Shattered Times and Timelines - Future Ripples

by TimeTraveller-1900

In an alternate timeline, what if Voyager not only used Data's head to send a message but the lightspeed breakaway factor? An alternate version of Future Data of the Shattered Times and Timelines series.

I don't own Star Trek Voyager, and I certainly don't own Star Trek The Next Generation or The Original series.

I hadn't originally planned on revisiting this particular story, but Inquisitor0's review when I posted Future Data about how Janeway and her crew had the perfect opportunity to use the lightspeed breakaway factor used in The Original Series and shown with the HMS Bounty, a captured Klingon Bird of Prey in Star Trek The Voyage Home had possibilities, so I decided to make an alternative version of Future Data.

This is a one-shot short story, please let me know what you think.

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Shattered Times and Timelines - Future's Ripples.

Captain Kathryn Janeway lightly practiced her serve of the tennis ball on the racket, smiling at the familiar sight, recalling the tennis games of her youth with an enthusiastic smile. Things had been quiet on Voyager for some time since the mess where Kes made the mistake of committing sacrilege on an alien world, and there had not been any alien attacks on her ship.

Janeway might be counting her chickens before they hatched, of course - the Delta Quadrant was both a mysterious and wondrous expanse of space, but Janeway would have been much happier if they were capable of travelling fast enough to get home without needing to spend decades on the trip. One of the biggest problems that she'd had so far with the whole return home was there was only so much she could do, and she had looked to her old hobbies

Tennis was one of her favourite sports growing up, it would be good to get back into the literal swing of things. At the same time, it would keep her exercise routine and spice it up a bit.

The door chimed. "Come in!" Janeway called distractedly, and she made the mistake of actually hitting the tennis ball just as Tuvok entered. She looked on in embarrassed horror when the Vulcan caught the ball Janeway has managed to hit with her racket.

"Oh. Sorry, Tuvok," Janeway said quickly as she went to the bemused Vulcan - at least she thought he was bemused; with the emotional control being the very core of their being, it was nearly impossible to tell what was going on in the mind of a Vulcan. "I was just practicing my serve."

"Your serve?" Tuvok asked as she took the ball away from him gratefully, and she walked back into the room. "Tennis. After nineteen years I've decided to take it up again. I'm a little rusty," she added while she prepared to practice her serve once more before the Vulcan came into her ready room. "I played in a novice tournament on the holodeck. I lost my first match in straight sets."

"Perhaps if you maintained eye contact with the ball at the apex of its trajectory, your serve would be more effective," Tuvok suggested after he watched her performance and he walked over to where she was standing. "You play tennis," Janeway wondered if surprises would never cease; at this rate, she would be finding a Ferengi being fair and honest (she would not think about that mess with the Barvan Wormhole; she should have just taken Kol and Arrirdor away and damn the consequences instead of playing games with them; if she'd done that, then they'd be home by now), or a Klingon performing ballet.

"Simple physics, Captain."

Janeway sighed. Vulcans. "Not as simple as when I played on the High School tennis team," she sat down on the ready room couch. "What can I do for you, Tuvok?" Tuvok handed her the padd he'd been holding only a moment ago, "I've completed my monthly security evaluation. All systems and crew-."

"Red Alert! Captain Janeway to the bridge," Chakotay's voice called over the comm. Janeway felt her expression tighten, wondering what was going on; Chakotay like herself had begun ordering red alert status every time something unusual came their way, assuming they would be hostile or dangerous, and nine times out of eleven, they were.

"Report," Janeway demanded as she walked out onto the bridge to the command chairs. "Some sort of spatial rift. It opened right in front of us," Chakotay replied.

"Analysis," Janeway looked over to where Harry Kim was manning the Ops station as she took her place, her eyes twisting to the viewscreen where she caught sight of the rift. It was like someone had torn space horizontally leaving an opening. Janeway's first thought was this might be a wormhole, or a spatial rift, but she was worried about the part where Chakotay had said this rift had just opened right in front of them.

Commander Sisko had encountered the Bajoran wormhole by flying towards it, but out here they had encountered too many anomalies which were too dangerous. Chakotay's precaution was merely prudent.

But at the same time, if this was a spatial rift that opened whenever a ship passed nearby, it could perhaps be the key to helping them get home. "It's a distortion in the space-time continuum, but it's got a graviton matrix. It's being artificially generated," Harry read off of his sensors on his console.

"By whom?"

Good question.

Janeway frowned, her stomach now tightening into knots at the news. If it was being artificially generated, whoever was behind this had a great knowledge of spatial or temporal physics, and there was no guarantee they would be helpful. "Sensors can't get inside," Harry said, but his console chirped warningly before he could add anything else. "The distortion field's fluctuating. Something's coming out."

The rift flashed blue, and something tiny appeared, reminding Janeway of a Terran insect. "It appears to be a small ship, approximately six metres in length," Tuvok reported.

Six metres, not a very big ship, Janeway mused to herself as she watched as the small ship approached Voyager. "Magnify."

The view jumped forwards, showing the profile of the ship. It reminded Janeway slightly of ancient jet stealth aircraft from Earth's 20th century although it had merely been a passing interest when she had been older and she'd been studying aircraft following Amelia Earhart's time, but this ship had two glowing pink bumps on the wings. Some kind of engine design?

"Sensors are reading one occupant, human. He is holding position at the perimeter of the rift," Tuvok reported. "There's a subspace signature emanating from the ship," Harry added. "Captain, it's Federation!"

Janeway stared at her operations manager, seeing the hope already appearing on the younger man's face. She felt it too, but she was also curious and worried. "Hail them," she ordered, wondering if this ship was some kind of test ship, experimenting with some new form of propulsion, if so… "No response," Tuvok reported after the comm signal was sent, "They appear to be charging weapons."

Janeway didn't understand why something that was apparently Federation would attack them in the first place. "Shields up! Hail them again." Chakotay ordered as the ship approached and fired. The ship shook violently while the screen filled with circular yellow light. "Shields are down," Tuvok announced.

So soon? Whatever that ship was, it had some power. "Get us out of here," Janeway ordered. "Helm control is offline," Tom reported as his hands danced over his controls. "He's firing some kind of sub-atomic disruptor," Harry read from his scans.

A sub-atomic disruptor was a new one on the crew. In fact, Janeway had never even heard of one of those before now. "Return fire," Janeway said to Tuvok, hoping their weapons could get through to this ship before it did any more damage.

"Full phasers. No effect."

The lights on the bridge began to flicker as the shaking grew more, and they could feel the decks vibrate strongly. Janeway looked around worriedly, knowing this was no normal attack. "Voyager's molecular structure is coming apart!"

Harry's news only made the whole thing worse as Janeway realised that the sub-atomic disruptor, like all disruptors, they broke down the structure of an organic body, only this mysterious ship's variant was more powerful and it was designed to work against other starships. But if it was Federation, who had authorised its construction? The Federation did not create disruptor based weapons, some of them were capable of destroying a body from the inside out like the Veron-T disruptor. "Tuvok, divert all available power to the deflector. Send out a high energy polaron pulse. It might help to disrupt his weapon," Chakotay ordered as he came up with a practical suggestion.

"Emitting deflector pulse now."

Suddenly the disruptor gave out and the vibrating stopped. Voyager's secondary and backup systems automatically switched in to replace the faulty systems that had been affected by the disruptor. "It's working," Harry called.

Yes, but at what cost? Janeway hadn't forgotten the damage caused to Voyager's molecular structure. She only hoped the damage could be traced and repaired quickly. "We are being hailed," Tuvok announced as he received a hailing message from his console.

Oh so now they want to talk, Janeway sneered privately to herself, wondering what it said about so many on the whole who seemed to have the upper hand before the rug was pulled out from under them. She knew whoever the pilot was as they were only playing for time until they could find a way to readjust their weapon to blow Voyager to bits. "On screen," Janeway stood up and strode across the command level, her expression furious.

On the view screen a man, a human being appeared, wearing a Starfleet style uniform with a vertical chevron-like their own comm badges. "Starship Voyager, I'm Captain Braxton of the Federation Timeship Aeon. I've come from twenty-ninth century Earth, five hundred years into your future. Please disengage your deflector pulse."

Janeway schooled her features to remain as they were, but even she was shaken in surprise by this news. The 29th century? This was a Starfleet Captain, working for the Federation, 500 years from the future, and yet he was attacking them, and he expected them to let him do it? Did IQs drop sharply over the years?

Well, she was going to get some answers, and she was going to get them now! "Why are you firing at us?" Fortunately for her mood, Braxton - if that was even his real name - was either incapable of bluffing through the answer or he didn't have time to lie.

"Your vessel is responsible for a disaster in my century. A temporal explosion that will destroy all Earth's solar system."

What?

Janeway's eyes widened as she took in the implications of the explanation. How could Voyager destroy Earth if they were thousands of light-years away from their world? What kind of temporal disaster was he talking about? How did he know it was them in the first place? Surely if he wanted to stop the disaster, she could understand, but wasn't his presence being here, next to an open temporal rift dangerous in itself? What was going on?!

Braxton went on, "I've come back in time to prevent that occurrence. My mission is your destruction. You must not resist."

"I'm going to need some more information before I allow you to-," Janeway protested as she tried to think through her other questions, but Braxton cut across her,

"Debris from your secondary hull was found in the explosion," he cried as if that was the end of the matter, but of course, it wasn't. There were still too many questions for him to answer. It was too bad he didn't seem to be in the mood to talk. "Captain, I simply-."

"No time!"

Braxton's image from the viewscreen cut off and was replaced by the timeship again, as it opened fire and hit the ship more violently than before. Janeway grunted as she was thrown against a rail, but she held on tightly to weather it out.

"He's remodulating the sub-atomic disruptor. Our deflector is losing power, it won't hold much longer," Tuvok explained and expanded on the growing horror story, and now Janeway was left wondering how long Voyager had left before she fell apart and everyone was killed. She had sworn to her counterpart, her double, during that mess when they had hidden from the Vidiians in the plasma drift and the ship was coped that she would get her crew home.

And she had no intention of letting herself down. Chakotay came towards her. "Captain, if he's telling the truth-," he tried to say, but Janeway did not want to hear it. She didn't want to hear him urge her to surrender to someone they had just met with motives that were truly questionable.

"I won't sacrifice this crew based on a ten-second conversation. I need proof," she told him.

The ship shuddered harder, and warning alarms were coming through on the bridge. "It doesn't look like we're going to get it," Chakotay pointed out.

Janeway wanted to shout and scream at him, but she held her tongue knowing it wouldn't do for morale. Why did he have to make a comment like that? Surely he knew they couldn't take a stranger's word? She turned and walked over to Tuvok, hoping against hope that there was still some control over the deflectors for this idea to work, or they were dead. "Adjust our deflector to match the frequency of his weapon. Try to overload his emitter." Tuvok nodded and he quickly inputted the command sequence into his console.

"It seems to be working," the Vulcan commented a moment later before he gave a more detailed report. "His weapon is offline and his ship has been damaged. The rift is destabilising and he's being pulled back inside."

Janeway headed back to the helm station, already seeing Tom at work there. "Re-establish helm control."

The ship shook with vibrations again, and Janeway realised they had been caught in the gravity well of the rift. Idly she wondered how long the rift should have been left open in the first place and why Braxton hadn't closed it up. He had likely been hoping to destroy Voyager before he headed back to his own time.

Tom was still stabbing at his controls with increasing franticness."I'm trying, Captain, but we seem to be caught in some kind of graviton distortion. We're being pulled in too."

X

When Janeway woke up, she wondered how long it had been since she had passed out. She looked around quickly, and she saw the rest of the bridge crew begin to wake up. "Status," she said, remembering that Voyager had been pulled into the open temporal rift and they'd been violently thrown about before there was a sudden white light… and then she had found herself on the ground. She guessed the same thing had happened to the rest of the crew.

"Primary systems are coming back online," Tuvok reported. "The weapons array and power grid took heavy damage."

"The temporal rift is closed," Harry added, sounding wearier; he'd likely been more hurt by the transfer through the rift.

"Where are we?" Chakotay demanded. The bridge crew watched as the image on the viewscreen materialised, showing a blue planet with white clouds. Janeway's eyes widened in delight as she recognised the planet.

It was the same planet she and her crew had been trying to return to when the Caretaker had snatched them away from the Alpha Quadrant in his desperate quest to reproduce with another being like himself.

Earth.

Tom turned away from the view, his expression full of awe and delighted hope.

"Home," he whispered breathlessly.

"We just cut across half the galaxy!" Chakotay said.

Janeway felt the same hope as the others, but at the same time, her instincts were telling her that something was wrong.

"The rift must have originated here," she reasoned, feeling that it made sense; Braxton must have witnessed the destruction of the whole solar system, and he must have seen the piece of Voyager's secondary hull and he had opened a rift using his ships' database to work out the precise place and time to travel back to, but why he had chosen today of all days was beyond her comprehension.

"Hail Starfleet Command," she added; if they could contact Starfleet, there was a chance they could find the Aeon quickly… However Tuvok reported bad news, but it made Janeway worry more; if they had cut across the galaxy to Earth, when were they now?

"No response on standard frequencies. Curious. I am picking up a multitude of narrowband EM signals."

"Let's hear it." A cacophony of voices overlapping themselves came over the speakers - there were what sounded like weather reports, a child calling for his mother, and music. Janeway made a cutting gesture, a sinking feeling building in her stomach. She had been worried about this ever since Tuvok reported they weren't getting through to Starfleet Command, but now she was sure.

