~~META:
title = Episode 39: Act 7
~~
====== Episode 39: The Rupture Zone - Act 7 ======
//Game was 12/10/20; [[players:jeremy]] was unable to attend.//
===== Stardate 49433.47, Wednesday June 7th, 2372; 1536 hours =====
==== Chaos On The Bridge ====
The red alert klaxon is the first thing the senior officers hear even before they are fully awake. [[trek:solstice:pcs:mel|Mel]] opens her eyes and looks up at [[trek:characters:armina|Armina]]. She is flat on her back in front of the captain's chair, with Armina propping her head up and scanning her with a tricorder. Mel's first thought is, //"When did she dye her hair? It's no longer gray."// She sees [[trek:solstice:pcs:phillip|Phillip]] similarly cradled by Lieutenant [[trek:characters:merekmiir|Merek'miir]] at the flight control station. Tyr wakes up in a blind panic as its host [[trek:solstice:pcs:jessa|Fero-Terjan-Jessa]] is convulsing and a massive predator looms over it! The predator darts in with some sort of gray tube and injects Tyr's host with poison! The poison courses through the host's system, and then Terjan suddenly awakens to find himself in Jessa's body! He looks up to see [[trek:characters:swims|She-Who-Swims]] holding 'him' while scanning 'him' with a medical tricorder.
[[trek:solstice:pcs:ktral]] wakes up and finds herself cradled by [[trek:characters:thrishayn|Thri'shayn]]. She has no idea what is going on, but she is absolutely convinced that [[trek:solstice:pcs:ssleestak]] saved her from something! She taps her combadge and slurs, "Ssleestak?" Nearby, [[trek:solstice:pcs:fal|Fal]] awakens in the throes of religious ecstasy, as he knows the Prophets have chosen him! He sees his best friend and the Hand of the Prophets cradling him with deep concern, but as he opens his mouth to reassure her everything is fine, the Prophet inside him exits and enters her!
==== Murder In Engineering ====
Ssleestak regains consciousness, sprawled on the floor of main engineering, with his head propped against the warp core. Blood and something tough like muscle fills his mouth, and the blood drizzles out of his muzzle! He opens his eyes and finds his hands and his uniform soaked in even more blood! He looks up to see seven of the eight security personnel in main engineering, all carrying Type-3 compression phaser rifles, which are all aimed at him! [[trek:characters:shantaar|Shan'taar]] is in the lead and his eyes are as cold as Andoria itself!
Ssleestak then sees the body of Ensign [[trek:characters:jetra|Jetra Yaden]] sprawled on the floor next to him! Her face has been bitten off and her heart ripped out of her torso! Ssleestak gags when he realizes it's her heart in his mouth and he immediately spits it out and gags. He slowly raises his bloody hands and murmurs, "Don't shoot, it's me. Or if you're going to shoot, let me move away from the warp core!" That's when he receives K'tral's hail but chooses to ignore it.
==== A Capellan At Ops ====
Back on the bridge, Terjan swiftly decides that whatever is going on, it is definitely not his problem. Fero briefly surfaces as well but both immediately surrender to Jessa as she reclaims her body. Now back in control of her body and her faculties, Jessa looks up to see Swims intently scanning her head with the medical tricorder. Armina sharply asks Mel, "Name, rank, and current assignment?" Although very confused, Mel answers all of the questions correctly, stating her name, her formal rank as commander, and her temporary command of the //U.S.S. Varich//.
Armina seems relieved, but before she can respond, the [[trek:characters:jen|Jen-Prophet]] declares, //"The mind thieves are here early. A shield is needed."// Fal reaches to the tactical console to bump the shields to maximum power, before realizing that since the //Varich// is already at red alert, the shields are already up and at full power. Everyone on the bridge then sees the Jen-Prophet suddenly shift from a corporeal being into an hourglass-shaped energy matrix! The matrix then shoots up and exits the ship by passing through the hull!((On her way to retrieve [[trek:characters:alexandria|Alexandria]]!))
K'tral is now in the throes of a full-blown religious meltdown, and hails Ssleestak once again. To her horror, Ssleestak replies, //"K'tral, goodbye!"// Now truly panicking, K'tral pushes the Andorian pilot off her and tries to sit up! Her effort fails, and she ends up awkwardly rolling towards the turbolift, intent on getting to main engineering. Suddenly, [[trek:characters:peel|Peel]] sits bolt upright and then clambers to her feet to run to the operations station!
