Episode 39: The Rupture Zone - Act 6

Game was 11/28/20, a Saturday night as Thursday was Thanksgiving. Sadly, Daniel and Heidi couldn't make it at the last minute, necessitating some adjustments (i.e.: I pulled a lot out of my ass).

After her alarm goes off, Jessa spends the first fifteen seconds of consciousness utterly disoriented as she initially wakes up as Fero Tyr, consumed by the guilt of bombing a church! Then for a moment she is Terjan Tyr and frets about the upcoming day's appointments. Finally, she manages to properly arrange all the hosts with their personalities and lives before she gets out of bed.

When Fal wakes up it is at the tail-end of a dream and he immediately grabs his padd to start scribbling down new recipes for hasperat, for the restaurant chain! It takes him a few seconds to realize that he is Fal Marik, chief science officer of the U.S.S. Varich, and not Ota Verik, restauranteur of Bajor's distant past. However, the recipes continue to flow from his subconscious mind to the padd and he notes that several of them appear to be fusion cuisine, traditional Bajoran hasperat combined with ingredients that did not exist on Bajor ten thousand years ago, including several Earth ingredients such as chicken. He calls out, "Sola, were there any temporal anomalies last night?" He then realizes he's on the Varich, not the Solstice, when the computer replies, "A possible temporal signal was detected at 0333 hours."

Phillip wakes up and feels slightly off, as if he's a half-step behind everyone else. As Ssleestak awakens, he briefly tastes blood in his mouth, rich and red and full of iron. K’tral feels hollow and lost upon rising, while Mel wakes up very disoriented for a few seconds. After showering and donning her uniform, Mel checks the ship's logs and notices the potential temporal signature at 0333 hours last night. The signal is badly garbled thanks to the Rupture Zone, and Ensign Thal'tirian was unwilling to call it.

Mel heads to the bridge for the pre-meeting check in. She notes that Ensign Peel seems off as Lieutenant Evan Kras stands up to give his report. He states, "Gamma shift has passed without major incident, captain, but in Ensign Thal'tirian did spot what might have been a temporal signature at about 3:30 this morning. May I speak to you in private about that thing?"

Mel agrees immediately, although she has no idea what 'thing' Evan is talking about. Evan puts Peel in command and then they exit the bridge and cross the corridor to Mel's ready room. Once inside, Evan turns to Mel and says quietly, "A few minutes after Thal'tirian detected the temporal shift, Ensign Peel Atuun asked to go to sickbay. I immediately granted her request, and she was gone for about twenty minutes." Mel steps back in utter surprise and concedes, "That's a 'thing' indeed!" They exit the ready room; Evan returns to the bridge and resumes command while Mel heads to the conference room.

The senior officers gather for the normal pre-shift meeting and most of them were clearly affected by the unknown reading. Shan'taar is the last officer to arrive and as he takes his seat Mel eyes him and thinks to herself, "He's wearing the wrong shirt." She blinks and realizes he's wearing operations-gold as normal, while Shan'taar looks up, sees her gaze, and asks, "Captain, is something wrong?" Mel replies, "Something isn't lining up at all," as she carefully surveys the room. Christopher prompts, "Captain?"

Mel shakes her head and opens the meeting, as has become tradition the 'golds' go first. Ssleestak and K'tral report that they are pursuing twin projects, the supplemental computer core and upgrading the Urathi upgrades for installation on the Varich. The problem is that the upgrades were based on 23rd century technology, and while they share the same base code as their 24th century equivalents, it is tricky to reverse-engineer them for modern specs. Shan'taar states, "No incidents to speak of from our end, and our weapons have been checked and all torpedoes manually counted. On a side note, Crewman Chilp now has nametags on all of the torpedoes." Jessa snickers and replies, "Are they the 'Hello, my name is?" Shan'taar grumbles, which Jessa takes as an affirmative.

