Two Crews, One Problem (Part 3)

Posted on Wed Jun 3rd, 2026 @ 3:43am by Captain Violet Bluegarden & Commander Jason Reeves & Lieutenant Commander Julian Wishmore & Lieutenant Hikari Takanashi & Lieutenant Irril Sharvo
Edited on on Wed Jun 3rd, 2026 @ 3:45am

1,765 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: What's Past is Present
Location: Conference Room
Timeline: After 'Two Crews, One Problem (Part 2)'

Previously, on Star Trek: The Sullivans:

"I think that's just about everyone?" Violet asked, observing the final two arrivals.

"Any more, and we'll have to call the fire marshal." Rebecca agreed.

And now, the continuation:

Together, the two Captain Bluegardens stepped towards the briefing screen. As cooperation between the two crews was imperative at this point, Rebecca and Violet agreed that neither would cede judgment to the other, to make both crews feel more like equals and not to make it seem like one crew was taking the lead over the other.

Because Violet was younger than Rebecca, there was one thing that the older Captain let her great great granddaughter take the lead on, and that was clearing her throat loudly to command the crowded room to attention.

"As I'm sure is apparent by the mix monochrome and monster maroon in our midst, we have a situation on our hands:" Violet commenced the briefing, turning to Rebecca. "Captain, why don't we start by going over the timeline of events?"

Nodding, Rebecca turned towards the screen as Commander Greyleth operated the button to commence the slideshow.

"According the the logs given by Commander Greyleth, who was on the overnight watch from Gamma Shift, the Starship The Sullivans entered the Rhydonian Nebula at approximately 0400 hours." Rebecca reported. "Y'all in the black and white didn't start showing up until around 0900 hours. Does that match your timeline of events, Captain?"

"It sure does." Violet nodded. "When I retired for the evening last night, I was told that we would enter the nebula at approximately 0400 hours. I got up... Oh, around 0900, and suddenly, there you were."

"If I may," Irril interrupted softly, his gaze darting toward the DTI agents. "The five-hour latency suggests the nebula isn't just reflecting us; it’s learning us. It’s building a bridge between the Duotronic and Isolinear architectures." He tapped a sequence on his PADD, projecting a side-by-side comparison of the two Sullivans’ power grids. "The port anti-matter injector Hikari and Lieutenant James discussed? It’s acting as a temporal lightning rod. I believe if we can synchronize the magnetic containment fields across both eras, we can stabilize the 'phasing' long enough to determine if this is a permanent displacement."

Reeves clearly was a bit confused by the concept of temporal mechanics. "This might seem like an ignorant question. But the fact that our future version of the Sullivans is still around in our time. Wouldn't that indicate that the past crew somehow made it out of this displacement?"

Both Hikari and Lieutenant James shared the exact same expression of confusion. "The port anti-matter injector is a lightning rod... for some temporal... stuff?" Hikari asked. "But, what about the starboard side?"

James turned to Hikari. "Perhaps, theres something in that injector tjat causes it to be like that?" He theorised. "Is it the exact same one I had to nurse... for you all those years ago?"

Hikari nodded. "Yeah. It wasn't damaged so I didn't see the need for it to be replaced. In your time, its practically brand new right?"

James rubbed the back of his head and gave her a nervous smile. "Well... actually. In truth, the amti-matter injectors you have are actually re-purposed parts from the Starship Endeavour. She was decomissioned a few weeks before The Sullivans launched. The warp drive system is pretty much identicle, and Constitution Class ships were so well built, they decided to re-use the parts that were still in good working area." He explained.

Hikari blinked a few times and then narrowed her eyes. "Soooo thats why they play up all the time huh..."

"The Voyager made it through the Wormhole in eight months, but they took a wrong turn after it. Only by retracing their pattern did they find some semblance of the way home," Keeli started. "That might be the first place to start. I'll pull the star charts," she said, extracting her PADD from her pocket, and pressing buttons. "And...did you folks notice any kind of atmospheric storms or anything like that?" She asked the older Captain Bluegarden.

"Voyager?" Hikari asked cocking her head to one side. "That's one of those new Intrepid Class ships isn't it? I heard she disappeared in the Badlands two years ago chasing down some Maquis... I wish I'd have seen one of those. That new bio-neural circutory sounds interesting.. " she looked over at James. She held her hands out flailing about. "Not that this ship isn't interesting! This old girl is a beauty. I love older ships! I swear, really I do!"

Lieutenant James just smiled with a chuckle. "Don't worry Hikari, I'm sure that The Sullivans doesn't class curosity as cheating..."

Hikari let out a long sigh of relief in response. "Thanks, Daniel."

"Perhaps it would be a good idea not to mention any future ships or events," the First Officer of the Sullivans suggested. "Once this gets resolved any knowledge of the future would likely cause issues."

Sharvo’s fingers tightened on his PADD, his blue eyes darting toward the DTI agents. While the others debated the wonder of temporal mechanics, Irril felt a cold, familiar dread. These agents sought anomalies—tears in the fabric of history—and Irril had spent his entire career trying to stitch over the stain of his father’s collaborator past. If they looked too closely at the crew, would they see the shadow of a war criminal?

