Season 5: Episode 3 TBR067 – Time and Again

 

Back on course to the coordinates that they had been given by Admiral Carter the ships communications array registered a distress call… Just! Between engineering and operations, they were able to reconfigure the array to better receive the signal and in doing so discovered that it was not only out of phase but also had a different quantum signature than it should do… If it were sent from this universe. It was clear that not only had the message been sent from a different universe but that there was a temporal variance suggesting time travel. Which of course is their favourite subject! However, if this wasn’t enough to pique their interest the message carrier was Federation in origin, Pax set course.

 

As the signal had been of sufficient strength they knew where it had been sent from and after an hour at warp. Along route, however they discover a second distress signal coming from a planet along the same route as the original distress call. It was only blind luck that this second signal had been between the Potemkin and the first, otherwise they would have found it sooner. They investigate the second signal and they arrived in orbit around an M class world. Further narrowing down the signal’s location to a half mile long debris field on the planets southern hemisphere they quickly determine that is used to be a starfleet shuttlecraft. Little remained beyond the black box, Pax orders an away team, nevertheless. The crash is of interest given the apparent Federation origin is enough to warrant any risk. With Ellie in command the Doc, Basin, Tobias and Simora assemble in the transporter room and beam down into a dense forest.

 

They determined that the crash was only year, or so old given the growth of the vegetation around the debris but they are quick to find the black box and interface it with their tricorders. The debris was from the Shuttle Ellipse 03 from the Starship Equinox. According to the records the Equinox had disappeared a little while before and in the same location as Voyager had, it was years later that the two vessels would meet in the Delta Quadrant, it resulted in the destruction of the Equinox after it was discovered the crew had been using the corpses of an alien species to power an advanced type of warp drive.

 

The Shuttle had been destroyed before that final fateful moment though. Attacked in orbit by another species it had lost a nacelle and plummeted down and crashed, killing both crew members aboard. Elli requested that the debris be beamed aboard the Potemkin for further analysis and Pax obliged, along with the away team the remains of the shuttle were beamed aboard.

 

As soon as everything and everyone has been beamed to the ship, they resume their course to the location of the temporal signature. Strangely the signal is coming from a region in deep space. Light years from the nearest star system. Before them was an extensive debris field consisting of Krenim, Nihydron, Mawasi and Federation vessels. Their scans indicate that at least 8 vessels were represented here. Residual energy traces point to towards this being a battle and from the readings 7 of those ships were firing at a single massive Krenim ship.

 

Pinpointing a section of debris belonging to the sole federation ship Elli discovers that it is part of the communications array of the USS Voyager. They find the rest of Voyager within the debris, enough to make the conclusion that the ship was destroyed in this battle. However, their own records and memories still tell them that the Starship Voyager got home.

 

Taking a shuttle, the away team find a large hulk of debris belonging to a Nihydron cruiser. Scans reveal that the hull is saturated with chroniton particles; the structure was very similar to standard graviton-based deflector shields effect the hull. It suggests that the Nihydron vessel had employed some time of Temporal shielding. Although the why is unknown. Checking other still airtight debris hulks they find Federation technology within. Finding an intact, though badly damaged computer core they are able pull together the final 5 minutes before the ship was destroyed. Sensor readings show a single massive Krenim firing some kind of powerful temporal-based weapon which seems to ‘push’ a vessel out of the timeline. The other ships are firing upon the Krenim, and it quickly switched to a more conventional weapons is able to disable or destroy all of Voyagers support. The final few seconds show Voyager striking the Krenim ship and both vessels exploding into a huge fireball and shock wave that broke up the remaining ship.

A little more data can be pulled from the computer, it is analysed on the Potemkin. The Krenim ship was over 200 years old, and yet brand new; the temporal shielding removed it from the timeline just enough to stop it and her crew from aging, their mission had been to return the Krenim Imperium to the height of its power, they fell short each time and were never able to return the Imperium to the power it once had.

It was a mystery for sure, and one that was likely unknown even to Voyager who had lived through it… in at least one timeline.