Vice Admiral Quinn Reynolds - Echoes of the Past
Quinn Reynolds
((Shuttlebay 2, USS Gorkon))
Quinn heard something. A vibration, thumping against her eardrum, which didn’t come from tremors in the air, but... something else. It was hard to process, uncomfortable to listen to, her brain like the inside of a bell being rung. The hybrid straightened, chin lifting, fighting against the distinct sensation of ice drawn up the length of her spine and claws digging into her shoulders.
The sound was so oppressive it muffled everything else. She could hear alarms screeching, but it was as though they were coming through deep water, flat and bass. The security team were reacting, lifting their weapons, but it was useless. There was nothing to shoot. Around the shuttle, space-time itself was flexing and rippling, battering the walls of the isolation field.
And then it crashed past them.
The deck itself surged like the sea, sending bodies and equipment flying. Lifted off her feet, Quinn barely felt the weightlessness of unwelcome flight before she slammed into the unyielding wall of the cargo bay. With a cry of belated surprise and pain, she dropped to the once again solid deck, scuffed and filthy. Clutching at her shoulder, she looked up, her words stolen by the sight in front of her.
Conduits and wiring hung in ropes from the ceiling, the lighting flickered when it worked at all, and huge sections of the wall panels were missing. A stale stench of ozone and grease permeated the cold air. What shuttles remained looked as though they had been gutted inside out, some barely more than space frames and tubing. The Kerla wasn’t there at all, in skeleton or in spirit.
She hadn’t seen the Gorkon like this since... since they were Over There.
Gnaxac: By the Exch-ch-ch-chequer…
Sevo: Ungh…
Reynolds: Everyone—::she grunted softly, a burst of pain her reward for struggling to her feet::—everyone sound off if you’re still alive. Let’s get a head count.
While she waited for the verbal responses, Quinn cast her eyes around the crew in the shuttlebay. The security and medical teams were dragging themselves back upright, a rainbow of pain and confusion prisiming across their faces. She heard retching, and glanced over to see Gnaxac fighting to keep his stomach contents down. The cause was an unfortunate man whose arm was badly broken, Tahna also looking on with an expression of mild horror.
The pair of them hadn’t escaped injury, either. Tahna winced as she pushed back to her feet, cradling her wrist to her midriff. Gnaxac’s ear and forehead flowed with fresh blood, glistening in the dim light as he bent to retrieve his engineering kit.
Gnaxac: I’m here, a-a-a-a-and I’m alive.
Tahna: I’m mostly functional.
Sevo: Mostly unharmed, but definitely have injuries I didn’t have before.
Looking across toward Sevo, Quinn’s heart stopped and restarted with weighty thumps. Before, the Trill had still been wearing her dress uniform, pressed and perfectly prim from head to toe. Now she was down to a worn, grimy grey undershirt, her uniform trousers faring no better. She remembered when the Trill had last looked like that, and her brain rebelled against the evidence piling up in front of them.
Instead, she looked toward the medical team, gesturing toward the unconscious security officer with a jerk of her head. He was, at present, the most obviously and seriously injured, though they’d all need a scan to ensure that was true. In the corner of her eye, she saw the other two officers move for their tricorders. Gnaxac pulled his from his engineering kit, while Tahna moved toward where hers had been thrown. Still cradling her injured arm, she left it on the deck and crouched to use it one-handed.
Gnaxac: D-d-d-did anyone see what happened? Scans sug-g-g-gest that something went down with their shields.
Tahna responded with a shake of her head, and Sevo winced as she clambered back onto her feet. The medics walked and limped their way toward those who looked worse off, tricorders in hand and treatment kits ready to go. With no intention of hurrying them, she—and her shoulder—hoped they’d get around to her sooner rather than later.
Sevo: Either the isolation field collapsed on its own, or that blast was too strong for it to hold and it burst through.
Reynolds: Isolation fields don’t spontaneously collapse. ::She shook her head.:: It had to be the... whatever the hell that was.
Tahna: I’m reading a massive spike in chronitons and a smaller spike in tetryons, coinciding with the shockwave.
Sevo: Yeah, that’s what happens when you time travel.
Gnaxac: T-t-t-time travel?
The question was whether they had travelled to the past, or the past had travelled to them. Ayiana’s appearance and belongings had shifted to match the time but she was still the Ayiana of the present. But Quinn still wore her modern uniform, and of course, there were all the security officers and medics from their present still... well, present.
Reynolds: Or something like that.
Tahna: Do we have a way to know that the present timeline wasn’t wrapped up in there somewhere?
