Star Trek: The USS Revenant – Echoes Before the Jump: A Temporal Division Thriller Chapter 1: Echoes Before the Jump
Stardate 73129.6 Temporal Quadrant – Designated Ghost Sector
USS Revenant – NCC-8143 – Wells-Class Temporal Vessel
The darkness around Division Null's relay base seemed to absorb even starlight, a hungry void in the temporal quadrant. Hidden behind a veil of subspace static and nestled within a fractured planetoid, the stronghold pulsed faintly with residual chronometric energy—evidence of illegal time tech buried deep within. A faint, almost imperceptible thrum vibrated through the very bedrock, a testament to realities bent.
"Final approach," whispered Lieutenant Jaxor, pressed against jagged rock on the ledge overlooking the base's southern entrance. His sturdy, powerful build, not overly tall but broadly muscled, made him a formidable silhouette against the dim light. He tapped the side of his visor. "Thermal scan confirms: two guards, minimal patrol cycle. We have ninety seconds."
Captain Miharbe Yarrum crouched beside him, his lean, wiry frame speaking of constant physical demand. His dark, close-cropped hair, threaded with silver at the temples, framed weary but intensely sharp blue eyes. A faint, almost imperceptible scar traced his left cheekbone. He felt the familiar, heavy weight of command settle on his shoulders, a ghost from missions past. "Vega, confirm signal latency on the disruptor package."
The Revenant's onboard AI responded through his comms. Vega's voice was always calm, precise, and unwavering, even amidst the profound chaos of their missions, reflecting its direct, unbiased processing of immense data streams. "Thirty-eight seconds from activation to system cascade. Detonation yield will breach Null's chrono-vault. Minimal risk to surrounding timeline integrity."
"Minimal is never minimal with time tech," muttered Lieutenant Adira Vos, her compact, athletic frame coiled beside Yarrum. Her intense, observant brown eyes tracked toward the pulsating dome, a faint, metallic taste of dread on her tongue. "We either cripple their echo grid, or end up duplicated in three realities."
"Then let's be swift," Yarrum said, nodding once, his voice a low, steady current in the charged air, reflecting his stoic determination. "Execute."
The four-person infiltration team descended silently, boots scraping faintly against the jagged crystalline rock that bit into their soles like frozen glass shards. The air hummed with a low, metallic tang—ozone mixed with the acrid bite of overcharged chronometric fields, sharp enough to sting the back of their throats. A shimmer pulsed over them as the Revenant's adaptive stealth field recalibrated, casting fleeting rainbows across their visors and warming their skin like a static charge, a sensation almost like tiny insects crawling.
At the threshold, Jaxor lunged, his movements economical and efficient, honed by multiple lifetimes of experience. His blunt disruptor rod connected with one guard's neck with a muffled thud, the impact vibrating up his arm as the body crumpled silently to the ground, exhaling a final, ragged breath that carried the faint, coppery scent of sweat-soaked fear.
Adira tagged the second with a neural dampener mid-turn, the device emitting a soft whirr that cut through the oppressive quiet like a distant insect buzz, her hands moving with the practiced efficiency of a seasoned tactical officer.
Inside, corridors curved at impossible angles—hallways branching and folding in on themselves due to unstable temporal fields, their walls rippling with faint, ethereal glows that distorted shadows into elongated phantoms. A brief, disorienting vertigo washed over Yarrum, a fleeting sense of stepping sideways in time, and he rubbed the back of his neck, a habitual gesture. The base defied physics as often as it obeyed it, the air growing thicker, heavier, pressing against their chests like an unseen hand.
Yarrum scanned ahead, the tricorder's low beep echoing faintly in his helmet. His mind, a fortress of strategic thinking, registered the increased anomaly levels. "These distortions are stronger than anticipated. T'Lira—update me."
T'Lira, monitoring from the Revenant, replied over comms, her voice crackling through the subspace static. As a prodigiously gifted young Vulcan, her logical mind was already sifting through the chaotic data. "The temporal gradient is fluctuating. You have less than ten minutes before field instability breaches anchor sync."
They moved, the recycled air tasting faintly of recycled dust and ionized particles on their tongues. Through flickering doorways—each pulse sending a shiver of cold nausea through their guts, as if their very cells were struggling to remain tethered—past suspended chronolabs where holographic displays flickered like dying embers, and cages housing fragmented timeline relics: fossils that blinked in and out of time, their surfaces slick with a condensation that smelled of ancient, decayed earth.
