Fixing Mr. Burnstein
Posted on Mon Mar 25th, 2024 @ 8:02am by Liha t'Ehhelih & Chief Engineer Michael Burnstein
Edited on on Mon Mar 25th, 2024 @ 1:07pm
Mission:
Fractures
Location: Mary Rose
Timeline: 2424 and everywhen else
6586 words - 13.2 OF Standard Post Measure
The moment the tide of time had drawn him from Ishimura's engineering, there had been the (unfortunately now familar) head-splitting explosion of perception shattering into disjointed shards, followed by a barely conscious state where everything was a sort of black static.
And then there were blips of coherent thought, snatches of memory...
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...his back against a wall, eyes wide, chest heaving with panic. "No! NO! I'd rather die!"
"Burnie!" Rogers shook him. "Burnie! Snap out of it!"
He blinked - and felt a wild joy that he could. He wasn't paralyzed, not frozen, not locked-in! Rogers was front of him. He could feel her hands on his arms, move his eyes to scan her face. For a brief irrationally relieved moment, he wanted to kiss her. Fortunately, the more rational part of his brain kicked in - despite a hallucination-born wish to die, he'd prefer to avoid doing anything suicidal...
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*BOOM! CRACK! FWOOSH! KABOOM!!*
Fireworks shot into the air, drawing surprised and then appreciative gasps from the crowd. He jumped up starting to run towards the show, but a restraining hand grabbed his shoulder.
"Ah, Mom..."
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...reading the screen in front of him, he rapidly rerouted whatever he could. "Captain, there’s a hairline crack along the hull. The hull integrity will be shot in a matter of minutes. I’m attempting to lock it down but ...the support field can’t sustain it without full power..."
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...stepping out of the lift with Erica on his arm, he tried to put on a confident smile as they saw another array of servers waiting to serve. When he'd asked Divash if she could arrange a couple VIP passes for tonight he hadn't expected anything but to have his name on the list at the door. Instead, as soon as they'd arrived a host of Queen staff had immediately rushed to escort them to the lift and even ask if they wanted drinks or hors d'oeuvres on the way up.
"Don't look so surprised," Divash said with a smile. "Do you have any idea how many bets I've won on you two getting together..."
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... halfway down the hallway toward engineering, they heard the explosion. If there's one thing Burnie knows it's the sound of massive destruction. He grabbed Reagan and threw them both down a side access just before flames shoot past their prior position. Shaken and gasping from the pressure effect of the explosion, the sound of klaxons had them instantly back on their feet, heading toward engineering....
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"...I apologize Lieutenant. It's been a hectic day. Now, please continue."
"Hectic for everyone, sir." He dug in his pocket and pulled out a small bag, offering it to Hirsh. "Here, chocolate covered espresso beans - I gave up on getting enough caffeine from coffee hours ago..."
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"....Uncle Mike!" Sophie exclaimed, looking up at him eagerly. "What'd ya bring me?"
"What did I bring you?" he laughed, reaching down and grabbing her firmly. "A rocket ride!" he cried, boosting her up above his head, which earned a delighted childish scream.
The little girl applauded as he swung her around to a seat on his hip, but then resumed the expectant stare. "What else?"
He dug in his pocket, laughing...
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"...Make it ten."
He cursed silently to himself. What was that story LaForge had told about meeting the famous Montgomery Scott? 'Ye'll never get a reputation as a miracle worker, laddie, if ye tell yer Capt'n how long something will actually take.' LaForge had sounded shocked down to his very soul by that revelation, but it was sound advice - not because anyone should want a miracle-worker reputation, but because Captains were notorious for clipping your time limit....
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...he blinked, looking at the crewmates he mourned years ago. 'Whosoever saves a single life, saves an entire world.' He'd never been religious, but those words from the Talmud, repeated so often during his early education, surface in his mind. Could he save them? Change the past...
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...making another adjustment, he checked the readings, and shook his head. How in all the hells ever envisioned by sentient beings had those misbegotten idiots managed to not just misalign the environmental settings on Deck 4, but actually make it snow in Cargo Bay 3? The worst part - the very worst part! - was that it hadn't even been a prank. If they'd done it intentionally...well, he might still be a bit torqued off at the trouble they'd caused, but at least he'd be able to appreciate the ingenuity. As it was, this was the result of pure, careless stupidity.
