The wailing klaxon of a ship at red alert was supposedly calibrated to perfectly get the attention of any humanoid species, without damaging their ears in the process, no matter how sensitive those ears were. Personally, Commander Omak had always felt that it was like two cruel beings each aiming active phaser bores at either side of his skull. Needless to say, it was not the sort of sound that one wanted to wake up to.

The Ferengi groaned as his eyes fluttered open, revealing a bright white light. That immediately ruled out the Divine Treasury – said to be made of pure latinum, it would have a golden glow – and after blinking a few times and climbing to a rough sitting position, he found himself exactly where he had been: main engineering of Hydra, red alert lights flashing and klaxon wailing.

Nearby, he spotted two of the other engineers on duty – lieutenant McMillan and ensign Anderson, both humans. Both were still out cold. His first instinct was to go and check their vitals, but a Starfleet chief engineer had more important duties. Rubbing some of the bleariness from his eyes, he tapped some commands into the console beneath him, checking the status of the ship.

Warp core – drained to 60% power, but intact and building back slowly. Containment field – intact. Regulators – running at normal. Life support – functional. Hydra had been scratched some by whatever the anomaly was or, more precisely to Omak's way of thinking, whoever had been incompetent enough to get them dragged into it in the first place. Regardless, there were no hull breaches and no immediate danger that he could see. Duty satisfied, he made his way over to the further of the two humans, Anderson, as McMillan already beginning to wake up.

"Commander…?" she asked, pulling herself slowly into a sitting position and rubbing her head. "What – what happened?"

"Nothing that could kill us immediately," Omak said through grit teeth, examining Anderson. His forehead had a cut, probably from hitting the console after blacking out. "After that, your guess is as good as mine." He tapped his comm badge. "Omak to sickbay, we have an injured crewman here in engineering – concussion, probably."

There was silence, and Omak grunted. He tapped his badge again. "Omak to bridge." Nothing. "Omak to weapons control." Still nothing. The Ferengi grunted again. "Great, we're the only ones awake. Or alive. Lieutenant, stay with Anderson. If he wakes up, keep him awake. I'm gonna go look for Egrat – "

"I'm – gah – here!" A call came from above, the second level of engineering where the nonessential monitoring stations were. Omak glanced up, and saw the Tellarite female waving down at him, one hand clutching the opposite forearm, face contorted in obvious pain. She let out a string of syllables in Tellaran that Omak didn't recognize and his universal translator wasn't programmed with before continuing. "I broke my gscihachkarrij arm!"

That kind of language was unbecoming of a Starfleet officer – and heard all the time in a starship's engineering section when the reds and blues weren't around. Omak paid the ensign's choice of vocabulary no mind as he made his way up to her, stopping to grab an emergency medkit along the way. "I thought Tellarites were resistant to pain," he noted as he reached her and opened the medkit.

"We aren't immobilized by it, it still hurts like a – " another string of untranslated words. "Sir," she added at the end. Nearby was a heavy section of bulkhead, removed in her evidently futile haste to access the wall panels behind it so as to repurpose the deflector dish. It falling on Egrat after she herself had fallen unconscious had probably been what had broken her arm.

"Well, here's the good stuff," Omak said, pulling out the portable scanner in the medkit and running it over Egrat's form as it analyzed her species, weight, and checked for any allergies. Once done, the medkit automatically filled up its hypospray with an appropriate kind and dosage of painkiller, which the Ferengi injected into an extremely grateful Egrat – though not before reducing the dosage by half.

"Sir?" Egrat asked after noticing that, and more importantly that the expected instant-relief wasn't as relieving as it should have been. It also didn't affect her motor functions as a full dose of painkiller would have, however.

"Sickbay didn't respond – hang on," he tapped his combadge again. "Omak to anyone. Anyone at all." There were several long moments of silence save for a quick wave from McMillan from below – confirming her comm badge worked – before Omak continued. "Engineering is the most shielded part of the ship, whatever knocked us out must have had the least effect here. I need you to be walking wounded – I can't spare McMillan and just leave only me. Starfleet regulations, not to mention just bad engineering philosophy." He offered a toothy grin. "It's only two decks. Take Anderson with you."

