One moment there is pressure. An indescribable, directionless pressure that felt like behind held between two palms that either trying to crush or cradle. The next moment the pressure recedes and leaves behind something heavier than pain. Gravity hits like a ton of bricks as Ensign Joren Hale suddenly opens his eyes, breathing heavily as if he had just run some type of long distance race.
He looks around him and wonders exactly what just happened. He doesn’t remember anything happening. One moment he was there working and calling out to his Captain and then…nothing. Total darkness and he doesn’t remember anything before waking up here. He rubs his temple trying to force a throbbing headache to recede.
Ensign Hale drops his hand and looks again. Everything seems to be okay. There isn’t anyone around him but that’s not abnormal. He tries to take a step forward to look around and stumbles forward. His boots strike metal with enough force that it steals the breath from his lungs. The sound of his stumble echoes throughout the room. He reaches out to steady himself and his hands scrape against the cold duranium plating of the bulkhead.
For several seconds, Joren can only breathe. He takes deep steadying breaths in order to settle himself. He takes one last long breath and stops. Something is wrong. The air smells wrong. He can’t quite figure out what it is other than it just smells….unfamiliar. A faint metallic undertone sits beneath the recycled-air sterility that he is used to smelling and recognizes so well.
Joren stands upright and focuses himself. He sees a familiar corridor and smiles. “Stardust,” he whispers to himself.
The corridor lighting is amber. Okay, he thinks to himself. That’s a good sign. He looks closer and notices that the panels are in the same location but are mounted differently. What is this? He says to himself.
He reaches his hand out and rubs the marks. The hull markings are correct. The internal designation stencils are in the right language. But the wear patterns are all wrong. There are scuff marks where there shouldn’t be. A maintenance access panel bears scorch discoloration that smells faintly of old plasma leakage. It looks to be years old.
And the bulkhead plaque reads:
USS Stardust – NCC-97601-A
Joren’s heart lurches. “A,” he says with a loosed breath.
“We don’t have an A,” he says quietly. “What the hell am I?”
He jerks around when he hears footsteps approaching. His instinct takes over. He straightens, sets his shoulders, and smoothes his uniform out. That’s when he notices that too is wrong. There are subtle differences in cut and fabric density betraying a Starfleet variant that he has never seen before.
The footsteps stop.
“Ensign Hale?” a voice calls out.
Joren freezes. He knows that voice. It belongs to Commander Ezra Brady. Or Bowie as all his friends call him. Except it didn’t look like the same Commander Brady.
Brady looked older. His hair was thinner and lines at the corners of his eyes cut deeper. His uniform bears different mission pins then the ones he is used to seeing adorned on “his” Commander Brady.
Brady’s eyes meet Joren’s and Joren is shocked when there is no reaction. He had expected to see Brady’s eyes widen in shock.Instead, they narrow.
“You look like hell,” Brady says flatly. “Medical missed you again?”
Joren swallows, “Commander, what year is it?”
Brady visibly stiffens. Behind him, another figure he recognizes steps into view. Hazel Whitlock. Except she wears a captain’s pip on her collar.
“No,” Captain Whitlock says quietly. “You don’t get to play this game with me.”
Game? What game is she talking about?….Joren thinks to himself.
Joren feels his pulse begin to roar in his ears, “Captain, I…I don’t understand.”
Hazel’s gaze sharpens, “You disappeared six weeks ago. Then you came back three days later with only half of your memories in tact and absolutely no answers as to what happened. I swear if this is some kind of relapse….”
“I don’t know what you are talking about, Captain.” Joren interrupts and hates how unsteady is voice sounds. “I’m not from here. I don’t belong here. I don’t know what happened but the Stardust I know is different. Captain Harper is our Captain and you are our communications officer….”
He stops talking when he notices Brady’s face drains of color and Hazel’s jaw tightening. From behind the two of them, a third voice speaks.
“Let him finish,” the voice speaks softly and measured.
Brady and Hazel part and reveal a civilian standing there. Joren recognizes the face. He doesn’t know this person but he’s seen her face before. Every one aboard his Stardust had as she was the objective.
Saarin vel’Rathen stood before him. The displaced they had been sent on their mission to find. He couldn’t believe his luck, if you could even call it that.
She appeared thinner than the photos in the mission file suggested. Her posture was slightly hunched as though she is accustomed to keeping her head down. She steps closer to Joren and leans in closer.
“You are early,” she says to Joren. “That must mean that they are close again.”
Joren’s eyes widen slightly in shock, “They are searching for you…for me…for both of us.”
Captain Whitlock steps forward slowly, “You claim to be from a Prime Variant. You told us that you crossed realities through Starbase 80. You said that we aren’t…original.”
Saarin exhales, “No, that’s not what I mean. You are original enough. This universe just appears to be older to have survived longer.”
Brady runs a hand over his face, “Captain Harper died five years ago in our timeline. She sacrificed herself sealing a rupture near the Klingon border.”
Joren’s legs nearly gave out from underneath him.
Saarin continues, “The Loom doesn’t erase instantly. It pressures. It edits. This reality is currently holding us, but for how long?”
Joren clenches his fist. He doesn’t know how but he knows that his crew will come for him and for Saarin. He realizes then that he is not lost. He has not been displaced. Some one or something has placed him here. He knows his purpose and he will not fail.
