I had what I consider to be a brilliant idea for a new Star Trek series. Now, they've gone most everywhere in the galaxy, and even back to their beginnings, but they've not really touched on time travel.
Time travel is a tricky thing, for sure, because of the huge ramifications of changing a time line. Not to mention the whole needing more than infinite energy to break the speed of light to travel back in time (I study a lot of physics!). But in theory, a big enough gravitational field (like a bunch of sun's stacked together), would actually stop or slow time enough that you could travel around it, although I usually use the theory to qualify quantum physics, which should still hold.
So, to get to the point, I want to start a longer series about a space station that orbits around a stack of suns and affects time in roughly the 39th century. I wanted to reference all the different time travel affected events through all the Star Trek series', but I need help since I'm really not very familiar with anything actually prior to Voyager (bush cable is very limited). I'd love it if you posted any story line ideas here, either referencing episodes or something you just think of.
The two main characters thus far are Captains Tanja MacKinlay (Mackie for short) and John Geneija. Mackie is a 39th century native, mostly Vulcan, maybe forty five percent, and a mishmash of everything else in the quadrant. Understanbly, she's fairly stoic, but is comfortable expressing emotions when she wants, or when she explodes. John, on the other hand, was "recovered" from the 20th, pure human from the depths of New Orleans. He's a sweet talker, and gets himself in a fair bit of trouble for it. They're partners, and do a lot of good work, but it's always a bit unorthodox.
Their latest mission, and the first in the series, involves, among other things, a ship that must be destroyed because it does not fit into the timeline, it has shown up without any origins. They're not quite sure where it came from, but it just doesn't fit. Unfortunately, when Mac brings John back to the station, a visitor tags along. Lieutenant Haaka shows up mysteriously on the transport pad, and further medical examination reveals a time chip - a device used to protect temporal agents from the changes they incurr in the time line.
The weird thing is, she doesn't know a thing about it, she grew up on the ship, and knows nothing about time travel. After a fight with the Governor's council, further investigation reveals another set of time travelers in the 29th century. As always, a war breaks out, fought through time, creating a wave of temporal destruction.
Past Tense
Pilot
In the darkened quarters of a Starfleet vessel, a young man woke up next to a young woman. Despite the obvious familiarity between the two, he frowned slightly, perhaps concerned, and pulled the blankets over her bare shoulder as he climbed out of the bed. Clad in skivvies definitely not Starfleet issue, for the red hearts all over the white cotton, he moved to her computer console. Taking a nervous glance over the top of the screen at her still sleeping form, he tapped in a frequency code and waited.
The screen distorted for a moment, and then through the static an image appeared of another young girl.
"Commander." she greeted him with a stoic nod. She was certainly much more prepared for the business meeting than he was. She too was on a ship, much different than the one he was on, and clad in a uniform of white, the remnants of a fight still on her face.
"Shhh..." he held his finger to his lips.
Her face fell ever so slightly. "John, what have you done?"
"Nothin', Mac, just some relations, getting to the inside of this thing." he smiled deviously.
"John, you know the mission protocol." she sighed, rubbing her forehead in weary, "You do this to me every time..."
"What does it matter?"
"What - does - it - matter !" she sputtered, "If you –."
"Shhh..." he implored, "Listen, it's under control. The mission is proceeding as planned."
"John," she tried one last time, "behave."
"I can't be doing wrong if she never exists."
"Commander MacKinlay, status report." the Governor asked, looking up from a stack of reports that was otherwise occupying him. He too was dressed all in white like the girl in front of him, and sat at the head of a white table of six identically dressed admirals in a mysterious room of wrap around computer panelling.
The girl shifted her PADD to the other hand, flexing fingers beneath bandaging, and began to explain the images on the screen behind her. "Commander Geneija is completing the final stage of the mission. We have successfully remedied the original anomaly, in 1985 ..."
Flashback 1985 Beijing
Mac and John pedalled down the busy street. More correctly, she pedalled while he discretely scanned the area with a tricorder.
"Commander, are you any closer to determining our coordinates."
"You know I'm not, Mackie." he laughed a little and looked around, "Too bad I never paid much attention to archaic languages."
"I believe linguistics was a required course for your reintroduction."
"Oh, it was." he laughed, a deep southern laugh.
"Perhaps we should stop and ask directions."
"Why? We can handle this, I'll figure it out."
"We have limited time to find Mr. Tikiomo." a slight scowl passing onto her face.
"Relax, it should be close."
"I find it difficult to relax where temporal anomalies are concerned."