"Finally!," he exclaimed to himself as a circuit change finally ends the cargo bay blizzard. "I hope the crew chief makes those morons shovel out ever gram of snow and then dry the compartment with the seats of their pants..."
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...taking a last sweep around the system, he enjoyed his new ride, before heading for base. Technically the ship was more of a loaner - a prototype for him to test and tweak as time and circumstances allow. Still, the Kafziel was a sweet ride - true to her name 'speed of God' after the archangel ironically tasked with quietly watching the cosmos unfold - she was small, but fast, and because Burnie had a hand in her design, equipped with some impressive destructive power...
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...he ducked a thrown bottle and started to turn only to have a hand yank him backward and down - just as a knife flew past where his chest been an instant ago.
"Fvadt, Burnstein! You have the survival instincts of a hungry tribble!"
He looked over at Liha...
================== Mary Rose 2424 ==================
...and wasn't crouched in a bar but flat on his back somewhere well lit with Liha and another Romulan woman looking down at him. "Wha- ?"
"Lay still," the other woman said. "The temporal shield only ameliorates the neural disruption, but it will keep you from getting sucked off - "
"Sucked away," Liha correctly quickly, and getting a raised eyebrow from the other, explained. "In Standard it's 'sucked away'."
"...'sucked away'," the woman amended, giving a 'whatever' eyebrow shrug, "Be at ease; I'm Liha's sister, Vriha."
"Sister..." Liha had talked about a sister, but he'd never seen even an image of her. His eyes went from one to the other, but he was struck less by family resemblence than by the impression that Liha looked older now, which on a Romulan would take some years to show. "How ...long? When...?"
Liha shook her head, giving a half smile. "What was the phrase from that old earth time travel show you made me watch? 'Spoilers'?"
"Don't worry, we're 'paying it forward' ,or perhaps in this case the phrase should be 'paying it backward' since you will be returned to your own time," Vriha assured. "And will no longer be incapacitated by temporal events." She gave a kind but rueful smile and she began to adjust something near his head. "Unfortunately, the instability in your temporal perception will get worse before it gets better."
"Scientists." Liha rolled her eyes. "She means, to put it how you recalled it to us, get ready for 'a bunch of weird random trips down memory lane'..."
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...flopping in to a chair, he crunched a handful of M&M's and washing them down espresso-enhanced coffee. Other people were taking leave. He had a ship to repair and then a laundry list of repairs on the station to attend to. The only break he'd taken so far was to blow off some steam by blowing holes in things at the firing range, but it had been a bit of a let down. How did you top creating a supernova? That KABOOM had been beyond thrilling. But now... any other bang short of restarting the Big Bang would always pale in comparison. ...Hmm... No, Starfleet would probably object to one of their engineers plotting universe-ending cosmic contractions....
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...he took a moment to look over his mount. Jousting dragons were impressive, particularly from an aerodynamics perspective. A body heavy enough to carry an adult humanoid, but compact, more like an elongated racehorse than a destrier, but then the wingspan just to lift that body was truly awesome. Easily six times the dragon's length. Sadly, jousting dragons were constrained from flaming, but riding one should still be amazing. Burnie patted the dragon's side, before swinging into the saddle and settling a lance across his lap. 'Okay, boy, let's see what we can do here..."
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...she touched his shoulder gently. "Here, let me see those ribs."
He pulled away with a frown. "It's okay, Mom. Things just went a little unstable..."
"It's alright, Michael," she assured patiently. "Just let me check."
Relenting, he uncurled. "Really, don't worry," he winced a little as she probed his ribs, "It's not that bad - the stand kicked when the charge went off. But nothing caught fire!"
"You are a weird kid."
"Shut up, Sis." He stuck his tongue at her. "Go back to your pony drawings..."
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"...We can't mess with it," the Captain said sternly. "Which I know you know. There a lot of people who are good at hands-on stuff. I recommended you for this because you understand temporal mechanics."
