Paradox: A Time to Mourn

Paradox: A Time to Mourn

By Distracted

Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Not mine. I’m not making any money. Shucks.
Genre: Drama, Action/Adventure, Romance
Summary: It’s Episode 5 of Season Six. I’d like to think that this version is more satisfying than the reactions we saw in the nameless episode. Hanky time. (Warning: Major Character Death)

A/N: In response to complaints from a couple of readers about the excessive lengths of my posts and the month-long waits in between, I have decided this time to experiment with dividing this episode into two parts for posting. Let me know if you prefer it this way or if you’d prefer me to wait until I’ve got the entire episode written before posting it.

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Virtual Season Six
Episode Five

Part 1

Stardate 3144.119 Temporal Operations Headquarters

Agent Daniels breezed into his office fifteen minutes early on Monday morning and took the opportunity to sit at his desk for once with a cup of chai latte. He pulled up his assignments for the week… all quite routine until he got to the last one on the list. He put his tea mug down and stared at the screen. He’d never in his career been involved in a double recruitment mission… and with such illustrious targets! He smiled just a little as he read the recruitment summary. One of them was the current Director of the Romulan Division, no less, and the second agent’s role would be so vital in some upcoming operation that even his name was classified in Daniel’s time period. He was simply identified as “a Betazoid telepath”. The alteration which would result in the successful recruitment of both agents was a relatively minor one. All he had to do was update the shields on a Romulan shuttle to enable them to withstand point blank phase cannon fire, an in and out job. Another team of agents had been assigned the task of actually taking the recruits into custody. The collateral harm from the alteration appeared to be minimal as well. He continued to scroll rapidly through the estimated damages. Then a familiar name caught his eye.

Enterprise? he thought in dismay. The Enterprise NX-O1 was involved? He stopped scrolling, backtracked a page, and then read the details with a sinking heart. He sighed. The damages were minimal. It was a necessary mission. Why did it always seem so much worse when he knew the ones that ended up dead?

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August 7, 2156 Enterprise’s Shuttlepod One, also occasionally known as the Dominatrix

T’Mir stared at the scene before her in horrified disbelief for all of one second before her training kicked in. She pulled the bioscanner that she’d appropriated from Enterprise security from her belt and knelt to scan Commander Tucker’s motionless figure while the pitifully emaciated Betazoid sniffed in her ear. She stared at the readings for a moment, reset the sensitivity of the instrument, and then tried again. She was still staring at the screen when Isis came up behind her and laid a hand on her shoulder.

<<We should lift him and put him on one of the bunks. I’ll get Elren ready. The sooner we leave, the better,>> sent Isis sympathetically.

T’Mir ignored her. The screen took up her entire attention. The beatings had fractured Tucker’s nose and driven a small fragment of bone into the venous plexus at the base of his brain. The ordinarily slowly bleeding and usually reparable lesion had then been drastically extended by the increase in intracranial pressure caused by the telepathic pulse. Instead of being rendered unconscious and waking up several hours later with a hangover headache from mild cerebral edema, Tucker had suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage. There was no brain activity. Commander Charles Tucker the Third was dead.

This man is not my father. My father died at Cheron.

“Why are you just sitting there? Do something! He’s not breathing!” cried Lieutenant Commander Reed from the pilot’s chair.

T’Mir heard Isis’ reply as if from a distance. She felt detached, as if none of her surroundings were real.

“I’m very sorry, Mr. Reed. There’s nothing we can do. Commander Tucker’s brain has ceased to function.”

There was silence from the helm.

Isis reached down and took the bioscanner from T’Mir’s unresisting fingers. Then she smiled at the teary-eyed Betazoid male who still held Tucker’s head cradled in his lap.

<<It’s all right, Elren. We’ll take care of him, now>> she sent to the distraught telepath. Elren recognized her sending and smiled back, his joy at finally meeting her in person drying his tears. It was obvious that he didn’t understand what had happened.

For a moment, T’Mir felt a frustrated anger toward the telepath and his newly acquired limitations. The commander’s death was his fault. Without the power of his brainwashed mind, the generation of the telepathic pulse would have been impossible, but she couldn’t even blame him without being cruel to a mental deficient. Her fury threatened to overcome her anyway, until it occurred to her that she had helped him do it. The realization sickened her. As Isis reached toward Commander Tucker’s blood-matted curls to move him, T’Mir shouldered her out of the way.

“I will do it,” she muttered. She pulled her non-functional hand out of its sling, and then, heedless of the gore which soon coated her clothing, sat on the decking, lifted the commander’s head gently from Elren’s lap with her good hand and the opposite forearm and laid it in her own lap. Elren scrambled out from under the body and brushed at the soggy stains on his rough clothing with a distressed expression. Isis pulled him aside and began talking to him in calm and soothing tones. T’Mir sat cross legged on the transport platform with her father’s… no… Commander Tucker’s… head resting on her thigh. Her fingers combed absentmindedly through the hair on the crown of his head as she stared unseeingly at his face.

This man is not my father. My father died at Cheron.

Lieutenant Commander Reed cleared his throat. His voice was a bit hoarse as he addressed Agent Seven.

“What about Tolaris?” he asked.

“There are no Vulcan life signs on board the Romulan ship,” replied Seven with finality.

“How can you be certain of that, Agent Seven?” challenged the human suspiciously. “Our sensors can’t tell the difference.”

T’Mir looked up. Reed’s jaw was clenched. He appeared to be controlling his distress with difficulty. Her brow went up. Where had he discovered that potentially timeline shattering piece of information?

“I have modified the sensors… temporarily,” replied Seven tersely. “Our mission is complete, Mr. Reed. You may set a course back to Enterprise.”

For a moment, T’Mir thought that the human might refuse. Reed made eye contact with her, then, and then looked down at her hand. His expression softened. T’Mir realized abruptly that she was still stroking Commander Tucker’s hair. She pulled her hand away, avoiding Reed’s eyes. He gave her a sympathetic look and then turned back to the helm.

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Agent Seven rose from the navigation and transport station and went to join Isis in the rear of the shuttle. She was trying to soothe Elren’s fears. She’d managed to get the temporal stabilizer around his arm, and was doing her best to prepare him for the transition.

<<Don’t be frightened, dear. We’ll go to a nice warm place now, and get a hot bath, and some food, and a change of clothes.>> She looked up at Seven, and then her eyes went to T’Mir.

<<Is she capable of completing the mission?>> she asked him. Seven sighed and turned to look at the agent trainee. The girl’s expression was rigid. She was still sitting on the transporter pad with the human’s head in her lap.

<<We don’t have much choice,>> he replied with resignation. <<Elren’s our responsibility now. We’ve been assigned to be his handlers, and I refuse to leave you alone with him.>>

She smiled and shook her head. <<You have nothing to worry about, Gary.>> She gazed into Elren’s uncomprehending face. As soon as her smile was directed at him, Elren smiled a vacantly innocent smile right back. She stroked his curls. <<He’s perfectly harmless,>> she reassured her partner. Seven exhaled heavily and gave her a hesitant half-smile in return. The way she treated the brain-damaged telepath was giving him the willies. It was almost like he was her child.

<<I’ll go and review the conclusion of the mission with her. If she’s capable of continuing, we’ll leave as soon as I’m done,>> sent Seven. Then he turned to the agent trainee. She had lifted Tucker’s torso up against her body and held his head and shoulders securely in her arms with his head against her breast. She stared at the opposite wall of the shuttle. Her face was blank. The implications were disturbing. Was she functional?

He squatted down next to her where she sat on the transporter pad.

“T’Mir? Are you all right?” he whispered. After a second’s delay, T’Mir turned her dry-eyed face in his direction.

“Help me get him to a bunk. I can’t lift him with one hand,” she replied in a calm, clear voice. “I’ll need to communicate with Enterprise in order to complete this mission. I have no wish to remain here any longer than necessary.”

Seven nodded in relief. Her calmness reassured him. “Of course,” he replied. He lifted Tucker’s limp legs by the thighs and stood as she lifted his torso. Together they gently laid the engineer’s body on one of the bunks at the rear of the shuttle. Seven watched as T’Mir painstakingly arranged his arms and legs into more natural positions. He began to feel concerned again when she sat on the bunk next to him and removed his jacket as if to make him more comfortable, but all she did afterward was to cover his battered and bloody face with it. It was a rational act, one of respect for a fallen hero. Once the commander was decently covered, the girl stood and faced Seven. She appeared to be fully recovered and capable of continuing her duties.

“Agent Isis and I have our orders,” he murmured softly. “Are you capable of completing your part of this mission?”

T’Mir straightened as if stung. “I am fully capable,” she affirmed quietly.

Seven met her eyes with an understanding look. “No one would think less of you if you found this situation too difficult to deal with,” he whispered.

T’Mir stared him down. “Do you have any further instructions before you leave, sir?” she replied under her breath.

Seven’s eyes cut to the back of Lieutenant Commander Reed’s head as he sat at the helm. “When Mr. Reed discovers that we’ve left, he may give you some difficulty,” he breathed.

“Don’t worry, Agent Seven. I can handle Mr. Reed,” she whispered flatly.