He laughed again, "You know, you've never actually encountered an anomaly before, and we're not about to encounter one today."
She was mildly taken aback, "We have encountered hundreds together."
"No, not really, every temporal anomaly we've encountered, we fixed. So, there really is no anomaly, and you've never experienced one." He was obviously delighted with himself, so much so that he nearly missed their target when his scanner went off. "Whoops, back there, Mac, the old factory."
They turned around quickly, dodging traffic, and pulled up against the rustic brick building.
"We have twelve point three minutes to complete the mission." Mac informed him.
"Best get going then." He grabbed the backpack off the bike and ran to the nearby fire exit stairs.
The two searched frantically through the damp building, both with eyes and tricorders.
"Here." she said suddenly, making a beeline for a nearby door.
In the cramped little room, John laid down the backpack and pulled their instruments from it. "This is the exact location." He pointed to a spot he was examining with the timescanner, about chest height in the middle of the room. Interestingly, his finger passed into it, into an empty void, and passed out the other side.
"Fantastic," she said, taking a dry moment to observe him, "Your knuckle is now in the 22nd century, the rest of you in the 20th. Perhaps, you should quit enlarging the wormhole and help me to close it."
"Yeah, yeah, let's set up." Not even her icy humour dulled his ever-good spirits.
Moments later, the two worked frantically, studying the readouts on multiple computer screens.
"Tell me you've got something!" he called to her.
"I have nothing, to be accurate."
"Perfect, let's stabilize and shut it down." They both smiled, and then he frowned. "Did you hear that?"
"What?" she turned to look at him.
"The corridor." he breathed, "We okay to proceed?"
"We'll have to be. Shut it down!"
The door creaked open, and then swung wide, revealing a short Chinese clerk who bustled into the room. His eyes were focussed on his newspaper, thankfully, so that Mac and John had just enough time to duck into the corner behind a stack of cardboard boxes, instruments in hand.
The man was in the room for a minute before it occurred. Flux readings on the advanced scanner spiked, and the two held their breath. The man, on the other hand, continued to bustle around the room, looking for something in particular.
Mac twisted a dial on the device in her other hand, intense concentration plastered over her face. This was it, the anomaly was coming to life. A quick tap on the scanner, and she moved the dial a little ways back, and then all the way clockwise. She breathed a silent sigh of relief, watching the readings subside.
Quietly, John pulled another small device from the backpack, and strapped it around his arm. He tapped at it's controls as the man walked closer. In a second, he turned invisible, and threw himself over Mac. Just in time, as the clerk began to dig through the boxes immediately beside them.
Attempting to control their breathing, despite the unusual position they found themselves in, they waited for what seemed to be an eternity. It was, in fact, three minutes. They were so close, the field on the armband limited in reach, she was curled on her side and he did his best to sprawl over her. Pressed cheek to cheek, they waited until the clerk left, having found what he was looking for.
With a huge sigh of relief, they stood up and he turned off the cloaking device. "Man," he said, wiping his face, trying to stimulate some colour back into it, trying to lift the mood, "I could sure use a smoke after that."
"Must you embrace all aspects of a timeline." she shook her head, doing her best to look unfazed by the incident.
Present Governor's Briefing Room
"The phaser fire that would have killed that man came from the 22nd century. A micro-wormhole opened up for approximately seven minutes that was roughly one-half-inch in diameter. Mr. Tikiomo would have been found dead with no satisfactory cause of death determined. We discovered that he went on to lead a satisfactory life, unmarried, for the next two years until dying of cardiac arrest." the Commander continued, "It took us several weeks to locate the origins of the shot. A prisoner sentenced to death walked free, and was later caused the destruction of a warp plant, delaying human progress for several hundred years. In the natural timeline, however, the progress in warp theory and space travel is essential to maintain this present."
Flashback 2324 Australian Penal Colony
"Mister William Robert Hammill, you have been charged with the destruction of the starship Viszla, along with her crew and several diplomats that were her passengers." a Judge announced. "As punishment, you will die here today."
The stage was in the centre of a small outdoor court, surrounded by rustic ancient stone walls. A man was tied to the far wall. A group of twenty people or stood watching, most of them sombre, some were perhaps bordering joyous. A priest stepped up to read the man's last rights.
"Mac, we were a little late coming here, don'cha' think?"
"It was the only time the Admirals deemed safe."
"Right." John was a little puzzled, "So, the microwormhole is way over there, and we're way over here, and there's all those people in between. I'm afraid I just don't see how we're supposed to get close enough."
"I was hoping the opportunity would present itself."