"Boss, I'm good, but I'm not that good," he replied, smiling but earnest now. "It's practically the definition of omniscience to understand temporal mechanics. What we know about it is about as much as late 20th century NASA engineers knew about warp technology - just enough to imagine being able to apply it someday. Even the Q seem to know only enough to be dangerous."
Phillips slapped him on the back with a relieved smile. "That's what I wanted to hear."
"I'm not going to mess with time, sir." He paused, then looked up with mock innocence and a joking grin. "Well, other than maybe to pop back to the ancient Sinai to add 'Eat, drink and be merry' to the Ten Commandments'."
He laughed. "You wouldn't do that, Burnstein. If you added to those it would be to 'Eat, drink and blow things up'..."
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...he smiled at the gorgeous blonde. "I'm Michael, by the way, but my friends call me Burnie."
"And you know exactly who I am," she commented on looking around properly as they waited. "Leiddem or Reuben would have told you I am sure by now but I am Nollel."
She clearly wasn't too worried about what he might have heard. Burnie felt a bit of sympathy for that - there were a certain number of people in Starfleet, and possibly a few other places, who seemed to think he was some sort of psycho pyromaniac. And while he didn't necessarily object to pyromaniac - he did love a good fire - the assumption that that meant he was somehow unstable just plain blind prejudice.
He took the drink that had appeared before him and lifted slightly toward her. "Pleased to meet you, Nollel. They did mention something about a crazy lady who bombed a cargo hold," he chuckled and flashed a grin. "But I've been called a mad bomber before myself, so I'm not going to hold that against you..."
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"...Wait - there's a way around that." He pulled a phaser cartridge from his belt. "Chemical reactions are immune to energy damping fields," he explained as he used a pocket knife to pry up the connector housing and then set it on the ground and slammed the butt of his phaser rifle into the side of the casing.
DeBlois' eyes went wide. "Burnie!"
There was a 'Pop' and bright flash. Then a soft green glow surrounded the open end of the cartridge. He grinned, picking up his make-shift torch. "The engineers at the Academy used to do this for St. Patrick's Day."
McNamara lifted a brow. "You celebrate St. Patrick's Day?"
"Patron saint of engineers." He shrugged. "If people celebrate the day with beer and a few bangs, I don't really care which team he played on..."
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....The top of a hooked leg slipped out from under the console. "Hook spider!" he shrieked in a tone a bit higher than normal for an adult male, and jumped back, reaching for his laser welder. "Get back so I can fry it!"
"No," Eden shielded it with her body. "It's a jumping spider, they are harmless. Poor thing is scared to death, it won't hurt you." She glared at Burnie and went further back into the mess of the console.
"Jumping?" Burnie asked, thoroughly aghast. "I hope it doesn't jump. Talarian hook spiders can get to 2 meters, have a mouth full of fangs and corrode isolinear circuits..."
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...Phillips nodded. "Given the increased plasma flow and the stability of the induction pulse-wave, it should be possible to set up a shunt to allow the extra plasma to boost phaser output when not at warp."
Reagan's eyes widened with techie glee. "That's brilliant, sir. It would just take calibrating a modulator. Going from standard output to that big a jump in directed energy could result in shock-crazing in the firing chamber."
"True..." he agreed thoughtfully. "But a modulator would delay response time and there's issue of potential feedback in the plasma injectors."
The CO looked at him with a knowing grin. "Do you have a better idea or just a crazy one?"
"Better ...crazy..." He held both hands palm up, shifting them up and down as though weighing an apple vs. an orange. "If we put a T'Gol inductor at the juncture, it will separate the plasmamagnetic field..."
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"...I'm a former security officer... we all know the risks that come with the uniform... I'm a realist. And... life has proven me right."
"And you know what?" He grinned at her. "You're still alive. "
Rogers chuckled and shook her head as she went back to monitoring the screen. "Whatever happy pills you're on... I want some..."
"Just a twisted sense of humor, ma'am," he replied, adjusting a couple settings. "It's a simple choice, really - laugh or cry. I'd think in security you'd have learned 'eat, drink and be merry'."