Seven raised an amused brow. “Don’t underestimate the humans, T’Mir… especially not Malcolm Reed,” he advised softly. “He is a good deal more dangerous than he appears.”

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Malcolm Reed sat at the helm of the shuttle with his eyes fixed on the controls. The ships’ internal sensors had confirmed the temporal agent’s findings. Trip Tucker was dead.

His grief over the death of his closest friend was firmly under control now, superseded by a cold and righteous anger. The agents had killed Trip. He was certain of it. Or, at least Agents Seven and Isis had done so. T’Mir’s reaction to Trip’s death had him doubting her complicity. It made no logical sense for the Romulans to have killed such a valuable prisoner. The only rationale for Trip’s death he could come up with was that the temporal agents had decided that allowing the Romulans to interrogate him was too dangerous to the approved timeline. Either that or Trip’s death was entirely accidental.

The Betazoid prisoner whom they had conveniently failed to mention and the familiar circle they had formed in the rear of the shuttle were the clues he’d needed to identify the technique they’d used to incapacitate the Romulan ship. He wasn’t sure why it had killed Trip this time instead of simply rendering him unconscious, but he fully intended to find out. They were whispering back there, under the mistaken impression that he couldn’t hear them. The sensors he’d planted were working perfectly, though. The temporal agents’ conversation played into his earpiece as clearly as if they’d been addressing him directly. His lips quirked upward just a tiny bit at Seven’s warning to T’Mir, but the significance of the agent’s comment about “leaving” puzzled him. Just where did the man expect to go?

“I will take all reasonable precautions, Agent Seven,” replied T’Mir’s voice in his ear.

He waited for a response, but after several seconds there was only silence. He flipped on the autopilot as the shuttle left orbit around the gas giant and made its way toward the agreed upon rendezvous point with Enterprise and turned to the rear just in time to see Agents Seven and Isis disappear into thin air, with the raggedy Betazoid held firmly between them as T’Mir stood watching. He pulled a phase pistol from his belt and leveled it at the back of T’Mir’s head.

“Don’t move,” he said icily. “If you so much as twitch, I will fire.”

The half-Vulcan girl remained absolutely still. “I will require your assistance to make things right, Lieutenant Commander,” she said softly, still facing toward the rear of the shuttle where her fellow agents had been standing mere seconds previously.

“’Make things right?’ Agent T’Mir? How exactly do you propose to do that? Commander Tucker is dead, and you just stood by and watched the ones responsible escape without consequences,” replied Malcolm bitterly.

T’Mir straightened fractionally and took a deep breath. He saw her one good hand, held at her side, clench into a fist. He tensed, prepared to shoot, but all she did was exhale completely and deliberately relax her fist.

“I am also partially responsible for Commander Tucker’s death,” she admitted quietly. “There is nothing I can do about it at this point but to complete my mission and allow the timeline to correct itself.”

“Your mission?” demanded Malcolm. “Your mission was to retrieve Commander Tucker alive. You’ve failed in your mission, T’Mir.”

“I’m afraid not, Lieutenant Commander. Your mission was to recover the commander. Mine was a bit more complicated than that,” sighed T’Mir. She raised both hands slowly away from her body. He could see for the first time how her right hand remained curled into a useless claw.

That happened in the service of Enterprise, he thought. His weapon remained up, but he didn’t fire as she turned slowly to face him. Her piercing blue eyes held his grey ones.

“I must have the Romulan prisoner,” she told him. “Once he is in my custody, all will be as it should be.”

Malcolm regarded the solemn-faced girl in appalled realization. The delicacy of her features was deceptive. She was just as devious and murderous as any Romulan.

“If I didn’t know you were a temporal agent, I’d think you were a Romulan plant, Agent T’Mir,” he replied with cold anger. “What’s so bloody important about this Romulan prisoner? Why is he worth the trouble?”

T’Mir’s eyes narrowed. She studied Malcolm for several seconds, and then, to his surprise, answered his question.

“The Romulan is being recruited as a temporal agent, Mr. Reed. His services are required in the Vulcan/Romulan reunification effort,” she said matter-of-factly.

“And the Betazoid?” prompted Malcolm.

T’Mir nodded with a conciliatory expression. “Also a recruit,” she informed him.

Malcolm’s brow wrinkled. Why is she telling me this? he wondered. She must know I’m obligated to tell my superiors… unless she plans to kill me first…

His musings came to an abrupt halt as a stun pulse emanating from the slender silver cylinder hidden in the palm of T’Mir’s clawed hand fired through the cage of her fingers and struck him squarely on the forehead. He hit the deck plates, unconscious, as the stun blast resulting from his reflexive grip on the firing stud of his phase pistol scored a direct hit to the center of Agent T’Mir’s chest.

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Phlox strode cheerfully down the corridor with the bioscanner containing the results of his scan of the Romulan prisoner grasped securely in both hands. For some reason, the temporal agents had strongly recommended to the captain that he limit access to the Romulan. Once they had left the ship, though, the captain had apparently changed his mind. Phlox wasn’t sure exactly why Jonathan Archer had followed the temporal agents’ recommendations in the first place, but he was looking forward to a fascinating study of the fruits of his friend’s change of heart. Just the initial scan had given him plenty to ponder. The prisoner’s DNA appeared to be genetically identical, for all intents and purposes, to Vulcan DNA. So was his anatomy, with only minor superficial variations. Phlox could hardly wait to do an in-depth analysis.

The low frequency vibration of the pager on his belt brought him out of his pleasantly anticipatory reverie. He’d taken to carrying a pager whenever he left Sickbay and his monitoring sensors. The computer could detect vital sign variations in any patient he had under observation and page him directly. It cut down on response time in the event of an emergency, avoiding the need for a shipwide page which wasted precious seconds. To his surprise, the page was a code blue emergency. He took off running toward Commander T’Pol’s quarters. Sickbay was empty. He’d discharged Lieutenant Commander Hess and Elena Archer that very evening. The only person on Enterprise wearing a biosensor connected to the Sickbay computer was T’Pol. It was a requirement. Regulations specified the continuous monitoring of anyone on official medical leave while on board ship.

Arriving at T’Pol’s quarters, Phlox wasted no time with formalities, but simply punched in the medical emergency override code and charged into the Vulcan’s cabin. He found her in a crumpled heap in the floor beside a nearly burned-out meditation candle. She was wearing night clothes and a robe, as if she had been in the process of meditating before retiring for the evening. There was no one else in the room.

He shook her shoulder firmly. “Commander! Are you all right?”

There was no response. Her head lolled limply on her shoulders as he shook her. He reached for a pulse in her neck, a bit lower than for a human, down at the base of the neck where it met her shoulder. One was present, but exceedingly weak. The sensors built into his pager picked up signals from the biosensor pad she wore on her left lower chest. Her heart rate was erratic and much slower than normal. For a moment he thought that she wasn’t breathing, and then she took a gasping inhalation. He ran the bioscanner in his hands over her body with a puzzled expression. She didn’t appear ill. What could have caused a sudden loss of consciousness and such a drastic reduction in her heart rate?

The bioscanner wasn’t of much help. There appeared to be nothing physically wrong with her. He scanned her head, and raised a brow. The neurotransmitter changes looked vaguely familiar. He’d have to get her back to Sickbay to be certain, but the changes appeared to be similar to those which had been caused by the Betazoid telepathic weapon, only much more severe than he’d previously seen. A puzzling finding, since as far as he knew the Enterprise was light years away from the nearest Betazoid.

Not again! he thought in frustration. The commander had barely begun her recovery from her last period of bond severance. This latest insult to her telepathic centers appeared to be the most severe one yet. He stifled his worry over whether the damage would prove to be permanent this time and got on the comm to call for emergency medical transport.

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Arrhae of Romulus, formerly a centurion of the Romulan Empire but now foresworn and no longer deserving of the title, sat brooding in his cell. The annoyingly cheerful physician had just left. Arrhae had yet to learn of the success or failure of the Vulcan temporal agent’s mission, and his attempts at demanding her presence had met with puzzled looks. Evidently, no one else on board this vessel spoke a word of either Vulcan or Romulan. He picked disinterestedly at the food tray on the mattress in front of him with the rounded implement provided for its consumption. Nothing on the tray was identifiable, being pureed and processed to allow ingestion without the need for blade or tines. It was disgusting, but he was hungry. He took a bite of the grey mush and swallowed. Chewing was entirely unnecessary. It was some sort of meat, he decided in mild surprise. At least he wouldn’t be forced to forego animal protein. On the other hand, having something crunchy to chew on was a more attractive option than he would have expected. Fresh vegetables might have been preferable.

The whoosh of the entry doors caught his attention, and he raised his head. A uniformed human female entered the chamber outside of the transparent viewing wall. At first, he thought it was another security guard. The female was small, but her manner was self-assured and her body mechanics implied confidence in his presence. Of course, he was behind an impenetrable retaining wall. He looked her over from head to foot. No, definitely not security. She was unarmed. Her eyes met his curiously. He saw no fear in them. Her shining black hair framed her face, hiding the rounded shapes of her ears. His lips quirked upward minutely. First the Vulcan and now this one. Were there any ugly women on board this vessel?

