The Cholmondely-Smythe Year

“Captain’s log, stardate 647839.63. After the past fraught weeks, Starfleet Command has seen fit to grant us a few days of shore leave on Shandy VII. I dread to think what the crew might get up to in their time off. I have permitted myself the luxury of beginning my relaxation a tad early.”

“Good shot, that man!”

Ensign Irving grinned at Captain Cholmondely-Smythe as the senior officer collected the ping-pong ball from where it had fallen following his successful smash. The two of them were playing a fairly competitive match on the ship’s lone table-tennis table, set off to one side in the recreation deck. Cholmondely-Smythe was something of a seasoned player, having captained the senior team back at the Academy, and the beta shift helmsman was the only person on board who could give him a run for his money.

At that moment they were alone on the rec deck and the score was now 22-21 to Ensign Irving. He needed one more point for a victory, and the concentration on his face showed he was determined to win. Cholmondely-Smythe served up and the little white ball zoomed backwards and forwards for a while, neither player gaining the advantage and both of them performing some spectacular moves to keep the ball in play.

Then Irving saw his opportunity and sent the ball out incredibly wide with a serious amount of topspin. Cholmondely-Smythe just about managed to return in, scrambling for position, but Irving’s next shot, just clipping the opposite edge of the table, was just too good.

“Well played,” Cholmondely-Smythe congratulated him, mopping his brow with a towel.

“Thanks, sir,” Irving said, panting heavily.

Then they were back at the beginning of the point. Cholmondely-Smythe served up and the little white ball zoomed backwards and forwards for a while, neither player gaining the advantage and both of them performing some spectacular moves to keep the ball in play.

Irving saw his opportunity and sent the ball out incredibly wide with a serious amount of topspin. Cholmondely-Smythe just about managed to return in, scrambling for position, but Irving’s next shot, just clipping the opposite edge of the table, was just too good.

“Well played,” Cholmondely-Smythe congratulated him, mopping his brow with a towel.

“Thanks, sir,” Irving said, panting heavily.

They stopped and looked at each other.

“Um,” Irving said dumbly. “What the hell?”

“Indeed, wot?” Cholmondely-Smythe agreed. He tapped his comm badge. “Captain to Bridge. Number One, did anything odd just occur up there?”

“Hill here. Yes, Captain, I was just about to signal you to the Bridge. Uh, it was like time sort of repeated itself for a few seconds, like a loop.”

Cholmondely-Smythe frowned. “I’m on my way up,” he said. Glancing at Irving he nodded. “The rematch will have to wait, old boy.”

Irving grinned. “Looking forward to it, Captain.”

 

Having changed out of the fetching Starfleet standard-issue tracksuit and into his uniform Cholmondely-Smythe was on the Bridge just a few minutes later. He immediately moved to Commander Hill’s console, where his first-slash-science officer was poring over some readings. The captain looked down at them, but they were so much gobbledygook as far as he was concerned.

“What news, old bean?” Cholmondely-Smythe asked.

“Not much,” Hill said. “No indication of anything that might have caused the time loop. No abnormal readings at all, in fact.”

“That is jolly peculiar,” Cholmondely-Smythe muttered.

“Sir,” Mr. Bleep interrupted. “We are receiving a distress call from the Cardoor system. The Federation colony of Cardoor III is reporting that they are under attack by Orion pirates.” The tension level on the Bridge immediately went up a few notches. Everyone there was seriously concerned that this would eat into their shore leave.

“Mr. Damerell, time to Cardoor III?” Cholmondely-Smythe asked.

“Er,” Damerell replied. “Dunno – a few hours?”

“Are there any other ships in the area?” Cholmondely-Smythe asked.

“Nope,” Hill replied glumly. “The Appendectomy can be there in a day or so.”

“Too long,” Cholmondely-Smythe said. “Very well. I’m afraid shore leave will have to wait a while. Log the call and send a report to Starfleet. Helm, set course for the Cardoor system, best possible speed, there’s a good chap. Helm, set course for the Cardoor system, best possible speed, there’s a good chap.”

Everyone on the Bridge stopped what they were doing and looked at the captain. “It jolly well happened again, didn’t it?” he said.

“Yes sir,” Hill reported, looking down at his readings. “Still no obvious cause. Even the ship’s chronometers looped, though we seem to be aware of it happening.”

