Part Two
Trill Colony, Morana VI
Earth Year 2356
Jirel stepped out of the front door and adjusted the bag on his shoulder.
As he did every time he stepped through the door, he turned back and instinctively ran his hand across the blob of varnish on the wood. He always found himself drawn to that subtle imperfection. Not so much because it annoyed him, but because it reminded him that he had built all of this. With his own hands.
But this would be the last time he ever did it. Because today was moving day.
With a sad smile, he turned away from the door. His eye was immediately drawn to the skyline just above the trees on the far side of the clearing, and the shining metal buildings that now rose up above them.
When he had chosen the location for his home five years ago, he hadn't factored in the speed of progress across the colony. The main settlement on Morana VI had been expanding ever since he had arrived. Reaching further and further out into the surrounding forest to accommodate an ever-growing population.
Indeed, it was no longer even solely a Trill colony. All manner of species from every corner of the Alpha Quadrant had found a home here as well, seeking the tranquillity of colony life safely within the Federation's boundaries.
And while Jirel was happy to see the settlement growing so well, each time he made one of his rare ventures into town, he was also wary about the renewed proximity of the burgeoning population to his own location. This no longer felt like he was staying out of the way.
So eventually, it had become time to move on.
He took a moment to regard the rest of the clearing. Over the years, he had turned it from a scruffy wilderness into a sustainable home.
He had expanded his horizons from learning about construction. He had also learned how to tend the soil, to grow fruits and vegetables and cultivate a small harvest. Various carefully sewn types of tuber, fruit and grain were laid out in neat, efficient patterns across the formerly wild clearing.
It was nowhere near enough for him to have become self-sufficient. But in the absence of a replicator inside his home, it had been enough to drastically cut down on his need to make trips to the settlement for supplies. And the less he had to do that, the less chance there was of him accidentally doing anything he shouldn't have done.
But then, just as he had reduced the need for him to go to the settlement, the settlement had decided to come to him.
The shining new buildings being constructed on the other side of the treeline were a testament to the speed of the expansion. He had once been a twenty minute walk from civilisation. Now it was on his doorstep.
He suppressed a sad sigh and turned away from the home he had built. And he prepared to do what he did best.
He prepared to run away. Again.
"You're really leaving?"
Her voice, as it always did, caused him to stop and turn around.
Kiara Loren was older now, more mature. She approached him, carefully picking her way around the various plant beds, along with a taller male Trill with a slight paunch. Her own swollen belly was increasingly noticeable. Though she had a significantly better excuse than a simple weakness for the colony's less healthy foodstuffs.
"Seriously," she continued, chiding him with her tone, "You weren't even gonna say goodbye?"
Jirel offered a weak apologetic shrug as they reached him.
"Didn't wanna make a scene."
"You couldn't make a scene if you tried."
Inside, he pictured the scenes he had made in his past. The chaotic bar fights, the frantic space battles and all his other misadventures. He wondered how any of his own friends might have reacted to that comment. But then, he'd left all that behind a long time ago.
Before he could muster a response, the man holding Kiara's hand began to speak.
"I've had assurances from all our construction firms, in writing. They all agree that they don't need to expand into this section of the forest."
"That's my brave, handsome colony administrator," Kiara added with a knowing smile, as Jalon Gavar took the gentle mocking from his wife with a sheepish smile.
"And that's very kind of you," Jirel nodded, "But…I think it's best that I move."
"Why?" the inevitable question came from Kiara.
He forced himself to look at her, recognising the signs in her eyes that she was sure there was more to this than he was letting on. Fortunately, the fact that the truth was so ridiculous made it easier for him to lie.
"I feel like a change," he shrugged, "Gonna head south, to be closer to the coast."
"Why?" she pressed again, as she always did.
"Always wanted to take up surfing."
She stared back at the middle-aged man in front of him with a withering look. A look that reminded Jirel of the looks that Natasha Kinsen used to give him when he was being especially dumb, provoking a pang of loss.
"And what about us?" she pressed, placing her free hand on her belly, "I was hoping our daughter might not have as far to go when she wants to see her godfather."
His jaw clenched slightly at that. At the additional person he was going to have to let down. And this one wasn't even born yet.
But he was sticking to his instructions. Stay out of the way. Don't interfere.
He had questioned what that meant at times. After all, who was to say that he wasn't supposed to include himself more closely in very minor parts of history here and there. Perhaps by running away, he was altering the timeline.
But he soon dismissed that sort of second guessing. He had to stick to a principle. And while the role of godparent fluctuated in importance from species to species, he knew that in Trill society it was a big responsibility. One that would make him a key part in Kiara and Jalon's lives for the next two decades.
So, he had to keep running.
"I've been thinking about that," he managed, "And…I think you should pick someone else."
He felt another pang of angst inside as he saw the look of disappointment cross her face, though Jalon looked like he'd been expecting that sort of response.
