The Last Iteration: All This Has Happened Before … Chapter 5
The Last Iteration: All This Has Happened Before …
Chapter 5: Brave New Universe
Chakotay pulled B’Elanna into a tight hug as she and Tom arrived for the senior staff briefing. It had been nine hours since their arrival at their current position.
“So how is our newest addition?” he asked gently.
“Sleeping, thank god,” B’Elanna replied. “Naomi’s pulling special babysitting duty-Sam’s keeping an eye on both of them in sickbay.”
Tom held her chair out for her and she sank down into it gratefully; even with modern medicine, giving birth was still more exhausting than a Klingon training exercise in full battle armour.
Janeway was the last to arrive, bustling in with an armful of padds, which she dumped with a noisy clatter onto the table before coming around to hug B’Elanna and say a heartfelt “congratulations” to both her and Tom.
“Thanks for coming,” she whispered gently. “Let me know when you get tired.”
B’Elanna nodded. “I will, Captain,” she replied. Lieutenant Rollins had called her a few hours earlier to do a preliminary analysis of the ship’s sensor readings during the transwarp conduit’s collapse. With half of engineering nursing the dilithium re-crystallisation matrix and the warp plasma flows, while the other half went EVA with Seven to fix the burnt out array in the deflector dish, the external sensors and armour generators, and with Janeway buried in the guts of her ship repairing everything from plasma conduits to the bioneural gel packs, there had been no one to analyse the sensor data.
Janeway resumed her seat and took a bracing sip coffee from the cup Tuvok handed her. She nodded gratefully and murmured “thank you”, before turning her gaze on Harry Kim. “All right, Ensign, let’s start with you-I take it you’ve recovered from that bump on the head?”
Kim laughed. “Yes Captain,” he replied.
“Any idea where we are?” Paris asked.
“Actually, yes,” he said soberly. “It looks like we’re in the heart of what should be the Klingon Empire-about four light years from Qo’NoS.”
“What should be the Klingon Empire?” B’Elanna queried, getting over her shock before the others.
“Yeah,” Kim replied. “As soon as we got sensors back, I noticed right away that there were no subspace signals anywhere.” Again, a sense of shock permeated the room and there was complete silence for a few moments.
“In fact,” he continued, “we couldn’t find evidence of any known faster than light communications signals or space/subspace field stress indicative of warp travel within normal sensor range, Captain. Once the astrometric sensors are up and running, we can extend the range and search parameters, refine our scans. But as far as I can tell, none of the known powers in the alpha and beta quadrants-within sensor range-are putting out any signals that would indicate a warp-capable, or even space-capable, society.
“Therefore, I took a closer look at all our readings, and although everything appears to be roughly where they should be, there are differences-”
“What sort of differences, Harry?” Chakotay asked.
“Well the closest and most obvious is in the Qo’NoS system, sir,” Kim replied as he got up and activated the briefing room’s viewscreen. “The moon Praxis was destroyed in 2293-”
“Decimating Qo’NoS’ atmosphere and leading to the truce between the Klingon Empire and the Federation,” B’Elanna finished his sentence. “The Homeworld still relies on the atmospheric replenishment tech the Federation helped them develop. It’ll take at least another century and half before Qo’NoS can survive without that technology.”
“Exactly,” he said, bringing up the scan of the Klingon’s home solar system. “Except that in this solar system, Praxis is still there in one piece.”
“And Qo’NoS’ atmosphere is intact,” Janeway said.
“Yes, Captain, that appears the case,” Kim said. “Praxis and other anomalous readings like the expansion of the Hromi Cluster, which now seems to be developing into the major star-forming region, a couple of new stars that aren’t in any of our databases, some missing stars and couple of additional supernova remnants, led me to ask the Doctor to run quantum resonance scans on his patients. I’ve also started scans of the ship itself and of the surrounding space, but-”
“But you suspect that we’re no longer in our own quantum universe,” Chakotay finished for him.
Kim nodded-his open, boyish face sorrowful. “That’s correct, commander,” he replied, “that and a bit of time travel-approximately five to six thousand years into the future relative to our universe’ time-frame, accounting for galactic and stellar motion.”
“Well, that certainly explains a few things,” B’Elanna muttered, shocked at the thought that she and her daughter might be the only Klingons in existence-and not even full Klingons at that!
“B’Elanna?” Tom said gently.
“Harry, can you tell if this Qo’NoS is inhabited?” she asked.
“Not from this distance,” Kim replied. “Perhaps once we get the astrometric sensors online-”
“And even then we may not be able to tell definitively,” Tom said quickly, squeezing her hand gently-seeming to read her fears with uncanny accuracy. “If they’re in an agrarian stage or even early industrial, we wouldn’t be able to tell unless we go there.”
