the impulse engines kicking back in. The two ships started to exchange a rapid and frantic telemetry now that communications could be utterly secure over tightbeam.

Joining two ships in the same warp bubble could be done at speed; but was more doable from a standing start. It was still the problem of making two different ships to act as the same ship… which was also broken in two pieces, relative to the warp field. Fortunately, the inefficiencies were less of a problem; ships were pretty overpowered compared to their engine capacity, so Foch’s guess was they could make Warp 8.

antonine3258 · November 2016

At the Jaws of Fenrir:

Chapter 2: The Knight Pt 5

By antonine3258

*

The two ships came to a stop. There was a brief pause, and the helmsman gave a hesitant clicking of jaws that they were ready. After a minute, there was a sudden screeching over the comms. “Abort, abort!” Skarvin said frantically. The helmsman slammed down on the console, a touchpad over which its hand had hovered.

There was an answering screech from behind them – a thrumming –an emergency plasma vent. The power had to go somewhere from the nacelles. On the screen, Roland’s right engine flared, then crackled; static discharge on a scale no sky had seen.

“Roland had a heterodyne we couldn’t compensate from here in the starboard nacelle; the off-axis controller just burnt out, we have no maneuverability at warp. I don’t know if they were asleep or blind,” Skarvin reported, adding several rather inventive curses about his junior officers.

Foch didn’t blame him. By the time those were obvious all the way in main engineering, they had been building a while at the engine. The crew there should have caught it or at least alerted, even if the distortion wasn’t immediately dangerous. Trying to manage it from a whole different ship, all Skarvin could do is stop Mchwa plowing into Roland when it failed to go anywhere.

Foch had inherited his original crew, but the survivors who joined the Roland had been drafted from all different sources; not his picks, with the ship lying half-completed or in dock while on more subtle missions. Regardless, if they made it and time survived, he resolved to do better.

“Give me a status report,” he ordered.

“Main energizers still active, we have full antimatter power,” Skarvin said. “Temporal core giving some really weird signals that I’m sure 718 would love to spend a week deciphering. All I can see from here is our predicted power curve to those coordinates seems to be getting worse. It doesn’t seem to think it can hold the vortex.”

“Would it help if the Mchwa gave us a push?” Foch asked, sarcastic.

“We could, perhaps,” D’ellian said. “We have very heavy tractor beam emitters. And quantum slipstream generators. They could provide some of the effect.” 718 nodded.

Skarvin said, over the link, “I think we need to switch to the Imperial supply network.”

“Yes, there is a cost factor,” the Dahar Master acknowledged. The Gorn laughed at that, ruefully. “But success can depend on a sharp spearhead more than war of accountants.”

“Roland? Get ready for a push,” Foch said. “All available power to the temporal core and begin sequence. I do not think our chances will get any better than now. Prepare to be brought under tow. You’re still guiding us, so keep navigation on.”

“Aye sir,” Newness said miserably.

“Quantum slipstream standby,” D’ellian said. “Keep helm locked to them, warriors: ready for possible distortions or to compensate for gravimetric shear. We are trying for maximum distortion over speed.” Very briefly, she spared a glance for Foch.

With a hum of capacitors, the feel of light and space on the bridge changed. The viewscreen showed the stars going out, the cloudy spiral of quantum ‘froth’ surrounding them in a tunnel of blue light, isolating them into a dimension where speeds available exceeded subspace. That was how 718 explained it, anyway, besides ‘it helped ships go very fast’. What Foch did know is they were, effectively, in a relativistic reference frame while staying still.

“Temporal core output increasing,” Newness said excitedly, briefly running off screen and back. “Vortex opening along temporal navigation axis!”

In front of them, the blue ‘froth’ parted as a searing point of white light appeared. Energy spiraled out as the strange streaked void of temporal transit appeared… but only barely.

“The vortex is too small for either ship to make transit!” Thraak said, alarmed.

“General, we just lost the carrier wave to the Empire’s navigational buoy network,” clicked one of the Insectoid crew in alarm.

“Captain, Foch, we can’t push it beyond this and keep it stable. We’re not getting sufficient chroniton decay to push it any further,” Newness aid. “We can try shutting it down and reset the coordinates-“ he offered, but was interrupted by both captains.

“NO!” they shouted as one. D’ellian gestured. Foch said, “Whatever temporal effects we’re moving to encounter are having an effect – we should not leave the temporal wake. Keep that vortex open, Lieutenant!” Newness nodded.

“I am unclear what else we can provide; this is not sustainable,” D’ellian admitted. She turned to look at a console. “The emitter load is increasing, this can only be sustained for a few minutes.”

718 suggested, “The Roland could generate a static warp bubble? Give some more time?”

Foch waved it away. “No, enough with the technology we cannot fully use – this ship has power and we have a hole, but not large enough, yes?”

“Yes,” 718 said, confused.

Foch was already walking to the console he had noticed earlier. “Tarsi, give me the exact placement on the edges of the field,” he said. The Mchwa was a cone, after all, extending ‘around’ the rather flat Roland. Which meant it had clearance to see the vortex, even if neither could go through. The Andorian nodded and smiling tightly, brushed past the Gorn to the science side panel.

“The weapons have never been tested in a quantum environment,” the Xindi at the controls protested, refusing to move.

“The readouts still look good, yes?” Foch asked, and the Xindi turned briefly. Foch moved – even with the insectoid differences, a biped was a biped – and caught by surprise in a hip throw, there wasn’t much one could do until they hit the deck. Cursing, the Xindi moved to fight as he leapt to his feet, but one of D’ellian’s subordinates clasped the Insectoid on the shoulder.

“If this does not work, we will never know it,” the Klingon said, chuckling. Violence always was the route for cheap laughs with Klingons. “But we die fighting.”

“Quite,” Foch muttered. The readouts were, indeed still go. “Bringing reserve coolant pumps online, setting minimum cycle time for rapid fire,” he said.

“Emitters approaching polarization limit,” Skarvin reported over the link. “I hope you’re not about to do what I think, Captain, but do it fast so we’re around to tell you how bad an idea it is.”

D’ellian agreed, and grabbed the other side of the tactical console. “Quite,” she echoed. “You’re cleared to fire, captain.”

Foch fired, pressing the surface with more force than was strictly necessary. Bolts screamed out from the ship’s weapon tips, smashing the edges of the vortex. The tear glowed with energy, and Roland’s surface deflectors flared with energy.

“Navigational axis is starting to drift around center point,” Newness said, “But we’re getting a boost – vortex extending to maximum!”

“Go, full impulse into the vortex!” D’ellian ordered.

Propelling Roland ahead of them, they vanished into the ether.

*

28th century, New Khitomer. Half an hour until Ragnorak

The two ships emerged, eldritch energies streaming off them from the vortex. The grand megastructure of New Khitomer was there, thankfully. Foch concentrated on being able to breathe again. That had been a rough transition, the last few minutes echoing around them over and over. Maybe the worst he had experienced?

“Are we all where we should be?” D’ellian said, and she sounded shaky. She was gripping the console still; knuckles gone gray under the strain. She took a cautionary breath, and started to steady herself.

Thraak was looking greener around the scales than normal. “Star pattern seems to indicate the right time – there are very few ships in the area, a few Federation and what looks like a Republic warbird.”

