The first time the universe disappeared, Mercer was looking at a coffee stain.
It had dried in the bottom of a cup on the security duty-room table and looked vaguely like the coastline of South America.
He had been trying to decide whether to tell Hale that.
Then the cup vanished.
So did the table.
So did Hale.
For a fraction of a second there was no deck beneath Mercer’s boots, no bulkhead in front of him, no Enterprise around him.
There was darkness.
Not the darkness of space.
There were no stars.
Then everything came back.
The cup hit the table.
Mercer grabbed the edge.
Across from him, Hale had gone completely still.
Rainer was standing beside the equipment locker with one boot half on.
Ox stopped chewing.
Kane looked toward the door.
Nobody spoke.
The overhead lights flickered.
The deck moved beneath them.
Not a vibration.
A single, hard displacement.
Then the ship settled.
Mercer looked at Hale.
“Did—”
“Yes.”
“You don’t know what I was going to ask.”
“Yes.”
Rainer pulled on her boot.
“What the hell was that?”
The intercom came alive before anyone answered.
“All security sections, stand by.”
Kane was already reaching for his phaser.
The others moved.
No order needed.
The duty-room door opened onto a corridor filled with Enterprise crewmen doing exactly what Enterprise crewmen always did when something impossible happened.
They kept working.
A technician hurried past with a diagnostic unit.
Two engineering crewmen disappeared around the junction.
A lieutenant stood at a wall communicator listening to someone speak from the bridge.
Mercer clipped his phaser to his belt.
The ship vanished again.
This time he saw something inside the darkness.
A man.
Just for an instant.
Wild hair.
A face twisted with effort.
Then another face.
The same face.
Not the same man.
Enterprise slammed back around them.
Mercer struck the bulkhead.
Rainer caught Hale by the shirt.
Ox’s shoulder hit the opposite wall.
Kane remained upright.
Of course he did.
The lieutenant at the communicator looked toward them.
“Security team.”
Kane crossed the corridor.
“What?”
“Landing party on the planet. Captain wants additional personnel available near the transporter room.”
“Threat?”
“Unknown.”
Kane looked at him.
The lieutenant spread one hand.
“Something about a man named Lazarus.”
Rainer came up behind Kane.
“Of course.”
Kane glanced at her.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
They moved.
* * *
By the time they reached the transporter room, the Enterprise had winked out twice more.
Hale had stopped trying to describe it.
That worried Mercer.
Hale usually enjoyed describing things.
The transporter chief looked pale.
A security lieutenant stood beside the platform.
“The captain and Mister Spock are planetside. We’ve got another landing party going down to secure the area around the alien vessel.”
Kane stepped onto the transporter pad.
Mercer followed.
“What are we looking for?”
The lieutenant shrugged.
“Anything that shouldn’t be there.”
Rainer took the pad beside Mercer.
“That narrows it down.”
Ox stepped up.
Hale came last, tricorder already in hand.
The transporter chief worked the controls.
Blue-white light climbed around them.
Mercer felt the familiar pull.
Then something went wrong.
The transporter room stretched.
The transporter beam stretched.
Mercer stretched with it.
There was no pain.
That somehow made it worse.
He saw the planet below.
Enterprise above.
Then neither.
A man screamed somewhere.
Not one of them.
Mercer reached for the person beside him.
His hand closed around Rainer’s sleeve.
Someone else caught his shoulder.
Then the light broke.
Mercer fell.
His knees hit metal.
His hands followed.
He heard Rainer swear.
Hale hit the floor beside him.
Kane landed on one knee.
Mercer looked around.
Gray walls.
Soft light.
A corridor.
Starfleet.
Probably.
The shape was there.
The delta.
But everything else was wrong.
The uniforms of the two people staring at them were wrong.
The walls were wrong.
The doors were wrong.
The lights were wrong.
Mercer turned.
“Kane.”
Kane was counting.
Mercer.
Hale.
Rainer.
Kane.
His eyes returned to Mercer.
“Ox.”
Mercer looked behind him.
Nothing.
Kane stood.
“Ox.”
The corridor gave no answer.
Kane pulled out his communicator.
It chirped.
Static.
“Ox.”
Nothing.
One of the strangers reached toward an object on his chest.
Kane’s phaser was in his hand before the man’s fingers touched it.
The stranger froze.
Rainer drew hers.
Mercer followed.
The second stranger raised both hands.
“Starfleet.”
Kane’s phaser stayed where it was.
The first man slowly touched his chest.
The insignia answered him.
“Security to the bridge.”
Hale stared at the badge.
The man’s eyes moved over their uniforms.
Then stopped.
Something in his expression changed.
“Captain,” he said.
A woman’s voice answered from his chest.
“Janeway here.”
The man continued staring at Kane.
“You should come to deck nine.”
* * *
Ox landed on his back.
He stayed there.
The ceiling above him was low.
Metal.
There were exposed conduits.
A pipe ran along one side.
Something hummed badly behind the wall.
Ox knew machines that hummed badly.
They usually wanted attention.
Boots appeared beside his head.
Ox looked sideways.
A man stood over him with a weapon.
Blue uniform.
Starfleet insignia.
The weapon was not a phaser Ox recognized.
“Don’t move.”
Ox considered that.
“Okay.”
Another person appeared.
A woman.
Vulcan.
She looked at Ox.
Then his uniform.
Then his phaser.
Her eyebrow rose.
Ox sat up.
The man raised his weapon.
“I said don’t move.”
“Thought you meant fast.”
The Vulcan studied him.
“Who are you?”
“Ox.”
The man waited.