"The question isn't where we are, it's when we are. Mister Kim." Harry quickly checked his sensor readings, "According to astrometric readings….," he lifted his head, his expression hollow since he had really hoped the year would be their own time, and she knew how he felt, "the year is 1996."

"The late 20th century," Chakotay breathed.

"Captain, they had surveillance satellites during this time," Tom turned in his chair to point out that piece of news. Janeway nodded, already making a plan to avoid being detected. "Maintain a high orbit. And modulate the shields to scatter their radar. We don't want to alarm the natives."

It wasn't like they had the means of doing anything to her ship, but Janeway didn't want to take any chances, especially since they didn't have any way of getting home to their own time and away from any nasty surprises.

"What about the time ship? Is it here too?" Chakotay asked.

Tuvok ran a quick scan. "There is no sign of the vessel in orbit. Scanning the planet surface. I am picking up low frequency subspace readings emanating from the northern hemisphere."

What? The 20th century didn't have subspace technology, indeed it shouldn't even have the scientific knowledge to know about subspace physics until the 21st century, at least.

But there was somebody who would have the knowledge.

Braxton and his ship.

Now, Janeway thought to herself wondering if Braxton was truly that stupid; she might not know the other Starfleet captain, or what the Temporal Prime Directive protocols were like in the 29th century, but from what she had seen so far he didn't seem to care about the ramifications of changing history and she still had her doubts about his story of finding Voyager's hull in the 29th century when Earth was destroyed, and half a dozen questions to go with it.

How did Voyager end up caught in such an explosion in the first place? Had he bothered to run even the simplest investigation to discover what had happened? Voyager could have been travelling in space and stumbled upon some kind of temporal rift by accident, did he know what it was? Was he talking about an alternative version of Voyager?

But what she was more concerned about was if her ship and her crew were part of some predestination paradox (she hoped not; temporal mechanics gave her a splitting headache on a good day when time travel was not even involved, but if this was a paradox, it would answer several questions and give her a few more relating to Braxton's sanity), and they were doomed to live through the same events which would lead to Earth's destruction. Chakotay Subspace technology shouldn't exist for another hundred years or so.

"It could be our friend from the 29th century. Localise it," Janeway ordered, wondering privately to herself if Braxton really was behind the subspace technology they were seeing right about now; he might be a Starfleet officer, but Janeway was worried if his quest to ensure the future he had seen hadn't become some twisted obsession to make sure Voyager didn't destroy the future.

Alternatively, perhaps Braxton had simply found a way of adapting the local technology just enough to keep the subspace signals localised so no passing aliens could detect them, to see if he could detect Voyager in case he was worried they had fallen through the rift after him. "North American continent, Pacific coast. The city of Los Angeles," Tuvok reported. Janeway nodded decisively, already making plans on what to do next.

"We've got to go down there. If it is Captain Braxton, he's the key to all this, and at the moment his ship is the only way we have of getting back to our own century. Chakotay, Tuvok, Paris, you're with me. Mister Kim, you have the bridge."

"Yes, Ma'am!" Harry said with enthusiasm, making Janeway hide a small smile; she truly wished she could promote him to lieutenant, but right now she was giving him valuable hard experience. He'd need it in the future.

But his enthusiasm reminded her of puppies (she would not think of Molly, not right now). Turning to Paris, Janeway said conversationally as they walked to the turbo lift, "As I recall, Tom, you're something of an aficionado on twentieth-century America."

"That's right."

"What will we need to pass as locals in this era?" "Simple. Nice clothes, fast car and lots of money," Paris said pointedly as they stood in the turbo lift car.

Janeway wasn't really sure about the second part, but the first two shouldn't be that hard to pull off. They might need to blend in order to discover where Braxton and his ship were, but if she had her way, they wouldn't be here long.

X

Janeway knew she and her officers should be focused on finding Braxton and the timeship to say nothing to discovering just how much of history had been altered or reshaped, but at the same time, she couldn't help but smile as she took in the sights. While Los Angeles was gone in their time, this was still Earth and she was able to see just a sample of it. While the transporters on Voyager were on the fritz thanks to Braxton's insane attack on them, they'd arrived safely near a beach.

She had taken a quick glance at her chosen outfit a white jacket over a matching shirt, trousers and shoes, and she actually felt it was quite smart, and she admired the way Chakotay was dressed in his grey jacket with matching trousers and his blue shirt. Out of all of them Tom, naturally, looked good in his blue shirt while Tuvok was out of place especially with that hat pulled down low over his ears to cover them.

As she looked at the beautiful sky on this beautiful day, with so many people laughing and partying while they enjoyed themselves, Janeway closed her eyes for a moment and savoured the laughter and the overlapping voices of so many different humans after being separated from Earth for so long.

She loved her crew, Janeway truly did and she'd enjoyed her time with the 37s after they'd been kidnapped by aliens so long ago, but being back here… it was strange.

A part of her just wanted to forget about the 24th century and order everyone to transport down to the planet and mingle with the rest of the population and feel the same way she did, but Janeway knew she couldn't. Sighing regretfully while she looked down at the beachgoers (she blushed at some of their swimsuits (she smiled a little when she saw a grinning man walking precariously around the beach on stilts with long striped trousers and an overlarge top hat with a billboard reading "Uncle Sam's Psychic Readings" which made her wonder if he was some kind of telepath), but she enjoyed the feeling of the Los Angeles sun on her skin. It had been some time since she had been on a planet, and she was tempted to land the ship somewhere more often as Chakotay suggested.

The rest of the away team had been looking down at the beach with her, gazing at the walking examples of what the 20th century was like. None of them knew the Eugenics wars were around the corner, to say nothing of the millions of people who were going to die in the Third World War before Cochrane launched the Phoenix and everything changed for the better.

"We could have worn our Starfleet uniforms. I doubt if anyone would have noticed," Tuvok observed dryly, making Tom snort and Janeway smile.

Still, they had to get back to business.

After pointing there was a way down to the beach, they walked down a ramp

"The subspace readings are coming from within a one hundred metre radius of our position, but I can't pinpoint the source," Janeway remarked after a party of laughing men on skateboards flashed past. She took a moment to admire their balance and the way they moved before she returned her attention to the others.

"I find it hard to believe a ship from the twenty-ninth century could have landed on this beach without being noticed," Chakotay remarked.

"We have no idea what kind of technology they might have in the future. Maybe it's cloaked," Janeway pointed out, wondering if that was true and if the Treaty of Algeron was well and truly gone in the future. But she looked around the beach and she realised they were getting nowhere. "Let's spread out. Tuvok, Paris, go check the shoreline. Chakotay and I will search the boardwalk."

"Aye, Captain," Tuvok replied, but they both moved off and it wasn't until a few minutes later that Janeway realised she should have told Tuvok not to use her rank in the 20th century.

"Well, Kathryn, you got us home," Chakotay remarked. "Right place, wrong time. But it is good to be back, nevertheless," she added with a bright smile. "Maybe I should look up a few ancestors. As I recall, one of them was a schoolteacher in Arizona."

"I don't know what my relatives were doing this far back in history," Janeway began but when a young blonde woman who was on some kind of wheeled technology accidentally blundered into her and Chakotay she lost her train of thought, but they quickly and instinctively grasp her upper arms to stop her from falling over.

The girl didn't even look at them. "Coming through. Sorry."

Janeway gaped after her for a moment before she remarked as they walked off, "For all I know, she could be my great, great, great, great grandmother." And boy, did that sound weird?

"She does have your legs," Chakotay finished the joke with a smile, making Janeway roll her eyes, but not without a smile on her own face.

"Have you ever been to southern California, Chakotay?" She whispered to him.

"No. "After the Hermosa quake in 2047, this entire region sank under two hundred metres of water. It became one of the world's largest coral reefs, home to thousands of different marine species," Janeway said before a bare-chested man with sunglasses walked by with short pink hair sticking up in spikes and a woman with tattoos following him. "Some interesting species in this century," Chakotay commented while Janeway watched the two with a bemused frown on her face. Did people really go around like that right now?

"You know, despite everything, despite this not being our time, it's good to be back here," Chakotay said as he looked around, "what about you?"

Janeway wondered if she should admit to Chakotay about her earlier thoughts, and she decided to do it anyway. "Yes, it is," she sighed, "it's not our Earth, and it is not our time, but it is our world. Our home. I was thinking when we stood looking down at the beach, what if we brought everyone down to Earth? Okay, I know some of the crew aren't human, but it would be good to spend a bit of time here."

"I know," Chakotay said in that way of his which made it clear he was keeping some of his innermost thoughts locked away, but on this occasion, he wasn't keeping it locked up. "But you know that we can't. It would affect those members of the crew who aren't from Earth, or from one of the colony worlds, and it would affect the morale in ways we can't imagine, especially since we don't know what is going to happen even if we find the timeship."

"I know what I want to use that timeship for; finding the cause of the disaster which destroyed the 29th century, and then use it to return to the 24th century," Janeway said.

"I know," Chakotay replied, "I just hope we can get away with it; if Temporal Investigations is stringent in our century, I'd hate to see what it's like in Braxton's time."

Janeway caught the implications of the remark easily and she had to admit that Chakotay had a point. Time travel was more accessible to the Federation in the 29th century, it was likely there were new laws in place to make sure it could never be misused. "True, but we have to try," she said looking around the beach, noting a shop or some kind of cafe with a red sign reading Hot Dog Stick not far away.

Slipping out her tricorder - Tuvok was right, everyone seemed to be too busy enjoying themselves nobody was really paying attention to anything, and as long as she was quick and careful, they could find the subspace readings - she began scanning for subspace technology.

"The readings are coming from over there. Ten metres. There," she said as she looked at the cafe.

There was nothing too different about the place as far as the two Starfleet officers could see; there was a crowd in front of the cafe with something dark and almost unnoticeable in the crowd, but was there something buried on the site? The dark mass moved, revealing a bearded man with a tattered hat who was dressed in equally tattered clothes, rummaging around in what looked like a bin. He was picking out something brown from the bin and nodding in satisfaction as he took it out. "So much for the timeship," Chakotay commented, staring at the homeless man scavenging around with pity; the poor man didn't even have fresh-looking clothes on, who knew what kind of life he led? Despite her disappointment they hadn't yet gotten any leads on the Aeon's location, Janeway herself was just as sympathetic, but she was checking her tricorder…she slowly moved it around, and the moment it was pointed straight at the scavenger she knew this man was the source of the subspace readings. "There's no doubt about it. The subspace readings are coming from him," she said, pointing and glancing at Chakotay in surprise.

X

"That trip through the rift is still affecting our primary systems. Weapons are offline, we blew three EPS conduits, and our main transporter buffer just crashed," B'elanna reported from the ops console while Harry stood in front of it; he knew his console intimately, and he winced at the sound of the fault chirp. This was not good.

Harry had been listening to the growing horror story about what shape the ship had been through thanks to Braxton's attack. The ship had not only suffered damage through the time rift, but the subatomic disruptor had caused a number of system failures that were going to take a long time to put right again. At first, Harry was thrilled and over the moon when Janeway had given the command of Voyager over to him while she went down to Earth with Tom, Tuvok, and Chakotay, but now he wished he were down there handling the search for the timeship rather than listening to this.

At the same time, Harry had been going through Starfleet records of time travel; during the Academy, he had heard of dozens of them from Kirk's first trips through the Guardian of Forever, the rescue of two humpback whales to bring them to the 23rd century to repopulate the species and undo one of humanity's worst mistakes.

He just felt so hopeless up here, listening to the reports from all over the ship as the crew tried to find out just what Braxton had done to Voyager, so he had taken the time to read a little bit. He had never travelled back in time this far before during his career - that time when he had experienced that alternate reality where he'd never left Earth for Voyager did not count, this was different.

At the same time, it distracted him from thinking that they were back at Earth.

Home.

Harry had been one of the more desperate members of Voyager's crew to return home for 2 years now since the Caretaker had snatched them away from the Alpha Quadrant and the dream of returning home was one of the few things keeping Harry going.

"We've got an away team down there," Harry pointed out, knowing that B'elanna was more than aware of that.

B'elanna nodded, her voice showing how apologetic she was, "I know. We've still got emergency transporters but they're short range."

Harry didn't like the sound of that. "How close to the surface would we have to get to beam them up?" He asked cautiously. "Pretty close," B'elanna sighed as she turned to face him. "I'd say less… than ten kilometres."

Damn it, this is getting beyond a joke! Harry thought to himself. Aloud he couldn't help but point out the dangers of that idea even if it was the only way they could get the away team back on the ship. "If we do that somebody's going to see us."

B'elanna's expression made it clear she knew of the dangers herself, but before either of them could think of a way they could turn it around a beeping from the Tactical station caught their attention. "Sir, I'm picking up an EM signal from the planet surface," Ensign Kaplan who was at Tactical caught their attention. "It's directed at our coordinates."

What the fucking hell?!

Harry stared at the young woman in disbelief, and he made a mental note to have B'elanna and her team look at the deflectors to see if anything was getting through to be detected in the first place. "On screen," Harry said through his dry lips. The sight of Earth disappeared and it was replaced by a white screen with Earth in the centre as a graphic.

"Greetings from the people of Earth," a female voice said while written greeting words were flashing up so fast Harry was barely able to keep up with them, never mind follow them before pictograms showing a strand of DNA, and a naked man and woman were nearby and there was a string of computer code attached.

"Shall I respond, sir?" Kaplan asked.