“What in botheration is going on?” Cholmondely-Smythe asked but no-one could answer him, partly because a good third of the crew had no idea what he was talking about.

 

“Captain’s log, supplemental. We are approaching the Cardoor system and are preparing to give the dastardly pirates a good what for. There have been several more instances of the loops in time – the least pleasant occurring while I was visiting the smallest room. It is not an incident of which I wish to speak ever again. We have received word that both the freighter Amiga and the colony on Nebuchadnezzar both also experienced the time loops, suggesting a rather wide-reaching affected area. The science division is no closer to finding a cause, although they have noticed a gradual increase in the background levels of both chroniton and aeon flux particles in the minutes preceding an event. Very puzzlington.

The Psycho dropped out of warp on an approach vector to Cardoor IV, and Wall hastily corrected with a series of manoeuvres so they were heading for Cardoor III. Cholmondely-Smythe, now fairly accustomed to the way his helmsman drove the ship, didn’t even bat an eyelid as the inertial dampeners strained to compensate.

“I’m reading weapons fire around the planet,” Hill reported.

“Red alert,” Cholmondely-Smythe ordered. “Battlestations.”

The incidental lighting changed, making it harder for the various crew members to actually read their consoles, and the mood became noticeably more tense. The Psycho was never at its best under battle situations and the crew just weren’t built for fighting.

“Bring us around the solar side of the second moon,” Cholmondely-Smythe ordered. “Let’s see if we can surprise the blighters-”

“Yahoo!!!” Wall exclaimed, slamming his hands down on the controls and sending the starship careening forward, completely disregarding the captain’s orders. The Orion ships, one cruiser and three smaller four-or-five man vessels, seemed to draw back in surprise as the Psycho appeared in their midst. At tactical, Colonel Klumpf took over control of the weapons with similar enthusiasm and a rather bloodthirsty look in his eyes and fired phasers in a random pattern. At the same time he fired a massively overkill spread of photon torpedoes, eight in total in a barrage at the cruiser.

Amazingly, the end result of all the chaos was that the Psycho was undamaged, the Orion cruiser was forced to retreat into the asteroid belt and one of the smaller ships was hanging dead in space.

Cholmondely-Smythe harrumphed into the ensuing silence. “Yes. Well. Can’t argue with results and all that, but next time one thinks perhaps we should formulate and discuss a plan of action before going off half-cocked.”

Klumpf and Wall both nodded, abashed. Then Bleep spoke up again. “Captain, we are receiving a hail from the damaged Orion vessel. They report their life support is damaged and they require medical assistance.”

Nodding, Cholmondely-Smythe gave his orders. “One must render assistance, wot? Transport the occupants of the craft to Sickbay for treatment.” He clicked a switch on his chair. “Security, report to Sickbay. Doctor Jackson, prepare to receive potentially hostile patients for examination and treatment.”

“What!?” Jackson’s voice came over the intercom. “A little warning next time would be nice!”

“I have utmost faith in your abilities, Doctor,” Cholmondely-Smythe replied, not noticing the raised eyebrows and coughs that appeared around the Bridge. “Number One, you have the Bridge. I’m going to speak to our guests, see if I can find out what the deuce they are doing in this system.”

 

Sickbay was much busier than normal. Then again, on a normal day the vast majority of the crew avoided Dr. Jackson’s lair. As much as his nursing staff tried to keep him under control and intervene before he caused too much damage, it was an unfortunately regular occurrence that they had to do a patch-up job after the fact.

Now, there were the four pirates from the little vessel, Jackson and three of his medical team, and a squad of security guards. Two of the pirates were lying flat on biobeds. When Cholmondely-Smythe walked in it was standing room only. Matters only got worse when Counsellor Hill stepped through the door behind him. He looked around and walked over to Jackson.

“Doctor,” he said. “Is everything ticketyboo?”

Jackson blinked at him. “Is it… what?”

“Is everything satisfactory?” Cholmondely-Smythe said in exasperation.

“Oh, um, yeah, it’s fine. They won’t let me cut off anything, but I suppose I can treat their injuries in other ways.”

“Splendid, splendid. When do you think-?”

“Hubert?”

Cholmondely-Smythe broke off when a female voice interrupted him. He turned slowly on his heel to look at one of the pirates sitting on a biobed with Nurse Baldwin. She was around the same age as the captain, with long, wavy ginger hair and a somewhat horsey face. Ignoring the nurse, she stood up from the biobed. When two of the security guards stepped forward Cholmondely-Smythe held up a hand to forestall them.

