Prime Of Your Life
| Star Traks: Waystation | |
| Episode name | Prime Of Your Life |
|---|---|
| Season | |
| Episode number | |
| Writer(s) | Alan Decker |
| Year | 2377 |
| Stardate | 54762 |
| Chronology | |
| Previous in series | Moonlight Sonata |
| Next in series | Wherever You Will Go |
| Previous in timeline | Blink Of An Eye [VEX] |
| Next in timeline | Imbalance Of Power [VEX] |
After a long day of repair work around the station, Lieutenant Commander Craig Porter decides to try to get away from it all and ends up going a lot farther than he ever planned.
Summary
Lieutenant Commander Craig Porter is having a bad day, which has him running around the station repairing power conduits. While working on the one of the Dillon Enterprises levels, Porter is approached by Bradley Dillon, who wants the remains of Dr. Derrick Azar's time pod back. He feels that Starfleet has had it for two years, which is quite long enough. Porter informs him that Starfleet will not be giving him his time machine back. With the time pod back in his mind, though, Porter decides to relax after his bad day by going to Science Lab Two and puttering with the device. While running a test to see if he could send a tricorder a couple of minutes into the future, Porter is hit by a surge of chronometic particles. When his vision clears, he is no longer in his lab. Instead he seems to be in a cargo bay, but his workbench and the temporal reactor from the time pod, now drained of power, are still with him. Suddenly, an alarm goes off and an automated voice reports a chronometric intrusion. Porter quickly hides the temporal reactor just before six people beam with, aiming wrist-mounted weapons at him.
Porter is taken to an office, where he meets Commodore Ted Ritter. Ritter is friendly and tells Porter that he's still on Waystation only it's about 120 years in the future and the station is much much large and called Waystation Prime. Ritter gives Porter a tour and then takes him to lunch. Porter is surprised that Ritter is being so forthcoming with information about the future, but then Ritter explains that Porter won't be going home due to the Temporal Prime Directive. If someone shows up from the past, they stay in the future. It's easier that way. Porter isn't thrilled with that idea, and, when the opportunity presents itself, he makes a break for it, eventually finding himself in the company of a sweet older British woman named Rosalyn, who helps Porter hide by taking him to her quarters. Porter gets suspicious that Rosalyn showed up a bit too conveniently and has too many questions about his time machine. He rushes away from her and immediately is napped by a transporter, much to Rosalyn's annoyance. But it's not the Waystation authorities who have him now. He is on the 29th Century Federation Time Ship Flux Capacitor. The captain grills Porter about the location of his time machine. He also learns that Rosalyn's full name is Rosalyn Bain and that the time ship crew are not happy that she is involved. The time ship sends Porter to the cargo bay on Waystation Prime to get the temporal reactor with the promise that they will send him home once he gives it to them. The temporal reactor is gone. Porter knows that Rosalyn must have it. He goes to her quarters to find her. She is there and offers him the same deal. Let her dispose of the reactor, and she will send him home. Porter agrees, and Rosalyn fixes him a nice cup of tea. After he finishes his drink, she sets the temporal reactor to send him home while leaving the reactor in her possession. Porter returns to his lab on Waystation 20 minutes after he left for the future, much to the surprise of Lieutenant Sean Russell, who is in the lab trying to determine what happened to Porter. Porter tries to tell Russell where he's been, but he finds his memories fading. He realizes that the tea Rosalyn gave him must have been drugged. In impotent fury, he cries out the one name he can remember before it is all completely gone: "Bain!"
Featuring
- Lieutenant Commander Craig Porter
- Lieutenant Sean Russell
- Bradley Dillon
Also Featuring
Author's Comments
As I was writing this run of stories, Anthony Butler was either planning or already writing Year Six of Star Traks: The Vexed Generation, which is set two years after where I was in the Waystation timeline. For Year Six, Anthony planned to have Bradley Dillon traveling on the USS Explorer. Being two years behind him, I had the chance to start laying the groundwork for Bradley's departure in my stories with the idea that if someone actually read everything in chronological order, the pieces from the various series would all fit together beautifully...in theory.
Porter's incursion to the Star Traks: Boldly Gone time period takes place while the USS Anomaly is lost in the Andromeda Galaxy.