Chapter 10
I'll keep holding on
I'll keep holding on
I'll keep holding on
I'll keep holding on
So tight
– Simply Red (Holding Back the Years)
=/\=
Mouths agape, they all just stared. Rick finally spoke. "Boris, what happened?"
His question was ignored.
"I said …" Rick began again.
That got some attention. "We are not that one."
"We?" Carmen asked, "Are you Varg-i-yeh?"
"No. They are the enemy. They have tried."
"Tried what?" Kevin asked.
"Genocide. They had tried it. It was first in a remote bunch of stars."
"How many stars were in this bunch?" Deirdre asked.
A pause, perhaps to count. "Billions, about forty billion or so."
"So it was a galaxy?" HD asked.
"Out there." A finger was pointed.
The Conference room was on the far side of the USS Adrenaline, facing away from the Milky Way galactic barrier. There were two bright smudges in the distance – the Andromeda and Triangulum galaxies.
Crystal dried her eyes. "Which one?"
"On the right."
"That's Triangulum," Sheilagh said.
"It's rather unnerving to see you possessing Yarin's body like that," Carmen said.
"It is not possession. It is a shape. Here is another." The shape changed from Yarin to an exact copy of Otra, down to every last detail of her chavecoi.
"That's even stranger," Otra said, "do you have a name?" There was a puzzled look, so she tried another tack, "Is there a designation?"
"We are not … designated."
"Just how many of you are there, and where are they?" Kevin asked.
"All are here."
"It's just you? You're the only one?" Tom asked.
"We are many." There was a splitting, and the facsimile of Otra separated out and became smaller, and a piece became a replica of one of the Conference room's chairs.
"A shape shifter?" Dan asked.
"Many pieces. All can go as they desire. But usually we go together."
Carmen sighed. "Listen," she said, "this is fascinating. And I don't deny that there are perhaps a million separate protocols for First Contacts. And this isn't one of them. But there's naught we can do. We are … under the gun. Do you understand what that means?"
"Busy."
"Right," she said, "we have numerous changes and we have to understand what they are, and deal with them. We have lost two colleagues, just now, and rather violently. I don't pretend that any of us are in terrific psychological shape as of right now. And we are going to have to be working on getting rid of the Varg-i-yeh as well. You mentioned that they are an enemy. They are, we believe, going to be enemies of ours as well. I would love to pick your brain about them, but first I've got to have my people handle the current changes. I'm sorry, but I'll have to put you off for the moment."
The chair turned into a plant, similar to an olowa tree in the courtyard garden that was in the middle of the Adrenaline.
"How long you been observing us?" Kevin asked.
"There was a bringing to the other side, then back, then to what is called now."
"Other side? Do ya'll mean the mirror?" Tom asked.
"What is mirror?"
"There is a second universe. There's, well, lots of universes, but we're connected really intimately to that one," Rick explained, "Do you know what day you were moved over? Was it, perchance, May twentieth of 2192?"
Dan glanced over for a second. He hadn't heard this detail before, and wondered if it had anything to do with Milton Walker's hiding place.
"Dates are unknown, but the time was remote, in terms of your own average lifespans."
A branch reached out from the plant and touched its own version of Otra, and then the two merged strangely. "Branch." Deirdre said absently.
"What is branch?"
"A portion of, of you," she said.
"It is all, as you say, us." The figure changed and became Boris again, but still had a branch sticking out, perhaps an oversight during the changeover.
"Can you be a person who isn't Boris? Right now that's weird." Levi said, indicating outside, where the two bodies were finally being brought back inside the Adrenaline.
Deirdre reached out to touch the branch and it held her for a second. Tom came over quickly. "Let her go," he said, as menacingly as he could.
The connection was broken immediately, and the figure became a young man with dark hair, fully human. He appeared younger than HD, a teenaged, nervous boy.
Deirdre gawked. "You look like my first boyfriend, Anatoly Borodin."
"Acceptable?"
"Sure," she said, "but I'd rather not call you Anatoly. Can you be called, uh, Branch?"
"Yes."
"All right," Carmen said, "Kevin, can you take, uh, Branch here to, I suppose, Engineering? I get the feeling all of the time ships will be pressed into service, even the old Audrey Niffenegger. I'll tell Bryce, uh, I have no idea when."
"C'mon," Kevin said to Branch, "let's go tour the Commission."
"It has been seen already."
"Well, then just humor me, okay?" They left.
"I can't pretend that that was not odd," Carmen said, "and I maintain that none of us are going to be at one hundred percent, most likely not for a while. But we have jobs to do. Now, Otra, let's talk about your visions."
"I saw three things," she said, "an avalanche, a First Contact and the Borg."
"The avalanche was from before, right?" Rick asked, "Could this have been one of the stones you saw?" He showed a picture of the odd headstone that he had taken with the camera app on his PADD.
"The avalanche started off as stones, but it became, I know this is strange, but it became smoke," Otra replied.
"Smoke? Then it was an explosion," Tom mused, "how big was it?"
"Huge, and in, I think, in midair."
"What explodes in midair?" asked Polly.
"Old nuclear weapons," Tom said, "do you think it was the start of World War III?"
"No, I can't say why, but I don't get that vibe. I get the feeling of sorrow and loss, but not revenge or war or hatred. Does that make any sense?"
"Perhaps it was a nuclear test," Carmen said, "HD, start investigating that, please."
