Chaos and confusion exploded around her as she materialized in the Engineering berthing compartment onboard Defiant. The compartment was on fire. Young men and women in Fleet red scurried about, beating at sheets of flame with blankets, clothing, and anything else they could lay their hands on, in a vain attempt to reach the compartment's closed hatch. A wall of fire blazed between them and that hatch; they could not get near it.
The pain pounded behind Susan's eyes. The snowflake pattern and the mantra came, but did nothing to relieve it. When the pattern cleared, the pain still burned in her head like radiation from a supernova.
But she did not have time to worry about it now. First, she had a job to perform.
She nearly coughed as she drew in a shallow breath of smoke and fumes, but stopped herself just in time. If she got started coughing, she would not be able to stop. The stiflingly hot air was barely breathable in short pants. If she took in the deep breaths a coughing jag would cause, it would all be over.
Then she saw her, barely discernable through dense smoke. To her left, in the far corner, she made out a tall form with long dark hair. The other also wore Fleet red, captain's stripes sewn on at her sleeves.
It was her past self.
But there was something wrong. Ten years ago, in Aldebaran system, Susan had been a commander, not a captain. Yet the stripes on that other's sleeves were those of a captain.
She noticed the pendant hanging from its silver chain around the other's neck, and knew what was happening. This was not her past self at all. She, too, was an interloper in this time. And she held a blaster pistol in her right hand.
That other paid no attention to the frantic crowd around her. Instead, she held the pistol aimed at the closed hatch beyond the flames. She watched that hatch calmly, yet intently.
Hyatt's words floated to the surface of her mind: "You two are so very much alike."
Now Susan knew what he had meant. This other, the woman across the room who appeared to be her exact duplicate, was in fact her counterpart from another time-from her future. She had to be from Susan's future, because Susan did not remember doing what that other now did. For some reason, her future self had jumped back in time, just as she had. But that future Susan had come to kill her past self!
A sound from beyond the wall of flame caught Susan's attention, scattering her thoughts-the scraping of metal on metal.
Instantly she knew what it was. It was her past self. Beyond the flames, on the other side of that sealed hatch, she worked at the dogs. And where ten years ago it had seemed to take a lifetime to get the hatch open, it now felt like mere seconds.
As she watched, the hatch began to inch open.
She didn't think-she didn't have time to think. Lowering her head, she charged her future counterpart.
Susan's shoulder caught the other in the side, driving her against the bulkhead. Air was forced from that other's lungs in a loud grunt, as she brought the gun's butt down hard on the back of Susan's head. The pain behind Susan's eyes intensified.
A sudden thought flashed through Susan's mind: Would this other, with whom she fought, kill her past self? Could she? After all, that other was here, onboard Defiant, in her own past. Didn't her very existence here and now assure that she could not kill her past self?
Not necessarily. If what Hyatt-that future Hyatt-had said was true, the Susan beyond that hatch could be killed without affecting either of the two future Susans. The pendants took them both out of the time stream, allowing them to somehow operate independently of its normal flow, while permitting them to interact with it. That was why the future Hyatt existed in spite of the fact that his past self was dead.
But why would her future self even try to kill their mutual past self? Was there something waiting in Susan's future that would make that necessary? Or did she have to try in her future simply because she now saw her future self trying, even though she might know by the time she became that future self that it would not work?
That sort of thinking intensified her headache. She simply couldn't continue to think about it. For now, all she could do was push those thoughts down, and fight to maintain consciousness.
Clawing her way up the other's body, Susan reached for the gun. She caught her duplicate's wrist just as that other brought the weapon's barrel to bear on Susan's head. With all her strength, she wrenched its aim away, and it went off, a searing lance of green light that burned a hole into the overhead.
Just then, the hatch beyond the flames creaked fully open.
Simultaneously, both Susan and her future self turned their attention toward the sound. Dressed in Fleet red with commander's stripes sewn on her sleeves, their past self stood framed in the open hatch. The newcomer stared wide-eyed at the impossible scene in front of her.
And suddenly Susan knew what had caused her amnesia ten years ago. She had opened the hatch into Engineering's berthing compartment to witness two duplicates of herself battling each other. It was no wonder she had flushed everything surrounding that observance from her memory.
She felt the pistol move under her hand-the way she had been forcing it, away from herself. The momentum she gave it was working to the other's advantage now. The pistol's aim slid toward the open hatch, centering on her past self standing framed in it.
Instantly Susan knew what she must do. She let go of the hand holding the pistol and reached to the pendant at her future self's throat. Without thought, she pulled.
The chain's soft silver links parted as it slipped from the other's neck, then she vanished from Susan's grasp.
Susan stood as still as a stone, staring at that past self across the compartment. That other still stood in the open hatchway, watching with wide, glazed eyes, her face expressionless. She was in shock.
Susan, too, was having trouble focusing her mind, and somehow her body refused to function. What had just occurred bordered on the impossible. She had killed a future self, while a past self-a duplicate common to both Susan's and that future self's past-looked on.
If she had been told what would happen even a day ago, she would not have believed it. Yet, it had happened. She had lived the occurrences leading up to that climactic moment a few seconds ago. As improbable as they seemed, she knew they were true.
Her head throbbed. Not only did she have to contend with the headache caused by this strange time jumping, but now there was another pain, centered more to the back of her head. Although it was less intense than that other headache, somehow it possessed a sharp fierceness all its own. Her duplicate from a future time had struck her with the blaster, and she was positive that had caused a concussion.
But she didn't have time to worry about that now. An earlier version of herself stood on the far side of the compartment, staring blankly in her direction. That other needed Susan's help.
Ten years ago Susan had had help from a future self in saving as much of her crew as possible. At her court-martial it had been said more than once that she seemed to be in several places at once, doing more than humanly possible for her crew. She knew now that, in fact, she had been in more than one place at a time.
Again that circular thinking. It increased the pain in her head when she thought like that. She pushed those thoughts from her mind and slipped her vanished duplicate's pendant into a pouch at her waist. Then she put her arms up in front of her face to protect her eyes from the flames, and took a step toward her past self.
The heat was so intense it burned the sleeves of her uniform. She stepped back and looked down at her prosthetic arms. The specially formulated plastic had melted away, exposing their metal skeleton and electronics.
Again she looked at the wall of fire. The heat was too intense. Her prosthetic arms would not survive if she stepped through those flames.
As she watched, her past self moved. Still without life in her expression, that other brought her arms up before her own eyes, then stepped toward Susan, through the wall of flame.