The 'blues' go next, and She-Who-Swims reports, "No medical emergencies or even minor injuries. I would say the crew seems to be in excellent health, except for certain senior officers who look they didn't get any sleep last night." Armina concurs with Swims and asks, "It is obvious that most of you are flagging already. Did something happen?" Mel states, "Let's jump forward to that on the agenda. Last night a potential temporal signature was detected, around 0330 hours. Many of us seem to be feeling the effects of whatever it was."

Fal gets an idea and checks the sensors in his cabin that monitor his health. He finds a half-second of corrupted data precisely at 0333 hours. He tries to reconstruct the data and finds what appears to be the life signs of an older Bajoran male present for that split-second. He reports his findings to the others and then decides to check everyone's health monitors. Christopher, Armina, Shan'taar, and Swims are fine, but Mel, Phillip, Fal, Jessa, K'tral, and Ssleestak all have a split-second of corrupted data at that exact same timestamp.

With this finding, Fal constructs a filter and runs a program to check every crewmembers' health monitors at the same split-second to see if anyone else has the same glitch. He only gets one hit, Ensign Peel Atuun. As he compiles the data from the seven affected officers, Fal muses, "Interesting, Peel is an outlier. She was awake when whatever happened." He projects the data on the main screen and quickly determines that Jessa has the clearest data; it seems like three separate brain wave patterns existed simultaneously for that split-second.

Fal carefully asks, "Apologies, counselor, I am not familiar enough with Trill customs to know if I am being insensitive, but I must ask you, do you have copies of the brainwave patterns of your previous… hosts?" Jessa shakes her head and replies, "Nope. The only place I can think of that might have that is the Symbiosis Commission back on Trill." Shan'taar laments, "There's no way we can send out a signal that will reach Trill from here." However, Swims pulls up her padd, taps a command, and then the senior officers see the brainwave patterns of Fero and Terjan Tyr. The good doctor admits, "I requested copies of the prior hosts' medical records and brainwave patterns after the… incident involving a prior host." Jessa shrinks in her chair a bit, as she is still deeply embarrassed about the time Terjan came out, while Fal compares to brainwave patterns and finds they are an exact match.

Fal admits, "For me, the disorientation was going back to that alternate life in Bajor's past. I wish I had a copy of Ota Verik's data, because I think that's who was temporarily in my room. Unfortunately, Bajoran medical science back then was nowhere near what's on the Varich now." He realizes that he's been subconsciously typing in more hasperat recipes on his padd and looks down to find the most recent one is another fusion dish: Betazoid chicken and Terran pesto! Jessa leans over and declares, "I would eat that right now! But I didn't know you could cook." Fal retorts, "I can burn water!" Jessa replies, "I would imagine that will be bad for the lab!" Fal jokes, "You should see when I burn heavy water!"

Phillip calls for quick comparison of location of everyone who was affected at the time of the incident, hoping for some correlation in location. However, when the data appears, it seems unlikely, as Phillip, Peel, and Mel were all on deck one, while Ssleestak, K'tral, and Fal were on deck two, and Jessa's cabin is on deck four. Thinking along a similar vein, Fal posits, "Did the seven of us who are affected ever serve on the same away team?" The senior officers think carefully but no incident comes to mind. Shan'taar states, "I think the only time most of these people were on the same away mission was our extended mission in Klingon space on Mu'Kala II, but K'tral and Ssleestak weren't even with us yet."

Mel declares, "We need Peel. And Thal'tirian as well, as she initially detected it." Luckily both ensigns are serving gamma shift on the bridge, so she hails them and requests their immediate presence. As the officers wait, Mell muses about temporal echoes and wonders if this is something happening from the future. Swims points out, "Not only is that possible, captain, but it also wouldn't be the first time on this ship.¹⁾ Before we rescued Ensign Kras from that Romulan scout ship, we were plagued by temporal effects in a reverse order."

