Cerulean Stars - Chapter 116

Chapter 116

Stardate 48492.6 - June 29, 2371 - 19:10:33

The Asari hadn't wanted to come on board, but over a decade fighting the Cardassians had instilled a healthy sense of caution in Nerys, so she wasn't going to just believe the woman without at least some proof of her identity.

Thankfully they had the holographic doctor on board which could run the necessary comparative analysis. Which was why their guest was currently sitting on a biobed as the hologram ran a medical scanner across the other woman's form.

“I really shouldn't be here.” The Asari muttered, eyeing them all with a nervousness that seemed out of place on the taller woman.

Nerys rolled her eyes. “You keep saying that.”

“I keep saying it because it's true!” The Asari snapped.

“Then maybe you should tell them why.” The hologram offered testilly as he set the scanner down and grabbed a hypospray. “Arm.”

The Asari unzipped her jacket and shrugged off the garment to reveal she was only wearing a moderately tight tank top underneath. 

“Assuming everything checks out.” The hologram began in a cheerful tone as he pressed the hypo to her arm. “This will certainly provide a useful datapoint for the progression of the Asari lifecycle.”

“Yeah yeah.” The Asari groused. “Laugh it up. I finally matched Jadzia in height and it came with an extra cup size.”

The doctor pulled an ampule full of purple blood out of the hypospray and inserted it into an analyzer. “Actually I'd say you were about one point two centimeters taller than Lieutenant Dax and about one and a half sizes larger than your past self.”

Nerys just barely kept herself from wincing as she glanced down at the other then Asari's chest. They weren't disproportionately large for her frame thankfully, but it was clear she had moved rather firmly into Dabo girl territory.

“So you've confirmed it's Commander Brooks?” She asked, focusing on the more important part of what the doctor had just said.

“Her DNA and Trellium node locations match.” The hologram confirmed with a nod. “Though in the latters case I'm reading an increased density compared to her younger self.”

“Nearly three hundred fifty years will do that.” Brooks muttered as she pulled her jacket back on. “Now how about we get me off this ship before the timeline adjusts again and I'm stuck here.”

“What happened to Commander Sisko and the others?” O'Brien suddenly asked, beating Nerys to the question by mere moments.

“Dead.” Brooks said simply. “Sisko was killed on Earth while we were trying to hitch a ride off world. Jadzia went the way of Curzon while on Risa at the ripe old age of ninety two. Dax is currently trying to hold this timelines version of the Federation together in her great great great granddaughter. And Julian died of old age on Denobula shortly before his one hundred twenty-sixth birthday.”

“A hundred twenty six?” O'Brien repeated, sounding almost offended at the thought.

“He had really good genes.” Brooks returned with a shrug. “And it wasn't like any of us had a reason to try and maintain the timeline once the Eugenics war wiped out all human life on Earth. So he spent pretty much his whole life doing his level best to push forward the general level of medical technology.”

That didn't even remotely surprise Nerys, though it did leave her to wonder what Brooks herself had been doing all these years given just how proactive the Asari tended to be.

“Sounds like him all right.” O'Brien muttered thoughtfully, only for his eyes to go wide a moment later as everything else Brooks said registered. “The Eugenics war wiped out all life on Earth!?”

“All human life.” Brooks corrected with a sigh, hopping off the biobed and rolling her shoulders slightly before shooting Nerys a severe look. “As far as we were able to piece together after the fact, someone released a bioweapon and it was over in a matter of weeks. But none of this really matters because you’re going to undo it by rescuing us before we screw things up so badly the timeline can’t compensate.”

Running through just what following along with Brooks plan would entail, Nerys found herself frowning as several rather obvious problems came to the fore. “If you tell us what we need to know to fix things, but then we fix things and you never existed to tell us those things, how did we find out how to fix them in the first place?”

Nerys felt a hand on her arm, and she glanced over to see O’Brien shaking his head at her in an almost pitying manner. “Trust me when I say this Major, when it comes to those kinds of questions, it’s really better not knowing.”

“He’s right.” Brooks agreed sourly. “I wish I didn’t know, but the Guardian of Forever was very blunt when explaining just why we couldn’t use him to go back in time and fix things.

Glancing between the two, Nerys felt a familiar surge of annoyance rear its head at someone once more trying to decide what she should and shouldn’t know. 

“Maybe, but I still want to know.”

Brooks gave her a long look before letting out another sigh. “Your sleepless nights.” 

Pointing a finger at herself, a forced smile found its way onto the Asari’s lips. “I don’t exist. This universe you’re seeing around you doesn’t exist. I never actually talked to the Guardian of Forever, married and divorced Jadzia multiple times, stopped the Borg from destroying El-Auria, or prevented the occupation of Bajor.”

