AN: Here we are, another piece to this adventure.

I do hope you enjoy! If you do, please do let me know!

111

"The signal is absolutely a Federation signal," Lieutenant Rivers said.

"From a beacon produced seventy years ago," Jean-Luc mused. "In a shuttle produced seventy years ago and never reported active…"

"Affirmative, Sir," Lieutenant Rivers responded.

"Any idea what caused the damage?" Jean-Luc asked.

"It appears to be damage from weapons fire," came the answer from Lieutenant Hare, the Chief of Security.

"Romulan or…?"

"It is difficult to tell," Hare said. "It is possible that passing through the temporal anomaly altered any lingering residue. There are no clearly identifiable traces of anything that our scans can detect."

"Nobody followed them through?" Jean-Luc asked. "In particular—we don't want any Romulan surprises."

Jean-Luc immediately felt his stomach flip as he glanced toward his wife. She was, at the moment, functioning in her professional role. Still, Jean-Luc knew that, even with all of his effort to move beyond even his own past prejudices with the Romulans, some of it simply still lingered. It was implanted in most of them like a deep splinter—infected and, somehow, too deep to remove in its entirety. Even when most of it was pulled free, little bits seemed to somehow linger below the surface. A great deal of negativity toward Romulans, in fact, was still found everywhere. And, when they considered that they were possibly dealing with beings from seventy years ago, those old prejudices rose to the surface even more readily.

Laris was used to the way that individuals of any number of races felt about Romulans. She was no stranger to their treatment.

She shouldn't have to experience that from her own bondmates, Jean-Luc thought. He would do his best to make it up to her. For now, though, he felt old prejudices stir within him. If Laris was bothered by it, she showed no outward sign to him.

"There are no other signatures," Laris reported. "Even if we run a quick scan for older model cloaking devices, nothing is showing up. Either nothing is there, or this is a very elaborate trap, and what they have is far too advanced for us to detect."

"What are the odds of that?" Jean-Luc asked her.

She made eye contact with him—not his wife, for the moment, but his Romulan advisor. She shook her head.

"So low that I would say they're practically non-existent," she said.

"But not entirely nonexistent," Jean-Luc mumbled, mostly to himself.

Jean-Luc stared out at the stars and the badly damaged shuttlecraft that wasn't too far from them. Starfleet had left the entire mission, to this point, up to Jean-Luc's discretion.

"What about the shuttle?" He asked.

"Dead in the water," Lieutenant Warbinger said. "Nothing but the beacon appears to be operational."

"Life signs are present," Laris said. "But life support is failing."

"Captain—I've got an incoming response to our hails," Rivers said.

"Can you put it on screen?" Jean-Luc asked.

"Video isn't available," she said. "Only audio."

"Go ahead," Jean-Luc said.

Suddenly, the loud sound of static flooded the bridge. Laris, and several others with more sensitive hearing, immediately covered their ears against the sound. Rivers, clearly surprised by the sound, adjusted the volume and offered apologies. Snatches of words could be heard—or sounds that sounded like they might belong to words—but nothing came through clearly.

"Can you clean that up, Lieutenant?" Jean-Luc asked.

"I'm sorry, Captain," Rivers said. "That's the best we seem to be able to do."

"All systems are failing," Laris said, at the same time as Ensign Weathersbee, whose station she'd commandeered, said the same thing.

The staticky noise stopped abruptly.

"We've lost connection," Rivers said. "No response to attempts to restore communication."

"Life support has failed," Weathersbee said. "They're completely dead in the water."

"Literally so, if we don't do something, Jean-Luc," Laris said, abandoning any and all formality. "Trick or not, they have no life support. You call it – life or death."

"Very well," Jean-Luc said. "Lock on to their life signs and beam them directly to sickbay. Let Dr. Picard know they're coming. Tell her to proceed with immense caution, and to do whatever she deems best. We have a team on the way to sickbay."