Ox waited too.
“Ox what?”
“Usually just Ox.”
The Vulcan’s gaze went to his insignia.
“You are Starfleet?”
“Yep.”
“That uniform is not Starfleet issue.”
Ox looked down at himself.
Red shirt.
Black collar.
Starfleet delta.
He looked back at her.
“Sure is.”
The man frowned.
The Vulcan did not.
“What vessel?”
“Enterprise.”
That changed both faces.
The man glanced at the Vulcan.
“Captain Archer needs to see this.”
Ox stopped.
He knew that name.
Not well.
History classes had contained a lot of names.
Some stayed.
Archer stayed.
Ox looked around the corridor again.
Old metal.
Exposed systems.
Primitive weapon.
Vulcan officer.
He got to his feet.
The man raised the weapon again.
Ox held out his hands.
“Got a question.”
The Vulcan waited.
“What year is it?”
* * *
Captain Kathryn Janeway walked into the corridor with a dark-haired man beside her.
She took in Kane’s phaser first.
Then the uniforms.
Then the communicators.
Then the four people.
“I’m Captain Janeway.”
“Kane.”
She waited.
He didn’t add anything.
Her eyes settled on his rank.
“Sergeant Major?”
“Yes.”
“What ship?”
“Enterprise.”
Janeway’s expression changed.
The man beside her looked more closely at them.
Janeway said, “Registry.”
“NCC-1701.”
Silence.
Mercer looked at Hale.
Hale was staring at the corridor.
Not at Janeway.
At everything.
The doors.
The lights.
The wall panels.
The insignia that had spoken.
Janeway looked at Kane again.
“Captain James T. Kirk?”
Kane’s face didn’t move.
Mercer felt his own do it for him.
“How do you know the captain?”
Janeway looked at Mercer.
Then Kane.
Kane said, “Answer him.”
The dark-haired man shifted slightly.
Janeway raised one hand.
“He’s in our historical records.”
Mercer stared.
Something cold moved through him.
Hale spoke.
“What year is it?”
Kane looked at him.
Hale didn’t look back.
Janeway told them.
Mercer heard the number.
He understood every digit.
His mind refused to assemble them.
He tried again.
His mother had been twenty-six when he was born.
His father—
No.
He looked down the corridor.
People moved there.
Starfleet officers.
Human.
Alien.
A woman in a uniform he had never seen carried a padd past the junction.
Nobody seemed impressed that the Federation still existed.
Why would they be?
Mercer felt fingers touch his sleeve.
Kane.
Two fingers.
Gone almost immediately.
“Missing man,” Kane said.
Janeway looked at him.
“One of ours didn’t arrive.”
“Name?”
“Ox.”
Janeway waited.
Rainer said, “Big.”
Hale added, “Very.”
Kane glanced at both of them.
Rainer shrugged.
“You were taking too long.”
Janeway’s badge chirped.
“Bridge to Janeway. Chronokinetic readings are spiking again.”
Janeway tapped the insignia.
“On my way.”
Hale had his tricorder open.
The little screen looked pathetic in the corridor.
Mercer saw Hale realize it.
Then the deck twisted.
A bulkhead became three bulkheads.
A crewman walked past them.
Then walked past them again.
Then was gone.
Janeway turned.
“Everyone away from—”
The corridor disappeared.
* * *
Ox sat in a launch bay aboard the oldest Enterprise he had ever seen.
The strange ship sitting in front of him looked small enough to fit inside a shuttle bay.
Its interior disagreed.
Commander Tucker had explained that twice.
Ox had gone inside once.
Once had been enough.
Lieutenant Reed watched him from the other side of the bay.
Ox recognized security.
Different century.
Same stare.
T’Pol stood beside a scanner.
Captain Jonathan Archer faced Ox.
“You’re telling me you’re from a Federation starship called Enterprise.”
“Yep.”
“And you’re from the future.”
“Looks that way.”
“How far?”
“Don’t know.”
Archer glanced at T’Pol.
She said, “His equipment is considerably more advanced than ours.”
Reed’s eyes went to Ox’s phaser.
Ox noticed.
Reed noticed him noticing.
Neither said anything.
Tucker emerged from the future vessel.
“Still bigger on the inside.”
Ox nodded.
“Yep.”
Tucker looked at him.
“You’re taking this pretty well.”
Ox thought about that.
“Not really.”
Tucker waited.
Ox looked around.
“Just don’t know what else to do.”
The ship shuddered.
A klaxon sounded.
Reed moved immediately.
Archer turned toward the intercom.
“Bridge to Captain Archer.”
A voice reported an approaching vessel.
T’Pol’s expression changed when the identification came.
Tholian.
Ox knew that name.
The deck shook again.
His communicator chirped.
Ox grabbed it.
Static.
Then—
“—Ox—”
Kane.
Ox stood so fast Reed raised his weapon.
“Kane?”
Static.
“Ox, report.”
“I’m here.”
Archer looked at T’Pol.
Tucker looked at the communicator.
Ox turned slowly, trying to find the direction of a signal that had no direction.
“Kane?”
The air beside the future vessel split open.
Not exploded.
Split.
A vertical line of white appeared from deck to ceiling.
For one instant Ox saw another corridor beyond it.
Gray.
Clean.
Someone in red.
“Ox!”
Ox ran.
The opening collapsed before he reached it.
He stopped.
Tucker came up beside him.
“Friend?”
Ox looked at the empty air.
“Boss.”
* * *
Kane saw Ox.
Three seconds.
Maybe less.
Enough.
“Ox!”
The big man turned.
Different ship behind him.
Older.
