This series expands on the relationship between Com. William Riker and Lt. Natasha Yar. In Season One, they seemed to transform overnight from stiffly formal to casual and friendly. This story begins just after "Datalore", but before "Angel One".
The series is rated T for language, plus adult and violent situations. There are spoilers for TNG's first season. Constructive suggestions to expand this series were appreciated. Thank you for your feedback!
The TNG characters listed herein aren't mine. While some locations named are real places, others are fictional. Non-TNG characters also are entirely fictional, and similarities to anyone real are unintentional.
Future's Past
Chapter 1
Com. William Riker's personal log, Monday, April 23, 2007
Even after five weeks of being stranded here, I'm still not used to the noise. This is a loud century.
A neighbor starts his motorcycle every weekday morning at around 0500 hours, then opens the throttle a few times to be sure the neighborhood is awake before finally driving away to wherever he goes at the crack of dawn.
Tasha is a light sleeper—at best—and the motorcycle always rouses her. She usually can't get back to sleep, so instead of tossing and turning as daybreak illuminates the apartment, she walks up the street to purchase a newspaper, which has become a primer about the place we now live.
She rarely sleeps in, having learned many times that it's pointless because our upstairs neighbors wake one hour later. We've got their weekday routine down: At 0600, their alarm blares several times until someone finally shuts it off, and then BOOM, our ceiling shakes when Mother jumps out of bed to rouse her three children. Then they all fight over the toilet, the sink, the shower and which television program to broadcast to the entire building. The mother seems only to communicate with a raised voice, and this continues as goads them down the stairs (directly past our apartment door) and then outside.
Tasha and I are restless and frustrated, wondering how we wound up here, and how we can get back to the place and time where we belong: The USS Enterprise, 357 years in the future.
We're out of our element. We're sleeping on a floor, but at least we're inside. We have a place to stay, and the means to make a living. In the 21st century, that means something.
But we still don't know why we're here, or how long that's going to be.
USS Enterprise, Stardate 41242.5, Calendar year 2364
In a quieter time when everything made sense, Commander William Riker and Lt. Natasha Yar had been walking through the USS Enterprise corridors, enroute to a personnel review.
The main corridors were busy with crewmembers heading wherever their duties led, and extra-crowded with 8-year-olds being herded toward Engineering for a class tour. Hoping to avoid the corridor jam so they'd arrive on time to their meeting, both officers sought a deserted shortcut, a tertiary corridor leading past the ship's Holodecks.
Riker and Yar weren't thinking consciously about where they were. They focused instead on where they were going: Somewhere else. They were chatting, making the kind of small talk that gets officers from one place to another without seeming like gossip or forced civility.
Will Riker had grown up in a seismically active area on Earth, so he was attuned to vibrations on surfaces where he stood. He could feel even the slightest difference before either of them heard or saw it: A slight tap, barely detectible through his uniform boots, as if a chunk of space debris had bounced harmlessly off the ship's hull.
But before that tiny change could register in Riker's mind, before he could draw a breath to say anything, both officers were yanked violently to their left. Instead of slamming against the corridor wall, they stayed in motion, impacting another hard surface, barely half a second after they were jerked off their feet.
They had no time to prepare, and only Yar instinctively raised one arm to protect her head. They landed on a solid surface, one meter apart. On impact, Riker's head snapped sideways, banging hard against the ground beneath him. Dazed, he rolled onto his back, struggling to regain air that had been knocked out of him. He chanced opening his eyes, but abruptly squinted them shut against a blinding light directly above him. He could feel cold, wet droplets striking his face.
Yar's fingers spread tentatively across the rough, wet surface she now lay upon. Cold water rained down on her. She pushed herself upright, twisting to sit up on one hip and trying to ascertain her surroundings through racing, confused thoughts. Far as Yar knew, she was in a corridor aboard a starship warping through space. There was no plausible reason that she should be anyplace else.
Why am I in the shower? she thought, blinking water out of her eyes as her fingers splayed across the unfamiliar surface she sat on. Maybe this is a simulation, she thought. But what the hell am I doing in the Holodeck?
