"So if I understand you correctly," Picard stated, "Ms. Masterson isn't meant to exist at all? Is that correct?"
Darragh glared at Rick. "If you think you're gonna just waltz in here and change the timeline, and just kill me, then you've got another think coming."
"Not kill – although I guess it would be all the same to you," Dana attempted to explain. "If I understand Rick correctly, you're never supposed to have existed in the first place. Is that right?"
"It's not, actually. See, Darragh is supposed to exist. But she's in the wrong time period." Changing tack, he asked her, "How old are you anyway, Darragh?"
"32."
"Oh, yeah, that's wrong," Rick said, checking his PADD. "You're not supposed to be born yet. Hell, one of your sets of grandparents, they aren't even together yet."
"How would you know that?" Geordi asked, peeking his head into the communication from the Enterprise-E.
"I, er," Rick sighed. "Can I handle this, please? I've got an operative in the Mirror, and I'd really like to have her debrief me."
"I'm not letting you leave," Darragh snarled, "not until you give me some details."
"All in good, heh, time," Rick said. "Please?" he pleaded.
"If you need hostages, keep us," Dana suggested, glancing over at Marty, who nodded.
"All right," EK allowed. He got to the ancient transporter's controls. "One to beam back." Rick disappeared in a shimmer of light.
"Now what?" Dana asked.
"You get to spend some more time with us, girlie."
=/\=
Rick had the means and the desire to divert any transporter beam, and so he did just that, appearing for a millisecond on the Enterprise-E, but then diverting his own matter stream over to the Audrey Niffenegger.
He yelled, "Audrey, retrieve Carmen from the Mirror, no matter where she is, on my authorization. Do it as soon as possible."
Energizing now.
Carmen appeared. "Thanks for that; the Mirror is an awful place. Now, that's the matter?"
"I found Darragh Masterson."
"So?"
"So I didn't have a handle on her at all. The DNA doesn't match, and the time period's all wrong. She couldn't be found by Audrey or my PADD."
"How come?"
"Because, Carmen, she's not supposed to be born yet."
"Wonderful," Carmen replied sarcastically. "When is her true time period?"
"She's supposed to be born in 2440. She is also supposed to be Dana and Marty's granddaughter."
"Bloody hell. That stupid anti-incest law! We've got to get them back so they can help get it repealed."
"Just like they're supposed to – and along the way, somebody spiked Darragh Masterson with a little Augment DNA. That's why she wasn't picked up on the scan."
"No wonder she's here," Carmen mused. "All right, so Charlie Eleven is quiet for the nonce, but let's not forget his little part in this scheme. What he and Jenn Porter are doing is laying out a bloody welcome mat to the Temporal Cold Warriors."
"And then – I'm guessing – it's not going fast enough, so they tamper with Darragh and slide that chess piece into a far different slot. Plus Yi'imspi had to have raised the initial alarm, by setting off the dark matter collector and the pulse shot in the first place."
"Right, that seems to be the case," Carmen conceded. "This faction seems hell-bent on denying you your existence, Richard."
"Yeah, I suppose that's so. I just wish," he sighed, "that it didn't drag my mother and sister into it."
"But your family is unaffected so far, right?"
"So far," Rick said. "I'm just glad I'm protected by the temporal field. They can tamper with my mother's ancestry all they want, but I'll still be here."
"And I'm glad of that. Otherwise, I'd be bloody talking to myself right about now."
"The field's a great invention. I just wish my own mother was protected."
"And then there's your father!"
"Of course," he sighed again. "He is unaffected by these shenanigans – more or less – but still without my mother. He's a broken man in this reality. I hate seeing that. And if they keep in this time period and target Mike and Tamsin? Then he'll be hit, too."
"I imagine that's why they went after this particular time period, Richard. Of course, of course, there's the Cookie and Yi'imspi and Charlie Eleven – I'm not disputing any of those. But that small band of Douglas Jay Hayes Beckett's descendants contains four of your forebears – Tamsin Porter, Michael Daniels, Dana MacKenzie, and Martin Madden. It had to have been irresistible to them."
