…seven weeks later
Kathleron Anchorage, Ceti Antudros System
The Hakod species were not Federation members, but their hospitality was renown throughout the quadrant and their remarkable ring station was a popular free port and a bustling hub of interstellar commerce. The starships Gibraltar and Klamath had made port here after escorting a Banoth refugee convoy to what might charitably be called a minimally Class-M planet.
It had been nothing less than an intentional marooning by order of Starfleet. The crews of the two starships had established a makeshift settlement for the Banoth constructed of prefabricated shelters before leaving them with primitive protein synthesizers and sufficient supplies to keep the impoverished species alive for a standard year. They had then consigned the Banoth’s decrepit fleet of colony ships to the fires of the system’s sun, giving them no hope of leaving that bleak world.
The scenario was an abandonment, in a literal sense for the Banoth people and figuratively for the Gibraltar crew’s collective sense of integrity. They were Starfleet, trained to help those in need, not leave them stranded on a forsaken planet where the conditions at their equatorial encampment rivaled mid-winter Northern Siberia on Earth.
The crew’s morale had plummeted in response. This layover at Kathleron Anchorage was the first R&R Gibraltar’s compliment had enjoyed in over four months of grueling escort and interdiction work, and an undisguised effort by Command to reward the crew for suffering the burden of conscience from this latest hateful assignment.
Sandhurst was dressed in conservatively colored civilian garb, greys and browns that seemed to match his mood, while Lar’ragos sported clothing in riotous, clashing colors as if flagrantly defying the crew’s malaise. Taiee hadn’t bothered to change out of her uniform and was busy craning her neck to gaze skyward at the opposing side of the gargantuan ring structure that comprised the anchorage.
The far side of the ring was bathed in sunlight, while the side on which they’d disembarked the ship was cloaked in night.
“There’s supposed to be a tropical island chain on that side,” Taiee murmured in wonder. “This thing makes our biggest stations look like toys in comparison.”
As alien denizens thronged around them along the port concourse, the captain paused to look up, the engineer in him surrendering to the thrill of such a mighty structure despite his dark mood. “It’s well over three-thousand years old, Doc, and it took five-hundred years to build. The only structure larger that we know of in the galaxy is the Scott Dyson Sphere. The Hakod are justifiably proud of it.”
Lar’ragos clutched a flimsy sheet, data scrolling along the plasticized page. “We’ve only got six days, and our itinerary is quite frankly, a little boring.”
Sandhurst favored him with a confused frown. “We’ve got a day at the beach, and a day at the casino complex in…Ver—Ves…”
“Vethlis,” Taiee finished for him. “That’s where we’re meeting up with Pell and the others.”
“It’s hundreds of millions of square kilometers, Pava,” Sandhurst chided. “We can’t see even a fraction of it in six days.”
“An entire afternoon in a museum?” Lar’ragos exclaimed. “You could just as easily visit that place in our holosuite. I’m here for fresh air, sunshine, and—”
“Copious amounts of alcohol,” Sandhurst cut in. “I’m familiar with your priorities.”
“I could use a drink myself,” Taiee agreed mordantly. “Anything to get the look on their faces out of my head—”
Sandhurst silenced Taiee with a sharp look. “We agreed on no shop talk, especially about the Banoth.”
The CMO held her hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Aye, aye, Captain, sir!” she snapped. It was unlike Taiee to be bitingly sarcastic, but as a healer the abandonment of the Banoth had struck her harder than most.
Lar’ragos cocked his head towards Taiee and then gestured to a nearby establishment. “That looks like a bar, or what passes for one hereabouts. First drink’s on me, Doc.”
The two of them melted into the crowd, leaving a dour, frustrated Sandhurst behind.
Sandhurst wasn’t a drinker, and his vice of choice had traditionally been Rigellian spice coffee. This particular evening, however, he found solace in a bracing bottle of Romulan ale. Though still of dubious legality within the Federation, kali-fal was merely another of the seemingly limitless alien spirits available throughout the anchorage ring.