Mel agrees as Peel and Thal'tirian into the room; Thal'tirian seems approximately 97.3% of her usual bouncy self,²⁾ while Peel seems more somber than usual. Mel informs the two ensigns, "We are discussing the incident at 0330 hours, and would like your input." Thal'tirian immediately explains, "I detected a blip of sorts a few light years ahead of our current position. It could be a temporal signature, or a subspace tear that didn't fully form, or another version of Phillip writing his name in subspace." Phillip grimaces and sides down his chair a bit, while Fal calls up the original sensor rating and examines it. He realizes immediately that the poor quality of the signal means no reliable conclusion can be drawn, and states aloud, "Ensign Thal'tirian is correct. I wouldn't have put in any conclusion if I had detected it myself."

Peel remains silent, clearly not intending to volunteer anything. Mel decides not to push the issue for the moment, and declares, "There's data collection to be done. Thank you, Ensign Thal'tirian. Counselor, Doctor, you two are to gather the data from those affected, while Fal? You're on the hard data collection." Fal immediately agrees, while Swims and Armina eye each other and then decide to host a series of quick interviews here in the conference room.

The other senior officers exit conference room then take their stations on the bridge. Jessa is called to the first interview, as her data was the clearest. Jessa explains her disorientation and how her memories from her previous hosts were all mixed together with hers. She returns to the bridge and tells the captain that they would like to talk to her next. Mel leaves Christopher in command and heads into the conference room again; she sits and explains her disorientation upon waking up. However, she didn't have anything as dramatic as apparent temporal regression or Trill schizophrenia.

Fal sends a private text message to Swims, Phillip, and Mel that reads, "Quick thought. What if Peel's anomaly was a literal non-existence?" Mel is disturbed by the very thought of that, while Phillip buries his reaction and heads in for his interview. His is super quick, as like Mel, he had no dramatic reaction upon waking up this morning, just a general grogginess. Similarly, Ssleestak's and K'tral's interviews are also very quick. This leaves Peel for last, and she has remained on the bridge in anticipation. Once she is summoned, Peel requests to speak to Jessa and Phillip instead.

The captain, counselor, and doctor have no objection and Armina and Swims exit the conference room so the three ensigns can use it instead. They settle in and Peel takes a few moments to gather her thoughts before speaking. She then turns to Phillip and asks, "Phillip, does the name Kuat Vaal mean anything to you?" Phillip thinks carefully and replies, "I've heard you mention the Vaal before in relation to your tribe, but I don't think you've ever shared any specific names."

Peel takes a deep breath and continues, "Phillip? Did you possess the body of an unknown male Capellan and then stab my father and kick me in the head as a child?" Phillip wilts and replies softly, "Yes?" Jessa exclaims, "That's where the knife came from!" Peel pivots and demands, "What knife?" Jessa explains, "It was during the mission to Kordikar. Some people got blipped into alternate timelines. We were sent back to the planet and Phillip appeared with a knife and blood on his shoes!" Peel turns and skewers Phillip with a pointed look, and Jessa hastily adds, "He felt really bad about it. I had to enlist Armina's help to get him to say anything!"

Phillip starts sliding down his chair, desperately wishing he was a changeling and thus could just revert to a liquid state to escape this! Peel asks flatly, "Why did you not tell me this?" Phillip answers, "Because I didn't know how? And I'm still trying to come to terms with it?" Jessa interjects, "That's why he sees Armina every day now!" Although Peel's eyes never leave Phillip, she asks Jessa sarcastically, "Is this the Terran Youngest Child Syndrome I've heard about?"

Jessie replies cheerfully, "Yup! And I'm actually the oldest! If you think I'm bad, you should meet my younger twin brothers!" Peel sighs heavily and gets up and walks over to the replicator. She replicates three glasses of the same bright red drink, returns the table, and hands Phillip and Jessa each one of the glasses. She sits down and takes a sip of her drink, while Jessa just start chugging it! She finds it similar to a mulled cider from Earth, and then drains it entirely and asks, "More please! What was it?" Peel ignores the question briefly as she clinks glasses with Phillip and starts drinking; Phillip realizes there's no way out of this and takes a deep sip of his drink.