“Roland, get us local control,” Foch ordered.

“Aye,” came back, voice only over the link, weakly from Newness.

“Captain Foch, you’re on the early end of the navigation window, we’ve had very few arrivals, but anti-tachyon levels indicate more are coming,” came back Chekov’s voice. “Fortunately, we still have several hours to organize.”

Foch looked at D’ellian, who failed not to look smug, “Admiral, your communication indicated we barely had time and gave a specific spacetime coordinate set?”

“Well, yes, but some allowance around the point for navigation is standard,” Chekov said. Foch closed his eyes and valiantly held onto his temper. “As to your current point; something seems to have shifted things forward – temporal shields were stressed briefly but now look to hold at least five hours – a comfortable margin.”

D’ellian, thanks to pheromones, apparently could literally radiate smugness. “I see,” Foch said. “Well, we must prepare.”

28th century, New Khitomer. Half an hour until Ragnorak Five hours until Ragnorak

*

Author’s note:

Yes, the timeline changed in this one to affect the first chapter. This is why everyone hates time travel for disrupting drama. It’s a mess. Foch much prefers problems he can punch, but I think Daniels’ tendency to call the Agent of Yesterday Temporal Agents as muscle backfired a bit here. He has the potential to be a great captain, if he gets to focus on it.

We’re about ready for characters to start in the actual mission, now that the pieces are being delivered to New Khitomer, so I guess it’s a good question where causality comes into this.

Just to put everything on the same page where I’m going with this knot – what seems to be happening is that Procyon V, with the Sphere Builders at their most capable, was one of the best opportunities to destroy the Federation (and the Alliance, whose core worlds and territories aren’t that far from Earth). It didn’t work. The Sphere Builders got into the whole mess with the Xindi to try and strike at a different point, but weren’t able to affect things very much but directly, and Daniels was able to nudge things so those didn’t work.

Enter Noye in his form as the Envoy, taking advantage of the Annorax’s temporal travel abilities to ‘repeat’ events – jumping around causality in a way that most time travel doesn’t seem to allow. He targets Procyon V as the point to bring down everything. Even New Khitomer is uptime. If Procyon V falls, there will be no time travelling Federation in the future, removing all their influence on the timeline, allowing Noye to more carefully take his revenge against the 25th century Alliance without worries Captain Walker’s Starfleet, which is very straightforwardly dedicated to countering temporal incursions, or Daniel’s group, which seems to use them to their own ends.

Noye then recruits several minor groups, but ones with time travel, to help up the game at Procyon V, but it doesn’t work, but their extra pressure weakens Daniel and his group. The final group entered, the Mirror Universe, are from a separate timeline, so can be a major player Daniels can’t spot, and so they kill him.

The Starfleet ‘plan’ for Procyon V, upcoming from Daniels perspective, repeatedly from Noye’s, is now being acted out by people who don’t have all the pieces and hope they can make it work. Meanwhile, the Mirror Universe gives a huge wave of cannon fodder, and also a group that are full time spacers, compared to the ‘irregulars’ of the Na’kuhl, the Kremin remnants, the Sphere Builders originating from a different set of physics (nowadays) and the Vorgon thieves.

The Sphere Builders have used information from the future to reinforce their Spheres, so the Enterprise-J can’t blow them the way the NX-01 did. The Tox Uhat serves to counterbalance that advantage, and Noye has worked to hem in the Enterprise-J. Now, all his cards are on the table. If the Enterprise-J fails, most of life in the Alpha and Beta quadrants will be lost, and the timeline will be left open for manipulation to the whims of anyone with a time machine.

Chekov has therefore dealt the last hole card Daniels had left; the Temporal Agents, removed and continued past the point history recorded as their deaths, a force ‘unseen’ by the other forces in the Temporal Cold War. But they’re still unsteady and unused to playing at this level without guidance, but they’re the last force available to either side.

A side that Foch has just unexpectedly allowed to be reinforced. A Knight-Errant, after all, with no direction but his honor, may be the truest knight of all.

antonine3258 · December 2016

At the Jaws of Fenrir:

Chapter 3: The Assassin Part 1

By antonine3258

A Retelling of the ‘Ragnarok’ mission

*

28th Century, New Khitomer, four and half hours until Ragnarok

                Dahar Master D’ellian found herself taking in the view still, soaking in a nearly religious high. On the viewscreen of the small escort carrier’s bridge was displayed, in all its glory, the orbital ring of New Khitomer. It was truly glorious. The reports given from the previous visits of the past to New Khitomer had made her assume some cluster of stations in low orbit. This was a single station, a megastructure of astonishing complexity and size. The entirety of the Q’onos shipyards would fit in a small section of it.

And in only a few hundred years, people would be capable of such feats. Such great works had been accomplished by other civilizations, but ones that had millennia of experience in space and millions of years of culture. The Empire was less than 1500 standard years old, and had been conquerors of space for only a few centuries. Truly, they were the slayers of gods.

Compare the likes of the species she was a part of by birth. The Orions had lounged and lolled around the quadrant for centuries, reaching great heights of culture. But their confidence in their superiority led to them falling into a stupor, remolding themselves into imagined pinnacles of masculinity and femininity. Sloth had reduced them to parasites on greater powers, clever ones, but not rulers of empires or builders of great fleets.

She had visited Boreth, and fought the demons of Gre’thor along the clone of the First Emperor. She had fought the Undine, the qa’meH quv themselves, stealers of honor. She had faced the pawns of the demons of air and darkness, from both the bridge of a ship and in ground combat. She was a warrior by choice, pirate by heritage, and Orion by birth, but never had she felt more Klingon knowing they would be a part of this.

“We have completed the record of damage, General,” clicked Sh’ket, the Mchwa’s engineer, the translation displaying across D’ellian’s wrist computer and thumping her wrist with a tactile battle code.    D’ellian heard, and felt, and a lifetime of effort let her pull herself way from the view, turning to face her officers. The Xindi-Insectoid would wait patiently, but it would not be Klingon to glory in pleasure. And D’ellian always, always had to be Klingon to succeed and survive.

Ch’gren, D’ellian’s long-time comrade in arms and usual chief engineer for KDF-built ships, stepped forward to give the verbal report. The Insectoids were fierce warriors, brave ship-handlers, and worthy employees, but the difficulty in capturing their speech in translation meant they gave longer passages to allies with more common mouth structures. Ch’gren’s eyes were alight with Klingon delight at the megastructure, but he gave his report professionally. The spark of resentment at her core on how easy it was for them never made D’ellian’s face, her posture, or even her pheromones.

                “The Mchwa’s dilithium matrix is stable after the time passage. We have completed an evaluation of the outer hull. Three microfractures were found in the outer hull at Frame 35, near the slipstream emitter there. They are being repaired now from within the ship. Structural integrity is otherwise intact. Deflector grid is at one hundred percent. Slipstream emitter components are seventy percent fused in their ablative components; within the expected range for their use. The outer tips of the forward plasma cannons show unusual corrosion. An extravehicular team is currently ablating them,” Ch’gren said. “Hanger bay supply stocks are at full. The ship is ready for battle now, if necessary.”

                Ch’gren handed a PADD with the lengthier full report. She took the PADD, to glance over briefly, as required. She did not doubt Ch’gren’s summary or the analysis of the Xindi. The Mchwa was also their home, and they were as eager to make sure everything was perfect in normal service as they were then eager to send it into battle afterwards. An expensive lifestyle.

