THE EDGE OF NEVER: Attack on the Narada

"Ready to intercept," Philter announced without emotion. " After reacing position before hostilities start between the incoming battle group and the time-displaced vessel, our time to intervene is two minutes thirty-one seconds... mark."

"Activate DYCEP and engage," Syntron ordered while reflecting on the heated debate between his Exec and his science officer. "I need the best recommendation to destroy this vessel as quickly as possible and without alerting the Klingons of our presence."

Riker was ready for him.

"We have twenty-five transphasic torpedoes as part of the standard Lotus Fleet complement on board our ships," he reminded his commanding officer. "Each one of them is enough to destroy a Borg cube, which is three times as massive as even this huge vessel. We have fifteen tubes to send a massive salvo that will obliterate the Narada down to subatomic particles, leaving virtually nothing for the Klingons or anyone else to use afterwards and alter the timeline. Such a blast will also fry the Klingons sensors of this era. By the time they restore them, we will be long gone. Now, if we time our firing with the Klingons own opening volley, they will beleive they have destroyed it, make songs about it and continue on their merry way like the Kelvin did."

As the Vulcan nodded, Livingstone turned to face him.

"Captain... what about the crew of the Narada? If we do not offer them a chance to surrender or flee, we will simply be committing murder."

"There are twenty-two lifesigns on board the Narada," Elliago Nasaro-Myth reported from his own bioscanners. 

The unfailing pacifism of the X'ell and the high regard for sentient life of the Deltan resonated strongly with Syntron's own Vulcan nature. But as a Starfleet officer, and in view of the difficult parameters of their mission, he had to ensure at all costs that these Romulans would not have an opportunity to escape and alter the timeline in any other way. Saving lives was noble... but when the whole of reality was in the balance, logic only answered with the needs of the many.

Jonathan Livingstone gave him the solution.

"Sir, this is a civilian ship modified by Borg technology. They have no shields to block our transporter beam; they have an electrostatic navigation deflector and nanoprobe regeneration of systems to absorb and repair damage. That's why our transphasic torpedoes are needed as they will hamper this capability and deliver enough destructive force.  Timing will be critical but, if we activate all transporters just as we fire and send them directly in the brig..."

"Commander Rogers, Lieutenant Leône, see to it," immediately ordered the captain. "Mister Aron'son, standby to fire all tubes with transphasics at point blank range, on Commander Riker's order. Mister Philter, engage at maximum warp away from the area as soon transport is complete. Doctor, you will fill the brig with anesthezine gas and keep our guests sedated until we get back to our own time. Lieutenant Livingstone will keep an eye on the Klingons and confirm they are resuming route towards the Donatu system. If not, Commander Redding will implement best tactic to deal with them."

Silence filled the bridge only disturbed by all the heavily automated systems chirping and beepintg all around them. Then, the streaking stars coalesced on the main viewer and an enormous, serrated shape filled the screen almost completely.

" Target forty-thousand kilometers dead ahead," confirmed the Jem'Hadar, scaly fingers poided on his firing controls. " All tube loaded, Target locked."

"Twenty-two lifeforms confirmed, all Romulans," said Elliago. "Brig ready to receive our guests for their little nap."

"Transporter lock active,' the Orion ops officer added.

 "Transferring auxiliary power to transporter energizer coils to facilitate multiple site-to-site transport's," David responded factually.

"Klingon torpedoes away!" announced Livingstone from his sensor readout. "Impact in five... four... three..."

"Fire!" Riker ordered.

Fifteen blobs of greenish lights shot out forward of the saucer-shaped starship, almost invisible in the shadow of the monstrous vessel against the backdrop of distant twinkling stars. Like one single broadside reminescent of those of ancient Earth sailing ships, all the torpedoes from both sides impacted the titanic mining ship as it had barely sent out a volley of it's unusual multi-headed missiles towards the Klingon convoy of warships. The photon detonation of the twenty-third did noticeable damage that the Borg regenerative capabilities would have dealt with readily; but it was utterly powerless against the much more massive destructive force of unexpected transphasic torpedoes of the twenty-fifth century; fifteen times what was needed to utterly destroy a massive Borg cube.

