Instant Karma
Part 1
By: Captain Gregory A. Sheets

Captain Sheets strode out on to the bridge of the Columbia. As Sheets sat in the center seat, the executive officer, Commander Pagel, stepped up to him.

"Captain," he nodded.

Sheets looked up. "Morning, Commander. Our status?"

Pagel glanced over at his terminal. "Maintaining course heading 323 mark 25, at Warp Five."

Sheets nodded. "Steady as she goes, then."

"Aye, sir, steady as she goes." Pagel went over to stand behind the conn.

Sheets leaned back in the chair, gazing out at the stars on the viewer.

"Bridge, Engineering," the intercom sounded.

"Engineering, Bridge. Go ahead, Mr. Warnes."

"Captain, I'm getting a little field fluctuation in the starboard warp nacelle. I think there may be a problem with the plasma injectors, or maybe even one of the warp coils."

Sheets scratched his chin. "Oh. Well, is it serious? Can we keep moving?"

"I don't think it'll slow us down, but I'd like to try and work it out before we go too much farther. I suspect this might have to do with that fight with the Ferengi."

"All right, then. I want to press on for a bit, but we'll give you a chance to check it out at the first opportunity."

Warnes was quiet briefly. "Okay. Just as long as it gets some attention soon...it's minor now but it could turn ugly if we have to put any serious stress on the warp engines."

"Understood," Sheets nodded. "Bridge out."

The captain rose and looked about the bridge. It was the forenoon watch--Sheets grinned as he reflected on this; there was something both comical and comforting in the following of traditions designed for wind-powered ocean-going craft hundreds of years ago. 'Noon', other than being a term for 1200 hours, was a meaningless concept on a starship. It meant that the sun was directly over Greenwich, England, on Earth, hundreds of lightyears away. And that without the matter of relativity thrown in...

The Captain stopped his mind from wandering and looked at his bridge. 0847 hours--forenoon watch, and all stations were manned for cruise mode. He strode down towards the conn to take a look at the charts when Mr. Bertsch called to him from Ops.

"Captain, I'm reading something from a star system, bearing 327 mark 024. Indications of several possible M-class planets, particularly from number six."

Sheets raised his eyebrows. "Very well, Mr. Bertsch. Jack," he said, turning to the petty officer at the Conn, "Come left to bearing 327 mark 24. Make course for that star system."

"Left bearing 327 mark 24, aye aye, sir," Lallathin echoed.

"Engage," Sheets said.

The air stung his nostrils with ozone and smoke. The scents came to him on a hot breeze from across the blistered, blackened landscape. The whine of directed-energy weapons and the thunder of explosions also rode the fever winds.

"Get down!" a voice rasped. Something slammed into Captain Sheets' midsection, throwing him to the ground.

Sheets rose slightly, shaking his head. "What the hell--"

A streak of bright green touched the rock face behind him. The rock face exploded.

Sheets shielded his head with his arms. Debris rained upon him.

Once again, he lifted his head. As the dust cleared, Sheets tried to look for whoever had knocked him over.

The figure who lay nearby wore a Starfleet uniform, in engineering gold. No doubt one of his crew. The crewmember, too, rose. As he crawled nearer, Sheets recognized the massive figure as Chief Engineer Howard Warnes.

"Sidearm!" Sheets said. "Where the hell are we?"

"In the middle of a war zone, Captain," Warnes replied. Sheets saw that the lieutenant was carrying a phaser rifle. A moment later the Captain saw that there was one a foot or so away from where he sat.

"A war zone? What is going on here?"

"Don't you know--" Warnes broke off. "That's right. That damn virus."

"Virus?"

"All right, short version. We're on Sp'laabar VI. It was a first contact. Everything went fine...right through the whole contact. Almost all the crew came down for shore leave. And then the Laabari declared all-out war on us. No one knows why. The Laabari are almost like some bunch of kids playing a war game...but they apparently like to use real live playing pieces. They're using every trick in the book on us...no matter how brutal or illegal the weapon. Including a rather nasty neurological weapon...it's like a computer virus that attacks the human brain. It starts with basic little things like memory loss or seizures...then works its way on up until it destroys any and all brain functions."