"I just…think your daughter would benefit from someone from the settlement itself. They'll be closer to you all. They'll be able to—"
"You could be close to her," Kiara countered, "Nobody's forcing you to live so far away. There's plenty of space in the settlement."
"She's right," Jalon nodded, "I'm sure, if I asked around, I could secure you accommodation in one of the new—"
"No," Jirel cut in, "Thank you. But I think my future lies…elsewhere."
He absorbed the further look of betrayal from Kiara wash over him without a flinch. He was used to it by now.
"Well," she managed, with an edge to her tone, "I hope you find what you're looking for. Wherever you end up."
He mustered a sad nod. Already knowing that he wouldn't.
With that, she turned away, tugging Jalon's arm to instruct him to follow. Jirel watched them walk back out of the clearing.
"You know," Kiara called back sadly, glancing back at him as they reached the tree line, "One of these days we're going to stop trying with you. Not just me and Jalon. Everyone. And then you really will be alone. Is that what you want?"
He stared back at her and held back his emotions. He knew he couldn't begin to explain what he was doing to them, or why.
It wasn't what he wanted.
It was just how things had to be.
'*'*'
'*'*'
Admiral Jenner sat behind the desk in his ready room and stared at the stars streaking past, lost in thought.
While he had plenty more time than Jirel to process what was happening, ever since the older version of his son had approached him a year ago, the fact that they were now so close to it all playing out was unsettling him in ways he hadn't expected.
He was shaken from his thoughts by the sound of the door chime.
"Enter."
He swung his chair away from the starscape and turned back to his desk, as Commander T'Ren walked in and stood to attention.
"Commander," he nodded, gesturing to the seat on the other side of the desk, "Please, sit down."
Like most Vulcans, T'Ren's first instinct was to remain where she was, not seeing the logic in taking a seat when she was perfectly comfortable standing. But she had served around other species long enough to recognise that, for most non-Vulcans, this was a friendly gesture, and to decline was generally to cause offence.
So, she offered a curt nod and took a seat as instructed. Managing to look entirely less comfortable once she had done so than when she had been standing to attention.
"You wanted to see me, sir," she noted.
"I did," Jenner nodded, picking up a padd and passing it to her, "Please read over these orders, and then delete the message."
T'Ren didn't react to the request in the slightest. She merely accepted the padd and read over the words on the screen.
"And," Jenner continued, "As soon as we reach the Verillian system, I want you to slow to impulse and proceed to the fifth planet, entering orbit around the moon Verillian Five-Sigma."
"Understood, sir," T'Ren replied as she continued to read, eminently capable of multitasking in such a way.
No further questions came from his executive officer, so Jenner continued.
"Then I want you to personally set up a full sensor scan of the moon's surface, standard pattern, and route the findings directly to Briefing Room Four on deck 12. And only there. Once you've established the pattern, I don't want any results displayed on the bridge."
"Yes, sir."
"And I want you to use the secondary sensor array to keep an eye on the system itself from the bridge. I'm expecting us to be approached by a cruiser from Verillian Security shortly after we arrive in orbit."
T'Ren finished reading the padd, deleted the message, and set the device back down on the desk, then nodded back at her commanding officer.
"I assume that you will require me to ensure any communications from this vessel are routed to Briefing Room Four, Admiral."
Despite the situation, Jenner mustered a smile. He nodded back in affirmation.
"I see," T'Ren replied, "And will there be anything else, sir?"
"I take it you're not going to question any of this, Commander?"
T'Ren raised a slightly curious eyebrow at this query.
"You are an active Starfleet admiral, and you have just furnished me with confirmation that you are operating under level zero security clearance for the duration of our current assignment. It would not be logical for me to request further details, nor for you to provide them."
Jirel smiled again, finding himself more and more impressed with his new first officer.
"You know, I've never understood why every ship in Starfleet doesn't have a Vulcan exec."
If he didn't know better, he'd have sworn that there was a trace of amusement on her face as she considered her response.
"Perhaps," she offered eventually, "Because we make better captains, sir."
This was enough for Jenner to let out a chuckle. But only for a moment, before he returned to an altogether more serious expression as he stood from his chair. T'Ren mirrored his movements, secretly glad to be returning to a standing position.
"Very good. You have your orders, Commander," Jenner nodded at her, "Now, if you'll excuse me, I believe I'm late for an argument."
The admiral strode towards the exit, with the Vulcan close behind.
Raising another curious eyebrow as she did so.
'*'*'
'*'*'
It didn't take Jenner long to locate the argument.
Unlike Old Jirel's ability to predict when one was about to happen because he'd lived through the argument before, his own sixth sense for when one was about to take place came from a different experience.
The experience spent living as a father with a troubled relationship with his son for so long.
He had barely had time to walk into his own quarters before the argument arrived. Jirel burst through the doors without bothering to ring the buzzer.
"You knew!" he snapped, anger flaring in his eyes, "You all knew Maya was going to die! And you just let it happen! You did nothing!"
Jenner stood his ground, even as he wondered whether or not his son was going to swing a punch at him. He certainly looked prepared to.