A seering, blinding light filled space like a miniature supernova suddenly exploding. As it receded, it barely left a cloud of atomized particles quickly dispersed by distant solar winds.

"Direct hit; target destroyed," reported Aron'Son without even a hint of emotion.

"Transport complete!" the green-skinned woman announced from her ops station. We got eighteen out of twenty-two."

"Bearing 180 mark 15, engaging maximum warp," the holographic helmsman said as the stars again shot from a brif flash into colored streaks of light.

"Klingons are powering down weapons, lowering shields and breaking their attack formation, resuming convoy order," the X'ell described from his readouts. "They are deploying sensor and communication probes to compensate for their damaged scanners. No scan is directed toward us. They are taking a course at warp 2, to 77 mark 12... straight towards the Donatu star system, Sir... as History, our History, recorded."

He then looked at an unfamiliar data stream on his computer monitor before looking back toward the command chair.

"T circuit confirms restoration of the timeline achieved at sixty-six percent."

There was like a sigh of relief filling the bridge although no one spoke or truly heard anything. But then, the charming voice of the Deltan doctor broke this brief moment of relief with the heavy echoes of doubt and puzzlement.

"Okay so... what's missing?"

It didn't take long for everyone to figure it out.

Ambassador Spock.

"Doctor, would you care to see to our guests," Syntron said with his usual level tone. 

"On my way," Elliago acknowledged, transfering his data feed to both Redding's and Livingstone's stations before heading for the turbolift.

"Mister Rogers, disengage DYCEP and start diagnostics, repairs and maintenance for our next slingshot maneuver. Mister Livingstone; calculate timewarp flight around the nearest star to the time coordinates of Ambassador's Spock appearance in this time period. Mister Philter, engage at warp 6 towards that star."

"That would be Beta Eridani, Captain, which in a decade from now will be part of the Klingon Empire before Donatu under the name Cursa," the X'Ell informed them.

"Engaging warp 6 bearing 277 mark 12," announced Philter before the stars started to streak by on the screen. "ETA five point three hours, present speed."

"Timewarp computation will be done by then," assured Livingstone.

*     *     *

"You are certain, Doctor?"

"Are you asking me about certainty on a philosophical level or a common sense level, Captain Sir?" 

The Vulcan refrained from sighing.

"Let's refrain form irrelevance for the moment, Doctor, and stay focused on a scientific level if you please."

"Well if it is facts you want, I can only give you analogies because what we have here is impossible to determine within the current conditions," Elliago answered much more seriously now. The best I can tell you is that the synapses of their brains has been... warped."

"You are familiar with Vulcanoid brain physiology I presume."

"Exomedecine is my specialty, Captain; hence why I served on a starship commanded by a mutant Andorian, the only Efrozian starship commander of Starfleet and now again with a most typical Vulcan. What our instruments are showing is at first glance standard brain activity of a Vulcanoid brain, with all it's complexities and layers. But there is a very subtle alteration showing in seemingly random patterns between some synaptic connections. It would have gone unnoticed if I hadn't been looking for them."

"What pointed you to that particular line of investigation?"

"Well, their behavior, especially that of their leader, this Nero. Like all his crew, he is a mutated Romulan to begin with, apparently affected by intense exposure to radiations and toxic substances over decades living on their sister planet Remus. Thta is most probably how the Reman offshoot of their species came about; Our guests show characteristics of both people, including the reawakening of psionic capabilities the more mainstream Romulans lost during their exodus from Vulcan and then their life on their new planetary environement and culture. And that is where the mystery starts. I could only find two specific references in Starfleet medical files of such brain structure and functions distorsion; both from Doctor Leonard H. McCoy, chief medical officier of the Constitution class USS Enterprise."

