In the main shuttlebay, Tiberius watched from behind the caution line designed for the shuttle to park in as St. Louis settled down. They’d received a few heavily degraded transmissions, but nothing that could be deciphered. It was like the messages were sent and then resent and resent on top of each other, heavily corrupting the data. He’d assigned a few science teams to try and unravel the mess of code to decipher what was sent but no progress as yet. He had to hope that whatever they sent, the shuttle crew could just explain.

Whatever hope he had dried up in his mouth when his commander and her team stepped out looking disoriented and confused. He strode forward to meet them, taking control of the situation.

“Welcome back. What did you find?”

“Find? We… we didn’t even land?”

Tiberius’ brow furrowed. “Of course you did? We tracked the shuttle’s trajectory. You were on the surface for several hours. You even broadcast a few transmissions that came through heavily mangled. I was hoping you could be the one to just tell me what it was you were trying to say?”

“We sent transmission?” Vossk asked. His expression contemplative. “I have no memory of this.”

“It’s probably a side effect of the residual chronoton flux state. It’s likely that whatever memories we made on the surface of the planet reset themselves as soon as we got far enough away. They exist in a specific state, but if you get farther away from the source of the excitement, they revert.” Danny said.

“That would explain the loss of memory. I had initially wondered why we were landing as we did. Only to realize that we had to have input the course and settings. It would make sense we programmed the shuttle to land, otherwise we might have created our own temporal loop.”

“Unless we tractored you into the shuttlebay.” Tib added.

Lorena shook her head, her confusion about the situation set aside. “Too risky. The shuttle could come apart if we’d resisted.”

“But you wouldn’t have any reason to. So. You went down. Did your studies. Came back and lost all memory of them. Let’s see what we can do about figuring out what you did down there, and what conclusions you made. Lorena, take your team to sick bay for a full check. Once you’re cleared, I was Mr. Vossk and his team to start going over the mission data and have a team look into those transmissions you guys sent. They’re a mess. I want to know what was so important that got scrambled.”

Everyone gave him a solid north/south of the head and filed out of the shuttle bay. He watched a moment longer than his little brother left behind the team. He tried not to frown in worry. Danny was taking this way too casually. Or maybe he was just taking this wound way too tight. Clearly, his brother understood better than the team did why they lacked any memory of visiting the surface.

He sighed, shaking his head. He was letting circumstances bother him where they shouldn’t. Tiberius took a deep, calming breath and let it out slowly. Spinning on his heels, he left the shuttle bay and bee lined for the lift back to the bridge. They had a few more pieces of the puzzle, but unfortunately they belonged to under developed sections. Leaving him with more questions than answers this early.

“Well, at least it wasn’t a boring patrol.” He said with a reluctant sigh.

Perhaps he’d grown too accustomed to monotony and a lack of excitement. Had he lost his flair? His drive? Few would make the comparison that he was the spitting image of his father. Adrian had been nothing but raw instinct and courage. Leap without looking and let the chips fall where they may.

That just wasn’t Tiberius’ style, but he was doubting if maybe he needed a bit more of that side of his father in him. He could actively recall times when he’d gone out of his way to tamp that side of himself down and hold those impulses back. This far out on the fringe, though? Maybe he needed to channel his own inner maverick.

Striding out of the shuttle bay he made his way for the bridge. The rest of his shift went quiet while he waited for the away team to clear their medical exams. Danny could help the Doc determine that the away team had uniquely unstable chronitons attached to them, causing the memory decay. It wasn’t a reversible condition. Something he’d deduced while they were deployed. His solution was to send logs and record their findings so that they wouldn’t lose any data. This had been done before their departure. Unfortunately, because of the chroniton flux, their data is also quantum scrambled.

Naturally, this created a puzzle that his brother was all too eager to pour himself into solving. Mr. Vossk was of course, interested, but this was purely up his brother’s ally. Commander Kael? Well, she was managing the best she could. He’d observed that she didn’t seem entirely comfortable being unable to find the solution herself, and having to rely on the team was difficult for her. That said, she was doing her best to be patient and supportive of the scientists. Tiberius knew he only needed to give them a little time, and they’d have the mystery cracked.

This kind of thing was well beyond his own capabilities, so he did what he did best. Provide his people the tools and time they needed and let them go to work. That’s how the Rubidoux worked. It wasn’t glamorous, and they weren’t making the Federation News front pages or anything, but they got their jobs done and that’s all that mattered. They did the dirty work, so others could shine.

Striding back into the bridge, he studied the anomaly again as he slowly took his seat. Such a briar patch this thing turned out to be. He only hoped they didn’t wind up stumbling across more on their patrol or this would never end. Literally.

“Mr. Jel’kan, how’s my ship doing?”

“Nothing new to report, sir.”

“Good. Just the way I like it. Commander Kael will be up as soon as she clears medical. Until then, it’s yours. I’ll be in my ready room.”

Jel’kan gave him a stiff nod as he rose from the Captain’s chair. He wanted to take some notes in his log before some things got muddied with time.

