"Who are you?" Kira demanded. "And where did you come from?"

"My name is Renoura Pal," the Bajoran man replied. "This is Taima Holl," he said, indicating the woman, "And Anouar Massai."

The human man, Massai, gave her a serious nod. He was tall and very dark skinned, with eyes so dark they seemed to have no irises. The woman, whom Kira suspected was a Betazoid, given her name, extended her hand. Bewildered, Kira shook it.

"And the question is," Renoura continued. "Where did you come from? You certainly don't look familiar, and we haven't had any ships land recently. At least not that I know of."

"My ship crash landed here," Kira said. "About a kilometer from here, that way." She pointed back in the direction of the shuttle.

"When?" Holl asked.

"About two days ago."

"We'd better go see the captain," Holl said to her colleagues.

"Agreed," Renoura said. "Can you come with us, Major?"

"Wait, what captain?"

"It would be easier to explain when we got there," Renoura assured her. "It's not far, and we can get a transport, even out here."

Confused, and angry at the confusion, Kira followed them back to the rest of their group. Holl simply told them they were going to see the captain and told them to keep working. The rest of them, although obviously curious, went back to their duties. Massai reached up and tapped a finger behind his right ear.

"Anouar to dispatch. We have four to beam back. And we need to see the captain." His voice was deep and musical, as if to match his presence.

"This is dispatch. Acknowledged. I'll let her know."

Kira felt the familiar sensation of a transporter wash over her, but it sounded slightly different than the Federation and Cardassian technology she was used to.

They rematerialized and Kira gaped at her surroundings. They had appeared in the center of a bustling building lobby, on what appeared to be a central transporter pad. Around them, people of all races were going about their business, crossing the tiled floor of the lobby of whatever building they were in, conferring with each other or talking to what appeared to be thin air – probably com conversations. A few people took notice of the returning crew, but paid little attention to them. Kira tried to get some sense of where she was. Outside the generous windows, she could see a busy street with pedestrians making their way below small shuttle vehicles. In the distance, she could see other buildings, all of which were brightly coloured, as if to defy the dullness of the surrounding landscape. She caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a public transport: a series of connected cars sailing past quickly.

"Where are we?" she asked.

"You're in Negava," a woman replied and Kira turned her attention back to the lobby. A Bajoran woman, followed by two staff members, was approaching them, walking quickly and confidently across the tiled floor. "Welcome."

"Thank you," Kira managed, and stepped down from the transporter pad at a gesture from Renoura. "Who are you?"

"My name is Captain Kira Trenlei," the other woman replied.

"And this," Renoura said, indicating the major, "Is Major Kira Nerys."

Trenlei's eyebrows rose quickly and she looked from Kira to Renoura then back again.

"Major Kira Nerys?" she said.

"That's right," Kira replied. "I don't remember ever having met another Kira named Trenlei."

"We've never met before," Trenlei said with certainty. "And there's no way you could remember me. But I had a great-great grandmother named Kira Nerys who was a major in the Bajoran militia."

"What?" Kira demanded. "Where the hell am I?"

"I think the precise question is when the hell are you?" Holl said and Kira snapped her attention to the Betazoid woman. "What is today's stardate for you?"

"Four-five-four-one-one-point-zero," Kira replied.

Holl and Massai nodded.

"As we suspected, Captain, there is some sort of temporal breach in those hills. Major, the current stardate where and when we are right now is six-six-two-three-four-four-point-seven."

Kira stared at the Betazoid.

"That's over two hundred years in the future!" she said.

"Yes," Holl replied.

"How the hell did that happen?" Kira said. "We didn't detect any temporal anomalies in the area!"

"Perhaps, Major, you could come with me and we should talk," Trenlei said. "Taima, you're with us. Pal, arrange for some quarters for the major. Anouar, you'd better get back to the site. They're going to need you there."

"Yes, sir," Massai replied and stepped back onto the transporter pad. Renoura nodded at the captain and gestured to one of her aids, who went with him.

"We'll go to my office, Major," Trenlei said. "I think you'll be more comfortable there. Come."