While Sevo and Gnaxac conducted scans with their tricorders, Quinn pondered the question. They didn’t even know what the present timeline inside the shuttle might have been, let alone if it had been among the tangle. Temporal mechanics was a slippery eel at the best of times, and their situation was a particularly complex one. Though the shift seemed massive, there were hints and signs that it wasn’t as complete as it first appeared.
Sevo: We don’t even know how it was working in the first place. I have no idea.
Gnaxac: Oh g-g-g-good.
Tahna: We’re currently experiencing smaller spikes in chronitons and tetryons. It looks like ripples in a pond of space-time.
Sevo: So it’s possible this phenomenon has extended outside the bay, possibly the entire ship.
Their Ferengi engineer looked at Quinn, his boyish features twisted in confusion.
Gnaxac: D-d-d-do you think the whole ship is like… ::he gestured to the nearest damage:: this?
Reynolds: I don’t know.
Her steps cautious and light on the scarred deck, Sevo navigated herself toward where the Kerla had parked. Tricorder chirping, she scanned the area, and Gnaxac peeked over the crook of her elbow to see the results.
Sevo: The concentration is highest at this spot, where the Kerla was. It was definitely the source.
That seemed obvious, but in situations like this, it was best to assume nothing and confirm everything. But with the Kerla no longer there, how did they undo this not-so-merry mess and get back to where they were supposed to be? Quinn’s head was spinning thinking about the implications—if they could get back, would they get back to the moment they’d left, or would time have passed? Would they return to find Palanon nothing more than asteroids?
And that was before she thought about what it meant to be back... here.
The little Jacob girl might already be dead. Kael was alive. She swallowed, hard, and clenched her fingers into a ball, pressing it against her stomach.
Tahna: Response
Gnaxac: When are w-w-w-we, d-d-d-d-do you think?
Sevo: We’ve gone back about 6 years. At this time, the Gorkon was trapped in a parallel universe. The Dominion had won the war, and we were being hunted. This—::she gestured around::—is the result of several months of continual attacks and lack of safe harbour. It was… ::she paused, her eyes distant, and her voice was low when she continued,:: …a very difficult time.
Tahna: Response
Sevo: Ow! ::She grunted in pain, grabbing her left forearm.:: I’m not sure if my injuries are fresh from the explosion, or if these are from this time. Could those of us that were here have jumped into our past selves?
Taking a breath, she wrested back control of a quivering heart and thorny throat. Dwelling on her personal regrets and losses wouldn’t help anyone. She could cry into Walter’s arms later, squirm in Corliss’ counselling rooms once the crisis was over. Put it in a box, seal it away, and become Pandora when the world wasn’t ending.
Reynolds: I don’t think it was an explosion, at least not in the conventional sense. No one has shrapnel wounds or burns. I think it was more like... a tsunami or a hurricane, throwing us around until it passed.
Gnaxac: In my exp-p-p-perience, t-t-t-time travel separates out the travellers. Which means that p-p-past Sevo and p-p-past Reynolds could be around here somewhere…
Nervous eyes darted about, as if he expected one or both to step out of the gloom. Unlikely. She’d never had much reason to visit the secondary shuttlebay, especially once they’d lost so many of their shuttles. The Quinn of this time period spent most of her time shuttling between the bridge and her ready room—planning, eating, sleeping, and crying in the latter, where no one could see her.
Reynolds: Maybe.
Tahna/Sevo: Response
Gnaxac: D-d-do you remember meeting f-f-f-future versions of yourselves? Or is this an alt-t-ter the timeline deal?
Reynolds: I’m not sure it’s either. We were on the opposite side of the galaxy, in a different universe, when this happened. Space-time isn’t so easily untangled, especially when it’s across realities. This seems more like a temporal echo—::she gestured toward the Trill::—hence the inconsistent effects.
Tahna/Sevo: Response
Though she didn’t know if being an echo of a time made it less dangerous than the time itself. While it was clear this was during the Gorkon’s time Over There, it was hard to get more specific than that. Toward the end, perhaps, but that could mean they were bargaining with Romulans or beginning the last, desperate sprint toward home.
Reynolds: Echoes fade once you stop making the sound. So if the Kerla is still the locus of this event, we need to silence it. The question is whether we need to work with the Kerla was—::she gestured toward the empty spot on the deck::—or where it is in this echo.
Sevo/Tahna/Gnaxac: Response
Reynolds: I don’t know. Maybe the whole ship is affected. Or only parts of it. Or different parts of it might be experiencing different echoes.
Sevo/Tahna/Gnaxac: Response
Commanding Officer
USS Gorkon
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