“I am Lieutenant Hoshi Sato, ship’s linguist,” said the human female in flawless Vulcan. She spoke slowly and distinctly. “We need to talk, Centurion Arrhae. I’ve reviewed the security recordings, and I have reason to believe that Temporal Agent T’Mir may have her own agenda. My captain has asked me to determine if her goals are compatible with ours. How did she convince you to cooperate with her? If she is coercing you or has done you harm in any way, we need to know about it. Earth’s wartime conventions specifically prohibit the torture of captured prisoners.”

Arrhae raised a brow. The woman seemed entirely sincere. He wondered how the humans expected to win this war if they were so squeamish about harming their enemies. Then he realized the irony of the situation. The captain of this vessel was the one who’d left Agent T’Mir alone with him in the first place, no doubt entirely aware of the Vulcan’s capabilities. This young woman was evidently unaware of her captain’s proclivity toward hypocrisy. In view of what Agent T’Mir had revealed to him about the nature of the current timeline, he saw no reason not to speak to the linguist. If anything, it would pass the time, and might provide him with some amusement.

“You may call me Arrhae,” he told her dryly. “The title centurion no longer applies. What would you like to know?”

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T’Mir woke to the soft ping of the automatic pilot alert tone and the dulcet voice of the onboard computer saying, ”This vessel has reached the programmed coordinates. Please restore manual control for docking.”

She inhaled, and abruptly winced. Breathing shallowly to avoid chest movement as much as possible, she rolled painfully over onto her stomach and pulled her elbows and knees beneath her. Lifting her head, she gave Malcolm Reed a dirty look. The human security officer was still out cold, and was likely to remain that way for several hours. Upon awakening, he’d be missing five minutes of memory… the memory immediately preceding the stun blast. It was an automatic function of the temporal agent’s multitool. She wouldn’t have bothered otherwise. She didn’t intend to remain in this timeline long enough for Reed to wake up and tell anyone anything.

T’Mir gritted her teeth and rose to her hands and knees, wondering once again why the agency research scientists could prolong life, enhance healing, and increase stun resistance with nanites, but couldn’t seem to manage something as simple as on-demand pain control. It seemed simple to her as a healer-in-training, at any rate. She guessed that opioid receptor stimulating nanites just weren’t a priority. Probably something about not giving the agents the opportunity to feel good at will. Surak forbid the agency would actually allow something like that to happen.

Ping ”This vessel has reached the programmed coordinates. Please restore manual control for docking.”

T’Mir crawled determinedly toward the navigation/transport console. Ignoring the burning pain in her chest, she pulled herself to a standing position on shaky legs and collapsed into the chair at the console. She paused a moment for the vertigo to subside and then reset the sensors to scan for Romulan life signs and tried to locate the brig on Enterprise.

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“Captain, Shuttlepod One is at the rendezvous coordinates,” reported Ensign Norfleet. His eyes scanned his console briefly, and then he looked up with a grim expression. “Sensors show only two life signs on board.”

Jonathan Archer gave the young man at tactical a puzzled glance and then turned to Ensign MacNamara at communications.

“Open a channel to the shuttle. Get a status report,” he said urgently.

Norfleet interrupted, “Someone on the shuttle is trying to get a transport lock on the prisoner in the brig, sir. The sensor baffles installed in the holding cell are preventing the lock.”

Archer’s brow went up in surprise. He’d have to complement Lieutenant Commander Reed on his paranoia.

“No one’s responding to our hail, sir,” announced MacNamara in a worried voice.

Archer’s jaw clenched. “Have a security team meet the shuttle occupants in the transporter room, Mr. Norfleet. Once the team is assembled, lock on to both of the occupants and beam them aboard.” He paused, and then, almost as an afterthought, added, “Mr. Mayweather, call your relief and then meet the team in the transporter room. You’ve got a shuttle to retrieve.”

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Lieutenant Travis Mayweather walked briskly down the corridor toward the transporter room. He was less than enthusiastic about getting his molecules scrambled, but if the captain felt that he was the only man for the job he wasn’t about to argue. It was pretty flattering, after all. There were several dozen crew members on board with sufficient skill to pilot a shuttle, but the captain had chosen him. It was likely to be due to the fact that as a bridge officer he was privy to the temporal agent’s secrets, but it could be because his skills were appreciated, couldn’t it?

He smiled wryly. Who was he kidding? He was a convenient technician to these people… the means to an end. Get the ship out of the asteroid field, Travis. There’s a good boy. Now let’s move on to the important stuff. Dodge the disruptor blasts, Travis. Wow! We’ve escaped destruction yet again! What luck! It was never his skill that did it, of course.

He arrived at the transporter room just in time to witness the arrival of the shuttle occupants. Lieutenant Commander Reed materialized first, lying motionless on the transporter pad. The security team’s medic rushed forward to scan him. Travis could see that he was still breathing. The cute little Vulcan arrived next. The other two security guards were on her with phase pistols leveled at her head, and had her cuffed in seconds. She seemed shaky and disoriented, and her jumpsuit was spattered with rust-red stains. Travis wondered why she’d tried to take their Romulan prisoner, and what she’d planned to do with him. He felt sorry for her just a little. She seemed so fragile and delicate. He’d learned not to trust his own judgment when it came to women, though. His track record in that department was less than stellar.

Something went wrong with the mission. he realized. Where’s Commander Tucker?

A stretcher arrived from sickbay to transport Malcolm Reed. The security guards with T’Mir each took an elbow and escorted her, half-lifting and half-dragging, down the corridor toward the brig. The crewman from Engineering at the transporter controls gave Travis a nod, and he stepped forward with determination. As he turned to face the control console and its operator, Travis felt the whole body tingle of matter transport and closed his eyes. When he opened them, he was staring at the shuttle cockpit from the temporary transport platform in the rear of Shuttlepod One. He inhaled. There was a peculiar metallic tang in the air of the shuttle. Growing up, Travis had smelled almost every smell that could occur in the closed environment of a ship. He’d grown used to the odors that humans gave off in close quarters. This one was cloying and musty, the smell of blood.

Ping ”This vessel has reached the programmed coordinates. Please restore manual control for docking.”

Travis’ eyes searched the space around him, seeking the source of the odor. There was a dark smear on the deck plates to the side of the transporter pad. His gaze followed the direction of the smear to the still figure laid out on one of the bunks in the rear of the shuttle. He stepped off the transporter pad and walked reluctantly to the bunk. He had a sinking feeling about the identity of the man lying beneath the jacket that covered his head and shoulders. He pulled the jacket away and winced at the sight. Commander Tucker’s face was serene. The crusted blood on his face and ears and his misshapen nose did nothing to dispel Travis’ peculiar notion that Trip Tucker had been happy at the moment of death. It made no sense, but there it was.

Ping ”This vessel has reached the programmed coordinates. Please restore manual control for docking.”

Travis exhaled heavily and swallowed. Then he covered Commander Tucker’s face again and turned toward the helm. He sat heavily in the pilot’s seat and opened a comm channel to Enterprise. He really wasn’t looking forward to being the one to tell everyone that Trip Tucker was dead, but it didn’t look like he had any choice.

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“The Romulan ship’s cloak and shields are both down, Captain. There are no human life signs on board. The computer’s identifying all the ship’s occupants as Vulcan for some reason, sir, and no one’s moving,” reported Norfleet.

Archer stared numbly at the sensor readings in the arm of his command chair. He couldn’t think after what Travis had just told them over the comm, but he had to. He was in command.

Snap out of it and be the captain! he chastised himself roughly. His teeth clenched and he forced himself to look at the situation objectively. T’Pol was in Sickbay unconscious, Travis was bringing Trip home in a body bag, and now the entire crew of the Romulan ship had been incapacitated. The connection was obvious, but how had the temporal agents done it?

“Should I lock weapons, sir?” asked Norfleet hopefully.

Archer lifted his chin to stare grimly at the Romulan ship. Nothing would have given him more pleasure than to blow it out of space, but that wouldn’t get them any answers. “Tactical alert, Ensign…” He winced at the noise resulting from Norfleet’s immediate and enthusiastic response to his order. “… but silence the alarm!” he shouted. Blessed silence returned, and he exhaled in relief. He could feel a headache coming on anyway. He supposed that it was understandable under the circumstances. Travis was on his way back. Archer wasn’t looking forward to what came next.

He rose from the command chair. “Do a thorough scan of the ship and maintain our current position. I’m going to get some answers. You have the con. Notify me of any hostile action. Maintain alert status.”

Norfleet nodded in understanding, and stayed at the tactical console with his hands on the controls and his eyes glued to his sensors as Archer left the bridge and stepped into the turbolift.

