Ghosts

Posted on 11 Oct 2018 @ 10:17am by Commodore Harvey Geisler & Ensign Quinn Mackie & Commander Thiago Teixeira & Commander Jayla Kij & Lieutenant Commander Arjin Djinx & Lieutenant Commander Joey Geisler & Lieutenant Commander Camila Di Pasquale & Lieutenant Danyl Adan & Lieutenant JG Jazmin Parks & Senior Chief Petty Officer Alexander Rylan & Lieutenant JG Catherine Cooper

6,706 words; about a 34 minute read

Mission: Fractured
Location: USS Black Hawk, Various
Timeline: 1130 hours

Previously, in "Assessment (Time Zone 4)":
"Aye, aye," Quinn replied. He took a deep breath as his hand trembled over the controls. Oh, how much he hoped this would work. He typed S-S-3-0. Quinn took a moment to search his memories regarding morse code, trying to remember the call for a response. His fingers pressed S-S-3-0 again, followed by the letters K and N. "There," he declared. "Now we wait."


===[Bridge, Time Zone One]===

Lieutenant Kemm sat at the Engineering station, his tall form slouched almost into a fetal position in his chair. He didn't understand it at all. There was no reason, according to the laws of physics, that the antimatter should not be in such a state of flux. Nor should there be any reason why the ship couldn't move without losing antimatter containment. This Kelpian not only didn't get it, he was seriously considering resigning at the earliest opportunity. Kemm didn't sign up for Starfleet to be stuck in a corner like this. He signed up to see the universe, to explore strange new worlds and all.

His head remained bowed when he heard the master alarm sound again. This was it, he thought. This was how his life was going to end. Total containment failure followed by a warp core breach. There was nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. Nowhere to go where the theta radiation wouldn't kill them.

The Kelpian looked up, expecting to see the inevitable. But it wasn't there. Yes, there were new fluctuations in the antimatter. But there was something off about it. The fluctuations stopped. After a few seconds, a new series appeared. Most of the pattern was the same, but it seemed to last longer with additional fluctuations. He was confused by this, and he started a level five diagnostic to ensure his sanity that the containment field generators were operating at normal efficiency.

When the alarm sounded from the Engineering section, Camila wondered what could happen next. After the disappointing attempt at moving the attempt, the hollow-eyed Chief of Security could hardly bring herself to care. However, it was her job to care about the safety of the crew and ship and she got up from her station to go over to where the Kelpian engineer was. "What is it?" she asked.

"More issues with the containment field," the Kelpian replied, pulling up the readouts. "I'm not quite sure what has happened. If I didn't know better, I'd almost say this is intentional."

Joey looked up from the Intel console when the alarm sounded. That usually meant bad things were happening, and it was that thought that had her on her feet and moving toward the Kelpian and Chief of Security. She didn't need to ask what was going on, though, as Lieutenant Kemm had already explained, but the Intelligence Chief did look at what had their attention. "Morse code," she said, noticing the patterns on the readout. "I would definitely say it's intentional. S-S-3-0. Starfleet Code Thirty. It's an emergency condition involving a planetary disaster or other unspecified emergency. Use of this code means that the sending station is not able to adequately respond to the emergency and requires immediate help at the scene."

"Lieutenant... I'm going to borrow your console for a moment," she said, though, instead of waiting for an affirmative, she began to move her fingers across the controls in front of them. The message was simple, and so the others knew what she was doing, she spoke it out loud as she sent it. "Repeat NCC-63554-A." Then, followed it with a K and N as the ones sending the message had done before.

"Repeat what?" Kemm asked, his ganglia slowly rising. "Do you seriously think someone is tampering with the antimatter to deliver a message? And from where? Only the bridge and engineering crews have the knowledge and equipment to do this."

"That they are indeed the Black Hawk-A," Joey stated, looking back down to the console as if waiting to see more patterns coming through. She thought back to the letter and the probe. Was now the time to reveal that information even if she didn't know for fact that everyone was separated through time? No, but the Intel Chief did have another explanation that would likely be well received. "Yes, I do. There is no one on this side of the barrier that would know Starfleet code, so it has to be our people. "

Kemm nodded slowly, hoping that the Intelligence Officer was onto something. If she was wrong, then they were seriously jeopardizing the ship by messing with the containment field.

