[sb118-khitomer] Lieutenant Charles Matthews - Breaking The Temporal Prime Directive
Shakeel Hussein
((Conference Room, Deck One, USS Khitomer))
Turning his attention to Lieutenant Zerva, Charlie let the report from the Trill Officer sink in. Of course, he was already aware of the details of all of their holographic simulations. The consensus there was that they needed to do better. He didn’t really need to hear all of that again. What piqued his interest was the briefest of brief reports on their visitors. Matthews had heard that there were words exchanged with a member of their group and now he had a name to pin to those words; Kael. He found it odd that people from the future, apparently, who seemingly wanted their help despite not making their intentions clear yet, would give them any sort of attitude other than a pleasant one. Annoying people wasn’t the best way to garner assistance. Without more to add, he shook his head as he shifted his focus away from Ezra and back towards Commander Hobart.
Charles: There is a lack of any real information, Sir. That is a threat in itself. Until we know more, it is difficult to speculate.
Korras / Harford / Any: Response
After listening to further discussions, he turned his head to the whooshing door that he himself had entered through not long ago. It almost felt like everyone moved in unison as the entrance parted; their movements similar to a herd of animals hearing a twig snap in the distance, waiting to see the threat that was stalking them. Was what was about to enter going to go for the jugular or play with them for a little before going for the kill? Were they at risk at all? Of course they were. The sense of trepidation hung in the recycled air of the Conference Room and Charlie felt his left hand inching across his leg, slowly reaching out towards the phaser waiting to be shot at any would-be assailants. It was only Captain Shayne entering the room with the trio of time travellers that stopped Matthews’ hand, for now, and he rested it where it had gotten to, his eyes narrowing on the scene unfolding in front of him.
Hobart: Oh, thank goodness. All present and accounted for, sir.
Kael: I hope you’ll hear us out Captain Shayne.
Admiral: He wouldn't have brought us here otherwise, Kael.
Charles felt his right eyebrow angle upwards.
oO So… this is Kael… Oo
Shayne / Korras / Harford / Any: Response
Kael: :indicating Ayemet: What’s her problem?
oO I don’t like him. Oo
Admiral: She's not your mother. Let's focus.
Ayemet: :Looking at the Admiral: Why are you here? Why the hostility?
Tori: Not hostile. Just tired still, right my love?
Zerva: ::muttering under his breath:: Let’s hope that’s all it is.
Shayne / Korras / Any: Response
Once again, he leant slowly towards Alix.
Charles: ::whispers:: You don’t happen to have your tricorder, do you? We could check the quantum signature right now.
Harford: Response
Kael: My apologies :pause: We’ve been through a lot, and it’s important that you listen to us. That you give us a fair hearing.
oO You have our attention. Keep acting like a brat and you’ll lose it. Oo
Admiral: We are your legacy. I'm Imogen Lacy, who you all call “Ginny.” Forty years from now, give or take, nobody does that anymore. This is Tori Semara, my best science expert, carrying on the work of her mother, Amelia. This is Kael Ohnari-Dewitt, our… technical specialist. ::clears throat:: We've come to hold back the tide in the war against the Alliance.
Ayemet: Not your responsibility. You can’t just go around changing history to a version that suits you. :: beat :: More sympathetically: I know something of the Sheliak, but what will happen will happen. WE can’t change history to our liking. How many misguided people have tried to do that?
Zerva: ::raising a brow:: I concur with the Counselor.
Hobart: A lot of folks want to make history. We only call them misguided when they fail.
Charles: With respect, Sir, making history is one thing. Changing history is something else entirely.
Shayne / Korras / Harford / Any: Response
Tori: This isn’t about likes and dislikes. This is about lives. More than you can imagine.
Dewitt: ::at Tori:: Have we lost the Isles?
Tori: Venthis, Emisa III, Theta 122… I’ve lost track. Planets they can’t even use. Simply, they hate carbon life. :: Beat :: We lost all contact with Starfleet over a year ago, and with Alliance ships crawling over the Isles, we have no reason to believe they haven’t kept pushing further.
This finally caught Charlie’s attention, and the reason for this temporal incursion finally started to become a little clearer. He raised his hand to his face, removing it from his weapon-sporting leg, and rubbed at the beard across his chin. Those planets, the lives lost. Potentially lost. Time travel was a tricky concept.
Kael: Captain. It’s not just the Isles. That’s just the starting point of what happens. The Admiral and Tori :pause: They have a plan that could change all of that.
Shayne / Korras / Harford / Any: Response
Admiral: The Lattice Alliance was, at this moment, losing. It may not feel like it to you, but they are. They were spread too thin, and cracks were forming. I saw classified reports that units were beginning to turn on each other. That's why, a week from now, they're going to raid a POW camp on Alpha Trionus II.
Zerva: ::beet:: What?!
Richard: :: Pulling out his tricorder and opening a notes app :: POW camp, Alpha Trionus two.
Ayemet: To what purpose?
Ohnari: A week?! That is all the time we have before...what, all out invasion?
Zerva: A week is barely enough time to prepare.
Charles: A week is no time to prepare. I mean, how long would it even take us to get there? Let alone prepare a defence plan.
