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

by Christopher L. Bennett

  Lucsly and Dulmur exchanged a look. “Tandar Prime,” Dulmur said.

  “Vard,” Lucsly replied.

  Attempts to contact Professor Vard revealed that he had recently gone on sabbatical at an undisclosed location, and was incommunicado until further notice. “That can’t be coincidence,” Dulmur said.

  Lucsly turned to Virum Kalnota. “Have your people check the whereabouts of every prominent temporal physicist.”

  “Right,” the Zakdorn said, running for the door. He almost ran into T’Viss on her way in. “There’s one, at least,” he muttered.

  Before long, the researchers turned up one more conspicuous absence. “Doctor Naadri was last seen on a transport to Kantare,” Felbog reported. “Fellow passengers recall her presence, but she did not log in at the spaceport on Kantare and has not been seen since.”

  “Kantare,” Agent Yol echoed. “That’s in the Tandaran Sector.”

  “What do you want to bet she’s headed for the same place as the others?” Dulmur said.

  “Some secret gathering of temporal physicists?” Andos asked.

  “Hm,” T’Viss said. “They would invite Naadri and Korath but not me? This must be Vard’s doing. Only he would make such irrational selections.”

  “Vard is Tandaran,” Lucsly said. “Korath is Klingon. Naadri is Paraagan.”

  “The races targeted by the Suliban Cabal,” Dulmur added. “Is this why the Sponsor targeted them all? To prevent this?”

  “Why strike so far back?” Yol asked.

  “And what about Nart and Ronarek?” Felbog asked. “We know the Typhon Pact was targeted by Romulan Augments believed to be working for the Cabal’s Sponsor, but we’re aware of no hostilities against the Imperial Romulan State. And we have no evidence that the Ferengi have ever been targeted by the Cabal.”

  Aleek-Om, the historian, cleared his throat with a chirping noise. “The Ferengi civilization underwent a period of massive upheaval and an extended economic depression . . . beginning in the late twenty-one fifties CE. It impaired their ability to function as a spacegoing power . . . for over a century thereafter. It is conceivable that Cabal agents could have surreptitiously engineered this crisis . . . without the Ferengi ever discovering the true cause.”

  “We have to get to Tandar Prime,” Lucsly said. “Whatever’s going on, we need to find out.”

  Andos nodded. “I’ll instruct the Everett to stand ready for you and Dulmur. Yol, you may be needed as well.”

  The agents didn’t waste time responding; they just nodded and headed out for the transporter suite.

  Along the way, they were met by Clare Raymond. “Dulmur, Lucsly!” she cried, jogging to catch up.

  “Not now, Ms. Raymond,” Lucsly said. “Time is pressing.”

  “Time’s just the issue,” she said, putting herself in their path. “Dina Elfiki contacted me, she said it’s urgent. She said to tell you, ‘It’s happening now.’”

  Lucsly turned to Yol. “Go ahead. Brief Captain Alisov.” The older Trill nodded and ran on while Lucsly and Dulmur followed Clare downstairs to their guest’s quarters.

  Elfiki was waiting just inside the door, her sleek body taut with energy. She had a duffel bag slung over her shoulder. “I need to get to the Rakon system,” she said. “I need to be there within nineteen hours.”

  “That’s when you get flung back?” Dulmur said.

  “I just need to be there.”

  Lucsly frowned. “Lieutenant, if you have any intention of preventing yourself from being displaced in time . . .”

  “Then I would’ve warned myself when I first got back,” she insisted. “I can’t undo what’s happened, but I’ll be damned if you don’t let me pick up right where I left off. I have a better chance of making a difference if I’m able to experience the situation from two points of view—and with the benefit of the four extra months of knowledge I’ve been able to gain.”

  “Ms. Elfiki, your sentiment is appreciated, but we can’t run the risk of anyone seeing you or identifying you until after your younger self has left this timeframe. Once that moment’s occurred, you’ll be free to—”

  “Haven’t you noticed what I’m wearing?!” Elfiki interrupted. Looking down, Lucsly realized her outfit, a nondescript civilian garment, was supplemented by an elaborate belt with controls on its buckle. She worked a switch—and shimmered. Once the shimmer was gone, Dina Elfiki had been replaced by a matronly Bolian woman in the same outfit but a simpler belt. “Portable holographic camouflage,” she said in a subtly altered voice. “Just a surface illusion, but as long as I don’t get too physical with anyone, nobody will know it’s me.”

