THE EDGE OF NEVER: The Briefing

The office of Rear Admiral Kotari, the flag officer in charge of the entire Hromi sector, was as spacious as any conference room aboard a starship, saved for the colossal USS Horizon. It felt all the more huge because, at the moment, there were only three individuals present.

Behind the large real wood desk sat the aged Boslic wearing the uniform and pips of a flag officer. His eyes, as steely as his cropped hair and short trimmed square beard, looked without blinking at the two other men sitting on the opposite side of the desk. Both wore a non descript dark grey suit that nevertheless looked like a uniform. One was tall and lean with gaunt features. His companion was shorter and stouter with a ferret like face. Both were of a non descript age, short haired and clean shaven, but clearly Human. Their expression was as blank as their attire, except for their eyes. Their light was as grave as the voice of the admiral.

"Astronomical observation has been confirmed by direct visual witness from the Enterprise."

"And you have the Federation Council's report about the last census and the currently tracked data," the tall gaunt man added.

"With Starfleet's continuing reports about ships and installations status," finished the other, shorter man.

There was silence before the Boslic man dared to spoke again.

"And there is no alternative conclusion?"

The two men didn't provide any answer. They had already given the only one.

"How much time do we have left?" 

"That, Admiral, is exactly the problem, " the shorter man said. "We cannot know. It might already be too late."

"C'est encore plus beau parce que c'est inutile..." grumbled Kotari, closing his eyes.

"Sounds like an ancient Earth dialect," the tall man said. obviously interested.

"French; something from a poetry book called Cyrano de Bergerac that Ambassador Picard gave me as a gift for my last birthday while he was in the sector; All the more beautiful because it is useless... The main character was saying this when dying at the end of the tale, defying death itself, sword in hand."

"Appropriate... even oddly prophetic in a way," the short man said, nodding. "That is why we came to you. If there is something to be done, it should be done without delay, with the proper tools and the right people."

"And the right way," added the tall one.

"That is why we have come to you, Admiral," now said the shorter man. "Lotus Fleet has among the best officers in Starfleet and the greatest number of experienced ones regarding what we need to do... and you have the only ship that can do the job."

"What about Project Millenium?" the Boslic officer said.

The two men looked at each other, as if consulting one another silently as to what to say... and what not to say. The shorter one finally answered.

"Testing has yet to be completed... and no trial run yet has been scheduled. We also have yet to get the appropriate selection of personnel and properly train them. That is our plan B, Admiral, because there is no garantee that we will be able to actualize Project Millenium in time to avert what is already happening. Again, your elite division is the one from which our best hopes lie to actually make it fly; that is why we have already selected and sent several of your officers to the project's site already. But we need a quicker solution... and we need it yesterday."

"Literally," added the other.

Kotari sighed.

"Very Well. We have recalled the vessel and it will dock with Starbase Lotus in forty-seven hours. We have gone over the mission parameters and we are ready to brief the officers that will implement them. You have told me what kind of people we need to do this and I will call here immediately those within our ranks that will fill the bill. If you are ready, gentlemen..."

"There is no time like the present, Admiral" the short man said.

"If there is such a thing," flatly stated the other.

Kotari tapped his combadge.

"Fleet Captain Samji; this is Kotari. Please send immediately to my office the following officers; from the Horizon, Commander Neil S. Redding and Lieutenant Commander Aron'Son; from the Phoenix, Captain Syntron and Lieutenant Jonathan Livingstone; from the Lotus, Commander David Rogers and Doctor Elliago Nasaro-Myth; from the McKenzie, Captain Joshua Riker and Lieutenant Commander Elisha Leone. Kotari out."

*     *     *

One by one, the officers called for the meeting came to the huge empty office and sat at the table according to rank. Syntron and Riker were at each side of the head chair, followed by Redding and Rogers, then Aron'Son and Nasaro-Myth, finally Livingstone and Leone. It occured to them immediately that they had among them a senior and a junior commanding officer, one strategic officer and a sec-tac one, a chief medical officer, a science officer and an operations officer. They only needed a flight control officer and they would have a full bridge complement.

They had all been in the room for several minutes now and neither the admiral nor anyone else came to join them. but before anyone could express any impatience, they all felt the tingling of a transporter beam and the scene shifted completely. They were now seated in a much smaller room, dimly lit, with no ornementation whatsoever and only a widescreen covering the entire wall behind the headchair at the table.

In this chair sat Rear Admiral Kotari. Each side of him stood two men in a nondescript civilian attire absolutely identical. Their expression on their otherwise much different countenance was the same; serious and grim as they looked in turn at each officer seated at the table.