"Doesn't that phrase end 'for tomorrow we die'?"
"Yeah, but it's all relative. Time dilation, Temporal Uncertainty Principle, Parallel Reality Theorom..." he looked up with an exaggeratedly thought expression. "Technically, there's no way to prove that we didn't all die yesterday and get translated to some alternate reality and/or shared hallucination of an afterlife."
"Seriously, when was your last drug test?"
"Two weeks ago - totally clean," he laughed. "Fortunately there's no set schedule for psych tests so I only had to fake my way through one of those."
She puffed a laugh. "Sorry. I'm still working out this... social conversation thing. Um, tell me about yourself...."
He shook his head. Was it possible that anyone could be worse at normal social interaction than he was? "Me? Well, I gave up on the social conversation thing. With the exception of a few other certified geeks, and maybe one or two of the more suicidally insane security types, most people look at me like I've grown an extra head about halfway into any conversation." He looked side-to-side and patted his shoulders, then flashed a comic grin. "I have to check sometimes, just in case..."
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"How long until the subspace static clears?"
"Twenty minutes at least," he replied after running a quick mental calculation. "The gamma rays and Chandri-Hawking radiation will persist until the Einstein–Rosen bridge collapses."
He looked around at blank stares. Right, they're Marines, not physicists... "Red matter doesn't exactly create a blackhole - it's more like an unstable quantum wormhole. See, both space and time have more dimensions than most people think and the singularly created from a red matter explosion is basically a 3-D boundary where general relativity gives up and commits suicide. Even quantum mechanics is stretched so far it snaps, so unless you feed it a massive amount of energy you get a feedback loop of virtual particles and - "
"Lieutenant," Fulbright interrupted firmly. "How long at worst?"
"Sorry," he replied with a weak smile. "Shouldn't be more than an hour at worst."
The Major nodded. "We can't afford to wait that long out here." She pointed to two Marines. "H'lggins, Lopez - you're with the Lieutenant. Make sure nothing happens to him. He's the only one who understands this shite..."
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..the sound of Erica's fingers drumming drew him from thoughts spiraling like a particle caught in a vortex. His eyes went to her hand; not the one with fingers active, but the one half cradled in her lap. "Hey," he forced a small smile, "You okay?"
"Quite honestly? Not really."
He ducked his head - it had been a stupid question. "I guess none of us are really," he released a breath, almost a sigh, "These things are always tough to process. It's a shock when you first get back, but we'll find a way through it. We always do," he added, putting confidence in the words, almost as much for himself as for her.
She smiled shakily. "I... I guess. I've just never almost died before, y'know?"
"Well, you know... " he shrugged, gave a slight wink, "...Eventually you get used it."
"That's what worries me," she deadpanned.
He chuckled. "Nah. Getting used used to it means you keep surviving. Plus, it gets you into the club: Near Death Survivors." He flashed a joking grin. "We have great parties."
Despite herself, Erica snickered. "I can only imagine the playlists."
"All the classics: '(Don't Fear) The Reaper', 'Live and Let Die', 'Knockin' on Heaven's Door', and of course ..." he grinned and spread his arms, putting on a Monty Python-esque British accent to sing the title line, "I am not dead yet... "
Erica just about fells off the biobed laughing, but joined in, "...I can dance and I can sing..."
He laughed - he'd meant to cheer her up, but her reponse in turn lifted his mood; spreading his arms Broadway style, he belted out the next lines, "...I am not dead yet. I can do the Highland fling..."
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...he backed up quickly as the Rukakon came at him!
It growled, snarling as it advanced, then rushed, a mountain of pure murderous fury.
He was good at shooting things, but hand-to-hand was not his strong suit - with one exception. Judo was an engineer's martial art - all about angles, leverage, and redirecting energy. It also gave the smaller guy the advantage, which in this case was a very good thing. Burnie ducked under the blow, grabbed the arm and turned, making his body a pivot to use the Ruke's own forward momentum to throw it.
Pain shots through bruised ribs, but the Ruke landed on its back with a satisfying 'whump'. He clutched his side, retreating and praying that he didn't have to try that again....