A hover-drone passed close, its rotors whispering a high-pitched whine that set their teeth on edge, forcing the team into a deep alcove where the rock walls pressed cool and unyielding against their backs. For a tense moment, Adira's hand hovered over her disruptor, the grip slick with palm-sweat, her hyper-aware mind scanning for threats. The drone paused, its sensors emitting a faint red glow that warmed the air nearby, almost seeming to scrutinize them. Then it floated past, leaving a trail of heated exhaust that burned faintly in their nostrils.
"Disruptor placement here," Jaxor said, kneeling near a panel embedded in the floor, his knees grinding against the uneven surface. His deep-set hazel eyes, holding the profound depth of accumulated wisdom, scanned the area. He peeled it back with a metallic scrape, revealing a pulsing conduit that throbbed like a vein, emitting waves of heat that made the air shimmer and warp, a faint echo of screams seeming to ripple from its depths.
"Plant it," Yarrum ordered, his gaze fixed on the conduit, his voice sharp with urgency. "We've got less than—"
An alarm blared—not loud, but piercing, a shrill tone that vibrated through their bones like a tuning fork.
One of the guards had revived.
"Compromise!" barked Adira, already firing her phaser, her movements precise and aggressive.
Red light lanced across the corridor. An enemy agent fell, convulsing, smoke curling from his uniform. Another rounded the corner—Yarrum hit him center-mass with a stun shot, but more shadows moved in, their footsteps barely audible over the rising phaser fire.
"Disruptor's not armed yet!" Jaxor shouted, his voice strained, his Trill spots prominent on his temples.
"I'll hold them," Adira snapped, ducking into the corridor and unleashing a barrage, grim determination etched on her face, her fierce loyalty driving her. "Get it done!"
The device beeped once. Then again. Countdown initiated.
"Four minutes to cascade," Vega reported, its voice calm amidst the chaos.
"We need an exit!" Yarrum shouted, pulling back from the exchange, his mind calculating escape routes. "Rally and move!"
They ran, weaving through collapsing corridors as phaser fire erupted behind them. A containment field burst above, showering them with sparks that stung their skin. Torsion waves rippled the floor—nullifying gravity for a heartbeat, sending their stomachs lurching.
Then Adira screamed—clipped by debris.
Yarrum doubled back, his heart hammering. "She's down!"
"I'll get her," Jaxor growled, hauling Adira over his shoulder, her limp form a heavy weight. His sturdy build made the task feasible. "She'll live."
They breached the outer dome just as the disruptor detonated. A silent pulse of searing blue light surged from below, shaking the entire structure to its foundations. The blast rippled through time itself—folding and flattening reality like glass warping under heat, a silent scream of causality torn asunder.
The Revenant decloaked instantly, its hull shimmering into existence. Transporters locked.
"Go! Now!" Yarrum roared, shoving Jaxor and Adira towards the shimmering beam, his face set with urgency.
Aboard the USS Revenant
The away team materialized onto the transporter pad, smoke trailing off their suits. Adira groaned, but was breathing shallowly. Lieutenant Commander Aris Telvan, the Revenant's Chief Medical Officer, with his distinctive light yellow-orange Denobulan skin and calm, reassuring presence, was already there, directing the transporter chief with unruffled efficiency. His warm, intelligent eyes assessed Adira instantly. "Bring her to sickbay," he ordered calmly, his voice soothing even in the urgency. "I'll be right behind you."
"Bridge," Yarrum barked, already striding for the turbolift, the metallic tang of Null's base clinging to his uniform.
Moments later, he stepped onto the command deck, tension still coiled in his muscles. The crew turned to him, eyes wide, a mixture of relief and trepidation on their faces.
"Status?" he demanded, his voice crisp.
Commander Rael T'lora, with his pale blue skin and snow-white hair neatly tied back, stood at the rear arch, his delicate antennae held still, betraying no outward stress. His ethereal grey eyes met Yarrum's. "The pulse worked. Division Null's signal node is offline. No external traces remain. Anchors remain locked. Core charging for jump—nineteen minutes."
"Casualties?"
"None onboard. Lieutenant Vos is being treated by Commander Telvan. She'll be fine."
Lieutenant Jaxor emerged behind him, tossing his singed gauntlet onto a console. His world-weary expression was more pronounced. "They were ready for us. Someone knew we were coming."
From her station, Ensign T'Lira called out, her voice tight, her slender Vulcan frame perfectly poised. Her dark, analytical eyes were fixed on her display. "Captain—during extraction, we retrieved fragments of Null's mainframe. There's something embedded in the fallback code."
