You really did it this time, Will.
This is not just a scrape. This is a very deep cut.
Well, I can heal it, of course.
But you've got to stop playing parrises squares as if you're 21 .
One day, you'll break your neck,
and I won't be able to heal that as easily.
I wasn't playing parrises squares.
Worf's callisthenic program?
- No. - I give up. What was it?
- I was trying to feed Spot. - Data's cat?
I said I would feed him while he was gone. I put down the food.
Next thing, this hissing ball of fur came at my face. I hate cats.
I love cats. You've just gotta know how to handle them.
- Maybe you'd like to do it. - I would be honoured, if...
- Cmdr Riker to the bridge. - On my way.
By the way, you'll need this.
Report.
We're picking up a distress call on long-range sensors.
- It is Romulan, sir. - Romulan.
They claim they have suffered a complete engine failure.
Power levels are dropping. Life support is failing.
Could be a trick.
How long before we rendezvous with Picard?
Approximately 13 hours.
Lay in a course for the Romulan ship. Go to red alert.
- I want to be ready for anything. - Aye, sir.
Captain's log, stardate 46944.2.
Data, La Forge, Troi and I are en route to the Enterprise
after a three-day conference on the psychological effects
of long-term deep-space assignments.
Computer, activate automatic helm control.
Helm control activated.
I was just leaving the reception
when this Ktarian walks up to me and says, "Hello, Diane."
"I understand you're an empath."
"I'm a very sensitive man myself."
"I'm doing a thesis on inter-species mating rituals."
"Would you care to join me in some empirical research?"
That's a good impression of Dr Mizan.
- How did you know? - He's notorious but he is an expert.
Did you help him, Counsellor?
Absolutely not.
I thought it was a topic you were interested in.
Did you enjoy the conference?
To be honest, I was bored.
I spent most of my time at Prof Wagner's phylobiology seminar.
I thought the idea was that we would all participate,
bring different points of view to the discussion.
He gathered 200 scientists from all over the Federation,
and all he did was put us to sleep.
I have a memory record of the lecture. I can repeat the portions...
No, thank you.
Well, it was little better at the physiognomy workshop.
Dr Vassbinder gave an hour-long dissertation
on the ionization effect on warp nacelles
before he realized that the topic was supposed to be psychology.
- Why didn't anybody tell him? - There was no opportunity.
There was no pause.
He just kept talking in one long, incredibly unbroken sentence,
moving from topic to topic
so that no one had a chance to interrupt. It was quite hypnotic.
Well, I had a great time.
The warp-energy symposium was fascinating.
I had an opportunity to touch a plasma field.
Really? What was it like?
It was incredible. I could feel the plasma moving up my arm.
It was warm, and there was this amazing tingling sensation that...
Captain?
Data?
..moved through my chest. It was incredible.
It was like taking a bath in pure energy.
- It was not painful? - No!
Counsellor? Is there something wrong?
I'm not sure.
Space, the final frontier.
These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise.
Its continuing mission, to explore strange new worlds,...
..to seek out new life and new civilizations,...
..to boldly go where no one has gone before.
Well, our bioscans check out. There are no physiological anomalies.
If something did happen, it left no biological traces.
How long did we appear to be frozen?
I don't know. Four, maybe five seconds.
You just stopped and then started again.
I can't explain it.
My memory record does not indicate a pause during that time period.
My internal chronometer and the ship's computer are synchronized.
There is no temporal discrepancy.
Let's run a ship-wide diagnostic. Maybe we missed something.
Let's go through this again. You were sitting there.
The rest of us were here.
Describe the exact moment when we appeared to freeze.
Well, Geordi was talking about what it felt like
to touch the plasma field
and you were taking a sip of tea.
Did you sense something from us? Any unusual emotion.
Not a thing.
I was empathically aware of you right up to the moment you froze.
And then it all stopped.
The last few days have been exhausting.
Maybe it was my imagination.
There were moments when I thought time was standing still there, too.
Or there is another possibility. This could be nothing more than...