The captain's office was a large airy room with high, arching windows that over looked the city, facing a river. The floor was tiled here as well, but the tiles had flowing blue and green designs on them, which looked as if they were inspired by Bajoran tradition. The walls were painted a warm off-white, and the curtains that were pulled back from the window panes were a sheer dusky blue. The windows were all open, letting in the fresh air, and the breeze that seemed omnipresent in this area kept the air from becoming oppressive.

One half of the office was taken up by what was obviously Trenlei's workspace: a polished wooden desk that had been stained a deep mahogany, computer terminals, PADDs and a raised area just off to the left of the desk. Kira had no idea what that was for.

The other half of the office was for relaxing or less formal meetings. There was a two person couch and two chairs, all facing each other, grouped around a low wooden table of the same kind and colour as Trenlei's desk. Beside each seat was a small circular wooden table.

"Chen," Trenlei said, turning to her remaining aid, a young human man with black hair and pale brown skin, "Get us some tea and something to eat. Is green tea all right with you, Major?"

"I've never had it," Kira said.

"Green tea, then," Trenlei said to Chen. "Moba fruit and honey biscuits, I think."

"Yes, sir," Chen said and left the office. The captain gestured for Kira and Holl to take a seat and they did. Kira leaned forward, clasping her hands.

"I want to know what's going on," she said.

"I'm sure you do," Trenlei replied. "But first, I need to know something from you. How did you get to this planet and why are you here?"

"I crash landed two days ago with three members of my crew. Our shuttle isn't far from here– at least, it isn't far from where Holl and her crew are working."

"Do you have any humans in your group?" Trenlei asked.

Kira nodded.

"Yes. Two."

"Damn!" the captain swore and stood, putting one hand on her forehead and pacing the short distance between her chair and the couch Holl was occupying. "I was afraid of that. This planet has a native virus that humans are susceptible to. If they aren't already sick, they're going to be."

"They both are," Kira said grimly. "But you obviously have humans here."

Trenlei nodded and Holl spoke.

"Before we colonized the planet, we realized the virus would be detrimental to humans, and to some other races, Betazoids included. The first colonists to land here were medical scientists and doctors, mostly Bajoran and Vulcan, and they developed a vaccine for those who were susceptible. Eventually, we were able to figure out how to neutralize the virus without upsetting any ecological balance."

"Wait, how long have you been here?" Kira asked.

"The planet was first settled about ninety years ago," Trenlei replied. "Negava was established seventy-six years ago."

"And how did I get from my time to yours?"

"There's some sort of anomaly in the area you appeared in, Major," Holl said. "That's why my team is out there. We're trying to isolate its cause and figure out how to activate it. We suspected it would cause breaches in the time line, but we weren't certain until you walked through. How did you get here?"

"I just– slipped on the hill," Kira said, shaking her head. "I didn't know there was any anomaly there."

"We've known something was strange since we established Negava, which is why it's here and not further east," Trenlei said. "But we've never been able to figure out exactly what it is, or how it works."

Chen came back in with the tea and food and left again at a nod from Trenlei. The captain poured a cup for each of them and Kira accepted hers gratefully, intrigued by the sharp, unfamiliar aroma. She took some of the fruit and biscuits as well, glad to have real food instead of raw, foraged plants and replicator rations.

"If you have a vaccine for humans, I need to get back to my shuttle with it," Kira said.

"The problem is getting you back, Major," Holl said and Kira looked at her quickly. "Now we know what it is, but now how it works."

"I could go back the same way I came," Kira said.

"We can try, but it might not work. There's no guarantee that the anomaly is stable or that it works both ways. We don't even know if it has specific focal points, or if it shifts through the area. The whole area is affected by anomalous energy readings, so cross over points could vanish within moments of appearing."

"We have to try," Kira insisted.

"I'm inclined to agree," Trenlei said.

"Captain, Temporal Investigations–" Holl started.

"To hell with Temporal Investigations," Trenlei said. "Starfleet stationed me here to make decisions on Starfleet matters in this sector."

"She's Bajoran militia," Holl pointed out.

