Personal log, stardate 85052.

Things were getting even weirder. Admiral Drake wanted us to go back in time to the 23rd century and track the Devidians there. He said that he was able to localize the place the portal leads to; that same room in Drozana Station, 100 years ago. He says that Drozana would be a Starfleet facility, Deep Space Station K-6, during that time period. I was to take two of my most competent officers and go back into the past. The computers would be able to synthesize period uniforms for us. He said that he would, as he put it, smooth things over with Temporal Investigations so they won't even know we've left. But we were to be as stealthy as possible, and to interact with period Starfleet personnel as little as possible.

Oh-kay…

This was certainly unusual. And I seriously doubt that Admiral Drake has as much pull with the Department of Temporal Investigations as he claims. Nevertheless, we had our orders and I wanted to carry them out to the best of our ability. It took a bit of time for me to decide who to pull. Many Starfleet officers would be unable of keeping a usable persona in a past time period. They would complain that the lights are too bright, or that the computer keyboards are so unreadable. Things like that. I ended up pulling Ensign Treer from sciences, who specialized in anthropology; she would be the best-qualified to maintain a consistent past persona. I chose Ensign McLane from engineering, who was into retrocomputing. Being able to competently interact with a period computer would be a very useful asset. I briefed the two and had the computer synthesize them two 23rd-century Starfleet uniforms. I would change into one myself, and we would go.

While the Federation had known about Trills since Captain Archer's day, the first joined Trill officer in Starfleet would not be for another twenty years yet. The existence of the symbionts was not publicly known off of the Trill homeworld, even though I didn't have one. Having distinctive Trill spots would make me stand out like a sore thumb. Fortunately, I was able to have the computer replicate a cosmetic spray that would cover my spots and make me look like a regular human.

I needed to choose a persona that would explain our nosiness when interacting with period crew. I decided a yeoman would work best. I actually kind of like walking around spaceships in a short skirt. However, when we assembled in the transporter room to beam over to Drozana Station, McLane told me that I looked nothing like a yeoman. Period Starfleet yeomen always had long hair and this huge bun for a hairstyle. I like my hair cropped short. Ugh. I hate wigs. Nevertheless, I had the computer come up with this completely impractical long hair tied in a complex bun. The wig was blonde, even though my natural hair was brown, as Starfleet yeomen of the time tended to have blonde hair. Thanks to 24th-century technology, the wig adhered to my head like a magnet when I put it on. It would not slip or slide until I pulled it off, which would take a bit of force. Good thing, too.

Back in the transporter room, McLane said we look great. The transporter operator was dumbfounded to see us beaming over in such strange costumes. He was annoyingly persistent in asking for an explanation. I told him to go study Starfleet regulation 254, which covers time travel protocol. Having recognized this number, he beamed us over without further complaint.

We beamed directly into the computer room this time; the triolic radiation was no longer an impediment. Treer made a short prayer. Swallowing hard, I walked into the purple time rift, with Treer and McLane behind me. We set our phasers to heavy stun.

We came out of the rift phasers first, in case anyone was in the room at the time, which there should have been giving the high maintenance level of 23rd-century computers compared to 24th-century ones. The room was empty.

I pulled out my tricorder. (Unfortunately, period tricorders were not capable of running any of the programs required for this mission. We had to take modern ones.) I had the plans for a subspace field emitter capable of detecting Devidian movement all queued up. This would be very difficult to build; the Federation would not discover the band of subspace that triolic radiation registers in for another fifty years. Nevertheless, I had a design that would work (in conjunction with one of our tricorders) and we just needed to find the parts. We opened every hatch and crate in the computer room. It took us a bit of time, but we were able to find all the parts we needed, save for two. Duotronic relays are generally found inside the fixed-station terminals in the computer interface room. Induction coils would not be stored nearby, since they are a power-generator item instead of a main-computer item. Before we left I had my tricorder programmed to contain the entire layout of Drozana Station as it existed in this time period. I knew exactly where to look to find them. We prepared to go into the corridor… and then we ran into another problem.