K'tral gestures helplessly at ops as Peel expertly reroutes power and then performs some other procedure. Fal murmurs, "Jen already said a shield is needed." Peel does not reply to him but hits a comm channel and snaps, "Bridge to transporter room one; pattern is now stable. Energize when ready!" Then Peel suddenly pitches forward face-first into the operations station! There's a loud crack, and every senior officer on the bridge suddenly realizes that the panel got the worst of it. Commander Hall says sharply, "Get them somewhere safe!"
==== The First Memories ====
The seven affected officers are suddenly beamed off the bridge and into the engineering conference room on deck six! Fal immediately hails the bridge, but Hall snaps, "//Not now!"// Jessa looks over at Ssleestak, bloody and horrified, and asks softly,"What happened to you?" He rumbles sadly, "I think I killed Ensign Yaden." Everyone goes deathly silent at that, until K'tral demands, "How did you save me?" Ssleestak looks utterly lost and replies, "What?" K'tral insists that Ssleestak saved her from something, but it's clear the Gorn has no idea what she is talking about.
As the seven officers settle in and try to figure out what happened, they are each struck by a memory fragment. Ssleestak gets a flash of being in a more advanced engineering room, in front of a master systems display table that shows the outline of an //Akira//-class starship! The ship is at red alert and taking heavy fire, and he can see the red damage icons spiraling rapidly as whatever enemy is attacking them, the shields are not stopping them. He sees an older [[trek:characters:macdougal|Jericho MacDougal]] run over and cry out, "I have an idea!" Ssleestak immediately snaps, "Do it!" MacDougal stares at him in shock for a split-second before turning and running to another engineering station.
Fal suddenly remembers being in the executive officer's seat on the bridge of an //Akira//-class starship, with his friend Jen in command! He spots a young female Cardassian manning the science station and his eyes narrow in anger. That anger pales when Captain Kras snarls, "Phillip! When we find him, I want you to shove the port nacelle up [[trek:characters:paris|Tom Paris]]'s ass!" Fal rears back in shock and the young Cardassian protests, "I don't think that's going to fit ..." and she shrinks back as Jen whirls to glare at her and snarl, "We. Will. Make. It. Fit!" Fal murmurs, "I shall start running some system elasticity tests." Jen snorts as she sits down and then Fal leans in and says softly, "My apologies but I do not know the source of your displeasure. Or for that matter, where I am!" Jen curses, "Oh God, not you too!" Fal shrugs and says, "Sorry?" but then the memory ends.
Mel has a distinct memory of being in the back of the bridge of an //Akira//-class starship, with Jen in command, and picking herself up off the floor after having been thrown from a VIP seat! She has no idea what's going on, but Armina, now sporting captain's pips and grayer hair, helps her up. K'tral remembers a boy, about ten or eleven years old, with long black hair and very dark eyes, tell her earnestly, "She did something very terrible to you!" K'tral has no frame of reference for where she is or even when, but she notes that the boy talks like an adult talking to an adult.
Jessa remembers Jen's orders to sodomize Tom Paris with the warp nacelle, but her attention is immediately drawn to an unfamiliar purple ship that resembles a blade, firing temporal weapons at their vessel! She knows that this is an Oligarchy vessel, but then the memory ends. The senior officers realize that the //Varich// is still at red alert but is shaking from ruptured space and not weapons fire. Jessa posits, "Rift problems?" and Phillip silently nods. Then the //Varich// shudders as she jumps to warp five!
==== Sharing Memories ====
Ssleestak avoids eye contact with everyone as he lumbers over to the replicator to get a large bowl of warm water and a towel to clean himself. K'tral explains that as soon as she woke up on the bridge, she knew Ssleestak had saved her from something terrible, and she quickly reveals the memory of the boy. Ssleestak realizes that the blood on his muzzle and his claws is from the person who hurt K'tral, and her revelation contains important clues.
Fal immediately pulls out a padd and starts taking notes on everyone's recollections. He goes next and describes his memory of the //Akira//-class bridge and the young female Cardassian. He asks, "When did Starfleet start accepting Cardassians?" Everyone frowns as they wrack their brains, but Mel says, "While there are Cardassians living in Federation space, mostly defectors, as far as I know there is no Cardassian in Starfleet."
Fal insists the young Cardassian seemed to be the chief science officer, and then Jessa interjects and shares her memory of being on the same bridge and how Captain Kras was very, very angry at Tom Paris. She makes a crude joke that Fal misses completely, leading Jessa to pat him on the head fondly. Fal quickly finishes explaining his strange memory, such as asking for clarification and Jen crying out, "Oh God, not you too!"
