“The numbers aren’t looking much better,” Gabrielle Camargo muttered as another simulation run started to produce viable data for analysis.

“So what are the odds that everything will explode in our faces?” Samantha Michaels asked as she stepped up beside the recently promoted chief science officer, a coffee in both hands. Though for her and W’a’le’ki it had been the better part of a month of looping two days periods, each starting just before Camargo’s promotion ceremony.

“One point nine per cent,” Camargo said aloud, accepting the offered cup, an experimental sip, not even really registering the drink as she watched the statistical model continue to update as more of the thousands and parallel simulations finished. “Weird,” she continued as the computer then highlighted a single simulation whose results fell well outside the norm.

“Edge case we can ignore?” Sam asked as the specifics were brought up on a screen for review.

“Maybe. Maybe not. Give me a second.” There was just silence as Camargo read over the simulation results, whistling towards the end. “So I’ve got two filters on the results coming in. Dropping true edge cases where the simulation just went a bit wonky and produced exaggerated results and another for ones where the results ended up way the heck off the bell curve.”

“Shits and giggles at the computer just making things up?”

“Hey, sometimes new science can be found off the bell curve. Other times you get to have a wee laugh and move on. But this,” Camargo waved at the data on the screen before her, “is not something you want to see Sam.” She tapped at some specifics and highlighted values. “I have to tell the captain about this.”

“It’s one result,” Sam pleaded. “Out of how many simulations have we run now?”

“Two million.”

“One over two million,” Sam paused to do the math in her head briefly, “Come off it Gabs, that’s easily outside of five sigma. It’s a computer glitch, nothing more.”

“It’s a result with a calculated blast radius of a thousand lightyears. That covers everything between here and the…the…”

“Far side of the Federation,” W’a’le’ki finished as she stepped up to the other two women. “Sorry, ran into Stirling on the way back.”

“No worries,” Camargo supplied as she went back to the data. “We don’t have time to run another series of simulations to reduce the number further. It’s a risk, a super minuscule one, but I’m still going to highlight it to the captain.” A tap of commands and the results were sent to a padd, scooped up and she turned towards the door. “Let’s go tell the captain the news.”

Letting Camargo take a few steps lead, both Samantha and W’a’le’ki fell in side by side. As soon as they cleared the door from the science lab and were making their way to the nearest turbolift, Sam jostled W’a’le’ki with her elbow gently. “So, Stirling is it?”

“What do you mean?”

“You call him Stirling?”

“He said I could,” W’a’le’ki answered.

“No one calls him Stirling. He’s Fightmaster, herald of the captain, bringer of bad news, the man most likely to be an admiralty spy.” Sam did say all of this with mirth, a smile on her face and mischief in her eyes.

“Well, he said I could call him Stirling, so I shall.”

“And you just happened to run into him on the way back from the head?”

“Yes,” W’a’le’ki defended herself.

“Seems odd he was down here, wandering the halls, running into good-looking science officers he’s said could call him by his first name, don’t you think?”

“Are you implying he might have had some ulterior motive?” W’a’le’ki demanded as the three of them piled into the turbolift.

“Yes,” answered Sam and Gabrielle in unison, the first time the other two had seen Gabrielle’s smile at the conversation that had happened behind her. Barely a heartbeat passed as both Sam and Gabrielle broke out into a laugh as the door closed and W’a’le’ki’s cheeks went to red alert.

“Five times ten to negative five per cent chance of blowing up the quadrant?” The captain was looking over the padd in her hand with a look that said ‘Are you kidding me?’ that was plain to see. She tossed the padd down on her desk, leaned right back in her chair and pinched at the bridge of her nose. “And still one point nine per cent we cause a star to go supernova. A star I might add that is way, way too small to ever go supernova.”

“Ma’am, permission to speak freely?” Sam asked after a brief silence.

“No,” came the captain’s reply almost immediately. “You’re going to say we should give it a go. I’m going to remind you that Ensign Linal has lost impulse control and you and W’a’le’ki could be right on the verge as well. Then I’m going to remind you that ultimately the decision is mine to make and not yours, but your position and recommendations are understood, Lieutenant.”

“Ma’am,” Sam said, ready to refute the captain, but stopped by Gabrielle’s hand on her arm. “Yes ma’am.”

“Commander Camargo,” the captain finally said after a handful of seconds spent in silent contemplation. “Gut feeling, go.”

“Revert the whole system.” Gabrielle tossed a smile to Sam, then turned back to the captain. “The longer we run the simulations, the lower the chance of stellar detonation. And that blowing up the quadrant result is a statistical fluke. I think it’s all just edge cases we’re seeing early and the odds are in our favour. A few more days and I could make it all disappear into statistical noise. I think we’re good to run like crazy and set the whole thing up to bring the Telarook back from the dead. Or…stitch time up so they never died?”

“Don’t think about it,” the captain advised. “You’ll end up with a migraine.”

“Personal experience ma’am?”