Arjin trusted Joey with what was going on. If anyone could see through what was happening now, it would be her. All that remained was waiting what would happen next.


===[Bridge, Time Zone Four]===

Quinn felt like he was watching a pot of water sitting on a stove and waiting for it to boil. There was no indication that this would work. Even now he was watching the logs rewriting themselves from prior points in time. Thankfully, he'd had the mind to overlap these points in differing colors on the same monitor. If nothing else, it at least saved valuable display space. He was about to give a sigh and repeat the message when he saw fluctuations in the antimatter once more. At least time, he'd been smart enough to quickly mute the master alarm when it sounded. "I'm getting something!" he called out to Doctor Road. "R... E... Oh to hell with this." Quinn quickly wrote a code to translate the dashes and dots to text on a readout. "Repeat NCC-63554-A. KN. Someone's got our message, but I don't know who." He looked to Doctor Road to ask what he should reply.

"All right, um..." said Abbey, trying to think. "Tell them acting Captain Road of the Black Hawk requests their identity. That sounds good, doesn't it?"

Jazmin smiled tiredly as she put her hands on Cooper and Shay's shoulder, then lowered her voice so as not to interrupt the goings on. "Cooper, if you don't mind, go ahead and take Tactical, I'll cover the Security station." She looked at Shay. "Any ideas how we can cover our shipmates? There's been so much going on that I've neglected thinking big picture for security." Her smile warmed. "Like you said, we're a team and I could use another perspective here."

Like Jazmin, Shay was tired, but she imagined what was left of their crew felt the same way. "With all due respect, Lieutenant," the Ensign began. "I think there's something much bigger going on here, which means we wait, but don't let our guard down. Doctor Road will give us our orders when she has any."

Even Cooper was winding down a bit energy wise but she'd keep on trucking, like with the others duty didn't stop just because you were tired. "I agree with the Ensign, we watch for threats. We remember where the emergency medical kits are, we coordinate with the tactical and security crew we can reach to support what crew we can plus vital areas elsewhere, so we need fully working coms and sensor nets, all so our shipmates can go brainaic in peace. Do we have updated reports from the other areas, anything new on sensors?" she asked giving a supportive smile and patted Jazmin's hand before going to the Tactical Station.

Quinn nodded to Road. He didn't want to use so many words as to cause permanent damage to the containment fields. After a few seconds of hesitation, he typed in a short string hoping it would make sense in whatever universe it was read in.


===[Bridge, Time Zone Three]===

"There it is again!" muttered Lieutenant O'Malley, silencing another master alarm. "These fluctuations in the containment field have me all jumpy, Cap'n," she shouted. "Whatever's going on, I can't seem to stop it."

Captain Geisler sighed. This whole time he kept waiting for news that a warp core breach was in progress. He was already considering giving the order to take what supplies they could from the ship, abandon her and detonate her from afar, but he couldn't shake the fact that at least half of his crew had willingly gave up their lives... and for what?

"What's on your mind, Commander?" Harvey asked of his Executive Officer, nearly at his wit's end. "Any thoughts on what we should do?"

What I wouldn't do for some more engineers right now, Thiago thought. "For now, let's be grateful that we're not going breach." Looking at the display more, he tapped several controls. "Despite the seeming repeated threat of a core breach, there isn't actually anything wrong with the warp core. At least that I can tell."

A Bolian Ensign had been near the Engineering console to stay out of the way of the senior officers when she stopped and looked closer at it. "Captain! There's some type of unusual fluctuations in the antimatter. It's...it's not an overload. It's repeating like some kind of signal. Computer, analyze pattern," she reported.


===[Bridge, Time Zone Two]===

After finally working out how to go through the turbolift car and get onto the bridge, Jayla had found a couple of dead bodies and refused to think about the implications. She even refused to think about who they were. In fact, she had gone so far as to refuse to even look at them.

