Star Trek: DTI: Forgotten History

by Christopher L. Bennett

  “You broke Federation law,” the Vulcan replied. “You stole technology from the Vedala, potentially jeopardizing our tenuous relations with the oldest active spacefaring race in the known galaxy.”

  “No,” Lucsly breathed.

  “I had a higher responsibility, Commander. Someday, someone will master time travel. Maybe us, maybe our enemies. Maybe some other civilization we’ve never even met yet that could go back and wipe us out of existence without ever knowing we were here. Look at what happened with V’Ger. According to your own reports, Commander, the Voyager 6 probe somehow survived a slingshot around the Black Star—traveled a vast distance through time and space, giving it plenty of time to evolve into the form that almost destroyed the Earth. We thought nothing but the old Enterprise engines could survive a slingshot, certainly nothing without warp drive. But that primitive space probe did, somehow. It means the possibilities are broader than we thought, and our understanding is less than we thought. That made it necessary to learn more. To keep experimenting.”

  “Jan, don’t take this on yourself.” It was Delgado’s voice now. “I pushed for this. I talked you into it.” Yes, that made sense. Delgado had been a master manipulator, Lucsly knew.

  “Don’t sell me short, Antonio. Or yourself. I chose to do this. I realized, Mister Spock, that our best defense against time travel was to create a safer alternative. A way to explore time without jeopardizing one’s own history. If we could perfect that, make it available, it might protect the timeline from future threats.”

  “A noble sentiment,” Spock said. Lucsly grabbed at that. Yes. Noble. She was trying to protect the timeline, as she always did. Yet it slipped away, a lifeline with no solidity. “But you nonetheless felt compelled to rush into the experiment. To launch the timeship without a complete theoretical understanding of how the confluence drive would interface with the slingshot phenomenon. Was it perhaps because you hoped to achieve results before the Vedala discovered your crime?”

  Lucsly felt his fists clenching. He wanted to strike out at the Vulcan for speaking to Grey in such tones. He wanted to strike out at Grey for betraying his faith in her. But there was nothing he could do but listen helplessly as everything he’d believed in was torn down around him.

  “I took a calculated risk,” Grey went on. “I did it to protect the timeline.”

  “And yet, Director, it has had the opposite effect. If we wish to preserve the timeline now, you must hold nothing more back. Any information you have about the origins, acquisition, and handling of the confluence drive may be critical to diagnosing its malfunction.”

  “All right,” Grey said after a long pause and a sigh. “I’ll share all the information I have.”

  Lucsly couldn’t listen anymore. He shut off the comm channel and strode through the door at the aft end of the catwalk, not caring if Kirk and the others below heard it open. What did it matter now? The history he knew was a lie.

  The roar of the massive power conduits that fed into the warp nacelles muffled Lucsly’s shouts, the blows of his fists against the wall. He didn’t even register how much time passed before he noticed Dulmur standing nearby as he sat slumped against the catwalk rail. He always kept track of time. But that had been when time, history, and the Department had made sense to him.

  “Are we all just a lie?” he finally asked. “Is everything we fight for just a self-serving facade?”

  “Get ahold of yourself, partner,” Dulmur barked. “Come on, get up.” The younger man took his wrist and pulled him to his feet. Normally Lucsly would have let go right away, but now, suddenly, he needed to hold on. Through their visors, Dulmur held his eyes, startled.

  An awkward moment or two later, they both let go. “Look,” Dulmur said after several seconds more (how many?). “You know as well as I do that history gets rewritten. People take messy, ambiguous history and clean it up. They idealize some people, demonize other people . . . they make it into a myth to suit their own needs, whatever the facts may have been. They focus on the parts of the truth that matter and ignore the rest.”

  “So Director Grey, the one who made us what we are . . . she was a myth?”

  “She was a person, Lucsly. A human being no better than anyone else. And that means she screwed up. That’s what human beings do—even DTI agents. We’re the ones who made her into a myth. But there had to be a reason for that. Whatever screwups history hid from us, we chose to remember the part where Meijan Grey founded the DTI and defined our mission to protect the timeline. That’s our reality, Lucsly: the job we do. The job we have to do. And if the myth of Meijan Grey gives us the strength and the focus to keep doing this impossible, thankless job without losing our minds . . . well, maybe that’s her redemption for that one big mistake.” Dulmur took a breath, then another. “And maybe by getting back out there and doing our job, we’re helping her redeem herself a little more.”