Yarrum approached. The screen flickered, displaying the recovered data.
A black star. The symbol of Division Null. But something else hovered beside it—a glyph, pulsing in slow, deliberate waves. Angular, ancient. Alive. It resembled fragments of Iconian script, a scar from a long-forgotten war, whispering of shattered worlds and inverted mandates. As Yarrum watched, a faint energy corona seemed to spark around the Revenant's core readings on a secondary display.
"This isn't in any database," T'Lira said, her fingers flying across her console with astonishing Vulcan precision. Her brow was furrowed with intellectual perturbation. "It's... reactive. Matching frequencies with our core. It shouldn't be able to do that. It feels like... a predator."
"Quarantine it. Air-gapped system. No uplink. No risks." Yarrum's voice was sharp, his gut clenching, his mind already calculating the unforeseen threat.
She nodded, her intense scientific curiosity warring with the logical imperative, and began the lockdown procedure.
Commander Kaelen Varr, the Chief Engineer, stood near a console linked to the temporal core, her Barzan features—a broader nose, wide-set dark eyes—alive with a restless ingenuity. Her thick, dark hair was haphazardly tied back, with unruly strands escaping. She turned, her attention momentarily diverted from a complex diagnostic. "Temporal core at 88%. Systems green. Jump window forming," she confirmed, relaying Vega's data, her voice energetic.
Yarrum nodded, brushing dust from his uniform, a faint grit under his fingers. "Rael—set course. Return jump to stardate 54827.4. One day after departure."
"Coordinates locked," Rael said, his hands moving with practiced efficiency on his console, his antennae twitching almost imperceptibly as he processed the complex temporal calculations. "Temporal corridor forming."
"Let's go home," Yarrum said, the words a quiet promise, his gaze sweeping across his capable crew.
The Jump
"Initiating phase alignment," Vega confirmed, its calm, precise voice resonating through the bridge.
Then something hit them.
Not a weapon. A ripple in causality that felt like a cosmic punch to the gut. The vortex, just beginning to form, flickered violently. Sparks burst from panels across the bridge. Vega's voice distorted, breaking into static.
"Anomalous signal... merging... external override... source identified... the glyph!"
"Abort!" Yarrum ordered, slamming his hand down on the emergency cut-out, his controlled energy now raw urgency.
"Unable. Override successful. Trajectory redirected." Vega's voice was eerily calm now, devoid of its usual processing.
The Revenant groaned like a beast in pain, systems shrieking. Kaelen Varr rushed to her station, her Barzan eyes wide with alarm, her hands flying over controls, muttering to the ship's systems like old friends.
They were no longer navigating the corridor.
They were being pulled, violently, through a kaleidoscope of collapsing timelines, the very fabric of existence screaming around them.
Chronometric alarms flared, a deafening cacophony. The ship shook violently, throwing crew members from their stations. Screens went dead, then burst to life with alien symbols. The stars outside spun—a dizzying, terrifying blur—and then, abruptly, stilled.
Silence. Heavy, suffocating silence.
"Report," Yarrum managed, climbing back into his seat, his ears ringing, a metallic taste in his mouth, his weary blue eyes scanning the chaos.
Rael looked stunned, his normally stoic Aenar face pale, his antennae drooping slightly in a rare display of profound, almost existential shock. "Stardate... 86520.9."
T'Lira turned from her station, her face ashen, eyes wide with disbelief, her logical mind struggling to reconcile the impossible data. "That's over a thousand years beyond target."
Jaxor barked a short, disbelieving laugh, running a hand through his hair, his world-weary expression giving way to outright shock. "That's the 32nd century!"
"Confirmed," Vega said, its voice now perfectly clear, as if nothing had happened, its multi-dimensional precision providing undeniable truth. "Temporal signature matches era of classified Federation records. An unexpected rendezvous."
The viewscreen, which had been flickering wildly with alien symbols and chronometric noise, suddenly snapped into impossible clarity. It displayed an image that brought the Revenant's bridge to a stunned, absolute halt.
A vessel approached. Not merely sleek, but impossibly refined, a shimmering silver dart against the blackness, utterly devoid of visible seams, nacelles, or any conventional propulsion. Its Federation markings were undeniably present—yet unlike anything in their database, subtly different, advanced beyond comprehension. A ghost ship, a myth rendered terrifyingly real, pulling into view. A collective, involuntary intake of breath rippled through the bridge, quickly stifled into awe-stricken silence.
Then, with an almost ethereal shimmer that seemed to bypass conventional physics, the transmission opened.