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...he took the Sparrow, examining it. The concept itself was old - the first such devices had been created around the turn of the 21st century as tools for inspecting pipes and ventilation systems but had soon after been adapted for other sorts of surveillance. he'd made his own models of those as a kid ...until his older sister had caught him spying on her and her boyfriend... After that, a sense of self-preservation had put him back to working out the pyrolytic potential of common household materials (none of them being anywhere near as explosive as his sister).
This one was much more sophisticated. He weighed it in his hand and eyed a wing, mentally calculating coefficient-of-lift. Semi-autonomous implied a degree of circuitry for feedback to a chip, and there were also the surveillance functions which usually accounted for the bulk of the space and weight claim in these things. He'd have a better idea of what he can change once he takes it apart...
"I can get you the specs," Ferrari said.
He looked up - he'd nearly forgotten the Commander was standing there. But specs would help too - not that he wasn't going to take it apart anyway. "Okay. So, when you say weaponize, what are you looking for? Something that shoots blow darts or," he grinned, thinking of one of something in his antique video game collection, "little birdie suicide bombers..."
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...completely cracking up, he nearly unbalanced in his chair from laughing so hard. Quickly recovering his balance, and his breath, he grinned at her. "Having it switch like that was pure genius."
Erica smiled modestly. "Ah, it was just a matter of tapping into the message alert system."
"It was a great touch. So was having "Doctor, Doctor, give me news" play every time Divash ran a medscanner," he laughed.
"It's almost a shame it's over, but ultimately, it was starting to interfere with operations, so I had to shut down."
"Fun while it lasted." He shook his head, chuckling. "I haven't pulled anything this big in years. I mean, I'd have been happy just to be alive to pull a couple pranks, but finding the perfect accomplice...," he smiled at her, "I can't remember when I've enjoyed April Fools this much."
"Thanks for roping me into this. I haven't gotten involved with anything like this since the Academy, and I'd forgotten how much fun practical jokes could be. I used to pull them all the time when I was little-the Reed family loves April Fools Day." Erica smiles back at him. "Burnie, it was my pleasure to be your accomplice in mischief."
"To next year." He lifted a glass. "Hopefully it will be even better and neither of us will be stuck in medbay. Although," he flashed a grin, "it was the perfect cover..."
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...the James Lawrence quaked violently and everyone clung to their stations for purchase!
"The core relays aren't responding!" Yamini yelled, attempting to fight the problem.
"Burnstein!" Sagnawar called. "Assist Mr. Yamini, now!"
He practically throws himself up ladder, following Kumar through the entrance to the core relay junction. The ship rocked with another hit! Sparks showered around them, and klaxons blared.
++ Reactor Overload - Evacuate Main Engineering! ++
He and Kumar turned as the bulkheads begin to seal. Hands appeared top the ladder, and Burnie reached out to help but the ship rocked again, and whoever was there fell - a scream cut off as the heavy hatch doors slammed closed. On the other side, they could hear pounding, cries, but they're powerless to help. Kumar swallowed a sob, head leaning against the hatch - Sagnawar had been a like a father to him.
"There's nothing we can do for them," he said, choking back emotion. "We need to focus on saving the rest of the ship. It's what he'd have wanted..."
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"...How are you feeling?"
He cracked an eye, and grimaced. "Is there a medical term for when you're past a hangover but still feeling kind of sick and wrung out?"
"In your case, that would be 'feeling better than expected'." Divash cocked eyebrow. "Keep that in mind next time you decide to insist on being last out of some disaster."
"Hey, I only stayed because no one else could've fixed that cludged together system if it glitched."
The doctor put a hand on her hip. "By the time we got you, you were in no shape to fix anything." Seeing his mouth open to object, she shook a finger at him. "Don't even try - there's not a human born who can BS an Orion."
He rolled eyes, but with a partial grin. "Yes, 'Honey'."
Divash flattened lips against a smile at the play on her name's similarity to that word in some old earth language he'd been forced to learn, but refused to let him brush this aside with a joke. "Keep that up and I'll have Gable give you the 'Hero = Idiot' lecture," she warned, giving him a knowing look - as CMO she'd read everyone's psych eval. Most people thought of Burnie as eccentric, if not outright crazy, and he did have an above average fascination with explosions, but the only items actually flagged in his report were lingering effects of survivor's guilt. "Yes, someone had to be last out, but you went so far as to trick the Captain to make sure that it was you."