Deep Space Station K-6 is currently under medical lockdown. All personnel are restricted to their quarters. No movement in the corridors is permitted.

Man, does that computer voice grate. So we were trapped in the computer room. I started pacing, to help me think. Meanwhile, McLane had wandered over to one of the access terminals, none of which were secured, and started to play around. After he continued doing this for a while, I went over and asked what he thought he was doing, playing with a past computer for the hell of it.

He replied that he was not doing it "for the hell of it"; he was writing a program that would cause the computer to overflow its memory banks. When this happened, the operating system would start to terminate other processes that no longer had any available memory. He said he was able to arrange the system so that the first process to be lost would be the one keeping the doors closed. On 25th-century computers, there would be countermeasures against these kinds of shenanigans. But computers… now… do not have the same kind of multi-user security that computers do in our home time, and he was enjoying writing such a destructive program.

When he was done, he ran the program on all of the computer cores. After a moment, some of the screens in the room went blank. I tried the door again; it opened. We went out.

We went up the ramp into the service area. There was someone there typing. He was getting frustrated. Probably the tech assigned to monitor the computer core. When he saw us, he approached me.

"What are you doing down here?"

Oh shit.

"I… uh… I'm a computer specialist that the captain sent to investigate the failure of the main computer. That's it."

It was blatantly obvious that I was lying, but he bought it anyway. He was flustered too.

"Fine by me. You take over this problem. I'm outta here."

With that, the tech took off up the ramp towards the elevator at a bit of a run. I turned to McLane. He smiled.

"Twenty-fifth-century computer programming meets twenty-third-century computer. No one else would have a clue what's going on."

"What would happen if the 'malfunctioning' process was terminated? Would it re-lock the doors?"

"Might, might not. But either way I wouldn't do so just yet. Not just so it doesn't look odd, three otherwise-unknown crewmen fixing a major problem with the computer, but we may need it to distract someone else."

I was very impressed with McLane's initiative.

"Very good. Since we need to come back through here to return to our time, we'll fix it as we leave."

"Sounds good."

We continued up the ramp to the turbolift. There was a door nearby that connected the computer core and the computer interface room. It opened without complaint. Treer bumped my arm to get my attention, and then whispered "I'm picking up triolic waves within the station. We are definitely where we are supposed to be."

At the far side of the connecting hallway, there was another door. This door led into the computer interface room. There was someone here, using one of the fixed computer consoles. It seemed to be working just fine.

I thought for a moment to come up with a plan, then walked over like I was a random Starfleet officer interested in the workings of the computer system. The lieutenant turned to me.

"The system's under medical alert. You shouldn't be here."

I could tell from the tone of her voice that she shouldn't be here either. I gestured to the computer.

"What are you doing?"

The lieutenant turned the display on her console over. It showed the station's complete computer layout, and there were currently several failures marked.

"This is a computer program I found. It lets me simulate the entire computer system here, and I can make or fix imaginary problems any way I want!"

"Impressive."

Now it was time to spring the trap.

"Are you running that on the main network?"

"No. Why would I?"

"If you want to play around with the computer subsystems, there is a directory on the main network containing detailed instructions of how these kinds of problems are fixed. You might find it interesting." Not a lie, either. I read lots of those documents during my time as a computer tech at Starfleet Academy.

"Fascinating!"

She eagerly connected her computer back to the main network, and was surprised when her console locked up immediately. Gotcha!

"The computer isn't responding." She checked the clock at the top of the screen. "Yikes! I've been here for fifty minutes now! I'm really supposed to be on surveillance duty on Deck Four, but the CO wouldn't be back for an hour, and surveillance duty is so ridiculously boring, so I decided I might slip down here to do something more fun, and then be back at my post like nothing ever happened. It's a long walk to Deck Four."

"You'd better run."

With that, the lieutenant got up and ran out of the room, towards the turbolift. She would probably be in a bit of trouble with her commanding officer for doing this, so I think she would be too embarrassed to tell anyone about our presence.