"Absolutely not," Harry couldn't help but wonder how much worse things were going to get; they'd been thrown back in time thanks to someone thinking they were going to destroy the future, they were back at Earth except it wasn't their Earth yet, the ship was falling to bits, they couldn't get the away team back without going too close to them which would mean they could be seen (he wished they had a cloaking device on board but thanks to a treaty, they didn't even have that), and now someone knew they were there.

And he did not know what he was going to do next. He would have to get back to reading the files of previous time travel trips to the past and

X

As she and her officers followed the bearded man who was wearing the tattered clothes, Janeway tried hard not to be too judgemental about the way this man was essentially homeless, alone, and he had nothing but the clothes on his back and everything in that pushcart to call his possessions. In the 22nd century, homeless people were a thing of the past thanks to the New World Economy before money was eventually rendered obsolete because people in the later centuries realised it was pointless to have.

She knew she shouldn't be too judgemental, but it was hard to believe this man and people like him just lived like this, and yet society just tolerated it. As they watched, the tramp took a sign and stuck it to a nearby lamppost. "He appears to live on the street," Janeway explained to the others.

"That pushcart seems to contain all his belongings."

"From what we can tell he spends most of his time putting up literature about the end of the world," Chakotay added, but any further theories about the tramp were dashed when Janeway's comm. badge beeped.

She took the badge out of her pocket, already prepared for the worst. Once she had made sure the others were obscuring the view of the badge from the locals, Janeway tapped her badge, and she kept her voice down. "Janeway here."

Harry's voice came through over the line - the moment she heard him speak her rank, Janeway knew this was going to be bad news; she had known Harry long enough to know the way he delivered good and bad news. "Captain, we've got a problem. We received a signal from the surface. It looks like a standard greeting designed for extraterrestrials."

Janeway shared a look with Chakotay, his expression puzzled but unsurprised. He seemed resigned, and she knew how he felt. Previous visits to the 20th century by other Starfleet officers and crews had been relatively easy to mask thanks to their deflectors, but if a society developed subspace technology even of a rudimentary kind, they would detect the subspace field the same way an electric eel used waves of electricity to seek out fish and other prey even if the water was so murky you couldn't see through it. "We've been detected."

"It looks that way. We tracked the signal to an observatory about twenty kilometres from your location."

"Transport Paris and Tuvok to those coordinates," Janeway ordered; if they could get to this observatory they could find a clue that could help them find the Time Ship and Braxton.

"I can't do that right now, not without going into a lower orbit," Harry delivered more bad news. "The main pattern buffer is offline. B'Elanna says it could take a couple of days to repair."

Oh, this was getting better all the time; they'd known the transporter systems had taken a nasty blow during the trip back to the 20th century, but they hadn't known it was bad to this extent.

But the observatory could be the key to solving this case, and fast, and Janeway came to a decision. "In that case transmit those coordinates to Mister Tuvok's tricorder. He and Tom will have to get there using more… conventional means."

"Aye Captain, Kim out."

Janeway put the badge back into her pocket, wondering just how many more things were going to go wrong here. The ship was stranded 300 years in the past. The 20th century had subspace technology. The Time Ship was somewhere here, and they still didn't have any further details about the disaster in the 29th century. And now, to top it all off, somebody here knew about their presence.

"Nobody walks in Los Angeles and they don't have much of a public transportation system," Tom pointed out. "We're going to need some wheels."

Janeway didn't have a clue what that meant at first, but she had noted the automobiles which were similar to the farm cart they'd picked up in space before their encounter with Earhart and the other stranded humans the Briori had dragged from Earth, so she guessed he meant that. "Do what you have to do," Janeway ordered, not really caring if her officers bought a car, or if they stole one; time was of the essence. But she had other instructions to give them. "Find out who sent that message and get more information. Have we been detected, how many people know about us? We cannot risk contaminating the timeline."

Not any more than it already hasn't already, Janeway thought privately to herself with a snide feeling of contempt towards Braxton for this mess. Thanks to him somehow, this time period had access to the technology they shouldn't have until much later. "Aye, Captain," Tuvok said, moving off already.

"See you later," Tom added, while Chakotay and Janeway nodded back before they turned and went after the tramp. It was time to get some answers

X

It didn't take long for the tramp to lead Janeway or Chakotay to where he lived; it seemed his daily routine was to wheel the pushcart around the city for a spell before he returned to an alleyway where he'd clearly made his home. Janeway and Chakotay followed the tramp around the corner in the alley (Janeway tried hard not to react to the weathered signs reading "Prepare for Future's End" or the "The End of the World is Near" but the longer they followed this man, the more intrigued and worried she was getting. It was too coincidental that he was being so dedicated to putting those signs up), and they flinched at the same time at the amount of junk accumulated all over the place. There was some kind of crude orange and white tent over an abandoned and heavily graffitied car, surrounded by an assortment of junk Janeway and Chakotay barely recognised.

The tramp was pushing the cart towards the car when he stopped and turned around when he realised he was being followed, and he realised they were there.

"Who the hell are you!" He demanded, "This is my stuff!"

Janeway held up her hands, while she and Chakotay continued walking closer to the tramp. "It's all right, we don't want your stuff. We just want to ask you a few questions."

Unfortunately, that only set the tramp off. He waved his hands and he ran around the car. "No, no, no, no, no more questions, no. No more surveys. Damn social workers coming around all the time," the tramp came towards them, jabbing his finger at them furiously. "No, I don't need your advice, I don't need your…..," suddenly the tramp stopped when he got a good look at Janeway's face and his eyes widened with shock and anger while she looked on in curiosity about what had made him stop and stare like that.

He crept closer, making Janeway stiffen and beside her she felt Chakotay tense protectively. But the tramp just walked closer to Janeway, his eyes taking in her features. Janeway told herself not to move, even if she wanted to take a step back away from the man's body odour. "Voyager," he hissed.

Janeway gasped. How could he-? And then she took a good look at the tramp's eyes, and what little of his face which wasn't obscured by his overgrown and dirty beard… she felt she had seen him before. Beside her, Chakotay reacted and pulled out his tricorder and he began the scan the tramp who was definitely someone they knew.

"I knew you'd show up. This is all your fault, this is all your doing!" Ignoring the tramp's ramblings, Janeway spotted something in his clothes, and she reached forward and plucked out a slightly battered and tarnished comm. badge from his coat, identical to the one Braxton wore. Janeway took a deep breath; she had assumed Braxton had somehow taken control of Earth's technology, but to find him living like this-.

How had he ended up like that? What sort of things had he gone through? Janeway wasn't the 20th-century buff Tom was, but she felt she could survive thanks to her skills as a fast learner, and if Braxton was a Starfleet officer then he should be just as good. "Captain Braxton?"

"I told you to turn off your deflector pulse, but you wouldn't listen to me," Braxton shook his head as he snarled them. "Voyager. Fools!"

Janeway was not going to be blamed for anything. Now she'd found out Braxton had nothing to do with the anachronistic technology in the 20th century, she wanted answers and Braxton had them. At the same time, she was hoping if she could persuade him to come back to Voyager, help them, they might get out of here in one piece. Perhaps, if they were lucky, they might be able to find a way of using his timeship to get them all home.

"Captain, what's happened to you? The last time we saw you-," she suddenly recoiled when Braxton lunged for his angrily.

"I was a younger man, confident in my mission," Braxton swung around and went back to the car, "But you wouldn't listen to me. But, you were too concerned with yourselves!"

He ranted in Janeway's face as she tried to calm him down; they needed answers and Braxton wasn't making it easier for them.

Chakotay snapped, clearly just as annoyed of being blamed for everything as Janeway was. Why was it everywhere they went people blamed them for their problems?

"You were trying to destroy us."

"I was trying to save billions of lives," Braxton argued, but Janeway wasn't going to let him justify himself like that; she understood as a Starfleet captain you had to sometimes accept the ends justify the means at times, but his irrationality towards them was worrying her. "To stop a chain reaction that started with Voyager! It's too late now. All things are set in motion," Braxton raced around the little corner of the alleyway he'd taken as a home, ranting angrily at the two 24th century officers, "The terrible explosion will occur. The end is coming! The future's end."

"Captain, how long have you been here in the twentieth century?" Janeway demanded, taking him gently by the arms to calm him down.

The anger disappeared from Braxton's face and was replaced by the same kind of despair Janeway and the rest of her crew felt about being stranded in the Delta Quadrant thanks to the Caretaker. "Too long. Thirty years too long," he said in a muted whisper that made it clear if they'd found him a long time ago, he would be wailing loud enough to wake the dead.

Janeway's eyes widened as she took in the implications of the news.

Thirty years?

Braxton had been stranded for thirty years.

She could barely imagine what that must have been like; to watch events you'd either learnt about in some classroom or out in the field as a time traveller play out and knowing you couldn't do anything about it.

It was worse in Braxton's case; he was stranded here, unable to escape, surrounded by people bound to one world, no technology that he could make use of, even with his advanced knowledge.

But what she didn't understand was how Braxton had come down to this. He was living on the streets with no proper shelter, likely scrounging for food and water while being forced to make do. But what made her pity him, even more, was how he had likely been treated, he clearly had nobody here and she was left wondering now if he was a touch mad. Chakotay leaned forward urgently - she glanced at him, seeing the same surprise and pity there on his broad face but he had other questions on his mind. "And yet we just arrived. Why?"

"Pure chance," Braxton shrugged, and he walked off with that manic manner which was really beginning to worry Janeway a little bit; she didn't know if it was something he had always possessed or if he had just become a bit mad in the 20th century. It was hardly encouraging. "When you knocked my navigational system off course there's no telling where we may have ended up."

He stuck his head inside the car. "Who's been here? Who took my pencils?" Braxton ranted; Janeway shared another look with Chakotay, and she saw the same worry for Braxton's rationality there.

"Oh, always something missing…"

Janeway walked over to the car and knelt down so she could peer through the windows of the 20th-century vehicle. Inside she saw Braxton searching through what looked like a bucket for something. "Oh, always trying to steal things. Oh, greedy people. Post-industrial barbarians!" Janeway had had enough. "Captain, we want to help you," she said pointedly, "but you've got to give us more information. You said that Voyager causes the explosion."

She had her doubts about that, especially since Braxton's actions had led to this mess in the first place, but they needed more answers and the timeship to get a better idea of what was going on.

But Braxton's manner was beginning to worry her. He was the only person who knew what was going on, but he was acting so erratically that she wondered if he was even prepared to give it to them. He seemed rational right now since she had given him something to focus on, but she needed to find other things for him to focus on.

He had been stranded here for decades, all that time alone in this era could not have been good for his sanity. "Yes. No. Yes," Braxton started it out so well at first then he seemed to think more about it, which only made her more confused before he pulled his head out from the car and spoke to her over the top. "That's the paradox, my dear. A leads to B leads to C leads to A."

Janeway looked at Chakotay, both of them more confused now than ever, but she could feel that age-old headache as she was presented with another example of unsolvable temporal paradoxes.

Their confusion seemed to amuse Braxton. "Juvenile minds. Oh, how can I make you understand, huh?"

"You could just tell us," Janeway said, hoping that Braxton wasn't going to treat them like simpleton students. If he did, she was going to punch him. He was already trying her temper.

Braxton ignored them as he headed for a wall, and he scrawled over the already graffitied surface with a piece of chalk. "A," he began by chalking an A on the wall. "There's an explosion in the twenty-ninth century. Debris from Voyager's hull is found in evidence. I go back in time to destroy you."

Janeway and Chakotay shared another look, both of them wondering if the other understood this or not, but what they did understand was the growing sequence of events.

"B," Braxton chalked a large B on the wall next to the A. "You try to stop me, disabling my weapon which causes me to crash-land back here in the twentieth century."

"C." Braxton chalked the third letter on the wall, continuing his mini-lecture and clearing things up in their minds at the same time. "Someone in this century steals my timeship and launches it. They go into the future and once there they make one critical mistake which causes a terrible explosion that takes us all the way back to A. There's an explosion in the twenty-ninth century. The cycle of causality is complete," he finished and he drew a crude chalk circle around the three letters for emphasis.

For a moment, Janeway studied the diagram and mentally turned over the story in her mind. It made sense, but what she couldn't grasp was why this hadn't occurred to Braxton the moment he took his ship, went back in time to the 24th century and attacked Voyager. Had he only realised his mistakes when he had spent 30 years trapped here? If that was the case then this guy was incredibly more short-sighted than she'd expected.

But right now Janeway was angry. She was angry with how he had just endangered their lives and thrown them back through time without stopping to think about what he might be doing. She could see now that Braxton clearly hadn't had a clue, not a single clue about what he was doing, and it had cost him dearly.

Yes, she could pity him for his plight, and she could feel sorry for how he had spent so many years of his life trapped in the past, centuries from home and knowing what was going to come, but her sympathy was extremely limited.

But what she was really angry about was how he had lost his timeship in the first place. How had he lost it? Was this yet another example of how stupid Braxton could be? "How do you know all this?" She ground out as she walked towards him with her arms folded while she glared at him with displeasure. "What evidence do you have that it will be your timeship that causes the disaster?"

"Ah," Braxton held up a finger before he walked over to a box and he rummaged around in it for a moment before he pulled out a piece of brown paper and went back to Janeway and Chakotay. "I've spent thirty years answering that very question."