"Gods," Sheets gaped. "And...I've got this virus."

"Looks like it," Warnes replied. "Anyway, here's our tactical situation: we're holed up in a desert near the Laabari capital. They've put up a distortion field that prevents beaming. There's a skeleton crew--about eighty-five or so--on the Columbia. Commander Pagel's in command. Everyone else is down here, and before the distortion began we managed to get some equipment sent down."

Sheets frowned. "All right, what about communications? Medical personnel? Supplies?"

Warnes pulled out a tricorder and checked a file. "Person-to-person communications are secure, no effect from the distortion field...but we are cut off form the ship. That means the communicators are down to a few hundred klicks, line-of-sight only. Dr. King and a few of her staff are down here, with field medical gear and nothing else. We have a small supply of basic rations, and a little water. And that's it."

The Captain rubbed his chin a bit. "Have we set up any kind of command post?"

"No, sir. We haven't had a chance, not with all this firing."

"Let's do something about it, then," Sheets said, tapping his combadge. "Captain to landing party. Let's convince the Laabari to lay off the artillery. Phasers on setting sixteen...target the basic topography around the city and their position and fire at will." He tapped it again to shut it down. "Sidearm, bearing to the Laabari position?"

Warnes consulted the tricorder again. "Over there," he gestured.

Sheets nodded. "Let's do it." As he spoke, phaser beams from the Columbia crew's rifles began to strike near the city. The two officers took aim and fired as well. Everywhere the beams touched stone, a great explosion of dirt and rock erupted. The firing continued for a few moments, then subsided.

There was then the smoky silence of a cessation in fire.

Sheets rubbed his head. "I guess we did it."

"Yes," Sidearm almost smiled. "What now?"

Sheets screamed at the top of his lungs and flung himself at the engineer.

Sheets awoke. Dr. King was hovering over him, waving a tricorder.

"You're awake," she said.

Sheets considered a wry response concerning her diagnostic skill in pointing this out, but refrained. "What happened?"

"What do you think happened?"

Sheets blinked. "I remember screaming and leaping at Mr. Warnes..."

"That's what happened. You apparently went all manic and assaulted him. He knocked you upside the head once he realized what was happening."

"Manic?" Sheets asked. He narrowed his eyes. He also turned pale.

"I assume you're familiar with the term," she said.

"Too much so," he said. "But I haven't had manic-depression since I was seventeen." "I have this passing familiarity with your medical history, being your doctor and all," Lois smiled. "You haven't, no. But then you also didn't have this Laabari Madness Weapon chewing on your brain. Since the basic biochemical and psychological potential still exist in you, the first effect of the weapon is to cause a relapse of your bipolar disorder."

"Terrific," he muttered. "Last time this thing flared up, it almost ruined my life. I'm no good to this crew, if I'm like this again."

"Well, you'll be all right for the moment. I gave you a shot of neodepazin. It'll help out for a while. Aside from that, I prescribe sleep."