Tikva nodded in her head, then looked to Sam. “Can you take two steps backwards?”

“Ma’am?”

“Just two steps Lieutenant.” And waiting for Sam to do so, Tikva grinned as the door to her ready room swished open to the bridge. “Mac, are we good to go?” she then shouted through the open door.

“Aye cap,” came MacIntyre’s response from somewhere on the bridge. “Shuttlebay doors are closing now. We got everything and everyone.”

“Get us out of here,” she ordered, then indicated with a wave of her hand for Sam to step forward out of the door’s pickup, letting it close. “Sorry, you were there and it was easier than getting up.”

“Uh, no worries, ma’am,” Sam replied.

“Now, go transmit the program for that time machine to do what we want it to do. I’ve got a warning to the citizens of Telarook to record.”

“You’ll have a while,” W’a’le’ki spoke up. “Modelling suggests it should take a week for the station to build up enough power for the reset.”

“Now that’s appreciated news Lieutenant.” Tikva smiled at the three of them. “Right, you lot, dismissed. And Michaels, W’a’le’ki, go see Doctor Terax. Until he says so I want you to check in with him once a day. And any rash decisions, report them to Counsellor Hu.”

“Reset should have happened by now,” Blake muttered in the darkness.

“Yup,” one Charles MacIntyre replied.

“We’re still here.”

“Yup.”

“Haven’t been sent back in time. Haven’t blown up most of the quadrant.”

“Yup.”

“You going to say anything else besides yup?”

“Eventually,” Mac said, finally changing his tune. “Just waiting for my brain to restart.”

“This is going to be one of those weird reports, isn’t it? Potential second contact turns into time travel shenanigans highlighted by three junior officers and ends with us bringing back a species from the dead and running away because they’re a pack of xenophobic jerks.”

“Yup.” He exhaled sharply when he got jabbed in the side. “What was that for?”

“Yup,” Blake replied mockingly.

“Fine, geez. Break a man’s brain then start up a conversation.” He drew in a breath. “Yes, it’s going to be one of those weird reports. And I have to write my report without the help of any of the other versions of me. Too busy turning up information and passing it along to start writing up a report and save this version of me some time.”

“Well, I’m glad I have this version of you,” Blake said before kissing Mac only to suddenly break the kiss. “Got a wacky idea for clearing the chroniton buildup in the triplets. I need to get to sickbay,” Blake said before shuffling under the sheets away from Mac. Footfalls upon the carpeted floor could just be made out before an exclamation. “I need the sheet!”

“Get dressed if you’re hurrying off to do science then.”

“And risk forgetting my idea?” she protested. “Just give me the sheet.”

“No, take a dressing gown. I’ve got one for you anyway.”

That brought silence to the darkness for a moment, then the swish of a closet door opening, a faint light from inside casting illumination on a room in turmoil and the bare form of Blake Pisani before it was hidden away once more.

Once more she moved through the room and then kissed Mac on the forehead. “Silk too. That’ll earn you some extra points.”

“Enough to keep you from running off and staying here?”

“No, but enough that I’ll be back straight away. Just need to get to Terax and tell him what I’ve thought up.”

“Afternoon Cap,” Ra-tesh’mi Velan declared as he settled himself down in the XO’s seat on the bridge, a full fifteen minutes early for shift change. “Anything I should know about?”

“Slowed our roll down to a paltry warp nine,” Tikva supplied, watching Velan’s feigned relief with a smile. “Transmitted our message back to the station for replaying to the Telarook. Nothing fancy or inspiring to be honest. Dossier of what happened, who to stop, and a warning the machine has started a controlled shutdown. No identifiers in the message. They want to be isolationist, let’s give them a slight mystery.”

“Let them come up with wild ideas like some Telarook from a far distant future working to save their species?”

“That’s the most likely seeing as how they consider the rest of the galaxy to be populated with clever animals or semi-intelligences,” she couldn’t help but roll her eyes. “We’ve been out of touch for over a month so we’re rushing back towards the Cardassian border to try and hook in with their comm network and just let DS47 know we’re still alive.”

“We could push the engines to nine-five if you want without any problem. Even keep jumping up to nine-eight for a few hours, then back down to nine-five if you want to keep a high speed.”

“You want to be in Engineering if we do that though don’t you?”

“At least myself, Maxwell or Merktin present. Which since Jamieson is duty officer down there right now…” he trailed off.

“Fine, fine, go. But give me that promised speed, or better. I’m likely to change my mind and decide to run us back to DS47 anyway if the Cardassians will let us cut across the yard.”

“Hey, we’re all one big happy Alpha Quadrant these days, right? Why wouldn’t they?” Velan got to his feet, habitually stroking at his beard. “We’re rated for nine point nine five max. Wonder if we can push that.” But the glare he got told him the answer as he chuckled lightly. “Well keep within the design limits Cap. I’ll send Jamieson up to take my bridge shift. If you want a lieutenant on the bridge that is.”

“I’m thinking we can trust our junior officers with flying in a straight line.”