“Is it really you?” she asked.

Cholmondely-Smythe stood in silence for several moments before gathering himself. “Well,” he said, a surprising tremor in his voice. “This is certainly unexpected.” He visibly gathered himself. “If you would excuse me for a moment.”

He pivoted and stalked towards the door, passing through it without another word. Everyone stared after him, but it was only the Counsellor who plucked up the nerve to follow.

 

She found him on the Observation lounge, looking out over the shuttlecraft on the hangar deck. Slipping in the door and letting it close behind her, she waited. She was hoping he would just start talking, as was his wont. As the silence stretched out, though, she realised she was going to have to give him a poke and see what happened. Not, she reminded herself, literally.

“Would you like to tell me what that was about?” she asked.

Cholmondely-Smythe glanced over his shoulder before sighing. “Have you ever been in love, Counsellor?” he asked in return.

“Uh, no, not really. I mean, I’ve had a few longer relationships but I don’t think I’ve ever gone so far as to say…” she trailed off, realising she was quite successfully derailing her own question. “No. Who is she, Captain?”

“It was, oh, fourteen years ago, I suppose. Not long after my wife and I finally divorced…”

“You were married?!” she exclaimed. “Never mind. Not the point.”

“I’d just been promoted off the Coprolith. I was lucky enough to have some time before my next posting so I was on shore leave on Beta Argula IX. Have you ever been there, Counsellor? The sunsets are a wondrous amaranth, and the seas a bright cerulean. The main city of Argulon is a marvel of architecture – high fluting columns, wide tree-lined avenues. A simply spectacular central plaza.”

The Counsellor remained silent, letting him talk.

“While I was there I met a woman. Her name was Meredith Covington-Teach and she was a goddess. Her voice, her laugh, the glint in her eyes. All of it captivated me utterly. The first time we met we spent an entire day together. I found a simple joy in her mere company.” He paused, lot in memories. He turned to look at the Counsellor. “It was ‘jolly hockey sticks’ as she liked to say. We had a whirlwind romance and planned to leave the planet together when my shore leave was due to run out. I waited for her at our agreed rendezvous but the she-devil jolly well ditched me.”

He fell silent. Counsellor looked at him quizzically. “There’s more to the story, isn’t there?” she asked, “I can feel it.” Cholmondely-Smythe refused to be drawn.

“Of all the starships in all the galaxy,” he said instead, “she beams onto mine.”

 

“We need to find out what the dastardly fiends are doing in the Cardoor system in the first place,” Cholmondely-Smythe said, when the senior officers met a little while later to discuss the situation.

“Can we just get this sorted so we can all go on shore leave?” Wall whined. “I want to have some fun!”

Cholmondely-Smythe glared at him. “I understand that the delaying of our holibobs is frustrating,” he said, “but we have a duty to the citizens of the Federation! We all agreed to that when we joined Starfleet. Even you, Mister Wall.”

Wall crossed his arms and sulked.

“Back to the matter at hand,” the captain went on. “Seeing as we have, ahem, guests, I think we should make use of them. Perhaps a little informal questioning will shed light on matters. Doctor, how are your patients?”

Doctor Jackson snored softly, jerking awake with a grunt when Stark elbowed him in the ribs. “Hey,” he protested, “I was just catching forty winks, you didn’t have to…” he trailed off when he saw Cholmondely-Smythe looking at him severely. “Oh, um. What was the question?”

Cholmondely-Smythe repeated himself, obviously not impressed.

“Well,” Jackson said, consulting the notes his staff had put together for him, “the Orion and Deltan men are still heavily sedated – they were standing next to a plasma conduit when it exploded and are going to require quite a bit of rehabilitation. The human man and woman are fine, apart from a few cuts and bruises.”

“Splendid.” Cholmondely-Smythe paused. “Number One, Counsellor, I would like you to question the man. I will question the woman. The rest of you maintain the ship at alert status.”

The Counsellor spoke up. “Sir, wouldn’t it be better if someone else were to question the woman, given your, uh, history?”

While the others looked a bit confused, the captain shook his head. “No, my dear,” he said, not noticing the way Counsellor Hill bristled at his tone. “I think it more likely she will open up to me, what?”

She frowned but let it go.

“Very well,” Cholmondely-Smythe said then. “You have your orders. Hop to it!”

