Commander Nereda’s eyes narrowed as she tracked the anomaly. The ‘blip,’ as a human ensign had called it, formed, rippled, and then disappeared.

“You see, Ma’am?” Lieutenant Ibori said, pointing the anomaly out. “It happens again, here. The readings are very strange.”

“I see it, Ayobami,” Nereda said. She straightened and tapped her combadge, summoning Captain Walker from his ready room.

“Take a look at this, Ben,” Nereda said when Walker joined them. “Play it back, Lieutenant.”

They watched the ‘blip’ ripple across time and space again. In the time it existed, ten minutes in some eras and upwards of seventy in others, it would have caused untold chaos on anything unfortunate enough to be caught in its effects.

“Have either of you seen something like this before?” Lieutenant Ibori asked.

“I have, Lieutenant,” Walker answered. “There will be a secondary point somewhere in time.”

Nereda cursed. “I was hoping it wasn’t one of those,” she explained to the Lieutenant. She bent to the display and began to input a series of parameters, speaking as she worked. “Anomalies like this have two points in time they affect. Closing one might stop the other, or it might make it worse. Usually the primary source is easy to find, but the secondary is often hidden by the first.”

“Can you find it, Nereda?”

The Cardassian scowled at the datasets. “No sir, not yet.”

“Is this very dangerous?” the lieutenant asked.

“It can be,” Walker told her. “Anomalies like these grow over time, getting larger and stronger as the temporal interference waves grow. They can age materials decades or more for every second, or revert matter to its elemental components. I’ve seen solid rock reverted to primordial lava and half a strand of saplings suddenly become trees more than a century old. Temporal anomalies of this sort are some of the most dangerous because they’re unpredictable.”

He pointed out the data she’d found. “You did good work finding this one when you did.” He smiled at the younger officer. “With any luck, we’ll be able to find the secondary anomaly before it gets worse. “ He looked over at Nereda. “Find anything?”

“No, sir,” Nereda said. She straightened and turned her speculative look from the data displays to Walker. “I think we might need some help on this one.”

“Daniels?”

“Daniels.”

Walker nodded. “I’ll call him in.”

***

Agent Daniels greeted both Walker and Nereda warmly when he arrived on the U.S.S. Pastak. “What are we looking at, Ben?”

“Primary-secondary temporal interference wave with class two ripples on the primary. Secondary unknown, suspected as being class seven or higher given how long we think this has gone on for,” Captain Walker answered bringing the display up on his ready room wall.

“Class two? On the primary?” Daniels frowned and began to page through the temporal displays. “Whoever is at the secondary location is in for a rough time.”

“If anyone else there is still alive,” Nereda commented. “And the activity is jumping in frequency. According to our models and past observation, this has probably been going on for decades.” She sent the latest report to the large display for Daniels to see.

“This is going to be a problem,” Daniels said.

“It is,” Walker agreed gravely.

“Our Primary location isn’t seeing as much of the constructive interference as the aberrant secondary is, but it will affect her. She’s an admiral and being the center of a temporal disturbance is going to put a lot of people at risk,” Daniels said.

“We’re not even sure where the aberrant is,” Nereda said with a renewed scowl. “We scoured our datasets but came up with nothing – no sign in history of anything, and we haven’t been able to find any large incursions with the Pastak’s sensors. We were lucky we even saw this much activity at the Admiral’s location to alert us to the trouble.” She shook her head, frustrated with the lack of progress. “If we can find her, we can integrate the two together and stabilize time, but until we find the secondary source we’re looking at a potentially deadly scenario in the heart of Starfleet.”

“We’re going to have to engage with the temporal locals to find out where our missing aberrant secondary might be. We thought you might have some ideas of where to look for more information,” Walker said.

Daniels answered Walker as he continued to examine the data. “I have a few. Don’t worry Ben, I’ll find our secondary source.”

Walker let out a relieved breath. “Good. We were hoping you could help. You can see it’s accelerating so we don’t have much time. The Pastak will contact the Primary Admiral T’Nae. You find our secondary, and we’ll be able to handle the rest.”

Daniels nodded, as he copied the data to his personal PADD. He turned to Nereda and Walker with a small smile. “I’m going to need a local hand myself, but I think I have just the captain in mind.”

Kate Bankson

Staff Content Designer

Cryptic Studios