Resolve formed within Chris as he stood up. "We need to solve this, and we need to do it now. Our presence in this time line could severely hamper the Federation’s encounters with this universe in the future."

Captain Sulu stood, but only out of politeness when someone is about to leave the table. The Dragon’s senior staff quickly followed him. "Then I guess our dinner is over," Sulu said, nodding.

Chris smiled and nodded back. "That it is, sir," he replied, grateful for the chance of personally meeting someone like Sulu. He knew full well that he would most likely have a chance again real soon.

Chris tapped his comm badge to open a new channel, then said, "Harriman to Transporter Room One. Beam the senior staff aboard."

Captain’s Log, Supplemental

Our ship stuck in the past and an evil dimension…a ship from our past along side of us…this almost seems like one of those science fiction novels I used to read when I was a teen. Nothing I experienced, even on the Enterprise, can compare to this situation…

We’ve determined that the best hope we have of making it home is to attempt to recreate the anomaly we encountered. However, we must figure out how we can do that before we can even try. If we fail…the crew will be forced to vote on two options. Either we remain in the here and now, find an M-class planet we know will never be colonized, and settle down…or we brave the future of this dimension and try to find technology to take us home… Neither choice is very pleasing, either…

Chris ended his log, then pushed his computer console away, almost pushing it over the edge of his desk. Never before had he ever felt the despair he now felt…the hopelessness. He felt like he had somehow betrayed his crew in stranding them here.

He buried his head in his arms, wishing someone like Captain Picard were here to help him out of this situation. If Picard were here, surely he’d find a way out of this situation…he always did!

Chris let his thoughts wander as he tried to mentally prepare himself to present the crew with bad news.

Perhaps I’m giving up too easily? He thought. He honestly didn’t know…but then he realized that Captain Picard would never have given up, unless lives would unnecessarily be lost if he didn’t give up.

Chris suddenly became determined at that thought. He didn’t bother to take his head out of his arms, and simply rested easier on his desk. He began going through some of the lessons he had been through in his Quantum Mechanics class at the Academy. Maybe the answer lie within those lessons…

Sarah sighed as she closed her log entry, the first one she had bothered to file after her initial entry. Starfleet probably wouldn’t be pleased that she had neglected to make an entry every time it was prudent, but she didn’t care. They were, after all, in a rather desperate situation.

She stood up and walked around the railing separating the tactical console from the front of the bridge, and then moved back to the science console. There, she asked Tom, "Any progress?"

Tom shook his head slowly as he studied a tachyon emission scan of the anomaly. "None," he replied morbidly. "I’m working with engineering…but so far we’ve come up with nothing. I also sent the information we collected over to the Excelsior, but so far we haven’t even heard a reply from them on the subject."

Tom sighed, exasperated, as he leaned back in his chair. "I honestly don’t know if there is a solution to this dilemma."

Sarah rested her hand on her friend’s shoulder. "Don’t worry," she said reassuringly. "We may not have been through worse on the Enterprise, but even then we got through it. We’ll pull through."

He looked up at her, smiled warmly, then leaned forward again to study the readings. Sarah looked at them…and then something sparked in her mind.

She brought her face close enough to the screen that her nose almost touched as she studied some of the readings. Suddenly, she shot away from the console at almost a jog as she headed for the turbolift.

"I’ll be in engineering!" she said excitedly. "You have the bridge, Tom!"

"Captain to the bridge!" an excited voice suddenly shouted, suddenly waking Chris up from a sleep. His head flew up from the desk, causing him to suddenly feel dizzy. "I repeat, Captain to the bridge!"

Wiping the sleep from his eyes, Chris immediately stood and ran out of his ready room. "What is it?!" he asked as Sarah quickly emerged from the turbolift. He sat down in the command chair, still a little disoriented from waking up so suddenly.

Tom, who was still back at the science console, stated before Sarah could, "I think we’ve found a way to recreate the anomaly, sir!" Tom stated, his voice as excited as Sarah’s had been over the comm system.

All signs of sleep suddenly left Chris’s consciousness as he stood back up and looked to Tom. "How?!" he asked, curious and hopeful.

This time, Sarah answered as she came to his side. Too excited to lower her voice, she began quoting science to him. "We found that the anomaly wasn’t just a tear in time and space…but also a tear in subspace!" she stated excitedly. "In fact, it was based on this tear in subspace! So all we have to do is modify one of our warp cores, hope it can generate enough power, and voila! We’re home!"

A huge smile slowly appeared on Chris’s face, and he was about to embrace Sarah in a hug, but his happiness was compromised.

"There’s one catch," Tom stated hesitantly. Chris’s smile immediately turned into a stone expression, unemotional, for he did not want to show how afraid he was of Tom’s next words.

"And that is?" he asked, trying to maintain an even tone.

"Since we have only traveled through the anomaly once," Tom said, "We don’t exactly have a reference database to go on…meaning we can’t calibrate the warp core to take us straight home. We’ll have to randomly set it…and hope that we aren’t brought into a universe and time full of death and destruction."

Still clinging to hope, Chris asked, "Can we last long enough to compile a reference database?"

Tom nodded, a slight grin on his face. "If we modified the saucer section’s warp core to perform this function alone, we could probably jump twenty times. I don’t think it’ll take us even nearly that many jumps…but that means we’ll have an easy buffer."

Chris felt his smile appear again. As he turned around and sat back down in his chair, he said in a hopeful tone, "That’s a better chance than we would have if we just stayed here." He paused for a moment as Sarah sat down next to him. Finally, he gave the order. "Make the appropriate modifications…and advise the Excelsior of our situation."

"Aye, sir," both Tom and Vendar replied enthusiastically, both getting to work quickly.

Captain’s Log, Supplemental

It seems that we may yet have a chance at making it home. I may not have to make the crew decide…at least, not yet. Once we reach home, we’ll need to recreate the anomaly one more time…to send the Excelsior home. Perhaps Sarah’s suspicions are incorrect…we may yet be able to save the Excelsior, and restore time…

Space truly is a place of wonders, a place where all things are possible. It may not take much to make a situation look hopeless…but I’m somehow confident that we will make it home, and in one piece. It seems that we are fulfilling Starfleet’s mission to the fullest…one mission that started with the Enterprise’s famous saying, and has now been shouldered by us. That mission is, put simply… "To boldly go where no one has gone before."