After she's drank about half of the glass, Peel replies, "The closest translation in English is 'blood cider.' Regardless, just after Ensign Thal'tirian detected the anomaly, I was struck with some sort of double-vision. From one eye I could see my station normally but from the other eye I saw myself as a child and Phillip wearing the colors of the Vaal tribe stab my father and then kick me in the head when I raced forward." She leans back in her chair and admits, "I actually wish you had succeeded, my love. It would have made my teenage years a lot easier, although I suppose I wouldn't have learned as much if I hadn't tried to poison that bastard so many times." Jessa holds up her empty glass and Peel groans but gets up and replicates another serving.

Peel hands Jessa the drink before turning back to Phillip and asking, "Would you mind if we adjourn to our cabin for a few moments? There are some cultural issues that we need to iron out." Phillip replies, "Yeah," and they get up and leave the conference room. Jessa immediately pulls out her padd and texts, "Armina!! What the hell?" She quickly summarizes Peel's report.

Peel and Phillip enter their cabin, although Phillip is clearly reluctant. Peel sits down on the bed and pats the space on the left for Phillip to join her. He warily complies end Peel reaches out to grab him in a side hug as she says, "Some things I need you to understand, my love. The first is that Capellans discuss the murder of their relatives with the same tone as you humans discuss the weather. It is simply a fact of life on Capella IV. OK?" Phillip nods, so Peel continues, "Secondly, I forgive, understand, and accept why you did not tell me this. I also do not begrudge you speaking to the counselor about it. Understood?"

Phillip relaxes and nods, so Peel continues, "Now, killing my father. Even in an alternate timeline, that still gets the warp engine going, if you know what I mean." Phillip starts in shock but then realizes Peel was completely serious; he declares, "The bridge can wait." Half an hour later he stumbles into the sonic shower for a quick rub and scrub, and then returns to the bridge approximately forty-five minutes after he left. Armina looks up and asks innocently, "Were you able to finish reconciling those cultural issues, ensign?" Phillip replies, "Yes," as he takes his station at flight control. Jessa barely manages not to cackle.

Fal returns to the main lab to collate all the data he has collected so far. Realizing that temporal mechanics is not his strongest suit, he hails Chief Rebecca Montrose and asks for her help. She swiftly agrees and joins him a few moments later. She examines the data carefully and says, "Sir, that initial signal? I can't be absolutely certain thanks to all the interference, but it does bear many similarities with the Krenim temporal weapons used at Kordikar. I think this might be some future event reverberating backwards …" Her voice trails off as another data point catches her attention and she shifts her focus.

Fal smiles indulgently and steps away to hail his friend Jen. He asks her if she would like to be involved with this research; she agrees and arrives within a few moments. Fal is happy to see her, and she replies, "I don't possess a fraction of the hard scientific knowledge you have, but I'm willing to take a look at the readings and see if I can find any patterns. Besides, I still entertain a faint hope that this might be some temporal fuckery that doesn't involve me!" Fal agrees and copies the data to Jen's pad. Jen departs the room and Fal decides to recruit Alexandria. He finds her in the stellar cartography lab, surrounded by holographic columns of the data they uploaded from the Varich-A. Realizing that she is clearly in the data analysis groove, Fal instead sends a text message she can read at her leisure.

Fal decides that he needs a command center for this project, so he commandeers the configurable lab on deck two. On the Solstice, this was the storage and workroom for all the historical artifacts that arrived with Jen, but on the Varich the room is unused. Recalling Jen's sarcastic comment, Fal christens the lab as the Temporal Fuckery Analysis War Room. Chief Montrose relocates there, and they continue their work. At 0930 hours, Jen storms into the lab and growls, "I found something. Something at the tail-end of each of the experiences; a single verteron particle! Although it might be unconnected, the presence of this verteron particle tells me that your Prophets are somehow involved!"