Well into his second glass he had finally started to feel the neutronium weight in the pit of his stomach begin to ease. It was the fourth day of their shore leave at the ring, and he had not yet felt himself begin to relax.
He sat alone at a raised table situated on a balcony overlooking artfully terraced gardens and buildings that descended like massive stairs towards a bay far below. The sunset had been breathtaking, illuminating the city in a riot of reds and oranges until the light of the local star had vanished behind the edgewall of the ring. He thought the city and its environs vaguely reminiscent of a Greek island town in the Aegean, though no island in that region had ever towered as high as the supporting cliffs on which the city anchored.
Taiee, Lar’ragos, Pell and Shanthi had gone on a para-gliding excursion earlier in the afternoon and would not return for a few hours yet. It had given Sandhurst the time and space needed to reflect on these past few months and on the growing sense of dislocation that plagued him.
Sandhurst knew this version of the future was not his own, or what should have been his own. He believed he had come to peace with that fact, most especially because Lar’ragos had told him that in that other divergent branch of reality there had been much death and misery for he and his crew. Here, yes, there was sadness and a growing despair as the Federation staggered under the weight of tens of millions of refugees, but at least his crew were alive and together.
“Drinking alone, Captain?”
Sandhurst started from his reverie at the unexpected intrusion, turning to see a stunning human woman clad in a slim black cocktail dress. She had a mocha-hued complexion, accented by striking emerald eyes and dark hair pulled back into an ornate braid.
He felt his eyes lingering on her for too long and forced himself to speak to break the awkward silence. “I’m sorry, do I know you?”
“No, not yet.” She nodded toward the chair across from him. “May I?”
Still off balance from the Romulan ale and the woman’s unexpected arrival, he gestured uneasily at the seat. “Uh… sure.”
She seated herself gracefully and reached into a small clutch purse to produce an ovoid shaped device that she placed in the center of the table. There was a brief hum and Sandhurst felt his skin tingle as a wave of ionization swept over him.
Normally, Sandhurst would have interceded. He might have grabbed at the device, or bolted from his seat to get away, or perhaps even tried to knock the woman over in her chair to gain advantage or upset an impending attack.
He did none of these things. Instead, to his chagrin, Sandhurst discovered that whatever her nefarious plan, he simply didn’t care. Due to the ale he’d imbibed, general apathy, or a combination thereof, he merely eyed the device curiously and took another sip of ale. “Cute toy. What’s it do?”
Sandhurst’s voice seemed to have taken on a slightly tinny quality. He wiggled a finger in one ear.
“Privacy field,” she replied, “for discrete conversations.”
“Is that what this is?” he asked.
She shrugged delicately with her hands. “If you’re amenable, Captain?”
He sighed. “What the hell. Why not? Is this where you tell me that you’re working for some super-secret black ops outfit? Starfleet Intel? Tal Shiar? Klingon So’taj?”
The woman smiled prettily. “None of the above, Captain. I’m simply here to ask a few questions posed by curious parties.”
“Well, now,” he said into his glass, quaffing the last of his ale, “you’ve piqued my curiosity.” He set the glass down and gave her an amiable wave. “Proceed.”
“Do you know you’re not supposed to be here, Captain?”
He made a point of looking around the restaurant. “I was of the understanding that the anchorage is a free port. Was I mistaken?”
“Don’t be coy,” she said, her voice lowering an octave and assuming an edge. “You’re not supposed to be here. You shouldn’t be aware of that fact, but somehow you are. How is that?”
“My friend told me,” Sandhurst answered too quickly, raising his glass to signal the serving drone that he wanted another.
“Lieutenant Lar’ragos knows, certainly,” she agreed. “But it’s more than that. You know it, too. That shouldn’t be possible.”
He gave an exaggerated shrug. “It’s a galaxy of wonders. Why, did you know that the Kathleron Anchorage is one of the catalogued Twenty Wonders of the Milky Way?”
