In the Earth Year, 2377.
A joyous time for the Federation had exploded onto the scene after the return to Federation space of the long lost USS Voyager from the Delta Quadrant as celebrations had broken out across the Federation to the monumental return of what had become known as 'The Miracle Ship', a vessel lost far from the resources of the Federation and once considered as lost, presumably destroyed only to return to Earth orbit with new and advanced technologies of unknown origin and what had been hailed as the possible destruction of the Federation and Galaxy's most vicious and deadly enemy, the Borg.
Standing before the view of his assigned home, over looking the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco with the news of Voyager's return playing in the background, once again as James Carver stood in civilian clothing with a deep sadness in his heart amidst the joy of those across the Federation as he knew that he could no longer return to his former life. Having since isolated himself for two years from many around but for a few new and close friends and giving guest lectures at Starfleet Academy on ancient combat techniques, he still yearned to return to his home time if only for a moment, however his vow to Starfleet Command had forbidden him from making the attempt.
"The Current time is, 0530 Hours, Planetary Standard Time. Your requested…"
"Hold!" He called out to the computer. "Meetings for today?"
"0700 hours, Meeting with Admiral Harkin at Starfleet Command. 0900 hours, your presence at the welcome home for the crew of…"
"Cancel all appointments" He said with a deep sigh. "All but one! General Sitar, in fact… tell him that I will be attending the meeting"
"Boomer, it is the forty-seventh appointment that you have cancelled to date" His personal Computer called out, with a soft and feminine voice.
"Thank you, I know. Inform Hiram Sitar that I will be in his office at 1100 hours"
"Message has been sent. Would you like to hear some music?"
"No and thank you. I just want to sit here for awhile…"
"Understood, Shall I also inform Captain Sarah Wilcox that you will not be attending her birthday celebrations this evening?" Replied the computer instantly.
"No, leave that for now. Actually, inform the Academy that I shall give my next class as scheduled this afternoon?"
"Message has been dispatched"
1100 hours had slowly crept by as he remained almost motionless on the balcony of his apartment which had been decorated sparsely, little more then a sofa, two chairs with a table between them in the center of the room and in the far corner, a small computer station which had remained active since his arrival in his new home. Only one image hung on his wall behind the computer station, the last and only known image of himself and his long lost love Terri had been painstakingly displayed in the large and empty apartment. Large enough for a family of four to live in, two empty bedrooms remained sealed as in the master bedroom, his bed remained as if it had been delivered that morning, as he had always slept on the sofa, rather then the large and comfortable bed.
Appearing as nothing more than an empty shell of a man, his long hair flowing behind his head at shoulder length while a messy beard had grown, only to be shaved once a month, he had felt as if he was nothing more than a joke to Starfleet, rather then the skilled former combat and test pilot of his former life, only accepting the position as guest lecturer to the Academy merely for something to do, as he had put it on numerous occasions, even though it was something that he had secretly enjoyed.
Slumping down in the empty chair before the Starfleet Marine Corps General with little respect for his position and title, he looked around the room at the three officers stood at attention as the General sighed deeply while he sat.
"Boomer, you have so much potential here…"
"Yes, I know! Yada-Yada! Sarah, you look good" He said towards the female Captain he had come to know over the past years.
"You look terrible Boomer, and almost smell worse"
"Always good to see you. So why am I here Hiram?" He said with no respect in his voice.
"This meeting is classified, if you mention anything…"
"I know the routine Kid! Former Military myself, remember? What the hell is going on?"
"Over the past two years, since your… arrival, the local Security on Earth has been called to no less than Nine separate incidents…"
"That's why I'm here? I was just having fun, you remember what fun is right?" He said with a grunt and a smile.
"It's not about the rather endless list of your exploits Boomer…" The General said with a smile on his face.
"Jim, you're not the last to arrive in this time as you did, nine others have been thrown here in the same way. The last was two days ago"
"WHAT?!" He said as he sat upright. "Why haven't I been informed of this?"
"It was deemed as Classified. You'd be surprised what goes on around here without you being involved.
Sliding a computer tablet across the table towards him, he grabbed the tablet in his left hand as he began to read the information before him while quickly flicking through the images and security files of those on the screen as if looking for a face he knew well as the General asked if he knew any of those displayed before him.
"She's not here, I thought that! No I don't know these guys. But I have heard of Admiral Alan Wallace. US Navy, one hell of an officer from all accounts"
"He arrived here five days ago, the Student Nurse is the last. They all describe the same vortex as you did, lucky for them they all arrived here, on Earth and not in deep space like you did"
"Let me speak with them, something has to be going on" He said with a spark in his eyes, for the first time in over three years.
