Emelie rushed Curzon and the trill freed his pistol from the holster. But Emelie was quick and the pistol had a long barrel made even longer thanks to the attached blade; as Curzon pulled the weapon from the holster, Emelie grabbed the arm and twisted it around, up behind Curzons back, and then pushed the trill ambassador hard into the bulkhead. A kick to Curzons knee had him fall to the floor and then his head was smashed against some pipes. Curzons world turned dark and all sound faded into nothing.

Curzon woke up with a massive headache. Squinting, he tried to figure out where he was and what had happened. He was on the klingon bridge, that much was certain. A few moments later and he realized he was tied to a chair with chains and shackles. He could not move. How long he had sat there, he could not tell. He tried a couple of times to wriggle out of his restraints, but it was no use. Arms and feet were secured with no chance of escape. As Emelie entered the bridge, Curzon turned to look over his shoulder.

"Welcome back" Emelie said, her sleeves rolled up over her elbows and her arms and hands covered in sot and grease.

"What are you doing?" Curzon asked as Emelie sat down by the pilots controls.

"Checking our surroundings" Emelie said as she managed the controls and the dials and switches linked to them. "The USS Stargazer is heading for us at maximum warp" she then said, reading the Klothos long-range sensors. "I wonder if they are hunting us."

"I know someone who is hunting you" Curzon said. "Kor is coming for you, Emelie. You have dishonored him. He saved you from the romulans and you betrayed him. He will come for you and he will not rest until you are dead."

"Let him come" Emelie said, sounding as if not actually caring about the dire prospect of being chased by a very angry klingon. She turned a dial to focus the scanners. "He will be too late anyway."

Curzon knew the woman well enough to realize her calm demeanor meant she believed herself to be in control of the situation. "What are you going to do?"

Emelie turned to look over her shoulder back at Curzon. "When will you get it into your head that I am going through with the mission."

"You need Syboks torpedo to do that."

"I know" Emelie said and smiled. "I spent the last couple of hours building it."

Curzon turned pale and Emelie turned back to her controls.

"Taking us out of warp, deactivating cloak" she said. "The Stargazer will reach us in one hour."

"Kor will kill you first" Curzon argued.

Emelie, casually leaning comfortably into the pilots seat, turned around to face Curzon directly. "I never did understand your love for the klingons. They are animals. Savage beasts. They have nothing to offer this galaxy. Nothing! They all deserve to die."

"You're wrong" Curzon said through his teeth. "Those savage animals are more honorable and noble than you could ever hope to be. You are a disgrace to your fathers name. I'm glad he died so he did not have to live to see what his daughter would become."

"You wont agitate me so easily" Emelie chuckled. "I have already won. I wont let some simple diplomat twist my head with lies, not when I'm this close to succeeding with the mission."

"Resetting the timeline" Curzon said and shook his head with a sigh. "Stopping the romulans at Korvat, preventing the destruction of Praxis and the annihilation of Romulus, all to prevent the Narada from going back through time and create our reality. Giving your father eight more years to live… Satisfying your ego, altering space and time to create your own version of heaven, disrupting the space-time-continuum to deal with your daddy-issues. Do you even realize how selfish it is to change history, not just your own, but the history of the entire universe simply to satisfy your own god damn needs?! Do you even hear how crazy that sounds?!"

"My needs?!" Emelie got out of the chair and took a few quick steps towards Curzon, pressing her finger into her own chest. "My needs?! I will save three planets from being destroyed! My needs?! I will prevent genocide, I will save Vulcan, Kronos and Romulus from being attacked and devastated! My needs?!" She shook her head, breathing heavily as she took a step away from the chained trill. "Yes, my father will have eight more years to live if I succeed. And yes, that is my main priority. But make no mistake about it, Curzon; to give my father those eight years, I have to prevent the destruction of those three planets. My needs? My needs will save billions of lives. Millions of innocent children will be saved. I think that alone justifies my actions."

"Does it?" Curzon said with a sneer. "And that is the end of it? You wont change anything else? You wont tell Starfleet anything else? You wont share intelligence you've picked up in our time and compare it to the new timeline? Who knows, it might give the Federation an advantage. Hell, if you keep Syboks torpedo-schematics, you could recreate the event and change something else and change history all over again. Why not? Why stop at saving your father and three planets. Why not save the whole god damn galaxy while you're at it?!"

