Going Round Trip - Part II
Posted on Wed Aug 26th, 2026 @ 3:08pm by Captain Thorrin & Commander Marisa Sandoval & Lieutenant Commander Tarian Aloria & Lieutenant Sivek & Lieutenant C'Mila Juli & Major Hastios Eilfaren
Edited on on Wed Aug 26th, 2026 @ 3:19pm
2,902 words; about a 15 minute read
Mission:
In The Nick Of Time
Location: Bridge - Deck 1 - USS Herodotus
Timeline: MD010 1330 hrs
Maren grabbed the nearest rail when the Herodotus shifted, more out of instinct than need.
For one breath, she forgot to look annoyed.
The viewscreen had become something impossible, all coiling lines and living motion, like space had been peeled back and someone had found nerves underneath. She stared at it despite herself, jaw tight, fingers white against the rail.
Then M’Ressa’s choice of music caught up with her.
“If this turns into a musical,” Maren said, voice a little thinner than she probably meant it to be, “I’m walking home.”
Sivek turned in his chair, an eyebrow raised.
"I am unfamiliar with any accepted branch of theoretical physics that classifies resonance tensors as musical."
Only after a good three seconds did he continue, facing the well of the bridge and Maren.
"Though the harmonic relationships are... mathematically elegant."
Marisa had been listening to the discussion with interest. While she was familiar with stellar sound waves and asteroseismology, neither could be classified as theoretical physics. But to her, they could be seen as the universe's music.
Lieutenant Juli kept herself grounded by placing her left hand near the top of her console, a centering point of gravity for her as she pivoted halfway to face the view screen, a swirling nebulous, moving bundle of clouds and strings and colors. The ship's vibrations felt different to her, different than when they'd made the job through time, but then she had no framework of what was normal here yet. Universe jumping and time jumping was still very new to her, the ship's technology, something that she was still learning.
"Is it supposed to take this long?" Juli asked. Her voice didn't show concern - not yet, simply curiosity.
Maren turned her head slowly toward Sivek, giving him the sort of look usually reserved for malfunctioning replicators and adults who had decided to explain fun out of existence.
“Right,” she said. “So not a musical. Just maths with dramatic lighting.”
The correction about harmonic relationships did not help. If anything, it made her expression sharpen with a fresh layer of teenage disbelief.
“That is genuinely the most Vulcan way anyone has ever admitted something looks pretty.”
Juli’s question came a moment later, and Maren’s mouth moved before she could stop it.
“Are we there yet?”
She paused, then glanced around the bridge with a faint lift of her shoulders, as if daring anyone to make something of it.
“What? Someone had to say it.”
M’Ressa smiled, “Patience please back seat drivers, you don’t want me to drop us into the wrong universe now do you?” She said, never taking her eyes off the view screen. “Dropping back to normal space in……5…4…3…”
Sivek watched the strings of the interphasic corridor slide across the bridge viewscreen, though 'watched' was perhaps an inaccurate descriptor. Humans watched sunsets. They watched storms on oceans and fires burning in forests. They watched because there was value--intrinsic value--in the act itself. Beauty.
'Observed.' Sivek decided.
His mind had no natural tendency toward wonder, though it was not immune to it. Wonder was simply categorized under a different heading, one much closer to curiosity and less vulnerable to distraction. The multiverse was not a collection of alternate realities that were as well-ordered as books on a bookshelf. While that was a very comforting metaphor, it was also the type of metaphor that had a tendency of lying when experts needed them most.
Universes were incapable of resting beside each other. It was easier to see them as solutions.
A universe was a set of conditions permitted by a particular arrangement of physical constants, quantum states, and causal histories. Each continuum represented a path through possibility space, a single answer among an almost incomprehensible number equations. The real difficulty came from the assumption that the paths were fixed, as it were. They were not. Definitely not. Every event created relationships. Every relationship altered probability. Every alteration would, in itself, create a new divergence.
Sivek glanced around the bridge. He knew Tarian understood this--perhaps as well as he did. His eyes then fell on Marisa--perhaps she was capable of comprehending. Yes, comprehending. At the centre of the bridge, Thorrin--the El-Aurian captain--likely had some philosophical approach that would encompass his response to the question of the multiverse. Not through mathematics.
When M'Ressa reached the mark the viewscreen showed the bluish, purple hue of the energy field that always accompanied an incursion. However, this time the energy did not resolve back to normal space. This time the energy resolved back to the myriad of intersecting timelines. The Herodotus was still in temporal space and the ship's Captain needed to know why. Thorrin uncrossed his legs and sat a bit straighter. "Reports everyone. Why have we not arrived?"
