Chapter 29

The hooves of the police horse sparked against the cobbles as she urged it with her heels, clattering through the busy streets towards Waterloo Station. As she drew stares from those she passed she realised if Geoff really was alive and a Temporal Agent in this timeline he'd tan her hide for this incursion, but she didn't care. Her blood screamed for vengeance and her twin was on that platform, along with a brother she had mourned for over a decade. She had to get to Waterloo Station.

At least she was moving faster on horseback than she had over the rooftops. The words to Chim Chim-eney had kept flashing into her mind, disrupting her focus.

"Straight ahead at the next junction." Bastion advised her.

"If I don't get the chance later… Thank you for all your help today Bastion." she said with heartfelt sincerity.

"My pleasure. Just make sure the mission succeeds."

…

"There are more than there were last time." Geordi whispered to Data.

"Indeed."

"Sir, I just got word that the Pelham's have been secured and Lieutenant Prior is on her way." the Security Officer, Rickman reported. "Also she's not been using the transporter rounds you issued." he added reluctantly.

"She has been killing them." Data confirmed, although it was a statement not a question.

"It's not like her to defy orders." Haydn commented as Data handed him a pistol.

"The Barclay from her timeline was killed in the attack." Geordi offered as an explanation. "She's not exactly at her most rational at the moment."

The thought was vague, a stray wandering from Emlyn's mind. It happened from time to time when he was nervous and lost focus momentarily. "They should have sent more than twenty men if they expect to stop Taryn when she's angry."

"Can you contact the Commander LaForge on the train?" Data asked Rickman.

"No sir, something is blocking his communicator. We aren't sure what."

Data nodded. "Perhaps it is the remnants of the temporal lock imposed causing problems." Data signed his words as he spoke, for Emlyn's benefit. "Can you send a thought to the Geordi on the train Emlyn?"

"I need line of sight." Emlyn replied. "But there is something I can try. What's the message?"

Data signed the message using his hands, Emlyn nodded and stepped closer to Geordi. He placed his hand on his face and initiated a mind-meld. Geordi tensed but allowed him to probe his thoughts. He felt something, like a strand reaching out into the distance, searching…

…

"Why are we returning to London?" Bill Matthews asked as they sat on a train with his wife opposite.

"We are taking you to the Langham Hotel, it is the muster…" he stopped as Geordi leapt to his feet. "Are you alright Geordi?"

"I think I just…" Geordi whetted his lips. "I have to…" He reached up and pulled the emergency chain and the train lurched to a halt.

…

The Jem'Hadar broke ranks and several of the warriors jumped onto the tracks and ran towards the train. Geordi stayed on the platform, monitoring those who remained with Rickman and Emlyn while Data and Haydn ran after them down the track. Data pulled a grenade from each pocket and tossed one to Haydn.

"Activate and throw a head of them on my mark." Data told him. Haydn nodded, recognising the device and adjusted it in his right hand. Data in his left.

"Can you bowl a googly Data?" Haydn grinned as they ran.

"I have never played cricket, but I am familiar with the technique. Mark!" Data ordered and they loosed their grenades, bouncing along the margins of the track by the platform. An electric charge arced between the grenades as the warriors drew in line with it and became visible. They slowed, the charge was insufficient to stun them but it succeeded in breaking their shroud.

"Open fire!" Data ordered. His first bullet struck its target's back, he barely flinched as it unfolded against his tunic, a light blinked briefly and he was transported away. They kept firing, removing soldiers from the area as they moved closer.

…

"Get the shields back up! Scan for intruders!" Geoff ordered from Bastion's centre seat. "Prior to Enterprise, we have weapons and propulsion restored, how can we assist?"

"Worf to Prior. Evade and fire!" Worf bellowed.

"Sounds like a plan. Mr Barnard, Mr Nog?"

…

"Who pulled the alarm?" the conductor demanded as he entered the carriage. Geordi punched him in the face.