 

The Hills took the pirate man to a small room near the brig, sitting him in a hard metal chair and standing facing him. Commander Hill had his arms folder, while the Counsellor adopted a more relaxing, open posture. She was about to speak when Commander Hill started shouting.

“Tell us everything you know!” he bellowed. “Don’t make this harder than it actually is!”

“I know the rate of decay of dielectric flow is disproportionate to the amount of power used in the coupling,” the pirate said in a gravelly voice. “I know cats like to be stroked on the head but not on the belly. I know…”

“Yes, alright smartarse,” Commander Hill snarled. “Why is your ship in this system?”

The pirate stayed shtum.

“Okay, Barney,” the Counsellor said then. She paused. “It is okay if I call you Barney, isn’t it?”

“My name’s Zebedee,” he said, folding his arms over his chest.

The Counsellor sighed. This was going nowhere fast.

 

Cholmondely-Smythe escorted Meredith Covington-Teach to a conference room. A security guard took up a position outside the room and the two of them entered. Cholmondely-Smythe waited for her to take a seat but she stood, hands on the back of chair, looking at him.

“Well…” he said.

“It’s so wonderful to see you, Hubert,” she said breathlessly. “After so long.”

“Yes,” Cholmondely-Smythe said. “I’m afraid I’m not sure I can return the sentiment, Meredith. After all is has been fourteen years since you abandoned me on Beta Argula IX.”

She at least had the decency to look abashed. “I did so want to go with you,” she said. “But…” she bit her lip. “Well. Previous engagement, and all that.”

“Indeed,” Cholmondely-Smythe sniffed. “So tell me, have you been working for the Orions all this time?”

She nodded. “It’s possible I didn’t tell you the whole truth about my occupation,” she admitted.
“I acquire things for my clients. Not entirely above board, I’m afraid.”

“Yes, I gathered that from the ‘pirates’ situation,” he said impatiently.

“I had to leave when I did. I wanted to protect you,” she said. “If the others had found out I was seeing a Starfleet officer…”

Silence fell, and Cholmondely-Smythe looked down at the table top. She moved closer to him, laying a hand on his arm.

“The last time we met…” she started.

“Was in that Klingon restaurant – the Emperor’s Table.” Cholmondely-Smythe interrupted.

“You remember.” Meredith sounded pleased. She shifted a bit closer, starting to press up against him.

“Hard to forget, my dear,” Cholmondely-Smythe said mildly. “That was the day the jolly old Orions attacked me – I was lucky to escape with my life.”

“Not the sort of thing you forget,” Meredith said, moving back.

“I remember every detail. You wore blue, the Orions wore armour.”

“What was it you wanted to ask me, Hubert?” Meredith asked.

“I want to know what the Orions are doing in this system,” he said. “I don’t believe for one second that it’s random.”

“No, not entirely,” she said, sighing. “Crepuscal, the Orion captain, is looking for a weapons cache hidden on the moon of Cardoor III. It was put there a long time ago, before the colony on the planet started to expand there.” She looked at him seriously. “He’s dead set on getting it for his Mistress – the Orion woman in charge of this cadre of the Orion Syndicate. He will be back for it.”

“Thank you,” Cholmondely-Smythe said, sincerely. He hesitated, looking at her. “I feel there is something I should tell you,” he said. “About the time we met.”

“What is it Hubert?” she asked.

“I… wasn’t there on shore leave,” he admitted. “I was there to investigate the Orion presence in the system, to try to pin down the smuggling ring Starfleet knew was in operation.” Meredith stayed silent, so he continued. “Falling in love with you was most certainly not part of the plan,” he said. “It caused terrible problems with my cover – especially when I discovered you were part of the smuggling ring.”

“You knew?” she asked faintly.

“Absolutely,” he said. “But I loved you. I was going to tell you the day we were due to leave, give you the opportunity to come with me, to turn your life around. But you never came, and so I suppose I had my answer anyway.”

“Oh, Hubert,” Meredith sighed.

“The mission failed, partly due to my broken heart, and the smugglers got away – as you jolly well know. One can’t help but wonder if you were using me, spying on me and somehow using your proximity to me to get information.”

Meredith was quiet for a few moments. “I am sorry, Hubert. I deeply regret the way things turned out between us.”

“And again I suppose I have my answer,” Cholmondely-Smythe said. “Well. Thank you, my dear, for your information. Now I’m afraid I must ask one of my security guards to escort you to the brig.”