"You know, Carmen, I bet you're right."
=/\=
On Ceti Alpha V, the five of them looked at each other warily. Marty came closer to Dana, and put his hand on her shoulder again. "You with him?" EK asked, as Darragh whacked him lightly on the arm with the back of her hand.
"He's my second cousin."
"Coulda fooled me," Darragh sniffed.
"Listen, I'm guessing we'll be here for at least a while," Marty suggested, "Why not show us around your base of operations?"
"There's nothing to see," Yi'imspi explained. "This rock hasn't got much to recommend it. Paradise? Ha! I suppose it's paradise if you're a Denebian Slime Devil. Otherwise, not so much."
"But it's all you've got," Dana said. "Are you from here? It looks like Darragh and EK aren't."
"Only by way of a half a dozen way stations," Yi'imspi said.
"Way stations?" asked Dana.
"I bet that's how the Section moves its chess pieces around," Marty speculated. "That way, there's plausible deniability in case someone is caught, or whatever."
"Precisely," the Calafan confirmed. "Now, this is cozy and all, but you're still working to change things, and I can't have that."
"Why not?" Dana asked. "Aren't you an athlete in the true timeline? I'm figuring you set off the thing on the Cookie in the first place. I'm sure you're a Section operative there, too."
"So it's no skin off your nose to go back to the correct timeline," Marty clarified. "It doesn't matter to you, so why not change it back? Or at least work towards that, okay? It is all the same to you."
"Plus it helps them out," Dana pointed her thumb in the general direction of EK and Darragh.
Trying a different tack, Marty added, "It also doesn't seem to matter to that Charlie Eleven guy. And if it doesn't matter to Tamsin Porter, then I'm guessing it doesn't matter to her counterpart, Jenn, either."
"This is pointless," Darragh snarled. She turned to Yi'imspi. "You do not hold my fate in your hands – or anyone else's that matter. You're outvoted."
"You really think we vote in the Mirror?" Yi'imspi retorted, reaching under her skirt and pulling a dagger from a hidden sheath. She brandished it at them. "I march to the beat of my own drummer. And right now, I'm thinking you still haven't done enough to convince me. All I want is Charlie Eleven restored to power. All the rest is just window dressing."
=/\=
On the Enterprise-E, Geordi received a communication and reported to Captain Picard, "We've done three diagnostics. Our equipment is perfectly fine, and he's not in the pattern buffer. Wherever Rick Daniels has flown off to, none of us can find him."
"The only reasonable deduction," B-4 stated, "is that he has a ship somewhere."
"Maybe it's cloaked," Tamsin offered.
"A treaty violation?" Mike asked.
"Maybe not," Geordi stated. "It's entirely possible that the Treaty of Algeron no longer applies during his time period."
Harriet Caul and Alynna Nechayev were still on the line. Nechayev said, "That is a reasonable hypothesis. In the meantime, though, Masterson and Hoberman and Y'imspi are all holding hostage two of our people."
=/\=
As the tense moments ticked by, Marty kept within Yi'imspi's line of sight, endangering himself by standing right in front of her drawn dagger. Out of the corner of his eye – and he fought to not pay attention and thereby give up the game – he could see EK circling behind the Calafan. "Don't do this," Marty said softly. "None of us are worth you becoming a killer."
"What makes you think it's my first time?" snarled the Calafan.
"Then this other time period, the original one, has gotta be better for you," Dana pointed out.
So distracted, Yi'imspi didn't see EK strike. He whacked her hard, on the back of her neck, and she fell like a bag of inert ballast.
Dana dropped to the ground and checked for a pulse. "She's barely alive, so far as I can tell. We need to get her back to the Enterprise-E."
"She just tried to kill us all. Why the hell should we lift a finger for her?" Darragh asked.