"Which eventually becomes part of Starfleet. Pretend you didn't hear that," she added, glancing at Kira. "Are your crew members Bajoran or Starfleet?"

"Starfleet. We're stationed on Deep Space Nine. My chief medical officer, Doctor Bashir, and my chief of operations, Miles O'Brien, are the ones who are sick."

Trenlei raised her eyebrows.

"Deep Space Nine?" she asked.

"Yes. Why?"

"You know the Emissary."

Kira nodded.

"Captain Sisko. Yes."

Trenlei opened her mouth to say something, then seemed to think better of it and shut it again.

"I suppose I shouldn't ask too many questions," she said. "Computer, display map of the area in which Professor Holl's crew is currently working."

Kira was startled when a holographic display leapt to life from a small, circular indentation in the table she had taken to be decorative. The three-dimensional landscape display rotated toward her, with a small red circle indicating the work party.

"Can you show me where your shuttle is?" Trenlei asked.

Kira looked for the lake to orient herself, then found the landing site and indicated it to the captain.

"Just outside the border of our study area," Holl confirmed when Trenlei glanced at her. "I can see why you went inside that area, Major, with the lake as a source of fresh water."

"There isn't anything in the lake that can make them sicker, is there?" Kira asked.

Holl shook her head.

"No, that water's perfectly safe."

"Good," Kira muttered, leaning back in the plush arm chair. At least something had worked out right. She was more worried than she wanted to admit even to herself about how Bashir and O'Brien were faring. She looked at Trenlei - her own descendent, apparently – and asked: "Is this virus fatal if it goes untreated?"

"I don't know. I'm not a doctor. And we vaccinated everyone who needed to be vaccinated before they were allowed onto the surface."

Kira sighed inwardly. Of course, that made sense. There was no point exposing anyone unnecessarily, and all their tests had probably been strictly controlled. That didn't change the reality for Bashir and O'Brien, though. If the doctor didn't come up with something and she couldn't get back, she was afraid the worst could happen. It might only be Dax who returned to the station.

"Make preparations to go back," Trenlei said to Holl, who nodded. "And find Healer Talan and bring her along. She's one of the only ones left who helped developed the vaccine."

"Yes, sir," Holl agreed and left the office after finishing her tea quickly. That left both Kiras alone. Kira wondered if she should feel more curious than she did, but the urgency of the situation was overriding any desire she had to learn more about this woman.

"How did you come to crash here?" Trenlei asked.

"We were glanced by a meteor," Kira replied. "It disabled our engines and we had no choice but to land." She paused. "Shouldn't that have been in your records when you settled this place? Unless none of us got off and no one ever found us."

"I doubt that," Trenlei replied, "Because there would have been some indication of your ship, even after a hundred and some odd years. I don't know if any information about you is listed in Starfleet's historical records. I'm only thirty-nine, Major, and I was assigned here four years ago when I was promoted to captain. I'm not one of the original colonists. There aren't many of them left as it is. Some of the Vulcans, but ninety years is still a long time, and not everyone who came here at first ended up staying."

Kira nodded. She should have thought of Trenlei's age, she supposed. Of course Trenlei would have no reason to examine the pre-settlement data. She was here, in an established city, to do a job assigned to her by Starfleet. Not to set up the colony itself.

"Holl to Kira," a voice said from the air and Kira reached for her combadge, remembering herself halfway. Trenlei gave her a wry smile that reminded Kira of an expression she'd seen many times in the mirror, and the other woman tapped her neck just behind her right ear.

"Kira here," she replied.

"Captain, I've spoken to Healer Talan and she's getting ready to join us. We'll be in the transporter in the lobby in ten minutes."

"Good work, Taima," Trenlei replied. "We'll be there shortly. Kira out."

She tapped her neck again and turned back to the table.

"Computer, display off," she said and the holographic projection of the landscape vanished. "Come on," she said to Kira. "We don't have any time to lose. Quite literally."

Kira nodded, rising from her seat and following her Starfleet captain descendant from the office.