Egrat grumbled almost inaudibly as she followed Omak down to the first level. Anderson hadn't woken up, though a quick once-over with the emergency medical kit revealed that, apart from an easily-fixable-in-sickbay minor concussion, he was fine. Tellarites were a strong species, and McMillan and Omak were able to load the unconscious human over one of Egrat's shoulders and send her on her way.

"Let us know if they all died up there," Omak said as Egrat left. Egrat responded with something that was probably insubordinate, but the Ferengi paid it no mind as he looked to McMillan. "Alright, lieutenant, let's do this by the numbers. Full diagnostic of all systems, fast but thorough…"

Seife Yaaseen Tsegaye – lieutenant-commander and doctor, U.S.S. Hydra – hadn't faced a headache like this since his academy days. He had been woken up by the only other medical officer aboard, ensign Hauser, and was even now standing slowly and getting his bearings while Hauser ran a medical scanner over him.

"Computer," Tsegaye said. "Life signs and conditions aboard Hydra?"

"Ship sensors detect sixteen life signs, all stable," the computer informed him.

"Good, there is that at least." He looked to Hauser. Outside sickbay was a place for the stratification of rank, but inside there were only two kinds of people: doctors and their patients, and right now Tsegaye was in the latter category. "What is the damage, doctor?"

"You were unconscious for about fifteen minutes," Hauser concluded after looking over the tricorder. "I'm detecting falling amounts of adenosine…like someone who just woke up from a full night's sleep. No reason you can't work, though. Also no sign of what caused the blackout…"

"I have an idea of that already," Tsegaye said, running one hand over his beard and looking at Hauser. They had been monitoring the events on the bridge, not having much to do otherwise. "You only came aboard two months ago, yes? You missed the missions to Deep Space K-7 and the Gateway planet."

"Yes, sir."

"Well. Both of those occasions involves tachyons and chronitons – because Hydra was taken through temporal fissures in each instance, into the past. Some methods of time travel induce blackouts amongst any humanoids aboard a starship, the length of which is proportionate to the amount of time traveled through. Whatever that anomaly was most likely one of those methods."

Hauser's eyes widened an impressive amount at that. "Time travel, sir?" He asked, voice a mix of shock and incredulousness. "So…are we in the past or the future?"

"I do not know," Tsegaye said, as the doors to the sickbay opened and ensign Egrat came in, one arm hanging limply by her side and the other carrying an unconscious ensign Anderson. Both doctors immediately rushed over even as Egrat started saying something long and, judging from the tone, impolite.

"Broke my arm, Anderson has a concussion," she explained quickly as the two doctors took Anderson and brought him over to a medical bed, Tsegaye immediately getting to work once he heard about the concussion while Hauser returned to Egrat to deal with the simpler broken arm. "Commander Omak and lieutenant McMillan are awake down in engineering and fine. Which reminds me," she used her good arm to awkwardly tap her comm badge. "Egrat to engineering. Doctors Tsegaye and Hauser are alive and awake. Permission to speak freely?"

"Denied," Omak's voice came in reply, "but I think I know what you're going to say."

"You deserve it and more for making a wounded crewman drag another wounded crewman through a starship!" Tsegaye exclaimed from over Anderson's prone form as he placed a neurostabilizer on his head.

"Needs of the moment, doctor – ensuring Hydra's running properly is more important than any person aboard her. Starfleet engineering regulation ninety four dash…something or other." There was a pause. "She made it alright, didn't she? Engineering out."

Tsegaye shook his head. Engineers. Positions reversed Egrat would likely have reacted the same way with Omak; for that matter, so would Anderson. "We shall have a long discussion about that later, commander." He said under his breath as he removed the neurostabilizer from Anderson's head. "Anderson is going to be fine, though I do not envy the headache he will have when he wakes up. Doctor Hauser?"