Jessa adds, "So, we were under attack by ships of the Oligarchy? And they had time-weapons?" Mel says, "I was there too, at the back of the bridge. I think I was in a VIP seat with Armina?" Phillip suddenly blurts out, "You were an admiral! I remember now, you were an admiral. I think Armina may have been on your staff? But I remember Jen ordering me to do the nacelle trick."
Peel declares, "I was on that same bridge. But I was at operations, while K'tral was at tactical. We both hesitated, and then we rerouted the stations and I opened fire. I blew up one of those blade-ships, and at first Jen yelled at K'tral before I claimed credit and then everyone on the bridge turned to me and asked about my oath of pacifism?"
Everyone stares blankly at her as a thought of a Capellan swearing an oath of pacifism just simply doesn't make any sense. Rather than be offended, Peel commiserates, as it makes absolutely no sense to her either! She adds, "So we were under attack by the Oligarchy, but what's the Oligarchy?" The officers stare at each other and then realize that they have absolutely no idea.
Still avoiding eye contact with anyone, Ssleestak adds, "I was in main engineering of an //Akira//-class starship, likely the //Solstice-A//, and we were under attack. MacDougal came up to me with an idea and I told him to do it; he looked at me strangely for a few moments before rushing off to do... whatever it was he was going to do."
==== More Memories Tumble Free ====
After everyone shares their strange recollections, they all go silent as additional memory fragments unlock. K'tral confirms that she was initially at tactical and that the ship they were on possessed psionic shields! The shields were in place to stop the Oligarchy but were useless against temporal weapons. The others nod as fragments start to come back and they all remember the blade-shaped ships attacking them. One half of the bridge crew expressed dismay that Peel had violated her oath of pacifism, and that Armina was now a captain and Mel's primary adjunct.
Jessa remembers that she was the chief counselor and Mel jokes, "I'm an admiral, so of course I have staff!" Phillip hesitantly adds, "I think Shan'taar was a captain?" The others realize that he is correct, and wherever they were, Shan'taar was not on their ship, but commanded a different ship, a much bigger ship! Mel is secretly proud of Shan'taar's apparent accomplishments. Ssleestak suddenly remembers the boy, who hung around engineering and treated Ssleestak like a second father. To his growing horror, he realizes this boy is the offspring of Jetra Yaden and Jericho MacDougal! He sits down heavily as somehow he knows that he has killed the boy's mother twice!
Mel muses, "It seems wherever and whenever we were, //Voyager// made it back this time as well." She thinks for a moment and then suddenly adds, "Wait a minute, I think I know who that Cardassian is! When I was hurled into that Borg-dominated 2386 six months ago, [[trek:characters:gurka|Gurka]], the Cardassian girl from the colony, was the science officer! She was in her late twenties then, and it sounds like she's the same age here as well?" Suddenly, the //Varich// drops out of warp with a rough shudder!
==== The Good Doctor And The Counselor ====
At that moment Swims and Armina walk into the conference room, and everyone stares at the Arcadian and thinks, //"She's still too small!"// Swims notices their scrutiny and sighs, but then scans Mel carefully before moving on to Ssleestak. As she scans, Armina explains, "At 1535 hours, the //Varich// was hit by some sort of temporal rupture. All of you collapsed for about thirty to forty-five seconds, and when you were talking, you weren't making any sense. Then, obviously, you all woke up."
Swims notes distractedly, "This is interesting. You both have what appears to be half an hour of additional memory engrams, but most of them have been burned away." The officers collectively shudder, and Jessa opines, "That does not sound pleasant!" Swims shakes her massive head and replies, "No, it doesn't." Ssleestak asks about internal security feeds, and Armina replies, "The feeds cut out on the bridge for those thirty to forty-five seconds, there's nothing there but static. There is a slightly clearer image from engineering, however." Her reluctance to go further is obvious, but Ssleestak insists on seeing the feed.
Realizing that on some level Ssleestak needs to see this, Armina relents and Swims calls up the security feed in main engineering. They watch in horror as Ssleestak shudders and then bellows in utter hatred as he charges towards a very startled Ensign Yaden! Ssleestak bites through her skull, bisecting her brain, and immediately swallows it as he drives his claws violently into her torso and rips open her rib cage to pluck out her heart! He then shoves the bloody heart into his mouth, before shuddering and falling to the floor. The recording ends, and Jessa is violently sick. The other officers don't look so great either, but Ssleestak stares silently in shock.
