Star Trek: Department of Temporal Investigations - 01 - Watching the Clock

by Christopher L. Bennett

02:58 UTC

  Once it became clear that there was no talking Vard, Korath, or Naadri out of their participation in this conference (and that Nart was too agreeable by nature to go against the consensus), there was nothing the agents could do but take Elfiki’s advice and wait—and listen while the physicists went about their discussions. Naadri talked with Vard about using Paul Manheim’s research into nonlinear quantum physics and multidimensional cosmology to create an “Everett-Wheeler radio” for communication with parallel timelines, while Vard offered insights from his brief study of his alternate self’s timeline-jumping apparatus eight years, seven months, and four weeks before. Meanwhile, Naadri brushed off Korath’s attempts to speak to her about the weapons applications of her theoretical negative entropy or “anti-time” phenomenon. Once Korath had given up on that, he plied Nart for information about the Ferengi’s unsuccessful attempts to develop a chroniton-based transporter. Korath engaged him in a discussion about the functional similarities between transporter emitters and deflector arrays and began to speculate about the possibilities of something he dubbed the “chrono-deflector.”

  After a while, Dulmur just tuned it out. These abstract theoretical discussions wouldn’t lead to anything disastrous in the next few hours, and Lucsly would let him know if he thought they came up with anything threatening enough to the future that the Cabal’s Sponsor or other anti-Accordist factions might be motivated to attack.

  What drew his attention at last was when one of Vard’s grad students came running into the main hall. “Professor!” the young Benzite cried. “There’s a starship in orbit of the moon! A big one!”

  “What? Impossible!” Vard exclaimed. “Whose is it?”

  “I think it’s Starfleet. I can’t be sure, the static is so bad.”

  “Nonsense,” said Naadri. “My chroniton field shouldn’t generate that much interference!”

  “Incompetent child,” Vard muttered. “Let me see this for myself.”

  Dulmur and Lucsly followed Vard and the others to the sensor room. Indeed, the levels of interference had become severe, but it was clear enough that a large starship of Starfleet configuration was indeed orbiting the moon. “Your ship?” Nart asked.

  Lucsly shook his head. “Too big.” He pointed. “They’re trying to hail us.”

  “No response!” Vard said. “We can’t let anyone know we’re here!”

  “If they didn’t already know we were here,” Dulmur said, “they wouldn’t be hailing us.”

  Suddenly, the transporter pad lit up. “They’re trying to send someone down!” the Benzite said.

  Dulmur’s eyes widened. “Will they be able to get through all this interference?”

  “With our transporter acting as a focus and amplifier, yes,” Vard said. “Ohh, this is not how I wrote it on my to-do list!”

  Three figures shimmered into being on the transporter pad, resolving as Starfleet officers, two human women and a massive Klingon male that Dulmur recognized. The Klingon stepped forward, taking them in. “You are DTI?”

  “That’s right,” Dulmur said. “Agent Dulmur.”

  His partner stepped forward. “Lucsly. DTI. You’re Commander Worf of the Enterprise.”

  “That is correct.” He gestured toward his teammates. “This is Lieutenant Jasminder Choudhury, chief of security.” The tall, elegant Indian woman nodded in greeting. “And our science officer, Lieutenant Dina Elfiki.”

  The two agents traded a look. Here we go, Dulmur thought. He’d wondered why “Metta” had declined to enter the room with them. As for this earlier Elfiki, she noticed the agents’ reaction to the sight of her, but didn’t seem to find it strange. She was undoubtedly used to men’s stares.

  Vard didn’t even seem to notice her, however. “What are you doing here?” he demanded. “How did you find this place?”

  Worf loomed over him. “The question is, what are you doing here? Are you responsible for the temporal disruptions?”

  “What temporal disruptions?”

  “All we’ve done is generate a simple chroniton field,” Naadri said.

  “Then you claim to know nothing of the escalating series of temporal anomalies that have manifested throughout the sector over the past eight hours?”

  “The field blocks long-range communications,” Dulmur said.

  “What kind of anomalies?” Lucsly asked.