“Actually, that’s not such a bad idea,” Janeway said thoughtfully.
“Captain?” Chakotay said.
“Before its destruction, Praxis was a rich source of dilithium and other ores for the Empire,” Janeway replied. “The Klingons had been mining it for centuries-and they still mine the asteroids that resulted from its destruction. We have main power and shields back now, and at warp six, it would only take four days to get there. It would use up quite a bit of our reserves, but unless the composition of that moon has been drastically altered from what it was in our universe, we should be able to find a lot of the resources we need there, and perhaps food supplies from Qo’NoS itself.”
“That’s a great idea, captain,” Kim said enthusiastically. “And if we do find Klingons here, then it’s possible that we’ll find humans, Vulcans and other alpha quadrant species as well.”
“That does not necessarily follow Mr. Kim,” Tuvok said in his clipped, precise tone. “No more than it would logically follow that not finding Klingons would mean we would not find other alpha quadrant species.”
B’Elanna could feel her hackles rising at the instant dimming of the light in Harry’s eyes as the younger man visibly slumped into himself. She knew how much Harry wanted to go home-how much he missed his family, even his old girlfriend, Libby. Now with this news that they were in a completely different universe, it would be hard for him to give up all hope, and it made her furious that Tuvok would squash Harry’s need to have something to hope for.
However, Janeway beat B’Elanna in responding to Tuvok. “You’re correct, Tuvok,” the captain said. “But Mr. Kim does have a valid point. If we do find Klingons or evidence of them on Qo’NoS, it may indicate that there might be a certain amount of parallel evolution between the two universes, and indeed, be indicative that other familiar alpha quadrant species or their descendants may be found, considering the humanoid seeding of M-Class planets that went on in our galaxy courtesy of the Progenitors.”
Tuvok nodded courteously to the captain, an oddly chastened gesture.
“All right,” Janeway continued. “B’Elanna, you said that Harry’s theory that we are no longer in our universe “explains a few things”. What did you mean by that?”
“Rollins asked me to analyse the sensor readings from the transwarp conduit,” B’Elanna replied. “Basically from what I can tell, we accidentally created the anomaly.”
There was a jumbled wave of protest, but as the realisation sunk in, it died as quickly as it began.
“How so, B’Elanna?” Chakotay asked soberly.
B’Elanna nodded to Tom; he rose and brought up her analysis on the viewscreen. “The detonation of the transphasic torpedoes had an unintended effect on the transwarp conduit,” she continued. “It created a divergence anomaly-something similar to the subspace scission that duplicated Voyager back in our second year in the delta quadrant. I found that all our readings doubled as the anomaly interacted with our shields. But while our engines stalled, the other Voyager accelerated down the transwarp conduit.” They stared at her in mute shock.
“It’s possible that the other Voyager was in phase with the conduit and therefore our original universe,” Seven said finally. “While we were more in phase with the scission and got sucked into it.”
“And that’s why we lost most of our anti-matter,” Kim said in quiet realisation. “The majority of it went to the other Voyager.”
“That would be my guess, Harry,” B’Elanna said with grim finality. “After listening to your report, the sensor readings while we were caught in the anomaly make a lot more sense to me now. I think that this transwarp scission was a sort of trans-dimensional phenomenon that crashed through the barriers between multiple universes, losing energy as it went, before dissipating and depositing us here in this universe. Captain, I wouldn’t be surprised if, when the analysis is complete, it finds that we’re in a universe with a quantum signature very different from our native one. Furthermore, as the anomaly appears to have dissipated, and we’ve apparently travelled in time, it would be virtually impossible for us to get back.”
“I see,” Janeway said softly. The captain rubbed her temple tiredly and B’Elanna felt a rush of sympathy and affection for the older woman. Like Kim, Janeway had a lot to return to the Federation for-unlike B’Elanna, who had the most important people to her on Voyager.
“Captain,” she said gently. “Your quick thinking saved the ship, Ma’am. If you hadn’t shored up the shields and structural integrity-stopped fighting it-and positioned us to ride out the wave, we would have been destroyed.”
“At least we know that somewhere out there, another Voyager probably made it home,” Tom quickly chimed in. “And we did make it back to the alpha quadrant-even if it is someone else’s alpha quadrant.” Soft chuckles greeted his attempt to dispel the sombre atmosphere and B’Elanna was glad for his eternal optimism and ability to cheer people up.
Janeway lifted her gaze to meet theirs, nodding gratefully. “Thank you, lieutenants,” she said hoarsely. “Okay everyone, until the quantum and temporal analyses are done let’s complete the repairs, and then head to Qo’NoS.”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” they all replied sharply.
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To Chapter 6