Star Trek: Department of Temporal Investigations - 01 - Watching the Clock

by Christopher L. Bennett

  Janeway’s self-righteousness disgusted Lucsly. The woman’s contempt for the timeline was monumental. The logs Voyager had sent home from the Delta Quadrant over the years, as it had gradually found ways to restore contact with the Federation, were a litany of temporal violations that staggered the imagination. Next to Voyager, the crews of Enterprise and Deep Space 9 seemed downright responsible. Picard’s crew had been relatively free of temporal citations since the Cochrane incident, aside from that time a former protégé of Picard’s had used his powers as a fledgling member of the advanced Traveler race to try to wipe the Maquis rebels from history for what he thought was the greater good (an incident that only Lucsly remembered once he’d argued the foolish young godling into restoring the correct timeline). And Sisko’s people had actually proven themselves remarkably conscientious toward the timestream in incidents like the causal loop at Gaia on Stardate 50814 and the crisis involving the Red Orbs of Jalbador on Stardate 51889—though there had been the noted exception of Major Kira Nerys’s unconscionably reckless use of the Bajoran Orb of Time to investigate a personal matter on Stardate 51814. Lucsly had sought to prosecute the major, but the Bajoran government had declared it a protected religious observance, and Sisko had refused to penalize his first officer, nominally on Prime Directive grounds.

  But Janeway’s crew must hold some sort of record for temporal disruption. They’d been in the Delta Quadrant less than a week before experiencing their first temporal paradox within the event horizon of a type-4 quantum singularity, and it had only escalated from there. Perhaps it was only to be expected that the end of Voyager’s tenure in the Delta Quadrant would be heralded by the most egregious temporal crime ever committed by a Starfleet officer.

  “Very noble, Captain,” Dulmur was saying, drawing Lucsly’s thoughts back to the present. “But it would ring more true if you hadn’t also used that opportunity to do what your future self wanted in the first place and bring Voyager home ahead of schedule.”

  Janeway gave a careless shrug. “If we were already creating a new history anyway, why not take full advantage of the possibilities? And after all my crew has endured over the past seven years . . . all the good they’ve done for the galaxy whether anyone recognized it or not . . . they deserved something in return for their sacrifices. They’ve been through more than should be asked of any crew.”

  “So instead you sacrifice the rest of history to serve the comfort of a few dozen people,” Lucsly ground out. “You’ve spent so many years in isolation that you’ve forgotten there’s a bigger universe out there.”

  “Are you even listening to me, Mister Lucsly?”

  “Captain,” Dulmur said, “it’s not the first time you’ve taken advantage of intelligence from the future to alter the destiny of your crew. On Stardate 48618, you halted an attack by a future version of your Ocampa crewperson Kes and then used the information you gained to prevent its repetition.”

  “How is it wrong to prevent someone from going back in time?”

  “On Stardate 50312, you allowed your Emergency Medical Hologram to keep a mobile holo-emitter based on twenty-ninth-century technology, rather than confiscating and destroying that technology.”

  “The Doctor needed that mobility to be able to do his job at peak efficiency. I couldn’t risk having my ship’s only medical officer trapped in sickbay indefinitely.”

  “And didn’t you think about the consequences to Federation technological progress once you got back?”

  “Frequently. But I studied the device. Whatever century it came from, its operating principles weren’t too far ahead of the current state of the art. I expected that by the time we got home, probably decades in the future, the technology would already have caught up.”

  “So now that you’re home after only seven years,” Lucsly interposed, “do you intend to confiscate the technology?”

  Janeway shook her head. “The Doctor has earned his right to mobility many times over, and I consider him a personal friend. If Starfleet or the DTI wants to shackle him again, that’s on their heads, but I won’t be a part of it.”

  “Let’s move on,” Lucsly said. “Stardate 50834. Another temporal incident involving Kes. A future accident involving a biotemporal chamber causes her consciousness to regress through her life, with the process finally halted on that date. Kes provides you with information about the future events she witnessed, and you permit her to do so.”

