A Little Time Change Could Do Us Good

Posted on Tue Apr 30th, 2024 @ 7:06pm by Executive Officer Jake Ford & Chief Helmsman Kalahaeia t'Leiya & Liha t'Ehhelih

Mission: Fractures
Location: SS Mary Rose, Corridor
Timeline: First encounter with Temperance and SoC
3296 words - 6.6 OF Standard Post Measure

One moment she'd been with (a) future Jea, the next Liha found herself in a random corridor, somewhere along the ship's saucer by the curve of it. It was on Rosie, and before her refit. She was enough of an engineer to know that just by the feel of the deck under her boots. But when? As she started to look for clues, she heard a faint noise from around the bend ahead. Flattening into the nearest recess, she reached into her tunic, half-drawing her knive. Probably whoever was coming was a friendly, but there were no guarantees, so better to be prepared.

Jake stumbled around the corner just ahead of her. A few minutes ago he'd been with Cassie, but then suddenly he wasn't. He wondered how it was possible they could get separated while standing just a few feet away from each other. Perhaps there was more to this fracture problem than they understood. He looked up to see Liha standing a short distance away looking like a panther ready to pounce. He habitually lifted his hands to show he wasn't packing anything himself. "It's me. And I never thought I'd say it, but I hope that's you..."

Liha's head was already turning at picking up sudden presence behind her. Of all the people... "Shh!" she hissed, jerking her heading in the other direction. "Someone's coming."

Jake pressed himself back to the wall, trying to occupy the shadows as his eyeline followed hers. He said nothing, instead waiting to see what it was she'd sensed.

"...Going to have to start running silent faster than that next time." Kali rounded the corner with one cautious hand near the point to draw a weapon if need be, but otherwise with a decent amount of confidence that she knew who was on the other side of it, and flicked one ear point with her finger towards Jake with a grin, albeit one that faded rapidly as her eyes swept through the corridor, didn't spot any threats but also just didn't get the feeling this was "their" ship, still. "...Where are we?" She said with a bit more caution to Liha.

Liha frowned. Why had the bits of being Romulan that had rubbed off on Jake NOT included not being a hlai'vna in glass sculpture garden? "We're stopped. Keep an eye out while I check where we are." So saying she went to the nearest viewport and looked out. "Fvadt!" she cursed under her breath at the sight. "I know when we are - that's the Temperance. Back when we first found her."

Kali’s pose - hand going back to the ready-to-draw pose and eyes vigilantly repeating their visual patrol of the corridor in both directions - made it clear she took any instructions to ‘keep an eye out’ with the sort of solemnity one might expect. “Wait, the ship we were fighting before…whatever the fuck this all is…started?” It was only a split-second for the conclusion in Kali’s former intelligence analyst’s brain to reach its natural endpoint, given Liha knowing that. “So, you guys were on board then? Anything important to know?”

"The Sons of Cheron," Jake scowled. "They stole the Temperance right out from under us. As I recall, they sabotaged our engines before they did, too. Almost took Eden's head off when she tried to power up."

"Yes." The confirmation was tight, just this side of a knife about to be thrown in anger. But the target Liha wanted wasn't in range. "I recall Burnie saying he knew he should have planted a bomb in their engines..." Her head lifted and she looked at Kali with a smile that anyone but a fellow Romulan might find disturbing. "This time jumping thing may just be to our advantage."

A similar smile crossed Kali's face; promising both vengeance or bad things for an enemy and guaranteed thorough enjoyment of dealing such; before transitioning a moment later into a more thoughtful frown. "Can't do anything immediate, though. I'm usually the last person to want to consider temporal mechanics - I got a "C" in that at the Academy - but if we shift this timeline in the past who knows what it will change about Rosie's path from here, and I do not intend to die after freezing to death in that cruiseliner wreck. Any chance we could do something, like...delayed? Something we could trigger later, once we're back where we belong?"

"Huh. I never thought of trying that. It's not been possible to test the theory yet..." Jake nodded, considering the possibilities of her idea. "Not that I'm an expert in temporal mechanics either, but if there's even the slightest risk of something unforeseen happening, shouldn't we try to keep a low profile and avoid trying to interfere?"

"Remember how long I've been working with Burnie?'" Liha chuckled. "A bomb keyed to a transmission frequency and code is 100% doable. And we'd mapped that ship out pretty well in terms of what would need upgrades, and even what would need ripped out and replaced if by some miracle we could do Burnie's fantasy weapon unfit." The disturbing grin grew. "I know just the plasma conduit to put it in. But we need materials to make it and to get over there to place it without getting caught. By them or by us." She could easily imagine how she would have reacted to someone claiming to be her from the future, or future Jake, and an unknown Romulan? Yeah, that would be bad. It had taken months for her and Kali to not automatically put hand to knife when passing the hall.