  Lucsly absorbed his words silently for a moment. “Okay, partner?” Dulmur asked, his patience thin.

  Gariff Lucsly set his jaw. “Whatever happened in the past . . . we have a present to protect. Let’s get back to work.”

  XV

  Timeship Two

  Confluence 2275/2383

  Kirk was startled when Spock relayed the gist of his discussion with Meijan Grey. He’d always found the DTI director to be a reasonable, responsible woman, and smart enough to see through Delgado’s manipulations. What could have motivated her to support a project like this?

  But that would have to wait. What mattered was what they could do now. According to the classified DTI records Director Grey provided, the confluence drive had been salvaged from near the site of the impact event that had triggered their dimension-jumping malfunction. Scans of its activity in situ had indicated a feedback process among the different drives, serving to regulate their activity and correct errors and malfunctions. “We tried to replicate that,” Gabler explained to Kirk, Scott, and Chekov. The security chief had finished evacuating the rest of the timeship crew and was now drawing on his old engineering training to help out. “We . . . we echoed its own signals back into it. Not in real time, of course . . . could give runaway feedback. But ordinary signals, an ‘all’s well’ kind of thing. To keep it calm.” He chuckled. “That’s how we talk about it. Sometimes seems alive.”

  “Indeed,” Spock replied over the communicator channel. “Given the sophistication of Vedala technology, we cannot assume that is entirely a metaphor. And given the location of the stolen drive, it may have suffered additional damage beyond what our science can detect, damage that the mutual error correction among the drives was not able to undo.”

  “Or,” Scott suggested, “that could’ve been compensated for by the rest o’ the drives if they were still workin’ in tandem. But operatin’ on its own, it canna get the corrections it needs. And we don’t know how to modify the feedback signals to tell it to reverse the confluence.”

  “Can’t we just cut the power to the drive?” Chekov asked.

  “Not on your life, lad,” Scott replied. “The confluence means we’re in two places and times at once—maybe two timelines at once too, judgin’ by the interphase effects. The confluence drive makes them essentially the same place, the same quantum coordinates. If you just cut it off, sure, the different pieces o’ space and time would go back to normal—but the particles of the ship and our bodies couldn’t tell which o’ those places and times they were supposed to stay with, so they’d be divvied up randomly between the two. It’d tear the ship apart. Worse—it’d rupture the antimatter containment, and the resultin’ explosion in the middle of an interphase would probably create a permanent interspatial rift between times and dimensions. There’s no tellin’ what damage that could do in the long run.”

  Kirk pondered. “Could we jettison the antimatter pods, rig an automatic shutdown for the Vedala drive, then beam off?”

  “The drive itself has a lot of stored energy. It could blow up just as easy when its atoms got torn apart.�
�

  “Captain.” Spock’s voice on the open channel was urgent, and a red alert siren sounded behind him. “A vessel has just entered the confluence zone. It is firing—” A rumbling sound and static came over the channel, and a second later, the timeship itself trembled and rang from a weapon impact, sending Kirk and the others reeling.

  “Spock, report,” Kirk barked, running for the master console to get an external sensor reading.

  “Minimal damage, but I believe that was simply a warning shot. The vessel is highly advanced, Captain, beyond our technology. Its configuration is familiar, however.” A pause. “Captain, we are being hailed.”

  Kirk checked the external communication controls. “Us too.” He opened the channel.

  “—dentified vessels. Stand down and prepare to be boarded. You are now prisoners of the Klingon-Andorian Compact.”

  U.S.S. Enterprise

  “It’s definitely a KAC design, Mister Spock,” Sulu reported from the helm position. “But those engines, that hull plating . . . it’s unlike anything the Compact had when we encountered them before.”

  “Same with their shields and weapons,” reported Ensign Mosi Nizhoni from the weapons and defense station. “If this becomes a fight, sir, I’m not sure how long we can hold out,” the young Navajo woman continued.