The screen shifted from the exterior view to an interior. The image coalesced: not a recording, but a live feed from a bridge unlike any Yarrum or his crew had ever seen. It was bathed in an otherworldly, shimmering blue light, casting impossible shadows. Ethereal holographic consoles seemed to float in the air, without solid forms, their data flowing like liquid light. The entire space hummed with technology that felt like magic.
And in the center, framed by that impossible light and a presence that radiated unwavering command, stood a figure. A woman. Poised, utterly self-possessed, her uniform sleek and unfamiliar, a blend of functionality and impossible elegance. Her eyes, sharp and intense, met Yarrum's across the vast, impossible chasm of time and disbelief.
For a long, agonizing heartbeat, no one on the Revenant's bridge moved. No one breathed. The silence was thick, heavy, almost a physical pressure, laden with the weight of shattered history and the profound illogical. Reality itself seemed to hold its breath.
Then, her voice, calm and clear, cutting through the centuries like a laser, echoing the impossible truth.
"This is Captain Michael Burnham of the Federation starship Discovery."
A stunned silence descended upon the Revenant's bridge, thick enough to suffocate. A single, audible gasp from a junior ensign broke it, quickly stifled into an almost reverent hush.
"Captain," Rael said quietly, his voice barely a whisper, his antennae drooping slightly in a rare display of profound, almost existential shock. "Discovery was lost. Declared destroyed. All hands lost in 2259."
T'Lira whispered, her gaze fixed on the screen as if seeing a ghost from a childhood legend, her Vulcan logic momentarily fractured. "There were rumors. Myths. She disappeared... and never came back."
Yarrum stepped forward, eyes narrowing, trying to process the impossible, the profound tiredness in his eyes deepened by this new, baffling reality. "This is impossible."
Discovery's bridge crew, visible behind Burnham, looked equally shocked, a mirror of their own surprise.
From their side, Commander Saru approached Burnham, his graceful strides echoing his concern. "This... is a Wells-class. Temporal Division. They vanished centuries ago. By all accounts, a ghost ship."
Burnham replied calmly but firmly, her voice carrying an undeniable authority. "You've breached the Temporal Accord. Your sudden appearance triggered five anomaly flags. An inspection team is inbound."
Yarrum stiffened, the weight of their impossible situation pressing in. "Captain Burnham—we didn't jump here willingly. We were hijacked by an external signal. Possibly connected to Division Null."
Burnham raised an eyebrow, a flicker of something unreadable in her eyes. "Division Null? You're hauling ghosts from a war we ended in the 27th century. You're two centuries late for that fight."
"We have data," T'Lira interjected, her voice gaining urgency, her logical mind already formulating an explanation. "A glyph... possibly sentient. It interfered with our jump. It's a shard from something ancient—Iconian origins, perhaps a remnant of their Demon War, twisted into a living paradox."
On Discovery's side, Lieutenant Owosekun analyzed the stream, a look of growing concern on her face. "They're not lying. I'm detecting abnormal chronometric residue—echoes of a shattered lattice, like the World Heart fragments. It's... profound."
Burnham exchanged a swift, meaningful glance with Saru.
"Permission to beam over?" Yarrum asked, attempting to regain some control, his stoic demeanor fighting against the surreal.
"Not yet," Burnham replied, her gaze unwavering. "We don't know if you're what you claim."
"And we don't know you are the real Discovery," Yarrum shot back, a flash of his usual defiance, his weary eyes holding steady. "Our records show your ship was lost with all hands. There's no confirmation you ever re-emerged."
A tense pause hung between the two captains, spanning centuries.
Then Burnham said, her tone firm but measured, "We'll proceed carefully. Our science team will compare logs. Prepare for an encrypted data exchange. But understand: if your presence destabilizes this timeline..."
"We'll leave," Yarrum finished, the words carrying a grim determination. "If we can."
Burnham nodded, a curt gesture. "Stand by."
The transmission ended.
On the Revenant's bridge, silence returned, heavy with the weight of their predicament.
Rael turned to Yarrum, a wry twist to his lips. His antennae slowly began to regain their stillness. "A ghost ship meets a legend."
Yarrum muttered, running a hand over his face, the grit of Null's base still on his fingers. "Let's hope this isn't a shared hallucination."
Jaxor folded his arms, a humorless chuckle escaping him, his world-weary eyes fixed on the empty viewscreen. "Captain Burnham died a hero. Or so they say."
T'Lira murmured, her eyes distant, staring at the empty viewscreen, her logical mind already beginning to catalog the new, impossible data. "So did we."
