Lt. Vossk studied the holographic feeds in the science labs running from Lt. Rain’s program to crunch the data on their research into the temporal anomaly. The bulk of the data had been processed by now and Lt. Rain was nearing a hypothesis on how to deal with it. They’d been spit balling ideas like firing quantum charged chronitons with opposite charges into the anomaly to see if the effect would create a stabilization effect. Preliminary data yields didn’t show a favorable outcome, though.

Vossk himself had exhausted many ideas, and at this point it essentially boiled down to Lt. Rain’s imagination. Thus far, the younger Rain had been quiet, simply studying the information, while solving a multi colored segmented cube in his off-hand absently. Every time he got all nine blocks the same color, he would undo his work and resolve. Vossk assumed it was some kind of focus aid designed to get the mind working.

“The shields.” He said finally.

Vossk looked at him curiously. “What about them?”

“That’s our stabilization method. The bursts and beams are failing because the spread is too small. Like a laser dot in a void. It only lights up the small dot. We need a bigger dot.”

“The shields.” Vossk concluded.

Daniel nodded, rocking gently as he spoke. “Co-mingle the charged quantum chronitons throughout the shield vertices and use the grid as a massive output matrix.”

Daniel tapped at a holographic table several times and spun it around to Lt. Vossk. The Saurian leaned close to study the results and blinked. Once again, Lt. Rain’s solution, while elaborate, innovative and unconventional, worked at least on paper.

“Now we just need to test this.”

Daniel frowned, rocking a little harder. “Can’t. No way to simulate it without the root anomaly.”

Vossk matched Daniel’s frown. “True. Then we’ll need to take this to the Captain.”

Daniel swiped the data sideways onto a pad and handed it to Vossk. The saurian science chief thanked Daniel and made for the lab’s exit. He made a mental note to look into Lt. Rain’s profile deeper. And also recommend him for an achievement award given he’d single-handedly led the charge with this specific exotic phenomena.

He’d been so preoccupied that when the lift doors opened to the bridge, he blinked, realizing the bridge staff were looking at him curiously. He’d done it again, hadn’t he? Worked so hard he’d grown weary. Lt. Rain’s zeal for solving problems could be quite exhausting, and yet invigorating at the same time. Most curious.

He approached the ready room door controls and keyed the chime.

“Enter.” He heard from the other side and strode in.

“Ah. Lt. Vossk. How goes the world of science and discovery?”

“Your younger brother may have solved the matter of that temporal anomaly we encountered. The data you’ll need, sir.”

Vossk handed the captain the tablet with Daniel’s research and the proposed method to reset the quantum chronitons. The captain studied it for a moment and nodded.

“Let’s pretend for a moment that all of this makes sense to me. What do you guys need?”

“A work estimate from the chief to implement the necessary changes, and a course set to get us there.”

The captain nodded. “You’re in luck then. We’ve recently just wrapped up our patrol, and our course back takes us right by the hot zone. I was going to have you run some scans on the area as we passed by, but if we can honestly undo this mess? All the better. You have my blessings. Make it happen.”

Vossk nodded and dismissed himself from the captain’s office and submitted his work order to Engineering. The refits to the shield matrices wouldn’t take long. But he would need Daniel to write the code to design a program to monitor the output. Any imbalance would cause the anomaly to collapse in on them. And the results of that would be even worse than it already was.

The work progressed timely and well. Commander Kael was vital to his efforts. Circumventing the engineering chief’s gruff exterior and tendency to disregard anything until existing projects were done. The XO was insistent, however, on the Captain’s desire to wipe clean this mess.

Eventually, the time and the preparations put Lt. Rain’s idea of using the shields as a massive anti field to undo the anomaly. The ship waited poised at the edge of the known field of influence.

“Yellow Alert.” Tib ordered.

The bridge fell awash in the warm yellow caution lights.

“Shields up.”

Lt. Vossk turned to him from the science station. “The modified shields are active and stable.”

Tib nodded, gesturing to the Nebula. “Helm, take us in.”

Lt. Jg. Thorne nodded, hands dancing across the console. “Aye aye, sir.”

The Rubidoux proceeded in. As the shield grid contacted the anomaly, it lit up. No physical damage was actually being registered, however, the anomaly was pulling the quantum charged chronitons out of the shields like a sponge soaking up water. The ship settled into the core of the anomaly.

The lights on the bridge flickered, and the sound of power draining and fluctuating could be heard. Tib glanced over at Mr. Vossk. At the empty operations station at the aft of the bridge, his younger brother’s hands worked feverishly in concert as he balanced power loads and emitter flow through the shield grid.

“Saturation rate at 50% Captain.” Vossk announced. Vossk then pinned a graphic on the main viewscreen of the anomaly’s field and the amount it had shrunk. Several alert klaxons rang out, and Jel’kan listed off affected decks without power due to blown eps relays in the grid.

“Dispatch engineering teams to assess the damage and patch them up when they can.” Tib ordered. “Safely.” He amended.

“Eighty-seven percent and climbing. The anomaly’s stability is in free fall.”

The counter on the main screen hit 100% and the outline of the field disappeared. Everyone glanced around. Tib leaned back and smiled approvingly.

“Congratulations everyone. We just cleaned up space and discovered a new way to undo temporal anomalies artificially.”

Thorne glanced back from the conn. “That’ll make a nice footnote in the Daystrom journal. Nice job Lt.”

Tib glanced back at his brother, who gave him a nod. He was okay. Good. Tib grinned and gave him a thumbs up. Daniel shyly replicated the gesture and something eased in Tiberius. He’d been so worried about his brother acclimating and integrating with the crew. It looked like he had little to worry about at all.

“Helm, plot a course to Deep Space 17, please.”

“Course plotted, sir.”

“Send it.”

The Rubidoux vaulted off at warp 7 into the void.