Captain's log, second of April 2180.

We're continuing our sweep of the nebula designated KS-490. It appears to be a standard Cerulean-type nebula. We have no sign of the odd readings picked up by the sensor station, so whatever it was, it's gone now. Unfortunately our sensors are having trouble penetrating the nebula, but they're the best we've got, so this might be a mystery we just can't solve. It'll take another two days to finish the sweep.

Captain Catherine Deacon instructed the computer to finish the log, then gazed out at the sea of blue on the viewscreen, lit up by the Queensland's lights. The Intrepid-class cruiser had better things it could be doing than investigating sensor glitches, but apparently someone had been intrigued by some kind of anomalous reading picked up from the nebula.

It was probably the most boring assignment they'd been given. Deacon would almost prefer to be back in the Romulan war. But here they were, cruising through a nebula like a shuttlecraft through thick fog.

Hours went by, Deacon spending the time reading a paper on temporal physics as she waited until she could get off-duty. Eventually Lt. Hughes, the science officer, called out to her. "Ma'am, I think we have something."

Deacon's eyebrow shot to the ceiling, and she rose out of her chair to head over. "Really? What is it?"
Hughes pointed to a reading on his screen- the spectrometer was detecting something far more dense than the usual gases.
"We'll have to get closer, but it looks like it could be a ship. Difficult to tell at this range."
Deacon frowned. "Helm, get us closer. Within ten kilometers."
As the Queensland neared its target, the scans cleared up.
"It looks almost like…" she murmured. Hughes replied, "Yes, ma'am, it looks like a Starfleet design, but it's not one I recognise."
"Me neither," Deacon said. "Warp signature?"
"Again, definitely Starfleet, but the engine type is different to any I've seen."
The other vessel was more angular than any she'd seen, and a little bigger than theirs, but the warp nacelles were tiny in comparison with the rest of the vessel, at least compared to what she knew.

Comms called out, "Captain, they're hailing us."
Deacon told Ensign Lowes, a lanky blond man that had only recently come aboard, to put it on the viewscreen, and sat back in her chair. The response was mostly static, with some vague shapes in the background.
Deacon shot a glance at Lowes, and saw that he was already working to clear it up. Figuring she'd help him out, Deacon asked helm to bring them within a kilometer. Closer than one usually wanted to get to anything, but in the nebula, it would make things ten times clearer.

The image at a kilometer was fairly serviceable, but surprising. The figure in the captain's seat was a species Deacon didn't recognise- humanoid, but with ridges on his nose. His uniform was black with gray at the top, a style that, again, she didn't recognise. The language coming from his mouth was entirely foreign.

Deacon turned back to her science officer. "Hughes, would you say the technology on that ship is advanced?"
Hughes span in his chair to look at her with a frown. "Yes ma'am. Extremely. The computer can't make heads or tails of the hull composition, and many components are smaller than their counterparts on our ship. The power signature is much larger, too." He rubbed the stubble on his chin. "The only explanation I can think of is time travel, but…"
But the idea was too ridiculous to contemplate. Having said that, here they were, investigating a strange sensor reading, coming across a Starfleet vessel whose captain wore a strange (but distinctly Starfleet) uniform and spoke a language their computer didn't know. It was the only explanation that made any sense.

Soon the language started to make sense. The captain was clearly stressed, repeating a request for help. "-need assistance. Power is critically low, and propulsion is out. We've taken damage and the nebula is further damaging our ship. Repeat, this is Captain Vanas of the USS Aurora. We need assistance. Power is critically-"
Deacon pressed a finger to the button that opened a channel. "Aurora, this is the Queensland. How can we help?"
The captain broke into a smile. "We were afraid you couldn't hear us. The nebula is our main problem, can you tow us out?"
Lieutenant Prakesh at tactical gave her a look that was probably inquiring. She nodded and he locked on a tractor beam to the probably-future vessel.
Captain Vanas looked away from his viewscreen, nodded in satisfaction then looked back and said to Deacon, "When we get out, we should be able to handle the repairs. Thanks for your help. I'd offer you a meal, but our replicators have no power at the moment."
Deacon gave a friendly smile, despite not knowing what that meant, and asked, "In that case, why don't you come over here? I'm sure you can use a break after a week in the nebula."
Deacon watched for a reaction- it had been a week since the sensor reading, so it was important to know if that had been them entering... from wherever or whenever they had been.
"Thank you, Captain. I look forward to it."

