SECTION 18

Any move you let Audrey make is a potential risk to your timeline, so you decide to intercept her as quickly as possible. Before she can get more than a few steps, you dash up behind her and whisper the one thing you know will stop her in her tracks.

“Bluebell.”

It was Reginald’s pet name for her when she was little, and you have to admit that you picked it up as well. By the time Tovar came into the house, Audrey was old enough that the name had fallen into disuse.

The effect of the nickname is instantaneous. Audrey spins around in shock. Thankfully, she’s not brandishing a weapon at you.

“Mum!” she gasps. You grab her and pull her back farther from your past self and get safely ensconced behind a large stack of cargo containers.

“What are you doing here?” she demands, her voice a harsh whisper. “You’re over there!”

“And I need to stay there,” you say. “I know Section 31 has made you think you have to stop me, but they were wrong. The consequences are devastating.”

“What? Are we at war? Is the Federation gone?”

“Well, no. Nothing like that,” you say. “But your father and I never meet, so…”

“…so I don’t exist.”

“No. And Romulus is gone. I’m sure there must be a lot of other terrible things, but frankly I didn’t have time to research it all. I got a panicked comm from Agent Gunton screaming that the new timeline is terrible, but really just knowing that you and your sister will never exist makes it intolerable. And I will do everything in my power to prevent it.”

“Even if that means fighting me,” Audrey says grimly.

“I really hope it won’t come to that. What did the Section Chiefs tell you to do?”

“Knock you out and then get onboard the Anomaly and sabotage the engines. It’s supposed to delay things enough that Hobus is unstoppable. They said that other than removing the Romulans as a potential threat to the Federation, the effects would be minimal.”

“Meddling with time is never predictable. But you have to decide if you are willing to make everything worse and wipe yourself out of existence just to do the will of the Section Chiefs.”

“What would you do?” Audrey asks.

“You know the answer to that. I already defied Section 31 once to come back here the first time.”

“If I don’t follow orders, they can just send someone else.”

“I don’t think they will. Not after seeing what their actions will actually cause.”

“Okay. Fine. I won’t go through with it.”

“Thank you,” you say, grabbing your daughter in a hug.

Audrey chuckles. “My first trip through time, and all I got to see was a bunch of cargo containers.”

“The job isn’t all glamor, I’m afraid.”

“Do you need me to take you back to the 26th century? I think I can do it with the time displacer the Chiefs gave me.”

“No, dear. I need to get rid of the ship I came in, and then the timeline shift should send me home.”

Audrey pulls a small device out of a pouch on her belt and makes a few adjustments. “All right. But comm me when you get back, so I know everything went okay.”

“I will. Talk to you soon.”

“And in a hundred years,” Audrey replies with a smile and then activates the time displacer. A moment later, you are all alone.

Not wanting to waste another second, you slip back outside to where you hid the prototype timeship. It seems like a shame to destroy it, but you don’t have any idea how to repair it. You could try to track down Craig Porter to try to fix it, but you aren’t sure where he is in 2387, and besides he’s already had a cameo in this run of stories.

Of course, now that the timeline the timeship came from is disappearing, it might disappear too. You can’t take that risk, though. It must be destroyed.

You set the autopilot and exit the craft. Its hatch closes, and the vessel rises up then ascends quickly through the atmosphere on a direct course toward Vulcan’s sun.

With that complete, a feeling of relief washes over you.

You did it!

You saved your timeline!

All you have to do now is wait for the timeline change to set in, at which point you should be transported back to the Anomaly and Reginald and Tovar and…

Go to Section 25.