Using a pile of junk as a makeshift table, Braxton opened the paper which showed a number of equations and formulas and pictures of the Aeon timeship. "Ah, yes, when the explosion first happened, my sensors recorded a whole variety of chronometric pulses that were highly chaotic. At first, I thought it was a warp core implosion, but then I found debris from Voyager and my theory seemed to be confirmed. It was you."

Janeway shared another look with Chakotay, both of them wondering if Braxton was just too fixated on seeing Voyager as the root cause of all of his problems to see the debris could have come off the hull by accident. His continuing changes in mood and attitude was beginning to surprise them, but a moment ago he had seemed uncertain of Voyager's involvement.

Braxton carried on, focusing on the chart. "But then someone here stole my timeship and it started to dawn on me. If someone were to fly my timeship into the future without recalibrating the temporal matrix then that could cause the kind of explosion that I witnessed in the twenty-ninth century. "So it really wasn't Voyager after all."

"No. No, no," Braxton waved his hands over his chart. "I reconstructed all the chronometric data as best I could remember it and it proved I was right. My ship causes the catastrophe."

Janeway glared at him, and she asked him the one question that she really wanted to ask him. "Did you ever stop to consider that if you had bothered to investigate the explosion in the first place instead of travelling to our time then you wouldn't have been trapped in the 20th century in the first place?"

Braxton looked at her with an expression that might have been disbelief, or even outrage.

Janeway carried on.

"This is why the Temporal Prime Directive was established in the first place, Captain Braxton. We do not interfere with any situation in the past unless we know what happened. You should have investigated instead of letting your grief cloud your judgement," Janeway hated herself for saying those words. "Surely it must have occurred to you this could happen by accident, causing your casualty loop," Janeway gestured to the A, B, C in their circle on the wall.

She knew if she were in Braxton's position she would have gone after anyone who had destroyed Earth, her home, she would have torn the whole galaxy apart to find those responsible. It was not exactly the human of the 24th century way, but she did not care. Despite her anger towards Braxton and the way he had attacked them, she did see things from his point of view but she didn't like the way he had just attacked Voyager and write them off the way he had since he hadn't bothered to ask the same questions she had.

Chakotay spoke for the first time since Braxton showed them the chronometric data chart. "Which raises the question, who has your timeship?" He looked pointedly at Braxton.

"Starling," Braxton spat the name out of his mouth with contempt before he walked off back to the car and he opened up the hood and rifled through it looking for something - Janeway wondered just how much Braxton had here that he needed to protect, the hiding places might be enough to deter most passersby who'd rifled through his things, but it didn't stop making things confusing for the man. "Henry Starling, CEO Chronowerx Industries. Philanthropist, entrepreneur, outstanding citizen."

Braxton pulled another piece of paper out of the car and headed back to them to show what he had. "Pa! Before I crashed in 1967 I made an emergency beam out," he showed them the piece of crumpled paper showing the face of a middle-aged man wearing a dark suit, "but he found my ship before I did in some remote mountain range. I've been following this corrupt little man ever since, tracking his movements. He's become too powerful. I can't get close to him. Of course, you can't accomplish anything in this wretched century. Nobody here listens. Do you know that once they put me in a mental institution and filled me with primitive pharmaceuticals?"

Chakotay cut through the babbling for which Janeway was delighted about - while Braxton's story was grim, she couldn't help but think that Braxton's plight would have been avoided if he had not talked in the first place since everyone was going to view him as mad since he didn't have any proof to back it up, but they needed answers right now, using his calm diplomatic voice which had served him so well over the years. "Maybe we can help you find Starling and your ship, and get us back to where we belong."

"Oh, I wouldn't do that if I were you," Braxton said with a shake of the head.

Oh god, what now? Janeway frowned. "Why not?"

"Haven't you been listening? A leads to B-!"

Janeway finished for him impatiently, really not in the mood for a temporal mechanics lesson, she'd had more than enough of those during her time at the Academy and they had enough to bore her until she thought she could order her own funeral. "Leads to C. Yes, we heard you. Why shouldn't we try to stop Starling?"

In a slow patronising whisper that instantly made Janeway want to slap him, Braxton explained the problem, "Because somehow you're involved in the disaster. That's why I found debris from Voyager's hull at the explosion. You will be destroyed as well."

While she was left feeling annoyed and frustrated by Braxton's total certainty they caused the disaster regardless of anything that he said, Janeway had to see things from his perspective. It wasn't easy, just stopping and listening to him make his point, but she supposed it made sense for him to keep thinking they were part of the accident.

Chakotay tried another tack. "Now that we know what's going to happen, maybe we can figure out," he began but they were interrupted when a car with a flashing red light sounded some kind of siren briefly, making the two turn and look at it.

Folding the newspaper Braxton had given them, Janeway and Chakotay discreetly stepped away. But as the tall black man got out of the car wearing a dark uniform with a silvery badge on his chest, although Janeway noted immediately the sidearm he was carrying, they were taking more notice of Braxton than they were of either her or Chakotay. Some kind of law enforcement officer, perhaps?

"Hey, Captain, how you doing?" He asked, lightly mocking the word 'captain' as he rounded his vehicle and walked closer to Braxton, who was standing there with his arms folded. "Understand you've been putting these signs up around the city again."

"No. No, no, no. Not me. I would never do that," Braxton muttered; clearly, this was an annual event.

The law enforcement officer went on, "Why don't you walk over here and we can talk about it."

"Stay right where you are, quasi-Cardassian totalitarian!" Braxton began to rant again, making Janeway roll her eyes and wish he would shut up; it was clear he'd had a rough time in the 20th century, but she was wondering if the stress of what made him travel back to the 24th century, being stranded in the 20th, being made homeless and forced into a mental institution had done something to Braxton's brains. She could see from the policeman's perspective that Braxton was a madman.

Janeway didn't blame him, with the way Braxton was acting up, it was hard to take him seriously. The law enforcement officer raised a hand to placate Braxton, "No need to get upset about this, we just want to talk to you about the signs. Now, there've been a few people complaining."

Janeway looked down at this further piece of evidence of how Braxton's life was a living hell. But at the same time, he'd brought it on themselves since he was responsible for taking the paradox further.

Braxton whispered desperately, "Captain, tell them I'm not crazy. Tell them I'm from the future."

For a moment Janeway wondered if Braxton really was stupid. What made him think these people would listen to them? They could show off their technology, but they'd more than likely be locked up while it was dissected, and god only knew what would happen to Voyager. Did people forget the temporal prime directive in the future? It was almost pathetic after his arrogant certainty they would destroy the future.

In any case, they were in a better position to find Starling and find out if he had the timeship or not.

Seeing her shrug her shoulders innocently while snorting that Braxton was clearly mad made Braxton turn desperately to the law enforcement officer. "They came from the future too, you know."

The black law enforcement officer nodded his head to humour Braxton. "Okay."

Braxton was persistent, Janeway would give him that, it was just too sad that he didn't realise he might be locked up in a psychiatric ward again. "They came in on a starship." Just by looking at the policeman made it clear to Janeway and Chakotay he'd had more than enough.

"All right."

Janeway shrugged again.

"Traitors!" Braxton shouted before he ran off, pushing the policeman aside and disappearing around the alley with the police chasing after them; Janeway thought she heard the man give a string of numbers, but they were running away from them so fast she couldn't catch all of it. In any case, it didn't matter. Once they were gone, Janeway took a deep breath, "We'll have to worry about him later," she said, a part of her actually happy to get some revenge on Braxton, before she unfolded the newspaper to reveal Starling's face again. "Right now, we've got to find Starling."

X

Janeway was almost disappointed. It had been easy enough to find Chronowerx after asking a few directions and after looking it up in something called a 'Cyber Cafe,' where she and Chakotay gained access to the internet and found more direct directions, and they'd gone there. While they were both concerned about the Chronowerx symbol, which was a large replica of the same 29th-century Starfleet insignia, they were just as surprised Starling, despite his apparent knowledge of the 29th century hadn't had a more complicated was inside.

They had gone through the main entrance and worked their way through with their tricorders - a brief glance showed that the security system was based on a crude duotronic security net. It was advanced by 20th century standards, but it was nothing to a 24th-century tricorder. After breaking into the office, Chakotay tracked the alarms which consisted of a black box with a flashing red light before Chakotay shut it off.

"So far, so good. We haven't set off any alarms," Chakotay remarked as they stepped inside the spacious office, and Janeway closed the door from behind and she looked around the office. It was a strange mixture of an office and a lounge-like Starling was a serious businessman but he was unafraid to rest and relax.

"Our Mister Starling has built himself quite a corporate empire. Looks like he's got wealth, celebrity and an ego to match," Janeway leaned forward when she caught sight of a number of awards; one that really worried her was the magazine named Technology Future where there was a photograph printed of Starling, which read "Starling does it again."

But she saw something else. She knew many captains and flag officers in Starfleet who displayed awards and pictures of themselves posing 'heroically' during a summit or with planetary officials. They were arrogant, incredibly proud when they postured themselves. Something told her Starling was just the same. She turned around and instantly placed her hand on Chakotay's chest when she saw Starling's computer. She went and sat down at Starling's computer. She looked at the primitive keyboard, and she tapped a button experimentally. Instantly the screensaver changed and a message demanding the password appeared. She glanced hopelessly at Chakotay before she tapped the keyboard keys with one finger

It was so slow that Chakotay looked away for a moment before he walked off.

"I see you never learned to type," he commented. Janeway didn't turn from her work, although she did hear him open his tricorder to scan something that had likely caught his eye. "Turn of the millennium technology wasn't a required course at the Academy. This is like stone knives and bearskins." She grimaced when the message changed reading INVALID PASSWORD.

Just as she wondered how many times she could type up guesses before the computer locked her out, Chakotay got her attention again. "Well, this isn't," Chakotay's response had her wheel around and stare at him. Chakotay had gone over to a semi-transparent picture showing a map of the Earth. "I'm detecting a forcefield. I can't scan beyond this wall. I don't see an access port or a control panel."

Janeway took out her tricorder desperately - she had no time to play games with 20th-century paranoia; this was the first clue they'd had so far, and she was going to be damned if they let it go. "Maybe we can find something in his computer," she said as she scanned the computer and she chuckled in amazement when she saw the size of the database while Chakotay walked over and leaned on the back of her chair so he could see everything that was going on.

"Oh, he's got a massive database here, but it's protected by an encryption sequence," Janeway said, momentarily wondering what was in the database before she pushed away the hand control connected to the computer and placed her tricorder next to the computer and programmed it to break through the encryption; if she was right, then Starling had a crude grasp of the 29th century, and he was using some of that knowledge to build his empire, but she was guessing since it had proven to be too easy to get in and detect the forcefield, that he didn't know everything.

"I'm going to try interfacing my tricorder," she added; this was a matter of pride for her, she wasn't going to be beaten by the primitive security on this stupid thing.

Janeway let herself grin smugly when the password was put in and the screen changed to a white screen with a blue frame with some kind of pictographs. "Looks like a series of pictographs. They must have used symbols to represent the different functions of the computer." Janeway nodded - this should be simple enough. "Let's see what Henry's been up to all these years."

Slowly she began typing into the computer, and very quickly schematics of the timeship appeared on the screen.

"Incredible," Janeway breathed. "Starling's computer designs were inspired by technology from the timeship." Quickly she typed in another command and they saw a circuit diagram appear on the screen and she nodded as her worst fears were confirmed. "He introduced the very first isograted circuit in 1969, two years after Braxton's ship crash-landed," she glanced over her shoulder to stare at Chakotay at the almost unthinkable blow to history. God alone knew what the damage was going to be further down the line.

Chakotay expanded on the ever-increasing horror story. "Any every few years there's been an equally revolutionary advance in computers, all from Chronowerx Industries, all based on Starling's crude understanding of twenty-ninth-century technology."

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking, Chakotay?" There was no other way to ask the question, as she didn't want it confirmed.

But of course, it was, "I wish I weren't."

"The computer age of the late twentieth century…," Janeway began, gazing at the stream of information on the primitive computer in growing horror.

"…Shouldn't have happened," Chakotay finished her sentence, his own horror clear.

"But it did, and it's part a of our history," Janeway pointed out before she shook her head. "I am not looking forwards to telling Starfleet Command or Temporal Investigations about this, Chakotay," she groaned, leaning back in the chair. "Then again, I wasn't really looking forwards to telling them about our trip here. This is just getting better by the moment."

Chakotay planted a comforting hand on her shoulder. "We'll worry about that later, but there's nothing we can do about it, Kathryn. You know as well as I do that even if we can locate every single piece of technology that's come out of Chronowerx, and that's a big if, then we wouldn't be able to get them off of the planet. And then there's that subspace detection technology to think of as well, we just don't know how far things have come."

Janeway hated to accept that Chakotay was right, but truthfully she had arrived at the same conclusion. By now Starling must have sold hundreds of pieces of technology containing 29th-century science, and even if they had access to the company's records it would take the crew forever to get a lock on any of it.

It didn't help that they'd need to give B'elanna details on what to look for in the first place. It would be a tall order in the first place, so it was impossible since it would be all over the world by now. If they had arrived early, then they could mitigate the worst of the damage to the timeline before this even happened, but it was too late now.

"So much damage…All because of that timeship. Look at this," Janeway said suddenly as diagrams appeared on the screen. "Gantry, power conduits, telemetry consoles. This looks like a design for a launching bay."

Chakotay leaned forward to look, "Braxton was right. The ship's going to be launched."

That was enough for her. She reached into her pocket for her com badge, "We've got to send these schematics to Voyager for analysis. Janeway to Voyager."

"Kim here, Captain."