She held his gaze impassively, as if examining an insect under glass. “You’re jeopardizing billions, Captain Sandhurst. The Amon were never supposed to abduct someone else. It was always supposed to have been you.”
The drone floated up to the table, another glass of ale balanced atop the gold tray held in its manipulators. Sandhurst grasped the drink gingerly, saying, “But it wasn’t. I don’t know why or how things shook out differently than they were originally meant to. Doesn’t seem to matter much now.”
“Captain Nekvasilová won’t be able to tame the Amon. She won’t be able to pit them against the Skorrah as you did. She can’t because she was never meant to.”
“Pity,” he grunted before taking a sip of the new drink. “How is it that you know so much? You with Temporal Investigations?”
“I’m with the organization DTI eventually becomes,” she confirmed. “So, in a way, yes.”
Hey eyed her skeptically. “Should you be telling me that?”
“Why not? You already know a great many things that you shouldn’t.”
He raised his glass in acknowledgement. “Fair point. So, where do we go from here?”
“I…” she began, then paused. “We would like you to contact the Amon, to make yourself known to them.”
He swished a mouthful of Romulan ale around as he considered that. “You presume they aren’t already aware of me.”
“Are they?” she asked, appearing to study him.
“To be one of them is to have always been one of them.”
“We’re aware of their predestination beliefs,” she countered. “Are you saying that the Amon are aware of your presence, but have intentionally forgone contact with you?”
“You tell me,” he riposted. “You, Pava and my own gut are telling me that all this…” his wave was all encompassing, “…all this isn’t right. But nobody can explain to me why that is. How did this happen? If time has been changed, someone or something must have changed it, right? To know it’s wrong means all this has played out at least once before.”
“Correct.”
“Then why don’t you flit back to whenever this divergence occurred and watch to see where everything went catawampus?”
Her mouth tightened into a rueful pout. “That’s the first thing we tried. We couldn’t.”
Another swallow of ale burned as it descended. “Couldn’t?”
“Something’s preventing us. We can’t explain it and none of our models can account for the interference.”
He waggled the fingers of his free hand towards her. “Spooookey.”
“You’re drunk,” she observed dryly.
“And getting drunker by the minute.”
She leaned forward, locking eyes with him. “Captain, some great intellects, both organic and artificial, have tried and failed to solve this mystery. The best we can come up with is for you to try and ‘remind’ the Amon that you’re here. Perhaps convince them that they very much need to come to you.”
He looked at her disbelievingly. “What would possibly motivate me to do that? Why would I sacrifice myself to a species of… of soul-eaters, energy-vampires, or whatever the hell you want to call them? Pava tells me everything on that side of reality went to shit. I want nothing to do with any of it.”
The woman to a moment to look out across the bay, drinking in the lights from the descending cityscape below. “As bad as things get for your and your friends on that side, there is still hope.” She gestured to the panorama on display before them. “The Amon are the key to deciphering the weaknesses of the Skorrah. Without that knowledge, the Skorrah could sweep out from the Large Magellanic Cloud and lay waste every civilization in your own galaxy and those surrounding it.”
He rolled his eyes theatrically. “Another all-powerful scourge fated to kill us all? So were the Xindi, the Borg, the Dominion, and the Inth. We’re still here.”
Her responding stare could have extinguished a supernova. “How comforting that you’re willing to bet the life of every sentient being in five galaxies on your finely honed bravado.”
She reached out and plucked the glass from his hand, downing the contents in a single draught. She brought the glass down on the table with a resounding crack. “It’s true what they say,” she offered in a husky voice raw with emotion and ale. “Never meet your heroes.”
With that she snatched up her device, whirled and stalked away leaving Sandhurst gazing after her.
A hand alighted on Sandhurst’s shoulder, making him jump.
“It appears you’ve started the party without us,” Lar’ragos announced, sliding into a chair next to Sandhurst. Taiee, Pell, and Shanthi joined them, still abuzz from their earlier excursion and apparently heedless of their captain’s distant expression.
"You're back early," he remarked numbly.