                D’ellian expected the next battle they would enter for free, though. “Sh’ket,” she said, “The records given by Admiral Chekov are very thin. And the KDF has only Demonslayer’s battle against the Sphere Builder for our Record of Battle, clearly some distance in the Sphere Builder’s past. Is there anything your people can add about Procyon V?”

                “Little,” Sh’ket said, “To our shame. A very great shame. We were told of it, only in that the Federation would kill us there and then, and we must strike first. That the Sphere Builders were killers, and we had been turned against friends. What happens, our hive stands with you, General. In some way, we will absolve this shame. The Xindi have always been prepared for this battle, to happen in our lifetime…”

                D’ellian was good at reading emotion; but of more mammalian species. The mechanical translator stripped the Insectoids, part of an elaborate and intricate five-race culture, of eloquence. But for once some fervor came through.

                “Klingons believe sufficient effort can repair a mistake elsewhere,” D’ellian assured them. “The Xindi have their honor, even in the Empire’s space.” Ch’gren nodded as well. “I understand the Xindi build their ships with an insulation against the radiation and spatial anomalies that previously were in the Expanse.” Sh’ket clacked his jaws affirmatively. “Will our fighters be insulated?” The Olaen-class carried a carrier-grade hanger facility, elaborate replicators and assembly stations to build attrition units rapidly, along with transporters to recover the pilots.

                “Perhaps,” Sh’ket admitted, “The Klingon technology you provided has allowed us to provide better shields to our Castrois.   But the Mchwa carries very little excess Trellium-D in our usual stores. It is hard to synthesize, and difficult to obtain even in Xindi space. We cannot waste us. History assures the Xindi Trellium-D is effective; but deflectors are far better than when the Expanse existed.”

                Just when you think the Xindi were at their heart within the Empire, one gives a truly Federation-length “I don’t know,” D’ellian marveled to herself.

                “Transporter effects weren’t interrupted on Demonslayer,” Ch’gren said. “Our fighters are replaceable, if it comes to that, as we can reclaim the warriors. And without that, the Insectoids still have their cannons.” Sh’ket nodded at that.

                “Very well, then we have our complete report,” D’ellian said. “Communications specialist:”   The Xindi turned and gave a bow. “Has there been an update from my staff or Captain Foch?” she asked. She checked the local sensor reports – several of the various ‘temporal’ 26th century loan ships of various classes, themselves, a broad Deihu. Another ship was popping in. Space was filled with communications, but most of it was everyone asking for information, and little to provide.

                Her place had been here until the ship was ready, but she had staff to start laying some groundwork. Thraak and K’Gan had beamed over to the megastructure.

On a negative from the communication rating, D’ellian ordered, “Continue listening for system traffic. Forces are still arriving, and we should have a battle slot soon. Run hanger recovery drills in our absence. I will beam to the station. Ch’gren will accompany me.” The other bridge crew gave an affirmative, as the two aliens entered the turbolift.

                As the doors closed, Ch’gren adjusted the controls for a slower transit, and said, “General – this ship is full of ready hearts, and I will defend my efforts in the refit of the vessel, but improved weapons and high-powered deflectors does not make it something else, only better at what it was. This ship is built for rapid battle, quick strikes or defending against the same. It is not a fleet carrier. We do not carry the supplies for a sustained battle at full efficiency.”

                The Mchwa had been down on its luck when Thraak had found and arranged a contract. The ship was normally useful for all sorts of enforcement and strike missions that were helping keep the Empire together after the shattering blows of the Iconian War. But it was truly an escort design; hull packed to capacity with equipment with limited ability to maintain or sustain it.

                “I agree,” D’ellian said, “Starfleet’s lent time ships will have to carry the load of the heart of the battle if this ship is to get its most use. And we must not only find victory, but live to report on it to the Empire.” She sighed, “And that is worrying – Foch is capable; capable enough to nearly derail White Widow, but his ship and crew failed repeatedly in trying to reach this staging point. Combat I will grant him, but time is not his domain.”

                “Yes,’ Ch’gren said, “The timeships that are here are capable on paper, but what battle have they seen? And the future they come from? This future of amalgamation… the Federation are fine enemies and friends, but to serve under the same leaders.   The Empire is a living entity, and changes, but this feels unnatural.”

                “Powerful manipulators are at work,” D’ellian agreed. “Which is why the Council picked me for the mission. Foch seems to think it was successful but the nature of time travel – the ships will not be ready for years. Perhaps they will affect the battle, but none have arrived here to assist the Temporal Defense group. Which unfortunately means we will be operating under… the Federation’s command.”

                White Widow had been started as Temporal Defense operations had kicked into high gear, with time travelers launching terrorist attacks on the present. Forces from the future had arrived to help immediately counter operations where possible. But a different faction had arranged Starfleet to receive time ships of their own, and only Starfleet under one obscure bureau.

The High Council had observed that a war, after all, is not necessarily limited to two sides. Large parts of the Federation had agreed with the Empire and the Romulan Republic. Hundreds of operatives and thousands of analysts had spent months finding a thread of temporal intervention that they could contact. In Klingon fashion, the final contact had been as face-to-face as could be arranged, a trained master manipulator and loyal Klingon warrior to ascertain that the truth was spoken when a question had been asked.

The question was simple. Were the laboratory experiments and engineering analysis the Alliance taking lead to some form of successful timeship, under the control of the Alliance of the current time and reality, instead of shades being provided by some operative of a future so uncertain it required constant adjustment. The answer had been yes, the word given. But before D’ellian could see the fruits of her actions; she had volunteered to fight for a great battle in the future of the Galaxy.

Apparently, Temporal Defense was bad at its job, as the timeline had been collapsing around them; was still collapsing, as far as their sensors could tell. New Khitomer has some sort of shielding; reality outside was no longer there. Reality would soon no longer be here, but they had a few hours yet, to try and gather what strength they could.

                “Whatever group Foch is part of, it seems the most active, but it is not the only side,” D’ellian continued. “Why risk all our power to one faction, especially as we are here to observe? This future unfolded without us– if time existed long enough, I would assume they organized as another fleet, knowing about us with this one. And the Mchwa is limited, but knowing limits is the beginning of mastery”

                Ch’gren grunted, “There is wisdom there.” He sped the turbolift back up.

                But as Ch’gren noted, all these ships are tools. And a tool can be used before it is understood or can be build, but is always used worse. I must not let the crew consider that fact, that all those from an era where the limits of the tools such as timeships are lost to us here at New Khitomer. D’ellian thought.

*

antonine3258 · December 2016

At the Jaws of Fenrir

by antonine3258

Chapter 3: The Assassin Part 3

*

Four and a half hours until Ragnarok

                “What would you have done if that didn’t work?” Thraak asked as they strode down the corridor.

                “Break her nose,” D’ellian said. “Soft tissue is easy for Starfleet to repair, and we are out of time to coddle them. We need to remove as much volatility from the crews, and so I need to distract them where the data was coming from.” “An effective example, but would lead to resentment,” Thraak said. “The humans bear grudges more than they admit.”