Kane recognized none of it.
Ox ran toward them.
The opening closed.
Kane hit empty air.
Rainer stopped beside him.
“That was him.”
“Yes.”
Hale scanned the space.
“Residual chronometric—”
“Can you follow it?”
Hale looked at the tricorder.
“Maybe.”
“Do it.”
They were standing aboard another Enterprise.
Mercer knew because the wall had told them.
USS Enterprise.
NCC-1701-D.
The letter bothered him.
He didn’t know why.
The ship was enormous.
Carpet covered the corridor.
Rainer looked down.
“Again.”
Mercer glanced at her.
“What?”
“Future Starfleet likes carpet.”
Hale moved the tricorder through the air.
“I’m getting temporal gradients.”
Kane looked down the corridor.
A woman hung in the air.
Mercer hadn’t noticed her at first.
His brain had rejected what his eyes were showing him.
She was frozen halfway through falling.
A padd hung beside her hand.
Not falling.
Just there.
Mercer approached.
Kane’s arm stopped him.
“No.”
“I wasn’t going to touch her.”
Kane looked at him.
Mercer backed up.
Hale stepped closer.
The tricorder chirped.
“Time isn’t progressing uniformly.”
Rainer looked at the floating padd.
“You think?”
Hale ignored her.
A shadow moved at the far junction.
Kane’s phaser came up.
An officer stepped around the corner.
Pale skin.
Gold eyes.
Yellow-and-black uniform.
A device around one arm.
He stopped.
His eyes moved over them.
“Curious.”
Rainer whispered, “I don’t like him.”
“I heard that,” the officer said.
Rainer looked at Mercer.
Mercer looked away.
The officer continued.
“I am Lieutenant Commander Data.”
Kane lowered the phaser several centimeters.
“Ship?”
“USS Enterprise.”
Rainer closed her eyes.
Data looked at her.
“Is something wrong?”
“No.”
Kane said, “We’re looking for one of our people.”
Data’s head tilted.
“Description?”
“Big.”
Data waited.
Rainer said, “Really big.”
Kane looked at her.
“What?”
Data said, “I have not encountered anyone matching that description.”
Hale’s tricorder screamed.
“Back!”
Kane moved first.
He caught Mercer by the chest and drove him backward.
The air in front of them shimmered.
The frozen woman fell.
The padd struck the deck.
She cried out.
Mercer started forward.
Hale grabbed him.
“No.”
The woman scrambled backward.
Her hand crossed the shimmering boundary.
Stopped.
Not against anything.
Stopped in time.
Her face changed.
Kane stepped to the edge.
“Can she hear us?”
Data looked at his armband.
“Not while she remains within the temporal field.”
The boundary shifted.
The woman came free.
Kane caught her.
Data moved to help.
A phaser blast hung motionless at the next junction.
Mercer stared at it.
Beyond a viewport, a Romulan warbird sat frozen beside Enterprise.
Green disruptor energy stretched between them.
Hale forgot Ox for almost five seconds.
Mercer counted.
Then Kane said:
“Hale.”
Hale looked down at his tricorder.
“Right.”
They moved.
* * *
Ox found Deep Space Nine because Deep Space Nine found him.
One moment he was aboard Archer’s Enterprise.
The next he was in a crowded room.
Someone hit him.
Ox staggered.
A Klingon stood in front of him.
Ox looked at the Klingon.
The Klingon looked at Ox.
“Sorry,” Ox said.
The Klingon swung again.
Ox ducked.
A Human man in a Starfleet uniform came through the crowd.
“Enough!”
The Klingon turned.
Someone else hit the Starfleet man.
He went down.
Ox looked at him.
Then at the Klingon.
Then Ox hit the Klingon.
The Klingon fell across a table.
The room became quieter.
Not quiet.
Just quieter.
Ox reached down.
The Starfleet man looked at his hand.
Then at Ox’s uniform.
“What the hell are you wearing?”
“Uniform.”
“I can see that.”
Ox pulled him up.
The man rubbed his jaw.
“Miles O’Brien.”
“Ox.”
O’Brien waited.
Ox waited.
O’Brien sighed.
“Right.”
Something happened to his face.
He looked past Ox.
The room seemed to pull at him.
Then O’Brien vanished.
Ox stared at the empty space.
The Klingon on the table groaned.
Ox looked down.
“You see that?”
The Klingon groaned again.
“Yeah.”
Ox nodded.
“Me too.”
* * *
Voyager was broken.
Not damaged.
Broken.
Hale stood at the edge of a corridor and watched two centuries touch.
On one side, Kane.
On the other, a woman in a Starfleet uniform Hale had never seen.
Between them, nothing visible.
His tricorder said otherwise.
“Don’t cross.”
Kane looked at him.
“Ox?”
“I don’t know.”
Kane stepped closer to the boundary.
Hale caught his arm.
“I said don’t.”
Kane looked at Hale’s hand.
Hale removed it.
“Sorry.”
A man approached from the other side.
Older than Mercer.
Younger than Kane.
A hypospray in his hand.
“Don’t cross unless you’ve been inoculated.”
Kane looked at him.
The man stopped.
His eyes moved over their uniforms.
He seemed to decide that whatever question he had could wait.
“Chakotay.”
“Kane.”
Chakotay held up the hypospray.
“Chronoton serum. It lets you cross the temporal barriers.”
Hale stared.
“Temporal barriers?”
Chakotay looked at him.
“Thirty-seven different time frames across the ship.”
Rainer turned to Mercer.
“Of course.”
Mercer didn’t answer.
Hale took the hypospray.
