Temporal Drift

Chapter One – Unknown Territory

-The time is 06:00 hours. Alpha shift in engineering starts in one half hour. The computer announced in the dark quarters of B'Elanna Torres. B'Elanna laid there, already awake, staring at the replicator across the room.

"Computer, lights." She mumbled, and got up. She slowly walked into the restroom, and after undressing herself, activated the sonic shower. Twenty minutes later, she walked in to engineering, carrying a padd.

"Good morning, Lieutenant." Vorik said to her, as he turned from reading something on the warp diagnostic assembly panel.

"Good morning, Vorik. Anything new I need to know about this morning?" B'Elanna replied, as she sat the padd down on a computer console.

"Nothing very interesting… we had a relay go out on the second level but Ensign Hogan repaired it immediately. Other than that, the day has been uneventful." He finished in his Vulcan tone of voice. B'Elanna smiled.

"Don't speak to soon, you know how things go around here." She glanced up at the warp core, then turned around to get to work.

"Lieutenant…" One of her engineers said suddenly.

"Yes?" Torres replied, as she started walking toward the woman.

"The computer quit responding to my commands." She replied, as she tapped her console in frustration. B'Elanna walked up to it, and tried to bring up the memory allocation tables of the computer core, but nothing happened. The display was completely frozen.

"Strange." She muttered, as she looked up. She suddenly realized, every display in the room was frozen up. Suddenly, she heard something power down.

"Bridge to Torres, we just dropped out of warp… and all of the controls just went dead." Janeways voice came out of B'Elannas comm badge.

"We just started having problems down here, Captain. I don't know what's going on, I'll get back to you when we assess the problem."

"Alright. Step it up though, we are on the border of unknown territory. Janeway out." B'Elanna looked around the room, and noticed the small beeps and noises the room made weren't there. It was dead silent except for the low thrum of the warp core.

"Vorik, Hogan, get some tricorders." She said to the two men at the other side of the room. "Start scanning the isolinear chips and make sure they are all in working order. Computer, run a level one diagnostic on all ships systems." She finished, as she started to walk towards the isolinear control panel. She stopped, realizing the computer didn't respond. "Computer, respond." She said more loudly, looking around the room. Still nothing. She narrowed her eyes for a moment, then turned to Ensign Hogan. Grab two engineering kits. You and I are going to computer control. She then assigned the rest of her staff to checking out every other system in the room for errors. Moments later, she entered the Jeffries tube adjoining engineering, with Ensign Hogan.

"Do you think the problem lies within the core?" He asked as they started crawling.

"I really don't know, but we need to check it out anyway. Hold on, let me scan these ODN circuits real fast… I want to see if they have power going through them." They stopped, and she retrieved a tricorder from her kit. Opening it, it immediately started emitting a shrill beeping noise. Hogan frowned, and looked at it with her.

"What the hell… there is a temporal wave coming right at us!" She said as she looked at the readout. The tricorder was picking up a large build up of temporal energy sweeping through the ship, and it was converging on their position. "Do we have any portable forcefield generators in these kits?" She frantically asked, as she opened her kit. She eyed one immediately, and snatched it.

"Do you think that will protect us?" Hogan said, his voice worried.

"It sure as hell can try." She responded. "I just hope I can make it project an oval field strong enough to protect us both." She started pressing buttons on the small generator, as Ensign Hogan opened his tricorder.
"Hurry! It is right on top of us!" He said, as they suddenly heard a loud noise from behind the bulkhead.

"Got it! Get down!" B'Elanna yelled, as they both crawled up into tight balls. The moment they got small enough, the generator kicked on, emitting a small, but stable forcefield around them- just as the temporal energy wave struck.

--

"Engineering to Torres, Hogan. Please respond." Both of their comm badges buzzed, as B'Elanna started to wake up. She raised her head up, and looked around her. The lights in the Jeffries tube were out, and she couldn't see a thing.

"Torres here." She muttered, as she fumbled around for some form of light source. She found her tricorder, and flipped it open, only to find it dead.

"Are you two ok down there? An energy distortion just hit the ship, but everyone is ok. The computer just came back up a moment ago, everything is fine now."

"Damn my head hurts." Hogan groaned as he came to.

"We are ok, except power in this area seems to be out. We will be there in a second… Torres out. Hogan, are you ok?" She heard him move around for a moment, and then he replied.

"I think so, I am a little stiff but other than that, I think I'm fine."

"Good, lets get back to engineering." It took them a few moments to navigate the pitch black Jeffries tube, and back to the doors of engineering. The doors swished open, flooding the dark Jeffries tube access room with light. B'Elanna squinted for a moment, then walked foreword. "Alright, I want a full…" She stopped, and looked at the room before her.

"Um, Lieutenant," she heard Hogan say behind her. "what happened to engineering?' They stood in the doorway looking at the room before them. It was engineering, the same room they left, except more advanced looking. The carpet was black, as well as the walls, and all the computer readouts were holographic.

"Lieutenant? Ensign? What happed to your uniforms?" An ensign that B'Elanna did not recognize stepped up to them. Her uniform, as well as everyone elese's- were colored differently. They were white, similar to dress uniforms. Even their comm badges were designed differently. B'Elanna looked back at Hogan with a worried glance.

"Hogan, I think we have got a problem." She muttered, staring at the room before her.

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Yeah. So what do you guys thing.. does this story have any potential? Don't worry, Im about to wrap up Enemy: Unknown.