Time, Fate & Lo Mein

[Annabelle O'Halloran 0]

 

"So did the Captain tell you why he was interested in the Guardian?"

 

Caroline forked a large mouthful of lo mein into her mouth and chewed on it thoughtfully before picking up the glass of mao tai wine at her elbow. In the brief lull from action which the ship had managed to find in this uncertain situation, Anna had found Caroline in sickbay and suggested they grab something to eat -- a suggestion which Caroline had been only too happy to accept.

 

The past twenty-four hours had been some of the most intense of Caroline's life up to this point; if someone had told her a month before that she would soon be experiencing a red-alert in an unfamiliar time period from the bridge of a starship, she would have advised them to...well...get their head checked out. But that was exactly what had happened, and for a while she had been quite certain that everything was going to shake itself apart around her. It hadn't, though, and she was glad to take the opportunity to get somewhat rested and refueled -- and to grill Anna for information about just what on Earth she thought was going on.

 

So far they still seemed to have more questions than answers, but at least it was good to have the chance to talk to someone and make sure she was not the only one somewhat confused by the situation. That was reassuring, in its way. Sort of.

 

"Does he think we can use it to get back to our time?" she continued, with a somewhat hopeful expression. She didn't know much about the known incidents surrounding the Guardian, but she didn't think it was capable of allowing a starship passage. Still, she'd already seen strange things happen on this ship -- it seemed somewhat silly make any assumptions at this point.

 

Anna finished ladling 3 Delicacies soup into her bowl, and looked at the mixture of shrimp, crabmeat, chicken, black mushrooms, peapods and bamboo shoots, redolent with sesame oil, before glancing over to Caroline who actually looked hopeful of receiving an answer. Not for the first time, it occurred to her that Caroline was doing a good job of taking recent events in stride. She seemed well nigh unflappable to Anna. She hated to disappoint her friend, but was forced to say, "No, the Captain didn't say what he hoped the Guardian could accomplish, but The Guardian of Forever is a construct of an unknown, ancient alien race, that apparently functions as a time portal, or gateway to other times and dimensions. It's located on an ancient planet where the focus of all timelines throughout at least the Milky Way Galaxy converge. Presumably, the Captain is hoping we can find a solution to our current problem." Anna smiled faintly and picked up her wine glass, raising it slightly in the other woman's direction. "Here's hoping."

 

With a particular timing, the door chime rang, revealing Tobias Jaren, Reaent's assistant science officer. With him, an armful of padds which was usually the norm when he wasn't hustling to the bridge for some catastrophe or another. He stood silent for a moment, debating the intimacy of the dinner he'd just walked in on, before simply raising a brow and clearing his throat. "Here are the latest scan readings of space ahead. We also got some preliminary long range ones on the Guardian of Forever. Thought you might like to have a look," He paused, looking from Caroline to Anna. "I can come back if I'm interrupting."

 

Anna looked up in surprise as Tobias appeared in her doorway, arms full of padds. She'd told him to call her as soon as he'd found anything. She was about to tell him to come on in, that it was no interruption, when her comm badge pinged and she heard Wade Knight's voice. She tapped the badge, telling Wade to go ahead, as she waved Tobias in with a smile.

 

"I've got some information for you on the Guardian," came Wade's voice through a comm, followed by a crunch. He continued on, sounding as though he had a mouthful of something. "It's not much, something about all points in space and time converging on one point on this planet, a portal through time and dimensions. Sounds like a bunch of hoopla to me."

 

"Hoopla? I recall my professor in temporal mechanics taking the Guardian very seriously," Anna replied, obviously amused at Wade's comment. "Want to come up to my quarters? I'm having dinner with Caroline Curtis and Tobias Jeran has just stopped by." Anna eyed the stack of padds her assistant was holding. "He seems to have some information also. Come on up--we're having Chinese."

 

"Chinese you say?" Wade answered. "That sounds great, I'm absolutely famished. I think I've got something around here I can bring," There was a short pause and the sound of some thumping as if he was moving things around frantically. "Okay. I'll be right up. I hope you like beer."

