Tempus Fugit, Part 2

Posted on Wed Apr 13th, 2016 @ 9:09pm by Ensign Reva Madhava & Ensign Ian Bren & Lieutenant Tess Rutheridge & Ensign Kai Sarkozi
Edited on on Sun Nov 1st, 2020 @ 8:29pm

Mission: Further Challenges
Location: Starbase 900 - 2391

Gilroy led Ian out through the back kitchen door and down the service hallway. Walk softly. So far I’ve found no monitoring devices back here but it’s been a few hours since I came this way.

A few hours? How often do they switch things around? Ian crept down the hallway.

Where have you been? You disappeared some time ago.

“Ah, yeah... to me, that time was just a few minutes, really. Three years for you, though. A guy grabbed me and brought me to this time. I have to get back to when I was,” he whispered to her.

Turn here, Gilroy directed. Why did he bring you here?

“To let all of this happen,” Ian stopped and looked the way they weren’t going. He could see where a hasty repair had been made to several bulkheads. He turned and headed in the direction she’d indicated then took another turn when she told him to and, after she extended a leg and waved it in front of the lock, entered the room.

At first he thought no one was there but then his eyes adjusted to the dim lighting and he saw several faces looking at him. “Ah...,” he started, but Gilroy cut him off.

This is Ensign Ian Bren, she announced.

A small figure separated from the deep shadows in the corners of the room and stepped forward. “Ian?” The voice was female and had a noticeable accent. Moments later, the figure stepped into the scant light. It was Kai. She had two cuts on her left cheek and her clothes were dirty. She smiled upon seeing him. “It is you! We thought you were dead!” She kept her voice soft, despite the pleasure in her tone. “What happened?”

He blinked at the change in her and had to remind himself: a few minutes for him; three years for them. “Kai? What has ...ah, I might be better off not knowing. This’ll sound nuts: I was hijacked and brought three years into the future. I need to get back.”

She moved closer and hugged him for a moment. “Did such a jump affect Bren?” she asked. She could see the dismay in his eyes at her appearance and she reached up, running a hand through her hair, which was down, loose, unlike what he was used to seeing.

He chuckled, “Bren and I were a bit queasy right afterward, but we’re okay now. I was told that the Science labs are sealed off - is that because the ...ah... thing exploded? So the whole Station is under Krenim control?” It was a bad question - one that would have had Darwin or Gilroy laughing.

“Yes.” Kai nodded. “All the officers were removed, but a few of us were missed. When they came, Gil stashed me in a hidden cabinet and I came out last night. Gilroy Jr. found me later. There is a room, top of the station, that we’ve taken as a safe room. I was down here to get dinner, actually. Will they be looking for you?”

“Eventually, yeah. He said he’d find me,” he answered. “Was Gilroy taken off-station as well? Darwin? Do you... you said ‘we’? Who’s ‘we’?” He felt hugely sick and overwhelmed. “I need to sit down.” A chair was produced by a man Ian thought he recognized but couldn’t name. “Any engineers?”

“One. Thank you, Sam,” she murmured to the man. “They have science sealed off because of the sphere, at least that’s what they told the civvies. I think they may be afraid that if anyone gets down there, they could find weapons or something to use against them. But Bryce managed to avoid capture, as did Tess, a couple of others.”

“Tess! Oh good!” Ian grinned. “I need to talk to him and the engineer.” He looked around the room then asked, “So, we lost control of the Station before the sphere exploded?”

“Yes.” Kai glanced at Gilroy a moment before she continued. “Riley was there.”

Ian nodded, “I heard. Who else?”

Madre de Dios was there; several crew members as well. Patrick Leroy, for one. Gilroy answered him.

“Leroy? Oh shit,” Ian lamented. It took him a moment longer to connect ‘Madre de Dios’ with Ignatius - mother of gods. Riley, Leroy, Iggy, and who knew how many others were dead because he’d wanted a few hours of sleep. Bren roiled in his belly.

“I’m sorry Ian.” Kai looked to Gilroy again. Should I tell him about Six?

Oh, yes, we should, so that he doesn’t... ask.

“Before we go on, you need to know something.” Kai hesitated, then decided just to get it over with. “Six was killed. They were afraid that, being Borg, she could bypass any of the security systems or turn the station against them. They would likely do the same to me if they knew I was here. They have access to the computer’s database so they know what function the officers served. Because of Lucius, they would suspect I have access to things that, right now, still have them locked out.”

He breathed heavily through his mouth, stunned by the news. He didn’t dare ask about anyone else. “Can you take me to Tess and the engineer, please? If I get back, maybe I can stop this.” He at least wanted to stop Riley and Leroy from getting killed by the sphere.

“Gilroy, will you let Reva know we are on our way up? We’ll take the back service lift and then make our way along the tube.” She looked to Ian again. “They are scanning for comm signals so Gilroy here keeps the channel open between up there and down here.”

Their method of communicating didn’t really matter to him; he’d heard her words but had stopped listening as soon as she said Reva’s name. “Reva is the engineer? That’s fantastic!” He glee was enormous.

She does not think that at the moment, Gilroy said. Riley..., she lifted two legs in some kind of gesture.

“Oh... right,” he nodded. “Ah, let’s go.”

Gilroy clung to his shoulders and went quiet again.