“Oh?”

A sudden call to the bridge, when her duties for today had been primarily paperwork and procedure reviews, had put Samantha Michaels just a little on edge. Especially in light of recent events. Time travelling, being associated with Linal Nerys and therefore under medical supervision at the moment, standing up to the captain, if just a little bit – it all added up. So, she thought to herself that being a little nervous was perfectly acceptable.

As the turbolift came to a halt she was forced to step aside as Commander Velan stepped him, grinning like a madman. “Afternoon Lieutenant,” he said as they passed each other. “Have fun.”

“Have fun?” she asked, but any response was cut off by the Commander reaching out and tapping the button to force the doors to close, cutting off any retreat. Not that she would.

A handful of steps brought her down the ramp and around the ends of the arch to face Captain Theodoras. “Reporting as ordered ma’am.”

“Good,” the shorter woman said as she stood up. She too was smiling and that unnerved Sam. “Current course is zero-five-five mark zero-zero-three relative to the galactic core. We’re at warp nine but Engineering is about to clear us up to nine point nine-five. Call me as soon as we’re able to make contact with the nearest Cardassian comm station.” Then the captain made a show of reaching into a pocket and fetching out the keys to the ship, a quick jangle of the entirely useless artefact and she tossed them at her.

“You have the conn, Lieutenant,” the captain declared for all to hear.

“I have the conn,” Sam found herself replying immediately. “Uh, ma’am, isn’t Commander Velan supposed to be the officer of the watch?”

“He was, but now it’s you. Just you.” The captain stepped past her, stopping to put a hand on her shoulder. “Last few times either Commander MacIntyre or myself have been just a door away. Not tonight. Velan’s a call away if you need him.” Then the captain squeezed her shoulder gently. “You’ve got this Samantha. You were right to push for a reset of the Telarook system. You’ve got good instincts.”

She knew she stood there, staring at the centre seat for a good few minutes as everyone else just worked around her. Yes, she’d had the conn before, but always with someone a door away. But now she was being thrust into an officer of the watch shift with no warning or prep.

No safety net.

But it was just flying the ship in a straight line.

And the Second Officer was just down in Engineering if she needed to consult.

Or the captain and commander could rush to the bridge if she declared an alert.

She had this.

Right?

“Nearly five per cent of the entire armed forces have had to be removed from duty, including numerous officers in highly sensitive command positions.”

“Too many of them with access to weapons of mass destruction as well.”

“Add to that two cabinet ministers, fourteen ministry chief executives, and enough civil servants to cause quiet the turmoil for the foreseeable future. The Ministry of Ideological Orthodoxy reports they are very much understaffed for the current crisis.”

“Yes, well, they can deal with their own problems for now. We need to continue to make efforts to secure our weapons and make sure they can’t be used against us. Minister Chalkis, you’ve had time enough to send a team to the Great Machine. Report if you please.”

“It’s as the message we all received stated. The Great Machine has indeed completed a temporal reset far greater than we ever intended for it to do. And it is also in the process of shutting down. A process which we can’t abort and must allow to complete before we can attempt to restart the temporal core.”

“Our ancestors had to harness a quantum singularity to make the Great Machine work. As I recall shutting it down involves quenching the singularity.”

“Yes, Prime Minister.”

“Which means we’ll need to source another one in order to restart the temporal core.”

“Yes sir. I’ve already tasked the Hilkon Institute with restarting the conversion engines used in the creation of the last singularity. They report it could take a couple of years to bring everything online to produce a new singularity.”

“Very well. We’ll just need to maintain our vigilance until the Great Machine can be restarted. Admiral Freh, you wished to discuss something?”

“Yes, Prime Minister. Our scouts have identified warp trails around our sovereign system. Sixteen trails overlap on approach and a single warp trail departs on a different heading. It doesn’t match any of our ships and is orders of magnitude greater than anything we currently possess.”

“What are you saying, Admiral?”

“There might be some credence to the Intelligent Interference theory that’s been growing in popular circles.”

“I find that highly offensive Admiral. The Great Machine was designed to only allow Telarook lifesigns within its hallowed halls. And its systems are the most complex our people can produce, so highly capable it doesn’t need a crew for normal operation.”

“And normally I’d agree Prime Minister. But we have just had a mass chroniton-induced madness across our two worlds. There are unidentified warp signatures entering our system repeatedly, like someone getting reset, then a single departure, as if someone was attempting to escape the field of effect of the Great Machine.”

“Never underestimate the clever animals or semi-intelligences, Admiral. Whoever these fools are, they’ve just stumbled into a more powerful drive by happenstance.”

“Requesting permission to send a scout in pursuit Prime Minister.”

“Why? Why broke the risk?”

“We need to learn about these potential threats and ward against them at least until the Great Machine is operational once more.”

“Fine Admiral, you can have a scout. One only. An older ship as well. There is no need to potentially alert any foes to our true capabilities. You may go forth and attempt to ascertain just how smart these animals are you are so concerned about.”