Chapter 62: Time Marches On
January 2415
“Status?”
“Holding at the incursion point. Drive is charged, deflector is aligned to the test coordinates.”
“Proceed.”
Kirina stood in what had, over the past few weeks, become her default position aboard the Vauthilai. From just beside the command chair, she directed the various officers preparing for the first test of the temporal drive. The lights dimmed as the ship’s systems struggled to meet the demands of the new components. Borg technology isn’t exactly cooperative, after all. After a few moments of anticlimactic waiting, the drive finally kicked in. A temporal vortex formed ahead of the fleet, and they proceeded through.
It was not a smooth ride. The turbulence forced Kirina to brace herself against the chair, and was enough to draw D’Kera out to the bridge. Another few moments passed and the motion settled. The vortex cleared the viewscreen, revealing a small system with a dim yellow star.
“Target acquired,” one of the bridge officers called from his station.
“On screen.” The viewer obligingly snapped to a wide-angle shot of a comet, trailing through the system. D’Kera and Kirina exchanged brief nods and the Commander returned to her ready room. Kirina smiled triumphantly, “Excellent. Begin charging the drive for the return trip, and bring us within tractor range.”
Changing the orbit of a comet may have seemed like a trivial task to many of the crew at the time, but this first test proved that the temporal drive - and proper calculations - would allow Vauthilai to alter small details of the timeline to influence galactic events.