Hauser had guided Egrat over to another medical bed and helped the short Tellarite up onto it, running an osteoscanner over her arm once she was there. "A clean fracture, doctor. Ensign Egrat will be fit for duty in fifteen minutes."

"And in twenty you'll be attending to commander Omak," Egrat said, then her eyes widened slightly. Tellarites historically had a problem with insubordinate talk in Starfleet, the natural result of a culture that prized argument and back-talk highly.

Tsegaye shook a finger at her, but that was the limit of his reprimand as he went over to a field medical kit and double checked it. "I shall make some rounds, then," he said. "There might be other injuries amongst the crew. Keep an eye on ensign Anderson, doctor, and use the EMH if you need to."

Sh'Sihl had fallen partially face-first into her own captain's chair, and a stinging at her right palm as she woke revealed a shallow cut that bled a deeper blue than the skin it was contrasted against. She had no memory of what could have caused the cut, but at the moment it didn't matter as she stood quickly, ignoring the headache and the hurt hand. Over at the helm, ensign Vanoni was already waking up as well, having apparently passed out in his chair, while a glance behind her showed ensign Ludjira slumped down against a bulkhead, lieutenant Sila unconscious at comms, and commander T'Lal on the floor nearby. All three were breathing evenly, at least.

"Ensign, status," sh'Sihl said as she went over to T'Lal, the closer of the two.

Vanoni shook his head a few times to clear it – slower human metabolism working against him as compared to sh'Sihl's own speed at waking up – but responded after a moment. "Hydra is adrift, sir, but engines are functioning…and helm control has been restored." He tapped a few buttons, taking control of Hydra once more. "We were in a degrading orbit over Ceres, would have hit the planetoid in another six hours. Good thing we woke up."

"Indeed," sh'Sihl noted, rolling T'Lal over and checking her pulse. It was steady, but the captain had no idea what the standard Vulcan heart rate was. She performed a quick count regardless, then left her for the moment and went over to Ludjira. She didn't feel a pulse at Ludjira's throat, but given that the ensign was breathing…feeling around the neck a little on the guess that every species needed a major artery to supply its brain with blood, she found a pulse at the base of Ludjira's skull. That, like T'Lal's, was beating steadily and strongly, and sh'Sihl decided it was a good sign. Sila's artery, meanwhile, was in her neck as it was in T'Lal's or sh'Sihl's own case, and once again the captain found no problems that she could discern.

Crew seen to, the Andorian walked over to ops and looked it over. "This ship is in one piece," she noted. "Warp engines are drained but recovering…shields are down, so are long-range sensors. Short range…are not picking up any signs of the anomaly."

"Can't spot it visually either, captain," Vanoni said. He had taken control of the viewscreen, and was using it to pan around the outside of the ship, even as he moved Hydra around the planetoid beneath them. "Internal chronometers say that we've only been out for about fifteen minutes, captain, and the anomaly was in a stable orbit over Ceres. It's not where it was. It might have moved to the other side, though."

"Somehow I don't think we'll be that lucky," sh'Sihl said, rubbing her eyes and sighing as something obvious hit her. "El-Adrel. If it's been fifteen minutes then the El-Adrel would have arrived and at least tractored us into a stable orbit and sent over an away team to check on us. Hell, with all the signals a Sovereign-class like her sends out we should be able to detect her with the short-range sensors even if she was somewhere in the Oort cloud."

Ensign Vanoni turned in his chair, looking at his captain with a mixture of annoyance and concern. "I know gambling's against regulation…but I'll bet my upcoming shore leave that the stars aren't in the right positions."

Sh'Sihl shook her head, not being nearly dumb enough to take that bet, then glanced up. "Computer, analyze current position of visible stars, compare to ship's records." As she said this, the turbolift's nearby doors hissed open, and lieutenant-commander Tsegaye walked in, carrying a case of medical supplies. She nodded to him and indicated the unconscious crew members, but then looked back up. "Tell us how far back in time we've gone."

