Temporal Violation

Posted on Sat May 28th, 2011 @ 7:42am by Captain Alexander Gunning & Commander Dietrich Reinhart & Captain Liarra Von & Lieutenant Commander Melissa Daniels M.D. & Lieutenant Commander Nilani Prax & Lieutenant JG Kili Dell

Mission: In Defiance Of Orders
Location: Archan Nebula Cluster
Timeline: May 7th 2291, 1300hrs (approx)

[ON]

Gunning looked round at the crew assembled on the bridge. The crew who had just seen the ship that many of them arrived in this situation in destroyed. Heads were down. From what they could work out, they were trapped in the past with no discernable way of getting home. Command Academy didn't prepare a Captain for this.

Daniels had done well to patch up Prax enough to allow her to keep to her duties at the science station. Most of the crew they had relieved were now working on solutions to their predicament in the mess hall but unless one of them had a degree in temporal mechanics, he didn't expect too much from them.

He looked over his shoulder to where Ensign Dell and Lieutenant Matsumoto were poring over the intricacies of the Temporal Prime Directive. An undoubted thorn in the side of any time-traveller but in the circumstances, he'd rather have to tip-toe around a few orbits than find that they had inadvertently caused a full-scale Federation civil war by the time they got back.

Gunning could feel beads of sweat forming on his forehead. He's over-thought the whole thing. He was beginning to have a slight panic. There would be nothing worse than being stuck in the arse-end of the past for the rest of their lives. Yet another forgotten crew in the backwater of space. How long would it take before Starfleet noticed that they had gone? The Starbase would be like the Marie Celeste, run by pirates and smugglers.

He shook himself out of the thought and stared distantly into the viewscreen.

Prax's console started chiming relentlessly at her, and as she diverted her eyes away from the constant scans and analyses of past scans relating to the anomaly, her eyes widened. "Alex, I'm detecting a warp signature here. Closing in on an intercept course."

Christ. He thought. Maybe Matsumoto was right; we could even have used the Thaden as a decoy. Still. It was too late to worry about that now. "Red alert. Bring us to bear on the signature, Commander."

Gunning was at least relatively safe in the knowledge that the Jackal could make short work of contemporary vessels. He just had to hope that this wasn't one of the few that would pose a problem.

"The ship is dropping out of warp!" Nilani reported, anxious to think what ship they would come across. Clearly it was one which had already detected them; had that altered the timeline already? Delayed them from a destination they had to reach? What would actually seeing the Jackal do to them and their timeline?

"On screen, Lieutenant!" Gunning ordered.

The viewscreen flicked to the vessel that was emerging from its warp trail. Coming in at around half impulse. It was a sight to behold but not a sight that you would fire at. The Commodore rose slowly to his feet.

"Hold your fire, Liarra." He said quietly. He crossed the bridge slowly until he was standing behind the chair of his first officer. His eyes were like saucers.

The ship hung in space, having powered down her engines. The sheer bulk of the thing was impressive. No clean, smooth lines or sleek phaser arrays. This baby was all jutting angles, alarming architectural decisions and phaser turrets that looked like they couldn't turn on each other.

The saucer drifted slowly into view. U.S.S. Excelsior "N.C.C. Two Thousand..." Gunning's voice, softer than ever, cut through the silence on the bridge of the little ship.

Melissa spoke, "Hikaru Sulu's ship." She only stated.

Nilani was frozen for a few minutes. Captain Sulu was a legend in Starfleet, on near enough the same level as Captains Kirk and Spock, having served with both of them for years on the USS Enterprise - both the original and the -A. Snapping out of her reverie, Prax started scanning the Jackal's databases. "The Excelsior was assigned to follow up on a missing survey vessel in mid-2291," she said, finding an entry which would be the most likely match for the current situation. "There is no record of Captain Sulu having any contact with a ship from our time."

Liarra didn't say much, though she took her hand off the tactical display. One slip and the long peace with the Klingons would never have happened. Wars would have been fought, worlds would have been conquered by both sides. And she didn't even want to think about the outcome of the Dominion War. She did however have one little piece of trivia to add to the situation. "I think I dated someone on the Excelsior once. It was before he was assigned though."

Melissa looked at Liarra, "The USS Excelsior appears right before us, and all you can think about is what crewmember that one of your hosts dated?"

"That's not all I can think about," Liarra replied defensively. "That's just the one piece of information that I figured no one else knew."

Funkhouser stared blankly at the screen. At first, it was just another Excelsior-class ship. Blue-hulled with black trim. Different from the usual white-with-teal the Federation preferred these days. But after closer inspection, the New Mexican crop duster had a better feeling that things were not what they were meant to be. He looked at the station's chronometer. At this point it'd be 48 hours since his tequila binge at the promenade. There wasn't an excuse for the things he was seeing now. This is real.

The Executive Officer was stunned. It was something he had dreamed of but never really got around to seeing. But now he was not only seeing it, he was presumably seeing it in its mint-condition on its first major voyage. Presumably. Reinhart started computing the hailing frequencies for circa 2290's federation vessels while trying to contact Starbase 332, all the same realizing that his message, if he wasn't careful, would reach Earth in about 90 years and be intercepted before he was ever assigned to SB332. A glance over his shoulder at Gunning revealed his absolute frustration with being sent back in time not once, but twice. Both times, it was Gunning's fault.