“It’s somewhat of a relief, if I’m honest,” Meredith said as she followed him to the doors. “I rather lost my appetite for this life some time ago, but the Orions wouldn’t let me go. Now I have a chance to make amends for all the things I have done wrong over the years.”

“Yes, well,” Cholmondely-Smythe harrumphed. “After a period of time serving suitable penance for your crimes, of course.”

 

“Captain’s log, supplemental. Following our questioning of our prisoners, we have ascertained that there is a hidden weapons cache on the moon of Cardoor III. As there has been no reappearance of the dastardly pirates, we are undertaking a painstaking search of the moon’s surface to see if we can locate the aforementioned cache.”

They had been at it for hours with no luck. It didn’t help that they didn’t really know what they were looking for other than that it was hidden. Meredith and the other prisoner couldn’t and wouldn’t help, respectively, so the Psycho was reduced to maintaining a low orbit over the moon and scanning the surface in as detailed a manner as possible.

All of which meant that no-one noticed when the Orion cruiser suddenly appeared from where it had been hiding, using the moon to shield its approach from the Psycho, and set about laying into the starship’s engineering section with disruptors and torpedoes.

“Red alert! Helm, evasive manoeuvres!” Cholmondely-Smythe ordered, barely managing to keep his seat. “Implement!”

Wall threw the Psycho into a series of unorthodox moves, coming perilously close to annihilating them all on the surface of the moon. Their proximity to the satellite of Cardoor III meant that they managed to get it between them and the Orions quickly, giving them time to regroup.

“Prepare to return fire,” Cholmondely-Smythe ordered. At tactical, Klumpf laughed in bloodthirsty excitement.

The two ships came together again, exchanging blows. The Psycho, caught off-guard before, had taken some serious damage to the engineering hull. Its shields were breached in places and half of the phaser arrays were offline. Worse, its engines had been damaged so their manoeuvrability was compromised. Bleep was working overtime just to keep power flowing to vital systems. By the same token the Orion cruiser, already the weaker of the two ships, was still recovering from their earlier exchanges. With Wall’s tactics managing to keep the gaps in their shields away from the cruiser’s main weapons, things were very much at a stalemate. The cruiser wasn’t letting up, though.

At tactical, Klumpf laughed in bloodthirsty excitement.

The two ships came together again, exchanging blows. “Was that another time loop?” Cholmondely-Smythe asked.

“Confirmed,” Hill reported. He looked again at his console. “Sir,” Hill called out over the alert sirens, “the cruiser keeps trying to get at a particular spot on the moon. It must be where the cache is hidden. I think I can narrow it down to a square mile.”

Cholmondely-Smythe considered. With Bleep’s attention taken up with keeping them alive, he would have to resort to other options to search the area.

“Number One, provide the data you have to the navigation station. Mr. Damerell, if you would be so good as to perform a detailed scan of the area. Look for anything out of the ordinary.”

“Um, yes, sir,” Damerell replied hesitantly. Various images and sets of data appeared on his console. Fortunately, Hill had also been kind enough to send over instructions on how to activate a detailed scan. Unfortunately a detailed scan of the type the captain wanted usually required the ship to be steady, if not still. With Wall still throwing them around like a ball in a pinball machine, Damerell’s scan of the area built up slowly, millimetre by agonising millimetre.

“Shields down to forty percent,” Bleep reported. “Hull integrity on decks twenty to twenty-three will be compromised imminently.”

“Evacuate those decks,” Hill ordered. “Activate emergency forcefields.”

The two ships buzzed around, both trying to stay close to the same patch of apparently barren moon.

“Shields down to forty percent,” Bleep reported. “Hull integrity on decks twenty to twenty-three will be compromised imminently.”

“Evacuate those decks,” Hill ordered. “Activate emergency forcefields.”

The two ships buzzed around, both trying to stay close to the same patch of apparently barren moon. Everyone exchanged looks. The time loops were happening more frequently. Suddenly, Damerell’s console pinged.

“Uh, Captain,” he said, “the computer is reporting a metal box – about ten metres square – buried about the same distance below the surface of the moon.”

“They can’t beam it up without jolly well dropping their shields,” Cholmondely-Smythe realised.

“Neither can we,” Hill pointed out.

The captain had a thought. “No,” he agreed, “but then, we have gaps in our shields, don’t we?”