                “As she showed,” D’ellian said. “I thought fear or greed was the motivator for the arguments. Foch had missed they were covering despair. It had to be burned before the infection could spread, and I have few cauterizing irons. Better to hate me than the Romulans right now.” Thraak nodded.

                “But more than you thought,” Thraak said, still sotto voce.

                “Yes, we seem to have a stage director on our side, so I hoped she would have something dramatic ready when I prompted,” D’ellian admitted.

                “She?” Thraak said more loudly, as they were reaching the door of Temporal Command.

                “Oh yes,” D’ellian said, putting her swagger back on. “After all, why would the Romulans give up the most powerful spy device; unless they’d already done what they needed to install themselves at its very heart?”

                The doors swung open, showing a large meeting hall – but apparently a converted one, as several consoles dominated behind the lectern space. A red-haired Romulan in one of their duty uniforms worked on them. They didn’t show much rank pins, but D’ellian knew this Romulan. She’d bene in position to end the Iconian War, and had brought fire to the Tal Shiar and Elachi before. Much more famous as a ship handler and operative than an admiral, D’ellian had to wonder why she was here, but was glad to have some luck.

                “Admiral seh’Virinat,” D’ellian identified. “When the Republic got you as a captain, the world lost a very fine actress.”

                “Jolan tru,” the Romulan replied, not turning around. “I am glad I was able to help set the stage; but I am afraid things are becoming complicated here, temporally, so I have little concentration to speak.”

                “That beacon issue?” D’ellian said.

                “Yes, I would rather the Republic had gained a temporal theorist in there,” Fleet Admiral An’riel seh’Virinat said, frustrated. “Sparrowhawk is reading vastly elevated antitachyon point sources in close proximity; we will be seeing the majority of temporal transits still around the same point in spacetime. I was able to broaden the beacon, but it did not help as much as I would wish.”

                “Mchwa, D’ellian,” D’ellian spoke into her communicator. “Ready for potential emergency – expect engineering and medical casualties.”

                “Thank you,” An’riel said, still tapping away. D’ellian had worked with the Republic operative a few times, not closely, but she’d had a chance to observe her socially. She held herself stiffly – this was one who tried to think each action out. A natural trait for an infiltrator, but also supposedly charismatic with her crew– though Republic Command thought this one walked on water.

She could certainly play charming, but D’ellian’s comment has not been whimsical – this Romulan definitely had a face she showed the world. But certainly a problem solver par excellence, one of dozens who had risen to flag rank and kept it in the chaotic last few years.

                “Is there anything else my ship can do?” D’ellian said. She herself was an expert on communication and security protocols, coordinating ships and men, body language and how to break them. She was not one to be flummoxed by a control panel, but whatever was going on was beyond her level; and possibly An’riel’s.

                “I do not know it well enough to say,” An’riel said honestly. That was fine, D’ellian knew the Romulan’s, and was why she sought her out.

                “The deflector is reasonably powerful, though it lacks energy reserves,” D’ellian said.

                An’riel laughed, nervously, “Energy is not my problem – this ring has enough spare power to kick the Solanae Sphere up to about Warp 4. But most of the control structures are damaged.   Most of what I have already done is theoretical. I tried sending a message along the beacon, but apparently the ships were ‘already’ in the vortex at this point and I could not contact them in the past from the future.”

                “So the temporal shielding is holding?” D’ellian asked. The stars felt cold and far away.

                “Improving,” An’riel said. “This entire area was red – what I believe from what I got from Captain Walker was the result of a Sphere Builder victory starting to overwrite a future with the Temporal Accords – that appeared to recede; sometime before Chekov’s arrival. Something moved in our favor; perhaps the Elements being on our side. But the stars out there – we are seeing the record of light that no longer exists in the universe. And half this plan may be dead before we start.”

                Her voice was like a tomb door closing.

                “How long?” D’ellian asked.

                “Four minutes and a few seconds until the antitachyon event,” An’riel said. “Going by the build-up and previously recorded vortices from the meddler’s ships.”

                “Is there any more you can do at this moment?” D’ellian asked. The Romulan shrugged.

                “Possibly. I know not what though,” she said. A distortion was beginning to become visible to the naked eye. D’ellian swallowed. The powers being worked with here were beyond either of their comprehension.

                Other things were not. “Then we can discuss our next steps,” D’ellian said with some finality. “These captains seem brave, but unready – but the Alliance has been dealing with these meddlers and manipulators for some time. These ships were deployed individually. I don’t know if we can give them coordination, but we can give them the benefit of the Alliance’s experience thanks to your databases.”

Mchwa was technically an auxiliary, not a KDF ship. It had information for their mission; and assembled files, but not the raw tactical data and intelligence digests of a vessel serving as fleet command, with information that could be adjusted into threat files for any ship under command. Until more arrivals came, there was only one source – the Sparrowhawk.

                “There is one flaw with that plan,” An’riel said. D’ellian could see where this was going, but the let the Romulan speak. “Accepting tactical data packages from a Romulan source, especially myself would be a serious potential data breech for many of these captains. I am not here via Temporal Defense; I was luring Daniels out to alleviate the destruction of a homeworld, by a tool he refused to relinquish as the trauma of billions met his plans somehow.” Her voice was full of loathing. That pain was not histrionics, one only a Romulan or Reman could know. Or the Na’kuhl.

                “But you agree with the necessity of halting the Temporal Liberation Front?” D’ellian pressed.

                “Noye is a madman; his forces pirates and genocidal maniacs wrapped in noble-sounding goals,” An’riel said. “Elements willing, they will not run free after this – freedom from meddling is a fine goal, freedom for meddling must be fought. Procyon V is the death of the galaxy, if the Union, or the Alliance, or the Federation fail.” That was perhaps some histrionics; but there was a real core of determination there.

                “Well, you can at least release the files to Chekov; he should know who is reliable enough,” D’ellian said.

                “True, but the best would be is if the Sparrowhawk could simply be put in tactical command and provide that coordination,” An’riel said. “But I cannot see, with things so tense, operational control being passed to a non-Starfleet vessel.”

                D’ellian had seen the specs on the command battlecruiser project – the double-nacelles made them easier to build, though the less efficient drives cost them in durability compared to real dreadnoughts with their huge warp coils. What they lacked in the assault role, was made up in their next-generation area control abilities. Their short-range sensors, communications links, and dedicated processors provided an admiral with an unprecedented ability to distill the chaos of a fleet battle and rapidly seize and exploit openings and opportunities, letting whole squadrons act as single units.

                “True, though I’d be happy to tie into your tactical network,” D’ellian said. After all, where the Federation opposed, Klingon and Romulan ended up together. “At least we can provide some sort of sharp squadron.”

                “Yes – we can let that run while we begin damage control, since your efforts seem to have ensured at least they will fight for a future,” An’riel said and tabbed the communicator, “Sparrowhawk, this is Admiral seh’Virinat – begin download to this console, Alliance protocols, squadron level tactical precis and threat files on ships we encountered here.”

                “Acknowledged,” came back a deeper voice. “Permission to back off another ten thousand kilometers? We’re starting to detect a gravitational gradient.”

                The distortion had been continuing to gain definition and brightness, a baleful red core surrounded by a gleam of blue; an aurora, or maybe Cherenkov radiation.

                “Granted,” An’riel said, and closed the channel. “Elements, let whatever is left of cause and effect in this snarled timeline avert disaster,” she prayed aloud.