Looking over her console, M’Ressa couldn’t find the error. She’d done everything right. “Unknown sir. Helm is responding normally. We should’ve dropped out at the desired coordinates” she said, her tail flicking agitated.
Maren felt it before anyone said it.
Not in the clean way the bridge crew would probably put into reports later, with neat words and tidy system names, but in the ugly little drop of her stomach when the viewscreen failed to become stars.
Her hand tightened on the rail.
“That’s not right,” she said, quieter than she meant to.
The cords were still there. The impossible strings. The shifting colours. All of it moving past the ship like nothing had happened, like the universe had looked at their destination and simply decided not to open the door.
Maren stared at the screen, then glanced toward M’Ressa’s station when the helm officer reported. Then she looked to Thorrin, deliberate, searching his face for something—confirmation, reassurance, anything that meant this wasn’t as bad as it felt. Her jaw set before fear could make too much of a home on her face.
“We didn’t arrive,” she said, because apparently saying the obvious was all her brain had left. Then, sharper, as if she could turn panic into attitude by force, “That was the whole point of the count, right? Big dramatic numbers, then stars. That’s usually how this works.”
Her fingers shifted against her mother’s coat sleeve, rubbing the worn leather once before she caught herself and stopped.
“So,” she added, looking between the officers now, though her gaze flicked back to Thorrin for a heartbeat, “is this the kind of wrong where everyone stays annoyingly calm, or the kind of wrong where someone starts telling me not to worry?”
"Neither, yet," Marisa replied. Something was clearly wrong, but they lacked sufficient data to worry. "We have time and the answers will come." She trusted that the others would find the answers they needed.
Juli began combing through sensor readings for anything that might be useful. "I'm showing subspace topology distortion that appears to be increasing the longer we stay here," she offered.
Sivek studied the readings on two of his displays. Every variable they had predicted before departure had arrived precisely where the earlier equations said it would. The temporal vector matched. The quantum transition profile was coherent. The interphasic fields were within tolerances. Even the chroniton density surrounding the hull had decayed according to calculations. He had quietly verified Tarian's findings prior to Black Alert.
And yet, somehow, the universe before them was the wrong one.
His fingers remained idle above the console while he considered their position. After a moment, he turned in Juli's direction but addressed the rest of the bridge openly.
"The transition itself was successful," Sivek said. "There are no faulty readings within the inter-universal translation matrix. There is no evidence of field collapse, harmonic drift, or quantum decoherence. I am at a loss."
Tucked in a corner, her usual spot Addison stood, watching, observing as she most often did when she came up on the bridge to watch the shifting of the ship into another time stream. She wasn't always there, this though, it was important. There were people she needed to observe, to watch. Her eyes drifting over towards Meren then towards Thorrin.
Tarian was working frantically to look over all of the data that he had in front of him thus far. But, nothing was immediately knocking him over the head quite yet. He looked back at Thorrin and Sandoval as he said, "I'm not getting anything from active or temporal sensors yet. We should have arrived exactly where we were supposed to. But, we're off somehow. I think physically, we're in the right spot.....but maybe not quite temporally? I'm still looking over the data as it comes in. Should be up in a moment."
Almost as though it mystically knew what they were talking about, Tarian's station started to beep as the data came in, scrolling across his screen. He turned back and started punching it up, sending the data to both M'Ressa, Juli, and Sivek alike. "Hey, Mr. Sivek? Take a look at the data I just sent over. You know the battle we had back in the past? How they were able to punch through our shields like butter? Did they happen to leave any subharmonic signatures during or after the battle? I'm just looking at something that might've been left behind like a calling card on the hull. I might be reading that wrong, so I wanted to double check with you."
Thorrin sat and listened. His crew was hand-picked, they were intelligent, specialists, and the best in their fields. There was not much for him to do but to allow them to do what they did best and listen. However, being in temporal space did not play well for an El Aurian. The short passages were nothing and easily dismissed. But, the longer they remained for this investigation the longer the pain went on. He massaged his temples lightly. "M'Ressa hold position in temporal space until further order."
Marisa noticed Thorin massaging his temples. If they were holding position, she'd have to keep a close eye on him. At least the doctor was on the bridge if needed.
Sivek digested the data Tarian had transmitted to his station. He recalled their battle with the Krenim but felt reassured that any of Herodotus's many sensors would have detected any foreign technology inside or outside of the ship.
"Commander," he said calmly from across the bridge, "Sensors are not detecting anything out of the ordinary. I see no anomalous readings. Our displacement was four-point-eight times ten to the power of seventeen--anything attached to the hull not part of Herodotus would likely have been sheared by forces within the quantum filament."
He spun in his chair to face Tarian now, soft and curious. "What do you hypothesize, Commander?"