But now that the lieutenant was gone, McMerritt and I pried off a panel and detached the duotronic relay from inside the computer. One more thing to do. We walked back into the computer core, entered the maintenance turbolift, and ordered Reactor Control.

But the turbolift only ran for a moment, then dropped me off at the waste reclamators again. Treer was alarmed.

"We've got seven human bio-signs heading our way. Someone must have told Security about us. What do we do?"

I ran into the main area, and saw a Jeffries tube there that was not present in my time. (Inclined Jeffries tubes such as these would be removed from starships starting with the Constitution II refit the Enterprise had after the end of Kirk's five-year mission.)

"McMerritt, jam the doors. Treer, that way!" I pointed to the Jeffries tube. Treer blanched.

"We'd have to climb awful fast."

"Just go!"

So she did. Into the Jeffries tube, up and up and up as fast as we could climb. I followed her, and McMerritt followed me. It was a very good thing we were not heading down a Jeffries tube, as that would be a far slower process.

When we reached the top, I stood there for a moment and listened. The security guards were not terribly surprised to see us not there; they simply thought I was in another room, and set out to search the area. I noticed that none of them had mentioned or approached the Jeffries tube. This is a good thing. By the time they think of searching there, we'll be long gone.

Or not. As soon as we turned the corner at the hallway, we found a security patrol. They were walking back and forth up and down the corridor.

Engineers of this time period were notoriously lazy when it comes to managing their supplies. If a part was needed from a crate, the crate would be left at the front of the room instead of being returned to where it came from. When there isn't enough room at the front to do that anymore, they just spill out into the hallway like this. Why is this relevant? Since this was the hallway next to the Engineering storage rooms, there were large crates stacked up and left in random places in the hallway. After analyzing the scene for a moment, I decided that we would be able to sneak across when the patrolling officers have their back turned, hiding behind a stack of crates when they approached. Very simple, but we need to be extremely quiet, or our sounds will give away our presence. Why did things always have to be this hard?

Fortunately, the boots we were wearing, despite being twenty-third-century manufacture in appearance, took full advantage of twenty-fifth-century technology. Starfleet boots of my time do not make a noise when scraped among a surface, ever. (The change was ordered following a time when an away team was trying to sneak into a terrorist hideout, but their stealth was broken when one of their boots scraped the floor, making a sound and leaving a mark. The mission became far more complicated after that.) It took a lot of guts for Vreer to cross. I had to prod McMerritt into going before me because he was terrified of the implications if we were caught. I, of course, went through the gauntlet quietly and confidently. Once we were safely past another bend in the corridor, we relaxed.

Then things got even more sticky. We found a turbolift, and decided to take it to the main reactor so we could find our last part faster. However, another crewman raced into the turbolift before the door closed and ordered the medical bay. What was I to do, shout for her to get out of the turbolift and blow our cover again? The right side of her body was charred, while the left side of her body was mostly unharmed. Telltale signs of an exposure to EPS plasma.

When we arrived at the medical bay, someone yelled for someone else to come to perform triage. We stayed in the turbolift. If we could get the doors to close before anyone else noticed us, we were safe. Unfortunately, that did not happen.

Given how this mission was going, who else but Leonard McCoy runs over to treat the ensign? That would mean the entire Enterprise is here as well. I groaned at our bad luck. Keeping out of sight of an everyday Starfleet crew was difficult enough. But keeping out of sight of James T. freaking Kirk? The stakes just got a whole lot higher.

I shied back into the turbolift, trying not to be noticed. But McCoy looked right past the injured ensign, straight at us, and he said, "Well, don't just stand there. Help me!" So I walked into the same room as Dr. Leonard McCoy, chief medical officer of the USS Enterprise and a professional stick-in-the-butt. I didn't know what to do.

Fortunately, Treer was able to save all of our asses by taking over at this point. She was a general science specialist, but minored in medicine at the Academy. Twenty-fifth-century medicine is completely different than twenty-third-century medicine (the discovery of the bioregenerative field rendered just about every other medical procedure obsolete overnight), but she knew enough to fake it — I hope.