Despite the logic of the next bit, Kali hesitated: Handing over what she was about to offer up was a definite risk, and her hand lingered for a moment in her pocket before finally drawing the little device her aunt had gifted her that she'd used to hack the core room on the Holoworld for them to access it. "Here. If anyone else sees either of you - besides yourselves - you may be able to pass without notice or play it off like you're you from here. I'm not supposed to even be here yet though; so if anyone sees me it's not only a timeline issue, it's getting thrown in the brig as an intruder. Which means I'll probably have to spend most of my time hiding. This should get you past most passcodes you might not know or electronic locks, without tripping an alarm or leaving much of a trace to mess with the timeline." She gave an emphatic, serious look at Liha, who understood more about what she was handing over, and Jake. "I'm going to want it back afterwards, though."

Jake eyed the tool in Kali's palm. For a moment he wondered just what she might have used such a device for up to now; accessing parts of the ship that maybe she shouldn't have? In some ways it could be considered a slight betrayal of trust between the familial crew. However, his experience and newer understanding of Romulan culture and thinking meant that he actually understood. At least more than most. "All right, I'm not going to argue with either of you on this. Liha, if you have an idea where we're going and what to do then...well, I suppose I have to trust your skills if not your judgement..."

Liha smirked. "You questioning my judgment just confirms to me that I have this right." She turned, a brow tipped at Kali - giving that device away made her question the other's judgment, but she took it as sign of serious commitment to the project. "I was on Temperance nearly all the time during this, but no one should ask questions they see me in our engineering, so I can get into Burnie's office and his 'toy chest'. That'll be all I need for the bomb and trigger. But we need to get it into the right spot on that ship. The question is whether we can cross the ship-to-ship connector or if we have to hack our transporter and scrub the records."

"Knowing what happened to the walkways, I'd rather use the transporter," Jake replied. "Between the three of use we can hack the access and erase our presence later. But...I don't know if these fractures extend to the Temperance. We need to make sure we can get back and find a path to our own time period."

"Agreed on the walkways, but if the fractures don't extend to the Temperance, there's no telling where we might beam to," Liha said. She really wished Burnie were around and functional - he was the one who'd studied temporal mechanics ...though that was probably what had lead to whatever was wrong with his head, so... Hmm. "Honestly I'm less worried about finding a path back to our timeline then fading back out of this one before we get this done. The better approach would be to beam the bomb into the plasma conduit. It will take precision though, and we'll have to make sure whoever might be monitoring from the bridge here doesn't notice the transport."

"Right. Hopefully Kali's little lockpick thing will keep us under the radar enough. If not, I'll have to distract whoever it is up on the Bridge. But staying together should be our priority; it'll be all the more difficult if we lose track of one another in a pinch." Jake motioned along the corridor. "Transporter room is that way. Not far."

Perhaps by some sort of mutual unspoken agreement, Kali and Liha eyed one another for a moment. "You taking point or rear?" Kali asked the other Romulan woman; seemingly considering it a given that they would fill those spots rather than Jake.

"Point," Liha replied in a way that clearly assumed Kali would then be rear. "But I'm going to need bomb making supplies, so we need to drop into engineering..." she paused, realizing even as she considered the logistics of getting in and out with Kali in tow that this was also before Nollel had joined the crew. "No, wait, Burnie was single when this happened. We can hit his quarters."

"Great." Kali seemed to hear the unsaid piece clearly, as to the reasons for avoiding engineering if they could, and then added another one with her next words as she slid into position. "Probably lower security level than engineering, too; which is good ." This time the unspoken part was the same 'that thing isn't foolproof and if it chokes it might explode too' warning she had given Burnie himself back at the Holoworld core room; she doubted she had to inform Liha of that fact.

As the arrived at Burnie's quarters, Liha breifly pressed an ear to the door. She was 99% sure he'd be over on the Temperance now, but she knew better than to discount 1% chances. "Okay, clear. Kali, you can pick the lock."

Kali slapped the little silver square onto the access point, then crossed her fingers and waited: The Rosie was - or had been - a Starfleet ship, which was a reason to be nervous about hitting too-high security levels/systems; however she was also rather ancient, which spoke in favor of success. Still, she made sure to not be directly in from of the panel in case this went sideways. Finally, a little beep and the device turned off as the door slid open; letting Kali pocket it again but signaling Liha to enter first: If for some reason Burnie was in his quarters somehow; Liha had a much better chance of managing to excuse the intrusion than she did.

Liha nodded and slipped inside. Wow. She'd forgotten how much of a slob he'd been before Nollel showed up - bits of stuff half taken apart and/or half put together littered the table, and the trail of semi-invented contraptions lead back to the bedroom, where she found the desk serving as a sort of workbench for his 'specialty rounds and launchable grenades' hobby. Bingo. It didn't take long pick out some explosive elements, and one of the 'sticky grenade' shells had a remote detonator. She'd just need to tweak that for ship-to-ship, but she could scavange materials for that from the supplies in the transporter room. "Got it," she said, stuffing the items in her toolkit. "On to the transporter room."

"Not sure if I should be more concerned that Burnie has all this stuff lying around...or that you know exactly where it is," Jake sighed. He raised a hand dismissively. "I know, I know...if it can be used as a weapon, you're going to be aware of it already." Both his present companions could be counted in that. "Let's move. How long are you going to need to set up the device?" he asked.

