BAJAK LAUT SECTOR — The USS Veritas (NCC-95035) discovered a freighter caught in a time loop as the captain researched a 22nd-century mystery.
Captain Roshanara Rahman sought the support of five officers to solve a 250-year-old mystery involving the five missing crew members of the NX-class USS Endeavour. The crew boarded the Esperance-based runabout USS Baikal and travelled to the moon. During the journey, they divided into small groups.
Ensigns Scotty Reade and Kivik were tasked with modifying survey drones to search the moon for the missing shuttle pod, while Lieutenant JG Ikaia Wong and Ensign Lilith Thorne set up a camp with food and determined defensive tactics to guarantee there were no traps. Rahman and Lieutenant Commander Hannibal Parker plotted a path to the moon.
When the crew arrived, they discovered that the moon’s water had receded, showing the shuttle pod on the surface. A non-corporeal creature seized Rahman and launched a torpedo at the wrecked spaceship, destroying it, as the team prepared to beam down to the moon. Rahman passed out, and the crew transferred the Captain to the runabout’s lounge before returning to the Veritas.
“To the members of the Smithsonian Board of Regents, I truly and deeply apologize that you will be unable to study and exhibit the Endeavour shuttle pod as hoped,” Rahman said in an apology released by Starfleet Command. “Please extend my apologies once more to Hercules Mulligan Junior High School’s seventh-grade class, the Sons and Daughters of the Earth-Romulan War group, and Pete Smullins. Though we may never know what happened to the Endeavour Five, their bravery and sacrifice as pioneers in the first era of extrasolar human space flight and exploration will live on in history.”
Meanwhile, the Veritas, commanded by Lieutenant Commander Wil Ukinix, was en route to “Walhalla Lock” — a stretch of the Mother Road that, because of a dense concentration of tetryon fields, is only wide enough for one ship to pass through at a time.
The crew noticed an unusually long line of ship traffic waiting at each end. The SS Langkawi, a cargo ship, blocked the centre of the lock. The Veritas became trapped in a small temporal loop that lasted several minutes on each cycle as it moved in to discover and aid the Langkawi. While time was reversed on each loop, the memories of people aboard the Veritas continued normally rather than being reset.
The Veritas (aided by one of its shuttles, the Prospero) exited the repeating time-loop by loop number 27, creating a distortion with the deflector shields, and time flowed properly afterwards. After breaking free from the loop, the Veritas aided the stranded ship and pulled it to safety. Shortly later, Walhalla Lock resumed normal operations and began clearing the traffic congestion.
The spacecraft immediately departed Esperance’s orbit and travelled to Antor II to bring Dr Jansen Orrey, an ambassador from the Federation Diplomatic Corps, to address colony planet issues with Governor Rajel Tutoatasi. Veritas’ instructions were to assist Orrey, offer any assistance requested by Antor II’s administration, and police the region.
Rahman, Commander Blake, and Orrey headed a team to Tutoatasi to discuss needs, while Ukinix led a team to Representative Amelia Tanaka with suggestions to help enhance Antor II’s health system, climate, and planetary security.
Written by Wil Ukinix
