Captain James T. Kirk heard the impact before he felt it. Under his feet, the floor of the Enterprise grumbled with a growing intensity before the vibrations grew as well in a swelling crescendo and knocked he and the bridge crew from side to side like dolls. The young man opened his mouth to yell an order to Navigation, but yet another massive shock wave pushed air from his lungs as he slammed into the side of the captain's chair. Finally, he managed, "Mr. Sulu, you better have an explanation for this."

The man sitting (well, hanging on) at the Nav computer swiveled around and shook his head, "No, sir. All my readings were normal until now. It looks like we just pulled out of warp speed with no cause." Sulu turned back to the clear screen scattered with equations and readouts and the status of the ship. His eyebrows merged when he took a quick glance. "In fact, sir," he continued, "They're still reading as normal."

"Well obviously, we're getting some type of interference. Raise all shields just to be safe," Kirk replied in a frustrated tone. He pressed a button on his interface with the ship's comm and a two-tone whistle sounded throughout the Enterprise, getting everyone's attention from the medbay to engineering. "This the Captain speaking," Kirk announced in his best airline voice, "We're experiencing some…slight turbulence. Please make sure your seatbelts are fastened and you've located the nearest paper bag." Then, the man in the captain's seat looked to his First Officer, a collected Vulcan called Spock who had, until the sudden event, been bent down over a display screen of his own. "Can you make anything of this, Spock?" Another wave shook the bridge before he answered, "According to my calculations, it seems we've encountered a series of subspace temporal folds, Captain. Essentially, we're travelling through time. However a rare event, there have been reports that ships have passed through these 'time-folds' and resurfaced in the same time as during entry. We should be back to normal soon, with no long term effect."

At least, that's what his computers predicted. Because his computers were almost never right, however, another violent wave rocked the Enterprise and this time, the damage was not just a few bruises on the skin. A gasp arose from several of the crewmembers as a crack spread out crystalline fingers along one corner of the main panel of glass. Kirk's relaxed grin instantly darkened into a worried frown and he raised an eyebrow at his First Officer. "Is that so?"

The Vulcan set his dark eyes on the Captain and raised one of his own straight, black brows, "That was the logical prediction, Captain. The circumstance has obviously been altered. The computers are acting very fac-" As if on cue, one of the screens spat sparks at Spock when another wave rocked the ship, making him recoil in surprise. The bright white lights flickered violently, drawing everyone's attention from the cracked viewport to the ceiling. With a final shutter, the bridge went dark and the machines gave a tired whine before leaving the Enterprise eerily silent. They were now drifting in space. Everyone looked to the Captain for orders or even possibly for how they should react. Then, Spock's voice broke the silence, jarring even when the remark barely passed through human hearing. "Quite fascinating."

"This time, Spock," Kirk responded, "I think I'd have to agree with you. Just this once." Spock nodded and stepped down from his station to stand beside the Captain's chair. The crew turned back to their stations like automatons, satisfied with the Captain's answer. Sulu and the Russian Ensign, Chekov, quietly started discussing how to get power back to the controls. If James T. Kirk's eyebrows could have been any closer together, he would have had a unibrow. He dug into his pocket and whipped out a communicator. "Scotty?" he asked the device. A static sound answered and Kirk tried again, "Mr. Scott?" That time, a man's voice rung with a Scottish tone from the comm. "Hello, Captain. Nice weather we're having, innit?"

Spock raised a pointed brow, "I do not understand. Weather requires an atmospheric disturbance and as we are in space-"

"Just wonderful, Scotty," Kirk interjected, giving Spock a look of disbelief. Sometimes he really couldn't understand how the Vulcan could take everything literally. "What's going on with my ship?"

"Aye, Captain. I'm working on it. Those quakes rattled her engines up good. I think we can have power back up soon if all goes well," Scotty replied. But when do things ever go well? Kirk thought to himself. "Can you at least get the emergency power up? I'm sure there's a very annoyed doctor that would like to use the turbolift and…supervise." "Oh, sure thing, Captain. We were focused on getting the main power back. Guess I didn't activate it," came the reply. "Getting senile in your old age?" Kirk joked before adding the official, "Kirk out." Seconds later, a whirring sound vibrated through the bridge and dim lights like the somber glow of candles sent the ship back into the dark ages.