                The Romulan ran her hands through her hair briefly and stood up stiffly as she toggled a public address channel. “Attention: temporal travel event now at ninety-nine percent probability within next two minutes. All captains; please alert medical and engineering crews to standby and prepare for turbulence.”

                “I refuse to fall into powerlessness,” D’ellian said.

                “Powerlessness or patience?” An’riel asked, with a flash of irritation. “Whatever the original backup plan was, or manipulation to create the temporal defense, we were never intended to be here at the backup plan. I think we are ahead and – Brace yourself!” she interrupted, grabbing the console.

                Space shuddered, a wave of impact of unreality and probability washed over them, a wave very nearly real, but not quite yet. D’ellian could taste iron in the air, and blood of a dozen species, a glimpse of herself in some boudoir, or possibly the Great Hall of the Klingon High Council. As it cleared, she was still on her feet, solid. She did allow herself a bit of pleasure at the uppity Romulan had fallen in front of the console, but pragmatism led her to reaching out to touch the Vulcanoid’s shoulder. Physical contact wasn’t common for any branch of the species, and it tore her from whatever she saw.

                Flexing her hands, as if surprised by her shape, she stood again at the console. “Heavy power losses registered, life signs are lower than expected from the other ships – medical emergencies being declared. Looks like mainly temporal ships – an Avenger class is probably the biggest, and one of those new Hestia escorts; looks like a Varanus fleet support from the KDF slipped in – and, yes, coded transponder, there is a Faeht out there.”

                The Romulan tapped on the sensor panel; despite whatever science was behind it, playback was easy to set up. Ships appeared – dodging frantically as their sensors registered the hazy time distortions of others near them. Several ships passed through each other – apparently not hitting, but close enough to affect their subspace systems, and as they resolved fully into reality, their hulls were wracked with plasma burns and spot overloads.

                An’riel was recovering quickly, triaging emergency calls. The ships were actually doing almost as well, to D’ellian’s surprise. The plasma fires ceased quickly – at least, it seemed, the vaunted temporal fleet wasn’t in danger of simply blowing itself up before it go into action. It still didn’t seem much of a fleet – ships simply hung where they’d ended after their rough passage, instead of adjusting their orbits to make support easier from the ships that had already been present. Space was a mad cluster of shuttles crossing over each other.

                But shuttles far outnumbered ships. If D’ellian was reading the display right, they had only thirty or so ships made it, plus perhaps another ten other ships, also mainly Starfleet. Starfleet had reported there were roughly a hundred of these temporal ships, and Klingon Intelligence had indicated they were telling the truth, based on logistics information.

                “Concord, move thirty kilometers forward – one of the last tachyon sources is near you, please indicate if you need a tow,” came the Romulan through D’ellian’s musings.

                “There are a few more,’ An’riel said, clearly very distracted. “Trying to give them some space. The people who did not simply target the coordinates have been better about bringing other ships. They will need a departure vector. Traffic control is taking a lot of Sparrowhawk’s capacity, so having to run the tachyon traces from this board; it is not going spectacularly.”

                Apparently, An’riel had finished tying in her crew without telling anyone – if it would distress someone, not let them know. And it probably should, as where Starfleet was seeing one Romulan, there was almost a thousand backing up her words with deeds. Tricky.

                D’ellian broke a bit a way to check the situation from her ship’s perspective. seh’Virinat had just showed an ability to play with perception. By the time D’ellian was done with the status report, it seemed most of those smart enough to adjust their bearings had arrived. The Romulan looked exhausted – the automatics hadn’t been designed for items popping into reality from spacetime, without any known vector. The future hadn’t figured out everything, as was becoming increasingly clear. She looked at the recent arrivals, and thought she saw her arsenal growing.

                “Admiral?” D’ellian said, breaking in. “The two that just arrived; one of those is the up-serviced Galaxy variant, isn’t it?”

                The Romulan looked at the board, “Galaxy? Oh it seems a Yamato-class dreadnought; Starfleet considers it a different class. It should have been useful, yes. The hull has been heavily ionized and there are severe damage to surface members. Life support and engines are stable; but communications and sensors have huge gaps – pity, it would be an excellent command ship. It looks like they already released damage control parties, but I do not think we have time to bring it to full command functionality.”

                “But Starfleet considers them command vessels, yes? And the ship’s captain is clearly competent and anticipated effects,” D’ellian said, thinking out loud. “At least some of these fleet members anticipated the effects of time travel, and were in position to bring competent people.”

                “Yes – transponder shows the Nagato. That would be at Deep Space Nine if they originated from the same time frame. That would be Admiral Revka if it has full staff,” seh’Virinat said. “The Admiral uses it a flagship for heavy assault missions, it is often under repair. She may not be there.”

                “Ah yes – Starfleet’s barbarian Borg hunter, until they ran out. You know a fair amount on her,” D’ellian observed.

                “The Admiral is one of Starfleet’s rank accelerated flag officers; her career is as short as mine, which was of some interest and comment when I was liasing with Starfleet.” An’riel said, and continued, a note of anger creeping past kinesthetic and into audible. “Her efforts against Tal Shiar cells experimenting with Borg technology was also of personal interest.”

                That wasn’t a surprising reaction. Ambassador Worf had observed after the Empire aligned with the Republic that a Romulan who didn’t hate the Tal Shiar was probably brainwashed.

                “Starfleet protocol would allow us to query if the ship is serving in a command role off its transponder,” D’ellian said. “Is it not present?”

                “The transponder is not, yes,” An’riel said. “Though someone over there was prepared; they are already moving into position for repairs; or had the fastest diagnostic and part transfer in Starfleet’s admittedly impressive engineering history.” Done being glib, apparently, the Romulan added. “Most of their defense emitters are down – I can get a read; the flag bridge offices are at temperatures either Admiral Revka or a Vulcan who enjoys their summers at home is in command.”

                “But regardless, someone who would know the current situation and listen to logic, instead of see a barbarian and an enemy,” D’ellian pressed. “And we can do it without interruption with my people at the door.”

                “I am sure she will be appreciative when we override an unfamiliar system to cause a site-to-site transport using a non-specialized control console,” An’riel said. “With her engineering background giving her a thorough understanding of the risks.”

                “But you can?” D’ellian said, noticing she was still on the console.

                “Already setting a biometric block and a coordinate routing,” An’riel said. “But under advisement. What are your intentions? All these people, rescued from death and kept under stress – we are used to Admirals the age of lieutenants from the attrition of targeted attacks and replicator warfare. They will see a child.”

                “While with proper command this would be a very effective force, I have to believe that was never the intention – remove the sensors of a Yamato, and you are left with a very powerful destructive force, but one that requires guidance, yes?” D’ellian says

                “Wandering in the dark, crushing enemies as directed does match what I saw of Daniels,” An’riel admitted.

                “Yes, but he is not here, and the plan, of course, is flawed, living for some future we will never see and cannot anticipate fills our ideals. The Nagato and… the Fuso are the last to arrive. Perhaps he intended there to be no time to explain under circumstances, just give the mission orders and go. You noted there was a much shorter timespan before the future was somehow altered. Given the way Daniels operates, the Nagato, with its shields and armor, would be guaranteed to survive almost everything- at least long enough for his vaunted timeline,” D’ellian said. “After all, it alone would be too damaged to do anything but point at something.”