"What's the First Contact issue?" Deirdre asked.
"First Contact isn't with the Vulcans, and it doesn't take place in 2063," Otra said, "I don't think we even have Warp Drive by then."
"What do you recognize?" Sheilagh asked.
"A dignitary – he's an older human male. Maybe he's close to eighty or so? It's hard to say," Otra replied.
"What's he wearing?" Crystal asked.
"An old-fashioned suit, with a strip of cloth tied around his neck and hanging down."
"That's a necktie," Crystal said, "Tell me anything you can about the clothes. Maybe I can pinpoint a decade, at least."
"The suit is brown. The, the necktie is a green color. There is a pin on the side. It's white and blue and red."
"Is this the guy?" Crystal produced an image on her PADD that she projected onto the wall of the Conference room.
"How did you know?" Otra asked.
"The brown suit," Crystal said, "Ronald Reagan wore them all the time."
"You have dates?" Carmen asked.
"He was the American President for most of the 1980s," Crystal said, "this photo is from 1986, from the Challenger disaster speech, um; it's the speech he made at the memorial service in the original history."
"That's the change, or at least it's one of the changes," Polly said, "it looks like there is no Challenger disaster."
"Is this Challenger somehow involved in First Contact?" Carmen asked.
"No, but it is another space shuttle. It's the Columbia, and it's the same year," Polly said, "looks like we had First Contact on July twenty-fourth, 1986, with the Trill."
"So the Challenger not exploding – that's one mission," Carmen said, "what about that explosion Otra saw? Is it the one from the Challenger?"
"I think I've found it," HD said, "and it's not a space shuttle at all. It's – look at this," he projected an image of a mushroom cloud onto the wall.
"Which nuke is this?" Dan asked.
"It's 1997, Bangkok," HD read, "It looks like it's, uh, here it is, apparently this nuking ended the Southeast Asian War, whatever that is."
"Vietnam," Tom said, "it must have spread."
"You look up the original history on that and run some comparisons," Carmen said to Tom, "I suspect that'll be our second. And what of the Borg?"
"I see them dead," Otra said, "in a place with snow."
"I know this," Sheilagh said, "the original history, on First Contact day, there were Borg trying to prevent it, or take advantage of it, or something. And their sphere crash-landed near the North Pole. But the NX-01 was involved later, and they were revived, and they got a message off to the Delta Quadrant."
"What's the current reality?" Carmen asked Polly.
She checked. "It appears as if the only mentionings of the Borg revolve around them never having come here."
"Or maybe they're not here yet," Rick said.
"Possibly," Carmen allowed, "All right, that's another mission; I get the feeling the Borg were killed in their little frozen beds in 2063."
"I've got Vietnam," Tom said, "it was not too long after Sputnik was launched, actually. October twenty-first of 1957, is when the first casualty happened in Vietnam. It was Army Captain Hank Cramer of the First Special Forces Group. And in the current reality, he isn't killed, so the beginnings of the war happen later."
"And I suppose the end of the war is later as well." Carmen said.
"By over twenty years," Tom confirmed. "I figure someone saved Cramer. I'm not sure why his survival brought on over twenty addition years of warfare, and it spread throughout the region. The Domino Effect was very real."
"Then that's mission number three," Carmen said.
"There's ours, too," Rick said, "2192 in the mirror, remember?"
"Oh God, yes," Carmen sighed. "I would like to meet and greet with that life form, whatever the hell he is – perhaps he's what we'd think of as schizophrenic, and hears voices in that variable head of his? But I'm afraid I'll have to go on a little jaunt myself." She engaged her Communicator. "Mister O'Connor, what's your status?"
"Audrey II and the Wells are ready," he replied, "we're just finishing up the Jack. It helps to have someone who doesn't need to hold a wrench – who can just be a wrench."
"Intriguing," Carmen said, "what about the Audrey Niffenegger?"
"That one'll take longer," he said, "I'd recommend sending the others out first."
"Very well," Carmen said, "I'll take that one. Rick and Tom, you're on the mission we already discussed. Crystal, outfit them first – probably only Tom needs anything. HD and Sheilagh, you'll take the Audrey II to Florida in 1986. Make sure that shuttle explodes."
"Right," Sheilagh said. The three of them left.
"Then Polly and Dan, you're off to Vietnam in 1957. I don't think there are many women there. You'll probably have to play at being a nurse. This, dammit, this would be where Marisol would have been helpful." She paused for a second. "We'll, uh, I suppose we'll all suppress things until later. In any event, you'll get the Jack. And I'll take the original Audrey. I, uh, I would like a partner."
Otra looked up. "There aren't a lot of folks to choose from. I'm out. I guess Kevin could be sent."
"No. Mister O'Connor, you're in charge while I'm out."
"Okay, boss. O'Connor out."
"Levi, Deirdre and Crystal," Carmen mused, "uh, Deirdre, how would you like to go back in time?"
"Um, sure. It might be for the best. I can fix the old Audrey on the fly if she starts to balk."
"Good thinking," Carmen said, "and let's get the last paragraph of that damned Manifesto file cracked. Everyone work on it when you can. Let's try to have that one done by the time the last of our four couples gets home," She sighed wearily, "Dismissed."
=/\=
I've wasted all my tears
Wasted all of those years
And nothing had the chance to be good
'Cause nothing ever could oh yeah
– Simply Red (Holding Back the Years)