Previously, I wrote about how Peter David inspired me to develop my own Star Trek series and how I used two characters from Star Trek: Insurrection in my initial writings of this series. Admiral Dougherty was the first, but the second, and what has become one of the most important characters of Star Trek: Timelines was and still continues to be Perim, the Starfleet Ensign at the Operations console aboard the Enterprise-E.
Before continuing further into this glimpse of the past, I recommend that you allow a fair amount of time to relax and enjoy this read and the accompanying video. Captain’s orders.
In 1999, during the earliest days and months of developing the Perim character for Timelines, it was difficult to find any already established backstory or even a first name for her. In fact, the credits at the end of Star Trek: Insurrection only list the character’s name as Perim. My searching on the internet in those days was slow and limited and thus finding any bits of information about Perim turned up little to nothing. With that, I decided to give her a first name myself and Alaris Perim was born.
Some years later, I learned that Kell was the first name the studio gave her and that Kell Perim was in fact, not a joined Trill. From the beginning and through the years of imagining and re-imagining Timelines, I conceived Alaris Perim to be a joined Trill.
In the Star Trek universe, Trills are a race of humanoids that have a distinguishing pattern of spots down the full length of their bodies from forehead to toe. Some members of the Trill race are permitted to join with a small slug-like sentient organism called a symbiont. The symbiont is placed inside the host Trill where the two become joined for the duration of the host’s lifetime. When a Trill host dies, the symbiont is removed from the host and prepared to be joined to the next host. Through the symbiont, a host’s memories, wisdom, knowledge, and experiences are passed on through the lifetimes of future hosts.
Since it turned out that Kell was not a joined Trill, I re-imagined Alaris to be Kell’s twin sister in a written episode that you will read a few posts down the road. Later, I came to realize that such a relationship would not work because after Trill hosts become joined, it is considered tradition that they cast off their family name for the symbiont’s name. Simply put, I could not have a Kell Perim and an Alaris Perim unless there were two symbionts named Perim.
I have always been fascinated by the unique qualities of the Trill race in this fictional universe and I feel that their was so much more about them that could be explored. So many other facets about the Trill, the symbionts, and their combined history. Thus, I chose Perim to be the first officer for this series and she has been one of two characters who has remained a constant throughout these many years of writing and imagining.
I present you with the next segment of my first writings of Star Trek: Timelines. When I first wrote this, I was dreaming of the years that would follow during the reconstruction of the Federation after The Dominion Wars of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and after the USS-Voyager and crew had finally reached home after their seven years long journey through the Delta Quadrant. Continuing approximately ten years after the court martial of Admiral Matthew Dougherty, I introduce not only Commander Perim, but also another character who continues to ‘live’ in my own mind (and on other printed pages that I will post here later), as an integral part of the crew. Again, transcribed word for word with misspellings included, here is the beginning of the first episode of Star Trek:Timelines.
Star Trek: Timelines
Episode I: “Tal Shiar”
10 years later…
Time: 2386
Place: Akira-Class Starship, USS-Venture, NCC-85112
Five light years from the Romulan Neutral Zone.
The Venture is currently patrolling the Romulan Neutral Zone in Sector 35. It is an Akira-Class Heavy Cruiser used to defend the borders of the Federation and any other exploratory purposes that Starfleet may require.
On the bridge of this twin warp nacelle vessel, the room is dimly lit with red lights flashing, indicating the ship and crew are at a red alert status. A crisis seems to have come about in the most recent moments of their patrol across this region of space. The officers, all dressed in the same black and gray Starfleet uniforms, seem to be hastily preparing to face a great unknown. However, this experienced crew, having served this vessel for nearly three years and in the same sectors, have been trained to do their jobs, and one of those jobs is to explore the great unknown.
From the back of the bridge, a door parts to reveal two humanoids exiting a turbolift. The first is a Vulcan male carrying the rank of Captain on his collar, who quickly strides into the room with another command officer behind him. His first officer, a female Trill, follows the captain to the center of the bridge and takes her seat located next to a small monitor that is placed between the Captain’s chair and hers. As she begins to analyze the situation from the monitor, the Vulcan captain, standing strong and speaking as peaceful as the calm before a great storm, prepares himself for the incoming dangers ahead. “Status report.”