Rebecca takes the data and reviews it before starting to spout theories, until Fal interrupts her, "Does this check out?" Rebecca nods and replies firmly, "It checks out!" They examine the verteron particle carefully and find something attached to it. After some more examinations and testing, they discover that the attachment in question appears to be a DNA nucleotide fragment. Rebecca announces, "I have an idea!" She calls up some medical data and then informs the others, "I have a match. This nucleotide is a fragment of Jen's DNA." Jen growls in frustration and Fal suddenly realizes he is a Bajoran meat shield as the two women start circling him! Rebecca says innocently, "I feel strangely comfortable with all this!" Jen glares daggers at her but Fal steps to the side, hopefully out of the blast radius. Rebecca gestures to the door and says cheerfully, "You first, you are the superior officer!" Jen flips them both off before turning and storming out.

Back on the bridge, the senior officers on duty continue to keep the Varich on course behind the Valiant. Jessa spends a great deal of time staring at the back of Phillip's head, but Phillip keeps his eyes fixed forward. Eventually Jessa gets bored and wanders off, leaving Merek'miir to lean in and whisper to Phillip, "Congratulations, you've outwitted the predator." Phillip whispers back, "More like outwaited her!"

Mel looks up when Swims exits the turbolift onto the bridge to confer with Armina and she does a doubletake and thinks to herself, "She shrank!" Jessa and Phillip also happened to glance over, and they rear back in surprise as well! Swim stops and asks, "What is it?" Mel declares, "You shrank. You were bigger at the meeting!" Jessa and Phillip nod in agreement as Swims stares at Mel and replies, "I am the same size now that I was two hours ago."

At that moment Fal hails the bridge and declares, "My science department has started with our analysis, and I have an initial report." Mel interjects, "We have another datapoint for you!" Fal eagerly asks what it is but Christopher interjects, "Why don't you come to the bridge yourself, commander." Fal immediately agrees and exits the temporal war room. On the bridge, Christopher looks at Mel and says, "I want to see his reaction, untainted by any prior knowledge or bias." Mel admits she was thinking the same thing while Swims groans.

Fal enters the bridge a moment later and immediately does a doubletake when he sees Swims. Mel asks, "She shrank, right?" Fal nods and then pulls out a padd to quickly diagram the conference room and everyone's position as he tries to figure out how the nine-meter-long Arcadian fit in the room. Swims growls, "I am the same size I was yesterday, approximately six meters from the top of my head to the tip of my tail. My species undergoes growth spurts even in middle age and I am the largest right now than I have ever been. In fact, I'm actually at the larger end of the spectrum for my species!"

Mel, Fal, Phillip, and Jessa all insist that Swims was three meters larger at the meeting, despite knowing that that was impossible. Swims mutters, "if that is the case, I am glad I did not eat the Urathi." Mel insists the good doctor not eat anyone, especially the Urathi as it would be bad for their new diplomatic ties. Swims rolls her shoulders in a noncommittal shrug but then muses, "Despite the fact that the seven of you all had different reactions upon waking, the four of you here all shared the same experience: the apparent discrepancy in my size. This could indicate that whatever you experienced last night may have been in the same continuum."

Fal considers her observation and states, "I believe you may be correct, doctor. We've found some other shared datapoints as well." He quickly explains Jen's discovery of the verteron particle, and Rebecca's discoveries of the possible correlation to Krenim temporal weaponry and the fact that Jen's nucleotide was somehow attached to the verteron particle. K’tral is deeply discomforted by this revelation and worries about the religious implications of a Bajoran Prophet potentially inside her, even briefly. Swims declares, "Then if previous patterns continue, someone deployed a temporal weapon and then Jen fixed it."

