Voyager

Captain Janeway stared at the screen, still locked on the Vivian Smith. She had opened a channel to Starfleet, which was now mobilizing as many ships as they could. They'd be alongside Voyager within minutes, but those were minutes that Lieutenant Potter might not have.

"Captain? What do we do about Harry?" Tom Paris asked.

"Right now, we wait and see, Tom," she replied, her unhappiness clear in her voice. "I suspect that if we're seen as being in Sector Zero Zero One when we're supposed to be in the Delta Quadrant, they can't re-insert us. What that means for the future? We'll likely never know."

"Captain!" Lieutenant Kim exclaimed from his console. "We're detecting a containment failure on the Smith! Their destruction is imminent!"

"Set course back to the Smith, Tom," she barked. "We need to render what aid we can."

"We are being hailed by the USS Hippocrates, Captain," Tuvok said.

"Onscreen."

"Captain Janeway, Captain S'rell," an attractive Vulcan woman said, "We are at your location. You are returning to render aid?"

"Yes, I have a crewman on that ship as well; Lieutenant Potter. Apologies, but we need to see to him. Close with the Smith, Mr Paris."

"We may have some issues, Captain," Tom replied. "We're getting just enough interference that beaming Harry out is going to be an issue."

"Do your best, Tom," she said. "Get as close as possible for the best resolution."

The ship slid closer to the Vivian Smith, shields at full. "We're closer than is safe, Captain," Tom said.

"We can't get a lock on him or the Flyer," Harry Kim said. "We've got an idea where he is, but we may have to just grab everything in that area, and you know how dangerous that can be."

"Potentially fatal integrity loss is sixty-eight percent likely, Captain," Tuvok said. "I am attempting to compensate, but there is a particularly high degree of chronoton radiation interfering."

"Do what you can, Tuvok; Harry. He's saved us, we damned well can do the same for him."

"Chronoton readings are rising, Captain!" Harry called from his station.

Tuvok straightened and inhaled. "We have lost the lock completely, Captain. Chronoton readings are continuing to increase exponentially, and preventing any possibility of transporter use."

The Vivian Smith disappeared in a screen-blackening flare of light, and when the screen cleared, they were looking at … the Vivian Smith, in apparently pristine condition. "Captain, we're being hailed," Harry Kim said.

"Onscreen."

"This is Captain Miles Barklin, of the Federation Timeship Vivian Smith," the man said. "We seem to have an issue in our shuttle bay that the Voyager may be able to help us with. We will await the arrival of Admiral Paris to the scene, in order to assure you that we have no designs upon your ship. We would like to return your Lieutenant Potter to you, but he seems to be … stuck."

"Stuck?"

Captain Barklin grimaced. "I'm not sure I can explain it." He looked to his left and nodded. The view changed to a shuttle bay, where they could see the Delta Flyer, which seemed to be insubstantial, and flickering. "We think he was attempting to leave … well, us, before our counterpart destructed, and got caught in the temporal wave that caused us to overwrite the previous timeline. We theorize that he's somehow caught between the timelines. Needless to say, we'd like to connect him solidly to here, since the previous timeline doesn't exist any longer. We'd like to thank him."

"Thank him?" Captain Janeway asked, eyebrows asking far more questions than her voice.

"From what our databanks say, his fighting our counterparts won the temporal fight we've been having with … well, it's a long story. We are still looking into it, because we've only just realized we need to check the histories about it. It's clear that he was the focal point for winning, as far as we're concerned. We've no intention of forcing you back to the Delta Quadrant, which is what we suspect we were attempting to do. Well, they, but it was our counterparts." He laughed. "Five hundred years past you and we still have issues with language concerning time travel and its effects."

"The Exeter is coming up alongside, Captain," Tom said.

"They're hailing us," Harry Kim added.

"We'll hold," Barklin said with a smile. The screen blanked for a moment, and then Admiral Paris's face came onto the screen.

"Captain Janeway, Captain S'rell gave me a quick briefing. Any word on Lieutenant Potter?"

"We've been asked to come aboard the Smith to render aid. He appears to be in a state of flux at the moment."

"Captain Janeway, Captain Barklin is asking to speak to you again. Conference call if possible." She nodded, and the screen split vertically.

"Captain, Admiral - I am ordering our weapons and engine powered down to help assure you that we have no designs on your safety; that we are only worried about your crewman." When he saw Janeway open her mouth to speak, he added with a small smile. "Weapons aren't a worry, what with the large number of ships coming to welcome you home, and a half hour or so warm-up time for the engines is a small price to pay for your peace of mind."

"Thank you, Captain. If you'll send us coordinates, we can send over our people to see what we can do for our man."