                “You are joking,” An’riel said. “The crew is already repairing its short-range sensors. It will not have its early warning capacity and may lack enough bandwidth for gross tactical coordination of a fleet, but it can still serve to coordinate and collate squadron information at the strategic level.”

                “But you and I are both Admirals, and understand a command ship is more than its computers –- it is also the flag staff, helping anticipate enemy movements, helping perform the dozens of monitor functions that require sentient oversight. The real-time tactical functions may be unavailable, and are missed, but there is much it can do as a force multiplier thanks to its crew,” D’ellian said. “A flagship is more than a title, or a use for paperwork.” An’riel nodded at that.

                “But let us remind the Admiral her place is command and readying the fleet,” D’ellian said. “M’ara to Dean – I believe you know the two ships that just showed up; could you ask their leadership to make an appearance?’

                “Without a doubt – you have a plan?” Dean asked.

                “Eventually,” D’ellian promised.

                “I will take that, at this point – Messier is arguing for a point-by-point evaluation of readiness to slow things down,” Dean said with a sigh. “Dean out.”

                An’riel tapped her wrist communicator. “Sparrowhawk, I think we have all the ships that will be here – we have Admiral Chekov’s access code – please gather a capabilities estimate and prepare as a summary. Continue tactical precis.”

*

antonine3258 · December 2016

At the Jaws of Fenrir

Chapter 3: The Assassin

Part 4:

*

Four hours until Ragnarok

                A short while later, a reserved window on the console started to beep for attention, throwing up a holographic image. “Energizing. No issues so far,” An’riel said, “Pattern buffer holding and preparing materialization here – we have not discovered transporter repeaters yet, but this must be an expected practice here.”

The megastructure was hundreds of kellicams long – D’ellian would prefer shuttlebays given the amount of power that must be flowing through the structure without repeater satellites. Aloud she remarked, “This is some Federation dominated future – perhaps they do some sort of complicated subspace fold mirroring for transporter repeaters rather than some simple satellite structures.”

                “Or wormholes,” An’riel agreed with a laugh, “Called into existence at needed at ruinous energy cost, but keeping the view unobscured.”

                The console beeped again, and the familiar whine of transporter effect cut into being – louder than D’ellian expected, but there were two figures materializing. Admiral Revka … and Admiral Revka, though wearing only captain insignia. The lesser-ranked version looked more surprised than the older, who merely appeared calculating.

                “Admiral, General, I take it this is a supplementary briefing?” Admiral Revka said coolly. “How long do we have before the operator notices?”

                “It is an automated system,” An’riel said. Both versions of the Starfleet engineer cursed briefly at that. “I apologize for the hijacking, but the temporal fleet is not as integrated as we had been led to believe.”

                D’ellian explained briefly, before concluding. “I have seen the sympathetic detonation of Spheres, we, unlike the timelost, were around for the Tox Uthat’s activation and were part of those briefings. We understand the power being dealt with and can accept the plan, despite reservations – but we are used to our present and work towards a brighter future than this, having survived worst. These crews are lost – and are stuck in the battles of yesteryear, seeking redemption by reliving the past.”

                “Our careers have been unconventional,” the Admiral of the two Revkas said, “But I think you underestimate the Starfleet crews. These have always been the most dynamics parts of the Federation, willing to continue efforts to expand and improve.”

                “The transition has been stressful – but the crews aren’t all just survivors from great battles,” the lower-ranked Revka added. “I admit the Na’kuhl haven’t given us the time to integrate the crews, but is an all-volunteer force dedicated to preventing just the terror of history and the future adjudicated by a single individual.”

                Nice speeches, D’ellian judged, she could see how they had risen in the Federation with their enjoyment of talking. “Regardless, we all have reservations about Daniels, but they haven’t had the experiences to understand what Chekov is trying to accomplish. I would happily give his heart to the High Council, but whatever advantages he took, it was in situations where others were already interfering.”

                “If Daniels did see this as throwing ships against the problem, we can certainly improve on that,” Admiral Revka said. “I can see him arranging the whole thing – since I was at the Tox Uthat retrieval from the Breen attack, I even have some vested interest.” She pursed her lips, thinking. “But the enemy doesn’t know his plan, and even if they do, we can enhance it.” She paused, D’ellian counted it in her head. Sure enough on three, she continued. “You two interested in a team up?”

*

Three hours until Ragnarok

                Sending in the Revkas to separate Chekov out of the herd of polite arguing had succeeded and they’d managed to come up with a way of making the plan palatable, before calling all the captains together. D’ellian had sent her staff back to the Mchwa to help finish repairs. An’riel lurked, quietly, in a corner.

                “Captains,” Chekov said. “With the advent of the Nagato’s command facilities, we have the ability to coordinate our tactical data to some degree and analyze additional weaknesses. We also have enough ships to handle multiple objectives. Unfortunately, despite Admiral Revka’s crew’s efforts, they are unable to maintain operational command of all units. As such, Captains Messier and Tycho – I am appointing you to handle our flight wings – transporter assault directly into the Spheres has shown success in previous attacks. Break through their patrol lines and ready for ground combat.” The two human captains, nodded, surprised, with far more determination than D’ellian had thought. Maybe there was something to the Starfleet speechifying.

                “And yourself, Admiral?” Messier asked, unwilling to completely back down.

                “We will be performing the original plan with a heavy strike squadron, using Nagato as flag. I’ll take the Sparrowhawk and the Mchwa from our allies for unconventional support and Roland and Fuso for a core in the battle-line,” Chekov said, as briefed. “The Enterprise will be the largest unit in the area and the focus of their attacks. Disrupting their strikes will help draw off other forces to allow your more conventional strike through.”

                “Nothing about these ships is conventional,” Tycho muttered. “But their adaptive systems work best in a running battle, and I’ve gotten the tactical departments to look over the maneuver data the Romulan released.” Admiral seh’Virinat merely nodded genially in response.

                “Exactly – I am relying on you two to work on the best distribution of our forces – the Alliance vessels are willing to work under your command,” Chekov said, tactfully skipping the background dealing that had taken much of the time. “So you’ll have some cloaking capacity in your forces,” he finished. The two nodded. “We’ve corrected the navigation issue and once you have your organization set, we’ll prepare travel coordinates to the Battle.”

                “If you have the readiness reports,” Admiral Revka said, “Captain Revka will take them, she has been working to distribute engineering and science teams to maximize combat systems and help prepare ships for the next transit.” Tycho eyed her a little dubiously, but still nodded.

                “We will meet again in two hours by squadrons for final traffic control,” Chekov said. “Good luck everyone.”

                The group started to disperse, D’ellian drifting over to the side, watching the chaos for the moment.

                She could feel the Romulan come up alongside. “Are Klingons so incompetent?” she asked, sounding cold, and grabbing D’ellian’s wrist as she reflexively reached for her dagger. The grip was like iron – the Romulans didn’t quite show it off like the Vulcans, but they were still heavyworlders, with the muscle to match. It did give enough time for curiosity to overcome reflexes before she broke the Romulan’s arm.

                “You are deliberately provoking me, why?” D’ellian said.