Vanas was well aware of the situation they had found themselves in. He still wasn't entirely sure how it had happened, but it had happened- they had been sent back in time by a rupture in space-time caused by Ambassador Spock's red matter.

At first they'd thought it had just been a run-of-the-mill transwarp jump or something similar, but now that this other ship had found them, it was clearly something else. That ship was an antique, so its presence there was a clear indication of the situation.

It was a bad situation, very bad. There had been no getting around it- even if they had known the Queensland had happened to be surveying the nebula they couldn't have avoided detection if they had wanted to.

It was probably the right time for the log.

Captain's log, Hobus transition plus seven days. Our systems had been steadily declining when another ship happened upon us. I have no reason to think it's anything other than coincidence, but it's a huge coincidence. The other ship was Starfleet, the old Intrepid-type, so we could very well be in the late 2100's. Whatever we fell into clearly sent us back in time, but precisely when to, we're not sure. The other ship is towing us out of the nebula as we speak, and it's my hope we can obtain further information from them without giving them too much of our own.

"End log."
Vanas turned to his first officer, Commander Kaya. "Thoughts?"
The Bolian scratched the central ridge on her blue face. "The Temporal Prime Directive applies, Captain. We should leave as soon as possible and find a way back."
Vanas frowned. "I'm not so sure about that. The Jellyfish and Narada were looking like they would be pulled in too. If they are here, we need to find them and figure out a way to stop the Narada."
Their science officer, a human named Maxwell, piped up. "Captain, using the readings we took we might be able to determine when they'll appear."
Kaya said to them, "It won't matter if we can find them. You saw the reports. The Narada isn't a ship we could take on, even with the combined fleets of the major powers of this quadrant. Its transphasic cluster torpedoes would rip us apart like the others."

Vanas sat back in his chair and tapped it absent-mindedly. "That leaves us with very few options. The only one I can think of is the red matter in the Jellyfish."
Maxwell told him, "We might have one saving grace, sir. I think that whatever sent us here was an ageing wormhole."
Vanas ran a hand through his hair, considering it. "An ageing wormhole would mean that the Narada is going to appear at some point in the future."
"If I'm correct, sir, I estimate around 2230. That would give us some time."
Kaya asked, "To do what? Sorry if I sound like I'm being negative, but..."
Vanas gave her a reassuring smile, "No, you're doing your job. We need to know what will work and what won't. As for your question, I don't know what we could do. There are a couple of options. That red matter could serve our purposes. Plant a black hole in the Narada and that'll do the trick."
Maxwell interjected, "The Jellyfish was behind the Narada. It'll appear after it, possibly decades after."
Vanas' brow furrowed as he thought. "That scuppers that idea. After that amount of time, who knows how much damage they could have done. But with our technology, we could probably build something. A super-weapon or something similar."
Kaya responded, "With what resources? All we have is a damaged ship, and we can't do anything here without damaging the timeline."
Vanas took a moment to consider. She was right. The only thing they had was their technology, which would be of limited use in trying to build anything.
"I'll have to give that one some thought. We have time, at least, to figure it out."

Captain's log, supplemental. We're out of the nebula and I have yet to decide on a course of action. For now I'm going to minimise our interaction with the people here as much as possible, but the Queensland presents too good of a chance to gather information. We know the rough stardate based on stellar drift, and our location, but we have to find a way to get the Aurora repaired. We can't let these people poke around our systems, but we simply do not have the resources to do anything more than keep us alive. Weapons, shields, engines; all too damaged for us to repair with what's onboard. I'm hoping a solution will present itself in the dinner I'll be having with the Queensland's captain.