  Dulmur laughed. “Well, what do you know. The guy was right after all.”

  “What?” Lucsly asked.

  “Nothing. Long story. Where’d you get that thing?”

  She stared at him impatiently. “A holosuite makes a pretty good design and replication facility if you tweak it a bit. You thought I was just going to play games all this time?”

  Lucsly gave Elfiki’s disguise one more once-over. The eyes and mouth were still recognizable as hers, but they were unlikely to meet anyone who knew Elfiki well enough to tell. “Come on,” he said, and he and Dulmur headed out the door. After a second, he paused and looked back at Elfiki. “That means you.”

  “Oh! Right.” The lieutenant seemed almost shocked at being let out of her confinement of sixteen weeks and six days, even though it was at her own insistence. But after a moment, she burst from the room and soon outpaced the agents down the corridor. “Come on, what are we waiting for?”

  Lucsly noticed his partner taking an inordinate interest in the sight of Elfiki running away from them. “Damn,” Dulmur muttered. “That’s one thing she should’ve disguised better. It’s pretty memorable.”

  Lucsly rolled his eyes. “You’re one-point-eight-two times her age.”

  Dulmur smirked. “Chronological or biological?”

  U.S.S. Everett, Entering Rakon Star System

  20:01 UTC

  Even before the Everett reached Tandar Prime, it was evident that something was up. “Some kind of subspace interference is affecting sensors,” announced the disguised Elfiki, sitting in at the bridge science station. Mercifully, Captain Alisov had worked alongside the DTI long enough not to question why a “civilian” was doing a Starfleet officer’s job. “I recommend we proceed with caution into the system.”

  “Acknowledged,” Claudia Alisov said. “Helm, stay above the ecliptic plane for now. Let’s minimize the risk of micrometeorite impacts.” The last was no doubt added for Lucsly and Dulmur’s benefit. “Engage lidar sweeps as backup, increase power to navigational deflectors.” The helmswoman acknowledged. “Communications?” Alisov asked.

  Ensign Preston at ops replied, “Long-range is iffy, but I’m still getting the local nav beacons five by four.” Dulmur knew that one: full volume, not quite full clarity.

  “Science, source of the interference?”

  Elfiki answered the captain, but her gaze was on the agents. “I’m picking up a chroniton signature,” she said. “As yet unable to localize its source.”

  “Agents?” Alisov said. “Should we continue attempts to contact Professor Vard, or do you want to track down the source of that interference?”

  Lucsly and Dulmur exchanged a look with each other and Agent Yol. “The interference,” Dulmur said, passing their wordless consensus on to Alisov. “If it isn’t Vard and the others, it’s probably somebody coming after them.”

  At reduced speed, it took them hours to narrow in on the source of interference. It didn’t seem to be moving, except at normal orbital velocity, which Dulmur chose to take as a good sign; at least it wasn’t a Na’kuhl or Vorgon timeship charging in for the kill. But the frown on Lucsly’s face—a subtly deeper frown than usual—reminded him that there were nastier things it could be.

  Finally, as they closed in on Rakon’s innermost Jovian planet as the likely source of the interference, th
ey received a hail. “It’s from an interplanetary shuttle, forty-three million kilometers off the port bow,” the ops ensign reported.

  “On screen,” said Alisov.

  A young Kantare woman, humanoid with mottling along her temples, appeared on the screen. “Attention Starfleet vessel. Please break off your approach.”

  Dulmur stepped forward, recognizing the woman as one of Vard’s graduate students, a survivor of the bombing incident in September. “I know you. You’re—”

  “Yes, I am,” she said. “But I’d rather not have it stated over an open channel. I know who you’re looking for. But if you keep calling attention to them, all could be lost. Please, just go. And please erase all records of this conversation.”