"But, the Krenim?" Juli asked from her station. "Commander Aloria, are you saying they could have left some sort of malicious code that's affecting our systems? If that's even remotely plausible, we'll need to run a minimum Level 2 diagnostic before we try to use the temporal drive again."
The thought gave her chills. If it were the case, she couldn't help but wonder if the plan was to follow them out here and finish them off, or if simply trying to keep them out of time was enough. Surely they knew that the best minds were on this ship and would likely fix anything they might have broken.
Tarian shrugged his shoulder as he looked back at his station. "I don't know what the ship is trying to tell us quite yet. But, at the moment, I think we got the where right. Just not the when part and I'm wondering how that could be because I know that M'Ressa got us to where we needed to be or where we should be. Give me a moment."
Tarian walked across the bridge to the Engineering station and started working with Sivek to see what was going on and if it was an Engineering or Temporal problem or something completely different.
"Running some basic diagnostics from one of my laboratory computers," Juli announced as her hands worked furiously, tapping the control panel in front of her and manipulating the holo-images displayed in front of her. "I'm not seeing any signs of infiltration or tampering."
Sivek remained at the engineering station while Tarian worked beside him, his eyes moving between the new telemetry and the older figures he'd already memorized. Juli's diagnostic continued to report the same thing: the ship had not been tampered with. That was useful information, although it eliminated the explanation that would have been easiest to repair.
He enlarged the interphasic field model until it completely occupied his main display. The lines representing Herodotus's translation path appeared like threads of fine glass.
"There is no infection," Sivek said. "The Lieutenant is correct." He then scanned the lines from engineering, adding, "And there is also no sign of malfunction."
He looked over at Tarian, who was leaning over the console and looking at some of pre-calculations. Sivek returned his attention to his side of the station and touched one of the vectors, watching it brighten.
"The difficulty is that we are assuming the translation matrix has two separate tasks. This is often poorly understood. It must determine where we are going and establish a physical relationship with the destination continuum at the same instant. Our temporal calculations are producing the correct arrival time. Our interphasic calculations are producing the correct universe. The two results are mathematically compatible."
Sivek turned and looked from Tarian to the center of the bridge where Thorrin remained.
"There is no logical reason why we should not have arrived in the expected universe."
Marisa gave Sivek a half smile. "Then perhaps we should look for an illogical one?"
"If I didn't know any better, I'd say it was Q messing around with a timeline again, and if that ever was the case, I'd tell him to kiss my El-Aurian behind," Tarian said as he worked with Sivek at the Engineering station to try and work on the matrix and fix it up. Tarian looked back at Marisa with a shrug and a smile to match hers.
Marisa chuckled. "Fortunately, that is not the case here. I would not be surprised if Q were afraid to face Captain Thorrin."
Thorrin smiled, actually smiled, broad and genuine at Marisa's comment. "Well said Commander, well said indeed. Now, it seems we have a twist of nature here and are unable to return Ms Maren to her life, her family, her universe. To that end we will not stop seeking the answer here. Mr Sivek, Commander Aloria, Lieutenant Juli, I put it to you three to work this problem and in time get us an answer. Maren, I am deeply sorry for this." He stood up and crossed the Bridge to where Maren was standing. "You have my word we will get you home."
Maren watched Thorrin come towards her, the humour from a moment ago disappearing as quickly as it had arrived. She still had one hand curled around the rail, the other caught in the worn leather of her mother’s coat, and for once there wasn’t an immediate smart answer waiting to rescue her from the moment.
They had tried. That was the part she couldn’t turn into somebody else’s fault. An entire ship full of people who actually understood this impossible temporal rubbish had tried to take her home, and reality had simply refused to cooperate.
Her eyes dropped briefly before returning to Thorrin. “Don’t say that unless you mean it.”
There was no accusation in the words, only a guarded seriousness that sat strangely against her usual teenage armour. She knew what promises sounded like when people made them because they wanted you to stop being frightened.
After a moment, her mouth pulled faintly to one side. “Because I’m going to be really annoying about reminding you.”
It wasn’t quite a smile, but it was close enough.
“And for the record, this still completely sucks.”
"I would say times a fickle creature. But, what do I know?" Tarian said with a smile as he went back to work.
Sivek raised an eyebrow. "Indeed."
A Joint Post By
Captain Thorrin
Commanding Officer
USS Herodotus DTI-30656
Maren Malbrooke
Civilian
Lieutenant Sivek
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Herodotus DTI-30656
Commander Marisa Sandoval
Executive Officer
USS Herodotus DTI-30656
Lieutenant Commander Tarian Aloria
Chief Temporal Operations Officer
USS Herodotus DTI-30656
Lieutenant C'Mila Juli
Chief Science Officer
USS Herodotus DTI-30656
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