Fortunately, Dr. McCoy did not ask for any medical expertise. He started to explain how random people here were telling tales of blue light and ghosts, right before their brains seized up and begun to shut down. He was completely unable to find what disease or organism caused these attacks, and people had been dying like flies.

Fortunately, we had complete knowledge of what was going on, and the entire first-aid process for treating a Devidian victim on our tricorders. The doctor was extremely impressed with how confidently we were able to describe a procedure to treat this disorder. We said that the attacks were caused by high bursts of an otherwise-unknown form of radiation — the truth, just not the whole truth. Dr. McCoy took it at face value, thankfully. Within a few minutes, the entire ward was getting back on their feet.

After that McCoy turned to Treer and said, "The Captain should hear about this. Whoever you are, you are in line for a commendation for how you were able to fix my problems here."

I tried to demur. I said that we were actually crew of the station, not of the Enterprise, and how a meeting with Kirk could be seen as inappropriate. Thankfully, he bought it. While McCoy was distracted talking to one of the security guards, we beat feet for the exit.

We were finally able to find an induction coil where the deck plating had been ripped out for repair, but the engineer doing the repair died before he could finish it. Ducking into the nearest private area (a head, as it turned out), we finally assembled and activated our Devidian scanner.

The Devidians were everywhere! All over the station, all over the ship. We told McCoy how to cure Devidian attacks, not how to prevent them or their real cause. Without removing the cause of the problem, the Enterprise would be stuck here treating Devidian victims until they ran out of supplies, which was not supposed to be in the original timeline! Was it? Either way, we were in trouble.

But there was one very significant fact: Driffen's Comet was again passing the station! This was the cause of the incursion, no doubt. It became clear what we needed to do: Driffen's Comet needs to be destroyed to save both time periods from the Devidian attacks. Unfortunately, the Enterprise didn't have nearly enough firepower to destroy the comet as-is, but to truly prevent these attacks, it would have to be destroyed before it arrived at Drozana Station. How would we do this?

But at least, we now had enough information to return to the present. I don't know what Admiral Drake would say when I explained to him the cause of our problem. There was nothing we could do about it, because it happened two centuries before any of us were born. All we needed to do was go back to the computer core and step back through the time rift we used to get here.

Unfortunately, our problems were not yet over. Going through the portal gave us a significant dose of triolic radiation. That, combined with the radiation we were absorbing simply by being here, would mean that steping through the portal would probably cause fatal triolic radiation poisoning. McMerritt mentioned that this time period had a drug that suppressed radiation poisoning in general, Hyronalin. We needed a very large dose, enough to completely inoculate the three of us. Hyronalin was a standard drug in Starfleet sickbays at the time, and there should be more than enough there to suffice. I started back off towards sickbay before I realized… I was walking back into Dr. McCoy's sickbay. I was glad to have gotten away from him without incident once. I had to deliberately go and put myself in his life again?

Fortunately, we were able to acquire the Hyronalin without issue. I told Dr. McCoy that my two friends and I had just absorbed a serious dose of gamma radiation from reactor spillage — which could very much have happened when I was scrounging around in the deck plating, looking for that induction coil. He acquiesced immediately. As we left he said to me, "Just make sure Spock doesn't hear about it, or he'll be on my butt for weeks!" Telling Spock was nowhere near what we were planning to do, so I was able to just laugh and nod.

With this, we were able to return to the computer core without incident. Word had apparently spread about the strange yeoman who was able to save so many lives, and as such every person we passed nodded respectfully. I injected the three of us with Hyronalin, and we stepped back through the portal.

We were now back in the 25th century, where we belonged. I pulled out my antique communicator and called to the ShiNarva that we were ready for beamout. I just wanted to go to my head and throw up. The stress of that mission was making me lose my lunch. Admiral Drake can wait until later.

Computer, end recording.