"Look," he sighed. "We sent DeBlois out in the first group because she has a new baby. The Captain has a son." He glanced around the recovery ward - Vicki was holding her baby, Jeremy was standing by his father's bedside, Warren was next to Hirsch, Renee beside Ash, and across the room Morwen had her nose pressed to Durst's neck taking in his living scent. "I'm not going to apologize for making sure the people who had someone waiting for them got out."
She shook head - she could understand the argument for giving priority to getting a new mother, but Jeremy is at an age when Orion boys would have already left home and the others Burnie's eyes move across are just couples - she founds the fixation on pair-bonds ahead of other relationships completely perplexing. "You have friends here and we were waiting for you to get out too. Including a new one."
"Reed?" He'd been hoping to meet the Ops officer who'd been the real hero here.
Divash nodded. "Your 'angel' has been waiting to see you."
"Angel?" he queried,confused.
"You probably don't remember. When we beamed you up, she -"
"She?" That genius is a woman? I'm in love! ...I hope she isn't married ...or engaged... or not interested in guys... or took one look at me and... He had a sudden flash of memory as to where 'angel' came from, and facepalmed. "Oh God..."
"Don't be embarrassed," Divash said. "I've gotten much worse lines. And from guys whose brains were supposedly functioning."
He groaned. "I owe this person my life and I came off just slightly better than the worst lunkheads who've ever hit on you?"
"No. In fact, it was kind of cute," she said with sly grin. "She even blushed."
"Like I'm doing now?" he asked, feeling his own cheeks burn.
"Hmm... Not quite as red..." Getting another groan, she chuckled - she personally thinks it's adorable when humans turn all rosy like that, but decided to give him a break. "It's okay, Burnie. She knows you were pretty out of it and, trust me, this doesn't even come close to the top twenty on things I've heard from people coming out of anesthesia."
He gave her a pained look. "That's not especially comforting..."
"Good." The doctor shuts down the hyperbaric system. "Maybe potential embarrassment will make you a little more careful about winding up in medbay...
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...hearing Wallace's the song, Burnie had detoured toward the group of marines. He'd worked with all of them, particularly on the mission to keep red matter from Saba'Nar, and when the toast was given for Nash, he raised his own glass adding a quieter tribute.
"Burnie, come join us," T'Ango said, catching the motion and waving him over. "Some day we need to invite you to shoot with us," her whiskers twitched with a small grin, "as long as you promise not to use rounds that blow up the whole target."
"What fun would that be?" he laughed. "Other than for you since I'd wind up buying drinks."
"Not for me. Wallace won this one."
He looked over toward Wallace, who seems somewhat jollier than his usual, probably from being flush with victory or free booze or both. Though not technically a marine, the intel officer had joined them on missions. Burnie had supplied him with some designer rounds for his favorite shotgun, and based on time spent on the range and a mutual appreciation of both precision and high powered firearms they'd developed more than a passing acquaintance. In fact, what had begun as talking shop had gradually lead to exchanging friendly jibes based on their respective backgrounds - NYC vs rural West.
"Congrats, Commander. Can't say I'm surprised," he added with jesting grin, affecting a slight cowboy twang. "Ya've got them gunslinger ballads to live up to."
Wallace boomed a laugh. "I have benefited from," he pronounced the next words with a spot on impression of Burnie's flat Brooklyn accent, "the sort of high culture you were deprived of as a child."
He chuckled. "I wouldn't say that exactly. We've got our own gunslinger ballads. They just ...sound a little different."
T'Ango's ears pricked forward, curious. "Different? What do you mean?"
"Well, the western ones are more folk ballads with a country flavor. Not that there's anything wrong with that," he glancesd at Wallace, and grinned, "but the city version has more of a beat."
"Really?" T'Ango asked, tail swishing lightly. "I don't think I've heard of any urban gun slinger songs."
