Stardate 51966.0 Ensign Etely Bruder strolled along the Promenade of Deep Space 9, soaking in the sights. It was her last week of a year's leave before she was to report to the U.S.S. Equinox. A yell of "Dabo!" pierced her ears and she slowed, meandering into a casino. She slipped into a seat at the bar. A Ferengi noticed her and tapped the replicator. A moment later, she had a fizzing root beer in front of her. "Excuse me, I didn't ask for this." The Ferengi turned to her in shock. "All you young hew-mons drink this frinx." She didn't say anything. "My name's Quark. You're new here, aren't you?" She nodded. "On your way to a new assignment?" She nodded again. "In that case, you should have a look at something." He reached under the counter and pulled a case out. Etely had been warned by her grandfather that this Ferengi was notorious for trying to rip off Starfleet Ensigns passing through with cheap rocks, but to her surprise, the box had something purring and fuzzy in it. She smiled and stroked it. It almost seemed to giggle. "I love this, what is it?" Quark smiled and whispered "It's a tribble." Etely's eyes bulged. "I know, Ensign, they're supposed to be extinct, but I managed to get my hand on a few. Well, quite a few. It can keep you wonderful company on long lonely missions." "Perfect for my shuttlecraft. How much?" "1 slip of latinum." She handed him one and left with the tribble. Quark turned to his bouncer. "Women with clothes, commisioned as officers and their own shuttles. Hew-mons are insane. She deserved the tribble, didn't she Morn?" Morn just belched. *************************** Stardate 52016.5 Mason and Syxx stared at the consoles in the Equinox Engineering section. Dand was heading back to the Equinox and they had no defense yet. Syxx laughed and then shook his head. "What is it?" Mason asked. "If we were on the Enterprise, we'd be fine. They always win." Syxx commented. At that, Mason had to chuckle. They both grew silent for a moment. Syxx noticed that one of Mason's eyebrows went up, a seemingly Vulcan characteristic. "Syxx, after terrorists tried to grab the Enterprise-D during a routine Baryon sweep, Starfleet decided to put extra shielding in hull cores so crews could stay on their ships safely during such sweeps." Syxx blinked, confused on how this was going to save them from renegade Cardassians. "Syxx, if radiation of that level can't make it in the protected cores, neither can sensors! If we eject all the escape pods, and hide everyone in those cores-" Syxx was beginning to catch on. "What about the shuttles, Captain? No, wait, those would leave trails and pods wouldn't. On the ship's last overhaul, we put in holoemitters all over the ship so the EMH could have mobility in emergencies. Should we put up a fake crew and set up an ambush if they send anyone aboard?" Mason nodded and they both began punching buttons furiously. *************************** Stardate 52020.91 In the cramped saucer section protected core, Ming turned to Mull, and wiped the sweat off her forehead with her sleeve. "I'm glad that's over." Mull agreed, then focused on his beeping console. "Commander, someone just beamed to the Cardassian ship. Life signs suggest a human female." Ming peered over Mull's shoulder. A Starfleet commbadge registered on the display. Who was it? Why would they ignore a starship in distress to go aboard a Cardassian ship first? Mull glanced at Ming. "Should I hail her, ma'am?" Ming shook her head. She wanted to see what this girl was up to. They watched as she surveyed the lifeless vessel and then returned to her shuttle. Ming was alert, but fatigued. In the last day, the Cardassian vessel had attacked twice, forcing them to eject their stardrive and saucer warp cores on separate attacks. Mason had prepared for a boarding party. Everyone had hidden in the two protected cores. Mason, Syxx and Kalamarina were in the stardrive core, trying to jury rig some weapons and shields with the deflector dish and impulse engine power. If a boarding party did come aboard, they'd meet a holographic crew and get ambushed as the real officers dumped out of their hiding places. The Cardies had fired a radiation bomb, but everyone was safe and Lt. Kalamarina had even been able to absorb some of the radiation in a tractor beam and send it back to the Cardassian ship through the deflector dish. Both ships were somehow still functional, even though no life signs could be read on either one. It had taken tremendous inegnuity from Mason and all of their resources just to force a stalemate. She was