"Make the teams as large as you feel necessary, Captain," Barklin said. "We want to save him as much as you do." His screen blanked, and the view of Admiral Paris grew to fill the rest, as before.

"Interesting," the admiral said. "I think I'll join you if you don't mind, Kathryn."

"By all means, sir," she replied with a smile.

About twenty minutes later, the shuttle bay of the Vivian Smith was housing quite a few people. "Our scans seem to show him as frozen," Barklin was saying. "We think we can free him, but we're not sure whether the energy needs to be in phase with him or out of phase, exactly canceling out the current bubble of energy. The problem comes down to the fact that we have no way of telling which is needed. A highly logical case can be made for either method."

"Indeed," said Tuvok. "Feeding him energy at his specific current wavelength could give him the ability to complete his action or free him from the temporal stasis he currently is experiencing. Conversely, precisely canceling his signature could have exactly the same effect. We do not currently have enough data to make a decision."

"We've tried firing phasers at the shuttle at the lowest possible setting," Barklin said, "but there was no discernible change to his status." At the raised eyebrow he was getting from Janeway he added, "That setting is so weak that one of our security people refers to it as having his phaser set on tickle." He shook his head. "But if it was going to help or hurt, then we should have seen at least a very small change in his status." He ran a hand through his hair. "At this point, even though we have the necessary signature, it'll take us days to properly reconfigure something."

Tom Paris and Harry Kim locked eyes, and simultaneously said, "His phaser!"

"Explain," Admiral Paris said. There was an undercurrent of amusement at the simultaneity of their outburst, as well as a bit of pride.

Tom nodded to Harry Kim, who cleared his throat. "Well, Admiral, Lieutenant Potter has his own personal phaser which is tuned to his magical signature. If he doesn't have it with him on the Flyer, then it's probably back in his quarters on the Voyager."

"Magic?" Admiral Paris asked, his voice making it very clear that he doubted Harry Kim's sanity.

"While it is not commonly known these days, Admiral," Tuvok interjected, "there is evidence to show that Lieutenant Potter has access to something that the rest of the crew does not. The people of New Londinium share this capability, I understand. Whatever it is, he has been able to counteract the entity known as Q with his abilities. I have also seen records of him performing unusual feats with the phaser in question, that no Starfleet phaser is capable of doing, and only when he is using the phaser. Any other crewman attempting the same feats fails. I believe it to be a worthwhile avenue of research, since that phaser is already tuned by him to his particular signature."

Admiral Paris nodded before looking back to Harry Kim. "My apologies, Lieutenant."

"Understood, sir. I had the same reaction the first time I heard the word 'magic'."

At a nod from the admiral and Barklin, Tuvok called the Voyager. "Tuvok to Voyager. We need to verify whether or not Lieutenant Potter's personal phaser is with him or aboard Voyager."

"Understood. The Hermiones are running to his quarters to check. We'll let you know in a minute."

It was actually five minutes, and it was answered by both girls beaming onto the shuttle bay of the Smith. "He left it home, so to speak," said 'Ann'.

"If someone is willing to fire a very short, weak burst at the shuttle, we can see if it will have any effect," Captain Barklin said.

'Jane' asked, "Do we have a non-magical fire it, or me?" She paused. "Possibly her as well, but we've never tested Ann."

"I believe that someone non-magical should fire it," Tuvok said. "We do not know if your signature would interfere."

"That was my thought as well," she said as she handed the phaser to him. "I'll let you decide the best candidate."

"It would perhaps be myself," he replied. "I do not believe that I have ever shown the slightest tendency toward the manner of unusual activities surrounding me that Lieutenant Potter spoke of, which would signify an ability to wield this energy form in some manner."

A moment later, the Smith's science people shook their heads. "It seemed to work, but would take a ship's complement of phasers to have any hope of success. Readings indicate that he will come into phase with us if we can supply enough energy."

"Looks like we need to figure out a way to tune our engines to supply the properly phased energy," Barklin said.

Tom Paris winced. "I have an idea, but I suspect that you'll think I'm crazy when I say it."

Captain Janeway looked at him for a moment and then gave him a wide smile. "An excellent idea, Lieutenant Paris. We'll have to figure out how to deliver that power, but it certainly should work."

Tom's father was looking more than slightly amused, especially since Tuvok was also showing signs of approval, having clearly realized what Tom was suggesting. "For those of us who haven't been aboard Voyager for the last seven years, perhaps you could explain? Lieutenant Paris? Since you seem to have had the original idea?"

"Yes, Admiral," he replied with a smile. "You can ask Harry about it when we get him back, but back in April … uh, several months ago, Harry had the idea of how to get us home. He managed to get the Delta Flyer home for a few minutes when we tuned the Flyer's engines to his signature, so we tuned the Voyager's engines to it as well. We discovered a side effect that led eventually to this situation we're in right now, but we never detuned either the Flyer or Voyager. Our engines are ready right now."