She’s betrayed us, he mused angrily. He’d felt just a little uncomfortable going behind the temporal agents’ backs to allow Phlox to do his own scan of the Romulan prisoner. He felt justified now. T’Mir had assured him that she would provide them with a copy of the scan she’d done. Now he was certain that she’d been lying. It was clear to him after Phlox’s briefing that the Romulans and the Vulcans were basically the same species. That information would destroy the alliance between Earth and Vulcan once it became known. The Romulans weren’t an unknown alien species. They were simply the black sheep of the Vulcan family. Neither Starfleet nor the rest of Earth’s population would care that the two branches of the family were at odds with each other. They’d take one look at the genetics that matched with 99.99% accuracy and those pointed ears, and there’d be riots in the streets. He found himself wondering if T’Pol knew.

The comm sounded too loudly in the confines of the turbolift. It was Phlox’s voice.

“Phlox to Captain Archer. Shuttlepod One has arrived. You asked to be notified.”

Archer reached to answer. “Acknowledged, Doctor,” he replied with deliberate distance. Now was not the time to fall apart. “How is T’Pol?” he asked.

“Still unconscious, Captain. I’ll notify you if there’s any change,” replied the Denobulan.

Archer closed his eyes and exhaled heavily. The turbolift doors opened. He hesitated a second before exiting, and then began walking down the corridor toward the docking bay.

I shouldn’t do this, he thought to himself. There are more pressing things for me to be doing in this crisis than worrying about someone who’s already dead, he told himself with deliberate cruelty. His feet carried him inexorably down the hallway anyway. He stopped at the door of Shuttlebay One, and then palmed the door open. A pair of medics in biocontainment suits were carrying a stretcher up the stairwell to meet Dr. Phlox. Phlox stood on the catwalk, scanning a solemn-faced Lieutenant Travis Mayweather for biohazards. He gave the young man a nod of clearance, and the helmsman stepped aside to allow the doctor access to the stretcher coming up behind him. Archer stepped up to Travis and met his gaze with a rueful expression.

“Thanks for bringing him home, Travis,” said Archer softly.

Travis nodded, his eyes shining and his mouth twisting sadly. “I’m sorry, Captain… I know you two were really close,” he replied.

Archer cleared his throat, and then nodded his acknowledgement of the sentiment. “Go take a break, Lieutenant. We may need your expertise at the helm before this situation is resolved. We’ll all benefit if you’re well-rested,” he said. Travis smiled briefly.

“Yes, sir. Just call me if you need me, sir,” he replied.

Archer turned with an absent nod and positioned himself behind Phlox as the doctor scanned the body for threats to the ship before unzipping the biohazard bag. He never even saw Travis leave the room. Trip’s face held his entire attention. Archer forced himself to look briefly at his friend’s battered features before turning his head away to inspect the scanner display in Phlox’s hands.

“He looks like he’s been beaten up,” Archer said with forced objectivity. “Did the Romulans do this?” The scanner readings were just so much gibberish to him, but the screen gave him something to look at besides Trip’s face.

Phlox seemed absorbed and focused, in forensic mode for the duration. “Possibly…” he replied without looking at Archer. He pointed at the anatomic scan findings. The handheld bioscanner’s screen was tiny. Archer squinted at the image. Phlox continued dispassionately.

“His Romulan interrogator was, I assume, responsible for his nasal fracture. This bone fragment lacerated a small vein at the base of his brain… here,” he said. “Ordinarily, several hours would be required before sufficient bleeding would occur to threaten his life. Presumably, the commander’s captors would have detected the injury and repaired it if given sufficient time. The procedure is quite straightforward.”

“So what happened, then?” asked Archer brusquely.

“I’m not sure,” replied Phlox. “He appears to have suffered a sudden and massive intracranial hemorrhage. I’ll need to do a more complete evaluation to determine what caused such a drastic change in his condition. I do have a suspicion, though, based on Commander T’Pol’s condition.” He reached out and zipped up the bag, concealing Trip’s face once again. He stood and motioned for the medics to transport the body to sickbay. Then he faced Archer squarely. His expression abruptly became sympathetic, as if he were shedding his shell of medical professionalism.

“I will discover what killed him, Jon, but I know that this is more than the death of a subordinate to you… and to all of us. I want you to know that I’m here if you need to talk… not as a doctor, but as a friend,” said the Denobulan with a small diffident smile.

Archer nodded his thanks, but found himself unable to look Phlox in the eye. “I’ll think about it,” he told the doctor evasively before turning to leave. “If you need me I’ll be in the brig interrogating Agent T’Mir,” he announced briskly over his shoulder. Phlox’s eyes followed him as he exited. The doctor’s lips curved upward slightly in a sad smile as his eyes filled with tears. He blinked them back, sniffed and straightened, and then followed the stretcher to Sickbay. He had an autopsy to perform.

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Hoshi Sato sat in a chair in Sickbay with a padd in her lap. It would have been easier to work on the console in her quarters, but with both her reluctant roommate and Malcolm Reed in Sickbay, her quarters were entirely too lonely to remain in them that night.

The Romulan prisoner had been surprisingly forthcoming. Strangely enough, he seemed to bear no animosity toward Agent T’Mir. According to him, the Vulcan had simply convinced him that dying was an illogical waste of resources, and had somehow managed to get him to believe her when she promised him that none of the crew of the Romulan ship would be injured, killed, or dishonored in the rescue of Commander Tucker… at least, not any more dishonored than being rendered helpless for several hours while their prisoner was stolen from beneath their noses would leave them. Hoshi found the entire situation extremely puzzling. What little she knew of Romulan culture made her very suspicious of Arrhae’s story. Why would an honor-obsessed member of a warrior race allow himself to be turned away from his sworn duty after just thirty minutes in a holding cell with a pretty face?

She’d listened to the security tapes. Much of what T’Mir and Arrhae had discussed had been in rapid fire Vulcan full of antiquated verb and pronoun forms. All she’d managed to glean from the recording so far was that T’Mir had first melded with him and then shown him something on a padd which had produced this drastic change in attitude. The information had something to do with the future and with the current war between Earth and the Romulan Empire. It would take her hours to do a word by word translation. She listened carefully to the next six seconds of security recording at seventy-five percent speed, and then tapped the words out phonetically on her keyboard. A search for words with similar phonemes in the Vulcan database produced more questions than answers.

An “employment opportunity”? That can’t be right! she thought with a befuddled expression on her face.

She returned to the Vulcan dictionary. The word t’hy’la caught her eye, and she smiled wistfully. Her gaze left the padd in front of her and fell upon her friend’s still form on the biobed across the room. T’Pol’s chest rose and fell almost imperceptibly. There was otherwise no indication at all that she was even alive. The tragedy of the situation struck her once again, and tears threatened. It had been at the welcome party they’d all thrown for Lianna in Sickbay only a year and a half ago; that’s when she’d first realized the two commanders were married. Trip’s broad grin as he’d lifted Lianna in his arms and brought her to T’Pol to cut the cake that Chef had made was suddenly fresh in her memory. Her eyes did fill with tears, then. It was unavoidable.

The rustle of bedclothes and a low-pitched groan distracted her from her reminiscences. She stood, put the padd aside, and approached the railing of the biobed she’d been waiting beside. One hand brushed dark curls out of Malcolm’s grey eyes while the other hand grasped his fingers as they groped for hers. He squinted in the dim lights of Sickbay and looked around him, momentarily confused. She could see his expression change to one of anger and grief as the memory of what had transpired in the shuttlepod came rushing back. He gripped her hand tightly and fought back furious tears. She ignored them. It would only embarrass him to call attention to them.

“They killed him, Hoshi,” he whispered hoarsely. Her eyes moistened again in sympathy. She’d known that he’d take it hard. No one else in the known universe even suspected how soft-hearted her tough Brit actually was. His outer shell was actually a carefully cultivated façade, built up brick by brick by a sensitive child who’d been wounded too many times to tolerate being hurt any more. She interlaced her fingers with his.

“I know, Malcolm. I know,” she whispered back with a small, sad smile. “I’ll miss him, too.” She said nothing else, but just held his hand while he regained control of himself.

Finally, Malcolm’s lips twitched upward minutely in gratitude, and he squeezed her hand before releasing it. Both of them heard the doors to Sickbay swoosh open. A pair of medics escorted a stretcher with a body bag on it through the doors and into Phlox’s laboratory at the rear of Sickbay’s large main chamber. Phlox followed immediately behind, walking briskly. Hoshi swallowed queasily. Malcolm took one look, and then his expression hardened.

“Where are Agents Seven and Isis? I would hope that the captain has them in the brig,” he told Hoshi coldly. Hoshi gave him a puzzled look.

“Agent T’Mir was the only temporal agent on the shuttle when it returned, Malcolm. Don’t you know where they went?” she asked. Malcolm returned her perplexed look.

“No…,” he paused for a moment thoughtfully. “Now that you mention it… I don’t even remember what happened to cause me to end up here in Sickbay,” he replied.

“Doctor Phlox thinks that you were stunned by a temporal agent’s multitool, Malcolm. We assumed that Agent T’Mir had done it. She’s in the brig because of it. Is that not what happened?” asked Hoshi.

Malcolm shook his head and smiled grimly at her. “If that’s what really happened, Hoshi, then I wouldn’t remember. Do you recall our lessons for the first mission to Kreptagh Prime? ‘Five minutes of retrograde amnesia’, remember?”