 

"Beer?" Anna shrugged and then stood up, walking to Tobias and taking the padds from him. "You look like you've been busy. Let me take these and you take a seat." Anna tapped the back of a chair, adding, "Might as well have dinner with us while we go over what we think we might know. What do you want to eat? Caroline's having beef lo mein and moo shu pork. I'm having soup and cashew chicken. What's your pleasure?"

 

Tobias took a seat and looked a little awkwardly at the table, he never really understood Human's needs to mingle their work and personal lives, but then again Starfleet was all about exploring the unknown, so he figured he'd give it a shot. He glanced over both of the ladies' meals before looking to Anna. "I don't have much experience with Chinese food...I suppose I'll stick with what I've had before. Some sesame chicken, and pork fried rice, if that's okay?"

 

"Sounds fine," Caroline said with a smile at the young man. "The wine's excellent as well; want some?" Reaching over to pick up the bottle, she poured out a glass for him. "So did you find anything interesting?" she asked, the hopeful look popping up on her face again.

 

"Mmm yes please, thank you." He let Caroline pour him a glass, and took a sip before continuing. "I haven't found anything too particularly interesting about the Guardian, at least on our scans. We just entered extreme sensor range when I recorded these padds and came down here. It will be several hours before we get anything other then a confirmation of mass at the coordinates Captain McQueen gave us. Other then that, there is nothing of note along the way either. No hidden Klingon warships, no distortions in the space time continuum...that I can see anyway."

 

Anna came back from the replicator and set two bowls of chicken sesame and pork fried rice on the table before returning to the kitchen area and coming back to set a plate and chopsticks and spoon before Tobias. She also laid a place for Wade. "No hidden Klingon warships is a good thing."

 

There was a chime at the door, but Wade didn't wait for an answer before entering with two six packs connected by those plastic rings that had been phased out decades ago. Making a grand entrance, he stretched out his hands and let out a hearty and drawn out "Hey!" before walking over to the table and setting the packs of beer down. One of the cans, which read "Tsing Tao Beer", was missing.

 

Anna saw the markings on the cans and threw Wade a grin. "Looks pretty authentic, Mr. Knight. What do you feel like eating? We've already got a pretty good selection going. Take a look at what's on the table and tell me what else you have a taste for."

 

Wade nodded around the table to Caroline and Tobias and smiled warmly to Annabelle. "My family has had a long history of never throwing anything away. Especially alcohol in a world filled with synthehol," he pretended to scoff, looking exceedingly disappointed in the human race for a moment. Sitting down at the table he looked around at the various items that had been laid out. "You've got quite the feast here," he said, tucking his napkin behind his belt and picked up a pair of chopsticks, breaking them apart. "I don't know where to start... oh sesame chicken." He reached across the table, picking a few pieces of chicken out of the container and onto his plate, followed by some rice.

 

"Plenty to choose from," Caroline said cheerfully; perhaps it was the wine or simply the collection of people just eating together, but she was feeling considerably more relaxed than she had a few hours before. Lurking on the bridge or in sickbay during a crisis was not conducive to low blood pressure. She eyed the beer with curiosity and then picked up a can thoughtfully. "The Reaent think tank is certainly well-supplied with mental lubricant."

 

"Yes, plenty." Tobias eyed the beer curiously. "I'm not usually one to ingest alcohol in this manner, but as you humans say 'When in Rome...'" He fuddled the antiquated tab for a moment before the beer let out a carbonated hiss as it opened. He brought it to his mouth, sniffed, and looked around the table before finally taking a drink. He did his best to keep a straight face, but he still contorted in disgust just slightly. "It's...interesting."

 

"Interesting isn't a bad thing, Tobias," Anna said cheerfully, smiling at the Trill's expression. "In fact, wasn't it a Chinese curse to wish for someone to live in 'interesting times'? I'd say the Reaent perennially suffers from that." She took one of the cans of beer and popped the tab, having watched Tobias do it first. "I hope this mixes well with the Mao Tai wine we've been drinking, Wade." She lifted the can and took an experimental swallow. "Hmm...not too bad." In fact, there'd been times, she'd tasted much worse.

 

Wade grinned at the reactions to the beer around the table, and cracked the tab on one of his own before holding it up in the air in toast like fashion and returning it to his lips for a sip. "It's certainly not my beer of choice, but I thought it would suit the atmosphere." He said with a smile. He picked up his chopsticks and quite adeptly grabbed a piece of the chicken before popping it in his mouth.

