When morning finally broke, the only people who seemed to have slept well at all were Marty and Dana. They sat down to breakfast together in Ten Forward. Rick entered the room and came right over. "Can I join you?" he asked.
"Sure thing, Rick," Dana replied. "What's up? You look a little flustered."
"I've got a line on – possibly – at least one of the causes of the band cycling."
"We'd better talk this over in private," Marty suggested.
"Exactly what I was thinking," Rick agreed.
"My quarters, then," Dana suggested.
Guinan came over and, looking straight at Rick, stated, "You're not from here."
"No, I'm not. And I know you've got a sense for such things. Your instincts are correct."
"Good to know," Guinan replied. "There are others who don't belong."
"I've got a list," Rick told her.
"I see the most misplaced one is," the El-Aurian paused and looked up. "Ah, there she is."
In walked Yi'imspi. She came right over. "So we meet again," she immediately said to Rick.
"I guess we do."
"What the hell is going on with you?" she asked. "You don't make any sense."
"A lot of the crew doesn't," Guinan interjected, adding another place setting although no one had invited Yi'imspi to join them.
"What are you talking about, Yi'imspi?" asked Dana.
"He's not all human," the Calafan explained. "He has the ability to access and enter and even control Calafan-style dreaming. So by definition, he is partly my species. And we can't interbreed."
"Anything else?" asked Marty.
"He's got dealings with someone from the Mirror Universe. We can access that side in our dreaming. I'd say you're someone to worry about, Crewman Daniels."
"If he's part-Calafan, then he's just accessing the Mirror in the same way that you are," Dana pointed out.
"Not like that," Yi'imspi claimed. "When it comes to, see, anyone who's human or partly so? Those people don't have good control. And they certainly can't act decisively when accessing the Mirror. They can't control objects, that sort of thing."
"So he's skilled. Give it a rest," Dana complained.
"You don't seem to understand the gravity of this situation," said the Calafan. "He's the enemy."
=/\=
Carmen had recovered enough from her pounding migraine to be able to go out for a walk. But a day of work was out of the question. She was glad she had called in sick.
The modest Calafan neighborhood was a bastion of charity housing. The apartments were squat and modular, but so were even elegant Calafan homes owned by the wealthy. The difference was the interior. A wealthy or even a middle class Calafan would have had unique decorations and furnishings, with cost rising, commensurate with one's station in life. But Carmen's little temporary home was only spartanly furnished, and there were no personal touches whatsoever. It all made sense, though, as she had no plans to stay.
She strolled around a bit and returned home, and then entered the home's sole bathroom and splashed water on her face. She eyed the bidet skeptically. "I'll never understand what people see in those," she muttered to herself.
There was a knock at her front door and she froze. She was not expecting anyone, and knew no one, beyond the most superficial and brief of acquaintances. "Just a moment," she called.
She straightened her traditional Calafan tunic and pants. Her own real clothes were tucked away on the Audrey Niffenegger. She smoothed her hair and answered the door. "Yes?"
It was Jenn Porter – Carmen did not let her in. "You said you could make a fake identification card for a friend of mine."
"How did you find this place?"
"Never mind that. Can you do it?" Jenn looked beyond Carmen's shoulder and into the interior of the modest home. She sneered, "You could use the money."
Carmen blinked. She was still a bit woozy from the combined effects of a migraine and not enough sleep. The short stroll had tuckered her out. "I, well, I'll need to see the image."
Jenn pulled out her PADD. "Where do I click?"
"Uh, here," Carmen said, producing her advanced PADD, which had been camouflaged to appear as if it had been manufactured during the current time period.
"Right. Tomorrow?"
"Sure."
Jenn left. As the door shut, Carmen glanced at the photo. "Well, well, well, if it isn't old Charlie Eleven himself! A bit rough 'bout the edges, but it is you, all right." She thought for a moment. "But how the devil am I going to get to the Audrey and her replicator to make a fake ID if I can't go to sleep and contact Richard?"
It suddenly hit her – the weight of the world. "Danger or no danger," she yawned, "I have got to get some rest." She kicked her shoes back off. Clutching her PADD, and not removing any more of her street clothing, she got back into bed. "I can't let them break me," she murmured drowsily.
=/\=
"Enemy?" asked Dana.
"He's from the Mirror – at least in part. And he's certainly working with them," Yi'imspi claimed. "By definition, he's the enemy."
"I, eh." Dana got up. "I've got a job to go to today. And so does everybody else here. Sorry, Guinan, but we've gotta go." The El-Aurian just vaguely waved as Dana retreated, Marty hot on her heels.