"We're in Starling's office. I want you to establish a comm. link with my tricorder and try to upload his computer database," Janeway commanded

"Aye, Captain. We'll need a few minutes to reconfigure to their binary system."

"Acknowledged," Janeway put the com badge away when she broke the connection, knowing it wouldn't take Voyager long to reconfigure to the binary system of this era. In the meantime, she planned to find out more clues as to where the Aeon was. "Let's see if we can find out where the location of that launchpad is."

"You're really getting the hang of this," Chakotay commented as he watched her work on the keyboard again.

Janeway grinned. "I'm a quick study.

Meanwhile, Chakotay was lost in thought as he went over everything they'd just discovered. "You know, Captain, in a way Braxton was right. If we hadn't fought him when he tried to destroy Voyager, he wouldn't have been pulled back in time, his ship wouldn't have crash-landed on Earth, and none of this would have happened."

"Time travel," Janeway said the two words with disgust especially since she always got a terrible headache whenever she put her mind to temporal paradoxes, but this one was just as complicated. Chakotay was right, but it only made her feel contempt for Braxton; yes he might be trapped in the 20th century and had been injected with 20th-century drugs and he might be a pariah, but her sympathy for him was limited. "Ever since my first day in the job as a Starfleet Captain I swore I'm never let myself get caught in one of these godforsaken paradoxes. The future is the past, the past is the future. It all gives me a headache." Chakotay, who'd been chuckling at her frustration, suddenly held up a hand.

"Hold on," he said as a series of new diagrams appeared on the screen. "This looks promising. Try timeship security portal."

"Maybe it's linked to some kind of surveillance system," Janeway suggested before she got back to typing; 20th century computers were really not that bad when you got the hang of them, but they were still so tedious and primitive. "An image of the launch bay would give us a clue to its location."

They heard a sound from behind, and they turned. The world map was gone.

"A holographic image? Clearly, Starling can easily reverse engineer some technology, but not all of it," Janeway thought about the alarm and the security on the computer which their tricorders found effortless to break. They both walked to the window and looked through it. It looked exactly like the diagram, with high-pressure cylinders and computer terminals but what made Janeway curious were the black cables plugged into the timeships wings.

"Well, Kathryn, it seems we've found the timeship," Chakotay said.

Janeway said nothing; it made so much sense Starling would want to keep his little moneymaker safe and close by. The only problem was what else had he been doing with it. "Do you think we can get into that hanger, I want to see if we can access its computer?"

"Isn't that risky? Isn't that what Starling's doing?"

"Not really, but if we can get in there, we might be able to replicate the temporal rifts the Aeon uses to travel with."

Chakotay could see the single-minded drive in Janeway's eyes, the one where she was obsessed with her goal of returning home. He might share some of her ideals, but at the same time he was still a Maquis, and if there was one thing he had learnt in that time it was he needed to bide his time and be patient. But patience was not in Kathryn Janeway's mind. Sadly neither of them had time to even look for a way into the hanger. The lights in the lounge turned on making them turn to see Starling wearing casual clothes while he was followed by a man wearing a dark suit and armed with something that resembled a phaser.

"I see you've made yourself at home. Welcome to the twentieth century." He took out something from his pocket and reset the hologram of the world map, but Janeway didn't see the point of that since she and Chakotay knew about what was on the other side of the window. "I know who you are. You're from the future. I knew you'd come back one day. I detected your vessel in orbit and Mister Dunbar here had a run-in with your friends. You're here to take the timeship."

Janeway stepped forward, marshalling all of her diplomatic skills; if she could get through the Starling, it might make things easier, but at the same time she was worried about Tom and Tuvok. They hadn't heard from them for hours. But at the same time, she got a good long hard look at Henry Starling for the first time in the flesh. She knew what he was; he was a man who had become so delighted by his own success that he had become cocky, but she could see that through the confident manner that he was putting out, he was really nervous and uncertain about them, even frightened.

This was not going to be easy, and with his dark-suited friend nearby, "Mister Starling, you're about to cause a terrible disaster that will affect the twenty-ninth century. An explosion that will cost billions of lives. We're here to stop you from doing that."

"What are you talking about?" Starling demanded. Chakotay stepped forward to back up the argument. "If you launch that ship and travel to the future, it will destroy Earth's solar system."

"How do you know this?" Starling asked, but his brief uncertain manner gave Janeway hope that they could reason with him. He hadn't known those details… that gave them something to work with.

"Well, let's just say we talked to the ship's previous owner," Janeway told him although she had no desire to give him any clues about where they might find Braxton. "He told us that if its temporal matrix isn't precisely calibrated, you'll trigger a temporal explosion. That ship shouldn't be here. It belongs to another century. We have to take it back." A beep sounded.

Janeway cursed under her breath, irritated by Harry and Voyager's poor timing. The sound was bound to make this man even more paranoid, and she could see the sound had really unsettled him. "What's that?"

"It's a communication device," Janeway replied, hoping against hope that Starling didn't have his friend lash out at them with that phaser looking weapon, there was no telling what it could do to them. "Someone's trying to contact me."

"Answer it." Taking out her com badge and pressing it, she spoke over the line, "Janeway here."

Harry's voice came through over the line, every word he said making her cringe and she made a mental note, if they ever got out of this office, then she would make it clear such things like this were to be done covertly. "Captain, we've established the comm. link. We're ready to upload on your signal." Janeway took a deep breath, knowing things were really going to go bad really fast.

But there was no other way, they needed this information. "Do it."

Starling, who'd been looking at her and Chakotay suspiciously, swung around suddenly when the tricorder began to bleep as it downloaded the contents of his database and sent it to Voyager.

"My database!" Starling grabbed hold of Janeway's comm badge and pressed it before he spoke into it. "Stop or I'll kill your Captain."

"Who is this?" Harry demanded after a moment of taking the threat in.

Starling took in a deep breath to control himself and his voice. "You've got five seconds."

The tricorder stopped uploading and Starling raced over to his computer and immediately checked it over. He let out a pained sigh of anger and irritation, but Janeway was relieved that in the few seconds the link was open something had been downloaded.

"You've taken over three thousand gigabits of information, including my launch plan. But that's not going to be a problem, Captain. I'll make a few changes to my travel itinerary. You're not going to stop me."

"If you don't give us that ship, we'll take it by force," Janeway knew diplomacy had taken a battering, it was time to use brute force instead, but her mind was racing about how they were going to get away from this office; with Starling's assistant or bodyguard watching her and Chakotay's every move it would be hard enough to make a move to the right, never mind try to overpower him.

Starling looked irritated and bemused by her threat, wondering how she could hope to achieve that. "In case you haven't noticed, I'm holding the gun."

"Not for long," Janeway walked around the desk, glancing at the assistant, but he made no move to stop her. "I've got a starship in orbit that can vaporise this entire building in the blink of an eye." It was not a good threat or a bluff, but if James T Kirk could get away with his famed Corbomite trick, then she could use this, but she knew she would need proof to back up her bluff. Starling didn't seem frightened. In fact, he looked like he was about to burst out laughing at her bluff which made her fear for a moment he could see through it. "And you along with it."

A long time ago, Janeway had sworn never to time travel. But at the same time, she had known there was a possibility she could be thrown into the past somewhere, dealing with a situation like this, where someone who didn't have a clue what he was doing, playing games with technology proved himself a danger. She had sworn to never let someone like that live to cause problems later.

But she had never imagined she would ever, ever see the day where that promise was actually thrown into her face. But here they were, trapped in 1996, being threatened by this idiot who thought he knew what was going on, but didn't. No, Janeway had never imagined she would ever need to put such a vow into effect.

"If necessary," Janeway replied.

Starling leaned back in his chair impressed. "Captain, you've got some cojones."

Janeway felt the tell-tale effect of a transporter beam, one moment she was seeing Starling shouting in panic before she found herself - and Chakotay miraculously enough on the bridge. Janeway took one glance out of the viewscreen and saw that her ship was too close to the city, but she wasn't going to complain. Harry had been stuck between a rock and a hard place with the decision he'd been backed into.

Quickly she began issuing orders. "Helm, maintain present altitude. Keep us within transporter range. Chakotay, see if you can disable the forcefield around that timeship. B'Elanna, prepare to lock onto the timeship and beam it to cargo bay two. Ensign Kim, you have an impeccable sense of timing," she added softly without even thinking of reprimanding him because she, like many other captains wanted subordinates who were prepared to use their common sense rather than just follow orders constantly. "Not bad for your first day in the big chair."

From her post at the engineering station, B'elanna was working furiously at her console. "The matter stream is modulating. He's disrupting transport."

Something caught her eye while she was sitting in her chair, and she turned to the screen. Her eyes widened in horror.

The database was being downloaded.

"He's downloading our database," Janeway frowned, remembering how Starling had confronted her and Chakotay. "He knew there was a chance someone would come for the timeship. He's spent 3 decades putting in plans and countermeasures to make sure it never happened. Try to re-modulate the transporter buffer, B'elanna, random settings but don't give him a chance to adapt. Harry, try to lock him out; he's already got the timeship, we can't let him have anything else."

B'elanna quickly got to work, but judging from the beeps from her console and the way the half Klingon looked like she was on the verge of smashing the console in front of her with her bare hands it wasn't working.

"I can't," she growled as some of her Klingon blood boiled. "He's got hundreds of safety overrides programmed in. I can't get a lock on the timeship."

Janeway shared a look with Chakotay, amazed by how easily Starling had handled this. He was cleverer than they thought.

"Captain, I don't understand how, but he's using our transporter beam as a downlink. He's accessing our main computer," Harry reported.

"Every time I try to disable his downlink he comes up with a new command override," B'elanna was working frantically at her station. "Starling is using twenty-ninth-century technology against us. We may not be able to keep up with him," Janeway pointed out to B'elanna and Harry as she stood up.

Suddenly the whole ship shook violently, sending Janeway to her feet. "Inertial dampers are offline," Chakotay reported, looking at her in horror. "He's gotten into our propulsion systems."

Janeway gasped while she retook her command chair, the ship shaking again as she pitched in different directions. Janeway's mind conjured a number of horrible pictures of what Starling could do with that kind of control over their ship. "Disengage transporters," she called when the ship was going through yet another violent pitch. "Destabilising matter stream. Transporters offline."

Janeway's sigh of relief was well masked while Harry checked the systems. "We've terminated the downlink, Captain, but he got at least twenty percent of our main computer files."

Janeway wondered just how much he had taken, but for now, she wanted to get out of Earth's atmosphere. They'd been so busy trying to stop Starling and transport the timeship out of that hanger they had nearly forgotten where they were. "Get us back into orbit and I want a full damage report."

"Captain Janeway, Henry Starling here," Starling's voice came through over the comm's, his voice no longer uncertain. Now it was confident. Janeway wasn't even going to ask how he had gotten her name or how he'd been able to open the channel in the first place; with his computer technology stolen from the 29th century, it was going to be easy.

"This is Janeway," she replied, hoping that by making him talk, they could perhaps work out a plan…

Starling's voice went on, "USS Voyager, Intrepid class. Much bigger than I expected, and much less advanced. Says here your ship was launched in the year 2371? You're from the twenty-fourth century?" Starling said in disbelief. "And here all this time I thought you were from the twenty-ninth. Looks like I have the home-field advantage. Ooo, what's this? Oh, now this is interesting."

Janeway frowned, wondering what could have attracted Starling's attention like that, but she didn't care; she raised her hand and made a cutting gesture, instantly the connection was closed. "Damage reports are coming in," Chakotay reported, "Some minor power fluctuations in the impulse drive and a few burned out circuits in the main computer core. Nothing we can't handle."

Janeway hoped he was right; Voyager had suffered from tremendous damage over the last two - relatively speaking - years from repeated attacks, but the damage sustained in the attack from the Aeon and the trip through the rift had damaged the ship so much she was amazed they were still able to walk on the deck plates. The comm system chirped. "Sickbay to bridge," Kes's voice came through loud and clear; instantly Janeway stiffened, knowing Kes well enough to know from that tone she was worried. "Captain, I can't find the Doctor."

What?

"Is his programme offline?" Janeway was hoping it was just that; with the ship in the state she was in, the last thing they needed was a number of injuries when they needed the Doctor's expertise. "No. His programme is gone," Kes replied.

Chakotay and Janeway both shared a look, the same thought shared between them. Starling had downloaded 20% of the main computer files.

Was one of them the EMH program?

Just when she thought things couldn't get worse, they did. The comm chirped again.

"Captain, this is Neelix. There's something on the television I think you should see. It's a current events programme."

Janeway glanced at Harry curiously, wondering what Neelix meant. "I asked Neelix to monitor Earth broadcasts," Harry explained, making Janeway nod in relief that they had done something useful up on the ship to see if there was anything out of the ordinary. "I'm transferring it to the main viewer."

On the screen, the current events programme played out. It showed something flying at high speeds through the night sky. Janeway'\s heart seized at the sight of it, knowing exactly what this was, and she knew when they returned to their own time and home, Temporal Investigations was going to have her head.

While the clip didn't show the exact shape of it, she could see enough to know she was looking at Voyager. An announcer was talking, "Incredible footage was caught just an hour ago by a man using his camcorder to tape a backyard barbeque," Janeway stood up and walked to the rail overlooking the helm, never taking her eyes off of the screen as the time travel nightmare grew worse and worse; she knew this had been bound to happen although she did not blame Harry in the slightest since the Ensign had shown enough initiative to get them back even knowing what potential costs would be involved "The massive unidentifiable object doesn't appear to be a meteorite, weather balloon or satellite, and one aviation expert we've spoken to has stated that it's definitely not any kind of US aircraft currently in use. We're waiting investigation by local authorities and we'll keep you updated as news develops on this incredible story."