- Are you alright? - What happened?
You were motionless for three minutes, 11 seconds.
It appears to be the effect you described in us. Remember anything?
No, one second, I was talking to you. The next, you were around me.
Wait a second. This is weird.
What is it?
I had the tricorder compare the scan I took earlier and the one just now.
In the time between the scans, you should have aged 23 minutes
but according to decay levels, you aged 20.
- How do you account for this? - I don't know.
It's as if for Counsellor Troi, for three minutes, time just stopped.
Mr. Data, contact the Enterprise.
Tell Cmdr Riker to meet us as soon as possible.
Have him scan the region for temporal anomalies.
Aye, sir.
I'll check the sensors, see if I can find anything.
Captain, may I see you?
The Enterprise is not responding.
- Are we within sensor range? - No, sir.
Increase speed to the rendezvous coordinates.
Aye, sir.
We have an engine-failure warning...
- Report. - Starboard nacelle just cut out.
Attitude control is restored.
Full stop. What happened?
Starboard antimatter pod is drained.
The fuel reserves are empty.
Is there a leak?
No, sir. Engine systems are operational. The fuel is just gone.
Geordi. I have an explanation.
According to the plasma-conversion sensor,
the starboard engine has been in operation for 47 days.
47 days?
No. Let's check that sensor. It must be malfunctioning.
I'll check the fuel-consumption logs.
- What happened? - My hand.
The cells are metabolizing at an incredible speed. 50 times normal.
- The pain is going away. - Your metabolism's stabilizing.
It happened when I reached for the fruit.
Captain, I am detecting a temporal disturbance intersecting the table.
It appears that within the disturbance,
time is moving at an accelerated rate,
approximately 50 times faster than normal.
The disturbance is spherical in shape.
It is extending outward from the hull 17 meters from the ship.
That would cover the starboard nacelle.
- No wonder it used up all its fuel. - Check the hull integrity.
It does not appear affected.
Mr. La Forge, move us away from the disturbance.
Aye, sir.
Lateral thrusters on line.
Data, plot a course away from the disturbance.
Make sure it doesn't contact our other engine.
Course plotted. Adjust pitch to 27.3 degrees.
Set heading 180, mark zero.
Got it. Reversing at 15 meters per second.
We are clearing the phenomenon.
- All stop. - What was that?
There is another temporal disturbance behind us.
Captain?
I think you'd better come take a look at this.
Yes, Mr. La Forge?
Sensors are picking up disturbances throughout the region.
Different configurations, different sizes. They're everywhere.
Within each disturbance, time is moving at a different rate.
As if something shattered the space-time continuum.
The fragmentation effect continues along a heading of 270, mark 15.
The direction of the Enterprise.
Can we navigate around these fragments?
We have to limit our speed to one-half impulse, but I think so.
Get us to the Enterprise.
These are the coordinates.
Perhaps the Enterprise has been delayed.
I've got the long-range sensors on maximum. No sign of the ship.
But I am picking up a reading. Possibly metallic. Difficult to tell.
Energy levels are almost non-existent.
- Take us to it. - Aye, sir.
The fragmentation effect is increasing.
Slowing to one-eighth impulse.
There she is.
My God!
Mr. Data?
The Enterprise and the war bird are trapped within a temporal fragment.
The fragments seem to be converging at this point.
I'd say this is the centre of the disturbances.
Scan for life signs.
Sensors cannot penetrate the subspace field.
I cannot scan the vessels.
It looks like the Enterprise has been damaged.
There, on the port nacelle.
The war bird doesn't look to have any damage at all.
I wonder if the Enterprise got a shot.
The Romulans may have decloaked too fast.
A second energy beam is coming from the Enterprise. What could that be?
It is impossible to tell from a visual inspection.
But it appears to be focused on the war bird’s Engineering.
We can't determine it from here. We need to get on the Enterprise.
That would be inadvisable.
In each of the instances we contacted a temporal fragment,
we were integrated into its time.