After a moment, Swims says softly, "However, there is some good news. These readings prove that Ssleestak was literally not in his right mind when he attacked Ensign Yaden. I'll need to perform more in-depth tests on all of you, but this should exonerate him completely." Mel agrees and then wonders, "How far in the future were we?" Fal admits, "I have no idea, Captain. There are not enough data points to formulate a hypothesis." He then reluctantly adds, "Ssleestak, do you trim your claws?" Ssleestak looks at Fal strangely but replies, "Every day, why?" Fal admits he was hoping to somehow track the passage of time by the size of his claws but realizes if their future-selves came back and inhabited their present bodies, that wouldn't help at all. Mel says carefully, "Gurka is about twelve now, and you all said she seemed to be in her late twenties then? I think we were about fifteen years uptime."((Correct, 2387.))
==== The Boy Arrives ====
K'tral and Armina suddenly freeze as they both sense the abrupt appearance of a very powerful psionic signature on the //Varich//! K'tral growls a warning, and then Armina starts a second time and declares, "Ensign Kras is back. However, just before she arrived a moment ago, a powerful psychic just rematerialized in transporter room one." She closes her eyes and concentrates, before turning to K'tral and asking incredulously, "He wants to know if you're OK?" K'tral refuses to answer, so Armina says, "Excuse me, I have to go investigate this."
Armina departs and Mel tries to access the same security feeds to see what is going on. However, no one is able to access those cameras, and Mel demands, "Have we been shut out?" Swims nods unrepentantly and replies, "Yes, you have. You have all been medically relieved of your duties for the moment. I'm going to need to run a lot more scans on all of you before you are fit to return to duty." She continues scanning the other officers and notes, "Not surprisingly, everyone has that same gap in the additional memory engrams." Fal asks about hypnogogic treatments and volunteers to go first, but Swims shakes her head and replies, "Appreciated and I will take you up on it if I need to, but I don't think these memories are going to be retrievable."
==== Some Explanations ====
At that moment, Lieutenant [[trek:characters:evan|Evan Kras]] walks into the conference room. He turns to Mel and says, "I'm here to bring you all up to speed. As I'm sure the good doctor and the counselor have already explained, we were hit by a temporal rupture. To his credit, before he collapsed, Phillip shifted the //Varich// to protect the //Valiant//. The Urathi are alright, but we received a distress call from that Tizit warship and jumped to warp to investigate. They've taken heavy damage, and Commander Hall ordered us to assist; the //Valiant// followed us and slipped into another dense cloud to hide. The Tizit vessel is drifting, without power, shields, sensors, weapons, or life support. We have away teams over there now to help, and the Tizit report they had similar problems with members of their crew."
Evan takes a deep breath and adds, "Ensign Kras has returned to the //Varich//, carrying a data-padd that seems new but we've quantum dated it back ten thousand years! We believe it is Bajoran, especially since she also appeared carrying a [[trek:characters:luca|nine-month-old Bajoran girl]]! Sadly, the infant has not proven to be helpful." Fal snarks, "That is true, we don't learn to say our names until we're about thirteen months!" Evan retorts, "Shut up... Sir." Mel snickers and then Evan leans in and says quietly, "Commander Hall asked me to keep you advised." Mel replies, "We appreciate it."
Evan steps back and adds, "A split-second before all this started, [[trek:characters:edgly|Chief Edgly]] discovered a pattern in the transporter buffer that wasn't fully stable. Ensign Atuun provided the way to stabilize the pattern, but Chief Edgly just rematerialized the pattern a few minutes ago, as auxiliary power was needed for the inertial dampeners, and then beaming over the away teams was deemed more important." Mel nods in agreement, and Evan adds, "The pattern was a boy, captain. About ten or eleven, half human and half Betazoid. He wants to talk to you all."
==== Meeting Malachi And Luca ====
Mel nods and then the doors open and the young boy walks in. He's wearing a deep burgundy shirt with dark pants and his long dark hair is a bit of a tangled mess. K'tral growls, "Captain, that is a photon torpedo with the beginnings of acne." Ssleestak immediately recognizes the boy and calls out, "[[trek:characters:malachi|Malachi]], how are you here?" He then blinks in surprise as has no idea how he knows the boy's name.
Before Malachi can respond, Jen walks in, carrying a Bajoran infant at arm's length. Fal swoops in and grabs the little girl, and he immediately identifies her as Fal Luca! He agrees with the assessment that she is about nine months old, which means she is six months older then when Fal/Ota met her for the first and only time. The others stare at the infant girl in confusion, but Luca seems to recognize Fal somehow. She wiggles a lot but doesn't make a lot of noise.