"There are a lot rock ballads about life on streets, mafia, gang wars, people on the run, hit men... not to mention just about any gangsta rap the late 20th to early 21st century...which I intend to go on not mentioning...
"Careful, sir," Durst wanred. "LT is going to ask you to sing one."
He shook his head. "Nah, most of them need a good band for back-up to do them justice."
Wallace chuckled, lifting a brow. "A musical deficiency if you ask me..."
"Hey, we have plenty of singable parodies of western songs, 'Ballad of Irving' or, my personal favorite, " he flashed a grin, singing his favorite lines from a Tom Lehrer tune, "Mid the sagebrush and the cactus / I'll watch the fellas practice / Droppin' bombs through the clean desert breeze..."
"Yeah, we can see why you'd like one," T'Ango laughed. "But surely there's some song 'with a beat' you could sing?" She smiled, turning Big Kitty Eyes on him.
He chuckled. "Hmm... well, if I go back to the era of the Commander's songs..." His mother was an art historian and her specialty in 20th century earth included music. Burnie had never particularly cared about 'the sociocultural implications of period discography' but that didn't mean that hadn't paid some attention when his mom tried to share her interests. There we a bunch of rock ballads with wild west and outlaw themes, but it didn't seem quite kosher to use those either (even if he thought those tunes were better than country music). "...or maybe about a half century later. That was the real era of the gun in America. I think I remember a keyboard arrangement... Give me a second."
He cleared a section of table and took off his wristPADD, setting it angled on the table edge. After entering a command, a holographic keyboard appeared on the table surface. He tapped a couple notes, adjusting the synthesizer for a more electric guitar-like sound, and then flexed his fingers. "Okay. Here's an outlaw with a gun song. With a beat," he said playing the opening cords to Def Leppard's 'Billy's Got A Gun'...
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...his face fell. "I'm being..." he struggled a moment, then found the word, "...discharged?"
"I'm sorry, Burnie," the doctor put a hand on his shoulder. "We did everything we could - and a few things Command is not happy about but decided classifying them to high heaven was better than a disciplinary hearing. But the particles that caused those temporal distortions are too embedded; the most we could do is implant a countermeasure and even with that, you'll always be vulnerable to temporal disturbances."
"But I c... could -"
"No." Divash shook her head. "They considered moving you to an instructor slot at the Academy, but given your own history with experiments there, they realized that might be more dangerous than shipboard duty. The only duty station they'd allow you is pushing paper back on earth, and we both know you'd hate that."
He looked down dejected - it felt like he'd lost everything. Erica, and now his commission, his life's work...
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"Look, lady, you can't just -" the bartender's objection was abruptly cut off by a hand pushing him into the back wall as the 'lady' - a deceptively wiry woman he had initially mistaken for a Vulcan, spun to glare at him.
"What I can't do," she corrected pointedly. "Is let you keep taking good credits for drinks that are... How do humans say it?" she glanced at her companion, "...'like copulating in canoe'?"
Her remark was met with guffaws and some applause from the crowd that gathered for her stronger drinks. Burnie, however, only looked up from the hand that had been covering his face. "Close enough." Giving up on any hope of staying out of this, he hopped over the bar too - somewhat less gracefully than Liha had, but also without the air of potential violent intent. "Let the poor guy go, Liha. He just serves what the system spits out and I'd bet he's not allowed to drink to the job so he couldn't know if it was glitching," he explained peaceably, while catching the bartender's eye and signaling 'it would be a really good idea to agree here' with a small deliberate nod....
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..."Pretty sure you could do a lot better," Burnie replied in earnest. "'Reputation or no. Besides, your rep is less messy than fiery," he flashed a fond grin, "and we both know how much I love fire."
“So we are really doing this?” She questioned in a softly voice not at all sure if she dreaming or not. Someone was wanting to stay married her despite what had happened last time she had attempted to get married.
It was probably madly impulsive, and despite his reputation, the engineer was not usually one to jump into things without careful thought and calculation. But in this case... well, the fuse had already been lit. He dropped to a knee, plucking a small O-ring from his belt kit. "Nollel Livaam, would you do me the honor of remaining my wife?"