Stardate 73129.6 Temporal Quadrant – Designated Ghost Sector
USS Revenant – NCC-8143 – Wells-Class Temporal Vessel
The darkness around Division Null's relay base seemed to absorb even starlight, a hungry void in the temporal quadrant. Hidden behind a veil of subspace static and nestled within a fractured planetoid, the stronghold pulsed faintly with residual chronometric energy—evidence of illegal time tech buried deep within. A faint, almost imperceptible thrum vibrated through the very bedrock, a testament to realities bent.
"Final approach," whispered Lieutenant Jaxor, pressed against jagged rock on the ledge overlooking the base's southern entrance. His sturdy, powerful build, not overly tall but broadly muscled, made him a formidable silhouette against the dim light. He tapped the side of his visor. "Thermal scan confirms: two guards, minimal patrol cycle. We have ninety seconds."
Captain Miharbe Yarrum crouched beside him, his lean, wiry frame speaking of constant physical demand. His dark, close-cropped hair, threaded with silver at the temples, framed weary but intensely sharp blue eyes. A faint, almost imperceptible scar traced his left cheekbone. He felt the familiar, heavy weight of command settle on his shoulders, a ghost from missions past. "Vega, confirm signal latency on the disruptor package."
The Revenant's onboard AI responded through his comms. Vega's voice was always calm, precise, and unwavering, even amidst the profound chaos of their missions, reflecting its direct, unbiased processing of immense data streams. "Thirty-eight seconds from activation to system cascade. Detonation yield will breach Null's chrono-vault. Minimal risk to surrounding timeline integrity."
"Minimal is never minimal with time tech," muttered Lieutenant Adira Vos, her compact, athletic frame coiled beside Yarrum. Her intense, observant brown eyes tracked toward the pulsating dome, a faint, metallic taste of dread on her tongue. "We either cripple their echo grid, or end up duplicated in three realities."
"Then let's be swift," Yarrum said, nodding once, his voice a low, steady current in the charged air, reflecting his stoic determination. "Execute."
The four-person infiltration team descended silently, boots scraping faintly against the jagged crystalline rock that bit into their soles like frozen glass shards. The air hummed with a low, metallic tang—ozone mixed with the acrid bite of overcharged chronometric fields, sharp enough to sting the back of their throats. A shimmer pulsed over them as the Revenant's adaptive stealth field recalibrated, casting fleeting rainbows across their visors and warming their skin like a static charge, a sensation almost like tiny insects crawling.
At the threshold, Jaxor lunged, his movements economical and efficient, honed by multiple lifetimes of experience. His blunt disruptor rod connected with one guard's neck with a muffled thud, the impact vibrating up his arm as the body crumpled silently to the ground, exhaling a final, ragged breath that carried the faint, coppery scent of sweat-soaked fear.
Adira tagged the second with a neural dampener mid-turn, the device emitting a soft whirr that cut through the oppressive quiet like a distant insect buzz, her hands moving with the practiced efficiency of a seasoned tactical officer.
Inside, corridors curved at impossible angles—hallways branching and folding in on themselves due to unstable temporal fields, their walls rippling with faint, ethereal glows that distorted shadows into elongated phantoms. A brief, disorienting vertigo washed over Yarrum, a fleeting sense of stepping sideways in time, and he rubbed the back of his neck, a habitual gesture. The base defied physics as often as it obeyed it, the air growing thicker, heavier, pressing against their chests like an unseen hand.
Yarrum scanned ahead, the tricorder's low beep echoing faintly in his helmet. His mind, a fortress of strategic thinking, registered the increased anomaly levels. "These distortions are stronger than anticipated. T'Lira—update me."
T'Lira, monitoring from the Revenant, replied over comms, her voice crackling through the subspace static. As a prodigiously gifted young Vulcan, her logical mind was already sifting through the chaotic data. "The temporal gradient is fluctuating. You have less than ten minutes before field instability breaches anchor sync."
They moved, the recycled air tasting faintly of recycled dust and ionized particles on their tongues. Through flickering doorways—each pulse sending a shiver of cold nausea through their guts, as if their very cells were struggling to remain tethered—past suspended chronolabs where holographic displays flickered like dying embers, and cages housing fragmented timeline relics: fossils that blinked in and out of time, their surfaces slick with a condensation that smelled of ancient, decayed earth.