Kathleron Anchorage, Ceti Antudros System
The Hakod species were not Federation members, but their hospitality was renown throughout the quadrant and their remarkable ring station was a popular free port and a bustling hub of interstellar commerce. The starships Gibraltar and Klamath had made port here after escorting a Banoth refugee convoy to what might charitably be called a minimally Class-M planet.
It had been nothing less than an intentional marooning by order of Starfleet. The crews of the two starships had established a makeshift settlement for the Banoth constructed of prefabricated shelters before leaving them with primitive protein synthesizers and sufficient supplies to keep the impoverished species alive for a standard year. They had then consigned the Banoth’s decrepit fleet of colony ships to the fires of the system’s sun, giving them no hope of leaving that bleak world.
The scenario was an abandonment, in a literal sense for the Banoth people and figuratively for the Gibraltar crew’s collective sense of integrity. They were Starfleet, trained to help those in need, not leave them stranded on a forsaken planet where the conditions at their equatorial encampment rivaled mid-winter Northern Siberia on Earth.
The crew’s morale had plummeted in response. This layover at Kathleron Anchorage was the first R&R Gibraltar’s compliment had enjoyed in over four months of grueling escort and interdiction work, and an undisguised effort by Command to reward the crew for suffering the burden of conscience from this latest hateful assignment.
Sandhurst was dressed in conservatively colored civilian garb, greys and browns that seemed to match his mood, while Lar’ragos sported clothing in riotous, clashing colors as if flagrantly defying the crew’s malaise. Taiee hadn’t bothered to change out of her uniform and was busy craning her neck to gaze skyward at the opposing side of the gargantuan ring structure that comprised the anchorage.
The far side of the ring was bathed in sunlight, while the side on which they’d disembarked the ship was cloaked in night.
“There’s supposed to be a tropical island chain on that side,” Taiee murmured in wonder. “This thing makes our biggest stations look like toys in comparison.”
As alien denizens thronged around them along the port concourse, the captain paused to look up, the engineer in him surrendering to the thrill of such a mighty structure despite his dark mood. “It’s well over three-thousand years old, Doc, and it took five-hundred years to build. The only structure larger that we know of in the galaxy is the Scott Dyson Sphere. The Hakod are justifiably proud of it.”
Lar’ragos clutched a flimsy sheet, data scrolling along the plasticized page. “We’ve only got six days, and our itinerary is quite frankly, a little boring.”
Sandhurst favored him with a confused frown. “We’ve got a day at the beach, and a day at the casino complex in…Ver—Ves…”
“Vethlis,” Taiee finished for him. “That’s where we’re meeting up with Pell and the others.”
“It’s hundreds of millions of square kilometers, Pava,” Sandhurst chided. “We can’t see even a fraction of it in six days.”
“An entire afternoon in a museum?” Lar’ragos exclaimed. “You could just as easily visit that place in our holosuite. I’m here for fresh air, sunshine, and—”
“Copious amounts of alcohol,” Sandhurst cut in. “I’m familiar with your priorities.”
“I could use a drink myself,” Taiee agreed mordantly. “Anything to get the look on their faces out of my head—”
Sandhurst silenced Taiee with a sharp look. “We agreed on no shop talk, especially about the Banoth.”
The CMO held her hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Aye, aye, Captain, sir!” she snapped. It was unlike Taiee to be bitingly sarcastic, but as a healer the abandonment of the Banoth had struck her harder than most.
Lar’ragos cocked his head towards Taiee and then gestured to a nearby establishment. “That looks like a bar, or what passes for one hereabouts. First drink’s on me, Doc.”
The two of them melted into the crowd, leaving a dour, frustrated Sandhurst behind.
* * *
Sandhurst wasn’t a drinker, and his vice of choice had traditionally been Rigellian spice coffee. This particular evening, however, he found solace in a bracing bottle of Romulan ale. Though still of dubious legality within the Federation, kali-fal was merely another of the seemingly limitless alien spirits available throughout the anchorage ring.