Nollel put her hand over her mouth stunned that he was being so impulsive when it was normally her who did something like that but she held out her hand and accepted the O-ring. “Only if you do me the honour of being my husband and tell your family.” She said pulling him up to his feet.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
..."Brace for impact!" Liha yelled as klaxons blared.
He grabbed for a handhold, planting his feet as the torpedoes hit. The ship rocked!
And then everything came apart. He curled in on himself as perception fractured into a kaleidoscope of images/memories/sounds, like being in mirror hall but with every mirror cracked and shattered, reflecting broken images endlessly in random order...
...and then the fragments shifted, began to reform...
================== Mary Rose 2424 ==================
Perception cleared, steadied, and he saw Liha and her sister. "Did it work?"
Liha caught his shoulders, keeping him from getting up. "Yes. but stay put - this time bubble is only so big."
"It worked." He settled back, a huge smile on his face. No longer brain damaged, restricted, he could... suddenly recalling Vriha's last words to him, he beamed at Liha. "I can rejoin Starfleet, and bring you in too - you're a great engineer and -"
"No." Liha shook her head. "That isn't our future. I'm sorry..." she glanced down a moment, mouth flattening to contain her annoyance at the UFP and their stupid rules, "Starfleet isn't an option for you."
"But..."
"Burnie," Vriha said gently. "There's something Divash and DeBlois never told you, or probably anyone on your medical team, for your protection. The measures they used to counter the temporal distortions in your neural cortex weren't Devidian technology, not solely. They used principles from it, but somehow, possibly with the help of Illyrian contacts -"
His eyes widened. "Illyrians? Are you saying my cure was ...genetic modification?"
Her head tipped fractionally side-to-side. "Yes and no. Your genome was unchanged, but portions of a cell line with phase variance properties were adapted to ...fuse... to affected areas." Seeing that he was trying to parse that and remembering that in the time he was from he knew less of biological science, she cut to the simpler explanation. "In basic terms, it made you a spliced chimera - like a mutai tree with a branch of vritali fruit grafted on."
"That doesn't sound so bad..."
"It isn't," Liha said firmly. "And if you wanted to join the Galae, they'd have no problem with that." With him being human, and ex-Starfleet... well, that might be another matter, but since she knew he'd never go for it, she felt safe in pointing out Starfleet's stupid prejudices.
Vriha flashed a disapproving eyebrow at her sister. "The issue comes in because the 'branch' grafted in needed extensive genetic modification. I'm told that if it had activated fully so that you had no disability, it might have made for very interesting case law as to whether you could continue to serve," she remarked, then added with a slight smile, "That is, if so much else about it hadn't been so highly classified. If had been the Galae, I'd suspect they allowed a simple discharge only because the phase variance in the graft makes it impossible for a standard medical scan to detect it."
Burnie chewed on that a moment. He was no lawyer, but there were enough in the family that he had a decent feel for legal issues (and while he'd never been court martialed, he'd faced a Mast or two in his day). He'd also developed a feel for the levels of CYA in the admiralty. None of them wanted the PR nightmare that would have come of it, especially since any tribunal would have had to clear Divash or risked her mother using every lever an Orion could push to take the case public. He'd met Leata - the media would be putty in her hands, and Starfleet would get a major black eye. But it would still have been the end of Divash's career.
Eventually he nodded. "So, if I tried to go back, the medical work up they'd need to remove the cause of discharge would cause trouble. For everyone." He puffed a sigh. "I don't suppose I could just say people from the future fixed me? No idea how - just nice future scientists doing a favor." He smiled (almost) innocently.
"You're welcome," Vriha chuckled. "And I did fix you, by modifying the original solution to fully activate. But it might be better for all concerned if that stays between us. As it is, you'll get a visit from DTI. Do you really want them taking an active interest in your brain?"
He cringed. He'd had enough of Temporal Investigations to last a life time, or several in various timelines. "No. No, I do not."
"Then we can let you return," she said and tapped a control. As the field around them dissipated she smiled. "D'era guide you until we meet. Again."
"Remember to be nice to me," Liha said with friendly smirk.
...and then they were gone.