Sheets was unable to even open his mouth before King pressed a hypospray to his neck. He glared at her briefly, and then lay down to sleep.

~~~~~

He turned over, half awake. The cot Lois had him on seemed awfully comfortable; still, he had responsibilities. It was dark.

It was also indoors.

Sheets snapped straight up. The cot was a bed, and it was in a room. Maybe the crew had made some progress, captured a building somewhere. But the room had a familiar feel to it.

It was very dark; too dark, really, to make out any details. He had a hunch.

"Lights," he said.

Lights came on. The room was a smallish one; it contained a bed, in which he was sitting; a small dresser; and a desk with a computer terminal. On the desk were two models; a Constitution-class starship and an old Liberty-class freighter.

It was a dorm room; the model freighter was the one his grandfather had served on in the 2240's.

It was his room at Starfleet Academy. In the twenty-third century.

He stared at himself in the mirror. He was much younger--perhaps twenty. His hair was cut in the regulation style that the Academy prescribed, and a few pimples were scattered about his face. Must be exam time, he thought. I always did break out when I was under a lot of stress.

He shook his head. "It's not exam time, dammit, it's 2372!" He snapped. He took a deep breath. "Lovely," he sighed. "I'm talking to myself again. What the hell. I'm losing my mind, I'm probably dying, I'm having major delusions. At least I can have a nice conversation while I'm doing it right?" He yawned. "Screw it. I'm going back to sleep. Maybe this is just some crazy dream." He shuffled back to the other room and crawled into bed.

Thump thump thump.

Sheets stirred a bit, buried under the covers.

Thump thump thump.

Sheets shot up in bed. "Come in," he yawned.

The doorknob bleeped, and then turned. The door swung open to reveal a fellow midshipman.

"Hello," the midshipman boomed. He strode into the room. "Are you all right? You didn't show up for Subspace Physics."

Sheets stared at the visitor. He was about two years younger then Sheets was--but that was offset by the fact that he was several inches taller and somewhat more massive.

"Sidearm?" Sheets asked.

Midshipman Warnes' expression quickly traveled from concern through confusion to bemusement. He looked at his belt. "Sorry, they don't usually let them off the phaser range. I could go back and... acquire one..." he chuckled evilly.

Sheets shook his head, realizing that Warnes hadn't picked up the nickname until they were both serving on the Columbia. "Never mind. Look, Howie, I guess I'm not feeling too good. I didn't sleep too well last night. Gimme a minute to get dressed..." he rose and went into the bathroom. A moment later he came out in his uniform--flare-bottomed black pants with a red stripe up the seam, a red turtleneck shirt, and a soft maroon 'bomber jacket' with red cadet stripes. "Hey, look, I know this is a strange question... but what year is it?"

"You're right," Warnes said. "It's strange. It's 2288, why?"

Sheets smiled slightly. It was the beginning of their last year at the Academy. "No reason. I had some weird dreams last night. Come on," he said, and walked out the door.

Warnes followed. "What kind of dreams?"

Sheets chuckled. "I dreamed I was a starship captain in the future--I mean, like in the 2370's."

Warnes sniffed. "There's nothing weird about that. Keep missing classes like this and it'll take you that long to get a command."

Sheets mock-sneered at his friend. "It's about eleven-thirty hours. Let's grab something to eat, huh?"

The two mids wandered down the dorm's corridor to the lift. Warnes checked one of the padds he was carrying. "Okay. But we'll have to hurry. We've got Vulcan Lit in half an hour..."

* * *

Sheets peered at the tactical display before him. The Klingon battlecruiser was fast approaching weapons range... it was doing about warp 3, and it had loosed a swarm of tac-drones. He keyed a command into his console, and the Starship Eagle swung to port, accelerating to warp 2.5 as it turned.

The Klingon fired a quick volley of phasers after the Eagle. They rattled her aft shields, but not seriously.

Sheets waited, waited as the Klingon drew closer. He knew the enemy's phasers could catch him at this range, and that the heavier disruptor batteries could too. But the battlecruiser was fast approaching optimum range, where its weapons could all but pulverize his shields. But Sheets had a trick up his sleeve...

The Eagle's warp drive suddenly roared with power, the warpfield suddenly changing its shape. The vessel was snapped around 180 degrees, and screamed along an attack vector on the battlecruiser.

"Fire!" he cried. The starship's phasers lanced out; its torpedo tubes spat forth a full spread. The Klingon vessel was deluged with destructive energies... it sailed forth with its shields all but decimated. It suddenly retaliated with its own alpha-strike. Sheets winced as the weapons fire glared hotly on his shields. The forward-starboard shield was gone...