  “There was little she could tell us,” Janeway said. “Her experience of the future was fragmentary, and every time she leapt back, it seemed she altered it anyway. By the time she reached our present, her original timeline was probably already lost.”

  “So suddenly you can base your ethical decisions on abstract possible futures.”

  Janeway spoke coldly. “I based my decisions on the best information available to me in the present, regardless of its provenance. As far as I’m concerned, the future isn’t predetermined. It’s a consequence of our choices, our free will.”

  “And you made the deliberate choice to act on Kes’s future intelligence. When you encountered the Krenim on Stardate 51252, you chose to avoid their territory rather than seeking passage.”

  “And thus spared my crew from what Kes described as a year of hell, yes,” Janeway said. “But the timeline had already begun to unfold differently on its own, for reasons having nothing to do with what Kes told me. In her timeline, Seven of Nine had not joined our crew, and obviously Kes had never evolved to a higher level and left us. And from what she described, the Krenim attacked without warning, without mercy. In our encounter, they contacted us first and gave us the option to withdraw.” Janeway shook her head. “Maybe allowing events to unfold a second time caused random variations to occur. But that was out of my hands.”

  “Just like the quantum slipstream incident of Stardate 54125?” Dulmur asked. “You seem to make a habit of getting saved by future versions of your crewmates.”

  “What am I supposed to do? Ignore them? Let my crew die when I have the means to save them?”

  Lucsly said nothing aloud, but privately he thought, It would’ve made things a lot easier for all of us if you had.

  DTI Branch Office, San Francisco

  Virgo 21, mY 408 (A Thursday)

  19:56 UTC

  “We’ve got her,” Lucsly told Assistant Director Gelim Kreinns as he stepped down off the transporter pad, Dulmur by his side. “Janeway is unrepentant, and the evidence against her is overwhelming. I’m going to put her away for so long that she’ll wish she’d spent those thirty-three years in the Delta Quadrant like nature intended.”

  “And that’s only if we don’t get clearance to go back and fix it ourselves,” Dulmur added as the three of them left the transporter suite and headed down the corridor toward the AD’s office. Lucsly had been reluctant to bring that possibility up. It was an extreme measure, an option of last resort. And it was usually the province of uptime agencies like the TIC or FTA anyway. But if they hadn’t already corrected the timeline, Lucsly thought, maybe it was because they couldn’t. Maybe the altered history they now occupied led to a future so drastically changed that the Federation never developed time travel. In which case the only resort might be to dig into the Vault and find some artifact that would let them do the job themselves.

  And if, for whatever reason, they were stuck with living out their lives in this violated timeline, at least Lucsly would see to it that Janeway paid for her obscene crime against reality. It was the least he could do.

  Kreinns shook his balding head, his pronounced jowls jiggling. “You know Starfleet refuses to prosecute,” the stout Zakdorn said.

  “I know,” Lucsly replied.

  “You know the government’s going to resist.”

  “I know.”

  “We’re still hurting from the Dominion War, even after two years. They’ll say the people need something they can celebrate.”

  “I know.”

  “And the woman may have ende
d the Borg threat for the foreseeable future, Lucsly! Nobody’s going to want to prosecute her after that!”

  “I know!” Lucsly moved his taller frame in front of

  Kreinns, halting him. “I know all the excuses, Director! But if we don’t uphold the laws of the Federation, we damn the Federation. And if we don’t fight to preserve the correct, natural flow of time, then all that’s left is chaos. I’m nailing Janeway’s ass to the wall and I don’t care if I have to go through you, Andos, and President Zife himself to do it!”

  Dulmur tapped his knuckles against Lucsly’s arm, looking over his shoulder. “Uhh, partner . . .”

  Lucsly turned to see Director Andos standing in the door of the AD’s office that had formerly been hers. “Agent Lucsly. Agent Dulmur. Would you join me, please?” she asked. Her manner was reserved, contained, but overpowering in its authority. Kreinns nodded at her and moved away, and Lucsly and Dulmur silently filed into the office.

  Only it wasn’t the office. Lucsly whirled around, recognizing the cavernous space surrounding him from his multiple visits here, most recently to secure the last of the ancient time portals excavated on the Bajoran colony world Golana over the past three years. He, Dulmur, and Andos were in the Eridian Vault.