Kane stopped him.
“What?”
“You know what’s in it?”
“No.”
Kane handed it back.
Chakotay almost smiled.
“I had the same conversation with my captain.”
“Did she take it?”
“Eventually.”
Kane held out his hand.
Chakotay gave him the hypo.
Kane injected himself.
Then handed it to Hale.
“Now you know.”
Rainer laughed once.
Hale injected himself.
Mercer followed.
Rainer last.
They crossed.
The corridor changed.
Same ship.
Different time.
A child ran past.
Then another barrier.
Different crew.
Another.
The ship damaged.
Another.
A woman with metal around one eye looked at them and immediately raised a weapon.
Chakotay stepped forward.
“It’s all right.”
She lowered it reluctantly.
Kane didn’t ask who she was.
“Ox.”
Chakotay shook his head.
“No.”
They kept moving.
At the next barrier Hale’s tricorder chirped.
He stopped.
“Wait.”
Kane turned.
Hale scanned again.
“The signature.”
“Ox?”
“Same displacement pattern.”
“Where?”
Hale pointed through the bulkhead.
Kane looked at the wall.
“Distance?”
“Twenty-seven meters.”
Kane moved toward the nearest door.
Chakotay caught him.
“That section is another timeframe.”
“How far?”
Chakotay looked at the panel.
“Years.”
Kane stared at the door.
Twenty-seven meters.
Years.
Rainer came up beside him.
“There’s another way.”
Kane looked at her.
“There always is.”
Hale looked at the readings.
“Actually—”
Rainer pointed at him.
“Not now.”
They went around.
* * *
O’Brien disappeared four times.
Ox started keeping count.
The first time was in the bar.
The second was in a corridor.
The third happened while O’Brien was trying to explain why Ox should report to station security.
Ox had been listening.
Mostly.
O’Brien vanished in the middle of the sentence.
Ox waited.
He came back later looking worse.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Want food?”
O’Brien stared at him.
“What?”
“Found a place.”
“This station is going to explode.”
Ox considered that.
“Before food?”
O’Brien closed his eyes.
When he opened them, Ox was still there.
“Who are you?”
“Ox.”
“I know your name.”
“Oh.”
“Where did you come from?”
“Enterprise.”
“Which Enterprise?”
Ox frowned.
“There’s more than one?”
O’Brien stared.
Then his expression changed.
He looked at Ox’s shirt.
The communicator.
The phaser.
“Oh, bloody hell.”
Ox’s communicator chirped.
He grabbed it.
“Kane?”
Static.
O’Brien looked at the device.
Ox walked toward the corridor.
The static sharpened.
“—Ox—”
“Here.”
The station shook.
People shouted.
O’Brien looked toward Ops.
Ox looked toward the sound in his communicator.
A line of white appeared across the far wall.
Ox smiled.
Then the station vanished.
* * *
Mercer landed in a future that hated him.
He didn’t know that immediately.
At first he saw Earth.
That helped.
Then he saw the banners.
Black.
Red.
Human figures marched across enormous screens.
A voice spoke about conquest.
Alien skulls decorated a display inside the building where Mercer, Kane, Hale and Rainer had appeared.
Rainer stood very still.
Hale stared at a holographic map.
Human territory spread across it like a wound.
Mercer found a word repeated everywhere.
CONFEDERATION.
He looked at Kane.
“This is Starfleet?”
Kane didn’t answer.
A door opened.
Two armed men entered.
Their uniforms were Human.
Their weapons pointed at Rainer first.
“Identify yourselves.”
Kane’s hands remained at his sides.
“Starfleet.”
One of the men laughed.
The other didn’t.
“There is no Starfleet.”
Mercer looked back at the map.
Vulcan.
Andoria.
Qo’noS.
Names he knew.
Marks beside them he didn’t.
Conquered.
Pacified.
Eradicated.
His stomach tightened.
The first guard stepped toward Kane.
“On your knees.”
Kane looked at him.
“No.”
The guard raised his weapon.
Rainer moved.
Kane moved first.
The weapon struck the floor.
Mercer hit the second man.
Hale grabbed the dropped weapon.
The entire exchange lasted perhaps three seconds.
Kane looked at the door.
“Move.”
They ran.
Mercer followed.
He looked once more at the enormous map of what humanity had become.
Then the wall split open.
They went through.
* * *
The ship on the other side was Discovery.
Hale learned that from the computer.
The computer was not the part that bothered him.
The ship was.
It changed while he was standing inside it.
A pristine corridor became dark.
The walls aged.
Then the walls became new again.
A crewman appeared.
Disappeared.
Another took his place.
The uniforms changed.
Hale raised the tricorder.
The readings were impossible.
He adjusted.
They became more impossible.
Rainer watched him.
“How bad?”
Hale didn’t answer.
A man came running around the corner.
Blue uniform.
He nearly collided with Kane.
“Who the hell are you?”
“Kane.”
The man looked at their uniforms.
Then the tricorder.
Then something in the wall.
“Not now.”
He ran.
Hale followed.
Kane caught his shoulder.
“Hale.”
“He knows what’s happening.”
“We’re finding Ox.”
“He may know how.”
That was enough.
They followed.
The man entered an engineering space.
“Stamets!”
Another man looked up.
Hale stopped.
Something small clung to a power system.
Mechanical.
Insectlike.
Stamets was already working around it.
“Don’t touch it.”
Rainer looked at Kane.
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Nobody was talking to you.”
“I know.”
Hale moved closer.
“What is it?”
Stamets glanced at him.
“Chronophage.”
Hale waited.
Stamets saw the blank expression.