But, nevermind that. Now there were alarms going off. "What's that?" she demanded. "What's happening?"

Ensign Espersen, a rather strapping Dutch fellow, turned at the sound of the turbolift door opening. "We have some antimatter fluctuations," he reported. "We don't have an engineer up here, but the best we can tell is that we're losing containment."

"Why is that happening?" Jayla asked, crossing to the engineering display and staring at it uncomprehendingly. "Can we stop it?"

"It's happening intermittently," replied the ensign, standing over the engineering console. "All a series of short bursts. Nothing definitive as of yet, but the antimatter itself is in a massive state of quantum flux, like it's trying to exist in multiple universes."

"That... I don't know what that means," admitted Jayla. "What does that mean?"

"Standby," Espersen said. He was no engineer, just a bridge officer. This would take him some time.

Jayla watched the fluctuations for a bit. "Am I crazy or does there seem to be a pattern to it?" she asked. "There's something familiar..." She studied it for a moment, but nothing was coming to mind.

Alex finally arrived on the bridge after stopping to provide medical care to some crew members they ran into on Deck Three.

"I got those folks taken care of Commander," Alex said. "Okay, everyone I haven't injected yet, I'm going to come around with some Tri-Ox and some anti-rad meds. They'll help hold off hypoxia and stave off the effects of the increasing radiation levels. Just go about your business and show me your neck when I get to you."

Alex got out his hypos and got to work. He prudently chose to omit that in addition to holding off hypoxia (low oxygen levels in the blood) the Tri-Ox would also hold off anoxia (a total lack of oxygen in the blood), since if they developed anoxia, they'd be dying or dead, and all the Tri-Ox in the galaxy wouldn't be able to help them.


===[Bridge, Time Zone One]===

"Road," read Kemm, interpreting the signals with the aid of the computer. "ID. Time. KN." He looked to the Intelligence Chief, hoping that she understood whatever this Road was attempting to convey. "Wait," he said, tapping at the screen. "Road. Could that be Doctor Road? Isn't she among the missing?"

"Dr. Road? Yes she is among the missing.", Arjin replied. "But we can not be sure that it is her. But if it is she might know more about what is going on than we do."

Turning back to Joey, he asked: "We could take the risk and send a short message back that would reveal nothing to anyone not Starfleet?" "Something like - Djinx. USS BH. And the Time KN-?"

Camila looked up at Commander Djinx and then at Joey. "We already sent the message, though..."

"A message to ask them to reconfirm who they are, yes. ", Arjin nodded. "But we did not let them know who we are."

"The Commander is correct," the Kelpian engineer confirmed. "We received a message, responded, and they sent another. It's like someone has turned our antimatter into a rudimentary, though quite instable, communications center."

"If this is indeed our Doctor Road, then they're using Morse code to communicate. We can't keep this up much longer before things go from bad to worse," the Chief Intelligence Officer stated. The longer they kept up with this, the more danger they were going to be in. "The message needs to be simple, something that's not going to disturb the antimatter too much. They wish to know who we are, so we'll tell them. LTCMDR-AD, LT-JG, LT-CDP, LT-DA, EN-IB, LT-K, Crew 109. It's simple, to the point, and shouldn't irritate things too much."

"Agreed.", Arjin replied. "Let's send this. But include the current time. And wait for an answer."

"We're in 2389 according to the computer," Camila told Djinx. "So why would we need to change it? Besides, we're on this side of the Zone. There's no access to Starfleet to get updates."

Djinx shrugged. "You are absolutely right. But it is what they asked in their message. Maybe the question has puprose."

Kemm nodded, hoping that so many characters wouldn't disrupt the antimatter too much. "Standby," he said as he began to type.

Joey tried to keep their newest message as short as possible, but there was always a chance it could cause problems. For now, they just needed to wait and see if it would be received. That would happen in some form of a response. Her brow furrowed. Acting Captain Road? she thought as panic began to set in.

That meant...

No. No. No.

Pain gripped her heart like a vice. Harvey couldn't be dead. He couldn't be. A sob formed in her throat, but she fought it back tooth and nail. Did the ship just shudder? No, that was her faltering, stumbling. Joey fumbled around for anything that would keep her upright as she struggled to breathe.