A man with notable ridges on his nose is posted behind the tactical station of the bridge urgently begins to inform the captain of their situation. “Sir, the vessel appeared two minutes ago on long range sensors. They hve weapons armed and will intercept us in two minutes twenty-two seconds.”
A human female standing behind the operations station of the room follows her report next to the Bajoran at tactical. “They are not responding to hails.”
The trill commander responded to the operations officer, “Celaya, Keep trying on all subspace bands.”
“Aye sir.” The seconds seem to pass at warp speed as the stars on the viewscreen continued to streak past the vessel. Celaya quickly tapped a few buttons on her console and reported what she was seeing. “I have a visual sir.”
The captain then acknowledged her, “On screen ensign.” The amazement that was produced by the crew from the image projected was almost unbelievable. The seconds then slowed down extremely fast. “A Breen warship?”
“Coming out of the Neutral Zone?” The commander spoke what everyone else was thinking in that moment. Why was there a Breen warship coming from the Romulan side of the Neutral Zone? Their question wold be answered soon. “Time to intercept.”
“One minute-ten seconds.”
Celaya put in her part as well. “No response to repeated hails sir.”
“Open a channel.” insisted the captain.
“Channel open sir.”
“This is Captain Toval of the Federation starship Venture. Please identify yourself and your intentions for crossing the Neutral Zone.” There were several seconds of silence that permeated the subspace layers between the two vessels, but no response was recieved. “If you do not stand down, I will be forced to open fire on your ship. Desist now.” Once again the commander of the Breen vessel refused to acknowledge their hails. “Battlestations.” The Vulcan quickly took his seat and was ready to face the coming challenge. He knew that whether or not the ship and crew survived this conflict, that they were doing their jobs to serve and protect the Federation. “Conn, prepare for evasive maneuvers.”
After the next 60 seconds or so passed, the two vessels came out of warp and began to closing the distance to within firing range of each other. The warship looked to be larger than a Romulan warbird compared to the Venture. The massive warship fired a powerful blast of phaser energy into the Venture’s shields. In response, a volley of quantum torpedoes were launched from the saucer ship and they hit and dispersed across several areas of the it’s enemy’s deflective shielding. The Breen vessel then sent it’s own volley of torpedoes, where they impacted into the dorsal section, continuing to drain shield power from the brave cruiser. The Venture suddenly began spinning upward above the Breen warship. Out of control, the Venture fired several phaser blasts, as the Breen did as well.
The bridge was already taking heavy damage. The flight control officer that guided the ship through space, lay on top of his console with plasma burns on his lifeless face. The tactical officer was yelling over the mass of noise that the warship’s weapons were making when they were absorbed by the shields. “Shields down to forty-nine percent. Engineering reports power ruptures and damage on decks 1, 4-10, 13, and 19. Sickbay and damage control teams are responding.”
“Perim take the helm!” ordered a slightly tensed Vulcan captain. The ship was out of control as Commander Perim quickly forced herself to the flight control station at the front of the bridge. She pulled the dead officer from his station and placed herself in the chair to regain control of the ship. “Modulate multi-adaptive shielding. Commander. Bring us around for another pass. Toval to Engineering.”
A voice from the comm system had some static in it, probably from being damaged. “Seven here captain.”
“Seven, on my mark, I need you to start venting plasma from the warp nacelles.”
“Acknowledged.”
The captain then turned to his security officer. “Nesan, as soon as we are clear of the warship, I want you to fire a torpedo into the cloud we make.”
“Aye sir.” the Bajoran responded.
The ship turned about to the commands entered by Perim, who remembered this trick from flying through the Briar Patch when the Enterprise-E was trying to escape from the Son’a. Igniting the plasma would no doubt send a massive shock to their enemy’s shields. The Breen warship was approaching fast, and as they got closer it fired several torpedoes to the forward saucer section.