“Time bug.”
Rainer folded her arms.
“Of course it’s a bug.”
The ship changed.
Everyone vanished.
Not everyone.
The Watch remained.
Stamets remained.
Engineering became something else.
Older.
Hale looked around.
Stamets closed his eyes.
“Again.”
Hale scanned.
The chronophage was still there.
Same position.
Different ship-time.
“How many temporal states?”
Stamets looked at him.
“All of them, apparently.”
Hale’s tricorder chirped.
Ox.
The same residual pattern.
Close.
Then gone.
Hale adjusted.
Nothing.
Again.
Nothing.
He stared at the screen.
Rainer came beside him.
“Find him?”
“No.”
“You will.”
Hale looked at her.
She was already watching the corridor.
The ship changed again.
* * *
Ox woke to a woman’s voice.
Not Human.
Not exactly.
“Are you injured?”
He opened his eyes.
A darkened bridge surrounded him.
Dust lay across the consoles.
Plants had grown through part of one wall.
No crew.
No movement.
A single chair sat beneath him.
Ox looked around.
“Where are you?”
“I am here.”
“Where?”
“The ship.”
Ox stood.
“What ship?”
“Discovery.”
He looked around again.
“Crew?”
There was a pause.
“Absent.”
“For how long?”
Another pause.
“A very long time.”
Ox rubbed the back of his head.
“Got food?”
The voice sounded almost amused.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
He walked.
The ship was empty.
Not abandoned in the way a barn was abandoned.
A barn had birds.
Dust.
Wind through boards.
This place had waited.
Ox found a replicator after the voice told him how.
He looked at it.
“What do you have?”
“What would you like?”
“Stew.”
The machine produced a bowl.
Ox tasted it.
“Not bad.”
“Thank you.”
“You make it?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
Ox ate.
A few minutes later he heard another voice.
Human.
A man.
Ox followed it.
The man stopped when he saw him.
They stared at each other.
The stranger’s clothes weren’t Starfleet.
Neither spoke.
Finally the man said, “Craft.”
Ox nodded.
“Ox.”
Craft looked at the red uniform.
“Starfleet?”
“Yep.”
Craft laughed softly.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Ox looked around the empty ship.
“You stuck too?”
Craft looked toward the ceiling.
“Something like that.”
Ox nodded.
“Kane’s coming.”
Craft studied him.
“You’re sure?”
Ox took another bite.
“Yep.”
* * *
Reality changed their hands.
Rainer noticed because she was reaching for her phaser.
Her fingers closed around it.
Four fingers.
She stopped.
Opened her hand.
Closed it.
Opened it again.
“Absolutely not.”
Mercer turned.
His face was wrong.
Flat.
Outlined.
Rainer pointed.
“What happened to you?”
Mercer stared at her.
“What happened to me?”
Hale looked at his tricorder.
The tricorder had changed too.
Everything had.
The Enterprise corridor around them was familiar and not familiar.
Colors were too clean.
Edges too sharp.
Movement felt wrong.
Rainer touched her face.
“No.”
Kane checked his phaser.
Rainer stared at him.
“What the fuck happened to my fingers?”
Kane thumbed the phaser control.
It hummed.
“Weapon works.”
Rainer looked at him.
“That’s your concern?”
“Yes.”
Mercer started laughing.
Rainer turned.
He stopped.
Mostly.
Hale held up his hand.
“Anatomically, we’re—”
“No.”
“I was only—”
“No.”
An alarm sounded.
That remained an alarm.
Kane looked down the corridor.
“Move.”
They moved.
The ship was trapped among other ships.
Old.
Alien.
Klingon.
Federation.
Ships from eras Mercer couldn’t place.
People aboard called the place the Delta Triangle.
Kane didn’t care what they called it.
He showed people Ox’s description.
Nobody had seen him.
A Klingon officer argued with Rainer.
She argued back.
Neither understood the other’s language well enough.
It didn’t seem to matter.
A tremor moved through the trapped ship.
The deck bucked.
A support failed.
A crewman went down beneath it.
Ox wasn’t there.
Kane went anyway.
Mercer helped lift.
Rainer pulled the man clear.
Hale shouted about the timewarp.
Kane shouted louder.
The ship shook.
The universe changed again.
Rainer looked at her hand.
Still wrong.
But differently wrong.
She stared.
Hale looked at himself.
Then at her.
A smile started.
Tiny.
Rainer pointed at him.
“Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were going to.”
“I genuinely wasn’t.”
“You thought it.”
A purple-haired Starfleet officer rounded the corner.
He saw them.
Stopped.
His eyes became enormous.
“Oh my God.”
Kane raised his phaser.
The man raised both hands.
“Starfleet!”
Kane didn’t lower the weapon.
The man looked at their uniforms.
“Oh my God.”
“You said that.”
“Sorry.”
“Name.”
“Boimler.”
“Ship.”
“Anaximander.”
Hale looked around.
The ship was filled with people who looked wrong in entirely new ways.
A Vulcan.
A Klingon.
A version of a man Hale thought he had seen in a historical file.
Boimler’s eyes kept returning to their uniforms.
“You’re from the Constitution-class era.”
Kane stepped closer.
“Missing man.”
Boimler blinked.
“What?”
“Ox.”
“Is that a nickname?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
“Big.”
“How big?”
Rainer held her hand above her head.
Boimler’s expression changed.
“Actually—”
Rainer groaned.
“What?”
“Why does everyone in the future start bad news with ‘actually’?”
Boimler pointed down the corridor.
“We’ve been tracking dimensional fissures. I saw somebody matching that description through one.”