  “There are reports of events repeating themselves,” Choudhury said, “much like the Manheim Event of 2364. We’ve personally experienced future echoes—glimpses of our own future actions. One Kreetassan ship was nearly torn apart by a severe time dilation differential it passed through.”

  “The incidents are becoming more frequent by the hour,” Worf said. “And they center on this star system.”

  “As soon as we arrived here,” Elfiki said, “we detected spacetime ripples emanating from this moon. Your facility is radiating time distortions that just keep getting more intense.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” Naadri insisted. “There’s nothing being done here that could generate such effects.”

  “Not yet,” Lucsly said.

  A moment later, Vard caught on. “He said the incidents are increasing over time. Like . . . negative echoes of something that is about to happen!”

  “Something that resonates both forward and backward in time,” Korath added.

  “What could do something like that?” Worf asked.

  Vard gazed at the DTI agents, his tone more subdued than Dulmur had ever heard it. “Something . . . very powerful. And very dangerous. We need to get to the lab.”

  The group hurried out of the sensor suite and down the corridor. But when they passed through the doorway to the physics lab, they found themselves back in the sensor suite, watching themselves hurry out the door. Dulmur spun to see only a solid wall behind him. He recognized the way his brain glossed over the experiential discontinuity of the transition. “A Manheim loop,” he said. “The effects are happening here now.”

  The others traded uncertain looks. “Shall we try again?” Choudhury suggested.

  “We cannot stay here,” Worf replied. “Perhaps if we try a different route.”

  They headed out more carefully this time, with Vard leading them on a more roundabout path through the compound’s corridors. But as they neared an intersection, Dulmur heard an unfamiliar sound from the connecting corridor. Worf and Choudhury tensed, exchanging a look that confirmed Dulmur’s suspicion: it was some kind of weapons fire.

  The connecting corridor lit up with energy bolts. Dulmur heard screams, and the footsteps of a running figure. Oddly familiar footsteps.

  The figure turned the corner and skidded to a halt. It was Agent Marion Dulmur. “Whatever you do,” the other Dulmur cried to the group, “don’t go down that corridor!”

  Then a beam struck him and he screamed as his body disintegrated into hot vapor.

  Dulmur and the others wasted no time heading the other way.

  XVIII

  Timespace

  Colloquium of Progress Outpost, Axis of Time

  Late Tarantian Age, Upper Pleistocene Epoch

  Questioning soon revealed that a number of Siri—notably one matching the description of Vikei, Garcia’s guide and resistance contact from before—had been sighted down near the creation point of the Axis, way back in the Lower Pliocene, not long before the lockdown occurred. But they had evidently scattered along the Axis in the time since. Tracking them down required some good old-fashioned legwork, questioning denizens of the Axis for information on their whereabouts, while Heather Petersen conferred with the Axis science teams to try to devise solutions to the blockade. The agents had to be careful with their questions; the Axis denizens were largely angry and panicked about being trapped here, and if the Siri were blamed for the crisis, there could be mass violence against the lot of them.

  Finally, Councillor Oydia got a tip from one of her fellow Caratu that Vikei had been spotted aboard the outpost of their Colloqui
um. Ranjea and Garcia made their way promptly, accompanied by the red-scaled Talich security chief, Alenar.

  After getting a lead from one of the locals—a massive alien called a D’drauk’k, reminding Garcia of a six-limbed spider-ape with sabertooth tusks—the young agent stared behind her at the very distinctive being. “Only eighteen thousand years between us,” she said to Ranjea as they trailed the Talich officer through the outpost’s corridors, “and we know nothing about these guys. What happened to them?”

  “We are far from Federation territory,” Ranjea reminded her. “We never knew the Vomnin existed until less than two years ago.”

  “Still,” she said. “Councillor Temarel’s from not much further in our future, and she’s never heard of the Federation—even though she’s got to be descended from Vulcans or Romulans or both.” Her brow furrowed. “Is what we’re fighting for really that ephemeral? Does it really make so little difference in the long run?”

  “Time travel can give a skewed sense of perspective,” Ranjea said. “What we do matters to us. To our friends, our neighbors, our families, our children. How is that less meaningful than its impact on those tens of millennia removed from us?”