Hill gaped at him. “Sir, beaming through gaps in shielding is very risky,” he pointed out as the ship rocked again from another blast. “If the beam gets caught in the edges it wouldn’t bounce off the shields, it would utterly destabilise the annular confinement beam You can forget about reintegrating it. If the transporter did try to integrate the beam it could blow up in your face – literally!”

“Understood, Number One,” Cholmondely-Smythe said. “Now hop to it, there’s a good chap.”

Hill blinked at him and then grinned, suddenly forgetting all his doom-mongering and relishing the challenge. “Right! We need five seconds to get a lock on the cache and initiate the transport. Then another five seconds to complete transport. Wall!”

“Yo!”

“I need you to keep the starboard side of the ship facing these coordinates for at least ten seconds. I need a direct line of sight between there and… cargo transporter one. Deck nineteen, section fifteen.”

“Where is that again?”

“Here!”

“Yo!”

“Show some decorum, please, helmsman,” Cholmondely-Smythe said mildly.

“Sorry sir.”

The Psycho performed yet another ridiculous bit of aerobatics, which in no way aided Commander Hill in his efforts but did incidentally provide Klumpf with the perfect opportunity to launch a spread of torpedoes at the Orion cruiser. The enemy ship was forced to back off, and in that time Wall turned the ship and Hill got his lock.

“Hold that if you can!” he shouted out, as the cruiser came back for another run.

“Shields at twenty-five percent,” Bleep commented.

“Six more seconds!” Hill shouted.

Disruptor blasts raked the saucer section, despite Bleep’s best efforts. Several consoles exploded, though fortunately not one being staffed by a senior officer.

“Shields at twenty-five percent,” Bleep commented.

“Six more seconds!” Hill shouted.

Disruptor blasts raked the saucer section, despite Bleep’s best efforts. Several consoles exploded, though fortunately not one being staffed by a senior officer.

“Medical team to the bridge,” Cholmondely-Smythe ordered over the intercom, eyeing the crewman with the burned hands with some distaste, just as Hill shouted out over the noise.

“Cache successfully integrated!” He looked insufferably smug for a moment, and then his eyes rolled back in his head and he passed out.

Klumpf took the initiative and managed to catch the Orion cruiser with a torpedo and a phaser blast just as their aft shields failed. The cruiser juddered to a halt, dead in space. At the helm console Wall let out a whoop of joy, while Damerell gibbered quietly to himself.

“Jolly good show, everyone,” Cholmondely-Smythe said, unable to quite hide the surprise in his voice.

“Captain, we are being hailed,” Bleep said.

“Put it on then, there’s a good android.”

The viewscreen blinked to life, showing the bridge of the Orion cruiser. In the middle of a serious amount of chaos and destruction stood a big, hulking green-skinned Orion man.

“Captain Crepuscal, I presume,” Cholmondely-Smythe said pleasantly.

“You will pay for this!” Crepuscal snarled. “I promise you that!”

The viewscreen went blank. “Now what do you suppose he meant by that?” Cholmondely-Smythe mused. When there was no reply he looked around. Wall was still grinning like a demented loon, basking in the unfettered flying he had been permitted. Damerell had his head in his hands and was rocking gently. Hill was still unconscious on the floor. Klumpf wasn’t paying him any attention and Bleep was never going to respond to a rhetorical question like that. He sighed. He liked to think he was always available as an ear for his senior crew. Couldn’t they even afford him the same courtesy?

The turbolift doors opened then and Counsellor Hill walked onto the Bridge. She looked at the expression on the captain’s face. “Once all this is over, maybe you should book some time on my couch,” she suggested.

“Thanks awfully, but I think I’ll pass,” Cholmondely-Smythe said.

The turbolift doors opened then and Counsellor Hill walked onto the Bridge. She looked at the expression on the captain’s face. “Once all this is over, maybe you should book some time on my couch,” she suggested. Then she looked over at herself and had a momentary freak out.

“What the-?” both of her said at the same time, slightly out of sync, before her two selves merged into one.

Commander Hill sat up groggily, then paused as the same thing happened all over again. He struggled up to his console and tapped at the controls. He swore. As he spoke time seemed to keep skipping back like an echo. “I’m reading a massive energy build up – energy build up on the Orion cruiser. Chroniton and anti-temporal radiation spikes are off the charts – off the charts.” He looked up, then looked up again. “It’s coming from the – coming from the cargo hold – the cargo hold.”

