by Judith
allowed to return to their present, only two end results are possible. One, Vash
changes the past, and we will no longer exist as we are, and the billions of
beings born in the past twenty-five years will likely never exist at all. Two,
Vash changes the past, and in so doing she creates a new timeline while we
remain in ours—exactly as it is, unchanged."
Nog shook his head. "Think of the billions who have died in the past twenty-five
years," he said. "Think of Earth. Of Cardassia Prime."
T'len eyed Nog with what Nog felt could only be disappointment. "Captain Nog, in
each generation are born a mere handful of great beings. Your Admiral Pi-card is
surely one of them. Perhaps one other starship captain in all of Starfleet's
history has matched his accomplishments. But if only one example of his
brilliance is required, then we need look no further than Project Phoenix. To
change history without changing our timeline is a concept as revolutionary as
Hawking's normalization of the Heisenberg exceptions."
Suddenly, T'len's attitude, however subtly, seemed to Nog to soften. "Even as a
Vulcan," she said, "I do understand what you are about to experience will be
fraught with emotion. You are about to open a door to your own past But do not
allow yourself to be trapped by it. Jean-Luc Picard has given us a true phoenix.
Trust in him, Captain. As a Starfleet officer, you can do no less."
'Trust me, Captain," Nog said emphatically. "I have no intention of doing
anything else."
Nog's eyes deliberately met and held the Vulcan's as steadily as if he were
negotiating difficult delivery dates with a recalcitrant supplier. And he was
certain that Captain T'len in no way detected the lie he had just brazenly
uttered.
It's good to be a Ferengi, Nog thought proudly, and not for the first time in
his long Starfleet career. His people's four-lobed brains were resistant to
most forms of telepathy, and negotiation skills continued to be taught to
Ferengi youngsters at an age when most other humanoid babies were only learning
to say their first words.
T'len nodded once as she led the way to the turbolift, and they rode the rest of
the way to the conference room in silence. It was the Vulcan way. And Nog was
glad of it
In the command conference room of Starbase 53, Jake Sisko knew he was the most
nervous of all the temporal refugees from the Defiant. Which wasn't to say mat
tension wasn't high for all the other survivors— officers and civilians, humans
and Bajorans alike.
At first, this trip into the future had been just an adventure. High-risk and
demanding, but when hadn't space exploration been that way?
But that had all changed only hours after he and the other survivors on the
Augustus were shown the suspicious briefing tape. Right after viewing that
tape, he and the others had been called to another briefing, this time at the
request of Worf and Jadzia. The revelations in that second gathering had
concerned the past twenty-five years' worth of history in this timeline that
they had missed. Suddenly, all that had been left unsaid in the first briefing
came into focus for Jake.
In the bluntest of terms, what the people of this time faced was nothing less
than the impending end of the universe.
Until the moment Jadzia and Worf and Captain T'len had related this incredible
news, almost every pair of captives on board the Augustus had already been
engaged in planning an escape or an attempt to seize control of the
surprisingly deficient ship. Because Worf and Jadzia had been first to take
action, they had been the first to learn the truth.
Now no one was planning to escape. Except maybe Vash.
What appeared to be holding the others together at this moment, in Jake's view,
was the shared opinion that if the end of the universe were approaching, it was
because of what had been done and not done by all present during the last days
of Deep Space 9. Although no one was talking about this upsetting conclusion,
Jake felt certain that everyone believed in its truth.
Which meant in a way, he realized, that the fifteen temporal refugees from his
time were now feeling responsible for everything that had happened in this time
during the past twenty-five years, and which was now leading to disaster. How
could they not stay here, in this time, to do everything they could to try and
reverse what they had set in motion?
"So, you know this big shot?" Vash suddenly asked him.
Jake knew his uncertain smile betrayed his nervousness. He had always known
that Nog would do well in Starfleet, and he was gratified to learn that his
childhood Ferengi Mend was a captain now. But he was having some difficulty
thinking of Nog as a "big shot." And it was odder still to think that in just a
few moments the doors were going to open and his old friend was going to step
through them. Twenty-jive years older.
"He's—he was—my best friend," Jake told Vash.
"Really." Vash ran her hands along her newly supplied gray-and-black uniform.
The gesture was clearly meant to be provocative.
"Nice uniforms, hmm?" she said with a smile, as his eyes involuntarily followed
the seductive movement of her hands.
Jake snapped his eyes back to Vash's face with an effort. All fifteen refugees
had been given Starfleet uniforms of the day to wear. The Starfleet officers
among them had received their equivalent rank and specialty markings. The
Bajorans and civilians had been given a variant of the uniform that reminded
Jake of what cadets used to wear. Instead of being mostly black, the main
uniform was a ribbed gray fabric, leaving only the shoulder section black. The
supply officer had explained that the uniform identified them as civilian
specialists within the Fleet, subject to Fleet regulations.