X

Once more back in uniform, Janeway listened as the senior officers detailed the damage report. It sounded incredibly grim. It was bad enough Braxton had caused so much damage and the time travel trip had not done them any favours, but the good news was they still had control of the ship. Honestly, when they had been thrown around like that by Starling, for one moment Janeway had seriously believed Voyager would be crashed into the ocean.

"Starling downloaded nearly twenty percent of our computer core while we were trying to beam the timeship out of his building," Chakotay was saying.

"I'm replacing those programmes as quickly as I can, but some of it isn't retrievable," B'elanna said bluntly, making Janeway flinch at just how many systems that could mean. She hoped they found a way to retrieve those files, and soon before Starling made use of them. She had horrifying images of Starling devising something new to make his money from.

"Like the Doctor. There's literally nothing left of him. He's just gone," Kes said solemnly.

"Unfortunately the Doctor is only one of our problems," Janeway leaned over the table to make the case as blunt as she possibly could. "Our weapons are offline, Tuvok and Paris are still missing somewhere in Los Angeles, and we've confirmed Captain Braxton's hypothesis. If Starling does attempt a flight to the future, it will most likely end in disaster."

"Captain. I've analysed Braxton's schematic," Harry unfolded the tattered paper showing the chronometric data Braxton had managed to take and write down from memory during his time in the 20th century. "The temporal technology is incredibly complex."

What did you expect? Janeway thought to herself as she looked at the chart again. "No matter how much a genius this Starling might be, he is not a trained pilot from the twenty-ninth century," B'elanna said.

Janeway shook her head, wondering what on Earth made Starling so sure he could make such a trip and not be stopped. She had no doubt that even if this insane scheme worked, the Starfleet of the 29th century would be better placed to stop him and put an end to his time meddling.

But Starling seemed to think he could make the trip and not suffer through any consequences.

That only made him more dangerous. Janeway had dealt with her fair share of enemies in the Delta Quadrant; Jabin, Seska, Cullaah, that ghastly clown figure in that virtual reality, the non-corporeal beings who wanted their life energy were bad enough, but Starling's carelessness pushed them to the bottom of the rankings even if wasn't a popularity contest for all of them. "Without the exact calibration, that ship will rip the time-space continuum apart," Chakotay reminded her.

"He doesn't see that," Janeway pointed out, "he's going to try it anyway. He's like a little child, playing games with toys much too big for him to enjoy. And are liable to get him killed."

Harry finished the horror story. "The instant he jumps to the twenty-ninth century, there won't be any 29th century. Not for Earth anyway. The entire solar system will be destroyed."

"I want that timeship," Janeway said to the room at large. "Not only is there a careless time meddler down there determined to use it to destroy the future, but it might be our ticket home, to our own time. We have to get it back."

"What about Braxton?"

Janeway nodded. "We'll definitely need his help." B'elanna shook her head. "Long-range transporters are still down. We'd have to drop out of orbit again."

Janeway was just hoping to avoid doing that again except as a last resort before Neelix interrupted her train of thought. "Captain, I strongly recommend against that," the Talaxian cook stood up and walked to the monitor. One press of a control turned on the screen, showing a follow up to the current event story of Voyager's brief flight through the atmosphere. The heading was not really encouraging and she knew Neelix was showing this to prove a point. He had been monitoring the current events channels ever since the last one showing Voyager. "INVASION OR HOAX?"

"The more legitimate news organisations have apparently decided that the Voyager image is fraudulent. However, I've also been monitoring more official channels and the United States military is taking things just a little more seriously."

Janeway sighed, she wasn't truly surprised. "If we risk another pass through the lower atmosphere, there's a chance of getting intercepted by the Air Force," Chakotay said. "If we can't get to the ship, maybe we can get to the man," Janeway began before she turned to B'elanna. "Torres, I want-." The comm chirped. "Captain Janeway. I'm receiving a transmission from Lieutenant Tuvok, audio-only."

Finally, some good news, although she was surprised "Mister Tuvok, report," Janeway ordered.

"Lieutenant Paris and I are at the Griffith Observatory," Tuvok spoke over the crackling line - she wondered what had happened to their comm badges, but she pushed that aside. "In the Hollywood Hills. We have modified the satellite dish transmitter to carry and receive Voyager communication frequencies. I regret the bad connection."

Janeway chuckled, "That's quite all right, Mister Tuvok. What's happened?"

"We have become associated with a young woman employed at the astronomical laboratory. It was she who sent the message to Voyager, but her lab is under the supervision of an individual named Henry Starling."

"Oh, we've met Mister Starling," Janeway ground out, while she wasn't entirely pleased by the fact they'd made contact with a woman from this time since it was likely she would pick up enough later. "He has the timeship and he's the one who will cause the disaster in the twenty-ninth century."

"Then it would seem we must find a way to stop him."

Janeway went silent, thinking for a moment. To be honest, she didn't really have a clue about how to get to Starling and see about getting their files, and the Doctor back, never mind the timeship. He held all the cards right now. But perhaps this young woman might be of some help to them. "Tell me about this young woman. Can we trust her?"

"She and Lieutenant Paris appear to be bonding on a cross-cultural level. I would have to say yes."

Janeway snorted. While she was more or less immune to Tom's charms, she wasn't completely and judging from the others' expressions, they were just as amused even if B'elanna looked pissed off. "Ask if she'd be willing to help us."

After she had given Tuvok a general rundown of what happened with their confrontation with Starling and the basics of some of his plans, Tuvok signed off with a better idea of what was happening.

"Captain," Harry began, making everyone look at him, "I've got an idea."

"Explain, Ensign," Janeway ordered, wondering what his idea was, and if it would even work against Starling.

But Janeway was taken aback by Harry's next words. They had nothing to do with the current mess. He didn't even mention Starling's name.

"Lieutenant Commander Data's head."

"What?" Janeway whispered, surprised by the unexpected mention of Starfleet's android officer.

"I was looking through the database about Starfleet's prior time travel missions, when I found the case where the Enterprise stopped a race of aliens out of phase with space-time travel to Earth's past to take our neural energy," Harry explained.

Janeway remembered the case, it was one of the reasons why she had sworn to avoid time travel in the first place. "Yes, I remember the case, Harry. The Enterprise crew were summoned back to Earth. A group of scientists planting seismic regulators in some caves in San Francisco found a number of artefacts, and they discovered the cave walls had been altered by unique energy waves. They also discovered Data's head there."

"Who is Data?" Neelix asked.

"Lieutenant Commander Data, Neelix, is an android, the only one serving in Starfleet," B'elanna said, her voice showing that she held a vast amount of respect for the android. "He was discovered nearly 40 years ago. He joined Starfleet with the hope of emulating humans to the extent where its become his prime ambition."

"I remember Starfleet calling Data property a couple of times, it resulted in a court case, right?" Chakotay looked towards Janeway.

"They did. Jean-Luc was horrified when he discovered that, and he defended Data until Starfleet accepted the fact Data's not property," Janeway replied before she turned to Harry. "What's your idea, Harry?"

"Well, I went through Starfleet records. After they found Data's head in the cavern, the Enterprise discovered evidence that something from Devidia 2 was located in the cavern. When they arrived they found aliens phased out of space and time. They tried to keep Data away because of what they'd found, but they had to let him join an away team when they realised he was the only one who could help them actually see the aliens, but something went wrong. He was thrown back in time, to the 19th century. The Enterprise crew continued their investigation and eventually discovered the aliens were stealing energy from humans in a period where they were affected by disease or sicknesses to provide cover for their murders. They travelled back in time, only to find Data who had found the cavern.

"The aliens attacked and Data was left holding the device which allowed them to travel through time and it exploded, blowing Data's head off of his body and leaving it in the cavern. The time loop was closed and the Enterprise crew returned to the 24th century and reattached the head. But Data's head is in that cavern, Captain," Harry explained.

"And you want to use the head to record a message, that's brilliant Harry!" B'elanna whispered as she got the gist of what Harry was suggesting.

"Yeah; Captain, there's a chance we won't be able to get home using the timeship, but this might be a backup plan," Harry said to her and the room solemnly.

Janeway looked down thoughtfully at her hands, rocking back and forth on her feet. She had to admit that Harry had a point about the timeship since anything could happen beyond their control. While she was hoping they could find some way of getting back to their own time while keeping in the solar system despite space moving, Janeway knew that Harry had a point. "You heard the news broadcast; we can't get close in orbit," she pointed out.

"I was thinking along the lines of something smaller, much smaller," Harry said quickly, "I was thinking of a shuttle launched above the North Pole, and it would work its way down all the way to San Francisco while hiding in the clouds. Undercover of darkness the shuttle would beam a team into the cavern while making sure nothing else is touched. The team beams back. They return to Voyager and we find a way of giving Data the message. I looked over the whole report. Captain Jean-Luc Picard inputted a binary message for his crew in the 24th century to warn the Enterprise about the dangers of using their weapons on Devidia 2, so if we put in a message for Data, we'd need to bypass it altogether."

B'elanna sighed. "That might mean something physical, Harry. I don't know enough about Soong type androids to say if it would work. But I think it's a great idea, Captain," B'elanna said, looking at Janeway as she threw all of her support behind Harry.

Janeway glanced at Chakotay, who nodded. "I think we need to exploit this opportunity, Captain. It won't be easy, but we can do it."

Janeway looked around the observation lounge and she had to admit it was a good plan; while she still hoped to take advantage of the timeship, there was still the chance they wouldn't be able to use it. Or if they could get their hands on it from right under Starling's nose, then they would need a backup plan. In any case, Starfleet had no idea Voyager was still around in the 24th century. They didn't know about the Caretaker's insane plan to procreate, and the kidnapping of so many people to that part of the Delta Quadrant.

But at the same time, Janeway still wanted to find some way of getting to the 24th century, preferably by using the timeship. But if something happened to it...

Suddenly she remembered something about time travel, something discovered in the 23rd century by the Enterprise under James Kirk's command. "We'll use the Data plan, but I still want to find a way of getting to the 24th century, so we'll use Data as a backup."

"What do you have in mind?"

"Have you ever heard of the lightspeed breakaway factor?" Janeway asked.

B'elanna's eyes widened. "You mean shoot towards the sun at maximum warp and then breakaway, using the star's gravitational presence as a slingshot? Captain, that's really risky-."

"Not to mention dangerous!" Neelix piped up. "Going to warp in a solar system is risky because of the gravitational waves put out by the planets."

"I think the captain's aware of that Neelix, but it is a good idea," Chakotay said while he added one of his doubts, "but will we be able to make use of it? Voyager is very different from a Klingon Bird of Prey."

"Yes, but we're not a Constitution-class ship, and we're not carrying humpback whales. B'elanna, how long will it take to start the calculations for a time warp?" Janeway countered before she turned to B'elanna.

"I'll need to study the basics of the theory, but I think I can start them off as soon as we're done."

"We'll do that now. Find a way of getting Data on board the ship, but the calculations can be calculated via Voyager's computer, but that's a priority. Right, dismissed."

X

The good news was getting Data's head was actually easier than Janeway could have hoped; the damage to Voyager thanks to Aeon's original attack and the trip through the Temporal Rift to the 20th century and the subsequent trip through the atmosphere had taken their toll. The crew were busy trying to repair the damage, but Janeway already knew the damage to Voyager was severe enough to likely warrant landing the ship on a planet somewhere where B'elanna and the rest of the crew could tear the ship apart to reverse what Braxton did.

Thanks to Harry Kim's research, they had managed to launch a shuttlecraft and sent it into the atmosphere. The shuttle was in better shape than Voyager, so it was easy for the shuttle to slip through. The United States Air Force were on high alert, but they were looking for something big, but even with that knowledge they still needed to take precautions.

B'elanna had not only used the deflectors to scatter their signal, but she had cleverly disguised the shuttle to resemble a 20th-century jet aircraft with the shields, but the illusion would be broken if someone got too close or landed on top of them. After that, it was relatively easy to get to San Francisco, and getting to the cavern was perhaps the easiest part - thanks to Harry's research they knew precisely where Data's head was located, and they had an easy time getting into the cavern and beaming it out before returning to Voyager.

As she walked into the science lab after she had spent half an hour dictating a message like every other member of the crew who'd suddenly found the time to do it, Janeway paused on the threshold as she took in the sight of the head. She had never met Commander Data, though she knew him on sight, it was eerie and even a little bit gruesome to see the android's head like that.

"How is it going?" She asked Harry and B'elanna. B'elanna was going to go off with Chakotay in another shuttle in an attempt to steal the timeship off of Starling and see about rescuing Tom and Tuvok and perhaps even finding a way to recover their lost data, and not to mention the Doctor. Chakotay was going because of his knowledge of Chronowerx, and because he had seen the contents of Starling's computer so it was the logical thing to do while she remained on the ship for now.

But B'elanna's expertise was important for this one job. Her knowledge of programming and cybernetics and robotics made her the perfect choice for this project.

Janeway wasn't really sure about the idea of using Data's head, but she supposed it made logical sense to make sure they had a second backup plan in case they couldn't find a way of making use of the timeship and getting back to the 24th century. In any case, they could be thrown back into the Delta Quadrant. But this way, they would make sure Starfleet knew of their plight and with the Federations' greater resources, they should be more than capable of getting them back home.