"Computer, exit," Yar called out, noticing for the first time that Com. Riker lay on the hard ground beside her, rolling onto his side. She saw no one else nearby. "Sir, are you all right?"
"Yeah," he replied. His head was throbbing, but he was thinking along the same lines as the security chief. "Why are we in the Holodeck?"
"I don't know," she said. She reached for her combadge so she could call the bridge, but her fingers only found her empty, left shoulder. Her communicator no longer was attached to her uniform, and she didn't see it lying anywhere nearby.
"My combadge is gone. Computer, emergency exit!" she said, loudly enough that the Holodeck's voice recognition should have picked up her order. Any second, a door would materialize to let them out, she hoped.
But nothing changed.
"What the hell is going on?" Riker asked.
The temperature was close to freezing, and it didn't help that they were sitting in a puddle of water. Water began seeping through their uniforms.
A bright light was situated almost directly overhead, blinding as an interrogation light. An ominous thought occurred to Yar that they might have been captured.
"Are we in custody?" she whispered, hoping only Riker could hear her. She reached nonchalantly toward her right hip and found her phaser securely affixed to her uniform. If we were prisoners, they would have taken the phaser, she thought. Unless they don't know what it is.
"We need to get out of the rain," Riker said, struggling to his feet. He also tried verbally to get the computer's attention, but even his dictated emergency codes yielded no response.
A wall stood about two meters away, a gray apparition just out of the spotlight above. Its height was enough that they couldn't see through the dark rain how tall it was. But as they looked to their right, they could see a soft glow emanating from beneath an overhang. A way out of the rain, maybe, Riker mused.
He recognized something else adjacent to the overhang: It looked like a replica of an old-style ground car.
Few petrol automobiles existed in the 24th century, most of them displayed in museums, away from damaging elements outside. This one looked like the real thing, exhaust pipe and all. Someone had gone to a great deal of trouble, even attaching a license tag on its backside and what looked well-worn, slogan stickers adorning the rear window and bumper.
Who would leave a classic vehicle to rust in the rain? Riker thought.
They walked – quickly – splashing through puddles toward warm lights glowing beneath awnings only 20 meters away. Soft illumination behind several pairs of glass doors was a comforting change from the piercing light they had encountered earlier. Yar tugged on multiple door handles until she found one that would open, and they stepped inside, each inwardly hoping they weren't walking into a trap.
Neither officer had a tricorder with them, so they had no way to ascertain what was in the building until they stepped inside and saw it, themselves. The interior was warm but anciently spacious, larger than the Enterprise's biggest shuttle bay and with an ornate ceiling twice as high. The big room seemed to be a center for a number of shops and restaurants around its edges, though all appeared dark and closed.
In the center of that main room, a kiosk labeled "INFORMATION" lured both officers. Though the structure was unoccupied by people, it still seemed to be their best option to learn where they were. Display shelves ringing the kiosk exterior were loaded with paper-bound publications.
They walked toward the kiosk, wiping water from their faces with their equally soaked uniform sleeves. As their uniform boots clicked across the marble floors, the huge room seemed to echo their presence, and that made Lt. Yar uncomfortable. She wondered who might be watching them and what they might be thinking. She hated feeling like a target.
Several other humans also were inside the large room, each walking in different directions. The people wore ancient-looking coats appropriate for rainy weather, and didn't seem concerned about two drenched Starfleet officers standing at a closed, information kiosk, peering at
"Missouri," Riker remarked, reading off one of the pamphlet titles.
Yar frowned, finger-combing her soaked, short hair off her forehead. "What's Missouri, sir?"
"A region in North America, on Earth," Will replied, though he was just as perplexed. "What the hell are we doing here?"
"This has to be a Holodeck program," Yar said. She didn't know Missouri from any other continental destination in North America. But she did notice something else about the pamphlet.
"Sir, is this a year on the front cover?" Yar said, motioning to the cover of the magazine, which said VISIT KC, Fall/Winter 2006.
Riker's eyes grew wide with realization. "An automobile was parked outside. That would be consistent . . . either that, or I hit my head harder than I thought."
"What do you mean, sir?" she asked.
"I think we're in a time warp to 2006," he replied.