When Camila saw Joey stumble, she ran to her and slid a shoulder under the taller woman's arm. "Joey...are you okay?" she asked as she guided her to a chair.

Joey leaned against Camila as they moved toward the chair. The head injury she'd seen her husband with shortly before all of this happened was bad, and it seemed that Harvey had succumbed to it if Lieutenant Road was acting Captain. And considering where she fell in the chain of command, the Intelligence Chief could only assume that others had perished as well.

The sob that clogged her throat finally managed to escape, but Joey was still unable to speak. There were far too many things going through her mind, like the fact she wasn't with the man she loved with he took his last breath. That he'd never get to see their children grow up. Her head was spinning, and had it not been for her taking that very moment to settle down on the chair, she was sure she would have hit the ground despite Camila's assistance.

"Joey, what's wrong?" Camila asked before she looked over her shoulder. "Can someone get me a medical tricorder, please?"

The Intelligence Chief fought to regain control of herself, but the knowledge that her husband was dead was too much for her to bear. "H... he's... de... dead," Joey sobbed. She was borderline hysterical now. Why did they have to come here? Why couldn't she have been with him in his final moments? Was anyone with him? Did he die alone? Her head spun as so many questions plagued her mind, bringing on a lightheaded feeling that threatened to consume her. She could feel the darkness tugging away at her, beckoning her to give in to it... urging her into a place where it wouldn't hurt anymore.

"We don't know that for certain, Joey," Camila told her, not know if she was lying or not, but she had to tell the other woman something. She was needed. "Come on. Let's get you somewhere you can lay down."


===[Bridge, Time Zone Four]===

"Holy shit," muttered Quinn, his eyes watching the readout as a new reply came through. "I see ranks, but I'm not sure about the initials. I assume AD is Djinx, since there's only three lieutenant commanders on the manifest. JG? CDP? DA?" He looked to Lieutenant Road. "Two Three Eight Nine. That's the year. I think we're actually communicating with ghosts."

Mila came over and listened to Quinn, then smiled. "You would not be making it in Administration," she said as she checked the mental snapshot of the crew's manifest in her eidetic memory. "If you are going by initials, that would be Joelle Geisler Camila Di Pasquale and Danyl Adan. It is meaning they are alive somewhere in time!"

"That's the most likely possibility, but I know a Lieutenant Jesse Galvin in Ops and a Danelle Adams in Engineering," pointed out Abbey. "Anyway, that's not important. Now we know we can communicate. So... what's next? Options?"

"If Commander Djinx really is on the other side of this," Quinn suggested, "then he needs to know where, or when, we are. Maybe he and anyone else who's listening can help us figure this out. Besides, what are we? Like seventy years in the future? They'd need to know that."

"Good point," agreed Abbey. "So that makes it, wot? Roughly... 24... 2459? Okay, anything else?"

"I say we start there and add our crew count," Quinn answered, turning back to the controls to type. Hopefully there would be more people watching this conversation than Djinx and company.

Jazmin looked at Catharine and Shay. "Thanks for the support. Let's keep on our toes."

She went to the security station and took a seat, pulling up her LCARS preferences and giving the security systems a once-over. What was working was fine, and she forced herself to ignore the hundred other systems that weren't. It wasn't like there was going to be a major security threat, but she knew better than to let her guard down. Keeping one eye on the security systems, she observed the others trying to communicate with the other temporal slices of the Black Hawk.

As frustrating as it was for her to watch the slow-moving proceedings, she knew it had to be even more frustrating for Abbey and Quinn. She tried to think back to her Academy physics class, wishing that she had done more, and tried to visualize the filaments. They were in effect "plucking" the filaments to send Morse code. Couldn't they do more?

She thought back to the Academy. While she had taken basic physics, she knew that her grasp on what was happening was rudimentary at best. However, since the filament was being plucked for want of a better word, to communicate with the other ships, perhaps the filaments were like guitar strings

""Ensign Mackie? If we are plucking the filaments to send Morse code, what would happen if we plucked it even harder? Would that create some sort of temporal distortion as the filament vibrates, and if so, couldn't we use it to send something more substantial than dots and dashes? Of course I'm not an expert, but I just wanted to throw out some ideas."