  “We can’t do that,” Lucsly said. “You and . . . the people you’re with could be in grave danger. We need to speak to them.”

  The Kantare sighed. “He said you’d be stubborn. Very well. Agents Lucsly and Dulmur, you alone may beam over to this shuttle. Matters will be arranged from there.”

  Elfiki rose from her seat, catching Dulmur’s eye urgently. “Us and one other person,” Dulmur said. “A DTI scientist.” He gestured her forward into view.

  “I was told it had to be just the two of you. Why do you need this person?”

  “Hey, you guys get to make arbitrary demands, so do we,” Dulmur told her. “Or would you like us to keep scanning and sending out hails for Professor V—”

  “All right! All right. But only you three.”

  The agents traded a nod, then turned to Yol. The Trill agent shrugged, deferring to the inevitable. Just as well; at least one of them should stay up here to ride herd on the Starfleet types. Alisov had certainly earned their trust, first as XO of the Bozeman, then as captain of its successor vessel once Morgan Bateson had moved on to command the Atlas, but she was still more Starfleet than DTI. “Acknowledged,” Lucsly said. “Stand by to receive us.”

  The screen went dark. As the agents and Elfiki headed for the lift, Alisov rose and asked, predictably, “You sure about this? I’d feel more comfortable if there were a Starfleet presence along.”

  Elfiki fidgeted a bit. “Don’t worry, Captain,” Dulmur said. “You’ll be with us in spirit.”

  Undisclosed Moon of Rakon IV

  Day 20, K’ri’lior, 1148 AS (A Sunday)

  00:18 UTC

  The shuttle didn’t take them directly to their destination. Rather, the Kantare pilot explained that they would be beamed from the shuttle through a series of transporter relays to a secret location. Vard was being downright fanatical about security.

  And it was Vard’s party; the flamboyantly attired Tandaran physicist was there to greet the agents and their guest when they materialized, a scowl upon his heavily lined face. “Lucsly, Dombler, what’s the meaning of this? I specifically requested just the two of you!”

  “You’re in no position to give the DTI orders, Professor,” Lucsly told him. “Organizing a secret gathering of temporal physicists? Attempting to evade the lawful oversight of the Federation Science Council? You have a lot to answer for.”

  “My designs, Agent Lucsly, are purely defensive, I assure you,” Vard insisted. “Come with me. Come, I’ll show you.”

  The trio followed Vard out into the main chamber of the facility, where a number of others were gathered. “Agents Lucsly and Dumble of the DTI, I believe you know Doctor Naadri of the Paraagan Science Council. These are Korath, Son of Mokan—”

  “Monak!” the lanky Klingon boomed.

  “—Doctor Ronarek, late of the Imperial Romulan Institute of Research . . .” The Romulan scientist nodded wordlessly. “. . . And Doctor Nark of the Commercial Science Institute of Ferenginar.”

  “Nart. A pleasure,” the Ferengi said with no trace of duplicity. “Are you going to introduce your charming companion?”

  Dulmur looked over at Elfiki, who’d been trying to stay in the background. “Uhh, this is Metta,” he said, giving the name Elfiki had used aboard the Everett. “She’s one of our scientists.”

  Naadri looked her over skeptically. “One of T’Viss’s protégés, hm? Good—maybe we can free you from her hidebound thinking.”

  “Exactly what is going on here, Vard?” Dulmur demanded.

  “Well you might ask,” Vard replied. “I don’t know if it’s come to your attention, but there have been a number of troubling incursions from the future over the past several months, most notably the assassination attempt against myself.”

  “We’ve noticed,” Lucsly said.

  “Yes, but what have you done about it? What the Department always does—you react. You wait for trouble to strike and then you investigate it. Which basically just means you interview the survivors and make sure there’s a report filed about it somewhere.”

  “Whereas we,” Korath declaimed, “have chosen to take action! To ready ourselves for the enemy before they strike!”

  “It’s only prudent to prepare oneself for danger before it comes,” Ronarek said. “That’s why Professor Vard arranged this gathering—to brainstorm possible defenses against these enemies from the future.”