No, no no . . . Yar thought. "Computer, emergency exit, Code 009Y!"
Nothing happened, other than her voice echoing back to them.
"We've already tried that with my codes," he said, not even glancing sideways at her. But she was looking at him, and noticed something.
"Sir, you still have your combadge."
Relieved initially to have that line of communication, Riker tapped his badge. "Riker to Enterprise," he said, but he knew instantly that he'd get no response. The characteristic clicks made by an operational combadge weren't present when it was touched by his hand. It was inactive, dead.
"I wonder what happened to mine," she said.
They alternately stared at the pamphlet, and glanced at the interior of the building.
Riker nodded to the map he held. "I think this is Kansas City."
She stared at him. "What's Kansas City?"
"It's a city in North America."
"That was a quick trip from deep space to Earth," she remarked, only half-serious. Inwardly, her mind was set: This was a simulation, which would result in an evaluation, and then a grade. But she now understood what "KC" stood for.
"And a quick trip back in time," he added. "This says it's 2006. No, it's 2007, actually," he nodded toward a small calendar posted on the kiosk counter. Its paper page clearly stated, 'March 2007'.
Yar sighed audibly. She wasn't a fan of practical jokes or sarcasm, and she recognized how silly this was. "Yeah, I suppose there's a big difference between 2006 and 2007," she muttered, and that remark earned a sharp glare from her commanding officer.
"Lose the smartass attitude, lieutenant," he said.
"Sir, this is ridiculous!" she countered. Impatient and frustrated, she wasn't waiting for permission to speak freely. They had no time for this, and now she was outwardly pondering the whys of what was happening. "Someone's playing bad joke on us. We're going to be late for the personnel review."
"Based on what I'm seeing here, we're more than three centuries too early for the review," he replied, grabbing another pamphlet, partly out of curiosity, but mostly out of boredom. "So, we've got plenty of time."
Natasha Yar was more curious about their surroundings than she was about a bunch of guidebooks. But it was getting harder for her to hide her suspicion that this whole situation was a prank, and that Will Riker must be in on it. They had been serving together aboard the Enterprise for six months by then, so she'd learned about his jokester reputation.
But this prank wasn't funny, and she noticed a rising lump on the right side of his head.
"That looks painful, sir," she nodded toward him, and now had her doubts that he was part of this joke. Even someone like Riker was unlikely to have taken blows to the head in the process of pranking anyone.
"Yeah, I must have done that when we hit the sidewalk," he replied, his eyes never leaving the brochure he held.
She walked around all sides of the kiosk. Her boot steps echoed against the floor, making her inwardly cringe, again. That echo would make potential assailants difficult to track.
"What are you doing?" Will muttered, keeping his voice low so it didn't echo as much as her footsteps did.
"Just looking around," she replied. Then one possible reason for their relocation suddenly occurred to her. "Do you think it might be Q, sir?"
"If it were Q, he would have shown up to gloat by now," Riker said.
She wasn't convinced. Q still might show up, and probably ship me off to a penalty box somewhere for running my mouth, again. She forced herself to repress a knee-jerk irritation that often got her into trouble because she tended to verbalize her frustrations.
"What is this place, anyway?" she asked, forcing herself to go with it for awhile. She knew it was in her best interest to avoid hacking off the first officer, especially if he truly had nothing to do with what was happening. Just play along, she thought.
"This looks like a transit station of some kind," he replied, nodding toward a departure timetable posted on an opposite wall. Then he found a pamphlet bearing the same name and logo on the wall. "Amtrak . . . oh, these are trains! It's a station for trains."
"What are they trained to do?" Yar asked, not comprehending what he'd said. She focused instead on a man walking without much purpose across the main hall. He wore a uniform — possibly security patrolling the building. He didn't seem concerned with anything, biding his time until his shift ended.
"No, a train was a steam or petrol-fueled engine that pulled multiple cars on two metal tracks," Riker replied, forcing himself not to snicker at her earlier mistranslation. "Trains were everywhere in this time. They carried people, freight, you name it."
"But only where the tracks are, correct?" she noted.
"Yeah, as far as I know. According to that sign, this is Union Station."