They exited the room and Kai stopped to listen. She pressed a small device on her wrist and then held it up. After a few seconds, a light on it showed green. “Let’s go.” She led the way deeper into the station along the dark corridor. Finally they entered a service lift that, had she not led him to it, he would never have found. They began to ascend.

The ride was done in silence. Ian had more than enough to think about; he and Bren and Bren’s past hosts were discussing the situation. Bren, at least, was aware Gilroy was listening in. When the lift stopped, Ian followed Kai out. When they reached the top of the station, he saw Reva wrapped in a blanket sitting against a wall. He spared a glance at Tess before hurrying over to her. “Reva, I need your help,” he said.

“Ian?” Bleary eyes looked at him with confusion. She blinked several times and reached out to hug him. “Where have you been?”

“Ah... between then and now,” he said, hugging her back. “Time travel.”

Gilroy lightly brushed Ian’s ear with a leg and suggested, Perhaps we could come back to Reva? She is... she needs rest.

“Oh, right. Reva, I’ll come back; I need to talk to Tess,” Ian rubbed her shoulders and left her where he’d found her.

Kai knelt down by Reva. “It’s alright, I’m back. I brought you something.” Kai reached into the pocket of the skirt she wore and pulled out a small metal object - one of Reva’s robots. “I made it down to your deck earlier.”

Reva smiled slightly and took the bot from her, “Thank you, Kai.” She looked past the woman at Ian and asked, “We’re sure he’s not with the Krenim? Weird that he’d show up now.”

“Gilroy would know if he was,” Kai answered. “He said they yanked him out of his time three years ago and brought him here, just so this would happen. I think he figured out something that would’ve prevented this and they pulled him before he could tell anyone.” She touched Reva’s cheek, took a moment to look into her eyes. She was concerned about Reva’s lost, out of touch look.

“You’re right, of course. Gilroy...,” she suddenly chuckled, “takes after your Gilroy, all security-minded.” She sighed and sat back, pulling the blanket around her a little tighter. Her thoughts were just starting to turn towards Riley, her dying Riley, when something Kai said nudged at her. “Three years ago? Time travel... He could have prevented this?” Her transformation was quick. She sat up and looked past Kai again. “If he goes back, then this might not happen.... Riley will be okay.” She looked at Kai, hoping for confirmation.

“Yes, I think it would be so,” Kai answered. She removed her hand from Reva to prevent Reva reading her. It would prevent the murder of Six and the deaths of so many others as well. “We need to get him down to Science but it will have to wait for the first watch.”

“Yes, send him back,” she nodded and stood, dropping the blanket. “Gilroy, c’mere,” she called the spider to her and huddled with her while Ian talked with Tess.

Kai rose and followed Ian over to where Tess was sitting. “Tess? We have a mission.”

“A mission?” Tess scoffed “To boldly go where, Kai? Still you’re refusing to see our condition?” Tess words were bitter as he turned from the corner where he’d sought refuge, his eyes dazed, he strived to focus on Kai and the other figure kneeling near her.

“Ian?” Tess blurted while a wide spectrum of emotions passed on his face as the dizziness vanished “Ian!”

Taking him by the shoulders he regarded him through and through, “Where the hell have you been? We’ve been searching for you for… For the last three years! No one has ever been able to explain your vanishing and we in Galileo tried the hardest to find you.”

He paused as a hint of a smile lined his lips “There’s an ‘Ian Bren’ project still open in the main database. Commander Leroy opened it right the day you disappeared… The only one project that did not bring his scolding look for being overdue… And Riley… Riley who I found more than once working after-hours to get you back. Not that it matters now for them… You seem fine, what happened?”

“Time travel happened,Tess. Your three years have been just a few minutes for me. I have to get back - apparently the Krenim targeted me because I was about to figure out how to stop the sphere’s decay,” Ian explained.

Kai spoke, her voice soft. “I can get us there. There are...ways to get through that aren’t on the map, if you understand me? Because of Lucius, I have the codes to get through.”

Reva joined them and said, “What you don’t have codes for, I can probably work around.” She looked at Kai and said, “I gave that bot to Gilroy; she’s going to take it to the Commander’s office. Maybe the guy that brought Ian here will report in - and give us a location on the time travel device he used.”

Kai nodded, then pressed a small button on the wrist device she wore. “For Bryce, he will meet us on the way down.”

“Well let’s not tarry then,” said Tess with renewed vigor “I doubt we will be allowed to have much time in the moment we start using any equipment on the station. Krenim surveillance is tight.”

“After you, Tess,” Reva gestured at the door. “Oh, but first,” she reached over and tugged lightly at Ian’s uniform tunic. “This has to go. It’ll attract attention like a blinking sign.”

“My uniform?” Ian pulled at his shirt then looked around at the others; not a single one was in uniform. “Oh... of course.” He hadn’t noticed but now he took in Kai’s skirt and Reva’s ...decidedly small, short dress.

“Hey, they don’t expect an Orion to be Starfleet, so I can move a little freer than the others,” she said, catching his surprised look. “Close your mouth and follow Tess,” she said and laughed slightly.

**********************
Ensign Ian Bren
Kai Sarkozi
Gilroy Jr.
Reva Madhava
Tess Rutheridge