He opted for the truth. There was no point offering anything else at this stage.
"I didn't know the details. Only what your older self told me. He had to be selective with the information he provided to preserve the—"
"Don't give me the timeline crap! I've heard all of that from him, and I'm not buying it. Saving Maya Ortega's life wasn't gonna destroy the Alpha Quadrant, for god's sake!"
Jenner went to retort. To suggest that there was no way of knowing what impact it might have had, which was why temporal matters were so delicately handled. But he knew anything like that would sound trite and hollow. So he took a different path.
"Jirel, I'm sorry. I know this is tough for you. It's tough for all of us. But we have to do our duty."
"Bullcrap."
The dismissive tone of Jirel's simple retort riled Jenner all over again, as the argument escalated still further.
"What?" he snapped, "You think I want to lose my son like this—?"
"Psh. You don't lose me. You…gain a different me. One I bet you like a hell of a lot more."
"What the hell is that supposed to—?"
"Yeah, cos he actually cares about all that Starfleet crap. Doing your duty, and protecting the timeline and everything else. Hell, he even likes scotch. Bet the two of you are gonna have a great time once I'm out of the picture. You'll have finally gotten rid of a huge disappointment from your life. Might even stop you resenting mom for making you adopt me in the first place—!"
To Jenner's surprise, it was him that threw the first punch.
It connected with enough force to send Jirel to the ground, where he landed in a pained heap and glared back up at where his father stood over him.
"Don't you dare say that!" the old man growled, "I loved your mother! And I—"
The words he wanted to say immediately got caught in his throat. Even after their frank and heartfelt reconciliation back on Earth, before all of this had happened, there were still some things he struggled to say. Even in these most unique of circumstances, he struggled to tell his son that he loved him.
Instead, he clenched his jaw and stepped back from the fallen Trill.
"We have to do our duty," he repeated, in an altogether quieter voice.
Jirel forced himself back to his feet unaided and gently felt the side of his face where the punch had landed.
"Well," he muttered back eventually, "Screw that. Cos I'm not gonna throw my life away like that just because some washed-up version of me from the past, or the future, or whatever, shows up and tells me to. So, we need a new plan."
Before the argument could progress any further, or any more punches could be thrown, Jirel stalked back out of the door.
Jenner slumped back into an armchair with a deep sigh. Feeling the pain in his hand that had thrown the punch. And a deeper pain in his soul.
'*'*'
'*'*'
Mannheim Research Outpost, Vandor IV
Temporal Reset Number 34
Natasha Kinsen woke up.
But this time, she woke up with a renewed sense of purpose.
She jumped off the bed and rushed out of the room without even bothering to take a bite from the double cheeseburger (with all the trimmings).
Because now she had a plan. She had a reason to keep going, instead of just going round and round in circles.
Technically, she was still going round and round in circles. The temporal loop they were trapped inside wasn't stopping any time soon. But as far as their escape strategy was concerned, things had very much changed.
As she exited the room and marched into the corridor, the other three Bounty crew members were already striding out of their own rooms, falling into lockstep as they walked as one down the corridor towards the shared living area.
"Remember where we got to?" Natasha called back.
"Of course," Sunek replied, his Vulcan mind again helping out in a surprising way.
As they entered the bright white living area, he immediately walked over to a particular spot and pointed down to the ground.
"Here."
Without another word, Klath reached down and wrenched the pristine carpet back with a satisfied roar of exertion.
With the floor revealed, Denella and Natasha now went to work, deftly unscrewing the bolts that held the next solid sheet of metal in place.
Following Natasha's suggestion to try something new, they had conducted another meticulous inspection of their prison, and discovered that the floor was made up of a checkerboard of square metal panels. And over the last few loops, they had been methodically moving, square by square, across the floor.
Using their retained memories from previous loops, and Sunek's Vulcan mind buried under his lurid dress sense, they ensured they were picking up where they left off each time.
No longer were they merely repeating themselves. Now they had a plan.
So far, all they had uncovered were a lot of rock-filled crawlspaces. None of which actually led anywhere significant, and merely represented the bedrock underneath the prefab research outpost building they were trapped inside. But they still pressed on, certain that if they could find any sort of gap, or tunnel, or access point, that they could escape.
And, Natasha surmised as she finished unscrewing the last bolt, even if they didn't, at least they were keeping focused. It had been a good few loops since Klath had last felt the need to kill Sunek out of frustration.
Presently, she and Denella finished their work, and Klath stepped in to lift up the heavy metal sheet. Revealing another tiny crawl space, filled with rocks.
"Ok," Denella sighed, "Next one."
Klath's frustrations hadn't disappeared entirely. As made apparent when he suddenly threw the table across the room again, followed by the chairs. But this time, he wasn't just indulging his anger, he was also clearing room to tear the carpet back further and reveal the next panel.
Even Sunek was being oddly quiet and focused for the moment, though it was possible that he had just had enough of being killed.