If we beam aboard, we'd be frozen in time like them.
We have to find some way of staying unfrozen.
Mr. La Forge, what about a subspace force field,
like the one we used on Devidia II?
Could something like that protect us from the temporal fragment?
Possibly. We need an awfully sensitive phase discriminator.
The emergency transporter armbands contain a type-seven discriminator.
It should be possible to reconfigure their emitters.
Yeah. That would isolate us from the other time frame.
But to interact with it, we have to restrict the field.
It would have to be practically skintight.
Mr. Data?
I will attempt to narrow the field, sir.
Captain. I think this is gonna work, but it's gonna take some time.
Well, Mr. La Forge,
it would seem that time is something we have plenty of.
We've channelled all communications to the relays in the armbands.
We'll be in continual communication.
- How long will the fields last? - An hour. Maybe less.
Don't worry, I'll be monitoring you very carefully.
Counsellor?
I got dizzy for a second.
We've created an artificial pocket of time around you.
It's playing tricks with your equilibrium.
It might take time to get used to it. Tell me if it gets worse,
- Beam us directly to the bridge. - Aye, sir.
Energizing.
There are three Romulans, all of them with disruptors.
One at conn. There are none of our Security officers on the bridge.
They must have taken us by surprise.
It appears that we can move objects in this time frame.
Maybe we could do something to help Will.
I'm wary about making changes until we know what's going on.
Captain, the equipment is no longer functioning.
But the information indicates a massive power surge in Engineering.
Security teams had just been sent to transporter room three.
And to sickbay.
Counsellor, go to sickbay. Mr. Data, go to Main Engineering.
Determine the cause of that surge. I'll be in the transporter room.
- Mr. La Forge? - Here, sir.
Lock on to our signals. Transport Counsellor Troi...
I'd rather not.
We've got limited power and your fields consume a lot of energy.
Understood. We'll use the Jefferies tube. Let's go.
Maybe we can go around them.
No, we'll find an alternative route.
Let's go back up.
Excuse me, Mr. Worf.
- Captain. - Counsellor, look at this.
It appears that Mr. Worf had just beamed these three on board.
Three other Romulans had been beamed to sickbay seconds earlier.
I know.
What are we doing, transporting Romulans aboard in a battle?
They don't have any weapons. And that one looks injured.
If they were part of an invasion, why are they unarmed?
Captain, there's something I have to tell you.
Dr Crusher has been hit by a disrupter blast at point blank.
If time returns to normal, she can't survive.
- Data to Capt Picard. - Go ahead.
Come to Engineering immediately. It is urgent.
- What's the problem? - Captain.
I have found the cause of the power surge.
There is a warp-core breach.
It is the flash point of an explosion.
- And it is expanding. - Expanding?
I thought that time was suspended.
We were incorrect.
I have determined that time is moving at an infinitesimal rate.
Why didn't we notice it before?
Our conclusion was based on observations of the crew.
A warp-core breach moves at a faster rate.
The motion of the cloud is within my visual-detection threshold.
At its current rate,
it will consume the Enterprise in nine hours, 17 minutes.
Is there anything we can do?
It is no longer a question of stopping it.
The explosion has already occurred.
The fact that it is moving slowly changes nothing.
Astonishing to see it frozen like this.
- Do we know what caused the breach? - No.
However, the console displays indicate a power transfer in progress
between the Enterprise and the war bird
at the moment time decelerated.
That is why there is a second beam.
Why would we be sending them power?
Perhaps we should board the Romulan ship. The answer may...
Captain?
- Captain, are you alright? - My head.
Dizzy.
I can't...
No! No!
Troi to La Forge. Get us out of here now.
You weren't completely protected from the other time continuum.
The neurophysical stress must have been overwhelming.
In the same way deep-sea divers experience nitrogen narcosis,
you experienced a form of temporal narcosis.
Can we modify the isolators to give us better protection?
I don't think so. The best thing we can do now is to be careful,
limit our exposure to their time frame.