She hoped.

There were still too many uncertainties.

"Well, we've found the binary message really quickly thanks to Captain Picard's and Commander La Forge's reports to Starfleet and Temporal Investigations, but it makes our job harder," Harry said.

"In what way?"

Harry and B'elanna glanced at each other, with Harry tilting his head while he stared at her before she nodded and faced Janeway. "The message was typed into Data's head using a piece of iron. It wasn't the most perfect form of programming, but it works. On the other hand, if we try to bypass it, the message could be lost when Data's head is reattached to his body."

Janeway realised the two engineers had been hoping to find a way of downloading a steam of information much as they had done with the probe and the Harry Kim wormhole (idly she wondered what had happened to Telek M'Ror; either the Romulan scientist had died before the letters and logs of the ship could be given to the Federation, or he had tried but was killed by the Tal Shiar before he could do it), but she knew they had a backup plan.

She shook her head, "Don't bother. I looked over the case when you suggested this to me, Harry. Jean-Luc discovered the aliens' time portal would be torn open if Enterprise fired at it, and he inscribed the message into Data's head to warn the rest of his crew. What's the alternative?"

"We were hoping to download letters, star charts of the Delta Quadrant, bits from what's left of our computer that showed our journey in the Delta Quadrant, but no such luck," Harry took a deep breath, "so we are going to put this into Data's head."

He held up a small black chip that Janeway instantly recognised as a micro isolinear stick. "When will Data know it's there?" She asked.

"We're going to connect the hard drive to his positronic net, and link it up to it so then it would protect the chip and activate a timer."

"That seems simple enough," Janeway commented.

"It is," Harry replied.

"Captain, we have enough knowledge about Data's positronic net and his general schematics to know how to connect the chip to the buffering program in his net," B'elanna said.

"Buffering program?" Janeway repeated, wishing she knew more about Data to know how he worked.

"It's a protection mechanism in Data's positronic net. My guess is Dr Soong was worried that Data, and likely the other androids he worked on, could be damaged in much the same way a human could be; every humanoid species can suffer head injuries and he designed a layered system that mixed physical inertial dampeners and electronic ones to protect Data's neural net," B'elanna explained. "We've seen the inertial dampeners inside the head."

"You really respect Dr Soong, don't you?"

"It's hard not to. He might have been called 'Often Wrong' in his career, but the more he got called that, he got closer to developing a working and fully functional android; I just wish he had been around long enough to see how far Data has come," B'elanna replied.

Janeway wondered for a moment if B'elanna would have wanted to meet Soong; with her experiences with the Pralor automated units, they would have much to talk about. "How long will it take to download everything onto the hard drive?"

"We already have. We were just about to put it in when you arrived," Harry replied.

Janeway watched the delicate operation as her two engineers gently removed the top of Data's fake black hair and golden tinted bioplast skin and put it on the nearby table. The two worked like surgeons as they gently opened the android's head and found the part of Data's positronic net which they planned to connect the chip to.

"When it's connected, the chip will be linked to Data's positronic net and it's programmed to activate a timer for a prearranged data to activate. We've designed the chip in a way to interface with Data's brain so he will know everything that's happened to us and he'll likely perform an operation to remove the chip and the Enterprise crew will alert Starfleet," Harry said after they'd finished and cleaned up after themselves so then La Forge and the rest of Enterprise's crew wouldn't know what had happened.

"When will the timer go off?" Janeway asked.

"We couldn't preset it to go off on the same date we were lost in the Delta Quadrant because of the Temporal Prime Directive. We decided to let it run until the date we were dragged back in time," B'elanna replied.

It had been a massive debate that was greatly disputed between her and Harry, who had wanted it to be activated within a week of their being swept into the Delta Quadrant by the Caretaker. But in B'elanna's mind, it didn't make a shred of difference; even if Starfleet had gotten the message as soon as they were gone, it would be too late to stop it from happening in the first place. But she had argued that after two years, there would be greater advances in science and technology. There was a permanent number of research units who went about researching warp technology to make ships much faster than previous generations, and their advances led to new discoveries, and when the Deep Space Nine crew discovered the stable, artificial Bajoran wormhole, Starfleet's knowledge of wormhole physics had grown and grown.

B'elanna had read dozens of articles about the new findings of that wormhole research, and the possibilities of the generation and the use of artificial and stable wormholes. Who knew how far that research had come now? Granted, while it was unlikely Starfleet had achieved such a feat after two years, at least they had a better grounding for the research and their plight would certainly help their chances in getting home. And besides, even if they couldn't generate a wormhole, Starfleet could study the possibilities and their research could likely go a long way toward developing a new propulsion technology that should send ships further and further into space, and perhaps it would lead to a new form of subspace communications so Voyager would no longer be alone. That was the only thing that had actually persuaded Harry to set it for a later date.

"Why so long?" Janeway asked.

"Starfleet technology and science have grown after two years, Captain. When we left, I know there was a new article using research on the Bajoran wormhole, making it certain there could be artificial ones in the future but in the meantime, it was just as possible they could use that kind of subspace metric to alter warp fields to generate artificial wormholes. That research has likely come forward over the last 2 years, and it could also create new warp fields that allow greater speed," B'elanna explained her reasoning before she checked the time. "I'd better get down to the shuttle; Chakotay's likely waiting for me in the bay, and I need to get the head down."

"How will you get Data's head in the cavern?"

"I'll beam myself in and leave it there," B'elanna replied.

Meanwhile, Janeway remembered the time warp equations. "How's it going with the calculations?"

"Actually, we've almost finished them. The good news is we haven't got variable mass, and we've got a higher speed. But the computations are complex; they should be finished within a few hours. I'll need to give them a check through by the time I get back."

X

Janeway wondered just how many things could go wrong so quickly; granted, B'elanna and Chakotay had gotten Data's head back to the cavern where it had been beamed out, so that had gone right, but their attempts to reason with Starling and get the timeship had just gone so wrong. Not only had their shuttle crashed, and apparently they had been found and locked up by hostile and paranoid people typical of the era, but apparently the Doctor was now able to leave sickbay thanks to a piece of 29th-century technology that allowed holograms to move about in environments where holo emitters weren't needed.

But Janeway didn't have time to think about that. Her mind was focused on Henry Starling, but after the way Starling had just been completely unreasonable despite her attempts to talk to the man, he had somehow managed to find a way to beam himself out of Voyager. They'd beamed the 20th-century time meddler onboard the ship, only for him to show that in the last 30 years he'd had access to 29th-century technology, he had made so many backup plans that it was shocking and made her wonder what he had overlooked.

Staring had put some kind of scanner controlled through the timeship into Earth's ring of satellites which was able to beam him out away from the ship through their shields as if they weren't even there. One by one, Starling was effortlessly coming up with dozens of plans to stop them from foiling the launch of that timeship.

Janeway had to admit, they underestimated Henry Starling. He hadn't been idle over the last 30 years since he had gotten his hands on the Aeon and discovered there were others who would try to take the timeship away from him. He wasn't going to allow that. The timeship was his way of garnering power, wealth while he fuelled his own ego, and he had come up with plans and schemes over the last 30 years to make sure nobody would take it from him.

He had stopped them beaming the timeship away from Chronowerx, using their transporter beam as a downlink allowing him to take so many files for his own future benefit, knowing someone would access his computer when they reasoned that was the best place to find anything

He had a way of beaming himself off Voyager through their shields so he could beam away - that was clever, Janeway had to give him that.

And now, according to the latest reports from the shuttle, Starling had played all of them like fools during their attempt to destroy the timeship while it was being 'transported' in a truck, but it turned out to be a decoy, a trick that was so simple an academy student would laugh at them.

So far the only good news that they had right now as they had the Doctor back, Chakotay and B'elanna were alright and safe despite being roughed up a bit, and Data's head was currently back in the cavern. Janeway was relieved Starling hadn't gone through 29th-century Starfleet records in Aeon's computer. If he had learnt about Data's head in that cavern, the damage to the timeline would be incalculable.

"The timeship is entering the upper ionosphere," Harry reported.

"Track his course," Janeway ordered as she headed for the command chair, hoping that whatever they came up with now worked after everything had just failed. "Janeway to shuttlecraft, return to Voyager immediately."

"Acknowledged, Captain," Chakotay replied, but she barely heard him while she worked on the console between their command chairs, hissing in irritation. "Phasers are still offline. I've armed the photon torpedoes but we still can't fire them. The launch activation sequencers aren't responding."

"I think I can reroute fire command through the helm," Harry suggested. "

There's no time," Janeway replied while she took a deep breath; this was going to be tricky, but it was the only plan she really had. "Take the bridge, Mister Kim," she said as she stood up. "Should be second nature to you by now."

"Captain?"

"Open the access port to torpedo bay one," Janeway ordered as she moved to the turbolift, knowing Harry would argue with her command decision. "I'm going in there to reconfigure for manual launch."

"Captain, with the activation sequencers down, you'd have to launch from inside the tube. It's too dangerous. The plasma exhaust will-," Harry protested as he raced to the turbolift, but she interrupted him brusquely before the doors closed.

"You have your orders," Janeway replied.

X

Janeway had just pulled off the maintenance cover on the torpedo launch controls, mentally keeping track of the time while she focused on the task at hand. This was dangerous and tricky. That was why she had ignored Harry's warnings; she knew them well enough already but if she worked quickly then she might get this done before the plasma exhaust hit her and burnt her skin.

She had just started manipulating the isolinear control chips when her com badge chirped.

"Bridge to Janeway. The shuttle's back on board," Harry's voice came over the line.

Janeway was relieved by that good news. It was about time they got more of it. "Good. I'm nearly there."

Harry came back on the line, his voice more urgent. "Captain, the timeship has jumped to warp one."

"Go to warp," Janeway ordered quickly, knowing there couldn't be that much more time left, and she also couldn't help but ask herself why Harry seemed almost reluctant to do the right thing. "We can't lose him now."

As she went back to her work, mentally relieved that the Intrepid-class designers had made it easy for her to memorise every single part of her ship until she had it locked in her memory because she could see she was very nearly finished and she didn't have too long to work on the targeting sensors for a precise bullseye hit, Janeway couldn't believe it had come to this. She had hoped to reason with Starling and find a way of taking the timeship with them, learn how it worked and then use it to return to their home time while averting the disaster Braxton had told them about, to begin with.

But it was clear it was not going to happen.

With a sigh of regret, she got back to work.

X

"Welcome to the Bridge, Doctor," Harry said, delighted when the away team came out of the turbo lift, but his eyes widened ever so slightly when he caught sight of the Doctor; they had known about his new autonomous emitter but seeing it like this was something new.

"Thank you," the Doctor beamed back at him, genuinely enthralled of being up here; it might not be the best time, but Harry couldn't really fault the Doctor, who had been confined to sickbay for the last two years. "It's a pleasure to be here."

"Status," Chakotay demanded as he came to Harry to assume command.

Harry was glad to give it to him. "The Captain's in torpedo tube one. She's preparing for a manual launch," Harry told the older man, who stiffened sharply as he knew the risks before he headed back for his ops console.

Chakotay turned to the Doctor, annoyed but not really surprised by Kathryn's last desperate throw of the dice. "Doctor, get down there," he ordered, knowing out of all them the Doctor had the better chance of surviving down there should the plasma exhaust leak out.

The Doctor nodded, and he moved to the turbolift and stopped. "How exactly to I get to torpedo tube one?" The Doctor asked blankly.

Chakotay sighed. "Ensign Kaplan, go with him," he said, kicking himself for not realising the problem.

"Aye, sir," the young ensign said, leading the EMH to the turbolift.

Chakotay turned to B'elanna, who'd taken the engineering station. "How are the computations?"

After everything that had happened - the shuttle crash, being held by those two strange 20th-century men who were more paranoid than she'd expected, B'elanna needed a moment to work out what Chakotay was getting at before she remembered. The time warp equations. B'elanna checked them through carefully. She wasn't Ambassador Spock but she'd always had a head for figures, and she had to spend a minute double-checking the computer's findings, but they looked right. "They're finished. If the rift doesn't work, these will."

Chakotay didn't have time to Now back at his post, Tuvok wasted no time in scanning the timeship. "The timeship is powering its temporal field generator. Starling will be able to open a rift within seconds." "Commander, the field he's creating? It's unstable," Harry added.

"If he enters the rift like this the timeship will create a temporal explosion," B'elanna said in horror.

Chakotay knew how she felt, how they all felt, and what they were all thinking. They were here because of this explosion Braxton experienced in the first place. All of their work, all of their plans to stop this, to reason with Starling….

Was it all doomed?

Did they even have a chance at all?

Chakotay remembered all of the temporal mechanics' classes he'd endured at the Academy, and he knew some time paradoxes were doomed to happen regardless while a few exceptions were made. Had they lost this one? Sadly Tuvok was the voice of doom, and he voiced Chakotay's worst fears. "Events are occurring just as Captain Braxton predicted. The disaster may well be inevitable."

Chakotay turned to the Vulcan, only just resisting the urge to snap angrily at the man to vent his fears but he controlled himself with some effort. "Fate, Tuvok?" He said, sure he was sneering but not really caring. "I won't accept that. Close to within ten kilometres," he said, leaning over the rail until he was close to Tom's ears. "We'll ram him if we have to."

"Aye, sir," Tom was in full agreement with him.

But at the same time, Chakotay was worried; what if the other him, the him who was caught in the disaster Braxton had seen, the paradox he had described in that irritating A, B, C causality loop, had said the same thing?