The temporal prime directive, Dell thought. This was going to be really hard to explain. Her first time on a ship on open space and they had already broken something as important as that. While she didn't really care as much about a chance at meeting the famous Starfleet captain commanding the Excelsior, there were plenty of other things to worry about. If they couldn't make it back in their own time, they'd be resolved to living in some unknown corner of the quadrant. There was also the part that there were two trill symbionts on the ship and only one available host.

There were just one too many issues, so the security officer diverted her attention to the viewscreen, watching the strangely shaped ship as it approached. She certainly had a bad feeling about this, but there wasn't much she could do about it now.

As any good, if not great Intelligence Officer would be doing, Shinji was indeed pouring over the Jackel's database regarding the Temporal Prime Directive. Thankfully, the Jackel's computer core wasn't damaged unlike the Thaden's, and so Shinji had more plentfiful resources to work with. His mind was too bsuy reading and analyzing every nook and cranny of the Directive to really notice that the Excelsior was on the viewscreen, however after having stretched his neck a bit, the Lieutenant did see it, although he wasn't phased by it in the least. Shinji knew that in order to perform his job to the best of his abilites, he needed to stay objective, and he figured the only way to do that was by feigning interest.

Quick thinking was required but there was no way out of this one. The Excelsior was right on top of them and would probably have completed as many as ten sensor scans of the Jackal by now, right down to the markings on the hull. The Temporal Prime Directive didn't have anything in it about surprise appearances by vessels from the past.

Liarra's attention was brought back to her console by a beep. As all of her fears could have anticipated, it was naturally the comm system. "Sir, we're being hailed. Do we answer?"

"If you can delay for a couple of minutes, I could adjust the protocols to disguise the bridge and us as something more appropriate to this time, but I can't do a thing about the scans they've already made of us," Nilani said, tapping at her console to bring up the computer protocols in preparation if Alex gave the order.

Alex looked around the bridge. He didn't like this but the Excelsior would at least have some idea that they were dealing with a Federation ship by now. It didn't help that the Jackal was plastered in identifying markers.

"Put it on-screen, Commander." He ordered. "It's time to face the music."

Von punched up the information and the face of an Asian man appeared, seemingly flanked by every senior officer on the bridge. All peering through the camera at the crew on the Jackal. A mirror image. Gunning could feel the peering eyes of his crew huddled around his chair. A long, silent moment ensued.

Eventually, Sulu spoke. It was his responsibility to, after all. "Unidentified Vessel. State your designation."

It was obvious that the older man could tell what had happened. He had a knowing look on his face that punctuated the stern tone of his words. What exactly did one say in a situation like this? It would be obvious to them by now that they weren't of this time.

He didn't know for a fact but he imagined that Sulu would be in on the advances of Research & Development Starfleet had made. Even if his assumption was wrong, there wasn't any way to find out.

He stood up and the bridge fell silent. Even the consoles seemed to know better than to beep. "My name is Alexander Gunning, Captain of the USS Jackal."

The words seemed to float listlessly across the comm channel to the bridge of the Excelsior. Sulu continued to stare at the little bridge. "My name is Captain Hikaru Sulu of the USS Excelsior."

Gunning could feel almost every heart on the bridge of the Jackal skip a beat. His certainly did. Sulu opened his mouth to speak again. "We were assigned to track a Federation signal... the trail led us here... to you." His eyes now seemed to be penetrating the very soul of the Jackal. "Your ship is not of any classification that I am familiar with and your proximity to an anomaly such as this one seem to suggest some kind of accident."

There was no point in lying. "Yes, Captain. We've had a couple of... issues. We believe we've been dragged back in time. Our Temporal Prime Directive would appear to forbid us from giving any more information than that. If you'd like to beam across, we'll be able to discuss it in more detail."

Almost immediately, Shinji's eyes boldened once again. What was with Commodore Gunning's incessant desire to keep making decisions against Shinji's training in Intelligence, not to mention upsetting the established order? It had to stop, somewhere...sometime. Right now, though, wasn't the time or place to start getting antsy. Shinji could hold his objections some more, though the thought of including more negatives in his report to Starfleet Intelligence kept a grim smile on his face for the time being. "I'm afraid that's not possible, Sir. I hate to be the one to give you a good time, however it would be best for you to transport over to the Excelsior, not the other way around. Not only would it save the timeline by preventing Captain Sulu by being able to observe our ship from the inside, it does present a tactical advantage on Sulu's part by being able to keep his own security officers on your guard." It was Shinji's hope that his 'advice' would be listened, and adhered to, but he knew not to expect positive results in such a scale.

"You've got a point there, Lieutenant." Gunning said under his breath before returning to address Sulu. "Captain, could we discuss this on the Excelsior? It will put my intelligence officer's mind at considerable ease."

"Certainly. We will be expecting you. Excelsior, out."

Shinji's eyes were still boldened. The Lieutenant decided to compartmentalize his frustrations this time instead of voicing them outwards in public earshot of everyone else. He had had enough of giving the crew of the Jackel enough reason to dislike and mistrust him. That idiot, doesn't he know that at this time in history, Intelligence Officers don't yet exist?!?

Melissa finally spoke, "Oh no...."

"Commodore, can we speak, on the way to the transporter room? It's important." Melissa noted.

"Of course, Doctor." Gunning said, standing up ready to take his leave of the bridge. "Commander Von. You're with me."

[OFF]