Kathryn fought against the pull of the darkness and opened her eyes. To her surprise, she did not see the familiar ceiling of sickbay, nor did she seem to be in the Delta Flyer. The last thing she remembered was the explosions, and the transporter… and Chakotay. Oh, Chakotay!

She fought back the tears that pricked at her eyes and sat up. The room around her was entirely unfamiliar. She stood up and looked around.

The walls around her were inlaid with control stations of varying designs and monitors displaying text in an alien language. In the center of the room was a column, upon which was laid a mosaic of monitors, showing every conceivable section of the Capital City. Uniformed aliens that she recognized as being Azkarian moved about her with unhurried purpose.

She remembered the warm welcome the Azkarians had given her and her crew when they had come across their planet and told their story. Throughout the process of negotiating for supplies, Janeway had found her hosts' generosity to be a breath of fresh air from the usual greeting the Delta Quadrant races gave them.

"Excuse me," she approached the nearest person, who was working at a console. "Can you tell me where I am?"

The alien did not respond.

"Can you at least tell me what happened to the man I was with? He needs medical attention."

The alien continued to work their console in silence. Janeway waved a hand in front of their face, but they didn't move.

"Huh." She turned to look around for someone else to talk to and spotted a well-dressed person with a clipboard strolling around the other side of the room. "Excuse me!" she called to them. "Sorry to bother you, but can you help me out for a moment?"

The alien didn't even look at her.

"Dammit, can somebody tell me where Chakotay is?!"

"If he's not here he's dead," a voice said from behind her.

Kathryn swung around and saw a woman she hadn't noticed before. Her uniform was different than the others, being a dark green instead of grey and a lot looser with large pockets. She wore heavy boots and had long black hair pulled back in a braid down her back. She stared at Janeway with piercing golden eyes.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded.

"Damned if I know."

"And what does that mean?"

"It means I woke up here just now and would like an explanation for what's going on," Janeway said, crossing her arms. She levelled a glare at the woman.

"Your consciousness must have gotten caught up in the effects of the Device," the woman said.

"What device?"

"The Device that's reset time." The woman walked over to the central pillar and tapped at a monitor. "Come here and see."

Janeway walked slowly over and peered at the display. She recognized the view she saw as the front of the Capital Building, where she had met with the planet's leaders to discuss trade and shore leave. As she watched, she saw a figure in a Starfleet uniform leave the building and walk further into the city. The woman beside her zoomed in on the image and Kathryn realized that the figure was herself.

"So time has reset."

"Yes."

"And that's me."

"Yes."

"But I'm me."

"You're the consciousness of a temporally displaced version of you," the woman said.

"So I'm a ghost."

"Yes."

"How…"

"We have a device that rewinds time for a little bit, giving us a chance to fix our mistakes. And by the gods, we've made a huge mistake. We planned so carefully and then…" She shook her head. "My mission right now is to get you and whoever of your crew is still on the surface to leave. Now. Before the missiles strike."

"Why? Who are you?"

The woman raised her fist to her chest in a salute. "I am N'Taka, intelligence officer for the Azkarian Resistance."

"And you care about me and my crew because…"

"Because no aliens were meant to die." N'Taka began pacing the room. She phased right through several officers who showed no clue that she was there. "We planned so carefully," she said. "We wanted as few people as possible to be hurt, and we didn't want to involve you. We tried to keep you away. We did. But we didn't realize that some of you were already on our planet. And now…"

The room trembled as a shock wave shook the building. The people around them began to go into panic mode, shouting out information as it came in on their terminals.

"That's the first missile," N'Taka shouted over the din. "Because I've spent all this time talking to you, I'm not going to complete my task before the next loop."

"I'll apologize later!" Janeway turned back to the monitor beside her, scrolling through different views of the city until she found the area that had been hit. Smoke billowed through the streets and small fires burned in the rubble. Terrified civilians ran in every direction, some fleeing for their lives, others searching for lost friends.

As she watched, another ball of fire streaked down from the heavens and impacted the ground with an enormous explosion. She spotted a Starfleet uniform amidst the chaos and realized it was herself, searching for Chakotay.

"You have to help me!" She shouted to N'Taka. "There must be some way of getting Chakotay out of there alive!"

"I have some ideas," N'Taka replied, "but first, there's one more thing I should tell you." They both braced themselves as another shockwave hit them. "I, being the one who used the Device, am immune to this nasty little side effect, but you weren't attuned to the Device so you will probably experience this one little thing. You see, in order to make sure I could complete my goal, these loops will keep repeating and so—"

Just then, a cry went up from the other side of the room. "Commander!" someone called. "Something's happening! There's a shockwave of some kind. I've never seen anything like it!" The room was rocked by a massive force, knocking Janeway off her feet. She felt a strange dizzying sensation, then just as suddenly as it came, it passed. She stood up and looked around.

Everything was as it was before. The uniformed officers manned their stations and walked around with unhurried purpose. One of them walked through Janeway, and she realized she was still invisible. She turned to her left and saw N'Taka, standing up and brushing herself off. And she saw… herself.

"What the hell," both Janeways said in unison.