Quinn gave the matter a moment of thought before saying, "If we pluck too hard, we'll breach containment and then we won't have a ship left to communicate with. The more a filament vibrates, the more the antimatter gets disrupted. If I were to wager a guess, our antimatter is out of phase with itself. Returning it to a single phase, in whichever timeframe, will stabilize it for use once again. Getting it to that phase will be the hard part. Nucleonic particles, gamma radiation, antiprotons... all of that might help to combat the filaments, but we still need to get home first."

For half a moment, Abbey stared at Quinn, a look of complete confusion on her face. "I didn't understand a word of that," she confessed. "Wait, no. Yes, I did. Do you suppose those in the earliest timeframe would have to do the plucking-or-whatever-it-was-wot-you-just-said? So that we all get back to that time? Or could anyone do it and get us all back to the beginning? Or is this more of that stuff we just don't know?"


===[Bridge, Time Zone Three]===

The computer analysis finished, and displayed the results. Sadly, it wasn't anything conclusive, but the antimatter appeared to be artificially manipulated. The manipulations, however, were repeated exactly on three occasions according to the ship's logs. "Well, I'll be..." O'Malley, the ship's ranking engineer said. "I think this is morse code." She quickly ran the pattern through an algorithm to extract the rudimentary communication. The text appeared on a secondary monitor in a single long string of words and numbers.

It was enough, however, for Harvey to make a few things out. Djinx. Camila. Road. 2389. 2459.

Joey.

Harvey turned to look at her covered form on the bridge. If his suspicions were correct, they were conversing with both the future and the past. That meant that somewhere Joey was alive and that there was most definitely a way to save her and the rest of the crew. "O'Malley," he said looking back to the console. "You can do this, right?"

"You want me to manipulate antimatter containment to send a message through time and space? Break the very laws of physics?" O'Malley asked, her thick Irish accent accentuating her shock and concern.

"Yep. Identify as me, CAPT HG," he spelled. They were what, fifty years ahead of when they should be? "Give our crew count, just the alive ones, the year 2439."

O'Malley looked at the Captain for a moment, wondering if she should protest further. After all, manipulating antimatter containment would eventually lead to only one thing, failure. Holding back a sigh, she finally acknowledged, "Yes, sir." She was about to write some code to allow her to allow the containment field to vibrate to deliver the morse code but found a new keypad designed by Lieutenant Kemm. It wasn't there before, but with the way the day had progressing, it just went to prove that all was not well with the space-time continuum. Perhaps the reason why the Black Hawk hadn't moved was to be able to take advantage of this spatial anomaly. O'Malley kept that thought on standby and began to type.


===[Bridge, Time Zone One]===

"Doctor reports her year as 2459," read Kemm aloud, even though everyone could see the readouts. "Her crew count puts us at half the crew accounted for." Suddenly, a new set of dashes and dots appeared. "2439," he read aloud. "CAPT HG... It's the Captain! And a crew count. That's roughly three quarters of the crew now."

He's alive! Joey's subconscious called out to her as oblivion continued to call to her. She still wanted to give in, but knowing her husband was alive pulled her back from the brink of unconsciousness. Her eyes went to Camila, then to Kemm. "You... you're sure?" she stammered, hoping like hell what she'd just heard was real and not some kind of sick joke.

"Alive?" Camila echoed. "Wait...2439? That's...fifty years ahead of us. How did they get there?" She looked at Joey who seemed to be in a daze. "He's alive, Joey. Captain Geisler's alive!"

Kemm nodded. "If this crude communication method is to be trusted, then yes, the Captain is alive. And somehow pushed further ahead in the time stream." Looking to the Acting Commanding Officer, Commander Djinx, Kemm asked, "Sir, do you think that it's possible that the three quantum filaments that are stuck in the antimatter... could they be acting as a conduit allowing us to interact with the missing crew in the future?"