“So where did Isis and Seven go?” asked Hoshi.

Malcolm shrugged. “I’ve got no bloody idea,” he replied in exasperation. He sat up gingerly. Then he raised a brow in surprise. “It certainly wasn’t a phase pistol that stunned me,” he remarked. “Apart from the amnesia, I feel fine.”

“And where do you think you’re going, Lieutenant Commander?” demanded Phlox sternly as he approached them from across the room. His expression was almost parental in its disapproval.

“I’m perfectly well, Doctor… truthfully!” protested Malcolm. He swung both legs over the side of the bed as if he intended to get up, but then he caught sight of T’Pol in the biobed across the way and it stopped him cold.

“What’s happened to T’Pol?” he asked in a concerned tone.

Phlox exhaled heavily. “I was hoping that analyzing Commander Tucker’s neurotransmitter patterns once he was rescued and brought back on board would help me discover the cause of Commander T’Pol’s sudden collapse. Now… well…,” he grimaced regretfully.

“She collapsed during the rescue?” asked Malcolm with sudden urgency.

Phlox nodded with a puzzled expression. “I believe the timing was correct, yes,” he replied.

Malcolm nodded grimly. “Then I know what did it. There was a Betazoid on that vessel. I can’t be certain of it, but I believe the temporal agents somehow used him to incapacitate the crew with a telepathic defense.” He paused, and then his face lit up in realization. “I don’t remember where Isis and Seven went, but they took the Betazoid with them.”

Phlox actually smiled at Malcolm’s news. Despite the tragic circumstances, the solution to a clinical conundrum always cheered him up.

“That’s it, Mr. Reed! Commander T’Pol must have been linked to Commander Tucker… and a short range telepathic insult like that…” His smile vanished as his eyes met Malcolm’s in appalled realization. “It was the rescue attempt that caused the hemorrhage,” he whispered.

Malcolm shook his head, looking down with a helplessly angry expression. “I knew it! They did kill him!” He looked up again and gazed with a clenched jaw at T’Pol. His eyes shot back to the doctor. “Will she recover?” he demanded brusquely.

Phlox shook his head and shrugged. “I don’t know,” he replied sadly.

“Wait a minute, Malcolm…” interjected Hoshi. She placed a hand on his arm. “Did you say the temporal agents took the Betazoid with them?”

“I think so, yes,” he replied. “The last thing I remember, the other two agents were making a fuss over the puny blighter while T’Mir sat on the transporter padd holding Trip…” He paused and swallowed. “… Trip’s body… in her lap.” His expression softened. “She was holding him like a baby and stroking his hair, but she never cried,” he said softly, staring off absently across the room.

Hoshi reached out and squeezed his hand. She gave him a sympathetic smile. “It sounds like we need to go have a talk with T’Mir. I think I may know what’s going on here. Isis and I talked a little about the Temporal Enforcement Agency. I told her once that I wished I were free to become an agent… that it seemed an exciting job.” Malcolm eyed her in disbelief. She shrugged and gave him a sheepish look. “Isis told me that I wouldn’t want to be an agent. She was an unusual agent in that she was a volunteer from the approved timeline. Most of the time, though, agents are “recruited”. It’s sort of a combination of creation and kidnapping. These people use time as a convenient tool, Malcolm. They create alternate timelines and alternate versions of people who either don’t exist or are destined to die in the approved timeline. Then they take them… they use them and destroy the alternate timeline.” She paused and looked at Malcolm with an expectant smile. He still looked puzzled. She wrinkled her brow in frustration. “Don’t you see, Malcolm? If they took the Betazoid, then it was a recruitment, and the timeline in which Trip dies is an alternate timeline! Who’s to say that it’s accurate? Maybe he’s not even supposed to be dead! Maybe none of this was supposed to happen!” Malcolm gave her a dubious look.

“What I can’t figure out is why things haven’t gone back to the way they’re supposed to be now that they have the Betazoid,” mused Hoshi. Then her eyes widened in sudden realization.

“An ‘employment opportunity’,” she murmured to herself, smiling broadly. Then she grabbed Malcolm by the arm excitedly. “Come on. We’ve got to get to the brig before something else happens. I’ll explain on the way.”

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“Where are Agents Seven and Isis?” demanded Archer. He stood on the other side of the transparent holding cell wall with his arms crossed angrily over his chest in a way that reminded T’Mir piercingly of someone else. She crossed both arms right back and fought for control. She had to focus. She could resolve all of this if she were only able to focus.

“They had other duties to attend to,” she responded with forced calmness.

Archer blinked, and then evidently decided to let that one pass. “What happened? I thought you and the cat had everything covered,” he countered sarcastically.

T’Mir’s arms fell to her sides as she instinctively straightened in response to his implied criticism. “The technique we used to incapacitate the Romulans should not have killed Commander Tucker. We had no way to predict the injuries which rendered him susceptible to intracranial hemorrhage,” she told him stiffly. Archer bristled and opened his mouth, but she continued before he could say anything. She met his eyes.

“We failed to factor in the possibility of such injuries. It was a serious error in judgment for us to proceed with a plan which we knew would adversely affect Commander Tucker in any way without first ascertaining his condition. I apologize, Captain. I sincerely regret Commander Tucker’s death. Please believe me when I say that I share your grief.”

For some reason, her statement seemed to deflate Archer’s anger completely. The human just winced and turned away, obviously struggling to maintain his composure. Abruptly, she realized that she was wrong. He was definitely still angry. He rounded on her and exploded.

“I know more than you think I do, and just because Trip happened to be the temporal double of the man who fathered you doesn’t mean you can claim any emotional attachment to him,” he shouted furiously. He backed off and swallowed. His tone was only slightly more reasonable when he continued. “You helped to kill him by your own admission, so don’t try to give me some song and dance about how badly you feel about his death.” His manner became grim and businesslike. “I don’t need sympathy from you. All I need are the details about what you’ve done to my First Officer… and everything you know about the Romulan ship we’re going to destroy just as soon as I’ve finished with you,” he finished brutally.

T’Mir stopped and stared at him. “Your First Officer? Has something happened to Commander T’Pol?” she asked in a hesitant voice. The sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach distracted her attention once again. She gritted her teeth in chagrin. She needed to stay focused!

“T’Pol’s in a coma in Sickbay. She was found unconscious in her quarters around the same time that you and your fellow agents were busy killing my Chief Engineer. Phlox thinks her condition’s got something to do with Trip’s death,” replied Archer bluntly.

Relief struck T’Mir like a rush of cool water. She doesn’t know! she thought with illogical pleasure. It made no sense. It made no difference in the long run, but somehow the fact that this timeline’s T’Pol had no knowledge of her mate’s death relieved a small fraction of the pain T’Mir was struggling with at that moment. It was time to resolve this situation so that T’Pol never found out. T’Mir closed her eyes and breathed deeply, searching for calmness within the welter of emotions raging within her. She had to convince Archer to release her from her cell and to give her custody of Arrhae. One glance at the image of his furious face in her mind’s eye convinced her that a direct request would be of no use whatsoever. Something indirect was required. She opened her eyes.

“I may be able to wake her if you’ll release me from this cell, Captain,” T’Mir offered in a serene voice. “If she was linked with Commander Tucker at the moment of his death, her condition may be very similar to Lieutenant Commander Hess’ condition after being attacked by Tolaris. If her mate’s death has driven her mind into seclusion, I can help.”

Archer regarded her suspiciously. “And will I get the shield codes for the Romulan ship?”

T’Mir raised a brow at him. “Part of the arrangement I made with the prisoner was to give him my word that I would make every effort to convince you to leave the system once our mission was complete… without destroying his ship. Would you have me go back on my word? What sort of alliance would that be?” she asked.

“I wasn’t party to your little alliance, Agent T’Mir. I need those codes. It makes no sense to leave the system without destroying the Romulan ship. The only reason I’ve delayed this long is to get complete information from you prior to destroying my only other potential source of information about T’Pol’s condition. Their captain wouldn’t hesitate a second to destroy Enterprise if the situation were reversed. They’ll just come after us if we leave them alive,” returned Archer flatly.

T’Mir eyed him. His matter-of-fact practicality surprised her. This man was not the soft-hearted Uncle Jon she remembered from her childhood. The loss of his closest friends had affected him already. Then she gave a mental shrug. None of it mattered anyway.

“I will give you the codes when I am out of this cell,” she agreed.

The human captain studied her for several seconds with narrowed eyes. Then he got on the comm.

“Ramirez, Ngele… come in here, please.”

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Arrhae stood at the adjoining cell wall, peering through the grille as the human captain and the Vulcan temporal agent confronted each other. He understood not a word of the conversation between them, but the Vulcan had obviously done something that made the human angry. Her mission had evidently not gone well. That did not bode well for his future. He tried to catch her eye to determine if she had any plans to use her temporal agency technology to get them both out of their current situation, but she seemed distracted and quite emotionally distraught for a Vulcan… and impossibly young and fragile. He stared at her through the grille in frustration. He’d been right. She was a child. It had been stupid of him to trust in her ability to achieve her objective. His frustration blended seamlessly with the completely unexpected urge to protect her from harm at all cost.

