Chapter Text
Captain’s Log, Stardate 58472.4. The Cerritos is en route to system SD1957 to answer a distress call. Details are scarce, but the unusual nature of the signal has been a source of rampant speculation among the crew.
“Let’s make this interesting,” Mariner proposed. “Say… two hours of holodeck time.”
“I’ll take that bet,” Boimler replied confidently.
“What about you, Rutherford? You in?”
“Sure, why not.”
The three of them were in the turbolift, headed to the bridge. An hour and a half earlier, the Cerritos had picked up a distress call originating from an unimportant, uninhabited system in the middle of nowhere. Since the Cerritos was the closest ship, Captain Freeman had ordered them to alter course to investigate.
But this wasn’t your average, every-day distress call. The signal had been very brief, lasting less than a second. On top of that, it had been badly corrupted, and so far, they’d been unable to recover much information from it. The one thing that had been clear was the ID of the ship that sent it: the USS Cerritos, NCC-75567.
Answering a distress call from yourself. Just another day in the life of a Starfleet officer.
“Okay,” Mariner said thoughtfully. “I’m gonna go with… mirror universe Cerritos. It’s been a while since anybody heard from those jerks. Feels like about time for them to show up again.”
“Nah, I bet it’s just a computer glitch and there isn’t even a distress call to begin with,” Rutherford offered. “The comm array’s been acting up ever since that last software update. I swear, every patch adds more bugs than it fixes.”
“I bet it’s an accidental time travel thing,” Boimler said excitedly. “Like that time the Enterprise got flung back to 1960s Earth? Ooh, I wonder if we’ll get to meet our future selves!”
“Ugh,” Mariner replied. “I sure hope not. You have any idea how much paperwork we’ll have to fill out after that?”
The turbolift arrived at the bridge. Freeman, Ransom, and Shaxs were already present. Billups was standing at the engineering console, running a diagnostic. Tendi stood beside him at the science console, still trying to clean up the distress signal they’d received. Rutherford joined her, while Mariner and Boimler took their usual posts.
“Diagnostic on the comm array is complete, captain,” Billups announced. “Everything looks nominal.”
“And I just got a reply from the Fresno,” Tendi reported. “They got the exact same signal we did, so it’s definitely not a glitch in the comm array.”
Well, there goes two hours of holodeck time, Rutherford thought ruefully.
“Ensign Tendi, have you been able to extract any more information from the signal?” Freeman asked.
“I’m afraid not, captain,” Tendi replied apologetically. “There’s just too much corruption. The signal that the Fresno received was corrupted in exactly the same way, so the corruption must’ve happened at the source.”
“Captain, we’re approaching the signal’s coordinates,” Boimler reported.
“Take us out of warp,” Freeman ordered. The Cerritos slowed to impulse, and Mariner began scanning the area around them. It wasn’t long before she found something.
“I’m picking up scattered metallic readings ahead of us,” Mariner reported.
“On screen,” Freeman ordered. The viewscreen changed to show a huge debris field in orbit of a gas giant. “My… God. Is that the source of the distress call?”
At the rear of the bridge, Tendi and Rutherford were performing more scans to analyze the wreckage. The initial results were alarming.
“I’m not sure,” Tendi replied. “But the debris is composed of Starfleet standard duranium alloy. That’s definitely a Federation starship. At least it used to be.”
“Is it the Cerritos?” Freeman asked.
“There’s not enough debris here to account for a whole California-class starship,” Rutherford answered. “But it’s possible some of the debris already spiraled into the gas giant.”
“Are there any lifesigns?”
“I’m not detecting any,” Mariner soberly reported.
“A completely destroyed ship and no crew,” Ransom summarized. “Looks like we’ve got a real mystery on our hands here.”
“We should scan the wreckage for trilithium resin,” Billups suggested. Trilithium resin was a dangerous waste byproduct produced by the warp engines. “If we can locate main engineering, we can find their primary computer core.”
“Ensign Tendi?” Freeman prompted.
Tendi tapped a few buttons to initiate another scan. “Scanning now, captain… got it. A large-ish chunk of debris bearing 024 mark 317.”
“Shaxs, lock on a tractor beam. I don’t want that chunk falling into the gas giant,” Freeman ordered. “Billups, put together an away team.”
Suddenly, another alert popped up on Tendi’s console. “Captain, I’m detecting a faint signal coming from another piece of debris! Bearing 357 mark 021.”
The viewscreen changed again, zoomed in on the debris in question. “Is that the bridge?” Ransom asked in an alarmed tone. Part of it looked to be the right shape, but it was hard to tell.
“Whatever it is, it’s another lead,” Freeman said. “Shaxs, lock a tractor beam on to that too. Ransom, put together a second away team. Find the source of that signal.”
A short time later, Billups, Rutherford, and Tendi were standing on the transporter pad wearing EVA suits.
“You two all set?” Billups asked.
Rutherford and Tendi nodded. “Aye sir.”
Billups turned back to the ensign manning the transporter console. “Energize.”
The transporter room faded away and was replaced by near-total darkness. The trio activated the helmet lights on their EVA suits. The sight before them was unsettling, to say the least. This was definitely the main engineering section of a California-class starship, but it was completely unpowered and thoroughly wrecked. A gaping hole in the side of the room led out into open space. The gas giant was visible in the background through the shimmering blue of the Cerritos’s tractor beam.
“I’ll go inspect the computer core,” Billups said as he headed towards the maintenance access door with a toolkit in hand. “You two take a look around. See what else you can find.”
Tendi and Rutherford nodded as they pulled out their tricorders.
“Look at that breach,” Rutherford commented.