A hover-drone passed close, its rotors whispering a high-pitched whine that set their teeth on edge, forcing the team into a deep alcove where the rock walls pressed cool and unyielding against their backs. For a tense moment, Adira's hand hovered over her disruptor, the grip slick with palm-sweat, her hyper-aware mind scanning for threats. The drone paused, its sensors emitting a faint red glow that warmed the air nearby, almost seeming to scrutinize them. Then it floated past, leaving a trail of heated exhaust that burned faintly in their nostrils.
"Disruptor placement here," Jaxor said, kneeling near a panel embedded in the floor, his knees grinding against the uneven surface. His deep-set hazel eyes, holding the profound depth of accumulated wisdom, scanned the area. He peeled it back with a metallic scrape, revealing a pulsing conduit that throbbed like a vein, emitting waves of heat that made the air shimmer and warp, a faint echo of screams seeming to ripple from its depths.
"Plant it," Yarrum ordered, his gaze fixed on the conduit, his voice sharp with urgency. "We've got less than—"
An alarm blared—not loud, but piercing, a shrill tone that vibrated through their bones like a tuning fork.
One of the guards had revived.
"Compromise!" barked Adira, already firing her phaser, her movements precise and aggressive.
Red light lanced across the corridor. An enemy agent fell, convulsing, smoke curling from his uniform. Another rounded the corner—Yarrum hit him center-mass with a stun shot, but more shadows moved in, their footsteps barely audible over the rising phaser fire.
"Disruptor's not armed yet!" Jaxor shouted, his voice strained, his Trill spots prominent on his temples.
"I'll hold them," Adira snapped, ducking into the corridor and unleashing a barrage, grim determination etched on her face, her fierce loyalty driving her. "Get it done!"
The device beeped once. Then again. Countdown initiated.
"Four minutes to cascade," Vega reported, its voice calm amidst the chaos.
"We need an exit!" Yarrum shouted, pulling back from the exchange, his mind calculating escape routes. "Rally and move!"
They ran, weaving through collapsing corridors as phaser fire erupted behind them. A containment field burst above, showering them with sparks that stung their skin. Torsion waves rippled the floor—nullifying gravity for a heartbeat, sending their stomachs lurching.
Then Adira screamed—clipped by debris.
Yarrum doubled back, his heart hammering. "She's down!"
"I'll get her," Jaxor growled, hauling Adira over his shoulder, her limp form a heavy weight. His sturdy build made the task feasible. "She'll live."
They breached the outer dome just as the disruptor detonated. A silent pulse of searing blue light surged from below, shaking the entire structure to its foundations. The blast rippled through time itself—folding and flattening reality like glass warping under heat, a silent scream of causality torn asunder.
The Revenant decloaked instantly, its hull shimmering into existence. Transporters locked.
"Go! Now!" Yarrum roared, shoving Jaxor and Adira towards the shimmering beam, his face set with urgency.
Aboard the USS Revenant
The away team materialized onto the transporter pad, smoke trailing off their suits. Adira groaned, but was breathing shallowly. Lieutenant Commander Aris Telvan, the Revenant's Chief Medical Officer, with his distinctive light yellow-orange Denobulan skin and calm, reassuring presence, was already there, directing the transporter chief with unruffled efficiency. His warm, intelligent eyes assessed Adira instantly. "Bring her to sickbay," he ordered calmly, his voice soothing even in the urgency. "I'll be right behind you."
"Bridge," Yarrum barked, already striding for the turbolift, the metallic tang of Null's base clinging to his uniform.
Moments later, he stepped onto the command deck, tension still coiled in his muscles. The crew turned to him, eyes wide, a mixture of relief and trepidation on their faces.
"Status?" he demanded, his voice crisp.
Commander Rael T'lora, with his pale blue skin and snow-white hair neatly tied back, stood at the rear arch, his delicate antennae held still, betraying no outward stress. His ethereal grey eyes met Yarrum's. "The pulse worked. Division Null's signal node is offline. No external traces remain. Anchors remain locked. Core charging for jump—nineteen minutes."
"Casualties?"
"None onboard. Lieutenant Vos is being treated by Commander Telvan. She'll be fine."
Lieutenant Jaxor emerged behind him, tossing his singed gauntlet onto a console. His world-weary expression was more pronounced. "They were ready for us. Someone knew we were coming."
From her station, Ensign T'Lira called out, her voice tight, her slender Vulcan frame perfectly poised. Her dark, analytical eyes were fixed on her display. "Captain—during extraction, we retrieved fragments of Null's mainframe. There's something embedded in the fallback code."
Yarrum approached. The screen flickered, displaying the recovered data.