He activated the desk monitor in his CMO office to let the Vulcan read at his own amazing speed all the data while he sumrized it verbally.

"The first case happened on stardate 1704.2 while the Enterprise was orbiting a collapsing planet, Psi 2000. The unusual gravimetric forces altered some organic elements in the planet,s water and created an infection that deformed brain cells, causing rapid and severe dementia."

"Interesting; this is the same incident that provided the first experimentation of antimatter engine cold start as a possible method for time travel," Syntron observed. " I deduce that a cure was found for this ailment?"

"Yes, Sir; and it was successfully used again seventy-eight years later on the USS Enterprise D by CMO Beverly Crusher when their crew became also infected by that same effect, this time from a collapsing star. But in the case of our Romulans here, their condition is not due to an infection, despite similar symptoms; but, we did find them near a singularity, an artificially reproduced collapse of a star... and I found similar chemical reactions in their body liquids as the one found in the water of Psi 2000."

"You mentionned a second incident..."

The Deltan shifted the data to a new file on the computer terminal.

"This is again from the records of the USS Enterprise where Doctor McCoy served. Their ship in search of the lost USS Defiant entered what was then an uncharted area and now is known as the outer edge of the Tholian Assembly, riddled with transdimensional fractures that warped space. They also warped matter to the point of distorting brain structures, causing a severe delusional state leading to murdrous insanity in a relatively short period of time. This space rage could only be cured by removing the subject from the afflicting area before the damage became to deep or kept in check with an ingestive Klingon nerve gas derivative."

"And you see a correlation between this incident and the current state of our prisoners?"

"The scans shows the same physical damage in their brains and nervous system as what is recorded here. And I checked with Mister Livingstone's sensor records of the singularity that brought the Narada into this time period."

Now, he made the screen split between two sensor record graphic images. One was obviously quite old although of excellent quality and the other standard to current Starfleet technology. Both showed a colored pulsing and growing elliptical shape and a stream of numbers and data that were all strikingly similar.

"On the left is a record of a transdimensional fracture from the original sensor records of starship NCC-1701; on the right is a record of the singularity taken five hours ago by the sensors of starship NCC-80175... us."

"The measurements are significantly similar," realized the Vulcan instantly. " Since we are well aware that they could not have travelled through a black hole to begin with, it is therefore logical to assume that this is the phenomena that threw them back in time. It was caused by the spatial distorsion of an artificial black hole created without the actual mass of a star to support it; a fracture of space like the one that sent the Constitution class USS Defiant out of our universe. That distorsion of the fabric of space also altered their body chemistry and their brain structures?"

"That's my theory, if we are to explain all this and their absolutely insane state of mind. This Nero character is on an irrational muderous revenge quest against Ambassador Spock; he condems him for the destruction of his homeworld when he knows that he had nothing to do with the actual catastrophy and even more is the only one in the universe that actually did anything to help them; even managed to stop the Hobus supernova at the risk of his own life and career. Furthermore, he knows about his time displacement and, instead of using this to warn his people of their impending doom, or better yet, provide them with advanced technologies and knowledge to help them conquer the galaxy, he is obsessed with punishing someone that gave him that opportunity. It is beyond irrational behavior, even beyond insanity; it is absurd to the Nth degree. Only a warped and infected brain could think something like that."

"Is there a cure, Doctor? maybe a combination of both cures you spoke of?"

Well I better find one; because in all probability, Ambassador Spock will suffer from the same dementia when he will emerge from this same phenomena."

"It would explain his unbeleivably illogical behavior in letting this altered timeline exist and even contributing willingly to it." agreed Syntron. "Thank you, Doctor. I will inform our crew.

At that moment chirped his combadge. A tap brought the voice of Redding to call him to the bridge for their arrrival at Beta Eridani.