- Admiral, couldn't you have traveled back just a few weeks more, to save poor Lt. Carey as well?
- No, Ensign.
- Why not?
- I'm attempting to save three people - Seven, Chakotay, and Tuvok. Trying to save four would disrupt the entire universe and, erm, engulf it in a huge explosion!
- The entire universe?
- Well, perhaps only this galaxy, then.
- But why?
- Erm, Erm, you remember that time our ship was duplicated and only a few people could go over to the other Voyager, through that rift, because more would upset the balance, and you were one of the lucky ones?
- Yes
- Wel, erm, this is similar. It's, erm, like, the temporal variant of it. Yeah, that's it.
- But how come captain Picard could save the future of the Federation by sending back the entire Enterprise-C ? Or that Captain Sisko saved the entire world when he traveled back to the Bell Riots?
- That's different, and you're not supposed to know that anyway! That's Starfleet Classified material!
- But why is it different?
- Erm, erm ...suffice it to say the explanation contains more words the likes of 'quantum', 'hyperdimensional', 'recursive' and 'fractal' than you've encountered in your entire Starfleet Academy curriculum.
- Oh, I guess it must be true then.
- Right. And now get to work, or else you won't get home any sooner than those 26 years, and if I know my younger version -and I do!- you'll stay an Ensign for all that time!
- Yes ma'am.
- <Admiral Janeway breathes a sigh of relief>