As Natasha and Denella went to start work on the next panel, they all heard a voice.
"Please don't do that."
All four turned back to the wall-mounted screen on one side of the room, now displaying the face of Doctor Lester Brooks.
"You petaQ!" Klath roared.
Denella held up a hand to stop the furious Klingon just as he was preparing to throw one of the chairs at the screen.
"How about this," she offered back, keeping her own rage below the surface for now, "We'll stop ruining your carpet, if you let us the hell out of here."
"I'm afraid I can't do that," Brooks countered, an edge of concern on his face, "Not yet. We need more chronitons."
"Well," Sunek piped up with a fresh batch of sarcasm, "Seeing as you asked so nicely…"
The scientist's face on the screen didn't seem to react to that comment. He merely fixed the group as a whole with a patient look.
"Again, I feel as though my family's genius is being unappreciated. You are, right now, experiencing a series of near-complete temporal resets. For you, time is both advancing, and repeating itself. And here I am, right now, communicating with you inside said loop."
Rasmussen's face poked in from the side, slightly distorted as the screen adjusted for the second focal point.
"It's very clever," the white-haired man grinned.
Brooks shooed his colleague away with a slightly irritated wave of his hand, and focused back on the subjects of the experiment.
"So," he continued, after the rude interruption, "The least you could do is cooperate."
Denella again stopped the growling Klath from launching the chair at the screen. Though Brooks's tone was starting to make her think that she should just let the Klingon have his fun.
With Klath subdued, Natasha stepped forwards and exercised some of her old Starfleet curiosity on Brooks's sudden intervention.
"Hang on, why do you care if we trash the place?" she asked, gesturing to the ripped-up carpet and missing floor panel, "It's just going to reset itself soon enough anyway."
Brooks's face twitched slightly, betraying the sense that there was more to his worries than he was prepared to let on.
"I just want you to cooperate, that's all. This will all be over a lot quicker if you do."
Natasha scanned the face on the screen, trying to figure out what she was missing. What he was hiding from them.
And then, she smiled.
"We're getting close," she whispered.
The other three Bounty crew members, along with the face on the screen, looked over at her.
"That's why he's talking to us," she continued, more excitedly, "That's why he's worried about us doing what we're doing. We're getting close to the way out of here!"
The twitch on Brooks's face returned before he could stop it.
"The best way out of there," he countered, "Is if you just let the experiment continue—"
"If we let the experiment continue, we die."
The frankness of Natasha's statement provoked looks of shock from the others.
"Excuse me?" Denella asked.
Natasha shrugged and sighed. She hadn't quite meant to reveal that information right now, but it was time to stop keeping them in the dark.
"Exposure to this much temporal stress is going to degrade our neural pathways. I'm sure it's already started, to some extent. Any of you feeling something like a pressure headache building up?"
The looks from Denella and Klath suggested that Natasha wasn't alone with that ailment.
"Well, that's…not a good sign. So we can't just stay here."
"You told me they'd be fine," Rasmussen muttered to Brooks on the screen, butting his head back in frame before being shooed away for a second time.
"The risk is manageable," Brooks insisted, not entirely convincingly.
"He's lying," Natasha grimly affirmed to the others, "But at least we know we're on the right track now."
"You're not on the right—!"
Brooks's latest outburst was interrupted by the impact of a chair on the screen, shattering it into a thousand shards. Denella turned to Klath, the Klingon looking a little unhappy to have not been the one to have thrown the chair on this occasion.
"I can see why you like doing that," the Orion nodded with satisfaction, "Very therapeutic."
Klath nodded understandingly and threw his own chair to one side. Natasha kept her focus on the bigger picture.
"Ok, we're getting close. But we must be ready for another loop soon."
"Don't worry," Sunek piped up, pointing down at the ruined floor, "I'll remember where we got t—"
'*'*'
'*'*'
Mannheim Research Outpost, Vandor IV
Temporal Reset Number 35
Natasha Kinsen woke up.
She was out of bed and back into the corridor before she even thought about what she was doing. The others joined her immediately.
They were getting close.
'*'*'
'*'*'
Prosecutor Gr'aja from Verillian Security Division Beta-Four was having a hell of a week.
Firstly, he had been led on a merry dance by a petty criminal and the ship he had escaped from Verillian space in. He and his adjutant, Deputy Prosecutor Ha'xil, had eventually lost the vessel they had been tracking after it had intercepted a radiation-covered Talarian freighter, and they had been forced to return to base empty handed.
And now, after that humbling, he was being confronted by an entirely different ship.
He and Ha'xil had intercepted the unidentified vessel as soon as it had entered the system. Both were used to protecting the tight borders of Verillian space from passing scavengers, pirates or unsavoury merchants, and this was nothing new.
But what was new was the unidentified vessel turning out to be a Federation starship.