Shayne / Korras / Harford / Any: Response
Admiral: They used overwhelming force, and it took six months before Starfleet figured out where they launched from. No survivors, orbital defenses completely destroyed. High ranking military official was the target, but that wasn't what mattered.
Ayemet: You can’t be serious.
Hobart: Lieutenant.
Dewitt: What matters then, Ens… Gin… ::quietly:: Admiral?
Charles shot a look at the Chief Engineer. He didn’t know the man all that well, despite gatecrashing his wedding when he’d first arrived from the Astraeus, but he wondered how he was feeling. On the outside, at the current moment in time, he came across as fairly controlled. Not as outwardly hostile as Ayemet, nor as awkward as Talia. Though, of course, appearances could be deceiving.
Admiral: A lowly quartermaster, a Tholian. Captured at the Siege of DS33, he proved to be a… unifying and stabilizing figure. Eventually, Supreme Leader. Unified the alliance, and conquered the Quadrant within a decade.
Zerva: From a year ago on Frontier Day?
El’Heem: Great man theory? You want us to kill baby Hitler?
Michaels: History is full of examples where a single strong leader dies and another rises up to take their place.
Richard: Even if you took the leader out before they rose to power. You haven’t done anything to stop the situations that are occurring right now to have set them up. Who is to say someone else doesn’t slot right into place. If assassination is your goal here I mean.
Zerva: It would be a derelict of my duties as a security officer if I didn’t bring this up. We were all taught about this at the Academy. We’ve all heard about the Constitution-class starship Captain who had at least 17 violations alone. Not to mention the Intrepid-class starship that first traveled in the Delta Quadrant with their own share of time travel problems and that's just two captains.
Charles: We’re already breaking the Temporal Prime Directive by discussing this. We were from the minute we let them onto the ship, or out of the Shuttlebay.
Any: Response
Tori: Sorry - who’s Hitler?
Hobart: Somebody worth strangling in the crib.
Any: Response?
Ayemet : Hitler was a 20th century dictator who was the leader of Germany on Earth. The war against him cost millions of lives.
El’Heem: What made ::pausing:: uhh makes this…Tholian so formidable?
Tori: He speaks fluent Sheliak.
Zerva: ::raising a brow:: How is that possible?
Charlie frowned. He could see how a Tholian able to communicate with a Sheliak on their terms was dangerous. Not many others could. This quartermaster could help them mobilise, radicalise others, there was no telling what he could do. Well, there was if you listened to Admiral Lacy. The Tholian would be responsible for rallying the Alliance, no doubt leading to an ongoing war that cost countless lives. So far, all Matthews could do was speculate because, despite the breadcrumbs of information, the crew of the Khitomer were still only being fed scraps.
Any: Response?
Tori: You have to understand that, at this time, no member of any species has ever learned the Sheliak language. Even telepaths can’t understand them. It's part of what their sense of superiority is built on. But Tholians being imprisoned side-by-side with Sheliak created a unique environment for one to learn the language. His book will be the first published in their language by an alien to their culture. He will be the first non-Sheliak to deliver addresses in the language. Factor in his radicalization during his imprisonment, and he’s going to become a force of uniting hatred the likes of which this quadrant has never seen.
Tori: Tholian and Sheliak units don’t combine outside of Federation prison. It’s possible there will never be another like him.
Michaels: That is possible. But, it is not impossible that there will be several more like him. Based on what you said, every Tholian or Sheliak in that prison is a candidate.
Ohnari: While I can understand how dangerous an extremely charismatic opportunist can be...how are we certain that this particular Tholian is the linchpin?
Admiral: Because of the dramatic change in fortune upon its rise. The Alliance simply… got better at choosing battles, supplying its forces.
Zerva: ::muttering mostly to himself:: And they weren’t already?
Any: Response?
Michaels: I have a question. ::beat:: A two part question. ::beat:: I confess that I do not understand the equations and engineering around time travel or inter-multiverse travel. I will concede that your version of the Ouachita is capable of both. You could have travelled to anywhere in space and time. Why did you pick this place, in a nebula that makes detection difficult, and this time? If the quartermaster is the critical individual, why not travel to DS33 during the siege, where there were numerous dead Tholians, and kill him there?
Kael: Traveling through time ain't like dusting crops! Without precise calculations we could fly right through a star or bounce too close to a supernova, and that'd end our trip real quick, wouldn't it?
Lieutenant Matthews shifted uncomfortably in his chair, glaring at the snappy little upstart.
oO Right. I really don’t like you. Oo
Zerva: ::shifts in his seat muttering:: Like we're supposed to know you can travel back in time in less than 12 seconds.
Ohnari: ::snapping:: Kael. Give the Lieutenant some grace, we're all just trying to come to terms with...::her hands gestured to the trio:: and how it came to pass.
Charles switched his focus from Kael to Doctor Ohnari and let the glare continue, even if it did soften a little. The way she snapped at him was concerning. Was she already playing the part of his mother? In Matthews’ mind, she wasn’t. A version of her might be, one day, but not yet, and he gently started to chew at his lower lip. He thought back to the turbolift journey on the way to the Bridge, telling Ras and Richard that it was convenient who had been sent back with the Admiral, and the way the situation was going was only reinforcing his concerns that the highest ranking Officers may have been emotionally targeted.
TAGS/TBC
---
Tactical Officer
USS Khitomer NCC-62400
A240012CM1