"Geordi?" Data asked, his expression aghast. He looked up as something outside the carriage caught his eye. A woman on horseback approaching at speed and turning to ride alongside the train towards the station.

"Was that Taryn?" Geordi asked.

"Yes, and she looks extremely vexated."

Geordi grimaced and clutched his upper chest.

"Geordi?"

"I'm okay… I think." he stated as he steadied himself on the back of a seat. "I don't know how, or why, but it's really important we keep everyone on this train." he told Data confidentially.

Data frowned and leaned out of the window, peering forwards. "I can see why." he stated as he watched the fire-fight unfolding on the track ahead, and his older self-taking part in it. He looked back at Geordi. "Another temporal incursion is taking place."

…

"We need to get him out of here!" Emlyn thought to Rickman as he put pressure on the bullet wound in Geordi's chest. They were taking cover behind a stack of trunks on the platform. "He's bleeding out."

"Wait." Geordi murmured and rummaged in his pocket. "You might need this, we've only got one and it's risky through the shields, but it'll get one of you to the Enterprise." he shoved the emergency transporter into Emlyn's hand.

"You need this more than us." Rickman stated and Emlyn nodded in agreement.

Geordi shook his head, "I kinda guessed this would be a one-way trip, at least for somebody."

"Bollocks." Emlyn thought and pressed the transporter to Geordi's arm.

…

"Get him to Sickbay!" Worf bellowed over the fray as almost as soon as Geordi materialised on the Bridge. The Enterprise rocked and bucked under the onslaught of the enemy ship. "Evasive pattern alpha!"

A Jem'Hadar corpse loomed large into the viewscreen and slid over the scanner another followed, and another. "Commander, the shuttle has been destroyed." the Officer at Ops called.

"Advise the Captain, the prisoners are lost." he ordered.

…

Taryn stepped down from the saddle while the horse was still in motion. She turned and slapped it hard on the rump, propelling it to canter away, probably towards it's stable. She drew her pistols, striding towards the Jem'Hadar at an angle that kept her out of the line of fire of Data and… It was really him, Haydn, and he was alive. A sob tried to escape from her chest but she choked it. She had work to do. She opened fire, taking their foe by surprise while they stood exposed on the track. One by one they fell until she ran out of bullets, and she holstered them. She ran towards the nearest corpse and drew the daggers from it's belt.

"Hold your fire." Data called to Haydn as she whirled between the Jem'Hadar, slicing and cutting, turning the blades in her hands to stab, thrust and defend herself as though she was born to it.

She could almost feel her Orion ancestors jeering in her blood as she fought. A line of Green Women trailing back centuries. Training their daughters and grand-daughters, almost from birth, each generation adding something to the art. "We can't defeat a male with strength, but we have our glamour, our guile and a blade in our clothing if we need it." was the age-old wisdom, whispered in the ears of newborn Green daughters. It was the first lullaby they heard.

She heard it, almost as if in a dream through the green mist that surrounded her skin, through the adrenalin that fired her blood. A voice from someone's communicator in the distance. The shuttle was destroyed. She tossed the knife in her left hand, catching it by the bloodstained blade while barely looking at it and threw it into the neck of a Jem'Hadar as more enemies beamed into the area. She drew one of her pistols and ejected the clip as she tucked the remaining blade into her belt and drew another clip and slid it into place.

"Hold your breath, you fucking bastard." Taryn hissed as she fired, delight flashing in her eyes as the knarled warrior was beamed into space, followed by another and another.

…

"Now she decides to follow orders." Data exclaimed with a shake of his head.

"Wait, she hasn't spotted the bloke with the rifle." Haydn warned as he saw a Jem'Hadar beam in and take aim. Data drew a phaser from his jacket, set to kill and fired less than a second after the rifleman. The warrior fell at the same moment his bullet hit Taryn square in the chest. She dropped to the floor inert. "NO!" Haydn screamed, cast the pistol aside and ran towards the remaining warriors firing his phaser.