The Ambassador-class ship dwarfed their Verillian cruiser. And despite the usually peaceful nature of such vessels, Gr'aja couldn't help but feel unnerved at their unexpected appearance. Especially when the ship had actually made contact. And instead of the warm look of a fully-staffed starship bridge, they were confronted by a dimmed briefing room, empty save for a stern Starfleet admiral and a mysterious woman in a black jumpsuit.
And while Verillian Security usually handled the questions in such encounters with previously unidentified ships, the Starfleet side had quickly taken the lead in the conversation.
"Can you supply us with records of the course this ship took?" the woman in the jumpsuit asked.
Prosecutor Gr'aja had diligently answered the questions that had come his way from the two people on the screen. Most of which had revolved around the troublesome ship they had been tracking a few days earlier.
None of the questions up to this point had been too intrusive. But this latest one did seem to cross a line. A Federation ship unofficially requesting physical data from a Verillian one.
"I, um," Gr'aja began, a little flustered, "I would have to check with my superiors before—"
"Prosecutor," the heavy-set admiral cut in, having clearly and readily taken up the role of the bad cop in the double act on screen, "I understand you have procedures to follow, but so do we. And right now, this vessel is operating under level zero Starfleet clearance."
Gr'aja went to retort, but the admiral cut him off immediately.
"Which, I'm sure you're about to tell me, has no bearing on a non-Federation system like this. And that's true. But it does also give me, as commander of this vessel, a broad range of options to deal with such situations."
The Verillian prosecutor audibly gulped and glanced over at Deputy Prosecutor Ha'xil, who looked similarly troubled by the implication carried in those words.
"W—What do you mean?" Gr'aja managed to stammer back at the screen.
"I'm not sure you want me to get too specific," the implacable admiral replied, "But I think we both know that, given the relative strengths of our ships, it would end up with us being in possession of the information we've politely requested, and two members of Verillian Security in custody for obstructing a Starfleet investigation."
"T—That would be—" Ha'xil began.
"A diplomatic incident. Yes, that's true. But probably not that will end well for the Verillians, I think we can all agree."
Neither Gr'aja nor Ha'xil had much of a response to that.
"So," the admiral said again, "Can you supply us with the records of the course this ship took?"
'*'*'
'*'*'
A few minutes later, the Erebus was warping away from the Verillian system.
They had, much to everyone's relief, managed to leave Prosecutor Gr'aja and Deputy Prosecutor Ha'xil entirely un-detained and a diplomatic incident entirely un-caused. The details that the entirely more compliant Verillians had sent over was displayed on a padd on the table of the briefing room, which Jenner, Taylor and Old Jirel were checking over.
Leaving Old Jirel to finish skimming the data, Taylor looked up at Jenner with a half-smile.
"You know, Admiral, I was wondering," she offered, "In situations like that, what happens when someone calls your bluff?"
Jenner looked back at her with an inscrutable poker face.
"It's never come up."
Her half-smile became a full smile.
"This is them," Old Jirel nodded, pointing at the course information on the padd, "They would've intercepted the Talarian freighter here to shield them from the Verillians, and then proceeded to the Vandor sector once they were clear. Everything is playing out as it should do."
The craggy face of the Trill contorted into a sad look as he contemplated what that meant. While he was relieved the timeline was proceeding entirely unaffected by everything he had done, he was now another step closer to condemning himself to thirty years in the past.
Taylor spotted the look, and tried to steer him back to business.
"So, what now? Where do we head to in the Vandor sector?"
Old Jirel returned from his thoughts and tapped the screen of the padd.
"Right," he nodded, "We need to head to these coordinates inside the sector. But I think it might make sense for us to take a…roundabout course. Just in case the Verillians try to track us."
Jenner nodded.
"I'll make sure to tell Commander T'Len to indulge herself."
"And I'll call in our backup," Taylor added, eliciting a glare from the admiral.
"I wasn't aware we had any backup," Jenner grunted guardedly.
He was still well aware that he was being kept on a need-to-know basis on their current mission. And that wasn't something he was used to. Or happy with.
"Nothing to worry about," Taylor replied calmly as she tapped a set of commands into a comms unit she had pulled from her belt, "But we have reason to believe that a set of plans for a particular vehicle were stolen from a Federation transport and brought here by Brooks and Rasmussen."
She finished working on the device and looked back up at the admiral.
"I'm calling in a strike team from the DofTI. To trace the plans and ensure that any and every copy of them is destroyed."
"Simple as that, hmm," Jenner grunted, "Am I to assume that these plans that Temporal Investigations are so interested in are for—"
"A time machine," Old Jirel nodded, "Yes."
Taylor fixed the Trill with an unhappy look, but he merely shrugged back at her.
"I think we can trust him at this point."
The temporal agent glanced from one man to the other and shook her head patiently.
"Is this the whole family ganging up on me?"
Old Jirel smiled at this, but Jenner didn't do the same. He was still entirely uncomfortable about the fact that the man roughly his age was also his son.
After a moment of terse silence, Taylor decided to address the elephant in the room.
"So, the other big question is…how is our temporal subject doing? Have you been able to help him at all?"