                “As you were doing the same – amplifying divisions between the Starfleet officers,” An’riel said, “Seizing the initiative to do so, disrupting your performance would have made things worse. Are Klingons so incompetent they must be kicked constantly?”

                “No, but pain response is effective in the short-term,” D’ellian said, slightly stung. “You’ve helped me, Romulan, moving the pieces around? Why the sudden pang of conscience?”

                “Because I have seen real chaos and working against you then would have brought it here. None of them would trust me enough to build bridges n the time we had” seh’Virinat said, still gripping the Orion’s arm. “You knew who to manipulate and how, you could have eased divisions, but you inflamed them.”

                “And removed the temporal fleet from Starfleet in the process – that ugly devil’s bargain they were holding over our head, promised some future of Federation supremacy,” D’ellian said. “They’re not your concern – yours is the Tox Uthat, not who lives or dies in some possibility in delivering it. Are you saying the Federation marching to some pro-Earth future is in the Republic’s interests? Honor dictates I do not kowtow to it.”

                Grimacing, the Romulan released D’ellian. “Are there no pragmatists in the Republic?” D’ellian asked. This was a heroine of the Republic, but there was no way she could be this blind.

                “None so foolish to call themselves pragmatists, when they gamble a necessary victory for some future advantage,” Admiral seh’Virinat said. “You won, but only through forces that were not in your control, arrivals you were not predicting or had arranged.”

                “Oh, I would have won,” D’ellian said, she could see it – and the Federation had stood in opposition to all her peoples so long she could not mourn. “The wave of unprepared, unorganized cannon fodder Daniels had thoughtfully arranged, dying bravely and nobly to save ‘the timeline’ as other forces moved into position – your ship uses fighters, surely you understand attrition? But you stand here, chastising me. You could tell Chekov there what I did – Admiral Revka has worked with coalitions before, she may even be able to undo this and form a true fleet, if she knew.” The Romulan was silent. “But even for morals, you’re not willing to risk this necessary victory, eh?”

                “Honor dictates I do my duty – that is ensuring my people are not enslaved to genocidal masters, regardless of origin,” seh’Virinat said stiffly. “But you are not quite as clever as you believe, and this is a dangerous mission – I believe you needed to know that, and I wanted to know.”

                “Which?” D’ellian asked.

                “You are more Klingon than the Klingons,” the Romulan observed. “That has been spoken in the Great Hall of the Klingon Empire. You are a Dahar Master, and a guarantor of the Empire’s honor, and concerned successful in the standards of your own people. I needed to see.”

                “And?” D’ellian asked, she could guess where this was going.

                “Why the Empire is always in danger of collapse,” seh’Virinat finished. “Why Vulcan should be considered as a model when we rebuild our culture.   And why the Empire considers the Federation dangerous beyond realpolitik. Klingons are glorious, but glory always demands the short-term. It is a seductive notion; and those in the Republic Navy who have liaisoned with the KDF have said as such. My people must be more careful than to build beyond the next day as an ideal – and wanted to warn you I will be watching for such in this mission; it is more important than you.”

                The Romulan wanted to walk away. D’ellian felt a brief urge to scream, but the anger at such observations had burned out of her long ago; she had plenty of such thoughts in her time. Orion honor was nothing more than profit. Klingon honor was legacy; better still, but obtainable to the meanest one willing to be brave and crafty. That was far better – and a race patient in the middle of their spider’s web like the Romulans could never understand, really.

                But the Romulans were good fighters, and the admiral had hit the salient point – Dahar Master D’ellian of M’ara had triumphed. The temporal fleet would be whittled away in their action – and the Romulan would have to keep such an eye on her to avoid being able to save them – with the Tox Uthat, as they both agreed, being the main goal. They’d gotten to live a bit longer, these Starfleeters, and now they would die far more gloriously.

                It was win-win. She kept assuring herself of that. She had believed such before; she could do so again. And despite what the Romulan thought; there was still one arrow left in the quiver.

*

antonine3258 · December 2016

At the Jaws of Fenrir

Chapter 3: The Assassin

by antonine3258

*

Minutes before Ragnarok

                D’ellian sat at a table with the other ship captains for the Tox Uthat group. Chekov paced before them. Within all, was still Federation blue, but outside, the stars were going out- thermobaric clouds coming into more and more probability.

                All the technical aspects of war were in readiness as could be managed, diagnostics run, weapons charged, auxiliary craft on the launch rails, and frequencies aligned for the more exotic weapons. But D’ellian understood the benefits of a good rousing briefing, so had not complained when Chekov wanted the captains to meet face to face.

                “Time is short my friends, so I’ll make this quick,” Chekov said. “The battle is not going well for us. We’re outnumbered and outgunned. Our plans rely on the Tox Uthat. With it we can destabilize the Expanse and force the Sphere Builders to withdraw. There’s only one ship with the power to use the Tox Uthat – the Enterprise. She must survive at all costs,” Chekov admitted.

                Captain Foch leaned forward, drumming fingers on the table, ready to get going. Both Revkas looked quiet and determined. The Romulan had her hands folded, inviting further comment. D’ellian affected faint concern.

Chekov looked at each of them in term, and then finished. “Today, we’re fighting for past, present, and future, so fight hard, and fight well. Dismissed.”

                The group stood and made it to the transporter pad. New Khitomer vanished from D’ellian’s eyes. With luck, the future would have a different shape when they were done.

                The familiar whine of a refitted Klingon transporter greeted her aboard the Mchwa. K’Gan, Ch’gren, Thraak were there to greet her, not having normal posts. Sh’ket was as well, apparently having appointed herself liaison between her staff and the ship. “All is in readiness, Dahar Master, for you to take command. We await absolution!” the engineer clicked.

                “Whatever sins remain, we will purge them. Together we will have victory, Sh’ket,” D’ellian promised, though hurriedly. They hurried to the turbolift. The bridge was far more crowded than in cruising on the eve of battle – the centuries old design has many updates, but the bridge layout had never been updated for flight ops. The Xindi-Insectoids, with their hive lifestyle, didn’t mind, but the lack of personal space certainly hurt the export market.

                Adding four KDF officers weren’t helping the crowding, but D’ellian wanted them close at hand if she needed a quick summary. She doubted it would be for very long, one way or the other.

                “Exterior display view, rear quarter,” she ordered. The glorious megastructure was still there, and she felt a thrill at it. Before it were the arrayed ships – a seeming history of Starfleet from the Four Years War until the 26th century, thanks to the various forms the ‘temporal ships’ could take. A heavy Negh’var and a Varanus support ship backed up one side with their firepower, while a Faeht Republic warbird was lurking with the other wing to provide precision attacks.

                Then there was those at the center of the screen – backed up behind her was the Deihu-class Sparrowhawk, hull lit with the reticulated patterns of an advanced MACO shield grid. As powerful a mass of metal it was, the Yamato-class next to it dominated through sheer size. The Nagato was still showing some hull burns – but fresh patches of equipment shone through wear replacement sensors had been hurriedly fitted. The heavy flares of its engine baffles showed its ‘war emergency’ construction – one of the last ships ordered before it looked like the Alliance homeworlds would fall.

                “Forward view,” she ordered. In front were an odd-matched pair. The Fuso to port was the streamlined hull and cylindrical nacelles of the ancient Gemini-class exploration cruiser, but it was merely a masquerade for the exotic Sagittarius from the future. Captain Revka was apparently from a more peaceful timeline – given the emissions from the ship’s weapons port, she’d thrown herself into this history’s arms race with enthusiasm.