…

For Emlyn, ideas were a strange concept. Not the nature of thought or consciousness, that was easy for him to grasp but it was the origin of ideas that confused him. He was a walking antennae picking up a constant stream of thought and until he learned to control it, amplifying and rebroadcasting it to anyone he could see. As such he was never really certain whether his ideas were his own or picked up subconsciously in the tide of thought that assailed him.

After learning that control, and the fine tuning that enabled him to manipulate the thoughts of others in the same way his sister controlled her hormones he had to develop another skill.

Discretion. But even before that he was able to keep secrets.

He knew why Edara rejected him. It was in her mind as clear as a bell ringing. It wasn't his colouring, his resemblance to her lost Vulcan lover or any of the reasons his family and friends speculated.

"Monster." The word echoed in her mind, she was repulsed by him. The thoughts he sent to her terrified her. To be honest they terrified him, and until recently he didn't know the source. The craving, the lust for blood and flesh. The pain and torment of others since the beginning of time that screamed to be set free, to control the body it occupied. It was Multitude in her courtier, later imprisoned in his twin and even as an infant he had tried to warn the only person he knew would understand. The one whose mind was full of the old stories of the Fourth Kind, the lost Orion species that parasitically inhabited the bodies of others.

Edara had never experienced telepathy before. She misinterpreted what his newborn mind had tried to communicate and now… Multitude was gone and now she understood, saw him with different eyes only now they were veiled with guilt that rended her soul and continued to come between them.

As he cowered behind a stack of cases while Rickman returned fire vaguely in the direction of assailants they couldn't see, bullets flying around him he knew the source of this idea, he recognised the voice. The Geordi on the ship was screaming it in his mind and it was being relayed by the Geordi on the train he still felt the remnants of his connection to. "Find the sniper Emlyn!" He pushed away his own fear along with that of the innocent people caught in the firefight and focused.

"We need to move." Rickman told him, but he barely heard. He sat impassive with his eyes glazed as he peered through a gap in the cases at a vague distortion near a pillar. "Emlyn? Are you hit?" the officer swore and continued firing.

…

Emlyn looked at his hands, they were scaled and he held a pistol. "No, not the right weapon or vantage point." he realised as he looked around. He also realised the Jem'Hadar had vision capable of seeing through their own camouflage as he surveyed the scene, making the most of this advantage. He selected another enemy, held the pistol to his head and fired. The next man had a better view, three options lay ahead, no…. He picked up a stray thought. "Wind shear." Someone in this man's eyeline was worried about the wind through the platform diverting his shot. He looked up and saw him, perched among the rafters.

…

Rickman's eyes widened as a series of reports sounded and one by one the aliens on the platform shimmered into view and fell. He looked up and saw a warrior with a rifle shooting his comrades from a sniper nest, until there were no more and he placed the barrel under his own chin and fired. "Did you do that?" Rickman asked Emlyn beside him. The hybrid nodded, a broad smile spreading across his Vulcan features. "Next time let me know. I thought you were catatonic or something!"

…

She was having the weirdest dream, everything was dark and she could hear people talking. Data, Geordi, some voices she didn't recognise and Haydn.

"I have a pulse, she is breathing again." Data stated from somewhere near her head.

"I've never seen anything like it." a woman commented. "Is it because she's… you know…"

"A blow to the chest above the cardiac muscle can interrupt the electrical impulses that control it's contractions in many humanoid life forms." Data explained from beside her.

"And you made her heart beat again by hitting her?" she asked.

"Technically it never stopped beating, it was in a pattern of fibrillation known as commotio cordis." the Data by her head added.

"The blow is called a precordial thump. It has limited effect but I am able to deliver it more precisely than an organic being could. As we currently have no other method of defibrillation our options were non-existent."

"I've learned so much from you Data, more than I learned training as a nurse." Lizzie Matthews replied.