"Maybe we're in New York City," she remarked. Even Tasha Yar, who as an offworlder was not a strong student of Earth history or geography, was familiar with the Union Station reference.
"That's Grand Central Station you're probably thinking about," he said. In the 24th century, Grand Central still operated as a ground and shuttle transit port. The historic building had been completely renovated and reinforced.
"I thought New York had a Union Station."
"Every large city in North America has a Union Station," he replied, then remembered more snippets of United States history. "Well, except the Southern states."
"Of course, sir," she parroted, going with it, though she had no clue what he was talking about. She hoped this wasn't going to be a test scenario to find out how much she remembered from the Earth Civ classes that were required by the Academy. History had not been her thing in school, especially regarding a place to which she had little connection.
A large, face clock hung above a large doorway connecting both rooms. From the darkness outside, plus the lack of a crowd in the station, Riker figured the time was 0445, and not 1645.
"That clock says its 0445," he said. "So the sun should come up in two hours, and maybe by then the rain will have stopped."
They found a bench just inside the second, large room, and began perusing the paper pamphlets.
Riker read, but Yar mostly flipped through them. Once she grew used to the strange feel of paper in her hands, she gave each pamphlet 30 seconds of speed-reading time, mostly to figure out if they bore any strategic information about their location. Most gave little more than historical perspectives or vacation suggestions. Yar wasn't interested in art galleries, shopping, amusement parks or fountains. She only wanted to know how they could return to the Enterprise, where they belonged.
Their lack of a tricorder was a concern, and not only because they couldn't scan or analyze their surroundings. Tricorders also possessed historical files that would have been helpful in their situation.
Yar hadn't seen anything yet that seemed too threatening. But she had several advantages many Starfleet officers didn't possess: A hardscrabble upbringing largely devoid of 24th century technology, and excellent training through Starfleet Academy.
She remembered lessons from an Academy security instructor, who stressed how to read situations without tricorders. Commander Cain was the quintessential hard-ass, a tactical combat instructor who hated excuses. He didn't take anything from anybody, and his tirades usually included profane language that wasn't heard in proper Starfleet circles. Tasha Yar developed tremendous respect for him, and was inspired to learn that Cain had endorsed her posting aboard the Enterprise.
And now, Cain's lessons about tricorders were ringing as true as the memories of what he told her class. Tricorders are great little gadgets, but they make you lazy, he had said. Learn to work without them. What if you're stuck without a tricorder? If playing with handhelds is all you know how to do, you'll be in a world of shit! Use your five senses, plus that sixth sense that'll keep you out of trouble. If you're staring at a machine, you're deviating attention away from your surroundings, which is where your attention should be in the first place.
Tasha stared at the ceilings of both rooms, imagining that anyone who needed to clean that ornate décor had their work cut out for them. At the other side of the station, a café opened and received its first customer: The officer who had been patrolling, earlier.
"I'm going to walk around," she said to Riker as she stood up. He nodded but said nothing in response. Riker was inwardly glad that she'd chosen to pace the halls instead of fidgeting on the seat beside him.
He had hoped to address her lack of patience after they finished personnel reviews. Lt. Yar's impulsiveness was going to be a problem if she didn't get a handle on it. She had led multiple security teams, but she was new to management, and it showed. Leadership was different than management. Riker had a series of management exercises for her, hoping she would benefit from them.
He wondered if her impatience reflected her relative inexperience with being in charge of other people, and wanting to appear to those people that she knew what she was doing. She wanted to be right about everything so her personnel would trust her decisions, and not doubt her orders. But it didn't work that way. Even solid leaders needed that shake-down period.
She needed to be patient enough to learn that. For now, though, he wanted her to walk it off.
As the station's doors grew backlit with the coming dawn, more people began walking through the station, seemingly enroute to somewhere else. This was just a by-way for most occupants but the two Starfleet officers who inwardly wished they were back where they belonged.
Yar tried to appear nonchalant as she walked around the station, though she already was self-conscious about her clothing. She'd received several glances from passersby. She could see the weather outside still was cloudy, but evidently it was no longer raining because people were walking inside wearing dry clothes.