Jean-Luc rose from his seat. He made eye contact with Laris. He didn't have to say anything for her to know that he expected her to accompany him as part of his tactical and security detail.

"Security team to sickbay," he commanded. "At least until we know what we're dealing with."

111

"Hold that transport," Beverly commanded. "Lock them in the transport buffer until we're ready for them."

She gestured to one of her staff.

"Clear that area—do we have anyone that can't be released to quarters in case of an emergency?"

"No," Nurse Riale said. "Ensign Riggs was discharged this morning."

Beverly nodded her understanding. She felt overwhelmed, simply because of the speed that things had been, in a manner of speaking, dropped in her lap. With no warning, they were bringing over beings attached to "life signs" with no other explanation of what might be on the other end of the transport beam. None of their scans were conclusive. And, ultimately, Beverly considered herself responsible for the safety of the ship. In this case, after all, she and her sickbay were the first line of defense, should there be any threat—even the microbial sort.

"Lockdown that area," Beverly said. "I want a forcefield erected and sealed with an enterable layer. Nobody enters until I say they do."

Beverly immediately started to work her way into one of the suits that would protect her from anything they might be bringing with them—from disease to traces of radioactive elements.

"Nurse Riale—you're with me," she said. The young nurse—a Nothaline who was a hard worker, easy to get along with, and on her very first official assignment aboard the U.S.S Picard—gave Beverly a quick smile and something of a half-curtsy, which was a Nothaline form of nodding one's head, before she quickly moved to get into a protective suit much like Beverly's. "I want everyone else to keep their distance."

The sickbay door whooshed open, and Beverly looked over her shoulder to see her husband—acting, in the moment, as her captain—and her wife, acting as security, enter sickbay with a small security team.

"Do we know anything?" Beverly asked.

"Only that we had no choice but to bring them aboard," Jean-Luc said. "The shuttle was badly damaged from weapons fire, though we couldn't get any kind of read on what kind of weapons might have been involved. Life support failed. The shuttle went dark."

"Any chance I'm about to go head-to-head with an irate Romulan from—say—seventy years ago?" Beverly asked, directing her question to Laris. It was partially a joke, but it didn't hurt to be sure.

"There were no signatures that would lead me to believe that," Laris said, clearly not picking up on the teasing. Her face was far too serious and devoid of humor. Beverly's stomach twisted slightly. She thought, perhaps, she would make it a point to sit with her wife, later, and make sure that her teasing about Romulans wasn't something that was a bit too insensitive. It was easy, after all, to forget that even jokes hurt, sometimes, especially when those around them weren't always joking. Laris, for her part, gave no indication that she was even emotionally responding to anything. She was, for the time being, all business. "However, there were no signatures to give us any clear indication of what we're dealing with."

"We know it's a Federation shuttle, and the beacon is a Federation beacon," Jean-Luc said.

"But it's prudent to remember that it's also possible that the beings aboard weren't Federation affiliated," Laris said, "even though the shuttle might be. This wouldn't be the first known case of a stolen shuttle. Especially since this particular shuttle appears to have never been classified as operational."

"The temporal, and possibly spatial, anomaly recorded is important to keep in mind," Jean-Luc said. "It's possible that these are beings not even from our universe."

Beverly took in all the information and found herself laughing quietly at the fact that they had wanted adventure—and they had certainly found it. The part of her suit covering her eyes clouded over for a second, but cleared as soon as the suit adjusted to the amount of condensation it should expect from her breath—something that differed from species to species.

"Nurse Riale," Beverly said, "let's wait it out for a minute. Just to be on the safe side. We'll assess and, if it's safe, enter once they've materialized and we have a better idea of what we're dealing with."

Beverly's command was, mostly, to stop the young Nothaline from bounding into the contained area before the life signs had been sent through and the beings had materialized. If Beverly knew what they were getting, so to speak, she might agree that it was better to be present and prepared for their arrival—in case anyone needed immediate medical attention—but Beverly had also been a doctor in Starfleet long enough to know that the old adage was quite true: only fools rushed in.