Kane started walking.
Boimler followed.
“Wait.”
Kane didn’t.
“You can’t just walk into a dimensional fissure.”
Kane reached the opening.
White light rippled across the corridor.
Another place beyond.
Another ship.
Another universe.
Kane looked at Boimler.
“Where does it go?”
“We don’t know.”
“Neither does Ox.”
Kane stepped through.
Rainer followed.
Mercer.
Hale.
Boimler stood alone.
“Oh my God.”
* * *
They came out aboard Voyager.
Again.
Except not.
Hale knew the shape.
The name.
The lineage.
Everything else was wrong.
A young alien boy ran past them.
Then stopped.
He looked at their uniforms.
Kane said, “Ox.”
The boy pointed.
“Who?”
A fracture opened behind him.
Another Voyager existed through it.
Different bridge.
Different people.
Another opened.
Dark uniforms.
Weapons.
A face Mercer recognized from the other Voyager.
Not the same.
Rainer looked from one to another.
“I hate this.”
Hale scanned.
The tricorder chirped.
“Wait.”
A woman with white hair appeared through one of the fractures.
Starfleet admiral.
She saw them.
“Who are you?”
“Kane.”
Her eyes moved to his uniform.
Then Mercer.
Then Hale.
Recognition.
Not personal.
Historical.
“Enterprise.”
Kane’s expression changed.
“How do you know that?”
The ship lurched.
The fracture split.
A young man shouted from another compartment.
The admiral turned.
“Dal!”
Kane grabbed Hale.
“Ox?”
Hale scanned.
The readings multiplied.
“I’ve got him.”
“Where?”
Hale stared.
Then looked at Kane.
“Several places.”
Kane’s jaw tightened.
Rainer came closer.
“What does that mean?”
Hale looked through the alternate Voyagers.
“It means I don’t know which reading is ours.”
Kane looked at him.
Hale swallowed.
“Which Ox is ours.”
Silence.
Mercer stared at the nearest fracture.
A Voyager bridge existed there.
Another Kane might exist somewhere too.
Another Mercer.
Another family.
Another fence.
He stopped.
Kane said:
“Hale.”
Hale looked at the tricorder.
“I’m working.”
They moved.
* * *
The next Enterprise was theirs.
Almost.
Mercer knew the corridor.
He knew the bulkhead.
He knew the deck plates.
He knew where the junction should lead.
Then a woman ran past him crying.
Mercer turned.
Rainer grabbed his arm.
“What?”
Mercer pointed.
A man followed the woman.
“Wait!”
The man stopped when he saw the Watch.
He looked vaguely familiar.
Not someone Mercer knew.
Someone he might have passed aboard ship.
Except the uniform was wrong.
Older style.
Different cut.
The man’s face carried an intensity entirely disproportionate to the corridor.
“You can’t stop true love!”
Rainer stared.
Mercer looked at Kane.
Kane looked at the man.
“Move.”
The man blinked.
“What?”
“Out of the corridor.”
The man clutched his chest.
“But she has my heart.”
Rainer’s mouth opened.
Kane pointed.
“Now.”
The man fled.
Rainer slowly looked at Hale.
“No.”
Hale had the tricorder open.
“The readings are extraordinary.”
“No.”
“Reality itself appears to be—”
“No.”
A door opened.
Captain Christopher Pike stepped out.
Mercer recognized him.
Everybody in Starfleet knew Pike.
Pike saw their uniforms.
Then Kane.
Then the corridor behind them.
For a moment he looked profoundly tired.
“You’re not supposed to be here.”
Kane nodded.
“Agreed.”
Pike stared at him.
Then laughed.
Not much.
“Wish it were that easy.”
Someone called Pike’s name from down the corridor with enough emotional anguish to power a starship.
Rainer looked toward the sound.
Then back at Pike.
“What is wrong with everyone?”
Pike sighed.
“You don’t want to know.”
Rainer considered him.
“I like you.”
The corridor lights changed.
Music came from nowhere.
Rainer’s face went blank.
“No.”
Hale looked up.
“What?”
“No.”
A woman appeared around the corner.
She looked at Kane.
Her eyes widened.
The universe seemed to expect something.
Kane looked back.
Nothing.
The woman waited.
Kane waited longer.
Whatever reality wanted from him, Kane declined to provide it.
The wall opened behind the Watch.
Hale saw it.
“Kane.”
Kane backed toward the fracture.
Pike watched them.
Mercer looked at Pike.
Pike looked at Mercer.
Neither said anything.
Then the Watch fell out of the story.
* * *
Ox had stopped asking what year it was.
He had also stopped asking which ship.
Those questions did not improve anything.
He had left the empty Discovery.
He did not know how.
One moment Zora was speaking.
The next he stood inside a bright room filled with young Starfleet cadets.
One dropped a padd.
Another stared at Ox’s uniform.
Ox looked around.
This Starfleet was beyond anything he’d seen.
People still looked tired.
That helped.
A cadet approached.
“Are you part of the acclimation exercise?”
Ox looked at him.
“Don’t think so.”
The cadet studied the red shirt.
“Historical simulation?”
“Nope.”
Another cadet joined them.
“What period?”
Ox sighed.
“Enterprise.”
The first cadet’s face changed.
“Kirk’s Enterprise?”
Ox frowned.
“How do you know Captain Kirk?”
The cadets looked at each other.
Ox didn’t like that.
A woman in an Academy uniform approached.
She looked at Ox.
Then the equipment.
Then his face.
Unlike the cadets, she didn’t stare for long.
“You’re displaced.”
“Yep.”