She found herself unable to ignore one distraction: The tempting aroma of real coffee, floating past from the now-open restaurant. The coffee smelled too good, much better than the synthesized liquid that came out of Enterprise replicators.
She watched someone emptying coins out of the open front of a meter-tall, metal box, and then stacking folded papers inside the box. He placed one of the folded papers into a slot that held it to the clear front door, then closed the panel and left.
There were three similar machines, aligned next to each other and all holding stacks of papers. Two of them were locked, holding printed material entitled The Kansas City Star and USATODAY. An overcoat-wearing man strode toward the machines, stuffed two coins into one of them, opened the door and pulled out a folded stack of papers. He turned to walk away, allowing the door to shut behind him.
Within seconds, Yar reached to re-open the door, but it had locked shut again. Next to the coin slots, a sign said that a "single copy" of The Kansas City Star cost 50 cents. So she needed two coins to get her own stack of papers that looked to bear more information about where they were.
She perused two more racks of papers, which weren't encased by a coin-operated machine, but it was quickly apparent that they only bore advertising for houses and jobs. Then she found a stacks of thick, yellow books that weren't locked up. She perused one, and opted to take it back to Com. Riker. The alphabetized book appeared to have a lot of citywide information, maps, and directions.
"What's that?" Riker asked, nodding to the book she held as she sat down beside him.
"Looks like a cross-referenced city directory," she said.
"Where'd you find it?"
"There's a stack of them by the other set of doors," she said. "A food station is open, but they're still using money."
"If they're still using money, how did you get that directory?"
"There's a stack of them, over there," she replied. "I think it was free."
"Nothing's free in a society that uses money," Riker observed. "We'll need to find some money."
"I've got a few ideas," Yar replied. "There are self-serve machines here that vend items for money. There must be a way to open them up."
"You're suggesting we steal the money?" he looked at her.
"You just said we need money to get by while we're here," she replied. "Raiding coins out of a non-guarded machine is not going to be a problem. But I'd recommend we go someplace else to do it. It's too crowded in here, and I just watched someone remove money from the coin storage area and re-stock the machine with papers. If he removed the money already, I don't think there will be enough left to warrant the risk. We should go somewhere else, preferably someplace outside so the phaser doesn't set off a fire alert."
"Stealing money isn't my first choice, but if that's our only option, that's what we'll need to do," he said. "We didn't exactly come here prepared to deal with any of this. What was being sold in the indoor machines, again?"
"News, I think," she replied.
"Newspapers?"
"It looked like a stack of papers. I've never seen one, before."
"How much did they cost?"
"Fifty cents," she replied. "It said any coin combination, except pennies."
"What's a penny?"
"I have no idea."
"Do you know anything about the 21st century currency?"
"No, economic history wasn't exactly my strongest subject at the Academy," Yar replied. "We'll figure it out. I watched someone purchase one, and he used two coins. So if it's 50 cents to buy a newspaper, he must have used two, 25-cent pieces."
"We'll need to purchase food, and we'll need clothing," he said. "We don't exactly blend in, here. There's a shopping area nearby, but based on what I've read in these pamphlets, it's expensive to buy anything, there.
"We don't need anything fancy," she concurred. "I just don't want to be cold and wet."
"Exactly," he said. "There's a used clothing shop about 15 blocks away, to the south. If we use this book as a guide, and this map to get us there, we can start from there."
The station's echoes surrounded everything, now. Hundreds of people seemed to arrive all at once. The other stores opened. Two people went behind the counter at the information kiosk. Many of the new arrivals were eating as they walked. One man stuffed an entire pastry into his mouth and seemed to swallow it without chewing as he hurried through the station.
"He'll be hurting this afternoon," Riker remarked. Yar just shook her head. The gluttony she'd witnessed in the past hour was, until now, unimaginable to her. People actually tossed uneaten food into refuse cans throughout the station, and no one seemed concerned about that waste. There was plenty of food everywhere, and that was evidenced by the higher than normal numbers of people who were overweight. Until Tasha Yar was a teenager, she hadn't known that it was possible for people to have too much to eat. Throwing away food was unthinkable.
"You folks OK?"