A matched set of security guards, of equivalent height and build but of contrasting skin pigmentation, entered the holding cell’s antechamber. They took positions on either side of the door.

The captain spoke sharply to them. The darker guard nodded briskly, and walked toward the cell door with his phase pistol ready. The other pulled his weapon as well, and pointed it at T’Mir as his partner opened the door. The captain was unarmed, and so he wisely stepped out of the way to let his crewmen do their jobs. The dark guard pulled a pair of restraint cuffs from his belt, holstered his weapon, and reached for T’Mir’s wrist. T’Mir reached out as if she were trying to be helpful, and then stepped forward and grasped the guard’s wrist instead, twisting it behind him with unexpected strength and expertise as she spun him in place. Her opposite arm with its clawed, non- functional hand reached around his neck, and she used all of her not inconsiderable leg strength to shove him out the door of her cell and into the antechamber. She backed them both up against the outer wall of the second holding cell, using her captive as a human shield. He was so much bigger than she was that her head and entire torso were completely hidden behind him. His face became even darker as she throttled him. He struggled impotently. Humans were apparently not as strong as they looked.

T’Mir shouted something, and the second security guard began walking toward her, speaking in calm tones with his weapon leveled at the level of his partner’s armpit, waiting for her to reveal enough of her torso to get a clean shot, he was sure. What Arrhae wasn’t sure of was whether the human’s phase pistol was set to stun or kill.

He stepped up to the clear wall directly behind her so as not to distract her attention from the armed guard in front of her and spoke softly in Vulcan. “You are endangering yourself, Agent T’Mir… and we cannot leave this ship if you are dead,” he reminded her.

“Get away from the wall, recruit, and close your mouth,” growled T’Mir in reply. “Step back and let the human open the cell… and don’t do anything to make him kill you. I have no desire to go through all of this again.”

Arrhae rolled his eyes. The human approached the door of the holding cell. T’Mir rotated her captive to keep him between herself and his partner and barked out another order, presumably to open Arrhae’s cell door. Instead of obeying it, the human fired his phase pistol at point blank range. The guard in T’Mir’s arms suddenly sagged limply, pulling her forward and off balance by his sheer mass. The human raised his phase pistol again, aiming at T’Mir’s now unprotected torso. The phase pistol stun blast that dropped him to the deck came from the weapon of a dark haired human who stepped through the entrance to the holding cells’ antechamber with the ship’s linguist beside him. Arrhae recognized him. He was one of the humans who’d been responsible for the defeat of his team on the surface of Kreptagh Prime. Both T’Mir and the captain spun around and gave the linguist’s companion a look of slack-jawed shock.

“Malcolm!” protested the captain. Arrhae guessed that that was the man’s name. He found himself devoutly wishing that he could speak the human’s language. He really wanted to hear the explanation for this.

TBC in Part 2

Part 2

Return to Paradox: Revelations (Episode 4)

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A whole mess of folks have made comments

Sad...

NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!

Some one had better convince T'Mir to fix things, cause Dang it I cant stand Enterprise with out Trip.

D your mean. God I sear you actualy enjoy havin TnT suffer in your storys. An I hope you havent set this al up in an alternate time line, cause that will bug the shit out of me. LOL! Honestly I really hate them AUs.

Seein T'Mir grieve over Trip (which was just heartbreakin), I cant understand why she would accept this an not try an fix the misstake. An it has to be a misstake, cause hay Daniels was shocked to learn Trip died. Which dont make sence since he should of already known all about the History of the NX-01, an her crew's since he fraked with them more then anyone.

God An yer realy mean leavin us with Trip dead, an a cliff hanger AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!
I realy hate cliff hangers now. Especialy with Trip dead.

Please Fix this.. I hate cryin. :-(
An no more cuttin episodes in half. Its to mean. I need both TnT alive at the end of a Episode/Chapter. Not dead.

Good chapie.
Just awwfully painfull.
Im gona go try an get all the tears out before T'pol finds out. Cause thats gona hurt a 1000 times worse.

You wrote in Back to Betazed that T'Pol decided to give Trip a child, She can't do that if he's dead. Sooooo you must have a way to fix it so he's "undead" and please quickly before I run out of tissues. Don't keep making T and TP suffer so much, have something "nice" happen for them, PLEASE< PLEASE PLEASE!!!!

You evil, evil woman! You are killing me! Whatever time changes you´ll need to make: BRING TRIP BACK!!!

And concerning the initial question about posting: a month-long wait for a new episode is fine, but not a months-long. ;-)

I wondered when this would happen. I have been expecting this ever since you decided to recruit those two. When you mentioned that all Temporal agents were kept under control by being equipped with those temporal stabilizers, because all Temporal agents were taken from defunct timelines so that they could never stage a revolt, it became obvious that you were going to branch off into an alternate time line with this story. But you are handling it nicely. Are you planning to let any of them know about the alternate time line after things get repaired?

Well, I do distinctly remember seeing Distracted having her NOT.DEAD. Trip shirt autographed by Mr. Trinneer himself at the con in Cleveland, so I have faith that she'll fix this somehow.

I actually liked the shorter posting (minus having to endure the longer wait for Trip to regain his health, of course). I actually made it right to the end before one of my dear children interrupted me.

It is rather difficult to read about sweet Trip in such a state, but I know he'll be all better before long. Right, D?

"Are you planning to let any of them know about the alternate time line after things get repaired?"

I haven't exactly decided yet, BnB. If I did, it might mess up the approved timeline, so probably not. Anyone with a temporal stabilizer would remember, though, so T'Mir, Isis, Seven, Arrhae and Elren (if he understands anything) would have intact memories of this timeline. For everyone else, the timeline would simply continue seamlessly from wherever it was "reset". You'll have to wait for part two to see where that's gonna be.

"God I sear you actualy enjoy havin TnT suffer in your storys. An I hope you havent set this al up in an alternate time line, cause that will bug the shit out of me. LOL! Honestly I really hate them AUs."

Mitchell, it's not so much enjoyment as it's a need to create conflicts to be resolved. In this story, I admit, I also wanted to give the crew a chance to legitimately mourn Trip instead of just blowing his death off like it was no big deal. I truly HATED that aspect of the nameless episode. As far as the alternate timeline goes, I threw out lots of clues beforehand that I was headed in this direction. As BnB said, an alternate timeline was a given just as soon as recruitment became the goal. It's not really AU, though, at least not in any major way. T'Mir is TRYING to fix things. Archer's just too angry to cooperate. Don't worry, though. Malcolm and Hoshi are coming to the rescue.

AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

Do you know how much you scared the crap out of me?!!?! Seriously, until Hoshi's explanation, I was freaking out. Man, D, you sure know how to write. Great stuff, now write up the next chappie, and quick! :)

This is really well done for what it is as I have come to expect from this author. It also reenforces why I detest temporal shenanigans. Oh just look over to here see that character you cared about was a dead end timeline so their death is meaningless as we have another one right here. We now have one dead T'Pol and a matching dead Tucker so far in this particular series.

Mildly disappointed.

HtH

Oh, please, fix this fast... Please! I don't think I can take much more of this temporal mess that's being created. I mean, Trip obviously cannot die. We need Trip and T'Pol alive.

"Mildly disappointed"

Sigh. Each to his or her own, HtH. At least you didn't think it was badly written. Some of us are fascinated by the possibilities of alternate timelines. Others detest them.

No death is meaningless in my stories, though. Meaningless is being fried by faulty wiring and then having your closest friends argue about who gets the best seats at some speech less than a day later. Meaningless is being remembered for your hick accent and the fact that you got as far as you did without ever going to college. THAT'S meaningless. In my stories, people are mourned when they die, even if it's not in the "approved" timeline. Their absence makes a difference, and they are remembered for their best qualities. Don't talk to me about "meaningless". Send a letter to the Killer B's about that.

In the same vein, meaningless is what the ancient Greek playwrights referred to as "spear carriers". Throw away cahracters whose only purpose in the play was to serve as dramatic victims. They walked onstage and conveniently offered themselves as targets for either the hero or the villians to kill. Or alternatively, they become part of the faceless multitdudes who get slaughtered in piles during the sanitized version of war that takes place in fiction.

None of them ever have a name. None of them ever have family or friends. None fo them ever have a history. No one ever knows who they are, where they came from, or what they were thinking. They don't matter. They are like modern tv victims. They don't bleed, they don't cry like babies, their bowels and bladdrs don't cut loose, they don't convulse, they don't tremble with fear and beg someone to help them as the darkness closes in. They just calmly and conveniently drop dead and get out of the way so the *real* characters can make their dramatic statements.

That's meaningless.

Love it. Just love it. It's good that they get to mourn, and I am glad that it's an alternate recruitment timeline. I'm looking forward to seeing where it gets reset and how it all plays out.
I have no strong feelings either way as far as splitting the posts in two parts.