"Okay, because that speech the priest is usin', it's right near the end." John fiercely whispered, "You ever think about makin' yer own opportunity, Mackie?"
"Thank you, John, I am well aware of the urgency of the situation. I am currently working on 'making our own opportunity', but somebody keeps talking." she glared.
"We wont get another chance, Mac, maybe I should just cloak and go fix it."
"It's too risky, and there's too much equipment to cover."
The executioner stepped up, a large, burly man, in a leather hood. He pulled out a single handheld phaser and pointed it.
"Mac!" John cried in urgency.
She set her jaw and pushed her way from the back of the crowd, as the Judge called 'fire'. "Wil!" she screamed, her voice cracking with upset.
Suddenly, John saw it, and sprinted forward. He was the only one quick enough to see the phaser she pulled out of her sleeve as she threw herself across the execution stage. Bless her quick mind and trigger finger; just as one pulse of light was sucked into oblivion, her own cut in.
"Nooo..." she sobbed, "Wil..." as the man hung limp where he was tied.
For her cool exterior, Jon had never expected such great acting skills, he nearly laughed and gave them away. At the least, he had to bury his face in her neck to hide his smile.
When the security guards pulled him up, he had managed to school his expression, and he pulled on her shoulders, hugging her tight to him. Roughly, the two of them were pulled out of the secluded courtyard. Mac stumbled, knees 'weak with grief', face wet with tears.
They were led out of the penitentiary, as sobs turned to laughter. "I had no idea!" he blurted out between laughs. Then he looked over, for once she was smiling. "That was good, that was real good." he sombred up a bit, then hugged her tight and kissed her neck.
"Tricky." she corrected, "I'm glad you figured it out." She laughed again, sweet and melodious, letting herself be pulled into him. Then she pulled out a small hand-held device, and pressed the sole button on its face, and they faded away.
Present
She stopped her recount at the barest details.
"What were you thinking?" cried an outraged officer.
"I intended to show grief for the man's death, perhaps act in the place of a family member or intimate friend. Captain Geneija, I believe, acted to comfort me in my duress, and functioned logically to hold me from coming too close and creating an incident that would have been reported."
The nearest Admiral looked at her sternly, "You know," he said after a pause, "you could be decommissioned for that."
Surprise, and perhaps a bit of malcontent, flashed across her face briefly. "I don't see why; we left no permanent trace. The weapon we used was not seen, we gave no sound definition of who we were and used no names, the events were logical and followed closely enough what should have occurred had there been no temporal interference."
"I said 'could have', Captain, your actions were unorthodox, but effective."
"Thank you. Phase three." she turned back to the screen and brought up a schematic of the offending wormhole. "As you can see, the wormhole ended in fluidic space after we closed the first port. We were uncertain of the consequences, and as we researched, we discovered it was a necessary phenomenon that resolved naturally." She shifted on her feet. "We examined the area, but had nothing to report."
"But, Captain, you returned with several broken bones and severe injuries from your exploratory mission." the Governor at the head of the table reminded her.
"I, um –." she would not meet his eyes, she couldn't lie if she did that, "Well, I, um, I tripped, sir."
"You tripped!" he bellowed. A large, older man, he was stout in appearance and temperament, and currently very red in the face.
"Yes, sir."
"And you sustained all these injuries?"
"It was a rather nasty trip." she answered, "and a fair fall too."
"And the final phase?" he relented, leaning back in his chair.
"It's currently underway." she answered, finally looking him in the eye again. "Captain Geneija is awaiting the final go ahead from you, Governor."
"Let's hear it then."
"He is going to destroy a starship."
"What? Why?" surprised choruses came from around the room.
She cleared her throat, the reaction was what she had expected. "The ship itself is an anomaly. It has no origins in the resultant universe, but escaped the temporal wave, we're not sure how.
"We had originally thought it was a time ship, but the Captain has found no evidence to support this. In fact, he's reported it's quite a mundane ship, a deep space exploration vessel, one that prefers to chart asteroids, as it were."
"And how do you plan to avoid the after affects of destroying and entire ship?"
She smiled, "They are about to come across a black hole. We will leave the ship on an intercept course and destroy the ship in its periphery. Starfleet records also indicate that the ship is never heard from, that previous records have been erased, and future communications were not made, so we will not complicate the timeline more."
"How do you expect to retrieve Captain Geneija, Captain MacKinlay?"
"I have been working on modifying the temporal transporters, I believe they will now be sufficient to accelerate him beyond the escape velocity of the black hole."
"And if you are wrong?"
"I wont be."