Barklin's eyebrows rose, and he got an excited look on his face. "The fastest route to deliver it would be for us to empty the shuttle bay, open it to space, and let Voyager fire a low power beam right at him."

Janeway blinked. "Now I know you're a different Captain Barklin. You're offering to let us fire our ship's phasers at a spot inside your ship. I'd be hard pressed to allow Captain S'rell such an offer."

Barklin shrugged. "It's that important. We can wait for two or three days while we attempt to match his signature, or we can let the people who already have their engines tuned do it. Makes sense to me to allow you to bring your man back as quickly as possible."

"You'll want your engines up and running," Tom Paris said. "You're drifting ever so slightly in space with them off, and this is going to require pinpoint accuracy." He scowled. "We'll need the best pilots we've both got. If we had the best one available, though, we wouldn't be needing to have this conversation. My recommendation is that you see if you can find someone who can thread a needle with a shuttle and put them at your helm."

Barklin looked contemplative for a moment and then smiled. "Let me contact the bridge crew and see what we can work out." He walked to a wall console and spoke to someone for a minute or two before grinning and walking back over to them.

"There will be another timeship appearing in about five minutes. We have found a pilot for our ship, since Lieutenant Paris would probably be best aboard Voyager. I am not breaking any laws of time to say that we are not using Lieutenant Potter to pilot the Vivian Smith," he finished with a laugh.

"That could cause a paradox, I would think," both Hermiones said in unison.

"You're probably right," Janeway said. "I suspect that we should return to our ships to prepare for this," she added, motioning to the Starfleet members from her time frame.

"Probably," Barklin said. "If you want to leave an observer to watch from the shuttle control room, I won't complain, and promise to return them to you."

Janeway laughed. "You're letting us fire phasers at you. I think I can trust that you'd return any of my crew to me."

Admiral Paris walked over to his son. "I know I said this in a communication to you back when we first managed to get in touch with you, but … son, I'm proud of you. So proud of what you've become. And I'm sorry I never -"

"Dad, we've got all the time in the world to hash things out between us when this is done," Tom interrupted, a smile on his face. His eyes were suspiciously bright. "Permission to hug an admiral?" he added with a wide grin.

"Consider it an order, son," his father replied, eyes just as bright. They held it for nearly a minute, and parted reluctantly.

"Harry is going to be so unhappy that he missed that," 'Ann' said. "He tries to look tough, but he's a sucker for emotional moments like that."

"Let's make one of our own by freeing him," Barklin said. "I'd personally like to thank the man for his changes to the timeline."

People returned to their respective ships, and the Vivian Smith finished its engine restart. Tom looked at the Smith, and said, "Y'know, I keep thinking Potter would make some comment about cosmic jumper cables."

"You're probably right," Janeway answered with a chuckle. "Is everything ready?"

"Affirmative," she heard from the various stations.

"Tuvok? Everything ready on the Smith?"

"Affirmative, Captain Janeway. Captain Barklin and I are in the control room, awaiting the start of the process."

"Understood. Tom, please maneuver into position and hold us steady."

"Affirmative," Tom Paris replied, already getting working himself into the zone he fell into for his best piloting. Voyager began to move, gently pivoting around the Vivian Smith until they could look into the shuttle bay.

"Very well done, Tom," Janeway said. "I doubt our other pilot could have done it any better."

"High praise indeed, Captain," he said with a distracted laugh. It was fairly obvious that he was keeping most of his attention on the console, ready for any corrections that might be needed.

Barklin's voice came over the comm. "When you feel the time is right, you have my permission to fire, Captain."

"Thank you, Captain. Mr Kim? Fire when you feel conditions are favorable."

"Just a moment Captain. I'm waiting for our drift to stop … now. Thanks Tom." As he spoke, a white beam lanced out from Voyager into the Smith's shuttle bay, impacting on the wavering Delta Flyer.

"Readings seem to show him coming more into phase, Captain," Kim reported. "Shouldn't be too much longer until -" He stopped because they all saw a brilliant flash of light from the Smith's shuttle bay.

"Captain, it appears that Lieutenant Potter's shuttle has … disappeared."

"Was there a power fluctuation at the end or something?" she asked.

"Negative," Tuvok reported from the Smith. "I was monitoring the progress as well, and all seemed to be in order. The Delta Flyer was continuing to match phase with the surrounding universe. When sensors reported a one hundred percent match, the Delta Flyer disappeared in a brilliant release of energy, almost all of it in the human visual spectrum."

"So we brought him back, but now we don't know where he is?" she asked.

"Imprecise, but essentially correct," Tuvok said. "There is no trace to tell us where or when he might have gone."