Chapter 2 – Alterations
Rick Daniels beamed aboard the Audrey Niffenegger and chuckled slightly. "Far as they're concerned, everything's as normal as can be. They are so wrong."
He hit a few keys on his PADD, and its look converted from a twenty-fourth century design to a design from the thirty-second century as it decloaked. "There, now, that's better. Let's go over the specifics. Computer?"
The PADD answered, although it was tied into the shipboard computer as well.
Working
"Give me the major changes."
Provide temporal parameters
"Just for 2380, to start."
Enterprise-E crew is altered radically. Ship's day shift counselor position is held by a Caitian named M'Belle. In the original history, this position remained unfilled at this time. The position of day shift Tactical Officer is held by Dana MacKenzie. In the original history, this role was held by your ancestor, Michael Daniels, who is currently the night shift Tactical Officer, in this particular alternate timeline.
"Where is my ancestor Dana MacKenzie supposed to be?"
This subject, in the original history, is the player-coach for a barnstorming sports team known as the Black Sheep. M'Belle, in the original history, is a player on that team.
"Interesting; I bet the problem started either on the Enterprise-E and the Black Sheep's ship at the same time, or at least in those same locations. Tell me what happened to the rest of that team."
Most of the team has displaced Enterprise-E crew members from the original history. M'Belle and Dana MacKenzie are the only day shift officers in that group. Night shift officers include pilot Daniya, engineer Yi'imspi and counselor Darren Shaw. The remainder of the team who are on the Enterprise-E are enlisted personnel.
"How many people are we talking about?"
Including Bridge crew, there are a total of fifty-five persons associated with the Black Sheep who remained on that team's ship. This does not include team attorney Cyril Morgan Yarin, or co-owner Martin Madden, another ancestor of yours. Thirty-seven of these persons are aboard the Enterprise-E, plus Madden. Thirty-one are enlisted personnel.
"Name the enlisted personnel."
Fourteen are day shift enlisted personnel. They are – Adeel, Chammin, Cilla, Dathan, Effenston, Grosk, Inshar, Lethar, Loth, Reskin, Steffa, T'Val, Tarjil and Trechek. The remaining seventeen are night shift personnel …
=/\=
Asleep, the operative made contact. Contact was not easy. Both parties had to be receptive and had to have a sufficient amount of callidium on their persons. Both had to be asleep, and in REM sleep as well.
Another factor was the number and degree of sodium vapor flares emanating and passing between two of the stars in the Lafa System, in both universes. In the prime universe, these were an orange medium-sized star and a red dwarf, named Fep and Ub, respectively. In the Mirror Universe, the necessary stars were white and yellow, and were called Lo and Abic, respectively.
Because the sodium flare intensity varied during a Calafan year and the two universes were, inconveniently, not in perfect synchronization with each other, sometimes contact could be asynchronous, or it could be staticky or sparky with ionization, or it could fail altogether. Parties who were remote from the Lafa System often needed to make adjustments.
But on this particular evening – February the twelfth of 2380 – contact was achieved. It helped that the person who the operative was contacting was actually in the Lafa System, although he was not Calafan. But that place was bursting with callidium, in both the natural ore and refined forms.
He was mostly human, although he did have a touch of Vulcan blood in him – even though Vulcans had only recently been emancipated. He was Charles Tucker XI, and he had, up until 2370, been known as the Emperor Charles VI.
But that had been before it had all gone horribly pear-shaped on that side of the pond. The Klingon-Cardassian Alliance had seized power, and they had been none too friendly.
At least they'd been merciful enough to allow him to retain his life. Exiled, humiliated, and somewhat broke, he had settled, much like a few of his ancestors had done, in the wilds of the southern hemisphere's main forest on Lafa II, the Dary Woods. That is, the Fire Woods.
Lying on a thin mattress on a bed in a tiny cabin, he appeared nothing at all like an Emperor, not even a former one. He was dressed in tatters, and hadn't shaved in months. He was part-Asian, and that, along with his Vulcan eyebrows and wild facial hair, gave him an appearance not unlike a Mongolian herdsman from Earth's pre-industrial period. He fell asleep, holding a dagger made of pure callidium, and was able to make contact.
He greeted the operative and, after they had exchanged some minimal pleasantries, he asked, "Well?"
"I have been observing," the operative reported. "They hired a new assistant engineer recently, day shift."
"Oh?" Charles asked, "Why should this matter to me?"
"I checked his radiation band. Richard Daniels is 20.4275300."
Charles thought for a moment. "How is this possible? A direct cross-breed between the two universes would split the difference between here – twenty centimeters – and where you are – twenty-one. Hence that individual would sport a personal radiation band of 20.5 centimeters."
"Right," agreed the operative, "it's inherited. The only humans we know of with a radiation band of under twenty-one are the thirteen known living descendants of Douglas Jay Hayes Beckett. It is funny how four of those people are on the Enterprise-E – Martin Madden, Dana MacKenzie, Michael Daniels and Geordi LaForge."
