The chronition field had flashed across the whole ship as the chevron section’s warp core emitted it, creating a bright golden stream of lightning throughout. It was so powerful it had forced everyone who had returned to their time frames to cover their eyes. Blinking several times, McCallister looked around and soon found himself back on his bridge that was full with everyone that was with him before the ship’s warp core.

Without thinking, he got out of his chair and called over to Jen. “Lukiz, I hope you are-” he didn’t get a chance to finish his sentence as the Trill operations officer was already working and responding to him.

“Shutting down both warp cores and diverting power to the main deflector.” Jen stated.

Everyone on the bridge looked amazed as to what McCallister and Jen were doing. McCallister had fled over to the engineering station and began helping Jen with securing the ship. With only a few more seconds to spare they had completed their task when the chronokinetic surge had hit them. Instead of reacting to the ship’s warp drive, it was deflected back into the subspace rift that had created it. Instantly the rift was sealed by the feedback.

“Report?” McCallister said as turned in the chair he had occupied.

“It worked, sir.” Jen announced, sounding relieved as he sighed and slumped into his chair.

The bridge crew all still looked in wonder about what had just happened.

“Engineering to bridge.” spoke the voice of Hunsen over the intercom. “Whatever you guys did up there, it’s caused us to lose our main deflector and our warp drive is offline. I’ve got a number of damaged injectors but everyone is safe and alive.”

Relieved to hear his chief engineer’s voice, McCallister smiled as he hit his combadge while also standing up from the engineering station and making his way back to his own centre chair. “That’s good to hear Tremt. Begin repairs at once and we’ll look at leaving the nebula to appraise Starfleet of our situation.”

“Quick reflexes there sir, it’s almost as if someone told you that something bad was about to happen.” Hunsen commented.

Knowing from that remark that Hunsen had remembered everything, McCallister ended the call by telling his chief engineer that he will meet with the senior staff shortly. Sitting down in his chair, he looked at Jen and gave him a smile. “Well done Lukiz.”

“Thank you, sir.” The Trill man replied as he relaxed further. “I’ll begin scans for the Telemachus.”

“Please do, I’d like to speak to my wife as soon as possible.” McCallister stated.

Jen looked down at his console and then noticed something on his sensors. “Sir, I’m detecting escape pods from the Telemachus just below us from where the subspace rift had closed.”

“Escape pods?” McCallister repeated. “How? They shouldn’t be here.”

 Pushing the scans up into the holographic interface, Jen showed his superior what he meant. “Eight escape pods, all with lifesigns on board.”

“Tractor them in straight away and have Slyvexs meet me down there with a relief team.” McCallister ordered as he got up and headed to the turbolift. “Lukiz, the bridge is yours.” He said as he entered the cart.

Moments later, McCallister was moving quickly across the large hangar deck of the ship’s shuttlebay as escape pod after escape pod was brought in through its forcefield. Looking through those who got out, the captain was assuring everyone of them but also was trying to find Karyn through the group.

His name was eventually called but it wasn’t by his wife, but instead by his mother-in-law. “James! James!” She screamed as she moved swiftly towards him and instantly pulled him into a close hug.

“Naja, where’s Karyn? What happened?” He asked.

Holding on tightly, Naja began to sob uncontrollably. “She’s gone James, she’s gone!” She said in between tears.

Returning to his quarters, almost an hour later, McCallister had felt like his entire world had been turned upside down. Pulling his uniform jacket off, he slowly walked over to the corner sofa and sat down. For a moment he just stared at the floor but he was interrupted by the arrival of all three of his sons coming down the twisted staircase. It was weird to see the teenage versions of them, especially Alfie.

“Dad, you okay?” Alfie asked as he instantly recognised that his father was not himself just by his facial expression.

“No, I’m not Alf.” He answered and took a deep breath in. “Boys, I need you to sit down. I’ve got something to tell you about your mother.”