beginning to suspect a plot against the Equinox, that the bad guys were alive and that this ensign was talking to them before reporting aboard. Mull reported that the Ensign was energizing her transporter again. "Ma'am, she's coming over here!" "Adjust the holoemitters to simulate everyone being dead!" barked Ming. "Whoever that traitor is, they're probably scouting the ship for a boarding party." After the unknown visitor had toured the ship and left, she went back to her shuttle for a moment before returning to the Cardassian ship and loading a new weapon. "Mull, what is she doing?!" "Commander, she's arming some form of chronometric explosive and locking onto us. She's going to throw us back in time!" "We're going to need Kalamarina for this." She tapped her commbadge. "Ming to Mason-" Meanwhile, back on Dand's ship, Ensign Etely Bruder smiled, knowing that by reversing time she could save the Equinox. To her dismayed shock, a beam of antichronometric particles came flying out of the Equinox's deflector dish. The beam obliterated the bomb she had launched. Maybe someone was still alive over there! 6 of 6 stood quietly in a corridor as the ensign worked at the main console. The drone issued a query to the Collective as to whether or not to assimilate her. After reviewing the bioscans of her, the whisper in the drone's mind informed him that she would distract from perfection. 6 of 6 continued to sit motionless in the dark, waiting for the moment to carry out his instructions undetected. The ensign transported off the ship and the drones went back to work, now that the ship was theirs. Bruder beamed back to the Enigma to get her personal effects bag and her tribble. As she glanced around the shuttle, she noticed that there were now eight tribbles. She scooped them up in her arms just as someone else's transporter dematerialized her. When she rematerialized, she was in a transporter room on the Equinox. Two officers were behind the console. One was Lopez, the other Kalamarina. Her arms started shaking vibrantly as the tribbles sensed Klingon DNA and whined like phasers hooked up a warp core. Likewise, Kalamarina roared and charged toward Etely, who instinctively dropped the tribbles but not quickly enough. Kalamarina head butted Bruder and then threw her onto an open EPS conduit, where she received a brief electrocution. Lopez vaulted over the transporter controls, pulled a phaser out and stunned Kalamarina at point blank range before yanking a shocked Etely off the conduit. Etely looked up and said "Why'd she do that?" Lopez glanced at the shrieking tribbles, Kalamarina, then back to Etely before saying "Don't you know anything about how this universe works?" Etely passed out. *************************** Stardate 36020.0 Captain Jane Bruder stepped out of the sonic shower to see her husband only half dressed in front of the comm panel going "goo-goo, ga-ga" to Etely, their two-year old daughter. Jane was the commanding officer of the U.S.S. Valiant. Her husband Richard, was a science officer. She stared for a moment at the open channel to her fathers house, where Etely was staying until they got back from this survey. Long-range sensors had detected subspace fluctuations around the Kinshou Nebula, and they had been sent to investigate. She tapped Richard in the backside with her boot. "Bridge to Captain Bruder." "Go ahead." Jane said. "We've completed our initial scans, ma'am. Other than the disturbances, there's only one system nearby. Class-M but prewarp and the only significant resource is latinum." "Latinum? The only people rumored to be interested in that are the Ferengi but no one's ever met one of them. Very well, I'll be there soon. Bruder out." She turned to Richard. "Hey, we've got to get to the bridge." "In a minute honey, hey Etely goo-goo-gaghk-gork!" Etely giggled. "Richard! She's a little young to be learning Klingon." He ignored her and kept saying things to Etely even a universal translator wouldn't figure out. Jane looked out the port and contemplated her situation. She was stuck weeks away from her family with a man who was a good husband but a slack officer. On top of all this, the only ship Starfleet would offer her was the one no one wanted, the Valiant. Every ship of it's name had met a gruesome demise with nearly all hands dead. Well, she had only been in command for a month, so maybe she had time to transfer off. "Jane, wanna come say good morning to our beautiful daughter?" She figured she didn't have to be on the bridge just yet, so she joined Richard. Suddenly, the ship shook