This caused both of the men to entirely clam up. Any trace of confidence or authority seemingly melted away in an instant.
"Not so much," Old Jirel admitted with a shrug.
Jenner merely shook his head silently.
Agent Taylor sighed.
"You know, all the miracles of the 24th century. The ability to travel across a sector of space in the blink of an eye. The means to magic up your evening meal from thin air. Everything. And still, we can't get two grown men to have a conversation about their feelings."
Despite the situation, she was slightly amused to see the sheepish expressions now present on the faces of the two men, and she shook her head again.
"Fine. I'm on it."
"If it helps," the aged Trill offered, "I know where he'll be."
'*'*'
'*'*'
Jirel sat in the centre seat of the Ju'Day-type raider's cockpit and looked around.
None of the stations were manned. The entire ship was empty apart from him. The cockpit itself was silent save for the quiet hum of the warp engines.
He slowly swivelled around in the chair and let his eyes linger on the unerringly familiar space around him. The reassuring sense of the place, of the ship he had called home for so long. The only place, he now realised, that had ever really felt like home.
And a place that he had left behind a long time ago.
His solitary reminiscence was interrupted by the sound of the heavy holodeck doors opening behind him, and a set of footsteps entering. He turned around, fully expecting to see his father. But he was surprised to see Agent Leona Taylor walk in and smile at him.
"Hi there," she said, "I hear you've already argued with your father. And…yourself. I suppose I'm starting to feel left out."
He didn't match her smile, and just swivelled back around to the front of the cockpit. Undeterred by this reaction, she stepped around the facsimile of the room, taking in the detail.
"I'm going to guess that this is your ship?"
Jirel didn't want a conversation. He wanted to be alone. But for some reason, instead of telling her that in no uncertain terms, he started to talk.
"No. Not really. Same type of ship, but this isn't mine."
He tugged at the pristine fabric on the armrests of the centre chair he was sitting in, part of the Erebus's holographic recreation of the raider's cockpit based on library images and details.
"Everything's all still in one piece, for a start."
He thought about the Bounty's actual cockpit. The tattered fabric, the dented panelling, the mish-mash of components that had built up over thirty years of hard work, underfunded repairs and mismatched firefights.
And then he thought about the state the ship had been in when he had last seen it. After the fateful trip to Sector 374.
Thanks to a vengeful Ferengi called Grenk launching a surprise attack, the Bounty had been shot from the sky. And though it had been recovered from where it had crash-landed, it had still born the heavy scars of the violence when Jirel had walked away from it.
Just as they all had.
"Although," he muttered sadly, "I'm not sure it was ever my ship."
He pictured Maya Ortega. The woman who had bought the Bounty with him, many years ago, back in the Tyran Scrapyards. The woman he had never finished paying off before she had died. And the woman he was now sure he had loved.
It had never been his ship. But had it been his home?
The woman in the jumpsuit looked over at the Trill's unhappy face, and saw someone that definitely needed to talk. It didn't take a counsellor to see that.
"Well," she offered eventually, "One way or another, I'd say you could use a drink."
Jirel didn't want a drink. Or specifically, he didn't want company when he drank. He wanted to be alone.
But once again, he found his actions betraying his thoughts.
And he nodded back.
'*'*'
'*'*'
Like most larger Federation starships, the Erebus's main lounge was located directly at the forward edge of the main saucer section. As a result, the huge windows of the lounge afforded a spectacular view of the cosmos as the huge ship streaked through space at high warp. A view that often caused even seasoned space travellers to take a breath in awe.
But while Jirel was staring out at the view where he sat nestled at a table in the corner of the lounge, he didn't feel much awe. He wasn't taking in the view, he was staring right through it.
Contemplating what the future held for him. Or rather, what the past apparently held for him.
He was stirred from his thoughts as Agent Taylor arrived with two drinks and set them down. Jirel took a sip from the glass of Andorian brandy he had asked for, and winced in disgust.
"Now that's the look of someone who's used to the real thing," she noted accurately, "But I'm afraid it's synthehol only in here."
Jirel set the glass down and returned to staring through the view of the cosmos, as she got comfortable and sipped her own drink.
"Ok then," she continued, seeing that he wasn't eager to kick off the conversation, "This is a social occasion, so please call me Leona. And tell me all about Jirel Jenn—Sorry, Jirel Vincent."
"Mother's name," he grunted without looking at her.
"I know," she replied, "And don't worry, I've already asked the ship's counsellor to skip straight to the part on the Oedipus complex if we need to give you a pre-mission screening."
This comment caused Jirel to tear his attention away from the view with irritation. But when he saw her smiling, he decided against being angry. And even though he still wanted to be alone, he found himself giving her his full attention.
"So, how come you brought me up here?" he asked, gesturing around the confines of the sparsely-populated lounge, "Aren't you worried I'll start screaming out all the details of our top secret mission?"
"Not especially," she replied as she casually sipped her drink, "As part of my training to become an agent for Temporal Investigations, I have an instant tranquilising serum coating the fingertips of my left hand. And very good reflexes."