"Are you certain your equipment is functioning properly?"
"Positive," replied the operative, "with a surname of Daniels, I have to assume that he's a relation of Michael Daniels."
"Right," replied Charles, "but Michael's radiation band is 20.9 something or other, right?"
"20.9999632," confirmed the operative. "Hence my theory is that someone else, some other human, crossed over from the Mirror Universe to here."
"Interesting theory, but after Hayes got here, the only other incident, before this century, is in 2267, over the Halkan home world. According to the historical records that you provided to me, those people were immediately thrown into the brig on the NCC-1701. And the crossover by the Discovery wasn't long enough for anyone to sire a child."
"No detours," the operative confirmed.
"Could there be incest in this family, or just a lot of cousin marriages?" asked Charles.
"There would have to be several. I'm forced to conclude that either Richard Daniels is related to someone who comes from some centimeter fractional universe, or …."
"Come again?"
"The radiation band, the hydrogen line – there's no reason whatsoever for it to only be organized into perfect centimeter increments. There have got to be universes which split some of these differences. Some might be rather minute fractions indeed."
"Fair enough," he allowed, "you mentioned there was some other reason but then I interrupted you."
"Yes, well, the other possibility is that there is some other transuniversal crossover which we don't know about."
The other possibility – which was the correct explanation, was that Rick was simply from the future – and that one never crossed their minds.
=/\=
Rick settled in to sleep on the Audrey Niffenegger. He had an impressively large bed, with black satin sheets and a comforter with a sophisticated geometric pattern. It was a pity that he was the only one occupying it, he thought to himself. "Dim lights to fifteen percent illumination." The ship complied.
There were colored bands on his left wrist, marks of his heritage, which was part-Calafan, along with human, Terran and a smattering of Vulcan. There was a copper band and then a silver one next to it, which was closer to his fingers. The copper came from a Mirror Universe Calafan ancestor; the silver was from a prime universe Calafan ancestor.
While the naturally-occurring bands were both laced with callidium, he still needed a boost, as a goodly chunk of his heritage did not have psionic capabilities. He had two pieces of jewelry that he always wore on a chain around his neck. One was a dull gray skeleton key charm and the other was a Xindi initiation medal. He never took them off. "Okay," he said quietly to himself, "let's make contact."
Rick's dream began as a series of doors in a long hallway.
He passed by several of these doors as others who were making or attempting dream contact would pass him in the hallway. Most of them met others and quickly retreated behind doors that were then shut tightly. Single women – and a few men – would, at times, look him over. But he only had one person in mind – Carmen.
Carmen Calavicci was a young admiral on a fast promotion track. At the Temporal Integrity Commission, in 3101, she was the leader of the small Human Unit. However, not all of that unit was human.
The department consisted of her – she was human; Kevin O'Connor, who was part-Gorn and part-human; Otra D'Angelo, who was half-Witannen and half-human; and Levi Cavendish, who was all-human but also rather squirrely and strange and often got on her nerves. Kevin and Levi were engineers, whereas Otra had an interesting gift that allowed her to see temporal alternates, even faster than Kevin's computers. Rick was the only true time traveler on the team but, when he needed help, the only person who could convincingly and properly fill in was Carmen.
After all, Kevin weighed nearly a quarter of a metric ton and had scaly extremities, and Otra had, in lieu of hair, flower-like semi-sentient moving chavecoi growing out of her scalp. Levi was just too odd, distracted and ADHD-addled to be any good at the sort of small and large deceptions and nuances necessary for time traveling.
It took a few tries, and checking a few doors in his dream, but he finally got her.
"Car," he asked, how are things in the Mirror Universe?"
"It's a bloody dark passage here," she complained, her British accent becoming more pronounced than usual in her stress. "The treatment of women here is appalling. My bum's getting awfully sore from all the pinching."
He smiled for a second, and then stopped when he noticed her looking at him, even in the dream. Still, she did have a rather nice backside. "Have you located Eleven yet?"
"No, I have not," she admitted, "Charles Tucker the Eleventh is proving to be quite an elusive little bugger. At least the records on Lafa II are readable, and are more or less intact. But it looks like he got here a good ten years ago or so, and then they lost track of him. How're things going on your side?"
"So far, so good. They don't suspect a thing. But it is definitely messed up."
"Well, they wouldn't suspect anything," she said, "To them, this is bloody well normal. Have you got everything Otra and Kevin sent?"
"I do," he said, "but let's refresh my memory anyway."
Even in a dream, she rolled her eyes at him. "Richard, you are lucky that you're good at this."
"Had you any doubt, Carmen?"
"Just go over the thirty-second century changes, if you must."
"All right," he cleared his throat. The wonders of Calafan-style dreaming were that there was just so much damned detail. You could use all of your senses, so enjoying a meal or stopping and smelling the roses were both possible pursuits. But a dreamer could also get a dry throat. "Otra said she saw Eleven restored to power. It was a big ceremony and everything."