"Very well." the Governor scratched his nose, letting his fingers linger in thought. "You know, both you and John are very good officers, I would like to lose neither of you. I have a feeling I would lose both of you if you're wrong. However, I do trust your judgement; if you believe you can bring him back and fix this timeline, then I believe it as well."
"Thank you, Governor, Admirals." she nodded politely to them, and left.
Past Tense Starship Discovery
John hoped she would have good news. He'd invested too much time in this mission for her not to. As it was, he'd already begun to tap into the ships systems. It wasn't hard, they had rather simplistic technology at the time. He was in a corridor, he had found it fairly quiet in his three weeks on the ship. Unfortunately, he was officially the chef, and had no business touching any of the controls, but the few people who'd caught him mucking around hadn't minded too much when he was examining the ship's systems.
First, he needed to scramble their sensors, so they wouldn't detect where they were going. Next, he attempted to access audio and video controls. Then he heard footsteps coming down the corridor.
"Well, hey there, Chef." A dapper ensign called out when he rounded the corner.
"Ensign Otomi." greeted John appropriately, "Hard at work, I see." he gestured to the PADD in the officer's hand
"Always." he laughed, coming over to look at the console, "What are you up to?"
"Just checking out some of these systems, still trying to find my way around."
"Oh, hey, whoa, whoa." The ensign began to scowl, poking at the controls, "Chef, I don't know how you accessed these systems, but I can't let you keep going, you know, just in case. Here," he pulled up a new display, "this should satisfy your curiosity, everything you need to know."
"Oh, geez, thanks, ensign." John tried to give him his most convincing apologetic smile, "This'll do real well for me. See you at dinner?"
"You bet."
The ensign walked away, leaving a very frustrated John watching until he passed out of view. When he looked back, a message flashed on the screen: 'Go!'.
So it seemed Mackie had convinced the Admirals and the Governor. He smiled, and set back to work. Since he'd become a temporal agent, and been partnered with Mackie, he'd known her to get away with some pretty crazy things, but he thought this might be more than they could handle. He put the visual sensors at the helm on a loop, and silenced the alarm that would sound when he initiated the self-destruct sequence.
The self-destruct sequence would be a little harder to initiate. It was only the most guarded system on board, even his best techniques couldn't crack it in good time. He pulled the device from his pocket, and pressed it onto the screen.
It was almost finished, when he heard running down the corridor. He turned and looked, it was Lt. Erin Haaka, the pretty young thing whose quarters he'd shared last night.
"There you are, David!"
"Oh, no." He muttered, right before being smothered in a wild hug.
"Come on." she started to pull him away, a devious look in her eyes, "I have to go repair a plasma relay in Jefrey's tube 9-13, I can always claim it took a little longer to fix than expected."
"No." he stopped.
She turned and pouted, "Why not? It won't take long."
Well, he couldn't tell her it was because he was working on blowing up the ship. Being faithfully reminded of something Mackie had once done on a mission, he pulled her close to him, and kissed the sanity out of her. Then he flipped her around, so her back was to the panel. To her it was divine, to him, it was the only way to continue accessing the controls. Twenty minutes, that should be enough time at maximum warp. He hit the final control and pulled his device back into his pocket.
He let it go a little longer, then stopped her. "Erin, not right now, sweetheart."
"Oh, Dave." she tried.
"Sorry," he smiled, resting his head on hers, "I have a souffle in the oven that I have to check. I'll see you at dinner."
"Okay." she whined sweetly.
"Go fix your relay." he smiled, letting her go and watching as she bounced around the corner.
Now, the very last phase: he needed to pilot the ship right to the event horizon. Junction 7-B didn't lead anywhere, it was where he worked from. Curling up, he watched the small screen with the only accurate output from the visual sensors. Then, there it was, it was magnificent and he doubted he'd ever have another chance to see one, let alone from the inside.
Finally, the ship was drifting casually over the event horizon, and silent timer ticked down towards zero.
"John?" came a puzzled voice from above.
"Lt. Haaka." He tried to smile, but it was beyond hope.
"What are you doing here?" she climbed down to his platform.
"Nothing, you should get outta here."
"What's going on?" she reached out to touch him.
He turned his head, and saw the timer hit 0:00, and then the familiar tingling of the temporal transporter.
Mac smiled just a little as John rematerialized on the platform, and then that smile turned to panic. "Oh, shit, John." she said quietly.
"What?" he asked, turning to look where she was looking, just over his shoulder, and then he paled.
The pretty young girl screamed.
Mackie hit her comm badge, almost absent-mindedly. "Governor, we have a situation."