"Because if I'm reading Rick Daniels right – and I bet Mystic here senses it, too – then he needs to get her motives and her methods down."
"He doesn't seem to have those in his records. If he knows that, then I guess he can better prevent it from happening in the first place," Dana explained as Marty contacted the Enterprise-E.
The three of them – Marty, Dana, and a still-unconscious Yi'imspi – were beamed directly to Sick Bay, where Dr. Crusher was waiting for them.
"What happened?" she asked.
"Blow to the back of the neck," Dana explained. She and Marty retreated to a corner of Sick Bay and stayed out of the way as the doctor did her work.
"What'll happen if she dies?" Marty asked Dana.
"I guess Rick will try again."
"Again? Just how many times has he done this?"
"I think this is lucky number thirteen," she said. "Wait, I told you this already."
"Right; I've got too much on my mind," he admitted.
Beverly Crusher looked up. "She'll be all right," she announced, as Dana and Marty were suddenly and unexpectedly beamed away. "Security!" she yelled as she hit the communicator pin on her uniform top, "Someone just beamed away MacKenzie and Madden!"
=/\=
They rematerialized inside a futuristic ship, where Richard Daniels was standing next to a brunette that neither of them had met before. "What the hell happened here?" Dana asked.
"This is my ship," Rick explained, "the Audrey Niffenegger. And standing next to me is my boss, Admiral Carmen Calavicci."
"Where is this ship? We don't have anything on sensors," Marty admitted as he shook hands with Carmen and then Dana did likewise.
"Audrey's got a lovely cloaking system," Carmen explained.
"I guess the Treaty of Algeron is no more during your time period," Dana speculated.
"When dangerous technologies like cloaks are made safe," Rick explained, "treaties like that start to come down."
"So nobody knows where we are. That is not gonna go over well," Dana said.
"Not to worry – we'll just put you back to the same moment in time," Carmen said.
"That's convenient," Marty commented.
"You had things you didn't want to tell the others," Dana said, getting down to brass tacks.
"We didn't originally want to say," Carmen began, "but we've done this too many times already."
"I wanna hear from you first," Rick said. "What did you find out about Yi'imspi?"
"She just seems to be money-driven," Marty said. "She wants Charlie Eleven restored because she's expecting some big payday."
"Then that's another alteration," Carmen said. "In the correct timeline, Charlie Eleven remains in exile, but they wed."
"But that's not necessarily mutually exclusive," Dana pointed out. "So is the Terran Empire ever restored?"
"During Darragh Masterson's lifetime," Rick said. "Her real lifetime," he hastened to add. "It happens in 2516. Huh. So we may or may not know why she fired the pulse shot in the first place. What we really need to do is get the Temporal Cold War factions out of this time period. Because they'll come back, even if we fix things, if they think there's an advantage to be gained here."
"So they could come back," Dana mused. "Why is this time period so special to them in the first place?"
Carmen and Rick looked at each other. He spoke, "They're trying to erase me from history. See, we're protected by a temporal force field. But they're trying anyway."
"And …?" Marty prompted.
"And what Richard isn't telling you," Carmen explained, "is that four of his ancestors are on the Enterprise-E during this time period. And so this faction must see this situation as being their best opportunity."
"Who are your ancestors?" Dana asked.
"I'm also a descendant of Doug Hayes," Rick explained. "Just like Mike, Tamsin, and the two of you – my four ancestors."
"So, wait, Marty marries someone, and has a kid, and all that jazz? And I do, too? Is it Kent? Because, I just gotta say, I am totally not feelin' it."
"Shall we tell them?" Rick asked Carmen.
"Tell us what?" Marty pressed.
"The four ancestors contain one couple," Carmen explained.
"Me and Tamsin? No thanks!" Marty snorted.