Captain’s Log: Supplemental.

After an initial analysis of a temporal anamoly we discovered, my away team has come back with sudden onset of short term amnesia. The team determined they’d encounter this on their return and thus took precautions, however due to the unstable nature of the pervailing chronitons in the area it would seem even those precautions have come with their own unique puzzles. Temporal scrambling I believe Vossk abbreviated the term for the less wisened of us. Commander Kael has paraphrased it as frustration. While my brother’s summation is simply fascinating. 

I have no doubt they’ll suss out the data they collected and we can be on our way, but the delay is costly in time. This anamoly seems to have both created and wasted time in the region, as it seems to constantly fall into a loop. At fisrt I found it whimsical but even my patience with it is beginning to wane. I only hope the fools that fired the weapon off that created this mess haven’t gone and sold the thing to anyone else. Otherwise this will be the start of a bigger problem. One I fear we ourselves may not be properly equipped to handle even with the recent upgrades the crew have been conducting. 

Rain out.

He leaned back in his chair, feeling extra pensive, watching the soft white glow of the false nebula of charged chronitons billow about. These weapons had to be stopped. They had be to dismantled, and the pieces destroyed and the plans deleted and purged. This kind of weapon only got people hurt failing to do the job it was designed to do. Prevent people from getting hurt.

His father would have thrown a fit over this kind of project. He very much disapproved of trying to prevent wars with bigger sticks. He felt it should fall to the performance of the men and women at arms to convince the other guys it was a good idea to back off. Super weapons were just super pains in the ass. That was an approximation of his father’s quote but captures the spirit of it well enough.

Commander Kael failed to report back to the bridge, drawing his curiosity towards what it could be that she was up to. He tapped his combadge.

“Computer, locate Commander Kael?”

“Commander Kael is in Science Lab 1.”

Tib smirked, understanding her delay now. He pushed himself free of his desk and took a field trip down to Science Lab 1. Striding out of the ready room; he poured into the turbo lift at the aft of the bridge. As the doors whisked shut on him, he leaned against the car’s wall and folded his arms. “Deck 4”

The car whirred into motion with the acknowledging chime of the computer. When the doors whisked open he strode out with an amused smile as he made his way for lab 1. Finding it, he tried to enter but found the door locked. His brow knit until he realized they probably did so to avoid distractions. Well he was one distraction they’d have to put up with no matter what. This was no doubt his brothers idea.

Danny always liked to be unbothered when he was thinking about his work. Entering his command override the lock chimmed its acknowledgement cheerily and allowed him to enter. The doors hissed open and he strode inside and nearly chuckled when he saw the three of them dishevled and near manic looking as they struggled to puzzle piece together the past day or two of their lives.

“Quite the mystery you’re all working on.” He said, half announcing himself.

Kael turned back and saw him with a flash of relief. “I…must be late.” She finally concluded.

“Indeed. But understand why. Any luck?” He gestured back to the floating holographic splices of their message and their logs.

“Bits here, pieces there. But we’re fraying at the edges. Vossk has almost nodded off twice. I’m pretty sure I drooled on that console over there for a little. Your brother is machine when he’s got a project that really grabs him.”

Tib smiled wanely. “Yeah. That’s Danny for ya.” He cleared his throat. All heads turned to him.

“Okay. You guys look and smell like you’re burned out. Get some rest. That’s an order.”

“But captain, the data?” Danny protested.

“Write a computer algorithm if you have to. But I won’t have a quarter of my command staff incapacitated from exhaustion over this. That’s an order.”

Vossk nodded, taking the rebuke in stride. “Of course, sir.” With the elegance of a man who’d just been told he didn’t have to suffer anymore.

Danny, however, looked as though he wanted to protest, but sighed and nodded. “I’ll write the program. It won’t be as fast, but at least we won’t lose progress.”

“Good thinking.” Kael told his brother.

Danny sat down at the chair, hands flying across the console as though he’d just inhaled spiked coffee and it went straight to his bloodstream. Kael’s eyes nearly glazed over.

“I have no clue where he gets the energy from.”

“He’s not neurotypical. So it tracks. Get some sleep. A full shift, at least. Unless the ship is burning down around you, I don’t want you back in uniform for a minimum of 8 hours. Fight me on it and I’ll have the Doctor tranq you.”

Kael held her hands up, bags under her eyes. “Trust me, I’ve been at my limit for a while. An officer should always know when to stand down and get some rest.”

“An officer should. But sometimes losing track of time while working happens. And you’ll never see me mad about it as long you as you do it responsibly and get some rest.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Kael left the lab, leaving just him and Danny.

“Danno, how much time is left on that program?”

“10 minutes.” Danny said distractedly.

Tib nodded, “Computer. Lock onto Lt. Rain and prepare a site to site transport from his current position, whatever that may be, to his quarters in 10 minutes.”

“Acknowledged. Standing by.”

“Ten minutes Danno. Not a minute more.”

Danny only grunted and nodded while writing.