                Captain Foch she knew, in spite of the problems the ship had. The Roland’s field controller had been repaired, but Foch apparently disliked the molecular control that made the temporal ships resemble their long-ago predecessors. The Paladin-class battlecruiser was the saucer plus nacelles design common to Starfleet combat ships, but the exotic curves, especially to selfsame nacelles, were the product of an engineering lineage that did not yet exist.

                “Signal ready,” she said at last, standing at attention at the back of the bridge. K’Gan and Ch’gren radiated eagerness – warriors ready for glory and to show up soft Starfleet.

                Thraak hissed, “Admiral Chekov is signaling from the Nagato, temporal telemetry being sent out – we have our navigation path, forwarding to helm.” Whether Thraak was looking forward to it remained beyond her powers – he stayed with her, so she desperately assumed as such.

                “Tactical view. Engage on signal,” she said. “All hands – prepare for immediate combat.” Such was expected, and she could feel the surge from the hundreds of Xindi-Insectoids on board, aggressive and bloodlust. She soaked in for a moment, barely hearing over general address.

                “All ships – this is Admiral Chekov. Begin operation!” The two temporal ships forward’s impulse engines flared as one – as their deflectors went through the mind-numbingly complex operation of engaging a temporal vortex. After a second, space flared horizontally as a hole in spacetime appeared – far larger than Roland had managed alone – even the Nagato would fit.

                With a soft rumble, the rebuilt engines of the Mchwa went into play as the larger capital ships behind them struggled to life. D’ellian’s thoughts were more on the battle ahead.

*

At the twilight of the Gods; the Battle of Procyon V

                After a brief, eternal, discontinuity of a second – reality reasserted itself. Or reality of a sort. Tactical was a hash, of heat and radiation as the sensor teams struggled to make sense of it all. Thermobaric pressures from another reality, intruded on top of their own future. She felt no pressure or strange anomalies in the hull – Mchwa’s construction was living up to its builder’s expectations. An alert showed their shield capacity starting to spiral down; the physical protection of the shields’ emitters didn’t extend to their manifestation.

                Warp signatures popped onto the screen, with probability percentages that slowly crawled upward – Fuso and Roland were ahead, projected energy readings showing they were starting to compensate for the environment. Behind were Sparrowhawk and Nagato, both staggering but coming back under flight control.

                Ch’gren, serving as engineer ‘talker’ reported. “Impulse capacity at twenty percent; we’re adjusting the drive fields back into alignment…”

                D’ellian frowned as sensors picked more consistent energy signatures out of the hash and flare of dying bursts of radiation from anomalies. Effective range was still measures in hundreds of kellicams. “Identify those in grid four-theta,” she ordered. “Helm, bring us around, bearing forty-three mark twelve.”

                One of the Xindi started clicking but before a translation resolved she could guess. “Do not launch fighters – our pilots are too valuable until our sensors recover sufficiently to ascertain transporter locks,” she ordered.   Her staff was also working – she resisted the urge to have them take over the departments; Thraak had experience, but Xindi systems were somewhat esoteric with their biological components.

                Some very diligent Xindi were working down belowdecks, it seemed – the warp signatures steadied, and the percentages suddenly shot upwards as a match was found for the subspace flare in the battlebook. “Na’kuhl Tadaari frigates,” Thraak repeated.

                “They’re moving to intercept. Lock weapons as able. Full combat speed,” D’ellian ordered, which was still adjusting up for local conditions. If the signatures had steadied; whatever maneuvering the frigates had completed were done.

                Fortunately, the Xindi had way to even the maneuvering issue, and it was a smart enough weapon to not need a lock. “Biomatter projectile – target center ship and fire.” A shudder ran through the deck as the mass drivers kicked it off. A few seconds later the projectile dropped off the screen as it detonated to release its payload. A few seconds after that, the center ship started to slow, warp signature dimming, followed shortly by the other two.

                D’ellian grinned ferally at that. “Full power to forward weapons,” she said. The biomatter was an odd beast – almost intelligent, a strange piece of Xindi engineering, exclusive to the biologicals interwoven in their technology. But it was smart enough to stay cohesive enough to avoid being swept by navigational deflectors, while electrically neutral and slow enough to avoid most combat deflectors. And when it hit something, it fed, literally explosively, and sought out more prey.

                It didn’t live very long, which was probably fortunate, but it clogged thruster vents and impulse drives until it died – which meant, even still limping as their drives adjusted, they had the advantage. D’ellian plunged it to the hilt.

                “All cannons at maximum firing rate –wide angle gimballing, crush them all before they can recover,” D’ellian shouted. The crew’s blood was up, and in the finest tradition, captain and crew fed on the mood – to hone to a perfect destructive blade.

                The tactical view lacked the immediacy D’ellian preferred, but they could reconstruct for a Battle Record later. An experienced mind could fill in the details; deflectors growing visible as the array of heavy Xindi plasma bolts exploded around them. These also had a biomatter component – but the fiery delivery system meant the effect was far short-lived. The Na’kuhl, however, choked on it.

                Caught by surprise, with crews of auxiliaries whose eagerness did not cover their lack of formal training, the Na’kuhl could not compensate, align their shields and minimize the effect. Instead, they grouped together, pulses striking all, searing hull plating, overloading shielding. They could not compensate, but choked, and died.

                The warp signatures dropped from tactical, and out of the heat of battle the available sensor sphere started to slowly expand. Suddenly, a host of alphanumerics at longer range started to populate.

                “Feed from Sparrowhawk is coming in,” K’Gan confirmed. “Reading many ships.”

                Several broke in their direction… recognizable as more Na’kuhl, but other dots broke after them, stabbing into them with antiproton beams – and their warp signatures were only theoretical.    White Widow had come to reality, it seemed. She glanced, feeling smug, at Sparrowhawk’s signature on the tactical display. Powers not under her control indeed.

                Apparently the Romulan had seen them too. “Several ships claiming to be 31st century vessels are moving to escort us,” she reported. “They have current year seals from the Proconsul, the High Council, and Starfleet Command.”

                “It seems perhaps the future is not all so constrained in how the assist us?” D’ellian said with a lilt.

                “More like they need our help,” Admiral seh’Virinat shot back. “Our long range scans are coming in; we’ve found the Enterprise-J, and she’s in trouble.”

*

Author’s notes:

                And the battles finally begin. D’ellian isn’t really a nice person by our standards, or even hers. She’d like to be though, and that’s important – and her objectives aren’t quite the same as Federation Temporal Defense here.

Sorry this part took a while (It'd be nice if someone's reading this, but they are fun to write) Here's a link to the version of the story with any cleanup at a more permanent repository: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12222818/3/At-the-Jaws-of-Fenrir

antonine3258 · February 2017

This thing's really so massive (chapter 4 was almost 20k words) - let me point you via an elegantly crafted link without fighting the forum software.

antonine3258 · March 2017

Sorry - another fifteen page monster, but hey, plugging away. Nearly done and can get back to inflicting myself on ULCs.

antonine3258 · April 2017

Here we go, fiinished this monster

Hope people enjoyed it.

At the Jaws of Fenrir (Story )

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