"What happened…?" Taryn murmured.

"You did what you always warn me about Shrimp, you lost your rag and lost focus in a fight." Haydn spat. "If that… what the hell are you wearing? You have a camel toe. It's disgusting!" She through her arms around his neck.

"Oh, God it's true! You're alive and you're still the biggest arsehole in creation." she wept on her brother's shoulder.

"You're bloody lucky that fetish suit is bullet proof Shrimp." Haydn grinned as he hugged his sister. "God help us with two of you in the same universe."

"I didn't think it was bulletproof." she looked down at her chest. A flattened bullet was embedded in the fabric above her sternum. "Reg must've added another layer and not told me." she looked away. Pain etched on her pretty features.

"Data told me about your Reg, I'm so sorry…" Haydn said as Emlyn and Rickman joined them, along with back up to escort the Matthews to the hotel.

"We should get you to Sickbay." the older Data suggested after they had said their goodbyes.

"Indeed, while it is unlikely you suffered permanent damage we should ensure…" the other Data added.

"Stop it you two. Sheesh, you're fussing in stereo." Taryn said as she stood, "Although I think I have the mother of all bruises and maybe popped a couple of ribs out of my sternum." she winced and rubbed her chest.

"That will be the concussive force…" younger Data started then stopped under her withering stare. Her expression changed and she tilted her head as she appraised him. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"No I just.. I didn't expect you to look so young." she touched his cheek gently and gave the older Data a wide-eyed grin.

"Behave yourself, you are a married woman." he warned her. "Where is Geordi? Our Geordi." he clarified.

"He got shot I think." Geordi stated, also rubbing his upper chest, "I don't know what you did Emlyn but it was really freaky."

Emlyn smiled apologetically and rubbed his fist in a circle in the centre of his chest as well as thinking "Sorry."

"He was bleeding pretty bad, he had an emergency transport button so we evacuated him with it." Rickman explained.

"Good, we should return to the Enterprise also." Data Senior added and touched his communicator. "Data to Enterprise." he waited for a response. The response was broken up.

"…Captain…..minimal power…shields gone….." Worf reported. "….oday is a good day to die Captain…It has… an honour."

"Oh shit, he's gone all…. Klingon." Taryn exclaimed. "This is bad."

"Bastion, do you have transport capability? We need to return to the Enterprise." Data asked desperately.

"I am also on emergency power," Bastion responded, "but I do have another suggestion…."

…

"Thirty seconds." Bastion reminded.

"Will the transfer be complete?" she asked as she checked the port on the younger Data's scalp. "Is there enough time?"

"It has finished." Data stated and removed the lead he had brought with him from his own head. "Can you access the file?" he asked himself while Taryn and Geordi replaced the panels behind their ears.

He turned his head slightly. "I am getting a file compatibility error." he replied.

"I was afraid of this. Behaviourally my Data was so different… he's from another universe, there are bound to be incompatibilities in file structure." Taryn stated.

"Perhaps after study and analysis, conversion may be possible." Young Data suggested. "I will download the file to the ships computer and endeavour to recover your experiences of the divergent timelines."

"Twenty seconds."

"Anything that really can't wait you'd better tell him now." Taryn suggested as slid back the cocking mechanism on her pistol.

Data stepped closer to his younger self and whispered in his ear. His eyes widened as he listened and he nodded in unison with himself as they parted.

"Ten seconds."

The older Data hugged Taryn tightly. "Whatever happens, it will not be your responsibility." he told her.

"You just remember you're going back to save the day, not go down with the ship." she whispered into his shoulder before pulling away and adjusting his tie or maladjusting it to be precise. She realised it was habit, she'd always moved one of his pips a millimetre out of line since the day she met him. Eventually she'd told him perfection wasn't all it was cracked up to be and he needed to relax. He'd replied that she seemed perfect, and would she like to show him how to relax over dinner.

"Geordi." he nodded at his friend.