Well into his second glass he had finally started to feel the neutronium weight in the pit of his stomach begin to ease. It was the fourth day of their shore leave at the ring, and he had not yet felt himself begin to relax.
He sat alone at a raised table situated on a balcony overlooking artfully terraced gardens and buildings that descended like massive stairs towards a bay far below. The sunset had been breathtaking, illuminating the city in a riot of reds and oranges until the light of the local star had vanished behind the edgewall of the ring. He thought the city and its environs vaguely reminiscent of a Greek island town in the Aegean, though no island in that region had ever towered as high as the supporting cliffs on which the city anchored.
Taiee, Lar’ragos, Pell and Shanthi had gone on a para-gliding excursion earlier in the afternoon and would not return for a few hours yet. It had given Sandhurst the time and space needed to reflect on these past few months and on the growing sense of dislocation that plagued him.
Sandhurst knew this version of the future was not his own, or what should have been his own. He believed he had come to peace with that fact, most especially because Lar’ragos had told him that in that other divergent branch of reality there had been much death and misery for he and his crew. Here, yes, there was sadness and a growing despair as the Federation staggered under the weight of tens of millions of refugees, but at least his crew were alive and together.
“Drinking alone, Captain?”
Sandhurst started from his reverie at the unexpected intrusion, turning to see a stunning human woman clad in a slim black cocktail dress. She had a mocha-hued complexion, accented by striking emerald eyes and dark hair pulled back into an ornate braid.
He felt his eyes lingering on her for too long and forced himself to speak to break the awkward silence. “I’m sorry, do I know you?”
“No, not yet.” She nodded toward the chair across from him. “May I?”
Still off balance from the Romulan ale and the woman’s unexpected arrival, he gestured uneasily at the seat. “Uh… sure.”
She seated herself gracefully and reached into a small clutch purse to produce an ovoid shaped device that she placed in the center of the table. There was a brief hum and Sandhurst felt his skin tingle as a wave of ionization swept over him.
Normally, Sandhurst would have interceded. He might have grabbed at the device, or bolted from his seat to get away, or perhaps even tried to knock the woman over in her chair to gain advantage or upset an impending attack.
He did none of these things. Instead, to his chagrin, Sandhurst discovered that whatever her nefarious plan, he simply didn’t care. Due to the ale he’d imbibed, general apathy, or a combination thereof, he merely eyed the device curiously and took another sip of ale. “Cute toy. What’s it do?”
Sandhurst’s voice seemed to have taken on a slightly tinny quality. He wiggled a finger in one ear.
“Privacy field,” she replied, “for discrete conversations.”
“Is that what this is?” he asked.
She shrugged delicately with her hands. “If you’re amenable, Captain?”
He sighed. “What the hell. Why not? Is this where you tell me that you’re working for some super-secret black ops outfit? Starfleet Intel? Tal Shiar? Klingon So’taj?”
The woman smiled prettily. “None of the above, Captain. I’m simply here to ask a few questions posed by curious parties.”
“Well, now,” he said into his glass, quaffing the last of his ale, “you’ve piqued my curiosity.” He set the glass down and gave her an amiable wave. “Proceed.”
“Do you know you’re not supposed to be here, Captain?”
He made a point of looking around the restaurant. “I was of the understanding that the anchorage is a free port. Was I mistaken?”
“Don’t be coy,” she said, her voice lowering an octave and assuming an edge. “You’re not supposed to be here. You shouldn’t be aware of that fact, but somehow you are. How is that?”
“My friend told me,” Sandhurst answered too quickly, raising his glass to signal the serving drone that he wanted another.
“Lieutenant Lar’ragos knows, certainly,” she agreed. “But it’s more than that. You know it, too. That shouldn’t be possible.”
He gave an exaggerated shrug. “It’s a galaxy of wonders. Why, did you know that the Kathleron Anchorage is one of the catalogued Twenty Wonders of the Milky Way?”
She held his gaze impassively, as if examining an insect under glass. “You’re jeopardizing billions, Captain Sandhurst. The Amon were never supposed to abduct someone else. It was always supposed to have been you.”