"And Why Not?!" Emelie's words blasted out of her mouth. "Why should I let millions of people die in Klingon raids or Romulan assaults?! Why should I let Cardassians and Tholians enslave planets and thriving alien cultures at will? You tell me why I shouldn't stop them all!"

Curzon took a moment to just look at Emelie. She was red in the face, beads of sweat on her forehead, her chest moved as she breathed. To his mind, Emelie Marcus-Kirk was insane.

"Where does it end?" the trill eventually asked. "Who decides what is to be changed and what should be untouched? Can you foresee every possible outcome? Do you think Starfleet could have ever imagined that destroying Romulus would send a Romulan ship back in time that would destroy Vulcan and alter the timeline? Do you think Sybok believed this would be the outcome of his plan to save his homeworld? Do you know what will happen if you launch that torpedo? Can you guarantee that the galaxy will be a better place? Can you even guarantee that your father will live one more day?"

"You can twist words and try and point out every pitfall should I go through with this" Emelie said, slowly pacing back and forth on the Klingon bridge. "It still does not change the fact that I will save three planets from destruction, Curzon. Billions of lives are at stake."

"Including your fathers" Curzon said, almost as if reminding Emelie of the fact.

Emelie nodded. "Yes, including my fathers. Once the USS Stargazer gets here, I will attack her, she will launch torpedoes and I will launch Syboks warhead. The rift will open and I will fly through it. The question you have to ask yourself is; will you go through with me, or not."

"What options do I have, should I stay behind?" Curzon wondered.

"Not many" Emelie said. "Fighting the Stargazer and flying through a temporal-rift, I wont have time to lower my shields. I wont be able to beam you off the ship and I wont be able to launch escape-pods. Truth be told, should you chose not to go with me… I will have no other choice but to kill you."

"Swell" Curzon said with a strained smile. "Then that settles it, doesn't it?"

"Good man" Emelie returned the smile and headed over to the station operating the sensors and scanners. "The Stargazer is heading straight for us at maximum warp" she said. "As soon as they arrive, we wont be rewriting history… we will reset it. There has never been a more important mission in the history of mankind."

"You just keep justifying your actions, Emelie. That still doesn't change the fact that you're a madman."

Emelie turned to look at Curzon. "Mad? Do you think I'm mad? I'm trying to save my father, damn it! Does that make me mad?!"

"Yes!" Curzon spat. "Yes, it makes you mad if your father has been dead for four years! He is dead and you are trying to change history to keep him alive! I'm sorry, Emelie, but that is madness!"

"I'm not trying to change history!" Emelie countered, waving her arms to emphasize her point. "I'm trying to set it straight! I'm trying to change it back to the way it should be!"

"Should be?!" Curzon spat again. "You intend to prevent the destruction of Praxis, aren't you?! Prevent the destruction of Romulus! Those are events that are meant to happen, if you don't remember. But you intend to stop it. Trying to reset time? You are trying to create a timeline that you prefer, not the timeline that should be."

"Enough!"

Emelie took a few quick steps and delivered a punch straight across Curzons face, dislodging a tooth that was sent flying together with a gob of blood and spit. Emelie grabbed Curzon by the throat and pressed her fingers hard inwards, almost forming a fist. Curzon was turning blue as she leaned in towards his panic-filled eyes.

"You should be glad I don't kill you here and now… You're coming with me, and we will stop the Romulans from sabotaging the peace-talks at Korvat. The Federation and the Klingons will have peace and Praxis will not be destroyed and the same goes for Romulus. And Vulcan. And you will help me give my father eight more years to live! Do you understand?!"

She let go of the trill and walked with determined strides to the pilots seat, leaving Curzon gasping for air, filling his lungs to the brink with each breath taken. As color returned to his face, breathing heavily, he eyed Emelie where she sat by the controls of the Bird-of-Prey.

"There are those" the trill said in between breaths, "that would rather see the world burn, than accept their fate."

"Fate?" Emelie said and shook her head. "Syboks torpedo has made fate obsolete."