  She smiled, taking his hand. “You have a point.” Then her smile faded as she noted the tension in his grip. The prospect of being trapped here, cut off from Delta, must be constantly on his mind, though he did his best to manage it. She squeezed his hand more firmly, wordlessly reminding him that she’d always be there for him. She was an expert on being cut off from one’s own time, after all. She sensed his gratitude in return.

  Ahead of them, Alenar halted and made a hissing noise, studying his hand scanner. “I think I’ve spotted our Siri.”

  The scanner led them into the outpost’s maintenance tunnels, forcing Alenar and Ranjea to hunker down, though they both moved with impressive grace and stealth despite their confinement. Garcia’s smaller size and extensive tunnel-crawling experience made it easier for her.

  Soon they came out into a dimly lit chamber to behold a familiar blue-and-brown carapace. Vikei’s eyestalks were focused in all directions, so there was no possibility of sneaking up; he scuttled for cover as soon as he saw them. But once Alenar could stretch his powerful legs again, he dashed forward with startling speed for his bulk and overtook the Siri, whirling so the smaller creature slammed into his heavy, outstretched tail. Vikei fell back, dazed, and soon found himself surrounded. Garcia was concerned that the crustacean might use his sharp pincers as weapons, but Vikei instead fell passive.

  “Please,” the Siri said. “You must not take me in. If I am questioned by Lirahn, all will be lost.”

  “Why did you sabotage the Axis, Vikei?” Garcia asked. “To trap Lirahn?”

  “Yes.” He spoke urgently. “I understand the consequences for the others, but we were forced to take desperate action.”

  “The device Lirahn acquired from the Vomnin,” Ranjea said. “What was it?”

  Vikei looked around nervously. Perhaps sensing that the diminutive Siri was no longer a threat, Alenar drifted back, giving him more space. Vikei sidled a bit closer to the agents. “I have told you that the Selakar have great power to insinuate their will into the minds of others.”

  Garcia nodded. “Mm-hm.”

  “But it takes time, and can only work on so many beings at once. As a race, the Selakar ruled hundreds of worlds, but individually they are limited. It made them vulnerable in the Great Psionic War.”

  “That was why they were defeated?” Ranjea asked.

  “Ultimately, yes,” Vikei said. “But only by the narrowest margin.

  “As their enemies eroded their power, stole worlds from them by the dozen, the Selakar initiated a project to develop an ultimate weapon—a psionic amplifier that would augment their mind-control abilities thousands of times over, allowing them to instill permanent, absolute obedience in any mind with a single thought. They intended to use these weapons to enslave their enemies, or if their enemies’ minds proved too strong to enslave, to turn their own servant races against them. And once the war was over, their foes destroyed, the Selakar would make enough of the amplifiers to let them rule the entire galaxy.”

  “So what stopped them?” Garcia asked.

  “The Siri did,” Vikei replied with pride. “We have always had more ability to resist the Selakar’s will than we let on. But we played along to preserve our cover, clandestinely helping their enemies when we could. My people were trusted enough to assist in the creation of the prototype amplifiers. Recognizing the magnitude of the threat, the Siri who worked on the project informed the empire of Arret of its existence and helped Arretian agents stage a raid to capture the prototypes. Many lives were lost. The Siri agents were exposed, their whole genetic lines exterminated to eliminate the ‘flaw’ of resistance. They knew this would be the consequence, but they accepted it for the greater good of all life. And it was worth it, for the amplifiers were taken, their designers killed.”

  “But the amplifiers were not destroyed,” Ranjea said. “I imagine the opposition hoped to employ them for their own ends?”

  “Those who tried were driven mad. It was tailored exclusively for Selakar. So one of the protoypes was destroyed. The release of psionic energy from its destruction killed half a planet and wiped the minds of the rest.

  “After seeing their destructive potential, the Arretians chose to keep the remaining two prototypes as weapons of last resort against their enemies. They were stripped of their power cores and buried deep beneath the crust of two Arretian colony worlds, in impenetrable bunkers. The Selakar tried for decades to recover them, but every attempt to penetrate their defenses failed. There was no way to retrieve them short of cracking open the planets, and while the Selakar would have happily done that, it would have risked destroying the amplifiers.