"Forgive the unanounced shift in meeting place," Kotari said in a voice much more strained than usual. "But this is precisely what we want to achieve; to make sure that anyone who could manage to pass our security up there would have no clue that we are down here. This unused meeting room is in the lowest part of the starbase, normally used by maintenance people on the night shift. You left behind hologram of yourselves who will discuss in my office with a hologram of me delineating some defense plan of the border discarded a few years ago. It will be enough to divert any unforeseen attempt to learn what we are truly be discussing here."

The hand of the Boslic admiral desiganted the two men beside him.

"These two gentlemen will first brief you on the situation."

The shortest of the two stepped forward.

"Dulmer," he said.

"Lucsly" said the taller one stepping forward also.

A few among them, Syntron, Redding and Rogers, had already met these two men before. They knew who they were.

They were agents of the Office of Temporal Investigations.

Syntron shifted his gaze from the two familiar Temporal agents directly to Rear Admiral Kotari.

"Are we addressing another consequence of time manipulation Rear Admiral? the Vulcan captain inquired stoically, yet with a serious tone in his voice. These were the most convoluted missions to contend with, as he had learned first-hand.

"Trust a Vulcan to come to the most logical conclusion before anyone else," Kotari acknowledged with a smile. "You are quite right, Captain. And this one is on it's way to destroy our entire reality. Gentlemen? You know more about this than anyone else."

Looking around the room Riker chimed in.

"I have seen enough secret meetings to know the difference between secret and hiding. It is not like you guys to be subtle, at least not secret spy subtle."

Pausing slightly Riker continued.

"This is really bad isn't it?"

The two OTI agents noded together but as usual, Dulmer spoke first.

"I will not give you here a refresher course in the Temporal Mechanics classes you all had at the Academy. Suffice it to say that we are all aware that altering the timeline means that you utterly destroy whatever came after the point in time you have tampered with. In contrast to quantum alternate realities, an infinite number of co-existing variations of our universe sprung from each individual decision made throughout existence, time like space is a unique constant of each universe. There is no such thing as alternate timelines co-exisitng with the original one; when the timeline is altered,  it destroys the original timeline and replace it with it's own."

Lucsly then concluded in his own unemotional way.

"That is why we have now the Temporal prime Directive in place within Starfleet's General Orders, as an integral part of the actual Prime Directive."

He seemed to be intent on making sure everyone in the room understood and accepted this statement as his pale gree eyes went to each officer present in turn.

"Every Starfleet officer who ever encountered a temporal anomaly had and felt the moral and professional obligation to correct it and did one's best to do so... even mavericks like James T. Kirk knew this and acted accordingly."

"All but Katheryn Janeway," corrected Jonathan Livingstone; "at least, according to the reports of the USS Voyager."

"yes and no," Dulmer answered; "further studies showed that her recorded tampering to bring back Voyager sooner than it should have was in fact a correction of the timeline altered by the Krenim Empire's timeship. In the Alternate timeline, Voyager made it back thirty years later because the Krenim's tamperings had destroyed from their path a civilization with technology that would have brought them back sooner... So, our current Admiral Janeway is not the one who went back in the past to bring her ship through the Borg Conduit that this same civilization would not have allowed to exist in their space... But that is another story for another time. Now, we are faced with someone who deliberately altered the timeline and not only did nothing to correct it, but according to our changing History compounded his crime by spreading history-altering knowledge and technology of the future."

Lucsly did not give them time to wonder who. He said it with a bland, detached, cold tone.

"Ambassador Spock of Vulcan."

An eyebrow raised ever so slightly on the captain of the USS Phoenix as those last words were spoken.

"Since we have all been specifically called to this shrouded meeting, it would seem logical to presume that there is to be some type of mission that we will be ask to undertake. Are we to cross back into time in an attempt to undo these transgressions or are we charged with trying to convince a younger version of Spock not to proceed with these breaches in protocol?" Syntron inquired without knowing the full scope of what these temporal agents were referring to or how Rear Admiral Kotari was planning to proceed.

"We cannot resolve an alteration in time by making another one ourselves," Dulmer answered. "The Hobus catastrophe is part of our timeline. Up to the point of Ambassador Spock's actual involvement that gave him the opportunity to alter time, we must not change anything or risk causing further damage. Intervening against the actual alteration is the only safe recourse."

"If there is such a thing," Lucsly flatly commented.

  Rogers had taken a seat beside Riker and no sooner had he thought about maybe having a cup of coffee, he was transported away to find himself inside a smaller room with barely enough seating for them. As Admiral Kotari apologized and the briefing proper got underway, David forgot all about the caffeine.