“I’m sorry.” Nerys interrupted, that last standing out to her for several reasons. “You what?”

“Don’t interrupt.” Brooks growled, and Nerys’s mouth snapped shut in surprise at the force of the woman’s words. “As I was about to say, this whole universe is a temporal shadow that is being thrown by the state of flux your universe currently exists in. Which is why the Guardian of Forever couldn't send Jadzia and I back to fix things. Because until a little over an hour ago, we didn’t exist to be sent back.”

The Asari held up a finger. “And to stop you from asking the obvious, the Guardian of Forever knew we were temporal shadows and was able to answer our questions about that, because it’s a pin someone stuck through the fabric of multiversal space-time.”

None of what Brooks had just said made much sense to Nerys, and a glance over at O’Brian showed a similarly confused look on the man’s face. 

“Now.” Brooks continued in a tone that heavily suggested she wanted nothing more than to be done with this entire situation. “Can I please just get back on my ship and exit the temporal envelope so you can beam down to the year two thousand twenty four and rescue us?”

“That’s the year the Commander and the others are in then?” O’Brien said, flipping near instantly back to professional mode.

“Yes.” Brooks drawled, shooting the Chief an odd look. “That’s what I told you before I came on board.”

“No.” Nerys corrected in a measured tone, not entirely sure what Brooks might have been thinking of. “This is the first you've mentioned anything to us about what year the four of you appeared in.”

“That's.” Brooks began, taking a step towards the door only to stop herself and turn a scowl towards them. “No, I told you. I had to have told you. Otherwise it would have been too risky for me to enter the Defiant's temporal envelope due to the causality link between your future actions and what's happening in the past.”

“Chief?” Nerys asked, really hoping the man's Starfleet training would allow him to actually explain that in a way she could understand.

“Are you sure it's that kind of link, Commander?” O'Brien inquired with a frown as he shot Nerys a slightly nervous glance that made the Bajoran woman wish she had asked at least one of the security officers to wait inside with them. 

“Of course it is!” Brooks snapped in clear annoyance. “I didn't spend twenty years helping T'Pol pick apart temporal mechanics to not kno–”

“Raine.” The holographic doctor interrupted, and the Asari had just enough time to turn before the projection's arm shot out and pinched her neck. At which point her eyes rolled back into her head and she collapsed into the waiting arms of the holographic doctor.

“Apologies.” The hologram said as he gently lowered the woman back onto the biobed. “But Commander Brooks gave me standing permission to knock her out in the case of mind control or other types of cognitive impairment. And both the scans I took earlier and my own observations just now confirmed that she was suffering from some sort of mild level of psychosis.”

O’Brien glanced over the medbay’s controls for a moment with a slight frown. “Commander Brooks told you to knock her out?”

The holographic doctor held up a hand and wiggled it as he used the other to run a medical probe over the unconscious Asari’s head. “Photons and force fields lack mass. So her species's unconscious defensive response is almost entirely ineffective against them. Which she believed made me distinctly placed to render her unconscious without harm should the need arise.”

That was about the level of sensibly paranoid that Nerys had come to expect from the Asari, but the purported medical diagnosis was the worrying problem. “Psychosis?”

“Yes.” The holographic doctor confirmed with a slight smile. “I suspect it’s related to the clumpings of oddly charged chroniton particles I’m detecting around her anterior cingulate cortex.”

Nerys took a moment to consider that before deciding to leave the issue in the hands of the hologram. “So Chief.” She continued, turning to the man while letting out a slightly tired sigh. “I assume you can get us to year two thousand twenty four without issue?”

“Aye.” O’Brien confirmed, jerking his head to the door in a clear suggestion that they take their talk into the hall. 

“I assume you can take care of things from here, Doctor?” Nerys asked, still feeling more than a little bit silly treating a hologram as an actual medical professional. 

The hologram considered the question for a moment before nodding. “She shouldn’t cause too much trouble as long as I keep her under. And in case anyone tries to argue with you about doing so, don’t be afraid to inform them that my readings suggest that this future version of Command Brooks is, psionically speaking, significantly more powerful than her past self.”

Which was a completely unneeded warning to Nerys that this Brooks could also tear her way through the ship if she put her mind to it.

“I’ll keep that in mind.” She said before heading out the door.

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Author’s Notes: Matron Raine has had a really shitty few hours of existence.

Also, I suspect there will be a lot of confusion about what’s going on in regards to the whole “time travel” aspect of things. And to that I’ll just say that it will make more sense once this arc is over.