"Captain," Spock began, "I suggest we do a scan for nearby planets. If Mr. Scott is unable to repair the ship, then supplies may be necessary before we continue on our planned voyage. And may I remind you this is the third time the ship has been in need of repair since our departure three solar months ago?"

Kirk nodded wistfully. "So much for the newest, most advanced ship in the fleet," he muttered. "I think you're right about the scanning," he told his First Officer, giving him a friendly whack on the shoulder and carelessly letting his arm rest there, his blue eyes practically glowing in the dimmed light. "Captain, you using me as an armrest when your chair is in prime working condition is illogical," Spock said, turning his head away from Kirk. "If you could please cease-" "Oh, uh, sorry Spock," Kirk answered, shaking off the situation lightly, "You're just so damn comfortable." He gave the Vulcan's shoulder another whack to hide his embarrassment. "Go ahead and start up the searches with what power we have."

"Of course, Captain," Spock replied, striding back to his station. He could just barely see himself in pale glass of one of the viewing screens, and almost winced when he saw traces of green spread across his cheeks and the tips of his pointed ears. Since the ordeal with Khan, Kirk had become more of a friend, he had observed, but Spock still wasn't used to the familiarity. Thinking to himself, he noted that, however much the human half of him enjoyed the Captain's company, the Vulcan side shouted that showing friendship was an emotion and disgraceful in his species' terms.

There was then a hiss as the turbolift opened with none other than Doctor McCoy inside, looking very shaken up at the thought of drifting in space. Spock guessed that Captain Kirk really did know his friend to a T. The doctor casually made his way over to Kirk, hands clamped behind his back, and leaned up against side of the captain's chair. "What's goin' on?" he asked. As Kirk explained the best he could what little the crew knew about the situation, Spock wrestled with one of his station's screens to pick up signals from other planets. The method was tried and true, tested for years with positive results, so he was a little more than intrigued when a familiar arrangement of planets appeared on the screen. Sol and her gaggle of orbiting children blinked onto the viewer, the nearest of which was Earth itself, when the Enterprise had before been light-years away. "Captain?" Spock called for Kirk's attention. "It seems the readout was more incorrect that I had originally predicted. We have not just passed through the dimension of time, but through space as well. The Enterprise is now positioned exactly 1.62 light-years away from Earth. Also, based on how faulty the equipment has been in this situation, it would not be unwise to hypothesize that the ship has rode the temporal folds to another time as well as place than where we previously were before."

Kirk couldn't believe his First Officer at first, and then the memories of an older Spock flooded his mind; one that held onto the hope that Kirk would recognize him by a simple phrase, uttered at first in a parallel universe. But things were far from parallel now what with…everything. Drawing up from the drowning thoughts, the starship captain replied, "Well, we certainly couldn't rule it out, Spock, after the ordeal with your elderly buddy." Then, he tore away from his first officer's wordless reaction and directed an order at Navigation, "Mr. Sulu, can you put us in an orbit around Earth?" "Yes, sir," the man answered, and his hands moved over the controls in a rapid flash of movement. "Manuvering the Enterprise into orbit around Earth," he said. Kirk then focused on Communications, "Lieutenant Uhura, can you scan for frequencies originating on Earth?"

"Of course, Captain," the woman affirmed, already tapping out a string of commands

on an interface in front of her. She pushed a silver device into her ear, listening for incoming waves of sound escaping from the planet's surface. After a moment, she frowned, "I'm getting readings from Earth, sir, but not on any regulation wavelengths. In fact, I'm not reading anything from Starfleet at all. It's just picking up…Well, the old AM/FM radio signals used during the early 2000's." Kirk was about to speak, but a beeping on his comm drew his attention. "Kirk here," he acknowledged. On the other end, a hissing from the engine room provided background noise behind Scotty's voice, "It's Scotty, Captain. I've got some good news and some bad news, sir, but I'm afraid the good news is quite short-lived." "Well, what is it, Mr. Scott? Are we getting back to full power or not?" "That's the thing, Captain. I can get her back to full for a while, but we'll be dead in the water in a day, maybe two if can keep her going."