“Ana-analysis-sis,” Cholmondely-Smythe ordered. When Hill took too long to reply he frowned impatiently. “Number One?” His eyebrows went up when he realised that the strange echo effect had disappeared.

Hill spent another moment examining the readings. “There’s a strange fluctuating temporal waveform emanating from a point in space with the Orion cruiser at its centre,” he said.

“Why have the effects stopped?” Cholmondely-Smythe asked.

“They haven’t,” Hill reported. “We’ve been moving away from the cruiser. The further we are the less the effects are felt, in an exponential curve. We’ll experience another temporal disruption one in a few minutes.”

“All stop,” Cholmondely-Smythe ordered. “Helm, maintain current relative distance to the Orion cruiser.”

“Does this explain what’s been happening to time recently?” the Counsellor asked.

Hill looked a little helpless. “I guess it’s possible that the effects are being reflected back in time somehow,” he said, sounding a bit dubious.

“I’ll take it,” Cholmondely-Smythe said. “Now what the deuce do we do about it?”

Hill looked a little helpless. “I guess it’s possible that the effects are being reflected back in time somehow,” he said, sounding a bit dubious.

“I’ll take it,” Cholmondely-Smythe said. “Now what the deuce do we do about it?”

“It looks like the emissions are going on a cycle,” Hill said. He frowned. “I can’t be certain as yet, but I’m pretty sure the effects are only going to get worse, and over a wider area. I think whatever it is could be disrupted by applying the controlled emissions of kappa-series radioisotopes to the source.”

Cholmondely-Smythe looked utterly perplexed. “And we can do that, can we?”

“Not from here,” Hill replied. “You’d have to be right next to it.” He thought for a moment, then toggled the intercom to engineering. “Hill to Barfoot.”

“Do you have any idea how busy we are down here right now?!” Barfoot’s voice came back. “Can this wait?”

“Not if we want to survive,” Hill told him. “Can we rig a spacesuit to emit a field of kappa particles?”

“Uh, yeah, I suppose.”

“Do it,” Cholmondely-Smythe ordered. “Have it ready in transporter room two as soon as possible.”

“I’ll get on the radioisotope emitter,” Hill said, heading for the turbolift.

 

A little while later, they gathered in the transporter room. Barfoot entered lugging the space suit, a clunky old-style suit with a jerry-rigged panel attached to the front. He dumped it in front of Hill and Cholmondely-Smythe.

“Here you go,” he said. “Should work. About all I can say is that the engineer we forced into it didn’t experience either of the time loops the rest of the ship went through after we finished it.” He looked at the transporter. “The other thing to remember is that we can’t beam you directly to the cargo bay. The disruptions are interfering with the transporter. Best we can do is a corridor three decks and five sections away.”

“Excellent work, engineer,” Cholmondely-Smythe said.

Next it was Hill’s turn. He held out a device with a conical emitter at one end. “I didn’t exactly have time for subtlety,” he said. “Point it at the source and press the red button.” He shifted a bit nervously. “I guess the last question is who’s going to go over.”

Cholmondely-Smythe smiled at him. “Not to worry, Number One. I’m going to be the jolly old guinea pig.” He chortled softly at their dumbstruck expressions. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but communications are going to be next to impossible with whoever is over there,” he said. “And we need to make sure whoever it is gets there in time to use the device before the next spike, which is in…” He looked to Hill.

“Seven minutes,” Hill replied.

“Others might get lost following a map, or take too long. I, however, know the layout of that ship extremely well as in the past I studied the schematics intensively. This,” he pointed to his forehead, “is like a steel trap. I never forget a thing.”

“You forgot the code to your own quarters last week,” Hill pointed out.

“I most certainly did not!” Cholmondely-Smythe said indignantly. “It was happy hour at Fred’s and the rather mediocre pinot grigio was impairing my abilities.”

Hill and Barfoot made reassuring noises, obviously disbelieving. “If you say so, sir.”

“Bally rotters, the lot of you,” the captain huffed. “Now help me into the suit.”

A minute later he was on the transporter padd. He reached up and touched a button on the chestplate. It beeped and the lights started flashing.

“You’re now emitting a fields that should dampen the effects of the time distortions,” Barfoot told him. “I can’t guarantee it’ll cancel it all out but it should be enough to let you do what you need to do.