  Lucsly knew of only one technology that could produce such a seamless transition. “Noi!” he called. “What’s this about?”

  “Calm down, Lucsly.” Jena Noi’s dulcet tones echoed through the Vault more softly than his own. He turned to face her, and saw she was not alone. She was accompanied by a lanky Starfleet officer in a twenty-ninth-century uniform and a Cardassian male in bland, neatly tailored civilian attire.

  Andos stepped between them. “Agents Lucsly and Dulmur,” she said, “you know Agent Jena Noi of the Federation Temporal Agency. This is Commander Juel Ducane of the Starfleet Temporal Integrity Commission, and Rodal Eight, Aegis Supervisor 341.”

  “And this is Meneth,” Rodal added, stroking the dark green–furred Simperian civet draped comfortably over his shoulders.

  Dulmur frowned. “What happened to Cyral Nine?”

  “My predecessor’s career choices are not relevant here,” Rodal said. “We are here to discuss the matter of Captain Kathryn Janeway.”

  Lucsly brightened, filled with relief. “Finally. I was wondering what was taking you so long to step in and fix things. What do you need us to do?”

  “Nothing,” Ducane said. “Do absolutely nothing.”

  “What?” He was taken aback. “You go to all this trouble, the three of you together, just to give us the standard line about letting you handle it?”

  “There is nothing to be handled, Agent Lucsly,” the Aegis supervisor said. “For any of us.”

  Lucsly was stunned, speechless. After a moment, Dulmur filled the gap. “Are you serious? A timeline disruption of this magnitude and you want to leave it the way it is?”

  “That’s exactly what we want,” Ducane replied. “Do nothing to restore the timeline to its original state. Do nothing to punish Kathryn Janeway or her crew for their actions.”

  “What?” Lucsly gaped. “What’s going on here? You’re the people who tried to destroy Voyager when you thought it would destroy the Earth!”

  “An act of desperation,” Ducane told him, his manner apologetic, approachable. “And one that many of us fought against. Captain Braxton was always prone to extreme measures.”

  “You wanted Voyager left alone,” Dulmur realized. “All this time? That’s why you didn’t confiscate the mobile emitter, didn’t fix the disruptions caused by the Ocampa girl? Why? What possible reason could you have for letting such a menace to the timeline have free rein?”

  “It’s necessary,” Jena Noi said. “Just accept that the way things are now is the way they need to be.”

  Meneth growled. “Agent Noi,” Rodal said sternly.

  “Jena,” Ducane cautioned.

  Lucsly looked back and forth among them, realizing what she was implying. “We’re in your timeline now. The one that leads to all of you.” Noi lowered her gaze, confirming it. “You’re doing this to protect your own existence! It’s not about the integrity of the timestream to you, it’s just about covering your own asses!”

  Noi took a step forward, looking up at him pleadingly. “It’s so much bigger than that, Gariff.”

  “Jena, don’t say any more.”

  “I know, Ducane!” She sighed and turned her gaze back to Lucsly. “Believe me, you’ll understand in time. Just be patient. Let things unfold the way they must.”

  She reached for him, but he pulled back in disgust. For all their clashes over jurisdiction and methods, Lucsly had respected Jena Noi for the work she did, the important role she played in keeping the natural flow of time safe from artificial disruption. What she was asking of him now betrayed everything he stood for, everything he’d thought she stood for. “Janeway has to be punished,” he told her. “Even if, for some sick reason, we have to leave this corruption of history uncorrected, we need to send a message to others. You let her get away with this and you set a precedent that could tear reality apart.”

  “It’s not as bad as you think, Gariff. Really. And as for Janeway . . . in the long run, it won’t make much difference. For now, though, she has her role to play.”

  “You’ve said enough, Agent Noi,” Ducane said, growing more stern.

  “I don’t answer to you!” she snapped. But she subsided and stepped back nonetheless.