"Yes!" cried Adan. "That makes perfect sense. If it is true, we would just have to devise a way to correct it."

Turning to Kemm, Arjin added: "That would be the most senible guess, yes. But I think it will need co-operating of all together to counteract this effect If we want to succeed." With an after thought he added: "Three quarters of the crew is accounted for. I wonder if that could mean there is a forth Black Hawk somewhere in time?"


===[Bridge, Time Zone Two]===

"Analysis complete," said Ensign Espersen at last. "Looks like this has happened before," he said pointing to a screen with log entries pulled up by the computer. "According to the ship's log, as entered by Lieutenant Kemm, antimatter containment fields began to fluctuate about this time a few years ago, but it seemed to indicate a communication means."

The ensign ran another quick analysis of the fluctuations. "Confirmed. Looks like Morse code, Doctor, er, Captain." He showed her the display which detailed the whereabouts of the missing crew, and the various timezones. "If this is true, then we're all spread out over time. Should we report in?"

“Yes!” answered Jayla. “Let’s keep it short for now. Tell them Doctor Kij, acting CO. And let’s see how far that gets us. Can you translate what they’re communicating?”

Espersen looked at the console for a couple minutes, wondering how he could pull something like that off. It was only then that he realized that there was something different about it, a program written by Lieutenant Kemm years ago that would allow him to simply interact with the containment fields. He pressed a button and pointed at the display he indicated to her earlier. "A full transcript will appear here," he said before starting to type.

"That's great!" Jayla replied, a grin coming to her face for the first time since this whole ordeal began. Perhaps she didn't have to be in charge much longer.


===[Bridge, Time Zone One]===

"Hold on," Kemm said, seeing a new string of text. "Doctor Kij, Acting CO. 2394, Crew count... That's about everyone. I'd say ninety-five percent. Seeing how we had some fatalities, I imagine every group has lost a few people."

Looking to the command crew assembled behind him, he asked, "Now that we know when and where everyone is... is there any way to bring them back home?"

"The filaments got us into this situation. It is logical that the solution to get back together should come from there also.", Djinx remarqued.

"There are three filaments in the antimatter," Kemm reported looking back at the scans. "If we simply dislodge them, we might lose everyone. They are rotating, however. Perhaps the rotation is linked to everyone arriving in different timeframes. Would it be possible to reverse the rotation?"

"We tried moving the ship and that didn't work," Camila said. "Would turning the ship in the opposite direction of the filaments untangle them?"

"Doubtful," Kemm replied. "We don't know what moving the ship exactly did to the antimatter aside from destabilizing it. For all we know, the crew that we're missing are all contained inside those filaments. If something doesn't twist the way it needs to, we might be increasing the death toll."

Joey listened to the others as they spoke. There was a strong need urging her forward. The need to get her husband back... the need to get the rest of the crew back... the need to get the family back together. And, that was exactly what all members of the Black Hawk crew were. A family. "What if Lieutenant Kemm is on to something with that line of thinking?" she asked, looking thoughtful. "Any kind of disruption is likely to cause irreparable damage, which was proven when we tried to move the ship."

She pinched the bridge of her nose. Joey knew what she wanted to say, but was struggling to come up with the right words to explain it. After all, this wasn't exactly her strong point. "The filaments are inside the antimatter, right? That's how we're able to communicate with the others that are lost," she began. "What if they're the key to pulling us all back together again? Instead of trying to disrupt them, why not draw them to us?"

"It's certainly a possibility," Kemm stated, starting to ponder the possibilities. "Theta radiation is a byproduct of antimatter waste, but our systems don't allow for its creation. Nucleonic particles and radiation have been known to stop theta radiation in its tracks. Perhaps we could bombard our antimatter with nucleonic particles in hopes that it will both reverse the filament's effects and ultimately detach them."

"How long would that take to set up?" Camila asked the Engineer. "We have very little time left before the radiation becomes fatally lethal."