The drone floated up to the table, another glass of ale balanced atop the gold tray held in its manipulators. Sandhurst grasped the drink gingerly, saying, “But it wasn’t. I don’t know why or how things shook out differently than they were originally meant to. Doesn’t seem to matter much now.”
“Captain Nekvasilová won’t be able to tame the Amon. She won’t be able to pit them against the Skorrah as you did. She can’t because she was never meant to.”
“Pity,” he grunted before taking a sip of the new drink. “How is it that you know so much? You with Temporal Investigations?”
“I’m with the organization DTI eventually becomes,” she confirmed. “So, in a way, yes.”
Hey eyed her skeptically. “Should you be telling me that?”
“Why not? You already know a great many things that you shouldn’t.”
He raised his glass in acknowledgement. “Fair point. So, where do we go from here?”
“I…” she began, then paused. “We would like you to contact the Amon, to make yourself known to them.”
He swished a mouthful of Romulan ale around as he considered that. “You presume they aren’t already aware of me.”
“Are they?” she asked, appearing to study him.
“To be one of them is to have always been one of them.”
“We’re aware of their predestination beliefs,” she countered. “Are you saying that the Amon are aware of your presence, but have intentionally forgone contact with you?”
“You tell me,” he riposted. “You, Pava and my own gut are telling me that all this…” his wave was all encompassing, “…all this isn’t right. But nobody can explain to me why that is. How did this happen? If time has been changed, someone or something must have changed it, right? To know it’s wrong means all this has played out at least once before.”
“Correct.”
“Then why don’t you flit back to whenever this divergence occurred and watch to see where everything went catawampus?”
Her mouth tightened into a rueful pout. “That’s the first thing we tried. We couldn’t.”
Another swallow of ale burned as it descended. “Couldn’t?”
“Something’s preventing us. We can’t explain it and none of our models can account for the interference.”
He waggled the fingers of his free hand towards her. “Spooookey.”
“You’re drunk,” she observed dryly.
“And getting drunker by the minute.”
She leaned forward, locking eyes with him. “Captain, some great intellects, both organic and artificial, have tried and failed to solve this mystery. The best we can come up with is for you to try and ‘remind’ the Amon that you’re here. Perhaps convince them that they very much need to come to you.”
He looked at her disbelievingly. “What would possibly motivate me to do that? Why would I sacrifice myself to a species of… of soul-eaters, energy-vampires, or whatever the hell you want to call them? Pava tells me everything on that side of reality went to shit. I want nothing to do with any of it.”
The woman to a moment to look out across the bay, drinking in the lights from the descending cityscape below. “As bad as things get for your and your friends on that side, there is still hope.” She gestured to the panorama on display before them. “The Amon are the key to deciphering the weaknesses of the Skorrah. Without that knowledge, the Skorrah could sweep out from the Large Magellanic Cloud and lay waste every civilization in your own galaxy and those surrounding it.”
He rolled his eyes theatrically. “Another all-powerful scourge fated to kill us all? So were the Xindi, the Borg, the Dominion, and the Inth. We’re still here.”
Her responding stare could have extinguished a supernova. “How comforting that you’re willing to bet the life of every sentient being in five galaxies on your finely honed bravado.”
She reached out and plucked the glass from his hand, downing the contents in a single draught. She brought the glass down on the table with a resounding crack. “It’s true what they say,” she offered in a husky voice raw with emotion and ale. “Never meet your heroes.”
With that she snatched up her device, whirled and stalked away leaving Sandhurst gazing after her.
A hand alighted on Sandhurst’s shoulder, making him jump.
“It appears you’ve started the party without us,” Lar’ragos announced, sliding into a chair next to Sandhurst. Taiee, Pell, and Shanthi joined them, still abuzz from their earlier excursion and apparently heedless of their captain’s distant expression.
"You're back early," he remarked numbly.
* * *
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Thank you. Can't wait to see where you take this. 