I actually think that what HtH was commenting on was the fact that this is basically a reset button. Nothing that happens, no matter how profound or inspiring, actually matters a hill of beans to the Principal Characters. Take "Twilight", for example. For whatever reason, it's considered one of the best episodes of Enterprise (despite the, IMO, misogynistic message where T'Pol is an incompetent commanding officer despite her age and experience, not to mention the continuing Super!Archer crap where ONLY Archer is an effective "commander" and can take more shots than Sidekick!Polly...) By the time of the inevitable reset button, NO ONE remembers what happens. There is no character growth because the events did not happen and everything that had just taken place was "meaningless".

This was very well written but the fact that I absolutely detest reset buttons makes it a given that I'm not real keen on this.

"Nothing that happens, no matter how profound or inspiring, actually matters a hill of beans to the Principal Characters."

Depends on who you consider to be "principal characters". In this arc, T'Mir, Arrhae, Seven and Isis ARE main characters. They will remember, and therefore grow from this experience. If you're dead set on focusing only on Trip and T'Pol, though, the way so many of the people on this site seem to be, then you're right.

I guess I just expected my reader to want more than their little "happily ever after". I can give you that if you want it, Rigil... but you're the one who's always griping that my stories are too much like the "Love Boat". You remember the TV series, don't you? Every week there were... what? Three story lines? All of them ended happily ever after. Is that what you want? Happily ever after?

Please don't focus on me here, Distracted. I'm NOT trying to get you to change anything, merely commenting about A. What I suspect HtH was stating and B. The fact that this particular storyline isn't my cup of tea. This is your story, after all, and trying to please everyone is a sure way of pleasing no one. This is basically a reset button episode and, if you ask ANYONE who knows me well, my ... contempt for them is extremely vocal and loud. I hate them with every fiber of my being so the fact that I'm not keen on this storyline is hardly your fault.

Look, you've got a bunch of people who have already commented that they're enjoying this story arc. Just because I happen to not really care for the Magic Reset Button element (or, for that matter, the whole time travel stuff) doesn't mean you should feel obligated to change what you're doing. You don't really care for the heavy military focus that MY stories have, yet I haven't changed them. Tell your story the way you want to but you have to know that not everyone is going to agree with your take. This is NOT an attack at you or your story so I hope that it is not taken as such.

Plus, how can you make the analogy about only focusing on Trip/T'Pol to ME? I've had complaints that I don't focus on them ENOUGH in some of my fics...

BTW, how can T'Mir, Arrhae, Seven & Isis be the "Main Characters" in a Virtual Enterprise Season? They are, by default, guest stars, not Principal Characters.

So, Rigil, what you're basically saying is that if a storyline doesn't change the regular cast of a series in some substantial way then it's a waste of time. I respectfully submit, then, that most traditional "episodic" TV series' in which each episode is interchangeable in the timeline of the series and the characters remain the same for ten seasons are all collosal wastes of our time. (That incidentally includes TOS, BTW.)

I'm focusing on you precisely BECAUSE your stories often focus so much on ancillary characters that the original series characters kinda get lost in the shuffle. I find it just a bit peculiar that you're the one who's complaining about "guest stars" stealing the limelight in this arc of mine.

And no, I'm not planning to change the story. I know I can't please everyone. Obviously. I was just wondering what you want, since this is evidently NOT it.

Okay, somehow I've managed to piss you off here and I have absolutely no idea how I did it. If this is case, then I apologize because it was NOT my intention to do so and I sincerely regret doing so.

To avoid me further pissing you off in some fashion that defies my capability to explain it and to avoid being accused of "hogging the comments" section, I will kindly step back and not comment any further.

Huh? And here I thought we were having a nice debate. Guess I was too aggressive in making my point and I scared him off. Or maybe he's too much of a gentleman to fight back. Off to go email him and make nice again. Don't mind me, guys, just keep commenting. I'll be back later...

I love both DIstracted's and Rigil's fics. Can they be compared in any ways other than focusing on a Trek universe, some characters in common, and being good quality? I would hardly think so. Given that I also have no desire to have anyone change their writing because of an opinion I make known unless they happen to agree with it. That stated, Dis please write this the way you had originally planned. Period, end.

If I recall correctly there was a huge howl and much knashing of teeth over killing Trip by the Beebs. Did you really expect anything less if you chose to do the same? Then leave it there in a cliff hanger? Come on, you are a very intelligent woman and know exactly what you are doing and the effect it will have.

Comments above were made about meaninglessness in literature ancient and modern trash (freackinale). Who mourned T'Pol #1 in this series? Did Trip? Did Archer? Did Phlox? Did anyone of either verse give a rip about her? Did they just dump the body out a trash chute and go along their merry way?

Sometimes we choose something that is very difficult to pull off well. Sometimes our ego leads us to think we think we are smarter than we are. maybe we really are that smart but got plugged into something and didn't look at it with that cold rational eye long enough. If everyone sits up applauds, and throws flowers and cudos, we never learn it may not really be what we thought it was. All it takes is for those that see it differently to remain silent.

Thus given my low tolerance to "temporal" mechanations as they have largely been done poorly by the "professionals" my hope they would be avoided or at least well thought out and planned to some purpose. I do assume you have pursued this for a reason that will manifest itself later.

As has been said, I also am not a big fan of "Magic Reset" plot lines. They tend to play the reader as a sucker for buying into it in the first place and shreds the trust in the author going forward.

Almost nothing fazes me if it has a purpose as part of a whole work be it gratuitous emotion, sex, violence, temporal manipulation, etc. Simple plot devices are seen and pass as such. For some this is expected, for others there is a higher expectation based on past performance You have presented a section of this story where the temporal agency uses dead end tine lines for recruitment and have lead us down this path largely thinking this was the correct time line. We bought into it. Now you have a whole slew of temporal meddlers in addition to the effects that Daniels brought courtesy of the Beebs. Pusuing this path drives the rest of your season, else why do it? What effect will multiple time lines have on the ability to plot, drive, and follow any story? If followed to the logical conclusion, there are infinite times lines in infinite universes. Any outcome is possible, just find the one you like. If not we can just twist this one to fit your needs, or ours as it may be. Should we choose to use you for our purposes, there is nothing you can do about it. Talk about living in a world of fate and the power to play god in a few hands. Where is the point of man's struggle if one is doomed by some temporal edict or action from birth? The point of all fiction as I understand it is to reveal some greater truth through prose be it even a lonely man can find love or one man can make a difference. Much here at this site is fluff and that is fine, though even that serves the main purpose of reenforcing the belief that even two characters such as these can make it if they don't give up.

Being both bright and talented is a mixed blessing I guess, as I would not know being neither.

YMMV

HtH

" Mitchell, it's not so much enjoyment as it's a need to create conflicts to be resolved. In this story, I admit, I also wanted to give the crew a chance to legitimately mourn Trip instead of just blowing his death off like it was no big deal. I truly HATED that aspect of the nameless episode. As far as the alternate timeline goes, I threw out lots of clues beforehand that I was headed in this direction. As BnB said, an alternate timeline was a given just as soon as recruitment became the goal. It's not really AU, though, at least not in any major way. T'Mir is TRYING to fix things. Archer's just too angry to cooperate. Don't worry, though. Malcolm and Hoshi are coming to the rescue. "

Well good. But in all honesty the multipal unvierse Idea , an the hoppin around, and wiping them from exsistance thing, Dos give me a bit of a headache.

Pluss I hadnt picked up on that this was more about the Temporal agents, then the main cast. Yeah Im slow. Or confused, I was also playin with the thought in my head that this was about healin some old wounds for TnT, an T'Mir. Havin a proper mornin play out for Trip never crossed my mind. Probably Cause in my Mind Every one of the Crew members Accept for T'pol of course, would die long before Trip will.. Wishfull thinkin I know. But that thought is stuck in my head. LOL! I probably should stop projectin that wish into every fic I read sometime.LOL!!

An not sayin Im not likin this story, Im just a bit miffed that this season might all be part of some alternate Universe. But If this is suppossed to leave T'Mir off in a better spot, im more then willing to see it through, just better have TnT off in that better spot to. ;-)

Oh an dito, i dont want ya to change what your plannin to do, Just cant but hope for the best, ya know.

"Who mourned T'Pol #1 in this series?"

Ummm... HTH? If by "T'Pol #1" you mean T'Mir's mother, killed by Romulans while fighting for the resistance on Vulcan, I distinctly remember making her death have a MAJOR impact on her daughter, responsible for a large part of her character formation. T'Pol is greatly mourned by T'Mir both when she is a young girl and continously throughout her very long life, up 150 years LATER when Director T'Mir returns and DIES with her dead mother in her arms. At that point in the story line, the crew of Enterprise is dead, destroyed along with the ship at the battle of Cheron in an alternate timeline where the Romulans have won the war. No one else is left to mourn T'Pol.

It's a dark and depressing storyline, but not meaningless in that it builds T'Mir into the sort of person capable of becoming the Director of Temporal Operations. Without SOME interaction with a more hopeful set of circumstances, though, young T'Mir might have turned out a VERY grim character. As the director, I wrote her as a woman who has done many terrible things in the service of an ideal, an ideal that she feels SO strongly about that she's willing to do these things to maintain it. Where does such a strong faith and hope for the future come from in a person who's seen so little hope in her life? I submit that, just perhaps, it might come from her experience with the crew of Enterprise... in particular from her experience with the two people we're all fans of here on this site.

