Ancient History

Posted on Wed Oct 1st, 2025 @ 9:59pm by Commodore Jacob Kane & Lieutenant Commander P’rel M.D & Lieutenant Didrea Zade

Mission: Aeon's End
Location: USS Athena - Intelligence Hub
Timeline: MD-01: After "Meeting in the Middle"
1626 words - 3.3 OF Standard Post Measure

The data packets from the 'future' USS Athena were already trickling through over the two ships' paired networks. Not much had changed over the years, and their computers were very much still compatible. Although having told Zora, Keating and Ryan to coordinate repairs, Kane's brain was already looking several steps ahead.

Walking into the Intelligence hub, he caught sight of P'rel already poring over a screen while Lt Zade was perched nearby. She still looked a little battered from the incident on the moon, but this work would likely require her mind more than anything else.

"P'rel. Zade." He motioned to the large computer in the middle of the room. "I realise we have all kinds of other issues to attend to at present, but based on our earlier briefings I'm sure you'll understand." He pointed to the data stream that was slowly filling up the various monitors. "Twelve years of data. History, to the people on that other ship."

He took a few steps around the large table.

"I fully intend for this USS Athena to return to our own time and our own Starfleet. And when we do, I want us armed with twelve years' worth of knowledge and insight. Enough to make sure the Federation is protected." He fixed P'rel with a firm look, knowing that she would understand the depth of that. "In these gigaquads of data are clues: Battles that were fought, technologies, enemies and allies. Everything we might need to prevent this future from coming to pass. And I want you two to find it."

It took a lot of convincing to get out of sickbay. After the concussion symptoms flared up during the explosion that rocked the ship, Zade and Ame returned to that sterile hell. The dizziness she had felt after protecting Ame ended up not causing problems, which was a relief, however the medical staff reiterated the importance of not overexerting herself. It was around that time that injured started coming to sickbay, and the chatter in the room told Zade that the crew had no idea what happened and where they were. It was reason enough for her to insist that she get to work. What followed was a decent verbal fight with the medical staff that the Trill probably only won because they had to attend to the growing number of injured. She was sure Kane would eventually receive a complaint, but in the short term she got to be useful again. The redirection to the intelligence suite came not long after she left sickbay, and while it was a closer destination than the bridge, the damage didn't make it any easier.

There were small signs that Zade was ever on medical leave. The most obvious was the brace supporting her mostly healed leg, the black material warping the fabric of her uniform pants since it was slightly too bulky hide underneath. A subtle bump on her shoulder hinted to the device used to remotely monitor her vitals and administer medication. A faint, general exhaustion lingered on her face, as if she had been trying to catch up on sleep. There was subtle tension over having to be in the same room as P'Rel after the Vulcan grilled her for some emotional response the other day, but thankfully the focus was entirely on their new problem.

"What will we do about the Temporal Prime Directive," Zade asked Kane. She straightened a little when he entered, but knew there was some grace given her condition. Her "perch" was a console she was leaning against that was as close as she cared to be to the intelligence officer, weight clearly shifted to her good leg. A chair was nearby, but she had only used it to rest for a minute upon arrival. "I won't pretend to understand the complexities of time travel, but I do know that changing a known future can bring significant risk."

P'rel remained silent for a moment. Considering the variables, weighing the moralities and perspectives, setting what should be against what was. Since being briefed, she was unsure of her logic on this matter, her thoughts and feelings swirled in a conflicting maelstrom. The Federation deserved this. The hubris, the arrogance, the endless militarism and galactic imperialism veiled behind the pleasant veneer of cooperation and mutuality.

Though.

People. People were dying. Had died. Vulcan, gone. Earth, gone. Trillions of souls simply evaporated into the nothingness of history, so many dead there weren't enough left alive to remember them. There were few species with the cognitive abilities to truly comprehend large numbers; certainly everyone could say them, and write them down, but to actually comprehend trillions so easily a dozens...Vulcans and nearly Vulcans alone had this curse. Real people did not deserve the punishments inflicted by the sinister machinations of the Federation government. Starfleet. Built to protect from that which it provoked. A dismal irony, an inevitable prophecy, played out to the deaths of a thousand lights in a thousand night time skies.

"It does not matter" she concluded aloud. "However this future has come to be. It cannot be allowed to remain". She looked over to the Commodore; "of this we must all be certain".

"It does matter," Kane corrected sharply. "Lieutenant Zade is absolutely correct; a small change in the past and this future could become exponentially worse. A temporal butterfly effect." He rapped a knuckle on the console, a brief expression of frustration at the decision he was being forced to make. "I'm not saying we're going to make wholesale changes. But we have to look, and we have to understand the mistakes that they made before we can really make that decision."

P'rel straightened up, unused to being chastised by the Commodore. It wasn't so much that they were close, though they rarely disagreed and Kane respected the Vulcan's way of getting things done; likewise she respected his moral compass. The sharp tone from the Commodore had therefore taken her mildly by surprise. She wanted to ask him how exactly he thought it could get any worse without wholesale changes, though she thought better of it. 'So the Federation is protected' he had said, when he shot her that look and gave her his instructions, as if Kane himself were a telepath. "Given the scale of the past twelve years, wholesale changes may be our only option" she said, rephrasing her thoughts as they left her mouth. "Did the other K-Did the Admiral give you any indication where these things originate from?"

"He kept the information limited, for now. Our priority was and is to make our ship mobile and less of a sitting duck," Kane responded. "The information should be there in the database, which is why I'm asking for you to unpack it."

While the other two talked, Zade looked at the display, taking in information that felt wrong to know. Entire planets, gone. Fleets, destroyed. As horrifying as this future was, preventing it from happening wasn't as easy as making the opposite decision. She had acquired a PaDD to take notes, and her attention alternated between two sources of information. "We probably don't need to know every significant event over the entire twelve years, right? We'd just need to know when the first critical moments of this..." It was a dramatic underestimation to call it a 'war,' so Zade thought for a couple seconds for a reasonable alternative. They had only seen a fraction of the twelve years so far, and it was already beyond words. "... this invasion happened, what they were, and the events that led up to them. It's worth keeping track of the events that followed those first moments, in case changes made to this timeline delay the invasion instead of prevent it."

"A forecast," Kane noted thoughtfully. "Some sort of measuring stick to check how much or little we have diverged from 'this' timeline?" He paused. "That would be a start, perhaps. But one thing at a time; we've got to work out a way home first."

"Has Lieutenant Ryan or her team been able to give us any indication as yet, as to how we came to be here?" P'rel asked of Kane, assuming her colleagues were similarly minded that to get home they had to understand what removed them from time in the first place. As she spoke, her eyes flicked across the main screen and it's various scrolling and panning database feeds from the other Athena; there was so much to pick out from however, and even if they could find some definitive origin point for the Imperative forces, actually then stopping them in their own time was a different issue entirely.

"Something to do with the Quantum Slipstream's reaction to the anomaly in the Planet Killer," Kane explained. She likely should've known better than to ask him a 'science' question, but he was starting to learn it was her way of distracting him. Or perhaps making him less interested so he'd leave them alone to work. "The details aren't my concern. Getting it reversed is. I'll rely on the scientists to work on that part." He stepped away from the console. "Have your initial reports ready in the next couple of hours."

"Sir" P'rel replied, noting he was not himself. Then again who would be. She wondered her own reaction if she met her counterpart, and filed a mental note in the midst of all this to actually check on what she was up to. She worried about him, though. The situation was unique, and Kane had the weight of the past, and with it the galaxy's future, rested firmly on his shoulders.