Once they'd left Ten Forward, he said to her, "We need to talk about this."
"You're tellin' me. But after shift."
"My quarters, then," Marty suggested, pressing Dana's hand briefly.
Tamsin was walking down the hall and, while she didn't hear all of their exchange, she saw and heard enough to know that Dana would be visiting Marty's quarters that evening. Smiling, she tapped out a quick note to herself –
Send incest law to Martin Madden, anonymously.
She then went to her shift without a care in the world.
=/\=
Exhausted, Carmen was able to sleep.
At least this time the parade of silver – prime universe – and copper – Mirror Universe – Calafans didn't include Yi'imspi. She waved off everyone, finally selecting a door in the huge shared dream hall. It led to a small room and, in her dream; she waited for Rick to arrive.
=/\=
Dana, Marty, and M'Belle sat with Captain Picard on the Bridge as the day shift began. Wesley sat at a forward station, piloting the ship. "Sir?" he asked. "I'm getting some strange readings."
"How strange?" asked Picard.
"It's as if there were obstacles out here, sir," Wesley explained, "but I know there's really nothing here at all. We're clear of that debris field we saw earlier."
Picard nodded slightly at Marty, who bellowed, "Yellow alert!"
Dana hit a few switches on her console, taking anything in Tactical, no matter what it was, out of wait and diagnostic modes, but not arming anything yet.
Unless a piece of equipment was quite literally in pieces, it was considered to be fully operational and ready. Her console flashed a bit as automatic reports of readiness came in, along with specific details such as megatons of TNT, highest achievable speed, and aiming capabilities. Her console then automatically ranked everything in order of readiness, followed by firepower and then accuracy, with the least accurate equipment outlined in yellow. For anything where she wouldn't be able to hit the broad side of a barn, those would only be used if they were surrounded by enemies or she received the order to fire at point blank range or just unload whatever she had. Those would also be used if they were desperate and down to their last chances. But the number of weapons on the Enterprise-E was very high, and so it was a rare occasion when she'd be forced to scrape the bottom of the barrel.
Wesley, at the pilot's station, performed a somewhat similar exercise. He, too, took everything out of wait or diagnostic mode. A brief Engineering report flashed on his screen, telling him that the warp engines were operating perfectly, and that he was cleared to Warp 8 for long distances, and Warp 9 for brief bursts of speed. A display showed him the ship's estimated braking time, depending upon speed.
Another display showed the distance to the nearest friendly star systems. He could toggle a switch and it would calculate estimated times of arrival, based on speed and anticipated obstacles. Yet another display offered the condition of the impulse engines, and one more showed that the maneuvering thrusters were operating within acceptable parameters.
At the same time, in Engineering, Geordi monitored the matter-antimatter intermix ratio and the stability of the warp containment field. A separate display showed the relative temperatures and any obstructions within the series of branched Jeffries tubes snaking around the ship. This was in order to determine whether there were any fires or coolant leaks, or even hidden intruders.
Back on the Bridge, M'Belle punched up Communications from her seat. This part of the yellow alert for the Enterprise-E was normally done through the Tactical station, where Dana was. But that was the Prime timeline. Instead, in this variation, the ship's counselor had that duty, and the placement and configuration of the equipment was slightly dissimilar.
Rick had been walking the halls a little – and partly, informally, following Tamsin around a bit whenever she took a break – when the yellow alert was sounded. Tamsin obeyed orders and rushed back to her lower level Tactical station. But Rick instead dropped what he was doing, ducked into a nearby unused lab, and beamed back to his cloaked time ship, the Audrey Niffenegger. He yelled, as soon as he rematerialized, "Audrey! Check on all spatial anomalies or incoherent energy readings in the area."
Sensors indicate the presence of diffuse ions, such as would occur as a byproduct of the usage of multiple primitive interphasic cloaking devices.
"Who would have interphasic cloaking devices here, and now, in this temporal variant?" he asked.
The answer came after perhaps a minute.
The descendants of the Augments.
"The Botany Bay?"
Mainly. Some of these may be the descendants of Dr. Arik Soong's so-called 'children'.
"They were found by the NX-01. That's Malik and Jaya's group. I thought they were all killed."
Conclusive proof of full destruction has never been found. There is a possibility that at least a few survived in escape pods and entered the Delphic Expanse.
"So are their actions, at least partly, responsible for the radiation band cycling? Assuming it's Augments and they're doing what I think they're doing?"
Affirmative.