The impact caused a structural support beam to fall from the ceiling of the bridge, colliding with Captain Toval and pining him to the floor. As the enemy on the viewscreen continued to grow larger, the commander turned to look at the noise that she heard from behind her. The Bajoran tactical officer, the human ops officer and three others on the bridge saw exactly the same thing she did. The lifeless and inactive body of Captain Toval.
For a moment it seemed like he would show some sign that he was still alive, but another jolt from the enemy’s phasers rocked the ship hard, which also reminded the crew of their current situation. By this time the commander had already knelt down to his body to check for a pulse. From the expression on her face, and the water in her eyes, one could easily see that he had no pulse.
Commander Perim stood up to take command of the ship. “Seven can we still vent plasma from the nacelles?”
“Yes commander, but only from the port side. The starboard nacelle is heavily damaged.”
“Then on my mark, do it. Let’s hope it’s enough.”
“Aye sir.”
Lieutenant Nesan saw Perim turn to him and already knew what she would say and quickly responded, “I know what to do.”
With that confirmation, Perim returned to the helm controls and turned the ship around to meet the warship one last time. The ship was responding sluggishly to controls, ‘One of the impulse generators must be out.’ she thought to herself, but it soon brought the enemy vessel into view once more. Perim began thinking again in the final moments before engaging the Breen with their little trick. ‘What if it didn’t work? Would they be destroyed or taken capture?’ She hoped for death, and she had no intention of becoming a prisoner. Even those few that have ever escaped the Breen, barely live to tell about it. If they boarded the ship, she would go down with phasers firing.
Quickly, the increasing size of the warship brought her attention back to normal. ‘Just a few more meters,’ she thought, and then it happened.
Two more torpedoes raced from the Breen vessel, hitting the Venture’s hull on the saucer section near the bridge. The impact left a small hole in the ship, but the vessel still held strong as it continued to return fire and approach ever closer to the massive warship.
Perim yelled loud enough that the entire Alpha quadrant might have heard her, “Now Seven!”
As the Venture made a pass underneath the ship, plasma from the port nacelle began venting into space, making a blue trail following behind it. The starfleet vessel began to clear the aft section of the Breen ship, and as the plasma stopped venting, the warship fired an energy beam that was targeted at the rear of the Venture. The beam met it’s target, but it also passed through the plasma cloud, igniting it instantly. A wave of electrical fire enveloped the entire underside of the great warship, the energy stream where the phaser fire cam from, also ignited, causing all weapon systems on the ship to explode. The engines turned dark and the ship stopped moving.
As the action began to settle on the bridge, Commander Perim stood up once again to assess the situation. “Report.”
Nesan was looking at his control panel in complete amazement. “Sir. The warship’s engines are off-line, their weapon systems are completely fried, and their shields are down. The ship is disabled.”
“Good. What’s our status?”
This time the Bajoran’s face turned serious as he began recieving reports from all over the ship. “It’s not good sir. Shields are down. Hull integrity is a fifty-four percent. We’ve lost communications to all decks except 1, 2, 7, 9, and engineering. The transporters are off-line and the deflector dish is barely holding up. We have a hull breach on deck 2-section 10 and…” he paused for a moment. “…Engineering.”
The commander quickly tapped her commbadge, “Perim to Engineering!”
Seven’s voice responded with urgency, “Seven here commander.”
“Is everything alright down there.”
“Yes. We suffered a hull breach and almost lost containment, but the emergency force fields are in place. We are in progress of sealing the breach now. We lost Lieutenant Foster and Ensign McNeil when the breach occurred. The rest of us are still trying to catch our breath.”
Commander Perim thought about Foster and McNeil as they were sucked from their postings into the breathless vaccum of space. She also remembered the games of velocity that she, Seven and Foster would always play. McNeil wanted to become the best starship pilot in the quadrant. Now, none of those things will ever happen again. “Begin repairs immediately.”
“Aye sir. Seven out.”
The control console at the ops station began to bleep requesting Ensign Celaya to respond, as she did so. She tapped several places on the panel as Perim turned to see where the sound came from. She though it might have been another Breen ship of some kind on their way to finish them. “Commander. A klingon bird-of-prey is hailing us. It’s the Rotarran. They are asking if we need any assistance.”