"That was our thought also. We have our best on this, Captain Wilcox has put her ship at your disposal for the duration" The elderly General said with a deep and powerful voice.
"Where are they now?"
"The Nurse a Natalie Perdue, is in the briefing room next door. She is terrified" Wilcox replied slowly.
Standing instantly as he straightened his black shirt with is left hand, he walked towards the door leading into a large briefing room as two security officers leapt to attention at the presence of the General behind him before he motioned for them to leave. Sat in a chair at the far side of the long table, her head in her hands as she wept openly, James Carver walked towards her and asked if he could sit by her side as she looked up slowly and nodded.
"Thank you Miss Perdue. My name is James Carver… former Commander with…"
"Like I said to the others, I have no idea how I got here. Please leave me alone?" She said past her tears.
"We're in the same boat Miss Perdue. I arrived here over three years ago after a failed test of a new… Space Shuttle my people where developing. You saw a blue vortex, spinning before you, you heard a scream in your mind like a pig squealing in pain, but not in your ears, it hurt like a hot knife being pulled through your mind and skull, right?"
"I thought that I was going crazy. You saw it?" She said as she looked up slowly.
"Miss, may I call you Natalie?"
"Sure, why not" She said with a deep sigh of relief, as if she knew that she was not going insane.
"I've been here for over three years now. Tell me what happened please? Maybe we can both find a way out of this"
"I was… tired, I had been on call for what seemed like days. I was fighting to stay awake as I drove through a tunnel, the lights flickering. I knew that I wasn't far from home, just beyond the tunnel and a small turn, two minutes away. Then, I heard it and saw it! I tried to hit the breaks…"
"But it pulled you in, the screaming…" Continued. "Tore through my mind…"
"Yes! And the smell?"
"I was in a Flight Suit and helmet, I couldn't smell anything"
"No, you must have. It smelt like… Honey, so strong that I could…"
"Almost taste it!" He said with a shocked look in his eyes. "I remember that, the next thing I knew, there was a white flash and I awoke… somewhere else"
"Yes! The flash was so bright. My car shut down instantly, when I awoke, I was surrounded by people with strange clothing. I felt cold, almost frozen"
"Think back to the moment that you saw the vortex, did you see anything else, inside of the vortex?" Carver asked politely.
"I saw… a strange place. After I came around, I caught a glimpse of a window. It was that same place. Where are we. No one will give me a straight answer James. Where are we?"
"Boomer. The others are here" Sarah Wilcox said as she entered the room.
"What others?"
"Eight others have had the same experiences as we did. Natalie, I know that this is hard, but we need to figure out what has happened here. Can you please help me figure this out, can you do that? I know that you are terrified, so am I. But we all need your help here?"
"Of course"
Slowly entering the room and looking around at the two standing before them, Carver recognised each from the files he had seen before him, each from different parts of Earth, recognising the Admiral from the US Military, his training kicked in instantly as he stood to attention and saluted the man before him.
"Admiral Wallace, I am Commander James Carver. Her Majesties Royal Navy"
"What the hell is going on here Commander, why am I being held by these people?"
"Forgive me Sir, but the situation is not what you think. Please, everyone take a seat. I have a long and painful story to tell you all"
Explaining the full experiences of what had happened to him over the past three years, where and when they where, it seemed as if the recent arrivals had not believed him while those whom had been in the 24th Century had come to accept their fate. Seeing the look in the Admiral's eyes, Carver walked towards the window behind his seat as he pushed a control on the console before the window turned from opaque to transparent. Seeing an unfamiliar scenery before him as craft of different forms flew silently through the air, he stood slowly with the Nurse at his side as he walked to the window and caught a glimpse of the ancient landmark bridge behind a building as the Nurse once again burst into tears.
"This has to be a joke!"
"Sorry Sir, it's not. I've been here for three years, six months, fifteen days and an odd number of hours. This is real sir. Each of us has been thrown over 350 years forwards in time. Sergei here was the second to arrive"
"It is true Admiral, I have been here for two years. I have seen things that I can not even imagine…" Replied the Russian with a smile of pride on his face. "I was a Chef in Russia, I have a restaurant now where my old once stood"
"This has to be a dream" The Admiral said slowly.
"Then, everyone that I know and love are dead? I have a husband and a baby daughter?" Natalie said as she collapsed in tears.
"Their Authority called Starfleet. Has kept me out of this for years. I only heard of your existence before you all arrived. Admiral… maybe somehow, we can all piece together what has happened here, and how to stop it from happening again? If I've learned anything from these people and this time, it's that anything is possible"
Agreeing to work together in a classified meeting, the group of people from the distant past had begun to talk amongst themselves in an attempt to discover why they had been thrown forwards in time as each had remembered something different about the events which the others had not.