Then, intruder-alert indicators lit up his board. Klingon boarding parties were swarming throughout his vessel. He dispatched security teams to repel the boarders, but to no avail. In moments, all command and control spaces had been captured. The Eagle had been taken.

Sheets sat back in his chair and sighed. He chuckled, then rose and went to the other side of the simulator.

"Good fight, Captain," he said to his opponent.

Warnes rose from his console and thumped his fist to his chest in a Klingon salute.

"I'm just glad you're on our side. I'd hate to see what'd happen if you were in charge of a real Klingon ship."

"Well, you know what they say about knowing your enemy."

"Yeah," Sheets nodded absently. His eyes focused on some point in mid-air. He stopped moving.

Warnes stood there for a few moments, looking at his friend. He fidgeted briefly and then spoke.

"Hey, are you all right? You 've been acting weird all day."

Sheets did not respond.

"Hello! Mr. Sheets!"

Sheets jumped. He shook his head and looked at Warnes. "Sorry, what?"

"Are you okay?"

Sheets frowned. "I dunno. Look, can we talk?"

"Okay," Warnes said. "Let's walk."

They did.

"Remember what I said this morning? About a dream I had?"

"Yeah...something about being a captain in the future."

"Well," Sheets said, "I think..." He shook his head. "I know this is crazy, but I'm pretty sure it's true."

"What do you mean? You think you're having some kind of... prophecy? Seeing the future?"

"No..." Sheets scowled. "I've..." He faltered, took a breath--"I guess I've moved through time."

Warnes stopped. "Are you okay? I mean it," he looked Sheets in the eyes. "You said you used to have some kind of mental illness, right?"

Sheets opened his mouth. After a moment, he spoke. "It was a bipolar disorder. The Academy doctors treated me for it--there's been a cure for it since the twenty-first century. And it didn't produce delusions or hallucinations."

Warnes was quiet. "Look, I'm sorry. It's just--crazy. What you're saying is crazy."

Sheets sighed. "I know. But give me the benefit of the doubt, here."

Warnes shrugged. "Okay. Then how come you're not older? I mean, the 2370s is kind of a long way off."

"Well, first, there was time travel involved. Plus, I think it's like I've...possessed my younger self."

"I guess that's an explanation. Tell me the whole story."

"All right, short version. In about seven years, I'll be captain of the Starship Columbia--you know, the scout--and you'll be Chief Engineer. We hit some kind of temporal anomaly and end up in 2371. The ship is wrecked and Starfleet gives us a new one. Then, the last thing I remember is us being caught up in a war on an alien world. I get hit with some kind of mental-warfare device and pass out. When I come to, I'm in my dorm room here. Go figure."

Warnes said nothing, but raised an eyebrow. "I suppose," he said at length, "that does make a weird kind of sense."

Sheets exhaled. "I'm glad you think so. I was starting to wonder if I was going nuts myself."

"Maybe you should tell somebody...I'm sure someone here at the Academy can figure out what's happening to you."

"I don't know," Sheets said. "You barely believe me. I doubt that the brass would do anything but send me to an Academy shrink. I'm gonna sleep on this, instead."

Warnes rocked his head from side to side. He shrugged. "I suppose that's a good idea. I'll see you in the morning, then."

Sheets nodded. "Yeah, good night." He headed back to his dorm.

He slept poorly. The Academy bed was much less comfortable than it had seemed the night before. He fidgeted and tossed and turned over. It was also very cold. Then the ground exploded.

The terrible heat and force of the blast grabbed him and flung him aside. He awoke fully in midfall; a rough landing on rocky ground ensured that he was awake.

Sheets pulled himself up; it was dark and windy in the Sp'laabar plain. He heard other explosions, and the night sky was laced with the green of Laabari disruptor blasts. He staggered back to what had been the hospital area of the Columbia encampment; there were medical personnel running about and yelling to one another. There were also other people lying about on the ground...some of them moving and moaning. Some were not.

"Dr. King!" he bellowed. "Lois!"

No answer. He kept calling for her. As he did, a medtech he didn't recognize ran by. He caught the tech's sleeve.

"Crewman, where's Dr. King?"

The tech looked at Sheets. "Captain! Are you all right, sir?"

"I'm fine. Where's Dr. King?"

The crewman blanched. His mouth opened to speak, and he glanced toward the crater from the first disruptor blast. "She's missing, sir, but--"

"But what?"

"She was last seen right by the blast point. I don't think she--" the crewman's voice broke up. "I think she's dead, sir," he managed to choke out.

"All right," Sheets sighed. He cleared his throat. "Carry on, Mister."

