encountered the Bozeman—a Starfleet vessel that had been caught in a temporal
causality loop for almost a century. Once we broke the loop, the crew of the
ship was in the same situation we face now."
"What happened to them?' Jake asked.
Worf frowned. "Historical records stated that the Bozeman had disappeared
without a trace. Since it had never returned home in our timeline, Starfleet
could not risk sending it back. Under Starfleet regulations, her captain and her
crew were ... resettled in their new time."
"And that's what's going to happen to us?" Jake said, dismayed.
"That appears to be the most likely outcome," Bashir said, when no one else
offered an answer to Jake's question.
"Not for me," Vash said. "I'm not Starfleet. I'm going home."
"Really? How?" Jadzia asked. Bashir could tell she
44
intended her challenge to reduce Vash to inarticulate silence.
But Vash merely issued her own challenge. "I thought you were the big expert on
the Bajoran Orbs. You've never heard of the Orb of Time?"
"She's right!" Jake said.
Vash smiled dazzlingly at Jake. "Okay. I've got one partner. Anyone else?"
Bashir shook his head, refusing to play Vash's game.
"Too dangerous," Jadzia said. "We didn't get here through the Orb of Time, so
there's no Orb-related Feynman curve connecting back to our own time."
Vash rolled her eyes. "C'mon! You're a scientist— think outside the warp bubble.
Let's say you hadn't reached this time period on the Defiant. You could have
lived through the past twenty-five years, easy. Are you telling me that under
those conditions you couldn't use the Orb of Time to slip back twenty-five
years?"
"Of course I could," Jadzia said, and Bashir could hear the growing annoyance in
her tone. "Because the subatomic chronometric particles bound within my
molecular structure would be in perfect synch with the current universe's
background chronitronic radiation environment. I would belong in this time. But
all of us are out of phase, Vash. We can't establish a second Feynman curve in
this time because we're already connected to the first curve, stretching from
our own time. Either we go back the way we came—by traveling through the
boundary region of the wormhole that brought us here—or we don't go home at
all."
Vash groaned in frustration, her expression becoming almost that of a wild
creature held against its will.
Bashir leaned forward, lightly touching Vash's arm.
45
"We're still simply speculating," he said in his most reassuring tone.
"Starfleet might send us back at any moment."
"And if they don't?" Vash retorted.
Bashir took a deep breath and said what he knew someone had to say. "Then
considering all the possible timelike curves we might have followed, perhaps
twenty-five years isn't all that bad."
"What?!" Vash exclaimed.
"You said it yourself. This time period is within our natural lifetimes. People
we know will still be alive. The places we know won't have changed all that
much. It will be easier for us to adapt than it was for the crew of the
Bozeman."
This time Vash grabbed his arm, and her tone was not at all reassuring. "Is it
that easy to make a quitter out of you?"
Bashir peeled her hand off his arm. There were larger issues at stake. "Are you
that willing to risk the lives of the billions of beings alive in this time who
might be wiped from existence by a single act of selfishness on your part?"
Vash's cheeks reddened as her voice rose in anger. "I didn't ask to be beamed to
the Defiant. 1 didn't ask to... oh, I hate you Starfleet types. The good of the
many ... it makes me sick!" Then she whirled around and marched off toward the
main personnel door leading from the hangar deck.
Bashir resisted following, but he called out to her, "Vash! If you go out that
door, you only increase the odds they won't send you back!"
Vash's pace did not lessen.
Just then the status of the door ceased to be important, because Vash suddenly
collided with—nothing.
Bashir saw her come to a sudden stop, as if she had run into a slab of
transparent aluminum, undetectable in the dim light of the hangar deck. Vash
stepped back and rubbed at her face, then reached out and slapped her hand
against something that was solid, yet absolutely invisible.
"She's hit a forcefield," Jadzia said.
"Unusual," Worf commented. "Most forcefields emit Pauli exclusion sparks when
anything physical makes contact."
"Whatever it is, I don't think it's anything to worry about," Bashir said. He
watched Vash turn and begin to walk across the deck, sliding her hand as she
moved along the forcefield's invisible boundary. "I mean, even if it's a
forcefield, it's not delivering a warning shock. I think it's further evidence
that they want to keep us from interacting with ..."
He stopped as a throbbing vibration began to sound through the deck, and he
heard the rest of the Defiant's crew begin talking excitedly as—
—the main hangar door slid open to reveal stars streaming past to a vanishing
point.
Bashir reflexively held his breath. The ship was traveling at warp, and only
the hangar deck's atmospheric forcefield was preventing the fifteen of them from
being explosively decompressed into the ship's warp field.
"I think someone's trying to get our attention ...," Jadzia said lightly.
Bashir turned as he heard the quick hiss of an opening door.