When Vanas had first seen blonde hair, it had seemed so alien to him. But now, after a week on a ship that had been decaying, it was comfortingly normal to just sit down to dinner with a pretty woman, which Catherine Deacon definitely was. He had to keep reminding himself that she was a starship captain, and not only that, she could be the ancestor of his crewmates. Then, of course, was the fact that he could hardly afford to be messing around in this situation.

They'd been making small talk while they'd eaten their meals, which turned out to be difficult when you couldn't give away anything about your species. They didn't know anything about Bajorans, so simply his uniform could be changing history, and telling her more would be unacceptable.

Now Deacon had surprised him. "So, do you want to tell me what you were doing in that nebula?"
Vanas gave a friendly smile and replied, "Not really. Where I come from we have rules against that sort of thing."
"Can you at least tell me when you're from?"
Just a smile, slightly apologetic now.
"You're not going to be able to keep that up. You're currently stranded in the middle of nowhere. You're not going to be able to fix your ship without a lot more than you've got, unless you've got some fantastic technology that can make things out of nothing."
Unfortunately replicators, while brilliant, had limits. So she was right there.
Deacon sat forward and put her head on her hands, looking thoughtful. "How about this. Maybe I can just be an ear. You tell me about your situation and I'll keep it out of the reports. I swear as a Starfleet captain, it won't leave this room."
Vanas instinctively was about to decline, but hesitated. It might help... and I owe her something for her help. She'll be dead long before Hobus even goes up.
"Alright. A star was going supernova, but no-one could figure out why, and it was sending out subspace energy pulses that converted matter into energy, allowing the pulses to go further and cause a chain reaction that could have been catastrophic. My ship is equipped with metaphasic shielding, which allowed us to enter the star's corona to observe it closely. Our people had created something that would cause the supernova to halt, but there were political issues. It took too long to sort it out, and the home planet of a powerful interstellar empire was destroyed. A ship captain who had family there got a hold of some very powerful technology and was able to destroy an entire fleet that was sent against him. Someone else, with the technology to collapse the supernova, was attempting to do so when that ship captain tried to capture him, as he blamed him. But he'd already used that technology, causing something that sent us through space and time, here. It collapsed our shields, in the process, and in the few seconds we were exposed to the sun's corona, we took a lot of damage. We expect the other two ships to be arriving at some point in the future. Fifty years or so for the one that destroyed a fleet, maybe seventy for the other."

Deacon didn't say anything for several moments, clearly considering. He hadn't told her any specifics other than the situation, so hopefully that would be enough.
After a while Deacon told him, "That's a hell of a story. A fleet of ships as advanced as yours, destroyed by someone who'll be here in fifty years. I don't suppose there's much chance he'll stay out of history's way."
Vanas shook his head. "He blames the Federation for what happened to his homeworld. He thinks it was intentional."
Another few moments. Then, "It doesn't sound like you have many options. And you're in a bind right here, as well. There's only one option I can think of, but that involve violating your rules. It just seems to me that either you affect time in a positive way, by co-operating with us fully to put in place a fleet that can stop this ship, or you risk the Federation being destroyed."

Vanas considered. There had to be another option, and he said so.
"What option? I mean, even conceptually, I don't see a solution. I've always thought that if you can't even conceive of what could potentially solve a problem with everything going right, you're not going about it the right way. It seems to be either survival or total destruction."
Would it even be a bad thing for the Federation to know what they knew? They were good people, they could be trusted to do what's right with it. Vanas knew that. Yet the rules were there for a reason.

But there was an exception to the Temporal Prime Directive- preventing a greater disaster. What other option was there? Give them the technology to defend themselves against Nero, or watch them die as he does to them what he did to so many others?