  Spock pondered. It was logical that the confluence drive would connect to the same parallel timeline it had transposed with twice before. And the advancement of this ship seemed to confirm that the slingshot curve connected it with the future of that timeline.

  “Hail them,” Spock said to Uhura. A moment later, she nodded, indicating that the channel was open. Spock stepped in front of the helm station to address the screen. “Compact vessel. This is Commander Spock of the U.S.S. Enterprise. Our intentions are nonhostile. However, the region of space you have entered is dangerously volatile. Please cease firing, for your own safety.”

  “Enterprise?” The face that appeared onscreen was that of an Andorian female-equivalent, most likely a shen, judging from her strong build. “So you are the ship from the old records. The one from another universe. But a Vulcan in command?” Her tone conveyed considerable contempt toward Vulcans, suggesting that the Compact’s enmity toward the Vulcan Protectorate continued in the future this vessel evidently came from.

  “I am Spock, an officer in the Starfleet of the United Federation of Planets,” he informed her. “Whom do I have the honor of addressing?”

  “I am Captain Pava ek’Noor sh’Aqabaa of the Compact warship Thorn of Justice,” the Andorian replied. She seemed young to hold such rank, but the scars she bore on her face and neck, including a nick in her left antenna, suggested she had distinguished herself in combat. In a hybrid Klingon-Andorian culture, that could have earned her rapid advancement. “Whoever you serve, Vulcan, you will obey my command or be destroyed. Surrender and prepare both your ships to be boarded!”

  “As I have explained, that is not possible. The other vessel is experiencing a dangerous malfunction, and we are in the process of rescue operations. Time is of the essence.” In more ways than I care to explain at the moment. “And any weapons discharges in this immediate vicinity could be hazardous to the integrity of local spacetime.”

  “Do you take me for a fool, greenskin? Your flimsy excuses will not spare you. Now drop your shields or we will batter them down!”

  Captain sh’Aqabaa vanished from the screen. Spock turned to the defense station. “Ensign Nizhoni. Can you extend our force-field envelope around the timeship?”

  “If we move in closer, sir. Ideally within ten kilometers.”

  “Mister Sulu?”

  “I can get us even closer, sir,” Sulu replied, and Spock had no reason to doubt him.

  But as soon as the ship began to move, it came under fire from the Thorn of Justice. “Status of the timeship?” Spock asked.

  “Taking fire too, sir,” Nizhoni said. “Should we return fire?”

  “Negative.” He turned to the engineering station. “Mister Mercado, attempt to repel the hostile vessel with a tractor beam.”

  Sulu leaned forward and spoke sotto voce. “Mister Spock, is that the best we can do?”

  “We cannot risk firing weapons, lest we hasten the destabilization of the spacetime metric.”

  “Even to stop them from firing?”

  “Our odds of successfully doing so are limited, Mister Sulu. We would only add to the problem.”

  “Then what can we do?”

  Spock raised a brow. “We can shield the timeship . . . and thereby give Captain Kirk and Commander Scott time to find a way to deactivate the Vedala drive.”

  Timeship Two

  “Holy crap, they’re shooting at us,” Dulmur gasped. Even though the Enterprise’s force field—the spheroidal shield envelope that was the forerunner of modern deflector shields—surrounded the timeship and kept the KAC vessel’s fire from getting closer than a few hundred meters, the radiation from their energy beams was intense enough to make the ship’s hull tremble from sheer thermal shock. Down below, Kirk’s people were taking it in stride, still trying to work out a way to shut down the confluence drive. But Dulmur was a government man, not a soldier. He’d been in some tight scrapes before, been shot at by hostile time travelers or technology thieves, but few of his cases had put him under fire from starship weapons, weapons powerful enough to vaporize whole cities. Dulmur’s thoughts went to the holo of his mother that he carried in his pocket, reminding himself of why he did the job. It helped.