“And those scorch marks,” Tendi added. They stepped towards the bulkhead for a closer examination. A scan of the bulkhead immediately ruled out another theory about where this ship had come from.
“The quantum signature is a match for our universe,” Rutherford observed. “So we’re definitely not dealing with an alternate Cerritos.”
Boimler’s smug voice came over their helmet radios. “Called it.”
Mariner’s voice followed, protesting. “It could still be a million other things. Like an elaborate hologram, or a weird Deadlock anomaly, or—”
Tendi interrupted her. “Actually, Boimler’s right. Quantum dating shows this alloy is from the future. About ten months.”
“Ha!” Boimler said triumphantly.
“Whatever,” Mariner replied, clearly annoyed at having lost the bet.
The bulkhead in front of them wasn’t going to yield any more clues, so Tendi and Rutherford started walking through the rest of main engineering, slowly sweeping their helmet lights across various panels and access hatches.
Rutherford spotted their next clue. His stomach dropped as his helmet lights illuminated what was clearly a Starfleet uniform. “Cerritos, we’ve got a body here.”
He and Tendi hurried over and knelt beside the body, which was clad in a command division uniform and face-down on the deck. Rutherford carefully rolled the body over as Tendi scanned it.
“Vulcan female,” she observed, more for the benefit of the crew monitoring their efforts from back on the ship than for Rutherford, who had immediately noted the distinctive ears. “She died of asphyxiation.”
“She was probably going for the emergency EVA suits,” Rutherford inferred, looking up at the locker a meter away that contained said suits. “But she didn’t make it before she ran out of air.”
“I don’t recognize her,” Tendi commented.
“Me neither. But check out her rank insignia.”
“She was a commander,” Tendi breathed. “You think she was the ship’s first officer?”
“Could be. Or maybe some kind of mission specialist.”
Billups interrupted their musings. “Cerritos, I can’t restore power to their computer core. We’ll have to cut it out and bring it back to the ship for analysis. Rutherford, Tendi, help me with the plasma torches.”
“On our way.”
Meanwhile, Ransom, Mariner, and Boimler – also wearing EVA suits – materialized in the other piece of debris. Specifically, in the captain’s ready room. Like the engineering fragment, it was completely unpowered and the three turned on their helmet lights. The room was both familiar and foreign at the same time. The captain’s desk and chair were in their usual spot, but the shelves behind them were all empty.
Hmm. Wonder if that has something to do with this window, Ransom thought. One of the windows was missing, replaced by an ugly hull plate that looked like it had been welded on in a hurry.
Boimler pulled out a tricorder and performed a quick scan. “There’s still atmosphere in here, but I’m reading lethal levels of carbon monoxide.”
“Got it. Keep your helmets on,” Ransom ordered.
Boimler turned around slowly as the tricorder homed in on the signal they’d detected. “Looks like the signal is coming from the bridge.”
They stepped towards the door. “Someone manually opened this,” Ransom observed. “But not wide enough to fit through.”
Mariner felt a knot form in her stomach. Combining the facts they had so far led to an obvious, grim implication. “There must’ve been survivors on the bridge, trying to extend their oxygen supply. And we didn’t get here in time.” Now fully expecting to find dead crewmembers on the other side of the door, she stepped forward and helped Ransom force the doors further open so they could pass through.
Her fears were immediately confirmed as they spotted a body on the floor in front of the viewscreen. Someone in a yellow uniform, whose neck was bent at an unnatural angle. They moved closer for a better look. Mariner and Boimler knelt beside the body while Ransom stood further back.
Mariner’s eyes widened as she realized who she was looking at. “It’s Jet!”
“No lifesigns,” Boimler quietly confirmed. “But according to this, he didn’t die of asphyxiation. His neck’s broken.”
“Deliberately?” Ransom asked.
Boimler shook his head. “No, it looks accidental.”
“And he’s got two pips on his collar!” Mariner observed. “Or maybe just one pip and a piece of corn. Hang on a second… wow, okay, that’s actually a real pip.”
Ransom interrupted and got them back on track. “We still need to find the source of that signal.”
“Right,” Boimler said as he and Mariner stood up. Boimler walked past the ops console as he continued tracing the signal, with Mariner and Ransom following. He turned to his left. “Looks like it’s coming from—”
He stopped short and his eyes widened as he heard Mariner suck in a breath.
Back in engineering, Rutherford, Tendi, and Billups all had plasma torches in hand as they carefully cut through the locking brackets that held the main computer core in place.
Mariner’s voice came through their helmet radios. “Uh, Rutherford, you read?”
Rutherford and Tendi paused and shared a look. Something was wrong. Mariner’s voice had a strange, uncertain tone to it. “Yeah, go ahead.”
“We found the source of that signal,” Mariner continued. “It’s… you. Or, your implant. It… looks like you were chief engineer.”
Tendi’s eyes widened and Rutherford nearly dropped the plasma torch he was holding.
On the bridge, Mariner knelt to take a closer look at what they’d found. The future versions of her friends were sitting on the floor at the rear of the bridge, with their backs against the environmental control console. The future Tendi was resting her head on the future Rutherford’s right shoulder, and his right hand was intertwined with her left. If not for the fact that they’d already scanned for lifesigns – and the nasty-looking gash on the future Tendi’s forehead – Mariner would’ve thought they were merely asleep.
She blinked a few times to make sure her eyes weren’t playing tricks on her, but the scene in front of her remained the same. The future Rutherford was wearing an engineering division uniform, as usual. She almost hadn’t noticed the two-and-a-half pips on his collar. The future Tendi, on the other hand, was wearing command red instead of science blue… and had a whopping four pips on her collar.
“Tendi, you’re here too. And I think you were the Cerritos’s captain.”