Kira and Trenlei met with Holl and Talan at the transporter pad. Talan was an elderly Vulcan woman, although she had very few signs of age on her face. She wore her long, grey hair pinned back at the base of her skull and was dressed in the traditional Vulcan robes.

"Talan, this is Major Kira Nerys. Major, Healer Talan," Holl introduced them. Talan gave Kira a deep nod, which Kira returned curtly.

"Professor Holl has explained your situation to me, Major," the Vulcan woman said. "There are a few questions I must ask you before we leave."

"Of course," Kira replied.

"How long have your two human crew members been ill?"

"Since this morning."

"What are their symptoms?"

"Fever, fatigue, and Doctor Bashir was complaining of muscle pain yesterday morning."

"How is their general health?"

"Good as far as I know," Kira replied. "But I'm not a doctor."

"What treatments has Doctor Bashir administered?"

"He gave himself and the chief an antiviral and confined the chief to bed."

"All right, thank you," Talan said. She looked over at Trenlei. "Captain, when we first discovered the virus and determined who can contract it, we ran a number of simulations on its effects. In both humans and Betazoids, it is fatal if untreated after five days."

Kira felt as if her stomach had turned to stone. Dax had said it would take five or six days before the station even received their distress signal. She told Trenlei as much. The captain nodded grimly, an expression that also reminded Kira of herself, and gestured to the transporter pad.

"Then let's get to work," she said.

They beamed back to the site where Kira had appeared. The field crew stopped working when they arrived, at the captain's gesture, and joined the four women. Kira noticed some of them were wearing uniforms like Trenlei's, which must be Starfleet uniforms, although they were nothing like the uniforms she was used to seeing on the station. The torso of Trenlei's jacket was the standard command red, but the sleeves were white, with a red ring around each one at the cuff. The plants were black, with a thin red stripe running down the outside of each leg. The other Starfleet officers there had uniforms with blue in place of the red; obviously the colour coding hadn't changed.

Trenlei explained the situation to them, elaborating on the information Massai had probably already provided. Kira could tell by the faces that they were all interested, but no one asked her anything, and she was grateful. She had no desire to get into the specifics of her own time, especially not with work to be done.

"Let's try the obvious," Holl suggested. "Major, can you show us exactly where you fell?"

"Yes," Kira said and led them up the hill. She followed the path from memory, then spotted the place where scuffs in the dirt told her she'd fallen on this side of the temporal anomaly. Holl stepped down carefully, not quite to the level where Kira had slipped, and began scanning the area.

"I am picking up the same unusual readings here as the rest of the area, but they seem to be a bit stronger here." She eased herself down another step to stand where Kira had fallen. She scanned the area again, then shook her head. "They don't seem strong enough to move someone through time, though. But since that's what they did, perhaps we should test it." She took another, smaller tricorder from her belt and flipped it open. "I'm going to program this one with a carrier signal that should cut through the anomaly. If it works, we may be able to force a stable opening for the time being."

Holl finished calibrating the instrument, then set it down on the ground. She pushed it carefully forward with her foot to the spot Kira had indicated.

Nothing happened.

"I didn't think that would work," Holl said. "I'm going to try activating the anomaly and see if I can get it to concentrate itself in this area." She reached up and tapped her neck behind her ear. "Holl to Massai. Get Rolsen and Lnev and come up here. I'm going to need your help."

"Understood," Massai replied. "We're on our way."

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Kira asked.

Holl looked up at her.

"Are you a scientist?" she asked.

"No. An administrator."

"Then I'm afraid not."

Kira nodded, feeling frustrated and useless. She hated leaving the work in the hands of others, even if they were experts. The lives of two of her crew members and friends were at stake here, and she could do nothing. Trenlei must have sensed something, or have been alerted telepathically by Holl, because the captain gestured to Kira and the healer.

"Come on," she said. "Let's go see what else we can learn."


By the end of the day, Kira was beginning to suspect that Trenlei wasn't related to her, and that she wasn't a Bajoran at all. They hadn't made any progress, and Kira was doing her best to keep a lid on her impatience, but Trenlei didn't seem phased at all. She was concerned and knew they were pressed for time, but she had a calmness about her that baffled Kira, and made her slightly envious.