Three Vulcans stood in the corridor beyond, two fe-
males and a male, their impassive faces offering no clue as to their intentions.
One after the other, the three Vulcans stepped onto the hangar deck, and Bashir
took some solace from the fact that the uniforms they were wearing reflected
Starfleet traditions. Their trousers and jackets were made of a
vertically-ribbed black material, with the entire left shoulder of each jacket
constructed of a block of contrasting fabric in a traditional Fleet specialty
color, in this case red on two of them and blue on the third. In the center of
each colorful shoulder was what could only be a communicator badge, identical to
the modified emblem on the crates and complete with the colors of the Klingon
k'Roth ch'Kor. Only one element was completely new to Bashir: Two of the
Vulcans—those with the red shoulders—were wearing large clear visors over their
eyes, like some kind of protective shield.
As the three figures halted at the boundary of the forcefield, Bashir took the
chance to study their uniforms more closely for rank markings. He found them on
small vertical panels, a centimeter wide by perhaps four centimeters long,
centered on their jackets just below their collars. Instead of the round pips
that Bashir wore, these uniforms used square tabs, though he felt it was likely
the number of tabs would carry the same meaning.
"The woman on the right, with the blue shoulder," Bashir said quietly to Jadzia
and Worf. "The captain?"
The Vulcan in question had four
square tabs in her rank badge, and seemed older
than her two companions. Her skin was a warm brown, almost the same shade as
Jake's, and a few strands of gray ran as highlights through her severely-cut
black hair. Since the
specialty color on her shoulder was blue, Bashir guessed that either blue was
the current color signifying command or this was a science vessel with a
scientist for a captain. She was also the only one of the three not wearing a
visor.
Bashir looked at Worf. "Commander, we should probably follow the temporal
displacement policy to the letter, and you are the ranking command officer."
Worf gave Bashir a curt nod, then stepped toward the silent Vulcans.
"I am Lieutenant Commander Worf of the Starship Defiant. I have reason to
believe these people and I have been inadvertently transferred approximately
twenty-five years into our future. Under the terms of Starfleet's temporal
displacement policy, I request immediate assistance for our return to our own
time."
The Vulcan captain put her hands behind her back as she began to speak.
"Commander Worf, I am Captain T'len, commander of this destroyer, the Augustus.
You and your people have been positively identified by your DNA signatures,
obtained from transporter records. As you have surmised, you have traveled in
time almost twenty-five years from what was your present. The current Stardate
is 76958.2."
She paused, and Bashir concluded it was to let her confirmation of their fate
sink in. "As I suspect you have also already surmised," she then continued, "the
historical record shows that the ship on which you made this temporal transfer
was lost with all hands on Stardate 51889.4, concurrent with the destruction of
the space station Deep Space 9. Under these circumstances, Starfleet
regulations are clear. Do you agree?"
Worf's voice deepened. "I would like to examine the historical record myself."
Captain T'len raised an eyebrow. "That would be a waste of time and resources.
If you do not believe me, logic suggests you will not be able to believe any
historical transcript I provide."
Bashir was slightly surprised that T'len wasn't aware that Klingons preferred
physical proof to logical inference. "Then I wish to be put in contact with
officials from the Federation Department of Temporal Investigations."
T'len's deep sigh—a most atypical expression of emotion, unless Vulcans in this
future were somehow different—strongly suggested to Bashir that the Vulcan was
under some undisclosed yet incredible strain.
"Commander," she said almost wearily, "your personnel records indicate you are
a reasonable being. Indeed, the records available for most of the other
non-Bajorans with you indicate a high degree of probability you can still be of
use to Starfleet in this time period. All you need to know now is that the
Federation Department of Temporal Investigations no longer exists. Twelve years
ago its responsibilities were assumed by Starfleet's Temporal Warfare Division.
I assure you that under current conditions the personnel of the TWD are most
unlikely to expend any effort in trying to convince you that this present is
everything I say it is. You must either accept my word, or not."
Worf's grim expression betrayed his struggle to maintain composure in the face
of what he obviously considered a threat, though it was as yet of an
unspecified nature.
"What are the current conditions?" Worf asked, immensely pleasing Bashir. That
was exactly the question
he would have asked first, to be quickly followed by inquiries about the exact
nature of the ominously named Temporal Warfare Division and what the Vulcan
captain meant by her cryptic reference to the Bajorans among them not being
useful.
"The Federation is at war with the Bajoran Ascendancy. And my crew and I have
no more time to waste with you than does the TWD. Therefore, I put it to you and
your people as straightforwardly as I can. The non-Bajorans among you may now
take this opportunity to reaffirm your loyalty to the Federation and to
Starfleet, and to join us in our war. Those who comply will be allowed to leave
the hangar deck and will be assigned to suitable positions within the fleet.
