LtCmdr Connor Dewitt - Children of Time
Tim
((Conference Room, Deck 1, USS Khitomer))
Connor arrived just moments before the doors closed, sliding into his seat with a barely concealed sigh. He still smelled faintly of scorched plastic from recalibrating the dispersion array’s relays, and his thoughts hadn’t stopped spinning since he had talked to Talia.
Kael’s voice. Ginny’s face. Forty years. He hadn’t even come close to sorting through what any of that meant.
Across the table, Ras El’Heem was already engaging with Amelia. Connor studied them quietly, his brain lost in thought. He rubbed the side of his neck, still thinking about how Kael had addressed him earlier. He barely noticed that Lera was sliding into the seat next to his as Nolen started the weirdest meeting they might ever have.
Hobart: How long until we reach Deep Space 33, Lieutenant Korras?
Korras: Response
Connor leaned forward slightly. DS33 could not come soon enough. Just being out of the nebula might help them all breathe again.
Hobart: No lingering effects on the ship?
Connor: Aside from the collective existential crisis? Nothing on sensors. The SDA’s prepared, Ensign Banks and I are going to operate it, if it becomes necessary.
Banks: Response
Michaels: Between the efforts of Science :: nodding toward both El'Heem and Semara :: and Engineering, the ship is ready.
Nolen’s presence might have grounded the room, but for Connor, it only deepened the weight in his chest. He had not looked Nolen in the eye since he sat down. He could not. Not after what Kael’s existence implied. The idea that something would tear them apart… that someday, somehow, he and Talia would be the ones left standing… It made the silence between them feel too loud.
Hobart: Any insight as to where the runabout came from, yet?
Semara / Richard: Response
El’Heem: Well ::pausing:: Yeah. Yeah…forty years into ::lifting his hands palms up and dropping them onto the table:: the future.
Michaels: Perhaps not necessarily our future.
Connor felt the lump in his stomach grow as he shot Talia a look of guilt.
Hobart: And, how's everybody feeling?
Feeling? What a question.
Ohnari / Harford / Ayemet: Response
Hobart: Any… threats?
Connor shook his head, even if the question was not directed at him. He briefly looked at his wife, tried to give her a smile. Something reassuring. He wanted to leave this place. Now. Just take her to Bajor, start building that house. Yet, he knew that that might only be the reason why she was not around in fourty years anymore.
Charles / Zerva: Response
And then the doors opened.
The sound was subtle, but the effect was immediate like a cold breeze. Everyone straightened, the air turning thick as the guests arrived.
Hobart: Oh, thank goodness. All present and accounted for, sir.
Connor did not turn to stare. He did not have to. He could feel Kael’s presence the second he entered.
Kael: I hope you’ll hear us out Captain Shayne.
Connor heard his own inflections there. His own posture. Kael stood like someone trained by Starfleet. Maybe trained by him.
Admiral: He wouldn't have brought us here otherwise, Kael.
And then he looked at Ginny again. Imogen Lacy. Older, yes, but there was no mistaking her. He had worked beside Ginny for years. This woman was her.
Shayne / Tori: Response
Kael: :indicating Ayemet: What’s her problem?
Connor’s stomach turned. He saw the flicker in Ayemet’s eyes.
Admiral: She's not your mother. Let's focus.
Ayemet / Hobart / Shayne / Tori: Response
Connor resisted the urge to glance at Talia. The meeting they were about to sit through was going to shake more than just protocols.
Kael: My apologies :pause: We’ve been through alot, and it’s important that you listen to us. That you give us a fair hearing.
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.
Connor blinked. Ohnari-Dewitt. They had made it official, then. Or maybe Kael had taken the name himself. It didn’t matter. Not right now. He pushed the thoughts away. His eyes briefly went to Amelia probably having her own version of a nightmare right now. He would have tried to offer help if he would not have been in this up to his neck.
Dewitt: ::at Tori:: Have we lost the Isles?
Tori: Response
Any: Response
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.
A plan. A war. A mission. Why did it feel like he’d stepped into someone else’s story?
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.
What did it all have to do with them?
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.
The room was quiet, listening, absorbing.
Any: Response
Dewitt: What matters then, Ens… Gin… ::quietly:: Admiral?
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.
Connor leaned forward slightly, rubbing his forehead. A Tholian warlord rising from a POW camp? The butterfly effect was starting to feel more like a hurricane.
And then, like puzzle pieces falling into place, and he started to understand.
Ginny had not just brought them the other two because they were brilliant or good at what they did. It was about trust. She had also brought them because she knew that they needed some proof that her story was the truth.
Connor’s eyes flicked to Kael. The boy. His son. It all made sense.
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.
Connor listened quietly.
Any: Response
El’Heem: What made ::pausing:: uhh makes this…Tholian so formidable?
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 Ouchita 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 seige, where there were numerous dead Tholians, and kill him there?
Tori/Kael/Admiral: Response
Connor’s mind had already accepted what the older Ginny was saying. It was a truth he didn’t like, one that sat heavy and cold in his gut, but it was still a truth, and they had no choice but to work with her. If they could change something in her history, maybe… just maybe Ayemet wouldn’t leave him. Wouldn’t die.
But the thought came with its own knife-edge. Because if they succeeded, if they stopped that path from ever happening, Kael might never exist. The idea hit him harder than he expected. It was an ache like losing a child he had never known but somehow already felt connected to.
He tried to shake it off.
Connor: So what is the exact plan, then, Ginny?
Admiral: Response
Any: Response
TAG/TBC
LtCmdr Connor Dewitt
Chief Engineer & Second Officer
USS Khitomer
A239901CD3