The worked until just before sunset, then the captain called a halt to everything. With a practiced efficiency, the crew packed up their gear and gathered into a group. Kira joined them reluctantly; she had no desire to go back to the city. She wanted to keep working, for someone to figure out how to open this temporal anomaly. Dax was stuck back there with two sick crew mates who were going to die if no one from this time could get through to them.

They beamed back to Negava, and Renoura, who had rejoined the crew several hours before, took Kira to an apartment building a few blocks from Trenlei's office.

"It's mostly for visiting Starfleet officers and Federation officials or scientists," he said. "But there aren't very many people staying here now. Your quarters are on the fourth floor, unit three." He gave her a small access card. "This will let you in. The computer will prompt you for your name and a pass code to use while you're here."

Kira nodded and thanked him, taking the card.

"Good night, Major," he said, then tapped his neck behind his ear and requested a transport. A moment later, he was gone, and Kira was left standing by herself. She turned and headed into the building, using the access card to get inside, and took the lift up to her assigned quarters.

The suite was spacious, much larger than what she was used to on DS9 and it seemed to her to be a waste of space. Despite its large size, it had the empty feeling of a place that no one lived in for long. The layout was a standard one, she suspected. She entered into the livingroom, and on her left was a small hallway that led to the bedroom, a study, and a bathroom, and on the right was the dining room. For one person, or even two, it seemed excessive.

The computer asked for her name and a pass code, which Kira provided without really thinking. There was food waiting for her, fresh fruits and vegetables. Kira took the plate and ordered a Bajoran dinner from the replicator in the dining room. She carried both plates into the bedroom and sat down on the large bed, eating mechanically. It had been a long day and she was tired, aggravated, afraid, and dirty. Not a far cry from how she'd ended her days most of her life, except now the fear wasn't fear about the Cardassians, but about not being able to help O'Brien and Bashir and being stuck here. She ate quickly, barely tasting anything, even the alien fruits and vegetables. Then she had a short sonic shower and changed into the pajamas that had been provided for her. They seemed very standard as well, made from a light natural fabric, dyed a uniform dark blue. She ordered herself a tea from the replicator in the bedroom, then sat back down on the bed. There was a computer screen on the wall beside the bed and she activated it.

"Computer, display an image of this planet," she said.

"Specify format," the computer replied. "Two dimensional display or holographic projection."

"Two dimensional display."

A map appeared on the screen, in the shape of two circles joined together. There appeared to be three major continents and two minor ones. Two of the three major continents were in the southern hemisphere, although the northern most of the two did cross the equator. The third straddled the north pole. Of the two minor continent, the one in the southern hemisphere was a long, thin island about half way between the equator and the south pole. The other was a slight larger, irregularly shaped land mass just north of the equator.

"Identify this planet," Kira said.

"Plathyn," the computer replied.

"Display all settlements."

Red dots began cropping up across the map; Kira noted that there seemed to be at least one settlement per continent. Trenlei had said that Plathyn had been colonized about ninety years ago and Negava established seventy-six years ago. It must have been an intense colonization process for that many towns or cities to exist already.

"Identify the city Negava."

One of the two settlements on the southern most major continent turned blue.

"Isolate and display the area surrounding Negava in a twenty kilometer radius."

The display zoomed in and Kira leaned forward slightly.

"Narrow the radius to ten kilometers."

The image grew larger and Kira spotted the lake in the hills.

"Put the image on a grid," she said.

The computer obliged her and the grid popped up. Kira nodded to herself.

"Computer, determine the distance between the lake in grid ee-six and Negava."

"Distance is eight-point-nine-three kilometers."

"Display off," Kira said and the screen went blank. She sighed, finishing her tea and climbed under the covers. "Lights off."

The room was plunged into darkness, but it slowly became punctuated by the light of one of Plathyn's two moons and the lights from the city. Kira got up and drew the curtains, but not before lingering by the window for a moment, gazing at the city surrounding her. Then she crawled back under the covers, lay on her back, and tried to sleep.