“Put them on screen Celaya.” Perim though about that name for a moment. ‘The Rotarran… Of course. It fought in several important operations against the Founders during the Dominion War. But that was nearly ten years ago. Surely it was a rust bucket by now.’ Even if it wasn’t, she was relieved that it was a friendly ship, and she wanted to see who it was that kept this old ship in operational condition after such a long and honorable service to the Klingon Emprie.
Ensign Celaya began to put an image on the viewscreen but the image was badly garbled, probably because it looked in bad shape. “I’m having trouble with the image viewer, it’s almost to badly damaged.” Then after a second or two of pressing a few lighted buttons on her console, she got the viewscreen to project a fairly decent picture of the crew on the Klingon ship.
At first, Perim did not recognize the two figures looking at her, then as the image cleared up a bit she knew exactly who she was seeing. “Chancellor Martok. Ambassador Worf. What a pleasant surprise. The last time I saw you guys was when we retook DS9 from the Dominion 12 years ago.”
Worf had the oppurtunity to meet Perim when she was a lieutenant on the Enterprise-E. They met at Deep Space Nine during the victory celebration after the entire fleet gathered there. She was also a friend of Jadzia’s as he discovered. “It has been a long time commander.”
“So you mind telling me how you keep that ship of yours so well intact?”
Chancellor Martok jokingly responded, “By not attacking Breen warships that are bigger than mine for one thing.”
“Well they started it. ” she replied.
“Now, now,” smiled Martok. The crews from both ships had a hint of joy and laughter from the conversation.
Perim then wondered what the Chancellor and the Federation Ambassador of Qo’os were doing out here near the Romulan Neutral Zone, and in a bird-of-prey no less. “What are you two doing out this far from the Klingon homeworld?”
Worf replied, “We are on our way to the peace conference with the Romulans. The Federation is inviting all member of the Alpha quadrant to participate in the peace negoitiations. We are trying to keep a low profile as a matter of fact.”
Perim sarcastically said, “Well guess what? You’ve already blown your cover by talking to us. Don’t you know that there are spies everywhere?” Some static started to appear across the screen. “Oh, I’m losing your signal, sorry guys.” They laughed, but the static brought them back to reality.
“How are you holding together.”
“Barely.”
“We can escort you to Starbase 23 and help you make some repairs on route.”
“Thank you Worf. Our transporters are down, so you’ll have to beam over, and we will only be able to travel at low warp.”
“Very well commander. We will follow your course and speed.”
With that, she reached down to the helm control and began plotting a course back to the starbase and then put the engines at stand-by to go to warp one. “I’ve plotted the course.”
“We will be at your location in one minute. Think you can stay out of trouble for that long?”
“I think we can handle it.” The crews from both bridges smiled from the words they had exchanged, giving them a sense of renewed hope. “Perim out.” After that the viewscreen flickered off and then sparks erupted from it, as well as from the ops station. Ensign Celaya jumped back to keep from getting burned.
“Sickbay to bridge.”
The voice from the comm system relayed a message to the bridge from the doctor’s office, and from that Commander Perim knew what was to follow. The injury and casualty reports. “Go ahead Doctor.”
“We have turned the mess hall and both holodecks into triage facilities. So far we are counting one-hundred-seventy-two injuries and fifty-six fatalities.” Commander Perim and the living members of the bridge crew did not like hearing those numbers anymore than the doctor liked saying them. Fifty-six. Out of five-hundred and twelve crewmen. As it seemed, the number was still too large, but Perim knew that the number would rise a few more times before they finally got an accurate count. She then looked down to Captain Toval. “You’d better make that fifty-seven Doc.”
Perim thought about the Breen following that. What was the point of this unprovoked attack, and why did it come from Romulan space? She had a feeling, like one her previous hosts had at one time, that she would get the answers that she sought soon enough.
The Rotarran de-cloaked and changed it’s course to match that of the terribly damaged Venture’s and the two vessels launched into warp back to Federation space. This battle was over, but there would be more to come.
To Be Continued…
startrektimelines.wordpress.com 