Hill stepped up. He took the captain’s arm and brought up a chronometer on the wrist controls. He programmed it, checking against the time on his padd. He set it for four minutes. “When that hits zero, use the device,” he said.

“Spiffing,” Cholmondely-Smythe said. “Energise.”

 

He materialised in a corridor, the lighting flickering and casting odd shadows in the oddly angular hallway. Not far away was an Orion crewman. He kept walking ten steps down the corridor, turning, then flickering back along the same path to repeat the same loop. Cholmondely-Smythe walked around him carefully, then set off at fast jog through the ship. In one section the doors to various rooms kept opening, then cycling back through time to open, over and over again.

He couldn’t use the lifts so he dropped down through access hatches as quickly as possible. He glanced at the chronometer to see he had three minutes left. It was worse down here. There was a crew member who it seemed kept falling over and looping back up again. Another was busy vomiting the same liquid over and over again. Off to one side was a crewman who was bleeding out endlessly.

Cholmondely-Smythe ran through the ship, trying to ignore all the strange things happening around him. He finally found the cargo bay, slapping at the controls. The door opened and time immediately reversed, closing it again. He took a breath, slapped the button and dived through, boots scraping through as it closed behind him once more.

The cargo bay was bathed in a strange blue light, coming from the whirling vortex of doom hovering in midair somewhere near the centre. Next to it was Crepuscal, flickering back and forth in the same two seconds of movement over and over again, in the middle of being thrown backwards by the energy backlash, away from the temporal weapon.

Cholmondely-Smythe looked down at his watch. Ten seconds. He waited, and when the timer hit zero he pointed the device at the vortex and pressed the big red button.

Nothing happened.

Cholmondely-Smythe looked down at his watch. Five seconds. He waited, and when the timer hit zero he pointed the device at the vortex and pressed the big red button.

Nothing happened.

Cholmondely-Smythe looked down at his watch. Two seconds. He waited, and when the timer hit zero he pointed the device at the vortex and pressed the big red button.

The conical emitter on the device lit up like a christmas tree and the device hummed, vibrating in his hands. There was a blinding flash of light and everything stopped for a brief but noticeable moment.

Then time resumed. Crepuscal hit the floor hard but bounced back up, seeing Cholmondely-Smythe standing there. He roared. Cholmondely-Smythe smashed the device into the control panel of the weapon, destroying it just as he was rugby tackled by two hundred pounds of enraged Orion. Fortunately, Crepuscal was still disoriented from the time loop and, wheezing painfully, Cholmondely-Smythe was able to scramble away to hide behind a large crate. He slapped his comm badge.

“Emergency beam out, now!”

The swirl of the transporter beam took him just in time, leaving Crepuscal to hit the deck once more.

 

“Captain’s log, supplemental. With the arrival of the Flabbygut and the Appendectomy the Orion pirates have been taken into custody and the temporal weapon confiscated and taken away for examination. I must say this has been a jolly old adventure, not to mention something of a walk down memory lane for my good self.”

Cholmondely-Smythe stood to one side as Meredith Covington-Teach was led onto the transporter padd by a Federation Security agent, hands cuffed together. She paused and turned to him.

“It’s been jolly wonderful to see you again, Hubert. It does make one wonder – in a different life, perhaps.”

“Sadly not to be, my dear,” the captain replied. “What with your nefarious deeds and the like. Still, we’ll always have Beta Argula IX, I suppose.”

“Goodbye, Hubert.”

“A bientot, Meredith,” he said, and motioned for the transporter operator to activate the beam.

 

Cremini and some of his subordinates cowered as Stella raged. She stalked up to one of them and gripped his face, claw-like nails digging into his cheeks.

“That temporal disruptor was priceless!” she screeched. “Not to mention the weapons in the cache! Of all the flippin’ incompetence!!” She shoved the poor unfortunate’s face away and stomped over to a wall, proceeding to kick the living daylights out of it with one pointy-toed shoe. Once she was done, she seemed much calmer.

She took several deep breaths and Cremini plucked up the courage to stand up and walk over to her. He put his hands on her shoulders and she relaxed, leaning back against him.

“Not to worry, Mistress,” he said soothingly. “It was only a backup plan in any case. Soon we will strike at the very stomach of the Klingon Empire and, when we do, they and the Federation will be plunged into chaos for us to plunder to our heart’s content.”

“Oh Cremini,” Stella practically purred. “You do say the sweetest things.”