Ten minutes per trip. We should stick together while we're there.
Very well. The first step is to find out
why the Enterprise was transferring power to the Romulan ship.
I think we should begin our search in the Romulan engine room.
Counsellor, you spent several days on a Romulan vessel.
You probably know more about the layouts than anyone. Perhaps...
Captain, it might be better if you stayed here
and gave yourself a chance to recover.
Yes, very well.
I will monitor you from here. Just remember, ten minutes, no more.
Yes, Captain.
Geordi, there should be a power-utilization monitor.
Data.
This is highly unusual.
The crew is not at battle stations.
The ship is on evacuation alert.
Is that why the Romulans were being transported?
Take a look at this.
There's an energy feedback returning through the beam.
It probably overloaded our engines and caused the breach.
Perhaps they tried to destroy the Enterprise.
I don't think so.
According to this, the Romulans were trying to shut down the transfer.
Whatever happened, this looks less and less like a Romulan attack.
Why don't we look at their engine readouts?
Geordi, the engine core is completely inactive.
That's impossible.
The Romulans use a quantum singularity as their power source.
Once it's activated, it can't be shut down.
Let's take a closer look.
I think we've found the problem.
It appears to be a highly focused aperture in the space-time continuum.
Its energy signature matches that of the temporal fragments.
However, it is approximately 1 .2 million times as intense.
This may be the origin of the temporal fragmentation.
- What are those dark spots? - I'm not certain.
They exhibit a complex bioelectric pattern. Very possibly organic.
Organic?
From a molecular configuration, it appears...
The aperture is beginning to fluctuate. I believe...
- There is an energy build-up. - Check main distribution matrix.
The matrix is clear.
It's the power transfer from the Enterprise.
Systems are beginning to overload.
Notify the Enterprise to shut down the power transfer.
Their power interlocks won't disengage.
We'll have to do it. Disconnect the transfer.
- There is no pressure. - Shut down all systems.
I believe my tricorder emissions caused the aperture to activate.
I suggest we avoid exposing it to further energy emissions.
When time resumed,
did you observe any activity that might suggest what they were doing?
They may have been ejecting their engine core.
I thought I heard something about a power transfer.
An energy feedback.
Yes. They were trying to stop whatever was happening here.
Mr. La Forge, can you determine what's happening?
I think so, Captain.
Wait.
Something's not right here.
Data, was this man always here?
He's in neural shock.
- We must get him to the runabout. - He's dying.
He'll be alive in the other time frame.
Maybe we can save him later.
Is the Romulan still alive?
Yes, but...
I am getting unusual readings from his bioscan.
I am not certain he is a Romulan.
His cellular structure does not conform to any known species.
His bioelectric patterns are in a state of temporal flux.
I do not believe he is native to our time continuum.
You said you found organic matter in the aperture.
- Correct, sir. - I'd like to look at those readings.
This is a biospectral analysis of the aperture.
The organic readings originated from these dark spots.
They appear to contain some sort of energy patterns.
Can you isolate one and magnify?
They look like cellular clusters.
Its bioelectric patterns are similar to those of the alien's.
However, they are significantly less complex.
Its cellular structure appears to be in mitosis.
Data, this could be some sort of embryo.
It is possible. If I could scan the aperture, it might be possible...
Captain?
Must save...
- No. - Who are you?
This body is not mine.
It was necessary to assume it to exist in your time.
- Why are you here? - We had to come to save them.
- They were in danger. - Who were?
Our young.
They will die in the gravity well. It is artificial.
Artificial gravity well? Do you mean the Romulan engine core?
Yes. Our young are trapped.
We must get them out, return them to our time.
His molecular structure is destabilizing.
How were your young trapped?
We must use a natural gravity well to incubate our young.
We thought the Romulan core would suffice.
It did not.
I believe the aliens mistook the artificial singularity
in the Romulans' engine for a natural one, a black hole.
They used it as a nest.
That's what deactivated the war bird’s engine core.
The Romulans sent out a distress call.