A black star. The symbol of Division Null. But something else hovered beside it—a glyph, pulsing in slow, deliberate waves. Angular, ancient. Alive. It resembled fragments of Iconian script, a scar from a long-forgotten war, whispering of shattered worlds and inverted mandates. As Yarrum watched, a faint energy corona seemed to spark around the Revenant's core readings on a secondary display.
"This isn't in any database," T'Lira said, her fingers flying across her console with astonishing Vulcan precision. Her brow was furrowed with intellectual perturbation. "It's... reactive. Matching frequencies with our core. It shouldn't be able to do that. It feels like... a predator."
"Quarantine it. Air-gapped system. No uplink. No risks." Yarrum's voice was sharp, his gut clenching, his mind already calculating the unforeseen threat.
She nodded, her intense scientific curiosity warring with the logical imperative, and began the lockdown procedure.
Commander Kaelen Varr, the Chief Engineer, stood near a console linked to the temporal core, her Barzan features—a broader nose, wide-set dark eyes—alive with a restless ingenuity. Her thick, dark hair was haphazardly tied back, with unruly strands escaping. She turned, her attention momentarily diverted from a complex diagnostic. "Temporal core at 88%. Systems green. Jump window forming," she confirmed, relaying Vega's data, her voice energetic.
Yarrum nodded, brushing dust from his uniform, a faint grit under his fingers. "Rael—set course. Return jump to stardate 54827.4. One day after departure."
"Coordinates locked," Rael said, his hands moving with practiced efficiency on his console, his antennae twitching almost imperceptibly as he processed the complex temporal calculations. "Temporal corridor forming."
"Let's go home," Yarrum said, the words a quiet promise, his gaze sweeping across his capable crew.
The Jump
"Initiating phase alignment," Vega confirmed, its calm, precise voice resonating through the bridge.
Then something hit them.
Not a weapon. A ripple in causality that felt like a cosmic punch to the gut. The vortex, just beginning to form, flickered violently. Sparks burst from panels across the bridge. Vega's voice distorted, breaking into static.
"Anomalous signal... merging... external override... source identified... the glyph!"
"Abort!" Yarrum ordered, slamming his hand down on the emergency cut-out, his controlled energy now raw urgency.
"Unable. Override successful. Trajectory redirected." Vega's voice was eerily calm now, devoid of its usual processing.
The Revenant groaned like a beast in pain, systems shrieking. Kaelen Varr rushed to her station, her Barzan eyes wide with alarm, her hands flying over controls, muttering to the ship's systems like old friends.
They were no longer navigating the corridor.
They were being pulled, violently, through a kaleidoscope of collapsing timelines, the very fabric of existence screaming around them.
Chronometric alarms flared, a deafening cacophony. The ship shook violently, throwing crew members from their stations. Screens went dead, then burst to life with alien symbols. The stars outside spun—a dizzying, terrifying blur—and then, abruptly, stilled.
Silence. Heavy, suffocating silence.
"Report," Yarrum managed, climbing back into his seat, his ears ringing, a metallic taste in his mouth, his weary blue eyes scanning the chaos.
Rael looked stunned, his normally stoic Aenar face pale, his antennae drooping slightly in a rare display of profound, almost existential shock. "Stardate... 86520.9."
T'Lira turned from her station, her face ashen, eyes wide with disbelief, her logical mind struggling to reconcile the impossible data. "That's over a thousand years beyond target."
Jaxor barked a short, disbelieving laugh, running a hand through his hair, his world-weary expression giving way to outright shock. "That's the 32nd century!"
"Confirmed," Vega said, its voice now perfectly clear, as if nothing had happened, its multi-dimensional precision providing undeniable truth. "Temporal signature matches era of classified Federation records. An unexpected rendezvous."
The viewscreen, which had been flickering wildly with alien symbols and chronometric noise, suddenly snapped into impossible clarity. It displayed an image that brought the Revenant's bridge to a stunned, absolute halt.
A vessel approached. Not merely sleek, but impossibly refined, a shimmering silver dart against the blackness, utterly devoid of visible seams, nacelles, or any conventional propulsion. Its Federation markings were undeniably present—yet unlike anything in their database, subtly different, advanced beyond comprehension. A ghost ship, a myth rendered terrifyingly real, pulling into view. A collective, involuntary intake of breath rippled through the bridge, quickly stifled into awe-stricken silence.
Then, with an almost ethereal shimmer that seemed to bypass conventional physics, the transmission opened.