 

Caroline eyed the can for a moment more and then popped it open and gave an experimental sip. "Seems it's an excellent addition," she said with a faint grin, then glanced from Wade to the stack of datapadds Tobias had brought with him and back. "So what have you found out? You said you had some more information?"

 

Wade shook his head, swallowing a mouthful of rice before speaking up. "Not too much. For something that could be of a lot of use, or a lot of danger, to a lot of people there doesn't seem to much data on it," he explained, pausing for a moment to take a drink. "At least data that would be of any real use. I can tell you one thing though, according to the report from the Enterprise's encounter with it, it's a portal of some sort with a door way about 10 feet across and eight feet high." Wade grinned for a moment, looking around the table and finding the soup, ladling a bit of it into his bowl while he continued. "Which you may notice is considerably smaller than a Ambassador class starship."

 

"Yes there is that. I've been thinking about the...limits of the Guardian, if there does seem to be only one. I wonder, would the Captain have us abandon the Reaent to return to the future? There begs a question of where and how we would arrive. Even in the 24th century, it's slightly odd for several hundred people to appear out of thin air, claiming to have traveled from the past." He sighed deeply, before having a bite of his chicken. "Then there's the question of the ship. I should hope he would destroy it, and prevent any further contamination of the timeline..."

 

Anna set her chopsticks down, her eyes resting thoughtfully on Tobias. "If it came down to that, I have no doubt but that Captain McQueen would order the Reaent's destruction in order to avert further contamination. However, I'm hoping perhaps this trip to the Guardian's planet is just to seek information. The planet itself is at the center of a field of spatial distortions. It's not a bad place to hide. It's rumored that the Guardian itself is more than five billion years old. Something that's been around that long should be able to fifer some insight into our problem."

 

Caroline nodded slowly, setting down the can and poking her fork at the plate of lo mein again. "At the very least maybe it can confirm if we're in the right universe or...something like that? That was up for debate, wasn't it?"

 

"Well, hopefully," Tobias answered. "Quantum mechanics isn't my strong point, but in my opinion the timeline has already been altered, just by our being here. Anything you observe also changes, and that's not even taking into consideration our engagement with the Klingons, or the build up of their fleet at our point of entry into this time. Hopefully this Guardian can shed some light on our situation, because I couldn't begin to guess how we've changed things."

 

Wade looked around the table, nodding but not really listening. It had all been discussed a hundred times between science, engineering, and anyone else aboard this ship that had taken any notice or consideration of their current pickle. Caroline had a certain hesitance about her, though not blatantly apparent. Tobias seemed fixated on the thoughts at hand, and Anna looked hopeful of something. What, he didn't know, but he'd bet the rest of the beer it was that they'd find their way back home to their loved ones and find them all the same ages they were when they left. Grinning, Wade slapped the table and picked up his beer. "Whatever the case may be, the skipper will find us a way home."

 

Anna smiled in response to Wade's grin and easy confidence in McQueen. "Well, I replicated these for fun, but I have to admit that the little superstitious side I rarely admit to, at least when on duty, was hopeful there might be a sign, so, let's see what this fortune says." Anna cracked open the half moon shaped cookie and read aloud, "Live for the present. The future will take care of itself." She looked around the table. "Well, that was less than helpful."

 

Tobias cracked a small grin at Anna's fortune, and then picked up his own cookie. "Well, perhaps mine will be more helpful." He broke the cookie in two, raising a brow as he read it over. "...'Hard work achieves great things'. That's not even a fortune!"

 

Wade opened his fortune cookie, reading it aloud, "Each day, compel yourself to do something you would rather not do." He paused for a moment and a slight grin played across his features before adding, "In bed."

 

Anna burst out laughing and turned to Caroline. "Please, you're our last hope."

 

Caroline swallowed a grin and looked down as she broke open her own fortune cookie. Her eyebrows went up and then she smiled faintly. "Your friendships will be a light in the darkness," she read, then looked around at the others. "A bit cheesy perhaps, but I'd say the sentiment's good. We'll find our way back...together."