==== More Explanations ====
Ssleestak stares awkwardly at Malachi, completely uncertain on how to talk to a boy whose mother he murdered, apparently twice! Malachi suddenly hugs Ssleestak fiercely but K'tral hisses in outrage as she senses Malachi transmit something to Ssleestak. For his part, Ssleestak feels Malachi forgive him completely. Malachi releases Ssleestak and turns to Mel; he says, "Hello Admiral ... Captain!" Mel states, "Definitely captain, how did you get here?"
Malachi impulsively hugs Jen, before releasing her and explaining, "Captain Kras. You all are victims of a temporal weapon. Somehow, the Oligarchy acquired these weapons and, in the process, your past-selves... well, I guess your present-selves swapped places with your future-selves. You were in my time for about half an hour, and you agreed to have the memories removed to protect the Temporal Prime Directive." He adds a few more details to prove he's telling the truth, but he refers to Ssleestak as "Mr. Stack", clearly a term of endearment.
The officers are bursting with questions, but Peel is the first to demand, "Why in the name of the gods would I swear an oath of pacifism?" Malachi looks pained and replies, "I can't actually tell you, I'm sorry. What I can say is that you did it willingly to save Capella IV. Again, the Temporal Prime Directive is a huge issue here, which is why you all agreed to have your memories removed by the Prophet!" The officers rear back at that revelation and express dismay.
Malachi shrugs helplessly and then asks //sotto voice//, "So... who's the baby?" Fal says proudly, "My granddaughter! Several generations removed; it's very difficult to explain. But you don't seem surprised?" Malachi says sarcastically, "You've met yourself, right?" Fal enthusiastically agrees and then wonders idly if Fal Luca is in fact his ancient ancestor. He starts rattling off his genealogy back several generations before he hits a wall, and Jessa jokes, "I bet your mother knows!" Malachi brightens and exclaims, "Auntie [[trek:characters:kebru|Kebru]]!" The others turn and look at him strangely, and he reddens with embarrassment.
There is some light joking about getting back to the //Solstice//, and Malachi makes a reference about the Parables of Melva Deline, and Mel grumbles about the incident. She's referring to the future where she apparently destroys main engineering, but Malachi looks confused and replies, "I'm talking about the time you installed a plasma converter upside down. That could have destroyed the ship. Or at least half of it." Mel replies sarcastically, "Well, that probably wasn't the important half!" Jessa protests that her quarters would likely be in the blast zone and Malachi adds, "I should hope not. I was born and raised on that ship!"
K'tral demands to know how Malachi is so powerful, and the boy replies somberly, "That's what happens when you're born with your psionic abilities switched on." Mel asks, "Isn't that normal?" Jessa shakes her head and replies, "Not for Betazoids. Their telepathic abilities don't develop until puberty." Malachi agrees but admits being born and raised on a small starship was beneficial to his sanity. He reveals that he can read minds and emotions, and K'tral snaps, "So, you manipulate people." Malachi protests, but Mel says gently, "All children manipulate." Malachi groans but asks if the senior officers and a select few junior officers could meet so he can tell them about the Oligarchy.
=====Summary=====
At 1536 hours a more violent temporal anomaly strikes the ship, and Mel, Fal, Jessa, Phillip, Peel, Ssleestak, and K'tral are briefly mind-swapped with their future-selves for thirty-three seconds! Future-Ssleestak tears Ensign Jaden Yetra apart in that brief time before the temporal inversion ends. Fal caries a Prophet that immediately jumps into Jen, and she vanishes. The seven officers are immediately quarantined in the engineering conference room and try to piece together their fragmented memories of the future they witnessed; Mel was an admiral, Ssleestak was in engineering, K'tral was at tactical and Peel was at ops, Phillip remained at flight control, while Fal was the executive officer under Captain Jen Kras. Their ship was under attack by the Oligarchy and taking heavy damage. The //Varich// responds to a distress call from the Tizit vessel as they were hit by the temporal shockwave. Armina and Swims arrive and Armina fills them in while Swims discovers over half an hour of memory engrams that were burned out of the affected officers! Chief Edgly materializes a pattern that appeared in the buffer, a half-human/half-Betazed boy from that future, Malachi MacDougal. Jen reappears with a new Bajoran padd that is quantum-dated to ten thousand years ago, and the nine-month-old Fal Luca. Malachi, Jen, and Luca join the quarantined officers and Malachi gives a brief explanation.
===== =====
----
[[{}trek:solstice:recap:39_act_6|<= Act 6]]
[[{}trek:solstice:recap:39_act_8|Act 8 =>]]
{{tag>recap star_trek solstice}}