"No, no, no," Carmen chuckled a bit. "That bloody stupid cousin incest law really has you tied up in knots, eh? It's Michael Daniels and Tamsin Porter – they are forebears to Richard's father, Steven Daniels, but not together at the same time. You and Dana here are the couple. You are ancestors to his mother, Chloe Masterson."
Dana's jaw dropped open and trembled a little. "So, uh, so are we Darragh's ancestors, too?"
"In the correct timeline, yes," Rick confirmed.
"Dammit, Richard," Dana said, "you said you and I hooked up in some of the alternate timelines. I mean, isn't that incest?"
"A few centuries, and it doesn't matter," Carmen explained. "Richard here might not have much discretion at times," she raised an eyebrow a little, "but he certainly wasn't committing incest with you."
"Dana, Marty," Rick looked at them both solemnly. "That wasn't incest, not any more than the two of you being together is. The incest law is wrong when it comes to second cousin marriages. You don't just exist to ensure that my mother is born. Your purpose in life is also to get that damned law repealed. It is unjust and unfair, and it doesn't do what it was intended to do, anyway. In the prime timeline, you fight it."
"Do we win?" Dana asked.
"You will be together," Carmen declared, perhaps a bit ambiguously.
Marty and Dana had been standing next to each other, and he took her hand. "How are you even alive if your own mother is not? Is this a sophisticated hologram program, or something?"
"There's the temporal field. It protects those of us who work at the Temporal Integrity Commission. We can still fix things, and the department doesn't lose any traveling agents, even if our families are wiped by temporal alterations," Rick explained.
"I can't believe that we're that important to the timeline," Dana said. "It seems ludicrous."
"Well, it's partly because of Douglas Jay Hayes Beckett," Carmen clarified. "But it's also due to who both of you are, and what you do, and what you try to do. I imagine that you are a bit more important than you may realize."
Marty looked at Dana, and Dana looked back at Marty, and it seemed as if time itself might have stopped there. Finally, Rick suggested, "There's a back room; it's private. I'm guessing you've got a few things you might want to talk about."
"Will we remember any of this once the line is restored?" asked Marty.
"Not really, but we'll give you the tools you will need in order to get the prime timeline back on the proper track," Rick explained.
"So you'll be there to guide us and help us along, and give us hints?" Dana asked.
"Probably not," Rick admitted. "I'll need to go after the Temporal Cold War faction that set the wheels in motion. But I know you'll be all right. It's in the master time file. It is going to happen."
"I'm glad you're so confident about it," Dana said. "That room's back here?"
"Right through this door." Carmen guided them, and then turned on a holographic display which converted the room – a bedroom done up like a bachelor pad – into more of an outdoor scene. It was a glider swing on a porch, circa 1950 or so. There was a side table with a pitcher of lemonade and two glasses, and the sun was setting over a cornfield. It looked and felt like a late summer evening.
"You planned this?" Dana asked.
"No," Carmen assured her. "This is just Holographic Simulated Scene #42." She left them, shutting the door behind her.
Tentatively, they sat down together. "I, uh," Marty began, suddenly nervous. "After decades of being told 'no', it's pretty strange for that to be turned into 'yes'."
Dana cupped his face in her hands. "You know, I have always loved you, Marty. Even when I was a baby, I knew I loved you."
"I loved you even before you were born, Mystic," he answered, and they kissed long, lingering. He got down onto the floor of the porch, knees creaking in protest. He looked up at where Dana was sitting. "Can we get married? I mean," he face palmed, "will you marry me?"
"Yes, yes, of course! In this or any other timeline, I will always love you and I will always want to spend my life with you. I love you, Martin Douglas Madden."
"I love you, too, Misty Dana MacKenzie. MDM Twins forever."
=/\=
In the front of the ship, where piloting and other essential tasks were performed, Carmen asked Rick, "Have you got enough background on Yi'imspi?"
"I do. Let's beam them back to the Enterprise-E and get out of here. All we need to do is stop Yi'imspi."
"Then you'll need to get on the Cookie, Richard."
"I'll take a time portal."