"Good luck Data." Geordi told him. "Not that you need luck."

"Ready?" Taryn asked as Bastion counted down.

"I am leaving her in your care." Data said to his younger self. "Ensure she receives medical treatment at the earliest opportunity."

"What am I? A cat?" Taryn asked as she took aim. "If you're trying to make it easier for me to shoot you it's working."

"It is not every day a girl gets to shoot her former husband." Data smirked.

She paused. "That's the first time you've actually sounded like my Data…. I really did love him…"

"I know." Data replied earnestly. "I will see you soon, on the Enterprise." he assured her as Bastion reached the number one.

"Mark." She fired into Data's chest and the transporter round unfolded before he shimmered out of sight.

"Did he say former husband?" Geordi asked her with a frown.

"Technically current husband." Taryn replied.

"But I thought you and Reg… God, please tell me this wasn't some weird three-way thing?"

"Actually, it was a four-way thing. Reg was married too… Oh you mean…" she said at his expression. "No no no, there was no…group boinking or anything." Taryn clarified.

"Boinking?" Data asked.

"I'll explain later." Geordi told him.

…

Data drifted in orbit, he'd known precisely the odds of success to two thousand decimal places and they were far from good. His orbit was starting to decay, he could feel the pull of gravity against his skin. He had no way of making contact with anyone. In space, no one can hear you scream was something Taryn was fond of saying. He had in fact watched the movie it referred to before he had met her. He found it a somewhat unrealistic portrayal of space travel but in spite of this he had considered naming Spot Jones for two point three millionths of a nano second. People frequently asked him why he gave his cat a name usually ascribed to a dog. The short answer was he had been the runt of the litter and was extremely small as a kitten, but also it simply amused him to see the expression on people's faces when he told them his pets name. Finally, in this body he was able to both realise this fact and articulate it.

He had missed the Enterprise by millimetres. It was no one's fault. Bastion had calculated its path would coincide with the coordinates of the destroyed shuttle, close enough to grasp something on the hull and make his way to an airlock but it had shifted from its trajectory due to a blast from the Jem'Hadar fighter. He had seen it himself. It was quite a firefight and it was still raging. The Enterprise was in pieces and Bastion was faring little better. It had been a good idea on Bastion's part. An idea to be proud of and in this body he was so proud of the ship that had selected him as a father figure.

Data rarely thought about death. He thought about being destroyed or breaking down, his version of dwelling on his own mortality he supposed, but rarely about death as a concept. He had always assumed he was exempt by reason of his artificial nature. Taryn had made him reconsider this. While they were at Daystrom still trying to unravel the Gordian knot in B4's head she had said something that had touched him, and as the Oracle of the Prophets she had reminded him of it once more. The first law of thermodynamics was a concept she applied to the mystical spark which was 'life' and added that he was loved, and how could a being loved by so many not be in possession of a soul.

He'd never expected to slowly burn up on re-entry like a disused satellite in the 19th century. That took him completely by surprise.

In space no one could hear him scream, and no one could hear his solution to the problem of the interphasic torpedoes that had occurred to him three thousandths of a second after the transport had initiated.

Author's note:

Apologies this chapter took so long coming. I had to read the previous chapters to be sure of the continuity and only this week have I felt well enough to sit and type.

As you may guess there is one more chapter to come plus an epilogue which is half written and I hope to have posted in the next two weeks. The sequel to this story is around two thirds complete already so I'm excited to get this one finished and start posting the next. No I havent forgotten Hollow Victories either. That will also continue soon.

In case you were wondering Rickman was of course named after Alan Rickman who sadly died around the time I was coming up with names for my redshirts. I gave him the first name David in honour of David Bowie.

I've also been playing with a story based on the R.E.D. movies while I've been ill. It's very much a WIP but I may post it at some point.

Thank you so much for bearing with me.

Oh and of course I don't own any of the songs from Mary Poppins or anything from the Alien Trilogy.