"One Tholian target destroyed, Sir," Merriell reported from Ops. Allensworth sat calmly in his chair as he gave orders to everyone on the bridge.
"Keep us between the Enterprise and the Tholian ships," Allensworth said. Kell Perim obeyed her orders at keeping the Sovereign class ship between the NX class Enterprise and the remaining Tholian ships. More phaser beams lashed out from the saucer phaser arrays of the Alexandria and struck the Widow. The Tholian ship started to drift.
"Tholian Widow disabled," Merriell said.
"Take it out," Allensworth said. "If we leave it be, they'll send out a distress call and we'll be up to our necks in Tholian ships and that isn't even including the vicious little webs they make." Quantum torpedoes struck the disabled Tholian ship, destroying it. "Now target the Mesh Weaver."
"Sir, it's going to warp," Merriell said.
"Tractor beam!"
"Too late, sir," Fulks said. "It's gone."
"Damn it," Allensworth said. He leaned back in his chair and pressed the side of his hand to his mouth with his elbow leaning on the armrest. Decisions had to be made. He stood up. "Observation lounge, now."
"We can't just let them die," Nycz said.
"We don't have the capacity to save them all," Fulks said. "Plus what would we do? Just insert six thousand people into our time?"
"That's not a lot of people in the grand scheme of things," Zofchak said.
"But enough to mess things up," Merriell said. "Six thousand people is a lot of people that don't know a thing about the twenty-fourth century. All it would take is one of them crossing the wrong border and we're in another conflict. These people don't know a damn thing about our time."
"It's not like that hasn't happened before," Plumley said. "There have been several incidents of temporally displaced people showing up and not one of our conflicts was due to their ignorance."
"If I'm not mistaken, those that were temporally displaced were only individuals, or a handful at a time at most, such as the incident with the Bozeman," Sparhawk said.
"Not sure I'd call a Soyuz crew compliment a handful," Zofchak said.
"It is compared to six thousand," Merriell said.
"Are we actually going to just leave them here to die at the hands of the Xindi or Tholians?" Zofchak asked.
"That's what was meant to happen," Fulks said.
"That's not meant to happen at all," Zofchak said. "This timeline shouldn't exist. We're not bound by the Temporal Prime Directive. Even if this was our past, that went out the window when we fought off the Xindi."
"We're not dealing with altering the future," Merriell said. "We're dealing with the concept of just dropping six thousand two hundred some years in the future just so that we can have a clear conscience."
"Sometimes doing the right thing isn't the right thing at all," Plumley said. The others looked at her, not sure which side she fell on with that statement. Then they all turned to Allensworth for his input. Allensworth was a little unsettled on this topic.
"Are we actually considering taking these people with us?" Sparhawk asked.
"I don't know yet," he said. "I was just curious what you all thought about it."
"Sir," Zofchak said. "We are involved now. We have the ability to save these people. The Temporal Prime Directive doesn't apply. Hell, the Prime Directive doesn't even apply. How many times have Starfleet captains saved civilizations from some dire situation that would have wiped them out without our involvement? We have no problem stopping an asteroid from killing an entire planet but we have a problem with helping our own against an enemy that is bent on annihilating every last Human?"
"It's more complicated than that," Merriell said. "We can't just drop six thousand people into our time."
"What's the difference between that and relocating a group of people from one planet to another? How many uninhabited M-class planets are there in the Federation? Ones that we have access to? We could have them settle there and Starfleet..."
Allensworth put up a hand. "That's enough, Commander," he said calmly. "You've made your position clear.
"Sir," Plumley said raising her hand. "If I may make one final statement for taking them with us."
"Go ahead, Doctor," Allensworth said.
"I read a report regarding a time traveling incident involving Captain Sisko and the crew of the Defiant. They were investigating a planet in the Gamma Quadrant where they encountered their descendants. To make a long story short, they corrected the mistakes they made the first time and prevented themselves from going back in time, thus erasing eight thousand people. I'll let you decided for yourselves if that was the right thing to do or not. There were eight thousand people that weren't supposed to exist but they did and the Defiant crew wiped them out of existence because they wanted to get home."
"That's a bit different, Doctor," Merriell said.
"Is it?" she asked. "Sure, there are differences but having people exist in our time isn't anything new nor would it create some sort of instability. Commander Zofchak is correct. It wouldn't matter in the grand scheme of things. I'd much rather deal with the consequences from Starfleet of bringing people into our time than to live with the fact that we let people die at the hands of the Xindi or become slave labor to the Tholians."
Allensworth nodded slowly as he processed everything. "Thank you for your input, everyone. It's true we really shouldn't let our feelings dictate our actions. It really wouldn't be a good idea to bring six thousand people from an alternate timeline into ours. That being said, I can't sit back and claim to be of good moral character if I let people die if I have the ability to save them. Even if it means we break a few rules. If we're going to take these people with us then I want to do it right. I want proposals on how to fit six thousand people into a Sovereign class starship. Get creative. Use holodecks to create barracks if you have to. I want those proposals on my desk within the hour. Understood?"
"Yes, sir," the senior officers said in unison.
"Dismissed."