Feeling like hot Klingon pain sticks reaching inside of his skull, Vice Admiral Max Duncan was rubbing his head as he entered the temporal observatory. Doctor Obrith had just injected him with a hypospray loaded with painkillers to help. It would seem the constant moving from one time frame to another along with the chroniton-infused serum had its side effects. The Krenim medical officer had prepared the team for this along with preparing them for the symptoms of nausea. 

The admiral’s headache wasn’t helped the moment he heard the argument between his former commanding officer and his son. 

“How the hell could you be so stupid and make a decision like that?” McCallister threw at his son.

Raising his hands up in the air in surrender, Alfie tried to defend his action. “I admit it wasn’t the best choice but I couldn’t stand there and let them be killed by holograms.”

“You could have found a safer place in that time frame instead of moving to another one and now they’re going to be aware of what happened. You said it yourself earlier Alf, we can’t be precise with how things are going to turn out. Both of your brothers may remember what happened and that is going to live with them for the rest of their lives now. The time when they were kids and they saw their brother appear to them a lot older and they had to hide in a different period of time.” McCallister gave out a huge sigh of frustration as he turned to Jorgeh. “What time period are they deposited in?” 

“Twenty-Four-zero-zero.” Jorgeh answered as he checked the scans that were flying around them on the holographic displays. All of the displays showed who they had tagged with the serum as well as the areas of the ship that they had worked on. “A few months just after the accident.”

Speaking up as he stepped in, Duncan made his presence known. “Problem?” He asked. 

Turning to the future version of his first officer, McCallister pointed with his right hand towards the current first officer of Odyssey. “Alfie decided to move both Theo and Henri out of their time frame.”

Looking at Alfie, Duncan gave him an assuring smile. “I know he did.” He said walking over to stand by the younger McCallister. 

“You did?” the older McCallister questioned. 

Jen, Tomaz and Jorgeh both showed surprised reactions to the admiral’s comment. 

Tomaz looked at his first officer. “Alfie, is there something here I don’t know about?”

Dropping his head down, Alfie exhaled and then spoke up. “We knew that both Theo and Henri would be hurt if they were left.”

Jorgeh now looked confused. “How do we know that?”

“Something we said in the past, isn’t it?” Jen questioned. 

Duncan nodded. “When this happened before you and the captain reported that they were harmed in the time frame we would find them. Instead of it being you two, I decided that it should be Alfie to go find them and find a way to protect them. He was acting on my orders.”

“Dad, why didn’t you tell me?” Jorgeh asked. 

“I think we all should have been told, especially as I am their father” McCallister said with crossed arms against his chest.

“Because I know you J-P and you would make a choice that may have affected the work we do here.” Duncan answered, looking at McCallister first. By using the captain’s nickname he was trying to make this conversation more personal. He turned to his son, “And Jorgeh, I know how much Theo and Henri mean to you and Wylem, but this whole situation is difficult already, I didn’t want the lines between you and I becoming any blurry then they already are. The Department of Temporal Investigations can have my neck for that but both Alfie and I agreed a long time ago that that by removing Theo and Henri from their time frame and sheltering them elsewhere for the moment until it was time to activate the chroniton field was the right call to make.”

“Listen,” Tomaz said, breaking up the argument. “Right now we don’t have the time to debate this issue. We need to move forward and get the job we started, done.” 

“Tomaz is right.” Jen said in support. 

“I want to see Theo and Henri.” McCallister stated in a stern tone. 

“And you can.” Duncan said. “The time frame that they’re in is somewhere both you and Lukiz can go to.”

“I didn’t know we needed permission.” Jen stated sarcastically.

Tomaz spoke up in defence of the admiral, “If you both travel into other future time frames you’d be exposed to other events you shouldn’t be aware of yet. The Department of Temporal Investigations calculated that the furthest you both should go is a few months ahead of your own time frame.”

“And we also know that Jen has to appear in the next one.” Duncan said, turning towards the Trill ops manager.

“Why me?” Jen asked, showing a joint sense of curiosity and concern. His eyebrows rising almost in a Vulcan like fashion. 

Duncan smirked as he placed his hands on his hips. “Because what you’re about to witness is something I know you will find hard to deal with on a personal level, but I know you’ll understand why.”

Jen looked more disturbed by that remark. “Okay.” He said, sounding a bit unsettled by that. 

“How much time do we have left?” McCallister queried, admitting that he couldn’t control too much of what was happening to them all by a sigh and the way he asked. 

“Just over two hours, give or take.” Alfie mumbled after checking the nearby holographic console.

“And including the time frame you both need to go to,” Tomaz said looking at McCallister and Jen, “we’ve got five more time frames to sort out. The last one is going to require a huge effort to deal with.”

“Why?” Jen asked. “Or do I want to know?”

“Let’s just say we’re going to be endeavouring to step back to your recent history and we’ve got to deal with some unwanted guests who attempted to take over the ship while we helped another Starfleet crew.” Tomaz shared, sharing an apprehensive look.