"Well, that's the thing." Kelpian mouths were not known to be used for much besides eating or talking, prompting the species to use their eyes and ganglia to express their emotions. "Treating the antimatter would have to be done according to each filament's signature. Which means, we'll need the crew in the different time periods to do the same. We will have to die waiting for them to do their part. If it works, though, everyone should return within a few minutes of the process starting here in this timeframe. We won't remember dying or suffering under the effects of theta radiation. Everyone will be back, and we'll be able to escape."

Kemm blinked, still looking at the senior officers. "Theoretically anyway." He looked to the ship's acting CO, Lieutenant Commander Djinx, to chime in or give approval.

Arjin had listened carcefully to Kemm's plan. He was already redoing the maths in his head. Like the Kelpian had said. Theoretically it could work. But if it didn't the whole crew on this timeframe would be found dead by the others. "So what you propose is we all die in the hope everithing reverses and we get 'reborn'? That is a bloody big gamble. Is there no other way to extrapolate the rotation speed needed to get us back to that point and then manipulate the filaments so that they would take on that exaxt speed. Would that not give the same result?"

"Not with the antimatter already being so far out of phase," Kemm simply replied. "Its going to take each section of the crew in their own time period to help push their antimatter back into phase with our quantum universe. Technically, there's already four timelines, four universes, at work here. The filaments and the antimatter working together are what created them, and they are the only way to close them. When it does, all four of these timelines will cease to exist and we'll all be rejoined in a fifth. Once that happens, we won't remember dying, or anything else that happens after we start treating the antimatter. We'll certainly remember everything leading up to it though. We're also going to have to make sure our shipmates in the future are standing in the exact same spot where they were when this all happened. If not, they risk being left behind."

Camila looked at Commander Djinx. "We're going to die one way or another," she said. "Might as well go trying to live." She looked at Kemm. "Exactly where we were standing might be a tall order."

"We can always ballpark it," Kemm pointed out. "I know I was behind the warp core when we went through the turbulence and the first few hits. This could be a time where close enough could cut it."

"I was in the conference room with the rest of the senior staff when everything happened, though, the three of us are the only ones who made it to this particular time period," Joey stated, looking from Djinx to Camila, then back to the Kelpian. "I can't speak from Commander Djinx or Lieutenant Di Pasquale, but if there's a chance we can get everyone back by doing this, then I think we should go for it. What do we really have to lose?" Their lives, obviously, but if they were all already dead, how could something like that bother them?

"Let's make the announcement, send a message back to the others and get moving," Camila said. "Time isn't going to wait for us and neither is this radiation."

"Then we are in agreement.", Arjin nodded. "Let's make this happen. Let's prepre the crew on our side. Now all we need is to make sure that such a long, complicated idea can be messaged to the others by Morse. So that there is no misunderstanding."

"That part should be simple," Lieutenant Kemm replied. "We might be spread out over time, but we are all on the same ship. We can leave instructions in a computer file, and have a copy of that file on the comm buoy Lieutenant Geisler launched as a backup. We just have to tell everyone where to look."

"That definitely sounds like the best course of action at the moment," Joey said as she began to feel a bit anxious. That anxiousness was coming from a number of things, none of which she could control. "They'll find it if it's something that will catch their eye."

"It'll take some time for us to get everything set up," Kemm added. "If anyone's not involved in set up, then I suggest we affect what other repairs to the ship we can and reinforce the critical systems. For a ship to age seventy years without a refit, we don't want systems falling apart without the aid of refit cycles at a starbase or drydock."

Joey nodded her head. "I'll do whatever is needed of me. I can work on reinforcing systems if need be," she said. It wouldn't have her in the exact place she was in when everything started, but it was a risk she was willing to take to get the rest of the crew together again.


===[Bridge, Time Zone Three]===

"File Kemm Gamma Foxtrot Seven Two Alpha?" a puzzled Lieutenant O'Malley said, reading the newest string of pulses along the antimatter line after it had been silent for a few minutes.

"Sounds like they want us to read something," Captain Geisler spoke, sitting at the station beside O'Malley and accessing the file. "Not just something," he remarked. "Instructions." He read carefully, with O'Malley watching close by, over Lieutenant Kemm's instructions on how to manipulate the antimatter, along with the theory behind why they were going to do this. "Think you can pull this off, Lieutenant?"