"Might be forward," Tsegaye volunteered as he made his way over to Sila first, taking out a medical tricorder and scanning her.

Ensign Vanoni shook his head. "If it was the future then we'd almost certainly have Starfleet vessels bearing down on us right now, sir. No, I'll bet we're in the past. Mid twenty-first century or earlier if we aren't being challenged."

"Analysis complete," the computer announced. "Stars are out of alignment. Their current positions correspond to Stardate negative 343283.4."

"That's more than four hundred standard years," sh'Sihl noted.

"Four hundred thirty-one," Vanoni supplied, after a few moments of mental calculation. "That would make the local year…1979. September 19th, 1979."

Sh'Sihl nodded, trying to remember what she knew about Terran history and largely coming up blank. It hadn't been tremendously important prior to the founding of the Federation. "Any major events we should be aware of?" she asked.

Tsegaye shrugged, while Vanoni glanced up. "Computer, list major historical events on Earth, local year 1979, through the month of September," he said.

"Confirmed. World population is 4.39 billion. Major news events – January: Vietnamese-Cambodian forces overthrow Pol Pot regime in Cambodia, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi leaves Iran, Iran is placed under the control of revolutionary forces lead by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini; March: Nuclear power plant accident at Three Mile Island, United States, releases radiation; May: Conservatives win British election; Margaret Thatcher becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland; June: United States President Jimmy Carter and Soviet Union General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev sign SALT II agreement; July: Nicaraguan President General Anastasio Somoza Debayle resigns and flees to Miami; Sandinistas government forms; September: Pop culture phenomenon begins with the airing of the first episode of the science fiction show Galaxy Q – "

"Alright, I think that's enough to get a rough idea," sh'Sihl interrupted. The people on the bridge had listened to the computer rattle off the major historical events as Tsegaye went over the other two downed bridge officers, even as they began to wake up – T'Lal first, before Tsegaye even reached her, though she waited patiently before doing more than sitting up. Sila was next, and Ludjira not long after.

"I surmise that we are listening to these events because we have travelled through time," T'Lal noted once Tsegaye left her and she stood.

"Earth year 1979," sh'Sihl confirmed. "Four hundred-odd years. Is it just me or do a lot of these time travel accidents and events seem to take starships to the Earth's mid-to-late 20th century?"

"There has been considerable debate on the matter as to why," T'Lal noted as Tsegaye examined her. She examined the captain, and one eyebrow raised when she noted her hand. "Captain, you are bleeding."

Tsegaye's head whipped around at that, but sh'Sihl waved it off. "Just a scratch, and I actually mean that, doctor." She showed off her hand, which had already stopped bleeding, though there was now a dark blue stain on parts of her uniform's sleeves. "Unconscious bridge crew was more important."

The dark-skinned human doctor rolled his eyes but bit back his retort. "No damage to any of you save that hand," he said as he stood and walked over, pulling out a dermal repair probe as sh'Sihl offered the injured limb. "No problems I could not fix with the engineering crew, either. I still need to see to the rest of the crew, but the computer reported stable life signs. I expect everyone else is already awake at this point."

"At least we've arrived before the Eugenics Wars," Sila pointed out from communications, returning to the matter at hand as Tsegaye left. "Actually as 20th-century Earth goes this is a pretty quiet period. Détente, I think it was called. No major conflicts, nuclear threat of annihilation low, Khan Singh and the other Augments are still children…"

"Not that it will make any difference," Ludjira noted, "since we're not going to Earth."

Sh'Sihl nodded. "Temporal prime directive. We're here by accident, and the ship is in functioning order. I see no reason to go to Earth. Ensign Vanoni, maneuver us in Ceres' shadow, keep us out of sight of Earth – on the off chance any telescopes are looking this direction right now I don't want them to find anything but a dwarf planet." She tapped her comm badge. "Commander Omak, report."