  “Soon thereafter, the Arretians shattered the Selakar’s power once and for all, and they were hunted down across the galaxy. As far as I know, only Lirahn and her cronies survived by finding the Axis.”

  Garcia threw her partner a look. “Where she found she could reach the distant future, hundreds of thousands of years after her time. After the Arretians had fallen.” She recognized the name as an alternative designation for the progenitor race that scholars tended to call Sargonians, after their last surviving leader.

  Ranjea nodded. “And enough time for even the most robustly built vault or bunker to fall prey to erosion. To decay enough for the Vomnin to penetrate it.”

  “Yes,” Vikei confirmed. “Mercifully they only found one, but it is enough.” Garcia wondered if the other had played a role in the final destruction of the Arretians. “With it, her will alone could enslave entire planets.”

  “Wait, wait,” Garcia said. “If she’s got the amplifier now, why aren’t we already her brain puppets?”

  “It lacked a power source,” Ranjea recalled.

  “Yes,” said Vikei. “The amplifiers were new, but their power cores were fairly standard. Yet the cores would not be able to survive half a million years. A few thousand at best.”

  Garcia shook her head. “It’s always the battery that goes first.”

  The Siri leaned toward them urgently. “This is why we had to close off the Axis. If she returned to our own time, she could recover a suitable power core and activate the amplifier. She would become a virtual goddess, impossible to resist.”

  The agents paused to take in Vikei’s story. Finally, Ranjea said, “Vikei, no one can deny the validity of your cause, or your dedication and courage in fighting for freedom. But we cannot support your methods. By closing off the Axis, you’ve deprived everyone here of their freedom. Thousands of people, many of whom may have important roles to play in the history of their eras.”

  “I regret that,” Vikei said. “But the sacrifice is small compared to what the galaxy would lose if Lirahn were set free. The Axis must be her prison, even if all of you must be trapped as her wardens.”

  “There’s gotta be
another way, Vikei,” Garcia said. “We can take the weapon from her, lock her up.”

  “No. Even without it, she can still bend anyone near her to her will. I have tried to murder her in her sleep, but just being near her, I find myself unable to contemplate harming her. It is only at a distance that I can disobey her. Her defenses are too strong.

  “That is why you must let me go. If I am taken in, she will find me and force me to take her to the device.”

  “The device you used to rejigger the Axis?” Garcia asked. “You still have it?”

  Vikei turned all six eyestalks away. “I will say no more. The less you three know, the better.” His stalks froze, then darted around the chamber. “Three . . . there were three of you!”

  Garcia and Ranjea looked around. Alenar’s burly red frame was nowhere to be seen. “Get me out of here!” Vikei cried. “He’s gone to tell Lirahn!”

  The agents didn’t question further. If the Talich had snuck away rather than openly reporting, he must not have been reporting to the Council. Unless it was someone on the Council who was firmly, secretly, in Lirahn’s clutches, as Shiiem suspected Oydia of being. “Let’s go,” Ranjea said.

  But they didn’t get far before they were confronted by Alenar and two other armed guards—with Lirahn backing them up, clad in a stylish but functional green jumpsuit. The agents drew their phasers. Garcia’s weapon hand trembled; she hated the thing, she didn’t want to use it, certainly not on someone as charming and lovely as Lirahn . . .

  Okay, she oversold that one, Garcia thought, regaining her focus and bringing the weapon to bear. She couldn’t bring herself to point it directly at Lirahn, but the reluctance didn’t extend to the guards.

  Ranjea tapped her shoulder. “This way.” They retreated with Vikei scuttling behind them, keeping their phasers on the guards. Garcia felt a reluctance to move, a mental pressure to stay where she was, but it wasn’t strong enough to stop her. That’s why she needs the guards. Her power’s subtle, insinuating. It takes time.

  But the three guards were totally under her power. “Go,” Lirahn said, and the three of them charged forward into the line of fire. Two of them fell stunned, one from each of the agents’ beams, but Alenar dodged, circled, and spun, his heavy tail taking Garcia in the side and sending her flying into Ranjea, knocking him over. In agony, she dropped her phaser, and a kick from the Talich disarmed Ranjea as well.