Riale backed up, giving Beverly the customary half-curtsy as a sign that she understood the order she'd been given.

Beverly touched her chest to activate her combadge beneath her suit. She repeated the coordinates for the contained area.

"Beam life signs directly to those coordinates," Beverly said. "I need a few of you to start suiting up, just in case."

As soon as the life signs were beamed into the contained area, Beverly got as close as the containment field would allow. The beams were precise, but they weren't that precise, and her two newest patients materialized on the floor.

"I've got—two beings," Beverly said. "They appear to be male and female. Unconscious or, at the very least, feigning unconsciousness. She narrowed her eyes to try to see them better. Her stomach tightened. "Vulcanoid. Vulcans or…Romulans."

She checked her padd. The containment filed was programmed to run a contamination scan, and she read the incoming information from the scan.

"Nothing that should be too dangerous for the ship," Beverly said. "Just in case we end up releasing them from the containment field, I would like everyone aboard boosted on their Baray fever inoculations, if they've been previously vaccinated, and we'll want to start everyone on a course of vaccinations for Verilian pox. Most people aboard the ship are not old enough to have ever been vaccinated for that, and those who were vaccinated will require boosters, just as with the Baray fever." She looked around her, taking in the alpha shift that was working for her at the time. "Nurse Fxx, could you get a team started on those? Mark the files of anyone that you have a question or concern about, and I'll handle those myself."

Beverly turned and looked toward Jean-Luc.

"I'm going in to check their injuries and treat what I can," Beverly said.

"They may be dangerous," Laris said. "Would you like me to go in with you? In case—they get physical or there's a language barrier and their translators…"

"Absolutely not," Beverly interrupted. "If they're coming to us from seventy years ago—and from who knows where—their immune systems are different. Baray fever could be fatal to you and the baby, if you contract it while pregnant. Everyone stays outside of this field, without a suit, until they're up-to-date on all vaccinations."

Beverly quickly acquired a few things to take with her, thanks in part to Nurse Riale's efforts to anticipate what she wanted and to bring it to her. Together, the two of them erected the outer containment field, stepped into it, lowered the main field, and stepped into it, effectively closing both fields behind them and being certain that nothing would escape containment until they knew exactly what they were dealing with.

Immediately, Beverly scanned the two individuals on the floor. She gave her report as she went, as Jean-Luc knew that she would do, so that nobody had to ask her to tell them anything.

"Civilian clothing. Male and female," Beverly said, already working, even as she reported on information that she'd already gathered. "Vulcanoid. Vulcan or Romulan…it's impossible to tell at this point."

"Vulcan," Riale said confidently. Beverly looked at her with question. "No forehead ridges, Sir," Riale said, keeping with the almost abandoned tradition of referring to Beverly as "sir," especially when she was nervous.

"Vulcan or Southern Romulan," Beverly corrected. She offered Riale a quick smile. "Not all Romulans have forehead ridges."

"My apologies," Riale offered.

"Don't worry about it," Beverly said.

"Do you need to sedate them for safety?" Some member of the security team asked, all of them still beyond the barrier.

"No," Beverly said. "What I need to do is lockdown and contain sickbay so that we can move freely. Move everyone out that isn't vaccinated. Get my teams going, and bring in extra hands, if necessary. Both of these individuals seem to have suffered significant injuries. I'll need two surgical teams suited up. The faster the better. The male is relatively stable, but the pulse is thready on the female."

"What can we do, Doctor?" Jean-Luc asked.

"Clear out and get vaccinated," Beverly said. "Let me assess and get things underway, and I'll be out to discuss things with you in more detail, when I can. In the meantime, talk to Starfleet and find out what their feelings are on the temporal prime directives."

"Aye, Doctor," Jean-Luc said, not questioning her authority at all—something that wasn't always the case. Beverly smiled at him and, even from the distance, she could see the quick wink he gave her. He left her to do what she did best, and he went to do the same.