"My Car! My car Boomer. I had a dashboard Camera installed and two on the inside because… it was stolen once and broken into twice. Maybe something is on those Cameras?"
"It's a place to start Natalie. Sarah, where is her car now?"
"The vehicle is being analysed by Command. I'll mention the Cameras" Sarah Wilcox said with a smile as she sat upright, after falling asleep.
"Cross reference those Cameras with Sentinel's own sensors. We may find something…"
"Sentinel?" The Admiral slowly.
"The… vehicle which brought me here. It seems that each of us was in a vehicle. Sergei, Natalie and Gerard here where all driving, others where on boats. You sir, where… flying a hired plane?"
"Could that be it? Motion. After all, you where in a space shuttle of some kind?" Natalie said with a tearful smile.
"It's possible. Sarah, has there been any signs of temporal distortions on any of the vehicles?"
"I've only gone through half of those files, but no… nothing. Temporal signatures, no…"
"Natalie was in a tunnel, there had to be cameras in the tunnel? If they saw it, then it must have been classified and analysed by military. Sarah, have your… people, search for anything similar to what we have said and quickly. I may have an idea"
Seemingly given a new lease of life since his arrival in what he had considered as his distant future, James Carver had spent much of the day with those whom had arrived in the current time frame from his original time. Welcoming the two new arrivals into his own home, if only for a short time, his energy had become almost infectious amongst those around him as he gave the Nurse his own bedroom and the Admiral the large bedroom next door. Sleeping on the sofa once again as he had each night, he awoke to the feeling of someone else in the room and the sounds of weeping. Standing slowly, he saw Natalie sat at his personal computer with tears rolling down her eyes as she looked up at him.
"I'm sorry, I couldn't sleep"
"No problem. I'm usually awake by this time anyway" He said as he stood slowly.
"How do you cope, three years here without seeing anyone. Your friends, your family?"
"My father, died before I was born and my mother? Shortly after I was born. I spent my childhood in foster homes until I was old enough to join the Navy. My dad, my dad was a Navy Pilot… I wanted to be a part of that somehow, so I signed up on my birthday. I pushed like a Bastard for flight training, everything I did, I did to be like him… even the Sentinel Program"
"But you are unhappy here? I saw that in your eyes when I first met you" She said slowly.
"I was… given the chance to fly the Sentinel Program, even though I shouldn't have been in the running. I was the only one who could handle that damned thing right… I was the fastest man alive for years. I flew around the moon, twice! I was supposed to land on my last attempt!" He said, dodging the statement she made.
"I was studying to be a Nurse. I pushed so hard… I have, no had a daughter! What happened to her Boomer?"
"Why not look? The Database is… complete? Computer, historical search for…?"
"Perdue. Charlie, I mean Charlotte Perdue?" She said with a large smile.
"Please state time and place of Birth"
Calling out the time, date and place of her daughter's birth, the computer searched throughout the historical database for the selected target before an image appeared on the screen before her as she burst into tears instantly at what she had seen with her own eyes.
"She was so beautiful. A Doctor? My baby became a Doctor?"
"Wow! She looks just like you. Married age 25, four children… Natalie, you should be proud"
"I wasn't there for her Boomer. I'm here…"
"We all are, we have all lost everything. I give you my word, if there is someway that I could make this right, I would. But you know, you will have family here somewhere? Look at that, your family line played out before you? Oh my god! Look at the last name? Captain Sarah Wilcox?"
"The woman… I met earlier?" She said in shock, a shock which had resonated within Carver.
"Sarah. She is your… descendant! Through the line, of course. I've had the pleasure of knowing her, she is an amazing woman and one hell of an Officer"
"What about you, have you searched for you?" Natalie replied, with a large smile of pride on her face.
"I had no family, I never knew my parents. No brothers, sisters… no children"
"Then who is the woman in the picture?" She replied as she turned towards the image behind her.
"Someone who was very important to me. Terri is, was one of a kind"
"Sounds like you still love her Boomer?"
"More than you know. She… saw through my crap! And slapped me down each time" He replied with fond memories.
"Did you search for her, in the database I mean?"
"She disappeared years after I came here… Terri O'Connell was one of a kind"
"Terri O'Connell, Theresa O'Connell? Short girl with short black hair…?"
"Yes!" He said with a smile as he looked once again at the photo.
"Boomer, I know or knew her… she was in surgery before I came here, three men came in and took her away mid surgery!" Natalie said as she turned towards the image in shock. "I wasn't sure because, the woman is turned away. She had a tattoo on her thigh… a heart with…"
"Claire?" He replied in shock.
"Yes!"
"Tell me everything that you know about what happened Natalie, Please?"