“You know where from?”
“Enterprise.”
“When?”
Ox shrugged.
“Before here.”
The woman almost smiled.
“That’s technically correct.”
Ox looked around.
“You got food?”
* * *
Hale reached the future and found out the future didn’t know.
That took longer than he expected.
They had arrived in a laboratory at Starfleet Academy.
The Academy.
Earth.
Hale knew that much.
The rest was almost incomprehensible.
Equipment responded without controls.
Displays appeared in open air.
Materials changed configuration when touched.
A thousand years of accumulated science surrounded him.
He stopped at the first console.
A scientist approached.
Hale handed over the tricorder.
The scientist looked at it with the careful respect one gave an artifact.
Then looked at Hale.
“You’ve been carrying this?”
“Yes.”
“For the entire displacement?”
“Yes.”
The scientist connected nothing to it.
The future equipment simply read it.
Data unfolded in the air.
Temporal signatures.
Quantum deviations.
Chronometric residue.
Dimensional variance.
Every stop.
Every fracture.
Hale stepped closer.
“There.”
The scientist enlarged one pattern.
Then another.
“They’re related.”
“How?”
“We don’t know.”
Hale looked at her.
“You have temporal records spanning centuries.”
“Yes.”
“Quantum-reality mapping.”
“Yes.”
“Dimensional fissure studies.”
“Yes.”
“Records of Krenim temporal technology.”
“Yes.”
“Federation encounters with nonlinear entities.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
The scientist looked at the display.
“And we don’t know.”
Hale stared.
Rainer leaned against a wall behind him.
She said nothing.
Hale looked at the data again.
A thousand years.
Still blank spaces.
He reached for the tricorder.
The scientist handed it back.
Hale closed it.
Kane appeared in the doorway.
“Ox.”
Hale turned.
Kane stepped aside.
Ox stood behind him with a bowl.
Rainer straightened.
Mercer stopped breathing.
Ox lifted the spoon.
“Hey.”
Rainer crossed the room first.
She hit him.
Hard.
Ox rocked backward.
“What was that for?”
“You disappeared.”
“Didn’t mean to.”
She hit him again.
Kane caught her wrist.
“Enough.”
Rainer looked at him.
Then Ox.
Then pulled Ox into her for half a second.
She released him immediately.
“If you tell anyone that happened, I’ll kill you.”
Ox looked at Mercer.
Mercer looked away.
Hale was smiling.
Rainer pointed at him.
“You too.”
Hale stopped.
Mercer walked up to Ox.
He grabbed his forearm.
Ox grabbed his.
No words.
Kane waited.
Then stepped in front of Ox.
His eyes moved over him.
Head.
Neck.
Hands.
Uniform.
No blood.
No obvious injury.
“You hurt?”
“Nope.”
“Anything happen I need to know about?”
Ox thought.
“Met Archer.”
Kane stared.
“Captain Archer.”
“Yes.”
Rainer looked at Ox.
“What?”
“Nice guy.”
Hale’s mouth opened.
Ox continued.
“Met another guy kept disappearing.”
Hale’s mouth opened farther.
“Had stew on an empty ship.”
Mercer stared.
“Of course you did.”
“Met some kids.”
Kane looked at the bowl.
“What are you eating?”
“Stew.”
Kane closed his eyes for one second.
“Good.”
That was all.
Ox ate.
* * *
Home appeared twelve minutes later.
Hale recognized the signature before the image formed.
A fracture opened in the Academy laboratory.
Beyond it—
Enterprise.
Their Enterprise.
Security duty room.
The table.
The coffee cup.
Mercer’s coffee cup.
Still sitting there.
Mercer stepped toward it.
Hale caught him.
“Wait.”
Mercer looked back.
Hale scanned.
The opening fluctuated.
“It’s collapsing.”
Kane moved beside him.
“How long?”
“I don’t know.”
“Guess.”
“Two minutes.”
Kane looked at his team.
All four.
Rainer.
Hale.
Mercer.
Ox.
“Go.”
Mercer stepped toward the fracture.
A scream stopped him.
Another opening had appeared behind them.
Not home.
A corridor.
Smoke.
A woman lay on the deck.
A child beside her.
The uniform was Starfleet.
Mercer didn’t recognize the century.
The child was trying to lift the woman.
Couldn’t.
The opening narrowed.
Mercer looked at Kane.
Kane had already seen them.
Another fracture appeared.
Two people trapped behind a damaged bulkhead.
Another.
A Klingon.
Another.
Three civilians.
The Academy scientist looked at the readings.
“The fissures are collapsing together.”
Hale looked at home.
“Enterprise won’t remain open.”
Kane looked through the fracture.
The duty room.
Their duty room.
No temporal fields.
No alternate realities.
No impossible future.
Home.
Ox stood beside him.
Found.
Mission complete.
The child screamed again.
Kane turned.
“Rainer.”
She was already moving.
“Hale, keep home open.”
“I can’t.”
“Try.”
“Mercer, Ox.”
They followed.
The Academy scientist said, “Sergeant Major, if that aperture collapses—”
Kane looked at the trapped people.
“Everybody moves.”
* * *
They lost Enterprise.
Mercer saw it happen.
The duty room narrowed to a line.
The coffee cup vanished.
The line disappeared.
He kept carrying the child.
The mother was heavier.
Ox had her.
Rainer ran ahead.
Kane covered behind.
Hale shouted directions from the laboratory.
“Left!”
Mercer went left.
A fracture opened.
Data stood on the other side.
He looked exactly as Mercer remembered.
Or would remember.
Mercer didn’t know anymore.