  If Lucsly was similarly alarmed, it barely showed. “Lucsly to Everett. The situation has escalated to a full-blown prochronistic incursion. The timeline is in jeopardy. At this point, we need to consider every possible option.” Dulmur stared at his partner. Now that there was imminent danger of the past being altered, it meant the DTI agents were authorized to intervene in events. That would be an absolute last resort, but still, the prospect was even more disquieting than the trembling of the ship’s deck.

  “Understood,” came Ranjea’s voice. “We stand ready to assist.”

  “Captain Alisov here. Can we warn off the Thorn of Justice? It’s from our own time, technically.”

  “No,” was Lucsly’s emphatic reply. “That would expose the Enterprise crew to knowledge of our existence.” The ship shuddered as though struck by something. The irradiation must have grown intense enough to flash-vaporize the surface of the hull, rocking the vessel like an explosion. “Is there any way we can safely deactivate the confluence drive without exposing ourselves to them?” Lucsly began descending the gangway to the main deck—a wise precaution under the circumstances. Dulmur followed.

  “T’Viss here, Agent Lucsly. There is a possibility. I have been applying the Manheim and Vard equations to the confluence metric and devised a potential solution that would have been unavailable to twenty-third-century observers.”

  “Just tell us!” Dulmur shouted as he reached the deck.

  “In order to shut down the Vedala drive without destroying the timeship, you must employ phase discrimination to associate the particles of the vessel with their proper spacetime coordinates.”

  “They didn’t have phase discriminators in 2275!”

  “I believe the effect can be approximated using the chroniton emissions of the timeship’s engines. By generating a gravitomagnetic field of like phase and opposite polarity to that of the neutron star in the 2275 timeframe, you can employ said neutron star as an anchor, if you will, to draw the ship back into its proper frame of reference when the confluence collapses.”

  “Can you instruct us on the procedure?” Lucsly asked.

  “I am transmitting the instructions to your tricorders, gentlemen. I advise haste.”

  Another blast rocked the ship. “Gee, never would’ve thought of that,” Dulmur growled, grabbing for the ladder railing.

  But his hand went through the railing—and disappeared into the adjacent console!

  Dulmur yelped, yanking back his t
ingling hand. “Interphase!” he cried. “The ship’s going into interphase.”

  He and his partner exchanged a look. Lucsly said it out loud, for the benefit of the listeners in their own timeframe: “If we don’t act fast, we may not be able to work the controls. Come on.”

  They made their way across the floor, dodging around Gabler as he ran between consoles, oblivious to their presence. Dulmur counted his blessings that the gravity plating in the floor spread its phase out enough to keep it solid beneath their feet. But the controls they needed to operate were in the emergency manual monitor, a raised booth opposite the catwalk where they’d been, and the main access was via ladder. Luckily their shifting phase stayed in sync with that of the ship long enough for them to get up it, though Dulmur felt the rungs losing solidity just as he stepped off into the monitor booth. As a manual backup, the EMM had undergone minimal refitting, still containing the same angular, black-and-red control console it must have held when it was a part of the Enterprise.

  Studying his tricorder screen, Lucsly attempted to enter the commands, but his gloved fingers kept slipping through the controls. “No use. The phase variations are accelerating. We can’t stay in phase long enough.”

  Dulmur tried to snap his fingers, but the gloves of his isolation suit muffled it. “The phase discriminators in our tricorders. Maybe we can lock onto the timeship’s phase and ride through the shifts with it.”

  “Worth a try.” They adjusted their tricorders, and soon the console became mostly solid to their touch, only phasing out for brief moments. They worked as swiftly as they could to program the sequence, but the ship was still trembling under fire, and soon the controls lost substance beneath their fingers once again as the phase shifts worsened. “No good!” Lucsly grated. “If there were some way to rig a remote interface . . .”

  “Wait.” Dulmur was staring out the window grille at the group below. “It’s Kirk! He’s coming up here!”

  The agents moved to the corner farthest from the console and held very still as the captain ascended into the room. They stood face to face with James Kirk himself. I thought he’d be taller, Dulmur thought. The captain paused for a moment, taking in the surroundings with a look of surprise giving way to a faint, nostalgic smile. Then he shook it off and moved to the console, working the controls. “All right, Scotty,” he said into his wrist communicator. “The manual jettison controls are responding.”