The crewman jogged off. Sheets rubbed his eyes. "Hell of a way to wake up from a dream." He touched his combadge. "Sheets to Lieutenant Warnes," he called.

"Warnes here, skipper,"the engineer replied.

"Report."

"Massive enemy attack in all sectors, Captain. Heavy casualties."

"All right. Return fire, targeting outlying areas. See if you can catch some of those disruptor batteries. Then we retreat. Form up details to move out all equipment."

Warnes did not reply. Instead, his combadge erupted in a screech of static.

Sheets slapped the communicator. "Mister Warnes! Come in!"

No answer.

"Sheets to any senior officer! Please respond," he said, tapping the badge again.

Another disruptor blast hit nearby. Sheets dove. He heard the screams of his crew dying.

He pulled himself back up. More static wafted from his communicator...but this time it had a sound of power behind it. Then there was a voice.

"....ond. This is.........ip Columb....ain Sheets, please come in...."

Sheets tapped the badge again. "Sheets to Columbia! I read you!"

"Captain! Pagel her..........ng to raise you four hours. We might be able to get around the distortion field..................orter room standin......tmospheric levels......"

"Commander, you're breaking up... Please repeat," Sheets said.

The ship's message dissolved into static again.

Sheets cursed. The disruptor blasts were getting closer and more frequent. He shook his head.

"Captain!" A voice called out.

Sheets spun. It was Lt. Ringley.

"Sir, Laabari troops are advancing on our position. We're attempting a retreat, but the enemy has already engaged our sentries."

"Let's get moving," Sheets said. "I was just in contact with the Columbia. They might be able to beam us up."

"That would be ideal," Ringley nodded. The two began to move out when they heard screams from over the next ridge. Laabari infantrymen bounded down the slope towards them.

The Laabari were vaguely humanoid, but apparently related to something like the rhinoceros. They had thick hides and bony plates of armor here and there. They wore energy-dampening uniforms, and carried a wide range of deadly (and mostly illegal) weapons.

Sheets drew his hand phaser and fired at one. It knocked the soldier down, but he only got up again. Ringley, too, opened fire. One of the warriors tackled him, and they tumbled to the ground.

Sheets upped his phaser to setting seven--that would certainly kill a human, and might stop one of these things. He fired. The beam knocked down the Laabari, and severed an arm to boot. Looking over at Ringley, the captain saw the struggling science officer. He tried the Vulcan nerve pinch, to no avail. The Laabari, meanwhile, had what looked like a Klingon dk'tahg knife. As the warrior was about to plunge the thing into Ringley, a phaser blast punched through his back. The Laabari looked surprised, then collapsed. Ringely, covered with the thick, dark red blood of the Laabari, pushed the body off of himself and rose. He selected another target and fired.

Sheets heard an enemy approaching from behind. He turned and fired. The Laabari's energy-dampening armor crackled; the soldier himself shrugged the blast off. He drew his own disruptor and took aim.

Sheets' mind froze the moment...the cold wind carrying the scent of dying people and smoke, the distant noise of heavy disruptors and the sound nearby of his science officer fighting the enemy; and the one enemy trooper before him, raising a weapon. The intensity in the soldier's eyes as he prepared to fire.

That was the moment that a gentle, almost electric tingle took hold of him. His body melted away and the scene, frozen just as the bright green flare of the disruptor discharge appeared, melted away too in a shimmering of blue-white light. In the sea of light, Sheets relaxed.

He soon wondered if it was premature to do so... the sea of light began to flicker back to the scene he had just left. Sheets was disturbingly aware of the disruptor beam passing through the space where he might still be. He also felt light and indistinct...as if he were simply evaporating. He knew that he was far from safe now. If the transporter beam released him, the disruptor blast would kill him. Simple as that. If he remained in the beam, he might end as a cloud of phased matter in the midst of the Laabari distortion field. His only chance was that the transporter operator knew his stuff.

Soon he was drifting in the sea of light, exclusively. He felt less and less solid by the moment...

Then, at last, the electric tingle of the transporter beam gathered him together again. The light faded, and he was on the transporter platform of the Columbia. Ringley was there too, along with five others.

Sheets stepped down off of the stage. Behind the console was Captain Bertsch. Sheets nodded to the Ops officer, then made his way out the door to a turbolift.

-----

Gregory A. Sheets
sheets.81@osu.edu
Primitive Radio God and Poet Non-Laureate, Dogbert's New Ruling Class
"Knock on the sky and listen to the sound!"
--Zen saying