"Primary systems are drained but stable, captain," the Ferengi's voice came in. "Power is building back up, we'll have full power in the next two hours, maybe two and a half. Our shield emitters, long-range sensors, and a few other secondary systems were fried, though. I can fix the shields, probably, but I'll need another hour to go over everything, see what needs to be fixed and what can wait until spacedock."

"An hour?" Sh'Sihl demanded.

"Short staffed," Omak responded. "There's only me and McMillan and a very pissed-off Egret down here. Anderson had a concussion, he'll be out of things for at least another few hours. Doctor Tsegaye's orders. Even if he were here it wouldn't matter too much. There's supposed to be fifteen engineers in here, captain, not four."

"Captain, I have some engineering training," Ludjira said. "I might be able to help, sir."

Omak said something inaudible, but sh'Sihl guessed it had something to do with the thought of having two pissed-off Tellarites in his engineering section. "Go," she said with a nod, and Ludjira made her way to the turbolift. "Commander T'Lal, cover ops. Commander Omak, as soon as you can spare someone I want the shield emitters fixed. How are the shipwide hologram emitters?"

"Uh…I hadn't checked those, captain. Are they really a priority?"

"ETH."

"Ah, right – so we did time travel then. Alright, let me check…they're down in the cargo bay and some of the crew quarters, working everywhere else."

"Good enough. Commander Omak, I want you to come to the conference room in fifteen minutes if possible. I'm holding a senior staff meeting there, and we'll activate the ETH." She glanced up. "Computer, shipwide communiqué." When there was an answering chime, she continued. "Attention all crew, this is captain sh'Sihl. We have been pulled into a temporal anomaly that has deposited us more than four hundred years in the past – local year 1979. There is no sign of the anomaly at present, and we have no reason to believe that it would return us to our own time in any event. Therefore, we will be executing a slingshot maneuver around Earth's home star to initiate time warp and return to our own era. The calculations for such will likely take the better part of a day even with the new ETH, so I want all crew to concentrate on getting Hydra back to full working order as fast as possible – we'll need it to perform the slingshot maneuver.

"That is all."

Fifteen minutes later, sh'Sihl, T'Lal, Omak, and Tsegaye were standing in the conference room. Smaller than the ones found on larger starships, the room still featured a long table with enough chairs to seat nearly twenty humanoids, as well as a number of long, curved windows of transparent aluminum that currently showed the emptiness of space, Ceres being located on the other side of the ship at the moment.

"I swore I would never need this thing," sh'Sihl mumbled.

"I swore I'd never serve aboard a combat starship," Omak pointed out. The other three looked at him, and he shrugged. "Constant repairing and updating, constant stress, demanding captains…"

"I'm not in the mood, commander," sh'Sihl said. Tsegaye suppressed a smile, while T'Lal only raised an eyebrow. Sh'Sihl shook her head, then stood up a little straighter. "Computer. This is captain Talzelyhirrnn sh'Sihl, captain, USS Hydra. Activate ETH, authorization sh'Sihl 1A, 1A, 1A."

"Voiceprint authorized. Confirmation needed from two members of senior staff."

T'Lal spoke up at that. "Computer, this is commander T'Lal, first officer. Confirm activation of ETH, authorization T'Lal 1A, 1A, 2B."

"Computer," Omak put in, "this is commander Omak, chief engineer. Confirm activation of ETH, authorization 1A, 1A, 3C."

"And I'm just here to watch," Tsegaye noted, crossing his arms and drawing another look of ire from sh'Sihl.

"Voiceprint authorization complete. Activating ETH program."

There was a shimmer in the air before the four of them, and they found themselves looking at a holographic representation of a thin Bajoran of average height, short-cropped brown hair, and brown eyes, dressed in a standard Starfleet uniform with the blue stripe of the Sciences division, but lacking any kind of apparent rank insignia.

"Emergency Temporal Hologram online," the hologram said. "Please state the nature of the temporal emergency."