Those who do not comply will remain on the hangar deck with the Bajorans until
the atmospheric forcefield is dropped, in..." T'len tapped her communicator
badge twice. "... three minutes."
Immediately, yellow warning lights spun across the deck and bulkheads as the
familiar Starfleet computer voice announced, "Warning. The hangar deck will
decompress in three minutes. Please vacate the area."
All around Bashir, the other captives began to talk in groups again, their
mutterings and exclamations full of anger and shock. But Worf, interestingly,
seemed only to become calmer, as if now that he understood the challenge he
faced, he could focus all his energy on overcoming it
"Am I to believe," the Klingon growled, "that in only twenty-five years
Starfleet has degenerated into a gang of murderers?"
"Believe what you will," T'len replied crisply. "We are fighting for more than
you can imagine. Logic de-
mands that we waste no time or resources on anything—or anyone—that does not
help us in our struggle. Commander Worf, your choice is simple: Join us in our
war against the Ascendancy, or die with the Bajorans among you."
"Warning, the hanger deck will decompress in two minutes, thirty seconds. Please
vacate the area."
Worf turned to face the fourteen others who looked to him for leadership. He was
about to speak when it suddenly came to Bashir what the Vulcan was actually
doing. He held up his hand to stop Worf from saying anything more.
"She's bluffing, Worf."
Worf's heavy brow wrinkled as he considered Bashir's emphatic statement, but
T'len spoke before he could.
"Dr. Bashir, Vulcans do not bluff."
Bashir's response was immediate and to the point. "And Starfleet doesn't kill
its prisoners—war or no war."
The captain held his gaze for long moments, then without a sign, suddenly
wheeled and walked back toward the personnel door. "You know what you have to
do to survive," she said without looking back. "The prisoner containment field
is now deactivated. This door will remain open until five seconds before
decompression." Then she and her two companions stepped through that door and
were gone.
"Warning, the hanger deck will decompress in two minutes. Please vacate the
area."
Vash started for the unseen edge of the forcefield. "Hey! You didn't ask me!
I'll join up!"
But Bashir moved forward and pulled her back. "Get back here!"
Vash twisted out of his grip, slapped his hand away. "Look, all due respect to
your Bajoran friends, but I don't plan on getting sucked out into hard vacuum!"
"We are in no danger," Bashir said forcefully. He looked around at the others.
"Captain T'len will not decompress the hangar deck!"
"How can you be sure?" Worf asked.
"Because she is a Vulcan, and there is no logic to... to ki
lling Bajorans, even
if somehow they are enemies of Starfleet in this time. And there is absolutely
no logic in killing us. We're completely contained on this hangar deck. We're no
threat to anyone. And you heard what she said about confirming our identities
through DNA scans—she knows that none of us is involved in... current
conditions."
"Then why is she threatening us?" Jake asked.
"Warning, the hanger deck will decompress in one minute, thirty seconds."
Bashir registered Jadzia's and Worf's matching expressions of less-than-full
confidence in his argument, as well as the outright look of fear on the five
Bajorans, now standing apart from the others. "She's testing us."
"Where's the logic in that?" Jadzia asked.
Bashir knew he lacked a definitive answer. "Maybe what she said about DNA scans
wasn't the truth. If they really don't have a way of confirming our identities,
they don't really know who we are."
"And why would that be important?" Vash snapped.
But then Jake snapped his fingers. "Founders can fool a DNA scan, right?"
Bashir nodded, equally impressed by and grateful for the young man's quickness.
"That could be it. If this ... Bajoran Ascendancy is a result of the Domin-
ion establishing a foothold in the Alpha Quadrant, Starfleet could still be at
war with the Founders. For all Captain T'len knows, we might all be
shapeshifters who've impersonated the lost crewmembers of the Defiant."
Jadzia narrowed her eyes. "Then why didn't they just strap us down and cut us to
see what happened to our blood?"
Bashir winced. She was right. Though the Founders could mimic almost any living
being down to the level of its DNA, once a single drop of blood escaped from
that duplicated form, it immediately reverted to the Founders' normal gelatinous
state. As his Trill colleague had just pointed out, there were easier, more
direct methods of being certain Worf and the others weren't changelings.
"Warning, the hanger deck will decompress in sixty seconds. Please vacate the
area."
'T'len!" Vash shouted. "I'm on your side! Beam me out!"
"If this is a test," Bashir said sharply, "you are most certainly failing."
"Me?" Vash hissed. "I'm the only one acting like a human being. I want to live!"
"Forty-five seconds to explosive decompression," the computer warned.
"Commander Worf!" Everyone turned to the Bajoran who had called out. He was an