Jake had been surprised that the uniforms were issued from a storeroom and not
a replicator station, and even more surprised that nothing fit as well as it
should—though he supposed that was to be expected
when clothes weren't replicated with the benefit of a somatic topography scan.
But whoever had given Vash her specialist uniform must have expended some extra
effort in determining her size, because to Jake it fit her to perfection. And
she obviously knew it.
"Sorry," Jake stammered, having no idea what to say next "I... yeah, Nog's my
best friend." What an idiot lam, bethought.
"How old are you?" Vash asked with a frank grin.
"I'll be twenty next month."
"Nineteen... what do you think your father would say if we..." Vash let her
voice trail off suggestively.
Is there even a chance? Jake thought in amazement. He, like everyone else who
knew them, had assumed that Vash and Dr. Bashir were ... He abruptly stopped
that line of thought and shifted direction. "Um, I... uh, dated a dabo girl
once. A couple of years back. That was okay with my dad... he even made us
dinner."
Vash studied him as if she were really listening to him. "A dabo girl. How
educational for you."
Jake nodded, watching her carefully for any s
igns mat she was making fun of him.
It actually had been, but not in the way Vash meant. Or did she—
"And after dinner," Vash continued, "was your date arrested, or did she just
leave the station?"
Jake frowned. "Uh, Mardah left, yeah. She was accepted at the Regulus Science
Academy."
"Let me guess. Yam father wrote her a great letter of recommendation."
Jake sighed. "Look, I didn't mean to—"
"It's okay, Jake. We'll be friends. We'll go to... din-
ner a couple of years from now. We won't invite your father."
Jake nodded, half-disappointed, half-relieved, then suddenly added, "A couple of
years from now.... So you think we're going to make it through this?"
Vash pointed to someone standing behind Jake. "Don't ask me. Ask him."
Jake turned to see whom Vash meant. A Ferengi standing in an open doorway beside
Captain T'len. A Ferengi who looked like Nog, but wasn't
This man was about five kilos heavier, with even larger earlobes, and his face
seemed drawn, the brown skin weathered and wrinkled around the careworn, sunken
eyes and—
"Jake," Nog said in the voice Jake remembered from only four days ago on DS9,
"it is me."
Jake suddenly felt even more uncomfortable than when Vash had teased him into
staring at her. He just knew that a look of shock had swept over his face, with
his realization that this grizzled veteran was his friend, and that his friend
was now so... so old. In the waves of emotions that broke over him, the
strongest was one of sorrow. For all the time passed and not shared.
"Nog...." Jake couldn't say anything else. His throat was suddenly swollen shut.
But Nog shook his head as if in understanding, and stepped forward and hugged
him strongly, slapping his back, then looked up at him, beaming. "Just as I
remember you. Not a day older. Not a day..."
Jake saw Nog's old-young eyes begin to glisten as if filling with tears. But
then his friend looked away, bared his artfully twisted fangs and called out,
"Dr. Bashir! Commander Dax!"
Jake broke away from Nog as his friend greeted all the others, the Ferengi's
salutations ending with an awkward pause as he came face-to-face with Worf.
"Commander," Nog said formally, "Starfleet has missed you. And so have I."
"You are a captain," Worf replied gravely. "You do honor to your family and to
your father."
And then Starfleet formality between Klingon and Ferengi broke down as Nog
spread his arms again and Worf embraced the diminutive officer in a bearhug that
Jake knew could fell a sehlat.
Finally Worf released his grip, and Nog dropped a few centimeters to the floor,
then tugged down on his jacket and turned to face everyone. He cleared his
throat noisily. "My friends ... oh, my friends ... I almost don't know where to
begin."
But Jadzia did. "Captain T'len," the Trill officer said, "has been very
efficient in bringing us up to date. We understand the danger threatening...
everything. And we know that you're here to make a proposal to us about how we
can help Starfleet destroy Bajor."
Jake grimaced. Intellectually, he knew he was in a different time, with a much
different Starfleet. But emotionally, he was still having a very hard time
understanding how anyone from Starfleet could say something like that. His
thoughts flew back to when he was a small child in San Francisco and his mother
and his father had first explained the Prime Directive to him. He remembered his
favorite interactive holobooks, in which Plotter and Trevis had helped children
discover the need for the Prime Directive in the Forest of Forever. But in this
future—Nog's future—it was as if the Prime Directive had never been issued.
"Still," Jake heard Nog say to Jadzia, "I can imagine how strange, even
upsetting all of this must seem to you."
"We are Starfleet officers," Worf said simply. "What is your proposal?"