The redheaded woman sighed. "I do nae' think I have much choice, Cap'n," her accent commanding her tone once more. "The theory is sound."

"Then let's get started," Harvey said. At least now he understood why Joey was dead, why she so willingly laid down her life on the bridge, as well as the rest of the dead crew aboard. They died waiting for everyone else to act. Just as he would soon die doing the same. Hopefully, this would work as it was their best chance of living again. He reached over and typed "HG 10-4" into the antimatter stream, letting everyone know that he approved of this plan.


===[Bridge, Time Zone Two]===

"Ma'am?" Ensign Espersen said, pulling up the file as instructed. "Looks like we've got marching orders."

"Well, praise be to all the gods who ever were, are, and ever shall be," replied Jayla, half jokingly. "What do they say?"

"Instructions on how to bombard the antimatter with nucleonic particles," Espersen replied. "Looks like Captain Geisler has signed off on it too," he pointed at the antimatter fluctuation which carried the CO's authorization. "Permission to get started?"

"Absolutely," agreed Jayla. "As soon as possible. What does it say we have to do?"

"Bombard the antimatter with nucleonic particles," Espersen stated, "and make sure we're standing right where we were when we were pulled ahead in time. I can get locations and send them to all of the crewmembers. We might have to move the dead as well so that they can be properly attended to afterward."


===[Bridge, Time Zone Four]===

"File... what?" Quinn asked himself, pulling up the file that he could now see very clearly had been lying dormant for years. "Instructions, Captain," he called out to Doctor Road. "And Captain Geisler has signed off on them. Looks like we might have a way back home... er... back to our normal time."

"Then, what are we waiting for?" Shay asked, moving over to where Quinn sat. "If there's a way for us to get back, we should use it. Especially if Captain Geisler signed off on it."

Mila came onto the bridge and looked around. "Captain Geisler is signing off on what?" she asked as she caught the end of what Shay said.

"Orders," replied Abbey absently. "This reminds me of that holonovel where the Doctor- nevermind, it doesn't matter. Wot are the orders?"

Quinn called up the instructions on the main screen. After a few moments of review, he said, "They look simple enough. Probably an hour to set up, and then we get to go home. If all goes well, that is."

Parks thought over the instructions. Everyone had to be where they were when this nightmare started?

"Computer, can you show the locations the current crew complement were in when we woke in this timeframe?"

"Unable to comply," droned the computer, unable to reconcile the command regarding awakening in this particular timeline. "Please restate request."

Jazmin felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment. She thought for a moment, trying to figure out a different way to state the request. "Computer, can you give us the locations of the current crew complement when our lifesigns were first detected?"

A few beeps and a whirr later and the computer complied, displaying a schematic of the ship with each lifesign's location. Each person was represented by a blip on the screen, along with a line to indicate who was who.

"I think we all probably remember where we were when this all started," Abbey pointed out. "But, thanks. Okay, so we should get started. What have we got to do first?"

"Pretty simple really," Quinn said, nodding at the instructions. "Lieutenant Kemm designed a bombardment device. Just gotta replicate one and point it at the antimatter. I can take care of the specifics there. Everyone else needs to get to their spots."

"I know we'll all remember pretty much, but I'd like to make sure. I don't know how familiar you are with Starfleet history, but do you know how many transporter, temporal, dimensional, and other bizarre events have taken place when trying to merge individuals and timestreams? I personally don't want to have half my molecules disappear, or be merged with someone else, or God knows what else to happen?"

"It's the Starfleet life," Quinn said with a shrug. "And if you do get merged with someone else or swap bodies, I'm sure we could figure out how to fix it."

Jazmin laughed. "I'm sure they could, and just think, I could end up a permanent part of the Academy curriculum on how to split two beings that were fused together from a temporal mishap." She picked up a PADD and downloaded her precise location onto it. "I'll head down and get ready for things to get back normal." She smiled at Mackie. "Should I click my heels three times when I get there?"

"I suppose if it would help, ma'am," Quinn replied, recognizing her elevated rank. "There is, after all, no place like home."

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