The thought left him cold.

X

In the torpedo tube control room, Janeway nodded in satisfaction when she saw she was finished. She tapped her comm badge, hoping Tuvok was back to do the work. "Janeway to Bridge. I've reconfigured it for manual launch. Arm the torpedo."

"Torpedo armed," Tuvok reported.

Janeway took a deep breath, hoping her hard work had paid off. "Lock on target."

"Locked on."

Over the comm line, Janeway overheard Chakotay's voice say, "Hail Starling."

"On screen."

"This is Voyager. Pull away from the rift." Over the comm lines, Janeway ground her teeth when she heard Starling's reply.

"Or what? Your weapons are down, friend. See you sometime."

"Chakotay to Janeway," her first officer said with a sigh, although he was unaware the line had not been turned off. "Captain, we have no other choice."

Janeway sighed. She had hoped to find another way, to use that timeship. But it seemed as if fate was determined to ensure they never got home with something else's help. "I'm ready," she said, bracing herself for what was to come.

"He's entering the rift."

"Fire!" Chakotay ordered. Janeway yanked down the manual launch lever yelped as she was knocked backwards by the launch gases, she screamed in pain when she felt a scorching burn on her right cheek, and she found herself falling to the ground.

"Captain!" She heard the familiar voice of the Doctor, who quickly injected her with hyper spray.

"Mm, Doctor," Janeway whispered as she felt the wooziness leave her, although she coughed a little when she felt her lungs fill up with the harsh gases.

"Captain, you need to come to sickbay with me," the Doctor said as he helped her stand up.

"The timeship, what happened to it?" Janeway focused on the more immediate problem; her health could wait, she needed to know if they'd succeeded in their mission. Without giving the Doctor the time to protest, Janeway hurried out of torpedo control and headed for a turbo lift to return to the bridge.

"Bridge," she got out just as the Doctor squeezed his way past the closing doors.

Janeway took a deep breath and leaned against the walls of the turbo lift car while the Doctor fussed around her with a medical tricorder.

"Captain, I insist you come to sickbay," the EMH said. Janeway smiled fondly at the holographic doctor, "I can't, not just yet, Doctor. I know I need to go to sickbay, but there'll be plenty of time for that, Doctor."

When the turbo lift arrived at the bridge, Janeway stepped out, noticed by Chakotay at once.

"The Bridge is yours, Captain."

"Is there a chance in hell we can reopen that rift?" Janeway ignored the sentiment; she leaned over the handrail, desperate that the answer was a yes.

"No, its been completely collapsed," Harry replied.

Janeway sighed. "The time warp computations, have they been finished?"

"They're ready," B'elanna replied.

"Good, give the trajectory to Tom, and Mr Paris. Lay in a course for the sun. Start at warp 1, but build our speed up to maximum. B'elanna, I want you to tell Tom when its best to break us out of the sun's gravity."

"Aye captain."

Janeway took her seat. "Engage."

Tuvok opened a ship-wide channel. "Attention all hands. We are attempting Time Warp. Deflectors on maximum."

The trip to the sun was fraught with tension while Tom read off the speed of the ship. As the ship experienced the incredible gravity of the sun, the hull vibrated. Janeway checked the status of the structural integrity fields. Voyager had suffered extreme damage from the time travel and Braxton's attack, she was worried the hull wouldn't last.

"NOW!" B'elanna yelled as Tom hit the maximum warp with the engines.

This was the key to the time warp. Shoot towards the star at high warp, but break out of the course and then loop around the sun before going to high warp again. Janeway's fists clutched the handrests of the command chair, hoping that they would be seeing 24th century Earth. She looked forwards to seeing Mark, Molly, and perhaps her puppies, and her family after spending so long apart...

Voyager looped around Earth before Tom engaged the warp engines again without needing to be told, and they shot through... Just as Janeway was beginning to hope they were going to make it, Harry's console chirped.

"Captain, the time rift...its opening right in front of us!"

"What? Tom-!" But it was too late to order Tom to alter Voyager's course as they were travelling through space too fast, and they plunged into the time rift, and once again the ship was subjected to the stresses of time rift travel. When she had recovered from the time jump, Janeway looked around frantically.

"What just happened?" she demanded.

Tom was checking the sensors. "Captain," he breathed, sounding weary and annoyed. "We're back in the Delta Quadrant. The time rift sent us back to the Delta Quadrant to the same time we left it!"

"What?"

"You mean we went through all of that only to be sent back to the other side of the galaxy?!" B'elanna hollered.

"It looks like it," Tom's voice was tight.

"Where's the timeship now?" Chakotay demanded.

"It's off our port bow, and we are being hailed."

"On screen," Janeway ordered tightly, furious that once more fate had conspired against them to stop their return home, and the view of the timeship emerging from the rift was replaced by the sight of Braxton, except he was as young and as neat as he had been when they'd first met over the view screen. "Captain Braxton."

"Do you know me?" Braxton asked curiously.

"Yes, unfortunately," Janeway explained for the other captain's benefit, uncaring about being rude after what he had just done to them, and hoping to get some answers although she was sure a time travel related headache would come back to haunt her even in her dreams as she thought about one paradox after another.

"You tried to destroy our ship in the twenty-fourth century when you saw your own time destroyed and you saw a piece of our secondary hull there and the next time we saw you, you were an old man, homeless, in 1996."

"I never experienced that timeline," Braxton explained blandly without any other kind of reaction; either he had seen and experienced different timelines which were more bizarre, or like Janeway herself, he tried not to think about them too much to save himself the horrors of wondering about paradoxes.

"Oh, what a shame!" Janeway now no longer gave a damn about being rude. "Your other self and us have something in common; both of us know what it's like to be stranded."

"What are you doing here?" Tom demanded. "We were just about to return to our own time."

"Yes, and that's why we sent you back to the Delta Quadrant. History records Voyager's presence in the Delta Quadrant, and you still have quite a way to go. You see, in my century we can scan time, much as you use sensors to scan space," Braxton explained. "The Temporal Integrity Commission detected your vessel over twentieth-century Earth. I was sent to correct that anomaly, but you had used a time warp to try to return to the 24th century. I had to open a time rift in front of your ship before you jumped into the 24th century. Prepare to follow me back into the rift. I've just returned you to the point where you'd originally left."

What? No!

Desperately Janeway began to plead with the other captain not to send them to the Delta Quadrant. She had hoped to use the timeship from the other timeline to return them to their home time and to Earth. She couldn't let Braxton do this. "Captain, we've been trying to get home to Earth for the last two years," she said desperately, but she knew she was failing. "Please, can you send us back to Earth?"

"I'm sorry," Braxton replied although she wasn't sure if this version of Braxton was being sincere. "Temporal Prime Directive. Voyager was meant to travel through the Delta Quadrant for some time. I'm afraid you're on your own. Braxton out."

Braxton terminated the transmission and the view of the time rift returned, leaving Janeway staring at it, the last piece of evidence that showed her that her plan and desire to get her crew and her ship home had failed. She looked around the bridge, seeing the equally devastated faces of her crew.

"Braxton's opening another temporal rift. He's gone."

After she smacked the helm console in frustration, ignoring the startled Tom, Janeway walked back to her chair and she looked reluctantly at Tom.

"Mister Paris, resume our course for the Alpha Quadrant. We'll remain at impulse to give us time to assess the damage we've taken and effect repairs," she ordered curtly.

"Aye, Captain," Tom said with complete professionalism.

"Data's alarm should be going off now, hopefully, Braxton hasn't done anything there," Chakotay commented when she retook the command chair.

"Don't even mention that man's name ever, ever again. If we never see that man again, it will be too soon."

X

Meanwhile, in the Alpha Quadrant - Stardate 503121.5

In his ready room, Captain Picard was sipping from a cup of hot Earl Grey tea, going over the latest ship status reports and the mission reports from the recent surveys and from the stellar cartography lab while he went over the last reports from Starfleet intelligence of reports of the latest strikes against Starfleet by the Klingons. Picard mentally grimaced as he thought about Gowron's latest show of posturing. He had spent more time with the Klingon Chancellor since he had helped the man rise to power after Duras's death at Worf's hands, but Gowron was a politician who wanted to be seen as the next warrior and as a great strategist.

More than once the Enterprise E had been forced to fend off Klingon attacks - while he missed the Enterprise D, Picard had to admit the new Enterprise E was far better suited for combat assignments.

The door chime went off. "Come!"

Will Riker strode into the ready room, a padd in his hand. "Oh, no, not another report," Picard groaned as he looked down at the amount of paperwork already on his desk. "Haven't I got enough?"

Will looked sympathetic, although the smirk on his face told a different story. "Afraid so, sir," he replied, handing Picard the latest, "Actually, this is good news. Doctor Crusher has finalised the vaccine for the Voolyian flu."

"Oh, thank god for that," Picard sighed with relief as she took the padd to read over the results. "This is the kind of news I need right now."

"I heard about the Farragut after she was destroyed by the Klingons at Aijon Prime."

Picard grimaced at the reminder. The Klingon war had been a horrible time for them all, with so many of their friends dying at Klingon hands. "If the Dominion come through the wormhole now, they'll find an invasion easy. It says something about Gowron and his people's priorities that he can't see it, Will."

Will frowned. "You would think after that Founder posing as General Martok was found, the Klingons would stop."

"They wouldn't. The changeling opened the Klingon pandora's box, Will," Picard rubbed his face before he clarified his point, "There are many Klingons who believe they've been at peace too long with the Federation, and they think the Empire has to expand to survive. Even now the Founder has been discovered, many Klingons stupidly call for war with us because they think they can win. They're ignoring the Dominion threat in exchange for pure greed. They think by making the Alpha Quadrant purely Klingon they can win."

"That's ridiculous."

"Maybe, but at the same time look at Starfleet. For years we've been at peace, Will, and in that time we've been at war only a few times - the Cardassian war, Wolf 359. The Borg," Picard paused to steady himself as his feelings of rage broke through the surface at the memory of how the Borg had assimilated him and turned him into a weapon against the Federation he had sworn to defend, "were a major threat, but Starfleet wasted so much time arguing about the danger, telling everyone if they did nothing the Borg would go away."

"That wouldn't have happened," Will protested.

"I know. But it happened, and the Federation stared at the threat too long. The result, Wolf 359. Even afterwards, we barely made any attempt to shore up defences and the Defiant-class project for a new type of battleship was pushed aside, and now the Dominion threat is ongoing, Starfleet is still digging in its heels. We need to stop that before they come, and they will come," Picard warned grimly.

Will knew he was right. But before he could say anything else, they both winced when a shrill whistle neither man were familiar with cut through their eardrums like a laser beam. The two men left the ready room, looking for the source of the noise before it cut out.

"What the hell was that?" Picard demanded.

"I think it came from within my positronic net, Captain," Data announced, tilting his head as he ran a systems check. "I cannot understand why or what the source is."

"Get down to the cybernetics lab, Data," Picard ordered; if there was something in Data's positronic net, it might affect him badly.

X

Picard walked into the cybernetics lab with Riker behind him. They had both received a call from Geordi, who'd been tasked with looking through Data's positronic brain for the source of that sound. "Your call sounded urgent, Geordi," Picard said.

"For good reason. When I went through Data's positronic net, I found this," Geordi held up a small black chip.

Picard recognised it at once. "An isolinear hard drive? What was that doing in Data's head?"

Geordi sighed. "I don't know, sir. But it was buried deeply in the positronic net, protected by his buffering program. From what I could tell, it was hooked into his positronic net."

"But why?"

"I don't know. I've checked the chip; it's Federation technology but it also shows signs of being programmed by a computer with bio-neural processing," Geordi said.

"Bio-neural? Starfleet only recently came up with that technology and released it; the Enterprise herself uses bio-neural gel packs to speed up response times," Picard whispered. "Do we know what's on it?"

"No, but I was about to access it," Geordi said.

"Make it so."

Geordi took the chip and he pushed it into a reader.

Picard gaped when the familiar face of an old friend appeared on the screen.

"This is Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Starship Voyager. We have been temporarily, I hope, stranded in 20th century Earth. A timeship from the 29th century has attacked us while we were stranded in the Delta Quadrant, where we have been since an entity known as the Caretaker scooped us out of the Alpha Quadrant, and its pilot accused us of destroying his century through some kind of temporal disaster. We've discovered the timeship in the hands of a human from the 20th century who plans on using the timeship. But there is a chance we will be stranded back in the Delta Quadrant, where we are totally cut off from the Federation, so we are using this unique opportunity to use Commander Data to relay a message, to let you know, and our families and loved ones, we are still alive. As of this moment, we have power, environment, and therefore a chance of survival. But we are trying to return home."

"Kathryn Janeway, she and her ship disappeared two years ago," Picard murmured, shocked by the message.

"Stranded in the Delta Quadrant? It's hard to imagine," Riker whispered, just as stunned.

"Number One, send a priority one communication to Starfleet Command. Geordi, go through that ship; if I know Kathryn, they must have downloaded everything that's happened to them on that chip. Go through it, and send pieces of it in the message to Starfleet."

When both men acknowledged the order, Picard wished there was a way he could tell Voyager and Kathryn they were no longer alone. A research unit dedicated to bringing Voyager back would be put in place, of course, but how long would it take to bring them home?

For a moment, Picard thought about himself in Kathryn's position. He would be desperate to get his ship and crew home, trying to use whatever means available to relay messages for help and ways of getting back. But here, in the Federation, they were bound to come up with something.