The Enterprise responded,
and found the war bird suffering from an apparent engine failure.
They attempted a power transfer.
Power transfer. Must stop power transfer.
Rupture time, destroy our young.
When the power transfer came into contact with the alien nest,
I believe it disrupted the space-time continuum.
- Did you attack the Enterprise? - Yes.
Had to stop power transfer.
- Are there any others like you here? - One other.
Do you know where he is? Could he help us restore normal time?
I estimate the breach
will consume the Enterprise in seven hours, two minutes.
Is it possible to lock on to the core, beam it into space?
No, sir. We would have to surround the core with an isolation field.
We cannot generate a field of that magnitude from the runabout.
Mr. Data, when you scanned the aperture with your tricorder,
it caused time to move forwards and then back again.
- Correct, sir. - What if we reverse that process?
Cause time to move backwards and then forwards?
We might be able to run time back to before the warp-core breach occurred
and then find a way to prevent the power transfer.
- When time goes forward... - The breach never happens.
I could remodulate the tricorder's emissions.
It should be possible to control the aperture.
Make it so.
If this works, we may not have much time to prevent the power transfer.
We'll have to decide precisely what to do
the very instant that time moves backwards.
Captain's log, supplemental.
After placing the tricorder on the Romulan ship,
we returned to the Enterprise.
I have reached Engineering. Standing by.
Acknowledged. Counsellor, are you in position?
- Ready, Captain. - Alright, Mr. Data.
Initiating tricorder emissions.
- Captain? - Go ahead, Mr. Data.
The core breach has been reversed.
Be ready to stop the power transfer.
Aye, sir.
You must stop.
Specified energy systems have been initialized.
The power transfer can now be engaged.
Do not initiate that power transfer.
Sorry, I have.
We must shut it down.
The transfer beam is at saturation, sir.
It can't be disengaged.
Computer, level-three containment field around the warp core.
Containment field activated.
- Damage report. - Shields down to 27 percent.
Captain?
No time to explain. Continue the evacuation.
La Forge is in the Romulan engine room. Beam him to sickbay.
Step back, now.
It's alright. He wasn't firing at me.
There was an alien here who had taken Romulan form.
- The Doctor got in the way. - Where is she?
Status, Mr. Data?
I was attacked by another alien. I was unable to prevent the transfer.
It cannot be disengaged. A core breach is again imminent.
Can we move the ship?
The feedback from the transfer beam would tear us apart.
Patch me into the navigational control of the runabout.
Got it.
I'm bringing the runabout in.
Mr. Data?
The core breach has been prevented.
Data, it appears that severing the power transfer
has not only prevented the breach
but it has restored space-time to normal.
The alien who attacked me has vanished.
The war bird has vanished as well.
Judging from the residual temporal fluctuations,
I believe they returned to their continuum.
Captain?
It's going to take a little time to explain, Number One.
Captain's log, stardate 46945.3.
We successfully evacuated the crew of the Romulan ship.
We're on course to the Neutral Zone to bring them home.
Come in.
- Where's that cat of yours? - Sleeping, sir. Why do you ask?
No reason.
I've worked out the new rotation schedules. Crosscheck them.
Notify the department heads.
- Your shift begins at 2300 hours. - Understood, sir.
What are you doing?
Recent events compel me to study
how humans perceive the passage of time.
For example, I have heard people comment
that time seems to pass slowly in one instance or quickly in another.
In reality, the actual passage of time remains fixed.
I suppose it depends on how people perceive time.
Every situation is different. It depends on how you feel.
I have been testing the aphorism "a watched pot never boils".
I have boiled the same amount of water 62 times.
In some cases, I have ignored the kettle.
In others, I have watched it intently.
In every instance, the water reaches its boiling point in 5 1 .7 seconds.
It appears I cannot perceive time
any differently than my internal chronometer.
- Why don't you turn it off? - Sir?
People do not have internal chronometers.
Why don't you see what happens if you turn yours off?
Thank you. I will try that.
Just don't be late for your shift.