The Trill studied the tawny-skinned woman's face as she innocently sipped from a glass of orange juice, trying to figure her out.
"You're joking," he concluded eventually.
"Maybe. Feel free to put that theory to the test."
Whether she was being truthful or messing with him, something about her caused Jirel to instantly dismiss any notion he had of trying to cause a scene.
"So," he offered instead, "I take it this is the part where you sit me down and try to convince me to be a hero?"
"I'm not sure you need convincing of that. From what I've heard from Jirel—From the other Jirel, it already sounds like you know plenty about being a hero."
"I know plenty about being an idiot."
"There was a lot of that too," she nodded.
He couldn't help but muster a sliver of a smile at that. The primordial level of bantering they had segued into almost felt like the sort of thing he used to do back on the Bounty.
"You know," he replied, "When you give up being a timecop, you're really gonna clean up on the motivational speaking circuit."
She smiled back and leaned forward slightly, happy to be making progress.
"Seriously though, he told me a lot of stories. Nimbus III? The Orion Syndicate? Chameloids? All sounded heroic enough to me."
Jirel absorbed the clunky compliment with a slight shrug, then looked a little sadder as he cast his mind back to those adventures.
"It wasn't just me," he pointed out, "I had a lot of help with all that."
"And you're gonna have a lot of help with this one," she persisted, "So that we can save your friends. And stop this…temporal event."
"Saving my friends isn't the part I'm having trouble with," Jirel replied without a second's pause, "It's more the whole…disappearing into a weird time vortex thing. Seriously, my destiny is to fall down a hole?"
"We can try to make the history books remember it more kindly than that," she smiled, "Except…we can't ever really tell the history books about all of this."
"So…my destiny is to fall down a hole and be completely forgotten about?"
Taylor paused for a moment. While she had at least managed to avoid a blazing argument so far, she wasn't doing a great deal better than the two men had done. She leaned back in her seat and sighed, tracing a finger around the rim of her glass.
"Destiny is a funny thing, Jirel."
"Doesn't seem very funny."
"Maybe that's the wrong word," she shrugged, "But…you wanna know how I ended up working in Temporal Investigations?"
"Got a big thing for tight jumpsuits and circular arguments?"
She chuckled at that comment, and Jirel smiled back despite himself. Then, she slowly shook her head.
"My grandmother was born on Earth. In 1957."
Jirel's face creased in sudden confusion, as he ran through the mental arithmetic in his head and studied the young woman on the other side of the table.
"Well," he managed eventually, "You look good for your age, at least?"
"She was involved in a temporal event of her own," she continued, "Gillian Taylor. She travelled from the 20th century to the 23rd century, thanks to the actions of a Starfleet crew. And, while my father tried to distance himself from all that, I was fascinated by what she'd been through."
She took a sip of juice and mustered a smile.
"I mean, people only ever think about how…cool it would be to travel 300 years into the future, right? What new advances must've been made, what new things there'd be to experience?"
Jirel shrugged and nodded in agreement, as she continued.
"But they never think about the negative effects. How tough it would be for someone to rip up everything they thought they knew and start again. But, even though it was tough, my grandmother managed to do it. And hearing about all that as a kid…made me want to work in temporal affairs."
Jirel considered what she was saying, and couldn't help but note a hint of a double standard.
"So, you're only alive because someone meddled in the timeline—?" he began.
"And yet I'm telling you we can't do that," she finished on his behalf, "I know, it's a little bit hypocritical."
"I'd say it's quite a lot hypocritical."
She conceded that point with a nod.
"Well, since joining the DofTI, I've come to see the importance of preserving timelines as much as possible. Everyone in the department does. After all, we've had a hell of a lot of near misses down the years."
"I'm sure you have."
"I'm serious," she persisted, "I mean, everyone knows about the slingshot manoeuvre, right? Build up enough speed and slingshot round a star's gravity well and you're going back in time. Hell, a hundred years ago, Starfleet used to send entire ships back in time for historical studies. Can you imagine that?"
Jirel mustered a shrug as he toyed with his undrinkable glass of synthetic brandy. But he found himself maintaining an interest in what she was saying.
"But, so far we've been lucky, I guess. All the major galactic powers have banned the use of the manoeuvre. Everyone's as scared of the consequences as the next superpower. And the warp field modifications and calculations required are too complex and impractical for any smaller group or government to work out."
She sipped her drink and stifled a grimace.
"Not that it stops them from trying every now and again. Five years ago, a DofTI undercover team had to break up a Maquis plot to travel back to pre-militarised Cardassia and prevent the formation of the Union."
"Would that have been so bad?" Jirel heard himself ask, still not entirely sure why he was paying such close attention to this conversation.
Taylor looked back at him and sighed deeply.
"That's the problem here. It's not for us to decide. We start trying to meddle here and there to try and make things better, and we run into all sorts of moral dilemmas. So we don't do that. We work to protect what we already have."