  Looking satisfied, Ducane went on. “Bottom line, Agents, we don’t have to explain anything to you. We tell you to do nothing, and you do nothing. That’s all there is to it. Defy our orders, and there are consequences you don’t want to become aware of.” The face that had seemed so boyish and amiable at first was now revealing a very nasty streak underneath.

  Lucsly stared at the uptime agents, seething. Then he turned to Andos. “And you’re going along with this?”

  “They are all absolutely certain that this is necessary, Agent Lucsly,” the Rhaandarite said. “And I have no authority to defy them, or to permit you to do so. I’m sorry, Gariff, but this investigation is hereby closed.”

  Lucsly held her eyes for a long moment, refusing to look at the uptime agents or even at his own partner. “Fine,” he finally said, drawing his temporal tricorder and his secure padd from his pockets and tossing them at Andos’s feet. “If this department doesn’t protect the timeline anymore, then I have no place here. I resign, effective immediately.”

  Dulmur gaped, taking Lucsly’s arm. “Whoa, hold on, man! Think about this first!”

  Lucsly shook off his grip. “It’s done.” He held Dulmur’s eyes for a moment, offering a silent apology, but he was too furious to risk staying around him right now, for fear of what he might say to destroy his only real friendship.

  Instead he turned his back on all of them and stepped away. “Now somebody get me out of here. I’m no longer authorized to be in the Vault.”

  He kept walking down the dark, cold corridor until he found himself in the hallway of his own apartment building. Noi, he thought. He reached for the contact on his apartment door and let it slide open.

  Inside, he beheld his haven of order—everything perfectly in its place, nothing in excess of requirements save his precious clocks, antique timepieces from across the galaxy, replicas built or originals restored by his own hands. His shrine to the regular, linear perfection of time.

  It was all a lie now. Meaningless.

  He turned and ran from his apartment, hearing the door close behind him. If he’d stayed another moment, he would’ve smashed it all apart.

  Robinson Township

  Tharsis, Mars

  Kanya 6, mY 408 (A Thursday)

  16:12 UTC

  Dulmur finally found Lucsly in one of the seediest dives on Mars, a bar in one of the old underground lava tube settlements on the flank of Arsia Mons. He almost didn’t recognize his partner (he refused to prefix an “ex-”), for Lucsly was actually scruffy and unsh
aven, a condition Dulmur had never seen him in nor even imagined him capable of.

  After maneuvering around a Draylaxian pleasure provider who insisted on displaying her triplicate wares to him, he took a seat on the barstool beside Lucsly. The older man (Dulmur had never noticed until now how gray his hair was becoming) didn’t look up from his drink, but said, “Took you long enough to find me. Thirteen days, twe-twenty hours . . . umm . . . nine minutes.”

  “Ten minutes, pal,” Dulmur said gently. “Maybe you’ve had too much to drink.”

  “It took you a minute to cross the room.”

  Dulmur laughed, reassured. Lucsly was still Lucsly, even drunk. Dulmur ordered a shot of bourbon just to be sociable, but he barely sipped it. “Look at you, partner. This isn’t you.”

  “Why should it be? My reality’s gone. I don’t exist anymore.” He shook his head. “A lifetime spent fighting to protect the original timeline . . . fighting cold warriors and Starfleet idiots and bureaucrats who didn’t know a parallel history from a hole in their head . . . heads . . . and for what? For nothing, that’s what!”

  “Lucsly . . .”

  “The whole time!” he cried, whirling to face Dulmur, giving him a snootful of foul breath. “They knew the whole time. Noi and Ducane and the rest . . . they were laughing at us.”

  “They weren’t laughing at us,” Dulmur said when he was done coughing.

  “They told us they were with us. Fighting to keep history pure. And all along, they were working to make sure it got cor . . . twi . . . bent off course right when they needed it. They tricked us!”

  Dulmur spoke carefully. “You know . . . it’s not like our timeline was ever completely pure to begin with. We knew Agent Daniels’s original history didn’t include the destruction of Paraagan II or the Xindi attack. We knew the role Quark’s Treasure played in advancing Earth’s spaceflight technology. We knew Ambassador Spock would never have grown up if he hadn’t gone back through the Guardian and saved himself as a child. It’s never been a completely pure history.”