"Captain," Irril interrupted, his voice a calm anchor despite his racing heart. "If this nebula is 'learning' us through our hardware, we need to stop treating the 23rd Century crew like ghosts and start treating them like hardware parity." He tapped his screen, projecting a power-grid overlay. "The port antimatter injector is our lightning rod. If we use Lieutenant James’s 'old-school' fix with the hull plating, we can ground the temporal signature. I can reroute a micro-stream of chronitons to the injector to lock our frequencies."

He looked at Rebecca Bluegarden with a desperate, professional intensity. "We need to bridge the eighty-year gap now, or the ship will eventually try to 'heal' by cutting one of us out of the timeline."

"In that case, I think I can speak for my great great grandbaby when I say... Make it so." Rebecca turned to Violet, who nodded in agreement.

"If we can get everyone on the same material plane, figuring out a way to send the 23rd century crew back home will be a lot easier." Violet agreed.

"Erm..." Hikari and James both said together. "We kind of are..." they said almost in unison.

Lieutenant James stepped forward and placed a hand on Hikari's shoulder. "We've been able to interact since I came here." he explained. "I don't know why its just me? Maybe its something to do with the fact I appeared here in Main Engineering. I've actually been helping Hikari here with some of the engineering tasks..."

Sharvo’s fingers tightened on his PADD, his posture a rigid line of Bajoran discipline. The memory of finding the Deltan naked in his sonic shower that morning, entirely unbothered by the concept of a locked door, cluttered Irril’s mind like bad sensor data. To Irril, privacy was a sanctuary; to Tugril, the ship was apparently a hunting ground.

"Captain," Irril interrupted, his voice a calm anchor despite his racing heart. "If Lieutenant James and Hikari are tangible, it supports the hardware parity theory. Engineering is the heart of the ship’s identity, but as we move further out, that identity fluctuates." He projected a power grid overlay, his eyes darting toward the DTI agents. He lived in terror of their prying questions, fearing they might dig into the Sharvo name and find the collaborator stains he had spent years scrubbing.

"The port injector is our lightning rod," he continued with professional intensity. "I can reroute a stream of chronitons to lock our frequencies, but we must be gradual. A sudden sync could weld these two crews together permanently."

"Woah woah!" Hikari said. "You can't just pump chroniton particles into the injectors! You'll contaminate the anti-matter. And if that gets into the core, then well..." she looked over at Lt James.

Ge simply stetches his fingers out from a fist. "Boom." He added.

"That." Hikari said. "It would cause an uncontrollable warp core explosion that they'll see from Earth. The only way to even get chronitons near it, is to take the warp core offline, dump all of our anti-matter and purge the entire system." Hikari explained. "However that also means..."

"No fuel. No power. No warp drive." Lt James finished for her.

"That too..." Hikari sighed. "Unless we can find a source of anti-matter in this nebula. We're kinda..."

"Stuck." Lt James once again finished for her.

"Yeah. That..." Hikari added.

"I am not suggesting we pump raw chronitons into the fuel injectors, Lieutenant," Irril countered, his voice gaining a hard, strategic edge as he felt a sharp prickle of frustration in his bones. "I’m suggesting a phased harmonic buffer. We don't need to contaminate the antimatter; we need to wrap the containment field around the parity spikes. If we use the deflector array to broadcast a low-frequency pulse we can use to 'trick' the nebula into seeing one unified signature."

He stood up, his Bajoran discipline a rigid line. He looked directly at Captain Violet Bluegarden, his loyalty to his own commander acting as his anchor. The engineers were fixated on mechanical risks while the ship suffered a quantum identity crisis, he tightened his grip on his PADD, "The 'Boom' only happens if we lose synchronization. I can map the parity in real-time, but we must stop looking at the manual and start looking at the subspace architecture. If we don't lock these frequencies, we won't just be stuck, we’ll be erased!"

To be continued...

Posting by

Captain Violet Bluegarden
Commanding Officer
USS The Sullivans
2373

Captain Rebecca Bluegarden
Commanding Officer
USS The Sullivans
2293

Commander Jason Reeves
Executive Officer
USS The Sullivans
2373

Lieutenant Commander Greyleth
Executive Officer
USS The Sullivans
2293

Lieutenant Commander Jo'ohn El'Ataa
Chief Security/Tactical Officer
USS The Sullivans
2373

Lieutenant Commander Nathan Drake
Chief Security Officer
USS The Sullivans
2293

Lieutenant Commander Keeli Reex
Chief Science Officer
USS The Sullivans
2373

Lieutenant Elly Reex
Chief Science Officer
USS The Sullivans
2293

Lieutenant Commander Julian Wishmore
Chief Intelligence Officer
USS The Sullivans
2373

Lieutenant Irril Sharvo
Chief Operations Officer
USS The Sullivans
2373

Lieutenant Tugril
Chief Personnel Officer
USS The Sullivans
2293

Lieutenant Hikari Takanashi
Chief Engineer
USS The Sullivans
2373

Lieutenant Daniel James
Chief Engineer
USS The Sullivans
2293

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