The screen shifted from the exterior view to an interior. The image coalesced: not a recording, but a live feed from a bridge unlike any Yarrum or his crew had ever seen. It was bathed in an otherworldly, shimmering blue light, casting impossible shadows. Ethereal holographic consoles seemed to float in the air, without solid forms, their data flowing like liquid light. The entire space hummed with technology that felt like magic.
And in the center, framed by that impossible light and a presence that radiated unwavering command, stood a figure. A woman. Poised, utterly self-possessed, her uniform sleek and unfamiliar, a blend of functionality and impossible elegance. Her eyes, sharp and intense, met Yarrum's across the vast, impossible chasm of time and disbelief.
For a long, agonizing heartbeat, no one on the Revenant's bridge moved. No one breathed. The silence was thick, heavy, almost a physical pressure, laden with the weight of shattered history and the profound illogical. Reality itself seemed to hold its breath.
Then, her voice, calm and clear, cutting through the centuries like a laser, echoing the impossible truth.
"This is Captain Michael Burnham of the Federation starship Discovery."
A stunned silence descended upon the Revenant's bridge, thick enough to suffocate. A single, audible gasp from a junior ensign broke it, quickly stifled into an almost reverent hush.
"Captain," Rael said quietly, his voice barely a whisper, his antennae drooping slightly in a rare display of profound, almost existential shock. "Discovery was lost. Declared destroyed. All hands lost in 2259."
T'Lira whispered, her gaze fixed on the screen as if seeing a ghost from a childhood legend, her Vulcan logic momentarily fractured. "There were rumors. Myths. She disappeared... and never came back."
Yarrum stepped forward, eyes narrowing, trying to process the impossible, the profound tiredness in his eyes deepened by this new, baffling reality. "This is impossible."
Discovery's bridge crew, visible behind Burnham, looked equally shocked, a mirror of their own surprise.
From their side, Commander Saru approached Burnham, his graceful strides echoing his concern. "This... is a Wells-class. Temporal Division. They vanished centuries ago. By all accounts, a ghost ship."
Burnham replied calmly but firmly, her voice carrying an undeniable authority. "You've breached the Temporal Accord. Your sudden appearance triggered five anomaly flags. An inspection team is inbound."
Yarrum stiffened, the weight of their impossible situation pressing in. "Captain Burnham—we didn't jump here willingly. We were hijacked by an external signal. Possibly connected to Division Null."
Burnham raised an eyebrow, a flicker of something unreadable in her eyes. "Division Null? You're hauling ghosts from a war we ended in the 27th century. You're two centuries late for that fight."
"We have data," T'Lira interjected, her voice gaining urgency, her logical mind already formulating an explanation. "A glyph... possibly sentient. It interfered with our jump. It's a shard from something ancient—Iconian origins, perhaps a remnant of their Demon War, twisted into a living paradox."
On Discovery's side, Lieutenant Owosekun analyzed the stream, a look of growing concern on her face. "They're not lying. I'm detecting abnormal chronometric residue—echoes of a shattered lattice, like the World Heart fragments. It's... profound."
Burnham exchanged a swift, meaningful glance with Saru.
"Permission to beam over?" Yarrum asked, attempting to regain some control, his stoic demeanor fighting against the surreal.
"Not yet," Burnham replied, her gaze unwavering. "We don't know if you're what you claim."
"And we don't know you are the real Discovery," Yarrum shot back, a flash of his usual defiance, his weary eyes holding steady. "Our records show your ship was lost with all hands. There's no confirmation you ever re-emerged."
A tense pause hung between the two captains, spanning centuries.
Then Burnham said, her tone firm but measured, "We'll proceed carefully. Our science team will compare logs. Prepare for an encrypted data exchange. But understand: if your presence destabilizes this timeline..."
"We'll leave," Yarrum finished, the words carrying a grim determination. "If we can."
Burnham nodded, a curt gesture. "Stand by."
The transmission ended.
On the Revenant's bridge, silence returned, heavy with the weight of their predicament.
Rael turned to Yarrum, a wry twist to his lips. His antennae slowly began to regain their stillness. "A ghost ship meets a legend."
Yarrum muttered, running a hand over his face, the grit of Null's base still on his fingers. "Let's hope this isn't a shared hallucination."
Jaxor folded his arms, a humorless chuckle escaping him, his world-weary eyes fixed on the empty viewscreen. "Captain Burnham died a hero. Or so they say."
T'Lira murmured, her eyes distant, staring at the empty viewscreen, her logical mind already beginning to catalog the new, impossible data. "So did we."