Mel mutters, "That would be the most likely conclusion." Swims sighs and grouses, "I miss just practicing medicine." Mel admits, "I do miss the days when my job was just shooting at things." Jessa calls out mischievously, "Phillip, stick out your butt!" Phillip refuses to even respond while Merek'miir pivots in her chair to glare at Jessa. Mel asks innocently, "Problem, Lieutenant?" Merek'miir simply pivots back to her station. Swims grumbles, "I'm going back to sickbay; sickbay makes sense." Mel teases lightly, "Keep telling yourself that!" Swims retorts, "You know, it is possible that I grew to compensate for all of your egos!" Mel snickers as Swims slithers back to the turbolift.

The Valiant and the Varich drop out of warp to navigate through a region of badly shattered space, with areas featuring 'heavy' space. A few moments later Shan'taar calls out, "Captain! I've just picked up a Tizit vessel, military grade! Heading this way at warp six!" Mel immediately orders, "Yellow alert!" Christopher leans in and says quietly, "I recommend we try to avoid a confrontation or even detection. That could truly complicate things for our Urathi friends." Mel agrees and orders Phillip to take evasive action. Phillip complies and heads for a nearby region of the denser space; the weird metaphysics of the Rupture Zone means it'll be hard for the Tizit to scan this region.

As the Tizit vessel also drops out of warp and starts conducting a broad sensor sweep, Fal and Shan'taar perform quick, unobtrusive scans of their own. Collating their data, they report to the captain that the Tizit vessel is definitely a warship, roughly a destroyer-analogue, like the New Orleans-class U.S.S. Renegade. Shan'taar posits, "I think this might be a prototype of some sort. A ship of the line they took out and retrofitted for travel here in the Rupture Zone. This might indicate a dedicated expansion into the zone."

Mel asks Phillip, "Where is the Valiant?" Phillip replies, "Right next to us. They've modified the navigational uplink so now they're following us." Several tense moments pass as the Tizit continue their sensor sweep, and then the Tizit vessel pivots and starts heading directly for the region the Varich and the Valiant are hiding in! Mel orders Phillip to take additional evasive actions; he quickly analyzes the sensor scans of the warship and discovers a large sensor gap directly behind the warship and just above their engine wash. When the Tizit vessel's sensors go down briefly as they are recalibrated for the unusual nature of this specific region, Phillip darts the Varich right up into their sensor blind zone! The Valiant follows suit as well and settles right up next to the Varich just before the Tizit sensors come back online.

The warship conducts a careful search of this denser region, seemingly unaware of the two smaller ships directly behind her. Phillip matches course and speed to the Tizit vessel perfectly and continues to do so for over half an hour. Shan'taar risks several more low-level scans and informs Mel, "Definitely a prototype. It's been retrofitted and I suspect this might be a shakedown cruise or the equivalent. I'll bet the next vessel of this subclass isn't going to have that large sensor gap!" Mel agrees and Shan'taar asks, "Phillip? What happens when they try to leave this region?"

Phillip shrugs and replies, "We'll see." Shan'taar groans as the Tizit vessel changes course again, clearly intent on leaving this area! Phillip eyes the navigational data and times his flight path perfectly to shimmy the Varich to port behind a denser cloud as the Tizit vessel departs and jumps back to warp six! The Valiant follows the Varich without being detected and Phillip leans back and announces, "I need a drink!" Mel retorts, "You're still on duty!" but Jessa says admiringly, "That was some fancy flying!"

It's about 1400 hours at this point, and Fal returns to the TFW to find most of his science department is now actively engaged in this project. He realizes examining the sensor data is the work of a lifetime and would need a dedicated computer core normally reserved for a fully-functioning starbase, and that the scientists have relocated here to deal with an immediate problem. He also discovers that Alexandria got his message and made a 'Temporal Fuckery War Room' sign with pink bubble letters and stuck it above the door! Jessa leaves the bridge to grab a late lunch, and Mel contemplates the dangers of Krenim temporal weaponry until the Urathi hail her. Galeb greets her and announces, "My compliments to your pilot, how much cinnamon did he eat?" Mel protests, "My officers don't show up intoxicated for their duty shift!"