I don't see this story line as leading anyone on. I apologise if anyone feels that way. I thought that I threw out plenty enough clues from the very first story of this arc for everyone to realize that we would eventually get into an alternate timeline as soon as the word "recruitment" was mentioned. HtH, you even mentioned that in your comment. Based on your knowledge of how temporal agents are recruited, how could this timeline be the accepted timeline? It's like a murder mystery, though. It would be boring if the author just TOLD you whodunnit at the beginning. If I had just come out and TOLD everyone from the beginning that it was an alternate timeline, then it WOULD have been a meaningless storyline. There would have been no suspense... no "I wonder if he's REALLY dead or not?" The mourning would have meant nothing. That would be boring, IMO. There would have been no point.

Uhh, no, the one that suicided on the ship. See it is even difficult for you to keep track.

T'Pol 1 suicide
T'Pol 2 current alternate time line melded with TP 1
T'Pol 3 T'Mir's mom, dead by Romulans

HtH

Uh ... HtH, you're mixing up Distracted's stuff with Blackn'Blue's. The T'Pol 1 & 2 you mention are in his stuff, not Distracted's...

Well I'm enjoying it so far! I love how the show has been off air for the past few years yet the fanfic is still going strong and with such quality writers...there is something out there for everyone be it military, romantic, violent etc..I hope the next part is finished soon. I can't wait to see how everything turns out! You don't need sleep do ya Distracted ;-)

Holy Crap! My work has been mistaken for Distracted!

*falls out of chair stunned into immobility*

I have arrived! I am elevated! I have made it into the Big Leagues!

Wahooo!!!!

I AM SELF ACTUALIZED!!!

*snickersnort* You crack me up, BnB.

Yep, HtH. I'm not the culprit, I'm afraid. I've only killed T'Pol off once.

I must admit that I honestly never considered where Distracted was going with her storyline. She normally just has a way of taking a tale and running with it, so I'm always just kind of along for the ride. It's fun, so I don't argue.

BnB, I think you and D do have similiar writing styles in some respects. You both have a straight forward style that's plot-driven. And with all of the plot that has been going on in these two fics, I suppose it's not surprising that some folks might get confused. D, sometimes I think you need one of those... "Last time on Virtual Season Six..." introductions. : )

I'm sure I'll enjoy the rest of this no matter what direction you take it in. So long as dear Trip is smiling again soon, that is. Poor Trip. : (

"You don't need sleep do ya Distracted ;-)"

Yeah... well, sleep may be overrated, but it's one of my favorite things to do. That's why my husband's the one who ended up delivering babies for a living. I'm in BED after 10 pm. Don't worry, though, Amms. I'm getting there. : D

Oops! Mea Culpa. You are correct. I been reain' too much schtuph to keep it straight.

My apologies!

You are correct.

Hangs head in shame and slinks off to closet.

HtH

HtH, thank you for the high compliment. Seriously.

You had me worried there for a moment. Poor T'Mir. Even if this Trip and T'Pol aren't really her parents, it must have been incredibly difficult for her when she realized that Trip is dead and T'Pol is hurt because of something she helped to do. She didn't get to say good-bye to her real father before he died. She and Trip really need some quality time together. I can't wait to see where you take this story next.

A bit confused. Has T'Mir actually ever met the "real-timeline" TnT? Or has all the T'Mir stuff been in an alternate timeline?

You'll find that out in the next installment when you find out when the timeline is reset, but I've already given you a clue. Here's a hint. Daniels knows.

Wow, too many comments to read right now. So I will just add mine even if it is repetitous.

Exciting! Of course you will revive Trip with temporal trickery, right?

No? - You mean, mean, person, you!

Yes? - I knew it all along - wasn't the least bit worried - Ha! You just couldn't kill him off like the lousy BnB team did - It was just not gonna happen - It just...

^^ Or the temporal agency can just close out the time line after getting what they want. T'Pol never revives so never "knows" to outsiders. However being linked to Trip at the event knows all too well thus the catatonic state. T'Mir needs to learn that lesson.

Archer is on the verge of turning into a driven cold vengeful killer.

It might be more merciful to close the time line.

Just aother possibility,

HtH

Sounds logical HtH2k4...can I just check your ears for those telltale points?

Even with the shorter story, I'm only halfway through, but I do know that Trip is dead. VERY sad. Very well done. I should have seen it coming but I didn't. Yes the magic reset button is annoying, but not as annoying as the lack of suspense once all the writers here take a vow to NEVER, NEVER, under any circumstances kill off Trip or T'Pol. I would have to say that vow kind of undermines some of Rigil's battle scenes. So good for you Distracted. You got me. I'll be on my toes from now on--anything can happen!

With respect, why are my fics brought up here in this way, justTrip'n? Aren't we supposed to be discussing DISTRACTED'S fic here? Making a comment like "I would have to say that vow kind of undermines some of Rigil's battle scenes." is unnecessary as it requires comparing my body of work with that of Distracted's and further seems (unintentionally, I hope) like a snide comment on my fics.

Guess I don't understand the original reference. There have been stories here of T'Pol after Trip's death as well as stories of Trip dealing with loosing her.

I would guess most readers assume the survival of the main characters but that is never guaranteed to my knowledge. Did I miss the memo? Depends on the story and events and what the author wishes to explore.

What vow?

Please explain.

HtH

My humorous earlier comment aside, I think exploring the death of major characters is fine for fan fic writers. Distracted makes us really feel this loss.

If we can reject canon episodes, like most of us reject the year 4 finale, we can also accept or not accept any of these fan fiction stories. And it is nice to have a wide variety of stories for readers to explore. As time goes on, it becomes harder to not repeat ideas other writers have had anyway. Distracted's stories continue to be highly original. I appreciate that.

OK, I've read this twice, and it hasn't changed! TRIP'S STILL DEAD! Well, alright, temporal stuff working here.

I've also read all the comments. They are *almost* as entertaining as the story itself. *snort;snicker*

Glad Malcolm charged in when he did! He's worked it all out.

"It might be more merciful to close the time line."

Never let it be said that I am not merciful, HtH. (You're so smart!)

"Yes the magic reset button is annoying, but not as annoying as the lack of suspense once all the writers here take a vow to NEVER, NEVER, under any circumstances kill off Trip or T'Pol."

I may have to take responsibility for justTrip'n's misunderstanding of what we're about here. I think I remember telling her while betaing one of her stories that killing off one of the dynamic duo would make many readers unhappy. It's not so much a "vow" as it is the fact that we as writers generally write what pleases us, and since most writers who post here are fans of TnT, it would stand to reason that you'll see very few stories where Trip or T'Pol bite it. That's not to say that they don't exist, mind you. I personally have written two at last count where Trip dies, and one where T'Pol dies. I tend not to leave them dead, though, because I like happy endings. So... there's actually no predicting what writers might come up with around here. No vows, just personal preferences.

"Distracted's stories continue to be highly original. I appreciate that."

Thanks, Linda. I aim to please. : )

Sorry Rigil. I never knew you were so sensitive. Of course I would never have had the opportunity to find that out since I've done nothing but praise your stories for the past year and however long it's been.

Geeze! OK, you've got a 99 out of 100. Can you deal with that?

And no, I wasn't trying to be mean. So just plain sorry.

New day. I reread the ending comments here from my own. I feel dismay. Yes, that did sound like a snide remark out of nowhere. (I could have as easily said that Rigil heightens the suspense by his willingness to kill many other characters. I'm afraid Rick really does have a terminal illness). No I didn't intend it as a snide remark, as Rigil was hoping. The "99 out of a 100" comment was made in anger. I believe my final review of your last story said it was "perfect". As you may have noticed, I sometimes say things off the top of my head. So enouph nonfictional drama. I'm going to finish this story.

This is very, very good. It reminds me of one of a particular Voyager episode. The ship and everyone on it somehow become doubled and tied together. Its like they are out of phase with one another or something. I forget the details. The fact that the ships are linked is detrimental to both ships. Things start to go downhill fast. One of the ships is in really deep trouble, falling appart Azati Prime-style. The two Janeways make a deal. The Captain of the ship that is falling apart will self destruct--to save the other ship. The Janeway on the normal ship (the one we now identify with) thanks her counterpart and we prepare ourselves for the noble sacrifice. Then instantly circumstances change. The normal ship suffers some last minute catastrophe and the normal Janeway blows up her ship--the one we identify with! We are left with the damaged ship and crew limping through space!

All of this is to say--I love this story! i love surprises, even this unhappy one. Malcolmn and Archer BTW were great--perfectly in character.

I like happy endings too, Distracted - but I love the angsty, exciting, dangerous stuff along the way before you get to the happy ending. I wish we had the ability to revive 'real life' people the way we can these characters. Perhaps a lot of our writing is therapy (I know: Linda - speak for yourself only!).

Anyway, in my ST universe, Trip Tucker lives on... and so does his sister. So there!

Just want to say, great work Distracted! I love the alternate timeline stuff.