Author's Note: This one might get a tad complicated (time travel often does) so if I miss anything please tell me.

=(^)= Past Tense =(^)=

"Be careful what you wish for, Jim," McCoy warned from Kirk's left side.

"Doctor McCoy," Spock began from his right, and Kirk could feel McCoy rolling his eyes without even looking, "wishing for something does not make it so, good or bad."

"Gentlemen," Kirk said even as McCoy drew a breath to retaliate. He put up a hand on either side of himself in an effort to ward off one of their philosophical debates while he kept walking down the center of a corridor of his ship. In the grand scheme of things, he knew that he should be grateful for the uneventful past few weeks. But if this kept up much longer, he thought he might go crazy. "All I'm saying is that this mapping expedition is getting a little dull."

"Well," McCoy said with a lazy drawl of tolerant amusement, "you have to find the new worlds and civilizations before you can—" he broke off as a sudden light flared into existence with blinding brightness.

"What the hell?" Kirk demanded, blinking rapidly in an effort to get rid of the spots blotting out his vision.

"Oops," McCoy's voice said, but it came from the wrong direction and Kirk spun around to face it. McCoy and Spock were now standing several feet in front of him, but looked much worse for wear. Kirk frowned in confusion at his chief medical officer, whose blue medical tunic was smeared with dried blood. Beside him, Spock looked even worse. His uniform was torn in multiple places and a greenish yellow bruise was spreading across his jaw.

"Fascinating," Spock said from beside him, and Kirk jerked around to see McCoy and Spock both staring at their doppelgangers.

"Oh no, I remember this," McCoy-2 said, and seized Spock-2's arm. "No, Jim, wait!" he cried even as Kirk's fist smashed into the com on the wall.

"Intruder alert, deck six!" the captain said urgently. "Intruder alert!"

"This is too late!" McCoy-2 shouted over the caterwaul of the red alert claxon going off. "Go back sooner!"

Spock-2 heaved a patient sigh as he adjusted the controls of a silver device strapped to his left wrist. "That would be considerably easier if you would cease jostling my arm."

"Dammit, Spock, we don't have time for this!"

"On the contrary, Doctor, we have all the time—"

"You know damn well what I meant, you green-blooded son of a—"

"Who are you?" Kirk demanded, edging closer. A quick glance at his first officer was enough to convey his intention, and Spock cautiously took up position beside him so that they would pin the intruders against the bulkhead in only a few more steps.

"Jim, listen to me," McCoy said quickly, holding up a hand as if to stop Kirk.

Kirk hesitated for just a moment as every hair on the back of his neck stood on end, because it really did sound like his friend. A squad of red-shirted officers rounded the curve of the corridor, sprinting towards them with phasers drawn. A bright flash of light forced his eyes closed, one arm rising instinctively to shield his face, and by the time he could see again the intruders had vanished. The security detail skidded to a halt beside their captain, looking around in confusion.

"I want this entire ship searched," Kirk snapped. "The intruders look like Spock and McCoy."

The officers immediately fanned out and disappeared in opposite directions.

Kirk's fist thumped the com again. "Security – this is the captain. I want a complete visual search of the ship." He looked up reflexively as a shudder rippled through the deck. "You're looking for two intruders that have taken the appearance of Spock and McCoy." He didn't wait for a reply, but thumbed the channel closed as Uhura's voice called the captain to the bridge over the shipwide intercom. Kirk bolted for the nearest turbolift, Spock right at his heels.

"Be careful what you wish for!" McCoy shouted after them, casting a gloating little smile of triumph at Spock before turning the other way to head for sickbay.

Kirk scowled back at him as the doors slid closed, and the expression had not improved by the time they opened again. He burst out of the lift, sensing rather than seeing Spock split off in the direction of the science station. Kirk headed directly for the command chair, casting a swift glance around the bridge on the way until he found Scotty bent over the engineering console. "Report!"

"A Romulan ship decloaked right in front of us," Scotty said quickly, straightening to look over at him. "We barely had time to even register its presence when the other one decloaked and they started firing at each other right over our head. I ordered shields and all stop."

"At… each other?" Kirk asked with disbelief, pausing in the act of sitting, before dropping into his chair and looking at the viewscreen. Angry red bolts of light flared against the shields of two birds of prey, one much larger than the other, as they swept past each other. The Enterprise shivered again in the wake of the pulse as Kirk twisted in the chair to look over his shoulder.

Blue light glowed up at Spock as the Vulcan turned a small dial on the side of his scanner. "Confirmed, Captain. The two Romulan ships are firing at each other. The smaller is an antiquated scout class vessel, the other appears to be a warbird that is not currently in our database." Spock glanced over his shoulder for emphasis. "A new model. The scout class ship is extremely outgunned, and has already sustained heavy damage."