"Not long." Liha gave him a particularly Romulan grin. "He had a sticky grenade mostly assembled, so I only need to set up the trigger. Five minutes. I just need to mod a spare commbadge from the supply closet and tie it to a 'pin'."

"I mean, technically, that could be used as a weapon." Kali pointed at a random object on Burnie's desk and shrugged her shoulders and eyebrows, sounding somehow both smug and completely disinterested in what she was saying at the same time, giving the feeling that 'almost anything can be a weapon in a pinch' was possibly a Romulan family value passed on from early in life. "Let's go set it before we end up fading out somewhere...err, somewhen...else, then."

"Really wouldn't surprise me at all," Jake muttered in response to Liha's quip about Burnie's possessions. He motioned for them to hurry their movements, not wanting to get caught by anyone wandering the ship when they were possibly supposed to be elsewhere. "Once we're in the transporter room, I'll set up the site-to-site transport and disguise the signature while Liha works on the device. Kali, you'll have to be on lookout while we work."

With a nod, Liha lead the way, resuming her point position and expecting the other two to fall in. Before long they were in the transporter room. As soon as the door closed, she opened the supply closet, saying over her shoulder. "Guard the door. I don't remember anyone using the transporter but I was mostly on Temperance. Jake, the transport site is plasma conduit D9-87b, junction 29."

"I'll prime the coordinates now. Give me a minute to mask what we're doing here; my codes from this time period won't have been the same. It was back when I was still the armoury officer," Jake explained, tapping rapidly on the transporter console. "Kali, does that little tool of yours bypass the backend monitoring from Engineering? If there's anyone down there they might be able to see me masking our work from the Bridge."

"Unfortunately that's a solid 'maybe'." Kali sighed. "It's for some very specific access and/or escape purposes, not for generalized hacking so much, as I understand it. I can probably make it, like, make a camera blind or repeat footage on itself; that's probably part of the sort of base programming it'd have for its main purposes. Other monitoring...maybe, maybe not. Someone - " She looked straight at Liha when she said this part " - would have to know where in the system to 'find' the ones we'd need to blind in order to target them, at the very least. The more hamhanded poking around anyone does the more we risk getting discovered; it's a tool, not a magic wand."

Liha cocked an eyebrow. Even plebian Galae recruits took it as 'unofficial' training to work out where in any system such targets were so as to have some cover from Tal'Shiar officers and be sure no trails lead back to them. How had the scion of a Great House - particularly one handed that tool - not worked out where in the system everything was within the first week of coming aboard? Truly, being reared on earth must warp the mind. "Fine." She set aside the partly disassembled comm badge and went to the transporter console. Tapping in her own codes, she brought up a schematic. "Here. That's the bypass for the backend from engineering. Now, can I finish the trigger?" she snarked, muttering as she went back to her bomb, "why couldn't I have wound up here with another engineer, or a normal Romulan..."

Kali rolled her eyes silently, keeping them (and her ears) focused mostly on the door she was theoretically guarding; since they were probably more likely to encounter past versions of their own side if anyone barged in on them, she'd opted against drawing a weapon; if someone barged in, they were just gonna get socked in the face and/or kneed in the nuts, since both were usually rather less permanently damaging than getting stabbed.

Jake glanced between the two. So far on board his interaction with Liha had been constantly prickly. With Kali, he'd barely had a chance to converse as she stuck to herself. It was an interesting insight to watch it unfold, and actually feel a weird kindred spirit moment with Kali of all people; they were both on Liha's angry list. "The bypass should be ready, and I have the coordinates programmed." He looked up at Liha, first giving Kali a slight knowing smirk. "If her ladyship is ready to plant her bomb..."

A slanted brow hiked upward. "'Lady' is her title," Liha snapped back, jerking her head toward Kali. "If you'd picked up half as much about Romulans as you think you have, you'd know that." She placed the device on the transporter pad. "Now beam that into place."

Kali, for her part, shifted subtly but uncomfortably at this last exchange: This particular part of the disastrous mix that was her history and existence perhaps sat even less well together than the rest, and she was very much hoping no one started using those sorts of terms of address for her. Or for that matter that more people didn't start asking questions about why it was an 'appropriate' title, for that matter.

Jake smirked faintly, actually amused to have gotten a slight rise out of Liha; if anything it was a small payback to do so even half-deliberately. "Energising now..." he said, beaming the device to the designated coordinates. He glanced sideways at Kali for a moment, noting her silence following Liha's comment. "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone you're royalty..." he grinned, knowing it would draw the ire of at least one of them.

"Since that would definitely be the wrong term, yeah please don't. And it's complicated." Kali rolled her eyes again; her own personal discomfort with the issue aside, the element of being very much disgraced by those same standards made it wise to generally avoid drawing attention to it regardless. "If that thing's in place now, I suggest getting out of here and finding somewhere good to hide before we jump timelines again, or worse, get discovered."

Liha smirked. After this she definitely going to call Kali 'princess' at some point, but not right now. "Okay, let's..."
as she stepped toward the door faded away.

"I suppose that's our cue..." Jake said, glancing at Kali. "Ladies first..."