"Precisely," Carmen confirmed, "and the interregnum was nowhere near as short as all that, at least not, in the original hist'ry. Plus the other side decided they were going to attack, it was back before you and I were born, Richard."
"Uh huh."
"Otra also saw, well, we all saw this; it was on the bloody viewer," Carmen added, "that the Terran Empire was running the prime universe. Do you imagine they broke through, during this time period?"
"I'd say that's a reasonable hypothesis," Rick agreed, "which would mean that the source of the radiation band cycling had better be found soon."
"What I don't get," she said, "is why they're bothering with cycling at all. They know about the prime universe already. They've got confirmation from the 2267 switch and from the more recent excursions through the wormhole near Deep Space Nine. They even know 'bout the Discovery and her spore hub drive."
"Not to mention Calafan confirmation. Huh," he thought for a moment. "I wonder if they're looking for something else."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Something easier. Or maybe they think the forty-one centimeter band – or whatever – has more firepower. Maybe they think they'll be able to gain allies in conquering us."
"Possibly. Or perhaps they simply don't have good control over their technology. They may be aiming for twenty-one centimeters, but the target isn't being hit reliably."
"I'm sure I dunno. Carmen?"
"Hmmm?"
"Where did you end up sheltering?"
"There's a small subdivision of charity housing. All you need to do is sign a PADD document, stating that you're prepared to work, in order to cover rent and fees. I said I'd make deliveries. I figure I can continue searching for Eleven as I travel 'round. They're trusting enough to allow me to go out by myself. I believe that, so long as I perform my appointed task and make my rounds, they'll keep me on."
"Okay."
"What about the Enterprise-E?"
"There are too many people out of place here. I can't help but to feel there's a connection among the Mirror Universe, the Enterprise-E, and Dana MacKenzie's sports team. But I'm not seeing it yet."
=/\=
"How close are you to breaking through?" asked the operative.
"Not quite there yet," Charles admitted. "I need for you to step up your game."
"Well, I'm working as fast as I can."
"It's not fast enough. I need to be back in power, yesterday. Don't forget the kind of rewards, wealth and status you'll get if you're successful."
"Yeah, well, I'll believe all that when I see it. You were living in a hut, last I saw."
"I still am. But it's all interrelated," he clarified. "I can't exactly get back in unless I can deliver the other side of the pond. The less than accurate modified pulse cannon is not helping things. I need you to get me better tech."
"When I placed the pulse cannon near Point Abic on your side of things," the operative explained, "I didn't exactly have the time to calibrate it properly. You're lucky it's up and running at all. So now you're stuck, until either I can get back and do it, or you can, heh, sully your royal hands and fix it yourself, Charles."
"I don't think so," the former head of the Terran Empire sneered. "But there's one more possibility, to get it all to finally work out."
"Oh?"
"It could finally just snap into place, and work properly, for once."
"Who can tell? There might be a miracle," the operative laughed a bit, "although I wouldn't count on it, if I were you. Still, in all seriousness, it's far more likely to be fixed if you just march on over there and do it. You're even on the right planet, for God's sake. There's engineering in your DNA."
"You know I can't do that," Charles's tone was a bit testy. "They didn't kill me a decade ago, and they certainly could have. But you know they're gunning for me now."
"They'll stop all that nonsense if you can deliver this universe, on a silver, heh, platter."
"Exactly," Charles said, "and, well, you know we're not big on saying thank you here, but I am appreciative. We'll conquer and we'll bring those thirteen expatriates back here, to this side of the pond, where they belong. You'll get your rewards beyond measure."
"Fourteen."
"Fourteen?"
"You're forgetting about Richard Daniels."
"Ah, yes," Charles stroked his beard. Even in a shared Calafan-type dream, he still sported an impressive beard, the kind that could comfortably hold multiple birds' nests. "If he's from some other viable universe, then we can see about making him a deal."
"What if he's evidence of some other crossover, or two, or more?"
"Then we'll find out what he knows. If he doesn't cooperate, you'll kill him."
=/\=
"So do we know what we're going to do?" Carmen sought confirmation. She was senior to Richard, but he was the lead on this mission, plus he was the professional time traveler. If she had only had more travelers at her disposal, she wouldn't have had to have come along at all.
"You find Eleven. I'll find the connection to MacKenzie and the others. We'll both see if we can't get a handle on the radiation band cycling, and stop it, before there's a more permanent rift. Or if we can't stop that, at least we'll get the whole thing prevented, by going back in time far enough."
"Agreed," Carmen said. "It's very nearly morning. I'll continue checking here, and I'll be investigating whatever I can dredge up on Eleven from the last decade. Perhaps you should do the same, for MacKenzie and the others."
"Good idea. See you tomorrow night, Car. Daniels out."