"Message coming in, sir," Uhura called from her station. "From the smaller ship."

"On screen," Kirk said, looking back at the main viewer.

Uhura suddenly began running her slender hands quickly over the console. "The warbird is flooding the area with subspace static, trying to jam the frequency. All I can get is audio." She put it on the speakers without being ordered, and the entire bridge winced at the shriek of subspace that blasted at them.

A strident voice could just be heard faintly in the background squeals and clicks, constantly interrupted by bursts of static. "Kirk! We are — you must — amnesty!"

"Someone tell me I heard that wrong," Kirk said.

"The scout ship's engines are venting plasma, Captain," Spock called from his station. "The warp core will breach in less than thirty seconds."

"Lower shields," Kirk said quickly, stabbing at a button on the arm of his chair as Sulu called out an affirmative. "Transporter room – beam over anything living you can find on the damaged ship. Focus on the bridge." He looked back at the viewscreen anxiously, watching as the warbird veered away from the green nimbus of gas spreading from its mortally wounded prey.

"Captain," Lieutenant Kyle's voice said from the speaker on Kirk's panel, "there's just too much radiation to get a lock on anything."

"Keep trying," the captain ordered, watching the viewscreen tensely. "Spock, let me know the instant that warbird targets us." So far, the enemy seemed to be completely ignoring them, focusing all of its attentions on the scout ship. Why it had not yet gone after the Enterprise was beyond Kirk – the scout ship was as good as dead. It looked to him like it was putting just enough distance between the two to avoid taking damage when it exploded, but no farther. "How long until the warp core goes?"

"Sixteen seconds," Spock said, and Kirk clenched a fist in frustration. A few seconds more was all he could spare for the scout ship before he would have to raise his shields again; they were far too close to the blast radius.

"The warbird is scanning the scout ship," Spock reported.

"A rescue attempt?" Kirk asked, surprised.

"It would appear so," Spock said slowly, but the faint hint of doubt in his voice made Kirk's hands tense on the arms of his chair. "However, there does not — Captain!" Spock interrupted himself and jumped to his feet. In the same instant, the unmistakable shimmer of transporter energies lit up the center of the bridge, briefly reflecting in Kirk's startled eyes before training kicked in. Kirk vaulted over the side of the command chair before the process could complete. "Shields up!" he shouted even as he hit the deck, rolling until he caught up against the step that supported the rail circling the upper portion of the bridge.

Something small and silver solidified in mid-air, and promptly succumbed to gravity.

The Enterprise rocked to a massive blow, tilting wildly as a cacophony of alarms began wailing. The silver ball hit the carpet as Kirk struggled to get to his knees, and he decided that it would have gone off by now if it was a bomb. He snatched at it as it rolled past him.

"The scout wessel has exploded," Chekov reported from the front of the bridge.

"Damage report!" Kirk barked at his crew in general, but looked up at Spock. His first officer was leaning over the rail, one hand wrapped around the red metal, to regard him with imperturbable calm that directly belied his earlier moment of alarm. "What happened?"

"Shields compromised," Scotty said from the engineering station. "We didna get 'em up in time."

"Get those shields up!" Kirk ordered.

"Aye, sir," the engineer said and rushed for the turbolift.

"The scout vessel put everything it had left into beaming that over through the radiation," Spock replied, pointing at the silver ball Kirk was holding. "It accelerated the decay of the magnetic bottle and instantly collapsed the warp containment field."

"Did we get anyone?" Kirk asked, picking himself up off the deck.

Spock checked his console, but Kirk knew what the answer was before he turned back to him. "Negative, sir."

"Romulan varbird is scanning the wreckage," Chekov called.

Kirk looked down at the thing cupped in his palm. It resembled a large, heavy bracelet made of a silvery metal that glittered like gold. Intricate swirls were etched over every centimeter of the inside surface. A complex array of writing glowed from a display on the outside curve, in an utterly alien script, surrounded by a series of slightly indented keypads. They were well into Federation space, nowhere near the Romulan border, and the voice in the static had called him by name. That scout vessel had come specifically for the Enterprise, and had died to get whatever this was into his hands. "They came for me, Spock…" Kirk said, his brows furrowing in remorse. He wasn't particularly fond of the Romulan Star Empire, but he did respect them. He hadn't managed to save a single one. "They could have sent a person over…"

"Sickbay reports seven casualties, no fatalities," Uhura announced.

"Evidently, they considered that to be more important," Spock said.

"Romulan varbird is turning towards us!" Chekov said, his voice rising to a shout. "Powering disruptors!"

"Find out what this is, what makes it so important," Kirk said, tossing the device up to Spock and turning away as the Vulcan plucked it from the air. "Evasive maneuvers, Mister Sulu!"