Data saw the injured woman.
“Pass her through.”
Ox did.
Data caught her.
The child followed.
The opening closed.
Another appeared.
Deep Space Nine.
O’Brien stood there.
He saw Ox.
His face fell.
“You.”
Ox smiled.
“Hey.”
Kane shoved a wounded crewman toward him.
O’Brien caught the man.
“What is happening?”
“Don’t know.”
The fracture closed.
Another.
Voyager.
Janeway.
Not the Janeway Mercer had met.
Older.
Admiral.
She saw the frightened civilians.
Her expression changed immediately.
“Bring them through.”
Kane sent them.
No introduction.
No explanation.
The opening closed.
Another.
Archer’s Enterprise.
Tucker appeared.
Ox pointed.
“That guy.”
Tucker saw him.
“You again?”
Ox handed him an injured Andorian.
“Yep.”
Tucker took the Andorian.
The fracture closed.
Another.
Animation.
Rainer stopped.
Looked at her hand.
Four fingers.
“Fuck.”
Kane went through.
Rainer followed.
“I’m serious, I am done with this.”
Nobody listened.
They moved people.
From one ship to another.
One century to another.
One reality to another.
Nobody had enough information.
Nobody had enough time.
That stopped mattering.
A security officer from a future Mercer didn’t know helped a civilian from a past Mercer didn’t know.
A Klingon carried a Human.
A Vulcan took a crying child.
An Academy cadet crawled through a fissure to reach someone who couldn’t stand.
Mercer ran.
At one point he found himself aboard the impossible Confederation Earth again.
Armed men were coming.
Kane pushed two aliens through an opening.
Rainer fired over his shoulder.
Mercer fired too.
They withdrew.
The fracture closed before the guards reached them.
At another point Mercer emerged onto Discovery.
The ship changed around them.
Stamets shouted at them to get away from the chronophage.
Kane pointed at a wounded woman.
Stamets stopped shouting and helped.
Another fracture.
Prodigy’s fractured Voyager.
A young crew scattered across realities.
Kane never learned their names.
He didn’t need them.
Another.
The enormous Enterprise.
Frozen time.
Data again.
Another.
The Delta Triangle.
Four fingers.
Rainer swore.
Another.
Lower Decks.
Different fingers.
Rainer didn’t even bother.
Hale noticed.
She saw him notice.
“Don’t.”
He didn’t.
They kept moving.
* * *
Eventually there was nobody left.
Mercer sat on the floor of the Academy laboratory.
His hands shook.
He tucked them under his arms.
Rainer sat beside him.
Not touching.
Close.
Ox lay on his back.
Hale stood over the future display.
Kane remained standing.
Mercer looked at him.
Of course.
The Academy scientist approached.
“We found another resonance.”
Hale turned.
“Home?”
“Possibly.”
Kane looked at her.
She corrected herself.
“It matches your earliest recorded quantum state.”
“That’s home.”
Hale looked at the display.
“It could also be another adjacent—”
Rainer made a sound.
Hale stopped.
“Home,” he said.
The fracture opened.
Enterprise appeared.
Not the duty room.
A corridor.
Their corridor.
Mercer knew the scratch on the bulkhead.
He had made it two months earlier carrying a crate badly.
Nobody had noticed.
He had.
The scratch was there.
Hale scanned.
Again.
Again.
Kane looked at him.
Hale lowered the tricorder.
“It’s ours.”
Kane pointed.
“Mercer.”
Mercer stood.
He crossed.
Rainer followed.
Hale.
Ox.
Kane came last.
The fracture closed behind him.
* * *
The Enterprise sounded loud.
Mercer had never thought that before.
Relays clicked behind panels.
Ventilation moved air through the corridor.
Somewhere below, machinery carried vibration through the deck.
The lights were too warm.
The ceiling was too low.
The walls were too close.
Everything looked old.
Mercer put his hand against the bulkhead.
Metal.
Warm.
Real.
A crewman rounded the corner.
He wore the right uniform.
He barely looked at them.
“Afternoon.”
Mercer watched him disappear.
Rainer looked at her hands.
Five fingers.
She flexed them.
Then touched her face.
Hale opened the tricorder.
Rainer looked at him.
“Really?”
“Yes.”
He scanned the corridor.
Mercer.
Rainer.
Ox.
Kane.
Nothing.
He changed settings.
Scanned again.
Nothing.
Ox looked toward the junction.
“Mess hall’s that way.”
Mercer laughed.
He couldn’t help it.
Rainer started too.
Hale looked at the tricorder.
Kane leaned against the bulkhead.
Mercer noticed that.
Kane almost never leaned.
Hale closed the tricorder.
Mercer looked at him.
“Well?”
Hale looked down the corridor.
Then at the instrument in his hand.
“I don’t know.”
Rainer waited.
Hale waited too.
Nothing followed.
Ox nodded.
“Good.”
Hale looked at him.
“How is that good?”
Ox shrugged.
“Means you can stop looking at that thing.”
Hale stared.
Then clipped it to his belt.
The intercom sounded.
“Security team to deck seven.”
Nobody moved.
Rainer closed her eyes.
“No.”
The announcement repeated.
“Security team to deck seven.”
Rainer looked at Kane.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me.”
Kane pushed away from the bulkhead.
He started walking.
“Move.”
Ox followed.
Hale fell in beside him.
Mercer took one last look at the scratch on the wall.
Then followed.
Rainer stayed where she was for a second.
She looked at her hand.
Five fingers.
“Better.”
She went after them.
Five red shirts rounded the corner.
The Enterprise kept going.