They looked up to see a man standing next to them. His uniform patches indicated he was a police officer. A weapon was holstered on his right hip, and what appeared to be a brick-sized communicator (and probably just as heavy) on his other hip. Yar wondered how his pants stayed up beneath the weight of an enormous gut that hung over that already loaded-down belt.
"Yes, sir," Riker replied. "Biding time 'til our train arrives."
"Oh! You gonna be in town for long?"
"No, just passing through," Riker said, just going with it, not that it mattered to him. He was certain they'd be back with the Enterprise, soon. Yar waited for the security officer to say something about her and Riker's similar mode of dress, but evidently he didn't recognize them as uniforms.
"There are some free exhibits opening up down that hall in about an hour if you're still around," the officer said, nodding toward a series of roped-off rooms down the hall from where they sat.
"Yeah, we saw the promotional signs for them," she said, nodding in that direction. "Thanks!"
"You bet," and the officer ambled on.
She had walked past the signs earlier during her reconnaissance, taking note that the exhibit seemed to be about the history of trains. She neither knew — nor cared — about the history of trains.
"Tasha," Riker whispered after a few seconds.
"Yes, sir?"
"Please tell me that none of our security officers are that clueless," he said, getting right to the point.
"I hope not," she replied. "He would never pass our agility test."
Union Station in Kansas City, Missouri, Earth, March 20, 2007
More than three hours passed with no contact from the Enterprise. There were no indications why they were in the early 21st century or why they were back on Earth, instead of halfway across the galaxy where they belonged.
Riker and Yar plotted their next move. They considered biding their time, since this was a public transit station and they were inside, out of the elements. They could wait this out, or they could venture out. Initially, they opted to wait, to stay in their present location in case a rescue party emerged at their arrival location. But after Yar found a "no loitering" sign posted near the front doors, they opted to leave before their long-term presence was questioned.
Rain had stopped outside, and sunlight began filtering through the windows and into the station. With Riker perusing the yellow book, Yar walked outside the station to inspect the exterior of the building, passing by the Information Kiosk, where a worker had arrived and posted the date: Tuesday, March 20, 2007.
Folding her arms against the morning chill, she examined the spot where she and Riker dropped to the pavement in the middle of the night. There was no sign of any portal through which they came. She pressed her hands against the cold, concrete walls of the building, but they were solid, unyielding, and did not betray any energy force activity.
She walked around the lot, peering beneath cars and looking alongside the nearby curb. She located numerous, soggy cigarette butts smashed against the wet pavement, something she hadn't seen since she was a child. She never did find her combadge, and now hoped that it was lying in the corridor near the Holodecks. That could be our way back, she mused. If her crewmates found the combadge assigned to her, they would know she was missing. If they tracked Riker's badge, they could be located and rescued.
Yar imagined that she and Com. Riker were stuck in some Holodeck program gone amuck, and knew there was one way to test her theory. She found a loose piece of gravel on the pavement, glanced around to see who might be watching and then threw the rock as far as she could. She hoped it would sizzle off a holodeck wall, so they'd at least know they were still on the Enterprise.
But the rock struck the windshield of a car parked in the middle of the lot, instead. She quickly ducked back inside the station. The last thing they needed was to be in trouble in a century they knew little about, and began experiencing that sinking regret that she'd learned enough in her history courses to do well on the tests, but it would do her little good in scenarios like these.
"You've got a look on your face," Riker remarked when she returned to the bench.
"Sir?" she replied innocently, even though she knew what he was talking about.
"What happened?"
"I threw a rock to see if it would hit the holodeck walls," she said. "But it didn't."
He looked up at her. "What did you hit, instead?"
"Someone's automobile."
"Not good," he shook his head. "We don't need to be arrested."
But they both knew they had to leave. They didn't want to tempt arrest for loitering. They opted to focus on figuring out how to get back to their own time and place, or wait for a rescue. They needed warmer clothes, food and shelter. They knew money was still used in 2007, but had no idea where they'd find some.
Riker stood up and turned to look at her. "Ready to hit the town?"
She stared at him, not understanding the slang he'd just used. "Sir?"
"We're leaving the station," he said. "Let's go."