This comment provoked a rush of frustration inside Jirel. He leaned forward in his chair, trying to keep his voice down around the scant few other lounge patrons.
"So that's all you're doing with me? Not asking questions, not looking for an alternative way out of all this, just blindly 'preserving the timeline'?"
She met his frustrated glare with an understanding smile.
"I'm sorry," she offered, the words sounding a little hollow, "But, if it makes you feel any better, at least you know you get through it all."
"Do I?"
"I've worked closely with you—with the older version of you for some time now, to prepare all of this. And he's a strong-willed individual. He coped with everything remarkably well."
Not for the first time, and despite Old Jirel's earlier protestations, he was sure he saw a flicker of something on her face when discussing his older self. As if there was more to them than a mere working relationship.
But he dismissed that train of thought again, focusing on his own concerns.
"I dunno," he admitted, "That old man doesn't feel like me at all. And how can you say he coped well? I mean, he didn't do anything. He just hid away somewhere and…got old."
Taylor shook her head gently, even as Jirel simmered with fresh resentment.
"I wouldn't say that," she countered quietly, "I'd say he did plenty."
"Really?" Like what?"
"Well, when he really needed to do something, he saved his friends. He did the right thing."
Jirel wanted to be even angrier about that answer. But he found that he couldn't bring himself to do that. Instead, he pushed his untouched fake brandy away and returned to gazing at the windows of the lounge, staring straight through the beauty of the starfield on the other side.
And he thought about doing the right thing.
'*'*'
'*'*'
Admiral Bryce Jenner had no such issues with the scourge of synthehol.
One of the perks of rising as high up the chain of command as he had done was that he was given more leeway to keep a well-stocked liquor cabinet onboard. After all, when you got your admiral's pips, there were very few people left with the authority to try and stop you.
Usually, it was left alone. Reserved for special occasions and frank diplomatic discussions. He remembered a time some years ago when he had hammered out a new border agreement with a Romulan senator, a Klingon council member and a particularly potent bottle of overproof rum.
But over the last year, he had found himself turning to it more and more often.
Not to the point where he was worried he was developing a dependence. But the act of meeting your son at a point in their life when they're as old as you are was enough to make anyone need a stiff drink or two.
And now they were getting closer to the crucial moment. The moment that Jirel was destined to disappear, back in time.
And that was why Jenner sat in his desk chair in his quarters, swirling a glass of scotch around in one hand.
In front of him, on the screen of his desk computer, sat the details of his mission. He had already read over them a hundred times or more. But he was re-reading them all over again, studying every word for something that he might have missed. Some sort of loophole.
But there was none. The orders were far too straightforward for that. Essentially, in so many words, for him to follow the guidance of the Department for Temporal Investigations and ensure the preservation of the timeline.
He sighed and leaned back in his chair, setting the glass down on the desk. As he looked out at the starscape through the expansive window of his quarters, with no idea that his son had been doing something similar very recently, he let out a sigh. Feeling the weight of the situation on his shoulders very clearly.
All of a sudden, the door chime rang out. In an instant, he returned to a picture of formal admiralty.
"Enter."
The doors opened, and Jirel walked in. Young Jirel, that was.
Jenner stood from his desk, preparing himself for another argument. But as he walked over to desk, Jirel didn't look prepared for that. Instead, he looked like he'd been thinking. A lot.
"We can still save the others," he sighed in acceptance, "Even if we couldn't save Maya."
It was a comment phrased in a way that landed partly between being a question and a definite statement of fact. But whichever one it was, Jenner felt obligated to offer back a definitive nod. His son seemed to have reached acceptance, somehow. And they could save the others.
Jirel nodded back, then smiled sadly.
"So…I guess we have to do our duty."
With that simple explanation, he turned on his heels and made for the door again, leaving his father and his scotch where it was.
As Jenner watched him leave, the stoic admiral facade peeled away slightly at the corner, and he suddenly felt differently about this situation. He wasn't an officer watching a subordinate preparing for a mission. He was a father, watching his son walk away. Preparing to, in a strange and baffling way, walk out of his life.
And that, more than the scotch, was enough to convince him what he needed to do.
To hell with his orders.
"Screw that."
Jirel stopped just before he reached the door, and turned back to where his father still stood, with a flicker of humanity visible on his face.
"Did you just say—?"
"Listen to me, Jirel," Jenner cut in, his voice now all authority, "We're going to carry out this mission, we're going to stop whatever the hell's going on in the Vandor sector, and we're going to save your friends while we do it. But I'll be damned if I'm just gonna let you get stranded in the past."
Jirel wasn't used to hearing this sort of intensity in his father's voice, unless he was being chastised in some way. To hear that intensity in a supportive way was oddly encouraging.
"So," his father concluded, "You were right. We do need a new plan. And we're gonna come up with one."
He stepped back over to his desk and gestured for Jirel to join him, pausing only to move the untouched glass of scotch off of his desk.
And together, father and son went to work.