  “More than that,” Vard added with a chuckle. “Whoever’s behind these attacks is no doubt trying to prevent me—err, us—from achieving some great breakthrough. It is my hope that by gathering the most innovative and unconventional minds in the field of temporal physics, we may stumble upon the very achievement our enemies hope to prevent! Who knows—the very time-travel technology they employ may be invented right here at this conference.”

  Before Dulmur could ask why they’d try to prevent the creation of their own means of time travel, Lucsly spoke. “Our theory is that these attacks are intended to prevent the occurrence of a particular event involving Tandarans, Paraagans, Klingons, and possibly Ferengi and Romulans,” he added pointedly. “All of you are in grave danger just being here.”

  “Nonsense,” Vard said. “Nonsense! You fail to appreciate the Tandaran expertise in temporal security!”

  “The chroniton field?” Dulmur asked. “That’s you, right?”

  “That’s one of mine,” Naadri said, tapping her inhumanly high forehead. “It should be sufficient to disrupt any temporal incursions.”

  Lucsly shook his head. “That won’t stop someone from going back to before the field was erected. Planting a bomb, a trap, anything.”

  “Let them,” Korath said. “I welcome the chance to face my enemies directly.”

  “Even if you face them in tiny pieces?” Dulmur asked.

  Vard laughed. “You worry yourselves unduly, my friends. The future will never find out about this meeting! Even if history should record in general terms that it occurred, they will never be able to find exactly when or where. You see, we Tandarans have been aware for centuries of the need to maintain security against enemies from the future—enemies who can read our histories, unearth our artifacts, study our declassified files.”

  Lucsly frowned. “Centuries? Wait—you knew that the Suliban Cabal had backing from the future?”

  “Of course we did!” Vard crowed. “But you see, we kept that fact out of the history books! We went to great lengths to ensure that the information was not kept in any records, and limited to only a very few trustworthy minds. Oh, there were some early oversights. A couple of our personnel let the knowledge slip to your Jonathan Archer, in their overzealous attempts to ply him for information about the Cabal. But later on, our diplomats met secretly with Archer and Earth officials and persuaded them to redact their records, to conceal the fact of our awareness.”

  “But why?” Dulmur asked.

  “Well, isn’t it obvious? Whoever the Cabal’s backers were—will be—they must have targeted the Tandarans in the past because they are aware of our modern expertise in temporal physics. Their aim must have been to undermine our civilization before we could achieve that level of temporal knowledge.” He grinned. “But if they knew we were aware of the true motives behind the Suliban Cabal’s attacks, the
y would realize the truth: that it was those attacks that inspired our ongoing research into temporal physics in the first place!”

  Dulmur’s eyes widened. “So they don’t realize that by attacking you, they’re causing the very thing they were trying to prevent!”

  “Exactly! The strategic logic of the time loop. If they knew their attempts to prevent our temporal research had backfired, they would go back and prevent their own agents from attacking us in the past, thereby leaving us vulnerable in the future. So our best defense is to make it a self-fulfilling, or rather self-negating, prophecy. Secretly turn the foe’s actions to your advantage, so that they cause your desired history in the very effort to nullify it!”

  Lucsly was skeptical. “You’re making an awfully big assumption. What if the Cabal wasn’t attacking Tandar to prevent your future temporal research?”

  “Oh, it’s no assumption, Lucsly. We were given guidance by a temporal agent from the distant future. He informed us, err, elliptically, of our great destiny in the field of temporal physics.” Vard spread his arms to take in their surroundings. “A destiny which we, today, may well be about to fulfill!”

  “You’re taking too great a risk, Professor!” Dulmur cried. “We were able to track Naadri’s chroniton field. It’s causing systemwide subspace interference.”

  “By its very nature,” Naadri said, “the field is impossible to localize to its source.”

  Dulmur saw “Metta” start to say something, then fall silent. While Lucsly went on debating with Vard, Dulmur moved over to the holographically disguised Elfiki and asked, “What is it? You know something.”

  “You’ll find out soon enough,” she said.

  “If it’s important—”

  “Just wait for it,” she said. “And be ready.”