violently. "Bridge report!" she barked. The report that came back wasn't good. A wormhole had opened right in front of the ship and sucked them in. She and Richard stumbled to the bridge to find the ship traveling in the wormhole. "Richard, where did this wormhole come from?" "Ah, it looks like it was or ah will be the result of a chronometric-antichronometric reaction at these, er, those coordinates." "Will be?" Jane stammered. She double checked the readings herself. The temporal origin signature was 16 years in the future! And it was definitely a wormhole, they were changing drastically in location. She tried quickly to determine where they would end up. When she did, she fainted. Richard looked at her helm computations for their projected destination. It was the center of the galaxy, a mass of energy equivalent to 300 million stars all condensed into just a few parsecs. It was a place even someone as strong as the Preservers would have called Hell. He remembered that the Enterprise A had successfully modulated its shields to survive it. Punching up the historical mission files, he loaded the specs into the computer which chimed: "Shield modulations not possible with current generators. Terminal hull breach in three sec-" For once the computer didn't finish it's warning as another valiant ship and its crew were pulverized to it's individual atoms by the fury of the galaxy's heart. *************************** Stardate 52020.92 Mason charged into Sickbay to find the EMH working furiously over Kalamarina. "Doc, what's wrong?" "Too many things. Her whole system is in severe trauma and shock. The tribbles and phaser stun only added to what I could only call a preexistent temporary physical and mental insanity. Everyone's noticed her wild behaviour lately, but according to these bioscans, I'm suprised she's alive. It all seems to be linked to a combination of a Vulcan hormone and Klingon adrenaline." Mason remembered his wife's instructing him on the ways of ponn far. An urge that strong when applied to a Klingon body could be almost unimaginable. He opened his mouth to tell the EMH his thoughts when the indicators stopped beeping and went flat. The EMH dropped his head and closed his eyes. A growl started in his throat and crescendoed into a roar. Mason's respect for EMH programmers went up a notch. Klingon death rituals, a nice touch to a usually bald program. "According to Klingon beliefs," the EMH began, "the dead body is merely an empty shell. We should vaporize her in the matter decomposition systems." Mason thought this over for a moment. "No. She was also Romulan and Vulcan and we can't be sure what would be appropriate until I read her personal logs. Besides which, even if it is an empty shell, there's still Starfleet traditions to attend to for the crew's sake. Put her body in stasis and we'll deal with it later." *************************** Stardate 52012.0 Meanwhile, in the brig, Etely Bruder woke up to see Lopez standing before her. "What am I doing in here? Who are you?" "I'm Ensign Lopez, acting chief of security. You're under arrest." "For what?" "In the last two weeks, my commanding officer has become MIA, our doctor was murdered, a third of our crew has been slaughtered and five decks obliterated because of a crazy Klingon you seem to have driven mad, who by the way is now dead, renegade Cardassians have attacked us twice-shall I go on? Needless to say, the only consistency in all these events has been the fact that your activities have been unaccounted for all this time." "I was on my way here from DS9!" "I looked at the Enigma. It can get from here to DS9 in two days, much less two weeks. I'm here to inform you that you're being charged with the following offenses: the murders of Dr. L'Vant and Lt. Kalamarina; willful destruction of Starfleet Property, namely the planting of a computer virus; conspiracy and treason through association with renegade Cardassians; assault on a superior officer, namely Lt. Kalamarina; insubordination; failure to comply with regulations concerning response to distress signals; conduct unbecoming of an officer, namely, everthing; unwillful abduction, namely Lt. Carter and finally the unregistered possession and transport of endangered species, namely smuggling tribbles. If convicted fully, you may be sentenced to a total of 112 years in a penal colony. Have a nice day." As Lopez began to exit, Etely almost burst out crying in disbelief. Lopez stopped and snapped her finger. "You know I just remembered that treason is still a capital offense. Don't choke honey."