Nog immediately turned to Captain T'len, and now she stepped all the way into
the conference room so that the doors to the corridor slid shut Then she entered
a code into the wall panel, and Jake saw a security condition status light on
the panel begin to glow. He had once thought that DS9 had become overly
militarized during the course of the Dominion War. But what had happened to the
station in no way compared with the battle conditions under which the Augustus
and Starbase 53 operated.
Nog wasted no time in beginning. "The art of making fancy speeches has declined
in the past few years," he said crisply, "so I will state my proposition
plainly. You do not belong in this time. Starfleet will not attempt to send you
back to your own time. However, given your situation, Starfleet is willing to
allow whoever among you wishes to volunteer, a chance to make another journey
in time."
"That's not possible," Jake blurted out. He looked at Jadzia. "Didn't you say we
couldn't establish a second Feynman curve from this time?"
Jadzia nodded to him, but then turned back to look at Nog. It was obvious to
Jake that she was interested hi what more Nog would say to them.
The Ferengi smiled at him. "Jake, I... don't remember you as a scientist," he
said.
"Jake and I have had discussions recently," Jadzia said quickly, before Jake
could respond, "about the possibilities of going back."
"I see," Nog said. He paused, a thoughtful expression
on his face. "Then—hi terms of your using a different time-travel technique to
return to your own time—yes, that's right. You could not slingshot around a
suitable star and expect to survive a transition back to your starting point in
2375."
"So," Jadzia said, "you're obviously proposing a transition to a different
time."
"Correct," Nog agreed.
"But doesn't that entail the same risk to us?" Jadzia asked.
Nog shot a sidelong look at Captain T'len, and Jake could see that twenty-five
years older or not, his "old" friend was nervous about what he was going to say
next. "Not if the temporal length of your second Feynman curve is sufficiently
greater than your initial starting point."
Jake didn't have the slightest idea what that meant. He looked to Jadzia for
some explanation. She was nodding her head as if she understood, even if the
frown on her face indicated to Jake that she did not agree with Nog's reasoning.
"For what you're suggesting, Nog—Captain—the temporal length of our second
transition would have to be longer than our first by a factor of..." Jadzia
looked up at the conference room's ceiling, as if performing a complex
calculation in her head.
"A factor of three," Dr. Bashir unexpectedly said.
Jake felt his stomach tighten. That couldn't be right •Twenty-five thousand
years?" He stared at Nog in disbelief.
But his best friend merely shrugged. "That's exactly right"
Now all the temporal refugees around Jake were ex-
changing looks of unease. Murmurs of protest began to fill the Starbase 53
conference room.
"It's called Project Phoenix," Nog said, waving aside their concerns. "Created
by Admiral Jean-Luc Pi-card."
The name alone brought silence to the group.
"Jean-Luc?" Vash asked. "Is he still... ?"
"Yes," Nog confirmed. "He's frail. In poor health. But... he has given us hope
that the Ascendancy can be stopped before ... before it's too late."
"Even assuming you have the technology to send us back twenty-five thousand
years—" Jadzia began.
"And we do," Nog said, but Jadzia kept talking.
"—any change we make in the timeline to prevent the Ascendancy from arising will
either erase this current reality, or create a parallel one, leaving this one
unchanged and still facing destruction."
"Ah, but that's where you're wrong," Nog said triumphantly. "There is a third
solution. Admiral Picard's solution. A way to go back into the past and make a
change that will not take effect until after the ship has departed, thus
preserving our timeline."
Dr. Bashir suddenly laughed. The unexpected sound was almost shocking to Jake,
as was the observation he so clearly stated next. "A time bomb. You want us to
place a literal time bomb."
And Nog confirmed it.
"Basically, that is correct," the Ferengi said. "In the past five years,
Starfleet has expended enormous effort on the two critical components of the
admiral's plan. The first is the U.S.S. Phoenix—the largest Starfleet vessel
ever built in your time or ours. The second is the deep-time charges, made of a
brand-new ultrastable
trilithium resin together with advanced timekeeping mechanisms of incredible
accuracy."
"So we use the Phoenix to go back twenty-five millennia," Bashir said, "plant
the deep-time charges on Bajor, and some time after we leave for the past, the
charges detonate. Presumably destroying the Ascendancy."
Like everyone in the room, Jake watched and listened as his best friend outlined
the unbelievable mission.
"—And also destroying Kai Weyoun, the Red Orbs of Jalbador, and the center of
Ascendancy rule," Nog said.
In the utter silence that followed Nog's list of targets, one of the Bajoran
civilians gasped, and the following instant Jake understood why. "B'hala...,"
the civilian said. B'hala was the most sacred city on Bajor. It had vanished
from Bajoran knowledge twenty thousand years ago, until Jake's father discovered
it buried deep beneath the Ir'Abehr Shield.
"Again, correct," Nog said. "Admiral Picard's first love is archaeology, and he